What's the last movie you've seen? (2nd thread)

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

Olympus Has Fallen

It's an entertaining time if you can accept the obvious absurdity and implausibility of the plot. The guy playing the main villain did a great job, and that kind of elevated the movie a bit.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

I finally saw Lincoln. It had some pacing issues, I found the subplots with Lincoln's family just a distraction, and really I think this would've been a better movie if it focused on Thaddeus Stevens with Lincoln just being a supporting character. That said though Daniel Day Lewis gave the performance I expected and that won him another Oscar, and it was very impressive how it managed to keep tension during the vote on the amendment even though the result was already foregone. When this is constantly shown in high school American History classes five years from now and then on I'll say there are worse things they can do.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

The Place Beyond The Pines.

This has some misleading marketing (though more understandable than most films with it). I can't explain how without some major spoilers, so I'll just say this: Ryan Gosling is not the star. It's more of an ensemble piece.

That said, absolutely and utter fantastic. By far the best film I've seen all year. See it as soon as it hits your city (might be awhile, still in limited release) and don't try to cram it in after a long day at work, not only is it quite long but it sticks with you after the credits roll.

Eraserhead: You'll love it.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

The Place Beyond The Pines.

This has some misleading marketing (though more understandable than most films with it). I can't explain how without some major spoilers, so I'll just say this: Ryan Gosling is not the star. It's more of an ensemble piece.

That said, absolutely and utter fantastic. By far the best film I've seen all year. See it as soon as it hits your city (might be awhile, still in limited release) and don't try to cram it in after a long day at work, not only is it quite long but it sticks with you after the credits roll.

Eraserhead: You'll love it.

Nice, very excited for this! Did you see the full trailer for Only God Forgives?

My theater was so packed and there was such a long line I didn't get in until after most of the trailers and the only one I saw a part of was for The Company You Keep. I've seen the redband online for that one though, and it should be sweet. Almost looks like something Tarantino would produce.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

Take Shelter

I put off seeing this one for awhile despite the reviews and someone who's opinion I really respect calling it her favorite film of 2011, just because the premise doesn't sound interesting. A guy has hallucinations and bad dreams and so he decides to build his family a tornado shelter. But it works. The movie is largely just Michael Shannon having nightmares, but once you know the whole story it works very well. Big complaint is despite being set in northern Ohio everyone has this sort of quasi-Southern accent which is Hollywood's stock for "redneck" type characters. Oh and the ending is kind of dumb.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

The Place Beyond The Pines

Epic.

Knew you'd love it! (spoilers in white text, do not highlight if you have not seen it):

What'd you think when Ryan Gosling died? There was a lot of gasps in my theater, and I actually checked my phone to see the time since I knew the movie wasn't anywhere near close to over. Once the plot shifted I thought "this is kind of a weird narrative for a movie", but the ending tied it all up nicely and it worked. Probably a case where the misleading marketing was actually a good thing, the movie works better if you watch with the expectations of what the ads and trailer implied instead of what it is really is.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

Anybody else a big fan of Roman Polanski? Love his dark, creepy, heady stuff. I saw a number of years ago The Nine Gates with Johnny Depp in which Depp plays a book dealer who gets sucked into a cult run by bored wealthy people. Really superb, one of his best films. A heady, creepy mystery.

Well, someone recommended to me Polanski's version of Macbeth from the early 1970s. I watched it and have to say that from the perspective of someone in the States it's one of the finest Medieval themed movies I have ever seen. I will watch it again. Really great. Dark and hyper realistic from the standpoint of locale and sets (filmed in Wales, I read). All the illusions Macbeth has and ghosts  that he sees and so forth are clearly a product of his mind, he clearly makes happen the prophecies, and best of all, it could easily be a 1940s Chicago or New York Godfather kind of deal. Really well done. The coronation scene of Macbeth looks a lot like stuff you see in artwork from the time, and there are places where the movie is really trippy. A+

The problem is that Polanski is too terrible of a person for that to be easily separated from his work. He is an extremely vile and disgusting individual.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

Life of Pi

It's easy to both see how Ang Lee won Best Director and how the book was considered "unfilmable", though Lee's cinematography and directorial talent are exemplary the story had some issues being translated to screen and got boring in one part, there's only so long you can do "guy is stuck on a boat out in the ocean with a tiger". However worth seeing for the positive aspects and better parts of the story alone.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

I'll be seeing Man of Steel in about 10 minutes. Review afterwards.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

I'll be seeing Man of Steel in about 10 minutes. Review afterwards.

