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

Last week I´ve seen The Sting with Newman, Redford and a suberb supporting cast for the 15th time or so. It´s still as good as ever. If you´ve never seen this great gangster/comedy/episodic movie put it on top of your NetFlix list. This is the league Ocean´s 11 e.a. so desperately want to reach.

The Dark Knight
—————————-

The new Batman movie, "The Dark Knight" is the most solid film i watched so far this year. It exceeded the expectation i hold for the movie, even with several rather good superhero movies i caught recently.

In term of action, certainly you won't be disappointed. The noisy and spectacular explosion, the car chase, the melee combat, etc all without the feel of excessive CG effects.

I like most Christopher Nolan movies, for his strength in the capability to portray the depth of human traumas, story and drama for his characters. So while the film has considerable amount of action, i think the biggest contribution to the film's success is it capability to pull you in with clever presentation of the cliche "good versus evil" theme. In one scene, Joker implies that it was the self-righteous people who created the evils when they handed down their judgment - so whatever Batman did (lawful good intentions) just "complete me".

The last notable thing that make the movie so good is the Joker character by Heath Ledger. It's one of the most memorable villains in my book. Not only he is evil, but he makes you feel he's really chaotically evil, threatening, mad, but also a genius with deep understanding of human soul and how to manipulate them. And yet, he would make you laughs with his jokes…

Azumi
====

During the era of Tokugawa, Azumi was one of the deadly assassin raised and trained by master samurai Gessai to maintains peace by assassination of violent warlords (kind of irony isn't it?). The film is quite nice if you liked the level of action and swordplay as in Kill Bill series; expect to see a girl wielding a katana charging into crowd and limbs start flying in every directions.

Review on Variety.

Originally Posted by Remus
The Dark Knight
—————————-

The new Batman movie, "The Dark Knight" is the most solid film i watched so far this year. It exceeded the expectation i hold for the movie, even with several rather good superhero movies i caught recently.

In term of action, certainly you won't be disappointed. The noisy and spectacular explosion, the car chase, the melee combat, etc all without the feel of excessive CG effects.

I like most Christopher Nolan movies, for his strength in the capability to portray the depth of human traumas, story and drama for his characters. So while the film has considerable amount of action, i think the biggest contribution to the film's success is it capability to pull you in with clever presentation of the cliche "good versus evil" theme. In one scene, Joker implies that it was the self-righteous people who created the evils when they handed down their judgment - so whatever Batman did (lawful good intentions) just "complete me".

The last notable thing that make the movie so good is the Joker character by Heath Ledger. It's one of the most memorable villains in my book. Not only he is evil, but he makes you feel he's really chaotically evil, threatening, mad, but also a genius with deep understanding of human soul and how to manipulate them. And yet, he would make you laughs with his jokes…

Mrs dte and I both enjoyed it as well, for many of the reasons you mention. I wonder if Ledger would be considered for a Best Supporting Actor award, because I thought the performance merited Oscar consideration.

The Nines
———————
A really cool movie, that really surprised me by how deep it turned out. Really caught me off-guard. It's a bit like K-Pax maybe, but not as masterfully done. Even so it's a great experience and well worth watching. And I'm surprised, in a bad way, that it got such a low grade on imdb. 6.8? Cmon, plenty of crappy movies get 7+, and this one gets under 7? Personally, I'd grade it at about 8.5-9, at least.

Originally Posted by Gorath
Last week I´ve seen The Sting with Newman, Redford and a suberb supporting cast for the 15th time or so. It´s still as good as ever. If you´ve never seen this great gangster/comedy/episodic movie put it on top of your NetFlix list. This is the league Ocean´s 11 e.a. so desperately want to reach.

The Sting was a great flick. In the Paul Neuman vein, we watched Absence of Malice last weekend—also a good movie, a bit dated, but still very appropriate to the current day power of the press as well.
@danutz_plus_plus—K-Pax was an excellent and to me very creative and original film. I'll check out The Nines.

We had a cheese-fest this weekend with two movies from the early 2000's that somehow we'd missed: Van Helsing and The Sixth Day. They went very well together along with a ton of popcorn.

