The Movie Review and Discussion Thread

[Denoku]

Originally Posted by tbizzle

Awesome movie. I blind bought Firefly because of this, but I haven't got around to seeing it yet. I need to get on that!

Firefly is awesome, you definitley need to watch it

[Diesel]

I posted this in the Inception thread.

I liked it. Did I think it was "OMG ITS THE BEST MOVIE EVAR!!!111!!" level of good? No. But it was good.


The entire cast did a very strong job. No one did a bad job, they all played their roles quite well. Leo was the best imo. Yea yea, he's the star so a lot of people are going to say that. But I legitimately thought he did the best job of everyone in the movie.

The visual effects of the film were superb, the stunts during the

[Show spoiler]no gravity in the hotel level

were great.

I loved the super slow shots throughout the movie, they looked incredible.

I thought the score complimented the film really well. Not as good as Zimmer's score for Batman Begins/The Dark Knight, but still really good. Nice and powerful but never overbearing.


As for the movie itself. Like I said it was good, and I enjoyed it. But it wasn't 5-Star good for me.

I didn't have any problems with the story, the acting, filming, effects, anything really, but like the guys said a little bit up from this, it was just missing that "something" to make it a 5/5 for me.

I was hoping to feel inspired to write a really long review of the film with my take on it when I got back from seeing it like I did with Iron Man 2...but after seeing it I don't feel the urge to do so strangely enough.

I'm going to say 4.5/5 and vote 4/5.

[iam1bearcat]

The Machinist (netflix streaming)

kind of hard for me to describe my thoughts on The Machinist...

did i enjoy it? yes.
was i glad i watched it? yes.
would i add it to my collection now that i'm being a prickly pete? no.
are there other films that resemble the same story and are better? absolutely.

i guess that's how

Trevor Reznik (does the writer really love Nine Inch Nails and Trent Reznor or what? ) hasn't slept in over a year. he works at a factory, and is, a machinist. but after an assortment of work related errors, bizarre behavior and his physical appearance gets worse, his co-workers are afraid of him and want nothing to do with a man who appears to be paranoid and delusional. and for Trevor, it gets much worse.

Christian Bale pre-bat suit plays Reznik. not only did Bale do a phenomenal job physically for the role, but also emotionally. i think it would be easy to look past his great performance here because it's a role that requires a more physical, facial expression carrying drive than a dialogue / action requirement, but towards the end i thought, "wow. Bale did a really great job here. completely believable and doesn't even seem like a real person" - which is the point.

however, the film, while interesting, lefft me wholly unsatisfied. we get answers to many of the puzzling questions the film presents us with. but something just felt missing. a major piece to what makes a film feel great. and when that is missing, some other areas tend to be missing as well. i think The Machinist, for me, suffers from this. the ending, while satisfying, was over all in general, kind of a let down. because of how the rest of the film is presented, the results are "oh, so that's it?" which kind of pissed me off.

i also noticed that while Bale was terrific, other actors / actresses really didn't seem to step their game up. and while the atmosphere was great, i don't think they did enough with it, and for a few moments here and there it felt entirely absent from the film.

so again to sum it up: interesting journey with a mixed bag end result. other films have had a similiar design / story, and many of them are better than The Machinist. but by no means is this a bad film.

3.25/5

[STARSCREAM]

INCEPTION.

Movie was awesome. My wife and I both loved it. It was great to see something original as well.

5/5.

[kelvin555]

The Machinist 6.5 out of 10

[tbizzle]

Originally Posted by iam1bearcat

The Machinist (netflix streaming)

kind of hard for me to describe my thoughts on The Machinist...

did i enjoy it? yes.
was i glad i watched it? yes.
would i add it to my collection now that i'm being a prickly pete? no.
are there other films that resemble the same story and are better? absolutely.

i guess that's how

[Show spoiler]Trevor Reznik (does the writer really love Nine Inch Nails and Trent Reznor or what? ) hasn't slept in over a year. he works at a factory, and is, a machinist. but after an assortment of work related errors, bizarre behavior and his physical appearance gets worse, his co-workers are afraid of him and want nothing to do with a man who appears to be paranoid and delusional. and for Trevor, it gets much worse.

