Rate The Last Movie You Watched

[Chief Rum]

Originally Posted by Groundhog

I have no idea why I have never watched Inception again, after loving it at the cinema. It struck me as a movie that would be better the 2nd time you saw it too.

I can essentially stop whatever I am doing and watch it whenever I find it on. I especially love seeing everything from the end of the dream sequence up to the much discussed final shot. The music alone gets me going.

Oh, yeah, and anythime I can see the JGL spinning hallway scene, I'll stand in a burning building watching that, lol.

[Scoobz0202]

Originally Posted by Chief Rum

I can essentially stop whatever I am doing and watch it whenever I find it on. I especially love seeing everything from the end of the dream sequence up to the much discussed final shot. The music alone gets me going.

Oh, yeah, and anythime I can see the JGL spinning hallway scene, I'll stand in a burning building watching that, lol.

Same. I don't care if there is only 45 minutes left when I tune in, I will watch it from there. So fucking good.

[Suicane75]

The Avengers: 5.6 Out Of 10

A tale of two movies for me. And at over 2 hours of run time it needed to do better than that because I was bored as shit until the final fight scene.

Firstly, I wasn't feeling the villains at all. I know it's a comic book movie and I know I'm not familiar with the history of Loki and whatever that blue thing was that brought him in but it just came across as too much silliness.

The in fighting amongst The Avengers and lead up to the climactic battle is just fucking arduous and really had me hating the damn thing. But I'll give it credit, the final battle carried the movie. It sort of reminded me of the battle in Dragon Wars which was a god awful movie with maybe the best battle scene in movie history. This battle wasn't quite that good but it saved the film in my eyes.

Another problem I had was that I really don't like most of the heroes. Iron Man was awesome but the sequel was a major let down to me and here he's just more of the same, the schtick is tiresome. Honestly, if this movie doesn't have Ruffalo and his Banner/Hulk, it's pretty worthless.



Battleship: 2.1 Out Of 10

The film equivalent of watching an impotent man jerk off as hard as he can for 2 hours. Might very well be the worlds first full blown cut and paste movie as I don't think I noticed a single original idea over the entire dreadful viewing experience.

Ok. So a dude who isn't in the Navy in the first scene of the movie is 2nd in command of a battleship by the time his 2nd scene rolls around, wait.......what?

Battleships can be helmed by 5 people, who also double as soldiers in the event of an emergency, wait.......what? I could go on and on. There's is so much depressing about this movie and the people who wrote it, filmed it, financed it.

Even the actors, through no fault of their own, all look exactly like they're supposed to look. It's just sad.

Nothing in this fucking film makes any fucking sense.

I did however wonder while I was watching, why are advanced aliens always building technology bigger? When our most advanced weapon can be delivered on a 2 ton bomb, why do they need one 500 miles high?

The only joy derived from this abortion is if you find incompetence and ridiculousness amusing. But even that starts to wear thin at a point.



Rampart: 6.4 Out Of 10

Set in LA in the early 90's, Rampart tells the tale of a cop who may or may not be a racist, murdering, corrupt, womanizer. And Woody Harrelson is fabulous at playing all those things. The main failing the movie had with me, is that it all sort of leads....not nowhere, but it doesn't finish strong.

It seems aimless, trying to tell too many stories at maybe the sacrifice of more important ones. It's slow and deliberate but if that bothers you, Harrelson commands the screen at all times and never lets things drag as much they may have in the hands of a lesser presence.

Robin Wright, whom I've never found all that hot is extremely sexy here as well.



Prometheus: 6.8 Out Of 10

Solid, if underwhelming, is how I'd describe it. Maybe I was just looking forward to it too much and had my expectations in the clouds but it felt like it gave me everything I wanted, just not enough of it.

There was stuff that was just a bit too silly (the abortion), not quite as sexy (Charlize & Noomi), and overall just not enough of the story. It's a rare instance where a film may have been bettered by having 30-40 extra minutes, but I think this is one of those cases. I guess what I'm trying to say is that while I was expecting a bit of a groundbreaking film, too much of it centers on stuff I've seen before. The guys break off from the group, the aliens are in the ship, firefights. I was honestly not expecting to feel so much "ok, this is the part of the movie where this stuff happens", kind of stuff.

Another letdown, and I'm willing to concede that this could be my fault, is that at times I just didn't get it. A lot of the times I was watching a scene that was at once stock and also baffling. I felt like there was a story here that could have been explained a lot deeper but was just vague for some reason.

Anyhoo, it's a solid movie and I enjoyed the whole thing, and I'm not a Sci-Fi guy. Noomi is a sexy creature and Charlize is captivating for what little she's given to do but outside of the robot nobody else really had me into their characters.

