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

DArtagnan said:

Maggie 7/10

Pretty much what I expected from the trailer. Superb movie in terms of atmosphere and acting. Arnold did a fantastic job with his understated performance.

I was a little let down by some safe choices and the mostly predictable plot - but it had a few neat surprises.

But I was very moved by it, and that means a lot to me.

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Watched it last night. I thought it was worthwhile, but it felt like it could have been a bit longer. I'd probably give it the exact same score.

I thought Arnold's performance was "ok", but I guess it was good if you compare it to his normal standard. I've always been a big fan of Schwarzenegger, and I think what he's accomplished in his lifetime is nothing short of amazing. That said, he's never been, and never will be, a very good actor.

He was at a disadvantage from the start with that role though. Trying to play a Midwestern American farmer with that heavy Austrian accent…

I must not sleep any more with long days with work, children's baseball started(I am coaching one of their teams), house to maintain and now the TW3.

But I am going to take time out tonight to watch "Montage of Heck" The Kurt Cobain story. IT was well received at sundance and the review have been great. Me and my 14year are going to watch it tonight.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt4229236/

CelticFrost said:

I must not sleep any more with long days with work, children's baseball started(I am coaching one of their teams), house to maintain and now the TW3.

But I am going to take time out tonight to watch "Montage of Heck" The Kurt Cobain story. IT was well received at sundance and the review have been great. Me and my 14year are going to watch it tonight.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt4229236/

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Well now I guess I will go back to watching movies everyone hates, as they seem much better. What can I say about this piece of shit movie promoting the use of drugs, not caring about other humans and having a child.

Their music and I am only talking about music is CRAP and I don't care I have seen over 5,000 bands in my life time and lived out there during this. Though musically they were the ones the broke us out of even worst music.

His lyrics are that of a person that had nothing to lose when the grow up in a Chyt hole town (under 5000 people) in the US. Where killing animals and drinking beer living in small run down shit holes are the norm. It is funny how we want to think that we love everyone but deep down in side if they are different in anyway we don't? (most likely why I like this forum. .... as free thinkers are dangerous.)
I have stayed in his home town and the ones around it for years.

The only thing I got from this movie is:

1 -

2 - If you are making other people money no one cares about you and how unhealthy you are. Strange how all the FUCKING LAWs we have still can't make us be anything but human.

3- Depression with high IQ equals never fitting in this world.

Sorry for the Rant, I was really looking forward to this movie. It is a good insight in to the world of Heroin and Depression.
I give it a 8.5/10 for making me remember people I use to know.
For never forgetting you can be better then what is put in front of you.
Some people are lost just because they were never meant to be found.

Watch it but it just shows you sadness of someone that was just born.

I was reading what I wrote as I wrote it and yes emotions…I meant it all.

Just not the movie I thought it was going to be and it is a great movie if you didn't know people personally from this west coast music scene.

Just watched Man of the Year (2006). It makes for a brilliant academic study of how bad a movie can get in the Hollywood system.

Just look at this talent:

Director: Barry Levinson (Good Morning Vietnam, Rain Man, Toys, Wag the Dog)
Stars: Robin Williams, Christopher Walken, Laura Linney
Co-Stars: Jeff Goldblum

Now let's look at the premise:

Late-night talk-show comedy host decides to run for President - and wins! (because of a technical glitch with new electoral software that only the female lead knows about).

The possibilities:

1. This could be a classic farce akin to King Ralph, but funnier.
2. This could be a classic of profane proportions akin to Mr. Smith Goes to Washington.
3. This could be a standard predictable but engaging Hollywood schmaltz-fest light comedy akin to Trading Places.
4. This could be one of so many different kinds of interesting.

What does it end up as?

A television-level corporate cover-up thriller with occasional clips of Robin Williams performing a few one-liners from his stage shows. But not only that, it's a cheap, almost childish level cover-up thriller where the themes are nothing that would interest a child but the plot is straight out of Saturday afternoon children's drama.

It's not a comedy, because Robin Williams is the only comedy, and he's not always gaggin'. It's not a serious thriller because the bad guys are "We must silence her! Quick, pay the assassin to just drug her mildly so we can sack her the next day when she acts crazy at work - That'll solve our desire to hide the secrets she wields!" - and none of this is played to comic effect, they're deadly serious about all this.

It's frustrating to-boot. It does that thing where the lady with the secret gets to stand face to face with Robin Williams and is just standing there umm'ing and arr'ing while Robin talks over her, interrupting her and... she doesn't tell him! AND THIS HAPPENS LIKE FOUR TIMES over 30 minutes of the movie in completely different and completely nonthreatening locations where there is no possible reason why she can't find 30 seconds to blurt it out. We have to wait until the bad guys strike again and she's hospitalised before she whispers an effing riddle to him!

