Last Movie Watched.... The Xenforo Edition

Discussion in 'Movies, TV and Music' started by Val1, May 4, 2012.

  1. metroflip73

    metroflip73 Member

    Mar 3, 2000
    NYC
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    Saw the Avengers yesterday. I liked it. I felt however that Scarlett Johansson and Jeremy Renner's characters were meh.
     
  2. nicodemus

    nicodemus Member+

    Sep 3, 2001
    Cidade Mágica
    Club:
    PAOK Saloniki
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    [​IMG]
    BEFORE YOUR EYES (2009)

    Kurdish film about a brother and sister that were orphaned after their parents were killed by paramilitary forces in eastern Turkey. The kids eventually become homeless after their aunt that cares for them disappears and they're forced into a life of mere survival. Needless to say, it's kind of bleak. The film was quite controversial in Turkey and the director was forced to distribute it himself because no distributor would touch it (despite it winning several awards.) Pretty intense, but the performances by the children were pretty great.
     
  3. Nacional Tijuana

    Nacional Tijuana St. Louis City

    St. Louis City SC
    May 6, 2003
    San Diego, Calif.
    Club:
    Seattle Sounders
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    [​IMG]

    Best Exotic Marigold Hotel (2012)

    Slow to start, but pretty good movie. Life may not end up how you once envisioned it, but it can still be good...maybe even better. Best if you open your mind.
     
  4. Ismitje

    Ismitje Super Moderator

    Dec 30, 2000
    The Palouse
    Club:
    Real Salt Lake
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    [​IMG]

    BBC version of "State of Play," which we taped off of PBS back in December. It was an absolutely terrific miniseries. I am glad we watched the minsieries rather than the two hour movie with Russell Crowe and Ben Affleck - the story benefitted from the 5+ hours to evolve. Everyone was terrific.
     
  5. spejic

    spejic Cautionary example

    Mar 1, 1999
    San Rafael, CA
    Club:
    San Jose Earthquakes
    [​IMG]

    Fly Me (1973)

    Three airline stewardesses, for three unconnected reasons, get involved with a drug and prostitution syndicate run out of Hong Kong, Tokyo, and Manilla, which happens to be the stops on the airline route they are taking. It also happens to be the unlikely itinerary of the bone doctor (he he) who helps save 66.66% of them from forced prostitution.

    There's a unmatched joy that comes from exploitation films done right. The inventiveness, the brashness, the music, the look of the scratched film stock, the fashion, the attitudes, the unfinished edges. There is just a certain energetic vibe of the 70's. And there's also the meta-experience of seeing the underdog win. These films, with their savagely limited resources, have all the odds stacked against them.

    Well, this wasn't done right. There's basically 30 minutes of story. To fill in the sparse 77 minute movie, there's sightseeing, lots of agonizingly racist Italian-American "humor", and bewildering kung-fu scenes. Yes, the stewardesses who was looking for her missing fiancée (actually the head of the syndicate) was constantly attacked by kung-fu artists and she'd "fight" them off. I didn't get it.

    Came with The Arena. More involved summary, with clips:
    http://www.avclub.com/articles/fly-me-1973,67638/
     
  6. General Disarray

    General Disarray Legendary

    Jul 7, 2005
    Columbus
    Club:
    Columbus Crew
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    [​IMG]

    "Harness energy, block bad..."
     
  7. Nacional Tijuana

    Nacional Tijuana St. Louis City

    St. Louis City SC
    May 6, 2003
    San Diego, Calif.
    Club:
    Seattle Sounders
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    I just came back a few minutes ago from First Position (2012). It was a documentary of sorts about several older children in ballet and their families. Kind of out of my element, as I attended my first ballet in December. But it was very engaging!

    [​IMG]
     
  8. Belgian guy

    Belgian guy Member+

    Club Brugge
    Belgium
    Aug 19, 2002
    Belgium
    Club:
    Club Brugge KV
    A Bird of the Air (2011)
    Dir. Margaret Whitton

    [​IMG]

    A romantic comedy about a sad loner who gets shook out of his solitude by the chance acquiring of a mysterious parrot and the young (slightly mousey but nevertheless attractive) librarian who helps him discover the bird's origin. The movie might have its heart in the right place, but it's just not very good. The messy ending especially made no sense whatsoever. It's amazing how many screenplays fail in the most basic aspects, like having the characters remain true to their pre-defined nature, as well as their individual story arcs.

