by niegrozna | Public
Going through my 2016 backlog and Coen brothers backlog.
Great acting, great dialogue, great character dynamics. Not enough focus on beautiful landscapes, which is what I watch westerns for. The ending with the snake was kind of ridiculous.
Going through my 2016 backlog and Coen brothers backlog.
I enjoyed everything about it, if enjoy is the right word for watching someone be a miserable jerk. I wanted to compare this somehow to A Serious Man, but watching the universe pile on misery on someone is apparently more entertaining if they don't really deserve it.
The cat was great.
Going through my 2016 backlog. Guy Ritchie, why?!
Seriously, this is something I would probably find deep when I was in junior high. While I like the Big Reveal, the movie felt so utterly ridiculous and pretentious I couldn't really enjoy it. And what was that random animation sequence?
I just had to rewatch it after seeing Rogue One. Still amazing!
Perfect and heartbreaking. I loved it both as a biopic, and as a movie about politics and sexual identity. I'm not usually a huge fan of Sean Penn, but he was absolutely fantastic in this.
It feels a bit weird to mention it, seeing how I should talk about how sadly believable Josh Brolin's performance was, but his slurred drunk "you came out of nowhere, Latino man!" line really got me laughing.
I can't believe it's over 10 years since I started watching this and never finished. (The bits of movie I remembered make me think that I made it almost to the end, though.)
I'm glad I watched this now, because I don't think as a teenager I really identified that particular feeling of isolation that comes with being a tourist in a foreign country, so this time I definitely understood the less metaphorical alienation more.
Guess the only way you can make an American get it is setting the movie in Japan, though.
The saddest movie I've seen in a long time. Beautifully shot, perfectly acted. Depressing as hell.
Another western remake!
If I thought there weren't enough landscapes in True Grit, then The Magnificent Seven sure did deliver. With all those wide shots, small town scenery, and perfectly choreographed shootouts, it should be all what I actually came to like about westerns, but the plot was a bit too thin to fully enjoy. The characters are mostly enjoyable, Denzel Washington and Haley Bennett were really great.
Unnecessary uncomfortable and boringly edgy. Despite its pretentions, no huge discoveries about human nature. Yeah, yeah, people are evil and self-serving, and always only one catastrophe away from turning into sadistic rapists wearing bondage gear. I'm considering adding the fifth star, though, for the characters never seriously contemplating cannibalism: it's a surprisingly refreshing thing in a post-apo movie.
Warning: a very random sci-fi subplot that never goes anywhere and serves only as a clumsy plot device.
I watched it mostly for the memetic title, and the premise sounded interesting enough to actually check it out. It was enjoyable as a generic thriller. But in the end it was one of those movies that you catched when they're on the TV on a Thursday night, and when you inevitably fall asleep halfway through, in the morning you just check the ending on the Internet. And it usually ends the way you predicted.
Spoilers: I was, however, pleasantly surprised that the gay friend survived the movie!
Watching an entire TV series was a huge setback in my 2017 plans, but it was so worth it. I started watching it on Monday, and swallowed all ten episodes by Friday.
It was so good! All my favorite AI related themes in a Western setting, with an interesting concept and fantastic visuals, what else may I need? All these plot twists and reveals were surprising enough AND made sense AND had been foreshadowed, which is a very rare combination. I absolutely loved the cast, especially Dolores and Maeve.
The entire movie was incomprehensible to me, mostly because of my face blindness. I had absolutely no idea if all the blondes were the same blonde, which left me confused. And when I found out they were, it didn't really help. So... that was all a dream, I suppose?
They say the journey is more important than the destination, and the journey was good, with its overall surreal feel, erotic tension, and moments of dark humor. But all things considered, I prefer riddles where all the pieces fall together more firmly.
Wow, I haven't seen any comedies in a really long time!
Delightfully silly. And for a parody (and a parody of so many vampire movies subgenres), surprisingly good-natured. The main guy was just adorable in his earnestness.
A must-see for anyone who enjoyed Only Lovers Left Alive.
