What Movies Are You Watching?

[Monte Smith]

August: Osage County. A decent drama, with a few too many "made-for-TV" touches.

Ha! I wonder if that's because it was a successful play? Stage values can come off as inferior on the screen. Or was it just too syrupy?

[Jazzooo]

I think the problem is that it is directed by John Wells, possibly the same guy who did ER and lots of other tv shows. Just feels a little slick and glib in spots. Excellent performance by Ms. Streep. Julia Roberts is good but her enormous lips are distracting. Chris Cooper turns in another superb performance.

[Monte Smith]

Excellent performance by Ms. Streep.

There's probably not a more boring sentence in the world of film than that.

[Jazzooo]

[LennyH]

The Grand Budapest Hotel

He sure knows how to make a Wes Anderson film! This one has all of the ingredients: A lot of the usual faces (and a bunch of new ones. A crazy amount of recognizable actors in the mix. They probably worked for $2,000 each) and the familiar editing, tracking shots, narrative devices, etc. Maybe flat-out funnier than his other films; still quirky Wes Anderson humor but to me it felt like something closer to standard comedy than is usual for him. Ralph Fiennes clearly gets Wes Anderson. And what a boys club most of his films seem to be. It almost always boils down to friendship and a network of guys who do favors for each other and have each other's backs.

The boy (Wes) is nothing if not idiosyncratic and this leopard ain't gonna change its spots. I enjoyed it enough but, like Moonrise Kingdom, it felt a bit long to me. It's not a long film but the staccato style just starts to wear thin after a while. These must be exhausting films to make. I get exhausted just watching them.

Recommended for people who like Wes Anderson (duh).

[stonemonkts]

American Hustle

Talk about a mixed bag. It wasn't bad overall, just lumpy.

First, if Russell meant to mimic Scorcese sans violence, he was successful. Not sure why he would, but whatever.

Christian Bale was great. Jennifer Lawrence was miscast, appearing like a teenager dressing up as an adult. Amy Adams was fine, and so was Renner, but also miscast. Bradley Cooper is an actor with limitations, I hesitate to say mediocre.

The highlight for me was seeing DeNiro briefly deliver a vintage performance, one I haven't seen him do in decades.

[ValerieB]

American Hustle

Talk about a mixed bag. It wasn't bad overall, just lumpy.

First, if Russell meant to mimic Scorcese sans violence, he was successful. Not sure why he would, but whatever.

Christian Bale was great. Jennifer Lawrence was miscast, appearing like a teenager dressing up as an adult. Amy Adams was fine, and so was Renner, but also miscast. Bradley Cooper is an actor with limitations, I hesitate to say mediocre.

The highlight for me was seeing DeNiro briefly deliver a vintage performance, one I haven't seen him do in decades.

you must be listening in to my conversations!!!

[walto]

I think I liked American Hustle more than you did, stone, but I completely agree with these assessments:

Christian Bale was great. Jennifer Lawrence was miscast, appearing like a teenager dressing up as an adult. Amy Adams was fine, and so was Renner, but also miscast. Bradley Cooper is an actor with limitations, I hesitate to say mediocre.

The highlight for me was seeing DeNiro briefly deliver a vintage performance, one I haven't seen him do in decades.

Bale should have gotten most of the accolades, I think. One other criticism I'd add was its fairly blatant imitation of The Sting. Still liked it though, maybe because Bale (and his comb-over) and Adams were so good.

[sozamora]

I haven't seen American Hustle, but I recently saw Silver Linings Playbook and really liked it. The script is kind of a mess at times, but the performances hold it together really well.

[walto]

Caught Philomena the other day. I thought it was excellent. Adult script, great performances, moving story.

[steve(thelil)]

Agree about Philomena, except for the part about seeing it "the other day."

[Monte Smith]

Agree about Philomena, except for the part about seeing it "the other day."

Yuk yuk yuk.



Title says it all, really.

[sozamora]

Agree about Philomena, except for the part about seeing it "the other day."

You don't agree that Walto saw it the other day?

[walto]

Hmmm. Maybe it wasn't the other one after all.

[steve(thelil)]

I just checked my datebook. In fact, it was the other day. So we totally agree on Philomena.

