Last Movie You Watched and Rate It | Movie-mber Edition

[nameless1]

You are right about the scores. You are right about the fact that it's a gimmick. I disagree that it does nothing for the narrative in this particular case...I think what it added is cinematicallly thrilling. I saw this film in an ideal circumstance, true. I saw Victoria at its first screening at TIFF 2014 in a theatre packed to the rafters. In that environment, the excitement and tension created by the single take nature of the film was practically a physical presence, positively infectious to every member in that audience. I remember passing by people on the way out of the theatre and we all just shook our heads at one another in happy amazement. This century, I've felt that kind of excitement watching Kung Fu Hustle opening night in Hong Kong and watching Gravity opening night at TIFF in 2013. Very rare though the experience is, it is one huge reason why the death of movie theatres would be a crying shame.

I am impressed that you saw Kung Fu Hustle in Hong Kong. How did that happen?


I hear you on the theatre experience. I saw it during VIFF, coincidentally because of your recommendation, but nobody was that excited about it. For most, it was mainly a polite acknowledgement that it was a good movie, and that was about it.

 

[kihei]

I am impressed that you saw Kung Fu Hustle in Hong Kong. How did that happen?


I hear you on the theatre experience. I saw it during VIFF, coincidentally because of your recommendation, but nobody is that excited about it. For most, it is mainly a polite acknowledgement that it is a good movie, and that is about it.

My sister-in-law worked as a teacher in Hong Kong for a couple of years. My family visited her for a couple of weeks in 2004 (then traveled as scheduled to Thailand--obviously not to Phuket--the day after the tsunami hit).

 

[nameless1]

My sister-in-law worked as a teacher in Hong Kong for a couple of years. My family visited her for a couple of weeks in 2004 (then traveled as scheduled to Thailand--obviously not to Phuket--the day after the tsunami hit).

Eventful. That is quite the trip.

 

[Franck]

Finally got to see Tenet tonight, sad to say that I have to agree with the underwhelmed critical consensus, definitely Nolan's weakest effort so far, the humans get lost in his convoluted ideas this time, unlike Inception and Memento. Telling a non-linear story through a linear narrative is an interesting idea but Nolan could have executed it much better than he did.

As for the discussion about Victoria, I do not think that film would have been anywhere near as intense as it was if it were shot in a conventional manner, and the intensity is what moves it beyond the simple plot and pushes it into greatness.

 

[Spring in Fialta]

Victoria deserves like a million points for that great scene where the main character awkwardly flirts by cheekily claiming his uncle was Mozart and then playing the piano terribly.

 

[Pranzo Oltranzista]

Wet Dreams (various directors, 1974) - It's tagged as an erotic experimental anthology film, but it's neither erotic nor experimental, unless experimental means cheap and poorly done and erotic means corny nudity. You might have heard of its orgy in reverse becoming the American flag (I guess it had deep political ambitions too), but the real and only surprise here is Nicholas Ray somehow getting involved with a bunch of very bad directors. His segments is just as bad as the rest too. 3/10

 

[Langdon Alger]

In my opinion, it was a weak year. I looked back, and I was surprised to find that I was either indifferent, or just downright dislike four of the eight nominees. Birdman is meh, Imitation Games and The Theory of Everything are pure Oscar bait, and I absolutely hated the message in Whiplash.

At least Boyhood made the list, because it is my pick as the best film of the year. Selma will be second.

I’m going to watch a few from that year over the holidays. I have Foxcatcher, Grand Budapest Hotel, and Still Alice to watch, and I’ve seen Whiplash, but I’m going to watch it again.

 

[nameless1]

I’m going to watch a few from that year over the holidays. I have Foxcatcher, Grand Budapest Hotel, and Still Alice to watch, and I’ve seen Whiplash, but I’m going to watch it again.

Foxcatcher is an excellent movie, and I really liked Still Alice despite its melodramatic nature. The acting, though, are the highlights in both. Steve Carrell gave a career best performance as du Pont, and Julianne Moore deserved her Oscar.

