(spoilers!)The Hateful Eight, Tarantino's eight movie, is a fine film. While it is too long and it's last 60 minutes are significantly better than the first 100, it's still a fine film. It will keep you entertained, it has moments of sheer brilliance (Daisy playing on the guitar comes to mind) and good performances by talented actors, with Leigh stealing the show and Channing Tatum yet again delivering very strong work in spite of short screentime. In spite of a very long running time - nearly 3 hours - the film is never boring. In fact parts of it are really masterful.
While my awards in this season will be later than usual - thank you for releasing The Revenant as late as January 29th :/ - I can start already because I'm assuming other than some mind blowing promos for the Oscar films that are gonna drop soon there won't be any new, potentially amazing, trailers. Some of the trailers released this year like "Krampus" and "The Nice Guys" informed me of existence of those movies and made me wanna see them, some like "Hail Cesar" used amazing music and some like "The Hateful Eight" trailers just didn't click for me. I'm also making that list because recently Playlist published theirs and The Revenant was FOURTH. I almost puked in my mouth when I saw that.
Justin Kurzel's Macbeth, which is one of the most cinematic Shakespearean works, opens with the still shot of a dead child laying on the ground, surrounded by heather. The film's tone is set from the very start - as raw, grim and filled with great sadness. This is a dark, bloody affair and an unpleasant one too.
Yeah, so this is awkward - I didn't have the time to recap the episode last Thursday and then I kinda forgot to recap it. But I warned you it may happen. So we are doing the double feature today.
(spoilers!)
Stephen Daldry's The Hours and Tom Ford's A Single Man are both beautiful movies dealing with the subject of loneliness. The first follows three women, each living in different time, but each of them hopelessly stuck in their lives. The second shows a day of a man who lost his lover and is set on killing himself.
The Oscar season is almost upon us so I thought it would be fun to assemble a list of my winners in 5 big categories. I originally wanted to just share the list but once I started to write about these movies and performances the post grew so much I had to split it into three. So here is the second one with my winners for Best Picture and best performances between 2009 and 2005:
The Oscar season is almost upon us so I thought it would be fun to assemble a list of my winners in 5 big categories. I originally wanted to just share the list but once I started to write about these movies and performances the post grew so much I had to split it into three. So here is the first one with my winners for Best Picture and best performances between 2010 and 2015. 2015 picks are likely to change but at this point I just want to praise these performances. Fury Road is safe where it is, though.
Queen of Earth is a cryptic, difficult movie. I've seen a lot of movies depicting the mental collapse - because of my own experiences with it, it's comforting to see the people on screen go through similar things. Black Swan and Mulholland Drive occupy the highest places in my all time favorite list. Repulsion follows close. Queen of Earth is not on the level of those movies, the director's vision not as clear, the movie not as mysterious and rewatchable, but it definitely portrays the decay of mind in a very insightful and fascinating way.
Oh my! How long I waited - ever since the movie premiered at Sundance and got amazing reviews it has become my most anticipated film to come. But then the rights went to A24, which is so bad at marketing movies, and then it was a chain of more disappointments - months without screenings, no new reviews, no trailer or even a poster.
Wendell over at 
Marvel's reign over what seems to be the entire world - they have been getting our attention and our money for years now - has recently started to become a bit shaky. Age of Ultron, sequel to their most profitable movie yet, Avengers was disappointing. Not financially, of course, but the reception was underwhelming. And who can blame the people who were let down - Ultron repeated the sin of formulaic storyline, bland villain and frankly it was just bizarre. I mean what the hell was up with the"hey kids, gather around and we will tell you about that time Black Widow's ovaries got removed!" thing?
Yes! finally, the best out of the trailers that leaked from Comic Con is available in high quality - the footage for David Ayer's Suicide Squad.
Gillian Flynn's books are a dream material for movie makers. At least they should be, but for some reason the hype and the fame in Hollywood that accompanied Flynn when Gone Girl was released last year appears to be something that sparkled too much, very briefly and intensely, and died. She is reportedly doing HBO series with Fincher, but what of her other books? The most cinematic one, called Sharp Objects was rumored to be in the works to become a TV series but there are no news, there isn't even one casting tidbit. And what about Dark Places?
I love Melissa McCarthy. There are plenty of people who find her
crude, annoying and unfunny but I'm not one of those people. I am still
baffled that there are those out there who actually hated The Heat,
which I think is one of the funniest comedies in recent years. And
McCarthy's nomination for her wonderful work in Bridesmaids is one of
my all time favorite Oscar nominations. To top these two movies would be tough, but
that is exactly what Spy managed to do.
It is this time during GoT season when I get to use the words that only those who read the books understand.
It's really hard to describe Mad Max: Fury Road. It is first and foremost a film you need to experience. No amount of words and descriptions can really help you understand or prepare you for the film's hellish pace, spellbinding visuals and intensity.
This week on Thrones we got honest to God consensual sex scene. And that's not even the most shocking development in the episode. Two fan favorites finally meet, Sansa starts doing something other than being miserable - though there is still plenty of that and King Stannis makes me both turned on and incredibly worried.
