Beck not only hosted the evening but cooked up a hearty feast of beef casserole, potatoes, cabbage and beans which was accompanied by Sylvia’s scrumptious cherry, chocolate, almond and rum birthday cake for Paul. Mmmm….. ! Thanks Beck and Sylvia.
The Master
The general feeling about this film was that although it was visually beautiful and had memorable images and atmosphere, there were too many things that didn’t make sense. At the centre of the film is Freddy, a drifter who gets entangled in a cult during the 1950s. The Master takes Freddy into his circle but the connection or relationship between the two was never clear. Acting by Joaquin Phoenix and Philip Seymour Hoffman was classy but the rest of the film let them down.
Quotes
Beck: Apologies for picking the film. That’s why I busted a gut for dinner.
Paul: Feel free to pick more films.
Beck: That was shit. I didn’t get it. It was appalling.
Paul: It got 90% on Rotten Tomatoes.
[On Joaquin Phoenix]
Ray: He played the loser really well.
Beck: I found it off putting. I could not hear what he was saying.
[On director, Paul Thomas Anderson]
Sylvia: He was trying to do something.
Ray: It was a dreadful script
Sylvia: I felt there was no script
Andy: It was just rubbish
CJ: We split it over two nights. The first night, we fell asleep. I didn’t hate it the way you hated it. We finished it, we looked at each other and went, ‘eh??’.
CJ: It stays with you.
Sylvia: The story was misguided.
Renny: In the end, I wasn’t sure what I was supposed to get out of it.
Scores
Andy: 0
Beck: 0
CJ: 3
Ray: 1.5
Renny: 2
Sylvia: 1.5
Wendy: 2
Paul: abstain
Jodi: abstain
Whiplash
Wow! What an explosive film about the highly competitive, perfection-driven world of jazz musicians. Set at a fictional music conservatorium, it was the director’s biographical film of his experiences at a music college where it seems he met a particularly sadist band director. For my two cents, I loved all the rehearsal scenes, the snappy dialogue (“were you rushing or dragging?”) and the great music performances. I also developed a new appreciation for jazz drummers (and their poor doubles).
Quotes
Paul: I loved it. I’m not a musician but I kinda wish I was.
Jodi: [who watched it til 2am after ‘Double Jeopardy’] I thought I would watch the first 10 minutes but I couldn’t stop watching it.
Jodi: It reminded me of ‘Black Swan’.
Ray: Do you think to get to that level of playing, you have to be obsessive compulsive?
Andy: I thought it was melodramatic.
[on Fletcher, played by JK Simmons]
Andy: He got more joy out of bullying his students.
CJ: It reminded me of Full Metal Jacket, the drill sargeant.
Sylvia: I had no empathy for any character. I felt totally irritated the whole way. That solo was way too long.
[on the ending]
CJ: Was it a triumph? He got a nod from his teacher, so was he subservient? It was not the triumph I was expecting which didn’t satisfy me.
[on what he thought of the film]
Jon: It was very shouty.
Scores
Andy: 2
Beck: 3
CJ: 4
Jodi: 3.5
Paul: 4.5
Ray: 2.5
Renny: 3
Sylvia: 1.5
Wendy: 4.5
Club Moofie 