 

[kihei]

Small Axe: Education (2020) Directed by Steve McQueen 7A

Because Kingsley has been tagged as a slow learner, he is farmed out by his middle-school in London to a school for the "educationally sub-normal." These schools are supposed to give their young students more attention and better learning opportunities, but they do nothing of the sort. Kingsley's education goes nowhere until two women intervene, convincing his mother that there is a better way, a weekend class that will teach him real educational skills and help him learn about his own ancestral history. He begins to thrive. Education is the last of the Small Axe episodes released in Canada, and the film is the most didactic of the lot, examining a problem with great human cost and pointing out a partial solution. Education, just over an hour long, is a fine conclusion to a mini-series of five films that director Steve McQueen wrote and directed. The series is obviously an attempt to inform his fellow British citizens how the history of racism in the country looks and feels from an British-West Indian perspective. Likely British immigrants from the Caribbean will see the series as something that represents their reality, no small benefit to the community. The idea behind this series is that if people are less ignorant about the nature of racism in Great Britain, they may be more supportive of the changes that still need to be achieved to eliminate systemic racism in British culture. Causes don't get much worthier than this one, and McQueen does a superb job of providing entertaining, accessible stories. Though North Americans are not the series' intended audience, Small Axe travels very well. All five episodes are worth seeing. They function as a bridge between cultures and provide a useful lens when thinking about problems closer to home.

subtitles useful

Prime Video

 

[MetalheadPenguinsFan]

7/10

 

[Tasty Biscuits]

I’m going to watch a few from that year over the holidays. I have Foxcatcher, Grand Budapest Hotel, and Still Alice to watch, and I’ve seen Whiplash, but I’m going to watch it again.

Budapest might be my favorite Wes Anderson, it just gets better each time (though the same could be said for most of his films). Ralph Fiennes is magnificent.

 

[Tkachuk4MVP]

Budapest might be my favorite Wes Anderson, it just gets better each time (though the same could be said for most of his films). Ralph Fiennes is magnificent.

I'm not an Anderson fan but GBH is awesome.

 

[ItsFineImFine]

Weathering With You (2020) - 6/10

Pretty colours but it's hard not to roll your eyes at this weeby cliche shit. Your Name had a better storyline, this one has a shoehorned love story with a weaker and incompleted storyline. And the musical cues....yikes. I did really enjoy Alison Brie's voice acting though in a support role.

 

[Langdon Alger]

Budapest might be my favorite Wes Anderson, it just gets better each time (though the same could be said for most of his films). Ralph Fiennes is magnificent.

Looking forward to watching it. I always enjoyed Rushmore and Tenebaums, but I haven’t seen anything he’s done since then.

 

[Savi]

I think the only English language films that I rated highly in 2014 were Mr. Turner, which is very underrated, and Only Lovers Left Alive. Wasn't a great year for international film either, though I thought Xavier Dolan's Mommy was the best film I saw all year, followed by Goodbye to Language 3D by Godard.

I took a quick look at my 2014 list and like half my Top 10 of that year were international films. Violet (Bas Devos), When Marnie Was There (Hiromasa Yonebayashi), Turist (Ruben Ostlund), Leviathan (Andrey Zvyagintsev) and Melbourne (Nima Javidi). I would also very much recommend Wild Tales (Damian Szifron), Marshland (Alberto Rodriguez), Sunrise (Partho Sen-Gupta), A Girl Walks Home Alone At Night (Ana Lily Amirpour), Winter Sleep (Nuri Bilge Ceylan), Aberdeen (Ho-Cheung Pang).

Man. Looking at that list, 2014 might be one of my favourite years of the past decade. I could go easily 50 to 60 movies deep and still find underrated gems in my list.

 

[KallioWeHardlyKnewYe]

Education. Film #5 in Steve McQueen's Small Axe series. It's not the best of the bunch but in it's way it might be the most infuriating and heartbreaking of the series. Twice in it's scant 62 minute run time it nearly brought me to tears. It's one thing to see adults failed by a corrupt system, but to see a child almost never really get a chance because of that system ... it's a deeply affecting and fitting caper to a massive achievement by McQueen. The first two films in the series (Mangrove and Lover's Rock) are two of the best movies I've seen this year. The third and fourth movies (Red White & Blue and Alex Wheatle) are both perfectly fine and centered on good performances but weren't quite to the level of the others. I'd put this one smack in the middle. What I'm really kicking myself about is that I hadn't drawn the parallel between McQueen's street-level view here and one of the most classic of British genres -- the kitchen sink drama. These are realistic, character-driven, hardscrabble narratives and a fitting successor to the likes of Saturday Night and Sunday Morning and This Sporting Life (among others) but with the focus on a population left behind not just socially but in a film sense as well.

