The Movie Review and Discussion Thread

[Diesel]

We fight all the time.

Bull****!






Or something like that...I haven't seen the movie in quite a while...

[iam1bearcat]

Originally Posted by Diesel

We fight all the time.

Bull****!






Or something like that...I haven't seen the movie in quite a while...

technically the line is, "that is... bullsh*t!" but close enough

what a blast from the past! good to know 'ol Diesel is still creeping around in the background keeping up with his blu-ray responsibilities

[Diesel]

Originally Posted by iam1bearcat

technically the line is, "that is... bullsh*t!" but close enough

what a blast from the past! good to know 'ol Diesel is still creeping around in the background keeping up with his blu-ray responsibilities

I still skim the thread from time to time when I get a chance...

My vacation is fast approaching when I will have time to watch some movies and tv shows for a week

[iam1bearcat]

Originally Posted by Diesel

I still skim the thread from time to time when I get a chance...

My vacation is fast approaching when I will have time to watch some movies and tv shows for a week

i can guarantee that even if you have a list / order of what you want to watch you will still spend the first hour or so putting one film / show in and then changing your mind five minutes later as you cannot decide what to watch

i was told by my boss and other managers that from noon on Wednesday until Monday morning i am not allowed to do anything work related. which sadly, is driving me nuts lol and i haven't really bought too much so i don't have stuff to catch up on.

although i do get to finish up the fifth season of The Big Bang Theory tonight

[KilloWertz]

Originally Posted by iam1bearcat

(500) Days of Summer - 5/5

Hey, I haven't watched this in like five months I think. That's a new record

As everyone is well aware, I adore every second of this film. I've lost count how many times I've watched it, but tonight was the first time I watched it in my new apartment (I moved here in June, so yeah, five months sounds about right since I last watched it...). So this was the first time I could belt out the lyrics with Tom, while standing on my couch, when he drunkenly sings karaoke ("HERE COMES YOUR MAN!") without my neighbors pounding on the walls for me to shut the hell up.

(New apartment has like 5' thick walls )

The film is genius in its story telling and structure. Heartbreaking, romantic, ridiculously smart and sums up relationships perfectly. I always forget how true the film tell us it is ("this is not a love story"), and my heart always breaks when Tom's breaks. And I always laugh at every joke, however obvious or sly ("I named my cat after Springsteen", "Oh really, what's his name?", "...Bruce", "That makes sense").

In my opinion it's a modern day timeless classic because none of it feels dated and none of it will one day not make sense. Even the reference to The Boss will carry on forever. The film is universal in feelings, emotions and for both sexes to relate to each character.

I can't say enough great things about (500) Days of Summer, and most of the regulars here agree with me

You should have recorded yourself singing the song.

I guess I agree with you about the movie...

Zooey...

[dag]

Silver Linings Playbook is a rom-com, and so it adheres to a standard formula. But it's actually a pretty good flick. Funny, serious, fairly real dialogue, but most of all, outstanding performances by Bradley Cooper, Jennifer Lawrence, and Robert De Niro. Recommended.

[Foggy]

Originally Posted by iam1bearcat

fiiiiinally, someone who gives the film a great rating! i still have to see this for myself, and seeing such drastic different takes makes me even more interested in seeing it

It's a hard one to nail down and it's quite easy to see someone grab the wrong end of the stick, as some might see it as an unrewarding time, but I dug it and I think you should as well.

[Al_The_Strange]

Next greatest blind-buy: Blood Money

It's one of those sad cases where reading the back cover lured me into a rather lackluster run-of-the-mill action flick. It tooted some new martial artist as the greatest thing since Tony Jaa, blah blah blah...I think the thing that really caught my attention was the mention of this guy throwing nails through glass without breaking the glass; that just sounded so cool, so I just bought the movie thinking this could be something along the lines of The Protector or something.

The similarities between the two films begin and end with the setting of Sydney, Australia. Aside from that, Blood Money makes The Protector look like freakin' William Shakespeare.

Action junkies can be well-assured that the film does have its fair share of butt-kicking fight scenes and action. No big 'splosions, no big car chases, just plenty of martial arts fighting. Even then, it's not like Yuen Woo-Ping quality, just plain, casual fighting. As far as the nail-throwing thing goes, it amounted to just one scene where this guy whips out a fistfull of nails from out of nowhere and throws them at people; fake and gaudy special effects ensue, and none of those nails went through glass or anything. WTF?

