Last Movie You Watched

[Wakefield]

Started the year off by watching Barry Lyndon on BD.  The image quality is better than on DVD, though in place of noise, there is some old-style graininess, which is quite fine by me.  The spellbinding cinematography is even easier to appreciate now.  Kubrick's finest film?  Maybe.

One of Kubrick's weakest films, IMO. Never Kubrick seemed so tired like here.

[TheGSMoeller]

One of Kubrick's weakest films, IMO. Never Kubrick seemed so tired like here.

Perhaps you were tired when you watched it? 

[Bogey]

Watchable and kept my interest.  My friend then did some background checking on the true story and it was obvious that the Catholic Church was a target for this film in a number of the scenes as the facts were changed to make this happen.  Not sure why films do this when the true story would suffice.



Better than expected.  Lots of singing, but the story holds up and some memorable characters.

[kishnevi]

Perhaps you were tired when you watched it? 

I saw that in theater when it first came out, back in my teenage years.  For what I remember of it,  weariness (more precisely world-weariness) was an essential element of the story,  with the central character (can't really call him a hero) being a con man who eventually gets the punishment he deserves from his dupes by being shunted off into irrelevancy. 

It did bring a small outburst of popularity to one piece of Handel's harpsichord music.

[SonicMan46]

One of Kubrick's weakest films, IMO. Never Kubrick seemed so tired like here. Re: Barry Lyndon

Well, I'll have to agree w/ Gordo - I've seen this film on release and after several DVR recordings and have found the film long & boring - just don't get the attraction?  Dave

[SonicMan46]

Better than expected.  Lots of singing, but the story holds up and some memorable characters.

Hey Bill - Happy New Year!

We saw Frozen in IMAX 3D - just wonderful visually - Susan & I could not really stand the singing - I almost wanted to walk out - don't know what it is w/ these Disney films but the music is just by a bunch of 'teenage screamers' - this seems to have become the norm, unfortunately IMO - you might have felt the same?  Dave

[SonicMan46]

Zero Dark Thirty (2012) - was on my 'to watch' list; synopsis below in quotes - basically, the search & destruction of Osama - streamed off Amazon tonight - 4* on Amazon (although a lot of lower ratings); Rotten Tomatoes was 93% from the critics - I'd have to agree w/ the overall Amazon rating - rather slow from the start but ending is the best - worth a watch if you're interested in this topic - Dave

For a decade, an elite team of intelligence and military operatives, working in secret across the globe, devoted themselves to a single goal: to find and eliminate Osama bin Laden. Zero Dark Thirty reunites the Oscar winning team of director-producer Kathryn Bigelow and writer-producer Mark Boal (The Hurt Locker) for the story of history's greatest manhunt for the world's most dangerous man. -- (C) Official Site

[Wakefield]

It did bring a small outburst of popularity to one piece of Handel's harpsichord music.

Yes, but as an orchestral arrangement not by Händel.

[Bogey]

Hey Bill - Happy New Year!

We saw Frozen in IMAX 3D - just wonderful visually - Susan & I could not really stand the singing - I almost wanted to walk out - don't know what it is w/ these Disney films but the music is just by a bunch of 'teenage screamers' - this seems to have become the norm, unfortunately IMO - you might have felt the same?  Dave

I believe you will see more of the same in upcoming films when it has this number:

Box Office:$248.1M!  Even beating The Hobbit.  I did not care for all the singing either, but when Disney finds a fiscal formula, they tend to ride it.  However, my best friend worked on this story so I am very pleased for him.

[Octave]

"Play-fighting"

Having loved Baumbaugh's prior work (Squid and the Whale, Greenberg), I expected this to be damn good. It wasn't. 2/10 stars.

Greta Gerwig's biggest achievement here is playing the same character she played in Greenberg - only somehow portraying it in an even more annoying fashion.

FRANCES HA (Noah Baumbach, 2012)
I know exactly what George means and I partially agree, esp. about the Gerwig performance/character....but I still managed to like the film.   I was surprised, as I found the characters even more unpleasant than in Baumbach's other films.  I wonder if my reaction to the movie isn't sufficiently 'literary'...I mean, the main lesson, by default, seemed to me to be "don't surround yourself with assholes, because it will damage you further".  Also possibly "don't major in semiotics".  But I kept thinking back to the film and my disgusted response didn't seem adequate to what was happening.

I keep dreading seeing Baumbach's movies (most of which I have really liked, including the two mentioned by George plus the snarky-beyond-belief MARGOT AT THE WEDDING) because I just keep thinking that he's not going to be able to keep weaving anything durable out of his chosen material.  I end up being happy that there always seems to be something transcendent worming its way out of the squalor.  It almost seems like each subsequent movie withholds judgement from the characters, more and more; until it's me that's left holding the resentment bag.  That is interesting.

As for the Gerwig character's annoyingness, I can't disagree, and while it's cheap to say "that's the point", I did feel like the end of the movie rhymed thematically with the first couple scenes: she's finally won the respect of a teacher (?)/colleague/elder pro, but all she can do is make moon-eyes at her untrustworthy, miserable, and possibly worthless (female) friend, ignoring both her teacher and the maybe-nice guy who's been woundedly, hesitantly, painfully-uncoolly-coolly trying to woo her....the exact same way Gerwig ignored her boyfriend in favor of a cell phone [call from that same ~worthless [?] friend] at the beginning of the movie, pretty much the same way that that ~worthless friend routinely ignored Gerwig in favor of her own cell phone.  I still felt like Baumbach wasn't making entirely self-evident the stingy conclusions that I'd drawn, but all the tensions were there.  I keep leaving his movies feeling like he's toughminded but less misanthropic than I am, and that's reassuring to me....more so than a 'happy ending'.

