Movie Review Thread

[Fragony]

Departures, great Japanese movie. I always find it kinda cool that the Japanese play western music, I remember reading a letter somewhere of a Japanese visitor who was used only to that Geisha stuff they have there, he had the luck of having Carmina Burana as an introduction and it was kinda overpowering for him. Was a fun read.

Good movie, as always with Asian movies a lot is lost to me, but very good.

[Fragony]

La Reine Margot, great adaptation. I adore Issabelle Adjani. SEXY, that mouth could suck the white out of your eyes. Sorry if that was kinda vulgar but dear god.

[Beskar]

Interested to hear what people who did not read the book think of it.

Hey @Lemur, I just got around to watching this now. Personally? I think it is a very good movie. Easily one of the better ones I have come across. Not read the books, but it did seem to have a lot of highlights, as you put it. But it works well enough to get people a very good idea of how it goes on and how it plays out.

I would class it as "Must see" in terms of goodness.

[Hooahguy]

Machete Kills

After I saw Lady Gaga in this movie, I wasnt really sure what I was watching anymore.

[a completely inoffensive name]

Was planning on playing SC2 today but my 2v2 partner got into the Elder Scrollls Online beta, so I decided to watch two movies that someone recommended on reddit.

Ip Man (2008)
-A very good foreign martial arts movie. It's a fictionalized account of the trainer of Bruce Lee when he lived in China before and during the Japanese occupation starting in 1937. The fight scenes are very fun and entertaining and while the movie suffers from a very anti-climatic ending and props up some very unsubtle Chinese nationalism for no reason, if you expect a movie with good fights and a good setting, then it should do the job.

The Kings Speech (2010)
- Just finished watching this and I can see why it won so many awards, I was disappointed to hear that the historical accuracy is not very accurate, especially with the timeline of when King George VI was treated, but it was a very compelling and well told story that made me wish I lived under a Constitutional Monarchy, if only for a minute or two. If the movie purposely tried to get me to hate King Edward VIII, it did a good job with the twenty minutes they spent talking about him. I am sure the real history is different, but it helps the audience accept Berty as a war time King despite his stuttering when you think of his brother as a drunk, pompous, selfish, Nazi sympathizer.

I plan on watching another movie or two tomorrow, just because I feel like I have not taken enough advantage of Netflix. So expect another post tomorrow.

[Lemur]

Elysium

Good concept, average execution. Nothing special about this movie, but it could have been so much more. What a shame.

Yeah, it never really turned into a coherent story/experience. Lots of interesting bits that never add up.

Everyone's better off re-watching District 9.

Or one of Blomkamp's shorts, for that matter.

[Vuk]

Ip Man (2008)
-A very good foreign martial arts movie. It's a fictionalized account of the trainer of Bruce Lee when he lived in China before and during the Japanese occupation starting in 1937. The fight scenes are very fun and entertaining and while the movie suffers from a very anti-climatic ending and props up some very unsubtle Chinese nationalism for no reason, if you expect a movie with good fights and a good setting, then it should do the job.

I agree on Ip Man all except the 'anti-climatic' ending. I thought the ending was great (except the propaganda).

[rickinator9]

I watched this movie called Cloud Atlas today. I was interested by it. Cloud Atlas, sounds cool right! That's what I thought. It did not live up to it's name. What you get is 6 separate plots in one movie. Do they have anything to do with each other? No. Do they explain what happened in between the plots? No. Do you get to see the ending of each individual plot? No. So basically what you're trying to do is trying to connect all of it together which inevitably fails. For me, this movie was a 2 hour waste of time.

[Hooahguy]

I watched this movie called Cloud Atlas today. I was interested by it. Cloud Atlas, sounds cool right! That's what I thought. It did not live up to it's name. What you get is 6 separate plots in one movie. Do they have anything to do with each other? No. Do they explain what happened in between the plots? No. Do you get to see the ending of each individual plot? No. So basically what you're trying to do is trying to connect all of it together which inevitably fails. For me, this movie was a 2 hour waste of time.

It had the same problem that The Pacific had. Trying to tell the stories of various characters that have nothing to do with each other does not end well. It didnt work for The Pacific with ten hours, it certainly wont work with just two hours.

[Fragony]

Virus, surprised I never heard of it. It has excellent actors like Jamie Lee Curtis and David Sutherland, incredibly cool effects. Blockbuster you'd think. Bought it for an euro.

