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Blue Valentine is really good. It was actually as good as others led me to believe it would be. It was almost hard to take Gosling seriously with the receding hairline, but he and Michelle Williams work wonderfully together. I love how different yet believable they both were in the past timeline where they meet and the current one where their marriage is falling apart. I could totally feel her frustration at him and his lack of ambition, but I also loved that he was so dedicated to their family and that was his top priority.

Olympus Has Fallen, aka Die Hard in the White House was amazingly stupid, and not in a good way. I do not understand how some as devoid of charisma as Gerard Butler has a leading man career. He and Cole Hauser should have had each other's roles.

Martha Marcy May Marlene which was terrific. I loved the way it was filmed and how very expertly the director was able to evoke the troubled inner world of Martha in the whole look and feel of the movie. Going back and forth between her present situation and what happened while she was at the cult could have been very cliched but it's all edged with unreality - you don't know what's real history and what isn't, much like Martha. The tension and suspense was done really well, too, plus the ending was perfect, imo. Elizabeth Olsen owned that role and was simply amazing.

Overall, it's a movie that isn't afraid to leave a lot of things unsaid and unexplained, and as a viewer I always appreciate having that space to contemplate the 'what might have happened' and the 'what's going to happen now' aspects of a story.

Bad Neighbors was really dumb and really funny. I don't think I've ever seen Zac Efron in anything before but he was really good in this. I wonder if the college set was rooting for the frat boys, because we were definitely on the parents' side. In a movie full of silly things, the most unbelievable was that the baby never cried and slept soundly through the raging parties next door.

Alexander was not the trainwreck I thought it was going to be. It's not a good movie by any means, but it's not terrible either. Yes, Colin Farrell's hair is terrible (and needlessly so, since Alexander probably had dark hair), and Angelina Jolie's casting was a weird choice, but I wasn't bored, and it's a long-ish movie. It's not super historically accurate, but it's as bad as a lot of other movies either. For me the biggest surprise was how TALKY it was. I was somehow expecting more battles. But that was OK by me since constant fighting can be quite boring.

I think the biggest mistake in the movie was Oliver Stone's choice to focus on Alexander's childhood, and then his later military career. Most people don't know all that much about ancient history, and I think it's hard for people to find Alexander all that "great" based on the events shown in the film. Had the movie shown how Alexander was able to consolidate his position in Macedonia after his father's assassination, conquered Greece, and then Egypt, I think people might have responded to it better. END with the triumph in Babylon. And then, had the film done well, consider showing the crazy campaign to India and how everything all went to hell.

I agree, it's a mess but a watchable mess. I just hope Angelina's character eventually found Moose and Squirrel. And Hephaistion and Alexander were friends...good friends...with long looks. All I can think is Cleo's "cousins, totally cousins."

Agent Sculder wrote:Alexander was not the trainwreck I thought it was going to be.  It's not a good movie by any means, but it's not terrible either.  Yes, Colin Farrell's hair is terrible (and needlessly so, since Alexander probably had dark hair), and Angelina Jolie's casting was a weird choice, but I wasn't bored, and it's a long-ish movie.  It's not super historically accurate, but it's as bad as a lot of other movies either.  For me the biggest surprise was how TALKY it was.  I was somehow expecting more battles.  But that was OK by me since constant fighting can be quite boring.

I think the biggest mistake in the movie was Oliver Stone's choice to focus on Alexander's childhood, and then his later military career.  Most people don't know all that much about ancient history, and I think it's hard for people to find Alexander all that "great" based on the events shown in the film.  Had the movie shown how Alexander was able to consolidate his position in Macedonia after his father's assassination, conquered Greece, and then Egypt, I think people might have responded to it better.  END with the triumph in Babylon.  And then, had the film done well, consider showing the crazy campaign to India and how everything all went to hell.

Great googly moogly. For some reason, I thought you were talking about the recent Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day (even though this would clearly be the wrong thread for that) and was REALLY confused until embarrassingly late in the post. I need to go back to bed.

killershrew wrote:

Agent Sculder wrote:Alexander was not the trainwreck I thought it was going to be.  It's not a good movie by any means, but it's not terrible either.  Yes, Colin Farrell's hair is terrible (and needlessly so, since Alexander probably had dark hair), and Angelina Jolie's casting was a weird choice, but I wasn't bored, and it's a long-ish movie.  It's not super historically accurate, but it's as bad as a lot of other movies either.  For me the biggest surprise was how TALKY it was.  I was somehow expecting more battles.  But that was OK by me since constant fighting can be quite boring.

