David Kronenbourg
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Gremlins
Bad Santa
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What movie did you watch last night? (24 Viewers)
- Thread starter nlgbbbblth
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Theme based nights now?
The Hobbit.
I made the mistake of seeing it in HFR...don't make the same mistake!
I made the mistake of seeing it in HFR...don't make the same mistake!
It's budget was $45 million ! As I've pointed out before you could have made Reservoir Dogs 40 times for that.
David Kronenbourg
Well-Known Member
Escape From Tomorrow. I had high hopes for this and I was pretty disappointed. It's a really interesting idea but it just didn't work for me. It's never quite creepy enough and it's silly and amateurish in places.
Splunk
Active Member
- Joined
- Nov 19, 2013
- Messages
- 262
Watched Fruitvale Station - true story. Great performances all round, amazing debut from its director - Ryan Coogler. Won heaps of awards including Sundance. This could be one of those dark horses for the Oscars. Well worth a watch.
I'm working through the films of the year thread at the moment. This week.
Stoker
Chan Wook Park director of Oldboy's new one is a bizarre auld piece. It's one of those thrillers where the modus operandi of the storytelling is to have the audience scratching their heads going "what's going on?" rather than "What's going to happen next ?" and that's fine, I like films like this. Probably the best exponent of this film making is Terry Gilliam and like Gilliam, Parks film seems set in a slightly surreal other world. In this case it's set almost exclusively in one huge house in rural .... eh ... America... somewhere in America. It stars Mia Wasinkowska as a young, intelligent, altered, odd lady who at times exhibits behaviour of a person who has aspergers or autism. Does she ? Well we'll never know. This is the kind of film world where everything is a bit strange to begin with so the fact that the main protagonist may possibly have an affecting emotional disorder just never gets mentioned. It's just that kind of film. Her father dies under mysterious circumstances, her mother played by Nicole Kidman is an emotionally unavailable cold fish and into their lives comes a long lost uncle who is also fucking strange.
The problem I have with Stoker is that without giving anything away in the above synopsis it's still really very easy to fill in the blanks and to predict the course that the film takes. Chan Wook Park seems to think that he's making a piece that's similar in tone to Hitchcock or Lynch but in reality all of his beautiful imagery and clever editing and gleeful Scorsesesque camera moves reminded me more of the animated adaptation of Neil Gaiman's children's fable - Coraline. For me this is because it's more than slightly over cooked. It veers into the pretentious and nonsensical far too often.
This is dark, lurid stuff and it does have some great moments. The performances by the cast, (Wasikowski in particular) are very strong, it looks great and it moves along at a decent pace. Overall, however, when the film finally gets to where it's going it's a little bit hard to take because Stoker sets out in one obvious direction from it's beginning and despite taking some detours it eventually arrives at the most obvious destination. It's never boring but it's no masterpiece. Most damning of all is that as well as Coraline it also reminded me a lot of Joon Ho Bongs vastly superior thriller Mother, which you should see instead basically.
A Field In England
If Stoker has you scratching your head A Field In England will have you tearing your fucking hair out. Ben Wheatley made his name over the last few years by making the brilliantly creepy The Kill List and Sightseers which was definitely one of last years best films. A Field In England is a horse of a completely different colour. While Wheatley's films to date have seen him compared to Ken Loach, Shane Meadows and the likes this is far more a David Lynch or Werner Herzog or Ingmar Bergman inspired affair. A piece of surreal, abstract film making which will boggle the mind.
There's no point trying to give any synopsis of the plot because frankly I'm still not totally sure of what the hell was happening.
It's beautiful to look at - filmed in a wonderfully detailed black and white, of which Bergman himself would have been proud of. It features strong performances. It's madness is as mad as you're likely to find anywhere and there are sequences here that do genuinely cause a strong response in the viewer. It's not something you enter into lightly. It's bold, it's powerful, it's original and unsettling and yet it - as many of these kinds of films tend to be- is flawed.
In willfully taking a piss into the film making rule book Wheatley unfortunately loses sight of some of the rules which are generally just good ideas. Herzog and Lynch are masters of cinema not because they break every rule they can but because their films are still knowingly cinematic and on some level accessible. At the centre of A Field In England are four characters, only one of whom I ever really cared about and unfortunately he's not the central figure. Perhaps Wheatly is presenting us tropes here, the fool, the coward, the devil etc but in spite of the fact that most of the film features these men talking to each other it's very hard to really care what happens to any of them.
Everything is filtered through a plot device in which the audience is either watching occult, paranormal events unfold or watching these events unfold through the eyes of men who are themselves hallucinating. At times this is utterly thrilling but after a while the effect becomes overwhelmingly, baffling and as the film begins to break completely from reality certain concepts which need to remain constant - death for example - also become abstract. As every aspect of a film becomes unhinged so to did my connection to the events.
