The Movie Review and Discussion Thread

[KilloWertz]

Originally Posted by mmgirl

If you decide to start that argument let me know. I'll take both of your man cards.

I don't think there's anything to worry about. I doubt that argument would ever start.

[Foggy]

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 1: Carry On Camping

Took me 3 goddamn attempts to finish watching this on Blu, why does everyone find the time to intrupt me while I'm watching a film

Saw this last year when it came out at the cinema, and came out loving it, gave it 9.5/10 (for a Harry Potter film). They are all flawed, but all of them...well most of them are great, here's how I rate them:

5)Harry Potter and the Philosopher's (Sorcerer's) Stone - 8/10
1)Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets - 9/10 (My fave out of all of them)
3)Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban - 9.5/10
7)Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire - 6/10 (Least fave)
4)Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix - 9/10
6)Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince - 6.5/10
2)Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 1 - 9.5/10

I just adored what this film set out to do, and make a slow paced character driven film, while placing all the pieces out for the finale and make it feel worthwhile, not boring. I guess the films biggest flaw is not having many memorabale set pieces (same flaws as with Order, and Half-Blood). But I guess I never really cared, as there is a sense of conflict within the characters, and sense of danger all around, a feeling you never really got in many Potter films other than the few at the begining. Due to the tone of the later films getting more adult, you never really felt as if they are really in danger most the time, unlike the original 2 or 3 (maybe even 4) where they are vunrable kids being attacked by fantasy monsters.

In this you feel the sense of that dangrous army being built and attack seemingly random people, because you never really see them do it, you just see them either with dead bodies in passing, or hearing over the radio.

I find this more of a complete film than Half-Blood, and that saying something when this is Part 1 of a 2 parter.

And cudos to the amazing CGI work, especailly within the end scene with Dobby.

9.5/10

PQ - The films biggest problem in terms to Picture is most of the time it's a washed out picture to go with the gloomy atmosphere, with that in mind, a lot of scenes are very overly dark. However, the picture quality, regardless of colour, is continuously sharp - 8.5/10

AQ - Never had a problem with the AQ, sound is loud and clear, dialouge is great, unlike many films where I struggle to hear what is being said over my obnoxious 60 GB PS3s Fan (stupid piece of really hot crap), but not a whole lot of action to say refrence quality. 9.5/10

Overall - 9.5/10

[Al_The_Strange]

Originally Posted by Foggy

Watching this on Wednesday maybe

To be fair, it looks like it'll have a certain "Monster Squad" / "Goonies" charm to it. But for whatever reason, seeing these gangsta kids fighting aliens didn't interest or amuse me as much as it should.

Of course, that's just the trailer, which could always be misleading. And it was juxtaposed with a bunch of high-grade Hollywood trailers.

We'll be awaiting your review, see what you think.

Originally Posted by dag

I guess I'll have to be the contrarian here. I saw Thor today and I must say I found it mediocre. The fault lay with a poor script and Branagh's insipid direction.

[Show spoiler]
What really bothered me was just how cheap the whole movie felt. You heard me right. I saw a grand total of three people hanging around in a dead-end small town, doing...I don't know what. This whole film breathed cheapness, smallness, and second-rate.

Natalie Portman was a completely wasted talent; the script gave her absolutely nothing to do. The camera angles Branagh frequently employed in the movie - previously discussed in the Thor thread - represented, for me, a consistently uninspired effort. This was terribly pedestrian.

The big steel guy doing a Godzilla was never threatening. Maybe Marvel apologists found the black dude in gold armour glowering with yellow eyes to be cool; I found him to be completely underwritten and quite frankly boring.

There were basic plot points I found ridiculous. Perhaps this is all explained in the comics, although, to be honest, I really don't care. "Frost giants"? Seriously, these are, uh, beings hell-bent (so to speak) on galactic domination? By, um, freezing people to death? Is this supposed to frighten me? I'm Canadian - I like snow.

