General Movie Thread

[dave from knoxville]

I agree it's the craziest. And yet it seems to work pretty consistently. I used to pit 5 people at a time against one another. If I can find one of those blog posts, I will throw the link up here.

[dave from knoxville]

I can't find one of the 5-way battle royals; I probably just posted it on Lambdamoo, but here's an example of the sort of fun that could be had.

http://gaughin.edublogs.org/2007/03/07/daryl-hannah-vs-burt-reynolds/

[dave from knoxville]

Since it's still my birthday weekend, I am going to go out on a limb and beg you fine people to read my blog, most of which involves just this kind of insane number-based movie analysis, and also contains jokes. Jokes are good, right? http://gaughin.edublogs.org/

[crumbum]

If someone recommends Crazy Stupid Love to you, don't speak to that person anymore.

[JonFromMaplewood]

Just watched Source Code. It was a lot better than the name would suggest.

[crumbum]

Just watched Source Code. It was a lot better than the name would suggest.

I liked that one too. Lots of people seemed to have a big problem with the coda to the ending, but I thought it was nicely ambiguous.

Attack The Block is really marvellous. In a way you could compare it to Duncan Jones' previous movie, Moon, in that it's a first feature with a low budget but was clearly helmed by a very talented and inventive storyteller with a great eye. It's everything Super 8 should have been but wasn't.

[Paul DeLouisiana]

I saw Red State. Maybe the worst movie ever made. I can wait to hear what Paul Scheer has to say about it.

[Chris L]

According to the annoyed sighs and verbal criticisms at the roling of the credits, I was apparently the only one in the theater who liked Meek's Cutoff. I'm a big fan of Reichardt and this change of format made me nervous, but it worked out well. It is one of those movies that grows on you. I saw it on Friday and it's still resonating with me. It was refreshing to see one of these modern western films that didn't set out to capitalize on the beautiful cinematography.

The reaction in my theater was similar. I liked it a lot, though I'm still not sure how I feel about the ending.

Meek's Cutoff SPOILERS ahead.

I just watched this and it's hard for me to be too down on anyone who audibly groaned or complained about the ending.  Reichardt has publicly said that the original ending was scrapped because they ran out of money, but given what I know about the resourcefulness of filmmakers as well as shooting schedules that comment sounds at least partly facetious.  The movie appears to be a study of the events that led each of these characters to shed their preconceptions about gender/race/religion and make the choice to follow the unknown (the Indian). Thus the film considers the actual outcome of that decision and the fate of the characters to be largely irrelevant. If that was the plan I still think the execution of the ending seemed a little half-baked.  The movie is still easy to recommend for the fascinating, unusually naturalistic and grueling portrayal of the journey, which really captures the mundane but deadly dangers such travelers actually faced.

But if you want at least a good idea of what would have happened after the last scene, the movie is based on a real incident, and its very title indicates they eventually survived and their trail was named after the buffoonish white male (boo. hiss.) who nearly led them to their deaths.

[JonFromMaplewood]

Just saw Drive.  Great stuff.  Ryan Gosling gives a great performance and Ron Perlman's jaw has never been bigger.

[Hugman 3.0]

Haven't seen Drive, but looking forward to it. 
Nicolas Winding Refn is weird for me.  I find him so unbearable in interviews ("What would be the last thing anyone would expect me to do? Make a big Hollywood movie" Um, that's kind of how it works, dumdum.) and I don't even like his films that much (I usually really like 3/4 of the movie). But I like the IDEA of his films so much that I consider myself a fan.

[jbissell]

He did a Q&A after the film when I saw it a few weeks ago and casually talked about how he is both dyslexic and colorblind and how he mostly just films things he wants to see, like Gosling in a satin jacket. I thought he was fun.

[wood and iron]

He also claims that he didn't learn to read until he was 13. His interview with Jesse Thorn started to get unbearable. He made an assertion that art is like violence and then Jesse asked "how so". You can feel him being taken aback because he wasn't expected to be challenged on his artiste statements.

That said, I thoroughly enjoyed Drive, Bronson and the first Pusher movie (haven't seen the other two). Valhalla Rising was a beautiful tone poem but boring as hell.

[crumbum]

That art/violence thing was such a classic art school formulation. You know, buddy, you can just say you like to film people's heads getting crushed.

[yesno]

I have now seen most of the summer superhero movies.  From good to worst, I would rank them:

X-Men: First Class (good)
Thor (okay, leaning toward bad)
Captain American (bad, boring)
Green Lantern (really, really bad)

I never want to see another movie about the origin of a superhero, his backstory, and so on.  If you can't make a movie that is just about a superhero's continuing adventures, maybe the character is shit to begin with.

[dave from knoxville]

For balance, I loved Captain America.