Serious Movie Discussion XLII

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2010:
The American
True Grit

2011:
War Horse
Margin Casll
The Grey
Rango (please)
Killer Elite
Bernie

2012:
Chronicle
Killing them softly (hurry already)

2 013:
The counselor
Pain and gain
Inside llewyn davis

2014:
Predestination (IMMEDIATELY)
Ex machina
Nightcrawler
Dawn of the apes
Gone girl

2015:
Sicario
Big short
The martian



2016:
Batman vs superman ultimate edition

@Bullitt68
 
Huge JGL rant
Can't remember if I ever got you to see Brick, since it's one of my favorite JGL movies. I also really enjoy Looper.

After I rewatched (500) Days of Summer, I was actually thinking about rewatching that, too. I remember very little about it, though I do remember that it was because of Will Jacobs pushing it that I watched it the first time around. Were you on that bandwagon back then, too?
Might have been around that time indeed.

First off, just for the record, I fucking love Nightcrawler. However, in response to your question, I think it'd be more accurate to characterize Jake's character in that film as a psychopath. @Caveat can let me know if I'm talking out of my ass here, but as far as I know, the distinction between a psychopath and a sociopath is that a psychopath doesn't have a conscience whereas a sociopath has the capacity to and does feel remorse.

Given those definitions (and off the top of my head because I'm too lazy to research and see if I'm forgetting something blatantly obvous) I'd immediately nominate Robert De Niro in Cape Fear as a more convincing psychopath than Jake in Nightcrawler (though Nightcrawler is easily twice the film Cape Fear is).

And then, just for the hell of it, I'd nominate Tom Noonan in Manhunter as the best sociopath in film history. That's at once one of the most chilling and sympathetic characterizations ever, which is a hell of an acting feat.
Yeah, I actually had to do some research before I decided to use the psychopath term, but as caveat said, there's no real distinction between those two in the field of psychology it seems. Ages since I've seen Cape Fear, maybe I have to check it out.

I don't know why I've decided that I have to post this now, as I'm starving and about to go eat and that's no doubt influenced my decision not to bother @ing any of you, but following from my post acknowledging how embarrassingly out of the loop I've been with new movies, I'm officially going to catch myself up. I'm going to (try to) watch all Best Picture nominees (and some other random movies that standout for one reason or another) from 2011-2017. That might seem arbitrary, but 2009 was the last year where I was on top of new releases and had seen everything up for anything and then 2010 was when I started to fall off. From 2011 on, I saw almost nothing that wasn't a superhero movie or a movie from Tarantino, Nolan, or Sorkin.

The reason I'm posting this is because I wanted to ask you guys to pick a select few movies from 2011-2017 that weren't nominated for anything (in other words, aren't movies I'm already going to come across) but that you think I can't afford to miss.

I just wrote down what I could remember enjoying a lot without checking if they were nominated, so sorry if there's some overlap.

2011
The Skin I Live In
Drive
Attack The Block
13 Assassins
The Grey
Goon
The Raid

2012
Moonrise Kingdom
The Master
Dredd
The Cabin in the Woods
Looper
End of Watch
Get the Gringo
Chronicle
Lockout

2013
Her
Elysium (Might be a controversial pick)
The Secret Life of Walter Mitty
Prisoners
Blackfish
Rush
Snowpiercer
Pain & Gain

2014
Edge of Tomorrow
Inherent Vice
Gone Girl
The Raid 2
The Grand Budapest Hotel
Birdman
22 Jump Street
Captain America: The Winter Soldier
What We Do In The Shadows
Nightcrawler
The Voices

2015
Chappie
Bone Tomahawk
The Man from U.N.C.L.E
Hardcore Henry
Spy
Creed
The Martian
Turbo Kid

2016
Manchester by the Sea
Swiss Army Man
Hunt for the Wilderpeople
Keanu
Grimsby
The Nice Guys
Green Room
Deadpool

2017
Get Out
Logan
 
For @Bullitt68:

