Last Movie You Watched? Mark 9

Salomé wrote:

Gravity's Silhouette wrote:

GONE GIRL

Read the book when Fincher's name was attached to direct, and saw the movie based upon Fincher and Rosamund Pike's involvement. With all the hype about Pike's performance (it's hard to remember that she was actually the "front runner" for an Oscar when the film hit theaters) I guess I was expecting to be spellbound a bit more. There was nothing wrong with her performance and she's very good in it, but compared to similar roles....i.e. Sharon Stone in Basic Instinct, Glenn Close in Fatal Attraction, and Michelle Pfeiffer in Batman Returns, I just can't help but thinking this was not quite as good.

For most of that I blame Fincher; even at 150 minutes, the film still could stand to be a few minutes longer. He hurries through a few scenes (or else they're badly edited) and motivations and character transformations aren't given enough time to breathe or develop.

Maybe you shouldn't read the book before seeing the movie; that may have prejudiced me a bit towards Pike, since I knew everything that was going to happen (movie stays extremely faithful to book). I don't know.....she actually came off better in DAD.

Don't really understand all of the love Pike has gotten for this performance. Considering the fact that Amazing Amy is supposed to be a master manipulator, the very least you'd expect is for her to convince the audience.

Yeah, so you'd need Pike to sell the idea of being the manipulator, and she did. It's only her accent that lets her down a little bit, but she embodied the character otherwise.

Have been catching up with some of the recent Best Picture nominees (and the winner):

THE THEORY OF EVERYTHING. Utterly absorbing and profoundly moving. Eddie Redmayne and Felicity Jones give remarkable performances. If I have one small gripe it's that the film could perhaps have done a little more to explain - in layman's terms, of course - just why Hawking is so important in his field. Otherwise, this is stunning stuff and one of the best films I've seen in months.

WHIPLASH. Found it a bit of a snooze, chiefly because I didn't care about the protagonist (who is neither likeable nor interesting) or indeed any of the other characters. Neither did I buy - and this is a serious flaw in a film that I'd felt led to understand was an intelligent and believable drama - some of the situations presented as key moments. And I also had my issues with the apparent and highly questionable moral of the story, which may be stated as Nastiness Breeds Excellence (I wonder whether WHIPLASH was pitched as "What if R. Lee Ermey in FULL METAL JACKET were a music teacher?").

AMERICAN SNIPER. Like THE THEORY OF EVERYTHING, this is a compelling biopic that packs, as they say, an emotional wallop while managing to never come across as contrived or pandering. One of Clint's best as a director. Bradley Cooper is superb.

BIRDMAN (OR THE EMPEROR'S NEW CLOTHES). My reaction to this one was similar to my reaction to THE GRAND BUDAPEST HOTEL. Both seem highly original and are stunners on a visual level, yet they left me feeling shortchanged with regard to characters worth caring about and a story worth sitting through. BIRDMAN is great to look at, some of the dialogue is wonderful (and a lot of it isn't), and there are one or two scenes that are pure gold. Keaton is terrific. Emotionally, though, the whole thing left me cold and with the sense of having experienced little more than an empty box of tricks. I also found all the showbiz in-jokery (which at least isn't present in BUDAPEST) somewhat tiresome and self-congratulatory.

Salomé wrote:

Don't really understand all of the love Pike has gotten for this performance. Considering the fact that Amazing Amy is supposed to be a master manipulator, the very least you'd expect is for her to convince the audience. Even the two actresses in the minor supporting roles (Carrie Coon and Kim Dickens) outshine her.

I read GIRL WITH DRAGON TATTOO because I heard Fincher was directing it and I saw it because of both Fincher and Craig. Twice Fincher's name attached to a book adaptation has gotten my notice; in both instances I'd never heard of the book(s) that he was adapting. DRAGON TATTOO was a spell-binding book; GONE GIRL....eh, not so much.

