Movies you've just watched

[emphatic]

(Kung fu priest was incredible though)

-"I kick ass for the lord!"

[Mischief Maker]

Bit what's this about Goldblum excepted? He's always been an extremely accomplished actor. Always quirky and exactly the same, but then so is Jack Nicholson and most other Hollywood creations. I wish there were more of the Blum in movies.

It's that his assumed persona as a quirky intellect is entirely unconvincing to me. It's somewhat similar to Woody Allen's, but where you can see a true mind behind the latter, I can't say the same of the former. Goldblum was best and most convincing in The Fly, Jurassic Park, and more recently in The Life Aquatic and Grand Budapest, but that persona is undermined horribly by Independence Day and his utterly lamentable two seasons on Law & Order: Criminal Intent. The illusion of great intelligence is sometimes convincing and entertaining, but when it isn't, it exposes the cynical facade present in all his work.

Sorta how I feel about Matt Damon w/r/t Good Will Hunting: an obviously average person trying to force himself into genius.

That said, when the stars align and he really is convincing, I love him to pieces.

Edit: Similar too are Dennis Miller's excessively esoteric and obviously artificial erudite "rants." Often entertaining, but you can see right through them.

Totally! You watch him in this clip and his brilliant detective skills are totally not convincing:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=erm7QDCl-3s

But you gotta love the Jughead hat!

[Moniker]

Bit what's this about Goldblum excepted? He's always been an extremely accomplished actor. Always quirky and exactly the same, but then so is Jack Nicholson and most other Hollywood creations. I wish there were more of the Blum in movies.

It's that his assumed persona as a quirky intellect is entirely unconvincing to me. It's somewhat similar to Woody Allen's, but where you can see a true mind behind the latter, I can't say the same of the former. Goldblum was best and most convincing in The Fly, Jurassic Park, and more recently in The Life Aquatic and Grand Budapest, but that persona is undermined horribly by Independence Day and his utterly lamentable two seasons on Law & Order: Criminal Intent. The illusion of great intelligence is sometimes convincing and entertaining, but when it isn't, it exposes the cynical facade present in all his work.

Sorta how I feel about Matt Damon w/r/t Good Will Hunting: an obviously average person trying to force himself into genius.

That said, when the stars align and he really is convincing, I love him to pieces.

Edit: Similar too are Dennis Miller's excessively esoteric and obviously artificial erudite "rants." Often entertaining, but you can see right through them.

Totally! You watch him in this clip and his brilliant detective skills are totally not convincing:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=erm7QDCl-3s

But you gotta love the Jughead hat!

I almost forgot that role. Legendary.

[Skykid]

Bit what's this about Goldblum excepted? He's always been an extremely accomplished actor. Always quirky and exactly the same, but then so is Jack Nicholson and most other Hollywood creations. I wish there were more of the Blum in movies.

It's that his assumed persona as a quirky intellect is entirely unconvincing to me. It's somewhat similar to Woody Allen's, but where you can see a true mind behind the latter, I can't say the same of the former. Goldblum was best and most convincing in The Fly, Jurassic Park, and more recently in The Life Aquatic and Grand Budapest, but that persona is undermined horribly by Independence Day and his utterly lamentable two seasons on Law & Order: Criminal Intent. The illusion of great intelligence is sometimes convincing and entertaining, but when it isn't, it exposes the cynical facade present in all his work.

Sorta how I feel about Matt Damon w/r/t Good Will Hunting: an obviously average person trying to force himself into genius.

That said, when the stars align and he really is convincing, I love him to pieces.

Edit: Similar too are Dennis Miller's excessively esoteric and obviously artificial erudite "rants." Often entertaining, but you can see right through them.

Strange branch of conversation here, I'm not sure how to comfortably get between the spokes for a response.

You seem to have issues with being unconvinced of the actor's genuine real-world intelligence which puts you off them playing an intelligent individual in a movie, is that correct?

I had a lot more difficulty with that with actors like the late Paul Walker than Goldblum.

The weird thing is, they're actors, so I judge their ability to give a performance and ignore the quality of the 'character' provided by the screenplay - so often the reason folk don't understand acting at all and consider Nic Cage to be awesome.

Goldblum is always a very good actor, in Independence Day too. He's very Jewish and erratic and doesn't really possess a huge amount of diversity - same as Woody Allen, who's practically genius - but can he act? Yes. Is he an actor? Yes.

Everything is ok.

