The Official Last Movie You Saw Thread (Part 2)

[KCKUKFan]

Hey, all. Back in business.

Seen a couple flicks recently...

Interstellar - Awesome, per the usual with Chris Nolan movies. As with his "Inception," I'm not sure how well the plot would work if you started really thinking about it and poking holes into it, but if you just go along for the ride, it's fun, thought-provoking and emotional. Recommended on the big screen; some of the visuals here are AMAZING. Great movie. 3.5/4.

St. Vincent - Bill Murray is reason enough to see this movie. It's sort've by-the-numbers for it's genre, but Murray's performance keeps things cracking. Entertaining. 3/4.

John Wick - Keanu Reeves killing Russian bad guys in a number of inventive ways. Check it out if you're an action fan! 3/4.

Fury - Good old fashioned brutal war movie. Brad Pitt leads a rag-tag group of tank operators in WWII. Bloody battle sequences ensue. Well-done and entertaining... people have compared it to "Saving Private Ryan," but this film doesn't try to tug at the heartstrings like Spielberg's movie did. 3/4.

[TrueblueCATfan]

Dumb and Dumber to.......even after 20 years these two are still funny..but not as good as the first one

[Will Lavender]

It's good to be back.

Live. Die. Repeat; or, Edge of Tomorrow.

This was reviewed on the other board, but I really enjoyed it. Very cool hybrid of a lot of different movies, as we discussed, and each hat-tip is done well. Entertaining and surprisingly fun. I don't know if it's canon, but it's one of the more inventive sci-fi movies I've seen.

Recommended.

Prisoners.

I was late seeing this, but I liked Enemy so much I had to pick it up. Glad I did: this is a dark, roiling, suspenseful film that really keeps you guessing. The performances are solid, and the movie thrums with this constant believability--if this actually happened, I know people who would have reacted the same way Jackman's character did.

Denis Villeneuve can flat-out make a movie. Highest recommendation.

[KCKUKFan]

Birdman - An insanely good movie for people who love movies. Michael Keaton plays an aged, past-his-prime actor who rose to fame a decade earlier by playing the superhero Birdman (sounds a bit like Keaton himself, disappearing after Batman). He's trying to regain a foothold in the industry by writing, directing and starring in a Raymond Carver Broadway adaptation. He's obviously suffering a midlife crisis of the worst kind, as the titular Birdman (his schitzo alter-ego) prompts him to do dangerous things. We follow him around the Broadway theater in what looks like one unbroken two hour take. Edward Norton is hilarious, Emma Stone is perfect as his daughter and Zack Gilifinakis plays it rather straight as his on-edge agent. The film is a technical marvel; obviously, digital liberties were taken as far as cuts go, but it literally looks seamless from the first frame to (almost) the last, it appears as one unbroken take. Keaton should win the year's Best Actor Oscar, as he owns this role with the gusto that he showed in his very best performances from the 80s. This is a FANTASTIC movie and one that is worth all the praise that it is garnering. My only (minor) gripe is that there is a moment about ten minutes prior to the actual end where it should've cut to black and stayed that way. If you see it, you'll know exactly what I'm talking about. Otherwise, almost flawless. 4/4.

Nightcrawler - This movie is getting great reviews, but I'm not sure if it's a great movie. It's beautifully shot and it's always interesting, but it seems awfully far-fetched as far as story. The real draw here is the performance of Jake Gyllenhaal. He absolutely OWNS this movie, playing an obvious Aspberger's case who manipulates and schemes his way into the seedy world of late night Los Angeles crime amateur filmmaking. He owns the screen with his gaunt, transformed look and strange vocal pattern. Truly a career performance in search of a better movie to surround it. See it for the cinematography and Gyllenhaals' brilliant performance. 3/4.

[kybucs]

Interstellar

[Titus Lucretius Carus]

"A Most Wanted Man"-Phillip Seymour Hoffman's last starring role. Typically American actors are not cast in movies where they must take on an accent Hoffman did a great job with the German accent. Hoffman was amazing in the role however, to me the story just was not up to his performance. The movie is worth watching on the strength of Hoffman's performance I give the movie a 4 stars out of five.

[TrueblueCATfan]

Just watched Alex Cross...Didn't see it when it came out at the theater caught it on one of the movie channels....really good movie....Matthew Fox is excellent

[TrueblueCATfan]

GONE GIRL.......wow.........what a crazy movie with a even crazier ending.......

[Wonderstruck]

Hunger Games Catching Fire. So much better than the first.

[Titus Lucretius Carus]

"Chef" really sweat family movie really enjoyed it.

[KCKUKFan]

Dumb and Dumber To - Awful on nearly every level. I saw it out of my slavish love for the 1994 original. Everything in this movie is exactly as I feared: forced and unfunny. The original film was so good because the writing was clever. It took six screenwriters to squeeze out this turd.

Horrible Bosses 2 - Bad reviews be damned, this was a blast. If you liked the original, there's no reason you shouldn't dig this one. All the actors are on their game, and it's nothing but raunchy fun.

Boyhood - Great reviews, but I didn't love it. Usually a big fan of Richard Linklater pictures, and this movie's gimmick intrigued me greatly. Filmed over the span of about fifteen years, it chronicles the REAL coming-of-age story of a little boy. Interesting to watch the actors all age yet adapt to the material, but it didn't feel like there was enough meat on the story here to justify it's ridiculous 3 hour run time.

