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

Did the double feature with Mrs dte yesterday.

Pandorum
I don't watch any TV anymore and my radio listening is way down, but I heard absolutely nothing in the way of advertising for this show. I actually found out it existed when I was getting movie times off Fandango. Glad I did. One comment I saw was that this is "'Descent' in Space" and I'd say that's fairly accurate. Don't know that it's quite that good (I think "Descent" is downright excellent), but it's worth seeing. I'm still a little confused about a rather significant aspect of the story, but I can't really discuss it without spoiling the movie for y'all. Plays nicely on the big screen, so those interested might want to catch it in the theatre.

Jennifer's Body
Mrs dte has been on a vampire obsession for a year or two, so we had to see this one. Meh. That's about all that can be said.

Coraline
Loved it! My type of movie. I haven't really noticed Neil Gaiman before I read Sandman, but have since realized that I adore pretty much everything he makes. MirrorMask was another imaginative movie that, on the other hand, not many people know about.


Oh, my twitchy-witchy girl
I think you are so nice
I give you bowls of porridge
And I give you bowls of ice
CREAM

I give you lots of kisses
And I give you lots of hugs
But I never give you sandwiches
With grease and worms and mung
BEANS

watching the sci-fi series called Firefly, we're on disk 3 of 4.

We like it, it's pretty cool cast of characters and can be kinda funny at times as well.

In an effort to overcome my Tom Cruise hate, we rented Valkyrie this weekend. Not a terrible flick, though a bit predictable(well…I guess we all know how WWII turned out) and nothing exactly stellar in the way of script or acting. But mildly entertaining.


Didn't do much to change my opinion about Cruise, though. The most contemporary American Third Reich officer I've ever watched in anything except maybe Hogan's Heroes. A cardboard cut-out would have seemed more authentic.

Originally Posted by magerette
In an effort to overcome my Tom Cruise hate, we rented Valkyrie this weekend.

Not a great choice if you're trying to overcome some anti-Cruise bias . Rent Interview with the Vampire or Eyes Wide Shut.

I've heard good things about Vanilla Sky as well, haven't seen it myself though.

Originally Posted by JDR13
Not a great choice if you're trying to overcome some anti-Cruise bias . Rent Interview with the Vampire or Eyes Wide Shut.

I vote for "Legend" from 1985, wherein he was still young and innocent.
(And he had longish hair, which should please magerette. )

Legend was wonderful! And I liked Vanilla Sky.

You know, I looked those two up and I think I've actually seen Legend and enjoyed it in a prior life( the one before I hated Tom Cruise, ) and Vanilla Sky definitely sounds a bit off the beaten track and possibly worth a try. Plus I've forced myself to add Interview with the Vampire to my queue. If I end up hating it, I'll try not to inflict my pain on everyone else.

Collateral, Interview with the Vampire, and Tropic Thunder are the most likely movies to change your mind about Cruse - imo

I think he's very talented, even if he seems misguided as an actual person.

During weekend i watched "28 days later" which i found very interesting and "the navigator : a meddieval odyssey" which was okay.
The 2nd film was a revelation to me , looks like New Zealanders have a far clearer accent than Aussies since i didn't used subtitles ( i always do with Aussie films) .

Cirque du Freak: Vampire's Assistant
This was a fun film. They did a nice job of mixing humor and action and cool visuals and maintaining balance between the aspects. My only complaint is that the movie seemed incomplete. It clocked in a bit over an hour-and-a-half, but it seemed like they needed about 30 more minutes rescued from the cutting room floor to tie up all the ends running around. Still worth seeing, and the visuals do play a bit better on the big screen, me thinks.

Paranormal Activity
Mrs dte insisted on seeing this one. While it wasn't bad, I don't see where it's "top movie of the weekend" material. It's really a Blair Witch formula without much variation. The ending was a bit surprising, but I don't know that I ever caught the "sense of dread" bug. Still, reasonably well done and worthy of a rental when the time comes. Mrs dte loved it.

Serenity.

Loved the series, hated the movie. None of the quirky fun of the series was present in the film. So much "steely determination" that the characters were like blocks of ice, they lost all their characterization and became crew member #1, 2, 3…

Grim, nonsensical, the worst movie that I've seen in a long time. Hated it.
pretty bad when the one character who is interesting (the nutso black bounty hunter guy) is a bit player from one of their episodes..

Frozen River

I never liked dramas. Not at all. But now… I've changed my mind.

This movie is about life, about family, about friendship, about beautiful nature, about laws, about money, about sacrifices. It's actually about being a human.
What would you do if your life got on the bottom? You lost the money, your marriage is falling apart, you have no friends and you have noone to talk to - and kids don't understand a thing. You don't know what you'll do the next day. To cry? To commit a suicide? Why would you do that? This movie shows what happens when it seems that the only solution left is to break a law.

