What Movie Have You Recently Watched?

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Barefootgirl
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Re: What Movie Have You Recently Watched?

Post by Barefootgirl »

I enjoyed The Imitation Games, but found it interesting that it was billed as film about the advent of the computer age, when actually to me, it seemed to be more a statement about living in the shadows due to ones' sexual orientation.

BFG
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a
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Re: What Movie Have You Recently Watched?

Post by a »

Fallible wrote:Saw Gone Girl and thought it predictable, at times silly, and overall boring...
SPOILERS:

The strength of Gone Girl I think is in its message.
Did you notice that the only person who dies
is Collins? The person who murdered another person
is the heroine, and the slob husband with no real
apparent redeeming qualities gets to stay with
the heroine. What did Collins do that is worse
than what the other characters do?

The movie (didn't read the book) seems to trying
to paint a picture of what marriage in the real
world is like. Why do two people stay together.
The fact that there are many secrets shared
by the couple that bind them together.

I also thought the character of Ben Affleck's
sister was quite interesting in that she seems
to be a figment of Ben Affleck's imagination -
or more specifically as literally the "voice of
reason" of the husband, in that she is not
actually a real person.
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Re: What Movie Have You Recently Watched?

Post by market timer »

I thought Birdman was a really special film and one of the few recent instances where the Academy picked the correct Best Picture.
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Re: What Movie Have You Recently Watched?

Post by House Blend »

a wrote:
Fallible wrote:Saw Gone Girl and thought it predictable, at times silly, and overall boring...
SPOILERS:
OK, since several recent posters have put Gone Girl on the table for discussion and I saw it recently, let me add my $0.02.

I rated it 3 stars out of 5; most critics seem to have liked it more than I did. I don't want to go into much detail so as not to spoil it for others. I was prepared to give it 4 until they managed to run off the rails in the final act.

In movies, as in gymnastics or ski jumping, it's not great unless you stick the landing.

After googling reviews online afterwards, I found a critic who had a reaction similar to mine. Mick LaSalle at the SF Chronicle:
http://www.sfgate.com/entertainment/art ... 795363.php
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Re: What Movie Have You Recently Watched?

Post by Barefootgirl »

Gone Girl, to me, was no more than a "made-for-TV" movie. I would not even call it a film.
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Re: What Movie Have You Recently Watched?

Post by Fallible »

House Blend wrote:
a wrote:
Fallible wrote:Saw Gone Girl and thought it predictable, at times silly, and overall boring...
SPOILERS:
OK, since several recent posters have put Gone Girl on the table for discussion and I saw it recently, let me add my $0.02.

I rated it 3 stars out of 5; most critics seem to have liked it more than I did. I don't want to go into much detail so as not to spoil it for others. I was prepared to give it 4 until they managed to run off the rails in the final act. ...
This wayward train may have run off the rails at the end, but for me it was most likely at the beginning, if there ever were any rails. It was one of those movies where I grew almost desperate to find a frame of reference, but what little I found (Nick's sister came closest) soon was lost in the next series of turns.
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Re: What Movie Have You Recently Watched?

Post by gkaplan »

Have those criticizing the Gone Girl movie read the Gone Girl book?

I read the book when it first came out. I didn't think it was as good as her first two books. More than that, I was kind of surprised to hear that they were going to make a movie out of the book, since I couldn't see how the book, the way it was written, could translate to the screen. For that reason, I wasn't planning to see the movie, at least until I heard that Gillian Flynn wrote the screenplay and until several friends recommended the movie to me. I, for one, really liked the movie.
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Re: What Movie Have You Recently Watched?

Post by Fallible »

gkaplan wrote:Have those criticizing the Gone Girl movie read the Gone Girl book?

I read the book when it first came out. I didn't think it was as good as her first two books. More than that, I was kind of surprised to hear that they were going to make a movie out of the book, since I couldn't see how the book, the way it was written, could translate to the screen. For that reason, I wasn't planning to see the movie, at least until I heard that Gillian Flynn wrote the screenplay and until several friends recommended the movie to me. I, for one, really liked the movie.
I had mentioned in my first post that I hadn't read the book and I'm also not familiar with Flynn's work. Hoping this won't be a spoiler, but was the role of Nick's sister the same as in the book?
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Re: What Movie Have You Recently Watched?

