Checked Silver Streak yesterday but got totally disappointed. The movie seriously drags, the cast didn't move me and the storyline is just stupid. Gene Wilder for instance falls in love with a woman, but this has no buildup and just quickly happens, he gets thrown out of the train 3 times. The jokes are also really shitty of the time and I'm not hard to please in general, which is saying much.

the one i love. loved it even more than coherence.

Birdman - 5/5

An unforgettable, bizarre and idiosyncratic comedy that's really not like anything you've ever seen - it's one of a kind. Story about an actor whose career is stagnating after a burst of fame playing a superhero years and years ago trying to reclaim some notoriety by directing a Broadway play. Really quite ingenious commentary on the filmmaking business, acting and art in general. What I took from this was the sense that lead actor Michael Keaton (whose casting was not a random choice)'s character is baring his whole self naked for the world to see with his art, taking a risk - there's a reason there are several scenes of him walking around in public in his underwear. That's really what the film is about; the method of an artist in creating art and the response from the public. It's a dark comedy though and has a lot of satirical bits too on the modern Hollywood culture and celebrity. Rounded out by an excellent supporting cast including Ed Norton and Emma Stone, and complete with the most insane directing camera-style I've seen all year, this is a delight to watch and was constantly challenging me - I never knew what was going to happen next and it continually kept me on my toes. There's also just this real passion and insanity and urgency to this bleeding from every scene and every line, and it's addictive. This is a masterpiece and I think it's going to be movie of the year.

Snowpiercer was pretty great, although the last half hour or so got annoyingly heavy-handed. Otherwise strong acting, fun action set pieces, and a very unique and original design to the train's many cars.

Whiplash was fucking fantastic - easily one of the most intense films of the year (more so than Fury oddly enough...maybe war bores me now). My heart was POUNDING during the final scenes. Absolutely amazing story, you'll laugh, you'll cheer, you'll want to join in calling Miles Teller a faggot. Oh so good.

Birdman was also hella good and Emp describes a lot of the great stuff about it. Dunno if it will be my movie of the year, but I can't think of any contenders besides Whiplash that even come close.

It's tough, man. The others that approached movie of the year for me so far include Boyhood, Men Women and Children, Obvious Child and Nightcrawler - lots of good stuff and there's still more I need to see.

OH YEAH. For whatever reason, I forgot Boyhood and Nightcrawler - haven't seen the latter yet...and thought the former was last year for whatever reason. Obvious Child was super good, but I dunno if it'll be up there in the end.

Men, Women and Children is probably the most serious challenger to Birdman for me actually - Jason Reitman's most accomplished film yet and an incredible epic of size and scope that talks about the Internet and technology - it's a movie that talks about daily life today, right now, and I think it's very important. I didn't even know what to make of it when I saw it, so I didn't even have a post in here about it, but yeah.

MOTY for me would still be The Grand Budapest Hotel but Birdman indeed looks like a superb movie but it only plays in 2 theaters in Montréal and can't be arsed to go see it right now, same for Boyhood.

A mainstream top but these were the high caliber movies I really liked in the theater.
1. TGBH
2. Guardians of the Galaxy (that I'll rewatch soon)
3. Interstellar
Edge of Tomorrow
How to train your dragon 2
X Men DOFP

Thoughts on Chef (2014) and Only Lovers Left Alive (2013), guys? I'm using the university's wifi to download a bunch of shit like Mud, Snowpiercer, Begin Again, Magic Mike, True Detective and the aforementioned two movies.

Interstellar was one of your top movies?

That's literally what I just wrote, glad you've noticed! I also wrote my thoughts on it when it came out.

Gone Girl and Fault in Our Stars are my favorite "mainstream" films of the year so far, and Mockingjay Pt. 1 will probably be at least pretty good - though I hate, hate, hate the whole "split into 2 movies" thing, ugh.

Guardians of the Galaxy and the new X-Men were good but I'm trying to steer away from putting superhero movies on my end-of-year list at all, this time. Grand Budapest I still have to see.

Does Netflix in Canada not have Mud and Snowpiercer on Instant? Cause it does in the US.