Mother. I've been a Bong Joon-Ho fan for years but had been oddly resistant to this one. The core kernel of the story — protective mother tries to defend/free her mentally deficient from jail — just never resonated with me. So it remained unwatched by me until yesterday. HOOOOOOLLLLLY crap was this riveting. What a meticulously, perfectly crafted thriller. So many small touches and details and not a one is wasted. Each clicks every portion of the story into place driving toward its tragic but always inevitable conclusion.

The Great Escape. A nice piece of fun, classic big Hollywood movie making and worth clearing out for its three hour run time. Oddly light for much of its run time despite the heaviness of the circumstances. That jaunty score certainly carries a lot of that weight. A lot of things seem to come a little too easy in the build up for our heroes, though I suppose James Garner's "scrounger's" instance that it's better no one asks where he gets all the stuff is a very intentional reason to laugh. Of course ... the stakes increase exponentially in the final third. Peak cool Steve McQueen (the OTHER one). Peak fastidious Richard Attenborough. A memorably glass-half-full ending. (With one of the characters getting a pretty fantastic closing moment). James Coburn as an Australian though? Ooof that's a tough one.

The Big Boss. Completed my trek through Bruce Lee's five Hong Kong flicks. A bit of a slow build in this one, but once it's going (i.e. Bruce starts kicking and punching) it's undeniably fun. The climactic death generated one of the purest laughs I've had in some time.

Once Upon a Time in the West. Another lengthy classic I'd never seen. Fonda, of course, is fantastic in one of the great against-type casting decisions ever. All that wonderful Leone verve is there, but my big take away was actually the script. There isn't a whole lot that's said despite the near three-hour run time but man it feels like every line of dialogue that is said is a wonderfully hard-edged, cynical, snappy bit of wisdom or badassery.

The Best Man. A Gore Vidal-scripted political yarn. It's nicely cynical and sharp-elbowed for the first hour or so as two flawed men vie to be the next (unnamed party but clearly Democratic) candidate (the Presidency seems to be a foregone conclusion here). A more classic honorable Henry Fonda here vs. an almost mustache-twirling Cliff Robertson. Falls apart in the last 20 minutes or so with one melodramatic twist and frankly, a pretty improbable resolution.

 

[x Tame Impala]

Has anyone seen “Tree of Life”, with Brad Pitt and Sean Penn?

I’ve never seen it and was surprised to see it was nominated for best picture.

 

[kihei]

Has anyone seen “Tree of Life”, with Brad Pitt and Sean Penn?

I’ve never seen it and was surprised to see it was nominated for best picture.

I was, too. Didn't like it at all. Malick finally got back on track with his last one A Hidden Life. Long drought, though.

 

[KallioWeHardlyKnewYe]

I was, too. Didn't like it at all. Malick finally got back on track with his last one A Hidden Life. Long drought, though.

I have been meaning to revisit but I remember a good hour long stretch of it (post Big Bang, pre Sean Penn) that was really stellar, including some top notch acting by Pitt ... but I haven't rewatched since it first came out and I definitely wrestled with the overall movie.

Similar experience with The New World where I thought the first hour was great and then it drops dramatically.

Then there is To the Wonder which holds my personal record for movie I've started and then fallen asleep in, never finishing... (at least 4 attempts)

 

[member 51464]

Has anyone seen “Tree of Life”, with Brad Pitt and Sean Penn?

I’ve never seen it and was surprised to see it was nominated for best picture.

One of the few movies I've ever walked out on. I had to leave the theatre becausemy laughter was so distracting to the other three people there.

Note: it's not a comedy. I just found it so ridiculous that I started laughingst the sheer pompousnessof it all.

 

[ItsFineImFine]

James Acaster - Cold Lasagne Hate Myself 1999 (2020) - 8.5/10

Although not as high-concept or as good as his 4-part Netflix standup special Repertoire, this is one of those comedy specials that's hard to stop watching because it's more than just a few stories or jokes. He's more serious and simulatenously more silly here, poking fun at himself while talking about his own issues and getting a bit better at his use of physical comedy (and not just because of the long routine he has about his girlfriend leaving him for Mr. Bean).

 

[nameless1]

I took a quick look at my 2014 list and like half my Top 10 of that year were international films. Violet (Bas Devos), When Marnie Was There (Hiromasa Yonebayashi), Turist (Ruben Ostlund), Leviathan (Andrey Zvyagintsev) and Melbourne (Nima Javidi). I would also very much recommend Wild Tales (Damian Szifron), Marshland (Alberto Rodriguez), Sunrise (Partho Sen-Gupta), A Girl Walks Home Alone At Night (Ana Lily Amirpour), Winter Sleep (Nuri Bilge Ceylan), Aberdeen (Ho-Cheung Pang).

