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Last Good Movie You Saw


Gyaruson
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The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance

 

One of the classics, but I've got to say that I found it a bit too long and kinda dull in parts. For starters, even though it's an effective, powerful and simple story, it's really predictable. And since it starts in the future and then tells the main chunk of it from there, you're just waiting for all the boxes to be ticked. I couldn't say it definitely, but it actually might've benefitted from a slightly different structure, mainly by losing the framing device and just starting neat. Of course, it wouldn't be a film about John Wayne doing his schtick then. :rolleyes:

 

Anyway, it was a nice tale about a man committed to law and order up against the 'wild west', with elements of romance, sacrifice and even pessimism. James Stewart is great as usual, Lee Marvin makes an effective thug (and you'll notice a few actors that Sergio Leone went on to use) and there are some good moments. Plus, it has that immortal line, "When the legend becomes fact, print the legend."

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The ending is Odin changing into Loki, the midcredits is the scene with The Collector and the infinity stones thing, and the end credits has Thor coming back to earth to reunite with Jane and a scene with a monster still running around chasing birds.

 

 

So you wanted the scenes reversed?

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  • 2 weeks later...

Got Captain Phillips on Blu-ray.

 

Literally one of those movies that puts you on the edge of your seat. The suspense gets high, even when you're aware of how things are going to turn out. By the ending I swear my heart was coming up my throat! At times I wanted the pirates to suffer, but there would be moments where I had sympathy for them (well, 3 of 4). Maybe they wouldn't have a perfect life, but if there wasn't a warlord tugging at the strings, things would be different.

 

All in all I have this chilling feeling of what hell it would be to be in a hostage situation. That even when you're aware of a threat, even when you take precautions, but when the threat is human, so much can happen at a moment's notice.

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Kids (1995)

 

This movie is just as chilling as it was when I first saw it (maybe a year after its theatrical release, when I myself was about 15), only now I respect it. It was quite controversial when it was released, and I think it still would be if it released today instead of 1995.  I felt like it didn't deserve a lot of its criticism, but also totally deserved some of it. I was even more critical back then, as I was largely looking at it through the lens of cultural accuracy, and felt like the movie was a bit inauthentic in many ways, not to mention over the top. To some degree I still feel that way, though a lot of the content became more familiar to me in the years directly following when I saw it, and other script/direction choices just seem like better ones to me now that I have a different understanding of the medium in general. The director still comes off as a bit of a creep though, and a friend of mine who went to an art show of his confirmed that that is likely the case.

 

Looking at it now, I think the movie had some seriously strong points that I never gave it credit for as a teenager.  It is one of the most authentic looking and sounding things I've ever seen. The first of the two main reasons for this result is the way it's filmed, which makes it look almost like a documentary.  The second is the cast, which as I understand was nearly if not completely comprised of of actual kids that the director saw hanging out (and in some cases hung around, which is another weirdness involving this movie altogether) and thought would be appropriate. There was little-to-no acting experience to be found among them. His results were pretty much justified, as most of the actors came off as very natural and realistic, and even more important: familiar.  There were a couple of exceptions and weak moments, but more present in my mind in those situations is how much these look like real people, and not actors in costumes (no perceivable makeup, lots of people need haircuts, etc.) . Authenticity beats performance in this case (in my opinion), and the result of the combination of cast and and untouched locations is something that screams 1990s NY louder than just about anything else I've seen. From the language, to the lobby intercoms, to the bars on the windows while people shout to each other, to the turnstile-hopping, the way people are dressed, the brownstone (interior & exterior), the LES apartment interior, the bodegas, stoops, the subway rides (complete with ACTUAL subway panhandlers, one of whom I even recognized), the Jamaican dealers and the kids hanging out at the Washington Square fountain, ... All of it just comes off incredibly raw and gritty. You can almost smell the smells that you know are there on that oppressively hot day in the city. 

 

Another thing I applaud is how well this movie addresses one of the biggest and least directly confronted (considering how many were dying from it at the time) topics of the time, which was the rapid spread of HIV. Anyone who wasn't afraid of it before then, or who still had it in their heads that is was only something that affected the gay community, I'm sure they had a little bit of a change of heart after the grim events depicted in Kids. It's a shame that much of the controversy surrounding the film kind of overshadowed that. Or so it seemed to me at the time, anyway. 

 

It's an overall good script too. There are some really heavy scenes in there that demand pondering. The fact that it was written by Harmony Korine, who was 19 at the time, makes it that much more impressive.

 

I think I've hit the babbling mark. Here's a link though, for anyone that's curious, or that remembers the movie and feels like seeing how it's aged.

