The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey, I watched it with my friends and enjoyed. 8/10
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The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey, I watched it with my friends and enjoyed. 8/10
We Need To Talk About Kevin - 8/10
A movie I've known about for a long time but never wanted to see because how dark it is. Well, I saw it and it's dark as expected but it's also very well done. An excellent psychological thriller.
I watched the documentary on Herbert Hoover, Landslide. Very accurate overall. FDR took the progressive ideas of Hoover in the 1920's and acted upon them. Hoover, who was expecting the people to freely put a stop to recession, got annoyed by FDR claims to his package and never talked to FDR again. As the great depression took place, FDR won by landslide with Hoover's ideas and bills of the 20's.
Escellent, very historical piece.
When FDR died, Hoover was eventually recognized for who he was by Truman, but it had been too late to appease the bitterness he felt against FDR's so-called New Deal even when it was his own.
It was 2 for 1 day at the library.
Alex Cross
Score: 2/10
However, the bad guy did shoot straight except at the end.
At the end, the good guy rammed into the bad guy's car and then the good guy chased the bad guy. Then came the final hand-to-hand fighting and the good guy gets kicked around a bit and then he kicks the bad guy around until it's all over for the bad guy. I hope I didn't spoil it for anyone.
Dinner for Schmucks
Score 7/10
Enjoyably funny.
Side Effects 10/10
I agree. I saw it last night. Definitely 10/10.Quote:
Originally Posted by SleepyWitch
I watched The Impossible last night it was good. Naomi Watts acted well and so did Ewan McGregor. 8/10
The Sessions: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1866249/
Score: 3/10
The article Mark O'Brien wrote, "On Seeing a Sex Surrogate", is better than the movie: http://thesunmagazine.org/issues/174...rrogate?page=1
The movie tried to shift attention to potential jealousy in the boyfriend of one caretaker and then the husband of the sex surrogate to make the story interesting. That only made it sentimental in my view. I can't imagine that such jealousy actually occurred which made me look for O'Brien's original article. The original article was more realistic and interesting.
Searching for Sugar Man
Score: 10/10
This is one of the best documentaries I have ever seen.
Here's Sixto Rodriguez' I wonder: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oj-0pX5SEHE
I watched Bol again, it’s a desi movie. 9/10
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1891757/
Side Effects 9/10 It was really good! Scary, and somewhat plausible. Jude Law was really good in it, as was Rooney Mara.
I saw Sessions a few weeks ago. A good, small movie. I'd give it a 8/10. I didn't care for the trumped up drama, either, YesNo. I also looked up the article after seeing the movies, but just because I was intrigued at that point. It was quite interesting.
Jeff, who lives at home.
Not bad. Not bad at all. Kind of a sleeper. I streamed it on Netflix. Didn't know anything about it. It was just a shot in the dark and I was pleasantly surprised. In the opening scene I said to myself, "New Orleans". It just had that feel about it. Turns out it was Baton Rouge - I was close.
The first two Godfather films, again.
But in a theater, Amour, which I LOVED, and which everyone else HATED. :(
I loved Amour, but even movie people I talk to have reservations about it. I feel that he was fearlessly accurate in describing the end.Quote:
Originally Posted by Lykren
Yay! I'm not alone!
Yes, his accuracy was amazing, but one other aspect that impressed me was the mystical element to to the ending. Know what I mean?
"Heartbreaker" French movie, oh what a hoot!!
I remember liking "Jeff, who lives at home" as well Sancho.
Something totally different from that is "Guns, Girls and Gambling" which I thought was pretty stupid until the ending sort of clarified things. Probably the best part was watching how those two pistols fit perfectly in their holsters against Helena Mattson's butt while she walked in her black outfit.
Score 5/10.
I saw The Tree of Life today. Absolutely stunning, but I need to see it again (and again) to really grasp it. Which is a good thing.
You are not alone, Lykren! And, yes, I do, and that, I think, is what made it beautiful.:)Quote:
Originally Posted by Lykren
I caught this on an indie movie channel we get. I'd read a review which was positive. I liked it. It's hard not to like Jason Segal, but even so, this was good material. Kind of similar to my life, too.Quote:
Originally Posted by Sancho
It's awesome, isn't it? "Day's of Heaven," which he directed is one of my favorite movies.Quote:
Originally Posted by Lykren
I watched Shaun Of The Dead with my cousins, though it's not a great movie, but we enjoyed it. 6/10
It's much better than Dawn of the Dead, in my opinion lol.Quote:
Originally Posted by Snowqueen
The Dark Knight, again. Besides batmans voice, I absolutely love that movie.
