What is The Last Movie You Watched?

[RallyCola]

47 ronin is my 2nd favorite keanu reeves movie....behind everyone else.

[Prospero]

A new French film "Bird People" - slow and dreamlike - about two people whose paths cross and who seek liberation. Rather magical

Cannes Film Festival (2014) - Bird People French Trailer - Josh Charles Fantasy HD - YouTube (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JStj8UjDKvQ)

[BlüeKarma]

Rage, not one of Nicholas Cage's better films.

[Prospero]

"Ida" a Polish film directed by Paweł Pawlikowski and probably not the sort of fare most folk here might choose to watch. But it is a stunning and moving film - and very beautifully filmed in Black and White - about a young Catholic novitiate about to take her final vows and her journey of self discovery after she finds that she is Jewish. High recommended. And the closing music is divine - a Bach choral prelude.


IDA Movie Trailer (2014) - YouTube (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oXhCaVqB0x0)

[Stavros]

The Master (Paul Thomas Anderson, 2012)
Can 'the Master', using his therapeutic techniques bring a rule-breaking, compulsive alcoholic with a broken family background to a new awareness of himself that will give him peace and enable him to live a better life? No. And after two hours and twenty three minutes of this pretentious garbage, one is not surprised. Anderson must have his admirers, or he would not get the funding to make the bloated, self-important and desperately awful films that litter his catalogue. For £5 I even got the 'two-disc' edition, but will not bother with the extras and give this to the charity shop.

[Prospero]

exactly my feelings aobut that film Stavros.

[pantybulge69]

Denzel Washington's THE EQUALIZER. i loved it.
i never saw the TV series and now
i wish i had, since the movie seems based off the TV series.
The film itself is very tactful and strategic. the villain started great but
finished flat but the movie itself was the kind of bravo macho and blood violence i like seeing it.

[transfan8591]

Akira

[Stavros]

Gone Girl (David Fincher, 2014)
Fincher returns to the theme of games/pretending that he has tackled before in films like Seven, Fight Club, The Game, and you could argue The Curious Case of Benjamin Button where all is not what it seems. The film is about an under-achiever from Missouri who moves to New York to be a writer and falls in love with and marries a high-end successful New Yorker with equally-high end aspirations, but a tendency to enjoy controlling men. They experience a financial crisis, like everyone else in the last 5 years, and remove to Missouri where their marriage goes badly wrong. If there is an over-riding theme it might be: Women are smart, devious and dangerous; Men are dumb, honest and useless. Whether or not this is a piece of misogyny I can't tell for sure as it is based on a story written by a woman who also wrote the screenplay, but I found this aspect of the film weighed it down, as well as the poorly delineated male lead. There are several plot holes, and in one scene a woman covered in blood leaves a hospital without the staff cleaning it off, that would never happen in real life.
Rosamund Pike looks stunning in underwear, that is all that is worth seeing in this lame, tepid film.

[Yasmin Lee Fan]

I saw The Equalizer today. I always liked the T.V. series that the movie was based on, and I liked this movie through about the first three quarters of it. I especially liked the scene where Denzel shows up at the Russian mobsters office. This was a great action scene. The action/ fight choreography in this film was great, but I just think they over did it in the end. It turned into Rambo. Also, I don't know what I'll do if I see another action star walking in slow motion with an explosion in the background. This has been done to death. Lastly, I'd rather see Denzel Washington play this type of character than Liam Neeson. I think he does a much better job.

[broncofan]

If there is an over-riding theme it might be: Women are smart, devious and dangerous; Men are dumb, honest and useless. .
I read one of Gillian Flynn's books (the author who wrote Gone Girl) called Sharp Objects. This seems to be an overriding theme in her writing, since I started another one and didn't finish it and it also identified very strongly with the clever female protagonist. It's interesting because Patricia Highsmith, who was generally viewed as a misogynist, portrayed men as devious and smart and women as superficial.

It was clear to me in reading Deep Water that Highsmith viewed women as intellectually inferior. Flynn probably doesn't think she's misogynistic (no-one ever does) as it seemed to me she romanticized this complexity of character among women. But yes, her characters are very "gendered"....their traits seem to be a function of their gender.

[iloveTranssexual]

cold in july

Cold In July Official Trailer 1 (2014) - Sam Shepard, Michael C. Hall Thriller HD - YouTube (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UO63ccU6ce0)

[Stavros]

I read one of Gillian Flynn's books (the author who wrote Gone Girl) called Sharp Objects. This seems to be an overriding theme in her writing, since I started another one and didn't finish it and it also identified very strongly with the clever female protagonist. It's interesting because Patricia Highsmith, who was generally viewed as a misogynist, portrayed men as devious and smart and women as superficial.

It was clear to me in reading Deep Water that Highsmith viewed women as intellectually inferior. Flynn probably doesn't think she's misogynistic (no-one ever does) as it seemed to me she romanticized this complexity of character among women. But yes, her characters are very "gendered"....their traits seem to be a function of their gender.

Thanks for this, as I had never heard of Gillian Flynn before, having little interest in crime fiction although I did read The Talented Mr Ripley some years ago, and Sherlock Holmes when I was a teenager. Not sure if you are right about Ms Highsmith.

[broncofan]

Not sure if you are right about Ms Highsmith.
I won't derail the thread....but I noticed after I wrote this that the issue is more complicated that that...as I had only read a single book of Patricia Highsmith (the woman in Deep Water was especially vapid and one-dimensional) and assumed others followed in that vain.

[Yasmin Lee Fan]

I saw Gone Girl today. The biggest problem I had was with the ending. A big let down in my opinion. The woman leaving the hospital with blood all over her didn't make sense to me either. I haven't read the book, so I didn't know what to expect.

[Odelay]

Boyhood (Linkater 2014)
In truth, the movie should probably be listed as 2002 to 2014. If you haven't heard about this movie, Linklater shot a few new scenes, each year during the 12 yr span as the main character grew from 6 to 18 years of age. The audience watches this actor/character and his sister grow up on screen over the course of 2.5 hrs.

It's a pretty clever production and Linklater's writing makes this a very good movie. His best movie, really. Movie reviewers have had a difficult time comparing it to any other movie, but in truth it does have some similarities to Michael Apted's 7up series. Linklater was a little disingenuous in an interview by stating his movie isn't like Apted's series. The key difference is Apted's series show the characters aging in huge 7 year chunks with each new movie release. In contrast, this movie shows one continuous narrative over 12 years.

I've liked many of Linklater's movies through the years, beginning with Slacker in 1992. My expectations were high going in, and I found that I liked it even more than I had expected. I'm guessing this movie will net Linklater his first best director/movie AA nomination.

[Prospero]

"Gosford Park" - essentially an early take on the themes developed in the "Downton Abbey" TV series. Directed by Robert Altman (one of his few truly disappointing films) and written by Julian Fellowes. Tedious, overlong and full of cliches. It came out years ago but I fell asleep first time I watched it. Would have done well to repeat that escape this time around.

[broncofan]

I just saw Inside Llewyn Davis. I did not like it very much. I know it has been reviewed positively, but I had a lot of trouble connecting to the subject matter or the characters. Even though I am not a big folk music person, I would have expected someone who sings folk music at a time when it was not lucrative to be very passionate about it. Yet the main character was a miser, all the way around. Didn't treat his friends well, wasn't passionate about his music. Maybe I missed something. I need some reason to like a movie...it does not have to be a feel good sort of movie but if not then it has to reflect some aspect of life or make me think.

[holzz]

X:Men 2014....i usually hate prequels, but then I take an exception here.

[Prospero]

A very slow and gentle little film called "Still Life" directed by Uberton Pasolini
STILL LIFE - Official HD Trailer - YouTube (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gt9CsXrlO8Y)

I also saw in the past 24 hours a film entiled "Finding Fela"
Finding Fela -- Official Trailer (Dir. Alex Gibney) - YouTube (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=937SQ8-6RV4)

[CORVETTEDUDE]

Lone Survivor

[Ben]

Elysium w/ Matt Damon and Jodie Foster. I liked it.

Elysium Trailer - YouTube (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gO0zFNLURX8)

[dyxe20]

Godfather

[josehip]

The Killing of a Chinese Bookie

[goatman]

blacula[1972] & scream, blacula, scream[1973]

[Prospero]

The Barbarian Invasions.... a 2004 french canadian film about a man wo is termially ill with cancer. Sounds like a real downer, but it is actually funny and moving. really impressive film.

" the barbarian invasions " - (les invasions barbares) - trailer 2003. - YouTube (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gquFdH352yE)
The Barbarian Invasions (2003) HQ trailer - YouTube (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nH6v62yp29Q)

Also "Cloud Atlas' - sadly from an intriguing book the film is a mess.

Cloud Atlas Extended Trailer #1 (2012) - Tom Hanks, Halle Berry, Wachowski Movie HD - YouTube (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hWnAqFyaQ5s)

And a few minutes of this drivel. From the once terrific David Lynch.

INLAND EMPIRE Trailer - YouTube (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BBENalLEnSE)

[Yasmin Lee Fan]

The Judge. I'm not a big fan of Robert Downey Jr., but I liked this film. Robert Duvall was amazing as usual. This movie was very touching and thought provoking. It is the best I've seen in a long time.

[Plaything]

Watching 'Big Fish' again. Love it. Speaks to me. In addition, PearlJams 'Man of the Hour' over the credits...after the final scene reveal. Beautiful.

[Richie H]

Lucy Was Really Good..

[pantybulge69]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2AUmvWm5ZDQ

John Wick is an awesome action flick !
Average plot but very bloody, and superb close gun-range battles and
hand to hand fighting.

[rockabilly]

Watched "Walk the Line" again.

[Plaything]

'Jimi'

Andre was outstanding in the title role: can't polish a turd though, and however hard they tried to roll it in glitter, the screenwriter needs be shot at dawn. Dialogue stank, and the director was clearly out of their depth. All in all a pile of shite...And who the fuck cast their virgin, halfwit family member as Keef.

Grow up Hollywood (who am I kidding)

[Jimmy W]

Though I love Johnny Cash I actually hated WALK THE LINE because to me it was tedious and went over the same ground over and over 'I love you June...Im a drug addict...go away John and get help....' OK, two hours into it I think the message became clear. On the other hand, the cameo by Ginnifer Goodwin as his first wife....I have a weird attraction to her and love her so much in everything she is in that I bought the DVD

[Jimmy W]

'Jimi'

Andre was outstanding in the title role: can't polish a turd though, and however hard they tried to roll it in glitter, the screenwriter needs be shot at dawn. Dialogue stank, and the director was clearly out of their depth. All in all a pile of shite...And who the fuck cast their virgin, halfwit family member as Keef.

Grow up Hollywood (who am I kidding)

Isn't it true they didn't get the rights to any Hendrix music? As a fun aside, WalMart s featuring a DVD called HENDRIX which is nothing but a 30 min interview with Leroy Hendrix or whatever his brothers name is in an attempt to trick someone

[Plaything]

Isn't it true they didn't get the rights to any Hendrix music? As a fun aside, WalMart s featuring a DVD called HENDRIX which is nothing but a 30 min interview with Leroy Hendrix or whatever his brothers name is in an attempt to trick someone

Jimmy, it was shocking...and even if they had resurrected the great man himself..the dialogue was laughable. Having said that, sadly, parting with cash money to see it, I've been finding laughter, or any substansive positive emotion, in short supply...cut.

[nausicaa]

The Book of Life - very nicely made - visually stunning

Also saw Fury - somewhat frustrating - the 1st 100 minutes had the making of an all time classic - but the last set piece was OTT heroics. Still worth seeing overall - but could have been so much more

[Jericho]

I Spit On Your Grave 2
A bit of an unpleasant mess, really! :shrug

[Shemale lovers]

The new Turtles movie. Was not half as bad as i feared either

[StingerZ_UK]

Not strictly a Movie but Im playing catch up on The Walking Dead.
Im upto Series 4 at the moment and loving it

[Shemale lovers]

Best TV show iv ever seen StingerZ. Even better than Game Of Thrones. Iv just started season 5 and its killing me having to wait a week for each episode ( I watched the first 4 seasons back to back)

[Odelay]

The Book of Life - very nicely made - visually stunning

Also saw Fury - somewhat frustrating - the 1st 100 minutes had the making of an all time classic - but the last set piece was OTT heroics. Still worth seeing overall - but could have been so much more
I saw Book of Life, too. Your comments are correct but the story itself is a little weak. I had hoped this might be an animation flick with more adult themes, but sadly it barely rose above any of the Shrek or Toy Story movies. I'm not asking for another Fritz the Cat but it would be nice if someone could use animation to tell a story that rose above the pablum served up by Pixar/Dreamworks & Disney, indie and short animation excepted.

[Cerberus]

A Most Wanted Man.

Excellent performance from Philip Seymour Hoffman even if you do have to listen quite hard to pick up a lot of the dialogue.
Intelligent thriller with the beautiful Rachel McAdams.
She'd have it!

[stimpy17]

"Fury". I kept waiting for it to take off but it never did. After seeing "Saving Private Ryan" and balling like a baby the first 15 minutes all else pales in comparison.

[Yasmin Lee Fan]

Fury was the last movie I saw also. Not what I expected. It made the Americans look worse than the Germans !

[Robinhood81]

Fury had some great action and performances, even Shia la shit was good, but it's depiction of women was pretty bad and almost everyone in it as an Ass hole lol. Amend those 2 things and you'd have a much better film. Still a decent war movie though. But the poor treatment of women In it (verbal jokes too) went too far for me and felt out of place. The dinner scene (and it's build up) just felt so off, almost every part of it.

The judge was really good.

Turtles was surprisingly not as bad as I feared, the story is stupid and the human stuff dull, fox is poor but the turtles are fun and the action decent (can't touch the 1990 film though)

[Robinhood81]

Not strictly a Movie but Im playing catch up on The Walking Dead.
Im upto Series 4 at the moment and loving it



I love the walking dead, I'm on the current series 5, just awesome, rick is my fav character

[Robinhood81]

The Barbarian Invasions.... a 2004 french canadian film about a man wo is termially ill with cancer. Sounds like a real downer, but it is actually funny and moving. really impressive film.

" the barbarian invasions " - (les invasions barbares) - trailer 2003. - YouTube (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gquFdH352yE)
The Barbarian Invasions (2003) HQ trailer - YouTube (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nH6v62yp29Q)

Also "Cloud Atlas' - sadly from an intriguing book the film is a mess.

Cloud Atlas Extended Trailer #1 (2012) - Tom Hanks, Halle Berry, Wachowski Movie HD - YouTube (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hWnAqFyaQ5s)

And a few minutes of this drivel. From the once terrific David Lynch.

INLAND EMPIRE Trailer - YouTube (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BBENalLEnSE)


I loved the cloud atlas film, thought it was beautiful in pales too, it's very complicated and layered though,

I've not read the book.