And the reason for this is that they hint that she might never tell him, because, hey, why spoil a good thing? And the movie suddenly diverts into mild romance. Not even believable or schmaltzy romance, just movie-plot convenience romance.

The last half of the movie is literally unwatchable. Just dire on every level. And you think, how can so much talent and experience suddenly deliver such complete crap? No, really, how exactly does that happen?

What is it about Hollywood that can take extreme talent and give utter bilge? As I say, something for the academics, for sure...

CelticFrost said:

I was reading what I wrote as I wrote it and yes emotions…I meant it all.

Just not the movie I thought it was going to be and it is a great movie if you didn't know people personally from this west coast music scene.

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I saw most of it as well, and it wasn't very interesting to me.

A guy suffering from ADHD had parents that got divorced, and it was tough growing up with too much energy and being unable to fit in. Then he had health problems and took a lot of drugs. Generally, not a very pleasant existence.

Then he got into a band which, literally, seemed to consist of three morons - including Cobain - and they screamed about how shitty life is. He killed himself because not even fame could make his life worth living in his own mind.

I concede they made some hits and they had talent, but beyond that I'll never get what makes some people so famous. I really don't.

Poor guy - and I felt for him. But I don't think I needed 2 hours of whining about it.

That said, I certainly don't see it as an advertisement for doing drugs. Quite the opposite.

The last movie I watched was Citizen Kane it was awhile ago, but I still quite haven't recovered yet. What a brilliant movie! It looks like the medium has moved backwards the past 74 years, if they could produce this 1941. No wonder a lot of people consider it the greatest movie ever made!

The Whisperer In Darkness

Very low budget Lovecraft film, but it's obviously made from passion for the subject matter. Definitely one of the best Lovecraft films out there, though that's not saying much. Some of the acting is awkward, there's no denying that - but the atmosphere is really well done and the movie looks good, all things considered. The only thing that didn't quite work was the ending, which also differs from the original story. They should have done away with the last 10 minutes of (very) bad CGI and misplaced action sequences.

7.5/10

That said, I'm a huge Lovecraft fan - and I'm likely being too forgiving, because there are SO few movies that manage to pull off a truly lovecraftian atmosphere, and this one actually does - for the most part.

The work of HPL is simply a gold-mine full of potential for the right director. If Ridley Scott hadn't gotten so old and lost his touch - he would have been the perfect choice for the job.

Instead we get remakes of remakes - and reboots of reboots.

Ex Machina

What a disappointment. Trailer looked great - and IMDB score was very high for this type of film. The movie did absolutely nothing new - and though it was well made and with good acting, it added nothing to the genre. Characters and their actions made no sense, and looks just aren't enough. How can people make the same movies about something as potentially interesting as AI over and over again? I don't get it.

5/10

Poltergeist (2015)

I was about 12 or 13 when I saw the original and loved it-- still do. My family and I knew this would probably be a disappointment, but who can pass up evil clown dolls? Wow it was beyond disappointing. Unlikable cast, no scares, just bad. It was uncanny how they got a girl who looked so much like the late Heather O'Rourke, though.

They lost me at the beginning as they were buying a house, which looked to be nice. Yet, both parents are unemployed. How the hell does that happen? I knew from the first few minutes it was going to be worse than expected.

Sometimes bad movies are fun to go see just to see them. That does not apply here. Stay away.

Chappie 4/10

Good God, what an incredibly DUMB movie! Its themes are all over the place and all you're left with at the end of the movie is just the question of how Neill Bloomkamp manages to get worse with each subsequent movie.

I genuinely worry for the new Alien installment.

The History Boys (2006)

I don't know how international this movie got, but I suspect the international audience might not watch it the same way a Brit would. It's a movie adaptation of a play of the same name where the screenplay is written also by the person who wrote the play, so that's one good thing.

The movie has a number of sub-plots swirling around while a small group of A-grade grammar school boys/young men prepare their applications to 'Oxbridge' (British shorthand for the two most prestigious UK universities of Oxford and Cambridge). It's smart, witty, thoughtful and generally well presented in every way you would expect it to be.

The primary drawback (for those that would find it a drawback) to it's wider popularity is that a lot of the sub-plots revolve around the homosexuality angle. So… a difficult one to recommend for general mixed company viewing, but one that's quite recommendable generally.

