Last Movie You Saw, Name & Review Movie • Page 6

American Ultra - 7.5/10

Wow. I really, really enjoyed this movie. Like, a lot more than I ever expected to. It's far from perfect; the plot gets pretty jumbled at times, and whoever thought Topher Grace could play a serious villain should probably be fired, but the relationship between Eisenberg and Stewart is not only realistic, but at times, very relatable. I also identified with a lot of Eisenberg's visible anxiety. As an action-comedy, it never quite hits the levels of Hot Fuzz, or even Pineapple Express, but for some reason, I actually found this film to be kind of endearing. Even the directing was pretty well done, with some top-notch action scenes and interesting visuals (including a 10 minute scene shot with black lights). I have some objections, but the premise presented is interesting enough and the movie ends up being a lot of fun.

 

One of the only movies I've ever turned off and just full on bailed on to read the rest of the plot on Wikipedia. I can't come up with enough words to describe how much I hated every aspect of this film. (The writer turning out to be the devil incarnate didn't help.)

 

Yikes, that's too bad and who's that, Max Landis? I vaguely remember hearing bad things about him, but never what they were. I just know he wrote Chronicle (which I enjoyed) and Victor Frankenstein (which I heard was awful).

 

He's a prick. But the movie itself is one of the rare times I've had a visceral reaction to not only the writing, but the direction and overall intent of the film. It truly disgusted me at almost every level. Maybe I watched to too close to the Paris terrorist attacks, but I rarely, if ever, turn something off, and this got turned off. Bad movies don't bug me that much, but this one ... this one really hit the spot of hatred for me in a way usually saved for bad crunk core.

 

Clouds of Sils Maria (2015), dir. Olivier Assayas

What a film. I absolutely adored it. A quiet, brilliant mediation on being a 40+ year old woman in entertainment, an exploration of where art and commerce intersect, where personal lives and performance intersect, and how those lines can be blurred. Of course Juliette Binoche was outstanding in the lead role, but holy shit Kristen Stewart was magnificent. An incredible meta performance where she gets to comment on the unfair reputation she's earned as an emotionless, blank screen presence. I've defended her since Adventureland, and this is probably one of my favorite performances in recent memory. Understated but still expressive. Subtle, but engaging. She crafted such a wonderful character, so earnest and always thinking and engaging. Chloe Grace Mortez's character and her love triangle with the famous author and his older wife was also a really poignant externalization of the plot. Really effective at enhancing everything around it.

 

Wow. Welp. That's really unfortunate. I mean, I noticed some things that bothered me, but nothing that kept me from enjoying the premise and relationship depicted in the film. I don't know; a lot of times, I feel kind of dumb in these threads because I'm not into stuff like "Romanian new age films" (or whatever was recently mentioned in the AP thread). I feel like I have almost notoriously simple tastes compared to the amount of analysis that goes on in here (especially when it comes to superhero movies), which is really cool to read, but yeah...maybe I'm not cut out for this thread. Haha.

 

Engage in the thread however you want about whatever movies you want. That makes it better for everyone! I'd rather read someone's detailed thoughts about Batman v. Superman than someone just saying "Jeanne Dielman, 8.6/10". There's room for all of it.

 

I didn't mean to attack your taste or anything like that. Sorry if it came across like that, totally didn't think it did, cause I meant it as my feelings, not that yours are wrong or worse or anything like that. If it seemed like that I totally apologize. I just hated that movie in a way that is usually reserved for bad combover politicians. It hit every button of incompetence and missed everything that made 'Hot Fuzz' so incredible. I probably shouldn't have commented it's just that movie really hits a button for me. It's like a dog poop on the sidewalk, I wanna step around it, but also tell someone it's smelly. Totally don't mean for you to not wanna post in the thread, didn't mean anything personal by it.

All my favorite movies are hated by the film elite or whatever.

 

You're good! I feel like I'm easy to please. I probably only see a few movies I dislike every year. You're certainly not wrong for liking one that others don't.

 

Haha no! You're okay. I didn't mean to come off as too upset by it or anything, and I doubt anyone here would be rude enough to keep me from posting in this thread completely. I love reading others' opinions on films I haven't heard of (this sounds sarcastic but it's not), or films I may need to watch again for things I missed. I was just really surprised by how visceral your reaction was, but those are your feelings and are completely valid. Plus the other things you seem to hate are spot-on, so I can't be that upset. Heh.

 

Totally makes sense. It's my fault. I offer my bullshit where I probably shouldn't, especially in this thread. I was just browsing around and god I hated that movie. Hahah. For so many reasons. I didn't mean to word it in a way that made you think it wasn't right for you to like it or anything like that, so if I did, again, I'm totally sorry. I just wanted the over the top violence to happen to me me while watching it. I begged for the sweet relief of drugs or murder.

 

Bone Tomahawk was pretty good. Well acted all around and the villains were terrifying.