Christian Bale pre-bat suit plays Reznik. not only did Bale do a phenomenal job physically for the role, but also emotionally. i think it would be easy to look past his great performance here because it's a role that requires a more physical, facial expression carrying drive than a dialogue / action requirement, but towards the end i thought, "wow. Bale did a really great job here. completely believable and doesn't even seem like a real person" - which is the point.

however, the film, while interesting, lefft me wholly unsatisfied. we get answers to many of the puzzling questions the film presents us with. but something just felt missing. a major piece to what makes a film feel great. and when that is missing, some other areas tend to be missing as well. i think The Machinist, for me, suffers from this. the ending, while satisfying, was over all in general, kind of a let down. because of how the rest of the film is presented, the results are "oh, so that's it?" which kind of pissed me off.

i also noticed that while Bale was terrific, other actors / actresses really didn't seem to step their game up. and while the atmosphere was great, i don't think they did enough with it, and for a few moments here and there it felt entirely absent from the film.

so again to sum it up: interesting journey with a mixed bag end result. other films have had a similiar design / story, and many of them are better than The Machinist. but by no means is this a bad film.

3.25/5

I felt the same way. Bale was awesome, everyone was great, it's a well done film, but with the way the story turned out, it just wasn't that cool

[lDlisturb3d]

Originally Posted by tbizzle

He's a great composer!

ohh same difference lol.

[lDlisturb3d]

Originally Posted by tbizzle

If you think the Matrix had weird directing, you really need to see more non-mainstream movies

Man, if only there was an Academy Award for best stunt

I can only watch what i've seen in previews. If the movie isnt main stream then thats the director/producers fault. If it was truly good some other outside source would present it to the public Just like Tarantino Presented HERO.

Originally Posted by Dark Moses

Serenity 10/10

I thought serenity was a 7 or 8/10. Id rather watch Resident Evil. The only cool thing about this movie was the assassin

[ajvdbg]

Dark City 4/5
Blind buy/First viewing: I now see how it lives up to all the hype. Terrific screenplay. I love movies where not a lot makes sense but then it gradually comes together like a jigsaw puzzle...had a smile on my face through the last scene...this picture also had a great style and looks great on BD, and you must have a good display capable of deep blacks and shadow detail. Will definately watch again!

[jhiggy23]

Originally Posted by surfdude12

great review and great insight on the

[Show spoiler]fruit/band. that is fascinating and we'll have to delve into it further in the Triangle thread

.

I think Diesel first discussed

[Show spoiler]3 Jess' on board: he coined them "mean jess", "our jess" and then "second our jess" or "second mean jess"

what about

[Show spoiler]the Jess whose corpse is tossed off by the other Jess (witnessed by "our Jess" when she is with the ton of Sally corpses?) presumably this corpse is a "mean Jess" (i.e., one who stabs Sally/Downey in 237, and is shot in face by a "nice/our Jess"). what happens to that body? does it wake up on beach too?

In regards to your last paragraph:

[Show spoiler]Yes, that one wakes up on the beach too. When Jess gets thrown off the boat, she basically dies (although I can understand why ppl might think she lives, since it looks like she's treading water--but it doesn't fit factually or thematically beyond that) and it resets itself with her ending up on the beach, albeit with memory in tact. This is not unusual in mythology and it doesn't seem to be unusual in the grand scheme of this movie.

I still haven't read or come up with a satisfactory explanation of Mean Jess, although I felt as if it was on the tip of my tongue last nite. We know that her blood pattern mimics dead real life Jess. This simply may be a variation of Jess, since one point of the multiple Jess's is to show multiple sides of her. If that's the case, however, I'm not sure if Mean Jess is always one of the three on the boat or not. I really don't think so. Notice, btw, how she gets her blood pattern? She gets it when Jess shoots her in the theater, skimming the top of the hood. That blood pattern is coming directly from a scalp wound, which you can see when she takes off the hood. As I type this I think I have an understanding of where Mean Jess comes from and when she appears, because there are loops within loops on the ship. I simply can't explain it, unfortunately. I'll have to think of the right words.

[jhiggy23]

Originally Posted by lDlisturb3d

Diesel gave Inception a 4.5/5
Its gonna be hard to beat this flick when it comes to the Oscars.
The Story Original
Direction The weirdest since the Matrix
Stunts Amazing
Acting A++

If you like this genre you will love this movie.

There was an article about Inception's Oscar chances on Rottentomatoes yesterday. They basically said that it has a decent chance of grabbing one of the 10 noms, although that's far from guaranteed considering none of the "big boys" have come out yet, but that even if it's nominated it won't be in contention.

