The "last movie I saw" thread

[Katy Lied]

I hated professional wrestling. I viewed it as a shameless, bastardized form of a great sport.

That's how I feel about Arena Football.


BTW, I saw Paper Heart. I don't quite get Charlene Yi. How the heck does she get her own TV show and feature film? Must be the Cloverfield Generation that loves her.

[BoylenOver]

Yes, Mathieu Amalric. He was very good in MUNICH too. Actually there were a lot of familiar faces in the movie, more than I thought I'd see in a foreign film. Jean-Do's primary therapist was in an excellent film called TELL NO ONE that came out a couple years ago.

As for this movie, I loved the visuals and how engaging they could make scenes that were essentially from the POV of a paralyzed man. Great use of color too, especially when the film would delve into the world as Jean-Do imagined it in his mind.

I just saw "The Diving Bell and the Butterfly". Your thoughts are spot on.

Two of my favorite moments: 1) when the men came into the room to install the speakerphone, they asked Jean-Do if he ordeded the phone. The camera panned over to Jean-Do, and no movement. Back to the phone men asking again, and the camera pans back to the bed with nothing. 2) when he's in the hall looking at the case with Napoleon's wife and the patron of the hospital. He talks about writing a play, basically a biography, and his recap of the play coincides with a shot of him rising out of his wheelchair and kissing the patron. The camera angle switches to show an orderly wheeling away Jean-Do with the profile of the patron in the display case.

[jay santos]

I watched The Wrestler the other day. I am left scratching my head as to why this movie got such rave reviews. Other than the obvious (seeing Marisa Tomei naked) what exactly was the appeal of this movie? You could see how it was going to end about one third of the way into the movie, so it certainly couldn't be the plot. I felt like I spent two hours driving slowly past a large, nasty pileup on the freeway.

I saw The Wrestler recently also. I loved it. Loved is wrong word. It's a depressing film but it's a great character study and like Mark Grace I love a good character film. I thought it was great to show how he had a turning point in his life. He started to go down the right path: stopped taking steroids, quit his wrestling job, tried to make amends with his daughter, pursued a love interest, got a real job. He could have had a great life. Instead he gave up on life. Screwed things up with daughter and love interest and job and went back to steroids and wrestling. He essentially chose to commit suicide.

[Jeff Lebowski]

I saw The Wrestler recently also. I loved it. Loved is wrong word. It's a depressing film but it's a great character study and like Mark Grace I love a good character film. I thought it was great to show how he had a turning point in his life. He started to go down the right path: stopped taking steroids, quit his wrestling job, tried to make amends with his daughter, pursued a love interest, got a real job. He could have had a great life. Instead he gave up on life. Screwed things up with daughter and love interest and job and went back to steroids and wrestling. He essentially chose to commit suicide.

I guess what I am struggling with is why that is such a compelling story line. Maybe I have seen that downward spiral too frequently in friends and family.

[Green Lantern]

I just saw "The Diving Bell and the Butterfly". Your thoughts are spot on.

Two of my favorite moments: 1) when the men came into the room to install the speakerphone, they asked Jean-Do if he ordeded the phone. The camera panned over to Jean-Do, and no movement. Back to the phone men asking again, and the camera pans back to the bed with nothing. 2) when he's in the hall looking at the case with Napoleon's wife and the patron of the hospital. He talks about writing a play, basically a biography, and his recap of the play coincides with a shot of him rising out of his wheelchair and kissing the patron. The camera angle switches to show an orderly wheeling away Jean-Do with the profile of the patron in the display case.

Those are great scenes and great examples of what a skilled director can communicate with little more than camera movement.

[Green Lantern]

I think you'll get more from Doakes in the second season, although I agree with what you're saying.

I think it's because he hasn't seen season 2 Rita yet.

Alright, we finished Season 2 of Dexter over the weekend and loved it. Some of the characters are definitely growing on me, particularly Dexter's sister Deb (who drove me nuts in Season 1) and, well, Doakes. Also, I was pumped when I saw Keith Carradine show up. Great character and it brought back fond memories of his turn as Wild Bill in Deadwood. I'm bummed that the other two seasons aren't on Netflix streaming. I'll have to wait for them in the mail.

We also caught The Kids Are All Right at the Broadway on Friday. That one is definitely worthy of discussion. I'll start a thread in case anyone's seen it.

Last night we watched the Korean film Mother from director Bong Joon-ho. His last film was the monster movie The Host which I admired but didn't love. This one was pretty compelling. An overprotective mom goes to some pretty extreme lengths to prove her dimwitted son's innocence when he's imprisoned for murder. One of the great things about some of the Korean movies I've seen lately is their willingness to mix and match genres and tones in ways I've never seen before. This one veers from comedy to thriller to drama and you're never quite sure what's going to happen next.

[MarkGrace]

I will definitely be seeing The Kids Are All Right at some point.

