#2,209: Bridge of Spies

Exam - ★★½☆☆
I was hoping this movie would remind me of Cube, and it kind of does, but it's not as satisfying. It doesn't commit hard enough often enough.

Circle - ★★★☆☆
Where Exam felt like a movie written straight-ahead, front-to-back, based on someone's notion of an interesting way to start a script, Circle feels like a movie written with an outline, maybe even an idea of how a movie might end and constructed from there. The opening here might be a little more clumsy, but it marches swiftly on towards a bold conclusion, which is a much more satisfying thing to do.

Closer to the Moon - ★★½☆☆
This is a kind of interesting story told in a sort of boring way.

Bridge of Spies - ★★★★★
This movie had everything! Spies? check! Bridge? check! A maybe too-safe feeling hero? check! Lovely, deliberate, and motivated camerawork? check!

I had a really great time watching this, especially with all the on-screen spying going on. I was a little disappointed when the bridge finally showed up, because I didn't want to get to the end of the story. I didn't know I could be more satisfied with my movie-going experience until the credits finally rolled and some goof in the back shouted out 'that was terrible!'

Plus, if you live in the US, take your ticket stub to participating Burger King restaurants for the promotional tie-in Bridge of Fries! Mine came with a Tom Hanks of ketchup.

On video journalism...

“Some really good advice I was given at the start, and that stuck with me, is when you go somewhere, to make a film or do an interview or whatever, don’t get your camera out straightaway. Don’t start filming everything. Take your time, get the lay of the land, meet the people, think about the film. You know, build relationships, know what’s what, and then start filming. Get what you need. Be efficient. And then leave.

Don’t walk in, pull your camera out going “oh look at this shiny thing I’m going to film that! Look at that! I’ll ask you a question! I’ll ask you a question! Oh!” That’s what young inexperienced people do. They film everything, they panic, and then they get back to the office and they’ve got like 18 hours of footage and they don’t know what to do. ”

— Brady Haran, Hello Internet #39: Getting Things Done

Two related facts of my life lately are that I'm doing a lot of After Effects-related work and that I'm listening to a lot more podcasts. I liked this part when I heard it, and I thought to myself that more people could use this advice, and that I should write it down.  And so I did. 

The Prayer, by Matthias Schubert

As crowdfunding videos go, this is a pretty good one. And as filmmakers go, Matthias is a pretty good one too.

He's the cinematographer of the two best feature films I've helped to make: The Selling and Diani & Devine Meet the Apocalypse, as well as an awful lot of commercials I've found myself working on over the past year. I trust him to make a movie worth making. Help him do that on Seed&Spark.

#2,205: Sicario

The Double - ★★½☆☆
Really dug how the opening tosses you in the deep end. Liked seeing what life was like for Sam Lowry's co-workers. Probably a bad sign that I found the actual plot less interesting, once it finally got in gear.

Miracle Mile - ★★☆☆☆
Fun to see my neighborhood 30 years ago. Almost any time a character is going somewhere in this movie they're going the wrong direction in reality. I was never not interested to see what this movie had next in store. Feeling very interested in remaking (or at least swedeing) this.

John Wick - ★★★☆☆
I think I heard a little too much about this one in advance, but like John Wick himself, it lived up to its reputation. Stays just on the right side of the line between action movie world-building and goofiness that tends to trip up your Ultraviolets and such.

Sicario - ★★★½☆
• Denis Villeneuve is someone who seems very interested in whether the ends justify the means.
• Everyone who manages to actually hurt Kate is an employee of the United States government.
• Benicio Del Toro IS Jack Reacher IN Sicario!
• I'm happy that serious movie season has arrived.

#2,201: The Martian

The Queen of Versailles - ★★★★☆
Wow. That's what I said aloud over and over while watching this.

Race to Nowhere - ★★½☆☆ 
I thought this was going to be about tigers and helicopters, but I was wrong. It's about how homework is too hard. I was very suspicious of this movie, doubly so now that I see how old it is. I'll believe that No Child Left Behind has caused some drastic and unfortunate changes in schools, but I'm not sure I buy these kids as the average sample.

An Honest Liar - ★★★½☆
Good on this doc for (1) being about something that interests me, (2) telling the stories I (and presumably plenty of others casually aware of Randi) already know efficiently, and then (3) hitting me with a couple of increasingly surprising stories I didn't already know. ✓

The Martian - ★★★★★
Nothing says autumn in Hollywood like a big space movie. I think it's great that this is a movie full of hope. The hope almost squelches the horror.

Really solid for also being such a faithful adaptation. Confusing though, that Sean Bean plays a character that survives. Looking forward to this being corrected in the director's cut.