namepeace said:

Aquaman 2 / 10

Polar 1 / 10

/ 5

Was much too vanilla for my taste. A typicall by the numbers and uninteresting biopic of a band.
And I honestly don't see the why all the praise for Rami Malek's portrayal of Freddy Mercury, I thought it wasn't that special, But maybe I expected more from him because of Mr. Robot.

stranger than paradise (1984) 4/5 like all jarmusch, this moves with its own rhythm & pace. his films don't always land with me, though his recent ones have definitely been more hits and fewer misses, especialy paterson. even though one could look at this one and easily think 'is that all there is to this thing?' i can't help but love its weird, quirky characters & non-stories.

the big sleep (1946) 4/5

there's way way way too much plot in this for me to follow. i gave up trying to figure out who was who and why this guy was talking to that guy around the 70 minute mark.

it gets by on charm and charisma and snappy dialogue.

(and martha vickers is not poisonous to look at


house (1977) 3.5/5 i think house is mostly a complete delight, at least visually, a kinder gentler version of evil dead 2 or dead alive. it didn't exactly suck me in with its story elements, & i'm glad it wasn't a minute longer than its 90 minute running time, but why quibble with something that generally is so much fun to watch?

Call Me By Your Name (2017)

A really good movie, gets a little too ponderous in the middle, but nails the landing thanks to not only the main characters played by Armie Hammer and Timothee Chalamet, but Michael Stuhlbarg (Boardwalk Empire, The Shape of Water) whose final scenes were the best in the film.

.75

A Star Is Born (2018) - A musician helps a young singer find fame, even as age and alcoholism send his own career into a downward spiral.

The songs and musical performances get a perfect rating. I downloaded the soundtrack as soon as I got home from the cinema. The story is nothing new, clearly, but I found the acting to be rather strong. A surprisingly very good movie. 4/5

Bumblebee

Does the impossible and makes Aquaman look like a masterpiece.
Time to watch some serious movies again...

[Edited 1/29/19 13:56pm]

IO

forgettable and predicatble sci-fi from Netflix

[Edited 1/30/19 8:20am]

Bohemian Rhapsody (2018) - The story of the legendary rock band Queen and lead singer Freddie Mercury, leading up to their famous performance at Live Aid (1985).

Rami Malek was good as Freddy Mercury, but the rest of the movie wasn't--another by-the-numbers biopic. Although the recreation of the Live Aid performance at the end was well done. 3/5

sexton said:

A Star Is Born (2018) - A musician helps a young singer find fame, even as age and alcoholism send his own career into a downward spiral.

The songs and musical performances get a perfect rating. I downloaded the soundtrack as soon as I got home from the cinema. The story is nothing new, clearly, but I found the acting to be rather strong. A surprisingly very good movie. 4/5

I agree totally. I downloaded the soundtrack a few days before seeing the movie, but appreciated it even more since seeing it.

fyi to those who may not have heard, criterion has announced the start date for their replacement service. it launches on april 8th, and if you sign up early, you get a discount for life.

https://screencrush.com/c...g-details/

If you’re still in mourning over the death of the beloved classic movie streaming service FilmStruck, the good news is the Criterion Collection is getting ready to launch its new replacement, The Criterion Channel. Via press release, they announced the service launches on April 8, 2019.

They also unveiled some of the pricing details. If you sign up early, you get a lifetime discount on your monthly or yearly price for as long as you keep your membership:

Charter Subscribers who visit CriterionChannel.com and sign up before launch will enjoy an extended 30-day free trial (starting April 8), reduced pricing for the life of their subscriptions ($9.99 per month or $89.99 annually for as long as you stay active, instead of $10.99 per month or $99.99 annually for subscribers who sign up after April 8), and other benefits including free access to a Charter Subscribers-only movie of the week between sign-up and launch. The first Movie of the Week is hot off the presses: the complete, newly released Criterion edition of Mikey and Nicky, with a new restoration supervised by Elaine May, along with all of its supplemental features - available exclusively to Charter Subscribers, this week only.

You should note that FilmStruck was a partnership between Criterion and Turner Classic Movies; this new service is just Criterion. So if you wanted to watch, say Casablanca, the Criterion Channel is not going to deliver. That said, if you are a Criterion lover, you might want to consider signing up early and getting that lifetime discount. If the service is around for years, those savings could really start to add up.

alphavile (1965) 3/5

i didn't enjoy watching alphaville too much, i guess. there were neat moments, isolated things to enjoy in it, but nothing that gave me any satisfaction or pleasure. i can go along with confusing, even incoherent films - that describes some of my all time favourites - but there was just not much here for me to latch onto.

i did think that several moments seemed to directly inspire some of terry gilliam's films, brazil & 12 monkeys in particular - feel free to correct me, anyone, but i think gilliam had mentioned being inspired by this film for elements of 12 monkeys.

grace of my heart (1996) 4/5

Widows 3 / 10

The Wife (2017) - A wife questions her life choices as she travels to Stockholm with her husband, where he is slated to receive the Nobel Prize for Literature.

Glenn Close hits a home run here. I suppose I would have found the story predictable if I knew anything about it beforehand, but I went in only knowing it was an Oscar-nominated performance and allowed the plot direction to surprise me. 4/5

Guess what I watched last night?



No, really - guess!



C'mon, you can do it!



OK, ONE MORE HINT:



ROADHOUSE.

Oh man, I haven't watched "Roadhouse" all the way through in a loooooong time. It's one of those movies that's always 1 1/2 hours through it when you finally click on FXX or El Rey or whatever network it's on.

But tonight I timed it perfectly and got to watch its greatness from beginning to end.

THIS MOVIE KICKS SO MUCH '80'S BUTT.

It's also really stupid but it's so great that you will forgive all the stupidity.

