Movies you've recently watched

NightCrawler said:
This movie pissed me off immensely. So prepare for a rant. Never again will i be fooled by imdb ratings of less known movies. It's got to a point where every foreign/asian movie is highly recommended just because it's foreign and it isn't Transformers.
Please, anyone, save your two precious hours.
Actually what you described was the best part of the movie, the premise, the rest is a contrived suck fest. It's the most stupid thriller i've seen, with the most vapid, idiotic characters put to screen, with actions as dumb and moronic as it gets. Everyone that recommended me this movie deserves to be slapped in the face repeatedly. Yes, people will point out how shocking the ending was. It isn't, it's retarded, absurd, it's phony and it's the most hollywood type ending a foreign film could have. Completely implausible and it happens just to pull your emotional strings.
Everything that happens in this movie is badly fabricated and filled with highly unconvincing situations, in what promised to be a "realistic thriller" based on a true story.
There are worst movies out there for sure, but this one, for it's pretentiousness, just angered me to no end.
Fuck this movie in the ass.
If you want to watch inept korean police done right, watch the masterpiece that is Memories of Murder.

Don't. Another shitty movie from Miike that everyone creams about. But now with a bigger production. Paper thin characters/plot, mindless action all the time.
As much as i love some Miike movies, the guy hasn't done anything worthwhile since Izo.
The ending wasn't shocking to me, it was what I expected. It was just the premise that he could get away with it because of the lack of evidence was interesting for me. The action is questionable but it's more of a hands-on grab whatever I can find to hit the other guy with sort of action, which isn't too implausible. Did it feel over-drawn, yes, does that warrant skipping the movie, not to me. It was better than the mindless slasher gore kidnap movies I've watched in the past. Then again, it's subjective hehe because it's an opinion ^_^. I'd recommend I Saw The Devil totally over this.

13 Assassins ... was underwhelming, very underwhelming except for a few scenes here and there. The introduction of the characters felt over-drawn and the dialogue at the beginning didn't leave enough room to gasp the situation that they made such a big deal of. The action scenes were good, but I was so disappointed not to see limbs fly because Vagabond (Manga) has spoilt me when it comes to battle sequences. Even the Harakiri scenes didn't have guts in them. I'd have to agree with you on Izo (which I think is under-rated). I went through the Deleted Scenes and it would've been fun to include 2 of those long funny sequences with the guy who's the Hunter in the forest aka the 13th Assassin.
 

NightCrawler

Aeons gone, vast, mad and deathless
The Insider.

Just to remember how many great movies the 90's had, and how shitty the last decade has been.
 
The Boondock Saints - first time watch, was pretty decent. Dafoe is awesome in this one.

The Boondock Saints II - disappointing as hell, except for the bits of the father's back-story which was alright. I liked the twist at the end the most.
 

Oburi

All praise Grail
IncantatioN said:
The Boondock Saints - first time watch, was pretty decent. Dafoe is awesome in this one.

The Boondock Saints II - disappointing as hell, except for the bits of the father's back-story which was alright. I liked the twist at the end the most.

I think they both suck horribly.

I don't think I've seen a movie all year that I've enjoyed enough to post about. Certainly nothing new. In fact I haven't been to a theater at all this year (except for The Hangover 2 but I slept through most of that so it doesn't count) which is pretty sad. I think the only movie I can say I enjoyed that I hadn't seen before would be The Pope of Greenwich Village. Watched it a few months back and really loved it. It's got a young Mickey Rourke and its kinda like a pre-Mean Streets classic IMHO.
 
This year had Tree Of Life, Bridesmaids, Source Code, Thor, Rango, X-Men First Class which I thought were good. I haven't had a chance to check out Captain America, Cowboys & Aliens or the new Harry Potter movies + a bunch more yet.
 

Rhombaad

Video Game Time Traveler
I saw Cowboys & Aliens on Friday. It started off really well and then plummeted to mediocre-ville as soon as they set off in search of the aliens. It's like Favreau gave up on the movie a third of the way through. I was pretty disappointed.

