20-10s 20-10s General Pimping Thread

[J.T.]

1 minute ago, Chaos said:

It's one that I want to revisit for this. I haven't watched it since opening weekend in theaters, and I liked it, but I didn't love it. Also, if I remember it correctly in the end, you're not really rooting for either character.

You kinda hate everyone at the end.  This left me with a bad taste at first, but now I realize that was the whole point.  Gone Girl works better if you look at it in terms of a fable or an allegory rather than an event driven story.

[Chaos]

1 minute ago, J.T. said:

You kinda hate everyone at the end.  This left me with a bad taste at first, but now I realize that was the whole point.  Gone Girl works better if you look at it in terms of a fable or an allegory rather than an event driven story.

For as great as Fincher can be, he has that incredible ability to leave you cold in a way that maybe impacts how you felt about an initial viewing.

[J.T.]

4 minutes ago, Chaos said:

For as great as Fincher can be, he has that incredible ability to leave you cold in a way that maybe impacts how you felt about an initial viewing.

He did as well as he could with what he had to work with.  I remember being a bit underwhelmed when I read the novel.  Fincher did the prose more than a little justice.

[caley]

Rewatches

Enough Said: This is such a lovely little movie.  Julia Louis-Dreyfus plays a divorced mom whose daughter is about to leave for college, who meets cute with Albert (James Gandolfini) whose a divorced father whose daughter is about to leave for college.  It's so refreshing to see each actor play off each and actually play "nice" people for a change.  The little "twist" is almost TOO cute but everything is so well-written and lovable and funny that I just go with it.  Great supporting cast, too (Toni Collette, Catherine Keener, Ben Falcone).  I love this one.

 

Guardians of the Galaxy: Was reading James Gunn's tweets from the online/quarantine watch-party for this and it made me want to give it another go (After I basically wore it out for the first year or two it was on local cable TV).  I still love it.  Knowing now that Marvel's only real edict was that he had to have Thanos in the film, makes the universe he created (adapted) here all that much more impressive.  I still really love it.  I imagine if you were interested, you would have already seen it by now so I'm not going to bore you with a clip or plot description.

Captain America: The Winter Soldier: I only have three Marvel movies ear-marked for my list at this point (Though I'm weighing throwing one of the last two Avengers flicks, or maybe Captain Marvel in the lower echelons of my list, depending on space) and the above, and this one are two of them.  Two years ago this was on TV ALL the time, and I seemed to end up watching part of it every time.  My favourite part is the middle section, when he and Widow become fugitives, I think that's when it becomes the most fun and has the best action sequences.  I'm a little cold on the climax, in all honesty,  I don't find the big fight on the giant aircrafts all that compelling compared to what came before it.  That sounds like I don't like it, which isn't true.  It's probably my #2 or #3 Marvel movie.  Chris Evans has this weird, charisma-less charisma where he's really compelling in the role, without being all that exciting, if that makes any sense?

[Contentious C]

I think I've crossed about a dozen movies & rewatches off my absurdly long list - getting to 100 will be a snap and I'll probably have to jettison a lot of things I like.  But, if this is a pimping thread, then I've only seen one movie so far that actually deserves it: in part because it's gone nearly without mention and in part because it's just that fucking good.

Phoenix, dir: Christian Petzold, 2014

This bit of German mind-fuckery almost doesn't even feel like a film; aside from the numerous sets and locations, it has all the intimacy and tension of something on stage.  It's, to say the least, slow and a little bit preposterous to begin with, but, as it develops, little bits and pieces of story fall into your lap and a sense of dread and worry starts gnawing at you.  For the last 25 minutes or so, the emotional intensity of the story hits a different gear.  It's difficult to know exactly what's going to happen, and it feels like all the possible choices are terrible, but this comes through with what might be the greatest ending I have ever seen in any film.  It's a Mother of All Gut Punches along the lines of Roy Batty's coda in Blade Runner: just beautiful and ironic and perfectly executed.  Nina Hoss probably put on one of the three or four greatest acting performances I've seen from this decade.  I've left a lot of space in my list so far - I've been slotting in things I want to include at the 5's and then building around those as a way of assembling the list a little cleaner and quicker - but this isn't likely to go lower than # 30 for me.  It might angle higher if some of the stuff I get around to watching doesn't hit me like this did.

