damosuzuki said:

damosuzuki said:

there's a few there i really need to catch up on. shadow of the vampire in particular is something i've wanted to see for years.

.

i caught up with 'shadow of the vampire' this weekend (it's currently streaming on shudder, for anyone who has a subscription to that service). i thought it was really terrific, & particularly liked the way they used title cards at times, just to remind us what era we're in.

.

and willem dafoe is hilarious & creepy & completely unrecognizable. my only problem with the movie is that every time his character went away, i pined for him to come back. 4/5

[Edited 2/27/17 15:29pm]

Willem Dafoe is most underrated actor of anyone I can think of

The White Helmets



I honestly don't know what to say, how do you rate that? It's heart wrenching.

The Lord of the Rings: Return of the King (2003)

Holds up fairly well. Maybe not the best film of that year, but still not undeserving of the Oscar it won.

.25

damosuzuki said:

Phishanga said:

Oh, I need to go back to some Herzog-Kinski-movies sometime...

pishanga, i forgot to mention this when you made this comment; if you're interested, all of the herzog/kinski films, along with about a dozen other herzog titles, are currently streaming on shoutfactorytv - a free ad-based site.

http://www.shoutfactorytv...p;q=herzog

[Edited 2/27/17 15:08pm]

That's awesome, thanks!

morningsong said:

The White Helmets



I honestly don't know what to say, how do you rate that? It's heart wrenching.

When the infant was pulled out of the rubble alive was miraculous.

a separation (2011) 5/5 there was not one second of this movie that felt artificial. from the opening i had the feeling that i was caught up in completely authentic situation with believably flawed people acting in realistic if not always rational ways.

i saw the devil 3.5/5 man seeks revenge on the serial killer who murdered his fiance. a korean revenge thriller with some truly brutal violence & at least one gross-out moment that i could have done with-out. it was definitely made with a great deal of care & spirit, though, & anyone who's a fan of such things will find this to be a real treat, i suspect. i would have given it a 4 at least, but there's a sequence with a cannibal that seems to come out of a completely different, far more goofy film & that really took this down a notch or two for me.

damosuzuki said:

damosuzuki said:

Brendan said:

damosuzuki said:

a separation (2011) 5/5 there was not one second of this movie that felt artificial. from the opening i had the feeling that i was caught up in completely authentic situation with believably flawed people acting in realistic if not always rational ways.

I agree. I was fortunate enough to see this in the theater. A stunner.

I've seen three of director Asghar Farhadi's films and all were excellent:

The Salesman

The Past

A Separation

With such a stellar track record, I'll look for his earlier movies as well.

Get Out is slaying at the box office. Amazing. Black lives do matter.

The Kiano action movie is getting amazing reviews.

Check out the Razzies.

Brendan said:

I thought it was a great year. Not only do I think that the Best Picture winner, "Moonlight", will go down as one of the greatest movies ever made, the runner up, though I'm only guessing here, and certainly not based on their unprecedented cock-up, "La La Land", was also so inspirational that it might single handedly bring about a new wave of musicals embraced by the studio Technicolor years.

To me both nominated films are examples of what Stanley Kubrick referred to as "exploding the narrative." That is to say that they both unleash a type of poetry that breaks with the established conventions of language, and the medium itself. This is what can happen when you mix an extremely gifted and highly intelligent new filmmaker—Barry Jenkins, from Miami—with an aesthetic that is almost as grounded in Asia and Europe as it is in America.


Art is hung (inspired) almost entirely on the past, but no one else can offer our perspective. And with so much greatness now available at the touch of a internet stream, can you imagine all the untapped paths that will cross over the coming decades. And walking this path to me was as exhilarating as watching "The Umbrellas of Cherbourg" or "Singin' in the Rain" going up against "Chungking Express" or "Midnight Cowboy".


The Academy Awards generally do a really good job of identifying damn good things, and lots of them, but ultimately it's probably too populist, too reactionary, and too polarizing in the moment to uncover all the gold inside this dressed-up popularity contest. Just make a list of the greatest filmmakers, then note that almost none of them have Academy Awards (outside of the honorary type of course).

You can do the same thing with the Grammy Awards. Just think of the greatest musical artists and then, with only a few exceptions, note that there are very few trophies amongst them.

That's the world in which "Moonlight" casts its shadow. This is not your typical Best Picture nominee and, gasp, winner. This simply does not happen. Ever.

"Moonlight", with a budget of only 1.5 million, is the smallest film to ever win Best Picture in the almost 90 year history of the Oscars (and sound in movies for that matter!)

And if part of the reason this film was able to pull off such an monumental achievement is the embarrassment over a missing diversity last year, a more epic quality could not have been dreamt.

This to me was like "Sign o' the Times" going up against "The Joshua Tree", except that this time the smaller one made it all the way through to the impossible.

Of course I'm not suggesting in my excitement that anyone, first and foremost me, can tell anyone else what should cross the tape first and in what order. I'm just sharing a part of my real thrill and re-reminding myself that it won't likely be this way every year.

