Films Recently Watched

  On 1/20/2014 at 4:41 PM, zaphod said:

it's a commentary track, not a narration, and no, i wouldn't watch the film like that first. i already saw it once, hence my statement that it's the film of the year.

Yay!

Wolf of Wall Street - Enjoyable and great / 10

It was in an entirely different league to American Bustle

Re-watched Event Horizon since it came up in a discussion recently. I must have last seen it sometime around 98. I dunno, the premise of supernatural horror in a sci-fi setting is solid, it fails to deliver. The set design and the look of ship interior was neat looking though and the best part of the movie. Still the best Paul W.S. Anderson movie.

american hustle - 2/19 possible nipples

  On 1/21/2014 at 4:34 PM, eugene said:

american hustle - 2/19 possible nipples

Spot on.

Stupid fucking movie.

2/10 and a combover and the worst fake fat belly ever.

  On 1/21/2014 at 6:51 PM, Squee said:

 

  On 1/21/2014 at 4:34 PM, eugene said:

american hustle - 2/19 possible nipples

Spot on.

 

Stupid fucking movie.

 

2/10 and a combover and the worst fake fat belly ever.

 

Bale is too method for fat suits.

I saw the Bling Ring. It was alright but seemed to have no point at all and emma watsons accent was awful

i just saw HER, it was aight. i'm not a romance genre fan but mr phoenix was a good actor.

Dallas Buyers Club -

pretty decent story but kind of empty as a movie... doesn't help that Jennifer Garner is in it. The whole thing came off a bit like oscar bait what with the phwaoo method acting of McConaughey. The film just made me a bit mad and disappointed which I guess was kinda the point.

8\13 ringing ears

  On 1/21/2014 at 6:51 PM, Squee said:

 

  On 1/21/2014 at 4:34 PM, eugene said:

american hustle - 2/19 possible nipples

 

Spot on.

 

Stupid fucking movie.

 

2/10 and a combover and the worst fake fat belly ever.

 

he actually gained that weight

Inside Llewyn Davis (2nd viewing) - one of the most flawless Coen brothers of recent memory. I'd argue that as a complete film it has less flaws than even No Country. Mainly because there aren't any weird wtf decisions made in the movie like having obvious fake cgi blood bursts or things like that. Very strong film, don't know if I like it more than A Serious Man because it doesn't amount to as much, but it's a goddam good movie. Surprised it's not getting more love on a forum filled with musicians trying to make it. 9/10

  On 1/22/2014 at 7:25 AM, yek said:

i just saw HER, it was aight. i'm not a romance genre fan but mr phoenix was a good actor.

but its sci-fi romance!

  On 1/22/2014 at 6:31 PM, Jimmy McMessageboard said:

 

  On 1/22/2014 at 7:25 AM, yek said:

i just saw HER, it was aight. i'm not a romance genre fan but mr phoenix was a good actor.

 

but its sci-fi romance!

 

true true

Nebraska - interesting film. quite beautifully realized in some parts, others it comes dangerously close to falling apart. will forte and bob odenkirk were unclear choices as they both look the role but at times seem almost as confused as we are that they're in an alexander payne movie. Thought forte looked completely out of his depth in the beginning with really flat delivery but as the film went on it actually worked. the highlight was obviously bruce dern who brought lots of subtext to the role. Impressive physical acting as well. I liked it, but I'm from small town middle america and my grandfather was a shitty alcoholic war veteran who grew up on a farm in rural washington. i can imagine it being hard to connect with for others, especially non americans.

alexander payne movies are all worth seeing at least once/10

  On 1/22/2014 at 5:34 PM, John Ehrlichman said:

Inside Llewyn Davis (2nd viewing) - one of the most flawless Coen brothers of recent memory. I'd argue that as a complete film it has less flaws than even No Country. Mainly because there aren't any weird wtf decisions made in the movie like having obvious fake cgi blood bursts or things like that. Very strong film, don't know if I like it more than A Serious Man because it doesn't amount to as much, but it's a goddam good movie. Surprised it's not getting more love on a forum filled with musicians trying to make it. 9/10

thank god someone else thinks this. it's such a great film. i've seen it three times, it has so much depth and subtext. best film of the year by far and one of the best films i've seen about being an artist.

awesome! I don't even like folk music either but I've been listening to the soundtrack a bunch. I'm really fuckin excited to see what they do next, because frankly this movie was a masterpiece

Do you think the Gorfiends were his dead partner's parents? It's never spelled out in the movie but it seems to fit and would explain a lot

I read some hard to believe movie analysis which decided that Llwelyn 'is the cat' and they use that line with him on the phone trying to convey a msg to the owners of the cat as proof where the lady taking the message mistakingly heard him say that. I don't buy it, but i'm sure there is some clever symbolism with that.

