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Filmspotting

Filmspotting #326: 127 Hours / Top 5 Manic Pixie Dream Girls / Nathan Rabin

by Jon Cole in Movies445 days ago

Adam and Matty go on a long hike with James Franco this week with their review of Danny Boyle’s 127 Hours. Adam manages to capture the bulk of the review with a simple statement saying that a viewer’s impressions will hinge almost entirely on their opinion of Franco’s performance and Boyle’s frenetic filming style. That being said, both Filmspotting guys were very impressed by both, with Matty specifically pointing out the very deliberately shot scenes where every dramatic stab was effectively paired with events unfolding...

Filmspotting

Filmspotting #325: Fair Game / Top 5 Penn Performances

by Jon Cole in Movies454 days ago

Filmspotting tackles Fair Game this week, a thriller starring Naomi Watts and Sean Penn telling the story of Valerie Plame. Right off the bat, it’s very clear that the strongest element of the film is the acting of the two premiere actors and the directing of Doug Liman (who also directed Filmspotting favorite The Bourne Identity). However, since the film is based on Plame’s memoir, Matty takes issue with the one-sided approach to the issue while Adam praises the domestic nature of the conflict. Listener’s Choice transcends the...

Filmspotting

Filmspotting #324: Girl Who Kicked the Hornet’s Nest / Top 5 Trilogies

by Jon Cole in Movies460 days ago

Hold onto your hats Filmspotting fans, this week’s show is a good one. The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet’s Nest is the subject of this week’s review, the third film in the “Millennium Trilogy“. Unfortunately, the second film in the trilogy seems to have been the interesting rising action, leaving the climax of the series to the very beginning of the Hornet’s Nest with the remainder being devoted to boring court cases that boil down to melodramatic falling action. Listener feedback brings in some thoughts about Hollywood...

Filmspotting

Filmspotting #323: Hereafter / Top 5 Double Features

by Jon Cole in Movies466 days ago

Movies dealing with death are tough to pull off without seeming too hokey or heavyhanded, which is evidenced with the terrible performance of The Lovely Bones earlier this year. Fortunately, Matty thinks that Hereafter is a better executed in this way through the strong script by Peter Morgan. Adam isn’t nearly as sold on the film, mostly because of the clunky approach to actually explaining the concept of afterlife. The guys can both agree that Clint Eastwood doesn’t take any risks with the camera and doesn’t do a great job making...

Filmspotting

Filmspotting #320: Never Let Me Go / Top 5 Existential Movies

by Jon Cole in Movies488 days ago

For this week’s episode of Filmspotting, Adam and Matty dive into the British adaptation of Kazuo Ishiguro’s novel Never Let Me Go. Matty manages to be negative right from the start, tossing in the fact that he fell asleep three times throughout due to the tortoise-slow pacing and questionable love triangle. Adam is clearly far more impressed, noting that the science-fiction premise is treated well and the structure of the plot creates an interest dynamic between the characters. In classic Filmspotting fashion, our hosts simply can’t...

Filmspotting

Filmspotting #319: The Social Network / Top 5 Ambition Movies

by Jon Cole in Movies494 days ago

Filmspotting tackles a much anticipated film this week, David Fincher’s The Social Network. While the topic of Facebook’s creation doesn’t seem very dramatic, Adam and Matty make it very clear that several elements completely dispel that assumption. The story itself flies off the screen through two powerful depositions, the actors all deliver fantastic performances with unparalled gravitas, and Fincher has a knack for focusing on each scene’s significance with both laser accuracy and an artful lens. The writer Aaron Sorkin...

Filmspotting

Filmspotting #318: The Town / Top 5 Boston Films

by Jon Cole in Movies501 days ago

Adam and Matty don their Bahsten accents this week in their review of Ben Affleck’s latest film, The Town. They share many of the same opinions, though Matty manages to have fun despite the flaws. Namely, the first half is clearly the strongest thanks to some fantastic acting by Rebecca Hall and solid good action scenes. The second half is far weaker and drove down Adam’s review by a full two stars (from four to two), mostly due to more implausible scenarios and too many unnecessary peripheral characters. The listener feedback focuses...

Filmspotting #316: The American / Top 5 Hitman Movies

by Jon Cole in Movies515 days ago

Adam and Matty tackle George Clooney in this week’s review of The American. Interestingly enough, they probably have the biggest disagreement about a movie in weeks, arguing mostly about Clooney’s performance. Matty insists that the whole film turns on the overplayed facial movements of Clooney and drags unbearably in several spots, while Adam argues that the lead man’s performance is one of his best and the pacing suits the excellent camera work perfectly. They do find a few opinions to share amongst the heightened conversation,...

