Movies

[Grefter]

The Imitation Game - I was honestly worried they would shy away from the worst things.  They didn't.  It is a little dramatised, but pretty good representation.

i cri everye tiem

[Meeplelard]

Dragon Ball Z: Battle of Gods: Decided on a whim to watch this because thanks to TFS related stuff, been on a DBZ kick, and it was the most modern notable DBZ thing in a while so why not?  I was expecting a typical DBZ movie that basically is just random new guy shows up, stuff happens, Goku wins with cheap ass power up...

...and ok, that's exactly what did happen!  Thing is, this didn't feel like "DBZ Mini-Saga condensed into one hour" but a full feature film.  It felt most applicable to, say, the Pokemon Movies, in the sense that good or bad, Pokemon Movies very clearly have a much higher budget than the main series and it shows in the animation if nothing else, and sure enough, this movie was the same way.

But really, Beerus best sums up what's good about this movie.  It captures the Fun and Lighthearted aspects of Dragon Ball with the over the top action scenes of Dragon Ball Z and surprisingly balances them pretty well.  This is what the Buu Saga was clearly trying at, but while the Buu Saga just came off as Bi-polar, this actually felt like they were juggling the comedy and action in a well balanced form, capturing both the early and latter days of the franchise. 

So yeah, pleasantly surprised by the movie.  It actually makes me interested in Return of F because it sounds like Beerus is returning and it's a legitimate sequel to this movie, suggesting it'll have a lot of the same qualities.

[The Duck]

The Imitation Game - I was honestly worried they would shy away from the worst things.  They didn't.  It is a little dramatised, but pretty good representation.

i cri everye tiem

Eh, I was really underwhelmed by this movie. Some of the choices they made were only to create false drama. One of the more egregious examples was having one of the codebreakers have a brother who is in endangered, which was never the case. The weight of the realization behind that scene should be weighty enough if you have an intelligent audience; there isn't any need to manufacture additional fictionalized drama around it. Even the depiction of Turing was a little weird. Cumberbatch plays him as somewhat autistic. He had good friends and was sociable in real life according to all accounts but he is portrayed as machinelike to service this forced comparison to the machine he is creating. There just isn't very much indication for that kind of characterization of Turing other than this weird concept Hollywood has about geniuses.

Also, for a movie that purports to highlight injustices behind Britain's terrible view on homosexuality, it doesn't have the courage of its own convictions to even show anything regarding homosexual relationships. It is implied Alan has is in love with another boy in school and as an adult he is said to be have been caught with a prostitute later on, but there are no depictions of even the barest level of physical affection between dudes. It just struck me as a disservice to the message the movie was trying to make. How can the point about the injustice of Alan Turing's "crime" be made if the movie about him doesn't even dare to portray it?

I actually think the movie was pretty safe and tailored towards garnering Oscar nominations, but I don't think it offers much in terms of historical accuracy and I think it undermines its own message sometimes. It is frustrating because Turing's story is really compelling and needs to be told, but I don't like most of the choices made here.

[The Duck]

And now I'm going to undermine all of my cinema cred and say that I watched John Wick and thought it was great forwhatitwas. Some Russians dude kill Keanu Reeves's dog and he kills an entire city. The action is shot really well, not like The Raid good but still extremely coherent gunplay that has no shaky cam. The movie doesn't take itself seriously at all and it's ridiculously stupid. It has Keanu acting but it doesn't matter since it also has car-fu.

[Fenrir]

John Wick was indeed an awesome time. You can just summarize it with "Russians kill Keanu Reeve's puppy so he kills everyone" and everybody wants to see it.
I liked that "lol Dafoe missed, worst sniper ever, how convenient" turned into "Actually he was just warning him by shooting the pillow next to him, so the movie is slightly less dumb than we all thought"
Amazingly there are 2 actors from the Wire in this, what the hell?

I've seen a lot of "artier" movies lately, to get some cred back and watch a cool movie I suggest either the Tribe or Mommy, both released this year. The tribe is about a new kid in a school for deaf children only. There's 0 dialogue and it is Ukrainian. It is super hardcore, there is no hope.
Mommy is a more grounded story about a lower class mother, her son with ADHD and a mutual friend. A nice time with broken people. It's also hyper stylized, some people would probably roll eyes at the effects used but I liked them.
Boyhood was also pretty cool.

