Utopia Talk / Movie Talk / !! Movie Reviews pt1000 !!

Cherub Cow Member	Tue Jul 22 22:50:00 Whatcha watchin'?
Damian db Moderator	Wed Jul 23 07:15:53 a forums slow decline into death and obscurity
Cherub Cow Member	Wed Jul 23 10:04:00 All of Utopia, maybe, but Movie Talk's activity has been strangely consistent since Mehul launched it ;p
pillz Member	Wed Jul 23 11:58:21 TMNT theme song: http://www...=player_embedded&v=zss1EHSuT1A
tumbleweed the wanderer	Wed Jul 30 15:45:57 some woman enjoys the '50 Shades of Grey' trailer more than anything i've ever enjoyed in my life :/ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a3jJN8CeqxY
pillz Member	Sat Aug 02 01:01:08 Saw The Guardians of the Galaxy. Well worth it. Really good movie overall, with high and low points. I had unrealistically high hopes for it, and while it may not dethrone Star Wars, it should please everyone. If there is a God, he will give us a directors cut version.
damian db Moderator	Sat Aug 02 08:27:02 yes.. GotG did not disappoint me at all. as a fan of the comic versions of the characters they fairly well nailed it. my one gripe was the portrayal of the Nova corps, but meh, they didn't really matter in the movie. I AM GROOT!
pillz Member	Sat Aug 02 08:54:56 I was happy that they sort of followed the A:C plot to bring the team together. Arrested criminals with no hope thrust into a desperate mad dash to save the galaxy.
Cherub Cow Member	Sat Aug 02 22:23:43 Does Chris Pratt take his shirt off.. or.. no?
Forwyn Member	Sun Aug 03 02:39:46 http://ass...1392821575_chris-pratt-441.jpg Yes. Now go see it.
Cherub Cow Member	Sun Aug 03 02:43:07 :o
McKobb Member	Sun Aug 03 02:55:51 I enjoyed GotG. Made me miss mix tapes. Playlists just aren't as personal.
McKobb Member	Sun Aug 03 03:49:40 I'm going to Into the Storm next week. Not my kinda movie but they like tornado flicks so I'll go along for the ride.
Cherub Cow Member	Sun Aug 03 15:32:00 It looks kind of fun! Twister was good, and it's been a while..
Cherub Cow Member	Sun Aug 03 15:35:48 On imgur, someone called me out on my review of Godzilla. Having a fun argument meow :D http://imgur.com/gallery/C8w8bmC (if you actually go to read it, you have to "expand all", click "show bad reply", and then click the plus signs.. might be more work than it's worth) ;p
Cherub Cow Member	Sun Aug 03 15:49:46 Aw :( .. I think it just ended. Must have gotten bored. It was fun trying to explain difficult ideas in 140 characters or less
McKobb Member	Sun Aug 03 19:28:53 'No You!' works.
Cherub Cow Member	Sun Aug 03 19:31:41 Yeah! And I'd even have characters to spare! ;p
Damian DB Moderator	Mon Aug 11 12:07:49 so while on a plane to brazil, I watched divergent, because nothing really interested me... that was just.. bad... so bad....
Cherub Cow Member	Mon Aug 11 15:38:02 Wasn't it?!?! It was just ridiculous! I mean, I enjoy that theme of there needing to be a balance between disciplines (sciences, politics, arts, etc.), but jumping off of trains and cheering, climbing on random crap in a lame version of parkour, and trying (and failing) to make that seem like serious military business ... I just hope that Hollywood stops sampling indiscriminately from these stupid teen novels.
Damian DB Moderator	Mon Aug 11 18:38:11 not only that but any faction based on intelligence and logic would see the fundamental flaw in having an army/peacekeeping force as just mindless zombies. "this group is for the fearless people ready to jump in and protect the innocent... except not any more.. oh and this other group which is about caring and compassion? let's just kill them all" and wanting to kill the divergents because they promote human nature because they are different.. ummm, throughout history being different has always been persecuted, you're following human nature by killing them off. oh yes, and while 2 of the factions are working to kill the 3rd the other 2 factions? yeah just missing all together "you guys do whatever, I'm farmin' over here" also if you are having a faction based system, why would there be 1 head of government from 1 faction? wouldn't you want your government ruled be a committee, 1 member from all 5 factions. 5 is a good number for those type of decisions. "and sorry you can't see your parents again now that you are a different faction" erm.. you live in the same town, it's going to happen. it was just.. ugh it irritates me it made me think this much of how much was just wrong with this movie. generally after seeing some of these movies, like the hunger games, I want to read the book. everything I have read said the book is actually worse than the movie, so I think I'll skip it.
Cherub Cow Member	Mon Aug 11 20:59:46 ""and sorry you can't see your parents again now that you are a different faction" erm.. you live in the same town, it's going to happen." I know, rite??? Pretty much -every- -single- situation of this story was manufactured to make a thematic point, and so poorly so that it confounds logic. Hunger Games -sort of- had this problem because it was a watered-down dystopia (friendly and less threatening than an Orwell 1984), but Divergent rolled with bad plot devices like it's cools. And I feel the same way on the books; I was willing to buy and read the Hunger Games books because I wanted to know if the author had an idea of the world she was making, but for Divergent it's just clear that it was thrown together like an R.L. Stine "Fear Street" or something. It seems like the producers were trying to make "fetch" happen -- it's *not* going to happen.
Damian DB Moderator	Tue Aug 12 18:23:48 so apparently my roommate watched this movie at some point. he said "I liked the movie". so I start rambling off everything I found wrong with it and finally he said "well.. guess you're right, I didn't really think about it" so I guess to enjoy this movie your brain needs to just be missing. I'm really interested in seeing a CinemaSins "Everything wrong with" about this movie now... probably wouldn't beat dragonball evolutions 22 minute time but hey, you never know.