I don't know about how you manage to percieve the actor's real-world intelligence versus the on-screen persona, but I was never under the impression Goldblum was a dummy. Quite the opposite, actually.

But what's all this about Matt Damon? He's bloody average through and through, very one dimensional. I've never once seen a movie where I thought he really gave a performance worth sniffing at.

[BrianC]

I'm probably the only person that actually liked Goldblum in Criminal Intent. I like the first couple of seasons with Goren and Eams the best, though.

[GaijinPunch]

Edge of Tomorrow opens up here soon, and I'll likely pay the hefty price to see it in the cinema, even though I've got no incum. Anyone wanna take a stab at the localized title (without cheating)?

[Sly Cherry Chunks]

Did they change it back to All You Need Is Kill?

[Lord Satori]

incum

[GaijinPunch]

Did they change it back to All You Need Is Kill?

Yep. I thought that was a Japanese creation. Was that the working title?

[Sly Cherry Chunks]

^yeah it was and the name of the novel/manga it's based on.

[DEL]

Skykid - Are you really saying I should avoid Godzilla in the theatre...?

(Come to think of it....avoiding a 900ft Monsta in the front row seating might be a protip )

[Moniker]

You seem to have issues with being unconvinced of the actor's genuine real-world intelligence which puts you off them playing an intelligent individual in a movie, is that correct?

Not quite. It's pretty simple I suppose. I think Goldblum isn't up to the task of portraying the level of intelligence that he's assumed as his screen persona. Sometimes he manages and sometimes not. Not a dummy by any means, but his reach exceeds his grasp. I suppose it's his stint on Criminal Intent that bothers me most. His character is supposed to be a renaissance man-level genius, but Goldblum was so bad and hammy at it (sunk the series in one season), that it sort of sours me on him in his other work.

Thinking again, it wasn't really Goldblum so much as a couple of horrible lines he was given that I dislike about his role in Independence Day. Even in his landmark roles in The Fly and Jurassic Park had some pseudo-intellectual moments that always rankled me. Again, I suppose one must fault the script rather than the actor. Still, it's a recurring theme. Wes Anderson definitely handles him better. Was also very good in The Life Aquatic.

All being said, I can't say I'd call him an accomplished actor, certainly not when compared to the other cameos in Grand Budapest. Unless there's a great role he's played that I haven't yet seen.

As for Matt Damon, Will Hunting is supposed to be much smarter than either the script or Damon's performance projects. For an uber-genius, Will says some pretty facile, stupid things. Still like the movie overall, though.

[nasty_wolverine]

Skykid - Are you really saying I should avoid Godzilla in the theatre...?

(Come to think of it....avoiding a 900ft Monsta in the front row seating might be a protip )

no, go watch it. dont expect too much. its better than the last hollywood godzilla for sure. its one of those watch once kinda movies.

[Moniker]

Skykid - Are you really saying I should avoid Godzilla in the theatre...?

(Come to think of it....avoiding a 900ft Monsta in the front row seating might be a protip )

no, go watch it. dont expect too much. its better than the last hollywood godzilla for sure. its one of those watch once kinda movies.

It had better be a fuckton better than the watch-never Matthew Broderick Godzilla. The same evil movie that dared to fuck with Bowie's "Heroes" in the OST.

[DEL]

nasty_wolverine wrote:

no, go watch it. dont expect too much. its better than the last hollywood godzilla for sure. its one of those watch once kinda movies.

Ok thanks. Watch once isn't too great, but I might as well check it out.

[Xyga]

I think it's even worse than Broderick's.
An attempt at mixing the original Japanese flicks's style with modern Hollywood recipes.
It's like smoked herring in chocolate fondue.

[chempop]

Southland Tales.

Whoa.

[ACSeraph]

Edge of Tomorrow opens up here soon, and I'll likely pay the hefty price to see it in the cinema, even though I've got no incum. Anyone wanna take a stab at the localized title (without cheating)?

It should already be out, I saw it on Saturday up here in Akita. It was pretty decent actually. I'm not usually a fan of Tom Cruise, and the movie had a couple plot holes, but it was still cool and fun to watch.

[rapoon]

Southland Tales.

Whoa.

what'd you think? it's undeserving of the plethora of shit reviews it's received. i liked it. far more than the nightmare "the box".
the nuclear attacks on abilene, sociopolitical restructuring and subsequent "police state" LA were all very well depicted.

