Last Movie You Saw, Name & Review Movie • Page 27

I love a lot of Anderson's films. Moonrise Kingdom, The Royal Tennenbaums and Fantastic Mr. Fox are among the best of the 21st century. The few I don't like (Bottle Rocket, Life Aquatic, Darjeeling Limited) I could do without ever sitting through again. I've also had zero desire to revisit Grand Budapest, despite it's growing reputation.

 

Finally got around to Keanu last night. I thought it was hilarious. I'm hoping to see more from Key and Peele in the future.

 

That explains why you think Rushmore is his weakest

 

The Life Aquatic and Darjeeling Limited are certainly weaker Anderson, but there is still a lot there to value. Fantastic Mr. Fox gets a ton of praise but I have not watched it since it came out and have no desire to.

 

The Life Aquatic is one of his best.

 

Grand Budapest and Mr fox by far are my favorite....I haven't seen royal or aquatic in quite some time.

Darjeeling was fine and I think moonrise met my expectations but didn't exceed them

 

Elizabethtown is about as mediocre as I expected/feared. Legolas and Mary Jane are super charming together, but that couldn't save it from the poor writing. Even at Cameron Crowe's worst, Claire still has a mystical quality similar to some of his other female lead characters like Penny Lane and Diane Court (Kirsten Dunst had the same mysticality in The Virgin Suicides and later in Marie Antoinette and Melancholia, so it must not have been too hard for her), but what the character doesn't have enough of is something real that grounds her (or maybe the last road trip is just too hard to believe), making her too idealistic as the girl who serendipitously drops into depressed guy's life and saves him. Susan Sarandon's speech at the memorial was classic Crowe, but it was immediately followed by the all too silly Freebird scene. This was a trend in the movie: just when I think it's about to achieve greatness, it falls over its own feet. I guess after the Aloha whitewashing "fiasco" (which I have no interest in seeing) I can no longer expect him to always be great, but I don't think that's why I'm being so harsh on Elizabethtown, it's just not good.

 

I'm very much an Elizabethown apologist.

Jason Bourne was a solid, worthy entry in the series.

Arrowsmith has a few moments of "Oh yeah this is John Ford and he's awesome" but mostly is just rushed. Always like watching Ronald Colman be dashing though.

 

Been meaning to watch this. Love those guys.

Definitely one of my favorites.

 

Igby Goes Down - 7.5/10

So many great memories watching this movie. Great cast. Highly recommended.

 

The Darjeeling Limited is probably my favorite Wes Anderson movie. Royal Tenenbaums and The Grand Budapest Hotel are up there as well. Moonrise Kingdom and The Life Aquatic are probably my least favorites.

 

There's nothing particularly wrong with Silver Linings Playbook. It's well-written, well-acted, and well-shot for the most part. I like how it deals with mental illness. And obviously I love Jennifer Lawrence. I don't know, I think it was just so... It lacked personality? The kind of thing where you're watching a Quentin Tarantino movie and you just know it's Quentin Tarantino. Or you're watching Wes Anderson movie and you know it's Wes Anderson. This is my only David O. Russel so far, but it felt so standard. Like, totally Oscar bait.

I put on Meet the Patels afterward because I just finished watching my fifth movie this week that was just full of white people, like oh my god can you please stop dominating Hollywood for just one second. But anyway, Meet the Patels is really good. I think I enjoyed it more than Exit Through the Gift Shop. It definitely had a lot more heart to it. I don't usually watch documentaries, so I don't have much to compare it to, but I thought it was just a really well put together story, with the drawings and the unseen sister character and all the perfect cuts between big scenes, and like, it's just a bonus that it's a real story. All the stuff about Indian culture was really fascinating, but I was more drawn to the family dynamic and the stuff about relationships. And hey, if this accomplished actor can be 30 and not have his love-life together, I guess it's fine that I don't know what I'm doing at 25.

I'm trying to refrain from using number ratings, but I don't know how else to say this: Elizabethtown isn't bad, it's a solid 7, but almost everything else he's done has been a strong 9 or 10 for me, so that's why it's a little disappointing.

