I wondered that too. I was surprised to see that one of my FB “friends” from the west coast posted the link.
We saw Arrival- my wife loved it, I thought it was “meh”. Both of us loved Fantastic Beasts (as did my adult D and her BFF when they saw it last weekend before they saw Rogue One, which they ADORED!!).
We plan to see Rogue One after S arrives so we can see it as a family.
Loved Manchester by the Sea - devastating but beautiful and so brilliantly acted. Casey Affleck, yes, but also Lucas Hedges as the teen.
Found Loving excruciatingly slow. It is an important story to tell, but to me it did not translate well to a movie. It was also interesting to see how strong the gender roles were back then.
Also saw Dr. Strange (which may not be in theaters any longer) but was very good if you like scifi/fantasy films.
Looking forward to Rogue One and still want to see Moonlight. Fences looks good as well. Not sure about LaLaLand, but seems like a good one for a girls night.
Rogue One was amazing-it pinged all my nostalgia neurons like crazy, but still felt very fresh and new. As somebody who is a visual stickler for authenticity, I really liked how the X-wing fighter pilot costumes were spot-on, how the ambient sounds were spot on, and some of the characters re-appeared from the original three movies. It was really a phenomenally well done movie.
And the droid-probably my new favorite droid. (sorry, Artoo…)
We went to see it as a family, which is fairly unusual nowadays to get the girls to agree to see a movie with us (they’re 17 and 16). We’re planning on seeing Hidden Figures together, as well, since they don’t think any of their friends will be interested in it, but we are nerding out over it.
Christmas Office Party was amusing and immediately forgettable.
I liked Hell or High Water. Watch alongside reading Hillbilly Elegy - what do you do when you truly feel/know the system is rigged against you.
I wanted to see Loving but it’s not come here yet.
La La Land, the romantic movie musical, is enthralling. It had me in the first minute, when a dance number breaks out in a traffic jam. Everything about this musical is fabulous. Ryan Gosling and Emma Stone have enough chemistry for a Nobel prize.
As in old movie musicals, the dancing is filmed so the viewer can see the entire bodies of the dancers, rather than the frenetic knees and elbows shots we often see nowadays. We can watch dancing, not body parts.
If you love old movie musicals, you’ll love this one. I can’t wait to own it and rewatch it.
Another thumbs up for Hell or High Water.
@Cardinal Fang, thanks for the reco on La La Land… I’m going to try to see it Friday with my kids – IF we can get tickets!
Recently re-watched my #1 favorite movie of all time, Andrei Rublev. Better every time I see it. A real masterpiece.
We recently saw both Manchester and La La Land. The first was great, albeit super-sad. The scene between Michelle Williams and Casey Affleck outdoors, with the baby carriage, was just stunning.
La La Land we were more ambivalent about – I basically liked it, but with reservations, my wife didn’t really like it at all. We both agreed it had some fine scenes/set pieces, beautiful filming. Why did they cast Emma Stone and Ryan Gosling? Neither one can sing, and neither one is a particularly good dancer. It’s not like the world is seriously short on attractive actors who can sing and dance! The filmmakers fixed a good number of the dancing problems with body doubles, and it would have been fine if they dubbed in other voices for the singing, too – that could have given it even more of a meta edge, a little tribute to Bollywood, or to Audrey Hepburn singing in Marni Nixon’s voice in My Fair Lady.
I have enjoyed any number of film musicals with actors who are poor singers, but after this and Les Miz I’m over it. No more! Singin’ In The Rain had Fred Astaire and Donald O’Connor. La La Land would have been incomparably better with similar talent.
I won’t say more, because I don’t want to spoil it for people. But the singing and dancing weren’t the only things that sucked for me.
If you liked La La Land, or like the idea of it, go back and watch Woody Allen’s version of practically the same thing: Everybody Says I Love You. (Damien Chazelle has seen it – there are several "quotes’ in La La Land.) It’s much better and more entertaining, even with the annoying bad singing. Plus, what a cast! Alan Alda, Goldie Hawn, Drew Barrymore, Edward Norton, Tim Roth, Julia Roberts, Natasha Lyonne, Natalie Portman, Gaby Hoffman, Lukas Haas. And wonderful filmed-on-location production numbers.
In the department of backward-looking, classic films that not everyone knows about:
Maybe my favorite film ever right now – and certainly in my top five or six – is Yi-Yi, a long, slow, beautiful, Proustian epic about a messed-up family in Taiwan with a youngest child who may grow up to be an artist. Edward Yang, the brilliant man who made it, died before he could finish another movie, but it’s practically perfect from the first frame. It’s a film Ingmar Bergman might have made if he were a nice person.
Another favorite film has just been re-mastered and re-released: Tampopo, the ultimate ramen Western. Its McGuffin-y frame is a young widow trying to make a go of her deceased husband’s noodle soup shop, and a taciturn, but very philosophic cowboy-trucker-aesthete who rides down off the high prairie in his rig and takes her up and down the ladder of Japanese society to learn the best way to make each element of the soup. Meanwhile, there are subplots galore – flashy gangsters with cinematic food fetishes, an etiquette school for wives of executives posted to the West, bitter rivalry among ramen shops.
Sorry, Singin’ in the Rain was Gene Kelly not Fred Astaire.
Oh Tampopo is one of my favorites. I love the Japanese John Wayne look alike. And the scene with the raw egg…
Oh dear, I’m seeing La La Land on Xmas day. I wasn’t excited about any musical with Ryan Gosling, now less so. On well. At lest I have plans to see Hidden Numbers with a math teacher and 3 retired M.D.s, plus my psychiatrist friend. These are the brightest, nicest people I know, and a movie I actually can’t wait to see.
I never heard of Hidden Figures–looks like a great movie!
Cheer up, bookworm. Reviewers have gushed over La La Land (except the New Yorker’s reviewer). It has two SAG nominations-- both Stone and Gosling. It has seven Golden Globe nominations: Stone, Gosling, Best Director, Best Score, Best Screenplay, Best Song and another.
It has wowed a lot of people. I adored it. The opening sequence is stunning, but my favorite scene in the movie hearkens back to Astaire-Rodgers dance sequences where Fred and Ginger are falling in love while denying it. In La La Land, Stone and Gosling are leaving a pretentious party, singing about how they couldn’t care less about each other. As they sing, Emma, oh what a coincidence, sits down and changes into dance shoes. Then they dance, filmed against a glorious background at dusk, in ultrawide Cinemascope. I could watch this ten times, and I will.
Thanks, C Fang. Makes me feel,better.
I agree. That, and the opening number, are the highlights of the movie. It’s a cute idea for a song: What a waste of a beautiful evening, since neither of us cares about the other. Very Cole Porter. And for the most part, the dance is in the same vein, the two of them moving in perfect sync without seeming to pay much attention to each other.
Loving opened in our town last night and I saw it with S & DIL, who are both attorneys. We had all expected a little more focus on the SCOTUS case, but that part of the story is minimal in the movie. It was slow, as I believe someone above had mentioned, but that seemed appropriate for the story and we all enjoyed it. Last year when they were here we saw Spotlight a few nights after Christmas and I raved about that one for quite some time. Not really ready to rave over this one, but I did think it was worth our time and money.
We saw Manchester by the Sea last week - so incredibly sad that it takes your breath away but the acting is outstanding, Casey Afflect, Michelle Williams and Lucas Hedges who plays the teenager are all excellent and it is well made beautiful film. We usually see an early movie on New Year’s Eve and then come home for a candlelight dinner, so maybe this year, La La Land might be the choice.