Cherub Cow Member	Fri Aug 15 04:30:55 That's something I can sometimes understand (not overthinking), but it has its limits... Like, sure, some movies were made for pure spectacle (Godzilla, Avatar..), so maybe just turn off your brain, right? — not quite. I still think a movie has to earn its suspension of disbelief, and some movies definitely do better than others. And someone might respond, "yeah it's ridiculous; it was a movie about [insert respective movie's remove from reality here]," but that's a cop-out, because mere unreality might not be the problem; problems come from not controlling the logic of that farcical world. Like in Divergent, it continously undermined its own system with writing that didn't consider its own logic. When that's going on, it should not be enough to view the spectacle and then mentally disengage. And worse still, its own spectacle was too stupid to be overlooked. Kids laughing and jumping out of trains and then going to learn how to kill.. it doesn't make sense. It shouldn't have been produced and the book probably shouldn't have been published.
Cherub Cow Member	Fri Aug 15 17:00:35 Did you see Into the Storm, McKobb? .. thinking about going
McKobb Member	Sat Aug 16 06:57:37 Still in the works, just not yet.
Cherub Cow Member	Sat Aug 16 07:25:12 saw it :p was pretty hilarious. Over-the-top/melodramatic acting, but somehow enjoyable :D
McKobb Member	Sat Aug 16 07:35:38 Hopefully not too much shakey ccan.
Cherub Cow Member	Sat Aug 16 08:12:26 They were actually really good about that. They pretended to do the found-footage thing a little bit, but everyone was using tripods and stabilizers, and when no characters were around to hold a camera they just had one filming anyways (like a normal movie)
dakyron Member	Mon Aug 18 21:01:28 Saw expendables 3 last Friday. Loved the first two movies but number 3 was so excruciatingly... boring. Everything was watered down and lame. Explosions were poor CGI, stunts were CGI, they brought in annoying new characters. It felt like it lasted three hours. Sad, because it could have been great.
Cherub Cow Member	Tue Aug 19 00:28:17 That's a shame :( The CGI was distracting before (some sort of comic/safe look they were going for?), but while the first two were "R", Expendables 3 was PG-13.. so it must have been especially toned down..
McKobb Member	Tue Aug 19 20:36:09 Into the Storm was better than I thought it would be. Kinda cheesey but it kept my attention. I live in an area that has tornados every year so living out a scenario through film was fun. When I was a kid a small twister relocated our shed to another neighborhood, lol We never found the duck that lived in it..
Cherub Cow Member	Tue Aug 19 21:26:23 Probably flew away and became a folk sing-ger? ;p Yeah it was fun! It was just the right amount of bad, making it good :)
McKobb Member	Tue Aug 19 21:41:06 Just found out that they are shooting a film here in September about a black kid during segregation that dreamed about drinking from a whites only fountain. The last film shot here since 1979. Looks small time so who knows if it will be picked up.
Cherub Cow Member	Sun Aug 31 00:16:40 Quick reviews: - A Most Wanted Man: I liked most of this, but Robin Wright's character was the weak link in an otherwise realistic attempt at a spy thriller. The major narrative was that Günther Bachmann's (Philip Seymour Hoffman's) counter-terrorism group was attempting to create human connections to prevent "another 9/11" but that other agencies were undermining those efforts with a "just send in the SWAT"/rendition approach, where potential terrorists and terrorist sympathizers were 'disappeared' rather than converted. So I thought that Wright was a weak link because her character was on the inside and capable of understanding, but she ended too blatantly cavalier. This made the message of the movie too obvious: it wouldn't necessarily be the fault of people who understand but do it another way anyways, it would (I think) be instead those who understand but have no power or don't understand and have power. They set up the story for that nuance, but they seem to have gone with a less ambiguous ending where Wright became an obvious villain, which let the writers make their statement on U.S. foreign policy but the cost was that they portrayed an individual source of the problem (that one character could betray) rather than a systemic source. - Lucy: Fun and weird :D .. Always happy to see Luc Besson in the director's chair. This movie had plenty of his ability to seamlessly transition from funny to thoughtful to artistic to serious, this time tied together with his version of the bio-technological singularity, where he guesses at how someone might handle 5th dimensional awareness [and beyond?]. It was sometimes difficult to separate Scarlett Johansson's bad acting (particularly her attempt at seeming increasingly intelligent) from her character's growing disconnect from human experience, but I thought that the story around her was too strong to be broken. I'll stop there because this movie draws on lots of other movies and ideas, like Limitless (2011), Transcendence (2014), Mon oncle d'Amérique (1980), 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968), etc... so I want to wait until I can make gifs and stuff :D - Expendables 3: Pretty good, aktly. When it came to Ronda Rousey's lines, there was bad writing (they gave her the catch-phrase, "men," which seemed like it was from an old concept of a strong female character), but the story was better than Expendables 2, I thought. In Expendables 2 it was a weakly made vengeance story following Liam Hemsworth's character's death, but this one was about Stallone's character facing someone from his past (Mel Gibson), which had more dimension to it — including an almost futile attempt to tell himself apart from his villains. And I didn't think the effects were an issue, but that would be because it was PG-13 and they didn't have any of the CGI gore effects of the last two movies — they just didn't show anything. So, kind of a loss to not have ultraviolence — which was a sort of promise of these movies — but between badly done CGI gore and no gore at all.. personally I liked the latter, just because CGI gore was pretty distracted. Still, have to wish that they'd invest in a non-CGI effects studio :/ - As Above, So Below: Good horror! This reminded me of some of the things I liked about my favourite horror movie, Event Horizon (1997), but being a new horror, it was of course done in found-footage fashion. The Event Horizon elements were that characters were assaulted by images from their darkest pasts, which I like because memories of visceral human experience keep people from moving beyond the senses, even when sense becomes lost. [Oddly enough?] the movie also seemed to take some elements from "Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade" — particularly the archaeological journey, following a father's journal to solve riddles in an unknown space, a search for a most-important item, a guardian Templar Knight, etc... and that was combined with some of "National Treasure"'s tricks, like the hidden message on the back of a historical item (yes "a historical" — I hate "an historical" and other forced "an" + [non-vowel sound] agreements! :p ). This will be another movie (like Lucy) that I'll have to look at again out of the theater, because a lot of thought was put into it. - The November Man: Bond returns! Sort of :p .. Pierce Brosnan gets to play spy again, this time when his character has been activated and placed in the middle of a power play wherein many of a Russian leader's past contacts have been killed to provide an apparently spotless record. Can't help but see some parallels to the Bourne series within this movie, and because the Bill Granger "There Are No Spies" novels don't seem to have wiki pages [yet], I can't tell if the Bourne movies' deviations from the books were really sourced from Granger.. but if they weren't, November Man seems to borrow from the start of The Bourne Supremacy, where, like Bourne, Devereaux (Brosnan's character) attempts to flee to safety by car with someone he loves but that person falls victim to a sniper's bullet while she sits in the passenger seat. Then Devereaux, like Bourne, turns his attention against his employers, having to use only personal resources to find the truth. But similarities start dropping off from there. Brosnan's character doesn't mind killing or playing sadistic games, which makes sense in a world where morality has been blurred. He does appear to have a conscience, though, and his one lesson to his adversary and former trainee seems to be that young people can't just let themselves be victim-soldiers of other person's politics and manipulations, and that each decision has a consequence that even an individual following or not following orders should consider. Olga Kurylenko also did very well in this, though there was one scene where Brosnan puts his hand on her face and she couldn't hide her discomfort :p .. it was a pretty weird moment, so it was an understandable break of character. Anyways, I liked it even though the ending sequences got a little messy story-wise :)
Cherub Cow Member	Sun Aug 31 11:49:38 Has anyone seen the new Sin City? I was boycotting because Lady Gaga might have been paid to be in it, but I'm wondering how much of it she was in...
