Movie News, Reviews, and Discussion Super-Thread

[Quaker]

Watching Inception again before I see Interstellar tomorrow. I dont care what you say its an impressive blockbuster. Sure it has some hammy dialogue, thin character development, tons of exposition and a final setpiece that is disappointing in comparison to the rest of the movie. But it has some ambitious visuals and plotlines. Its a feat that it was made at all and that it was as successful as it was being an original IP and not having 3D.

Don't forget the Zimmer.

[Great Rumbler]

Interstellar

I know everybody's going on about Matthew McConaughey and how he stole the show and everything, but the true GOAT character is TARS. That's not even up for dispute. A true robro, accept no substitutes. Anyway, there were things about Interstellar that I could pick at, scenes that didn't work quite right, dialogue that could have been written better, ideas that could have been developed further, but...Interstellar just gets so much right. I thought back to Sunshine, where a scifi movie with so much promise turned into an absolute trainwreck in the final third. Interstellar never did that, it stuck with it even when suspension started to stretch a little thin. For a while, I was getting worried that I wouldn't like the ending, but the way it was ultimately handled satisfied me. And I'm glad that they got into the whole issue of time dilation, barely any movies ever touch on that at all.

Overall, I actually liked it slightly more than Gravity.

And two thumbs way up to Hanz Zimmer for cribbing big time from Philip Glass, that style worked incredibly well.

[Mupepe]

What's the fun factor of interstallar? Inception managed to stay light with well placed jokes to break all the tension and it made all the seriousness not such a complete downer

[Joe Molotov]

What's the fun factor of interstallar? Inception managed to stay light with well placed jokes to break all the tension and it made all the seriousness not such a complete downer

I'd say probably around the same level as Inception. It's got plenty of light moments mixed in.

[Mupepe]

Score. I'm pumped

[Great Rumbler]

Pretty much everything about TARS and CASE is either really awesome or funny. Sometimes both.

[HyperZoneWasAwesome]

www.thedissolve.com rated it 3 1/2 stars out of five, but tagged as essential viewing, the lowest rated film to recive that recommendation so far.
yeah, I'd cop to that.  Problematic but still awesome.

Pretty much everything about TARS and CASE is either really awesome or funny. Sometimes both.

It sputters more than Inception. It also has one of the worst monologues of all time. Of all time. You'll know it when you see it.
I still want to go see Interstellar again, on the biggest screen I can find.

gentlemen, so much truth.

[Great Rumbler]

It also has one of the worst monologues of all time. Of all time. You'll know it when you see it.

[TakingBackSunday]

sounds like it suffers from the same mistrust of its audience as the Prestige does

[Great Rumbler]

Avatar was better.

Avatar tells a simpler story more skillfully, but never attempts to reach above head height. I definitely wouldn't say that it's better than Interstellar.

sounds like it suffers from the same mistrust of its audience as the Prestige does

Have you seen what the general movie-going public regularly sees en masse?

[Mupepe]

I think you'd be hard pressed to have a successful large budget blockbuster in the vein of inception if you decided to trust the audience to analyze and interpret the movie. Most people don't want to.

[TakingBackSunday]

I actually thoroughly enjoyed Interstellar despite it being ham fisted and leading to an ending that made me roll my eyes a little.  It's a gorgeous flick.

[team filler]

watched sex tape. one long ipad/apple advert

[Raban]

I saw John Wick and loved it. Hopefully this doesn't turn people off of the movie but it reminded me a lot of Crank. The movie starts at the end, flashes back to a setup for the plot and continues into a briskly paced action thrill ride until the credits roll, stopping only for smoke-break length interludes where a "greater world" of characters is teased but never detailed.

Unlile Crank, this movie's strength lies in its heavily coreographed melees (shoulder-throws out the anus) rather than adrenaline fueled shootouts, which it still manages to have a fair share of. Lots of fantastic character actor cameos as well as a punchy, no-nonsense script. Definitely check it out.

[Tasty]

John Wick deserves a Criterion release.



I saw it too. People are calling it the "Dredd of 2014" and I feel like that's accurate. Great low-key action movie that's not about saving the world or stopping terrorists or whatever, just a dude with a gun killing some fools who deserve it. And he does it with style.

