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JANUARY 2015 MOVIE DISCUSSION


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Bruce McDonald has stayed busy--I think he's directed 6 films in the last decade, and a shitload of TV. Some of the movies are quite good, too. And Don McKellar just direct THE GRAND SEDUCTION, which is charming but skippable.

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For best current Canadian director, two more names that should be in the conversation are Jean-Marc Vallée (Dallas Buyers Club, Wild) and Xavier Dolan (nothing really mainstream, but he won an award at Cannes this year).

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I've been going through some 2014 horror movies that ended up on a lot of 'Best of 2014' lists. The Babadook tops most of those. I really need to watch that again, because I watched it a few months ago and I thought it was dull. The only good part of the movie was the book itself. That frightened the daylights out of me. Anything else was just... dull and silly. I must have missed some huge things if the majority considers it the best 2014 horror movie.

 

It's very high on my 2014 list, and I've seen at least one person acknowledge that it wasn't the absolute scariest movie while at the same time calling it one of the best of the year.  Also it's making some mainstream critics' top ten lists, which is very rare for a horror movie.

 

I may be pointing out the obvious here, but the Babadook is meant to represent depression or mental illness.  It completely takes over your life, the mother ends up in a zombie-like state in front of the tv for a good chunk of the second half of the movie, and there's the "you can't get rid of the Babadook" idea where you can't ever cure mental illness, you can only learn how to cope with it.  A movie with some level of subtext and relating to real-world problems is going to score points with critics.

 

I also thought the special effects were a big plus, and "special effects" might not be the right term to use, but it felt like a real feast of sight and sound to me in spite of the fact that most of the big scenes take place in a dark house.  Stuff like where they have a wide shot of the mother across the room from the kid, and she's looking directly into the camera, which is creepy enough, but then she sort of floats forward at us, getting closer without actually moving her feet.  There was just a lot of creativity.

 

Lastly I think it's also getting points for its almost complete lack of jump scares.

 

Your spoiler about Taking of Deborah Logan (which I haven't seen) is a little ironic, because it was a similar moment in The Babadook that chilled me the most (that imagined news report on the tv).

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Just finished Down and Dirty Pictures, which is Peter Biskind's sequel to Easy Riders, Raging Bulls and chronicles the 1990s rise of indie filmmakers like Atom Egoyan, Kevin Smith, and Tarantino and the rise of Miramax and Sundance Films and how Biskind viewed these people as the saviors of the New Hollywood era.

Yeah, this book hasn't aged well with Smith making microbudget "body horror" drek, Tarantino going off to make homages to his favorite exploitation genre films, Egoyan pretty much falling off the face of the Earth, the Weinsteins getting kicked out of Miramax, and while the Sundance Film Festival still exists, the actual Sundance Channel just did a "Revenge of the Nerds/Revenge of the Ninja" double-header.

EDIT: To be fair to Tarantino, he's definitely making the types of films HE wants to make, I just think that Biskind and some other critics expected him (at the time) to go to do weightier stuff than homages to Cleopatra Jones, ninja films, or obscure Spaghetti Westerns.

And you think Kevin Smith made the walrus movie because other people made him?

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I recently watched The Equalizer with Denzel, and I enjoyed it more than I thought it would. It got me to thinking, though. What are the best movies that have a badass unstoppable hero? We're seeing action movies like The Equalizer and the Taken movies lately, but what are some other examples? What movies have a hero who just runs through the opposition -- even when they get to the end of the movie they still just completely destroy whoever the big bad is?

I also don't care about genre. It can be an old school action movie, revenge flick, superhero movie, western, etc. Just looking to get everyone's opinions on what some of the best examples of this are.

The hero in the 'Raid' movies probably sells too much to qualify but damn if he doesnt fuck some people up along the way...

How about The Bride in Kill Bill?

