Rate The Last Movie You Watched

[korme]

Might as well bump this thread.

My wife and I worked our way though all the old Star Treks in the past month after seeing Into Darkness. I found there were basically 4 tiers of movie. I guess if I had to give them numbers, it would be 8/7/6/5 (maybe a 4 for Star Trek V- seriously; never try to search for God). I also put them in order within the tiers

Tier 1 (8): 8 (good and new) – 4 (favorite) – 2 (good and old)
Tier 2 (7): 6 (good sendoff and a return to the old) – 1 (interesting plot but 70s old and slow)
Tier 3 (6): 7 (cool to see Kirk and Picard but otherwise meh) – 3 (could not stand alone; companion to 2)
Tier 4 (5): 9 (mediocre fanservice) - 10 (seemed like a mediocre episode) – 5 (never try to search for God)

This list totally won't end in disagreement and tears...

I really wanted to put 2 higher and downgrade 8. However, 8 really is a solid movie on its own and 2 has some significant flaws to it. Maybe I should flip flop 4 and 2 as 4 is also a lot of fanservice and the plot isn't as good. Either way, those are easily the 3 best movies. And put together with 6, you easily have the top 4 so the even-odd theory seems to work.

Also, I think 1 is hard to rate. It feels like a slow paced 70s scifi horror movie like Alien. It has those real 70s flaws like that it's plodding: it's over a half hour just to get into space which isn't necessarily a bad thing if the movie is earth based but the plot is an outer space plot. However, it's an interesting scifi idea once it gets out of the proverbial driveway.

That's another thing about the average Star Trek movie until 9/10: I had forgotten that there were all sorts of little subplots running throughout the movies to keep developing future characterization. They knew they would be making more movies so they spent some screen time building pieces for the future.

SI

This post is confusing

[ISiddiqui]

Despicable Me 2 - 7/10: Really fun animated movie. Though it suffers because the first one is just so great. This was a funny and interesting movie as well, but probably suffers due to comparison with the original. Thought it dragged slightly in the middle, but brought it back around in the end. And the minions are always (ALWAYS) hilarious.

[Bisbo]

20 Feet from Stardom - 10/10

Absolutely wonderful documentary about some of Motown's best backup singers, and what became of their careers, interspersed by commentary from Springsteen, Jagger, Stevie Wonder, Sting and Ray Charles, among others. Had a smile on my face right from the beginning. It is one of those movies where the audience gave it a big round of applause when it was over.

[Bad-example]

Might as well bump this thread.

My wife and I worked our way though all the old Star Treks in the past month after seeing Into Darkness. I found there were basically 4 tiers of movie. I guess if I had to give them numbers, it would be 8/7/6/5 (maybe a 4 for Star Trek V- seriously; never try to search for God). I also put them in order within the tiers

Tier 1 (8): 8 (good and new) – 4 (favorite) – 2 (good and old)
Tier 2 (7): 6 (good sendoff and a return to the old) – 1 (interesting plot but 70s old and slow)
Tier 3 (6): 7 (cool to see Kirk and Picard but otherwise meh) – 3 (could not stand alone; companion to 2)
Tier 4 (5): 9 (mediocre fanservice) - 10 (seemed like a mediocre episode) – 5 (never try to search for God)

This list totally won't end in disagreement and tears...

I really wanted to put 2 higher and downgrade 8. However, 8 really is a solid movie on its own and 2 has some significant flaws to it. Maybe I should flip flop 4 and 2 as 4 is also a lot of fanservice and the plot isn't as good. Either way, those are easily the 3 best movies. And put together with 6, you easily have the top 4 so the even-odd theory seems to work.

Also, I think 1 is hard to rate. It feels like a slow paced 70s scifi horror movie like Alien. It has those real 70s flaws like that it's plodding: it's over a half hour just to get into space which isn't necessarily a bad thing if the movie is earth based but the plot is an outer space plot. However, it's an interesting scifi idea once it gets out of the proverbial driveway.

That's another thing about the average Star Trek movie until 9/10: I had forgotten that there were all sorts of little subplots running throughout the movies to keep developing future characterization. They knew they would be making more movies so they spent some screen time building pieces for the future.

SI

Key:

1 - The Motion Picture
2 - Wrath of Kahn
3 - Search For Spock
4 - The Voyage Home
5 - The Final Frontier
6 - The Undiscovered Country
7 - Generations
8 - First Contact
9 - Insurrection
10 - Nemesis
11 - Star Trek
12 - Into Darkness

[sterlingice]

Haha. Didn't think it was necessary but if I hadn't just watched them all, I couldn't tell you which movie was which

SI

[molson]

I once started a project to get through all the star trek movies (I've never seen any of them). I got 3/4 through the first one and abandoned the project. I'm sure it picks up, but I'm also pretty sure it's just not my thing.

[sterlingice]

Our library had them sitting on the shelf so I just started checking them out 3 at a time and returning them when we were done.

SI

[korme]

Key:

1 - The Motion Picture
2 - Wrath of Kahn
3 - Search For Spock
4 - The Voyage Home
5 - The Final Frontier
6 - The Undiscovered Country
7 - Generations
8 - First Contact
9 - Insurrection
10 - Nemesis
11 - Star Trek
12 - Into Darkness

Thank you

[Matthean]

20 Feet from Stardom - 10/10

Absolutely wonderful documentary about some of Motown's best backup singers, and what became of their careers, interspersed by commentary from Springsteen, Jagger, Stevie Wonder, Sting and Ray Charles, among others. Had a smile on my face right from the beginning. It is one of those movies where the audience gave it a big round of applause when it was over.

Any documentary like this is always interesting to watch. Motown and Staxx had a huge wealth of talent backing their artists back in the days.

[Kodos]

Might as well bump this thread.

My wife and I worked our way though all the old Star Treks in the past month after seeing Into Darkness. I found there were basically 4 tiers of movie. I guess if I had to give them numbers, it would be 8/7/6/5 (maybe a 4 for Star Trek V- seriously; never try to search for God). I also put them in order within the tiers

Tier 1 (8): 8 (good and new) – 4 (favorite) – 2 (good and old)
Tier 2 (7): 6 (good sendoff and a return to the old) – 1 (interesting plot but 70s old and slow)
Tier 3 (6): 7 (cool to see Kirk and Picard but otherwise meh) – 3 (could not stand alone; companion to 2)
Tier 4 (5): 9 (mediocre fanservice) - 10 (seemed like a mediocre episode) – 5 (never try to search for God)

This list totally won't end in disagreement and tears...

I really wanted to put 2 higher and downgrade 8. However, 8 really is a solid movie on its own and 2 has some significant flaws to it. Maybe I should flip flop 4 and 2 as 4 is also a lot of fanservice and the plot isn't as good. Either way, those are easily the 3 best movies. And put together with 6, you easily have the top 4 so the even-odd theory seems to work.

Also, I think 1 is hard to rate. It feels like a slow paced 70s scifi horror movie like Alien. It has those real 70s flaws like that it's plodding: it's over a half hour just to get into space which isn't necessarily a bad thing if the movie is earth based but the plot is an outer space plot. However, it's an interesting scifi idea once it gets out of the proverbial driveway.

That's another thing about the average Star Trek movie until 9/10: I had forgotten that there were all sorts of little subplots running throughout the movies to keep developing future characterization. They knew they would be making more movies so they spent some screen time building pieces for the future.

SI

Am I blind, or are there no ratings for 11 and 12?

[sterlingice]

Am I blind, or are there no ratings for 11 and 12?

Nah, as in the section you quoted: My wife and I worked our way though all the old Star Treks

So just the original 10, pre-reboot.

This kindof makes me want to go through all of the James Bond movies, but I don't think I could get my wife to go along with this plan.

SI

[Kodos]

Or all of the Ernest movies.

[Butter]

All the Fast and Furious movies.

[sterlingice]

No thanks- I want to actually enjoy the majority of the movies if I'm going to watch an entire set.

SI

[Lathum]

Just found out that the girl who wrote The Heat is a girl who I grew up with that lived down the street.

[molson]

Or all of the Ernest movies.

They started mailing it in after Ernest Scared Stupid.

[korme]

Didn't find The Heat funny at all.

[rowech]

Didn't find The Heat funny at all.

That just looks like a movie women will love and men will hate.

[korme]

That just looks like a movie women will love and men will hate.

Well I gave it the Bridesmaids benefit of the doubt, which I have yet to see but most guys find funny. Also, the 63% on RT isn't bad for a comedy. Still, it did nothing for me.

[Julio Riddols]

A Band Called Death - 10/10 A forgotten band rockumentary that might be even better than Anvil! was. It really is incredible these guys came up with the sound they did when they did and where they did, and the story behind their rediscovery is also pretty incredible. Glad to know they are making new music now.

Somm - 9/10 - Absolutely fascinating look at the world of the Master Sommelier exam. Follows several guys who happen to be friends as they study and test themselves as they prep for the exam. Really crazy what they need to know.

[Groundhog]

Man Of Steel - 9/10
I was expecting 'meh', largely because I'm sick of watching origin stories well all know all over again every single reboot, but this one did a good job of it IMO. I also appreciated that it wasn't a movie about the Louis Lane/Clark Kent romance or the Smallville 'growing up' stuff. The fact that I know less about Superman (ie. I didn't know who General Zod was outside of a vague recollection) than other superheroes helps. But yeah, it was a big dumb Hollywood epic pic that I could switch off my brain and enjoy a whole heap. They definitely made the right choice as far as casting for Superman went.

[JonInMiddleGA]

I just saw less than five minutes of Sharknado on SyFy. It already surpassed the legendary Atomic Twister for sheer absurdity.

This could very well be legitimately in Plan 9 territory. I shall report back when/if I see the entire thing.

[Groundhog]

Sharknado has blown up the internet the past 24 hours.

[DaddyTorgo]

the exciting conclusion to Sharknado is coming up now. LMAO.

A shark just landed in front of Mann's. Another one blew through a billboard.

This is hilariously absurd.

[DaddyTorgo]

So detonating an explosive inside a tornado is now enough to make the tornado stop?

[DaddyTorgo]

LMAO. He jumped into the mouth of the Great White with his chainsaw going and cut his way out from inside.

LMFAO.

[Matthean]

Dude, like spoiler alert or something.













Ok, nobody cares. :lol:

[DaddyTorgo]

Dude, like spoiler alert or something.













Ok, nobody cares. :lol:

in my own defense, i just turned this on one minute ago just to get a sense of how absurd it truly was

[BishopMVP]

LMAO. He jumped into the mouth of the Great White with his chainsaw going and cut his way out from inside.

LMFAO.And pulled out the girl who had been swallowed whole when falling from the helicopter 10 minutes earlier. Overall, closer to Birdemic levels of bad than good camp like Spring Break: Shark Attack . . . - Front Office Football Central (http://www.operationsports.com/fofc/showthread.php?t=37110&highlight=spring+break+shark+attack)

[DaddyTorgo]

And pulled out the girl who had been swallowed whole when falling from the helicopter 10 minutes earlier. Overall, closer to Birdemic levels of bad than good camp like Spring Break: Shark Attack . . . - Front Office Football Central (http://www.operationsports.com/fofc/showthread.php?t=37110&highlight=spring+break+shark+attack)

I hadn't seen that part ;)

[BishopMVP]

I just saw less than five minutes of Sharknado on SyFy. It already surpassed the legendary Atomic Twister for sheer absurdity.

This could very well be legitimately in Plan 9 territory. I shall report back when/if I see the entire thing.I expected the campiness and absurdity going in... but the horrible sound editing, constant cuts between 4 different weather patterns in the background, and complete lack of spatial recognition were where it made its money. You'd have one person getting sucked up into a tornado and 4 people standing 10 feet away completely unaffected. :lol:

[Marmel]

Monsters University - 6/10

My oldest kid is just hitting movie theater age, so this is actually the first kid's movie I have watched start to finish in quite some time. The movies she/they watch at home, I barely pay attention to. Anyway, this wasn't really that funny, or clever, but it wasn't boring either. It was just OK for adults. Kid loved it of course. There was a short movie about umbrellas before this played and it was the worst 10 minutes of film I have ever seen.


This is the End - 7/10

I went in expecting this to be a 10/10 film, but I was let down a little. It was still a good movie, but it was not great. I do think this will be a movie that gets better with repeat viewings and probably, in 5 years from now, be an 8 or 9 out of 10.

[tarcone]

Pitch Perfect- 9/10

This is a just plain great movie. Its funny, has great music, characters you can love, characters you will dislike, a great ending. I kept seeing it on HBO, but blew it off from the description. A couple nights ago, my daughter had a friend spend the night and she wanted to watch it, so we sat down and watched it. I have seen it about 3 or 4 times since.

Good stuff.

[tarcone]

And on the Syfy subject. Today there is a marathon of "great" animal flicks (all times CST):

9 am-- Eye of the Beast- Giant Squid killing residents of small town
11 am-- Supergator- Geologists encounter giat gator investigating an actice volcano in Hawaii.
1 pm-- Snakehead Terror- small town sheriff tries to kill mutated fish that can survive out of water
3 pm-- Mega- Piranha- Mutated strain of giant piranha escape from jungle rivers and eat their way to FLorida
5 pm-- Mega Python vs. Gatoroid- Gigantic snakes and alligators battle in the Florida everglades

Syfy on FIRE!

[Suicane75]

Not recent, but a review I wrote last year. It pretty much sums up all the Asylum movies, and how once you've seen one, you've pretty much seen them all.

Two Headed Shark Attack: 35 Out Of 100 Stars

It's been awhile since I've been down to watch one of these Asylum schlock fests. The fact of the matter is that they're all pretty much the same and can get a bit tedious once you realize you're goofing on the same things in every movie. But with an extended break I decided to re break my cherry and settled in for a doozy of an awful film.

The premise is that a group of college kids, for whatever reason, are spending a semester at sea, apparently somewhere near Polynesia. Their boat gets attacked by a two headed shark and the rest of the film of ensues.

Brooke Hogan is one of the students, looking as manly as ever. Carmen Electra plays a doctor or a scientist or something, I dunno. She is given nothing to do in the movie and still manages to turn in one of the worst acting jobs I've EVER seen. Charlie O'Connell, the brother of the real O'Connell actor, also co-stars, and is pretty awful in his right.

So ok. Their ship gets damaged by a two headed shark. O'Connell insists that they're sinking, even though in the entire length of the movie the boat doesn't go down an inch and never appears to be taking on water. They spot an Island either very far away or very close, depending on which shot is used in the final cut. For some unknown reason, O'Connell decides it would be a good idea for the students to leave the boat and go to the Island to..........look for scrap metal.

So the students use a life boat to go this Island while a hot blonde girl whose job I do not remember, maybe she was the teacher, goes under the boat to try and weld the hull that has a crack in it. When they get to the island, O'Connell tells them that this is not an island, but atoll, built upon coral, which explains why the island randomly shakes and sinks a little bit. Ok. They find a few buildings on the island but they're empty. Charlie again explains that it's probably only used during fishing season. What other seasons are there in Polynesia? Do they work as accountants the rest of the year?

Alright, so as soon as they get on the island they begin to look for.........boats. Which they find. Two motor boats, that Brooke Hogan "tunes up" because that's her skill or something. A group of students get in each boat and they decide to race. Then the shark attacks one of them and from there it becomes a game of how do we get away from this monster shark.

The characters are pretty non descript except for a muscle head written as broadly as possible. Look at his guns. Then there's the smart one who has a giant nose and an answer for every dilemma. There are a bunch of big titted chicks, including two who decide to fulfill one of the guys dreams by having a 3 way as they stand in about 2 feet of water and get attacked by the shark.

Let's point out, if not discuss in great length, some of the problems with the movie. First of all, the shark is either 30 feet long or 3 feet long, depending on the boat it's attacking. When it's attacking the main boat it's as big as it, but when it's attacking a speed boat, it's smaller than it.

The teeth bend in a lot of the shots that bounce between photoshop and puppetry. Attack victims drain copious amounts of blood in one shot, but are fine in the next shot, then their head gets ripped off and in the next shot it's still on. This giant shark is somehow able to not only sneak up on people standing in 3 feet of water, but actually get to them. The perspectives are ridiculous as I mentioned earlier. One scene they'll be looking at the boat off in the far distance from the island and the next minute we see a wide shot of the boat about 200 feet from the island. This happens the whole movie. And while it was funny at the moment, it's not really funny when it's intended to be like that. It's funny if the makers of the movie had no money and this is what happens, it's not funny when they have the ability to fix shit like but don't because it's funnier this way. It's really not.

The script is ludicrous of course. The acting is awful and the effects are horrid. But I guess I had fun watching it, mainly because I had someone to watch it with and we both enjoyed pointing out all the dumb shit, but that'll only get you so far.

So unless you're stoned or absolutely into this type of film, I don't imagine you could put up with it very long. That being said, if you're looking for an MST3K type of experience, it probably doesn't get much better than this atrocity.

[Neon_Chaos]

Just finished watching Pacific Rim.It was a love letter to fans of giant mecha and monsters clashing. The little kid in me is still giddy.

[revrew]

Just finished watching Pacific Rim.It was a love letter to fans of giant mecha and monsters clashing. The little kid in me is still giddy.

It's just too bad in addition to giant mecha and monsters, they couldn't also add a story, characters, humor, two cents worth of logic or some meaningful dialogue. Really any of them would have been fine.

But the monsters and robots were cool. Plus, I love Guillermo del Toro's vision for making things look freakishly awesome.

But I still would have liked a decent story in there.

[Matthean]

I read they had four hours worth of movie and then cut it down so I assume much of it was lost in the transition.

[Neon_Chaos]

It's just too bad in addition to giant mecha and monsters, they couldn't also add a story, characters, humor, two cents worth of logic or some meaningful dialogue. Really any of them would have been fine.

But the monsters and robots were cool. Plus, I love Guillermo del Toro's vision for making things look freakishly awesome.

But I still would have liked a decent story in there.

It was delightfully Starship Troopers-esque, and I thought it was a good thing.

"TODAY, WE ARE CANCELLING THE APOCALYPSE!"

[sovereignstar v2]

So I'm a fairly casual Rotten Tomatoes user. I was looking at the latest releases and noticed that Grown Up 2 has a 7% tomatometer, but 90% of users liked it.

WTF???

[Izulde]

Dude, like spoiler alert or something.













Ok, nobody cares. :lol:

I care. :P

Spoilers piss me off.

[korme]

So I'm a fairly casual Rotten Tomatoes user. I was looking at the latest releases and noticed that Grown Up 2 has a 7% tomatometer, but 90% of users liked it.

WTF???

That's so sad

[Matthean]

That's so sad

And it has already made over $41 million.

[korme]

So I'm a fairly casual Rotten Tomatoes user. I was looking at the latest releases and noticed that Grown Up 2 has a 7% tomatometer, but 90% of users liked it.

WTF???

Dude, Sandler wakes up and there is a deer in his bedroom. Dude and if that isn't just ca-razy enough, it pees on him! High comedy. I'm stoked.

[Dutch]

42 - 8/10

So, I'm an old dude...I turned 42 years old yesterday (Sunday). And one day when you are 42 if you still like to play video games and shit, good for you for not turning into a crusty old dude at 42....but anyway I digress...I finished remodeling the landscaping in front of the house (which was 2 days of sweat-drenched "fun" in this Florida heat), took a spin on the Harley...and then sat down with the fam to watch 42. I figured I'd fall asleep after the hard-days work...but really enjoyed it. A very well done movie that seems to do Jackie Robinson and the era some credit (well, the era got credit for change and discredit for being what it was). Even a bit of props sent out to the military for integrating before baseball did. If you haven't seen it, it's a must see for baseball fans.

[Ronnie Dobbs3]

So has anyone seen "The Act of Killing"? Reviews are great. My friend wants me to go but it looks like quite the downer, so I figured I'd check here.

[Julio Riddols]

So I'm a fairly casual Rotten Tomatoes user. I was looking at the latest releases and noticed that Grown Up 2 has a 7% tomatometer, but 90% of users liked it.

WTF???

Pretty sure thats just the Sandler fanboys who go and see everything he makes. It will drop as time goes by and other people who are less impressed with grade school jokes weigh in.

[Matthean]

Pretty sure thats just the Sandler fanboys who go and see everything he makes. It will drop as time goes by and other people who are less impressed with grade school jokes weigh in.

Down to 61%.

[Julio Riddols]

If someone made a stock market for the fan rating on rotten tomatoes I would buy huge shares of every single Sandler and Tyler Perry movie before they released, then sell as soon as the meter hit 90%.

[Lathum]

The Other F Word 10/10

Fantastic documentary about guys in punk rock coming of age and having families and going through changes in priorities. The film revolves around the lead singer of Pennywise and his 3 daughters and the struggles of being on the road all the time.

The film also features a wide range of guys,mostly lead singers, including lead singers from from Blink 182, Everclear, black Flag, the Vandals, NOFX, Rancid. Flea was in it as well.

Just a fantastic film.