[Chazro]

Last night on Netflix I watched a movie I hadn't seen a long time; 'For The Boys'. I stopped watching mid-way through as the flick slows down in the 2nd half as Dixie Leonard gets older (and I know how it ends). It's a powerhouse performance by Bette Midler, especially when she's doing the character's younger years. The musical numbers are the draw for me (I've owned the soundtrack for many years). I think the movie's one of the great show biz flicks, but there's kind of an imbalance in how upbeat it plays in the beginning and how down it is by the end. Some say he was miscast but I always enjoy seeing Jimmy Caan being Jimmy Caan!

[LennyH]

I watched Her, which I was looking forward to.

I think I mentioned earlier that David Edelstein, who I like, said that this was the best film of 2013 by a wide margin. He must've felt an emotional connection to it that was mostly missing for me.

I liked it enough to spend a couple of hours with it. That's as far as I can go.

[walto]

James Caan is like Gene Hackman.

The difficulty here is that Gene Hackman's NAME is almost Hugh Jackman's name inside out. Not that anybody cares (or should) but at my age, that kind of thing can cause immense problems.

[LennyH]

I've heard that title many times before, but still have no clue what it is...

I guess this could be a spoiler since you've managed to steer clear of news on this one, but it's the one set in the future where a dude (Joaquin Phoenix) falls for his operating system (Scar Jo). Silly sounding premise but the thought was that Spike Jonze might just pull it off. Interested in hearing from the rest of the peanut gallery on this one. thelil gave it a big thumbs down.

Glad there's good stuff on TV nowadays because I can't think of any films that I'm anxiously awaiting to hit DVD.

Oh, I also watched the Redford film All is Lost. It's a really odd human being that doesn't talk to himself and curse (a lot) while all of this insane shit is going on out at sea. They apparently made a conscious decision to tell the story with pretty much nothing but silence and facial expressions, which I found rather odd. Also, when I see someone in a survival situation and they get on my nerves and do stupid shit then I pretty much start rooting for them to die.

[steve(thelil)]

I thought "Her" was a wildly overrated annoying piece of crap. (And I didn't like it.)

It's supposedly about a guy who falls in love with an operating system. But the "part" of operating system was written exactly as if it was a human. For this reason, it failed miserably as an examination of humans' relationship with modern technology (which it has been much lauded as)

[walto]

when I see someone in a survival situation and they get on my nerves and do stupid shit then I pretty much start rooting for them to die.

Hey, that's what I do with whoever is in a chase scene (both chaser and chased)!

[Jazzooo]

I thought Her was a very good movie. More or less original.


Godzilla--truly awful. Bryan Cranston does not work for me on the big screen. Neither, apparently, does Godzilla. One or two cool shots but huge holes in the plot, so to speak.

XMen--Days of Future Past. Good to very good, though overly long and a little disjointed. One or two stunning visual sequences, some decent humor.

A Haunted House 2, one of the Wayans Brothers parodies of scary movie clichés. Far more genuine belly laughs than I'd anticipated--the racial humor is right on the edge, but mostly well-executed. Mindless but fun.

Non-stop, with Liam Neeson. I am absolutely certain that this will not be the worst action picture of the year. A bit more character development than usual.

[Chazro]

James Gandolfini's last movie; 'Enough Said' premiered tonight on HBO. What an amazing high note for him and Julia Louise Dreyfuss. Movie's got so much heart and is very smart. For me, who's a stone-cold Sopranos freak, having watched him so many times, I'm a huge fan of his acting abilities. Hearing his heavy breathing, his grunt of a laugh, just felt like I was watching an old pal at work. Very bittersweet but satisfying at the same time. Gone much too soon, RIP James Gandolfini.

[mjb]

Snowpiercer. Directed by Jooh-ho Bong director of, inter alia, The Host.

Loved almost every second of it. Doesn't make much sense but that doesn't matter in the slightest.

Exhilarating stuff

[Monte Smith]

I saw Godzilla. While I was pleased with its general suckiness, I found myself wondering why in all the Godzilla movies thru the years, Toho Studios or not, we've never seen a sensitive, realistic monster-on-monster sex scene. I mean really getting it on, like I'm sure giant monsters do in real life. Are we just not ready for that? Spare me the adolescent remarks, but if anyone has a genuine insight I would very much appreciate thoughtful rumination.