Movie/TV recommendations

[tabacco]

Yes. I don't think Comedy Central needs a monopoly on John Oliver.

 

Honestly as long as he keeps doing The Bugle I'm happy no matter what

[Patrick R]

Oh man, if you can see Cheap Thrills with a crowd, do it. Great, crazy movie.

[tegan]

Hausu is still great.

[BusbyBerkeley]

The Raid 2 was fucking fantastic. It expands on the first one in every way without getting too bloated. A lot of the story beats are massive cliches in the

undercover cop/crime family

genre, but it leaves them behind in the second half and scene to scene it's very inventive. It reminded me of Oldboy in the direction, production design etc. The fights are a bit tighter and more varied as well, and I was toe-curling and fist-gnawing most of the way through the film.

 

Definitely the best action movie in ages.

I caught it last night with the gf. Luckily the theater was almost empty because we were making the worst goddamn noises after dudes got wrecked. The group in front of us was doing the same though. 

 

Overall I don't think I liked it as much as the first one, which was short and brutal and kind of primal in it's stakes. The bloated crime family stuff didn't work that well for me, but it wasn't necessarily a strike against it. Once the fights start happening holy shit is it good. I don't know how to do spoilers but there was one reveal that had us freaking out in a good way.

 

But yeah, go see The Raid 2, it's fucking insane.

[Ben X]

I don't know how to do spoilers

 

(spoiler)Like this, but with square brackets.(/spoiler)

[Twig]

Christ almighty I forgot how absurdly long and ridiculously absurd the car chases in The Blues Brothers were. Incredible.

[Bjorn]

The last, what, 30 minutes of that movie?  Insane.  No one will ever get away with that again. 

[Twig]

Yeah, it's goddamn impressive. There's the first car chase scene where they drive through a fucking mall for like ten minutes, and you're like, "All right, that's our car chase quota!" And then they come back with, yeah, the longest car chase of all time.

 

Blues Brothers 2000 is so far just an excuse to do it all over again, it seems. Except this time everyone's older and Jim Belushi's dead and unlike in the first movie when they were trying to save the orphanage they grew up in, they don't have a legitimate excuse for doing all the crazy shit. It's purely selfish reasoning on Dan Aykroyd's part. Also the first half hour of the movie takes place in a strip club. I mean, aside from some of the details, it's almost the same movie, beat for beat. Some beats are mixed around a little, but man.

 

They are now auditioning for a Battle of the Bands hosted by a goddamn voodoo witch. WHAT.

 

Oh also the movie features a small boy whose only purpose, as far as I can gather, is to do some sick dancing.

[BusbyBerkeley]

(spoiler)Like this, but with square brackets.(/spoiler)

oh cool. Spoilers for The Raid 2 (and 1):

 

 

MAD DOG IS BACK FROM THE DEAD OR SOMETHING DAAAAAAMN

[Nachimir]

Hausu is still great.

 

I found the soundtrack and pacing to that really exhausting, even in a room full of drunk people who's thing is to make bad films more enjoyable: piano-ey schmaltz, HORROR, schmaltz HORROR SCREAMING schmaltz schmaltz CONTINUOUS SCREAMING etc.

 

Maybe it was the audio setup in the venue, but the whole film felt really shrill. The cat special effects are quality though

[Ben X]

oh cool. Spoilers for The Raid 2 (and 1):

 

 

MAD DOG IS BACK FROM THE DEAD OR SOMETHING DAAAAAAMN

 

I think it's just

Yayan Ruhian playing a different role, in the same way Cheech Marin/Danny Trejo do for Robert Rodriguez within the same film or series.

, which I think is equally cool!

[namman siggins]

Re-watching Crimes and Misdemeanors and man what a fucking great movie. It's one of Woody Allen's better suspenseful, bitter, existential dramas with a heavy Jewish religious and philosophical slate. 

[Frenetic Pony]

The last, what, 30 minutes of that movie?  Insane.  No one will ever get away with that again. 

 

I think I did if I ever get my movie made. Counting out the pages the car chase should indeed be almost half an hour   There isn't quite as many cars involved, but there's still a lot of destruction, a heck of a lot of dangerous stunts, and a finale that will probably have to be CGI'd or at least remote controlled if you don't want a dozen dead stunt men.

[tegan]

So it just occurred to me tonight: there was a remake of House on Haunted Hill. Someone, in 1999, saw fit to produce a modern version of a horror movie in which this scene serves as the climax:

 

[Bjorn]

C'mon, that scream is incredible!

[Stuart]

Well, I finished watching the entirety of the first season of True Detective, with zero expectations. And I didn't think it was that great as many make it seem. It was enjoyable, sure, and some of the dialogue really came through, the music is great, and the cinematography and acting are superb, but it just felt so full of itself. And the last episode was just absolutely terrible. I see where the writers were going, but they failed 100% in their attempt of trying to shine some light in this grim and gritty tale. But even excluding that ending, my impressions are not that high.

