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Midweek Movie Free Talk
Have you watched any movies recently you want to discuss? Any films you want to recommend or are hyped about? Feel free to discuss anything here.
Please just try to provide fair warning of spoilers if you can.
The Voices (2014) spoilers
My wife and I watched this last night and I really enjoyed it. I think my favorite part was when Jerry takes his medication halfway through the film and for the first time you see what his apartment is actually like. It's not the clean, perfect apartment you see up to that point. It's trashed with boxes piling up to the ceiling, animal shit everywhere, and blood splattered all over the place from his dismemberment of Fiona's body. And suddenly the Bosco and Mr. Whiskers are just a dog and a cat, rather than embodiments of his conscience.
I also really enjoyed that they didn't linger on his past too much. They showed just enough to establish why he was like he was. A quick nightmare sequence and a flashback was all they needed to establish that. Too many shows and films seem to over-explain those kinds of things.
The ending is very dark, but I liked it. Bosco basically telling him that he had crossed that line into being evil and that for the sake of himself and everyone he should just let himself die in the fire. That's bleak as hell, but it was really impactful. The following (I'm assuming hallucinated) scene of him in heaven dancing with his parents, victims, and jesus was super over the top. It was goofy as hell, but it was a good palate cleanser after the darkness of the film.
I vaguely recall watching and enjoying this movie a number of years ago. I like all the actors involved quite a bit, and I very much enjoy dark comedies. I think it reminded me of Very Bad Things in some ways - dark, goofy, inevitable.
Best Ryan Reynolds performance by far. I wish he’d go back to doing films like this, or at least like buried.
We watched Ticket to Paradise last night. It’s good clean fun. The younger couple is pretty bland, but I wasn’t there to see them anyway. Clooney and
BullockRoberts are just there to have a good time, and they do a good job of that. Stay for the credits bloopers!Edit: I’m bad at names.
Hilma (2022)
So it was off to the cinema for the third outing this year. That's more times than in the previous ten years. I blame the wife and her new found obsession: the local boutique cinema that serves wines and dinner. Can't complain; I like wine.
Hilma is about the Swedish artist Hilma af Klint, whose works are now considered the first abstract art in the Western world, and was directed by the steady hand of Swedish director Lasse Hallström.
It was boring. It told a solid re-telling of her life, but all of the interest came from thinking about the subject matter on the bus home. Definitely more small screen than silver screen in its impact.
Luckily we also got to see the paintings referenced in the film in person at Moderna Museet on the weekend. That was an experience I can get behind!
I’ve mostly been re-watching films.
Steve Jobs (2015)
I know the internet has soured on Aaron Sorkin as a screenwriter, but my god can the man write. Considering how good this movie looks, it makes me wish that Sorkin would stop directing his own material and let people with a more cinematic vision take over. The intensity and emotion of this scene where things slowly build up along with the score are just so incredible. And I don’t think Sorkin would do a good job directing this scene himself considering how dull he made his own work in Being the Ricardo’s.
The Hateful Eight (2015)
I feel like this has been mostly forgotten as part of Tarantino’s overall filmography. Nobody really talks about it in the way they still talk about D’jango or Basterds despite it being a more recent film.
It’s really good. Tarantino is incredible at crafting tension and mystery. I think the capture format he used was a mistake. He should have just shot in in 35mm anamorphic. I don’t really think the 65mm Panavision format. I get what he was going for, but I’m not sure if it actually added anything. Still, a beautiful looking film. And, since this is the only Tarantino film with an original score,what a score.