[Subedei]

Best movie seen in a looong time: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Prophet

Thrilling, insightful and awesome actors! Watch it if possible.

[Fragony]

Best movie seen in a looong time: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Prophet

Thrilling, insightful and awesome actors! Watch it if possible.

I second this, it's an incredible movie.

[Hooahguy]

Triumph of the Spirit

Its a Holocaust film set in Auschwitz. Its made well, it was even shot on location of the death camp, so that was interesting to see. But I didnt really get a feel for the characters. The film is supposedly about a Greek boxer forced to box for the Nazi officers, but it didnt feel like that was the main plot of the movie, it felt like it was something on the side, nothing more. Willem Dafoe, to his credit, had a good performance in the movie. Edward James Olmos's performance was also great, but I might be slightly biased as I am a huge Admiral Adama fan so he cant really do any wrong in my eyes. I also loved him in American Me.

[Fragony]

Lague of extraordinary gentlemen, great fun. A fine production by the numbers, it's nothing extraordinary but it's fun. It's a genre that you can't really can wrong with really. Good value for the euro I payed for it.

[a completely inoffensive name]

Lague of extraordinary gentlemen, great fun. A fine production by the numbers, it's nothing extraordinary but it's fun. It's a genre that you can't really can wrong with really. Good value for the euro I payed for it.

That's interesting you liked it Frag. Here in the US it is generally held as one of the worst movies to come out in a long time. 17% from critics and 44% from audience on rottentomatoes.com I watched it and thought it was merely average, but people also say that "Lady in the Water" is terrible but I rather liked it, so I guess to each his own.

[Major Robert Dump]

Watched Brasil for first time ever. Entertaining.

Also watched My Life As A Dog, freaking amazing film.

[Fragony]

Ajami, very cool Israeli/Palestinian movie. Guess what it's not about? Exactly, there is no politics in this movie it's part crime-movie part family-drama. Gives nice insights in jewish and palestinian cultures. Recommended.

[Fragony]

Captivity, sadistic crap, turned it off after 5 minutes. Saw was a great movie, this just tries to capitalise on that. But this isn't clever at all it's torture-porn. Avoid at all costs.

[Fragony]

Saw Master and Commander again, it's awesome. I just wish they made a sea-warfare movie about battles of a large scale, like the English vs the Spanish armada or the Dutch fleet, these battles were enormous, and with modern technoligy it should be possible to not make it all too expensive.

[The Lurker Below]

The Perks of Being a Wallflower - good story, well played, directed, etc...would give 3.5 of 5.

[a completely inoffensive name]

So with only a week left until I am officially on break, I have decided to make a list here of movies available on Netflix instant watch so that I can become a more cultured individual. There are 37 movies on here I want to watch, and I want to finish it off by early January when school starts up again.

The full list is here:

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

1. The Avengers
2. Jarhead
3. End of Watch
4. The Pianist
5. Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid
6. Roman Holiday
7. The Hunt for Red October
8. The Untouchables
9. Platoon
10. Jet Li's Fearless
11. Batman: Under the Red Hood
12. Dr. Seuss' The Lorax
13. Tucker and Dale vs. Evil
14. Safe
15. Downfall
16. Ip Man 2 Just watched
17. Cinema Paradiso
18. Charade
19. The Man from Nowhere
20. 13 Assassins
21. The African Queen
22. The Way
23. Batman: Year One
24. Double Indemnity
25. The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance
26. Fresh
27. Witness for the Prosecution
28. Memorial Day
29. Imitation of Life
30. Trading Places
31. Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels
32. The Worlds Fastest Indian
33. The Red Violin
34. Safety Not Guaranteed
35. Ong-Bak: The Thai Warrior
36. True Grit (1969)
37. Europa Report

