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Oblivion
I put it on the list because I read somewhere that it has a similar score to Stranger Things. And it does, and it's pretty awesome. Movie itself is actually quite cool. Definitely not what I expected and I didn't see the twists coming. I expected a conventional sci-fi movie and got quite a mindfuck one. One of the most visually beautiful sci-fi movies in the past couple of years too. Only major fault I can think of is the narration at the beginning and end. Tom Cruise might be a scientologist nutjob but he's definitely a great actor and one of the most consistent ones too.
 
you should not mock the scientologists!!
some of the biggest and most clever brains in the world reside in that church..Tom cruize may not be one of them though.
 
Cloverfield
Saw this one years ago. Wasn't sure if it was connected to the movie I'll talk about next but decided to rewatch it anyway. Anyway, one of the best found footage movies? Kind of funny how none of these actors were well known when I first saw the movie and now almost all are famous. Believable characters and their reactions to what's happening, incredible suspense and visuals.
All the scenes in the skyscrapers gave me the heebie jeebies. The monster was terrifying and so were the spiders (especially in the subway scenes :o).

10 Cloverfield Lane
One of those movies that really make you think afterwards. Howard was definitely a child kidnapper but he was right about the alien invasion and if they didn't try to conspire against him, both Emmett and Michelle would've lived and stayed in the bunker. Awesome music throughout the whole movie and John Goodman was more of a John Scaryman. Not sure how connected the movies are, but I guess it's possible that the aliens dropped the Cloverfield monster in New York and attacked everyone else with spaceships and those Alien-like creatures.
 
I really enjoyed both the Cloverfield movies, I saw 10 Cloverfield Lane recently, very good and a nice lesson that you have have a dramatic and really well acted sci-fi movie that is not just shit blowing up half the film
 
If Wikipedia is correct. the 2 movies made nearly $280M on a combined budget of $40M .. so yeah, I can see the desire for a 3rd one
 

I really enjoyed this one. It's a low budget Edge Of Tomorrow-ish movie, so not particularly original but it was captivating from beginning to end. I think I only need to watch 2 more time loop movies until I can say I saw all the good ones :P
 
Just finished Judgment at Nuremberg (1961) with my wife. To be honest, it surpasses both 12 Angry Men and Schindler's List in my book, being more universal and more "moral-ruminations-encouraging" than the former and more subtle and down-to-earth than the latter (yet still bearing the same emotional impact). In fact, before actually watching the movie, I thought that a 3 hour b&w static courtroom drama would bore even me, but it was not the case. And it's definitely not only because it's connected to Shoah. A very powerful film, IMHO.
 
JudasMyGuide said:
Just finished Judgment at Nuremberg (1961) with my wife. To be honest, it surpasses both 12 Angry Men and Schindler's List in my book, being more universal and more "moral-ruminations-encouraging" than the former and more subtle and down-to-earth than the latter (yet still bearing the same emotional impact). In fact, before actually watching the movie, I thought that a 3 hour b&w static courtroom drama would bore even me, but it was not the case. And it's definitely not only because it's connected to Shoah. A very powerful film, IMHO.
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Incredibly good movie with a great cast. I have it on Laserdisc ... probably need a format upgrade :)
 
bearfan said:
probably need a format upgrade :)
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Definitely do so. :) In this age of frantic editing, I tend to notice the power of static and long shots. This movie is full of them, at times reminding me of A Most Wanted Man (where the camerawork is even more important).

Also, like you have said - excellently cast. Especially Maximilian Schnell, whom I never heard about before (and because standing your ground as a newbie against heavyweights like Spencer Tracy or Burt Lancaster is something to be lauded).
 
Yeah, he was really good in it .. in general I have liked him in pretty much everything he was in, very good actor.

You raise a point about static and long shots ... I am certainly not a "we should do everything in film like they used to" kind of person, but these kinds of shots (assuming good actors) can really punch home a dramatic moment much better than 92 million jump cuts every 2 minutes. Hitchcock was really a master of that IMO ... it makes for scenes that are very tense and almost uncomfortable.
 
