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I really didn't like Phantom Thread. It's an incredibly tedious movie with a boring great artist abusive to his muse plot, only to have a twist in the final 10 minutes that completely changes what it's about. Why PTA hides subtext necessary for most of the film to be at all interesting is beyond me. But I'm way in the minority on PTA and actually find him to often be a really bad screenwriter, so if you are a super-fan maybe you'll still like it. It seems to be getting a lot of really positive response. I think it's easily his worst film.

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My new local cinema, it turns out, does $10 movie tickets, which is cheap enough that I can go to the movies without thinking about it.

 

Coco was pretty good! I mean, its inventiveness is basically confined to its art style and it's been a long time since Pixar have been willing to take risks with their storytelling but it was very sweet. I liked how much the movie implies, so that if you can basically anticipate all the beats you can still get a lot from the subtext.

 

I'm not sure how I feel about Darkest Hour: it's extremely good at ratcheting up the tension, such that you're fairly sure Winston Churchill is going to get dumped at leader just after being installed and all those people at Dunkirk are going to die. The problem is that I'm not entirely sure the movie pulled it off. Gary Oldman's pretty damn good as Churchill, though - there's enough nuance in his performance that you can believe everything that people say about Churchill in the movie - that he's a egotistical maniac; that he's deeply unpleasant; that he's a charming orator; that he's a thoughtful and kind man. (Edit: I think it's a fatal strike against the movie that one of the pivotal scenes showing Churchill finding his way forward is entirely fabricated. It felt suspiciously pat while watching and I figured the filmmakers had embellished a real incident to make their emotional climax work, because surely they wouldn't dare just make up a scene this transparently manipulative? Reader, they did dare.)

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I also saw Swinging Safari, an Australian film its posters bill as 'The Castle for a new generation', which strikes me as being incredibly inaccurate:

  • Given how much the movie relies on nostalgic references to 1970s Australia, it's very clearly for Gen-X, which is basically the same generation The Castle was for
  • The Castle was a very specific story about a somewhat caricatured battler family, whereas this is trying to be much more sweeping and diffuse
  • To be compared to The Castle, it would have to be funny

I suspect the film was strangled in the edit; there's several sequences that I can see working but just aren't funny on screen, and there's lots of cuts to things you might remember from an Australian childhood that are either alleged jokes or scene setting. It pinballs between tones without either finding consistency or taking advantage of the whiplash; this is a film that contains a beached whale, a failed swingers' night, a schoolkid riot, a pathetic adult prank war and a pet funeral. There are some things that work; the pet funeral has some jokes that land, and there's a well-executed punchline involving a horny teenage girl propositioning increasingly unlikely targets, but the bulk of it really doesn't.

 

Spoiler

And yes, they blow up the whale and the pieces cover the town, and somehow they even managed to flub this.

 

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I thought I'd finally get a VPN so I could watch FilmStruck without moving to the US (I used Opera's free built-in VPN before, but that no longer allows selecting country). So I saw this VPN comparison on PCmag.com and though it would be safe to go for the winner, shelled out for 2 years because it was several times cheaper than per month, it turns out VPNs don't fucking work that simply... :( Firstly, I couldn't connect with Firefox, I could only start watching one of two movies I tried with Chrome, and then when I came back to actually start watching, FilmStruck told me there were too many connections, I'm assuming because other people are also using that VPN to use FilmStruck. I hope I'll get my money back... Yet another time to curse the international content restriction industrial complex.

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Thanks for the suggestion, I'll inquire...

 

BTW I saw The Shape of Water at a surprise screening this week, and I think I might recommend it to people who have not seen

 

Splash. I haven't seen Splash for maybe 10 years, but I think it had almost the exact same major plot points, just gender-swapped, and del Toro's styling on top. I think I might recommend this over Splash, to someone who hasn't seen either one, but I'm not entirely sure... It's technically superior probably, but actually kind of makes me want to rewatch Splash to see how it compares with both fresh in the memory.

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The End of the Fucking World on Netflix is above average. About 17 year old kids of whom one is extremely dark (plans to kill the other), and who don't fit in and decide to run away. It is different from anything I've seen lately, and well made, but probably not super memorable in the end.

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Call Me by Your Name was great, I think. Initially I wasn't even digging it that much, but it kind of got better and better by the end, and when the credits rolled it was already my favourite movie from last year. Will probably watch The Killing of a Sacred Deer tomorrow.

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I'm curious if anyone else has seen Bellflower? Here's what I thought on Letterboxd:

 

I have no idea how to rate this movie, therefore I will not.

 

On a technical level, there are some weird free-lensing or tilting lens effects, which can be cool, but I'd have to give it another watch to see if they really make sense. I like to play with lens tilting in my photography as well, and I think with similar lenses as they used, but it has to be justified. There's also some weirdness going on with colors, but I don't understand that area well enough to comment. It doesn't look bad. However, in several scenes we can see sensor dust and possibly crap on the lens. Is this excusable? I don't know, maybe it is, if they really built custom cameras for this low-budget movie, maybe they couldn't keep the sensors clean, especially if free-lensing.

