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What Is The Last Film You Watched? (2021 films)


Jay

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Welcome to the replacement for the "newer films" thread; I'll be making these one per year to discuss the films of that year; Anything older can go into the "older films" thread, unless it's a 2020 film.

 

I don't know if any 2021 films are even out yet, but when they are out, discuss them here!

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18 minutes ago, Jay said:

I don't know if any 2021 films are even out yet, but when they are out, discuss them here!

 

This thread will have a dozen pages before anyone even finds a 2021 film to watch.

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I mean I'm not gonna merge it, just leave it as it is.  It'll just slowly fall off the first page of GD like any other thread

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Looks like the first 2021 movie I am anticipating is NOMADLAND on Feb 19 scratch that, I forgot LOCKDOWN is supposed to come out this month!

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_American_films_of_2021

 

Heck, here's all the ones I'm currently looking forward to

  • LOCKDOWN (January)
  • NOMADLAND (Feb 19)
  • CHAOS WALKING (Mar 5)
  • THE MANY SAINTS OF NEWARK (Mar 12)
  • NO TIME TO DIE (April 2)
  • A QUIET PLACE PART II (April 23)
  • BLACK WIDOW (May 7)
  • FREE GUY (May 21)
  • UNCHARTED (July 16)
  • THE TOMORROW WAR (July 23)
  • JUNGLE CRUISE (July 30)
  • THE GREEN KNIGHT (July 30)
  • DEEP WATER (Aug 13)
  • THE BEATLES GET BACK (Aug 27)
  • DEATH ON THE NILE (Sep 17)
  • DUNE (Oct 1)
  • THE LAST DUEL (Oct 15)
  • ETERNALS (Nov 5)
  • WEST SIDE STORY (Dec 10)
  • SPIDER-MAN 3 (Dec 17)
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Lockdown is a heist moving that takes placing during the pandemic, but it isn't about the pandemic. 

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That doesn't make sense to me. It's about jewelry thieves. It's not about scientists and politicians managing the pandemic. 

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  • 3 weeks later...

image.jpeg

 

Locked Down

 

The first 2021 film I've seen is a total dud.  The great cast and director and completely undermined by a weak script that I can't believe Liman thought was good enough to film.  The whole time it felt like a first draft that never had a bit of revision done to any part of it.

 

It's a heist film that doesn't even tell you it's a heist film until the third act.  It's basically a relationship drama with occasionally funny moments as a once happy couple (Anna Hathaway and Chiwetel Ejiofor) that have broken up are forced to still live together due to COVID lockdowns (the film is set in late March 2020 London).  As they try to get by, various elements of their jobs get peppered in until Hathaway finally realizes with like 30 minutes of the movie to go that they have a chance to steal a £3,000,000 diamond and get away with it scott free, and they go about doing so while continuing to have endless conversations about whether they should do it or not

 

The idea is good enough that it could have worked as a 1 hour episode of some show but it is completely bloated out with pointless scenes at almost 2 hours. 

 

No reason to watch unless you're a completist for LIman, Hathaway, Ejiofor, Stephen Merchant, Mindy Kaling, Ben Stiller, Ben Kingsley, or a couple other familiar faces that show up for a scene or two

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7 hours ago, The Big Man said:

Is that that chick from those other movies? Lily something? She's cute.

 

That's where I recognized her from!

 

MV5BYzgzNGFkNDItZTJkZC00NzJkLTk2OWMtNzli

 

Didn't you fall asleep with that one?

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The dig. Much better than I thought t would be. Carey Mulligan continues to impress, though I can’t help wondering what Nicole Kidman would have done with the role. Ralph Fiennes is amazing. I loved how his voice was always brimming with goodness and shame on the audio-describer for mispronouncing his name during the credits. The kid grew on me, but I could have done without him. I did love some of the scene transitions.

The score has some fine cues, but there’s also an annoying repetitive piano theme.

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8 hours ago, bollemanneke said:

Ralph Fiennes is amazing.

 

He is. But he only gets room to shine in the first 30 minutes of the movie. After that the movie becomes overcrowded, unfocused and sorta forgets about him. I really wasn't interested in the Oscar baiting romance of characters that don't even matter to the story. 