Post by gkaplan »

Fallible wrote:
gkaplan wrote:Have those criticizing the Gone Girl movie read the Gone Girl book?

I read the book when it first came out. I didn't think it was as good as her first two books. More than that, I was kind of surprised to hear that they were going to make a movie out of the book, since I couldn't see how the book, the way it was written, could translate to the screen. For that reason, I wasn't planning to see the movie, at least until I heard that Gillian Flynn wrote the screenplay and until several friends recommended the movie to me. I, for one, really liked the movie.
I had mentioned in my first post that I hadn't read the book and I'm also not familiar with Flynn's work. Hoping this won't be a spoiler, but was the role of Nick's sister the same as in the book?
To tell you the truth, I can't remember. I saw the movie last Thanksgiving weekend, and I probably read the book at least a year before that.
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Re: What Movie Have You Recently Watched?

Post by MoonOrb »

Fallible wrote:
gkaplan wrote:Have those criticizing the Gone Girl movie read the Gone Girl book?

I read the book when it first came out. I didn't think it was as good as her first two books. More than that, I was kind of surprised to hear that they were going to make a movie out of the book, since I couldn't see how the book, the way it was written, could translate to the screen. For that reason, I wasn't planning to see the movie, at least until I heard that Gillian Flynn wrote the screenplay and until several friends recommended the movie to me. I, for one, really liked the movie.
I had mentioned in my first post that I hadn't read the book and I'm also not familiar with Flynn's work. Hoping this won't be a spoiler, but was the role of Nick's sister the same as in the book?
Yes.

*spoilers below maybe*

I thought the movie was really enjoyable, since we're on that topic. It wasn't great, but it was a fun, entertaining thriller, and I thought done cleverly enough. I thought it was superior to the book, actually, and I liked how the movie did a pretty great job switching our sympathies abruptly from Amy to Nick.

The end...well. To be fair it would have been hard to come up with an appropriate ending given the story's premise. It was like Flynn thought of this slick setup and gimmick, but because the premise was so out there, it was hard to wrap it up in an appropriate way. I liked the general idea that there really was something Nick and Amy liked about each other deep down inside under all of the years of resentment and frustration.
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Re: What Movie Have You Recently Watched?

Post by a »

Spoilers:
But the end wasn't because she was trying to do a
clever gimmick or surprise ending. She could not
have done the ending any other way, because she was
trying to say something with each event of the
story.

For example, what I was trying to say was that
Collings gets the greatest punishment in the movie
even though Ben Affleck is the cheater. Flynn is
saying that a man who controls his wife, removes
her freedom, is worse than a man who simply cheats.

So Amy and Nick getting back together at the end
is also saying something. It might be saying that
shared secrets, a sort of mutually assured
destruction, is what ties some couples together.
Or simply that Amy, having seen what a REALLY bad
husband is like, decides a bird in the hand is
worth two in the bush and sticks with Nick.

Anyway, that's why I like this movie. It is one
human being telling another human being (all of
us) what they really think about marriage and
life. Amy Dunne is, I think, Flynn trying to create
a model woman - a true heroine in her eyes, in
allegory. She probably doesn't literally think
murder is the answer, but I feel she is trying to
hold up a model for how women SHOULD act. Amy is
intelligent and no matter what her situation, she
finds a way to strike back and never let others
decide her fate. She at least lives life on her
own terms, and generally, WINS. Flynn probably
would like women to unconsciously sense the
nobility of this character and realize that they
can live that way.
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Re: What Movie Have You Recently Watched?

Post by abuss368 »

Finished season 3 of House of Cards. Excellent series.
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Re: What Movie Have You Recently Watched?

Post by LadyGeek »

Spoiler alert:

I created a tutorial on how to do spoilers here: Re: Please Try Out Test Posts Here Practice in that thread. If you want to fix your post, remember that you can always edit your own post using the "Edit" button in the top-right corner.
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Re: What Movie Have You Recently Watched?

