Movies you've seen recently

[LadyCrimson]

"The uploader has not made this video available in your country."

*looks for a viewable trailer of the film Branded*

 

Hm. Not a remake of They Live, but certainly has a similar vibe from the trailers. However the wiki page has one critic saying "everything you've heard about Branded was false advertising," complaining that the trailers made the film appear to be "a weird, surrealistic version of They Live" but that "unfortunately, instead of a fun monster movie, Branded is a truly dreary lecture on late-stage capitalism, in which logic basically goes out the window." So I'm not sure the trailers are representative of the film. I'll wait for cable.

Edited September 12, 2012 by LadyCrimson

[Raithe]

And apparently, the "main bad guy" has a rather illogical death/disapearance for no real reason..

 

The various comments on it does suggest that they tried to do something clever and innovative.. and completely jumped the shark..

[Raithe]

Heh, from a review about the latest Resident Evil film -

 

"You would not believe that two hours of Milla Jovovich gyrating in fetishwear in front of an ever-changing backdrop could be so boring."

 

I'm not sure if that actually makes it tempting to watch just to see how bad it gets...

[LadyCrimson]

I keep thinking there must be 20 Resident Evil films by now, but then when I look it up, there's only like ... what ... 4? (now 5?) ... and I go "no wai is that all?"

I remember I thought the first one was at least watchable. I tried to watch the last one on cable recently. I turned it off after about 30 minutes.

[LadyCrimson]

Rise of the Planet of the Apes.

All I have to say is ... CGI (even with motion capture) is still not good enough.

Edited September 16, 2012 by LadyCrimson

[Sammael]

Saw Ted in the theater last night and I can recommend it - bear in mind that I don't generally like comedies, but this one just... worked.

 

Then I saw Iron Sky at home and I am not entirely sure if I like it or not.

[Tel Aviv]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ModvMz7uSz0&hd=1

Hmm. The title reminds me of:

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eNqLoFHJxM0

[Nonek]

Watched the new Dredd movie, marked improvement on the Stallone one, quite good.

[Humanoid]

Three over the last week: two from the sixties - the British war epic Zulu (good viewing though the DNR on the Blu was somewhat problematic); and camp classic Batman: The Movie (which looks remarkably good for its age and budget) reminding me of a time where "superhero" wasn't synonymous with "dark and edgy".

 

But the highlight for me was undoubtedly Herbert Ponting's remarkable 1924 documentary The Great White Silence - I'm amazed that film footage could have been taken of Scott's fateful expedition to the south pole, let alone having it survive in amazingly good shape that it shows up on Blu-ray: remembering the footage would have been taken in the period of 1910-1912. It begins as the crew set sail from New Zealand and ends as Scott's final party sets off from base camp for their final expedition. There's fantastic footage of the sailors, the dogs and ponies (and one politically incorrect cat) they took, the Terra Nova's bow crashing through the sea ice, the dry runs practiced at the newly constructed base camp (including a proto-tank caterpillar machine); long lingering shots of the wildlife at work and at play. It scratches both a historical and geographical itch, and I doubt any such film produced today would produce nearly the same effect.

[Raithe]

"Seeking a Friend for the End of the World"

 

One of those slightly quirky low-key drama/comedy/romance films, Steve Carell as an insurance salesman whose wife suddenly leaves him when its realised that a rather large asteroid is going to hit the Earth in a months time.. As the world slowly loses it's plot over that period, he receives a letter from the lost love of his life and ends up going on a road trip with his slightly flakey neighbour, Keira Knightley, to go find said ex-girlfriend.

[Amentep]

Watched the adaption of Lovecraft's THE WHISPERER IN DARKNESS.

 

Thought it worked really well through the stuff that forms the original story. The new finale I think didn't work all that great (both conceptually even though I see what they were tryign for, and exectution wise - I think they bit off more than they could chew). Still enjoyed it overall and its always fun to see a film that tries to some degree to be a throwback to the "classic horror" film style of the 30s.

[Blarghagh]

Finally saw Prometheus and was surprised that it actually continued the downward spiral of the alien movie franchise, including the AvP movies in this. The characters were dumb as bricks and had no motivations or character and the monster designs were simply ridiculous, as was all the prosthetic make-up. I was laughing through most of it - Ridley Scott had been saying the Xenomorph wasn't scary and it had been in Disneyland, and if I didn't know any better I'd say this was an attempt to sabotage all the leftover cool factor from the universe so no one else will touch it again. That's right, it's so bad it seems intentional. Oh how the mighty have fallen.

[SilverMoonDragon2]

The Girl Who Kicked The Hornets Nest ('twas quite good)

 

One Day

 

The Hunger Games

 

Must Love Dogs

 

The Kids Are Alright

 

Night At The Museum 2

[Morgoth]

Finally saw Prometheus and was surprised that it actually continued the downward spiral of the alien movie franchise, including the AvP movies in this. The characters were dumb as bricks and had no motivations or character and the monster designs were simply ridiculous, as was all the prosthetic make-up. I was laughing through most of it - Ridley Scott had been saying the Xenomorph wasn't scary and it had been in Disneyland, and if I didn't know any better I'd say this was an attempt to sabotage all the leftover cool factor from the universe so no one else will touch it again. That's right, it's so bad it seems intentional. Oh how the mighty have fallen.

 

Dude no, just no. Prometheus was a decent movie. Not a classic, but decent enough, and certainly better than that overrated trash that is Avatar. But comparing Prometheus with insultive mental garbage like the AvP movies is going to far here buddy. Credits were credits are due.

 

If Alien was a 9.2/10 to me, them Prometheus was still a solid 8.0/10.