Well put.

The Oscars equitably spread the wealth so that the American films most likely to be remembered in 2016 were acknowledged with major prizes: Moonlight (Supporting Actor, Adapted Screenplay and Best Picture), La La Land (Score, Song Actress and Best Director), Manchester By The Sea (Actor and Screenplay), and Fences (Supporting Actress).

IMO, Moonlight will be seen as one of America's greatest films, but even if La La had won Best Picture, a legitimate argument could be made that the Academy still did right by Moonlight.

Your SOTT-Joshua reference is spot-on. I'd say, however, that the Academy did better in 2017 than the Grammys did in 1988, because the Grammys didn't give Sign a single award that year. Unlike that year -- which caused me to ignore the Grammys altogether for the next 25 years -- the Academy did justice to most if not all of the most deserving films.

2freaky4church1 said:

Check out the Razzies.

Hillary's America and Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice dominated!

(Has Zach Snyder permanently ruined DCEU?)

Brendan said:

damosuzuki said:

stroszek - 1977

bruno, a very simple berliner (borderline mentally handicapped, possibly?), who has nothing in the world and whose only friends (he thinks) are a prostitute & his senior citizen neighbor, escape cruel germany to join the senior's nephew in wisconson. everything ought to turn out alright in wisconsin, i guess, because it's in america and things generally seem to turn out ok for most americans, according to the senior & the prostitute. bruno, simple as he is, seems to have a more fatalistic outlook.

.

bruno really does have a hard time of it, he has a reason to flee his miserable life, and things really don't get better for him. everything falls apart, climaxing in the best robbery scene i think i've ever seen outside of a coen brothers' movie, and what has to be the greatest ever use of a chicken in a film.

.

this is weird, funny, & i think this might be the most perfect movie i've ever watched. 5/5

This genuine passion inspires me to want to see it all the sooner. Thank you.

i really hope you like it. i'd actually recommend just taking a minute or two to read a little about bruno s before watching the movie. i think knowing a bit about his biography really helped me 'get' his performance more than i would have otherwise. here's his obit that ran in the guardian.

https://www.theguardian.c...n-obituary

.

like the other herzog movies i mentioned earlier, this is streaming on shoutfactorytv, but unfortunately their file stops working almost at the very end of the film. if you watch it on that site, you're going to be robbed of being able to see the proper conclusion. i sent them an email a week ago, and they told me they were going to look into it, but i just checked and the stream still seized up around 1:44:00.

namepeace said:

Brendan said:

I thought it was a great year. Not only do I think that the Best Picture winner, "Moonlight", will go down as one of the greatest movies ever made, the runner up, though I'm only guessing here, and certainly not based on their unprecedented cock-up, "La La Land", was also so inspirational that it might single handedly bring about a new wave of musicals embraced by the studio Technicolor years.

To me both nominated films are examples of what Stanley Kubrick referred to as "exploding the narrative." That is to say that they both unleash a type of poetry that breaks with the established conventions of language, and the medium itself. This is what can happen when you mix an extremely gifted and highly intelligent new filmmaker—Barry Jenkins, from Miami—with an aesthetic that is almost as grounded in Asia and Europe as it is in America.


Art is hung (inspired) almost entirely on the past, but no one else can offer our perspective. And with so much greatness now available at the touch of a internet stream, can you imagine all the untapped paths that will cross over the coming decades. And walking this path to me was as exhilarating as watching "The Umbrellas of Cherbourg" or "Singin' in the Rain" going up against "Chungking Express" or "Midnight Cowboy".


The Academy Awards generally do a really good job of identifying damn good things, and lots of them, but ultimately it's probably too populist, too reactionary, and too polarizing in the moment to uncover all the gold inside this dressed-up popularity contest. Just make a list of the greatest filmmakers, then note that almost none of them have Academy Awards (outside of the honorary type of course).

You can do the same thing with the Grammy Awards. Just think of the greatest musical artists and then, with only a few exceptions, note that there are very few trophies amongst them.

That's the world in which "Moonlight" casts its shadow. This is not your typical Best Picture nominee and, gasp, winner. This simply does not happen. Ever.

"Moonlight", with a budget of only 1.5 million, is the smallest film to ever win Best Picture in the almost 90 year history of the Oscars (and sound in movies for that matter!)

And if part of the reason this film was able to pull off such an monumental achievement is the embarrassment over a missing diversity last year, a more epic quality could not have been dreamt.

This to me was like "Sign o' the Times" going up against "The Joshua Tree", except that this time the smaller one made it all the way through to the impossible.

Of course I'm not suggesting in my excitement that anyone, first and foremost me, can tell anyone else what should cross the tape first and in what order. I'm just sharing a part of my real thrill and re-reminding myself that it won't likely be this way every year.

Well put.

