PCF at the Movies (2 Viewers)

jbutler

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I had a version of this thread at a forum whose name is now lost to history, but in it, I tried to chronicle every movie I watched. It got tedious as I watch like 5 to 10 a week, so I got sick of it and gave up. In this iteration, I'll only post when I see something notably good or notably bad.

Seemed like the week to start it because I saw three new movies in the theater this week and two of them are in the top ten or maybe five I've seen all year. Both share the quality of being a joy to watch while also being difficult to analyze in a meaningful way. Different interpretations of each might lead you to different conclusions as to how good each is, but the truth is that they're both so rapturously entertaining in different ways that it almost confounds the discussion.

First, Birdman or (The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance):


Hard to say precisely what's going on or what's intended a lot of the time in this movie. Clearly the director is asking the audience to confront prejudices for and against stage productions and big budget schlock, but what is the director's true feeling about either? It's a bit of a satire of both. And the ending - I'm not spoiling anything, but what really happened and what are we supposed to take from it? Maybe someone will come along with a clear, coherent analysis and explication of the themes, but it almost doesn't matter because it's just fucking great wire to wire. It's hysterically funny and also truly touching.

I have a real soft spot for Michael Keaton, so I'm not surprised to have loved his performance (though I'm glad he's again getting the praise he deserves) and Edward Norton is almost uniformly incredible in everything, but I have always hated Emma Stone and she really won me over. Fantastic.

It is said that the movie is most notable for its technical accomplishments. It's filmed in such a way as to appear to have been shot in one continuous take. It plays with time enough that it's obvious the director isn't intending to actually fool anyone into believing it's one take, but the technique has the quality of building and maintaining tension throughout the movie. And that works because Michael Keaton becomes more and more unhinged and erratic as the movie moves along. It's only helped by the score, which is almost entirely drums - and not orchestral drums, but a drum set. It's like one long continuous bebop drum solo and it's mesmerizing.


Next, the movie I saw tonight, Nightcrawler:


I've heard enough about this one for the past few months that I guess I was primed to love it, but it did not disappoint. Like Birdman, it's hysterically funny and extremely dark at times, but enthralling every minute. Probably my favorite Jake Gyllenhaal performance - right up there with Zodiac, which I adore.

Also like Birdman, it's hard to tell precisely what the director is trying to say. It's clearly a bit of a satire of media, but that's such a tired theme that it's hard for me to believe that's what he was trying to do. Yeah, we know television news is disgusting and damaging to its audience and the world. I see it more as a character study of a sociopath. Gyllenhaal is unrelenting in his drive and maybe the only thing that made me doubt his character is that he hadn't been enormously successful until the events of the film. He's obviously willing to do basically anything to get what he wants and capable of operating smartly enough to avoid the consequences of unethical or illegal actions in the pursuit of his goal. Still, his scenes with Rene Russo are fantastic and it's a tribute to both of them that the quasi-romance between a 33 year-old and a 60 year-old seems not just plausible, but natural.

I suppose you could go in and enjoy it just as a thriller, but watching Gyllenhaal embody the character so completely is what made it so enjoyable for me.
 
Thanks for the reviews. Hadn't seen either yet, though had "Nightcrawler" on my list. Will have to add "Birdman", too.

I missed "Edge of Tomorrow" at the theater, but finally watched the blu-ray last night, and it was one of the best sci-fi action movies I'd seen in quite a while. "Elysium" was another very good one in that category.
 
I missed "Edge of Tomorrow" at the theater, but finally watched the blu-ray last night, and it was one of the best sci-fi action movies I'd seen in quite a while. "Elysium" was another very good one in that category.

absolutely agreed re: edge of tomorrow. saw it twice and the rewatch only reinforced how impressed i was the first time. a lot of fun and it wasn't trying to be smarter than it is or overly rely on the plot device which drives the movie. just great, fun, well-made sci-fi.

unfortunately i couldn't get entirely on board with elysium, which was particularly disappointing considering how fantastic district 9 was.

three other very good movies that play in sci-fi/fantasy territory from this year were snowpiercer, under the skin, and the one i love. under the skin will almost definitely be in my top five and may vie for number one of the year. among the worst were i, frankentstein (looked terrible, but i saw it anyway and confirmed) and transcendence (looked like it had a chance, but was disappointingly horrid).
 
Saw "Fury" by myself (a first for me) and then John Wick at night with the CLB.

