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

Choices were surprisingly thin last night, so Mrs dte and I went to see National Treasure 2. As expected, the whole premise comes across as a little tired and their efforts to "up the ante" strain the believeability a little further than they should. It's another fun little romp thru a variety of cool historical venues, but it just doesn't maintain the excellence of the first installment. C+ / B-
 
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Sounds like both dte and Sammy had some disappointments going this weekend--I enjoyed the first National Treasure, but it seemed at points to be trying a little too hard to be an Indy flick, which despite Sean Bean and Nick Cage, it never quite managed--but as a family film, it was still better than most. You've confirmed my doubts about the sequel, dte.

As for us we watched a zombie flick that absolutely achieved every strange goal it set, Slither. This wasn't on the Connoisseur's List, but deserves a place for the Mayor and his creative profanity alone ("That b*tch is hard core!" as the heroine drives a t-post through a zombie's throat being one of his milder remarks.)
Despite spending half the movie cracking up, there was still an element of nastiness and creepiness that worked on several levels. Definitely worth a rental, but perhaps not for the kids.
 
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Slither did actually make the list, but it's a late entry ='.'=

I really enjoyed that one. As I said a few pages back somewhere, it's totally old-school horror for the new era. It's the boiled-down essence of all those old sci-fi/horror small town alien-infestation films. It's hilarious, gross, creepy, and kinda campy, I was very suprised by how much fun I had. When it was over, we were literally cheering, it was great! Well, we were a little drunk at the time, but ....

I dont get that excited about modern horror too much anymore, but this and the Halloween remake really put some lead in my pencil.

What was really cool, and why I keep beating the "old school" drum on this one, is the reliance on tons of great makeup, latex, and karo syrup for a lion's share of the effects work. There's some real awesome cgi, the slugs for example are great, but there's tons of great old-style fx work that really strokes my fur in the right direction.

And the acting is great too! The dialogue was awesome, the whole squid thing when theyre making fun of him, and these hicks theorizing that all this might just be Lyme disease or something had me in stitches!

"If I weren't about to shit in my pants right now, I'd be pretty fuckin' fascinated!"

Look at this page of quotes from the film and try not to laugh!
 
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Ah, should have known you wouldn't miss it. I thought my husband was gonna fall off the couch at times, he was laughing so hard, and the dogs were cringing when I hit the top register with my hilarity. (The lesbo remark, f'rinstance.)

Anyway, great flick. :)
 
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Choices were surprisingly thin last night, so Mrs dte and I went to see National Treasure 2. As expected, the whole premise comes across as a little tired and their efforts to "up the ante" strain the believeability a little further than they should. It's another fun little romp thru a variety of cool historical venues, but it just doesn't maintain the excellence of the first installment. C+ / B-

We liked it a bit better than the original in terms of the action and interplay ... but it was definitely more formulaic ...
 
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... it was definitely more formulaic ...

No doubt about that, especially for experienced movie goers. I never watched the first one and but even then i felt like i had watched tons of similar movie before.

Rebel Without A Cause
================

It was controversial film durig its period; but after all these years, it didn't aged well. Natalie Wood and especially James Dean acted well as troubled young charactersl. The movie means alot more for previous young generation in 1950s than today's...
 
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Watched Ravenous last night on IFC. I've seen it before, but it was worth a second look. Somewhat lackluster "cannibal" movie.

It has a very interesting musical score... with almost, strangely happy music playing during some of the intense scenes.
 
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Saw Rambo 4. Pretty decent action movie. Best part of it was all the gory details. Haven't seen that much blood and limbs flying all over the place in a movie for a long time.

Check out Live Free or Die Hard. ;)

Though actually, it was more flying cars, semi-trucks, bridge supports and elevators, plus Bruce Willis getting bashed with some really painful physical punishment.

We had a 'marriage is compromise' weekend and watched that one and an old (1944) Otto Preminger movie called Laura with Gene Tierney, Dana Andrews and an extremely young Vincent Price as a slimy Southern playboy--probably one of the first chick flicks ever. Excellent movie, though at least imo, and my husband only slept through about 20 minutes of it. ;)
 
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yeah, that's the first time Ive seen Harold and Maude.

I have Ravenous sitting on my counter at home, havent watched it yet, prolly watch it in the next couple days since my friend wants it back
 
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Check out Live Free or Die Hard. ;)

Though actually, it was more flying cars, semi-trucks, bridge supports and elevators, plus Bruce Willis getting bashed with some really painful physical punishment.

I did. Saw that one when it came out in cinemas. Also a decent action movie. But nothing as gory as Rambo 4.

Also saw Death at a Funeral. Loved it. It was a great black humor comedy. Haven't laughed that good in a long time. I really recommend it.
 
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I´ve seen Hitman a few days ago. It was a positive surprise. Good entertainment, solid acting and certainly one of the best game adaptations. It was a good idea to hire a French director. He got the visuals right, Hitman looks good.
 
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Hitman was quite nice. But nothing more than that for me.

Vantage Point
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The film provides quite an entertaining experience. The plot build on several pieces of view-point of a single incident. So as the plot develop further the clearer the story become and more complete, but unfortunately even a nice plot unable to masked a apparently lifeless, simple story of terrorism and plot of assasination. The part near the end kind of disappointing - although it surely more acceptable to most casual movie-goers. Good guys should always win, right?

But at least in term of action, the film did rather well - the car chasing sequences especially one of the best i ever seen. Dennise Quaid looks really intense, unrelenting, crazy (short of foaming at the mouth) in chasing down one of the bad guy. I felt sorry for Matthew Fox (from the Lost) unable to shake Dennis off, who also refuse to die and keep coming back!.
 
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Took the family to Spiderwick Chronicles last night. The Wild Dogs were a bit scared during a few parts, but overall they seemed to have a pretty good time. I thought it was slightly above average, but I'm clearly not the target audience. This show would be the bee's knees for pre-teens--too scary for the little ones and not really enough (story, humor, effects, etc) to keep adults excited. Haven't read the books, so I have no idea how true the movie was.
 
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Took the family to Spiderwick Chronicles last night. The Wild Dogs were a bit scared during a few parts, but overall they seemed to have a pretty good time. I thought it was slightly above average, but I'm clearly not the target audience. This show would be the bee's knees for pre-teens--too scary for the little ones and not really enough (story, humor, effects, etc) to keep adults excited. Haven't read the books, so I have no idea how true the movie was.

We took my son and his crew of 11 friends to this for his birthday last week. My wife and I enjoyed it quite a bit ... but found out in a car with 6 kids just how terrible it was - they were all up in arms that book #4 wasn't even included at all!

Oh well....
 
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Hitman was quite nice. But nothing more than that for me.
Yes, no masterpiece. But compared to all those crappy game license movies it´s quite refreshing to see a better than average action flick with solid production value & acting and an atmosphere at least inspired by the games.
 
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Tears of Kali
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Story on Taylor-Eriksson group, a religious sect by some Europeans in Poona, India during late 1970s and early 1980s. They tried to explore the religious wisdom or whatever, through extreme sex, violence, and maybe drugs. The elements of submission, deep belief, rigid thinking, etc in religion lead to dangerous and bizarre rituals. The film focus on its ex-members in todays' setting - divided into three segments, with some gore and scary moments, including self skinning and scene of cutting off eyelids.

A nice and refreshing taste of horror genre from German. Anyone know the Taylor-Eriksson group is real or not?
 
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