Passengers (2016) - A spacecraft traveling to a distant colony planet and transporting thousands of people has a malfunction in its sleep chambers. As a result, two passengers are awakened 90 years early.

Critics were not kind to this movie--I'm guessing due to Chris Pratt's character's actions, but despite that, I didn't think the movie was so bad. 3/5

sexton said:

20th Century Women (2016) - The story of three women who explore love and freedom in Southern California during the late 1970s.

Like the setting, love the cast, LOVE the soundtrack. A pleasant snapshot of the point where these characters' lives intersect under one roof. 4/5

Haven't seen this (at least not yet), but I find Greta Gerwig eminently likeable.

damosuzuki said:

obvious child - generally speaking, i'd rather do almost anything else in the world than watch a rom-com (i'd say this movie qualifies as that if you use a loose definition of the term), but i completely fell for this, and i now may be a little bit in love with jenny slater. 4/5

[Edited 2/2/17 9:29am]

I liked this a lot, damo!

214 said:

Tree Of Life- I downloaded this film like 2 years ago, and i just watched it this weekend. Once again, visually astounding, beautiful. But the story is a little weak to me, if not a little pretentious; as though they had tried very hard. But quite interesting and enjoyable.

I haven't seen Tree of Life, but it seems to me what I've highlighted above could apply to most (if not all) Malick films, no? Like Knight of Cups was just gorgeous -but very weak "story" and I found it pretentious.

Goddess4Real said:

The classic mini-series Lace (1984) and Lace 2 (1985) starring Pheobe Cates. Its campy, the acting is over the top, it has great locations and its really melodramatic.....what more could I want? Plus it has one of my all time fav lines from the 80s "Incidentally..... Which One of You Bitches Is My Mother?" I give them both 4 out of 5

If I didn't see this, I think I remember reading about it.

214 said:

This review is for damosuzuki:



Córki dancingu / The Lure (2015) - In 1980s Warsaw, a pair of mermaid sisters are adopted into a cabaret. While one seeks love with humans the other hungers to dine on the human population of the city.

I had high hopes when reading about the movie beforehand and it delivered. This Polish horror-musical was crazy fun. 4.5/5

the love witch (2016) - if you went into a lab and tried to engineer a movie specified to my tastes, it would basically come out looking like this. it captures the look and feel of late 60s/early 70s exploitation & melodrama perfectly. not for all tastes for sure, but if you have a bit of love in your heart for russ meyers or hammer horror or 70s melodrama, you'll find a lot to enjoy here. you'll also find a feminist message woven thoughout, perhaps played a little heavy-handedly at times.

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i expect most people would prefer if it was a touch shorter (there's a fairly thin story for a full 120 min running time), but it's not really a flaw for me because i enjoyed being in this world every second the movie played.

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4.5/5 for me.

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[Edited 2/4/17 15:02pm]

Florence Foster Jenkins (2016) - The story of Florence Foster Jenkins, a New York heiress who dreamed of becoming an opera singer, despite having a terrible singing voice.

Hugh Grant was very good. Meryl Streep was Meryl Streep. Not my thing normally, but entertaining. 3/5

sexton said:

This review is for damosuzuki:



Córki dancingu / The Lure (2015) - In 1980s Warsaw, a pair of mermaid sisters are adopted into a cabaret. While one seeks love with humans the other hungers to dine on the human population of the city.

I had high hopes when reading about the movie beforehand and it delivered. This Polish horror-musical was crazy fun. 4.5/5

this is going to the top of my must see list.

Stars: *** (3 out of 4)

I'm a suck for musicals and jazz, this movie get two stars for that alone. I thought is was a solid movie, well written and the plot wasn't formulaic. I love the opening scene on the LA highway, it was a pleasant surprise.... since I avoided reading any synopsis about the movie. As much as I thought it was a pleasant movie... do I think La La Land is Oscar caliber, nope.

RodeoSchro said:

djThunderfunk said:

Honestly, I can only say that there is nothing at all about him that I do like. I don't think he's a good actor, he has zero charisma... he's completely unlikable to me. Almost as bad as Jake Gyllenhaal.

As for Nice Guys, I thought it was an okay movie, might even upgrade it to good without Gosling.

I agree with those statements 100%. It's been a looooooong time since we've had a real male movie star. These guys like Gosling, Gyllenhaal, etc. wouldn't have even made it onto the lot back in '60's, '70's or '80's.

Tom Hardy.

I love the La La Land ending and the opening scene, they are beautiful.

duke of burgundy - 4.5/5 - despite being about a lesbian relationship with dom/sub elements, i'd say this joins the ranks of sex movies (to the extent this can be called a 'sex movie') that aren't particularly sexy. it's really interesting watching the dynamics unfold, finding out who holds the dominant role, then seeing that power wax & wane.

