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

Watched Fury Road: Black&Chrome. There're several scenes that - I think - benefit from monochrome (in particular if the color saturation annoyed you on the first place). And it looks kind of more artsy and frenchy, I guess. The only parts I actually enjoyed more than the original were the night scenes.
But, even in black&white, this is the best movie that came out this year.

My family watched A Christmas Story after seeing it mentioned here as a great Christmas movie, and well, it won't be watched again next Christmas. I just can't see why it is a treasured Christmas movie. It isn't funny, the characters are repellent, and there is no redemptive pay off. We spent the whole film hoping he would shoot his eye out at the end. Maybe there is something relevant for American culture that just doesn't translate to Australiana (are all those who like it ammo-sexuals who just want guns for Christmas?).

Thanks to a reminder from Shellhead and recently viewed Allied, we got to re-watch Verhoeven's Black Book.

So, first of all, if you still haven't watched this film, and you're moderately interested in either WWII, or Holocaust, or Verhoeven, just do yourself a favor.
It is seriously worth watching. In fact, it is so good, that Tarantino practically ripped it off for Inglorious Basterds. I haven't noticed how much until now:
- There's a scene of a farmer harboring a Jewish girl (very different from Tarantino and a much smaller one, but really good),
- The story of Rachel Stein is very similar to that of Shoshanna, and the character is sort of half-way Shoshanna, half Bridget von Hammersmark. For the record, I liked her story and the character more than those of Basterds,
- Both movies pay attention to women involved with Nazi's occupational forces, Black Book being way more interesting.
- There's a pretty long strangling scene in BB. It is longer in Basterds.
- Villains are very similar, in terms of their motivation. But no comparison to Hans Landa.
- Revenge, lots and lots of revenge
- The theme of personal gain/survival/agenda, as opposed to being part of a larger conflict.

There's probably more. The big difference with Basterds is that Basterds doesn't take place in our world. Tarantino is kind of like Shakespeare here - he picks up some historical events and characters, and makes them his own (he also deliberately steals from other filmmakers and makes their stuff his own, too). You could probably write a thesis about Inglorious Basterds without even mentioning WWII.

Black Book is Verhoeven's most personal film I've ever seen (disclaimer: I haven't watched any of his pre-Flesh+Blood films). He was born in Holland shortly before the occupation. Some of the scenes in Black Book are so haunting they seem to come from childhood memories or stories he'd hear directly from the survivors.
The problem with Black Book is that it also tries to be entertaining, and to make it work Verhoeven uses some tricks he learnt in Hollywood (there're a couple of shoot-outs that look straight from Robocop or Total Recall). They just don't fit. The third act is particularly problematic. On one hand, it has some of the most powerful and gut-wrenching scenes I've ever seen. On the other hand, those scenes are linked together by some cliche chases, fights and expositions. Like all of a sudden, the main character becomes a master detective. The bad guy, our equivalent of Hans Landa, has some cringe-inducing lines worthy of a stock Hollywood villain. I am willing to forgive this, because there's enough good stuff to keep you focused and the first two thirds are generally excellent. But it is kind of a pity that Verhoeven didn't wrap it up in a more satisfying way.

Ancient_of_MuMu wrote: My family watched A Christmas Story after seeing it mentioned here as a great Christmas movie, and well, it won't be watched again next Christmas. I just can't see why it is a treasured Christmas movie. It isn't funny, the characters are repellent, and there is no redemptive pay off. We spent the whole film hoping he would shoot his eye out at the end. Maybe there is something relevant for American culture that just doesn't translate to Australiana (are all those who like it ammo-sexuals who just want guns for Christmas?).

Saw Rogue 1 twice. Rogue 1 stuff is posted there. I wanted to talk about the trailers with 2017 coming up soon.

Best Trailers or Movies I'm really excited about seeing:
Guardians of the Galaxy Vol 2. - Funniest Trailer ever. I laughed more in watch the 2 min. trailer then I've laughed watching some full length movies.
Spider-man - Homecoming - Looks real good
Dunkirk - Big war movie on the big screen. Sold.