Post by nisiprius »

Barefootgirl wrote:I enjoyed The Imitation Games, but found it interesting that it was billed as film about the advent of the computer age, when actually to me, it seemed to be more a statement about living in the shadows due to ones' sexual orientation.

BFG
Agreed. I don't expect a lot of technical enlightenment from a biopic but darn it all, they could have done better than they did. It really should be possible to show that an Alan Turing is not exactly the same thing as a Harry Potter. For example, the electromechanical details of the Bombe (why didn't they ever call it that in the movie?) must have been interesting. Did he literally build it with his own hands or was there a machine shop and machinists? There must have been mechanical limitations to the speed it could run at, so why couldn't they have shown him struggling with that? Heck, they could have shown something about how the Enigma machine worked.
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Re: What Movie Have You Recently Watched?

Post by Matt48Ritchie »

My wife and I enjoyed Imitation Game. I think we benefited from knowing very little about the actual facts of the story going into it.

On Gone Girl, we both read the book and almost immediately afterward watched the movie. I think because of that we didn't really enjoy the movie. Spoilers: I thought the book was worth reading because for me it was original with the whole fake journal "gotcha", and with the lack of a protagonist. I enjoyed the fact that halfway through the book I was left thinking, "Huh? So how much of what I just read was true? How could you do that to me Gillian?"

We also watched Birdman recently, and neither of us liked it. But neither of us are big movie people which I think you have to be to an extent to get the full value from that movie.
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Re: What Movie Have You Recently Watched?

Post by Levett »

Over the weekend I saw Wild Tales in Miami.

It's a unique and unusually creative Argentinian film.

Loved it. :thumbsup
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Re: What Movie Have You Recently Watched?

Post by Matt48Ritchie »

joe8d wrote:Just wasted a couple hours watching "Birdman".Terrible and I can't even figure what it was suppose to be about.
Our thoughts exactly.
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Re: What Movie Have You Recently Watched?

Post by Fallible »

Matt48Ritchie wrote:My wife and I enjoyed Imitation Game. I think we benefited from knowing very little about the actual facts of the story going into it.

On Gone Girl, we both read the book and almost immediately afterward watched the movie. I think because of that we didn't really enjoy the movie. Spoilers:...
Would you recommend the book to someone who saw only the movie and didn't like it? I think the problem is Fincher, the director, not Flynn.
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Re: What Movie Have You Recently Watched?

Post by Matt48Ritchie »

Fallible wrote:
Matt48Ritchie wrote:My wife and I enjoyed Imitation Game. I think we benefited from knowing very little about the actual facts of the story going into it.

On Gone Girl, we both read the book and almost immediately afterward watched the movie. I think because of that we didn't really enjoy the movie. Spoilers:...
Would you recommend the book to someone who saw only the movie and didn't like it? I think the problem is Fincher, the director, not Flynn.
Hmm. I think so. Even though having already seen the movie the book won't surprise you as much as it would otherwise I think you would be able to get into the book more so than the movie. But it's hard to say if seeing the movie will make reading the book not very interesting. If you like reading I'd say give it a shot (assuming you can get it for free).
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Re: What Movie Have You Recently Watched?

Post by gkaplan »

This evening I watched Tracks on Netflix, starring Mia Wasikowska.

Adapted from Robyn Davidson's memoir of the same name, the 2013 movie chronicles the author's nine month journey on camels across the Australian desert. The film is shot in almost documentary fashion and is really engrossing. The cinematography is amazing, as you can imagine, and the soundtrack is almost mesmerizing.

Highly recommend.
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Re: What Movie Have You Recently Watched?

Post by Lon »

"The Water Diviner"

A really good film produced and directed by Russell Crowe and a appropriate opening day in rememberance of "Gallipoli" where Anzac troops were used as Cannon Fodder by the Brittish in WW1. A real Black Mark on Winston Churchill's biography.
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Re: What Movie Have You Recently Watched?

Post by HardKnocker »

Barefootgirl wrote:I enjoyed The Imitation Games, but found it interesting that it was billed as film about the advent of the computer age, when actually to me, it seemed to be more a statement about living in the shadows due to ones' sexual orientation.

BFG
Just watched it. A very good movie.

