Movie Review Thread

[Subotan]

Watched War Horse last Monday, after watching the play last year. Absolutely dire film, sentimental to the point of getting in the way of actual emotional connection to the audience. Adding in the lazy historical generalisations (I.e. the implication that all of the British were "good" whilst some of the Germans were "villains"), a ridiculous plot and a lack of awesome puppetry and you're left with a resounding disappointment. Not sure why the New Yorker raved about it.

[rajpoot]

Roger Dodger

It's not a coming of age film....it's not a comedy exactly, or a drama. But...it's an awesome film.
I mean you sit down and watch it with your friends and you feel like going back to those teenage years when everything felt so much more magical. We guys were all laughing a lot reminiscing our own antics in college.

[Vuk]

Act of Valor: 4/5
Script: 1/5
Action: 100/5

That basically sums it up. Cheesy script, the Seals aren't the best actors, but the action is absolutely perfect! It is definitely worth seeing for that alone.

[a completely inoffensive name]

Watch Tunnel Rats for the awesome intro song, then quickly turn it off before you realize its a bad movie (and that the song is a cover).

I love that song.

[Lemur]

Chronicle was surprisingly good. Like a low-fi white-boy version of Akira.

[Hooahguy]

Empire of the Sun
Nowhere near as good as I thought it would be. Acting was ok, but all I saw the movie as was one very long coming of age film that was oftentimes boring.
6/10

Con Air
While Nicholas Cage's southern accent is laughable, the rest of the film was superb. Some really funny scenes and some really sombering scenes.
9/10

[Fragony]

Empire of the Sun
Nowhere near as good as I thought it would be. Acting was ok, but all I saw the movie as was one very long coming of age film that was oftentimes boring.
6/10

It doesn't help that the main character is so punchable

[Graphic]

It's a shame Hugo didn't win Best Picture. I haven't seen everything from 2011 yet (including The Artist) but of what I have, Hugo was easily the best.

It was good for the first half, but when it turned into a movie about the early movie business it became awesome.

Fargo is a comedy in my book, it's all tragic of course but it's packed with hilarity. I adore the soundtrack, soooooo tragic it's perfect. The Coen brothers are masters of small touches, they have yet to make a movie I didn't REALLY like

Yeah, Fargo is definitely a black comedy. Agreed on the soundtrack too, it reminds me of Taxi Driver in parts which is high praise.

[Lemur]

Con Air
While Nicholas Cage's southern accent is laughable, the rest of the film was superb. Some really funny scenes and some really sombering scenes.
9/10

Put. Then bunny. Down.

[Fragony]

Yeah, Fargo is definitely a black comedy. Agreed on the soundtrack too, it reminds me of Taxi Driver in parts which is high praise.

If you haven't seen it already 'No country for old man' is just as good. How they come up with the sitational comedy I don't know, but it's brlliant, yay for being lovily mocked

[Graphic]

If you haven't seen it already 'No country for old man' is just as good. How they come up with the sitational comedy I don't know, but it's brlliant, yay for being lovily mocked

No Country is one of my three favorite movies from 2007 (other two being Zodiac and There Will Be Blood).

[econ21]

Empire of the Sun
Nowhere near as good as I thought it would be. Acting was ok, but all I saw the movie as was one very long coming of age film that was oftentimes boring.
6/10

It may grow on you. When I first saw it in my twenties, I was underwhelmed. I caught it again quite recently at about double that age and thought it was a tour de force.

I am not sure what changed - maybe I was looking at the "punchable" main character from the perspective of a parent rather than of a young man. It makes you view the boy's losing his parents, and later losing his innocence, quite differently. And I think Christian Bale did a jaw dropping job - I am not sure he has done anything better since - with a powerful cast of supporting characters.

Partly, I guess I was no longer looking for an action film. The film's plot has the messiness that comes with a real life story (yes, it's fiction but based heavily on the author's own war time experiences, IIRC). Watching it in the same way as you would watch Schindler's List, it is very moving.

[Graphic]

It may grow on you. When I first saw it in my twenties, I was underwhelmed. I caught it again quite recently at about double that age and thought it was a tour de force.

I am not sure what changed - maybe I was looking at the "punchable" main character from the perspective of a parent rather than of a young man. It makes you view the boy's losing his parents, and later losing his innocence, quite differently. And I think Christian Bale did a jaw dropping job - I am not sure he has done anything better since - with a powerful cast of supporting characters.

Partly, I guess I was no longer looking for an action film. The film's plot has the messiness that comes with a real life story (yes, it's fiction but based heavily on the author's own war time experiences, IIRC). Watching it in the same way as you would watch Schindler's List, it is very moving.

Christian Bale's best work to me will always be American Psycho.

[Graphic]

Red Tails

Terrence Howard's inspiring speeches got old fast.

The dialogue for white pilots was like something a 12 year old would write, because they pretty much just said out loud what was happening on screen or expressed their feelings in short, simplistic sentences. Like "Those black pilots did OK. I NOW LIKE BLACK PEOPLE AND AM NO LONGER RACIST." Its almost like something out of a Family Guy sketch. Black dialogue wasn't much better with them joking and having a good old time like they were hanging out in a bar...but during a life-and-death dog fight. I half expected one of them to go YIPEE!!! like young Anakin in Phantom Menace.