Even for those quite comfortable with the subject matter, however, there are quite a few scenes which are a bit toe curlingly hard to watch but these are matched with far more scenes that are either really amusing or genuinely heartbreaking. There's a stellar cast and none of their talents are put to waste.

The homosexuality angle comes from the fact that the movie is 'kind of' an autobiography of the screenwriter Alan Bennett, a famous-in-Britain Oxbridge graduate from the John Cleese generation. To be familiar with Bennett prior to watching is probably more important here than it might be for other such type movies as Bennett has a very particular and unique subtlety that would likely fly over the heads of a general viewer. As a brief guide to the guy, I always remember a great line from him that I shall paraphrase "When I was young I was a bit of a chubby and I don't think I really fancied girls so much, in fact I was fairly convinced quite early on that I was gay. The only problem was that when you get so little of either it's really quite difficult to be absolutely sure of either, so I wouldn't really refer to myself as anything". And the movie is full of this kind of wonderful subtlety.

Looking at IMDB, the other movie I saw recently from 2006, Man of the Year, the two have a very close IMDB score, around the 6.5s. I honestly can't believe this and it's this kind of paradox which really goes to show the impossibility of opinion in communal reviewing. There's no way MotY gets anything near a 6 in my book, 4 at best. There's no way this movie gets a 6ish score, there's no way this movie can be less than 7.5 as it's narrative structure is impeccable (aside from some occasional toe curling).

Saw Mad Max today. The plot could charitably be called 'traditional', but it's an extraordinary piece of filmmaking. Makes you realise that action movies don't have to be dull, and that stunts and CGI can still be done brilliantly.

It's very much like a stylised and darkly comic graphic novel transferred to film, in a very successful way.

Edit: I might recommend seeing it in 2d. It's so frenetic, that the 3d makes some scenes almost too busy to take in.

Edit Edit: Also worth mentioning that it's not really a remake, but a new chapter from the director of the originals. At seventy years old, he shows that being 70 is not what it used to be!

Watched I Origins

It's a pretty good movie(to me at least).
In it is presented the all time, battles, some metaphorical and some literal, just to name a few, like:
fear vs. love
matter vs. spirit
logic vs. intuition
science vs. religion
masculine principal vs. feminine principal


So, it is a good movie, the finishing scene got tears in my eyes, and it was a perfect ending as well. It has some cliche moments, but overall it is fine. Recommend to read the trivia on IMDB after watching the film, since it is interesting.
If I must scale it, it is 7.8/10

Drithius said:

Chappie 4/10

Good God, what an incredibly DUMB movie! Its themes are all over the place and all you're left with at the end of the movie is just the question of how Neill Bloomkamp manages to get worse with each subsequent movie.

I genuinely worry for the new Alien installment.

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When my son and I saw the preview I leaned over to him and said "Chappie? Should be called Crappy." Good to see I was probably right.

Watched Avengers 2 last night.

I really didn't want to see it tbh. I took my new GF because she's a fan, and she seemed to enjoy it for the most part. I couldn't wait for it to be over because, like most of those films, it was about 45 minutes too long.

In short, I thought it was pretty much like the majority of comic book movies. Lots of fast-moving action scenes, mediocre acting, and attempts to inject humor that imo fall flat most of the time.

Thankfully, I get to choose the next movie we see.

JDR13 said:

Watched Avengers 2 last night.

I really didn't want to see it tbh. I took my new GF because she's a fan, and she seemed to enjoy it for the most part. I couldn't wait for it to be over because, like most of those films, it was about 45 minutes too long.

In short, I thought it was pretty much like the majority of comic book movies. Lots of fast-moving action scenes, mediocre acting, and attempts to inject humor that imo fall flat most of the time.

Thankfully, I get to choose the next movie we see.

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My thoughts on it to a the letter. For a movie that long there should have been some other side plots going on to keep interest up.

Drithius said:

Chappie 4/10

Good God, what an incredibly DUMB movie! Its themes are all over the place and all you're left with at the end of the movie is just the question of how Neill Bloomkamp manages to get worse with each subsequent movie.

I genuinely worry for the new Alien installment.

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Surprised you rated this movie so high, I turned it off.

If y'all want a good laugh here's Uwe Boll's very... "balanced" review of the current state of affairs in crowdfunded movie making and Hollywood in general .

Just saw the trailer for The Martian, by Ridley Scott. Looks ok, and it could be a nice surprise, but considering it's Hollywood we're talking about, it'll probably be generic , action-packed and boring. But I'm curious.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2p7bgMxewxA