Movie Review Thread

[Geoffrey S]

Hoodwinked. Great start with som hilarious moments, but it trails off halfway through. Worth it for the first half though.

Layer Cake. Loved it. Brutal, stylish, along with The long good friday this is now at the top of my favourite British crime flicks. Daniel Craig shines as the nameless anti-hero.

Casino Royale. Way, way better than the previous attempt. Again with Daniel Craig, who portrays James Bond as I've always wanted to see him. The opening is very strong, as is the finale. And finally a Bond movie with a good script! Only real complaint is that after the torture sequence, and before the finale it loses the plot too much, it needed more direction at that point.

I agree with Sasaki on Shawshank - it just wasn't that great, and it definitely doesn't deserve no2 spot on imdb

I was somewhat disappointed too, particularly so since I'd recently watched The Green Mile, a movie which I rank among my favourites of all time.

absolute genius, consider me your loyal fan Coen brothers. I haven't laughed like this since a Fish called Wanda, which untill now I considered to be the funniest comedy ever made. buhbuhbye. I just love their absurd style, no straight shooters but hilarious situations non-stop, sometimes I don't even understand why I am laughing.

They are good. Fargo is their classic, but a very close second for me is The man who wasn't there. Gripping, and with their trademark beautiful visual style.

The Departed, Martin Scorsese's newest movie, was excellent. Take an oldskool tragedy (i.e. everyone's dead at the end), add the Irish Mob (i.e. crazy white boys with guns) and Jack Nicholson (i.e. madness), and you're well on your way to exploring Boston's gritty underside. A wonderful tribute to the Hong Kong thriller Infernal Affairs, Scorsese managed not to make me yawn and whine "been there, done that." Great \o

No. No no no. If there's one movie I've seen recently that I absolutely loathed, that's the one. The only thing I enjoyed was the opening sequence, but apart from that I found the script banal, the direction sloppy, and the leads Damon and DiCaprio wasted and uninspired. Nicholson could have been good, but his performance really does make a case for overacting ruining a potentially stunning role; for me, only the supporting actors managed to introduce some subtlety to their parts, some kind of acting. I've tried to like Scorsese's work, but just like The Aviator I came away feeling rather disappointed.

At the risk of sounding like one of the many IMDB snobs, Infernal Affairs is better, though the two movies can't really be compared except on the basic premise.

[sapi]

The departed would have been much better if it was an hour shorter.

[Puzz3D]

The The Departed which I found to be very entertaining strikes me as a black comedy, although the somber situation it portrays does or did exist in Boston. Jack Nicholson's character is no less brutal and long lived than the real life person it parallels, and that person has never been aprehended precisley because he was an FBI informant and was tipped off when the jig was up and he went into hiding. Just about every scene is charged with emotional displays. Infernal Affairs is a serious crime drama with much more subdued and contemplative acting, but without the multiple police departments, coincidentally comic love interest or extra male character added in The Departed. I saw it after seeing The Departed, so the suspense in the story was lost which hurt.

[Evil_Maniac From Mars]

Casino Royale really lived up to the Bond name. An excellent film, showing both a witty and a dark side to Bond, was extremely well made. The excellent theme song in the opening credits really sets the tone well.

9/10. Daniel Craig is tied with Sean as the best Bond in my opinon.

[Fragony]

They are good. Fargo is their classic, but a very close second for me is The man who wasn't there. Gripping, and with their trademark beautiful visual style.

Thx for the tip, never heard of it

[Kralizec]

The Departed, Martin Scorsese's newest movie, was excellent. Take an oldskool tragedy (i.e. everyone's dead at the end), add the Irish Mob (i.e. crazy white boys with guns) and Jack Nicholson (i.e. madness), and you're well on your way to exploring Boston's gritty underside. A wonderful tribute to the Hong Kong thriller Infernal Affairs, Scorsese managed not to make me yawn and whine "been there, done that." Great \o

Agreed, The Departed was great

[Fragony]

Well had no money this weekend so I watched some tv. Saw two american movies, one with all that's bad about Hollywood and one that's all that's good.

Deep Rising, dear god so terrible that it was great in a way. Must be the worst movie ever made, but it was quite horrific and it has Famke Jansen. Now we all make mistakes but if I see my baby swasting her dutch genes on such a atrocity she will just have to be rich famous and beautifull without me.

