Cynical Evaluations of Cinema: Movie Reviews

[Reply #560 on:]

千年女優 (Millennium Actress)

Aged actress Chiyoko Fujiwara tells the story of her life and films to interviewer Genya Tachibana in a play within a play style. In this Genya and his camera man take rolles within the life story and especially Genya helps pushing it along.
They rediscover Chiyoko's meeting with a dissident artist during Wolrd War II who she helped escape from the police. They were meant to meet again later on and Genya is given the key to the artist's suitcase.
Caused by many different incidents she never managed to get to where they are supposed to meet and ultimately lost they key during production one day.
Genya, who worked as a helper on the film set had found they key and gives it back to her.
Later on, in the hospital, with Chiyoko being taken sick and possibly not surviving it she explains that chasing the artist was probably the most joy in her life and meeting him again would never have topped that anyway.
Ouside her room Genya confesses, that he found out that the artist was killed many years ago in a police interrogation.

It's a very nice study of a life of the old actress through her past movies mixed with the present day interviews and the overall life goal of hers to find the artist again and give him back his keys.
The quick change of locations and times between, present day, real life back-story and movie scene back-story does cause some slight confusion at times, but is always resolved quick enough so one never feels lost.
The style also fits well with Satoshi Kon's other works (especially Paranoia Agent & Paprika) and isn't surprising at all for those familiar with his movies.

8/10




Smultronstället (Wild Strawberries)

Isak Borg, a 78 year old widower and physician sets out on a long car ride from Stockholm to Lund to receive the honorary degree Doctor Jubilaris.
He is accompanied by his pregnant daughter-in-law Marianne who doesn't like him much and is planning to separate from his only son.
During the journey Isak has a couple of nightmares and daydreams along with memories from his youth which alongside his impending death causes him to reevaluate his life.
On their way they pick up three hitchhikers, two men and a woman named Sara, who reminds Isak of a love in his youth. This group remains with them all through their journey.
At one point they additionally pick up a married couple who had an accident. Though since they constantly unpleasant to each other, they're quickly kicked out of the car.
This couple reminds Isak of his own unhappy marriage. The visit at his mother's house also shows him through her loneliness and aloofness that he shares those traits as well.
The night after the award ceremony he bits a loving good-bye to the hitchhikers and a now not as bitter Isak whispers after them to remember him.
In his dreams that night he is taken back to a family picnic by a lake, full of peace, finally having found closure in his life.

A very interesting movie about finding peace in the end of life and reevaulating the past with all its good and bad sides.
Not having seen many Ingmar Bergman movies, I can't compare this one to his other work, but on its own it's definitely a very enjoyable, calm movie.

8.5/10




東京物語 (Tokyo Story)

The story of an elderly couple, Shukichi and Tomi Hirayama living with their youngest daughter (Kyoko, a schoolteacher) in southwest Japan. They decide to visit their other children and their families in Tokyo and Osaka.
Their oldest son, Koichi, is a district paediatrician and is married with two kids. Their oldest daughter, Shige, is also married and a hairdresser. Those two live in Tokyo, additionally to that widowed daughter-in-law Noriko also lives there.
Their children though have their own lives and are less than happy about having to spend time with their parents and find them to be in the way and annoying. They even send them away for a few day to a hot spring spa, which is overrun by younger people who are loud until late in the night. So the couple decides to go back to Tokyo and then quickly back home.
That of course their kids also don't want, since they feel bad about having to send them away so quickly.
Meanwhile only their daughter-in-law is the only one taking time off work and going out of her way to spend time with Shukichi and Tomi and enjoys it too. Though they feel bad about that too and thus decide to go home again, but not without visiting their last son, Keizo, in Osaka.
During the journey home, Tomi is taken ill and needs to rest for a while before getting home where she eventually becomes critically ill and dies while all the kids, but Keizo are around to help in her last hours.
After the funeral all the kids are rather quick to leave again to get back to their families and jobs, only they youngest daughter who lives there is left and Noriko stays as well.
A while later Noiko has to go back to Tokyo herself and has one last conversation with her father-in-law in which he tells her to remarry and give her his late wife's watch as a memento.

It's a very slow paced movie which completely focuses on characters and dialogue, even if the later at times appears to be of little interest at times, it always adds well to the characters and the interaction between them.
The camera is, typically for Yasujirō Ozu movies, stationary in all scenes and oftentimes at a very low angle, especially when they characters are sitting.
Definitely one of the best movies ever made.

