The Love Witch Incredible looking film, shot on 35mm and filmed in gorgeous three-tone technicolour like a classic Hitchcock or Bava movie is an utterly goofy-as-fuck dream logic film. Is follow the escapades of an earthly, stunningly gorgeous witch as she tries to trick men into falling love... always with fatal results. Movie buffs will no doubt love this film to death, but if your unfamiliar with classic 60’s movie stay away or it will seem like weird horseshit. 9/10 Wheelman If you combined the amazing Tom Hardy movie “Locke” with a car chase film you’d have this hidden Netflix gem. Frank Grillo Plays a getaway driver who is pushed to the limit and triple-crossed after a botched robbery. Film is shot entirely in, or in the near vicinity of a car. Grillo is on camera for 99% of the film’s running time and gives an astonishingly real performance, one of the best this year. This guy deserves to be a huge star. And the film is shot in real time and done in a way to seem like one take (though it isn’t), giving the viewer a constant feeling that they are being hunted. And it never lets up until it’s perfect and simple ending. A fucking phenomenal film. Netflix best one yet. 9.5/10
Lady Bird I would never expect any film that has a perfect score on Rotten Tomatoes to live up to its hype, but for once it was nice to see a universally lauded recent release that was actually enjoyable. The title character of the movie is a high school senior (played by Saoirse Ronan), and the plot revolves around the troubled relationship between her and her mother and to a lesser extent the relationships between her and her best friend and some of her other classmates at her Catholic school. I didn't find the film to be all that funny; the only time that I laughed out loud was during the pro-life assembly at the school, and I maybe chuckled one or two other times. The strengths of the movie were in the performances of the actors, particularly Ronan, and how easy it was to relate to her. I liked the fact that she came off as troubled, but even with her issues she was still likeable and easy to root for. Her family may have been slightly dysfunctional, but they still loved each other and would always stand by each other. The dialogue was also very well written. I have never been to Sacramento (or to California at all), but it was cool that Greta Gerwig (the writer and director) set the film in her hometown and shot it on site. The movie is set during the 2002-2003 school year, and I graduated in 2004, so I was hoping that I would feel some nostalgia with the movie, but aside from a couple of mentions of 9/11 there weren't many references to events or pop culture from that time period. But that's not a problem, as it's probably better to write it so that a larger set of the population can more closely relate to it. Compared to other recent coming-of-age films I didn't like it as much as The Spectacular Now, but it is a huge improvement over Boyhood and The Edge of Seventeen. 8/10
Star Wars: The Last Jedi I'm not gonna give an in-depth review, since I just saw it last night and am still digesting it compared to the whole franchise. Still better than the prequels. My opinion of it would be higher, except for one scene: Spoiler Force-flying Space Leia!
Totally agree. Spoiler: Space! I was fine with her dying right then and that would've worked for the movie. They could have had her almost die another way, or show her Force-y powers another way. She has incredible Force power and only ever demonstrated it to save herself? That doesn't seem very Force-y. Also, is the payoff for the whole weapons-for-profit sub-plot, or del Toro 's character coming in the next movie? Is he the Lando? That was all weird. Definitely much better than any of the first 3, not as good as TFA or RO. Big battles and close fights were all well done. Humor was pretty good, especially the Spoiler Poe-Hux radio bit.
Here be spoilers: Episode VIII: The Last Jedi Honestly, I really didn’t like it. I thought the plot was a mess and things fit together such an odd way for it to make any sense. There’s almost zero flow from the last one to this one. What’s the overall arc if this is a trilogy? Why was the climax in the middle of the movie? Why even bother introducing Snoke in TFA when he’s just an after-thought here? No mention whatsoever of the Knights of Ren? The space-force Leia thing was so silly people were laughing in the theater. There was no emotional stakes at all. Even the prequels had that. This one took a big shit on the series lore, particularly on the Jedi. It would have been way more interesting if say Luke resurrected the Jedi but as force-neutral warriors or something along those lines. That would have fit perfectly with Rey and Kylo both being conflicted with opposite sides of the Force. Bring them both to the neutral center. Also, the humor. Definitely add humor to make it funny. Just don’t make that humor so jarring and real-world referential that it takes you out of the movie. It was the kind of humor that’s in Marvel movies (also owned by Disney) and it just doesn’t work here. Im pretty sure the Porgs were only in the movie for the sake of merchandising. The acting was... just okay. Was Carrie Fisher already dead? I couldn’t tell. Mark Hamill and John Boyega did a decent job. Daisy Ridley did not. She really isn’t that great of an actress. Adam Driver was fantastic, though. When it comes to playing a character conflicted between good and evil, he pulls it off far better than Hayden Christensen did. Overall, the Yoda scene was good, so were the light saber battles, as brief as they were. But this just wasn’t very good. It’s the second worst entry of the franchise. Attack of the Clones is still the worst. 2/10.
