Moviepass #54: A quiet place 9/10 kinda slow starting but there's a lot of tension on on the last 30 min..

Star Wars: the Last Jedi

2/4. Pretty bad, actually.

Ice Guardians: 9/10. Documentary on NHL enforcers

The Road 6/10

Isle of Dogs - 5/5

If you're a dog owner or dog lover, go see this.

Wes Anderson and his regulars got another great movie here.

Justice League - 2.5/4

I was prepared for the worst but this was an acceptable way to spend two hours. There were quite a few solid laughs, especially from The Flash.
I had one major problem with it and that is Superman. Why go to the bother of killing off Superman if you're just going to bring him back as a fucking knob? He head butted Wonder Woman and bullied Batman like a scumbag at school. For what? To prove that resurrection turns you into a fuckhead?

Zach Snyder does things like this and it always fucks the movie out of being better than it is. He cannot help himself but mess with well established superhero protocol. First it's Batman murdering, then it's Superman destroying a city worse than 9/11 and now he has Jesus Superman battering women for literally no reason whatsoever.

This film was going well until he David O Russelled it.

Zach Snyder you are a useless knob and Amy Adams is the worst Lois Lane in history. I would have enjoyed it if Supes had battered her to be honest.

Dead Men Don't Wear Plaid - 4/4

I love well done collage films and this one had me in tears a couple of times. This may be my favourite Steve Martin film behind Trains Planes. So good. Cleaning Woman!


Still Alice - 2.5/4

An undeniably great performance with a weak film wrapped around it. If you would like to see a truly wonderful film about memory loss then the pitch-perfect "Away From Her" has a far stronger and more relatable storyline and it contains greater contributory performances from the supporting cast. I love Julianne Moore and she was great but this film is ironically a perfect example of a forgettable Oscar winner that clearly reaped rewards because the star was next in line for the win off the back of her earlier roles.

The women's Oscar categories are routinely laughable really. This happens all the time, winning for the wrong film.

Please watch a new movie everyday and write a review. Love reading a SOB movie review. Very well worded and thoughtful while being succinct about it.

Gotta agree with Drebin here. Good reviews by SOB. I liked the part about battering Amy Adams the most.

Isle of Dogs

Liked it

"Love" wes anderosn

Thanks fellas, I'll keep reviewing movies as long as they keep making 'em.

I have to write up a review for Blade Runner: Final Cut and The Descendants which I watched recently. Alexander Payne is a glorious man.

Yes SOB's reviews are easily top 5 in this thread. May have said it before, even if you don't agree with the take you see where he's coming from.

Lost Soul: The Doomed Journey of Richard Stanley's Island of Dr. Moreau: 4/4

There's a guilt free schadenfreude to delight in when bad decisions collide. For anybody who feels more sated by immaculate failure than the hyperbole of success, here is the greatest exposure of Hollywood lunacy that documentary can offer.
The decadence of Overnight is eclipsed here in the flapping dislocated maw of Hollywood's equivalent of that big cat on tv who gets its jawbone kicked in half by the gazelle and can't eat so it just lays there in agony for days until finally, predictably it expires into repugnant, pathetic death. I can remember 1996's The Island Of Dr Moreau and it's amazing to me that somehow they pulled anything enjoyable from it at all. This documentary is like the asterisk that eclipses the book and it's absolutely the best film about a failed film production I have ever seen.

Catch Me If You can starring Leonard Dicaprio and Tom Hanks - 10/10

That review caused a spontaneous and joyous laugh to rise from my core.

I'm not trying to take the piss either.
That was great.

Isle of Dogs - 9/10

I really liked it, probably my favorite Wes Anderson movie.

I still have to get a review up for a few films but yesterday I picked up three films I have been very excited to see:

Sicario
Magnolia
Close Encounters Of The Third Kind

That's about seven or eight hours of cinema there and I have been looking in every DVD store for a copy of Magnolia for years. Imagine that in a world where Amazon exists.

I actually bought nine movies yesterday but the other six were just opportunistic purchases.
The Belko Experiment was fucking great though. This is how Office Space could have gone.

