Movies you've just watched

[Lord Satori]

I saw that one as well and I agree. Though I find it strange that there's such a large gap between the first part and the second (which still isn't out). Maybe it just feels like it came out a long time ago when it's more recent?

[Shepardus]

I saw that one as well and I agree. Though I find it strange that there's such a large gap between the first part and the second (which still isn't out). Maybe it just feels like it came out a long time ago when it's more recent?

Mockingjay Part 1 came out in November 2014, Part 2 is scheduled for November 2015, so it really hasn't been that long. (Catching Fire was November 2013, the first film was March 2012)

[Lord Satori]

Ah, that makes sense. A lot more has happened in my life this year than the previous couple years, so that's probably the reason. I thought maybe they were set back because the guy who played Snow died or something.

[Ixmucane2]

Oculus

A team of brother (just out of psychiatric hospital) and sister (ready for revenge after years of preparation and anticipation) return to their old home to fight an unusual supernatural enemy (a haunted, and apparently very smart and resourceful, antique mirror) for the second time after the tragedy that ruined their youth. Off the scale on the natural selection meter, but neither character is particularly sane...

It's a nicely focused supernatural horror story about overwhelming hallucinations and illusions. Editing, as could be expected, alternates the current deliberate confrontation and the tragedy of ten years before, but conventional flashbacks are gradually replaced by the two characters losing themselves into remembrances (a very dangerous activity in this context), and even seeing old manifestations as if they were real. The very plausible illusions the mirror puts into the minds of the characters also project substantial doubts on everything they remember, as underlined by their discussions about what really happened.

Good actors and photography, unremarkable noisy and austere electronic music.

Despite the rather conclusive ending, too much remains unexplained and unresolved; maybe a sequel or prequel was planned.

[Skykid]

That's because whenever you see a movie you don't like, everything even remotely decent about it gets completely eclipsed in your mind by everything that was bad.

That makes absolutely no sense. How can you anyone watch something and ignore everything bad in light of anything that happens to be remotely decent lol.

I have no idea why you completely sidestepped the question though. You said San Andreas has a "surprisingly good narrative". I asked you where.

Didn't you ever wonder why you were banned from Off Topic for awhile?

Why would I wonder? I was informed by the site admin that a comment suggesting Pretas thinks before he speaks had been considered unacceptable. I sincerely disagreed, but accepted the decision.

Hunger Games: Mockingjay Pt. 1 4/5

4/5? For serious?

That was the most disappointing, obvious bit of cash grabbing by stretching ten minutes of plot development to feature length I've ever seen. Was like really bad TV.

[emphatic]

22 Jump Street 3/5

Basically a re-hash of the first, with the same narrative, but with new faces and names to the bad guys, and the element of surprise this thing actually could be really funny is lost.

Yes, I liked Hunger Games III so much that I'm giving it a weak 4/5. To me, it's above average.

[Skykid]

Yes, I liked Hunger Games III so much that I'm giving it a weak 4/5. To me, it's above average.

I am amaze.


Neill Blomkamp backtrack incoming

Chappie

Watched this on the plane. Flawed, but much better than Elysium.

Elysium was a horrible mess of a movie, but Chappie surprised me. A lot of the Hollywood present in Elysium has been extracted and binned, leaving a very South African production which is altogether more interesting. Flawed in many areas, it's still kind of interesting and better for its lower budget. Very bleak, hard sci-fi feel, with a very good use of CG and some very interesting styling. The script is a bit poor, the acting is often below par, some of the motives are totally nonsensical and I was hoping Chappie as a character would get more hardcore by the end than he did - but all these things can be gotten past if you just accept it as a sci-fi action film with some intriguing elements.

The biggest failure in this is the use of music. The soundtrack is actually great - very nice choices - but it never stops. Blomkamp for some reason decides to orchestrate every scene in the film, and it often kills the tension. Strange elementary error that's not present in District 9.

