Movies you've just watched

[KindGrind]

Taken 2

Absolute fucking trash. I've walked out/switched off movies before, this is first time I've ever skimmed through the last twenty minutes just to get to the credits. Should have done it with the whole thing.

I enjoyed the first one, thought the second was utter shit, too. Why was this even made?

The Lone Survivor

I thought the gunfight was well shot, sounded really well and reminded me of Heat, which is obviously a great thing. It did drag on at the end and became very hard to believe, but overall I felt like it was lifelike. It sucks when a hardened soldier gets shot in the arm and dies instantly. It was better handled here... although it also makes you wonder how many RPG hits one can take in a lifetime.

The movie gets quite a bit of flak for its not-very-subtle over the top propaganda. It did bug me a bit, but I felt the movie was still enjoyable. You must always take stories based on or inspired by real events with a grain of salt, something people tend to forget. It's not a war documentary, it's not actual footage. It's entertainment... loosen up. Recommended.

[Mischief Maker]

I enjoyed the first one, thought the second was utter shit, too. Why was this even made?

Because you liked the first one. If they can squeeze one more ticket out of you because of that, do you think they're going to let your feelings get in the way of their money?

[rapoon]

guardians of the galaxy.

can't say much about the acting or story, but chris pratt was hilarious.
star-lord jamming out to late 60's, early 70's hits (primarily R&B/Soul) on his mid-80's walkman won me over.

[emphatic]

guardians of the galaxy.

can't say much about the acting or story, but chris pratt was hilarious.
star-lord jamming out to late 60's, early 70's hits (primarily R&B/Soul) on his mid-80's walkman won me over.

I lol:ed when he picked up a "microphone" to sing into.

[rapoon]

guardians of the galaxy.

can't say much about the acting or story, but chris pratt was hilarious.
star-lord jamming out to late 60's, early 70's hits (primarily R&B/Soul) on his mid-80's walkman won me over.

I lol:ed when he picked up a "microphone" to sing into.

yes! the "microphone" and singing scenes had me rolling.

[Skykid]

I enjoyed the first one, thought the second was utter shit, too. Why was this even made?

Because you liked the first one. If they can squeeze one more ticket out of you because of that, do you think they're going to let your feelings get in the way of their money?

Olivier Megaton is another black stain on this shitmill film industry. The guy has never made anything that's not a bucket of absolute crap and can't edit for his life. He's a big headed former French graffiti artist, about as qualified to direct film as the collected materials of a public toilet.

Transporter 3 is one of the worst things I've ever seen on a screen AND it had Jason Statham in it.

He's worse than Michael Bay.

Lawless

A much better film than that poorly made crap Hillcoat made with The Proposition, although that's not saying much because that was borderline unwatchable.

But this was interesting. The prohibition era is rendered with a sense of realism and it's visually evocative. Casting was good, Guy Pearce and Gary Oldman excellent and Shia LeBeef acceptable. Tom Hardy again, did absolutely nothing. He just has a series of three stony expressions (maybe two) underpinned by an ego and does very little in the way of acting. He's certainly unable to pull off stoic and passive like the Brandos of the world once did, but then that's an entirely different league.

There's an element of uneventfulness about the movie, it's a laid window into the backwater hillbilly bootlegging of 1920s America that burns slow and simple, but also very violent with its fair share of plot movement. Nick Cave's music is initially fresh, but he has too much airtime in the film, like he wrote an enormous score for a small film and Hillcoat tried to find spots to shoehorn it all in so as not to offend him. To that end it starts to become intrusive and slightly irritating after a while.

Worth a watch if the material interests you.

[EmperorIng]

Ha ha. I thought Colombiana was OK, but that being the only film of his I've really seen, I did not like the editing in that film (I said at the time "it's like it's directed by a European and edited by an American!"). A decent grindhouse film with a very attractive lead actress.

[Skykid]

Ha ha. I thought Colombiana was OK, but that being the only film of his I've really seen, I did not like the editing in that film (I said at the time "it's like it's directed by a European and edited by an American!"). A decent grindhouse film with a very attractive lead actress.

I... don't know what to say. I can't believe you'd say that, not because Colombiana is a fucking horrible piece of shit thing through and through but because I respect you for having above average film taste and we agree in many cases (although admittedly not all, but that's ok.)

