The Movie Review and Discussion Thread

[surfdude12]

Originally Posted by SquidPuppet

Agree on the film too.

Next recommendation...

thanks bro, I'll check it out

by the way, there seemed to be a little plot hole in Flight: they said in the end he

[Show spoiler]went to prison for 5 years, presumably for manslaughter for the 4 passengers who died. Problem with this: to prove manslaughter, you not only have to prove (1) reckless behavior and (2) someone died, but also that (1) caused (2), which clearly is not the case here. As proved in the film, the broken tail wing caused (2), not Whip's drunken state. It would be like convicting a guy for drunken manslaughter, when the passenger in his car was shot in the head by a carjacker. Sure, he driver was drunk, but that ain't why the passenger died Maybe Whip is guilty of P.U.I. (Piloting under the Influence) , but I can't see manslaughter

[surfdude12]

Zero Dark Thirty

Film: 4/5

-solid film
-incredible plot, casting, direction, everything! the script was focused and showed with great care and clarity how

[Show spoiler]Maya and the others tracked down information to get to UBL

.
-the action of the last 30 minutes had me holding my breath!! I can't recall being that captivated by a sequence like that, especially when I knew the outcome!!
-the

[Show spoiler]interrogation

scenes didn't bother me, and I liked how the left the

[Show spoiler]"did waterboarding help capture UBL?"

question open for debate. Supporters will claim

[Show spoiler]it did help, because the detainee, having experienced the hell of waterboarding, was convinced by the bluff that he had already disclosed info when disillusioned

. People opposing

[Show spoiler] it will claim it didn't help, because the detainee never gave any info based on the waterboarding episodes. He said nothing

.
-the things I didn't like was:
(1) to say that the film is based on "real events" and "first hand accounts", but then the main character (Maya) is completely made-up? an embodiment of multiple people? I find that very suspect. Sure, fill in minor details here and there with artistic license, but making-up the main character?
(2) at times, Maya's testosterone got a little silly - which is a manifestation of (1) above - when you have ONE character embodying MULTIPLE REAL characters, of course that one character will seem like a superhero and way too charged up! They have to be - they're doing the real acts of multiple people! Real fact-based characters don't have these problems - becase they're based in fact. Don't get me wrong, I think aspiriational films about people working in jobs that traditionally wouldn't be filled by them are great, but this struck me as the wrong film to push that campaign (AGAIN: the writers chose these opening credits - "real events...first hand accounts"). You can't be aspirational and factual at the same time!
(3) as I watched it, I thought "OMG terrorists could learn TONS about U.S. anti-terror techniques by just watching this", a mere 18 months after UBL's capture and while we're still at war with Al Qaeda!! Can you imagine a 1942 film being released in Germany showing the details of how we took Normandy or detailing our strategy on how to capture top Nazi Generals??? Not a chance!

[Foggy]

I agree with pretty much everything you said about Zero Dark Thirty. Although Maya being a combination of characters didn't bother me as the real intrigue was built around the techniques and red tape involved around getting Bin Laden, the characters never seemed like much of a focal point, but the fact the film didn't jump around too many different characters over the decade was just to help the film move along and become easier to digest.

[SquidPuppet]

Originally Posted by surfdude12

Zero Dark Thirty

[Show spoiler]Film: 4/5

-solid film
-incredible plot, casting, direction, everything! the script was focused and showed with great care and clarity how

[Show spoiler]Maya and the others tracked down information to get to UBL

.
-the action of the last 30 minutes had me holding my breath!! I can't recall being that captivated by a sequence like that, especially when I knew the outcome!!
-the

[Show spoiler]interrogation

scenes didn't bother me, and I liked how the left the

[Show spoiler]"did waterboarding help capture UBL?"

question open for debate. Supporters will claim

[Show spoiler]it did help, because the detainee, having experienced the hell of waterboarding, was convinced by the bluff that he had already disclosed info when disillusioned

. People opposing

[Show spoiler] it will claim it didn't help, because the detainee never gave any info based on the waterboarding episodes. He said nothing

.
-the things I didn't like was:
(1) to say that the film is based on "real events" and "first hand accounts", but then the main character (Maya) is completely made-up? an embodiment of multiple people? I find that very suspect. Sure, fill in minor details here and there with artistic license, but making-up the main character?
(2) at times, Maya's testosterone got a little silly - which is a manifestation of (1) above - when you have ONE character embodying MULTIPLE REAL characters, of course that one character will seem like a superhero and way too charged up! They have to be - they're doing the real acts of multiple people! Real fact-based characters don't have these problems - becase they're based in fact. Don't get me wrong, I think aspiriational films about people working in jobs that traditionally wouldn't be filled by them are great, but this struck me as the wrong film to push that campaign (AGAIN: the writers chose these opening credits - "real events...first hand accounts"). You can't be aspirational and factual at the same time!
(3) as I watched it, I thought "OMG terrorists could learn TONS about U.S. anti-terror techniques by just watching this", a mere 18 months after UBL's capture and while we're still at war with Al Qaeda!! Can you imagine a 1942 film being released in Germany showing the details of how we took Normandy or detailing our strategy on how to capture top Nazi Generals??? Not a chance!

