list/discuss/rate - your recently watched movies

Spiderman: Homecoming

Set two months after Captain America:Civil War, Spiderman:Homecoming is an adolescent if affectionate portrayal of young Peter Parker as he takes on his nemesis, Michael Keaton's oily Vulture.   Reminiscent of '80s youth-ploitation films as Weird Science or Karate Kid, 'Homecoming' exercises these beloved Marvel characters about as much as can be expected while still keeping a straight face.   Frankly if they don't reboot the character next time, Spidey is doomed to eternal puberty.

Good Time

Unusual crime drama about a low-level criminal and his mentally impaired brother who get busted after robbing a bank.   The unlikely events are realized by Robert Pattinson's chilling performance and as the two brothers spiral out of control through one depraved circumstance after another, the sad reality of lives lost increasingly weighs upon the characters and the audience.   Troubling story about the paths of real people in unreal conditions, and what personal destruction looks like.

Moonrise Kingdom - Wes Anderson (2012)

Edited by Larkstongue41 - December 07 2017 at 09:43

Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri

Though it walks a fine line between reality and fiction, Martin McDonagh's story of a murdered young woman and her mother who refuses to let the local cops off the hook for solving the crime, is taken from real events McDonagh observed while traveling through the southern U.S.   It is a painful but fascinating submersion into backwater country where nothing happens until it does and no one does anything until they have to.   Good performances from Frances McDormand and the always compelling Sam Rockwell, Three Billboards is a refreshing change from the typical human drama.

^ Liked it.   There's an all black & white version called Logan Noir ,  BTW

Brad's Status

Ben Stiller as a mid-lifer reflecting and regretting the direction his life has taken and lamenting his missed opportunities as his successful college friends all seem to be living perfect lives.   When he and his son (played beautifully by Austin Abrams) visit Boston for a Harvard admission interview, Stiller's character begins to find some stride in reconnecting with the world.   Not a bad little human drama that highlights Ben Stiller's less comedic side as an actor.




Edited by Atavachron - January 07 2018 at 22:29

^ Caught that puppy, thought Ryan Reynolds stole the show

Delicatessen - Jeunet/Caro (1991)

Shortwave (2016) Directed by Ryan Gregory Phillips





A real slow burner this one so stick with it as after 65 minutes of torturous fasting the ending is 'everything you can eat' in 20. Josh and Isabel Harris have lost their infant daughter by some sort of mysterious disappearance/alien abduction which is never really explained save some momentary back story jump-cuts to imply the latter.
As to how at least 6 inquisitive children and one supervising adult simply evaporate into thin air from within a nursery school library without so much as a protesting shush!, in the time taken for Mrs Harris to visit the rest room is anyone's guess. The other yawning chasm in the plot is the lack of any Police presence at the house after the same Mrs Harris viciously attacks her husband's boss with a (very large) knife stabbing him repeatedly (but not fatally, we learn almost by way of a casual shrugging rejoinder in the aftermath)
As the grieving couple, the performances of both Juanita Ringeling and Cristobal Tappia Montt are portentously overwrought to the point of 'method' slapstick and although I wouldn't dare pretend I know what it feels like to lose a child, it's clear the actors don't have the first clue either. The ending is extremely violent and on the cusp of gratuitously gory but as to why an alien species would resort to Grand Guignol slayings of these pesky humanoids in their midst is a question the Director needs to reverse engineer for his promised sequel. The art-house cinematography reminded me in places of Lars von Trier's obliquely hallucinatory Antichrist which is considerably more pretentious and also centered around a couple mourning a lost child. The radio transmissions that Josh Harris and his assistant (Kyle Davis) have identified as being of extraterrestrial origin makes for an intriguing story but apart from the aforementioned transparent artifice of setting up the inevitable sequel, no attempt is made to explain the events that are depicted.  Intelligent movies don't need to continually remind us of the fact and Phillips has yet to learn that if you take the sex out of horror you're left with just forensics.

Edited by ExittheLemming - January 20 2018 at 20:56