What MOVIE(s) have you been....seeing? watching? ARCHIVE

I watched Chappie. Its like Blomkamp put Short Circuit, Robocop, and Luc Besson into a blender. Certainly better than Elysium and probably on par with District 9. Like those films I don't see this one being remembered or talked about a year from now. Nothing here we haven't seen before. Also, every scene involving Hugh Jackman's character or ED-209 was so ridiculously unbelievable it completely detracted from the realism the movie otherwise seemed to strive for.

Focus: Will Smith is a con artist who meets a woman aspiring to learn the ropes. I loved the BBC show, Hustle, and this seems to borrow a little of that style and presentation. Overall, I really liked it, but it's split into two halves and I think the first half was stronger than the second.

Draft Day: A pretty interesting look into the wheelings and dealings of a football draft day, but also kind of typical of what you'd expect for a Costner sports vehicle. In a similar vein, Moneyball was better in every respect.

Calvary was pretty good. Not sure it's something I'll ever rewatch but really liked the stark atmosphere.

It's Cavalry

Black Barney wrote: It's Cavalry

Gleeson's horse was a beaut.

Several movies over the past week:

Mad Max: Fury Road - Second viewing. Still awesome. Discovered that my first viewing was indeed tainted, as there was a good bit of dialog in the beginning that was simply incomprehensible at that showing.

While We're Young - Ben Stiller and Naomi Watts are a middle-aged childless couple trying to not be boring when they meet Adam Driver and Amanda Seyfried, a 20-something hipster couple trying to be cool. I liked it quite a bit, although the last act seems to change directions (and not in a good way). The observations and the combination of humor and melancholy were pretty spot-on for me, a fellow mid-40s guy. We recognize all of our lives that we're getting older; but it's another feeling entirely when you start to realize you're no longer young.

Ex Machina - Finally got around to this one after wanting to see it for a long time. The story was simple, but elevated by subtleties. Oscar Isaac was great. Overall, I liked it a lot, but not as much as Under the Skin or Her, two movies that fall in a similar mindspace. My wife felt the opposite and liked it better than either of those two. I also liked that the movie knew exactly what it wanted to be, and didn't stray or lose focus.

Black Barney wrote: It's Cavalry

Calvary - Golgotha. The place where Jesus was crucified.
Cavalry - A military force composed of soldiers on horseback.

Time Lapse is an interesting time travel film from last year. It's an indie film, and the writing/acting is alternately good and weak, but the direction is well done and the premise is clever (ridiculous and contrived, but clever, nonetheless). Three roommates discover that they live across from an apartment where someone (who has died) has invented a camera that takes a picture of their apartment one day into the future. Predictable is how they use the pictures to get money from dog races, and how that creates issues with the bookie who then finds out about the camera. Less predictable is the particular way it affects their relationship (two of the three roomies are a couple), and how it all resolves, which involves a pretty well executed twist. As with many time travel movies, there is some screwy paradoxical logic that would be hard to reconcile if you thought too hard about it. But by and large, it does a decent job of keeping it entertaining and accessible. Worth a look on Amazon or iTunes if you like sci-fi thrillers.

Jurassic World is predictable and kind of shallow, but also great on the spectacle and overall a good time. Not even close to the original in terms of being a meaningful and memorable film, but as good as the other sequels and probably better in some respects.

Grudunza wrote: Jurassic World is predictable and kind of shallow, but also great on the spectacle and overall a good time. Not even close to the original in terms of being a meaningful and memorable film, but as good as the other sequels and probably better in some respects.

It was probably better than the two sequels, but no where near as good the original. The tension is missing from this one. Instead of having different dinosaurs loose everywhere and the humans virtually alone, Jurassic World has one big dino running around, where they know where it is most of the time, surrounded by tons of people. No tension.

But overall it was a decent movie.

Inherent Vice, which was low-key and a lot of fun, especially in the ten or so minutes Martin Short is onscreen as a coke-snorting dentist, sporting some kind of Sgt. Pepper meets Phil Spector getup. Great use of music, too. I'd like someone to have a go at adapting The Crying of Lot 49 next, which could make for a pretty neat '60s SoCal paranoia companion piece to Inherent Vice. Or we could just jump to my dream project: David Lynch directing a 15-part premium cable adaptation of Mason & Dixon.

Synecdoche, New York hits on themes so close to home (for me) that it was physically difficult to watch the whole thing. I can watch Cannibal Holocaust without flinching, but this was too much. Great movie but I never want to see it again.

Somebody, perhaps Roger Ebert before he went nuts, once said that if you like a movie you should seek out other movies by the same director because they more than the writers or actors are responsible for the overall result.

I thought I would pick a couple famous directors and attempt to watch all their feature films in order and see if this would give me some insight into their style, strengths, and weaknesses.

First up is Stanley Kubrick and his first feature length movie "Fear and Desire". A story of four soldiers trapped behind enemy lines trying to get back to their unit.

Was it good? Nope. It was pretty lame. The story was deep and self important in the way only college age people can be or think they are. The acting was what you'd expect for a film done on the ultra cheap.

If I took away anything it was that Kubrick, even then, was big on close ups of faces.

To be fair, Kubrick himself thought the film was terrible and fought to keep it from being shown for most of his life. Next up is Killer's Kiss.

Last night I watched Nightcrawler again since it's on Netflix. That movie is so damn good.

That's an awesome idea, repo...

Great idea, and one I'd like to do with Kubrick myself. I've never seen anything from his pre-The Killing work and I don't think I've seen Paths of Glory, either. Cassavetes and Peckinpah would also be interesting subjects for a bingewatch retrospective.