There was definitely some pacing problems. It felt like the first half was just a bunch of random exposition bits while the second half was just action sequence after action sequence. Despite that though it ended up tying together rather nicely in an odd way. Loved the little easter eggs too like "Luther Corp" being on that tanker Zod and Superman fought with. Worst thing was that the final battle with Zod was kind of a letdown. I agree with Eraserhead that his henchwoman was a much better villain, though Michael Shannon played Zod probably as best as could be done.

And then there's that thing Superman does at the end of the movie. UGH.

Highlight to read below:
I'm guessing it's that big scream after killing Zod? Yeah that was rather cringeworthy.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

Well I can see why a European would think that, but I identified the first part as not being set in the present day fairly easily because of the designs on the money shown, which was quite dated and obviously different from modern day bills.

That and that the pop culture references were all pretty dated as well (like Gosling's Metallica shirt and that Hall and Oates quip), though that made me assume it was even earlier, like in the 80s.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

Did you like it better than any of the three Nolan Batman movies, BRTD?

Didn't see this before.

But definitely not, it wasn't anywhere near any of the Nolan Batman films. I could see someone preferring it if they cared more about action scenes than writing or plot, and preferred the more over the top action sequences later in the film to the Batman films.

Two films I saw recently:

The Numbers Station: Good direction and acting, but the plot was kind of dumb and felt like it was written by a high school student. I'll give credit to any movie that puts John Cusack in an action role though, he's actually quite good at it but doesn't get his chance often to play such a role (and even when it does it's in more of a dark comedy.)

Wreck-It Ralph: Now this one I really liked. Despite being a kids' movie, I thought it was obvious with so many of the references that my age bracket was the real target. The plot was actually very well written, and often quite touching, I can see why so many females I've talked to have admitted to tearing up at this movie. This is easily my favorite animated film of the decade so far (There is no year 0, so 2010 is still technically the last decade, and thus Toy Story 3 is not eligible for consideration.)

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

Speaking of Man of Steel, did anyone's theater react when at the beginning Russell Crowe said "this is madness"?

I think I might've been the only person in my Sunday matinee showing who got that.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

VHS 2

Unlike the first one, this is mostly just based around one of the segments, the third one, which is very well made though hard to follow and doesn't end when it should. The second is also more of an Evil Dead sequel-style comedy than a horror film. However the frame story worked better and it flowed well than in the first one. I still say the first one is vastly superior, but I could see people thinking the main segment in this one as far superior to all the ones in the first one.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

The ABCs of Death

It's obvious with any movie that consists of 26 shorts some will be better than others. The problem is most weren't very good, and most focused more on being particularly shocking or vulgar rather than scary or effective. Only one (D is for Dogfight) was notably well produced and filmed and stood out. A couple others succeeded on being darkly comic (like N is for Nupitals) or had interesting twists that were often disturbing (S is for Speed and P is for Pressure), but overall it's hard to get through because so much is just not good. The Japanese ones in particular were notably ridiculous.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

Spirited Away

One of my co-workers lent it to me because of my not seeing any anime except the stuff on Adult Swim and Pokemon. It was definitely a very well done film.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

The Conjouring

This started off strong but got dumber and worse the more it went on and how more explicit it got. The ending in particular too was pretty lame. Still shows that James Wan is capable of directing far better movies than Saw.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