[Amentep]

Yeah, I liked Prometheus too. Wasn't a perfect film (Alien was close to perfect, IMO) but I still enjoyed it a whole lot.

 

I also really didn't see it as a horror movie, like Alien was either.

[Blarghagh]

I don't get how you can defend it. Everything about it was frankly insulting, and I'm saying this after my expectations were already significantly lowered by extremely poor word of mouth. There was no suspense or atmosphere, no pacing, no interesting characters or arcs. Within the first ten minutes I already knew exactly who was going to die and in what order. The design work was laughable, the special effects cartoonish. When side characters make a heroic sacrifice, the only thing I could think are "I only even know one of these guys, who are these people?". Everything, every moment, every character, every twist is decidedly meaningless.

 

Every single moment is dumb, every character is holding the idiot ball at all times - even worse, the only character with a semblance of intelligence is the one we're ostensibly supposed to hate. The geologist who had machines mapping out the place gets lost. The biologist starts playing peekaboo with an alien cobra. I was rooting for these people to die. The antagonist looks like Voldemort. The main character who is established as being sterile gets that turned around - gosh, what a unique twist. It's not like every single movie with a sterile character ever has had something like this happen. It is, in fact, the only reason a character in a movie is ever sterile.

 

With the exception of the expertly acted character of David (acted, not written, as his part in the movie is relegated to nothing other than being the curious 9 year old who has to touch everything like an idiot), nothing about this movie is even good enough to justify it's existence. I'd have preferred it if this movie had never been made. It would have at least not removed the mystique from the Xenomorph character by giving it the most contrived and dumb origin story ever. MST3K has reviewed better movies than this. If anything, this movie is an argument for why it's a good thing Ridley Scott stopped making Sci-Fi movies.

 

I really WANTED to like this movie, because it's been a long time since we had a good sci-fi movie, but now I'm just angry it exists because it caused At The Mountains of Madness to be shut down and all we get is this dreck.

 

EDIT: I do want to specify that I do feel they were trying something new, and ambition is not a bad thing. But in this particular case, I feel they failed on every level about as spectacularely as it is possible to fail.

Edited September 19, 2012 by TrueNeutral

[Maedhros]

I loved the scenery and the sense of mystery in the prologue. It all went downhill from there. Could've been so much better, and frankly it's astounding that Ridley Scott didn't at least see at least some of the flaws with the movie.

 

Also, Michael Fassbender is a great actor. Him and Tom Hardy are truly two to look out for.

[Amentep]

I'll give you that the characters acted well stupid. In some cases (the scientist boyfriend) I think it was even intentional.

 

Didn't the geologist lose his connection with the ship (and thus the information that was being mapped)? I missed a bit during the one time I saw it at the theater in that sequence due to the call of nature.

[Morgoth]

Flaws or not, I liked the theme of the movie. And no, it was not a horror movie. You can't shock people in these days anymore, and Scott very well knew that, so he tried a different route.

 

Now Prometheus 2 hopefully is gonna answer lots of these open questions.

Edited September 19, 2012 by Morgoth

[Blarghagh]

The theme and general plot is why I wanted to like the movie, but it dealt with it dumbly. The whole "aliens seeded life on earth" concept has always fascinated me. However, this movie did nothing with the concept. It confirmed it, proceeded to say "these Engineers want to undo that creation", and never adressed anything else about it. The clash between faith and fact was also adressed with a single dialogue scene and never referred to again. "That is what I choose to believe" indeed. I feel this movie wanted to a billions things and ended up not doing any of them. As is, everything in it is of absolutely no consequence.

 

I am aware it wasn't trying to be horror, but being horror isn't a prerequisite to having any semblance of suspense or atmosphere.

 

I also wish they hadn't shown the birth of that proto Xenomorph, because while the common theory was already that Xenomorphs were a genetically engineered weapon because they were perfect killing machines. This movie simultaneously confirms and undermines that concept - because now it's the perfect killing machine due to a set of coincidental contaminations and inseminations. It's so contrived now that it makes no sense anymore, they are the product of engineering but they are the perfect weapon by coincidence?

Edited September 19, 2012 by TrueNeutral

[Pidesco]

Prometheus had two redeeming features: Visuals and Fassbender and Theron is hot. Everything else was a big pile of poo.

[Morgoth]

You may perceive it as dumb, but I liked the fact that the intentions of the Engineers, and that whole "why?" remained vague.

 

Also the design I though was very striking. From the space suits which refreshingly didn't look like another dumb fat Space Marine combat boxes to the creepy and majestic Engineers, everything was done well. Acting wasn't so good (apart from David), and the dialogs could have been better, but overall Prometheus was a bold attempt to revitalise the Sci-Fi genre.

 

Also, lots of thighs and tight suits to show dem womenly shapes.

Edited September 19, 2012 by Morgoth

[Pidesco]

Also, I can't wait for the sequel where a woman backpacks across the Universe with a talking head for a companion. Tim Schafer should write it.

[Serrano]

Also, I can't wait for the sequel where a woman backpacks across the Universe with a talking head for a companion. Tim Schafer should write it.

 

Frankly it's nice to see big-budget movies having disabled characters in a lead role. You can't fault them for that.

[Blarghagh]

You may perceive it as dumb, but I liked the fact that the intentions of the Engineers, and that whole "why?" remained vague.

 

There is a difference between remaining vague and not adressing it at all. This film asks the question and then ignores the hell out of it. A smart movie would have dealt with implications, theories, asked more questions. This movie confirmed the Engineers as our creators in one breath and routinely ignored everything about it. What should be the cornerstone of the movie is essentially only mentioned in passing between bad makeup or CG monster attacks.

Edited September 19, 2012 by TrueNeutral