A strong movie that I have a feeling I would have enjoyed more if I'd just waited for the extended edition DVD.



Taken: 5.7 Out Of 10

I let this one slip through when it first came out despite hearing good things and being intrigued by the trailers. With the sequel about to be released I figured I'd go back and watch the original. I don't know why my expectations were high for this film but for some reason I had it in my head that it'd be a smart action movie. Unfortunately it's not at all smart, though Liam Neeson is stellar and the action is pretty good.

I suppose Neesons performance alone is worth watching this, but it would have been nice if his job here was presented in a film that wasn't just so over the top silly. It'd be ok if the film understood how silly it is but it keeps tugging the heartstrings and getting all serious and shit.



Texas Chainsaw Massacre 3D: 3.2 Out Of 10

Interesting movie here, moreso than you might think. It appears to be of two wills. One trying to get across and intriguing storyline involving family, that provides an interesting twist for possible new life in the series. On the other hand it's wrapped around a movie so cliche and pedantic that you wonder why they even bothered to make it.

It starts and ends with promise, but in between is pretty much nothing. As the film opens we're transported to the original Texas Chainsaw Massacre, and then in an interesting way to approach things, we get about 5 more minutes, starting where the original left off. I thought this was a pretty innovative set up and gave me some hope for the film. The way they structure the film pretty much disregards any of the sequels as well as the reboot from a few years back.

So then, we skip ahead to present day and it becomes your normal cliche horror film, except to the umpteenth degree. I mean for real. None of the characters are fleshed out at all, or just enough to make you not give a single shit about whether they live or die.

We have the lead girl, who must have had it in her contract that he belly be visible 90% of the film, and it's a fine belly to be sure, but nary a boob is seen in the entire film. In fact there's a scene where she's hanging by her wrists, shirt ripped open, and magically her giant boobs, despite all her frantic struggling, are never revealed. So stupid.

Anyhoo, she gets a letter and learns that she's been adopted, and that her real Grandmother has left her the family house. So of course she takes off on a whim to the middle of nowhere Texas with her boyfriend and her best friend and her boyfriend. There is an insipid sub plot with the boyfriend and best friend that exists solely to make you not like them, but it's all of about 45 seconds of screen time and so painfully shoe horned that it's just silly.

Anyway, they pick up a hitchhiker along the way and then go to the newly bequeefed house, where of course something is waiting for them. That's act 1.

From there it's just your standard slasher movie for about half an hour. There's a fun gore shot or two, and despite the set up for a good sex scene, it's led into and then completely ignored, which is fucking frustrating as hell. There is some chase, but again, the characters are so ridiculously thin that there's zero tension and what should be the most exciting part of the movie becomes a bit of tedious viewing.

The last third of the movie picks up a bit if only for the story, but now we're introduced to more characters who are just so shit brained stupid and one note that you end groaning as we watch them stupidly lumber to get where it's obvious we're going.

I guess the ending sets up the possibility for more movies, but why bother. It's clear nobody involved here was much interested in writing a good horror movie so who gives a shit if they do another one.



The Campaign: 8.2 Out Of 10

Will Ferrell & Zach Galifianakis star in this political satire that hits all the right comedic notes, never really feels preachy, and sadly, rings truer than it should.

Ferrell is an incumbent Congressman running unopposed in his district but his inability to keep his schlong penned up has created an opportunity for a couple of billionaire businessmen to run their own candidate and take over the seat. That's where Zach comes in.

Zack is an effeminate everyman, the son of an old school politico, played marvelously by Rip Torn. He's not a politician, but the brothers send in political star maker Dylan McDermot to whip Zack into shape.

Besides being very funny, The Campaign never comes across as preachy. Both men are flawed, both men at times seek redemption, this is not a Donkey Vs Elephant movie. The satire rests more in the total of the political system and how fucked up it's gotten, rather than in taking pot shots at ones ideology.

Both main characters teeter on the edge of the absurd and though it clearly leans that way, it never falls in. It also has a pretty big heart.

This Campaign is a winner.

[Buccaneer]

Originally Posted by Chief Rum

I can essentially stop whatever I am doing and watch it whenever I find it on. I especially love seeing everything from the end of the dream sequence up to the much discussed final shot. The music alone gets me going.

Oh, yeah, and anythime I can see the JGL spinning hallway scene, I'll stand in a burning building watching that, lol.

Yeah, I can see that it's in the top 100 and I was surprised that it did extremely well at the box office, considering one had to stop talking/texting and actually pay attention. Maybe there is hope for summer movie makers in thinking the audience is not completely stupid (as most of the 2011-2012 summer movies were apparently).