Not going to do the thing where I list my favorites, just the ones I think you'll like or should see based on your Bullittness, that I liked:

Any Coen films you might have missed
Cheap Thrills (I need to watch the one you recommended in exchange, but you should really watch this)
21 Jump Street (both are good, really)
Four Lions
The Hunt for the Wilderpeople
Greenberg
50/50
(this movie gets it)
The Invitation
Silence
(fast becoming an all-timer for me)
This is the End
Side Effects
Goon
The Last Stand
(I'm kidding myself thinking you haven't seen this one)
Her (you mentioned splitting up - sorry to hear it - and this movie is essentially about that, i.e the goodness in letting go)
The Drop (perfect movie in the sense of sheer function)
The Guest
Creed
Star Wars: The Last Jedi
MacGruber

EDIT: just realised I put in a bunch from 2010, but they're worth watching anyway.
 
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Typically, I'm a paragon of order, structure, planning, etc., but as I make my way through the last few years of stuff I haven't seen, I think I'm just going to pinball my way through everything. Since The Iceman was the last thing I'd watched, I figured I'd find more stuff with Michael Shannon, so I watched Take Shelter and Midnight Special.

I wanted to see Take Shelter right after I saw the first trailer for it. Shannon was awesome, but I wasn't as into the movie as I would've liked. And the ending was fantastic as a sequence but terrible as an ending, if that makes sense. You spend the whole movie wondering if we're dealing with mental illness or with something else, and then, at the end, that question is answered...but there are still like fifty unanswered questions.

Midnight Special was more of the same. @KOQ24, you can tell me what you made of it, but watching Take Shelter and Midnight Special back-to-back, it's like Jeff Nichols' "style" is to intentionally make unfinished movies. Ricky, if you've seen either of these, I'd love to get your take, as well, but from the "pyramid" perspective - with exposition, rising action, climax, falling action, and dénouement - it's like he just stops filming after the climax. Midnight Special ends with what struck me as a riff on The Abyss, but unlike what Cameron did, Nichols doesn't even provide a little coda hinting at WTF we just saw. He just ends on the climax.

Between the two, I thought Midnight Special was MUCH better. I was invested right from the start. The gas station scene was awesome and I loved Adam Driver's arc. But I hate the feeling of being left hanging when the reason seems to be to cover up a lack of ability/interest in explaining shit and a cop out to "ambiguity" so that viewers do work that the artist should've taken the responsibility to do himself.

And then I ended the night moving from Midnight Special and its ET stuff to Arrival. I can't remember who among you in here was either wanting me to see or warning me off of seeing this one, so I don't know who I'm proving right or wrong here, but I wasn't really a fan. Arrival is like the other side of the same problematic coin: If Midnight Special pissed me off because Nichols didn't try to explain anything, Arrival pissed me off because the explanation was stupid. It was like a less intelligent and less inspired version of Interstellar.

Much like Midnight Special, I was immediately invested. I'm not crazy about Amy Adams, but she didn't detract from anything; Jeremy Renner was given the most thankless role I've seen him in yet; and Forest Whitaker is always awesome. I thought the script was actually pretty strong; I loved the way they balanced the military strategizing and the global politics with the "human" drama of trying to communicate. And the scene with the bomb was top-notch. But the ending didn't make sense to me.

Like Interstellar, time is the key here. According to Adams, time isn't perceived the same way by the aliens. But, unlike in Interstellar - where it's more of a "feeling" or a "perspective" that allows you to "transcend" time - in Arrival, it's ostensibly the understanding of a new language that all of a sudden snaps your brain into a place where you "see" things differently. If I'm right so far, then I'm at a loss as to how that makes sense. One minute, she's struggling to understand/use this new language; the next minute, she can read their huge jumbled mess of a message; and the next minute, she can see her entire life from beginning to end.