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I've been going through some 2014 horror movies that ended up on a lot of 'Best of 2014' lists. The Babadook tops most of those. I really need to watch that again, because I watched it a few months ago and I thought it was dull. The only good part of the movie was the book itself. That frightened the daylights out of me. Anything else was just... dull and silly. I must have missed some huge things if the majority considers it the best 2014 horror movie.

 

So far I've only watched one horror movie I quite liked, and that was The Taking of Deborah Logan. The first half hour is excellent, because that part deals with Alzheimer's before the horror aspect kicks in -- and it's both scary as hell and heartbreaking. After the first half hour, the movie quality drops and it descends into the usual tropes, but it's bearable. One scene near the end (you'll know when you see it) I first thought was rather silly, but then I changed my mind and thought it was very cool, effective and creepy. My first thought of it being silly was probably because I'm not used to seeing something like that in movies. It was well done.

 

And the very final shot of the movie scared the shit out of me. I hope the girl's smile was digitally altered, because if she (the actress) can smile that goddamn creepy, I fear for the sanity and lives of her parents.

 

I love horror movies, but ironically I hate 95% I've watched because they almost all end up being boring, predictable, not scary at all or just plain silly. The Taking was surprisingly good, and that first half hour makes up for the by-the-numbers stuff that the rest of the story entails -- apart from that one scene and that spoiler.

 

I really enjoyed The Babadook and enjoyed it more the next day when it hit me that

 

the whole thing was a manifestation of the mother and son's grief, guilt and anxiety. The Babadook was all in their heads.  The mother is the one who wrote the book and put it back together later -- remember, there was a scene where she mentions writing some children's books. When she finally gets over the grief, where does the Babadook "retreat" to? The basement, where she keeps all her dead husband's things.  The Babadook is nothing but all the awful feelings she and her son kept pushing away until they exploded and they had to confront them.

 

Such a good movie.

 

what-is-book-two.jpg

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I recently watched The Equalizer with Denzel, and I enjoyed it more than I thought it would. It got me to thinking, though. What are the best movies that have a badass unstoppable hero? We're seeing action movies like The Equalizer and the Taken movies lately, but what are some other examples? What movies have a hero who just runs through the opposition -- even when they get to the end of the movie they still just completely destroy whoever the big bad is?

I also don't care about genre. It can be an old school action movie, revenge flick, superhero movie, western, etc. Just looking to get everyone's opinions on what some of the best examples of this are.

The hero in the 'Raid' movies probably sells too much to qualify but damn if he doesnt fuck some people up along the way...

How about The Bride in Kill Bill?

 

Nah, while she obliterates the nameless henchmen along the way, she sells way too much against the Vipers (and in Oren's case, her top Lieutenants), even if the Bill fight was quick and slightly onesided.

 

Like the Taken series and pretty much anything Bruce Lee, there's never a point when you feel as if the hero is in serious trouble.  He just overwhelms everything.

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Went to a screening of They Live at the Alamo Draft house with live in theater pyrotechnics. They gave us Hoffman lenses and bubblegum.

I've seen the movie dozens of times, but I can't remember the last time I gave it my full undivided attention. It's a great film.

Still relevant (if not more so) and total wish fulfillment. Down with the police state!

Oh, and that legendary 30 min brawl between Piper and Keith David? Only about 3 minutes total. In my mind, that fight is still going.

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As is my annual tradition, I took roughly two weeks off around Christmas and New Year.  That left me a lot of time for watching movies and so I've got a whole bunch of reviews for you (documentaries in the other thread):

 

