Howdy, Stranger!

It looks like you're new here. If you want to get involved, click one of these buttons!

Sign In Apply for Membership

Categories

In this Discussion

Movies Talkses
  • ribbitribbit
    @evan absolutely not. It was basically along the lines of "it was boring" and "the camera never cut away" and "my god the whole thing was in French!"

    @WiredRacing you basically have the gist of the causation of the Iranian Revolution, but I'll admit perhaps I didn't give the film enough credit for its portrayal of the Iranians. You're right that the film doesn't paint them as villains, and that I can respect it for. I guess you can say it was difficult for me to take any of this out of my mind when I'm watching the film, and that kind of ruined it for me. I'm not trying to tell anyone how they should feel, I'm just merely stating my feelings on it. Since I'm a person that's always been indebted to political culture in some way or another, often it's hard for me to separate the real world from a film like Argo. :-\ such is life.
  • WiredRacing
    *nod*
  • WiredRacing
    Isn't that what the History Channel was founded on?
  • vestenetvestenet
    Oh, one thing I forgot to comment on: what's with Disney putting J-pop in their movies? First there was a Perfume song in Cars 2, and now AKB48 specifically wrote "Sugar Rush" for Wreck-It Ralph. What's next, Kyary Pamyu Pamyu has a cameo in Monsters University?

    Come to think of it, I really want to see that happen.
  • vestenetvestenet
    BTW, that Perfume song was their best song, "Polyrhythm":

  • ribbitribbit
    I fucking love that "Sugar Rush" song btw
  • WiredRacing
    The Imposter.

    Holy.
    Shit.
  • DallasshalduneDallasshaldune
    Mind blowing, yes.
  • ribbitribbit
    I saw The Perks of Being a Wallflower again today....it honestly moved me so much more than I remember the first time. I'm seriously regretting not putting this in my top 20, maybe it even deserved to be in the top 10. Huge fucking fail.
  • DallasshalduneDallasshaldune
    Movies change after reviewing for better or for worse. Top whatever lists are just talking points and snapshots. No shame.
  • ribbitribbit
    have any of you guys seen this, or heard of it?
  • psychedelicufopsychedelicufo
    I know of it. Apparently, the synopsis of the plot is "God disembowels himself." The whole thing is up on YouTube in full quality even though it doesn't really look like it. It looks like the film stock was intentionally rolled in the dirt and trampled on.
  • TTKTTK
    Yeah I watched it a while ago. It was weird.

    Not disturbing, just weird.
  • ribbitribbit
    @alex thanks for letting me know that's in full quality, I sort of assumed it was but I didn't want to watch it if I didn't know for sure. I'll probably watch it within the next couple of days
  • ribbitribbit
    it kind of looks like the filmed equivalent of black metal. maybe that's why @TTK don't like it! #amirite
  • TTKTTK
    I'd say the filmed equivalent of black metal would be Salo or A Serbian Film, wouldn't it?
  • ribbitribbit
    well as far as aesthetic goes any given still of this film could be a black metal album cover
  • ribbitribbit
    Salo is basically the filmed equivalent of Portal for fuck's sake
  • TTKTTK
    which should I watch tonight, Killer Joe or 8 and a half?
  • ribbitribbit
    I've never seen 8 1/2 (sorry TJ) but I liked Killer Joe quite a bit, so by process of elimination I recommend that
  • TTKTTK
    gonna watch 8 and a half. :3
  • MarsipolamiMarsipolami
    Letterboxd is out of public beta. Do ya'll have an account now?
  • TTKTTK
    well right now I can say 8 1/2 was really good.

    A little incomprehensible, but that's what it's meant to be. A lot of critics compare Synecdoche New York to it, and I can see why. It's not nearly as depressing, but it takes on similar themes and handles them with a similarly weighty feel. Even the way characters spur wordy and insightful dialogue on a whim never felt forced.