[The Duck]

Boyhood was my favorite movie in years, somehow meeting all of the immense hype that it had gotten. The Before series of movies has always been my favorite (Before Midnight was devastating ), and I thought Boyhood would be able to similarly portray the effects of the passage of time. I do wonder whether it will be effective on future generations of viewers since it is very much of a specific time (and to an extent, a certain place). It shows some things about growing up that should always be universal but some things, like the soundtrack, and little moments like the kids going to a Harry Potter midnight book release, are probably only going to resonate with people who grew up in this generation. It's a must-watch, regardless.

Mommy is coming to a local indie theater soon so I'll keep an eye out for it. I kind of feel like I know where it's going but if it's well done I'll catch it.

I also saw the Babadook. I generally don't like horror but this was effective, although I was never as scared as I thought I would be. I am unsure whether it is as good as many people are saying, and I think the metaphor is a little too on the nose, but the movie does do a good job of keeping up a sense of dread and tension. The mom in this is excellent and the kid also did a good job if the point was for him to be an annoying little shit. The fact that he did that job a little too well may have muddled your rooting interests in the film. Also between this and John Wick, this was the second movie in a week that killed a dog

The Guest - A friend described this to me as Drive but really stupid and that is a fairly accurate assessment. I actually felt that the beginning of this was fine when you are watching the clearly off Guest character interact with the family, but it goes way off the rails when has an explanation for what's going on. I didn't find this to be a great movie but it has this weird 80s sensibility and it's kind of goofy. Worth seeing if it's free.

[Fenrir]

Allright I'll grab the Before movies.

I felt the saddest part of Boyhood was at the very end when the main character leaves her mother alone and she's crying because she's like 50 and she's alone and her children have left the nest and she has nothing to look forward to. Still, she was saying some self defeating jokes or something so everybody in the theater was laughing.

I don't think I've ever felt this alienated.

[Grefter]

talk about cool art movies I haven't watched since I am busy being a corporate sell out and don't have/make time for cinema

I don't think I've ever felt this alienated.

[The Duck]

I lost a parent a while ago, and that made the parting scene particularly painful. Honestly, that was the most emotionally affecting scene I've seen in a movie in a very long time, because it filled me with this sense of existential unfulfillment but also because it really did reflect my parents' reaction to a milestone I was unaware of when I (the youngest) left for school. Like Mason, I didn't have any sense that my departure could so starkly reflect a major life change for my parents, and I only had this realization after I was gone for a few years and gained a sense of maturity and empathy. A friend who I saw the movie with who is in a very different time in her life just wept after seeing it, and I can't say very many people in my theater were laughing at it.

The scene directly after that affected me in a different way. I knew coming in that Boyhood tracked Ellar Coltrane for twelve years and since he started off at six, it would have to end up with him starting college. When he drives to college, I got a strange emotional reaction that is hard to describe but it derives from this metaknowledge that the movie was going to end soon, that the very notion of Boyhood as a movie and a universal concept was coming to a close and soon I wouldn't be able to see any more of this particular story, which is an incredible feeling to get from a piece of fiction. I've heard people being underwhelmed by the movie for various reasons (like Mason not being a particularly interesting character or the movie being largely plotless) but I feel like it's something everyone should still see.

[Fenrir]

I'm sorry for your loss, I wasn't as emotionally involved in Boyhood (I really don't care about my entire youth) but I can understand it. I also urge anyone to go watch it. You're probably going to like Mommy. It evoked kind of similar feelings to me, though there was much less identification.

Grefter, movies take a lot less time than videogames. Boyhood is like 3 hours and Mommy 2. Super easy to watch and you get instant max cred.


BTW I saw the Palme d'Or and thought "Meh, not that great, it's too slow and they ripped the climax of the movie from Dostoevsky" and I felt like the most smug asshole for just being able to think that. It was great.

[The Duck]

Is that Winter Sleep? I did hear from a friend that it was really laborious but the Palme d'Or isn't always a guarantee of greatness (now I also feel like a smug asshole).

[Fenrir]

Yeah, Uncle Boonmee looks pretty boring for example.


