Review the Movie You Viewed 10 (out of 10=Masterpiece)

[powerhour24]

I lied, I got distracted and I'm still on, I'd be interested to hear what aspects of Requiem's style you thought bled over into The Fountain. As for The Wrestler being 'anonymous' I rather thought it was the point seeing as how it was focusing on someone who'd kind of slipped into obscurity, and I liked the documentary look to it, which doesn't always work but here gave it a real authenticity. Perhaps it was just so striking to see him go so minimalist (even the score is barely there) directly following The Fountain. What did you think of Rourke's performance though?

Perhaps The Fountain isn't perfect, but it is one of my all time favorite films because of how ambitious, thought-provoking, beautiful and emotional it all is. Hugh Jackman's performance, particularly in the 2000 section is simply devastating.

 

[Lancemc]

Certain visual ideas, compositions, musical propensities, an extremely heightened (too heightened) melodramatic approach to his themes and characters. The Fountain is a very ambitious and at times beautiful film, which is why I like it, but it's still very much an evolution of what I feel is a rather gimmicky, pretentious (in the appropriate usage of the word), sophomoric approach to filmmaking that I saw in Requiem. If that is the point of The Wrestler, then so be it. Nothing that appeals to me though. I think the connections between it and BS are pretty superficial all things considered, even in the thematic preoccupations. The biggest difference being The Wrestler's objective approach (which itself isn't a bad thing of course, just doesn't do it for me there) and Black Swan's completely subjective design (which is always fantastic in cinema this rich). As for Rourke and Jackman, yeah they were both great. Strong performances in otherwise weak films (in The Wrestler's case, for me) never amount to much though personally.

 

[powerhour24]

Well we'll agree to disagree on The Wrestler, I found the three lead characters and their story beyond compelling, and I've said that the stylistic approach worked for me that time around so that's that.

I guess maybe I'd have to watch Requiem and the Fountain back to back or in close proximity to get what you're saying since I think they're practically polar-opposites. I can see why you might regard Requiem's style as pretentious, but again for me it worked (damn I'm getting deja vu, I'm starting to feel like if I went through the archives I'd find a very similar conversation... that or I'm just too frickin tired!), I find the film shows the obvious the horrors of putting all your eggs in one basket so-to-speak and shows the horrors of drug addiction without having to shove it in your face. Though it would be interesting to see Requiem for a Dream filmed in the style of the Wrestler. As for The Fountain, it was a personal expression and passion project from him, so I can't label it as pretentious (not questioning your usage like I would with many who spout of the word left and right), but if an audience member doesn't engage with the characters or material it very well may scream artsy pretentious filmmaking to them. Of course that whole sentence may be for not since you were probably talking again about the gimmicks you saw carry-over that at this point I can't see. I'll keep that in mind next time I watch both.

My eyelids are drooping and I'm probably talking in circles at this point, but this time around was a fun and civil disagreement.

 

[GirlsAloudFan]

I'm frantically catching up on all the 2010 movies I wanted to see, but just didn't get around to.

Machete

Overall, I was disappointed by this. For the most part it maintains the whole Planet Terror/Grindhouse vibe that I loved so much, but this just doesn't work as well as Planet Terror did. There are some great sequences, and I thought the movie started off very strong, only to sort of get bogged down in all of its goofy plot/league of bad guys story. Some of the over the top cartoony stuff worked, and some of it didn't. The climactic action scene is a dumb mess, and not very satisfying, even if Michelle Rodriguez looked great with her skimpy costume and her huge machine gun.

Also, this is an unnecessary thing to say because everybody knows it but, my lord, Jessica Alba is a terrible actress. Sure, she's in a cast full of people that are all hamming it up, but she sticks out, and not in a good way. God bless her, she's adorable but, yeah. Ouch.

I didn't think I'd ever be less than thrilled with a Robert Rodriguez movie where Lindsay Lohan shows her boobs.