    It was a nice film, and when it's over you really feel like you've watched something. Not just another nothing.
  • DallasshalduneDallasshaldune
    That ending is just everything. Film is a circus, nothing more.
  • DallasshalduneDallasshaldune
    Killer Joe is really good too, but Fellini was a genius.
  • hayter36
    The Imposter is obviously an incredible story but I was pretty disappointed with the film overall.
  • DallasshalduneDallasshaldune
    I can see that. There were better docs in 2012, but I was still impressed.
  • TTKTTK
    I could barely sleep last night, I was thinking too much about the film's themes and how some kind of mirror my own life.

    I might watch it again tonight.
  • ribbitribbit
    that was my same reaction to A Serbian Film
  • TTKTTK
    really? After watching A Serbian Film all I wanted to do was take a cold shower.
  • WiredRacing
    I felt far worse reading about the scenes that existed in A Serbian Film than I did watching the movie itself.

    Brainpower.
    BRAINPOWER.
    (It is not a good band name, I probably should have used the saaammme, Braiiiiiinpower, that I mentioned before.)
  • TTKTTK
    even if A Serbian Film does have a message, the visuals and gore are so shocking any resemblance of a message is lost.
  • WiredRacing
    Just finished Holy Motors.

    Uh, sure why not. It's certainly interesting. I'm not sure its really about anything other than cinema. I do wonder if "Oscar" is literally supposed to reference THE Oscar (i.e. Academy Award) considering the subject matter. Though it would seem odd for a French art-house director to so directly hitch his wagon to an american (and hollywood) institution.

    I certainly prefer this sort of film over the bulk of the best picture nominees this year. So it would make my top 5 list, but ultimately I'm not sure it's about anything or as deep as one would expect with a result that's so bizarre. Overall I still feel largely disappointed in what was out in 2012. Don't get me wrong, some films did 1 or 2 things really well but I didn't finish (edit) most movies very satisfied. As such I think that might actually put Leviathan at the absolute top of my list as the most "awesome" movie going experience of the past year. If only that awe didn't make me so flipping nauseous I couldn't actually focus on the screen for more than moments at a time. But I mean even that one only did 1 thing really well, but at least it was so out there..

    Of course it's no secret I think ZDT is the "Best Picture", but I wasn't in awe of it. The last one I was in awe of I think would have been Melancholia. Actually that's not quite true, I was quite pleased with Cloud Atlas, but then again, I expected to be, I knew too much about it going in.

    I guess that means my top 5 (absent seeing Amour, sadly) is:

    - Zero Dark Thirty (best all around)
    - Holy Motors (most interesting)
    - Leviathan (the most risky and thought provoking from a cinema standpoint)
    - Django Unchained (the most entertaining by a long shot)
    - The Master (the best performances all around)

    Honorable mention to Lincoln and Cloud Atlas

    I'm sure one of those will get bumped when I see Amour.
  • DallasshalduneDallasshaldune
    I need to see Leviathan. I don't disagree with your picks.
  • svjchtr
    literally all of those will get bumped when you see Amour









    I might be exaggerating a little
  • WiredRacing
    Leviathan was so visceral (and I do not use that word often). Only 10 minutes and I was drawn in. I think I might have said this elsewhere, but I could literally smell the cigarette smoke on the screen when the fisherman take their first smoke break. I've never been so drawn into a film like that. Usually I'm fine tuning out, but I never feel like I'm there. With Leviathan, I was there and I really did spend 4/5ths of it wanting to vomit (I get easily sea-sick). High praise eh? :)
  • WiredRacing
    So I finally just got around to watching last years Best Picture winner, The Artist.

    I quite liked it. I dunno what else to say about it. I've only seen a couple other silent movies and nothing for over a decade. I thought the acting was spot on for the production scenes and for the actual story scenes. I felt a lot of nods to Singing in the Rain (I really must get that on BD), but then again, they're both about the same subject, so it could just be more the era than that movie.

    Ultimately it was a good crowd pleaser. Outside the box (for 2011). Well conceived and executed I thought.

