Movies you've just watched

[KindGrind]

The Wolf of Wall Street


Absolute dynamite.

Scorcese at his finest, his best movie in years and years. It's got endless energy and the film making craft here is non-stop creative, engaging for every single one of its many minutes.

DiCaprio is as ever, first class, taking to the performance not only with gusto but unforseen comic knack, while the supporting cast is nigh-on perfectly tailored.

Above all else however (deep breath for how many times I reiterate its importance to film) the script is god tier. Terence Winter's screenplay never stops for air. The dialogue fizzes throughout, a poster child for bad language used for effect, and goddamn is it fucking hilarious.

And that's the one thing I didn't expect. There's a touch of 80s brat pack in here for sure, but Jesus this movie is funny. I was laughing the whole way through. It revels in ridiculous levels of drug, sex and debauchery, all with such fascinating sense of wit that it rises far above its subject matter in class.

It has hilarity, a bombshell blonde who can actually act, raucous characters and even more excessive events, and is full of tits. Yet as a piece of film making, the craft of its director and writer make it exceptional. I'd give it a stone cold sober 9. Would watch again.

Please don't go anywhere Scorcese, so good to have you back.

My sentiments exactly, which I think I posted earlier in the thread. It was the most entertaining 3 hours I've spent in front of a movie in years. Probably one of the 5 best movies I've watched since There Will be Blood, best movie of the 2000s for me so far.

[cicada88]

Saw The Bridge On the River Kwai in a movie theater as part of an Alec Guinness retrospective. It was shown in 4k digital.

The final scene was so tense.

Some beautiful shots too; I particularly liked a lot of the night scenes in and around the river.

[BryanM]

Before this week's reviews, gotta say, that The Thing Musical, it's absolutely fantastic. Really. It's impossible to pick out a favorite moment from it, which is really the sign of quality. 5/5 icycalms.

Cube, The: About what was expected. Maybe very slightly less. On the level of a decent Twilight Zone episode. 3/5.

Robocop 2014 Edition: Not close to as fun as the original was, but then again how many movies are. Taken on its own, I was surprised that it really was watchable. The angle of tying it into the modern automated kill drone was actually fairly interesting in the beginning, though of course it quickly ran out of material by the halfway point and went full hollywood and made an utterly random character the Climatic Villain just because there were thirty minutes to fill. 2/5

Elysium: Basically liberal propaganda about illegal Mexico->US immigration and richers denying poors life just to be dicks. Possibly accurate as a premise, but come on, you've still gotta have something to say beyond that and another climatic fist fight guys. 2/5

Beyoncé's Put a Ring on It: A wise, humble man once proclaimed this was one of the greatest movie videos of all time at an award show thingy. (Of all time.) Five years later I bothered to confirm his story. The sound here (I would never call it music) causes mortal injury to human beings. The video, appears to be the unremarkable spectacle of three women dancing. This seems like the sort of thing a plebeian would be sent to jail for. Can't believe someone would lie to me like that. 0/5

While falling asleep in the middle of Godzilla was more shameful, I'm still lingering over the climatic fist fight (while not in a martial arts flick) sin. Please don't do this whenever you make a movie guys : (

My rule of thumb: if the hero isn't a kung fu magic master, and he gets into a fist fight, he should nearly always get beaten, badly. Exceptions when it's against someone obviously physically inferior to him, which has the side effect of making the hero look like an evil dick. Which is inherently slightly interesting. Mary Sues aren't.

Legendary Shit Movie Wild Wild West (a film that I was under the mistaken impression was about boobies, riding horses, and shooting people) had the Climatic Fist Fight. DOOM (a film that WAS about shooting demon zombies) had the Climatic Fist Fight. I guess to steal an idiom: "It's like the cherry on top of a shit sundae."

[boagman]

"The Drop"

First things first: catching this movie cost me nothing except $1 to park my vehicle. I saw a free screening for it.