John Wick

spoiler (click to show/hide)

Fantastic action movie but so-so otherwise. I do like John, and I liked the twist that the bad guys just didn't kill "his family" as nearly every stupid action hero looking for revenge says.

First, the bad parts. I didn't like the main mafia guy, he was too silly for the tone of the movie. I get what they were going for, but contrasting him against Keanu's John Wick is like comparing Bugs Bunny to Major Kusanagi. Didn't fit, especially when he's regaling the tales of John's badassness. I was too close to laughing to feel like there was any weight to his words. Also, the plot in the beginning is so obvious and transparent I was taken out of things for a bit. I was expecting more depth here based on the trailer, and the depth wasn't there.

But the good parts? Oh man. For starters, just how this movie looked. The sets, the cinematography, the outfits, the architecture on display... fantastic, right down to the color grading. This movie nailed the look it was going for and then some. The club scene might be in my top 3 favorite action scenes just because of how pretty it was.

Can't forget about the action though. Heavens no. This action movie's action action'd my action spot more action-y than any other action thing in the history of action. ACTION! The gunplay is so fantastic yet grounded that I almost want to say it takes the crown from The Matrix. For every bit of bullet time in that movie, John Wick has shootouts which are fast-paced, hyper-kinetic, choreographed-yet-realistic-feeling.

I have to end this with a spoiler complaint, though. They killed off all the cool characters! I'm happy they're not blindly hoping for a sequel, but I feel like Perkins and DeFoe's character could have easily lived to see another day without anyone batting an eye.

Still, see this if you like action (ACTION!) and aren't expecting much else.

(Bonus half-point which I never do for featuring a kickass Mustang in action.)

3.5 / 5

[close]

Also, fuck me that club music was great.

Pontypool

This movie rules. Being hearing about it for a while and finally watched it. The concept is great and I love the strangeness of the horror. Worth a watch most definitely.

Saw this one last year. It's pretty good, yeah.

Pontypool

spoiler (click to show/hide)

Interesting premise, high tension, but few real scares and a comic relief character really drags it down. I also felt like the explanation was kind of dumb, but it gets points for inventiveness and making it a zombie movie without any zombies.

3 / 5

[close]

[Eric P]

guys, I cannot stress this enough
if you like 80s action films and don't mind a slice of absolute "wtf is even happening" you should make it your mission to watch Hawk Jones



It's $4 from here and it absolutely worth it
http://distrify.com/products/4844-hawk-jones-anniversary-edition

watch w/ friends if you can

[Mupepe]

I really liked interstellar. It definitely has some standard Nolan issues. Some dialogue and scenes are borderline LOL hammy. But ill be damned if its not awe inspiring on an Imax screen.

[Mupepe]

Also, even though it doesn't communicate them in the most elegant manner it really brings up some interesting concepts for a big budget movie. Still heard a lot of people confused by what happened.

[toku]

Glad y'all went and watched Dagon. It's a great movie to catch at 3am on Syfy channel.

[Great Rumbler]

Can we agree that Anne Hathaway's love monologue was god-awful?

spoiler (click to show/hide)

And then she immediately gets shot down by Matthew McConaughey anyway, which is great.

[close]

[ToxicAdam]

Saw Hero 6 yesterday. It starts off real strong but fizzles into a loud, dumb action movie by the end. It's worth the watch, but not an animated classic or anything.

[Eric P]

Lesson Of Evil - A new teacher to a Japanese school decides the best way to deal with bullying in his class is to murder all of his students.  No I don't understand it either. I think it's a satire. There are many direct homages to American Psycho and some of the weird Miike visual flourishes and some cribbing from Kubrick and Cronenberg (guy has a bio gun). The teacher is a brilliant man who went to America for to go to Harvard where he fell in love with a man who taught him the joys of serial killing.  He then worked in finance where he had to suddenly leave.  He returns home to japan where he takes up a job as an English teacher.  He's tasked with ending cheating where he finds that a student has been bullied into providing the answers.  He then thinks that the easiest way to stop the bullying is to try to manipulate events so that the ringleader of the bullies is killed.  Then things go out of control and we get a final act that pretty much guarantees you'll never see this remade in America.

