Movie Reviews Part Four

Hello again:)

This is the fourth part in a series of threads made for the purpose of Chess.com members to write about our cinema experiences, reviewing movies, talking about movies and ideas that come from the movies we watch. I would like to thank the wonderful contributors to these threads. You all make them so great to read. Thank you

From the last three threads combined we have over fourteen-thousand comments. And over half a million views. That's pretty cool:)

In before anyone else!!!!     >:[

I was a latecomer to the previous Thread, but derived a lot of benefit from some good reviews, will try to reciprocate here...thanks to trysts for her efforts.

Is this the part where Juliet ODs on sleeping pills?

It was a ruse ivandh, they where only diet pills.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s2SSnOS47Tw

I also came late and I hope that this has not already been covered.  I watched 'The hateful eight'.  It had to my mind everything that I loathe about American films all rolled into one seething pile of intellectual numbness.  It was gratuitously violent.  Infact why watching peoples heads being blown off should be entertaining I cannot say.  Is it like the Roman Colosseum where one went to watch people being ripped to pieces by wild beasts? are we supposed to find the spectacle compelling viewing? have we really progressed no further in entertainment than the ancient Romans.  Say it ain't so. 

Thanks for the review, robbie.  I was curious about that one.  I like some of Tarentino's films and he's certainly known for gratuitous violence.  But I've read mixed reviews on this one and with it's nearly 3 hour runtime...  well, I think I'll just wait a year or two until it pops up on cable tv.

Actually despite that it was strangely compelling, its a kind of murder mystery as well, with little clues being uncovered along the way.  I just don't like films that leave one feeling negative and this certainly did.  It has a very theatrical feel about it as all the action and dailouge take place essentially inside a cabin, like being in a small theater watching Oedipus Rex.

Here's my review of The Big Short (2015).

THE BIG SHORT drew in only 4 for the 9:30am show at Cola. Grande Sunday (12-27-15).  
A lady with her teenage grand kids laughed during the lighter moments of the story.  I'm curious how a larger audience would have reacted.

This film features an ensemble cast and tells the story of how several investors & hedge fund managers saw the impending housing market collapse & decided to capitalize on it.
Ryan Gosling plays Jared Vennett and  provides most of the narration.  He gives us a little financial history (in voice-over) about how & who created mortgage backed securities and introduces us to the other players.  First up is Michael Burry (Christian Bale).  Burry is an eccentric savant with Asperger syndrome who manages a hedge fund.  In the early 2000s he is one of the first to see that the housing market will fail and he begins to invest in credit default swaps in 2005.
Next is Mark Baum (Steve Carell) who finds out about this and wonders why anyone would bet against the housing market.  He investigates & is shocked, shocked to find out that sub-prime loans are being handed out to anyone with a pulse.
We meet some more characters along the way including Brad Pitt who mentors two young, small time investors.  Near the end, when the market is collapsing and the two young men are giddy with delight as they are about to reap millions in profit.  They begin to laugh & dance in celebration.  Brad chastises them and tells them that this collapse also means the whole economy going down the tubes & millions unemployed.  He tells them, “Don't!  Dance!”

Director Adam McKay has done mostly comedies.  While he uses some of that skill here, he also tries some other techniques in telling this story.  He includes three asides where famous people such as Selena Gomez, Anthony Bourdain & Richard Thaler explain complicated financial investment in everyday terms.
In between acts, McKay posts quotes from famous people such as Mark Twain that ironically describe the human 'herd mentality'.   And he shows some minor players before and after the crash.  These poignant contrasts are a nice touch by the director & writer, Chas. Randolph.
The acting is good but the movie moves along at a pretty good clip.  So, there isn't a lot of time for character development.  Steve Carell is the only one who expresses any moral shock when he sees what's happening.   Still, that doesn't stop him from making millions from the crash.

I'm giving this one 3 & ½ stars.  One each for writing & direction.  The ½ star for acting and the third star for the story itself.  While I don't think this film will ever be popular; I do think it qualifies as a definition of moral ambiguity.  Literature & cinema have given us many heroes and yes, even the anti-hero to cheer & root for.  This film has no heroes or anti-heroes.  No one to cheer for or feel good about.  When the dust settled, the rich got richer & the poor said hello to millions of new members.  If there is a moral to this story, then this film may just be reiterating the old observation that mankind is his own worst enemy.