    I still haven't seen half of last years BP noms (Only The Descendants (quite good), The Help (pandering), Midnight in Paris (fine), Moneyball (quite enjoyable)). So I'd probably have picked it last year just based on an overall film to win, but my favorite was still Melancholia and I think it was a travesty that Dundst did not get at least nominated for what she pulled off.
  • ribbitribbit
    even though I liked that movie (only a little, decent 6) it was so fucking depressing that a silent film won Best Picture last year. I buried my face into my hands when that happened.
  • TTKTTK
    Disagreeing again there, I thought the Artist was brilliant.
  • ribbitribbit
    how so? It was a movie that was solely riding on the fact that it was silent. It has absolutely nothing else going for it. If it was made back in the silent era, no one would remember it today; in fact I think it's destined to be one of those BP winners that no one is going to remember in 3 years.

    And the reason I say that it's depressing that it won is not because I didn't think it was great or anything, but because it reinforces the stereotype that the Oscars are composed of a group of old people that vote for "old people" movies and ignore progressive and daring film making. In 2009 there was a hint that that would change when The Hurt Locker got BP; but the very next year when The King's Speech got the award over The Social Network, and then the next year when a film mimicking the silent era won the award, any hope of the Oscars ever getting with the times kind of got crushed for me.
  • TTKTTK
    And once again, I thought the King's Speech was a great film, better than the Social Network.

    I thought The Artist was so classy and so charming.
  • ribbitribbit
    -_- I liked The Kings Speech too, but come on, it is stereotypical Oscar movie, you can't deny that at all. Dave Fincher accomplishes filmmaking that is leagues more ambitious than Tom Hopper, he was robbed.
  • psychedelicufopsychedelicufo
    I agree with Robby. I liked The King's Speech too (it was my first R-rated date movie, sexy, I know), but The Social Network was far more daring. Sorkin's script is so incredibly honed that it transforms a fairly uninteresting (on paper) story about rich kids suing each other into a multifaceted character study and document of our digitally-entrenched lives. Also, Fincher was in peak form during the filming of that movie. The cinematography during the rowing scene was unbelievably gorgeous.
  • DallasshalduneDallasshaldune
    The Social Network is an all-time great. The Sorkin-Fincher team was perfect there.
  • TTKTTK
    maybe I'm just an old soul.
  • dannyspiterijrdannyspiterijr
    The Social Network is incredible and I really need to re-watch it because I haven't seen it since it was in theaters.

    I haven't seen The King's Speech or The Artist, though I have the latter on DVD and will be getting to it at some point.
  • ribbitribbit
    I really liked The King's Speech alot actually, strong 8. But it by no means deserved BP over The Social Network
  • ShoeyShoey
    The Social Network didn't win because old people, but for a movie about such an innocuous subject matter to be so completely and thoroughly moving is downright spectacular.

  • vestenetvestenet
    I missed the first half-hour of the Oscars, but only because I was finishing this underrated gem from 1983.

  • dannyspiterijrdannyspiterijr
    What do y'all think was the best film score of 2012?
  • ShoeyShoey
    Indie Game: The Movie
    http://jimguthrie.bandcamp.com/album/indie-game-the-movie-soundtrack
  • ribbitribbit
    score =/= soundtrack

    @danny Beasts of the Southern Wild. no. fucking. contest.
  • vestenetvestenet
    John Dies at the End was one of the more creative experiences I've had in a while. Felt like a beyond-ridiculous episode of Buffy. Really wanna get the novel now.
  • ShoeyShoey
    @Robby you're a soundtrack.
  • DallasshalduneDallasshaldune
    Scores:
    1. The Master (Jonny Greenwood)
    2. Cloud Atlas
    3. Anna Karenina
    4. Beasts of the Southern Wild
    5. Life of Pi

    Soundtracks:
    1. Moonrise
    2. Django

  • ShoeyShoey
    Indie Game: The Movie's music should be considered closer to score regardless of what they're selling it as. It's all original pieces created for the film is it not?
  • ribbitribbit
    I guess so, yeah
  • dannyspiterijrdannyspiterijr
    Beasts of the Southern Wild's score was brilliant, but I think my favorite of the year might have been Jonny Greenwood's for The Master:



    @TJ I also really dug Cloud Atlas's score. Oh, and Moonrise Kingdom is definitely one of my favorite soundtracks of the year.
  • ribbitribbit
    lol seaman
  • WiredRacing
    @steve I fell asleep watching that. Stupid midnight madness show. Too old for that isht.
  • WiredRacing
    Yup Cloud Atlas was the only one I noticed.