[Izulde]

So I'm a fairly casual Rotten Tomatoes user. I was looking at the latest releases and noticed that Grown Up 2 has a 7% tomatometer, but 90% of users liked it.

WTF???

I actually kinda like the original Grown-Ups and the second one looked amusing from the previews, though I haven't seen it yet.

Is it LCD humor? Yeah. Is it good for a few cheap, mindless laughs that are oddly cheering? Yep.

[Izulde]

Life of Pi - 5/10
No question it's pretty, and there's promise early in the movie, but once it gets to the ocean, the whole thing just drags, drags, drags. I'm actually being generous with the 5 because I recognize there's a lot of technical polish here, but in terms of actual entertainment and keeping my interest, it's just not there.

That I said, I can see why people love it. It's just that for me personally, it's mediocre at best as far as actual enjoyment goes.

[Julio Riddols]

Life of Pi - 5/10
No question it's pretty, and there's promise early in the movie, but once it gets to the ocean, the whole thing just drags, drags, drags. I'm actually being generous with the 5 because I recognize there's a lot of technical polish here, but in terms of actual entertainment and keeping my interest, it's just not there.

That I said, I can see why people love it. It's just that for me personally, it's mediocre at best as far as actual enjoyment goes.

To me it was a beautiful film, but was like an incredibly boring version of Forrest Gump. Its the kind of movie that is excellent to put on before you go to sleep. To me, pacing like that works best with stuff like 2001: A Space Odyssey.

[Izulde]

Yeah it could have been much better than what it was, which is why it was frustrating. And the thing at the end actually irritated me. I mean, I know the effect it was going for, but I rolled my eyes more than anything else.

Far different from Big Fish, whose ending had a good amount of emotional punch to it.

[Julio Riddols]

Yeah it could have been much better than what it was, which is why it was frustrating. And the thing at the end actually irritated me. I mean, I know the effect it was going for, but I rolled my eyes more than anything else.

Far different from Big Fish, whose ending had a good amount of emotional punch to it.

Big Fish was berzerk. It was like Alice in Wonderland in a way. Me being a fan of anything in that absurd sweet spot between Cronenberg and Gilliam, I loved it.

[bob]

Watched Argo last night. Didn't know much of the real story prior to reading up after the movie. I understand making it more dramatic, but wish they stuck closer to the real events.

[Buccaneer]

Life of Pi - 5/10
No question it's pretty, and there's promise early in the movie, but once it gets to the ocean, the whole thing just drags, drags, drags. I'm actually being generous with the 5 because I recognize there's a lot of technical polish here, but in terms of actual entertainment and keeping my interest, it's just not there.

That I said, I can see why people love it. It's just that for me personally, it's mediocre at best as far as actual enjoyment goes.

I have not seen it but your review resonates with me. I can see myself feeling the same way.

[korme]

Just saw Fruitvale. Waterworks.

[RomaGoth]

Identity Thief was better than I expected which means it wasn't complete crap. Close though. Very close.

[Buccaneer]

I've gotten a chance to catch up on Marvel's Avengers movies and was surprised at my reactions, despite not being a comic fan at all. I saw was The Avengers when it came out on DVD. I liked that movie quite a bit but apart from seeing Iron Man 1 and 2, I did not see the prequels of the other three characters, nor did I know much about them at all except what I saw in the Avengers. After watching them, I had to go back several times to re-watch the Avengers because those explained a lot. Kind of wished I had seen them in the right order. Anyway, here are my rankings:

1. Thor - This one really hit home for me, don't know exactly why - probably because of the timeless Shakespearan story. I thought the acting in Thor was, imo, significantly better than in any of the other Marvel movies. But this was the one movie that filled in the biggest gaps for me with Avengers.
2. Iron Man - Being a non-comic fan, this was the least comicy of all of them (except for the cheesy final battle scene).
3. Avengers - This was my first exposure to the characters except those in Iron Man 1/2. Hated the Transformers-like city battle but the interplay between all of the characters was fun to watch, in battle and out.
4. Captain America - Now I know where the Tesseract came from and why Steve Rogers was a man out of time. A really likable character, one that you were rooting for the whole way.
5. Iron Man 2 - Again, did not like the Transformers-like battle (nor the Cheadle character) but being a fan of Mickey Rourke, I really liked Vanko. Hammer was great too in a dorky kind of way.
6. Incredible Hulk - Not a bad movie but I never liked Edward Norton, not a fan of him at all. All the while I was watching this last night, I kept thinking how awesome Mark Ruffalo would have been instead of Norton. Ruffalo was easily the best actor/character in the Avengers, imo. Hulk had the stupidest villian, though.

I am looking forward to seeing Iron Man 3, heard it was awesome. And I know Thor is coming out soon, the trailers look great.

[rowech]

Ted (5/10) -- got some laughs but overall nothing special.

Olympus Has Fallen (6/10) -- liked it the first time I saw it when it was called Die Hard.

[Suicane75]

Olympus Has Fallen: 0 Out Of 100 Stars
A movie as preposterous as it is lazy, and to be honest, an insult to the people who lived through 9/11. Olympus Has Fallen is a cheap and stupid movie whose only bright spots are the 4 or 5 times you'll laugh at how serious it tries to take itself, other than that it's a fucking rape of your senses.

The movie seems to take delight in recreating images of 9/11. A plane attacks the White House and flies by office buildings as we get the not so subtle reaction shots of the people inside those buildings. The Washington Monument crumbles to the ground after the plane crashes into it. Just real desperate, predatory, hack visuals.

I'm not sure I've ever been so insulted by a movie before. It seems to take delight in praying on real emotions and fears of an America under attack, and surround that with cut and paste drama, with some one liners sprinkled in. It's a fucking atrocious movie, made by idiots, and everyone who's in it, from Morgan Freeman, Melissa Leo and Angela Basset, should be ashamed of themselves.

This is not Die Hard in the White House, this is not a fun action movie. This is a soulless, craftless piece of shit.

[Dutch]

I've gotten a chance to catch up on Marvel's Avengers movies and was surprised at my reactions, despite not being a comic fan at all. I saw was The Avengers when it came out on DVD. I liked that movie quite a bit but apart from seeing Iron Man 1 and 2, I did not see the prequels of the other three characters, nor did I know much about them at all except what I saw in the Avengers. After watching them, I had to go back several times to re-watch the Avengers because those explained a lot. Kind of wished I had seen them in the right order. Anyway, here are my rankings:

1. Thor - This one really hit home for me, don't know exactly why - probably because of the timeless Shakespearan story. I thought the acting in Thor was, imo, significantly better than in any of the other Marvel movies. But this was the one movie that filled in the biggest gaps for me with Avengers.
2. Iron Man - Being a non-comic fan, this was the least comicy of all of them (except for the cheesy final battle scene).
3. Avengers - This was my first exposure to the characters except those in Iron Man 1/2. Hated the Transformers-like city battle but the interplay between all of the characters was fun to watch, in battle and out.
4. Captain America - Now I know where the Tesseract came from and why Steve Rogers was a man out of time. A really likable character, one that you were rooting for the whole way.
5. Iron Man 2 - Again, did not like the Transformers-like battle (nor the Cheadle character) but being a fan of Mickey Rourke, I really liked Vanko. Hammer was great too in a dorky kind of way.
6. Incredible Hulk - Not a bad movie but I never liked Edward Norton, not a fan of him at all. All the while I was watching this last night, I kept thinking how awesome Mark Ruffalo would have been instead of Norton. Ruffalo was easily the best actor/character in the Avengers, imo. Hulk had the stupidest villian, though.

I am looking forward to seeing Iron Man 3, heard it was awesome. And I know Thor is coming out soon, the trailers look great.

I'm not sure if we should let you know, but you already saw Thor... :)

[Buccaneer]

Sorry, meant Thor 2.

[Dutch]

Just messin' with ya.

[flere-imsaho]

Just finished watching Pacific Rim.It was a love letter to fans of giant mecha and monsters clashing. The little kid in me is still giddy.

It's just too bad in addition to giant mecha and monsters, they couldn't also add a story, characters, humor, two cents worth of logic or some meaningful dialogue. Really any of them would have been fine.

But the monsters and robots were cool. Plus, I love Guillermo del Toro's vision for making things look freakishly awesome.

But I still would have liked a decent story in there.

Agreed with both of you. I saw it in theaters earlier this summer and it's actually the most recent movie I've seen (sob - my life...).

There's basically a minimum of plot, characterization, etc... to drive the movie along, but I didn't mind it as, agreeing with the rev, the way del Toro's vision is realized is both awesome, in that it inspires awe, and awesome, as in, well, awesome. :D

It's funny, though, I'm not sure this movie would have been better if, say, the acting had been better. Let's take Idris Elba & Charlie Hunnam, for example. They've proven elsewhere they can actually act. While in Pacific Rim they're not exactly mailing it in, they're not really doing all they can. But what if they did, and got all thespian and suchlike? Would it really have made the movie (about giant robots & giant monsters) that much better? Especially if it added more non-action minutes to the movie? I dunno, but I'm thinking no.

[rowech]

Safety Not Guaranteed (8/10) -- I had not heard of this movie but watched it because of who was in it. It's really a pretty good movie. The ending might not do it for some and I would understand why but it's really an enjoyable comedy/romance/drama.

[korme]

Prisoners - Really wanted to like this movie, and I didn't. Paul Dano didn't have any room to work in his role, which was a huge disappointment. Too many plot holes. 4/10

The Spectacular Now - Struggled to find a point to this coming of age story. Another one that left me disappointed. There were some good moments, though - and, hey, Shailene Woodley. 6/10

[ISiddiqui]

That's funny, because I really actually liked The Spectacular Now a LOT and thought it had a very clear message by the end. I liked how realistic the romance was and they didn't go to clear cliches in a lot of teen movies. I'd give it an 8/10 myself.

[Kodos]

World War Z - 6.5 of 10 - Damn fast zombies. Okay as an action movie, poor as a zombie movie.

[Buccaneer]

Am I the only one who really like Iron Man 1 but did not like Iron Man 3 much at all?

[sterlingice]

Does it count if I liked Iron Man 1 and haven't seen Iron Man 3?

SI

[korme]

DON JON - Writer/Director Joseph Gordon-Levitt brings to light the porno-verse that we live in. He's a guido who, while scores many a hot random, is struggling to connect with a woman, preferring his one solo-go as a connection over the random ladies that share his bed. Throughout the movie he comes he strives to figure out what his real life encounters are missing.

It was funny, and a bold take on life in the 21st century. I enjoyed it for the most part. 8/10

[Lathum]

DON JON - Writer/Director Joseph Gordon-Levitt brings to light the porno-verse that we live in. He's a guido who, while scores many a hot random, is struggling to connect with a woman, preferring his one solo-go as a connection over the random ladies that share his bed. Throughout the movie he comes he strives to figure out what his real life encounters are missing.

It was funny, and a bold take on life in the 21st century. I enjoyed it for the most part. 8/10

I think this is probably a decent movie, however the name and the way they have marketed it have really turned me off to ever seeing it. I would imagine a lot of people my age feel similar.

[ISiddiqui]

The Great Gatsby - 3/10: This movie was so horrid. The only reason it gets a 3 is how pretty it looked. The casting was good as well. The screenplay was ridiculously bad. Especially the framing device of the psych hospital and the giving away the entire plot early in the movie, rather than it being a shocking reveal closer to the end of the book.

[Pyser]

The Great Gatsby - 3/10: This movie was so horrid. The only reason it gets a 3 is how pretty it looked. The casting was good as well. The screenplay was ridiculously bad. Especially the framing device of the psych hospital and the giving away the entire plot early in the movie, rather than it being a shocking reveal closer to the end of the book.

i actually thought it was a good way to get some of the language of the novel into the movie. i thought it was a pretty faithful adaptation, really.

[ISiddiqui]

Even though they told you everything about Gatsby and Daisy less than hour into it? In the book that wasn't revealed until the last few pages - it was kind of a great twist. The book just decided to give it all away.

[Julio Riddols]

The Heat 7/10 - Melissa McCarthy is hilarious. This movie is a great light comedy with action elements, nothing special.. But if you like her style of humor, she is at her best in this.

This is the End 8/10 - This 8 is almost entirely for Michael Cera and his short work in the film as a coked up wild ass version of himself. He was hilarious. I thought other than that it was a nice little tongue in cheek comedy with a satisfying ending.

Resolution 7/10 - Nice little indie. Slow burn psychological horror flick with some decent smarts. A guy tries to get his friend off meth by chaining him to a wall in an abandoned house and forcing him to detoxify, but the place where the house is located has a mysterious secret.

Deceptive Practice (Ricky Jay documentary) - 8/10 - I thought this was outstanding as a look into the history of sleight of hand and the people who are responsible for a little bit of Ricky Jay's incredible skills. I only wish more had been shown as far as the actual tricks themselves. Some of the stuff he and his mentors do is pretty amazing.

Lovelace - 9/10 - Really well made film depicting the life of Linda Lovelace from what seemed like a pretty neutral point of view. I think the acting was fantastic as well, and overall it tells a pretty engrossing story even if you already know a little bit of it.

[ISiddiqui]

Iron Man 3 - 6/10: I wasn't feeling this superhero movie. There was a lot in the middle which just seemed to draaaag. And the ending made NO sense...

If you can remotely control all those Iron Men - why not use them EARLIER?!

Also - you just had a huge Avengers movie. Are you telling me that Captain America isn't going to care about a terrorism plot on American soil? How about kidnapping the President? Really? I know its an Iron Man movie, but c'mon!

[Groundhog]

The Great Gatsby - 3/10
Great it was not.

This is the End - 6/10
If my power had died 30 minutes into the movie and I was to grade it, it would've been a 9. As soon as the non-starring celebs (Cera in particular) are out of the picture, it got a bit lame IMO.

The World's End - 9/10
Fantastic.

Disconnected - 7.5/10
A quirky little movie this one. Had no idea what it was about going in, but ended up enjoying it.

[Karlifornia]

We Need To Talk About Kevin- 3/10

An exercise in masochism for both Kevin's mother and the viewer. Virtually no laughs, no heart, just cruelty without any answers. I feel worse because renting it was my idea

[Pyser]

Even though they told you everything about Gatsby and Daisy less than hour into it? In the book that wasn't revealed until the last few pages - it was kind of a great twist. The book just decided to give it all away.

i think you've misremembered the book. you find out pretty early on.

the end of the book is the group trip to ny (where you certainly know their backstory), then the car crash, then the revenge, then a decent amount of time spent on the funeral (including the drunk guy from the party coming back, and gatsby's dad coming into town). certainly no last page surprises about him and daisy.

[Autumn]

I haven't seen the movie, but I read the book last year I think. You're right that the backstory isn't a last page reveal, but it's certainly in the last third of the book. It's something that is teased out during the story--that's kind of the deal, the slow unraveling of Gatsby's stories, first the ones other tell, then his about himself, then the truth.

[ISiddiqui]

Last few pages may have been a slight hyperbole, but yeah, it's in the last part of the book. For most of the book, you are with Nick, trying to figure out what in the world does Gatsby want with Daisy and what of his history is actually true.

[ISiddiqui]

Gravity [in IMAX 3D] 10/10: This was a FANTASTIC movie experience. The story was wonderfully done - straightforward, simple (in a good way), and powerful. Long shots involving very little dialogue can actually add to the suspense - you don't have to fill every minute with noise. Add to that some absolutely amazing visuals. The 3D was perfectly done - nothing jumping out at you, but adding wonderful depth. And the space sky was awe inspiring (esp on IMAX).

GO SEE IT (IMAX 3D if you can)!!

[Peregrine]

I watched Gravity today (in normal 3D) and myself and my friends were stunned by it - so tremendously good. I can't wait to see it on IMAX soon as well.

[Dutch]

Captain Phillips - 10/10

Holy crap....Tom Hanks outdoes himself in this recreation of a true story. As a vet, I can appreciate the work of the US Navy and the Seals...as a civilian, I can appreciate the terror of the cargo ship crew. A true masterpiece.

[Chief Rum]

Gravity was awesome.

[Suicane75]

Hayride: 5 Out Of 100 Stars


Oh Dear, Horror Fest 2013 is not starting out so great. Here we have a movie starring the great Richard Tyson about a killer on the loose during a haunted hayride. The premise almost gave me an erection. And then I watched it.

Hoo boy, where do I begin. Firstly, this project appears to have a budget somewhere between none and pizzas and beer at the wrap party. I'd bet my left nut that a few peoples credit cards were maxed out to pay Richard Tysons salary. But good for him, he deserves the money more than these idiots do.

The cameras being used are slightly above home video caliber, so there's that to deal with. Then the editing is choppy and stilted and the sound tends to drop in and out depending on who is talking. But this all technical shit and even a really bad technical movie can overcome those faults, just not this doozy.

So a dude returns to his Uncles farm, where he grew up, with his girlfriend in tow. Tyson plays the Uncle, who every year runs a haunted hayride with friends and family. Let me back up, before we're introduced to any of these characters we're treated to an opening where a guy who has slaughtered a number of women, is being transported to jail. The cop car that he's in goes off the road somehow (we're never shown the crash, that would cost money), allowing the lunatic to escape. Now we meet the rest of the cast.

So Tyson and his nephew and a bunch of other characters talk, and talk, and talk and talk and reminisce and Tyson tells the story of one of the characters in his Hayride and we're treated to flash backs or fantasy sequences about someone who lived around here who went nuts when his daughter skipped town with her boyfriend. The guy went so looney that he went from house to house wearing a sack on his head and killing people with a pitchfork or some shit, I dunno, there's so much story and myth here that I'm sure sounded good to the writers when they were sitting around stoned trying to come up with an idea for a movie. So yeah, the character in the hayride is named Pitchfork, and he wears a sack on his head. Now the escaped lunatic has stumbled onto the farm and of course the first thing he does is find the outfit for Pitchfork. Why he would see a burlap sack sitting around and decide to wear it is beyond me, but hey, he's the lunatic.

Now, then, if we just focused on the farm and the hayride and the killer, the movie would still suck, but maybe it wouldn't suck so bad. But no, instead we're treated to lots of scenes with cops chasing the escaped lunatic. Except like I said, there's no budget, so we don't see a manhunt, see two cops talking about a manhunt. And talking, and talking, and sleeping in their car, for what reason I don't know. The acting and the cinematography are all pretty damn bad, but more than that it's the endless narrative. This film would make a great book on tape.

When we finally see cops, they all look to be about 20 years old, with various words on their shirts like "sheriff" and "police" and they all seem like their costumes were bought at goodwill. They too, are deficient in their acting skills. When they think they have the lunatic cornered, coincidentally at the same house that Pitchfork used to live in, they raid it while the two lead cops stand outside and do some more talking. They think they're close so they talk some more about road blocks and they talk some more about this and they talk some more about that. Jesus Christ this movie is going to great lengths to not do anything.

So back at the hayride, Tyson gives a prep talk and we're treated to a few scenes of mild fun as we see the hayride in action, but again, the amount of space they have to work with is so limited that it just comes off looking cheesy. With a killer on the loose you might think that some good kills would liven this dud up, but no, the kills are really bad. I'm talking, reallllly bad. We see a guy push a pitchfork toward someone laying on the ground and we see him holding the pitchfork on his neck and shaking. The kills are shit and the gore is non existent.

Sweet lord this damn thing is so bad. Those teenage cops are moving through the woods wearing black shirts and khakis, so they sort of look like cops. They must be right out of the academy because when the 5 of them are confronted by pitchfork in an area roughly the size of my living room, and despite all having guns at the ready, well I don't want to spoil it.

Back at the hayride, people are missing so Tyson convenes everyone in the same spot where he gave his speech before the ride began and gives another speech. I want to note that the one place in this film where people should seem excited and boisterous, on the actual hayride, we get interminable shots of people standing around saying nothing waiting to get on the ride, and interminable shots of people sitting on the ride, doing nothing, just looking around into the night.

So this grand haunted hayride seems to have served about 16 people throughout the night, and now more people are disappearing and turning up dead, and Tyson and Pitchfork have a showdown in a scene that is about as awful a fight scene as I've ever seen, legit. Meanwhile we see people on the hayride struggle to run. A lot of people have a hard time running in this movie.

So Pitchfork, despite killing everyone he's come in contact with so far, decides to kidnap the girlfriend of the Nephew. Perhaps he's seen the movie and knows those are the central characters. This of course leads to the Nephew chasing down Pitchfork and engaging in what I believe the script might describe as an action scene, it would be wrong. I mean, the level of film making here is so beyond amateur. I'm fairly convinced the people making this had never held a camera or done any film editing prior to shooting this......movie?

Ok ok ok, so the guy and his girlfriend succeed in killing Pitchfork, then they huddle on the ground and laugh and giggle about what a night it's been, like they left their keys in the car or something. Then she says she's pregnant and he giggles and says "even after all this, that's still terrifying". And they laugh. And I don't know what the fuck I'm watching.

