Movies You've Watched Recently

Do you guys ever do oscar ballots? Just curious, me and my sister usually do one every year sometimes there's a betting pool involved.

Oscars aren't a big deal to us. I'm watching The Lego Movie instead. Because rewatching my favorite movie from last year sounds better than the Oscars.

I really enjoyed Birdman. Keaton is awesome, in my opinion he was the best character in The Other Guys, the man needs to do more movies.

I think me and my sister do it more out of tradition than caring really. Because the show itself is a 4 hour hollywood group masturbation/back patting session.

That said, I totally won so haHA! I'm glad Boyhood got shut out of most everything, Whiplash won for sound mixing and editing which it very much deserved and Birdman won best picture which I'm also happy about so...not bad?

Plus I'm sure Grand Budapest winning nearly everything else made you happy.

I was really expecting more awards to go to the historical drama and biopic movies. Though you'll hear no complaints from me. The 3 big winners were my 3 favorite movies of the year.

Hey, I thought Grand Budapest was a great film! And in terms of production design and makeup and the stuff it did win it deserved whole heartedly. My 3 favorite films of the ones at the oscars (that I saw) were Birdman, Grand Budapest Hotel and Whiplash so maybe the academy didn't do so bad this year.

I refuse to say a group of people who think Big Hero 6 is better than How to Train Your Dragon 2 which is better than The Lego Movie did a good job.

How to Train Your Dragon 2 was crap.

But it's all politics anyway. *shrug* I still have fun making bets on it. People who get genuinely upset by the winners/losers are a bit...much though. Woke up to one of my friends posting a novel of a facebook post on how the best actor win didn't deserve it blahblahblah. It's an awards show, who cares?!

Pretty much. I think they're mostly full of shit but I just end it there. There's a reason half the movie opinions I care about come from this forum

Except for opinions on How to Train Your Dragon 2 apparently.

Yeah. Or the first since Matt's nuts and thinks it's better than Toy Story 3

Blasphemy.

Toy Story 3 was boring. I didn't like it. Its not a bad movie... I just liked How to Train Your Dragon better, which came out in the same year. And its fun to be hyperbolic about stuff. So Dragon > Toy Story.

How to Train Your Dragon 2 was kinda blah. Just a solid sequel. I honestly don't remember much from it.

I just watched Big Hero 6 tonight and I really liked it. Just a big, fun, colorful animated movie with some great charters and voice acting. I also had no idea that movie was what it was. I'd happily watch a sequel if they put one out.

I watched Boyhood a week ago. I thought it was really fascinating how they shot it over such a long period of time with all the same actors. I just didn't like how the boy turned into a pretentious hipster douche.

Watched Horrible Bosses 2 last night. Really dumb, but I have to admit I laughed my ass off.

I will be watching a lot of movies coming up. A Redbox rep came into my work early this week and handed me a stack of 300 free rental codes to hand out to my employees. Jackpot!

Blasphemies abound.

I'm drinking coffee out of a Toy Story 3 mug, so of course I do not agree with the above statement.

Anyone watch the Toy Story shorts? I fucking love Combat Carl.

After rewatching Porco Rosso I might have to say that's my favorite of Miyazaki's movies. Everything just strikes the right balance for me. It doesn't feel like it was made to "be" something or to make you feel anything, it's more like it just exists and you can't help but like it

I was the same way with Porco Rosso. Kind of lackluster on my first viewing and now I love it.

Watched A Fistful of Dollars for the first time. Good movie!

Watched Ed Wood. Not normally a fan of biopics but this was really charming and inspiring in it's odd way. Everyone knows Burton will cast Johnny Depp in practically everything but he's perfect here. Bela Lugosi was such a funny character too.

Went out and saw Furious 7 tonight. What a dumb, dumb, miraculously entertaining, dumb movie. I loved it. So much good action, and a ton of call backs from previous movies. There was even one scene where the Rock was watching an old football game and on the screen it was himself playing for the University of Miami sacking someone. The announcer just says #94 with the sack! Of all of The Rock Fast movies... I would say they rank 5, 7, 6 for me... but 7 was a nice way to wrap things up. I hope they just let the series die... but that theater was PACKED so I'm sure we'll be getting more.

I also saw Furious 7 tonight and I couldn't agree more. It's definitely dumb but it has fun with it and the action scenes are so, so good. The one with the bus in particular.