Finally, I had to suffer through this in 3-D. I hate 3-D. I find the faked, post-production layering of depth to be a distraction and a disservice to the image on screen. And movement does not come across as crisp, but instead as jerky. I do so wish Hollywood would give up on this technology. The action sequences were OK, although not spectacular, but I thought the sound to be very good.

I don't mean to be a killjoy. But I thought Thor worth nothing more than, say, 6/10.

I can actually see what you mean. None of it really bothered me though. Good review; you nailed the negative aspects I never thought about articulating.

[Foggy]

Originally Posted by Al_The_Strange

To be fair, it looks like it'll have a certain "Monster Squad" / "Goonies" charm to it. But for whatever reason, seeing these gangsta kids fighting aliens didn't interest or amuse me as much as it should.

Of course, that's just the trailer, which could always be misleading. And it was juxtaposed with a bunch of high-grade Hollywood trailers.

We'll be awaiting your review, see what you think.

I'll be honest, the one thing that's got me worried are the Chavy accents, it cut through me like a knife when I hear someone talking like that, but I saw a clip not so long ago and it didn't really bother me, I found it quite funny

Early Reviews have been pretty stellar so it should be entertaining

[iam1bearcat]

Army of Shadows

141 minutes

Year: 1969 / 2006 (U.S.) | Director: Jean-Pierre Melville
Starring: Lino Ventura, Paul Meurisse, Simone Signoret,and Jean-Pierre Cassel

a Criterion blind buy is probably one of the most dangerous things you could blind buy in the world of film. the studio is notorious for making unexpected additions to their collection, and while many hundreds of thousands hold Criterion on some lofty "untouchable" level of greatness, many others either feel turned away from them because of the films they choose to release (relative unknowns to most common film fans) or too intimidated by fans who lash out when you don't know the entire discography the company, or a certain director so they just turn away. oh, and also the price of their releases, which i'm sure many will always look at and just not understand, which is understandable.

i'm not a big Criterion fan by any means. hell, i haven't even seen that many Criterions, but of those i've seen, i've loved one film of "theirs". and that was Revanche. others i really like (Last Year at Marienbad, The Seventh Seal) and others are pretty good and will likely grow to a higher score in time (Blow Out, Everlasting Moments, Summer Hours).

so, during the amazon Criterion sale, one title that most everyone unanimously stated was a "must own" (which honestly, what the F does that mean) was Army of Shadows. so i bought it. and i watched it. and i don't agree. at all.

is it good? i guess. and by "good" i mean the acting, directing, story, costumes, script and all other individual details are at least "pretty good" if not "great". but, i just didn't like it. it took me like a week to watch the damn thing because it just bored me out of my mind. incredibly slow.

this is 141 minutes. Apocalypse Now is 147 minutes.
what's the connection? none between the films, but Apocalypse Now moves about a billion times faster than Army of Shadows. Shadows feels like a five hour film but it's half of that. a major negative. it was like swimming the length of the Grand Canyon in molasses!

i did love how the film began and the ending, but everything in between was lackluster and i walked away feeling at best. no memorable moments, characters, dialogue... nothing i connected with or felt attached to. just... bored by it.

in a few months i'll revisit it and see what i feel then since i now know what to expect. but i can't imagine my score will jump up too much, but you never know. so, for now...

1.5/5

[Al_The_Strange]

Originally Posted by iam1bearcat

Army of Shadows

[Show spoiler]
141 minutes

Year: 1969 / 2006 (U.S.) | Director: Jean-Pierre Melville
Starring: Lino Ventura, Paul Meurisse, Simone Signoret,and Jean-Pierre Cassel

a Criterion blind buy is probably one of the most dangerous things you could blind buy in the world of film. the studio is notorious for making unexpected additions to their collection, and while many hundreds of thousands hold Criterion on some lofty "untouchable" level of greatness, many others either feel turned away from them because of the films they choose to release (relative unknowns to most common film fans) or too intimidated by fans who lash out when you don't know the entire discography the company, or a certain director so they just turn away. oh, and also the price of their releases, which i'm sure many will always look at and just not understand, which is understandable.

