Recently Seen Movies - Tell Us
 

I watched a couple of movies this weekend and both were solid IMO.

Another Earth: On the night of the discovery of a duplicate planet in the solar system, an ambitious young student and an accomplished composer cross paths in a tragic accident.

This movie was amazing, despite some moments of stalker creepiness that I finally got over.

The lead, Brit Marling, is also the writer (well 1/2 of the writing team). The other writer is also the director.

The ending is open to interpretation, which is, I think, a good thing.


The other film is One Day :After spending the night together on the night of their college graduation Dexter and Em are shown each year on the same date to see where they are in their lives. They are sometimes together, sometimes not, on that day.

I didn't read the novel so I had no set expectations. I felt that the acting was wonderful and both actors had their work cut out for them to make us care for a couple of pretty unlikable characters. They were successful, especially Jim Sturgess, whose portrayal of the self centered Dexter was outstanding.

I didn't expect the ending, but this movie is not your average chick-flick romance and, more realistic than many movies I've seen.

The Secret World of Arrietty. Definitely a good movie worth watching. But at the same time it isn't Maro or Miyazaki's best work. The story doesn't have the depth that's in Princess Mononoke or Spirited Away.

On the low brow side I discovered a funny hockey movie called Goon. A bouncer gets hired to a hockey team because he's so good at fighting people. Its not the best movie ever but it made me laugh and was kind of in the same vein as Slapshot.

I just saw that the other night. I thought SWS was pretty good. My date didn't care for it.

Now I gotta let her pick the next movie. I hope she chooses one of jali's selections. :science:

I liked Another Earth too, we just watched it last week.

Saw The Avengers in 3D last night and it was awesome.

The last great surprise from Netflix streaming that I liked almost as much as the one before that (Valhalla Rising) was The Perfect Host.

The Killer Elite, Wolf Creek, The Debt and The Iron Cross.

Peckinpaw was great, the rest were forgettable. The Killer Elite was very forgettable.

I've recently seen:

Proof: Interesting to see Hugo Weaving as a good guy. Well done. Not quite a romantic comedy, though there are some funny moments. Interesting character study about a blind man who takes photographs to verify the world is as it's described to him, his housekeeper and a man he befriends.

Dead Again: Can't quite recommend it. It could have been much better. Robin Williams has a small part done very well. Tries to be Film Noir / Detective fiction with a supernatural/past lives twist and just doesn't quite make it as either.

We watched The Big Year last night. I give it about a two out of five stars. It put my husband to sleep. ;)

I saw The Five Year Engagement over the weekend. It wasn't as funny as I was expecting and, even though I knew it was 2 hours, way too long.

MsPuna and I haven't been to a movie theater since LOTR/Return of the King. We're big Netflix subscribers so our movies, chronologically speaking, are all over the place. The latest one was "Barney's Version" starring Paul Giamatti (we've been big fans ever since "Sideways.") It's worth watching.

I watched Red Riding Hood in horror yesterday.

I was horrified that this movie was so bad.

I generally like Amanda Seigfried (sp?), but I wanted her character to DIE. Just die and let this mess of a film be over. I watched it until the end, to see if perhaps I was being wooshed and that there would be something redeeming to save this nonsense...but no...HELL NO!

Horrible love story in the middle of horror film. Just a dumb movie.

I hated it from the first time I saw 10 milliseconds of a clip of Shiloh Fernandez speaking, I just immediately wanted to slap him and tell him to shut up.

Still rented it and watched it though. *shame*

Interestingly, I just learned that Shiloh grew up in a little NorCal town (Ukiah) not far from the little NorCal town where I grew up.

I watched Puncture recently and really liked it. I was impressed with Chris Evans as an actor. I'd always (to my own detriment) dismissed him as one of those comic-book-actor-guys but he was really good in this.

Last movie we watched together was The Hunger Games. SWMBO usually watches 1940-1950s vintage movies on TV and loves them. I love some of them, but lately I haven't loved any of them, so I've been levelling in the new WoW beta.

I had the pleasure of seeing The Shawshank Redemption for the first time a couple of weeks ago. I knew it was a well-reviewed movie, but had avoided it because of a distaste for

prison rape scenes

But it wasn't as shocking as I dreaded and I'm happy I saw it. Well-done, smoothly-paced, inspiring movie. Morgan Freeman was awesome, and the actor who played the warden was appropriately despicable.

That's one of my top ten movies, Teela. I'm glad you liked it. You should read the book, it's even better! I'm sure you know it was written by Stephen King?

Yes, I had read that quartet of stories - Different Seasons, wasn't it? Great stuff! That book turned out three movies by my count.

Bob Gunton, great character actor.

Saw most of Paul last night on HBO and loved it. Seth Rogen is the voice of an alien -- think a foul-mouthed ET. Missed the first part so don't know what he'd been doing on Earth though.

