Movie News, Reviews, and Discussion Super-Thread

[Steve Contra]

Literally 4 posts above yours Mana

[Barry Egan]

[Howard Alan Treesong]

o
m
g

reminds me that I need to rewatch Brothers Bloom

[Bebpo]

Blue Valentine

Finally got around to watching this after really liking The Place Beyond The Pines (best movie I've seen in 2013 so far).   The cinematography is gorgeous, the performances are excellent and it's a neat idea for a short story that's portrayed fairly realistically.  I liked it, though I think I prefer Pines simply because the story, though it has more failings, is much more ambitious and interesting to me.  Though I will admit that BV probably doesn't hit me as close as a lot of people because though I've been in/am in a lot of relationships, they've all been short-term and I've never had the long-term relationship experience.  I had heard BV was this incredibly depressing film so I was expecting Grave of the Fireflies or something, but didn't really find it depressing at all; again probably because I can't connect to having a long relationship fall apart.   

Place beyond the pines was good, but I kind of thought it lost direction and fizzled out a bit at the end.

It did. By that awful third part I wanted it to be fucking over.

What?

The first and the third act were the best.  The movie was pointless until the 3rd act because the 3rd act brings it all together.  Now I have problems with the 3rd act in terms of being believable:

spoiler (click to show/hide)

I can accept that the two kids of the same age from the same town could end up at the same school and run into each other and become friends.  Sure.  And that the kid could look into his past and find pics of his dad and the news story about the cop that killed him.  Ok.  Where it gets pretty iffy is that the kid, who never even knew his father, would feel so strongly about his father's death (which was lawful since his father was a bank robber and was killed by a cop after a botched attempt) that he would feel he needs revenge and to take it out on AJ's dad. 

I think the 3rd act would've been better if it went in a different direction for the last 20 mins and the film may have been perfect if it did.  As is, it's a great film with a weak finale

[close]

[Joe Molotov]

Can't believe I was clown enough to be scared of Sadako shit at one time 

It was scary because it was different, but now it's all played out. That movie just looks bad either way, though.

[Great Rumbler]

Manabyte

[chronovore]

Very exciting. I have not even seen a poster for this in Japan yet, which is confusing the hell out of me.

I mean, it's featuring one of Japan's most popular current child actors in it, it's a Hollywood blockbuster, and it's an homage to kaiju movies. What the hell, Japan, GET ON THE BANDWAGON.

[Cormacaroni]

waiting for a spot between Doraemon and Pokemon blockbusters to open up

[ManaByte]

Manabyte

1080p >> 720p

[CajoleJuice]

Blue Valentine

Finally got around to watching this after really liking The Place Beyond The Pines (best movie I've seen in 2013 so far).   The cinematography is gorgeous, the performances are excellent and it's a neat idea for a short story that's portrayed fairly realistically.  I liked it, though I think I prefer Pines simply because the story, though it has more failings, is much more ambitious and interesting to me.  Though I will admit that BV probably doesn't hit me as close as a lot of people because though I've been in/am in a lot of relationships, they've all been short-term and I've never had the long-term relationship experience.  I had heard BV was this incredibly depressing film so I was expecting Grave of the Fireflies or something, but didn't really find it depressing at all; again probably because I can't connect to having a long relationship fall apart.   

Place beyond the pines was good, but I kind of thought it lost direction and fizzled out a bit at the end.

It did. By that awful third part I wanted it to be fucking over.

What?

The first and the third act were the best.  The movie was pointless until the 3rd act because the 3rd act brings it all together.  Now I have problems with the 3rd act in terms of being believable:

spoiler (click to show/hide)

I can accept that the two kids of the same age from the same town could end up at the same school and run into each other and become friends.  Sure.  And that the kid could look into his past and find pics of his dad and the news story about the cop that killed him.  Ok.  Where it gets pretty iffy is that the kid, who never even knew his father, would feel so strongly about his father's death (which was lawful since his father was a bank robber and was killed by a cop after a botched attempt) that he would feel he needs revenge and to take it out on AJ's dad. 

I think the 3rd act would've been better if it went in a different direction for the last 20 mins and the film may have been perfect if it did.  As is, it's a great film with a weak finale

[close]

spoiler (click to show/hide)

Yeah, the third act does pull it together, and it's necessary, I just hated that kid so fucking much I just wanted him to fucking die.

[close]

[Bebpo]

Chronicle kid or the other one?  I liked Chronicle kid because I was like "oh shit it's Chronicle kid!" 

