What were the last movies you watched?

[Lawdog1521]

If by cinematic masterpiece you mean something equally stupid and hilarious, then yes it is.

Though I thought that was an American film.

[hmxhenry]

Really?

Robin Williams is an ass-clown. Mildly funny, but just terrible in serious roles (or even the 'serious moments' in comedic roles). And yes I've seen Good Will Hunting and Dead Poet's Society. He was the worst thing about both.

If forced to pick between Williams or Cruise I don't know which I'd choose. Both are very much products of their time and neither of them ever manage to stray too far from their tried and true one note characters. I think I like more Cruise movies than I do Williams movies... but I probably like Williams in them more than I like Cruise in his.

Oddly enough, I think they're both pretty mediocre for the opposite reason: one can't stop himself from overacting and the other one can't act enough.

Robin Williams is rarely mediocre himself; his choices for films he appears in, however....euuugh. He's been fantastic in tons of films - The Adventures of Baron Munchausen, Good Morning Vietnam, The Fisher King, Mrs. Doubtfire, The Birdcage, Good Will Hunting.

EDIT: Errgh! How could I forget One Hour Photo, his best role to date?

Robin Williams is generally great at playing Robin Williams. He landed some great roles in the 80's and 90's that played to those strengths (especially Good Morning Vietnam and The Fisher King), but around 20 years back he took a vicious Eddie Murphy-ish turn towards bland family fare and manipulative emotional shlock. He still manages to sneak in a gem every now and then, and I do like when he plays against type, but for every Insomnia there's a Bicentennial Man, for every Death to Smoochy there's a Patch Adams, and for every World's Greatest Dad there's an Old Dogs.

[Runesmith]

for every Insomnia there's a Bicentennial Man, for every Death to Smoochy there's a Patch Adams, and for every World's Greatest Dad there's an Old Dogs.

Just about the best summation of Robin Williams' career ever put to type. If one was to ignore his crappy family films and boilerplate roles, though, he has (IMO) one of the most impressive resumes in mainstream film.

By the way, have you ever seen What Dreams May Come and The Night Listener? Both movies aren't as well-developed as they should be but they're worth a watch just to see Williams playing such solemn, jokeless roles.

[LiveHomeVideo]

Robin Williams played a huge role in a Christmas film called "Noel," a piece where several unrelated people affect each other's lives as a man is stalked by an old man who pretends random men are his wife every Christmas, a woman deals with the pain of not being in a good relationship, another woman tries to deal with traumatic events that happened many Christmases ago, and another dude wants to break his arm to get in a hospital. Yeah, the film is exactly what you think it is.

Anyway, it says nowhere in the promotion or credits that he's in the film, despite being the most important side character. Which is odd IMO, even if the movie isn't that great.

[topdrawer]

Safety Not Guaranteed

I liked it a lot. It has the low quality feel of indie movies but it was very good. Never at any point did i feel it was slow or boring.

[Lowlander2]

If you're on a Irish film spree, Henry, I might I suggest Leprechaun in the Hood. It's a cinematic masterpiece.

Gangster: "Yo, dog!"
*pans to shot of an actual dog"

[LoopyChew]

Safety Not Guaranteed

I liked it a lot. It has the low quality feel of indie movies but it was very good. Never at any point did i feel it was slow or boring.

I'd say "low-budget" over quality. It's a quality film that obviously didn't have the money for set or effects, but I don't think it looks like it's built on fake sets or anything.

It's the second-best movie about time travel this year, and not even by a large margin.

[Insane3]

Gangster: "Yo, dog!"
*pans to shot of an actual dog"

That's very clever.

[Insane3]

Pariah

Great script, good casting, annoying editing and music. Overall it's a good movie that depicts some aspects of the ***** perspective: racial oppression, gender identity and presentation and sexuality. It's not very shocking but the characters are nuanced and layered. It's not a dirsuptive film; one that would make you think about how you feel when faced with different sexual realities and reconsider your asumptions. However, it's heartfelt and it gets a lot of points for depicting two things that are generally overlooked when looking at the LGBTQ community: lesbians and non-white people. In fact, LGBTQ could be renamed G and it would make a lot of sense in terms of what we see when we look at non-straight communities: gay cis men. Anyway that was my rant.

Note: Again, the word q u e e r is censored and that's problematic, given it's an umbrella term refering to non-conforming gender identities and sexual practices, but is also political, academic, a major aspect of feminist studies and an aspect of contemporary studies in film, art, theatre, music, etc. That was my second rant.

[Lowlander2]

Skyfall

Certainly a lot better than Quantum of Solace, but not great. It was brilliant that I could actually see the action this time around, but the movie seemed a lot more ambitious, and I'm not sure it paid off.

They tried to make Bond and M, long staples of the franchise, actual characters this time around. I feel like they succeeded in giving M a backstory, with her emotional ties to James Bond, but they fell flat on his face with Bond himself. The entire point of Bond is that he has a personality but not a backstory, so when they tried to justify his actions, it didn't come through very well. And yes, this means I was not a fan of OHMSS either.

The pacing was also just damn weird. There weren''t quite plot holes, but some things could have been explained a lot better. Still, the setpieces are enough to make me give it a passing grade. Also Daniel Craig without a shirt didn't disappoint.

Note: Again, the word q u e e r is censored and that's problematic, given it's an umbrella term refering to non-conforming gender identities and sexual practices, but is also political, academic, a major aspect of feminist studies and an aspect of contemporary studies in film, art, theatre, music, etc. That was my second rant.

That's actually quite true and worth bringing up, but if we're going to uncensor that, we can bury cis. It's a bit blase, carries its own negative connotations.