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

Resident Evil: Degeneration

Fan-service mostly. Although I happen to be a fan since I finished the entire series 1-2 years ago. :)
 
Joined
Oct 26, 2006
Messages
6,027
Hotel for Dogs
The kids had a great time and Mrs dte and I didn't get overly bored. Can't ask for much better from a family movie. Formulaic, but it works.

The Uninvited
WOW! Good suspense show and what an ending. Highly recommended.
 
Joined
Oct 18, 2006
Messages
13,533
Location
Illinois, USA
just watched fear and loathing from gilliam with johnny depp for the first time in four plus years. have to say that I noticed a greater prevalence of sexist attitudes than I had in the past and hunter s. says quite a number of questionable racially motivated comments. Not really sure how much of that is piss take but a combination of those things made it more difficult for me to appreciate as I had before.

still, the visuals have kept up and the criterion dust off looks great especially on a nice large flat television. perfect for that wide angle lens gilliam seems to adore.

I feel like the movie was better paced when it started than by the time it was finished.
 
Joined
Feb 1, 2007
Messages
30
Most Asian most likely never noticed the things you mentioned such as the overacting. I am not very sure about the reason but these could be related to cultural characteristic of Asian movie-making, ways of carrying a character by actor/actress and expectation of audience.

Before i exposed to Hollywood stuff almost two decades ago i thought those movies were awesome. Issues of over-dramatic, excessive amount of deus ex machina used by filmmaker, or the over-acting hardly ever noticed. Everyone actually expecting those elements and liked them. Many movies and TV series in Hong kong and Taiwan follow very formulaic plot-structure, story-telling and pretty same movie-acting style. I noticed Japanese movies and TV series contain over-acting element as well as in on-stage traditional performance.

But now, i'm accustomed to realism and natural performance as in many western movies. Many of those old classics you mentioned and new movies just doesn't suit my taste anymore. However i also found considerable amount of Chinese/Japanese movies that don't have those elements, mostly serious art house movies. E.g see the earlier films by Zhang Yimou "Ju dou", "raise the red latern", "Red Sorghum", "To Live", "The Road Home", etc; plus films by Ang Lee and couple others from mainland China and Taiwan.

Yes, it's probably a cultural thing. What's strange here is normal there. The "issue" gets strengthened by the sloppy loca though. The typical movie from Asia receives the 2nd lowest loca category. The lowest is called "porno synchro". ;)
And I'm not saying the actors are bad. They're not, but they are working by different standards.
 
Joined
Aug 30, 2006
Messages
7,830
Transporter 3
Pretty good. The typical fast paced chaos, slightly more realistic action than in part 2. Nice popcorn flick. C+

96 Hours aka Taken
Rather short movie, only 90 minutes. 15 minutes intro including one action scene, then Liam Neeson goes Bronson. Daughter gets knidnapped in Paris, ex-CIA man tries to find her. The movie is fast but not frantic, quite brutal (Jason Bourne meets Jack Bauer). Hand made action, realistic shootouts, nice car chases. A really well made action movie with a serious topic (trafficking). Unpretentious, unsentimental, consequent - and Neeson is great. The soft spoken character actor can play a convincing action hero, including oneliners!
I give it an A-. Normally only a B+, but I give it more because the scene in which the daughter gets kidnapped while daddy is on the phone will soon be considered cinema history.

The Dark Knight
Not much to explain. Everybody knows it. Good movie, at least a B.

Iron Man
Good. One of the better superhero movies. Incredibly mainstream. B-.

Hellboy 2
As good as the first.

In Bruges
Interesting and well played. Hard to describe. Killers in midlife crysis after a failed job leading to a dead child. They are told to go to Bruges and wait. Spend some time, relax, get your head clear. Then a little violent action follows. Definitely worth watching. B.

In China they eat Dogs and Old Men in New Cars
A very successful Danish(!) Tarantino clone and its prequel. Very funny and totally not PC. :greengrin: Both are completely unpredictable. Especially the ending of Dogs is remarkably strange.
Both very entertaining if you like this type of movie and are open to foreign flavour. B.

Lucky Number Slevin
Also gangster comedy stuff. Pretty violent, fast paced and quite surprising. Good entertainment, but you can only watch it once. B.

Ghost Dog - The Way of the Samurai
Jim Jarmush is a genious. If you've never seen one of his movies start with this one. It's very entertaining. Forest Whitaker plays a black samurai working for the Italian mafia. His best friend is an ice cream seller who only speaks French. The mafia boss (played by the great Henry Silva) orders Ghost Dog be killed after a job.
A weird, calm, careful, funny, serious and entertaining movie about loyalty, friendship and fate. Highly recommended. A+.
 
Joined
Aug 30, 2006
Messages
7,830
We finally started doing some more Netflix 'Watch Instantly' this weekend ... looks at least as good as a DVD with HDMI and a high-speed connection ...

The Invisible

Spirit of a kid who is beaten and left for dead wakes up and has to solve his own mystery ... more or less. It actually worked pretty well until the last ~30 minutes. At that point stuff stopped making sense and they asked way too much of the audience. And it was dragging. Decently entertaining but not really compelling.

Dan In Real Life
Steve Carrell is very sympathetic as a widowed dad of three girls struggling to find his way in a very oppressive family. There was fun and laughs but more sadness and touching moments than I expected. I expected little but it ended up pretty good!
 