I've been too poor to hit the cinemas this year, really. The only movies I was able to get out and see were Oculus and Edge of Tomorrow (both of which were great, by the way).

I just meant...why? Why would it be anyone's top movie? It was okay but just...no. It's a mess.
Dude, Empyreal, you have to see Grand Budapest Hotel. It's legitimately one of the best looking movies I've ever seen and it's got so much charm.

I don't have Netflix unfortunately (or fortunately for my capped bandwith at home), I download movies and stream them on my PS3.

Fault in Our Stars, really? This looks like a sappy teen drama. And I explained why I liked Interstellar, Necro, come on, bitch!

TFIOS is about kids with cancer, so I dunno your mileage but it's definitely not just sappy or only for teens. The book was great and the movie was basically the same thing put on screen, with really amazing performances and a great soundtrack, etc.

Budapest didn't look very good to me but I've heard nothing but good things - and I did love Moonrise Kingdom.

It's by far the best Wes Anderson movie (I'm not even close to being a fan.) Also yeah, we don't have Snowpiercer and Mud in Canada and they've been taking a lot of measures to make it a lot more difficult to get American Netflix. Snowpiercer is like a 6/10. And it gets that 6 strictly for it's ideas and Tilda Swinton. Mud looks like the slowest movie ever and I bet modern McConaughey is super sweaty the whole time in it, like he seems to be in all his recent movies. Dude is just drenched all the time.

Mud isn't really that slow. It's a bit laid back but it's a fun movie and I thought it was pretty good all the way through. Not the best McConaghuey performance (definitely no Killer Joe/Paperboy) but it was a really enjoyable, lighthearted sort of flick.

I really want to see Joe, and also Boyhood. But Boyhood is such a time investment and after movies like Interstellar (I dislike this movie the more I actually think about it and the visual spectacle has faded), Nightcrawler (which is the opposite, and my second favourite movie of the year. The favourite right now remaining Grand Budapest Hotel), and Captain America: The Winter Soldier. I just want to watch something short and to the point. On Captain America, I thought it had some cool idea but I think I'm just completely over superhero movies. Guardians of the Galaxy was the exception. Winter Soldier felt like it was 3 hours long and really not all that much happened, Cap is a boring ass superhero, the villains weren't great, the lipstick and makeup on Chris Evans/Ken from Barbie was just distracting etc.

Winter Soldier was better than the first movie but I thought it was a half assed "spy" movie which wasn't sure if it was trying to be bombastic or stealthy. Civil War will be awesome though simply because it will actually have an interesting character with RDJ's Iron Man. The only really positive factor I see with CA:TWS is that it made Agents of SHIELD a very decent show (2nd half of the 1st season, 2nd season.)

I really liked it. Damn cool movie, also in the more literal sense of that adjective. Cast, soundtrack, visuals, it's all cool. Plot-wise, it may not seem like that much is happening when you consider the premise and the characters. Many things are downright mundane -though with an immortal, seen-it-all vampire twist to it-, but that doesn't work against it. It's just a wonderful snapshot, great mix of a good story and creating a passionate-yet-understated sort of atmosphere/feel. (if that makes any sense)


My thoughts on Snowpiercer can be found earlier in this thread. Mud I quite enjoyed too, couldn't find fault with the pacing. Though it's not nearly as enjoyable as Killer Joe.

Because it was awesome? The plot was a little messy, sure, especially toward the end, but it was a feast for the eyes and ears and the acting was great too. It's easily the best-looking movie I've seen in quite a while (although I haven't seen Budapest Hotel yet and I am generally a Wes Anderson fan).

That's your opinion. Just as it's darkeningday's opinion that Christian Bale is the worst big name actor and Rian Johnson is astonishingly awful.

You rated Premium Rush a 6 which was tonally a mess and the comedy didn't work, not to mention no established reason to care about the main character who's essentially a smart mouthed thrill-seeker who barely reacts to the danger he's in, and a phoned in performance from Michael Shannon, and gave Looper a 3 with non-valid reasons, so in my opinion you're not exactly the best indicator of quality.

It's simple, Premium Rush was dumb but it didn't aspire to greatness and was moderately entertaining. Looper was just retarded bullshit that aspired to be something and failed at it in every way.

