AstaerethIn the belly of the beastRegistered Userregular
My favorite moment in Brick is all of them.
Also I rewatched Raising Arizona the other day for the second time. I still feel mostly the same--it's not very funny and the best part by far is the ten minute cold open--but there are some very interesting thematics going on there. The movie really takes a dive when Goodman and his partner hijack the story, though, and doesn't really recover until the last couple of scenes. So it's a pretty up and down experience, IMO.
I think I have this weird reaction to Coen bros comedies where I'm not really laughing very much, but I like the stories and ideas so much on a serious level that it doesn't really matter.
Also I rewatched Raising Arizona the other day for the second time. I still feel mostly the same--it's not very funny and the best part by far is the ten minute cold open--but there are some very interesting thematics going on there. The movie really takes a dive when Goodman and his partner hijack the story, though, and doesn't really recover until the last couple of scenes. So it's a pretty up and down experience, IMO.
I think I have this weird reaction to Coen bros comedies where I'm not really laughing very much, but I like the stories and ideas so much on a serious level that it doesn't really matter.
"Turn to the right." Gets me every time.
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TexiKenDammit!That fish really got me!Registered Userregular
A Life Less Ordinary, I liked it! I thought I saw this a decade ago but I guess it was some other 90's too cool for school movie, because this was actually just the right amount of wacky, and I miss this Danny Boyle. Framing a love story around two angels actually trying to bring Obi Wan and Charlie's Angel #1 together by any means necessary is just enough of an opener into how weird some of the story becomes, but doesn't keep doing wacky just for wacky. They just push and prod a bit to make one of the weirdest meet cutes, m i rite gang?
Plus it's super great acting from everyone, McGregor showed he's got charisma in a way that hinges less on the WTFness way that Trainspotting did (and which the prequels never allowed him to exude), This might be Diaz's second best movie after Charlie's Angels, Holly Hunter and Delroy Lindo as the angels was superb and The Tuc shows up too! Gotta love The Tuc. Hell, I had to wikipedia it but that was a frigging scrawny Timothy Elephant in the movie for a minute too.
It was just a really nice movie that took a normal setup and played with it just enough to be entertaining while not thinking it's the greatest thing ever. There are only two real missteps here: McGregor and Diaz both have terrible hairstyles (Diaz has mom hair that shows why short hair is the worst, McGregor's looks like it was ripped off of Garth's dog from Wayne's World), and the ending has some badly put together looking at the camera waxing philosophical blah dee blah that would have worked much better in a standard two camera setup. But then we had claymation during the credits so it made up for that.
It's on Netflix, and now decreed as one of the few good 90's movies.
Also I rewatched Raising Arizona the other day for the second time. I still feel mostly the same--it's not very funny and the best part by far is the ten minute cold open--but there are some very interesting thematics going on there. The movie really takes a dive when Goodman and his partner hijack the story, though, and doesn't really recover until the last couple of scenes. So it's a pretty up and down experience, IMO.
I think I have this weird reaction to Coen bros comedies where I'm not really laughing very much, but I like the stories and ideas so much on a serious level that it doesn't really matter.
It's a great movie, of course. I was surprised when the 'this is a work of fiction' disclaimer showed up at the end - the movie has such a feeling of documentary-like realism - it feels very true. But then wikipedia says:
The story, though fictional, is loosely based on the real-life murder spree of Charles Starkweather and his girlfriend, Caril Ann Fugate, in 1958, though such a basis was not acknowledged when the film was released.
Watched The Witch, with all the praise it's been getting I was expecting to love it. I didn't.
The story is dumb, the characters are dumb, and I'm not sure if it even had a message or a purpose. The only thing that even stood out was the creepy as fuck scene in the beginning with The Witch smearing the babies blood all over her body, and the shot of the crow in the Moon after that. Almost everything else was incredibly boring, since there was no emotional investment in the characters and even until the last frame I was confused about what the main girl's deal was. Maybe I missed something in the dialogue. All I got from it was a story about a covern of Witches fucking with a family for fun and eventually killing all of them until they convince the oldest daughter to join them. And she joined them because... she hated her family, I guess? Even the brother? I don't know. It wasn't even particularly scary to me, so when the credits rolled I was just left feeling like it was an utterly pointless film that relied on old tropes. I figured with a title like The Witch they would do something original or cool with a classic Witch story, but nope.
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cj iwakuraThe Rhythm RegentBears The Name FreedomRegistered Userregular
Watched The Witch, with all the praise it's been getting I was expecting to love it. I didn't.
