I'm gonna pick Moon and am gonna PM next in line then get on with my write ups in order...

Pick 11

The Witch or The VVitch if you're feeling fancy



I'm not great at movie reviews and won't do this justice but this is a great watch. It's slow and languorous but engrossing at the same time. Tension slowly builds and builds until it reaches its crescendo. It's a breath of fresh air from your standard jump scare horror movie. It's so great to see this step away from the norm and instead of being a popcorn cash grab it's actually a good movie.

No gimmicks, no cheap tricks, just a great story, beautiful cinematography and talented actors.

Owning Mahowney
The Royal Tennenbaums
Dancer in the Dark
Primer
Dead Man's Shoes
Calvary
Hell or High Water
The Place Beyond the Pines
The Raid 2
Pootie Tang
The Witch

Pick 12

Moon



I love Sam Rockwell. He's one of those actors that I'll watch in anything and it will be at least passable. Well he's practically the only person on screen for the entirety of this movie and so it's a must watch. It's also a great first feature from Duncan Jones.

This is a great and mind bending sci fi that's intriguing and a little confusing but in a good way. You're always second guessing yourself and you can see potential significance in everything you see. You can see what's on face value and listen to the emotionally neutral computer or you can like Sam Rockwell become more and more paranoid. Realising that you're the only one you can trust and perhaps not even that.

I don't want to spoil too much about the story, but just know that like most things I draft it's got great cinematography, great acting and a great story.

Owning Mahowney
The Royal Tennenbaums
Dancer in the Dark
Primer
Dead Man's Shoes
Calvary
Hell or High Water
The Place Beyond the Pines
The Raid 2
Pootie Tang
The Witch
Moon

The Witch is so, so good

For Round 12, I'm taking Nathaniel Kahn's My Architect.

A few years ago I was in LA. Went to LACMA for a Frank Gehry exhibit and then dragged a friend along to downtown LA to see Gehry's Disney Concert Hall. This past June I dragged the same friend along (she's game for most anything) to La Jolla, California, to see Louis Kahn's Salk Institute, a building that I have longed to see for 16 years because it was one of the featured buildings by which Nathaniel tries to understand who his father was.

Louis Kahn had a few families. Nathaniel, his son, never knew his father. Louis never married Nathaniel's mother since he already was married, had children from that marriage and a child from another affair. Basically, Louis Kahn had three families. Nathan's film is the story of a son discovering his father through looking at five buildings his father designed. The Salk, which sits overlooking the ocean, is one. The most important building, however, is in Bangladesh. His building there basically serves as the capital of Bangladesh. During the film, Nathaniel speaks to some who knew his father or worked with him, but the most riveting section of the film concerns the assembly building in Bangladesh. Folks are moved to tears talking about the building because for them Kahn brought much more than a building; he brought beauty and democracy to the country through the building. And it was a building that Kahn never saw finished.

A couple weeks after seeing the Salk Institute, I watched an episode of the show Billions. Two characters meet at the Four Freedoms Park in NYC. One tells the other about the film My Architect and that Kahn never lived to see that design finished either. Surely, a coincidence.

My Architect is a moving examination of am artist's work, but it also provided an opportunity to a son to connect with a father through his work, as Nathaniel says on an emotional level. I loved this documentary.

Dom's 12th round pick:

Mandy, Panos Cosmatos, 2018



From my review last year:

If an actor manages to upstage a blood-covered, screeching-in-existential agony, bent-on-revenge Nicolas Cage, that's a movie I'm going to like.

Red and his wife Mandy live an idyllic life in the woods of some 1983 rural fantasy. Mandy draws intricate, Heavy Metal-esqe type art and reads fantasy fiction, works at the local country store, and waits for her man to come home from his logging job.

But something deep and dark and nasty also resides in the woods... and it destroys Red and Mandy's life, forcing Red to go on a murderous rampage of revenge.

Holy moly.

Mandy is unlike any movie I've ever seen. It's a feverish, grindhouse, LCD trip, comic book, Herzog-like, insanity that will not be for everyone. Like Cosmatos' previous film, Beyond the Black Rainbow, Mandy has a 80s' vibe and sheen to it, from it's setting to it's monochromatic color pallet to it's rock opera synth score by the late Johann Johannson (his last film). But it is night and day from the former film. Black Rainbow is all sterile and interior while Mandy is outside in nature and Dark with a capital D. Both in theme and cinematography.

