I Just Bought Popcorn and a Drink and Now I Have No Money - (movie reviews)

[Reply #480 on:]

Yeah I can account for Captain America getting many "OH SHIT!" reactions from me because of the action and all the shooting (SO MANY PEOPLE GET SHOT).

[Reply #481 on:]

Punched, as well. Speaking of which, I should mention that CA:TWS has some of the best fight choreography I've ever seen. So many brutal shield smashes and S.H.I.E.L.D. smashes.

It's definitely among the better MCU films.

[Reply #482 on:]

Muppets Most Wanted

It was okay. I did like the kajillion celebrity cameos and the opening song. But as much as I like a film that's aware of its shortcomings and poking fun at them, I prefer when a film has no need to make fun of itself. Ricky Gervais will always irk me, as well.

[Reply #483 on:]

The Raid 2
Following up directly after the end of the 1st one, Rama is recruited to infiltrate the other gangs in the city and reveal the other corrupt police on their payroll.
He does this by befriending the son of one of the big bosses while in prison.
The action is exhilarating as before, this time adding many different locations (a lot fancier this time, the slum skyscraper is replaced by fancy apartments, restaurants, etc.) and a car chase sequence, as well as another rogues gallery of henchmen to deal with (some a little gimmicky but whatever).
The film is also looks great and sounds fantastic, it's used to build tension using long slow shots and background noise to good effect.
Visually, certain stylized shots reminded me of Only God Forgives, but they didn't linger as much which is a good thing, there's shit to be kicked out of people here!
This is one bloody ass-kicking movie.
A-

[Reply #484 on:]

Noah

  Truthfully it was really stupid. It teaches nothing of the story in the Bible except that we are all apparently descendants of Emma Watson.

 So imma be a mean bitch and give it an F



  My boyfriend and I were also dragged along to see Son of God

 Okay, so this is a pretty long story, it all starts off with my parents, little sister, Manuel, and I entering the movie theater. My parents were going to see Son of God whereas Manuel and I were going to take my sister to see Mr.Peabody and Sherman, but that was sold out. So we had to get last minute front row tickets to see Son of God. So we were in the movie theater and to the right of us this weird woman is sitting there with glasses on leaning forward all idiotically during the previews smiling. I was struggling trying to hold in my laughter when Manuel suggests that she was blind. I then felt bad for laughing but then she takes of her glasses and looked at the screen normally. So that wasn't the case. Then, once the movie started and Jesus appeared, she started waving her hands above her head and bowing. My mom came and asked if she was okay, when the lady got up and hugged my mom saying, "yes, yes, are you okay?," The rest of the movie theater seemed pretty disturbed although I was laughing pretty hard. The rest of the story is pretty long but thoroughly more hilarious. I can post it later.   

 

[Reply #485 on:]

Moral of the story: the really religious people who eat those movies up are often crazy. What a shock.

Also, never found out what you thought of Son of God. You hated Noah since it wasn't close enough to the Bible, so was Son of God more your speed?

[Reply #486 on:]

Yeah Son of God was at our theater for quite some time. I'm actually surprised we didn't/haven't gotten God's Not Dead.

[Reply #487 on:]

Frozen

Good. Really good. I have to be honest, though, it wasn't really the second coming of movie Jesus that the internet had led me to believe. It still has the formulas and cliches you'd see in a Disney film, they're just done very well. Except Olaf. Fuck that piece of walking merchandise.

[Reply #488 on:]

Except Olaf. Fuck that piece of walking merchandise.

Preach it child. (Actually everything you've said is spot on).

[Reply #489 on:]

What, specifically, did you not like about Olaf? I liked him well enough, except for whenever they tried to make him deep. The whole summer ignorance was cute.

[Reply #490 on:]

First and foremost, I don't know if anyone has said this or not but, Olaf is an ugly motherfucker. I can get behind the idea of a child creating a shitty looking snowman, but Elsa as a grown woman can conjure up a freaking ice castle but she can't make two perfect spheres of snow?

Second he's not essential to the plot. He's really not he's like the idiot's guide to point out the important things in the movie. The only thing he does is help Ana when she's freezing to death in an attempt to find Kristoff.

