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SEPT 2015 MOVIE THREAD


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Is anyone else enough of a tool to get teary-eyed watching WALKING WITH DINOSAURS 3D on HBO Family?

 

No? Never mind, I was just checking for a total tool I know.  I'll let him know he's a femmy baby as soon as I find a box of tissues I need for a totally unrelated eye-allergy.

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Yeah, watching 12 Rounds 3. The amount of exposition in this film is hilarious.

 

*good cop Ambrose listens to super secret flashdrive he has just stumbled across*

 

Shady criminal: "Look, remember our deal?"

 

Evil Cop: Our deal?

 

Shady criminal: I supply the narcotics and you distribute them while hiding behind your facade as a hero cop

 

Evil Cop *remembers deal*: Oh, right. Because WE ARE BAD.

 

*good cop Ambrose looks shocked but is also probably grateful they revealed the truth so clearly within like 5 seconds of turning it on* 

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Black Mass isn't in the upper echelon of organized crime pictures, but it's better than a lot of recent low rent fare that's similar, like Kill the Irishman or The Iceman. It's anchored by a superb cast; I thought Joel Edgerton was phenomenal, and I hope this is Rory Cochrane's breakout performance. The trailers made me a little concerned about the absurd makeup design for Depp, but once I realized he's essentially a Mephistopheles figure for the rest of the characters to play off of it made sense for him to look so otherworldly. He manages to be menacing in a way that goes beyond a lot of the cutesy mob boss antihero performances and play Bulger as a downright creep. It's worth a watch.

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Took my kid to see Scorch Trials and had more fun than I should have.  Maze Runner story is finally underway.  Not great and still flawed but a lot less tedious than the intro movie.

 

Was uncomfortable seeing Littlefinger in this as the bad guy and expecting a brothel interlude at any moment that I would have to shield my child's eyes from.

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Saw Everest over the weekend and it was pretty fantastic.

All the performances were great but the real star was the mountain itself. It benefitted so much from the IMAX sound where every bit of bad weather sounded like a stampede coming. Almost every Everest mountaineering movie I've ever seen has looked cheap and fake but not this at all.

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The Toronto Film Festival wrapped up yesterday.  I saw 11 movies.  Mostly made my choices based on plot summaries and directors/actors that I was familiar with.  It turned out that 8 of the 11 movies had subtitles, so I was seeing stuff from all over the world.  My quick thoughts follow.  They're ranked from worst to best, but ranking them was pretty difficult.  Numbers 9 through 1 are all closer than you might expect, ranging from "good" to "very good".  I didn't see anything this year that was on the "super amazing you must see this right away" level.

 
11. One Floor Below: Romanian movie.  Guy is living in an apartment building with his wife and child, someone in the building gets killed, and the guy probably knows who the murderer is.  Not actively bad, but not much happens.  Can't think of a reason why anyone would want to see it.

 

10. Baskin: Turkish movie.  Police unit gets called to an abandoned building where they find a Satanic mass has taken place, a portal has been opened to hell, and they're intended as a human sacrifice.  There's just not enough here.  Next to no plot.  Scary early on, but much less so once the creatures are revealed.  Violent, but not violent enough for something in the extreme horror genre.  Some decent visuals.  What drew me to this was that it was compared to Martyrs in the festival guide - turns out it's comparable based solely on aesthetics, nothing else.

 

9. Schneider vs. Bax: Dutch, directed by the guy who did Borgman.  Some guy who looks like a Mafia boss hires two hitmen to kill one another.  Not what I was expecting from the premise.  More of a comedy, as the movie is all about Schneider's plan going wrong and people unexpectedly showing up at Bax's doorstep.  There may not have been a gunshot at all for the first two-thirds of the movie.  It's alright, just be aware of what you're going to get.
 

8. The Witch: A family in witch trial era northeastern U.S. is driven out of their town, and then plagued by a witch living in the forest.  The craftsmanship is the draw here, mostly the score, but the cinematography too.  Also there's a very impressive performance by one of the child actors.  The story is nothing new.  Found myself wanting subtitles for ye olde New England accents, and I'm told that even if you can understand what they were saying, the dialogue is often inscrutable as well, like Shakespearean English.
 

7. Disorder: A French/Belgian movie.  Matthias Schoenaerts, from The Drop and Rust & Bone, plays an army veteran who has to de-enlist due to PTSD and takes a job working security for private homes. Plays it so you're not sure if danger is imagined battle-induced paranoia, or real.  The goal is to put you on edge just like the character would be, and I found it very successful.  It really makes you wait, but it gets there.

 
6. Desierto: Mexican movie starring Gael Garcia Bernal as one of a group of immigrants who sneak across the U.S. border, only to find there's a Texan in a pickup truck waiting to hunt them down.  This is getting bad reviews, but I thought it was perfectly good.  Sparse plot, not much background on the characters, not a ton of dialogue either, but solid action and a couple shocking moments of violence (not as violent as Baskin, but shocking for a thriller). 