Edit: My girlfriend and I went to see Captain America: The First Avenger on Saturday. It was one of the worst movies I've seen in some time. Chris Evans does a good job as the Captain and his scenes with Stanley Tucci are some of the best in the movie, but the rest of the film is a complete mess. Hugo Weaving is a piss poor bad guy instead of a terrifying Nazi commander (whose German accent is almost nonexistent), the action scenes are treated as montage-like transitions, and the set designs look like they came out of a made-for-TV movie instead of a summer blockbuster.

There's a trailer for The Avengers after the credits (which looks pretty entertaining), but it wasn't worth sitting through Captain America just to see it.
 
13-Assassins-Poster.jpg


This movie was awesome. A Miike homage to Kurasawa's samurai films, this movie is beautiful, and entertaining. . I highly recommend. The sadistic brutality is a little intense, but that's to be expected in a Miike film that includes violence.
 

NightCrawler

Aeons gone, vast, mad and deathless
JudeauChop said:
This movie was awesome. A Miike homage to Kurasawa's samurai films, this movie is beautiful, and entertaining. . I highly recommend. The sadistic brutality is a little intense, but that's to be expected in a Miike film that includes violence.

I won't go on again on the reasons why this movie is a vapid piece of shit and an insult to samurai movies. If i ever read again "to be expected in a Miike film" i'll barf.
I hope you enjoy his new remake of Seppuku, another pointless "homage" that pisses all over a great classic. Miike is a shameless whore who hasn't done a decent movie in years (which for his yearly track record means a load of shit movies).

Just saw In Bruges. A well written, pleasantly paced debut, which made Seven Psychopaths jump to my most anticipated movies of 2012.
 

Rhombaad

Video Game Time Traveler
Showed my girl Mad Max and Max Mad 2 this weekend. She enjoyed them quite a bit and it was good seeing them again. I can't remember the last time I saw Mad Max 2. It was pretty nostalgic.
 

Oburi

All praise Grail
I saw Don't be afraid of the Dark in the theater the other night. Not bad, its actually very well shot and acting was good. Guy Pearce is always great and the little girl was more than decent for child actress. Thing is, the creatures and final half hour were underwhelming. I was expecting more seeing as the whole movie is buildup. Also its rated R and there is not any profanity, sexual content and very little violence, hardly any blood. That threw me off a bit. I don't get the rating system at all. It was pg-13 at its worst (we even got carded buying tickets. Wtf?)
 
I heard Katie was the stand-out in the movie, as being surprisingly good. And, the monsters look less threatening that they're made to be?

936full-a-perfect-world-screenshot.jpg


A Perfect World recommended to me by a buddy, we're exchanging movies to watch. I gave her The Machinist and she gave me this one. Had no clue Eastwood directed it (he's awesome) and I'm not a big fan of Costner but the movie surprised me. The end was gutting.
 

Rhombaad

Video Game Time Traveler
I watched The Motorcycle Diaries last night. It was a very interesting portrayal of Ernesto "Che" Guevara's and Alberto Granado's road trip through South America. The film had a lot of great acting in it and was quite compelling. I highly recommend it to anyone who has not seen it and who is interested in learning more about what shaped Che's beliefs in his youth. Even if you're not interested in that, it's a damn good film.

I attempted to watch The Lost City, but shut it off about 40 minutes from the end. It was so damn boring and pretentious. A very poor outing from Any Garcia.
 
Was able to watch Kevin Smiths Red State. I liked it, its pretty different from his past work. I would never of guessed it was one of his movies if it wasn't for the dialog style. It is a very serious and intense movie to say the least. It had some shocking moments, it was one of those realistic "any thing could happen" horror movies. Which again, I'm talking about a Kevin Smith movie here. I give kudos to Smith for really breaking into new ground for himself with this movie. I really don't know what to expect from him after this movie.
 

