The last movie you've seen thread 2016

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The last movie I saw was Hausu. The last movie I saw in theaters was Godzilla. I may be Groot this evening.

My tastes in film really aren't as highbrow as all that.

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I saw Guardians of the Galaxy. I didn't think it was very good objectively speaking, but Lord was it a blast! I enjoyed it more than any other Marvel movie other than perhaps the second Captain America (which I also maintain is artistically the best).

Lucy

Even I with all my crazy thoughts never got the idea "Hey what if someone combined Limitless and The Tree of Life?" but apparently Luc Besson did.

Besson's work is really hit (Léon)-and-miss (The Messenger) for me. Would you say you liked Lucy, overall?

EDIT: For some reason I didn't realize that Taken was a Besson flick. That makes entirely too much sense.

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I finally made it to Gone Girl. It was...harrowing, and I'm not sure I'd want to watch it again, but still obviously a very good film.

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Fargo

Hilarious. Just a shame it took this long to see.

There's hope for you yet.

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The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies. I saw it about a week ago but since J.R.R. Tolkien came into this world a hundred and twenty-three years ago today I figured I'd mention it now.

BotFA is by far the funniest of the Peter Jackson Tolkien adaptations, and is funnier than most comedies. I particularly enjoyed the unnecessary amount of time spent with the Lake-Town refugees, Thorin's change of heart being communicated via a Neon Genesis Evangelion-style hallucination rather than Richard Armitage's (actually quite good) acting, Thranduil picking up six orcs on his elk mount's antlers, the introduction of Dune sandworms into the setting that went completely unexplained, Legolas grabbing the legs of a giant bat or bird or something to get from a low point to a high point and then shooting his ride so it would let go of him when it got there, Legolas climbing a collapsing horizontal surface like a staircase, the absolute hash made of Middle-earth's geography (Gundabad and Eriador are both presented as being north of Erebor, and it's apparently possible to ride a horse from Erebor to Gundabad and back in the space of a single day), Dain Ironfoot riding a hog into battle, the obviously focus-grouped characterization of Tauriel (who by rights should have been an excellent character and a sorely needed addition to the story), Galadriel going Full Noldor for the first time since the Fellowship of the Ring movie and with only slightly better special effects, how transparently sketchy Saruman was, wonderful dialogue like 'these bats were bred for only one purpose...WAR' and 'will you have peace...OR WAR?', Thranduil's characterization as some sort of cross between Curufin and Thingol, and the fact that Aragorn is apparently already a Ranger of the North at the age of like eight ten or something.

There were parts of it that genuinely worked, though (see, again: Richard Armitage's acting), and a (very) few that I'd even call improvements on the book (changing 'food and cheer' to 'home' in Thorin's death speech was a thematic improvement even if it was a little hamfisted, and the removal of the frankly absurd 'but sad or merry, I must leave it now. Farewell' part was welcome, although I'm sorry that we lost the 'child of the kindly West' part).

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I haven't seen American Sniper and I have no intention of seeing it either.  But is it really as bad as this review claims it is?

No. I didn't really feel like it was propaganda. It's just bland and full of cliches from better war movies.

I really wish Spielberg had stayed on the project as director instead of Eastwood. He apparently didn't want to make it much of a biopic and instead wanted the entire film to focus on a part of the book where Kyle is in battle against an enemy sniper that he couldn't locate. He dropped because he couldn't agree on the budget. Much more interesting idea for a movie right there.

Well after reading your response I was curious of who wrote the script, and apparently it was written by a Buffy the Vampire Slayer actor.

Not even a major character.

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My issue with Saving Mr. Banks is that it makes The Imitation Game look like Lincoln in terms of historical accuracy, and its particular inaccuracies of choice pretty much constitute character assassination of P.L. Travers.

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Birdman. Would've shifted some of the character focus around, personally, but otherwise I loved it.

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I saw Jupiter Ascending and agree with realisticidealist almost entirely, which I think might actually be a first for our respective tastes in big-budget action-and-heroics movies. (Except for having Speed Racer and Cloud Atlas among his favorite movies. I...really, really don't agree with that part.) I particularly enjoyed that the conflict was, technically, 'resolved' about halfway through in a sequence of bureaucratic comedy featuring a Terry Gilliam cameo, and the rest of the movie was basically just the heroes forcing the villains to abide by the relevant inheritance laws.

I don't want to say that it's getting such bad reviews largely because it has a female lead, but...

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Interesting take on Jupiter Ascending. http://www.dailydot.com/geek/jupiter-ascending-female-audience

To be fair if the comparison is correct and it's basically to women what the Transformers movies are to teenage boys that doesn't speak highly of it either. No doubt better than Fifty Shades of Grey though.

I'd say it's more akin to Guardians of the Galaxy in terms of plot, theme, scope, intent, et cetera, and closest to something like a concussed and disoriented Pacific Rim (which is still a couple steps up from Transformers) in terms of artistic merit. I mean it's obviously not Snowpiercer, which is the best sci-fi movie of the past decade or so, but it's not entirely lacking in emotional or thematic resonance either, and it's possible to justify watching on semi-serious grounds.

