Movie Tab II

Yeh the ending is one of the best things about it, the very final scene is perfect. And the score and use of actual music is brilliant too.

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The Motorcycle Diaries (2004)
The Shawshank Redemption (1994)
8 Seconds (1994)

Some paragraphs copied from over threads: think of this as a compendium as the 2013 films I have seen so far.



American Hustle (David O. Russell, 2013)

Very stylish and fun film, filled with humour and colourful characters. Whilst its story never seems to give the viewer time to catch up with what's going on for most the part, its worth the viewing for the performances which see the various characters come together for a enjoyable finale. Another hit from David O. Russell.



The Wolf of Wall Street (Martin Scorsese, 2013) +

Almost definitely the most over the top, crazy, and just pure entertaining film I have seen in a while. This film is a hilarious look at human over indulgence, and whilst the main character has been largely criticised in some parts for being a criminal, that does not prevent him and the film from being enjoyable. There are many great scenes, both funny and tragic in the film, such as the Lemmons scene everybody talks about, whilst at times you can not stop laughing, there are moments of sheer horror within these scenes which display the tragic side for an at times pathetic 'protagonist'. The supporting actors are brilliant, Jonah Hill is well worthy of his Oscar nomination, and Matthew McConaughey gives a fantastic memorable performance for his limited screen time, then you have some of the strangest but most genius casting choices of the year such as a Neighbours star as the female lead (she plays it well beyond her age) and a few film directors in key parts: Rober Reiner in a particularly great part as 'Mad Max', Spike Jonze and Jon Favreau, and then there's the casting of Jean Dujardin in a perfect role.



Her (Spike Jonze, 2013) -

A very good look at human relationships and how they work, is it possible to be in love with a computer? Whilst I certainly enjoyed it, and thought certain parts were executed well, I think it had some flaws. I'm not sure if this film would have been more suited to a short film or being even longer, whilst its concept are done well, there are certainly elements of it that the viewer must just accept and go along however dramatic the changes, I am not sure about the ending.



Inside Llewyn Davis (Ethan Coen & Joel Coen, 2013)

Over twenty years ago the Coen Brothers’ created Barton Fink, a film in which its titular character is at times his own worse enemy, unable to see that it is himself that prohibits him from success, unwilling to compromise and accept help from those around him.

Here, Oscar Isaac’s lead character shares a lot in common with John Turturro’s as he attempts to become a folk singing success in 1961 New York. Llewyn Davis (I delightful Welsh name, I must add) is not a particularly likeable or sympathetic character, he is uncaring of those around him and does not see the pain and suffering he causes for others: he impregnates his friend’s partner and without hesitation offers an abortion, he carelessly loses another friends cat, and he rudely insults other artists for a variety of reasons. More here.



12 Years a Slave (Steve McQueen, 2013) +

I thought it was good, but I really don't get what is so 'great' about it, I think it's because it has strong production values, everything looks realistic and some of the scenes are quite graphic, although not as graphic as I was expecting.

I agree with most of what Mark posted in the Movie Tab. This movie is supposed to represent 12 years of this man's life and it feels nothing like it? There's nothing really to indicate such a long period of time has taken place but for the title and end scene. Without that I would have guessed it would have been a year perhaps.

Once he leaves Benedict Cumberbatch's plantation it kind of goes down hill for me, I thought it was very strong before then. Michael Fassbender's character seems like he is purely created (I know... it's based on a book) and used to showcase how poorly slaves were treated, it gets repetitive after a while when its just abuse after abuse by the same character. Lupita Nyng'o is the character used to be on the receiving end of Fassbender's character's horrible treatment, and she does it very convincingly, I was impressed with her performance and would say that she displays suffering much great than Ejiofor who I didn't care about as much once he reached Fassbender's plantation.

The ending was good, but could have been better had we actually felt him suffering for 12 years better. I felt some of the earlier scenes were the best (not most enjoyable, but well done/effective) - his initial capturing, on the boat with Michael K. Williams, the guy getting freed after the boat journey, the fight between Ejiofor and Dano, and a lot of the scenes with Cumberbatch.