The movie is like the Road Warrior by way of Polanski, with Ralph Bashki-style animation and lots and lots of smoke surrounding two warriors in a ****ing CHAINSAW battle, backlit by unnatural colored light and fire.

There are three or four leather-clad demons that ride off-road quad runners and resemble the Zenobites from Clive Barker's ouvre.

Mandy is a pastiche of 80's B-movies that we watched over and over on VHS, or late-night Cinemax - and it looks it, as it was shot on a Ari Alexa with Panavision AL series anamorphic lenses.

Andrea Riseborough is an actress I've liked for years, and she always looks different in every damn movie she's in...great presence.

Linus Roache plays the Jesus-on-acid leader of a small-time cult who takes a shine to Andrea Riseborough's Mandy. He and his band of followers kidnap her and leave Nicolas Cage's Red for dead.

Roache has been in a lot of film and TV, and he always seems to stand out. I remember liking him a lot in The Chronicles of Riddick, but holy hell, I don't know what he was channeling here, but he makes Dennis Hopper as Frank Booth in Blue Velvet look positively quaint. When you're taking your eyes off a Cage to watch this other nutcase, you know you're going to have a good time.

I thoroughly enjoyed this movie, but I don't recommend it for most people. This is a B-movie art film that will generate screams and laughter in equal measure. It's pretty damn violent, but it is also lyrical, painterly, and a sonic sledge hammer.

Best movie of 2018.

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Dom's List:

Mulholland Drive
Before Sunset
Punch Drunk Love
Mad Max: Fury Road
Upstream Color
Force Majeure
Once
Her
Blade Runner 2049
Take Shelter
It Follows
Mandy

Phat Mac on the clock

Write up for Pick #11

Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World is a epic period war-drama film co-written, produced and directed by Peter Weir, set in the timeframe of the Napoleonic Wars. The plot and characters are adapted from three novels by author Patrick O'Brian. The film stars Russell Crowe as Jack Aubrey, the Ship’s Captain and Paul Bettany as Dr. Stephen Maturin, the ship's surgeon.

This is a great film that explores not just the tedium, stress and strain, and natural hierarchy in the British Royal Navy – but all the accompanying personal conflicts and intense drama within the crew and officers; and also all the violence and brutality of sea war. Along with the veneer of civility that is maintained. Very authentic (for a movie) and wonderfully filmed the top notch acting makes the film stand out even more. The action and drama and pacing of the film is first rate also. I liked this film so much I purchased the DVD. Worth repeated viewings.


Picks:

The Dark Knight
No Country for Old Men
In Bruges
Pan’s Labyrinth
Kung Fu Hustle
Amélie
Open Range
Shoot’em Up
Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon
How High
Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World

Starred Up

This seems to have slipped under the guard of most people for some reason. I love prison dramas, and this is the best one I've seen for a long time. The title refers to a young criminal who is too violent for juvie, so he gets sent to big boy prison, or "starred up". He goes to group therapy to control his anger, but all his efforts at rehabilitation are impeded by his father, who is in the same prison.

Jack O'Connell gives a star making turn as the troubled teen, and the always reliable Ben Mendelsohn is outstanding, too. I suck at writeups, and I know I didn't do this movie justice, but if you haven't seen it, you should definitely check it out.

Guys, please fill out the spread sheet! I’m unsure where we are.

Phat Mac is skipped!

Howard is also skipped for the 2nd time!

Riverboatking is on the clock!!

sorry I can't do my proper write ups as I'm not in front of laptop but gonna take one of the great gambling movies of the 21st century.

william macy and alec baldwin are both absolutely perfect in their roles and as someone who has been a pretty big mush their whole life the cooler has a place in my heart.

yes it's silly and the ending is absurd but it's just so much fun.

I'm really torn on my next pick cuz there are 2 films that are in my top 5 all time fav and yet I still haven't taken them and every round I'm sure I'll take em and then my turn comes up and I find myself picking something else and I think that trend will continue and I'll just take them with my last 2 picks.

while I don't rank this film above the 2 undrafted films I'll be taking next round it's just so godamn fun and based on a true story so that gives it some bonus points.

and while aaron sorkin is probably a giant douche in real life good lord can the man write a screenplay.

this is one of those films where anytime I stumble upon it I can't change the channel.
tom hanks and PSH are ridic good and julia roberts lights up the screen whenever she's on it.

and the dialogue is just so great. the scene where PSH first meets hanks and is going in and out of his office as hanks deals with a phone call n publicity crisis is just pure gold.