Filmspotting #315: The Tillman Story / Fall Movie Preview

by Jon Cole in Movies523 days ago

This week’s Filmspotting is a little bit dense, starting things off with a review of The Tillman Story, a documentary directed by Amir Bar-Lev that tells the tragic story of Pat Tillman. Adam and Matty both clearly enjoyed their time with the movie, saying that it succeeded in educating them on a topic so fully plunged into propaganda that they were only exposed to the media hype before. Unfortunately, they agree that Bar-Lev doesn’t nearly take enough control of the camera to properly deliver the message he seemed to want to convey. After...

Filmspotting #313: Get Low / Top 5 Robert Duvall Performances

by Jon Cole in Movies536 days ago

Adam and Matty meet this week to talk about Get Low, a new film starring the epic ranks of Robert Duvall, Sissy Spacek, and Bill Murray. While the film starts off with a visually stunning introduction and allows Duvall to deliver a breathtaking ending, Adam and Matty agree that a bulk of the movie is boring and overly polished. Beyond that, the major themes of the film don’t really have much to do with the events that take place throughout, essentially never maintaining a real tone. Ultimately, the Filmspotting duo can’t help but disagree with...

Filmspotting

Filmspotting #312: Scott Pilgrim vs. The World / Top 5 Action Movie Romances

by Jon Cole in Movies546 days ago

Adam and Matty are a little bit removed from the games and music pop culture scene nowadays but they try their best to handle Edgar Wright’s latest film, Scott Pilgrim vs. The World. Their lack of experience in both of those likely have something to do with their dissatisfaction with the repetitive nature of the fight scenes, the unrealistic overarching plot, and the grating visual style. However, they do have something good to say about Wright’s filmmaking, which they agree is pretty well done. Matty also praises the execution of several...

Filmspotting

Filmspotting #311: Farewell / Schmucks / Top 5 Acting Performances by Directors

by Jon Cole in Movies551 days ago

Adam takes a week off to attend to his new son while Matt Singer of IFC News helps fill his seat on this double review edition of Filmspotting. The first film that the guys review is Farewell, a Cold War spy thriller that helps reignite Matty’s love for 80’s spy movies. It’s clear that while the two can agree that the relationship between the two spy protagonists is entertaining and the performances are great, but the film’s cumbersome scope lands it in “queue it” territory. After a very dramatic Massacre Theatre, Matty and Matt...

Filmspotting

Filmspotting #310: Todd Solondz Interview / Top 5 Performances of 2010 (So Far)

by Jon Cole in Movies558 days ago

This week’s Filmspotting begins with an interview rather than the typical movie review, with Adam interviewing Life During Wartime director Todd Solondz. With characters based on his past film Happiness, Todd offers some insight on why he would choose to revive them rather than produce a fully original film. Beyond that, he goes on to say how he thought about casting and how he fashioned characters to better suit the actors he chose. The Billy Wilder marathon finally comes to a close this week with a big war movie, Stalag 17. It kind of transcends...

Filmspotting

Filmspotting #308: Inception / The Apartment / Top 5 Dream Sequences

by Jon Cole in Movies571 days ago

After a slightly laborious lead-in from Matty, Adam starts off this week’s review of Inception with a couple of simple thoughts, namely that this film succeeded on many levels and definitely ranks among his best movies of the year so far.  He goes on to say that the movies was so immersive and the mechanics were so well established that he found himself plunged into the film as though it was his own dream, ironically enough.  Matty steers the conversation from there, praising the visuals as the most stylistically complete that Nolan has...

Filmspotting

Filmspotting #307: Twilight Saga: Eclipse / Winter’s Bone / Top 5 Vampire Movies

by Jon Cole in Movies579 days ago

Steve Prokopy (or Capone of Ain’t It Cool News) stands in for Adam this week for Filmspotting’s review of Twilight Saga: Eclipse.  Right off the bat, Steve and Matty both agree that the film is technically sound in most aspects, except for the lackluster special effects.  Outside of that concise criticism, Matty mostly tries to contemplate the place that Twilight films occupy in the film world with Steve noting that the movies are getting progressively better. Afterwards, Louis Ozawa Chanchien joins Matty for an excellent edition of...

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    Episode 092 - PTW ahoy!
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