2014 MOVIE OMNIBUS THREAD

[odessasteps]

It also probably doesnt help that many of the main characters are not likable. Bernstein is and Jed Leland is to a point, but Kane, susan, kanes mother, the first wife and thatchet are not.

Admittedly, i dont think i can be unbiased, which undoubtedly clouds my perspective.

[John Austin]

The Protector 2 had a limited release this past weekend, anyone get to see it? I know the movie writers weren't too keen on it, but I respect a lot of the opinions here so I hope someone here got to see it

[Neil Koch]

Haven't seen it yet - lots of people on my Facebook feed have seen the Thai version and weren't impressed or outright hated it. It will be on Netflix soon - Magnolia usually releases all their stuff there a month or so after initial theatrical run and/or DVD release - so I am just going to wait for that.

[Tabe]

A couple of movies this weekend:

 

Death Wish - Yeah, the Charles Bronson original.  I remember liking this as a teenager.  Probably because it was "scandalous" or something.  Anyway, the version on Netflix is at least slightly shorter than I remember, with the rape scene being a bit shorter.  Anyway, this movie isn't very good and time has not been kind to it. 3/10.

 

Don Jon - Joseph Gordon-Levitt is Jon, a New Jersey stud whose real relationships with women come in second to his addition to online porn.  Scarlett Johansson is the woman he "falls in love" with.  She's a control freak who finds it "embarrassing" that he cleans his own apartment and breaks up with him because he lies about watching porn.  Julianne Moore is a widow taking a night class at a college with Jon.  After Jon's breakup, he connects with Moore's character and finally discovers a real relationship.  Anyway, this is a movie with a good idea, a good cast and mediocre execution.  It never really gets above mediocre, which is too bad.  6/10.

 

Draft Day - Kevin Costner is the GM of the Cleveland Browns and it's the first day of the NFL draft.  Costner is under pressure from his owner to "make a splash".  He's under pressure from his coach to "get him players".  Jennifer Garner is Ali, the Browns' salary cap guru and also Costner's girlfriend.  This movie is something of a mess.  The storyline with the Browns and Seahawks throwing around the #1 overall pick is decent but not realistic - typical overdone Hollywood sports movie stuff.  The problem comes with the "other" stuff.  You've got Garner - a football fanatic and Browns employee - deciding that the day of the NFL draft is the perfect time to inform her GM boyfriend she's pregnant - and then she's miffed that he doesn't respond properly.  You've got Costner's mom coming to his office in the middle of the day - dragging along his ex-wife, to boot - to ask him to participate in a memorial for his dad right then.  Her husband was a lifelong NFL coach and she knew it was draft day.  Both of these things, with the women doing stuff that makes absolutely no sense, drag the movie down big-time.  Add in the fact that Costner gets a brand-new intern that day who then claims his "whole life" is on a company laptop that gets destroyed (say what?  he's been there less than a day).  Topping it all off is that Costner isn't that busy.  It's the biggest day of the year and he's not BUSY.  Phones in the office aren't ringing.  People aren't hustling around.  And so on.  And yet, even with all that, the movie ends up being pretty entertaining.  It's got football, Jennifer Garner, and some decent work from Costner.  That's OK for a Sunday afternoon.  My wife, presumably the target audience for all the forced "drama" stuff that's added in, came out of the movie wishing for more football in the movie.  I agree.  Entertaining but not great.  6/10, maybe 5/10.

[S.K.o.S.]

We had a documentary festival here in Toronto that wrapped up yesterday.  I saw a bunch of stuff, nothing amazing, but some of it was decent.

 

112 Weddings - A guy who shoots wedding videos decides to check back in on all the couples to see how they're doing now, and the movie covers about ten couples.  Admittedly I was looking for some train wreck stuff, and two of the couples here are no longer together, but I ended up feeling bad for wanting to see it.  Pretty painful to watch.  I think my favorite segment was this couple where the wife ended up fighting clinical depression and didn't leave the house for over a year, which is obviously really bad, and even here she's still really down on herself, but it's clear that her husband still loves her and wants to make it work.  The message that keeps coming up over and over is "we had no idea what we were getting ourselves into," even from the happy couples.

