I'm surprised at all the great review Ad Astra is getting....seeing it tomorrow

Damn I’m excited to watch some movies! Added ~15 to the list. Thanks for the reviews - esp the festival write ups

mispost

Hopefully will see Ad Astra tomorrow as well. Finally getting to some good movies, what a dreadful spring and summer it has been.

I really liked Ad Astra more for the tone and pacing then the actual story/conclusion...felt like i was in a trance throughout the entire movie. Some of the shots are breathtaking and Brad Pitt was great, enjoyed it very much.

Hustlers was good but the hype is a bit nuts. It’s a by-the-book con movie. I did like that it’s a rare film almost wholly devoid of male characters. Men are treated, in this film, like women are treated in most other film.

How in the hell is Lopez in her 50s?

Monos

Colombian film about young guerillas in an unknown war in an unknown part of the world. Beautiful imagery and music throughout. It ends up being kind of Lord of the Flies with brutality and innocence. The plot wasn't great but the visuals were amazing.

I gave it 3/5 stars on the film festival voting when leaving the show.

Why so serious!


If the joker is anything less than a total evil maniac I will
Not be happy

Hustlers was good fun, liked the portrayal of the relationships between the women. Agree that the hype is a bit much, it's nothing that special. The con scenes are a bit laboured given that it's not a terribly sophisticated scam - drug men, then max out their credit cards.

Saw Ad Astra yesterday.

Didn't care for the story, couldn't get past some of the implausible parts. Felt underwhelmed afterward. More on me than the story, I suspect. Maybe I over-expected.

Visually quite good, and they got a lot of stuff (semmingly) right. Good movie, but not a "wow, this is something everyone must watch.", which is what I kind of felt like it was being built up as.

Watched Claire Denis's Let The Sunshine In again last night. Fabulous movie with the always luminous Juliette Binoche. The ending with Gerard Depardieu playing the psychic advisor is wonderful. The film is loosely based on Roland Barthes's A Lover's Discourse, and it captures the fragmentary nature of Barthes's work. And it's also funny.

Ad Astra

Not good. It seems like it's trying to be Malick in space, but the inner monologue narration is boring and vapid, and the space traveling shots are both underwhelming and annoyingly non-scientific. Brad Pitt is doing his "I'm gonna not emote at all" schtick instead of his overacting (and entertaining) schtick.

It's trying for a sense of wonder, but I was squirming in my seat almost from the very beginning.

Days of Being Wild is on TCM tonight at 1AM CDT.

ASMR Voice Over: The Movie (aka Ad Astra)

No human has ever acted like anyone in this film ever. It’s the anti-“The Martian”. The dumbest people ever written. The way he escapes from the Lima is a top 5 dumbest scenes in movie history. Wtf is Liv Tyler doing in this? It is like an SNL skit of terrible female roles. She literally doesn’t get to talk!

I ****ing hated this movie with the raging intensity of a thousand burning suns.

Grade: F-

Downton Abbey - if you like the show, you’ll like the movie. It is precisely what you expect it is.

these polarized reviews for ad astra make me pretty excited to see it. haven't really loved a james gray movie yet, maybe this is the one


New Rose Hotel (1998 - Abel Ferrara)

About 2/3 of this movie is pretty great. Walken hamming it up, Argento is superhot and it's really visually engaging and beautiful (those dissolves whew). But then the last 20-30 minutes

demonlover (2002 - Olivier Assayas)

Rewatch. Corporate espionage thriller like New Rose Hotel, but as much as I liked that one, this is just so much better. I remember liking it when it came out, but it really blew me away this time. Still processing and can't really articulate my thoughts how I'd like, so can't do it justice with a proper review. But in short I think everything in this movie is pretty much perfect. Criminally underrated.

Totally agree. Also it might be in contention for worse of all time last line


There are not enough rolling eye emoticons on earth.

I enjoy Clovis' passion

Just watched Arrival again, to cleanse my pallet. It’s so good. It doesn’t have a false note. Best sci-fi film in a decade.

I can definitely sympathize with the dislike for Ad Astra, though I thought it had great style (very BR2049-esque) and overall I did like it more than I disliked it.

don't compare it to BR2049!! That's a masterpiece....Ad Astra....is not.

There were lots of good shots in AA. And some of the sets and moods were very much like BR2049, especially on Mars.

Whenever I see someone talk about Arrival I always think of the 1996 movie The Arrival with Charlie Sheen. Then I remember there was a subsequent one that's more famous. Maybe someday I'll see Arrival so I can make a comparison.

Clovis, you are correct.

Re: Ad Astra

As always, others in this forum are able to articulate things better than I. See Dominic's review.