    And I finally saw 'Shame' tonight. Solid 8. Though I do have a bit of a complaint about the saturated colors and erotic approach to most scenes. It seems somewhat unrealistic for a movie about a very real thing to doll it up like that. Perhaps desaturated it would have been too much for most audiences. At least Fassbenders acting cut through a lot of that and allowed you to feel his character despite his (visual) surroundings.
  • vestenetvestenet
    I think you're being too nice; Shame got comically overwrought. Maybe there's a way to tell a story about the seriousness of sex addiction while also utilizing impeccably perfect and beautiful Hollywood stars fucking each other, but Shame wasn't it.
  • ribbitribbit
    I sort of agree with Steve on this one, but there were still qualities of Shame I liked. But overall it wasn't a success
  • vestenetvestenet
    I got plenty of anti-masturbation propaganda in the 7th grade, thank you very much.
  • WiredRacing
    I'm not entirely sure the problem about attractive people there. In fact, if anything, it says more about the problem than not.

    If the social stigma about addiction is it's bad and dirty and shameful, here you have a pretty handsome guy who can basically get sex any time he wants (and/or a relationship) and because of his addiction he's paying for sex, chronically masturbating, can't follow through under the threat of a relationship, and then what he does at the low point in the film (and the bigger issue implied throughout).

    Unattractive people couldn't necessarily pull all that off. It could be considered more desperate and not have the same impact. As it would complicate things with not being able to pick up leading to rejection and then that guys only conquests would be paid for. Presumably. (yeah ugly people get laid too, but usually there's self confidence issues that make it more like climbing a mountain compared to visiting the corner store for some milk-shake). (where's my drumroll?)

    I also saw another movie in the subject at TIFF this past Sept with Mark Ruffalo and several others in it. It took a more comedic approach, though not wholly as Ruffalo's character's addiction actually comes off a bit more desperate and that he's struggling with it whereas Fassbender's approach is more of a predator.

    I would say Shame is far more effective at showing how the addiction has (despite his financial success) destroyed and become the overwhelming priority in his life. I would say it's about as subtle as any another movie dealing with addiction and being that addiction really isn't subtle (unless you're a functional alcoholic perhaps), I'm not sure how else you would portray the issue on film.
  • DallasshalduneDallasshaldune
    I feel like I saw a different Shame than some of you. Addiction is addiction, no matter what it is. When I left the theater, I didn't feel ashamed for any urge to have sex or time I masturbated, a natural thing and urge for a human to have. I just felt bad that a guy couldn't ever control himself. It is like addiction to anything, no matter how innocuous, even the internet or, I don't know, mashed potatoes. Anything.

    And his sister's depression felt authentic to me as well. I like McQueen a lot--Hunger and Shame were both extremely powerful movies to me. And that might be due to Fassbender's performance in both.
  • dannyspiterijrdannyspiterijr
    image
  • DallasshalduneDallasshaldune
    Lol holy shit I pick a random noun and there is a t shirt of it. Amazing.
  • dannyspiterijrdannyspiterijr
    I literally just Googled "mashed potatoes addiction."
  • dannyspiterijrdannyspiterijr
    Re: Steve McQueen, I've never seen any of his films, but I'm very curious about Twelve Years a Slave, which has quite a cast: http://rateyourmusic.com/film/twelve_years_a_slave/

    I'll try to check out Hunger and Shame at some point.
  • WiredRacing
    Yeah that little cunt Wallis is in that one.

