Last Film You Watched? VI

All non-Nolan related film, tv, and streaming discussions.
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Roman J. Israel, Esq: lol, this is a huge mess. Also no idea why Washington got an Oscar nom for his performance.

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A Bigger Splash
Eh

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And Then We Danced (2019) - Amazing film. Caused a bit of shitshow (okay, that’s an understatement) in Georgia (the country, not the state), as people are actively protesting and trying to prevent people from seeing it. Sort of a spiritual sibling of Call Me By Your Name which, unfortunately, is all you need to know to understand the controversy. The end calls back to Whiplash with pretty much the same awe striking intensity. An incredibly effective use of dance as both a continuation of life under the influence and destructive grip of archaic traditionalism that puts shackles onto its youth, and a means to emancipate yourself from it all.

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Big Night
Great performances by Stanley Tucci and Tony Shalhoub in what is a film about the importance and value of great cuisine, fine cooking and high quality food and once the titular big night happens you can see it on the other characters' faces when they are eating the meals that were meticulously prepared by our protagonists.
I am terrible at cooking, since I have adopted the bad habit from my university years of being easily satisfied with what I eat, which is not to say that I do not appreciate haute cuisine but it means I will be as happy eating a simple plate of pasta as I will eating an extravagant and exotic dish. The film, however, made me want to learn how to cook better food in the future and that at least speaks to its strength and impact.

9/10

The Hunger (1983)
I like surreal and artistic vampire films and this one's no exception. I just wished David Bowie was in the film much more than he is but the implication of being a vampire we get in this film are much more horrifying than how it is usually represented in films, even though David Bowie and Catherine Deneuve play terrible people in this film. The only thing I wished vampire films would stop doing is allowing vampires to move about by day, it's just annoying to me.

7/10

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By The Sea

I think if I saw this in theaters in 2015, I would have hated it. But seeing this film now after all the Jolie Pitt divorce, the film has a lot more context to it. For example
The character Pitt plays has a serious drinking problem and in real life Pitt has dealt with that as well.
Making this movie must have been some weird form of couples therapy for Jolie and Pitt. Even though they're not together anymore, they both seem to be in good spots in life and both have some pretty neat stuff going on in their careers.

This movie was really haunting and I was really moved by it. I think this film should be reconsidered.

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Ruth wrote:
November 16th, 2019, 7:29 pm
And Then We Danced (2019) - Amazing film. Caused a bit of shitshow (okay, that’s an understatement) in Georgia (the country, not the state), as people are actively protesting and trying to prevent people from seeing it. Sort of a spiritual sibling of Call Me By Your Name which, unfortunately, is all you need to know to understand the controversy. The end calls back to Whiplash with pretty much the same awe striking intensity. An incredibly effective use of dance as both a continuation of life under the influence and destructive grip of archaic traditionalism that puts shackles onto its youth, and a means to emancipate yourself from it all.
I really want to see this. Hoping to go somewhere next week

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Shakespeare in Love: Eh, not a bad film per se but seven Oscars and Best Picture at that? lol?

Sure, Dench is great and the costumes are beautiful but I just don't get why it nabbed a best cinematography nomination, at all. I must've missed something lol

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Nomis wrote:
November 16th, 2019, 9:19 am
Roman J. Israel, Esq: lol, this is a huge mess. Also no idea why Washington got an Oscar nom for his performance.
Because he's Denzel and I disagree he was good in this movie. Probably the only good thing and I thought deserved it, and James Franco's 'Me Too' coming before the nominations. Franco was probably getting that last spot if that didn't happen.

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His performance was incredibly annoying. The fact that his character was terrible at his job and the narrative made zero sense didn't help, either. Washington filled it with endless quips and ticks which resulted in something worse. I think Gyllenhaal was, once again, snubbed of a Best Actor nomination that year for Stronger. Now that's a great performance, and a pretty good film, too.

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Gangs of New York

A glorious mess.

An amazing first fifteen minutes
An all-timer performance from DDL
Exquisite world-building and sets
A solid performance by Leo despite the relative blandness of the writing

Yet the film's pacing is strangely uninvolving, especially with the Diaz subplot being absolutely terrible. It ain't the fault of the actors, but it's really surprising considering all the talent that contributed to that script.

The climax is so disappointing and badly shot and edited. Yet it has my personal favorite final shot of any film.

There's so much great and really bad in this film, it's really frustrating.

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