McKobb Member	Tue Sep 02 11:28:54 I would like too, but prolly not.
Cherub Cow Member	Mon Sep 15 00:37:16 The Drop was really good. Tom Hardy's acting was almost like Alec Baldwin level. And I think most of the peeps here would like it too; it was a realistic, modern mob story. Directed very well. Def see it! trailer: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7lCiDIcqMe0
Hood Member	Mon Sep 15 01:04:32 "Lady Gaga might have been paid to be in it" This is a good reason to boycott anything.
Cherub Cow Member	Tue Sep 16 15:35:39 It's why I might not ever see Machete 2 :( ..at least not legally :p Some people should not have money, and I think that Lady Gaga should not have money even moar than I think that Michael Bay should not have money.
Cherub Cow Member	Sat Sep 20 16:05:53 Seeing Maze Runner today. Looks okay :p Zero Theorem tomorrow!
Cherub Cow Member	Sat Sep 20 18:22:12 Maze Runner was really fucking stupid. It was another teen movie made for pop culture loving idiots, and I'm not even sure they would like it. And apparently it's going to be a trilogy. I can't believe the crap that gets produced. Anyways, Tusk looks funny enough for a view :) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=60EUG-CDC_k ..sort of Kevin Smith's version of Human Centipede
Cherub Cow Member	Sun Sep 21 03:34:01 A Walk Among the Tombstones (2014) ... Was okay. Not quite worth seeing though. I liked its police procedural style, but that sort of degraded after a while in favor of dramatic flares. It seemed like the movie was trying to make some minor political statements about how mass fears disguise the real dangers of society. Specific to that, even though the origin book was published in 1992, this movie's writers chose to begin in 1991 and then flashed forward to a "present" 1999, where the backdrop of the story was the Y2K scare. In several scenes characters would read papers with various disaster headlines presented to the camera, and at one point one of the killers — while reading such a paper — mentioned something like, "people don't know what they should -really- be afraid of," which was of course that character referring to himself, but it was also meant in a wider sense ("we have enemies much closer, even if less sensational"). The movie also ended (not a spoiler) on a pan up shot of the New York City skyline, complete with a digital rendering of the Twin Towers — an effect similar to that of 2005's Munich. In Munich's case, it was meant (at least partly) to put a cap on Eric Bana's character's fears. He was unable to sleep and lived in constant paranoia because he worried that someone would come for vengeance. Showing the Twin Towers was a way to say that that vengeance did arrive, even if indirectly, because the horrors that people put out into the world have a way of returning to them through transformed enemies. But in the case of "Tombstones", the message wasn't necessarily like Spielberg's message of "see, U.S., this was self-inflicted". Given the AA 12-Step Program references in "Tombstones", the message seemed more towards the optimistic, redemptive side. In a way it shows characters "sobering" themselves to the world in which they live and then attempting to admit to and correct their former shortcomings — the timeline not necessarily showing that the events of the movie -lead- to a metaphorical or real 9/11, but instead expecting that modern viewers would see beyond the internal structure of the movie, whereby viewers could be conditioned to feel a similar need for redemption or moral recovery in the present. Or not. This movie had certain, potential subtleties that could mix interpretations (like that it maintained 1992 novel plot elements while making modern statements), and the "God"-based nature of the twelve steps can color perspectives on the movie with all sorts of atrocious thoughts like, "faith in God will save the West from terrorism" or whatever. Even removing the movie from its political undercurrents, the 12-Step logic does more harm than good, especially when they were listed dramatically, because mentioning "God" at that point in the movie was like contriving another fictional character for the ending moments when that particular character was not really present earlier in the script. It weakens the message, and it minimizes the scope of the story. So Anyways.. it was a fair movie, but didn't really have a great deal to offer. At least it wasn't painful to watch, like Maze Runner (wow that was bad).
McKobb Member	Sun Sep 21 03:52:14 Tusk could be scary, I wouldn't want to die in Canada either.
Cherub Cow Member	Sun Sep 21 04:08:25 That's the worst part about it all!!! ;D
Cherub Cow Member	Sun Sep 21 22:45:23 Zero Theorem was good. Worth seeing. It didn't say as much as I was hoping, but it was still really well done. I'll probably see it again before I say much more :p
McKobb Member	Mon Sep 22 14:41:40 Gimme more than that!
Cherub Cow Member	Tue Sep 23 01:04:34 I might just have to! The theater where I saw it only showed it this weekend and already pulled it (limited run indy theater), and my local corporate theater won't be showing it, apparently... at least not for a while. So I'll have to write things down before I forget them :p
Daemon Member	Sat Sep 27 13:06:58 Saw "Moebius" yesterday http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RDLFcqUehVE This is a film only for men, women lack the penis to enjoy it. It's a Korean film, but no words are spoken. Sex and violence, but no porn. It's one of the worse films of Kim Ki Duk, but still better than 99% of all other films.