NightCrawler

Aeons gone, vast, mad and deathless
Finished watching Joint Security Area after a couple of unsuccessful tries. It was good, even thought Park's direction was a bit too flashy and intrusive, the bonding between the NK and SK soldiers was greatly done. Actually only the scenes featuring them were interesting and watchable, the rest was painfully boring. The english speaking actors were particularly bad. The ending was also a bit too mawkish.
Nevertheless, this movie helped solidify the status of Kang-ho Song as my favorite Korean actor. Now i'm going to watch Thirst (mainly because Song's in it) and hope Chan-wook Park hasn't lost himself up is over-stylized ass.
 

Griffith

With the streak of a tear, Like morning dew
Went through the X-Men movies this week after watching the 90's animated series again (it's better) and here are my thoughts and ranking:

1. X2 - Saw this for the second time a while back and didn't think it held up, but somehow watching it again after the first one made both seem better. For all of its teenage comic book movie goofiness with Rogue-ilee and her friends this one's otherwise got a plot and characterizations that come the closest to not only being a good movie (the direction/editing of the third act is surprisingly complex and well done) but actually feeling like an X-Men movie. It touches on pretty much everything you'd want an X-Men movie to: Wolverine's past, phoenix, the Cyclops/Jean/Wolverine triangle, and of course humans vs mutants with the X-Men caught in the middle at the highest level, involving the presidency, and with stakes no less than the death of them all hanging in the balance of Professor X's and Magneto's power. I mean, that's how it should be, right? Plus, it's got Nightcrawler, Colossus, and Brian Cox for Christ's sake.

2. X-Men - Surprising given I skipped this one out of protest when it first came out and didn't think much of it when I eventually did see it. Though, despite its general cheesiness, the movie has some heart and Magneto actually has an ethos and a plan instead of just being a hypocritical warmonger/agitator. Like I said, this one and X2 complement each other well, relatively speaking.

3. X-Men: First Class - I'm torn on this one, and maybe expectations hurt it for me. I had heard this was the best of the X-Men movies, and maybe it is better and more accessible than the others, but so many liberties were taken and the story so far removed from what I know of the X-Men that I didn't find it to be much of an X-Men movie at all. It wasn't good enough on its own merits to justify that to me, as I didn't much care for the characterizations of Xavier or Magneto (or the use of fringe characters otherwise for continuity). Xavier was basically like any other liberal college rich boy weenie and completely unconvincing when it came to promoting his ideals, and Magneto just plain made no sense as he literally follows in the genocidal footsteps of the power abusing mutant Nazis he supposedly hates for killing his human family, so he's going to kill all normal humans. Uhhh... what? I expect more from Magneto, but here he had practically no higher minded ideals or even reason other than just cuz. I know they meant for him to become what he hates, but they never make it clear why he would other than he's kind of a stupid jerk. Anyway, I enjoyed it, the missile crisis plot was neat, I'm just not sure to what extent it or these characters had to with the X-Men, and that's kind of the point.

4. X-Men: The Last Stand - There's no need to talk more about this, so let's focus on the positive: Hey, Kelsey Grammer as Beast! Other than that, yeah... but even though this is an abortion of the first two decent Singer X-Men movies, at least it works as a crappy X-Men doomsday scenario (like a bad episode of the cartoon). It's a bad X-Men movie, and I'll always wonder "what if" Singer's team had continued what they started, but it still feels more like an X-Men movie than First Class or the following turd...

5. X-Men Origins: Wolverine - Egads! This has nothing to do with X-Men, Origin(s), and least of all Wolverine. This was so offensively bad, I wasn't just bothered by their butchering of comics, but even the stuff made up for the previous films. Which is funny, because they're far from sacred, and if anything I feel like attempting to force movies like First Class and this to fit into the same continuity as X2 only hurts the series. Just try to get it right this time instead of randomly choosing throwaway mutants to be X-Men in the 60's. Oh, yeah, Wolverine. His past and character was handled much better in the second movie, and this wasn't even like Wolverine anymore, but just a random Hugh Jackman action vehicle, and a dumb one for dumb people. He wasn't even made up like Wolverine, as if he just embodies him now. Well, no, he doesn't, and the plot is like an embarrassingly lame parody of the character (his cameo in first class is better than this entire movie). On a bittersweet note, Liev Schreiber seemed like he could have been a good Sabertooth to Jackman's Wolverine (before he started phoning in the part here), but like everything else in the movie (Gambit, Deadpool, ugh) the role did nothing for or resembling the character.
 
