Movies you've just watched

[boagman]

Went and saw "The Incredible Burt Wonderstone" tonight. It was...okay, but nothing at *all* that couldn't wait to be watched on video. I'd give it 2-2.5 stars out of four. The stars' talents are pretty underutilized. It's not that you don't laugh, but rather that you realize throughout the thing that you *could be*, and perhaps *should be* laughing more, and that it's the movie's fault.

On the other hand, it's hard to watch Olivia Wilde and not say to yourself, "Man...that is one easy-on-the-eyes human being."

[rapoon]

"The Killing Fields" - it's about the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia and the relationship/bond between an American and Cambodian journalist. very intense and emotional.

[system11]

Hell (2011) - ***

Post apocalyptic film from Germany. Due to an increase in solar activity (thankfully they avoided going with a topical OMG GLOBAL WARMING angle), the temperature one Earth has risen to the point where almost everything has died and exposure to the daylight sun is dangerous. The cinematography and story (despite containing a well worn plot device later on) were engrossing enough that I forgot I was reading subtitles and it seemed as if the characters were actually saying the words in English.

[Moniker]

^ I liked that one, too. Story wasn't anything special - could've been an episode or two of The Walking Dead - but really well-executed.

[lilmanjs]

A Colt Is My Passport. I wasn't sure what to expect from a 1960s yakuza, but this movie somehow did it for me. Not a huge cast nor a big drawn out storyline. But it works. Minimal story and action, but you really get the sense of a yakuza hitman who might just get himself killed if things don't go right. Worth at least 1 watch.

[system11]

Rage of Honor - **

Very 80s ninja cop film, pretty typical revenge story, lots of cheesy synths - I enjoyed it but I wouldn't see it again.

[Ixmucane2]

Sinister

Sold as an horror film, but actually a bad thriller. I blame an unsuitable team of director and writers for losing control of the rest of the team and not knowing what their priorities should have been.

Ethan Hawke is a writer, specialized in true-crime nonfiction. For inspiration, he moves with wife and two children into the house (somewhere in Pennsylvania) where a family was hung from a tree in the garden, except for a missing little girl. There are already serious problems at this point:

• A completely pointless tension with his wife, both over money (completely bogus, they could live for months just by selling a couple of gigantic carpets the art director slipped in)
  and over neglecting children for his Art (no evidence at all), which later justifies a number of dramatic scenes which the actors certainly liked but which do not advance the story at all.
• On a smaller scale, completely pointless trouble with the children: the boy is generally difficult and afflicted by harmless sleepwalking, while the girl wants to go "home" (to the old, not yet sold house).
• Slightly sinister police: the old sheriff dislikes the protagonist and wants him to leave, the young deputy is a fanboy who wants to help.
• Murky, lighting-challenged interiors. A good photography job, but if a character cannot reach for the light switch when he hears a noise in the middle of the night the character is an idiot. A couple of scenes (an actual blackout in which an iPhone serves as an effective lamp, and the only significant instance of turning on the light in the office) come off as possible self-parodies.

The writer discovers a box of Super8 films with a projector in the attic. One of them contains the hanging of the family in that very house, the others contain other family massacres. Now idiocy runs rampant:

• Our hero, a crime specialist, familiar with all sorts of violence, is horribly shaken by the sight of four hanged people and he starts drinking a lot. Both his wife and the friendly deputy assume it's a normal reaction to stress, not alcoholism.
• Our hero stops a film to look at an interesting frame, causing the predictable meltdown and fire.
• Our hero, a veteran nonfiction writer, seems unable to do any research. Too busy drinking and despairing, he relies on deputy so-and-so to discover trivial information, like the identity of the murdered families and the links and similarities between the cases.

As the average watcher starts to form theories about the murderer and about possible hallucinations, secrets, plot twists and other standard expectations, the weird events are heavy-handedly stated as real and the murderer is rather easily identified as a contrived supernatural threat.
For no particular reason (he doesn't even see the ghosts) the writer decides to run away: the family returns to their old house, deputy so-and-so and a cheerful occult expert explain the passive writer all the missing pieces (which were already beyond obvious for the audience), but it is too late: the writer and his family are efficiently and suddenly slaughtered, daughter missing, like their predecessors.

