Johnny Sorrow Posted February 19, 2017 Share Posted February 19, 2017 3 hours ago, Death From Above said: In fairness, making Johnny weep is as easy as typing Bad Words about the Grateful Dead. Or trying to get him to remember to submit a list. Or reading a joke that stinks as bad as this one. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Control Posted February 19, 2017 Share Posted February 19, 2017 I have the ZATOICHI box set but have only watched about 5 of them. Might have some spare time in the near future: which ones are the best? I definitely prioritized the Keniji Misumi-directed ones. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
caley Posted February 19, 2017 Share Posted February 19, 2017 16 hours ago, zev said: Boyhood: Where Patricia Arquette is just an awful actress for over a decade. I didn't think she was particularly good, either. That movie, on the whole, baffled me. The first 30 minutes are so are pretty fun and realistic look into childhood. And then it becomes something less interesting and ends up really cliched and dull. Even with a Yo La Tengo song on the soundtrack, I was just counting the minutes until it ended. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GuerrillaMonsoon Posted February 20, 2017 Share Posted February 20, 2017 Saw Trainspotting 2. Was fantastic. Like top 10 best sequels of all time good for mine. Can't believe it's only at 75% on RT, and the majority of the critiques are ridiculous. "The characters aren't as edgy as the first one".....no shit, it's one of the major underpinning points of the movie in the first place. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Control Posted February 20, 2017 Share Posted February 20, 2017 The story of KAGEMUSHA really isn't that engrossing but goddamn is it nice to watch an epic Kurosawa samurai movie in vivid colour. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GuerrillaMonsoon Posted February 20, 2017 Share Posted February 20, 2017 23 hours ago, Tabe said: Arrival - another massive disappointment in my winter of discontent. Boring with leaps in logic and plot. And no payoff at the end. Ugh. We're agreeing on a few stinkers from Oscar season. I don't normally switch off after 30 minutes, but this deserved it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AxB Posted February 20, 2017 Share Posted February 20, 2017 What I've watched lately: Prisoners with Hugh Jackman and Jake Gyllenhall is about child abduction and the whole justice vs vengeance debate. It comes down on the side that torture doesn't work and vigilantism is a bad thing. It has Nolan envy though. Sort of slow paced and doing the 'I have something important to say' presentation, but not actually being at all insightful in any way. It's one of those things that's impressive as you watch it, but when you think about it later, the more you consider it, the less impressive it becomes. Hot Fuzz is one of my Son's favourite films, but he doesn't get the joke about them doing all of the Michel Bay shots, because he doesn't remember seeing any Michael Bay movies in his life. Lucky him. Die Hard 2 when it came out was considered a disappointment because there had been loads of Die Hard ripoffs around that time, and people expected more from the second Die Hard than it just being another Die Hard clone. But considering they don't make Die Hard ripoffs any more and the action formula is much different now, it seems a lot better than it did. Wierd seeing Colm Meaney doing an English accent though. 47 Ronin is stupid mess. Just making a movie on the actual story of the 47 Ronin would have been well better. What's with all the Witchcraft and Ogres? And when the film goes to great lengths to say that Japan was cut off from the outside world and foreigners were banned from entering the country, why is Keanu Reeves character A) constantly referred to as a half-breed, and B) played by Keanu Reeves? That zombie tattoo guy from the Born This Way video is also in this movie. He plays a guy with zombie tattoos all over his body. They had those in feudal Japan. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
caley Posted February 20, 2017 Share Posted February 20, 2017 I picked up a Blu-Ray copy of Heat and re-watched it this week. Goddamn what a movie! Greatest cast ever? Al Pacino, Robert De Niro, Val Kilmer, Tom Sizemore, Jon Voight, Diane Venora, Amy Brenneman, Ashley Judd, William Fichtner, Dennis Haysbert, Danny Trejo, Wes Studi, Henry Rollins, Jeremy Piven, Mykelti Williamson, Ted Levine, Tom Noonan, Hank Azaria, Tone Loc, Bud Cort, AND a very young Natalie Portman. That is stacked. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tabe Posted February 20, 2017 Share Posted February 20, 2017 Eye in the Sky - Helen Mirren is a captain in the British army in charge of a multinational drone strike team in Africa that has Aaron Paul as the pilot. They locate some bad guys - British & American - in a building and plan to blow it up. But there are civilians around. The rest of the movie is a debate on collateral damage and when it's OK to hit civilian targets. Way more compelling than I'm describing. Never rises to the level of great but a really solid good. One of Alan Rickman's last movies, too. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Brian Fowler Posted February 20, 2017 Share Posted February 20, 2017 John Wick Chapter 2 isn't as good as the first movie, but it's really good anyway. I really enjoy the universe/hitman culture they've setup in the films. Bring on Chapter 3! 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RRR Posted February 20, 2017 Share Posted February 20, 2017 On 2/19/2017 at 9:56 AM, Control said: I have the ZATOICHI box set but have only watched about 5 of them. Might have some spare time in the near future: which ones are the best? I definitely prioritized the Keniji Misumi-directed ones. Samaritan Zatoichi was my favorite and Zatoichi versus One Armed Swordsmen is pretty good. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
J.T. Posted February 21, 2017 Share Posted February 21, 2017 On 2/18/2017 at 8:21 PM, Tabe said: Arrival - another massive disappointment in my winter of discontent. Boring with leaps in logic and plot. And no payoff at the end. Ugh. Actually there is a payoff. Spoiler The leaps in logic are indeed leaps of logic because of the unproven principle of Linguistic Relativity aka the Sapir - Whorf Hypothesis which says that language complexity guides perception and cognitive reasoning. The premise of the movie is that the reason that the alien language is undecipherable is because they can see into multiple divergences in time / space and their language carries across dimensions ergo they can see and communicate in multiple realities.. Humans only understand part of the language because we only perceive one reality When Louse is able to understand the alien language, she also begins to perceive time and space as the aliens do. The reason she smiles at the end of the movie is because the knows that the nightmares she had about her child dying were actually her budding ability to see into alternate realities. She's not afraid to fall in love and have a baby because even if the baby becomes sick and dies in the primary reality, she knows that there is an alternate time stream where the baby lives and she will be able to watch her child grow up because she can see past time / space . It makes more sense in the Ted Chiang short story, Story Of Your Life, even though the basic premise is scientifically flawed I personally thought Arrival was pretty good, but I like high sci-fi and don't mind the scientific claptrap. Not all sci-fi has to be starship battles and phasers. 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
J.T. Posted February 21, 2017 Share Posted February 21, 2017 On 2/19/2017 at 9:56 AM, Control said: I have the ZATOICHI box set but have only watched about 5 of them. Might have some spare time in the near future: which ones are the best? I definitely prioritized the Keniji Misumi-directed ones. Zatoichi The Fugitive is my favorite because this scene is fucking awesome and I give zero shits about it being unrealistic. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AxB Posted February 21, 2017 Share Posted February 21, 2017 On 20/02/2017 at 2:07 AM, AxB said: What I've watched lately: Forgot one: I also watched Out of the Furnace which is sort of like if a guy couldn't decide whether to make his 'nobility of the steelworker' tribute to the working man movie, or his hillbilly drug dealer underground fights movie, so he just combined the two scripts and made something that doesn't really hang together too well. There's these two brothers, one of whom went to jail for killing someone by running them over while driving drunk, and the other joined the military and did four tours of Iraq. And then one of them is a responsible hardworking guy, and the other is an idiotic fuck-up who constantly gets mixed up with gangsters and crime. But the twist is the ex-con is the responsible one and the military one is the fuck-up. It wasn't massively derivative, but it doesn't really say or do anything new. But they must have had fun trying to pitch a movie about a traumatised war veteran that features a deer hunting scene. Fantastic cast though, I'll give it that. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Elsalvajeloco Posted February 21, 2017 Share Posted February 21, 2017 I dunno how controversial this will be but after seeing Moonlight, I think Kicks is vastly superior to Moonlight. It had better acting, an actual plot, and somehow a better performance from Mahershala Ali. It also helps that he was in Kicks longer than Moonlight. Also, I thought Kofi Siriboe was tremendous as well in Kicks. The last third of Moonlight felt like some bizarre Youtube made series that some up and coming actors put together for like 60 bucks. Moreover, I am just tired of the whole "toxic masculinity" nonsense because I have no idea what the fuck that even means and why it's so pivotal eliminate that so black films can be good when "white" films aren't held that that same weird, nonsensical standard. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