The cops show up at the end and do some more talking, wrapping the story up just in case the viewers have been slamming their heads against a wall for the past 90 minutes and haven't been paying attention. We get a nice concerto that plays over a montage of body bags being zipped up and actors acting like they're upset, albeit badly. And lastly we get a twist that not a person watching could give a fuck about.

If you want to watch the results of what happens when a bunch of people with no film making ability, come up with a bad story and enough money to hire Richard Tyson to be in their film, but have no idea how to actually make one, then this is the baby for you. I normally love movies this bad and have no problem recommending them, the problem here is that the actual technical aspects are as absurdly bad as the story is, making it very hard to watch or enjoy on any level. Jamming an actual pitchfork into your balls might be a more enjoyable way to spend an evening.

Tagged for long ass review and spoilers.

[Izulde]

I haven't seen the latest film adaptation of Gatsby yet. Wanted to see it in theatres but didn't get a chance to. Judging from the reviews in this thread, that's probably a good thing. I'll still watch it at some point, though, and see how I feel about it.

[Butter]

We Need To Talk About Kevin- 3/10

An exercise in masochism for both Kevin's mother and the viewer. Virtually no laughs, no heart, just cruelty without any answers. I feel worse because renting it was my idea

No laughs? WTF were you expecting?

I think this was one of the best movies of 2011, though admittedly I liked it more than most.

Going to see Gravity in IMAX 3D tonight... it better be good, dammit, because that shit's expensive.

[Pyser]

I haven't seen the latest film adaptation of Gatsby yet. Wanted to see it in theatres but didn't get a chance to. Judging from the reviews in this thread, that's probably a good thing. I'll still watch it at some point, though, and see how I feel about it.

silly as it sounds, i only wanted to see this in theaters. a drama in 3d in the roaring 20's with baz luhrmann's crazy vision (and soundtrack)? why bother on a small screen.

[Suicane75]

Detention Of The Dead: 40 Out Of 100 Stars
Weird film that is really well made, and full of great gore and kills, but whose story is too teen centric for my tastes. It plays like an ABC Family movie with an R rating.

A group of kids are in detention when a zombie outbreak occurs, how or why is any ones guess, but the movie wastes no time in setting up it's premise. It only takes about 5 minutes before we're full steam into it, and I appreciate that.

All the actors are good, but the story is a bit all over the place, at times after school special, at times a satire of after school specials, it fluctuates way too much and tends to drag. But there are a lot of funny jokes and as I said earlier, the gore is top notch.

My guess is that the younger you are, the more you'll like this movie, and while I wouldn't recommend it anyone my age or with my sensibilities, I can see how some people could enjoy it.


9 Days Whipped Tortured And Chained By A Psychopath: 43 Out Of 100 Stars
Low budget psychological thriller about a dude who kidnaps a runaway and.....well the title pretty much says it all.

The first 10 minutes of the movie are both silly and technically horrid, every scene in which the two leads are not in the same shot, and thus needs to be edited to make the conversation flow, are pretty bad. Fortunately, as I said, that's mostly just the first 10 minutes.

The male lead is really strong, and the material he has to work with isn't awful, although it's not nearly fleshed out enough to really make you care all that much about the victim, but it did keep me from turning the movie off, which says a lot considering how it starts.

The girl who plays the victim isn't as strong an actor, although she is willing to be quite naked for a lot of the movie. She's not that attractive but she does have a kicking body.

There's not much meat to the movie, and I didn't care much whether the girl lived or died at the end but I was never quite bored, so that's a positive. The lead and the ambiance are good, but in the end I just can't recommend it, the set up is too cheesy, the motivations are never quite clear beyond "he's crazy", and the tension levels just aren't high enough, but it gets an A for effort.


The Demented: 30 Out Of 100 Stars
Pedantic, rather by the numbers zombie chase fest that has a pretty cool set up but fails to deliver much more than the typical zombie movie tropes with no real heart, no real investment in the characters and takes itself way more seriously than it should.

3 pairs of college age couples converge on the summer house of one of the dudes fathers for nice weekend when a missile attack occurs somewhere in the bayou. The missiles, for whatever reason, set off a zombie plague and away we go.

The actors are all good enough and the women look good, although despite some early tease there's no skin or frolicking to be had. The movie itself also looks good and everything is top notch from a technical aspect but there's just nothing here that hasn't been done a thousand times before.

At the end of the day, The Demented offers nothing new, while not being bad enough to enjoy in any sort of kitsch way. It's just boring.


Gnaw: 28 Out Of 100
I'll give Gnaw one thing, it sure is gross.

British slasher film that sends a group of youngsters out into the middle of the countryside for a weekend retreat. Everything about it is fine enough I suppose but besides the copious gore it doesn't really draw you in at all. There's a story involving a girl who might be pregnant and the loser who has a thing for her but other than that, most of the characters are shallow dicks so you aren't really assed with what happens to them and there isn't much in the way of drama.

Uninspired and uninspiring, with no sex or nudity, Gnaw just eats way for 90 minutes but doesn't have much flavor.


Bloody Homecoming: 44 Out Of 100 Stars
Another awful movie, but at least this one was enjoyably awful.

Low budget, but made well enough for it not to be a distraction, Bloody Homecoming is the story of a boy who is killed by a fire when he's locked in a closet by a group of Freshman on Prom Night after he tries to rape one of them. 4 years later, again on prom night, someone is looking for revenge.

Your typical slash and chase film, Bloody Homecoming is elevated to watchable by a cadre of bad performances, including a principal who waddles about and believes constantly bellowing your lines is a serviceable acting technique. Then we have a dude who looks like Morton Downey shrunk down to 8th grade size, trying to play a high school senior, who has some of the best reaction shots I've ever seen.

The movies biggest flaw is actually a complete lack of extras. There are scenes, mainly the prom scene, where there are like, 10 other people in the room, all bunched together. There's a particularly chubby lass who is seen over and over again always standing with the same two other people. The cheerleaders, all 4 of them, gather near a tree to practice. The big football game, taking place prior to the prom, is heard, but not seen. That's OK though, because we're only introduced to one football player throughout the entire movie.

We're introduced to the football coach near the end of the movie who has a bizarre exchange with a teacher about the one time they had sex in which both actors play it like it's a crucial point of the story, when in fact it just happens out of nowhere and is never touched on again, just awesome. There's a great scene involving the principal and the father of the boy who died, who also happens to be the sheriff, in which I was sure at least one of the actors was going to pop a blood vessel.

Here's the thing, if you don't have the manpower to do it, why the fuck are you setting this thing in the middle of a prom? The killer and the kids all seem to exist in a vacuum of their own during the prom, nobody else pays attention to them, nobody suspects anything, the hallways are empty, there are like 3 teachers manning a table with one punch bowl. It's absolutely impossible to get invested in any of it.

The acting ranges from decent to awful, the gore and the kills are about in the same range. There's a scene of random nudity and a some sex, but nothing titillating. The twist at the end and the actual fight scenes are bad, but funny bad. The showdown between the students and the killer is played super serious, which makes it so very amusing.

So yeah, Bloody Homecoming tries, but everything about it is just too lacking to overcome the abundant silliness. Still, if silly sounds like fun, you could do worse.


Dracula Reborn: 39 Out Of 100 Stars
Have you ever said to yourself, "Ya know, I really like skinemax movies, I just wish they didn't have all that nudity and sex". Well you're in luck.

The first hour or so moves slower than a sumo marathon as we're introduced to a realty agent who sells an old building to a creepy dude. That creepy dude is of course Dracula, who takes a liking to the agents wife. As I said, the set up takes what feels like forever, the actors are fine enough but none of them have much presence at all, especially the wife, who isn't in any way sexy, alluring, captivating, or any of the things the script treats her as.

Just like your basic skinemax movie, all the scenes that are supposed to be in offices, either a doctors office or the agents office, look more like the corner of someones living room.

The script itself is extremely basic and doesn't do much at with the Dracula myth except retell it rather blandly.

Once the movie "picks up", in the last half hour or so, we're at least treated some over the top acting that will illicit a chuckle, especially with the introduction of the Van Helsing character, who looks like he just wandered in off the set of a Durango commercial. There is some tease of decent drama and action near the end, but it gets overshadowed by the bad acting and pedestrian script.

At times bad enough for a chuckle, but never good enough to actually care much about, Dracula Reborn is just fang less.

[sterlingice]

Dracula Reborn: 39 Out Of 100 Stars
Have you ever said to yourself, "Ya know, I really like skinemax movies, I just wish they didn't have all that nudity and sex". Well you're in luck.

I just always assumed that was what USA's Up All Night was in the 80s and 90s

SI

[Suicane75]

Oh heavens no, Up All Night was teenage sex comedies. And honestly, probably pushed the boundaries for it's time. It left in as much skin as possible.

[chadritt]

Finally saw Gravity. Absolutely a 10/10. One of the few live action movies where Ive really loved the 3d.

[Butter]

Going to see Gravity in IMAX 3D tonight... it better be good, dammit, because that shit's expensive.

This was pretty good. One of the few movies that I feel like would lose a lot in the translation from giant screen to small screen.

[Kodos]

Gravity had a lot of moments where suspension of disbelief was difficult, but overall, it was a very good movie.

[Suicane75]

Deranged: 39 Out Of 100 Stars
Fascinating train wreck about 4 woman who convene on a vacation house for a weekend to celebrate the impending nuptials of one of them.

The cast is eclectic, the lead is Brazilian although I was sure she was Asian till about halfway through the movie. I believe there 2 Australians and 1 Scottish girl, although she may be Australian too.

Anyhoo, the lead, the Brazilian, is about a 7/10 on the Wiseau scale. I'm assuming she's a horrible actress, but perhaps it's just that her English is horrible. At times it appears she's just trying to make the correct words, forgetting entirely about what emotion she's supposed to be conveying.

So yeah, the lead is a joy to watch, unfortunately she's not around for a good stretch of the film, leaving the other 3 girls, all pretty bad in their own right, to run around and not do much of anything.

The script is pretty awful as they all have their stock personality traits, and interact with each other as if they've just met for the first time when they're supposed to be longtime friends, even though it appears as if they don't like each other much at all. There are a few promising moments where you think some action might break out but inevitably they end up doing more talking about doing stuff than actually doing stuff.

There's a fine set of breasts on display at one point, but that's about it, because why get 4 attractive women who can't act, to star in your movie if you don't want them to get naked either.

Enough hot chicks, bad acting and sexy accents to at least keep you interested up to a certain point, but The Deranged doesn't offer much more.




Nothing Left To Fear: 44 Out Of 100 Stars
A better story than movie, produced by Guns 'N' Roses Slash, Nothing Left To Fear is the story of a pastor, his wife, and their 3 kids, who move to a quiet little country town under the auspice of taking over the Pastorship, unfortunately the towns folk have much more sinister motives.

Anne Heche gets top billing but her entire role seems to be delivering background momisms, "clean your room, haha", "Don't eat all those cookies, haha". She may be drunk.

At 1:40 minutes the film is way too long, 20-25 minutes less would have helped greatly. As it is, the pacing is pretty interminable, especially in the 2nd half of the film when shit starts going down. There are times when shit happens for no good reason other than just to prolong things. When the girl begs the guy to stop the car, and he does, only for them both to get out and him implore her to get back in the car, you kind of wanna kick your TV a little.

Rebekah Brandes, playing the older sister, is the real star of the film. She's got a good presence and she looks quite fetching in her tights jeans and tank top. The rest of the cast is serviceable, although the acting of the younger brother becomes quite an irritation near the end of the movie.

The effects are solid, and the gore is pretty decent if a little tame. Brandes is very sultry but there's no nudity. The pacing is a major issue but the film looks good.

Nothing Left To Fear is a decent story, buried in a movie that at once, takes too long to tell it, and doesn't flesh it out enough. You'll get drawn into the set up, but ultimately be let down.




Do Not Disturb: 30 Out Of 100 Stars
Laughably ponderous, cheaply made film that plays more like something for the stage, maybe off off off off off Broadway, like in the Hudson.

The lead looks and acts like a mix of Roddy Piper and every male porn star you never enjoyed watching, with a dash of autism thrown in for good measure.

Anyway, he's supposed to be a fairly famous writer who is holed up on skid row doing bad things to bad stereotypes. The script is really bad and often contradicts itself while having no desire to explain any ones motivations. Tiffany Sheppis plays the agent of the writer, who, while having shit material to work with, really does a good job at trying to act like she's in a better movie.

Claustrophobicly shot, and way more in to it's own story than you'll ever be, Do Not Disturb is more like a warning than an advertisement.




Heebie Jeebies: 58 Out Of 100 Stars
Set in the town of Golderton, yes Golderton. This Sci-Fiesque film is about a monster that has been trapped in an abandoned gold mine for over a century, but when new attempts at excavation set him free, watch out Golderton.

The monster, badly CGI'd, looks like a giant vagina with teeth, legs, and five heads. I don't know whether to award points for originality, or subtract points for absurdity. The cast is rather large, but filled with the only people in town who do anything. There's the round, boisterous, ready to have a heart attack in every scene, cowboy gold dealer, whose messing with the mine unleashes the beast. We have two cops, one of whom has a panic attack every time he gets nervous, which goes from being silly to annoying in very little time. We have an attractive Asian girl, who provides a twofer as the town coroner AND relaxation therapist, helping out our troubled cop. Then we have the younger siblings of all the characters, just because teenagers, why not. Oh, and Marion Ross has a brief appearance as a crotchety old lady. Nothing like seeing a giant vagina dismember Mrs. Cunningham.

So the creature escapes and starts dishing out some murder, while the anxiety ridden cop is given a history lesson by the grandmother of the Asian coroner, at least I think it's her grandmother, they never bother to let us know. There's 3 generations of Asian women all living in the same house but they all call each other by their first names so maybe the script just didn't get that far. Anyhoo, she explains that many years ago the mine collapsed, and instead of helping the men they just moved on to a different part of the cave and started blasting there, leaving the 5 men to die. Then the wife of one of the men put a curse on or something, and voila, monster. The monster is a manifestation of the mens fears, and it uses that fear to paralyze it's victims before devouring it, which is not good news at all for our already jittery cop. So after telling this long, insane, intensive story, when the old lady and the cop realize the kids have snuck out, she exclaims "they said something about going somewhere called the mine!" as if she had no idea what this place was.

The sheriff, upon finding a bloodbath at the mine, sends home the only other cop he has, because of his anxiety you see, and instead calls upon a bunch of cons and hunters to help him hunt down this creature. That's gotta violate some sort of union clause I would think. This posse is not real great though, because when a bunch of youngsters, including the cops hot little sister, the sheriffs son, and the youngest of the Asian family, head towards the mine to have a little sex party, they pass right by one of the guys whose entire attempt at stopping them consists of yelling "hey, that's private property", and then he keeps walking.

The ridiculousness just keeps piling on as we get plot points like the cop, knowing his little sister and a bunch of other kids are in trouble, instead of heading right out there, stops to try and convince the coroner/therapist to drive out there with him to calm his nerves. The cowboy gold dealer wanting to trap the monster because it bleeds gold, thus it can make him rich, and two of the cons from the posse finding the kids in the woods and deciding to forgo their regular raping ways and just steal their jeep.

It all leads to a final showdown in the mine where the cop has to deal with his anxiety issues to save the girl he loves from a giant 5 headed vagina monster, it's every bit as absurd as you'd imagine.

While it loses some charm in the fact that it makes no attempt to be good or make sense as a story, Heebie Jeebies is still a fair amount of dumb fun with a few decent kills and a good pace.




2013 Horror Fest: Exit To Hell: 67 Out Of 100 Stars
Finally, a film I can actually recommend.

Gritty little grind house style movie that works more for it's ascetics than the actual story, although despite a bit of a letdown in that department, it still provides enough chills and thrills to get by.

Various lowlifes end up lost in a small town in the middle of nowhere in the Southwest.

The acting is solid, but the editing and fast pace of the film help hide the parts that aren't. Kane Hodder, the original Jason from Friday The 13th plays the physically imposing Sheriff who has a rather delicious way of dealing out justice. Tiffany Sheppis, who starred in Do Not Disturb, is once again really solid, and this time she's topless too, a double threat.

There's a good amount of fun, gore and nudity, and you can tell everyone involved in making this thing had a good time. My only complaint would be that there are a few too many characters that at times keep the story from being neater than it should. Hodders character particularly, along with his wife and kid, are marvelous, but have to share too much screen time during the films final 3rd with a gangster doing his best Scarface, if he were Russian.

Boobs, blood, creepy symbolism, fat kids eating people, Exit To Hell is delightfully fun.

[sterlingice]

Is the some sort of community service or need for a religious indulgence (if the latter, Luther cleared that up like 500 years ago) that causes you to watch these? I figure you either have the patience of a saint, a job where you can watch movies all day, or a horrible need for self flagellation.

SI

[Suicane75]

I just love watching horror movies this time of year.

[Julio Riddols]

And whats better than a total shitbag horror film? Not a lot.

[Fidatelo]

We're the Miller's - 7/10

I love comedies. I love Jennifer Anniston. I love Jason Sudekis. I could be talked into give this an 8. Good fun.

[Suicane75]

Pray For Dawn 16 Out Of 100 Stars
Movies like this intrigue the fuck out of me. How did they get made? Who are the people making them? Why do they get made? What do the people involved, from those working the cameras, to those writing the script, to those putting up the money, think they're accomplishing?

The story of a Senators daughter who has run away from home to be a hooker but gets kidnapped by a psycho and forced to endure.......well to be honest, listening to her scream in broken English for the whole movie, it almost feels like to the torturer is getting the worst of it.

So here's what I'm wondering. Whoever made this shit obviously knew they had no money. Yet they still decided to make it a story about A United States Congressman. "We'll put one of those signs outside the house he lives in that say So And So For Congress, that will make it seem real!" Then to top it off, the exterior they use is of a random house on a random block that looks at much like a Senators house as it does the Queen Of England's.

So the Congressmans daughter runs away from home to be a hooker and promptly gets kidnapped. This girl. Let me tell you about this girl. She speaks with a heavy South American accent. This is explained away in a scene where her Father explains that she was born in Mexico and raised in Venezuela when he was ambassador there. It might explain the accent, but it doesn't explain why the hell her English is a broken mess. But who cares, it's important this movie be made. She yells "fuck" a lot, she gets tortured, if that's what you want to call it. Mostly she's just put in a room. The room she's in is tiny, most of the sets in the movie are small and very tightly shot. Anyway, the room she's in is brick covered in blankets, there's a scene in the film in which she tries to escape and takes about 10 days cutting through the blanket only to discover the brick wall. I had no idea what was happening there. There are other scenes where she does stuff, but it's so badly shot you can't tell what's going on. At one point she's either putting scrapings from the wall she's trying to dig through, or food, in the toilet. Problem is that the toilet is just a bucket with a toilet seat, so it's going anywhere, and it's not gonna stay hidden for long. As she's doing it, she's got this big blanket wrapped over her as she peeks her head out at the camera that's keeping tabs on her. She might was well stand up and say "Hey misser, I'ma hide someting in dis bucket".

So the Congressman has gone to the police but they don't have any leads, so he hires a detective. This is a brilliant scene in which the Senator, his wife, their bodyguard (he's got a black suit on, black sunglasses, and stands with his arms crossed in front of him, so you know he's a bodyguard) meet with the detective. The acting here is glorious, the Senator is tough, the wife is crying, the detective is inquisitive, and it's all so bloody awful. The premise is ridiculous, the acting is dreadful, the script seems to be cut and paste from various NYPD Blue episodes.

Did your daughter use drugs? He asked with a blank look on his face.

Has she ever threatened to run away from home? He asks, looking like he's dreaming of a meatball parm.

At one point our heroin attempts to commit suicide by hanging herself with a strand of torn sheet. So she sits on the bed, which is a normal sized bed, puts one end of the sheet on something on the ceiling, and then sits on the edge of the bed. Now I'm no Alfred Einstein, but the physics here don't make much sense at all.

There's a twist, but not really, because you see it coming a mile away. The narrative is so confused, it's a moral tale about how kids should do what their parents say and listen to them and yadda yadda, but it's not playing to kids. So, I don't know. I just don't know.

Anyway the movie wraps up by having the torturer explain everything he's done, then they show flashbacks of everything he's done, and this music plays over top of the montage that tries to make it look like there's some Usual Suspects level of kick ass reveal going on here. My lord.

A cheaply made, cheap looking, badly acted movie whose entire target audience seems to be the crew involved in making it. Pray For Dawn had me praying for credits.



Deadly Detour: 23 Out Of 100 Stars
Maniac Films, which I imagine is headquartered in someones bedroom, presents Deadly Detour. The budget is clearly low, but at least there's some effort, the problem is that it's really hard to do much with a cast that seems like it's been plucked out of an ICP concert.

The film starts out on a blind date that is pretty much just a dude parking his car in what is supposed to be the middle of nowhere, to get with this girl. The editing and acting are what you'd expect. Something bad happens to the couple and we get some gore that looks good, but is way overdone. Look at how much intestines we made!

