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Scrappylive
Liquid Emperor
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Bump/New Movie Review The MuppetsLast night, I rented The Muppets (2011 film) from Redbox. I wasn't sure what to expect, since I hadn't seen anything from the franchise since I was but a wee lad, but it was definitely a treat to watch. The movie itself is a little campy and full of breakings of the fourth wall (which I thought were mostly hilarious) - but they pull it off and make it work quite well. The humor is varied and plentiful. This movie reignited my love for The Muppets, especially Kermit. I definitely recommend watching it. 9.5/10Ma Nah Ma Nah
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DannyJC13
DOOP Secretary
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The Hunger Games
Haven't read the books and wasn't planning on seeing this movie at all, but me and 2 other friends went and saw it anyway (one of them has read all 3 books, the other has only read the first one). It was pretty awesome, I was expecting it to be lame but came out pretty surprised, I enjoyed it quite a lot. So yeah, go see it....
8/10
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Frisco17
DOOP Secretary
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A few weeks is speed reading?
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cyber_turnip
Urban Legend
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Project Nim
A documentary told largely through talking heads - very much like the director's better-known work Man on Wire. I was hoping for an intelligent and insightful insight into the fascinating ramifications of the very idea of successfully teaching a chimpanzee to speak English through the medium of sign-language. Sadly, this is more of a War Horse-esque celebration of animals - although, in this case it sort of works because it isn't implying that a chimp's life should be our priority over that of a human's.
It's a compelling story with a (I suspect, unintentional) comedic edge due to the "scientists" all basically being drugged up hippies from the 70s that decided to get a pet chimp whilst under the influence of various narcoticis and if you're less cynical than me, you could probably get quite emotionally invested in the story of little Nim as he's banded about from owner to owner - but it's a film that favours human attachment over science so it fell at the first hurdle as far as I'm concerned. Not bad though, not bad at all.
7/10
Go
Very much of the time in which it was made - it's very clear that Pulp Fiction had just come out, for instance - but a decent effort for what it is. Whilst I love the concept of one story told through a series of smaller, inter-connecting stories following different characters, it's hardly done to its best potential here - mostly because the stories feel largely separate to each other until they meet up at the end as opposed to more cleverly intertwined.
Still, it's good stuff which features a strong cast of mostly new faces at the time and constantly engages - although it does run a little long for its own good. Still, as far as 90s movies about drugs go, you could do a lot worse.
7/10
Green Card
A generic rom-com concept leads to an incredibly bland and generic rom-com. A fantastic cast or a surprisingly hilarious script might have sold the premise in which two people fake a marriage to get a green card and then fall in love, but as it stands, it's like a checklist of rom-cliches. In fact, one more and I might have thought it was intended as a post-modern attack on the genre.
Its unambitious and cheap-looking nature certainly don't do it any favours, either. It's just rather limp without being offensively bad. So I mean... it just sort of exists. I wouldn't recommend it, but it's not bad enough to tell you not to watch it either.
5/10
My Date with Drew
A hugely inspirational piece of work. It never takes itself seriously enough to be creepy, and so you're just left with a humourless riff on celebrity culture that ends in a hugely uplifting way - at least for anybody with aspirations to work in the film industry. This guy went out and made a film on next to nothing - and not only does it work (remarkable on that kind of money) but its genuinely very entertaining.
Highly recommended for aspiring film-y types or fans of documentaries in general.
7/10
Eagle vs Shark
A film worthy of praise purely for its unique sense of humour. At times, I felt dirty for enjoying its hipster sensabilities - but it was undeniably charming and had its moments.
It's certainly helped along my a likable pair of leads in its cast - and I suppose the way that everything is funnier when it's said in a New Zealand accent.
7/10
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Nutmeg1729
Urban Legend
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I much prefer what they've done with Hulk in the Avengers Assemble Movie. Which brings me to Avenger's AssembleFucking awesome. Not much more needs to be said. They took my expectations, exceeded them, and created one of my new favourite movies. Best bits: "YOU WANT ME TO DROP THE HAMMER!?" Hulk punching Thor in the face as they land after tag teaming some Chitauri. Loki getting thrown around like a ragdoll after trying to one-up Hulk. And a whole bunch of others that I can't even think of. It's full of brilliant little one liners that don't actually seem forced, which is perfect. However... I will never, ever forgive them for killing because WHYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY!!!!!!! That is all. A+++++
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cyber_turnip
Urban Legend
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I recently re-watched all of the films leading into The Avengers and was surprised at how much my opinion changed of two of them.