And you can watch this!  It's definitely available on The Criterion Channel and on IFC Films Unlimited (easy enough to get a 30-day free trial if you have Amazon Prime), maybe elsewhere, too.

[John from Cincinnati]

3 minutes ago, Contentious C said:

Phoenix, dir: Christian Petzold, 2014

And you can watch this!  It's definitely available on The Criterion Channel and on IFC Films Unlimited (easy enough to get a 30-day free trial if you have Amazon Prime), maybe elsewhere, too.

It's on my local library's streaming service. Thanks!

[RIPPA]

Phoenix was one of the prizes a few years ago in the Blockbuster poll - don't know who eventually ended up with it.

 

[JonnyLaw]

I just finished Sorry to Bother You, and my only question is, what the fuck?

[EVA]

ON THE LIST

BLADE RUNNER 2049–My apparent Denis Villeneuve retrospective continues.  I feel like this was criminally under appreciated when it came out (not unlike the original, I guess?).  Villeneuve just slams every scene of this movie with an obscene amount of ideas.  He takes no scenes off, which is almost unheard of with these type of big budget movies, where the size of the story and scope of the production inevitably creates a sense of “We’re just trying to get through this stuff to get to the big set pieces you came to see.”  Every scene in the Wallace building is just an absolute wonder of set/lighting design.  Having Roger Deakins on set probably helps.

Then-unknown Ana de Armas as Joi is the heart and soul of the movie, and it was probably a mistake to write her out of the story as early as they did.  Between this and KNIVES OUT, she demonstrates an uncanny ability to generate instant empathy.

I appreciated that this film 1) was confident in itself to hold off on introducing Deckard until late , and 2) tries to respect the ambiguity regarding Deckard’s human/replicant status, so as not to take away from that debate surrounding the original.

NOT ON THE LIST

IT (either chapter)—there are some good moments and creepy imagery scattered across the 18 combined hours of these movies, but man, are they a drag to get through.  The scares all follow the same pattern and wear out their welcome quickly.  Bill Skarsgard gives a truly unique and iconic performance as Pennywise that accomplishes the difficult task of escaping Tim Curry’s shadow, but the movies around him are nothing to write home about.  I’m convinced this hit at the absolute right time, in the middle of STRANGER THINGS mania, so that STRANGER THINGS with way more F-bombs was a huge selling point.

Stealth MVP of the whole thing is James Ransone as Eddie in the second one.  Underrated actor of the last 10-20 years.  Always shows up big when you call him off the bench.  The only person in these movies to seem legitimately SCARED.

[caley]

Watched 

The Dark Knight Returns: which wasn't bad.  The politics in this are a LITTLE creaky and clearly are a product of their time that maybe didn't age so well.  I think Superman was kinda underdeveloped here, like I get why he's Regan's lapdog but I think they maybe could've expanded a little bit on how he got there.  I also didn't particularly care for the Joker, his story or his voicing.  But I liked all the stuff with new Robin, the mutants street gang and there's one great moment with Batman riding a horse that's on par with any heroic moment of Batman in the movies.  I liked it, but didn't love it.

Hostiles: which was pretty good..  Beautiful cinematography, incredible score and all kinds of great actors (Christian Bale, Rosamund Pike, Timothee Chalamet, Jesse Plemons, Rory Cochrane, Wes Studi, Adam Beach, Q'Orianka Kilcher and Ben Foster). Bale plays a particularly enthusiastic Indian-fighter who is enlisted to return a dying Chief (Studi) to his ancestral lands.  They run across a woman (Pike) who has been attacked by Comanche and bring her along and run into lots of problems along the way. I read that Bale and the director argued over the ending which I understand

I'm not sure if his "happy" ending was earned after all the horrible stuff he did.  Like, I get that he had turned it around but the whole movie hammering on a point about how badly the white men treated the Native Americans, ends with all the Native Americans dead except their kid who gets to be raised by white parents.  I thought maybe if anyone earned a happy ending, save Pike, it was at LEAST ONE of the poor Cheyenne folk!  But the optimist in me was happy that someone got some happiness and it didn't end in complete DEATH like so many modern westerns.

But, I did like.  There's some extraordinarily beautiful shots and I never would have thought of using Max Richter to score a western but it works really well.

