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

Just watched Up In the Air. Very enjoyable movie, and I have to say George Clooney was great. Bought the book today as I expect it to be even better.

I usually like to watch the best picture nominees after the Oscars, yet I have absolutely no interest in seeing Avatar.

"Breaking Bad" on AMC is outstanding. They are 2 episodes into the third season. Dark humor, but highly recommended.

http://www.amctv.com/videos/breaking…id=66867723001

Originally Posted by Sir Markus
"Breaking Bad" on AMC is outstanding. They are 2 episodes into the third season. Dark humor, but highly recommended.

http://www.amctv.com/videos/breaking…id=66867723001

Great to see another BB fan here, it's one of the few tv series that I watch. That show gets better with every episode.

Another vote for Breaking Bad here. Great show, especially gritty considering it's not on a channel where they can go crazy with the mature content like the movie channels. I always look forward to the next episode.

Also watching The Pacific. After 3 parts it's been very enjoyable and as historically accurate as a show like that can be.

Originally Posted by JDR13
Great to see another BB fan here, it's one of the few tv series that I watch. That show gets better with every episode.

The last episode on Sunday was a 5 star episode, IMO. It answered a LOT of questions, and presented a few more.

Just watched The Red Violin (1998; "Le Violon Rouge"). Excellent, artful, unforgettable movie about a violin and the lives of the people who held it; a tale that spans four centuries and many different countries. Highly recommended, particularly if you like (classical) music and/or history.

I got intrigued after watching a short excerpt showing a few different orphans followed by Kaspar Weiss playing the Red Violin.

I'm a little behind. Let's see here…

Cop Out
I always enjoy Bruce Willis, and Tracy Morgan does a great job as well. The script is one big cliche, but somehow it manages to be bust-a-gut hilarious in many spots. I was expecting a rather bland cops-n-robbers, but this one was a pleasant surprise. Maybe matinee material, but certainly worth a rental.

Shutter Island
I came very close to predicting the ending before the movie even started. Performances were adequate and the show itself was adequate. Not a bad show, but not a good one, either. Tries very hard to be unpredictable, but generally fails. Borderline rental, me thinks.

Bounty Hunter
I got roped into a romantic comedy. What can ya do? Anyway, Anniston and Butler turn in decent performances with a script that does fairly well. Better than most romantic comedies from recent years, in fact. You've seen it all before, but it's a formula that works. Solid rental material if you're in the mood for that sort of show.

"Stallone. Statham. Li. Lundgren. Rourke. Roberts. Willis. Schwarzenegger. That’s right, the trailer for The Expendables has finally hit the ‘net."



(found on Dad's Big Plan)

2 weeks of catchup again, movies and videos to cover:

How to Train Your Dragon 3D
Go see this one. What a treat. The 3D was nice, but not really necessary. It's the obligatory "be yourself, kid" story, but it's done very, very well. Good visuals, good script, good voicing. Worth full theatre price if you've got kids. Still enjoyable even if you don't.

Whiteout
Not a bad show, but very predictable. Watching all that snow, I wanted to get out my copy of Carpenter's The Thing. Probably would have been a better use of the time. Still, this movie was OK. There's some plot holes related to the cold, but it's to be expected in a mainstream action movie. Borderline rental.

Terminator 4
Glad I didn't pay money to see this one in the theatre. Plot holes out the yingyang, and not enough cool visual effects to make you overlook it. Very disappointing.

Diary of a Wimpy Kid
What a turd. The only scenes worth watching involve the older brother. That's maybe 10 minutes out of ~100. The rest is completely worthless. Even the Wild Dogs seemed bored with this one. Both of the twinkies have read the book and apparently the movie wasn't terribly true to the text, either. Skip this one and go see Dragon.

I didn't think Terminator 4 was that bad. I'd say it was on par with T3, but way behind the first 2 movies. I liked the cameo near the end, even though it wasn't really him.

Perhaps I had set my expectations a little too high. It was the plot holes that really ruined it for me. Things like the A-10's flying around using radios yet somehow the machines can't find them OR the landing strip OR the control tower / command center that the planes are talking to. That's before we even touch the idea of availability of jet fuel and turbine parts. The mushroom cloud that comes out of the underground bunker is a nice touch, but having the cyborg suffer no effects from it (either skin burns or EMP)? The cars on the overlook that somehow didn't get EMP-fried during the nuclear "war" Skynet started?

I'm usually pretty good at suspending disbelief and just "going with it" on action movies, but T4 just pushed me too far.

I loved Diary of a Wimpy Kid. I took my 9 year old and since I'm a sucker for toilet humor I found it fun. Yes, the scenes with Roderick were the funnier parts of the movie (and the surreal sleepover at Fregley's), but I wouldn't call it a turd. Cop Out, on the other hand, likely fits that description

Originally Posted by EvilManagedCare
Cop Out, on the other hand, likely fits that description

I did mention I'm a sucker for Bruce Willis movies, but even considering that I was pleasantly surprised with Cop Out. Not going to win any awards, but a much more enjoyable movie than you'd expect.

Finally got started on our Tarentino retrospective with From Dusk til Dawn. Man, talk about exploding zombies..er,vampires, bikers…demons, lap dancers? Anyway, excellent flick and seems like a good place to start with Tarentino, actually seeing him act—very credibly, I thought, as well as do his trademark stuff. Had to be one of the very best erotic dance sequences ever, which as someone who is NOT a connoisseur or even very interested, I was surprised to enjoy and appreciate on an…artistic(?) level, I guess. Anyway, thanks to JDR and Gorath for helping me line up these early films. Next is Jackie Brown, but we're going to have a slight break with something less blood-soaked first.

We did "The Ruins" the other night.

I was pretty disappointed actually. On one paw, it's a pretty cool concept - the killer plant on the old Mayan ruin. Unfortunately, that's pretty much all there is to it. They could have perhaps thrown us a little more lore behind the thing, even if it was some old stone carvings or something. I dunno, it just seemed kinda bland, and the plants looked kinda fake to me. Also, it was just one huge gorefest. I think they spent too much time on elaborate gore that could have been spent fleshing out (no pun intended) the ruins and culture a bit more.

Also seemed like it could have used at least another half hour or so, it all wrapped up fairly quick and I was left thinking "this is it???"

The book was the same way, though, and even though the movie veered from the book a fair bit, the pointlessness still came thru in spades.

Originally Posted by magerette
Finally got started on our Tarentino retrospective with From Dusk til Dawn. Man, talk about exploding zombies..er,vampires, bikers…demons, lap dancers? Anyway, excellent flick and seems like a good place to start with Tarentino, actually seeing him act—very credibly, I thought, as well as do his trademark stuff.

Glad to hear you liked it. FDtD was actually directed by Robert Rodriguez, but was written by Tarentino. It pales in comparison to Quentin's better stuff though imo. i.e: Reservoir Dogs, Pulp Fiction.


Another movie I recommend is True Romance. It was Tarantino's first screenplay for a major movie, and features a ton of appearances by people you wouldn't expect to see.

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.

Originally Posted by magerette
Next is Jackie Brown, but we're going to have a slight break with something less blood-soaked first.

Jackie Brown is something less blood-soaked. Only 4 or 5 people killed in over 2 hours. There's near zero action. It's a huge contrast to FDtD. It's almost a conservative, positively old-fashioned movie.

Shadowchaser 2

The movie was a positive surprise. Of course it's just a blatant rip-off of Die Hard and The Terminator, but apart from that it's a really well done B action flick. Reasonably fast pace, brutal action scenes, even a couple of scenes involving acting. I recommend it for an evening of mindless fun, preferably with a lot of beer.