nope

(rather than on your phone or something)

never ever


but yeah i'm interested in The Lighthouse, didn't actually know it was a horror movie though

Wow Verby, I didn’t expect you to care about the oscars, the oscars mean absolutely nothing, it's just a big meaningless circlejerk, I thought you only watch meaningful things

gives me something to do on a sunday evening

also gives me an excuse to watch a bunch of really good movies that aren't meaningless

The Oscar nominations were just announced, I'm gonna try watching all of them this time. For every film I see, I'll update the thread with my thoughts on it, especially with respect to what it was nominated for.

---

Films nominated for a "big five" award (either best picture, director, actor, actress, and/or screenplay):

☐ Ford v Ferrari
☑ The Irishman
☐ Jojo Rabbit
☑ Joker
☑ Little Women
☑ Marriage Story
☑ 1917
☑ Once Upon a Time in Hollywood
☑ Parasite
☐ Pain and Glory
☑ The Two Popes
☐ Harriet
☐ Bombshell
☐ Judy
☑ Knives Out

Films nominated for other shit:

☐ A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood
☐ Richard Jewell
☐ How to Train Your Dragon: The Hidden World
☑ I Lost My Body
☑ Klaus
☐ Missing Link
☑ Toy Story 4
☐ Les Misérables
☐ Honeyland
☐ Corpus Christi
☑ American Factory
☐ The Cave
☑ The Edge of Democracy
☑ For Sama
☑ In the Absence
☐ Learning to Skateboard in a Warzone (If You're a Girl)
☑ Life Overtakes Me
☐ St. Louis Superman
☐ Walk Run Cha-Cha
☐ Brotherhood
☐ Nefta Football Club
☐ The Neighbor's Window
☐ Saria
☐ A Sister
☐ Dcera (Daughter)
☑ Hair Love
☐ Kitbull
☐ Memorable
☐ Sister
☑ Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker
☑ Rocketman
☐ Breakthrough
☐ Frozen II
☐ Ad Astra
☐ The Lighthouse
☐ Maleficent: Mistress of Evil
☑ Avengers: Endgame
☑ The Lion King

Looks like I have a lot of work to do.

---

Here, I'll just briefly go over the few films I've already seen:

The Irishman

Unsurprisingly, this was a great movie. Martin Scorsese is my 2nd favorite director, and I'm almost always pleased with his output. While it does tread around some familiar gangster movie territory, its deliberate pace and slow-burning approach to its storytelling helps it stand out—not to mention its epic 3h30m runtime. It's probably Scorsese's most grounded and mature film, too. Like, if you're under the age of 20, you'll probably find this movie boring as fuck. I think it requires a lot of perspective to fully appreciate, which is to say that I probably don't even fully appreciate it myself. I mean, we're essentially dealing with the affairs of a bunch of very old men from a bygone era, so there's layers to how disconnected I am from this kind of story, being a young person who doesn't know what it's like to feel overcome by my own waning mortality. I can only imagine what it's like, and for what it's worth, it's palpable and scary, and the film explores these emotions beautifully.

Even putting its themes aside, it's still such a treat to see legendary actors like De Niro, Pacino, and even Pesci come out of the woodwork to give it their all for (perhaps) the last time in their careers, if not their lives. As far as general entertainment value, I wouldn't necessarily put this film on the level of Goodfellas, Casino, or even The Wolf of Wall Street, but it's still a remarkable achievement, and I wouldn't complain if it won almost any of the awards it was nominated for... except for visual effects, I guess. They weren't the best. The de-aging effects are impressive, but you can still tell how old the actors really are by their movements, and Robert De Niro's contact lenses were so unnaturally bright-looking at times that it was honestly a little distracting.

Joe Pesci, though. Give that man an Oscar. We're never gonna see him again after this.

Overall, I'd give this an 8/10. For perspective, I'd probably give Casino a 9/10, and Goodfellas a 10/10.

Joker

This movie was cool, but I don't know if I'd consider it to be "best picture" material. Joaquin Phoenix could definitely walk away with an Oscar for his performance, and I'd be happy about that, but there's not much else about this movie that stood out to me as anything worth celebrating. It has a really cool tone and look to it, I suppose. The distinctly gritty aesthetic was more tasteful than Zack Snyder's idea of grit, and the quick outbursts of intense violence broken up between softer and quieter moments of introspection were pretty refreshing to see in a comic book movie.

Ultimately, my biggest problem with the film is that it's basically just Taxi Driver combined with The King of Comedy. That isn't a problem in and of itself—inspiration breeds creativity, and Scorsese is a wonderful director to take inspiration from—but instead of using these two films as a springboard for new ideas, I can't help but feel like they've been used a crutch to actively avoid needing any new ideas. Much of the film's entertainment value, as a result, is carried by Joaquin and his fantastic performance.

