Last Good Movie You Saw

[danielpholt]

Pulp Fiction

 

Second time I'd seen this one, and whilst the first viewing left me cold, I can finally see why people universally adore it. I don't think its as good a film as Res Dogs is, but I'll certainly be watching this again. 

[Hot Heart]

Ghostbusters.

 

While I don't do scores, the simplest way to describe this is, "It's a 3 out of 5."

 

For the longer critique. It's alright but never going to live up to the original. There are good performances (I even tolerated Melissa McCarthy), good jokes and some cool effects. In its favour, things move along briskly so you shouldn't get bored by the stuff that misses the mark. I can't help but feel that a lot of the jokes needed another pass either in writing or editing.

 

To elaborate... (I'll mark this as a spoiler but it's not really a major thing...)

 

At one point, one of them goes to use a "proton grenade" by throwing it up in the air then flipping and swinging her gun to hit it like a baseball bat... except she misses and has to kick it instead. It's a neat little gag, but it feels like something that should've been given more. Maybe put more emphasis on the fact that she's saving her friend in dire circumstances and giving it some slow-motion to really build it up. Instead, it's just kind of thrown into a messy action sequence.

 

And Holtzman's a fun character but she has stuff that feels rushed as well. Generally, it just felt like some of the better material was treated like throwaway jokes rather than given space (perhaps this is from Feig's TV experience on shows like Arrested Development and The Office)

 

 

Anyway, it takes a new approach with the story (and the "ghost lore") and actually has a (small) character arc. Without going in to detail, I can see why manbabies would be upset by watching the film as well.

[Mal]

Now for a good action movie.

 

The Raid: Redemption

 

The story is a bit fucky but the fights more than makes up for it. The buildups to the main fights is quite something. Plot armor is there but it is used well.

[deanb]

Star Trek Beyond

 

Apart from a really weirdly jarring edit of sorts, and really doubling down on the Beastie Boys Paradox this was pretty solid. Oh and not an issue with the movie per se but the little dip your heart does when Chekov is mentioned or on-screen :/

 

It had some nice touches on the whole "exploring new planets" n all that lot, with actual new things (well..there's a wee nod to Enterprise the show) rather than leaning on the lore of the old shows n movies. It tastefully dealt with Nimoys death too, and tied that in with Quinto-Spocks arc. Oh some of the music n SFX were great in it too, just love that "ping" sound they have n all the pew-pews. I also quite liked that they managed to use chekovs gun rather well too, they set up a lot of stuff that was things you could see in hindsight, which is better than the usual "here's the macguffin, put it in your bag" 1 hour of film passes "Wait, do you still have the macguffin in your bag!".

 

Oh the opening is pretty great too. Probably better than the cold open of Into Darkness by a fair degree. I'm also liking the continuing Greg Gunberg cameos in JJ Abrhams projects.

 

 

Minor spoiler on the jarring edit:

 

So they're being led in press gang formation, and then a bit after this they're suddenly shown in a cell with them breaking out with snot and there's not any thing in-between to show them being put in the cell or formulating a plan to break out.

 

 

Major spoiler:

 

They never explain how/why Idris Elba changed race and mostly back again and to what end. Also, though I was less concerned with this as others, how come he didn't know about his ship/nor attempt to repair it.

 

 

edit:

Oh yeah Yorktown looks fucking amazing (though I agree with Bones' assessment of it )

[Mal]

The Raid 2

 

Rama just can't catch a break.

[Strangelove]

Ghostbusters. It's fine. Inoffensive with some decent jokes.

[FMW]

Star Trek Beyond. I was surprised how affecting the extended destruction of the Enterprise was. That original starship silhouette is just one of those iconic images out of a show that really mattered in our society and culture. I knew the Enterprise was going down in this movie, but I was shocked to see that I cared. It helped that the whole sequence did a good job of highlighting the best of the recast crew. Lots of Sulu and Uhura.

 

After that I thought the rest of the movie was fine. Surprisingly good jokes actually. They almost all landed. Credit to Karl Urban for taking the Spock tracking his girlfriend joke and making it not come across as really creepy.