WholeFnMachine Posted February 21, 2017 Share Posted February 21, 2017 1 hour ago, Elsalvajeloco said: I dunno how controversial this will be but after seeing Moonlight, I think Kicks is vastly superior to Moonlight. It had better acting, an actual plot, and somehow a better performance from Mahershala Ali. It also helps that he was in Kicks longer than Moonlight. Also, I thought Kofi Siriboe was tremendous as well in Kicks. The last third of Moonlight felt like some bizarre Youtube made series that some up and coming actors put together for like 60 bucks. Moreover, I am just tired of the whole "toxic masculinity" nonsense because I have no idea what the fuck that even means and why it's so pivotal eliminate that so black films can be good when "white" films aren't held that that same weird, nonsensical standard. Check out The Mask You Live In https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hc45-ptHMxo Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Elsalvajeloco Posted February 21, 2017 Share Posted February 21, 2017 3 minutes ago, WholeFnMachine said: Check out The Mask You Live In https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hc45-ptHMxo When it comes to the similarity of the subjects, I just think Kicks had a vastly better representation (and dissection of young black male masculinity) and you also didn't have the Naomie Harris character (I'm about done on black actresses having to play abusive crackhead mothers) that kinda rides the line between relevant and irrelevant. It didn't need to jump 15 or 20 years into the future to accomplish it's goal. I don't get why Moonlight is the movie to celebrate such feats (well I get why but that's a different subject) but other films don't get that acclaim. Hell, I even thought Oakland/the Bay was better used than Miami. I thought Moonlight was okay, but it's not even in the top five of "black" independent films I've seen from 2016. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
J.T. Posted February 21, 2017 Share Posted February 21, 2017 20 minutes ago, Elsalvajeloco said: I thought Moonlight was okay, but it's not even in the top five of "black" independent films I've seen from 2016. I enjoyed both Moonlight and Fences as motion pictures, but they both translate better as plays than they do as movies IMIO. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Elsalvajeloco Posted February 21, 2017 Share Posted February 21, 2017 Just now, J.T. said: I enjoyed both Moonlight and Fences as motion pictures, but they both translate better as plays than they do as movies IMIO. Fences was tremendous. On the tad long side, but I think Denzel had me captivated to where I didn't really care about the length. Viola, of course, held her own. For me, Moonlight didn't have that performance and that was half an hour shorter. Mahershala had the best performance, but he's only in the film for at most 1/3 of it (probably because he like 15 other projects to work on that paid better). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
S.K.o.S. Posted February 21, 2017 Share Posted February 21, 2017 43 minutes ago, Elsalvajeloco said: I thought Moonlight was okay, but it's not even in the top five of "black" independent films I've seen from 2016. List please? You mentioned Kicks... the only other one I can think of off the top of my head is Morris From America (which I haven't seen). edit: Just remembered Birth Of A Nation as well. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Elsalvajeloco Posted February 21, 2017 Share Posted February 21, 2017 Just now, S.K.o.S. said: List please? You mentioned Kicks... the only other one I can think of off the top of my head is Morris From America (which I haven't seen). Morris from America, Kicks, The Fits, The Birth of a Nation, and Miles Ahead would be the top 5 if we're talking strictly independent. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