McKobb Member	Sat Sep 27 14:42:56 http://youtu.be/073nqGYPAco
Cherub Cow Member	Sun Oct 05 18:11:48 Dolphinately see Gone Girl! ((non spoiler)): The first hour I was like, "okay.. this has been pretty straight forward and kind of painful," but once the "twists" were out of the way, it kept going and made itself really interesting. Lots of commentary on the court of public opinion (Nancy Grace included), the new bourgeois, and the ugly enablings of feminism. I'm actually pretty surprised that this was a pop culture movie, and I can only guess that it managed to be popular because most of its commentary was somewhat hidden — maybe most people would only think of it as a mystery or "who dun it?" crime thriller movie. Anyways, not -incredible- so don't misjudge my positive review :p .. but dolphinately worth seeing
Cherub Cow Member	Mon Oct 06 00:00:41 The Equalizer was both really good and really cheesy :D It's by director Antoine Fuqua, who directed one of my favorite movies — The Replacement Killers. Fuqua does really great work with action, Equalizer being no exception. Many many compliments for his direction :p Still! I think where the movie falls over lines into cheesy would be where you consider how impossible all of it is :D .. and that's fine, but it's a comical mix. (( Minor spoilers, nothing specific )) Most of the beginning seems grounded in some semblance of reality, but gradually it moves into superhero territory. Like the big explosion at the end... kind of makes you wonder where Denzel's character went for access to enough explosives to blow up such a large boat :D .. and then the final shootout.. was essentially at a Home Depot. Difficult to take that too seriously :p .. then later, he basically kills -everyone- (even superboss), which really breaks the world. And! Then he goes back to the same place he was living before — as though that could ever possibly be safe for him after everything he'd just done. Lots of stuff like that was happening. They really stretched the plot further than they should have or else they overlooked the consequences of that plot stretching. I understand their intention — a twist on the everyday hero or the reawakened, useful veteran — but some of the writing decisions were weird :p But I liked it :) Despite stretching into Denzel God-Mode (Man on Fire x9000), it was a fun movie
Hood Member	Mon Oct 06 03:16:38 Saw Lucy last night. That phone call to her mom really bothered me. It was like "hey look I'm totally a normal person..." and just so awkward that it needed to stop. And her mother never once thought that her daughter was high as a fucking kite with the shit she said? Also that ending sequence. It could have been believable if they didn't have the gang lord stand there for what seemed like hours. But the whole "building tension" just ruined it for me. Other than that, it was a bit cool I guess. Wasn't -bad-.
Cherub Cow Member	Mon Oct 06 20:16:02 I kind of liked that phone call! :p That was where she was realizing that she'd be losing her emotive ego to her mind, which she knew was developing a self-directed fatalism that would soon calculate a lack of value in non-chosen human connection. So she needed to do what human things she still could — the most important being nostalgic thanks to the most direct mechanism/source of her existence. Besson followed that up later when Lucy spends time with Pierre, and she basically tells him that even though he serves no practical purpose, she wants him around to "keep [her human/grounded]" (or something). That also framed her whole ascent; release of nostalgia, choosing of human connection (since pure, non-human ascension is meaningless), acknowledgement of original source (the original Lucy, whose consciousness gave humanity meaning, but who at the same time Besson realizes was -given- that historical meaning by modern Lucy, both metaphorically, and in the movie, practically).. So anyway! The scene was important, but if you mean Scarlett Johansson's acting, then dolphinately — she was all over the place and I wish that Besson had not chosen her for the role. Movies like Under the Skin show that she -can- still act sometimes, but most of the time she phones in her whole life. I think she ended up in the role just because there don't seem to be many pop actors with Besson's wit, but that being the case, he should have looked for alternate casting to -find- someone and chosen against box office returns. He might be becoming too practical.. :/
Cherub Cow Member	Mon Oct 06 20:17:19 "And her mother never once thought that her daughter was high as a fucking kite with the shit she said?" Oh and definitely on that too. I kept waiting for her mom to say something like, "is everything okay?" but I don't think she did.
Cherub Cow Member	Mon Oct 06 20:36:01 Oh, Annabelle was good, btw. It had some nice new horror devices (the elevator scene especially) and did a really good job controlling the audience. I thought I'd made a mistake seeing it at a crowded time — and the peeps were definitely crazy — but after the first 10 minutes they were totally into it. That is really uncommon. (( SPOILER )); They messed up the conclusion, though. Whether or not they meant to, they made a really poor decision with Evelyn (Alfre Woodard from First Contact). She was the only black person in the movie, and she died to save the family, which would be way too easy to narrativize as, "oh, yeah, because black people need to be dying for rich white people, riiiight." That didn't even make sense, either. Annabelle-demon wanted a sacrifice, but why give it one? If anything, that's the -last- thing you'd want to do. I think they should have gone for the tragic ending or else changed Woodard's motives.. (( End Spoiler )) The movie also had a bunch of religious elements, but they were presented in a non-abrasive and non-preachy way (unlike Deliver Us from Evil), so it was fine. Really, I wouldn't even mentioned that if it wasn't for "Deliver".. Blerg — so a nice start to October horror madness :D
Cherub Cow Member	Mon Oct 06 20:37:10 *wouldn't even [have] mentioned
Hood Member	Tue Oct 07 00:20:26 It wasn't that the significance was a problem. It was how the entire scene played out. She was being operated on, took a chinese doctor's phone. Made an international call on his phone. Said the most awkward things ever to her mom, who didn't blink an eye to any of it, all for what? It didn't deliver anything of value. Despite the purpose of the scene, it simply didn't deliver. And I don't think better acting would have made the scene work, at least for me. The writing for that scene just didn't do it. "I can feel all of your -insert large number- kisses on my cheek at once." Really? This is not how robots try to cling to their humanity.
