Movies you've seen recently

[Walsingham]

I liked Sucker Punch. And not just for the obvious reasons.

[sorophx]

The entire review is tongue in cheek.  It's a comedic device where praise is actually concealed as a scathing condemnation.  Insert dry chuckle here.

oh... I see. I didn't read the review, but that line caught my eye 

[Meshugger]

12 years a Slave.

 

It was a good movie, but not the best movie of 2013. That was Nebraska....or Wolf of Wall Street, depending on my mood.

[sorophx]

I have yet to watch Nebraska. somehow, the title and the poster put me off. I will someday, though...

 

watched Hours with late Paul Walker. pretty entertaining, a bit too optimistic for my taste (I hate good endings), and with a few silly moments. but still intense enough to keep me watching. I would've liked it to give more insight into the actual disaster, it's pretty subtle. but overall I'd recommend it: good directing, good acting, moves at a good pace. 

[Meshugger]

Do please watch it. The mentality of the people and the small towns that they resided was really a stroke that was close to home, for well, anyone really.

[Calax]

So, apparently the Need for Speed movie is so... vapid they're selling it on the stunts.

 

Also a Shaq commercial has me thinking that he's gonna try to eat me when he talks about his skin.

[Monte Carlo]

^ Yes, but IMO there's nothing intrinsically wrong with a movie sold on stunts... as long as the stunts are really good.

[Raithe]

Heh, that was one of the Mission Impossible films. I think it was.. 3.

 

They had all of these "really cool ideas for stunts" that they hadn't been able to work into the previous MI film.. so they put them together and tried to figure out a script that would connect them all together.

[HoonDing]

Into the sun. The one with Seagal, not the 90s Top Gun parody.

 

Surprisingly decent in spite of the budget, some very nice shots of Japan and Seagal even mumbling Japanese.

[Hurlshort]

Into the sun. The one with Seagal, not the 90s Top Gun parody.

 

Surprisingly decent in spite of the budget, some very nice shots of Japan and Seagal even mumbling Japanese.

 

I had to look the 90's Into the Sun up, because I thought Hot Shots was the only Top Gun parody.  Weird!

[Amentep]

SHE (1935) - Merian Cooper's follow-up to King Kong was an adaption of H. Rider Haggard's novel She: A History of Adventure but with elements from other entries in the series.  Transplants the action to the artic; no giant stop-motion creations like Kong, but some nice Art Deco sets.  Story is about what you'd expect with an adaption of She.  Interesting to see the missing scene (cut from the film for its 1949 re-release, a high quality copy of the scene is lost so not restored for this version).  Also of interest is Ray Harryhausen having painstakingly colored the film based on the original plan to shoot it in color that was lost.  While not replacing the original film, its interesting to see the late Harryhausen's attempt at matching the color of 1935 on film.

[Rosbjerg]

"Her" .. I liked it, but actually didn't think it would be well recieved or Oscar nominated. Happy it is though, it's not as thought provocative as it wants to be, but it certainly made me go "hmm" a few times. I was however impressed with their attention to details, fashion, phrasings etc all hint of near future without getting all "retro-future" with overly contemporary styles exaggerated etc.

[HoonDing]

SHE (1935) - Merian Cooper's follow-up to King Kong was an adaption of H. Rider Haggard's novel She: A History of Adventure but with elements from other entries in the series.  Transplants the action to the artic; no giant stop-motion creations like Kong, but some nice Art Deco sets.  Story is about what you'd expect with an adaption of She.  Interesting to see the missing scene (cut from the film for its 1949 re-release, a high quality copy of the scene is lost so not restored for this version).  Also of interest is Ray Harryhausen having painstakingly colored the film based on the original plan to shoot it in color that was lost.  While not replacing the original film, its interesting to see the late Harryhausen's attempt at matching the color of 1935 on film.

The only SHE I saw was the 80s B-movie with Sandahl Bergman. Decent movie altogether considering the budget.

[Raithe]

I, Frankenstein.

 

 

it's.. hard to say what to make of this one.

 

Okay.. Aaron Eckhart as Adam, Frankenstein's monster, Bill Nighy as a demon prince trying to re-animate bodies so he can summon fallen demons to possess them,
Yvonne Strahovski as the scientist he's manipulating to do it, who think's Frankenstein is just a story...
Throw in an unnamed city with one ridiculously massive, over the top gothic super-cathedral.. that happens to be the home of an order of supernatural, shapeshifting Gargoyle's who have been fighting the demon hordes for centuries.. but no-ones noticed.
They've got fairly nice cgi of the Gargoyle's flying around, and combat with the demon's as they get killed, and either ascending to heaven in pillars of light, or exploding into feiry trails descending to hell and then really, really grating prosthetic demon masks.

Bill Nighy doing his normal quite villainous charm, Eckhart doing broody, pseudo batman with a lot more anger and broodiness, Strahovski not really having much to do beyond eye candy and provide some story points.

 

Maybe I just subconsciously expect a different type of story when you're using Frankenstein...  It's basically the monster after the story of Frankenstein. Starts with him burying Frankenstein, and then suddenly Demons! Gargoyles! Mystery Supernatural War Humans Don't Know About!
 

[LadyCrimson]

Started to watch "Stitch," expecting an action movie with maybe a bit of comedy (Dwayne Johnson...). Turns out it's more of a serious crime-police-drugbust drama. The Rock plays a father willing to go to great lengths to get his son's prison sentence reduced. Not a laugh to be had in the first hour, nor much action. Which would be fine except I wasn't in the mood for that. I think it was getting close to the car chase/shootout section of the film, but I'll finish it tomorrow.

