Seen any good movies lately?

[darkphoenix21]

Skyfall
The Hobbit
Zero Dark Thirty
Django Unchained...Busy weekend

[Kalebasse]

Geez, i am SOOOOOO behind.

[darkphoenix21]

Now You See Me ....SUCH A FUN MOVIE!!! I loved the entire cast. It was one trick after the next and the best trick of all was revealed at the end.

[DA_Champion]

I saw some movies on my recent flights from Australia to North America to Italy and back to Australia. All we horrible-to-middling except for Jobs and Europa Report, which I liked a great deal and recommend.


Iron Man 3
I wrote a rant about this one just after watching it, so I have more to say:
- I'm having trouble buying Tony's PTSD given that the events of the avengers were a joke, and he didn't suffer any more than he did in the first two iron man movies.
- why is there a kid?
- why is the mandarin white? WTF is his accent?
- "now you're just going to leave me here, like my dad" ... ":facepalm:
- The mandarin has some sort of arab themed music, is supposed to be chinese, and is played by a white actor;
- I wonder if this clown that Tony met in the room is really the Mandarin;
- Aldredge Killian's transformation does not work;
- the way the scientist chick died was anti-climatic;
- there's a silly skydiving scene;
- "I AM THE MANDARIN" ... :facepalm:
- Nice bra Pepper Potts ...
- The movie ends with some self-narating heavy-handed exposition from Tony Stark, and the words "one thing you can't take away, I am Iron Man"... except it's been taken away because there are a hundred iron men now, and Iron Man is no longer a big deal since there are tons of super beings.
- Tony Stark cures Pepper of Extremis, and cures himself of his shrapnel wound, in the brief time following the resolution of the film.


Overall, a terrible movie, with a convoluted, self-deprecating, and incoherent plot. It does one thing better than Thor 2, the opening prologue in Switzerland was kind of exciting rather than boring, unlike the battle scene involving Bore and Malakeith. If the whole of Iron Man 3 was like the Switzerland scene, this movie would have been amazing. In general I liked the scenes with Rebecca Hall. Gwyneth Paltrow? meh.


The Marvel films are completely sterile imo as well as repetitive, I kind of expect their bubble to burst soon. How many times can you repackage the same plot over and over again?


My grade: F


Tron: Legacy
I watched it, it's only been a few weeks, and I already don't remember what the plot was. I think the programs wanted to take over the Earth, I'm not sure how or why or what stopped them. In that sense it is kind of like Skyfall: simply not memorable.


However, as mediocre as this was, I'm still impressed by the fact that jt was Joseph Kosinski's first film, as far as first films go it's really impressive. His background is as a professor of architecture, and he greatly improved in Oblivion. I suspect his career will go places.


grade: D


Pacific Rim
It was my second time watching this, and it was much less fun the second time around, being only mildly fun the first time around. I am a fan of dumb action movies as is well known on this forum, but for me, Pacific Rim is probably too dumb. I expect better from Director Guillermo Del Toro than this cringe-worthy dialogue, cardboard characters, internally inconsistent world-building, and horrible acting.


grade: C


World War Z
This, for me, was a run-of-the-mill zombie apocalypse movie. Between Dawn of the Dead, 28 Days Later, 28 weeks later, I Am Legend, Resident Evil, etc etc etc I can't even tell you which I like best, as none stand out. I guess World War Z was well-crafted, but I don't think ti contributed anything new. I had the feeling that the wall around Israel should have had a deeper meaning, but I couldn't find a meaning that was genuinely deep, just that it's a superficial metaphor for Palestine.


grade: C+


Byzantium
A vampire movie starring Saoirse Ronan and Gemma Arterton that comes off as trying to have a meaning, though again I have no idea what the meaning is. There's a lot of exposition in the this movie while there simultaneously is a lot of reveals that take place too late in the game. The best thing, perhaps the only thing, that this movie has going for it is that Gemma Arterton looks hot in it.


grade: C


Jobs
I enjoyed this biopic of Steve Jobs (played by Ashton Kutcher), I don't agree with the critical consensus against it, as in the rotten tomatoes score of 27%. The movie largely focuses on the story of 1980s Apple, how the company was formed by Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak, how the company grew, and how Jobs was eventually booted out in the mid to late 1980s. The movie then skips over to the early 2000s and fast-tracks through Steve Jobs' resurrection.


I think that critics didn't like this movie for two reasons. The first is that the main character is unlikeable, and the second is that the movie portrays invention and discovery as being difficult. For that, I condemn the critics as being shallow human beings. Not all people are unlikeable, and in fact sometimes what makes a person an ******* is also what allows them to succeed, and a biopic about a man rising to the top in a cutthroat world need not be and in fact should not be a morality tale about how it always plays to be nice. The second point is one of my pet peeves... critics, and the common American viewer alike both believe that invention is supposed to be easy, and that genius is entirely biological and does not require effort. The movie Jobs shows how the creation of Apple in fact required a lot of balls and intensive effort, which people don't like to see since it conflicts with their mythology of how the world works.


grade: B


Europa Report
Definitely the cream of the crop of what I've watched on planes recently. It's a hard science fiction portrayal of what a manned trip to Europa (a moon of Jupiter) might be like, partly filmed as a "documentary".