 

Everything Will Be - This was about Vancouver's Chinatown.  It focuses on about six or seven people - old woman who sells newspapers out on the street, security guy who shoos away homeless people, white guy who owns a cheese store that's been in his family for two generations, woman who owns a tea store, young artist who's gotten together enough money to be able to rent a store for one year, and a bunch of others.  There was this interesting bar where they made drinks incorporating Chinese medicinal principles or something.  Like hitting tuning forks and holding them against the glass so the water molecules can "absorb the energy".  The whole idea is that this neighborhood is on its way out and condos are on their way in, and in a few decades it might not exist any more, so the movie is kind of a historical document. 

 

Meet The Patels - East Indian guy in his early 30s gets out of a relationship and decides to let his parents play matchmaker for him.  The movie's shot by his younger sister.  The family lives in the U.S., I think it was West Coast somewhere, but he ends up going on dates all over North America.  Did you know in the modern Indian culture, they actually have resume-style documents that they pass around for this kind of thing?  The guy's actually a comedian, and they don't make the movie into one big stand-up routine or anything, but he has an engaging personality (in spite of not doing too well on most of his dates) and there's a healthy dose of humor.

 

Rich Hill - Won a grand jury prize at Sundance.  This is about three kids growing up in a small, poor town.  None of them are especially smart (there's some juggalo stuff - sorry to any juggalos who may be reading), their houses are in bad shape, and these kids probably don't have much of a future, but they're clearly good people, have families that love them, and everything is very beautifully shot and scored.  Great example of making a potentially ugly, depressing subject into something that's at least a little uplifting.

 

Judgment In Hungary - About the murder trial of four neo-Nazis accused of killing a bunch of Romanian gypsies in Hungary, including children.  The judicial system is such that one judge hears everything and makes the final decision on his own, same as the Oscar Pistorius trial.  The hook is that some of the authorities seem to feel the same way as the accused, so there are police reports that are incomplete or very poorly filled out (there's one where the cause of death is listed as "smoke inhalation" for someone who had a bullet wound in their head) and the camera even catches people sharing smiles with the defendants when they're supposed to be impartial.  To be honest, though, I found it pretty slow.

[Curt McGirt]

 None of them are especially smart (there's some juggalo stuff - sorry to any juggalos who may be reading)

 

Line of the week. And on a Monday!

[Reed]

 

Emma Stone and Joaquin Phoenix are set to star in Woody Allen’s next pic.

The film is currently untitled, but Allen is expected to write, produce and direct as he has with so many of his other projects.

Plot details are unknown, but sources say the film would likely shoot this July. The film is also without a distributor, but Sony Pictures Classics is a front-runner, as it has distributed this last handful of Allen films.

The cast is slowly starting to come together and expect it to be another grand ensemble. While this will be the first time Allen will have worked with Phoenix, he has been known to become attached to certain stars like Scarlett Johansson and Dianne Wiest. He looks to be doing the same here with Stone, whom he worked with on the upcoming “Magic in the Moonlight.”

Stone is coming off a big weekend at the box office, where her film “The Amazing Spider-Man 2″ grossed $91.6 million at the domestic box-office. She is repped by WME and Anonymous Content.

Allen’s last film, “Blue Jasmine,” landed Cate Blanchett a lead actress Oscar and Sally Hawkins a supporting actress nomination.

 

 

Can't Hollywood and movie fans just switch their affection from Woody Allen to Louis CK or something? Louis CK is basically Woody Allen without the creepiness.  

[JRGoldman]

Now you've made me think about what Pootie Tang would be like if Woody Allen had directed it.

Glorious. The answer is glorious.

[Tabe]

 

 

Emma Stone and Joaquin Phoenix are set to star in Woody Allen’s next pic.

The film is currently untitled, but Allen is expected to write, produce and direct as he has with so many of his other projects.