I was expecting absolutely nothing from Van Helsing after reading reviews, but was surprised to find myself enjoying it. Not as good as The Mummy, but much more fun than I was expecting it to be. (For some reason it reminded me of that action rpg from last year, The Chosen…)

I'm not a great film historian, but The Sixth Day looked like it may have been one of the last films from Ahnold before he became the Governator, and I can see why it might inspire him to look for a new job, but it had it's enjoyable side as well. The cloning premise and ethical quandary at the core of the plot was pretty well done; it was actually better than the obligatory actiony car-chase with laser guns motif, and Robert Duvall had a nice cameo as one of the few real actors in the film actually acting. The Bill Gates-like villain also did a decent job as your usual mad scientist/ soulless monomaniac. The worst aspect of the movie was the saccharine portrayal of Schwartzenegger's character, but fortunately his dialogue was relatively limited.

Neither of these films are top notch, but both are worth a rental when you're in the mood for something mindless and flashy.

If you enjoyed Van Helsing, you might take a peek at "The Brothers Grimm". Didn't win any awards, but a fun romp thru the fairytales.

Took the Wild Dogs to Journey to the Center of the Earth. The kids had a pretty good time, but I must say I did not. Waaaay too many gaping holes—along with numerous continuity errors (they leave their backpacks on the beach and then next scene they're wearing the backpacks, shirts go from sweaty to dry and back, etc). Wait for video and then find something else to do while the kids watch this dog.

Brendan Fraser was also in another new film - The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor. Nothing really special, with some spectacular actions, and beside that, old story of saving the world, shallow character development, typical family love scene, father-son relationship, young love, etc. In fact everything seems typical and dull. The acting of Michelle Yeoh pretty nice though.

Ever thought of which actor should take the role of Max Payne in movie? Apparently some think he is the one!. Well, no bad IMO.

Official trailer here.

Yeah, that trailer was actually released some weeks ago, I'm looking forward to seeing if they capture the noir atmosphere of the game.

Those stills look cool. I liked the trailer and the trailer soundtrack, and I'm excited about the movie.

Just saw Appleseed Ex Machina. It was okay.

Saw Dark Knight. Great movie. As most people said, Heath Ledger did a hell of a job portraying the Joker.

Originally Posted by Remus
Brendan Fraser was also in another new film - The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor. Nothing really special, with some spectacular actions, and beside that, old story of saving the world, shallow character development, typical family love scene, father-son relationship, young love, etc. In fact everything seems typical and dull. The acting of Michelle Yeoh pretty nice though.

I'll echo this for Mummy 3. Some of the effects are excellent, and if you watch some of the animations for the skeletons going on in the background, you'll see someone had some fun with their job. Beyond that, yawn.

Saw The Clone Wars today - which is actually a pilot film for the series.

It's nice, interesting popcorn-cinema, with *lots* of action.

I liked it. Expect not too much, but it's good at entertaining at least.

I didn't aware that dragonball movie is in the making until seeing this

It probably sucks.

Saw "Gone Baby Gone" yesterday. Idiotic title, but the movie was great. The movie is about a kidnapped girl and two private investigators (which are also a love couple) who try to find her. I liked the story and the characters. It's nothing groundbreaking new, but the mood of the movie was good, and I liked the fact that the underlying question of what's right and wrong runs like a thin red line through the whole movie. Is it right to commit a crime if it serves the right purpose? That question pops up several times, but the movie never gives real answer - you have to form your own opinion.

We watched I Am Legend this weekend and it was quite authentic and scary feeling so long as you didn't look too closely at the plot devices and so forth. Will Smith was somehow able to make a very shaky cardboard character believable, and despite a lot of flaws the movie I think was successful at making a statement, at least as successful as Charleton Heston in Omega Man. I've always thought of that as a classic, but you have to make a lot of excuses for the scenery-chewing acting style of the day. In this version the acting is better than the underlying movie.

Originally Posted by Ionstormsucks
… I liked the fact that the underlying question of what's right and wrong runs like a thin red line through the whole movie. Is it right to commit a crime if it serves the right purpose? That question pops up several times, but the movie never gives real answer - you have to form your own opinion.

It'll be pretty easy choice unless you follow the lawful good moral compass. Rules are not always right and sensible. Personally i would bend the rules or handle the situation with one of my eyes closed.

From i what saw from the end sequence, i'm sure the young girl would end up to grow up among non-family members or neigbours anyway (or worse with delinquents or strangers) instead of her real mother who excited about going to party/date…