First one on my list to cross off Ip Man 2

If you saw my review for the first one, you know that I enjoyed the first one for its ability to provide what you would expect from such a film, good fights and a good setting. I think the second one surprisingly improves on the first film in almost every way with the exception of the implementation of Act 3. Whether due to a bigger budget or more experience under the actors belt, the acting from all native Chinese actors were better than in the first film, although this is offset by the horrific performances by the white actors playing the British police and antagonists later in the film. No outrageous wire fu, but fast paced, exciting fights that do not get dull after the first 30 seconds of fighting. The biggest improvement going for it is the toned down themes of Chinese nationalism which makes sense when considering the differences in sentiment between Chinese-Japanese relations and Chinese-British relations. The plot is good as Ip Man is now in Hong Kong presumably fighting all the other Kung Fu masters in order to establish himself as the best master of them all, but then the film suddenly takes a turn near the end by turning the main Chinese antagonist into a martyr for the Chinese people by having him get killed in the ring against a brutish British boxer who Ip Man must now fight in order to show the true strength of the Chinese martial arts. The stakes are not exactly as high as the first movie when the Japanese are occupying the entire country, attempting to demoralize the Chinese with one sided tournaments. So the hype isn't there in the end as you would expect from a sequel, but none of that matters any way because as I said, it gives you what you want, some good kung fu. Watch it if you liked the first.

[Vuk]

Nah. Ip Man 2 kind of sucked pretty hard.

[Fragony]

Van God Los, great Dutch crime movie based on true events. There is a subitled version but it's probably hard to find, well worth the trouble looking though. Very violent, great acting.

[Lemur]

Interesting list, ACIN. The ones I ain't seen:

3. End of Watch
10. Jet Li's Fearless
11. Batman: Under the Red Hood
12. Dr. Seuss' The Lorax
14. Safe
15. Downfall
18. Charade
19. The Man from Nowhere
22. The Way
23. Batman: Year One
26. Fresh
27. Witness for the Prosecution
28. Memorial Day
29. Imitation of Life

On my current to-watch list, for no particular reasons:

Sonatine
Tiny Furniture
Best Worst Movie
Bernie
In the Loop
John Dies at the End
Melancholia

If any Orgahs have an opinion on any of these flicks, feel free to share. Especially if you've seen it and it isn't worth the time.

[Hooahguy]

3. End of Watch
15. Downfall

Both excellent movies, especially Downfall.

[Crazed Rabbit]

Interesting list, ACIN. The ones I ain't seen:

3. End of Watch
10. Jet Li's Fearless
11. Batman: Under the Red Hood
12. Dr. Seuss' The Lorax
14. Safe
15. Downfall
18. Charade
19. The Man from Nowhere
22. The Way
23. Batman: Year One
26. Fresh
27. Witness for the Prosecution
28. Memorial Day
29. Imitation of Life

I've seen some of these; I definitely recommend End of Watch, and The Man from Nowhere. I enjoyed Under the Red Hood more than Batman: Year One (which was more like Gordon: Year One).

CR

[a completely inoffensive name]

These were not on the list, but a friend invited me to watch The Hobbit at his place and then we immediately saw Desolation of Smaug in theaters, essentially amounting to 6 hours of Hobbitness today.

For part one, I was really happy with how well they kept to the story line, and I felt like the actors were good choices for their chosen roles. The problem I had was the one I was most afraid of which was that they were either not going to spend enough time on the ancillary dwarves to make certain portions of the book impactful or they were going to cut good portions of the book out. As it turns out over the course of part 2, they began to cut out big portions of the book which were some of my favorite scenes. The scene with the eagles is included in part 1 and (avoiding spoilers) it did match up with what I imagined when I read the book myself about 2 months ago.

The real problem I had was the rapid deviation from the book in part 2, the one which just came out. I do not have a problem with cutting corners and leaving only the essentials, but much of what they changed was simply unnecessary and detracted from the characters of the book and even worse, ruined the atmosphere of the biggest points of the book. Being a children's book, there is no love interest angle in The Hobbit, but because this is a big budget Hollywood film, they just had to shove one in there, where it did not belong, as well as bringing back characters from LOTR who were not present at all in The Hobbit.

The pacing due to the many alterations is now very off in my opinion, the fight I expected to see at the end of part 2 was now put off until the beginning of part 3 because they added a 20 minute fight scene which never occurred in the book. Now granted, they way it plays out in the book, would be very boring if it was portrayed on film (hint, there is lots of hiding and talking and waiting and talking), but I do think the route taken set the movie back in other ways simply to fulfill a big ending fight featuring the main characters.

I don;t want to make it seem like either of these movies are bad, if you have not read the book, you will not know what was added unless you remember what I have been saying while you watch it haha. I was just disappointed because I felt that The Hobbit could have been done more faithfully than the LOTR trilogy because it is not as long as the trilogy and instead found Hollywood shoving its tropes very hard into an otherwise perfect story. Desolation of Smaug still deserves your money however, and I encourage everyone to watch it, if only for the songs and soundtrack that accompanies every Hobbit/LOTR movie.