Were you on drugs/alcohol during the screening? That movie is dire.

My synopsis from last year:

Colombiana

Hello cliche!

Colombian child sees family murdered by drug lords, grows up with aspirations of being an assassin, goes back and kills men.

Painful in every respect. The chick wasn't even hot, so there's a problem right there, since the rest of the movie is paint by numbers bullshit with so little brain it doesn't even qualify as a no-brainer, somehow.

- Men free running over favela rooftops: check
- Girl taken in by kindly old bastard who eventually gets killed prompting her revenge: check
- Scripting written by a two-year old who then got paid $500k for the job: check
- Utterly ridiculous stealth events that have no basis in reality at all (oh, handy there's a spoon here/and the guy should be taking a piss right about.../Of course I know the entire layout of this person's home including the loose panel in the shark tank/Having the exact van stolen containing dogs you trained for 15 years and then being called totally expectedly by the driver and giving an 'eat' command to dogs that can hear mobile phone speakers over the noise of traffic etc etc): check
- Black police chief played by an English guy with a terribad American accent: check
- Computer programs from God that do instantaneous wonderful things like nose recognition from blurry pictures of half-faces, entirely without prompting: check
- Non-existent plotting: check
- Fight scenes that are cut too quick to see what's happening: check
- A complete load of fucking bullshit from start to finish that cost enough money to save several starving villages in 3rd world countries: check

TL:DR, Don't watch this.

[drauch]

grindhouse film

I don't think these exist anymore.

[Kaiser]

I enjoyed the first one, thought the second was utter shit, too. Why was this even made?

Because you liked the first one. If they can squeeze one more ticket out of you because of that, do you think they're going to let your feelings get in the way of their money?

Olivier Megaton is another black stain on this shitmill film industry. The guy has never made anything that's not a bucket of absolute crap and can't edit for his life. He's a big headed former French graffiti artist, about as qualified to direct film as the collected materials of a public toilet.

Still, there was so much wrong about Taken 2 that it's just insane, for those who don't get why it's bad, here's a short angry summary of what went wrong:

- Pretty much no action scenes and if those happen, they are terrible, uninteresting or end in anti-climatic ways ESPECIALLY the last shoot out.
- Literally half of the fucking film has no action whatsoever and it's all about OH HEY WE ARE FAMILY AND WE SPEND TIME and OH HEY MY FAMILY'S KIDNAPPED OH SHIT. You could cut those fucking first 60 minutes out and it would make it only 10% more bearable
- The pacing is shit, it's related to the previous point but it applies to entire movie
- The writing's SOME OF the worst ever as well "YOU KILLED THE GUY IN TAKEN 1 IF YOU KILL ME, SOMEONE ELSE IN TAKEN 3 WHICH HAS BEEN ANNOUNCED FOR 2015 WILL COME FOR YOU TOO" basically. Not even Liam Neeson could save this shit.
- It's visually not pleasing, the setting is so badly used it comes off as generic as Call of Wankers games or any modern military trope dog shit in games/movies today.
- The villain is one of the worst ever. IF not the worst action movie villain.

If you still don't understand it dear reader who's not aware of why this movie is bad, you simply, are part of the problem, of Hollywood making shitty sequels, because you like them. And you buy tickets, you go see them. Just stop.

[null1024]

- Pretty much no action scenes and if those happen, they are terrible, uninteresting or end in anti-climatic ways ESPECIALLY the last shoot out.
- Literally half of the fucking film has no action whatsoever and it's all about OH HEY WE ARE FAMILY AND WE SPEND TIME and OH HEY MY FAMILY'S KIDNAPPED OH SHIT. You could cut those fucking first 60 minutes out and it would make it only 10% more bearable

God damn it.

how do you manage to screw this up
The whole point of watching Taken is that it's supposed to be full of action.

That being said, Taken never struck me as the kind of movie that had any reason whatsoever to have a sequel. Pretty much avoided the 2nd film because of that, but this is pretty embarrassing.

[Skykid]

how do you manage to screw this up.

Olivier Megaton.

Motherfucker's now on my official hit list.

[EmperorIng]

Were you on drugs/alcohol during the screening?

