So what do you all mean when you say “MOTW”? That means *Monster of the Week *and has since the X-Files started in the early 90s…but you’re using it a different way. At least I hope so.
Saw this last week, loved it. One of the big revelations for me in it was that holy shit, Melissa McCarthy can act! Who knew? I wouldn’t have made a comparison to Gran Torino myself, the two films share a little bit thematically but have very different approaches.
I think it’s movie of the week.
Saw a Skinamax film called “Sinful Temptations” recently. I was bowled over by the cinematography. Some of the sex scenes you could make stills of and they could pass for classical paintings (if you picked the still carefully). There’s the usual subpar plot, direction and acting, but damn, it’s a WAY above other Skinamax films in terms of its look. I’m sure there’s a story in there somewhere.
Thought I had done this one:
A week+ ago we saw St. Vincent. The best movie we’ve seen in a while. Highly recommend it. Unrealistic as can be, of course. But no one wants to see a realistic movie, right? “Joe got up, went to the can, ate eggs for breakfast, got dressed, drove into work, …” Reality is boring.
Murray gives a really good performance. Almost at the level of Lost in Translation.
McCarthy actually shows she can act. If only she did stuff like this instead of Tammy, The Heat, Identity Thief, etc.
Then for at-home MotW Saturday we watched A Most Wanted Man. German counter-terrorism folks vs. possibly terrorist supporting Muslims.
Weird to see Americans (and a Canadian) doing German accents in a present day movie. Philip Seymour Hoffman, Willem Dafoe and Rachel McAdams. Also Robin Wright, but she’s playing an American.
Over 2 hours long and it shows. Too many long drawn out shots and scenes. So much could have been pruned and made it into a better movie. Just barely an okay movie as is.
Hoffman is tired, beaten down, etc. I don’t think he was acting that way all that much.
McAdams is the one to watch. This is not the girl from the Notebook or Mean Girls. She is lost in her role. Top notch performance.
Moral ambiguity is always a difficult topic.
I didn’t expect the ending. Maybe I should have. I like being surprised a bit here and there in a movie. As long as it’s reasonable. Having a Fist of God change something at a key point just to have the next thing happen isn’t the same thing.
Just saw Citizen X, a 1995 HBO movie, starring Stephen Rea and Donald Sutherland. It’s based on the true story of a clumsy Soviet police hunt for a serial killer. Rea plays a coroner who becomes a detective, and Sutherland plays his police superior who is sometimes more concered with pleasing his Communist Party bosses than furthering the investigation. Max von Sydow plays a psychologist who is drawn into the case. Pretty good movie; I’d give it a B+.
The Wife and I just watched* In a World* (2013) about the cut-throat voiceover business and the scramble for power after the death of Don LaFontaine.
I enjoyed it, but The Wife categorized it as yet another dead Mom movie.
Saw Tim Burton’s Batman at the Alamo Drafthouse on Sunday night - a quote-along with pop guns and other stuff. It was actually quite a lot of fun, and the movie held up pretty well… though I had to laugh at the scene where Vickie Vale was finally let into the Batcave and, finally knowing the Big Secret, turns to Bruce Wayne and says (in essence) … “Let’s talk about our relationship.” 
Did y’all know the guy who designed the city of Gotham for the film killed himself a couple of years after its release?
Also saw Giant. Tried to be the GWTW of Texas, might have succeeded in the mid-1950s, but not so much today. However, I still enjoyed it and found it to be, at times, surprisingly touching.
Watched “Under the Skin” on Amazon video for free today while doing some work on my wife’s computer. God, it sucked. I mean, suuuuucked. Not even naked Scarlett Johansen could make up for how bad this movie was. She would have had to do CONSIDERABLY more than nudity to make up for it, like
an extended, well lit scene of hardcore lesbian double dildo bondage with Jessica Alba squirming on the other end of the dildo and that probably wouldn’t have done the trick, either. It’s like the director was trying to come up with a way to punish audience members for wanting to see Johansen naked. A lot of the movie was shot in lighting so dim you could barely make out what was going on. The characters spend a lot of time staring at one another in silence. Well, I guess that’s European art films for ya. When they go bad, they go WAAAAAAAAAAYYY bad. “Manos Hand of Fate” bad. (Actually, “Manos” was not nearly as dull as “Under the Skin.”
Do NOT pay money to watch this film, ever. Do not sit and watch it with your full attention if you get to see it for free. In the first case, you will be financially impoverished. In the second, mentally impoverished.