I guess I'll open up with this: don't worry, Skykid. This will not be the movie that will bring you over to the side of us who think that Tom Hardy is great. I'm not so sure it's his fault, though. I'm very open to saying that this isn't my favorite role for him, but the movie's script really, really lets the viewer down. You can see the way this movie's going to go from a mile away. The script really needed sharpening, as I cannot understand why I'm seeing advertising for the movie with critics falling all over themselves with praise for it. I fully understand that it's Gandolfini's last role...I *get* that. That doesn't make the script into what it should have been. It's one giant, major telegram to your future self: you already know what's going to happen basically from the first.

Hardy plays a NY schlubby toughish guy, with associated accent/speech pattern. It's workable(?), but not really convincing as the script "develops". In fact, I'd say that the lack of script quality really sort of wastes the talents of the three main actors: Hardy, Gandolfini, and Rapace.

Nonetheless, it wasn't a terrible movie or anything...just less than it really should/could be. The main actors just don't have enough in the script to work with and really bring to the forefront, resulting in a pretty paint-by-numbers story that, in the end, doesn't surprise anyone, and is a bit on the schmaltzy side, ultimately.

I wouldn't walk out on it or anything, but I have to admit that I expected a lot more out of it than it delivered. Plot/story/script-wise, it needed some help.

On the plus side, Gandolfini still pulls his weight here, and I have to admit that even though I've never seen one bit of "The Sopranos", he's still a pretty good presence in most of the movies I've seen him in. This is no exception, and he often says a lot without needing to speak much. Very telling facial expressions, which really helps an actor pop onscreen.

[BIL]

"The Haunting In Connecticut." I only watched this after an online acquaintance regaled me with the tale of a socially awkward but highly competent pupil he taught, whose academic performance and seemingly mind abruptly turned to shit after he was clinically diagnosed with Asperger's. Apparently he became obsessed with this movie and much to everyone's annoyance wouldn't STFU about it, even writing (and performing) songs about it. :/

So yes, of course it's a generic as fuck 2000s angry ghost flick, haha! zomg, what do tese anrgy ghosts want!? o, so dats what they anrgy bout. omg dat 1 dude got cramated rofl!! What was I thinking. -_-

edit: well, it's not an awful movie. At least executed credibly. Just utterly generic. How arrogant of me to assume my mind was beautiful enough to see what the aforementioned twat-cum-minstrel saw in it.

[Khan]

"The Haunting In Connecticut." I only watched this after an online acquaintance regaled me with the tale of a socially awkward but highly competent pupil he taught, whose academic performance and seemingly mind abruptly turned to shit after he was clinically diagnosed with Asperger's. Apparently he became obsessed with this movie and much to everyone's annoyance wouldn't STFU about it, even writing (and performing) songs about it. :/

So yes, of course it's a generic as fuck 2000s angry ghost flick, haha! zomg, what do tese anrgy ghosts want!? o, so dats what they anrgy bout. omg dat 1 dude got cramated rofl!! What was I thinking. -_-

edit: well, it's not an awful movie. At least executed credibly. Just utterly generic. How arrogant of me to assume my mind was beautiful enough to see what the aforementioned twat-cum-minstrel saw in it.

lmao I watched that last night too along with the dark knight rises, and ill just say that it was pretty bad. The scares were pretty much non existent and the only time I got remotely creeped out was the scene where they are playing hide and seek and the youngin gets trapped in the laundry lift.

The part where the main guy is running into the house and proceeds to hack away at the front door "Here's Johnny!" had me laughing out loud! id say the only saving grace was Amanda crews was in it but sadly we dont get to see her nekkid there was that cliche naked shower lady getting jumped scene but it sucked bad.

Dark knight rises was decent I liked the Dark Knight better though it just seemed this time around they made batman weak as hell he got royally butt fucked by bane in their first encounter but we have no idea why because at that stage it was shown he was using some serious high tech gadgetry the limb strengthening assist that made him rip a hole into the wall and those poison darts and all those cool weapons he had are pretty much non existent -_-

Only movie that I really enjoyed on my little marathon last night was Mama you guys should check it out if not for the scares but the mind fuck of an ending.

[Skykid]

Expendables 3


Terrible acting and CG ahoy.

This one is better than the first obviously, but not as good as the 2nd. It's slightly less clumsy but also less silly, losing the self-referential tongue-in-cheek element that saved that one from disaster.