[The Natural]

On 3/30/2020 at 5:54 AM, OctopusCinema said:

CINEMA DERP by OctopusCinema - vol 1

Carol (Haynes, 2015)

I won’t go into the plot too much, so no need for spoilers. Rooney Mara and Cate Blanchett casually develop a relationship, in the 1950’s. Both performances are done with such subtlety. The acting blends together finely with phenomenal cinematography.

Carol was shot on Super 16mm which gives the film it's extra grain. Capturing the warmth of a 50's Macy’s ad while still maintaining such an emotionally obtainable look to the characters. From the the toy store Mara's character works at to the delicate lighting on Blanchett's face, Carol was fabulously shot. 

 

On 4/1/2020 at 7:32 AM, The Natural said:

@OctopusCinema: Carol (2015) is on my first time viewings list.

Out of my first time viewings for the project to date, Carol (2005) is the best movie I've seen so far. The story, the message it sends that love is love, the performances by Cate Blanchett/Rooney Mara, how the film looks and Todd Haynes direction. Suffice to say it will rank highly on my ballot.

[The Natural]

On 4/9/2020 at 6:49 AM, caley said:

Guardians of the Galaxy: Was reading James Gunn's tweets from the online/quarantine watch-party for this and it made me want to give it another go (After I basically wore it out for the first year or two it was on local cable TV).  I still love it.  Knowing now that Marvel's only real edict was that he had to have Thanos in the film, makes the universe he created (adapted) here all that much more impressive.  I still really love it.  I imagine if you were interested, you would have already seen it by now so I'm not going to bore you with a clip or plot description.

Captain America: The Winter Soldier: I only have three Marvel movies ear-marked for my list at this point (Though I'm weighing throwing one of the last two Avengers flicks, or maybe Captain Marvel in the lower echelons of my list, depending on space) and the above, and this one are two of them.  Two years ago this was on TV ALL the time, and I seemed to end up watching part of it every time.  My favourite part is the middle section, when he and Widow become fugitives, I think that's when it becomes the most fun and has the best action sequences.  I'm a little cold on the climax, in all honesty,  I don't find the big fight on the giant aircrafts all that compelling compared to what came before it.  That sounds like I don't like it, which isn't true.  It's probably my #2 or #3 Marvel movie.  Chris Evans has this weird, charisma-less charisma where he's really compelling in the role, without being all that exciting, if that makes any sense?

Yeah, I don't like either Guardians of the Galaxy movies: sci-fi/cosmic rarely appeals to me and I went into the screening with my best friend forgetting to tell me about the Mum stuff in the first film, my Mum only passed a few weeks before that so it really upset my Dad and I.

Out of the MCU movies, I have Captain America: The Winter Soldier (2014) in second place behind Avengers Assemble (2012).  I'll be voting for it. The action set pieces are great, the Captain himself, Black Widow, the Falcon and the Winter Solider get their best outings. There's a twist which has huge ramifications to the entire MCU. I enjoyed the climax more than you, the personal stake has risen as Captain America now knows who the Winter Soldier really is and:

 

The aforementioned S.H.I.E.L.D. infiltration by HYDRA. Who can you trust?

On 4/22/2020 at 11:38 PM, caley said:

Watched 

The Dark Knight Returns: which wasn't bad.  The politics in this are a LITTLE creaky and clearly are a product of their time that maybe didn't age so well.  I think Superman was kinda underdeveloped here, like I get why he's Regan's lapdog but I think they maybe could've expanded a little bit on how he got there.  I also didn't particularly care for the Joker, his story or his voicing.  But I liked all the stuff with new Robin, the mutants street gang and there's one great moment with Batman riding a horse that's on par with any heroic moment of Batman in the movies.  I liked it, but didn't love it.

Batman: The Dark Knight Returns (2012-2013) is one of my favourite Batman films and made me appreciate the book more even though I've always had it in my top five best Batman books. Have to disagree with you on the Joker, I liked his story and the voice work by Michael Emerson. I've always preferred the first half of the book/film to the second as it's smaller scale focusing more on Bruce Wayne comic back as Batman than throwing Joker/Superman in. That's not to dismiss said second part though.