After that, 'What's Cooking', fantastic. It follows 4 different american family's at thanksgiving, black family, jewish family, asian family and a white family. It almost had me ordering chinese and bring it to the local fallafal bar and order a fallafal for a turk.

[Crazed Rabbit]

Saw The Devil Wears Prada. A decent movie about a girl who wants to be a journalist and gets sucked into the fashion industry.

It's a decent movie, but I'm amazed that it's #2 movie of all time on imdb. I can think of hundreds of better movies, it's about 7/10 I'd say. Half an hour too long and waaaaay to sappy. There was sentimental voice over during the scene in which he was being anally raped I kid you not. Three guys are kicking him and god knows what else and morgan freeman's voice comes on: "I'd like to say andy put up a good fight and drove the anal rapists off, but that would be a lie, in fact he's being raped right now which makes you wonder why I sound so happy"

Goodness gracious, #2! It's just an ok film and certainly doesn't deserve that.

Once Upon a Time in the West was so much better - great acting, plot and story. Great cinematography from Siergo Leone (sp?). Classic.

Watched The Replacement Killers - an action flick starring Chow Yun Fat. Nothing too special, but fun for a night.

Saw The Whole Nine Yards and its sequel, The Whole Ten Yards, recently. Good, funny movies with Bruce Willis. A cut above the ordinary movie, though the second is noticeably sillier than the first.

CR

[Fragony]

Ah, even more goodness, bought a lot of movies lately.

The constant Gardener, it's about the naughty pharmacy industry testing experimental medicine on africans, the wife of the english ambassador finds out and gets whacked, and in the movie the grand scheme slowly unfolds. I can see this happening for real, and two hours after the movie I was still thinking of how hot Rachel Weisz really is.

[Sasaki Kojiro]

Children of Men is a great apocalyptic movie.

[Crazed Rabbit]

I forgot, I also saw Lady in the Water and The Visitors recently.

Lady was a dissapoint, for me at least. Basically, these water nymphs (called a 'narf') come to our world just to see someone to help them do something. A weird wolf made of grass (called a 'scrunt') tries to eat the nymph, but isn't very good at it. This, and much more, is revealed by an old eastern 'bedtime story' which is 100% accurate at explaining the narfs, scrunts, evil tree monkeys and bollywoggles.

Of course, Shamalan can't have something that simple and so adds all sorts of silly and nonsensical contrivances to the plot, a large part of which seems to be written just to insult movie critics. Also, there is no skepticism by anyone that the 'lady in the water' might not be a mythical being from another dimension sent here to help humanity. No 'that seems unlikely' or 'you're joking, right?'

It may just be me that has a strong dislike for this film, though.

On a better note, I saw the French film The Visitors, about a knight (Jean Reno) and vassal who get transported forward and time and must find their way back. Mishaps ensue. A good and funny movie, even though I don't speak French. Was humorous without being silly or ridiculous (cough*mel brooks*cough).

CR

[Sasaki Kojiro]

I forgot, I also saw Lady in the Water and The Visitors recently.

Lady was a dissapoint, for me at least. Basically, these water nymphs (called a 'narf') come to our world just to see someone to help them do something. A weird wolf made of grass (called a 'scrunt') tries to eat the nymph, but isn't very good at it. This, and much more, is revealed by an old eastern 'bedtime story' which is 100% accurate at explaining the narfs, scrunts, evil tree monkeys and bollywoggles.

Of course, Shamalan can't have something that simple and so adds all sorts of silly and nonsensical contrivances to the plot, a large part of which seems to be written just to insult movie critics. Also, there is no skepticism by anyone that the 'lady in the water' might not be a mythical being from another dimension sent here to help humanity. No 'that seems unlikely' or 'you're joking, right?'

It may just be me that has a strong dislike for this film, though.

I walked out during the scene where the boom is taking up the top quarter of the screen. I also thought it was hilarious how shyamalan wrote himself in as a "misunderstood artist". Terrible movie.

[Spino]

Ah, even more goodness, bought a lot of movies lately.

The constant Gardener, it's about the naughty pharmacy industry testing experimental medicine on africans, the wife of the english ambassador finds out and gets whacked, and in the movie the grand scheme slowly unfolds. I can see this happening for real, and two hours after the movie I was still thinking of how hot Rachel Weisz really is.

You wouldn't say that if you saw her without makeup...

[Masy]

Anyone seen Mel Gibson's Apocalypto yet? I'm not too sure about going to see a subtitled film, but I heard it was quite good.

