RodeoSchro said:

namepeace said:

Sorry, that said Zelda and Zelda at first, and I didn't know if you meant Jenkins. Agreed.

I've seen 6 of the 9 nominees, but not Dunkirk, Call Me By Your Name and Darkest Hour. I think I'd rank the ones I've seen as follows:

Shape of Water
Three Billboards
Get Out
Lady Bird
Phantom Thread
The Post

I think Billboards is the better movie, but Shape isn't far behind and I just enjoyed Shape more.

"Dunkirk" is the most boring movie I've seen in maybe my whole life. There is NO plot. My advice is wait and see if it wins Best Picture and if it does, you can go see what all the hype is about.

But be forewarned - it's not a movie as much as it is a History Channel mockumentary, except without a narrator. It's main claim to fame is the way in which it's filmed. It works best (if that's possible) in an iMax screen with 5,000 speakers.

I have a feeling that this movie would be even worse if you watched it on a TV, iPad or God forbid, a phone.

I got (not I have) surround sound 7.1 at home, it didn't help.

And by the way...

How in the holly hell do you have 350,000 men on a beach that looks so nice and tidy? Soldiers line up like they are waiting on their Uber rides? Where's the military supplies, Medic-center... the Germany's bomb the shit out of the Dunkirk beaches. Yet, the beaches in this movie, so prestine. I thought I saw a Don't Liter sign, I swear to God. RodeoShru don't get me started on this movie, a waste of my damn time.


=======================

[Edited 1/31/18 6:16am]

TD3 said:

RodeoSchro said:

"Dunkirk" is the most boring movie I've seen in maybe my whole life. There is NO plot. My advice is wait and see if it wins Best Picture and if it does, you can go see what all the hype is about.

But be forewarned - it's not a movie as much as it is a History Channel mockumentary, except without a narrator. It's main claim to fame is the way in which it's filmed. It works best (if that's possible) in an iMax screen with 5,000 speakers.

I have a feeling that this movie would be even worse if you watched it on a TV, iPad or God forbid, a phone.

I got (not I have) surround sound 7.1 at home, it didn't help.

And by the way...

How in the holly hell do you have 350,000 men on a beach that looks so nice and tidy? Soldiers line up like they are waiting on their Uber rides? Were's the military supplies, Medic-center... the Germany's bomb the shit out of the Dunkirk beaches. Yet, the beaches in this movie, so prestine. I thought I saw a don't liter sign, I swear to God. RodeoShru don't get me started on this movie, a waste of my damn time.

True that!

TD3 said:

In lite of the political climate, the MeToo campaign, allegations of sexual harassment/violence and in lite of Hollywood and Award Show's have taken political stances about everything; I find the silence or the shutting down of any criticism of this movie hypocritical. LBGT community is full of it.

I wondered about that, too. I remember thinking, 'I wonder how Kevin Spacey feels about the outpouring of praise for this movie?'

It's a funny ol' world.

RodeoSchro said:

It works best (if that's possible) in an iMax screen with 5,000 speakers.

TD3 said:

Ace said:

TD3 said:

In light of the political climate, the MeToo campaign, allegations of sexual harassment/violence and in light of Hollywood and Award Show's have taken political stances about everything; I find the silence or the shutting down of any criticism of this movie hypocritical. LBGT community is full of it.

I wondered about that, too. I remember thinking, 'I wonder how Kevin Spacey feels about the outpouring of praise for this movie?'

It's a funny ol' world.

Talking out both sides of ones mouth and then some. Maybe we missed something.

So why were so many pissed at Spacey? Was it because some was fearful Mr. Spacey's behaviour gives credence to the stereotype, Gay men and women have a proclivity to be child molesters? Or, was this payback for Spacey choosing to remain deep deep in the closet?

TD3 said:

Call Me By Your Name

No stars.

Anyone who thinks is fine for a 24 year old grown man to have a sexual relationship with a 17 year old

boy is clueless. I'll keep this a brief as I can. Save me the bullshit about the age of consent or the apparent sophisticated of a 17 year boy old wise beyond his years. This a predatory relationship and to justify it not being so... I'd accuse you of moral relativism.

