What Did You Watch Today?

[Benjamin]

I loved Loving (2016). So understated, so simple and yet so polished, especially through the acting of both Ruth Negga and Joel Edgerton. Out of all the nominated actresses for the Oscar this year, I really hope Negga wins.

[Jimmy]

5 hours ago, Benkid Cratchit said:

I loved Loving (2016). So understated, so simple and yet so polished, especially through the acting of both Ruth Negga and Joel Edgerton. Out of all the nominated actresses for the Oscar this year, I really hope Negga wins.

Personally I wasn't that keen - I thought the performances were both great, but the execution of the story was at odds with itself, it so clearly wanted to be a character study, and thus the whole court case feels out-of-place: it only really works when the piece actually functions as a literal character study when Michael Shannon turns up. I was particularly impressed with Edgerton, but the whole thing felt a little one note. It has its merits, mostly the performances, but I was underwhelmed I guess - and for what it's worth, I love understated character studies. 

[Benji]

Jurassic World (2015) was okay, but not the return to form I had been sold on. Better than the other sequels, but it sort of felt like it was stuck at a flat rate of tension and never really moved up or down beyond that until it was over.

[Benji]

The Jungle Book (2016) was fun, and the kid who played Mowgli was absolutely ace. The star though was Idris Elba, who was absolutely menacing beyond belief throughout, and even in the nice scenes there was always a sense of dread waiting because his voice acting was so good.

[Benji]

Minions (2015) was okay. The first 15 minutes were the best and the rest just felt like going through the motions. I could absolutely have watched a full film in documentary style about The Minions throughout history.

[GA!]

A quick run through...

 

USS Indianapolis: Men of Courage (2016) - Possibly the most sincere film I've ever seen that's utterly shit. I can't believe a $40 million film in this day and age was so badly made. Shit acting, shit directing (spot the not-so-subtle foreshadowing as they pan a shot through a shark's jawbone hanging on the wall), and some mindbogglingly shit CGI. #shit

Manchester By the Sea (2016) - I like this film a bit more upon reflection, and Casey Affleck doing the Casey Affleck performance grabbed my attention all the way through. Problem is, it's an upmarket Hallmark Channel film, innit? I guess my issue comes from my preference for plot driven stories, but saying that Moonlight blew me away with a subtle character story and some interesting choices in showing that. This was 150 minutes of static. I understand it's a film about grief and reactive depression, but... Well... Why wasn't this a stage play instead?

V͠e̼̻̪͉̭͉͘ņ͈ǵ̟̫̹͕̰̩͕e͘a̶͇͔̘n̴͍̱c̮e̼̤̱:̟̤̠̝ ͙A͎̟͚̹͇͕ ̲̙͚͎͠Lo̗̖̠̬͚͇̭v̝͔̻̲̯̝̰͝e̯ ̥ͅS͚t̼̞̜͔͝ǫ̙̦̺r̰͕̮̲y͉̘̪̞̠͡ ҉̥͎̯̼̙ (2017) - I've glitched the title as this is technically embargoed! The second-third of the film is a great analysis on the aftermath of rape and the fucked up approach to the judicial system. Everything beside it is underwritten and does the subject matter a massive disservice. Cage is half-arsing once again, btw.

Hidden Figures (2016) - Crowd-pleasing, Oscar nominated biopic. All you need to know.

The Wedding Singer (1998) - A bit random, but I made the mistake of telling my friends I hadn't seen it. This joins the extremely small club of Adam Sandler films I enjoy (Punch-Drunk Love, Airheads... yeah, that's all). Generic but funny; helped I watched it with a crowd.

Lion (2016) - Crowd-pleasing, Oscar nominated biopic. The first half is better, the second half has some great acting but is a procession.

 

[MDK]

On 11/02/2017 at 18:39, Benji said:

The Jungle Book (2016) was fun, and the kid who played Mowgli was absolutely ace. The star though was Idris Elba, who was absolutely menacing beyond belief throughout, and even in the nice scenes there was always a sense of dread waiting because his voice acting was so good.

Big Driis is the best. My favourite scene of his from anything is from Ultraviolet, an old British vampire series, it was this one line I remember and it was how he delivered it, he said "... if I was, you'd be dead by now" or something like that.