Watched 13 Assassins (free on the Kindle) and loved it! Beautifully photographed, and I think the acting was good too, although it's not always easy to judge when reading subtitles. The violence at the beginning is a bit hard to take though. That Lord Whatever guy makes Hannibal Lecter look like Mrs. Doubtfire.

I saw Drugstore Cowboy for the first time a month ago. Really, really liked it.

The Guard - It reminds me a little of Snatch or Hot Fuzz. Some of the scenes really made me laugh, like the 3 villains discussing Nietzsche in the car or one villain lamenting the inferiority of characters involved in the illegal drug trade.

The movie often seems self-conscious and actually lampoons this fact toward the end. It is also far from seamless. But with Don Cheadle playing the straight man, it holds up pretty well and was very entertaining weekend afternoon veg-out movie.

Cold Souls - Granted, I'm not a film critic, but I really don't see how this got only a 6.4 on IMDB. I think this movie is damn near the perfect black comedy. I don't even particularly like Paul Giamatti, but I think he's perfect for this role.

The plot is based on the gray-market trafficking in human souls. PG plays himself as an actor who needs to rid himself of his soul. When that proves to be problematic, he selects a substitute soul - from a Russian poet.

Except for one scene where it is only a vague hint, any connection to religion is scrupulously avoided. The subject is treated with a clinical air that is, on it's own, pretty comical at times.

Maybe my love of this movie is more a reflection of gothic predilections and "unusual" tastes. IDK, but I thoroughly enjoyed it.

I saw Midnight Cowboy for the first time this weekend on Netflix. It was a lot spacier than gritty, which I like about that era of films. Jon Voight was exceptional in the title role, while I tired of Hoffman's nasally voice after awhile. Not sure if I'm ready to watch it again anytime soon, but I'm glad I saw it.

Lars and the Real Girl. I knew the premise and went in thinking it was a farce, like a cross between American Pie and The Shipping News. I didn't get it at first but then it hit me, and I spent the rest of the movie laughing at the complete absurdity of events (the 9-1-1 call gave me fits) and seeing the rationality behind it all.

I watch movies way after they're released. The newest Planet of the Apes (not the Marky Mark one) was pretty good overall, but had a trainwreck of a script.

Recent Hulu watches that I enjoyed -

Special When Lit - A Pinball Documentary

Old episodes of Testees

Who is Harry Nilsson?

In the category of people who sadly won't be posting in this thread, my better half refuses to watch Alien or Aliens, despite the fact that she's a) been slowly and steadily building her tolerance for 'scary' movies and b) she's a scifi fan. It just doesn't make any sense. :sciencefail:

I think that's more of a horror/suspense than scifi movie.

Yeah, but see point a). Combined with b) there's no rational explanation for her stubborn prejudices. None, I say!

Snowflower and the Secret Fan. I'd read the book a while back and was warned that the movie was quite different. It's not so much that I disliked the changes made (they added an entire, modern plot), but I felt they were unnecessary. The book could easily have stood on its own and been better developed in the film.

I saw this when it came out in the theater. At the time, I thought it was really cool, but recently I saw the poster and figured it wouldn't hold up well today. The execution of it would be... I don't know, a little awkward or trite or something.

Like you I don't think I could quite recommend it. It's probably better than most TV shows if you're looking for an hour and a half to kill, but not something I'd say to someone "You should go see this movie!"

Two hits, one miss, by my recollection.

I'd love to see The Breathing Method put on film. It's my favorite of the four novellas.

Re: Dead Again...

I also saw it in the theater when it was freshly released, and I loved it then. It did not age well though, agreed.

My 17yo babydyke-in-denial self actually wrote in my journal about seeing it, and I (clearly) had a little crush on Emma Thompson after watching it. "There's just something about her..." ah to be young and dumb as a sack of hammers again.

I love that movie. "Rationality" is a good word for it.

I like what I've seen. I've never watched from beginning to the end.

I watched this the other day based on what you posted here. Good flick, I laughed plenty of times.

Saw a fun Bollywood movie by the director of Bend It Like Beckham (also a fine movie). Recommend to the musical-loving audience.

Thank you - that's nice to hear.
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Killer Elite - I'd been looking forward to this for a while. I'm not sure how I feel about it. It takes place in 1980 and is based on a true story of the SAS involvement in the Oman war. The cinematography seems to mimic what you would expect to see from a movie from that period. I can't really explain it, but certain colors are washed out and there's just an ambiance that you associate with movies of that period that I think it captures perfectly - perhaps too perfectly.

The story is pretty linear and there is plenty of action including some excellent fight and chase scenes. Even so, I felt disoriented much of the time, but that may not have had anything to do with the movie.

I watched it mainly for Jason Statham but it also had DeNiro and another favorite - Dominick Purcell.

I've been watching a bunch lately but I never see this thread in the new posts listing so I never update. Then I delete the movie from my hard drive and it's completely forgotten.