I never heard of this movie nor knew it was based on a book (author André Aciman) until last year on NPR. Granted I came in mid-stream of Terri Gross interview with the director of the movie. In lite of the political climate, the MeToo campaign, allegations of sexual harassment/violence and in lite of Hollywood and Award Show's have taken political stances about everything; I find the silence or the shutting down of any criticism of this movie hypocritical. LBGT community is full of it.

====================

[Edited 1/30/18 16:04pm]

It's a story like any other. What's wrong with that? I think people have problem with this film just because is a gay story, ifthis were a stragiht couple then you wouldn't have any issue.

214 said:

TD3 said:

Call Me By Your Name

No stars.

Anyone who thinks is fine for a 24 year old grown man to have a sexual relationship with a 17 year old

boy is clueless. I'll keep this a brief as I can. Save me the bullshit about the age of consent or the apparent sophisticated of a 17 year boy old wise beyond his years. This a predatory relationship and to justify it not being so... I'd accuse you of moral relativism.

I never heard of this movie nor knew it was based on a book (author André Aciman) until last year on NPR. Granted I came in mid-stream of Terri Gross interview with the director of the movie. In lite of the political climate, the MeToo campaign, allegations of sexual harassment/violence and in lite of Hollywood and Award Show's have taken political stances about everything; I find the silence or the shutting down of any criticism of this movie hypocritical. LBGT community is full of it.

====================

It's a story like any other. What's wrong with that? I think people have problem with this film just because is a gay story, if this were a straight couple then you wouldn't have any issue.

I can't speak to others points-of-view or what motivates those who'd like to use this to justify their bigotry.

Irrespective of gender and/or sexual orientation, adults shouldn't be engaging in sexual relations with a children. Period. Would we shrug our shoulders if that 24 years old was a teacher and the 17 year old was his student? Are we going to say well the 17 years made the first move so that's different? The adult in the room, should know better. More than that.... the adult in the room should understand that relationship isn't on equal footing. Because that relationship isn't on equal footing, adults can potentially become manipulative and even abusive. Its not the responsibility of a child to figure this out, the Adult should know better. (IMHO)

=================

[Edited 1/31/18 21:30pm]

m (1931) 5/5- it's pretty much impossible to watch this without seeing all the dozens & dozens of films that sprang out of the soil frizt lang seeded here. and, excluding a section in the 2nd half hr where things perhaps get a bit bogged down in what i thought were repetitive discussions, it played perfectly too. the ending in particular was fantastic. another film that i waited far too long to watch.

heavy traffic (1973) 2.5/5 ralph bakshi's followup to fritz the cat is occasionally enjoyably trashy, but more often dreary & extremely tacky & tasteless at times.

demons (1985) 3/5 a bit dull, bordering on numbingly dreary by the end, but it has its redeeming qualities: lots of fun 80s era practical gore effects & quite a few attractive women are the main ones. it's no suspiria (it's produced & written by dario argento), but if you calibrate your expectations, you'll find something to enjoy here if your tastes run in this direction.

demons 2 (1986) 3.5/5 a wee bit superior to the first one, i'll (perhaps daringly) suggest. it's about the same as far as nonsensical plotting goes, and there might not be quite as many gore effects on display, but i think this made for a much more spritely watch. the fact that it moves between several groups alone makes it bounce along much more than part 1 did, at least in the early going. none of those various plots really amount to much, but at least it gave the film a touch of momentum.

also benefits from having a reasonably hip soundtrack, at least by the standards of 80s horror. a bit of the smiths, some love & rockets, gene loves jezebel (not a brilliant band, but they tried...), & some other gothy sounding stuff that was unfamiliar to me.

T2 Trainspotting
2.8/5 I'm surprised Carlye didn't have a stroke he was so freakin' intense. I need to watch Trainspotting again. Worth a few views.

morningsong said:

T2 Trainspotting
2.8/5 I'm surprised Carlye didn't have a stroke he was so freakin' intense.

I liked this better than you did.

Chef (2014)

It's on the Netflix (here in the Great White North , anyway).

ScarJo's not usually my type, but I found her H-O-T-T in this. Favreau likeable, as always.

Good direction from JF, but it's in many aspects somewhat of a formula picture. A cut of above most of the "feel-good" movies out there, though, I guess.

I must admit I didn't watch it closely, as I was busy on the other half of my laptop monitor. But I also must admit that there are very few movies these days that can hold me riveted for 90 mins.