i'm not a big Criterion fan by any means. hell, i haven't even seen that many Criterions, but of those i've seen, i've loved one film of "theirs". and that was Revanche. others i really like (Last Year at Marienbad, The Seventh Seal) and others are pretty good and will likely grow to a higher score in time (Blow Out, Everlasting Moments, Summer Hours).

so, during the amazon Criterion sale, one title that most everyone unanimously stated was a "must own" (which honestly, what the F does that mean) was Army of Shadows. so i bought it. and i watched it. and i don't agree. at all.

is it good? i guess. and by "good" i mean the acting, directing, story, costumes, script and all other individual details are at least "pretty good" if not "great". but, i just didn't like it. it took me like a week to watch the damn thing because it just bored me out of my mind. incredibly slow.

this is 141 minutes. Apocalypse Now is 147 minutes.
what's the connection? none between the films, but Apocalypse Now moves about a billion times faster than Army of Shadows. Shadows feels like a five hour film but it's half of that. a major negative. it was like swimming the length of the Grand Canyon in molasses!

i did love how the film began and the ending, but everything in between was lackluster and i walked away feeling at best. no memorable moments, characters, dialogue... nothing i connected with or felt attached to. just... bored by it.

in a few months i'll revisit it and see what i feel then since i now know what to expect. but i can't imagine my score will jump up too much, but you never know. so, for now...

1.5/5

Oh...dear...God...no...I blind-bought it too!

[Steve46]

Originally Posted by iam1bearcat

Army of Shadows

141 minutes

[Show spoiler]

Year: 1969 / 2006 (U.S.) | Director: Jean-Pierre Melville
Starring: Lino Ventura, Paul Meurisse, Simone Signoret,and Jean-Pierre Cassel

a Criterion blind buy is probably one of the most dangerous things you could blind buy in the world of film. the studio is notorious for making unexpected additions to their collection, and while many hundreds of thousands hold Criterion on some lofty "untouchable" level of greatness, many others either feel turned away from them because of the films they choose to release (relative unknowns to most common film fans) or too intimidated by fans who lash out when you don't know the entire discography the company, or a certain director so they just turn away. oh, and also the price of their releases, which i'm sure many will always look at and just not understand, which is understandable.

i'm not a big Criterion fan by any means. hell, i haven't even seen that many Criterions, but of those i've seen, i've loved one film of "theirs". and that was Revanche. others i really like (Last Year at Marienbad, The Seventh Seal) and others are pretty good and will likely grow to a higher score in time (Blow Out, Everlasting Moments, Summer Hours).

so, during the amazon Criterion sale, one title that most everyone unanimously stated was a "must own" (which honestly, what the F does that mean) was Army of Shadows. so i bought it. and i watched it. and i don't agree. at all.

is it good? i guess. and by "good" i mean the acting, directing, story, costumes, script and all other individual details are at least "pretty good" if not "great". but, i just didn't like it. it took me like a week to watch the damn thing because it just bored me out of my mind. incredibly slow.

this is 141 minutes. Apocalypse Now is 147 minutes.
what's the connection? none between the films, but Apocalypse Now moves about a billion times faster than Army of Shadows. Shadows feels like a five hour film but it's half of that. a major negative. it was like swimming the length of the Grand Canyon in molasses!

i did love how the film began and the ending, but everything in between was lackluster and i walked away feeling at best. no memorable moments, characters, dialogue... nothing i connected with or felt attached to. just... bored by it.

in a few months i'll revisit it and see what i feel then since i now know what to expect. but i can't imagine my score will jump up too much, but you never know. so, for now...

1.5/5

I just got back from my local library and this is one of the six titles I picked up. I guess I'll watch it first to see if I want it in the current sale.

