The Movie Review and Discussion Thread

[SquidPuppet]

Originally Posted by DjMethod

[Show spoiler]If you take the movie purely thematically, it doesn't become as much of an issue. But I know what you mean. I used to never think it was possible, but endings can spoil great movies.

[Show spoiler]The Mist

Good one. Smartass.

[SquidPuppet]

Originally Posted by rkolinski

I had also hoped to do a review of Panzerschiff Graf Spee (Battle of the River Plate) which is one of the few movies to use actual warships, some of which actually participated in this battle. However, I am still waiting to hear from KSM which released this BD. Sadly, I received a BD case but inside was a SD-DVD.

Have any of you experienced this before? This is the second time that I've had a problem with out of region BDs. The first was with the BD Creation starring Jennifer Connelly and her husband Toby Jones. I had to return it because the pixels were so large that it made the movie basically unwatchable.

Not me, but the only overseas purchases I have made so far are from Amazon UK.

[Lepidopterous]

Originally Posted by SquidPuppet

So which film is winning so far in your Best Foreign watch-a-thon?

The White Ribbon is in the lead. I think it was a tad better and much more interesting. I'm not too big on the crime genre.

Though all 2009 foreigns included, my top 5 would look like this so far:

1. Mother
2. Thirst
3. The White Ribbon
4. The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo
5. Broken Embraces

Potential contenders still to be watched:

The Secret in their Eyes
Celda 211
Coco Chanel & Igor Stravinsky
Everlasting Moments
Mic Macs
Sin Nombre

[SquidPuppet]

Originally Posted by DjMethod

The White Ribbon is in the lead. I think it was a tad better and much more interesting. I'm not too big on the crime genre.

Though all 2009 foreigns included, my top 5 would look like this so far:

1. Mother
2. Thirst
3. The White Ribbon
4. The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo
5. Broken Embraces

Potential contenders still to be watched:

The Secret in their Eyes
Celda 211
Coco Chanel & Igor Stravinsky
Everlasting Moments
Mic Macs
Sin Nombre

I'd be interested in your opinion of those bolded three when you get around to them.

Micmacs sounds crazy. In an odd, maybe good way.

[Lepidopterous]

Originally Posted by tbizzle

Departures - 5/5

After Daigo loses his job as a cellist, he and his wife move from Tokyo back home to his father's old apartment, left to him by his mother when she passed. His father abandoned their family when he was a child, but still in love with him, the mother left his apartment the way it was. Very subtly, this begins to stir up many emotions and memories from the past. Desperate for a job, the man falls into an odd line of work... one that will change his life forever.

This a great film about a beautiful profession, where bodies are ceremoniously prepared before their cremation. We get a fascinating look into the Japanese culture as well as this apparently controversial profession. It's fascinating watching Daigo put such care and love into his work, being the last person to touch the loved ones of others and send them on their way. Wonderful performances by everyone, as Ebert stated "A lot is said about the casting process for a movie. Director Yojiro Takita and his casting director, Takefumi Yoshikawa, have surpassed themselves."

This is a very moving film, some scenes jerking the tears right out of you without a word being spoken. I really, really hope this gets a Criterion release, or at least a proper US release.

Great review. I think it is one of those rare movies that is truly rewarding to the viewer. I hope it gets a US release too.

The House of the Devil - 3.75/5

Pretty well done horror film... up until the reveal. The suspense build up was great, the film has a unique style, there's a ton of tension, there aren't any cheap scare tactics trying to make you jump every 3 minutes.... everything is going great. But at the reveal towards the end, the film takes a tumble. It's got a pretty interesting ending however. Overall I liked it a lot, but it could've been so much more.

I still have to see this one. I almost blind-bought it when it dropped to $11.

[Lepidopterous]

Originally Posted by SquidPuppet

I'd be interested in your opinion of those bolded three when you get around to them.

Micmacs sounds crazy. In an odd, maybe good way.

You bet.

It looks whacky but I must give Mic Macs a default must-watch because his last two films were fantastic.

[Lepidopterous]

Originally Posted by SquidPuppet

Good one. Smartass.