What I thought they were doing - and what I think they should've done - with those "dreams" or "visions" that she was having (and which, it turns out, were glimpses from her future) was something like the aliens bypassing all "normal" modes of communication (visual, verbal, written) and communicating through some form of telepathy. Something like, with the situation as dire as it was, them "reaching out" to her and, instead of communicating with her on her terms with the whiteboards and the computers, communicating on their terms - and her realizing that she actually can (maybe all humans can?) communicate that way.

Anyway, I enjoyed both Midnight Special and Arrival, but I was disappointed with the endings of both. And, for the record, neither one has shit on Interstellar :cool:

I'm worried Bullitt will watch the first minute or so of Nocturnal Animals and hate me for even mentioning the film...
Shhhhh.. I'm sure he'll *love* it.
LOL. This is going to go swimmingly.
hahah. I don't even think i'd recommend the movie per se since I had a lot of problems with it. BUt it'd certainly be interesting to hear Bullitt's take on it. That opening credits scene though. I feel like in this PC climate I can't even publicly complain about it, but my god.

You guys really think I'm going to hate something starring Jake Gyllenhaal and Michael Shannon? I've actually always been intrigued by that one.

2010:
The American
True Grit

2011 is my cutoff. But I saw both of these anyway. True Grit was better than I was expecting, but then I wasn't a big fan of the original and I'm not crazy about the "Western Coens" (unless Raising Arizona counts :D). And I thought The American sucked. I thought Clooney was cool but the movie was garbage.

2011:
War Horse
Margin Casll
The Grey
Rango (please)
Killer Elite
Bernie

Not doing War Horse (too stupid an idea, and Spielberg-helmed? No way) or Rango (I'd love to accommodate you, Sigh, but I'm not making time for animation). I saw Margin Call (loved it), Killer Elite (didn't love it but liked it much more than I was expecting to), and The Grey (I was skeptical about it but I ended up really digging it).

Bernie is on my list now, though.

2012:
Chronicle
Killing them softly (hurry already)

Chronicle was never on my radar but it sounds cool. And I'll get to Killing them Softly, I swear.

2 013:
The counselor
Pain and gain
Inside llewyn davis

Saw Pain and Gain (wasn't a fan at all, major disappointment considering how excited I was to see it). The other two are on the list.

2014:
Predestination (IMMEDIATELY)
Ex machina
Nightcrawler
Dawn of the apes
Gone girl

Saw them all except the apes. You already recommended me Predestination a while back. I guess you blocked out the fact that I hated it. I also hated Ex Machina. Nightcrawler and Gone Girl, on the other hand, were both excellent. The former especially. Clearly, I haven't seen all that much these last few years, but Nightcrawler is near the very top of what I have seen.

2015:
Sicario
Big short
The martian

I enjoy pissing off a friend of mine who loved The Martian and who loses it when I give him the "It's just a movie version of the Matt Damon portion of Interstellar." I'd hate to lose my ability to do that by actually watching The Martian. But I'll probably end up checking that one out.

I saw the other two. I actually watched The Big Short and Margin Call back-to-back. The latter was ten times better. And Sicario was good but the script was a mess and that hurt it overall.

2016:
Batman vs superman ultimate edition

I'm watching all of these online. Is there a way for me to distinguish between an ultimate edition and a regular edition?

Can't remember if I ever got you to see Brick, since it's one of my favorite JGL movies.

I did watch Brick around that time. And I loved it, too. I haven't seen it since, but I opted not to rewatch it since it was still pretty fresh in my mind (a sign of how much I enjoyed it).

I also really enjoy Looper.

Me, too. There's something about it that keeps it from being Nolan-level awesome for me, but it's unquestionably a great movie.

Ages since I've seen Cape Fear, maybe I have to check it out.

The sequence with Illeana Douglas is horrifying. And, of course, the famous scene with Juliette Lewis.