[Skykid]

I think it's even worse than Broderick's.

It is.

Southland Tales.

Whoa.

Definitely that. I watched the lost Cannes director's cut and quite enjoyed it.

@Moniker I haven't seen the TV series of which you speak but it sounds like a casting/directing error. There are some actors people just can't click with for difficult to pin down, possibly personality reasons - you may have some of that with Blum.

However:

All being said, I can't say I'd call him an accomplished actor, certainly not when compared to the other cameos in Grand Budapest. Unless there's a great role he's played that I haven't yet seen.

But he is simply a good actor. This is what confuses me. He is accomplished enough to perform in everything I've seen him in: he knows how to act. He's superb in DNA and The Fly, and better than just about every one in the Blockbuster cheese like ID.

Matt Damon

Didn't care much for GWH. Robin Williams is so superior to Matt Damon and gawd, Ben Affleck, I have no idea how either of them clawed their way into the limelight. But that's Hollywood for ya.

[Doctor Butler]

Southland Tales.

Whoa.

That movie is fantastic.

Not at all related, but I saw Robot and Frank on Netflix (sorta) recently. It's about an old man who convinces a robot to help him commit robberies.

Watch it, watch it now.

[chempop]

Dude I loved Robot and Frank!

[Mischief Maker]

Dude I loved Robot and Frank!

Agreed.

Spoiler

After the latter Terminator, and latter Matrix, and all these other stupid scifi movies whose non-moral is that "machines are people, too!" it was nice that the moral of Robot and Frank is him realizing he's valuing a machine (symbolizing his job, Heat fans) more than the people in his life.

On a completely tangential note, am I turning into an old man, or have glasses frames moved beyond Buddy Holly ironic nerd glasses into complete douchebag-ville? Pretty girls walking around with unflattering 70s Jane Fonda bug-eye frames, dudes walking around with thick clear frames, etc.

I know the underlying message is, "I'm just so cool that I cancel out the doucheiness of my outfit" but you know... what if you're not?

[Skykid]

Transformers 4: China Edition




I enjoyed the shit out of this.

I hated the first Transformers, it's total garbage. I have a vague recollection of Transformers 2, so I think I must have seen it, but I can't recall much except my friend saying the special effects were amazing and me saying I hadn't noticed.

Of course, I expected to loathe this, considering that Michael Bay is the studio hack to end all hacks - but I didn't. I actually had a good ride, got off the rollercoaster, and went home feeling as though my brain had had a suitable amount of down time and was well rested.

If I don't explain why I'll probably get lynched, so let me do my best and start with everything negative:

Michael Bay is the ultimate autopilot. He's got to the point where he has a repertoire that he knows how to exploit very well, and couldn't care less about the content of the screenplay. It's just a case of on-rails assembly where he brings whatever is scribbled on paper and storyboards into life in his signature loud, frenetic style for an ADD generation. He has his own tropes: screamingly attractive teens, superficial love stories brought to life with pop music, and an ensemble of completely impossible personalities that only exist to fulfil a feel-good criteria.

To his credit he understands this completely, knows what he's capable of, happy with the $illions, and aware of his purely technical skillset above his non-existent artistic one. Early in the movie there's an in-joke where an old chap laments that films are ''garbage these days, just remakes and sequels" (to paraphrase). I cracked a smile.

The script is mostly terrible, expectedly, but at least the storyline is simple enough to be coherent. Someone obviously realised that if you try to write a plot with any depth, it simply gets confused among all the explosions and fighting. So much like Transformers of old, you have a small cast of five good bots trying to avoid execution by the humans they thought they were on good terms with. Narrowing the number of gigantic robots is also beneficial: Prime and his recovered cohorts at least have enough screen time to be graced with a sense of personality - even if it doesn't go much beyond shouting about wanting to kill things. Likewise, there's one main enemy bot in Lockdown, and a special guest appearance - although fleeting - from Megatron's reincarnation, a thread to be continued in the invitable sequel.

With the bots whittled down, the plot simplistic, that leaves an ensemble of non-CG people (or humans) to spout ridiculously idiotic lines between shots of explosions and pile-ups and spinny cameras.

"I think this whole thing kind of, like, might be my fault"

BOOM

"You're not her boyfriend!"

CRASH

"Oh boy, that's definitely not good"

WHAM (spinny camera shot)

It's quite clear that dialogue plays second fiddle to everything else, but luckily T4 is so absurdly long at nearly 3 hrs there's time to round off the comic book personalities of its central cast regardless. There's a tidy opening 25 minutes of word exchanges and cursory plot setup before the fuse is lit and armageddon breaks out.