Action was decent but not great. Climax was over in a flash and there was no tension during it. They cut down jet planes like they were Wright brothers planes.

Love scenes were pretty bad but not as bad as Attack of the Clones because at least here they couldn't speak to each other.

I don't normally harp on technical inaccuracies in war movies because its nearly completely beside the point (thats right, Org war buffs!), but seeing a particular maneuver done twice that looked like something only an X-wing could do was a bit much. It was cartoonish.

It just came off as much more corny, simple and overly reverent than it needed to be. Now that I've seen it I agree with the criticisms I heard. It needed to be more serious and darker. Miracle at St. Anna was better in every way (St. Anna is highly underrated IMO), and even Windtalkers (which was basically Hard Boiled dressed up as a WW2 movie) handled this kind of thing better. The tone of the movie is akin to propaganda (it actually ends with a patriotic speech with the "star-spangled banner" playing in the background) which doesn't ever really sit right with me. War is a dark thing and therefore I like my war movies to be dark.

I don't regret seeing it the one time, but that'll be it.

TL;DR - It's exactly what you imagine a George Lucas affiliated war movie to be: a ball of corn covered in cheese.

[PanzerJaeger]

St. Anna is highly underrated IMO

[Graphic]

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo (American version) - Wasn't sure how I'd feel about it but I ended up liking it quite a bit.

*minor spoilers*

What I didn't like:

- The beginning was handled horribly.Iit was just a clusterfrack of one piece of information after the other in rapid succession, compounded by the difficulty in remembering who all the different Henrick Wancherstrom Lochbrach Dieterhaufenschlombergs were. I had to piece together what was going on while also trying to pay attention to current scenes. It was made even worse by the music being too loud and therefore difficult to hear some dialogue.

- The rape scene didnt need to go that far...im no prude but it just felt gratuitous after a while. I feel like an old fart saying this but I really wanted this scene to end ASAP. I think they could have cut that whole arc revolving around the rape and the movie would barely have suffered for it.

- The editing was so fast that you barely got to enjoy any individual scene. I cant think back to a specific scene I thought was really well done because no one stays in one spot for more than two minutes. Unfortunately one of the only scenes that was slow enough to take in was the rape scene.

What I did like:

everything else

[Subotan]

Put. Then bunny. Down.

[Fragony]

Incendiay, *sigh* another Magnolia-clone. Few stories, few events. And guess what EVERYTHING IS CONNECTED geddit?

So clever

[Graphic]

Incendiay, *sigh* another Magnolia-clone. Few stories, few events. And guess what EVERYTHING IS CONNECTED geddit?

So clever

I hate every one of these kinds of movies.

There's also Crash, Traffic, Syriana, Babel. At least 2-3 more I cant recall

[Fragony]

Yeah and many more even the type of music is the same, I actually meant Babel in the above, screwed up

[a completely inoffensive name]

Fun fact. The Rock and Con Air are actually Nic Cages 2nd and 3rd best movies ever.

[Graphic]

Fun fact. The Rock and Con Air are actually Nic Cages 2nd and 3rd best movies ever.

Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans being his #1. That movie is too awesome for words.

"His soul is still dancing! BAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA"

[Fragony]

His best movie is obviously 'Leaving Las Vegas', true romance for true men: booze, hookers & jazz

[rajpoot]

Watched the Secret of Kells again.

The movie is really good as far as animation goes. A distinct style. I specially liked the forest scenes and how they depicted the vikings, but the best part of the movie, even after the second viewing is Aisling's song.

[Peasant Phill]

Watched the Secret of Kells again.

The movie is really good as far as animation goes. A distinct style. I specially liked the forest scenes and how they depicted the vikings, but the best part of the movie, even after the second viewing is Aisling's song.

I forgot I've not watched this animation until the end. It's on my list again for this week.
Thanks rajpoot

[rajpoot]

The pleasure is all mine.

[Fragony]

I forgot I've not watched this animation until the end. It's on my list again for this week.
Thanks rajpoot

How can you not....

Ah well. World Invasion: Battle Los Angeles. Starts out interestingly enough, first half is great. Kudo's for putting Michelle Rodriguez and Bridget Moynahan (gawd sooooooo pretty) in one movie

[Peasant Phill]

I've watched 'the twillight samurai' last night. It was a decent slow movie. It's more a portrait of the tragic protagonist than a story. "They said he was an unlucky man, but he would've disagreed"

[Graphic]

War Horse

Having not paid much attention to the trailers and commercials about this because I thought it was just some stupid animal movie that was going to rob me of a chance to see a good WW1 movie (which are very rare), I expected this to be lame.

Well aside from spending too much time on the farm in the beginning, I have no complaints. As much as it's a story about a horse, its just as much a story about the hardships of war that the people who take possession of the horse face; people from both sides and civilians.

The combat scenes are very well done as well.

It was very refreshing to see a real war movie that covers the darkness and human cost of war, instead of just people fighting each other for 2 hours or it devolving into a modern propaganda piece glorifying war.

Highly recommended.

[Fragony]

Dorian Gray, deliciously depraved. Never read a book from Oscar Wilde, maybe I should.