Schoolio's Movie Corner

[rage patton]

Concept art for next four Pixar films:






Relieved at the lack of Cars III

The movie about a world where Dinosaurs never went extinct sound's beyond promising. Especially with the director of Up behind it. I am already incredibly excited about that one. A Pixar film about Dia de los Muertos sounds like a wonderful idea as well. Thank god they aren't going forward with that rumoured Toy Story 4. I absolutely loved Toy Story 3, but to make a 4th would have been a shame.

[Miroir Noir]

The dino one is the most intriguing for me, too.

[xuclarockerx]

Saw Contagion this weekend. Great film but the ending left me a bit unsatisfied. Anyone else really dig the soundtrack? Kinda Reznor-ish.

God help me, watching Take This Waltz on Netflix this weekend caused me to have an orgy dream about Seth Rogen. I couldn't have a dream involving Michelle Williams or the other cute guy, it had to be Seth.

Sounds like you have those type dreams a lot.

[amyzzz]

Not really. I just type them all out here.

[ThatGirl]

Saw Contagion this weekend. Great film but the ending left me a bit unsatisfied. Anyone else really dig the soundtrack?

The soundtrack was one of the best aspects of the film. It created great tension and gave the scenes a good pace. I enjoyed Kate Winslet's character the most, but generally enjoyed the film overall.

[mountmccabe]

My problems with Looper are identical to my problems with Inception. They're both primarily action movies that drastically over-explain their admittedly clever premises, and take the science out of sci-fi by choosing to engage with their ideas exclusively via simplistic genre tropes (the Bond-derived dream settings in Inception, the time-travel-as-device-for-mob-vengeance-only here) rather than scenarios that require actual imagination or intellectual complexity. They also share an affinity for underdeveloped romances; this was only a minor irritant in Inception, but Looper actively uses the "love story" to destroy its credibility. Not only does it slow the second half of the film to a crawl and demand investment in a depthless relationship, with a stock female who doesn't have a shred of personality besides "feisty and horny" (I like Emily Blunt, but she's got nothing to do here)...and after all that water-treading, the climax completely shuns the few interesting notions the film has raised (for starters, the JGL character's knowledge and injuries transfer repeatedly to the Bruce Willis version; yet somehow his emotional transformation and growing bond with mom and son has no effect on Willis the angry killing machine) so that Rian Johnson can end the movie with Another Christ Sacrifice.

I enjoyed it as I watched it, but every time I've thought, spoke or written about it afterward has made me hate it. Which is exactly what happened with Inception.

I have no problem with some movies having sci-fi as their setting; this one was at least fully built around the sci-fi aspects. You thought the love story destroyed the film's credibility because you didn't accept the film to begin with. JGL was changed by what he saw and without that growth the movie was nothing. I'll agree that Emily Blunt's character was a little thin but I think there was more there than you're giving credit for; she had more than that in how she was dealing with her son.

Also they did discuss JGL's feelings transferring to Willis; how he would eventually forget his wife, etc.; it was the main motivation for him trying to be so quick with the angry killing. Also JGL only truly knew where he stood at the end; if we were being generous we might find a brief pause on Willis' part and attribute it to JGL growing up (I would have to re-watch to see if such a thing is actually there).

I enjoyed it as I watched it, but every time I've thought, spoke or written about it afterward has made me hate it.

I had the opposite experience. I wasn't entirely on board right off but the more I thought about it the more I liked what it did.

Excessive use of exposition or not, I just thought the whole thing was kind of hair-brained. I was actually pretty on-board with it until it got to the kid being the Rainmaker part, and the dramatic sequences/special effects that went along with it. It got unstomachably cheesy at that point.

I thought that reveal was the most amazing part of the film; I really liked the slow building hints. I am not sure what you saw as cheesy, though.

Just watched Looper. Thought the concept was actually alright, definitely less feather-headed and fucked up than Inception. The ending though was completely baffling. So, the Rainmaker kid wasn't Joseph Gordon-Levitt/Bruce Willis, right? Looper meant he saw the future in that he saw that if Rainmaker's mother was killed by him then Rainmaker would end up running away in the same fashion he had to and thus would be bitter enough to spend the future killing Loopers? 'Cause it made things rather confusing and for a second sounded like he was saying he is the kid, which doesn't make much sense.

Yeah, the Rainmaker kid was not JGL/Willis though there was a clear parallel.

