What movie did you watch today?

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ric
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Re: What movie did you watch today?

Post by ric »

hacksaw Ridge 2016
obv just decent. some inspiring stuff but you know whatever

Moonlight 2016
truly the best movie I've seen in theatres in quite a while. saw this movie based on the poster and a feeling to see some movies. no shit. fucking great surprise.

Just saw drizzle here....
drizzle wrote:Moonlight - Lives up to the hype, mostly. I thought some of the plot beats were a little too familiar, almost bordering on rote, but they are realized on screen so well that it prevents them from feeling like full on cliches. The direction, acting and cinematography are all incredible, like jawdroppingly good at some points. Even if you don't have any interest in the subject, it's worth seeing for the execution (which is a tad ironic since the movie is being celebrated and likely will be mostly critique-proof specifically because of its subject matter)
yeah well said. sounds. music blew my mind. acting was out of control in this. camera work. writing. shit is certifiably like a top movie.

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Re: What movie did you watch today?

Post by Tommy Bunz »

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The fourth film out of Laika Studios and easily their best film since their debut Coraline. Finding Dory will probably win the best animated feature oscar pretty easily even though its just an entertaining rehash of the first movie, but this is a step above Pixar's effort this year.
This has to be the best looking stop-motion animated film ever made. I constantly kept thinking I was watching CG.

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Re: What movie did you watch today?

Post by Spartan »

Nice. Planning to watch it sometime this week.

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Re: What movie did you watch today?

Post by Tommy Bunz »

You're going to like this dude

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Apparently the largest stop-motion puppet ever made, 16 feet tall!

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Re: What movie did you watch today?

Post by Spartan »

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War Dogs (2016)
David O' Russell has made a lucrative if not overrated comeback ripping off Scorsese's formula, so it comes as no surprise to see other lesser hacks have a shot at it, too. Enjoyable first hour, where Hill really shines as a loud and obnoxious douche. The film stumbles in its last hour where it gets into darker territory and kind of gets a bit dull. Miles Teller does his best to carry the emotional weight of his and his partner's wrong-doings, but Todd Phillips is a fairly limited director and is like a fish out of water here. In many ways. Lord of War is a better movie with a similar theme, but this was still a decent movie.

Kubo and the Two Strings (2016)
Can only repeat everything Tommy said. Such a crime it's been slept-on so hard by everyone. Really felt like it was adapted from a long lost Roald Dahl book.

True Memoirs of an International Assassin (2016)
Currently, there are four Netflix movies in my Worst Movies of 2016 list, and this is one of them. Irredeemably shite.

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Re: What movie did you watch today?

Post by Tommy Bunz »

Glad you liked Kubo as much as I did.
Agree with you on War Dogs, it's entertaining but ultimately disposable. Doesn't live up to the Rolling Stone article it was based on, frankly.

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Re: What movie did you watch today?

Post by ric »

Spartan wrote: War Dogs (2016)
Lord of War is a better movie with a similar theme, but this was still a decent movie.
that's the Victor bout movie right? really want to see that one. it's an amazing story.

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Re: What movie did you watch today?

Post by Spartan »

ric wrote: that's the Victor bout movie right? really want to see that one. it's an amazing story.
After some googling, it's loosely based on him and several others.



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Sausage Party (2016)
Maybe if I was still twelve this might have been funny. Rogen's voice is just annoying without his smug punchable face appearing on-screen.

Star Trek Beyond (2016)
This felt more like a traditional old school Trekkie adventure than the last two; which is refreshing after Abrams' inclination for repackaging remakes as sequels. I still found this a really flawed and somewhat forgettable film, though. The writing was particularly weak; several characters, including the film's villain played by Elba were poorly utilised.

Divines (2016)
Already stated how bad I've found Netflix's Original movies this year, but Uda Benyamina's ghetto tale instantly breaks the curse. Enjoyed this a hell of a lot; from its two likeable juvenile heroines looking to escape from the Parisian slums, right down to the Didier Drogba looking female crime-boss they end up working for.


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Re: What movie did you watch today?

Post by Rabbi Jihadovich »

Saw Divines last night per your recommendation. Thought that it was pretty good. Biggest twist was how sexy the main girl ended up looking toward the end.

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Re: What movie did you watch today?