10/10

[Reply #561 on:]

Bend-err likes old people!

[Reply #562 on:]

I could have reviewed other movies I watched lately as well, but I thought I review some I am sure hardly anyone (if at all) here has seen.

[Reply #563 on:]

I went to see Arthur Christmas and I agree with cyber_turnip's rating of 7/10.

One (minor) problem I have is that the premise of the movie still doesn't explain how santa is able to deliver all the presents in 24 hours. 2 billion presents in 24 hours is over 23000 deliveries per second!

Also, Steve's present delivery system can't be all that wonderful if it took a janitorial worker to discover that one present hadn't even made it out of the sleigh, let alone been successfully delivered.

[Reply #564 on:]

The quite-similar-film-marathon!

Margin Call
Film starts in a Wall-street type financial risk management company where a load of people are fired, one of whom is Stanley Tucci, who upon leaving hands a USB drive to Zachary Quinto and says "Be careful".
Quinto investigates and discovers the company is about to lose a shizzload of money.
So he brings it up the management chain to Paul Bettany, then Kevin Spacey and then Jeremy Irons, and they race to sell all of their worthless assets before the lose everything, causing the financial crash from a few years ago.
I enjoyed it, great performances.
B

The Company Men
This film also starts with people being fired but this time it's Ben Affleck from a ship building company, and it follows his attempts to find another job while his money runs out and he has to sell his fancy car, and his house.
Eventually due to more downsizing his older co-worker Chris Cooper and even his immediate section manager, Tommy Lee Jones get fired too so it follows them for a while.
Also a decent watch.
B

[Reply #565 on:]

I could have reviewed other movies I watched lately as well, but I thought I review some I am sure hardly anyone (if at all) here has seen.

I have seen Millennium Actress and agree that it is a fine film

[Reply #566 on:]

You surely have seen some of the other Kon's movies, Tweek?

[Reply #567 on:]

Indeed; I have Millennium Actress, Perfect Blue, Paprika and Tokyo Godfathers on DVD, I've also seen Paranoia Agent.

[Reply #568 on:]

I have seen all of those too, but Perfect Blue, should really watch that some day.

[Reply #569 on:]

Female assassin revenge-a-thon!

Hanna
Saoirse Ronan plays the title character, rescued as a baby by Eric Bana from a CIA programme to create a genetically engineered soldier, he raises her as a killer/survivor in solitude in Siberia.
Cate Blanchett plays the evil agent out to kill them both.
Joe Wright uses dream-like sequences, interesting locations, and the soundtrack from The Chemical Brothers to make it stand out from other generic action films, with some success, but I found it a little bit disjointed at times (such as the scene where she escapes an underground CIA facility that seems to have a load of strobe lights in its escape-tunnel system...perfect for the score but not very practical! )
Standard plotline too, nothing unexpected really happens, but it's different at least.
C

Colombiana
Zoe Saldana plays Cattleya, who witnesses her parents murder by Colombian crimelords as a young girl (but somehow escapes herself by being way better at parkour than the bad guys, also I'm pretty sure parkour didn't exist 15 years ago...)
She escapes to the USA where she starts killing other bad guys and leaving a calling card to get the attention of the crime lord, but somehow doesn't until she kills 22 people...
Then there's a ridiculously bad CIA dude (like how did he even get the job he's so clearly a douchebag), an FBI guy that tries to catch her and fails miserably, several dozen disposable henchmen and a final battle.
Saldana is ok and sexy and all, but sometimes it seems her skinny ass wouldn't even be able to carry the big guns or fight the guys she does, so the film is flawed and generic in several areas.
Luc Besson clearly wanted to make Mathilda, the follow up to Leon, as there is so many logical conclusions that this is what she would end up like if she became an assassin, but we got this instead, disappointing.
C-

[Reply #570 on:]

Captain America (2011)

Took forever to see this but out of the pre-Avengers movies (that I have seen thus far) I really liked it. It was much better than Thor and didn't have any dutch angles! Totally predicted like everything that was gonna happen but that's ok, it was still fun, Red Skull is fucking awesome (which means there are gonna be cool villains in the Avengers), and I loved the WWII setting. It's long though.

Also:

Show spoiler

Bucky, noooooooo!