The blurb across the screen at the end about homosexuality kind of threw me. It was an unnecessary attempt to politicize the movie.
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Re: What Movie Have You Recently Watched?

Post by MoonOrb »

Child 44.

I had read and enjoyed the novel and the movie was just okay. Entertaining enough but the plot seemed kind of messy and confusing, like the movie tried to include too much of the book in it and would have been better off telling a simpler story. I'm beginning to really like Tom Hardy as an actor. Child 44 had a few of his previous acting pairings--Gary Oldman (Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy) and Noomi Rapace (The Drop).
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Re: What Movie Have You Recently Watched?

Post by LadyGeek »

The Horse Whisperer. I liked it.
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Re: What Movie Have You Recently Watched?

Post by amateurnovice »

Maps to the Stars - directed by David Cronenberg, starring Julianne Moore, John Cusack, Robert Pattinson, Mia Wasikowska, and Olivia Williams. It's Cronenberg, so you have to go in knowing that and what his films are like - it echoes the tone and pacing of A Dangerous Method and Eastern Promises. Some gory violence and lots of cursing with sexual content. I recommend it for those who like his movies and also want to see what may become of Lindsay Lohan.
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Re: What Movie Have You Recently Watched?

Post by gkaplan »

I went to see Clouds of Sils Maria yesterday, starring Juliette Binoche, Kristen Stewart, and Chloë Grace Moretz.

At the peak of her international career, Maria (Binoche) is asked to perform in a revival of the play that made her famous twenty years ago. Back then, however, she played the role of Sigrid, an alluring young girl who disarms and eventually drives her boss Helena to suicide. Now she is being asked to step into the other role, that of the older Helena. She departs with her assistant (Stewart) to rehearse in Sils Maria, a remote region of the Alps. A young Hollywood starlet (Moretz) with a penchant for scandal is to take on the role of Sigrid. Maria finds herself on the other side of the mirror, face to face with an ambiguously charming woman who is, in essence, an unsettling reflection of herself.
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Re: What Movie Have You Recently Watched?

Post by abuss368 »

Nick Cage "Joe" on Netflix. Strange!
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Re: What Movie Have You Recently Watched?

Post by abuss368 »

"The Rape of Utopia" on Netflix. Good (but sad) movie about the German's in World War II in terms of stealing all artwork, furniture, and national treasures.
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Re: What Movie Have You Recently Watched?

Post by joe8d »

abuss368 wrote:Nick Cage "Joe" on Netflix. Strange!
Yes, but well acted.
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Re: What Movie Have You Recently Watched?

Post by ALinLI »

Furious 7. Action packed very exciting.
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Re: What Movie Have You Recently Watched?

Post by madbrain »

Ex Machina on friday in the theaters - great movie !

In a similar genre, Automata at home yesterday on Blu-ray. Apparently this movie never made it to theaters - a shame.
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Re: What Movie Have You Recently Watched?

Post by abuss368 »

joe8d wrote:
abuss368 wrote:Nick Cage "Joe" on Netflix. Strange!
Yes, but well acted.
I would agree. Different movie but very well acted.

Best.
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Re: What Movie Have You Recently Watched?

Post by MoonOrb »

madbrain wrote:Ex Machina on friday in the theaters - great movie !

In a similar genre, Automata at home yesterday on Blu-ray. Apparently this movie never made it to theaters - a shame.

I liked Automata and thought it was a good companion piece to Ex Machina. Not nearly as good of course but thematically well-matched.



On Netflix: November Man, silly Pierce Brosnan spy caper that kept us mindlessly entertained for 1:45.
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Re: What Movie Have You Recently Watched?

Post by crinkles2 »

We rented Interstellar last weekend. Was an excellent movie. Really enjoyed it. Some of the planet hopping was a bit hard to believe, but overall, one I was happy to have spent the money!
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Re: What Movie Have You Recently Watched?

Post by abuss368 »

crinkles2 wrote:We rented Interstellar last weekend. Was an excellent movie. Really enjoyed it. Some of the planet hopping was a bit hard to believe, but overall, one I was happy to have spent the money!
Interesting that you mention that. The previews looked good but a did not read a lot of good feedback.
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Re: What Movie Have You Recently Watched?