[iam1bearcat]

Originally Posted by Al_The_Strange

Oh...dear...God...no...I blind-bought it too!

Originally Posted by Steve46

I just got back from my local library and this is one of the six titles I picked up. I guess I'll watch it first to see if I want it in the current sale.

if it makes you two feel better, this will likely be on of those titles where i am the odd man out and i look to you two

i think you'll both enjoy it far more than i did. not badly made, just... didn't do anything for me personally.

[Steve46]

Originally Posted by iam1bearcat

if it makes you two feel better, this will likely be on of those titles where i am the odd man out and i look to you two

i think you'll both enjoy it far more than i did. not badly made, just... didn't do anything for me personally.

There a plenty of good or great films which just don't do it for me. Lots of blockbusters with mass appeal that I can't get into either.

It will only cost me my time to find out whether I like Army of Shadows. I bought 11 films in the current Criterion sale and ruled it out for some reason.

[Foggy]

Citizen Kane

Me, being the baby of The Movie Review and Discussion Club, can say I have no shame in admitting this is my first viewing of "One of the best movies of all time", however, it really does show how much of a newbie I am

So, did I like the most famous benchmark of cinema history?

No, It was all black and white and about some old dead dude sad about losing his sled cause he has too much expensive crap in his basement, boo-frickin-hoo

[Show spoiler]

Of course I liked it. Sure, like anything that 70 years old is going to be dated, and some of the cultural and revolutonary relevence is going to be lost. But it's all about having the right state of mind.

The cinematography is space-age back then, and you can see how much is carried over through the years, the acting, of course, is superb. And the narrative structure and presentation is still engaging and powerful today as it was back in the day

I'm going to leave it there, since this film is so well-known and aclaimed, I'd just be wasting time typing up what is already known as common knowledge

9/10

[iam1bearcat]

Originally Posted by Foggy

Citizen Kane

[Show spoiler]Me, being the baby of The Movie Review and Discussion Club, can say I have no shame in admitting this is my first viewing of "One of the best movies of all time", however, it really does show how much of a newbie I am

So, did I like the most famous benchmark of cinema history?

No, It was all black and white and about some old dead dude sad about losing his sled cause he has too much expensive crap in his basement, boo-frickin-hoo

[Show spoiler]

Of course I liked it. Sure, like anything that 70 years old is going to be dated, and some of the cultural and revolutonary relevence is going to be lost. But it's all about having the right state of mind.

The cinematography is space-age back then, and you can see how much is carried over through the years, the acting, of course, is superb. And the narrative structure and presentation is still engaging and powerful today as it was back in the day

I'm going to leave it there, since this film is so well-known and aclaimed, I'd just be wasting time typing up what is already known as common knowledge

9/10

the question is... do you see any similarities between this and The Social Network? it seems a lot of people hate on TSN because "it's the exact same story as Citizen Kane! BOOOO!" or some garbage like that.

as for the film itself, i really disliked Citizen Kane. boggles my mind that people refer to this as one of the greatest films of all times. makes me think they just wanted to attach that title to ANY film and maybe Citizen Kane was the film that got picked out of the hat the most or something

[iam1bearcat]

Originally Posted by Steve46

There a plenty of good or great films which just don't do it for me. Lots of blockbusters with mass appeal that I can't get into either.

It will only cost me my time to find out whether I like Army of Shadows.

true. hopefully it doesn't feel like 5 dull hours to you though!

I bought 11 films in the current Criterion sale and ruled it out for some reason.

holy moly!