Episode VIII: The Last Jedi Spoiler I'm going to be nicer than Juice. It was still better than all three of the prequel movies, although against all odds Rogue One is still the best of the new movies. It was a very polarized movie, as it had some parts that were executed amazingly well, and others that were quite poor. The Good: Adam Driver was outstanding. In a world where The Academy didn't snub sci-fi all the time, I would peg him for a Best Supporting Actor nomination. It subverted expectations in a few ways that I liked. Kylo rejecting the existing conflict and defining his own terms for power and control was great; Rey not ending up as a "secret Skywalker" or some bullshit was good; Poe's big ballsy plan being a total fuckup was long overdue in a movie like this. Laura Dern had more presence in a short amount of screentime than I would have thought. Whether or not people agreed with Luke's story, it was refreshing, held its internal logic, and had a great payoff. Del Toro is fun to watch in almost anything he's in. The Bad: The humor was so poorly timed I was astounded. Star Wars has always had campy humor, but it's kept to the light hearted moments; you don't see threepio acting like a jackass in the middle of the throne room fight in ROTJ. So many tense moments were harmed by an ill timed joke or gag. This is a weirdly specific one, but Star Wars space battles have always been an analogue for WWII aircraft carrier warfare, and this movie treated it like Age of Sail frigate warfare. Even the laser shots arc'ed like they were cannon shots. I had this issue with TFA, but it's even worse here: they didn't do the legwork on the logistics of things. Numbers don't work, and therefore tactics go wrong. Why was a single strike from StarKiller Base in TFA enough to cause the complete collapse of The New Republic by TLJ? How was the fleet strength of the entire New Republic reduced to a single capital ship and a bomber/fighter complement? How was a single snub fighter able to eliminate the surface guns of a Dreadnaught? Where were the Dreadnaught's escort fighters and support ships? Why was the Resistance base not shielded from surface bombardment the way the bases on Hoth and that salt planet they went to were? Why was a capital ship on a war footing carrying only enough fuel for a pair of lightspeed jumps? Continuing the above, I get that they wanted to recreate the dynamic of a fledgling rebellion against great odds, but the story just doesn't support that. The Republic Navy, even after suffering a surprise attack, should still be a substantial and functioning force. These movies should have been set against the backdrop of a Republic under heavy assault, losing ground to an enemy they were underprepared for; not against a backdrop of "well fuck, we only had the one ship." The casino sequence, and Rose character as a whole, were pointless. The new movies are overusing the "break into the enemy stronghold and sabotage it" scheme. These are military installations and/or warships; they have security. In the ANH they snuck onto the Death Star largely by accident, and were only trying to escape, and in ROTJ they send an entire commando unit to destroy a single presumably lightly guarded outpost. But these days any three shmucks can waltz onto a flag ship or a planet sized weapon and hack whatever they like? 7/10 Driver was that good
I agree with Aetius. Driver's performance is really the only bright spot for me. I really couldn't stand Kylo Ren in the first movie, but Driver did a much better job with it this time around. The story and acting felt forced and was otherwise haphazard. It feels like they condensed the scripts for 2 or 3 other movies into this and didn't do any of it well. I'd give it a 7. Might have been an 8 if it ended differently, but that's only because I don't see how they progress the story now.
I think you answered the question right there. Spoiler: Spoiler Since Rian Johnson burned everything to the ground (literally! goodbye Jedi tree, we hardly knew ye), the story can go in any direction. However, watching Kylo Ren try to rise to big fat villain will be much more interesting than trying to figure out who Snoke was. I don't disagree with most of the criticism that's been written here, but they threw out every single thing that most big fans wanted resolved and just totally flipped it. I still don't understand why they made such a big deal about the hacker they absolutely had to have, who was the only one that could help, that could only be identified by the flower pin. Then, that meant nothing. I kept waiting for del Toro to stay he lost that pin to the other dude, or the dude with the pin was actually meaningful in some way, or something.
The Last Jedi: Overall, I would say I enjoyed it a lot. The only things that really bugged me would be Spoiler: Spoiler Stuff - Leia Jedi floating through space - The detour to the Bespin expy which was just a contrived way of breaking into Snoke's ship and doing a thing - Mostly Snoke's resolution. They basically did to him what The Defenders did to Sigourney Weaver's character. They setup this cool mysterious villain with a potentially great backstory..........then - I had similar, not issues, but kinda questions regarding the state of the rebellion. I wasn't sure if the lack of navy/firepower was a result of a) The Rebellion still being in the beginning stages b) The Starkiller wiping out the system were there was a lot of Resistance support/resources or c) a combination of the above resulting in the systems that may be supportive towards the Resistance not being overly keen on joining given what the Starkiller did and/or having the same mindset the rest of the world had during the beginning stages of WW2 and not really wanting to commit to another massive conflict.
