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I saw The Fifth Estate.

This is gonna be controversial i suspect but, i actually liked it. Make no mistake, i'm not a supporter or hater of Julian Assange. I can see why he's such a controversial and hated figure but at the risk of starting a political discussion here i'll cut this short.

Valhalla Rising.
Very interesting film from Refn (Drive, Only God Forgives). Now this is actually not that bad. Very striking visuals, strong atmosphere, and a great performance from Mads Mikkelsen. Who in Refn tradition plays a silent protagonist.

I'm home and finally about to watch To Kill A Mockingbird but wanted to say that tomorrow on /r/IAmA Greg Sestero is doing an AMA and then Robert Rodriguez and Crispin Glover are on the 24 and 25th.

At 2/21/14 09:33 PM, Atlas wrote: I'm home and finally about to watch To Kill A Mockingbird but wanted to say that tomorrow on /r/IAmA Greg Sestero is doing an AMA and then Robert Rodriguez and Crispin Glover are on the 24 and 25th.

To Kill A Mockingbird was easily one of the best films I've seen lately. I loved every minute of it. Only complaint is that the music felt underwhelming a good bit of the time. I'm going to watch Killer Joe when I wake up tomorrow.

Dredd was fucking awesome. I wish they would make a sequel. An animated miniseries based on the comics would be cool, too.

At 2/22/14 10:25 AM, Wegra wrote: Going to an Oscar showcase at AMC which will be playing Philomena, Dallas Buyers Club, The wolf of wall street and 12 years a slave. Cant wait to dive in

I went to a best picture nominee marathon at a theater in 2008 when the Oscars were coming up. Slumdog Mlionaire, Benjamin Button, Milk, the Reader, and Frost/Nixon. Pretty good day.

I also loved Dredd. Does everything an action film needs to do, and does it well.

I'd kill for some more 90-100 minute action films. All the big budget stuff usually runs over 2 hours, and you've got to be a very special filmmaker to keep action exciting for that long.

I've been busy all day so I'm gonna start Killer Joe after my dinner here soon. Also I'm trying to remember this film i saw. It was about this house that was haunted and the people died by jumping out of a window which showed a loved one in it.

I watched Killer Joe.

On the whole, I enjoyed it. McConaughey is great, and the final act is brutal. Really hard to watch, which I guess is what it was going for. The major issue I have with it is that it's very obviously based on a play and not much has been done to make use of the fact that it's now on film. The vast majority of the film is people talking in the trailer, which works well in ramping up the claustrophobia towards the end to aid in making those final scenes even more tense, but just feels needlessly limited elsewhere.

In fact, I'd be willing to bet everything from arriving home from the funeral to the end credits is take verbatim from the play. The camera never leaves the room from that point on, notably when Chris turns up you hear his approach and interaction with the dog rather than see it. That seems very deliberate to me.

So yeah, not a pleasant film by any stretch of the imagination, but a good one.

Wow we really blew the KFC (so to speak) last week didn't we guys. Sorry @Natick! But I promise I'll watch the MotWs I've missed at some point sooner rather than later!

So since he's, uh, the only person who participated I guess that makes @TheMaster this week's MotW picker! Yay!

By the way now might be as good a time as any to reiterate that the only way to get into the pool for picking the MotW is to participate in the previous week's discussion.

And since we now have someone picking for the second time, anyone who participates next week will be eligible to pick for the following week, even if you've gone already.

I also hope last week doesn't deter you guys from making more obscure picks in the future. It wasn't that there was a lack of interest, things just kinda happen sometimes and some weeks will just be better attended than others for reasons that have nothing to do with the film that was picked. So don't be afraid to get weird with it!

At 2/24/14 08:27 AM, Jolly wrote: Not sure if anybody else has done this, but I made a letterboxd list of the MoTW's so far. (Plan to keep it mostly up-to-date)

Nice, thanks! I did make a list but I never published it.

At 2/22/14 03:05 PM, Dean wrote: Watched Dredd last night and thought it was pretty good.

At 2/22/14 07:07 PM, TheMaster wrote: I also loved Dredd. Does everything an action film needs to do, and does it well.

At 2/22/14 03:10 PM, Sense-Offender wrote: Dredd was fucking awesome. I wish they would make a sequel. An animated miniseries based on the comics would be cool, too.

Have you guys seen The Raid: Redemption? It's an Indonesian martial arts film from a couple years ago and one of the best action movies I've ever seen. It apparently has a very similar structure to Dredd (to the point where the latter has been accused of plagiarism, though I think the two films were produced close enough in time to each other that it's probably just a coincidence) so if you liked that movie this one would be well worth checking out. There's also a sequel that's going to be released sometime this year I think.