The Oscars equitably spread the wealth so that the American films most likely to be remembered in 2016 were acknowledged with major prizes: Moonlight (Supporting Actor, Adapted Screenplay and Best Picture), La La Land (Score, Song Actress and Best Director), Manchester By The Sea (Actor and Screenplay), and Fences (Supporting Actress).

IMO, Moonlight will be seen as one of America's greatest films, but even if La La had won Best Picture, a legitimate argument could be made that the Academy still did right by Moonlight.

Your SOTT-Joshua reference is spot-on. I'd say, however, that the Academy did better in 2017 than the Grammys did in 1988, because the Grammys didn't give Sign a single award that year. Unlike that year -- which caused me to ignore the Grammys altogether for the next 25 years -- the Academy did justice to most if not all of the most deserving films.

well put to both of you.

.

this really does feel like one of those rare occasions where, in giving best picture to moonlight, the boldest, bravest & most uncompromising work was given the recognition it was due. i don't attach any significance to those awards, but it can't help but feel a bit satisfying.

I wouldn't go so far as to say the Oscars are a better arbiter of the arts than the Grammys, but they are much more in tune with my tastes than the Grammys for sure. I look at the songs/albums that win Grammys and I scratch my head.

Moonlight (2016)

sexton said:

I wouldn't go so far as to say the Oscars are a better arbiter of the arts than the Grammys, but they are much more in tune with my tastes than the Grammys for sure. I look at the songs/albums that win Grammys and I scratch my head.

To the extent you may be referring to my last post . . .

The comparison was drawn to Oscars '17 and Grammys '88. I only said Oscars '17 got it right, and Grammys '87 got it wrong.

I've been upset with the Academy's choices before -- Driving Miss Daisy over Do The Right Thing, Pacino Scent of a Woman over Denzel Malcolm X, and others.

But this year, even if La La had taken Best Picture, the Academy still would have gotten a high marks for rewarding most of the memorable films of the year.

damosuzuki said:

namepeace said:

it's such a beautiful day 4.5/5 an animated film starring bill, a stick figure suffering from memory loss. it flips back & forth between sad & occasionally funny stories from bill's daily life & trippy 2001-style sequences. i watched this years ago, & thought it was great at the time, & i like it even more now. it does slightly meander in the middle, & while that's not a fatal flaw, particularly since it's only an hour long, it did make it just slightly less than perfect.

Brendan said:

perhaps sexton first and foremost, should be voting for the Academy Awards. They would be all the better for it.

at this point in my life, i've basically ceded all control to sexton. i just watch whatever he tells me to.

sexton said:

Brendan said:

I agree. I was fortunate enough to see this in the theater. A stunner.

I've seen three of director Asghar Farhadi's films and all were excellent:

The Salesman

The Past

A Separation

With such a stellar track record, I'll look for his earlier movies as well.

my reaction to 'a separation' actually reminds me of how i felt immediately after watching 'the lives of others' a few years back. not in that the movies are similar, but i had the really strong feeling after seeing both of having watched something really exceptional & extraordinary.

.

i was able to catch 'the salesman' in the theatre, & i thought that was just great too. i'll probably rent the past this weekend.

[Edited 3/2/17 11:52am]

namepeace said:

sexton said:

I wouldn't go so far as to say the Oscars are a better arbiter of the arts than the Grammys, but they are much more in tune with my tastes than the Grammys for sure. I look at the songs/albums that win Grammys and I scratch my head.

To the extent you may be referring to my last post . . .

The comparison was drawn to Oscars '17 and Grammys '88. I only said Oscars '17 got it right, and Grammys '87 got it wrong.
Driving Miss Daisy o
I've been upset with the Academy's choices before --ver Do The Right Thing, Pacino Scent of a Woman over Denzel Malcolm X, and others.

But this year, even if La La had taken Best Picture, the Academy still would have gotten a high marks for rewarding most of the memorable films of the year.

Driving Miss Daisy is much better than Do The Right thing in my opinion. The latter is a good film but a little overrated, but such a cool film.

214 said:

namepeace said:

To the extent you may be referring to my last post . . .

The comparison was drawn to Oscars '17 and Grammys '88. I only said Oscars '17 got it right, and Grammys '87 got it wrong.
Driving Miss Daisy o
I've been upset with the Academy's choices before --ver Do The Right Thing, Pacino Scent of a Woman over Denzel Malcolm X, and others.

But this year, even if La La had taken Best Picture, the Academy still would have gotten a high marks for rewarding most of the memorable films of the year.

Driving Miss Daisy is much better than Do The Right thing in my opinion. The latter is a good film but a little overrated, but such a cool film.

We've talked about DtRT before. Agree to disagree.

- 1/2 (out of 5)

Not as compelling satirically as Dr.Strangelove, which came out the same year - but fun.

the red turtle...

i have a special affection for any piece of art that takes advantage of a medium in order to communicate something that wouldn't work in any other medium. 'the red turtle' could only be an animated movie; and a it's damn good one. an absolute joy to watch.