[Cormacaroni]

Pain & Gain

Was absolutely hilarious for the first 2/3rds which ends up getting much darker in the latter half which felt jarring. It feels like if the first part wasn't so wackydoodle the final segment wouldn't have dragged as much in comparison. The Rocks character was absolutely amazing.

I am so confused. Does the Rock only appear in movies with Mark Wahlberg about lifting now?

[Beezy]

Pain & Gain

Was absolutely hilarious for the first 2/3rds which ends up getting much darker in the latter half which felt jarring. It feels like if the first part wasn't so wackydoodle the final segment wouldn't have dragged as much in comparison. The Rocks character was absolutely amazing.

Have you read the original story?  I read it years back so seeing the trailers I wondered how they were going to make a comedy out of the source material.

I need to read this. Saw the movie today and I need to know exactly how much of it was real.

[chronovore]

waiting for a spot between Doraemon and Pokemon blockbusters to open up

[Mupepe]

I'm not watching the wondercon footage because I want my boner to break my jeans at the theater from pure surprise.

[Momo]

Can't believe I was clown enough to be scared of Sadako shit at one time 

It was scary because it was different, but now it's all played out. That movie just looks bad either way, though.

I was watching the trailer of another J-Horror earlier, Scream Girls or some shit and it looked atrocious too. There used to be a time that J-horror was good

[Great Rumbler]

The Ring was scary because it was legitimately good horror movie that knew how to play up the tension, rather than just tossing out scary faces and cats jumping out of closets.

[chronovore]

Yeah, Nakata knows how to work it. I didn't like the ending, but Honogurai no Mizu no Sokokara was also very suspenseful and atmospheric.

[chronovore]

Re-watched WANTED: Weapons of Fate yesterday, having been inspired after seeing Nightwatch. The movie was better than I remembered overall, but I am still wondering just how the hell anyone ever thought the explosive rat horde scene would work. It's horrible. It's got nothing to do with the rest of the world they've created. It's jarring.

There's an alternate introduction on the Blu-Ray which feels like it was lifted directly out of Nightwatch; I wish they'd kept it in.

I also wish they'd kept this shot in:
http://i.imgur.com/7XsYvqs.png

[Great Rumbler]

I'm talking about the remake, actually, I've never seen the original.

[chronovore]

Ah, well, he directed the US-version of Dark Water, so give that a look if you prefer remakes.

[Eric P]

loathe Ringu and wasn't too hot on the remake of dark water.

i think i'm just not a fan of that director

[Vertigo]

The original Ringu movie was crazy good made me shit scared obviously as others have said it's played out now.

But when it first came out. 

[Eric P]

Ringu just took these weird diversions like with the backstory of Sadako and the television psychic that over explained the phenomena.  I think I just prefer the US version because it strips everything out and puts these people into a horrible situation which gets worse.

[Bebpo]

Recently I saw:

Drive - one of the best movies ever made.
The Fountain - uhhh... kind of boring but watchable.
The Tree of Life - what the fuck did I just waste 3 hours on? No seriously. What was the point in having CG dinosaurs in a Sean Penn and Brad Pitt flick?

It's been a while since I've seen Tree of Life, but it'd probably help to read some essay analysis to get what Malik is trying to do.  It's an absolutely gorgeous film though, really really well shot.

Fountain is kind of a mess but the ending is pretty amazing.  It helps if you like Xenogears.  Since it shares the same love over reincarnation until the end of time theme.

[Great Rumbler]

I loved all three of those movies, though I can certainly see how The Tree of Life and The Fountain really aren't for everybody.

[Bebpo]

A lot of people don't like Drive either.  Just check any of the gaf threads talking about Refyn's new film.

[Great Rumbler]

Eh, Drive is a much more mainstream and "traditional" movie than The Tree of Life or The Fountain, the fact that haters exist for it doesn't really change things.

[chronovore]

I think I'm with Vertigo; Ringu is played out now, but it was groundbreaking to me at the time. I was so happy to see something serve up suspenseful fear, instead of just trying to shock or boo-scare. I may give it another watch soon, see if I'm disappointed. At the time, I watched it on VHS, which heightened my immersion -- I ended up having to stop the tape several times just to assert control. I was really scared.

[BlueTsunami]

Pain & Gain

Was absolutely hilarious for the first 2/3rds which ends up getting much darker in the latter half which felt jarring. It feels like if the first part wasn't so wackydoodle the final segment wouldn't have dragged as much in comparison. The Rocks character was absolutely amazing.

I am so confused. Does the Rock only appear in movies with Mark Wahlberg about lifting now?