 

The attitude towards old and/or non English films on AP was very negative for a while, up until the last year or two where I've seen more people posting about more different films. Now that has sort of reversed and the attitude towards most other film is very dismissive. While I am of a similar opinion to those aggressively attacking those films and the users that watch them, it's disheartening to see the manner in which people are supposedly trying to open people up to other films. For me, film is the most exciting thing next to music and I love opening people up to the world outside of studio films and major American indies. But it's become hard when everything else has become associated with the sense of superiority. In fact, most other people (I.e. Letterboxd users, film Twitter) have a taste that combines both and still get dumped on, which leads me to believe showing new films and having mutually loved films doesn't matter to people if you like the latest Nolan film.

Part of what I was trying to do with the film club was bring those two groups of people together. So those with wider knowledge of film would introduce others to film in a non aggressive way, but the whole thing hasn't been as successful as I hoped.

 

I posted my thoughts about it a bit in the film club thread here, but for me (someone without a frame of reference for a lot of the films and names associated with them), it was a bit too daunting to participate in. Reading the blurbs you guys wrote was interesting enough, but between the lack of knowledge and the difficulty in tracking some of the films down, it wasn't anything I felt comfortable participating in.

I think Eva mentioned possibly rotating with this one between older cinema and films of the last twenty or so years and I would be interested in that sort of rotation.

 

Watched Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice & 10 Cloverfield Lane this weekend. Enjoyed both films, don't think i'd watch 10 Cloverfield Lane again though. BvS I'll definitely be buying on bluray. My tastes in films is pretty simple and i'm not very eloquent in writing my thoughts out but I enjoyed both quite a bit.

 

I've really enjoyed the Film Club and hopefully it's more successful when it migrates here. Although I haven't participated as much as I'd like because I'm usually a week behind you guys. I watched Sansho a few days ago and haven't caught up yet. Really like that it's mostly been films available on Hulu or YouTube.

I'm also not the best at talking about film.

 

I tried to make it a point that most films were easily available, usually through Criterion's selection on Hulu, but I get it. It can be daunting but for the most part people were very good with choosing films that could satisfy both groups of people (I think I probably did the worst at that lol). And tbh it being all old movies was just based on the picks I was receiving. I wasn't closed off to recent films (one was 2001) just wanted it not to include huge releases or obvious films from last 20 years. I might keep it going on AP for a while, just because it's been fun to actually talk about movies in a welcoming way again, even if it's only with a few people. I'm definitely going to try it on here at some point too, but with how dead this thread is I can only imagine that now is not the ideal time.

 

I feel you. There's often times I'm too intimidated to speak on a film, but I've sort of made a point to do it in that thread bc it was my idea. It's great to hear that there is at least one other person keeping up that I didn't really know about and I'm glad you're enjoying it. The one you'll watch next, The American Friend, is my favorite so far.

 

I respect any effort to be inclusive of all kinds of movies and people who watch them.

I love the fuck out of Ikiru and Black Orpheus and have seen 4 or 5 Rainer Werner Fassbinder films, etc, etc, etc, and my top 10 still has Mary Poppins and West Side Story and Clue.

There's room for everything.

 

Man I was/still am super ignorant to a ton of cinema, be it foreign or native or classic or current. Regardless of context or familiarity with director, you can still speak on the film for how it makes you feel. My vocabulary regarding reviewing films grew simply from reading other reviews

 

That's fair enough. I didn't intend that post to come off overly negative. I just have a limited time these days for film as is, and while I enjoy reading about it, I would rather watch a movie I have some outside familiarity of than something I don't.

 

I'm at work and just frustrated right now so I'm going to go on a little tangent. Film culture is really disgusting and discouraging right now. It seems mostly about flexing you knowledge and taking down others. I see critics whose opinion I typically respect post screen caps of reviews they deem shitty, mostly positive reviews of things they don't like, just to have this sense of superior taste. There's so much talk about wanting to share your knowledge but then when someone takes your advice and doesn't connect with something there's always this push of you not getting it. Which is sometimes the case, but it's exhausting seeing people acting like they're doing a favor but the approach is in a bullying way. I think it has played a big role in why I don't watch as much as I used to, or why I have anticipated like 20 films over the last 2 years. I either feel pushed away from films I want to see because of critical reaction (I'm talking festival films mostly, not wide releases) or underwhelmed because of months-years of praise before it's available to me. I don't know where I'm going with this, I just needed to blow off some steam i guess lol.

 

This makes me excited because I'll be seeing one of these tomorrow, not sure which one yet.

 

I went to a Drive-In to see them so the epicness of everything probably was a bit lost on me due to only being able to hear the movies through my car stereo. I felt like i got plenty out of 10 Cloverfield Lane this way but i'm sure i missed alot with BvS, so if you're going to a nice theater, I think the epicness would hit harder for BvS than my experience. Just my few cents.

 

I'm still mad that I watched Scouts Guide to the Zombie Apocalypse last night. Seriously, if you think you want to see this movie, watch Bloodsucking Bastards instead