[deanb]

Yeah the destruction sequence, even though you know it's coming is still super tense. My only issue is the absolute extent of the damage done before they use the escape pods.

[TheMightyEthan]

Star Trek Beyond.

 

I agree Yorktown was badass, but I am unconvinced of the need for a megacity in space for what is essentially a supply outpost.

 

Re Krall:  

It mentions in one of the logs that he found alien technology that extends life, and it showed him transforming kind of when he was using it against those two Starfleet captives, so something to do with that is what made him transform.

 

 

My biggest quibble was

that you don't find out about the mining drones until near the end, because the whole time on the planet I was wondering how he had enough people to crew thousands and thousands of those ships but when they attack the base there's only like two huts and six guards.

 

[deanb]

I agree Yorktown was badass, but I am unconvinced of the need for a megacity in space for what is essentially a supply outpost.

 

"Exactly!"

 

 

RE Krall:

 

I got that stuff, more along the lines of why he transforms at all. The only reason I can see for it is out-of-universe in a "so you don't know right off the bat he's federation". But doesn't matter much given the more glaring plotholes in spock watching Vulcan be destroyed and the fact that VHF has a range of hundreds of miles so they wouldn't need to get close at all.

 

[Mr. GOH!]

Don't Think Twice. It's a funny little movie about a NY improv troupe coming apart after one of its members gets place on the movie's version of Saturday Night Live.

[deanb]

The Nice Guys

 

Was fun. Very Kiss Kiss Bang Bang though, in a sort of backhanded compliment kind of way. Honestly surprised the Jurassic Park kid at the start wasn't involved in some way (apart from the initial intro of "Misty Mountain"). I felt Goslings character was overly stupid though. The entire "we need $100K" scene/set-up was stupid n extremely out of place with the rest of the film. Like in a "I feel a scene was accidentally cut from the film" kind of way.

 

Otherwise if you like Kiss Kiss Bang Bang you should enjoy this.

[danielpholt]

The Nice Guys

 

Was fun. Very Kiss Kiss Bang Bang though, in a sort of backhanded compliment kind of way. Honestly surprised the Jurassic Park kid at the start wasn't involved in some way (apart from the initial intro of "Misty Mountain"). I felt Goslings character was overly stupid though. The entire "we need $100K" scene/set-up was stupid n extremely out of place with the rest of the film. Like in a "I feel a scene was accidentally cut from the film" kind of way.

 

Otherwise if you like Kiss Kiss Bang Bang you should enjoy this.

 

I might be misreading your comment here but The Nice Guys is very much directed by Shane Black, the same guy who directed Kiss Kiss. 

 

As for the film itself, I enjoyed it. It's no Kiss Kiss but in a summer of bloated comic book movies, it hit the spot. 

 

Don't think it did too well though which is a real shame. I'd love to see more from these three. 

[deanb]

Yeah I know it's Shane Black, hence the Kiss Kiss Bang Bang remark. It's a very samey feeling to it. Which is like Kiss Kiss Bang Bang is good but feels like a sort of "stuck in a rut" kind of thing. I'm not exactly articulate at film critique (apart from on a technical level I guess)

[danielpholt]

I wonder if he's falling into something of an artistic rut. Even Iron Man 3 had a very Kiss Kiss Bang Bang feel to it, granted both starred RDJ, but it certainly had similarities, which might be why IM3 left some people cold. It's less an Iron Man film and more a 'Tony Stark dealing with shit' film.

 

It's not his best work, but I think it's solid enough to warrant a re-watch at some point. 

[Mister Jack]

Kubo and the Two Strings

 

I wouldn't be surprised if you've never heard of this movie because they did almost no advertising for it, but this is the newest and, sadly, probably the last film from Laika, makers of Coraline and ParaNorman.  As a piece of animation, this is probably the most technically impressive stop-motion film I have ever seen.  Given the state of the medium, it has a good chance of being the most advanced stop motion film ever made many years from now.  They built a puppet that's over six feet tall for this thing!