2 Guns.

I can honestly say that if this movie had cast anyone else it would've sucked. Mark Wahlberg and Denzel Washington are the only two people who could've played those characters to be as entertaining as they were. Imagine if the asshole sergeant in The Departed teamed up with the corrupt cop in Training Day to get an idea. Script was pretty dumb otherwise, but those two kept things awesome, along with the way over the top playing of the villain, and the main female played by someone who basically made it impossible to think anything other than "Damn she is hot!" every time she was on screen.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

Elysium

Much like District 9, I thought this movie's premise was much better than the implementation. It had a lot of illogic in the plot to things that bordered on plot holes, in that a lot of things the people on Elysium did seemed more like oppressing Earth than for their benefit, maybe this was intentional since the 1% does a lot of such things too, but there wasn't even an attempt to explain a lot of this. Primarily the medbay technology that kind of drove the plot. Why weren't they available on Earth? They were so prevalent on Elysium that it seemed every household had one, like refrigerators in modern day middle class America, so they couldn't be prohibitively expensive, plus Earth had things like an automated police force and implied legal system as well, and if Earth had medbays that'd solve most of the illegal immigration problem Elysium was dealing with. Earth also had modern day style hospitals, which would overall be more expensive to run than having a few medbays available, after all these things could basically completely fix up a person in a few seconds, so it's not like hordes were even needed. It's just like District 9, the analogy to the modern day is obvious, but it still doesn't fit all that well.

But if you just want to see some well done sci-fi action stuff, it's pretty good for that.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

My Little Pony: Equestria Girls

Think it would've been better had it been a series of episodes. There wasn't enough time to develop all the characters' human equivalents, some with potential got basically just cameos like the Cutie Mark Crusaders and Cherilee (surprising in the latter case with her being a teacher) and while I kind of liked the idea of the villain becoming a sort of Libby Alpha Bitch in the high school the ending with her becoming a literal demon was far too silly. The best aspects was probably Twilight not adjusting to being a human and still falling into pony traits. Still any fan of the show should see it, especially as its so short (probably its biggest flaw, it's only about equivalent to three episodes.)

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

Prisoners.

I'm glad this movie was made, ones like this used to be common in the 90s but are kind of rare nowadays, it lacked any of the stupid gimmicks one would expect in a modern film of this ilk like ridiculous over the top torture devices or completely out of nowhere implausible plot twists. More along the lines of David Fincher's earlier works a must-see for any fans of those.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

Does anyone else agree the trailer for American Hustle feels more like an SNL or some humor website's parody of a movie of this type? It's too bad because the movie sounds interesting (and granted probably still will be good, it's just that the marketing is dumb.)

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

Mud

Pretty strong film. It kept focus on the main plot while juggling some subplots with the boys well. I liked the Fugazi shirt the one kid was wearing at the beginning for the reference, though I found it a little odd, they were both a little too young to listen to Fugazi, and on top of it they're in podunk Arkansas.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

American Hustle

For all the obvious strengths this film had, it did have some flaws, one I think is that the strengths are sooo obvious, well acted, but everyone would expect that with the case (when you think about it it's pretty funny now not only is Bradley Cooper appearing in plenty of "serious" movies but it's also expected he gives a caliber performance), captures the time well, well directed, etc. But the story kind of lagged at times and there were stretches when it seemed the movie wasn't really about anything, just whatever the Bale and Adams characters happened to be doing at the time. Both began and ended on very strong notes though so that makes up for it. Also rather funny a lot of the time too surprisingly.

Also for anyone who thinks Jennifer Lawrence is the ultimate sweetheart know that her character in this movie (in addition to probably being about 10 years older than Jennifer Lawrence is, though not that big of a deal) is quite annoying. Not a bad thing, it means she plays the role well since that's what the character is supposed to be, but unlike a typical Jennifer Lawrence character she's more of a dumb that provides comic relief. But just Playing Against Type.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

American Hustle is really good. Great performances all around. I'm not really sure how the entire thing wasn't entrapment though?

Also I'm glad that they portrayed the corrupt mayor as the good guy and meddling FBI agent as the bad guy.

That's a bit of a stretch. The more likable character is not necessarily "the good guy".