Winter's Sleep had an interesting point but it's too slow. I'll sum it up real fast:

The main character is an old rich douchebag who inherited a fortune from his parents and lives in a place that allows the coolest panoramic shots. He's renting apartments but is ruthless about it, stealing poor people's things when they can't pay the rent in the winter. The "uncle" in the poor family is desperately trying to reach him all the time but the douchebag ignores it and even literally mocks him because he smells.

His super hot wife married him early, she doesn't have diplomas or experience and she's frustrated because she doesn't do much in her life but fundraising for charities. Douche doesn't want her to have her own life, so he goes all Patriarchic Sea Lion on her about her charities and basically ruins everything for fun. She fucking hates him, but she feels she's trapped with him; if she left him, she'd have to start from nothing and she's a 30 years old Turkish woman, so she'd really struggle.

Husband leaves for Istanbul for a while, Wife gets a lot of money to give to the poor family living in the house her husband's renting. She learns that the kid has pneumonia. Like a Dostoevsky character, the father at the family gets mad and dramatically throws all her money in the fireplace in front of her.

Husband goes back.
Lots of hate.

The end.


The husband sounds like a comic book villain here but he's really believable.

[Anthony Edward Stark]

That is he difference between a woman and Hugh Jackman.

I assume part of it is playing up the way Mystique was played up in First Class where she is pretty great and is a story of her falling.  Her story arc is about how she has to hide her "real" self at all times by shape shifting and she won't ever fit in as her real self.  It is a pretty amazing use of the mutant allegory which the movies generally aren't great at leveraging (I understand this is similar to early use of the Morlocks in the comics, they are a bunch of mutants with physical altering mutations and live in the sewers.  They greatly resent the X-Men in part because they mostly can pass as human).

Most of the comics aren't great at leveraging it, either.  It feels like racist apologia most of the time because the primary representatives of mutants are:

1.  A person who could enslave literally the entire world if not for personal scruples (Charles Xavier)
2.  An immortal killing machine who basically cannot be stopped (Wolverine)
3.  Someone who creates massive damage simply by the act of looking at things (Cyclops)

When these are your primary examples it seems like the people worried about them have legit reasons to be concerned.  That's why making it a civil rights analogy fails.

[superaielman]

Guardians of the Galaxy- A ton of fun. It made me care about a cast of characters I largely didn't know about beforehand. Pratt and Saldana in particular had fantastic chemistry, and Batista did an outstanding job with what could've been a very bland part.

[Fenrir]

I've seen all of Dolan's movie now and I like them all.

Nolan&Dolan are my favourite directors.

I've looked at some interviews and he seems to come across as an asshole. Personnally I just think media will latch on to anything controversial and that's why anyone appearing in any interview has to appear as this friendly mask of themselves with no feelings.

- I killed my mother is a very adolescent movie about one 16 year old guy hating his mother. The movie that probably hit the closest to home for me, out of like every movie.
- Heartbeats is about young hipsters with broken hearts. There isn't much going on but you get some powerful A Softer Worldish moments.
- Laurence Anyways is the most mature work (the two main characters are 35ish) Dolan tries everything to not have it be remembered as the film about Transgendered people but it's what's going to happen. I went in without knowing that and had a great time. Very moving, with amazing acting from the two mains.
- Tom at the Farm is an horror / psychological thriller film in which escape is always possible, with an interesting culture clash between the city and the country. Highly engrossing. I don't know what the whole deal with America was though.
- Mommy's still probably overall the best I think.

[The Duck]

I caught up with a bunch of stuff from last year. There are still some things I want to catch up on (the Princess Kaguya movie from Ghibli, namely), and there are some major things I want to see like Selma and some other major things I have zero interest in (American Sniper), but that should wrap up the major 2014 releases.

Force Majeure: This was really interesting. Without going into it in too much detail, this explores the fallout of what happens when something hugely unexpected happens and you have a split second to react, and your instinctual reaction is one that is revelatory of your character. This goes through the seemingly irreparable damage that can result from that instinct and it has a lot to ponder over with regard to how dudes react to expectations of masculinity. The tantalizing question here is how you don't really know how you would react to something extraordinary (and thus, you never really know yourself) until you're put into that situation. It is one thing to be able to talk about what you would do but it is another completely to have to do it. I'm puzzling a bit over the ending, but overall this movie was really solid. Also ski rave.

