The Official Last Movie You Saw Thread (Part 2)

[Joneslab]

I have the same kinds of thoughts about Mad Max: Fury Road as Blue Heaven.

Really never seen anything like it. What's really amazing about it is that it makes you feel about its characters even though 85% of the movie is a ballet-like fight scene.

This movie is like getting a look into the mind of a lunatic. A masterpiece of its kind and it will be the marker that future action movies are judged against.

[Blue Heaven]

What's even more amazing is that Miller has said that no green screens or CG was used in this movie. There are a few directors today who could learn a lot from just watching this film. This movie could've been in Chinese and it would not have detracted from it's awesomeness. I will be seeing it again no doubt. I have a library of movies that are store bought. I always by the best ones. This film will be purchased when it's released on DVD. A lot of times I review a movie right after it's over and don't let it sink in. Hindsight ensues and my feelings change about it. This is not the case with this movie. This movie reminds me why we go to the theater in the first place. I know I keep rambling on about it but my goodness! This is a movie that HAS to be seen on the big screen. Bravo George Miller. You made me feel like a kid again.

[Joneslab]

This movie could've been in Chinese and it would not have detracted from it's awesomeness.

I had this same thought.

The movie exists on almost this kind of guttural level. Long stretches of it happen outside of language and are just totally visual.

It doesn't matter. It's like watching a beautiful painting get made, burned, and then painted over again.

[TrueblueCATfan]

Pitch Perfect 2.................Halarious.....Rebel Wilson makes this movie

[Joneslab]

The Verdict.

Paul Newman in a David Mamet-written film, 1982. I always watch Newman and think he's a sort of weird actor. He acted with a stiffness, a kind of inflexible stare, a bizarre posture. His beats were always off. I'm never sure if he's a good actor or if he just struck a figure.

I had that same thought in this movie. It lacks Mamet's famous dialogue and instead aims for a very straight-faced approach. It's about the Boston Archdiocese and a Catholic hospital and their attempt to cover up a woman's death. The story is strikingly simple but the blunt strokes that pace the narrative give it a propulsive feeling like all good courtroom thrillers. And James Mason is incredible as the antagonist, a suave, careful attorney who works for the Archdiocese and acts as a foil for the alcoholic Newman.

An interesting movie and well worth the watch.

Selma.

Martin Luther King, Jr. biopic that traces the events of the famous march. Like The Verdict the movie uses very broad strokes to tell its story, and everything is framed in very definite terms. MLK's personal backstory is glossed over a little for obvious reasons, but the true impact of the movie is in the set-pieces, particularly the murder of Jimmie Lee Jackson, which is expertly shot and becomes the crucible on which the march turns.

Recommended and highly entertaining. Also has the added bonus of featuring the Bunk from The Wire, the one and only Wendell Pierce. That alone is worth the watch.

[TrueblueCATfan]

Poltergist.......this is a remake they should have left alone

[GOCAT15]

Entourage....
Was like a two hour episode, but those guys crack me up so I enjoyed it.

[TrueblueCATfan]

Jurassic World......awesome...highly recommend....I would rank it right up there with Jurassic park

[Joneslab]

Inside Out.

The most amazing thing about this is how smart it is. Like the great Up, it manages to be all kinds of things at once: a kid's movie, an exploration into human behavior, a touching family story. Every concept is nailed, and as you watch it you find yourself trying to hang on to every detail so you can remember it later. There's a lot happening and all of it is clever and spot on.

One of Pixar's best and the depth of some of the set-pieces makes it the most grown-up film they've done. For all that the movie works as a family entertainment, and where it's at its best is when there's this insanely inventive interplay between the inside of who we are and our outside behavior. You can get as much from watching this as you could reading a psych text.

Highest recommendation.

[Joneslab]

The Hunger Games: Catching Fire.

I really liked this sequel. Much more disturbing than the first movie, but more than that I could see reflections of our current situation in America--police brutality, the rise of the police state, massive class inequality, violence for sport on TV. The film yaws into teen-girl mode a little too much, and the action sequences are truncated because of an almost 90-minute-long preface, but I think it's more biting than the first film--and more horrific.

Highly recommended.

Jurassic World.

A machine of plot and intensity. It lacks Spielberg's awe and childlike cuteness, and it's far more violent than the original film, but the violence is cut short because there's so much to look at that your gaze is always swinging across the screen. For the first hour-plus of the movie, you're in that park, and I felt totally immersed in the movie so that when the Bad Stuff starts to happen, I was that much more shaken. Like Jurassic Park, this film is set up around a series of carefully orchestrated set pieces--the best one here involves a kind of snow globe the main characters ride in--and it's when the movie breaks out of those set pieces and has to rely on exposition that things bog down. But it bogs down for maybe ten minutes of its running time; ninety-five percent of this film is a ball.

Highest recommendation, although I recommend that you see it in 3D. Normally I think 3D mutes the colors and washes everything out, but this movie looked great and the visuals add to the feeling that you're inside the park.

[TrueblueCATfan]

Insidious Chapter 3........OK......could have waited for netflix on this one

[TrueblueCATfan]

Also I am in the process of watching all the Fast and Furious movies...hubby got me hooked.....4 down 2 to go

[Joneslab]

Spy.

Melissa McCarthy plays a female James Bond in this very funny satire. This reminded me of Hot Fuzz, the British movie that sent up action films, in that it toes the balance between action and comedy and does it extremely well. There are three or four hilarious scenes, an extremely funny performance by Jason Statham, and a series of cross-ups and misdirections that McCarthy pulls off masterly for the most part. There are a few odd moments and jokes that don't hit--Rose Byrne is decent but a lot of the things I've seen her in feel forced to me--but mostly this is an excellent action-comedy that's much smarter than it first seems.

Highly recommended.

[Joneslab]

The Babadook.... A unique and very frightening little movie.... This is for serious fans of the horror genre... Not for the kids.... Amazon... None of the other streaming services have it. There was no purchase option and it was a $6.99 rental.... Insidious meets Dr. Suess..... If your a true genre fan, highly recommended. If not steer clear...

I watched this last night. One of the more unsettling things I've seen.

Not really "scary" in the traditional sense, just disturbing. HIGHLY disturbing and uncomfortable. The movie is a clever allegory about loss, but what makes it effective is how well-crafted it is. Particularly the lighting and the sound...this is one of the few horror movies I've seen that you could watch with your eyes closed and still get creeped out.

Not as jarringly shocking as something like It Follows, but still highly recommended if you like horror films.

[Joneslab]

Ex Machina.

I really liked Alex Garland's novel The Beach when I read it years ago. The movie with Leonardo di Caprio was merely okay, but the book reminded me in some ways of what I consider to be the best thriller written in the last 50 years, Scott Smith's masterpiece A Simple Plan. Garland became famous for his script for 28 Days Later, and since then he's worked on projects of varying success.

Ex Machina might be the best thing he's done. It's essentially a locked-room story featuring four actors, and each nails their part. It has to do with a Google-type executive who designs an AI and a weeklong "Turing test" wherein a young, introverted employee gets to test out the AI to see if she has a consciousness. But that only skims the surface of this incredible movie, which is scary, weird, emotional, and downright freaky in equal measure. It plumbs the same ground as Spike Jonze's Her, but this is a much, much better movie. It reminded me of Fincher in a lot of ways, and there's something Gone Girl-esque in the interplay between the three main characters. But this is its own movie and I was riveted for every single second.

I've seen a lot of good stuff this summer, beginning with It Follows through the tremendous Inside Out and the insane Mad Max: Glory Road, but Ex Machina is the best of the bunch.