Return Of The Film Corner Thread

[duaneiac]

[BillF]

On 1/24/2017 at 8:26 AM, kinuta said:

Jackie - Pablo Larraín (2016)

 

Sombre portrait set in and around the assassination, framed as an interview with flashbacks.

Natalie Portman is excellent  in a complex, multi faced, chainsmoking performance.

The wife and I both had a little trouble catching her throaty, breathy diction.

Great music that reminded me of There Will Be Blood.

A must see.

Yes, a very good movie. Saw it this afternoon in an unusually large audience - all of them over 60. I guess it wasn't the name of Pablo Larrain that brought them in! 

[jlhoots]

Julieta

[Jazzmoose]

On 1/29/2017 at 0:22 PM, kinuta said:

Denial - Mick Jackson (2016)

A great cast working with a beautifully written script, I really liked this .

Recommended.

Sounds good.  If the local theater gets it, I'll see it, but my guess is I'll have to wait for DVD.

[jlhoots]

McCabe & Mrs. Miller

[medjuck]

Saw documentary Chasing Trane at Santa Barbara Film Festival last night.  Quite good, though it leaves out lots and at times is even a bit misleading. Most important it has quite  bit of newly discovered footage of Coltrane.  And the director claimed that it even has some newly found music: they discovered some of the 1966 Newport  performance on the tail of a Charles Lloyd reel in the Warner Bros. vaults.  (However I see in the Trane discography that it's listed as being released on what I presume is a bootleg label.)

 

The film is a good introduction to Trane and has interviews with many musicians. (e.g. Benny Golson, Jimmy Heath, McCoy Tyner and Sonny Rollins.) Though my favorite film interview about Trane is one in another documentary where Elvin Jones, looking  like he really means it says, "He was a saint."

 

 

[duaneiac]

A pretty good documentary about James Brown, even though it leaves his story in the mid-1970's so the final decades of his life are not even touched upon..  Makes good use of some vintage photos and TV clips of the man in action and being interviewed, as well as interviews with some of the musicians who worked with him (Maceo Parker, Bobby Byrd, Bootsy Collins, Fred Wesley, Clyde Stubblefield, etc.  It's even worth watching a second time to listen to the commentary track which features a discussion including James Brown's former tour director Alan Leeds, Christian McBride and Questlove.

[kinuta]

Passengers - Morton Tyldum (2016)

Silly, highly implausible story someone wrote on the back of a cigarette packet.

Some nice visuals of the star ship and moderately entertaining but quickly forgotten.

[page]

Perfetti Sconosciuti, 2016 Italian
Good story. The tilte means "Perfect Strangers", it is about not knowing people who are close to you and I think that there can be quite some truth in it.
 

[kinuta]

Billy Lynn's Long Halftime Walk - Ang Lee (2016)

An odd misfire. The whole film felt badly judged and out of whack.

I couldn't relate to or sympathise with any of the characters. The returning soldiers seemed weird and childish, the entire Texas football scene bizarre, tasteless and brashly full of itself. The various officials utterly loathsome.

I really like and respect Ang Lee but this one is an almost complete dud.

[BillF]

Time Out, one of my favourite French films. Thriller/psychological drama. Strongly recommended.

[jlhoots]

1 hour ago, kinuta said:

Billy Lynn's Long Halftime Walk - Ang Lee (2016)

An odd misfire. The whole film felt badly judged and out of whack.

I couldn't relate to or sympathise with any of the characters. The returning soldiers seemed weird and childish, the entire Texas football scene bizarre, tasteless and brashly full of itself. The various officials utterly loathsome.

I really like and respect Ang Lee but this one is an almost complete dud.

Agree about the movie - but the novel is good.

[kinuta]

The Founder - Robert Siegel (2016)

A cautionary tale of predatory capitalism.

Ray Kroc stumbled upon the McDonald Brothers fledgling hamburger restaurant and systematically robbed them of almost everything.

Michael Keaton perfectly cast as the obsessive,rapacious Ray.

I'd not heard of the film and was sceptical but really enjoyed it. 

Recommended.

[kinuta]

Tower - Keith Maitland (2016)

The mixture of animation, real time footage and occasional appearances by the people involved sounds like a mess but it works well.

I was impressed and found it very involving with a genuine sense of what it must have been like.