Funniest lines (approximated from memory):

Wife: You didn't tell me it happened here!
Husband: It didn't happen here, it happened outside, in the garden!

I'm not claiming they are really fun lines, it's simply a non-fun film in general.

There are some upsides to this film: successfully avoiding certain clichés, sticking to the house setting (including garden), except for a few shots of the family in their car when they go away and of the rather similar old house at the end, making a plausible use of modern technology (after accidentally burning a film, as mentioned, the writer records everything he watches with a camera and examines footage on his computer), avoiding needless CGI special effects (presumably for budget reasons, but with good results).
However, the asinine treatment of characters and story, and the amount of plot holes in such a simple plot (for example, where do the Super 8 movies exactly come from, especially when they reappear after the writer makes a bonfire?), are out of the ordinary.

[Aguraki]

well that was a nice review,wish you didn´t write down the end

[Skykid]

Small apology to boagman (sort of.)

Got dragged at gunpoint to see A Good Day to Die Hard, and I didn't absolutely hate it. I'd never watch it again (or at least, highly unlikely) and it was rife with crap, but it turned out to be a little better than expected. The plot voided itself of any realism after about ten minutes, the car chase was just ludicrous (why do they need insanity to make a good car chase - Vengeance managed to do it better with far less collateral damage) and sadly, Jai Courtney, McClane's son, can't act. He looked the part - a bit on the heavy side tbh - but when it comes to chemistry he's just a blank entity.

The only stuff the movie did okay was McClane, and maybe a couple of bad guys. He's now more military grade soldier than New York cop, such is Hollywood's single brain cell approach to most action movies these days, but he at least had some reasonable one-liners, and the carefree attitude to murder was well on form.

There was a section about 25 minutes from the end, when they really started pushing Michael Kamen's original Die Hard score, the villain suddenly felt like a real Die Hard villain, and there was a big bearded, bear chested Zangief looking Russian strutting about with a CCCP tattoo on his back - and for a moment they had some faithfulness going on. It's just a shame it took over an hour to get there, but it was a pleasant blend nonetheless.

Overall, it is a barrel of shit in film terms, and fairly mediocre in Die Hard terms - but it's not actually unwatchable. It's got the worst, laziest last scene ever, pretty much a shooting off of the foot tonally, but it's still MUCH better than Live Free or Die Hard - much. Were I forced to have to watch either again, it would be this trash instead of that unspeakable thing for kiddies Wiseman shat out last time around.

[boagman]

Small apology to boagman (sort of.)

And we're dead square on in our views of it, I think. This is not a good movie at all...but if you're just sort of in the mood to watch crap blow up and hear some one-liners with other erstwhile generic action movie fodder thrown in, it's going to check that box.

If I ever said it was good, then I apologize, as I don't think it was...but there's no way on earth that it was as close to "unredemptive" as LFODH was. Like you, I was more than amused by Ultra-Stereotypical Russian Bad Dude at the end, and there really weren't any plot devices that you didn't see coming from several miles off. Really: you can see that smoke billowing for miles.

I honestly hope that they're done, here. The horse was dead *long* before LFODH ever came out...all Hollywood is doing now with "Die Hard" is continuing to beat the corpse and see if anything else will fall out.

And how 'bout that last scene, eh? It slices, it dices, it makes julienned bad guys and gets their daughter to make ridiculous decisions! Uncoupling the clasp of his ex-wife's Rolex, this was not.

Glad you didn't want to dress down the manager for this one!

[EmperorIng]

I've never watched the 2nd and 3rd Die Hard movies.

i hear 2 is good, 3 is ok. Is this generally correct?

[drauch]

I've never watched the 2nd and 3rd Die Hard movies.

i hear 2 is good, 3 is ok. Is this generally correct?

That's how I sort of feel. I've got friends that worship the third film, but something tells me it's only because of the inclusion of Samuel L. Jackson. I feel that the second is more action-packed, better writing, better villain, etc. The third is fun, but kind of scarce on action, a terrible villain, and a very abrupt, bland ending.

[boagman]

I've never watched the 2nd and 3rd Die Hard movies.

i hear 2 is good, 3 is ok. Is this generally correct?

Let me be clear: there's the original "Die Hard", and then there's what amounts to a basically unleapable chasm between it and the rest of them. So it'd go something like this: Die Hard, unleapable chasm, Die Hard 2, Die Hard With A Vengeance, A Good Day To Die Hard, massive chasm, Live Free Or Die Hard.