Plot details are unknown, but sources say the film would likely shoot this July. The film is also without a distributor, but Sony Pictures Classics is a front-runner, as it has distributed this last handful of Allen films.

The cast is slowly starting to come together and expect it to be another grand ensemble. While this will be the first time Allen will have worked with Phoenix, he has been known to become attached to certain stars like Scarlett Johansson and Dianne Wiest. He looks to be doing the same here with Stone, whom he worked with on the upcoming “Magic in the Moonlight.”

Stone is coming off a big weekend at the box office, where her film “The Amazing Spider-Man 2″ grossed $91.6 million at the domestic box-office. She is repped by WME and Anonymous Content.

Allen’s last film, “Blue Jasmine,” landed Cate Blanchett a lead actress Oscar and Sally Hawkins a supporting actress nomination.

 

 

Can't Hollywood and movie fans just switch their affection from Woody Allen to Louis CK or something? Louis CK is basically Woody Allen without the creepiness.  

 

I don't think "movie fans" actually have affection for Woody Allen.  "Film buffs" do.  More than one of his recent movies has lost money and most are in the $20m range for box office.  If he was anybody else, would he still be making movies?

[Death From Above]

ROSEBUD'S THE SLED

 

Saved someone a bunch of time.

 

I mean, it could be a hell of a lot worse. It's not Rules of the Game, thank God.

[Death From Above]

Also, Bicycle Thief is better.

 

Internet declarations.

[Reed]

It's kind of ruining a lot of the actors that agree to still work with Allen for me. OK, I understand Diane Keaton just saying she "believes in her friend" and leaving it at that, but Johansson calling Dylan Farrow "irresponsible" for writing the letter sent my opinion of her plummeting.     

[nate]

I'm going to write the "Kane" remake where Rosebud is a chainsaw.

[assfax]

So I watched this first movie on this Samurai Trilogy deal.  I spent the entire movie not understanding why all these fuckers were trying to catch the guy.  That was most of the movie and it didn't seem to explain clearly why.  Even reading the wikipedia page right after; it just says that he's a fugitive after that initial battle.  Why?  Then there was this part where all the old fuckers got a posse together and were going to kill him and the girl.  Then it's never followed up on.  I understand there's two more movies but this was mainly a mess when it came to showing why things were happening. Then again they probably needed to jam  the first 500 pages of hallowed legend into ninety minutes so they could get to the main shit in the sequels.  Seems like you'd want to do a little more than just read books for three years and do no real application of that knowledge until after.  Room must've stank like a million farts.

[Victator]

 

 

Emma Stone and Joaquin Phoenix are set to star in Woody Allen’s next pic.

The film is currently untitled, but Allen is expected to write, produce and direct as he has with so many of his other projects.

Plot details are unknown, but sources say the film would likely shoot this July. The film is also without a distributor, but Sony Pictures Classics is a front-runner, as it has distributed this last handful of Allen films.

The cast is slowly starting to come together and expect it to be another grand ensemble. While this will be the first time Allen will have worked with Phoenix, he has been known to become attached to certain stars like Scarlett Johansson and Dianne Wiest. He looks to be doing the same here with Stone, whom he worked with on the upcoming “Magic in the Moonlight.”

Stone is coming off a big weekend at the box office, where her film “The Amazing Spider-Man 2″ grossed $91.6 million at the domestic box-office. She is repped by WME and Anonymous Content.

Allen’s last film, “Blue Jasmine,” landed Cate Blanchett a lead actress Oscar and Sally Hawkins a supporting actress nomination.

 

 

Can't Hollywood and movie fans just switch their affection from Woody Allen to Louis CK or something? Louis CK is basically Woody Allen without the creepiness.  

 

As far as we know.

[Reed]

Anyone ever read David Hughes' Tales from Developmental Hell? It's a great, if kind of depressing look at all these Hollywood movies that get lost in the shuffle.  So much of the writers' live revolve around re-writes, taking comments from executives, more re-writes and then it all usually gets thrown out the window anyway if just one person doesn't like it. It's a wonder anything gets made.

