Moonlight (2016) - A timeless story of human connection and self-discovery, Moonlight chronicles the life of a young black man from childhood to adulthood as he struggles to find his place in the world while growing up in a rough neighborhood of Miami.

The third and final act is an extraordinary piece a filmmaking--truly beautiful work. Definitely one of the best movies of the year. 5/5

sexton said:

Moonlight (2016) - A timeless story of human connection and self-discovery, Moonlight chronicles the life of a young black man from childhood to adulthood as he struggles to find his place in the world while growing up in a rough neighborhood of Miami.

The third and final act is an extraordinary piece a filmmaking--truly beautiful work. Definitely one of the best movies of the year. 5/5

this & handmaiden are the movies that i am impatiently waiting to show up here. soon, hopefully.

sexton said:

damosuzuki said:

i went to see the big dr. strange movie this weekend. it was perfectly fine, and I liked some of the trippy effects, but in the end I was a touch let down by how conventional this was. I don't expect film studios to spend $100m to make a jodorowsky-style acid-trip experiment, but i did have some hope that marvel might push the boundaries a bit more than they did here. It's still pretty good, fun to watch, breezy pace, but it doesn't deviate from their formula too much. 3.5/5

It was my most anticipated movie of the year, but in the end, it was just another product--albeit a good one--in the Marvel Studios assembly line.

& just to clarify in case i'm sounding kinda dour: i still like these movies. i mean, i know there is a sameness to them, and fatigue & diminishing returns are settling in, as was bound to happen. but i really think that all of the MCU are at minimum pretty good & entertaining (maybe not im2, but let's not quibble for the moment), and quite a few of them are really great, and not just great by comic book movie standards but by any standard.

.

i mean, some of these comic movies are really bad. i thought that BvS film was atrocious. the last x-men movie was very bland in my opinion. so the fact that marvel has made 14 consistently good movies is a pretty nifty accomplishment imo.

[Edited 11/23/16 12:56pm]

damosuzuki said:

9/10 I'm going to have to go back to the cinema to get another hit (and I missed the post-credits scene!). Better than Frozen and deserves to make more money.

EmmaMcG said:

damosuzuki said:

& just to clarify in case i'm sounding kinda dour: i still like these movies. i mean, i know there is a sameness to them, and fatigue & diminishing returns are settling in, as was bound to happen. but i really think that all of the MCU are at minimum pretty good & entertaining (maybe not im2, but let's not quibble for the moment), and quite a few of them are really great, and not just great by comic book movie standards but by any standard.

.

i mean, some of these comic movies are really bad. i thought that BvS film was atrocious. the last x-men movie was very bland in my opinion. so the fact that marvel has made 14 consistently good movies is a pretty nifty accomplishment imo.

[Edited 11/23/16 12:56pm]

Are they really experiencing diminished returns though? I ask because I don't know. Are the money these movies making not pretty much in line with what Marvel anticipated. There's no point in comparing Doctor Stranges box office with say, Civil War. Dr Strange doesn't have the same name recognition as captain America or Iron Man. It would be more fair to compare it to something like Ant Man, which was another hero few people would know (well, I'd never heard of either of them until about 2 years ago). And I think I read somewhere that Dr Strange is set to earn more than Ant Man. But I could be wrong. There is an undeniable sameness to the Marvel movies but I don't actually see that as an issue as long as they're good. I'm not expecting The Godfather when I go see a superhero movie. I'm happy if it's a 3 out of 5. Anything more is just a bonus!

i didn't mean 'diminishing returns' in the financial sense. pardon me for being a touch loose with my wording. these movies are all continuing to do the business in the u.s. and everywhere else, and it doesn't look like appetite for them is dampening much if at all.

.

what i was trying to get at is that, at least for me, there is a lessening level of excitement. i was a marvel comics kid in a pretty big way, so, even as a middle aged guy, i got quite a charge out of seeing the first run of movies.

.

there was a real momentum in that first mcu wave building up to the first avengers movie, and i just don't feel that much myself now, and i think i kind of get the same feeling in the general public that, as enjoyable as the mcu movies are, they perhaps have settled into a bit of a mid-life routine, hewing to a bit of formula.