    The movie's best scenes are the ones that are directly linked to the old parrot's past, and they feature a series of unknown veteran actors who simply reminisce about the time when they owned the bird. In other words, they could have used more scenes where the bird's story was the main focus.
     
  9. usscouse

    usscouse BigSoccer Supporter

    May 3, 2002
    Orygun coast
    I enjoyed the TV series as well. They did a realistic job.
    Didn't even know there was a Crowe, Affleck movie....thank goodness.
     
  10. Belgian guy

    Belgian guy Member+

    Club Brugge
    Belgium
    Aug 19, 2002
    Belgium
    Club:
    Club Brugge KV
    John Carter (2012)
    Dir. Andrew Stanton

    [​IMG]

    This thing finally made it to the little theater around the corner, so I went to watch it on the cheap. As someone who isn’t familiar with the source material, I found it to be a huge mess. The dialogue is cringe-worthy but that doesn’t necessarily have to be a problem for a campy sci-fi action flick. The plot is one of the poorer retellings of the Hero’s Journey I have seen recently. The two leads have zero chemistry, which is a problem for a couple who are supposed to fall for each other (almost) from the instant they meet. And the action sequences are just not that good. Some of them even borrow heavily from sources that weren’t even that great themselves (the arena scene near the end is heavily indebted to a similar scene in “Attack of the Clones”…). I’m afraid this movie failed miserably at the box office because it deserved to fail.
     
  11. Belgian guy

    Belgian guy Member+

    Club Brugge
    Belgium
    Aug 19, 2002
    Belgium
    Club:
    Club Brugge KV
    By contrast, this stuff tickles my geek-bone very much:



    Too bad it never got made for real!
     
  12. Val1

    Val1 Member+

    Arsenal
    Mar 12, 2004
    MD's Eastern Shore
    Club:
    Arsenal FC
    :thumbsup:
     
  13. usscouse

    usscouse BigSoccer Supporter

    May 3, 2002
    Orygun coast
    Light weight but passable fare last night with "We Bought a Zoo"
    [​IMG]

    Damon, Johansson and the supporting cast were quite good. (Johansson, quite good...:rolleyes: ) The little girl, cute as all getout! And the bratty son, did well. Reminded me of me and my relationship with my dad when I was in my 'late' teens. Fortunately he got smarter with age.

    Well worth the two hours of our lives.
     
  14. kcscsupporter

    kcscsupporter Member+

    Apr 17, 2002
    D17
    Club:
    Sporting Kansas City
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    watching johansson sitting on a bench just twiddling her thumbs for two hours would be worth your time... well, for me it would, at least.;)
     
  15. nicodemus

    nicodemus Member+

    Sep 3, 2001
    Cidade Mágica
    Club:
    PAOK Saloniki
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    Maybe I need to revisit that movie, but "bratty" strikes me as an odd description of the son. His mother has recently died, he's been uprooted from his friends and the city life he knows and is having to shoulder a large share of the burden in raising his sister. That's a lot for a high school freshman to deal with. I didn't find it surprising that he became attitudinal.
     
  16. Belgian guy

    Belgian guy Member+

    Club Brugge
    Belgium
    Aug 19, 2002
    Belgium
    Club:
    Club Brugge KV
    Into the Abyss (2011)
    Dir. Werner Herzog

    [​IMG]

    Gripping documentary, which felt very much like "In Cold Blood"s cinematic cousin. It helped that Capote's novel was still fresh in my mind as I reread it just last year. Herzog uses an objective identification and simple retelling of the pair's crimes - through the eyes of law enforcement officers, the victims' family and the killers' friends and acquaintances - to humanize the criminals without trivializing the horror of their acts. In one particularly powerful scene, the sister/daughter of two of the victims identified the executed criminal as looking like "a boy" as he was strapped into the gurney. A boy he was, but also a cold-blooded killer who denied his crimes right up to the very end.

    Herzog is not so much arguing that these two men do not deserve their punishment (he states quite the opposite at one point) as he is labeling the act of capital punishment itself as dehumanizing and cruel to all involved: the prison personnel (the two most powerful testimonies come from the prison chaplain and a guard captain), the families of the executed, the relatives of the victims and society as a whole. Michael Perry is the one who gets executed, but his partner in crime Jason Burkett is the one who seems to have the most hopeless back-story. Both his father and his older brother are serving life sentences as well, and he appears to be a young man who never had a real chance of escaping the cycle of violence and crime that permeated through his entire family.