I think the biggest mistake in the movie was Oliver Stone's choice to focus on Alexander's childhood, and then his later military career.  Most people don't know all that much about ancient history, and I think it's hard for people to find Alexander all that "great" based on the events shown in the film.  Had the movie shown how Alexander was able to consolidate his position in Macedonia after his father's assassination, conquered Greece, and then Egypt, I think people might have responded to it better.  END with the triumph in Babylon.  And then, had the film done well, consider showing the crazy campaign to India and how everything all went to hell.

Great googly moogly.  For some reason, I thought you were talking about the recent Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day (even though this would clearly be the wrong thread for that) and was REALLY confused until embarrassingly late in the post.  I need to go back to bed.

KILLERSHREW. THIS EXACT SAME THING JUST HAPPENED TO ME. I wasn't reading super closely, but at first I thought "I didn't know Angelina Jolie was in that, that is kind of a weird choice" followed by "not historically accurate I guess that means not like the book, but there wasn't much to the book, was there?" and then "talky huh, yeah, that seems weird for a kids' movie" and finally "OLIVER STONE directed...WAIT a second."

Maybe we caught sight of "Alexander's childhood" and our brains did the rest? CLEARLY I ALSO NEED TO GO BACK TO BED.

Ha ha! I feel so much better now! I think I initially read it as Colin Farrell was playing a grown-up Alexander narrating the story of his terrible etc day, and I hadn't heard anything about Angelina Jolie being in the movie but sometimes people do uncredited cameos, and I really don't know at which point I realized my error, but it took a while.

I think the best/worst part of Alexander was the scattergun approach to accents. I normally dislike Hollywood's tendency to use British accents as a stand-in for every single ancient language in history, but even that would have been a far better idea than whatever the hell was going on in Alexander. It was so distracting. Especially Angelina's accent choice, and I say that as someone who loves her.

I 100% agree with you Agent Sculder. He was Alexander the Great! They should have shown him being great!

Haha Melk that also killed me. No two actors used the same accent. Hilarious. I found it pretty unwatchable myself, and could only appreciate it all by imaging all the sex that was happening between that cast while they made the movie.

Its fairly unwatchable to me too. Although it has moments of so bad its AMAZING. Like Colin Farrell screeching he was birthed in a sack of hate. I have screamed that at my own parents, they never get it but its always worth it for the faces.

Oh God and WHATEVER Val Kilmer was doing, and Rosario Dawson and Colin Farrell's sex scene MY GOD. Where she runs at him screaming. And then tries to claw his eyes out and then they just start getting to business?

I love Angelina's response to Alexander's kinda sorta of coming out: "Love heem? octave drop Love heem." It's the Macedonian equivalent of WTF.

Randomly rented Seeking a Friend for the End of the World, with Steve Carell and Keira Knightley, and I loved it. Despite the age difference, I thought they were really sweet together and there was a lot of dark humor in it as well. The soundtrack might have been the best part though, the music was excellent. The scene of Steve Carell lying on the floor while The Walker Brothers' version of The Sun Ain't Gonna Shine Anymore plays has had me listening to that song on a loop for like 3 days now.

I don't think it did well or was particularly well reviewed, but I thought it was very appealing and sweet/sad.

My only real memory of Alexander was going to see it alone opening weekend, in a huge packed theater, and falling asleep somewhere around the middle because I was so bored. I only work up because two guys were trying to leave early and I was blocking their way out of the aisle.

The things I go to see for Colin and Angelina.

The Taking of Deborah Logan was actually not bad for a shaky-cam found footage style horror flick. I give the elderly actress mad props for her physical acting and willingness to bare so much skin for a horror flick.

Also watched the newest Carrie because Halloween. I haven't seen De Palma's recently, but wasn't this just a shot-for-shot remake except for the ending? And the fact that Carrie like, moves around to "cast spells." It wasn't too bad, but I'm not sure the movie needed to exist.

The Awakening was straight up terrible. So much gratuitous sexual violence, so little point.