[Scoobz0202]

Flight - 8/10

Really really surprised how much I enjoyed this compared to my expectations. I anticipated it being pedestrian at best, and really wasn't expecting how dark it would be.

Denzel was fantastic.

[Buccaneer]

Originally Posted by Scoobz0202

Flight - 8/10

Really really surprised how much I enjoyed this compared to my expectations. I anticipated it being pedestrian at best, and really wasn't expecting how dark it would be.

Denzel was fantastic.

My wife just got me this today for our anniversary. Hadn't heard about this movie and probably have the same expectation but I'm looking forward to enjoying this.

[chinaski]

Originally Posted by Scoobz0202

Flight - 8/10

Really really surprised how much I enjoyed this compared to my expectations. I anticipated it being pedestrian at best, and really wasn't expecting how dark it would be.

Denzel was fantastic.

Felt the same way. Thought it would be an action movie with typical drama elements. Im not the biggest Denzel fan, but I consider this his best acting ever. Great movie.

[Buccaneer]

The movie was released only 90 days ago and it's already out on DVD? I haven't kept up but is this the norm now?

[Swaggs]

John Goodman was pure awesomeness in Flight.

[Suicane75]

Eddie And The Cruisers is still one of my favorite movies of all time and the last scene still blows me away.

[Matthean]

Originally Posted by Suicane75

Eddie And The Cruisers is still one of my favorite movies of all time and the last scene still blows me away.

Thanks. Now I have that song stuck in my head.

[Buccaneer]

Originally Posted by Scoobz0202

Flight - 8/10

Really really surprised how much I enjoyed this compared to my expectations. I anticipated it being pedestrian at best, and really wasn't expecting how dark it would be.

Denzel was fantastic.

I watched it last night and I agree with your post completely. It's cool to go watch a movie you never heard about or know what the premise is and then be surprised. At first glance, I thought this would be about a long, harrowing flight with a happy ending. Not even close. Superb acting by Denzel (and Goodman too), leaving you wondering till the end.

Spoiler

The score gets knocked down because of the totally unnecessary gratuitous scene at the very beginning.

[stevew]

Lets see-

Skyfall-6.5/10 I enjoyed certain elements of the story, such as Bond's homestead and some of the M/Bond interplay. But ultimately I liked the previous two Bond movies quite a bit more than this one. I imagine that most people will disagree with this. The entire third act was almost ridiculous...I understood how the plan had to be somewhat ill conceived and whatnot, but it was pretty crazy how they played it out.

Battleship-It's pretty hard to rate this, because it was substantially flawed and the dialog was horrible. It got like a 34% on RT. I however love both Tim Riggins, Landry and Pete Berg so it is hard for me to fairly rater the movie because it had some enjoyable elements. It was on HBO this month, and you still will probably find enough entertaining stuff in there to find it worth watching. Ultimately the greatest problem was that they decided to base the movie on the game Battleship, which is totally dumb and probably caused many people to overlook it. I'd say it's a 5/10 or so guilty pleasure.

[Peregrine]

I watched the Japanese documentary called The Tsunami and the Cherry Blossom. It is on HBO GO as it was shown on HBO several months ago. One of the most horrible and beautiful short films I havr seen in a long time.

[Groundhog]

Skyfall - 7/10
Thought they were pretty heavy handed with the "Oh hey we're all old people in a young people's game" theme, and the amount of foresight shown by the baddie was unbelieveable. Enjoyable movie, but not 'amazing'.

Django Unchained - 9/10
Loved it.

[stevew]

I'd compare the villain in Skyfall to the Joker in TDK. I don't think it's good writing when the baddie has an answer for everything, it's like the story was written backwards or something.

[stevew]

dola-

Cracked has Skyfall pegged perfectly.

Spoiler

Hold On, Now ...
Before we go any further, yes, this is universally considered to be an awesome movie. It's just that any time a movie has the villain do the, "Surprise! Every action you've taken has actually played perfectly into my hands!" bit with the hero, it never really makes sense. And this is a great example -- when you walk through it from the bad guy's point of view, you realize that either Silva is an incredibly lucky bastard, or he's literally God.
The entire point of Silva's scheme is to kill M during her hearing -- he has two guys waiting for him with a cop uniform after he breaks out of MI6 specifically so that he can sneak into the courthouse and shoot her. Presumably he allowed himself to get captured (as opposed to just going straight to the courthouse) because he wanted to upload the virus into MI6's computers to distract everyone.