In other words it definitely was kind of crap but not crappy enough that I feel ashamed of myself for liking it.

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I mean it's obviously not Snowpiercer, which is the best sci-fi movie of the past decade or so, but it's not entirely lacking in emotional or thematic resonance either, and it's possible to justify watching on semi-serious grounds.

Have you seen Under the Skin?

No, that flew under my radar somehow. Should I?

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I'm under the impression it's very much in the "Crosses The Line Twice" style of Kick-Ass.

That's an unusual way to describe Kick-Ass. And yes, I'm aware of what the term means.

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When I was twelve years old, my grandmother died and my bereaved grandfather was, within months, diagnosed with Alzheimer's. He was eighty years old at the time and was lucky enough to have already had and retired from a full career, raised children and seen grandchildren's childhoods, and come to terms with the fact of his old age; but the diagnosis interrupted his grief and so his wife never really left him. Even at the very end of his life five years later he'd still expect her to be there when he woke up every morning.

He had been, and it does no good to sugarcoat this, something of a hidebound and intransigent Mid-Atlantic lace-curtain-Irish oligarch, staunchly Republican and an apologist for the oil industry in which he had been an executive. Yet in his decline, in which he was cared for primarily by his youngest son, my father, he showed astounding amounts of grace and patience and openness of heart, not because of his condition--I would never dream of saying that about Alzheimer's--but in response to it, treating it, for as long as he was able to (and his ability did diminish as time went on), as an enemy to be faced and worked against rather than succumbed to. He finally died at the tail end of 2010 after a coma of four days, and it was difficult to find a Catholic church to hold his funeral, because the Christmas season was already so busy.

I saw Still Alice this evening and this is a film that is going to stay with me for a long time.

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I saw Woman in Gold. I'd like to be able to say I was somewhat disappointed with this movie, but somehow I sort of suspected going in that it would be mediocre so I decided to just focus on its strengths as I was watching. Its strengths are the acting (it stars Helen Mirren and Ryan Reynolds, and the supporting cast includes nerd demigods Tatiana Maslany and Charles Dance), the inherent interest of the subject matter, and some compelling drama in the flashback sequences. Its weaknesses are the pacing in the non-flashback parts, tonal indecisiveness, and a sort of anodyne sensibility that rendered the morality uncomplicated (for example, the real Maria Altmann's decision to sell her family's paintings to Ronald Lauder for a colossal sum once she'd regained them is presented, but glossed over).

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Last week I rewatched Kill Bill and saw Mad Max: Fury Road. Kill Bill is one of my favorite films of the 2000s, and Fury Road was great fun and refreshing for all the reasons people have been saying it's refreshing (which isn't to say it's a work of genius).

I also saw Young Frankenstein. I'd forgotten how inexcusably paltry and objectified Mel Brooks's female roles are. It's not that he isn't funny, but I think it should be taken as a serious blight on his ability as an artist.

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

Last week I rewatched Kill Bill and saw Mad Max: Fury Road. Kill Bill is one of my favorite films of the 2000s, and Fury Road was great fun and refreshing for all the reasons people have been saying it's refreshing (which isn't to say it's a work of genius).

I also saw Young Frankenstein. I'd forgotten how inexcusably paltry and objectified Mel Brooks's female roles are. It's not that he isn't funny, but I think it should be taken as a serious blight on his ability as an artist.

Frau Blücher!

NEEEIIIIIGH

(In all seriousness: Not objectified, but still kind of paltry. Still immense fun, though. Cloris Leachman is wonderful.)

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Over the past few days I've seen two very good romantic comedies, the 2010 Hindi film Band Baaja Baaraat and the 1953 classic Roman Holiday.

Band Baaja Baaraat is very long, very bright, but not at all frothy--at least, not after around the hour mark or so. I was worried for a while as I was watching it because the main conflict of the second half of the movie develops out of a really ill-advised sexual choice that the characters make just before the intermission, but unlike in a lot of romantic comedies is the direction the movie goes with this both comes across as psychologically realistic and affirms a lot of my values, so I appreciated that. Both lead actors (Anushka Sharma and Ranveer Singh) are immensely charismatic, and I came out of the movie wanting to be a wedding planner (the first half of the movie follows the establishment and initial success of the characters' wedding planning business; the second half features their falling-out, disastrous attempts at running separate businesses, and eventual reconciliation).

Roman Holiday is of course delightful, the fact that Gregory Peck is visibly too old for Audrey Hepburn notwithstanding. The main appeal of the film is of course its atmosphere, and to a slightly, but only slightly, lesser extent Hepburn's wonderfully engaging first major performance. I was a little bit surprised to learn that Dalton Trumbo['s front man] won a writing Oscar for this movie; the dialogue, while good, isn't necessarily hugely better than that in other movies of the same type and period, and isn't really a major part of what it's remembered for. When I thought about it more, though, I realized that, given that dialogue isn't the only part of a script, in this case the plot structure and the order to what the characters are made to do when are genuinely brilliant and probably what Trumbo['s front man] was getting recognized for.

