TV/Movies Megathread

[Ideologue]

It's almost a pity that he got jaw cancer and you didn't.  Oops.  Typo!

[jimmy olsen]

Anyway, The Raid (2012).  Holy shit is this what I'm talking about when I say "good action."  Dredd, oh Dredd... you're still prettier.  (Tim, in case you don't hate my guts now,

I don't hate fools, just pity them. :Mr.T:

[Ideologue]

[celedhring]

I can't decide whether to give Grand Budapest Hotel an A or an A+.

A++

Ah, sold.  I'll have to re-rate The Lego Movie at the end of the year.

Grand Budapest Hotel (2014)

Wes Anderson's best-looking, funniest film, and Goddamn is that better than good enough. Grand Budapest Hotel lacks the high emotion of Anderson's very best, but it remains what it is: exuberance and excellence incarnate.

This is a hotel for ants!

A+

Wait, you say that it isn't one of Anderson's very best, yet you give him the maximum grade? 

Since I already made CdM's list I'll say that I really don't like Wes Anderson, by the way, but I'm pretty alone on that.

[Capetan Mihali]

Btw, if you ever feel like reading the worst review Roger Ebert ever wrote, check out his one-star review of The Raid: Redemption,

Looking at his reviews of movies I've seen recently, he was pretty unfair to Body Double and Big Trouble In Little China as well.  I think by the mid-80s he was feeling embattled as a defender of old-school liberal values in the onslaught of new Hollywood productions, and tended not to really understand the more "postmodern" films of the period that shared stylistic elements of the slasher/action/etc. movies.

  Ebert had a decent appreciation for visuals, in my recollection, but always subordinated them to a "good" narrative, in the modernist understanding of the term.

[celedhring]

He also was pretty militant about the abuse of violence in film (which indeed is too a postmodernist trait)

[Capetan Mihali]

He also was pretty militant about the abuse of violence in film (which indeed is too a postmodernist trait)

Yeah.  I think by the mid-90s he had kind of resigned himself to it, allowing him to give grudging respect to Tarantino et al, but from about Halloween on, he was fighting the good fight.

[Josquius]

Class of 1984- Another thing my random searches for full movies on youtube threw up. Weird film from 1982 set in a distant two years hence future where there are metal detectors in schools and gangs dominate.
Meh.
Good guy ignorant teacher gets a job, reaches some kids, runs afoul of the super smart gang leader, shit ensues.
From the very first scene where he gets home and meets his wife I just looked at her and knew "That bitch gonna get raped" (in ghetto voice). Yep. She does. Fairly by the numbers,

[Ed Anger]

Class of 1999 is better.

[Grey Fox]

Class of '84 is such an awesome movie.

[FunkMonk]

I can't decide whether to give Grand Budapest Hotel an A or an A+.

A++

Ah, sold.  I'll have to re-rate The Lego Movie at the end of the year.

Grand Budapest Hotel (2014)

Wes Anderson's best-looking, funniest film, and Goddamn is that better than good enough. Grand Budapest Hotel lacks the high emotion of Anderson's very best, but it remains what it is: exuberance and excellence incarnate.

This is a hotel for ants!

A+

Read the review and I actually completely agree with everything in it. Enjoyable review. 

Adrien Brody's first line in the movie is immaculate. 

I'd have to watch it again but it's probably my favorite Wes Anderson film. It's just so damn funny.

[Razgovory]

It's almost a pity that he got jaw cancer and you didn't.  Oops.  Typo!

Oh, like you are going to live to your 70's.

[Capetan Mihali]

Since I already made CdM's list I'll say that I really don't like Wes Anderson, by the way, but I'm pretty alone on that.

I've had so many friends who love his movies that I pretty much don't dare to say more than "He's OK, but not my favorite."  I haven't bothered to see half of them.

I thought the last one I saw a couple years ago, with twee Boy Scouts on Martha's Vineyard in 1962 or whatever, was crap.

[The Brain]

Wes Anderson always makes the same movie.

[Ideologue]

I can't decide whether to give Grand Budapest Hotel an A or an A+.

A++

Ah, sold.  I'll have to re-rate The Lego Movie at the end of the year.

Grand Budapest Hotel (2014)

Wes Anderson's best-looking, funniest film, and Goddamn is that better than good enough. Grand Budapest Hotel lacks the high emotion of Anderson's very best, but it remains what it is: exuberance and excellence incarnate.

This is a hotel for ants!

A+

Wait, you say that it isn't one of Anderson's very best, yet you give him the maximum grade? 

Since I already made CdM's list I'll say that I really don't like Wes Anderson, by the way, but I'm pretty alone on that.

I mean, the grading system only has nine points of articulation.  Out of a hundred, it's like a 97.562, and Zissou and Moonrise are 99.873s. 

Looking at his reviews of movies I've seen recently, he was pretty unfair to Body Double and Big Trouble In Little China as well.  I think by the mid-80s he was feeling embattled as a defender of old-school liberal values in the onslaught of new Hollywood productions, and tended not to really understand the more "postmodern" films of the period that shared stylistic elements of the slasher/action/etc. movies.

  Ebert had a decent appreciation for visuals, in my recollection, but always subordinated them to a "good" narrative, in the modernist understanding of the term.

I've evolved to be a bit more style-over-substance than most, but I'm pretty simpatico on that.  Narrative is still the most important part of a film (well, the most important part is not being boring, but narrative's a great way to ensure it isn't).

My problem with his review of The Raid (and a lot of reviews of The Raid, to be honest, even the good ones) is that they treat it as either the exploitation film par excellence, or swing the other way and claim it's some kind of art film.  Neither is wrong, but it does overlook the fact that The Raid does have a perfectly cognizable narrative, about two brothers separated by crime and family strife.

That story is maybe a little trite, but it becomes very interesting due to the style, and the bleak non-resolution of the ending is powerful.  Plus, there's an interesting irony that--despite Rama's superhuman efforts--the final victory truly belongs to the criminal, not the cop, simply because that is the way Indonesia is built to function.  It's a social issues movie and would make a great double-feature with The Act of Killing, were The Act of Killing a movie especially worth watching.

P.S. I was also unbelievably annoyed when Ebert complained that he didn't know what country it was set in, which is possibly the most ugly-American thing the kindly Chicago softheart had ever said.