Caught Easy A with the Mrs. last night. Boy that Emma Stone is charming, isn't she? The movie was peppered with references to classic teen films, and while it probably didn't quite hit the level of other genre classics, it was definitely not that far out of the ballpark either.

[UtahDan]

I will definitely be seeing The Kids Are All Right at some point.

Caught Easy A with the Mrs. last night. Boy that Emma Stone is charming, isn't she? The movie was peppered with references to classic teen films, and while it probably didn't quite hit the level of other genre classics, it was definitely not that far out of the ballpark either.

Yes she is. I loved it too.

[Green Lantern]

I will definitely be seeing The Kids Are All Right at some point.

Caught Easy A with the Mrs. last night. Boy that Emma Stone is charming, isn't she? The movie was peppered with references to classic teen films, and while it probably didn't quite hit the level of other genre classics, it was definitely not that far out of the ballpark either.

My wife caught Easy A over the weekend and thought it was great. I'm looking forward to it. She said that in addition to Emma Stone, Patricia Clarkson and Stanley Tucci as her parents were awesome.

This past week we also watched The Most Dangerous Man in America: Daniel Ellsberg and the Pentagon Papers. Not much of a synopsis needed after that title but it was a fascinating documentary and painted an interesting portrait of a time when the public's trust of its elected president really started taking a turn.

I've been on such a streak of good movies lately that I blame my subconscious for getting me to rent The Losers from the Redbox the other night when I was alone, maybe just to keep me grounded by reminding me of the cinematic shit that I could be wallowing in were it not for my wife's more discriminating taste. After a decent opening scene that effectively established the characters, the stakes and the plot, the rest of the movie was just a hollow exercise in overly stylized action and witless dialogue. I was a fan of the comic book upon which this was based but this movie belongs in the bargain bin. It even had "yo momma" jokes in it. 'Nuff said.

I was pleasantly surprised by an advance screening of The Legend of the Guardians: The Owls of Ga'hoole, despite the film featuring the most awkward title in recent memory. It's an animated film based on a series of young adult novels I'd never heard of and was kind of like a Lord of the Rings type fantasy except all of the characters are owls. The animation was stunning, as were the action setpieces (the film was directed by 300's Zack Snyder.) It packed a whole hell of a lot of plot into its relatively brief running time and I could tell that there was probably a lot of backstory I was missing, but it still told a clear, albeit rather familiar "heroic quest" story that my five-year-old and I had fun watching. Warning: Dude, this movie is pretty intense for little kids. Had my daughter been any younger, I don't think I would have taken her.

Also, this weekend my friend and I showed Jaws to another friend who had never seen it. Not-so-surprising result: He liked it quite a bit!

[LA Ute]

I loved Flipped but it never got into wide release. The studio was hoping for a word-of-mouth campaign to work, but looks like that didn't happen. Watch for it on DVD.

[BoylenOver]

"Just Another Love Story"

Excellent film.

Spoiler for not sure what's given away:

I love the scenes when it shows Jonas being distant with Mette and his friends, with the sound of him being with Julia over those scenes.

[Surfah]

I watched Sugar on HBO. I think MarkGrace recommended it awhile back in another thread. It's a great character piece about a Dominican kid trying to escape poverty through baseball. I really liked it. And boy does my Spanish needs a tune up because I could barely understand anything Dominicans say.

Anyway, if you're a baseball fan or character piece fan you should check it out. As far as I could tell the depiction was pretty accurate of how things are. I had a 28 year old mission companion from Nicaragua who was drafted by the Dodgers and he told me it was pretty tough.

[MarkGrace]

I watched Sugar on HBO. I think MarkGrace recommended it awhile back in another thread. It's a great character piece about a Dominican kid trying to escape poverty through baseball. I really liked it. And boy does my Spanish needs a tune up because I could barely understand anything Dominicans say.

Anyway, if you're a baseball fan or character piece fan you should check it out. As far as I could tell the depiction was pretty accurate of how things are. I had a 28 year old mission companion from Nicaragua who was drafted by the Dodgers and he told me it was pretty tough.

Nice!

One of my good friends from HS was drafted by the Dodgers, and he played with a ton of Dominican kids. I knew quite a few of them and heard a lot about their experiences, and I think Sugar pretty authentically captures the difficult transition many of them have to endure.

[MarkGrace]

btw, I'll definitely be seeing Boden and Fleck's new film It's Kind of a Funny Story.

Their projects are always on my must-see list. They create such fascinating characters.

[Surfah]

Nice!

One of my good friends from HS was drafted by the Dodgers, and he played with a ton of Dominican kids. I knew quite a few of them and heard a lot about their experiences, and I think Sugar pretty authentically captures the difficult transition many of them have to endure.

Yeah he was in a car accident with another player and was injured. Though it wasn't serious they sent him home to rehab and never called again. He played for the national team and then joined the Church and went on a mission. He was a funny guy. Anytime we saw a batting cage we had to stop. The kid could hit. He also talked about his future wife. He would say he had no clue who she was, but she was white and had huge breasts.