list/discuss/rate - your recently watched movies

watched Jaws last night.. for the 1000th time...   and still .. was on the edge of my seat..  A master's course in film making...


though I must add...  AMC ran the whole Jaws 'series' yesterday..  has there ever been a worse movie made then Jaw 3 .. in 3-D...  watched on a puny 20 inch T.V. screen to boot... at least I ..watched it while catching a buzz on a nice bottle of Pinot Grigio. 

MisterProg2112 wrote: _popupControl(); I watched Jackass 2 for the first time in months..you can only watch it once in a while or it gets old, it's hilarious though

I ..I'm sad to say...seem to  have missed that movie

micky wrote: MisterProg2112 wrote: _popupControl(); I watched Jackass 2 for the first time in months..you can only watch it once in a while or it gets old, it's hilarious though I ..I'm sad to say...seem to  have missed that movie

I watched the German film Antibodies last night. Horrifically dark (and I mean dark, not just gory), so much so that I found myself repulsed at times. Brilliant serial killer characterisation, and all of the acting was top notch. A couple of references to Silence Of The Lambs, but not really derivative per se. Very, very strong, lots of powerful motifs, and a satisfying end. If I were a father, I would not have been able to watch it.

9/10. Rare that I see a film so successful with the dark feel and interesting at the same time.

Youth Without Youth - so this is the first movie Francis Ford Coppola has made in over 10 years? wow what a pile of refuse! I liked the idea of this film; a 70 y/o man who is struck by lightning ages 30 years in reverse which enables him to continue his life's work: the origin of language and consciousness. But the delivery was so uninspiring and dull I couldn't fake any interest in what was going on. also forcing out a love story 2/3's of the way into the movie was not a good idea. it became an emotional tar pit of [/yawnz], it was a very pretty movie and you could tell he put a lot of effort into this film...but sorry botha...I'll stick with Thee Godfather (I must be harsh) - 2/10

Death at a Funeral - this British farce was a nice change of pace from the drag of the previous movie, at least it was entertaining and brought a few lolz - 6/10

The Last American Hero - seeing this movie nearly 40 years after it was made it kind of plays out like a period piece which portrays the early days of Stock Car Racing before it inflated into the corporate monster was all know today as NASCAR. this movie also stars a young Jeff Bridges and a younger Gary Busey as his little bother, pretty entertaining, Im definitely not a race car fan but the 3 races that were in this film were well filmed and very loud and intense - 6/10

Hearts of Atlantis - eh, this was kind of a trying movie - a coming of age story by Stephen King with a paranormal twist and a whole of of sap! I can't help but think "this has been done before, even in other King movies!" and yet its another movie that pushes that same ol' nostalgia of the 50s being a more innocent time with all the key elements present: songs, styles, slang, etc....[/yawnz] the whole movie coasts along without any real high points, and it end up being very sappy in hallmark channel sort of way. it's supposed to pull on your heartstrings but when it finally ends nobody cares...and why the hell was it named Hearts of Atlantis anyway? never made the connection, boo! - 3/10

Children Shouldn't Play with Dead Things - finally got around to seeing this schlocky classic, pretty goofy and somewhat eerie, it reminded me of Weekend At Bernies meets Evil Dead in a way...the way they kept hauling around that corpse. the best part about the movie though was the audio quality, I loved the noddling of cheap synthesizer melodies and bizarre noise FX, all very primitive and abrasive sounding, maybe something Conrad Schnitzler would have tinkered around with in the early 70s - (2 for the movie, anther 2 for the great sounds) - 4/10

Focus - seemed like a satirical story about a man who is mistakenly tagged as a Jew by his neighbors, it was set in Brooklyn during WW2, (I don't think it was supposed to be satirical but it sort of came off that way, hmm) mildly interesting story but near the end is really the only time I thought it started getting any real traction, but all of a sudden it ends abruptly. seems like there should have been more, oh well - 4.5/10

I just watched Al Pacino´s documental Looking for Richard. Highly recommended!