Also, around the 18-minute mark, some nice bit of nudity.

Outside from all that, the film is mostly a crime drama; one that just tries so hard to look and feel badass, it comes off as corny and stupid. Hardly a moment goes by without a character gritting his teeth, getting all bug-eyed, spewing curses and tough-guy lines, which wind up inducing laughter rather than...whatever the intended effect is. It's not Birdemic bad or anything, it actually straddles the fine line between being drop-dead serious and unintentionally funny.

I think there is a story to this, but it's like whatever.

The film has ambition, with its fairly solid photography and editing. Acting is pretty dumb all around, and the writing isn't much better. This production does have some decent enough sets, props, costumes, and some really seedy locales. Music does its best to sound really badass and match up with the rest of the film, but like everything else, it comes off as contrived.

2.5/5 (Entertainment: Average | Story: Poor | Film: Marginal)

Recommendation: Nope. Watch the ever-awesome The Protector instead.

This Blu-Ray looks fine and sharp, but has pretty dull colors and contrast. Sound quality is decent.

PQ: 4/5, AQ: 4.5/5

Notes:

• The film actually has a woman character named Ho. I know this is probably meant to be a Chinese name or something, but I thought it was inherently ironic.

[jvince]

Blue Velvet (1986)
dir. David Lynch

The Good: The late, great Dennis Hopper and just about every single line that comes out of his mouth. Strangest rape scene ever.

The Bad: Terrible, cringe-worthy dialogue. Acting ranges from over-the-top to just plain bad. Weird for the sake of being weird. Strip that away and you have a run-of-the-mill mystery. Laura Dern's cry face.

The Bottom Line: Blue Velvet is one of those WTF movies, and not the good kind. Pass, unless you're into Lynch's works.

[Foggy]

Lame You're just messing with the establishment now!

[jvince]

Originally Posted by SquidPuppet

You accidentally gave it only three stars.

Originally Posted by iam1bearcat

i was thinking the same

Yeah, I gave it only three stars because it was my second viewing and I still couldn't care for anyone in the film and that's something very important to me. Especially when compared to something like Breaking Bad, where the characters are all terrible people whom you should despise, yet, it somehow manages to make you care about them every single episode, which, to me, is an amazing feat. I honestly can't say that about Fargo, even though I acknowledge that without Fargo and the Coens, we probably wouldn't have a Breaking Bad. But judging both of them all in all, Fargo loses in that department.

[jvince]

Originally Posted by Foggy

Lame You're just messing with the establishment now!

I still love Mulholland Drive though. At least that one's truly unique, fascinating, and repeatable.

[jvince]

Originally Posted by iam1bearcat

(500) Days of Summer - 5/5

Hey, I haven't watched this in like five months I think. That's a new record

As everyone is well aware, I adore every second of this film. I've lost count how many times I've watched it, but tonight was the first time I watched it in my new apartment (I moved here in June, so yeah, five months sounds about right since I last watched it...). So this was the first time I could belt out the lyrics with Tom, while standing on my couch, when he drunkenly sings karaoke ("HERE COMES YOUR MAN!") without my neighbors pounding on the walls for me to shut the hell up.

(New apartment has like 5' thick walls )

The film is genius in its story telling and structure. Heartbreaking, romantic, ridiculously smart and sums up relationships perfectly. I always forget how true the film tell us it is ("this is not a love story"), and my heart always breaks when Tom's breaks. And I always laugh at every joke, however obvious or sly ("I named my cat after Springsteen", "Oh really, what's his name?", "...Bruce", "That makes sense").

In my opinion it's a modern day timeless classic because none of it feels dated and none of it will one day not make sense. Even the reference to The Boss will carry on forever. The film is universal in feelings, emotions and for both sexes to relate to each character.

I can't say enough great things about (500) Days of Summer, and most of the regulars here agree with me

Originally Posted by Al_The_Strange

At this point, even I can agree with you there.

Originally Posted by KilloWertz

You should have recorded yourself singing the song.

I guess I agree with you about the movie...

Zooey...

I used to watch this way too many times. Great film. This only reminds me of She & Him. I want Volume Three now!

