what was the last movie you watched?
- Thread starter Folsom Al
- Start date
My latest bunch of crap. Well..not really all crap. But certianly nothing that you could really call good:
Wind Chill -- thumbs sideways, fairly standard "psychological horror", which translates to "we have no budget but will try to think of some kind of scary story that doesn't involve you actually having to see anything scary". They did ok with it. Not great, but watchable.
Enchanted -- thumbs downish, tried to watch this just to keep track of what Disney is up to, but it certainly wasn't made for me and I could not hang beyond half an hour or so
Shooter --thumbs sideways, would have been a decent enough actioner if it were not so incredibly abysmally stupid, and expected you to be the same. Always am a little frightened by flicks that do not have any clue how our system works and throw out wildly unrealistic and moronic scenarios int he assumption the audience doesn't know any better. What if they are right?
The Last Legion -- thumbs down, watched this on a lark, except lark is not exactly how I would describe this amateurish dreck. At least I got to watch Aishwarya Rai play the world's hottest warrior princess. Unfortunately it might be the last we see of her in Hollywood as she is probably thinking all that goofy dancing back in Bollywood is far more professional. As an aside Colin Firth a) should be forever banned from trying to play action heroes; and b) should be immediately strippedof whatever his rep is as a romantic leading man. Being unable to develop a drop of chemistry with Aishwarya Rai is just pathetic. He just looked constipated most of the time.
Wind Chill -- thumbs sideways, fairly standard "psychological horror", which translates to "we have no budget but will try to think of some kind of scary story that doesn't involve you actually having to see anything scary". They did ok with it. Not great, but watchable.
Enchanted -- thumbs downish, tried to watch this just to keep track of what Disney is up to, but it certainly wasn't made for me and I could not hang beyond half an hour or so
Shooter --thumbs sideways, would have been a decent enough actioner if it were not so incredibly abysmally stupid, and expected you to be the same. Always am a little frightened by flicks that do not have any clue how our system works and throw out wildly unrealistic and moronic scenarios int he assumption the audience doesn't know any better. What if they are right?
The Last Legion -- thumbs down, watched this on a lark, except lark is not exactly how I would describe this amateurish dreck. At least I got to watch Aishwarya Rai play the world's hottest warrior princess. Unfortunately it might be the last we see of her in Hollywood as she is probably thinking all that goofy dancing back in Bollywood is far more professional. As an aside Colin Firth a) should be forever banned from trying to play action heroes; and b) should be immediately strippedof whatever his rep is as a romantic leading man. Being unable to develop a drop of chemistry with Aishwarya Rai is just pathetic. He just looked constipated most of the time.
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Have done better than normal recently:
Chocolat -- thumbs up --liked it. Didn't love it. Given the title and message it really is inexcusable I have ignored it this long, but finally got around to it. Has a great cast + I am sure offended everyone who deserves to be offended by such a thing.
Doomsday -- thumbs sideways toward down -- followup by guy who did The Descent. Bears no resemblance besides starring a heroine (tradepeja's own Rhona Mitra getting a chance to star alongside VF21's own Bentley). Basically a mishmash of 28 Days Later, The Road Warrior, Aliens, and Escape From New York, with maybe a little Army of Darkness thrown in. Pretty blatant in its ripoffs too, and apparently was meant as some sort of homage. Still sporadically fun and maybe could have been good with a lot of toning up, but its also very dumb and like watching a Grade B version of half a dozen different better movies. Also, Rhona has played the hottie for years in Hollywood flicks, but she can't carry a movie as its lead. Not awful, just cannot emote.
The Guardian -- thumbs halfway tilted up -- pure accident I channel surfed into this one 10 minutes in. Had planned to avoid Kevin Costner for eternity. But it actually was not bad really, and I stayed to the end with only a couple of disappearances for food. Here basically a mosh of Officer and a Gentleman and Top Gun, except more mature and less cheese (yes Kevin Coster with less cheese).