I'm sure you've guessed it by now but yes it's charlie wilson's war.

can someone pls PM howard and update the spreadsheet for me?

the cooler
charlie wilson's war

Howard and Phat Mac are skipped again!

I choose Pawel Pawlikowski‘s Ida.

Write up later.

John Cole on the clock!

I’m not sure I’m pming the right Phat Mack lol

Just to be clear: once you’ve been skipped once and have not made your pick by the time your turn comes up again, you are automatically skipped u til you do catch up.

I think I owe two. They are Zero Dark Thirty and Lincoln.

ZDT is awesome.
I know it's not PC to admit it but I love it and have watched it countless times.

for some reason I can't make it thru Lincoln.

Write-up; pick 10; The Big Short

"Excellent Comedy!!!" --Zeno

One reason The Big Short is such an excellent comedy is the almost childlike glee they must have had in making it. Filming an obscure or obtuse point? Stop the action! Have a character turn to the camera and explain everything. Or better yet, have a celebrity in a bathtub do it!



Of course the driving force of comedy is human stupidity, and here we have it in spades. It's almost as if nobody on Wall Street, or in Washington, or anywhere in the world for that matter, had heard of Murphy's Law. (I blame public education.)

The question has been raised -- and even raised in the movie by Brad Pitt's character -- as to whether it's morally defensible to laugh at something that will cause so much human misery. As a sobbing moralist myself, I give the film my full blessing. If we accept Vonnegut's definition of black humor as a joke being cracked while watching somebody being hung, and gallows humor as a joke being cracked by somebody being hung, then the Big Short is a perfect example of gallows humor. We all got the shaft on this one.

And so it goes.

Writ-up numero 12

A lot of times I'll be watching a movie and know it's ridiculous as I'm watching it, and not be fazed in the least. Hustle & Flo is on the surface a family drama. Except instead of Waltons on Walton's Mountain we have a pimp and his whores in Memphis.

Sure, the movie may said to depict exploitation, drugs and violence, but in the end it provides us with the perfect antidote to The Big Short. Instead of gangs of worthless Wallstreeters parasitically preying on the weak and defenseless, we have an uplifting account of the American dream -- long may it wave. We have a depiction of striving through creation, hard work, violence, exploitation, family, and yes, above all, hustle.

John Cole is skipped!

xander biscuits is up!

I love the Big Short

my 13th round pick and write-up:

Ida, Pawel Pawlikowski, 2014



Watching this with no prior knowledge, you might think it was made in 1966. It's in black & white and shot in a 1.37:1 aspect ratio, and it takes place is communist Poland. But it's actually one of 2014's very best films.

It's about a young woman who is about to take her vows as a nun, but must first go meet her long-lost aunt, her only surviving relative. Ida learns a surprising truth about her family, and the two women go on a road trip. That's about it. And it'd absolutely devastating.

Writer/Director Pawel Pawlikowski is like a modern-day Bergman or Bresson; his shots are static but fraught with import. His muse is first-time actress 20 year old Agata Trzebuchowska as Ida, a girl with impossibly big, black eyes. This is a face that was born to be photographed.

I'm really loving films that barely let you know what's happening these days...films with slices of dialog that are rarely expository. Ida is like that.

Great, great film.



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Dom's List:

Mulholland Drive
Before Sunset
Punch Drunk Love
Mad Max: Fury Road
Upstream Color
Force Majeure
Once
Her
Blade Runner 2049
Take Shelter
It Follows
Mandy
Ida

It's funny, except for In the Mood For Love, I've gotten every film I've wanted.

Ditto

Announcement: I'm stopping at pick thirteen; God revealed to me in a vision last night to end at 13!. So I can be skipped after my next pick.

-Amen

PS: I'll do my final write ups after pick 13. (I'll owe two)

Just found this thread and have been reading. So far I agree with all the picks I have seen, except for this one. I couldn't really understand the accents enough to fully understand the plot, but I was rooting for the human race to die out.