Now this is a drama as I've said before. But this movie reminds me on Pan's labyrinth. You'll say that I'm crazy saying this because Pan's Labyrinth is a fantasy movie, but no. Everything here happens in a spectacular countryside which looks like it's made only for romance movies just like Pan's labyrinth. But in both movies, there is no romance. There is no man+woman (or 2 men, or 2 women) love at all. There is a mother's love, there is a brothers' (sisters') love, there is a friend's love, but no classical love. And in both movies there is no sex.

You'll say for god's sake how is that possible in a drama! Yea, I said that too, but this is no Hollywood sexsellswhattacrapIshouldhaveskippedthis movie. Believe me the story functions and it's so realistic that you actually live that life on the screen with actors.

Perhaps only a poor performance from the younger son and obvious shooting of different scenes in the same day (and time) that in the movie actually happen with a days difference is the reason I won't give this a 10/10 but it's a strong 9 from me.
This movie is a near masterpiece.

Saw Pandorum last night, not anything spectacular, but it was entertaining.

@dteowner, which part of the story were you confused about? Just use a spoiler tag.

@xSamhainx, You seriously hated Serenity? I thought it was great, but I watched in reverse: saw Serenity first, then episodes. Haven't watched the whole series yet.

Originally Posted by JDR13
Saw Pandorum last night, not anything spectacular, but it was entertaining.

Yeah, it was good fun. And I enjoyed the ending.

Anybody seen Moon? It's supposed to be very cool. Can't wait to see it.

Originally Posted by JDR13
@dteowner, which part of the story were you confused about? Just use a spoiler tag.

Can do.

@JDR -
yeah, watch the series then come back and tell me that the movie reflects those characters, it really doesnt. I'm not usually one to complain about grim tone, but that movie was grim - the series wasnt. Granted, the series wasnt Red Dwarf or anything, but it still was, well…. fun. Kaylee was country-bumpkin'ish lovable little sister. Jayne was the ultra-selfish big lummox. Inara was the den mother. Wash was the exact opposite of his wife Zoey- he's a total scaredy cat wimp, but an ace pilot, she's the no-nonsense warrior. Simon was the socially-awkward scientist, forever blundering at the last moment in his pursuit of Kaylee. The Cap'n was funny, I dont care what anyone says, he had that sorta endearing no-nonsense vibe that made him funny because he always ended up getting the short end of the stick. Besides maybe during each character's entrance scene where they may have exhibited their former series traits, they all pretty much fell into Ship Crew Member monotony, swiftly followed by Action Hero Mode. I could go on, but for brevity's sake i'll just leave it there. The characters were cardboard cutouts of the series personas.

The "Space Western" feel to the whole thing was gone, the series always had that as a strong overarching theme - dusty future-primitive planets, six-guns, outlaws, the music. That was pretty much gone too.

Maybe taking it a bit too seriously, but hey we spent a month's weekends plowing thru the series and enjoying it, and the denoument is a Hollywood Action Film 101.. GRR ARGH. My reaction is light, Jess spazzed the hell out and practically issued a fatwa on Joss Whedon lol

Originally Posted by dteowner
Can do.

Spoiler

It seemed like Dennis Quaid was impersonating the weird pilot guy he locked in the "bed", but their tattoos didn't show any such problem, which would invalidate that theory, not to mention the "mythology" story where the loonie pilot (Quaid, we learn) kills the others. They seemed to be hinting strongly at that by putting the weird guy in Quaid's character's uniform. They never really dealt with that weird guy (does he die in the bed, get ejected, or just sit there? He wasn't in the bed when the hero came thru that room at the end), which would lead me to believe that perhaps he didn't exist and was just a paranoid delusion. But the guy had a different tattoo—that's a pretty creative delusion, me thinks. Besides, according to the guy in the pit, all the pilots but Quaid were killed anyway. Between Quaid's delusions (which you can't really determine a "start point" for) and the hero's budding delusions, I just had a tough time keeping track of what was real at the end there.

Mmmm….




@ Sammy, well you've got me looking forward to really getting into the series now. I'll have to watch Serenity again after I'm finished to see what I think.

I intend to rent it when it comes out. I think it might be easier to get a grip on all the details with a second viewing. It's entirely possible I'm thinking too hard.

Originally Posted by dteowner
I intend to rent it when it comes out. I think it might be easier to get a grip on all the details with a second viewing. It's entirely possible I'm thinking too hard.

Spoiler

So, in your opinion, the weird guy doesn't exist? More specifically, he's one of the 2 pilots that Quaid killed after the transmission, so those conversations might be flashbacks? The tattoo "revision" would just be part of the hallucination.

BTW, I think it was the botanist that said that the colonists were pickled with some genetic engineering that made them genetically adapt quickly to their environment, which turned out to be the ship rather than the planet.