Iron Man is still as fantastic as I remember. It's not without its flaws, but it's pretty much a definitive example of how to make an excellent Summer blockbuster. The Incredible Hulk would be up there if I was ever compiling a list of the most under-rated films of all time. It's a great bit of fun, just like Iron Man - albeit not as good. But Ed Norton is excellent as Banner and it does a great job of turning an awkward-to-adapt story and characters into a film. Iron Man 2 was a film I remembered enjoying at the cinema in spite of being disappointed at it not improving on the first film like most 2nd entries into superhero franchises tend to. But Christ, watching it again, it was just terrible. Illogical, riddled with awful writing, stereotypes and coincidences. Thanks to Robert Downey Jr it never stops being watchable, but it's a very poor film. Thor, on the flip-side, was a film I enjoyed far more a second time. I thought it was okay at the cinema, but I was pretty let down as I was hoping for much more than what we were given. It never got away from feeling like a set-up for The Avengers/Thor 2 and I was left rather unsatisfied - but watching it a second time, I suppose my expectations were managed much more and I really enjoyed it for the charms it actually has. The production design and Tom Hiddleston as Loki are just outstanding. Although I agree about the ridiculous over-use of dutch angles. Captain America: The First Avenger is my 2nd favourite of the films setting up The Avengers (after Iron Man). I love it. It's a solid film in its own rights, but it ticked so many boxes to make it work on a personal level for me. It has an amazing sense of creating this steam-punk Marvel-universe set in the 40s, complete with gorgeous, pulpy WWII imagery, cheesey nazi villains doing impressions of Werner Herzog, an outstanding cast, a great deal of Easter eggs for fans of the Marvel world, a glowing McGuffin, a song by Alan Menken and so forth. It's great fun.
And that leads me on, rather nicely, to this:
The Avengers
I've been eagerly anticipating this one for 4 years. I'm glad to report that it's quite easily the best of Marvel's efforts to date and seemlessly overcomes all of the doubts people had due to things such as having to juggle multiple protagonists and stitching such crazy sci-fi (aliens? borderline magic?) together with fairly real-world (by comparison) movies like Iron Man. Whilst it's a bit slow at first, once it gets going, it's a supreme action movie with fantastic and constantly witty dialogue that is arguably more entertaining that the top-notch action. It's hard for me to gage how much of this film I loved based on the novelty of seeing Iron Man and Thor in the same scene and how much of it was genuine love that will stay with me on repeat viewings - but I'm quite sure that it's all legit. I loved it. It seems like everyone's loving it. The ending is essentially identical to Transformers 3 - but not shit which just goes to show what makes a film work. Characters and dialogue need to be there to hold things like action together. Anyway, yes. It's great and there's little I can say that hasn't already been said by many. It's not without its flaws but it's still fantastic and although I need to see it a few more times to really figure out how much I like it, I think it may be a contender for best superhero film of all time.
9/10
The Happiness of the Katakuris
I had such high hopes for this film. Not only does it have the wonderful concept of being about a family-run bed and breakfast where all of the guests inexplicably die on their first night of stay - leading to countless cover ups so as to avoid bad press - but it's a zombie musical that incorporates stop-start animation here and there. It's a shame then, that the film is a fucking mess that makes no sense with transitions to animation only seeming to take place because they couldn't afford the special effects in live-action and the music being of a poor standard and handled in a manor so as to make me ashamed that I like musicals. And the zombies only show up for a few minutes at the end.
3/10
Music & Lyrics
If you've seen one Hugh Grant film, you've essentially seen them all. Especially if you've seen one that, like this, was written and directed by Marc Lawrence.
That said, this is probably the best effort I've seen from a Hugh Grant film (that doesn't actually manage to transcend that and be a genuinely good film like About a Boy did). It's hugely cliched to the point that you know every story beat before you press play but it's also better than most of these films because Hugh is playing an ageing pop-star and that means that every now and then there's some cheesey pop song parody to break things up. So yeah, it's not great but it's inoffensive enough to get by without me complaining about it unlike most of these films.
6/10
The Pirates! In an Adventure with Scientists!
Sadly, The Pirates! offers nothing above the level of a Saturday-morning kids' cartoon (beyond being stop-start animated). Its sense of humour is distinctly Aardman - but Aardman doesn't always operate at the wonderful heights of Wallace & Gromit in The Curse of the Were-Rabbit - sometimes they operate at a more Arthur Christmas level, as is the case here. It's mildly amusing with a mixture of awful, family-film gags and genuinely smart background jokes but the story is just so blase that you're left wondering why they bothered.
Certainly not a bad film, but a hugely wasted opportunity from people that should be putting out work that's much better.
6/10
The Cabin in the Woods
A great film that's an odd mixture of great fun, borderline-insanity and a nice layer of intelligence.
For the first two acts, it's essentially a bog-standard American horror film intercut with people watching them on screens and making somewhat sarcastic comments and jokes that lean on the fourth-wall about how cliched it all is. That's okay, but it's not really any more enjoyable that watching a better-than-average crappy American horror film - enjoyable even though you know it sucks.
However, in the third act everything comes together beautifully. I can't say much without dropping massive spoilers but let's just say that the film mixes two of my favourite things - zombies and Lovecraftian lore - with God knows how many other badass film-elements and lovely surprises as well as a climax that is ridiculously fun. Plus the whole thing maintains a great sense of humour whilst also establishing a rather interesting world. It's far from perfect but it does more than enough to make it worthy of high praise and discussion and I can't wait to see it again at some point based on just how much happens at once in those final scenes. Seriously, they're like Where's Wally pictures.
8/10
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Vivek
Delivery Boy
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And I am glad you did . Stick through the credits of Avengers for a bonus scene, the US release is having an additional post credits scene.
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Nixorbo
UberMod
DOOP Secretary
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Obvious trolling is obvious.
Short version: Whedon knocked it out of the park.
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TheMadCapper
Fluffy
UberMod
DOOP Secretary
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I have not seen the movie you're discussing, so I'm just taking up space here.
Also, the hulk would make an excellent slut.
HULK SMASH AND RAPE!
Wait, nevermind.
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