.

& i agree that it's not even a criticism necessarily. i really do think they've maintained a good level of quality, & that's not something to be dismissed. 14 films in a fairly short period, all of them at least watchable, some truly great. i just had hope that dr strange might wander a bit more into left field, & give me a bit more of a charge.

damosuzuki said:

i finally sat down and watched tickled tonight.

i never would have thought my life was missing the presence of a documentary on competitive tickling, but boy am i glad that i watched it. 4/5

[Edited 11/25/16 18:20pm]

Notorious (2009) The Biopic about The Notorious Big (a.k.a. Christopher Wallace). Great cast (especially Jamal Woolard as Biggie, and Angela Bassett as his mom) and soundtrack, I give this film a 4 out of 5 and my fav song of his is......

Side note Jamal is also going play Biggie in All Eyez On Me (16/06/17)

damosuzuki said:

i didn't mean 'diminishing returns' in the financial sense. pardon me for being a touch loose with my wording. these movies are all continuing to do the business in the u.s. and everywhere else, and it doesn't look like appetite for them is dampening much if at all.

.

what i was trying to get at is that, at least for me, there is a lessening level of excitement. i was a marvel comics kid in a pretty big way, so, even as a middle aged guy, i got quite a charge out of seeing the first run of movies.

.

there was a real momentum in that first mcu wave building up to the first avengers movie, and i just don't feel that much myself now, and i think i kind of get the same feeling in the general public that, as enjoyable as the mcu movies are, they perhaps have settled into a bit of a mid-life routine, hewing to a bit of formula.

.

& i agree that it's not even a criticism necessarily. i really do think they've maintained a good level of quality, & that's not something to be dismissed. 14 films in a fairly short period, all of them at least watchable, some truly great. i just had hope that dr strange might wander a bit more into left field, & give me a bit more of a charge.

I agree with everything here. I still enjoy the Marvel Studios movies (the FOX Marvel movies, not so much) and don't blame them for sticking to their formula when they are making this much money and getting favorable reviews. The kind of superhero movie I'd give a perfect rating is one that would be some dense cerebral thriller and a huge commercial flop I'm sure. In the Doctor Strange thread I suggested something like the Ex Machina movie substituting the android Avenger, Jocasta for Ava in the film. I'd absolutely love that, but general audiences would leave the cinemas scratching their heads.

Elle (2016) - A successful businesswoman gets caught up in a game of cat and mouse as she tracks down the unknown man who raped her.

Isabelle Huppert gives a standout performance in this complex psychological thriller. 4/5

Continuing a personal tradition of Thanksgiving Week films:

Kill Bill, Vol. 1 (2003)
Fun, funny, gory, and a tad haunting. The showdown at the House of Blue Leaves is a classic.

Kill Bill, vol. 2 (2004)
A far more subdued, dramatic film that still doesn't skimp on the fun. I still believe David Carradine deserved at least an Oscar nod for his turn at Bill. .75

Boomerang (1992)
Hasn't aged as well, but still one of my favorite comedies.

Julius Caesar (1953)
Directed by Joseph Mankiewicz, produced by John Houseman, it features an all-star cast. Marlon Brando as Marc Antony electrifies. James Mason as Brutus is the heart of the movie. It's good, not great, but well worth seeing. .5

When Harry Met Sally (1989)
Still holds up very well, and perhaps the only good Woody Allen film not directed by Woody Allen. .5

sexton said:

Moonlight (2016) - A timeless story of human connection and self-discovery, Moonlight chronicles the life of a young black man from childhood to adulthood as he struggles to find his place in the world while growing up in a rough neighborhood of Miami.

The third and final act is an extraordinary piece a filmmaking--truly beautiful work. Definitely one of the best movies of the year. 5/5

It is one of the best films I have seen in 10 years. An instant classic, and hopefully, a big Oscar contender.

Hudson said:

9/10 I'm going to have to go back to the cinema to get another hit (and I missed the post-credits scene!). Better than Frozen and deserves to make more money.

I wanna go see that.