Ben Gazzarra is one of those guys I wish I'd met when he was alive. He was as good a villain as you'll ever see.

Marshall Teague played Jimmy, the guy who's throat gets cut in Hint #4 above. (FUN FACT - he's died 103 times on screen, which is apparently the record.) In a movie filled with awesome lines, he had the best one of all. You know what it was and if you don't, watch that clip. WARNING - it contains a four-letter word. The "F dash dash dash" word, to quote Ralphie.

Teague is now a motivational speaker. I want to hear him speak, just to hear him repeat that line live. He'd better say it too, or we're going to have trouble. "Roadhouse" kind of trouble.

If you haven't watched "Roadhouse" from front to end, it's going to be hard for us to be friends. I like having as many friends as possible, so please go watch "Roadhouse" right now.

"Roadhouse" gets 10 How Can Yokel Bouncers Know Who Dalton And Wade Garrett Are out of a possible 10 How Can Yokel Bouncers Know Who Dalton And Wade Garrett Ares.

ROADHOUSE.



.

[Edited 2/1/19 7:28am]

The Front Runner

Absolutely nothing happened within the first 18 minutes, I was bored to death and put it off.

Cold War (2018) - In the 1950s, a music director falls in love with a singer and tries to persuade her to flee communist Poland for France.

A European, subtitled, bleak, romantic, black & white, period piece--my kind of movie to start. Adding to that a stellar soundtrack makes this one of 2018's best. 4.5/5

Blade Runner 2049 3/5 held my attention but was slow moving for no reason and technically the plot didn't make sense.

[Edited 2/1/19 11:20am]

sexton said:

Cold War (2018) - In the 1950s, a music director falls in love with a singer and tries to persuade her to flee communist Poland for France.

A European, subtitled, bleak, romantic, black & white, period piece--my kind of movie to start. Adding to that a stellar soundtrack makes this one of 2018's best. 4.5/5

i've already said my piece on cold war earlier in this thread, but i don't think it can be said often & loudly enough what a miracle this film is. i think it's perfect, definitely one of my favourites of 2018.

are you gonig to try to see all the oscar noms this year, or is that a thing of the past for you now?

in a glass cage (1986) a ex-nazi doctor & child molester, now confined to an iron lung, hires a nurse who's aware of his secrets.

well, this is quite a movie.
i'm slightly surprised that i've gone my entire life without even having heard of it until today. it seems like it ought to belong on any respectable (ha ha) list of transgressive, extreme films, in there with your salos & angsts & what have you.
i won't give it a rating, but if this is the kind of film you think you'd like to see, then you probably ought to watch it i suppose. it's fairly well made as far as i can tell, mostly moves along at a good pace, though it does bog down here & there.

the guy who made it was trying to make a bleak, ugly film, & he succeeded.

damosuzuki said:

sexton said:

Cold War (2018) - In the 1950s, a music director falls in love with a singer and tries to persuade her to flee communist Poland for France.

A European, subtitled, bleak, romantic, black & white, period piece--my kind of movie to start. Adding to that a stellar soundtrack makes this one of 2018's best. 4.5/5

i've already said my piece on cold war earlier in this thread, but i don't think it can be said often & loudly enough what a miracle this film is. i think it's perfect, definitely one of my favourites of 2018.

are you gonig to try to see all the oscar noms this year, or is that a thing of the past for you now?

Your respective reviews have me looking forward to this even more.

namepeace said:

damosuzuki said:

i've already said my piece on cold war earlier in this thread, but i don't think it can be said often & loudly enough what a miracle this film is. i think it's perfect, definitely one of my favourites of 2018.

are you gonig to try to see all the oscar noms this year, or is that a thing of the past for you now?

Your respective reviews have me looking forward to this even more.

ROADHOUSE.

Boy Erased (4 out of 5 stars). Well done though rather predictable.

namepeace said:

damosuzuki said:

i've already said my piece on cold war earlier in this thread, but i don't think it can be said often & loudly enough what a miracle this film is. i think it's perfect, definitely one of my favourites of 2018.

are you gonig to try to see all the oscar noms this year, or is that a thing of the past for you now?

Your respective reviews have me looking forward to this even more.

i hope i haven't oversold it! i'll be very intested to hear your thoughts when you get a chance to see it.

burning (2018) 4/5 enigmatic mystery that really has a spare, hypnotic power that completely drew me in. ambiguity can be annoying in some hands, transfixing in others. i don't have the film vocabulary to lay out all the reasons why this film works so perfectly, while all these elements would fall flat in the hands of another, but this was truly great to me & would be right at the top of my 2018 favourites list if it wasn't so very very very long. please stop people from making endlessly long movies is my plea to the world.

[Edited 2/3/19 7:10am]

Bohemian Rhapsody. I didn't know anything about Queen except for their songs I've loved. This was nice. 5/5.

sexton said:

Bohemian Rhapsody (2018) - The story of the legendary rock band Queen and lead singer Freddie Mercury, leading up to their famous performance at Live Aid (1985).

Rami Malek was good as Freddy Mercury, but the rest of the movie wasn't--another by-the-numbers biopic. Although the recreation of the Live Aid performance at the end was well done. 3/5

That is how I felt.

Only casually know some of Queen's music, but I do know there is a documentary on Youtube thousands of times more satisfying than having actors badly re-enact the Queen story (as they did in Bohemian Rhapsody). It goes through Freddie's life...up to his death, unlike the movie. Told directly by the people closest to him.

Bohemian Rhapsody just comes across as a poor way to generate interest in Queen for a new generation. The story has already been told thousands of times better.

The movie isn't worth $0.01 in my opinion.

Velvet Buzzsaw

the first half was brilliant, the second half couldn't keep up and the end fell well short.