2014 MOVIE OMNIBUS THREAD

[S.K.o.S.]

Ha.  Cattet and Forzani did one of the shorts for ABCs of Death (I believe it was "O for Orgasm") and I had to watch it twice just to figure out where someone died in it.  I'm one of those guys who'd rather have an easy story, so I liked their first movie, Amer, better, but I can't think of anyone who has a more distinctive style.  The foley work is just incredible.

[Victator]

You got the movies reversed Fowler.

Death Proof is one of the only movies that has made me angry. I kept watching hoping for some sort of pay off and then they just hit him a lot. 

[jaedmc]

Ha.  Cattet and Forzani did one of the shorts for ABCs of Death (I believe it was "O for Orgasm") and I had to watch it twice just to figure out where someone died in it.  I'm one of those guys who'd rather have an easy story, so I liked their first movie, Amer, better, but I can't think of anyone who has a more distinctive style.  The foley work is just incredible.

I just watched Amer last night - they're pretty fucking brilliant, I think. What's special about their filmmaking isn't really the visual pyrotechnics, but how they can visually lead you through an experience. It's possible that you'll get lost in the "plot" but you'll always be aware of how you should be feeling in the moment because of subtle movements. 

 

For the record, I've nothing against "easy stories". It's more how filmmakers tell the story instead of show the story. American Hustle is mostly a movie being told to you. Same for Guardians of the Galaxy. The only difference is that I'd rather Chris Pratt & Co. tell me a movie than David O Russel. I feel like a lot of cinema being made today is made with cell phone owners who habitually check their Facebook and Twitter during a movie in mind. Not sure what's going on because you were checking Kanye's Status Update? It's okay, our characters will repeat the previous events and what their next objective is in a very succinct fashion every 20 minutes. 

 

"SO YOU'RE TELLING ME..AFTER WE JUST DID THE THING WE JUST DID...NOW WE HAVE TO GO DO THIS OTHER THING BECAUSE OF THIS THING WE DIDN'T SEE COMING THAT WE JUST LEARNED ABOUT...SO WE CAN STOP THE THING FROM HAPPENING THAT WILL RUIN EVERYTHING?"

[twiztor]

had just rewatched Sin City last week in preparation for the new one. i wouldn't have thought it at the time, but i don't think i'd seen it since it was first released on video. absolutely LOVED it.

went to the theater with a buddy to catch the 2nd. felt it was a ton of fun. not sure how it's doing critically, but it kinda bums me out to hear that it bombed big time. so much good stuff in these movies.

my friend is so in love with them that he bought a TPB or 2 of the comics and can't stop talking about them.

 

re: Grindhouse

didn't catch them originally in theater as the local one was double charging on them (made you pay for 2 movies or something, i don't exactly remember) but watched them when they hit on-demand since they showed both, with the fake trailers.

the fake trailers are by far my favorite thing about the whole presentation. i legit wish that all of those were real movies.

Planet Terror was OK but i wasn't a huge fan.

Death Proof is amazing and i love it so much.

[Kuetsar]

had just rewatched Sin City last week in preparation for the new one. i wouldn't have thought it at the time, but i don't think i'd seen it since it was first released on video. absolutely LOVED it.

went to the theater with a buddy to catch the 2nd. felt it was a ton of fun. not sure how it's doing critically, but it kinda bums me out to hear that it bombed big time. so much good stuff in these movies.

my friend is so in love with them that he bought a TPB or 2 of the comics and can't stop talking about them.

 

re: Grindhouse

didn't catch them originally in theater as the local one was double charging on them (made you pay for 2 movies or something, i don't exactly remember) but watched them when they hit on-demand since they showed both, with the fake trailers.

the fake trailers are by far my favorite thing about the whole presentation. i legit wish that all of those were real movies.

Planet Terror was OK but i wasn't a huge fan.

Death Proof is amazing and i love it so much.

Personally I though Machete was the best thing out of the bunch. . . . 

[Phantom Lord]

I watched The Wolf Of Wallstreet the other night. Damn it was really good. Okay yes it could have been maybe 45 minutes less, but aside from that it was a really great dark comedy. I'm thinking Leo should have won the Oscar. I don't think he'll have a better role than this for a while.

 

The only thing that I was sad that didn't happen was when they're on the boat, the FBI agent says "one day I'll take this boat". Later after Jordan is going to jail he just walks by without saying something. I mean if there was ever a moment for one to gloat it would be right there. Just have him turn and be like "you never got my fucking boat".

 

Though he was right in the end when they did the scene on the train. I love that in real life the real Jordan Belfort is now selling some system where its essentially how to bullshit people...but ethically.

[Brian Fowler]

You got the movies reversed Fowler.

 

 

Man, Planet Terror is just a bad zombie film that never really works.

 

Death Proof is fucking great.  Although the director's cut is a pretty big improvement over the Grindhouse version, given the lap dance and the black & white/Baby It's You sequences.