[Robinhood81]

Places

[Odelay]

Hunger Games Part 2, which I guess will be followed by Hunger Games Part 3 Part1, followed by Part 3 Part 2. Confusing.

Anyway, this latest version (Part 2) which is on Netflix is hardly the stuff of legends. Not exactly Empire Strikes Back-ish in quality despite leaving us in mid-story. Obviously they're trying to morph this series into The Matrix, where the main character is some sort of savior. It's pretty poor in comparison. J-Law is not saving this series despite what they're trying to do with her character. With Part 3 Part 1 coming out very soon, it would be cool if she bailed on Part 3 Part 2. A lot of Hollywood execs would shit their pants if she did that, but I doubt that she has the guts to do it. I have no idea why Woody Harrelson would continue to want to be associated with this unless they're about to foreclose on one of his mansions. Critically acclaimed shit like True Detective doesn't exactly pay the mortgage on Santa Monica homes.

[Odelay]

True Detective (HBO)

I mentioned this in my last post and technically it's not a movie, but I caught this on video and was very, very impressed. And really, one could be forgiven for thinking of this as a very long movie (8 hours), especially considering they're doing season 2 with an entirely different cast and entirely different storyline.

Casting Woody Harrelson and Matthew McConaughey in a crime drama at the peak of the careers is practically a can't miss, but the author of the book who drafted the screenplay brought a pretty damn good story to the table, as well. Some damn good television and since they're not stretching the Harrelson/McConaughey story any further, it's about as tight a story as has been told in television format.

[fred41]

Just caught "The Raid 2" ...this is the Indonesian martial arts follow up to "Raid:Redemption". If you loved the first film, then you'll probably love this one too. The dialogue's somewhat silly and you sometimes lose a little track, but your watching this for visceral reasons and it certainly satisfies on that level. Enjoy it...I did.

[Toadily]

I watch Avengers last night followed by Ironman then Ironman 2 today.

[Jack8941]

Shawsank redemption

[Jimmy W]

Odelay - I didn't get the hype for True Detective and maybe that's because I heard a lot of hype before seeing it. I thought the friction between the two detectives was forced and waaaay too choreographed (you never talk ....now you talk too much...lets keep the car a place of silent refection). That said, if you haven't heard the hype, I do definitely recommend it and would love to hear another opinion.

[aktrik]

http://shop.tcm.com/imgcache/property/resized/000/334/650/catl/00566294-474192_500.jpg?k=97456d70&pid=334650&s=catl&sn=tcm

[tsparrow69]

Whatever happened to the beautiful Thara Wells video when she stripped on a live Spanish, Italian, European or South American television talk show; I was fortunate to have caught it on youtube years ago. I cannot find her video anywhere. I was truly amazed on how she stripped on stage and poured milk all over her body. I think was one of the best striptease I had ever seen. It was sexy, hot and clean!

[Stavros]

Hunger Games Part 2, which I guess will be followed by Hunger Games Part 3 Part1, followed by Part 3 Part 2. Confusing.


Sorry to inform you but the third film in The Hunger Games franchise is out soon and is called
The Hunger Games: Mockingjay -Part 1...

The Hunger Games: Mockingjay – Part 1 - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Hunger_Games:_Mockingjay_%E2%80%93_Part_1)

[Stavros]

True Detective (HBO)

I mentioned this in my last post and technically it's not a movie, but I caught this on video and was very, very impressed. And really, one could be forgiven for thinking of this as a very long movie (8 hours), especially considering they're doing season 2 with an entirely different cast and entirely different storyline.

Casting Woody Harrelson and Matthew McConaughey in a crime drama at the peak of the careers is practically a can't miss, but the author of the book who drafted the screenplay brought a pretty damn good story to the table, as well. Some damn good television and since they're not stretching the Harrelson/McConaughey story any further, it's about as tight a story as has been told in television format.

I reviewed this a month or so ago, and found the whole thing riddled with cliches and tediously familiar plots, and see it as a 'liberal American' view of that 'other' America which is simultaneously Christian and pagan, morally righteous and morally depraved, in which very weird people live deep in the woods, are incestuous, own ferocious dogs, and don't pay taxes. And so on.

[Stavros]

The Maze Runner (Wes Ball, 2015)
So much running, such little amazement...

[Stavros]

Carnage (Roman Polanski, 2011)
This film is an adaptation of a stage play by Yasmina Reza (Le Dieu du Carnage), and, as with most of her plays attempts to show how humans use language to deceive, protect, attack, explain, sympathise, destroy -and so on. Her use of language, particularly in French, has the acid sarcasm and rhythmic impulse that is found in the literature of the 18th century, Rabelais comes to mind. Strip away the restraints of language and social custom, Reza seems to say, and you will find that humans revert to a 'natural' condition in which they are selfish, arrogant, brutal and violent, a view of human nature that is neither original nor accurate. The acting is outstanding, Jodie Foster in particular, although Christoph Waltz reprises every other role he has played, being an actor of limited expression. It is hard to believe Kate Winslet's character is an investment broker, but then the simple idea that she and her husband are rich enough to pay for the other couple's dental treatment is not on the agenda. The film cost $25m to make with four actors, a few minor roles, mostly on the telephone, and a list of credits that goes on forever. Polanski, most of whose films are not worth a second look, does a competent job. Worth it if you like Jodie Foster, and I do.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZPX6-4Bo7XU

[GroobySteven]

Just watched "The Master" and wish I could have that 138 mins of my life back. Acting was great, cinematography & mis en scene, was what you'd expect from this director - but lacking any story, one would at least hope for a character study but I found myself knowing little (and caring less) about the characters or the point of making this film.

[fred41]

"12 Years a Slave"...HBO.
Good movie, very well acted...though I think Brad Pitt was miscast for his part.
Watching Lupita Nyong'o get brutally beaten upset the living shit outta me. It's goddamn heartbreaking. She's beautiful. You want to save her but you can't.
...probably need to lay off the weed a bit. I dunno.

[fred41]

"Snowpiercer"..Netflix.
With a different director, I believe, this could have been a very good movie. Maybe someone like Terry Gilliam (or those French directors - Marc Caro & Jean-Pierre Jeunet). I'm normally a fan of Joon-Ho Bong...I loved "The Host" and "Mother". But even though the movie is a good idea...it doesn't quite work for me.

[MrFanti]

"The Lone Ranger"

[BlüeKarma]

"Snowpiercer"..Netflix.
With a different director, I believe, this could have been a very good movie. Maybe someone like Terry Gilliam (or those French directors - Marc Caro & Jean-Pierre Jeunet). I'm normally a fan of Joon-Ho Bong...I loved "The Host" and "Mother". But even though the movie is a good idea...it doesn't quite work for me.

Just saw that on netflix too, the ending didnt make any sense to me... but it was ok for what it was.

[Ben]

A film I'm curious to see....

Snowpiercer: Set in a future where a failed climate-change experiment kills all life on the planet except for a lucky few who boarded the Snowpiercer, a train that travels around the globe, where a class system emerges.

Snowpiercer Official US Release Trailer #1 (2014) - Chris Evans Movie HD - YouTube (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nX5PwfEMBM0)

[Instrumental]

I watched Interstellar Wednesday evening, caught like 3/4ths of Die Hard 4 today and am watching Deja Vu right now.

[Jericho]

A film I'm curious to see....

Snowpiercer: Set in a future where a failed climate-change experiment kills all life on the planet except for a lucky few who boarded the Snowpiercer, a train that travels around the globe, where a class system emerges.

Don't bother, it's shite.
You'll never get those two hours back!

[Odelay]

Interstellar (2014)

Christopher Nolan's movies are all about the premise. Start clever and then take the audience through a bunch of twists and turns until they reach a satisfactory ending. In some ways he is hobbled by his initial success because he'll probably never make a movie as good as Memento, at least as long as he sticks to the clever/twisty turny formula.

I liked Interstellar, though it's not nearly as affecting as last year's Gravity, which deserved the awards it received. And this is an interesting comparison as that one ran for a spare 91 minutes of edge of your seat action, and this one is nearly 3 hours. The few reviews I've read since seeing the movie make a big deal of how Nolan explores the affects of relativity theory but don't let that fool you. You're still going to have to suspend a whole lotta disbelief to get through this one. Anyway, I found it entertaining and not disastrously preposterous like some movies in this genre such as Ridley Scott's Prometheus.

[Jimmy W]

Grooby - Thank You!!! everyone I know raves about 'The Master' and I thought it was a tedious pile of pretentious dog vomit. This film confirmed for me that Joaquin Phoenix is nothing more than a shitty mumbling no talent who somehow keeps landing roles in movies ( go watch Her or Walk The Line).

[Jimmy W]

Has anyone seen 'Camp X-Ray' and is it worth checking out?

[Jimmy W]

Same question for anyone who has seen 'Birdman'

[Ben]

Don't bother, it's shite.
You'll never get those two hours back!

Thanks for the heads-up....

[goatman]

THINGSTOCOME(1936) Once you boil away some of the futurism, i's amazing how close to the mark it comeshttp://www.yume.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2008/07/things-to-come.jpg

[Stavros]

Interstellar (Christopher Nolan, 2014).
There are times in this film when the chords masquerading as music being played over and over and over again are so loud it isn't possible to hear what people are saying. The sad fact is that even with an estimated budget of $125m, it doesn't matter. Like Nolan's other films this one fails to establish a strong story line or plot, the sub-plots are of little interest, the characters even less so. There is no real climax, as the ultimate scenes in the film make no sense, to me anyway, as indeed most of the 'science' seems to me to be deliberately confusing in case even someone like me can work out it is meaningless rubbish. and that is after you try to work out how climate change and soil erosion means the earth can only grow corn. Work that one out! There is a talking computer of course, though it must be a first to have one that looks like a cupboard; Michael Caine apparently wears the same shirt for 24 years, and one can only be relieved -or not- that Matt Damon is going to make a 4th Jason Bourne movie with Paul Greengrass, it can't be worse than this gargantuan mess of a film. I can't stop anyone from going to see it, but at over three hours, you might want to take a sleeping bag. Or better still, order a pizza half way through, at least you will then be given something useful to do, like eating.

[fred41]

Was in the mood for a special effects laden, visually beautiful film...so I rented "Maleficent" from Amazon. The movie was striking and so was Jolie as the title character.
Other than that, the film was a bit inconsistent and some of the characters were either not fleshed out well (Aurora) or, to me, totally miscast ( Sharlto Copley as the king/former love interest...meh).
..but it's a Disney film...it looked good on my screen... and I enjoyed it.

[Yasmin Lee Fan]

Interstellar
I agree with Stavros on this one. Big let down. If I had a degree in physics, maybe I would understand what the hell was going on for most of this movie.

[Instrumental]

I'm watching Firestarter right now. Last movie I watched until completion was The Animatrix.

[MrFanti]

300: Rise Of An Empire

[KellyKlaymour]

Interstellar
I agree with Stavros on this one. Big let down. If I had a degree in physics, maybe I would understand what the hell was going on for most of this movie.

Just watched this, too. I liked it okay, but was pretty let down. Wish they would've made it more action-y. It was like a drama/thriller set in a SciFi setting, rather than a typical SciFi movie

[crystalsopen]

Just watched this, too. I liked it okay, but was pretty let down. Wish they would've made it more action-y. It was like a drama/thriller set in a SciFi setting, rather than a typical SciFi movie

I was going to see Interstellar, but I saw Big Hero 6 instead. It was GREAT!
Disney's Big Hero 6 - Official US Trailer 1 - YouTube (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z3biFxZIJOQ)

[sukumvit boy]

Looks good !

[KellyKlaymour]

I was going to see Interstellar, but I saw Big Hero 6 instead. It was GREAT!
Disney's Big Hero 6 - Official US Trailer 1 - YouTube (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z3biFxZIJOQ)

This does look amazing:)

[oooh]

If I Stay.

[Jericho]

The Lost Continent 1968
Dire, but fun when you're stoned.
Could be wrong, but i'm thinking, The Dark Crystal (skeksis), Predator (predator), and Starship Troopers (brain bug) all ripped their monster designs from this film.

[Stavros]

It seems I am not the only person who can't hear the dialogue in Interstellar, and it seems it is deliberate on Nolan's part -there have been a lot of complaints, so much so that a chain of cinemas in the US has posted this notice in their theatres:

http://i.telegraph.co.uk/multimedia/archive/03106/Nolan_3106688c.jpg

Link to the report is here
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/film/film-news/11230844/Interstellar-sound-problems-spark-complaints.html

[AshlynCreamher]

I'm watching Starfight for the first time. So far I've seen Episode 1 and half of episode 2 Its actually pretty intertaining, especially when Luke Skywalker kills everylast alien in the little village. I cried when his mommy died in his arms =(

Can't wait to see what happens next - I wonder if he will join the Dark side!

[trish]

Interstellar. Despite the worm holes, neutron stars, frozen-cloud-planets, mind boggling tesseracts and a multitude of other costly special effects, Machenzie Foy’s wide and joyous smile is the only wondrous thing in this film. Unfortunately, her character isn’t given many opportunities to smile.

[Odelay]

It seems I am not the only person who can't hear the dialogue in Interstellar, and it seems it is deliberate on Nolan's part -there have been a lot of complaints, so much so that a chain of cinemas in the US has posted this notice in their theatres:

http://i.telegraph.co.uk/multimedia/archive/03106/Nolan_3106688c.jpg

Link to the report is here
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/film/film-news/11230844/Interstellar-sound-problems-spark-complaints.html


Yeah, the bkgrnd music was annoying, to be sure. The other spot in the movie I couldn't hear shit was when Michael Caine's character was dying and saying something to the redheaded chick. I couldn't tell if he was mumbling or talking in code or what. Could only piece it together later in the movie after several more scenes with the redhead where she recounted the conversation to others.

[peacheater]

Animal Factory. Great cast, great performances and solid direction from the always good Steve Buscemi. Plus it has Mickey Rourke as one of the ugliest hung-angels you will ever see, and that is pre the facial surgery! And yes, his performance is fucking great as always. Worth a look

[Stavros]

Interstellar. Despite the worm holes, neutron stars, frozen-cloud-planets, mind boggling tesseracts and a multitude of other costly special effects, Machenzie Foy’s wide and joyous smile is the only wondrous thing in this film. Unfortunately, her character isn’t given many opportunities to smile.

Just out of interest, Trish, do you have a particular favourite 'science fiction' film -broadly used to cover science and space -but also one that doesn't take such liberties with science as to be absurd?

[Instrumental]

For me, that movie would be Contact.

Any who, I saw Birdman last night. It was an amazing film. The style was unique and I especially loved the dialogue and cinematography. Oh and the drum score was wicked.

[fireblad]

Nightcrawler

[Stavros]

For me, that movie would be Contact.

