What is the last movie you saw? and rate it.

[YesNo]

It's not surprising that Arthur Miller fell foul of the Un American Activities Committee when his first play All My Sons was produced, because it attacks the profit motive that is the mainstay of business.
This filmed adaptation is well acted by a cast that includes Edward G Robinson, impressive as the paterfamilias whose rise to wealth includes the selling of faulty equipment to the US government during WWII that leads to the death of 26 pilots. Burt Lancaster is the son who survives the war while his brother is killed: a fact that the mother refuses to believe, expecting him to be simply missing in action. Robinson's business partner is blamed for the mis-selling of the equipment and is sent to prison but, although acquitted by the court, an aura of doubt continues to hang over Robinson.
The whole thing spirals out of control when the dead son's fiancee, who is the condemned man's daughter, is proposed to by the eldest son and her brother objects to the engagement; accusing Robinson of being the real culprit and not his imprisoned father.

The script betrays its theatrical origins and it's not for those with a minimal attention span, but viewing the film as a morality tale without the political undertones, I would give it 9/10.

I was looking for something different than the current stuff on the library shelves and this one, All My Sons, 1948 version, was available. My attention span is usually minimal unless I'm interested, but this movie did keep my interest and made me want to see more. I could predict the ending, but that kind of ending is the sort of things one gets in morality tales.

Overall, I would agree with the score 9/10.

[Sophia21]

I saw Disney's new animated movie, Frozen and would rate it 8/10.

[Emil Miller]

I was looking for something different than the current stuff on the library shelves and this one, All My Sons, 1948 version, was available. My attention span is usually minimal unless I'm interested, but this movie did keep my interest and made me want to see more. I could predict the ending, but that kind of ending is the sort of things one gets in morality tales.

Overall, I would agree with the score 9/10.

Glad you enjoyed it. I understand that it has since been remade, but in my experience remakes seldom live up to the originals.
The same is true of films such as The Glass Menagerie (1950) and All the KIng's Men (1949) both of which have been remade and fail miserably when compared to the originals where the acting and direction are outstanding.

[Chance33]

Frozen- 8/10
A phenomenal come back for Disney. Didn't enjoy the newer stuff they've put out but this took me back to my childhood and is somewhat comparable to the classic Disney movies we all loved as kids.
Secret life of Walter Mitty- 3/10
I'm not much of a daydreamer and couldn't really sympathize with Ben Stiller's character. The end was a nice twist and that's the only reason why I'll give it a 3.
Wolf on Wall Street-4/10
Although borderline porn- more nudity then I ever would care to see, I did enjoy learning about the real life Jordan Belfort and his story. A good message is portrayed although I was disappointed in Scorsese for directing such a trashy movie.
Saving Mr. Banks- 5/10
An interesting but sad tale. Why is it Colin Farrell is always playing a shade-y character?
The Hobbit 2- 6/10
Too much action, and a terrible representation of the book, but standing alone it wasn't so bad and my only complaint was it could've been an hour shorter and accomplished the same thing.

[Michael T]

I just watched Blue Is The Warmest Color.

WOW.

Has anyone else seen this? If so, I'd like to get your thoughts on it.

Hi there Lykren. Yes, I've just watched 'Blue is the Warmest Colour' and thought it was excellent (9/10) in most respects, but not without controversy and an avoidable imperfection that has tended to taint people's view of the film as a whole. I'll try to explain my feelings without giving too much away about a great piece of cinema that I would recommend without hesitation.

I personally can't remember watching a movie where I felt such empathy with the central character since Krzysztof Kieslowski's Blue from his celebrated Three Colours Trilogy produced in 1993 and starring Juliette Binoche.

I think that this has a lot to do with the film's intimacy. It is achieved through the marvellous close-up camera work of the director (Abdellatif Kechiche), and his concentration on the central character Adèle (played by the actress Adèle Exarchopoulos), although that changes somewhat during the second half of the film, returning again towards the end.

A lot of people I have talked to seem to regard the first half of the film as better than the second. I tend to disagree, feeling that the change, and there is one, is necessary as the camera pulls back to encompass the social and cultural pressures that affect any relationship over time. It's worth considering too, that Blue is the Warmest Colour was originally to be billed as La vie d'Adèle - Chapitres 1 et 2 (The life of Adele, chapters 1 & 2)

Before mentioning the movie's, for me anyway, controversial imperfection, it's worth mentioning also that there has been a lot of bad press associated with the film due to the director's treatment of the cast and crew during production. I firmly believe that those are separate issues, and should have no bearing on any critique of the film as a piece of artwork.

Now back to the movie itself, and what I see as it's imperfection, which is partially linked to the above comment...

Some of the sex scenes in the film, but not all, could have, and I believe, certainly should have been softer, more sympathetic to the tone of the rest of the film. Instead they appear to be more a portrayal of a male fantasy of lesbian sex, and are so out of character with the rest of the film that they become almost uncomfortable to watch - because you know the director is unwittingly destroying what could have been an almost perfect film.