[Chrysagon]

Originally Posted by Al_The_Strange

Next

What a fun little flick. Loosely adapted from yet another PKD short story, this film does some pretty fun and inventive stuff with a guy who can predict things slightly into the future. This means that the guy can give bad guys the slip very easily, avoid disastrous situations, dodge flying debris, dodge bullets, and ultimately track down some bad guys threatening to blow stuff up with a nuke. Maybe not the most believable thing (especially now that the special effects are aging so badly), and it is prone to endless nitpicking. But if you can turn your brain off, it's a pretty enjoyable thrill ride.

The problem with this film is mostly in the plot. Despite its ever-so-clever premise, the film shoots itself in the foot with the

[Show spoiler]"it was all just a dream"

twist ending.

[Show spoiler]I mean, really, the movie just ended. Where's the rest of it?!

There is also a laundry list full of things worth complaining about: the good guys spend their whole time trying to catch one another, because the FBI is apparently so evil, but half of the movie could have easily been cut out if the guy just went with them in the first place, instead of acting like a douche. Same argument could apply for the FBI people (for, according to the extra features, they wanted to make it out that they're doing bad things to achieve the greater good, thus creating instant moral ambiguity; the problem here is, it's not "bad" enough to warrant the case for the protagonist to run away from these people). Ugh, I don't know, it just seems stupid to have a perfectly good superpowered hero antagonize the police just because.

Other issues: it gets pretty wacky trying to keep track of this guy's special power (it gets to the point where he becomes a tactical genius by the film's end, and is able to map out an entire room and multiply himself ), the actual bad guys never really present themselves enough (who were they again? ), there's a romance story involved that doesn't seem all that complete

[Show spoiler]like the rest of the film

, and there's a useless cameo from Columbo.

Other than all that, it's all fine and dandy.

At the very least, the film looks good and slick, with solid photography and editing. There might be a few wild effects, but most of this film looks really sharp and cool. Acting is not bad; I think Nicholas Cage did his best here, while I found Jessica Biel appealing. Still don't care for Julianne Moore in anything she does. Writing has its moments. This film has some decent-enough sets, props, costumes, and locales. Special effects were cool for its time, but are not aging well (especially with the

[Show spoiler]nuclear explosion at the end

). Music is pretty nice.

3.5/5 (Entertainment: Good | Story: Average | Film: Pretty Good) Decreased from 4/5

Recommendation: As a rental.

This Blu-Ray looks good, sharp, clean, and clear. Maybe not as detailed as most other brand-new movies, but it is definitely a fine-looking picture. Sound quality is strangely disappointing; even though it is uncompressed, I felt it was way too subdued, lacking in any impact or dynamism, to the point where I wondered if it was actually some kind of lossy mix.

PQ: 4/5, AQ: 3/5

Excellent review. Next is one of my guilty pleasures, given the overall weak reception it received. But it's better than the criticism. For the most part I agree with your review. Like you, when I first watched the movie I was surprised and a bit disappointed a the ending. But the more I thought about it, the more I came to believe it was the perfect ending, one that I had not anticipated, and refreshing. Admittedly, I would like to see a sequel to see how he and Biel have a relationship, given his power

[Show spoiler]with her to see 'infinitely' into the future, and in to hers.

[iam1bearcat]

Originally Posted by KilloWertz

You should have recorded yourself singing the song.

now that would have been something!

Originally Posted by Foggy

It's a hard one to nail down and it's quite easy to see someone grab the wrong end of the stick, as some might see it as an unrewarding time, but I dug it and I think you should as well.

time will tell

Originally Posted by Al_The_Strange

Next greatest blind-buy: Blood Money

Also, around the 18-minute mark, some nice bit of nudity.

this reminds me of what Seth Rogen and his friends were doing for jobs in Knocked Up when they were setting up that website to tell people when nudity happens in films

Originally Posted by jvince

I used to watch this way too many times. Great film. This only reminds me of She & Him. I want Volume Three now!

me too! that damn show though is keeping her busy i suppose

[Foggy]

A roommate decided he wanted to watch a film, so he dragged me out and another one out in the rain to watch...

Nativity 2! Danger in the Manger!

This was not the companion piece that The Master deserved...

Basically, no, I haven't seen Nativity 1, but from what I gather, a small primary school try's to set up a big award winning nativity play and the main teacher (who was played by Martin Freeman) is against it but the teaching assistant is the one to persevere and all the kids and teachers are join together at the end. And it was supposed to be quite good.