 

Anyway, the movie itself is a Japanese fairy tale about a boy with magic origami powers named Kubo who has to find mystical armor to protect himself from a vengeful moon god with the help of a talking monkey, a beetle samurai, and a little paper man.  How can you not be curious with a premise like that?  The story, as I just said, is a fairy tale so it probably won't do a whole lot to surprise you, but it has some surprisingly good action scenes for stop motion and on a whole it's just plain fun to watch all this animation wizardry happening right in front of you.  If I judge it purely on the merits of the writing, I'd place it in between Coraline and ParaNorman, but it's worth seeing just for the spectacle.

 

Edited August 23, 2016 by Mister Jack

[TheMightyEthan]

Hot Fuzz.

 

There's not really a whole lot to say about it, it was a silly cop action movie comedy. I saw the twist coming miles away, but that didn't detract from it.

[TCP]

You're only seeing Hot Fuzz now? The hell were you doing in 2007??

[deanb]

Watching that Jurrasic Park movie everyone was banging on about?

[TheMightyEthan]

I was too cool for slapsticky comedies back then.

[danielpholt]

Kubo and the Two Strings

 

I wouldn't be surprised if you've never heard of this movie because they did almost no advertising for it, but this is the newest and, sadly, probably the last film from Laika, makers of Coraline and ParaNorman.  As a piece of animation, this is probably the most technically impressive stop-motion film I have ever seen.  Given the state of the medium, it has a good chance of being the most advanced stop motion film ever made many years from now.  They built a puppet that's over six feet tall for this thing!

 

Anyway, the movie itself is a Japanese fairy tale about a boy with magic origami powers named Kubo who has to find mystical armor to protect himself from a vengeful moon god with the help of a talking monkey, a beetle samurai, and a little paper man.  How can you not be curious with a premise like that?  The story, as I just said, is a fairy tale so it probably won't do a whole lot to surprise you, but it has some surprisingly good action scenes for stop motion and on a whole it's just plain fun to watch all this animation wizardry happening right in front of you.  If I judge it purely on the merits of the writing, I'd place it in between Coraline and ParaNorman, but it's worth seeing just for the spectacle.

 

 

This looks like it's going to be a film that the critics adore, but mainstream audiences just don't take too. That being said I'm probably going to see if I can get the GF to come with me for a viewing when it hits UK cinemas next week.

[Mister Jack]

Mad Max: Fury Road

 

I didn't bother seeing this one in theaters because at the time I was totally burnt out on the post-apocalypse genre, but playing the game put me in the mood to finally watch it.  I gotta say, I respect an action movie that concerns itself less with suspension of disbelief or realism and more with just being completely balls to the wall badass.

[deanb]

Yeah that and John Wick are pretty solid minimal plot action movies. I didn't see it at cinema but got to watch it on my dads decent TV n surround sound set-up.

[FMW]

Trollhunter.  The humor is so dry it could absorb an ocean without any visible change in consistency.  Appreciated as a comedy it's just lovely.  I feel confident that there were people who were expecting something much more fantasy or fairy tale based on the title, I certainly was.  But no, I got a grumpy foul smelling old government employee.

[Hot Heart]

A Most Violent Year

 

A film about an aspiring heating oil businessman in New York 1981. It doesn't sound like gripping stuff, but it is. I'd say in terms of tone it rests somewhere in the region of There Will Be Blood and The Godfather (not that I'd say it's as good as those). Mostly, because it is pretty much a study of this one laser-focused businessman during New York's "most violent year". And that man is played by Oscar Isaac, alongside Jessica Chastain and Albert Brooks (looking very different to his Drive character).

 

Essentially, the plot boils down to him taking the big leap to purchasing a riverside terminal that will be huge for his business. However, it's linked to a 30 day contract for securing the funds, which the bank is willing to loan him, or he forfeits. The problem is the heating oil industry seems pretty corrupt, with most of his competitors being gangsters or having gangster ties... and his trucks have started being hijacked. Then there's his wife, who's the daughter of a big-time gangster, who wants him to get tough...

 

What follows is a look at how he copes with the increasing pressure and complications when he could lose everything. The ending is particularly enlightening and really seals it, but obviously I won't ruin it. It's currently free on Amazon Prime if you're at all interested.