You keep saying that but your whole sentence of non-explanation isn't convincing anyone.

The Rainmaker sounds intriguing, right? Too bad all you get is a little kid screaming. Emily Blunt seems like she's going to be a strong characte, right? Nope, she immediately falls in love with Gordon Levitt for no apparent reason. It dragged and dragged with not enough happening to justify the self-indulgent runtime. JGL does his best Bruce Willis impersonation but it's cringe inducing and his makeup is beyond awful. Bruce Willis is just there because they needed an action star and has maybe 20 lines of dialogue. Every character is annoying. It's got a smidgen of originality and the rest of it's tropes are more well worn than fedoras at a Mackelmore concert. Do you need more?

Yes, I'd like to know which movie you watched instead of Looper, because that certainly doesn't describe what I saw.

It honestly just seems to me like science-fiction fans lower their usual standards considerably when it comes to the genre.

There was nothing wrong with the love story element and at no point did I even think that it was unnecessary, and Bruce Willis having to murder children was different to the usual bad guys vs good guys shoot 'em up but made alot of sense given his desperate circumstances and having time travel, 'bad make-up and non accurate Bruce Willis impersonation' as a genuine complaint - WTF? That's entirely a nitpick. The Rainmaker was interesting because of the mystery surrounding who he was, the fact the kid was shown instead aided to that because of 'what could become', perfectly suited for the theme of time travel. The fact he wasn't shown as an adult added an allure of mystery to the entire film. The runtime was suitable and felt appropriate for each scene, scenes going for 20 seconds may be your type of bag but I happen to like mildy drawn out scenes once in awhile. Not sure how you'd survive a Stanley Kubrick film, honestly.

Are you trying to come across as a douchebag? Because you sound like a gigantic douchebag right now.

For real, pretty douchey.

Looper was awesome, btw.

I don't know how I sleep at night. And yeah Volute, it's not like Clockwork Orange and The Shining are some of my favourite movies and I lament the quick cut nature of most modern action films. Oh well, moving on.

I thought it was already established that Necro was a pretentious douche?

Thanks for the thoughts Azmodes, I'll watch everything and come back with my opinion. I was watching Chef before the hockey game and it's pretty good, I love Jon Favreau and food so it's a good combination. It has an all star cast with many John Leguizamo, Sofia Vergara, Scarlett Johansson plus RDJ and Dustin Hoffman with small parts.

Same. It's a growing trend unfortunately, Divergent, Avengers, Fast and Furious, Guardians of the Galaxy 2 probably, anything that has more than one film. Every end film gets the two parter treatment now because we all know how good The Matrix: Reloaded and Revolutions worked.

It's quickly replacing 3D as the new gimmick to get more money out of the audience.

Yeah, it's a shame because Catching Fire was about as close to a work of cinematic art as a YA novel movie can get, but I'm guessing the studio forced them to do it this way - all about the cash flow, ya know, because one mega-seller movie isn't enough.

I'm especially sore because Mockingjay is really one of my favorite novels.

My company is making everyone on our entire job site watch Mockingjay this friday. I could give less than a shit about the series so I'm sleeping in the theater.

What kind of a place do you work at where they'd make you go watch a movie about teenagers being murdered and an oppressive government in the future?

Haha yeah man, I dunno. The Hunger Games movies aren't really bad or anything (other than Pita or Naan or whatever his name is being an insufferable wuss all the goddamn time) but it's a bit baffling to me that people are praising them as great works of art or something. Solid 3/5, "you won't tear your eyeballs out!" movies, but I just don't understand where the passion comes from.

A major aerospace company here in Redmond. We work (pretty much) on Microsoft's campus. Our HR lead also joked about it today in a corporate meeting. Well over half of the employees are +40 year old south east asians that don't watch anything remotely close to movies like this.

Hunger Games was an ok movie, Catching Fire on the other hand I thought was absolutely fantastic minus a few issues I had with the casting. I'm not too happy with the decision to split Mocking Jay into two movies because it's just a cash grab. I'll still see them though

I really liked the books though so I feel a bit more connected to the movies than I would if I hadn't read them.