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On 1/30/2021 at 10:07 AM, AC1 said:

The original was Hitchcock's first movie in America.

 

1200px-Rebecca_(1939_poster).jpeg

A masterpiece and tremendous score.

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On 2/6/2021 at 11:48 AM, bollemanneke said:

Yeah, I sort of agree.

 

What I didn't know is that the Sutton Hoo site is considered to be the most important and greatest archaeological discovery in British history. 

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The Dig. 
 

it was shit. Fiennes and Mulligan were great. Cinematography really captured that hazy English moor/bog look. But it had a real bang of “Made for Sunday afternoons in ITV 4” feel to it. That sort of film has its place but this was overhyped I feel. Netflix for great docs and tv shows from time to time but they’ve yet to make an impact with films. 
 

It was a very poor man’s Atonement. 
 

 

 

Also, and at no point would someone do their second hour solo in a Spitfire. That’s just dumb. 

On 2/6/2021 at 7:47 AM, AC1 said:

 

He is. But he only gets room to shine in the first 30 minutes of the movie. After that the movie becomes overcrowded, unfocused and sorta forgets about him. I really wasn't interested in the Oscar baiting romance of characters that don't even matter to the story. 


The male character is a total invention too so it’s clear he was just included to add a romance subplot that didn’t really belong in the movie. 

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Screen-Shot-2021-02-09-at-10-06-36-PM.pn

 

Malcolm & Marie

 

God, that was insufferable. I mean, the premise is sound enough. But Levinson is clearly no Linklater. Instead of exploring the dynamics of a relationship with nuance, it's just an incredibly angry mouthpiece for Levinson to rant about the "ART" (:rolleyes:) of film and the film industry. Any little sense of character or humanity is completely overshadowed by wordy monologues that have little to actually do with the people in the room. Human beings certainly don't talk like this. The whole thing is just one big fight, where each one takes 15 minutes at a time, berating each other.

 

Zendaya has talent, but the pedantic writing probably needed an older actress to make it breathe, or find some wit in it. Washington commits 200%, but ends up coming off as a nuisance.

 

There is some intellect at work here, and it's shot with a whole lot of style. Heck, this whole thing could have been a solid short film if it wrapped up in its first 30min. But as it is, it is a colossal, indulgent, exhausting misfire.

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Yea, there are some solid ideas in there. It's not unintelligent. But there's no artistry in having actors scream out film critique essays at each other. Look to Bergman on how to communicate broader ideas through cinema/theatre.

 

Before Midnight is also a really good example of a couple just taking a hard look at their relationship that feels rooted in character while also sneaking in more "cerebral" reflections.

 

 

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I think Doug Liman is one of the best directors working today so I was going to check it out no matter what, and then being scored by Powell was just icing on the cake.  It's a shame it turned out to be so thoroughly mediocre

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News of the World

 

I watched it only due to JNH's score, which of course works great in the movie, though it's a little more subtle, slower and introspective than his more recent works, which is probably why it's getting a lot of nominations. The film itself is pretty good, with great performances and cinematography, although the plot is predictable.

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3 minutes ago, AC1 said:

It was either News Of The World or Red Dot. I opted for Red Dot.

 

Red-Dot.png

 

A couple is being hunted by a mysterious huntsman in the middle of nowhere. 4/10


Netflix just can’t make decent films 

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  • 2 weeks later...

Tom & Jerry (2021)

 

It's marginally better than the woeful 1992 film (where T&J committed the sin of TALKING), but this turns into a film about human characters in a hotel -- with Tom & Jerry as supporting characters. Kinda misleading.

 

And the vast majority of Tom & Jerry's antics are just unfunny. I don't know what Tim Story was thinking, but you don't score cartoon antics with R&B needle drops. And two, not including the titular theme is akin to doing a Bugs Bunny cartoon without Carl Stalling's arrangement of "The Merry-Go-Round Broke Down."

 

It's inoffensive and kids will love it, so go for a matinee or stream it on HBO Max. 

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News of the World.

 

Pretty good stuff, with great performances and cinematography, although the story felt like it lost momentum during the final 20 minutes or so, only really coming back to life in the last few scenes.

