In the month of January I saw 12 new films, plus I
re-watched 2 more. I also watched about
30 Oscar-nominated shorts, mostly from the 1930s.
The number of movies is low because I didn’t watch any new ones
after the 10th of the month.
I just wasn’t in a movie mood, and I felt like reading instead. I’ve gone through several books in the last
week or two, including re-reading many of the Pern books. I didn’t watch any of the additions to the
IMDB list, nor any of the three remaining new Best Picture nominees I have not
yet seen.
Watching the shorts came about from seeing comments on a
Letterboxd list of every single thing ever nominated for an Oscar. Someone built a YouTube list of over 500
nominated shorts that were available there.
If you are interested you can find that here. I figured I’d do them decade by decade, but
hours later I still hadn’t finished off the 1930s. Even “shorts” can be long when you add them
together.
Here are the 12 films I saw in January. Ones I would recommend (give at least a three
star rating to) are highlighted. Note –
I’m not going to list out all of the Shorts, except for one on which I want to
spread the word.
Oscar (2): The Revenant (2015), The Big Short (2015)
101 Genre (4): Zoltan,
Hound of Dracula (1978), Wild Style (1983), Rollerball (1975), Went the Day Well? (1942)
Other (5): The Hobbit: The Battle
Re-watches (2): Twinsters (2015), The Martian (2015)
The Hobbit: The
Battle of the Five Armies Extended Edition (2014) – Like the previous
Hobbit film Jackson didn’t just add in more footage, he also changed some of
the scenes from the way they were in the theatrical edition, making this a
different movie. The largest change is
that the dwarves and elves actually do fight each other now. 3
stars
Some Kind of
Beautiful (2014) – Salma Hayek
and Jessica Alba play sisters who both sleep with the same man played by Pierce
Brosnan. How the heck do you make that boring? I don't know, but the director
managed to do it. 2 stars
Zoltan, Hound of
Dracula (1978) – This was on the
101 Cult Movies to Watch Before You Die list. I've noticed that the editors
seemed to have wanted to have more than 101 Horror movies and so they shifted
several more over onto the Cult list.
This isn't a cult movie. It's not even a "so bad it's good"
movie. It's just plain bad. Bad acting, bad story, bad props/effects. It's the
kind of movie where a family - camping in a friggin' RV that can leave on a
moment’s notice no less - has to get attacked three nights in a row at their
campsite by wild dogs before they decide maybe they should leave. 1
star
Cheap Thrills (2013)
– This was recommended to me a year
or two ago and it finally made it to the top of my Netflix DVD queue. It wasn't
worth the wait. Two guys keep getting paid money to do dares. 200 dollars to smack a stripper's ass? Count
me in. 500 dollars to slug a huge bouncer? Not a chance. That's when the film
lost me right there - the main character was an idiot and I didn't care what
happened to him after that. And the
worst thing is is that the film is completely predictable. The dares have to
keep being upped, otherwise there's no movie. Eat a dog? Chop off a body part?
Gee, I WONDER where it's ultimately going to lead? I wonder what the ultimate
action to get a payoff will be? Some
might argue that this film isn't intended to be real - that it's all a metaphor
for the evils of capitalism or some such thing. I think that's giving the movie
too much credit. The clue is in the title - watch this movie to get some cheap
thrills from seeing two guys humiliate themselves and each other
for money. 2 stars
Wild Style (1983)
– This is ostensibly a movie about
graffiti artists, but the reason to watch it now is to see performances from
several early rap acts, along with some breakdancing. IMDB labels this a documentary, but it's not.
It stars non-actors, but it is a fictional story. None of them can act worth a
damn, but they were cast because they did graffiti for real or they were
real rappers. One note - those
expecting today's easy listening rap based on 70's R&B soft hits, may be
surprised by how rap sounded before it got watered down. 2.5
stars
Sherlock: The
Abominable Bride (2016) – Despite
the premise of the modern day characters being traditional ones in the 1890s this
actually is a continuation from the last movie that aired (or season 3, episode
3, if you prefer). I won't spoil how, though. They essentially show us what's
going on just a little ways in anyway when a particular
coroner appears. This is well done,
with numerous references to the written stories, but with the related changes
to them to both make them more modern and just different enough to be new for
the story readers. 4 stars
Rollerball (1975)
– This is both on the 101 lists and it’s a Steve’s selection. I’ll have a review and rating coming next
month on the second Monday.
The Revenant (2015)
– You can read my review of this Best Picture nominee here. 3.5
stars
Carol (2015) –
Haynes revisits the "1950s
closeted homosexual" theme he explored in Far from Heaven. The difference
is that his earlier film also had other things going on, especially the
potential racial romance aspect. Carol has nothing but the
main story. And that story
meanders, wanders, stops, starts up again, and just generally is there, rather
than having much of any build towards something. Related to this is that
everything is presented very distant and antiseptic. I felt nothing between the
two women, to the extent that I wondered if that was actually the point -
that's it's not actually a love story but rather a rich, bored forty-something
housewife who has a fling with a young, beautiful shop girl, but it means more
to the young woman. In other words, a story that's been done many times with
the mid-life crisis man and the young ingénue, except with a
lesbian twist. If you want to see a
period lesbian romance/drama then you can do much better with Desert Hearts
(1984). And for the theme of 1950s homosexuality in general you can do better
with Haynes' own film Far from Heaven.