Post by pezblanco »

gkaplan wrote:This evening I watched Tracks on Netflix, starring Mia Wasikowska.

Adapted from Robyn Davidson's memoir of the same name, the 2013 movie chronicles the author's nine month journey on camels across the Australian desert. The film is shot in almost documentary fashion and is really engrossing. The cinematography is amazing, as you can imagine, and the soundtrack is almost mesmerizing.

Highly recommend.
On your recommendation, we watched this! Thank you. A great movie!
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Re: What Movie Have You Recently Watched?

Post by amateurnovice »

abuss368 wrote:
crinkles2 wrote:We rented Interstellar last weekend. Was an excellent movie. Really enjoyed it. Some of the planet hopping was a bit hard to believe, but overall, one I was happy to have spent the money!
Interesting that you mention that. The previews looked good but a did not read a lot of good feedback.
I hated it. Could barely make it through 3/4 of it. Didn't care even to see how it ended. I do agree the previews made it look amazing, but the movie fell well short of expectations.
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Re: What Movie Have You Recently Watched?

Post by abuss368 »

amateurnovice wrote:
abuss368 wrote:
crinkles2 wrote:We rented Interstellar last weekend. Was an excellent movie. Really enjoyed it. Some of the planet hopping was a bit hard to believe, but overall, one I was happy to have spent the money!
Interesting that you mention that. The previews looked good but a did not read a lot of good feedback.
I hated it. Could barely make it through 3/4 of it. Didn't care even to see how it ended. I do agree the previews made it look amazing, but the movie fell well short of expectations.
Hi amateurnovice,

Some of the reviews I read is what made us hold off from renting from Red Box! The preview looked great.

Best.
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Re: What Movie Have You Recently Watched?

Post by Fifty50 »

I really didn't have a "worst movie ever" until I suffered through Interstellar. Wow. It's the worst movie ever.
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Re: What Movie Have You Recently Watched?

Post by a »

Spoilers (Gone Girl):

A few more thoughts about Gone Girl sprang into my mind
that I just had to share. (One mark of a decent movie
is when new realizations about the meanings wrapped up in
it surface to your mind unbidden.)

Gillian Flynn makes some statements about class or at least
the failings of the two classes in society (upper class and
lower class).

In the movie, the two lower class people Amy meets eventually
mug her and take her money. Flynn seems to be saying that
the worst characteristic one can find in people from the
lower class is that they don't want to work and rather wish
to just take money from the wealthy people they see around
them. (Kind of a Republican sentiment.)

Interestingly the lower class criminal is not punished for
their actions. It makes me think of when in a movie a
character is for example leapt upon by a tiger and eaten,
the character needing to die for some plot reason, the tiger
is not punished. It's just an animal being what it is - it
is not evil. Similarly the lower class thieves are neither
malicious nor evil - they're just being what they are.

Whereas Collings, representing the worst one can find in the
upper classes, displays the crime of aggrandizing power
and control and then using it to hurt another person. As
mentioned before, he receives the highest punishment for
his crime. This is either saying that taking away another
person's freedom is an incomparably worse crime than stealing
their money, or that the fact that one act is malicious and
the other is just kind of lazy, makes one crime much worse.

One final thing that is interesting is also that in the
interaction with the lower class criminals, Amy perpetrates
a minor crime against them first, and so you can almost
view the mugging as retribution or justice, which may be
another reason they are not punished for their actions.
(Can you remember what the minor crime Amy commits is?)
Whereas in the interaction with the upper class criminal,
Amy doesn't do anything bad to him first - in fact as I recall
he seeks her out and targets her for the crime. Again, this
might say something about Flynn's attitude between "blue collar"
crime and "white collar" crime in that sometimes the more
heinous crimes get lighter punishment in our society.
As well as again raising the question of what type of criminal
is truly more evil.

Yes, a very interesting and fun movie.
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Re: What Movie Have You Recently Watched?