There is only one interview ever, with THE man who killed UBL. The shooter remains anonymous still. It is a fascinating and sad article about how an elite HERO has been pooped on by his own country.

In the article he comments on the character "Maya"...

The portrayal of the chief CIA human bloodhound, "Maya," based on a real woman whose iron-willed assurance about the compound and its residents moved a government to action, was "awesome" says the Shooter. "They made her a tough woman, which she is."

He also comments on the movie...

But when a SEAL Team 6 movie character yells, "Breacher!" for someone to blow one of the doors of the Abbottabad compound, the Shooter says loudly, "Are you ****ing kidding me? Shut up!" He explains afterward that no one would ever yell, "Breacher!" during an assault. Deadly silence is standard practice

they talked way, way too much [during the assault itself]. If someone was waiting for you, they could track your movements that way."

The tactics on the screen "sucked," he says, and "the mission in the damn movie took way too long" compared with the actual event.


And there's no talking on the choppers in real life.

There was also no whispered calling out of bin Laden as the SEALs stared up the third-floor stairwell toward his bedroom. "When Osama went down, it was chaos, people screaming. No one called his name.

Bigelow, I'm talking to you! Get the basics right. You've dropped the ball twice.


Read more: Man Who Killed Osama Bin Laden - Treatment of Veteran Who Shot bin Laden - Esquire http://www.esquire.com/features/man-...#ixzz2OaNZfWK3

[SquidPuppet]

Rust and Bone

Pretty good. Not great.

The protagonist was difficult to like. But, he was also difficult to dislike.

The technicals were all good. It just didnt GRAB me. I enjoyed it though.

DJMethod. When the little boy fell

[Show spoiler]through the ice and it looked certain that he would die, I was thinking of you. If the film had ended there, (which, at the time, I thought was going to happen) I was going to go apesh!t that they did it for cheap shock effect, like in The Mist.

Film 3.5/5
PQ 4/5
AQ cant grade it because I watched it with the volume extremely low.

[surfdude12]

Originally Posted by SquidPuppet

Read more: Man Who Killed Osama Bin Laden - Treatment of Veteran Who Shot bin Laden - Esquire http://www.esquire.com/features/man-...#ixzz2OaNZfWK3

thanks for that link! wow!!

it did strike me as a bit odd when they

[Show spoiler]yelled "breach" and were yapping and yapping. here is why though: at times, they were doing the proper silent hand language, to direct movement, while at other times, they'd talk ("there is no way I can charge this door" - while he is feeling around the perimeter of the door & yelling on the bullhorn at the Pakistanis that were walking toward the compound!?!?!?! That seems dumb, too, no? They're SEALS, not ambassadors. If anyone gets within 100 yards of the compound, take 'em out with silencer rounds from AR

[SquidPuppet]

Originally Posted by surfdude12

thanks for that link! wow!!

it did strike me as a bit odd when they

[Show spoiler]yelled "breach" and were yapping and yapping. here is why though: at times, they were doing the proper silent hand language, to direct movement, while at other times, they'd talk ("there is no way I can charge this door" - while he is feeling around the perimeter of the door & yelling on the bullhorn at the Pakistanis that were walking toward the compound!?!?!?! That seems dumb, too, no? They're SEALS, not ambassadors. If anyone gets within 100 yards of the compound, take 'em out with silencer rounds from AR

That article is long, but very worth reading.

Regarding your spoiler, yeah, Bigelow is 0-for-2 in that department. If a 1941 army tank has a gas cap with three grooves on it, and it is depicted in a film with only two grooves, I aint gunna come unglued. But some of the BASIC, COMMON SENSE stuff, that even a non-military person such as myself can catch, that she gets wrong is just plain insulting IMO. It's like, how am I supposed to NOT notice that? Why would that NOT bother me?

[/]

[surfdude12]

Originally Posted by SquidPuppet

That article is long, but very worth reading.

Maya "based on a real woman" (singular?) Hmmm. Everything I've read suggested she was an embodiment of multiple characters.

[surfdude12]

Originally Posted by Romulus

Zero Dark Thirty

Perhaps I missed something here. In fact, I'm almost certain of it. It's obvious that the film has been getting great reviews lately--but this film just almost did nothing for me.