Any who, I saw Birdman last night. It was an amazing film. The style was unique and I especially loved the dialogue and cinematography. Oh and the drum score was wicked.

Thanks Instrumental, I have heard of the film but never seen it, so I shall, as you Americans say, 'check it out'.

[Stavros]

Mr Turner (Mike Leigh, 2014)
JMW Turner (1775-1851) is regarded as one of the greatest painters that Britain has produced, and Mike Leigh has given him two and half hours of loving attention with a film of exquisite beauty.

However, Leigh assumes that the audience is aware of Turner's status, but in making this assumption feeds the curious fact that the Turner so beloved of contemporary Britain (perhaps the world) is the Turner of the late paintings most of which were never seen in his lifetime, whereas Turner's reputation in his own time, was based on the paintings of his youth derived from classical and biblical subjects which are of little interest today. Such was the popularity of Turner that by the time he was 23 he had more orders for paintings than he could complete. He had learned his craft with Joseph Wyatt, yet did not create a studio to meet his customers' demand with an army of assistants but relied on his father's support and that of his housekeeper, Hannah Danby played with aching sympathy in the film by Dorothy Atkinson.

Turner was a working class lad born in Covent Garden in the centre of London to a barber and wigmaker; his mother was the daughter of a butcher. After giving birth to JMW, she produced a girl, who died, whereupon the mother went mad and was committed to an asylum. We don't really know if this accounts for JMW's appalling treatment of women, evident throughout the film most notably in the painter's indifference to the fate of the woman who bore him two girls, and the sister of Hanna Danby who in addition to her housekeeping provides him with occasional sexual relief.

The film is thus set between the 1830s and Turner's demise by which time the top ten hits of his youth had been replaced with what became Turner's obsession with light and colour, presented most often in seascapes for which he was widely ridiculed by the Royal Society of which he was considered an eccentric if gifted member, though there is a telling, if wordless performance in the film by Constable who clearly envied Turner's skills with light and colour. Look more closely and you will note that Turner had an aversion to the colour green (as, I believe, is true of Leonardo da Vinci).

In the film, Turner rents a room in Margate and having bedded the landlady, decides to buy a house for them both in Chelsea, while maintaining his other house and Ms Darby. In reality, Turner did not rent but purchased at least four houses on the Thames to indulge his obsession with sunrise and sunset.

Indeed, Leigh's strength is in presenting a man utterly consumed by painting, it was in truth the only thing that mattered to him. Leigh passes over Turner's youth, his passion for the poetry of his contemporaries such as Wordsworth, Byron and Goethe whose Theory of Colour fascinated him. He does not touch on the French Revolution, Napoleon or the Wars which prevented Turner form travelling in Europe until 1819 when he made a profoundly important journey through France and Switzerland to Italy -some of Turner's watercolours of Venice are amongst his finest works. Leigh also fails to register that Turner's fabulous painting, The Fighting Temeraire tugged to her berth to be broken up (1839, and Turner was famous for his long titles), and also Rain, Steam and Speed (1844) depict Turner's loathing of the industrial revolution, they were not endorsements of it.

Leigh does not present Turner as a modernist, but a traditionalist, and I think this is correct. Turner was obsessed with light which is why so much of his later work looks abstract, but is not -form is not abandoned, it is absorbed by light. Thus Leigh reproduced Turner's (allegedly) last words: The sun is god.

For all its faults, and assumptions, this is a beautiful film, driven by character rather than plot -there is no narrative as such- -which in spite of Timothy Spall's spellbinding performance, fails to confirm that it is possible to make a truly great feature film about an artist as there have not been any so far. I recommend the film, but with the warning that is is rather long, the music is mostly a whining oboe one can do without, but with superb photography.

[trish]

Just out of interest, Trish, do you have a particular favourite 'science fiction' film -broadly used to cover science and space -but also one that doesn't take such liberties with science as to be absurd?

Contact is interesting in that it questions some of the basic assumptions of what’s taken to be scientific methodology. It points out that not all experience is open to public inspection and that some experiments are so costly they can only be performed once.

My favorite is 2001, basically for its optimism about the future of humankind, and the infinitude of the universe. However this doesn’t meet your absurdity avoidance criteria.

I’m not sure there are many that meet that criteria. Perhaps Europa Report, which I streamed about a year ago. My memory of it is that it wasn’t absurd, but it wasn’t a transformative work of fiction either.

Most fiction, and most of all science fiction, requires some suspension of disbelief. Some of the things in Interstellar that might strike one as absurd are not; e.g. the time-dilation the astronauts experienced on the planet with a low orbit around a spinning, massive black-hole. What was absurd (among other things) was the idea that is would be easier to terraform any one of those unfriendly planets than to rescue Earth from climate catastrophe.

Absurd science fiction films (not necessarily about space and time) that I like include

The Day the Earth Caught Fire
The Day the Earth Stood Still
Blade Runner,
Matrix (the first one)
Jurassic Park
Alien (the first one)
Evolution (the amusing one with David Duchovny)

[fred41]

"Metro Manila"...on Netflix.

I thought this was a very good movie about desperation.

[Odelay]

Mr Turner (Mike Leigh, 2014)
JMW Turner (1775-1851) is regarded as one of the greatest painters that Britain has produced, and Mike Leigh ...

Thanks for the review, Stavros. I try to catch most of Mike Leigh's movies. It's interesting when he strays from his modern english drama/comedy stories to ones outside this genre, like Topsy Turvy. I'll be looking for this one in the theatres.

[Yasmin Lee Fan]

I watched First Blood last night. To me this is the best of the Rambo movies. After this one they turned him into a superhero. The scenes where he takes out all those guys in the woods was very well done and has been copied by everybody since. Most recently in The Equalizer.

[Stavros]

My favorite is 2001, basically for its optimism about the future of humankind, and the infinitude of the universe. However this doesn’t meet your absurdity avoidance criteria.


Kubrick was a pessimist, I am surprised you cannot see this, as he loads every film with his one-dimensional loathing of the human race, seeing it as a machine that lies, robs and kills, that is incapable of love and compassion- two feelings that are banned from his films. The closing scene of the film is one of the lowest points in cinema: the bleak image of a foetus travelling back to earth to begin yet again life's utterly pointless journey through time, with the opening of Also Sprach Zarathrustra played yet again to emphasise that nothing has changed since the ridiculous and insulting episode The Dawn of Man that begins the film. One passes over with as little comment as is needed on his collaboration with that disgusting pederast, Arthur C. Clarke.
Kubrick's main interest in film was in the technology, and it shows in some his films which are technologically outstanding, Barry Lyndon being his best film, if you can take the relentless sarcasm and the view that humans only exist to hurt each other. Kubrick may be the most over-rated 'great director'.

For the record, my favourite film in which people travel into space is Danny Boyle's Sunshine, even with its hysterical ending. Superior to the turkeys on your list. And a Happy Thanskgiving to you too!!

[Jericho]

I watched First Blood last night. To me this is the best of the Rambo movies. After this one they turned him into a superhero. The scenes where he takes out all those guys in the woods was very well done and has been copied by everybody since. Most recently in The Equalizer.

First Blood's a classic (imo).
They should have followed the book a bit closer, and ended it there.
(And talking of copied, i don't know if it's where 1stB got the idea from, but a year before, A Charles Bronson/Lee Marvin film, Death Hunt, had the 'jump off a cliff, into a tree scene').

[Yasmin Lee Fan]

First Blood's a classic (imo).
They should have followed the book a bit closer, and ended it there.
(And talking of copied, i don't know if it's where 1stB got the idea from, but a year before, A Charles Bronson/Lee Marvin film, Death Hunt, had the 'jump off a cliff, into a tree scene').

Yea! Death Hunt. I've been trying to remember the name of that movie. Thanx for that. Rambo died in the book and that would have ended the franchise before it started, but you're right, the book was better. Stallone says he's gonna make one more with Rambo going against the Mexican drug cartels. Also something about rescuing a girl. He's suppose to die in THIS ONE and end it . If he waits much longer, Rambo will die of old age. LOL

[Jericho]

If he waits much longer, Rambo will die of old age. LOL

And after that, there's the reboot, then Ghost of Rambo!
Let it die, Sly, let it die!

[Odelay]

Kubrick was a pessimist, I am surprised you cannot see this, as he loads every film with his one-dimensional loathing of the human race, seeing it as a machine that lies, robs and kills, that is incapable of love and compassion- two feelings that are banned from his films. The closing scene of the film is one of the lowest points in cinema: the bleak image of a foetus travelling back to earth to begin yet again life's utterly pointless journey through time, with the opening of Also Sprach Zarathrustra played yet again to emphasise that nothing has changed since the ridiculous and insulting episode The Dawn of Man that begins the film. One passes over with as little comment as is needed on his collaboration with that disgusting pederast, Arthur C. Clarke.
Kubrick's main interest in film was in the technology, and it shows in some his films which are technologically outstanding, Barry Lyndon being his best film, if you can take the relentless sarcasm and the view that humans only exist to hurt each other. Kubrick may be the most over-rated 'great director'.

For the record, my favourite film in which people travel into space is Danny Boyle's Sunshine, even with its hysterical ending. Superior to the turkeys on your list. And a Happy Thanskgiving to you too!!
In at least one way, all science fiction stories, with the exception of specifically dystopian ones, are optimistic. They are a representation of the human race advancing forward without self-immolation. And I agree with Trish that whether intended, or not, Kubrick's 2010 fits this optimistic view, especially with the idea that the moons of Jupiter were ready for habitation. Of course, I admit I might have missed some bit of irony on this count, but then irony sort of loses it's impact if it sails past much of the audience.

I too liked Boyle's Sunshine with the exception of the bizarre ending, as you note. One of my very favorites of recent years is the sparse Moon. Both the movie and the main actor, Sam Rockwell, are very underrated.

[fred41]

One of my very favorites of recent years is the sparse Moon. Both the movie and the main actor, Sam Rockwell, are very underrated.

Sam Rockwell is an excellent actor...bit part or major role, he adds to every movie he's in. When you posted this I had to look into it to see if I could get the film...
...until I realized I saw it already and liked it. Damn vices!!!
Was gonna watch it again,...but once you know how it ends it's pointless.

[fred41]

"Under The Skin"....Amazon Prime.
Was prepared to hate this film...but I thought it was much, much better than the 2 1/2 stars the viewers so far (at least on Amazon) had given it. Probably most people would disagree with me on this, but I liked the movie.
True, Scarlett Johansson's charisma adds gravitas to this movie. And probably more viewers than it normally would have gotten...but it's an interesting film anyway.
...and it's presented without filling in all the details (I'm not sure if the book this is based on helps...since I didn't read it), but I believe the basic story is pretty straightforward...the toughest part, for me, was trying to understand the the language I (somewhat) share with some of my friends across the Atlantic...:D

[trish]

Kubrick was a pessimist, I am surprised you cannot see this, as he loads every film with his one-dimensional loathing of the human race, seeing it as a machine that lies, robs and kills, that is incapable of love and compassion- two feelings that are banned from his films. The closing scene of the film is one of the lowest points in cinema: the bleak image of a foetus travelling back to earth to begin yet again life's utterly pointless journey through time, with the opening of Also Sprach Zarathrustra played yet again to emphasise that nothing has changed since the ridiculous and insulting episode The Dawn of Man that begins the film. One passes over with as little comment as is needed on his collaboration with that disgusting pederast, Arthur C. Clarke.
Kubrick's main interest in film was in the technology, and it shows in some his films which are technologically outstanding, Barry Lyndon being his best film, if you can take the relentless sarcasm and the view that humans only exist to hurt each other. Kubrick may be the most over-rated 'great director'.

For the record, my favourite film in which people travel into space is Danny Boyle's Sunshine, even with its hysterical ending. Superior to the turkeys on your list. And a Happy Thanskgiving to you too!!

To paraphrase Nietzsche, 2001 was a film for everyone and no one. I agree, that Dr. Strangelove is a pessimistic film and that Barry Lyndon is not an exemplar of what is best in humankind. Each of Kubrick’s films explores distinct themes and issues. I think 2001 undeniably holds out the promise of an open, infinite future of possibility for the human animal. I found the film exuberant. It celebrates our capacity to learn, to grow and to overcome our preconceptions of the universe and ourselves. I wouldn’t want to go all Nietzchean and say it was an uber-film, or that it was superior or inferior to say, Sunshine. Just exuberant.

Sunshine is an interesting film. Not for the science (as if a mission of that size could reignite the Sun). What draws us in are the moral dilemmas the two crews face as they are forced to redesign their mission. If memory serves the plot features a zealously religious captain who aborts the mission because of his belief that God wants us to die and a democratic vote to kill a member of the crew. Anarchy breaks out, there’s a lot of killing and by some fluke one of the good guys survives and reignites the Sun in the nick of time. It’s a good film because it explores these moral issues. It’s also exciting and suspenseful up to the end. It’s not exuberant about humankind the way 2001 is. All and all it’s a bit pessimistic by comparison.

[Jimmy W]

I just came home from watching 'FURY" and I'm not sure what I think. I liked it and it was gritty and brutal and 'realistic' but I came away somehow feeling like .....I had just watched ....a movie - albeit an epic one. Aside from the scene with the two German women it would have been easy to just wait for the shooting to start again and see how it ends. I'm on the fence and I read the New Yorker review (got it totally wrong) and would like to hear another opinion.

[fred41]

"Ida"...on amazon
A young Polish nun (a very pretty actress named Agata Trzebuchowska) is forced to visit her only relative - an aunt - before she takes her vows. She learns her parents were Jewish which leads to a journey of discovery...providing enlightenment for one...and closure for the other.
Each frame is artistically filmed in gorgeous black & white. The film is both beautiful and brutal in a minimalistic sense...especially when it comes to dialogue...but you are given just enough.
I really liked this film, but it's style isn't going to be for everyone.

[betts]

The One I Love Official Trailer #1 (2014) - Elizabeth Moss, Mark Duplass Romantic Comedy HD - YouTube (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jCOvhojlZzQ)


not bad. if you're looking for something different, give it a shot.

[Jericho]

I only watched it because i heard a joke about it, Twilight.
A love story about a young girl torn between necrophilia and bestiality!

I really don't think I'm its target audience!

[trish]

I only watched it because i heard a joke about it, Twilight.
A love story about a young girl torn between necrophilia and bestiality!

I really don't think I'm its target audience!
Never thought of it that way :) .... hmmm .... so it just got me to thinking .... do werewolf penises have a knot (e.g. bulbus glandis) as do other canines? Not that I'm interested ... you know ....sexually ...

signed
Perplexed

[Jericho]

Bulbus Glandis, is that what its called?...One lives and learns!
I am happy...That's going to be my "insult of the day" tomorrow!



