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

Quantum of Solace
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Watched Quantum of Solace - a no less explosive sequel from the last one, Casino Royal. The actions will quickly dazzle you, from frenetic opening cars chase, impossible action at high altitude, to intense close quarters fight. All in all it is satisfying action film but not if you watched tons of similar movies. You'll see a more vengeful Mr. Bond in this sequel, due to the dead of his girl - Vesper previously (vengeful my ass, you'll see him sleep with truckload of Bond girls in bond movies anyway :rolleyes:) I do felt pitty as our hero got blown away quite often though, looks disheveled and dirty from bruise, blood stains and debris. Why tried so hard to be good guy? May as well slap around the M16 boss Judi Dench for slave driving him for so long and joint the bad guys...
 
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I've gotten way behind...

Madagascar 2
Fun movie for the kids, with some "over their heads" stuff thrown in to keep the adults entertained. Includes a handful of moments that I'm stunned made it past the PC police to the final cut, such as the lion telling the zebras (all voiced by Chris Rock) "You all look alike to me."

The Strangers
Mrs dte insisted on renting this one since we missed it in theatres. You could stamp "Based on a true story" on drying paint and she'd be all over it... I went in with a bad attitude and the movie did nothing to get me past it. Surprisingly short (75min), and pretty empty. Proper horror flicks do the "He's right behind you!" moments better and the random violence angle doesn't get played up as much as you'd expect. Barely worth the rental, IMO.

The Happening
I wanted to see this one, but I'm glad now that I didn't pay theatre prices for it. M Night seems to be fresh out of magic. He doesn't artificially force a "twist" ending for once, but the story just lacks pizzaz. You get no attachment to the characters (we were actually rooting for the female lead to die because she's rather annoying and I don't think it was intentional) and the storyline itself can't carry the film. There's not even enough there to make it a vehicle for enviro-nuts, although I think that was the overall intent. Thumbs down.

High School Musical 3
Had to take the Wild Dogs on opening night, no less. The kids enjoyed another chapter with familiar "friends", but I don't know that they really liked the movie for itself that much. I was pretty bored, although the musical number about getting dressed for prom did pry a couple laughs out of me. If you've got kids, chances are you'll have to see it sooner or later. Take heart--it doesn't totally suck.
 
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Watched This is Spinal Tap last night. While I bought a Spinal Tap CD way back, I never saw the film before last night... oh so hilarious. And so ahead of its time, especially in the light of real trash documentaries having conquered TV.
Loved the Stonehenge scenes. Absolutely GREAT! :rotfl:
 
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I doubt it fits in here, but I'll write it anyway ... :p

My recent "film" was a the first DVD collection of Shaun the Sheep films. :)

I just love it ! :)
 
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Kung Fu Panda
Fairly good voice acting from several cast members. Beyond that, meh. The Wild Dogs didn't get all that excited either.

Incredible Hulk
Continuing my recent trend, another meh. I liked the cameos from Lou Ferrigno and Robert Downey Jr, though. The hint at the next movie was interesting. I thought Hulk and Iron Man were both good guys, so I'm not sure how that's going to work out.
 
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Got hold of original language versions of Asterix and Asterix in Egypt. Lot's of blue screen feel but quite fun still, and at least Asterix in Egypt (the better of the two) was fairly close to what I remember of the comic.
 
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MaxPaynePoster.jpg

Saw it. And surprisingly I've found it quite nice. Some let downs, and some things I liked. But it feels mainly like a movie made for fans. I'm sure people that have not played the games, or are not familiar with the storyline from the games, will feel it's pretty thin. And liking it or not depends very much on how open one is to the idea of changes/modifications made to the storyline.

Overall I'd say it's a lot above decent, but not great. I was half expecting to hate it.
 
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Believe it or not, we just saw Saving Private Ryan for the first time. It is the sort of thing my wife can't easily stomach, and our kids were too young. But last night we watched it, and it was rough on my wife and younger sone, but everyone stayed for the whole thing. Wonderful movie.
 
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Believe it or not, we just saw Saving Private Ryan for the first time. It is the sort of thing my wife can't easily stomach, and our kids were too young. But last night we watched it, and it was rough on my wife and younger sone, but everyone stayed for the whole thing. Wonderful movie.

One of the top ten movies of all time imo, hard to believe you waited so long to finally see it. I can understand how it could be tough on woman and young children though.
 
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One of the top ten movies of all time imo, hard to believe you waited so long to finally see it. I can understand how it could be tough on woman and young children though.

Just rarely watch stuff by myself, and since when it came out we had two kids under two ...

And my wife is very sensitive to that stuff, as is my younger son. My older son is more like me, for good or bad ;)
 
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The sickest part for me in Saving Private Ryan was when the german dude slowly stabs that american soldier, while talking to him in german. That scene gave me the creeps.

Be sure to also check out HBOs Band of Brothers, which many consider a kind of a spiritual successor to Saving Private Ryan. It's a 10 part series, of about 1 hour each, following the exploits of the 101st airborne division after the landing in Normandy. Directed/Produced by Tom Hanks and Steven Spielberg. I personally loved it to death.
 
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I really love BoB for the dense atmosphere while I found SPR to be rather 'meh'.
 
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I liked SPR better, excellent war film. It was the film that started the WWII FPS games and even today the CoD series still alive. I watched tons other war films Full Metal Jacket, Apocalypse Now, Schindler's List, Black Hawk Down, all are very good war films. BoB is very well made TV series, with quite extensive focus on war story and characters development.
 
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I really love BoB for the dense atmosphere while I found SPR to be rather 'meh'.

Really? I thought BoB was just "good", while Saving Private Ryan was amazing for it's time. Maybe if BoB had been released earlier (before SPR) I would have thought more highly of it.
 
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There was too much of the sappy stuff for me in SPR. Perhaps it was the contrast of all the kitsch with the brilliant Omaha Beach scene I didn't like. Spielberg ruined many great movies by tacking on disturbingly sweet endings (or beginnings)...
BoB, on the other hand, told many different stories in many different styles (the series was done by several directors, and it showed). Interesting that they made such a great series from a mediocre-to-lousy book... Stephen Ambrose's 'fact' book was a rather unpleasant read.

There was another (indy) war movie I really liked - A Midnight Clear. It was a rather different experience as it came from a totally different angle, but it was a quite faithful 'translation' of a novel.

Like Remus I'm a fan of war movies (watched quite some of them at theaters and own a drawer full of war DVDs).
 
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Saw Traitor on the weekend and was favorably impressed, one of the best takes on terrorism I've seen in a while. The plot focused more on suspense than action dispite the marketing.
 
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Yeah, saw it on Youtube a few days ago, I'll definitely go see it.

I had wanted to take the kids to Bond, where I guess it was playing, but they chose to stay at home and have a 'guys night in' with pizza and a movie and video games while my wife was at a jewelry party ... hard to argue that ;)

Yeah, I also watched it online - the kids are interested as well.

Anyone into the Twilight books and upcoming movie? The rest of my crew are reading them (older son is done, wife on #4, older son on #2)
 
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Anyone into the Twilight books and upcoming movie? The rest of my crew are reading them (older son is done, wife on #4, older son on #2)
Mrs dte is all over it. She's done with #3, but she's been mixing in other books so she doesn't finish the series too quickly. She's trying real hard to get me to take her to the movie on opening night. I'm doing my best to shoot that down.
 
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