Last Movie Watched Thread

One of his best is Dead Ringers. It's not so heavy on the body horror (though what's there is pretty great) but it's still dark and tense and surprisingly moving. Jeremy Irons is amazing in it.

For bonkers body horror and mutant insects having sex with typewriters, try Naked Lunch.

During the end credits the woman next to me sang along with the Simon and Garfunkel song. It was pretty incredible.

This is the best review I could expect for the film. Thank you for that. 

Two Days, One Night

Not the super powerful life-changing inspirational experience I expected based on the breathless AVC/Dissolve writeups. Nevertheless, I loved it. So true. It's almost not a movie - just a truth. Marion Cotillard gives one of the best depictions of depression I've ever seen, heard, or read.

My friend said something interesting about the movie: "It's like a salad. I don't mean that in an insulting way. It doesn't have all the fancy bells and whistles or CGI or deep-fried things or steak or whatever. It just says, we're going to tell a story, and it tells the story. It's very simple. Instead of having a big heavy soundtrack, you have the sounds of real life. It's natural, like a salad. I don't know why I'm thinking about it in terms of food."

And, I said, it's nourishing, too. Maybe I didn't cry or feel totally uplifted, but I do feel better having seen Two Days, One Night.

I haven't seen Wild, but I wanted to ask if you've seen Election and/or Vanity Fair? Because I thought Witherspoon was excellent in those.

Just got back from Two Days, One Night. It's a fantastic film, and Marion Cotillard gives an extraordinary performance. In a fair world, she would win Best Actress. Her work is so beautifully naturalistic and evocative, but it never feels like a showy performance. Her character feels real. It's some of the very best acting I've seen thus far this decade. Certainly the best film and performance I've seen this year.

One thing I loved was how beautifully it captured Sandra's (Cotillard) depression. It wasn't melodramatic, filled with impassioned crying fits and Oscar-bait monologues. She is a woman who just radiates sadness and constantly seemed like she's in a haze. But, her quiet strength makes her triumphs all the more powerful. It's not an easy film to watch, but it's one where when it reaches the conclusion and Cotillard smiles (no, I won't spoil it and say why), it feels earned. 

Exquisite work, all around. 

I just watched Calvary. Its Wikipedia summary - which I usually find to be a pretty good rundown of a film - does not do it anywhere near enough justice. Just, holy shit. Should have gotten way more recognition. A pretty incredible, if heartwrenching, film.

Three excellent and wildly different movies:

Gone Girl: I was surprised how much I liked this one, considering how much the consensus that I got from people was "good, but not Fincher's best." Because of the absolutely asinine conversation about whether the film was misogynistic or not, I couldn't help but think about the film in that way, debating endlessly in my mind whether this character or that one was a shrill caricature or maybe a secretly feminist dissection of those same tropes. Luckily, though, by about the halfway point, I just stopped caring about whether it fit into some narrow ideological agenda and just started to appreciate the movie, which is gorgeous. The acting is pretty universally praise-worthy, especially Rosamund Pike's Amy, who is so much more complex and fascinating of a character than detractors make out. Honestly, I'd take 10 Amys over another tired "strong female character"

Ernest and Celestine: I was also surprised by just how much I loved this movie. The premise, about a mouse befriending a bear in a society that is sharply divided between the two, is such that it would have been so, so easy for this movie to fall into well-meaning, childish nothingness, but I found every second a beautifully animated delight. It is more distinctly a kid's film than most of the animated movies that attract critical attention like it, but that's actually one of its distinct strength as opposed to a weakness. It felt like wrapping a soft, warm blanket of adorableness around myself, while simultaneously having some serious substance and even some genuine pathos. And the watercolor animation style...it's just gorgeous, and well applied. I watched the subtitled version of this, but I plan on rewatching the dub sometime, since they got an impressive cadre of talent (including Lauren Bacall and Forest Whitaker) to act here.