Here's the thing: Silva's master plan began the moment he got captured, timing it so that he'd be in custody right when M was testifying. But he didn't turn himself in -- he was captured by Bond. So how could he have known when that would happen? Bond tracks a bullet shard in his shoulder to an assassin guy who has a casino chip from a casino where he sticks it to some lady who happens to know where Silva is. That's literally how it happens -- Silva had no control over that. How many days were those two fake cops standing there, waiting for Silva?

And then, when Bond corners him, Silva blows the tunnel at just the right time for a train to come crashing through it. How did he even know to set explosives in the specific time and place where James Bond would catch him? How did he know a train would be coming along at just that moment? He utters a little catchphrase in the split second the train crashes through -- imagine if the train had gotten delayed and they'd had to stand there in silence for 20 minutes until it finally came along.

Read more: 6 Huge Movie Plot Twists That Caused Even Bigger Plot Holes | Cracked.com

I'm tired of this kind of writing, it's getting lazy by screenwriters.

[JonInMiddleGA]

Video Game High School - 6.5/10
Video Game High School (TV Series 2012– ) - IMDb

My sick as hell kid had done all the reality show + Psych episodes he could take after three days (and an impending return to school, still sick, tomorrow) so in desperation he tries this movie on Netflix.

What followed was ... odd. Best I can tell it's a movie made from tying together webisodes tfrom some dude (Freddie Wong) that I had to Google to place (former GH2 world champ or something like that).

My review is eerily similar to a random one I saw on IMDB that basically said "I started out thinking this was the worst acting I'd ever seen, by the middle I thought there were some funny bits and by the end I decided it really wasn't all that bad".

The acting is pretty bad (especially watching the female lead channel Emma Stone, cute girl but her inspiration was too obvious), the plot is absurd, the effects are cheese, and yet ... it's actually part parody, part homage and a lot of the flaws are somehow forgivable because I think it actually meant well no matter how it turned out.

The title tell you most of the premise, I'll add that virtually every teen-movie & teen/tween cable show cliche is in here somewhere (with the exception of inept parents). But from the corny obvious gaming references to the more subtle things they get right (like grabbing an SMG from a kill during an FPS), it somehow weirdly sorta kinda works.

If you check your brain at the door and if you're desperate enough, this might be kind of entertaining if you make it past the first half hour or so. Hey, it was low budget (Kickstartered I think) and it's way the hell better than Shark Boy & Lava Girl, so that's something at least.

[Groundhog]

Originally Posted by stevew

dola-

Cracked has Skyfall pegged perfectly.

I'm tired of this kind of writing, it's getting lazy by screenwriters.

Yup great write up. Actually they were all quite good, all 6 movies.

[britrock88]

With the Criterion Collection free over the long weekend on Hulu, I had a very productive movie-watching weekend, especially relative to my level of movie-watching. (Note that I haven't posted in this thread before.) So, a quick rundown of the movies with a rating and a one-phrase synopsis:

And God Created Woman (1956) - 6/10 - Brigitte Bardot is a sexpot
The Night Porter (1974) - 6/10 - The rekindling of a unique relationship in post-WWII Vienna
L'Avventura (1961) - 7/10 - Beatiful, slow Italian film with a checkered love story
Seven Samurai (1954) - 10/10 - A masterpiece, combining excellent history, humor, struggle, and portrayal of warfare
Eraserhead (1977) - 5/10 - a stark, but shallow horror flick that was David Lynch's first film
Modern Times (1936) - 8/10 - a great entree to Chaplin's physical comedy, with bonus commentary on industrialism

(I consider myself fairly tough on movies -- I would regret watching something below a 5, and I would only recommend movies that I rate 7/8 or higher.)

[JonInMiddleGA]

Originally Posted by stevew

Battleship- I'd say it's a 5/10 or so guilty pleasure.

That might actually be the highest rating I've ever seen associated with this movie. (not kicking dirt, jus' sayin')

[stevew]

Originally Posted by JonInMiddleGA

That might actually be the highest rating I've ever seen associated with this movie. (not kicking dirt, jus' sayin')

I think Bug gave it like an 8.5, but yeah. I think repeated cable viewings will be kind to it.

[Suicane75]

Here Comes The Boom: 4.6 Out Of 10 Stars

It's nothing special, but it's not especially awful either. I really think Kevin James could be very good in the right vehicle, he's warm and sincere, and this may be his best film to date that puts that on display but it's just too hokey. UFC shit is so shoehorned in that at times it plays like a commercial instead of a movie. And the reality is that the film just isn't very laugh out loud funny.