2011
The Skin I Live In
Drive
Attack The Block
13 Assassins
The Grey
Goon
The Raid

The Skin I Live In is on my list now. Haven't seen Attack the Block or 13 Assassins, but, if I'm being honest, I'll probably skip those. And I saw the rest. I already talked about The Grey and Goon. As for The Raid and Drive: I honestly wasn't a fan of either. The choreography in The Raid was far from mindblowing or innovative and Drive was one cool scene in the middle of a painfully boring crapfest.

2012
Moonrise Kingdom
The Master
Dredd
The Cabin in the Woods
Looper
End of Watch
Get the Gringo
Chronicle
Lockout

Dredd was fucking awesome and End of Watch was pretty good (Sabotage was much better). I put the others on the list.

2013
Her
Elysium (Might be a controversial pick)
The Secret Life of Walter Mitty
Prisoners
Blackfish
Rush
Snowpiercer
Pain & Gain

I saw most of these. Her was much better than I was expecting. I actually really liked Elysium. Not a fan of Prisoners. And Rush was surprisingly awesome. I tried to watch Snowpiercer a while back but opted out pretty quick. I might give it another chance. Not doing Blackfish. I only watch documentaries if I care about the subject matter and I don't care about whales. The Secret Life of Walter Mitty is on the list, though.

2014
Edge of Tomorrow
Inherent Vice
Gone Girl
The Raid 2
The Grand Budapest Hotel
Birdman
22 Jump Street
Captain America: The Winter Soldier
What We Do In The Shadows
Nightcrawler
The Voices

Either already saw most of these or already have them on the list. The Voices is a new one, though. That one was never on my radar but it sounds like it could be good.

2015
Chappie
Bone Tomahawk
The Man from U.N.C.L.E
Hardcore Henry
Spy
Creed
The Martian
Turbo Kid

Already said I'm not doing Turbo Kid but am doing Bone Tomahawk. I forgot about Chappie. I thought that looked like it could be good. The Man from U.N.C.L.E.? Really? I heard that was awful. Hardcore Henry was an annoying gimmick movie. Spy was hilarious (I laughed harder at her puking on the first guy she kills than I've laughed at anything in recent memory). Creed was exactly what I was expecting: A dumb movie that I had to watch just to see Sly.

2016
Manchester by the Sea
Swiss Army Man
Hunt for the Wilderpeople
Keanu
Grimsby
The Nice Guys
Green Room
Deadpool

Saw The Nice Guys. Loved the first half but I thought it tanked after that. Crowe and Gosling deserved a better script. Probably going to skip Swiss Army Man and Hunt for the Wilderpeople. I'm skeptical about Keanu but I'll probably give it a shot. I forgot about Grimsby but that looked good from the trailers. Did you ever see The Dictator? I might do a Sacha Baron Cohen double-header. And the other two are on the list.

2017
Get Out
Logan

Logan was awesome and Get Out is on the list.

Any Coen films you might have missed

Way ahead of you.

Cheap Thrills (I need to watch the one you recommended in exchange, but you should really watch this)

I was actually going to watch this and surprise you with it and remind you about that exchange we planned. Can't slip anything by you, though ;)

21 Jump Street (both are good, really)

Already saw them. Both were funnier than I was expecting, but I also wanted both to be funnier than they were.

Four Lions

Saw it.

The Hunt for the Wilderpeople

That's two recommendations for this one now. Damn it.

Greenberg

Saw it.


Ugh, I hated that one. And that hurt to say given how much I loved the people involved.

The Invitation

On the list.

Silence (fast becoming an all-timer for me)

I'll definitely check this one out.

This is the End

Very disappointed in how unfunny this one was.

Side Effects

On the list.


Saw it.

The Last Stand (I'm kidding myself thinking you haven't seen this one)

tenor.gif


Saw that shit in theaters.

Her (you mentioned splitting up - sorry to hear it - and this movie is essentially about that, i.e the goodness in letting go)

Saw it. Ironically, watching that with the ex was one of the things that sped up the getting together process.

The Drop (perfect movie in the sense of sheer function)

I started this once but bailed. Just wasn't feeling it. I'll need to do a Tom Hardy marathon, so I'll probably come back around to it.