Film making is a simple business really. Just make your audience care about your protagonists and then make their actions have consequences et voila, you can do pretty much anything you like. A Field In England is a brutally brilliant bizarre trip but as a film, for me, it never succeeded in fulfilling the basics. The result is an uneven but occasionally wonderful slice of strangeness. It didn't fully satisfy me but it's definitely worth seeing.
Stoker
Chan Wook Park director of Oldboy's new one is a bizarre auld piece. It's one of those thrillers where the modus operandi of the storytelling is to have the audience scratching their heads going "what's going on?" rather than "What's going to happen next ?" and that's fine, I like films like this. Probably the best exponent of this film making is Terry Gilliam and like Gilliam, Parks film seems set in a slightly surreal other world. In this case it's set almost exclusively in one huge house in rural .... eh ... America... somewhere in America. It stars Mia Wasinkowska as a young, intelligent, altered, odd lady who at times exhibits behaviour of a person who has aspergers or autism. Does she ? Well we'll never know. This is the kind of film world where everything is a bit strange to begin with so the fact that the main protagonist may possibly have an affecting emotional disorder just never gets mentioned. It's just that kind of film. Her father dies under mysterious circumstances, her mother played by Nicole Kidman is an emotionally unavailable cold fish and into their lives comes a long lost uncle who is also fucking strange.
The problem I have with Stoker is that without giving anything away in the above synopsis it's still really very easy to fill in the blanks and to predict the course that the film takes. Chan Wook Park seems to think that he's making a piece that's similar in tone to Hitchcock or Lynch but in reality all of his beautiful imagery and clever editing and gleeful Scorsesesque camera moves reminded me more of the animated adaptation of Neil Gaiman's children's fable - Coraline. For me this is because it's more than slightly over cooked. It veers into the pretentious and nonsensical far too often.
This is dark, lurid stuff and it does have some great moments. The performances by the cast, (Wasikowski in particular) are very strong, it looks great and it moves along at a decent pace. Overall, however, when the film finally gets to where it's going it's a little bit hard to take because Stoker sets out in one obvious direction from it's beginning and despite taking some detours it eventually arrives at the most obvious destination. It's never boring but it's no masterpiece. Most damning of all is that as well as Coraline it also reminded me a lot of Joon Ho Bongs vastly superior thriller Mother, which you should see instead basically.
A Field In England
If Stoker has you scratching your head A Field In England will have you tearing your fucking hair out. Ben Wheatley made his name over the last few years by making the brilliantly creepy The Kill List and Sightseers which was definitely one of last years best films. A Field In England is a horse of a completely different colour. While Wheatley's films to date have seen him compared to Ken Loach, Shane Meadows and the likes this is far more a David Lynch or Werner Herzog or Ingmar Bergman inspired affair. A piece of surreal, abstract film making which will boggle the mind.
There's no point trying to give any synopsis of the plot because frankly I'm still not totally sure of what the hell was happening.
It's beautiful to look at - filmed in a wonderfully detailed black and white, of which Bergman himself would have been proud of. It features strong performances. It's madness is as mad as you're likely to find anywhere and there are sequences here that do genuinely cause a strong response in the viewer. It's not something you enter into lightly. It's bold, it's powerful, it's original and unsettling and yet it - as many of these kinds of films tend to be- is flawed.
In willfully taking a piss into the film making rule book Wheatley unfortunately loses sight of some of the rules which are generally just good ideas. Herzog and Lynch are masters of cinema not because they break every rule they can but because their films are still knowingly cinematic and on some level accessible. At the centre of A Field In England are four characters, only one of whom I ever really cared about and unfortunately he's not the central figure. Perhaps Wheatly is presenting us tropes here, the fool, the coward, the devil etc but in spite of the fact that most of the film features these men talking to each other it's very hard to really care what happens to any of them.
Everything is filtered through a plot device in which the audience is either watching occult, paranormal events unfold or watching these events unfold through the eyes of men who are themselves hallucinating. At times this is utterly thrilling but after a while the effect becomes overwhelmingly, baffling and as the film begins to break completely from reality certain concepts which need to remain constant - death for example - also become abstract. As every aspect of a film becomes unhinged so to did my connection to the events.
Film making is a simple business really. Just make your audience care about your protagonists and then make their actions have consequences et voila, you can do pretty much anything you like. A Field In England is a brutally brilliant bizarre trip but as a film, for me, it never succeeded in fulfilling the basics. The result is an uneven but occasionally wonderful slice of strangeness. It didn't fully satisfy me but it's definitely worth seeing.
