Jake Gittes

All three previous Craig films opened within 100 theaters of each other. CR had 3,434, QoS had 3,451, Skyfall had 3,505. Even with the franchise's massive growth it looks like Sony wants to keep the TC comparatively low. Wouldn't surprise me if Spectre gets less than 3,700 theaters. It'll have a huge PTA anyway.

I guess every forthcoming review in this thread will just be a variation of one of the comments above

Now how about we just get a different director for this?

After seeing Youth I doubt it will get acting nominations (and I don't believe it deserves any), though it wouldn't shock me if it does because veteran actors, etc. But I think they'll all get pushed out by the competition.

ST09 got a PGA nom so it definitely could have been #11 or #12 that year.

This was produced by Blumhouse, I don't think they ever made a movie for more money than $5m.

The Academy was nowhere to be found when Rush came out though. And that was one of his better films.

The reason this movie doesn't work for me is that, having taken the perspective of a child soldier, it ends up becoming as desensitized to everything as he is - a collection of overedited scenes that almost never focus and linger on anything long enough to convey the horror and madness and tragedy of the situation. Attah does give an excellent performance, but it's telling that he makes most of the impression in the first hour and in the very end; the movie doesn't really rely on his acting in the middle, and it never gets into the heads of the other child soldiers, all of whom are complete blank slates just staring into the distance while the viewers conveniently project whatever emotions they have onto them. The cinematography and color palette, except for several scenes, are dry and flat, the ambient score is not only unnecessary and intrusive, but downright lazy in how it deliberately avoids making you feel anything in particular, and the narration, besides seeming like an afterthought, quickly turns into second-rate Malick that sounds completely out of place. The entire thing just seems stuck in a creative and emotional limbo - a journey through Hell with little to no genuine pain or anguish, devoid of risks, directed in a single mode of bland, somber, detached professionalism that turns extremely potent subject matter into 2+ hours of whatever.

Went to see this a couple days ago. Love the way Sorrentino can find meaning and beauty in an almost intuitive juxtaposition of images (his movies really rely on editing to achieve their effect more than almost anyone else's), and I'm glad that for most of the movie he keeps things light and amusing despite some weighty subject matter. As a two-hour series of observations, it's a pleasant watch, but it also can't help but be uneven - for every inspired moment (Caine conducting cows, Keitel seeing the characters of his films before him, the revelation of who Dano is preparing to play, a nightmare as a garish music video, etc.) there's much less interesting stuff like broad jokes about Hollywood, most of Weisz's plotline, exchanges and monologues that fall flat. Plus Caine and Keitel don't really do anything revelatory here, and the movie quickly loses steam and becomes much more po-faced after Fonda's cameo, when there's still half an hour to go. Overall it's good, but Sorrentino has done a lot better.

The Revenant (N. One Who Has Returned, As If From the Dead, or (Ignorance Is No Longer a Virtue, you plebs)): Inspired by True Events

So much white space I'm wrestling with a headache.

He will get that Oscar if he has to take it from Fassbender's cold, dead hands.

Will be funny if Rogue Nation ends up being a more impressive globe-trotting spy action movie while costing half of what Spectre does.

Both Kalo and Tree look like they'll finish their countdowns by 2018

I found it pretty dull and forgettable, with the exception of the agonizingly long murder scene which is brilliant.

Eh.

How many lines is she gonna have this time? Two? Three?

You realize Beasts was on Netflix on Friday, right?

Shirley MacLaine and the beautiful cinematography are the only reasons to sit through this. It's all stiff acting and unfunny jokes otherwise.

Fincher's answers are so perfectly Fincherian. Same with Spielberg and Soderbergh.

My second favorite Hitchcock after Vertigo. A clear predecessor to Blue Velvet, except I like its more straightforward execution even more. And Joseph Cotten is the fucking man.

The Boy Next Door is great. It feels like all of the stupid, trashy erotic thrillers of the 1990s rolled into one, and it's more or less completely oblivious to how ridiculous it is. I had more fun watching it than most of the other movies of this year.

It's pretty average, but it's still Hitchcock so it's moderately engaging and a decent way to kill 90 minutes. Fun fact: Norman Lloyd (the main villain) is still alive and working, he's turning 101 in three weeks and IMDb says he just appeared in Trainwreck this summer. What a life, what a career.

And yeah Unfriended is legitimately good. Not scary in the least, but it's misanthropic fun that exploits its gimmick in really smart and fascinating ways. You could argue it's the most unique movie of the year.

Kingsman has a lot less balls than it pretends to. Like that scene where , it's staged to look like the coolest thing ever and I was like, holy shit, did the movie actually dare to go there and commit to it? And minutes later we learn that of course not, he was just made to do that by the villain. In the end it's a pretty standard action movie, just with some mocking Bond references, exploding heads and attempted deconstructions of the "action hero should be rewarded with a woman to be his fuckdoll after saving the world" trope. Which, yeah, makes it more memorable and distinctive than standard straight-faced action fare, but everyone around me acted like it was some kind of an amazing revelation.