So with that out of the way, we get to the cruxt of our story, as it were. 2 groups of people, and I use the term loosely, are on a road trip. Look, this is pretty much a bad student film, random things happen, like we see what is supposed to be a retarded fella in a wheelchair eating his own poop, he's shown for 3 seconds and never mentioned again. When they stop at a rest stop we see another group of people just hanging out, the two groups are never shown on screen together but they comment on each other, it's just so stilted and badly conceived.

I want to say the dialog is awful, but that would imply that I think there's an actual script, which I don't. They just say fuck and cock and shit a lot, laugh about getting high like they just discovered it, drink beer, and generally act like nobody you would ever want to be around for more than 2 minutes. Strip away every ounce of humanity in Jay and Silent Bob and you've got the cast of this lovely shit stain.

The result of what you'd imagine would happen if a bunch of 20 something stoners with no film making or acting experience decide to make a movie, Deadly Detour is more of a bad home movie than anything else.



Hatchet 3: 45 Out Of 100 Stars
Man, I really loved the first two Hatchets, so I was super pumped for this. Unfortunately it's just not that good.

It still has the winks and nods and fun kills of the first two, but there's just too much story here, story that's not very compelling at all.

The film picks up right at the end of Hatchet 2, Zack Galligan of Gremlins fame plays the local sheriff who sends a bunch of his men out to the swamp to deal with the massacre. So cops and EMT's show up and all hell breaks loose again. The kills are fun at first but eventually the barrage of tongue in cheek just gets a little nerve wracking. It's the 3rd time we've seen this stuff and it just feels like, OK, show me something different.

The dialog is the same way. It's funny at first when all the horror movie tropes are being pointed out by the cast, but it's so fucking verbose at times. We get it, we know why it's funny, we saw the first two movies. Maybe I was more irritated than I thought.

Anyway, the problem is that even when those parts of the movie are fun, they aren't focused on for very long. The main cruxt of the film is a newswoman, dead set on killing Victor Crowley, has a theory about his dads ashes and returning them to him to make his ghost killable, and it's rather insufferable. It isn't made any easier by the fact that the actress playing her is just nails on a chalkboard to listen to.

The beauty of the first Hatchet was how much fun it had with it's kills and characters, but as the franchise has progressed it's become more about the story, which was never all that interesting on it's own. It's pretty much descended at this point to a bunch of characters put on the screen who know they're gonna die. When everyone's in on the joke, what's the point of telling it?

A major letdown, Hatchet 3 still has some sparkle, but mostly it just fades.



Slasher House: 27 Out Of 100 Stars
I feel bad giving a rating this low to Slasher House. It's a competently made movie and the story may be more interesting than I'm giving it credit for, but the pacing and fact that I didn't give a single shit about any of the characters just killed it for me.

A bunch of people wake up in a house or a jail or a........I dunno what. Anyway they've all got their own story, only I didn't care. They walk, they search, it's very tightly shot, you never have any idea of the layout, it was just impossible for me to get into.

Stuff happens, but having no investment, I didn't much care. A lot of the dialog is pretty silly. It plods, there's a twist, the end. Meh.



Infection, The Invasion Begins: 38 Out Of 100 Stars
Oh my. Oh mercy me. Written, Produced and starring Bryan Brewer, Infection is a captivating hodgepodge of bad writing, bad acting and hooorrrrribbblllle effects, and yet, on some level I have to applaud this Brewer guy for achieving something. I mean, here's a movie with his name on the marquee. My god is it an awful movie, and how delusional does he have to be to think that this is good, or had any reason to be made. But still, I applaud him.

Deke returns to his hometown after 10 years in prison for murder. Nobody in town wants him there, not his mom, not the sheriff, not his old pals, nobody except his old girlfriend, who may still harbor feelings for Deke.

This dude, bless him, I know he thinks Deke is a bad ass character, and I know he thinks he can pull it off, but my lord. Couldn't anyone pull him aside and suggest doing better things with his time and money?

Looking like he just stepped off the set of Saved By The Bell, Deke gives stern looks and plays the bad ass with a cool demeanor, the kind of guy we all wanted to be when we were 12. So Deke comes back into town at the same time a meteor with a payload of cosmic tapeworms crashes in the hills across the street from the diner his old girlfriend works in.

The thing I don't get is, this dude makes this movie, putting what had to have been a great deal of effort into it, and yet just about every scene and character motivation are pretty much lifted every bad movie you've ever seen, it's just that the acting here is worse. I could write forever about the nonsensical nature of just about every scene in the movie but that would take forever, so I'll just try and hit the high points.

Deke is super cool and he's having a bad day, we're reminded of this about 10 times during the film when Deke exclaims "this is not my day".

Deke gets into a fight with 3 guys who don't want him back in town, in the middle of the fight two of the guys get attacked by the worm monsters, Deke then walks 5 feet where the Sheriff is just hanging out, oblivious to anything.

Makeout Point is where the meteor crashed, it's also a moving spot of land, because no matter where the characters in the movie are, they're 20 feet from Makeout Point.

Deke and his girlfriend get help from an old high school friend who's still doing "that science thing", as Deke so eloquently puts it. We know he's a scientist because his trailer is full of beakers and X-Rays. It's here that Deke figures out that the worms can be killed by caffeine, because the scientist has been up all night drinking coffee, and the worms didn't kill him. Magnificent.

The Deputy gives Deke his gun because........well because Deke is a bad ass, and the only guy cool enough to go and make sure there aren't any monsters out.

Deke gets injured, for the sole apparent purpose of giving Bryan an excuse to take his shirt off.

Dekes mom is such a bad actress that I legit could not tell when she was and when she wasn't infected, it's highly plausible that the actress herself had no idea.

All of the effects look to be photo shopped, and not even well. The fire is green. Fire is not green. They may be the worst effects I've ever seen.

The only thing original about the movie is the story that bookends it, set way in the future and using graphics make the original Tron look like the new Tron. And it's fucking incomprehensible, so perhaps it was better that the body of the film was cut and paste. It also threatens us with a sequel.

OK, enough of that. Listen, it's humorous yes, but it's so drawn out and redundant and not for one single moment do you care about anything happening except to laugh at it. God bless you Bryan Brewer, you've made your movie. Now please don't ever make another one.



Tasmanian Devils: 45 Out Of 100 Stars
Made for Sci-Fi and starring Danica McKellar, Tasmania Devils is not a bad movie at all. Unfortunately it suffers from a lack of really fun gore and boobs, due to being a made for TV movie. But Winnie Cooper dressed in the tightest fitting park ranger uniform they could find helps elevates things. Oh yeah, she also does a very good job as the lead in helping carry the movie.

So a bunch of 20 something base jumpers fly out to Devils Peak, or whatever it's called, that big mountain in the middle of nowhere in Australia. Amusingly, as they fly in we see nothing but rock and sand, because it's the middle of the desert. But when the first jumper jumps, he jumps right into a forest, which.....I've never base jumped, but I don't think a forest is the ideal landing ground. Anyhoo, he ends up down in a cave where the rest of the group discovers that some sort of ancient animal is on the loose.

A group of 3 park rangers, including McKellar, head out to arrest the cliff jumpers and from there it turns into a chase and kill, and hide and meet cute type of film you'd expect.

The silly parts are pretty fun, including a hideously CGI'd monster that looks more like a baby dinosaur, and a gaggle of dumb plans and schemes to escape the monsters. The dialog and the acting are more than good enough to sort of keep you into the story. And as I said earlier, Danica does fine job of carrying the film with decent acting and deliciously sweaty breasts.

Nowhere near mind numbingly insulting as a lot of Sci-Fi fare, but still silly enough, with a good cast and script that moves things along, it's not great but it's not that bad either.

[cartman]

Scenic Route - 6.5/10

Watched this last weekend at my cousin's house. Never heard of it before he brought it back from the rental place. Not a bad movie. It is almost like a play, in that nearly all of the dialog is between two characters. The movie does take an unexpected twist at the end to make you rethink what you saw.

[Suicane75]

The Beast In Heat: 70 Out Of 100 Stars
Deliciously ridiculous fare from 1977 about a sexy Nazi Lieutenant who is trying to engineer a.....sex beast? Think Herve Villachez crossed with a gorilla. When a group of Italian rebels cause too much trouble for the occupying Nazis, The Lieutenant is called in to help put them down.

We've got a lot of rape, like lots. Old ladies being shot and babies thrown up in the air for target practice. Marvelous dubbing in which the rebels all sound like they come from everywhere in the world but Italy. There's even one standout voice over that sounds more like he's defending Atlanta from the Union than Italy from the Nazis. There's a wonderful scene where one of the female rebels is undercover as the mistress of a Nazi officer and is gathering information to help the cause, she climbs on his stomach and bounces up and down in what I believe is intended to imply they are having intercourse. It looks more like she's trying to help him work out a fart. Imagine Hogans Heroes re imaged as torture porn with a dash of Benny Hill thrown in to keep the mood light.

The Lieutenant captures a group of men and we got a triple play of dong on display as she attempts to seduce information out of them by rubbing her boobs on them and biting their nipples. This sends one of the men into such a fit of lust that she has to cut his cock off. I have no idea what is going on in this particular scene, but I could watch it 100 times over.

Then we get a long stretch where it just turns into a war movie, various shootings and attacks and fighting. There's some glorious editing where when the Nazis get killed, it's old black and white stock footage from other war movies. Just fantastic. It's some spaghetti western/nazi war movie, hybrid.

Meanwhile, the Lieutenant has a bunch of rebel men and women captured and enduring some sort of torture orgy. Car batteries hooked up to to vaginas, the beast is doing some raping, men are being dunked in water with their cock and balls flopping around, rats are eating women alive. At one point the beast is so mad in heat that he starts pulling off a girls pubes and eating them. This movie is fantastic.

More horribly choreographed fight scenes occur in which the Nazis, despite being armed to the hilt and have a multiple man advantage, prefer hand to hand combat. Despite their being hundreds of Nazi soldiers, tanks and airplanes coming into the village, after one fight in which 2 Nazis are killed, the rebel leader exclaims, "those Krauts are on the retreat". Welp, I guess that's the end of the battle then.

As the film enters it's final act, the movie now transforms into The Magnificent 7 as a small group of rebels attempt to get into the Lieutenants castle and free the men and women she's torturing. There's a great moment here where one of the men throws a grenade, and we cut to stock footage film of Nazis being blown off of cobblestone steps. I've never seen a grenade thrown into a completely different movie before. Words can't express how awesome this is.

So a few of the rebels get into the torture room where the sexy lieutenant is having the beast rape one of the women, the men shoot the guards and the woman escapes. The lieutenant, who for whatever reason is only wearing a lab coat, with her boobs hanging out, is grabbed by the beast and drug into his cage where he proceeds to rape her as the rebels look on stone faced as she flails around and begs for help. The dubbing here is fantastic, it sounds like loops of a dude taking a violent dump.

A fantastic schlock fest. Part morality strewn war movie with a message, part sex romp with a genetically engineered rape monster. All of the women in the film are really pretty, and really nude. There's a good amount of silly gore and the war parts, while they go on for too long, are almost as entertaining due to the nonsensical nature of the story, editing and dubbing. Just a complete win all around.



Lords Of Salem: 32 Out Of 100 Stars
Holy crap does this movie just fall right the fuck off the cliff after a promising first act.

Written and Directed by Rob Zombie and starring his wife Sheri, Lords Of Salem is the story of a Salem DJ, played by Sheri, who receives an odd record in the mail one day. Upon playing it, weird things start to happen to her and everyone who hears it.

The movie starts off fairly strong with some really good atmosphere and a great visual style, Zombie captures the creepiness of Autumn in New England and uses it to his advantage. Sheri is understated yet convincing and the film really seems like it's going somewhere fun, but then.........I have no earthly idea.

Demonic stuff starts to happen with her landlady and the landladys two sisters, there are a ton of creepy sequences but they take you completely out of whatever the narrative is supposed to be until the film just ends with a lot of witches, and the word cunt being shoehorned in everywhere, and images that are supposed to be creepy or unsettling but just comes across as silly.

None of the secondary characters are really fleshed out enough after the first act to make you care about them all that much, although up until a point their motivations are still sort of intriguing. But the movie hits the breaking point on that with a good 40 minutes left and what we're left with is a jumbled mess of something less than entertaining.

Everything seemed to be in place for a fun movie, but ultimately Lords Of Salem just turns into a never ending hodgepodge of weirdness for weirdness sakes, that's neither scary or interesting.



An American Ghost Story: 68 Out Of 100 Stars
Frustrating movie in that the scares and the tension are magnificent, but the lead actor, charged with carrying the movie, is just not that good.

The story is simple as shit, a guy moves into a house where a family was slaughtered by the father years earlier. He plans on writing a book about the house and is hoping for some sort of paranormal activity to occur.

At first it just seems like it's going to be another poorly acted, low budget, snooze fest. But then the scares start, and man oh man are they good. I almost pissed myself a time or two. There are lulls, and at times the leading actor is hard to stay interested in, but after the first scare I was always on the edge of my seat, and that's good enough for me.

There are only 5 characters in the entire movie, 4 of whom don't have much screen time. It's a shame the lead is so milquetoast, as this could have really been something special. As it is though I've got to give this movie a lot of credit. They clearly don't have much of a budget, the credits suggest a small crew. And still it's easily one of the more frightening movies I've seen in a while, they totally understand what makes for a good chiller, even if the acting and script aren't up to par.

An American Ghost Story is a very pleasant surprise. Now for me to go change my underpants.



Apocalypse Z: 82 Out Of 100 Stars
One of those movies where the entire army consists of 3 people, and multi million dollar science experiments are carried out by 1 doctor in a broom closet with a computer and 2 rats in cages.

The main story is that there's a virus outbreak of some sort in a remote Romanian town, and the US Government is sending in an elite group of mercenaries to blow up the town and contain things. The leader is Chief, he's been in jail for unspecified but apparently fucked up war crimes. He takes the mission so his record will be expunged and he can reunite with his daughter. The other 3 are elite soldiers, each being paid 2 million dollars each. There's a sniper from somewhere in Europe, a Scottish explosives expert, and lastly there's a ninja girl with pigtails who I swear to god is supposed to Asian but she's.....just not.

But wait, there's more. The soldiers, the US soldiers, are clearly not American. But wait, there's even more. The US President is played by Uwe Boll. Yes, you read that right. Lifted from IMDB, this is how he introduces himself, ""Hi! Ya, it is me. The president. Perhaps you are remembering me?" How can you not love that?

Along the way the mercenaries pick up some folks. There's the scientists earnest daughter and a couple on vacation from America. He's supposed to be a redneck, but imagine Billy Connelly doing foghorn leghorn and you pretty much get the gist. Her back story is that her brother killed her whole family. Why? I have no idea. There's even a dog involved. Again, why? Well probably for no other reason than Americans like dogs. The script is so deliciously bad.

I have no earthly idea why, but it works. It works astoundingly well. The dialog is so silly, but silly in a really fun way. The script is a ridiculous jumble of every American Bad ass cliche, but coherent enough to move the story swiftly along, and the action and gore are pretty damn good.

A good action movie with enough preposterousness to fill a ballpark, an American baseball ballpark. Apocalypse Z is an insane amount of fun, and an insane amount of insane.

[sterlingice]

I think I do read this thread solely to see your reviews. My wife even appreciated when I read one of them to her the other night (the one about Deke the badass)

SI

[Suicane75]

Bloodwork: 70 Out Of 100 Stars
Another really fun film, Bloodwork is the story of two college students who sign up to be part of a medical study in order to earn some extra money. Tricia Helfer plays the doctor in charge of everything and she is exquisite.

So yeah, things aren't quite as they appear and the research being done is not quite on the up and up and things start to go wonky, leading to some wonderfully gross scenes. Tons of really gross visuals amp this sucker up, I was getting queasy at some points, but in a good way.

The cast is strong and the script is strong enough to draw you in and forgive some of the cliched aspects of it. Oh, and there's a beautiful pair of boobs on display, although sadly, not Helfers.

A fresh story, nicely told, with really solid effects. Bloodwork is top notch fun.



Night Claws: 22 Out Of 100 Stars
I was so excited for a Bigfoot themed movie, then I noticed that the distributor is the same company that released the awful, awful, awful, fucking awful Hayride. Still, I'm down to give it a chance. Then I noticed that the lead was Reb Brown, The guy who's acting in The Howling 2 was an experience akin to getting kicked in the nuts for 2 hours. Fuck me. All I wanted was a good Bigfoot movie! Why must these people put me through this. :sadface: But onward I shall trek.

When I was 11 a neighborhood kid tried to put his penis in me. It was a traumatic experience. Not as traumatic watching this movie.

Not nearly as teeth clenchingly boring as Hayride, but just as god damn awful, Night Claws is movie completely devoid of any competence on any level, to the point that I feel bad for the people buying this shit.

30 Years ago Reb Brown could not act. In the ensuing time he's learned to make a face, something between smelling a fart and seeing a puppy. I'm not sure what it is, but whether he's flirting, being told a monster is in the woods, or finding a dead body, he's making that face. The rest of the cast is just as bad, and it's a large cast. Because if you're gonna hire people who can't act, why not hire lots of em.

The script seems to have an outline, but as far as actual dialog, I can't be sure. Actors seem to just be making shit up half the time, conversations just sort of die out or end with Reb giving that look. The direction is hideous on a monumental level. The actual beast pops up from time to time, but never in any interesting detail till the very end when you realize that was probably a good thing.

Does it work on a camp level? Yeah, I guess. The problem is that it veers from campy to insulting pretty quickly. I mean, if this were parody, it would work. If there was some sort of in joke being played off about how bad it is, it would work. But it's not, it's just people who came up with the idea to get Reb Brown & Frank Stallone so they could put their names on the marquee of their bigfoot movie, and sell it. Then they sort of made a movie so they couldn't be charged with fraud.

Night Claws should come with a free coupon, good for one punch to the windpipe of everyone involved in making and selling this piece of shit.

[Suicane75]

I think I do read this thread solely to see your reviews. My wife even appreciated when I read one of them to her the other night (the one about Deke the badass)

SI

Appreciate it. You should convince her to watch it with you. :popcorn:

[Suicane75]

Has anyone read The Disaster Artist by Greg Sestero? Anyone with any interest in The Room should pick it up. It's a fascinating look into the mind of Tommy Wiseau.

[Suicane75]

It's Alive: 40 Out Of 100 Stars
From 1974, the tale of a mutant newborn who goes on a killing spree. It's really not that gory and relies more on drama, but it's too absurd to be truly dramatic.

The early fun is in how everyone is completely unfazed that there's a baby mutant running around killing people. "Yep, she had a baby and it's a mutant, poor lady". The cops are just like, "welp we better go kill it", and the doctors are like "this shit happens sometimes, should have had an abortion or something".

The lead, John Ryan, plays the father, and he does his gosh darndest to try and bring a real performance to this film. He plays it as straight as you possibly can in a film like this and really helps elevate the film to something close to watchable.

Unfortunately it's still a rather undramatic drama, with not much gore and a really silly story that I can't quite recommend but I think might still be an interesting watch for some.


It's Alive #2: 38 Out Of 100 Stars
Because the story must continue. This time around John Ryan is going around warning couples about their impending mutant babies. He's part of a group going around trying to save the children from the government, who of course is trying to kill them. The babies they can save are rounded up and taken to a safe house/nursery for killer toddlers.

Much like the first film, the gore is rather limited and it instead relies on the drama and tension to carry it for most of the film. It tries it's hardest but it's just too silly to take seriously, the script is a little bit more ridiculous too, with motivations that change too much and decisions that are only made to further the story, such as a doctor theorizing that these babies are a new breed of human designed to survive the world we're destroying. Perhaps these are the first X-Men. It's campy, but not really campy enough to work.

Pretty much more of the same, and if you liked the first one you'll probably like this one. The main flaw continues to be how serious it takes itself.


It's Alive #3: 73 Out Of 100 Stars
Released in 1987 and starring Michael Moriarty, the 3rd iteration of this franchise is much more of a monster movie, but it still spends a lot of time on the morality issue, which would be irritating if not for the fact that Moriarty is so fucking magnificent. He takes over for John Ryan as the center of the film, a father whose baby was the center of a huge court case about how to deal with all the mutant babies. Much like Ryan made the first movie better than it had any right to be, Moriarty attacks the rather ridiculous script with zeal. Only James Dixon as Lieutenant Perkins, now looking more like Donald Trump than ever, returns from the first two films.

So A judge rules that the mutants should be sent to an undisclosed, uninhabited island, where they can live out their lives without endangering or being threatened by humans. OK then. So after a profoundly wondrous courtroom scene in which Moriarty convinces the court not to kill his baby, he loafs around for a few years. He tries to reconnect with his ex wife, he gets picked up by a hooker at a carnival, he sells kids shoes. Eventually the judge dies, and apparently when a judge dies, his decisions get overturned. I don't think that's how it works, but It's not my script, so whatever.