Once -- thumbs up -- not wildly up, but up. Brought this one in purely because of Bozzwell's fervent admiration in our Movie Draft thread. Started slowly and the amateur acting + indie roughness almost lost me, but got stonger as it went, and in the last 30 minutes -- precisely when most studio romcoms become ridiculous -- this one really hit a bittersweet sweet spot. Helped immensely by the Oscar winnning soundtrack.
Chocolat -- thumbs up --liked it. Didn't love it. Given the title and message it really is inexcusable I have ignored it this long, but finally got around to it. Has a great cast + I am sure offended everyone who deserves to be offended by such a thing.
Doomsday -- thumbs sideways toward down -- followup by guy who did The Descent. Bears no resemblance besides starring a heroine (tradepeja's own Rhona Mitra getting a chance to star alongside VF21's own Bentley). Basically a mishmash of 28 Days Later, The Road Warrior, Aliens, and Escape From New York, with maybe a little Army of Darkness thrown in. Pretty blatant in its ripoffs too, and apparently was meant as some sort of homage. Still sporadically fun and maybe could have been good with a lot of toning up, but its also very dumb and like watching a Grade B version of half a dozen different better movies. Also, Rhona has played the hottie for years in Hollywood flicks, but she can't carry a movie as its lead. Not awful, just cannot emote.
The Guardian -- thumbs halfway tilted up -- pure accident I channel surfed into this one 10 minutes in. Had planned to avoid Kevin Costner for eternity. But it actually was not bad really, and I stayed to the end with only a couple of disappearances for food. Here basically a mosh of Officer and a Gentleman and Top Gun, except more mature and less cheese (yes Kevin Coster with less cheese).
Once -- thumbs up -- not wildly up, but up. Brought this one in purely because of Bozzwell's fervent admiration in our Movie Draft thread. Started slowly and the amateur acting + indie roughness almost lost me, but got stonger as it went, and in the last 30 minutes -- precisely when most studio romcoms become ridiculous -- this one really hit a bittersweet sweet spot. Helped immensely by the Oscar winnning soundtrack.
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Since the cancellation of today's first class turned into also playing hooky from my second class (I know, bad Gadget ), I took a couple hours this afternoon to watch The Fall.
The overall structure is similar to Tarsem's other film, The Cell, in that it blends one narrative based in the real world with a second narrative that is set in a purely fantasy/dream space. And, also like The Cell, the moments set in reality can drag a bit (though they're not quite as laughably unimportant as in that film). Overall, however, I would highly recommend this movie. The 6-year-old Romanian girl who plays the lead is really quite amazing to watch (and I am usually notoriously harsh in my criticism of bad kid actors), and it is easily one of the most visually stunning films I've ever seen. Especially considering that VERY few of the effects were done digitally -- I'm still watching one of the featurettes and have so far counted only three shots in the entire film that weren't done in camera.
), I took a couple hours this afternoon to watch The Fall. The overall structure is similar to Tarsem's other film, The Cell, in that it blends one narrative based in the real world with a second narrative that is set in a purely fantasy/dream space. And, also like The Cell, the moments set in reality can drag a bit (though they're not quite as laughably unimportant as in that film). Overall, however, I would highly recommend this movie. The 6-year-old Romanian girl who plays the lead is really quite amazing to watch (and I am usually notoriously harsh in my criticism of bad kid actors), and it is easily one of the most visually stunning films I've ever seen. Especially considering that VERY few of the effects were done digitally -- I'm still watching one of the featurettes and have so far counted only three shots in the entire film that weren't done in camera.
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The Invasion - watched with a friend because nothing else out there he wanted to see, otherwise no way I touch it. And shocker: it was awful. Always love when complete hacks get hold of an absolutely proven gold concept and fundamentally misunderstand it. Everone associated should have been lined up and given a swift kick in the groin. Well the men at least.
