Movie News, Reviews, and Discussion Super-Thread

[Verdigris Murder]

I finished Mib3, the ending was UTTERLY distinguished mentally-challenged. Watched what was initially an awesome bbc doc about intense shit in Afghanisfahan. 2007 Helmand. Actually it's worth watching for the first 40 mins of so, as its pretty good.

[Great Rumbler]

Looper.

Science Fiction 

[Mandark]

Looper.

Science Fiction 

 

[Himu]

Looper.

Science Fiction 

Is this the sci-fi film we (I) have been waiting for that Prometheus didn't deliver (however good it was)?

[Mandark]

It's well done twisty/plotty crime sci-fi.  If you think you might like it, my best advice is to watch it without reading too much in advance.

[Himu]

Well it looks awesome, so I'm going!

[Great Rumbler]

Looper.

Science Fiction 

Is this the sci-fi film we (I) have been waiting for that Prometheus didn't deliver (however good it was)?

1. It's set in the year 2044
2. It has time travel
3. It's a well-directed, well-written, well-acted movie

[Joe Molotov]

Looper was damn good.

[Phoenix Dark]

Can someone explain to me Looper, I'm confused. Ok, they send people back into the past to get assassinated by Loopers, who they pay lots of money. Why not just send them to Hiroshima in 1945? It would save money and there would be no fuck ups

[Mandark]

I particularly liked that it tells a pretty limited, personal story.  Grimdark vs. Bright and colorful is the big aesthetic nerdwar right now, but I don't care as much about that as seeing some movies lower the stakes every once in a while.  The world (or Gotham) doesn't always have to hang in the balance, guys.  Sometimes the main character just wants to not die or something and that can be enough.


PD:

spoiler (click to show/hide)

If I understood it right, it was pretty strongly implied that their machine sends people back a fixed (30 year) amount of time.  Maybe always to the same place.

[close]

[fistfulofmetal]

Can someone explain to me Looper, I'm confused. Ok, they send people back into the past to get assassinated by Loopers, who they pay lots of money. Why not just send them to Hiroshima in 1945? It would save money and there would be no fuck ups

Why didn't Skynet send the T-800 back to when John Connor was an infant in the hospital?

[Joe Molotov]

It's not always in the same spot, because that one guy was in an alley. It must be a specific spot for each looper though, because they only get a time, not a location.

[Great Rumbler]

Can someone explain to me Looper, I'm confused. Ok, they send people back into the past to get assassinated by Loopers, who they pay lots of money. Why not just send them to Hiroshima in 1945? It would save money and there would be no fuck ups

They don't do that because SHUT UP.

Seriously, though, it's a time travel story and time travel stories are always going to be a little screwy.

[Mandark]

Reminds me of when Unstoppable came out.


FRIEND: You see the trailer for this Denzel movie with the train?  The plot looks dumb.

ME: How so?

FRIEND: It's this "unstoppable" train, and they keep trying to put stuff in front of it to stop it.  Then it blows right through it, so they put some other shit in its way.

ME: I... don't think that's accurate.

FRIEND: No way, man, that's the whole movie!

spoiler (click to show/hide)

Yes, he was being facetious.  Mostly.

[close]

[Shaka Khan]

Loopers caught me completely off guard. The trailers made it look like a shallow action flick. The good reviews only made me believe it was a well made shallow action flick. I just loved all the daring directions it took, the characters and how they developed*, and the pacing... They just nailed the pacing.

Edit:

* Or "were explored" for accuracy's sake.

[Phoenix Dark]

Also, why can't they kill the people in the present? Murder outlawed or something? Also what is inflation like. I mean, is a future dollar worth more than a past dollar? These are things I need to know before spending my dollars to see this film

[Shaka Khan]

People are getting killed in the present (as the opening act showed), this gang however is just doing the cleanup work of another era.

[Great Rumbler]

PLEASE TELL ME EVERYTHING ABOUT THE PLOT BEFORE I SPEND $7

[Himu]

7 dollars? Them there are 2000's prices. More like 10! I could spend that much at the local gloryhole to get me a blowjob! Decisions!