Die Hard 2 has some of the same elements of the original, but loses most all of the depth of the character(s). The McClane/Gruber factor is completely missing, and the writing just isn't there. It's certainly deserving of its position in second place, but as we all know: "Second Place is the First Loser!"

DHWAV really depends on whether you think Jeremy Irons and/or Samuel L. Jackson work. If you do, you'll like it. If you don't, it'll probably annoy you a good bit. Better writing for the bad guy in this one, I suppose, but there's a lot of distraction with the other crap. It feels different from the first two because it's definitely a departure.

Live Free or Die Hard is abhorrent. I *don't care* how sexy you think Maggie Q is or how much a person loves Timothy Olyphant from "Justified". The whole movie, stem-to-stern, is just a terrible piece of Hollywood garbage. Think Pierce Brosnan's final appearance as Bond in "Die Another Day"'s special effects...it's *that bad*.

A Good Day To Die Hard at least functions as a movie. Not a good movie, mind you, but a movie. When it was done, my reaction was basically, "Well, that functioned. At least it wasn't as bad as I thought it might be...and there were some entertaining things about it." Contrast this with, say, "Taken", where I was so ridiculously repulsed that I honestly started to make fun of many aspects of the movie during the credits as they rolled, probably annoying the others around me. Now *that* was a paycheck movie for Neeson if ever one existed. While AGDTDH is a paycheck movie for Willis, it isn't as bad as others, and it's certainly not the worst in the series.


Edit: because I forgot an apostrophe and it bugs me when I do that

[EmperorIng]

I feel somewhat similar about the Lethal Weapon trilogy (yes, I don't count Lethal Weapon 4 at all).

Lethal Weapon > Lethal Weapon 2 > > > > Lethal Weapon 3 > "massive, unleapable chasm" > Lethal Weapon 4

But at the same time, I'm entertained (for the most part) by all three, but the first is an action-masterpiece.

I'm curious because I figure at some point down the road I'll end up buying the Die Hard trilogy (if there exists some convenient trilogy box-set), so I might as well know what I'm getting in to.

[boagman]

I feel somewhat similar about the Lethal Weapon trilogy (yes, I don't count Lethal Weapon 4 at all).

I *despise* LW3. LW4 might be ridiculous in its "You willed me" and Triad garbage, but LW3 is just so, so stupid, plotwise. Completely bereft of any sort of character on the bad guy side. That, and Gibson's SUPER MULLET in LW3 is just beyond the pale. Renee Russo *does not* salvage that movie.

I'm certainly with you on the original (as the best for certain...Gary Busey's Mr. Joshua is certainly his best role) and LW2 being perfectly good. Had they just had the good sense to leave it alone after these, they'd have been good. Then I never would have had to listen to Joe Pesci talk about "Froggy" in LW4. They could have at least had the good grace to let a major character in there die somewhere if they're going to let the series go to pot.

[Skykid]

I've never watched the 2nd and 3rd Die Hard movies.

i hear 2 is good, 3 is ok. Is this generally correct?

FUCK NO. HAVE YOU TAKEN LEAVE OF YOUR SENSES?!

Don't listen to Drauch, he likes Red Sonja!

3 is miles better than 2. 2's not terrible, but it suffers from some off-kilter pacing and it's a bit flat in places. It's the weakest of the original 3.

Die Hard 3's biggest flaw is the last five minutes, but shit, that movie is on fucking fire. It's just absolutely non-stop pure Die Hard goodness from the word go for a full 2+ hours. It's like an out of control train, and the chemistry between Willis and Jackson is absolute perfection for a black and white, love/hate cop relationship material. The script and improv are superb and the set-pieces are just endless. It's riddled with cathartic violence too, I especially love the elevator sequence.

"Anyone get the lottery numbers?"

Unsurprisingly, the root of its goodness stems from the director: Die Hard 1 (Predator etc) John McTiernan back in his rightful position, and having an awesome time. It's also one of the grandest spectacles ever for an action movie, since they actually filmed in real rush hour traffic and shut down enormous New York blocks in the middle of summer to shoot some of its sequences. It's actually great to see McClane in New York (finally) and the theme that he's suffering from a serious hangover while being thrown into the most extreme shit ever is just gold.