The supporting cast is decent, although I have no idea why Salma Hayek is here. She isn't given much to do. Bas Rutten is decent, but there's something weird about his character that just didn't connect with me. Henry Winkler was.....fuck man, I dunno, he was good I guess, but I could never get over the idea that I was watching Fonzie.

It's a Sandler movie, so the script is about as generic sap as you would expect. In fact it plays a lot like an extended sitcom situation.

So yeah, a generic sitcom that thinks just having a heart is enough to make it worthwhile. It does not.

Here Comes The Boom, but it's more like A Bleh.


Resident Evil Retribution: 2.3 Out Of 10 Stars

I love Milla, my gosh do I love Milla. But enough is enough with this crap already.

I loved the first RE movie and liked the 3rd one, the even numbered ones were less enjoyable but I got through them. This one was just an exercise in tedium. It takes a lot of work to make 90 minutes of non stop action boring, but I'll be damned if this film doesn't pull that off to the nth degree.

Alice wakes up in an underground station run by the corporation, or whatever. Woman can't finish a job for the fucking life of her. Anyway, she conveniently gets helped by some Asian chick and then some mercenaries come down to help get them out. The station is somewhere in Russia underneath a frozen lake.

The commandos fight zombies and shit, and Alice fights zombies and shit, and there are scary monsters and shit and lot's of shit gets blown up and exploded and run over and shit. There are fight scenes between people that go on too long and are so over choreographed with music blaring over them that they might as well be a bad Norwegian techno dance video.

Characters we've seen for nary a few moments give soliloquies and we're supposed to be moved. The fucking Red Queen can make cities appear out of nowhere and conjure up an army of zombie soldiers and mutant monsters but she can't just spray some fucking nerve gas? It's all so silly.

Despite having 4 pretty hot chicks, there's nothing very sexy about the movie. It's just a jumbled pile of loud CGI.

The good news is that the ending sets up what appears to be yet another jumbled pile of loud CGI, so we have that to look forward to.


The Sessions: 6.6 Out Of 10 Stars

Story about a guy confined for the most part to an Iron Lung who can't move on his own who wants to have sex with a woman. Helen Hunt plays a sex therapist who helps him out, so to speak.

The good part of the film is that it's not overly sappy. The guy is just a guy, it doesn't try and make him more of a martyr than he already would be, just for the fact that he's in such a bad way. He has his quirks and bad parts just like anyone else. The part that's not so great, and this might be me being greedy, is that it didn't give me all that much empathy for the character outside of his health issue.

It just didn't resonate with me on the level I was hoping. William H. Macy is good playing a priest who tries to help the lead out, but man, the haircut was a bit much for me, it was distracting. It just screams out 'I'm an old guy trying to look much younger than I am'.

Helen Hunt is good too but she's pretty much just playing Helen Hunt. She's very nude in the movie and it is pretty graphic in it's sexuality if that sort of thing bothers or interests you.

A solid film with a subject matter that's refreshingly out of the norm but in no way are the script or performances so good that they deserve the Oscar hype they were receiving a month or two ago.

The Sessions is a well written, well acted movie with sweetness and tenderness that also features Helen Hunt sitting on a guys face for an extended period of time. You could do worse, I just always felt like I should have been enjoying it more than I was.

[Chief Rum]

Originally Posted by stevew

I think Bug gave it like an 8.5, but yeah. I think repeated cable viewings will be kind to it.

I just saw it for the first time, on cable.

I'm not sure I agree. This movie is pretty brainless.

[Suicane75]

Calling it brainless is insulting to people who were born without a brain.

[finketr]

Originally Posted by Suicane75

Calling it brainless is insulting to people who were born without a brain.

Spoiler

i couldn't get past the older brother forcing the younger into the navy and then wham, they're on the same ship?

[stevew]

Hey, she wanted a chicken burrito.

[Suicane75]

Originally Posted by finketr

Spoiler

i couldn't get past the older brother forcing the younger into the navy and then wham, they're on the same ship?

Not only that, but he goes from not being in the Navy, to being an Officer, in the span of like 10 minutes.

[stevew]

Tim Riggins was a senior 3 straight years. I don't feel like it's that much of a stretch.

[korme]

Finally watched Take Shelter. Michael Shannon put in one hell of a performance (no shocker there). There is a scene near the end when they are in their shelter that is just powerful. Pretty good movie... and then that LAST SCENE HAD TO GO AND RUIN EVERYTHING.

I can't believe how it ended. Blah.

7/10, still.

[Scoobz0202]

I've watched a handful over the past few weeks.

Argo, Django, Zero Dark Thirty, Flight (mentioned it earlier in the thread), and Silver Linings Playbook.