spoiler (click to show/hide)

he shoots up his class with a shotgun in loving detail, each child brutally spraying CGI blood all over the scenery

[close]

Overlong.  It's 130 minutes when It could have easily been 100.  The tone is kind of uneven.  I had a hard time determining exactly what it was trying to say (gays are evil?, kids are evil?) and why it was saying it in this way.  It's probably worth watching if you're a Miike fan, but I dunno If i'd recommend it to many other people.  Maybe the final half is worth watching because you get the "oh, the teacher is crazy" reveal and then the wild final act.  The first half's relationship building wasn't that great, I didn't feel, so even as we get to know the various characters, they didn't do much more than feel like collections of stereotypes.

[Stoney Mason]

Watched Boyhood.

Probably one of the more over-rated films I've ever seen relative to its metacritic and rotten tomatoes scores.

Which is not to say that I hated the movie. It's just to say that I think its like a 5 out of 10 relatively average movie with the gimmick of it being shot over 12 years not remotely being as powerful as some of the critics seem to think it was.

The movie is a mess as its skips around and fails to characterize a lot of the characters in the movie. But that seems to be the point. The whole point just seems to be these sketch nail looks at the people and the boy who exist over this time span but I found myself often annoyed or just frustrated because the movie doesn't really have any typical film goals or themes. It just seems to wallow in the 12 years thing.

I found myself comparing it to hoop dreams which it suffers horribly to or maybe a Robert Altman film which had those big cast plots where the story goes all over the place as it follows different characters in a movie so you end up feeling like you've seen 9 films in 1. Boyhood achieves neither of those things by comparison.

It's literally like somebody filmed a member of the bore's life for a decade. And while that's interesting in a sort of an academic way, it never reaches the heights of a great documentary or a great just normal film. It's just sort of an interesting experiment that has occasionally interesting bits because of the time span but nothing bigger or greater.

[Mr. Gundam]

Sex Tape -- Free rental. It's actually kind sorta funny (if you're married) before they make the sex tape, then it's absolutely terrible.

Watched Boyhood.

It's just sort of an interesting experiment that has occasionally interesting bits because of the time span but nothing bigger or greater.

Sounds like life.

Eh, I really enjoyed it.

[Stoney Mason]

Sex Tape -- Free rental. It's actually kind sorta funny (if you're married) before they make the sex tape, then it's absolutely terrible.

Watched Boyhood.

It's just sort of an interesting experiment that has occasionally interesting bits because of the time span but nothing bigger or greater.

Sounds like life.

Eh, I really enjoyed it.

That's totally fine too.

I just wouldn't the accept the flaws of this film in any other film and I don't accept them here because its filmed over 12 years. That's not a good excuse to me for poor storytelling and poor characterization. But clearly based on the critical response to the movie my opinion is not the traditional one.

[BobFromPikeCreek]

Haven't seen Boyhood yet, but it's a major turn off when anytime someone says something critical about it as a FILM they're immediately met with "yeah, but that's what life is like."

[Stoney Mason]

Haven't seen Boyhood yet, but it's a major turn off when anytime someone says something critical about it as a FILM they're immediately met with "yeah, but that's what life is like."

The movie in a way is a lot like life. There are no moral lessons in your life except the ones you tell yourself you've learned. So intellectually I can understand that and appreciate it at a certain level. There are no aha moment in this film which is partially fine. I just don't think that's necessarily the great thing its made out to be or the subtly that this movie is aiming for works. There is also a line between its like real life and you've just made something that often is boring like real life. Or one dimensional like real life because you aren't exploring motivations or really giving a good look at secondary characters. And I'm not sure I 100% understand that in a  non-documentary. 

I just think film and documentaries, can be thematically deeper and stronger than that without just necessarily holding your hand and telling you this is the moral of this film.

The analogy I will give is that filming my life over a decade and watching it is probably really boring for anybody but myself. But if it was a documentary, at least there is a realness to it that while still boring, this is what really happened. But what if somebody wrote a fictional film about my life but the fictional film is also exactly what happened. Well what is the point of that? If its a "film" then shouldn't it be like a film and have the benefits of a film and not just be like real life. It's an interesting movie and concept. I just have lots of issues with it.

