Movies you have seen recently

[Monte Carlo]

OK, so I saw Rocknrolla last night.

 

Genre: Typical Guy Ritchie London crime caper

Monte Score: 7.5/10

Best comedy villains: The two bondage-loving Russian ex-commandos who spend a lot of time comparing scars

 

I have to open this short review by admitting that I am a big fan of both Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels and Snatch. Ritchie drives a lot of people up the wall with his alleged adulation of London's criminal classes, which I can see, but I view him as the bastard offspring of the Ealing comedies, Carry On movies and hard-arsed 1970's crime drama.

 

Rocknrolla is already a period piece: it opens during the climax of the London property boom (i.e. the summer of 2007) where Lennie, a London gangster is embroiled in a number of planning scams for crooked property developers. People laughed at this when the movie was launched on D-Day +1 of the property crash, but if you were living in London in late 2007 you'd recognise the sleezy aura of money and greed is simply indicative of it's time. So it's no biggie.

 

The plot concerns Russian kleptocrats, small-time villains, a washed-up junkie pop star who happens to be Lennie's stepson (a roman a clef I suspect, because he's a bit like Pete Doherty) and a beautiful accountant (Thandie Newton) with too much time on her hands and terminal ennui. There's also a classic Maguffin (a Russian icon) that is clearly trying to compete with Marcellus Wallace's mysterious briefcase from Pulp Fiction. Gerard Butler is one of the small time villains. I like him, he's an easy to watch screen presence although I expect him to scream SPARTA! at any second and run around in his swimming trunks. He gets involved in two robberies.

 

There's also a subplot about who's informing for the police, the aforementioned Russian ex-commando hitmen and one of the wittiest sex scenes I've ever seen in a film (it's completely chaste).

 

Is it ground-breaking or astonishingly original? No. It's actually less stylised than either of his two previous London crime movies, except for some obvious Tarantino-esque genuflection. Is it a well-made, stylish movie that does exactly what it says on the tin with a superb cast of character actors? Hell, yes, and for this alone it comes recommended.

 

Cheers

MC

Edited March 5, 2009 by Monte Carlo

[Asol]

Did anyone else bother to watch W?

 

I saw it a while ago, I was suprised that Oliver Stone chose to go gentle with Bush. Or at least he didn't really seem to wanna bash him in particular. I got the feel through the movie that George W. Bush was just a simple guy from Texas, not particularly bright, but not outright stupid either.

 

And I felt kinda sorry for him in the end, because the movie potrays his failing abilities as a consequence of the enormous responsibility and being pulled/manipulated in every direction, by advisors who do think he's an idiot and want to push their own agenda through.

 

So I think it's good, but mostly because I knew nothing of the guy except what he said and did as president.

 

I thought most of the same. The player is a bit too burly for bush though, the guy could have played or have been playing Brett Farve or something all of the representations were rather hammy. Also they made a point of incorporating some of his famous one liners and miss speakings but no fish remark At least superficially it was highly promotional towards him.

 

It also has triple threat Elizabeth Banks as Laura Bush.

[Shryke]

watchmen

 

bit perturbed about the glowing blue **** dangling all over the place, but otherwise an awesome movie

[Gorgon]

Monty Python's the meaning of life.

 

It's the only film in existence with musical acts I can stand watching, also the best Python movie bar none.

[Amentep]

Watchmen; given that no adaption is going to be perfect (that's why it exists in its original media), I thought they did a decent job adapting the story to the screen. Not perfect, but what is?

[theslug]

Layer Cake

 

Saw a good portion of this movie a long time ago and was pretty interested in it and finally got to watch it completely. Daniel Craig is a nameless mid level drug dealer who becomes the middle man in series of complex and botched circumstances. It's set in the UK so some of the dialogue is tough to read through making the film a little tougher to decipher but there's a characteristic of English films that appeal to me so it's just something you gotta deal with. Either way, it was a pretty good movie. Good story, good sound (some of the music choices were a little odd but it all fit well), good style, not a whole lot of action but it was never boring either so I gotta say I really enjoyed it. Also I want to say the ending irked me but it really didn't.

 

I shall give Layer Cake a solid 8.9 out of 10.

Edited March 8, 2009 by theslug

[Oerwinde]

Saw Watchmen. Next to Sin City probably the most faithful adaption ever. There was the odd thing missing, but the Directors Cut is sposed to be like 40 minutes longer, so that will likely fill in all the parts that were missing. I quite enjoyed it, nicely shot, great effects, decent acting all around.

[Kor Qel Droma]

I caught the late show for Watchmen as well. It was good, but I think it would have been better if they had stuck with the

squid

ending.

[Deadly_Nightshade]

I caught the late show for Watchmen as well. It was good, but I think it would have been better if they had stuck with the

squid

ending.

 

Meh. Maybe, but i doubt many non-purists would have liked it.

[Gorgon]

Campbell's best work is on Hercules/Xena.

 

Bubba Ho Tep was okay to good. Some parts were amazing. Bruce nailed his part for the most part.