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As a side note, I was a bit surprised by the anachronistic style that this movie goes for (in the music, but not only), making it sometimes hard to believe it was really set in the 20s. It's too obvious not to have been intentional, and I don't really mind it, but it's weird.

Most or all of Baz Luhrmann's movies are like that. I watched Moulin Rouge! last week, and that movie, which is set in I think 1899, has a medley that includes 'Smells Like Teen Spirit'.

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I watched Romero in class.

In addition the movie's obvious merits (earnestness, telling an important story, Raul Julia's acting) and demerits (no budget, everybody else's acting, the script), I appreciated how the movie roundly rejects this canard that you see going around a lot in social-liberal circles (but also these days in Trumpista circles) that Religious Leaders Have No Place Speaking On Politics and should Stick To The Spiritual. As one of the priests in the movie points out explicitly, the Gospel has direct political implications. All the 'keep religion out of politic omg guyz!' characters in the movie are villains.

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Watched the Hateful Eight. It was good but the plot was weird in a way I can't quite describe. A lot of stuff happened but none of it was really important to the main story. The main conflict doesn't start until the 2 hours in and even that seemed kind of inconsequential. It was entertaining though. Also there was an odd message about how racist White people can be redeemed by being nice to Black people. Don't know if I agreed with it but it was nice to see a somewhat unorthodox take on race relations in 2016.

My best friend suggested (I thought this suggestion was somewhat incendiary, but it's what she said) that, much as in The Birth of a Nation white Northerners and white Southerners are reconciled by extrajudicially killing black people, in The Hateful Eight white men and black men are reconciled by extrajudicially killing a woman.

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I saw Star Trek Beyond and can confirm realisticidealist's impression of it.

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Saw Suicide Squad. sh**t sucked. Margot Robbie was fun.

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Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children.

I'm of two minds about this movie. In some ways it really works, and in some ways it really, really doesn't. I became interested in seeing it mostly for the sake of seeing Eva Green in a role that doesn't revolve around her sex appeal and also isn't Penny Dreadful, which bombed harder than Cavemen in the Nathan household for reasons I don't want to get into. If you go into it basically just interested in seeing Green in a role sort of like the person Robin Williams was pretending to be in Mrs. Doubtfire except louder, angrier, and with access to a time machine, you'll probably have a pretty good time. (Side note, Green would make an excellent Emma Peel if anybody wanted to try another Avengers reboot within the next few years. It's been a while since I've seen The Avengers, but I have a sinking feeling that my tastes have changed enough that I still wouldn't be very interested in seeing that. Shame.)

On the other hand, to snowclone Thomas Eagleton's comment on George W. Bush's Attorney General pick, Guillermo del Toro would have been my first choice to direct this movie, and Tim Burton would have been my last choice. (I hope he's not [Inks]ing Green or something, as has been rumored. She could do so much better.) The monsters aren't scary, the crawlies aren't creepy, and the World War II setting (with the exception of one scene that comes straight out of Slaughterhouse-five) is too ~quirky~ to convince. The ending is acceptable, but some of the choices the movie makes in getting there beggar comprehension. It's based on a high-concept YA novel that I haven't read yet but would like to, and from what I've seen of the fan response (as opposed to the polite but uncaptivated critical response), people who haven't read or aren't fans of the book liked the movie pretty well, and people who have and are despised it.

It shares a Wikipedia category ('time loop films') with such an august lineup as Groundhog Day, Minority Report, Puella Magi Madoka Magica: The Movie, and Christmas Do-Over. Tonally it's somewhere between all four. It's probably too mainstream in its purposes and ethos to become 'a cult classic', which is a shame because that would really be the appropriate fate for it. (Maybe if Bruce Campbell had played the bad guy instead of Samuel L. Jackson--which would also solve the massive problem of the only black person in the film being a murderous psychopath who eats human eyes.) It'd be a great party or sleepover movie and I may well use it as such in the future but it probably hasn't got much rewatch value in other contexts.

EDIT: THOMAS Eagleton not Terry Eagleton. Silly me.

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The Passion of Ayn Rand (1999). It was a crappy TV movie based on the book I just finished by Rand's one time best friend and briefly, official biographer, which detailed her life from Russia to her death.

I thought the movie distorted the book (which was very fair IMO) and portrayed Rand in a horrible light while whitewashing Nathaniel Brandon, who was literally everything bad about Ayn Rand on steroids, as some type of "tortured genius" which I found to be disgusting. They had the opportunity to make a compelling movie around the events of the Rand-Brandon affair, but instead they just had Helen Mirren trying as hard as possible to smear the woman.

You might be surprised to hear me say this, but even though I despise Rand, I do think she's interesting enough and tragic enough to merit an unflinching, warts-and-all-but-at-least-semi-sympathetic-on-a-personal-level biopic, rather than adulation or demonization.

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Love Exposure gave me cancer, then cured it, but the cure was syphilis.