One of the most enlightening things I read about the director recently, and before seeing Chappie, is that he actually admitted he "fucked Elyisum up". Prior to this I wasn't sure about his value as a director, but I find it very promising that he can observe and be honest about the failings in his work. Chappie isn't great, but it's definitely cut and paced better, and is a lot more concise than Elysium - even if it does rattle through events a little too fast.

For the complete quote regarding Elyisum:

"I feel like, ultimately, the story is not the right story. I still think the satirical idea of a ring, filled with rich people, hovering above the impoverished Earth, is an awesome idea. I love it so much, I almost want to go back and do it correctly. But I just think the script wasn’t… I just didn’t make a good enough film is ultimately what it is. I feel like I executed all of the stuff that could be executed, like costume and set design and special effects very well. But, ultimately, it was all resting on a somewhat not totally formed skeletal system, so the script just wasn’t there; the story wasn’t fully there."

For this:

"I just didn’t make a good enough film is ultimately what it is."

I'm totally up for giving him another chance with the new Alien movie. I hope he can do something interesting and pray he can keep the producers out of his face.

[Lord Satori]

I have no idea why you completely sidestepped the question though..

Because you are basically a brick wall when it comes to movies. There's no point, and I'm done.

[Skykid]

I have no idea why you completely sidestepped the question though..

Because you are basically a brick wall when it comes to movies. There's no point, and I'm done.

I don't accept that as an excuse. I will consider any viewpoint as long as you have a sound explanation. Unfortunately people rarely seem to make a case for their positive criticism when requested.

In reality I think you just realised you said that a watchable but shitty disposable CG disaster movie had a "surprisingly good narrative" when it was actually only about falling buildings and a burly rescue worker ignoring thousands of his dying countrymen to save his surgery enhanced ex-wife and his improbably surviving daughter.

[JBC]

Has any argument in this thread ever successfully changed someone's mind over a film? I doubt it, so debating really is pointless after one has said their piece.

I think Elysium was great & better than Chappie. Chappie came off like a promo for ICP Africa to me, & was still carried by Sharlto despite him only providing a voice over.

[Satan]

Yolandi let them down, her performance was the weakest of the lot.

[JBC]

True, but she played a more interesting character than heavy hitters Weaver & Jackman. More a script issue than acting I think. They were such generic villains.

[Xyga]

Chappie came off like a promo for ICP Africa to me

That's tough

Anyway yeah I agree Elysium was better than Chappie. Even if average at least it is not betraying it's basic bleak sci-fi theme too much, and villain Sharlto is awesome, when Chappie put the - rather bad - comedic aspect above everything else in a story used and reused in almost every past decade.
As it's trying too hard to be original and funny it steps into ridiculous too often with way too far fetched stuff, even the township aliens in D9 were brought up screen with more subtility and credibility than that.
The ICP idiot white gangstaz going sentimental ? The useless Techno Viking villain stealing film minutes to the real villain ? The 'yo momma' robot ? Come on. It's neither looking like ZA nor like an AI story, and not even a comedy.
Elysium again is also more credible in the sci-fi satire field with it's Zalem-like vs. township/dump-Earth thing, remember the tax-haven 'scandal' was still very much on the news when he made that film, in a way at the time it was on-topic.
Chappie to be better should have put more focus on the dystopian reference of the cyber-police used as an abusive repressive force (which is a rapidly growing concern IRL), instead we only have glimpses of the situation and even see the CEO of the evil company going all nice at the end, wtf ?
It may not be Hollywood shit, but it wipes its feet on this sci-fi theme, and not in a good way as it could have been a good comedy but it turns out as a farce.

[Skykid]

Elyisum is really shit, I have no idea what you guys are talking about. Chappie is definitely flawed, but at least coherent.

Anyway, I agree with the director wholeheartedly on this one: he did fuck Elysium up (nice to hear it from the horse's mouth). Evidently he's more aware than his audience, which bodes well.