[Foggy]

Originally Posted by iam1bearcat

the question is... do you see any similarities between this and The Social Network? it seems a lot of people hate on TSN because "it's the exact same story as Citizen Kane! BOOOO!" or some garbage like that.

as for the film itself, i really disliked Citizen Kane. boggles my mind that people refer to this as one of the greatest films of all times. makes me think they just wanted to attach that title to ANY film and maybe Citizen Kane was the film that got picked out of the hat the most or something

I can kinda see similarities between CK and Social Network, but so what not every film is going to be compeletly different to every other film made ever, they just have similar themes

As for you disliking it, well you didn't like Kick-Ass (or Scott Pilgrim I think) either, so, yeah, to kill-list is still running, you wasn't very far off under Osama if I can remeber

[Al_The_Strange]

Originally Posted by iam1bearcat

if it makes you two feel better, this will likely be on of those titles where i am the odd man out and i look to you two

i think you'll both enjoy it far more than i did. not badly made, just... didn't do anything for me personally.

I'm keeping my hopes up for now. I just won't be tackling it tonight, because as the last few hours of the weekend, I wanted something familiar, fun, and cool. Something totally un-Criterion.

Originally Posted by Foggy

Citizen Kane

Me, being the baby of The Movie Review and Discussion Club, can say I have no shame in admitting this is my first viewing of "One of the best movies of all time", however, it really does show how much of a newbie I am

So, did I like the most famous benchmark of cinema history?

No, It was all black and white and about some old dead dude sad about losing his sled cause he has too much expensive crap in his basement, boo-frickin-hoo

[Show spoiler]

Of course I liked it. Sure, like anything that 70 years old is going to be dated, and some of the cultural and revolutonary relevence is going to be lost. But it's all about having the right state of mind.

The cinematography is space-age back then, and you can see how much is carried over through the years, the acting, of course, is superb. And the narrative structure and presentation is still engaging and powerful today as it was back in the day

I'm going to leave it there, since this film is so well-known and aclaimed, I'd just be wasting time typing up what is already known as common knowledge

9/10

Originally Posted by iam1bearcat

the question is... do you see any similarities between this and The Social Network? it seems a lot of people hate on TSN because "it's the exact same story as Citizen Kane! BOOOO!" or some garbage like that.

as for the film itself, i really disliked Citizen Kane. boggles my mind that people refer to this as one of the greatest films of all times. makes me think they just wanted to attach that title to ANY film and maybe Citizen Kane was the film that got picked out of the hat the most or something

I felt that "Citizen Kane" was good but not great. Specifically, great cinematography, but rather slow.

I do see a slight similarity with "The Social Network," sure. Both are about super-rich dudes who can't seem to find happiness. But I feel that both are fundamentally different. At the very least, "Kane" was about a guy turning into a social introvert, and "TSN" was about a guy trying to turn everybody else into social introverts.

[iam1bearcat]

Originally Posted by Al_The_Strange

I'm keeping my hopes up for now. I just won't be tackling it tonight, because as the last few hours of the weekend, I wanted something familiar, fun, and cool. Something totally un-Criterion.

[Foggy]

Originally Posted by Al_The_Strange

I felt that "Citizen Kane" was good but not great. Specifically, great cinematography, but rather slow.

I do see a slight similarity with "The Social Network," sure. Both are about super-rich dudes who can't seem to find happiness. But I feel that both are fundamentally different. At the very least, "Kane" was about a guy turning into a social introvert, and "TSN" was about a guy trying to turn everybody else into social introverts.

I think that's one of the things I don't like about it, but, meh, I'd get over it.

Because of it's pacing, I wouldn't rewatch it a ton of times, but there's something quite nice to it's slow pace, on a Sunday afternoon of all days

[iam1bearcat]

Originally Posted by Foggy

As for you disliking it, well you didn't like Kick-Ass (or Scott Pilgrim I think) either, so, yeah, to kill-list is still running, you wasn't very far off under Osama if I can remeber

well as soon as your old enough to fly, row a boat or whatever, come across the sea and come find me and we'll see who's keeping a heartbeat!

[Show spoiler]

[Al_The_Strange]

Next greatest random selection: “Swordfish”

For something like 7 seconds, Halle Barry is topless!

5/5!!!!