Cherub Cow Member	Tue Oct 07 01:38:12 "it simply didn't deliver." All the meaning was there, which is why I'd argue for poor delivery on Johansson's part. The script was also melodramatic at that part (and some others), but again, those things can be saved by an actor's work — she might have read Besson's lines word for word instead of making them her own. I think even the 'kisses on cheek' line falls into this — really painful and melodramatic, but given treatment by a better actress.. But we seem to be right at opinion here ('like it or hate it;' nothing to convince), so I'll just say that I thought most of the acting and/or dialogue in the movie -was- painful, but that the frame under it was still good and had some nice thought put into it. *shrugs*
Hood Member	Tue Oct 07 02:19:26 That was really the only dialogue that actually bothered me. As someone who has literally witnessed my emotions slowly disappear (vs. drastic, I guess), you don't really focus on the little things. Kisses on the cheek, sounds inside the womb? It isn't the type of thing you would focus on. Now, the fact that she's experiencing all of these again? Certainly cool factor for the whole brain evolution thing. But they could have brought that aspect out in a better way. And yeah, definitely opinion on that scene. :p
Cherub Cow Member	Thu Oct 09 22:21:15 But only opinion as far as whether that scene was effective! :D .. Not whether or not the purpose of that scene was supported by the rest of the movie, because its purpose was entirely supported, so difference of opinion would just be whether or not that purpose was presented -well- (my opinion being that the structure supported well but Johansson clouded that structure) :p And it wasn't that her emotions were disappearing (really, they weren't), it was a loss of an emotive -ego-, which was to say that as the mind becomes empowered the body and emotions can be de-prioritized such that decisions come from self-directed practicality (personal survival and personal manifestation) instead of decisions from familial connections. So it wasn't that a part of her was shutting down or being turned off (because of course the movie was all about turning more and more of the mind -on-), it's that she was at a turning point where she realized all of her emotions and past (all the little details) and could recall them all at once, but she knew that those details would eventually be synthesized in a way which would know that immortality doesn't require physical family, it requires mental expansion — which the movie explored through its plot of searching for immortality; in the biological singularity, the mind manifests itself, but it still makes its decisions with a foundation in its memories of human significance. ..Part of the issue could be that the movie highly referenced Mon oncle d'Amérique, which had a lot about the brain trying to expand despite of or in pair with its emotional connections..
Cherub Cow Member	Sat Oct 11 19:25:21 Dracula Untold (2014) ... Yeah it was pretty meh. They had really good costuming and some nice sets to make things look and feel real, but almost all of the fights were basically just Vlad turning into bats and knocking things over. The bats were at least out of focus enough that it didn't seem like the Langoliers, but it was just empty — all these real armies basically swatting at CGI flies. Not even R flies, but PG-13 flies. There were only a few situations where real contact was made, and I guess the director didn't bother to work with the fight choreographers to make them interesting. Charles Dance and Luke Evans were at least nice — very good casting there; they really made the atmosphere of the movie work. But even so.. story was lacking, and they seem to have made it a Captain America (2011) type situation where they used this movie to give the character a history but where the movie itself was only a waste of time setup for some franchise that they have planned. So this movie ends up feeling like some empty history biding its time for the story that they saved for later. Money writing.. Not worth seeing at all, at least not until before the next movie and only then if you feel like brushing up on story background before being disappointed by something else.
McKobb Member	Sun Oct 19 00:19:40 Just saw God's Pocket, Seymore Hoffman's last offering before happy needle time. I actually enjoyed it. It's set in what looks to be a 70's composite city district called god's pocket, probably extracted from hell's kitchen about the trials and plight of undereducated unwashed faces of it's population and their internal animosity and mutual disdain for outsiders. Mix in a little macabre weekend at bernies for lols.
Cherub Cow Member	Sat Oct 25 21:00:23 John Wick was really good! The writers address the cheesy character motivations (how Wick's on a rampage because of a dog and a car, lulz..) and that -sort of- helps their cause, but not really :p ..Still, whatever — really great action, style, and even the soundtrack (with Marilyn Manson and Tyler Bates). It was also fun to see Keanu Reeves in a sort of "Determinator" role: http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/Determinator Def worth seeing — lots of fun :D
McKobb Member	Sun Oct 26 00:04:32 Sounds like my grandmother, lol
Cherub Cow Member	Sun Oct 26 01:05:03 "I will make the BEST PANCAKES!!!!" ?? :D
Cherub Cow Member	Sun Oct 26 04:35:36 Autómata (2014) ... Was really stupid. It tried really hard to be something important, sampling visuals from Blade Runner, principles from Asimov, William Gibson, and even exact plot points from "I, Robot" (like a cop who was bitter towards robots but had mechanical limbs), but mostly it was just an empty attempt at showing a posthuman transition/existence. And aside from the bad direction, terrible scoring (seriously bad music choices in many/most scenes), and B-level acting, the writing stayed so far behind the portrayed circumstances that you'd have to pretend that this was an -entirely- separate reality where people were all mentally deficient or lacked any kind of real world experience. For instance, by the end of the movie people were -still- surprised by self-aware robots... Move. On. It had a lot of attempted symbolism and things that -would- be worth talking about -if- it hadn't failed so terribly at presentation and plot — but it did. Like, yeah, it's interesting that the memories of Jacq Vaucan (Antonio Banderas) became empty signifiers of a human existence (much like how in Blade Runner Deckard's memories may not have even been real, and so memories became phantoms of humanity), and it -could- also be interesting that the harshness of the universe would disband the survivability of biological consciousness, but all of these concepts were covered by such terrible and melodramatic filmmaking that it would be best to get them from other sources.. Anyways, so much was wrong with this movie that I almost want to make a project out of picking it apart, but this was enough, I think. Just bad.
McKobb Member	Sun Oct 26 04:46:05 To die dyou have to alive first!