I finally watched two movies I've been wanting to see all year over the weekend.

Twenty Feet From Stardom was wonderful and it's unbelievable to think that so many fantastic songs from the 50s/60s had the same rotation of back up singers. Even the seeing the Waters family and realising how many things they've been a part of was amazing. Such a shame that they all never got their dues until now.

We also happened to turn on the TV last night as The Butler was starting. I really enjoyed it, and I thought the final scene where

Spoiler:

was perfect.

So I watched That Hamilton Woman yesterday, and decided to look up some amazon reviews about it, and someone wrote:

The acting is a bit over the top - Vivien is a bit shrill, Olivier is a bit wooden ... I don't see the tremendous chemistry. I cant get over the fact that they don't even try to have English accents!

And when someone replied that, you know, they were both English, the reviewer replied in turn:

Neither of them sound like they have British accents - Vivian Leigh sounds very American.

That has to be some trolling, right? But I don't think so. This was the whole review: http://www.amazon.com/review/R3049DBNHQOZZE/ref=cm_cr_pr_cmt?ie=UTF8&ASIN=B002E01M8S#wasThisHelpful

Uh, yeah. Anyway. I've wanted to see that movie for a long time but finally just got around to it. I thought it was okay. Watching Vivien Leigh in gorgeous costumes though always goes a long way, even if I had thought it sucked, which I didn't.

I watched Her the other day and really enjoyed it. I can't imagine anyone other than Joaquin Phoenix being able to pull off that role (and Spike Jonze being probably the only person who could have directed a story like that). The movie was just quirky enough to be interesting and enjoyable, but not so much so that it took the premise out of the realm of possibility. Like, I was watching it and thinking that it was totally plausible to have an artificially intelligent OS, and in particular, I was completely on board with the idea that actual relationships could be formed between it and a human being. The movie really sold the whole thing as totally believable which is what made it so emotional, imo, and having an emotional connection to it was what made it work. Making it goofy or overly stylistic/over-the-top would have totally taken that away and it would have been a lesser movie because of it.

I was reminded of Lars and the Real Girl as I watched it as that was another movie where the premise seemed really silly and ridiculous, and you picture and entirely different story and movie when, in fact, what you get is something very human and very moving. It's just that right combination of actor/director that makes it work.

I watched a bunch. First up Jodorowsky's Dune which was fun and fascinating, seeing how much of the sci-fi films I loved had their nexus in his storyboarding/concept art, and most tellingly in his collaborators going on to work in the genre, using ideas they'd originally had while working with him. I also loved his reaction to Lynch's film, first envy and jealousy, and then schadenfreude that he laid at the feet of producers. I realize I'm one of the only people who still liked Lynch's film, it's mess for sure, but visually it nailed what I imagined in the book, and was cast spot on too.

I also watched Palo Alto which I thought was great, one of the best I've seen all year, and Lake Bell's In A World... which was fresh and funny and great first film. "Sister code." Hee.

blixie wrote:I watched a bunch. First up Jodorowsky's Dune which was fun and fascinating, seeing how much of the sci-fi films I loved had their nexus in his storyboarding/concept art, and most tellingly in his collaborators going on to work in the genre, using ideas they'd originally had while working with him. I also loved his reaction to Lynch's film, first envy and jealousy, and then schadenfreude that he laid at the feet of producers. I realize I'm one of the only people who still liked Lynch's film, it's mess for sure, but visually it nailed what I imagined in the book, and was cast spot on too.

The star was the Siamese cat.

We've watched a bunch lately too. I loved Chef and liked Obvious Child a lot. I was bummed that They Came Together wasn't as great as it should have been, and I really really liked Begin Again, though it didn't touch Once. 22 Jump Street was...fine, and I enjoyed Step Up All In in all its cheesiness.

...I've watched a LOT of movies lately. That's almost more movies than we saw the entire rest of the year.

The Master has been sitting here in its little red envelope pretty much forever. Finally watched it. That's seventeen hours of my life I won't get back.

Putli Bai wrote:The Master has been sitting here in its little red envelope pretty much forever.  Finally watched it.  That's seventeen hours of my life I won't get back.

Yeahhhh, I started watching that and just couldn't. I think I made it half an hour and it felt like twice that.

When I saw the trailer in the theater, I had a feeling that movie would seem endless.