Last Movie You Watched

[milk]

Too bad. The Coens are so uneven. I had hopes for this, something bubble bursting, but this sounds pious.

Who would you say is less uneven? And who amongst auteurs?

Blood Simple (1984) better than good
Raising Arizona (1987) good
Miller's Crossing (1990) better than good
Barton Fink (1991) great
The Hudsucker Proxy (1994) OK
Fargo (1996) Masterpiece
The Big Lebowski (1998) masterpeice
O Brother, Where Art Thou? (2000) good
The Man Who Wasn't There (2001) OK
Intolerable Cruelty (2003) not good?
The Ladykillers (2004) not good?
No Country for Old Men (2007)masterpeice
Burn After Reading (2008) pretty good
A Serious Man (TBA) good
True Grit maybe good
Inside OK

[George]

Who would you say is less uneven? And who amongst auteurs?

Wes Anderson
Paul Thomas Anderson

[Ken B]

Who would you say is less uneven? And who amongst auteurs?

Blood Simple (1984) better than good nearly a masterpiece.
Raising Arizona (1987) good better than good
Miller's Crossing (1990) better than good
Barton Fink (1991) great suckhole
The Hudsucker Proxy (1994) OK
Fargo (1996) Masterpiece
The Big Lebowski (1998) masterpeice suckhole
O Brother, Where Art Thou? (2000) good
The Man Who Wasn't There (2001) OK
Intolerable Cruelty (2003) not good? definitely not good
The Ladykillers (2004) not good? Mother of all suckholes
No Country for Old Men (2007)masterpeice masterpiece
Burn After Reading (2008) pretty good
A Serious Man (TBA) good fairly good, doesn't quite gel, interesting though
True Grit maybe good best since Fargo. Fargo level
Inside OK not seen

I made some minor corrections.

[Ken B]

Wes Anderson
Paul Thomas Anderson

PTA is insanely uneven. I thought 2/3 of the way through Magnolia I was watching the greatest movie since Godfather 2, maybe even since Vertigo. And then ... This is the most uneven I have ever seen in the same damn movie.

[George]

PTA is insanely uneven. I thought 2/3 of the way through Magnolia I was watching the greatest movie since Godfather 2, maybe even since Vertigo. And then ... This is the most uneven I have ever seen in the same damn movie.

I love Magnolia. And Punch Drunk Love and The Master and Hard Eight and Boogie Nights and There Will Be Blood.

[Ken B]

I love Magnolia. And Punch Drunk Love and The Master and Hard Eight and Boogie Nights and There Will Be Blood.

PDL is a suckhole, as how could it not be with that star, Blood is a bit of a misfire, as is The Master, both having great bits and impressive control, but flawed scripts. The other 2 are fabulous. He has immense talent, but needs sober second thought sometimes.

[Todd]

Who would you say is less uneven?

Michael Bay.

[Ken B]

Michael Bay.

Yes. He is preternaturally consistent.

[milk]

Wes Anderson
Paul Thomas Anderson

Well, it's about subjective taste isn't it. I cannot sit through a Wes Anderson movie. I liked Punched Drunk Love but I don't see a masterpiece there either. But that's me and everyone has their own tastes.

[milk]

I made some minor corrections.

Didn't get a chuckle out of Lebowski, huh. Well, we agree on the important points.

[George]

Well, it's about subjective taste isn't it.

Sure it is. No one is right, no one is wrong.

[mn dave]

PITCH BLACK

A diverse group of space travelers is stranded on an alien planet where the flesh-eating monsters come out of their hidey holes when there's an eclipse--and the only man who can save them is the murderer they were transporting in chains: Riddick.

*** our of *****

[Todd]

Tammy.  The very definition of a mediocre comedy.  A few yuks, a lot a slow patches, and a lot of (former?) A-list talent cashing paychecks.

[milk]

PITCH BLACK

A diverse group of space travelers is stranded on an alien planet where the flesh-eating monsters come out of their hidey holes when there's an eclipse--and the only man who can save them is the murderer they were transporting in chains: Riddick.

*** our of *****

It's a nice log-line isn't it? Can't go wrong (much). I liked that one. But they made a franchise out of it, didn't they?

[George]

Tammy.  The very definition of a mediocre comedy.  A few yuks, a lot a slow patches, and a lot of (former?) A-list talent cashing paychecks.

