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

Yeah, a little bit too much of whoever the female lead was running around in her underwear, but other than that, it worked really well in a Hush Hush Sweet Charlotte meets White Zombie kind of way. ;)
 
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Enchanted
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Normally i won't watch movies made by Disney; but i saw Enchanted last week. A New York divorce lawyer meets a princess from far far away land with story shouting on "return to innocence" and believe in love!. Not really my cup of coffee, but good for family week end enjoyment & pretty watchable.

Bee Movie
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Not that good and entertaining compare to when i'm watching The Incredibles, Shrek 3, etc. The best part is the blood sucking lawyer joke at the end of movie! LOL...
 
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@mags - Nope never did Hangover Square, but from what I'm reading about it, the film sounds like something that I'd enjoy.

Skeleton Key was cool, and I didnt mind watching Kate Hudson running around in her undies.

Conan the Destroyer, however, is another story. Horrible film in my opinon
Partly why I loathe it so, is that I got the two disc set when it came out and watched the first one and it back to back. The magic of the first film made the shortcomings and trite idiocy of the second almost unbearable. Conan the Barbarian" (directed by John Milius) would make Howard happy.

Arnie, Sandahl Bergman, James Earl Jones as Thulsa Doom.... the guys that played subotai and mako - awesome performances all. We are along on some quest for vengeance, one man's blood feud, yet it broadens to an epic quest which will determine the fate of all. Yet you almost dont feel for the big lug as much as you do for those who care for him, it's a suprisingly emotional film at times. It's also beautifully shot film, the landscapes, sets, costumes, etc are superb. It's a dark adventure tale with lots of good battle sequences and such, and some cool and well-realized supernatural creatures and beings. It was also very D&D-like, with the different archetypical "classes" of the main characters, it made for a diverse cast. I think it's one of the great films to come out of the 80's, purrrsonally.

That's what made "The Destroyer" such a damn letdown! Horrible casting, with even real world irony - of all people, who the hell cast Wilt Chamberlain in charge of protecting a beautiful young woman's chastity? Good Lord of the Tigers!
*gazes heavenward dramatically*

And that freak Grace Jones, one of the only things from the 80's Ive truly tried to forget. I love the 80's, but when it comes to her - all Ive got to say is Gag me with a ginsu!

Beside the terrible cast of the film, it went down the road of beating us over the head with terribly annoying constant "comedy relief sidekick" (Malak the theif) who is anything but funny in this film. He grates on you like a Jerry Lewis wannabe. The fight scenes were terrible, the choreography clumsy, as Arnie whipping around his sword all ham-fistedly with some idiotic look on his face.. it's embarassing!

None of the dread or emotion at all really of the first one, no epic scale, youre on a treasure hunt. Totally cheesy effects and laughable supernatural creatures and such. Dont look now, it's time to fight some dude in a plastic halloween mask! Dont do it mags, watch the first one instead!
 
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I've got the back-to-back edition of the Conans, and like Sammy, I have no trouble identifying the A-side and the B-side. In fact, when you mentioned, "Destroyer", I sat for a few minutes trying to remember the plot of that one and came up empty. I kept drifting back to scenes from the first one. I guess I don't have open dislike for "Destroyer" like Sammy, but it appears I found it literally forgettable.

Took the Mrs to "The Mist" last night. Fairly good movie. The ending was a bit of a surprise to me (I didn't think Hollywood would approve one particular event), but it probably shouldn't have been, given that this is a Steven King story. The monster effects were a little cheap for a big budget flick (the spiders in particular looked decidedly plastic), but it wasn't so bad as to be a distraction. To be honest, I was hoping they'd play this a little more "Hitckcock" and not show the monsters so early, but I'm not sure how that could be done.
 
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It's almost a trademark for Stephen King special effects to be god-awful cheesy. I don't know how the movies manage to work so well around the zippered suits and bulging eyeballs, but somehow they corkscrew into your brain like a parasitic worm. Not seen the Mist--have to check it out.
Re: Conan--thanks for the warnoff--I had no idea it was so terrible--it's been years since I've seen either one. I know the original is one of my favorites, but I've seen it twenty times--wanted to catch one a little fresher, but the mention of Grace Jones brought it all back to me.....*holds up cross* back--back I say. I'll hop over and change my queue before it's too late.

Edit: @ dte: Is this the same Mist that's been on TV? I seem to remember the grocery store scene.
 
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Watched Goya's Ghosts, Like Minds, and Troy (again, it was on TV and there is really nothing to do in this crap town). The Goya movie is a solid costume drama by Milos Forman, a type of movie the both my gf and I enjoy. 4/5. Like Minds was a bit of a gamble, an English thriller about some very disturbed public school kids. Amusing but with a bit of a budget feel to it. 3/5.