[jhiggy23]

Originally Posted by iam1bearcat

the question is... do you see any similarities between this and The Social Network? it seems a lot of people hate on TSN because "it's the exact same story as Citizen Kane! BOOOO!" or some garbage like that.

as for the film itself, i really disliked Citizen Kane. boggles my mind that people refer to this as one of the greatest films of all times. makes me think they just wanted to attach that title to ANY film and maybe Citizen Kane was the film that got picked out of the hat the most or something

Citizen Kane and The Social Network are nothing alike. And Citizen Kane is listed as the greatest film of all-time because of how tremendously influential it is. You should read up on why that is--pretty interesting stuff.

[jhiggy23]

Originally Posted by iam1bearcat

Army of Shadows

141 minutes

Year: 1969 / 2006 (U.S.) | Director: Jean-Pierre Melville
Starring: Lino Ventura, Paul Meurisse, Simone Signoret,and Jean-Pierre Cassel

a Criterion blind buy is probably one of the most dangerous things you could blind buy in the world of film. the studio is notorious for making unexpected additions to their collection, and while many hundreds of thousands hold Criterion on some lofty "untouchable" level of greatness, many others either feel turned away from them because of the films they choose to release (relative unknowns to most common film fans) or too intimidated by fans who lash out when you don't know the entire discography the company, or a certain director so they just turn away. oh, and also the price of their releases, which i'm sure many will always look at and just not understand, which is understandable.
i'm not a big Criterion fan by any means. hell, i haven't even seen that many Criterions, but of those i've seen, i've loved one film of "theirs". and that was Revanche. others i really like (Last Year at Marienbad, The Seventh Seal) and others are pretty good and will likely grow to a higher score in time (Blow Out, Everlasting Moments, Summer Hours).

so, during the amazon Criterion sale, one title that most everyone unanimously stated was a "must own" (which honestly, what the F does that mean) was Army of Shadows. so i bought it. and i watched it. and i don't agree. at all.

is it good? i guess. and by "good" i mean the acting, directing, story, costumes, script and all other individual details are at least "pretty good" if not "great". but, i just didn't like it. it took me like a week to watch the damn thing because it just bored me out of my mind. incredibly slow.

this is 141 minutes. Apocalypse Now is 147 minutes.
what's the connection? none between the films, but Apocalypse Now moves about a billion times faster than Army of Shadows. Shadows feels like a five hour film but it's half of that. a major negative. it was like swimming the length of the Grand Canyon in molasses!

i did love how the film began and the ending, but everything in between was lackluster and i walked away feeling at best. no memorable moments, characters, dialogue... nothing i connected with or felt attached to. just... bored by it.

in a few months i'll revisit it and see what i feel then since i now know what to expect. but i can't imagine my score will jump up too much, but you never know. so, for now...

1.5/5

The bolded paragraph is somewhat ignorant. A blind-buy of a Criterion is as much of a risk as a blind-buy of anything. It varies in "danger" due to the individual. If you don't like classic or foreign films, then it's a big risk (which is why it's a major risk for someone with taste like yours). For someone like me, it's virtually no risk at all. So, it depends on the person.

The studio is notorious for making unexpected additions? How so? That's not the case at all, as they generally release films many people expect them to release at some point. When they deviate, it's a deviation into the catalogue of one of their favorite directors (like Malle with Black Moon). Their films are also not unknown to the common film fan, as most of their catalogue includes the most famous and acclaimed films of all-time. Their unknown to those that limit themselves to modern films.

Giving it a 1.5 when you yourself admit that the pieces are well-done is very strange indeed. Even if I don't like a film, if its pieces are very good (i.e. acting, directing, cinematography), it at least warrants a respectable score. The pace is slow because it's realistic and it's not a Michael Bay film. Apocalypse Now and Army of Shadows actually share A LOT of the same qualities. Both are deliberately paced and aim to show conflicted individuals.

Not liking the film is perfectly fine. But making general statements like the bolded is a bit too much.