Edited May 1, 2020 by The Natural

[Contentious C]

I bought some things, rented this and that, and signed up for some crap and have opinions on a slew of films I never saw before.

Not on the list, not ever.

Knives Out (rented)

Joker (rented)

Silence (Crackle?  Tubi?  One of those)

I might go so far as to say Knives Out was the best of these three, and that isn't really saying a whole lot.  Most of the fun was seeing Chris Evans hamming it up and Ana de Armas being charming as Hell.  The rest was...good?  But excellent cinema?  No.  Rian Johnson may be the most overhyped director of the last 15 years; at the very least, he should quit navel-gazing and hand his scripts off to someone else, instead of writing & directing, but alas, that isn't going to happen.  Silence was 2h45min I wish I had back.  There was nothing about it that felt like a new or necessary addition; it was just Extruded Scorsese.  I guess I'll have more "theme parks" on my list than Marty's films.

And Joker...ugh.  I liked the first half of this better when I saw it the first two times, when it was Taxi Driver and/or The King of Comedy.  Also, why the Hell is Joker portrayed as a gullible half-wit for such a big chunk of the movie, and why is murder the only thing that somehow helps him wise up to the world?  I mean, really?  It's just...ugh. The whole "I have a condition" thing is not only kind of insulting, it also guts the notion of who the Joker is supposed to be.  Arthur Fleck as a bright guy who keeps getting screwed by people who have no moral compass?  Sure.  Arthur Fleck as a decent guy who tries to keep his decency at all costs until he breaks?  That works too.  But this Tourette's-lite wilting flower who's so easily duped repeatedly?  Egad. It's a total failure to actually get the character right in any meaningful way whatsoever.  And, had this movie been any less popular than it was, had it been not about Joker (I mean, let's face, it *isn't* about Joker with the crap job it did, but...), I think it could have been to mental health issues what The Silence of the Lambs was to transgendered folk. 

Nicole Kidman Does Not Make This List

Queen of the Desert

Rabbit Hole (both IFC channel)

The first one Werner Herzog doing a biopic, which was sort of a "what the fuck?" moment, but it's fairly average as far as those go -- and people familiar with Gertrude Bell have said it doesn't do her justice either. Nice, pretty, and totally inessential.  Rabbit Hole is definitely the better movie, but it's an exemplar of the BoJack Horseman joke about Aaron Eckhart, and it's weird (though not surprising) to see Miles Teller (in his first film role, no less) act circles around Nicole Kidman in their scenes together.

If I can't think of anything else to add...

Fast Color (Hulu)

Boyhood

Two Days, One Night (both IFC)

Upgrade (HBO)

I kind of liked Upgrade for just being goofy, frenetic, stupid fun, and a part of me almost wants to sneak this into a top 100.  I figured 91-100 are basically statement picks anyway, so that's how I plan on using them, and I could see sticking it there.  But, let's face it, it's pretty much Death Wish with prettier visuals. And I can think of better, similar films to use those picks on.  Fast Color is touching and lovely and thought-provoking, but it also doesn't really seem to *be* about anything that shows up on its surface.  Sure, it's about grief, and motherhood, and racism, and trauma, but why does that have to come in a super-powers wrapper?  Who the Hell knows; I'm not sure Julia Hart knows. 

Two Days, One Night felt a little too tightly focused on Marion Cotillard in a "Flair carrying a broomstick" kind of way; my favorite scene in the whole movie was when everyone is gathered for the vote, so I guess I just wasn't blown away by the one-woman performance.  Plus, there's at least one plot element 2/3s of the way through that gets glossed over and moved on from far too quickly.  Boyhood was great at times, particularly the first hour and the last couple of acts, and the rest of the time felt like a gimmick.  I'm not really sure why this got *quite* so much hype for Best Picture that year, though, granted, I haven't seen Birdman yet.  But I have seen three of the other nominees (Budapest, Imitation Game, Whiplash), and I would have chosen any of them over it.  But I guess Boyhood could sneak on.