    Herzog manages to keep the more poetic aspects of his personality in check here, even though there are a few instances where they boil over. When the guard captain tells his "dash" story, you'll realize who is at the helm. :)

    In the end, it's a documentary I would warmly recommend to anyone, regardless on what side of the fence you are on in terms of capital punishment.
     
  17. usscouse

    usscouse BigSoccer Supporter

    May 3, 2002
    Orygun coast
    Bratty, under the circumstances prolly too strong a word. If you followed what I said about my dad you might have got it that I wasn't serious. It was a long time before I could have a 'real' man to man conversation with him and get to tell him I really loved him.

    Got to admit that in the movie he was shown as somewhat self centered, didn't help much with his sister. Sat around scibbling in his book, didn't lift a hand to help out or get involved, basically sneered at the zoo, his dads idea for it, his sisters love for being there, the girl who liked him and the people who worked there. Then one might think that if you open a box of snakes and got a shock that you might want to close the lid after you, not let them free and kick them out of spite when you're asked to help put them back.

    Attitudinal could cover it. :)

    The movie made it right though. My wife and I like to hike on Dartmoor when we're back in Engerland, prolly going to have to visit the Zoo now that it's famous.
     
  18. nicodemus

    nicodemus Member+

    Sep 3, 2001
    Cidade Mágica
    Club:
    PAOK Saloniki
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    That's fair. I forgot about some of that stuff since it's been a while since I've seen it. I forgot about the snakes thing, which was incredibly stupid.
     
  19. usscouse

    usscouse BigSoccer Supporter

    May 3, 2002
    Orygun coast
    We all knew it was a movie, it was always going to come out right in the end and they'd all live happily ever after..:)

    Might have to pick up the book of the real life story. In real life he and his wife bought the zoo together, then she got sick! Mee, the guy telling the story, says he got on really well with Damon.
     
  20. nicodemus

    nicodemus Member+

    Sep 3, 2001
    Cidade Mágica
    Club:
    PAOK Saloniki
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    Norwegian Wood (2010)
    Dir. Tran Ahn Hung

    [​IMG]

    I went into this film with a ton of expectation. A nearly immeasurable amount of expectation. First, I love the Haruki Murakami book the film is based on and Murakami is one of my favorite authors. Second, I'm a huge fan of director Tran Anh Hung. His film The Vertical Ray of the Sun is one of my favorite films ever and some of his other stuff like The Scent of Green Papaya and Cyclo are excellent as well. Third, the score was written by Jonny Greenwood of Radiohead...one of my favorite bands. Lastly it took about a year and a half for this film to be released on DVD after its initial release abroad.

    Three of my favorite artists collaborating together in one film? Expectations through the roof. I'm sad to say that it didn't live up to the hype I'd built for it. Tran Anh Hung's script didn't live up to the voice of the book, nor was the character of Midori developed well at all. I know it's hard to adapt a book to the screen, but there were just glaring omissions that made me feel like the people watching it with me that hadn't read the book might not even understand what was going on in the movie without some explanation. Jonny Greenwood's score was heavy-handed at times at didn't seem to fit with some of the shots. The music was fine, but it just didn't fit with the film.

    It wasn't terrible by any means, but it didn't even remotely do justice to the book. Tran Ahn Hung has considerable gifts as a director, but I wonder if there was difficulty filming considering he and the cast don't share a language? I remember also being incredibly disappointed in Kar Wai Wong's foray into directing a film in English given that he only speaks Chinese. Perhaps that was part of the problem with this one as well.
     
  21. Val1

    Val1 Member+

    Arsenal
    Mar 12, 2004
    MD's Eastern Shore
    Club:
    Arsenal FC
    I've wondered for years for movies based on books, esp books that we like, seem to be so hollow. And I've learned from GringoTex that many, many good movies have been based on books. But you may have hit the nail on the head here, in that a great book is going to give you such expectations that you cannot help it.

    For instance, Psycho is a book. A pretty unremarkable book, and I doubt there are many people who read the book first and then went to see the movie. On the other hand, Dune is one of the greatest science fiction works, and whenever Joss Whedon gets around to making the film, he's going to have almost crushing expectations.

    When you love a book so, it must be truly harder to watch a movie that doesn't meet the book's standard.
     
  22. spejic

    spejic Cautionary example

    Mar 1, 1999
    San Rafael, CA
    Club:
    San Jose Earthquakes
    [​IMG]

    i ♥ huckabees [2004]

    What a thoroughly enjoyable movie. I like how it feels so light even though it deals in some big themes.