You have Mark Wahlberg as all American hero with dead wife backstory of half a sentence, his surf dude friend who provides endless comedy value for eight-year-olds for the first forty-minutes, his daughter - a visual slice of perfect teenage fuck material exploited in every shot - and her nice stubbly pro-racer boyfriend who her dad doesn't know about who turns out to not be a vindictive shithead by tagging along through thick and thin. He's also Irish and therefore the butt of several racist nicknames, of which Lucky Charms met with my comedyometer approval.

That's the good guys. The bad guys are equally cliche: bad CIA dude wears glasses, has henchmen, says dumb things no-one says in real life for dramatic effect. And Kelsey Grammar, best actor in the movie, who plays a good bad guy and actually makes some of the dialogue passable. There's also some scientist dude who shouts a lot who turns out to have a conscience and atones for his sins.

The entire movie is a CG spectacle, unparalleled in my book. It's not done with the creativity of Gravity, but for sheer technical marvel I don't think I've seen better. Expect three-hours of non-stop shouting, shooting, blowing up, and spinny cameras, with Wahlberg and co. in the middle, surviving the utterly impossible over and over again.

Oh, and there's some hilarious slo-mo, my personal favourite where some guy gets hit in the jaw by the tyre of an overhead car. I lol'd.

So why the hell did I enjoy such nonsense? Because it was entertaining.

When criticising Godzilla I said I can enjoy a no-brainer if it does its job properly, trying to explain to Mr. Satori just why the aformentioned failed. Where Godzilla has a level of seriousness that completely ruins its believability because everything else is so poor, T4 isn't saddled with that kind of responsibility. It gives absolutely no fuck about believability, credibility, or remarkable plot holes - it just wants to be an engine that keeps revving up until the credits smash you in the face. And it succeeds in those base requirements on a far more competent level than the series previous entries.

I've always liked Mark Wahlberg. I don't think he's much of an actor, but he has charisma, and his casting in T4 was probably the pivotal stroke in making it not about a small Jewish boy with a fast mouth who gets quickly irritating, but a good old-fashioned American who isn't afraid to kill things. That he's meant to be a parent is a bit laughable: I actually thought his daughter was going to be the love interest until she called him 'daddy'! It was a real WTF moment - Wahlberg still appearing way too young to be a convincing father. I'd be much more convinced if they had had a farmyard sex-scene.

Speaking of sex, American double standards are funny. Marky Mark spends a scene lecturing his little girl's would-be boyfriend that 20 is far too old to be dating a 17 yr old, and he should be ashamed, while every 30 - 60 year old in the movie theatre is paraded with ass shots and curves that make penises sit up and sing in unison.

Anyway, stuff blows up, but with momentum. This is a real strap yourself in trip. You soon forget about the dumbass one-liners and cliche and just switch off for the scene-by-scene one upmanship of epic battling and warfare.

Of course this isn't just Transformers 4 - this is the current leader in pandering to Chinese audiences, and co-produced by CCTV films. As such they don't just have a token Chinese female star to rub-one-out over, Li Bing Bing, who is ice cold, has big false eyelashes, and knows Kung Fu - but they relocate an enormous portion of the action to mainland China and then Hong Kong, the latter getting ravaged in a most spectacular fashion.

I know Hong Kong inside out, so for me the location leaping was a little jarring: one minute they're at the market in the mid-level escalators, the next they're driving down Nathan road's backstreets, despite being in the opposite island. Regardless, it gets royally ravaged in a most entertaining way. If one were watching the film in a Central movie theatre you'd half expect to leave and find the city outside in tatters. The CG execution of the entire forty-five minute finale is a technical feat.

There are also big robots. The coolest move is Lockdown's final grand entrance where he leaps from the mothership, fires two missles at a bridge and then lands on it as it collapses, vaulting off at the last moment to take on Optimus. Dynamic.

So here's the wrap up for the TL;DR people: Transformer's 4 is nonsense, and it knows it. It doesn't try to hoodwink anyone, nor does it ever attempt to be perceived as clever. It still doesn't do justice to the original cartoon, but because of its smaller cast of Autobots it comes closer to replicating the feel of an episode. The plot is kept simple so you never need to think, and the action delivers on a spectacular level. The script is trash, but because it's all humour it kind of gets away with it, especially since most actual talking is done between rounds of gunfire. The central cast is really all about Wahlberg and for boys who like asian girls, while there's a little blond nymph in hot pants for everyone else, and the three-hours is well paced with epic events that include breaking into H.R Giger's mothership, dangling over cities on bouncy wires and destroying China's most prosperous island.

