Movie/TV recommendations

[Ben X]

I finally watched Welcome To The Dollhouse and it's really funny but also a real gut-punch.

 

Meanwhile, I watched the Paul Feig comedy Spy and it's pretty bad. I'm surprised it got such a favourable reaction. My tweets on it:

Things wrong with first 20 minutes of Spy:

1) getting British actor Jude Law to play a James Bond type with an Amerian accent

2) Miranda Hart playing a British character that says "jackass"

3) Jason Statham playing a British character who pronounces 'twat' 'twot' and claims it doesn't mean vagina in England.

4) Essentially being an I Spy remake

5) Not being funny

 

Later:

 

I was right about 4 (though they swapped the character twists) and 5 continued through the whole movie (tho Statham was pretty funny)

Apart from "not funny" Spy's problem is it wants almost every character to be an elite spy yet useless & an arsehole yet someone to root for

[Twig]

I saw Zootopia last night and oh my gosh that's my favorite Disney movie in a long long time. I liked it so very much. D:

[Erkki]

My second viewing of Snowpiercer left a way better impression than the first time. This time I just gave up on the idea that the premise had to make sense and it became very enjoyable.

Also, saw Harakiri today. What a movie. This is really an ageless film.

[brkl]

God, the beginning of Children of Men is a massive gut punch these days. I never thought the film was special, but I'm a third through my second viewing and I'm changing my mind. I also appreciate Clive Owen's acting more, which is strange.

[Gormongous]

God, the beginning of Children of Men is a massive gut punch these days. I never thought the film was special, but I'm a third through my second viewing and I'm changing my mind. I also appreciate Clive Owen's acting more, which is strange.

 

I've always loved how Children of Men seemed completely rooted in the time of its making, yet it's felt more relevant every time I watch it, even a decade later.

 

I also agree that Owen's excellent, maybe beyond his natural ken. He's probably one of the better "high-functioning alcoholic" characters I've seen in recent years, insofar as you don't notice how much he's drinking and how it influences his behavior unless you're looking for it.

[brkl]

Ugh, this movie. I feel a bit sick, it just strikes so close. Although in the plot no-one has been born in 18 years -- as if such a crisis is needed, in my current state of mind I cant imagine this stuff 10 years into the future with just a progression what's going on.

I was already feeling dark this morning ("I should get my story straight for when in 40 years kids will be asking me what the fuck we were thinking"), this was probably not the right choice.

[Vainamoinen]

Ugh, this movie. I feel a bit sick, it just strikes so close. Although in the plot no-one has been born in 18 years -- as if such a crisis is needed, in my current state of mind I cant imagine this stuff 10 years into the future with just a progression what's going on.

I was already feeling dark this morning ("I should get my story straight for when in 40 years kids will be asking me what the fuck we were thinking"), this was probably not the right choice.

 

The movie shows a riotous world of self flagellation cults, terror attacks and fugitive concentration camps. The original book showed a world that's rather silently dying out. Both ideas are terrifying to the core.

And the Children of Men movie, as far removed from the source material as it is, is one of my favorite movies, ever.

[Erkki]

I already saw some amazing movies this weekend and it's not over yet. Godfather (rewatch) is really good in almost every way. High and Low is so beautiful with it's excellent composition and framing and full of suspense with a perfect pace. In the Mood for Love is perhaps the most mesmerizing color movie I've ever seen.

 

I'm slightly worried that by going after my goal of watching the Letterboxd top 100 too agressively, I may be doing myself a disservice by seeing a lot of masterpieces close to one another that I won't have time to digest them. Maybe I should watch more other stuff between...

[Erkki]

PS. Less than 2 years ago there was a film club going on here. I personally didn't participate mostly because it was tied to some american-limited service, but if we could do a brand-name-free film club I would be in. But then again I'm ok with... various levels of legality when obtaining movies to watch, but maybe for many making it tied to one service made it easier as there was one legal place that you knew had all the movies?