Blood Diamond by Leonardo DiCaprio - 10/10

Magnolia - 3/4

What happens when a writer gets too bogged down in clever connections, individually brilliant pieces of dialogue and a plot that needs to be threaded tighter than an Egyptian's bedspread? You get a handful of joy bred from the train of thought that the story takes you down but not much more. Somehow all of the positives cluster up in odd frequencies and leave long patches of inert, expectation-filled fidget space.
Simply put this film could be taglined "Magnolia - Laid On A Bit Thick" or "Other People's Problems".
A lot of it seems brilliant but comes off as hugely pretentious and in all honesty it feels more like a film by the maker of Phantom Thread, The Master and Inherent Vice than a film by the maker of Hard Eight, Boogie Nights and There Will Be Blood. I prefer his earlier work but Magnolia has an epic performance each by Julianne Moore and Philip Baker Hall and a lot of wonderful ideas that are supposed to pull together and form a far better shape than we end up with. I think it would have benefited from the removal of the William H Macy storyline and the entire Melora Walters character. You get a streamlined version of the same film that way and all you lose is padding and a thoroughly poor performance from Walters which drags John C Reilly down with it which is a shame because he's excellent.
Tom Cruise was really quite spectacular in his part for what that's worth. I think I'd have made the film mostly about him and Julianne Moore's story, they had a particularly strong background in the film and the way they played their roles was surprisingly vicious. I loved their vitriol.

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Really?

I bet you masturbate to Leo's interviews.

Blockers-8/10
Very funny. Cena is a bit of a show stealer here. He basically plays the dad version of his hustle loyally respect gimmick and it works with hilarious results. The teenage girls are great too. Was pleasantly surprised.

Moviepass #55 Rampage 7/10 not bad for what it is. There's a Rampage arcade machine in the movie if you look quick enough.

Wait, wasn't there already a Rampage film? Directed by Uwe Boll?

Yeah. That was a dude being a mass shooter. This one has monsters and the Rock.

Oh yeah. I have never seen that Boll's movie but heard it was actually pretty decent, especially for an Uwe Boll movie.

They made a sequel too.

2 sequels according to wiki!

A Quiet Place - 8.5/10

A Quiet Place was so good -- only thing I didn't enjoy were the two cellphones that went off during the movie.

That you and poit's problem.

Ready Player One - 5/5

Hell of a trip down Nostalgiamemorygamerpopculture Lane.

Rampage-5/10
Very mediocre, and honestly boring slog. Everything is really hammy and kinda lame. It was ok for background noise but I couldn't even say it was fun

Rampage -- 6.5/10

It's really dumb but it's also harmless.
Reminded me of Alligator (1980) but nowhere near as fun as Alligator. Not quite as good as the King Kong reboot (sorry George the Ape) but alas, it's harmless.

The Big Sick - 3.5 out of 4

Strikes the right balance of funny and serious. Thought the main guy would try to treat himself like Aziz Ansari and make himself out to be the best bf ever but he was a much more real portrayal of a normal dude who doesn't have it all figured out.

The Princess and the Frog: 7/10

Really liked it. Needed that one song that sticks with you for a life time to be on the level of the classic Disney musicals but it was good.

Background matting drove me nuts though. Like the foreground and the background never felt like they were the same art style.

Despicable Me 3: 4/10. Feel like it just had "no purpose" or "story to tell".

The Emoji Movie: 7/10. Was pretty much a carbon copy of a bunch of other animated movies. It wasn't terrible or anything.

I have about ten to write up. I may do them shorter.

Save your half assed write ups for another board

All or nothing

:mad:

Isle of Dogs: 3.5/4

Dogs rule. Cats drool.

Ready Player One: 2/4

Just got more and more silly. So much space magic. Def tried to cram a lot of nerd/pop culture references into it. I'm sure some will think that's great, but I'm over it. I'd rather just do an "I love the 90's" thread here.

Voice from the Stone - 4/10

Kind of boring at times and the last 20 minutes doesn't really make any sense

Moviepass #56 Truth Or Dare 4/10 only thing good was I saw it at the Regal Fenway in Boston with big comfy recliner seats. Movie was trash and a hilariously stupid ending

The Descendants - 3.5/4

Judy Greer, Shailene Woodley, Robert Forster and a resurgent Matthew Lillard provide greater support than is necessary for the strength of Clooney's performance. George Clooney has the inner acting elastic that allows him to find his range without stretching himself into an unnatural shape or becoming detached from what makes him an attractive screen presence.
George Clooney is a lot like Jack Nicholson that way. Complete and absolute charisma wrapped up in a haunted, desperate powerhouse and yet a lovably cheeky and hilarious rascal. Gabriel Byrne tries to be himself in everything he does, Sam L does it too but if you want to see real chops behind the veneer then you go see George.
The film itself sways between abject hilarity around a morbid topic and heart lifting empathy for a pure portrayal of the family dynamic.

Payne does it again. I'm a bit scared to see Downsizing now. Apparently it sucks after about halfway.

A Quiet Place-8/10
Really tense, well paced movie. Some jump scares but mostly just building in high tension. There's a scene in particular driven by Emily Blunt that's especially great. Music was great as well.

Watching Tideland. Think I hate it.
Prepared to start enjoying it if the kid gets her act together ASAP.