Post by Spartan »

I was taken aback when she tarted herself up to attract Reba's attention at the nightclub. Not like there was much choice when the only other alternatives were Drogba and Precious.

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Re: What movie did you watch today?

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BTW i Googled Drogba and that produced a LOL

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Re: What movie did you watch today?

Post by Comedy Quaddafi »

Heart of Darkness (1991) - Tremendously enjoyable after having rewatched Apocalypse Now. I love how FFC's wife makes her prescence felt in the docu without distracting from giving the fans what they want.

Jeepers Creepers (2001) - Decent enough monsterfilm but I probably would have liked it a lot better if it had been a redneck slasher instead with the same setup. Film seems dated and very much from the Scream era.

Best of Enemies (2015) - Watchable if you are a political junkie but doesnt hold much interest otherwise.

Nocturnal Animals (2016) - Brilliant meta-narrative revengefilm with Gyllenhaal and Amy Adams directed by Tom Ford. Think this will go down as a favorite from this year for many people in a year that had lots of great movies.
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Re: What movie did you watch today?

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Under the Shadow (2016)
Definitely a worthy comparison to The Babadook, in terms of thematic similarity and overall quality. The acting is superb. It's also really refreshing to see jump scares done right. If I wasn't so blown away by The Witch and The Neon Demon, this would have been my top pick for best horror film this year.

Masks (2011)
Finally got to watch this German tribute to the gialli of yesteryear. Loved the fact it kept things straight laced and didn't run with any self-aware faux grind house bullshit like some of its other recent peers. Enjoyed this a fair bit.

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Re: What movie did you watch today?

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The Greasy Strangler (2016)
Kind of what I would imagine a Steptoe & Son movie would be like if it was made by the Troma team. It's rude, crude and really fucking ugly. It takes its cue from Napoleon Dynamite's sense of awkward loser comedy, but delves into way more cringe-worthy terrain. Really hate myself for liking this.

31 (2016)
Rob Zombie's worst film to date. Richard Brake is great as Doom-Head, but he's the one shining light in what's an otherwise shitty white-trash take of The Running Man. The rest of the cast range from either being weak as fuck (Sheri Moon Zombie) or their talents are squandered with little screen time (Judy Geeson). Too add insult to injury this has some of the worst camera work and editing since Taken 3; it's like the film crew were all having seizures or something. Shite!

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Re: What movie did you watch today?

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Nocturnal Animals - Thought this was pretty terrible. Like 30% faux-Refn about LA grotesques, 5% extended trailer for a cheesy relationship drama, 65% shitty Jim Thompson/Peckinpah ripoff. The trailers really undersell how much of this is pointlessly and grossly rapey desert rednexploitation, which neither pays off viscerally nor makes any larger point about anything else in the plot. Somewhere in here is an entertaining sleazy melodrama about vapid Hollywood people being terrible to each other, and a completely different desert revenge movie that could be re-written with a less cliched script to make better use of Michael Shannon and Aaron Taylor (who are valiantly trying to make good characters out of 1 dimensional sketches they are given).

Ironically, Ford could potentially be a good director. He knows how to make things look good and does a good job with establishing mood here and there. He just shouldn't be allowed to write and have final cut on things.
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Re: What movie did you watch today?

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White Girl (2016)
Idiotic skank tries to save her drug dealer boyfriend from jail, and winds up a cock puppet for every meanie in the big bad city. This film has one of the dumbest protagonists I've laid eyes upon since Aaron the Camera Guy from Creep. The entire movie screams "look at me, Harmony Korine!".

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Re: What movie did you watch today?

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The Shallows (2016)
Best shark movie in a while. Petty motherfuckers too stubborn to switch their brain off when it comes to summer movies will most likely pick this film apart with flaws in logic, but fuck them, because I enjoyed this really tense and visually stunning thriller. The film does an excellent job of conveying the feeling of despair and the surprising psychological battle between Blake Lively and a great white shark. I was impressed with how much the film made use of the various small locations and their respective distances from one another in setting up one tense scene to the next. Also, I found myself cheering for Steven Seagull more than a couple of times.

Vampyres (2015)
Inferior remake of José Ramón Larraz's vampire erotica classic. The acting in this is absolutely atrocious and that's no exaggeration since all the actors range from being equally, or worse than Caroline (thirty years well past her prime) Munro's limited role. It's a much bloodier film than the original, with a scene that's inspired by Countess Bathory's bath time exploits, but there's fuck all else that's memorable about this dreadfully, cheap-looking movie.