[jhiggy23]

Originally Posted by Romulus

Great film! I honestly believe that Colin Firth gave the best acting performance last year. It was very subtle and powerful. I have a few direction qualms with the film, but on a whole it's fantastic.

Also as a huge fan of the Coen Brothers, you can probably hold off on seeing A Serious Man for a while. I thought the film was very good, but it does polarize a lot of people. Among the group of people that I showed it, the room was split about 50/50.

If you don't understand the film, I'm sure Gremal can give you a thorough explanation.

My Mom saw A Single Man last week and thought Firth was great but had direction qualms too, in regards to some slow mo. I'll have to see what I think.

[jhiggy23]

Originally Posted by lDlisturb3d

Pixar cant mess up. They are truly ELITE. My first viewing of Monster Inc. I gave it a 4/5 but everytime i watch it its better and better.

But my all time favorite Pixar movie is Ratatouille.

Ratatouille is my fav too.

And yes, Hans Zimmer is an incredible composer, although ppl that don't know his work that well seem to harp on his TDK score (which is good), when it's nowhere near his best. The Thin Red Line, The Last Samurai, and Gladiator are prob his best, and that leaves out some of the ones he got noms for, such as Da Vinci Code, Spirit, Prince of Egypt, etc. One of my favorites of his, simply based on how it affects the film, is The Ring.

[lDlisturb3d]

Originally Posted by jhiggy23

There was an article about Inception's Oscar chances on Rottentomatoes yesterday. They basically said that it has a decent chance of grabbing one of the 10 noms, although that's far from guaranteed considering none of the "big boys" have come out yet, but that even if it's nominated it won't be in contention.

Well its definitely got all the technical winnings. You will see my friend.

Originally Posted by jhiggy23

Ratatouille is my fav too.

And yes, Hans Zimmer is an incredible composer, although ppl that don't know his work that well seem to harp on his TDK score (which is good), when it's nowhere near his best. The Thin Red Line, The Last Samurai, and Gladiator are prob his best, and that leaves out some of the ones he got noms for, such as Da Vinci Code, Spirit, Prince of Egypt, etc. One of my favorites of his, simply based on how it affects the film, is The Ring.

Yeah he really is gifted but i think his best work was GLADIATOR, such memorable songs!

Ohh his Pirates of the Caribbean score is pretty darn good too.

[surfdude12]

Originally Posted by jhiggy23

In regards to your last paragraph:

[Show spoiler]Yes, that one wakes up on the beach too. When Jess gets thrown off the boat, she basically dies (although I can understand why ppl might think she lives, since it looks like she's treading water--but it doesn't fit factually or thematically beyond that) and it resets itself with her ending up on the beach, albeit with memory in tact. This is not unusual in mythology and it doesn't seem to be unusual in the grand scheme of this movie.

I still haven't read or come up with a satisfactory explanation of Mean Jess, although I felt as if it was on the tip of my tongue last nite. We know that her blood pattern mimics dead real life Jess. This simply may be a variation of Jess, since one point of the multiple Jess's is to show multiple sides of her. If that's the case, however, I'm not sure if Mean Jess is always one of the three on the boat or not. I really don't think so. Notice, btw, how she gets her blood pattern? She gets it when Jess shoots her in the theater, skimming the top of the hood. That blood pattern is coming directly from a scalp wound, which you can see when she takes off the hood. As I type this I think I have an understanding of where Mean Jess comes from and when she appears, because there are loops within loops on the ship. I simply can't explain it, unfortunately. I'll have to think of the right words.

i had posted about the

[Show spoiler]"sniper fast track" theory: that upon entering the sniper room, "nice jess" and "mean jess" inner-loops diverge (within the larger loop). "nice jess" rejects her inner demons to snipe up and start killing now. "mean jess" gives into them. "nice jess" has good intentions (get everyone off ship, try to avoid casulaties, etc), and only started to kill once she exhausted all good intentions. "mean jess" doesn't have good intentions (kill everyone now). the response to the inner demons upon entering the sniper room is the only way i can differentiate "nice jess" from "mean jess" (i.e., their loops are identical up to that point, but diverge from there).

[jhiggy23]

Originally Posted by lDlisturb3d

Well its definitely got all the technical winnings. You will see my friend.



Yeah he really is gifted but i think his best work was GLADIATOR, such memorable songs!