No but I was roped into watching it with my little sister and her boyfriend. Guy is nice enough but man does he have bad taste (selecting Mel Gibson's The Beaver to watch for movie night? Ughhh). It wasn't by choice; I had expressed interest in seeing Die Hard but was overruled when the guy said "[Ing] would rather watch something you haven't seen before." Would have preferred Die Hard, again!

I would definitely disagree with your assessment in the fact that it was a "no-brainer." No brains involved in the making of the movie - you're spot on with the bullet-point criticisms (the shark tank bit was really retarded - you could hear the director patting himself on the back for setting that one up). I have low, low standards for these types of movies, and the 90 minutes came and went and I was not disgusted. Ergo, for a movie I had no desire to see, it was OK!

grindhouse film

I don't think these exist anymore.

Maybe I should have used "exploitation"? I got that type of vibe.

A real grindhouse would have had some sadistic rape-torture scene with lots of gore effects thrown in, I suppose. Bring in the Italians!

Olivier Megaton.

I don't know if this is a fake name or not but I have thought since the beginning that it sounds lame. Might as well call himself Megatron and have some dignity.

[Skykid]

It's a fake name. The pretentious talentless cock uses Megaton because he was born on the 20th anniversary of the Hiroshima bombing - even though it wasn't a megaton bomb that was used. As a graf artist that stuff slides, as a film director it's just idiotic and in poor taste.

I can't talk to you anymore about Colombiana because I like you enough not to want to offend you. That probably explains just how atrociously bad I thought it was.

[drauch]

grindhouse film

I don't think these exist anymore.

Maybe I should have used "exploitation"? I got that type of vibe.

A real grindhouse would have had some sadistic rape-torture scene with lots of gore effects thrown in, I suppose. Bring in the Italians!

Exploitation? Fine, yeah, but grindhouse has become such a misused buzzword in genre-film film making that tries to feebly recreate an era a film that just can't exist anymore. You don't have shitty fleapit theaters that just run sleazy films made under dubious means anymore. Modern films that get this sort of tagline are too polished. You don't need gore and torture, because that was few and far between. The main aspect is the sleaze. I'm talking prostitution, women's prisons, heroin, pimps, the Phillipines, the streets of New York, back alleys, the jungles of "Vietnam," etc. Sure, the Italian horror and shock stuff fits in there, but they all had the sleazy, shoestring budget like the rest and the anything goes, fuck you style of film making. I dunno, you're just not going to see a dead serious movie about lesbian nuns (or nuns getting their face burned off by a blowtorch), sadistic dwarves that inject street hussies with heroin and store them in an attic for young studs to bone, or two dudes fucking in a jungle while a chick sucks off a donkey and someone gets chainsawed later on. You've got all that stupid, modern torture, fake snuff bullshit that circulates in the horror crowd, with each director trying to outdo the other with FX, and while revolting, it's nothing more than fake snuff filmed in DV. Ginger, Ilsa, and Olga, all those diehard cops, revolting slaves, pissed off war veterans, and biker gangs have all been replaced with fucking tornadoes full of sharks, planes full of snakes, hollywood prettyboys out to get nazis, and jackoffs that talk a mile a minute about movies they're imitating. I dunno, you're never going to feel like you need to take a shower after some polished crap on netflix from some dude that saw Riki-Oh thanks to Conan O'Brien. (direct hateful reference to that Hobo with a Shotgun douchebag.)

SORRY, I'm a hateful fuck that just loves sleaze and explosions and nasty jungles with malaria.

[EmperorIng]

I appreciate the courtesy, Skykid.

@drauch: sorry to offend. I hope to make up for it with this clip from Godfrey Ho's women-prison masterpiece, Commando Fury:
may or may not contain crocodiles
It's a slow build, but at least pay attention around 1:25.

"Commando Fury: Merciless torture is used in an attempt to get people to talk." About as good a tagline as any.

[jonny5]

Hey, Hobo with a Shotgun was great fun!

[Obiwanshinobi]

SORRY, I'm a hateful fuck that just loves sleaze and explosions and nasty jungles with malaria.

Then you need to watch Sarnie Żniwo.

[MOSQUITO FIGHTER]

Watched World War Z. It kind of sucked. Most of the movie was about just transporting Brad Pitt to different locations. The Zombie action was barely there until the end of the movie and that wasn't very interesting to me.