Never thought of it that way :) .... hmmm .... so it just got me to thinking .... do werewolf penises have a knot (e.g. bulbus glandis) as do other canines? Not that I'm interested ... you know ....sexually ...

signed
Perplexed

[Stavros]

To paraphrase Nietzsche, 2001 was a film for everyone and no one. I agree, that Dr. Strangelove is a pessimistic film and that Barry Lyndon is not an exemplar of what is best in humankind. Each of Kubrick’s films explores distinct themes and issues. I think 2001 undeniably holds out the promise of an open, infinite future of possibility for the human animal. I found the film exuberant. It celebrates our capacity to learn, to grow and to overcome our preconceptions of the universe and ourselves. I wouldn’t want to go all Nietzchean and say it was an uber-film, or that it was superior or inferior to say, Sunshine. Just exuberant.
.

If you look again at Kubrick's films you often find that he makes a cinematic statement of futility using the same technique : in Paths of Glory there is a tracking shot taken from behind the head of Dax (Kirk Douglas) as he moves through a trench so that he appears to be walking ahead but not advancing; in 2001: A Space Odyssey Dave Bowman to keep fit runs around the inside of the residential quarter which is a constantly rotating sphere so that he appears to be running on the spot; in The Shining, young Danny drives his toy car on corridors that look identical and even the rhythm of the car is repeated as it crosses the edge of carpet so that his entire ride seems to take him nowhere. The narrative of futility can be found in Full Metal Jacket, where in the first half of the film a foul-mouthed drill-sergeant creates a killing machine which ends his life, but which in the second half of the film is all but wiped out as it struggles to kill a lone sniper who when found appears to be a teenage girl. The cure that is supposed to re-habilitate Alex into society in A Clockwork Orange fails because society itself has not changed, and inflicts on Alex the violence he inflicted on it in the first part of the film.
At the beginning of 2001: A Space Odyssey, in 'the Dawn of Man' sequence, an 'early human' is seen learning how to kill, but is not shown learning how to create, is not shown sharing goods and services, above all, has no religion and is not shown loving anyone, co-operating, or being compassionate -the weapon that is flung into the air becomes the spaceship having leaped over the intervening period of human history to begin a narrative which leads back to the origin of man as a cycle of futility without meaning or purpose. The science that has created space travel has led man back to Earth, not Jupiter; the portal through which the ages pass, the Ka'ba of time, does not change, it is there as a painful, ear-splitting reminder that nothing changes, that we are doomed no matter how far we think we have advanced. In the Odyssey of Homer, Odysseus participates in a war that destroys his fleet, is waylaid for seven years on the way home, and when he returns home to find his wife besieged by suitors thinking him long dead, he slaughters them -a cycle of slaughter that only ends when the gods intervene -but as Kubrick has no god, there is no mercy for man. There is only complete futility.
George Steiner, either in one of his books or in a lecture I recall, began by saying 'Absolute tragedy is very rare', and went on to point out the humour in Macbeth, Hamlet, King Lear and that there is also a fool in Othello though the part is usually excised by producers. Completely bleak and hopeless texts Steiner argues, run against the need humans have for at least a chink of light, some element of hope -thus at the end of The Trial, K on the verge of his execution sees a light in the distance and imagines his death being witnessed for the crime that it is. In the bleak films of Bresson there is, nevertheless, the Catholic sensibility that implies death is a release from earthly life into a beautiful eternity. Kubrick is the ultimate pessimist, a man whose films piss on life and offer nothing but dejection.

[trish]

If you look again at Kubrick's films you often find that he makes a cinematic statement of futility using the same technique : in Paths of Glory there is a tracking shot taken from behind the head of Dax (Kirk Douglas) as he moves through a trench so that he appears to be walking ahead but not advancing; in 2001: A Space Odyssey Dave Bowman to keep fit runs around the inside of the residential quarter which is a constantly rotating sphere so that he appears to be running on the spot; in The Shining, young Danny drives his toy car on corridors that look identical and even the rhythm of the car is repeated as it crosses the edge of carpet so that his entire ride seems to take him nowhere. The narrative of futility can be found in Full Metal Jacket, where in the first half of the film a foul-mouthed drill-sergeant creates a killing machine which ends his life, but which in the second half of the film is all but wiped out as it struggles to kill a lone sniper who when found appears to be a teenage girl. The cure that is supposed to re-habilitate Alex into society in A Clockwork Orange fails because society itself has not changed, and inflicts on Alex the violence he inflicted on it in the first part of the film.
At the beginning of 2001: A Space Odyssey, in 'the Dawn of Man' sequence, an 'early human' is seen learning how to kill, but is not shown learning how to create, is not shown sharing goods and services, above all, has no religion and is not shown loving anyone, co-operating, or being compassionate -the weapon that is flung into the air becomes the spaceship having leaped over the intervening period of human history to begin a narrative which leads back to the origin of man as a cycle of futility without meaning or purpose. The science that has created space travel has led man back to Earth, not Jupiter; the portal through which the ages pass, the Ka'ba of time, does not change, it is there as a painful, ear-splitting reminder that nothing changes, that we are doomed no matter how far we think we have advanced. In the Odyssey of Homer, Odysseus participates in a war that destroys his fleet, is waylaid for seven years on the way home, and when he returns home to find his wife besieged by suitors thinking him long dead, he slaughters them -a cycle of slaughter that only ends when the gods intervene -but as Kubrick has no god, there is no mercy for man. There is only complete futility.
George Steiner, either in one of his books or in a lecture I recall, began by saying 'Absolute tragedy is very rare', and went on to point out the humour in Macbeth, Hamlet, King Lear and that there is also a fool in Othello though the part is usually excised by producers. Completely bleak and hopeless texts Steiner argues, run against the need humans have for at least a chink of light, some element of hope -thus at the end of The Trial, K on the verge of his execution sees a light in the distance and imagines his death being witnessed for the crime that it is. In the bleak films of Bresson there is, nevertheless, the Catholic sensibility that implies death is a release from earthly life into a beautiful eternity. Kubrick is the ultimate pessimist, a man whose films piss on life and offer nothing but dejection.

I’d rather not forward an umbrella view on the entirety of Kubrick’s filmography. Instead I'll take the movies you mentioned singly, or in groups.

Paths of Glory, Dr. Strangelove and Full Metal Jacket are anti-war films. Of course they are going to feature the horrors and idiocy of war and warn us of what the future could be if we continue the practice.

The Shining is Kubrick’s treatment of the classic haunted-house story. The outdoor labyrinth mirrors the house’s soul-trapping interior to dark effect. So with this cinematographic mood setting technique is Kubrick telling us that all human endeavor is pointless and leads nowhere? Why is Jack (presumably from whom Danny inherited his shine) possessed and unable to escape the haunting maze that leads nowhere, while Danny and his mother get to play the modern day Theseus and Ariadne? Instead of saying life leads nowhere, suppose Kubrick is saying, “Life is a Labyrinth.” That interpretation holds out the hope that those who shine, those who examine their lives and seek the life worth living, might indeed find a path through the maze.

I pretty much agree, at the moment, with your synopsis of the Clockwork Orange. The film can be mapped almost one-to-one onto the book by Anthony Burgess. In the few years over which the story takes place, society hasn’t changed. Is Burgess saying society will never change...can never change; or is Burgess advising that our society should beware of utilizing the sort of techniques this dystopian society tried to use on Alex?

Where Clockwork is filled with humans violating humans, there is none of that in 2001. Who are the “bad guys” in the year 2001? There aren’t any. The most violent scene in the film 2001 is proto-man learning to use tools to commit murder and mayhem. After a prehistoric battle for a watering hole, a bone bludgeon is tossed victoriously into the sky. The camera follows it. As it rotates millennia pass by and it morphs into a space craft. The complexity of human thought, science, philosophy, art and technology are traced in this scene to the first time some “one” got the idea that an object (a bone) can be lifted from its context (source of marrow) and used to serve another function (bludgeon). That bone tool was used to kill tapirs (in the film) for food and to murder other tribes to hoard resources. Certainly nobody is unaware of the double-edged power of tools to do good and ill. Even the written word double edged. Yet in the year 2001 the film depicts a human species that had apparently subdued (for a time) its warlike tendency. We see scientists from different nation-states in friendly (though guarded) conversation. We see corporate types and military types and we sit in on one of their banal meetings to learn that the governments of the day have decided to keep secret the a possible discovery of extraterrestrial contact for fear of the panic that may ensue. So the world Kubrick depicts is not a perfect one. But what Kubrick holds out for us is the possibility of other transformative discoveries. He doesn’t know what those discoveries will be, or even how to point in their direction. How could he? But he does seem to indicate that those discoveries won’t be technological; they won’t be an extension of the tool idea that we’ve been tweaking and playing with ever since the first ape discovered the bone bludgeon. The technological singularity will not be the next big step in the evolution of thought. David Bowman is Kubrick’s Odysseus. This Odysseus doesn't go to war. He does embark on a transformative voyage and he returns to his world transformed. The Earth is his Penelope. This time Odysseus will not be slaughtering his wife’s suitors. But his story promises to transform our understanding of ourselves. Kubrick’s story is the story of that story, which is yet to be lived and told.

[broncofan]

I don't like most of the movies by Kubrick that most people like (Clockwork, the Shining, and Full Metal Jacket). But I did enjoy Paths of Glory, which was a pessimistic piece but the pessimism fit well with the overall theme which was that in warfare people prove themselves to be contemptible cowards even while prosecuting cowardice. The more of that martial ethic a general pretends to possess the more hypocritical and self-serving he will tend to be.

I also think that the longer Kubrick's movies got the more dead space they contained in order to compensate for a lack of character development. I found certain moments in quite a few Kubrick movies to be fun to watch and memorable, but most of his movies failed to captivate for their entire duration; they were made in the service of a grand idea but lacked the support of a good narrative. I hate to admit but I watch movies for the story, for the interactions among characters and I found most of his movies to be sterile and slow...The Shining is an exception in that it didn't have much of a message but I thought it was boring as hell and not suspenseful. Very memorable scenes, but dead space and without the elaborate creepiness, not much happening except a man going crazy in a place where others have before him...

I also did like Dr. Strangelove. I realize that it does fall prey to the critique that it is cynical just for the sake of cynicism. But there was a real story there, and I thought humorously outlandish characters. I bought the satire and even think it might have been somewhat prescient (though nothing like that came to pass, it did capture the increasing and accelerated stupidity of the cold war in the years that followed).

[broncofan]

The Shining is Kubrick’s treatment of the classic haunted-house story. The outdoor labyrinth mirrors the house’s soul-trapping interior to dark effect. So with this cinematographic mood setting technique is Kubrick telling us that all human endeavor is pointless and leads nowhere? Why is Jack (presumably from whom Danny inherited his shine) possessed and unable to escape the haunting maze that leads nowhere, while Danny and his mother get to play the modern day Theseus and Ariadne? Instead of saying life leads nowhere, suppose Kubrick is saying, “Life is a Labyrinth.” That interpretation holds out the hope that those who shine, those who examine their lives and seek the life worth living, might indeed find a path through the maze.

I like and follow your analysis. But sometimes an allegory is so subtle or attenuated that it might as well not even exist. The boy escapes, the possessed father isn't able to. Why? Maybe because if he catches Danny he will kill his own child which is even too unpalatable for Kubrick. I find the analysis of the Shining to be more compelling than the movie was. Ebert said that the significance of Nicholson's picture on the wall at the end was to show the evil spirit had been there all along. When I saw the picture on the wall, I said, "what the fuck is this"? I'm sure you're both right in your analyses but for me that kind of processing does not take place while I'm watching a film (other senses are being engaged at the same time and there's a continuing stream of information I have to account for)..in film I think symbolism works well when the symbolism is visual and only one or two clicks away...or in a novel where the idea can be expounded upon.

[fred41]

I like and follow your analysis. But sometimes an allegory is so subtle or attenuated that it might as well not even exist. The boy escapes, the possessed father isn't able to. Why? Maybe because if he catches Danny he will kill his own child which is even too unpalatable for Kubrick. I find the analysis of the Shining to be more compelling than the movie was. Ebert said that the significance of Nicholson's picture on the wall at the end was to show the evil spirit had been there all along. When I saw the picture on the wall, I said, "what the fuck is this"? I'm sure you're both right in your analyses but for me that kind of processing does not take place while I'm watching a film (other senses are being engaged at the same time and there's a continuing stream of information I have to account for)..in film I think symbolism works well when the symbolism is visual and only one or two clicks away...or in a novel where the idea can be expounded upon.

Since you're using "The Shining"as an example, it's worth noting that Stephen King absolutely hated the Kubrick version.
The book was flawed, but like most of King's works...worked on the reader's empathy using King's ability to make a reader invest in a character and emotionally connect. Kubrick doesn't seem to have this ability...or doesn't care to use it. The movie was cold and the characters overacting too comical to take seriously...as a matter of fact, there wasn't a likable character in the movie.
I didn't like the film...but I did like the book...to an extent.

[broncofan]

Since you're using "The Shining"as an example, it's worth noting that Stephen King absolutely hated the Kubrick version.
The book was flawed, but like most of King's works...worked on the reader's empathy using King's ability to make a reader invest in a character and emotionally connect. Kubrick doesn't seem to have this ability...or doesn't care to use it. The movie was cold and the characters overacting too comical to take seriously...as a matter of fact, there wasn't a likable character in the movie.
I didn't like the film...but I did like the book...to an extent.
I can't read a book after seeing a movie, but I do look forward to movies of books I've liked. I can understand King's complaint as the characters didn't have much emotional range other than the obvious emotions of fear and anger.

One book I did read after seeing the movie was Black Dahlia...the movie was so bad it didn't ruin the book for me, which was quite fun, though dark.

[trish]

Arthur C. Clarke also hated Kubrick's version of 2001. Clarke would've preferred a more literal reading.

I agree that usually the film will ruin the experience of reading a book, and vice versa. The Tolkien books ruined the movies for me and the movie Catch 22 ruined the book (though I believe people when they tell me the book was better). I read Clockwork after I saw the movie and was amazed how close the two experiences were to each other.

[fred41]

I will often read a book after a movie, for possible enlightenment, when I didn't quite understand the film...or there were just too many holes to fill in. I read Clarke's book after the movie...and I suspect many people did when the movie first came out - judging by the slack jawed look on other people's faces after the film was over...lol. Reading it helped a lot.

I believe I read " A Clockwork Orange" after the movie also...but only to see if there was more to it ...and, for me, there wasn't. I did see it in a theater for the first time...but it must've been a special presentation - a midnight show perhaps or a university film festival - because I was only 9 when it came out and I believe I was in my late teens when I first saw it.My friends at the time liked it - but for all the wrong reasons (though probably the same reasons a lot of male teens liked it ). I didn't like it . Again...there was no one to like in the film. I realize that's kind of the point (and it's clearly intentional on Kubrick's part - in all his films)...but it's not the kind of entertainment I prefer in a motion picture.