[Freyj]

The why of the sending people back in time to be killed is explained via JGL as a narrator early on. It's not heavy handed like Inception, but it works just fine considering that Joe (JGL) doesn't give much of a fuck about the why.

I also assume that there's some sort of limitation with the technology that doesn't make it some sort of open ended Doctor Who fuck the police kind of time travel that would allow the Mafia to drop people into 1945 Japan, but again it's not explained to that detail and the movie is better for it.

Most of the bitching has either been nit picking or misinterpretations of a scene near the end.

3. It's a well-directed, well-written, well-acted movie

[CajoleJuice]

Looper was fucking fantastic.

And I paid $14.

[Eric P]

Looper was fucking fantastic.

And I paid $14.

AMC before noon!  It's $6 (or 7 if you end up in Times Square)  Speaking of Times Square a fucking hilarious HK film by my current favorite HK director is playing for one week; Vulgaria.  Absolutely hilarious.

[CajoleJuice]

Looper was fucking fantastic.

And I paid $14.

AMC before noon!  It's $6 (or 7 if you end up in Times Square)  Speaking of Times Square a fucking hilarious HK film by my current favorite HK director is playing for one week; Vulgaria.  Absolutely hilarious.

Yeah I know. But I watched Brick and Brothers Bloom back-to-back and I just had the urge to go see Looper at 12:50 AM instead of this morning or whenever.

[Cerveza mas fina]

I called a movie night at work. Three 50" screens running Ronin on Blu-Ray, with pizza and a keg of Sierra Nevada. WHAT A FUCK-AWESOME NIGHT.

Sierra Nevada

[Tucah]

Looper was excellent.

[BlueTsunami]

Gonna try to catch Looper tomorrow. Really hopeful. I'm still buzzing off Dredd though.

[Great Rumbler]

7 dollars? Them there are 2000's prices. More like 10!

Got my ticket for $7.50 at Cinemark's flagship theater.

[CajoleJuice]

Gonna try to catch Looper tomorrow. Really hopeful. I'm still buzzing off Dredd though.

Dredd was cool, but I think the internet is hyping it up a bit too much. That, or The Raid ruined all other action movies for a while.

[Great Rumbler]

Dredd is a really fun action movie, no need to hype it beyond that.

[BlueTsunami]

Gonna try to catch Looper tomorrow. Really hopeful. I'm still buzzing off Dredd though.

Dredd was cool, but I think the internet is hyping it up a bit too much. That, or The Raid ruined all other action movies for a while.

That's true but it hit all the right notes for me. I think its also partly to how bad its doing, people are trying to drum it up via word of mouth.

[CajoleJuice]

Gonna try to catch Looper tomorrow. Really hopeful. I'm still buzzing off Dredd though.

Dredd was cool, but I think the internet is hyping it up a bit too much. That, or The Raid ruined all other action movies for a while.

That's true but it hit all the right notes for me. I think its also partly to how bad its doing, people are trying to drum it up via word of mouth.

Understandable. It definitely deserves to be doing better.

[Verdigris Murder]

The thing about the Dredd script leaking super early, and a gangster associated lady, married to a Welshman, they had a seriously quick filming time. Is it true?

[chronovore]

The why of the sending people back in time to be killed is explained via JGL as a narrator early on. It's not heavy handed like Inception, but it works just fine considering that Joe (JGL) doesn't give much of a fuck about the why.

I also assume that there's some sort of limitation with the technology that doesn't make it some sort of open ended Doctor Who fuck the police kind of time travel that would allow the Mafia to drop people into 1945 Japan, but again it's not explained to that detail and the movie is better for it.

Most of the bitching has either been nit picking or misinterpretations of a scene near the end.

3. It's a well-directed, well-written, well-acted movie

I re-watched Inception last night, and was a little appalled at how heavy-handed the exposition was.