So a government led team of incompetent scientist, cops and Morariaty is now going back to the island to see how the babies are doing and to try and bring one back to study, and off we go into a final 45 minutes that reaches maximum insanity. I cannot tell if the script is trying to be as ridiculous as possible, but if it is, Moriarty is more than happy to play along. There are points in the films second half where I just sat with my mouth wide open, trying to fathom what I was watching. I'm not at all being blusterous when I suggest that few movies ever have been better served by their leading men than this one. It's just fascinating to watch.

Silly and so very 80's, It's Alive #3 is a sadly forgotten treasure trove of 80's horror movies and a fucking tour de force from Moriarty, who's every bit as bat shit insane as the script. Just a wonderful viewing experience that I can't recommend enough.

[JeeberD]

The shit you watch, Sui...

[Chief Rum]

Given we're almost through ten months of this year's releases, with a final two months filled with some good quality films, this seems to be a good time to do my personal top ten movies of 2013 so far.

CHIEF'S TOP TEN 2013 MOVIES (SO FAR)

1. Gravity
2. The Conjuring
3. Captain Phillps
4. Rush
5. Now You See Me
6. Prisoners
7. Star Trek Into Darkness
8. Man of Steel
9. 42
10. Iron Man 3

Other Movies Seen (Alphabetical)

2 Guns
Elysium
Fast & Furious 6
The Last Stand
Olympus Has Fallen
Oz the Great and Powerful
Pacific Rim
Riddick
This Is The End
The Wolverine
World War Z
The World's End

[ISiddiqui]

I'm going to wait for my Top 10 until I see "12 Years a Slave" - it could change my list dramatically.

[Chief Rum]

I'm going to wait for my Top 10 until I see "12 Years a Slave" - it could change my list dramatically.

There are several already out there which I intend to see, including 12 Years A Slave, and there could be a lot of changes, especially with the Oscar season coming up.

[sterlingice]

I'm going to wait for my Top 10 until I see "12 Years a Slave" - it could change my list dramatically.

Wouldn't it really just change one spot? I mean, even if it's the top, everything just moves down 1 ;)

SI

[Vince, Pt. II]

Ender's Game was completely awful. Even expecting nothing I was disappointed. Ender's double-guns blazing cowboy moment in his first battle with Salamander in the battle room pretty much sealed it for me immediately. I know there's an awful lot to fit into a two hour movie, but the whole thing felt rushed and the acting was terrible.

The special effects were pretty cool...but that's about it.

[Coffee Warlord]

Judging from some of the review I'm reading, it sounds like exactly what I feared - Ender's Game by Michael Bay.

[Honolulu_Blue]

I read a review of "Enders Game" this morning in the local paper. As soon as I came across this line: "In the hands of South African director Gavin Hood (“Tsotsi,” “X-Men Origins: Wolverine”)" - I knew the movie was doomed. X-Men Origins: Wolverine was abysmal. Horrible. The direction in that film was laughable. (I never saw "Tsotsi".)

[spleen1015]

I thought Ender's Game was awesome. 20 out of 10.

[ISiddiqui]

12 Years a Slave - 8/10: Was a very good movie with some fantastic acting (seriously, Michael Fassbender scared the crap out of me). However, I don't think its the amazing Oscar shoo-in for Best Picture as people are saying. I thought it was definitely well done and well casted. Some fantastically chilling performances (aside from Fassbender, Poulsen was fantastic as was the actress that played Cumberbatch's wife). Ejiofor is definitely going to be the favorite for Best Actor, and likely deserves it as well. Very powerful scenes and shows how dark slavery could be - though I don't know if it breaks any new ground.

[Chief Rum]

Ejiofor is definitely going to be the favorite for Best Actor, and likely deserves it as well. Very powerful scenes and shows how dark slavery could be - though I don't know if it breaks any new ground.

I'll be very curious to see how Ejiofor's performance stacks up when I see this. I was extremely impressed with Tom Hanks in Captain Phillips. His acting throughout the movie was already very good, but he pretty much turned it up big time at the very end. Those of you who have seen it will know what I am talking about. An amazing performance.

[korme]

12 Years a Slave - Pretty excellent. A movie everyone should see. Makes me feel incredibly sad for that era. Chiwetel Ejiofor did an awesome job, as did Michael Fassbender. 9/10

[ISiddiqui]

The Way Way Back - 7/10: A charming coming to age movie that was pretty funny, but also pretty formulaic. Great casting and a great performance by Sam Rockwell, though he was pretty much playing Sam Rockwell. I think if it wasn't so cliched and formulaic (I called everything before it happened), it'd be more memorable. Alas. Its hilariousness, however, gives it the high rating.

[korme]

I loved The Way Way Back

[PilotMan]

It's not going to come out for a while, but dear god, let this be good!

'Key & Peele' Partners Team With Judd Apatow For Universal Pitch Deal - Deadline.com (http://www.deadline.com/2013/11/key-peele-partners-team-with-judd-apatow-for-universal-pitch-deal/)

[cartman]

Stuck In Love - 6.75/10

Was stuck on a plane, and this was the only movie on. Wasn't expecting much, but it was actually a pretty good movie. Excellent cast, with Greg Kinnear, Jennifer Connelly, Kristen Bell, Lilly Collins, and a host of others. The acting chops of the cast helps the story out at times. It seems they might have left a bit too much on the cutting room floor, but that also might be due to scenes edited for showing on a plane.

[CAsterling]

Just read Suicane's review:
The Beast In Heat: 70 Out Of 100 Stars

I think that is the most I have laughed whilst reading a review of a movie in my life. Suicane I believe you should do Movie reviews professionally, that is the best review of any movie I have ever read :)

[Pyser]

the heat - 4/10

best i can tell this was just ladies saying bad words. not too funny, though i enjoyed the secondary characters (i must not be alone, 2 ladies from the extended boston family just got a spinoff)

[Groundhog]

Some movies I caught on my various flights lately...

The Wolverine - 8/10
I expected to hate it given that they turned the Silver Samurai into a giant robot, but you know what... it actually ended up making sense in the context of the film, IMO. Found it distracting that most of the Japan scenes were filmed in Sydney - the Chinese Gardens that I am looking at right now out of my office window in particular.

Lincoln - 6/10
I don't want to downplay the importance of the film's topic, but I felt that given the time the film was based, this could have been a much better movie, and it had a few too many moments where it felt like the characters on screen were aware they were talking about themselves being in a film - the final scene with Lincoln and his wife in particular. Lewis was excellent as usual though.

There Will be Blood - 8/10
Finally managed to watch this. Probably would have been a 9 if not for all the lines I missed due to the bad audio quality.

[Johnny93g]

An early top 10 of 2013 for me

1. Ain't them bodies saints (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ga0c0v-stK0)
It's a interesting story, told in a different way. The music is incredible, and I feel Keith Carradine deserves an Oscar nomination as he stole the movie.
2. Prisoners
Great film stuck with me for a while after watching it. Not a dull moment during the 2.5 hour running time.
3. The Way Way Back
Familiar story, but great movie. Sam Rockwell is becoming one of my favourites. He's great in everything
4. Mud
I haven't seen McConaughey do a better job then in this roll.
5. The Place Beyond the Pines
It's almost like three movies in one, and it's probably to long, but the first 45 minutes is as good as it gets.
6. 42
I love baseball movies, and I loved the baseball action in this. Thoroughly entertaining.
7 The Conjuring
Very creepy. A actual horror movie intended to scare, not shock and disgust.
8. Man of Steel
It's probably the best comic book movie I've seen in a while, and I'm of the opinion that just about all comic book movies are pretty terrible. This wasn't.
9. Robot & Frank
I'm counting this, even though it's a 2012, as i didn't hear about it until this summer. I can't imagine anyone watching this and not enjoying themselves.
10. Stand Up Guys
Pacino, Walken, Arkin, goin around, having fun. It's fun.

My two biggest disappointments of the year:
1. Captain Phillips
Way to long, after the first hour, it got pretty boring. Nothing happened. They tried to create suspense, where the viewer knew there wasn't any. I expected it to be great, and it really let me down.

2.Only God Forgives
Probably one of the worst movies I've ever seen, and I loved Drive. I see almost nothing redeeming or entertaining about this movie, which i had high hopes for.

Some movies that i expect will change this list when i see them:
Her
Saving Mr Banks
All is Lost
Gravity
Out of the Furnace
The World's End
The Kings of Summer
American Hustle
Walter Mitty
The Wolf of Wallstreet

[chadritt]

AMERICAN HUSTLE 9/10 Phenomenal acting, as was to be expected, but the plot is seriously difficult to understand at times. More than once I found myself wondering exactly what was happening and thinking I was understanding less than I probably was.

[rowech]

The Way Way Back was fantastic. It amazes me that movies like that don't ever seem to get any publicity while I have to hear about all the crappy movies that get released week after week.

[korme]

2.Only God Forgives
Probably one of the worst movies I've ever seen, and I loved Drive. I see almost nothing redeeming or entertaining about this movie, which i had high hopes for.


You and I have very similar tastes. Was looking forward to NWR's next movie after Drive. I turned Only God Forgives off after about an hour. It was so bad.

[chinaski]

I cant exactly explain why, but I thought Only God Forgives was brilliant. Ive watched it 5 times, and I liked it more with each viewing.

[Groundhog]

We're the Millers - 8.5/10
I liked this waaaaaaaaaaay more than I expected to. Many LOL moments.

[Johnny93g]

We're the Millers - 8.5/10
I liked this waaaaaaaaaaay more than I expected to. Many LOL moments.

I surprisingly enjoyed that to. The line right after the Cop took the money, which can't be repeated here, had me in tears!!

[Julio Riddols]

We're The Millers hit me about the same way 21 Jump Street did. Expected pretty average to middling comedy, got more than enough hearty laughs out of both to totally change my mind by the end.

[Groundhog]

I surprisingly enjoyed that to. The line right after the Cop took the money, which can't be repeated here, had me in tears!!

:D

Yup, one of quite a few classic scenes. Sudeikis was in fine form throughout, but pretty much all the cast nailed it - Nick Offerman in particular was great, and the scene in the tent cracked me up.

Agreed too: re this movie and 21 Jump Street. The trailers made them both look pretty awful, and I enjoyed them both.

[whomario]

The Hollow Crown

Shakespeare adaption in a mini-series depicting Richard II, Henry IV parts 1 and 2 and Henry V (the so-called 2nd historical tetralogy on Henriad, i was told). Each is given it´s own movie of 120-140 minutes. To be honest, i only have some very vague understanding of Shakespeare and still haven´t read any of the plays in question in it´s entirety. So i´m hardly an expert on how "well" it´s been adapted. But standing on it´s own legs, all 4 films are really, really fun to watch. Some stunning acting (Loki from Avengers/Thor does a brilliant Hal/Henry V for example), great setting, high prodcution value (the BBC can afford not to do things halfway), plus some very modern film-making to avoid overly "theater-like" elements. For example monologues being done as voiceovers while the character walks around, like Prince Hal foreshadowing his reformation while walking through his stommping grounds of his staged rebelious youth.

[revrew]

Saving Mr. Banks - 10/10

I don't give out 10s easily. I can usually find something to criticize. But this is a practically perfect movie. Funny at times, always heart-warming, brilliantly acted, well-written, gut-wrenching, and even carrying a suspenseful tension that really keeps your attention. The characters are memorable and powerful.

It's possible that a person could research and discover historical inconsistencies; I didn't try to see how true to real life this is. And I would have liked to see more of the "real" Mary Poppins (see, here I go - told you I could always find something to criticize).

But just as a movie by itself, wow. Just wow. I've seen several of the Oscar contenders this year, and this one blows many of them out of the water.

[chadritt]

Her - 8/10 This ones getting interesting reactions from my friends. Some think its the best movie of the year and some think its "Excruciating". Phoenix and Johansson are both amazing, I would personally love to see her get a best supporting actress nomination even though I know it will never happen since its all voiceover, but I think i need more time to decide if the movie ever goes beyond really good into great territory.

[korme]

The Wolf of Wall Street - I went to see American Hustle last night, and it was sold out. So I opted for plan 1B - go see TWoWS. It was simply awesome. I loved it, I'm not sure how any best picture nominee can top it for me. It was a full 3 hours and it felt like an hour and a half, and I didn't want it to end. Can't decide if I'm just reeling from having such a great time in the theatres last night, but my initial thought is to give it a 10. I'll come back to this.

[Johnny93g]

The Wolf of Wall Street - I went to see American Hustle last night, and it was sold out. So I opted for plan 1B - go see TWoWS. It was simply awesome. I loved it, I'm not sure how any best picture nominee can top it for me. It was a full 3 hours and it felt like an hour and a half, and I didn't want it to end. Can't decide if I'm just reeling from having such a great time in the theatres last night, but my initial thought is to give it a 10. I'll come back to this.

Ok, we do have similar tastes. Saw this tonight, and holy shit, that was fun. Scorsese is just brilliant. Wildest movie I've ever seen. Reminded me of Goodfellas.

I saw American Hustle 2 days ago, and it was my top movie of 2013, for, well 2 days.

Wold of Wall Street is an instant classic. The only thing Leo has ever done a better acting job in is the Aviator. He deserves a oscar nom for this.

10 years from now, this maybe my favourite movie of the decade

[korme]

I never thought there would be a day when I said Matthew McConaughey was in 3 of my top 5 movies of the year - granted, he was in TWOWS for 3 scenes, but that, including Mud & Dallas Buyers Club - wow. What a year.

caveat - I still have to see most of the Oscar nominees

[ISiddiqui]

Saving Mr. Banks - 9/10: Seriously, this movie shocked me at how good it was. I went in expecting an above average film (I wanted to see 'American Hustle', but the gf really wanted to see Mr. Banks), but it was just done in a fantastic manner. The splicing of the wooing of Travers along with her childhood in the Australian outback; and how that childhood had a direct impact on the story of Mary Poppins was, quite frankly, amazingly done. Emma Thompson was fantastic in the role and the movie was casted very well (Hanks was good, but not necessarily great). I know it takes some liberties with the actual story (kind of like how Mary Poppins did, when you think of it), but it was a great movie.

[Easy Mac]

Anchorman 2 - 2/10: Dear God that was horrendous. The original is possibly my favorite movie of the 21st century. Our dog is named Baxter for crying out loud. This movie was just bad. I laughed, but I'd say 90% of the laughs were just because I felt compelled to laugh.

[Matthean]

I never thought there would be a day when I said Matthew McConaughey was in 3 of my top 5 movies of the year - granted, he was in TWOWS for 3 scenes, but that, including Mud & Dallas Buyers Club - wow. What a year.

Add in Lincoln Lawyer from last year as well.

[korme]

Add in Lincoln Lawyer from last year as well.

'11

[DaddyTorgo]

Hobbit: Desolation of Smaug (4/10)

I wanted to like this movie - I really did. I'm a huge LOTR geek and everything. Just felt like this whole movie was like 2hrs 35mins of chase scenes sandwiched around 6 minutes of dialogue and actual character moments (which is more the stuff that I like).

Hell - I don't even mind the battle scenes, but it just seems like the whole thing was them being chased chased chased and there was just no emotional weight to it.

[molson]

Anchorman 2 - 2/10: Dear God that was horrendous. The original is possibly my favorite movie of the 21st century. Our dog is named Baxter for crying out loud. This movie was just bad. I laughed, but I'd say 90% of the laughs were just because I felt compelled to laugh.

I got the sense from the trailers that this wouldn't deliver, but that's still severely disappointing to hear. Maybe if I get really boozed up first?

[chadritt]

Wolf of Wall Street - 7/10 Honestly Im not sure of a number, I could go either much higher or much lower, because its interesting and well acted but it is also needlessly long which I felt really hurt the film. I think some of the controversy about glorifying Jordan Belfort could have been lessened if the audience wasnt so restless by the end. I personally would love to see Scorsese pull a Clint Eastwood and make another film telling the story from the other side using the same cast.

[ISiddiqui]

Anchorman 2 - 7/10: I forgot to post a review of this earlier. It was much funnier than it had any business being. It was also insanely random at times. I read somewhere that you will never see a major studio release such a random film, but since it is sequel to Anchorman, it was able to go through. Personally I really enjoy random humor, so it hit the mark for me. Oh, and it was fun to see where all the filming happening in Atlanta as well.

[korme]

So, unless I see Walter Mitty or Her. on a whim tonight, I think my theater-going days of 2013 are complete. Here are the films, and I tried to rank them as I enjoyed them.

The Wolf of Wall Street
Mud
Fruitvale Station
The Way Way Back
Dallas Buyers Club
12 Years a Slave
This is the End
Lincoln
Side Effects
The Great Gatsby
The Place Beyond the Pines
American Hustle
Pain and Gain
Don Jon
Frances Ha
The Spectacular Now
Bad Grandpa
The Hunger Games: Catching Fire
Star Trek: Into Darkness
Iron Man 3
Anchorman 2: The Legend Continues
The Internship
Prisoners
Out of the Furnace
Salinger
The Heat
Now You See Me
Only God Forgives
Jurassic Park 3-D*

[Suicane75]

Man Of Steel: 44 Out Of 100 Stars
Man, the trailer had me all excited for something more than a big, silly, action movie. The trailer done lied to me.

There's just wayyyyyy too much story here for my tastes, or at least story I had no interest in, or at least story that I may have had some interest in, just not this damn much.

The shit on Crypton is silly and goes on for what felt like half my life, then I gotta deal with fucking Amy Adams and the Lois Lane portion of the film, I mean for fuck sakes, they could have called this movie Girl Of Pluck cause it seems she's in it more than Henry Cavizal.

We got spaceships, special effect liquid spaghetti monsters, the codec, more silly myth and back story than anyone needs, and interspersed with all that we have what looks an awesome story about Supermans burden and the burden of his father, played by a woefully underutilized Kevin Costner.

The problem is that the movie jumps around so much, that just when I'm getting into the story about Clark as a boy and his family and his struggle with his powers, I'm flipped back aboard a spaceship watching Russell Crowes ghost give soliloquies via special decoder ring. At least if the story had been told in natural progression I could say I enjoyed that half hour or whatever, but alas nobody took into account what I wanted.

Cavazil really is great as Superman, and I wish they had allowed him to do more. Much more in fact. Zod is also damn good, which makes me wish the interactions between the two had amounted to something more interesting than a lot of smashing shit.

Then there's Amy Adams, who I may be the only person on Earth who just doesn't get. I don't find her sexy, I don't find her interesting, I don't find her acting anything more than competent, and yet it seems that half the world is having wet dreams over her. Color me clueless. Crowe is good, but enough of him already. I could have done with a complete redistribution of his and Costners arcs in the film. Then poor Chris Meloni, bless his heart but he looks like a TV actor lost in a major motion picture. Richard Schiff is criminally underused but at least he got a nice paycheck.

The action is big and loud, and one has to wonder exactly how many trillions of dollars in damage were done in saving the Earth. Buildings fall down, stuff explodes, spaceships shoot death rays, it's endless, it's numbing, and it's not much fun.

There's probably a good movie here centered around Clark Kent and General Zod, unfortunately it's woven into a long, drawn out, over explained smash em up that at over two and a half hours, left me exhausted and frustrated.


Grown Ups 2: 30 Out Of 100 Stars
Ok, so 30 is probably too high but I have to admit that I enjoyed the early part of the movie. I'm sorry, I find the idea of a moose pissing on people funny, sue me. The problem is that after about 30 minutes or so, where the lack of any sensible script at all can be forgiven, the movie just keeps going further and further into nonsense land and it become painfully clear that there isn't much of a script here at all. Also, the laughs kind of wane, even the crudeness becomes mind numbing because of the COMPLETE lack of a story.

A rushed, ill conceived, hodgepodge collection of mediocre standup in the guise of a feature film, Grown Ups 2 is just Sandler and company comedicly jerking off for 90 minutes. Which would be ok if it were actually funny.


Gravity: 68 Out Of 100 Stars
The problem with Gravity is that actually loses tension as the film goes on.

The opening shots, even on my 24 inch monitor, were astounding and I have no doubt that on a big screen it's even more awe inspiring. It's certainly a visually stunning movie, so props for that.

It was also very hard to watch for the first 30 minutes or so. Not necessarily in a bad way, but I just felt really uncomfortable. I wasn't just on the edge of my seat, I was off it. But it wasn't like I was rooting for Bullocks character, I was just so queasy that I wanted things to progress so my nerves could settle down. It's hard to explain but I don't know if that reaction is what you want to get out of the viewer.

Once things settle down and you get used to the backdrop and it becomes more of a normal, progressing story, well, it becomes much more of a normal, progressing story that's above average but not anything groundbreaking. In fact watching calamity after calamity sort of got a bit tiring. But it's short enough and the ending is solid enough that I'm not gonna rant too much.

I'd certainly recommend at least trying to watch Gravity, but I'm not real positive you get much more of the intended effect of the film than you do from just watching the trailer.