[itsamoose]

I caught up on the 100 over the last month or so, and I'm really enjoying it as of the latest season.  At first the show tended to oscillate between fantastic science fiction and overwrought teen drama, but somewhere around the middle of season 2 the relationship stuff seemed to take a more serious and meaningful tone.  I also caught the latest season of daredevil, which I recommend if you haven't caught it yet.  They manage to weave in quite a few story lines without it becoming too cumbersome, and ...

 

Vincent D'onofrio's Kingpin is fantastic.  When it comes to comic book characters in TV and movies, I generally find myself preferring a particular take on a character from a line of the comic, but his Kingpin might be my favorite version of the character so far.

[Erkki]

I saw After Lucia (2012). Well made film about a girl who becomes a victim of school bullying after moving to Mexico City with her father, soon after her mother's accidental death. It was really difficult to watch, though, and made me feel somewhat depressed.

[Patrick R]

PS. Less than 2 years ago there was a film club going on here. I personally didn't participate mostly because it was tied to some american-limited service, but if we could do a brand-name-free film club I would be in. But then again I'm ok with... various levels of legality when obtaining movies to watch, but maybe for many making it tied to one service made it easier as there was one legal place that you knew had all the movies?

We tried doing a Criterion club when Thumbs was sponsored by Hulu+ but that only lasted about 5 films or so.

[Vainamoinen]

Vincent D'onofrio's Kingpin is fantastic.

 

I liked him better as Thor.

[Roderick]

I want to latch onto Children of Man being mentioned here because that's what needs to happen every time it's mentioned: what a great film. Was thinking about it this weekend. It is an amazing piece of cinema, so subtle that, yes, I totally get that you don't understand how awesome it is until the repeat viewing. From the shots and the editing to the world-building which is done exclusively through showing you the disintegrating results of the previous few decades of political decisions. Feel free to connect the dots yourself.

And then King Crimson hits.

[Patrick R]

One of my favorite parts of Children of Men is the symbolism of the ear-ringing. Clive Owen's ears ring after the blast in the coffee shop and again when

 

when Julianne Moore dies

. 

 

Earlier Julianne Moore explains that when your ears ring it's that ear cell dying and afterwards you'll never hear that frequency again.

 

The entire film is a more effective plea for peace than most because it's set up a world where life actually is as precious as we should always treat it. When someone dies, there will be no one to take their place. 

[brkl]

King Crimson is my all-time favourite band, but I don't think it works particularly well in the film.

[namman siggins]

One of my favorite parts of Children of Men is the symbolism of the ear-ringing. Clive Owen's ears ring after the blast in the coffee shop and again when

when Julianne Moore dies

.

Earlier Julianne Moore explains that when your ears ring it's that ear cell dying and afterwards you'll never hear that frequency again.

Whaaa. I never thought of it as this.

I need to re-watch Children of Men. I love that film.

[TheLastBaron]

So I guess last week's Venture Bros episode was the season finale and I totally didn't get that feeling from it. I thought there was going to be another episode this past Sunday and when there wasn't I was really confused because it definitely feels like they're stopping in the middle of something.

[Cleinhun]

Yeah, I felt that too. I think they must have started writing thinking they had more episodes than they did and they ended up with a story that was too long for the time they had. It's really too bad, since aside from that the season was fantastic. The only thing I can think of that might have worked is to cut the season down to a 4-5 episode miniseries that's just about the Blue Morpho arc, so at least it would feel like something concluded, even if some of those side plots were really good on their own. The most frustrating part is that the show's notoriously long production time means we probably won't get another season for at least two years.

[feelthedarkness]

Yeah, they said they thought gargantua 2 was a separate special, but found out later that it counted toward their episode count, so they wound up coming up 2 episodes short. In a separate interview, they had said the really long delays were due to animation studio issues they ironed out. It's still just the two of them writing, so that adds time, but it also keeps things immaculately plotted in terms of interwoven backstory.

 

On the opposite tip of immaculate plotting, I just saw a preview showing of Hardcore Henry, which was outrageous. I'm a sucker for delightful nonsense, and this nonsense spoke to my core my fps preferences. there is even a turret sequence but it is very brief. 