  On 1/22/2014 at 11:14 PM, John Ehrlichman said:

awesome! I don't even like folk music either but I've been listening to the soundtrack a bunch. I'm really fuckin excited to see what they do next, because frankly this movie was a masterpiece

 

Do you think the Gorfiends were his dead partner's parents? It's never spelled out in the movie but it seems to fit and would explain a lot

 

 

  Reveal hidden contents

 

and how do you feel about the whole looping nature of the film, is that symbolic or literal? I understand that the Bob Dylan part was trying to show how his self important delusion had just been totally obliterated for good, but the ending is still a little bit elusive to me

 

 

 

I read some hard to believe movie analysis which decided that Llwelyn 'is the cat' and they use that line with him on the phone trying to convey a msg to the owners of the cat as proof where the lady taking the message mistakingly heard him say that. I don't buy it, but i'm sure there is some clever symbolism with that.

i'm of two minds on the parent thing. i think it's possible they are, but because it isn't spelled out in the film, it's open to interpretation. it's so ambiguous, as is most of the film. i like to think those are his dead partner's parents, and why else would they be such huge fans of this guy's music in such a personal way. but i can see them just being pushover academic types who llewyn somehow knows through the scene. although i don't think he would know them from any time done at school, as he's presented as a kind of working class guy. on some level the whole movie is about grief, so it would make sense that the gorfiends play a larger role in his life than the film lets on.

i'm an enormous fan of the film's cyclical structure. i think in some ways this is the closest the coens have come to making a david lynch film. especially the whole john goodman sequence, which at first seems like a digression, then you realize that goodman's character is one possible future for llewyn, that of the stifled career musician, while the johnny five character is the submissive dreamer. loved the sound design when llewyn starts hitch hiking and cars are whooshing past him like ghosts.

i definitely think the cat is a kind of literal parallel to llewyn, as he's basically living the life of a stray cat. plus the cat's name is ulysses, llewyn wants to rejoin the merchant marine (sailing), gets rejected in chicago by a kind of gate keeper, etc. i dunno man, i gotta watch it again when it comes out on blu ray. i don't think it's better than no country but it definitely resonated with me more than a serious man, which i've grown to love over the years. might be their third or fourth best film.

apparently Llweyn means 'lion like' in welsh, read that one a pretentious breakdown of the film's meaning. wouldn't be surprised if you read the same article

it's definitely one their deepest emotional films. As much as Im a huge fan of the coens I don't normally expect their movies to generate so much feeling. Fargo was probably the only other one i can think of, the way that movie ends with the talk of the coming baby while they watch tv gets me every time. As i get older too her lecture to the killer in her police car right before the end becomes more emotionally impacting too, like the first 10 times I saw Fargo that scene was only just a hilarious moment of dialog, but not anymore.

they attempted sort of an emotionally cathartic resolve with Raising Arizona and Millers Crossing but I don't think they nailed it as well, they were still playing around with bringing that type of stuff into their films.

but goddam if im not going to go on a Coen brothers movie watching marathon in the next few weeks. I might have to omit O Brother and the Man Who Wasn't there though, those films still don't do much for me.

edit: the part with the subtle music/ambient drone during the drive was extremely good, as much as i want to hear another fully blown Carter Burwell score in a coen movie, i thought it was extremely effective. Those parts were very reminiscent of the musical tension in No Country, where you almost couldn't distinguish the sound fx from the music. My favorite bit of that was when he sits in the bus and you hear the motor fading in and out of this comfortable drone. It was almost like he had let go to a certain extent of his fantasy, like the way a soothing car motor vibration would put a child into a deep sleep.