X

Xem

Guest
As an avid X-men fiend from the 90's I feel compelled to chime in, but imagine if Marvel Studios had had the rights to the franchise, we'd be having X-men/Spider-man crossovers right now. :troll:

No, really though... that might've been good. :???:

I rank First Class at the top, nearly side-by-side with X1 and 2, for one reason really, Fassbender. Also if you're a fan of the Bryan Singer movies, it's very possible he'll be returning for future First Class movies as well as X4 and beyond (Singer not Fassbender). He's expressed interest along with Shuler(sp?), who seems to be the one funding all of these movies along with the DeadPool movie, of which, would be separate from the Wolverine movie (I think all movies will be, as a rule, even future Wolverine movies).
 

Rhombaad

Video Game Time Traveler
I saw Warrior over the weekend. It was pretty enjoyable until the credits rolled prematurely.
After nearly two hours of caring about the two brothers, the movie ends leaving the audience with no knowledge of how their lives turned out as the result of the movie's conclusion. Might have been nice to know what happened, especially since that was the whole reason they were fighting in the tournament to begin with. Oh well.
The fight scenes were very well done and the film's saving grace. Tom Hardy was really great and Nick Nolte's performance was pretty moving. I recommend it to fans of inspirational sports movies or MMA.
 

Griffith

With the streak of a tear, Like morning dew
Deci said:
As an avid X-men fiend from the 90's I feel compelled to chime in, but imagine if Marvel Studios had had the rights to the franchise, we'd be having X-men/Spider-man crossovers right now. :troll:

It's better than the current approach to adaption being employed for the X-Men franchise, which looks something like this:

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"BATMAN"

Deci said:
No, really though... that might've been good. :???:

At least then there'd be a reason to start fresh with Spider-Man, and also X-Men wouldn't be wrongfully stuck with second tier status while second tier franchises like The Avengers get the royal treatment. Speaking of which, I also recently saw (500) Days of Why is this Guy Directing Spider-Man?

Deci said:
I rank First Class at the top, nearly side-by-side with X1 and 2,

Well, then technically you have it ranked 3rd too. :slan:

Deci said:
for one reason really, Fassbender.

Eh, Fassbender was fine, but the character as written wasn't, and he didn't blow me away in any case.

Deci said:
Also if you're a fan of the Bryan Singer movies, it's very possible he'll be returning for future First Class movies as well as X4 and beyond (Singer not Fassbender). He's expressed interest along with Shuler(sp?), who seems to be the one funding all of these movies along with the DeadPool movie, of which, would be separate from the Wolverine movie (I think all movies will be, as a rule, even future Wolverine movies).

Short of Singer coming back and basically having a do-over on X-Men 3, they need to cut ties with the previous movies completely and just start over. It's a mess, and it continues to be because of how they stupidly try to tie them to the other movies, which only makes less sense with each entry. If any franchise needs to be rebooted and given a complete change of direction, it's X-Men, which was started pre-Spider-Man when superheroes had to be dressed in black leather to be taken seriously in movies.
 

NightCrawler

Aeons gone, vast, mad and deathless
It's probably my man crush on Fassbender, but after the mediocre Magneto we got in the other movies (great actor, awful casting) i had such low expectations that i was blown away by him. He's my second favorite character in the comics, so it irked me to no end to see an old man portraying him in the other movies.
First Class made the ridiculous X-Men suits look plausible. That should count for something. Instead of going all dark and edgy.
By the way, who were the villains in X1 and X2? Oh that's right, not Kevin Bacon (could be a new Cinco game). Sure, X2 had all the cool geeky X-Men stuff (i think what everyone remembers is the amazing NightCrawler sequence), but i still found First Class a better movie overall. Was it close to the comics? No. Do i care? Not really. I just wanted them to revive a franchise that everyone thought dead and buried.