[Xyga]

Just saying Elysium is ok as an average/budget sci-fi, nothing great but watchable, I would rank it the same as e.g. Oblivion.
Chappie is less than that, the scenario, dialogue, acting, CGI, and attempts at being funny all fail terribly, it's full of useless and ridiculous moments obviously, it's teen TV production level at best.

To be clear so far I think his only 'good' movie is D9, the rest is forgettable sadly, but Chappie any superior to Elysium ? Lol.

[Ixmucane2]

Ex Machina

At the crossroads between science fiction with interesting ideas and thriller with interesting characters: it does a good job with the philosophical and moral side of AI and robots and with the uncomfortably plausible scenario of a rogue billionaire making experiments alone from the top of his search engine, but it also devotes a lot of time to hinting about lies and hidden plans and building a sense of menace and uncertainty.

Beautiful scenery (both the billionaire's home and the surrounding wilderness; filmed in Norway), good actors, good electronic music used in unpleasantly obtrusive ways.

[MX7]

Completely forgot Chappie existed! Everything I've read sounds awesome so I can't wait.

Watched The World's End last night with a high fever. One of the smuggest, most unpleasantly awful films I've ever say through. Simon Pegg is possibly my least favourite people in the world. Still the central premise was pretty compelling I guess. Just head punchingly poorly executed.

[Satan]

I rather enjoyed the Spike Lee Old Boy *ducks*
I've only seen maybe 5-10 mins of the original at a friend's place years ago. Will check that out now.

[xxx1993]

Mission: Impossible - Rogue Nation was awesome. I was afraid that it might be "disappointing" as early reviews put it, but turns out they were wrong.

[Skykid]

Just saying Elysium is ok as an average/budget sci-fi, nothing great but watchable, I would rank it the same as e.g. Oblivion.
Chappie is less than that, the scenario, dialogue, acting, CGI, and attempts at being funny all fail terribly, it's full of useless and ridiculous moments obviously, it's teen TV production level at best.

To be clear so far I think his only 'good' movie is D9, the rest is forgettable sadly, but Chappie any superior to Elysium ? Lol.

Xyga, thanks for stating your case. Hope it's ok for us to continue the discussion a little.

Firstly, I should start by elaborating on your last point: we're essentially discussing which is the better of two fairly mediocre movies. Neither of these are as good as D9 and both are disappointments in comparison. It's fair to say Blomkamp has failed to live up to expectation thus far.

Regarding Chappie, I've already stated its myriad flaws. The reason why I think it stood stronger than Elysium is because it wasn't weighed down by so many schoolboy film-making errors. Elysium's editing is a horrible, horrible mess - both headache inducing and destructive to all its action sequences. Its actors are miscast and altogether useless, especially that frankly unwatchable spitting, bearded thing that was meant to be some kind of hacker/revolutionist.

Its full of implausibilities, suffers from poor pacing, and the vision of the rich wasn't at all well-defined compared to the at least nicely arranged neighbourhoods of the poverty stricken earth. Jodie Foster couldn't hold her accent together and the ending and happenstances of misplaced melodrama were altogether offensive.

It was simply too poor in too many areas to qualify as watchable. I almost left the theatre, and might have if I hadn't spent far too much money to go in.

Chappie is a much smaller production, in budget, scope and vision. The gangster actors were all useless - only the American had any kind of workable naturalism - and Dev Patel did his usual thing of being amateur theatrical in one scene and passable in another. The plot is thin, the motivations often retarded, the dialogue was bad and the developments often underwhelming. But as a simple story, it still held its components together more cohesively than Elyisum. Chappie as a character at least had a story arc, and the small accompanying cast also were granted some development - which is more than any character in Elyisum. In terms of editing it was far more relaxed, even with Blomkamp's usual urgency and cutting pace - but here you could watch the action sequences without suffering a brain haemorrhage, and because of that Blomkamp's notable stylisation had more room to breathe. It just looked better and had a few worthwhile shots.