Well here we are with Nativity 2. And it isn't very good...isn't very good at all.

First off, Martin Freeman doesn't return for this one, mainly because he was busy doing The Hobbit and getting money, and this film is very, very bitter about his departure, making the film more naive than it should. Instead we get substitute teacher David Tennant, in his last role as a respectable actor with dignity.

Mainly because this is a film where no one acts, everyone mugs for the camera. The opposing team for the "Christmas song of the year competition or something" has the worlds most annoying mugging actor in existence.

And Mr. Poppy, the thing that is wrong in every bad kids film. God I hate Mr. Poppy, if Mr. Poppy was pregnant, I would punch him in the stomach and expect a medal for doing so. Basically, David Tennant stops and worries about the kids health because after all, they've been wandering the woods lost for what feels like an eternity in this film, and Mr. Poppy tells him to get lost and apparently David Tennant is the bad guy in this film and has to apologise.

But oh no, it gets worse, Mr. Bastard Poppy gets all the children to climb a mountain and gets to the other side to see it's a cliff, what his plan? Tie the kids up with rope and slowly dangle them down. First off all, again Tennant calls BS is apparently the stupid one judging by the kids behaviour (in which I say he's your ****ing teacher you little brats, do you have any idea how much shit you guys are in!). Secondly, it would be so much faster to just let the kids go back and around in the time you've rappelled them all down along with a donkey and the baby. And lastly, one of the kids almost fall to their death!! Hello! Why are we siding with Mr. Poppy!!!

My god! If I had a brain tumour, I'd call it Mr. Poppy!

And he's not the only awful despicable teacher in the film, the head teacher is fooled by two kids to believe the class is in and doesn't check up on them. One teacher leaves a girl on the side of the road, and she is never actually reunited with the class in the end!! On what god forsaken town in the UK does this take place in, the characters in Sightseers were more relatable than these arsemuffs!

It's got piss poor direction! Plot is predictable even for the 5 year olds who went watching this! And as you guessed, not a single second is funny!!

Not even ironically funny, it's just boring and stupid, about 4 minutes in and there were 4 fart jokes! Four! Even before the opening credits finished rolling.

Basically, I think this is just plainly insulting to 5 year olds, yes, the film isn't going to smart, and the jury is still out on if they were entertained but they would be entertained by anything, doesn't mean it's any good. Only thing I can say is there was very little laughter after the 20 minute mark of the film and many parents aimed to get out early and didn't bother to watch the extra material over the credits.

1/10

[SquidPuppet]

Originally Posted by Foggy

The Master

There's never a wasted minute in that entire film, and although it's a long film and is sometimes a tough experience to swim through, there's never an instance where you stop thinking about what you're seeing, hearing, experiencing.

Hmmmmmm.

[SquidPuppet]

Originally Posted by jvince

Yeah, I gave it only three stars because it was my second viewing and I still couldn't care for anyone in the film and that's something very important to me. Especially when compared to something like Breaking Bad, where the characters are all terrible people whom you should despise, yet, it somehow manages to make you care about them every single episode, which, to me, is an amazing feat. I honestly can't say that about Fargo, even though I acknowledge that without Fargo and the Coens, we probably wouldn't have a Breaking Bad. But judging both of them all in all, Fargo loses in that department.

Thats the beauty I missed on my first viewing. We are not supposed to care about anyone. It's designed that way.

[Foggy]

Originally Posted by SquidPuppet

Hmmmmmm.

Yeah, not exactly a thrilling film, but never boring. I guess it's just because it's not a narrative driven film, so you never really have a grasp of how far you are into the film. But you usually feel how long you have left.

Originally Posted by SquidPuppet

Thats the beauty I missed on my first viewing. We are not supposed to care about anyone. It's designed that way.

Yeah, they're narrow minded idiots on purpose, you're not supposed to latch onto them.

[SquidPuppet]

Originally Posted by Foggy

Yeah, not exactly a thrilling film, but never boring. I guess it's just because it's not a narrative driven film, so you never really have a grasp of how far you are into the film. But you usually feel how long you have left.



Yeah, they're narrow minded idiots on purpose, you're not supposed to latch onto them.

The Sheriff is not a narrow minded idiot by any means. She was just annoying.

Thats kinda whats cool. Its the opposite of Breaking Bad, where we root for bad guys. In Fargo, you either dislike or are annoyed by everyone, even the good guys.