Film Log 2017

Watched 7/5/17

Watched 7/2/17

Watched 7/2/17

Watched 6/29/17

Watched 6/20/17

Watched 6/16/17

Watched 6/14/17

Watched 6/12/17

Watched 5/25/17

Watched 4/13/17

Watched 4/11/17

Watched 4/7/17

Watched 4/2/17

Watched 4/2/17

Watched 3/20/17

*Going to add my thoughts later

Watched 2/1/17

*Going to add my thoughts later

Watched 1/27/2017

Cowboy Bebop was the first anime that I finished back in the day. The mixture of Jazz/Blues, Film-Noir and Space Westerns has always captivated me. Regrettably however, it took me until now to watch this sequal
film... and it wasn't dissapointing in the least!! It was really nice to return back to these characters once again with some new content. The movie plays out like a extra long episode of the show, and it's pretty great since it does a good job with its pacing. Now the villain and plot are both sort of standard, but you are really watching this to see the crew of the Bebop get caught up in another bounty hunt, with some great action scenes, cool futuristic ideas, awesome animation, and style (which you get in spades). It's really just a super fun movie that I will definately be watching again.

Watched: 1/13/2017

This movie was a pretty big shocker for me, due to the fact that I typically really dislike the types of musicals where there isn't contextually viable reasons for the characters to start singing. However this movie really won me over with the often morbid and laughably dark subject matter of the musical numbers. Really, in a way, its entirely worth watching just to see the bizarre duet between Johnny Depp and Alan Rickman. The performances are solid from all the leading characters, but some of the supporting cast aren't very well developed or engaging (like Joanna). The camera work is very nice as well (minus one fast-forward shot through the city streets towards the beginning I felt was pretty cheap looking). Overall its was a good movie, one that I'll visit again for some good tunes and some laughs.

Watched: 1/9/2017

So I watched this movie right before Sweeny Todd, and in that review I said that one of my pet peeves was musical numbers in movies like the ones found in this film and that film. However where the music in Sweeny Todd was surprisingly entertaining, a lot of the music in the Prince of Egypt I am not that fond of. Not to say its horrible, which is why this movie is still getting an above average score, but I find that many of the musical numbers are unessesary and keep the movie from furthur exploring some pretty great character interactions and dynamics (like the one between Moses and Ramases, and Moses and his Wife). I did really like the sequence that played while the plagues where afflicting Egypt though. I also hated the priest characters. I don't feel entirely negative about the movie though, the animation is superb, the dialogue is, for the most part, really well written, and the way the scenes were framed in this movie were nifty. In the end its worth checking out if you have an interest in it.

Watched: 1/9/2017

*Going to add my thoughts later today

Watched 1/7/2017

I loved this movie. First of all, to get all of the small things out of the way, the soundtrack really set the mood well, the cinematography and colors were gorgeous, and all the actors killed it. This is a small, intimate, character exploration of a small boy as he grows up in a tough neighborhood and discovers things about himself including his sexuality. The movie is driven by the strength of all the actors and thier subtle facial expressions, body language, and the sincerity of their line delivery. The climactic scene in the diner at the end of the movie is easily one of my favorite movie scenes this decade so far. Some people may not be grabbed by the movie due to how quiet, small and personal it is, but I was moved. Highly reccomended.

Watched: 1/6/2017

This movie was pretty good. I can't really go into details about the sort of clever idea behind the directing/direction of the movie, as I think you should experience it going into the movie blind, but it really was executed pretty well given it's meager budget. The two main characters have great chemistry, and are really what is worth watching this film for. I also really enjoyed the humor, it is filled with all sorts of jokes and references to other movies. It is a very rough movie, but one I was happy to experience.

Watched: 1/4/2017

The main attraction of this movie is easily the action sequences. These are some of the best choreographed scenes I've seen in an animated feature. Fast, slick, brutal, and non-bullshit. Such a relief from the usual padded out, lazily cut, power-up ridden fight scenes found in a lot of anime. The background art and animation is fantastic. So why just a 7/10? Mainly because the story isn't that interesting and the characters, while some are pretty good (like the mains), are just used as plot tools to set up the battles. Now that isn't to say that a movie can't just be an action packed ride and be great, but the film does spend quite a bit of time focusing on its side characters and their motivations and politics, but it never fully gripped me. So it keeps this movie from being one of my absolute favorites, but if you are in the mood to watch samurais kill the shit out of each other, then go for it! You won't be disappointed.

