movie challenge : june
Jul. 1st, 2017 03:10 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
bond_girlI'm done with the movie challenge, woohoo! June was the month when none of the movies turned out be what I thought they would be - mostly, for the best :) I enjoy writing these little reviews, so I might continue with that, but only for the movies that I absolutely adored.
37. A movie based on a play : Macbeth (2015)
• A ruthlessly ambitious Scottish lord seizes the throne with the help of his scheming wife and a trio of witches. | with Marion Cotillard and Michael Fassbender
• I just couldn't get into this one. Nobody onscreen had any charisma or chemistry. First, I thought it might be everybody speaking in, you know, in high Shakespeare, but then Romeo+Juliet is such an emotionally involving movie and it kept the Shakespearean dialog.
• There's a subset of contemporary cinematography that I don't like: filter upon filter upon filter, all colored pretty and reframed pretty in a windowless office room somewhere instead of being naturally shot on location in the right weather and time of the day. I understand that sometimes cinematographers need help or some visual point needs to be made, but this was is just too paint-by-numbers. Too many close-ups and weird compositions, too much mumbling from actors who don't feel their lines. One could argue that it makes the movie more poetic, but to me, this Macbeth felt somehow both bland and overwrought.
• Good: Fassbender looks good in eyeliner, I guess. Really, I was that bored.
• In short: a contemporary snoozefest in mud and gore
38. A movie with great cinematography : Alien (1979)
• After a space merchant vessel perceives an unknown transmission as a distress call, its landing on the source moon finds one of the crew attacked by a mysterious life-form, and they soon realize that its life cycle has merely begun. | directed by Ridley Scott, with Sigourney Weaver and my special love to Yaphet Kotto as the cash-loving union mechanic and to Ian Holm as the erratic android.
• I had no idea how much I would LOVE this movie.
• Full disclosure: I watched all other Alien movies but this one before and they were not my cuppa in their entirety, I only liked some aspects of the Alien universe (Ripley/Dwayne, the mystery of the Space Jockeys, the resurrected Ripley with part-alien DNA). It was either action-action or body horror or the murky nature of creation - I'm just not interested. I don't even really CARE about the xenomorphs/ facehuggers/ chestbursters and the least they are onscreen, the better. It's the people facing the aliens that I want to see. And to my surprise, it all came together so well in the original Alien: the people, the suspense and the cinematography. All of it was just so freaking great, and elegant, and beautiful, and effective and, and, AND---
• This vision of a banged-up and dirty, commercial and uncertain future with realistic characters and corrupt corporations is entrancing and relatable. Alien's space is a familiar and busy thorough-way for humans, but it's not tamed, still hostile by nature. Also, this is where you see Ripley not as an already-made tough cookie, but as someone who is in the process of stepping up to the plate. She becomes Ripley, that Ripley, right in front of you and Weaver made it so incredible. I could gush for pages.
• The crew was just such a great mix, and the casting was very inspired. They were written to be unisex and cast as men or women later. I loved that some of them complain about money and are with the union, that the android has this slightly misfit vibe from the start, that the captain hates conflict, that the emotional and scared Lambert is essentially the audience, etc. They mesh, they are memorable, and I couldn't imagine every single one of the missing from the script.
• The terrifyingly beautiful xenomorph art is made by a Swiss artist Hans Ruedi Giger who has a museum in the town of Gruyeres where the famous and best :p Swiss cheese is made.
• This is a cool 30-min retrospective on the making of Alien: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tm-JBUCS9rA --- who knew the chest-bursting dinner scene was a surprise for the cast? their shock is genuine!
• In short: a masterpiece + my overly invested and growing tumblr tag
♥
42. A heist movie: Hell or High Water (2016)
• A divorced father and his ex-con older brother resort to a desperate scheme in order to save their family's ranch in West Texas. | with Chris Pine, Ben Foster, and Jeff Bridges
• I was so sure this would be some shoot-'em-up crap for the 2nd Amendment crowd, but it was really well-done, funny and sadly, too real and close to home. This is America Europeans or tourists don't know about. Income inequality, outlaw spirit and dark humor, well-spotted race dynamics without being made into an issue, decent country music, delicious acting by everyone, sun-beaten Texas plains from horizon to horizon: this movie delivered.
• In short: a neo-western with a heart | funny, but with a side of tragic violence
♥
51. A movie chosen for you by another player : What About Bob? (1991)
• A successful psychotherapist loses his mind after one of his most dependent patients, an obsessive-compulsive neurotic, tracks him down during his family vacation. | with Bob Murray and Richard Dreyfuss
• This movie could have taken a shortcut to slapstick and obviousness, but instead, it kept making the right choices. It kept the laugh-outloud jokes and touching moments coming, and it left me feeling HAPPY. We never NOT care about Bob, no matter how objectively over the top clingy or phobic he can be. He's a darling and he's trying! so! hard! Bill Murray gave it all his magic, and I couldn't shake off the feeling I was watching something special. And of course, it's quotable x 1,000,000, Neil Diamond!