The story is dumb, the characters are dumb, and I'm not sure if it even had a message or a purpose. The only thing that even stood out was the creepy as fuck scene in the beginning with The Witch smearing the babies blood all over her body, and the shot of the crow in the Moon after that. Almost everything else was incredibly boring, since there was no emotional investment in the characters and even until the last frame I was confused about what the main girl's deal was. Maybe I missed something in the dialogue. All I got from it was a story about a covern of Witches fucking with a family for fun and eventually killing all of them until they convince the oldest daughter to join them. And she joined them because... she hated her family, I guess? Even the brother? I don't know. It wasn't even particularly scary to me, so when the credits rolled I was just left feeling like it was an utterly pointless film that relied on old tropes. I figured with a title like The Witch they would do something original or cool with a classic Witch story, but nope.
It wasn't that she hated her family. She had nothing left. It was either that or succumb to despair and die alone in the woods. She was a broken woman by that point, and her family's (ironic) lack of faith in her is what drove her to that point.
Watched The Witch, with all the praise it's been getting I was expecting to love it. I didn't.
The story is dumb, the characters are dumb, and I'm not sure if it even had a message or a purpose. The only thing that even stood out was the creepy as fuck scene in the beginning with The Witch smearing the babies blood all over her body, and the shot of the crow in the Moon after that. Almost everything else was incredibly boring, since there was no emotional investment in the characters and even until the last frame I was confused about what the main girl's deal was. Maybe I missed something in the dialogue. All I got from it was a story about a covern of Witches fucking with a family for fun and eventually killing all of them until they convince the oldest daughter to join them. And she joined them because... she hated her family, I guess? Even the brother? I don't know. It wasn't even particularly scary to me, so when the credits rolled I was just left feeling like it was an utterly pointless film that relied on old tropes. I figured with a title like The Witch they would do something original or cool with a classic Witch story, but nope.
It wasn't that she hated her family. She had nothing left. It was either that or succumb to despair and die alone in the woods. She was a broken woman by that point, and her family's (ironic) lack of faith in her is what drove her to that point.
It seems like the witch(es) killing her family drove her to that point. She didn't have any agency in anything that was happening, and I had no emotional attachment to her. The movie didn't attempt to characterize her much at all, or at least that's what I got out of it. Maybe some people really responded to her, but to me that's what the movie was really lacking. If the characters were more fleshed out it could have been much better, but instead it all felt extremely superficial.
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TexiKenDammit!That fish really got me!Registered Userregular
Hey Bartender! (Showtime), good documentary about the rise of cocktail bars in the past twenty years, essentially going from a brief overview of the prohibition era to the loss of cocktails and bars being more like Moe's where it's all about the dank and just beers on tap, and how apparently one old fashioned bartender who used to work the Rainbow Room at 30 Rock essentially revitalized cocktails for the modern age in America, and how he sort of spread the resurgence around, with things like the best movie ever Cocktail being a Hollywood version of this.
It interviews a lot of the best bartenders along with some of the alcohol distributor marketers while showing how being a bartender has actually turned from something you do when you need a job in between audition gigs or moving to a new town to actually being a lucrative career. It does get a bit up its ass in celebrating things like the repeal of prohibition because yes that's just as important than V-E or V-J day shave your stupid handlebar mustache and celebrating some of those more obnoxious type of bars where they have no signs or any indication of their location and exist solely because the bartender from 30 Rock knew the guy from a party or something and told people where it was, but this is at least contrasted by a guy who basically runs a normal Cheers style bar and has slowly watched his money dry up and his marriage fall apart yet he still wants to keep the bar because he's known as the bar owner in town.
It'll probably show up on Netflix soon, but if you have Showtime give it a whirl, one of the better niche documentaries without being too braggadocio.
Neighbors 2 is getting surprisingly great reviews.
I may have to check it out. What's the opinion of the first one?
It's not a film I ever would have looked at but I saw the trailer the last time I was at the movies and it was lough out loud funny, which is always a good sign.
TexiKenDammit!That fish really got me!Registered Userregular
edited May 2016
Neighbors was one of the better Rogen comedies, not as good as This Is the End but much better than The Night Before. It definitely is an R movie and not just because it says fuck tee hee hee curse word, there's penisessss and rude swollen titties too. It actually does deliver a decent ending too with an actual character arc for the antagonist.
The thing about the movie is that it kind of peaked the whole "slo-mo dance montage party" thing that every raunchy comedy does these days, and the trailers for the sequel look like the same thing, only lol it's a sorority instead of a fraternity, here's Not Rebel Wilson too!
edit: Neighbors is also much better than The Interview as well, forgot that movie even existed.
