“Hiyab”, one of a few very good Ethiopian films (there are lots of bad ones). Amharic only, no subtitles, guess what is going on, as far as I can find, there is no plot synopsis on line. But great acting, a delight to watch the production, undistracted by story line. Many Ethiopian full-lengh films free, no hassle, on YouTube.
Holy Crap the scene on the beach with the parents and the toddler, that knocked the wind right out of me
I think I enjoyed it a little more than you; but the biggest flaw in this film is it’s title. It’s so incredibly generic, and so completely unconnected to the story, that I’m never able to recall it. “What was the name of that Mike Birbiglia/improv movie…?”
It’s a definitive “meh” movie for me. I almost forgot I’d seen it until you mentioned it. Totally forgettable.
SWMBO and I went to see Fantastic Beasts And Where To Find Them last night. It’s a sort of prequel to Harry Potter, and it was written by J. K. Rowling. Apparently, Harry reads this book in the Potter series; this is the story of the author of the book some 70 years before that.
It was great. A few scenes where the camera work made me a little motion sick, but overall the special effects were outstanding. And some delightful throwaway funny lines as well. Watch for a cameo appearance by someone, but I won’t say who. 
Saw “Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them” last week. I haven’t seen any of the “Harry Potter” movies but Deb told me she didn’t think it would matter. She was right. Very enjoyable. The 3D was a nice touch.
I had a bad experience years ago when I went to see “The Sixth Sense” that turned me off the theater. Just started going again a couple years ago after I retired. Since then I have seen at least one a month, although we try to find one every week on old farts day.
My most recent five:
Hamlet
A film of the beautifully-staged recent British National Theatre production. It stars Benedict Cumberpatch, who is terrific in the lead role, veering between despair, playfulness, (feigned) madness and euphoria.
Arrival
A somber, moving sf drama about first contact with an alien race and how it changes humanity. The movie focuses on a linguist (Amy Adams) and a physicist (Jeremy Renner) who are added to the U.S. government’s diplomatic team; very intense and thought-provoking, with a great cast. Compares very favorably to 2001: A Space Odyssey, Contact and The Abyss.
Doctor Strange
Much more light-hearted, a comics-based special-effects extravaganza about a reluctant wizard learning how to defend Earth against supernatural threats from beyond our own dimension. Not a masterpiece, but good fun. Cumberpatch again stars.
The Big Lebowski
My all-time favorite Coen Bros. movie - I think this is maybe the fourth or fifth time I’ve seen it. The Dude abides.
Love Actually
Schmaltzy, funny Christmas-themed British romantic comedy with an all-star cast, including the delectable Keira Knightley. The plotline with the two porno stand-ins is still cringeworthy, and all that keeps this movie from a IMHO more-suitable PG rating.
Aaaaaand another five:
The Hill
Sean Connery stars in this 1965 drama, playing a convict who clashes with the sergeant who runs the sun-baked, brutal WWII British military prison in which he’s being held. Good, gritty and realistic.
On the Beach
Downbeat film about the last survivors of World War III, waiting for global radiation to finally reach the last outpost of humanity in southern Australia. Gregory Peck plays a U.S. submarine commander and Ava Gardner is the alcoholic woman who falls for him.
It’s a Wonderful Life
Saw this Christmas classic again, this time with the full orchestral score performed live. Jimmy Stewart is great, as always, and Donna Reed is still a knockout girl-next-door.
Manchester by the Sea
Casey Affleck is very good as a blue-collar guy trying to bring up his orphaned teenage nephew. A very powerful study of grief, guilt and family ties. The classical music score (including two pieces from Handel’s Messiah) is a little incongruous, but works.
Rogue One
The first stand-alone live-action Star Wars movie, showing how the Rebels got the plans for the Death Star in the first place. A big cast and lots of action. Two thumbs (mostly) up.
I saw *Passengers *yesterday; and then read the corresponding thread here.
The objections in the thread were mostly centered on 2 points: the trailer was misleading (shocked! shocked!) and the plot promotes rape culture. I don’t see it, but then I’m part of the patriarchy.