For some reason I let the women rope me into watching "Magic Mike". OK, I'll admit it - I was glad to be roped. I thought it might be the kind of movie that's so intentionally bad that it's funny.

I was half right!

This movie is stupid. Although IMDB says this movie was written by a dude named Reid Carolin, I think it was actually written by some horny chicks who'd get together once a week, get totally blasted, and forgot what they had written the week before. They'd just add whatever lame excuse they could come up with in order to show nearly-naked dudes. I mean, c'mon! The clue is right there in the last name. Carolin? Waaaaay too close to "Carolyn", who must have been the drunkest, horniest chick of the Horny and Drunk Chick Writing Group.

The premise of this movie is that some loser can't hold a job and is about to get run off his roofing gig (probably, I'm guessing, I missed the first five minutes). He has no car so Channing Tatum has to drive him everywhere. Loser dude lives with his sister. More about her later.

So loser dude goes out but has no money. Hey, did you know there are hot nightclubs in Tampa that have lines around the block, waiting to get in? Yeah, me neither. And I wouldn't believe anyone who told me Tampa has such clubs unless it was Imago, as he lived in Tampa for many years. I'm tempted to ask him if such clubs existed in Tampa but I know his response would be, "Who do you think the Horny and Drunk Chick Writing Group based all the hot dudes on?!? You're still my boo, though".

Anyway, loser dude is walking around the block, having no money at all and thus no way to get into Tha Club, when he sees Channing Tatum ("Mike"). "Hey Mike, are you going in there?" asks loser dude. "Hell yes I am, and you're coming with me!" says Mike. Mike puts loser dude to work, rounding up girls to come to the male stripper show at which Mike is a star. Loser dude is able to wrangle two-count'em-two girls. Quasimodo has more game than that!

Then it turns out that whoever was in charge of "props" for all the male strippers didn't show up, so Mike gets loser dude to fill in. It's at this point that I must explain why he will forever be called "loser dude". First of all, he's a dude that is a loser. Second, the name they give him is the same name Prince had in "Purple Rain". If you think for one second that I'm EVER going to acknowledge ANYONE having the same character name as Prince had in "Purple Rain", then get off this website right now. You're in the wrong place. You're on the wrong internet.

Well, I can't remember exactly why it happened, but loser dude has to go strip onstage. Although he is horrible (it literally looks like the dude is undressing for bed), Girls Go Wild. This leads Magic Mike to tell Matthew McConnnegyd (I can't spell his name so you're just going to have to settle for random keystrokes, but I'm talking about that guy that always says "Alright, alright, ALRIGHT!" You know who he is) that loser dude has "it" and should be a dancer. Long story short, that happens.

Now, we get to the whole reason I am writing this. Although I have to admit - my writing to this point has been far more brilliant and witty than I thought it was going to be. It may be that I really don't have to rely on a comedic stretch but you know what?

That's what I do!

Loser dude's sister was played by....wait a minute. Wait just a cotton picking minute!

She was played by Olivia Freaking Munn?!? Are you serious? THAT was Olivia Munn? Did she have plastic surgery? Is there some way they added a chin extension? She had to be wearing a prosthetic chin!

Regular readers of mine know that I adore Olivia Munn. I've loved her in every movie I've ever seen her in. Well, OK - I've only seen her in "Ride Along 2" but still. She's named Olivia! There's never been a non-hot woman named Olivia. Ever.

Until now, because they added a chin extension to Olivia Munn. This had the effect of making her pouty. VERY pouty. And the Horny and Drunk Chicks also made her proudy.

Oh, you don't know what "proudy" means? Go here, and thank me later: http://internet.gawker.co...1731160013 Possibly the greatest moment ever on the internet!

Well, for no reason that makes any sense, Magic Mike falls for Proudy Olivia. BTW, Magic Mike is a man of many talents. He is a stripper; a roofing contractor; a car detailer; and a furniture maker. Stripping pays the rent but he really just wants to make custom furniture. She, of course, cannot stand him - even after he tells her that all he really wants to do is join custom-milled pieces of wood together into interesting shapes.