Evil dead 1 and 2 (essentially exactly the same movies) are hilarious, army of Darkness is merely ok.

 

And don't forget Brisco County Jr. Hercules and Zena slipped past my radar because, well, I'm not 13 years old.

[Gfted1]

Brisco County Jr.

 

That was set in the old West, right? I remember liking that show quite a bit.

[taks]

i've been pretty happy with campbell's work on burn notice. he fits the character rather well, IMO. last thursday's ending was pretty good to boot!

 

taks

[Trenitay]

Burn Notice is fantasic.

[Volourn]

Decoys 1 & 2: Decent non horror horror flicks with B00BIES!

[Amentep]

I caught the late show for Watchmen as well. It was good, but I think it would have been better if they had stuck with the

squid

ending.

 

The screenwriter said in an interview that he changed the end

because he didn't figure scenes of streets full of dead bodies and blood in NY would work in post-9/11 US so they went with what they felt would be equitable to the books end but with a different kind of destruction

 

 

There are some things I wish the end did differently, but I'm not sure I'm bugged by the lack of the

squid

.

[Kor Qel Droma]

I'll admit I wanted to see the carnage of the aftershock of the original ending. But I guess I wasn't comfortable with

Dr. Manhattan

being vilified. Besides, what would the world powers be able to do against him? Nothing, most likely. The alien ending satisfies me more. Then again, old Blue **** wasn't much human anymore.

 

Anyhoo, very good flick.

[Calax]

Watchmen... There was a lot of imagry that you could find (Davinci, last supper and portrait of man among others). It was probably one of the better movies I've seen recently. Of course that doesn't say much, all I've seen in the recent times has been Taken, Pink Panther2 and this.

 

I think I liked it more than Dark Knight because the characters weren't all black or white. Of course I did love the line "Adrian, I'm disappointed in you"

[CoM_Solaufein]

The new Indiana Jones movie. I finally bought it on DVD. They should have done this years ago when Ford was still in his prime. Seeing him doing this as an old man is just sad. Nice to see Marion back.

[I want teh kotor 3]

Watchmen. Utterly amazing.

[Kor Qel Droma]

I'm about halfway through the boxset of Band Of Brothers. I'm really enjoying it so far.

[Deraldin]

I had a sudden urge to watch Bourne Supremacy last night so I stayed up late to watch that. Now I want to see Ultimatum again, but I don't have that one on DVD.

[Amentep]

Watched DARK FLOORS the Lordi film.

 

It had a nice premise, but I could kinda tell by how the story progressed what was going to end up happening.

[Gfted1]

Marvel delays superhero movie dates

 

Mar 12, 7:53 AM (ET)

 

9 NEW YORK (AP) - Fans of "The Avengers" will have to wait a little longer to see their favorite superheroes on the big screen. Marvel Entertainment Inc. (MVL) (MVL) said Thursday it will debut the flick on May 4, 2012, nearly a year after its previous launch date of July 15, 2011.

 

"The Avengers," which features a team of comic book characters, will be the culmination of a series of movies based on individual Marvel characters that will be released leading up to it.

 

"Iron Man 2" will launch on May 7, 2010, as scheduled. It will be followed by "Thor" on June 17, 2011, instead of its previously planned release date of July 16, 2010. "The First Avenger: Captain America" is now coming out on July 22, 2011 instead of May 6, 2011.

 

Separately, Marvel confirmed that "Spider-Man 4" from Sony Pictures Entertainment, is slated to hit theaters on May 6, 2011.

 

The new schedule "maximizes the visibility of our single character-focused films, leading to the highly anticipated release of the multi-character 'The Avengers,'" said David Maisel, chairman of Marvel Studios, in a statement.

[Calax]

Marvel delays superhero movie dates

 

Mar 12, 7:53 AM (ET)

 

9 NEW YORK (AP) - Fans of "The Avengers" will have to wait a little longer to see their favorite superheroes on the big screen. Marvel Entertainment Inc. (MVL) (MVL) said Thursday it will debut the flick on May 4, 2012, nearly a year after its previous launch date of July 15, 2011.

 

"The Avengers," which features a team of comic book characters, will be the culmination of a series of movies based on individual Marvel characters that will be released leading up to it.

 

"Iron Man 2" will launch on May 7, 2010, as scheduled. It will be followed by "Thor" on June 17, 2011, instead of its previously planned release date of July 16, 2010. "The First Avenger: Captain America" is now coming out on July 22, 2011 instead of May 6, 2011.

 

Separately, Marvel confirmed that "Spider-Man 4" from Sony Pictures Entertainment, is slated to hit theaters on May 6, 2011.

 

The new schedule "maximizes the visibility of our single character-focused films, leading to the highly anticipated release of the multi-character 'The Avengers,'" said David Maisel, chairman of Marvel Studios, in a statement.

Bah, I hate to say it but you can't really do team books in movies without having half the characters have minuscule personalities.

[Gfted1]

Yeah, I was just happy to see Iron Man 2 and Spiderman 4 still on schedule. Captain American and Thor are of slight interest and The Avengers not at all.