I thoroughly enjoyed it; and I was surprised as to how the conflict resolved … and any movie that surprises me can’t be all bad. Thumbs up.
Partial catching up:
Sully. A sub-middling movie. The time-jumping around style didn’t really work for me. And since I knew some of the realities of the event, the “rewriting for dramatic effect” stuff hurt what should have been a very good tale.
Nina Forever. A guy with a major EX-girlfriend problem messing up things with the new woman in his life. Fairly interesting at times. Some nice acting. But a few times the characters suddenly did stuff that didn’t make sense based on what happened up to then. Also a not entirely satisfactory ending. But overall still okay.
The Autopsy of Jane Doe. Mainly watched because it has Brian Freakin’ Cox in it. Sounded more of a murder mystery/horror film but was just a simple horror film. Not at all a good movie. In particular, it completely fell apart near the end with the “explanation” of what was going on. Really, really, really dumb and implausible even by crappy horror movie standards.
Bridget Jones’s Baby. Yeah, whatever. It’s a movie. It has stuff in it. It has a trite, predictable plot. It kills time.
Just saw The Lovely Bones on Netflix. I had read about half of the book, remember liking it – don’t remember why I stopped. But this movie is a disasta. I can partly see why: the challenges of integrating an afterworld with the earthly one. But the tone is all over the effing place. Hey look, Susan Sarandon! She chain smokes! She drinks! She’s funny! (And now let’s focus on the serial killer.)
But Sarandon practically gave the equivalent of her Dead Man Walking performance compared to Mark Wahlberg. I won’t blame him, though: just badly miscast, IMHO (and I imagine everyone else’s O).
Oh, and the resolution. Talk about unsatisfying. Man, What kind of hack storyteller/director wrote/helmed this POS? Should have his DGA license revoked.
Whaaaa? Peter Jackson???
just saw rogue one tonight. The movie was good at first, then when they introduced the blind Asian super-amazing-martial arts-master force monk, the undead Grand Moff Tarkin, the Darth Vader who didn’t sound like Darth Vader one bit and a Princess Leia who’s delivery of her one line was as un-Leia like as it could possibly be (I flashed to the little girl in Polar Express), a Princess Leia that they made FAT and who I thought, until she spoke, looked like a shortened feminized and fattened version of the Conductor from (again) Polar Express (sans moustache of course).
Also a ship that I don’t recall ever being in any of the originals or prequels being introduced out of nowhere as a deus ex machina to save or move the plot along (referring to the “hammerhead cruiser” used to push around the star destroyer) I could be wrong about that ship not being there though.
This could have been a great addition to the Star Wars movies, and I’m usually pretty enthusiastic about stories that expand background and lore. Even though it started strong this movie is a steaming pile.
Just saw LaLaLand. Wife had to drag me, as I fucking hate musicals.
Not this one. Best movie I’ve seen all year, actually, in a long long time.
Part of it is the way music is woven into the plot. Musicals I’ve seen and despised have this purported plot, or story, that comes to a crashing halt while the producers shuffle in a musical number. Here, it appears to be more an integral part of the story.
I like the way they make LA look, some of the old places I’d hang out in again if I lived there–Griffith Park, Burbank, Hermosa, &c.
I figure every male audience member thinks he’s Ryan Gosling and every woman Emma Stone, that probably doesn’t hurt this movie at all.
Just a general sense of style and goodwill that this emanates makes me want to see it again, or maybe even buy a bluray when it comes out.
Normally I’m not that enthusiastic about films, but this smashed my expectations in the best possible way.
My latest five:
Hail, Caesar!
The Coen Brothers’ latest. Good but not great; its evocation of Fifties Hollywood has its moments (including recognizable parodies of Esther Williams, Hopalong Cassidy, Gene Kelly and Clark Gable).
Cloud Atlas
My third time seeing this film, and it’s still terrific - a richly-layered, sweeping science fiction/historical epic spanning many hundreds of years, exploring the ties which bind all humanity and the forces which threaten to tear us apart. Tom Hanks and Halle Berry anchor a fine cast.
Hidden Figures
Historical drama about the long-neglected black female mathematicians who helped NASA win the Space Race. Pretty good acting but a predictable plot.