I thought my view of this movie would be much more cynical. There is only that much sympathy you call feel for a priviledged, rich guy who dies (spoiler) trying to discover himself in the wilderness, even if he was a real person. But overall, it was just a visually stunning, sad movie.
I really appreciated the main character's sister's narration. It was good to have some outside perspective -- not as a reminder of the civilization Alex left behind, but to show that other people hurt, too, just as much as he does, but aren't as self-centered. But I'm not sure if the creators were self-aware enough to realize the audience might need that.
So much fun! The premise is both sillyand fascinating, and hey, a chance to see John Boyega before he got big. The atmosphere and the characters are great: I'd kill to see a movie like that set in Poland (and so competently made). I really enjoyed the music in this one: the utterly ridiculous "Get That Snitch" is so catchy I can't get it out of my head.
Where the movie fails is when it suddenly decides the characters need some extra depth, because you apparently can't cheer for a young hooligan if he doesn't have a sob backstory.
It's an interesting movie, but again I was under the impression I would have appreciated the story more if I had watched it as a teenager. I still enjoyed it on the plot level, but sometimes the symbolism was just a bit too much.
But stylistically it's really great: I love the gritty black&white style, how neatly Go played into it, the constant repetitions and patterns. Most of the stars this movie gets from me are for the visuals.
Going through my 2016 backlog.
The movie was... okay, I suppose? I spent half of it wondering what I was supposed to think about McGregor's character. I was rather bored with the misunderstood writer angle, the story could do without it. But I liked the ending. I wasn't sure the movie would have the guts to actually go there.
Just one warning: This movie contained the weirdest sex scene ever. I can't even describe it. Just... custard. Custard. Custard.
It's so rare that a movie about time travel is so easy to follow without being simplistic. The structure of the story is very elegant: layer upon layer, every event is neatly explained, and every Chekhov's gun goes off. (Well, other than a detail from the beginning: what's with the open trunk? Was it only supposed to underline that Hector starts off as a loser?)
Watching it all come together in the final scene is very satisfying and chilling.
If I had no idea it was an actual scifi movie, I'd be so surprised at the ending -- but I also doubt I'd watch it to the end. I love the concept of the classified ad (and its wording), but the movie pretends to be a regular coming of age story too successfully.
Nevertheless, the story is sweet and pleasant, and the theme of trying to go back in time is present in so many different ways. The main actress is great, even if the character is a bit cliché.
I wrote down "fascinatingly ugly" as my impression after seeing the movie, but after half an hour the ugliness, felt too gimmicky to me. Thankfully, it wasn't overly long, because I'm not sure I would bear two hours of this style. Especially since the plot was nonsensical and I didn't really give a damn about the characters. (Except the dog. I felt for this poor dog, and I rarely care about fictional dogs.) Nevertheless, it was quite refreshing, pleasantly different in its grotesque glory.
Maybe I had too big expectations about this, because I still remember a guy who really loved this movie back when it was released, and I hoped for something spectacular.
I avoided these movies like a plague, but once I finally watched them, I found them reasonably pleasant. It might have helped that I had read the book as a tween, hated it, and I barely remember it now. I still went "wait, I bet this wasn't in the book" every ten minutes, but I didn't mind the stuff they changed.
The first installment was pretty much unremarkable, and now that I think about it, I don't remember anything except how beautiful everything was. Erebor! Shire! Rivendell! Everything was so damn pretty! And I didn't expect to enjoy Freeman's Bilbo that much. But my favorite part was actually (what a blasphemy) the White Council. I liked that they included some background to The Lord of the Rings, and showed what a mess Middle-Earth internal politics were. And Galadriel! I really loved Galadriel. Which I think is a very unpopular opinion.
Is the middle part of a trilogy always the best? (No, I know it's not, because I watched Matrix Reloaded.) This movie was actually the most coherent and entertaining one. Despite Legolas and the weird love triangle that really came out of nowhere. But Bilbo brutally killing the spider who approached the Ring was such a good character moment I could forgive the movie a lot. I also really liked Bard, even though it's always amusing how every half-decent human in Middle-Earth is Secret Royalty.