• Physically, Dreyfuss could be my former boss' twin brother - and my former boss has a PhD in Psychology, so this serendipity was priceless :D
• In short: this movie is a gift for when you're down
thank you, Peri ♥♥♥
Movie of the month ♥♥♥:
• Alien (1979) - so much more than the thing in the title!
| 2017 movie challenge|
37. A movie based on a play : Macbeth (2015)
• A ruthlessly ambitious Scottish lord seizes the throne with the help of his scheming wife and a trio of witches. | with Marion Cotillard and Michael Fassbender
• I just couldn't get into this one. Nobody onscreen had any charisma or chemistry. First, I thought it might be everybody speaking in, you know, in high Shakespeare, but then Romeo+Juliet is such an emotionally involving movie and it kept the Shakespearean dialog.
• There's a subset of contemporary cinematography that I don't like: filter upon filter upon filter, all colored pretty and reframed pretty in a windowless office room somewhere instead of being naturally shot on location in the right weather and time of the day. I understand that sometimes cinematographers need help or some visual point needs to be made, but this was is just too paint-by-numbers. Too many close-ups and weird compositions, too much mumbling from actors who don't feel their lines. One could argue that it makes the movie more poetic, but to me, this Macbeth felt somehow both bland and overwrought.
• Good: Fassbender looks good in eyeliner, I guess. Really, I was that bored.
• In short: a contemporary snoozefest in mud and gore
38. A movie with great cinematography : Alien (1979)
• After a space merchant vessel perceives an unknown transmission as a distress call, its landing on the source moon finds one of the crew attacked by a mysterious life-form, and they soon realize that its life cycle has merely begun. | directed by Ridley Scott, with Sigourney Weaver and my special love to Yaphet Kotto as the cash-loving union mechanic and to Ian Holm as the erratic android.
• I had no idea how much I would LOVE this movie.
• Full disclosure: I watched all other Alien movies but this one before and they were not my cuppa in their entirety, I only liked some aspects of the Alien universe (Ripley/Dwayne, the mystery of the Space Jockeys, the resurrected Ripley with part-alien DNA). It was either action-action or body horror or the murky nature of creation - I'm just not interested. I don't even really CARE about the xenomorphs/ facehuggers/ chestbursters and the least they are onscreen, the better. It's the people facing the aliens that I want to see. And to my surprise, it all came together so well in the original Alien: the people, the suspense and the cinematography. All of it was just so freaking great, and elegant, and beautiful, and effective and, and, AND---
• This vision of a banged-up and dirty, commercial and uncertain future with realistic characters and corrupt corporations is entrancing and relatable. Alien's space is a familiar and busy thorough-way for humans, but it's not tamed, still hostile by nature. Also, this is where you see Ripley not as an already-made tough cookie, but as someone who is in the process of stepping up to the plate. She becomes Ripley, that Ripley, right in front of you and Weaver made it so incredible. I could gush for pages.
• The crew was just such a great mix, and the casting was very inspired. They were written to be unisex and cast as men or women later. I loved that some of them complain about money and are with the union, that the android has this slightly misfit vibe from the start, that the captain hates conflict, that the emotional and scared Lambert is essentially the audience, etc. They mesh, they are memorable, and I couldn't imagine every single one of the missing from the script.
• The terrifyingly beautiful xenomorph art is made by a Swiss artist Hans Ruedi Giger who has a museum in the town of Gruyeres where the famous and best :p Swiss cheese is made.
• This is a cool 30-min retrospective on the making of Alien: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tm-JBUCS9rA --- who knew the chest-bursting dinner scene was a surprise for the cast? their shock is genuine!
• In short: a masterpiece + my overly invested and growing tumblr tag
♥
42. A heist movie: Hell or High Water (2016)
• A divorced father and his ex-con older brother resort to a desperate scheme in order to save their family's ranch in West Texas. | with Chris Pine, Ben Foster, and Jeff Bridges
• I was so sure this would be some shoot-'em-up crap for the 2nd Amendment crowd, but it was really well-done, funny and sadly, too real and close to home. This is America Europeans or tourists don't know about. Income inequality, outlaw spirit and dark humor, well-spotted race dynamics without being made into an issue, decent country music, delicious acting by everyone, sun-beaten Texas plains from horizon to horizon: this movie delivered.
• In short: a neo-western with a heart | funny, but with a side of tragic violence
♥
51. A movie chosen for you by another player : What About Bob? (1991)
• A successful psychotherapist loses his mind after one of his most dependent patients, an obsessive-compulsive neurotic, tracks him down during his family vacation. | with Bob Murray and Richard Dreyfuss
• This movie could have taken a shortcut to slapstick and obviousness, but instead, it kept making the right choices. It kept the laugh-outloud jokes and touching moments coming, and it left me feeling HAPPY. We never NOT care about Bob, no matter how objectively over the top clingy or phobic he can be. He's a darling and he's trying! so! hard! Bill Murray gave it all his magic, and I couldn't shake off the feeling I was watching something special. And of course, it's quotable x 1,000,000, Neil Diamond!
• Physically, Dreyfuss could be my former boss' twin brother - and my former boss has a PhD in Psychology, so this serendipity was priceless :D
• In short: this movie is a gift for when you're down
thank you, Peri ♥♥♥
Movie of the month ♥♥♥:
• Alien (1979) - so much more than the thing in the title!
| 2017 movie challenge|