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i started to watch berberian sound studio by the same director some time ago, but it didn't really grab me and i stopped watching it about 20 minutes in. i will definitely give it another try now.

[Edited 2/6/17 11:57am]

Captain Fantastic (2016) - In the forests of the Pacific Northwest, a father devoted to raising his six kids with a rigorous physical and intellectual education is forced to leave his paradise and enter the world, challenging his idea of what it means to be a parent.

I shouldn't have overlooked this when it was in cinemas last year. Very good movie. 4/5

Iron Man 3 : loved it. sincerely hope this series continues forever

The Founder: Interesting and enjoyable. The acting was great but I don't see this one getting a rewatch. Decent biopic...

It's time for another exciting chapter of Movies I Watched Most Of The Last Part Of!

Today's movie is "I Am Legend".

No, you are not!

This is a zombie movie. It looked like everyone but Will Smith died and became a zombie. Except for a hero dog.

DOG NOTE: All hero dogs in movies should be named "Dog". If "Dog" was good enough for John Wayne, it's good enough for everyone. In fact, watch this video of a dog learning how to be a hero dog by watching Dog from "Big Jake:





Here is the original Dog:




So if you're dog enough to teach other dogs to be hero dogs like you, and your name is Dog, then all hero dogs should be named Dog.

Will Smith's dog is named Sam.

Sam is cool but would have been cooler if she was named Dog.

Anyway, for some reason I don't know, everyone is either dead or is a zombie. Will Smith captures a zombie chick in a net contraption, and begins to experiment with various cures. None of them work.

Then I had to go do some stuff and missed about 20 minutes but when I came back, Will Smith had somehow gotten tangled up in one of his own net contraptions. He's just dangling there, with Sam by his side, and who should show up? A zombie dog!

SECONDARY DOG NOTE: Zombie dogs can NEVER be named "Dog". If Dog were to be bitten and turned into a zombie dog (which we all know would never happen, because there's not a zombie dog in the world that Dog couldn't beat), then the name "Dog" would drop off and, like every other zombie dog in the world, he'd just be a zombie dog.

Sam fights off zombie dog but is killed in the process. I guess. I read later than Will Smith had to strangle Sam. I missed that part, and I'm really glad I did. I would have been rooting for Sam.

Will Smith meets a nice young lady and her son. They have a house, and electricity and even "Shrek" on TV. We get to see Will Smith's "Shrek" audition tape! I guess that's what it was. He knew every line!

But then he blows up and tells the woman that because zombies ate his family, there is no God.

Then I had to go do something else and when I came back Will Smith, the nice lady, and her son were all in Will Smith's laboratory. Zombies had overridden the nice lady's home so they had to flee. But the zombies followed them to Will Smith's laboratory. Looks like the end!

The zombies are led by one main zombie. I called that zombie Alpha Male. Guess what?

That was really his name! In the script, anyway. Which proves the theory stated many times that I could write film scripts.

Will Smith, the nice lady, and her son are walled off from the zombies. I guess Will Smith dealt with dangerous stuff, because the glass wall between him and all the zombies was pretty much bullet-proof.

But, it turns out, not Alpha Male zombie-proof.

Alpha Male and the rest of the zombies are on the side of the room where Will Smith's female zombie experimental patient is still strapped to a gurney. Alpha Male looks at her and gets really mad. He begins throwing himself at Will Smith's bullet-proof glass wall. It takes Alpha Male about 10 tries, but he finally begins to crack the glass.

Will Smith has a flash - he knows how to cure all the zombies! He give the nice lady a vial of something (his own blood, I think. Which should have been the first thing he ever analyzed, since he was the only non-zombie in all of New York City. So of COURSE the cure had to be in his blood!) and then forces them into a handy coal chute.

NOTE TO SELF: Have a coal chute installed in my office ASAP.

Will Smith tells the nice lady and her son not to come out until dawn. Do not think about the fact that the nice lady and her son are in a completely dark space and have no way to know when dawn has arrived.

Alpha Male is one or two ramming attempts from breaking through Will Smith's bullet-proof glass, so Will Smith opens his desk drawer and looks at a picture of his wife and daughter one last time. Sad!

Then he reaches further back in the drawer and pulls out his grenade.

NOTE TO SELF: Do NOT keep a grenade in desk drawer. Instead, get Dog and keep Dog constantly nearby in order to fend off any potential zombie attacks.

As Alpha Male busts through the glass, Will Smith rushes him and hugs him, and then the live grenade goes off, killing all the zombies and also Will Smith. The next day, the nice lady and her son emerge from the coal chute, get in a car, and drive to Survivors City, where they give the cure to the military.