 
5. The Ones Below: British movie, one of those noticeably blue and orange ones.  An expecting couple living on the upper floor of a two-story house develops tension with another expecting couple who moves into the ground floor unit... actually, "tension" is understating it by quite a bit.  You'll often feel like you're a half step ahead of the plot, but it's not like you're two blocks away waiting for it to catch up, and in any event the ride to get there is a lot of fun.  Some great moments of meanness.

 
4. Ivy: 2nd Turkish movie, far exceeded my expectations.  A ship with a small crew has to stay in harbor for months as the ship's owner is in financial trouble, and the crew eventually turn on one another.  Loved the cast, there's an amazing Jake Johnson sort of guy who's annoying enough that you fully understand why people would hate him, but hilarious at the same time.  Also an Antonio Silva-looking guy, but with these deep lines in his face like someone took a chisel to an Easter Island statue, who never talks.  It stumbles a little at the very end, but can't complain too much.

 
3. Endorphine: Quebec movie about a girl who experiences time differently than the rest of us.  Like for example, there's a scene where she's watching a movie on tv as a teenager, and then later in life, in her 30s, she runs into the filming of that mhovie.  Cinematography is very clean, sparse, reminiscent of some Soderbergh stuff.  Non-linear plot, real head trip, some big ideas.  Very interesting.  Would like to see it again to clear some things up.

 
2. 45 Years: Another British movie, directed by the guy who did Weekend.  A couple coming up on their 45th wedding anniversary learns that a woman from the husband's past has been found dead, which leads to an exploration of the husband's life and jealousy from the wife.  Basically a character study with lots of conversation, similar to Weekend, but there's conflict here that wasn't present in the earlier movie, and it gets elevated to something more.  Part of me feels like you could watch the last 5 minutes and understand the entire movie, but all the rest of it is probably necessary to really make us care about the couple.  May have gotten a bigger "holy shit" reaction from me than those violent moments in Desierto.

 
1. We Monsters: German movie.  A teenage girl whose parents are divorced kills one of her friends, and her father attempts to cover it up.  The murder happens right at the start and you're immediately sucked in.  I guess it's a noir, but one with a strong family bond element to it.  Not a combination you see very often, really appealed to me.  The plot takes a number of turns, and your sympathies for various characters are gonna be all over the place.
 

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Aw, SKoS.  I want The Witch to be really really good and your review does not encourage me.

 

Sounds like I am going to dig The Ones Below.

 

I saw a clip of The Lobster on YouTube and it was hysterical. I must check this out!

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Proof of the existence of a benevolent God:

 

“The Crow” director Corin Hardy is in danger of flying the coop as a result of the Relativity Media bankruptcy, according to producer Edward R. Pressman, who on Tuesday filed an objection to the inclusion of the project among the studio’s assets as it prepares for a sale.
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Hotel Transylvania 2 (40% Fresh).  I knew it couldn't last.

 

My cousin went to see Pawn Sacrifice and said it was pretty awesome.  The only problem is that the portrayal of Bobby Fischer is a bit too accurate and he comes off looking like the complete paranoid douche that most historical accounts say that he was. 

 

My cousin pulled a Day of the Jackal (ie. hoping that the movie runs contrary to historical fact aka wishing that the Jackal would successfully assassinate De Gaulle) and prayed that Spassky would beat Fischer.

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Are you sure you werent watching Live Free or Die Hard?

 

I haven't watched that one yet. Now I'm pretty sure I will continue in that vein.

 

 

I just watched The Fifth Element. What a waste of time that was.

4. TPM

5. ANH

Well, there goes my urge to ever ask for any scifi movie recommendations in this thread again.

 

 

To put my sci-fi experiences in perspective: I find Star Trek boring, only watched Star Wars for the space fights (because I used to be obsessed by World War II aircraft carrier battles) and thought Interstellar was a bucket of sentimental ass-gravy. And while I enjoyed the first Dune book, I don't think it's nearly as good as it's made out to be (and I gave up after the third book).

 

Sci-fi movies I did enjoy were the Alien series, Blade Runner, 2001: A Space Odyssey, Moon, Sunshine, Battlestar Galactica (remake) and Dark City. Best sci-fi books I've ever read were the Revelation Space series by Alastair Reynolds and The Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy.

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Seems like you tend to enjoy more cerebral, "hard scifi" sort of stuff which prioritizes more practical ideas and "holy shit, space is BIG" atmosphere. Which is great; I love all the stuff you said you enjoyed. But I also do enjoy some goofy-ass space opera (LITERAL opera, in Fifth Element's case) and have no problem with telling the laws of physics to go fuck themselves if they're getting in the way of a good story or a great action scene.

Have you seen the show Firefly? Just curious, since it's sort of an all-inclusive hybrid which hits up All Of The Above at one point or another.

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