Whilst I hesitate to label any piece of art as pornographic, a majority of those I have discussed the issue with - especially women - lean towards this label. It is also worth mentioning that Julie Maroh - the female author of the original French graphic novel - criticized the director's view/portrayal of lesbian sex.

Having said that, It's important to point out that we are talking about a couple of scenes, that are no more than a few minutes long, in a three hour film. if you haven't already, make sure you go and see this film. Blue is the Warmest Colour didn't win all those awards for nothing - and I, like Lykren, would also love to hear your views on the film!

[Michael T]

Two other 'World Cinema' films that are very much worth seeing if you get the chance. Both are on the shortlist for an Oscar in the 'Foreign Language' category this year.


The Broken Circle Breakdown, Belgium

Lovely little film with a cracking 'Bluegrass' soundtrack!



The Great Beauty, Italy

A visual feast!

[Helga]

Prince Avalanche- very good and based on a movie from the ice. Not a role you normally see Paul Rudd in but he was great. About silence and solitude, I think the first word spoken by a character in the movie was about 4 or 5 minuets in and it's often silent. I give it 8.5/10

[YesNo]

The Family: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2404311/

A family is placed under a witness protection program and has to be moved often because none of the family members behave themselves. Too many collateral good guys got killed in the final shoot out, but overall it lived up to its comedy listing.

Score: 9/10

[SleepyWitch]

12 Years a Slave

10/10

[Britworthink]

Sunset Boulevard

10/10

A fantastic film that I never got round to seeing until recently, such a shame it took me this long! Recommended to anyone who, like me, has somehow managed to avoid this masterpiece thus far..

[YesNo]

Anything Else: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0313792/

This is an old Woody Allen movie about a comedian (Jason Biggs) who is supporting an annoying agent (Danny DeVito) and a annoying girlfriend (Christina Ricci) as well as another comedian (Woody Allen), almost as annoying as the other two, and needs to break free, but isn't quite able to until the end.

Score: 8/10

[Emil Miller]

Directed by the celebrated Marcel Carné, this is an unfortunate dud in a long list of successes.
Starring a very young Jacques Charrier and Jean Paul Belmondo it purports to show a picture of
rebellious French youth in the manner of the 'angry young man' and 'crazy mixed up kid' scenarios
of UK and US films of the 1950s.
An earnest young science student from the well-off right bank of the Seine gets pulled into a group
of youthful neerdowells who live off of their wits and spend all of their time cavorting around left
bank bars, but he finally comes to his senses when the girl he falls for is killed in a car crash.
The credits state that it was from 'an idea by Charles Spaak' but not, I'm afraid, a good one.
However, scenes of Paris are always worth watching and Pascale Petit, who plays the main female
interest, was an absolute sweetie. 4/10

[Shalot]

(1/10)

I finished watching Jack Reacher today, which is available on both Netflix, and Amazon Prime, which means that if you pay the yearly fee to get free 2-day shipping from Amazon then you can also stream many of their movies and TV shows for *free* (as opposed to having to rent it for 4.99 for 24 hours).

Anyone who is familiar with Netflix and Amazon Prime knows that their selections consist of movies and shows that are generally a couple of years old (with few exceptions), and it seems like the worse a movie or show is, the sooner it becomes available. I could be wrong about this, but that's the way it seems to me. So, Jack Reacher was released in theaters in December 2012 and here we are in January 2014 and it's already available on Amazon Prime, and that seems like a quick turnaround to me, but I decided to give it a try anyway. Sometimes, movies that don't do so well in theaters turn out to be brilliant.

Now, the first sentence of this post was, "I finished watching Jack Reacher" today. That's because I started it a few nights ago, and couldn't finish it. I started it at night and was too tired to get very far into to it and hadn't seen enough to form an opinion, other than "Well, maybe this movie is the type that starts out slow, and gets better."

When I finally finished it I found out that it didn't get better - it never got better. But, it was so comically bad that I at least got some amusement out of it.

My husband saw that I had started watching it but didn't finish, and so he decided to watch it while I was at work and he sent me a couple of texts about it that pretty much tell you all you need to know:

"Unnecessary cleavage!" (he's not the type to gripe about cleavage)

"Jack Reacher is long, like one of those turds that wraps around the bowl."


And it is long. It is 2 long hours of really bad acting and stiff delivery. When I finally got around to finishing the movie, I was able to laugh out loud when I saw the unnecessary cleavage that my husband was referring to in his text, but I wouldn't tell anyone to watch this movie just to see how bad it was. I've seen better B movies. Also, I had no idea what his "Unnecessary cleavage!" text was about until I saw the movie, and that could have prompted my laughter more than anything.

I saw that Tom Cruise will be developing a sequel to this, which is just great, but he's Tom Cruise and he can do whatever he wants.

[Helga]

'Hunger' simply 10, very very good

[TheFifthElement]

(1/10)

I finished watching Jack Reacher today [...]"Jack Reacher is long, like one of those turds that wraps around the bowl."

Ha ha ha! That about sums it up. We watched Jack Reacher last week. It was long, tedious, implausible with rubbishy characterisation. A typical Tom Cruise film. Then this week we watched Oblivion which is basically Jack Reacher but with a futuristic setting and flying machines. Yawn.