heh, i just did that. was pretty wonderful. i actually find barton fink to be moving and cathartic. for some reason the final image makes me well up. i agree though, they aren't what i would think of as "warm" and i found llewyn davis to be, despite the misanthropic main character, an extremely tender, kind of sad dream of a movie.

i think if i had to rank their films i'd say

1. no country

2. barton fink

3. man who wasn't there

4. llewyn davis

5. miller's crossing

6. a serious man

7. big lebowski

8. fargo (this one fell off for me, although i love how they play with the notion of anything on celluloid being true. fun to apply the film's opening title to lone surivor)

and then i'm kind of indifferent to their other work with the exception of intolerable cruelty, which is inexcusable dogshit. i sort of hated burn after reading but now i like it if only because it captures the high strung awfulness of washington d.c. rather well.

i love the score in no country. llewyn davis felt like it borrowed a lot of editing techniques from that film, as well as the sound design. but i love the scene in no country where the sheriff is looking at the blown out lock on the door of the motel and that very subtle ambient drone starts up. the same one that reinforces so much tension in the gas station coin toss scene. brilliant stuff.

it's too bad none of that stuff ever was put on a score except for maybe one 'song' from no country. Carter Burwell is a serious dude.

more or less agree with your list except Man who wasn't there wouldn't even make my top 8, and barton fink would take #1 slot. Id put Blood Simple somewhere in the top 8 too, even though parts of it haven't aged well it's by far one of their bleakest and darkest films next to No Country.

word of warning: if you want to show someone Barton Fink on DVD, make them shut their eyes during the menu, it gives away the fucking ending.

All is Lost

hhhm. Redford underplays the fuck out of this. and I couldn't really tell what he was thinking ever and who doesn't talk to themselves. don't believe the hype on this one sadly. For a low budget some of the inside the boat storm scenes were good but "for low budget" should never be a reason something is good. oh and the twinspeaksesque soundtrack was shit

In A Year With 13 Moons (1978)

Whoa. Gut punch.

This movie was great, but difficult. I found myself getting pulled between the thoughts of "why are they talking so much?" and "this is a little hard to watch" (notably the SLAUGHTERHOUSE SCENE). I did find myself getting completely absorbed in some of the character's personal monologues.

Overall, the story was heart-shattering, but told in a very graceful and beautiful way without being emotionally manipulative. Fassbinder's cinematography (shot by himself) was quite remarkable, especially considering the size of the budget. The acting was incredible too.

I guess this story had a lot of "autobiographical" ties to true events in Fassbinder's life... or at least those of his loved ones. Watching it, it's very hard to comprehend that this could be someone's reality. Tragic in every sense of the word.

Fassbinder / 10

  On 1/23/2014 at 12:47 AM, zaphod said:

1. no country

2. barton fink

3. man who wasn't there

4. llewyn davis

5. miller's crossing

6. a serious man

7. big lebowski

8. fargo (this one fell off for me, although i love how they play with the notion of anything on celluloid being true. fun to apply the film's opening title to lone surivor)

no love for Raising Arizon? Boy I love that film. A screwball comedy with whacky over the top acting and ridiculous set-pieces, all topped off with a great cast. What's not to love?

  On 1/23/2014 at 12:47 AM, zaphod said:

1. no country

2. barton fink

3. man who wasn't there

4. llewyn davis

5. miller's crossing

6. a serious man

7. big lebowski

8. fargo (this one fell off for me, although i love how they play with the notion of anything on celluloid being true. fun to apply the film's opening title to lone surivor)

no love for Raising Arizon? Boy I love that film. A screwball comedy with whacky over the top acting and ridiculous set-pieces, all topped off with a great cast. What's not to love?

yeah, not a fan of that movie anymore. i liked it a lot when i was sixteen, not so much now. it's certainly not bad, just not something i feel the need to revisit.

come on the fight scene in the trailer alone makes it better than Man Who Wasn't there

i love it probably because I know the coen's were smoking al ot of weed and living with Sam Raimi and Bruce Campbell trying to out-do the ridiculousness of Evil Dead 2, at least it made up for Crimewave