Your mileage may vary on how annoying you find him but while the first time I saw the movie I didn't have a problem, that wore off on round two. He's somewhat of an anachronism like the Genie is to Aladdin by being there mostly for comedic purposes but without the pop culture references and without actually having any value or worth.  Again YMMV, but Josh Gad, the actor who plays him is on the edge of being one of the most obnoxious actors but I do believe he is aware of this and has been shoehorned into that role not through his own doing.

Tangled managed to also have two side characters who a). had their own personalities and b). were much more delightful and funny without needing to give either of them a voice.

Granted I would take Olaf over that fucking cajun firefly thing in Princess and the Frog.

[Reply #491 on:]

The Nut Job

The movie "A Bugs Life" with herpes.

F-

[Reply #492 on:]

I just watched Frozen yesterday, and I agree in some respects with the anti-Olaf sentiments. He's obviously just there for the little kids to laugh at. He's goofy and nonthreatening and has a dumb voice. I didn't hate him, I just accepted that he's not a part of the movie that's meant to appeal to me. The movie has to please the 4 year olds too, after all.

[Reply #493 on:]

Goofy and non-threatening can be great if there's a reason for it. Donkey is needed because Shrek is an unfunny asshole. He's an extreme character, thus Donkey needs to be extreme in the opposite direction to balance it out. He's obnoxious and annoying, but it helps to show how Shrek changes over the course of the film.

Olaf doesn't change anyone. Olaf doesn't do anything. He has a cute but irrelevant side plot that would have been better suited as a ten minute Christmas special. Anna and Kristoff balance each other out perfectly, Olaf is the third wheel friend who never contributes to a conversation, just adds stupid quips.

He's so ineffective, I almost think he exists solely in the imagination of the main characters, who all have some sort of cold delirium.

[Reply #494 on:]

You're all heartless bastards hatin' on a wee snowman, screw you monsters!

Anyhoo,
Son of Batman
The brattish offspring of Talia al Ghul and Batman, Damian, is sent to Gotham to live with daddy for a while when the League of Shadows is attacked by Deathstroke (gotta love his tactic of firing rockets at guys who only have swords to defend themselves... bit of a flaw in your order of super ninjas there guys)
Nightwing shows up to crack wise and help Bats and Damian a bit.
At least 24% animation budget went into Talias knockers.
B-

[Reply #495 on:]

Under the Skin

I couldn't help but be reminded of this movie called Beyond the Black Rainbow because both films are slow burns and with basic plots coated by surrealism. I like both these movies, but this one is just one rung lower on the ladder of quality than Rainbow. If anything Under the Skin isn't abstract enough, and the ending I feel would have had more gravitas if

Show spoiler

The man she had befriend and tried to make love with was the one who discovered that her skin was just hiding her alien body and he ended up burning her alive instead of a random would-be rapist.

B-

[Reply #496 on:]

The Nut Job

The movie "A Bugs Life" with herpes.

F-

I looked at the poster for this movie and saw the way the characters looked (generic), Gabriel Iglesias, and the title.  It pretty much made me never want to see it.

[Reply #497 on:]

Yeah, that thing that people have that makes you say "oh, that looks like a crap movie"... HJS doesn't have that.

[Reply #498 on:]

Just went to see The Grand Budapest Hotel. Seriously, what Faze said. Quirky and fun, with a unique look and great cast.

[Reply #499 on:]

Moral of the story: the really religious people who eat those movies up are often crazy. What a shock.

Also, never found out what you thought of Son of God. You hated Noah since it wasn't close enough to the Bible, so was Son of God more your speed?

  I thought that it was okay, from what I wasn't too distracted to miss anyway.

  Anywho, after the movie her parents came and were about ready leave when she started acting weird again. My mom went and talked to her parents and found out that the person went crazy 3 days ago from then. They don't how or why and many questions still linger in my mind.

[Reply #500 on:]

Ya, like why would you take somebody who just had a mental breakdown to a movie theater...

