Cynical Evaluations of Cinema: Movie Reviews

[Reply #440 on:]

Don't Be Afraid of the Dark 2011

Watch the 1973 made for tv one instead!

[Reply #441 on:]

I finally got around to watching Choke after several years. It started slow but was actually really good, boo for changing the ending

[Reply #442 on:]

It's October! Horror movie month! I live next door to a friend who is into fucked up movies as much as I am and we've been watching a few already. Needless to say, there will be reviews, and I'll be watching a bunch of horror films I haven't seen yet all month.

[Reply #443 on:]

Will you watch 120 Days of Sodom?

[Reply #444 on:]

Probably not, too old and boring, but I've seen the worst clips from that online. It's NOTHING compared to some of the fucked up exploitation films we've already watched.

[Reply #445 on:]

Phineas and Ferb The Movie: Across the 2nd Dimension: 9/10 It was just perfect..
Apart from the confusing goof I saw 

[Reply #446 on:]

Given the title, were there any subtle tributes to the Buckaroo Banzai film?

[Reply #447 on:]

No just a possible title reference..

[Reply #448 on:]

Quintet
Old sci-fi-ish movie starring Paul Newman.  Slow and confusing. 
4/10

Spider  (short film, about 9 minutes long)
MUST SEE!  10/10

[Reply #449 on:]

I went to see Jurassic Park on the big screen last night, it holds up pretty well and looks/sounds good.
T-Rex scene is still full of win.

[Reply #450 on:]

I just saw The Ides of March. It was pretty good. The plot was interesting and it had some amusing moments, but I felt it was too long and it took far too much time to really get going. Ryan Gosling was excellent, though. I'd give it an 8/10.

I am not a fan of horror movies at all (yes, wimp, I know) so I probably won't be reviewing any here. Apologies.

[Reply #451 on:]

Ryan Gosling was excellent, though.

Acting-wise, or to look at? 'Cause he's yummy.

Anyway: We had to watch Gran Torino in one of my classes last week, and I felt weird because I was the only student who seemed to really hate it. Awful acting (except on Eastwood's part, I suppose--though even his character is kind of one-dimensional), cliched characters (a son who doesn't check in on his father enough, a granddaughter who smokes like a bad ass and wants to inherit granddaddy's car, an oh-so-eager priest, an immigrant family who relies on the Big White Hope to save them from the Big Bad Gang Violence), awful dialogue (so many ethnic slurs, so little time), and cringeworthy religious/Christ imagery. We watched the movie because the class is about language and how we use it to amuse, offend, or comfort other people--and there are a few moments in the movie that are well-done and almost insightful in that respect--but I don't know. I was more offended (on an ideological level and an aesthetic one) than I was enlightened or even amused.

So...yeah. I'd say it was a C or thereabouts. It's well-meaning enough, but horribly executed and way too simplistic in its view of race relations and the thwarted American dream and the power of redemption and yadda yadda yadda. But what's annoying is that the movie seems to think it's more profound than it actually is. Also, the tone is so erratic (is it a tragedy or a comedy?) and it's hard to find your bearings.

[Reply #452 on:]

If you had a free hand in editing the script and the film, what are a few of the major changes you would have made?

[Reply #453 on:]

Casino
Pretty much 'Goodfellas' in Las Vegas, which means it's a near-masterpiece set in Las Vegas. My one complaint regarding the film is its 3 hour running time, but it's also one of best examples of a bloated film that carries its weight well that I've ever seen. Although at 1 1/2 hours into the film, I thought to myself "how can this possibly only be the half-way mark?" it was more from genuinely not knowing how the story would last that long given that the pacing suggested things were starting to wrap-up rather than being bored - because I wasn't bored at any point throughout.

It's brilliantly directed, shot, acted and so forth - representing one of the best examples of their work for pretty much everybody involved.

It's great basically. If you're familiar with Martin Scorcese, it's basically more of the same, but it's top-drawer more of the same.

9/10


Jumper
Mind-bogglingly bad. For all the money and good intentions thrown at this film, it's a completely illogical piece of shit with a horrible protagonist that you will death upon from about 20 minutes deep into the film, onwards.
What's worse is that it's not a bad concept for a fun blockbuster and it's a horrible waste of Samuel L. Jackson who can either be a good actor - or more relvant to this film, can bring fairly standard blockbuster durge to life exquisitely well providing it knows its place. This film doesn't know its place. It has delusions of grandure.

It's fucking shit. Poorly acted, poorly plotted, poorly thought-through and horribly written.

So, so bad.