This one is still filled with bad one liners and dire dialogue, and while the cement is harder it often takes itself seriously enough to be boring. The new whippersnappers are shit, the bloodlust has gone PG-13, and pacing is off the mark.

Best of it: That all star old fogey cast is dazzling, Antonio Banderas, Harrison Ford, Mel Gibson and Kelsey Grammar can act, Sly has become a human Optimus Prime, Wesley Snipes had good chemistry.

Don't pay good money for it.

[system11]

I just watched 'One Please' - a tiny 5 minute horror short. It's strange and creepy and tells the whole story without even a single word of dialogue. The way it's shot doesn't have that 'indie' feel to it. Then I went and backed this:

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/tw ... l-berryman

[options]

Tenure

Somewhat run-of-the-mill indie joint about an underachieving writer (Luke Wilson) struggling to get published and get tenure at the university where he teaches. Nothing terribly original here at all, but there were several laugh out loud moments (mostly courtesy of David Koechner, aka Champ Kind) and the characters were genuinely likable.

Didn't blow me away, but I'm a sucker for these kinda 'quiet indies,' as I like to call them. Clear-cut characters in simple stories—sometimes with no real plot to speak of, everyday scenarios, somewhat nondescript scenery/location, careful curation of soundtrack. 'Understated' is the word I'm looking for here. Boring for many, I'm sure, but peaceful for me.

[Moniker]

Man of Steel (HBO)

Wow, bad. Wanted to see this since the trailer looked good and Skykid shat all over it at length. Also figured it at least had to be better than Superman Returns. The upshot is that it's a 2 1/2 hour sequence of 2 1/2 minute trailers. No real narrative, no character development or interaction. Which is impressive, in a way, for a movie that long. Even the action is throwaway. And you'd think ole Kal-El would try to take that one-on-one fight away from a densely populated urban environment where buildings get casually leveled killing thousands at a time. And ffs, leave the Hubble telescope alone.

[Skykid]

^ I did warn you.

Between that and Godzilla... No, MoS was even worse.

[Ixmucane2]

Expendables 3

Action sequences are good, with many over the top stunts far exceeding the first two films.
Unfortunately (when will they learn?) they cannot save a bad story, badly told.

Most of the plot can be predicted in minute detail (only the crazy villain and Antonio Banderas offer little surprises), but it wouldn't be too bad if it were only a stupid excuse for killing mooks in interesting ways; the script makes an unusual effort to fall dead for long periods, to throw away the peculiar style of humour in exchange for standard comedy tones, and (the biggest sin) it digs and digs into the tragic side of the Expendables' life without resolving the issues, just for angst.
Character development and building is extraordinarily lacking.

[Moniker]

Gravity (HBO)

Happily, my predictions that repeat viewings and/or viewings on the small screen would be lesser are false. Rewatched this gem on my very own 32" TV and it was nearly as exhilarating as seeing it in theatres.

A masterful film, by any measure. Upon second viewing, I have a greater appreciation of S. Bullock's character and performance. Very seldom is a rationally suicidal character depicted with such emotional accuracy.

The film also raises the issue of whether the universe is indifferent or hostile. I'm leaning towards the latter. Although hostility implies intent (and therefore a deity), I'd argue that environmental hostility is hard-coded into the ecological paradigm. Eat or be eaten, etc. Of course, all this is academic when considering space travel. Environmental hostility, after all, is an assumption of the film's preamble.

What do I take from it all? That humans have the capacity to overcome their surroundings. That might sound trite, but God or not, humans have been granted the possibility of overcoming the earth's logical imperatives, and humankind's own nature.

In other words, we're better than God intended. (And, obviously, a whole lot worse.)

[Khan]

Man of Steel (HBO)

Wow, bad. Wanted to see this since the trailer looked good and Skykid shat all over it at length. Also figured it at least had to be better than Superman Returns. The upshot is that it's a 2 1/2 hour sequence of 2 1/2 minute trailers. No real narrative, no character development or interaction. Which is impressive, in a way, for a movie that long. Even the action is throwaway. And you'd think ole Kal-El would try to take that one-on-one fight away from a densely populated urban environment where buildings get casually leveled killing thousands at a time. And ffs, leave the Hubble telescope alone.