B+

[Reply #571 on:]

The Thing (2011)

Well I went into the cinema with my expectations set at -4, fully prepared to be underwhelmed and was not disappointed. Nice nerdy moments like explaining the axe in the wall, the suicidal guy (not the best tbh), the two faced burnt corpse in the snow etc etc. However, there was no sense of creeping menace, hardly any time taken to develop a single character and too much English - the whole thing would have worked so much better entirely in Norwegian.

The director copped out completely by casting a female (the all male cast of the 1982 film just added to the feeling of isolation - which again was completely lacking in this move - sure the snow and mountains were there but it just felt like they could have popped out to Burger King at the drop of a hat).

Show spoiler

Other cop out was the fact that our heroine survives, although there's every chance she'll die off camera after the film ends, but why not just kill her. Surely the point of the movie is that in this one the Thing wins the day. And the final link up with the 1982 film, although nicely executed, was just tacked on - I wanted it to build to that and it utterly failed. Also they forgot to blow up the alien ship with thermo-chargers.

Finally, in terms of directing skill, all the shock moments were so telegraphed you could hear the clicks. And there was never time to build on the feelings of mistrust that an alien mimic in your midst would foster.

Nice try. Could do much better.

5/10

[Reply #572 on:]

I just saw Hugo. It was pretty great. Not the best acting ever, but a really thought-provoking and interesting plot and the visuals were absolutely beautiful. It was also fun to watch the segments from old films scattered throughout.
9/10

[Reply #573 on:]

@spira: did you go home and watch The Series Has Landed afterwards?  I sure did.

[Reply #574 on:]

Rocky III

Just as 'Rocky II' did a better than expected job of continuing a story that shouldn't have really had any sequels, 'Rocky III' does another better than expected job of continuing another story that shouldn't have had any sequels. It's far from perfect, which is a shame because I feel as if all of the 'Rocky' films I've seen so far have shown great potential but haven't quite lived up to it... but I suppose if III was some sort of masterpiece, that wouldn't be consistent with the first two.
All the same, the extension of Apollo Creed's character is nice and a handful of scenes, including the final moment are brilliant. It's also noteworthy for unleashing Mr. T upon the world. It's easy to take him for granted now, but at the time this was an inspired bit of chance-casting and it works perfectly.

So yeah, overall a good effort, but one that falls somewhat short of what it could have been.

6/10


Cowboys & Aliens

Such a shame. Once I got my head around the concept that 'Cowboys & Aliens' wasn't going to be a comedy, but rather a straight-western with aliens thrown in, the film's incredible potential for awesomeness hit me. I love westerns, but I often find my attention wandering because let's face it, they're often very dry and that often causes them to be very dull. That's why my favourite westerns seem to be the one's where they throw in something high-concept like time-travel ('Back to the Future: Part III') or robots ('Westworld') and so, logically, 'Cowboys & Aliens' should have been a smash-hit success for me. But it wasn't.

It's directed and shot competently enough and the cast are great - Sam Rockwell reminded me why I loved him after a string of less amazing performances made me somewhat lose faith, Olivia Wilde continued to be as hot as ever, Daniel Craig played perfectly into the role of "man with no name", bad-ass cowboy type and Harrison Ford's voice has gotten so haggard and gruff that he's just perfect as a dickish olden day businessman who proves himself to have a heart after all, but all that wasn't enough to make up for what is a very dull series of events. I mean, the film is basically just "these guys live in the wild west, here's some aliens, they have a big fight". There's nothing more to it than that and there should have been. Some character depth beyond a hokey, tacked on dead-wife backstory or something interesting for the woman to do other that being a love interest and a cheap way of getting some exposition out there.

So yeah. It's a hugely upsetting waste of an opportunity. It could have been a campy, yet serious slice of action-adventure, but it's just a dry, and at times very stupid Summer blockbuster that runs out of steam after about 15 minutes. It's watchable, but it doesn't really justify sitting through.

5/10


Greenberg

A couple of interesting characters on screen for a feature running time. They don't really do anything other than interact which means that the film is a character study in the truest sense, but that's fine. Unfortunately, it doesn't really go anywhere and there's no real structure but the film is trying to say something and it does an adequate job of such. It's a wasted opportunity but it still succeeds in part.