 

From the story perspective, it seems full of machismo and misogyny, but I'm not sure what the director is saying about that. I actually get the feeling that he is pretty sympathetic with the horrible main characters or even identifies with Woodrow (whom he plays). For a fan of Mad Max 2: The Road Warrior, Woodrow and Aiden's obsession with the film was kind of interesting, but the fact that they look to Lord Humungus for inspiration is telling of their world-view.

 

The whole plot seems like Woodrow's macho power fantasy, in a way similar to computer games like Far Cry 3.

The editing is done in such a way that he starts out as a wimp but becomes a raving madman by the end. He has a bestie Aiden who builds stuff for him, admires him, and doesn't mind if he steals his crush, while Woodrow hardly seems to do any of the work in their projects; after Woodrow's girlfriend cheats on him, another woman just happens to fall for him for no apparent reason; he beats up bigger guys than himself, and drives bad-ass vehicles. At the beginning he kind of starts as a shy almost wimpish guy, but near the end we learn that he is or has become something completely different, a violent aggressor in most conflict situations.

The motivations of the characters are pretty unclear, which makes it seem even more like a power fantasy where things happen just because the plot says so.

 

The acting is not bad, and overall it seems like a competently shot movie, but there is some weird editing, which I wasn't sure if it was intentional at first, but the ending makes me think it was. There is some non-linearity and possibly alternative timelines, although I wasn't entirely sure. The non-linearity gets hinted at in the beginning, but starts to be introduced more and more towards the end. I'm not sure if this helps reading the movie or makes it more interesting. The genre is kind of like mumblecore with action and much darker themes. Anyway, overall, it's an interesting debut, and I want to see the next efforts from the director, but I doubt that he would have anything interesting to say about the human condition.

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I saw Darkest Hour. I'm not particularly thrilled about the movie, but I think Gary Oldman's performance is unforgettable. I don't know what Winston Churchill was like for real, but somewhere in the second half of the movie, I had forgotten that I was watching an actor performing a role, I thought I was watching Winston Churchill. And of course the makeup and hair is great too.

 

But then again, this might be unfair to actors who are not playing historic figures. I probably forget that I'm watching actors for many movies about regular people. And this time I just noticed because it was one of the most known figures of history.

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A few people recommended the Orville in the Star Trek thread, and while I was initially sceptical I've ended up enjoying it a lot. It genuinely feels like a successor to TNG-era Star Trek in many ways, and it's fun to have an optimistic sci fi show about adventuring around the galaxy, running into strange problems and unknown cultures again.

 

The caveat to this show is certainly the humour. It's Seth MacFarlane, so you probably know broadly what you're getting here and how you'll feel about it. What I'll say is that even if you don't generally like his humour, it's not overwhelming here (especially after the first couple of episodes), and is more on the benign office comedy of awkwardness side of things.

 

Sometimes the writing is a bit on the nose, and the full force alien-species-as-allegories style doesn't necessarily hold up as well as an adult in 2018 as it did when I was a kid in the 90s, but I still genuinely recommend it for the spirit of it. It's about exploring and learning, even if it's sometimes a little pat or oversimplified. It's about a future where humanity, while flawed, is basically good. Turns out I've been wanting to imagine that again.

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I was deeply sceptical of The Orville, but judging from comments it seems like basically what's happened is Seth McFarlane ripped off Star Trek right when people basically wanted a real Star Trek, and it took the writers a little while to work out that they could get away with just making ersatz Star Trek instead of having to justify it with Seth McFarlane Humour.

 

I'm still deeply sceptical of The Orville, now that I read back that last sentence! At least I'm glad it was better at reading the room than Star Trek Discovery was.

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A couple of noteworthy films I saw recently:

 

Sausage Party is kind of trash, but it is weird, interesting sort of trash. I can't quite understand how it got made, not because it's crude but because it just isn't very well written. So the jokes are kind of one-note, and they often fall flat - but the grim existential implications of the scenario were enough to keep me entertained for its 90 minute duration. Certainly it carries off its horribleness with a certain amount of flair. Perhaps the nicest thing I can say about it is that it made me think a lot about Nier: Automata.

 

I had no idea what to expect from Personal Shopper before I saw it, but what a peculiar, remarkable movie this is. One of the best ghost stories I've seen in a long time. Kristen Stewart is superb throughout; it might as well be a one-woman show. It's mysterious and inscrutable and incredibly compelling.

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I watched I, Tonya on Saturday. What a well acted, gripping movie about cycles of abuse, classism, the 90's and delusions of grandeur. I highly recommend it, and I highly recommend the 30 for 30 doc about the same topic The Price of Gold.

 

I also saw Paddington 2 on Sunday. It was an extremely warm, heartfelt, well constructed movie. Its message of "being kind and polite is powerful, and will be rewarded in ways you can never anticipate" is clearly communicated and never comes off as 'and you should be nice because then people owe you' kind of way. It's a joy to look at, Hugh Grant as the washed up actor villain is extremely good, and I particularly enjoyed the Charlie Chaplin gag.