 

*edit*

Side note: Rosario Dawson got her start in here, as did Chloe Sevigny and Justin Pierce, who was in Next Friday shortly before his suicide in 2000.

Edited by FredEffinChopin
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Tim's Vermeer. Nerdy, and a bit too long, but interesting documentary about a tech millionaire nerd guy (made Lightwave software used in CG for film) who decided to see if he could paint a Vermeer, Dutch master painter from the 1600's. Vermeer's paintings are legendary for how they look like photographs. He, and a group of scholars, believe that Vermeer didn't paint freehand but used a rig of mirrors and lenses to essentially paint photographs by constantly comparing the color of each brushstroke to a reflection in a mirror. The tech millionaire had no formal training in painting, but managed to duplicate the look and style of a Vermeer by hand using materials Vermeer would have had. 

 

music-lesson.jpg

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As far as I know, most of it was scripted, but much of it was inspired by real life events that Harmony Korine had witnessed. The beating in the square was specifically mentioned as one of those. What's up for debate is the alcohol and drug use. The blunt rolling scene was one of those in question, as was the house party and the flop house scene. Everything else though, from the clubs, the pool, the sex scenes, were either written or improvised, but definitely acted. I think the final, awkward Casper scene was one of those improvised ones. But yeah, the fact that it's even a discussion is testament to how real that movie looks at times.

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The LEGO Movie.

 

Man, the movie is way better than I expected it to be. The twist was heart warming and the ending was absolutely perfect. I can not stress how the block animation is amazing, but also there are moments that are real-time LEGO. It's a great all around story that doesn't go into anything morally deep or complex other than the relationships that we form and what makes us... us.

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My grandma got a large plastic  storage box (like the ones put up in the attic kinda size) full of Lego for a fiver from a carboot. But other than that, yeah they're pretty pricey to buy straight from shops.

 

The movie was pretty damn good though, and I'd say despite being a kids film it was definitely targeted towards the parents and such. The twist you could see coming given things that appeared in the film earlier on.

 

I think some elements, especially Will Ferrell as Lord Business and the Dad might have gone over kids heads since they might not be at the stage of associating actors with their voice work, but other than that it worked on many levels without being one of those "dirty jokes for the adults" kind of things..

 

btw was "The Kraggle" easier to work out for Americans? It's not really a brand I've ever heard of. At first I thought it would have been one of these:

remover1.jpg

 

 

Here's an album of photos taken from the set of the film that's up at LegoLand:

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On the spoiler:

 

 

It is a real brand of super glue called "Krazy Glue." It's been around for decades, though honestly it's not some "#1 Super Glue of the U.S. of A" brand. Go to a general store or office supply and you'll see the same product design as it is in the movie. So "Kragle," and I honestly don't think anyone could have guessed it. It was fun to see real world item, like X-acto being "Exact 0."

 

I thought the piece of resistance would be some flat surface brick, like something that couldn't attach to other pieces. Nope, was the cap to the super glue!

 

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LEGO Movie

 

It was just enjoyable and I was laughing at every clever piece of dialogue, and the voice acting of Charlie Day, Morgan Freeman and Will Arnett. Morgan Freeman especially, I swear he has never had as much fun as with that movie.

 

 

Robocop 2014

 

This movie was fucking awesome. It needs no other description

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Scarface. Seen this movie countless times, I really do like it. When it's brilliant its brilliant, but when its bad it's the worst. Tony Montana really irritates me in the second half of the movie. The entire movie does. It just nosedives into infinite idiocy. His stupid sister Gina, his dickhead attitude towards Elvira, getting caught by the cops, not killing that guy with the carbomb, he just super fucks up everything. I dont mind rise and fall movies, but this one beats you over the head with it. i dare say Godfather 3 does it better.

 

I do love the first half though. And not only because hes a likable guy who succeeds at everything he tries and pretty much lives the dream, but because it's just a really good fleshed out movie at that point with good characters. Tony is also fucking cool as shit. Charming and likable as all hell. Even funny at times.

 

Michelle Pfeiffer does look fucking fine though. Damn.

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The Lego Movie. So good, although there are a few jokes that don't work (likely because they're aimed at 5 year olds), and a few not-as-interesting sections.

 

Like Father, Like Son. A Japanese film by Hirozaku Koreeda about a white-collar family who discovers that their sons was switched at birth and the boy they think is their biological son is the biological son of a blue-collar family. Great emotional film about the meaning of family (without getting stupid hokey).

 

Robocop sucked balls, but I'll post why in the proper thread.

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