 

Indiana Jones 4 gets covered, although obviously that was filmed eventually.  You kind of feel like after years and years of going around in circles, it was always going to be a disaster, no matter what.

[Lazlo Woodbine]

Somewhat related - I saw Terry Gilliam on tv a few weeks ago and he mentioned his Don Quixote feature is back on. He said production would start in the autumn, barring any catastrophes.

[Tabe]

Some Netflix nonsense:

JFK Smoking Gun - documentary that I started, not knowing the theory behind it. Turns out to be a rehash of Bonar Menninger's laughable "Secret Service agent firing from behind did it accidentally" theory. It's so laughable on its face and unsupported with facts, no matter how hard this dreck tries. And, oh yeah, let's not have the movie mention that the agent in question sued over these allegations and got a settlement. 1/10.

Home Run - Alcoholic major league superstar goes p off the rails and coaches his brother's little league team to find his way back. This is a Christian movie not up to the standards set by Kirk Cameron's movies. Bad acting, weak plot, and so on. Still, I made it all the way through somehow. 2/10.

[assfax]

Dressed to Kill, one word review: Ponderous.

[Reed]

Some Netflix nonsense:

JFK Smoking Gun - documentary that I started, not knowing the theory behind it. Turns out to be a rehash of Bonar Menninger's laughable "Secret Service agent firing from behind did it accidentally" theory. It's so laughable on its face and unsupported with facts, no matter how hard this dreck tries. And, oh yeah, let's not have the movie mention that the agent in question sued over these allegations and got a settlement. 1/10.

 

 

I think the JFK craziness gets to the point that some people actually forget that it was, you know, a real incident with real people. Hence why they can throw out inane stuff like "The limo driver did it!" or "It was Jackie all along!" and not realize how utterly slanderous and disrespectful it is. It's like you or me coming up with a Lost theory or trying to figure out True Detective's actually about.

[Johnny Sorrow]

Dressed to Kill, one word review: Ponderous.

Ponderous, man. Fucking, Ponderous.

[assfax]

Angel Heart:  First off, fucking amazing movie.  I have two gripes with it.  As soon as he meets De Niro my mind instantaneously unraveled the entire twist plot.  Second, that fucking baby at the end had me laughin' my ass off when I should've been goin' "Holy Shit!".  Movie was fucking amazing but I wish I was stupider so that I wouldn't Stay-Puft the movie in the first fifteen.

[Reed]

Dressed to Kill is good if you go into it with the idea it's basically a Psycho remake. Which is far superior to the actual Psycho remake.

[Tabe]

Some Netflix nonsense:

JFK Smoking Gun - documentary that I started, not knowing the theory behind it. Turns out to be a rehash of Bonar Menninger's laughable "Secret Service agent firing from behind did it accidentally" theory. It's so laughable on its face and unsupported with facts, no matter how hard this dreck tries. And, oh yeah, let's not have the movie mention that the agent in question sued over these allegations and got a settlement. 1/10.

I think the JFK craziness gets to the point that some people actually forget that it was, you know, a real incident with real people. Hence why they can throw out inane stuff like "The limo driver did it!" or "It was Jackie all along!" and not realize how utterly slanderous and disrespectful it is. It's like you or me coming up with a Lost theory or trying to figure out True Detective's actually about.

That's a brilliant explanation. You're right, a lot of people just forget that it was REAL PEOPLE.

[Chaos]

I watched The Past last night and really enjoyed it. Here were my scattered thoughts on Letterbox.

 

Farhadi delivers a strong follow up to 2011's A Separation with The Past. He takes what could have easily become a tedious, boring piece of film making and delivers one of the most captivating films of 2013. The dynamics of all of these characters throughout the film is very natural and real. As an audience member, the histories of these characters felt alive and real as if these actors were not only together just for a few weeks of production. The movie does struggle and drag slightly as it concludes its third act but not enough to prevent me from wholeheartedly recommend you check this movie out if you see it available. Also, check out A Separation, which may end up on many top ten of the 2010s lists when the end of 2019 rolls around.