list/discuss/rate - your recently watched movies

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

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

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.

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

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.

Yeah, I believe the deer hunter is an important movie and watching i definitely see why. I have yet to watch all of Apocalypse Now but I have to believe Charlie Sheen was cast as the lead simply because it would be like Martin Sheen, which would make Platoon the next Apocalypse Now. Anyways, I plan on giving Apocalypse Now a watch sometime, especially since it is considered to be one of the greatest movies ever made.

Redux is a bit tedious -

For a long time the scuttlebutt on authentic Vietnam flicks was that More American Graffiti, the followup to the original, got it right.   It portrayed the same characters from '62 a few years later during the uprisings; Charles Martin Smith's character ends up in 'Nam and the footage puts most war movies to shame.

Oh--   earliest Vietnam film I know of is The Green Berets with John Wayne; a shameful, deceptive propaganda flick.




Edited by Atavachron - July 08 2016 at 21:06

Oh yeah, The Green Berets, forgot about that. I am a big Duke fan but I don't think I will ever watch that one. I didn't realise that they made a sequel to American Graffiti. Anyways, with Heart of Darkness, Coppola did base Apocalypse Now on that book and his wife I think, its been a while since I watched it, filmed the production of Apocalypse Now so you get to see al the behind the scenes with that film, it's very interesting.

I Saw the Light

Traditional Hollywood treatment of legendary singer/songwriter Hank Williams and his struggles with alcohol, career, and a shaky marriage.   Though as authentic as possible with Tom Hiddleston turning in a polished performance as Williams, the film is familiar, sluggish and not very insightful.   Walk the Line a similar but better example of documenting an American country music star.