Movies you've seen recently (Part 1)

Cafe Society
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Thanks! :smiley:

Recently I saw Camp X-Ray and found it very touching and engrossing. Two brilliant performances.

The Wedding Ringer A good idea, badly executed. A shame as it’s quite original, rather than the remakes Hollywood seems to depend on for BO success.

Downfall Not heard of it but seen the parody clips on Youtube many times. It’s certainly a different take on the events, well worth a watch.

Selma I thought it was very well-written, the acting was flawless all of the way through, and another interesting take on past events.

Altman I was hoping for a lot more, considering the ‘cast’ (who only had one line each. WTH? They got them all into a studio to do one line?:confused:)

Grace is Gone A very touching, gentle, sometimes funny story, I admit I welled up at the end. I thought I’d find Cusack annoying but he played out of his comfort zone really well.

Antarctica: A Year On Ice Gorgeous photography, and a hugely interesting topic. As soon as it finished I was online reading about their lives and looking at job ads.

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I just saw The Judge with Robert Duvall, Robert Downey Jr. and Billy Bob Thorton.

I very much enjoy all three of these actors. Put them all together in one movie and you might expect something excellent. This movie was superb. I loved it more than any other I’ve seen in a very long time.

It was quite long (about 2:30) and that was just fine with me because I loved every minute of it.

It was rated 7.5 on IMDB which I consider laughable. I would give it 8.5 or more without a doubt (considering some of the other movies that are rated at 8.5).

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First, the real MotW: Fury with Brad Pitt. (Oh, and that funny guy from Choke in a lesser role.)

Personal note: Due to my late uncle’s experience inside Germany as a POW at the end of WWII, I have a keen interest in movies set there and then.

Well filmed, acted, etc. But incredibly formulaic. In fact, it multiplied the formula by 10. I told Mrs. FtG who was going to survive the final battle well before it started. And let me tell you, that last part was full of stupid to the max. Real soldiers, especially German SS soldiers near the end of the war, don’t fight remotely like that. Egad.

Kinda worth watching, but not all that.

Now, for reasons I don’t even understand, I recently watched two crappy movies just to see what’s what.

First up: Killers with Ashton Kutcher and Katherine Heigl. Oh my …

Kutcher utterly failed to do any halfway decent acting at all. Completely botched the the timing of lines and much more.

So the rest of the cast seemed to just be trying to endure him and finish the movie. Plus they wasted Catherine O’Hara which is a venal sin.

Terrible plot, poorly written. And a whole lot of people ended up dead over a misunderstanding. But … no regrets. Well, that’s real sweet of you.

In short, I was expecting bad and got worse.

Second up: Sex Tape. What a freakin’ mess of a movie.

Jason Segel has very limited acting range. You have to carefully cast him. This wasn’t a good role for him. He’s the Kutcher of this movie. He and Diaz are past their prime for doing this type of movie.

A few secondary good cast members that you wished were the actual stars of the show. Jack Black had a small role that was just a waste. But we’re expecting that now, right?

Ended up jumping thru large parts of the movie.

It’s a Jake Kasdan film who got off to a really great start with The Zero Effect and has been all downhill since then.

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The MotW this week is a thread favorite, The Judge.

Been putting it off. Just watched it because of the cast: Billy Bob, Duvall, Farmiga. RDJ is a negative in my book. And he did indeed drag it down a bit.

This was plot filler overkill and then some. I imagine the writers discussing what to put it:

Writer 1: We could add in A or B or C or … Z? Which do you think we should throw in?

Writer 2: All of 'em!

Writer 1: But that would make the movie 2 hours and 20 plus minutes long.

Writer 2: Yeah, 2:20, 2:21. Whatever it takes.

Just waaaay too much pointless filler. And yet almost none of it any good Billy Bob back story.

If you haven’t seen it, don’t waste your time, it’s not really worth it.

My own bottom dredging MotW is the latest Lone Ranger. Purely because of Ruth Wilson. She certainly helped get thru parts of it. (And skipped thru large parts of the rest. Especially the over-the-top inane “action” scenes.)

I’m getting real tired of Johnny Depp’s weirdo acting stuff. Enough already.

And that wrap around story line. Uh, why?

Note to Stephen Root: Don’t make any movie where you have to wear mutton chops. Not just because they look bad on you, but also because it means that it’s a bad movie.

Why do Lone Ranger movies require the actor playing the Lone Ranger be a zero?

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I saw it because of Duvall’s Academy Award nomination, but was not too impressed. The film seemed somewhat melodramatic and saccharine, like a Hallmark Channel made-for-TV movie. It was not bad, just blah.