Back-end contenders

Kumiko, the Treasure Hunter (Kanopy)

The Black Power Mixtape 1967-1975 (IFC)

Two different films, I'm not sure there are, but they both feel a little light with respect to the depth of their subject matter.  There are certainly powerful moments in both, but I came away from each one thinking I wanted more, or that I hadn't been shown something that would have helped pull them together just a little bit better.  That said, the former film is a wonderful little meditation on loneliness, isolation, and the impersonal nature of modern society - you know, all that shit we took for granted until 6 weeks ago.  And the latter film has one of my favorite cuts I've ever seen in a movie: one narrator talks about African-Americans coming back from Vietnam and falling into the same old traps in the early 70s...and right on cue, it shifts gears, and Lewis Farrakhan shows up for the first time in the film. 

Lead Pipe Locks

45 Years (IFC)

The Florida Project (Kanopy)

Whiplash

I'll skip pimping something like Parasite, which I did see for the first time, because I don't have anything remotely original to say about how fantastic it was.  But, as for the rest of these...I keep wanting to find a way to slot Logan in my top 20, but then I keep seeing films like these, and I realize I just can't bring myself to do it.  Plus, it'll end up in a fair spot due to the Kid A effect - i.e., it's not actually that fucking amazing, but literally everyone has seen it and has an opinion -- so it's not like I really have to worry about putting it 30th or just outside.  Actually, none of these are really top 20 yet, but if nothing else comes up, these will get bumped upward before the submission date.  Locks for the list no matter what.

Charlotte Rampling has to have the worst luck in the world, because she found a role that was perfect for her and totally deserved an Oscar for 45 Years, but of course that was Brie Larson's year, so, wasn't happening.  The Florida Project is one of those movies that probably shouldn't have worked, but it did.  I really hope the many first-time actors in it get a chance to have careers as actors moving forward.  And Whiplash...Jesus tapdancing Christ.  I didn't really want to rent it, but it was streaming nowhere, so I just bought instead, and I'm so glad I did.  It's like Good Will Hunting filtered through a funhouse mirror, and I'd really have to sit down and think whether there are two superior acting performances that feed off each other so much and so well as Teller & Simmons did.  Hepburn and O'Toole in The Lion in Winter?  Maybe?  I'll save the rest of what I've been thinking for writing up my list down the road.  But, if you haven't, WATCH THESE.

[EVA]

 

THE NICE GUYS (Shane Black, 2016)—Black cashes in his Iron Man chips to make a $100 million 70’s detective noir starring Russell Crowe and Ryan Gosling as mismatched partners who hate each other.  It is amazing and a miracle that this film exists.  It is astonishingly good.  This dialogue is fantastic, and Crowe and Gosling chew up and spit out every available inch of scenery.  It also has the tightest script for an action/comedy since HOT FUZZ.  Every little detail matters.  Every frame rewards your attention.  This will probably still make my Top 50 for the decade.  Should be required viewing.  It’s on HBO services right now.

Too bad that “$100 million 70’s detective noir” turned out to be as bad of an investment in the 2016 cinema marketplace as you might have imagined, because the ending sets it up to be an ongoing series of films, and we desperately needed THAT a hell of a lot more than we needed whatever the fuck ill-conceived shared cinematic universes Hollywood has continued to shit out ever since.

Edited May 3, 2020 by EVA

[Contentious C]

I just watched this last night.  3 things struck me about it.

1. Ryan Gosling is a far better comedic actor than I would have guessed; he should probably do more things that venture that direction.

2. Shane Black has written himself into a category he shares with Quentin Tarantino - not because this film was good (I mean, it was, but not as good as EVA is claiming), but because this felt back-dated primarily to get away with a lot of jokes that wouldn't fly if it were set today, much like Tarantino seems to like the Civil War era to drop as many n-bombs as possible. 

There's also the shared category of, "They only know how to write one type of movie", I suppose, but QT can write, say, one-and-a-half types of movie, so, he squeaks his way past, depending on how generous you feel.

3. If this were a Top 100 Unappreciated films of the last decade, it'd be a top 10 or top 5 candidate.  Top 100 Best?  Ehhhhhhhhhh.

[Curt McGirt]

I liked it enough to buy it. That's pretty rare with me and (at the time) new movies. Really should pull it out again.

[Contentious C]

Here's another slew of stuff I knocked out since the last reading, and some stuff I forgot about.  All Netflix unless otherwise specified.

Nope.

