list/discuss/rate - your recently watched movies

I did not like Platoon. Well the parts of it I actually watched, I probably shouldn't be giving my opinion on the whole movie but I will anyway. To be fair to Oliver Stone, I started watching it at 2am and so skipped through a good chunk of it because I was tired, and a lot of it that I thought was cliche is probably cliche because of his influence. But playing Adagio for Strings everywhere is one of the most obnoxiously overbearing scoring choices in movie history, and Elias' death is not really effective when that type of scene has been in almost every war movie ever. Although once again, part of that is just me, since I seem to be the only person who doesn't like Adagio for Strings. 

Edited by Henry Plainview - July 08 2010 at 02:44

1941

Ghost Ship

Ridiculous if well-meaning thriller about a team of salvagers who come across an abandoned oceanliner only to slowly discover it's haunted by murdered passengers and crew.  Gabriel Byrne is typically good but Julianna Margulies should have kept her job on ER.  An aimless and grim cross between The Shining and The Abyss.

Just saw Inception and I while I do agree with some of Underspoon points, I think it's a positive step forward in terms of action films. It's an action film for a postmodern audience. Most of the people in the theater were young and I think that for an audience that is growing up with shows like Lost. It does feel like Nolan had to over-explain himself for a broader audience and if this was done pre-TDK, I don't think it would have suffered from that (see Memento or The Following). It is still one of the best action films and I think that it is making the argument that a mainstream audience can handle a more complicated action film that it doesn't have to be generic like Transformers. 

It's probably better on Blu-Ray and an HD set.

Sleeping Beauty - kind of an odd structure to this movie, the evil queen is still great though! 6/10

The Last Airbender - yeh, 1/10

Eclipse - yeh, 6/10

Kiss of Death - Nike Cage playing a quirky role again, yay! 6.5/10

The Color of Magic - BBC made for TV adaptation of the first to Discworld novels, definitely leaves much to be desired, like the snide and cleverly conveyed philosophical element in all his books, twas okay I guess, 6/10

Legend: Director's Cut - already talked about this 8.5/10

Mad Monster Party - old Rankin & Bass production, this time a Halloween movie (as opposed to their more famous TV Christmas specials,) I remember seeing this as a kid, I like the stop motion animation, movie was too long though with a plot thats practically non existent, was made for kids though but I still think they could have trimmed the fat and made it more enjoyable 4.5/10

LoudQUIETloud: A Film About the Pixies - god what a boring watch this was, the band had like little enthusiasm, Kim Deal is annoying, Frank Black writes sh*tty music on his own, David Lovering just wanted to do magic tricks and get high, and the other dude was there for a paycheck, even the live clips sounded flat with very little energy bleh.... 3/10

Tarzan (disney) - after reading the first two books its amazing to see how these adaptations are all so different from the original source material, but tis disney so ... 6/10

Greystoke: The Legend of Tarzan - maybe the closest to the source material yet, but still maybe got about 30% of it right, it was a little graphic which was cool yet still nowhere near as gory at the books, the whole movie seemed a bit pretentious with a lot of unintentionally funny moments, even when they shoot the ape out of the tree it almost seemed humorous, and it shouldnt have been, hmm - 6/10

Punch-Drunk Love - wow, I was surprised how much I liked this movie, the first half hour was the best when you weren't sure what direction it was heading, the rest was good too though, this might rank as the best Adam Sandler movie Ive ever seen! 7.5/10

3:10 to Yuma - a wee bit too long, and the absurd ending held this back a little , but overall still a satisfying nowadays western 7/10

Pandorum - hmm, I liked the Sci Fi plot to this movie, I just didn't like the needless horror element, would have been much better if it was more of an ponderous exploration of "what happened?" with the neat little twist and the ending, minus the fast zombie crap and lame action sequences, 5.5/10

Facing Ali - wonderful documentary with the telling of his tale from the guys who fought him 9/10

A Better Place - crudely made but neat little movie, 6/10

Feed - well this turned out to be better than I thought it was going to be , the premise was one of a kind thats for sure , some parts were amateurishly made and out of place, but it kept you watching for the over all spectacle of the thing, the acting was actually pretty good and the main psycho was 10 times better than most that come out in these type of suspense horror/crime movies these days, yeah, 7/10

Law Abiding Citizen - critics bash this for an OTT implausible story line, but who cares? TDK was that and beyond yet its the critics darling, and there is a slight comparison...if you've seen both you'll understand, this movie kind of lost steam about half way through, but it was okay, and I enjoyed it more than TDK so there 6/10

The Invention of Lying.

Heard some good things about it, and it does have Ricky Gervais.
6/10 It was not bad or anything but meh.....Cool idea though. And lol he made up religion!

Edit: District 9 was one of the few movies I got out to see in a theater
I was mixed....It was good but I don't know. It was at least different.



Edited by JJLehto - July 25 2010 at 13:35

Alice In Wonderland (Tim Burton).... Burton creates another visually stunning piece which combines the first two books (AIW and Through The Looking Glass)... with his own twist of course.  The "dark" elements were more cute and showy than they were sinister, but is to be expected from this man; the goth side is revered and worshiped to the point of kitsch (almost).  I enjoyed the film for the most part (on the surface), but could not help but feel that it was a long allegorical propaganda film which says "forget about your dreams and then sell out, becoming a cog in the wheel of capitalism."  Sorry, I thought this was supposed to be about altered states of consciousness and transcendence moreso than another fairy tale (minus the darkness of the books) where the timing is always right, all conflicts are resolved perfectly, and the predictability is just that...  Tim Burton, you have typecast yourself.   5/10 (bonus points for visuals)

Atavachron wrote: it's one of those simplistic films that's idiotic enough to be entertaining .. I think Stone's best moment is Nixon

Yeah, if I were a normal person and liked Adagio for Strings and went into it expecting an action movie I probably would have liked it more.

Speaking of action movies, I surprisingly sat through all of Die Hard. Probably because once something started happening (and that fact that something happened at all makes it a million times better than The Sixth f**king Sense) it was unintentionally hilarious (and perhaps slightly racist). Not sure why it made so much money and got such good reviews, but eh, I've wasted two hours on worse things. And it was better than the first half hour of Terminator 2. And it's a cultural touchstone, blah blah bloo.

Edited by Henry Plainview - July 26 2010 at 03:53

Predator 2 - silly