As the poster says, "John McClane is about to have a very bad day."

Seriously, with a V is just all out, balls out, from the second that awesome title hits the screen. Relish it, it's probably the last great action movie.

Live Free or Die Hard is abhorrent.

It's Die Hard for widdle beebies.

A Good Day To Die Hard at least functions as a movie.

At a push I could agree with this. I'd like to slap the director in his stupid chops for that sunset end sequence though.

[boagman]

3 is miles better than 2. 2's not terrible, but it suffers from some off-kilter pacing and it's a bit flat in places. It's the weakest of the original 3.

Die Hard 3's biggest flaw is the last five minutes, but shit, that movie is on fucking fire. It's just absolutely non-stop pure Die Hard goodness from the word go for a full 2+ hours. It's like an out of control train, and the chemistry between Willis and Jackson is absolute perfection for a black and white, love/hate cop relationship material. The script and improv are superb and the set-pieces are just endless. It's riddled with cathartic violence too, I especially love the elevator sequence.

I'm not going to argue, here, because I don't have any real problem with someone preferring 3 over 2, all things considered. You do have to admit, though, that the "Odd Couple" effect is entirely subjective with regard to how you happen to feel about the addition of Samuel L. Jackson, and the way he's written. I happen to like him, but going from DH1 and 2's Solo Missions to 3's Buddy System is quite the leap. If you don't happen to *like* the buddy (or even the idea/concept), the movie's in for a world of hurt. Irons' character is definitely the second best bad guy of the series, second to Hans, obviously.

I would also have to agree that McTiernan's reappearance was certainly good for 3. I could be persuaded that 3 is better than 2, but the rest of the sequence is inarguable. First is epically best, fifth is fourth, fourth is unfathomably the worst, and second and third can duke it out for their respective positions.

[boagman]

A Good Day To Die Hard at least functions as a movie.

At a push I could agree with this. I'd like to slap the director in his stupid chops for that sunset end sequence though.

And I'd be right there with you to give him two for flinching. A good movie this was *not*...but neither did it make me angry or pissed off that I'd seen it. It blew stuff up, it had one-liners, it made me laugh a bit, and I happened to like the craziness of the opening car chase sequence, for the sake of the fun of it. That, and the most amusing part of the movie for me was the tail end of the sequence when the large armored vehicle flew spinning off of the overpass, and one dude sitting several rows behind me in the seats couldn't help but let out a "WHOA!" when that happened, which made that moment quite funny for my buddy and me.

Side note, just to be clear: while I liked the car chase, it's nowhere in the same *hemisphere* as the great car chases one might find in Rodin, Bullitt, The Bourne series (especially for the first one, The Bourne Identity), and others. A great car chase is just something that elevates a movie to heights few can hit. AGDTDH's car chase doesn't do this...again: it just functions.

[Squire Grooktook]

(especially for the first one, The Bourne Identity).

Speaking of the Bourne series, what your opinion of the trilogy over all? I saw them all way back, but I feel I was too young and non-discriminating to really judge them effectively.

[Ixmucane2]

well that was a nice review,wish you didn´t write down the end

It was to save you from the temptation of watching it!

Seriously, I didn't consider disclosing tragic end a spoiler because the horror movies in which people escape, or even defeat monsters, necessarily involve a somewhat fair conflict between people and bad stuff; in Sinister, the conflict is so one-sided (an experienced supernatural threat with multiple successful massacres in its record against nobody) that it isn't a true conflict and there's no doubt about the outcome; the final slaughter is the natural consequence of letting Evil run its course undisturbed, not a surprising twist.
It's pretty obvious from about 1/3 of the film, when he has fully demonstrated his utter inability to cope with his situation, that this extraordinarily passive writer is one of the most doomed main characters in the history of B-movies; one wonders how he survived 35-40 years until the beginning of the film.

And I didn't write down what the supernatural threat is, what happens to missing children, and so on; rest assured that real spoilers would be about different things.

[boagman]

(especially for the first one, The Bourne Identity).

Speaking of the Bourne series, what your opinion of the trilogy over all? I saw them all way back, but I feel I was too young and non-discriminating to really judge them effectively.

I'm a big fan of all of the Damon ones...the most recent, non-Damon one? Yeah...that one suffered a *great* deal.