[cwoy2j]

Just watched Mud. Damn good coming of age movie. Ray McKinnon turned in a really good performance as the dad. It was strange to see Michael Shannon playing a fairly nice character. I've only really seen him in Boardwalk Empire, Iceman (a biopic about Richard Kuklinksi) and the Superman movie. I kept waiting for his character to try to strangle his nephew or track down Mud and murder or blackmail him.

[New Blood]

Does anyone here listen to the Projection Booth podcast?  They're probably my favorite movie podcast along with The Gentlemen's Guide to Midnite Cinema.  Every week, they take one film review it and have a thorough job in getting as much information about it as possible with having interviews with people involved with the making of the film and possibly scholars.  Their best episodes are probably Blade Runner, Love and Death, Starship Troopers and Robocop.

 

Their latest episode was the infamous XXX classic Waterpower starring Jamie Gillis.  They've done several adult films like The Devil in Miss Jones and Boys in the Sand.  They do point out that these are great films or very interesting at worst but adult films can be seen as legit films along with anything that is released in the mainstream.

[twiztor]

 

had just rewatched Sin City last week in preparation for the new one. i wouldn't have thought it at the time, but i don't think i'd seen it since it was first released on video. absolutely LOVED it.

went to the theater with a buddy to catch the 2nd. felt it was a ton of fun. not sure how it's doing critically, but it kinda bums me out to hear that it bombed big time. so much good stuff in these movies.

my friend is so in love with them that he bought a TPB or 2 of the comics and can't stop talking about them.

 

re: Grindhouse

didn't catch them originally in theater as the local one was double charging on them (made you pay for 2 movies or something, i don't exactly remember) but watched them when they hit on-demand since they showed both, with the fake trailers.

the fake trailers are by far my favorite thing about the whole presentation. i legit wish that all of those were real movies.

Planet Terror was OK but i wasn't a huge fan.

Death Proof is amazing and i love it so much.

Personally I though Machete was the best thing out of the bunch. . . . 

 

oh man, don't even get me started on Machete. i also love that movie more than anything else involved with Grindhouse. Hell, i even liked the Machete sequel, and if they make another one, say, Machete in Space, i'll go see that and likely love that one too.

[Elsalvajeloco]

Just watched Mud. Damn good coming of age movie. Ray McKinnon turned in a really good performance as the dad. It was strange to see Michael Shannon playing a fairly nice character. I've only really seen him in Boardwalk Empire, Iceman (a biopic about Richard Kuklinksi) and the Superman movie. I kept waiting for his character to try to strangle his nephew or track down Mud and murder or blackmail him.

...or stab Will Arnett in the leg with metal forks. God, why has no one ever done that in real life?!

But yeah, you should definitely take time out of your day and watch Take Shelter. He was also the best part of Revolutionary Road and stole the show away from DiCaprio.

[odessasteps]

I walk into a theater at work for a departmental meeting and what are they playing on the big screen?

Gone with the Wind.

In 2014.

Welcome to rural Maryland.

[caley]

Just watched Mud. Damn good coming of age movie. Ray McKinnon turned in a really good performance as the dad. It was strange to see Michael Shannon playing a fairly nice character. I've only really seen him in Boardwalk Empire, Iceman (a biopic about Richard Kuklinksi) and the Superman movie. I kept waiting for his character to try to strangle his nephew or track down Mud and murder or blackmail him.

I just rewatched 'Mud' last night for the 34rd or 4th time.

 

You should see Shannon in 'Shotgun Stories' and 'Take Shelter'.  In the former he's the oldest of a set of brothers embroiled in a blood feud with another set of half-brothers.  He's great in it.  In the latter, he's a guy who begins to see apocalyptic visions and isn't sure if what he's seeing is a harbinger of things to come or a mental illness.  He seems like such a good guy that you find yourself rooting for an apocalypse just so he'll be right.

 

But you've probably already seen him as a nice guy.

The newlywed in 'Groundhog Day' who is SO stoked to get tickets to Wrestlemania!

[Death From Above]

Death Proof is one of the worst "not produced by a joke studio" films I have ever sat through in its entirety and I cannot imagine subjecting myself to that nonsense again. I am literally mystified by otherwise intelligent, fine people that defend whatever that was supposed to be.

[S.K.o.S.]

Here's what I'm seeing at the Toronto Film Festival this year.  "Noir" is clearly a trigger word for me.  Spoilered for length.

 

The Drop

A Brooklyn bartender finds himself caught between the cops and a crew of Chechen mobsters, in this gritty crime drama starring Tom Hardy, Matthias Schoenaerts (Rust & Bone), Noomi Rapace and the late, great James Gandolfini.

 

99 Homes

Desperate to save his family home, an unemployed construction worker (Andrew Garfield) joins an unscrupulous realtor (Michael Shannon) in the dirty business of foreclosing on the disenfranchised, in this enthralling and timely drama from acclaimed director Ramin Bahrani (Man Push Cart, Chop Shop).