Tower Heist: Decent feelgood revenge movie. Eddie Murphy's schtick is a little old and he's starting to look his age. They should do a reboot of Sanford and son with him as Fred Sanford.

Immortals: Meh. I watched for the dark eye candy, dreary scenery (yeah, that's a plus for me) and for the few decent special effects. I don't normally notice plot holes, but I'm pretty sure there were a few you could drive a galaxy through - and I don't mean this kind of galaxy.

Cowboys and Aliens: Not as heavy on the SFX as I would have liked and for most of the movie it seemed like a case of the anti-hero hero going from deep shit to deeper shit. However I really like Daniel Craig, almost as much as I dislike Harrison Ford (also cast). Abigail Spencer isn't bad either. She's particularly swishy in this movie too. If you're at all into scifi, it's definitely a must see. I don't think it will ever be a classic but I can see it being in various top 100 lists.

Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows - It took me the better part of 2 days to get through this movie (damn you raffers :fist: :fist:) so I lost a lot of continuity. It seems to be a re-imagining of the Reichenbach Falls story although I think they may have folded in several other Holmesian tales in the process. I can't be sure since I've never read any of the originals, I've only seen the old PBS series with Jeremy Brett which I think was fairly true to the original stories. This was, like the first film, a true action adventure movie with tons of believable action - just barely believable, but even so . . . I thoroughly enjoyed it.

I re-watched "The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari", which continues to be amazing. I can't think of any other film that used similar lighting, cinematography, or sets. Also watched "FF, Advent Children" which was GREAT animation, very pretty, and howlingly silly, even to an FF fan.

Watched The Devil's Double last night, it was pointless and relentlessly stylized.

Underworld Awakening. I'll skip the plot since this movie is basically about Kate Beckinsale dressing up in skin tight leather and killing things. If you liked the first three in the series, you should enjoy this one.

Oh, if you like girls with guns - Columbiana. It's about a young female assassin, but the movie starts off with a short segment in her childhood that will blow you away. It just gets better from there. I'm not a weapons expert, but the actress actually seems to know what she's doing too and she uses everything from semi-auto handguns to full-auto machine guns and assault rifles, sniper rifles, etc.

edit: since I'm posting anyway, I'm going to add a spoiler to include all of the movies on my list in case I delete them before I can talk about them

- ghost rider vengeneance - harry potter, dh2 - Legend of the Millennium Dragon 2011 - Dead Space Aftermath 2011 - Mars Needs Moms 2011 - X-Men: First Class 2011 - Conan the Barbarian 2011 - haywire 2011 - blitz 2011 - transformers dark moon - captain america 2011 - thor 2011 - gabriel - pirates stranger tides - underworld awakening - Mutant Girls Squad

John Carter.
I dunno why it tanked. It's no worse than any other cheesy space opera flick we've seen in the last decade or so. It almost as if Disney wanted it to fail. Did they get a tax break from the loss?

The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel. The plot is fluffy, but the cast is stellar and they do what they do so very well. I'll definitely rent it and watch it again.

No, it hurt the profits from the quarter pretty bad and they fired the head of the movie studios as a result. Letting a guy from Pixar direct his first live action movie with that big a budget was a very bad idea.

In general, you never want to have a loss to have tax breaks from. It's better to have a profit. But if you have to take a loss anyways, you can sometimes do it in a tax efficient manner. This wasn't that, they took the loss by writing down the movie in the 2nd quarter, not the 4th.

It's all about the opening: a movie is credited with being successful if it posts big numbers when it opens (e.g., The Avengers and MIB3). I think John Carter will follow the paths of Starship Troopers and The Fifth Element, both of which "failed" at the box office.

This was actually a fairly major debacle for Disney. This was supposed to be the first in a new franchise series like Toy Story that would have multiple sequels and would drive toy sales and finally an attraction at the various Disney parks. Plus an online gaming experience. It's unlikely any of this will happen now.

JC has a lifetime gross of about 282 million. With a production budget of 250 million and the usual hollywood factor of 3, it would have to gross about 750 million just to break even. They might make it up eventually in DVD sales and downloads, but I'm not betting on it.

Isn't that the problem right there--a model that requires all this extraneous stuff for a movie to be counted successful?

Not a new movie, but I saw Bubba Ho-Tep this weekend. Elvis Presley and President Kennedy battling a soul-sucking mummy at their nursing home. I loved it. It's a goofy idea and it's wonderful; way better than it has any right to be. Bruce Campbell and Ossie Davis rock.

Well, it kinda depends on the budget you spent on it. If JC had been made for 30M, it would have been a knockout hit. At eight times that, it was kinda a flop. Plus Disney has the best cross marketing team on the planet, so they often get this right. The movies and TV shows drive toys and theme park visits and the theme park visits and toys drive DVD purchases.