I doubt it. Gilliam's intro tells you outright that you may hate the movie.

Nope. Not for me. I won't bother rating that shit.

Time to watch Warwick Davis in The Leprechaun to cheer me up.

Isle of Dogs-7/10

Pretty good with good laughs and a solid voice cast. The look of the film is by far my favorite part. Loved the mix of stop motion and cartoon animation.

A Quiet Place 8/10

I don't generally care for anything with Emily Blunt, but that was a really good film.

Close Encounters Of The Third Kind - 3.5/4

Richard Dreyfus is the pilot light that ignites the gas of this story. Dreyfus has a mania that fascinates me when he works. There is a level of committed enthusiasm he brings which would be absurd in the attempts of almost anybody else and it works in a film with the scope and imagination that Spielberg brings with him. Comparatively the choice to fix the film on this endearingly manic little family man when there's a world of unanswered questions within the first five minutes helps maintain the suspense and surprise of the journey.
I think another actor would have killed this movie before half an hour had run.

I am a huge science fiction geek and I find myself in awe of Spielberg for essentially directing a mental breakdown that has a happy ending. It's a film that admits nothing to you as a viewer by way of denying you every wish you think you have in the in-film universe.
Melinda Dillon is absolutely magic for all of the screen time she was given. In fact I think she compliments Dreyfus as an actor more than anybody I can name.
This is a tangible story about aliens and it feels like a long, warm ride in the back of mum and dad's car on a rainy night in 1989...it's relaxing, safe and comforting.

Something tells me Sodebergh did exactly the opposite for Solaris and it worked a God damn treat.

I have Sicario to review.
God I'm on a run of incredible viewing right now. I need to review all the shit films I have seen too but I'm struggling to remember them against the brilliance of things like Nebraska, Thumbsucker, The Beaver etc.

Anybody feel like recommending anything?

Sicario - 4/4

This isn't high art, it isn't politically correct, the plot sounds fairly uninteresting(even the cover is generic) and it lacks a major draw in the support or lead roles.

It's fucking great.

This is an extremely well written, acted, directed and produced film. From top to bottom there is class shining through it. In the few moments of predictability we are treated to combinations and exchanges of ascendant performances that are unadulterated manna between the moments of lead up and pay-off.
There's pathos, violence and a bounty of potent, unremitting dialogue which just knocks you back into your seat and keeps you there for 116 minutes.

Benicio Del Toro has his finest showing in both role and effort for as long as I can remember. In fact this probably is his best role(if not 21 Grams) and he is infinitely watchable and far and away the most entertaining part of the film overall.
Emily Blunt is always watchable but here she steps up to her best and delivers a character that opens the story as believably, realistically strong, focused and morally centred and by the end of the grind she is as fragile, scared and angry as an animal in great pain.
Josh Brolin and Daniel Kaluya are both excellent but I'd have to say that overall this film belongs to BDT as evidence that less is more with his particular style of acting and a bit of restraint allows him an added chance to bond with the audience.

Taylor Sheridan is one of the best writers in the business right now. To think he was killed off in Sons Of Anarchy and now he's writing hits for fun.

Watch this movie if you have not yet.

Insidious: The Lasy Key: 6/10

Was alright, Nothing special, but wasn't a bad way to waste almost two hours

Ready Player One-7/10

Really enjoyable fantasy movie with awesome sound design, cool nostalgia and funny gags throughout. There were some issues I had with it, like how is this world policed, do people actually work, what is the state of the world, etc. So the world building was kinda meh. But everything else was pretty cool and at least enjoyable. Definitely a good time at the theater.

Unscarred The Story of Sick Nick Mondo-6/10

Kinda short but decent documentary about CZW legend Nick Mondo. It would have been better if it was longer. But was neat to see a greatest hits of Mondo's various matches. Too bad he retired when he did. Mondo would be great in GCW vs guys like Joey Janella or Matt Tremont.

Beirut-7/10
Cool little 80s spy type thriller

Moviepass #57 Blockers 4/10 Cena shouldn't quit his day job

Going to see traffik tonight and Super Troopers tomorrow

I Feel Pretty - 6/10 - Not bad for an Amy Schumer movie, 100 times better than Snatched, not quite as good as Trainwreck.

Moviepass #58 Traffik -6/10 movie was actually pretty decent the first 2/3 and then like the payoff was just non existent and not really any tension or anything compared to the beginning

Fuck off Droford. Blockers was fucking hysterical and Cena was amazing.

Game Over Man 7.5/10

Avengers: Infinity War

9/10

Avengers: Infinity War

9.8/10

Thor Ragnorok-7/10
Best Thor movie yet. Liked that they took a lighter, more comedic tone. Hemsworth was hilarious throughout and the scenes with Hulk were great.

