[MOVIE] APRIL 2016 DISCUSSION THREAD

[Curt McGirt]

On 4/9/2016 at 9:45 AM, AxB said:

 How many of the cool independent record shops you used to go to in the 90s are still in business?

Some of the cool indie record stores I've been to in the last five years aren't even open anymore. Luckily some owners (and customers) are either so passionate or so obstinate that they refuse to die. Indie video stores, sadly, on the other hand...

[Bustronaut]

I drive by the former That's Rentertainment! every day and tear up a bit.

[Jingus]

I don't remember the last time I saw a standalone video store or rental place which only did videos.  The only ones still existing are all attached to other stuff, like combined with a bookstore or a used videos/music/games place.  

 

Only a couple of decades too late, I finally got around to seeing Casualties of War for the first time.  Now THERE'S a movie to ruin your whole day and just make you despair for the human race.  Especially since it's all pretty closely based on a true story, and in real life the guilty soldiers actually got less jail time than they did in the movie.  If nothing else, it's an acting clinic, with Sean Penn turning everything up to 11; and it provides a shockingly strong dramatic debut for both John C. Reilly and John Leguizamo in their first-ever starring roles.  (Unbelievably, looking at his career, Reilly really hasn't been known primarily as a comedy actor until the last ten years; before that, stuff like Boogie Nights and Chicago were the rare comedic islands in an ocean of straight dramas.)  One little flaw I do think they had was refusing to give the kidnapped Vietnamese girl ANY personality at all; she was seen purely as a symbolic character, nothing but a screaming crying babbling Other whom the movie never lets us get to know even a little bit.  

[BurningBeard]

That's constantly looked over when people talk about great war movies. Damn shame too, it's kinda hammy and OTT at times but still a solid watch

[Jingus]

Yeah, it does seem to be forgotten.  I've never heard anyone but Quentin Tarantino talk about it in over twenty years now.  Although I wouldn't classify it as "great", it's not on the same level of Apocalypse Now or the first half of Full Metal Jacket.  It's a Brian De Palma movie, which comes with its own inevitable level of bombast and a certain lack of subtlety or nuance.  He's not a Spielberg who can bring a certain timeless, classical touch to dead-fucking-serious historical material.  De Palma's a exploitation director at heart, a guy who's much better at crafting a thrilling Mousetrap of a sequence than he is at trying to delve into the innermost heart and soul of humanity.  

[Technico Support]

On 4/10/2016 at 8:58 PM, muhammedboehm said:

Purely using rotten tomatoes scoring 

Jackson 29 

Caine 13

Streep 5

Never mind total miss read the previous post I blame my phone 

Michael Caine doesn't give a shit.  Is the weather nice where they're shooting?  Do I have bills to pay or somethign big and nice I'd like to buy?  I'm there.

Quote

“I have never seen (Jaws: The Revenge), but by all accounts it is terrible. However, I have seen the house that it built, and it is terrific.”

 

[Curt McGirt]

HELPERS~! Thanx.

Never got all the way through Casualties of War. Considering some of the cast I really should go back and revisit. On the list of underrated Vietnam films, Hamburger Hill is up there, and so is The Hanoi Hilton which I remember as just being brutal (well, both were, really). After watching the recent Tony Bourdain show on Vietnam it'd be interesting to see something in the same manner done from the POV of the Vietnamese. Actually, there just needs to be any Vietnam War film done from the Vietnamese point of view period which is a historical mistake in and of itself. 

[caley]

I am currently watching Birdpeople (About 2/3 of the way through) and it is blowing my MIND.  First part shows a variety of people on a train and pans from person to person revealing what they're thinking about, and we are introduced to Audrey, a maid who works at the hotel who realizes she commutes 40 hours each month.  Then the film changes focuse to Gary, an American in Paris on business, who has a meltdown/breakdown in the middle of the night and decides to sever himself from everything in his life: his job, his wife, his kids and just...move on.  Then the second half switches to Audrey as she goes about her day cleaning rooms in the hotel, she comes across Gary  but they don't really interact, she cleans another room and the power goes out and

she walks down a long hallway onto the roof where she turns into a sparrow and starts to fly around, spying on people, following Gary, just generally soaring through the skies and enjoyed being a bird.  The switch from straight realism to magic realism is so jarring, but so amazing.  There's really only one small bit of foreshadowing of this to come, and that's Audrey watching a bird on the window of her train before it flies away, and Gary noticing one outside his window.

I still have half an hourish to go, but you should all watch it, preferably without reading the spoilers, but, either way.  

[Tabe]

I saw  Casualties of War  in the theater back in the day.  I recall liking it a lot but not on the level of, say,  Platoon.  Might be worth going back to.

[Jingus]

4 hours ago, Curt McGirt said:

After watching the recent Tony Bourdain show on Vietnam it'd be interesting to see something in the same manner done from the POV of the Vietnamese. Actually, there just needs to be any Vietnam War film done from the Vietnamese point of view period which is a historical mistake in and of itself. 

...shitfire, you're right, I don't think I can even NAME a single movie about that war which takes a Vietnamese point of view.  That's kinda weird, isn't it?  The closest I can think of is some stuff where it took the POV of some Chinese guys who happened to be down there, like Bullet in the Head or A Better Tomorrow 3.  