Beast With a Gun / Mad Dog Killer / Ferocious (1977)
An awesome psychotic villain played by Helmut Berger and a phenomenal soundtrack were the only major highlights for me in this fairly average eurocrime thriller. Richard Harrison as the good guy cop was mostly a waste of space; he lacked any real range, especially when his sis and pop got kidnapped. Marisa Mell fared a little better, but she was completely written out of the film well before the end credits and denied any real payoff after the shit she went through. Nanni Vitali deserved a higher kill count and a better movie.

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Re: What movie did you watch today?

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Last House on the Beach (1978) - Ray Lovelock and Florinda Balkan star in possibly the weakest "Last House..."-film of the 70's.

Never Cry Wolf (1983) - Based on a book about a biologist who studied arctic wolves for a year. Recommendable for most wolf-fans I think.

Tricked (2012) - This Verhoeven film is short and very enjoyable. Some great scenes at the end made it all fall in to place very well.

Frank & Lola (2016) - This dark, erotic thriller with Michael Shannon is OK. It has some decent sleaze but never really gets intense enough.
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Re: What movie did you watch today?

Post by LilLeftBrain »

was also prettty big on gossip girl v shark w/ text messages & seagull
watched 'swiss army man' last evening and wouldn't have a problem saying that's the funniest movie i've seen in ages. there's a couple lulls but was not expecting a 90 minute fart, etc, joke, with some sentimentality to boot! the soundtrack is killer, as were harry potts & dano. two fist bumps!
in a valley of violence was cool
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Re: What movie did you watch today?

Post by Spartan »

Swiss Army Man has been on my radar for a while now.

And Florinda Bolkan was the Meryl Streep of eurotrash cinema.

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Re: What movie did you watch today?

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Manchester by the Sea 2016
well realized. nothing stunning. a little meh sometimes with the decisions but I was enraptured for the most part. good music. not what I heard it was gonna be but whatever. a good and effective movie.

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Re: What movie did you watch today?

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Allied 2016
Some cliches some creativity. decent suspense if a bit cookie cutter at times. obv good acting all around. some great great photography

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Re: What movie did you watch today?

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I liked Allied, it wasn't perfect or anything but it as very nice homage to Graham Green by way of glossy old Hollywood tropes
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Re: What movie did you watch today?

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Tale of Tales (2015)
This turned out to be an enjoyable portmanteau with three mature-themed Brothers Grimm style fairytales. Speaking of which, this did have a real Terry Gilliam vibe about it too.

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Re: What movie did you watch today?

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Dawn Of The Planet Of The Apes - rewatched because of the trailer for the new one, and liked it more than I remember from first viewing. I think maybe I was offput because I was expecting an orgy of chimps double-fisting machine guns but got a stab at something more serious instead. Watching it now, the more serious and nuanced story they were going for works pretty well. And the ape CGI is just nuts too.

Nightwatch/Daywatch - IDK why but decided to revisit. They hold up well as stylish and unusual takes on fantasy, but are way too incoherent to really connect with the story. I suspect the makers banked on the audience being familiar with the books, which were huge in Russia. The english translation is unbelievably wrong too, I think in an effort to make this more friendly to non-Russians the translators tried to straight up re-write parts of the plot.

Coherence - Entertaining and clever little movie but the 'brother' plot device was cringingly dumb (unless that's another twist I missed or something? seems possible). The way the relationships between characters became weaponized as the story proceeded were the best parts anyway.

The Accountant - OK I'M ABOUT TO BLOW YOUR MIND, THIS IS ACTUALLY KINDA GOOD. Like not bad-good, but kinda legitimately good with some bad-good mixed in. The script bafflingly manages to be both sensitive to autism as a real illness AND make it seem like a near-superpower. Even more baffling, the movie clearly draws on inspiration from things like Le Samourai, The Driver and Drive; it follows a similar formula but just makes the mental illness of the character explicit instead of suggested. Affleck even fits the old quip about Ryan O'Neal being perfect for The Driver because he's a wooden actor. Of course, this being a big-budget Hollywood movie in 2016, this shit has too much exposition, about 3 subplots it doesn't need and is 20-30 mins too long. But even there it's often redeemed by good casting (Jon Bernthal especially slays). Honestly, I don't even understand how this is possible. Maybe I was too high or something.