3/10


Sleeping Dogs
After hearing good things about Bobcat Goldthwait's upcoming 'God Bless America', I thought I ought to try out some of his previous efforts. This one caught my attention because it's a serious effort to turn a woman sucking off a dog into a feature film - and not a pornographic feature film.
So, I respect the film for having an original and daring premise without it simply being for shock tactics (as in The Human Centipede for example). The film doesn't quite work, but it has some good and interesting ideas and works reasonably well as an exploration of the importance of lying in relationships. It just didn't have enough comic bite or scope to work particularly well - in the end it felt like something of a melodramtic made-for-TV movie... albeit, with subject material TV probably wouldn't ever touch.

So yeah, not particularly good but worthy of some small amount of praise.

5/10


Being There
A missed opportunity on two fronts:
One - the concept had so much potential for biting satire. It sort of tries to make a point, but it just feels bland and watered down.
Two - the concept had so much potential to be funny. The film isn't funny at all. Tonally, it starts out like a classic '80s fish-out-of-water comedy, but that soon dissolves into a series of sequences of people talking, none of which are particularly smart of funny or anything.

It's not a bad film, but nothing abut it, spare the final 10 seconds that come out of nowhere and therefore don't gel with the rest of the film, is particularly remarkable. Even Peter Sellers' supposedly incredibly performance isn't too special. It's not bad, but all he does is say every line slowly and with no emotion. It's about equal to say David Walliams' performance as the "computer says no" woman on 'Little Britain'. Very well played, but one-note, and lacking in depth.

But all in all it's not exactly a dull film. It sort of works at what it tries to do... a little bit, anyway. It's just odd that it's as highly revered as it is given that there's nothing special about it.

6/10


World's Greatest Dad
Very similar to Bobcat Goldthwait's previous film 'Sleeping Dogs'. It's like that but with a more solid script, slightly more scope and a brilliant performance courtesy of Robin Williams.
What annoyed me was its wasted potential. It could have a pitch-perfect satire but it instead opted for only light-comedy and to never really take things as far as they could have gone - only ever keeping things based around the events at a high school. I appreciate that this was most likely due to budget constraints but all the same, the film could have been so much more.

As such, it's basically like 'Sleeping Dogs' in that it's not great, but it has a lot of good elements and ideas in it. Except it does do pretty much everything better than 'Sleeping Dogs' did.

6/10


Drive
I didn't like it, bite me.

Here are the only 4 things I liked about the film:
1. Bryan Cranston
One of the greatest and most under-rated actors out there plays a fairly important supporting role. It's far from one of his best performances but he does an admirable job with the role he was given.

2. Christina Hendricks' boobs
They're only in the film for about 10 minutes though and are constantly clothed throughout.

3. The opening chase sequence
A fantastic little sequence that holds your attention and sets up the basics of who this guy is really well. There's nothing particularly brilliant about it if you've seen any other decent car-chase in a film ever, but it's a very well constructed scene and the film is all downhill from there.

4. The soundtrack
Whilst the real goods of the film aren't original songs, they're very well hand-picked and I hadn't heard any of them prior to seeing the film.


As for the rest of the film, it's very well made, but it just does nothing new and nothing about it is done better than in countless other films I've seen covering the same ground. It just feels like a waste of its great cast and ultimately comes off as rather dull.

Not for me, I'm afraid. I don't understand the hype.

6/10


Audition
Boooooooooooring.

I expected something fresh and thrilling and instead all I got was this sub-par precursor to modern torture porn with some art-house touches thrown in. There's not one point in the film that made me think "wow, this is good" but there were plenty that made me think "come on" or "really?".

Over-rated and unremarkable.

5/10


Melancholia
For me, this film was a near-perfect blend of sci-fi craziness and art-house pretention. I loved it.

It starts with the Earth being destroyed and then spends 2 hours examining Kirsten Dunst's (rather dull) homelife and depressing followed by similar things from her sister played by Charlotte Gainsbourg. Each sister occupies their own 'half' of this 2-chaptered film and the idea is obviously to show the contrast between them despite their obvious similarities.

Whilst I was disappointed in that I almost expected a bitterly ironic ending in which the Earth didn't actually end and Kirsten Dunst had to live her life as a bitch that had essentially written off the last two years of her life, the fact that the film doesn't throw any curve-balls at us just adds to its beautiful simplicity and ultimately it's an extremely harrowing and thought-provoking piece. It's filled to the brim with potential readings without any of it seeming too cryptic, and it never gets boring because it's essentially about a planet crashing into another planet. BOOM!

8/10 (I feel it might move up to a 9 with a second viewing)

[Reply #454 on:]

If you had a free hand in editing the script and the film, what are a few of the major changes you would have made?