As you can probably guess, loser dude goes from Innocent Non-Pot-Smoking Dweeb to Full-Frontal-Pill-Popping-Degenerate in two months. This upsets Proudy Olivia.

Loser dude meets some whacked-out chick with purple and pink hair, who has a pet pig and engages in threesomes with one of the other dancers and that dancer's wife. She brings loser dude to some room, whereupon Magic Mike opens the door and sees loser dude with the girl and her pig. "You don't need that in your life," says Magic Mike speaking the one and only coherent line of the movie (it must have been written in a rare moment of sobriety). But loser dude doesn't take Magic Mike's advice. Instead, he takes the advice of the other male stripper, which is "Go ahead and boink my wife. She likes it, and I'm cool with it".

Speaking of threesomes, Magic Mike has this girl who's about to graduate from psychology school. She likes to hook up with Mike for spontaneous sex romps. He calls her late on nights when he's lonely, and she comes over for some boinking. The kids have a name for this kind of...what? Buddy? I forget.

Anyway, Mike runs into her in a restaurant. But she's on a date! With her FIANCE. This surprises Mike. He had no idea this woman was using him for sex. He thought it was the other way around, which I guess he thought was the only way that kind of thing was OK. The girl's fiance says, "I have to go powder my nose". By which he meant he really was going to powder his nose, and not with cocaine but with Johnson's Baby Powder. Are you kidding me? Any real dude would have stood up, looked Magic Mike in the eye, and said something like, "Yeah, that's right. Fiance. Can you spell it? Let me help. It's spelled "I A-M B-O-I-N-K-I-N-G H-E-R and you are not". Or something like that.

Well, to wrap this up (I have a flight to catch), Matthew Mcielsdks screws Mike out of 2.5% of Tha New Club that Matthew McCodsdiyer is opening all by himself in Miami, which makes Mike mad so he quits. You see, Mike was going to get 10% of Tha Club because he was Tha Man, but then loser dude became Tha Man so Mike's cut got slashed to 7.5%. Assuming that Tha Club in Miami got to be worth $1,000,000 that means Matthew McCdfuiogn reduced Mike's net worth by a potential $25,000. So Mike ditches his entire income stream over an amount of money that he would make in a good month. Makes sense to me!

Mike goes back to Proudy Olivia and tells her "I paid some gangsters $10,000 of my own money so they wouldn't kill your loser brother" which makes Proudy Olivia fall in love with him. I think. You can't really know for sure because right after he tells her that, the movie is over.

This movie is really stupid. I mean, my review is incredibly stupid and this movie is ten times stupider than my review. What's the stupidest thing in the world? I know!

"Magic Mike" gets 1 1/2 Trump Voters out of 5 Trump Voters. Avoid!

.

[Edited 11/29/16 6:47am]

morningsong said:

Hudson said:

9/10 I'm going to have to go back to the cinema to get another hit (and I missed the post-credits scene!). Better than Frozen and deserves to make more money.

I wanna go see that.

You should! I liked it better the second time.


Also saw Trolls yesterday, a complete narrative mess, that is visually stunning in cinema 4k, that somehow left me with feelings of hope and positivity. I'll give it an 8/10 and buy the blu when it comes out.

Hudson said:

RodeoSchro said:

For some reason I let the women rope me into watching "Magic Mike". OK, I'll admit it - I was glad to be roped. I thought it might be the kind of movie that's so intentionally bad that it's funny.

I was half right!

This movie is stupid. Although IMDB says this movie was written by a dude named Reid Carolin, I think it was actually written by some horny chicks who'd get together once a week, get totally blasted, and forgot what they had written the week before. They'd just add whatever lame excuse they could come up with in order to show nearly-naked dudes. I mean, c'mon! The clue is right there in the last name. Carolin? Waaaaay too close to "Carolyn", who must have been the drunkest, horniest chick of the Horny and Drunk Chick Writing Group.

The premise of this movie is that some loser can't hold a job and is about to get run off his roofing gig (probably, I'm guessing, I missed the first five minutes). He has no car so Channing Tatum has to drive him everywhere. Loser dude lives with his sister. More about her later.