Post by sans souliers »

Kill The Messenger

The U.S. government, in the 1980's, imports vast amounts of cocaine, builds a distribution network to selected populations in the U.S., encourages the sale and spread of addiction where the money generated is funneled back to Central America to fund Reagan's Iran Contra effort while enslaving thousands to the ravages of crack cocaine addiction and life sentences for crack pushers. Only in pre-selected neighborhoods. Not yours. Sounds like a Star Trek TNG episode.

Based on a true story, with newsreel-type footage included. https://www.google.com/?gws_rd=ssl#q=gary+webb

Didn't see this at your local cineplex last year? Me neither. Glad I got it on Netflix.
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Re: What Movie Have You Recently Watched?

Post by seeshells »

HANK ! on Netflix, Hank Paulsons involvement in the 09 melt down and before in the prior melt down in the 70s.
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Re: What Movie Have You Recently Watched?

Post by htdrag11 »

"Once Upon a Time in Anatolia" - a Turkish murder (not gory at all) mystery gem from 2011 that won the Cannes award:

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1827487/?ref_=rvi_tt

It's moving at a slower pace than we normally accustomed to. The cinematography is excellent depicting landscapes as well as the actors' faces. The mayor's daughter has an angelic face, reflecting each of the character's inner soul/feelings/demons.

The ending is rather abrupt, considering the pace of the rest of the movie. It's over 2.5 hours.
Matt48Ritchie
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Re: What Movie Have You Recently Watched?

Post by Matt48Ritchie »

a wrote:Spoilers (Gone Girl):
Do you ever wonder, I know I do, that maybe authors/writers didn't have all the deep meanings behind their work in mind while creating it? This is going back to my high school English classes where discussions with other students would inevitably turn into "No way this person thought about these bajillion different things while writing this."
a
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Re: What Movie Have You Recently Watched?

Post by a »

I do. I would say 50% of all underlying meanings are
consciously inserted and the other 50% are unconsciously
inserted.

I think English class was good training. Like all instances
where you are forced to strain your brain to come up with
something greater than the obvious parts, it stretches your
brain.

You underestimate the capacity of people when you say
that there is no way someone thought about a billion
things when writing something.
a
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Re: What Movie Have You Recently Watched?

Post by a »

I would agree though that most writers don't think
very deeply when they create a work.
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bengal22
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Re: What Movie Have You Recently Watched?

Post by bengal22 »

I just watched Heaven's Gate(the 2012 DVR edition) and absolutely love that movie. I watch it about every 2-3 years. Yes, the scenes tend to run slow, but each one packs a wallop. I love the plot, the acting, the music, and the scenery is unbelievable. This movie is one of the most maligned of all time(costs overrun, sloppy editing first go around, director ego, etc.). But I think it is worth another look when you 3 1/2 hours to burn. Once Upon a Time in America is a similar long, slow movie that I think is a classic.
"Earn All You Can; Give All You Can; Save All You Can." .... John Wesley
jginseattle
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Re: What Movie Have You Recently Watched?

Post by jginseattle »

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loves2read
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Re: What Movie Have You Recently Watched?

Post by loves2read »

Lon wrote:"The Water Diviner"

A really good film produced and directed by Russell Crowe and a appropriate opening day in rememberance of "Gallipoli" where Anzac troops were used as Cannon Fodder by the Brittish in WW1. A real Black Mark on Winston Churchill's biography.
We saw "The Water Diviner" and were surprised at Its watch -ability considering the reviews have not been positive and there was little fanfare promoting it. Story is little far fetched but ability to locate his sons' bodies is only one aspect of movie...
Thought it was interesting for several reasons--Crowe's ANZAC view of the British who probably deserve every scathing inference, the humane Turkish commander given that the Turks' genocide of Albanians was lead story in news the week we saw the movie, and the contrast with the beauty of the Turkish beach at the grave/battle site with the knowledge of past carnage---parallel situation with Vietnam's beaches in past war zone--now vacation haven...
Thought Crowe did good job of directing--movie was well-paced and interesting...
Weakest part for me was his son's lack of presence--not very good actor IMO...
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Steelersfan
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Re: What Movie Have You Recently Watched?

Post by Steelersfan »

jginseattle wrote:Ex Machina. Excellent!

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/04/10/movie ... reams.html
I agree, but you've got to be into that kind of thing.
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