[Reply #501 on:]

Olaf doesn't change anyone. Olaf doesn't do anything. He has a cute but irrelevant side plot that would have been better suited as a ten minute Christmas special. Anna and Kristoff balance each other out perfectly, Olaf is the third wheel friend who never contributes to a conversation, just adds stupid quips.

Olaf is the exact opposite of what you just listed. He's actually a rare example of a comic relief character done right.

[Reply #502 on:]

Xanfor's post made me read the article and attempt to defend Olaf.

First and foremost, I don't know if anyone has said this or not but, Olaf is an ugly motherfucker. I can get behind the idea of a child creating a shitty looking snowman, but Elsa as a grown woman can conjure up a freaking ice castle but she can't make two perfect spheres of snow?

This is something that actually has a very good, I think, explanation.
Olaf and the castle are, to Elsa, her past and her present. Clearly she is capable of great artwork, maturity, and amazing things in general, now that she has lost the glow of innocence and youth. But she fled her home to escape from herself, from what others thought of her, and from what she had become. Thus, the castle represents her current self: majestic, cold, composed.
But she had doomed herself to a life of solitude, and knew that she would hardly be able to survive completely alone. She could have created an equally mature and knowledgeable companion, someone that held the same beauty as her new home, but instead she created Olaf. Why? Because, although she recognized that she was a different person now and that she would not be able to return to her own life nor restore any of her old bonds, she still loved Anna.
That was her last true memory of Anna: building a snowman with her. Elsa didn't know what the current Anna was like, but she missed the Anna that she had known, and so recreated the last experience she had had with her sister.

As for the rest of your argument, I pretty much agree with the article that Xanfor linked to, which I think addresses your points fairly neatly.

[Reply #503 on:]

1. Subjectively, still didn't find him funny. Well written article, I see her points but I still don't like him.

2. I've invested so much time here and elsewhere talking/reading about a movie that I thought was perfectly serviceable and nothing else. Why? Because people are still talking about it. That's fine, I'm happy people like it. But I'm done talking about Frozen.

[Reply #504 on:]

But I'm done talking about Frozen.

Sounds to me as though you've decided to...

...let it go.



YEEAAAHHHH!

[Reply #505 on:]

Ya, like why would you take somebody who just had a mental breakdown to a movie theater...

that's exactly what I said. Not to mention they left her alone in the theater with her kids who looked like they weren't even old enough to be watching the movie.'(I't was pretty a little too violent for them)

[Reply #506 on:]

Noah

  Truthfully it was really stupid. It teaches nothing of the story in the Bible except that we are all apparently descendants of Emma Watson.

I mean, it contained everything that's in The Bible about Noah, so I don't know what else you wanted it to teach. There are a few embellishments, but absolutely nothing outside of the realm of possibility suggested in The Bible. The story in The Bible is really stupid. The film was an interesting attempt at adapting The Bible as if it were any other literary text rather than something with all of the emotional baggage people tend to associate with it.

[Reply #507 on:]

Double-Feature: Oculus and The Quiet Ones

These are movies I saw. One of them has a scary mirror. One of them does not. Take a guess as to which one was better. It doesn't matter though because neither of them are good.

C- and C+ respectively.

This concludes my reviews.

[Reply #508 on:]

Finally watched Fargo in it's entirety
It's good, darkly hilarious, but everyone probably knows that already.
Oh yah.
A+

[Reply #509 on:]

Now watch the TV show so I can talk to someone about it!!!

[Reply #510 on:]

**BUMP**

Whaaaaaa? No one's gone out of their way to see The Mediocre At Best Spider-Man this weekend?

Show spoiler

The movie is so in love with Garfield/Stone being in love with each other that by the time Gwen Stacey died my thought was, "Good. Now we can have an actual Spider-Man movie that's about superheros and not a love story that's set in a superhero world". And I say that as someone who really liked Gwen Stacey.

But goddamn that is TOO long of a movie where stuff is happening but it means NOTHING before something remotely interested happens. When Spider-Man is on screen doing Spider-Man stuff like making jokes, kicking butt, being friendly with the NYCers, that's fun. But then the indie-romance movie kicks in or the setup for the Sinister Six movie kicks in and it's like ugh stahp. Just bring back Spider-Man already.