caley Posted February 21, 2017 Share Posted February 21, 2017 9 hours ago, AxB said: Forgot one: I also watched Out of the Furnace which is sort of like if a guy couldn't decide whether to make his 'nobility of the steelworker' tribute to the working man movie, or his hillbilly drug dealer underground fights movie, so he just combined the two scripts and made something that doesn't really hang together too well. There's these two brothers, one of whom went to jail for killing someone by running them over while driving drunk, and the other joined the military and did four tours of Iraq. And then one of them is a responsible hardworking guy, and the other is an idiotic fuck-up who constantly gets mixed up with gangsters and crime. But the twist is the ex-con is the responsible one and the military one is the fuck-up. It wasn't massively derivative, but it doesn't really say or do anything new. But they must have had fun trying to pitch a movie about a traumatised war veteran that features a deer hunting scene. Fantastic cast though, I'll give it that. While i can concede about it being kind of derivative, the whole plotline seriously AFFECTED me. Where he knows his brother died but is trying to find him, frantically hoping he's still out there I remember I went right on Facebook after it was over and sent my brother some stupid message, just to get him to reply so I knew he was okay. I watched Never Back Down: Never Surrender which is a fairly by-the-numbers MMA flick but is still wonderfully entertaining Michael Jai White directs and stars as a down-on-his-luck fighter (I never saw the previous 'Never Back Down' that also features his character) who runs across a succesful MMA fighter (Played by Josh Barnett) who decides to hire him on as a coach while he prepares for a fight against the evil Cesar Braga (Played terrifically by the one and only Nathan Jones). The most staggering thing I took away from this movie is that how this man 49 friggin' years old?!!? 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Technico Support Posted February 22, 2017 Share Posted February 22, 2017 On 2/18/2017 at 8:21 PM, Tabe said: Arrival - another massive disappointment in my winter of discontent. Boring with leaps in logic and plot. And no payoff at the end. Ugh. I just came here to post about Arrival. Same here. Not as maddening as Interstellar but definitely a film made by someone too clever by half, in love with their own "creativity." A coworker just sent me this video where a guy just gushes over it. To me, he only succeeds in proving that the film is a big con. We are supposed to empathize with the main character's sense of loss from the first frame of the film. Her daughter's death informs everything about the character. The fact that it actually hadn't even happened yet just cheapens the whole thing. Put M. Night Shymalan's name on this film and it would be universally reviled. I'm going to have to disagree with @J.T.'s interpretation: Quote When Louse is able to understand the alien language, she also begins to perceive time and space as the aliens do. --- The reason she smiles at the end of the movie is because the knows that the nightmares she had about her child dying were actually her budding ability to see into alternate realities The impression I got was that she didn't gain the ability to understand their language herself. Rather, the aliens gave her that ability (all the talk of them giving us "the weapon") along with the ability to perceive time the way they do. She was a means to an end -- get humans to work together so we can help the aliens in 3000 years. Pretty cut and dried to me. I also never got the impression that the aliens perceive actual different realities, just that they perceive time (and only time) in a non-linear fashion. I don't think there was anything in the movie about different realities. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
J.T. Posted February 22, 2017 Share Posted February 22, 2017 2 hours ago, Technico Support said: I'm going to have to disagree with @J.T.'s interpretation: The impression I got was that she didn't gain the ability to understand their language herself. Rather, the aliens gave her that ability (all the talk of them giving us "the weapon") along with the ability to perceive time the way they do. She was a means to an end -- get humans to work together so we can hep the aliens in 3000 years. Pretty cut and dried to me. I also never got the impression that the aliens perceive actual different realities, just that they perceive time (and only time) in a non-linear fashion. I don't think there was anything in the movie about different realities. It's not really my interpretation; it's straight from the author. I'm cheating a bit in my analysis because I'm using the short story and the movie as points of reference even though there is some divergence. The finer points of the movie are deliberately ambiguous while the tenets of the story are pretty specific, so mileage varies. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Control Posted February 22, 2017 Share Posted February 22, 2017 Do we have to spoiler this shit? Spoiler Yeah I think they're just Tralfamadorians in the sense that they don't see time in a linear fashion. She gains this ability by learning their language, and decides "so it goes." I've also read the original and gotta disagree with the multiple realities interpretation. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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