Movie/TV recommendations

[Ben X]

On 11/29/2017 at 6:46 PM, Ben X said:

I loved League of Gentlemen and Psychoville (which was just Shearsmith and Pemberton, btw). Inside No. 9 ranges from brilliant to okay. I couldn't get the Christmas special out of my head for months.

 

Speaking of LoG, they're currently filming three new episodes for the anniversary. I would normally be worried, but the other stuff they're doing now is still generally fantastic.

 

I watched the LoG specials. They're okay taken as a 'whatever happened to?' rather than a proper series. I'll be ignoring them in my head-canon. There's some funny stuff, but it's too rushed and it repeats a lot of stuff, brings back a lot of characters that don't need to be and doesn't move them on, then does some weirdly abrupt things with others.

 

I enjoyed

Spoiler

the return of Pop and his two sons

 

and the

Spoiler

Geoff and Pauline

stuff got off to an interesting start but then just fizzled out in a really weird way - why

Spoiler

kill Pauline offscreen

then just finish there? I really didn't need any more

Spoiler

Edward & Tubbs, Papa Lazarou, Les McQueen, the Dentons (especially with the jarring recast of the twins)

 without them doing something really different with them.

[SecretAsianMan]

After remembering that Amazon Prime comes with Prime Video, I watched some random stuff.

 

Star Trek Beyond:  I liked the first Star Trek, the second was mediocre, this third one was straight garbage.  It felt like a long, poorly written episode of a TV show (not one of the actual shows) with a bunch of extra crap thrown in because they needed to fill for time.

 

Mission Impossible Rogue Nation:  Ok.  Not great, not terrible.  I liked the first movie, hated the second, don't remember the third, liked the fourth.  This one was fine.

 

Arrival:  The pacing was real slow but I otherwise enjoyed it.  It was very refreshing to see a movie with aliens that's not sci-fi horror or action.

[Ben X]

Thank fuck, someone else who didn't like Beyond. I cannot believe how many people think that movie is great. Pretty much agreed on you on the other two, though it sounds like I liked them a bit more than you.

 

MI3 was the JJ Abrams one that settled the style of the franchise going forward after the auteur-y DePalma and Woo entries. It had Philip Seymour Hoffman as the baddy and Michelle Monaghan as Ethan's new wife. It was good!

[SecretAsianMan]

Beyond was such a complete mess.  I'm willing to do a fair amount of hand waving in service of an entertaining flick but Beyond had me questioning so many things I just couldn't deal with it.  The jokes were bad, the action was meh, the visuals were only ok, and I felt like none of the actors really wanted to be there (except for maybe Anton Yelchin (Chekov). Such a shame about him).  I too am baffled by the reception the movie got.

 

I like the first MI because even though he's very skilled he's completely in over his head and just barely manages win the day.  Every other one that follows is Ethan Hunt super-agent.  He basically doesn't need a team, he does everything himself anyway.

 

Arrival was quite good, I just felt some of the scenes went on a bit longer than they needed to.  I also had the main plot conceit spoiled but it didn't detract significantly from my enjoyment (although it's probably why I felt the scenes were too long).

[melmer]

Your name  it’s on amazon prime (in the uk anyway) the dub is really good also, so no need to watch with subtitles

 

 

 

[Ben X]

2 hours ago, Mington said:

Your name  it’s on amazon prime (in the uk anyway) the dub is really good also, so no need to watch with subtitles

 

Watchlisted. I went for the subtitled version though, because I never seem to enjoy dubbed anime.

[Erkki]

I liked it too. I still strongly prefer watching English movies with subtitles, even though it's been my work language for 7 years and I probably watch more than two English movies in a week on average. Has anyone here who isn't a native English speaker switched English subs off at some point?

 

I think the main thing for me is that I don't want to miss any words and the thought of having to rewind to hear something again that I missed is much worse than reading subs.

[jennegatron]

i know this isn't what you asked, but as a native english speaker i prefer to watch english language things with english subtitles, except for comedies. comedic timing is ruined by subtitles because you can read ahead to the joke and ruin it for yourself. I watch basically everything else with english subtitles though.