Gotcha

[Deadset]

Originally Posted by DjMethod

Great review. I think it is one of those rare movies that is truly rewarding to the viewer. I hope it gets a US release too.



I still have to see this one. I almost blind-bought it when it dropped to $11.

House of the Devil is a great film, if you dig slow boil movies with an 80's vibe. The 'reveal' is not as good as it could have been but horror aficionados love it. I'd give it a solid 5/5. It nailed what it was trying to do...and not many new releases go into the territory they went with this film.

[Batman1980]

Mission Impossible III 4/5
PQ 3.5/5
AQ 3/5
Excellent movie, mediocre transfer and dang if Michelle Monaghan isn't too sexy.

[Foggy]

Paranormal Activity 2

In all honesty, it's just a better remake of the original, it goes though all the same motions and just freaks you out more. But the story is still crap, the characters are still annoying and stupid (though acting has improved dramaticly). The dog and baby are really the only reason to see it because they are used to effect.

6/10

[Batman1980]

Originally Posted by Foggy

Paranormal Activity 2

In all honesty, it's just a better remake of the original, it goes though all the same motions and just freaks you out more. But the story is still crap, the characters are still annoying and stupid (though acting has improved dramaticly). The dog and baby are really the only reason to see it because they are used to effect.

6/10

The thing I liked about the original was the acting felt genuine, like they were really a distraught couple living in a haunted house.
Saw V 4.5/5
PQ 4/5
AQ 4.5/5
Waiting for Julie Benz to show up, she was SO hot in this one.

[Foggy]

Originally Posted by Gandalf Stormcrow

The thing I liked about the original was the acting felt genuine, like they were really a distraught couple living in a haunted house.

hahaha, Gandalf you're crazy!

[Batman1980]

Originally Posted by Foggy

hahaha, Gandalf you're crazy!

Hey Roger Ebert agreed, hold on let me find his review.

[Show spoiler]

"Paranormal Activity" is an ingenious little horror film, so well made it's truly scary, that arrives claiming it's the real thing. Without any form of conventional opening or closing credits, it begins by thanking "the families of Micah Sloat and Katie Featherston" and closes with one of those "current whereabouts unknown" title cards and a screen of copyright notices. This was apparently a film made without a director, a writer, a producer, grips, makeup, sound, catering or a honey wagon.

All of the footage is presented as if it had been discovered after the fact. The story device is that Micah shot it himself. There isn't a single shot that violates that presumption, although a few seem technically impossible without other hands on the camera. Those are hard to notice.

Katie is a graduate student of English. Micah is a day trader. They've been together three years, and have now moved into a house in San Diego that doesn't seem much lived in. It's well enough furnished, but everything looks new and there's no clutter. Micah greets Katie out front one day by filming her on his new video camera, which she observes looks bigger than his other one.

They've been bothered by indications of some sort of paranormal activity in an upstairs bedroom. Micah's bright idea is to film in the house, leaving the camera running as a silent sentinel while they sleep. Like any man with a new toy, he becomes obsessed with this notion -- the whole point, for him, isn't Katie's fear but his film. After one big scare, she asks him incredulously, did you actually go back to pick up your camera?

One benefit of the story device is that for long periods of time the camera is ostensibly left on with no one running it. It's on a tripod at the end of their bed while they sleep, and we see events while their eyes are closed. Some of these events and very minor, and I won't describe any of them. The fact that they happen at all is the whole point. That they seem to happen by themselves, witnessed by a static camera, makes them eerie, especially since there are some shots that seem impossible without special effects, and there's no visible evidence of f/x, looking as closely as we can.

He is frequently off camera. She is on cam for almost every shot, and of Katie Featherston's performance it's enough to say it is flawless for the purposes of this film. We're not talking Meryl Streep here, we're talking about a young woman who looks and talks absolutely like she might be an ordinary college student who has just moved in with her boyfriend. There's not a second of "acting."

Micah behaves, shall I say, just like a man. You know, the kind who will never stop and ask directions. Katie has been bothered by some sort of paranormal presence since she was a child, and now she's seriously disturbed, and Micah's response isn't sympathy but a determination to get it all down on film.