 

That said, it *is* a nice vehicle to show that The Rock can, imo, indeed act a lot better than most film action studs. Or at least, there's something about him that seems so sincere I believe in him more.

[sorophx]

I really liked him in Pain & Gain

[TheChris92]

Speaking of Top Gun - I love Tarantino's verdict on what Top Gun really is about in Sleep With Me

[Amentep]

 

SHE (1935) - Merian Cooper's follow-up to King Kong was an adaption of H. Rider Haggard's novel She: A History of Adventure but with elements from other entries in the series.  Transplants the action to the artic; no giant stop-motion creations like Kong, but some nice Art Deco sets.  Story is about what you'd expect with an adaption of She.  Interesting to see the missing scene (cut from the film for its 1949 re-release, a high quality copy of the scene is lost so not restored for this version).  Also of interest is Ray Harryhausen having painstakingly colored the film based on the original plan to shoot it in color that was lost.  While not replacing the original film, its interesting to see the late Harryhausen's attempt at matching the color of 1935 on film.

The only SHE I saw was the 80s B-movie with Sandahl Bergman. Decent movie altogether considering the budget.

 

There's several versions filmed of the story, including an 1899 adaption directed by Méliès, a 1911 one with Marguerite Snow, this 1935 one, a 1965 with Ursula Andress and a 2001 version with Ophélie Winter.

 

The Sandal Bergman film (from 1982) ... I'm not sure if it is an adaption of the book. Never seen it but the descriptions sound more like early 80s post-apocalyptic fantasy fare.

[TheChris92]

Recently finished watching Sofia Coppola's The Bling Ring and here's my verdict on a film that has received a mixed reception.

 

First of all I love Sofia & her father's work. Awesome stuff. The Bling Ring centers around a group of high schoolers, or was it college kids? Whom all end up tagging along by circumstance of the classic trop 'new kid arriving into town and getting involved with a bad crowd' -- Personified, in this case, by the wrong girl. Emma Watson is stunning, and a bit naughty in one particular scene that has spanned thousands of gif-pictures on Tumblr. The overall acting isn't really something to praise overall. This is not Watson's a-game as I feel most of these teenage characters falls too far into stereotypes, but perhaps I'm reading it wrong since it's based on a true story. But the characters didn't feel like actual people but rather walking clichés. The very moment that main character, Marc, steps into his new high school he immediately gets branded out as a loser, because why not, didn't he know that curly is so out of style, yo! The Bling Ring commits a the traditional terrible sin of in relations to films about portraying teenagers and their issues so poorly as it does. Disregarding that I found the story to be okay told if a bit lacking in development. The amount of time between each "heist" is just too short and it feels quite staged. The film is about five teenagers who think that happiness lies in brands and instant fame, but it does little to disprove this theory. On contrary, in relations to what I said before. It feels quite staged and repetitive in its narrtive. Somewhere along the middle part of the film, for example, we get to see the young people break into a celeb house (No idea whose house because the film does seem to forget about it as it goes on) and getting away with it, breaking into it and getting away with it, breaking into it and getting away with it. It's preposterous. What's even worse is that it is incredibly hard to care about these characters at all, or why they doing it, partly because the story itself "Stealing from pop-culture icons like Lindsay Lohan or Paris Hilton" isn't that interesting, but also because most of the characters have the charisma of a cardboard cut-out. The soundtrack is a mix of decent tracks to the atrociousness of Kanye West, which is unsual, because this is what Sofia Coppola usually always do right. Getting the soundtrack right that is. This is a film that promotes itself as being opposed to the superficial celebrity culture that date back over a large part of the media. In a way, "The Bling Ring" is also against this culture, but celebrates it at the same time, because Coppola is ultimately afraid to take a definitive position. The Final Verdict -- It's an okay film with little to go for it as it heavily falls into stereotypes.

Edited March 11, 2014 by TheChris92

[Hurlshort]

Hi Chris, thanks for the in depth review.  

 

 

Can you use paragraphs in the future though?  That wall of text is nearly unreadable.

[Amentep]

The amount of time between each "heist" is just too short and it feels quite staged. The film is about five teenagers who think that happiness lies in brands and instant fame, but it does little to disprove this theory. On contrary, in relations to what I said before. It feels quite staged and repetitive in its narrtive. Somewhere along the middle part of the film, for example, we get to see the young people break into a celeb house (No idea whose house because the film does seem to forget about it as it goes on) and getting away with it, breaking into it and getting away with it, breaking into it and getting away with it. It's preposterous.

 

Given that The Bling Ring is based (however loosely) on the real Bling Ring thefts, and given that - from what I've read - they burglarized Rachel Bilson's home multiple times in April/May of 2009 it sounds like the quoted bit above is actually close to what actually happened.

[TheChris92]

The problem is that the movie did not engage it's viewer quite adequately enough to care about these characters or their story.

 

@Hurlshot I'll remember that in the future. Thanks for your comment

[Amentep]

Not disputing that, but it sounds like the case would be naturally repetitive, at the least, because they were repetitive!

[sorophx]

watched My Country, My Country - a documentary about the first democratic elections in Iraq after Saddam's regime was toppled. It's really good, it mostly follows an Iraqi doctor and his family, and their day to day tasks shed some light on the life in Baghdad after operation Iraqi Freedom's conclusion. Some very touching moments, some very disturbing moments as well. A great opportunity to look at the whole thing from another angle. 

[ShadySands]

Not to make excuses for the Iraq war but the majority of Iraqis that I've met were in support of the US toppling Saddam(to my face at least). As opposed to the insurgents I met who none of which where even Iraqi

 

Of course that's just my personal experience and off topic