[Patrick R]

I have hearing loss and if I haven't seen a movie before I always opt for subtitles to be on, especially if there are other noises happening like the dishwasher going. However, if I'm familiar with a movie and know it well enough that making out every line of dialogue isn't necessary for me to follow the story I will turn them off because I do find them distracting to some extent. And Jennegatron is definitely correct about them ruining jokes in comedies.

[SecretAsianMan]

I watched Wonder Woman the other day.  Felt like half a good movie.  It was fine until the big showdown with Ares and it became a really trashy comic book movie.  I also didn't like that she was a sidekick for most of her own movie.  Other nitpicks include how jarring her rock guitar theme was in the middle of a fight (on its own I kind of like the theme but in the context of the setting it really stuck out to me), too many shots of her face staring directly into the camera with a deer in headlights look, and the portrayal of some of the secondary characters.

[Patrick R]

I recorded a massive two-part 5-hour podcast about 2017 films with my friend and former podcast co-host Jim. In it we talked about our favorite films of the year.

 

Part 1

Part 2

 

And my top films of the year were:

 

25. The Babysitter
24. Call Me By Your Name
23. Columbus
22. Snowflake 
21. The Meyerowitz Stories
20. Mother!
19. Baby Driver
18. I Am Not Your Negro
17. Three Billboards
16. The Florida Project
15. Good Time
14. Blade Runner 2049
13. Star Wars: The Last Jedi
12. Lady Bird
11. My Entire High School Sinking Into the Sea
10. Tragedy Girls
9. Dunkirk
8. The Square 
7. Wormwood
6. Get Out
5. Personal Shopper
4. John Wick Chapter 2 
3. The Crescent
2. Staying Vertical
1. Killing of a Sacred Deer

[TychoCelchuuu]

I still haven't seen a lot of 2017 movies, like (from your list) 25 through 21, 18, 11, 10, 8, 7, 5, or 3 through 1. But here's my top 25, with scores out of 100 after each of them:

25. Wind River - 79
24. Wonder Woman - 80
23. Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri - 80
22. Logan Lucky - 80
21. The Lego Batman Movie - 80
20. Ingrid Goes West - 81
19. The Big Sick - 81
18. Baby Driver - 82
17. Spider-Man: Homecoming - 83
16. Get Out - 84
15. The Disaster Artist - 84

14. The Shape of Water - 84
13. Atomic Blonde - 85
12. Thor: Ragnarok - 86
11. Mother! - 86
10. A Ghost Story - 87
9. The Florida Project - 87
8. Good Time - 88
7. Colossal - 88
6. Princess Cyd - 90
5. Logan - 90
4. Star Wars: Episove VIII - The Last Jedi - 92
3. Dunkirk - 96
2. Blade Runner 2049 - 96
1. Okja - 100

[Erkki]

I still have to see some that I expect to be good like Call Me By Your Name, Lady Bird, The Shape of Water, Dunkirk.

 

But aside for a few great movies I can count on my fingers, I was rather disappointed by the films of 2017. Well, there's some prejudice also in play - I haven't even determined a lot of movies from 2017 to be worth seeing. I did see about 50 movies. Maybe I'm paying too much attention to ratings now (I often skip the movie if the Letterboxd rating is not approaching 4), but I think it's also that I still have tons of old movies to watch that are likely to be better than most from this year.

 

The ones I would recommend are (sorry, I like to do it in this order so I'll know when to stop):

 

★ ★ ★ ★ ★

Blade Runner 2049

★ ★ ★ ★

The Florida Project

Get Out

Let the Corpses Tan

mother!

78/52 (A documentary about the shower scene in Psycho)

Resurrection (A Belgian movie of a relationship between an old man and the fugitive he hides)

Have You Seen My Movie (composed of scenes of people going to cinema, taken from some famous movies)

★ ★ ★½

The Square

Wild Boys

(I wouldn't necessarily recommend any others from this year, but I'll include all ★ ★ ★½ to have a similar number as Patrick and TychoCelchuuu)

Ava

The Contestant

Nathan for You: Finding Frances

I Am Not a Witch

Filthy

Okja

A Fantastic Woman

Loveless

Thelma

The Meyerowitz Stories

Baby Driver

The Other Side of Hope (watch Le Havre instead)

John Wick: Chapter 2 (better than the first one)