Easy A

Emma Stone FTW. I liked this a lot, but didn't exactly love it. The last act didn't wrap things up very well at all, for me, but the set up and the bulk of the action was damn entertaining. Stone is in every scene, so it's her movie, and she luckily has a great screen presence and personality. Her parents (played by Stanley Tucci and Patricia Clarkson) were an absolute riot and stole every moment they had. There are also a couple of other good looking people in the cast, including Dan Humphrey and Aly Michalka, who has never looked better.

The scene in the first 5 minutes of the movie where Stone gets one of those singing birthday cards and proceeds to riff off of the Natasha Bedingfield song is one of my favorite scenes I've seen in a comedy in a long time.

So, if I had to rank the four 2010 movies I've seen in the last two days, I'd go:

1. The Social Network
2. Scott Pilgrim vs. The World
3. Easy A
4. Machete

I particularly loved the first two. Now, on to the next one.

 

[gump]

Just for curiosity: are you Aronofsky admirers also fans of the Dardennes? Not that I think that they are thematically similar (nothing could be further away from industrial Belgium than ballet at Lincoln Center), but there is certainly some visual overlap between their styles. What do you think?

 

[Lancemc]

I think there are some slight similarities in Aronofsky's last two pictures, mainly in terms of lighting, lots of handheld shots, behind-the-head perspectives, etc. Even then the aesthetic influence of the Dardennes only goes so far. I think it's a much stronger connection in The Wrestler for sure.

 

[powerhour24]

I guess I'm unqualified to answer that question, since I've only seen Lorna's Silence .

 

[gump]

There were a few aesthetic choices in Black Swan that reminded me of the Dardennes a lot, but you are right, it is much more clear-cut in the Wrestler, where it also extends to the subject matter to some extent.

 

[Lancemc]

Oh sure, there are certainly a few aesthetic choices heavily influenced by the Dardennes and similar contemporary-Euro film styles. Just in Black Swan I think the explicit instances of which are fewer, and it's really just limited to the camera work in certain broad ways.

 

[I Move in Mysterious Ways]

Tron: Legacy

I'll refrain from giving this film a 1 - 10 rating and just say that it's worth seeing. It's incredibly satisfying visually (and best seen in 3D) with several fantastic action sequences but has about as much plot as you'd expect.

The visual effects are just about flawless except for . . . digital Bridges. Great idea and neat effect, but not exactly perfect. The most glaring flaw is when CLU/young Flynn speaks. Even top notch CGI just can't nail human mouth movements.

 

[powerhour24]

The critics seem to have found their whipping boy for the year in Tron, but it is a helll of a lot fun, and plot/screenplay/acting-wise it is nowhere near as hokey as the original.

 

[LMP]

And then there's Michael Sheen.

 

[powerhour24]

Yeah, I laughed about that for a moment, but it got old real fast.

 

[CrashedCarDriver]

Somewhere

Another minimalist masterpiece by sofia coppola

8 out of 10

 

[LMP]

Yeah, I laughed about that for a moment, but it got old real fast.

He chewed enough scenery to make Helena Bonham Carter in the Harry Potter series look like fucking Olivier. And his character/situation thinly paralleling Rick from Casablanca was retarded, as was the Star Wars "homage" towards the film's climax.

I enjoyed it for the most part. Olivia Wilde being all sorts-a hot, Jeff Bridges having the occasional Dude flashback ("You're messing with my whole zen thing, man!"), and the fully realized universe/big ideas about the digital age made up for some truly awful plotting and even worse dialogue. Explaining why CLU and Flynn are at odds with each other and what happened to TRON is important, yes, but the story's momentum comes to a crashing halt every single fucking time they go into another exposition-fest.

That, along with the obvious franchise set-up with

Spoiler

a credits-hidden Cillian Murphy as Dillinger/Sark's computer whiz son for one scene and TRON seemingly rebooting as he falls in the digital water can kiss my ass. They must be important in the next film that may not happen because this one was a huge mess.

Often spectacular, to be sure, but certainly a mess.

