Movie mini reviews

Post by **HereComesPete** » January 9th, 2010, 20:57

Some of his others have more or less punctuation. Some of them have chapters of a few sentences and some are half a book long.

I think some of his early ones had sentences of thousands of words too because he couldn't put a full stop instead of a comma.

I guess it doesn't really matter in the end because they sell well and get turned into films that sell well.

Post by **Roman Totale** » January 10th, 2010, 18:45

Avatar - 3D

Avatar! Biggest blockbuster movie ever! So it's gonna be good right?

Wrong!

What a massive pile of wank this film really is. I admit, when I first saw the trailer it didn't really impress me, but the amount of people saying how good it was made me curious - could I, on this one rare occasion, have been wrong? No, I really should trust my own judgement more.

First off, I saw this in 3D. It is outstanding. There were times when I was absent mindedly swatting flies away from my face, and blowing bits off ash away from my eyes. It's rather funky.

However, a film cannot be judged simply my the medium in which it is presented. Other than the 3D aspect, there is just nothing to this film. NOTHING! How can so many people have liked this film? If it had been released in regular 2D, I bet it would have bombed.

In a years time I find it very difficult to believe that people will be sitting down in front of the TV to watch this highly polished turd.

3/10 - and the 3 is for the 3D

Post by **Dog Pants** » January 10th, 2010, 19:06

Oddly enough that's just what I was expecting. I didn't like the look of it from the trailers either. I suspect that the reason many people love it is because it is in 3D and this generation is too young to remember it from last time or the time before that. I heard it was Dances With Wolves with blue aliens.

Gunslinger42 · Post by **Gunslinger42** » January 10th, 2010, 19:08

^ I feel the same way about titanic.

Mr. Johnson · Post by **Mr. Johnson** » January 10th, 2010, 19:21

Gunslinger42 wrote:^ I feel the same way about titanic.

This. Nobody remembers Titanic, mind.

mrbobbins · Post by **mrbobbins** » January 11th, 2010, 8:19

Roman Totale wrote:How can so many people have liked this film?

They really liked Pocahontas?

spoodie · Post by **spoodie** » January 11th, 2010, 10:19

I was thinking about the plot and acting in Avatar while I was zooming through the tree or dropping down a shear cliff face. WOOHOO!

If you're hating you're missing the point.

amblin · Post by **amblin** » January 11th, 2010, 10:59

bomberesque · Post by **bomberesque** » January 13th, 2010, 11:30

Air france has video on demand in cattle class now so I watched some "keep you awake" type movies on the way out to Cuba last month. Relatively oldies (sure they've ben covered earlier in this thread, but here's a couple

Terminator Salvation

How did they do this? How for the love of christ did they manage to make T4 worse than T3? rebels on their last legs have A10 tank busters, submarines and hueys coming out their aresholes do they? The best way for skynet to

Spoiler:

is it? And as for

Spoiler:

well that was just the final straw that broke this already maimed beyond help camel. Proof that Bale isn't the magic ingrediant that he's oft been touted as since batty begins. Nil points

Star Trek XI

Great fun, like a really nicely made piece of fan fiction about the early years of Trek. checkov is superb, Bones better still and all the others are great ... except Scotty. I know Peg is a known actor and everything and funny as hell, but he didn't hit the role on the head IMO. Still, It's Simon Peg so can;t be all bad and the rest was too good to judge it down. Several Points, put it on your shelf next to Galaxy quest, it just about deserves it

On the way back the selection was largely the same so I took drugs and slept.

Post by **Dr. kitteny berk** » January 14th, 2010, 1:29

Roman Totale wrote:Just been to see The Men Who Stare At Goats. Very good film, very funny. If you want a more in depth review then fuck off to imdb!

I liked.

Post by **ProfHawking** » January 14th, 2010, 16:55

The Road

I went into this with high hopes, and it starts out well. However it quickly drops off.
Plot: In the near future, for no apparent reason, the world has gone to shit. A man and his whiny son are roaming their way south, trying to avoid the other tramp-like survivors and find insects to eat. Fade out.

I guess the film is largely based on the character study, rather than the pretty boring storyline. The kid is supposed to have been born into this world, so you'd think he'd be used to it and quite tough. But no - he is whiny & pathetic, and its unbelievable that he has not been eaten/punched very hard. I would have probably done both. Not in that order.

I don't know why this is getting good critics reviews. The storyline leaves out everything, the acting is mediocre, and the kid evokes violence. The cinematics of the desolate and grey ruined land is quite good. But its basically just that, and tramps pulling a shopping trolley for 2 hours.

3/10 - Underwhelming.

