What MOVIE(s) have you been....seeing? watching?

The Witch

Out of season resurrection of the Fort of Horror incoming. In short, I loved it it. Going to be tough to review without explaining why I loved it or what I took away from it, but it delivers the goods, that's for damned sure.

Josh Look wrote: The Witch

Out of season resurrection of the Fort of Horror incoming. In short, I loved it it. Going to be tough to review without explaining why I loved it or what I took away from it, but it delivers the goods, that's for damned sure.

I was really on board and loved the style for about the first 85% of it. I don't want to give anything away, so: The rest felt like a desperate and cliched attempt at resolving the conflicts in the movie, and (especially with) horror movies like this I'd rather have something to wonder and dwell about after it's over rather than say, "Well that's that then."

wadenels wrote:

Josh Look wrote: The Witch

Out of season resurrection of the Fort of Horror incoming. In short, I loved it it. Going to be tough to review without explaining why I loved it or what I took away from it, but it delivers the goods, that's for damned sure.

I was really on board and loved the style for about the first 85% of it. I don't want to give anything away, so: The rest felt like a desperate and cliched attempt at resolving the conflicts in the movie, and (especially with) horror movies like this I'd rather have something to wonder and dwell about after it's over rather than say, "Well that's that then."

The ending was actually what drove it home for me. More thoughts on why coming in the review.

The ending was actually what drove it home for me. More thoughts on why coming in the review.

I agree. I thought it was a pretty bold way to end it, to essentially own its conviction and not compromise the premise. And as I said before, I saw that coming for that character long before that point, but the way they depicted it was an interesting mix of empowering and painfully tragic.

On a lighter note, Zootopia has been getting raves, and I really liked it, but not as effusively as many. It has a very clever mix of different commentary about prejudice, as the various animals end up being both victims and examples of prejudice, and it is quite entertaining and funny. But I didn't feel it differentiated too much from other animated fare these days; characters and situations doing about what you'd expect. Eh, definitely better than most, and another strong one for Disney (who has been better overall the last few years than Pixar).

The Jungle Book trailer... Wow. When I heard they were making another Jungle Book film, I wasn't interested, at all, but now I can't wait to see it.

Oh also, Triple 9 is pretty average. Some really solid action sequences, but otherwise forgettable.

I too just saw Zootopia. As I've stated here many times, I'm not a fan of these animated kids films at all. We had some Alamo tickets that were about to expire so we needed to find something to take the kids to this weekend.

Overall, I was pleasantly surprised. It was an enjoyable flick. There really wasn't a sassy sidekick character (my biggest complaint with this sort of movies) and plenty of laughs that were geared toward adults, but not blue by any stretch. It was maybe a bit longer than it needed to be and the plot was more complicated than my 5 year old was ready for, so I don't see it moving into the ease of viewing space that say Frozen held. My wife declared it her favorite animated film, but again, I'm not sure how interesting it would be on repeated viewings.

One plot issue...


Oh, and the film had some message but I haven't pieced it together yet. If only it were a little more clear.

We went to the True/False Film Fest and watched some documentaries. Saw:

Between Sisters -- a very good story of two Italian sisters who are aging and revealing long held family secrets.

The Fear of 13 -- story of Nick Yarris; excellent and highly recommended.

Jim: The James Foley Story -- an excellent, yet exhausting movie.

All three of the movies were very good. Well worth paying the babysitter for 15 hours.

We then capped it off with Spotlight -- my wife had been wanting to see it for quite some time. It was probably the 3rd best movie we watched.

I saw The Witch last night. I'm not a horror movie guy, but the unique setting and good reviews intrigued me. I liked it, but I like thinking about it more. I look forward to the review, and maybe we can have a spoiler discussion thread.

My wife and I saw Spotlight on VOD. I dunno. To me, the gold standard for journalism movies remains All the President's Men, so I tend to judge new journalism films (of which there are so many!) against that. Both narratively and visually I thought Spotlight came up short. The story is certainly compelling, and the characters are reasonably drawn, but when the film dips into reporter introspection and speech-making, as it often does, I found myself disconnecting. It's hard to make exciting visuals of this -- but, by contrast, check out the Library of Congress scene in All the President's Men -- but Spotlight felt little different to me than a made-for-TV movie. It's not at all a bad movie, and I don't even care that much that it won best picture, but it feels above-average to me.

Watched WarGames again for the umpteenth time but the first time in many years. I think the biggest thing I noticed this time is that whoever designed the round metal exterior door for the mountain used the same safety standards as those for the Death Star.

Beaker and I just posted simultaneous reviews of Spotlight at the same time!

For sure the movie doesn't dig at all into reporter introspection. It makes them just a bunch of worker ants chasing leads, I agree. And the scene that is supposedly Ruffalo's best, the one where he confronts Keaton about putting the story up now, was strangely devoid. When Keaton says, "...are you finished?" I was super disappointed with that scene. I felt it was a wasted opportunity for something actually meaningful.

But the rest of the movie just eclipses moments like that, so I thought it was well worth it. I'm just so happy it beat Revenant.

Ordered some Chinese food and watched Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon: Sword of Destiny last night. Let me just get this out of the way. It is not even close to being as good as Ang Lee's movie. That doesn't mean I thought it was bad. CTHD is just a hard benchmark for many movies to reach. Michelle Yeoh and Donnie Yen were both great in this for their parts. I like Woo-ping Yuen's movies overall and have for many years, but this was about average for him as both a director and choreographer. I give this movie a middle 7.