And I loved the special effects for the dragon, it looked great. My favorite CGI effect in a long time.
The most disappointing part. How do you make all the battles so boring and samey? I mean, it's still competent enough, but such a let down after the second movie.
Thorin's obsession with gold, hallucinations and coming back to his senses were pretty much the weakest part of the movie. I don't know if it needed a stronger actor, but if you need to resolve to special effects to show that a character is experiencing a mental breakdown, you know you're doing something wrong.
I finally decided to finish this movie. It's been sitting on my hard drive for a couple of years now, because I only managed half an hour of this on my first try.
Extremely emotionally manipulative. It was hard to be legitimately moved by this movie: sure, I felt sad, but who wouldn't be if they were hit on the head with a huge "BE SAD!" sign over and over again? And it's a shame, because I liked the plot with the key, and how it was resolved, but everything else was just quirky for the sake of being quirky. I mean, one highly eccentric boy is enough, you don't need to add a mute grandpa in the mix.
Done. Off with the movie. Maybe deleting it will be more cathartic than watching it.
I feel like all the critics who see this movie as some sort of deep social commentary were high when they were watching it.
If it's a pastiche, it's too subtle. If it's serious, then it's too over the top for me.
Whoa. So depressing! And I really appreciated how depressing it was: not only was there no happy ending, all chances for happy ending were denied. And I was really impressed by Casey Affleck.
It was definitely too long, though. Cutting out half the flashbacks, or the subplot with the nephew's mother would do the movie good.
If I could choose one word to describe this movie, I'd say aimless. Just like the main character, it wanders around the world of privilege that seems completely foreign to me, and interacts with random people in meaningless ways. I liked some of its subtleties, but a lot of scenes felt entirely pointless, and didn't manage to grab me.
I think I'd appreciate it more if I knew more about the class politics of Argentina, because in a way, under its surface it seemed heavily political movie -- a layer I feel like I missed, left boggling at the headless woman's position in life.
After seeing a play inspired by "The Full Monty", I decided to finally watch the entire movie. And it was so worth it! It was fun and surprisingly intelligent, and I loved the music used.
I still don't know what to say about this movie. All the hype made me expect something even better, and while it was really good, it didn't quite grab me as hard as I thought it would. The transitions between life stages didn't feel very organic.
I had no idea how much I needed a movie like that in my life. I also had no idea the guy responsible for What We Do In The Shadows directed it!
It was great, very funny and slightly fairy tale-ish (not quite Wes Anderson levels, but with a similar feeling). The characters are the strongest point of the movie, always somewhere between realistic and a whimsical caricature, And the ending grounded them in reality enough for that crazy scenario to work.
Obligatory mention of pretty landscapes.
So I decided to see the original Westworld movie. Not bad, but also not spectacularly good. I think the concept of relentless, near indestructible villain whose motives are never examined looks very dated now, though.
At first, I had no idea if it was me being so tired, or the movie failing to engage me, but I fell asleep three times trying to watch it. But apparently it was not worth forcing through it the final evening. It was rather boring, and even the twist at the end didn't save it. Yawn.
I've seen this movie more times than I remember. Robin Williams is brilliant in that, and overall, despite a couple of gags, it's pretty depressing for a comedy movie.
R | 160 min | Biography, Crime, Drama
Visually stunning! It's a movie that makes you aware of its camera work, framing the characters and nature in a meaningful way. It was very slow, and the narration somehow made it slower - but the length of the movie seemed to purposefully lend the Jesse James's story more grandeur. Oh, and I was pretty surprised to find out it was a real story. Only in America, seriously.
I've only seen Casey Affleck in Manchester by the Sea, but he's definitely the superior Affleck. He was really good as Robert Ford - a very human, nuanced portrayal of someone who you just plain hated for how uncool and pathetic he was.
A good movie about stuff I don't really care about.
Kate Hudson was very good as Penny Lane, but I didn't really enjoy the main character's performance. The earnest kid being raised by a crazy but well-meaning mother is such a cliche at this point (and Frances McDormand was too over the top) that it didn't work for me.