 For my money and more importantly for my time, tryst’s movie threads are the only “must read” comments in these forums. And yet sometimes I can’t keep up with all the commentary because of limited access to MY workstation (my wife insists on using it to keep up on her Facebook pages). So, for completely selfish reasons I thought, “wouldn’t it be a good idea if someone would post a list of the movies reviewed with the reviewer’s name and relevant posting numbers at the end of each month. That would help us know what has been reviewed and by whom. I would surely undertake this project myself but it isn’t worth the grief that my wife would give me fighting for computer access. Anyway, thanks to all for their contributions to these threads.    >:[

Thanks for the review. 

Aside from asinine posts by narcissus (pdelio), one of the best things about these movie threads is that any review is fine. If a movie has been reviewed by another, that gives everyone else multiple thoughts of the film.

So, carry on.

So I went to see the new Star Wars: The Force Awakens movie over the holidays. My impressions:

Coming from the same company that produces the Marvel comics movies, they know how to take a formula and wring money out of it over and over. If you want to know the plot of this movie, watch the first one. They made absolutely no effort here. But, crucially, they turn the focus away from the rehashed events and leave them as a backdrop to character development. In this it is a studied and deliberate break with the maligned prequels, which favored Lucas' self-indulgence in world-building and kewl lightsaber fites at the expense of atrocious dialogue and boring characters.

All the characters are interesting here, especially the villain, Kylo Ren. He is an emo Vader fanboy who is powerful but does not measure up to his idol in discipline and control. He struggles to be dark and evil and to deal with his limitations, internal and external. It must be a difficult role to play but it is done with great efficacy here. Then there is the uniformed, non-space-wizard, literally-Hitler character who is Kylo Ren's rival and runs the army and stuff, and Voldemort's twin brother directs them both from the shadows.

On the light side there is Finn, a stormtrooper who is apparently a pacifist but doesn't mind killing his former buddies as he deserts into the desert, and Rey, who is a girl with no past scavenging for an existence on said desert planet. They meet with Han Solo who is back to his small-time smuggling days and his character shows his age, with years of swindling and connivery catching up to him. One by one other members of the old cast trickle in, somehow managing not to seem too forced or dripping with fan-service. The focus remains on the new characters instead of the old, passing the torch, or the lightsaber as it were.

It's clear they knew they'd better do well with this one and they took no chances with the plot. It's a blatant attempt to win back those who liked the original Star Wars and hated the prequels. If you're not already into space ninjas then this will be another phenomenon to come and go as a wave against the shore. For all that, it is interesting to see some new characters, and the future is promising for Star Wars fans. At the very least another Mel Brooks spoof is supposed to come of it.

yes its a win win :D

Three excellent reviews to start off! Thank you, robbie, anpu and ivandh:) We really are covering a lot of this year's critically acclaimed films, much more so than previous years here. Fun fun fun!

Thank you, Trevor, nice to have you on board:)

Great idea, but too much work for me personally. I should have kept track when I started, but who would have guessed that even the first thread would have had so many contributions let alone being on a second, third and now fourth thread!:D

45 Years(2015)

{This review contains spoilers, sorry}

 I had been anticipating watching this film since I read about it a couple months ago. All the reviews made it sound great. I was very very disappointed though.

 Charlotte Rampling is married to Tom Courtenay. They are in their late sixties-early seventies. They are about to publicly celebrate their 45th anniversary together with a big party in about a week. Tom receives a letter informing him that the body of his once girlfriend had been found frozen in a block of ice in the Swiss alps. You see, in 1962, Tom and his girlfriend were hiking up a mountain and she accidentally fell. Of course she was assumed dead but the body had never been recovered. So, over fifty years later her body was found. Since then, Tom had married Charlotte and now is their 45th anniversary together.

 For reasons I personally find hard to believe, Charlotte is upset about this long dead woman. Why? I'm not quite sure? But as the story unfolds we find out that Tom and his now dead girlfriend may have been planning to get married, AND she was pregnant at the time of her death. Tom had not told Charlotte these facts when they were married or at any time after they were married. Now, Charlotte, who must think that she was Tom's one and only, has to 'deal' with this revelation. Again, they have been married 45 years. 45 years and the former girlfriend is dead. She didn't even know Tom when he was with this woman. 

Who on earth wrote this thing? Am I really an alien? I just don't get why any woman on earth would actually be destroyed by this revelation? Hellooo, you're like 70 years old, you've been with this guy for 45 years of your life! Get the ef over it! Grow the hell up! This film really is pissing me off the more I think about it.

Yes! She's pretty much in charge of their lives. He like a "whatever you say" guy. Part of the annoying part about why this movie is so disappointing is that they're two people that are not very deep. They're not a complex-interesting couple.