6/10


The Usual Suspects

I don't understand the hype. This film is completely competent but it also never really grabbed me. It's not that the story is overly complex, but it doesn't engage enough to stop itself from being confusing just because watching it caused a sort of "who cares?" apathy about me.
So yeah, it's well put together and has a great cast, as well as a brilliant twist - but as a film, it just feels like the cinematic equivalent of the word "blah". It's a solid thriller, but I've seen so many better examples of neo-noir and I've seen far more gripping crime-based thrillers with twists... so yeah. Not bad, by any means, but one of the most over-rated films I've ever seen.

6/10


Rocky IV

This film breaks down as follows:
1. 10 minutes of footage from the third film, re-capping the ending.
2. A scene setting up a Russian villain.
3. A fight sequence between Apollo Creed and the Russian.
4. An hour-long training montage.
5. A fight sequence between Rocky and the Russian.

Every Russian in the film is a cartoonish stereotype meaning that the film falls squarely into the realm of propoganda with this being a complete USA vs. the Ruskies response to the Cold War and for absolutely no reason, Rocky has a robot butler now. A really shit robot butler.
And in spite of all these (pretty hefty) shortcomings, the film is still quite enjoyable although it really has to be enjoyed as a guilty pleasure. It's far from the quality of the first three films, but it's a lot better than it could have been, I suppose. It's a bad film, but not entirely bad and its heart is in the right place, at very least.

5/10


50/50

This film is essentially the standard romcom (with cancer thrown in) but what separates it from the pack is that this one is actually genuinely touching, genuinely funny and the relationship feels completely organic and not at all forced. Frankly, whilst I hate romcoms in general, when one comes along that ticks all of those boxes, I think it's worthy of intense praise.
Everything in this film works. The drama is dramatic, the comedy is funny, in all honesty I came about as close as I ever do to crying during films at it on multiple occasions. And the cast are all so damned likeable. Even Bryce Dallas Howard who is supposed to play a character that's reprehensible was impossible to dislike - although I wonder how much of this is down to her intense beauty throughout the picture.

Anyway, it handles a delicate subject with care and still manages to be a funny and fairly upbeat film. My only real complaints are that with it being hailed as the "feel-good film of the year", it's pretty obvious whether or not Joseph Gordon-Levitt is going to pull through, but all the same, it's a very accomplished piece - especially considering that it comes from a first-time-screenwriter.

With 'Crazy, Stupid, Love.', 'Bridesmaids' and even 'Friends with Benefits', I suppose 2011 is the year of the romcom that doesn't suck balls.

8/10


Hugo

A fairly straight-forward charm-athalon of a family film that employs countless tropes of the genre with its orphan protagonist who lives in the walls of a train-station. The direction from Martin Scorsese is everything you'd expect from the man (incredibly accomplished, in spite of some dodgy editing and white-noise in the sound-mixing that only a real film-nerd would pick out). The performances are great all round except for Chloe Moretz who is just awful... I'm not sure what happened here because I'm usually a fan of her work but in this film she just comes off as a standard child-actor (ie. shit). I think it's partly due to some fairly cheesey dialogue, but even so, the rest of the cast seem to make it work.

Anyway, the strange thing about this film is that about halfway through, it morphs from a standard family film into a biopic about silent-era film-director Georges Mà (C)liès. This is Scorsese's open love-letter to cinema (in the same vein as films such as 'Inglourious Basterds' and 'Cinema Paradiso') and although one or two moments are a bit wobbly, on the whole it's an incredibly solid bit of work - although one that does seem to be getting a tad more praise than it deserves.

It's also partly noticable for being Scorsese's first venture into 3D after comments about how every film should be in 3D and that it absolutely adds to cinema and so forth. Frankly, it did little to change my opinion on the value of 3D films. There was one shot at the end that was, to be fair, utterly incredible and wouldn't have been in 2D - but does one shot justify an entire film? I suppose at a stretch - there were maybe 5 shots that made me notice and appreciate the 3D, but I'm sure the film would work just as well in 2D - possibly even better as it could connect with its silent-film source/homage material more powerfully.

Anyway, personally I'd give it a 7, but as I'm trying to be more objective, I'm giving it an
8/10


The Thing (2011)

Given that the 1982 'The Thing' is one of my all-time favourite films and all the rather negative press this film has been getting, I really expected to despise this film just as I expect to despise the recent 'Straw Dogs' remake when I finally get round to it. So I was pleasantly surprised that it's an enjoyable romp. Does it add anything new to the story? No. It, admittedly, is just a remix of scenes from the first film, but it's far-removed from the first film to work as an engaging story - at least as far as horror movies go - and although it walks an awkward line between pandering to an audience that haven't seen the first film whilst presumably not playing well to people who haven't seen the first film, it was still enjoyable.
There's lots of nice little nods and winks to fans of the first film without feeling forced, which is good, but at the same time, there's lots of blatant disregard for what made the first film work so well (lack of CGI, the Thing itself not just being a big, scary monster running around trying to eat people, etc). Still, given how bad this could have been, I'm glad that it's not only okay, but very enjoyable, too.