I can't tell if you're being sarcastic or not, seeing as how I am obviously a talentless hack who really has no right to gripe about these things, but just for fun:

I would have toned down some of the epithets, if only because they're so rapid-fire as to be absurd. I understand that we're supposed to recognize Eastwood as the typical Crotchety But Harmless Racist, and it's true that lots of people speak that way with no ill intent, but hearing him call his barber a dumb Polack bastard or some variation thereof about six times in a single scene might be overkill.

I would have spent more time examining the role people like Eastwood's character play in creating a society that dumps on minorities and probably helps to inspire gang violence in the first place. The villains of the movie are the members of this brutish Asian gang, and they're all stereotypical, flat characters who it's easy to hate because, you know, they beat people up and rape them. Which, yes, is atrocious. But the movie portrays them as these careless and evil people without bothering to note, even in passing, that it can so often suck being part of an ethnic minority in this country, and that forming a gang seems like a viable option for a lot of people. (I'm oversimplifying this, I think, but I'm no great sociologist (I'm no great anything). My point is that the movie might have tried a little harder to craft more nuanced, maybe even sympathetic, antagonists.)

And the martyrdom of Clint Eastwood's character at the end is so heavy-handed. He dies in a Christ-like pose after being killed by people who just plain didn't understand him. But the movie doesn't seem to care that Eastwood insinuated himself into the life of this Asian family (who, it is implied, are incapable of dealing with the Big Bad Gang on their own and need a Big White Protector), beat up a member of the gang, and inspired all this violent retaliation in the first place. What a prick.

I promise I'm not usually this sensitive or politically-correct or whatever. The whole movie just rang false to me, and now I'm nitpicking. It wasn't an awful movie, but it certainly wasn't a terribly masterful one, either.

[Reply #455 on:]

Nope, I wasn't being sarcastic in the slightest.  And I was genuinely curious about your take on it.  

[Reply #456 on:]

Case 39

Did the world really need another evil kid movie? No.

[Reply #457 on:]

You seem to watch quite a lot of bad movies. Maybe you should look up reviews and plot summaries first.

[Reply #458 on:]

Who do you think writes the ones for the bad movies?

[Reply #459 on:]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0O8ravhAdrE

[Reply #460 on:]

I think David Lynch is great but...that's some bullshit.

[Reply #461 on:]

Mark Kermode just informed me before Lynchs Aliens 3 there was supposed to be another film set on a wooden planet... lololol

Batman: Year One
It's been a while since I've read the graphic novel, but this was pretty great, Bryan Cranston as Commissioner Gordon, Ben McKenzie (no, not Ben Kingsley, that would be weird) as Bats, and the guy who does Roger Meyer on The Simpsons as Falcone, all great voices.
Some of the quick scenes seem a bit off in the transfer from page to film but the animation is all good.
B+

[Reply #462 on:]

and the guy who does Roger Meyer on The Simpsons as Falcone

Alex Rocco, Hank Azaria, or Dan Castellaneta?

[Reply #463 on:]

Easy A

Funny, funny movie. Not a brilliant story or anything, but it made me giggle quite a bit, and that's really all I expected.

A

[Reply #464 on:]

Movies I have watched in my Intro to Film Class:

-Babel
-City of God
-Dr. Strangelove
-Sansho the Bailiff
-Amelie
-Following
-The Shawshank Redemption
-Taxi Driver

I'm not gonna review each individually because I've liked all of them so far for various reasons. I think the one that I like the least has become Babel, mainly because we talk about it every week since we watched it (it being the first movie we watched). I get it, the gun is a symbolic motif! Enough already! The rest I have enjoyed very much. I was sad to see such an ignorant distaste for the 54' Japanese film Sansho the Bailiff, it personally has me interested in other Japanese films of the time but some people can't get over the language barrier. Amelie I think has been my favorite; beautiful language, quirky story (that was cool before Juno made 'quirky' cool), and great cinematography. Shawshank is probably second, and I hadn't seen it previously.

[Reply #465 on:]

Shawshank is a movie that's as good as the book, if not better, and that's rare.  The Green Mile is the same way. 

[Reply #466 on:]

Shawshank was a fantastic movie indeed. Especially also because of Morgan Freeman.

Also the other movies on your list I have seen were awesome:
City of God, Dr. Strangelove, Amelie and Taxi Driver.

[Reply #467 on:]

Spider  (short film, about 9 minutes long)
MUST SEE!  10/10

Hey, someone else who has Netflix, tell me what you think.

[Reply #468 on:]

Is it this one? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jmbv8kevQ-E

[Reply #469 on:]

Yes, exactly.  Damn you're good.

[Reply #470 on:]

Then I agree with you, a very great short film, party predictable, but very good.

