Last Movie you Watched?

Frankly, I think we're all being way too negative and petty about our film criticism here. I don't take kindly to the growing sensibility that anyone on this board who likes modern film is an idiot who couldn't possibly appreciate the classics, or frankly the counter-attacks. This is not how to was supposed to be, Caesar.

Liking Drive does not make me brain dead, an actor being in a film you don't like doesn't make them a hack, and swaggering around making absolutist pronouncements about films you've never seen doesn't make you an expert.

I think you are exaggerating the portion of members who feel that way about modern film, Sykes.

It's not the portion, it's the frequency and volume.

Fairbairn-Sykes wrote:

I don't take kindly to the growing sensibility that anyone on this board who likes modern film is an idiot who couldn't possibly appreciate the classics, or frankly the counter-attacks.

I think you're being way too general here. I don't dislike "modern film." I love lots of modern cinema (Wong Kar Wai, Coens, Wes Anderson, Spike Jonze, Michel Gondry, Mike Lee etc.), just not the stuff that usually gets the most hype online -i.e. most indie pics or blockbusters.

And the "brain dead" comment was about the folks at places like Rotten Tomatoes, Criterion and Empire. Small niches (okay, I might be inadvertently drawing a comparison to BAB) of mostly teens with a blinkered and limited fanboy/hipster perspective on cinema. Sure, that's a snobbish statement, but I think it's damn true. At least here we've got some real variety - interesting conversations about faith, smut, art, comic books, Trek etc. Covering the whole gamut, or almost.

Fairbairn-Sykes wrote:

It's not the portion, it's the frequency and volume.

Empty vessels make the most noise.

It's mainly the visceral attitude being reflected back upon members. I don't have a problem if YOU find a movie to be shallow, empty, meaningless, etc. but what I'd like to see less of is the condescending attitude towards people who disagree. And it's not all you, Sharky, there's been quite a bit of it lately. I just like to harp on you because I know I can and it won't get personal, just intellectual.

Okay well, I'll try to cover my own case. With Loomis (i.e. THE SOPRANOS discussion among others) he knows a lot of what I write is hyperbole, taking the piss, and tongue-in-cheek, so nothing get's too hearted or personal. The same with Harms, I imagine.

Klown/Auric's a bit different. I respect him, as Patton respected Montgomery.

Fairbairn-Sykes wrote:

It's not the portion, it's the frequency and volume.

Apologies if we're upsetting the equilibrium of the USS Enterprise.

MONEYBALL (2011)
directed by Bennett Miller

I have heard this film described as an "onion film". Different layers where there's something for everybody. I'd agree with that assessment, and while I'm sure this was done to get the film to appeal to all audiences (not just baseball fans), it's also the film's biggest weakness. One part baseball movie, one part docu-drama, and one part sentimental underdog story, MONEYBALL isn't quite the sum of all it's parts.

The docu-drama parts, with real baseball footage from that 2002 season, are really great and very well done (particularly the introductory sequence detailing the 2001 ALDS between New York and Oakland). Similarly, the sentimental stuff is effective, even if it does feel a bit rushed and heavy-handed towards the end. (And by heavy handed, I mean Jonah Hill literally says at the end: "Billy...it's a metaphor.") Loved the use of the radio broadcasts throughout the flashbacks and the end scene with John Henry. In fact, the film's entire conclusion is nearly pitch-perfect. The actual recreated baseball scenes (the main story) were fine, I just didn't care for the way they were done with the super bright lighting, fake looking sets, and terribly generic Hans Zimmer-lite score. Overall, the results of the film are a lot of great little scenes, but if you take a step back and look at the film as a whole, it feels a bit unfocused. I think it's a pretty good film, just uneven.

It seems like it's been forever since there's been any good baseball movies, and I think this one fits the bill rather nicely. That being said, even with the film trying to cater to different audiences, I can't really see anyone really enjoying it if you don't have at least passing interest in baseball, SABR, advanced metrics, or Bill James.
7.5/10

Sharky wrote:

Empty vessels make the most noise.

You always do make the most sense when you're talking about music(al instruments). :)

Louis Armstrong wrote:

Sharky wrote:

Empty vessels make the most noise.

You always do make the most sense when you're talking about music(al instruments). :)

I'm talking about myself, unless you think I'm a musical instrument.

No, I meant the empty vessels that you blow into. With apertures and plugs. They make a lot of noise.

First off, there's no plugs. Unless you're talking about an EWI (electric wind instrument) or electric flute.

What you're dealing with are reeds (i.e. the nasal double reeds, such as a oboes, English horns, bassoons, and bagpipes, the smooth sounding single reeds - the clarinet and saxophone families, and free reeds - accordions, harmonicas, reed organs etc.) and edge-blown aerophones - flutes and piccolos. They're got all got keys which you press down, mouthpieces, resonating chambers and ligature (only in single reeds).

There ya go.

Ha ha, see what I mean? Thanks for the insight. ;)

I saw Drive at TIFF, so unless we consider positive Cannes reviews as hype (yeah, right, because Uncle Boonmee was such a box office smash), my amazement at its quality preceded the response it got in the last couple of weeks (deservedly so, I might add)
As for The Birds, I still stand by my opinion of it being a poor film (subtext and surface go hand in hand, so I'm not interested in the former if a film already lets me down on the latter count), but I doubt I would've called Hitchcock a moron in any case.