[ISiddiqui]

I think I can now do my Top 10 of 2013... though I haven't yet seen "Wolf of Wall Street" or "American Hustle" or "Inside Llewyn Davis" (nor "Captain Phillips" though that has been out for a while) - nor have I seen "Hunger Games, Catching Fire" or "Her" - so call it a work in progress, I guess.

1. Gravity
2. Blue Jasmine
3. Saving Mr. Banks
4. The World's End
5. The Spectacular Now
6. 12 Years a Slave
7. To the Wonder
8. Mud
9. This is the End
10. Iron Man 3

Part of me knows, however, that "American Hustle", "Her", "Inside Llewlyn Davis" will knock some of these on the list off.

[Julio Riddols]

I felt like the characters and the story behind them in Gravity was a total 180 from the quality of the visuals. Just a terrible, convoluted, overly dumbed down story that really hurt the film overall in my opinion. It was bad to the point of being a distraction from the visuals. I'd even say the story was worse than Avatar. Clooney and Bullock were just bad for the roles too. You can't have a Clooney character in a film like this, nobody can relate to the type of person he portrays. Tom Hanks in Apollo 13 was more the type of character you need for this.

[ISiddiqui]

Obviously people did relate to Clooney, though, judging from the ratings ;).

I mean, its your opinion and all, but how can I talk you seriously when you say the story was "convoluted"? The main criticism from people was that the story was way too simple.

[Logan]

American Hustle - 7/10

Saw this on NYE day and I think my expectations were set too high. I thought the acting was great, especially Bale and Adams, but the plot just didn't work for me. Or at least...all the way through. There's a point in the movie where Bale is warning Cooper that his plan is getting too big by going after the mob in Florida and coincidentally that's exactly where I thought the movie started to go off track. I guess I just liked it as a much more narrowly-defined story. Had an issue with pacing as well...the last 45 mins or so kind of dragged.

[Johnny93g]

An updated list as I've seen most of what I want to see

1. The Wolf of Wall Street
It would be hard for me to enjoy a movie more then this. As good as a movie released in the last 5 years. Instant classic
2. All is Lost
I think Redford is a very underrated actor, and he's incredible in this. I loved it from start to finish. It's probably not for everyone, but it's really great story telling, at it's simplest.
3. American Hustle
The acting, the clever plot, the crazy characters, it's a fun ride.
4. Prisoners
Great film stuck with me for a while after watching it. Not a dull moment during the 2.5 hour running time.
5. The Way Way Back
Familiar story, but great movie. Sam Rockwell is becoming one of my favourites. He's great in everything
6. Mud
What a great cast. Got better watching it a 2nd time.
7. Gravity
Very interesting film. I generally like "realistic" space movies. Not really sci fi, but the stuff that takes place in a manner that's somewhat believable. Clooney and Bullock were excellent, and like All is Lost, i felt it was easy to put myself in these characters place, making it very easy to understand what they were going through.
8. Dallas Buyers Club
I don't know where i heard it, but Matthew McConaughey has gone from Burt Reynolds to Paul Newman. These are good roles, and he's giving great performances.
9. Her
Phoenix was fantastic, and i feel a different actor, or a worse performance would have really hurt the story, which i don't think is as strong its' reputation suggests.
10. Ain't them bodies saints
It's a interesting story, told in a different way. The music is incredible, and I feel Keith Carradine deserves an Oscar nomination as he stole the movie. I dropped this, as i think it's a difficult movie to watch more then once.

I still want to see:
Saving Mr Banks
Nebraska
The World's End
Walter Mitty

[ISiddiqui]

Hunger Games: Catching Fire - 8/10: A very well done adaptation. Faaaar better than the first film! I just read the book a week ago and have very minor complaints about how they did the film, which is a sign of a very good screen play. Loved the casting! Jena Malone is absolutely fantastic in the role of Joanna, among others.

[Chief Rum]

Given we're almost through ten months of this year's releases, with a final two months filled with some good quality films, this seems to be a good time to do my personal top ten movies of 2013 so far.

CHIEF'S TOP TEN 2013 MOVIES (SO FAR)

1. Gravity
2. The Conjuring
3. Captain Phillps
4. Rush
5. Now You See Me
6. Prisoners
7. Star Trek Into Darkness
8. Man of Steel
9. 42
10. Iron Man 3

Other Movies Seen (Alphabetical)

2 Guns
Elysium
Fast & Furious 6
The Last Stand
Olympus Has Fallen
Oz the Great and Powerful
Pacific Rim
Riddick
This Is The End
The Wolverine
World War Z
The World's End

CHIEF'S TOP TEN 2013 MOVIES

(original ranking from November list in parentheses)

1. Gravity (1)
2. 12 Years A Slave (new)
3. The Conjuring (2)
4. Captain Phillps (3)
5. Rush (4)
6. The Wolf of Wall Street (new)
7. The Secret Life of Walter Mitty (new)
8. Hunger Games: Catching Fire (new)
9. American Hustle (new)
10. Now You See Me (5)


Other Movies Seen (Alphabetical)

2 Guns
42 (was #9)
Elysium
Fast & Furious 6
Her (new)
The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug (new)
Iron Man 3 (was #10)
The Last Stand
Man of Steel (was #8)
Olympus Has Fallen
Oz the Great and Powerful
Pacific Rim
Prisoners (was #6)
Riddick
Star Trek Into Darkness (was #7)
This Is The End
Thor: The Dark World (new)
The Wolverine
World War Z
The World's End


It was a solid year for movies, and there are still more to see for me, but I think this is a good point to call it a year and make a "final" list.

I saw several new movies in the past two and a half months since my original list, and every single one of them, IMO, was better than my original #10 (Iron Man 3). This should be no shock, since it is the Oscar season, and I tend to pay attention to buzz and critics ratings before I choose to go see a film that isn't in my "wheelhouse".

I was ready to give 12 Years A Slave the top nod until I was listening to a radio show on movies on Saturday. They played a clip from Gravity, the one where NASA, in that calm, commanding voice, tells Clooney's character that all shit is about to break loose and get the specialist (Bullock) into the shuttle. It was just a 30 second clip or so, but the manic craziness of that scene, even just played out on audio and without the amazing visuals, reminded me of the gripping intensity of that movie, and I found myself on the edge of my seat in my car, just the way I did in the theater (for the whole damn thing, just about).

Maybe if I heard the scene where Ejiofor is being forced to whip his slave master's slave girl lover instead, I would have gone with 12. But that didn't happen. 12 Years A Slave is an amazing movie, though, and thoroughly earns the #2 spot for me.

I was comparatively (next to most everyone else) underwhelmed by Wolf and Hustle. Both very solid movies, mind you. But Wolf was so over the top that I was ready to have less style and more substance about an hour in (not good three hours in--Scorsese did get to the point, and it was a fairly satisfying ending, but it's not on the level of Gangs or The Departed for me). I absolutely loved the period stuff in Hustle, and the women (Adams and JLaw) in this are just great. But in the end, I felt it came down to your basic con movie, not much better than Now You See Me.

The two surprises for me were Hunger Games and Walter Mitty.

Hunger Games was simply one of the more satisfying big budget blockbusters I have seen in a while, and left me anxious to see the conclusion next year. I have not read the books, so I don't know how that one is going to go.

Walter Mitty isn't going to show up on many top ten lists, I don't think, since it is fairly predictable, doesn't really offer anything new and goes conventional Hollywood with the ending (all of which may or may not be a match for the short story it is based on, which I also never read). But it touched a cord with me. Stiller does a very good "everyman" in his roles, and Wiig and Penn are pretty good in this, too. Really, though, it's just a nice story with a great (if oft repeated) message. If you can handle the saccharine, it's worth the watch.

There were a some very good films that didn't break my top ten this year, which I think in years past would have been there (42, Her, and Prisoners stand out in particular).

I still intend to see The Lone Survivor, A Place Beyond the Pines, The Way Way Back and the Dallas Buyers Club, which all appear to be terrific from what I have read. Other than Survivior, though, I don't know when I'll get the chance to see these without going out of my way. I'll probably end up seeing Anchorman II at some point.

Although they may be terrific, I have to admit The Butler and Saving Mr. Banks are two I probably won't end up seeing unless it's for free 2-3 years down the road. I may end up seeing Mud and Fruitvale Station before that, but not sure.

[ISiddiqui]

all of which may or may not be a match for the short story it is based on, which I also never read

Mitty basically takes the name of the short story and the fact that guy likes to daydream and that's it. It's a worse adaptation than "I Robot" was.

[Chief Rum]

Mitty basically takes the name of the short story and the fact that guy likes to daydream and that's it. It's a worse adaptation than "I Robot" was.

Well, glad I could enjoy the movie on its own merits then, rather than having to compare it to the short story.

[Groundhog]

Thor 2: The Dark World - 7.5/10
Big, dumb super hero fun.

Prisoners - 9/10
Holy hell. This is a movie that will stick with me for a long, long time. Good to see Hugh Jackman take a role outside his comfort zone too, and he really nailed it.

[Butter]

Upstream Color - 10/10 - If you saw and liked Primer, this is that guys second film. It is entrancing, and I felt like even if I didn't know the plot I still wanted to watch it.. But the plot wasn't as hard to follow as I thought it might be. It is a little strange, but basically amounts to these people being brought under mind control by a parasite that is being bred for that purpose. This involves implanted memories, etc. Eventually two of these people who have been "bugged" meet each other and over time they discover what is going on. Shane Carruth is quickly becoming my favorite filmmaker.

I give this an 8.5. I think it is a quality film for those who are into film as a medium for high concept art. If you hate anything that might sniff of artistic pretension, you will want to avoid. But I enjoyed it quite a bit, and despite the concept it was fairly easy to follow. Plus there are a number of places on the internet to decipher what exactly was going on after you watch it.

[Honolulu_Blue]

I give this an 8.5. I think it is a quality film for those who are into film as a medium for high concept art. If you hate anything that might sniff of artistic pretension, you will want to avoid. But I enjoyed it quite a bit, and despite the concept it was fairly easy to follow. Plus there are a number of places on the internet to decipher what exactly was going on after you watch it.

I really liked this movie and "Primer."

I thought they did a good job of with making the film artistic, almost poetic at times, without bleeding into artistic pretension. It's a fine line, no doubt, but I thought they walked it pretty skillfully.

[Butter]

I haven't seen Primer, but I'm going to now.

[chadritt]

Fruitvale Station - 8/10 The first hour or so is just good, its really all character work, but its a massive set up for the 10/10 half hour of gut punching that follows. Michael B. Jordan is such a natural throughout the film though, I cant wait to see what he does with the rest of his career.

[ISiddiqui]

American Hustle - 9/10: Very well done plot, casting, setting, everything! The acting in particular was fantastic, and I know everyone is talking about Lawrence, Adams, and Cooper, but I thought Bale was quite amazing in the main role. While it is listed as a comedy, it is more of a "dramedy" and the story had me on the edge of my seat. Some great laughs as well (I don't want to undersell that).

[Suicane75]

American Hustle: 75 Out Of 100 Stars
Very good movie, that for whatever reason just never slips into realm of greatness that it feels like it's teetering on.

The direction, the sets and the acting are all top notch, the problem might be that the start of the story seems.....I dunno, too manufactured? The set up borrows heavily from the way Vegas and Goodfellas did it, but this doesn't hold the same weight.

Once things get rolling, the story is pretty good, but really this is a film carried by Bale, who is fucking amazing. And Jeremy Renner is probably going to be criminally under looked, but my god was he awesome in this. Amy Adams actually didn't irritate me as much as she usually does, but Bradley Cooper is starting to wear on me some. Actually it's not much his fault, at some point it just became irritating how much the movie tried to bash me over the head with "this is a guy living in the 70's". I mean, he may as well have been trying to be a disco king. Louis CK, though a bit jarring watching him play an actual role, is also really fun. Jennifer Lawrence, I'm not so sure what the point of her was, she just seemed out of place playing the weathered mom. Out of place and unnecessary if I'm being honest, and this is coming from someone who would do the proverbial gross things to do the proverbial gross things to her.

The story is pretty fun, though at times it tries to come across as a lot more clever than it actually is, but I can forgive that. The thing to me was, a lot of the time that was spent on Cooper and Adams kind of kept pushing against how great I think the movie could have been if it was focused more on Bale and Renner who really had a couple of emotional, top flight performances that the movie would have been better served to give more focus too. I'm probably complaining too much about was really a good movie. Oh well.

So yeah, American Hustle is a strong, fun, period piece that might have a little too much going on, if only because Bale and Renner are so fantastic that you wish it was more focused on them and their relationship.


Bad Grandpa: 95 Out Of 100 Stars
Do I really feel like, in retrospect, this movie deserves a rating like this? Not really. On the other hand, I laughed like a mental patient pretty much all the way through. I mean, my fucking stomach was hurting and I think I might have coughed up some blood at some point or pooped myself. That's how hard I was laughing. And I can't ignore that when judging it. I seriously hadn't laughed that hard at a movie in a longgggggg time.

The thing is, when trying to describe it to a friend, I found myself thinking, "I really don't know how to describe how this was funny. Balls come out, dicks get stuck in stuff, poop is involved". I'd probably be rolling my eyes if the situation were reversed and it was being explained to me by someone. And yet I seriously didn't stop belly laughing throughout the whole damn thing.

I think the thing is that there's always been a sort of tenderness and warm hearted tone to a lot of the Jackass material, especially from Knoxville. It's not just idiots doing stupid things, it's friends doing things together. You could always feel the love they have for each other, and that adds a layer to a lot of the stuff they do, and this movie really takes that to the nth degree with Knoxville and the kid. You feel like they're truly having a grand time together, and as silly as the "movie" portion of the movie is, it works wonderfully because of that relationship. There are scenes with just the two of them together where it honest to god feels like they're having the time of their lives, and that really carries over into the story. It says something about how transcending, honest and raw emotion can be.

I guess that's probably it. For every dick getting stuck in something joke, there's a moment of real sweetness. There's a grandpa and his grandson, learning about each other and learning to love. I honestly think there are very few actors who could do what Knoxville does here, and the kid more than holds his weight as well.

Fuck it, I loved this movie and I'm not ashamed to say it. The story more than holds it own to go along with the jokes and pranks. Combine the two and you have a near masterpiece.

[rowech]

American Hustle - 9/10: Very well done plot, casting, setting, everything! The acting in particular was fantastic, and I know everyone is talking about Lawrence, Adams, and Cooper, but I thought Bale was quite amazing in the main role. While it is listed as a comedy, it is more of a "dramedy" and the story had me on the edge of my seat. Some great laughs as well (I don't want to undersell that).

Adams and Bale carried that movie and were fantastic -- especially Adams in my opinion. Lawerence was good but not unbelievably so. Cooper wasn't even close to the level of the others.

[Suicane75]

When Bale is on, he's really on a whole different level. It's a very tangible feeling, just how much better he is at his craft than just about everyone else.

[Julio Riddols]

I give this an 8.5. I think it is a quality film for those who are into film as a medium for high concept art. If you hate anything that might sniff of artistic pretension, you will want to avoid. But I enjoyed it quite a bit, and despite the concept it was fairly easy to follow. Plus there are a number of places on the internet to decipher what exactly was going on after you watch it.

I have to agree with your sentiments regarding those who don't like something that might be construed as pretension. A couple of my friends said that was why they didn't like the film, but to me it never really felt that pretentious. Just a very surreal idea and a meticulously put together realization of that idea.

[Julio Riddols]

Obviously people did relate to Clooney, though, judging from the ratings ;).

I mean, its your opinion and all, but how can I talk you seriously when you say the story was "convoluted"? The main criticism from people was that the story was way too simple.

I totally used convoluted entirely wrong there. Far fetched would have served to express my sentiments, whereas convoluted is exactly the opposite of how I felt the story was presented. Just the total impossibility of the events that occurred actually happening to advance the plot felt unnecessary when the initial event was already well beyond the realms of comprehension for the average person.

[ISiddiqui]

Adams and Bale carried that movie and were fantastic -- especially Adams in my opinion. Lawerence was good but not unbelievably so. Cooper wasn't even close to the level of the others.

When Bale is on, he's really on a whole different level. It's a very tangible feeling, just how much better he is at his craft than just about everyone else.

Agreed with both. The interesting thing is beforehand all I heard about was Adams, Lawrence, and Cooper. No one was really talking about Bale, and I thought he was just incredibly fantastic. The fact that people were seriously saying some Best Actor snubs should have been there instead of Bale is mindboggling to me.

[ISiddiqui]

I totally used convoluted entirely wrong there. Far fetched would have served to express my sentiments, whereas convoluted is exactly the opposite of how I felt the story was presented. Just the total impossibility of the events that occurred actually happening to advance the plot felt unnecessary when the initial event was already well beyond the realms of comprehension for the average person.

Ah, that's far more understandable! I was really confused by your post earlier :D. I think there does have to be a suspension of disbelief there, but no more than other films, at least IMO.

[Logan]

Saw Wolf of Wall Street yesterday. Definitely a fun watch; I thought this movie felt much shorter than American Hustle despite being 50 minutes longer. I actually think it could have gone on longer and I'd be okay with it, if it meant giving some more screen time to the investigation angle which I thought could have been explored further.

Debated between an 8 or a 9 so I'll split the difference and go 8.5/10.

[Chief Rum]

Agreed with both. The interesting thing is beforehand all I heard about was Adams, Lawrence, and Cooper. No one was really talking about Bale, and I thought he was just incredibly fantastic. The fact that people were seriously saying some Best Actor snubs should have been there instead of Bale is mindboggling to me.

FWIW, I thought Bale was much better than Cooper.

That said, I am surprised you would consider it mindboggling. Did you see Captain Phillips? That was an incredible performance at the end by Hanks. And everything I have heard is that Redford was amazing in All is Lost as well.

It was just a very strong year for Best Actor performances.

[ISiddiqui]

That's not exactly what I'm saying. I'm saying that folks are saying all the snubs should have replaced Bale. Not that they should have been nominated, but Bale is the one who should be gone in the place of people's choices. No one seems to be clamoring for the snubs to replace DiCaprio or Dern.

[Chief Rum]

That's not exactly what I'm saying. I'm saying that folks are saying all the snubs should have replaced Bale. Not that they should have been nominated, but Bale is the one who should be gone in the place of people's choices. No one seems to be clamoring for the snubs to replace DiCaprio or Dern.

I felt Bale should be gone in place of Hanks, but I also think Dicaprio is overrated in his role as well. I think it's a shame that either Bale or Dicaprio are in it over Hanks. I can't speak to Dern, as I haven't seen Nebraska.

If someone were to want to bump Dicaprio instead of Bale for Hanks or some other nominee, I certainly wouldn't have an issue with that.

[larrymcg421]

Wow, I don't think DiCaprio is overrated at all. I thought he was amazing in that role and I'd be really happy to see him win (eventhough it's clearly gonna be McConaughey). I do think Hanks definitely should be in and I'd put him in Dern's spot. I'd probably rank Bale 4th among those who were nominated, but I'm happy he got in because it meant American Hustle got a nom in all 4 categories and it's cool David O. Russell did that two years in a row.

[ISiddiqui]

I think one of the marks of being a good actor is to be able to play a wide variety of roles and make people believe you in each of those roles. To think that the main character in Nolan's Batman movies and the main character in American Hustle are played by the same actor just boggles the mind.

[Matthean]

I think one of the marks of being a good actor is to be able to play a wide variety of roles and make people believe you in each of those roles. To think that the main character in Nolan's Batman movies and the main character in American Hustle are played by the same actor just boggles the mind.

Try The Machinist and the next year be in Batman Begins. There's even a decent transformation for The Fighter as well where he transforms within a year.

Adams was stellar in the film Junebug even if the movie was OK for me.

[larrymcg421]

I think one of the marks of being a good actor is to be able to play a wide variety of roles and make people believe you in each of those roles. To think that the main character in Nolan's Batman movies and the main character in American Hustle are played by the same actor just boggles the mind.

I don't disagree, but that's more of an argument for Bale being one of the best actors overall instead of best of this particular year.

[ISiddiqui]

I think it is part of the argument. I mean one of the main things that Matthew McConaughey has going for him this year is that he lost all that weight to play the role (and then, apparently, disappeared in it).

[larrymcg421]

I don't mind it being part of the argument, but my point is that Hanks, despite not quite disappearing into his role, gave an emotionally powerful performance that surpasses what Bale did.

[korme]

INSIDE LLEWYN DAVIS - 9/10
Went to go see Her., ended up running late (thank you, crappy weather) and so I opted for the next show from the Coen's instead. Really happy I saw this. It was fantastic. The music was great, without being self indulgent - it helps suck you in. I'm going to have to rethink my "Tops of '13" list.

[Johnny93g]

INSIDE LLEWYN DAVIS - 9/10
Went to go see Her., ended up running late (thank you, crappy weather) and so I opted for the next show from the Coen's instead. Really happy I saw this. It was fantastic. The music was great, without being self indulgent - it helps suck you in. I'm going to have to rethink my "Tops of '13" list.