I also liked some of the uses of music (Georges Delerue on second thought, not so sure...I was just happy to hear Delerue  etc) throughout, including David Bowie's "Modern Love", when the film apparently "quotes" Denis Lavant's ecstatic newly-in-love dance through the streets in Leos Carax's MAUVAIS SANG, albeit (maybe suggestively) in reverse direction.  (Admittedly, the Carax is probably a much better movie.)
P.S. On second thought, not sure about this either.....I mean, it's just a completely bald rip-off....maybe I just expressed more generosity than I should have....

I guess my scant review of reviews of the picture have turned up a lot of talk about the movie being about "friendship" or "female friendship", but the only image I saw of this across the whole film was friendship as something dogged and in this case catastrophically compromised by sadism, selfishness, ambition, and class.  It's a dark movie.

[TheGSMoeller]

A Christmas present for the boy. He loved it, of course. It's actually pretty good, very entertaining, in fact Lego does a good job with most of their multimedia projects (movies, TV shows, games). They always add a lot of puns and jokes that only adults or long time fans of the subject would understand, the Lego Star Wars movies are filled with them.

[asin]B00D01682K[/asin]

[North Star]

REVOLVER (Guy Ritchie)

Unattractive cinematography - complete with short bits of jarringly out-of-place animated bits, messy 'plot' and scenes arranged out of order and repeated, unfitting bits of Mozart, Beethoven & Vivaldi, varying performances from the actors. And even a reference to Pulp Fiction, all covered with a sprinkle of philosophical pixie dust that doesn't really help making the movie watchable.

[Todd]

Mud.  A couple southern teenage boys, neither of whom seem destined for very good lives, run into a mysterious drifter type - the snaggle-toothed but super toned Matthew McConaughey, shirtless for part of the movie, natch - with a sordid recent past.  Adventures ensue.  The movie strives for and achieves a reasonably high degree of realism until the climax, which is way over the top in the context of this film and all but derails the whole thing.  McConaughey is excellent, the teenage boys, too, and Sam Shepard is excellent until the climactic scene.  Joe Don Baker is squandered.  Reese Witherspoon is very good, I suppose, but there's something about her I find intrinsically repellent.  She's attractive, she's a good actress, but I don't like watching her at all, in anything, ever.  I don't know what it is, and I know it's just me, but I have to say it.  A three star (out of four) flick, except for the one star ending.

[George]

A fun screwball comedy!

[Cato]

A Christmas present for the boy. He loved it, of course. It's actually pretty good, very entertaining, in fact Lego does a good job with most of their multimedia projects (movies, TV shows, games). They always add a lot of puns and jokes that only adults or long time fans of the subject would understand, the Lego Star Wars movies are filled with them.

[asin]B00D01682K[/asin]

We saw a preview for The LEGO Movie: see what you think!

http://www.youtube.com/v/fZ_JOBCLF-I

[TheGSMoeller]

We saw a preview for The LEGO Movie: see what you think!

http://www.youtube.com/v/fZ_JOBCLF-I

Very cool, Cato! My son watches the trailer over and over. What I like about this movie is that it looks like actual Lego pieces used with stop motion animation rather than the CG Legos of Star Wars and Batman (not that there is anything wrong with the CG). I have a feeling we'll be seeing this in the theater.

[Cato]

Very cool, Cato! My son watches the trailer over and over. What I like about this movie is that it looks like actual Lego pieces used with stop motion animation rather than the CG Legos of Star Wars and Batman (not that there is anything wrong with the CG). I have a feeling we'll be seeing this in the theater.

It is probably a 90-minute commercial for Legos, but it might be an entertaining 90-minute commercial, like those Verizon ads with the kindergartners or the Direct TV ads with the chain of unlikely events when you get tired of cable.

[snyprrr]

Mud.  A couple southern teenage boys, neither of whom seem destined for very good lives, run into a mysterious drifter type - the snaggle-toothed but super toned Matthew McConaughey, shirtless for part of the movie, natch - with a sordid recent past.  Adventures ensue.  The movie strives for and achieves a reasonably high degree of realism until the climax, which is way over the top in the context of this film and all but derails the whole thing.  McConaughey is excellent, the teenage boys, too, and Sam Shepard is excellent until the climactic scene.  Joe Don Baker is squandered.  Reese Witherspoon is very good, I suppose, but there's something about her I find intrinsically repellent.  She's attractive, she's a good actress, but I don't like watching her at all, in anything, ever.  I don't know what it is, and I know it's just me, but I have to say it.  A three star (out of four) flick, except for the one star ending.

Have you seen MM in 'Kliller Joe' yet? Directed by Friedkin- ya'lls gonna loves it!!

[snyprrr]

Best Film of 2013

'Killer Joe'

[mn dave]

Best Film of 2013

'Killer Joe'

Hey, I liked that one. Want some chicken?