Been on a noir/ neo-noir kick
Anthem
Active Member
- Joined
- Jun 16, 2010
- Messages
- 535
My Top 10 movies of 2013
1) The Hunt (Danish: Jagten)
2) Django Unchained
3) Pacific Rim
4) The Act of War
5) Mud
6) Alpha Papa
7) Rust and Bone
8) The Place Beyond the Pines
9) Behind the Candleabra
10) Fruitvale Station
1) The Hunt (Danish: Jagten)
2) Django Unchained
3) Pacific Rim
4) The Act of War
5) Mud
6) Alpha Papa
7) Rust and Bone
8) The Place Beyond the Pines
9) Behind the Candleabra
10) Fruitvale Station
Cormcolash
Well-Known Member
The Hunt could very well be the top movie of 2012
Anthem
Active Member
- Joined
- Jun 16, 2010
- Messages
- 535
Jeez ,you 're right so Django gets the top spot and I would put Prisoners in for the number 10. I haven't seen Gravity and few others so that list is subject to change lol.
David Kronenbourg
Well-Known Member
Frances Ha. I loved it . Gerwig is wonderful
Crystal Fairy. Michael Cera is great as the dickish American backpacker on the hunt for a potent hallucinogenic cactus in Chile. Enjoyable drug comedy/road movie. Improvised performances give this a very naturalistic feel.
Crystal Fairy. Michael Cera is great as the dickish American backpacker on the hunt for a potent hallucinogenic cactus in Chile. Enjoyable drug comedy/road movie. Improvised performances give this a very naturalistic feel.
Didn't enjoy it, thought everyone in it was good, it was just really boring.
Should have said what I thought of those movies.
The Maltese Falcon, didn't enjoy it.
Brick, what got me back watching these. I saw it in the last couple of weeks and after enjoying it in the cinema thought it was trying too hard upon repeat viewing. Thought "there must be better films that informed this." In fact I may have said that here when I watched it.
Chinatown, a classic, obviously.
The Big Sleep, terrific. I read the book years ago and thought it was good. Being made under the Hays code in the 40's they had to cut some of the racier elements out.
That was going to be me done, but I was told that Double Indemnity was very good, so I'm about to start that.
The Maltese Falcon, didn't enjoy it.
Brick, what got me back watching these. I saw it in the last couple of weeks and after enjoying it in the cinema thought it was trying too hard upon repeat viewing. Thought "there must be better films that informed this." In fact I may have said that here when I watched it.
Chinatown, a classic, obviously.
The Big Sleep, terrific. I read the book years ago and thought it was good. Being made under the Hays code in the 40's they had to cut some of the racier elements out.
That was going to be me done, but I was told that Double Indemnity was very good, so I'm about to start that.
Lore - a German film about a group of siblings making their way across 1945 post-war Germany.
Barbara - a German film about a doctor trying to escape 1980s East Germany.
Really enjoyed them both.
Barbara - a German film about a doctor trying to escape 1980s East Germany.
Really enjoyed them both.
WHAT THE HELL IS WRONG WITH YOU
Many things.
Splunk
Active Member
- Joined
- Nov 19, 2013
- Messages
- 262
I was going to download and watch that movie over the weekend. Have never seen it but its Angelica Huston's favorite movie that was directed by her father. It is supposed to be a masterpiece and way ahead of its time. It influenced, even creating a new genre of movie. Looking forward to this.
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It was terrific.
Haven't seen any Raymond Chandler adaptations, but they're on the list as soon as I clear my 2013 backlog. 9 films in 6 days can it be done ? fuck yes it can!
I've read Lady In The Lake and loved it and Trouble Is My Business and thought it was Okay at best, I'm assured The Big Sleep is one of those rare occasions where the film is better than the book so I've been savouring it for a long time now. Really excited about finally seeing it.
Seriously.
Like some fucking spa gets excited about a new Harry Potter or fucking Lord Of The Rings film, that excited.
Yeah I know !!!
Seriously.
Anyway last night I watched The Insider.
Michael Mann, Al Pacino and Russell Crowe - three of the most adult lads ever to be involved in cinema attempt to make a very adult move about whistle blowers and uber capitalism in the united states. What could possibly go wrong ?
Well.... unfortunately....
Nothing.
It's pretty much as good as you could ask really, perfect performances (even from Pacino - who frankly is a shambles most of the time) perfect direction, excellent pacing and a tight if long script. It's a good film. Nothing to rock your world or set the world on fire but the epitome of solidness. Like fucking concrete. Two and a half hours well spent..... well kind of.
I mean it's two and a half fucking hours long!!! It's solid, it's good. It's got no major flaws. But it's two and a half hours long!!!!!!!!
It's as good as Zodiac.
It's a film about public health which never features a doctor in the same way that Zodiac is a film about a serial killer that never really features a serial killer. It's a solid film full stop.
The kind of thing you know is good but never actually bother watching. Like the way you know lentils are great but ... like .... seriously .... fuck lentils.
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