It sounds like I hated it, but I actually enjoyed it. I suppose because of the main themes I just found it quite forgettable.
A piece of silly, trashy fun I really needed. So utterly ridiculous, and yet so enjoyable! I loved how this movie didn't even pretend to take itself seriously.
It's fascinating that after 17 years since Judge Dredd, we get a movie that instead of questioning fascism, seems to embrace it. Got any doubts about giving some group the absolute power over citizen's lives and deaths? No worries, they are now literally omniscient, since they can read your mind and tell if you are guilty! There was a tiny subplot about corrupt Judges that went nowhere. I mean, I can appreciate the fact that Karl Urban leaves his helmet on for the entire movie, but the message is just so backwards it's ridiculous.
On the positive side: it felt like something out of Philip K. Dick's book: the visuals, the reality-altering drug, telepathic mutants. I wish that was the direction the movie took.
I remember reading about this movie as a kid, and I wanted to see it so much!
Well, I should've watched it then, maybe I wouldn't have minded how terrible it was.
Damn.
There are so many things I wanted to say about this movie, but the most important thing is: this is the superhero movie I was waiting for. I wonder if this is how people reading Watchmen in 1980s felt, like the fact that this story exists is a cultural phenomenon in itself. I can't believe the world actually believes that a superhero universe needs its own "Children of Men".
I loved it all. How absolutely bleak it was -- but how many moments of genuine humor there were. I loved the sparse world-building, and how realistic the rare futuristic elements felt:, especially the self-driving trucks. Speaking of trucks: the car "chase" scene was great. You don't often see a car running into a fence and actually being stopped by it! It felt like it follow "Fury Road" example, but in a good way. Speaking of Mad Max, that scene with kids cutting Logan's hair was a nice reference.
The only thing I feel the movie could do without were the western references. A bit too on the nose.
/tbc
I needed to rewatch something where Logan ends up relatively fine. Damn, I needed it so much! Something to ruin my day: Hugh Jackman was only 3 years older than I am now when he played Wolverine for the first time.
(And I apparently misremembered: the terrible frog line was in this one, not in The Last Stand!)
Might as well rewatch them all.
Contains a terribly cute scene where a cat scares Wolverine and licks his claws. I didn't remember that one!
Another day, another Wolverine movie.
Definitely my favorite movie out of the new trilogy, and not even the stadium could ruin it.
The story had so much potential, but it started to fall apart around the one hour mark. I started empathizing with the sect members when the boy explained the plot and I was just supposed to nod along with the characters. I weep for what this movie could have been!
I really enjoyed the adult actors - I really need to watch Michael Shannon in something else. But the boy was just painfully mediocre, especially after watching the actress playing Laura in Logan. I wish they chose someone better or directed him better, because this performance might have saved the screenplay.
Overall, not that special.
What a snoozefest. 160 minutes of my life I'm never getting back!
I have nothing against musicals. Hey, I like watching live musicals! And I'm fine with musical numbers every couple of minutes, but when people sing almost everything, it gets ridiculous. Especially when Russell Crowe does it, apparently. And well, since I hadn't read the book, I was almost giggling at Javert's suicide. Holy overraction, man.
The most enjoyable thing about this were Helena Bonham Carter and Sacha Baron Cohen.
Enjoyable, but not very memorable. I think there's only one movie like that you can watch in your life without rolling your eyes -- on the other hand, you have lots of fun the first time.
I can't believe I've never watched it before! Obviously, I knew what was going to happen most of the time, and how it would end, since it was a rom-com, but it was still very enjoyable.
I had one major problem with this: how come the main character all of a sudden fell for Andie MacDowell? Maybe I'm just immune to her charm, but it came out of nowhere.
This was probably the worst movie I started watching in 2016. I decided to finish it just to get rid of it, and because I needed something to play in the background. And to be honest, I wanted something I could rate really low!
What a terrible, terrible movie. I couldn't help but compare it to Westworld this time, and wow, it somehow made the story even worse. The main actress is really wooden, the policeman seems straight out of an 80s cop TV show, and Bruce Willis plays a really stupid, one note villain. The final scene where he opens his eyes is just priceless.
