Essential Coli-members what's the last thing you watched?

[ℒℴѵℯJay ELECTUA]

6 parts..oh lord! THis was wild as hell..excellent!!

 

[Ribbs]

Trim this down by 30 minutes and you got yourself a great movie. I need to watch other True Romance homages like Things To Do In Denver When You're Dead or 2 Days In The Valley.

 

[Cartier Murphy]

 

[OGBobbyJohnson]

Absolutely hilarious and lowkey brilliantly written

Gonna follow this up with Snatch which I haven't watched in years

High af..Bout to check this out

 

[TheGodling]

This is what Lion could have been without the mishandled adoption/look for my parents shyt. Capharnaüm follows a boy called Zain from the slums of Lebanon who was sent to prison for stabbing a person. In jail he sues his parents for raising him, and through flashbacks we see the horrid conditions in which he grew up. Eventually he runs away and befriends an Ethiopan illegal housekeeper, and must take care of her one year old boy when she is arrested one day. What could easily have been an emotionally manipulative feel-bad movie works because of a dedicated realism to all of its content (child neglect/abuse, poverty, starvation and more), while female (!) writer/director Nadine Labaki also uses some very subtle and relatable moments of humor to prevent the tone from getting insanely dark. But above all there's an understanding of the subject at work here that makes it stand so much stronger than many other similar movies.

Long Day's Journey Into Night might be the first movie in years where for at least an hour and twenty minutes or so, I had no fukking idea what was going on. Bi Gan's second feature film is a poetic exploration of memories, which as the main character in the movie says '...can be both false and true'. Twenty years after he got involved with a dangerous woman he returns back to his hometown and searches for her, his search attempts revealing bits of his life while constantly intercut by the gorgeously shot memories of the events 20 years ago, which feel abstract but never unreal. That all changes around the hour mark when, having nearly tracked her down, he falls asleep in a movie theater wearing 3D glasses and the next hour of the film is a one-take dream sequence shot in 3D! Outside of its insane technical feat (the tracking shot starts in a cave on top of a mountain and works its way down to a town karaoke festival through moped rides, cable rides and literal flight while never losing track of its characters) all of the briefly mentioned events from the past come to life and gain new symbolism. It's the most arthouse-y film I have seen in ages, which makes the story about the Chinese marketing all the more hilarious. They sold it as a romcom flick to celebrate the arrival of the new year, and it made almost $40 million that day, only to receive such enormous backlash for being an inexplicable piece of expressionist filmmaking that its box office dropped 96% the next day.

 

[Cartier Murphy]

 

[TheGodling]

Director Jia Zhangke is actually present at IFFR for Ash Is Purest White but because he had a scheduled masterclass workshop he didn't do a Q&A for my screening, only a short introduction beforehand. Second time this IFFR I missed out on speaking with a great filmmaker.

Starring his muse/wife Zhao Tao as the girlfriend of a big-time "brother" in a local crime syndicate, the story follows her as she mostly hangs around the squad enjoying the life, but when she takes the fall for illegal gun possession after her boyfriend is attacked by young up-and-coming street hoodlums, she goes to prison for five years. After her release, everything has changed (in particularly China itself) and she has to learn to survive on her own, which she learns with remarkable speed as she adapts to the changing times better than her former lover who can't cope with time passing him by.

In many ways it's a re-thread of paths Jia Zhangke has walked many times before, exploring the industrial changes and globalization of China over a period of time, and in particular for his hometown region Shanxi, but in comparison to his previous effort Mountains May Depart this works a lot better, with an intricate relationship at its heart that holds everything together when it strays of the narrative path.

 

[Zero]

Meh. It was alright. Expected better.

 

[Cartier Murphy]

 

[Zero]

Honestly? It's not perfect, it's rough around the edges, and even nonsensical at times, but you know what? I still fukk with this

I think Idris Elba has it in him to give us a great movie, he just needs a little more practice.

 

[TheGodling]

Killing, the latest of Japanese cult director Shinya Tsukamoto (Tetsuo: The Iron Man and Tokyo Fist) is a simple samurai movie about a peaceful era in which a young, talented samurai works as a farmer. When war breaks out, he's recruited by an older samuari, but trouble with a group of local outcasts reveal the young samurai's reluctance to kill. Like most Tsukamoto films you can't expect too much from its production value, but this movie breaks all barriers as it is shot in ugly digital with the worst sound design ever, featuring an utterly non-actor lead. If you then take into consideration that the plot is so minimal it feels like it could be handled in 30 minutes but is stretched out to 90 minutes for feature length, even the sporadic Japanese gore and brutality can't save this.

@FlyRy @HHR @Zero @MartyMcFly

You guys (and everyone else for that matter) better put this one on your to-watch list ASAP.

Pájaros de Verano (Birds Of Passage) tells a seemingly familiar tale about the origin of cartels in Colombia, except it's much, much greater. To pay for the dowry of an indigenous Wayuu clan's daughter, the indigenous but more "colonized" Rapayet starts weed trafficking with his Spanish-Colombian friend Moisés. His marriage to the girl forces him to honor the Wayuu's traditions, but as their business expands rules and traditions start to get in the way of the money. What sets this apart from all the other cliché cartel/drug movies is that the movie is deeply rooted into its indigenous culture. It shows how the earliest (small) cartels are run like family businesses by the traditions of their ancestors, but the capitalistic nature of the drug trade causes the next gen to lose sight of those rules. The result is an excellent crime film filled with strong spiritualism and themes of the loss of culture and tradition where even the most cliché aspects of these type of stories gain stronger meaning because the impact is always firmly rooted in an explanation and exploration of the Wayuu traditions. Co-director Ciro Guerra also directed the amazing El Abrazo de la Serpiente (Embrace Of The Serpent) which makes him a lock for one of the most interesting directors to look out for in the future (and past).

Zhang Yimou, the Chinese master of color, goes left field with Ying (Shadow), a film shot in color but toned almost completely in shades of black and white. The result is a film that easily could've felt very drab and boring, but the contrast used in the set designs and costumes is so perfect that it is instead absolutely gorgeous. With a very theatrically acted and Shakespeare inspired story (something about a king's commander who suffered a nigh-fatal wound and is now using an impostor to sway the country into war while his wife falls for the impostor) and some visually impressive action scenes (featuring inventive but also kinda ridiculous use of bladed umbrellas) it is all a lot of fun, albeit it never quite gels into a complete picture like a House Of Flying Daggers or Hero did.

 

[Skooby]

What movie or show is this from:

 

[Ribbs]

I knew this movie was sad going in but dawg

 

[Ribbs]

What movie or show is this from:

Chicago Fire

 

[Cartier Murphy]