What I've Been Watching: The Catch-All Film Thread

Alphaville

Some old french avante garde film about a computer that runs the lives of a town. Or something. Seriously, we sat and watched this "visionary" film and it bored us to sleep w/ it's utter incoherance. Yeah, theyre talking computers and the nature of mankind in 1950, so it's pretty forward-looking - when you can figure out what the hell is going on. I'm down w/ a trippy or avante garde film now and then, but im sorry this just sucked.

A similar movie that was fairly decent was Colossus--The Forbin Project. Just sixties American sci-fi, though, not avante-garde. Something with a weird creature feature/science gone awry tinge that's worth catching is Phase IV, if you haven't ever seen it Sammy. I think you'd enjoy it.
 
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Just watched the trailer for The Sorcerer's Apprentice.

One the one hand it looks incredibly cheesy and stupid, like Karate Kid with magic. I'm also not convinced about the cast, setting, and I'm already lamenting the probably wasted potential. But on the other hand, I dig sorcerer movies (what little there are), so I'm still looking forward to it!
 
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I missed seeing Mickey Mouse, but it does look interesting. First I'd heard of this.
 
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Some movies I've seen recently:

Red Cliff
Almost 5 hours long Chinese epic film (split in two parts) by John Woo, based on Records of the Three Kingdoms. Lush and beautiful, great actors, music, interesting warfare, … If you are interested in Chinese history or Asian cinema, this is a must-see.

Careful about which version you get though, the western theatrical release was basically cut in half (280 minutes runtime of two movies compressed into one movie of 140 min.) The long version is available as a "special edition" in the UK.

The Warlords
Also an epic Chinese war film, set in the 1860 in the late Qing dynasty. Much darker in tone and portrayal of the subject matter than Red Cliff, as well as more dramatic and tragic. Enjoyed it, but it's not exactly a feel-good film.

Spy Kids 2
Fun, fun, fun! For the entire family. Funniest first minutes I've seen in a long time (theme park rides). According to IMDb lots of people found this movie pretty bad compared to the first one. I loved it, but haven't seen the prequel (yet) — guess I'm in for a treat. Word of advice, if you are a parent, don't watch this with your kids before Christmas or their birthday, they'll probably want lots of presents after seeing all the awesome gadgetry. ;)

The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus
Completely weird. And imaginative, obviously. My kinda movie. Would have loved to see more of the variety theater parts — the costumes looked splendid.
 
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saw over the weekend:

the back up plan (theaters)
i love you man (home)
the fourth kind (home)
 
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I don't watch movies much, but perhaps this isn't all that far off-topic... We just saw some modern dance. There were three pieces by three superstar choreographers – Nicolo Fonte, William Forsythe, and Ohad Naharin.

I thought the first two were pretentious, incomprehensible, boring, and conventional, and the third one was pure brilliance. My wife liked the first one too, though, and she's much, much more into modern dance than I am, so my hating it just probably reflects on my poor taste.

But that Naharin piece made it all worth it. It was original, funny as hell, broke all the conventions of staid, stolid opera/ballet/dance premieres, broke the wall between the performers and the audience, *and* got a standing ovation. Finnish audiences are about as frosty as they get, but he played us like a master.
 
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More weird cultural experiences: we went to see a Kun opera -- that's Chinese opera from the 17th century, painstakingly reconstructed. It seems the piece originally had 64 acts and took about three days to perform, but this one had been cut down to about two and a half hours.

It was worth it... but very, very Chinese, and rather opaque to someone who's not hip to the style. The story was a bit out-there; it was a romantic comedy about a love affair between two women. I kinda lost track of the plot at some point, but it clearly ended well, although I'm not quite sure what the deal was -- did Mrs. Fan's husband take on Ms. Cao as a concubine, or did Ms. Cao's father adopt Mrs. Fan, and if so, what happened to Mrs. Fan's husband, who, I thought I understood, just changed his name and re-took the imperial examinations with highest honors? And what was the deal between the judge, the examiner, and the bumbling bureaucrat who had the fistfight in front of the courthouse with Mr. Fan? Confusing.
 
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Bit weird posting next to myself :p

I saw "the girl with the dragon tattoo" , not bad although the film took itself too seriously . I think Scandinavians should make more films like "Dead Snow" and less that project their cold and boring nature .
 