:starfull::starfull::starempty::starempty::starempty::starempty::starempty::starempty::starempty:

spoodie · Post by **spoodie** » January 14th, 2010, 19:40

ProfHawking wrote:The Road

It's a shame you didn't enjoy but I'm not really surprised, it's not a film for everyone. And the trailer is a big fat liar. It implies a lot more action than there actually is.

I agree it is a character study as well as an examination of a relationship between a father and son. The book suggests a younger child, which would fit more convincingly into the time frame, but also make him more convincingly vulnerable. From a film making point of view I guess it's hard to find a 7-9 year old that can deal with the sets and act well enough.

I thought Robert Duvall did really well with the Eli character. And Omar did good work (the black thief). They're old friends to me.

Post by **Roman Totale** » January 14th, 2010, 19:47

Terribly Happy

[media]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qsslA308XV8[/media]

Danish film, looks rather interesting.

spoodie · Post by **spoodie** » January 14th, 2010, 19:50

Roman Totale wrote:Terribly Happy

Wrong thread?

buzzmong · Post by **buzzmong** » January 20th, 2010, 14:29

44 Inch Chest

Ray Winstone, John Hurt, Ian McShane aka Lovejoy and a few others. From the makers of Sexy Beast.

Deals with Colin Diamond's (Winstone) breakdown after his wife leaves him for another man, the kidnapping of that man, and Colin dealing with the whole thing and coming to a decision about whether he wants revenge or not.

It was rather good, it's dialogue driven and there's pretty much no action, very play like in it's presentation. The characters are sublime.

7.5/10

:starfull::starfull::starfull::starfull::starfull::starfull::starhalf::starempty::starempty:

Post by **Dr. kitteny berk** » January 20th, 2010, 20:45

deject wrote:Sherlock Holmes

Very well done, Downey, Jr. and Jude Law play their parts well, and a rather well done representation of 19th century London. Very Guy Ritchie-esque movie, with the varying film speed and such. Nothing too serious, and pretty funny.

8/10

I rather liked it.

Also liked Holmes being played as more than a little ADHD.

Post by **FatherJack** » January 20th, 2010, 23:03

I've been meaning to pick up Sherlock Holmes - The Complete Collection - the series which ran from 1984 for nine seasons. Tycho at Penny Arcade described it rather wonderfully, saying it was as if the books were merely fan fiction of Jeremy Brett's portrayal.

Mr. Johnson · Post by **Mr. Johnson** » January 27th, 2010, 1:46

I've been watching German films, here's what I think about them.

Die Fälscher (The counterfeiters)

Film about Operation Bernhard, and more specifically about Salomon Smolianoff (who has oddly enough been renamed to Salomon Sorowitsch) and his life before, during and after his internment at a concentration camp.
I really liked this one, it doesn't try to pull your heartstrings all the time and displays an accurate portrayal of the 'privileged' Jews during the nazi years, and how they tried to halt the operation by sabotage, and the difficulties that brought with it. Really worth a watch.

John Rabe

The same cannot be said about this film, telling us the story of John Rabe, a German industrial (of the Siemens corporation) and nazi party member that helped establish the Nanking safety zone, in order to safeguard thousands of Chinese civilians from the atrocities committed by the Japanese Imperial army.
This film has great ambitions, but really overdoes it at times and tries to make John Rabe even more of a hero then he already is. That's a bit of a shame, as the Nanking Massacre is a bit under documented (obviously because it was overshadowed by that other event).
Also, I later found out that Japan today is still denying it ever happened and banned the film from the country. What a bunch of cocks.
So watch it to piss off the Japanese.

Das Leben der Anderen (The lives of others)

This film, on the other hand, is a gem.
It's situated in East Germany in 1984, and is about a stasi captain that is ordered to monitor a writer that is suspected of anti-communist activities. The acting is all superbly done and the way they portrayed the bleak and mind-destroying East Germany is scarily well done and gives an interesting insight into the DDR.
It won fucktons of awards and as far as I'm concerned they were all deserved, watch this!

Post by **Dog Pants** » January 27th, 2010, 7:30

Interesting stuff there MJ. I always feel there's gems out there in foreign languages that get overlooked because so many people will only watch films in English. Presumably you didn't need subtitles though.

bomberesque · Post by **bomberesque** » January 27th, 2010, 8:43

sounds good except for 2 things, which I suspect were missing from all 3 of those films;

boobies
assploding helicopters

or maybe I'm wrong......

I don't watch many forin language films unless I get them off Amazon because they seem to peddle special versions of them over here with dubbed french and/or subtitles in Dutch but no ingrish subtitles so I'm stuck with Korean (or whatever the VO is), french or Dutch, none of which I know well enough (or can be bothered to learn)

On that note, I own a copy of Steamboy in Japanese with chinese subtitles if anyone's up for a laugh