2019 Film Thread! — Page 5

I don't know if it's because I saw "Little Women" at 10pm on a Friday (when I worked all day) but I was SOOOOOO bored. A couple in front of me left about 30 minutes in and the guy beside me fell asleep. I actually got up and left around the 1 hour mark because I felt myself start to fall asleep and didn't want to nap in the theater.

I'll give it another chance at some point but what I did see - I didn't think the time jumps were effective and the acting (while not bad) was so one note. But, again, it could have been that I saw it so late and was tired. So, overall review and feelings will be held until I see the whole thing.

Ps. I liked the '94 version

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UNCUT GEMS was really something, tight as a drum and mean as f*ck, it starts at a high pitch and stays pretty much exactly there, it never lets up. Sandler's performance is very fine indeed, the character's soon-to-be-ex wife tells him that he's the most annoying person in the world and well yeah, but he's 100% real and almost too painful to watch as his problems mount and mount and mount, and they're all entirely of his own making.

A couple of lapses of taste, one in particular very near the film's opening, I was going "oh no, they're not going to do THAT, are they?" and yeah, dammit they did, but hey, one moves on, and this movie sure moves.

I liked it.

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I haven't seen "Uncut Gems," "The Irishman," or "The Farewell" but here is my personal Top 10 of the year:

10. Shazam!

9. Rocketman

8. Booksmart

7. Ready or Not

6. Avengers: Endgame

5. Knives Out

4. Joker

3. JoJo Rabbit

2. Marriage Story

1. Doctor Sleep

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Updated On: 12/31/19 at 09:09 AM

Just finished watching The Irishman. I really liked it. It found it surprisingly emotionally moving at the end. Watching “The Irishman in Conversation” now.

Also, watched The Two Popes this week. Very well acted. Not sure how based on reality it is, but it was interesting. Not sure I would see it getting nominated for best picture at The Oscars, but it was good.

I know we’re in 2020, but still watching 2019 releases. Watched The Laundromat while waiting to get sleepy so I catch some zzzzs before my early flight to NYC in the morning. I found engaging. It was pretty disjointed, but that also meant I never knew exactly where it was going next. I do wish they’d stay with Ellen’s story more as I found it the most engaging. Well acted though especially by Streep (as Ellen), Oldman and Banderas.

Speaking of my flights tomorrow, Delta has added The Farewell and Hustlers so I’ll probably be watching one of those tomorrow and the other one on my return flight next Saturday. I do imagine Hustlers will be edited somewhat.

I have become less interested in Quentin Tarantino as the years have gone by. His films always have virtues, and they can be fun, but my sense of the guy as this overgrown adolescent boy who never really grew up has made me less interested in his movies despite his obvious talent. I haven't gotten around to watching Django Unchained despite it being on Netlix all the time, and I flat-out disliked The Hateful Eight even though the cast is great.

So I went into Once Upon a Time in Hollywood with lower expectations. Having seen it twice, I am convinced this is perhaps the most mature work he is capable of producing. It's certainly a movie that only Tarantino could have made. It has some of the usual issues with Tarantino films, but a lot fewer of them. Basically, I could watch it and enjoy all of the things he does really well without most of the stuff that bugs me. So yeah, I loved it, even took my wife to see it despite her trepidation about the plot - and she enjoyed it a lot as well.

There's category fraud in having Brad Pitt as a supporting actor because he's really the co-lead of the film. But I'm not going to complain if he wins an Academy Award because Pitt harnesses his old-fashioned movie star charisma so engagingly.

It's probably not the best film of the year, even among the few I've seen, as there's Parasite to consider. But I do think Once Upon a Time in Hollywood will age well as the most enjoyable, accomplished Tarantino film he ever made. If the guy is really going to stop making movies, I sort of wish this was the last one.

Did a pre-Oscars triple feature Saturday. Parasite, 1917, Joker.

I still haven’t seen JoJo Rabbit, Little Women, or Ford v Ferrari (that one doesn’t really interest me).

I really liked all three movies I saw today, but surprisingly I probably liked Joker the most. Partially because I like movies that are character studies. Partially because I went in with the lowest expectations for it and it surpassed them. Partially because I worked as a mental health professional in a adult make prison for almost 24 years. But mostly for two reasons: it’s the first superhero (well, in this case, anti-hero) movie in forever that wasn’t as if it was assembled on an assembly line with more care to CGI than the script and it played for the most part true to the rules of the reality it was set in. Joaquin definitely deserves that Oscar Sunday night.

With Parasite, there were a couple moments towards the end that I thought broke the rules of the reality it was set in. Just not totally believable. I do think it explores the ways society treats the marginalized in a more nuanced way than Joker does.

1917 is stunning in many ways, but I found it pretty unbelievable that one character could survive all that.

Watched Judy on On Demand once I got home. I really liked it.

I’m pulling for Once Upon a Time in Hollywood and Quentin Tarantino to win big tonight. I do wish Toy Story 4 had gotten a nomination for Best Picture.

All movies I’ve seen that are nominated for best picture would be part of my top 10 movies released last year.

Saturday did remind me that how much I miss seeing movies in the theater as opposed to on a plane.