★ ★ ★ (EDIT - adding a couple of films that are noteworthy even if my average rating is not great)

The Crescent (first half of the movie is amazing, but I personally didn't enjoy the second half)

Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri (I rated it low because it didn't feel like the bigotry was ironic, but there are different ways to look at it)

 

[edit] In comparison, for 2016 I would have had about 30 movies rated 5 or 4 stars (but I've also now seen 100 from 2016 vs 50 from 2017)

[Patrick R]

I did not think this year was a strong year but I saw more new movies than any year previous, so I still saw more good movies than last year. 2015 and 2013 were amazing years, though. I think a big disconnect for me that happened this year is that 2017 was the worst year of my life, largely because of the cultural climate in America, and it felt like there weren't any films at all that actually addressed that.

 

Obviously due to the nature of film production almost every 2017 film was in pre-production before Trump was elected but it still created a massive whiplash for me. Killing of a Sacred Deer was the only film I saw that felt it captured the feeling of living in 2017, even though it too was made before any of this and was almost certainly not a specific reaction to the cultural climate of America. That was a very cathartic film, I think I exorcised a lot of dark shit laughing my ass off.

[plasticflesh]

I'm watching a 2017 adaptation of the Legend of the Condor Heroes today. Wuxia story of Jin empire invading Song Dynasty. Plots move so fast in these dramas, quickly oscillating between melodrama and fantastical combat. I love it. This is what Star Wars needs to become.

 

Okay the youtube upload I linked is amazing because it's one individual who did the english subs and she gives a recap of the previous episode at the start of each episode. So good.

 

Seriously episode 2 starts STRONG!!

[Ben X]

The trailer for The Meyerowitz Stories didn't look great, despite it being Baumbach and having a good cast. As it's on two of your lists, I've watchlisted it. (Need a better verb for that.)

[Patrick R]

I wouldn't call it one of Baumbach's best (it has basically the most boilerplate indie dramedy story imaginable) but it is still Baumbach and the first time I've liked an Adam Sandler performance.

[Erkki]

Seconded that. BTW looking over Patrick's list again, I think I should add The Crescent to my list as well. Even though I rated it as average due to the last half or third of the movie, I really think the first half was excellent and maybe the whole movie should still not be missed.

[Erkki]

World of Tomorrow Episode Two: The Burden of Other People's Thoughts ★★★★

 

Didn't quite touch me as much as the first one, which is understandable, since it's repeating similar themes, but it's still really good. Also this time it was a bit harder to follow the time traveling stuff, or at least it seemed so.

[Erkki]

Then again countdown videos like this make it seem like it was a pretty good year

 

[twmac]

Too much Baby Driver, but yes, otherwise it is cool to see so many good films came out this year.

[Woodfella]

On 05/01/2018 at 4:57 AM, Patrick R said:

I recorded a massive two-part 5-hour podcast about 2017 films with my friend and former podcast co-host Jim. In it we talked about our favorite films of the year.

 

Part 1

Part 2

 

Enjoyed this. Got me through a whole day at work too. Thanks

[Patrick R]

6 hours ago, Woodfella said:

Enjoyed this. Got me through a whole day at work too. Thanks

 

Awesome, glad you liked it.

[dium]

Reading this thread is really driving home how few movies I watch; I saw eleven 2017-movies in 2017 (or just ten if the Netflix recording of Oh Hello doesn't count as a movie). I think that might be a relatively high number for me.

[TheLastBaron]

I just checked Letterboxd to see what movies I saw in 2017 and it's Split, The Lego Batman Movie, Baby Driver, The Disaster Artist, Alien Covenant, Killing of a Sacred Deer, Thor, Coco, and Star Wars.  Of those I liked Coco and Thor, and Star Wars I liked half of very much, though the highest I rated any of them was 4/5 stars for Coco and Thor.  Everything else I was middle of the road on except Alien, Split, and Killing of a Sacred Deer I hated.  That's nine 2017 movies, I guess ten if you count Mike Birbiglia's Netflix special (which I wouldn't) out of ~100 or so movies I watched total last year. 

 

That also reminds me that I don't think I actually used my MoviePass in December, though since subscribing I've already saved enough money from seeing a few movies because tickets are so expensive here that I could go another couple months of paying for it without seeing anything and still be ahead.