I think it's a solid 7/10, which might seem very high, but for the record, I consider the 1982 'The Thing' to be a perfect 10/10 so a 7 is quite a drop for this prequel - but on its own terms, it's still a decent effort.


Happy Feet Two

The first 'Happy Feet' was a bizarre mixture of things that (surprisingly) worked incredibly well and things that really didn't work at all. It evened out to be a decent effort that was a lot less crap than expected.

And that, is pretty much exactly how I feel about the second entry, too. Slightly less of it works this time round - mostly due to the musical element of it all. The first film's use of music felt organis and honestly, I found myself loving a lot of the musical medlies and dance sequences - albeit as something of a guilty pleasure. This film, however, seems to be awkwardly crow-barring songs in here and there where they could for a line or two purely because the first film did it and they couldn't exactly just abandon that aspect of it all for the sequel.

But yes, overall it's a surprisingly not awful film that lives up to the standard of the first (more or less) and has enough new ideas to make it more than a simple rehash of the first film (which is what I expected once I found out that this film would be about the character of the film film as an adul and his son who doesn't fit in, just like he didn't). Anyway, yes. Big fans of the first film ought to check this one out, otherwise, don't bother.

6/10


The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo

I do not understand the hype one bit. As far as I'm concerned, this film is a completely standard thriller, and a pretty dull one at that. It doesn't even strike me as a missed opportunity or anything like that. It was just a boring story with boring characters that presumably has resonated with certain people because of its moments of "extreme violence" - although they aren't really particularly dark.

I can only hope that David Fincher's version is somehow a hell of a lot better in spite of it looking fairly shot-for-shot so far. The teaser to Fincher's film certainly screams style and you know, entertainment and contains more of such than can be found in this entire film's bloated 2 1/2 hour corpse of a running time... so there's hope.

5/10

[Reply #575 on:]

Baby Mama

I watched this with some friends on Friday night, and it was all right. My friends, who had seen it before, claimed that it was so funny; I wasn't particularly impressed. Something's off with the movie, like, tonally; had they pulled back a little on the really broad, slapstick-y stuff, I think this would have made a pretty awesome dramedy (idiotic though that term may be). The really broad, less character-driven humor is jarring when it comes after scenes that are played almost-straight, emotionally. I get that the movie wasn't trying to take itself too seriously--I'm just saying that, if it had, that would have made it more enjoyable to me.

I mean, Tina Fey and Amy Poehler, in addition to being hilarious in their own right, make a great duo. They're really fun to watch. (And also, Greg Kinnear is one of my old-enough-to-be-my-dad crushes. So it was cool to see him, even if his character was kind of ill-defined.) I just think that, had this movie struck a better balance between humor and emotion, something a bit more on-par with what Kristen Wiig did in Bridesmaids (which I loved), it would have been much better.

Also: The ending was pat and cheap and predictable, and it made me retrospectively hate everything that had come before it. That's not fair of me, but come on. Waaay too easy.

6/10

[Reply #576 on:]

My problem with Bridesmaids is that there was too much awkward humor. So many moments where someone would say something and then they would just sit there and let that sink in like, come on audience laugh at how awkward this situation is. Har-har! Drove me crazy.

[Reply #577 on:]

Cowboys and Aliens
Not too bad I was expecting worse and very comic-bookey but that's expected, I expect Jon Favreau didn't have to flex his film-making muscle too far for this.
Craig is an ok cowboy, needs more squinting though.
I thought it could have used a few less characters, like get rid of the Native American dude and have Craig and Ford become like father son instead maybe?
The aliens also needed to be more vicious earlier on too, lassoing people and one guy getting splatted was meh, they kicked ass at the end though.
B-

[Reply #578 on:]

My problem with Bridesmaids is that there was too much awkward humor. So many moments where someone would say something and then they would just sit there and let that sink in like, come on audience laugh at how awkward this situation is. Har-har! Drove me crazy.

