Yori wrote: Absolutely Fabulous
sweetie dahling
dv wrote: Finding Dory.
I thought it was very cool that Dory's parents were actually using, like, legit methods of working with special needs kids. (Occupational and Music Therapy, for starters.)
Séamas wrote:As per usual, the skeptical/rationalist gets his from at the supernatural.
Vulture wrote: Arrival. Not bad, makes a mockery of human intelligence and military politics globally. Also expands the ideas on what is possible by the human brain that we deliberately and unknowingly limit by thinking we know what is right and necessary.
Vulture wrote: Allied. It was good, but one scene there was the cliche letter read aloud in the person's voice that you know the author of the letter never read aloud and that took me completely out of the movie and into cheesy production laughter.
DEyncourt wrote:Vulture wrote: Arrival. Not bad, makes a mockery of human intelligence and military politics globally. Also expands the ideas on what is possible by the human brain that we deliberately and unknowingly limit by thinking we know what is right and necessary.
My guess is that I liked "Arrival" much more than you did.
On the other hand I do have to question what you meant by "what is possible by the human brain". The ideas expounded in Arrival are more akin to faster-than-light travel in that the main theme of the movie of [spoiler]language being the key to FULLY understand time-dimensionality[/spoiler] is something which is possible in concept but we have no idea of how to get "there" (and, of course, the movie and I imagine the novelette than was the basis of the movie never explain this beyond the basic concept). This is not to say these concepts are impossible but likely will require a major upheval in our thinking in much the same way relativity and quantum mechanics STILL cause problems when we try to explain them in terms of everyday situations such as Schrodinger's cat.
Arrival does exploit the viewer by [spoiler]showing scenes in Louise Banks' (Amy Adams) life which we naturally believe are what HAD been her life BEFORE the appearance of the alien craft. By the end we know that through Banks' understanding of the Heptapod language she is granted the foreknowledge that her child-to-be that she WILL have with her fellow researcher, astrophysicist Ian Donnelly (Jeremy Renner), will be the cause of the future breakup of that relationship because he will be unwilling to endure the upcoming trauma of losing that child in her mid-teens due to an incurable disease.
I wish that I could say that in similar circumstances that I could be stronger than Donnelly, but I'm afraid that all I can state is that I don't know.[/spoiler]
In any case: I strongly recommend watching Arrival but equally strongly recommend NOT reading my spoilers above if you have not seen it yet.
TOS wrote:Vulture wrote: Allied. It was good, but one scene there was the cliche letter read aloud in the person's voice that you know the author of the letter never read aloud and that took me completely out of the movie and into cheesy production laughter.
i thought it wasn't half bad but the degree to which that movie was a box-office disaster is nothing short of astonishing
i don't know if it was brad pitt's breakup or what, but man oh man
Séamas wrote: Napoleon Dynamite
Showed it to my son who is in middle school. He asked me if that is what High School is really like.
This isn't one of those movies that get any better with repeated viewings.
Legend of Hell House
Some really decent creepy haunted house sets and location and cinematography. The score is good too, 1973 electronic music--always better than the stuff out now.
It did a decent job of catching a mood of an otherwise pretty silly story. As per usual, the skeptical/rationalist gets his from at the supernatural.
Pithecanthropus wrote: Heathers (1988). I'd never seen it before. I'm not sure what the message was supposed to be, and I found the acting to be pretty sub-par for about 90% of the cast. Obviously a cult classic. Also, spooky and disturbing in a post-Columbine world.
Vulture wrote: [snip]
As far as the Donnely character and what you mentioned, [spoiler]I saw that coming at first hint, that whole beginning sequence with cello music and the voiceover and daughter felt like such a setup[/spoiler] and I related more with the main character than the wonderful ultimate THAT GUY, Jeremy Renner.
Ribtor wrote: The Young Lions (1958) Marlon Brando, Montgomery Clift, Dean Martin. A war movie about three men, one German and two American, at odds with their situations. Their stories meet at a newly liberated extermination camp. A long movie but well worth it. All three leads are excellent.
TOS wrote: logan
holy crap
the thing that really stood out for me: a really upsetting dystopian vision of a trumpish america
user wrote: probably not the only movie coming up like that
Vulture wrote:Séamas wrote: Napoleon Dynamite
Showed it to my son who is in middle school. He asked me if that is what High School is really like.
This isn't one of those movies that get any better with repeated viewings.
Legend of Hell House
Some really decent creepy haunted house sets and location and cinematography. The score is good too, 1973 electronic music--always better than the stuff out now.
It did a decent job of catching a mood of an otherwise pretty silly story. As per usual, the skeptical/rationalist gets his from at the supernatural.
I remember watching Napoleon Dynamite for the first time on an Easter Sunday family gathering the year of its release, and my brother and I were dying laughing. The older adults watched reclined on couches silently, then eventually asked if this was a comedy and why we were laughing. The next true groundbreaking movie that nobody saw by Jared Hess was Gentlemen Broncos, which takes it to a new level where every character in the movie is equivalent to Napoleon Dynamite the character in oddity, yet the main character seems grounded and normal, confused by the world around him.