What was the last movie you watched?

[Charles Castle]

Mood Indigo - The newest Michel Gondry. The movie is bonkers - Very Gondry. Fantastic special effects. We watched the extended edition, and maybe it was a little on the long side, but we are big Gondry fans, loving most, and liking the rest of his work, even the stuff that's not that well received.

Nebraska - Hated it. Looked beautiful, and Bruce Dern was really great in it, and that's about all of the nice things I have to say about it. The script was clunky as hell, a lot of the acting was really terrible. I am sad to say that I don't think Will Forte (who I like a lot) pulled it off at all, though there were plenty of worse cases too. Also, (minor spoiler) when a character is reveal to have committed a rape, it is treated as a joke. Gross.

I am planning on seeing Mood Indigo next week. Very excited.

Echo on Nebraska.

[MightyJack]

Inside Llewyn Davis
Great music (mostly played live), the direction and script are sharp as would be expected. On pure filmmaking terms, this is another goodie from the Brothers. Buut…

As a musician myself I was looking forward to seeing this look at the Greenwich Village folk scene just before Dylan hit and Dave Van Ronk was king. My problem is that it’s so bleak; the shit just rolls over this guy (and much of it is his own fault). Now I appreciate this look into struggles of making music for a living, but the Brother’s really didn’t capture the experience in full. I lived that life and it could be depressing. And yes, you had the sellouts and the hangers on, the suits and the phony’s -- but there is also camaraderie: a drunken, fun, exhilarating, exhausting creative electricity that permeates a musical community of this type. And not just for folkies… hell I played in the round on Nashville stages side by side with a 60-year old cowboy, an 18-year old Goth girl and a Ramones wannabe in his 40s. It was a beautiful thing; age didn’t matter, style or sound or anything. You were a songwriter, that’s it, that’s what defined you. That’s what bonded you. The Coen’s missed that side of it.

But again, for what it was -a ‘slice of life’ look at a bad week for a struggling artist- it was sharp, often painfully perceptive, frequently funny (Carrey Mulligan’s anger cracked me up) and deserving of praise.

[Quantum Vagina]

Frozen hits shelves today. I will report back later after I've watched it.

[MightyJack]

Enough Said (2013)
I've always enjoyed Nicole Holofcener’s sharp, observational character studies; I like stories that explore relationship dynamics in general. Here, the writer director focuses her lens on couples, and how one person’s trash can be another’s treasure. The filmmaker’s trademarks are present: It’s funny, you have great interactions between the characters, we see their insecurities, watch the warm connections and the painfully awkward moments. Nicole always gets the best out her actors, and the unlikely pairing of Louis-Dreyfus and Gandolfin works like a dream. There’s an easy chemistry between the duo that helps make this film real and believable.

[Quantum Vagina]

Frozen. I don't know what I can say about this movie... I loved it. Absolutely amazing. Everything about it was great. It really spoke to me, too. The only other major connection I've felt with a Disney character was with Mulan(for obvious reasons), and I think I related to Elsa WAAAAAAY more. Absolutely LOVED it. Best purchase I've made in ages.

[d00hickey]

Fruitvale Station  4 claps out of 5

 I was blown away by the quality of acting in this movie, most notably Octavia Spencer and Micheal B. Jordan. The whole Oscar Grant saga was deeply ingrained in my life do to the fact it happened to people that lived in my neighborhood and at my local BART station. I was intimately aware, and followed every detail closely because I met his family and friends at various Justice for Osacar Grant rallies. 

I feel like the film makers showed remarkable restraint in not painting Oscar as a hero but as a real person with real flaws but ultimately a very kind heart, and this focus on realism made the story much more powerful than it would of been had they portrayed Oscar as a hero, or an outright thug.

Having spent 95% of my life in the East Bay (Oakland, Hayward, where I was born and raised, and San Francisco) made me feel as I was reliving my life as I was intimately familiar with every single scene, from the Fruitvale BART station where I caught the southbound train (same platform Oscar was shot on) every morning, to Highland medical center where I received public healthcare for years.

I spent the better part of 6 years growing and supplying marijuana usually to legal dispensaries in downtown Oakland and in that time I met hundreds of dealers, and buyers most of whom would be cast off as thugs or gangsters in movies and media and I was so refreshed to see "people like that" portrayed in an honest fashion. For many young black men in Oakland, and around the country probably, maintaing a tough demeanor and wearing baggy black jeans and white t-shirts is to project a tough demeanor to keep themselves safe from profiling and others who intend to hurt them. Without fail every "thug" I met where just as kind, smart, and compassionate as anyone else.