Watched Force Majeure. Family drama type stuff is usually out of my wheelhouse but this was a really interesting take on it. Loved how it felt like a horror movie and it's a good examination of hidden expectations and insecurities in a relationship. Not exactly funny though despite being labeled as a comedy by some. I smirked a couple of times but that's it. Generally very well done in all aspects, though. It's definitely top 10 material from last year for me at least.

That also spurred me to go back and watch some old Micheal Haneke stuff. The Seventh Continent is... effective. Not an enjoyable movie AT ALL but it does what it sets out to do. Lacks much plot or character development but it's excellent at presenting isolation and emptiness, and the few human moments it does have hit HARD. So in that way it's a good movie if you don't mind feeling terrible for a week. Though one could argue that its bleakness borders on self-parody.

Saw Birdman. I liked it. Wouldn't say it's best picture because that would mean doing something better than injecting me full of concentrated happy like The Lego Movie, which let's face it, isn't possible. Though I wouldn't have said it should have won even out of the nominations since Grand Budapest Hotel was better than it (which I seem to like more and more whenever I think about it). Still, good movie. My parents hated it though.

Favorite bits were where the Birdman voice in his head would start talking to him. Also enjoyed how surreal it was and how its message felt like telling actors to get over themselves whenever they talk about how they want to make "art" because there's nothing wrong with a good superhero movie every now and then. Though I think the Oscar guys missed that part.

I'm not sure if I got that message from it either, to be honest. But hey, that's one way to read it.

Birdman definitely had the advantage of being the more "Oscar-y" movie, even if it was weirder and more interesting than usual oscar movies. Glad you enjoyed it. My top 3 of last year are really close between that, Grand Budapest, and Whiplash

Watched The Tale of Princess Kaguya... Pretty disappointed, to be honest. Beautiful movie and it had some great moments, but the second act seemed to tread the same ground a lot after a while and the plot twist just didn't work for me. I know it's from an existing story and it explains some things that happen early in the movie, but it felt so random and irrelevant to everything before it.

volvocrusher wrote: Also enjoyed how surreal it was and how its message felt like telling actors to get over themselves whenever they talk about how they want to make "art" because there's nothing wrong with a good superhero movie every now and then. Though I think the Oscar guys missed that part.

I don't think the film is saying that. Actors want to create art (or something meaningful) and want to be recognized for it and sometimes its less about the money or fame but the simple urge to connect with other people. It's why Riggan walked away from the Birdman series and chose to do the play (and not just any play but THAT play), to get back to that urge, that basic need. That and the struggle for his own conscience and/or soul.

Yeah, I kind of got that he couldn't ESCAPE the Birdman role, and that audiences kind of demanded it of him even though he wanted to make art.

Aja: As for Kaguya...well, it's VERY VERY true to the fairy tale so the plot twist wasn't really thought out by the writers it's part of the original story. I loved it personally, sad to hear you were disappointed by it. I very much, walking out from it at the theater, got the feeling of watching someone who'd been diagnosed with an incurable disease who then had to reflect back over their life and wondered if they'd wasted it. That idea of doing what you were "destined" to do vs what you do naturally, or to even say if what you were "destined" to do was what you were meant to do at all. I don't know, either way, it really resonated with me.

Plus, and I know this will sound super pretentious but I really don't mean it to be, the movie in Japan definitely assumed its audience knew the fairy tale going into the story. So the "plot" wasn't really important as everyone knew the basic story, so it was the details that resonated the most I think.

Yeah, but those rants Sam and that critic gave to him to get over himself and realize that this isn't something huge, it's a last ditch effort to prove he's relevant. I'm all for actors creating art, just think a lot of them who do have huge egos they need to get over which gets in the way.

Watched It Follows tonight. The premise is admittedly tacky, but the subtext is interesting. Great direction, Incredible score. It reminded me of Halloween in style. It kind of lost me when it forayed into special effects territory though. I feel like it's kind of in the same area as The Shining. My inner horror fan wanted more but as a whole it's satisfying. I was a big fan of the ending, too. But it does suffer from that slasher movie cliche of idiot teenagers

Hot Tub Time Machine 2 is one of the worst comedies I've seen in years. Almost as bad as any Scary Movie made after 1 or any of those other awful spoof movies. Had two good bits, one with a game show and the other at the end where they keep traveling to different time periods. The rest though was lazy unfunny garbage that made very little sense