If thats all he does from now on, I'd be ok with that

Pain & Gain

Was absolutely hilarious for the first 2/3rds which ends up getting much darker in the latter half which felt jarring. It feels like if the first part wasn't so wackydoodle the final segment wouldn't have dragged as much in comparison. The Rocks character was absolutely amazing.

Have you read the original story?  I read it years back so seeing the trailers I wondered how they were going to make a comedy out of the source material. 

I haven't but I've heard just how psychotic one of the guys was and with that in mind the tonal shift is appropriate

[Cormacaroni]

turns out I was super-confused because a friend of mine told me about Pain and Gain, and showed me the trailer, but told me it was called Do You Even Lift, which i think is just one of the tag-lines for Pain and Gain or something....needless to say it is not being advertised much in this market

[Phoenix Dark]

Makes WAY more sense than Chestnut.

[Momo]

The thing with ringu is, it's not just ringu in isolation. Japanese film houses always used to manage to get a couple of horror films a year right. Now its just poo I see, have been for a couple of years. To be fair though I havent spent as much time on asian cinema forums the last couple of years as previous so I may just be missing these.

Also it seems more J-movies have happy endings these days, one of the primary reasons I like watching J-cinema is unexpected endings :-/

[Phoenix Dark]

If you have to read an essay to "get" a film...it probably sucks.

Recently I saw:
The Fountain - uhhh... kind of boring but watchable.

GTFO

[Bebpo]

Perfume

Most "What The Fuck?" movie I've seen in a while. Not sure if I love it or hate it yet.

The ending is WOOOOOOOOOW

It's a cool movie, just super long w/pacing issues.  Would be interesting to read the book and compare it one day.

[Cormacaroni]

the book is all kinds of crazy, gets under your skin

[chronovore]

The thing with ringu is, it's not just ringu in isolation. Japanese film houses always used to manage to get a couple of horror films a year right. Now its just poo I see, have been for a couple of years. To be fair though I havent spent as much time on asian cinema forums the last couple of years as previous so I may just be missing these.

Also it seems more J-movies have happy endings these days, one of the primary reasons I like watching J-cinema is unexpected endings :-/

Yeah, I keep poring over the New Releases at the video store, and nothing really grabs me. I should just knuckle down and try a few, but I'm pretty sure they're mostly SAW-influenced boo scare crap now.

[Verdigris Murder]

Maniac is like a weird first person passive murder sim. It's almost probably ripped out of Fils Aimez' dark mental lobe, and then the character is replaced by Frodo with Cosby Show facegrowth. Looking 'tired'.

And so far he's only murdered hipsters and hot girls.

[cool breeze]

Iron Man 3 wasn't what I expect from a superhero movie, but actually better for it, I think.  Ben Kingsley is great in it.

spoiler (click to show/hide)

opening with Eiffel 65

[close]

[Cerveza mas fina]

Tree of life is horrible, it would have been better as 20 minute art movie with no dialogue

[TEEEPO]

it's hard coming up with a list of movies better than Tree of Life.

[Cerveza mas fina]

Ive seen commercials that arr better.

[Stoney Mason]

Watched Tremors last night which I had never seen before. I had always heard good things about it as a cult movie.

It's okay. It has an 80's feel and its a monster movie. Those two things are charming enough especially since they don't exist anymore. It's no Big Trouble in Little China style classic but its decent enough.

[fistfulofmetal]

Iron Man 3 is a great movie. Great characters, really well told story, great villain, it's damn funny. It's really good.

[Verdigris Murder]

Parker was something I watched for about 20 mins, up to the bar fight bit. Statham films DEMAND decent fight scenes nowadays, after his Universe Wide megasmash hit Safe he needs to be a bit fussier with his choices.

Van Damme had a similar phase: Double Team was most likely the apex of his action career, second place would be Unisol: Day Of Reckoning. JCVD is a good film, but it was contrived meta

[Bebpo]

V/H/S

This was surprisingly not bad horror anthology.  More surprising was that the short by Ti West (House of the Devil/The Innkeepers) wasn't even one of the strongest.


The piece connecting them all was terrible.
The first short story was generic but fine. 
The 2nd short story (Ti West) was ok, ends too quickly, needed another 3 mins; feels like "eh, ok"
The 3rd short story (Guy who did I Sell The Dead) was a pretty awesome live action Slenderman movie.  Very cool.
The 4th short story was really creative horror short using skype.
The 5th short story was generic haunted house but well done.

So yeah, only didn't enjoy the connecting piece.  Each of the 5 shorts were at least decent little horror tales.  Not bad, not bad at all.