Not that I think any of Romero's movies are all that good compared to stuff like 28 Days Later, but this one was fun, and not as boring as Dawn of the Dead. This one assumes the zombie apocalypse has been going on for a long time, probably around a year or so. The rich and powerful have control over the army and mercenaries, and control food and guns. Everyone else fends for themselves or works for the elites. It's an interesting spin on the zombie genre, but it's really not discussed as well as it should have been, only enough to get the gist of things, in pure mindless horror flick fashion. The zombies are evolving too, eventually learning to operate guns and communicate, but only in the most primitive, dumb fashion. It too is another interesting take on the genre, but it comes across silly because only one guy seems to learn the stuff first, then teaches the others, which seems stupid to me. Also the ending, in which the zombies, instead of being killed, are left to find their own way in life just like the remaining survivors, makes no sense at all, and leaves many problems. Oh well, it was entertaining. 6/10


An interesting character study with nice pacing and plot. Hoffman does an excellent portrayal of Truman Capote (I assume, lol) and is a very fine actor to carry the film like he does. Not much action here, and it's an intellectual drama, which is something I don't usually go for, especially when there's no action and it's all talk. But interesting, nonetheless. 7/10


Haha. An excellent parody of horror movies. It is pretty funny at times, and keeps your interest throughout, but the acting is expectantly not perfect. It can be hard to take it as a parody and a serious film at the same time, so I'm not sure what is purposefully funny or unintentionally funny. There is an acoustic remake of Don't Fear the Reaper in the background at one time, which rocks. I like the 2nd one more. 6/10

The Orphanage - 5/10  Ever had the feeling of deja vu? This movie is something like that.

First off I'd like to say that The Orphanage was not a BAD movie. It does not make its thrills based on gore the way so many hollywood thrillers do these days. It gets all the rules...(read more) right and hits home in all the right places. However, that is just the problem. The Orphanage recycles every trick that has been done in the horror movie genre so many times before. It does it so often and so many times in the same scene at times that I just found myself groaning. The movie is practically a walking cliche.

The movie starts off with the classic happy family, nothing seemingly wrong routine of horror film openings. Of course we get the kid who spends most his time associating with children who in fact, only he can see, and his parents don't believe him. What a surprise! Does The Shining come to mind, anyone?

Of course about 20 minutes into the movie we are thrown into the conflict. The son is missing and his mother, the protagonist of the story, is torn from his disappearance and makes a mission to figure out what happened to her son. 15 minutes into this movie I already predicted the course of the remaining hour and a half. I just hoped I had been wrong. Unfortunately, I wasn't.

SPOILERS NEXT PARAGRAPH

Early in the movie the son describes to his mother a game in which his "friends" have him play where they steal a treasure of yours and leave you clues to find it. When you find it then they grant you a wish. So, this basically serves no purpose at the time of the film in which it's introduced, so what does that mean? Foreshadowing? Hmm... So the mother is going have to play a treasure hunt and when she finds what she's hunting for what will she wish for? Her son back? Duh. Could the screenwriter honestly have thought of a more predictable ending? Give me a break.

SPOILERS DONE

Anyway, The Orphanage is one cliche idea after another. When the mother starts believing the ghost stories, what would you expect to happen? Maybe she'll call upon some ghost experts or psychics? Bingo. Can anyone say The Excorcist? We also get everything from children's whispering to camera angles shot from behind the back just waiting for doors to close. Nearly every move this movie makes can be seen 10 minutes before its occurrence. There's even a sequence where Laura investigates a narrow tunnel that I just can't help but be reminded of Alien. We get the exact same camera angle the exact same feeling to go with it. The director must have done his research, because everything is just ripped off of horror classics that innovated its ideas.

Another problem this movie seriously suffers from is the lack of any real threat of danger. The only conflict we are given is the strange disappearance of Laura's son. There is never any reason for the spirits of the orphans to be threatening at all. And they never are. Only a few times are there ever any disturbing images to go along with them.

The only way I can see this movie getting praise from so many people is that #1 - they have not seen any horror movies pre-2000 or #2 Guillermo Del Toro produced it. Wait a minute - PRODUCED not DIRECTED. There's a difference.

I'm sorry, this movie may not have been a stereotypical slasher, but it borrowed all of its techniques from the classics that did it so much better.

Yeah Orphanage was a huge disappointment for me.

I just watched Jean-Pierre Jeunet's A Very Long Engagement and am at a loss for words right now. Film just overwhelmed me. He exceeds my expectations every time. Might write a more detailed review later, but at the moment I give it a 10/10.

Definitely see it. It's quite different from Jeunet's other movies, but it's still excellently well-crafted. Damn Jeunet really knows how to tell a story.