AstaerethIn the belly of the beastRegistered Userregular
New movie review of mine up at the Kraken. This time I'm talking about how excellent Before Sunrise is. Before rewatching it, I hadn't realized how deeply it had informed my worldview when I was a teenager, but man. So close to home, such nostalgia, wow.
Neighbors is definitely enjoyable. Everyone in that movie carries their weight, it has a lot of fun subverting college fraternity tropes, and Rose Byrne is tops.
Also, I just watched The Night Before, and pretty much liked it. Not the best Rogan vehicle, but lots of funny, and JGL is great in everything always, so there you go.
I submitted an entry to Lego Ideas, and if 10,000 people support me, it'll be turned into an actual Lego set!If you'd like to see and support my submission, follow this link.
New movie review of mine up at the Kraken. This time I'm talking about how excellent Before Sunrise is. Before rewatching it, I hadn't realized how deeply it had informed my worldview when I was a teenager, but man. So close to home, such nostalgia, wow.
Curious to read the review. I watched the first two films only around 30, and I wasn't a huge fan of the first one, feeling that I'd missed the sweet spot when to see it. I like the second one a lot - and actively came to dislike the third. I wonder whether any of them would feel different on a rewatch.
"Nothing is gonna save us forever but a lot of things can save us today." - Night in the Woods
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TexiKenDammit!That fish really got me!Registered Userregular
For The Emperor (Netflix), decent enough korean noir thriller, but really just cribbing certain parts of the story from various other, superior korean thrillers. Not bad, and probably a better movie if this was your first experience with the genre, but the through line seems to basically be knocking off New World with a Legolas Reefin' infusion, as the lead character feels heavily inspired by Gosling from Drive. Baseball pitcher (who is good at everything and rarely speaks) is caught rigging games he plays for money, gets busted, then basically works for the loan sharks he threw games for full-time, rising up the ranks with his give no shit attitude while pining for the top prostitute of a local companion bar place. Then there's some twists and turns, and hey it's actually the bad guy from New World playing the antagonist here too.
The best parts is the actual mentorship of the loan shark top guy to the upstart, but then it feels the need to have really badly acted sex scenes where the actors seem to be embarrassed that rude titties and dude butt is being onscreen, followed up with some fight/knife scenes that just go through the motions for all the korean mob movies. You add in some deliberately out of place editing to infuse artsy fartsyness and an ending ripped right out of The Yellow Sea, and it's got a lot of ticks against it. But it's mostly competently made, the lead actor is trying too hard to be aloof but everyone else does a good job (it's basically the same mobsters from all the other mob movies), and it does move at a consistently brisk pace, many parts I expected to happen later end sooner, which was nice.
But again, more a recommendation for fans of korean mob movies, but who isn't these days? North Koreans, that's who!
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jungleroomxIt's never too many graves, it's always not enough shovelsRegistered Userregular
Saw Green Inferno.
Jesus christ Roth. If we could manage any more stereotypes and racist bullshit and pack it into one film, we'd be watching Birth of a Nation.
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TexiKenDammit!That fish really got me!Registered Userregular
Speaking of bad movies, im watching Prometheus. Its so bad, this is the dumbest spaceship crew ever put on film.
Every single thing these people do is the stupidest option they can think of. There is not a single sensible thing these people do and they all deserve the horrible deaths they rightfully earn
I would say that future generations of space-faring humans will watch this film as an exercise in what not to do when travelling in space.
The only slight positive is Michael Fassbender's portrayal of a creepy murder-bot, which is offset by no-one in this crew of idiots noticing his creepiness and how he will pretty obviously start murdering them for shits and giggles at some point in the near future.
Come to think of it, I think the quality of acting in Prometheus is inversely proportional to two factors:
1) How much time the character spends off the ship
2) How early in the film the character dies
I just realized, were the aliens going to straight up conquer humanity until they saw how completely stupid we were and them hybridding with us is the only way they could think to keep us dying from stupid?
Come to think of it, I think the quality of acting in Prometheus is inversely proportional to two factors:
1) How much time the character spends off the ship
2) How early in the film the character dies
can we just put that movie behind us forever?
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TexiKenDammit!That fish really got me!Registered Userregular
I just like how Benedict Wong seems to be in every movie that involves relatively normal space travel.
