list/discuss/rate - your recently watched movies

I ended up watching to vietnam war related movies, and I must say I was disappointed with both.

Platoon and The Deer Hunter were my the two I watched.

Platoon started off fantastic, I was completely absorbed for like the first half hour and then things really fell apart for me. I thought Dafoe and Berenger were great because at the beginning they were 3 dimensional characters for me with Dafoe taking the time to get to know the new guys and help out and Berenger being a hard ass but you could tell he cared about his guys because there were a couple of scenes that showed looking upset over the death of the men in his platoon. Then things became really 1D after a while. It became quite clear that Dafoe was the christ like figure and Berenger was war with all those battle scars. SPOILERS.....The fight between those was completely unbelievable and then Berenger kills Dafoe... okay. The guy is a real ass but come on, then he tries to kill Sheen at the end. And the way Dafoe dies is completely laughable, and the speech at the end was just too much to take. The whole movie became too sentimental and gimmicky as it went on and then it became a series of battles until the end. Didn't like it. I give it like a 4 or 5 out of 10

The Deer Hunter on the other hand was the way better film of the two but it was just too long. I'll go more in depth later but overall it was a good watch but nothing too spectacular. I give it like a 6 or 7 out of 10.

High-Rise (2015)

It is the film I'd most wanted to watch for many months (has a terrific trailer), and will need another watch as there were too many distractions or responsibilities last night, so I had to stop start, stop start.

The film is based on J. G. Ballard's novel of the same name, and is a dystopian film with plenty of black comedy about class struggle in a high-rise building. The lower class is on the lower levels, and, you get the idea.   The film has arresting images, good acting, and very witty dialogue. It's quite a cold film in a sense as it has more of an intellectual than emotional feel to much of it. The story does strain, or break, credulity, but that's hardly a deal breaker for me. The High-Rise is an irrational world mixed with strange rationality, and logic picking I feel would be out of place and miss the point. It's quite farcical. The symbolism is rather heavy handed, but I still found that the film sparkles and was very well-worth watching.

If I were to compare it stylistically, well rather Caligula (decadence) meets Peter Greenway. Also, Snowpiercer has similar themes.

I haven't read any reviews yet, as I haven't wanted them to influence my feelings, but I've noticed that ratings have been wildly divergent (metacritic scores range from 0 to 100). I'd rate it high [rise], partially because it's different -- very quirky, It's not a film that would have wide appeal (it had a very limited run in the cinemas here). It's not one I would recommend to most as it might require more patience, an acceptance of less narrative logic, and is more in the art-house realm of film, and has some experimental film qualities.

EDIT: I forgot to mention that there is a Sylvester McCoy Doctor Who episode called Paradise Towers that I think might have been influenced by the Ballard novel (haven't read the book). In the Who episode, the Great Architect takes over Richard Briers, and he hams it up both rather hilariously and embarrassingly (he designed the tower and lived there). In the High-Rise film, Jeremy Irons plays the architect of the tower and lives at the top. Plenty of similarities between the two.

Edited by Logan - June 28 2016 at 14:24

Joy

Maybe I'm missing something about this "comedy", "drama", "biopic", or "saga" about marketing wunderkind Joy Mangano who in the early '90s began a lucrative cleaning product empire, but the film is a long, dull, slow, depressing, befuddling story of how this woman went from one soul-destroying existence to another.

I watched "Interstellar" last night and really enjoyed it. Space exploration, black holes, the future of the human race etc.

He's in, like, everything at the moment.  It's kinda funny.

^want to see it, huge Hardy fan -

^  Michael Moore is a sleaze and a phony. The only talent he has is knowing how to edit questions and answers in a way that makes the outcome exactly what he wants it to be. He takes hours and hours of footage then cuts and pastes until he has his twisted version of the truth.

Mad Max: Fury Road

After the misled Beyond Thunderdome with its questionable casting and plot points, having strayed so far from the ratty, post-punk electricity of Mad Max and The Road Warrior, the Aussie series redeems itself with an upgrade, some fresh gasoline, a big budget and some real acting chops from Tom Hardy and Charlize Theron.   It makes for a solid if imperfect and somewhat too long fourth entry in George Miller's enduing saga (a few bizarre aspects ~ like a band of plump expectant mothers and their cargo of breast milk ~ may throw some for a loop).   Sentiment does run a bit high for a dystopian action flick and any chance of recapturing the rawness of the first two films is long gone, but overall Max Rockatansky's fourth adventure in the Wasteland is a worthy offer and should entertain a fairly wide audience.

Thanks, man

Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice

I'm not sure what people were expecting from this David Goyer-penned living graphic novel but if you haven't been reading comix since adolescence it is possible you simply won't appreciate this rather worthy effort (heck I don't even like Ben Affleck and he was just fine as Gotham's eccentric billionaire).   It is easy for producers and directors to utterly muck-up a good script, e.g. Man of Steel, but the DC faithful should be roundly entertained by this somewhat too long appetizer for the inevitable Justice League film.   Old favorites make brief appearances, stereotypes are shunned, Wonder Woman is not a sexual being, and much of the second half is more Batman Befriends Superman than anything else.   As he has in the past, writer Goyer takes from Frank Miller's 1986 breakout series The Dark Knight Returns, and one can smell the fondness for old pulp and musty odor of a b&m comic book shop when 50 cents could buy you an afternoon of escape and adventure.   Ain't nothing wrong with that.