Cherub Cow Member	Sun Oct 26 13:18:27 lulz, they kept saying that! :D At one point one of the robots says it back to Banderas and you could tell it was supposed to be really significant because it was supposed to be witty human thought from an underestimated machine (plus, Banderas had said it earlier and so "oo! the reversal!") but with Melanie Griffith's bad delivery and the obvious music choice in that scene... sooo bad :p
Cherub Cow Member	Sun Oct 26 16:14:04 Ouija was okay, but no reason to see it. I found out afterwards that Michael Bay produced it, so I just gave money to Hollywood Satan. Still, that meant that it -did- have a full budget, including nice set control, good makeup effects, consistent directorial style... but it also had a bad script with weird plot or reality inconsistencies. (( Spoiler )) Like, for instance, near the end they discover that they need to cut stitching from the daughter's mouth in order to stop the mother, so they go and do that (find her body, cut the string). But.. instead of calling the Police and telling them that they just found a child's dead body, they just go right back to normal life. They clearly needed this for later, because they find out that they just unleashed the girl (who was actually evil — sound at all familiar? Exact plot to "The Ring", maybe?), so they need to destroy her body and the Ouija board to be free... advice, which, by the way, they received from a grown adult. Yes, an adult told them to destroy the body of a murdered girl. (( End Spoilers )) So anyways, whatever. A lot of the scenes had these little oddities carelessly mixed into them, but with a strong budget the movie managed to give those oddities a glossy finish. Because of that, it wasn't -terrible-, but still just another mediocre movie.
Cherub Cow Member	Tue Oct 28 23:49:19 Fury was really good; very intense. Brad Pitt takes his shirt off. That must be in his contract but it's okay. That child from Percy Jackson wasn't too terrible and I'm willing to reevaluate Shia LaBeouf. I think the internet hate has finally caused him to be a little more humble. Zac Efron could benefit from that.. or a disfiguring car accident.. but that's off topic. See movie!
Cherub Cow Member	Sat Nov 01 20:33:58 Nightcrawler was great! I was smiling for pretty much the whole movie :D It was basically Jake Gyllenhaal being a lovable sociopath for 2 hours .. ascending like a future CEO into a profession that rewards terrible people for being the people that everyone secretly needs or benefits from >:D Anyways, def see it if you like dark movies!!!
Cherub Cow Member	Sat Nov 01 20:51:41 And "Before I Go To Sleep" was fun too (though maybe not -as- fun, having just seen Nightcrawler!). It had some nice things to say about memory and identity, and also had some commentary on abuse and becoming strong after living in a world where certain truths remained hidden by perceptual limitations. It also managed to be a good mix of drama, thriller, and horror, probably because it was based on a cohesive story (same name book, written in 2011). + a random thing, I noticed that the beginning seemed [almost?] directly borrowed from the beginning of Resident Evil, where Milla Jovovich opens her eye and the camera rotates and zooms out. For "Before," it was Nicole Kidman's eye and she was on her other side, but still very similar. Apparently this movie isn't doing well, but that doesn't make sense. It had a lot of layers and manipulated audience expectations. Whatever. Always remember that Rotten Tomatoes gave the Katy Perry movie a 78% rating. Always. Remember. -That-. ;p
Cherub Cow Member	Sat Nov 01 20:54:49 Oh, I just read some of the rotten comments. http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/before_i_go_to_sleep/ Makes sense why they gave it bad rating — they judged it entirely by its plot details. Fucking idiots.
Cherub Cow Member	Sat Nov 01 20:56:57 Okay, I just reminded myself why I don't read this garbage. These people shouldn't be paid to write movie reviews, though I guess getting paid to write movie reviews makes it clear that you're just another pop culture clone
Cherub Cow Member	Sat Nov 08 16:07:07 Just a partial review of Interstellar for meow: It was pretty good and worth seeing, but I really don't think it should be compared to Space Odyssey or otherwise over-praised. Space Odyssey was made through carefully constructed cinematic language, and although Nolan is a good director, he's probably not on that level. Interstellar -did- have heavy symbolism, but it was more from its stated script (actual dialogue) not its cinematography, so viewers could easily know what's going on in this movie without looking to cinematic devices. Being a long movie about space travel isn't enough; so that comparison is useless and uninformed. And of cinematic devices: definitely lots of effects and theatrics, even the obligatory filming in Iceland. Still, it seems that most of the emotionality of the movie doesn't come from the effects or even the Hans Zimmer music; it was from the sometimes troubled attempts at merging distinctions between simple/familial love and a species-wide imperative, where the hope was to have one coincide with the other — these things embodied in father-daughter exchanges. Nolan tries to make love itself a lofty force of nature (comparing it to gravity in its breaking through "dimensions" both symbolic and literal), but personally I thought that his opinions were too based in pop sentiments to the extent that love was made mythical and thus too easy to praise, which fits for a movie that wanted to supply optimism beyond unknown thresholds. In short, I think that Nolan has again used universal themes and immersive methods to appeal to pop audiences, but that his ideas may be short of the depth he feigns. But, I do think it will be worth saying more when I have more time.. Blah, but anyways, it was still a good movie. In numbers, feels like an 88% or something ;p
Cherub Cow Member	Sat Nov 15 21:03:11 "Dumb and Dumber To" was lolz :D I think they did well moving around expectations that people might have about the movie, and they weren't too referential to the other one; they themselves admitted to having a series of familiar plot devices (the ending montage put each new device against the former device), but finding things funny didn't depend on FamilyGuy-style reference, so most of the situations felt new and spontaneous. Sometimes I felt like Carrey and Daniels were having trouble falling back into their roles, but if that was an issue then it was a minor one. It was also kind of strange to see them sort of time capsuled into the future, because you could maybe see how much things have changed with how seriously people take everything meow, but that was part of the lulz, so :p Anyways! Stay after the credits if you see it! Only a few people did at my theater, which makes me wonder. Very much lolz :)
Cherub Cow Member	Sun Nov 16 19:41:21 "The Theory of Everything" was beautiful :') It's the one about Stephen Hawking, with Eddie Redmayne from "Pillars of the Earth" (he was the architect in that miniseries) and Felicity Jones from "Amazing Spider-Man 2" (she was Felicia). It was a Focus Features movie, which really has a lot to do with how well-presented it was. Seems like I complement every one of their movies :p But on to the story! I'm sure that most of the harsh realities of caring for someone with Lou Gehrig's disease were glossed over (though it did show some), so this movie cannot claim realism on that front, but its portrayal of love was really beautiful. Jones' character (Jane Hawking) was really given a lot of credit, being willing to stay with someone despite the practical difficulties of the illness, and the movie tried to show the positive effect that that kind of spirit could have. Each time she was given a "cold truth of science," her character recognized that current science cannot [yet?] write the script for the future. One of the movie's/story's models might have been that religious faith could sort of "finish the equation" of understanding (given that the movie was based on Jane Hawking's version of the story and that she was