Ace said:

45 years (2015) 3.5/5- expertly made crushing morosity.

dead snow (2009) 3/5

one of the characters wears a brain-dead t-shirt, so hats off to the makers for wearing their influences on their sleeves, so to speak.

this is not quite the manically great film brain-dead was, but it moves along nicely and has pretty solid gore effects. it's likely a bit better than most of the 'kids get slaughtered in a cabin in the woods' movies you've seen.

kubo and the two strings (2016) 4/5 fantastic to watch, truly great stop-motion animation, but i never quite fell into the journey.
given how much love this thing got, i'm perfectly willing to believe that's my problem, and not the film's. i think it warrants 4 stars on its looks alone.

angst (1983) 4/5

this is definitely one of the most unsettling movies i've ever seen.

the immediate comparison that comes to mind is 'henry - portrait...', and it's a reasonable one, but there are crucial differences - a lack of any kind of plot, and, more so than henry, you watch the violence through the killer's eyes, in a very cold, detached, but extremely cruel way. definitely not something i would want a steady diet of, but it is expertly done. great score by tangerine dream's klaus schulze as well.

the most disgusting moments are loud chewing sounds made around the 16 minute mark. truly nasty.

morningsong said:

Ace said:

I liked this better than you did.

Oh I'm going to watch both movies again back to back.

"What's 'Choose life'?. . . .Simon says it sometimes."

5-star rating.

The Post: * * * 1/2

Lady Bird: * * * *

Call Me By Your Name: * * * * *

Star Wars VIII: * * * * 1/2

That´s a really nice feelgood movie with very likeable characters, and I love that it is about cooking.

Very underrated little gem.

Ace said:

Chef (2014)

It's on the Netflix (here in the Great White North , anyway).

ScarJo's not usually my type, but I found her H-O-T-T in this. Favreau likeable, as always.

Good direction from JF, but it's in many aspects somewhat of a formula picture. A cut of above most of the "feel-good" movies out there, though, I guess.

I must admit I didn't watch it closely, as I was busy on the other half of my laptop monitor. But I also must admit that there are very few movies these days that can hold me riveted for 90 mins.

paint it black (2016) 3/5

for the longest time, i couldn't quite settle on whether this was veering into camp territory or if it was attempting a sort of 'persona' for the millennial generation. when, in the last 1/2 hour, there was a moment where the mother/son/girlfriend's faces all blend together, i felt stupidly proud of myself for thinking of persona.

this ultimately settles firmly on the 'persona' side of the fence, i think. it's certainly watchable, but i did feel that it got just a bit too self-serious here and there, with its dreamy, atmospheric score & lost, soulful eyes staring off into the distance.

but it's different, definitely not a cookie-cutter film, worth a look if you fancy a bit of sundance-ie mopiness.

amour (2012) 4/5

i watched 45 years towards the end of last week, and thought its crushing morosity might have slightly chipped away at some of my will to live.

45 years is paddington 2 compared to amour.

it's properly well made, & michael heneke definitely has a talent for icily capturing human nature & our frailties & that sort of thing.

this will definitely not put a skip in your step. value your (relative) youth while you have it, but it's a bit hard to watch this and not despair over the impending diapers & dementia & bed sores.

dawson city: frozen time (2017) 4.5/5 i was lucky enough to see this documentary for a second time saturday night, this time in a local church with a live performance of its quietly majestic score accompanying the screening, with director bill morrison & composer alex somers (sigur ros collaborator/producer) in attendance.
dawson city...itself is terrific, filled with great images & a wonderful little time capsule story, though it's perhaps just a bit too long & a bit too repetitive. if you watch it at home, i think it might work better if watched split it up over two evenings.

[Edited 2/5/18 16:15pm]

The Hours: 4.5/5 I could have sworn I'd already saw this movie, in fact I did but didn't remember much. This time around it got a little too deep into my head. Luckily right after I watched....


The Great Wall 3.2/5 It wasn't what I thought it was at all. A nice crazy fantasy movie that had me laughing at least in the beginning about all those monsters with so many damned teeth. Visually very pleasing. Gets sillier towards the end but I guess given what I watched before it it was an ideal combo.

damosuzuki said:

Shape of Water will win Best Director Oscar.