Maybe reading the book would have helped understand some of this. It was clearly meant to be a metaphor on class, but the movie didn't do a great job exploring that, and the most important part in the movie - the transition from sanity to complete, utter insanity and chaos - was done in a fucking montage. If I'm supposed to give a shit about any of these characters, the director needs to show how and why they descend into such madness, but he didn't. There was just a bunch of parties and scenes of dialogue that didn't really do much to set up the switch being flipped in such an outrageous way. Everyone went from more or less talking and behaving like human beings, to behaving like deranged lunatic asylum patients. The whole last 45 minutes was a joke and I didn't care about anything that was happening, the movie just lost itself. A shame because the beginning was pretty strong and atmospheric.
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BeezelThere was no agreement little morsel..Registered Userregular
Prometheus just serves as an ever present reminder to me of just how great the final script of Alien really was. The roles felt lived in and told you a lot about each character without going into exhaustive detail.
Prometheus just serves as an ever present reminder to me of just how great the final script of Alien really was. The roles felt lived in and told you a lot about each character without going into exhaustive detail.
It's amazing it's the same guy who directed by both movies.
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BeezelThere was no agreement little morsel..Registered Userregular
Prometheus just serves as an ever present reminder to me of just how great the final script of Alien really was. The roles felt lived in and told you a lot about each character without going into exhaustive detail.
It's sad it's the same guy who directed by both movies.
Prometheus just serves as an ever present reminder to me of just how great the final script of Alien really was. The roles felt lived in and told you a lot about each character without going into exhaustive detail.
It's amazing it's the same guy who directed by both movies.
You don't hit a home run at every at bat. He's done some great work. He's got a lot of watchable but not memorable stuff as well. Promephus is still nowhere near as bad as The Counselor. Not even close.
Prometheus just serves as an ever present reminder to me of just how great the final script of Alien really was. The roles felt lived in and told you a lot about each character without going into exhaustive detail.
It's amazing it's the same guy who directed by both movies.
You don't hit a home run at every at bat. He's done some great work. He's got a lot of watchable but not memorable stuff as well. Promephus is still nowhere near as bad as The Counselor. Not even close.
I'll take The Counselor over Prometheus, any day.
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Dark Raven XLaugh hard, run fast,be kindRegistered Userregular
I needed a Counselor after Prometheus hoooooo
Been watching a lot of Louis Theroux docs lately. He's such a mellow guy, and the subjects of his early episodes are just slightly odd folks too. When Louis Met Paul And Debbie was great.
Prometheus just serves as an ever present reminder to me of just how great the final script of Alien really was. The roles felt lived in and told you a lot about each character without going into exhaustive detail.
It's amazing it's the same guy who directed by both movies.
Not as amazing when you look at what the screenwriters of each film also worked on.
Maybe reading the book would have helped understand some of this. It was clearly meant to be a metaphor on class, but the movie didn't do a great job exploring that, and the most important part in the movie - the transition from sanity to complete, utter insanity and chaos - was done in a fucking montage. If I'm supposed to give a shit about any of these characters, the director needs to show how and why they descend into such madness, but he didn't. There was just a bunch of parties and scenes of dialogue that didn't really do much to set up the switch being flipped in such an outrageous way. Everyone went from more or less talking and behaving like human beings, to behaving like deranged lunatic asylum patients. The whole last 45 minutes was a joke and I didn't care about anything that was happening, the movie just lost itself. A shame because the beginning was pretty strong and atmospheric.
oh man, Highrise... what a boring movie. I mean holy shit, it makes Rubber seem thrilling.
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Also I rewatched Raising Arizona the other day for the second time. I still feel mostly the same--it's not very funny and the best part by far is the ten minute cold open--but there are some very interesting thematics going on there. The movie really takes a dive when Goodman and his partner hijack the story, though, and doesn't really recover until the last couple of scenes. So it's a pretty up and down experience, IMO.
I think I have this weird reaction to Coen bros comedies where I'm not really laughing very much, but I like the stories and ideas so much on a serious level that it doesn't really matter.
"Turn to the right." Gets me every time.
Plus it's super great acting from everyone, McGregor showed he's got charisma in a way that hinges less on the WTFness way that Trainspotting did (and which the prequels never allowed him to exude), This might be Diaz's second best movie after Charlie's Angels, Holly Hunter and Delroy Lindo as the angels was superb and The Tuc shows up too! Gotta love The Tuc. Hell, I had to wikipedia it but that was a frigging scrawny Timothy Elephant in the movie for a minute too.
It was just a really nice movie that took a normal setup and played with it just enough to be entertaining while not thinking it's the greatest thing ever. There are only two real missteps here: McGregor and Diaz both have terrible hairstyles (Diaz has mom hair that shows why short hair is the worst, McGregor's looks like it was ripped off of Garth's dog from Wayne's World), and the ending has some badly put together looking at the camera waxing philosophical blah dee blah that would have worked much better in a standard two camera setup. But then we had claymation during the credits so it made up for that.
