Movie/film thread: resurrected

Youth (2015)

To appreciate this Michael Caine, Harvey Keitel  snore-fest, it helps to be senile.

The Nightingale (2013)

Also known as Le Promeneur d'Oiseau and Ye Ying, a French-Chinese co-production, and I couldn't find any subtitles so I watched it without. The story is straightforward enough that this worked fine, although I didn't learn what had caused the estrangement between the father and the grandfather, nor what had happened with the grandmother, though it was easy enough to guess. Nor do I know what story the grandfather told the granddaughter, but I have the impression he lied. Meanwhile, the movie, the performances, and the story are all charming (with a dash of spite here and there to keep it from slipping into the saccharine). The landscapes are glorious. And there are one or two forced moments, but they are easily overlooked. Recommended.

"THE DRESSMAKER":  A glamorous woman returns to her SMALL town in rural Australia. With her sewing machine and haute couture style, she transforms the women and exacts sweet revenge on those who did her wrong. This movie is getting a good response in Oz, but to be honest, I was not overly impressed. I've been in many small towns and have experienced small town gossip etc and perhaps that has a lot to do with my response, or lack of it, to this movie. Have you seen it yet Calach? 

Not yet. I like Australian movies, of course, but there's a limit to how much laconic charm one can watch in any given calendar year. The best Australian thing I've seen in recent-ish times has been Wentworth, the tv series with Ephiny from Xena in prison.

Love (2015)

I didn't know if I was watching a boring porn flick with good acting, or a boring 'art' flick with bad acting.

"By The Sea": Written, directed and produced by Angelina Jolie Pitt and also stars Angelina and her husband Brad Pitt.  To be very honest, I was ready to walk out of the theatre after about 30mins. There was a lot of sexual reference in this, but I found a lot of this boring. I don't want to spoil it for anyone, but I would be really interested in other opinions. I am told that it didn't get very good reviews here. Perhaps we Aussies are looking for a little bit more "action".

Star Leaf (2015)

So, imagine that you're a film producer and somebody has come to you with their one sentence pitch for a movie.

"Hikers find a secret grove of extra-terrestrial marijuana and must fight for their lives when they anger the other-worldly forces protecting the plants".

Oh, and the tag line is 'Some highs are out of this world'.

Could Star Leaf be the worst movie ever made?   

Baahubali: the Beginning (2015)

So many things wrong, one or two things right. First, it may just be me but all the dubbed versions are ridiculous. Watch with the original Tamil audio. (And note the English subtitles that work perfectly with the Hindi dubs swing wildly and widely in and out of sync underneath the same movie with Tamil audio. That's a head scratcher but whatevs.)

Second, the first hour of this movie is just asinine. The dopey hero seduces a capable, driven, and murderous young woman by turning her into a lipstick wearing airhead who then goes right ahead and gives up her lifelong quest to free her 25-year-imprisoned queen because the dopey hero says he'll take over now that he's done a sex on her. He goes to the city and starts beating people up. And frees the queen.

Third, after that first hour, the dopey hero is less dopey and asks who he is, really. The movie, to tell us and him his story, jumps back a generation.... and stays there for the next one and half hours! That one and half hours is by itself pretty decent entertainment. There's palace intrigue, singing and dancing, an invasion by hordes of African caricatures, and a monumental battle of which Xena would be proud.

Then boom, this two-and-a-freakin-half hour journey turns into a part one. Part two, presumably Baahubali: the Ending, comes out sometime next year. Meanwhile, there was lots of colour and movement. It was okay.


 

Dope (2015)

Is dope.

 


Go Head - Awreeoh

Love (2015)

I didn't know if I was watching a boring porn flick with good acting, or a boring 'art' flick with bad acting.

Easy answer: If the soundtrack has violins, it is a bad art flick. If you hear synthesized "chick-a chick-a bow wow", you are watching porn.

Sicario (2015)

A woman from Arizona SWAT is picked up to join a task force comprising CIA operatives and DELTAs just back from Afghanistan designed to respond to almost apocalyptic levels of cross-border cartel violence. Very action. Strangely flat ending. Probably still worth it.


 

Spectre (2015)

This latest James Bond film has it all the standard 'stuff': exotic locations, beautiful women, Aston Martins, gizmos and an evil megalomaniac 'badie'.

However, it requires more than the usual suspension of disbelief during a scene in the Austrian Alps -
While chasing three vehicles down a snow-covered mountain road in a plane, James crashes... and the fuselage with wing stumps (engines attached) slides down the mountain... but he still manages to use it to run down and stop the three fleeing SUVs... after he 'powers' it through a chalet/barn. Bad flying, good driving! 

Loved Sicario and I had no issues with the ending.

Spotlight is an amazing movie. A really difficult story to tell and they nailed it.

I also enjoyed In The Heart of The Sea. Moby Dick but not Moby Dick at all.

Concussion was good but it did seem to be afraid of the NFL in it's telling. The Insider was harder on the tobacco companies than this film was on the NFL. I find that very, very interesting.

Spectre was pretty but crappy. It reminded me of the second one with the newest Bond; Quantum of something or another, when there was a writers strike and they didn't really have a script.

Sicario is my favourite movie this year with Mad Max: Fury Road close behind, but I think Spotlight is the best movie I've seen in years.

Downloaded and waiting to be watched:

The Hateful Eight
Revenant

Sicario. The Princess Bride. You be the judge.