Brendan said:

damosuzuki said:

dawson city: frozen time (2017) 4.5/5 i was lucky enough to see this documentary for a second time saturday night, this time in a local church with a live performance of its quietly majestic score accompanying the screening, with director bill morrison & composer alex somers (sigur ros collaborator/producer) in attendance.
dawson city...itself is terrific, filled with great images & a wonderful little time capsule story, though it's perhaps just a bit too long & a bit too repetitive. if you watch it at home, i think it might work better if watched split it up over two evenings.

[Edited 2/5/18 16:15pm]

That must’ve been a very cool experience. An essential documentary for sure. This has stayed with me for weeks. I dug it so much I turned its 2-hour runtime (watched on FilmStruck) into something about 100 percent longer. Was absolutely thrilled by this essentially silent movie (bookended by conventional storytelling) told through the period photographs and century-old films found in this gold rush town that exploded like no other. A lot more is unearthed here than hundreds of reels of century-old film. Even in this remote corner of the world (just south of the arctic circle in the Yukon near the Alaskan border) we’re all very much connected.

I'm truly happy to hear that you liked it so much. it's a really one of a kind film, and, as you said, it plays for long stretches very much like a silent film. seeing it live was a indeed a very neat experience.

on body and soul (2017) 4/5 - a movie podcast i follow recently did a retrospective of pt anderson's films, & commented that punch-drunk love is the most realistic depiction of romance put on film, in that people are never neat & clever & charming the way we're shown - we're messy, frightening, quivering masses of incompetence, if not completely autistic. & the whole time i was watching 'on body...', i couldn't help but think that this was punch-drunk's heir. it's actually quite like what would happen if punch-drunk love & yorgos lanthimos's movies had a film baby, & someone spliced some slaughterhouse footage in. i liked it lots.


green (2011) 3/5 there's nothing particularly unique in this no-budget indie about an arty new york couple forming an unlikely and unwieldy friendship or something more with an unsophisticated country gal (except for the presence of kate lyn sheil, who i think is always impossibly beautiful, even when her nose looks a little red & irritated in some scenes), but it does a pretty neat job of fairly subtly shifting sympathies among its characters. the guy in this love triangle seems like the most loathsome, pretentious piece of wank at first, but i was amazed to find myself actually liking him a little bit by the end, while starting to think sheil, who always has seemed enormously appealing in all roles big & small to me, was something of a brat. this is not a masterpiece of indie film, but it's not too bad.


abby singer/songwriter (2015) 3.5/5 a luckless middle-aged wanna-be film-maker, who has to resort to crashing on an ex's couch, attaches himself to a struggling indie-musician, creating a video album for him while ogling the musician's extremely attractive daughters. highly enjoyable, always amusiing & often genuinely laugh-out-loud funny.

[Edited 2/8/18 6:02am]

morningsong said:

The Hours: 4.5/5 I could have sworn I'd already saw this movie, in fact I did but didn't remember much. This time around it got a little too deep into my head. Luckily right after I watched....


The Great Wall 3.2/5 It wasn't what I thought it was at all. A nice crazy fantasy movie that had me laughing at least in the beginning about all those monsters with so many damned teeth. Visually very pleasing. Gets sillier towards the end but I guess given what I watched before it it was an ideal combo.

Definitely need a movie version of a chaser after watching The Hours .

Logan Lucky: 2.5/5
Expected it to be more fun, but it was quite boring.

damosuzuki said:

ufoclub said:

“Call Me by Your Name”... 5 stars Saw Call Me By Your Name, and wow, even with the training of seasons of Parenthood and This Is Us, the last parts of the movie with that father son talk... and that last shot... poignant. And I was scared it would stick within the Bertolucci type of romance sex travelogue. Not that I’m not a huge fan of The Last Emperor.

ufoclub!

ufoclub said:

“Call Me by Your Name”... 5 stars Saw Call Me By Your Name, and wow, even with the training of seasons of Parenthood and This Is Us, the last parts of the movie with that father son talk... and that last shot... poignant. And I was scared it would stick within the Bertolucci type of romance sex travelogue. Not that I’m not a huge fan of The Last Emperor.

My favorite movie in a long time. That kid acted his ass off. He was heartbreaking. In the ending yes, but also being embarrassed in the peach scene.

plays: Love My Way