At 2/25/14 03:15 AM, Dr-Worm wrote: Have you guys seen The Raid: Redemption? It's an Indonesian martial arts film from a couple years ago and one of the best action movies I've ever seen. It apparently has a very similar structure to Dredd (to the point where the latter has been accused of plagiarism, though I think the two films were produced close enough in time to each other that it's probably just a coincidence) so if you liked that movie this one would be well worth checking out. There's also a sequel that's going to be released sometime this year I think.

I saw The Raid before I saw Dredd, and was afraid Dredd was just going to be a poor imitation, but they're really very different films. The story is the same, law enforcement fights up a tower block full of bad guys to get to their leader at the top, but the actual structure is totally different.

Also, film of the week.

I think everyone who chose so far picked something they've seen already, so I'm going to break that trend and go for something that's new to me too.

The Insect Woman, a 1963 film by Shohei Imamura. I like what I've seen of his work so far and have had this sitting on my shelf for a while, so now is as good a time as any to get it watched.

At 2/25/14 08:25 AM, TheMaster wrote: Also, film of the week.

I think everyone who chose so far picked something they've seen already, so I'm going to break that trend and go for something that's new to me too.

The Insect Woman, a 1963 film by Shohei Imamura. I like what I've seen of his work so far and have had this sitting on my shelf for a while, so now is as good a time as any to get it watched.

I hit Post instead of Upload.

Here's a stolen blurb about it:
“My heroines are true to life – just look around you at Japanese women. They are strong, and they outlive men,” director Shôhei Imamura once observed. And so an audacious, anthropological approach to filmmaking came into full maturity with the director’s vast 1963 chronicle of pre- and post-war Japan, The Insect Woman [Nippon-konchûki, or An Account of Japanese Insects].

Comparing his heroine, Tome Matsuki (played by Sachiko Hidari, who won the “Best Actress” award at the 1964 Berlin Film Festival for the role) to the restlessness and survival instincts of worker insects, the film is an unsparing study of working-class female life. Beginning with Tome’s birth in 1918, it follows her through five decades of social change, several improvised careers, and male-inflicted cruelty.

Elliptically plotted, brimming over with black humour and taboo material, and immaculately staged in crystalline NikkatsuScope, The Insect Woman is arguably Imamura’s most radical and emphatic testament to female resilience.

well, i'm an asshole. sorry that i didn't discuss the motw on time. i kind of turned the discussion part of it into a chore that i wasn't looking foward to after more stuff kept coming up over the weekend.

i enjoyed killer joe for the main reasons that everyone else did, which would be the performances. everyone playing the smith family does a great job of exhibiting their ineptitude and reactionary tendencies without being obnoxious about it and mcconaughey's directness and authoritative presence really caught me off-guard during the first half and his breakdown in the last 25 minutes left me with a low feeling in my gut. nice use of small details as well, with the most important scenes in the trailer taking place during stormy nights, i kept thinking chris would eventually shoot that pitbull for some reason. if i had any major criticisms, i don't like how abruptly it ends as soon as (SPOILERS) dottie rasies the gun at joe and yells that she's pregnant. quick cuts to the credits like that i tend to take as a bad sign, like the writer didn't have confidence that they could end the story naturally. also i agree with themaster that it's easy to see it's stage roots and how it doesn't do much with them until the end, making it more reliant on the actors than any other element. the sexual politics have been known to raise a few eyebrows as well but that's probably been discussed to death already so i won't touch on that.

on saturday, i also finally saw precious and thought it wasn't going to mean much to me anymore since it's awards buzz had ended long ago and that it would just be excruciatingly depressing with an undeserved happy ending but i liked it a lot more than i thought i would. i've always believed that the scariest villians are the ones who express regret or sadness in a way that the audience can empathize and mo'nique's performance as the mother was one of the best recent examples of this that i've seen in a long time. she spends so much of the film as a poisonous, abusive, selfish and psychologically imposing character but the scene that really got to me was (SPOILERS) the end when she confesses that the abusive home situation to the social worker was due to her relationship with precious' father and she completely sells the whole thing as she explains her jealousy of her own daughter and how much she hated herself for marrying a pedophile. brilliant performance on her part. it's also a visually arresting film as well, particularly during the most intense scenes of abuse where a lot of the focus shifts to the smaller details in the environment and precious' daydreams which i know have been the most debated part of the film but i thought they worked in the sense of the film taking a first-person view of the protagonist's horrible life and feeling just as much a need to escape from itself as the character did. i can understand why they were seen as a bit out-of-place or cheesy though, the gospel music playing while mary nearly kills precious and her child with a tv felt strange.

Just a heads up that Criterion is having one of their 50% off everything sales for the next 24 hours. I'm definitely going to try to pick a couple things up.