[Sasaki Kojiro]

Anyone seen Mel Gibson's Apocalypto yet? I'm not too sure about going to see a subtitled film, but I heard it was quite good.

[naut]

Mel Gibson can go...

I saw Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels again.

"Fea'ferduster"? That's not any Cockney/London slang I know of. An' I grew up in London, so that's some bollocks, innit. Know whot I mean?

[Fragony]

You wouldn't say that if you saw her without makeup...

That would be great, morning honey

[Sasaki Kojiro]

I hate to be down on another imdb favorite, by 2001:A space odyssey was unimaginative and extremely boring. Except for HAL. HAL was really cool, well worth fast forwarding through the rest of it. It starts with 3 minutes of blank screen with horrible "kubrick-music" and then 10 minutes of monkeys and then 10 minutes of spaceships floating. Jesus. Apparently the obelisk thing made the monkeys evolve into men, and then we were watching men evolve into giant space babies. Wheee.





The Prestige I think edges out The Departed for best movie of the year. Christian Bale, Hugh Jackman, Michael Caine and Scarlett Johansson. Director of Memento. Jackman and Bale are rival magicians, obsessed with one upping each other. Really well done, great acting and full of surprises.

Boondock Saints was pretty goofy, and most of the side characters were overdone. Would have been more effective if the other roles had been played straight. Gotta love the irish brothers reciting baddass prayers before shooting a bunch of people though, fun movie.

[Subedei]

Anybody seen "Miller´s Crossing"?

It is by the Cohen brothers [Big Lebowski, Fargo...] and it is one of the Gangster/Film Noir movies I have ever seen. Awesome characters & a hell of a plot. Photography and cutiing are great too. Long live the Brothers Cohen....

[drone]

Anybody seen "Miller´s Crossing"?

It is by the Cohen brothers [Big Lebowski, Fargo...] and it is one of the Gangster/Film Noir movies I have ever seen. Awesome characters & a hell of a plot. Photography and cutiing are great too. Long live the Brothers Cohen....

Miller's Crossing is a great movie (like most of the Coen brothers' movies). "Always put one in the brain".

[doc_bean]

I hate to be down on another imdb favorite, by 2001:A space odyssey was unimaginative and extremely boring. Except for HAL. HAL was really cool, well worth fast forwarding through the rest of it. It starts with 3 minutes of blank screen with horrible "kubrick-music" and then 10 minutes of monkeys and then 10 minutes of spaceships floating. Jesus. Apparently the obelisk thing made the monkeys evolve into men, and then we were watching men evolve into giant space babies. Wheee.

I thought it was alright except for the ending: 20minutes of flashing lights or whatever that was supposed to be...

[drone]

I thought it was alright except for the ending: 20minutes of flashing lights or whatever that was supposed to be...

As befitting the Kingdom of Peace and Love, I'll bring in some Floyd trivia here. The song "Echoes" from Meddle synchs to the ending of 2001. I think it's supposed to be watched while on acid, that's the only thing that makes sense.

http://www.pinkfloydonline.com/echoes2001_synchs.html

[Puzz3D]

I hate to be down on another imdb favorite, by 2001:A space odyssey was unimaginative and extremely boring. Except for HAL. HAL was really cool, well worth fast forwarding through the rest of it. It starts with 3 minutes of blank screen with horrible "kubrick-music" and then 10 minutes of monkeys and then 10 minutes of spaceships floating. Jesus. Apparently the obelisk thing made the monkeys evolve into men, and then we were watching men evolve into giant space babies. Wheee.

It's a philosophical movie, but it doesn't translate visually to the small screen. I saw this in the Cinerama Theater three times when it was originally released. That theater was like a concert hall and had the widest screen in existence which was also curved and thus engaged your peripheral vision, and they had an Altec Voice of the Theater sound system which has never been equaled except possibly by IMAX theaters. IMAX screens are flat and not nearly as wide as that Cinerama screen. Nothing that spectacular had been seen in sci-fi before, and no movie had ever shown existence in space that realistically. As I recall, there were 27 special effects shots used which was unprecedented, so historically it's an important picture in that respect. People did get stoned in the theater for the colorful psychedlic sequence near the end.