I saw Shaun of the Dead a few years ago, Snowqueen. It's a fun little zombie movie. Actually, I watched one last week called Juan of the Dead. Hmmm, It was a kind of Latin remake of Shaun of the Dead. Not bad, really. 7/10
Saw Spring Breakers tonight. 6/10 It was alright. Parts of this movie were quite good. Other parts seemed a bit lazy and self-indulgent. Harmony Korine's use of repetition in parts was ineffective and dragged down the narrative, but when he actually devoted time to the narrative watching the slow degradation of the 'spring breaker's' moral choices was and their transformation into something other than the all American girls they initially seemed to represent was an exercise in something close to existential horror. I thought James Franco did an excellent job. Parts of it also seemed unintentionally funny.
Wayne's World. Exellent! 9/10
The Dark Knight. I still don't get what people see in that heap of rubbish. 3/10 is a generous rating.
On the other hand, I saw Apocalypse Now for the fifth time in a row last week and if any movie completely blows its book adaptation out of the water, it is this one. I have never seen such a fantastic movie based on a book that is so mind numbingly boring. 10/10
L.A. Confidential is also terrific. 9.8/10
I remember liking Wayne's World and I can't remember much about the Dark Knight anymore. Shaun of the Dead was gruesomely funny.
My wife and I saw the Good Doctor (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1582271/) last night and we could not understand why the doctor was doing the things he was doing. The story did not hold together unlike Side Effects which seemed to be more satisfying although perhaps more unlikely. They were both well-made movies, but one had a good story and the other did not.
Score: 3/10
Quote:
Originally Posted by Shaman_Raman
Hi Shaman Raman, welcome to Litnet. I haven’t seen Dawn of the Dead just a few scenes on TV and didn’t like it. Shaun of the Dead was a lot better no doubt.
I’ve passed this suggestion to my cousins, it seems they liked it. Hopefully they will give me a call whenever they saw Jaun of the Dead. lolQuote:
Originally Posted by qimissung
Tree of Life is perhaps the worst movie I saw in all of 2012. Obviously our experiences of the film were subjective and our own but did you actually enjoy that pool of scum?Quote:
Originally Posted by Lykren
Artistic and self-indulgent at the expense of plot, emotion or character. Non-linear for no apparent reason. What is the reason for the dinosaurs? The several minute long shots of moving magma? Perhaps Mallick simply only had thirty pages of 60s coming-of-age exploration script and decided to make a full length film based on it by filling all the empty minutes with nonsensical over-the-top artistic garbage. Scenes of a boy roaming in a 60s neighbourhood are juxtaposed with long-running magma, planets, or a dinosaur. Brilliant work, Mallick, why don't you try adding some actual narrative content next time? That way people won't leave the theatre in droves, and those are the ones who didn't fall asleep.
I'll save you the torture of a second watch. There's nothing to really grasp. It's a terrible movie that tries so desperately hard to represent a universal idea but ends up just kicking plot in the face. The result is dull beyond toleration and makes little sense.
Just one man's opinion but I thought that movie was absolutely the worst I'd seen in years. 1/10
Sorry, I already watched it again. Liked it that time too.Quote:
Originally Posted by Grit
I'm always confused by the use of the phrase 'self-indulgent' to describe art. How is taking time and energy to make something self-indulgent, particularly something that obviously took years of intense labor?
I'm also baffled by your use of the word 'artistic' in a pejorative sense. What?
Self-indulgent as in it's not made for any audience other than the creator. Every whim, idea and obscure symbol is thrown into the movie with total disregard of the audience.Quote:
Originally Posted by Lykren
Abstract artistic displays in a film are definitely 'pejorative' when it's at the expense of character development and story. Most people don't watch movies to immerse themselves into someone's subjective abstract mindscape. Most people watch movies to see a great story in a audio-visual medium that collaborates with many other different types of art. That's what Tree of Life did not have. A story.
When you choose being 'artistic' and 'self-indulgent' with your film over any kind of story, it doesn't make for a very interesting experience.
As a writer I have very particular tastes in movies. I love a movie with an original, well-paced story that's full of rich and fresh characters. I want goosebumps on my arms from a surge of emotion when I watch a movie. I care more about the story than any other aspect (director, subject matter, actors, special effects, what year it was made) so obviously for me Tree of Life was a complete disappointment. There is really no story.
Is Tree of Life original? Of course. Is it well-paced? The farthest thing from it. Is it full of rich and fresh characters? Not at all. Did I feel emotion? Only boredom and frustration.