Night Watch - nearly as bad as the above. Second time that has happened in the last year with a highly hyped box office breaking non-Hollywood film (other was The Host). Just a complete mess sloppily concealed behind a wall of erratic camera tricks. And this was the all time box office grosser in Russia. Note to muscovites: its no honor to say this is the greatest modern Russian film. The more you watch these attempts, the more you realize that Hollywood maybe isn't so bad afterall. All this was was a poor Grade B Hollywood flick shot in Russian.
Night Watch - nearly as bad as the above. Second time that has happened in the last year with a highly hyped box office breaking non-Hollywood film (other was The Host). Just a complete mess sloppily concealed behind a wall of erratic camera tricks. And this was the all time box office grosser in Russia. Note to muscovites: its no honor to say this is the greatest modern Russian film. The more you watch these attempts, the more you realize that Hollywood maybe isn't so bad afterall. All this was was a poor Grade B Hollywood flick shot in Russian.
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Saw Eagle Eye tonight. And in spite of all its flaws, I really enjoyed it.
The plot is stupid and some of the scenes are just way over the top, but it really is an enjoyable film. The action really never stops, and I think the cast works great.
Some of the plot and the negatives:
But, in spite of all that, it was a really fun movie. Just check your brain at the door.
The plot is stupid and some of the scenes are just way over the top, but it really is an enjoyable film. The action really never stops, and I think the cast works great.
Some of the plot and the negatives:
The military has developed an AI computer to monitor all communications (including cell phones (which they can turn on the mic even if the phone is off), all networked video cameras (traffic, building security, etc), email, all purchases, etc). It decides that the current executive branch of the government is not following the Constitution and begins an operation to remove the branch and install a new set of leaders. The way it will do this is really stupid - using a brand new high tech explosive crystal to take all the targets out at a performance of school children playing instruments at a special event at Washington DC.
Given what this AI computer can do (think a cross between the computer AI in "I, Robot" and Skynet from the Terminator series, I guess), why kill them in such a convoluted manner? This computer can take over just about any piece of military equipment, traffic lights, cell phones, power transmission lines, trains, any computer, TV broadcasts, you name it. It kills people with auto accidents, missles launched from Predator vehicles, ejects pilots from airplanes, takes over junkyard machinery and wipes out some pursuit vehicles, etc.
To fulfill this mission it has this crystal shipped to a jewler to make a necklace out of so when the lady's son hits a certain note in the performance mentioned above it will set off the sonic trigger they embedded in his trumpet.
Really. Apparently that is the best they can come up with. It couldn't just take out a couple of vehicles transporting these folks with a missle or something????
They also have the main characters steal an attache case from an armored guard unit and carry it around for a good chunk of the movie when all it is is a serum to slow their heartbeat so they can get in a shipping container on a plane. This computer can take over shipping computers for the newest top secret explosive crystals and the associated sonic triggers but can't have this serum waiting for them somewhere or shipped to them as well? Just dumb.
OK, there were other things, too, but these are a couple of the biggies.
Given what this AI computer can do (think a cross between the computer AI in "I, Robot" and Skynet from the Terminator series, I guess), why kill them in such a convoluted manner? This computer can take over just about any piece of military equipment, traffic lights, cell phones, power transmission lines, trains, any computer, TV broadcasts, you name it. It kills people with auto accidents, missles launched from Predator vehicles, ejects pilots from airplanes, takes over junkyard machinery and wipes out some pursuit vehicles, etc.
To fulfill this mission it has this crystal shipped to a jewler to make a necklace out of so when the lady's son hits a certain note in the performance mentioned above it will set off the sonic trigger they embedded in his trumpet.
Really. Apparently that is the best they can come up with.
It couldn't just take out a couple of vehicles transporting these folks with a missle or something????They also have the main characters steal an attache case from an armored guard unit and carry it around for a good chunk of the movie when all it is is a serum to slow their heartbeat so they can get in a shipping container on a plane. This computer can take over shipping computers for the newest top secret explosive crystals and the associated sonic triggers but can't have this serum waiting for them somewhere or shipped to them as well? Just dumb.
OK, there were other things, too, but these are a couple of the biggies.
But, in spite of all that, it was a really fun movie. Just check your brain at the door.
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