The Ballad of Buster Scruggs

Velvet Buzzsaw

Only God Forgives

Granted, I've only watched the first 30 minutes of the last movie, but it's safe to say it won't be on my list anywhere.  It's one of the instances of "Ryan Gosling Stares at an Object Past the Camera", except it's one of the ones that fails as acting, whereas Blade Runner 2049 and Drive were both excellent.  Velvet Buzzsaw was really engaging for the first 40 minutes and then turns into totally mediocre horror dreck.  And if Buster had been as hilarious as the first five minutes or as well-shot/compelling as the last section the entire way through, it'd be on there.  But it's all over the map, and not really the way it's intended to be.

Excellent performance, Off-kilter Message

Okja

Dallas Buyers Club

There's a lot to like about both of these, particularly the acting, but I think they both miss the mark badly on their wider themes.  Okja seems to go all-in on weapons-grade anti-meat-eating, and hey, some part of me gets it, but I think it misses the point about people in modern society.  It's not that people who work in animal husbandry or run meat processing plants are crueler than everyone else; it's that "everyone else" in Western society has the luxury of being so far removed from that daily sense of what it's like to snuff out another life, that these scenes can seem shocking.  But make no mistake; if we had to revert to some 19th-century style agrarian life, where it was on individual families to slaughter their own animals again, well...the world wouldn't run out of bacon anytime soon.  And Okja is more effective at convincing itself otherwise than it is at convincing an audience.  Dallas Buyers Club is pretty darn good start to finish, but it also peddles some high-quality woo-woo that undercuts the things it's trying to say.  Leave it to Hollywood.  I guess one of these could sneak on, and I could see why someone would like them enough, but... eh.

Still Percolating

Finding Vivian Maier (IFC Channel)

Enemy

Silver Linings Playbook

I think the first, a documentary about an eccentric photographer/hoarder who happened to also be a goddamned artistic grandmaster, is pretty good, but probably could have been done even better with someone else at the helm, but it's still pretty intriguing if not particularly well put together.  The second movie is...very yellow?  I don't know.  I love Denis Villeneuve; I'll have at least 2 of his movies in my top 20 and possibly a couple more on the list after some rewatches.  This could sneak on, I suppose, but...I don't know.  A story about a douchebag doesn't take on greater meaning because you couch it in symbolism and name-drop Hegel and make things yellow - I think it just pushes you from douchebag, singular, to douchecanoe, plural.  Luckily it's short, in case I feel like rewatching.  Also, Sarah Gadon.

Silver Linings Playbook is really good, especially in the first hour when they give Cooper & Lawrence more time to clash and crackle, but damn if it isn't David O. Russell's third-best movie of the decade, and Villeneuve might legit be the only director from the 2010s who deserves 3+ spots on a list like this.

Heartbreakers, List-makers

Only Lovers Left Alive (Starz)

Blue Jay

Portrait of a Lady on Fire (Hulu)

I've been trying to find a way to watch Only Lovers for a while, since anything with Tom Hiddleston & Tilda Swinton is pretty much going to be my jam, but I don't like buying Blu-rays sight unseen unless I have no other choice.  I'm glad this didn't let me down.  The plot, such as it is, is pretty pedestrian, and there are a couple of minutes towards the end that seem a little out of place, but the rest of it is fun and stylish and electric and funny in ways a lot of films just can't muster.  It seems clear that everyone who worked on this was having fun doing it, and it comes through nicely. I do kinda wish it had delved more into Adam's music, though.

I suppose after asking whether there were two more entwined performances than those of the leads in Whiplash, I could have answered with Blue Jay, but there are only 3 speaking roles in the whole fucking movie, so I don't think it actually qualifies.  But goddamn...Sarah Paulson is one of those actors I really want to like more, but I swear, every single time she does a more widely-seen role, I end up hating her for doing them.  But then movies like this remind you why she's so good in the first place.  Just an ocean of contradictions.  And Mark Duplass pulls off one of the real high-wire acts you'll see, too, veering from clearly-faking-okayness to likeable to pathetic to furious to lovably goofy at the bat of an eye. 

