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Official thread about the movie you just saw

Nightcrawler. Holy shit. mdmh might be right about Jake Gyllenhaal.
 
Her is a terrible movie to go see on your first date. Trust me.
 
myDeaconmyhand said:
On a different note, I just saw Nightcrawler and it was great. A+, a top 5 film of the year for me, if not the best. Gyllenhaal is magnetic in the lead role, and it's the best of his career. The pace of the film picks up fairly quickly and never really slows down. A lot of people are comparing it to Taxi Driver, and I agree with that comparison to a point, though I honestly think that Jake Gyllenhaal is more effective in his portraying a pure sociopath. DeNiro as Travis Bickle showed some shreds of humanity for the audience to sympathize with, where Gyllenhaal is an unrelenting void. I felt like I needed a shower after the film.
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TownieDeac said:
Oh jeez the mdmhhottakes just keep getting hotter.
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myDeaconmyhand said:
So you've seen Nightcrawler, and don't agree that Gyllenhaal was "more effective in portraying a pure sociopath" than DeNiro from Taxi Driver? That's fine. My opinion is that there have probably been a few films where sociopathic tendencies were more accurately portrayed than in Taxi Driver. That doesn't take away from Taxi Driver being a great film, or from DeNiro's acclaim for his role in it.


"Is Current Cinema as Good as the Romanticized 1970s Golden Age?"
http://filmschoolrejects.com/opinions/current-cinema-good-romanticized-1970s-golden-age.php
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TownieDeac said:
Your strange and arbitrary criteria aside it's absurd to compare the two performances and put Gyllenhaal on top. DeNiro's performance in Taxi Driver is widely considered one of the greatest in cinema history.
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Strickland33 said:
Have y'all seen Nightcrawler? Even though I'm pretty sure I won't agree with mdmh, I'll wait until I've seen the performance in question before telling him he's wrong.
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TownieDeac said:
It's very good. Not in my favorite three or four movies this year. Gyllenhaal is great.
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Strickland33 said:
Nightcrawler. Holy shit. mdmh might be right about Jake Gyllenhaal.
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Good stuff right here.
 
Haven't posted in the last few weeks, but i've watched a few movies, mostly bad.

Lucy was terrible laughable pseudo science nonsense with a thin veneer of existentialism. Besson channeling the worst of Michael Bay. ScarJo is a worse and worse actress lately.
John Wick was interesting. I enjoyed the world building of the movie, but these one-man army films are beyond played out, and increasing the brutality doesn't change that.
Dumb & Dumber To was the worst thing i've seen in months. I was expecting bad and it was much worse. I mostly blame the Farrelly Bros.
Gods Pocket was bad. I wish Hoffman had gone out on a higher note. He and Turturro are passable, but the plot is ridiculous. Swings wildly between PTA and Coen Bros elements.
Boxtrolls was fun. The animation is beautiful and unique, and the story is almost sinister. My main criticism is that the human characters are flat and uninteresting. Boxtrolls > Minions
Dear White People was disappointing. It's not a comedy at all, it's a very formulaic drama. Seemed like the films intent was just to jam in as many different black character types as possible into a general college authority power struggle story. The title is really all the film has going for it. Was it intentional that the only white characters were caricatures?
Jessabelle was just meh. Some interesting ideas, such as immobility in a Haunted House horror, but ultimately just another gothic Hardy Boys mystery with a bad twist ending.

The two great films i've seen recently are my new Criterion copies of On The Waterfront and Brazil. This was my first time seeing the original cut of Brazil and it's soo much better than the shorter re-edited "Love Conquers All" version. I don't get some of Gilliam's more popular films like Fear and Loathing or Twelve Monkeys, but goddamn Brazil is awesome.
 
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Watched The Interview last night. Entertaining enough.
 
I bet Townie wants to marry Siri and raise little Pokemon kids.
 
Night crawler better than I thought it would be but still corny. Could have redeemed itself with a gyllenhall Russo reverse cowgirl scene. What a gyp.

Fell asleep during John Wick. Formulaic. Reeves has old balls now. Felt bad for the pup tho.
 
Watching Her was the worst 2 hours I spent last year, and I'm including watching Bzball. Plodding, boring, nonsensical, I was angry after watching it. This despite going in giving it a Jonz bump. Meaning I would give his movies 2 additional points just for Adaptation and Being John Malkovich. Now after this latest movie and Where the Wild Things Are there's no bump for him any more. I'm concerned he's on a Burton/Gilliam downward trajectory.
 
I just realized that in the two biggest man-as-pathetic-bitch roles in the last decade, Phoenix in Her and Gordon-Levitt in 500 Days of Summer, both characters are commercial copy writers.
 
Forgive me for going on a WakeFanatic style run here, but here is my explanation for the comparisons of Taxi Driver and Nightcrawler: Sociopathy is a very broad and vague term in modern psychology used commonly to describe a moral detachment from society and/or reality. Deniro's Travis Bickle and Gyllenhaal's Lou Bloom have different motivations, but both roles are grounded in a moral detachment or misalignment. To frame that argument, compare both to Michael Douglas's character in Falling Down who has a violent mental breakdown but immediately recognize's his breakdown. Bloom and Bickle are similar roles in that both believe they are normal and that their actions are reasonable and justified. It's a very layered act because both characters are aware of the illegality of their actions, but show no remorse in their actions, and yet both characters still show moments of social consciousness in various interpersonal interactions. Neither character is broken, they just have a different set of right and wrong than the rest of us.
 
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TheTwinAndreBen said:
I just realized that in the two biggest man-as-pathetic-bitch roles in the last decade, Phoenix in Her and Gordon-Levitt in 500 Days of Summer, both characters are commercial copy writers.
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Add Daniel Radcliffe's performance in 'What If'. He played a copy writer.
 
Saw Leviathan last night. Beautifully shot, but pacing is slow. Took a while to get into it. Makes me want to travel to Russia.
 
DeaconCav06 said:
Watched The Place Beyond the Pines. I feel like the trailer really misled what it was about but it was a pretty great use of my time.

Currently recording Her.
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Hated The Place Beyond the Pines... agree that the trailer was misleading. Wanted to like it, but did not find it entertaining or particularly thought-provoking.

In terms of the Her "argument" going on here... I saw it in the theater w/ my wife (at the time, I was 35 and she was 29)... I thought it was great and she hated it. Her issue was more that she just isn't a sci-fi fan... but even when we discussed more of the specifics of the movie, it was obvious that she just had a way different reaction/experience than I did (even though we were sitting right next to each other).
 
Saw Wreck it Ralph yesterday, and thought it was cute and entertaining. Fun premise.

Haven't seen Her yet, but I just can't get motivated to do so. Wifey loved it and thinks I would like it as well, so I'll probs hate it.
 
Her is one of the movies on my DVR that I feel like I need to watch but am never motivated or in the mood to watch. Gravity and 12 Years a Slave are also on this list.
 
Watched the 300 sequel the other day - as expected, a completely unnecessary, silly movie. But holy shit, Eva Green.
 
Saw The Kingsmen. Quite over the top, but highly entertaining. Sam Jackson was hilarious.
 
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