My biggest gripe with the story is that the characters are very flat and uninteresting. I wasn't particularly engaged or interested them in any way. After doing a little reading, I have found this to be completely intentional. I'll be completely honest in that I missed the point of why they did that, but that's the gamble they took and it could ultimately cost them. As somebody pointed out in the Zero Dark Thirty thread

[Show spoiler]Maya (Jessica Chastain) is a flat character because she is flat person. She has no friends and she has done absolutely nothing besides track down OBL her entire adult life. At the end of the film when somebody asks where she wants to go, she has no answer and subsequently cries.

To me, that's probably the greatest moment of the film and it completely went over my head. Still though, because I found the characters to be underdeveloped, it took me out of the film and therefore unable to connect with it's main point. Maybe that's a fatal flaw on the film or myself for not staying connected. I'd really be interested in hearing what other people think of this.

I'll definitely give it some more thought and perhaps another viewing in the future. As for now though, I can't give this any higher than a 3/5.

I'm with you on your spoiler when you say

[Show spoiler]you're not sure what the last scene means. She's in a plane alone, the dude asks her where she wants to go, and she cries.

. To Foggy's great point (that it was more about the mission , than the characters), I agree, but then this ending leaves me stumped, since the ending did seem

[Show spoiler] to be about Maya, and I'm not sure why she's crying : is she happy he's dead? is she sad now that she has nothing to do? I suppose that is up to us to debate

.

[KilloWertz]

Originally Posted by SquidPuppet

That article is long, but very worth reading.

Regarding your spoiler, yeah, Bigelow is 0-for-2 in that department. If a 1941 army tank has a gas cap with three grooves on it, and it is depicted in a film with only two grooves, I aint gunna come unglued. But some of the BASIC, COMMON SENSE stuff, that even a non-military person such as myself can catch, that she gets wrong is just plain insulting IMO. It's like, how am I supposed to NOT notice that? Why would that NOT bother me?

[/]

Very good points, but for some reason they didn't bother me a whole lot. I didn't know about the whole thing of not talking on the chopper, but it was a little odd about them talking and then not talking during the assault. Still, it takes a lot of something like that to bother me enough to ruin a movie or show.

In the end, I still really enjoyed Zero Dark Thirty.

Originally Posted by surfdude12

I'm with you on your spoiler when you say

[Show spoiler]you're not sure what the last scene means. She's in a plane alone, the dude asks her where she wants to go, and she cries.

. To Foggy's great point (that it was more about the mission , than the characters), I agree, but then this ending leaves me stumped, since the ending did seem

[Show spoiler] to be about Maya, and I'm not sure why she's crying : is she happy he's dead? is she sad now that she has nothing to do? I suppose that is up to us to debate

.

I'm not certain, but I know leaving the ending like that leaves things open for interpretation.

If I had to guess, I would say they were

[Show spoiler]a combination of tears or joy because all of those years of work finally paid off, but also sadness because of what it cost (losing a good friend). If not the latter, definitely then tears of joy because of all of those years of work finally paying off.

[SquidPuppet]

Originally Posted by KilloWertz

I'm not certain, but I know leaving the ending like that leaves things open for interpretation.

If I had to guess, I would say they were

[Show spoiler]a combination of tears or joy because all of those years of work finally paid off, but also sadness because of what it cost (losing a good friend). If not the latter, definitely then tears of joy because of all of those years of work finally paying off.

Could it be that

[Show spoiler]she realizes now that the task has been completed, that she is empty? That she didnt have a balanced life because she was obsessed with UBL and only UBL?

[surfdude12]

Originally Posted by SquidPuppet

That article is long, but very worth reading.

Regarding your spoiler, yeah, Bigelow is 0-for-2 in that department. If a 1941 army tank has a gas cap with three grooves on it, and it is depicted in a film with only two grooves, I aint gunna come unglued. But some of the BASIC, COMMON SENSE stuff, that even a non-military person such as myself can catch, that she gets wrong is just plain insulting IMO. It's like, how am I supposed to NOT notice that? Why would that NOT bother me?

[/]

I read your silent dig at me - "basic, common sense stuff", meanwhile I praised the raid Too late to backtrack now. LOL

I think the Bigelow approach can be easily explained by the "gamer generation" - everyone knows that you yell out stuff when you're in a tactical attack mode!! Oh wait, nevermind, even Rainbow Six Vegas (one of my favorites) got it right and even they were quiet the ENTIRE assault on a structure or entry into a building

[Foggy]

Originally Posted by SquidPuppet

Could it be that

[Show spoiler]she realizes now that the task has been completed, that she is empty? That she didnt have a balanced life because she was obsessed with UBL and only UBL?