Maybe on 2017
Wonder Women - I'm a sucker for movies with Nazis
Power Rangers - I'm too old for the Power Rangers thing but the preview looked ok
Ghost in the shell - Probably crap. Totally a White Washed movie. But it has Scarlet Johansson and cool futurist city scenes. I'll probably wait until it's on DVD

Looks lame:
Logan - It's probably a pretty good movie but I'm tired of the Wolverine story
Transformers - I'm probably too old for Transformers
The baby movie - what ever

I enjoyed all the superhero trailers that I have seen recently. Guardians of the Galaxy II looks fun. Wonder Woman looks like it might be the first good DC movie since The Dark Knight. And the trailer for Logan was amazing for its use of the Johnny Cash cover of Hurt. Not sure that I actually want to see Logan, but the trailer was great.

Watching the Logan trailer kept reminding me of The Last Of Us.

While the rest of you were being true FATties and watching Rogue One, I went the opposite route and saw La La Land (I'm seeing Rogue One tonight).

It was pretty wonderful. Five stars for sure, but not over-the-moon fantastic. Just really, really good. That said, it's not for everybody. It's a clean-cut, sappy, romantic, musical in the style of (and with clear homages to) the great old musicals of the Golden Age of Hollywood. If you like Singin' in the Rain, you owe it to yourself to see this movie. Emma Stone and Ryan Gosling are both great. They do something incredible by being very competent in the song and dance scenes, but not amazing. I liked that slight lack of polish.

They just don't make 'em like this anymore.

3:10 to Yuma was okay. This was the remake that I saw, not the original. Christian Bale turned in a solid performance, and Russell Crowe had fun with his easy role. The story was somewhat basic, and I'm not seriously into westerns, but there was plenty of action. The lead characters finally won me over in the last 10 minutes of the movie, but I am no likely to re-watch it anytime soon.

Can't wait to see La La Land! Unfortunately, I'll have to, as it's not near me for a while.

Speaking of trailers...

The Circle looks great. Emma Watson and Tom Hanks in what appears to be a very Black Mirror-esque type of movie. I'm down with that.

Valerian has a trailer using The Beatles' "Because" (first ever use of a Beatles recording in a trailer). I know nothing about the book series, but the huge CGI effects actually look very well done and the trailer does a good job of just giving you a taste of what the film is like without showing too much. I still don't care to see it at this point, but it might be good.

On the other hand, the trailer for The Passenger shows way too much, and also makes it seem dumb. Some of the lines Chris Pratt says are so on-the-nose obvious - "I think something's wrong," "This happened for a reason!" etc. It seemed like an interesting premise when I saw the first teaser earlier this year, but the full trailer doesn't help its case.

Back to great trailers that give you a taste without showing too much, go watch the trailer for A Cure for Wellness. Creepy and effective, and I love The Ramones cover in there.

And then Collateral Beauty for a trailer that makes the movie seem super manipulative and oh so pseudo-meaningful. (Check out some reviews of this movie... it is downright crazy, as it turns out.)

I wonder what movie didn't get made, so that Boss Baby could get greenlit.

Shellhead wrote: 3:10 to Yuma was okay. This was the remake that I saw, not the original. Christian Bale turned in a solid performance, and Russell Crowe had fun with his easy role. The story was somewhat basic, and I'm not seriously into westerns, but there was plenty of action. The lead characters finally won me over in the last 10 minutes of the movie, but I am no likely to re-watch it anytime soon.

Same. It was a middle of the road competent genre film, but on a genre that doesn't get much love in the last 20 years so it was notable.

Hey so PASSENGERS is supposed to be terrible and for some reason that makes me really happy, i have no idea why.

Thanks for the reviews of LA LA LAND! I really want to see that bad, but there's two movies I absolutely have to see first...

Tomorrow night, i'm going to see ROGUE ONE with my g/f, our first movie date. Should be really fun. I hear it's super dark so I'm really looking forward to it.

Wednesday night i should be going to see MANCHESTER BY THE SEA. I can't explain how excited I am for this super depressing and long movie. I am going in with the highest of expectations (that it's going to be even better than Moonlight), and I have a feeling it will live up to them. I absolutely adore Casey Affleck in dramatic roles and I haven't seen much of Michelle Williams as of late so that could be really good too. I can't wait to see it. The fact that i'm more excited for this over Rogue One leads me to believe that my little boy heart must be cold dead

I predict you'll love Manchester, Barney. I really liked it (if not quite loved it), and it does hit the heart and soul pretty hard.

Oh wait, you're still dead to me. I can't remember why, though, but I hope you get coal in your stocking this year.

i can't remember either. Was it cuz of how I voted in one of the cinemadomes ? I voted Drive over Taxi Driver (wasn't even close for me), was it that one?

I hope you get the black lung!