I'd also not noticed how weird it was that they needed they dream hardware IN THE DREAM to go into the next layer of dreams. I guess you have to have rules in order to make the suspense work, though!

[Eel O'Brian]

anything dealing with time travel is gonna be full of fist-sized plot holes, best just to turn off that part of your brain and relax

[CajoleJuice]

anything dealing with time travel is gonna be full of fist-sized plot holes, best just to turn off that part of your brain and relax

the movie even jokes about this

I've been meaning to blog (lol) about watching all three of Rian Johnson's movies for the first time on Saturday, as I enjoyed each one more than the one before.

[Mandark]

I loved the way they hand-waved it.  "Don't start talking about time travel shit, or we'll be here all night."  Way better than trying to fit in eight minutes of exposition that won't hold up to scrutiny anyways.  They explained just enough so that when they used it to move the plot forward (like the quantum memory thing) it didn't feel like cheating.

[Phoenix Dark]

 
I like how exposition was handled in Inception. And I'm not sure what "scrutiny" means in relation to a sci fi film. I noticed a few people trying their hardest to critique the sci fi of Inception, and I never got the point. Especially the "That's not how dreams work!" stuff. Eh, ok sure whatever

Typically the only thing I question about sci fi "science" is the practicality, which is where a lot of time travel stuff falters. But obviously the better the movie is, the less of a problem that is. You could argue the human alliance was going to send their own protector to any period of the past that the T-1000 was sent, so the "why not send it to kill baby Connor" argument doesn't really hold up imo. But with Looper - which admittedly I haven't seen - I must say I'm just curious why they wouldn't just save money by sending people to a situation they would have 0% chance of surviving, like Hiroshima or into a volcano. Not that this would make or break the film for me, it's just curious

[Great Rumbler]

But with Looper - which admittedly I haven't seen - I must say I'm just curious why they wouldn't just save money by sending people to a situation they would have 0% chance of surviving, like Hiroshima or into a volcano. Not that this would make or break the film for me, it's just curious

The internal logic of the film simply assumes that they can't.

[Phoenix Dark]

But with Looper - which admittedly I haven't seen - I must say I'm just curious why they wouldn't just save money by sending people to a situation they would have 0% chance of surviving, like Hiroshima or into a volcano. Not that this would make or break the film for me, it's just curious

The internal logic of the film simply assumes that they can't.

Aite. Maybe the technology isn't advanced enough for more than that. I can accept that

[Mandark]

Like I said, I think it's implied that they can only send someone back a fixed amount of time.  There's a scene where someone's delayed from being sent back by a minute, and they arrive a minute late.  Plus it looks like a dingy bootlegged machine that the mob's gotten a hold of.

And I didn't have a problem with the exposition in Inception either.  It was a sci-fi and a caper film, and both those genres demand some pretty explicit, upfront exposition so the audience understands the rules in place, the nature of the hero's potential obstacles, etc.  Yeah, you can do sci-fi/fantasy where stuff is vague and malleable and nobody is quite sure what's going on.  But then you have to make an entirely different sort of movie (one with David Bowie in tights) or you risk making it look like you cheated with the plot.

[CajoleJuice]

Add me to the group of people that didn't mind the exposition in Inception.

Man, Looper rocked. Shut up and go see it, PD.

[Phoenix Dark]

cajole: I'm waiting for Shake's review

[The Sceneman]

i watched pokemon the movie #15 with my son on sunday

i wanted to die but god is cruel and would not release me

do not send help, risk is too high

Have you seen the Animal Crossing movie? After watching that I felt like I had been defiled

spoiler (click to show/hide)

I still enjoyed it  Its so good seeing Tom Nook run his depraved revenge agenda against humanity.

[close]

I watched Primer last night. Awesome mind bending time travel flick. I plan on seeing Looper and Dredd at the cinema in the near future.

[CajoleJuice]

cajole: I'm waiting for Shake's review

smh

[Great Rumbler]

Add me to the group of people that didn't mind the exposition in Inception.

I was fine with it, too.