 

I felt that this is not a film that's relying on its score very much - much of it is unscored, and when music does come in, it's mixed rather low with the exception of a few bits. I certainly didn't spot anything obviously unreleased, and I think the album therefore works nicely as a concept album which just happens to contain most, if not all, of the score.

 

In the zoom interview JNH did here, he mentioned that some music was dropped, particularly in the Dime Mountain shootout scene, and I completely agree with what they did - the music comes back in after a moment of huge tension with just wind noises.

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  • 2 weeks later...

The Little Things | Official Site

 

The Little Things

 

We watched this last month when it was free on HBO Max.  It's one of those weird movies that's both really good an interesting at times, and really bad and cliched at other times.

 

In general, I found the story compelling; It's one of those flicks where characters know things that are influencing their actions but you don't find out all of them until the end, and most of the reveals were good enough.  But then there are kooky directing and editorial decisions, like having a million cuts in a simple scene, some weird staging and shot composing, being unclear of positioning at times, and even leaving in scenes that serve no purpose or are contradicted by the next scene.  Like in one early scene Denzel goes outside to see his car being towed by Malek's character because Malek needs to go somewhere.  Denzel then immediately goes inside the building he was outside of and Malek's character is inside giving a talk to a room full of reporters.  What!?

 

It was nice to watch a new, biggish movie for free at home in 4K, and for this one I'm glad I didn't see it in the theater, as the cons ultimately outweighed the pros - but it was still worth watching

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Hulu's Derek DelGaudio's In & Of Itself: Derek DelGaudio, Frank Oz and  Stephen Colbert in Conversation with Larry Wilmore - 92Y, New York

 

In & Of Itself

 

This is one of the most interesting films I have ever watched in my life.  I recommend going in knowing as little as possible and just going along for the ride.

 

At first Derk Delgaudio seems to have very poor stage presence and you might wonder what the point is of watching him slowly begin his stage show, but as it goes on he really creates quite an interesting atmosphere to share interesting and emotional stories (and some sleight of hand magic).  Give it time to get going and you may just like it too.

 

It's free on Hulu.

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The 'Judas and the Black Messiah' Exit Survey - The Ringer

 

Judas and the Black Messiah

 

This was the next of HBO Max's "in theaters now, and on HBO Max for a month too!" after The Little Things and before Tom & Jerry.  Well, it just wasn't very good.

 

It's a fascinating story at heart - a black man in 1969 Detroit gets used by the FBI as an informant inside the Black Panthers in exchange for not going to jail, and he gets closer and closer to their leader, Fred Hampton.  Unfortunately, the execution of this idea is just, well, it's boring.  The movie is boring.  It takes forever to get going and has long periods of not much happening in between story developments.  Daniel Kaluuya mumbled his way through his performance so much, we actually had to turn the subtitles on early in the film, something we've never had to do for any other film.  Lakeith Stanfield and Jesse Plemons were very good.  Martin Sheen played a laughable caricature of J Edgar Hoover under bad prosthetics and Lil Rey Howley plays an awkward FBI guy towards the end of the film too.

 

Can't really recommend it to anyone.

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I Care A Lot': Rosamund Pike Is A "F*cking Lioness" Who Is Up Against Game  Of Thrones' Peter Dinklage - Entertainment

 

I Care A Lot

 

The first real surprise of 2021.  After watching the trailer we weren't planning on watching it, it seemed like a lot of the same old, same old.  However after hearing some positive feedback from a couple places, we sat down to watch it, and I was VERY pleasantly surprised.  This is one of those movies where the trailer doesn't actually give everything away; the story continues to twist and turn with cool and interesting developments.

 

Rosamund Pike plays a scumbag scam-artist who uses a crooked doctor and broken legal system to get assigned as the legal gaurdian of targeted elderly people, and then bleeds them dry of all their life savings as they rot in nursing homes.  But when she does this to Dianne Wiest, she awakens a hidden danger in Peter Dinklage and the two begin quite a bitter rivalry...... and that's just the first half hour.

 

I recommend going in without knowing too much about this.  It's good good acting, music, and little touches, and only falters with some odd staging and cinematography.  But overall, it's well worth a watch, you might be pleasantly surprised too

 

It's free on Netflix

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