I think it's a mixture of everything that's been said,

[Show spoiler]you really think about dedicating so much of your life to finding someone and then having done it to have no real reward. The guy was the boogeyman of the world, you hunt him down to try and make the world a better place and in the end the world keeps on turning. We still have soldiers over there fighting, there is still a threat of terrorism.

Plus, after ten years of hunting him and you are given his corpse in a body bag and a ride home to start a new life after so much dedication, I'd be overwhelmed with some form of emotion after having such a psychological weight haphazardly thrown off me.

[Abdrewes]

I love how people only get not picky with military/government related films. Zero Dark Thirty says a hell of a lot more than any other film from 2012, minor missteps and all.

Squid, get yer Army pals 'n' review Pearl Harbor, I'm sure you'll have a field day.

[Abdrewes]

Originally Posted by Foggy

I think it's a mixture of everything that's been said,

[Show spoiler]you really think about dedicating so much of your life to finding someone and then having done it to have no real reward. The guy was the boogeyman of the world, you hunt him down to try and make the world a better place and in the end the world keeps on turning. We still have soldiers over there fighting, there is still a threat of terrorism.

Plus, after ten years of hunting him and you are given his corpse in a body bag and a ride home to start a new life after so much dedication, I'd be overwhelmed with some form of emotion after having such a psychological weight haphazardly thrown off me.

[Show spoiler]Yup. Maybe I'm just too liberal, but I felt no real accomplishment at the end. Sure it's a hell of a feat tracking down the most wanted criminal on the face of the planet, but to what end? It all seems rather Zero Sum to me.

The film compliments this reading by being do dry and to the point. It's not about character, but rather how disposable individuals are to the government. It's only fitting that theres not much to Maya. That's what ten years of subservience does to someone.

[jvince]

Evil Dead (2013)
dir. Fede Alvarez

The Good: Jane Levy... what an amazing performance. Lou Taylor Pucci is also great in his supporting role. Lots and lots of gore (It even rains blood at one point). The various bodily dismemberments. The middle portion and the final act. Some pretty effective build-ups. Nice nods to the original trilogy.

The Bad: Stupid characters. Mediocre supporting cast, especially Shiloh Fernandez. Writing and character development leaves a lots to be desired. Slow, uninteresting start. Hits a snag towards the end. Fails to sustain ominous tension. Underwhelming and awfully short post-credits scene (but hardcore fans may get a kick out of it).

The Bottom Line: Terrifying? No (unless you're a total p*ssy). Gross? Sure, but far from being the most sickening out there. No charm, moderate fun, all gore. Forget the hype. It's certainly no landmark horror flick, it's simply a respectable effort.

[Abdrewes]

Originally Posted by jvince

Evil Dead (2013)
dir. Fede Alvarez

The Good: Jane Levy... what an amazing performance. Lou Taylor Pucci is also great in his supporting role. Lots and lots of gore (It even rains blood at one point). The various bodily dismemberments. The middle portion and the final act. Some pretty effective build-ups. Nice nods to the original trilogy.

The Bad: Stupid characters. Mediocre supporting cast, especially Shiloh Fernandez. Writing and character development leaves a lots to be desired. Slow, uninteresting start. Hits a snag towards the end. Fails to sustain ominous tension. Underwhelming and awfully short post-credits scene (but hardcore fans may get a kick out of it).

The Bottom Line: Terrifying? No (unless you're a total p*ssy). Gross? Sure, but far from being the most sickening out there. No charm, moderate fun, all gore. Forget the hype. It's certainly no landmark horror flick, it's simply a respectable effort.

Evil Dead 2's one of my favorite films, but I can't muster up any enthusiasm for this

[SquidPuppet]

Originally Posted by surfdude12

I read your silent dig at me - "basic, common sense stuff", meanwhile I praised the raid Too late to backtrack now. LOL

Ha ha. I am just an overly critical a$$hole.

[SquidPuppet]

Originally Posted by Abdrewes

I love how people only get not picky with military/government related films.

Don't put me in that group. I'll overanalyze any type of film, thrash it for its flaws, and dismiss the director as a hack when justified.

[surfdude12]

Originally Posted by Abdrewes

[Show spoiler]Yup. Maybe I'm just too liberal, but I felt no real accomplishment at the end. Sure it's a hell of a feat tracking down the most wanted criminal on the face of the planet, but to what end? It all seems rather Zero Sum to me.

The film compliments this reading by being do dry and to the point. It's not about character, but rather how disposable individuals are to the government. It's only fitting that theres not much to Maya. That's what ten years of subservience does to someone.

your Mulholland avatars are making it very difficult for me to publicly dissent with you