The Hunter (2011)
Willem Dafoe, Frances O'Connor, Sam Neil
Dir. by Daniel Nettheim
(Currently streaming on Netflix)

I caught this Aussie movie when it came to the states about a year and a half ago, knowing only that it starred Dafoe. I liked it pretty well, and soon forgot about it. The Netflix description for this movie is insufficient. It basically says that a hunter gets hired by a military biotech firm to kill and collect tissue and blood samples of the elusive Tasmanian tiger. Which is absolutely accurate. But that's more the macguffin than What the Story's About. I found it actually pretty interesting and mostly well-executed. Various story threads get woven together fairly well, the characters' behavior generally makes sense, and Dafoe kills it (Sam Neill kind of phones it in). There's a couple really great scenes—

I like how the poster seems to comment on the whole idea of Redford making a movie with TheBeef. The title, the looks on their faces, and the fact that almost every cast member has an award credit except Shia. LOL.

12 Years a Slave

Very interesting film. Definitely makes you think twice about slavery.

Europa Report is on Netflix now. You guys should watch it. It doesn't pull a Sunshine in the 3rd act.
I'd been curious about this one for a while, a found footage hard-sci-fi movie about a fictional trip to Jupiter to investigate Europa. The verdict? It's really good, but not perfect.

The biggest issue is the movie embraces a non-linear story structure through sections of it, for seemingly no reason. It's a really weird choice that hurts the movie (especially the first 10 minutes, which feel really off-balance as a result), because it under-cuts the tension of a key character moment, for no real benefit. It doesn't kill the movie or anything, but I think if they told it strictly linearly, it could've been great instead of merely really good.

With that out of the way, this is one of the strongest examples of a hard sci-fi space movie I've seen in awhile. For the most part, characters consistently make smart decisions, and behave like scientists. Also, despite what the trailers may suggest, the movie stays pretty cerebral throughout, and doesn't actually ever really turn into a horror movie. It basically just sticks with the fictional mission and them trying to fix problems that happen along the way, which is much appreciated. Actors are all good too, with solid performances all around.

If anything holds the movie back, it's just that it doesn't really end up being ABOUT anything greater than itself. It's a well told found-footage space movie, but nothing more than that. I also kinda wished at times it wasn't restricted by the found footage format, but this is clearly a limitation of the budget, and they make the most of it. Still, it's really admirable to see a movie like this about intelligent scientists who put their lives on the line for the betterment of mankind. It may be kind of Gravity's low-budget cousin this year, but I hope people give it a chance.

Last edited by bullet3 (2013-11-09 09:06:36)

It's not just an homage to Frankenstein and similar "old school" monster movies. First and foremost, Frankenweenie is a touching, sentimental story that anyone can relate to. And it's not bad. Not bad at all.

A rather dark satire, more sad than funny. The movie tries (not entirely successfully) to be something between American Beauty and The Truman Show. A mildly interesting indie, but a little too heavy-handed for my taste.

I'm not sure 10 of 10 is really appropriate, but who said it was bad? Heathers is a classic of the era; it's anti-John-Hughes.

/still loves his dead gay son

Winona Ryder's dad in Heathers ("why do I smoke these damn things?") was played by Bill Cort, my father's best friend in high school who then went out to Hollywood and had a great "that guy" acting career.   The first day I arrived in L.A. to start college, it was Bill who picked me up at the airport.

I think Heathers is great anyway, but seeing Bill always gives it a little extra spice for me.

/cool story bro

Thought it was excellent and full of dread in a really idiosyncratic and charming way. Probably one of the only true American independent films to get a legit release in the last ten years. Reminded me a lot of Amity.

If you don't understand a film you'd do well to consider it an emotional and intellectual challenge before you write it off as incomprehensible. What didn't you get?

To thread's wit:

Blue is the Warmest Color is probably the most unyielding and accurate depictions of love I've ever seen in the art form.

Most of it wasn't a matter of not getting, but of getting too much. The film spends an hour beating it into our heads that American men like sex, with one groan-inducing visual metaphor after another. There was nothing intellectually challenging about it. You see more clever satire of the American family in shows and movies made by Disney. We get it already. And it moved at a glacial pace.

And then the last 30 minutes devolved into absurdity for the sake of absurdity. I would love to hear your explanation for what was going on in the last act, and what relation it had to anything that happened beforehand.

Interesting, I didn't think the passing of time was handled very well. Those scenes were long and grueling, but it didn't translate to a lot of time passing. To me it just made a short amount of time feel longer. It felt more like 1 or 2 long years than 12. The way he chose to show the passing of time was with transition shots of willow leaves and cross dissolves between scenes. But I had no clue how much time had passed after each of those transitions. It could've been a year, or a day. There was no dialogue that helped with it either. There were no lines like, "I've been here for 6 years now," or "A few years back Master did blah blah." Text displayed the year in the beginning of the movie but it was never used throughout. The only indicator of passed time for me was that in one scene, his hair had started to gray all of the sudden.

At the end I was thinking, "Well he's free... I guess it's been 12 years then."

Very powerful film, but that part of it bothered me a bit. No sense of time. Also Brad Pitt and his Aldo Raine voice.