I also just recently discovered that if you get TCM in your cable package you can log in on their site and stream anything from a rotating list of classic movies on demand for free. They only keep movies online for one week at a time, so you have to watch them quickly, but that also means they're constantly adding new things.

At 2/25/14 08:27 AM, TheMaster wrote: The Insect Woman, a 1963 film by Shohei Imamura.

Cool pick. I haven't seen anything by Imamura so this should be really interesting.

Just finished Fruitvale Station and holy fuck was it the most emotionally affecting movie I've seen. Don't properly know what else to say about it.

Just gonna @ mention everyone to make sure they see there's a new pick.

@Auz
@Sense-Offender
@Natick
@Slint
@Sekhem
@Jolly
@Atlas
@NuScarab
@EclecticEnnui
@Makeshift
@HeavenDuff
@ZJ
@Darthdenim
@Oolaph
@Jackho
@darkjam
@Nebula
@Jester
@SapphireLight
@SG3
@Dean
@Piggler

Sorry I've been absent, been a lot of stress my way, and still is, so I might pop in every now and then but I definitely will not be able to watch all the movies we pick..

In other news, been addicted to Twin Peaks the spare time I have. It's fantastic. What do you guys think?

At 2/25/14 02:15 PM, Dr-Worm wrote: Just gonna @ mention everyone to make sure they see there's a new pick.

I just scanned through the last page and a half and couldn't find it. What's the pick?

At 2/25/14 02:37 PM, Piggler wrote:

At 2/25/14 02:15 PM, Dr-Worm wrote: Just gonna @ mention everyone to make sure they see there's a new pick.

I just scanned through the last page and a half and couldn't find it. What's the pick?

Fuck never mind. Of course I found it right after I posted.

At 2/25/14 08:25 AM, TheMaster wrote: The Insect Woman, a 1963 film by Shohei Imamura. I like what I've seen of his work so far and have had this sitting on my shelf for a while, so now is as good a time as any to get it watched.

I'm really gonna watch the Movie of the Week on time this week. I swear I'm gonna do it guys.

My computer has essentially given up so unless I can find the future MoTW picks on TV I won't be participating. I was halfway through Killer Joe when it gave up.

At 2/25/14 04:26 PM, Atlas wrote: My computer has essentially given up so unless I can find the future MoTW picks on TV I won't be participating. I was halfway through Killer Joe when it gave up.

What do you mean by "given up"? What's wrong with it?

At 2/25/14 04:34 PM, Oolaph wrote:

At 2/25/14 04:26 PM, Atlas wrote: My computer has essentially given up so unless I can find the future MoTW picks on TV I won't be participating. I was halfway through Killer Joe when it gave up.

What do you mean by "given up"? What's wrong with it?

The USB ports in the front are broke, keyboard port in back won't work, and it's been slowly dying for awhile, I'm surprised it didn't stop sooner. It's been freezing like crazy lately.

I watched the Stone Tape on Sunday. It was alright. Don't really know what to say about it. I also watched Machete Kills last night. Not nearly as entertaining as the first one. And I finally watched Raw Deal, which was kinda badass. I also watched Elite Squad, which wasn't what I expected, but still pretty good. I thought it was gonna be an action movie.

At 2/25/14 03:15 AM, Dr-Worm wrote: Wow we really blew the KFC (so to speak) last week didn't we guys. Sorry @Natick! But I promise I'll watch the MotWs I've missed at some point sooner rather than later!

So since he's, uh, the only person who participated I guess that makes @TheMaster this week's MotW picker! Yay!

I had already seen Killer Joe. That and Frailty are why I shake my head at all the hate that Matthew McConaughey gets. I still haven't seen any of his other well recieved roles like Dallas Buyers Club, etc.

Have you guys seen The Raid: Redemption? It's an Indonesian martial arts film from a couple years ago and one of the best action movies I've ever seen. It apparently has a very similar structure to Dredd (to the point where the latter has been accused of plagiarism, though I think the two films were produced close enough in time to each other that it's probably just a coincidence) so if you liked that movie this one would be well worth checking out. There's also a sequel that's going to be released sometime this year I think.

One of my favorite movies. I'm a huge martial arts fan. Merantau was another really good movie starring Iko Uwais. It wasn't as great as the Raid, but it was still awesome.

At 2/25/14 02:18 PM, Slint wrote: In other news, been addicted to Twin Peaks the spare time I have. It's fantastic. What do you guys think?

Haven't seen it, but Blue Velvet was pretty good. And Eraserhead was a trip.

At 2/26/14 06:41 PM, Sense-Offender wrote: Haven't seen it, but Blue Velvet was pretty good. And Eraserhead was a trip.

It's really campy and really fantastic, highly recommend.
Lynch is one of my favourite directors so that might help in my case.