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

Even when I'm ignored, my words have power! :)

Seriously, if calling bullshit bullshit is a personal insult - so be it.
 
went and saw Paranormal Activity: The Marked Ones with friends, and it was pretty much an irretrievably poor film, even for "found footage". I've never seen one of the PA films before, i thought it was a haunted house thing.

It was bad. The only thing that made it tolerable was the fact that they targeted the Latino vote with this production - some drop-dead gorgeous latin women were sprinkled throughout, i caught myself drooling a couple times.

Love the name "Marisol", very pretty name for a latina
 
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The first Paranormal Activity worked pretty well, but it was pretty much a cliff-dive from there. :)
 
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I saw Maniac (the remake from 2012 of the one from 1980), and man, was it disturbing. It was filmed almost entirely in first person, and Elijah Wood seemed to nail it. And what's up with him as an actor? I mean the last 3 movies I've seen with him all feature him as some sort of a psychopath murderer. (Sin City, Pawnshop Chronicles and Maniac). Really weird direction his career is going after LOTR. But he's a good actor.

I also saw Melancholia. Pretty cool movie. Kirsten Dunst is a great actress. A sad film.
 
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I finally got to watch The Bling Ring; the movie about 4-6 young teenagers who raided the houses of the celebrities like Orlando Bloom, Paris Hilton, Megan Fox etc. when they were not home. Very interesting movie - good and nice photography as well. However, I did not find that I got any closer to why they did what they did - maybe they were bored?

Danutz - why do you think Melancholia is a "pretty cool movie"?
 
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Danutz - why do you think Melancholia is a "pretty cool movie"?

It was beautifully filmed (even though the first few minutes, which are done in slow-motion, had me worried that this might be a pretentious lame movie), and I liked the comparison between the two sisters, each dealing with issues in different ways, and how when one was vulnerable and couldn't cope with a situation, the other was the strong one.

I felt depressed and oppressed during both parts of the film. And yeah, Kirsten was great in it. I really felt her pain and despair. And it seems, unlike most people, I liked the first part more than the second. Kirsten taking center-stage was better, even though the setting was a more-or-less rich-people marriage. She really delivered her role.
 
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Just came back from The Wolf of Wallstreet. Technically it was very well made, all the actors performed very well, especially Jonah Hill, who was a real surprise. DiCaprio was good as always. But, I felt the movie had no heart. I really appreciate a movie that hits emotionally, and felt nothing from it. The Great Gatsby had more heart than this.
 
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Speaking of the The Great Gatsby, it was another film I watched over the holidays, as detour from the rut (i.e. gaming). It (the film) certainly had a lot of style, maybe too much for me. The pretentiousness of the characters made me not care about them, much. Maybe a little.
 
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Just saw Cargo.

In the beginning, it reminded me of Dark City.
In the middle, it reminded me of Alien.
In the end, it reminded me of Matrix.

Case in point, try to see this movie - it's great sci! The end is the only part that kind of plods along and could have used some refinement. Don't let the German language/subtitles scare you off. It's up to par with Europa Report and better than any recent Hollywood schlock.

Never heard of it before you dug it up, in the end found it, watched it.

Positives: story, acting, effects, sound.
Negative: I simply couldn't get the feeling it's happening on a space ship and not in some underground facility.

The sum: It could have been a classic if made as a postnuclear flick of moving survivors by some underground travel to a "paradise" city (yes it would copy a certain idea from Total Recall remake, so what?) or shooting could use more transitions from outside to inside the spaceship and vice versa.

Good sci-fi that will work even with the audience that doesn't like sci-fi. Nothing spectacular though so you won't be missing anything if you don't watch it, but also won't be dissapointed if you do:
C+


I'm talking about Cargo. For that other movie I've seen in comments "NASA docu-drama" and I can't be arsed to watch that. Real NASA doesn't share everything publically and I couldn't care less for fabricated stories about that and any similar agency. Add to that Europa and speculations of life on it again possible because of real NASA's deliberate ignorance, I'll get even more sick.
 