religious, that could easily be the narrative), but I think there was a definite, non-religious narrative there too. Comparing "Stephen Hawking's having changed theories several times" with the concept of love, all the scenes where science was given that "cold finality" could also show that science needs to proceed with an open mind, otherwise it follows its own foolish dogma. So, while you could read a religious message into this story, you could also read it right back out. There was also a lot on the subject of having a full experience of life, where when the characterized Stephen was completely immobile, he nevertheless allowed the threat of an affair into his life, seemingly recognizing that there was both a practical necessity (help raising the children) and a human need (Jane not being some artificial nun who could simply lock her life away). This speaks again to it being a nice love story, because it showed the idea that people can love each other while understanding each others' full desires and needs, rather than repressing and resenting each other for the denial them — not a typical story for mass cinema. So! A surprisingly emotional look at love and life, with all of Focus Features' poetic realism. Would recommend, even though I accidentally saw this while thinking that I was about to see that Kiera Knightley & Bean-duck Cummerbun movie ;D
Cherub Cow Member	Sun Nov 16 19:46:37 That was really confusing for me, btw! :D They showed the preview for "The Imitation Game" and I was like, "that's weird... they're showing the preview for the movie that's about to play" but then the movie started and I was like, "okay, I'm here already, so.." :D ... I might be seeing too many movies
Cherub Cow Member	Sun Nov 23 05:32:55 V/H/S Viral ... Terrible. All of it. Just terrible. This was the third movie in the V/H/S franchise, featuring relatively new or unknown horror directors in short films (about 20 minutes each) held together somewhat by a central premise... Although -most- of each of the first two V/H/S movies were really bad, they -did- manage to show some novel elements, like maybe one director did something right — an effective low-budget effect or a story that could be worth expanding upon. V/H/S 3 didn't have any of those silver linings. It was pretty much all bad. The only thing it might have had going for it was its light commentary on "viral" video culture, which they showed destroying people figuratively (because, in the case of the movie, physically) by assigning negative outcomes to the people whose lives were all about recording instead of living. Each story took on a different variation of that.. Sadly, despite that purpose, each of the directors were terrible and their stories were written impractically. Then throw in the usual standards of bad acting that horror viewers can expect anyways, and it becomes painful to watch and in many cases repetitive. [I'll add to the individual short films tomorrow] Dante the Great Really terrible acting, and stupid, predictable outcomes. Bad direction that didn't observe its own found footage rules. Could have been a good idea, but delivered poorly. Parallel Monsters Bonestorm Vicious Circles
Cherub Cow Member	Wed Nov 26 03:38:34 I really liked the new Hunger Games. Dolphinately my favorite so far. I think I'll even see it again soon. Before watching I was ready to fault them for removing plot details from the second book in order to save them for the third movie, but it doesn't look like they just saved them — they were removed altogether. That might sound bad, but it let them make more important points stand out for this one. I was a little surprised (and this was revealed in the first 10 or so minutes, so not really spoilery) that they decided to bring Effie Trinket (Elizabeth Banks) into the mix (she doesn't appear again in the books until much later), but I think they realized that they needed to finish work with her character. I was happy that they fixed some of Suzanne Collins' poor language choices. The big one was that in the book there's this whole stupid thing where everyone in District 13 has to call each other by designators like "Soldier [Blah]," "Cook [Blah]," "Potato [Blah]," etc., but the movie only used "soldier" as an address once, and it wasn't "Soldier Everdeen" it was just "Soldier." Then there's the song. Collins wrote this really bad poem/song in the book which she basically analyzes right after presenting (so Collins analyzes her own poem, via Katniss). It was built on a poor rhythm and has a kind of forced dramatic effect or imposed significance. Anyhow.. the movie did a far better job at making it sound okay. It still sounded a -little- awkward, but I think they made it work well. I won't detail all the other changes, but I'd summary to say that they basically fixed a great deal of Collins' written failures (not to say that everything omitted was necessarily a failure). Still, given book knowledge, one critique I have of the movie was that they might be leaving too much for the very last one when it comes to showing the big differences between Gale and Peeta. To this point in the movie-verse, Gale still seems pretty great, but he really shouldn't. The screenplay might be attempting to make the decision between them seem more dramatic later, but if they don't clear things up on-screen then it might just seem like some fancy of random passions. Still.. this might be wasted words because they haven't finished their version yet. Now why I really liked it!: They brought across Katniss' emotions much better in this one. In the second there was that short dose when Peeta almost dies, but for this one we finally get to see good portrayals of Katniss' realizations and thoughts. There were some really effective moments, and even though I don't typically like Jennifer Lawrence's acting, in this movie her performance stood out. I think they might be playing catch-up with her relationship with Peeta, but again, could be something for the last movie.. So! Yeah, -can- fault it for the cash-grab aspect of them needlessly splitting it into four movies, definitely. But taken with that aside: good things :)
Cherub Cow Member	Sat Nov 29 00:15:59 The Babadook (2014) ... Kind of an okay look at the terrors of single parenthood. trailer: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=szaLnKNWC-U About Seven years after losing her husband in a car accident on the way to delivering her first child, Amelia is sick of her kid's shit. Then she reads him a mysterious children's book called "The Babadook," which makes the kid even more annoying. Rawr Nice direction; they were good at aligning the Babadook horrors with the growing levels of fatigue and depression, merging the two. This also meant that there wasn't anything particularly worrying in the movie, though, so I found myself waiting for moments of clarity where the movie would show the results of a night of shenanigans. After the middle they decided not to do this anymore, and by the end the characters had gone into a kind of remission. The mother and child ended up "feeding" the Babadook, which I took to mean that they had both realized that they each felt a "present absence" which they needed to acknowledge but not give into. In that way the movie shows a lot about cycles of self-destruction.. those days where sleeping for absurd numbers of hours seems too natural, where all external stimuli might be either hated for imposing its order or rewritten into some dream narrative. This movie shows those states very well, with the horror genre being a means of communicating it abstractly. Makes me think of this: "In a morbid condition of the brain, dreams often have a singular actuality, vividness, and extraordinary semblance of reality. At times monstrous images are created, but the setting and the whole picture are so truthlike and filled with details so delicate, so unexpectedly, but so artistically consistent, that the dreamer, were he an artist like Pushkin or Turgenev even, could never have invented them in the waking state. Such sick dreams always remain long in the memory and make a powerful impression on the overwrought and deranged nervous system."