I'll probably give these films another viewing one of these days to see if my perspective has changed with age.

Being a nerd in school I read the Tolkien books in my early teens. When it comes to the Lord of the Rings trilogy, I would have to disagree with you Trish...I think Peter Jackson did an excellent job with the material...so much so that I watched them repeatedly.
...but "The Hobbit" is a different matter altogether...I don't know what the fuck he is doing there. Did he lose his mind? Is he hooked on opium or heroin?
...I don't know, but it's not good.

[fred41]

Oh,...I did like "Full Metal jacket"...again there was no one to really like and the characters were somewhat cartoonish...but here, to me, it worked.

[Stavros]

[QUOTE=trish;1550966]I’d rather not forward an umbrella view on the entirety of Kubrick’s filmography. Instead I'll take the movies you mentioned singly, or in groups.
--But my point is that Kubrick repeats himself throughout his oeuvre -this is not uncommon, think of the recurring themes in the films of Ozu and Bresson and you can see how this works. Moreover, as I tried to point out, Kubrick also repeats specific shots which appear to suggest people are simultaneously moving and going nowhere, it happens more than once for it not to be an important motif for Kubrick.

Paths of Glory, Dr. Strangelove and Full Metal Jacket are anti-war films. Of course they are going to feature the horrors and idiocy of war and warn us of what the future could be if we continue the practice.
--The sense of futility is critical to Paths of Glory -not just because that is what the image of the First World War has become since the 1960s -and the European rather than the war elsewhere, eg in Africa and the Middle East- but emphatically in the final scene following the executions and the scene in the cafe when Kirk Douglas leaves, knowing that the slaughter will begin again the following day -no advance for mankind, condemned to destroy itself, as it does in Dr Stangelove.

The Shining is Kubrick’s treatment of the classic haunted-house story. The outdoor labyrinth mirrors the house’s soul-trapping interior to dark effect. So with this cinematographic mood setting technique is Kubrick telling us that all human endeavor is pointless and leads nowhere? Why is Jack (presumably from whom Danny inherited his shine) possessed and unable to escape the haunting maze that leads nowhere, while Danny and his mother get to play the modern day Theseus and Ariadne? Instead of saying life leads nowhere, suppose Kubrick is saying, “Life is a Labyrinth.” That interpretation holds out the hope that those who shine, those who examine their lives and seek the life worth living, might indeed find a path through the maze.
--Again, the last moments of the film in which the photo suggests Jack has always been in the Outlook tends to reinforce the idea that we are condemned to live our lives over and over again without 'correction' as it is put to Jack, in a toilet, obviously -to me 'the shining' itself is window dressing much as David Lynch introduces bizarre and freaky people and scenes into his dross just to divert the attention of the audience (rubbish like Twin Peaks on this basis could have gone on for years)

Where Clockwork is filled with humans violating humans, there is none of that in 2001. Who are the “bad guys” in the year 2001? There aren’t any.
--but the pretend human, HAL, is not a nice guy. Doesn't he kill all the astronauts in deep hibernation?

The most violent scene in the film 2001 is proto-man learning to use tools to commit murder and mayhem. After a prehistoric battle for a watering hole, a bone bludgeon is tossed victoriously into the sky. The camera follows it. As it rotates millennia pass by and it morphs into a space craft. The complexity of human thought, science, philosophy, art and technology are traced in this scene to the first time some “one” got the idea that an object (a bone) can be lifted from its context (source of marrow) and used to serve another function (bludgeon). That bone tool was used to kill tapirs (in the film) for food and to murder other tribes to hoard resources. Certainly nobody is unaware of the double-edged power of tools to do good and ill. Even the written word double edged. Yet in the year 2001 the film depicts a human species that had apparently subdued (for a time) its warlike tendency. We see scientists from different nation-states in friendly (though guarded) conversation. We see corporate types and military types and we sit in on one of their banal meetings to learn that the governments of the day have decided to keep secret the a possible discovery of extraterrestrial contact for fear of the panic that may ensue. So the world Kubrick depicts is not a perfect one. But what Kubrick holds out for us is the possibility of other transformative discoveries. He doesn’t know what those discoveries will be, or even how to point in their direction. How could he? But he does seem to indicate that those discoveries won’t be technological; they won’t be an extension of the tool idea that we’ve been tweaking and playing with ever since the first ape discovered the bone bludgeon. The technological singularity will not be the next big step in the evolution of thought. David Bowman is Kubrick’s Odysseus. This Odysseus doesn't go to war. He does embark on a transformative voyage and he returns to his world transformed. The Earth is his Penelope. This time Odysseus will not be slaughtering his wife’s suitors. But his story promises to transform our understanding of ourselves. Kubrick’s story is the story of that story, which is yet to be lived and told.
--Although this is a persuasive reading of the film, I think you are importing your own ideas into it. It is actually and pointedly irrelevant that mankind has advanced to technological supremacy if the end result of travelling through space and time is to end up where we began, on earth. It is there in the music for a reason, and the key to me is what Kubrick leaves out, particularly human compassion and religion, he just can't deal with it.

[Stavros]

Since you're using "The Shining"as an example, it's worth noting that Stephen King absolutely hated the Kubrick version.
The book was flawed, but like most of King's works...worked on the reader's empathy using King's ability to make a reader invest in a character and emotionally connect. Kubrick doesn't seem to have this ability...or doesn't care to use it. The movie was cold and the characters overacting too comical to take seriously...as a matter of fact, there wasn't a likable character in the movie.
I didn't like the film...but I did like the book...to an extent.

What I think is interesting is that you can make a successful film about unlikable people, but in the film overall if there is no alternative option it can be too bleak -hence the point Steiner makes about 'absolute tragedy' being the one that is interesting. Can humans take such emptiness? Now and then, perhaps. There is a lot of sadness in Ozu's films, but also a lot of tenderness and love; there are also acts of compassion in the 'Dollars' films Eastwood made which are mostly about nasty people, so it can be done. But I agree there is something cold in Kubrick's mentality. And it is cold enough right now!

[fred41]

What I think is interesting is that you can make a successful film about unlikable people, but in the film overall if there is no alternative option it can be too bleak -hence the point Steiner makes about 'absolute tragedy' being the one that is interesting. Can humans take such emptiness? Now and then, perhaps. There is a lot of sadness in Ozu's films, but also a lot of tenderness and love; there are also acts of compassion in the 'Dollars' films Eastwood made which are mostly about nasty people, so it can be done. But I agree there is something cold in Kubrick's mentality. And it is cold enough right now!

True, but a lot of that depends also, I think, on the strengths of the personalities, moral or not, of the characters in question. A strength that a viewer can often get behind, creating true antiheros, such as in the aforementioned 'Dollars' films.
I don't believe I've ever seen any Ozu films...I will have to give them a look Stavros. Thanks.

[Ben]

Dredd.
Like most sci-fi flicks it depicts a fairly bleak terrestrial landscape. Overcrowded cities, exploding crime rates etc., etc.
But I liked it.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=qVIba2N6MTA (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qVIba2N6MTA)

[Dahlia Babe Ailhad]

Hi everybody,

Last two i watched were just recently.
I watched this movie.
It's based in North America. They don't say in which year it takes place, but, they do say it's the 74th annual games. Before the games ever started, they say there was an uprising and a war and a rebellion which all led to the games being formed.
Gives me something to think about with all the fema camps and all the New World Order talk.


youtube.com/watch?v=wP_uGaNHIyw

And...

youtube.com/watch?v=csSZ-YmZwGc

It's pretty scary when the media reports how this movie will be made in to a musical. They really want us getting used to this whole idea.

Babe,
xoxo

[svin_renigoth]

The last three I watched: Guardians of the Galaxy (finally got round to seeing it, great fun), Non-stop, and Valhalla Rising, which was really interesting. I'd still like to go see Interstellar.

[holzz]

Of late:

Blade

Zulu

[Odelay]

Birdman 2014

The best thing I can say about Birdman is that it was an interesting mash up of things, styles and performances. Beyond that, there was nothing that made this movie into any kind of cohesive narrative. Predictably, a movie about inside Hollywood, inside Broadway, and celebrity is a hit with the critics (93% Rotten Tomatoe rating). But the movie bounces around all 3 themes and a couple of more that after awhile it just seems pretentious.

One of the draws for me in the first place was the concept of Michael Keaton riffing on his own experience playing a comic book character from years ago, but that gets lost quickly in this movie. They did some interesting things around the sets (narrow hallways in a Broadway theatre) with a camera following the characters around in long continuous shots, but just as they lose focus thematically, they also lose focus cinematographically, as they eventually abandon the claustrophobic sets and close camera shooting.

The movie didn't work for me but it seems to have a lot of fans in the industry considering the award nominations it's been receiving.

One last thing... I don't normally go for the skinny look but Emma Stone is simply drop dead gorgeous. The fact that she would pop up every 3rd or 4th scene definitely made the movei more watchable.

[Odelay]

The Imitation Game 2014

'tis the season to watch overrated movies... I guess. I gotta believe that Alan Turing's real life story is much more interesting than this Hollywoodized version. Was hoping for more than the conventional plot - picked on nerd saves the world. This is also why I'm sort of reluctant to see The Theory of Everything because I suspect Stephen Hawking's real life bio is more interesting than the way Hollywood depicts it.

By the way, Merry Christmas to all.

[booster756]

Gone Girl, St. Vincent & The Theory of Everything

[fireblad]

The Hobbit: Battle of the Five Armies

[Ben]

Haven't seen it... but curious as to whether it's the "worst" movie.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=AWhlZr5UcSQ (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AWhlZr5UcSQ)

[maxpower]

I watched 2 recent music documentaries on Netflix. Big Star: Nothing Can Hurt Me, is about cult 70's Memphis rock band Big Star (fronted by former Box Tops singer Alex Chilton), and their inabilty to achieve success despite releasing great, critically acclaimed albums which became highly influential to many bands that came later on. The Punk Singer is about former Bikini Kill and Le Tigre singer Kathleen Hanna. She was a co-founder of the Riot Grrrl punk movement, and is married to Adam Horovitz from Beastie Boys. The movie also reveals her current battle with a debilitating case of Lyme Disease which sidelined her music career. Both were very good.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OFAGUbJPXOI


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zMbLzaVkn2s

[hiten369]

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/4/4b/Big_Hero_6_(film)_poster.jpg

[AshlynCreamher]

Dawn of the Planet of the Apes

Not as good as the recent film but still worth watching - i couldn't help but like Caesar

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DpSaTrW4leg

[AshlynCreamher]

Cary Grant & Sophia Loren - Houseboat
Classic filled with adventure, romance and humor

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hD3CDrKWNIE

[svin_renigoth]

Sin City: A Dame to Kill For. Just as much fun as the first and I liked the new story Frank Miller wrote for this one. I hope Robert Rodriguez adapts To Hell and Back, too, maybe bookending it with one or a few of Marv's other one-shot stories.
I'm going to watch the latest Planet of the Apes movie later, actually.

[brualex336]

Just saw The Interview. Over the top but I thought very funny.

[Jericho]

Reservoir Dogs.
Mr Orange's leather coat's still the best thing about it!

[MrFanti]

Stayed up late to watch 'Twilight Zone: The Movie'

[Stavros]

The Bourne Identity (Roger Young, 198-eight)
These two films were made as a tv mini-series and are more closely related to Robert Ludlum's book, in which a CIA agent -David Webb- undergoes plastic surgery to look like a notorious pathological killer who served in Vietnam called Jason Bourne. The aim is to assassinate high ranking politicians and claim them to be the work of Carlos the Jackal in an attempt to coax the Jackal out of hiding and kill him. In one attempted assassination at sea Bourne is shot, and washes up on the shore of the south of France having lost his memory but with a Swiss bank account tattooed on his body.

These two films bear no relation to the -by comparison- dazzling version by Doug Liman with Matt Damon. Instead, Richard Chamrberlain, who was in his early 50s when the films were made, spends most of his time looking bewildered and confused, even when he finds out who he is. His attempts to have sex with Jaclyn Smith are risible even if she doesn't look that bad for a 40-something. A slew of English actors pretending to be French sounding like they stepped out of a lost episode of 'Allo 'Allo make even this cheap production look amateurish ditto Peter Vaughan with a vaudeville German accent. It is fitting that Jaclyn Smith is in this as the films are pitched somewhere between Charlie's Angels and a discarded episode of Columbo. At one point the action is supposed to take place in Paris but the cars in the street have Marseille licence plates. I wanted to see it to compare it with the later version, but I didn't think it was this bad. It really is dire. No wonder Chamberlain retired to Hawaii. I discovered he was gay in the early 70s long before he came out, and when he still had a career, but he never could act. I found myself intruding on that photo shoot he did on the terraces of the South Bank complex, when he had his hair permed and looked like he wanted someone younger than the photographer. I was not aroused, and went on my way.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0094791/fullcredits?ref_=tt_ov_st_sm

[youngblood61]

The Equalizer, pretty good.

[Ben]

Sex Tape.... It's OK. For a few laughs. And a bit of escapism.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=-fQvyfn3wbE (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-fQvyfn3wbE)

[broncofan]

The Bourne Identity (Roger Young, 198-eight)
No wonder Chamberlain retired to Hawaii. I discovered he was gay in the early 70s long before he came out, and when he still had a career, but he never could act. I found myself intruding on that photo shoot he did on the terraces of the South Bank complex, when he had his hair permed and looked like he wanted someone younger than the photographer. I was not aroused, and went on my way.

Stavros, how can we be sure you're not letting this very personal encounter with Richard Chamberlain get in the way of your otherwise impeccable artistic judgment?:)

[betts]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xIxMMv_LD5Q


fantastic.

[Odelay]

Two of the AA nominations which caught my eye, Interstellar for Best Sound Editing and Best Sound Mixing.


As Stavros mentioned in an earlier post (http://www.hungangels.com/vboard/showthread.php?p=1547967&highlight=interstellar#post1547967), the sound in this movie was awful. I guess Nolan was trying to do some artsy-fartsy thing with sound and the Academy seemed to have bought it.

[Yasmin Lee Fan]

I just saw The Boy Next Door. Ridiculous movie , but I just like looking at Jennifer Lopez. Got to see her in panties and bra, but it's messed up that they showed the guys butt, but they didn't show hers. LOL She looks amazing for a 40 year old woman.

[AshlynCreamher]

The Maze Runner

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AwwbhhjQ9Xk


Perfect for the whole family!

[broncofan]

I know this is the thread for movies but I am not sure if there is an active tv show thread. Just started watching Veep with Julia Louis Dreyfus..the show was created by Armando Iannucci who also directed the movie In the Loop. The interesting thing is he's a Brit who created a show about an American vice presidential candidate and her bumbling, incompetent staff. I have no way of knowing if it's realistic, but I think it's hilarious. Highly recommend.