There were a few things that I wasn't thrilled about in "Last Jedi", largely those little bird like creatures getting everywhere. But I don't get the hatred from the online crowd. Are they pissed because they had all those intricate theories that never played out ? Now they can't tell all their friends they were right ? I don't understand. I was entertained and my childhood heroes were treated with respect. Beyond that, I was an empty cup waiting to see the story played out. We loved it.
I remember reading a thing about the island where they filmed that (Skelling Michael) after The Force Awakens, and how they had actual birds all over the place. So, maybe they tried to write something into the script with all the footage of birds in the back ground? And, and ordinary bird was too strange? And, then somebody said, "hey, we can sell plushies to all the 10 year old girls" and then . . . ta da.
I hated it because the dialogue was garbage the plot didn’t make sense. If this wasn’t a Star Wars movie, the critics wouldn’t be fawning over it. It was just a poorly written film. I’m not even that big of a Star Wars fan. The biggest issue I’ve read from them essentially boils down to the fact that they were “promised” Jedi Grandmaster Luke and essentially got a movie mocking that idea. But hey, it’s an IP they don’t own so who gives a shit.
I saw TLJ on Friday and enjoyed it a lot more than TFA. The plotting had some issues, but that was just as glaring in TFA. TLJ actually tries to break some new ground. If TFA was any more of a rehash of A New Hope they would have to call it a remake instead of a sequel. Spoiler: spoilers I was fine with killing off Snoke. For one, it's good to see them do something unexpected, but more importantly this was essential to the plot line that fixed the issues I had with Kylo Ren as a primary antagonist in the first movie. The entire side plot with the casino felt pointless, and I think they could have put those characters to better use. Rey not getting trained by Luke Skywalker felt cheap, but after the farce that was her development as a jedi in the first movie what does it really matter at this point? Speaking of Luke, the way they handled his character was probably the biggest issue with the movie for me. The unending angst has long been a Skywalker trait, but him moping off to an isolated planet and avoiding the larger conflict for as long as possible was antithetical to his character. They need to be careful about all these new force abilities they keep adding in, or these characters are going to start seeming more like wizards pulling spells out of their ass than jedi. Apparently I'm a crazy person because up to this point I think the prequels are better movies than this new trilogy. The way Palpatine manufactured the war and took over the republic was far better thought out than anything this trilogy has done up to this point. We'll see how it finishes off.
I, Tonya This one has flown totally under the radar for me, and I assume for many others as well. Only watched it because I noticed it popped up on my regular movie downloading site. Watched it mostly out of nostalgia's sake (Nancy Kerrigan was from the next town over and the original incident was a big deal in our neck of the woods), and was blown away. Margot Robbie is incredible, and Allison Janey is just as good. Hits a tone of dark humor that's perfect for the sordid story it's telling, and does a wonderful job of humanizing Tonya without excusing her faults. 9/10
TLJ Little late but our shitty little theatre only seems to do 3d showings for the evening and 2d for the weekend day time so it is hard to get out. I really enjoyed it. I don't get why people didn't like it. Then again I liked TFA and didn't like Rogue One. Sure there were a few issues, mainly the two things that have been brought up here, force Leia and the Casino parts. I will probably end up going to the theaters again to see it. 8.5/10
Just saw it today and agree... the only other question I gotta ask: are Rey and Kylo so much more powerful with the force because special effects are so much better?
Molly's Game Very good. Having Aaron Sorkin direct his own work clearly made him tone down the "Sorkin" a bit. There was plenty of typical rat-a-tat dialogue, but you could almost sense scenes where he was babying the throttle on that, and it worked really well. There is one scene where Idris Elba gives an impassioned speech as her attorney, speaking to the prosecutors. That could've been filmed anywhere - a "board room" or any fancy conference room. But it was shot in a used and worn, too-small nook of a conference room in a federal courthouse or office that gave an extra layer of authenticity that the whole film had. Jessica Chastain was perfect, giving credibility to that confident, powerful and beautiful woman without it seeming cartoonish. But, she also shined in moments of vulnerability and uncertainty. Kevin Costner was also perfectly cast, though that's not clear until late in the movie.
Agreed. Saw it yesterday and it was fantastically paced. It did not at all feel like a 2:20 movie. Player X was supposed to be Tobey Maguire, right?
Yes. He is explicitly named in her book (because he was one of the ones outed in the court documents about the ponzi scheme idiot), and is the one who made the nasty phone call to her. I think others named were Ben Affleck, Matt Damon, Leo DiCaprio, Macaulay Culkin and Alex Rodriguez. In the book, she said Maguire once offered her $1000 to bark like a seal (she refused), and that he was the worst tipper. Cobra Lounge instead of Viper Room, fictionalized the attorney, and probably meshed several characters together. She didn't call her boss by name in the book, but it came out, since the owner of the Viper Room (with Johnny Depp) was public knowledge.