I was pretty meh about both - it was a bit jarring how the main character in Fury went from a pacifist who wanted out of the tank to a bloodthirsty gunner in the course of about 5 minutes, and the plot device they used to get there was pretty weak. Best scene was a fight between a Panzer and 4 Shermans (tense moments, interesting strategy, etc). 3 older guys who must've been veterans (though obviously not of the WWII era - not that old) actually walked out at one point.

John Wick was just straight up action movie with some funny moments. I was concerned that the movie would take itself too seriously with Keanu Reeves trying to be "serious actor" but it hit just about the right tone as it was advertised.
 
Saw "Fury" by myself (a first for me) and then John Wick at night with the CLB.

I was pretty meh about both - it was a bit jarring how the main character in Fury went from a pacifist who wanted out of the tank to a bloodthirsty gunner in the course of about 5 minutes, and the plot device they used to get there was pretty weak. Best scene was a fight between a Panzer and 4 Shermans (tense moments, interesting strategy, etc). 3 older guys who must've been veterans (though obviously not of the WWII era - not that old) actually walked out at one point.

John Wick was just straight up action movie with some funny moments. I was concerned that the movie would take itself too seriously with Keanu Reeves trying to be "serious actor" but it hit just about the right tone as it was advertised.

i skipped fury despite positive reviews by a couple of critics/writers i respect. i just can't bear to watch anymore WWII movies unless they have some unique take on things. inglorious basterds, for instance, was phenomenal, but it was so because it avoided all the tropes that have become so tired in depicting war. i have basically the same feeling for all war movies, but WWII in particular has been the target of hollywood schlock much too often.

i did see john wick, but felt much the same as you did. i enjoyed it as a bit of an homage to the john woo's late-80s hong kong films with chow yun-fat which are amazing. it's hard to sustain the power of the homage, though, and it also veered too far into film-as-first-person-shooter-video-game territory for me. i appreciate the ballet of gun fights, which are much too few in today's action movies imo, but rather than being a ballet, the gun fight scenes got too blunt and monotonous for me. still a decently enjoyable film and there's little more depressing than walking out of that movie and realizing keanu reeves is 50-years old and still looks better than i ever have or will. fucking dude chugged from the fountain of youth or something.
 
saw Interstellar last night.


hard to talk about it without spoilers. i went into it expecting greatness and i'm 90% sure it is that. there was one sequence that i didn't entirely buy during the movie (maybe 15 minutes of the nearly 3 hour run time), but after sleeping on it, i'm not sure that i have a problem with it after all. so many absolutely beautiful shots and so many things done literally perfectly.

i saw it called the anti-"Gravity" and i kind of get that. Gravity was such a streamlined, focused, procedural. yes, there was obviously underlying driving character arc of sandra bullock's story, but the movie was mostly a thrill ride (and a very good one). but in a sense, Gravity is the bite-sized version of Interstellar. both are concerned with attachment, regret, forgiveness. Gravity's stage is smaller in both time and space whereas Interstellar's stage - as indicated by the title - could hardly be grander. they would make a fantastic double bill imo.

another huge plus for Interstellar is that i absolutely adore movies set in the near future. they allow the filmmaker to present versions of technological innovation and societal changes so realistic that when the audience is asked to take bigger and less expected leaps, they come along because the film has established its credibility (see last year's fantastic Her).

Interstellar also uses the expository device of talking head interviews that almost look like a Ken Burns documentary. older people speak about what life was like when they were children. these interviews and the near-future setting combine to make the entire thing completely believable. i'm undecided as to whether it establishes enough credibility that the narrative can make the jumps it does in the closing 40 minutes, but i'll definitely be returning to watch the movie for a second time this weekend to take another shot at it.
 
okay not surprisingly i've been too lazy to update even the more limited version of this thread. however, i've seen several great movies over the past month and a half since my last post.

first, whiplash. i liked this one right away, but since i saw it a couple weeks ago it's only grown on me. maybe i'm missing something, but i saw j.k. simmons' portrayal - which was phenomenal - as much more nuanced and the film a lot more conflicted about his ethics than a lot of folks seem to believe. since i'm a drummer i might appear to be biased, but i don't play the big band style primarily depicted in the film, so it wasn't the music - though the music was beautiful - that got me. it was the pacing, the acting, the sound mix, everything was perfectly placed. even miles teller, who i've never been a fan of, won me over.


the skeleton twins. i'm not entirely sure why i went to see this. although i think both kristen wiig and bill hader are truly hilarious, i'm almost never a fan of dramas that depict the dark durability of families and relationships and whatever and make me fucking vomit. they're nearly universally vapid and patronizing and pandering. but this was honestly pretty amazing. i laughed, i cried, i...did both of those things again. anyway, hard to imagine anyone not loving this movie. i still can't believe a movie like this has a chance to get into my top ten of the year.