And maybe the last one is recency bias, because I literally just finished watching it before writing this, but holy crap, is it ever just a beautiful-looking film.  The lighting, the detail, the peeling paint on doors, the way cloth looks...it just looks *better* than so many other movies, more alive, less flat and distant.  It could have been 2 hours of making armpit noises - instead of 20 seconds of it, watch it and you'll see what I mean - and it might still be worthy of inclusion just because it looks so good.  Oh, and it's also really well acted and well-written.  At first I thought the "wistful memory" bookends were going to be lame, especially considering how well the body of the story is executed and how well it closes out, but the ending of the film really hits hard and redeemed that choice in spades. 

Edited May 9, 2020 by Contentious C

[EVA]

Confession time:  Saturday night, I watched MOONLIGHT for the first time.

I was blown away and haven’t been able to stop thinking about it since.  Absolute masterpiece.  Feel like I could write 5,000 words about it.  You could write a whole essay just about the role that food plays in it.

Easy Top 5 pick for me.  Maybe even higher...

[RIPPA]

Because of all the hype I was like "Well clearly after I watch Wonder Woman that will go on my list."

Then I watched it

Yeah... Wonder Woman is not going on my list

[odessasteps]

Fine, only great if you are grading the DCU movies one a curve. 

[RIPPA]

My wife hated it - “fine” is a good way of describing it for me

[EVA]

Much like BLACK PANTHER, I think WONDER WOMAN “greatness” lies more in its cultural significance than its artistic merit. Like, I don’t really feel compelled to watch Wonder Woman anymore.  There are a couple of striking sequences that hold up (No Man’s Land, specifically), but the overall plot is kind of...eh.  And, again, similar to Black Panther, the climactic battle is really flat.  But when we’re talking about art, cultural significance matters quite a lot, too!

And, man, when this movie came out in 2017, it was a cultural thunderbolt that forced change in the franchise film business.  Moreover, it was simultaneously a perfect antidote to both the grey, joyless posturing of the DCU *and* the candy-colored, soulless, self-obsessed MCU product.  It was a big-budget comic movie that dared to be both fun *and* about something other than itself.  It took big swings.  It didn’t hit them all, but at least it took them.  It was refreshing.

Edited May 11, 2020 by EVA

[Contentious C]

I'd rather include - in fact, almost certainly will include - the first time they made Wonder Woman, when it was Captain America: The First Avenger.

I almost feel bad I've managed to find space for at least 8 superhero/comic book movies on my list so far.  Once you really pump the brakes and re-examine them, "grading on a curve" really is the best way to explain the phenomenon.  Star Wars Writ Large.  Well, larger.

Edited May 11, 2020 by Contentious C

[EVA]

They definitely cribbed the form of THE FIRST AVENGER, no doubt.  But I would also argue that they improved upon it.  The first Cap film is stellar right up until the point that he really becomes Captain America, the war hero...then it montages through everything you want to see before abruptly skipping to the end.  As a result, Wonder Woman’s multi-ethnic crew of cohorts are much better developed than Cap’s (which is to say “developed at all”), and Diana/Steve is a far more emotionally resonant relationship than Steve/Bucky in that first film, which is weird, when you consider how important Bucky becomes to the MCU in later films.   (It probably helps that Steve Trevor is basically Bucky and Peggy, the sidekick and the love interest, in one character, which makes the script tighter.  TFA had to make choices between the two, and largely chose Peggy.). 

I’m not even sure the plot of TFA really earns Cap’s sacrifice at the end.  He goes in the ice because that’s where he has to go for everything else to happen.  Conversely,  Steve’s sacrifice in WW feels like the only choice to make in that situation, and his reasons are sound (they even do the gimmick where Diana’s ears are ringing, so she can’t understand his plan and, therefore, can’t stop him).

Edited May 11, 2020 by EVA

[Contentious C]

Hey look, I've watched wayyyy too many movies yet again.

Big Pile of Nopes and Probably Nots

The Cave of Forgotten Dreams (IFC)

Killer Joe (Hulu)

Hara-Kiri: Death of a Samurai (Kanopy)

Hotel Artemis (Amazon)

Crimson Peak (HBO)

Midnight Special (HBO)

Loving (HBO)

A bunch of these I actually watched a while ago but didn't mention.  Crimson Peak is probably del Toro's worst film besides Mimic, which at least is a send-up of other horror movies; this one is just boring.  And seeing Takashi Miike try to do a straight-ahead movie was a disappointing exercise.  I mean, why remake *that*?  I like both Midnight Special and Loving, and if this were 200 movies, they'd be on there, but neither one is quite outstanding enough. Cave actually has me beginning to believe Klaus Kinski's side of things, that Herzog actually can't make a great movie without him; it's interesting and should be a topic that's engrossing as Hell, but just...doesn't quite hit the mark.  You wonder, though, if they'd been allowed to film today with 10 years' worth of improved tech, would the movie be better?  Maybe.  Hotel Artemis is not a waste of 90 minutes, but every single character is something you've seen before, just repurposed and retooled into a pile of two-dimensionally-portrayed action cutouts.  It needed 10 more minutes and a real heart with some real stakes.

