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Post by Poe's Coats Host Toast on Dec 10, 2018 22:41:37 GMT -5
My Top 5: Roma (dir. Alfonso Cuarón) - 10/10 Dogman (dir. Matteo Garrone) - 9/10 The Favourite (dir. Yorgos Lanthimos) - 8.5/10 Transit (dir. Christian Petzold) - 8.5/10 Loro (dir. Paolo Sorrentino) - 8/10
#6-13 (all very good): The Ballad of Buster Scruggs (dir. Joel &Ethan Coen) - 8/10 First Reformed (dir. Paul Schrader) - 8/10 Suspiria (dir. Luca Guadagnino) - 8/10 Blade Runner 2049 (dir. Denis Villeneuve) - 8/10 Isle of Dogs (dir. Wes Anderson) - 7.5/10 The Sisters Brothers (dir. Jacques Audiard) - 7.5/10 Annihilation (dir. Alex Garland) - 7.5/10 Green Book (Peter Farrelly) - 7/10
#14-21 (pretty good, but ymmv): Mission: Impossible - Fallout (dir. Christopher McQuarrie) - 7/10 Ray & Liz (dir. Richard Billingham) - 7/10 Climax (Gaspar Noé) - 6.5/10 Hereditary (dir. Ari Aster) - 6.5/10 Sorry to Bother You (Boots Riley) - 6.5/7 A Quiet Place (John Krasinski) - 6/10 Grass (dir. Hong Sang-soo) - 6/10 Living the Light: The Picture Worlds of Robby Müller (dir. Claire Pijman) - 6/10
(Mostly) disliked: Hold the Dark (dir. Jeremy Saulnier) - 5/10 High Life (dir. Claire Denis) - 4/10 The House That Jack Built (dir. Lars von Trier) - 3/10 (Worst film of the year:) The Cloverfield Paradox - 1/10
Use this thread to name and discuss your favourites.
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Post by Reba on Dec 11, 2018 13:31:57 GMT -5
i havent even heard of half your list, verry skookum. looks like bc they dont come out in US of A until next year. ive used american release dates for my list even though apparently some of these were released at festival 2017:
1. FIRST REFORMED
2. WIDOWS (incredibly good lookin, good actin ensemble cast, exciting movie magic, and genyuss shots that capture chicago extremely well)
3. THE PRICE OF EVERYTHING (a dockie morphed into a horror flick comparing both sides of the contemporary art world, the starving artist v. the monstrous capitalist, equally creatively-bankrupt)
4. YOU WERE NEVER REALLY HERE (my five favorite things: pretentious atmosphere; very little plot; very short runtime; dudes gettin cold-cocked; joaquin phoenix, handsomest man in hollywood, and this time he's husky!)
5. LET THE SUNSHINE IN (an intimate 90 minute engagement with juliette binoche, + the important moral that old people are just as stupid as young people)
6. BLOCKERS (the endearingly woke comedy of the year and best teen comedy since SUPERBAD)
and these are O.K.
7. A Star Is Born (almost nothing but macro shots of lady gaga's face and bradley cooper's face, making for a highly naturalistic love story that made me w33p)
9. Colette (a typically enchanting keira knightley performance, and the best Costumes of the year. no words for the corny script, but the subject matter is unconventional enough for a period drama to make it slightly less noticeable)
9. Milford Graves Full Mantis (the decidedly uninteresting ramblings of an old coot, but milford graves is an incredible drummer so it's worth it for the concert footage, and there's some really creative editing)
10. Leave No Trace (VERY pretty shots of pacific northwest forests, but it's also boring as all get-out)
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Post by Poe's Coats Host Toast on Dec 12, 2018 19:23:30 GMT -5
Haven't heard of half the films in your top 6 either. The Price of Everything does sound interesting, I think I'll check it out. Milford Graves, too. I don't plan on watching Widows at the theatre, but I'm sure I'll check it out at some point. Oh and, 4. YOU WERE NEVER REALLY HERE (my five favorite things: pretentious atmosphere; very little plot; very short runtime; dudes gettin cold-cocked; joaquin phoenix, handsomest man in hollywood, and this time he's husky!) lol I would've added this one too, but I refrained, since it says it's a 2017 release. Would've taken place no.4 at 8/10 on my list. EDIT: Just saw I rated it 7.5 on my 2017 list. Anyway, loved the oddball ending, on top of the rest.
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Post by Poe's Coats Host Toast on Dec 23, 2018 19:48:47 GMT -5
Roma currently tops the list, and I doubt that'll change. Stunning film. Reminded me of Bergman's Fanny &Alexander in its epic scope of the portrayal of a family. The cinematography and visual storytelling is incredible. The latter is the key here, because Cuarón's last film, Gravity, feel flat imo despite dazzling camerawork, since said camerawork was only impressive in itself, not much in relation to the story (which was very underwritten). In Roma, the images and the story are so married together, that each enhances the other. It's equally about the story-&character arcs as it is about the atmosphere and liveliness of each scene.
Also, please don't watch it on Netflix (only if you have to), go watch it in a cinema. It's so worth it. They used wide angle lenses throughout most of the film, and there's so much going on in most shots. At the cinema you're often seeing 1:1 dimensions of the street scenes on the screen in front of you. That way, the immersion into the film is much more effective than it can be on a smaller screen.