Magnificent Seven (the new one) - There's nothing ostensibly wrong with this but not much memorable about it either. It's amiable but pointless, it just recycles and updates the old formula without adding anything worthwhile ('what if we make one of them black and another one asian, because diversity is hot right now' is about the scope of its ambitions). The 3:10 To Yuma remake was way more fun iirc.

Magnificent Seven (the old one) - It's been a very long time since I've seen this, wanted to compare against the new one. Some of it dated poorly but you can't really hate on that too much, it's great for its time. The cast is definitely its best asset, and from a nerdy POV it's fun to note all the ways in which this is a clear precedent for spaghetti westerns. As a remake of Seven Samurai it's amusingly similar to its own remake - it just lifts a bunch of highlights in a fun glossy 'for dummies' kind of way without digging too deep.

Hell Or Highwater - This was cool but felt a little underwhelming in the context of the critical love it's getting. Its the kind of good lowkey movie that would usually end up as an underseen festival gem, but this year lucked into being a MUST SEE indie due to circumstances of timing. The acting is fantastic, and yea it totally nails that gritty 70s crime drama that's more about the criminal than the crime feeling. But it's also a little too straightforward and neat in its main argument, and feels a little like one of those condescendingly sympathetic articles about poor WWC Trump voters adapted as a fittingly lowbudget modern western (granted the movie predates the articles).
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Re: What movie did you watch today?

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Rats (2016)
Morgan Spurlock out does The Greasy Strangler for gross-out movie of the year by opting for the old Jacopetti and Prosperi shockumentary treatment. Man, this doc was a real life horror flick - replete with jump scares and an ominous soundtrack. Crossing off NYC, Mumbai and Ho Chi Minh City off my travel list.


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Re: What movie did you watch today?

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The Handmaiden - This is my favorite Park Chan-Wook movie since I first saw the Vengeance Trilogy. Can't even describe what this is - a darkly funny lesbian con thriller? Don't watch it with anybody who would be uncomfortable seeing a prolonged lesbian scissoring scene.

The Wailing - This has been getting lots of good reviews but it didn't blow me away. It builds a great creepy atmosphere and keeps you guessing about the villain, but runs way too long and the final reveal feels pretty flat.

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And God Said To Cain - Never seen this one before, really great. A revenge story with touches of Greek tragedy, staged as Gothic horror. A rare good guy role for Kinski, but it mostly calls for lurching in and out of shadows with dead eyes and murderous intentions, so he's not exactly stretching himself.

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Rare eurocrime from Germany, mostly known for a legitimately awesome boat chase sequence. Cheap but fun.

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Been wanting to see this for years, it didn't disappoint. Trashy and exploitative as hell, definitely more on the Dolemite/Black Gestapo side of things than Shaft/Superfly.
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Re: What movie did you watch today?

Post by Tommy Bunz »

I've been eyeing that Wild East release of And God Said to Cain for a while now. Have to bump that up the purchase queue.

Speaking of spaghetti's, I watched the new Arrow release of Requiescant (aka Kill and Pray). Arrow did a great job with it, the transfer is beautiful but I was a bit underwhelmed. It's a pretty straight western without a lot of the style of most spaghettis; the lead actor has a kindof lazy Brando-ish acting style but it works for the most part and has a few cool moments. Slightly above average overall, not sure i'd recommend spending the $ for it unless you're a big fan of the genre.

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Re: What movie did you watch today?

Post by ric »

Collateral Beauty 2016
I just said fuck it. $6 movies all day on Tuesday and it's my day off. really like this movie. I cried quite a bit. acting was good. the relationship between the story etc and the messages etc is really well crafted.

I'm really digging this seemingly new focus on realism and vulnerability that movies are doing right now. I mean they're taking these idyllic (or totally normal) characters and turning everything on its head and really exploring our humanity in a non-preachy way. have I just been missing out on this stuff or is this the new trend? Moonlight still dominates.

back on topic though this is a good movie.

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Re: What movie did you watch today?

Post by Spartan »

Fury (2014)
Can't believe it was made by the same guy who did Suicide Squad.

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