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Caught “Universal Soldier: Day of Reckoning” on cable the other day. It is one of the most pornographic porn films I’ve ever seen. Of course, its primary porn was violence porn. People are shot, stabbed, kicked, beaten with fists and other weapons almost constantly. Nonstop action, indeed. It also had an unusually high amount of naked woman type porn, as two major scenes are set in a bordello and a strip club. Naturally naked women are shot and beaten in those two venues a lot.

I’m not into violence porn but I couldn’t change the channel (I did keep the sound turned off, as much of the dialogue consisted of “GAAAAAH!” and “AAAARGH!”). It was kind of like when I first encountered hentai. I may not have liked everything I saw, but I kept watching because the hentai kept surprising me. I mean, there are a couple of scenes in Day of Reckoning that consist of a minute or so of flashing lights of the sort that I imagine might create epileptic seizures. No image on the screen for most of them, just the flashing light. WTF?

I recommend checking this movie out and forming your own opinion, if you can handle gore (there’s a lot of it, very explicit, especially of the heads-blown-off variety). It’s a very different film that I suspect kind of snuck into the DVD action movie category, but may belong elsewhere. What that elsewhere is, I’m not sure.

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MotW: Results with Guy (I thought I remembered him from something, but now I can’t) Pearce, Cobie (isn’t that a man’s name?) Smulders, Kevin (That Guy #439) Corrigan. Also with Giovanni Ribisi. A film by Andrew Bujalski- the main reason I watched it.

It’s kind of hard to describe what it’s about. People who are fitness trainers/trainee and their messed up lives.

The best part: A very non-standard, almost trope-free story. For much of it, I was completely unable to predict what happened next. Generally pleasantly surprised by events as they unfold. A rarity in many films.

Some other good stuff: funny lines here and there, nice soundtrack, some good acting.

The not-so good parts: Very slow paced. Long pan shots that seemed to serve no purpose. E.g., from one person just sitting there to another person just sitting there. Needed to be “tighter”. Some not-so-good acting. In particular Cobie Smulders couldn’t keep up with rest. She was acting a different character than what she was cast as. Pearce’s accent also didn’t fit. (Not British or New Zealander, I’m going with … Australian?)

As usual, Anthony Michael Hall played the skinny, geeky, kid.:wink:

Note: This movie was released on video in March. It was supposedly released in theaters this past weekend, but I think that was one of those minimal-fullfill-a-contract “releases”. 82% at RT. A bit high IMHO but still a sort of decent movie.

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We watched American Sniper, only because it was an Oscar nominee for something or other. Can’t say I was much impressed with it.

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I’ve wanted to see American Sniper but haven’t gotten around to it yet.

Recently seen:

The Guard
Buddy comedy with Brendan Gleeson (is he even capable of not being wonderful in a movie?) as a jaded, offbeat, whore-loving rural Irish beat cop working with a buttoned-down, by-the-book FBI special agent played by Don Cheadle. Dark humor, f-bombs galore, very violent, but a lot of fun.

The Second Death
An 11-minute-long Irish short film of a man trying to drink away his guilty memories. No fewer than three future Game of Thrones stars appear in it. Concise and haunting.

The Thing
Having seen bits and pieces of this 1982 John Carpenter horror/sf flick over the years, I finally sat down and watched the whole thing from start to finish. The sfx are a little dated now, but the mood of isolation, paranoia and futility is still compelling.

The Birth of a Nation
Saw a remastered print of this groundbreaking melodrama. It is quaint, sometimes laughable, to modern eyes, but certainly innovative for its day - and its awful political and social impact cannot be denied. Moviemaking genius applied to the worst possible ends. Here’s an interesting article on its centennial this year: Why No One Is Celebrating the 100th Anniversary of the Feature Film

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This film flew under the radar when it came out in February, but I enjoyed the heist drama Black Sea (here’s my comic review: http://www.theblabbingbaboon.com/?p=6007 )

And if you like post-apocalyptic stories that take place in Australia (like Mad Max, then I strongly suggest a very little seen intense drama from last year called The Rover. (Here’s my comic review for it last year: http://www.theblabbingbaboon.com/?p=5230 )

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Run All Night - good acting, a bit formulaic but with some small bits of originality, two old dudes duking it out by a train line…zzzzzzz

Filmage: The Story of the Descendents/All - Before watching this you’ll probably ask “Who?”, but after you’ll say “Err, who?”

Kurt Cobain: Montage of Heck - Whatever. It’s an authorised bio on Kurt-fucking-Cobain

The Loft - Five smarmy, stereotypical, philandering guys; one beautiful, mysterious, dead blond woman; a story that’s been told a million times

Red Army - Interesting documentary, a take on a team of Soviet ice hockey players who cracked America, and a look at those times through the eyes of the players, coaches and others

Spare Parts - True story about a group of four young guys from the wrong side of the border, who take on MiT in a national, underwater robotics competition (no fifth named ‘Johnny’)

Kingsman: The Secret Service - I thought this was absolutely, bloody hysterical! A bit of a mish-mash of genres, stories and themes; a brutally violent, very British, Spy/Zombie/Army/Action/Crime/Comedy/Mystery. I think a lot of the humour in it will not travel well.