Like I said this is just my opinion but I couldn't have disliked this movie any more than I did. Saw it in theatres and it was hard not to fall asleep. Of course that doesn't mean it's in any universal or objective way a 'bad' movie, or that you shouldn't or can't like it. Just one man's thoughts.
I liked Tree of Life. I'm a totally cynical atheist, and I still liked it a lot. It was beautiful.
The Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Beginning. 8.5/10.
I knocked a point off for Jordana Brewster's "acting," and half a point off for this being an abusive experience. Haha. I think the movie was really well made. I fully expected everything that happened, yet that expectation in no way hindered the suspense. The gore was top-notch. Everything was thoroughly saturated in blood and filth. When characters were wounded, blood didn't spatter out in cute little cherry red droplets. Big wounds gush horror. That's real. Blood gets everywhere. Movie makers take note.
I love R. Lee Ermey. He seems to be the exact same age in everything, he reminds me of my favorite grandpa, and he didn't disappoint. He played an earnestly despicable character with zeal. The rest of the cast does a fair job. Some of them look like models. Some of them look like genuine blobs who are not long for this earth.
I am new to this whole franchise. I was so frightened to even try watching these movies until just this year. Visceral. If you can't stomach horror, don't attempt Texas chainsaw anything. I can't say I loved it, because I really think it's intended to psychologically abuse the viewer, and it did just that. Great film making, insofar as it was not a snuff film, but it damned sure seemed like a snuff film. I can laugh about it, since it was fake. I don't know if it's grosser than House of a Thousand Corpses or Devil's Rejects, but it's a close thing.
It's funny, I disagree with literally everything you said here (as it relates to my personal viewing habits, and what makes a movie enjoyable for me; I'm not disagreeing with your subjective criteria for good film, of course)...I like abstract artistic expressions of someone's subjective mindscape, I don't care about story all that much, and I even tend to like sprawling self-indulgent works...And yet, I still hated The Tree of Life.Quote:
Originally Posted by Grit
Here's a review of The Tree of Life that might help you understand what he was going for.
http://movies.nytimes.com/2011/05/27...anted=all&_r=0
There's another one in The New Yorker that's not as admiring. This is not to say that after you read it you will be expected to like it.
I didn't particularly like The Tree of Life and almost completely forgot about it until I read the comments, but I'm no film critic. It was too artsy for my taste although I tend to like that sort of topic.
I did see Gentlemen Prefer Blondes (1953) which disappointed me especially after recently reading Anita Loos (1925) book. (Score 4/10)
The main song, Diamonds are a Girl's Best Friend, was very nice, but the movie missed most of the brilliant humor in the original work. I can't believe I never heard of Loos before running into a selection of her writing in a collection of American humor.
The last one I watched was Schindler's List, one of the classics. Absolutely loved it. It was beautifully portrayed and excruciatingly painful. Ben Kingsley's acting and the red coat were, for me, the best features but overall the movie was superb, no doubt it is regarded as one of the best ever.
Baraka
Simply one of the greatest 'picture movies' ever made. 'Nuff said.
Check it out: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0103767/
10/10
Argo .. with Ben Affleck .. my boy .. :)
I just watched -
8 1/2
Breathless
The Seventh Seal
All amazing, perhaps even perfect, movies. Damn.
I love those, except Breathless, which I haven't seen yet, but will soon. 8 1/2 especially, it's one of my favorites.Quote:
Originally Posted by Desolation
I watched Reindeer Games, it was OK. 5/10
It was two for $1 at the library again.
I picked the Defendor (6/10) and Seven Psychopaths (7/10).
They had a similar, overworked theme of a nut trying to help someone else get a writing career started, but if one removed that they would be both entertaining in their nutty way.
I've never liked the last all that much. The first two however, brilliance.Quote:
Originally Posted by Desolation
The Saragossa Manuscript ~ Wojciech Jerzy Has
A film that will leave you feeling drugged, deranged, disturbed. A dense labyrinthine structure that threatens to drop you off the abyss over and over, but always brings you back from the edge. Krzystof Penderecki's beautiful score and the stunning cinematography just add to the sensory overload. Zbigniew Cybulski is absolutely brilliant as the protagonist Alphonse and I shall have to seek out other films he appears in. The film as a whole is a story within a story, yet at times this seems to drop into deeper layers, as though story within story repeats until the viewer has forgotten the original story entirely, when conveniently it reappears as a reminder. Layer upon layer of complex enchantments, sadomasochisms, fetishistic devices, ironic apotheosis, black magic, phantasmagoria... 9.5/10