Thanks for the warning, the last two I saw her in were exactly as you describe above.

[mn dave]

It's a nice log-line isn't it?

Of course it's nice; it's mine. 

Yeah, there are three movies now. Haven't seen the others.

[Drasko]

Yeah, there are three movies now. Haven't seen the others.

Second is full blown space opera and the third is return to the small scale theme of the first but with production values of the second. All three are entertaining, I think I liked the first the most.


[asin]B000TXNDVQ[/asin]

[mn dave]

Second is full blown space opera and the third is return to the small scale theme of the first but with production values of the second. All three are entertaining, I think I liked the first the most.

Thanks, buddy!

[Octave]

LIKE FATHER, LIKE SON (Hirokazu Koreeda, 2013)

I've liked all of the Kore-eda films I've seen, with the possible exception of I WISH, which rubbed me the wrong way, where Kore-eda's "sentimentality"---something that seems to always be an improtant part of his movies---seemed to run out of control.
I liked LFLS a lot more, and oddly enough it was the singular quality of Kore-eda's "sentimentality" that distinguished the film, including some moments where cliches seemed to be placed into a kind of resonant communion rather than ridiculed or parodied.  There was an early scene in which Gould's GOLDBERGs aria plays over images of a family taking their six-year-old to get a DNA swab, when it becomes evident that their biological child was switched at birth.  In quick succession, there are shots of the family ascending in a ultramodern glass lift, in chilly lighting; holding their son's hands and occasionally hoisting him up into the air as they all walked down a corridor; walking up a stairwell with the camera trained directly down into it; then the DNA swab.  Everything gently nudged forth the shape of a double-helix, seen from different angles and in different light.  The images pre-echoed the thematic braid of heredity, destiny, loss, and love.  By the end of the picture, I was convinced it was among the most hopeful "anti"-/"post"-nuclear family films I've seen.  (That latter point really does not seem to be its agenda, except maybe in this or that singular case.)  It's a great "family" film.

Apparently Steven Spielberg was chair of the Cannes jury that awarded this film a big prize in 2013, and now it seems Spielberg is developing (and directing?) an American re-make.  Normally I would not be too excited about that, except that A.I. seems like a thematic quasi-companion to Kore-eda's film, oddly enough.  (Though tonally/generically very different.  I think one could actually hate A.I. and still like LFLS very much.  Even the occasional melodrama of LFLS takes on a quiet, intoxicating tidal motion while still seeming like normal "commercial" filmmaking.)

[Octave]

Who would you say is less uneven? And who amongst auteurs?

Blood Simple (1984) better than good
Raising Arizona (1987) good
Miller's Crossing (1990) better than good
Barton Fink (1991) great
The Hudsucker Proxy (1994) OK
Fargo (1996) Masterpiece
The Big Lebowski (1998) masterpeice
O Brother, Where Art Thou? (2000) good
The Man Who Wasn't There (2001) OK
Intolerable Cruelty (2003) not good?
The Ladykillers (2004) not good?
No Country for Old Men (2007)masterpeice
Burn After Reading (2008) pretty good
A Serious Man (TBA) good
True Grit maybe good
Inside OK

FWIW I guess I'd happily endorse your ratings with a few little adjustments: downgrading FARGO and NO COUNTRY a little bit; upgrading SERIOUS MAN a little bit; upgrading TRUE GRIT quite a bit (not to 'masterpiece', but still.....though I am surprised how much I liked it and feel the need to see it again to make sure....it was the starry sky near the end that sealed the deal for me, like the snow in HUDSUCKER or a million other similar little Coen "mortality" moments that seem priestly, strange, metaphysical, wonderstruck, bemused); maybe upgrading INTOLERABLE a little?  Maybe just for The Clooney's hungry Mastroiannian alpha-clown teeth?
I guess I'm inclined to see the Coens' "unevenness" as a virtue.  Not unlike other less-commercial but also wildly "uneven" filmmakers like, I don't know, Godard or Fassbinder or Akerman or Oliveira.

And consider: if you're going to suffer a boring movie, isn't it nice to have "all kinds" of boring?  How generous!  But I did not care too much for INSIDE on a  first viewing, either.  I don't really understand the praise, except that I want to see more Oscar Issac; I had to be reminded that he was in DRIVE.