[Mr. Gundam]

Haven't seen Boyhood yet, but it's a major turn off when anytime someone says something critical about it as a FILM they're immediately met with "yeah, but that's what life is like."

I have no problem with his criticism of the film. But I think I actually enjoyed Boyhood for the same reason he didn't.

I'm also a huge Linklater fan. So, you know. Bias.

[BobFromPikeCreek]

Fair enough. I just don't like how saying something like that basically stops any critical analysis of its structure, pacing or tone dead in its tracks. THAT SAID, I'm saying all this having not seen it, so what do I know?

[BobFromPikeCreek]

Maybe I'll check it out tonight.

Popcorn Time, dudes. Popcorn Time. 

[fey]

Gone Girl was amazing, David Fincher is the modern day Alfred Hitchcock <- Tell me where I lied.

And I haven't seen it but in order to save this thread from an extra post: Interstellar was bird shit and Christopher No-talent needs to be stopped <- Tell me where I lied.

spoiler (click to show/hide)

Interstellar is probably a fun movie, but 3 hours? 

[close]

[Mupepe]

But Benjamin Button

[Stoney Mason]

I would say that Ethan Hawk's character was the most interesting to me and I would have rather followed his story.

I also thought this. His journey was better. It would have been more interesting to go follow him for 20 minutes to change the pacing. Or any of the characters really where I felt like I got to know them deeper.

[team filler]

watched jersey boys, crap movie. even the music couldn't save it.


in the middle of watching house party, doesn't get much better than this. classic

house party > friday

sherane 

[Stoney Mason]

Watched Guardians of the Galaxy tonight.

Never read or heard of the comic book. Saw one trailer a long time ago and it seems a little goofy to me.  Read a couple of posts on here when it was out that it was good and not a typical comic book movie but I'm really sick of comic book movies in general, so much so, that I actively avoid them now like the plague.

It was fucking great. It's the best popcorn movie I've seen in years. It exceeded my slight expectation so much I was kinda blown away by it. I watched the movie with a grin on my face the entire time. They turned fucking Dave Bautista into a great movie character. I don't know what kind of deal with the devil that requires but they fucking did it. It was charming, whimsical, funny, it had heart and it had decent action. Something that seems almost impossible to do nowadays.

It's as good as any of the movies I grew up with. I immediately knew I could watch it in 10 years and enjoy it the same way. They may fuck it up in the sequels and whatever they do with the franchise in the future but that is one highly enjoyable film and that can't be taken away. This is the way I should have felt watching those last two hobbit movies but completely didn't.

[Am_I_Anonymous]

Watched Grosse Pointe Blank last night.

Still awesome.

[ToxicAdam]

You can't go wrong with a John Cusack movie from 1988 until High Fidelity. His career tanks after that.

The big exception was The Road to Wellville, but even that's kind of an interesting mess.

[Am_I_Anonymous]

You can't go wrong with a John Cusack movie from 1988 until High Fidelity. His career tanks after that.

The big exception was The Road to Wellville, but even that's kind of an interesting mess.

He definitely had a good run. That scene where he stabs dude in the neck with a pen and then his woman runs in is still top 15 in movie history for me. Mini played it exactly how I would see it happen in real life.

[HyperZoneWasAwesome]

Gael Garcia Bernal used some kind of human cheat code at conception, like those babies in Gattaca who were made of the best possible combination of their families DNA.  It seems unfair or unlikely that any one guy can be that handsome, charismatic, and talented (used all his height points on those I guess), which is good because Rosewater is essentially his show alone and he's pretty great in it, he'd have to be or it wouldn't work at all.  The true story of Maziar Bahari, a Iranian expat journalist who returned home to cover the 2009 election and was then imprisoned by the regime for reasons that are kinda ridiculous.

the movie is at its best while showing the inner workings of reactionary police state, or how people rebel even though bone-deep cynicism seems to be ubiquitous among the population of Iran, or how dreadful the job of an interrogator must be.  Its about all those things, but Bernal's Bahari is the viewpoint for entire story, and his reactions and his trepidation while navigating nothing but dangerous circumstances tell the story just as well.  Thankfully it never becomes a miserablist slog, in fact its the funniest film to come along about brutal political oppression in quite some time.

