[vwinter]

"The movie is offensive because it links autism with anti-social inclinations. "

This is such a jump in logic that it's a bit scary and much unfortunate.

(A) people with autism have certain character traits
(B) some of this certain character traits lend well or are transferable to effective functioning of a process, in this case to effectively non-serial killing.

Hence, having autism makes one inclined, as in predisposed to effectively contract killing.

Ergo, be afraid of people with autism.

Smh.

 

[Hutnicks]

"The movie is offensive because it links autism with anti-social inclinations. "

This is such a jump in logic that it's a bit scary and much unfortunate.

(A) people with autism have certain character traits
(B) some of this certain character traits lend well or are transferable to effective functioning of a process, in this case to effectively non-serial killing.

Hence, having autism makes one inclined, as in predisposed to effectively contract killing.

Ergo, be afraid of people with autism.

Smh.

Hence the word fiction goes largely un noticed in the critical world. I wonder if they believe Iron Man actually exists and are perpetually stymied that he has not been deployed to combat ISIS.
 
Meanwhile................................. An over eager Trumptopia staff anticipating a win next week is busy lobbying SOCOM to start recruiting autistic children as the next gen Delta and Seal operators. General Dynamics smelling big money has tendered a trillion dollar proposal to study the phenomenon and offers to put full automatic weapons in the hands of kindergarten aged children in order to ferret out the most promising candidates.
 
Love the fact that a largely un noticed and minor film like this creates such a stir. Perhaps just perhaps it will give the genpop cause to look at autistic children as a resource and not a burden.

 

[mutabor]

Some other quotes from different reviewers about The Accountant:
 
many critics are really pissed off by this movie ----------------> I'm looking forward to watch it this or next week, it has to be good
 

 If you're going to make the first mainstream movie about autism since "Rain Man," maybe don't feature an anti-hero who's highly adept at shooting people in the head.

 

 This thriller ... is so preposterous and unnecessarily convoluted that it has you scratching your head and pulling your hair ... in frustration and disbelief.

 

 At various times, The Accountant aspires to a slick corporate-espionage thriller, a no-nonsense action flick, a tortured family drama, a quirky romantic comedy, and an earnest PSA about autism. At nearly all times, it's preposterous.

 

 Cold, shallow and preposterous.

 

 What could serve as the year's most preposterous mainstream release.

 

 The Accountant should be a straight-ahead thriller, but the film keeps tripping over its own incompetent feet. Maybe it was made for adults, but it sure doesn't feel like it was made by them.

 

 A movie so clear-eyed in its singular, stupid vision, I honestly can't believe it made it all the way from the page to the screen, with a real director and major studio attached. It's a strange kind of shrug-worthy miracle.

 

 Action movies don't get weirder or more nonsensical than The Accountant, which straddles corporate chicanery and psychological thriller in the dumbest ways possible.

 

[Hutnicks]

Oddly enough, the similarly afflicted character Arby in the cult darling Utopia took no such flack. I suspect European audiences intellect rises above mass pandered PC outrage

 

[WraithApe]

@mutabor I don't know how some of these so-called professional reviewers hold down a job. I've seen more cogent, eloquent reviews on this thread, without the sheepish moral conservatism.
 
I wasn't planning on watching The Accountant, but I feel compelled to now! No smoke without fire etc.

 

[tdockweiler]

Hacksaw Ridge - ?/10
 
One of the most accurate portrayals of WWII in the pacific i've seen.
Well, this is based on all the books i've read and documentaries i've seen.
Of course you know that Hollywood loves to sugar-coat every war movie.
Or if they don't, they make a movie where they don't require you to think much.
Yes, it's also maybe one the goriest war movies released in Hollywood.
 
This actually is not really an action film BTW. I really liked how they took their time at the beginning.
Lots of stuff in here that made me think a lot, but no real political messages if those annoy you.
 
Andrew Garfield and Mel Gibson made this one even better than it could have been.
I think I've liked Andrew Garfield as an actor ever since "99 Homes" (which is severely underrated).
No really bad acting in this movie I think.

 

[tdockweiler]

^ Saw it again tonight and it was even better the second time around.
Definitely a 10/10. There's a lot of funny parts in it too.

 

[Hutnicks]

Crushed (2015)  5/10
 
                                          Overly long troped out whodunit from Australia could have been miles better. Set in a vineyard there was potential here but mediocre writing and poorer direction has this one fall flat on it's face. The twists and turns are really amateurish in construction and execution and this causes the 151 minutes to pass very very slowly. Extremely odd sound recording also provides a significant annoyance factor. Nothing really stands out other than the duration. Should have been and maybe was a network TV movie.
 
 I really am starting to believe they don't make them like they used to

 

[WraithApe]

 
The Bloodstained Shadow - 6/10
 
Another overlong whodunit from an earlier time. This one is very much a Giallo. For anyone unfamiliar with the genre, it basically refers to the kind of lurid murder mystery produced in Italy between the mid 60s and 80s, made for the foreign market in much the same way Spaghetti Westerns were. They often include horror tropes, but not necessarily. They always include sex and death in some ratio. There were an awful lot made during the 70s and inevitably many were pretty derivative; some falling well short of the standard set by masters of the genre like Mario Bava and Dario Argento. The Bloodstained Shadow is a lower grade Giallo, but not without its good points.
 
You know the kind of film you're in for when it opens with possibly the jerkiest panning shot ever, followed by an unnecessarily elongated death scene (another Giallo staple). You discover this murder happened some years ago and the perpetrator's apparent return to the streets of Venice to commit a new string of murders forms the basis of the mystery. It throws in lots of red herrings and keeps you guessing the identity of the killer until the end. It's intriguing enough, though that's often as much a result of the choppy and unintentionally hilarious editing as it is plotting, characterization or aesthetics. The film has a flatly lit, washed-out appearance that seems to seep into the characters too, none of whom are particularly memorable. The ending has to be one of the most ridiculously perfunctory I've seen: man falls off tower, hits the ground with a dull thunk, done - roll credits!
 
