Last Movie You Saw, Name & Review Movie • Page 73

Dinner for Schmucks: I like a lot of the cast here, but the writing was super unfunny to me. Steve Carrel did his best but the material just wasn't there. Paul Rudd was still his likeable self, that's it

5/10

 

I never saw that one, but I always heard it was pretty mediocre.

 

Woman who plays Rudds wife in that is so crazy attractive

 

I had never heard anything good about it really, which is why it took me so long to get to it. I was hoping Steve and Paul could pull it off, and I still don't have anything bad to say about them, but the script just wasn't good. And because it's a straightforward comedy film, the script and the performances are really all there is to it

 

The mousterpieces were awesome though. Shit, maybe it's more of a 6/10

 

Independence Day: Resurgence
1.5* (Out of 5)

Where to begin? Right off the bat I hated seeing how futuristic "present day" is. I'm probably reaching with this one but I also didn't like seeing the aliens with guns either. The latter part is mainly because it took me out of the element and it just didn't feel like the ID4 I saw in the theater when I was 12 and grew up with. Vivica Fox was completely wasted in this, her minor role served absolutely no purpose but to remind people that this is a sequel to Independence Day. I never saw the original film as something that warranted a sequel, they should've walked away from the project when Will Smith declined to return.

 

I was pleasantly surprised by Dinner For Schmucks. Way better than I expected

 

Don't see Ghost in the Shell

 

Song to Song.

Definitely the most relevant Mallick movie I've ever seen, at least, the most relevant to my life. With that said, and I posted this in the official thread, it's probably the first time I've ever seen a Mallick film and didn't feel like I needed to see it again to get more out of it. But good lord, he just makes me fall in love with everything, even the most mundane of things.

Also Michael Fassbender is literally perfect at playing a narcissist.

 

Florence Foster Jenkins - 6.5/10
Monster House - 7.5/10
Straight Time - 8/10
Witness - 9/10
In the Heart of the Sea - 5.5/10
Central Intelligence - 5/10
Finding Dory - 8/10
Don’t Breathe - 8.5/10

An odd week quite frankly that was predominantly spent catching up with films I had missed either from last year or the year before that was mixed in with a couple of rewatches and a film I had been meaning to watch for a while now. Monster House and Witness were the two rewatches with the first film being a solid enough animated film that sadly got overlooked when released much like I didn't give much thought to Witness when I originally watched it awhile ago, enjoyed it far more this time round. Florence Foster Jenkins was decent, solid acting and plenty of laughs made up for the generally predictable plot and shallowness. Straight Time with Dustin Hoffman though not as well known as Marathon Man it was still a really good crime drama that had early performances from the likes of Gary Busey and Kathy Bates which was interesting. In the Heart of the Sea though lavishly produced with an all star cast really didn't have much else going for it plus I found it hard to sympathise with whale hunters. Central Intelligence proved once again why I don't watch modern American comedies as it was pretty much devoid of laughs but least it didn't go for the crude humour that so many others do. Finding Dory though not as solid as the first film and again not the film from Pixar I think necessarily needed a sequel nonetheless has gorgeous animation and plenty of laughs. Finally Don’t Breathe is my favourite non-rewatch from this week that has a solid premise that is used effectively without making it overly complicated, extremely tense throughout and the violence is mostly realistic without being overblown.

 

Found Knight of Cups and Everybody Wants Some on Bluray for $9 bucks each at my local video rental store. Two movies by directors I love that I sort of forgot existed and need to see so, das coo.

 

Sing Street 9/10

A love letter to growing into music. A reminder to the role music plays during our formidable years. Using different 80's bands to reflect to mood of a young teenager going through a rough patch. Despite it revolving around genres that I am not too familiar with, I saw myself in each section. After seeing it I spent the entire night playing guitar.

It's on Netflix so check it out if you haven't!

 

About to watch Personal Shopper.

 

!!!!!!!!!!

 

That good huh? I'm pretty excited. It was between that, Kedi, or Raw and the person I'm going with isn't interested in seeing the latter two so.

 

It's pretty great, imo, hope you enjoy it !

 

You are blessed

 

Personal Shopper is so great. I really want to see Kedi and Raw

 

I am seeing Personal Shopper tomorrow.

 

Personal Shopper was really good. My main gripe wasn't with the movie itself but with the person I saw it with. It became very clear to me not long after the movie had started that she was not into at all and, for some reason, whenever I'm watching a movie with someone and I know they aren't enjoying it, it tarnishes my experience. A similar thing happened when I saw Song to Song. I watched that by myself but the group of people behind me clearly didn't realize what they were getting into and kept on talking and it really took me out of the movie. Any body else have this issue???

Side note: as someone who manages a theatre, I tend to watch movies completely alone so I have become used to that experience and I'm spoiled in that regard. So maybe I'm just a lil' bitch.

 

Nothing Bad Can Happen

it struggled to keep it together and moving between acts 2 and 3, especially when it started trading character arcs for justification for brutality, but overall it works well enough as this uncompromising battle of dark inhumanity against a nearly messianic figure. apparently the true events upon which it was based were even more hopelessly awful, and the director instead tried to inject some humanity into the story. listening to her speak about the film, it really sounds like she's got some interesting ideas, and she generally had a pretty strong vision throughout it. for a debut film, it's definitely distinctive. it's like Haneke meets Bresson, thematically. which i guess gives you von Trier, actually.

 

Last night, I watched Sunrise. It was the last of this year's series of screenings curated by some good folks in the English dept. at my alma mater (other films shown were Mulholland Drive, Daisies, and Chloe from 5 to 7). Sunrise was really good overall. Pretty simple storyline, but very emotional. Some of the visual effects were completely bonkers for its time.

 

A truly beautiful movie. The somewhat sad thing about the silent era was that they were really just starting to reach an artistic peak when sound stopped them dead in their tracks and took film back to the drawing board

The Crowd, The Docks of New York and Pandora's Box are other good examples of where silents could have been headed before they dropped dead

 

Part of the discussion was about the history of silent films, which I hadn't known. Really sad to hear that so many of them have been lost. I kept thinking about how different this mode of storytelling is to, say, an episode of Sherlock with a similar runtime, just how many words are said or presented on screen. It would've been really interesting to see what silent film would have become had people had more time to experiment with it before talkies took over.

I'd be interested in reading your thoughts on Daisies and Chloe from 5 to 7 as well; I'd be surprised if you haven't seen them.

 

Yeah it's crazy how many are lost. Even movies that were nominated for (and won!) Oscars, so it's not even like nobody realized they were good and so they were allowed to disappear.

I really liked Cleo from 5 to 7, which was a pleasant surprise, since usually I don't emotionally connect to French New Wave. But that one mixed the philosophy very well with actual character and plot. I definitely want to see more Varda.

Daisies was interesting and colorful, but there wasn't a lot to it, imo. One of those I'm glad I saw for cultural and historical purposes, but probably wouldn't revisit.