list/discuss/rate - your recently watched movies

Captain Capricorn wrote: I recently watched The Fall...an amazing film, very much in the vein of Burton's Big Fish...highly recommended for folks into fantasy & epics.

The Man Who Wasn't There. Great movie, if a bit overtly long. The subplot with Scarlett Johansson could have been a bit shorter and it wouldn't have much of an effect, though the movie provides a rather amusing explanation of that later on. I liked that there were no heroes and villains, and it was impossible to say who was the good guy and who was the bad guy. A lot of effort was also put into the craftsmanship side of things, with the cinematography being absolutely great if a bit too "flashy" to look that much like the fifties crime dramas of which it's a pastiche.

Religulous, three opposable thumbs up.

Just a guy asking questions of people who don't have really good answers, funny though they are.


Edited by Slartibartfast - March 01 2009 at 19:19

 ^ I'm still amazed no one ever mentions Barfly, a tour de force for Rourke

Stander (2003) - first scene of this movie was amazing, the huge protest turned into a riot in South Africa (approx 1970s)...it was expertly filmed and seemed like I was watching a newsreel rather than a choreographed action sequence, after that it turned more into a 70s style shot-em-up bank robber movie, check it out if you're into that sort of thing, but I got bored about half way through, 4/10

Dr. Who and the Daleks (1965) - me and the gf have been watching the new Doctor Who episodes (as well as many of the old ones), well this was a feature movie and the first Doctor Who ever filmed in color. First thing Doctor Who fans will notice is how unfamiliar all this seems...basically its a movie that's completely out of canon with the Doctor Who universe. Its a reinvention of DW and man does it stink. Even Peter Cushing who plays the Doctor, does a piss poor job of it...you'd think he'd play a sly and witty version of the Doctor but he just ends up playing a bubbling professor instead. The Daleks stunk in this too, for one they weren't menacing in the least, and so easy to defeat...all you had to do is spin them around! eh, really bad man I definitely would not recommend to fans of the show or non fans of the show, this might have been appropriate for a good MST3K'ing though, 2/10

Gas, Food Lodging (1992) - okay I guess, very early 90s, Fairuza Balk in this movie is very pretty, I don't think she's looked as adorable in any of the other films I've ever seen her in, 4/10

13 Tzameti (2005) - this movie seems to be divided into 3 parts, the first: which on the outset seemed boring as hell. The second: masterful! if I can rate that segment alone I'd give it a 9/10. The third: seems like it should have gone on longer, like there should have been more story that led into something even more epic in scope. I didn't hate the ending (and maybe it was the most appropriate way to end it), but I would liked to have seen it build to something more grand, or take an even more absurd twist at the end. After the brilliant second act (and even the slow first act falls into place more comfortably afterwards) the third act was quite the let down. 7/10

Speak (2004) - for a modern teen/highschool movie coming out of Hollywood this was actually refreshing. At first I thought this was going to be a typical Juno type of movie with the more witty-than-thou banter. But it turned out to be nothing of the sort. It was a fairly mellow movie, even though the over all crux of the movie was a bit harrowing. The teenagers acted like real teenagers, the adults/teachers acted like real adults/teachers...even though there was a bit of stereotyping it was never overboard nor impractical. The movie was well paced, it had a lot of time to breathe without ever really dragging and I really felt sympathetic towards the lead female character. One thing I will say about the staring actress, Kristen Stewart: the more gussied up she is with makeup and primp, the less attractive she becomes. With no makeup and flat straight hair playing a pale plain-jane waif; her natural beauty shines through so much more that way than it does when she fouls up her looks with all the glamor. Anyhow, I liked this movie and it turned out not to be an insult to my intelligence like so many other of those nowadays teen-dramadies. 7/10

I watch two films earlier that were on Film 4.

The Guinea Pig (1948) (with a young Richard Attenborough) -- he plays a working-class schoolboy put into a public school as an experiment.  I won't spoil the ending but it's not bad for an early post-war film.

The Seance on a Wet Afternoon (1964) (with an older Richard Attenborough starring and producing) -- this is quite a creepy film to watch in the afternoon/early evening.  Again, I won't go into too much detail but Attenborough plays the weak-minded husband of a somewhat domineering wife (Kim Stanley) who had a still-born son.  She also is a medium and has her own seances.  She gets Bill (Attenborough) to kidnap the young daughter of a rich couple and the story goes on from there.  The music is by the legendary John Barry and is excellent to.

Both excellent films.  The latter also won awards at the time.


Edited by James - March 02 2009 at 23:25

Surfwise- a documentary about a surf-crazy family/father

6.5/10

mithrandir wrote: crimhead wrote: The Golden Compass - Entertaining. 6.5/10. I didn't think that it was as bad as people made it.  I didn't like the ending though. the ending of the movie was a far cry from the true ending of the book

This is pretty funny when you remember that the Golden Compass movie probably made no sense to people who hadn't read the book. It's sorta like the David Lynch Dune of kids' movies, except not as deliciously surreal and a bit too obviously computer generated at times. It looked like a 2-hour videogame cut scene. Seriously, how the hell did this win a Best Effects Oscar over Transformers? At least the Lynch Dune had physical sets that felt real.

Earlier this week I watched The Tenant. I think it's an interesting companion piece to Rosemary's Baby because it has the same basic concept of urban paranoia but does something completely with it. It's not as good a movie, though, because the narrative meanders around a bit and has a bit of filler. Still worth watching, in some respects it's more sophisticated thematically than Rosemary's Baby even if the execution isn't quite as good. Also, Isabelle Adjani's character looked almost exactly like this girl I go to college with and has a similar personality too, which was pretty funny. I'm probably going to rewatch it at some point to find out what the references to Egyptian mythology meant, that felt a bit random. 8/10

Toaster Mantis wrote: mithrandir wrote: crimhead wrote: The Golden Compass - Entertaining. 6.5/10. I didn't think that it was as bad as people made it.  I didn't like the ending though. the ending of the movie was a far cry from the true ending of the book This is pretty funny when you remember that the Golden Compass movie probably made no sense to people who hadn't read the book. It's sorta like the David Lynch Dune of kids' movies, except not as deliciously surreal and a bit too obviously computer generated at times. It looked like a 2-hour videogame cut scene. Seriously, how the hell did this win a Best Effects Oscar over Transformers? At least the Lynch Dune had physical sets that felt real. Earlier this week I watched The Tenant. I think it's an interesting companion piece to Rosemary's Baby because it has the same basic concept of urban paranoia but does something completely with it. It's not as good a movie, though, because the narrative meanders around a bit and has a bit of filler. Still worth watching, in some respects it's more sophisticated thematically than Rosemary's Baby even if the execution isn't quite as good. Also, Isabelle Adjani's character looked almost exactly like this girl I go to college with and has a similar personality too, which was pretty funny. I'm probably going to rewatch it at some point to find out what the references to Egyptian mythology meant, that felt a bit random. 8/10

Dune is probably one of the most influential movies of my youth, while I was always a sci-fi and fantasy geek and liked Star Wars, I absolutely loved Dune and found it infinitely more fascinating, later on when I got older I finally read the books and the rest is history....

if you haven't yet, you should also check out Polanski's Repulsion, the first movie of his paranoia themed trio

Slartibartfast wrote: Religulous, three opposable thumbs up. Just a guy asking questions of people who don't have really good answers, funny though they are.