Cherub Cow Member	Sat Nov 29 00:17:23 *where all external stimuli might be either hated for imposing [their] order
Cherub Cow Member	Sat Nov 29 18:34:08 Horrible Bosses 2 was pretty much a waste of time. It had a couple okay moments, but that's not saying much. Might be worth watching on Netflix or something, but it's a waste of time in the theater
Cherub Cow Member	Sun Nov 30 03:02:07 Honeymoon (2014) ... 2001's Impostor does apply; this movie uses a plot of alien replacement to explore some posthuman questions, like whether or not human identity can even be defined. The idea of a "honeymoon" and its transition away from a static past or static memories was used; basically, if the normal honeymoon trope is to ask, "who did I marry?" when confronted with alternate identity states (usually just disappointing realities), then in this movie the question was expanded, asking how -any- identities could be known — in present, future, or even past... If the present is a transition state, the future unknowable, and the past uncertain, then attempts at certainty or constancy only change semblances of reality, creating more irreconcilable conflict. The husband, Paul, tries to know for certain if Bea is his wife, but she's always becoming something else — she is even forgetting what it means to be human. That kind of reflects ways of being today, where a transience of identity has to be accepted to attempt to know oneself or others and where attempts to impose solid identities can be a futile or even dangerous gesture. Anyhow. This turned out to be a fair treatment of posthumanism, though given the relatively recent release of "Under The Skin," this movie may not be strong enough to be recognized. Still, that comparison aside, this was a nice movie with some compelling treatments.
Cherub Cow Member	Tue Dec 02 23:45:44 Watched Hunger Games Part 3 Part 1 again! I still like it, but the acting was definitely bad in a lot of parts. There were also some plot points that were more painful the second time.. like when one of the districts storms the capital's hydroelectric power plant with bombs.. They basically just sprinted into gunfire. I know that resources would be scarce, but even if it's probably going to be a suicide mission they could still maybe bring some makeshift wooden shields or something. Anyways, have to ignore things like that for this franchise. They really had to fix -a lot- of Suzanne Collins' bad writing, so they deserve some credit. No fun to have to wait another year :(
McKobb Member	Sat Dec 06 00:08:19 I need to see a film. Been too busy lately but I'm gonna make up for it starting next week! Any suggestions?
Cherub Cow Member	Sat Dec 06 00:29:43 Just don't see Horrible Bosses 2! :D (srsly though, not worth it) Even though I didn't like Interstellar a lot, if you haven't seen that you should probably consider that first.. But/Or/Next! (2) "Theory of Everything" for an emotionally beautiful and just well-done movie http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x8QYUgO-tZo (3) "Nightcrawler" for the dark adventures of a fun sociopath! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UPawRAHG-0g Because Hunger Games can be skipped until next year, that's my personal order of importance for meow, though it depends on what you might be in the mood for :)
Cherub Cow Member	Sat Dec 06 00:31:14 Oh but if it's not until next week, Exodus would be the obvious choice.. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t-8YsulfxVI
McKobb Member	Sun Dec 07 11:08:43 Probably see that Saturday. I'll become an exudite for a day.
The Children Member	Thu Dec 11 09:33:57 maze runner not bad, some guy wakes up with no memory whatsoever and he gets placed between a group of kids in a similar situation. they r inside some sort of maze and then they try 2 escape. ending is a bit wacky, i dunt really get it. apparently they r in some sort of test/ games? worth watchin if ur bored though. hm maybe 7/10 The hobbit 3 soon XD
Cherub Cow Member	Thu Dec 11 12:03:15 "ending is a bit wacky, i dunt really get it. apparently they r in some sort of test/ games?" That annoyed me to no end :| Didn't know much going in but was hoping that it was a stand-alone movie, but it's just another teen trilogy :/ Hobbit hobbit hobbit!
McKobb Member	Sat Dec 13 02:21:45 So Scott treated Exodus with plausible denial of divinity except a whole lot of coincidence. I mean a whole lot. Like throw a dozen coins on a table and they all land on the rim in a perfect dodecagon with heads facing you.
Cherub Cow Member	Sat Dec 13 02:54:39 That happens all the time! ;) Still odd to me that Scott has claimed to be atheist but has been becoming partial to religion in his recent movies. Can't tell if it's just new faith in old age ("[I'm getting old.. maybe should give myself options if the afterlife exists]"), or if he's just lost control of his directorial abilities..
McKobb Member	Sat Dec 13 03:06:25 The 3D was decent, more so in the int shots imo
Cherub Cow Member	Sat Dec 13 03:31:47 Do you think the 3D was worth paying for for this one?
Cherub Cow Member	Sat Dec 13 03:32:00 (probably seeing tomorrow)
McKobb Member	Sat Dec 13 03:43:49 Normally I don't do 3D but it was that or wait an hour and a half. That said I did enjoy it, it wasn't the battles that were awesome but the sets really drew you in. The little things like smoke coming off the brazier was almost distracting.
Cherub Cow Member	Sat Dec 13 05:06:40 "it was that or wait an hour and a half" That might be the case for me too; my theater only has two non-3D showings, both at bad times.. 3D it is! ;p
Cherub Cow Member	Sat Dec 13 22:27:29 Exodus was pretty okay. Obviously well-produced. Lots of impressive crane shots and visual effects. Kind of meh storywork. At least Moses looked like an idiot. I liked that he had a sort of Joseph Smith moment where Zipporah (spouse) was like, "you got hit in the head and have become a lunatic. Maybe relax a little," but at the same time, there were dolphinately too many godly scenarios for it to seem like it was impartial. Scott didn't introduce much doubt, so it ended up being a call to faith.. Also, I really didn't care much about any of the characters, and I think maybe that Scott didn't really bother exploring anyone too deeply. I'm going to guess that they cut a -lot- of scenes.. Blah. Visually fun, mostly meaningless though.
	show deleted posts