Man. Looking at that list, 2014 might be one of my favourite years of the past decade. I could go easily 50 to 60 movies deep and still find underrated gems in my list.

I forgot the majority of the films from that year. Leviathan is definitely one of my favourite films from recent years.

That said, 2014 still feels weak to me. Winter Sleep bored me, I did not like the ending of Turist, and even though Aberdeen does reflect reality, I thought the acceptance of one's lot in life it promoted was just way too convenient.

 

[kihei]

Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom (2020) Directed by George C. Wolfe 7A

Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom is an adaptation of a play by August Wilson who wrote Fences which Denzell Washington brought to the screen a couple of years ago. It is a wordy adaptation of a wordy play and like a theatrical piece, most of the action takes place in one big room, a recording studio where the Mother of Blues, Ma Rainey (Viola Davis) lays down some tracks. Wordy, yes, but, my what words. Most of the movie is a series of confrontations between Ma and every one who doesn’t do her bidding. This includes Levee (Chadwick Boseman), a talented hot head trumpet player who is as bullheaded as she is but minus the power. Much of making music for black people in this period was knowing how to deal with white people and the overwhelming, sometimes deadly prejudice of the time. So most of the verbal clashes in the movie focus on power and who has it and who doesn't. Davis is virtually unrecognizable in a powerhouse performance that could easily land her another Oscar, but Boseman is just as good, incandescent, actually. If you didn’t feel the enormity of Boseman’s loss in your gut before, you will after seeing Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom.

Netflix


Best of 2020 so far


1) First Cow, Reichardt, US
2) Lovers Rock, McQueen, UK
3) Dick Johnson Is Dead, Johnson, US
4) Never Rarely Sometimes Always, Hittman, US
5) Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom, Wolfe, US
6) Mangrove, McQueen, UK
7) Swallow, Mirabella-Davis, US
8) His House, Weekes, UK
9) Corpus Christi, Komasa, Poland
10) Da 5 Bloods, Lee, US

 

[ProstheticConscience]

The Untouchables

with Kevin Costner, Andy Garcia, Robert DeNiro, and Sean f***ing Connery (RIP).

Venerable Oscar-bait retelling of the classic tale of good versus evil with Costner in his star-making role as Eliot Ness, naive yet honourable Treasury agent hunting for a way to put villainous crime boss Al Capone behind bars and return peace and sobriety to the mean streets of 1930's Chicago. Written by David Mamet, lots of people sneer for the cameras and orchestral swells shake your home theatre speakers at regular intervals to indicate dramatic tension. Long established as Mob movie royalty, it was nominated for four Oscars, with Connery winning Best Supporting Actor.

I'm a big mob movie fan, and I've seen bits and pieces of it over the years on tv, but I never realized I'd never actually sat down and watched this all the way through until I saw it on the listings today...and I have to say it hasn't aged all that well. It doesn't help that its plot bears no resemblance to the actual lives of Capone, Ness, Frank Nitti, and various other people. I was surprised how little screen time DeNiro got with his take on Capone being such a big role for him; maybe 15 minutes total. If that. The orchestral soundtrack really dates the movie nowadays. Maudlin string and brass swells dutifully tell us when we should be tense. Spoiler alert: Good thing they got the bad guy in the end, and the Chicago Outfit was forever vanquished and organized crime was eliminated in Chicago.

Oh, and the big dramatic staircase sequence was a total ripoff of Battleship Potemkin.

On Prime until January.

"Do we really need to wear vests for this?" "Shut up! You're not Irish enough to judge!"

 

[Osprey]

Oh, and the big dramatic staircase sequence was a total ripoff of Battleship Potemkin.

There's a fine line between ripoff and homage, but I believe that the staircase sequence is considered one of the more famous homages in film history. It was done deliberately and obviously by a talented director who appreciates classic films. I feel that a ripoff is more when an untalented director takes something, doesn't put his own stamp on it and passes it off as his own. I don't think that De Palma did that, personally. I feel that he mimicked the scene respectfully while bringing it to a much wider audience (after all, not many Westerners in 1987 would've seen or cared to see Soviet silent era propaganda). I think that a lot of the difference between homage and ripoff comes down to intent and I believe that De Palma's intent was very much to pay homage to the Odessa Steps sequence, not to rip it off, so I'm willing to count it as such. That's just my opinion, but it's certainly an interesting discussion.