 

[powerhour24]

Yeah I tend to agree, though the exposition didn't bother me (a lot of the time the 'dated' look they gave the flashbacks really entertained me for one thing), and yeah I was blown away by that cameo, nowadays we hear about every cameo from the second they're filmed, and that particular actor is one of my favorites.

Also, it's been so long since I've seen the original Tron that I don't remember if Flynn had any mannerisms similar to the Dude (I know he was like a genius slacker, so it's possible), so that did throw me for a loop but I laughed anyway.

As for Sheen, he was like Judas meets Rick played by 70's David Bowie, his club did make for a cool showdown though when Flynn shows up, plus you gotta love Daft Punk as 'MP3 Programs" .

 

[powerhour24]

Oh also, re: screenplay, it's a given that some people won't take to the premise, but you'd think in all the years they've been developing this, and all the money at their disposal, they could have gotten a real talented screenwriter to make some of it more stomachable for people not familiar with the original. Again though, I was so busy enjoying the ride to be annoyed by the dialog, and I'll stress how much better it comes off by comparison with the first one. I see people complaining online about the screenplay (not talking about you this time LMP) and all I can assume is that they never saw Tron, this is Best Adapted Screenplay by comparison. Now I'm off to look up what the rest of the screenwriters' careers look like.

 

[powerhour24]

OK, so the two credited with the screenplay were writers/producers on Lost, and the other two that share credit with them for the story have no other writing credits.

 

[Lancemc]

Brief reactions to some '10 films I've spend the past week catching up on:

The Ghost Writer - I fail to see the appeal. Or at least from somebody like Polanski I expect something less... anonymous, or at least something more cinematic, or more dynamic. It's fine enough for most of the run-time, just... this is what people are losing their shit over? Meh.

The Killer Inside Me - Garbage. Though it features some pretty rough Jessica Alba sex/spanking scenes, so it's not entirely worthless.

Fish Tank - Only got through part of it, stopped, had to reformat my computer, lost the files. Eh, probably won't bother finishing. Though I liked the choice of aspect ratio, and Fassbender always rocks.

Exit Through The Gift Shop - Surprisingly entertaining. Film has a fantastic form for a documentary, shifts in perspective and thematic focus. Began to lose me near the end when I wasn't sure if Banksy's film was merely condescending and cruel towards its new subject or if it was both that and equally self-deprecating. Which I think it was. Also incredibly funny, which helps. The reason the last part of the film works ultimately is because it broadens its target from one man under the delusion of being an artist to the entire realm of artists as creators, as celebrities, as producers of a consumer good, and the way in which all these parties relate to one another and to the art (or what is art even?)

Valhalla Rising - Starts off as a reasonably effective dark-age violent hymn. However, as the tale drags on it begins to lose its form, and the ratio of truly beautiful and evocative imagery to preposterous, hackneyed stylistic nonsense takes a sharp turn towards the latter. Still, it's got Le Chiffre pulling some dude's guts out in the first 15 minutes.

I Am Love - Now we're talking. Balls-out melodramatic, sensual cinematic experience. It's preposterously silly through and through, and one of the better films of the year, certainly the best of this batch. It's both anachronistic and modern often in the same moment, its aesthetic simultaneously recalling old Italian masters like Visconti or Antonioni and a contemporary artist like Claire Denis. As a piece of dramatic storytelling though, it's completely out of place (and as a result somewhat daring) in this age of serious realistic modern European dramas.

Rabbit Hole - Urgh. I'm a fan of John Cameron Mitchell too, but this is just too slight to even warrant viewing. Not terrible mind you - Kidman is in top form (also looking particularly lovely with her natural hair color, allowing herself to look more her age) and several sequences work wonderfully in the dramatic sense. The whole exercise amounts to little though, and you to suffer through Aaron Eckhart pretending he can act worth a shit. (though there's one unintentionally hilarious moment of his histrionics somewhat early on that's too good to miss)

The Clone Returns Home - It's like Moon minus the suck. An intelligent philosophical sci-fi film very much of the Tarkovsky mold - aesthetically, thematically, tonally - that maybe doesn't enchant as much as it could.