Absolution - Absolutely dreadful, so bad I laughed out loud a few times, but is now among the handful of movies I couldn’t finish

You’re Not You - very sensitive and affectionate portrayal of a talented pianist, being diagnosed and going through the stages of ALS

Mr. Turner - Dissapointing, unremarkable and unmemorable story of the British painter

’71 - Quite a thrilling, tense night when a British soldier is cut off from his unit in Belfast, and has to choose which local to trust and which not to, just going on his gut feeling and very little previous experience

Focus - Will Smith is a snappy, snazzy, charming, talented… oh heck - It’s Will Smith.

Ex Machina - Breathtaking update on a regular AI tale

Just Before I Go - For a movie about a guy who spends 90% of the running time planning his own suicide, it’s actually pretty upbeat and funny

Class of 1984 - Made in 1982, but with a satirical look on the classic 1984, plus mind-bendingly 80s hair, clothes, speech, mannerisms etc.

Wet Hot American Summer - Very inappropriate, awkward and silly. All in all a bit of a laugh

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Kingsman: The Secret Service

I agree with you about this movie. I loved it.

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Recently caught a film called “The Dramatics” on TV. It’s about an actress who accepts a role in a Fifty Shades of Gray-ish softcore porn film and her stoner boyfriend and how they deal with her being in a softcore porn film. It is NOT a porn film, though there are a couple of sex scenes. The film was a revelation to me … I had no idea that such a topic could be made so dull. Really, it’s an incredibly boring film about an interesting topic. Such a waste.

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I just watched Nightingale last night. It kept me up until 9:30, which is way past my normal bedtime.

David Oyelowo did an amazing job of acting, which is good since he’s essentially the entire cast. It’s not a happy movie, but I don’t feel like I wasted an hour and a half of my life. I can’t quite say I enjoyed it though.

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Saw Chef the other night, which I’d heard about and been meaning to see in a while. As person who loves both food and my 10 year old son, I adored it.

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I watched that a few nights ago and had pretty much the same reaction. It’s an impressive one-man-show by Oyelowo. I also thought the way the cellphone and webcam footage was mixed in was pretty clever.

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I thought each time you re-watched it, the fun got degraded?:wink:

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The Comedians (1967): Another oldie Graham Greene-based movie, and Richard Burton/Elizabeth Taylor vehicle, with an ensemble cast. Co-starred Alec Guiness, Peter Ustinov, Paul Ford, Lillian Gish (!), and Roscoe Brown. Also has a very young and nearly unrecognizable James Earl Jones (the voice is the giveaway), a bit part by Cicely Tyson, and Georg Standford Brown, six years before he was on the TV show The Rookies.

A pretty good tale, set in the Papa Doc Duvalier days in Haiti and highlighting the brutality of that regime. Burton is a Welsh hotel owner who is having an affair with the Uruguayan ambassador’s wife (Taylor). Filmed in Benin, west Africa, to give it that gritty, impoverished look.

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MotW: Inherent Vice. With Joaquin Phoenix and a rather surprising cast of very familiar faces* in smallish roles. Based on the Pynchon novel. Directed by Paul Thomas Anderson.

It started off quite interesting. Some good lines, funny bits, suitably weird, random stuff. Nice background music. Almost Big Lebowski-ish.

But then it kept going and going and going. With an hour to go I was fed up. Just more and more pointless random stuff. Less of the funny/interesting stuff.

By the time it got to the final scene, which of course dragged on forever, I was ready to scream. Just end the movie already! It’s over! Music up and out! Now!

Why make a 149 minute movie like this? It gets very confusing. Can’t remember all the names and who is connected to who.

One “technique” is that often we don’t see a person’s face a first. Just a voice. Is that Daniel Stern? Nope, Owen Wilson.

The RT rating of 73% is completely baffling.

(Previous post about this movie in this thread here.)

*Omar comin’.

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From February I saw:

The Oscar Nominated Shorts - While “Feast” was very good and did win, my favorite was The Dam Keeper. (my comic: http://www.theblabbingbaboon.com/?p=6044)

Still Alice - Wasn’t as depressing as I thought it’d be. It’s easy to see why Julianne Moore won Best Actress (my comic: http://www.theblabbingbaboon.com/?p=6054

Kingsman: The Secret Service - The first half of the film is fun with some excellent action scenes, but the second half is too absurd. (my comic: http://www.theblabbingbaboon.com/?p=6060)

By the way, I see about 70-75 films in the theater a year and always draw a comic review on my daily comic strip. I’m always looking for feedback on these comics from other movie goers.