[(BP)]

It's not strictly a war movie, but Heaven and Earth is at least from the perspective of a Vietnamese person during the war. 

[Jingus]

Haven't seen it, so I didn't even know that one had a Vietnamese protagonist.  The ads were all "Another Vietnam movie from Oliver Stone, starring Tommy Lee Jones!".  

It does seem odd that, for such meaty subject matter, there have been so relatively few movies made about it which didn't fall into the same basic pattern.  Everything from Platoon to The Deer Hunter to Full Metal Jacket are almost the exact same story: "Whitebread American kids join the army, go to The 'Nam, find out that this pointless war is pure hell, see a bunch of atrocities, and lose at least a little bit of their humanity."  Even fuckin' UWE BOLL made a movie which fits that exact description with his bewildering opus Tunnel Rats, which seems like it was his awkwardly sincere attempt at telling a gritty serious story (but eventually turns into a demo reel of showing how many different ways you can kill people inside a claustrophobic tunnel).  

[Curt McGirt]

The audio is a little wonky, but check it out. You can skip to 25 minutes if you have to but the whole thing gives you a perspective that is so intense, and so different (and in ways so similar), that it seems like there is no way that there isn't an amazing Vietnam War film made from the Vietnamese point of view. 

[J.T.]

All RT reviews for The Jungle Book are Fresh.  All RT reviews for Criminal are Rotten.   Looks like I am going to split the difference and take the girlfriend and kid to go see the Barbershop sequel this weekend.

[odessasteps]

We are hoping to see the Linklater movie if it opens wider and we dont have to go to one of the art houses.

[Bustronaut]

Mark, no! Think of your industry cred!

[odessasteps]

Ha. One of my friends is huge Linklater mark so he will want to see it as soon as we can go somewhere close.

[Chaos]

On 4/12/2016 at 7:46 AM, J.T. said:

All RT reviews for The Jungle Book are Fresh.  All RT reviews for Criminal are Rotten.   Looks like I am going to split the difference and take the girlfriend and kid to go see the Barbershop sequel this weekend.

It's funny because a couple of the critics I follow on Letterboxd have posted some brief thoughts, and it doesn't reflect the all positive on RT. Granted, RT's aggregate sometimes will rate a middling review, or mildly positive review as completely fresh.

[J.T.]

On 4/12/2016 at 8:46 AM, J.T. said:

All RT reviews for The Jungle Book are Fresh.  All RT reviews for Criminal are Rotten.   Looks like I am going to split the difference and take the girlfriend and kid to go see the Barbershop sequel this weekend.

Barbershop is at 75% Freshness. Thank you, God.

So, Criminal is the second body switching movie with Ryan Reynolds in it that has blown goats.  Just star in Deadpool sequels from here on out, Ryan.

[piranesi]

I remember when the trailer for that CGI Paddington Bear movie came out and everyone was ridiculing it for how obviously horrible it looked, like maybe a worst movie of the year.  I didn't much care because it's like a kids movie and I don't normally watch those...but I just flipped onto it and it is hilarious and bizarre and surreal and kind of brilliant.

It's barely less insane than the spice girls movie and hits that tone of cartoonish weirdness that a lot of movies aim for and miss (Hudson Hawk for instance).

So I check on Rotten Tomatoes and it's like 98%.  I had no idea it was such a hit (cost only $38 million, made $260 million). Did anyone watch this?  If nothing else it is instantly my favorite Nicole Kidman movie.

 

Best line so far, when they are filing a missing person's report on Paddington:

Lady: He's about 3 foot 8 and he's wearing a big red hat and a bright blue duffle coat.  Oh, and he's also a bear.

COP: I'm afraid it's not much to go on.

[Brian Fowler]

Yeah, there were a ton of "this movie of shockingly great, I'm amazed' reviews when it came out.

 

Been meaning to get around to it one of these days.

[caley]

I loved 'Paddington'.  It had all these wonderful little visual flourishes, too, like the tree painted on the wall in the family's house that blooms when everyone is happy, and loses leaves when things are sad.

And it's got Peter Capaldi in it, so...

[Control]

MIDNIGHT SPECIAL was good. It's a very familiar plot, and none of the characters are really fleshed out, but there are a couple of straight up amazing scenes that will make you forget all that. And Michael Shannon, of course.

[Johnny Sorrow]

I'm taking my five year old nephew and his folks to see "Jungle Book" tomorrow. Between my love of the cartoon and the fact that in our house it's a recurring joke that I'm Baloo and my nephew is Mowgli, it's gonna get a little dusty in the theater. 

[Matt D]

11 minutes ago, Johnny Sorrow said:

I'm taking my five year old nephew and his folks to see "Jungle Book" tomorrow. Between my love of the cartoon and the fact that in our house it's a recurring joke that I'm Baloo and my nephew is Mowgli, it's gonna get a little dusty in the theater. 

I'd love to take the almost 4 year old but it's supposed to be pretty startling/scary at times and I think it's one that'll be better for us on the redbox. It's supposed to be good though.