The 2017 Film DiScussion Thread

I imagine all UK lists (plus most of our lists if we do them) will count films by UK release date, so yeah it’s 2017 for our purposes

Erm

I didn’t think it was terrible but it was kind of average, was kind of baffled by all the reviews being like “OMG best film everrrrrr!!!111”

IT goes moonlight>Toni Erdmann>all the other films

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Haven’t been to the cinema much this year and saw most of what I’ve seen in the last fortnight.

Seen Gods Own Country in Germany cos I missed it here and assumed it wouldn’t be dubbed but it was. Wasn’t a huge amount of dialogue so pretty much ok still, feel like surely that’s something that loses a lot when you take away the original actors voices though.

Also Paddington 2, thought it was funny. Bit weird those films where every 30 second side character is played by someone famous.

Killing of a Sacred Deer I think I had the intended response to. Had absolutely no idea what it was before seeing it which probably helped. Think it worked very well as a horror film, like the hospital setting, and them sort of being helpless parents with the family ‘illness’ laid out in front of them, brings it down a bit from the supernatural stuff, makes it feel more personally horrific. Idk don’t really watch horror films. Creepy kid was very good I thought, being the only character who mostly didn’t have that same stilted, slightly inhuman manner, as opposed to being the only one who did. Not sure I liked the ending, not sure I would have liked any ending.

Ingrid goes West. I liked this & thought Aubrey Plaza was fab. so many little moments where you see the anxiety & excitement of her character underneath the impression she’s trying to give. think it told quite an extreme and dark story about the negative impact of social media (& made it’s fair share of millennial jokes) without being condescending or too farcical. Thought the ending was good, ominous in the way of her finding a new, potentially more self-destructive way of getting what she wanted from social media.

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FYI @anon5266188 the Fashanu doc is on Netflix now.

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Think it’s just called ‘It’

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Nice one, cheers for the heads up

Apparently Tarantino’s next film (the one that is sort of to do with the Manson murders or is at least set around then) has been given a release date of 9th August 2019, which is the 50th anniversary of Sharon Tate’s death :grimacing:

Happy End is the biggest case of false advertising in a film title since The Neverending Story (apologies to The Simpsons for kind of stealing their joke)

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This is going to be so so awful

Watched Victoria this morning. Pretty amazing logistical achievement and it had a great sense of authenticity. Kinda loved it.

Happy End - this was so frustrating, felt like a Haneke imitator was making it rather than Haneke himself. That final frame was pretty funny but otherwise this felt like it had lots of promising avenues which never went anywhere. Probably didn’t help that the old guy’s desperation to kill himself kept making me think of Stan’s grandfather in South Park

The Disaster Artist - I haven’t seen The Room and I think you’d get more from the film if you have but I still found myself warming to it as it went on. James Franco either gives one of the best or one of the worst performances of the year, I’m not sure which yet.

Happy End really does feel like Haneke going through a drawer of old script ideas and kind of winging it with the help of a good cast. It feels like either the start or the end of a period of his film making.

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The Wailing - gotta stop watching these korean melodramas. Always three hours of roughly: one hour of vaguely interesting premise, one of hour of people screaming and crying in the rain, final hour of oh my god why hasnt this ended already.

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BAFTA voter pal has been receiving screeners so working through those with them. Usually wait and go see the big cinematic ones at the cinema, but thought Molly’s Game would be fine to watch on the telly.

It’s rubbish. I love The West Wing and The Social Network but this is probably Sorkin at his worst. The dialogue is truly shocking, so deeply removed from reality in a really grating way. Chastain’s character always starts her sentences with ‘did you know’ then some bullshit statistic, or ‘the definition of losing’ etc etc. The story in itself isn’t actually very intriguing either. Sorkin’s direction is Goodfellas-lite and he doesn’t pull it off at all. There’s a scene at an ice rink which is laughably bad, one of the worst scenes of the year.

Up next - I, Tonya. Really looking forward to this one.

Wonder - Ok so this is literally everything that it looks like it is from the trailer, overly-sentimental, schmaltzy “feel good” family film, disability-as-a-plot-device-for-triumph bullshit. BUT Julia Roberts is so fucking good in it and gave me at least three genuine moments of being a bit teary and emotional during it which was very unexpected given what surrounded it and kind of made me buy into it in a way that it didn’t really earn (Roberts aside).

saw the league of justice. spoilers: it was really bad

it was either watch that or hang around for 40 mins for paddington 2 to start. i made the wrong choice.

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Battle of the Sexes - very shiny and neat in the most Hollywood way, but didn’t take anything away from it. Very striking story, Stone was great and Carrell embodied Riggs perfectly. He was a clown and part of the problem, but it was everyone above him who were the real villains. Also the end credits text about how BJK and her ex-husband are still friends and Bobby and his wife stayed together til they died, proper tear jerking stuff. Big fan. Oh, and the tennis didn’t look half bad, very good compared to most sports films.

Boy - sweet, charming and great. Can tell it’s an earlier film than say Hunt for the Wilderpeople, more low key and less ambitious, but just lovely anyway.

Paddington - exactly what I expected, except more. Funny bits were funnier, emotional bits more affecting. Look forward to P2.

Beatles 8 Days A Week - fuck me Beatlemania was something else right? Any time a baby boomer goes on about some crazy new millennial trend, should just point to that and say you started it. Also, amazing songs and how good were they live.

1922 - felt like it came from a short story, didn’t try to do that much. But what it did was very effective and atmospheric. Thomas Jane was great and film looked stunning.

Very much this.