Argo, Django, and Zero were all very good. Just a fantastic year for movies. But the one that I still can't believe how much I loved was Silver Linings Playbook. I think that's been my favorite movie of the past year so far. I still need to watch Lincoln, Beasts of the Southern Wild, The Master, The Impossibles, and Les Miserables so there's quite a few that I have missed this year, but SLP I just can't shake for some reason.

[Buccaneer]

Originally Posted by Scoobz0202

I've watched a handful over the past few weeks.

Argo, Django, Zero Dark Thirty, Flight (mentioned it earlier in the thread), and Silver Linings Playbook.

Argo, Django, and Zero were all very good. Just a fantastic year for movies. But the one that I still can't believe how much I loved was Silver Linings Playbook. I think that's been my favorite movie of the past year so far. I still need to watch Lincoln, Beasts of the Southern Wild, The Master, The Impossibles, and Les Miserables so there's quite a few that I have missed this year, but SLP I just can't shake for some reason.

Strong praise for a romantic comedy. I guess it's not your typical one?

[chadritt]

Originally Posted by Buccaneer

Strong praise for a romantic comedy. I guess it's not your typical one?

It isnt....until it suddenly is.

[ISiddiqui]

And that's what I didn't really like about it (though overall it was pretty good). A great movie about mental illness and the affects it has on the families of those folks, and then bam... it becomes a straight out romcom (though a very well acted romcom).

[chadritt]

If youre looking for a movie that doesnt give up on the premise quite so easily I would recommend Perks of being a Wallflower .

[chinaski]

Originally Posted by chadritt

If youre looking for a movie that doesnt give up on the premise quite so easily I would recommend Perks of being a Wallflower .

+1. I thought this was supposed to be a goofy kids movie based on a tween book. I was totally wrong and it ended up being one of my favorites over the last year.

[Scoobz0202]

Originally Posted by Buccaneer

Strong praise for a romantic comedy. I guess it's not your typical one?

I think that's probably it for the most part. Expectations. Is it probably an equal of Django or Argo as far as the technical aspects, probably not. I went into Django and Argo expecting to be impressed, and with a general idea of the movies due to Tarrantino and Affleck. I honestly had no idea what I was about to watch with SLP. I just watched it because it was nominated. I was really surprised. My favorite and "best" movie of 2012 aren't really the same thing, I guess.

[Butter]

Saw SIDE EFFECTS yesterday. It was very interesting, but also seemed very disjointed at times. The end was especially... off. I thought it was very well-acted, but not especially well-written. I liked it overall, though, would probably go like 6.5 out of 10.

[Buccaneer]

Scoobz, same thing with Flight - had no idea what to expect or what it was about. I'm continually getting fed up and turned off by hype machines (of all kinds) so I try to ignore it all. The benefit is that you can be pleasantly surprised because of expectations, as you mentioned.

[Julio Riddols]

Grave of the Fireflies: 8/10 - The most saddening, depressing, hard to watch film I have ever seen, and its animated. I will never watch it again if I don't have to, but I'm glad I did once.

[Suicane75]

That's My Boy: 7.1 Out Of 10 Stars
Let's make no bones about it, this is an absurdly dumb movie. But it's funny. Tons of cheap laughs, site gags and ridiculous set ups, but given that the movie never really tries for a single moment to pretend it's serious, it all works.

Sandler plays a guy who as a kid, was seduced by his hot teacher and fathered a child of his own at only 15 years of age. I was surprised at how far they took this. First of all the kid doesn't really look a day over 12, second, even though it's a long shot with a strategically placed piano, they show the two of them fucking. I thought the set up was fresh, funny, and helped create a world in which Sandlers usual stupid comedy could exist comfortably.

So Sandlers character ostensibly becomes the worlds first reality star, for a little while, until people eventually get sick of him and his 15 minutes of fame ends.

I'll not spoil much more but Samberg plays the son and there is of course conflict and dumb situation after dumb situation. It's crude, there's a lot of nudity and sexual situations.

The supporting cast is strong, from Tony Orlando to Vanilla Ice and Dan Patrick.

In summation, a movie full of toilet humor that works because it never makes much effort to be more than that. I laughed. I laughed a lot, what can I say.


The Watch: 6.8 Out Of 10 Stars
Another comedy that sort of came and went that I enjoyed more than I expected. Stiller, Vaughn and Hill riff their way through a sci-fi comedy that plays pretty quaintly.

Stiller is a straight laced Costco manager who's night security guard meets an untimely end at the hand of......Well you'll see.

Anyhoo, Stiller forms a neighborhood watch at the behest of the police and the only recruits he can get are an oversexed man child played by Vaughn and a gun nut played by Hill. Together they have to face down whoever, or whatever, is killing people in their town.