wild. another movie i thought i wouldn't think much of, but really transcended the genre. i've heard a lot of people saying it's great to see from a female view a genre which has been almost always populated by men: the searching, troubled story of redemption. however, i like very few of those movies, so i didn't expect to like this one anymore just because the main character has a vagina (presumably - i've never personally seen reese witherspoon's vagina). but, again, i was wrong and i was glad to be. reese witherspoon was good, but it wasn't really her acting that propelled the story. it was the writing and the direction. i didn't know before the credits rolled that nick hornby adapted the screenplay, but he did a wonderful job getting me on board with a character i'd have otherwise dismissed as self-indulgent (which she is) and undeserving of our attention. but the character portrayed is worth our attention. this isn't eat pray love where we see our heroine simply generate travelers checks to fix whatever problem presents itself. this is a movie where we see our heroine generate heroin to fix whatever problems present themselves and then struggle with a life that has been essentially squandered. lots of folks are talking acting oscars for reese witherspoon and laura dern. i'm not sure they'd be deserved, but nick hornby and jean-marc vallée should be in line for at least nominations for best adapted screenplay and best director, respectively.


i also saw interstellar again and my rating went down unfortunately. still definitely worth seeing, but a few things that i hoped would come together on repeated viewings didn't really gel. it has a lot in common with gone girl, actually, in that they are both much more enjoyable on a first watch. this is particularly surprising to me because both nolan and fincher usually make movies that only reward repeat viewings. oh well. also i learned that what i thought looked in interstellar like bits from ken burns documentaries are actually...real bits from a ken burns documentary.
 
I am so out of touch with the movie scene right now I have not heard of any of the movies above.

The first two aren't really large market, mainstream movies. You'll hear a lot more about Wild in the coming weeks, though. The studio is going to push it hard ahead of Oscar season, I suspect.
 
speaking of non mainstream... I just finished watching the movie 'Tusk' (2014), a Kevin Smith movie. WTF!!!! I heard about the movie from a Sirius XM weekday talk show and he said it was pretty sick dark and twisted so I had to check it out. Downloaded it and took it all in. Serious pile of WTF.

Johnny Depp is even in it but you could never tell it was him though

thread jack, over ;)

 
Watching movies used to be one of my hobbies but [insert moan about kids] it's rare that we have a 2hr slot to watch/do anything.

Last week it took three successive nights to watch a single episode of SOA. Crazy. :)

That said, we did watch something other than an animated feature on Saturday, watching Edge of Tomorrow with only 3 pauses to deal with child wakings.

Enjoyed it a great deal, a large part to do with getting to see Tom Cruise die over and over again! It was a great watch, thoroughly enjoyed it. Especially after Oblivion, which I did not rate. At all. Coincidentally, that was probably the last movie we watched.

I don't have a Cruise Crush, that's the story I'm sticking to.

Will try and watch Birdman and Nightcrawler - sound great.
 
speaking of non mainstream... I just finished watching the movie 'Tusk' (2014), a Kevin Smith movie. WTF!!!! I heard about the movie from a Sirius XM weekday talk show and he said it was pretty sick dark and twisted so I had to check it out. Downloaded it and took it all in. Serious pile of WTF.

Johnny Depp is even in it but you could never tell it was him though

thread jack, over ;)

i almost included a mention of this movie as a "worst" entry. i wish it were a pile of wtf. instead it's just a pile. johnny depp's character has no purpose other than to fill time in a film because kevin smith was too lady to actually flesh out the half-baked idea that gave rise to the main character's fate. i could not believe has horribly smith mailed it in on this movie. just terrible.

really disappointing for two reasons, too: (1) i really, really liked Red State, kevin smith's last movie, and thought he was ready and willing to branch out into genre pictures (this wasn't even intended to be a horror movie - it was intended to be a parody of a horror movie); and (2) he praised the hell out of the Dirties, a micro-budget movie that came out last year as having reawakened his interest in film-making. that movie was one of the best things i saw last year because it took its subject seriously and, in doing so, found natural humor.

i could list off the many reasons tusk was horrible, but i'm sure that's enough.

That said, we did watch something other than an animated feature on Saturday, watching Edge of Tomorrow with only 3 pauses to deal with child wakings.

Enjoyed it a great deal, a large part to do with getting to see Tom Cruise die over and over again! It was a great watch, thoroughly enjoyed it. Especially after Oblivion, which I did not rate. At all. Coincidentally, that was probably the last movie we watched.