[Plaything]

The Odd Angry Shot

Australian SAS in Vietnam.

Very well told, and a realistic picture of the operational story, with a couple of really well researched and shot jungle patrol segments...

[AshlynCreamher]

I know this is the thread for movies but I am not sure if there is an active tv show thread.

http://www.hungangels.com/vboard/showthread.php?t=79536&highlight=shows

;)

[Jimmy W]

I watched 30 minutes of Inherent Vice then had to punch out. Joaquin Phoenix is a mumbling incoherent annoyance (Walk The Line, The Master, Her) who basically emotes through his nostrils and the surrounding cast can't prop up his lazy shit. I wish the Hollywood world would stop trying to force us to believe that we 'just don't understand his genius'.

[Jimmy W]

LUCY - With Scarlett Johansson and Morgan Freeman. Pretension and failure on an epic scale. If you decide to endure the last twenty minutes of this hopeless mess you will regret it.

[Plaything]

LUCY - With Scarlett Johansson and Morgan Freeman. Pretension and failure on an epic scale. If you decide to endure the last twenty minutes of this hopeless mess you will regret it.

I'm enduring it as we speak...love it...but then...

I love Scarlett J.

It is, of course, bonkers.

I have no issue with that. The Rum and Coke is helping :-)

[emmettray]

I watched 'The Golden Dream' last night and think it is a magnificent film. In turns it's joyous and thoroughly devastating, an incredible 'on the road' human story about a group of Guatemalan kids trying to make their way up to the promised land of the USA. It feels almost documentary in its execution, beautifully scripted and shot and wonderfully naturalistic performances from the principles. I couldn't recommend it highly enough. It's the best thing I've seen in a long time and a wonderful alternative to the Hollywood popcorn driven drivel. If you don't feel for these kids and have a wrench in your guts, you have no guts, if you don't have a tear in your eye at the end of this, you're a better man that me. (maybe not?)

http://www.imdb.com/...3/?ref_=nv_sr_1

[emmettray]

Was it that lovely one on Hawthorne a couple of blocks up from 'The Barley Mill'? That used to be my local. Really nice homely gaff at the time (1993-4)

[Stavros]

I have not seen many films in the last month as I watched every episode of all six seasons of Homicide: Life on the Streets (1993-1999) one after the other.

However, now back to regular films and

Nightcrawler (Dan Gilroy 2014)
Jake Gyllenhaall must be the most under-rated actor in American films these days, he always puts in an intelligent performance in interesting films, not least as a creep in this film. He rarely blinks in the entire film, and is superb as an absolute egotist whose only moral imperative is to improve his situation regardless of other people, a strategy that leads to devastating results in a film in which the pursuit of some kind of existential recognition of value as a person is linked to uncensored footage of crime scenes where the footage is linked to what the broadcasters think the public want to see, the ratings, and thus the revenue. A disturbing, cruel film but one filmed with eerie lighting an make up, at times Gyllenhaal looks like a spectre. Recommended

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X8kYDQan8bw

[maxpower]

I have not seen many films in the last month as I watched every episode of all six seasons of Homicide: Life on the Streets (1993-1999) one after the other.


Good for you. That's one of the best police dramas ever made, and one of my favorite shows ever. The people responsible for creating Homicide went on to make The Wire for HBO.

[trish]

Imitation Game

It's about Alan Turing, the British mathematician who is a founder of the theory of computation and mathematical logic in general, who wrote on the question of whether machines can think (inventing the Turing Test which the Voight-Kampf test alludes to in Blade Runner), helped break the Enigma code in World War II and was convicted of being gay in an age when there was a law against it (for which he was sentence to chemical castration and was probably the motivation for his eventual suicide). The movie focused on his codebreaking days at Bletchley and his conviction for engaging in sex with a male prostitute.

It was worth the ticket, but it struck me in places of being unfair both to Turing and co-workers. (He probably wasn't quite as stereotypically aloof and his co-workers probably weren't quite so daft as I think the movie makes out.) One of the interesting things about breaking a code is figuring out how to use the information to which you're now privy without letting the enemy know you've broken their code. Apparently the best strategy is to let a lot of bad things go down even if you know ahead of time that they're going to happen. The movie led me to believe that it was Turing who was making these sorts of decisions (or at least recommending them directly to MI6 bypassing the hierarchy of command) based on statistical analysis. It may have been true, but it strikes me as being somewhat beyond the pay grade of a code breaker. So I wasn't so sure in the end what was true and what wasn't.

[Stavros]

Imitation Game

It's about Alan Turing, the British mathematician who is a founder of the theory of computation and mathematical logic in general, who wrote on the question of whether machines can think (inventing the Turing Test which the Voight-Kampf test alludes to in Blade Runner), helped break the Enigma code in World War II and was convicted of being gay in an age when there was a law against it (for which he was sentence to chemical castration and was probably the motivation for his eventual suicide). The movie focused on his codebreaking days at Bletchley and his conviction for engaging in sex with a male prostitute.

It was worth the ticket, but it struck me in places of being unfair both to Turing and co-workers. (He probably wasn't quite as stereotypically aloof and his co-workers probably weren't quite so daft as I think the movie makes out.) One of the interesting things about breaking a code is figuring out how to use the information to which you're now privy without letting the enemy know you've broken their code. Apparently the best strategy is to let a lot of bad things go down even if you know ahead of time that they're going to happen. The movie led me to believe that it was Turing who was making these sorts of decisions (or at least recommending them directly to MI6 bypassing the hierarchy of command) based on statistical analysis. It may have been true, but it strikes me as being somewhat beyond the pay grade of a code breaker. So I wasn't so sure in the end what was true and what wasn't.

One of the other brilliant minds at Bletchley Park, but not movie material-

"But it was Harry Hinsley who, at the end of April 1941, identified the Enigma system’s fatal flaw. The same codebooks used on German U-Boats were also aboard their unprotected trawlers. These trawlers, transmitting weather reports to the Germans, also received naval Enigma messages. Hinsley helped initiate a programme of seizing Enigma machines and keys from German weather ships, significantly aiding Bletchley Park’s breaking of German Naval Enigma."
http://thebloxwichtelegraph.com/2012/07/08/from-birchills-to-bletchley-park-harry-hinsley/

[Stavros]

Good for you. That's one of the best police dramas ever made, and one of my favorite shows ever. The people responsible for creating Homicide went on to make The Wire for HBO.

I think The Wire ranks as the best of the American tv drama series of recent vintage, the kind of drama that the UK no longer produces comparing in the past a narcotics-related 1980s drama series Traffik (remade by Steven Soderbergh as a feature film, Traffic) and the BBC nuclear power drama Edge of Darkness was brilliant. Since then UK drama has produced nothing of substance. I liked seeing some of The Wire actors in the series but I think the impetus of the series faded in the sixth series and it was never the same without Melissa Leo and Andre Braugher. I was never sure about Al Giardello's Sicilian family background, or the bi-sexual Bayliss even though he never seemed to have a girlfriend, and it is a great pity to see a talent like Andre Braugher in the juvenile rubbish of Brooklyn Nine-Nine.

[Stavros]

Divergent (Neil Burger, 2014)
I see this as being one of those films which occupies the same niche as The Hunger Games, and The Maze Runner. An autocracy established after some devastating war, divides society into manageable blocs, be it the productive (or non-productive) sectors in the Hunger Games, or the social groups of Divergent. The idea that social order is best managed through the strict demarcation of social groups is at least as old as Plato's Republic, can be found in some form in Hobbes' Leviathan, and is clearly needed in Orwell's 1984 and Aldous Huxley's Brave New World. In the latter two novels, as in the films the key figure is a rebel, with the two films opting for a young woman as the rebel and would-be saviour though neither starts out with this intention.
In both films, a regime of violence, we are led to believe, can only be challenged and overthrown by violence, a grim post 9/11 scenario which seems to have added weight in the face of IS even though the record of using military force against military force in recent times is not good.
It is hard to know if there is a Christian evangelist agenda in these films although it does seem to be there -both heroines are it seems destined to lead, while both opt not to engage in sexual intercourse at any level, suggesting a level of purity that is linked to a redeemer figure being in some way apart from the others.

There are too many cliches and plot holes in Divergent to make it anything other than light entertainment, and though she is as tall as Jennifer Lawrence, and just as pleasing to look at, Shailene Woodley lacks charisma, which Lawrence has in abundance. The male lead, Theo James is an English actor with a terrible American accent, as is also the case with Kate Winslet- why Americans can't be hired for these roles is beyond me.

You can take the Divergent test here, if you want, but as I came out Divergent I think most people would too.
http://divergentthemovie.com/aptitudetest

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sutgWjz10sM

[Xtina Pink]

Divergent (Neil Burger, 2014)
I see this as being one of those films which occupies the same niche as The Hunger Games, and The Maze Runner. An autocracy established after some devastating war, divides society into manageable blocs, be it the productive (or non-productive) sectors in the Hunger Games, or the social groups of Divergent. The idea that social order is best managed through the strict demarcation of social groups is at least as old as Plato's Republic, can be found in some form in Hobbes' Leviathan, and is clearly needed in Orwell's 1984 and Aldous Huxley's Brave New World. In the latter two novels, as in the films the key figure is a rebel, with the two films opting for a young woman as the rebel and would-be saviour though neither starts out with this intention.
In both films, a regime of violence, we are led to believe, can only be challenged and overthrown by violence, a grim post 9/11 scenario which seems to have added weight in the face of IS even though the record of using military force against military force in recent times is not good.
It is hard to know if there is a Christian evangelist agenda in these films although it does seem to be there -both heroines are it seems destined to lead, while both opt not to engage in sexual intercourse at any level, suggesting a level of purity that is linked to a redeemer figure being in some way apart from the others.

There are too many cliches and plot holes in Divergent to make it anything other than light entertainment, and though she is as tall as Jennifer Lawrence, and just as pleasing to look at, Shailene Woodley lacks charisma, which Lawrence has in abundance. The male lead, Theo James is an English actor with a terrible American accent, as is also the case with Kate Winslet- why Americans can't be hired for these roles is beyond me.

You can take the Divergent test here, if you want, but as I came out Divergent I think most people would too.
http://divergentthemovie.com/aptitudetest

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sutgWjz10sM


I second this but with fewer big words ;)
watched Divergent the other night...as above.. But some nice muscles in it too :)

Cx

[itsnotme]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ukAb-ymiiY0 i feel pride and shame i was part of this scean

[itsnotme]

blackout were shit when they produced there own songs the old mix albums of hard house and hardcore mixes where good shit

[Odelay]

Pretty much agree with everything being said about H:LotS, Imitation Game and Divergent. Thanks for the review on Nightcrawler, I'll have to catch that as I agree about Gyllenhaal being under-appreciated. Although I'm guessing part of this is by design as he's chosen some interesting movies to be a part of and hasn't, to date, opted for the easy buck by being cast as the lastest comic book hero.

Stavros, thanks for your earlier rec of Mr Turner. A very good movie.

Citizenfour (2014 - currently on HBO)
No matter what your opinion of Edward Snowden is, especially in regards to the complicated politics of his NSA revealings, you will likely have a different opinion of him after seeing this documentary.

Laura Poidras intuited beforehand that what Snowden was about to hand her and fellow famous web-journalist, Glenn Greenwald, was going to be huge. So she got Snowden to agree to allow a camera to roll through the entire process. And the result is pretty fascinating. Snowden seems like the classic ordinary man (think of any character played by Jimmy Stewart) who stumbles upon all this NSA spying, struggles with the morality of it all, and then makes a very calculated decision to sacrifice himself, with eyes wide open, by revealing this NSA program. Although Snowden doesn't dive into the specifics of what he foresees as the rest of his life, it can be inferred that he's ready to spend it in exile in a place like Russia, or perhaps a worse country; or, alternatively, be captured by the US or its allies and spend most of the rest of his life behind bars. I realize a lot of people feel he's a traiter or gloryhound or just a plain idiot, but the guy has guts.

[phillip]

Just watched Skeleton Twins with Bill Hader & Kristen Wiig.
A bit depressing but damn good!

http://trailers.apple.com/trailers/independent/theskeletontwins/

[maxpower]

I agree about Gyllenhaal being under-appreciated. Although I'm guessing part of this is by design as he's chosen some interesting movies to be a part of and hasn't, to date, opted for the easy buck by being cast as the lastest comic book hero.


He was at one time strongly considered for both Spiderman and Batman. The one easy-buck movie he did star in, Prince of Persia, bombed terribly.

[Stavros]

He was at one time strongly considered for both Spiderman and Batman. The one easy-buck movie he did star in, Prince of Persia, bombed terribly.

I don't see him as an action hero, and I am not surprised about Prince of Persia, it was dire.

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo (David FIncher, 2011)
This was broadcast on tv last night. I was aware of the reputation of the book, did not previously know that there are two film versions, one Swedish, this one sort-of American. I am not a fan of most of Fincher's films, and this is just as bad as his others (eg, Fight Club). There is a story, and not an interesting one, and a sub-plot, even less interesting. As is often the case in murder mysteries, the truth is facing the investigators but they can't see it. Add in all the usual tropes about religion and mass murder (Christianity masquerading as Islam?), the rich and the powerful, and yawn. I shall be polite and make no comment on the 'acting'. Let's just say that when it comes to Sweden, there was Ingmar Bergman, and Ingrid Bergman, and leave it at that.

[Stavros]

Continuum (Richie Mehta, 2013)
For some reason this film is known in Canada and the USA as I'll Follow You Down, which is probably a good way to kill a movie before its been released. The film concerns a physicist who works out the theoretical possibility of travelling through time via a wormhole, builds a time machine on the basis of the theory, and travels back from the year 2000 to Princeton in 1946 in order to tell Albert Einstein that he has worked out the theoretical possibility of travelling through time via a wormhole and has built a time machine and.... Unfortunately, an unforeseen event -in addition to the fact that Einstein is not at home when called upon and the brilliant time-travelling professor doesn't go to his office on campus- means that he cannot return to the year 2000. Disconsolate, his wife commits suicide, but twelve years later, his son, who is, yes you guessed it, a genius physicist, inherits his father's papers from grandad (also a brilliant physicist or mathematician, as if that mattered) and works out the theoretical possibility of travelling through time via a wormhole, builds the machinery that can do it, and travels travel back to Princeton in 1946 and tell his father to Go Home Now, dad! Then something happens which is a spoiler so I won't reveal it, but it does rather confirm this as one the least satisfactory time-travel films I have seen, although Looper was on television last night and I gave up after half an hour because it is incomprehensible or just plain stupid.