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6 hours ago, marginalgloss said:

Sausage Party is kind of trash, but it is weird, interesting sort of trash. I can't quite understand how it got made, not because it's crude but because it just isn't very well written. So the jokes are kind of one-note, and they often fall flat - but the grim existential implications of the scenario were enough to keep me entertained for its 90 minute duration. Certainly it carries off its horribleness with a certain amount of flair. Perhaps the nicest thing I can say about it is that it made me think a lot about Nier: Automata.

 

I got the impression from the special features that the dialogue was mostly improvised, which came up with a lot of misses. Also the structure isn't great because the first half of the movie is two groups separately discovering something that the audience knows from the start. I enjoyed the second half a lot more, when it started moving the plot forward and doing stuff I wasn't expecting.

 

EDIT: in fact, here's what I wrote at the time:

 

I watched Sausage Party and enjoyed it. The narrative structure is a mess (the A-plot is a character slowly learning what the audience and many other characters already know), and the humour can occasionally get a bit lazy, but it's enjoyable for the first hour and then it gets really good for the last thirty minutes as it gets more inventive. The last section reminds me of A Bee Movie (which I thought was great) in the way that it takes a Pixar 'the-secret-life-of' premise and goes in completely unexpected directions.

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I also saw Paddington 2 on Sunday. It was an extremely warm, heartfelt, well constructed movie. Its message of "being kind and polite is powerful, and will be rewarded in ways you can never anticipate" is clearly communicated and never comes off as 'and you should be nice because then people owe you' kind of way. It's a joy to look at, Hugh Grant as the washed up actor villain is extremely good, and I particularly enjoyed the Charlie Chaplin gag.

 

Yes, Paddington 2 is really good. It's optimistic and just on that very slight edge of saccharine without tipping over, mostly because it's not afraid to undercut it and say that sometimes that trust will not be rewarded but it's worth doing anyway because it's the right thing to do. I'm shocked at how inventive the Paddington movies have been - they usually have at least a couple of scenes of excellent slapstick and some of the visual metaphors are tremendous. I think Paddington 2 set a record for the most positive reviews at Rotten Tomatoes without a negative review, and it's hard to see how one could exist when the movie does such a good job of being pleasant. This one's probably more faithful to the stories in terms of its themes, but I quite liked how pointedly political the first one was about immigration. Also, it might be me but I love how complex the Browns are as a family.

 

I also saw The Post. I generally like late Spielberg's attempts to be serious, and I liked it here as the Washington Post, a paper with big ambitions and timid owners, found themselves in the Pentagon Papers story. I thought it was a neat touch to use taped recordings of Nixon ranting about the Post. I don't think anyone's doing career-best work, exactly, but there's a reason why Streep, Hanks and Spielburg have the reputations they do, and they all do solid work here playing very slightly against type. (Streep's character is a socialite whose family has been in the paper business for generations, slowly discovering that she has a spine, and Hanks is playing someone who I would characterise as He's Our Asshole.)

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I saw The Post and I, Tonya. I think they were slightly better than Darkest Hour, well made movies, but ultimately all of these 3 movies are forgettable. The reason I bring them out together is that I saw them in cinemas within a week. Maybe some Oscars for acting are deserved here. The Post actually held the tension pretty well, though.

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Saw two great movies today:

 

Faces Places by Agnes Varda and JR (whom I don't really know) is a warm documentary about nothing in particular. Well maybe faces, and places. It's really well made aside from some camera focusing issues and kind of a feelgood film. Also a bit sad occasionally.

 

God's Own Country is a good movie about a young man working in his father's small farm who falls for a farm-hand they hire for a week, who is really good with sheep. It starts out feeling rather bleak, but develops a better outlook during the film.

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I wonder if we should have a nonrecommendations thread as well? Basically I want to say that even though The Cloverfield Paradox has a lot of hype now thanks to it's clever marketing campaign, there's no reason to actually see it. Others might not be as harsh, but I gave it 1/5. There are a few leagues between this and the other Cloverfields.

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Agreed on Cloverfield Paradox (terrible) and The Good Place (fantastic).

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Man, Brief Encounter is lovely and beautiful and painful in all the right ways. I don't really know what else to say about it other than I want to start watching it again immediately so I can spend another hour living in a beautiful dream so I don't have to accept that that's all it will ever be. 

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Netflix has a new series called Dirty Money its really good. From the guy who wrote Smartest Guys in the Room about Enron. It looks at how damaging and integral criminal levels of greed are in our economy. The only episode I didn't like was the one about the Maple Syrup Heist in Canada because I felt like it didn't really explain the issues very well, other then that a great series.

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Black Panther is refreshing as a big budget movie with mostly black actors, but I’m still not into all the superhero shit. I kind of drew some parallels to The Wheel of Time with this, I don’t know if that’s an influence or they both draw from other sources with e.g. the spear maidens who like to laugh at their king.

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