Elf - This movie is an annual tradition for my wife & I.  I'm torn as to whether this or A Christmas Story are the best Christmas movie around.  I think this one probably takes it.  Will Ferrell is Buddy, a human baby raised at the North Pole among elves.  As he grows up, he learns that he's not quite the same as everybody else and is told that he's a human not an elf.  He's sent to New York City to find his father, played by James Caan.  Buddy soon wins over his father's family with his infectious positive attitude, lands a girlfriend, and saves Christmas by helping people rediscover their Christmas Spirit.  There's a million laughs throughout and this is really just a great movie.  It's a sweet, happy movie that tells its story really well.  Zooey Deschanel works well as Ferrell's girlfriend.  Here she's just a pretty blonde girl with incredible eyes that can sing, not the quirky "it girl" for nerds she'd later become.  The real revelation here is Ferrell though.  He's just incredible in this movie.  I am 100% serious when I say that I feel he deserved an Oscar Best Actor nomination for this movie.  He is absolutely 100% invested in this role and plays it perfectly - total sincerity and commitment.  This is a really, really great movie.  9/10.  A side note: at the end of the movie, Buddy is shown reading a book of his adventures to young children.  The makers of the movie somehow failed to capitalize on this by not releasing the book shown to the general public.  Oh, they released a book - but it's very small and doesn't tell the story of the movie.  Seriously, how do you screw that up?!?

 

A Christmas Story - My other contender for "best Christmas movie".  Set in a nostalgic 1950s small town, Peter Billingsley is Ralphie, the put-upon star of the show.  He's a dreamer and all he wants for Christmas is a Red Rider Rifle.  Along the way, he'll run into an incredibly memorable cast of characters, including his father, a mall Santa, the local bully, and many others.  The story is at once a farce and yet very authentic.  It rings true for a lot of people my age (40s) and perfectly captures the joy, mystery and excitement of Christmas from a long-past time.  I've seen this movie almost more than any other movie but rarely all the way through, thanks to seeing it on TV.  This year, we didn't have cable, so went to a showing at a local theater.  Did it hold up under those conditions?  Heck yeah, it did.  This is a terrific movie that tells a great, hilarious story with tons of great lines and memorable characters.  The cast is terrific and it's well-acted.  What more can you ask for?  8/10.

 

The Human Stain - Anthony Hopkins is a recently widowed, fired/retired professor.  He's kind of lost and finds himself seeking out a writer to tell the story of his wife's "murder" at the hands of the school that fired him.  Instead, he befriends the writer and begins to "live again".  Then he meets Nicole Kidman, playing a divorcee with an abusive ex working 3 jobs to get by.  They have an affair yet seem to never really be comfortable with each other.  Mixed in are flashback scenes with a younger version of Hopkins' character acting out the scense that will lead him to hide his big secret.  This is a movie that very clearly thinks highly of itself, with lots of "LOOK AT US DOING ALL THIS GREAT ACTING BY YELLING AT EACH OTHER"-type stuff going on.  In the end, the story isn't interesting, the characters are boring, the secret is nothing, and it's all just a waste of time.  4/10.

 

Unbroken - Louie Zamperini was just a guy.  An Olympic runner, sure, but just a guy.  A guy on a plane shot down during World War II.  He and two others manage to survive the crash on a life raft.  Louie and one other guy lasted over 6 weeks before finally being "rescued" by a Japanese war ship.  From there, Louie is a POW subjected to an incredible amount of torture and abuse.  And that's where the movie ends.  What we have here is basically a WW2 version of The Passion of the Christ with the main character being tortured for 2+ hours.  The movie as constructed is good but it doesn't tell the full story of Louie.  We don't get his healing and redemption, or his positive later life, other than through a couple screens of text at the end.  Maybe director Angelina Jolie didn't want to cover that part because Louie's faith plays such a huge part in his later life.  I dunno.  I just know that the full story isn't told.  What is here is good, it's just incomplete.  This one lands right at the Tabedoza Line - 7/10.

 

Rumor Has It - Jennifer Aniston is the granddaughter of the woman who supposedly inspired The Graduate.  Kevin Costner is the guy who supposedly inspired the Dustin Hoffman character in it.  Aniston seeks out the truth and ends up entangled with Costner, who is now a charming billionaire.  What follows is pretty standard rom com stuff.  There's some funny moments, the cast is pretty good (I'm a big Costner fan) and it's generally inoffensive entertainment.  5/10.

