Review the movie you just viewed (all the way to) 11

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I think my biggest problem with Benjamin Button was Brad Pitt; I like him in many other movies but here I thought he was something of a blank. The only scene of his that got to me is the one where he's watching Daisy talk and laugh with her ballet crowd and in that moment his character's isolation and hurt is palpable. Which is maybe why the film only clicked with me at the very end when it's Cate Blanchett who is more prominent.
 
With Benjamin Button, I take the difficulty of the project into consideration.
It is very ambitious, and succeeds far more than it falls short.

For that reason it scores rather high for me.
 
Still gotta see Knocked Up, it seems to be hilarious.
 
I found it to be a very interesting character meditation in addition to the look being excellent, it leaves much of the interpretation to the audience, instead of cramming exposition down our throats. I can't believe I forgot to put that on my 2010 list.
 
Shutter Island -

There's not a lot I can add that hasn't already been said in the original discussions for the film. It's hard not to have expected that ending (the film having been out as long as it has at this point and as many psychological movies as there are in existance), and so I kind of hoped that it would be a double twist and that you would find out that they really were fucking with him in order to keep their secret safe. Obviously, what actually happens is far more realistic, but in my brain, I kept waiting for something more to happen, so I had a harder time accepting what I was viewing...if that makes any sense.

Anyways, the acting was fantastic, and the location was gorgeous. Loved the movie, glad to finally know what everyone was talking about with it. The only thing that ever rubbed me the wrong way about it was some strange editing choices (imo) and the green screen in the motor vehicle scenes looking very obvious. But, minor issues.

8/10.
 
I think two of your gripes were highly intentional. One, I think the "twist" was never really meant to be a twist, Lehane littered his novel with clues to that (including more detailed cryptograms and codes Teddy is presented with in the book) and Scorsese does the same thing with visual cues. And the green screen in the car scenes to me were harkening back to the painfully obvious rear-projection traveling from movies from that period and prior. Glad you liked it though. :up:
 
powerhour24 said:
I think two of your gripes were highly intentional. One, I think the "twist" was never really meant to be a twist, Lehane littered his novel with clues to that (including more detailed cryptograms and codes Teddy is presented with in the book) and Scorsese does the same thing with visual cues. And the green screen in the car scenes to me were harkening back to the painfully obvious rear-projection traveling from movies from that period and prior. Glad you liked it though. :up:
Click to expand...

I was wondering if the novel maybe made things more obvious. Now that more time has passed and I realize that there was not deeper twist or anything, I'm far more settled with the ending and very happy with the film overall. And as has been pointed out, there were a lot of little similarities to Vertigo, so what you're saying about rear projections looking kind of bad on purpose just as an homage could be incredibly accurate.
 
powerhour24 said:
And the green screen in the car scenes to me were harkening back to the painfully obvious rear-projection traveling from movies from that period and prior. Glad you liked it though. :up:
Click to expand...

Not to mention the opening scene on the boat, which feels totally fake as well.

But it's definitely homage.
 
Oh, btw.
Inception

I loved it. Just 100% loved it. I feel like it's the loosest Nolan's ever allowed himself to be. Yeah, there was a lot of dialogue in the film that was quite over the top and a little hard to follow, but it still felt like he was having a lot of fun with the idea of the movie overall, and it allowed me to feel more relaxed when watching the movie, if that makes sense.

I loved that Dicaprio wasn't the only bright point in the film, acting wise. Everyone really had a great part to play, and they pretty much all did so well. I wasn't in love with Ellen Paige at first, but she grew on me as her character developed more.

The only real thing that left me a bit confused as to how to feel about the movie was poor Finscher...I mean, should we be happy that the "good guys" won or not? lol. I guess I'm glad that he found peace in some small way. I know that pinwheel almost made me cry.

Anyways, awesome, didn't make me question reality as much as I had anticipated, but I don't really care about that too much.

9/10
 
lazarus said:
Not to mention the opening scene on the boat, which feels totally fake as well.

But it's definitely homage.
Click to expand...

ElMel pointed out to me, when I said something out loud about my green screen issues with the boat that it probably looked fake because it was fake, since it was all in Leo's mind, which makes sense.

My "gripe" was with the scene with Stottlemeyer Ted Levine and the green screening there. But, I'm sure that they had enough of a budget to have made it look real had they wanted to, and I'm assuming they didn't want to.
 
Figured Gaffer of all people could find the fun in Inception. AMAZING movie, the most playful Nolan has ever been as a writer. Because of his Batman flicks, I suspected he was a dour, pretentious asshole, but he has about as much fun with cinematic devices and plotting as any writer I could name.

Re: Shutter Island, very fun film but hardly profound. Leo is tremendous in it and remains the #1 reason to watch. However, his performance towers above the others and the plot is so telegraphed throughout that the film manages to engage primarily through the tumultuous locale. I hate to be one of those people who says they knew precisely what was going to happen all along, as that's not really true. There were two possible endings: 1. he was crazy, 2. everyone else was crazy. Considering Leo's character is off his rocker from the get-go, it didn't make the conclusion all that surprising. Again, this shouldn't be relevant and is likely part of the homage, but the film would have been a lot more satisfying had it turned out to be the us-against-the-island picture it wanted us to believe it was. I was having such a great time until the rug was pulled out and our "hero" was left bare. Not really sure what to take from the film, but I enjoyed the journey.
 
Was I right in thinking "school's not in on Saturday" "...my school is" was intended to be the darkest pun ever? Chilled me to the fucking bone, that one. I also chuckled.
 
As usual, I'm too lazy to write reviews, but I just watched The Hudsucker Proxy and last night I've seen Buried.

The first is quite funny. The Coens kept getting better and better with their screwball comedies and this one, which was made in 1994, was only their second venture into the genre and is already pretty enjoyable. The camera work, as you should expect, is excellent; and so is the settings and the whole "feeling" of the film. It really gets you into the story. 8.0/10
The second is great. Really great. I won't say much else to not spoil anything to whoever haven't watched yet, but Ryan Reynolds is nothing less than awesome (yes, I mean it) and the director impressed me with the choice he took with this movie. 9.0/10
By the way, I'll just congrat myself for finally watching all Coen films, I was trying to catch up on that. (Ok, True Grit doesn't count, it has not opened here yet.)
Next... Michael Haneke, I guess.
 
Haneke's earlier work doesn't rock me, but from Code Unknown onward (his self-remake of Funny Games notwithstanding) he's tremendous.
 
Hmmm, I'm quite a fan of the original Funny Games. If there's a point in his career where he got tremendous I would say it's there, but I haven't seen his earlier works to say. Anyway, I think I'll go with The White Ribbon. Among the gazillion films I've been trying to watch I ended up forgetting about this one. Will fix it.
 
The White Ribbon is brilliant but I still think Caché is Haneke's masterpiece.
 
Good choice, I would put White Ribbon over Cache, but I haven't seen Cache in years. There's much more depth behind the obvious narrative that's on the screen with TWR, leaves you a lot to think about in terms of how society progressed from that time period on. Cache makes you uncomfortable to live and be yourself in the society we're in today though, now that I think about it, they'd make an interesting double feature.
 
I'd go with Cache myself. I have a tough time placing any of his films this decade (again sans the aforementioned remake) above any other though - Cache is merely the first among equals.

In other news, 127 Hours isn't my least favorite film of the year. So that's something.
 
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