 

A Hard Day

A luckless police detective becomes the target of blackmail after trying to cover up a hit-and-run, in this wild South Korean neo-noir thriller.

 

Magical Girl

Desperate to fulfill his terminally ill daughter’s last wish, a grief-stricken man plunges into a vortex of blackmail, deception and double-cross, in this deliriously stylized noir thriller from dynamic young Spanish director Carlos Vermut.

 

Kill Me Three Times

A small Australian town becomes a hotbed of scheming, scamming, blackmail and murder in this blackly comic, sun-scorched neo-noir, featuring a sterling cast that includes Simon Pegg, Alice Braga and Luke Hemsworth.

 

The Guest

Writer-director duo Simon Barrett and Adam Wingard (A Horrible Way to Die, You’re Next) serve up a slick, eighties-style action thriller with this story of a mysterious and devastatingly charming visitor (Downton Abbey’s Dan Stevens) who arrives at the home of a bereaved family claiming to be the best friend of their dead son.

 

The Tribe

A smash success at this year’s Cannes, the stunning feature debut by Myroslav Slaboshpytskiy focuses on a gang of deaf-mute students whose extra-curricular activities include robbery, prostitution and aggravated assault.

 

Leviathan

Lauded Russian director Andrey Zvyagintsev (The Return) won the Best Screenplay prize at Cannes for this painterly, primordial tale about a proud patriarch fighting to protect his family home from a corrupt local official.

 

Cub

A troupe of young Cub Scouts find themselves stalked by a psychopathic huntsman who has riddled the forest with ingenious and deadly traps.

 

Spring

Before Sunrise gets a supernatural twist in this tale of an American backpacker in Italy who falls in love with a beautiful young woman harbouring a dark, primordial secret.

 

Adult Beginners

Out of a job after a disastrous product launch, a big-city yuppie retreats to his suburban childhood home, in this heart-warming and hilarious film about crashing hard, coming home and waking up.

[Craig H]

Everyone should watch Take Shelter.

[Curt McGirt]

Yes indeed. And probably all the films listed by the King up there showing in Toronto.

[Reed]

As Above, so Below: This movie is basically The Blair Witch Project meets The DaVinci Code. It's got a great first half, then sort of falls apart underneath a convoluted plot. Also, I don't like how everyone just seems a little too OK, even as things are going (literally) to Hell. Part of Blair Witch's appeal was you could practically feel these people going crazy amid all the claustrophobia and scares. Here they just seem to be going with it.

 

Still a notch above most found footage films, but I wish the writer hadn't read so much Dan Brown.

[EVA]

I wish everyone hadn't read so much Dan Brown.

[Reed]

The movie has the same problems Dan Brown books do: Yeah, all the booby traps, secret codes and puzzles are fine and all, but at some point it's like: really, who would go to all this trouble? It becomes absurd the lengths they went to.

 

I remember watching a documentary about how Diana Dors did something similar with her son: When she died she set up all these secret puzzles, scavenger hunts and cryptic codes with the eventual end goal being the number of a bank account with loads of money in it. Or something like that. Her son looked for a while but never got anywhere and gave up eventually.

 

He wasn't too happy with his old mom, as you can imagine.

[HumanChessgame]

Is As Above, So Below a remake of the move Catacombs that came out in 2007?

 

Death Proof is one of the worst "not produced by a joke studio" films I have ever sat through in its entirety and I cannot imagine subjecting myself to that nonsense again. I am literally mystified by otherwise intelligent, fine people that defend whatever that was supposed to be.

 

Planet Terror was the best John Carpenter movie not made by John Carpenter.  Death Proof was a pile of crap and an all time high in masturbatory "hey look what semi-obscure movies I've seen" Tarintino dialogue.  I kept waiting for those conversations to actually get somewhere or have some kind of depth to them, a la the opening scene of Reservoir Dogs, but there was nothing there.  If Kurt Russel's character had actually ended up winning I might have liked it a little more. 

[Reed]

Death Proof: TARANTINO LIKES FEET! AND HOT CHICKS. AND HOT CHICKS SHOWING THEIR FEET.

 

I like Tarantino usually, but Death Proof was him at his fanboy worst.

[EVA]

Even Tarantino has tacitly acknowledged that DEATH PROOF isn't that good. While he was doing press for Django, I remember one interview where he didn't outright say it stunk, but he pointed to it and said, "I don't want to ever make a movie worse than that."

[Brian Fowler]

I like Death Proof more than Reservoir Dogs.

[sydneybrown]

I like Death Proof more than Reservoir Dogs.

 

Eh, once upon a time Reservoir Dogs was my all-time favorite "THIS is what will INSPIRE ME to MAKE a MOVIE!!!!"  But then it inspired tens of thousands of other people who all copied it.  At the time, it was unlike anything I had ever seen.  Now, its commonplace.  Reservoir Dogs is to movies as HBK/Ramon WMX is to wrestling.