Maybe I'm being too harsh, I dunno, it just wasn't as powerful as I think it could have been despite what everyone's saying, maybe if I saw it in better conditions I would enjoy it more, will have to watch it again in the future.



Dallas Buyers Club (Jean-Marc Vallée, 2013) +

I liked this movie, yes, but once again its one that I don't think was great, I think the easiest way to do this would be to do pros and cons.

Matthew McConaughey does gives a good performance, I wasn't blown away by it though, he loses weight and acts like a scumbag, not much emotion/skill required as some make out.

Jared Leto also gives a good performance, but what is a concern is that this is a fictional character, created purely to dramatise the situation and make it as Hollywood as possible, not only does he act as the character that helps transform Ron into the 'good guy', but he also acts as the needed character for the scene:



It feels like everything is exaggerated because it is a movie, Ron is a hero, the hospital are the bad guys. When in fact AZT because an important drug against AIDS as stated in the end credits, and I also read online that it was not as bad as the movie depicts and actually did help.

Whilst in terms of dealing with moral and legal problems, interesting points are raised about not just AIDS but the healthcare system in general. Unfortunately certain overblown parts ruin this again, we have the FDA (or whoever he is) guy telling him he will ruin his business or something like that, countered by Ron helping some police officer by giving his father drugs that will help is Alzheimer's.

It just at times felt all too forced and extreme, we have a character introduced to turn Ron from bad to good and then he is everybody's hero who saves everyone from the evil hospitals. I think that the Ron Woodroof character didn't really portray much to evoke an emotional reaction from myself as a viewer, it was an interesting, and at times uplifting story, but never that powerful/compelling.

So yeh, good performances and some good scenes, I liked the overall feel aided by the cinematography which was interesting, the editing was hit and miss, some places it worked, some places it didn't. I just didn't really like the writing and how one-dimensional and clichéd these characters and their arcs were.



Blue Jasmine (Woody Allen, 2013) -

I have mixed thoughts on this film. Whilst it certainly has a number of good performances with two great ones from Cate Blanchett and Sally Hawkins, I felt that as a whole it left a lot to be desired. Although not a particularly long movie, it was boring in parts and the characters began to become repetitive as Woody tries force home a number of different points he tries to make about human nature. It's a very dark, depressing movie at times, and the main character is not very likeable at all. Whilst its an interesting character study and a brutally honest look at the negative side of human nature - greed, lying, revenge, it didn't have enough dramatic power to have any type of emotional effect, a movie that seemed to have one point (character) that is displayed constantly for one a half hours.



Fruitvale Station (Ryan Coogler, 2013) -

I am unsure how to rate this film at the moment. Whilst it was very good and impressive in some areas, its not without its flaws which are extremely obvious. The main problem is the truth. What of this story is true? Real amateur footage is used to force home the reality of the protagonist's tragic fate at the beginning of the film, and it claims that the rest of the film is based on real events, but a lot of the film feels over dramatic for the sake of making the character more likeable. What happened on 2008 New Years Eve was definitely wrong and disgusting, especially from a police perspective, but its difficult to portray this in a film without exaggerating certain characters for the sake of dramatic effect. This film feels like it is trying to make you angry. I thought the lead performance from Michael B. Jordan was very good, he was convincing in his character more so than some other actors, and is the main reason why I give this film a positive rating, he really carries the film through convincingly.

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Piranha Part Two: The Spawning (1981) - James Cameron
Cameron's first film. It sucks, as you'd expect considering it's a low budget horror movie - but he actually makes it worse be trying to create characters when he only had terrible actors at his disposal. Only one "horror" scene in the first half hour? WTF?

The White Ribbon (2009) - Michael Haneke
The second Haneke movie I've seen. Like with Cache it's about a lot more than the story shown on screen. Didn't enjoy it as much as Cache but it's vey good.

Modern Romance (1981) - Albert Brooks
I don't mind Brooks and most of his movies are pretty funny. This was also but it suffered slightly from an issue I often have with him - his character isn't likeable. You would hate to have that guy as a friend. This means I have trouble really caring what happens to him and, in this one, focussed more on hoping his girlfriend would just dump him for good.