To say the film has plot holes more improbable than worm holes may be a fact of physics and/or cosmology. For example, Professor Dad who seems to have no students, no lectures and other than his father-in-law no colleagues, has a large basement room in Princeton in which he can build a time machine without anyone on campus knowing, neither cleaners nor security staff. His family live in Toronto -and why not? Everyone in this film is brilliant, and nice, because everyone is nice in Canada. But why anyone would want to travel as far away as possible from Gillian Anderson I don't know. Another dvd for the charity shop.

[broncofan]

The Foxcatcher

This film outlines the relationship between the eccentric billionaire John Dupont and the celebrated American wrestlers Mark and Dave Schultz. While it is an interesting real life drama, it does not make for a very good film. If you know how this story ends because you've read about the real life characters, the movie only provides very slow, occasionally tense build-up to that ending. Steve Carrell's strong performance as John Dupont does not justify sitting through two hours, where the only thing that really happens you can read about in the newspaper articles from that time.

[Ben]

On the weekend: Batman Begins... which is quite good:

www.youtube.com/watch?v=vak9ZLfhGnQ (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vak9ZLfhGnQ)

[SanDiegoPervySage]

Louis CK Hilarious

[Stavros]

A Most Wanted Man (Gunther Bachmann, 2014)
A spy caper taken from a book by John Le Carre and set in Hamburg. A competent film that doesn't flag, but which doesn't really catch fire either. That the main focus of the film spends most of his time muttering or flying paper aeroplanes into plastic partition does not give depth to this tepid movie. In fact, towards the end of it I realised I could not remember the name of it, and doubt I shall remember much about it in the weeks and months to come.

[Absarokah]

:clover:

[Yasmin Lee Fan]

I just saw Furious 7 . This is just about the most ridiculous movie I have ever seen. In the beginning Dwayne Johnson ( The Rock ) falls out of a 6 story window and lands on top of a car with the woman he's holding falling on top of him andhe survives, with just a broken arm. This scene was realistic compared to the rest of this movie. I've seen Looney Toons that made more sense than this film. I didn't expect much, but I am a big fan of Michelle Rodriques and I also heard that Thai martial arts star Tony Jaa was in it. Jaa's scenes were not up to par with his work in On Bak, etc. Vin Diesel has to be the worst actor in the world. Oh well, it'll make a ton of money and I guess I'm getting old, but I just don't get it. Sad about Paul Walker though. At least he doesn't have to be in crap like this anymore.

[holzz]

on DVD, Django unchained, for the 10th time. don't mind, i love it.

[SamanthaJones]

Just watched Fury. It was ok.

[Absarokah]

:clover:

[sukumvit boy]

:iagree:
A Most Wanted Man (Gunther Bachmann, 2014)
A spy caper taken from a book by John Le Carre and set in Hamburg. A competent film that doesn't flag, but which doesn't really catch fire either. That the main focus of the film spends most of his time muttering or flying paper aeroplanes into plastic partition does not give depth to this tepid movie. In fact, towards the end of it I realised I could not remember the name of it, and doubt I shall remember much about it in the weeks and months to come.

Funny how all of these Le Carre movies ,although produced / directed by different people over several decades , seem to have that "never catches fire" quality. I think I enjoyed the books more ,but also found myself putting them aside to finish later.
However , I like Le Carre as a writer and as a person. His roots go way back to the Oxford College 'old boys network' /Kim Philby days.
Looking forward to the upcoming TV series ,The Night Manager.

[CD_Sasha]

Bourne Supremacy. Huge fan of the Bourne series here :D

[SanDiegoPervySage]

The Punisher(Tom Jane version)
Remembered why this was one of my favorite movies back in high school.

[Stavros]

:iagree:

Funny how all of these Le Carre movies ,although produced / directed by different people over several decades , seem to have that "never catches fire" quality. I think I enjoyed the books more ,but also found myself putting them aside to finish later.
However , I like Le Carre as a writer and as a person. His roots go way back to the Oxford College 'old boys network' /Kim Philby days.
Looking forward to the upcoming TV series ,The Night Manager.

I agree, although I would make an exception for the two BBC tv series' with Alec Guinness -Tinker, Tailor, Soldier Spy (1979) and Smiley's People (1982) possibly working better for being much longer than a feature film. There are no car chases or action scenes in Le Carre, perhaps that is what the films are lacking. The Little Drummer Girl was also a flop on screen.

[Absarokah]

:clover:

[Plaything]

http://www.interstellar-movie.com/images/bg.jpg

Enjoyed it.

[Odelay]

Going Clear (2015 - currently on HBO)
If you know little or nothing about Scientology, its roots and its current problems, then you will probably find this documentary to be fascinating, and perhaps utterly so. If you've read the various accounts of ex-members through the years, then there might not be much new for you here. Hubbard was probably a pyschopath and Miscavige is surely a sociopath. 90% of the story of Scientology revolves around the figure eight orbits around those two men. What the general public doesn't realize is that far less than 10% of the story revolves around Travolta and Cruise.

Sinatra: All or Nothing at All (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt3838978/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1) (2015 - currently on HBO)
I confess I only saw the last 2 out of 3 hours of this documentary and will very likely not watch the first hour on re-run, unless I have a hankering for some old photos of Ava Gardner. Nothing new here really that we didn't already know about Sinatra. The filmmaker(s) sort of poked at the intrigue around his being a hardcore Kennedy Democrat and then later finding great love for Reagan, Nixon and, yes, Agnew. The entire documentary is like this - mention the intriguing stuff but don't bother doing some tough investigation and drawing strong conclusions. I guess that was the price they paid to get Sinatra family involvement. The most interesting part of it was listening to Mia Farrow's narration of the events of his courtship and brief marriage to her.

[Yasmin Lee Fan]

Bourne Supremacy. Huge fan of the Bourne series here :D

Jason Bourne will return next year. They're making a new one. I love those movies even though I've never been a big fan of Matt Damon. By the way, every movie he's made since the Bourne films has been a flop. Paul Greengrass will return to direct. I read that Damon wouldn't do it without him. Can't wait to see that Bourne style action again. This should be good. Extreme ways are back again...:dancing:

[Odelay]

Jason Bourne will return next year. They're making a new one. I love those movies even though I've never been a big fan of Matt Damon. By the way, every movie he's made since the Bourne films has been a flop. Paul Greengrass will return to direct. I read that Damon wouldn't do it without him. Can't wait to see that Bourne style action again. This should be good. Extreme ways are back again...:dancing:
I wonder if Tony Gilroy will be involved in the writing. Gilroy seems to be the common link btwn the 3 movies, all of which seemed quite strong to me. It's tough to make a trilogy and not have a weak link in there, but they pulled it off in this series.

I think Damon is a serviceable leading man and does a decent job in most of his roles. I thought he carried off both The Good Shepherd and The Adjustment Bureau in a credible way.

[sukumvit boy]

Looks like the next Bourne ( still untitled , 'Bourne 5' will be the first Bourne film without Gilroy.
http://screenrant.com/tag/bourne-5/
http://collider.com/bourne-5-release-date/

[Instrumental]

Just finished The Interpreter with Sean Penn and Nicole Kidman. Before that was Predestination with Ethan Hawke. That was a very bizarre film. Not sure how I feel about it. And before that was American Hustle. I really enjoyed it. The style of it reminded me a lot of Scorsese.

[vastry]

Just saw Kingsman, with brit actors.. nice spoof of James Bond

[Absarokah]

:clover:

[Stavros]

Leviathan (Andrey Zvyagintsev, 2014)
Little man takes on the system, loses. Set in a coastal town on the Barents Sea in north-western Russia, this well made film has no surprises or inspiration to make it compelling viewing. The photography rescues the film with some symbolic imagery that works but as I say is hardly innovative. It is based loosely on the real life events surrounding the death of Marvin Heemeyer in Colorado in 2004.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2oo7H25kirk

[BJ4TS]

Looks like the next Bourne ( still untitled , 'Bourne 5' will be the first Bourne film without Gilroy.
http://screenrant.com/tag/bourne-5/
http://collider.com/bourne-5-release-date/

But at least Damon will be back.

[Ultron]

Congo (1995)
A terrible film...but its good for a laugh.

I actually recently purchased and read
the original 1980 novel...and this is
truly a case of the novel being better
than the book.

[Absarokah]

:clover:

[Vladimir Putin]

Congo (1995)
A terrible film...but its good for a laugh.

I actually recently purchased and read
the original 1980 novel...and this is
truly a case of the novel being better
than the book.

I remember that "Congo" did very well at the box office when it came out despite the terrible reviews.

[Vladimir Putin]

The last movie I watched in a theater was "It Follows."

The last movie I watched on Blu-ray was David Cronenberg's "Scanners." (1981)

[BlüeKarma]

Seventh Son, wasn't too bad for what it was... a low rent sword & sorcery flick. Jeff Bridges is one of my favorite actors so I'll watch any old piece of junk he's in, lol.

[Absarokah]

838888

[smoothrobb]

Avengers: Age of Ultron and it was the tits. Not as good as the first one but still one of the best I've seen so far this year
GREAT way to start off blockbuster season. My favorite time of year!
Feel free to read my movie reviews, once I manage to launch my blog!

[bling2112]

They said it will also have Jeremy Renner. This usualy means that they will most likley kill of one the actors, Damen or Renner. I've seen them do it in a lot of movies.

[Stavros]

Norte, The End of History (Lav Diaz, 2014)
At just over four hours this is one of the shortest films Diaz has made, and is a version of Dostoyevsky's Crime and Punishment relocated to Ilocos Norte in the Philippines. A brilliant law student who has dropped out of law school has become so obsessed with the end of history and all conventional ideas as nothing but a construct that he is unable, intellectually, to engage with his studies or indeed with life, other than at a purely emotional level. This leads him into destructive and self-destructive behaviour, with a devastating impact on a poor family who have to sell their Carenderia when the husband cannot work owing to an injury and the local moneylender moves in to claim the business. It is not clear why the husband takes the rap for the murder of the moneylender and why his appeals never succeed, some may feel that in the four hours it takes to tell this story detail is not one of Diaz's strong points, whereas the photography is outstanding. It was a moving film, but not in an overwhelming way, there is virtually no dialogue for long parts of the film. It also has a performance by the transgendered actor Raymond Lee who produced the Blossoming of Maximo Oliveros. I would only recommend this to people who can sit through very long and very slow paced films. It also maintains the trend for 'art films' from the Philippines to depict the country as a wasteland of hope where life is nasty, brutal and short.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FRRAaWFQR0o

[hardiron4u]

The Judge with Robert Downey Jr., and Robert Duvall

[hardiron4u]

The Imitation Game

[runningdownthatdream]

Norte, The End of History (Lav Diaz, 2014)
At just over four hours this is one of the shortest films Diaz has made, and is a version of Dostoyevsky's Crime and Punishment relocated to Ilocos Norte in the Philippines. A brilliant law student who has dropped out of law school has become so obsessed with the end of history and all conventional ideas as nothing but a construct that he is unable, intellectually, to engage with his studies or indeed with life, other than at a purely emotional level. This leads him into destructive and self-destructive behaviour, with a devastating impact on a poor family who have to sell their Carenderia when the husband cannot work owing to an injury and the local moneylender moves in to claim the business. It is not clear why the husband takes the rap for the murder of the moneylender and why his appeals never succeed, some may feel that in the four hours it takes to tell this story detail is not one of Diaz's strong points, whereas the photography is outstanding. It was a moving film, but not in an overwhelming way, there is virtually no dialogue for long parts of the film. It also has a performance by the transgendered actor Raymond Lee who produced the Blossoming of Maximo Oliveros. I would only recommend this to people who can sit through very long and very slow paced films. It also maintains the trend for 'art films' from the Philippines to depict the country as a wasteland of hope where life is nasty, brutal and short.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FRRAaWFQR0o

I've been meaning to watch this just haven't gotten around to it. I've spent quite a bit of time in the Philippines over the past 3 years and I can assure you that life here is nasty and brutal. One just has to scratch the surface of sunshine/smiles/simplicity and the nastiness looks you right in the eye. I've never encountered a more corrupt - morally and ethically - nation than what I've found in Phils. For a voyeur like me, this place has no end of interesting and intriguing things to observe.

The film sounds like it's a documentary more than a work of fiction.

[Absarokah]

841291

[Jericho]

The Rover.
Not very often you see a midget get shot in the head! :shrug

[Tapatio]

has anyone mentioned "Ex Machina" yet?

Interesting, very visually appealing. I can't put my finger on why yet, but the disco scene is amazing.

I saw "Age of Ultron" recently, too. I'm not the fanboy target audience, admittedly, but I thought it was pretty awful- even for a Marvel superhero flick.

The exposition re: why Pepper and the other chick aren't In the film was especially embarrassing.

Tremendous amount of CGI, but they're just phoning it in at this point and relying too much on the films already released.

[maxpower]

Just watched the 1978 Donald Sutherland version of Invasion of the Body Snatchers, the best version of that story out of the 3 or 4 that have been made. I hadn't seen it in a really long time and it holds up surprisingly well. It's suspenseful, has good effects for the time, a very creepy Leonard Nimoy, and the classic ending.


841985

[Stavros]

I've been meaning to watch this just haven't gotten around to it. I've spent quite a bit of time in the Philippines over the past 3 years and I can assure you that life here is nasty and brutal. One just has to scratch the surface of sunshine/smiles/simplicity and the nastiness looks you right in the eye. I've never encountered a more corrupt - morally and ethically - nation than what I've found in Phils. For a voyeur like me, this place has no end of interesting and intriguing things to observe.

The film sounds like it's a documentary more than a work of fiction.

I hope you will give it a try, it is very long and very slow so be aware of that. As someone who knows the PI you will notice the absence of mobile phones and also the church, and I think this is deliberate. The religious devotion of most Filipinos is hinted at in the story of the family whose faith seems to be taken for granted, and who suffer the most from the corruption in the country, but it's not their fault, whereas the man who has rejected law, politics and religion and is free to do what he wants destroys everything he comes into contact with. It is also noticable that the woman tells her children she and her husband thought about working abroad but decided to remain in Ilocos Norte, evidently the wrong decision! If there is a message here, the director seems to be saying nothing works in the Philippines, and there is no hope anything will. Bleak.

[SerCocksmith]

Interstellar! Amazing movie and one of my top 5 greatest of all time, if anyone wants to talk about it send me a message!

[hardiron4u]

Jersey Boys
842051

[broncofan]

I saw ex machina. It is a story about a tech entrepreneur who created a robot with all of the mental and emotional attributes of a human. He invites one of his programmers to his very large estate to perform a Turing test. The Turing Test is a way of determining whether a machine has artificial intelligence. If the evaluator thinks he is interacting with a human, the machine passes (the test here is not blinded so it would be a spoiler to reveal what aspect of human behavior the creator is testing). Anyhow, everyone including the machine has an ulterior motive and there are a few good twists and turns. A more current, though probably still unrealistic or very far removed version of what would happen if machines could be designed with human attributes, however defined. I enjoyed it, though some of the computer science talk was a bit obscure for me.