It's no Ghostbusters, but fuck, what is? Judged on it's own it's a fine film that always stays on tone and gives ample leash to its three funny leads even if it does feel disjointed now and again.


Django Unchained: 8.0 Out Of 10 Stars
Easily the lesser of all of Tarantinos movies with perhaps the greatest performance in any of Tarantinos movies. And that's saying something.

This is the Christoph Waltz show, no two ways about it. His Dr. King is so captivating that Django becomes an afterthought, which is kind of ok, because Jamie Fox doesn't exactly light the world on fire with his performance.

So yeah. It's a very visually appealing movie with an AMAZING performance by the lead, but a lot of it is not up to the usual Tarantino standards. Too much of it felt forced. And there's only so many times you can hear the word nigger before you start to wonder if some of the script is just trying to get a rise out of the audience.

Like I said earlier, I don't think Fox did all that great a job here. I didn't mind the Sam Jackson character as much as many others have said they did, but whatever.

I wont give any spoilers but after a certain event occurs, with about 30 minutes left in the film, I sort of stopped caring, which doesn't speak too much for the lead or how well the movie gets him over.

Really good movie, with a performance by Waltz that richly deserved the Oscar he won, but not quite the overall level of film I was hoping for or expecting.


Safety Not Guaranteed: 7.5 Out Of 10 Stars
Lovely little film about a writer for a Seattle magazine (Jake Johnson) and two of his interns (Aubrey Plaza & Karan Soni) who set out to do a piece on add placed in a local paper asking for a time traveling partner.

The film is very quaint, very indie. Yes there are cutesy little musical drop ins that let us know how quaint and indie it is, but that's ok, the film is too good for that to be very distracting.

While the set up is very sci-fi, the film is more about the 4 leads and their emotional growth/struggles than it is time travel, although not knowing what exactly is going on, or going to happen next, gives the film a crispness and a constant. It never drags or bores you.

The performances are all excellent, the tone is near perfect and the story expertly walks the tight rope between silliness and sincerity, never letting either extreme get in the way of itself.

Safety Not Guaranteed, but your enjoyment is.

[rowech]

We Bought A Zoo (8/10) -- the romance felt forced but I really thought this was a very good family movie. Something there for every age group.

[Suicane75]

Identity Thief: 3.9 Out Of 10 Stars
Too much, too much, too much. At 1:50 it's a good half hour longer than it needs to be. It's filled with just too much shit to be worth sitting through. On top of that it's not exactly all that funny either.

Jason Bateman plays a guy who has his identity stolen by Melissa McCarthy and upon discovering this, both he and police decide the best course of action would be for him to go get her in Florida and bring her back to Colorado. The premise is dumb, but that's ok, it gets dumber.

I'll not give away much more of that plot, as it were. Suffice to say the script just adds layers and layers and layers of crap on a dumb premise in the hope of jazzing it up with quantity instead of quality. We've got a bounty hunter, a drug lord and his henchmen and some various subplots between Bateman and McCarthy along the way.

The thing is, McCarthy is excellent when things slow down, teasing us with what could have been had the script been tighter. Instead we're treated to gunfights and chases masquerading as plot advancement.

There are about 25 really good minutes in the film, a scene with Modern Familys Eric Stonestreet among them, but in the end they just end up getting lost. Such a shame that two really good actors were wasted on this unambitious project.


Compliance: 2.5 Out Of 10 Stars
I fear I am not eloquent enough to explain how boring this movie is.

Starring Dreama Walker of Don't Trust The Bitch In Apartment 23, this is the true story of a prank call that goes way beyond, is your refrigerator running?

I've read up on the story and while it is true, and while the movie does stay pretty tight to the actual events, it doesn't mean that watching it wont be the longest 90 minutes of your fucking life.

The problem is that you can't really feel any sympathy for people this dumb. Even the victim, at some point you just have to shake your head and be done with giving a fuck what happens to her. This happens about a minute into the conversation. Luckily we're blessed with about 80 more minutes of movie.

I guess the actors did a good enough job of being close to retarded, I mean, I dunno what else they could have done.

As the film winds down and we get the natural sense that some conclusion has to come, I guess it gets a wee bit more interesting, but not really, it's just finding out the end of a boring story. At the very end there's a few quick scenes with the cops as they investigate some leads, it lasts about 2 minutes and is the most exciting part of the film.

Dreama Walker is topless a lot, if that interests you, but it's neither sexy or erotic.

I have never been this bored staring at pretty boobs for an hour.