QUESTION - Why didn't Will Smith get in the coal chute, too? Clearly the move here would have been for all three of them to get in the coal chute, with Will Smith being the last one. He could have pulled the grenade's pin just as Alpha Male was bursting though the bullet-proof glass, shouted "SEE YOU IN HELL, ALPHA MALE! OH WAIT - I DON'T BELIEVE IN GOD ANYMORE SO THAT MEANS THERE IS NO HELL, WHICH MEANS I WILL NEVER SEE YOU AGAIN. WELL, LET ME THINK OF SOMETHNG PITHY TO SAY. JUST A MIN...." BOOM!!!!!! Everyone dies! Or alternatively, Will Smith just throws the grenade, closes the door and BOOM!!!!!! All the zombies die - even Alpha Male who, by this time, I'm beginning to identify with.

Since I only Watched Most Of The Last Part Of this movie, I had to research it before writing this incredible review. By "research" I mean "I looked at wikipedia". And by "incredible review" I mean "Who else could have tied in John Wayne's Dog with a zombie flick?!?"

This movie had an alternate ending and the alternate ending was WAY cooler than the real ending. In the alternate ending, it turns out the female zombie that Will Smith has been experimenting on is Alpha Male's girlfriend. Alpha Male draws a butterfly out of blood on the bullet-proof glass and Will Smith realized that the female zombie has a butterfly tattoo. Even though Alpha Male can bust through bullet-proof glass, and do lots of things humans could never do, he can't unstrap the female zombie. So Will Smith comes out of his office and unstraps the female zombie. Then he looks at Alpha Male and says "I'm sorry". Then everyone leaves happy. True, that's how it could have ended!

But the producers went for the let-me-kill-myself-unnecessarily ending so as to justify the title of "I am Legend". Because, I guess, you can't be a LIVING legend any more. Unless you're this guy:




Tom Brady has now won five Super Bowls. I watched Most Of this movie on Super Bowl Sunday. Therefore, I give regular-ending "I Am Legend" 2 of Tom Brady's Super Bowl Trophies out of the currently-possible 5 of Tom Brady's Super Bowl Trophies. But I would have given the alternate-ending "I am Legend" 3 of Tom Brady's Super Bowl Trophies.

sexton said:

Captain Fantastic (2016) - In the forests of the Pacific Northwest, a father devoted to raising his six kids with a rigorous physical and intellectual education is forced to leave his paradise and enter the world, challenging his idea of what it means to be a parent.

I shouldn't have overlooked this when it was in cinemas last year. Very good movie. 4/5

By the way, this movie praises Noam Chomsky to no end. Has 2freaky seen it yet?

hehe. I will put Christ before Noam but only slightly. Oh Holy Noam bless us this day with linguistic magic and wordplay for the sake of anti hegemony and fair play and overall lovey dovey. Amen.

TD3 said:

Stars: *** (3 out of 4)

I'm a suck for musicals and jazz, this movie get two stars for that alone. I thought is was a solid movie, well written and the plot wasn't formulaic. I love the opening scene on the LA highway, it was a pleasant surprise.... since I avoided reading any synopsis about the movie. As much as I thought it was a pleasant movie... do I think La La Land is Oscar caliber, nope.

Spot on. I saw it this weekend. I give it 1/2.

Stone and Gosling carry the film well, and hit the right comedic and dramatic notes.

But if this movie wins Best Picture in the year of Moonlight, Fences, Manchester By The Sea, and Captain Fantastic, the Academy would pull another Shakespeare In Love, basically congratulating itself over rewarding some of the best films of the decade.

[Edited 2/6/17 10:33am]

I'm willing to bet Moonlight will win.

2freaky4church1 said:

namepeace said:

TD3 said:

Stars: *** (3 out of 4)

I'm a suck for musicals and jazz, this movie get two stars for that alone. I thought is was a solid movie, well written and the plot wasn't formulaic. I love the opening scene on the LA highway, it was a pleasant surprise.... since I avoided reading any synopsis about the movie. As much as I thought it was a pleasant movie... do I think La La Land is Oscar caliber, nope.

Spot on. I saw it this weekend. I give it 1/2.

Stone and Gosling carry the film well, and hit the right comedic and dramatic notes.

But if this movie wins Best Picture in the year of Moonlight, Fences, Manchester By The Sea, and Captain Fantastic, the Academy would pull another Shakespeare In Love, basically congratulating itself over rewarding some of the best films of the decade.

[Edited 2/6/17 10:33am]

i've never seen 'shakespeare in love,' so i can't really speak to that comparison. what i can say that la la land is a movie that had no staying power with me whatsoever. i did think it had some dazzling moments (the beginning & the end, especially) & i think i gave it 4.5 when i rated it here, but overall i found its pleasures completely ephemeral. i'm all for feel-good movies, but i thought la la land was more of a 'feel-nothing' movie that seemed to leave my head almost as quickly as it entered. even the songs didn't stick.