Rocky IV (1985) - Sylvester Stallone
I have made a commitment to myself to watch every movie in the 80s top 100 - no matter how much pain it causes The only positive thing I can say about this movie is that it's got Brigitte Nielsen in it ... and she's not the worst part!

Like Someone in Love (2012) - Abbas Kiarostami
Kind of a clichéd story about an old guy and a young prostitute forming a friendship but Kiarostami sure does make it work. I loved the mix between Japanese culture and many of the Director's usual trademarks. This is his second movie outside Iran and not only is it better that the previous one, it's one of the best movies he has made IMO.

Paco and the Magical Picture Book (2008) - Tetsuya Nakashima
I don't think there is a more imaginative director anywhere in the world than Nakashima. Visually, his movies are mind blowing. This one verged on going too far - the colours were distracting for the first 20 minutes. Essentially this is a kids movie about a girl who loses her parents and her memory - and the people who look after her in "hospital". The story is relatively basic but the characters and the visuals make it, at worst, an interesting experience.

Cat People (1942) - Jacques Tourneur
Very good thriller/horror. First half is a touch slow but once it gets going it's very good. Great use of shadows makes it pretty scary in parts.

Is it another great film from Kiarostami? Yes! Is it better than Certified Copy and among his best films? I'd strongly disagree with that.

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Mubi

Majid Majidi is better. <trollface>

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Look, I'm not judging you - after all, I'm posting here myself, but maybe, just maybe, if you spent less time here and more time watching films, maybe, and I stress, maybe your taste would be of some value. Just a thought, ya know.

I felt it was much better than Certified Copy. When directors make a movie in a new culture there can be a tendency to change their style too much - not that it has really happened that often. An example is Wong Kar Wai's My Blueberry Nights - he made an American movie rather than a Wong movie set in America so there was far too much talking and it didn't work as well as it could have.

With Certified Copy I felt that Kiarostami made a "European" movie. It was good but I thought it was weaker than most of his Iranian movies. With LSIL he made a Kiarostami movie - set in Japan. For me it worked much better.

But, as they say, each to their own. At least we agree it was great

Solid filmmaker. I honestly believe he will put out a film to rival Kiarostami's one day

He already did. The Willow Tree. I'd like to try Like Someone in Love, but given I didn't like The Wind Will Carry Us and Taste of Cherry, I'm not completely sure if I wanna risk another disappointment. It's weird as I like both minimalistic and slow cinema yet can't get into Kiarostami so far.

The translation of Wong to America certainly didn't work, I think because, unlike Buenos Aires, we've been exposed to a long history of film culture on these places. He was able to find Hong Kong in Buenos Aires, but he wasn't able to, and it's far more difficult to, make the US his home. Maybe if Wong made a film in France instead it would work.

Certified Copy is certainly a more European movie than any of Kiarostami's works in the 1990s and 2000s in that it lacks the attention to and exploration of Iranian tradition that was seen in his many great works of the time. Where I deviate from you is that I think Kiarostami's films were also very European before his international work. For at least the past 20 years, art cinema around the world draws a lot of its roots from Europe. Wong Kar-Wai is clearly heavily influenced by Jean-Luc Godard, Hong Sang-soo is Korea's Eric Rohmer, Edward Yang is Taiwan's Antonioni. Kiarostami draws upon a number of European filmmakers from Tarkovsky, Fellini, Angelopuolos and Bresson. The transition to Italy made complete sense to me because I already saw Kiarostami as a fairly European filmmaker.

Meanwhile, I'm a bit dubious about how much he knows about Japanese cinema. His Five: Dedicated to Ozu is far less straightforward dedication than Hou Hsiao Hsien's Ozu tribute. On that matter, he's said:

This contains several common misconceptions about the director, and ones that one would be shown false pretty quickly if you watch an Ozu film. This quote seems more applicable to Mizoguchi than it does to Ozu.