[Julio Riddols]

I liked Compliance, but for me it was more about just admiring the sheer idiocy of the whole event. It made me feel terrible for society in general that this type of thing can happen so easily.. It was yet another day I went to bed respecting the visionary genius of Idiocracy more than when I woke up.

[Julio Riddols]

Redline - 10/10 - A crazy anime about an auto race of the most outrageous kind. The action in this shit was preposterously insane, constantly one upping itself all the way through from start to finish. Just an exciting movie to watch and a typically nutty sci-fi meets auto racing with a little bit of romance thrown in.

Holy Motors - 9/10 - Loved the hell out of this film. It was something Terry Gilliam might have come up with, more of a piece of art than anything groundbreaking. Very cool visuals and an interesting premise made this incredibly enjoyable. There are some very odd scenes, especially one including Eva Mendes that was just flat out bizarre. That said, I have watched this several times in about a 2 week period and I still want to watch it again.

Vampires Kiss - 9/10 - If you like Nic Cage when he is just being a crazy ass, this is a great film to see him be that. Up there with Deadfall on my shortlist of best Cage freak out films.

Ronal the Barbarian - 7/10 - A Norwegian animated film kind of in the same vein as How To Train Your Dragon, except with decidedly adult humor. It was mostly a lot funnier than I expected going in, but they made a huge mistake in voicing the metalhead character so that he sounds more like a country bumpkin than a metalhead. The voice just doesn't match the character and is pretty jarring.. But overall, it was funny enough I would probably watch it again.

The Bay - 6/10 - Mildly entertaining horror/drama/found footage film. If the found footage thing wasn't played out by now, I would have probably thought a lot more of this film.. As is, its redeeming value is that it is withing the realm of belief that something like this could occur given the right circumstances. Better than a lot of found footage stuff, but nothing amazing.

The Awakening - 7/10 - Kind of a mystery horror set in the 1920's where a woman investigates the halls of a boys boarding school due to reports of ghost sightings on the premises. She is a lady that has spent her life debunking charlatans claiming to see the dead, but begins to doubt her beliefs through the course of her investigation. There is kind of a bit of a Shyamalan twist at the end with a little ambiguity, but it wasn't unsatisfying.

A Mighty Wind - 7/10 - Christopher Guest mockumentary about folk singing groups getting together to have a reunion show. Not on par with Best In Show, but very good and pretty close. Guest fans will enjoy it, and a few of the performances are flat out hilarious. Probably my favorite Eugene Levy performance is his in this film.

Life of Pi - 8/10 - This movie was like a mix between Forrest Gump and Cast Away, but with a very spiritual feel. It was like having some kind of guru retell a great story handed down from his ancestors, and at the end I had enjoyed it enough that I didn't care which version of it was real. I don't think the movie was anything groundbreaking, but was visually stunning and consistently entertaining.

[stevew]

Chronicle 7/10
Decent bit of found footage/teenager sci-fi. It's appropriately the correct length(80ish minutes) and doesn't really take itself too seriously.

[Honolulu_Blue]

Stake Land - 7/10

This is available on Netflix instant. It's a low-budget post-apocalyptic film. It's set in the U.S. after a plague of vampires has pretty much wiped everything out. There is no explanation for how the vampires came around, but the world is pretty much fallen apart by the time the movie starts. The vampires in the film are animalistic. They don't really think, but are just after blood. Other than that, the "regular" vampire rules are in play, sun light kills them, stake through the heart kills them, but also burning them and/or chopping their heads off.

It's a good post apocalyptic film. Very bleak and depressing. It's a bit of a road trip movie too, with a vamprie hunter simply known as "Mister" and a teenage kid he saves heading north to "New Eden." It's about their treck north and what the world's become.

I enjoyed it, even if it falters a bit at the end.

[JediKooter]

Originally Posted by stevew

Chronicle 7/10
Decent bit of found footage/teenager sci-fi. It's appropriately the correct length(80ish minutes) and doesn't really take itself too seriously.

Wow. I couldn't stand that movie. Probably the worst movie that I saw last year. I didn't know people liked it, haha!

[chadritt]

It actually got mostly really good reviews, though they almost all said they'd rather have seen the non shaky cam version, and jumpstarted a bunch of careers.

[JediKooter]

Originally Posted by chadritt

It actually got mostly really good reviews, though they almost all said they'd rather have seen the non shaky cam version, and jumpstarted a bunch of careers.

I saw some of the reviews too and was shocked. I thought the acting was horrible, especially the kid that 'went bad'. I went with my friend and his two daughters and afterwards they were as unimpressed as my friend and I. It had potential, but, I think the people that really like the movie were ON chronic.