3 stars
Viola (2012) – I'm at a bit of a loss on how to describe
this. It's not really a film. It's more a series of loosely connected and
unconnected scenes that seem to exist to show off the acting of the people on
screen. And it's barely an hour long, with an abrupt ending as if they ran out
of money, ideas, or both. The
highlight of Viola is something that would make an excellent ten minute short -
one actress, in a bit of mischief, decides to use a scene from Shakespeare's
Twelfth Night that she performs (as the character of Viola disguised as a man)
with another actress to attempt to seduce the other actress to prove that deep
down a strong, obvious desire from someone else is irresistible, even if there
was no attraction there before. They run the same lines over and over, but they
take on different meanings as the first actress gets closer to her goal
of seduction. 2.5 stars
The Big Short (2015)
– You can read my review of this Best Picture nominee here. 3.5
stars
Went the Day Well?
(1942) – You can read my review of this 101 List film and the first of
Steve’s Selections for 2016 here. 3.5 stars
Twinsters (2015)
– This was a re-watch and I enjoyed it just as much the second time. It’s streaming on Netflix Instant for anyone
who wants to see it. 4.5
stars
The Martian (2015)
– This was a re-watch of this Best Picture nominee and I liked it even more the
second time. You can read my review of
it here. 5 stars
The Fantastic Flying
Books of Mr. Morris Lessmore (2011) – This is the short I wanted to
emphasize. It won the Oscar for Best
Animated Short in 2012. Anyone who likes
books should see this. It’s The Red
Balloon for adults. You can watch it
here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ad3CMri3hOs
4.5
stars
So I have to admit that seeing Rollerball with no rating has me a little worried...
ReplyDeleteWell, I didn't want to jump the gun on that, but you can probably figure that if I watched it in January, but then also watched Went the Day Well and reviewed the latter, that I waited on Rollerball for a reason. I didn't want to start with a non-recommendation for the first one of 2016. I didn't dislike it, but right after I watched it it wasn't one I felt I could recommend (at least 3 stars). I truthfully haven't written the review yet, so I haven't nailed down a final rating, either. I'm also doing this because one of the things I wondered about my single non-recommendation in 2015 was that I watched it the same evening I had to write and post the review and I wondered if with more time to reflect if I would have rated it differently. I'm trying that with Rollerball.
DeleteI thought about not even mentioning it as having been watched in January because I didn't want to concern you.
No, it's all good. You wouldn't be the first person to think I've overrated it, but it's a movie I genuinely love. Sometimes I recommend things to people because I think they'll like it. Sometimes my recommendations are purely things I love. Rollerball is one of those.
DeleteThanks for the short recommendation! Very sweet, not at all surprised it won.
ReplyDeleteYou're welcome. I'm glad you liked it.
DeleteI haven't watched the extended editions of the Hobbit films, think once was enough. I'm game to check out the longer versions of the Lord of The Rings films in the future.
ReplyDeleteI'll go watch the trailer for Twinsters (2015) based on your thoughts/score, I've never heard of it before.
Cute short film you highlighted. It felt like a fairy tale of old. The intro reminded me of The Wizard of Oz. Fun how books are as real as people in the short,I guess the best writing is as great as real life.
The extended versions of the LOTR movie are definitely recommended, especially for The Two Towers, which greatly improved the interaction between Aragorn and Eowyn. The extended versions of the Hobbit films I would consider to be more to be watched only for big fans of them.
DeleteHere is what I wrote about Twinsters after the first time I saw it: "I do genealogical research and have published a couple of books so I tend to hear about things related to it. A couple of years ago I came across the story of two Korean adoptees, one an American movie actress (Memoirs of a Geisha, 21 & Over), the other a French fashion designer, who discovered each other over the internet and eventually learned they were identical twin sisters separated at birth. What I didn't know until recently is the American had been recording herself starting a couple days after her sister first contacted her. She and another person then filmed their first meeting, as well as other times they got together. It's a very personal recording of both how bizarre and how wonderful it was to suddenly find out that you have a twin. The reactions of both sisters are a joy to see. The first 50-60 minutes were fantastic - very emotional and touching as the two of them start to connect, finally meet, and to also see their friends and families also meet and get to know each other. The final 30-40 minutes chronicle their trip to South Korea both to experience more of their heritage, but also to try to find out more about their adoptions. This was obviously very important for both of them, but it was a bit of a step down emotionally for me. It felt like the documentary faded a bit towards the end. That's the only thing keeping this from being a five star film for me. I think that unless you are dead inside you will be touched by the story of these two sisters. I highly recommend this film."
I'm glad you liked the short film.
Thanks for the playlist! It is going on to my personal playlist.
ReplyDeleteYou're welcome. I've bookmarked it, too.
Delete