[Rahxephon91]

I watched both Gantz movies today and well I really enjoyed them. Sure the plot is full of holes and the big mystery is never solved, but man did I enjoy them. Some honest to goodness character development with the lead mixed with an off the wall premise. The 2nd movie espicially was just filled with so many twists and turns that I couldn't help but be entertained. Doesn't hurt that the 2nd movie actually has some pretty good action.

[chronovore]

The manga are really good for character development and not much in the way of explanation. I kind of like it for that; the character has to grow up, facing obstacles that neither he, nor the audience understands.

[Rahxephon91]

The manga are really good for character development and not much in the way of explanation. I kind of like it for that; the character has to grow up, facing obstacles that neither he, nor the audience understands.

Yeah. The movie didn't really explain anything and well I didn't care.

But yeah, I guess I should read the manga. It's just there's already so many volumes to purchase and that intimates me with most manga. Heh, maybe they'll eventually release it through Omnibuses here or maybe I just gotta dive in.

[Verdigris Murder]

VHS felt oddly misogynistic, looking forward to VHS 2 though, as its got The Raid director doing part of it.

I wish someone would remake To Kill A Mockingbird, but set it in the future and have robots instead of negros.

[Eric P]

VHS is crazy misogynistic which is disconcerting when you realize that the directors were all working independently of one another and by their own choice seemed to reach "women r evil" as a theme by themselves

[Joe Molotov]

VHS felt oddly misogynistic, looking forward to VHS 2 though, as its got The Raid director doing part of it.

I wish someone would remake To Kill A Mockingbird, but set it in the future and have robots instead of negros.

I'm pretty sure that's the plot of at least one episode of Battlestar Galactica.

[Raban]

Last night I watched two Lars von Trier films back to back. I'd never seen any of this director's work and wanted to see more after I finished the first one, Antichrist. Despite its very explicit themes, several scenes are astonishingly beautiful and the music is used to great effect. There is some shit that happens in this movie that wouldn't be out of place on BMEarchive, which was surprising (and difficult) to watch. Despite that, I enjoyed it and plan on going back to watch it again. There were a lot of visual clues regarding the story that aren't made abundantly clear that I'd like to catch.

The movie I watched after that was Dogville, being a huge fan of Nicole Kidman. I went into it totally blind and what terribly strange movie. I'd never seen a movie (or play, even) that used the same "minimalist set" that this movie did, but it didn't bother me. Not nearly as much as the tragedies inflicted upon Kidman's character, Grace, who suffers a nauseating/comical level of degradation. It ended up being enough to keep me watching until the end to see if she is ever freed, and the finale is just about the same blend of nauseating/comical. I was perplexed to say the least, but I'm pretty sure I enjoyed it.

[Bebpo]

VHS is crazy misogynistic which is disconcerting when you realize that the directors were all working independently of one another and by their own choice seemed to reach "women r evil" as a theme by themselves

Yeah, this is true for some unfortunately.  The 4th one is the only one that really bucks that trend (webcam one) but even then

spoiler (click to show/hide)

the alien visitor is a female, but the real villain is the doctor guy

[close]

And I don't think the SlendermanxJason Tuesday the 17th clip is, could've been a guy in the role and would've played out the same.

The last one is about exorcisms and traditionally exorcist movies are done with females being the possessed. 

The first one features a mythological creature that is female in nature.

But yeah, that most of them picked horror types that revolve around "evil" women is unsettling I agree.

[Eel O'Brian]

VHS is just a shitty movie all around

...well, i sort of liked the skype one, and at least the exorcism one had some likable characters

[chronovore]

Yeah, I had heard so many bad things about that movie, but it turned out to be quite good! The scenes you mentioned in particular were very good. I was not a fan of the hand held camera, but it wasn't as bad on my tiny TV as it might've been on a giant theater screen.

I felt it spending was surprisingly brave as well, all things considered.

[Raban]

I feel like you need to see Cloverfield in theatres to get the full experience. I was totally blown away when I first saw that movie. The visuals/sound fx

[Great Rumbler]

Aside from Hud, the worst part of Cloverfield was the first 20 minutes or so. Just so incredibly boring and meaningless.

[Eel O'Brian]

I don't know who's old enough to remember, but back when Friends blew up, there were a ton of copycat shows on the various networks all trying to ride that ratings wave - one was called Townies, and starred Molly Ringwald. The first 20 minutes of Cloverfield reminded me of an episode of one of those Friends knockoffs.

[Great Rumbler]

I get that they wanted to set up the characters and their relationships first, give people a reason to care, but...total backfire in that regard. The first twenty minutes actually made me WANT them to get killed by the monster.