I find the ape sequence very moving. Possibly the monolith caused the ape to evolve, but the monoliths are also beacons pointing to the next evolutionary step for intelligent life on the planet. The mechanism of this evolutionary process isn't explained, but it's clear that an advanced civilization visited Earth and in abstentia is helping intelligent life to evolve. It's probably doing this where ever it encounters life in the universe. Philosophically, it's akin to the absentee landlord theory for God. The baby at the end is symbolic of the next evolutionary step. Homo-sapiens will become extinct and be replaced by a new species.

In the mist of this is a warning against giving artificial intelligence too much control over human destiny. HAL (which is IBM one letter removed in the alphabet) wants to maintain the status quo between humans and itself, and tries to sabotage the mission. HAL believes it is intellectually superior to humans because it doesn't make mistakes, but it can't evolve. The sole surviving astronaut gets into a situation where he has to do something practically impossible in order to prevail against HAL, and come up with the courage to take the risk.

The modern music used in the film is by the highly regarded Hungarian composer György Ligeti who just died last year. He was initially influenced by the composers Bartok and Kodály.

From the Sony classical site:

"The success of Apparitions (1958-59) was confirmed by Atmosphères (1961) and the organ work Volumina (1961-62), making it clear that Ligeti was forging for Western music a powerful alternative to post-Webern serialism. A key feature of his style was the use of extraordinarily dense polyphony, which he called "micropolyphony", resulting in complexes of musical colour and texture so rich and intense that they virtually dissolved the distinctions of melody, harmony and rhythm. At the same time, Ligeti extended his experiments in polyphony in a different direction, to include a kind of fabricated, colouristic language, built on the kaleidoscopic use of articulate speech sounds and inflections." "The Requiem (1963-65) and Lux aeterna (1966) add a contrapuntal complexity to Ligeti's evocative sound-world." "Two years after its premiere, Lux aeterna - along with Atmosphères and the Requiem - reached a mass audience when an excerpt from the score was used on the soundtrack and the best-selling soundtrack recording of the Stanley Kubrick film 2001: A Space Odyssey."

I now consider the use of The Blue Danube Waltz by JohannStrauss which accompanies the docking of the shuttle with the space station as indicating the obsolescence of that technological and biological level of existence because man was about to take a giant evolutionary step.

[Puzz3D]

Just saw Pan's Labyrinth (2006) by director Guillermo del Toro. It is a drama/fantasy set in Spain 1944 just after the end of the Spanish Civil War. It's a story about an 11 year old girl who uses fantasy to help her cope with the violent world around her. She has come with her pregnant mother to a government outpost, which is fighting against rebel remnants in the hills, because the Captain of the outpost is the father of the baby. This is a spectacularly filmed movie with parallel storylines which weave in and out of each other seamlessly, and which has very fine acting all around. It's rated R for violence and is not for children, and is in Spanish with English subtitiles. The subtitles were easy to read, and I don't think they detracted from the film experience. Worth seeing on the big screen, but is in limited release right now.

I would say the film is anti-fascist without being explicitly political, but that may be simply because the fascists have the upper hand. If the other side had won, there is a suggestion there would have been the same brutality in reverse because that's what war brings out on both sides.

[Puzz3D]

Way Down East (1920) by D.W.Griffith is a Victorian melodrama taken from a stage play that was popular in 1897, so it's old fashioned even by 1920. However, this story is lifted to a high emotional level by Griffith's pioneering film technique and the virtuoso acting of Lillian Gish and good acting by the other principle players. By 1922 Griffith told her that he couldn't pay her what she was actually worth, and she went to MGM signing a 1 million dollar contract and making several very fine films there including La Boheme (1926), The Scarlett Letter (1926) and The Wind (1928) all of which I've seen and can say they are very good.

By this time after working with Griffith since 1912 in 67 films including his major productions, Lillian Gish (b 1893) had developed a naturalistic acting style, unusual for silent film actors, without the usual gesturing and raised eyebrows. She could portray a wide range of emotions and transition back and forth between conflicting emotions in a very touching way. She called these kind of characters that she usually had to play "ga ga girls", and although she got tired of doing them, she was very good at them. Lillian Gish was devoted to her acting profession, and put all of her energy into these films not seeking star recognition for herself. She was the only actor who could stand up to Griffith and do her scenes her way. She could take on a character so well that she claims she never used those 'glycerin' tears. Griffith had old fashioned values and so did Lillian Gish, and they are front and center in this film. They may seem out of step for people today, but Gish lived her whole life of 99 years by these values and they stood her well. Try as historians might, the most dirt they've ever dug up on Lillian Gish was that she fibbed about her age.