Edit: I lied, I forgot David O. Russel did The Fighter. That had the same problem for me, though. Totally forgettable despite being well-written and well-acted. I can see myself watching American Hustle and Joy at some point, but more for JLaw than for Russel.

 

That's O. Russel's mo.

Felt the same way walking out of American Hustle, good performances but no care at all for the film itself.

 

Remember the part in Silver Linings Playbook where Robert DeNiro randomly bet away everything the family had left so the guy from the Hangover and the girl from The Hunger Games had to have a danceoff?

 

American Hustle was awful. I wanted to leave the theater. Ughhhh

 

So bad. I nearly did leave. Completely disregarded Joy as a result of.

 

O Russell is also a terrible abusive person

 

Since Stranger Things is basically one long movie can I just include it here and give it a 10/10?

As far as actual movies go, last one I saw was Room and I'd also give it a full 10/10. Amazing film. Completely broke me.

 

Whiskey Tango Foxtrot was pretty good. I was surprised by how much I liked it. The tone was a lot different than the trailers portrayed.

 

Thunderbolt is, like most early talkies, pretty stiff. But it also has really expressive use of sound effects and is definitely part of the beginnings of the crime genre that would soon dominate movies. Josef von Sternberg is a bit hamstrung by the constraints of the first year of recording sound, but even still, he finds some great shots where he can.

 

I thought Whiskey Tango Foxtrot was garbage.

 

Begin Again is a sweet little movie with a lot of big stars. I think what's most amusing is the cast, actually. Elizabeth Swann, The Hulk, Mos Def, two judges from The Voice, the host of The Late Late Show. There are a lot of things I love about the movie, a few things I hate, and some of it has to do with the ending, so, incoming spoiler tags. I love the music, it sounds like something an actual singer-songwriter would write. I love Keira Knightley, everything about her performance in this as Gretta is perfection. I love that when Mark Ruffalo's character Dan holds her for a moment with longing in his eyes, she walks away. I love that when Adam Levine's character asks her to come onto the stage with him to perform her song, she walks away. I hate that the last scene during the credits is about Dan. I hate that the last photograph we see as the credits end is of Dan and his wife. Even though I guess Knightley and Ruffalo are technically co-leads, it's like the movie is actively trying to tell you that this is not her story, that it's really all about him and how a girl walks into a man's life and saves him, despite how far her character has come. I applaud the movie for giving her agency enough to walk out of a relationship when the guy who cheated on her is begging her to stay. But then it has to go and say Oh look Dan rekindled his marriage, and it was only possible because of Gretta. Don't focus on her accomplishments, focus on that.Bullshit. What's also bullshit is the only Asian character in this is Mim, the girl who breaks up Gretta's relationship, that homewrecking whore. You know how many Asian people play violin? Why can't the violinist in Gretta's band be Asian? At least the violinist had like two lines in the movie, Mim didn't say fucking shit. What, like you can't find any Asian people in New York? Oh wow you got some big name black people in the movie, diversity for the win. Eh, I feel like I'm being nitpicky; this representation thing is a problem with Hollywood itself, I feel like I shouldn't be complaining about the little things when the problem has had much more egregious examples recently. So anyway, really nice film. I should probably see Once eventually, get some unfamiliar faces for a change.

 

Isn't it like really problematic?

 

From the first scene, I thought Chasing Amy would be just another typical nineties rom-com. I'm glad it turned out to be so much more than that. It has a very complex portrayal of sexuality, and it conveys a lot of very valuable insights about relationships. However, I'm not sure if it's all that well written, as much of the dialogue feels very on the nose, and a lot of what I think might have been intended as humor or comic relief just wasn't funny. Holden was consistently stupid and Banky was consistently annoying, but I guess that's the point. Joey Lauren Adams really shines as Alyssa. This is my first Kevin Smith film; I'm not too eager to look into his others.

 

You should at least check out the first Clerks. At that point, if you're not a fan, no need to keep going.