In both films Fincher gets great work out of his actresses, but I think he gets more out of Mara Rooney because the script works better. Rosamund Pike was very good, but I think maybe her best work comes too late in the film to really justify an Oscar nomination. If I had seen more of what we saw with her and the wine bottle/surveillance footage scene, or the champagne bottle (you know, the crazy sick stuff), her performance might've been a grand slam. She's not really allowed to loosen up and go full-throttle until much too late in the film.

I've also read some people who thought her performance might've been off a little because she was having to slow down her pronunciation in order to get the American accent, but I'd have written the part to include her having a British background. I do think that slowed her down a bit.

She's still in my Top Five Favorite Bond Girls; they can never take that from her. But her performance as a femme fatale in DAD was better than her performance as a wayward, lost housewife in GONE GIRL. She should've gotten an Oscar for DIE ANOTHER DAY. But she won the Gravity instead for DAD, which is a bigger honor than getting an Oscar anyway.

The Wind and the Lion (1975)

More fun than I expected. Brian Keith nearly show the stole.

Brian Keith was one heck of an actor...well, at least whenever I've seen him in something he's larger than life. The best thing I remember about Meteor.

BIRDMAN is very self-congratulatory throughout. Could almost hear the director screaming, "Look at me!" Still enjoyed it overall, however.

Why is it self congratulatory? Because it tried something a little different to mainstream cinema and succeeded at it?

I mostly enjoyed "Birdman", but I get what Xenia means. It's essentially like a very good actors vanity project.

Salomé wrote:

I mostly enjoyed "Birdman", but I get what Xenia means. It's essentially like a very good actors vanity project.

It's a very INSIDE THE ACTORS STUDIO kind of vibe, for better or worse.

Movies stuffed with movie in-jokes are so 1990s. If BIRDMAN had come out around the turn of the century I'd probably have been more impressed by it, but right now it strikes me as a poor man's 8½ injected with the self-referential qualities of a SCREAM.

If a film ultimately stands or falls on its characters - and I think it does - then BIRDMAN fails to *ahem* take flight. It deals with superficially intelligent and creative people who are actually little more than shallow, neurotic, self-obsessed bores and are not particularly likeable.*

Like people in a Sofia Coppola film, they are beset purely by First World problems, but at least Coppola tends to bring her characters to life a bit more than is the case in BIRDMAN.

*Which is guess is precisely the point, but I don't think it makes for especially riveting cinema.

Cosmopolis - not really sure what I made of this; on the one hand, it could've been an eloquently witty and angry look at the global financial crisis ... on the other, it could've been a load of pretentious shite.

Still, a supremely 'detached' central performance from Pattinson. Also enjoyed Mathieu Amalric's pie-throwing protestor. Wondered if the continual refusal of Pattinson's wife to sleep with him was meant as some sort of ironic commentary on his 'Twilight hottie' status.

Brooklyn's Finest - nothing earth-shattering, but still a pretty gripping and gritty cop drama with Ethan Hawke, Richard Gere and Don Cheadle.

I was thoroughly engrossed COSMOPOLIS but I'm not sure if I loved it. I don't really know what I made of it.

They Live (1988)

Enjoyed the hell out of this. Roddy Piper is an odd choice for a lead, but somehow adds to the film's surreal quality. He's at least got comedic timing. Keith David is always a welcome. I like the use of LA. I love the score.

BLUE RUIN (2014, directed by Jeremy Saulnier). A minimalistic, intense and atmospheric revenge drama that plays like one of those 1970s cheapies championed by Tarantino. Not sure it adds up to all that much but it certainly holds one's attention.

One of my favorites from last year. Top 10 or so definitely.

staying in London overnight I ended up watching The Gauntlet.

it's a nothing film really. Cop has to get from A to C with several diversions, idiots and mobsters in the way.
And yet...it's a Clint Eastwood film. And it's thereby a little bit of a fun film. Eastwood has some typical classy expressions. The action is good, unending almost and a tad over the top (cops blazing twelve layers of brickdust out of the house early doors, mobsters over-drilling the cop car and the cops blazing away at the bus) and it rattles along at a frenetic pace.
The downbit is Sondra Locke. She has her moments, looks mostly, but like in Sudden Impact (which I think's the only other film I've seen her in) she just doesn't seem to fit and mainly annoys. Now yes the character here is annoying and I know Locke was Clint's gal at the time but still...
Dare-say a favourite moment is on the boxcar: "You wouldn't punch a lady would you?"
Thwack!