I avoided this movie for years because of Ben Affleck, and because it seemed like a generic Oscar-bait drama. I somehow missed what it actually was about! The movie was great, and even though I know it wasn't particularly true to real events, the very premise is still unbelievable. Even Ben Affleck wasn't bad -- his character could've done without all the family drama, but he was pretty decent.
Making a movie actually too convoluted to follow doesn't make you seem smart, it makes you an inefficient filmmaker. And it's a shame, too, because the idea was really good! Garage inventors accidentally creating a time machine, and not really knowing what to do with it!
Everything looked good right up to the end, where you were just supposed to sit there, waiting for yet another Plot Twist. If I have to watch a movie three times, drawing diagrams who was where and when and why, it actually fails, no matter the premise.
I don't think I can say anything about this movie that wouldn't be a cliche: that it was a fascinating experience, extremely well done and well acted.
It almost feels like cheating to add this here, but hey, I watched it again! Simply one of my favorite movies ever, if not actually the favorite one.
It's almost embarrassing to be able to identify with somebody ten years younger than you so easily. It was refreshing to see a coming of age movie for a girl, and somebody who isn't 100% Oh Just Your Regular Teenager. The only thing that bothered me was the 180 at the end of the movie -- it was too sudden and too radical. Woody Harrelson's teacher character was one of the highlights of the movie. I like where they took his character, especially when he turns out to be a normal person with a loving family outside the work.
I had no idea it's the same actress that played in True Grit, but apparently she continues to be awesome.
Wow, a movie about time travel that explains its events clearly without being condescending to the viewer? I must be dreaming. Plot developments instead of plot twists? Wow.
Viggo Mortensen was really good at being an annoying guy who is Too Good For Society, but his family was way too twee.
I expected better from this movie. It was actually quite decent, and super pretty, but I'm getting tired of the family-driven drama in scifi. Can't we have protagonists who have different motivation? And the plot twist was so unneeded! The stakes were high enough without it.
It could've been such a great movie! If, if, if.
It looked great! Had actors I enjoyed! Promised an exiting sci-fi thriller about evils lurking on an empty spaceship! Such a disappointment.
Not my favorite from Coen Brothers, but still very entertaining.
A good concept that was totally wasted by terrible execution. Boooring.
The worst CGI I've seen in a long time.
I'm sure I've seen like, half this movie before, but I managed to catch it all on the TV again.
Not terribly nuanced for a movie that's trying to show many different perspectives -- the ultimate happy ending is still finding the right guy, and it's played over so many iterations it's almost amazing. It grated for me especially with Kirsten Dunst's terrible character, who everybody puts up with for some reason (friendship overcomes all!) and forgives everything eventually because her husband cheats on her. I mean, whatever. And the student who gives up Yale because she prefers getting married?
I'm not sure the conclusion I should reach here is "nothing will ever change, so why bother tryign", but the happy Stepford Wifeish montage at the end of the movie seems to imply that.
So damn good! I was afraid it wouldn't live up to the hype, but it did. It so did! It was funny, and insightful, and very clever -- one of these movies that you want to watch again immediately, because the reveal is a logical consequence of previous events, and you want to see all the clues you missed. I'm glad it didn't do too many jump scares, and that it was more of a pastiche than a traditional horror: the torture room was just priceless. And the acting was great all around, but especially loved the cold sociopathic girlfriend and the comedy timing of the TSA friend (consider this *beep* handled!).
So good!
The first movie I ever enjoyed Ryan Gosling in.
A lot of fun, a lot of style, fantastic chemistry between the actors. And the bee scene was great.
It's apparently a good movie weekend, because Coherence was also great!
I haven't seen such a terrible movie in a long, long time. Half an hour in, I wished it already ended and was ready to just drop it.
The characters were blank slates, the dialogues were cringeworthy, there was no tension, and the CGI was basically a bunch of smoke and mist. And if a movie like that doesn't even deliver on the action scenes front, you know it's really bad. Such a waste of good actors.