Yeah I don't know that it was inspiring by any means but it was definitely less shitty than Inception.... Plus I kinda dig the idea of murder being so difficult to get away with in the future that you have to send victims back to the past, that actually makes some sense in a weird way. All the shit about "closing the loop" was just bizarre though. Why the fuck do the people who employed these loopers give a flying fuck about killing you thirty years from now exactly?

Because 30 years from now doing this is illegal and hard to get away with. Would you want a bunch of big talking idiots running around talking about how they made their fortunes? Wanna bet that once the authorities figured out what was going on they started putting up significant rewards for anyone that could talk about the Looper operations? And would you trust your amoral pack of retired killers to not rat you out for another big payday? I don't see it as having been personal or anything, just tying up loose ends.

I think the least believable thing about that is the idea that they all lived 30 years and all lived through their abductions.

[TallGuyCM]

Seeking a bit of a breather from the 2012 movie tear I was on over the holiday weekend, tonight I watched Godard's Pierrot Le Fou. I really connected with this one much better than some of his others, probably my second favorite of his behind Breathless at this point. I know a reoccurring theme of his tends to be the distance between men and women, and their utter incapability of understanding/eventually accepting the other...it's been a bit more subtle in films like Contempt as in this it was definitely at the forefront. And sometimes I don't do too well with subtle, so I gladly accepted the on-the-nose way that theme was depicted this time around. It did end in a fashion that left me feeling a bit detached, but with Godard I'm used to that by now haha.

[bmack86]

If you want to really love Godard, see Alphaville. I don't really buy DVDs anymore, but if I ever see that film I will pay whatever they're asking. It's so goddamn great.

[cutterbutter]

Bande a part is my favorite Godard film, and the first that clicked with me. Made me enjoy his other films loads more both going forward and revisiting.

[Miroir Noir]

But Breathles, My Life to Live, and Contempt are the masterpieces for me.

[schoolofruckus]

Week-End
2 or 3 Things I Know About Her
Masculin Feminin
Pierrot Le Fou
Vivre Sa Vie
Breathless
Made In USA
Contempt
Une Femme est une Femme

Based on this pattern, I badly need to see Alphaville and La Chinoise. Bande a Part as well.

[bmack86]

Bande a Parte is highly entertaining. I like Contempt, Breathless and Masculin/Feminin quite a bit as well, but Alphaville is such a great Sci Fi flick.

[Miroir Noir]

It has been years since I've watched Alphaville. I have the circa 1998 Criterion, and I should give it a play soon.

[malcolmjamalawesome]

Family Movie day also. All wanted to see different things and only thing we agreed on was Parental Guidance. It was actually pretty funny. Not a great movie by any standards but worth the price of admission. Laughs through out the whole movie.

Did nobody seriously respond to this

[KungFuJoe]

Caught Amour at Laemmle's Royal Theatre last night. Good film, but it won't crack my top 5 of 2012. However, this was my first time seeing a movie at the Royal in over 5 years. When did they renovate this place? This theater was much nicer than I remember and I look forward to seeing more films there.

[unit300021]

Did nobody seriously respond to this

Nope, well besides you of course. I stand by what I said and it was entertaining.

Saw Django yesterday. I liked it a lot. I thought the ending was a tad bit drawn out but other then that no complaints. I think the best part of the movie were the songs he chose to use in certain parts. Like when Freedom was playing during the fight scene had me cracking up. The N bomb was said a lot but I didn't think it was as violent as some people have told me.

[ods..]

Yeah, a dude getting ripped apart by dogs isn't violent at all.

[unit300021]

I mean certain scenes were but I was expecting it to be a non stop shoot em up and it really wasn't.

[Drinkey McDrinkerstein]

I thought the Mandingo wrestling scene was absolutely revolting. It was so brutal, it was hard to watch.

[_The_]

I thought the Mandingo wrestling scene was absolutely revolting. It was so brutal, it was hard to watch.

I agree. But that was kind of the point right?

[unit300021]

Yeah you guys just mentioned the only two scenes I thought were unnecessary violence, as a whole though I didn't think Django was any worse then Inglorious Bastards or Kill Bill with regards to violence.