It is bad, it shocked me how everyone seemed to know who superman was and how it took him so long to develop his powers when General Zod and the other Kryptonians can suddenly appear and within a few days are able to use their powers at Ole Kals level. Then that scene when hes walking up to confront Luthor

Spoiler

surrounded by Kryptonite yet he doesnt seem to fade in strength like the old movies then he gets beaten up by Luthor and his thugs....that was painful to watch

[system11]

buildings get casually leveled killing thousands at a time.

My favourite part.

[Lord Satori]

Man of Steel (HBO)

Wow, bad. Wanted to see this since the trailer looked good and Skykid shat all over it at length. Also figured it at least had to be better than Superman Returns. The upshot is that it's a 2 1/2 hour sequence of 2 1/2 minute trailers. No real narrative, no character development or interaction. Which is impressive, in a way, for a movie that long. Even the action is throwaway. And you'd think ole Kal-El would try to take that one-on-one fight away from a densely populated urban environment where buildings get casually leveled killing thousands at a time. And ffs, leave the Hubble telescope alone.

It is bad, it shocked me how everyone seemed to know who superman was and how it took him so long to develop his powers when General Zod and the other Kryptonians can suddenly appear and within a few days are able to use their powers at Ole Kals level.

That pissed me off, too. I was under the impression that he had those powers because he was from krypton. What's with this bs about the atmosphere giving him powers? Also, why u no kneel before Zod?

[Xyga]

Not movies but I caught up on some TV shows of note;

Homeland: I quit at the start of season 3. Kind of tired of that hysteric chick and the story that gets nowhere with the terrorist-marine dude. 24 at least was so insane, so far-fetched that it was actually entertaining for a while. Homeland is just meh.

Sherlock: Enjoyed that one. Definitely no SH canon here, and a couple episodes really suck (chinese mafia stuff, hound of b. remake) but it's very well made and played. Goes from silly moments to seriously badass plot. Fresh. Good surprise.

True Detective: ZOMFG best stuff I've seen in ages. America please nuke Hollywood and make more stuff like that instead.

House of Cards: Okay it's good because Kevin Spacey is teh awesome actor and scenario is very solid. But here we got another way over-the-top story that somewhat commits suicide because the guy is too perfect an evil mastermind who plays people like they're all helpless cunts and he gets away too easily.

Fargo: I was very curious to see what the Hell this was about since it's only inspired by that great movie, and I must say it's been another good surprise. Solid play and plot, great setup as expected. Curious to see the next season that should tell a completely new and original story.

So... what should I watch next ?

[Mischief Maker]

Man of Steel (HBO)

The upshot is that it's a 2 1/2 hour sequence of 2 1/2 minute trailers.

Hah! That's the best description I've heard yet.

To me, the saddest part of the trailer was when they lifted that "they will follow you into the sun" line directly from All Star Superman. These assholes sat down and read a series of bright, colorful, optimistic, and cleverly written Superman stories featuring the character at his very best, and almost never solving problems with his ability to punch things really hard, but went ahead and made a movie about Superman punching invulnerable dudes really, really hard, to no effect beyond collateral damage. With the CGI horsepower on hand for Man of Steel to show Metropolis demolished in pornographic detail, surely they could render the attack on Earth by the planet-eating Bizarro World!

[KindGrind]

True Detective: ZOMFG best stuff I've seen in ages. America please nuke Hollywood and make more stuff like that instead.

I found that watching that was a curse and a blessing. It was absolute genius, without a doubt, but now anything else I watch pales in comparison. Best TV I've watched in ages.

I did watch Homeland to the end of season 3, and was very disappointed. I kind of wish I hadn't watched it, but I can't unwatch it.

I stopped The Killing after one season. The fact that it wasn't finished completely put me off. I didn't care at all about the subplots, all I wanted to see was the leads. One of the most uneven series I've watched ever. It could be great at times (reminded me of Brick, with the teen's ungraspable underworld) and complete useless at others.