Watched: 1/4/2017

Time of Eve was really nice. This movie, for those who don't know, is a series of short, sort of indie web animations stitched together to form a cohesive film. Basically the movie functions as a collection of dialogues between characters exploring themes of emotions and memories and whether there really is anything substantial differentiating humans and A.I when it comes to such things.

There were a lot more things here I really liked than I disliked. For starters the score is handled really well, and they implement it as part of its humor, which was really great. I also liked the relaxing mood and pacing, and several of the characters were nicely handled and offered up some interesting narratives. However, the negatives do drag the movie down a bit. There was a constant directing choice of doing a shaky camera effect when something dramatic occurred, which while it was a nifty idea, looked stiff, muddy, and was ultimately distracting. Secondly, not all the segments were as interesting as each other, and some characters would do and say things throughout the movie that I felt were really forced and bad-anime-trope-like, which left a bad taste in my mouth at certain scenes.

However, there is a lot of neat ideas presented here, even if other shows and novels have explored them in the past (I Robot, Ghost in the Shell, etc.), and it had a lot of heart. I was won over in the end.

Watched: 1/4/2017

Deathgasm seems to be a bundle of many things I want out of a low budget dumb-fun horror film. Gory practical effects, a kickass soundtrack, tons of metal and nerdy in-jokes, witty (and often juvenile) black-humor, and lots of love being put into it. Sure not every plot thread is handled in a spectacular way (end of movie-ish romantic sub-plot *cough*), and its not doing anything revolutionary or medium-changing, but that doesn't keep it from a thoroughly good time from start to finish (especially for when you have a group of like-minded friends over).

Watched: 1/3/2017

What makes Sweet Bean a nice experience is the developing relationship and interplay between two of its central characters. One is a middle aged man who runs a small Dorayaki shop, and the other is a sweet older lady that stops by to work for him. The two over the course of time impact each others lives in a way that is really pleasant to let unfold.

The movie is very slow paced and the delicate shots with sparse bits of music lets you softly drift through the film. The film takes extreme measures at always being extremely down-to-earth and understated. However, because of its deliberate progression, it takes a while to build towards the more emotionally resonant and gratifying scenes at the end of the film, leaving much of the beginning and middle with little impact for me personally.

But just to emphasize again that the ending was indeed satisfying. The message of the film (detailed in a monologue by one of the characters) and a couple really good dialogue sequences reward those who stuck with it. So it comes with a recommendation to check it out if it sounds like it would be something you would like to watch, it might be uneven, but it is a little sweet piece of a movie.

Watched: 1/3/2017

"A small-town teenager with homicidal impulses must embrace his dark side to stop a newly arrived serial killer, who might not even be human." This Netflix synopsis was the only information I knew about this movie going into it, maybe aside from seeing that it was certified fresh by Rotten Tomatoes earlier this year. And that is the way I would recommend everyone to see this movie, because the movie contains quite a few interesting surprises I wouldn't want people to catch on to before jumping into it.

The movie, to my delight, circumvented many of the bothersome cliches and story paths these types of movies take. I was constantly saying to myself "and this is where it is now going to go this route, or this character is going to behave this way and do that" and luckily it took a different turn each time I needed it to. I really liked the methodical pacing, the small intimate cinematography, the quiet awkward atmosphere, the small character moments and the extra unnecessary little things the director put into the movie to give it personality. The antagonist of the movie had an actual compelling reason to be doing what he is doing, and was handled in a refreshing way. Also I have to say that the films dark, sarcastically humorous undercurrent was pretty endearing.

There are some things preventing it from being amazing though. General non-spoiler issues would include that some characters brought up in the story aren't really interesting or needed, and that the grainy 16mm celluloid that the movie was shot on gives the movie a distinct old school look, but sometimes the shots will have some blemishes around the picture that are distracting. This being said, it hit a lot of personal ticks for me and was a really nice movie to start 2017 with.

Watched: 1/3/2017