[Reply #471 on:]

Jumper
Mind-bogglingly bad. For all the money and good intentions thrown at this film, it's a completely illogical piece of shit with a horrible protagonist that you will death upon from about 20 minutes deep into the film, onwards.
What's worse is that it's not a bad concept for a fun blockbuster and it's a horrible waste of Samuel L. Jackson who can either be a good actor - or more relvant to this film, can bring fairly standard blockbuster durge to life exquisitely well providing it knows its place. This film doesn't know its place. It has delusions of grandure.

It's fucking shit. Poorly acted, poorly plotted, poorly thought-through and horribly written.

So, so bad.

3/10

Really I started watching like 15 minutes of it and it's really good.



Lion King in 3D
Fantastic movie! Even better than I remembered! But did it need a 3D version??

10/10 In 2D  8/10 In 3D

[Reply #472 on:]

Jumper
Mind-bogglingly bad. For all the money and good intentions thrown at this film, it's a completely illogical piece of shit with a horrible protagonist that you will death upon from about 20 minutes deep into the film, onwards.
What's worse is that it's not a bad concept for a fun blockbuster and it's a horrible waste of Samuel L. Jackson who can either be a good actor - or more relvant to this film, can bring fairly standard blockbuster durge to life exquisitely well providing it knows its place. This film doesn't know its place. It has delusions of grandure.

It's fucking shit. Poorly acted, poorly plotted, poorly thought-through and horribly written.

So, so bad.

3/10

Really I started watching like 15 minutes of it and it's really good.

No, sorry, you're wrong.

[Reply #473 on:]

No, everyone has their own opinion.

[Reply #474 on:]

Sometimes an opinion can be wrong. Example: somebody might be of the opinion that a tree talks to them, when in actuality it's a guy standing behind the tree.

The opinion in this example is totally wrong.

[Reply #475 on:]

If Jumper had spent less time and energy in a massive and transparent attempt to set up a money-spinning franchise and more time actually telling a decent story, it might have been better. Of course, it still would have had the awful unholy ACTING TALENT of Hayden Christensen to surmount.

[Reply #476 on:]

Spider  (short film, about 9 minutes long)
MUST SEE!  10/10

Needles actually horrify and disgust me.  This video sobered me up, and now I'm going to have to finish the rest of this dehydrate to fill drunk again.

[Reply #477 on:]

Midnight in Paris
Quite charming film, Gil (Owen Wilson) and Inez (hottie Rachel McAdams) are in Paris planning their wedding, but on a midnight walk Gil finds himself in 1920s Paris rubbing shoulders with Ernest Hemingway, F .Scott Fitzgerald, Slavador Dali and other great artists, he also falls for Picassos mistress, Adriana (Marion Cotillard).
Michael Sheen was also good as the annoying know-it-all friend, but found it unrealistic that Inez liked him, Wilson is his usual foppish self and the rest of the cast are awesome.
The bit where the detective ends up was great too.

A-

[Reply #478 on:]

Real Steel
A movie thats about robots beating the shit out of each other that isn't painful to watch!

[Reply #479 on:]

October! Horror movies!

The House of the Devil

A very slow-burning, tension filled throwback to old school horror films. No gratuitous gore and murders every other second, just unsettling atmosphere and build-up. I enjoyed the aesthetic and style of the film a lot, but the plot was a bit disappointing for me. I didn't love it, but I certainly appreciated what it was going for.

B-

Evil Dead II

I loved the first Evil Dead for it's ridiculously awesome makeup and Sam Raimi's offbeat directing style, and I love this film for the same reasons. It's even more over-the-top and certainly more comical than the first one (which takes its horror aspects a bit more seriously), to the point where I'm not sure which one I enjoyed more. Awesome film.

A-

They Live

This movie is perhaps more sci-fi than horror, but a great watch regardless. The story maybe takes itself a little too seriously, and there's a fight scene that is unnecessarily long and pointless, but if you can get past those things, the rest is endlessly amusing. The best part is when the main character first wears the glasses, and then just starts blowing people away...classic.

B

Cabin Fever

This film is intentionally dumb. All the characters are obnoxious idiots, but as you watch the movie you realize that's pretty much the point. The acting is so over-the-top, which makes for lots of hilariously ridiculous lines and scenes ("Ya, he's a professor...of being a dog! Ooh, faced!" or "Pancakes!"). As an overall film I wouldn't say it's that good, but it's definitely entertaining.

C+

Planet Terror

I hadn't seen either of the Grindhouse films before this, and I was legitimately surprised by how much I enjoyed this film. Lots of ridiculous makeup and gore, and I adored the look and style of the movie. Homages to exploitation can be excellent when done correctly, and this movie hit all the right buttons for me.

B+

Well, that's the light stuff that I've watched...I will be posting again with reviews of some genuinely disturbing films.