This movie is a 7/10 for me, which feels a bit generous, but 6/10 feels too harsh, so I'll just go for a 7/10. It's an impressive job and a likable effort coming from the guy who directed the Hangover movies, which I despise.

Marriage Story

If you have Netflix, and you're into some heavily emotional and dialogue-driven dramas, I highly recommend that you check this one out. The title is ironic; it's actually more of a divorce story, and it's a fairly captivating one at that. Adam Driver and Scarjo give two utterly fantastic performances—some would even say the best of the year, which I can't corroborate yet, because I haven't seen that many 2019 movies. What I will say is that they're the two best performances I've seen in years—at least, for this type of movie.

The screenplay is incredible. Both parties are equally sympathetic, with their respective sides of the story being given equal consideration and weight. You may find yourself siding with one of the two characters in the end, but you won't find yourself rooting against the other at any point. On top of this compelling narrative, we're provided with this remarkably poignant commentary on the state of marriage in the US, and how soul-crushing, bureaucratic, and Kafkaesque the divorce procedure can be—and, without spoiling anything, there does naturally come a point where it all explodes, and I have to say that it's probably my favorite singular scene from the few movies I've watched so far. You'll know it when you see it.

This is not the kind of film I normally watch, but here I am, giving it a strong review and recommendation. This is an 8/10, go watch it if you're interested.

Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker

Despite the fact that I'm the only person in the universe who truly understands Star Wars, I really honestly couldn't give a fuck less about it at this point. The thought of giving a Star Wars movie any kind of praise from an artistic standpoint is kind of laughable to me, because it's always been nothing more than a silly cartoon, but this movie is only nominated for its score and visual effects anyway, so whatever I guess.

This movie was pretty stupid, but entertainingly so. JJ Abrams played it safe as we all expected him to, which was boring, but every time there was a stupid twist (and there were like, five of them), I had a big smile on my face, like, "Sure! Let's go with that!" and that was my takeaway. I guess I would've preferred a more serious attempt at a movie, like The Last Jedi, but I have real movies for that.

That said, the visual effects were typical Star Wars fare, and John Williams kinda phoned it in, like he has been doing for this entire trilogy. I fucking love John Williams, but he has enough Oscars at this point, and I really don't think he put in the effort to deserve another one.

I give this movie a 6/10 for what it is, although it probably deserves a bit lower. I'll never see it again to find out. My feelings on the franchise as a whole are ultimately negative, no thanks to the fans who wouldn't let me enjoy my prequels in peace until Disney showed up, but I think the new trilogy is still my favorite of the three trilogies (which isn't really saying a lot).

Avengers: Endgame

This movie was fun... at times, but it wasn't nearly as fun as Infinity War. It was kind of a dizzying mess, in fact, which lost it a lot of points for me, but it's only nominated for visual effects, which is a category I couldn't really care less about. I like it when visual effects are used to make a movie look stylish and distinctive, and not necessarily photorealistic. I'm not impressed by photorealism anymore, and I don't think I ever really was.

In general, superhero movies are about in the same realm as Star Wars for me, unless they're going for a more adult approach, and there haven't really been any Marvel movies made for adults yet (Deadpool doesn't count, because Deadpool is for manchildren, and Logan is at the tail-end of a long-running series of films I don't give a fuck about).

I don't really know what to rate this movie. Probably a 6/10? It did the bare minimum for me, as far as I'm concerned, and that's to just keep me from being completely bored, but it was also kind of annoying at times, especially with how they turned Thor into a fat drunk, except they won't put any fat on Chris Hemsworth's beautiful face, because we can't allow people to think he's unattractive now or something. It was cool that they embraced the stupidity of their time travel system, I guess, but it also made Thanos as boring as he was in all of his previous cameos. It's just such a weird, weird mixed bag of a movie, and it's impossible to watch unless you've seen 500 other movies. The fact that I was able to myself makes me feel kinda gross. I guess by rating it a 6/10, I get to keep my personal bias in check.

All right, that's it for now I guess. I gotta see more shit. The Two Popes, I Lost My Body, Klaus, American Factory, The Edge of Democracy, Life Overtakes Me, and Brotherhood are all on Netflix, so I guess I'll start with those.

still on vacation for another week

Quote from: CMD.exe on January 05, 2020, 04:07:19 PM

Quote from: Verbatim on January 04, 2020, 11:35:24 AM

ON THE BRIGHT SIDE

Spoiler

Spoiler

Both found on the same day. What is HAPPENING

What in the Fffffffffuck is a dynamax level?

just how much HP/attack/defense the pokemon will have when dynamaxed

Just HP, actually

it's kinda silly and superfluous tbh, given how easy it is to max it out

Quote from: Verbatim on January 05, 2020, 10:48:46 AM

i'm sure this was a completely unbiased close reading done in good faith with no preconceived notions whatsoever