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Gravity 7.5/10

Extremely tense experience about humanity versus nature - and rebirth.

Nothing too interesting in terms of plot or story - but it's pretty much a masterpiece of cinema.

Liked it very much - and I don't really care about the science, as I didn't find it to be the point of the experience.
 
Just came back from The Wolf of Wallstreet. Technically it was very well made, all the actors performed very well, especially Jonah Hill, who was a real surprise. DiCaprio was good as always. But, I felt the movie had no heart. I really appreciate a movie that hits emotionally, and felt nothing from it. The Great Gatsby had more heart than this.

Just saw this over the weekend. I enjoyed it, though it was slightly too long. How long do you need to see how selfish & out of control these guys were? Jonah Hill & Leo were excellent. For me it was a film where I was looking forward to the protagonists getting what they deserved. They were completely unlikable given their activities & I had no sympathy for them once the hammer fell.
 
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Just saw this over the weekend. I enjoyed it, though it was slightly too long. How long do you need to see how selfish & out of control these guys were? Jonah Hill & Leo were excellent. For me it was a film where I was looking forward to the protagonists getting what they deserved. They were completely unlikable given their activities & I had no sympathy for them once the hammer fell.

One of my issues is that these guys didn't get what was coming to them. As is common I guess. Con-men at this scale rarely get what they deserve.

Yeah, Jonah Hill was the real surprise for me. I've never seen him as much of a good actor, but he was excellent in this.
 
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Awsome news!

I wrote that weinstein wants to cut 20-25 mins from Snowpiercer:
http://www.rpgwatch.com/forums/showpost.php?p=1061223107&postcount=2251

You may read all over internet that ppl said they just won't go to the theatre but will import an uncut DVD/BR directly from Korea or France (to be released in april, there is a preorder option already on amazon.fr).

Seems the cut won't happen after all!
http://www.modernkoreancinema.com/2014/02/news-snowpiercer-stays-uncut-but.html

I hate the fact I can't be in Berlin today. But even if I could, tickets are sold out.
http://www.berlinale.de/en/programm/berlinale_programm/datenblatt.php?film_id=20147253#tab=video25
Tough Luck.
 
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Watched Pandorum for what must be the 4th time since 2010. No Spoilers. I was very attentive to the dialog and plot (such as there is) and I'm amazed at how many plot problems there are for such and interesting concept. The choppy editing and dialog, especially at the end feel really incompetent. If the movie was maybe 10 minutes longer and did a better job explaining what happened on the ship (Payton) and why it happened, what Bower was going though and critically what Bower "realized" but was never explained.

As I was watching I couldn't help but think its problems reminded me of Event Horizon which has extremely similar issues. As if the director and editor decided "yeah this movie is a mess so chop out enough dialog to make it seem mysterious but leave the blood and action".

Paul W. S. Anderson had a hand in both these films. He directed Event Horizon and I burst out laughing when I saw him listed in the Pandorum credits as producer. I really like both these films even though they are practically crippled with flaws. Space horror FTW I guess!
 
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I like both movies.

I had to watch Pandorum 3-4 times to actually understand the whole thing though. (I drink).

Event Horizon is fine. Half the people wanted a Sci-fi movie so hated it because it was too gory ( ooooh! ). The other half wanted a horror movie and bitch because it confines the horror to very quick flashes. So nobody was happy. I just wanted a movie with Sam Neil in it so I kinda liked it!

Both movies are better with repeated viewings. Unless they are NOT, to you.
 
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I saw Her over the weekend. I liked the movie a lot. It was great social commentary on the state people and relationships are in nowadays, and probably will be in the near future. It had some weird scenes which I felt didn't exactly work,
like the first sex scene between Theodor and Samantha
, but overall it was great. I particularly loved the direction the film went into.

Overall I found it to be a very realistic portrayal of how a relationship would be between two very different entities. One corporeal and one which transcends time and space. You could argue that the whole AI angle was kind of exaggerated, since such a complex AI would be near impossible for us to write at this stage in evolution, but if you get over that it's very nicely done.
 
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