I'd highly recommend that if you're going to watch them again, do go in order, and skip the non-Damon one from last summer. I find them all to be very satisfying watches, with quite well-written scripts. Interesting characters in them.

My major criticism of the series would be the way numbers 2 and 3 (Supremacy and Ultimatum) were shot. It's quite obvious that they changed the nature of how they were filmed in the second and third to handheld "bumpy style" recording, which I find really, really obnoxious. It leads you to not really know as much about what's going on during action sequences as you experience during the first movie. It's not a deal-breaker, but it's certainly noticeable, and not necessarily in a welcome way. I don't *care* if it's the newest way of shooting...it's a mistake, or at the very least, the way they edit them is a mistake.

Still, it's a quibble. If I didn't mention it already, STOP AFTER ULTIMATUM. Just forget that Legacy exists, and you'll be just fine. I wish I could forget that Legacy exists. What a sham.

[Squire Grooktook]

Ah that's good to hear. My recollection was that they were all pretty good.

[boagman]

Ah that's good to hear. My recollection was that they were all pretty good.

All but Legacy are very good in my book.

[Squire Grooktook]

Yeah, I never saw it. In fact, I didn't even know it had been released, as I never followed it figuring it would be bad.

[trap15]

Don't listen to Drauch, he likes Red Sonja!

Laughed IRL

[Aguraki]

+1 to skykid die hard with a vengeance so much better than part 2.
part 2 is beyong horrible it looks like a cartoon and american ninja.
die hard 3 has great picture,experimental camera for that time,plot is good,the tandem willis jackson works really good and it has some epic scenes and good humor.
also opening scene with willis hangover carried in the bronx with the sign on him was epic in contrast to cartoonish number 2 and the clean part 1.
part 1 is obv a win.

[Raytrace]

I saw the Royal T's in the theater ages ago. I remember little of it, but I do remember vaguely the whole "scheme" Gene Hackman cooked up. Even at the time I thought it was pretty spineless. I should watch this again now that my appreciation of Angelica Huston has grown.

I didn't care for it that much first viewing (years ago); this time 'round it was clearly a great film.

I thought it was bollocks the first time round and never revisited it.

I have to say I totals agree, while I don't mind the odd bit of 'quirky/kookiness' in a movie, when a whole film seems to have no central core and is fundamentally just about being 'weird' for the sake of it, I have no interest in it...

[jonny5]

Extinction - ***

A German zombie/mutation/virus film. Very good, I really enjoyed this one - unlike most low budget zombie films, the characters were well developed and I actually cared about whether they lived or died. A few story possibilities I've not seen before are in here too, so check it out if you're interested in the genre. Pacing issues near the end as they tried to get a few too many ideas in at once is really the only complaint I have.

You're talking about Extinction: The G.M.O. Chronicles, right? Watched it last night; wasn't very impressed. As you said, characters were OK, acting wasn't 'great', but better than usual for this kind of film. Story was....alright? I thought the final confrontation was retarded, don't want to post any spoilers, but seriously. Come on. Really? Also, most of the actual confrontations didn't even seem like real danger. Don't want to go into the plot too much but there were many things that bugged me about this movie, stuff that didn't make sense. Still, not bad. I think I was expecting more because I've come to respect your opinion on films as we have very similar tastes, and you gave such a great review.

Also watched Hell the other night, but fell asleep 2/3 of the way through, so need to re-watch before I can say anything about it.

[CMoon]

(RE: Royal Tenenbaums)

I have to say I totals agree, while I don't mind the odd bit of 'quirky/kookiness' in a movie, when a whole film seems to have no central core and is fundamentally just about being 'weird' for the sake of it, I have no interest in it...

2nd viewing might help, or maybe the plot just isn't clicking with you. Not weird just for weird's sake. This movie didn't click the first time with me either. That said, there are a lot of people who will never enjoy Wes Anderson films; I don't see any point doing forced repeat viewings if you don't enjoy what he does.

[Raytrace]

(RE: Royal Tenenbaums)

2nd viewing might help, or maybe the plot just isn't clicking with you. Not weird just for weird's sake. This movie didn't click the first time with me either. That said, there are a lot of people who will never enjoy Wes Anderson films; I don't see any point doing forced repeat viewings if you don't enjoy what he does.

well maybe I will, because I DO love Rushmore.