Oh, how I love awkward humor. I get where it could be irritating, but I just love how painful those silences are. Bridesmaids felt very improv-y to me, which might account for the awkward moments--but that just made it really fun to watch, I think.

[Reply #579 on:]

Straw Dogs (2011)

Personally I think the original film is close to being a masterpiece. It's a fantastic study of right, wrong and the grey area inbetween - at what points you start to question your values and so forth. It's a rare example of a film that I genuinely consider to be a difficult watch, but I love it for that. It really gets under your skin and makes you think.

And then there's this remake. Taken on its own merits, it's a bog-standard, conventional, modern thriller. And not a good one. It's not completely awful - I have seen worse - but it's bad. Not to mention how awkward its sincere, xenophobic depiction of Southern America is to watch.

But this is taking the film on its own terms and frankly, in my opinion, a remake has absolutely no right to stand on its own terms. If you're going to remake a film it has to stand alongside the original. It either has to explore new ground or it has to improve upon the original. It can't do what this film did which is to retread the same ground whilst completely ignoring all of the depth of the original and glossing over anything that might lead a person to, God-forbid, think. The rape scene, for instance, goes from a powerful and somewhat harrowing work of art to a scene that seemingly serves no purpose other than to make it crystal clear to the auidence who the bad guy is. And it's intercut with a scene of a someone hunting so that you know when the guy cums - cos like, the hunter shoots his gun, get it?

The worst thing of all, however, is the remake's message. By garbling the ideas and themes of the original so badly, they've managed to turn it into something that (and I'm not sure if it's intentional or not, but it seemed to be so) has the message that if bad stuff happens, people just need to stop being little pussy bitches - they need to man up and fight. This isn't a good moral and it's one that completely misses the point of the original film.

It's not quite the worst film I've seen this year (The Theatre Bizarre), but it's without doubt my least favourite. It's quite possibly my least favourite film of all time. I hate this film and everybody involved should be ashamed of themselves. Especially you, James Woods. You're better than this.

2/10

[Reply #580 on:]

My problem with Bridesmaids is that there was too much awkward humor. So many moments where someone would say something and then they would just sit there and let that sink in like, come on audience laugh at how awkward this situation is. Har-har! Drove me crazy.

Oh, how I love awkward humor. I get where it could be irritating, but I just love how painful those silences are. Bridesmaids felt very improv-y to me, which might account for the awkward moments--but that just made it really fun to watch, I think.

Ah now see I think if that was improvisation it wasn't very good, I definitely didn't get the feeling they were playing off each other. I believe Horrible Bosses does that much better. I'm sorry I keep arguing with you, Bridesmaids isn't a bad movie or anything.

[Reply #581 on:]

I believe Horrible Bosses does that much better.

I agree that the three leads in Horrible Bosses had great chemistry (and my god, was coked-up Charlie Day hysterical), and a lot of the dialogue felt very spontaneous and improvised and silly and whatnot. It's just that, plot-wise, I think it's a really lousy movie. I liked watching the characters play off one another, but the stuff they're forced to do for the sake of this half-baked story just didn't do it for me.

I'm sorry I keep arguing with you, Bridesmaids isn't a bad movie or anything.

No worries. For what it's worth, Horrible Bosses ain't so bad, either. I just think that Bridesmaids has a better rewatch value.

[Reply #582 on:]

I'm sorry I keep arguing with you, Bridesmaids isn't a bad movie or anything.

No worries. For what it's worth, Horrible Bosses ain't so bad, either. I just think that Bridesmaids has a better rewatch value.

And I think the opposite.

[Reply #583 on:]

One-Sentence Reviews™

Attack the Block
"Universal critical acclaim" seems to go pretty cheap these days as we're subjected to revoltingly thuggish, unfunny teenage chavs saving us from blokes in gorilla suits, in what one is expected to embrace as high art.

Captain America
At least in the comicbooks the villains managed to have a minimum of two dimensions.
(Get it?)

Hanna
Quite an impressively stylish and intriguing take on a rather simplistic idea.

Bad Teacher
Funny like an episode of The Office or something, which I can watch for free on television so why did I rent this?

Green Lantern
Ahh, DC characters are so ridiculously lame, apart from Batman.

A Nightmare on Elm Street (remake)
Despite having never seen or cared at all about the original I still feel a piece of my childhood has been ruined.

