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Beowulf and Grendel- maybe it's an OK story if you know nothing about this time and haven't read the poem but it wasn't all that good. Just OK. I have a few more Beowulf movies to watch for my B.A. but this one I can use a whole lot so that was good.
Pusher trilogy. 10/10. I just loved the films (all of it ) of this director, Nicolas Winding Refn. I've seen his films many times and never seemed to be tired of it.
Blue Jasmine directed by Woody Allen and starring Cate Blanchett. 9/10 I thought this was just going to be a comedy (not that there's anything wrong with that), but this was quite a bit more than that.
An excellent documentary called River of no Return. About the Salmon river wilderness in Idaho where only the salmon return to spun and die. Filmed by a rather unique young couple. Excellent. Available on Netflix.
Have you seen :http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beowulf_(2007_film)?Quote:
Originally Posted by Helga
I saw Robin Hood with my nieces on Eid and really enjoyed it. They especially loved the songs. 8/10
Also saw another horror film with friends, When the Lights Went out. It’s about a young girl who is possessed by an evil spirit. As the story progressed I realized that her parents were more evil than the evil spirit. I found this film ridiculously funny. 3/10
This Gun For Hire (1942)
A filmed version of Graham Greene's novel A Gun For Sale that remains close to the book's plot except for certain adjustments to accommodate the change of setting from England to Los Angeles. Alan Ladd plays Raven, a hired assassin who is cheated by those who paid him false banknotes to kill the blackmailer of a powerful businessman who is secretly developing poison gas for the Japanese while the US is at war with them. Raven is ruthless in his determination to exact revenge on the mogul despite the cordon of security surrounding him by police unaware of his treasonable activity.
Anyone who has read the book will have to suspend judgement as the quintessential Englishness of the characters is totally submerged beneath this version of the story. On its own level I would give it 8/10
http://youtu.be/GSx-CiuC-QA
''Fantastic fear of everything'' (2012)...10/10,it was so cool,I really enjoyed it :D
I've seen more than a few movies recently. Here are some:
Mud - 9/10. I saw this in a theater because a (probably terrible) Apatow movie was sold out. I wasn't expecting anything. Mud turned out to be a pretty great movie. It flows well. The actors all gave solid performances. Someone pointed out to me that it's a bit sexist. All of the female characters in the film are portrayed very negatively, as though the gender is designed to destroy men. For that, I knocked off a point. It's based in a southern state, though, so all of the characters made sense to me within their dirty backward environment. Everyone in Mud is filthy dirty, but it's still somehow a beautiful movie. Lots of feeling.
Tron: Legacy - 3.5/10. This would be a 0/10 if not for the soundtrack and the occasionally interesting light sequences. The computer generated Jeff Bridges was so lifeless and off-putting. I don't know who the animators were, but they should be fired from everything forever. I like the original Tron well enough. This sequel was like Tron run through the new Hollywood, Twilight style glazed, overly digitized, poorly written, blockbuster garbage machine. I think I hated it.
The Man in the Moon - 6.5/10. I watched this movie a few times as a young kid. I loved it then. I still like it. It holds up ok. I like how it clips along one way at the beginning of the movie, following a couple of Southern sisters and their interactions with boys and puberty. Then it takes a surprisingly deep turn. Not exactly a twist, but unexpected, sort of gut-wrenching. I knocked off a couple of points because there are babies and toddler youngsters introduced into the story and then frequently forgotten and grossly neglected throughout. I didn't notice it when I was young, but now I think it's a big oversight that should have been corrected. I knocked off a little bit more because Reese Witherspoon stole the show from the sister who was supposed to be upstaging her. Young Reese was pretty great then; not the romantic comedy shill we are familiar with today. Even with the score I gave, I think this is a highly watchable movie.
Despicable Me 2 - 1/10. I got dragged to see this with young relatives. They didn't like it. I didn't like it. I gave it a point because the characters resembled the characters from the first film, which I would give 5.5/10. This sequel was completely incoherent. Bubbly, cheesy, ultra lame, insulting, stereotypical, racist, artless trash. Stupid. Stupid. Stupid.
I had been planning to watch an Argentinian film, "Secret in Their Eyes" for quite some time, but wasn’t able to do it. Last night I finally managed to see it. It’s an excellent film and I would recommend it. 9/10
Witness for the Prosecution (1957)
This shows why a great director like Billy Wilder can take something as unlikely as an Agatha Christie play and turn it into a film that make all those Poirot and Miss Marple TV efforts look like the amateur theatricals they really are.
Charles Laughton gives a stunning performance as Sir Wilfred Robart, a top defence lawyer defending Tyrone Power's accused murderer at London's Central Criminal Court. The star witness for the prosecution is the accused's wife, played by Marlene Dietrich who is just one of a number of players who turn in marvellous performances. Even if you guess the surprise ending, it's unlikely you will work out how it was done without actually seeing the film. 10/10
It's all on YouTube but here's an extract.
http://youtu.be/Fq3UK04pNrY
Extraordinary documentary called Happy People. Its about a region of Syberia where a group of people live of the land, almost exclusively. The wilderness is called The Taiga. Available on Netflix.
'Beowulf and Grendel' really bad, really really bad. The worst part of how bad it is is that it was written and directed by a man from the ice and filmed on the ice and Grendel was played by an actor from the ice and the only word he spoke was icelandic. a really bad movie but perfect for my BA so I give it 5/10 for that
I'm afraid I haven't seen this version of the tale, though I have seen others, which are nearly all incomprehensibly bad. What really annoys me about them is the fact that the filmmaker wants to make a film of a classic text that has survived for over a thousand years, and yet they think that they can "improve" it by completely changing the story. I have in mind the ghastly CGI version starring Stan Winston in particular. Personally, I'd rather they just had someone read it on the radio, so the audience can imagine the pictures themselves! If a filmmaker just wants to use the idea to inspire their own story then the best approach is to write their own and call it something else, like, "The 13th Warrior."Quote:
Originally Posted by Helga
I watched REC with my friends last week. It was disappointing. 3/10