And then there's Killer Joe, right at the center of the McConnaissance...and... what in the name of fuck.  It's The Wizard of Oz and Rumpelstiltskin jammed into a Texas trailer park, and it's exactly as barking mad as that sounds.  But, good movie?  Noooooooo.  I don't even know how anyone let William Friedkin, still coasting on a 40-year-old legacy, get a hold of this.

Still Thinking

Meek's Cutoff

If Beale Street Could Talk

Captain Fantastic (all Hulu)

Wildlife (Showtime)

Beale St. and Captain will probably make the tail ends of my list, because they were just good enough.  The biggest problem with the former is that the narrative is left up to arguably the least interesting actor in the whole film.  The rest is beautiful.  Liked seeing Brian Tyree Henry in a role where there's some meat on its bones, rather than just him playing Big Jokey Bear like he's done pretty much every other time I've seen him.  The latter is basically elements of Good Will Hunting and The Village filtered through Little Miss Sunshine, which shouldn't work - and is fairly preposterous and pretentious as a result - but it hangs together despite some plot holes.  Takes some kind of movie to play grave robbing for comedy.

Meek's Cutoff...I don't know.  The acting is wonderful, the direction is better, but that ending.  I mean, that's what an ending like that is *supposed* to do - make you dwell on it - but...hnnn.  It's hard to feel like rewarding it.  But even harder to ignore it or dismiss it out of hand, especially since it's the rare ending to a film that's honest.

I'm actually not done watching Wildlife yet, but I'm halfway through and it's really well-done to this point.  Probably something that would otherwise slip under the radar, but Carey Mulligan is pretty goddamned great in it.  It's definitely worth a look.  For my part, it honestly hits a little close to home, since it's so similar to what it was like watching my parents get divorced and go their separate ways at the exact same age.

Definitely Making It

The Cabin in the Woods

Free Solo

Booksmart (all Hulu)

Nightcrawler (rental)

I keep thinking to myself Michael Fassbender was the best actor of the 2010s, then I keep watching Jake Gyllenhaal and having to rethink this.  And I really can't stand looking at his goofy goddamn face. I mean, I don't hate him - I reserve film hate for Lars von Trier only - but it's an instant dislike I have to overcome every time I see his name in the credits.  But holy *shit* is Nightcrawler good.  I just wish I'd watched this while it was still free on Netflix years ago.  There are some things that keep it from being top-tier for the decade, like the way the music is, at times, a little jarring and hokey and disruptive, and I didn't care for Riz Ahmed or how his character was handled.  But the rest is just aces.  Having said that, if we're comparing best performances for Fassbender & Gyllenhaal against one another, I still prefer Shame to this by a wide margin.

Cabin has probably been talked about enough for the last however long; it's fun and feels like an easy thing to slot into the bottom 10 because it deserves some recognition but isn't truly "great".  But, I gotta say, if it *reeeeeeeally* wanted to be a parody of horror movies, it ought to have a shitty sequel by now, shouldn't it? 

Booksmart is one of the funniest movies I've watched recently, and, even though it's as formulaic as can be, it most certainly is not the Superbad for this generation, because it's a fuckload better than Superbad.  Probably the best non-John Hughes teen movie; probably better than a chunk of those.  Really well acted and well-executed, but it *is* a formula movie, so it's bottom-end of my list. 

Free Solo is the best documentary I've watched so far during this process; I expect there are better ones I'll get to soon, but if the point of a movie is to elicit feelings and reactions, then this is just a Hell of a movie.  As difficult to watch as it is to look away, and knowing the ending does basically nothing to dampen how it feels.

Edited December 15, 2023 by Contentious C