12 Angry Men: Finally got around to catching this one, a pretty big lacuna in my film knowledge. I think there are some scenes that are staged a little too theatrically for my tastes (I have a similar "problem" with Rope), but that's honestly a minor complaint, especially since a majority of the film does take great advantage of what you can do with a film as opposed to a stage play. The camera is constantly moving around the deliberation room, and I'm pretty sure that every juror gets at least one intense close-up, often when the conversation that you're listening to is between two different jurors, and you can just read the juror's thoughts on his face. I also appreciate its subtle but clear anti-death penalty stance, on the grounds that I've always thought was the strongest; very few murder cases leave no doubt about whether the guy on trial actually did it, and I don't think it's an unreasonable standard to say that someone shouldn't be put to death based on anything short of the absolute certainty that is incredibly elusive if not impossible in the vast majority of real-life murder cases.

I missed yesterday's Forgotbuster (that layout makes it super easy to forget to skim down). So I'll just say this: I watched Wanted during my post-X-Men DOFP high and I was marathoning a bunch of James McAvoy movies. I turned it off after 20-30 minutes. Reading the top comments on The Dissolve, most people are eh on the film. I can't imagine what the comic is like because very rarely do I watch a film that I find extremely offensive as a female. I like to think I'm rational about gender roles in films and any discomfort I have can be justified. I think Sin City is greatly offensive to women but to be fair that's a movie that is all about the style and the substance just happens to be crap. There is no style or substance for me in Wanted. It is an misanthropic 13 year-old boy's wet dream and that dream has nothing for me to watch.

Also crimes against Chris Pratt and James McAvoy: 1. You took two of the most charismatic and charming actors and made them just godawful despicable people. 2. McAvoy's American accent should not be heard. He has a wonderful Scottish voice (or English), and that is all the world needs from him.

Never again Wanted.

Twelve Monkeys(1995) I love me some Terry Gilliam, but on rewatch I don't love this one as much. Performances are still great and no matter what it will be one of the more interesting films I will ever see, but I can't love the art style that much. It feels very dated, the specific type of grime you would only get from the 90s. The romance between the two main characters doesn't work for me, at least on a sincere level. I just could never buy Railly hooking up with this grimey kinda kid like person. Out of Stockholm syndrome though? Yes. And that is how I choose to view it as. Im more than fine believing she wants to save the world, but not fall in love. I also wish they played up whether it was real or all just a guy being crazy. I haven't read iif Gilliam was going for an ambiguous feel, but I wish he would have, or at least done more with that. But all together it is still a good movie and better than you know what.

Speed Racer is a tremendously underrated movie.

Rewatched The Grand Budapest Hotel. What a spectacular film.I need to own it, that one is part of the canon.

I rewatched Furious 6, which I think is the best Fast and Furious film still. It really exemplifies the way in which the series is simultaneously incredibly genuine, but also totally self-aware in its corniness. Like the opening "theme song" moment that ends with them all walking towards the camera like the intro to a TV show, or there's all these cheesy moments of banter, and you totally know that the crew and Vin are 100% behind the family themes, but at the same time there's no possible way anyone could take all the ridiculousness seriously and they know it. I love when The Rock walks in the room and Tyrese says something along the lines of "Why does it smell like baby oil all of a sudden?" Or the constant dialogue mentions to how they were just construction workers before, and now they're fighting ex-special forces and evil mercenaries. It's very clearly self-aware, and they always have been to a degree. There's still an emphasis on practical effects over CGI, which isn't to say that the CGI isn't used frequently, but it's less obtrusive and saved for moments where you're actually okay with it as opposed to finding it annoying or immersion breaking. Lots of great fights and races, tons of cars are destroyed, and Gina Carano is in it. I'm kinda bummed she wont be in the next one, same with Joe Taslim, but they got Tony Jaa for 7, which is pretty cool. He needs a comeback.

The only reason I would ever want to become a professor or something would be so I could just tell people about how great action and horror films are. I totally made an imaginary syllabus for a hypothetical course on action films >_>

I watched the doc Kids for Cash. I don't know why, but for some reason that seemed like the only appealing thing on Netflix today. It was very good, albeit depressing. I think I more or less believe the judge really was just duped. I do feel bad for him, although his ideals on how to prevent juvenile crime are clearly misguided