It's on Netflix, and now decreed as one of the few good 90's movies.
Thems decent folk?
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It's a great movie, of course. I was surprised when the 'this is a work of fiction' disclaimer showed up at the end - the movie has such a feeling of documentary-like realism - it feels very true. But then wikipedia says:
It interviews a lot of the best bartenders along with some of the alcohol distributor marketers while showing how being a bartender has actually turned from something you do when you need a job in between audition gigs or moving to a new town to actually being a lucrative career. It does get a bit up its ass in celebrating things like the repeal of prohibition because yes that's just as important than V-E or V-J day shave your stupid handlebar mustache and celebrating some of those more obnoxious type of bars where they have no signs or any indication of their location and exist solely because the bartender from 30 Rock knew the guy from a party or something and told people where it was, but this is at least contrasted by a guy who basically runs a normal Cheers style bar and has slowly watched his money dry up and his marriage fall apart yet he still wants to keep the bar because he's known as the bar owner in town.
It'll probably show up on Netflix soon, but if you have Showtime give it a whirl, one of the better niche documentaries without being too braggadocio.
I may have to check it out. What's the opinion of the first one?
It's not a film I ever would have looked at but I saw the trailer the last time I was at the movies and it was lough out loud funny, which is always a good sign.
The thing about the movie is that it kind of peaked the whole "slo-mo dance montage party" thing that every raunchy comedy does these days, and the trailers for the sequel look like the same thing, only lol it's a sorority instead of a fraternity, here's Not Rebel Wilson too!
edit: Neighbors is also much better than The Interview as well, forgot that movie even existed.
Also, I just watched The Night Before, and pretty much liked it. Not the best Rogan vehicle, but lots of funny, and JGL is great in everything always, so there you go.
"Nothing is gonna save us forever but a lot of things can save us today." - Night in the Woods
The best parts is the actual mentorship of the loan shark top guy to the upstart, but then it feels the need to have really badly acted sex scenes where the actors seem to be embarrassed that rude titties and dude butt is being onscreen, followed up with some fight/knife scenes that just go through the motions for all the korean mob movies. You add in some deliberately out of place editing to infuse artsy fartsyness and an ending ripped right out of The Yellow Sea, and it's got a lot of ticks against it. But it's mostly competently made, the lead actor is trying too hard to be aloof but everyone else does a good job (it's basically the same mobsters from all the other mob movies), and it does move at a consistently brisk pace, many parts I expected to happen later end sooner, which was nice.
But again, more a recommendation for fans of korean mob movies, but who isn't these days? North Koreans, that's who!
Jesus christ Roth. If we could manage any more stereotypes and racist bullshit and pack it into one film, we'd be watching Birth of a Nation.
I figured it would be bad, but this is... it's even worse than the previews let it on to be.
Rock Band DLC | GW:OttW - arrcd | WLD - Thortar
Every single thing these people do is the stupidest option they can think of. There is not a single sensible thing these people do and they all deserve the horrible deaths they rightfully earn
I would say that future generations of space-faring humans will watch this film as an exercise in what not to do when travelling in space.
The only slight positive is Michael Fassbender's portrayal of a creepy murder-bot, which is offset by no-one in this crew of idiots noticing his creepiness and how he will pretty obviously start murdering them for shits and giggles at some point in the near future.
1) How much time the character spends off the ship
2) How early in the film the character dies
Rock Band DLC | GW:OttW - arrcd | WLD - Thortar
To which I would say it's proof the criteria works.
Rock Band DLC | GW:OttW - arrcd | WLD - Thortar
the first cabin fever is all he has.
can we just put that movie behind us forever?
*runs into a scary, clearly hostile alien creature and decides to pet it*
"...only mights and maybes."
It's amazing it's the same guy who directed by both movies.
"...only mights and maybes."
You don't hit a home run at every at bat. He's done some great work. He's got a lot of watchable but not memorable stuff as well. Promephus is still nowhere near as bad as The Counselor. Not even close.
I'll take The Counselor over Prometheus, any day.
Been watching a lot of Louis Theroux docs lately. He's such a mellow guy, and the subjects of his early episodes are just slightly odd folks too. When Louis Met Paul And Debbie was great.
Not as amazing when you look at what the screenwriters of each film also worked on.
Rock Band DLC | GW:OttW - arrcd | WLD - Thortar
oh man, Highrise... what a boring movie. I mean holy shit, it makes Rubber seem thrilling.