My brother is a huge Coen Bros fan, and he said it's merely an average Coen Bros movie......FWIW

[Johnny93g]

FWIW, I thought Bale was much better than Cooper.

That said, I am surprised you would consider it mindboggling. Did you see Captain Phillips? That was an incredible performance at the end by Hanks. And everything I have heard is that Redford was amazing in All is Lost as well.

It was just a very strong year for Best Actor performances.

I stand by my "Captain Phillips is the most disappointing movie of 2013" for me, but i just saw Saving Mr. Banks, and i think Tom Hanks performance in that was a much better then his Captain Phillips performance.

Now, that obviously has something to do with how much i enjoyed the film. By the end of Phillips, I just wanted the damn thing to end. It felt like it would never stop at that point. During Saving Mr Banks, i found myself hoping every scene would involve Hanks......

[Julio Riddols]

An average Coen Bros. movie is better than just about anything else, so that sounds good to me.

Also wanted to say that the streak McConaughey has been on, he deserves about 3 Oscars. Has been really good in everything he has done since The Lincoln Lawyer, seemingly turning it up a notch in each successive film.

[Julio Riddols]

I stand by my "Captain Phillips is the most disappointing movie of 2013" for me, but i just saw Saving Mr. Banks, and i think Tom Hanks performance in that was a much better then his Captain Phillips performance.

Now, that obviously has something to do with how much i enjoyed the film. By the end of Phillips, I just wanted the damn thing to end. It felt like it would never stop at that point. During Saving Mr Banks, i found myself hoping every scene would involve Hanks......

With all the stuff coming out about how Captain Phillips was actually a dumbass, I find myself not even wanting to watch this movie. It would be easier to digest if they just made the movie as a fictional story, but now I feel like it is some kind of undue glory being paid to this guy who really put his crew in danger more than anything.

[larrymcg421]

With all the stuff coming out about how Captain Phillips was actually a dumbass, I find myself not even wanting to watch this movie. It would be easier to digest if they just made the movie as a fictional story, but now I feel like it is some kind of undue glory being paid to this guy who really put his crew in danger more than anything.

FWIW, the movie doesn't really portray him as a hero. They actually show him receiving the e-mail warning. There's a whole discussion in the film where the crew urges him to change course and he explains why they shouldn't do that, a clear point in the movie where the crew is portrayed as right and the captain portrayed as wrong. Furthermore, without spoiling anything, the ending clearly goes against the typical Hollywood Macho Hero stereotype and is one of the best endings of a movie I've ever seen. Since the movie does show both sides, I'm inclined to give it the benefit of the doubt against what is being alleged in a lawsuit.

[chadritt]

That final stuff with Hanks is phenomenal, just amazing to watch.

[Buccaneer]

Watched Captain Phillips last night and phenomenal and amazing were the best words I could describe it, as well. The final scene was made even more remarkable if you read on how it was done.

I didn't read the book so I can't judge whether there was a better route to get to Mombasa, short of not delivering the needed aid.

[Julio Riddols]

FWIW, the movie doesn't really portray him as a hero. They actually show him receiving the e-mail warning. There's a whole discussion in the film where the crew urges him to change course and he explains why they shouldn't do that, a clear point in the movie where the crew is portrayed as right and the captain portrayed as wrong. Furthermore, without spoiling anything, the ending clearly goes against the typical Hollywood Macho Hero stereotype and is one of the best endings of a movie I've ever seen. Since the movie does show both sides, I'm inclined to give it the benefit of the doubt against what is being alleged in a lawsuit.

This may have convinced me to give it a go. I'll check back with the results upon viewing.

[Pyser]

i mean, it's greengrass. he's got a track record, you know what you're getting. captain phillips is right in his wheelhouse. united 93 meets green zone, in a sort of way.

i loved it.

[korme]

My brother is a huge Coen Bros fan, and he said it's merely an average Coen Bros movie......FWIW

Your mileage may vary. I'd probably rank it just below Fargo and NCFOM.

[Suicane75]

All Is Lost: 30 Out Of 100 Stars
All is boring is more like it. God dammit. I love Robert Redford, and despite him looking every bit his nearly 80 years in this film, he really does a fantastic job with the physical performance. The problem is it's just so insanely boring. His boat encounters some damage, he does some shit, but not being a sailor I have no idea what the fuck he's doing. I guess I was rooting for him to succeed in whatever the hell it was, but it's hard to get invested in outside of, I hope he don't die doing that.

There's almost no dialog in the movie, and I mean that. After the first 30 seconds of the movie I think he says about 10 words for the next 90 minutes. The other thing is, the movie opens cold with him on his boat. Eventually we find out where he is, but the why and the who are left a mystery. I understand what the film is trying to do, but it just doesn't work.

As the film wore on I couldn't help thinking of Paul Newman and how after Nobodys Fool he probably had a good 10-12 years where he could have made one final great movie, and it never came. If this is Redfords swan song than it's a fucking waste. That probably pissed me off more than anything.

The old man in the sea, just not how I wanted to see the old man go out.


Captain Phillips: 78 Out Of 100 Stars
Now this is how you do a big action movie. I was pretty surprised by the turn of events during the film as for whatever reason I didn't expect near the amount of action. Maybe it's because I just don't think of Tom Hanks, action star.

Hanks gives his usual top notch performance, but it's Barkhad Abdi who steals the show. He's got a look that's at once terrifying and sympathetic and helps draw you into Hanks' character even more because you're never really sure how much you can or can't reason with him.

The script is damn tight and takes you through 3 distinct acts that never drag and build nicely upon each other. It also doesn't just separate the story into good guys and bad guys, the pirates are doing a job they have to do. The script is so good that at points you're hoping the bad guys come to their senses. Just really well put together.

It's a joy to watch a film that clearly takes pride in technical efficiency when it comes to it's action. There's nothing here that's over the top in the way it's portrayed yet it's 10 times as exciting as most chase/blow em up type movies.

A wonderful film in every aspect, Captain Phillips is strongly written, acted and shot, and builds superbly to the films climactic 15 minutes where you can't help but feel for everyone involved.


Dallas Buyers Club: 73 Out Of 100 Stars
McConaughey and Leto both give tremendous performances in this story about the early days of AIDS and how a homophobic straight man and a cross dressing gay men, team up to help get drugs to those who need them.

Gritty and at times depressingly realistic, the film doesn't really stray to far from where you can see it's going, but that's ok. At times Jennifer Garner seems a little out of place but what can ya do, it's Hollywood.

There is at times, a sort of weird fluctuation between biopic and straight ahead fiction, but the performances from the leads help overcome that.

A film that would have served McConaughey better if it had given him a little more focus pre aids, he and Leto still manage to transcend whatever flaws the script has in that regard and makes this a pretty beautiful film, seeped in the ugliness of the early days of the aids epidemic.


Inside Llewyn Davis: 84 Out Of 100 Stars
Oscar Issac as the lead, gives what has been my favorite performance so far this year.

Set in the early 60's, Issac stars as a folk singer, too young to be so beaten down by the business and by life. In typical Coen brothers style, there's so much nuanced stuff going on, and so many layers to Davis, seen and unseen, referenced and unsaid. Also in typical Coen brothers style, there are characters that float in and out, some like John Goodman whom are marvelous, and others not so much.

The story really relies on Issac to carry the burden of the films message and he is just fucking fantastic. Burdened and beaten down but never out, no matter how times he himself, or outside forces try and pull him down. As depressing as it can get, there's always this sort of twinkle in Issacs eyes that gives you faith.

No disrespect to the other great movies I've seen so far this year, but it's nice to see a film this good built from scratch and not based on anything other than the wonderful creative minds of it's writers.

Not the Coen brothers best work, because the universe isn't quite as strong. But damn, does the star shine.


Afternoon Delight: 36 Out Of 100 Stars
The 36 stars are mainly for Juno Temple, looking absolutely scrupulous, and Katheryn Hahn being brave as all fuck and getting plenty naked all throughout the movie. Other than that, this is a rather unfortunate mess of a film.

So Hahn is married mother of 1, but her and her husband aren't screwing. I don't know why, the script doesn't seem to know why, and no real answers are provided as the husband is pretty much written with all the depth of a potato.

Needing a spark in their life, the couple go to a strip club and Hahn ends up becoming infatuated in some way with a dancer, played by Temple.

The script is so all over the place and unfleshed that I'm not real sure if Hahn wants to save the stripper, fuck the stripper, write a book about the stripper, who the fuck knows. Anyway, she finds out that Temple does a little more than strip but this doesn't seem to bother Hahns character much as she still lets her live in her house with her husband and kid, both of whom might not as well exist for the movies first 70 minutes or so.

So shit happens that I'll not spoil, but it doesn't much matter. The film seems to take joy in having people do stupid things, never communicate and seemingly exist on different planes altogether for no good reason. Then when it's time to wrap things up in a tidy bow, we're expected to have some sort of affinity for the plight the characters have gone through to get there. Sorry man, it's a shitty story told in a shitty fashion and Hahns effort and willingness to bare herself, literally and metaphorically, is fucking wasted. And that's a damn shame.

Afternoon Delight is all smoke and no fire.

[korme]

Finally saw her Joaquin Phoenix is just so damn good. There are so many scenes that he has to carry by himself. So many idiosyncrasies that make him one of the best and most enjoyable to watch. I thought it was very fitting how Jonze used Phoenix's job and relationship with Johansson to kind of tie itself together over the course of the movie. ScarJo was a pretty good character, for not having a face. I think the movie could have been a little shorter, though. I'll give it a solid 7.5/10

And of the Oscar movies I've seen, I'll go Wolf, Dallas, 12 Years, Her, American Hustle. I'll probably catch Captain Phillips and maybe Nebraska. Slim chance I see Gravity at this point, and very minor chance I'll catch Philomena.

[Mizzou B-ball fan]

Saw the new Lego Movie yesterday. Everyone in our group was disappointed. It was one of those movies where literally all the funny lines were in the trailer. It dragged on far too long and felt like they were trying to weave it all together. It failed miserably.

[ISiddiqui]

The Lego Movie - 9/10: I haven't laughed a movie so hard in a while, and I was going in with high expectations (when Rotten Tomatoes has it at like 96% being the main reason I wanted to go). Great voice acting! Fantastic skewering of modern blockbusters and a very satisfying twist! Well worth all the accolades and more.

[revrew]

Robocop - 3/10

Started off great, the tech was cool, acting was good enough, action/fight scenes were engaging and exciting ... but the overbearing politics of it and Samuel L. Jackson's just smug, satirical ending buried it for me.

I don't care if you're right, left, GOP, Dem, libertarian or something else, unless you're a hardcore commie or Nazi who wants to bring about a totalitarian state to enforce your political goals, we're ALL concerned about the extent of surveillance, NSA and growing police power in this country. "Robocop" could have tapped into that and made a movie we could all relate to. Instead, it goes off on skewering big business, "American imperialism," and mocking the notion of American exceptionalism - all talking points from one side of the political spectrum. Why ruin a movie with overt partisanship?

I didn't expect a whole lot from this film (given they chose to release it in February, when studios typically dump their losers), but I was still disappointed - not in the spectacle, which was pretty cool; but in the story, which just didn't live up to the potential it established in the first several minutes.

[JetsIn06]

Saw the new Lego Movie yesterday. Everyone in our group was disappointed. It was one of those movies where literally all the funny lines were in the trailer. It dragged on far too long and felt like they were trying to weave it all together. It failed miserably.

I have to say I can't disagree more.

[nol]

The Great Beauty (La Grande Bellezza) 8.5/10

Oscar-nominated Italian language film is like Fellini meets David Lynch. The main character (don't know the actor, but he was phenomenal) wrote a well-received novel when he was in his twenties, but is now in his mid-sixties with only that work to his name as he has settled into a life as a socialite/cultural critic in Rome, where he takes comfort and pleasure from the scene while also sort of existing outside it and recognizing its frivolity. Then, he gets some news that makes him start considering his legacy and doing some soul searching.

It definitely goes big on the theme (life/death, love/loss, surface/deep pleasures, and so on) and delivers for the most part. A little on the long side at around 2 1/2 hours, but it's so beautifully shot and the main character is someone you can't keep your eyes off of as almost every single line he says is sharp and well-thought-out.

[Buccaneer]

I've watched Diango twice in the past week and while I really like some of acting and dialogues, there is something that still bothers me. The movie is so full of anachronisms and obvious geographical mistakes that I can't figure out if they were done on purpose or is Tarantino really that lazy and stupid. I can appreciate homages to 60s/70s movie genres but it seems that along as he can be hip and violent about it, then the rest are just insignificant details. For example, it starts off saying that 1858 was two years before the civil war. Is stating something factually wrong a snide point or just ignorance? I also can appreciate filming in interesting locations but shouldn't they at least make sense? This is not a low budget picture and they did film in the delta region, so why stick in locales that were so out of place as if being lazy about continuity was some clever trick?

[WVUFAN]

The Lego Movie - 9/10: I haven't laughed a movie so hard in a while, and I was going in with high expectations (when Rotten Tomatoes has it at like 96% being the main reason I wanted to go). Great voice acting! Fantastic skewering of modern blockbusters and a very satisfying twist! Well worth all the accolades and more.

I can't believe I'm saying this about movies and ISiddiqui, but I completely agree with you, especially the twist, which I did not see coming, but it fit so well in with that film.


Saw the new Lego Movie yesterday. Everyone in our group was disappointed. It was one of those movies where literally all the funny lines were in the trailer. It dragged on far too long and felt like they were trying to weave it all together. It failed miserably.

We must not have watched the same movie, because it was one of the better animated films I've seen in the past year or so.

[rowech]

I've watched Diango twice in the past week and while I really like some of acting and dialogues, there is something that still bothers me. The movie is so full of anachronisms and obvious geographical mistakes that I can't figure out if they were done on purpose or is Tarantino really that lazy and stupid. I can appreciate homages to 60s/70s movie genres but it seems that along as he can be hip and violent about it, then the rest are just insignificant details. For example, it starts off saying that 1858 was two years before the civil war. Is stating something factually wrong a snide point or just ignorance? I also can appreciate filming in interesting locations but shouldn't they at least make sense? This is not a low budget picture and they did film in the delta region, so why stick in locales that were so out of place as if being lazy about continuity was some clever trick?

While shots weren't fired until 1861, the War started in 1860 with either South Carolina leaving or Lincoln winning -- take your pick.

[Lathum]

Saw the Lego Movie today. Both wife and I found it very underwhelming and my son was pretty disinterested. A few funny moments, but pretty meh over all. I foulf Wreck it Ralph to be far more humorous, witty, and creative.

[PurdueBrad]

I'm pretty torn on the Lego Movie. We took my son yesterday for his 5th birthday and it was the rare film where he struggled to stay interested. The wife and I thought it was okay (most of the best parts were in the commercials as someone else said) and a bit slow although the end (about the last 10 minutes) was really well done.

I do have to say that of my seniors that have seen it (I teach high school), all 13 said it was pretty good.

[Vince, Pt. II]

Noises Off! (1992) - 7.5/10
Michael Caine plays the director of a theatrical performance trying to make its way to Broadway while his (and his performers') off-stage drama threatens to derail the whole thing. John Ritter, Christopher Reeve and Carol Burnett are some of the players. This is a slapstick comedy from the beginning (as is the theater production they perform in the movie) with pretty good writing and fantastic timing. After watching the majority of the first act via a dress/technical rehearsal with only Michael Caine as the "audience," most of the rest of the film takes place backstage while performances are going on - you get to catch the actors interacting with each other between trips on stage. The whole time, you can hear the "on stage" actors calling out their lines from the other side of the set, and they're all coming back and forth through the doors constantly.

The movie feels a trifle long, and while it does a great job of building up the train wreck, the end wraps up really quickly and mostly off-camera, which is a little off-putting. That being said, many laugh-out-loud moments, and I'd watch it again happily. Reminded me a lot of Clue.

[cartman]

The Lego Movie - 8.5/10
I took my nieces (7 and 9) and my cousin's boys (8 and 11) to see the movie when I was in Ft. Worth this weekend. We all thought it was great.

In case this might be a spoiler:

Both of the older kids told the younger ones that the end of the movie is why they shouldn't get to play with their Legos. :D

[ISiddiqui]

Captain Phillips - 7/10: A pretty good movie, with some good tension in the last third, but the middle of it draaaaaged quite a bit. Hanks and Abdi did some fantastic acting as well!

[molson]

Noises Off! (1992) - 7.5/10
Michael Caine plays the director of a theatrical performance trying to make its way to Broadway while his (and his performers') off-stage drama threatens to derail the whole thing. John Ritter, Christopher Reeve and Carol Burnett are some of the players. This is a slapstick comedy from the beginning (as is the theater production they perform in the movie) with pretty good writing and fantastic timing. After watching the majority of the first act via a dress/technical rehearsal with only Michael Caine as the "audience," most of the rest of the film takes place backstage while performances are going on - you get to catch the actors interacting with each other between trips on stage. The whole time, you can hear the "on stage" actors calling out their lines from the other side of the set, and they're all coming back and forth through the doors constantly.

The movie feels a trifle long, and while it does a great job of building up the train wreck, the end wraps up really quickly and mostly off-camera, which is a little off-putting. That being said, many laugh-out-loud moments, and I'd watch it again happily. Reminded me a lot of Clue.

I saw this performed at the Idaho Shakespeare festival last year and loved it. I always wondered how well it would translate to movie form, so I'll have to check this out. I'm sure the A-list actors add something, but you probably lose something from it being on a TV screen and edited, as opposed to all that crazy timing occurring right in front of you with no safety net.

[Groundhog]

The Counselor - 2/10

One of the reasons I love Tarantino's films so much are the long, monologue scenes he usually includes. In many cases they are completely uneccessary and don't do anything to further the plot, but they fit so neatly into the crazy little worlds he crafts.

The Counselor, to me, felt like a movie that tried to take these little Tarantino-esque moments and make a whole movie out of them - a few actions scenes aside. I was taught when writing anything that you should always show your audience rather than tell. This is an experiment in doing the opposite. For every clever or interesting bit of dialogue, there was 20-25 mins of drek.

The 2 points go solely towards the Diaz/windscreen cleaning dialogue/scene, which was the only thing in the movie that worked.

[ISiddiqui]

Her - 9.5/10: Fantastic, fantastic movie! It was basically a happier version of a Phillip K. Dick story - I loved the blending of what is real feeling and a real relationship. Joaquin Phoenix was utterly amazing and so was Scarlett Johansson even though it was just her voice. It was just an utterly thoughprovoking and fascinating view as to what is reality. Also what a realistic potential near future, where everyone is on their phone and chatting with the virtual assistant than the people around them. Brilliant.

[GrantDawg]

American Hustle- 5/10: My wife and I went to the movies last night. I had to pick her up intown Atlanta after her recert classes, and we didn't want to fight traffic to head home. Instead, we went to Phipps Plaza. The plan was to eat and go see Veronica Mars. Unfortunately, VM was sold out at 7, so we went to the only other movie playing that we were interested in seeing. It was not great. I had high hopes, but it just seemed flat to me. The only high point in the movie was Jennifer Lawrence. She was brilliant. We actually left a few minutes before the end to go see the 10 o'clock showing of...

Veronica Mars- 8.5/10: If you haven't watched the show, go do that now. The whole series is on Amazon Prime streaming now. We binge watched it last month, and just couldn't get enough. Smart, funny. Little twist that sometimes you could see, and sometimes you couldn't. "Buffy" without the vampires is a good description.
The movie is very much a 2 hour extended episode. Amazingly though, after 10 years, they all fell right back into it. It was everything the show was (and could be again. Both the show runner and Kristen Bell are willing to return to the show. Amazon or Netflix would be smart to give them a 10-12 show series return). I left the movie wanting more. It isn't Oscar-worthy or anything, but great entertainment.

[Buccaneer]

Got a bunch of movies yesterday that I've wanted to watch. The first was

Ted - 7/10 I had high expectations for this and while it was good, there were more serious and dark moments than I expected. I absolutely loved the Flash Gordon parts since I was obsessed with that movie and its music when I was in college.

[Karlifornia]

The Grand Budapest Hotel- 7.5/10 Some funny moments, some nice scenery. I really wish Wes Anderson would at least try to mix it up a little bit, but I guess that's what makes him Wes Anderson.

[revrew]

Need for Speed - 5.0

This, for me, is the perfect definition of a mid-range, 5 out of 10 movie. It's entertaining enough to watch, not so bad that you groan or mock it, but having really very little of anything good to commend it for. It was a decent diversion, and I don't regret "wasting my life" or money catching it, but I'm not going to remember it or care tomorrow. And I'm OK every once in a while watching a film that's just kind of fun and nothing more.