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Bit weird posting next to myself :p

I saw "the girl with the dragon tattoo" , not bad although the film took itself too seriously . I think Scandinavians should make more films like "Dead Snow" and less that project their cold and boring nature .

Our cold and boring nature?

Why, thank you ;)
 
blade runner - First time Ive seen it, thought it was really good.

clan of the cave bear- awful film, then again I've come to absolutely loathe "caveman" films. Same boring and predictable caveman plot as always when you boil it down, same grody bunch of numskulls walking around in animal skins grunting at each other. It's even worse when they try for a smidgen of historical accuracy and you dont even get the fun of some nice dinosaur battles. It was pretty weird seeing Daryl Hannah pop up twice in a row on what was random movie picks tho. I hate caveman films

love object - eh, it was alright for a corny horror flick.
 
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@ Sammy: Bladerunner is a movie that never disappoints. One of the few films that I can watch more than once and still enjoy. I got a giggle out of you watching Clan of the Cave Bear—haven't seen it as a movie, and it's been years since I read the books, but I remember them as classic chick literature, with strong, powerful gorgeous super smart super competent women fighting hideous injustice and oppression with compassion and deep inner strength and purpose, frustrated by evil, corrupt and vicious males (except for the brooding, silent, incredibly sensitive and sexually expert heroes, of course)—can't believe they made a movie out of that stuff—I assume it was X-rated? The books certainly were—though they did have a lot of interesting historical detail about the Stone Age as sort of a side dish.

We rented Nightwatch last weekend; excellent creepy psycho killer flick and I can't believe I hadn't seen it. Well worth a rental if psychological horror is your thing.
 
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District 9 - good glot we hated that film, from beginning to end we just wished the main character would die. We're obviously in the minority since on rottentomatoes people are gushing about it left and right, its got a 90%.

I feel like we wasted a good chunk of my evening watching it, I felt bad that I lured my girl away from her Simple Zoo game to watch it. You have alien jet fuel which is what - also a biological agent capable of rearranging DNA and transforming beings into alternate lifeforms? This guy tosses like two people aside and goes out the backdoor of a maximum security military installation? And if all these scattered alien weapons are so damn strong in the first place (strong enough that two beings can blast into a maximum security installation and take on entire forces), then wouldnt it take just a handful of well-equipped hostile aliens to decimate untold legions of humans? And on and on, i rolled my eyes so many time I was getting dizzy after an hour. Just one unplausible (within the realm of the fiction) and outright stupid development upon another had us just wishing he would just die already and get the movie over with.

Hated it
 
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When District 9 tried to be an action flick, I thought it was decent. When it tried to be a political commentary, I hated it. Overall, very glad I didn't pay theatre prices for it.

Shrek 4 in 3D
The 3D wasn't that great. It's becoming the new scam for theatres to raise ticket prices, me thinks. Give people some goofy glasses and throw a couple "cominatcha" images in there and suddenly a $9 ticket becomes a $12 ticket. Yeah, I know there's costs to the theatre to display the 3D movie, but it still seems like a bit of a scam. As for the movie, OK at best. They've just about mined the fairy tale angle for all it's worth. When all is said and done, 1>2>>4>3.
 
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Anyone else seen the trailer for The Expendables yet? I thought my friends were joking when they started naming some of the cast.

Sylvester Stallone
Arnold Schwarzenegger
Bruce Willis
Mickey Rourke
Jet Li
Dolph Lundgren
Jason Statham

o_o
 
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Anyone else seen the trailer for The Expendables yet? I thought my friends were joking when they started naming some of the cast.

Sylvester Stallone
Arnold Schwarzenegger
Bruce Willis
Mickey Rourke
Jet Li
Dolph Lundgren
Jason Statham

o_o

Yeah, I did. Quite the cast. Lol.
 
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Prince of Persia
Fairly typical action flick as far as the script and performances go. Sometimes the camera work is really good, other times it gets pretty choppy. The Wild Dogs had no trouble with the level of violence--it's typical of a Disney live action offering. Overall, had a good time during the show and pretty well forgot about it before getting as far as the exit. Definitely rental material.

One thing I did appreciate is that I'm picking up a slightly growing trend in casting. It appears that several movie houses are changing their casting meme on females. They seem to be casting more "girl next door" hotties such as Gemma Arterton than the usual "beauty queens". I, for one, applaud the trend. "Real" women are far hotter than most of the barbiedoll divas running around.
 
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