The Guest

You recommended this to me a while back and I thought it looked like a bad Lifetime movie (said by someone who thinks highly of good Lifetime movies). No promises.


Saw it.

Star Wars: The Last Jedi

Fuck Star Wars.

MacGruber

Wished it would've been funnier.
 
Ricky, if you've seen either of these, I'd love to get your take, as well, but from the "pyramid" perspective - with exposition, rising action, climax, falling action, and dénouement - it's like he just stops filming after the climax.

Don't do no pyramids, it's all a bunch of bollocks to me, though I read a lot of that stuff early on.

The QT school is where it's at - thinking of a movie as chapters propulsively moving from one to the next, regardless of chronology.

In terms of the paradigm you cite, you're right - he certainly finishes "climactically". But I think of it more as him getting reversals right. He just happens to finish on them, usually to hammer home his lesson, which is where he gets interesting. He seems to value the idea that you should trust someone to the very end. In Take Shelter, it doesn't matter that the dad might be bonkers, it matters that the family is on the same page (a bizarro Close Encounters). In Midnight Special, it matters that you believe your kid. In both movies he labours the point to an unrealistic degree (the storm at the end and the kid's abilities), but I'd argue that's just good use of the medium (film).

Haven't seen Attack the Block or 13 Assassins, but, if I'm being honest, I'll probably skip those.

You'll not like them, but Attack the Block is a classic.

And Rush was surprisingly awesome

I've come around to this one big time.Love the last conversation between the two.

Creed was exactly what I was expecting: A dumb movie that I had to watch just to see Sly

You bastard.

I started this once but bailed. Just wasn't feeling it. I'll need to do a Tom Hardy marathon, so I'll probably come back around to it.

The fuck. It's a good movie mang.

You recommended this to me a while back and I thought it looked like a bad Lifetime movie (said by someone who thinks highly of good Lifetime movies). No promises.

I think you'll be surprised by how off you are.

Fuck Star Wars.

This reaction is why you need to see this.
 
You guys really think I'm going to hate something starring Jake Gyllenhaal and Michael Shannon? I've actually always been intrigued by that one.

1) I never judge a movie's potential (to me or for someone else) by who's starring, not even a little bit.
2) They're both very good in it so you'll like that.
3) I actually think you'll like it a fair bit. I was just referring to what @ufcfan4 was, i.e. the opening scene.
 
The Skin I Live In is on my list now. Haven't seen Attack the Block or 13 Assassins, but, if I'm being honest, I'll probably skip those. And I saw the rest. I already talked about The Grey and Goon. As for The Raid and Drive: I honestly wasn't a fan of either. The choreography in The Raid was far from mindblowing or innovative and Drive was one cool scene in the middle of a painfully boring crapfest.
The Raid one is really surprising to me, since I find that both 1 and 2 has some God-tier choreography. Especially the last fight in The Raid and the Baseball Bat and Hammer Girl fight scene in the second. What's your all time choreographed fight scenes? And plz no Segal.

Notable mentions for me are:
Enter the Dragon end fight
Drunken Master 2 fight
Flash Point fight
SPL fight
Oldboy
The Protector
Gorgeous
Ip-Man
Undisputed series has some good ones like this


I saw most of these. Her was much better than I was expecting. I actually really liked Elysium. Not a fan of Prisoners. And Rush was surprisingly awesome. I tried to watch Snowpiercer a while back but opted out pretty quick. I might give it another chance. Not doing Blackfish. I only watch documentaries if I care about the subject matter and I don't care about whales. The Secret Life of Walter Mitty is on the list, though.
Good, The Secret Life of Walter Mitty is a favorite of mine, but it might depend on where you are in life yourself since it's a feel-good movie about exploration and finding your place in the world.