Dawn Of The Planet Of The Apes - Fun summer popcorn vehicle, nothing more nothing less. You'll like it if you liked the last one.

Tusk - Writer/director Kevin Smith (comic book/"Clerks"/Jay & Silent Bob/podcasting/being fat fame) tackles gonzo horror-comedy with this VERY peculiar movie about a smug, self-serving podcaster who travels north to Manatoba, Canada to do research on his next podcast subject. He ends up drugged and held captive in a remote mansion by a verbose, creepy old man, played with relish by B-movie legend Michael Parks. Imagine "Clerks" if it met "The Human Centipede." To spoil what happens would be foolish (seriously, try to avoid spoilers and go into this thing blind). Let's just say that the old man has a weird infatuation with walruses and home surgery. Johnny Depp appears unbilled in a cartoonish Pink Panther-esque role that tickles the funnybone. I'm not sure if I would recommend this to anybody, in the traditional sense, but it certainly is interesting. And if you go along with the flow, you'll find yourself having a pretty good tiime, in a cult-classic midnight-movie type of way. Certainly Smith's most intriguing work since Dogma (not that that's saying a lot). Flawed, for sure, and I'm not even sure it's very good, but it's worth seeing as a pure curiosity.

[John Clay Rice Jr.]

50 First Dates. One of Adam Sandler's funniest roles.

[Titus Lucretius Carus]

Dumb and Dumber To - Awful on nearly every level. I saw it out of my slavish love for the 1994 original. Everything in this movie is exactly as I feared: forced and unfunny. The original film was so good because the writing was clever. It took six screenwriters to squeeze out this turd.

Horrible Bosses 2 - Bad reviews be damned, this was a blast. If you liked the original, there's no reason you shouldn't dig this one. All the actors are on their game, and it's nothing but raunchy fun.

Boyhood - Great reviews, but I didn't love it. Usually a big fan of Richard Linklater pictures, and this movie's gimmick intrigued me greatly. Filmed over the span of about fifteen years, it chronicles the REAL coming-of-age story of a little boy. Interesting to watch the actors all age yet adapt to the material, but it didn't feel like there was enough meat on the story here to justify it's ridiculous 3 hour run time.

Dawn Of The Planet Of The Apes - Fun summer popcorn vehicle, nothing more nothing less. You'll like it if you liked the last one.

Tusk - Writer/director Kevin Smith (comic book/"Clerks"/Jay & Silent Bob/podcasting/being fat fame) tackles gonzo horror-comedy with this VERY peculiar movie about a smug, self-serving podcaster who travels north to Manatoba, Canada to do research on his next podcast subject. He ends up drugged and held captive in a remote mansion by a verbose, creepy old man, played with relish by B-movie legend Michael Parks. Imagine "Clerks" if it met "The Human Centipede." To spoil what happens would be foolish (seriously, try to avoid spoilers and go into this thing blind). Let's just say that the old man has a weird infatuation with walruses and home surgery. Johnny Depp appears unbilled in a cartoonish Pink Panther-esque role that tickles the funnybone. I'm not sure if I would recommend this to anybody, in the traditional sense, but it certainly is interesting. And if you go along with the flow, you'll find yourself having a pretty good tiime, in a cult-classic midnight-movie type of way. Certainly Smith's most intriguing work since Dogma (not that that's saying a lot). Flawed, for sure, and I'm not even sure it's very good, but it's worth seeing as a pure curiosity.

Nice writing. I agree with your assessment of "Apes". I saw Interstellar and feel the Director needs an editor when you give "final cut" to a director then we see five minutes of a spacecraft docking. I give it a B still reccommend it splurge for IMAX it enhances the experience.

[Will Lavender]

It's been forever since I've been to the theater, but I did catch two movies on my Amazon Prime account this past week.

The Wolf of Wall Street.

Wickedly entertaining movie that tackles the financial crisis in miniature. But the movie has kind of a freeform, stream-of-conciousness style. The framework of the movie is almost non-linear, and there are very few date stamps to tell us when and where we are. The idea seems to pile on a lot of insanity, scene after scene of it, and to dare us to look away. There's a lot of riffing here, a lot of which misses. Scorsese has always allowed his characters room to act, but this movie has quite a few gags that are just silly and completely unfunny. But for all that the movie has tremendous propulsion. A lot of these three-hour-long behemoths are tedious to sit through; not this one.

But this is still a minor Scorsese. Reminded me of The Informant! and Burn After Reading in that its absurdity is kind of the point. Still highly recommended.

Coherence.

Indie sci-fi braintrip about Schrodinger's cat and a dinner party gone horribly wrong. It's impossible to talk about this movie and not give anything away, but I read a review on TheDissolve.com a month or so ago and knew I had to see it. It reminded me so much of Primer, a movie I absolutely loved, and we're in that same "What in God's name is going on?" territory here.

If you like puzzles and films that pull directly from the Twilight Zone tradition, then give this one a shot. Highly recommended.

[Marooncat79]

At the movies--"now you see me". With Michael Caine and Woody Harrelson. Awesome movie

TV Repeat Movie. The Outlaw Josie Wales.

Previously unseen TV movie. The Caine Mutiny with H Bogart. I had never seen it. Not near as good as African Queen-IMO