Its world was bleak, caustic, industrial and electronic, offset against the poverty of South Africa, and that worked well enough. I didn't really like where they went with the story - I would have preferred Chappie to have had a more meaningful existence, and some of the ludicrous stuff I just needed to accept as comic book fantasy - but I did like the fact he had some kind of soul and you could sympathise with him to a degree. Elysium had zero possibility for character attachment to anyone, whereas this had its CG star and Dev Patel as affable characters you could get behind, and at a push you could at least understand Jackman's beef at being sidelined in his company.

I consider Chappie a more experimental movie, not bound by Hollywood rules of play, while Elysium stuck pretty close to the cliche textbook. For me it felt like foreign cinema and I didn't find myself relating it to Hollywood movies at any point, which was nice. It was custodian of some interesting stylising - some of which is obviously from Blomkamp's TV commercial days - and had a pretty cool soundtrack (mostly) even if it was embarrassingly overused.

So to go back to point one: neither movie is worth writing home about, but I consider Chappie to be a tauter, simpler and more effective movie despite being horribly flawed in many key areas, and it's only in contrast to how shit Elysium is that it even manages the elevation.

[Obiwanshinobi]

CHAPPiE. Having a soft spot for Die Antwoord, I was glad to see them at it, but first of all, what a fairy tale for 30+ (wo)manbabies (I mean it in a good way). Gave me the same strong generational vibe as FM Belfast debut album (something for VHS kids). Playing certain Dreamcast games makes me feel this way, too.

Best thing about CHAPPiE, though, is the just right length and proportions of everything. Feels neither bloated, nor insufficient. Sure, could do many things better, but what's there does the job (tells a story). In stark contrast to Inception (perhaps the most recent feature film I tried watching before) I might add, which spent plenty of stuff telling me a story I couldn't be bothered following.
I liked some of the CHAPPiE's photography very much, too (seems I need to watch other things filmed by Trent Opaloch).

If it really got bad press (only in English speaking countries?), it's like Alien: Resurrection and Freddy Got Fingered in this regard. Also, The Car (1977); what the heck were they expecting?

[BrianC]

I watched Shaun the Sheep movie thanks to an early free showing for this cardholders at the local theater at the mall. I haven't watched the series, but I liked the movie quite a bit. It was very funny with lots of clever sight gags and I like that there was barely any talking in it. It's too bad some of the trailers for it sucked. Minions got the better trailers, but Shaun the Sheep is the much better movie.

[boagman]

I watched Shaun the Sheep movie thanks to an early free showing for this cardholders at the local theater at the mall. I haven't watched the series, but I liked the movie quite a bit. It was very funny with lots of clever sight gags and I like that there was barely any talking in it. It's too bad some of the trailers for it sucked. Minions got the better trailers, but Shaun the Sheep is the much better movie.

Is that by the same people of Wallace & Gromit fame?

[neorichieb1971]

The Descent - Blu ray -

One of Hollywoods proper moments of survival horror. Stands up to the test of time due to the great characters and makeup artists that did the cave creatures which look very similar to the Abbies in Wayward Pines (which is the best TV series I've seen in a long time, well, up until ep6).

I always thought the USA ending was made due to the USA not liking unhappy endings (and it spawned a sequel, a crap one at that). The UK ending is better as it shows there are consequences to making stupid decisions. In the extras the director explains the different endings and it seems the differing endings were more due to ratings from different screenings with different endings before its worldwide release.

The movie works better as a standalone entity so I shall not revisit the sequel. Still gets a 8.5/10 for me and ranks up there with John Carpenters "The Thing". Well recommended.

