list/discuss/rate - your recently watched movies

Reading about Guardians of the Galaxy I think I'm probably respond to it the same way I did about Pacific Rim when watching it: It's what the Star Wars prequels should have been but wasn't, the same way Pacific Rim was what the Transformers movies should have been.

Even then, though, I'm just not into that kind of sci-fi action movies the way I were like 10 years ago.

Yeah, today I prefer big budget science fiction movies to be more on the Blade Runner model than the Star Wars model. I just don't have an active interest in the genre overall like I used to however.

Locke

Tom Hardy continues his extraordinary acting journey as a building contractor who takes a long car ride to see a woman who is having his illegitimate baby.   Stripped of all typical film techniques, Locke is simply a man in a car going through what is probably the worst time of his life as the world at night passes by his window.   This is the role that proves Hardy's brilliance and shows why he is probably the finest actor of his generation.

Godzilla  (2014)

Painfully slow and shockingly stupid entry where the best thing is Godzilla himself except that he's trapped in a shell game of a film that teases with nonsense, waits forty-five minutes to show the G man and then only for a few moments at a time.   Dishonest, terribly written, and undeserving of the legendary namesake.

Tim's Vermeer

Fascinating account of inventor Tim Jenison who developed a way of painting images with mirrors in the way he believes Dutch master Johannes Vermeer must have achieved his remarkably high level of photorealism.   One of the best documentaries of 2013.

Chef

John Favreau as a cook who's had enough of restaurant life and opens a food truck selling Cuban sandwiches.   Favreau writes & directs and though the film has plenty of heart and a few big laughs from both Robert Downey Jr. and Dustin Hoffman, it is uneven and loses its arc about halfway through.

Good film, but not quite what I expected. The marketing led me to believe this was a rather goofy "convoluted criminal conspiracy goes wrong in violent yet hilarious ways" fast-moving caper comedy as popularized by Guy Ritchie, instead it's more of a slowly paced character-driven crime drama with some absurd humour sprinkled on top. Between the very businesslike depiction of organized crime, stereotypical Roman Catholic obsession with guilt and absolution as well as mostly realistic but still stylized visual side it reminds me more of something Martin Scorcese could have thought up in the mid-1970s were he of Irish instead of Italian cultural background.


Edited by Toaster Mantis - October 10 2014 at 02:56

In Bruges. I'll find a poster image that works now.

Tender Mercies

Small and easygoing rural drama in Texas with Robert Duvall perfect as a has-been country/western singer trying to restart his life.   Quiet, touching, beautifully shot.

It was fairly good but I kept getting distracted because I would keep noticing that Adele's mouth was open almost 100% of the time.