Oh geez, this was in March. Time to get caught up.Kong Wen wrote: ↑13 Mar 2019 13:48I finally got around to watching Ran (1985) last night. It was good. I knew it was based on King Lear going in, but I was impressed by how much of a fusion it was between Shakespeare and various elements of Japanese film-making. The story was fine, but I was most impressed by the cinematography, particularly the huge, wide nature shots (the rolling mountain hills, Azusa plain, etc.). I thought the costume design was also fantastic, and wasn't surprised to read afterwards that the film won a god-damned Oscar for it.
Triple Frontier - Netflix movie with a stacked cast about some elite soldiers and ex-soldiers who plan a heist against a South American drug lord. Fairly standard setup, but the movie is surprisingly well executed, and Ben Affleck and Oscar Isaac gave great performances. 8.11/10
Lucy - Bad ScaJo movie about incomprehensible pseudoscientific gibberish. The setup isn't even good enough to allow for generous suspension of disbelief. I can't remember a single good scene. 1.1/10
The Taking of Pelham 123 - Denzel does his Denzel thing, and Travolta, well... does his Travolta thing, chewing up the scenery but not in a good way. At least the plot and overall pacing of the story are decent, probably by virtue of the fact that it's a remake. 6.123/10
You Were Never Really Here - Good Joaquin Phoenix revenge movie that's quite dense, heavy, and dark. This movie isn't afraid to take its time and really get into some messed up shots/scenes. Phoenix is of course amazing in it. Weird ending. 8.36/10
Split - M. Night Shyamalan movie with James McAvoy (who is excellent) and Anya Taylor-Joy (who was excellent in the Witch, but OK in this). I thought it had a decent plot, decent twist, and I don't think I'm going to ruin it by watching Glass anytime soon. 7.55/10
The Man Who Killed Don Quixote - Yeah, Terry Gilliam actually finished making this movie and it actually showed in cinemas. I was glad I got a chance to watch it. It's unmistakably Gilliam, and it's also unmistakable that it was a clusterfuck to make it, but overall it came out pretty well. Driver and Pryce were both excellent. Driver stole the show IMO. There were some draggy sections, and if surrealism isn't your cup of tea, you might not like it, but it's entertaining. 8.1.../10
Avengers: Endgame - This was a worthy conclusion to the first epoch of the MCU without necessarily being a fantastic movie in its own right. I didn't mind it, I don't mind looking past silly/wonky plot constructions, I don't mind massive ensembles sharing screen time, and I thought it gave most characters some interesting things to do, some good action scenes, some good set pieces, etc. but maybe I was just fatigued by this point. Not in a rush to watch it again, but I respect it for what it did. 7.99/10
The Lonely Island Presents: The Unauthorized Bash Brothers Experience - Ridiculous. There are a couple fun songs/scenes in here, but overall it's a mess. Kind of a typical stream of consciousness Lonely Island mess, but still. Not even sure how to rate this. It's really short, so if you like them, give it a watch. WTF/10
See You Yesterday - A cute little Netflix time travel movie that thankfully doesn't go too deep into time travel mechanics, and instead focuses on what it's for. The story is set up in such a way that it would be tough to tie everything together with a neat ending, but the way they ended the film was pretty good. 7.96/10
Mission Impossible: Fallout - A twist that everyone can see coming a mile away, but I guess suspense isn't why we watch these movies. Tom Cruise does some stunts, Henry Cavill is excellent, Simon Pegg says some funny, and overall there's a shitload of action. 8.095/10
The Emoji Movie - Surprisingly not as bad as everyone made it out to be? I mean, it's bad, don't get me wrong. Even the performances from Miller and Corden, which should have been the movie's saving grace, were flat. The plot was dumb. Most of the jokes were bad. The product placement was bad. But at least it had a couple moments. 3/10
Rambo: Last Blood - I've said before that First Blood is the only good Rambo movie, as all the sequels pretty much turn what made that one good and interesting on its head. This one takes that character betrayal to its natural conclusion by also being a boring cookie-cutter sequel, which is super disappointing after what Stallone was able to do with the Rocky franchise (I guess the difference is that more than one Rocky movie was good in the first place). Even the big finale setpiece is just rote, with no suspense or drama. Boring. 3.01/10
I also watched some documentaries, so I'll include them in their own little section here.
Free Solo - Great movie about Alex Honnold climbing El Cap at Yosemite, without ropes. Fucking insane athletic feat, but the movie is also good beyond the sheer voyeurism of it. I liked that it didn't just focus on the climb, but on Alex's personality and what motivates someone to do something like this. But the footage of the climb itself was also great. This won the Oscar for Best Documentary! 8.5/10
Perfect Bid: The Contestant Who Knew Too Much - Dumb little Netflix doc about a The Price Is Right superfan. I actually found it kind of unsatisfying, but the guy who's the subject of the doc seemed to be a good sport, and they did a good job of piecing together footage from the show as well. 6/10
The Babushkas of Chernobyl - Mrs. Kong made me watch this, lol. It's about several poor old ladies who stubbornly live in the Chernobyl exclusion zone and about how terrible their lives are. Bleak. Not great, not terrible. 3.6roentgen/10
Woodstock: Three Days That Defined a Generation - Netflix documentary about Woodstock. Woodstock is one of those things where there's SO MUCH footage and so much has already been said that it's hard to say anything new about it, but this doc did a serviceable job. They went a little bit into the business and organizational end of it rather than just focusing on the music, and it's always interesting to look back at what life was like 50 years ago. It made me think about Jimi Hendrix's performance of SSB in a new light, so it gets points for that. 6.9/10