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Post by Reba on Dec 25, 2018 20:38:47 GMT -5
the favourite takes my number two spot, i guess.... everything about the visuals left me speechless, it's true, but i was also speechlessly disturbed.. how dare he encroach upon the beloved Costume Drama with his creepy quirks. maybe i'm getting soft in my old age but i'm not so into the movies where every single character is despicable and it's just the norm. oh well, i'll take what i can get.
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Post by Poe's Coats Host Toast on Dec 25, 2018 22:16:25 GMT -5
are you wearing your loafers, grampa? yorgos is all about dat misanthropy.
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Post by Reba on Dec 26, 2018 0:00:45 GMT -5
i dunno, colin farrell's characters in the lobster and KoaSD seemed like generally good people. at least neutral beings. you might say the utter lack of decency in the favourite is balanced by its humor, which is more pronounced than any of his other movies. but i was never one for yorgos's humor...
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Post by Seymour Glass on Dec 29, 2018 0:04:41 GMT -5
Bohemian Rhapsody was an amazing movie.
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Post by Poe's Coats Host Toast on Feb 3, 2019 22:24:21 GMT -5
Watched The Favourite and really liked it! I updated my list and put it in my top 5. I highly disagree with bear that every character is despicable in the film... I think the interesting thing about the script is how you constantly change on who to root for, meaning yes, at some point every character behaves kind of villainously, but then later their roles get switched up. And not to spoil anything, but in the end I'd say there is at least one sympathetic character left (maybe two). And the Queen isn't despicable as much as clueless throughout most of the film. (Oh yeah and Farrell's character in KoaSD was definitely not a generally good person, and I wouldn't say neutral. Actually, that film seems to have had not a single sympathetic character in it.)
I did find the ending of The Favourite rather abrupt, however, and wished to have seen more. It felt a bit like he didn't quite know how to end it, and it seems like endings are not Yorgos' strong suit, especially considering KoaSD where I had that problem even more. This time, though, the final scene was mesmerizing and brillant imo, just didn't conclude the story proper, I think.
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Post by Reba on Feb 3, 2019 22:47:24 GMT -5
Watched The Favourite and really liked it! I updated my list and put it in my top 5. I highly disagree with bear that every character is despicable in the film... I think the interesting thing about the script is how you constantly change on who to root for, meaning yes, at some point every character behaves kind of villainously, but then later their roles get switched up. And not to spoil anything, but in the end I'd say there is at least one sympathetic character left (maybe two). And the Queen isn't despicable as much as clueless throughout most of the film. (Oh yeah and Farrell's character in KoaSD was definitely not a generally good person, and I wouldn't say neutral. Actually, that film seems to have had not a single sympathetic character in it.) I did find the ending of The Favourite rather abrupt, however, and wished to have seen more. It felt a bit like he didn't quite know how to end it, and it seems like endings are not Yorgos' strong suit, especially considering KoaSD where I had that problem even more. This time, though, the final scene was mesmerizing and brillant imo, just didn't conclude the story proper, I think. i disagree
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Post by Foxy on Feb 4, 2019 11:53:08 GMT -5
I only saw one movie which came out last year. It was a documentary called Take Your Pills. I found it very informative, and it was interesting to hear multiple sides of the issue, from both parents and their children, and from many students.
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Post by Reba on Mar 26, 2019 0:26:35 GMT -5
i liked roma. maybe #3 after first reformed and the favourite. i didnt peep this in theaters because i mistakenly believed the cinematographer was emmanuel lubezki, whom i hate. it was a pleasant surprise to see cuaron cut out the superfluous wank and just have the camera rotating calmly on an axis.
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Post by Poe's Coats Host Toast on Apr 2, 2019 15:49:32 GMT -5
Finally watched "First Reformed" in a small theatre that screened it again, and it was very good, but the very ending (last shot) did fall flat imo. This sudden change to "love solves your problems" didn't feel earned by the film, and felt unsatisfying. It also seems copped from Bresson's "Pickpocket", which is part of Schrader's 'transcendental cinema' canon. But the ending of FR up until that moment was enthralling in the best way, after having portrayed a man and his existential crisis in a very real way. I felt an influence from "Ida" (at least cinematographically) as well, so I get why this is right up your alley, Reba. Also watched last year's "Suspiria" remake by Luca Guadagnino and recommend it to any David Lynch fan. Definitely style over substance, but the tone and level of execution in all departments (directing, acting, everything else) is astonishing, and reminded me somewhat of the latest Twin Peaks sometimes. And it's not devoid of substance, there's clever interweaving of history (German history of the 1970s, as influenced by the end of WWII), even if it's not fleshed out. Some very graphic imagery, though, just as a warning; I definitely won't quickly forget one or two scenes in particular.
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Post by Reba on Apr 2, 2019 20:33:45 GMT -5
of course the entirety of first reformed is copped from bresson... but also, as far as i can tell every schrader film ends like "pickpocket"...
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Post by Poe's Coats Host Toast on Apr 3, 2019 1:45:03 GMT -5
I haven't seen any other films he directed, only which he wrote and co-wrote, like all the ones he did for Scorsese, and 1977's Rolling Thunder (great, underrated flick)... and none of them end like "Pickpocket", so that's news to me. Of course, "Taxi Driver" is a lot like that film except for the ending.
To be fair, Bresson's influence is very wide on cinema, and First Reformed didn't feel like a rip off as you seem to imply; It felt quite autobiographical in many a way (f.ex. Schrader famously went through heavy alcoholism).
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