 

Actually, I'm getting what I like to call "The Man of Steel Effect", which is when I watch something that I find very impressionable and interesting, and once I finish watching it, the more I think about it, the less I like it. This was my reaction to Man of Steel, which at my first viewing I thought was awesome, but now stands as one of the worst movies I've watched in the last five years. I'm sure True Detective won't get to worst TV show I've ever seen status, but it's impact is becoming very sour, specially once I start thinking about the show's hard to ignore, legitimate flaws.

[BigJKO]

Boss Whedon released his new movie right out of the blue on the inter webs, $5 to rent now: inyoureyesmovie.com

EDIT: That's Joss Whedon.. Stupid autocorrect!

[Stuart]

That looked pretty dumb, but then again, so is all of Whedon's work, imo. The only thing I've ever liked from him is Cabin in the Woods, and it's funny that that just happens to be the one Joss Whedon involved film where he didn't direct and happened to co-write it with the director. If Whedon had taken helm of both the directing and writing, it'd be no surprise to me that I would not like it. Shit, I'd probably even hate it. 

 

If there is one thing I at least want that asshole to learn, is how to film things, because Jesus Christ, his work looks so fucking bland. You can argue that its because he's used to filming TV shows, which have that clean, sterile, and boring look to them most of the time, but holy shit, he seems to take it to a whole other level. He also should just stick to writing characters and let someone else write the main plot. 

 

That's my mini-rant against Whedon I guess. Also, as a person, he's a shithead, but that's a discussion for somewhere else. 

[BigJKO]

He only wrote this film, for the record. Not that it still doesn't look pretty bland cinematography-wise.

 

So far it's ok. I'm enjoying it. But vimeo's web player needs some serious work. It's choppy, sometimes it takes ages to load.. It's not good enough for paid content, I feel.  I like the idea of film makers doing more of this, but I hope the means to get this to people improves..

[Bjorn]

Finally finished season 2 of House of Cards last night.  Fantastic show.  I do feel like the overall conspiracy and some of the specific actions in it started getting a little unbelievable, but the characters continue to help sell everything and make it worth watching. 

[DaveC]

That's my mini-rant against Whedon I guess. Also, as a person, he's a shithead, but that's a discussion for somewhere else. 

 

Mind if I ask why you think so? I don't idolize him or anything, just curious to know. 

 

I feel like I don't know much about the guy despite being a fan of his stuff (mostly Firefly/Serenity). 

[syntheticgerbil]

lso I watched The We and the I the other day, Michel Gondry's unreleased movie in the Americas before his most recent unreleased movie in the Americas. I actually have owned this DVD for a few months and I was put off on watching it because of so many lukewarm to bad reviews. A lot of critics seemed to indicate it had no resolution or cohesive story, making me fear it was going to be some kind of boring meandering documentary like Gondry's pointless Thorn in the Heart. Nope, this one definitely is a Gondry hit I think. I sort of have a soft spot for teen drama I guess, but this movie was cruel, hilarious, touching, obnoxious, sad, and felt about as real as a French man is going to get with kids in Brooklyn. It's also a bit fascinating how the movie came together with the kids improving a lot of the dialogue and story ahead of time in rehearsals. It's a shame this went so under the radar.

 

My take on every Gondry movie post Sunshine getting so much criticism, deserving or not (since the guy does tend to be hit or miss), is that there are a bunch of angry Charlie Kaufman fans who really want to see the guy fail. If not the Kaufman fans, then instead it's failed screenwriters with a chip on their shoulder who want to make an example of a director does not have some great screenwriter backing up their movie.

 

How many of you here are watching the new Mike Judge show, Silicon Valley? Three episodes in and I'm totally hooked. Oh and Veep is absolutely hilarious this season too!

I started it yesterday, and now I want all of the rest right now. It's so dry it's great. I was afraid the series would retread old ground too much but I feel like it's a completely different breed than Office Space.

 

Is there an easy, legal way to watch Silicon Valley in the UK that doesn't involve iTunes?

I wish there was a way I could have HBO's online streaming without owning some kind of bloated cable package I'll never use. I'd say there's no "easy" way in the United States either, but I suppose it's legal.

[tegan]

I agree that Joss Whedon is kind of crummy, and I really disliked that speech he gave a while back about feminism that totally missed the point.

[Gormongous]

I really disliked that speech he gave a while back about feminism that totally missed the point.

 

Which one? He's given several and they've all been crummy. There's the one where he "interviews" a strawman about feminism, the one where he presents himself as the ideal feminist to a bunch of women, and the one where he says the word "feminism" needs to be replaced with something more aspirational. Honestly, I don't know why Equality Now keeps inviting a straight white dude back to talk about all the great stuff he's doing for them.

[tegan]

and the one where he says the word "feminism" needs to be replaced with something more aspirational.

 

This one right here. It's the same reason I dislike it when people say they'd rather call themselves as "equalist" or something equivalent. Avoiding using the word "feminism" displays a fundamental unwillingness to acknowledge that the disparity between treatment of the sexes is weighted overwhelmingly against women and femininity, much less a willingness to do anything about it.

 

I seem to remember he also said something about how he was qualified to judge the aesthetic value of words because he's a writer. No Joss, you wrote a few cancelled sci-fi miniseries and Alien Resurrection, not the fucking Tempest.