The concept doesn't really make sense, even if the actors manage to charm their way though its sheer ridiculousness.
I rarely add here movies I half watch on the TV, but this one eventually won my attention. It was surprisingly charming, and managed to make me invested in the characters' fate, despite knowing how everything will inevitably end. It was very refreshing to see that the main characters were successful people passionate about their careers, and I think I cheered for their professional success more than for their relationship. Priorities, priorities.
Absolutely hilarious.
Nebula was great, Peter was adorable, baby Groot wasn't annoying at all. The beginning was the best scene in the entire movie, nicely shot! It was very beautiful, overall.
I expected something better, with the differences a bit more meaningful than "stays with *beep* boyfriend and gets a *beep* job" vs. "gets an awesome boyfriend and a great job". There's basically nothing but manufactured drama for the "better off" version, and killing her off is a cheap trick. And so is the ending! Minus one for the ending.
You sometimes read about parents teaching their kids the wrong names of the colors, and thinking it's super hilarious. Well, that's a scenario that takes this kind of stuff into the extreme when you can barely believe it anymore.
Kynodontas is a lot weirder than The Lobster, and feel a lot more clinical. Again, there's no real in-movie commentary, but in The Lobster the commentary was culturally implied; here, the scenario too crazy to have nobody somehow *react* to it. It wouldn't feel strange if it was only the family, but the fact that the security guard says nothing somehow made it cross the disbelief line to me.
Other than this issue, it was very... consistent would be the right word for it, I think. The sparse but huge set, the sound editing, clinical sex scenes, the fact that how unexplained all the weird mythology the sibling shared remains throughout the movie, it all fit perfectly. And the acting, especially from the sisters, was really great -- the scene where the older one just recites movie lines are really great.
It's refreshing to sometimes see a thriller where characters do the smart thing, and it still doesn't work out for them. Especially when the characters are teenage girls.
But the premise was ridiculous (I especially laughed at the lecture scene, when everybody just nods along with the professor not quoting any research or papers) and I expected to see more subtler acting from McAvoy here. And the main female character seemed a bit too engineered. I mean, you can make a thousand movies about characters who all die because they don't share a unique set of circumstances that led her there and made her the final girl, but it was still a bit too convenient.
And that scene at the ending? I don't really care about a sequel.
So good it's bad.
I wish I knew who directed this movie before I went to see it. It's quite funny, though, because after 10 minutes of Song to Song I thought, "huh, it's so similar to The Tree of Life". The characters narrating their lives in endless, pretentious voiceover that tries to be oh so deep, short scenes that lead nowhere, heavy handed symbolism... Not even the cast can save it. I feel like it was supposed to be a more pretentious version of Closer, with the music scene serving as nothing more than a backdrop, but it failed even as that.
Also the stomach is the only erogenous zone that matters. It is known. Seriously, every single romantic and erotic scene in this movie included petting someone's stomach, and there were so many!
Definitely the best post-apocalyptic rock'n'roll samurai movie I've ever seen, and the most unique movie experience this year. Incredibly silly and weird, referencing a lot of post-apo genre staples I love and probably dozens of other stuff I don't care about.
Seriously, I wish I knew about the existance of Six-String Samurai earlier. I loved it.
I thought I would watch it because I loved 10 Cloverfield Lane so much, despite knowing it didn't have much in common with 10 Cloverfield Lane. It was a neat little movie, and the found footage trick was done really well. I managed to become invested into these characters' fate, so that's something.
With a crazy premise like that, a movie just cannot be terrible. And I really enjoyed it, no matter how cliched the revolution was, mostly because there were so many moment when I realized the movie doesn't take itself too seriously, no matter how dark it is. Oh, and if I didn't know it was Chris Evans, I would never recognize him. I thought his acting was pretty solid until he started his angsty confession. Internet ruined his lines for me.
The best scene: menacing fish gutting and slipping on the fish.