I don’t know man
An ideology that’s killed millions tends to leave a bad taste

how could it have killed anybody when it was never implemented

ON THE BRIGHT SIDE


Both found on the same day. What is HAPPENING

Quote from: maverick on January 03, 2020, 01:34:34 AM

hmmmmmmmmmm

That impeachment can't come soon enough. Just kick him out already, please.

we have to tendency to reelect incumbent presidents during times of war

this is quite ungood

oh my god it's fucking over

since i'm not really happy with my answers, i thought it might be more interesting to go over each year individually

Video games (take most of this with a grain of salt):
2010 - I still need to play a ton of shit from this year, like New Vegas, Mass Effect 2, Mario Galaxy 2, Red Dead Redemption, and a bunch of other shit. I barely played anything at all, really, but I've been trying to get into Nier lately. I guess my tentative answer would be Donkey Kong Country Returns, but that's barely a 7/10 game.
2011 - Dark Souls.
2012 - Spec Ops: The Line.
2013 - I haven't played The Last of Us yet, which feels like a requirement before I could propose anything else, but nothing else that came out this year really caught my eye. Pokémon X and Y were pretty neat, I guess. Not my favorites, though.
2014 - It would still have to be Smash 4, I guess, even though that game has obsolesced something terrible.
2015 - Undertale. Still need to play The Witcher and Bloodborne, but I highly doubt it'll matter.
2016 - I don't fucking know. Superhot? Hardly played anything. I genuinely liked No Man's Sky, so I'll probably lock that one in just because it has the highest potential to trigger somebody. Don't give a fuck about Doom or Overwatch. I've heard Dark Souls III is basically just the first game again, which doesn't have me too excited over it. The Witness looks cool.
2017- Breath of the Wild.
2018 - Smash Ultimate. I feel like a bit of an asshole having Smash here twice, but I can't lie to myself. There was nothing in 2014 that I had a better time with than Smash 4, and there was certainly nothing in 2018 that was better than Smash Ultimate. I wish I could put something different here, but I can't.
2019 - Haven't played anything but Pokémon Shield, and that sure as fuck isn't my choice. I got Death Stranding for Christmas, and I can already tell it's going to be something I really enjoy, but whether I'll consider it GotY material has yet to be seen.

So yeah, I'm firmly set on Dark Souls for GotD, with Breath of the Wild as a close runner-up, followed by Undertale.

Movies:
2010 - Black Swan or The Social Network. Can't decide right now, but I'm leaning on Black Swan. At the time, I would've said something like Kick-Ass or Scott Pilgrim, which I still love, but my tastes have matured a lot since then.
2011 - If I don't double up on my David Fincher, my favorite director, and say The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, I'm gonna have to put Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2, and I don't really wanna do that.
2012 - I think I'll go with Wreck-It Ralph here. I recently rewatched it, because I'm trying to watch every film in Disney's animated canon, and I actually liked it even more than when I was 16 or 17.
2013 - The Wolf of Wall Street. Otherwise, I also loved Prisoners and 12 Years a Slave.
2014 - Gone Girl. This year was fucking stacked, though. Whiplash, Birdman, The Lego Movie, Nightcrawler, etc... Holy shit.
2015 - The Revenant or Mad Max: Fury Road. I could go either way depending on my mood. The Hateful Eight rocked, too.
2016 - Barely saw anything this year. I can default to Scorsese with Silence, I guess, but I don't feel too strongly about that one. I'd like to see Arrival, just because you can't go wrong with Villeneuve.
2017 - Blade Runner 2049, speaking of. I don't even like the original movie that much.
2018 - Infinity War gave me the most fun theater experience I've had since Fury Road. It's not the best movie of that year, but it's what I'm putting for now just because.
2019 - There's a lot of stuff I need to catch up on (story of my life) but The Irishman was unsurprisingly very good.

Out of all these, my top 3 would have to be Gone Girl, The Revenant, and Black Swan.

Not gonna bother with albums. Most of the shit I've heard from this decade has been filtered through Anthony Fantano, and I don't want to just regurgitate his year-end lists. The Powers That B is still my favorite, but that's super subject to change. I've really come to appreciate just how much ass that new Daughters album kicks, though.

casper tries to be a little milo yiannopoulos

I know and sort of agree with what you're getting at, but I don't think cartoon is the right word. I think "campy" is a better term. Star Wars is very cliche and campy but I think when it is done well, it can be endearing and fun.

i guess i just don't understand where the newer movies failed to do that well

there's certainly a difference in tone--later in that stuckmann review, he used the term "Marvel-y" to describe certain scenes in TRoS, which is something i actually agree with a lot

but at the same time, i don't dislike that the three trilogies do not all feel the same, because this is a new era, and if i want to watch the OT, i'll watch the OT (although i never want to watch the OT)

the biggest criticism of the new trilogy that i can accept right now is that the three films do not cohere as well as the previous two trilogies did

Quote from: Verbatim on December 20, 2019, 04:17:26 PM

TLJ is the only good star wars movie

cringe

i choose to say soda even though everyone in my region calls it pop