EDIT: I should add that i'm still pissed because X2 promised so much, that's why i don't get much of a pleasure in rewatching it, i always remember that it preludes X3.
 

Griffith

With the streak of a tear, Like morning dew
NightCrawler said:
It's probably my man crush on Fassbender, but after the mediocre Magneto we got in the other movies (great actor, awful casting) i had such low expectations that i was blown away by him. He's my second favorite character in the comics, so it irked me to no end to see an old man portraying him in the other movies.

First, am I wrong or is the best scene in the movie the pig farmer/tailor scene? That was like something out of Inglorious Basterds. Anyway, I feel the same about Magneto, but the First Class version is just as incomplete to me, and not just on account of his youth, but his intellect and presence (he was too subservient to Xavier, even when he ultimately rebelled). If only we could somehow combine the two... Alas, I think David Hemblen is still as close as we'll get to seeing/hearing Magneto brought to life:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZCCFJJTLlqo#t=1m32s
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VvFuYtQFzyk#t=4m35s

This is better Magneto material than in any of the movies, and I think it peaks with the Sanctuary episodes about Asteroid M.

NightCrawler said:
First Class made the ridiculous X-Men suits look plausible. That should count for something.

True, but I have to subtract points for Magneto's red outfit at the end. They just can't get that right...

NightCrawler said:
By the way, who were the villains in X1 and X2? Oh that's right, not Kevin Bacon (could be a new Cinco game).

KEVIN BACON...aww! ERRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR... :magni:

Also, X2 had Brian Cox. :azan:

NightCrawler said:
Sure, X2 had all the cool geeky X-Men stuff (i think what everyone remembers is the amazing NightCrawler sequence), but i still found First Class a better movie overall. Was it close to the comics? No. Do i care? Not really. I just wanted them to revive a franchise that everyone thought dead and buried.

Again, I'm conflicted. Is First Class a better movie? Certainly in many ways, and probably overall (though I'm not completely sure, X2 had a lot going on, so if X2 was sloppier it's also because First Class was simpler) but it's not a better X-Men movie. I plan on watching it again though and taking better stock of it now that expectations are out of the way. I like it, and I want to really like it, but we'll see.

NightCrawler said:
EDIT: I should add that i'm still pissed because X2 promised so much, that's why i don't get much of a pleasure in rewatching it, i always remember that it preludes X3.

Well, I like to imagine the ideal of what X3 could have been based on the improvement and promise of X2, even though that probably wouldn't have worked out so nicely anyway (though supposedly it was going to be Phoenix and Hellfire Club, so they kind of brought that back). Anyway, X-Men: The Last Stand is like the alternate bad 1985 from Back to the Future where Biff rules the world, and nothing to do with X2.
 

NightCrawler

Aeons gone, vast, mad and deathless
drive-poster-ryan-gosling.jpg


Deserves all the praise.
The mood and direction are superb and compensate for the little flaws this movie has. Probably the best theatrical release i've seen all year. Don't watch the trailer (i did after the movie), it gives away too much.
 

Griffith

With the streak of a tear, Like morning dew
NightCrawler said:
http://collider.com/wp-content/uploads/drive-poster-ryan-gosling.jpg

People seem to either love or hate this one.


I saw Scott Pilgrim vs. The World, and not only did it suck, but it was surprisingly boring. Saw Adaptation again too, and it did not suck.
 

NightCrawler

Aeons gone, vast, mad and deathless
http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/drive_2011/

Doesn't seem polarized at all. It's not a masterpiece, the plot is not very relevant, but i'm a sucker for suspenseful mood pieces with slow deliberate pacing and spot on direction.
It's as if a less cerebral Kubrick made Taxi Driver.
 
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