It's one of these movies where you think you have all the pieces of the story, and watch the character stumbling in the dark, waiting for them to finally understand what's going on -- and then it all turns around. While the structure and the plot twists were not without fault in The Machinist (Ivan felt like the most jarring element for me), it worked really well here. One of the most engaging movies I've seen recently, and I watched it in the middle of the night, fighting drowsiness, because I was so desperate to see how it ends.
So visually perfect! I love the way it was shot, with its washed out color making it look almost black and white, and all the shots of the fridge were great. And the subtle music in the background -- at the beginning it annoyed me slightly, but by the end I decided it fits perfectly.
Obligatory mention of how Christian Bale looked in the movie. I'm not a huge fan of his, but holy *beep* that's some level of dedication to the role, especially when you get the glimpse of how he normally looks in the flashback. And on top of his physicality, his acting was some of the best acting I've seen this year.
The last thing: it felt like a Hitchcock movie. How come it's not a Hitchcock movie? Really. The story, the music, the visuals, it all fits!
I should've stopped watching when I wanted to stop watching it, which was after 10 minutes. Offensively boring and boringly offensive.That's supposed to be a cult classic? Yawn.
It's not that I think La La Land is a bad movie, it's just that with all the hype I expected something better. The musical numbers seemed a bit forced, and the dancing was kind of terrible. The best thing about the movie is the ending. Now that was something I didn't expect!
I enjoyed it, but not without reservations. It gave me the same thrill as watching Rey did, especially during the No Man's Land scene, which, by the way, is the best scene in the entire movie. So damn exciting! Gal Gadot was so great.
The movie would work best for me if it skipped half the beginning and the terrible, terrible end, because the middle was actually a very solid movie with nice character dynamics. It did better with comedy and pure action scenes than it did with any kind of serious moments. The final confrontation was absolutely cringe-worthy, both visually and thematically. Ugh, seriously, the power of looooove! Give me a break.
Going in, I had no idea I'd leave the movie deciding it was worse than Prometheus. But it was! There was so much stupidity and not enough pretty visuals, plus the plot was really weak this time, and David stopped being remotely interesting despite Fassbender getting to kiss himself. The final plot twist was so heavily telegraphed it was laughable.
The only redeeming feature of this movie was Katherine Waterson, who somehow managed to make her character really interesting and engaging, despite not having much to work with.
Also, props for including a gay couple in the cast (why was all the crew couples, anyway?!), but the "my angel" scene was hilariously bad.
Well, obviously, it was a good movie, but Nurse Ratched wasn't as terrifying as I expected her to be.
A genuinely surpising experience. I was pretty sure Saturday Night Fever was a musical, not a social drama where people talk about unemployment and ethnic relations and abortion and religion and then die. I quite enjoyed it, even though John Travolta's character was a huge *beep*.
The best quote of the movie: "You know what four dollars buys today? It don't ever buy three dollars!"
Weird and meta, and very funny. Seven Psychopaths' structure is absolutely delightful, and the way it keeps unfolding layer after layer of the story, and plays with genre conventions is really something I don't see a lot of, and definitely not mixed with so much self-aware black humour. And the cast is perfect -- Colin Farrell should always play overwhelmed if well-meaning failures, and Woody Harrelson... damn, he can play a block of wood and be engaging.
Seriously, if Tarantino made it, it would be considered a cult classic. I wish Martin McDonagh did more movies, because both Seven Psychopaths and In Bruges are really complex, interesting movies with unique premises.
Loved the music in this one, "Mr. Mudd and Mr. Gold" goes on my country playlist.
There are some movies I want to write about immediately after watching them, and Take Shelter was one of them. Too bad I fell asleep.
But it was a fascinating movie, even if you know the only trick is making you question the character's sanity all the time, right until the end. But with added commentary about how your social status determines the way you can deal with mental illness, it's really effective.
It's mostly because of Michael Shannon's performance --
just like in Midnight Special, he's very convincing as a regular guy who's just so done with the weird *beep* happening in his life. It also helps that his character doesn't go down the "I'm a prophet, everybody listen to me!" route -- he genuinely thinks he's ill and wants to get better, but at the same time he can't help fuelling his paranoia. Refreshing.