Avengers - Infinity War: 4/4 stars

Sergeant Stubby-7/10
Cool little animated bio pic about a stray dog that ended up serving in the war and was supposedly highly decorated. Took the little one with me and she enjoyed it.

Avengers 498,562 out of 501,436

I enjoyed it.

Sgt. Stabby would be a way cooler name.

Avengers Infinity War-8/10

Wow. Just fucking wow. Not only did thesecrazy bastards pull it off in a funny, thrilling, compelling well paced ensemble film, they actually made the best of the 3. I'm sure people will say the first one was better. But for my money no way. This movie has real stakes. Real heft. Real emotion and most importantly real consequences within the world of the film. Absolutely loved it. So God damn good. Cannot wait to see the follow up. Blown the fuck away.

Avengers Infinity War 8/10

Avengers: Infinity War - 10/10

Full marks for one reason: this film is the payoff of a 10 year build and somehow didnt disappoint. There has never been anything half as ambitious let alone for it to live up to the hype...impressive.

The film on its own merits is prolly an 8/10 but its a stunning achievement sooooo 10/10

That's a great take Destor. The thing is, there's more to come.

Totally agree with that this is the most stunning achievement in cinema. One bad movie could have derailed the entire project but even the "not very good" movies weren't that bad. Everyone is falling over themselves just to get a franchise to go 3 or 4 movies and these guys have done...what is it now...19? Unreal.

Do you honestly think it is the most stunning achievement in cinema?

Films to review:

Wind River
The Death Of Stalin
Zodiac
Nymphomaniac

Well at least you know there's one terrible review.

The Post - 7.5/10

Good performances and well-directed but the narrative just needed to be a little stronger I felt. That said, I still remember the narrative easily a few days later so who knows maybe I'm wrong about that.

19 and not only going strong but growing...its an outstanding accomplishment. I think because of the genre its not taken seriously, like its a side show freak or something but this is something honestly special. And a bit mind blowing.

The only franchise that can compare is Bond. But even then, there was never a predetermined endgame with every film working towards that goal, with all of them meeting to make one large ensemble epic. It's a great accomplishment in its own right. Likely to never be duplicated.

Yes. Nothing of it's scope has been accomplished before. You can make a treasure trove of IP's that have at least tried to lay the ground work for a franchise and not made it past film 1. 19 is like a Gretsky or Jordan. You might have one chance to see something like this in a lifetime.

In theory it worked out so well because they are essentially adapting what is already a very richly explored universe and characters who already have 50+ years of history to them.

DC really has no excuse to not also be having great success with also having a rich universe of characters and stories to draw from and adapt..... really boggles my mind how they really can't find the formula for success, especially since it seems "relatively easy"

That's what I'm saying. Look how easy it is to fuck it up.

No, it is hard to screw it up. That's what I'm saying.

Infinity War - 10/10

I have no doubt in my mind this is my favorite movie ever. I will rewatch it multiple times and jerk off each time.

Star wars, the most profitable film franchise of all time, managed to make about 2 universally loved films before it was swallowed by its own fanbase. Feel like 20 is a feat worth taking a moment to just say.. wow.

Avengers: Infinity War - 9.5/10. One fuck of an ending.

Well I bought Avengers: Age of Ultron and Captain America: Civil War off the back of your words. I figure I may as well catch up. So far Guardians, Iron Man and Ant Man were my favourites but I do like Captain America a lot. I dislike Thor.

Sadly, the Thor movies weren't as good as they could have. I still love them, because I'm a geek like that, but yeah. Ragnarok was the best, even though I really, really dislike short-haired Thor.

Yeah Thor 2 is likely the worst film from all of the MCU.. Ultron maybe 2nd worst? Would be interesting to try and rank them.

Iron Man 2 wasn't very good either. Ultron was fine but probably the worst of the Avengers "team ups." Just screamed "biding time for Thanos."

I am yet to see Black Panther.

Wait, does that Norton Hulk count as MCU? Think it actually does. So that would be the worst.

Iron Man 3 was way worse imo. Christmas movie they dropped in july...lol wut

Its the 2nd one that counts yeah

A Quiet Place - 4.5/5

Tack on an extra 10-15 minutes to the ending and I would have been so happy.

Great performances from Mr. & Mrs. Krasinski.

Agreed on Iron Man 3. I don't think it was terrible or anything, just worse than 2. Fuck that kid sidekick bullshit.

I liked 3 more than 2, personally.....

Do we atleast agree it is quite poor?

or atleast a strong meh

I can never say that about a Marvel movie.

Maybe if we say "Meh compared to all the other Marvel masterpieces" then yeah.

Semantics, I know.

Im absolutely using the metric of "vs all other marvel films"