Birdman: Uh... people I know say that they left this feeling invigorated but that was definitely not how I felt. This movie is kind of empty but at the same time it's incredibly loud (not just in terms of volume). I really hate when people use the word "pretentious" to describe something but that's exactly what this felt like. Every single aspect of the movie is calling attention to itself: the ever crescendoing jazz drumming soundtrack, the cinematography that never stops, the ACTORS DECLARING THAT THEY'RE ACTING (Calculon would fit in well here), the diatribe against strawmen critics (M Knight Shyamalan does the same thing! Birdman falls short of actually killing the critic though). It never stops, and I'm not sure to what end this cacophony is being deployed. It does have things to say regarding the need for approval and recognition we all have but that's juxtaposed with this weird deification of actors and artists that smacks of pandering to Oscar types.

It also made me realize that I really do not like Alejandro Inarritu. The same pomposity and inability to be subtle plagues this movie as well as Babel and 21 Grams.

Snowpiercer: GREFTER THIS MOVIE WAS MADE FOR YOU. It's a classist future steamtrain simulator with axfights. The classroom scene is really great and the propaganda song by the teacher is fantastic. It's by a Korean director (same guy who did The Host, Memories of Murder, and Mother) who apparently doesn't know that what he's doing is bonkers in American standards, and it is ridiculous. It has some laughable parts BABIES TASTE BEST and it kind of flops as a satire, but it is wildly entertaining, if kind of stupid. It also has Tilda Swinton in what I think is her best role of all time

Nightcrawler: I don't have nearly as much to say about this. Ethics in journalism. It's kind of fun to see Gyllenhaal go nuts and he basically looks like a cartoon character at times. I don't think it was brilliant but it was definitely worth a watch for his performance.

[Fenrir]

I missed seeing Force Majeure by 20 minutes.
It was renamed Snow Therapy in France. Jesus Christ.


Carnage: I am not very impressed. It is about adults trying to resolve their children's problems and ending up being as immature or worse. The movie slowly builds up humour and then reaches a plateau and then ends pretty early. Big director and big actors got big paychecks.

[The Duck]

I missed seeing Force Majeure by 20 minutes.
It was renamed Snow Therapy in France. Jesus Christ.


Carnage: I am not very impressed. It is about adults trying to resolve their children's problems and ending up being as immature or worse. The movie slowly builds up humour and then reaches a plateau and then ends pretty early. Big director and big actors got big paychecks.

wait why

Carnage at least has projectile vomit.

[Fenrir]

Movies with English-but-very-understandable names sell more to younger demographics, and marketing is terrible.


Movies with "complicated" English titles got changed to super understandable dumb titles.
The Hangover was changed to Very Bad Trip then a bunch of Z movies with titles changed to "Very Bad X" got released.
Same thing with that Jennifer Lawrence movie that got turned into "Happiness Therapy" so now they're adding Therapy as a suffix to other movies.



Since international markets are becoming bigger and bigger and China/India are going to want even simpler names, expect titles like "Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind" to disappear and get replaced by "Sad Memory Killer" because, at one point, why not have a simple title instead of having a complicated one and changing it?

[The Duck]

So, for the movies I watched recently:

Snowpiercer = Coldtrain
Nightcrawler = Late Reporter
John Wick = Dog Revenge
Birdman = Wank wank wank
American Sniper = American Sniper

?

[NotMiki]

I missed seeing Force Majeure by 20 minutes.
It was renamed Snow Therapy in France. Jesus Christ.

Um.  Um.  Isn't Force Majeure already, like, French?  Is the meaning of it somehow obscure or something?  It's a term in, like, every contract in the UK and US for the past 300 years.

[Captain K.]

American Sniper = The Best Little Sniperhouse in Texas

[Cotigo]

American Sniper = American Sniper Therapy

FTFY

[Fenrir]

Hahahah oh man.

Black Swan = Very Bad Black Chicken Therapy

Um.  Um.  Isn't Force Majeure already, like, French?  Is the meaning of it somehow obscure or something?  It's a term in, like, every contract in the UK and US for the past 300 years.

Yeah.
But this title makes the movie sound French-made and a lot of people here avoid French movies in general. (like me)

[NotMiki]

Yeah.
But this title makes the movie sound French-made and a lot of people here avoid French movies in general. (like me)

There's a cautionary tale about cultural appropriation in here somewhere...