Never Let Me Go

IMDB
First time viewed: No
Current Release: No
Watched With: Tyler, Michael

Write Up.

What a sweet little film.

Brick

IMDB
First time viewed: No
Current Release: No
Watched With: Tyler

Write Up.

Yeah, I still think this is Rian Johnson's best film.

My Dinner with Andre

IMDB
First time viewed: Yes
Current Release: No
Watched With: Myself

In the tradition of We Bought a Zoo and Snakes on a Plane, a film with everything you need to know, right there in the title. It really is just Wallace Shawn and Andre Gregory meeting up and having a dinner conversation. I thought there might be some trick to it, but that's really all it is. Sometimes I found it engaging, there were some interesting ideas and stories and sometimes my interest waned. But I get the reference in that episode of Community now.

Death Ship

IMDB
First time viewed: Yes
Current Release: No
Watched With: Myself

Hah, shlocky stuff. Doesn't quite hold up. Some very basic spooky goings on, killing off the cast one by one. Evil Nazi ship needs blood to operate. To what ends is not discussed. They do there best to create atmosphere with edits and music but it doesn't really work. Still, it's pretty fun.

Texas Killing Fields

IMDB
First time viewed: Yes
Current Release: Yes
Watched With: Myself

Just trying to squeeze in a few film that slipped by from the start of the year before I compile my list. It's such a huge list though. And I think there's a reason why I skipped a lot of them. This one has an eclectic cast but really was pretty run of the mill. And considering the title it would have been nice if some of the lead characters had or could maintain a Texan accent.

Monsters

IMDB
First time viewed: No
Current Release: No
Watched With: Naomi, Tyler

Write Up.

I see Gareth Edwards is now making the new Godzilla film. Nice.

Take Shelter

IMDB
First time viewed: No
Current Release: No
Watched With: Tyler, Naomi

Write Up.

A nice apocalyptic psycho-therapy drama double with Melancholia. Cool soundtrack after all the Wagner too. Great film.

Melancholia

IMDB
First time viewed: No
Current Release: No
Watched With: Tyler, Naomi

Write Up.

This one just keeps growing in my estimation.

W.E.

IMDB
First time viewed: Yes
Current Release: Yes
Watched With: Myself

Madonna makes another film. I didn't see her first effort. This one's not technically to shabby though. But the story and structure are. Ultimately I'm not sure what you're supposed to take away from this.

Piranha

IMDB
First time viewed: No
Current Release: No
Watched With: Tyler

The original film, now out on bluray. Joe Dante's shlocky and hilarious Jaws rip-off. Love the noise they make as they swarm. So silly.

The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey

IMDB
First time viewed: Yes
Current Release: Yes
Watched With: Mum, Naomi, Tyler, Paul, Jess, Jim, Marcus, Aaron

Hard to talk about the film through all the noise made about the high frame rate. Even within our own group it was very divisive. I'm still deciding what I thought about it. I'll have to go see it again first. Some parts I liked though, Some part I didn't as much. I think everyone has the wrong Idea about it though, I would worry less about there being more frames and more that Jackson had to shoot that frame rate with such a large shutter angle so the cut down to 24 looks normal. I think if he was able to shoot at 48 without all that motion blur that makes it look like it's in fast forward at the beginning, it could still look a bit more filmic. Anyway I got used to it after a while, and I thought the 3d blended all the CG creatures in with live action magnificently.

A film of many beginnings. After everything I heard and knowing Jackson's penchant for embellishment I had expected the dwarfs arrival at bad end to go one twice as long as it actually did. And once they were on the road, I was back in middle earth and loving it, could have happily stayed there for another 3 hours. But that's just me, everyone else had a problem with the length.

Yeah, Radagast feels superfluous but I guess they had to introduce their added necromancer plot that pads out the other films somehow. And that's the annoying thing about his film, you get tiny glimpses of everything that's to come but the only closure in film one is a rather forced point of wether or not Thorin believes in Bilbo. Perhaps Fellowship being our introduction to the whole world made it more satisfying but even so I think it had a stronger ending.

The real problem is the stakes in the Hobbit are not nearly as consequential or immediate as Lord of the Rings. Maybe that will change with the Necromancer plot in later films but for now it's just some fun action and some more fantastic world to explore.

Lee Pace! Only in a few shots, but man, that guy's getting around now, jumping from franchise to franchise. And we got more of Flight of the Concords' Bret McKenzie as an elf. Barry Humphries as the goblin king was quite fun too. It's cool the got Christopher Lee in there. Was he shot with the others or on greenscreen and inserted in? I'll have to find out. Same goes for Ian Holm.

They outdid the fellowship shot of Gandalf and Bilbo in the hobbit hole, selling the scale differences. That was always my favourite fx shot where the pass each other the hat and cane. The intro shot in this film is much longer and far more complicated what with all the dwarfs running around. And in 3D. But  it really sells the scale differences. Amazing. I'll watch the film again just to see that shot.

Les Misérables

IMDB
First time viewed: No
Current Release: Yes
Watched With: Mum, Naomi, Marianne, Paul, Jess, Jim, Cicely, Froud, Felicity

Write Up.

Wow everyone just HATES Russell Crowe. I didn't think he was all that bad? Eh.

The Cabin in the Woods

IMDB
First time viewed: No
Current Release: Yes
Watched With: Mum

Non-Spoiler write up here.

Slightly more in-depth write up here.

My perfect christmas day movie of course. Unfortunately we had to stop halfway through when relatives dropped over so we only finished it today. No ideal at all, really kills it. But nice to finally show the folks what I was talking about this whole year...

Bullhead

IMDB
First time viewed: Yes
Current Release: Yes
Watched With: Myself

A slow build drama, some intense moments of suggested violence and a very intriguing main character. And a live cow gets a c-section, wasn't expecting to see that.

I had a problem with pacing at the beginning, but it all servers a purpose I guess. They do the ol' bait and switch. The film begins as a meat mafia deal gone bad but slowly through the course of the film as we get to know the past of our lead character and things become more personal it becomes a character study against this thematic backdrop of animal abuse.

It's visually quite stunning. Beautifully photographed. The leads all give great performances. I thought it might have been a struggle to get through but it won me over in the end with this great tragic story arc.

Quartet

IMDB
First time viewed: Yes
Current Release: Yes
Watched With: Myself

Well, it his all the story structure beats as something like, say, Pitch Perfect, but it feels much classier, for a few reasons. Here, our subject is opera singing. Instead of a cast of American teens we get cream of the crop of the British octogenarian thespians. The film also manages to be much more subtle about how it hits all those story beats, so it flows quite naturally.

I thought some of it might have actually been too subtle, there was plenty more drama to be milked out of these situations. But Dustin Hoffman, directing his first feature, and screenwriter Ronald Harwood, who's adapting his own play, seem to be content to leave things on the level instead of going over the top, which makes for an easily palatable experience but not a particularly memorable one.

Still, it's sometimes great to just watch these guys chew the scenery.