Sharky wrote:

You want us to become a bunch of brain dead optimists like over at Empire Online, Sir Miles?

missed this, really wanna know who you're referring to if you actually read it

Klown wrote:

Sharky wrote:

You want us to become a bunch of brain dead optimists like over at Empire Online, Sir Miles?

missed this, really wanna know who you're referring to if you actually read it

Aren't/weren't you Miles Messervy 007 at Empire Online Forums. Am I wrong?

Fairbairn-Sykes wrote:

I disagree, Hendricks is great. Then again it seems to suddenly be popular around here to dislike anything and anyone from any film or television show not at least twenty-five years old.

I can be hip with the kids here. Some of my favourite TV shows of all time are from the last decade. There's a whole list. Most notably Lost and Battlestar Galactica. Both are truly awesome shows. Honorable mention to Caprica. Plus Buffy, Angel, Firefly and Dark Angel. And Prison Break and Alias were real good too. I'd rank all these shows as A+ with triple platinum status for both BSG and Lost. Double Platinum for Prison Break. True Blood and Fringe are currently-running shows that I'd give an A to as well.

I think the 2000's might rank with the 1960's as another classic-era of television.

As for movies, I mostly watch new fare, simply because I've been around long enough to have seen most of the old stuff I want to see. Although you never fully catch-up. There is still plenty of material from the 1950's to 1970's I'd like to see for the first time.

FS is spouting BS. While I have said that film making is not wot it used to be, I believe US television is better than it's ever been.

It all comes down to writing. Hollywood has gone to seed because the directors and producers have the power. In TV, the writers reign supreme. Ergo contemporary film is shit, while deli-vision other is delectable.

dr. strangelove wrote:

MONEYBALL (2011)
directed by Bennett Miller

I have heard this film described as an "onion film". Different layers where there's something for everybody. I'd agree with that assessment, and while I'm sure this was done to get the film to appeal to all audiences (not just baseball fans), it's also the film's biggest weakness. One part baseball movie, one part docu-drama, and one part sentimental underdog story, MONEYBALL isn't quite the sum of all it's parts.

The docu-drama parts, with real baseball footage from that 2002 season, are really great and very well done (particularly the introductory sequence detailing the 2001 ALDS between New York and Oakland). Similarly, the sentimental stuff is effective, even if it does feel a bit rushed and heavy-handed towards the end. (And by heavy handed, I mean Jonah Hill literally says at the end: "Billy...it's a metaphor.") Loved the use of the radio broadcasts throughout the flashbacks and the end scene with John Henry. In fact, the film's entire conclusion is nearly pitch-perfect. The actual recreated baseball scenes (the main story) were fine, I just didn't care for the way they were done with the super bright lighting, fake looking sets, and terribly generic Hans Zimmer-lite score. Overall, the results of the film are a lot of great little scenes, but if you take a step back and look at the film as a whole, it feels a bit unfocused. I think it's a pretty good film, just uneven.

It seems like it's been forever since there's been any good baseball movies, and I think this one fits the bill rather nicely. That being said, even with the film trying to cater to different audiences, I can't really see anyone really enjoying it if you don't have at least passing interest in baseball, SABR, advanced metrics, or Bill James.
7.5/10

OK I'm sold. You've actually convinced me to pay cinema money for this film. I can't in good conscience, with the baseball playoffs about to start, pass up the chance to watch Major League baseball drama on the big screen. Sounds like there is plenty going on in this movie to keep me interested, seeing as I remember the 2002 season like it was yesterday. Although I think A's were more about their starting-pitching than overblown moneyball-theories. It's just that I am really trying not to pay cinema-money for anything with Pitt, Damon or Clooney. I guess I will make this one exception for Pitt, and then I shall re-dedicate to avoiding the terrible trio.

Erica Ambler wrote:

It all comes down to writing.

Indeed it does.

The many, many great professional screenwriters that powered Hollywood during its golden days now have no real equivalent. That's not to say there isn't any good writing, but it's much harder to come by. The 50s gave us so many terrific, clever Hollywood-produced genre pictures, and that kind of intelligent entertainment is like rare gold now.

That said, while the Hollywood film culture has lost steam (the fall of the old studio system is a big blow, and the auteur-powered 70s was too fragile a period to last), other film cultures have continued to produce stunning, startling films, and, taking an honest look at film history, I'm not convinced that film is so terribly worse off now than it was then.

I think in general we also tend to see old school Hollywood through rose-tinted glasses simply because what we remember and what has survived are the classics. Golden Age Hollywood put out a ton of schlocky unwatchable crap too, it was just a different kind of schlocky unwatchable crap. Its why "Sullivan's Travels" has that quality of "as true today as it was when it was written".

I'll be fascinated to see what the commentators of thirty, forty years from now make of the past twenty years in film and what near-ignored gems become important talking points.

I can always hope against hope GOMORRAH and ANTICHRIST get quietly forgotten. ;)

Fairbairn-Sykes wrote:

I can always hope against hope GOMORRAH and ANTICHRIST get quietly forgotten. ;)

Fucking amen.