 

Homefront - Jason Statham is a former DEA agent living in the middle of nowhere after an undercover bust gone bad.  When his daughter beats up a bully at school, he ends up on the wrong side of some nasty characters.  It's then up to him to defend his...homefront.  Look, this ain't rocket science.  You know what you're getting going in - Statham looking and acting tough, great fight sequences and a barely plausible story.  It's the Jason Statham formula - and it works.  Rounding out the cast are Winona Ryder and Kate Bosworth as meth addicts.  Bosworth, who hasn't looked healthy since Blue Crush, looks positively awful here.  I mean, I know she's supposed to but...wow.  She looks genuinely anorexic, ill, and messed-up here.  But she's really good in her role.  Anyway, this is standard fare.  Entertaining though!  6/10.

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I interpreted The Babadook pretty much like S.K.o.S.and Technico Support said, but... I don't know. I thought it ultimately came across as silly, and the denouement was rather clumsily done. I do admit, however, that I most likely watched it with the wrong mindset. I had heard countless people say it's a 'horror classic' and 'the best horror movie in years', whereas it's not a horror movie at all, but rather a drama. And I've been dying to see a good horror movie, so I stubbornly clung to the idea that The Babadook was one, even when I should have known better. I'll need to watch it again, I think.

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I just saw Wolf of Wall Street. Did anyone else think it was pretty bad?'

 

As far as a story goes -- There's not much to it past "assholes become rich assholes and do a lot of drugs and have sex with a lot of prostitutes" as far as I can tell. A lot of the scenes dragged on and on -- like the one at the pay phone, for instance.

It's also pretty morally bankrupt. I think there are a lot more people who will walk away after watching that saying, "Man, I want that life" than "These guys are the worst."

I watched it this past weekend and that was pretty much all of the things I said to my girlfriend while/after watching it.

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I recently watched The Equalizer with Denzel, and I enjoyed it more than I thought it would. It got me to thinking, though. What are the best movies that have a badass unstoppable hero? We're seeing action movies like The Equalizer and the Taken movies lately, but what are some other examples? What movies have a hero who just runs through the opposition -- even when they get to the end of the movie they still just completely destroy whoever the big bad is?

 

I also don't care about genre. It can be an old school action movie, revenge flick, superhero movie, western, etc. Just looking to get everyone's opinions on what some of the best examples of this are.

 

The Equalizer felt like a spiritual sequel to Man on Fire, but McCall got the badass ending that Creasey deserved to get.

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 The Taking of Deborah Logan

 

 

Blue Ruin

 

 

The Babadook

 

 

Unbroken
 

 

 

 

The Equalizer 

 

 

Just, you know, for the record, ALL of these movies are eligible for the DVDVR 'Best Film of 2014' poll: pimping and voting are on now! Link in my sig...or just look around.

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Holy fuckity fuck fuck fucking fucksticks at JK Simmons in Whiplash, guy damn near out R Lee Ermey's R Lee Ermey. I mean, shit, I thought Vern Schillinger was a scary dude. Miles Teller is pretty great in it too. 

 

Totally just youtubed the shit out of different versions of the Whiplash composition too. And I've never listened to jazz in my life.

 

Yeah, go see it.

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I watched The Social Network at the weekend. Great soundtrack. Completely fails to explain why anyone would ever actually like facebook - it shows that people get obsessed with it and spend loads of time on it, but never says that it's actually, y'know, good.

 

Also makes Zuckerberg look like an absolute objectionable woman* (but then the film is based on a book based on the opinions of that friend he backstabbed, who probably thinks he is one). Should have called it The Anti-Social Networker.

 

* The Winklevosses manage to come off even worse. Did TNA base Ethan Carter III's character off them? Because I could totally see that.

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Just watched Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs 2 on Netflix. It's my kinda movie: food related puns, a moral to the story, and damn adorable marshmallow creatures.

Pretty good movie but it takes a while for it to pick up and obvious ending is obvious ending. I'd watch it again.

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