Mr. Peabody & Sherman
Very funny animated movie about everyone’s favorite multitalented, supergenius, bow-tied talking dog and his less-clever pet, er, adopted son. Look for Bill Clinton in a brief but on-the-nose cameo.
The Princess Bride
Believe it or not, I’d never seen the movie all the way through before. A lot of fun, endlessly quotable, and Robin Wright has never been more breathtakingly beautiful.
Aaaaaand again:
A Christmas Carol
The 1951 version, with Alastair Sim, considered by many to be the best film adaptation of the Dickens tale. It was good, but I still prefer the 1984 movie with George C. Scott.
Dead Poets Society
Hadn’t seen this since it first came out. A funny, heartfelt, uplifting but ultimately tragic coming-of-age tale set at a Fifties boys’ school in New England.
Koyaanisqatsi
A 1982 experimental film with lots of time-lapse footage and an evocative soundtrack by Philip Glass, about how overcrowded, mechanized human society struggles with nature (the title is the Hopi word for “unbalanced life”). Interesting but sometimes a bit tedious.
Groundhog Day
I watch this endlessly-quotable movie every few years around the titular holiday, and always enjoy it. A modern classic, a terrific comedy with a heart and a rich theological/spiritual core. Bill Murray, his character veering from selfishness to despair to altruism to joy, really should’ve won an Oscar.
Mifune: The Last Samurai
Documentary about the great Japanese tough-guy actor and his long collaboration with director Akira Kurosawa. Oddly enough, neither man was interviewed for the movie, or even shown in archival interviews; we see them only through their work, and via the observations of others (family, coworkers, and admirers including Steven Spielberg and Martin Scorsese).
Just saw this last night and agree. I would also add that my fears that it would be another Hollywood insider film loaded with inside jokes that nobody gets were unfounded. A charming film. Stone and Gosling are not good dancers or singers, which added to the charm. The story wasn’t new, but was done very well.
Just watched Sing Street on Netflix again. It’s a lovely, sweet movie about Dublin high school kids in the 80s forming a band, as a pretext to highlight a walk through 80s music and some good new songs in the same vein. And the actors portraying the band members were actually of the correct age - 15-16, not Hollywood teens (i.e., 20s-30s). You all should go watch it.
The Hammerhead came from Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic game. And later showed up in Star Wars: Rebels. There were several other cameos from Rebels that you probably missed, too.
My latest five:
To Have And Have Not
A classic 1944 B&W French Resistance drama with Bogie and Bacall (their first movie together), set on Martinique. Hoagy Carmichael appears as a hotel’s piano player and provides the music. More than a few similarities to Casablanca. Good stuff.
Deluge
A 1933 disaster movie about earthquakes and tsunamis destroying civilization, and the survivors trying to form a new society. Melodramatic and with laughable sfx. Skip it.
Best Worst Thing That Ever Could Have Happened
A heartfelt, bittersweet documentary about the cast of the notorious 1981 Broadway bomb Merrily We Roll Along, and what became of their acting and singing careers afterwards. Jason Alexander went on to a Tony and Seinfeld and did pretty well for himself, but most of the others, well…
Breakfast at Tiffany’s
Early Sixties romance set in Manhattan - George Peppard and the luminous Audrey Hepburn meet, fall in love, clash, separate and then realize, of course, that they’re meant for each other. Very dated (especially for Mickey Rooney’s very un-P.C. turn as an excitable Japanese photographer) but still worth a look.
Baraka
A wordless 1992 documentary about humanity, faith and nature, with beautiful imagery from Africa, South America, Asia, Europe and the U.S., set to a New Age score. More of a sensory experience, I’d say, than a movie.
Seven Psychopaths
I really enjoyed this movie, but I’m going to have to watch it again. It’s a black, black comedy that seems like Tarantino was involved in somehow. More Tarantino-y than a Tarantino film.
I just sat through the Ghostbusters reboot. My god, was it awful. Paul Feig should be grateful for the sexist “Controversy”, because it took the light off of how disjointed and terrible it ended up. It was so forgettable, when trying to describe it to a friend less than 48 hours later, I could not remember a single character’s name.