But its not exactly a comedy.  Its about one dude's utterly shitty situation and the context that put him there, if that one dude weren't involving I wouldn't have cared.  Thankfully, that Bernal dude is a heckava guy to watch.

[Madrun Badrun]

That scene where he stabs dude in the neck with a pen and then his woman runs in is still top 15 in movie history for me.

What movie is this?

[HyperZoneWasAwesome]

That scene where he stabs dude in the neck with a pen and then his woman runs in is still top 15 in movie history for me.

What movie is this?

Grosse Pointe Blank, the same director also made the hugely underrated/underseen Miami Blues (which I'd rank as Alec Baldwin's best leading role in a walk).

[Quaker]

Gael Garcia Bernal used some kind of human cheat code at conception, like those babies in Gattaca who were made of the best possible combination of their families DNA.  It seems unfair or unlikely that any one guy can be that handsome, charismatic, and talented (used all his height points on those I guess), which is good because Rosewater is essentially his show alone and he's pretty great in it, he'd have to be or it wouldn't work at all.  The true story of Maziar Bahari, a Iranian expat journalist who returned home to cover the 2009 election and was then imprisoned by the regime for reasons that are kinda ridiculous.

the movie is at its best while showing the inner workings of reactionary police state, or how people rebel even though bone-deep cynicism seems to be ubiquitous among the population of Iran, or how dreadful the job of an interrogator must be.  Its about all those things, but Bernal's Bahari is the viewpoint for entire story, and his reactions and his trepidation while navigating nothing but dangerous circumstances tell the story just as well.  Thankfully it never becomes a miserablist slog, in fact its the funniest film to come along about brutal political oppression in quite some time.

But its not exactly a comedy.  Its about one dude's utterly shitty situation and the context that put him there, if that one dude weren't involving I wouldn't have cared.  Thankfully, that Bernal dude is a heckava guy to watch.

If you're a fan of his, check out "No."

He plays an ad man in 1980s Chile that's in charge of designing a political television ad campaign to kick Pinochet out. He's fantastic in it and the whole movie was shot to look like it was made on 80s videotape in a really convincing manner(unlike most Hollywood productions which will just slap scanlines on it and call it a day.)

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2059255/

[chronovore]

The Hobbit: Desolation of Smaug
I fell asleep 3 times trying to watch An Unexpected Journey before giving up and turning it off. I didn't fall asleep this time. The river escape from the elves was good; lots of ridiculous fun. Then it gets slogged down with Bard and the Master of Lake Town. Smaug's interaction with Bilbo is pretty much exactly what I'd hoped it would be, but then we're back to silly and implausible dragon fights using forges, of all things.

I'd have to say my least favorite thing was just how utterly unlikable the dwarves are, except for Thorin's advisor and Kili. The rest of them are just belligerent little curs who have more bark than bite.

Also, was Gandalf's side-trip stuff added for the movie, or am I just not remembering it from the book?

[Great Rumbler]

Also, was Gandalf's side-trip stuff added for the movie, or am I just not remembering it from the book?

Gandalf mentioned it, I think, but it was never directly covered in The Hobbit. Some of the additional materials may have gone into some detail, but I don't know for sure.

[chronovore]

So far, The Hobbit has been a very overtly and clumsy attempt at padding the book out to be as long as LotR, and even structurally mimicking the multiple foci pattern in LotR as opposed to The Hobbit's tidy focus on the dwarven party and their burglar.

I'm trying to figure out how they're going to extend this last one to cover 3 hours, when it's about the last 3 minutes of the Rankin Bass animated cartoon.

[HyperZoneWasAwesome]

If you're a fan of his, check out "No."

He plays an ad man in 1980s Chile that's in charge of designing a political television ad campaign to kick Pinochet out. He's fantastic in it and the whole movie was shot to look like it was made on 80s videotape in a really convincing manner(unlike most Hollywood productions which will just slap scanlines on it and call it a day.)