[GoGo Yubari]

John Wick: Chapter 2 did pretty much everything I wanted a John Wick sequel to do. Deepened the mythology surrounding that world and its take on hitmen/assassins and the organization that sanctions it, put John against a tougher class of opponent than Russian mobsters, and found some cool settings for him to kill people in. Can't wait for the third one.

The Founder is decent, helped significantly by great supporting performances from Nick Offerman and John Carroll Lynch as the guys that Ray Kroc pretty much fucked over to make McDonalds what it is today. Michael Keaton as Kroc is good but his mannerisms in it reminded me too much of Jake Gyllenhall in Nightcrawler, a movie that basically has the same story structure ("offputting, sociopathic man with nothing but endless reserves of ambition stumbles across an idea that could make him a fortune, no matter who he has to step on to get it").

[Owen]

I watched Her again. Still great, haven't really got much else to say but GOD DAMN the ending makes me sad.

Also watched Synecdoche, New York for the first time. I enjoyed it, I think. I dunno, it felt like it dragged a little, but I enjoyed it mostly. I did get a bit lost at the beginning a tad, but other than it was pretty good! 

[Owen]

I watched Adaptation. today. Sensing a theme, maybe? Yeah. Just a tad. IT WAS GOOD THOUGH. I went into it with the expectation of it being good and I certainly wasn't disappointed. I think I preferred this to Synecdoche, New York because it seemed to drag a bit less? I feel like Synecdoche was a bit slow at the start and took a while to get going, which is fair enough because you've kinda got to give context otherwise it just wouldn't make sense, but maybe they just hung on the details for a bit too long. Adaptation., on the other hand, felt like it did this a little but it didn't seem like any of it was wasting any time and this seemed more straight forward and a bit less complex than Synecdoche (because of all the synecdoche and metaphors and etc. in the first halfish of the movie, I suppose.) SO yeah. Good stuff.

[Roster Depth Sicko No. 2]

Halfway through Santa Clarita Diet and I think it's great, light-hearted zombie-related humour always appeals to me but they've managed to twist the premise into something pretty cool.

[Monkey D. Lars]

Iron Monkey (1993) is one hell of a fun wire-fu film! 

[stokeriño]

I always forget how good the scripts in the Addams Family films are.

"Ah [the baby], he has my father's eyes."
"...Gomez, take those out of his mouth."

[MalaCloudy Black]

5 minutes ago, stokeriño said:

I always forget how good the scripts in the Addams Family films are.

"Ah [the baby], he has my father's eyes."
"...Gomez, take those out of his mouth."

Soooo many great lines in those movies.

"This is my costume. I'm a homicidal maniac - they look just like everyone else."

And I love when Gomez calls in to Sally Jesse Raphael's show. 

"Mr. Addams, please stop calling! We do not know where they meet!"

And possibly my favorite one:
 

 

[stokeriño]

 The lady killer line was the other one I was considering when I posted,

[MalaCloudy Black]

Raul Julia was a treasure.

[Benjamin]

I kinda' liked Passengers (2016). The whole premise of how they woke up is really grating on my conscience and whether I think the story was redeemed by the end of the film, and I can't quite put my finger on it. I really, really wished they hadn't put a bunch of stuff inside that just added to the whole moral conundrum of the film. It's ticks all the right boxes for a space blockbuster, though, but nowadays it's not really hard to do one anymore.

[IDOL]

Heard nothing but bad reviews on X-Men Apocalypse, but I enjoyed it a lot. The Quicksilver scenes were great.

[lanky316]

I thought it was enjoyable enough too. Not sure why it gets such a hard time from people. It's not a great film but I wouldn't expect the 35235230 film in a series to be great, that it's at least watchable is a positive to me.

[Arjen Robben]

Moonlight - Not really much I can say that can't just be said with "wow" because it is wonderful.

Also, I didn't watch these today but recently enough that I'll mention them anyway;

20th Century Women - This was just really sweet. Just felt like it had a lot of heart and it was really nice, also I have fallen in love with Greta Gerwig.

Loving - I think I liked it? Difficult because it's quite underplayed in what I think I could be very easy to be a big overblown melodrama but it's really restrained and almost went too far in the other direction, just about worked. I liked that it didn't just become what you expect might just be some courtroom drama and it just focused on the couple themselves. 

Manchester by the Sea - Fucking hell, this had a gut punch that came out of nowhere. I knew something was going to be slowly revealed but it still caught me off guard. Pretty gutwrenching at times, Casey Affleck and Michelle Williams are great.