[Patrick R]

I saw a film print of ET tonight and I was just crying and crying and crying. If you haven't seen it since you were a kid there's a whole other world of emotion to it you probably didn't pick up. That movie is incredible.

[thefncrow]

On Venture Bros, there was an interview that talked about the end of this season, and it mentions the confusion about the Gargantua special thing:

 

Can we expect a big Venture Bros. style cliffhanger at the end of the season finale?

Publick: Absolutely not. It will be very disappointing as a finale. [Laughs] The same thing happened to us last season, actually. We didn’t have a big finish last season, because we shot ourselves in the foot. We basically ran out of episodes to get to the point of the story that we wanted to do a blowout ending for. So that’s why you ended up with the Gargantua special, the space special last season. That story would have been the hour-long or two-part finale of Season 5, but we hit our 10-episode mark before we got to it. So we did a special that bridged the two seasons. And the same thing is happening at this point.

The story we’re writing now would have been the season finale, but we didn’t get to it. We weren’t ready for it when it came time to write the last two scripts. And there was actually a little confusion for a while as to whether or not the Gargantua special counted against our 10-episode order, so we were writing like four different stories at the same time not knowing whether we had two scripts left or four. When it turned out we only had two, we were like, “Alright, I guess we should do our finale.” And then we thought, “No, we haven’t really earned it yet. We need to flesh out this Monarch arc a little more....” So we made a judgement call and wrote two other stories that we were very excited about.

What excited you about the ideas you ended up using for these last two episodes?
Publick: We hadn’t quite cracked the complex finale story yet, but we had a lot of sudden inspiration for two scripts that eventually became the [March 13] episode and the one that’s going to be on the next week. We wrote these stories to fit in between some of the stories that had already been written, because we just felt like we didn’t hit a couple of plot points enough. We had two big ideas that were fun and not pre-planned. They were just inspirations that hit us, and sometimes when you’re in the throes of production and you’re just doing a million things at once and you’re exhausted and you’re behind schedule and everything, you grab the one that is exciting that you want to start writing right now, as opposed to going, “No, we have to write this other one.”

 

Publick: We would have made more if we could, and we would have planned more carefully if we could have [Laughs]. But, you know, had we done the finale, there’s two episodes from this season they never would have gotten, and I think they’re two of the strongest ones.
Hammer: Yeah, I like this season, regardless of how it begins or ends. We just didn’t have enough episodes to really wrap it up the way we wanted. But I’d rather have it dangle there than have it be poorly wrapped up.

 

It's too bad, but I think I'm on board with that.  Those last two episodes are really good and it would be a shame for them to force a finale they haven't quite gotten figured out rather than produce those episodes.

 

They say that what was planned for the finale will currently be the start of next season instead of doing it as a special.

[twmac]

Watched John Wick after being told by people I trust that it is a solid action film that will entertain. Well it wasn't.

 

The plot is paper thin, for obvious reasons, gangsters kill someone precious to John Wick so he murders them all. The thing is, if the action sequences were good then that would be all that it needed. The action scenes are really poorly shot and there is no sense of space or how it is that John Wick is moving through it. An example is a shoot out amongst some parked cars. The cinematographer just doesn't seem to know what to do and it all feels flat. All the guy had to do was copy Heat and it would have been okay but instead he copies Batman Begins (camera so close to the action that it feels amateurish) and ends up being a yawn fest.

 

I really don't know why people rate this film when there are better, dumb, recent action films. American Ultra, The Equalizer and Kingsman are all better in the genre.

[osmosisch]

God, the beginning of Children of Men is a massive gut punch these days. I never thought the film was special, but I'm a third through my second viewing and I'm changing my mind. I also appreciate Clive Owen's acting more, which is strange.

It's been one of my favourite films since I first saw it.

 

Besides the plot stuff, one of the things I found very noteworthy is how it seemed to me obviously strongly influenced by Half-life 2.

[Woodfella]

Saw Midnight Special was pretty disappointed overalll but it has some good moments, like the opening a lot. I was looking forward to this because I love Take Shelter.