.

i can't speak to all the technical merits for the film. by that standard, i guess it could, maybe should, win on points. for me, there's no equation that spits out a score for a film. i go by feeling, and the films that hit me were moonlight & manchester... & tower, & i'd rate all of those over la la. i'm a sample size of one, of course, and i completely believe all the people who say they fell for it. criminy, my sister's seen it three times!

damosuzuki said:

namepeace said:

Spot on. I saw it this weekend. I give it 1/2.

Stone and Gosling carry the film well, and hit the right comedic and dramatic notes.

But if this movie wins Best Picture in the year of Moonlight, Fences, Manchester By The Sea, and Captain Fantastic, the Academy would pull another Shakespeare In Love, basically congratulating itself over rewarding some of the best films of the decade.

[Edited 2/6/17 10:33am]

i've never seen 'shakespeare in love,' so i can't really speak to that comparison. what i can say that la la land is a movie that had no staying power with me whatsoever. i did think it had some dazzling moments (the beginning & the end, especially) & i think i gave it 4.5 when i rated it here, but overall i found its pleasures completely ephemeral. i'm all for feel-good movies, but i thought la la land was more of a 'feel-nothing' movie that seemed to leave my head almost as quickly as it entered. even the songs didn't stick.

.

i can't speak to all the technical merits for the film. by that standard, i guess it could, maybe should, win on points. for me, there's no equation that spits out a score for a film. i go by feeling, and the films that hit me were moonlight & manchester... & tower, & i'd rate all of those over la la. i'm a sample size of one, of course, and i completely believe all the people who say they fell for it. criminy, my sister's seen it three times!

Comparing contemporary musicals, I would think The Lure appeals more to oddballs like us. I've even seen it referred to in the press as the anti-La La Land. It's too bad its demographic is so small that it has only recieved an extremely limited theatrical release.

Passengers 4 / 10

Andy Garcia will win best supporting actor for his role in this movie. He was unbelievable.

[Edited 2/8/17 8:12am]

sexton said:

damosuzuki said:

i've never seen 'shakespeare in love,' so i can't really speak to that comparison. what i can say that la la land is a movie that had no staying power with me whatsoever. i did think it had some dazzling moments (the beginning & the end, especially) & i think i gave it 4.5 when i rated it here, but overall i found its pleasures completely ephemeral. i'm all for feel-good movies, but i thought la la land was more of a 'feel-nothing' movie that seemed to leave my head almost as quickly as it entered. even the songs didn't stick.

.

i can't speak to all the technical merits for the film. by that standard, i guess it could, maybe should, win on points. for me, there's no equation that spits out a score for a film. i go by feeling, and the films that hit me were moonlight & manchester... & tower, & i'd rate all of those over la la. i'm a sample size of one, of course, and i completely believe all the people who say they fell for it. criminy, my sister's seen it three times!

Comparing contemporary musicals, I would think The Lure appeals more to oddballs like us. I've even seen it referred to in the press as the anti-La La Land. It's too bad its demographic is so small that it has only recieved an extremely limited theatrical release.

hopefully i'll be able catch up with it at some point. did you catch it in a theatre? it looks like it's just getting a limited theatrical run now, & given that small demographic appeal, i suspect it won't expand much beyond ny/la.

.

damosuzuki said:

i've never seen 'shakespeare in love,' so i can't really speak to that comparison. what i can say that la la land is a movie that had no staying power with me whatsoever. i did think it had some dazzling moments (the beginning & the end, especially) & i think i gave it 4.5 when i rated it here, but overall i found its pleasures completely ephemeral. i'm all for feel-good movies, but i thought la la land was more of a 'feel-nothing' movie that seemed to leave my head almost as quickly as it entered. even the songs didn't stick.

.

i can't speak to all the technical merits for the film. by that standard, i guess it could, maybe should, win on points. for me, there's no equation that spits out a score for a film. i go by feeling, and the films that hit me were moonlight & manchester... & tower, & i'd rate all of those over la la. i'm a sample size of one, of course, and i completely believe all the people who say they fell for it. criminy, my sister's seen it three times!

Excellent post.

damosuzuki said:

sexton said:

Comparing contemporary musicals, I would think The Lure appeals more to oddballs like us. I've even seen it referred to in the press as the anti-La La Land. It's too bad its demographic is so small that it has only recieved an extremely limited theatrical release.

hopefully i'll be able catch up with it at some point. did you catch it in a theatre? it looks like it's just getting a limited theatrical run now, & given that small demographic appeal, i suspect it won't expand much beyond ny/la.

.

Yes, I saw it at the cinema here in NY. It was originally a one week only engagement at the IFC Center, but now it's being held over so I may go see it again.

Silence (2016) - Two priests travel to Japan in an attempt to locate their mentor and propagate Catholicism.

Unnecessarily repetitive and overlong. I can see the appeal in the underlying themes and cinematograpy, it just wasn't enough for me. 2/5