The crazy 70s score reminded me a fair bit of Goblin in places and I found out afterwards that they did do some work on it, though it was uncredited. They were apparently director Antonio Bido's first choice and the producers, having initially balked at their fee, relented enough to allow them to do some work finessing Stelvio Cipriani's score.

 

[Planar_head]

The Magnificent Seven (2016): 6/10
 
Very okay. Too centered around two characters, one of which is very distracting. (Gosh darn it, how did Chris Pratt get this role while pulling such a half-assed Wild West accent? He sounds way too educated for some of his lines in this movie.)
The tone of the movie was very scattered. Cinematography paled in comparison to some of the greats of the era. It invites these comparisons since they attempt to riff on classics like the original Magnificent Seven and falls far from what that movie has accomplished.
There are some glimmers of creativity and brilliance in the muck of it, scenes that legitimately surprised me. While Chris Pratt did a bad job with his accent, he did a great job of filling his role when it came to action time.
All in all, it was a good time. It would be worth watching if it was on TV or something.

 

[oqvist]

Whiplash
 
Totally unrealistic hollywood story but entertaining 5/5
 
En man som heter Ove. Totally unrealistic swedish hollywoodized story but entertaining 5/5. 
 
Good acting in both movies one full of likeable characters the other full of non likable characters.

 

[Muinarc]

Dr Strange 7.5/10
 
It was plenty entertaining like many of the Marvel films. They kept the scope fairly small even though there was some globe trotting so I comment them for that. You can't have these dire, earth shattering fights in all of these because saving the world gets old.

 

[vwinter]

Poltergeist (1982) [8.3/10]

I don't even know what to make of this. Or what it really was. So many pieces that don't really appear to fit together. Until you step back, and then it just kind of works. The movie takes care to point out that this isn't a haunting (good job IMDB). This is something else altogether. And that's really reflective of the overall film.

Nothing is what you would expect. And I don't mean there are crazy twists and turns and those who are not really who they appear. It's pretty impressive actually: you watch these characters, what they do and how they react to the situations and you should be saying "seriously??" But you don't. Diane, the mom, is a prime example, and amazing really. She does nothing that the rational person she appears to be would do, and you don't think it's weird.

E.g. You turn around and see chairs have instantly arranged themselves into a cantilevered pyramid on top of your dining room table. Do you (a) grab your child and gtfo, sort that **** out later (b) try to at least contact your husband/wife, or (c) put a football helmet on your daughter and turn her into a supernatural bowling ball, then wait around in the room until your husband comes home and jump for joy when you can recreate it for him like a science experiment.

It's kind of... awesome really. This is part ghost busters, part evil dead, even a bit part goonies. Throw in a wacky score by Jerry Goldsmith. This is the 80's and it's glorious.


The Color of Money (1986) [8.4/10]

Kind of surprised this movie has zero mentions on this thread.

Objectively, it's not really great movie if you break it down. But it's also not really a "standard" movie. I was a bit surprised to read that not only did it have a hard time getting green-lit being directed by Scorsese, but that the studios didn't like Paul Newman nor Tom Cruise being in it. That is so incredibly the opposite of what I've come to the expect from Hollywood these days that i was taken aback.

The writing and dialogue isn't exactly Franz Kafka Award quality, but really, more than the writing it's the animated performances and facial expressions that make this work. It's not what the characters say but their body language that does the real talking.

The delivery on some of the movie's jokes still stand up to this day. I still laugh after they leave the first pool hall and Vincent is giving Fast Eddie a hard time.

Also of note is that Newman and Cruise did a lot of practice and shot most of their own shots. Especially impressive when you see Cruise run 5 balls in long takes while in character.

Scorsese embellishes the good moments with interesting camera angles, movement and framing. And the editing keeps the pacing feeling brisk.

Not my first time watching it and it won't be the last. I do have a soft spot for it but tried to be objective with the score. It ignited my interest in the game when I was younger. And films of this sort are culturally significant IMO as they can influence the actions of generations that discover and rediscover them.

 

[Muinarc]

Poltergeist (1982) [8.3/10]

I don't even know what to make of this. Or what it really was. So many pieces that don't really appear to fit together. Until you step back, and then it just kind of works. The movie takes care to point out that this isn't a haunting (good job IMDB). This is something else altogether. And that's really reflective of the overall film.

Nothing is what you would expect. And I don't mean there are crazy twists and turns and those who are not really who they appear. It's pretty impressive actually: you watch these characters, what they do and how they react to the situations and you should be saying "seriously??" But you don't. Diane, the mom, is a prime example, and amazing really. She does nothing that the rational person she appears to be would do, and you don't think it's weird.

E.g. You turn around and see chairs have instantly arranged themselves into a cantilevered pyramid on top of your dining room table. Do you (a) grab your child and gtfo, sort that **** out later (b) try to at least contact your husband/wife, or (c) put a football helmet on your daughter and turn her into a supernatural bowling ball, then wait around in the room until your husband comes home and jump for joy when you can recreate it for him like a science experiment.

It's kind of... awesome really. This is part ghost busters, part evil dead, even a bit part goonies. Throw in a wacky score by Jerry Goldsmith. This is the 80's and it's glorious.
 

 
One of the best horror movies ever. The steak scene seals it.

 

[vwinter]

One of the best horror movies ever. The steak scene seals it.

Oh man. Talk about which of these scenes does not belong. I literally had just finished eating a very meaty sandwich right before that scene. Did not feel good for about 15 minutes after that lol.