 

[Lancemc]

Forgot one:

Winter's Bone - Much like Polanski's film, it's a perfectly acceptable thriller, but who gives a shit. It's equally flat and probably even more shallow. If I get nothing else from it though, it's that the Ozarks sucks and white people are terrifying.

 

[LMP]

Yeah I tend to agree, though the exposition didn't bother me (a lot of the time the 'dated' look they gave the flashbacks really entertained me for one thing), and yeah I was blown away by that cameo, nowadays we hear about every cameo from the second they're filmed, and that particular actor is one of my favorites.

Also, it's been so long since I've seen the original Tron that I don't remember if Flynn had any mannerisms similar to the Dude (I know he was like a genius slacker, so it's possible), so that did throw me for a loop but I laughed anyway.

As for Sheen, he was like Judas meets Rick played by 70's David Bowie, his club did make for a cool showdown though when Flynn shows up, plus you gotta love Daft Punk as 'MP3 Programs" .

The exposition scenes taken by themselves weren't distracting or terrible, if anything, I enjoyed that story more than the one playing out in real-time. Then all of a sudden the identity disc is important, then Quorra, then the turnaround at the climax... it was about as slapdash as you could get. Once Sam gets to the Grid, he's almost a purely reactive and passive character. Then it's all about Quorra and her importance, then about Flynn coming to terms with CLU. Who's the real protagonist? I care more about Flynn and it seems that the bulk of the emotional weight is on his shoulders, but how does that inform the initial idea of Sam wrestling with his oh-so-unusual abandonment issues? The ideas are there, I just felt that they were unfocused.

Bridges' Flynn in the first one has similar mannerisms and line-readings.

And Sheen's '70s Bowie/Rick/Jim Carrey in Batman Forever schtick wore thin by the time he's frolicking with his cane during the fight sequence. Good for him that he's not playing figures in British history for once, but come on, that shit was absurd.

Oh also, re: screenplay, it's a given that some people won't take to the premise, but you'd think in all the years they've been developing this, and all the money at their disposal, they could have gotten a real talented screenwriter to make some of it more stomachable for people not familiar with the original. Again though, I was so busy enjoying the ride to be annoyed by the dialog, and I'll stress how much better it comes off by comparison with the first one. I see people complaining online about the screenplay (not talking about you this time LMP) and all I can assume is that they never saw Tron, this is Best Adapted Screenplay by comparison. Now I'm off to look up what the rest of the screenwriters' careers look like.

My issues with the screenplay are with the structure and how underdeveloped the two main stories are. I think that the prologue with Flynn's disappearance is as solid of an entry point for anyone unfamiliar with the original to register. It's the significance of TRON that's undersold save for Flynn muttering his name to himself toward the end of the film.

Most of the dialogue Sam's stuck with is about as cliched as you can get. He speaks mostly in asides to himself! The other performers I felt breathed some life into their characters, and he was stuck with "Look astonished and confused... like the audience!"

If there was more of an alignment between the content and form, then I certainly would've dug it more. I'd watch it again, sure, but I feel that like the original, it's powered by big ideas about living in the digital age and possibilities, but doesn't say anything particularly meaningful by the end of the experience, as thrilling as that experience sometimes is.

 

[I Move in Mysterious Ways]

The film delivered exactly what was advertised: High on visual spectacle, not so much on plot and story development. The star of this film is the visuals, not the characters - just like the first film. The problem is, I won't be too tempted to rent of buy it when it comes out on blu ray. I doubt it will really pack the same punch when it's not on the big screen and in 3D.

 

[powerhour24]

LMP, I definitely agree with your thoughts in the screenplay, but I did turn my brain off enough to let the movie control the ride and have a hell of a time. Like you said though, it had the potential to be stronger, had they gotten a more adept writing team. I hope they do get to make a 3rd one and if they do they put as much effort into the writing as they do the look. Though it would be fitting that Tron 3.0 not come out until say 2038.