Is it a must-see? Of course not. But if you fancy junk food for your brain, it's not only way better than the first two (can't comment on the third) but also a hundred times more entertaining than the bore-fest that was Godzilla.

God damn, I can't believe I said something good about a Michael Bay movie. Time for a cold shower.

[Mischief Maker]

...but luckily T4 is so absurdly long at nearly 3 hrs...

...and this is where you lost me.

Michael Bay's Transformers movies do not deserve their reputation as turn-your-brain-off action flicks. Crank 2 is a turn-your-brain-off action flick. If Transformers 1 was 90 mintues of just the robots and maybe the soldiers teaming up with them to tip the battle in the autobots' favor, it wouldn't be nearly as hated. Instead Transformers is the poor man's American Pie with some action scenes randomly slapped in making for an unforgivably bloated assault on your bladder. The fact that so much of the movie is forgettable filler that you can totally take a bathroom break and miss nothing is not a positive in my book. Even worse, Michael Bay seems to think he's one of the Cohen brothers while slathering the screen with potty humor.

If you expected to get jumped for this review, you expected right, Skykid.

[Lord Satori]

Hm... I guess the tables have been flipped. Though unlike you, I'm not going to call you an idiot for liking that film. One thing that bugs me about Michael Bay is that he seems to think he's some sort of Steven Spielberg with such a great rep where the trailer would say "A Michael Bay film" and people would flip out and go "ZOMG WE HAVE TO SEE IT!" The sad part is is that that's probably the case for many people.

Anyway, I just watched Frozen. I enjoyed it, but there was a portion of it towards the beginning of the film where I was thinking "I don't get it. Why do so many people like this?" But as the movie progressed those thoughts vanished.

[Moniker]

I've always liked Mark Wahlberg. I don't think he's much of an actor, but he has charisma, and his casting in T4 was probably the pivotal stroke in making it not about a small Jewish boy with a fast mouth who gets quickly irritating, but a good old-fashioned American who isn't afraid to kill things.

I feel the same. He doesn't exactly project intelligence or any real knowledge of the craft, but there are films where he surprises you. The Other Guys is probably his best. I've always been sort of ambivalent about his performance in The Departed.. although I'm not sure anyone could convincingly deliver interjections like:

Sheen: Your star is on the rise.
Wahlberg: Like a 12-year-old's dick.

He also tends to say stupid things in interviews, like saying he wanted a Departed 2 featuring his character's adventures in whatever, etc. In other interviews, he does seem to be on the level.

And anything that lacks Shia LeBoeuf has an implicit advantage.

[Skykid]

If you expected to get jumped for this review, you expected right, Skykid.

Well it's a long and in-depth reasoned explanation that describes the film as nonsense with non-actors, a trash script and formulaic design specifications. If you've seen the movie and beg to differ as to why it doesn't manage to be entertaining in a shut-your-brain-down fashion despite the above, I'm all ears.

If you haven't seen it, don't comment - I thought the exact same thing as you going in, and I agree completely with your appraisal of Transfomers 1. Actually since you haven't seen T4, I'm failing to spot a disagreement here.

Also I can't believe you cited a Jason Stalham movie as some kind of genre antidote.

Hm... I guess the tables have been flipped. Though unlike you, I'm not going to call you an idiot for liking that film.

That makes no sense. It's much better neanderthal entertainment than Godzilla. If you like Godzilla you're still an idiot.

[boagman]

I feel the same. He doesn't exactly project intelligence or any real knowledge of the craft, but there are films where he surprises you. The Other Guys is probably his best.

Really? I thought he was nothing but annoying in that movie...I guess I don't see how he shows any "knowledge of the craft" there. Honestly, his best showings in "The Departed" were where he (finally) did not actually speak. Now "Ted"..."Ted" he was quite funny in. "Ted" was hilarious, and I think was the first Wahlberg movie I respected him for, if you can believe that.

[boagman]

And anything that lacks Shia LeBoeuf has an implicit advantage.

Couldn't agree more. Shia makes Walhberg and ::shudder:: Cruise look like multiple Academy Award winners.