The difficulty I found initially in Kiarostami is that his films through the 1990s, following Close-Up, are all predicated on one another. Literally between Life, and Nothing More and Through the Olive Trees, but also between those and the two you've mentioned. Through the 1990s, Kiarostami formed his own personal language of cinema, and it's not entirely evident what that may be if you drop yourself into one of the more cryptic (and very best) films like The Wind Will Carry Us. I'd recommend watching Close-Up first if you're still interested, and then Life, and Nothing More and Through the Olive Trees, which I think illuminate a lot of what Kiarostami's cinema is.

Michael J. Anderson also has some insights on The Wind Will Carry Us that I found enlightening.

Did you watch it with subtitles?

Yes, I did. I don't ever watch foreign films in English dub. The mismatch of the sounds and the movement drives me nuts so I always use subtitles. In fact, I had originally intended to watch Spirited Away but the copy I found was English dubbed so I settled on Totoro instead.

I didn't care much for the story and didn't like the style of the artwork. I thought the totoros were cute at first, but then the big one smiled and it was just damn creepy. So was the cat bus. They were both like cheshire cats from hell. But mostly I found the voices of Satsuki and, in particular, Mei really grating, like to the point I almost stopped watching it.

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The Visitor
1979, Giulio Paradisi/Michael J. Paradise

Woah. I had never seen this flick. While I noticed it crop up in the filmographies of John Huston and Sam Peckinpah (who both appear in the film as actors), other than vaguely remembering the eyeball on the poster and VHS box, I had never bothered to track it down. I'm kind of glad I didn't rent it on tape at some point, long ago, or catch it at 3:00am on a local UHF channel, because that meant I got to see it with fresh eyes when I went to a screening of the restored print on Saturday morning. It is nuttier than squirrel *****.

An awkward apocalyptic sci-fi/horror blend of The Omen (or probably more properly The Exorcist II: Heretic), The Parallax View and maybe, I dunno...Jesus Christ Superstar?!? It's worse than you imagine, but gleefully so. I guess the name actors in it, like John Huston, Glenn Ford, and Shelley Winters, were just there cashing paychecks, in this late '70s cycle of disaster movies and horror flicks routinely casting some big stars of yesteryear? I dunno, but it is a trippy mess that makes almost zero sense, yet it is good for many, many unintended laughs if you watch it in "MST3K" mode. Which, really, I don't know how else one could watch it?

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"Film is a disease. When it infects your bloodstream it takes over as the number one hormone. It bosses the enzymes, directs the pineal gland, plays Iago to your psyche. As with heroin, the antidote to Film is more Film." - Frank Capra

Body Bags (1993) - John Carpenter/Tobe Hooper
Three short horror stories - two filmed by Carpenter, one by Hooper. Really lazy stuff. I hope with a movie like this that they will be short, sharp stories - each with something interesting to tie them together. These felt like they were conceived about five minutes before filming began.

Urga (1991) - Nikita Mikalkov
Fantastic movie about the culture clash between a Russian truck driver and a family of Mongol farmers living in northern China. Really funny at times - often with scenes that come about because of specific cultural situations but that we can still relate to. The only thing that stops this being 5/5 is it gets a bit "The Gods Must Be Crazy" at times - but it doesn't last thankfully.

Stranger Than Paradise (1984) - Jim Jarmusch
Self involved people choosing to live the same lives every day regardless of what city they are in. The first Jarmusch film I've seen. For some reason I always thought he was German - weird.

Big (1988) - Penny Marshall
Nice ... but shallow. The concept is interesting but then it's really just a series of set pieces that rely on the same joke over and over. The choice to have a child (mentally) have sex was interesting but like most things in the movie it wasn't investigated further.

The Human Condition II: The Road to Eternity (1959) - Masaki Kobayashi
I had a few issues with the first one and they continued in this. It's mostly very good but some of it is too simplistic.