Oh, yes, I love modern movies and stuff like Memento could not have been done in the "classic" era (or at least it would have looked drastically different). And it's not as if those movies had to be slower in general then - The Maltese Falcon is pretty fast-paced, maybe even too fast-paced, IMHO. But since rapid cuts were harder to do, they were used more sparingly, it seems. Like I said, my favourite long-shot movie lately is AMWM, which is from 2014, so I'm not really biased in any way :) It's just that with Nurmberg it's obvious - despite the strong, emotional story and the excellent actors, it's quite possible it might have become boring during the whole three hours. But the clever camerawork and editing make it actually even more dynamic and also make it feel less like a stage play, despite the rare change of scenery (which is also different to 12 Angry Men, IMHO).

But yeah, Hitch truly is an artist. Incidentally, we watched Vertigo just yesterday with my wife and Rear Window about three days ago (both: me for the xxxth time, a premiere for her). Whatever anyone might say, that man was a giant of cinema. Topaz and Family Plot notwithstanding :D
 
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I liked the movie but I'm also underwhelmed by it. Kind of expected a more precise explanation of what the aliens were doing than some philosophy shit. Heptapod hallucination was some scary shit. The twist with the daughter was unexpected. How fucked up is it that Amy Adams hooked up with Jeremy Renner even though she knew the daughter will die? If she could see the future, why not just conceive later so that you get a different kid that won't die of cancer?

On the other hand, I see why this is getting Oscar noms so much. Lots of philosophy and metaphors and shit.
 
JudasMyGuide said:
Just finished Judgment at Nuremberg (1961) with my wife. To be honest, it surpasses both 12 Angry Men and Schindler's List in my book, being more universal and more "moral-ruminations-encouraging" than the former and more subtle and down-to-earth than the latter (yet still bearing the same emotional impact). In fact, before actually watching the movie, I thought that a 3 hour b&w static courtroom drama would bore even me, but it was not the case. And it's definitely not only because it's connected to Shoah. A very powerful film, IMHO.
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What did you find so subtle about Judgment at Nuremberg (1961)? I remember enjoying the film, but don't remember that it had that particular aspect. Good film, but can't polish 12 Angry Men's shoes. Still, these are two very different films. As is Schindler's List. In fact, I don't even know why you compare these three. There are more judgement / lawsuit / war films. The strength of 12 Angry Men is that it starts with one man not agreeing with what goes on, and it slowly evolves. It gets more exciting. It's enthralling to see how the mood in the room changes. These are incredible engaging factors Judgment does not have. I mostly remember Widmark in an everything but subtle role (he was a diehard). That said, I saw it over 10 years ago, so lighten me up.
 
The comparison with 12 Angry Men came from the fact both felt to me as courtroom morality tales with very theatrical feel where compassion, humanity and decency wins over the way stuff usually gets done in the legal profession, or over a "proper" trial (let's be fair - Juror No. 8 actually breaks the law from time to time in order to get the boy from the electrical chair (by conducting his own line of investigation with the knife, for example) and not everything he does and says + him actually swaying all the jurors does not really feel like "reasonable doubt" to me - but that might be just me - whereas the Nuremberg trials were quite controversial at the time because of the "justice of the victors" principle and especially because of applying law retroactively, even in cases where the people in question actually were following the law valid in Nazi Germany - we talked a lot about it in law school. Also let's be fair and admit some of the things the German attorney said had not only ringed true and were quite logical, but actually right from the legal point of view and yes - the basic moral sense won over the enlightened legal system, if you get what I mean).

With Schindler's List ... both are rather long, slowly building up and very emotional "monoliths of inhumanity", giving words to the victims who otherwise can only accuse with their bodies, their suffering or, well, their mere existence (or, to put it blutly, both are "Holocaust flicks"), that are still not completely black and white (pun not intended - and yes, Widmark's character is one of the examples, as his crusade to crucify nearly all Germans is also not seen as a good thing, even though he sort of wins in the end in this case). I also agree that "subtle" is probably not the right word to use for Nuremberg, as it gets pretty heated and again - you are right, Widmark's role is not a subtle one. I meant that more from the emotional point of view - SL is more intentionally tear jerking and sentimental (which is not wrong! In fact, I believe here it's fully justified, it simply more about me appreciating the movie that rarely leaves the courtroom and has it harder in general, IMHO, if both produce similarly strong feelings). Of course there are many courtroom dramas, war courtroom dramas and "Holocaust flicks", but my brain automatically connected these three and not others. Just as it would not connect Apocalypse Now and Idi i smotri, despite many possible similarities. But it's possible the connection made no sense, I was already quite tired and had just finished watching the movie, so I admit it might have been a mistake :)
 
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