They do call in a "psychic expert" (Mark Fredrichs) but he's no help. He specializes in ghosts, he explains, and he knows by walking in the door that what's haunting them isn't a ghost but some sort of demonic presence. He recommends a demonologist, but alas this man is "away for a few days." That's the plot's most unrealistic detail. Having spent some time in my credulous days hanging about the Bodhi Tree bookstore in L.A., I would suggest that California is a state with more practicing demonologists than published poets.

I learn from IMDb that "Paranormal Activity" does indeed have a writer-director, Oren Peli, and other technical credits. But like "The Blair Witch Project," with which it's routinely compared, it goes to great lengths to seem like a film found after the event. It works. It illustrates one of my favorite points, that silence and waiting can be more entertaining than frantic fast-cutting and berserk f/x. For extended periods here, nothing at all is happening, and believe me, you won't be bored.

Source - Chicago Sun News Blog

[Foggy]

Originally Posted by Gandalf Stormcrow

Hey Roger Ebert agreed, hold on let me find his review.

Source - Chicago Sun News Blog

I'm sorry man, but the acting in the original to me was about as genuine as botox, whether Ebert thinks that or not. And I don't care what you say about the character of Micha, he's an utter douche who's stupidity ruins the movie.

[SquidPuppet]

Originally Posted by Foggy

I'm sorry man, but the acting in the original to me was about as genuine as botox, whether Ebert thinks that or not. And I don't care what you say about the character of Micha, he's an utter douche who's stupidity ruins the movie.

The acting was horrific.

Michs was a wuss, I would have booted that nagging, complaining, whining condescending b!tch weeks ago.

Plus it wasnt scary. Ever.

[Foggy]

Originally Posted by SquidPuppet

The acting was horrific.

Michs was a wuss, I would have booted that nagging, complaining, whining condescending b!tch weeks ago.

Plus it wasnt scary. Ever.

I guess you won't be checking out the sequel then

[Al_The_Strange]

Gotta get back to the horror movie stack!

“Sphere.”

My parents blind-bought the DVD when I was in high school, back when DVDs were still the coolest high-tech thing around. They probably don’t remember this film much, but I thought it was a good story.

…and I still think it’s a good story, one that’s clever at least halfway original. If I remember right, the film followed Michael Crichton’s book closely. I think the premise with the spaceship is awesome, the underwater setting is slick, and the characters are halfway decent. If I had to look at it critically, I could say it’s a bit of a rip-off of “The Abyss,” and I think it fizzles out towards the end, but is still interesting most of the way through.

I think the film is quite well-made, with solid photography and excellent production value. In fact, the settings are very detailed and vivid. There are only a few SFX, but I always thought they were slick and cool.

The only downsides I see to this film are that it has a few slow parts, some mysteries about the spaceship and sphere remain totally unanswered, and the film’s resolution is a little anticlimactic (

[Show spoiler]they just “forgot” about everything and wished the sphere away? Seriously?

Then again, I remember the book ended the same way, so I guess that doesn’t really matter ).

I think I still like it.

4/5 (entertainment: 3.5/5, story: 4/5, film: 4/5)

This Blu-Ray is not bad. The video quality is adequately sharp, with a decent enough color scheme. Some scenes look a little hazed out, probably from the way it was filmed. Many shots, especially SFX shots, show some softness. It is a very clean and slick-looking image. Sound quality seemed okay

PQ: 4/5, AQ: 3.5/5

[Lepidopterous]

Originally Posted by Gandalf Stormcrow

Saw V 4.5/5
PQ 4/5
AQ 4.5/5
Waiting for Julie Benz to show up, she was SO hot in this one.

OH MY GOD GANDALF. Saw V was so bad

Even the few of my friends that are huge Saw fans admit that one.

[Dreemworx]

Predators

4/5

[SquidPuppet]

Originally Posted by Foggy

I guess you won't be checking out the sequel then

No chance. The first one was like a successful example of how to make a bad movie.