 

[OrARoundabout]

The Kings Speech: 8/10

(I met Colin Firth a couple of weeks ago...very shy guy)

Black Swan: 8/10


The Figther: 8.5/10

 

[LMP]

LMP, I definitely agree with your thoughts in the screenplay, but I did turn my brain off enough to let the movie control the ride and have a hell of a time. Like you said though, it had the potential to be stronger, had they gotten a more adept writing team. I hope they do get to make a 3rd one and if they do they put as much effort into the writing as they do the look. Though it would be fitting that Tron 3.0 not come out until say 2038.

Glad that you enjoyed it. I did, too, but the "turn your brain off and enjoy it" analogy never works with me, it seems.

 

[mobvok]

I definitely enjoyed Tron Legacy. The inner screenwriter in me cried during the dialogue for some sequences (the board meeting establishing the OS Sam leaked; "by golly we extort students with our ridiculous prices, what on earth is different in version 12?" "nothing. MUAHAHAHAHAHAHA"), and others' criticism about the structure being a little aimless is true. Just as far as second half pacing is concerned, by the time the crew flies to the portal I felt the movie was starting to overstay its welcome a little.

But for all those faults in the story, it never felt insulting to the point where it undermined what Legacy was doing conceptually and visually. Those big ideas that LMP alluded to, even messy and a little unformed, were enough to carry me through. I hope this movie does well; I'd like to see a third film.

Driving home tonight my brain kept connecting all the roadside lights like the yellow reflector strips into solid Tron-bars. It was fun.

Sam and Quorra also need to learn about proper helmet use when riding motorized vehicles.

Olivia Wilde is way hot, and her puppy-like fascination with Sam was a neat touch. I'm glad that (IIRC) they never kissed. It's obvious she dug him, but so far I'd say that's wrapped up/confused with his being from the same world as Jules Verne.

 

[GirlsAloudFan]

Black Swan

Holy fucking shit. I feel I need to write about this now while it's fresh in my mind. One of the most frightening movies I've seen in a long time, and in a very, very good way. Mirrors and broken glass and broken bones and blood and water and scratching and clawing and vomiting and pain and drugs and Tchaikovsky and sex and lesbian sex and masturbation and death and love and black black black.

One of the big keys of the movie for me comes in, oh, the first 10 minutes or so when Cassel delivers his first lines of dialogue. He strolls in and tells the dance company the story of Swan Lake, which of course basically doubles as the story of the movie. But then he says (paraphrased) "Yes, it's been done to death. But this time we're going to strip it down, and it's going to be visceral, and passionate, and real."

And that's exactly what this shit was. The story has been done before: young, innocent girl struggles to make it in show business, etc. But it hasn't been done like this. At least that I've seen.

Scary as fuck. Trippy. Completely exhilarating. And what a final act. I love the entire movie, but the last 30 minutes or so are almost exhausting with the succession of intense images and moments. When Portman finally comes out as the Black Swan...holy fucking shit. Chills, and a pounding heart. I think everybody with a brain and two eyes has known for years that Natalie had a performance like this in her.

"I was perfect."

 

[Hewson]

The Town

Much better than I expected. Really enjoyed the action sequences, especially the car chase through the very narrow streets of Boston's North End.

8/10

 

[lazarus]

Great write-up, GAF. I'm going to see this again after I get to a couple new releases.

 

[MrsSpringsteen]

The Town

Much better than I expected. Really enjoyed the action sequences, especially the car chase through the very narrow streets of Boston's North End.

8/10

I thought it was very good-the DVD just came out last week with the extended director's cut. Of course you must have seen the DVD but I don't know if it was that one.

I loved the Fenway part. First time I went to a game over the summer I was looking all over the place for bullet holes. They must have used rubber bullets obviously but I saw a hole near gate A that looked like it could have been. I want to know if they really have a money counting room just like that one- of course now there's much less money in it.

You should see The Fighter too-it's very good.