It was also nice to hear how well the film makers replicate the local dialect using words like "slappers", "hella", "hecka", "brah" and many others which will be very familiar to people from that region.

If you want to see a very well made movie that very accurately depicts the setting, dialect, characters and the events that led up to, what a lot of us consider the worst kind of racial profiling, see this movie.

Also if you've never been to Oakland and have pre-conceived notions about it, see this. This is as real as it gets and doesn't candy coat it or make it look worse than it is.         

[Malt]

Frozen. I don't know what I can say about this movie... I loved it. Absolutely amazing. Everything about it was great. It really spoke to me, too. The only other major connection I've felt with a Disney character was with Mulan(for obvious reasons), and I think I related to Elsa WAAAAAAY more. Absolutely LOVED it. Best purchase I've made in ages.

It's funny how before this movie came out everyone was bashing it in every way, but after it's release it has been quite the opposite. Just proves the point that you can't judge a book by it's cover. Or in this case, a movie by it's trailers and screenshots.

So I'll add this to my list of Disney movies I need to see. That brings it to: Tangled, & Frozen...

[Quantum Vagina]

Frozen's marketing campaign was trash, from what I understand, and Elsa and Anna got a LOT of flak for looking like standard Disney girls, which is true if they're standing completely still attempting to look like that, which neither of them can do at all. The animation is note perfect for them. They're anything BUT the stock off the shelf princesses personality-wise.

Tangled was extremely good, too, but between them, Frozen is far better. Let me put it this way. I'm thinking of watching Frozen again tonight and have been listening to the music all day, whereas Tangled didn't leave me anywhere CLOSE to that. The last movie that I can think of that made me want to rewatch it right away was Cloud Atlas, and that was a while ago.

[Pak-Man]

I think I enjoyed Tangled just a little bit more, but Frozen stuck with me a lot more, so I think it had more impact.

The marketing I saw for Frozen beforehand was a little short they did starring Olaf, who didn't talk at all during the short, and seemed like he would be an obnoxious character. Then closer to the release date, everything about the ads screamed "Cookie Cutter Disney Princess Movie!" (And maybe that's what they WANTED us to think, going in...) So based on marketing, there wasn't much there for me. I probably wouldn't have gone if I hadn't scored a couple free passes through Disney Movie Rewards promotions.

It's kind of a shame that after pushing 3D Blu-ray as hard as they have, THIS is the movie that Disney decided to just release in 2D. This was probably the first animated movie I've seen where I walked out thinking, "Wow! I'm glad I saw that in 3D!" Not that I have a 3D TV, but I feel bad that so many people won't get to see it that way...

[Relaxing Dragon]

I'm getting a weird bit of humor out of how everyone says that Frozen's ad campaign was way off mark, and that Disney did a really poor job selling the movie... and yet it's a universally beloved picture that's made over a billion dollars. As far as Disney is concerned, they marketed it right on the money.

Of course, that could very well just be the fact that it's a really good movie that's hooking people in (hence all the "I wasn't interested in seeing it at first, but everyone was loving it so..." comments). And how it had very little direct competition for about a month and a half throughout the whole Holiday season. But then that begs the question of how strong word-of-mouth really is on a film like this, and so on.

Not that there's really a problem here, of course. Because it's a great movie and everyone should see it and then go get totally sick of listening to the soundtrack over and over and over again.

[Darth Geek]

I think the fact that it had little competition and the advantage of being the Holidays when people are often off from work so can go to the theater. So that allowed the good word of mouth to really give it legs.

[ScottotD]

Was it me or did Frozen have a LOT of songs? like more than your usual Disney movie/musical?


Also it's awesome that Disney have said it's about depression, I'm sure that's part of the reason it's been so successful.

[Darth Geek]

Was it me or did Frozen have a LOT of songs? like more than your usual Disney movie/musical?

I don't think it was necessarily more than the usual. It's just that it was so front loaded with them. The whole second half hardly has any. When I watched it, I didn't miss them. I really think the movie didn't need to be a musical at all (even though Let It Go is very good).

[Quantum Vagina]

According to my roommate, there was a reprise of "Do You Want To Build A Snowman," sung by Elsa that was cut, which I'm disappointed wasn't in the movie. As much as I loved "He's a Fixer Upper," I'd have rather heard more from Idina Menzel. Her singing voice is outstanding. Another thing I loved about her performance is that she REALLY makes it ambiguous as to if Elsa's going to end up being a villain. That's her Wicked-ness showing through.

[Darth Geek]

Eh, both songs I thought felt were shoehorned into the movie. The Trolls' song in particular felt very focus group-ish.