Very good.

[jlhoots]

Neruda

[BillF]

8 hours ago, jlhoots said:

Neruda

Looking forward to the release of that here.

[kinuta]

Cameraperson - Kirsten Johnson (2016)

A very personal, narrative free collage of short snippets for various documentaries, arranged in seemingly random order.

Gradually pieces from previously featured films appear giving some kind of coherence.

It was visually very interesting and one I'll rewatch. I'd like to see some of the documentaries featured in full.

[Jazzmoose]

I realize I'm in a small minority here, but what a shitty movie; I gave up about halfway through.  In the vernacular of the film, why the fuck am I supposed to give a fucking rat's ass about any of these fucking morons? 

[BillF]

One of my favourite science fiction movies. 

[kinuta]

20th Century Women - Mike Mills (2016)

 

Excellent, I really enjoyed it.

The cast, especially Bening, perform very well and the '70's backdrop of punk, feminism and social change is convincing.

 

 

Edited February 12, 2017 by kinuta

[jlhoots]

1 hour ago, kinuta said:

20th Century Women - Mike Mills (2016)

Excellent, I really enjoyed it.

The cast, especially Bening, perform very well and the '70's backdrop of punk, feminism and social change is convincing.

 

 

[Matthew]

Vacation From Marriage aka Perfect Strangers. Nice little movie with Robert Donat (who is one of my favorite actors), Deborah Kerr, and a wonderful Glynis Johns. Mousey married couple at the start of the war, he joins the Royal Navy, she becomes a WREN, they become stronger people, thanks to the military. Now that they are different, will their marriage survive? Handled with a nice, light touch, nothing earthshaking.  I wonder how a tired-of-the-war UK viewed the movie? it was made in 1945. Probably wry comments on the premise of the uplifting of life through the benefits of life in the Navy.

[kinuta]

1 hour ago, jlhoots said:

Not that it matters in the grand scheme of things, but Annette Bening not getting a look in for an Oscar for such a fine, nuanced performance is truly mind boggling. Nominating the leads from the grossly overrated La La Land just rubs salt in the wound.

 

[duaneiac]

Recently watched:

First time I'd ever seen this "classic" and i completely disagree with all the blurbs printed on this poster.  This heavy-handed, turgid, lackluster melodrama was a major disappointment.  Maybe it was "socially relevant" in it's time, but this over-the-top "message" movie with hammy acting in spades has not aged well.  Sure Rod Steiger's character had lived through a personal hell, but in the end, he is still just a major asshole for whom I really could not work up a rat's ass worth of sympathy.  Brock Peters' performance was the only redeeming thing in this turd.

A generally good look at the studio musicians who were behind so much music in the 1960's.  The film is a tad unfocused, but there was so much music that these guys (and gal) were involved with, it's understandable if the film feels like the director (Tommy Tedesco's son, Denny) tackled more material than he could fully cover.  The DVD has a lot of bonus deleted interviews, including some with musicians who did not make it into the final film (Emil Richards, Frank Capp, Vic Mizzy, Mike Nesmith, etc.)

or rather the MST3K version of this movie --

It's one of my favorite MST3K episodes.  It works so well for them because it is a bad movie, but not intentionally bad due to low budgets or the filmmakers ineptness.  The movie actually had pretty good production values and did its best to simulate a Bond movie.  But just starring the brother of a famous actor alongside few of the featured characters from Bond movies was no road to success.  The riffs the MST3K gang made on the move are merciless and very funny.

[kinuta]

Beginners - Mike Mills (2016)

 

I missed this first time around but watched it on the strength of the director's 20th Century Women, which I thought was great.

This is another excellent film. I especially liked the quite original directorial quirks and flourishes peppered through the film.

Ewan McGregor and Christopher Plummer very good as son and father. Thought Melanie Laurent was a bit iffy, the relationship didn't convince me.

Although Plummer won accolades, for me it was Ewan McGregor's film.

 

La Fille Inconnue/ The Unknown Girl - Jean-Pierre Dardenne, Luc Dardenne (2016)

Low powered tale of a doctor looking for the identity of a dead girl.

Reasonably interesting but I'm afraid it had quite a high ' so what' factor for me.

Can't compare with their previous Two Days, One Night.

Edited February 11, 2017 by kinuta