I don't have a Cruise Crush, that's the story I'm sticking to.

Will try and watch Birdman and Nightcrawler - sound great.

i think i mentioned above how much i liked Edge of Tomorrow. i don't want to overstate things - it's no Blade Runner - but it was of a much higher caliber than the typical summer blockbuster. i'm still not sure why it tanked at the box office. the studio thinks it was the title (hence the appearance of a title change on the dvd/bluray to Live. Die. Repeat.), but the marketing was ubiquitous enough that people had to know what it was about even with a sort of meaningless title.

hard to say which i would watch first between Birdman and Nightcrawler. both a lot of fun, so i guess it depends on your mood. Birdman if you're looking for something slightly surreal, but also quite funny. Nightcrawler if you're looking for something morbid and violent.
 
Last night we watched What We Do In The Shadows.


Several of the folk involved with Flight of the Concords.

It was good fun, a lot of the gags were well observed.

- - - - - - - - - Updated - - - - - - - - -

And it has a Nazi vampire in it, Mr. Tree. He's not a vegan tho
 
thanks for the reminder, Toby - i've been meaning to check that one out for a while.

i saw a really great one this weekend:


the performances were amazing across the board - steve carell, channing tatum, mark ruffalo. steve carell's make-up seems almost distracting in the previews, but in the context of the movie, it really isn't and his performance is the reason. it's perfect in my opinion. the director also directed capote and i saw a couple reviews that noted that in both films, the protagonist's character work is too distracting - the speech patterns and voice of philip seymour hoffman and the mannerisms of steve carell - to allow the audience to fully appreciate the performance. but i really disagree with regard to steve carell. he is just so good. likewise with channing tatum - really striking performance. his work has gotten progressively more nuanced and impressive over the past several years.

the story has a very gradual pace. i don't mean this to imply that it's slow because it isn't, but the plot movement simply builds rather than jerks and leaps. and the setting is well-crafted. it's set in the mid-to-late-80s and communicates the era well, but not in a nostalgic or kitschy way. very much worth seeing. i can't see how it won't make it into my top ten for the year.
 
Over the last week we have watched

Predestination: Really weird sci-fi movie. Not sure if I liked it or not. Damn was it weird.

NightCrawler: Good movie. Great acting by Jake Gyllenhaaland Rene Russo. The disappointing thing about the movie was you find out what kind of character Jake is playing within the first five minutes. Other than that. I definitely recommend it.

The Equalizer: "Meh".........solid violence. It tries to get you to care about the characters in the movie. It just doesn't do it well enough.
 
Over the last week we have watched

Predestination: Really weird sci-fi movie. Not sure if I liked it or not. Damn was it weird.

NightCrawler: Good movie. Great acting by Jake Gyllenhaaland Rene Russo. The disappointing thing about the movie was you find out what kind of character Jake is playing within the first five minutes. Other than that. I definitely recommend it.

The Equalizer: "Meh".........solid violence. It tries to get you to care about the characters in the movie. It just doesn't do it well enough.

unfortunately i agree re: the equalizer. really disappointing, i thought. could have been a solid genre movie with denzel playing a slightly paunchy michael-douglas-from-falling-down kind of guy. instead it descended into bland garbage.

i also saw predestination a couple weeks ago and was pretty disappointed in it, too. i hated how the movie acted like the end was some big reveal a la m. night shamalamadingdong. everyone watching could see that ending come ten miles away and yet they pretended like we were all supposed to have our minds blown. it wasn't a terrible movie, but i thought that given the source material - a pretty damn good heinlein short story - it could have been a LOT better.

i see your point regarding learning about gyllenhaal's character early on in nightcrawler, but i actually thought it worked for the film. it didn't set it up to be some sort of climax where the character grows to be worse and worse. you just understand straight out of the gate that he's a sociopath and you see him wind his way into this world where his sociopathic tendencies are rewarded.
 
Disappointed to see those comments about The Equalizer . . . loved the show and had such hope for the film. Probably still watch the DVD, but not with the same anticipation.

Saw Dawn of the Planet of the Apes tonight and, while much of the plot was predictable for someone who has seen the originals over and over again, I liked some of the new twists that were added. Thought it was a very solid film, as was the first one.
 
Saw Dawn of the Planet of the Apes tonight and, while much of the plot was predictable for someone who has seen the originals over and over again, I liked some of the new twists that were added. Thought it was a very solid film, as was the first one.

