This Old Neon Forum

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.

Oh geez, this was in March. Time to get caught up.

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

I talked a bit about the star war in the other thread, so I'll just start fresh with 2020 in here.

1917 (Sam Mendes, 2019)

Filmed to look like one shot (but really a series of long (6-8 minute) takes stitched together), this almost has the feel of a video game as we follow the two leads from setpiece to setpiece (the trench level, the mine level, the farmhouse, etc.). Because you're following two characters over the course of basically one day, it has a surprising sense of intimacy and immediacy rather than the grand-scale you usually expect from big war movies. The single-shot style also really enhances the effect of fatigue/exhaustion and escalating tension. I wouldn't consider it one of my favourite movies, but I can definitely at least appreciate the craft.

Score: 1917/2019

Black Panther
Not what I expected and that's a huge positive the movie was more like a drama than an superhero action film and I loved that. The story and the visuals were amazing.

Sonic the Hedgehog
This movie was so good I highly recommend it. Funny the whole way through and very charming.

Forrest Gump
I didn't know anything about the plot of this movie going in other than being told it was a comedy. (more so a drama comedy) This movie was amazing. It kept me interested the whole 2 and a half hours. Tom hanks did such an amazing job.

I highly expected some overrated movie but got the exact opposite.

SkyPikachu wrote: ↑24 Mar 2020 15:18 Forrest Gump
I didn't know anything about the plot of this movie going in other than being told it was a comedy. (more so a drama comedy) This movie was amazing. It kept me interested the whole 2 and a half hours. Tom hanks did such an amazing job.

I highly expected some overrated movie but got the exact opposite.

Yeah man, Forrest Gump really holds up! I rewatched it for the first time in about 20 years a while ago and was surprised by how good it still was.

No one watched any movies during the first year of COVID lockdowns, which is reasonable.

I've watched my first film of the year:

The Sisters Brothers (2018) — 7.6/10

2021-01-07: Based on the novel by Patrick deWitt. It was pretty good! It definitely deserved to do better than it did. It flew under the radar and didn't get any attention. Even as a fan of the novel, I barely knew when it was out or how to watch it, and just finally stumbled upon it on Netflix yesterday. It changes a few things from the book, but because of the visual medium, it actually does one key thing better than the book did IMO: the brothers are assassins, with Charlie being cold-blooded and Eli being more kind-hearted. This "balance of power" evolves in a very nice, tight way throughout the film.

I've watched my second film of the year:

Tenet (2020) — 8.5/10

2021-01-17: This movie got some flak when it first came out, but I think it was a combination of a) people being tired of Nolan's recurring schtick of having schticks, and b) trying to release the movie in cinemas during the height of COVID-19 and being pretentious about it. I actually thought it was pretty good! Better than I thought it would be, going in. I liked it more than Inception, which had its moments of spectacle, but... this one treats its central plot gimmick a little more robustly. Anyway, Robert Pattinson is excellent in it, as he is in everything. Can't wait to see his take on Batman.

Kong Wen wrote: ↑08 Jan 2021 15:54 No one watched any movies during the first year of COVID lockdowns, which is reasonable.

I've watched my first film of the year:

The Sisters Brothers (2018) — 7.6/10

2021-01-07: Based on the novel by Patrick deWitt. It was pretty good! It definitely deserved to do better than it did. It flew under the radar and didn't get any attention. Even as a fan of the novel, I barely knew when it was out or how to watch it, and just finally stumbled upon it on Netflix yesterday. It changes a few things from the book, but because of the visual medium, it actually does one key thing better than the book did IMO: the brothers are assassins, with Charlie being cold-blooded and Eli being more kind-hearted. This "balance of power" evolves in a very nice, tight way throughout the film.

I've watched my third film of the year:

Uncut Gems (2019) — 8.6/10

2021-01-27: This was a re-watch, since Mrs. Kong offered to watch whatever movie I thought would be good on my birthday. I knew this was one she would like, and I had just about recovered enough to put myself through it again. I think I enjoyed it even more this time, even though I knew how everything was going to play out—the persistent simmering tension is very real despite that!


2021-01-07: 7.6/10 The Sisters Brothers (2018)
2021-01-17: 8.5/10 Tenet (2020)

I've watched my fourth film of the year:

Tenet (2020) — 8.5/10

2021-01-29: This was a re-watch, since some of my close friendos hadn't seen it yet, and I wanted to take in all of the stuff I didn't understand the first time around. There are definitely some things you notice when you know what to look for! Anyway, this is a fun movie. I still like it better than Inception.


2021-01-07: 7.6/10 The Sisters Brothers (2018)
2021-01-17: 8.5/10 Tenet (2020)
2021-01-27: 8.6/10 Uncut Gems (2019)

Few movie releases, so I'm looking backwards to films that I missed.

Best in Show (2000)
8/10

Had me laughing hard at some scenes and lines. Nice with a dog comedy where the dogs aren't source of comedy.