[drauch]

I appreciate the courtesy, Skykid.

@drauch: sorry to offend. I hope to make up for it with this clip from Godfrey Ho's women-prison masterpiece, Commando Fury:
may or may not contain crocodiles
It's a slow build, but at least pay attention around 1:25.

"Commando Fury: Merciless torture is used in an attempt to get people to talk." About as good a tagline as any.

APOLOGY ACCEPTED

[KindGrind]

The Wolf of Wall Street

For some reason I had delayed watching this - heard people complaining about the movie's length, and just bad word of mouth from people around me. Glad I sat down and watched this.

I enjoyed every second of it, and it was over before I knew it despite it clocking at roughly 180 minutes. Di Caprio was excellent here, much like in all his recent efforts. If anything I'd say I wasn't really surprised by his acting - I have seen it all from him before. It felt like a mix of the xrazy looks of Shutter Island, the holier than thou attitude of Gatsby, and the convincing tone he used in Inception.

I loved that the movie took its time with little details - the conversations were really well written. I loved when they were discussing the midget and all he could do, the eye contact theory, and how they wanted to look like they were working on something serious but were not chatting about something absolutely trivial. I was a bit bugged by the secondary character's teeth, too, but was glad the narrator mentioned it was weird for him as well. It would probably have bugged me even more if he hadn't said anything about it. All in all, an excellent ride.

Highly recommended.

[Acid King]

Blue Ruin

I'd been waiting to see this for awhile now and it did not disappoint. It's a simple everyman-takes-revenge story, the kind that hollywood would turn into a 2 hour long explosionary action fest starring Jason Statham, done with an understated tone and a palpable road-to-nowhere sense of dread. It's a true noir story. Fatalistic as hell, nothing good happens, there are no silver linings, no happy endings, just a man taking up the mantle of revenge and driving himself in to the fucking ground. The focus in where it should be, the narrative is tight, the violence is stark and brutal, and the main character is depicted with the right amount of conflict and determination. It's certainly the best revenge movie I've seen in a long while.

[Skykid]

^ That sounds great. In a similar vein to Dead Mans Shoes.

I do like my revenge movies, will check it out.

[Acid King]

One of the things I liked about it was how the main character is like the anti-Neeson. He can't fight, he can't shoot, he's out of shape, but he just feels like this is something he has to do no matter how poorly or awkwardly he has to do it. The character and the whole movie are the polar opposites of the over the top revenge movie starring the handsome guy who just happens to be an ex-CIATFBI Marine super soldier. I'll have to check out Dead Mans Shoes.

[Skykid]

Ok definitely in. Check out Dead Man's Shoes, it's a seriously arresting revenge tale, but it's bleak, be warned.

[KindGrind]

AK's analysis of Blue Ruin is spot on.

I really liked this movie, for the exact same reasons. It accomplishes what other revenge movies tried to do but failed to do real well. It's not flashy, but very effective. Character motivations are often very one-dimensional in revenge flicks. Not here.

About revenge flicks, Lady Vengeance remains in a class apart for me. Poetry in motion for me.

[emphatic]

About revenge flicks, Lady Vengeance remains in a class apart for me. Poetry in motion for me.

It's beautiful and horrible.

[rapoon]

good review AK: short, accurate, to the point...

watching big bad wolves tonight. anyone seen it?

[Vexorg]

Just watched the Adam West Batman movie again this weekend. Just as campy as ever. It's hard to top a gratuitous exploding shark in the first ten minutes for sheer WTFery, but this movie tries several times. It looks like the series is getting a complete DVD and Blu-Ray release in November too. Kind of expensive, but I might end up picking it up anyway. The Miss Kitka date scene goes on way too long, but I suspect that they were aiming this thing squarely at twelve-year-olds when it came out, so it kind of makes sense.

[Mortificator]

One of the things I liked about it was how the main character is like the anti-Neeson. He can't fight, he can't shoot, he's out of shape, but he just feels like this is something he has to do no matter how poorly or awkwardly he has to do it. The character and the whole movie are the polar opposites of the over the top revenge movie starring the handsome guy who just happens to be an ex-CIATFBI Marine super soldier.

This just made my watch list.