[Stavros]

Birdman: Or (The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance) (Alejandro Inarritu, 2014)
Inarritu makes films that present themselves as deeply meaningful and which either work -as did Babel, for me- or they do not, eg 21 Grams. In this film an actor (Michael Keaton) whose reputation was based on a superhero attempts to prove he is a genuine actor and sinks most of his assets into a Broadway adaptation of a Raymond Carver story. He is vain and deluded, as I assume are most actors some if not all of the time (aren't we all?) and as the previews begin there is a dramatic change of cast as the character played by Edward Norton brings originality and edge into the show. For some reason the Norton character all but disappears in the last third of the film but it doesn't really matter as this shallow nonsense has long passed its point of interest by then. If the virtue of ignorance lies in acting being real rather than contrived, one might argue this film was more contrived than real, suggesting ignorance is indeed bliss, though the reality is that this was a waste of £10. I did not see this in the cinema when it was released, so the dvd will be on its way to the charity shop very soon.

[Jericho]

Hercules

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1267297/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1

Better than I expected! :shrug

[smoothrobb]

Mad Max: Fury Road
This is a 2 hour movie and roughly 1hr and 40mins of it is pure pulse pounding action, excellent cinematography, awesome set pieces
and no story to speak of what-so-ever but the characters have enough personality to make the action scenes tense.
There really isn't much to say about this movie honestly, so i'll sum it up with 2 words SAND TORNADO

[smoothrobb]

Just watched the 1978 Donald Sutherland version of Invasion of the Body Snatchers, the best version of that story out of the 3 or 4 that have been made. I hadn't seen it in a really long time and it holds up surprisingly well. It's suspenseful, has good effects for the time, a very creepy Leonard Nimoy, and the classic ending.


841985

I watched this movie as a kid and almost shit my pants at this scene. What a great movie

[FunwithmyCanon]

Mad Max: Fury Road
This is a 2 hour movie and roughly 1hr and 40mins of it is pure pulse pounding action, excellent cinematography, awesome set pieces
and no story to speak of what-so-ever but the characters have enough personality to make the action scenes tense.
There really isn't much to say about this movie honestly, so i'll sum it up with 2 words SAND TORNADO

This was the last movie I saw the other day as well.. And maybe because RT was giving it a 98% even after a week and commercials were billing it as the most amazing thing ever, my hopes were too inflated. The sets were of course goregous, but in the end couldn't make up for the zero plot offered. Even the slightest attempt to explain what, why, or how things got to where we as the viewer are dumped in would have helped immensely! Instead it's basically a two hour car chase that ends only because it has to. Maybe I hurt myself never having seen the '79 original, but my guess is 92% of those who bought tickets haven't either. While still an alright summer popcorn actioner, I left the theater thinking it was more "Meh Max."

[smoothrobb]

This was the last movie I saw the other day as well.. And maybe because RT was giving it a 98% even after a week and commercials were billing it as the most amazing thing ever, my hopes were too inflated. The sets were of course goregous, but in the end couldn't make up for the zero plot offered. Even the slightest attempt to explain what, why, or how things got to where we as the viewer are dumped in would have helped immensely! Instead it's basically a two hour car chase that ends only because it has to. Maybe I hurt myself never having seen the '79 original, but my guess is 92% of those who bought tickets haven't either. While still an alright summer popcorn actioner, I left the theater thinking it was more "Meh Max."

I can't disagree with you there, even though I was entertained by it I can see how the complete lack of story could turn someone off to the movie as a whole. I'll admit the style and tone of this movie had me expecting something with a little more substance but like I said I enjoyed the action and the characters enough that I didn't feel really disappointed.
and for the record you really don't need to watch the original mad max movies. they're awful in my opinion

[svin_renigoth]

I'd still like to watch Mad Max: Fury Road, along with the Avengers sequel. The last movie I did watch was Locke (also with Tom Hardy).

[Stavros]

The Boy in Striped Pajamas (Mark Herman, 200-eight)
I watched this film the other night when it was broadcast on tv.
I don't know how people feel about 'Holocaust' movies- feature films not documentaries -this film is sensitively filmed and acted, with an obviously shocking conclusion, but I am never comfortable with this genre of film, and wonder about some of its assumptions. I doubt the small Jewish boy Shmuel would have survived within 24 hours of his arrival at the camp or have been able to spend time at the fence chatting to the German boy. Even when such films are based on true stories, such as Schindler's List (Steven Spielberg, 1993) I think there is something wrong about putting a death camp on film, perhaps there are some things that humans do to each other that cannot be turned into fiction, or which lose something when they are. I can appreciate another true story, Roman Polanski's The Pianist (2002) but not Roberto Benigni's Life is Beautiful (1997) possibly because the former does not take place in a camp.

[maxpower]

Stavros, have you ever heard of a film that Jerry Lewis attempted to direct in 1972 about a clown in a Nazi concentration camp? It was entitled The Day the Clown Cried, and it was about a clown whose job it was to entertain the prisoner children before they were killed. It was Jerry's dream project and he was starring as the clown. Production had begun and some of the picture had been filmed, but it was never finished, because, obviously, it was just wrong in so many ways. You can find some of the footage on youtube.

[Stavros]

Stavros, have you ever heard of a film that Jerry Lewis attempted to direct in 1972 about a clown in a Nazi concentration camp? It was entitled The Day the Clown Cried, and it was about a clown whose job it was to entertain the prisoner children before they were killed. It was Jerry's dream project and he was starring as the clown. Production had begun and some of the picture had been filmed, but it was never finished, because, obviously, it was just wrong in so many ways. You can find some of the footage on youtube.

Thanks for this as I had not heard of it -and it sounds awful but not so far from Life is Beautiful?

[Stavros]

Savages (Oliver Stone, 2012)
This aired on tv last night -I am not an admirer of Stone, but even by his low standards this film is dire -hard to know what is worse, the dialogue or the acting.

[trish]

Ex Machina:
Well worth the ticket. Often, in ancient Greek drama, a god was lowered onto the stage by a crane hidden behind the set. This device was called the “Deus ex machina.” The appearance of the god served to solved a problem confronting the characters and advance the plot. In the film, Ex Machina, the problem solver is named Caleb. He’s not much of a god (except perhaps by the default of belonging to the race of beings who created artificially intelligent androids). The Ex Machina is the lottery which brings Caleb to our attention in the first place. The problem Caleb is assigned to solve is named Ava. Caleb is to decide whether or not Ava passes the Turing Test.

Beyond this point there be spoilers:
This viewer is not sure Ava really passes. She certainly is a skillful manipulator. She analyzes micro expressions and discerns the motivations and weaknesses of others. She “knows” when you’re lying or telling the truth by mere calculation of your body language and the modulations in your voice. Real people do these things by empathy not calculation. Unless we’re severely autistic we attempt to feel what others must be feeling. We generally don’t simply reason and deduce what they must be feeling. Even psychopaths imagine they feel what their victims feel, but learn to either suppress or enjoy these proxy emotions. There is ultimately no evidence (imo) that this is the way Ava operates. As far as I can tell she used Caleb, but never felt anything for him. From what I know of her now, Ava neither passes nor fails the Turing test. I need more evidence. She may well be a highly functional, autistic, robot killer loose in the world.

[Vladimir Putin]

As of last night, the last film I watched in a theater was "San Andreas." I watched it at the Regal Theatre at L.A. Live with the 4DX effects. It was almost like going on a ride in Disneyland or Universal Studios.

[SanDiegoPervySage]

Pain and Gain

[MrFanti]

Not in a theatre but 'Interstellar'....

[Ultron]

Battlefield Earth
So very, very bad...but I still love it...

[Loco]

The Railway Man..... worth the time to have a look at set in the second world war at the fall of Saigon and follows on with the Thai Burma railway, Colin Firth and Nicole Kidman and a number of other actors well constructed story.

[Jimmy W]

Ex Machina - I thought Ex Machina was a pile of pretentious shit that desperately wanted to 'look' like a Kubrick film but ended up taking over two hours to deliver ten minutes of dialogue about nothing. If you've seen Blade Runner where Harrison Ford interviews Sean Young then you've seen Ex Machina although they did more in five minutes with Blade Runner. The mysterious computer genius whose name isn't worth remembering does nothing but drink beer and look at closed circuit cams. For those who have seen the film and can't figure out who he reminded you of when you all went to the diner afterwards? Joe Pantoliano is who you couldn't think of. More like a Joe Pantoliano impersonator. Nothing happens for %90 of the film and then when something happens at the end it's difficult to care. As a movie I give it a 5 but because it takes itself too seriously I give it a 3.

[Stavros]

Ex Machina - I thought Ex Machina was a pile of pretentious shit that desperately wanted to 'look' like a Kubrick film but ended up taking over two hours to deliver ten minutes of dialogue about nothing. If you've seen Blade Runner where Harrison Ford interviews Sean Young then you've seen Ex Machina although they did more in five minutes with Blade Runner. The mysterious computer genius whose name isn't worth remembering does nothing but drink beer and look at closed circuit cams. For those who have seen the film and can't figure out who he reminded you of when you all went to the diner afterwards? Joe Pantoliano is who you couldn't think of. More like a Joe Pantoliano impersonator. Nothing happens for %90 of the film and then when something happens at the end it's difficult to care. As a movie I give it a 5 but because it takes itself too seriously I give it a 3.

I saw this yesterday but I must disagree with you when you say "As a movie I give it a 5 but because it takes itself too seriously I give it a 3" -this film is so truly bad I don't think it is even worth a 1. That doesn't make it the worst film ever made, but that is only because there are so many contenders for this dubious accolade. I could go into details, but this film is just not worth the effort it would take.

[hardiron4u]

The Equalizer
850186

[Jericho]

Kingsman:The Secret Service.
Great film, loved it!

[fab]

Rust & Bone

[Stavros]

American Sniper (Clint Eastwood, 2014)
Eastwood's ability to make films that are free of padding and hysteria has enabled him to make a film about a sniper for the SEALS who served in Iraq that is, until the last part of the film free of any sense of national sentiment. The film is based on the real life story of Chris Kyle, but fails to show any real character development, as the man in the film is emotionally cold at the beginning and at the end of the film, and one gets the impression he stopped doing tours of Iraq more from tiredness than anything deeper. The premise of the film, from 9/11 you get regime change in Iraq in 2003 doesn't make sense as 9/11 was followed by the relentless bombing of Afghanistan and Iraq had nothing to do with 9/11. The fact that it doesn't matter all that much is due to the lack of any real plot or story, and I personally found myself indifferent to the whole thing, so it goes to the swap shop along with quite a lot of other dvd's I have wasted money on recently. Probably best for Eastwood to retire as he has nothing left to say.

[AshlynCreamher]

95 min |Comedy (http://www.imdb.com/genre/Comedy?ref_=tt_ov_inf), Drama (http://www.imdb.com/genre/Drama?ref_=tt_ov_inf), Romance (http://www.imdb.com/genre/Romance?ref_=tt_ov_inf)|6 February 2015 (US) (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt3007302/releaseinfo?ref_=tt_ov_inf+)
Boy Meets Girl

852418

Boy Meets Girl is a funny, tender, sex positive romantic comedy that explores what it means to be a real man or woman, and how important it is to live a courageous life not letting fear stand in the way of going after your dreams.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WNdW9TzxGrk

[Stavros]

Blackhat (Michael Mann, 2015)
In an erratic career which has at least seen some tightly woven, beautifully lit films, Michael Mann has plumbed the depths with this desperately bad film. So bad it isn't even worth listing all the things wrong with, I just don't have the time.

[stephenward]

Finding Nemo

The perfect movie for Father's Day...

[Stavros]

The Zero Theorem (Terry Gilliam, 2013)
I don't recall reading about this film when it was released although it has all the dazzling sets one finds in most of Gilliam's films. This one has video games, computers, screens, liquids, wild parties, data crunching, alienated characters who have lost touch with their own soul, an abandoned church, a chaotic ad-strewn urban life, hip-hop, pizzas and weird pizza-delivery people/girl, cybersex, surveillance cameras, canny rodents, lots of clutter and weird machines -in fact a lot of the things one finds in Thomas Pynchon. Unfortunately when someone makes a film which argues barely half-way through, that even with the promise of eternal love, everything amounts to nothing, it does rather make watching the film a pointless experience. And sad to say Gilliam's phantasmagoric eye cannot rescue this tosh from the charity shop, which is where it is going next.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2333804/

[Stavros]

Still Alice (2014)
A low-key worthy film about Alzheimer's Disease which goes out of its way to be sensitive and non-controversial at the expense of depth of character and plot, or the cruelty one finds in Michael Haneke's Amour. Americans, I think, are sometimes terrified of being dangerous or cruel and this film plays it safe, with its gentle lighting, and drippy and repetitive music. The married couple, both academics have a well-financed home in New York, the house by the sea, and the woman forgetting her words is at the beginning a Professor of Linguistics. It is all so cute there is even a Black man in the film, and he isn't a cop, a crook or a cabbie, which must be an achievement of some sort. One wonders how early onset Alzheimer's affects families where the parents work three jobs, have multiple relatives to feed, live in a rough neigbourhood...and so on. It is not a bad film, but it is safe and predictable.

[hardiron4u]

The Theory of Everything
862825

[BlüeKarma]

Final Girl, http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2124787/
Most people said it was mediocre but maybe because I have a fixation on revenge-fantasy fiction I enjoyed it immensely.

[RallyCola]

in the last 24 hrs, i have seen Pixels and Vacation.

Pixels: 100% predictable but still has a laugh here or there, especially with q*bert. I really had low expectations for this movie and it met them. 3 out of 10. Honestly, it is more believable to me that an alien race sent pac man and donkey kong down to earth to take over the planet than kevin james being president but whatever, it is just another movie from happy madison where sandler follows the same misunderstood man-child formula he has in every other movie ever.

Vacation: Holy fuck Chevy Chase looks like shit. Other than that, it gets an A for effort in trying to pay homage to the original and has some genuinely funny moments. compared to the original Vacation, clearly all the camp is gone and modern low-brow humor replaces it so there is no point to comparing it in terms of humor...each fits the time in which it was released. The best comparison might be to We're The Millers, a modern family road trip movie with raunchy humor. It is not as funny as that in this man's opinion. 6 out of 10.

I will probably see the new mission impossible movie some time this weekend and if the last one is a guide, it should be a passable action movie. I'm going in expecting a 5 out of 10 so middle of the road expectations.

[hardiron4u]

Million Dollar Arm
863006

[BlüeKarma]

Hot Pursuit, http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2967224/
Kind of a female buddy version of Midnight Run but not really. Not too bad for what it is.

[hardiron4u]

Now You See Me
864038