Really weird, but somehow, it hit the right notes for me, no matter how ridiculous it was getting.
Very emotionally satisfying -- it's the kind of movie where you cheer for the characters with absolutely no reservations. However, I was a bit disappointed when I found out how some stuff in the movie was made up for the perfect amount of drama. Is the prejudice the real women faced not enough?
Wow, it really is THAT good. Tense and brilliant, and somehow manages to establish twelve distinct characters in 90 minutes. I loved the flow of the dialogue between them all, it was very natural. And the ending was very emotional to me, if not particularly unexpected.
I read up about camera work in the movie and feel like watching it again soon.
Okay, if I'm going to note here absolutely every movie I've seen this year, then it's not cheating to include this here, either, even if I've seen Hallo Szpicbródka more than ten times so far. Yay for constant reruns.
One of my Top 10 Polish Movies, definitely. I love all the songs and characters, no matter how ridiculous the plot is. Just great!
Funny and enjoyable, but I would probably enjoy any movie starring Woody Harrelson (so far, nothing has proven me wrong). Too bad about Jesse Eisenberg, whose character is really annoying. Is it refreshing to see a nerd surviving the zombie outbreak because of how nerdy he is? Possibly, but why must the nerd be played by Jesse Eisenberg? I really liked the younger sister, and I'm pretty sure I've seen Abigail Breslin in something else when she was a child, but I don't remember what I remember her from.
But how fun it is to watch people having fun in the post-apocalyptic world! Highly stylized fun, too -- I suppose half the special effect are really cliche by now, but that opening sequence with zombie apocalypse vignettes was great.
A very Guy Ritchie movie! Unlike most reviewers, I found nothing blasphemous in making a gangster movie about King Arthur -- in fact, I have no idea what they expected from a Guy Ritchie movie about King Arthur. It was very enjoyable, if not particularly coherent. I was very tired when I watched it and I swear I fell asleep for a moment, and suddenly Arthur and Jude Law were fighting on some island. I swear I'm not making this up!
The most disappointing classic movie I've ever seen. I can accept it was groundbreaking for its time, but it just didn't age well. I don't even know what's worse, the cliche story or the wooden acting.
What an absolutely beautifully shot movie. Really, even if it wasn't for the plot to keep me occupied, I would just watch it for how great the cinematography was, with all those shadows, light, and weird angles.
The only thing that annoyed me a lot was music. That terrible melody, damn.
I read it more than ten years ago, but even now I'm pretty sure I prefer the book. The movie seemed like a very generic science fiction flick, with decent CGI and decent acting and YA plot about how kids are the only ones who can save the world for some reason. The acting from the younger cast was really good -- especially the girl who played Petra was very natural. Overall, nothing special.
I watched it only for Michael Shannon, and, well, can't say it was a particularly good decision. Shannon plays some version of Elvis that doesn't really fit the cultural narravite surrounding him, but the reason for that escapes me. It's as if someone said, "so, let's do something different with Elvis", and then this movie happened.
And the weird plot would be better if at least 25% of this actually had happened.
This movie comes up on most "sci-fi budget movies" list I've seen, and that was the only reason I decided to watch it, despite the synopsis not sounding very interesting. Turns out, the main idea is quite interesting, but the execution isn't too good.
The main reason is the completely unnatural way the characters talk. There's no natural flow of dialogue! Most of the members of the group are simply boring or annoying, and there's no group dynamics interesting enough to justify putting all these people into one room for over an hour. They barely interact outside of reacting to the story.
I guess another Coherence is too much to ask.
I saved it for the hundredth movie this year!
It was... a perfectly fine movie, I suppose? I mean, I don't believe there's a movie that's more widely considered a masterpiece, so I was a bit disappointed, even though it aged well. The story structure was interesting, and I guess innovative for its time, but it's impossible to live in the 21st century and not know what Rosebud was.
The only thing I found disappointing was the cinematography -- I expected something way more visually interesting, especially having watched The Third Man recently. Being innovative is one thing, but it simply didn't look gorgeous enough.