So loser dude goes out but has no money. Hey, did you know there are hot nightclubs in Tampa that have lines around the block, waiting to get in? Yeah, me neither. And I wouldn't believe anyone who told me Tampa has such clubs unless it was Imago, as he lived in Tampa for many years. I'm tempted to ask him if such clubs existed in Tampa but I know his response would be, "Who do you think the Horny and Drunk Chick Writing Group based all the hot dudes on?!? You're still my boo, though".

Anyway, loser dude is walking around the block, having no money at all and thus no way to get into Tha Club, when he sees Channing Tatum ("Mike"). "Hey Mike, are you going in there?" asks loser dude. "Hell yes I am, and you're coming with me!" says Mike. Mike puts loser dude to work, rounding up girls to come to the male stripper show at which Mike is a star. Loser dude is able to wrangle two-count'em-two girls. Quasimodo has more game than that!

Then it turns out that whoever was in charge of "props" for all the male strippers didn't show up, so Mike gets loser dude to fill in. It's at this point that I must explain why he will forever be called "loser dude". First of all, he's a dude that is a loser. Second, the name they give him is the same name Prince had in "Purple Rain". If you think for one second that I'm EVER going to acknowledge ANYONE having the same character name as Prince had in "Purple Rain", then get off this website right now. You're in the wrong place. You're on the wrong internet.

Well, I can't remember exactly why it happened, but loser dude has to go strip onstage. Although he is horrible (it literally looks like the dude is undressing for bed), Girls Go Wild. This leads Magic Mike to tell Matthew McConnnegyd (I can't spell his name so you're just going to have to settle for random keystrokes, but I'm talking about that guy that always says "Alright, alright, ALRIGHT!" You know who he is) that loser dude has "it" and should be a dancer. Long story short, that happens.

Now, we get to the whole reason I am writing this. Although I have to admit - my writing to this point has been far more brilliant and witty than I thought it was going to be. It may be that I really don't have to rely on a comedic stretch but you know what?

That's what I do!

Loser dude's sister was played by....wait a minute. Wait just a cotton picking minute!

She was played by Olivia Freaking Munn?!? Are you serious? THAT was Olivia Munn? Did she have plastic surgery? Is there some way they added a chin extension? She had to be wearing a prosthetic chin!

Regular readers of mine know that I adore Olivia Munn. I've loved her in every movie I've ever seen her in. Well, OK - I've only seen her in "Ride Along 2" but still. She's named Olivia! There's never been a non-hot woman named Olivia. Ever.

Until now, because they added a chin extension to Olivia Munn. This had the effect of making her pouty. VERY pouty. And the Horny and Drunk Chicks also made her proudy.

Oh, you don't know what "proudy" means? Go here, and thank me later: http://internet.gawker.co...1731160013 Possibly the greatest moment ever on the internet!

Well, for no reason that makes any sense, Magic Mike falls for Proudy Olivia. BTW, Magic Mike is a man of many talents. He is a stripper; a roofing contractor; a car detailer; and a furniture maker. Stripping pays the rent but he really just wants to make custom furniture. She, of course, cannot stand him - even after he tells her that all he really wants to do is join custom-milled pieces of wood together into interesting shapes.

As you can probably guess, loser dude goes from Innocent Non-Pot-Smoking Dweeb to Full-Frontal-Pill-Popping-Degenerate in two months. This upsets Proudy Olivia.

Loser dude meets some whacked-out chick with purple and pink hair, who has a pet pig and engages in threesomes with one of the other dancers and that dancer's wife. She brings loser dude to some room, whereupon Magic Mike opens the door and sees loser dude with the girl and her pig. "You don't need that in your life," says Magic Mike speaking the one and only coherent line of the movie (it must have been written in a rare moment of sobriety). But loser dude doesn't take Magic Mike's advice. Instead, he takes the advice of the other male stripper, which is "Go ahead and boink my wife. She likes it, and I'm cool with it".

Speaking of threesomes, Magic Mike has this girl who's about to graduate from psychology school. She likes to hook up with Mike for spontaneous sex romps. He calls her late on nights when he's lonely, and she comes over for some boinking. The kids have a name for this kind of...what? Buddy? I forget.