If you are at all a romanticist, I recommend seeing this film. Get the DVD version on Image restored by David Shepard to it's original 146 min, color tinting and original orchestral score. The sequence on the river at the end is famous, and Lillian Gish actually sustained permanent nerve damage to her right hand which she didn't blame Griffith for because it was her idea to dangle her hand in the freezing water. She described working on this part of the film in her autobiography:

"Our house was near the studio, and I was to report for work at any hour that snow started to fall, as we had both day and night scenes to film." "The blizzard finally struck in March. Drifts eight feet high swallowed the studio." "To hold the camera upright, three men lay on the ground, gripping the tripod legs. A small fire burned directly beneath the camera to keep the oil from freezing." "Again and again, I struggled through the storm. Once I fainted - and it wasn't in the script. I was hauled to the studio on a sled, thawed out with hot tea, and then brought back to the blizzard, where the others were waiting. We filmed all day and all night, stopping only to eat standing near a bonfire." "At one time my face was caked with a crust of ice and snow, and icicles like little spikes formed on my eyelashes, making it difficult to keep my eyes open.

Above the howling storm, Mr. Griffith shouted: 'Billy, move in! Get that face! That face - get that face!' "

"The scenes on and around the ice were filmed at White River Junction, Vermont, where the White River and the Connecticut flowed side by side. The ice was thick; it had to be either sawed or dynamited, so that there would be floes for each day's filming. The temperature never rose above zero during the three weeks we worked there."

References:
Lillian Gish's account appears in: Gish Lillian, Ann Pinchot, The Movies, Mr. Griffith and Me (1969); Brownlow, Kevin, The Parade's Gone by ... (1983).

"Making Movies, 1920," EyeWitness to History, www.eyewitnesstohistory.com (2002).

[Masy]

Hey, no need to be like that...I just am not keen on reading script for a 2 hour period.

[Fragony]

Road to Guatamolo, shocking indeed

hehehe

[Beirut]

I hate to be down on another imdb favorite, by 2001:A space odyssey was unimaginative and extremely boring. Except for HAL. HAL was really cool, well worth fast forwarding through the rest of it. It starts with 3 minutes of blank screen with horrible "kubrick-music" and then 10 minutes of monkeys and then 10 minutes of spaceships floating. Jesus. Apparently the obelisk thing made the monkeys evolve into men, and then we were watching men evolve into giant space babies. Wheee.

gasp...sputtter...wheeze...

You're going to give me an asthma attack posting like that.

2001 was/is an extraordinary film.

The part with the monkeys was showing the nature of man before there was man.

The segue from monkey to spaceship was stunning. An imaginative and seamless jump millions of years into the future. The spaceship docking sequence to the strains of the Blue Danube is one of the most gorgeous pieces of film ever. A ballet of physics and technology. Turn off the lights, pump up the sound, and marvel at special effects that still carry the day decades later.

The obelisk did not make the monkeys evolve into men. It was watching them evolve into men. Then, on the moon, it watched the next step of man's evolution as he conquered space. The obelisk, as Clark wrote, serves as a cosmic Swiss Army Knife for an advanced alien race. In this case, it acted as a remote outpost/observatory.

2001 is based upon a short story, The Sentinel, By Arthur C. Clark. That story was picked up on by himself and Kubrick and made into 2001. Clark said straight off that he wanted to make the best science-fiction movie ever. He did.

I read the Sentinel, 2001, the book about making the film 2001, 2010, 2061, and 3001. All good books. Over the course of the books you get a deeper understanding of the story than is possible with the film. But the film was a benchmark in science-fiction. Granted, it's no action pic, but it does explore the human condition in a marvelous way.

No doubt the movie is enigmatic, but so is the universe. That's the point.

[Adrian II]

I just watched Oliver Stone's Alexander, three years late and not a day too soon I might add.

It seems that Stone never heard of the eclipse of the moon that won Alexander's battle at Gaugamela, as the Persian Astronomical Diaries recount (29th Ahû tablet of Enuma Enlil, 59-61).

But then I never knew Alexander was Irish. Or that he had an Austrian shrink.

I learn every day.

[Alexanderofmacedon]

I watched Letters from Iwo Jima and I have to say I loved it!

I can't believe my thread is still going strong.