[Hooahguy]

Gangster Squad

Besides having a pretty dumb name, it was a pretty dull movie. Almost no character development at all, dumb plotlines, and even somehow made the action boring. Cant recommend.

Though Emma Stone in that red dress...

[a completely inoffensive name]

Another movie struck from the list:

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

1. The Avengers
2. Jarhead
3. End of Watch
4. The Pianist
5. Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid
6. Roman Holiday
7. The Hunt for Red October
8. The Untouchables
9. Platoon
10. Jet Li's Fearless
11. Batman: Under the Red Hood
12. Dr. Seuss' The Lorax
13. Tucker and Dale vs. Evil
14. Safe
15. Downfall
16. Ip Man 2
17. Cinema Paradiso
18. Charade
19. The Man from Nowhere
20. 13 Assassins
21. The African Queen
22. The Way
23. Batman: Year One
24. Double Indemnity
25. The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance
26. Fresh
27. Witness for the Prosecution
28. Memorial Day
29. Imitation of Life
30. Trading Places
31. Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels
32. The Worlds Fastest Indian
33. The Red Violin
34. Safety Not Guaranteed
35. Ong-Bak: The Thai Warrior
36. True Grit (1969)
37. Europa Report

Ong-Bak: The Thai Warrior was decent. The story was pretty barebones and there was a real lack of any real fighting until about half way through the movie when suddenly it became fight after fight after fight. The fights themselves were satisfying enough for me, they were neither over the top nor quick, but the movie seemed to have a genuine realness to it such that Tony Jaa was really doing all these stunts, which if you think about it, are impressive to perform without wires. Each punch felt heavy and there was a fun 'Taken" element to it when a man get knocked out cold from one good blow among a series of 5 minute fights. I was going to watch jet Li, but I am getting sick of kung fu. Tomorrow I think I will watch Platoon.

[a completely inoffensive name]

Two more movies taken off the list:

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

1. The Avengers (extra)
2. Jarhead
3. End of Watch
4. The Pianist
5. Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid
6. Roman Holiday
7. The Hunt for Red October
8. The Untouchables
9. Platoon
10. Jet Li's Fearless (extra)
11. Batman: Under the Red Hood
12. Dr. Seuss' The Lorax
13. Tucker and Dale vs. Evil (extra)
14. Safe
15. Downfall
16. Ip Man 2
17. Cinema Paradiso (extra)
18. Charade
19. The Man from Nowhere
20. 13 Assassins
21. The African Queen
22. The Way (extra)
23. Batman: Year One
24. Double Indemnity
25. The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance
26. Fresh
27. Witness for the Prosecution
28. Memorial Day
29. Imitation of Life
30. Trading Places (extra)
31. Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels
32. The Worlds Fastest Indian (extra)
33. The Red Violin
34. Safety Not Guaranteed (extra)
35. Ong-Bak: The Thai Warrior
36. True Grit (1969)
37. Europa Report (extra)

I am thinking that I wont be able to keep this pace for my whole break, so I have picked nine movies that I will put off the until the end as "extras" that I will get to if I have time. If I get through the core 27 movies I want to watch, I will consider this a success.

For today:
Batman: Under the Red Hood
Not much to say, it's an hour long DC WB animated movie featuring Bruce Timm as the producer, so I was somewhat confident that the quality would not be terrible, and to my enjoyment it was pretty good. It operates essentially as a 3 episode arch of Batman: The Animated Series, except with different voice actors notably for both Batman and the Joker (no Mark Hamill :( ). It's hard to talk about it without spoilers but if you are familiar with the recent "Red Hood" story arch from the DC comics, you pretty much know what to expect here. If you liked the Timmverse DC Animated cartoons (Batman: TAS, Batman Beyond, Justice League, Static Shock, JL: Unlimited etc...) you will get enjoyment out of this as well.

Platoon
Very good movie, I almost felt guilty not having seen this movie until now. Featuring a diverse cast that would become some of hollywoods biggest stars or already were at that point. I feel dumb writing about this to be honest, because it is a classic and has been for over 30 years, im the one late to the party. I will just say, I am glad that the characters I liked survived (mostly) and the characters that I didnt, did not (mostly). If you for some reason were in the same boat as me, just know that it is one of the best movies about the Vietnam War ever made (up there with Apocalypse Now and Full Metal Jacket) and you should see it.