Troy is like many other "epic" Hollywood movies with large battle scenes. You are left with a feeling that "there could have been so much more to this". Being an anally retentive history geek I also find it very annoying that the siege of Troy is shortened from 10 years to 3+12 days. I can understand cutting out gods and such, but having such a short siege doesnt make sense.
 
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Being an anally retentive history geek I also find it very annoying that the siege of Troy is shortened from 10 years to 3+12 days. I can understand cutting out gods and such, but having such a short siege doesnt make sense.




I didn't think it was a big deal considering that Troy isn't based on real history to begin with.
 
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Just saw Beowulf w/ some friends and liked it for the most part, tho being a gamer I cant help but feel like I just sat thru a 2 hr cutscene.

Favorite scene was Beowulfs naked fight vs Grendel in the hall.
 
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I didn't think it was a big deal considering that Troy isn't based on real history to begin with.

You have a point, but a) the movie sort of pretends to present a plausible "what really happened behind the legend" scenario, and b) a two week siege (not that there even is a siege in the movie) is just ridiculous:p
 
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RE: Beowulf

Yep, saw the 3D version w/ glasses and all.

It was quite different from the 3D movies Ive seen in the past. You know, they basically throw a few things at the screen now and then in the 3D's of yore, making it not even really worth it. This was totally different, everything was shot with foreground so there was tremendous depth to the entire film. I thought it was cool, I wonder what kinda home release theyre going to do.

If youre going to see this one, make sure you see it in 3D!
 
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Just saw Beowulf tonight. Ye gods it was bad, but I enjoyed the heck out of it. It totally appealed to the RPGer in me. The animation was incredibly uneven, the dialogue dreadful and some situations utterly absurd when considered on a literal level, but still, I had fun. I saw the 3D version as well.
I don't know what Neil Gaiman was thinking when he wrote that script, he's a hell of a lot better than that. There were moments where it was clearly Gaiman shining through, but I suspect there was a ton of producer/studio level interfering going on with this. And what was with the constantly strategically-placed items blocking Beowulf's naughty bits, and the gold "paint" blocking Grendel's mother's bits? It's ok for brutal violent to abound, to have people ripped in two, heads eaten, hearts ripped out, but heaven forbid kids might see naughty bits!

All in all, my major real gripe was the huge animation inconsistancies. Scaling was terribly done, and detail ranged from really impressive to glaringly bland and half-finished looking. Seemed pretty clear the animation team was huge and extremely varied in levels of capability, experience and committment. But there was some gorgeously done stuff, particularly the landscape scenes.

Had this been a real live-action movie with a serious, intact script, I believe it would have been a lot stronger.

Oh, and I totally identify with Grendel. He wasn't a terrible monster, he just had damned noisy neighbours who wouldn't keep it down! I can't blame him for killing a few of them.
 
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Aye, we were rolling at the conveniently-placed blocks on Beo's schlong.

and your right, Grendel did have a legitimate gripe there, Hell knows Ive wanted to kick thru a wall and storm a noisy neighbor's place before !
 
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Aye, we were rolling at the conveniently-placed blocks on Beo's schlong.

It was right out of Austin Powers. Once would've been ok but it just kept going and going.

and your right, Grendel did have a legitimate gripe there, Hell knows Ive wanted to kick thru a wall and storm a noisy neighbor's place before !

Absolutely.
Interestingly, I've always found Grendel a sympathetic character, and this interpretation was really no different at all in that regard. That viewpoint though is probably the result of looking at the story and the character in a modern perspective, however.

This movie had nothing on Gunnarsson's Beowulf & Grendel movie from a year or two back.
 
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It was right out of Austin Powers.

It is much older than that ... they had those things in Monty Python, and other 70's comedies I can't specifically recall ... I don't know the actual origin though ...

I watched Blazing Saddles on AMC's DVD TV last night ... brilliant stuff, still makes me laugh out loud to the point of waking my wife up ... and the extra info at the bottom of the screen was really nice as well.
 
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Oh I know it's older than that by a considerable degree, but it was most recent in memory. Which I suppose made it all the more absurd.

And Blazing Saddles is an absolute classic.
 
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Oh I know it's older than that by a considerable degree, but it was most recent in memory. Which I suppose made it all the more absurd.

True - that is the real impact ... if people are watching a serious movie and are getting stuff that reminds them of a farce then the entire impact is lost ...
 
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That wasn't half as bad as the fight scene in Borat. :lol:

Which is exactly the other movie sequence I was thinking about during the Beowulf-Grendel fight in the mead hall.
 
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Friend turned me on to this trailer, this ones definitely on my list!

Machine Girl

mg.jpg
 
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