Anyway, Mike runs into her in a restaurant. But she's on a date! With her FIANCE. This surprises Mike. He had no idea this woman was using him for sex. He thought it was the other way around, which I guess he thought was the only way that kind of thing was OK. The girl's fiance says, "I have to go powder my nose". By which he meant he really was going to powder his nose, and not with cocaine but with Johnson's Baby Powder. Are you kidding me? Any real dude would have stood up, looked Magic Mike in the eye, and said something like, "Yeah, that's right. Fiance. Can you spell it? Let me help. It's spelled "I A-M B-O-I-N-K-I-N-G H-E-R and you are not". Or something like that.

Well, to wrap this up (I have a flight to catch), Matthew Mcielsdks screws Mike out of 2.5% of Tha New Club that Matthew McCodsdiyer is opening all by himself in Miami, which makes Mike mad so he quits. You see, Mike was going to get 10% of Tha Club because he was Tha Man, but then loser dude became Tha Man so Mike's cut got slashed to 7.5%. Assuming that Tha Club in Miami got to be worth $1,000,000 that means Matthew McCdfuiogn reduced Mike's net worth by a potential $25,000. So Mike ditches his entire income stream over an amount of money that he would make in a good month. Makes sense to me!

Mike goes back to Proudy Olivia and tells her "I paid some gangsters $10,000 of my own money so they wouldn't kill your loser brother" which makes Proudy Olivia fall in love with him. I think. You can't really know for sure because right after he tells her that, the movie is over.

This movie is really stupid. I mean, my review is incredibly stupid and this movie is ten times stupider than my review. What's the stupidest thing in the world? I know!

"Magic Mike" gets 1 1/2 Trump Voters out of 5 Trump Voters. Avoid!

.

[Edited 11/29/16 6:47am]

EmmaMcG said:

Hudson said:

You should! I liked it better the second time.


Also saw Trolls yesterday, a complete narrative mess, that is visually stunning in cinema 4k, that somehow left me with feelings of hope and positivity. I'll give it an 8/10 and buy the blu when it comes out.

A complete narrative mess, 8 out of 10. I'm really curious about this movie now.

It's really cute in spite of that. Worth an HD rental.

Hail, Caesar! (2016)

Even the Coen Brothers' worst movie had its moments. George Clooney couldn't save the film.

Nocturnal Animals (2016)

Tom Ford's latest effort plays out like an extended Calvin Klein ad, directed by Quentin Tarantino. But it was good all the same, thanks to solid performances from Amy Adams, Jake Gyllenhal, Michael Shannon and a chilling turn from Laura Linney.

namepeace said:

Hail, Caesar! (2016)

Even the Coen Brothers' worst movie had its moments. George Clooney couldn't save the film.

I really liked this one!

Before Foxtel removes the TCM channel on 13 December I watched 2001: A Space Odessey (1968) the other night which was directed by Stanley Kubrick. Even though I find the ending to be a bit I give it a 4.5 out of 5 for the groundbreaking visual effects, for the editing and for the amazing score (which I liked it so much I bought the soundtrack

[Edited 11/30/16 20:44pm]

[Edited 11/30/16 21:58pm]

Much better than expected - I'm still enjoying the new Star Trek films.

Ace said:

namepeace said:

Hail, Caesar! (2016)

Even the Coen Brothers' worst movie had its moments. George Clooney couldn't save the film.

I really liked this one!

Coen movies are always in the eye of the beholder, so I can see how a lot of folks would love it. (I loved Intolerable Cruelty and it seems to be regarded as their worst film.)

I'm in the minority on Hail, Caesar! though. It got pretty good reviews on release.

"Arrival"

Noel (2004)

I really like Chazz Palminteri. But oh, mercy. Even for your typical holiday film, this one was bad. Even with a pretty good cast.

.5

Splice - I recently watched this movie and needless to say it was everything but normal. The movie was very weird, but interesting in a sense of 'can something like this actually happen?' I recommond it, if you are interested in weird scifi. Warning: this movie is NOT a kids movie and shows graphic and sexually explicit scenes.

Sausage Party. Evil funny.