Ohh his Pirates of the Caribbean score is pretty darn good too.

I don't doubt that it will win some technical categories. Even Transformers can do that.

Yeah, Gladiator is a great soundtrack! Pirates is very well done too, I enjoy that one.

[jhiggy23]

Originally Posted by surfdude12

i had posted about the

[Show spoiler]"sniper fast track" theory: that upon entering the sniper room, "nice jess" and "mean jess" inner-loops diverge (within the larger loop). "nice jess" rejects her inner demons to snipe up and start killing now. "mean jess" gives into them. "nice jess" has good intentions (get everyone off ship, try to avoid casulaties, etc), and only started to kill once she exhausted all good intentions. "mean jess" doesn't have good intentions (kill everyone now). the response to the inner demons upon entering the sniper room is the only way i can differentiate "nice jess" from "mean jess" (i.e., their loops are identical up to that point, but diverge from there).

Gotcha, that makes sense. It's not easy to wrap your head around, as some other things in the film are, but I think you're explanation makes sense. Am I the only one that was a bit disappointed by the sound on the blu? There are times when it's very good, with great bass and sound effects. But then there are times where you think the sound should be good (i.e. storm, gunshots, etc.) and it's not very strong.

[iam1bearcat]

Originally Posted by kelvin555

The Machinist 6.5 out of 10

haha, weird how we both watched it last night / this morning and gave it essentially the same score (3.25/5 X 2 = 6.50/10) what are the odds!

[Lepidopterous]

I thought I would share a passage I came across on my pMCAT last night. It was on Orson Welles and Citizen Kane. I have yet to see the film.

...Welles had directed himself many times on the stage, but somehow the very permanence of film, the possibility of displaying one version of a role was somewhat formidable to him. On the stage he would—and did— change his approach to a part almost from night to night to better hone it intoshape and to sense what an audience, a particular audience, needed or wanted from any given performance. Once the curtain went up, the performance's success or failure was the actor's own: he had no director to say "Cut!" if he was bungling his lines or losing his audience. This fluidity was impossible when working with the terminal, packaged quality of a finished motion picture. The camera never laughed, nor did it fall asleep. It was impossible for it to gauge one's performance.
Chaplin had been successful in directing himself on film, but there were two important differencesbetween what he had accomplished and what Welles was attempting to do: Until that time, Chaplin had worked exclusively with silent film, and all his films were comedies. Although it is true that drama did not contain the demands of pacing found in comedy, the dimension of spoken dialogue could add enormous problems for someone appraising himself. Welles, however, was choreographing Citizen Kane with the unhesitating measure and continual rhythm of an uptempo musical comedy or, as someone has since suggested, a grand opera.
So that he could see how he would ultimately move amid and through a particular set and piece of business, he always had on hand a "double," not in the traditional acting sense of someone who looked like him, but an actor who was as nearly exact in his height, weight, and general bodily structure as possible. Sometimes he had William Alland, although smaller and thinner, walk through his part for him. When the young and eager Kane bounced out of the horse-drawn carriage and into the building of the New York Inquirer, for instance, it was Welles' double who first went through the motion without benefit of camera, those that Welles the actor would ultimately make on the screen. That was the easy part. More difficult was going through the gestures himself, first in rehearsal, and then for the initial shootings. How is one to know that a slight trembling of the lips, or the blink of the eye, or an awkward movement of the shoulder, will not be recorded by the camera? He found it difficult hitting his own chalk marks, that predetermined place where he was to stand so that [the camera] could better work [its] magic. On the stage he could accidentally, or by choice, be slightly more stage left or right, but with film, although he still had to maintain rhythm and endurance with body movements, it was imperative that he hit these marks accurately and with absolute precision every time.
It took only a few sessions of directing himself and others, followed by a careful examination of the rushes, to prove how intrinsically different stage and screen acting really were. The lesson of the whole history of the art of acting in films began to wash over him: the fact that some of Eisenstein's best actors had never seen the inside of a theater; that some of the greatest stage performers—Bernhardt and Duse and Beerbohm Tree among them—were disappointments on the screen.

[lDlisturb3d]

Originally Posted by jhiggy23

I don't doubt that it will win some technical categories. Even Transformers can do that.

Yeah, Gladiator is a great soundtrack! Pirates is very well done too, I enjoy that one.

You're right but dont be talkin crap about Optimus, Youre going way overboard Mister