It's Back: Exceelent Movies I've Seen Lately

[Cobain's Ghost]

so being pants is a bad thing, right?

your mom is pants.

as for owen wilson - it's kind of hard to buy a guy who tried to kill himself as a happy-go-lucky goofball.

[heyelander]

2011 In Film: How A Year Without A Favorite Was A Favorite Year

http://www.npr.org/blogs/monkeysee/2011/12/14/143637170/2011-in-film-how-a-year-without-a-favorite-was-a-favorite-year

So far, awards season has been unsettled — and pleasantly so. The local critics in San Francisco and Toronto made The Tree Of Life their favorite film. The Los Angeles critics picked The Descendants. Critics in New York went with The Artist — so did critics in Boston and Washington. The National Board of Review picked Hugo.

By contrast, last year, The Social Network was the pick of Boston, Washington, New York, Toronto, Los Angeles, San Francisco, and the National Board of Review. Eventual Oscar winner The King's Speech didn't start picking up steam until a little later in the process, and there were certainly other picks here and there (Austin picked Black Swan, for example) but from the time the race really got underway, it leaned, but didn't careen.
-More at link-

[johnnya24]

Moneyball - terrific movie ... but not a single mention of Tejada, Hudson, Zito or Mulder. They sure as hell did not tell the story of the 2002 season. A casual fan might actually believe that Scott Hatterberg, Chad Bradford and Ricardo Rincon won all those games.

I think I'd be a little pissed off if I were Tim Hudson, Barry Zito or Mark Mulder ... they were backbone of that team, not OBP.

[Mithrandir]

White Christmas tonight!!

[schlesinj]

Horrible Bosses - one of the best comedies I've seen this year. Echo all the views above.

Wife and I just watched this last night and it was a really a good one.

[johnnya24]

Wife and I just watched this last night and it was a really a good one.

I watched it again over the weekend ... and it dawned on me ... all the sub-characters are genuine A-listers (Kevin Spacey, Jennifer Aniston, Jamie Foxx, Colin Farrell), and the actual stars of the movie are B-listers (with the possible exception of Jason Bateman). Charlie Day made it seem like a big budget episode of It's Always Sunny In Philadelphia.

[schlesinj]

I watched it again over the weekend ... and it dawned on me ... all the sub-characters are genuine A-listers (Kevin Spacey, Jennifer Aniston, Jamie Foxx, Colin Farrell), and the actual stars of the movie are B-listers (with the possible exception of Jason Bateman). Charlie Day made it seem like a big budget episode of It's Always Sunny In Philadelphia.

Agreed, if was nice to see little parts with those A Listers and would have taken away from the movie if they had bigger parts.

[Mithrandir]

Has anybody watched "Last Year at Marienbad"? It's a B&W French flick form the early 1960's that has been described as either brilliant or unintelligible, pretentious crap. I watched it last night and loved it.

I have read about this film for many years, about how it is so divisive, so I finally gave it a viewing.

[Mithrandir]

Just saw "The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo" today and really enjoyed it.

The book is one of my all-time favorites.

[DMT]

Has anybody watched "Last Year at Marienbad"? It's a B&W French flick form the early 1960's that has been described as either brilliant or unintelligible, pretentious crap. I watched it last night and loved it.

I have read about this film for many years, about how it is so divisive, so I finally gave it a viewing.

Yes, it is a classic.

[swampdragon]

I saw Young Adult last week - wow - It was really bad (but one of my friends plays a generic mom in the house party scene) - sorry Charlize Theron fans

Yesterday I saw Mission Impossible and thought it better than the average action bad guy movie - it was fun with good settings.

I think that there were way too many people at the movies yesterday - you gentiles should be at home celebrating Christmas with your families

[rhd]

I just discovered this thread. I am a big movie buff, but mostly older movies (pre-1975 or so). I will try to visit here often.

I dont watch many modern movies; I very seldom go to the theatre. There probably are some modern movies that I'd like, but I dont want to wade thru the dreck to find the gems. I make it a point to note the films rated highly by critics. Often, highly rated dont impress me but they do impress often enough that I continue to pay them attention.

There seem to be a lot of remakes these days. Most of them dont come close to the caliber of the originals. Case in point is Sahara, which was remade sometime in the last decade. I happened to watch it and it was nothing close to the original, which was made during WWII, when the outcome was still in doubt, and starred Bogart. The original was rather unique in that it didnt have any boy-girl love story at all; as a matter of fact, I dont recall a female in even a minor role in it. Yet it was great. More of an inspirational story of people overcoming impossible odds than a true war movie. I highly recommend it. Another old film recently remade that I highly recommend watching the original of is The Four Feathers, a British production made in the '40s. I havent seen the remake, but I doubt if anywhere as good as the original. The original is amazing, a must see for all lovers of classic film. And it has one of best endings of all time.

I did watch some of the Oscar-nominated films of last year. I thought The Social Network was very good and of course The King's Speech also. Black Swan was interesting, but I highly recommend another ballet film The Red Shoes from 1948. One of the best films ever made and in my personal Top 10. The story itself was captivating, but even completely ignoring the story, the music alone captivated me. 127 Hours was OK, but kind of hard to keep your interest after a while from lack of action. I also saw an interesting animated film, which I forget the name of. It was about a young girl in Scotland who meets an old traveling magician down on his luck who she idolizes and she starts to travel w him. It actually was made some years ago but was just recently released for some reason.

This year, I've seen 2 movies. I read the book Moneyball, and I didnt expect much from the movie but I was surprised that it was as good as it was. If you can look past some of the 'mythology' associated w the Moneyball A's, it is worthwhile seeing. And I just saw The Help which also was good. I would expect that both movies will receive some sort of Oscar nomination(s).

As you might expect, I dont use Netflix or Redbox, since they have mostly modern movies. One of the best channels on TV is Turner Classic Movies, which regularly shows great classic films. The Fox Movie Channel also is very good, if your cable company has it. AMC also has some good movies, but nothing like they used to have. Actually, the This channel, which I didnt discover until recently, has some good movies, too.

[johnnya24]

Caught up with a few movies over the holidays ... one that I enjoyed, that I didn't expect to was Columbiana. I had heard so-so reviews about this, but IMO, as an action movie, it is one of the best I've seen in a while. It's quite dark, and doesn't add any frills, and of course being an action based movie, as long as you leave part of your common sense at the door, it will be a reasonably enjoyable experience. It's a bit like one of those really good 80's action movies with a contemporary gloss ... and of course a really good fight scene near the end.

[baldgriff]

I went out and saw Sherlock Holmes this weekend. Very enjoyable movie and it never stops moving.

[off_the_wall]

Columbiana.
Zoe Saldana is fine in the lead role. Don't worry about the plot, just sit back and enjoy the action.

Ides of March.
The movie isn't going to reveal anything the viewer already doesn't know, however, the all-star cast makes it worth watching. While Clooney and Gosling get all the media attention for this movie, Philip Seymour Hoffman and Paul Giamatti steal every scene they are in.

Captain America.
Better than I expected but didn't like the ending.

Rise of the Planet of the Apes.
Didn't have high expectations going in but FAR exceeded them. A worthy successor to the classic original.

Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol
See the last sentence of the above Columbiana review.