I really liked both of the Apes reboot movies, but I preferred the first by quite a bit, I think because my expectations were so low. The quality of Rise set the bar a lot higher, but even if Dawn wasn't amazing, it was a really good time.
 
I think some of the let down might be from "knowing" where the film is going to go, based on what you remember from the originals. Less of it in "Rise" than in "Dawn" . . .
 
unfortunately i agree re: the equalizer. really disappointing, i thought. could have been a solid genre movie with denzel playing a slightly paunchy michael-douglas-from-falling-down kind of guy. instead it descended into bland garbage.

i also saw predestination a couple weeks ago and was pretty disappointed in it, too. i hated how the movie acted like the end was some big reveal a la m. night shamalamadingdong. everyone watching could see that ending come ten miles away and yet they pretended like we were all supposed to have our minds blown. it wasn't a terrible movie, but i thought that given the source material - a pretty damn good heinlein short story - it could have been a LOT better.

i see your point regarding learning about gyllenhaal's character early on in nightcrawler, but i actually thought it worked for the film. it didn't set it up to be some sort of climax where the character grows to be worse and worse. you just understand straight out of the gate that he's a sociopath and you see him wind his way into this world where his sociopathic tendencies are rewarded.

I guess I just wanted "more" from it. Don't take this as a negative review. I did really like the movie. The acting was superb.

I DL/Stream a ton of movies. Some old, some new. Last night we watched "Game of Death"..........Bruce Lee. I just love his movies, lol. About 8-10 years ago I was watching a Bruce Lee movie (Enter the Dragon I think) when my 10 year old daughter walked into the room. Asked what I was watching, then joined me. Afterwards she said that was a really fun movie and asked if I had anymore, lol............Absolutely my now favorite daughter!!!!
 
Saw "Fury" by myself (a first for me) and then John Wick at night with the CLB.

I was pretty meh about both - it was a bit jarring how the main character in Fury went from a pacifist who wanted out of the tank to a bloodthirsty gunner in the course of about 5 minutes, and the plot device they used to get there was pretty weak. Best scene was a fight between a Panzer and 4 Shermans (tense moments, interesting strategy, etc). 3 older guys who must've been veterans (though obviously not of the WWII era - not that old) actually walked out at one point.

John Wick was just straight up action movie with some funny moments. I was concerned that the movie would take itself too seriously with Keanu Reeves trying to be "serious actor" but it hit just about the right tone as it was advertised.

SPOILERS!!!!!!

For WWII buffs best part of the movie was the battle scene with the Tiger only because they got the only running Tiger left in the world and put it in the movie. The rest was horrid dreck especially the final battle which continued to somehow emphasise that the German army was made up of psychopathic morons and that Americans were willing to sacrifice everything against ridiculous odds. The idiocy of attacking a disabled tank in the dark as if killing the occupants represented the final battle that the Germans needed to win the war or something. They even beat us over the head with it when they had the German commander announce 'they are out of ammo!'. Yep they were and disabled. Pointless. Yet after all of that, the final kick to the head in the incredible stupidity of the plot of this movie was the one survivor who is discovered by the only German who isn't a complete killing machine and now decides that there has been enough killing or something and lets him live.
 
Just finished watching The Interview. It wasn't bad.

I rented it on Xbox last night. It had some funny parts in it although some of the blood scenes were kind of unexpected.
 
The wife and I watched Last Vegas tonight. We both thought it was pretty entertaining. But of course the best part for me was the poker chip scenes from the Aria.

ARIA - Last Vegas 2.jpgARIA - Last Vegas.jpg
 
just finished watching 'Buried' with Ryan Rynolds. Seen it years ago but decided to give it another go. Wow, what a movie for only being shot in a wood box and nothing else. If you have not seen it..its a must watch thriller. (but not if your claustrophobic). And what an ending. wow
 
Watched yesterday my every Christmas "must watch" movie: "Rare Exports"

[video=youtube_share;1blTR5twvdE]http://youtu.be/1blTR5twvdE[/video]

A very much different Christmas story, which reveals the origin of Santa. And yes, he really comes from Lapland, Finland.
The movie also reveals, how Santa manages to be all over the Globe at the same time.

Woops, could not find a version with english text. Here's a trailer though:

[video=youtube_share;9RQlikX4vvw]http://youtu.be/9RQlikX4vvw[/video]

If someone wants to watch it in english, PM me and I will PM you back with online stream link.
 
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Just watched: The Drop and really liked it. Interested in others take on it if you have seen it.

Tom Hardy is currently one of the top 5 working actors out there right now IMO. James Gandolfini (RIP) was also pretty dam good in this as well.
 
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