On the quiet I didn't realise just how many (or few considering the size of the cast) actors were linked to Eastwood via other films: Cowboy from Kelly's Heroes (Jeff Morris), Michael Cavanaugh (The Enforcer), Pat Hingle (Hang Em High, Sudden Impact) Bill McKinney (Bronco Billy) Roy Jenson (Thunderbolt and Lightfoot, The Gauntlet, Every Which Way but Loose, Any Which Way You Can, Honkytonk Man) Dan Vadis, Doug McGrath and behind the camera, Jerry Fielding.

And scene.

The Hunger Games - Jeez, there's some harsh stuff in this for a 12A certificated movie. Very good, though.

THE BABADOOK (2014, directed by Jennifer Kent). Count me as one of those viewers who was impressed - and indeed largely riveted - by this highly-acclaimed low-budget Australian horror film (championed by the likes of Stephen King and William Friedkin) while also feeling that it falls somewhat short of masterpiece status. It's much more successful as an intimate and harrowing psychological drama (with an excellent lead performance by Essie Davis) than as a horror outing - the echoes of REPULSION and THE OMEN work well, as the film builds a compellingly down-to-earth, almost kitchen-sink, sense of claustrophobia and dread, but there's rather a tacked-on and hollow feel to some of the more, for want of a better expression, PARANORMAL ACTIVITYish elements that are introduced. Good stuff on the whole, though.

I saw that one recently. The kid was an annoying little shit.

But yes, I agree that it was a rather enjoyable effort. Nice to know there's more to Australian horror than that Wolf Creek dreck.

Run All Night - nice to see a Neeson actioner with a certificate that actually allows for the ass-kicking and blood-letting to be shown, rather than the 'camera in as close as possible and editing so frenetic that you're unsure of what actually happened, allowing us to get away with a 12A/PG-13' approach which the Taken franchise has now adopted. The likes of Ed Harris and Nick Nolte in the cast take the film up a notch or two, as well.

Damn, Nick Nolte is still acting? I heard he was in bad shape not too long ago.

Yep, he's in this all right (albeit quite briefly).

The Stag - amusing Irish comedy in which a low-key stag weekend hiking trip is turned on its head by the arrival of the bride-to-be's brother, an uber-alpha male nicknamed 'The Machine'.

China Syndrome

a solid movie with a blinder of a performance by Jack Lemmon. I say this as 70s Lemmon is, in my mind, still sunk in Airport '77 (a film I seemed to see a lot of as a kid). Good performance by Fonda and then there's Michael Douglas, sort of along for the ride.
Films I've not seen or only once and eons ago (I saw bits as a kid, chiefly as I got bored and fled upstairs) I tend to look out for the composer. Seeing none I did some quick Googling...and there's the thing, the lack of a score is not a negative here. Such is the film it didn't seem to matter. Though sooner or later I'll dig around to find Michael Small's unused score (thank ye Intrada).

last night was Bad Teacher but nuff said.

Yeah, there should be a "W" at the end, but their ticket stubs now apparently have a character limit as I've gone to other showings with letters at the end not showing.


Fun to watch in theaters. Wasn't a packed house, about half full, but still engaged everyone to the end. It was a little dramatic at the beginning because the sound system was going on and off during the previews. Once Ben Mankiewicz showed up and was only mouthing the words, everyone got worried that the film would start with no sound. It was getting a bit hectic. Right after the modern UNIVERSAL PICTURES logo played with the sound going on and off, the Paramount logo comes up and the sound is from that point on perfect. It was so relieving, almost as suspenseful as the film!

This marks the second time I caught a Hitchcock film in theaters, again thanks to TCM for doing these Fathom Events. If I see another Hitchcock film, I really hope it will be PSYCHO. Halloween would be a perfect time to put that up this year, as it's the 45th anniversary.