For those unfamiliar, Europa is an icy moon of Jupiter that many scientists believe should have an ocean under it, and thus possibly life. I've heard leading astrophysicists describe it as the most likely location in the solar system other than Earth to host life.


In this movie, a manned mission goes to Europe to drill over the ice sheet to see if there is water under it, to then take samples to bring back to Earth. Things go wrong, a lot of the equipment breaks and thus they lose communication with Earth, but they decide to go to Europa regardless and complete their mission. This movie is part space-horror, part scientific exploration... you know like what Star Trek was supposed to be like before Jar Jar Abrams got involved.


A criticism: a lot of the cast members look alike, which made it a little harder for me to follow the story.
A praise: The great Bear McReary did the music.
A query: How did they make this for less than 10 million dollars?


grade: A

[Halberdier17]

I recently saw: Brave, Hotel Transylvania, Wreck-It Ralph, Amazing Spider-Man, and Iron Man 3 and I thought they were all good.

[Austin 3:16]

Just watched 1981's Heavy Metal. First time I've ever seen the entire thing. Great movie and it left me wanting more. Robert Rodriguez of From Dusk Till Dawn owns the rights now and he wants to do more of them, maybe as TV movies or a series or something to that effect for his El Rey Network and I hope he does. Fantastic movie and I'm definitely looking forward to what he does for an encore!

[BleedingTheOrchid]

Just saw Paranormal Activity: The Marked Ones, and while the whole found foutage thing is completely over-used, I have to say, I enjoyed this one a WHOLE lot better than I did PA4

[Austin 3:16]

I watched Gabriel Iglesias's new movie The Fluffy Movie and had a blast! Except for the beginning and the end its his stand up act. He talks about how he lost 100 lbs and his family and other stuff. If u r a fan of him I urge u to watch it.

Oh and btw there are two cameos through the beginning about him being born and how he decided to become a comic that really made me happy. One is who plays the doctor who delivers him and the other is who rents him the stand up video that gets him interested. Don't want to spoil them so if anyone wants to know pm me and ill tell u since everytime I try to do spoiler text it doesnt work.

[Austin 3:16]

Kingsman: The Secret Service. Go see this movie it kicks serious butt!

[DA_Champion]

I'm watcging Planet of the Apes 2001.

Lifeless, dumb, heavy handed ... but the production design is absolutely splendid, and Estella Warren looks hot.

[Backward Galaxy]

I'm watcging Planet of the Apes 2001.

Lifeless, dumb, heavy handed ... but the production design is absolutely splendid, and Estella Warren looks hot.

yes, she did

[Austin 3:16]

Ant-Man it is AWESOME!

[DA_Champion]

I watched The Godfather a few nights ago. I had not seen it in ~10 years, so basically I had equivalently never seen it. I had forgotten the vast majority of the plot.

It's really good, a bit of an extra experience for me since I have a lot of Italian friends, I appreciate the authenticity with the accents. If Hollywood remade the Godfather today they might give the characters British accents to make tthem look foreign.

It's good to see a movie be worthy of its three hour plot line.

I read a nice comment on a movie blog today that Mexican cartels today are more interesting than the 1960s Italian cartels. I don't know if that's true, it might be. Point being, Denis Villeneuve's Sicario coming out soon has the potential to be great.

*******

I finished Godfather Part 2, it's very good (lol), but I think I prefer the first one.

I can't tell if the assassination of Hyman Roth is supposed to reference the Kennedy assassination. They killed the target and then killed the patsy.

I loved Hyman Roth though, I think being Jewish just makes me love him more.

Kay telling Michael that she's had an abortion ... damn, I didn't see that one coming. Great, fantastic scene.

Up next, the internet consensus for absolute worst film in cinematic history (I'm slightly exaggerating), Godfather Part 3.

*********

I finished Godfather part 3. In my older age (31) I can now see why it's much less appreciated. The script is much less tight, I think half of al pacino's dialogue was exposition, and in general it seemed thinner on plot in spite of having an approximately equal run time.

Pacino had a few good moments though like "just when I think I'm out they pull me back in", and the end scenes involving the daughter.

I liked Andy Garcia's portrayal too which I think most people did. He came off as Sonny's son.

There's a part of the plot that didn't make sense. If immobilliare is the world's largest landlord with 6 billion in aasets, how can they buy a controlling interest for 600 million?

As pointed out elsewhere the plot is repetitive. It's the third movie with a nefarious Don, and the third one that closes with all of the enemies successfully killed off.

[DA_Champion]

I watched Citizen Kane today. I can't say I loved it. It did a lot right, probably doesn't have that I had a sugar crash right around the start of the movie ...

I like what they did with makeup and hair. They succeeded in ageing Orson Welles convincingly.

[DJ Doena]

For the past two years I've pretty much stopped going to the theatre.

If I had to point to a specific point in time, I'd say the release of Avatar.

I never really got into the whole 3D hype, I don't feel that it betters my movie experience. However, it certainly made an impact on my wallet and on my willingness to spend my dollars on a non-repeatable two-hour experience.

13 years ago we went to the theatre on almost a weekly basis, even watching not so interesting-sounding movies on Movie Day or in the Sneak Preview.

Nowadays? i think I watched two movies this year so far, one of them being Avengers 2.

Don't get me wrong, I can afford paying 13 Euros for a single movie ticket, I just don't want to because I don't think it's worth it. And for many a people it is actually too steep a price to afford.