The Next Three Days
Not bad, but I'll assume the original French version is superior since it always is.

[Reply #584 on:]

50/50
While I agree with cyber_turnips general praise above, it didn't feel entirely like a "romcom" to me, it felt more like a dramedy bromance with some rom elements thrown in (for the ladieees)... if that makes sense, but it was very well balanced, I laughed at the comedy, and I felt emotion!! [/Calculon] at the drama scenes.
And flip me, ain't Anna Kendrick just chipmunk cute?
Good film.
B+

[Reply #585 on:]

Watched the prequel to the Thing today, something I don't understand, why does the Thing, a mindless, disgusting monster have such a high-tech ship? That it seems to be able to "turn on" or "activate"? I doubt something like that would have the ability to fly.

I imagine that it was a bunch of aliens on another planet that encountered the Thing, put it in one of their ships and just blasted it off the planet. They can't be the same species as the Thing, no way would they know how to build ships.

[Reply #586 on:]

Blair's notes:

"It could have imitated a million life forms on a million planets. It could change into any one of them at any time. Now, it wants life forms on Earth."

It isn't mindless.

[Reply #587 on:]

Your idea about it being blasted off is quite close to what I think the intended implication is. I think basically, it travels from world to world and it basically stole a spaceship from a species that built them and flew it away, having consumed all of that world.

Although, it's entirely possible that it did build the spaceship on its own. If you've seen the first film, you'll remember that it makes pretty extensive repairs to the ship - or does it build one from scratch? I don't remember, it's been so long since I saw it. Either way, it demonstrates the knowledge it would need to have simply built the thing in the first place.

The Thing certainly isn't mindless. Although all of its cells operate as independant organisms, I'm pretty sure they're supposed to have some form of collective intelligence or hive mind, and I always thought it was supposed to be above human intelligence and it seems to take on the knowledge of the beings that it replicates, so all it would need to do to learn of intergalactic travel is consume a being that knows of it.

[Reply #588 on:]

I guess that happened in the original, and in the 1982 version, it was basically makeshift building an entirely new spacecraft from Earth crap.  It was definitely a higher intelligence, and it definitely applied psychological warfare in its decision making for which organisms it absorbed over time.  I'm of the opinion, as well, that the thing could collectively absorb the knowledge of the organisms it infected and replicated.  It's really hard to say what it's general purpose was though.  One might think that it's lower desire was to feed upon all the organisms, but at the same time it could be easily argued that it just wanted to hitch a ride back home, and decided to have fun with some human beings on the way there.

In the 1982 storyline, we don't know if the Thing is the original owner/pilot of the spaceship because the story is deliberately left ambiguous from that perspective.  However, there are a few things we can infer.  There was an error in the spaceship's landing, because the Thing would certainly not steer the ship to the most uninhabitable region of Earth, and this should be an easy accomplishment to avoid for a space fairing species.  We know it did not intend to crash land in the arctic at least by its motivations to escape, but also if it desired to feed upon organism, landing in the most remote region of a planet would also be counter intuitive to its purpose.  This suggests that it might be possible that the Thing was not the original organism pilot of the ship, and had to make due with what it had.  However, we never encounter any other possible lifeforms.  It could also be possible that some sort of space civilization was adamant about destroying the Thing and damaged its ship in a previous battle forcing it to make an emergency landing.  For all we know, the Thing is space refugee that thought it would be cool to wear Earth masks.

[Reply #589 on:]

It's a space bug that attacked and consumed the pilot of the ship, causing it to crash-land?

[Reply #590 on:]

Ok, I sat down and went through a mini-marathon of Muppet films, so bear with me.

Muppets 2011
Saw it, liked it well enough. Wasn't the best entry into the film line for these guys (you can't beat their first film, can you?) but it was awesome to see 'em on the big screen again. Probably their greatest recent outing (which, depending on who you ask, may not mean much). The film felt choppy in places, especially when it focused on the humans nearly as much as the Muppets themselves. I didn't care about Gary/Mary's relationship over Muppets but eh, personal preference I guess. The songs were all catchy, even if they sometimes felt shoehorned in because Disney = musical and OH MY GOD if they don't have enough songs for an album in their films to get more cash... Still, it's wasn't a shit-fest on wheels. I liked it and will probably get it when it comes to Blu-Ray/DVD. IMO, Man Or Muppet = best song that wasn't a classic. Also, Cooper's rap is a full song on the soundtrack. It's so bad it's a guilty pleasure to listen to it.