[bud]

holy shit, i went to the theater in the morning yesterday after class (first time in perhaps ten years), and it was fantastic. i had the entire theater to myself, and it was, naturally, quiet as fuck.

i saw tdkr, btw. maybe i'm in the minority here, but comparing it to nolan's other two batmans, i thought it was better shot and edited; it looked way prettier.

i'm not sure how i feel about the movie, but bane's voice will never get out of my head--it was hilarious. what the fuck was that. the sound mixing on his voice was terrible, too, because it sounded a lot like some guy in the back of the theater doing his voice-acting in some booth. i genuinely laughed out loud when both batman and bane were talking with their dumb voices.

[bud]

tdkr is nolan's best shot film outside of memento.

[CajoleJuice]

i think jarosh was right (on twitter) that it felt like a 2 and a half hour collection of trailers, though.

[bud]

i'm not sure what that means, but i definitely felt it was too long; it was dragging in some bits.

[Eel O'Brian]

Saw The Innkeepers on Netflix. I had the same problem with it that I had with Ti West's previous film, House of the Devil: even though each one is only around an hour and forty minutes, he could have trimmed twenty minutes from either movie and nothing of value would have been lost. They take a loooooooong time to get where they're going, and the path there isn't very interesting. There's a segment of filmmaking which disappeared in the late 40s or early 50s, the "short" movie. All those classic Universal Monster movies are only about an hour and ten minutes long each, and the better for it in most cases. I'd like to see that style make a comeback.

[BlueTsunami]

Looper. Really dug it but felt it dragged pretty bad when they hit the farm. Other than that, def' happy with it.

[Positive Touch]

am i the only one who thought a lot of the dialog was terrible? "her love... is a sponge..."  bitch please. 

good movie otherwise


oh also

spoiler (click to show/hide)

the kid was great

[close]

[Great Rumbler]

am i the only one who thought a lot of the dialog was terrible?

Yes.

[Positive Touch]

doin my own shit

[Phoenix Dark]

Saw The Innkeepers on Netflix. I had the same problem with it that I had with Ti West's previous film, House of the Devil: even though each one is only around an hour and forty minutes, he could have trimmed twenty minutes from either movie and nothing of value would have been lost. They take a loooooooong time to get where they're going, and the path there isn't very interesting. There's a segment of filmmaking which disappeared in the late 40s or early 50s, the "short" movie. All those classic Universal Monster movies are only about an hour and ten minutes long each, and the better for it in most cases. I'd like to see that style make a comeback.

I really liked how House Of The Devil slowly built up the story/tension but I can see it turning many folks off. My biggest problem with the film was that it was missing a memorable scare scene to really blow audiences away.

spoilers

spoiler (click to show/hide)

It does have that scene where the babysitter's friend gets her face blown off, at which point you realize the main character is probably fucked. But having watched the film twice I just feel like it needed one big scene to really make it a great horror film. Perhaps if the grandmother slowly crawled out of the attic, instead of just having the main character reacting to something off screen before blacking out.

The film basically is a slow burn, then the end is this rapid series of events. I really liked it but do agree it could have used some editing, and a more memorable scare

[close]

I still need to see The Innkeepers

[chronovore]

Looper. Really dug it but felt it dragged pretty bad when they hit the farm. Other than that, def' happy with it.

I saw this tonight, and had the same reaction. It's great, but there's a whole little bit there where I wish they'd subtitled it, "YOU CAN GO TO THE JOHN NOW, IT'S SAFE FOR THE NEXT 15 MINUTES." Really fun movie; man, the Kansas of 2044 or whatever is a total shithole.

[Eric P]

I still need to see The Innkeepers

was just added to netflix

[BobFromPikeCreek]

Innkeepers is just ok.

[fistfulofmetal]

My probs with The Innkeepers was that I didn't like or care about any of the characters. The chick and the dude were just annoying so I didn't care what was happening to them and the slow burn build up meant nothing.

[Eric P]

Innkeepers is amazing.  You all are crazy.