[JediKooter]

Non-Stop - Solid 6

Snakes on a Plane? Nope. Taken on a Plane? Nope. Qui Gon on a Plane? Nope again. Plot Holes on a Plane? Possibly. Over all, not really a bad movie, but does require you to not to question certain things to maintain your suspension of disbelief. This movie falls smack dab in the category of "Dumb Popcorn Movies", but, I found it entertaining to say the least and it did have a decent twist to it. I caught this movie on a $5 Tuesday showing, so I didn't feel like I was robbed, but, for others who have standards set too high or on a budget, wait for it to hit the video circuit.

300: Rise of an Empire - 4

Should have been called 300: In Need of an Orthodontist or 300: That's How Many Motivational Speeches Are Going to be Heard.

On the plus, you do get to see Eva Greens bewbs. On the negative, you get to see Eva Greens bewbs. If you like your men, bare chested and as smooth as a 12 year old boy, this movie is definitely for you. I saw the 2D version and as I suspect of all 3D movies, it's just a bunch of blood being thrown at you and in 2D, it's just distracting. Every time I heard the word "Spartan", I was hoping the Master Chief would show up and kill everyone. Overall, it was just, meh and unless you are a big fan of the graphic novel, I wouldn't waste your time seeing this.

[Buccaneer]

continuing on...

Inglorious Basterds - 7/10 I have seen most of this movie previously and now saw the whole thing. I mainly watched it for Christopher Waltz's performance, esp. after seeing Django. Truly a delightful actor.

Now You See Me - 9/10 This one took me by surprise since I didn't recall this being a summer 2013 movie. Really didn't know anything about this despite my love for magic, magic revealed and heists/thrillers. The movie, at least to me, kept me interested and guessing till the very end wondering what the next plot twist was going to be. Highly entertaining movie.

[PilotMan]

Nebraska - 8/10 Nominated for a whole lot. Bruce Dern was really good playing an old curmudgeon. Movie looks like a Drama, but it has a bit of dark humor in it as well. It's a sad tale about family, aging and expectations in life. I really like these movies where you can't really see what's coming next. The movie just kind of takes you along for the ride.

[chadritt]

Veronica Mars - 8/10 Its relevant to point out that Im a fan of the series and I gave money to the Kickstarter but i really liked it a lot and I think even non fans would enjoy it. Its not as good as season one but it was good enough that I would love for the show to come back and they definitely plant seeds for future plots. Good balance between fan-service and advancing the plot too.

Edit: Warning for new viewers: The opening WILL give away all of the season 1 mystery

[JediKooter]

Robocop - 5/10

Well, it was just ok. Wasn't really a fan of the guy that played Alex Murphy/Robocop, but, Commissioner Gordon and Batman actually do a damn fine job in my opinion. Jackie Early Haley, of Damnation Alley fame, also does a journeyman's job and Samuel L. Jackson nails it at being an over the top pundit. First off, not even close to being as violent as the original, but, I still have to wonder about the mom and dad that decided to bring their 3 kids, the oldest kid maybe being 7 years old. So in between hearing a toddler cry and fuss, I watched a very mediocre movie with a lot of slow parts. I didn't go into it expecting much, so I wasn't really disappointed. Save your money though and wait for it via some cheaper medium.

[Kodos]

Veronica Mars - 8/10 Its relevant to point out that Im a fan of the series and I gave money to the Kickstarter but i really liked it a lot and I think even non fans would enjoy it. Its not as good as season one but it was good enough that I would love for the show to come back and they definitely plant seeds for future plots. Good balance between fan-service and advancing the plot too.

Edit: Warning for new viewers: The opening WILL give away all of the season 1 mystery

Agreed. Very enjoyable for fans of the show.

[Julio Riddols]

Nebraska - 8/10 Nominated for a whole lot. Bruce Dern was really good playing an old curmudgeon. Movie looks like a Drama, but it has a bit of dark humor in it as well. It's a sad tale about family, aging and expectations in life. I really like these movies where you can't really see what's coming next. The movie just kind of takes you along for the ride.

Loved this movie. Some really good laughs, and an incredibly authentic recreation of small town middle america. I have lived in towns like the ones depicted in this movie almost my whole life, and the people and general look of everything really hit home for me.

I also thought it was cool that Butters' grandma had a role with heavy cursing. She's such a cute old lady, but man she has a mouth like a sailor. I love it.

[ISiddiqui]

Frozen - 5/10: I just don't get the love (and neither did my girlfriend, who loves 'for kids' movies). The songs were forgettable (aside from "Let it Go"), the characters annoying, especially Jar Jar Olaf, the story cheesy, and the villain forgettable. Meh, all around. I'm just glad I saw it on RedBox rather than in the theater.

[Buccaneer]

Social Network - 6/10 As much as I am into tech history, this one was a bit jarring. I don't know if it's because I am not a believer in facebook (appalled by its casual approach to security and privacy), though I tend to enjoy movies on their own merit. Good performances but I know I would enjoy movies about Jobs, Google or Amazon (if they make the last two) more.

The Fighter - 8.5/10 Just in the opening 5 minutes, I had to check imdb three times just to be certain that it was Christian Bale. I absolutely love acting performances that you can't believe it's a certain actor (as oppose to actors basically playing themselves). Mark Wahlberg, a favorite of mine, plays it pretty flat but that was more true to character. But the best part can be summed up in two words: Amy Adams.

[korme]

Mud is on Netflix. Everyone go check it out.

[JediKooter]

Noah - 7.5/10

Not a bad movie overall. I would have given it higher rating, but, it ran a bit long in my opinion. Russell Crowe and Jennifer Connelly were outstanding and Hermoine from Harry Potter wasn't too bad either. However, the Watchers were my favorite. I was worried they weren't going to make the final cut of the movie as there was talk about taking them out before Mickey brought down his Axe of Downsizing at ILM, so I never found out what happened to them until tonight. This was one of the last movies I was somewhat involved with before we were all laid off, so it was kind of special to finally get to see it.

The movie had great cinematography, great acting and some really good visual effects. I found the movie entertaining, though a bit long, but I would recommend it and would see it again in theaters.

[Matthean]

My Bible thumping uncle not surprisingly hated it.

[Vince, Pt. II]

I saw this performed at the Idaho Shakespeare festival last year and loved it. I always wondered how well it would translate to movie form, so I'll have to check this out. I'm sure the A-list actors add something, but you probably lose something from it being on a TV screen and edited, as opposed to all that crazy timing occurring right in front of you with no safety net.

I'd imagine if performed well, it would be fantastic live. I'll have to keep my eyes open to see if it hits any stages near me. Unfortunately, I'm not holding my breath.

[JediKooter]

My Bible thumping uncle not surprisingly hated it.

I can definitely see where if someone has a certain way the story of Noah goes in their minds, wouldn't like it.

[fantom1979]

My recent list:

The Lego Movie: 5/10. To me, this movie was not very interesting and dragged horribly until the last 10 or 15 minutes.

American Hustle: 4/10. I really thought this movie was trying really hard to be something special. It just didn't flow well at all for me. There was several times during the movie that I caught myself no longer watching the movie and thinking about other things.

Captain Phillips: 7/10. There were definitely parts of this movie that slowed down, but overall I thought is was very well done. Much better than I expected for a movie based off such a recent event.

Jobs: 5/10. I love tech movies (Pirates of Silicon Valley, Social Network, etc), so it would be hard to completely blow it. At no point during this movie did I stop seeing Ashton Kutcher, and start seeing Steve Jobs (unlike Noah Wyle in Pirates). At parts, the movie seems more like a parody than a biography. I thought it was strange that the movie seemed to completely ignore the NEXT/Pixar years, and spent very little time in the post iMac era.

The Last Stand: 4/10. If you are tired late at night and just want to see things blow up and watch Arnold be Arnold, this movie is for you. If you go into this movie with the right frame of mind, it is fine.

Gravity: 8/10. This movie ended up being much more interesting than I thought it would be. Like 'Cast Away' in space, I thought Sandra Bullock pulled off a pretty good performance considering that she was by herself most of the movie. Pretty amazing how she can pull off roles like this while also doing movies like 'The Heat'.

[Buccaneer]

Now You See Me - 8 out of 10

Fun, intelligent, full of twists, very entertaining. The actors aren't "stretched" at all in this, as they just play the parts these actors always do (Jesse Eisenberg is brilliant but manic, Woody Harrelson is a smartass, Morgan Freeman is a curious voice of quiet wisdom, etc), but the story and the magic elements are a lot of fun, particularly for the casual fan of magic.

The movie is a "see it once" only type, however, as I saw it a second time with my wife, and after seeing how all the tricks are done, the movie just isn't as interesting the second time through.



Which is funny because I just watched it for the 7th time in two weeks. ;)

Continuing my recent theme of Boston-area movies (after Ted and The Fighter), I watched Affleck's The Town - 8/10. Thought it was a well done movie, perhaps a little too much shoot-em-up. But I heard there's a 4(?) hour version of the movie which I would be curious about.

[Buccaneer]

I love this time of year as a lot of the really good winter movies come out on DVD. The ones I am anxious to get and watch are:

Gravity
Saving Mr. Banks
Wolf of Wall Street
American Hustle
Mud
Dallas Buyers Club
12 Years a Slave

[ISiddiqui]

Wolf of Wall Street - 8/10: A fun movie and definitely a lot of laughs involved. I thought it very very brilliantly showed the depravity of the stock broker class. As Belfort's father said in the film - "It's obscene". And Belfort himself, when he goes to jail, says "I forgot, I am rich" (or something like that). I thought it really showed how morally depraved those with the money are and how they really didn't care about stealing from ordinary folk. Leo did a great job in the title role. I think it did go on a bit overlong.

And the other thing that bothered me wasn't necessarily in the film itself, but my girlfriend pointed out that to her it seemed like it glorified the rich lifestyle. Where I saw decadence and repulsiveness, she saw it as glorification. I've also heard others express this belief and if that's the case, then perhaps Scorcese was a bit too subtle than I thought he was being.

[ISiddiqui]

also:

Dallas Buyers Club - 9/10: Fantastic film. Wonderful acting by Leto and McConaughey, and I finally realize what everyone was saying about McConaughey's role for all this time. Well deserved Oscar. The story was incredibly well done as well and very powerful. I'm shocked this didn't get an Academy Award nom for Best Picture.

The Grand Budapest Hotel - 7/10: Wes Anderson gonna Wes. I tend to really enjoy Wes Anderson, but I think this was a step back after the wonderful Moonrise Kingdom. The story was fairly uninteresting to me, but the acting was very well done and the style was a gorgeous and magical as ever (yes, I love the Wes Anderson style so very much). It was meticulous and well directed, but there was definitely something missing for me.

[PilotMan]

Frozen - 6.5/10: It was good, and good in that old Disney way. I don't know how better to explain it. It was a little girly for the larger Disney audience, but the animations were excellent. I'm don't think it deserved the "OMG THIS MOVIE WILL CHANGE YOUR LIFE!!!" praise that I've heard in some reviews but it kept my attention throughout and had some funny moments.

[stevew]

Man of Steel-WTF, dunno even how to rate it. By the end the ultra violence was just so absurd. They 9/11'd metropolis like 65 times over. All this destruction is so redundant and I think I'm just done with super hero movies in general. The stakes are ludicrous now, we've seen worlds already almost destroyed and now we need more worlds etc.

I'll give it like a 3/10 or something. At least 45 minutes too long.

[Julio Riddols]

I love this time of year as a lot of the really good winter movies come out on DVD. The ones I am anxious to get and watch are:

Gravity
Saving Mr. Banks
Wolf of Wall Street
American Hustle
Mud
Dallas Buyers Club
12 Years a Slave

I thought Gravity was basically on the level of Avatar:In Space as far as quality of story.. There basically isn't one, and the effects are left to carry the day. It's ok if you really love effects, but even on a huge screen I felt like they weren't as impressive as the story was crappy, which left me with a bad taste. I was hoping for something grandiose and believable within reason, but in the end it felt like a cliche story stretched to the absolute limits of believability and wrapped in a space suit.

Wolf of Wall Street, Mud and Dallas Buyers Club are all really good films IMO. Wolf is so energetic, so busy and so fast paced you never really feel the time pass. Pure entertainment. Plus, it's Scorsese. Hard to find many films in his portfolio that I couldn't watch and enjoy. Dallas Buyers Club has one of the most engaging stories I have seen, and despite what I have heard some people say, the movie felt really authentic in every aspect, and may be the only film I have ever seen Jennifer Garner in and not wanted to hit myself with a hammer.

I may or may not ever see Saving Mr. Banks or 12 Years a Slave, their subject matter is either not interesting to me (Banks) or just annoying to know that it is part of human history (Slavery/Holocaust films are just hard for me to get interested in for these reasons, unless the history is re-written like Tarantino has done recently)

Haven't seen American Hustle yet although I have a copy. Having a hard time bringing myself to watch Bradley Cooper in a really stupid looking wig.

[ISiddiqui]

Let me offer contrary opinion ;). Gravity is still my favorite movie of 2013. Yes, it's fantastic in effects, and in IMAX 3D, I consider it to be the greatest cinematic experience I've ever had. But a simple, straightforward story doesn't mean that there isn't one. It tells its story very, very well in its 1.5 hr run time. It's about survival and the will to live and it does a great job with that.

IMO, that's much better than movies that were overlong like Captain Philips, and yes, Wolf of Wall Street.

Mud and Dallas Buyers Club were great movies and with that and Wolf of Wall Street its fun to see how many different roles McConaughey can live in within one movie year and all of them are different and all of them are acted phenomenally.

Saving Mr. Banks, btw, was a complete surprise. I was expecting ho hum and got a wonderfully engaging story.

12 Years a Slave is what you'd expect, with some great acting roles and American Hustle is a fun film with amazing acting.

[ISiddiqui]

Noah - 9/10: A fantastic film! Aronofsky has indicated that the movie was a 'midrash', which is basically a story that attempts to explains the Biblical narrative by filling in the gaps. The story of Noah in Genesis is only but a few chapters, but Aronofsky tells a wonderful story filling in those gaps and trying to figure out what the story is really trying to tell us. Yes, it deviates somewhat from the Biblical narrative (most specifically, Bible Noah tries to invite people in, but no one wants in, while movie Noah tries to keep the wicked out), but the reasons for it are well realized. I think the movie is also very good in discussing how God speaks to us and our interpretations of what God says to us, and how clinging to an interpretation can lead to very powerful moral dilemmas. Powerful stuff!

Crowe was great in the role, as was Emma Watson in her role as Noah's adopted daughter. The Watchers were well done and explained. The visuals showing Creation was quite well done and mesmerizing (and I'm certain led to plenty of complaints by conservative Christians - as it showed an evolutionary creationism).

[Suicane75]

Her: 67 Out Of 100 Stars
This fucker really twisted me around. On one hand there is some brilliant writing in this movie when it comes to relationships and how we interact with each other on a caudry of levels. On the other hand it's a man in love with a computer.

Set sometime in the future, probably not too to distant, Phoenix plays a lonely divorcee. A company develops on OS that personalizes itself to each individual user, and away we go. I guess it doesn't hurt that the OS has Scarlett Johanssons sweet voice.

My main problem with the film is that everything is told in a vacuum, which I suppose it has to be, because the more we were to understand about the science involved, the more complex and harder to hold together the story becomes. We never see how the rest of the world handles the OS, which clearly grows as the film goes on. For a world set so firmly in the digital, you'd think everyone would be fully aware of what's happening with the machines and what the end game was going to be long before the films final minutes. At two hours, the film does try and give us enough time to become entrenched in the world it's created and get past the initial feelings of how silly it seems for a man to have a relationship with a piece of software. Yes, I know a lot of stuff in the film can be seen as allegory, I get that. On the other hand, you really have to go all in on the premise for it to hit you very deep on a level that goes more than skin deep.

There's indy music, and indy imagery, and it's moving. I just kept feeling like I wanted something deeper than I was being given, but whatever. Phoenix is really strong, and like I said, there's some really strong writing and I appreciate the effort made here by everyone involved, it was just a little too hard to get everything to coherently sink in on the emotional level the film aims for. Still, I cried like a girl at the end, so there's that.

I think there's a really great story here, but I don't think it's a really great movie. I'd still recommend it though.


Kick Ass 2: 40 Out Of 100 Stars
Pretty disappointing follow up that trades focus for brevity while at the same time jumbling it's message in a sea of shock value that doesn't go much more than skin deep.

For all the shit he gets, Nicolas Cage made the first movie work. Here, left to their own devices, the script does no service at all to the young talent trying to carry this movie. There are moments where it seems like they're trying really hard to add that layer of seriousness and drama that Cage provided in the first movie, but all the moments come like flashes and are surrounded by too much silly shit.

The first film was so good that it was easy to forgive some of the shit they did, but here, watching teenagers dance around to songs about making that pussy drop, it's just cheap man, real cheap. And the rape shit is just off the charts stupid and uncomfortable, but they didn't have the balls to leave it in, because then you'd have to do some real explaining about why and how it's ok to do that in such a shitty movie.

I will grant that a good of the deal of the funny stuff is funny, if awkward. I bet there are a few versions of the script that focus more on the dark side or more on the funny side, but this finished product is just a jumble that doesn't do either version properly.

Jim Carey is really good and tries his damn best, but it's not enough.

The Kick Ass franchise is kicked, empty the bowl.


The Last Stand: 29 Out Of 100 Stars
Think of every dumb action movie you've ever seen, take the absolute dumbest parts of them, hit those parts in the head so hard they suffer brain injuries, then piece them together and you've got The Last Stand.

I'm being slightly unfair, the parts in the town with Arnold and his rag tag gang is at times legit fun, and at other time legit so stupid it's fun. Unfortunately, you have to sit through a setup so ball numbingly awful to get there.

Forest Whittaker, maybe asleep, is playing a federal agent in charge of transporting a drug kingpin to death row. Wouldn't ya know it, things don't work out so smooth. And thus begins an escape, chase, shoot em up, sequence that makes zero sense, is zero fun, and left me with 0 brain cells. And it goes on.....and on......and on.......and the movie just drags things out while we wait and wait for the promised showdown.

Then we get a good 20 minutes or so where there's at least some stupid, fun shoot outs before we go back into more ridiculous chase.

The script is so stupid it doesn't just force you to turn your brain off, it forces you to turn your brain off, take it out, put it outside and let the birds peck at it for 2 hours. But worse than that, it's just not much fun. Boring and stupid is no way to go through a film.

Arnold, bless his heart, he tries but he's just not all that good here. Everyone is competent but most of the characters have been lifted from the manual so you aren't gonna get anything you haven't seen a million times before. Luis Guzman and Johnny Knoxville try and bring it, but they're hampered by their limited screen time. The Russian dude from Prison Break is glorious, playing...I don't know what he's playing, the accent waffles so much you could make a drinking game out of it.

The last stand is ok, it's the eternity you spend getting there that's the trouble.


Anchorman 2: 40 Out Of 100 Stars
Almost gave this one a flat even 50 but that's not fair. The simple fact is that the 2nd half of this movie was awful and stupid.

Now the first half had me laughing and seemed to set everything up nicely, then Ron goes blind and it turns into something that plays more like really bad Adult Swim than legitimate comedy. The fight scene in the park almost made up for it but by then it was just finding a dollar bill in the garbage you're waist deep in.

Tonights story, enough of this shit already. Half written film at 11.

[ISiddiqui]

I thought the part when Ron when blind was brilliant in its absolute absurdity. It was something that only Anchorman would try to do, almost Monty Python-esque in how ridiculous it was.

[Suicane75]

I cannot agree with your opinion sir.

[Julio Riddols]

Let me offer contrary opinion ;). Gravity is still my favorite movie of 2013. Yes, it's fantastic in effects, and in IMAX 3D, I consider it to be the greatest cinematic experience I've ever had.


I agree that it was visually stunning.. I think my disappointment comes in that I was hoping for something epic, something that really made me feel the emptiness of space. I wanted to be scared out of my mind instead of watching a woman overcome her flaw or whatever it amounted to. The visuals stunned me and were some of the most effective I have ever seen at making me really feel something that transcended the screen, but the story kept it from being a film that stuck with me for long enough to really feel like it had the impact it should have. There was no resonance for me. Clooney's character was too Clooney, I don't think anyone would be that cool under that kind of pressure. Even the Apollo guys had some serious nerves going on and they weren't floating tetherless in empty space with no reasonable hope of being saved.

I'm trying to stop short of going on a rant, but this all comes more from frustration that it did not meet my expectations, and the fact that it fell so short of them left me with such a bad taste in my mouth. I felt like I had been fooled. That is probably mostly my fault, but I wanted something I could put somewhere close to Kubrick, and it really looked like it had a chance.

[cartman]

My cousin and I introduced his 8 and 11 year old boys to Monty Python and the Holy Grail this weekend. The 11 year old's reaction to the ending scene was priceless. "What in the world did I just watch?" Their mom just texted me and said they have been quoting the movie since they got home last night. Mission accomplished!

[Karlifornia]

Oculus- 8.5/10 Really well done suspense horror that's edited flawlessly.