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2059255/

Its on my Netflix queue, haven't got to it yet.  Its funny how 'Gael Garcia Bernal gets caught in a politically fraught situation' has kinda become a genre of film (includes Casa di me Padre to list).

[Stoney Mason]

So far, The Hobbit has been a very overtly and clumsy attempt at padding the book out to be as long as LotR, and even structurally mimicking the multiple foci pattern in LotR as opposed to The Hobbit's tidy focus on the dwarven party and their burglar.

I'm trying to figure out how they're going to extend this last one to cover 3 hours, when it's about the last 3 minutes of the Rankin Bass animated cartoon.

I get that if you are a hardcore fan of all things Tolkien maybe these hobbit movies are a dream come true for that type of person, but as just a normal dude who doesn't have that affinity, these movies are kinda brutal. I mean LOTR was overstuffed but still mostly enjoyable at least until the last film for me. But the way these hobbit films drag out everything even when its painfully obvious what is coming next, is just not good movie making imo.

[TakingBackSunday]

Definitely feels like Jackson's passion for the Hobbit is no where near what he and Fran's passion for LOTR was.  Kind of a "well fuck we have to finish what we started" feel.  I still generally enjoyed the Hobbit movies, Desolations of Smaug considerably moreso than AUJ, but I can see why people don't quite like them.

I still think 48 fps is a revelation and more films should try it.

[Great Rumbler]

I just really like super-long fantasy adventures with cool settings.

[Steve Contra]

Noah: What the fuck did I just watch and why was this made and who was it made for.  At least it was pretty.

[benjipwns]

The Perfect Host

Only plot point I didn't understand is that I thought Niles Crane was a psychiatrist. Also, I figure Daphne took the kids?

Glad I didn't watch the trailer before hand, it spoils the whole thing pretty much.

spoiler (click to show/hide)

You can't kill me, I'm having a dinner party.

[close]

I like how Amazon now has all the seasons of Frasier listed as recommended for me after watching it.

[Great Rumbler]

[chronovore]

Looks purdy. I love the old Western music as accompaniment.

[Eel O'Brian]

Noah: What the fuck did I just watch and why was this made and who was it made for.  At least it was pretty.

Yeah, I really don't get this trend of making biblical epics and removing all the bible stuff. People who aren't religious aren't going to go see them because they think they'll be preachy tracts, and religious folks aren't going to see them because

[Am_I_Anonymous]

Noah: What the fuck did I just watch and why was this made and who was it made for.  At least it was pretty.

Yeah, I really don't get this trend of making biblical epics and removing all the bible stuff. People who aren't religious aren't going to go see them because they think they'll be preachy tracts, and religious folks aren't going to see them because

(Image removed from quote.)

I guess I'm confused. How does one make a movie about Noah and not feature god? Weird.

[TEEEPO]

interstellar is the first nolan film i've thoroughly enjoyed outside the first 2/3rds of dark knight

[Joe Molotov]

Noah: What the fuck did I just watch and why was this made and who was it made for.  At least it was pretty.

Yeah, I really don't get this trend of making biblical epics and removing all the bible stuff. People who aren't religious aren't going to go see them because they think they'll be preachy tracts, and religious folks aren't going to see them because.

If you watched more anime, this would all make sense.

[chronovore]

Re-watched The LEGO MOVIE, still enjoyed it. 10/10 Bricks.

Re-watched The Hangover, realized it pre-shits all over the sequel. I understand why the sequel had to be made, but the unpredictable-ness of the original is not able to be re-created. They just go for gross stuff instead of facing both internal and external strife. Lots of fun. Could have used a little more Heather Graham.

[BobFromPikeCreek]

Air Force One

I have a thing for 90s Die Hard clones but this one didn't really do it for me. Oldman was pretty good as the Han Gruber stand in, but Ford didn't really work as a John McClane. There isn't so much you can do with a plane, so it's a lot of scenes in very similar environments. Eh. Didn't really do it for me. I'd take  Cliffhanger or or Under Seige over this any day.

[Madrun Badrun]

Air Force One is pretty good.  I mean its no Executive Decision but its better than Con Air. 

Which came out in 97, 96, and 97.  What a good time for airplane action movies.