Hmmm...instead of Ford v Ferrari I could see Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker instead.

Did another triple feature tonight:

Little Women - I really loved it except for the time jumps. I cried twice. LOL. I’ve never read the book and I’ve never seen any of the other film adaptation’s before.

JoJo Rabbit - I thought It was pretty brilliant. It’s like if Life is Beautiful (a movie I’m not crazy about) was directed by Wes Anderson which is an improvement. I cried but not necessarily when I thought I would.

Ford v Ferrari - This movie is boring af. Or at least the part I saw was. Left after about 40 minutes. I shoulda known. I think car racing is stupid. I wonder who they had to pay and how much to get nominated for Best Picture. I shoulda watched Stars Wars: The Rise of Skywalker instead.

I think you’ll really love Knives Out, Miles. I suggest going to the theatre for it this week! Likely the last week it’s playing in theatres or one of the last. Excellent film, entertaining, and unpredictable fun that never feels convoluted or like you’re completely lost. It’s a great time.

Be sure to catch Uncut Gems too, it’s INTENSE.

My wife and I have been watching the movies up for best films last year, so far we tried Jojo Rabbit and we both liked it. When watching joker i couldn't hear the dialogue even with the volume turned up to 100%. I had to keep turning the volume up and down. Onward, saw 1917 in theater, she wouldn't watch that so went with my nephew, liked it.

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The movie theatres weren't closed here until maybe with the new restrictions announced today. ( now no groups more than 50, was 250 since last Thursday) I had some coupons about to expire so I saw a couple things, but I guess these are 2020 films now. Anyways, last weekend I saw the new version of Emma, and found it very cute. Though I wonder how Jane Austen would feel about the male nudity? Yesterday I saw the new Annette Bening picture Hope Gap. A smaller story but with some gorgeous scenery of the white cliffs of Dover. Both films featured Josh O'Connor from Durrells in Corfu. I was so sad when that series finished up on PBS Masterpiece. I guess I'll have to get it all on blu-ray & rewatch it from the start.

Looking back at 2019, I think my best of list would include Judy, & Pain and Glory. Uncut Gems was probably the best film I saw. Adam Sandler should habe been nominated for best actor. Of those nominated, Antonio Banderas should have won.

I think my second favourite film of the year is the new version of Little Women. The cinematography is just gorgeous. That won me over, even though I questioned how it was plotted as more of a remembrance. I suppose it has been told the same way, closely following the novel, so many times before. TCM played all the other versions of the movie multiple times the last few months. For a straight ahead telling, the version from '94 with Winona Ryder is maybe the best. If you think this new version makes you cry, wait until you see Claire Danes as Beth SPOILERS die. Christian Bale plays Laurie in that version, and it is a very movie star version of Laurie as this tall handsome guy; but actually Timothée Chalamet probably looks more like what Laurie is supposed to look like in the first version of the novel. (The book was re-edited in the late 1800's) In the early version Laurie is supposed to be slightly ethnic, short, and is even described as having small feminine hands. Maybe Little Women was the first "Yaoi" fiction?

I saw and was very impressed with both films Shia Lebeouf was in Honey Boy (based upon his own childhood) and Peanut Butter Falcon. Peanut Butter Falcon definitely makes my top ten of the year.

I bought the blu-ray of the silly Rebel Wilson film Isn't It Romantic when it was released after seeing it in theatre - so that must mean it makes my best of the year.

I didn't see Tim Burton's version of Dumbo when it was in theatre last spring, but when I picked up the blu-ray & got around to watching it I found it quite charming.

Off the top of my head I can't think of what else I liked a great deal from last year.

I disliked Joker & Parasite. I still haven't seen, and have no immediate plans to see Once Upon.... My coworker basically told me the whole movie anyways, he loved it. I decided last summer when it came out that I don't need to see the violence. Wish I had made the same decision regarding those other two. Why do I I not feel the same about Uncut Gems? I guess because in that film it feels authentic and not gratuitous.

I've been watching some older films on blu-ray. Francis Ford Coppola's new edit of his 1984 film The Cotton Club is good. I had never seen the film before, so it was a pleasant surprise to see Gwen Verdon show up on screen. After seeing that I watched another of Richard Gere's early films, the big hit An Officer and a Gentleman. It is surprising how different films from that era are, with so much sexuality that audiences may not go for today - even though violent hardcore pornography is so much more readily accessible and widely viewed today. Anyways, Debra Winger is so good in that, and she did a few other big films after (Terms of Endearment, Legal Eagles), but then she sort of disappeared - I wonder what happened?

A real charming little picture I watched recently is 1935's The Good Fairy starring Margaret Sullivan, best know for The Shop Around the Corner. It has no fairies, but is rather a sort of screwball romance scripted by the great Preston Sturges.

Finally, the most astonishing thing I watched recently is a totally overlooked little indy film from 2019: Greener Grass. It sort of looks like Heathers or one of Todd Solondz' films, - but without any plot, just sheer oddity.

https://youtu.be/iyOvQfgQhKQ

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Updated On: 3/16/20 at 09:29 PM

Great idea. That way people would get to know about good movies to watch. I already got like 10 movies to watch just by reading this thread.