    #TheOnion
  • dannyspiterijrdannyspiterijr
    @WiredRacing was secretly the person behind that tweet.
  • WiredRacing
    You can't spell c-u-n-t without the Alphabet... Wallis.
  • vestenetvestenet
    @Wired That's funny, because you're referencing that joke about a 9-year-old girl. That's really great. I'm so proud of you.
  • WiredRacing
    Almost as good as getting paid to write about it while generating impressions for my advertisers. Where my Google Ad-Words at?
  • WiredRacing
    BTW, if you think that's offensive, how about the fact I just bought the Macklemore & Ryan Lewis album today?
  • vestenetvestenet
    Yeah, what kind of pedantic assholes would want to call attention to the ease with which people rush to defend a tweet calling a little girl a cunt? Those people obviously need to loosen up and take a joke.
  • WiredRacing
    Meanwhile they sat casually by for the past 4 years while half of the conservative party and right wing media made consistent references of the American President to Hitler and Stalin.

    Stalinesque = whatever
    Poor taste satire = kill. Kill. KILL!

    I bet Seth paid them to do it. The only thing more offensive than that tweet was the "apology".

    I wonder how many of those sites have ads for American Apparel on them.
  • vestenetvestenet
    You're absolutely correct in that, not only did every single person do these things, but the fact that they did these things completely invalidates any further points made by all of them. And how could they forget that calling a 9-year-old girl a cunt was satire on a Swiftian level, both completely defensible and ultimately enlightening? Why, any person who gets all in a tiff whenever a little girl is called a cunt is a person who deserves to be drawn and quartered. Hurrah for free speech!
  • vestenetvestenet
    No don't you understand, @Ocaml, it was ironic, you dum-dum. That totally makes it alright.
  • vestenetvestenet
    Considering iron's a good conductor of heat, I don't think it'll be all that cold.
  • DallasshalduneDallasshaldune
    A little early for this, but of lot of these movies sound exiting, regardless of awards potential.

    http://blogs.indiewire.com/theplaylist/walt-disney-david-o-russell-martin-scorsese-prematurely-predicting-the-2014-best-picture-contenders-20130226?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=twitter&page=1#blogPostHeaderPanel
  • TTKTTK


    Go Jack.
  • ribbitribbit
    I definitely think Hunger is a much stronger film than Shame. Hunger is just so brutal man....I'm definitely looking forward to thus next film by Steve McQueen
  • ribbitribbit
    @TTK dear fuck that video is epic
  • WiredRacing
    I dunno why it is but I for some reason keep thinking Lawrence is Canadian.
  • TTKTTK
    watched this;



    oh. my. fuck.
  • vestenetvestenet
    Yeah, you see a lot of action flicks nowadays that get overblown and self-important with "we have to save the world!" plots, when a smaller and more focused story like The Raid: Redemption behooves the action so much more.
  • vestenetvestenet
    What's Eating Gilbert Grape has the weirdest cast ever.

    Johnny Depp
    Baby Leonardo DiCaprio
    John C. Reilly looking exactly the same as he does now
    Crispin Glover (as a coroner)
    Mary Steenburgen (eternally a mother)
    Audrey Griswold (Christmas Vacation version)

    It really had no right to be as pedestrian as it was.
  • psychedelicufopsychedelicufo
    Goddamn military industrial complex-supporting, drone usage-favoring propaganda!
  • ShoeyShoey
    Dr. Strangedrone: How I learned to stop droning and drone the drone.
  • dannyspiterijrdannyspiterijr
    @TJ Wow, it looks like there's some really fascinating stuff on that list.
  • DallasshalduneDallasshaldune
    I'm excited for quite a few of them. Not least of all 'Gravity' and 'Her'.
  • dannyspiterijrdannyspiterijr
    Her is one of the ones for which I'm really, really excited. I'm sure I'll be excited about Gravity once I've seen Children of Men.
  • svjchtr
    there are two Cuaron movies in my top 20 ^:)^
  • svjchtr
    actually y tu mama tambien might only be like #22 or something nvm fuck that dude
  • TTKTTK
    I watched that movie but I got a boner half way through.
  • vestenetvestenet
    I hear ya. Had the same problem with Salò. Took me 4 hours to watch a 2 hour film.
  • ribbitribbit
    I'm not sure which comment is more offensive.
  • vestenetvestenet
    Don't poop-shame me, bro.
Add a Comment