[Obiwanshinobi]

Just put my hands on what about CHAPPiE bothered me most - depicted world's greater view doesn't look "real" enough, but then I could name far more sumptuous films (Streets of Fire) that also didn't quite do it for me, whereas the likes of Hell Comes to Frogtown did.
At the end of the day I'd put CHAPPiE on the same shelf as Aachi & Ssipak for the sense of fulfillment both gave me. More than mere service, it's the feeling that stuff which rightfully SHOULD happen is happening (this is the most "fairy tale" thing about it). Nothing didactic.

[lilmanjs]

The Face Behind The Mask
I have no clue if Jackie Chan is actually in this, but the box says it, but I got it for the 2 Shaw Bros stars anyways. Decent action in this and a decent story as well. Recommended Wuxia movie even if the print isn't so great.

Mr. Canton And Lady Rose
Even though it goes by tons of different names, This is one of the better Jackie Chan movies. It feels more like a complete movie, and doesn't have too much action in it. One can see how Chan thinks this is his best movie. The Police inspector is my favorite though. Always 2 steps behind.

[Xyga]

Regarding Chappie, I've already stated its myriad flaws. The reason why I think it stood stronger than Elysium is because it wasn't weighed down by so many schoolboy film-making errors.

Yeah I see what you mean, but only if you actually mention it. Put yourself in the skin of someone who's got no eye or knowledge for film making and is only watching casually as he always does with every production; for that person it's still overall an okay sci-fi flick, as the reference website for casual audience opinion says;
"After the heady sci-fi thrills of District 9, Elysium is a bit of a comedown for director Neill Blomkamp, but on its own terms, it delivers just often enough to satisfy." (rottentomatoes)
The problem with Chappie is that even if it's a more competent film for the knowledgeable critic, when you're the average Joe viewer its flaws jump at your face and hit you much harder than Elysium's, again it's because of those many ridiculous things (embarrassing to watch and too far-fetched: movie-kill), when Elysium is just bland/boring and none of its flaws stand out so much that it will insta-kill the movie for the majority of the Joe-audience.

I was thinking maybe Elysium could never have been a better movie even if Blomkamp did his job right, because that story is like old and rinsed and you would need to rewrite it with a fucking mega twist and talent to make it worth.
Chappie is even more of a fossile, but there was more room for intelligent innovation and expression IMHO, as I believe there will always be more to write about robots and AI. Too bad it didn't work this time again.

----

Continuing my missed 80's fantasy/fairy tale film quest with a yawn;
Legend (director's cut - 1st watch, haven't seen the other versions before) -> well... that's some amazing work on the set, makeup, oh the glitter! oh the darkness! it's fucked up but it's got its moments and I bet it could be quite the experience if you're on something. I won't watch it again anyway.
Dragonslayer -> now that was a good surprise, it's a bit tepid and the characters seem bitter at times, but the actual dragon is so cool the fim actually deserves its pretentious title. a mistake maybe was to watch it with the french sub that sounds kind of 'bored'.

[BrianC]

I watched Shaun the Sheep movie thanks to an early free showing for this cardholders at the local theater at the mall. I haven't watched the series, but I liked the movie quite a bit. It was very funny with lots of clever sight gags and I like that there was barely any talking in it. It's too bad some of the trailers for it sucked. Minions got the better trailers, but Shaun the Sheep is the much better movie.

Is that by the same people of Wallace & Gromit fame?

I think Nick Park is an executive producer, but I'm not sure if he was directly involved. Same company, though. He created Shaun the Sheep, though. I think it's actually a spinoff of one of the Wallace and Gromit shorts.

[SuperGrafx]

I watched the 80's Wargames on Netflix.

I always enjoy watching old movies and seeing the computers and tech they used. Fun stuff.

[BrianC]

I watched the 80's Wargames on Netflix.

I always enjoy watching old movies and seeing the computers and tech they used. Fun stuff.

Doh. I have it in my queue, but keep forgetting to watch it. I find it funny when I see older tech in stuff that takes place in the future. Seeing punch cards in Jetsons is hilarious.