Also, according to FOX News, the #1 comedy "news" network, this film is the latest ploy to hate on big biz. Muppets are now Communists. 
8.2/10

Muppet Christmas Carol
This film does a better job at capturing the story's darkness more than any other version of Charles Dickens's classic story I've personally seen. And who doesn't like Michael Caine? He's brilliant as Scrooge. Great watch for the holiday season.
9/10

The Muppet Movie
The first film, and it was a good one! If you're a fan and haven't seen this WHAT THE HELL IS WRONG WITH YOU?! It tells the story of how the gang got together, and yet they're also watching the film. So it's a film that starts off breaking the 4th wall. It's almost like... Muppet-ception. *sighs* Forgive me, I had to....

9/10

Muppet Treasure Island
Yup, title explains it all. Tim Curry is in this, the Muppets play all the supporting roles you expect them to, yadda yadda. Good, pirate-y fun.
8/10 scurvy sea dogs

[Reply #591 on:]

Drive
Stylish and well shot, Ryan Gosling and Carey Mulligan spend too much time smiling and making dough eyes at each other, but Albert Brooks and Ron Perlman were cool bad guys, and it's ultraviolent at times. Good score too.
B

Lego Star Wars: The Padawan Menace
A short animated kids thing with Yoda taking some younglings on a school trip and getting mixed up in rescuing some battle plans from the droids, with help from a young roguish pilot teenager called IAN, oh wait... perhaps the first letter on his nametag is turned sideways? WHO COULD IT BE?!
I enjoyed it far far more than any of the other prequel era stuff that has come out since 1999.
And yes Jar Jar is in it but only for a few seconds before he is satisfyingly blasted into his component Lego parts.
There's numerous gags and stuff packed in, including a recurring bit where Lego Vader keeps appearing in scenes and Lego George Lucas has to shoo him off again.
A-

The Captains
Documentary written and directed by William Shatner, who meets and interviews his fellow main starship/space station captains, from Picard up to Pine, discovering what it means to be a Starfleet captain.
If I learned anything it's that Avery Brooks is a freakin' beatnik or something, man he is out there... which I find deliciously ironic...
C+

[Reply #592 on:]

I don't understand the whole Lego phenomenon that's been getting about this past decade, with the games, and now the DVD-movies... I haven't played or seen any of them, it's just... baffling. I mean, it's a toy. Right? Sure, toy lines have been made into successful entertainment franchises before, but this one is little bricks used to build things. Now it seems like the Lego film-videogame tie-ins are now by default the official ones, and they're even spawning spin-offs.

I don't understand the world any more, and so therefore I am angry at it.

Anyhow, I'll let it slide until they try to do Lego Pride & Prejudice.

[Reply #593 on:]

Lego Pride and Prejudice eh? Challenge accepted.

[Reply #594 on:]

That doesn't count.

[Reply #595 on:]

The Lego Star Wars games are legitimately awesome, even the prequel ones; I would heartily endorse you to try them out.  I guess a lot of the fun aspect is in collecting everything, but they did a really good job with making you feel like a badass as lego star wars person what with force powers and light sabres and laser pistols and what not.  You probably won't go, "WOAH, best game ever."  However, if you can pick up a copy of the first one and the second one together (original trilogy and prequels) for like $10, I think most people would find they'd gotten a lot more than their money's worth.

[Reply #596 on:]

Can you virtually build things?

[Reply #597 on:]

No, not really in that sense.  It's more of a third person action adventure game with neat lego graphics.  I actually think the star wars line lego mini-figures are pretty cool looking, and in that game you can make them jump around and kill other lego people that explode into little lego bits that you collect to buy and make more things.  It's kind of cannibalistic really.

[Reply #598 on:]

Winna is correct, the Lego games are simply fun and are actaully well designed (puzzles, combat, level design, co-op play), I've played the Star Wars ones and Batman ones, they make a nice alternative to the super serious alternatives.

[Reply #599 on:]

Mm. Although I still think I'd derive more enjoyment from just playing with Lego... except that it's so damned expensive now! And it's got all crazy lights and gimmicks attached to it. You even have remote-control Lego things...
Stuff was simpler when I was a lad. Your basic Lego block was carved from oak and you had to use a hammer to get the bits to connect together. That was good wholesome boy's play. They ruined it when they went to plastic.