[amyzzz]

Tarantino was on Terry Gross's show earlier this week, and he said that all the violence in his movie is justifed because all that (Mandingo wrestling, torturing slaves who misbehave, having slaves ripped apart by dogs)actually happened, and he wanted to portray an unflinching record of that. Of course, some of it is just fun violence and devices from the spaghetti western genre.

[_The_]

Tarantino was on Terry Gross's show earlier this week, and he said that all the violence in his movie is justifed because all that (Mandingo wrestling, torturing slaves who misbehave, having slaves ripped apart by dogs)actually happened, and he wanted to portray an unflinching record of that. Of course, some of it is just fun violence and devices from the spaghetti western genre.

And the impact both of those scenes had on Dr. Schultz make them entirely necessary.

[ods..]

Tarantino was on Terry Gross's show earlier this week, and he said that all the violence in his movie is justifed because all that (Mandingo wrestling, torturing slaves who misbehave, having slaves ripped apart by dogs)actually happened, and he wanted to portray an unflinching record of that. Of course, some of it is just fun violence and devices from the spaghetti western genre.

Except that mandingo fighting is fictional. Appropriated from one of Tarantino's favorite Blaxploitation films from the 70s. http://www.slate.com/blogs/browbeat/..._to_fight.html

[Drinkey McDrinkerstein]

Yeah you guys just mentioned the only two scenes I thought were unnecessary violence, as a whole though I didn't think Django was any worse then Inglorious Bastards or Kill Bill with regards to violence.

Oh, i'm not against any of the violence being in the film, nor would i call any of it "unnecessary" for the movie. I think it's a bit ridiculous to say that the movie isn't that violent though. The gun-fighting is quite extreme too. i get why it be off-putting to people. i like it mostly, though.

[schoolofruckus]

Caught Amour at Laemmle's Royal Theatre last night. Good film, but it won't crack my top 5 of 2012. However, this was my first time seeing a movie at the Royal in over 5 years. When did they renovate this place? This theater was much nicer than I remember and I look forward to seeing more films there.

The renovations are brand new - I'm pretty sure Amour and Barbara are the first films to play there since it re-opened. I'm excited to catch Amour there next week and Tabu & In Another Country later in the month. I've only been there twice altogether even though it's one of the closest theaters to my home, but since those two screenings were Uncle Boonmee and A Separation, it's certainly got some positive associations.

Speaking of positive associations and renovated theaters - last night was my first visit to the Sundance Cinemas Sunset location, which used to be the Laemmle Sunset 5 (my former favorite theater in LA). I'm not entirely sure how much I love the high-class, rustic-in-quotation-marks aesthetic, but the beer selection and menu look pretty promising; I'm also inclined to love the room simply because I have seen so many great films there. Something about walking outside and riding down the escalator and thinking "holy shit, that was great" that just feels right, And while my last trip to the theater was the terrific closing-night doubleheader of Another Happy Day and Rampart (both of which I was quite fond of, the former especially), my first film post-facelift keeps the tradition alive - Joe Wright's Anna Karenina is awesome. I haven't read the novel, but it's reasonable to assume that the complex gender politics and impeccably interweaving of ideologically conflicted relationship should be credited to Tolstoy. However, Wright gets full credit for the film's thrillingly audacious staging, pace and setting - the central conceit being that it takes place in a live theater, incorporating the stage, backstage, perms and audience into multiple different sets. It's tough to describe the effect sight-unseen, but it's an inspired stroke of brilliance for a narrative in which so many choices are made under the consideration of societal scrutiny. Also, how is Keira Knightly so fucking great in Wright's movies, and yet so terrible in almost everything else*?


* - Spoken as a fan of her work in A Dangerous Method, if not the film itself.

[SlowMotionApocalypse]

When's Schwartzeneggar going to make another movie, greatest movie star of all time, your fans are waiting.

[paulb]

Did anyone see Hitchcock? The dvd screener just leaked, wondering if it was worth watching?

[xuclarockerx]

Watched War Horse tonight, better than I expected

[KungFuJoe]

I saw Jack Reacher yesterday. I liked it a lot though it felt like I was watching a made for TV movie some of the time. However, I really like the way Christopher McQuarrie directs suspenseful action. There are some really great scenes in it. They could've done a better job with the fight scene at the end though. Werner Herzog is awesome and I much preferred his villain role to Javier Bardem's in Skyfall. It's definitely not a film to rush out and see in a theater at full price, but I'd redbox that shit as soon as it hits.