When I finished what I was doing I quit the movie. Might have had a great second half, but I don’t know, don’t care. Geesh.
Interstallar - some interesting ideas, and truly excellent visuals and F/X, great performances but a muddled and emotionally manipulative plot and cop-out of a climax.
Big Hero 6 - a teenage superhero team origin story that rises above it’s own clichés to be quite enjoyable. The robot hero is adorable.
The Judge - another excellent performance by Robert Duvall and a fairly restrained Robert Downey Jr. make this an excellent Father/Son drama with a bit of courtroom suspense thrown in.
Gone Girl - Amazing performance by Rosamund Pike who may or may not have been murdered by her husband Ben Affleck. The film does a great job of condensing the movie into an acceptable mystery/thriller but suffers from the poor plot resolution of the original source.
Guardians of the Galazy - this was available streaming so I watched it after having seen it twice in the theater this past summer. A step above the average superhero-team movie where the main characters are given a certain amount of depth and interesting relationships while they chase their McGuffin and face the (fairly pedestrian) Bad Guy.
Thinking about it, I wish Duvall was getting more recognition for The Judge (outside this thread, anyway).
I also had the misfortune to watch “Under the Skin” recently, what a dull piece of ‘art’.
I also watched “Dawn of the Planet of the Apes” and was unimpressed.
“Chocolate Strawberry Vanilla” was instantly forgettable.
“Frailty” was, overall, not worth watching.
“Need for Speed” has nothing much going for it.
“20,000 Days on Earth” was utter garbage.
“Let’s Be Cops” was infantile.
“The Two Faces of January” was mildly interesting.
“Draft Day” was better than I thought it would be, but not good.
“The Amazing Spider-Man 2” wasn’t amazing at all.
“Dirty Wars” was uninspiring.
“Cloud Atlas” was excellent, but at three hours long and with many plotlines and timelines it takes a lot of concentration to see in one sitting.
JustinC, I just saw Draft Day a few days ago, too. I liked seeing all the Cleveland sights but the plot was waaaaay too farfetched (my football-crazy teenage son kept saying, “He’s the worst GM ever”) and the acting was occasionally cringeworthy. Overall I’d give it a C.
We just went to see it last night. Since it was probably about to leave the theater, the one we went to had seen better days and the seats were very uncomfortable.
Shia LaBeuf (sp) reminded me of Bruno Kirby, in looks and attitude. Also that Bernthal guy from The Walking Dead was also in it, playing a jerk. Talk about being a one trick pony, this guy will never play any other kind of character!
I enjoyed the movie, seemed to be short on plot though.
I saw this in the theater b/c The Fella and I went to see a movie and we were in line to get tickets (I’d picked the movie of course), but had to run to the restroom. So he got the tickets and all he remembered was that it was a two word title. So he bought tickets to this and we went in. I thought the previews seemed odd for the movie I’d picked, but hey, figured the same company or producers, etc. Then when the movie started, I thought, “How is James Gandolfini going to end up in this movie?”
I’d wanted to see “Enough Said”
He got tickets for “About Time”
We both loved About Time and were glad we saw it!
God’s Pocket
My parents (semi-retired/ btw Netflix and Redbox they have seen almost everything and they saw a preview for it on some other movie) had gotten this over the Thanksgiving holiday.
http://http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2920808/?ref_=nv_sr_1
I’d never heard of it at all. But I really liked it. Dark, bleak, oddly darkly funny and I could never tell where it was going to go plot wise. My mom fell asleep partway thru and woke up and saw the end and said “What happened, BrassyPhrase? Give it to me quick.”
The Fella and my dad looked at me and I had to say, “Honestly, I can’t. I can tell you the story, but I can’t shorten it. You just have to watch it.”
I just watched Anna starring Mark Strong.
It was pretty entertaining.
Just saw Interstellar tonight. A bit overlong, and some farfetched moments plotwise, but great acting, dazzling sfx and an engrossing story. A solid A.
Watched “Niagara” on Amazon Prime, with Joseph Cotton and Marilyn Monroe. A pretty decent noir flick, and Monroe did a credible job. I swear the woman could keep her ass twitching even when asleep.
Just saw Penguins of Madagascar. Had moments.
Letter grade, or 1-10 score? I was thinking of seeing it. That commando-penguin squad is usually the best part of any Madagascar movie.