C

[Reply #511 on:]

Indeed. The old Spiderman trilogy also had a "normal world" focus. But in that case, it was some poor buggers world was turned upside down by becoming a superhero. That increase of his everyday problems made him still very relatable (and also fun to watch with a certain Schadenfreude what mishap awaits next ).

But the new one's IRL was focused very much on a sappy love story (that rather resembles a soap opera, than real people), sacrificing that relatability.

Show spoiler

Also, that movie had more endings than "return of the kind". The fight against Elector should have been a showdown...that dark, empty setting, just inhabited by the two Superbeings, had some apocalyptic end-time feel. And when it was over, the Green Goblin seemed more like a not overmotivated "encore", and Rhino's arrival at the end was the encore no one in the audience really wante.

[Reply #512 on:]

Now watch the TV show so I can talk to someone about it!!!

Maybe 5 bucks will refresh my memory... :|

Anyway, I did see The Amazing Spider-man Dos but I had not formulated a strong opinion on it one way or another...*record scratch* until neoww!!
Two performances stood out for me, Jamie Fox at the start was so dumb and clichéd (seriously, walking around NYC with your arms full of blueprints was so stupid, get a poster tube you flippin' mong!), I disliked him.
However... the guy who eventually tortured him, the mad scientist guy (who I was disappointed to find out was not Peter Serafinowicz ), was so hilariously clichéd I actually liked him, so I don't know!
As for the spoiler territory, it surprised me a little but only because I didn't know the source material before that.
In short, it was ok, maybe a little better than the first one which I can't remember what I rated, so
Whatever I rated the 1st one as +

[Reply #513 on:]

Despicable Me 2

I'm not sure what to say, really. I know it's worse than the first one - the story is hard to care about and the heartfelt moments feel shoehorned in, but for some reason I enjoyed it far more than the original. Maybe because there was less focus on the kids, and I generally hate children in films.

[Reply #514 on:]

I saw a review where the reviewers were surprisingly complimentary about it saying that it seemed like the producers had taken note of what worked in Despicable Me and built Despicable Me 2 entirely around that.

I'm not sure if I completely agree but it does seem to be greater than the sum of it's parts.

[Reply #515 on:]

Agreed.  I saw DM2 a week or three after I saw DM1 and I really enjoyed it.

[Reply #516 on:]

Godzilla

Show spoiler

I gotta give this movie credit for still being entertaining despite killing Bryan Cranston off in the 1st act. Also it's a real cocktease with the monster fights until the end.

Hopefully we'll have this one at our theater for a while and I'll have something new to watch on my breaks once Captain America leaves.

Also it is strangely quiet for a monster film.

A-

[Reply #517 on:]

Needs moar cowbell(!)

[Reply #518 on:]

Godzilla

It was entertaining, but did not turn out to be exeptionally memorable.
+ Had some nice retro vibes and did the old monster stereotypes/behaviour justie.
+ The designs were okay.

Show spoiler

The "good" Godzilla acutally worked very well, by showing him/her/it as a creature for which humans are neither enemy nor prey, therefore displaying very little interest in them (except an occasional curious look).

+/- Characters were very generic. I'll give them credit for not ruining the story with too many new twists. Yet, exceptional highlights were missing.
- It had some "War of the World with Tom Cruise" feeling, often delegating the battles into the background. As the foreground was populated by -as just mentioned- not too exceptional human characters, several scenes came of as too unspectacular.
- The monsters often appeared isolated, with scenes/settings still resembling the "venerable guy in a rubber suit stomping a model city" layout.  Pacific Rim did a better job of showcasing those creatures enormous size by perspective, etc...

All in all, the movie was quite okay, and I would definitely watch a sequel.
Yet, in direct comparison, "Pacific Rim" is the clear winner for me.

B

[Reply #519 on:]

See I'm trying to really pin down why I liked Godzilla more than Pacific Rim, because all the problems you've listed are valid and ones that I had issues with too but I still really liked the movie. I think I liked the characters more in this film than Pacific Rim (Charlie Day being the exception) even though both films have generic characters with uninspired dialogue.