American Hustle (2013) - David O Russell
The "Oscar Bait" genre is perhaps my least favourite - and this is a great example of the species. Not an overly good script, not overly well acted, not an overly interesting story directed by an academy favourite, starring academy favourites and with a soundtrack made up of lots of "old" songs that, in this case, were oddly unrelated to the time the movie was set. Good to see both lead females got their teary close-ups to ensure their nominations ... Anyway, seriously, this is an OK movie

Thief-
Michael Mann's crime thriller is decent, but it never goes beyond that however. The performances are good, and the film's neo-noir visuals are sleek and crisp but the movie's story never takes off. The film's story is a bit derivative, a crook wants to get out of his life of crime, but just when he thought he was out..they pull him back in.I was only moderately entertained watching this movie, until the final 20 minutes or so. I just kind of knew the course the movies was going to take from the get-go. I give it a , because it is a solid piece of filmmaking. There's nothing inherantly wrong with it, I've just seen it too many times before. Heat will always be Mann's magnum-opus.



Jackie Brown-
This is probably Tarantino's least Tarantino'esque film if that makes any sense. I personally love Inglorious Basterds,Pulp Fiction and Reservoir Dogs so I suppose I am a fan of his films. Jackie Brown has elements of his other movies, but this is probably his most...tranquil film If that's the right word for it. The performances in this film were great,and we see the likes of Samuel L. Jackson,DeNiro,Robert Forster,and Pam Grier. The story is interesting, often sweet and very well-handled. The soundtrack as usual is incredible,and the movie is quite entertaining. I think people that hate Tarantino's movies might find alot to enjoy here ,as will hardcore Tarantino fans.



The Master-
Very challenging film that I am still thinking about, after viewing it just yesterday. This is a hard film to describe in terms of story, but I will say that I think The Master is great. My eyes were in heaven viewing this movie due to the stunning cinematography. I mean the shots were fantastic, some of the best cinematography of this decade I'd say. The performances are....exhilarating. Joaquin Phoenix IS Freddie Quell. The other performances were exceptional as well including Phillip-Seymour Hoffman, and Amy Adams. This is some of the best acting I've seen in recent memory.

After viewing this film I have now completed my viewing of Paul Thomas Anderson's filmography. He really is one of my favorite directors ever, and it seems that the further he goes into his career the more ambitious and mature his films become. The Master is a complex piece of work, and I can see why it is so divisive. I too am not quite sure what I think its about in terms of meaning. Thats not a criticism, in fact I think it's the biggest compliment I can give it. This is a perfect example of why Cinema in the future can continue to grow and evolve, and that's because of talented filmmakers like PTA. I rate it . I am very open to viewing it in the future again, I cannot wait for Inherant Vice later this year. I am 150% certain it will be superb.



The Hunger Games:Catching Fire-
The first Hunger Games was mediocre.Thats the best way to describe it, this film improves upon the failures of the first in every way imaginable. The direction is better,the social commentary is improved, the performances are better and the movie is much more entertaining than the first. This is a solid blockbuster, and I was amazed at how engrossed I was watching it.Usually when viewing films like these, you have to turn off your brain but I respect the fact that the movie doesn't treat the viewer like a complete idiot. Its not a great film, but its a perfectly adequate piece of pop entertainment. I'm interested to see the conclusion.



La Jetée-
This film is very interesting and a cinematic triumph because it is only a series of still images for the most part. This short film runs under 25 minutes and it feels more accomplished than many full-length films I've seen(yikes). It is very engaging and quite haunting. Everyone should check this one out, you wont regret it.

Woah, that might just be the longest MovieTab post I've done so far. Took me 30 minutes to write lol.

Five Easy Pieces: Very interesting character driven film. I already want to see it again.

Psycho: More masterful Hitchcock story telling. I am enjoying my time with his films more than I can say. Perkins performance is my favorite in a Hitchcock movie so far and that is saying something. This was a re-watch but it has been twenty years.

Small Time Crooks: Felt like a Woody Allen film the other night after all the talk in the 80's thread. Man do I wish something else would have been available. By far the worst Allen movie I have watched thus far.

Inside Llewyn Davis I loved this character study. Another great Coen brothers film.

The Trouble With Harry: Recommended by some fellow MoFos to add to my Hitchcock viewing. Pretty disappointing. Simply too much silliness for me. Good dialogue at times and Maclaine elevate it just a bit.

The Secret Life Of Walter Mitty: Can't decide whether it wants to be serious or a comedy. Some of the characters are ludicrous, especially Adam Scott. Decent visuals and the central relationship is okay.

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