    The key to the movie is how people get around. No, really. The detectives walk. Vauben drives in a car. Albert and Tommy ride bikes, which is between the two extremes. (There are three important times that Albert walks, but I don't want to make this too long.) No other character moves through outside space on screen. No one. Their transitions in space are started or ended or implied, or they are seen stuck in traffic, but never moving. Vehicles are certainly mentioned and important symbolically. Brad's initial impression is mentioning his Mercedes, as is the religious family by their SUV. And it isn't accidental that it's Brad's waterski's that Albert torches.

    The non-movement is important in labeling the positions of the characters. Brad's pragmatism, the African guy's family's religiousness, Albert's parents' consumerism, the firefighter's duty - they all represent some static form of avoiding philosophical questions. Brad's shedding of his role happens around the time he leaves his stuck-in-traffic car and runs. He thus begins the path of crisis -> question-> meaning -> contradiction -> nihilism -> unthinking -> absurdism -> hedonism -> consolidation just as Albert is ending it.

    I like the chalkboard thing. It holds an image of the connectedness of all things, and it's pattern keeps getting transferred to the avatar of connectedness, Bernard. But when Albert gives up the path of connectedness and goes to steal the file, the board's diagram has become disconnected and fragmented in Vauben's style.
     
    nicodemus repped this.
  23. Belgian guy

    Belgian guy Member+

    Club Brugge
    Belgium
    Aug 19, 2002
    Belgium
    Club:
    Club Brugge KV
    Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy (2011)
    Dir. Tomas Alfredson

    [​IMG]

    Enjoyable spy flick, though I was left a little disappointed after reading so many glowing reviews. Its main strength is its cast, which is fantastic all around, right down to the tiniest of supporting roles. Oldman was rightly praised, although I felt he overdid his character's understated style in some scenes. I believe we were 18 minutes into the movie when we first hear Smiley talk, which is quite a feat considering he is in a lot of the early scenes. Having said that, I believe the stellar cast made many critics overvalue what is essentially a pretty straight-forward spy story. One that isn't quite as realistic as it was made out to be. I suppose it's more realistic than a Bond flick, but that's putting the bar really, really low.

    The movie is slow-paced and lacks huge bursts of actions, but it goes a bit far to equate that with a realistic spy thriller. A more apt description would be a spy thriller that finds most of its thrills in the slow cat & mouse game and the dialogue. But many aspects of the story are also ludicrous, when you stop to consider them. (I'm going to stop knocking it in vague terms before I claim it insists upon itself :D)

    I would very much recommend it, but 80% of that endorsement would be for the craft of the men and women on screen. They all seem to possess an effortless class, right down to Toby Jones' trollish little "Tinker".
     
  24. yasik19

    yasik19 Moderator
    Staff Member

    Chelsea
    Ukraine
    Oct 21, 2004
    Daly City
    [​IMG]

    Eh - not my thing.
     
  25. usscouse

    usscouse BigSoccer Supporter

    May 3, 2002
    Orygun coast
    Watched "Winter's Bone" tonight. Dark, gritty, movie of a 17 year old girl looking after her mother, brother and sister in the Ozarks, while trying to find her father.
    [​IMG]
    Exceptional performance by Jennifer Lawrence as the 17 year old. I've only lived in the western States here in the US. I forget that places like this exist. Yeh, I know this is a movie but life there just has to be bleak.​
    "Ree Dolly (Jennifer Lawrence), 17, looks after her catatonic mother; her brother, Sonny (12), and her sister, Ashlee (6). Every day, Ree makes sure her siblings eat, all the while teaching them basic survival skills like hunting and cooking. The family is very poor - as an incident where the family dog is fed with stale food demonstrates (one of several incidents where someone is thrown a "bone"). Ree's father, Jessup, hasn't been home for a long time and his whereabouts are unknown. He is out on bail following an arrest for cooking meth.
    The sheriff tells Ree that if her father doesn't show up for his court date, they will lose the house because it was put up as part of his bond.Ree sets out to find her father, following his trail into a world where meth use is common, violence is frequent, women are scared of their men, and people are bound by codes of loyalty and secrecy. She starts with her meth-addicted uncle Teardrop (John Hawkes) and continues on to more distant kin, eventually trying to talk to the local crime boss, Thump Milton. Thump refuses to even see her; the only information Ree comes up with are warnings to leave the situation alone, and stories that Jessup died in a meth lab fire or skipped town to avoid the trial."
     

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