Joined
Oct 18, 2006
Messages
14,912
Coraline
Not sure how they made this one. It looks like clay-mation, but I'm pretty sure it's all computer graphics. Anyway, the artwork is very impressive. The story is interesting enough to keep adults awake but simple enough for kids to follow. Overall, a fun time. Definite rental, and probable theatre visit as the artwork is very impressive on the big screen. Content warning: There's a reason this one gets a PG rating. 2 of the side characters are retired porn stars and they've got a scene where they are very scantily clad and doing some suggestive dancing. It fits the script very well, so it's not a gratuitous thing in any way, but it got the Protective Daddy alarm ringing. The Wild Dogs laughed it off about the same as they would a fart joke, but still...
 
Joined
Oct 18, 2006
Messages
13,533
Location
Illinois, USA
i the book, which i finished a few days ago, they were just aged stage actors who possiblely could have been burlesque but i surely didn't garner that from the book. did they actually say porn stars in the movie...that's strange?
 
Joined
Oct 26, 2006
Messages
1,386
Location
California
dte - how is the scare / darkness factor? My younger son wants to see it on his birthday, but is a bit concerned. He gets creeped out fairly easily even though he's turning 11.
 
Joined
Oct 18, 2006
Messages
14,912
Madagascar 2. Love the penguins :D.
 
Joined
Aug 31, 2006
Messages
3,754
i the book, which i finished a few days ago, they were just aged stage actors who possiblely could have been burlesque but i surely didn't garner that from the book. did they actually say porn stars in the movie...that's strange?
They showed some old movie posters and the titles of those shows were beyond burlesque (although it wouldn't register with kids). Given the time period, stag film stars probably would be more appropriate.
 
Joined
Oct 18, 2006
Messages
13,533
Location
Illinois, USA
dte - how is the scare / darkness factor? My younger son wants to see it on his birthday, but is a bit concerned. He gets creeped out fairly easily even though he's turning 11.
It's very comparable to "Nightmare Before Christmas" with less blood-n-guts. The twinkies are 8.5 and dealt fine, so your son should be good to go, IMO. I think some of the darkest stuff is "nuanced" in the dialogue to the point where only adults take the full impact.
 
Joined
Oct 18, 2006
Messages
13,533
Location
Illinois, USA
The Mist

In my top 3 of horror movies, and it features the best ending I've ever experienced in film.
 
saw coraline yesterday, and my wife and i loved it. the only other true 3d movie i've seen was captain eo 2 decades ago. great film though i would never take a kid under 10-12 to see it myself. my only 'beef' with the movie was the boy character added to the movie not in the book. it would have been fine had they just used him as it probably helps in making the movie more watchable for boys, however, due to said characters impact on the outcome of the movie i think it sends a less powerful message to girls. anyhow its a splendid movie which is still a must watch even if not in 3d anymore.

and dte, the movie takes place in ashland, oregon (unlike the book) which is known for its shakespeare theatre productions. on the subject of the 2 womens "racy" behaviour, which was even more over the top than i was expecting, it all fit perfectly if you knew that the two ladies who voiced them were dawn french and jennifer saunders who were quite true to their form. you should check out there non animated works as they rarely pull any punches.

oh and what i'm really looking forward to is the animated post apocalyptic movie "9" coming out on 9/9/09--the trailer was one of the best ever! tim burton's producing it as well.
 
Joined
Oct 26, 2006
Messages
1,386
Location
California
We saw Coraline for my younger son's birthday on Friday, and he really enjoyed it - as did we all.

This weekend we also watched Freedom Writers, which was very moving and nicely done. Also, The Illusionist, which was entertaining ... but we have no desire to ever see again.
 
Joined
Oct 18, 2006
Messages
14,912
Just finished Douglas Sirk's Imitation of Life. Really enjoyed it and I'm really starting to appreciate Sirk's work. The other two I've seen, Written on the Wind and All That Heaven Allows, also encouraged me to come back and give a more critical analysis. Eventually, I imagine, I'd like to use these as subjects of film essays. I think it would produce some really interesting results.

It's also interesting how atypical a film like this would be for me to watch when I first saw All That Heaven Allows. It's seems like most english cinema in general was atypical and it's slightly humorous, I think, that after reading interviews of Rainer Fassbinder I decided to give Sirk a view which totally picqued my curiousity of other english movies I've missed out on - which it turns out is quite a number. Which is great. I'm glad I've started humbling myself to be patient enough to wade through past prejudices and appreciate things as I may perceive them now.
 
Joined
Feb 1, 2007
Messages
30
28 Weeks Later

Had some cool parts, but overall i seemed to not like the overly personal angle that they took w/ the main thread, just seemed too unrealistic. Definitely liked the first one better.
 
Joined
Oct 18, 2006
Messages
5,228
Location
San Diego, Ca
Mulholland Drive

Woah, David Lynch. Woah

Another fever-dream classic from DL, I always feel like I'm on some bizarre drug trip when I watch his films. Unlike the real thing (which tends to terrify me), I like my DL "trips".

Great story which I wont go into any spoilers here, and while I get the main story and most of it, there's plenty hanging around the peripheral view that I still am kinda wondering about. Kinda. We'll watch it again in a year and try and piece together more of the disparate side-characters and elements.

Some truly memorable scenes tho, like this one in the theater. Why is Naomi Watts convulsing? Why are they crying? What's the significance of the blue box? Who the hell is the lady w/ the blue hair? What's the significance of the song (hint: it's the spanish version of Roy Orbinson's "Cryin") You'd have to watch it to understand. So go watch it if youve never seen the movie!
 
Joined
Oct 18, 2006
Messages
5,228
Location
San Diego, Ca
Back
Top Bottom