[options]

Taken

A thriller that thinks it's an action movie. I found myself drifting off during the standard car chases and stuff, but I liked the Jason Bourne-esque grit of the short burst fight scenes. I winced a couple times, which is a good thing. I'd never known Liam Neeson to be such a credible tough guy. Apparently I had a slightly incorrect image of this movie going in, but I enjoyed it overall.

Oh, and bonus points for the hottie that I only know as Christie from the really-bad-but-in-a-fun-way DOA: Dead or Alive

[Mero]

Mega Piranha

Saw this on telly last night, I didn't watch it right to the end because I was knackered but I saw enough to know that I was watching sheer genius. Oscar-worthy performance from the big man, the presence of Tiffany raised it a few notches further and some "funny foreigners" courtesy of the Colombian General and his cronies was the icing on the cake.

[Xyga]

I stopped The Killing after one season. The fact that it wasn't finished completely put me off. I didn't care at all about the subplots, all I wanted to see was the leads. One of the most uneven series I've watched ever. It could be great at times (reminded me of Brick, with the teen's ungraspable underworld) and complete useless at others.

Thanks I was hesitant about that one and from your description I think I'll pass.

You're right about True Detective; almost everything else feels like crap now.

What about Person of Interest ? Anyone ?

[emphatic]

What about Person of Interest ? Anyone ?

It's very "objective of the week" for the first season, but it's getting more character/major plot driven now, so worth a watch if you enjoy the cast.

[Xyga]

Okay I see what you mean, I'll give it a try.

[Some-Mist]

It was absolute genius, without a doubt, but now anything else I watch pales in comparison. Best TV I've watched in ages.

the knick (trailer) has been especially great (episode 6 this week). renewed for a second season before the first one even aired, directed by steven soderbergh (oceans 11/12/13, traffic, solaris, the informant) starring clive owen (children of men, shoot 'em up, transporter).

about the knickerbocker hospital in new york in the 1900s. based off of real documented surgical procedures before they became common practice, with many barbaric methods used, a man of color trying to break into the medical scene, and a lead doctor that has an addiction to opiates and cocaine.

not for the squeemish

Spoiler

first scene of the show starts with a botched c-section

but the cinematography and overall direction of the show is fantastic.

-----

been slacking on the movies lately having watched all of trailer park boys season 8, the knick new episodes, and watching portlandia for the first time.... but I just read a review on the movie "coherence" which is supposed to be insanely well put together for a low budget film. I've seen it compared to Primer.

[PAPER/ARTILLERY]

The Lego Movie

I was expecting it to be good but it was so much better. Funny, entertaining, self-aware in a way that wasn't shitty. It even has a nice little moral subtext to it about creativity and retaining some youthful spirit. There's much more going on than I expected and the voice acting is pretty great too. Would happily watch again.

[boagman]

What about Person of Interest ? Anyone ?

I'm a fan. I don't think it's Life Changing Television or anything like that, but it's plenty good enough escapism for me. Well-written, with pretty interesting performances from the main characters. It does get a little bit too full of itself at times, but I think it justifies that with good storytelling.

[PC Engine Fan X!]

Finally watched the horror slasher flick by the name of "You're Next" that was directed by Adam Wingard that was released on the silver screen back in October of 2013 stateside. Guest star director Ti West has a minor acting role in it as well. And if you have a sharp eagle eye, you might recall that some folks whom made both VHS 1 & 2 + some shorts shown in the ABCs of Death compliation films, some actors make a return appearance to star in YN, indeed. With plenty of twists and spins, it leaves you wondering what'll happen next -- the pacing is quite tight and never let's up.

PC Engine Fan X! ^_~

[Obiwanshinobi]

Point Blank (1967) - I know it's an oldie, but... The Getaway is a better movie, as is The Prisoner (not a "movie" but still). Something about some of the sixties' cinema doesn't seem to glue with me (you know The Wild Bunch was ahead of its time, if only for a year).

Oh yes, GP should appreciate the sonud of Point Blank. At least they tried.

[Xyga]

Edge of Tomorrow - ... Groundhog Day is much better.