What Movie Did You Just Watch

[gunswordfist]

Ah, cool. Thank you!

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

I just watched Boyhood. And now, I have finally seen all of the Best Picture nominees from this year's AA.

This is how I'd rank them:

8. The Theory of Everything- This is the usual type of Oscar nomination that I usually respect on a technical level but find to be kind of dull as an overall experience. Eddie Redmayne totally deserved his Oscar for his performance, but other than that, the movie was a bit too by-the-numbers for my liking.

7. Boyhood- This is one of those movies where I feel that your appreciation for it depends directly on how much you can relate to it. Thus, I absolutely LOVED the first half of this movie. It felt so real to me that it was kind of eerie. The second half was just as excellent, yet didn't mean as much to me because my high school life was nothing like Mason's. Even so, it was a good film all of the way through.

6. American Sniper- So this was easily the most controversial film to be nominated and also the least well-liked by most people. Personally, I decided to view this as a movie in and of itself, rather than on its stance on the politics of war as well as whether it's portrayal of Chris Kyle as a more heroic figure was in any way accurate to the real person or not. That, and I'm extremely biased. I love Clint Eastwood as a director, and his last couple of movies haven't been so hot, so I was glad to actually see a good one again, even though it's far from his best. Overall, I liked the movie, though it's far from being one of the best war films ever made, including some of Eastwood's earlier works like Letters From Iwojima.

5. Birdman- The winner for Best Picture, and I'm OK with that. I did enjoy the film, but it's just not my favorite of the bunch. I don't really know what else to say besides that. It was a good movie, but I just like these other four better.

4. Selma- This isn't the first time that a movie has dealt with MLK as an iconic figure by a long shot, but it's one of the best that I've seen in this regard. Films with issues of racism are a bit of a touchy subject to criticize, especially when they are based on true stories. Normally people tend to be more lenient towards them because of the subject matetial, but much like I did with American Sniper, I choose to judge such movies as films in and of themselves. Thus, I won't beat around the bush. For example: I tremendously respect what Jackie Robinson represented as a person, but "42" was a bad movie in my eyes. That said, with Selma, I luckily didn't have to criticize it much. The movie stands on its own as a genuinely good piece of cinema. I wouldn't say that it's as great of a film as something like Hotel Rwanda or To Kill A Mockingbird (if we can count fiction), but it's still a very good movie, especially in the context of its contemporary nominees.

3. The Imitation Game- Something about this movie just really won me over. I can't precisely pinpoint what it was, to be honest, but it had me fully engaged the entire way through, and Benedict Cumberbatch's performance made for a character that was incredibly up his own ass, yet strangely likable all the same. It was just an interesting movie in the best kind of ways.

2. The Grand Budapest Hotel- Despite my praise for the other movies, this is one of the only two that I'd personally call a truly great film. It had such a unique style to it yet was stuffed with substance. It was also wickedly funny and so packed with great humor and some surprisingly good drama that I'd consider it to be as re-watchable as a movie like Hot Fuzz. It's the rare Oscar movie that isn't afraid to actually be fun for a change, and that's really worth a lot to me.

1. Whiplash- J. K. Simmons just made the whoke goddamn film. Truth be told, the movie itself could have easily just been average were it not for this one performance, and his chemistry with the talented, up and coming Miles Teller. I remember when my brother was a student drummer for a couple of years, and while he was nowhere as passionate as this, I saw how frustrated he got in trying to get the instrument right. It's balls hard from what I can tell. So I could really empathize with the frustration of the characters in this movie, and really it's just the two of them throughout the entire film, as the other characters are essentially just extras for a point of reference for the audience. But man was I engrossed in this whole endeavor of a story, and that final drum solo just struck me so hard that I was an awe for that whole scene and for several moments after the film ended just so that I could take it all in. It's easily one of the greatest films of the decade, so far.

[Avaitor]

Nice rankings! I still haven't seen Theory of Everything or American Sniper, and Birdman is still on its way, but I liked everything I've seen from this year's nominees. My ranking would be, as of now:

5- The Imitation Game
4- The Grand Budapest Hotel
3- Boyhood
2- Selma
1- Whiplash

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

Thanks. Good rankings, yourself.

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

Here's a fun little video that compares the Kick-Ass comic book to the film adaptation. The funny thing is that without explicitly stating which version is better, the points that differ in the comic book sound so terrible that you can easily come to that conclusion for yourself.

But the new thing that I learned from this is that the movie was greenlit before the comic actually came out, and the story had been planned in advance. It's just that Millar and Vaughn had very different ideas of how to tell that story and what the message of it would be. In that regard, you really could see the movie as its own work rather than as an adaptation of shitty source material.

[Dr. Insomniac]

Yeah, most if not all of Mark Millar's comics in the past few years have just been extended movie pitches.

[gunswordfist]

I hope an Old Man Logan movie gets made.

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

Yeah, most if not all of Mark Millar's comics in the past few years have just been extended movie pitches.

Well, that certainly would explain a lot.

[Spark Of Spirit]

Yeah, most if not all of Mark Millar's comics in the past few years have just been extended movie pitches.

Well, that certainly would explain a lot.

Kick Ass and its sequel were greenlit into movies before they were even written at all, like you said. Which is easy to understand, no one could read either comic and decide "Hey, this should be a movie!" because they are so terrible.

By the way, there's no link in your post, but I think I know the video you're talking about. They go through both movie and comic evenhandedly, but without saying anything it's pretty obvious the comic is incredibly poorly written.

[Avaitor]

I hope an Old Man Logan movie gets made.

Actually, I'm pretty sure that I read that this is what the third Wolverine was going to be based off of.

[Spark Of Spirit]

I hope an Old Man Logan movie gets made.

Actually, I'm pretty sure that I read that this is what the third Wolverine was going to be based off of.

I sincerely hope not.

[Foggle]

Paging Doctors Vaughn and Goldman...

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

Sorry, I can't believe that I forgot to post the link: https://youtu.be/lTAJ-Dd3Vb8

And yeah, I had always wondered how anyone could read such terrible writing and feel that it deserved to be a movie, but it makes so much more sense that Vaughn was sold on the concept of the story itself, rather than on Millar's writing.

[Spark Of Spirit]

Yep, that's the exact video I was thinking of. Every single comparison falls completely flat for the comic whenever the movie version is shown. Either Millar suddenly became worse than Ennis, Miller, and Moore, at their worst, or he really didn't put any thought into the comic when he wrote it. Considering he had a movie deal before it was even written, there's a high chance of the latter.

[gunswordfist]

I hope an Old Man Logan movie gets made.

Actually, I'm pretty sure that I read that this is what the third Wolverine was going to be based off of.

I sincerely hope not.

I saw that coming. Imma send you tickets to the show.