Already said I'm not doing Turbo Kid but am doing Bone Tomahawk. I forgot about Chappie. I thought that looked like it could be good. The Man from U.N.C.L.E.? Really? I heard that was awful. Hardcore Henry was an annoying gimmick movie. Spy was hilarious (I laughed harder at her puking on the first guy she kills than I've laughed at anything in recent memory). Creed was exactly what I was expecting: A dumb movie that I had to watch just to see Sly.
To me Creed and Rocky Balboa both are movies that are way better than they have any right to be. Just filled with a lot of heart. Chappie is considered to be the weakest one from Blomkamp, but I quite enjoy it. U.N.C.L.E is a Guy Ritchie film for the masses, but very watchable and with some really good scenes. Turbo Kid requires a special 80's cult taste to enjoy, so if you don't have that I don't blame you for skipping it. A really fun movie with a great soundtrack and some quality over the top gore.

Saw The Nice Guys. Loved the first half but I thought it tanked after that. Crowe and Gosling deserved a better script. Probably going to skip Swiss Army Man and Hunt for the Wilderpeople. I'm skeptical about Keanu but I'll probably give it a shot. I forgot about Grimsby but that looked good from the trailers. Did you ever see The Dictator? I might do a Sacha Baron Cohen double-header. And the other two are on the list.
The Dictator is great, I embarassed my wife to great lengths due to the amount of laughter during the cafè birth scene. Grimsby feels like an attempt to see how much gross shit you can fill into a movie that's going to be shown in the cinema, but I found it to be hilarious. If you're going to skip any movie I really hope it's not Swiss Army Man or Hunt for the Wilderpeople, they're both excellent and unique movies that absolutely are worth checking out.[/QUOTE][/QUOTE][/QUOTE][/QUOTE]
 
Midnight Special was more of the same. @KOQ24, you can tell me what you made of it, but watching Take Shelter and Midnight Special back-to-back, it's like Jeff Nichols' "style" is to intentionally make unfinished movies. Ricky, if you've seen either of these, I'd love to get your take, as well, but from the "pyramid" perspective - with exposition, rising action, climax, falling action, and dénouement - it's like he just stops filming after the climax. Midnight Special ends with what struck me as a riff on The Abyss, but unlike what Cameron did, Nichols doesn't even provide a little coda hinting at WTF we just saw. He just ends on the climax.




I guess it depends on the movie watcher, but i rather have an ending not explained to me than having it badly explained, which is what ruined Interstellar and almost ruined Arrival for me.

One of Jeff Nichols' main narratives in his movies is Family stories.From Shotgun Stories all the way to Midnight Special.That's why i like all his Films so far (having Michael Shannon in all of them doesn't hurt....).


Also, Silence was my favourite Film of 2016, but it was nominated at the Oscars, so i didnt put it on my list.
It's Scorsese's best since Goodfellas, maybe even since Raging Bull.













.
 
Like Interstellar, time is the key here. According to Adams, time isn't perceived the same way by the aliens. But, unlike in Interstellar - where it's more of a "feeling" or a "perspective" that allows you to "transcend" time - in Arrival, it's ostensibly the understanding of a new language that all of a sudden snaps your brain into a place where you "see" things differently. If I'm right so far, then I'm at a loss as to how that makes sense. One minute, she's struggling to understand/use this new language; the next minute, she can read their huge jumbled mess of a message; and the next minute, she can see her entire life from beginning to end.

Sorry about responding to this stuff separately. Off my multi-quote game.

In Interstellar, humans are unable to process time like the "beings of the bulk" because they can only handle it linearly, and in a forward direction. So the beings of the bulk provide Coop with a mechanism (the tessaract) to allow him to manipulate time via a physical constant (gravity). He is able to because the love he feels renders those boundaries inconsequential.

The aliens in Arrival "transcend" time in the same way as the beings of the bulk - they are simply able to with the faculties they possess. However, this means interpreting their language (as puny humans), is, to put it simply, a bitch. They know what to say from start to finish before they actually start, though not how you or I do. Their language is semasiographic - it links symbols intricately and in such a way that taking one bit out negates the whole. Humans aren't capable (until Louise) of that level of sophistication, or rather would never think to do this because it's just easier to do it the way we do.

As for Louise and how she picks it up and changes, it's difficult to grasp if you think of language as a series of words the way English is spoken or written. It makes Louise think differently the way sign language makes you think differently. Spend enough time doing sign language and the way your hands move would code for certain feelings and words, even if you don't actually need to use it to communicate because you're not deaf or mute. Louise works long enough with the language that her own thoughts begin to be represented in the same way, where she is able to navigate hypotheses and conclusions all at once even. At least, that's the idea.

She begins to "see the future" early on in the process of trying to figure out the language. Then the flash-forwards get clearer and clearer. Her transcending time is less a leap and more how she has to engage with the language if she ever wants to crack it.
 
The first I thought of was The Handmaiden. I seem to recall Bullitt was not crazy about Oldboy, so this one might not be too appealing. They are not greatly dissimilar, but I think The Handmaiden is Chan-wook Park's most mature and fully realized film. It's my favorite of this decade for sure (haven't seen too many however) so consider this a second recommendation.

Also from KOQ24's list I'd second Shame, Green Room and The Witch.

I can definitely see someone not enjoying Oldboy and liking The Handmaiden, the latter I'd say really moves further away from the "smart exploitation cinema" of his early years towards as you say something more mature. I would say stick with it as well, the early going might not seem as inspired but its laying the groundwork for when we start to see different perspectives on the story.

Again on a similar sexually explicit theme I would recommend Blue is the Warmest Colour although still I think it was done rather a disservice by being sold so heavily on that aspect outside its domestic market. To its credit it makes pretty much anything else seem rather clunky and scripted to me yet manages to merge that style with a strong dramatic plot. I tend to view it as the best of the whole semi genre of "taught closeup filled arty drama" that otherwise seems to have Natalie Portman in it most of the time, Shame coming a close second.

As far as Nocturnal Animals goes I did find it one of those films its hard to form a definite opinion of. Its certainly very well made/acted but is the "book" plot exploiting its nature a little to get away with a somewhat clichéd sub story? the Amy Adams "overstory" does actually remind me rather a lot of Blue Jasimine in the way it cuts off the expected catharsis and denounces its lead character instead. Credit to Taylor Johnson as well, I don't recall seeing someone vanish into a role to that degree for sometime, really had no idea it was him until the credits.

Midnight Speical was quite enjoyable for what is was I'd say but that does as mentioned seem to be a somewhat incomplete whole, more an exercise in style than a fulfilling story.

A lot of people felt it didn't live up to the hype but I really enjoyed War On Everyone, beyond Martin McDonagh's stuff it feels like one of the very few successful attempts to copy Tarantino(to the extent of arguably being a deliberate parody), perhaps doesn't aim especially high but its still a lot of fun IMHO.
 
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1) I never judge a movie's potential (to me or for someone else) by who's starring, not even a little bit.
2) They're both very good in it so you'll like that.
3) I actually think you'll like it a fair bit. I was just referring to what @ufcfan4 was, i.e. the opening scene.

I had to sit there in a theater with my dad watching that first minute. We never spoke of it again..

And yeah- Shannon, Gyllenhall, ATJ are the best part of the movie. The other big segment pales in comparison.
 
I had to sit there in a theater with my dad watching that first minute. We never spoke of it again..

And yeah- Shannon, Gyllenhall, ATJ are the best part of the movie. The other big segment pales in comparison.

You could argue that this is quite intentional and the film is deliberately playing that dramatically effecting "story within a story" and what it tells you about Gyllenhall's real character who'd written the book against Amy Adams character's story lacking a real catharsis as a reflection of her choosing bland materialism over art/romance.

Again what it feels similar to for me is Blue Jasimine where the film plays with the audience wanting a flawed materialistic female character to get catharsis(maybe not in terms of her questionable romance succeeding but in terms of acceptance from her son and showing some personal advancement) but then ultimately denounces her instead.
 
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