Movie News, Reviews, and Discussion Super-Thread

[Mupepe]

I love The Prestige.  The Nolanverse Batman movies are very damn entertaining.

[chronovore]

I find people off the Internet don't tend to "love" any movies.  They're treated as disposable entertainment. 

I think all three are good, though Rises pushes it a bit.  I don't love any of them, though.  I feel there's an incredibly huge gap between "this is good" and "I love this".

That's a good point. I don't love the Nolan Batman movies, but I love Burton's Batman Returns, despite its flaws. For me, that's the best Batman movie, as it's one of the few which doesn't rehash his origin, and goes out of its way to show sympathy for its villains, implying or, in this case, outright stating the similarity between Batman and his adversaries.

[BobFromPikeCreek]

I certainly laughed more at They Came Together than I did at Wanderlust.  Though WL had that great Paul Rudd mirror scene.

I would think much less of WL if it weren't for that scene.

Everybody watch it right now:

[Great Rumbler]

Rises is the weakest of the three, I think, but even it is highly entertaining and has some pretty great parts to it. Should have focused more on Catwoman, though, since she was ultimately more interesting and compelling than Bane [and the secret villain] ended up being. Ledger's Joker puts TDK at the top, definitely, it's the kind of transcendent acting turn that's totally unexpected and so far beyond what you get in a almost every big budget movie.

[chronovore]

spoiler (click to show/hide)

[close]

Cronenberg made a great short film to go with his retrospective event. It's got all the hallmark themes, but handles them differently and more subtly than his other work.

[Kara]

People off the Internet (assuming we're talking about non-geek, normal people here but correct me if that's wrong) tend to not have strong, lasting emotions about the movies they watch, especially blockbusters.  The cultish hate/love dichotomy is more the realm of geeks.  So a person who "loves" all or any of those movies, or "hates" them, would be in the minority offline, where the overwhelming majority attaches as much permanent feeling to movies as they do to last Thursday's meatloaf.

irl Disney (animation) fans are the prototype for the sort of people you describe as populating message boards most of us read.

[Tasty]

Yes, ALL THE GRIMDARK!!

[cool breeze]

that ain't grimdark.  gotham is just a shithole.  it doesn't even have an ihop.

[Joe Molotov]

Five-head

[Phoenix Dark]

Liefeld was right all along.
 

[Madrun Badrun]

[Tasty]

The heart

[Tasty]

Oh my god, Stryker is in Rise of the Planet of the Apes. (Watching it for the first time to prepare for Dawn.)

Watch out for the Adamantium, Caesar!

spoiler (click to show/hide)

Brian Cox is amazing.

[close]

Also, Draco sure fell hard after he left Hogwarts. And became even more of an asswipe.

[Eric P]

Barnes and Nobel is doing their twice annual Criterion 50% off sale.  I snagged It's a Mad Mad Mad Mad World having not seen it in forever and I loved it.  As I was watching it, I was curious why they no longer made these kinds of films, but they do, they're just Grown Ups 2 instead of this.  I'm interested in seeing the 4 hour cut that's included, but I'll have to clear out a block of time.  Currently watching surreal French crime film Judex.

The sale runs until the 15th, or so I think.  Just in time for Scanners to come out.

[Quaker]

Reducing Brian Cox to Stryker? He was the original Hannibal Lecter in Mannhunter, mang.

Barnes and Nobel is doing their twice annual Criterion 50% off sale.  I snagged It's a Mad Mad Mad Mad World having not seen it in forever and I loved it.  As I was watching it, I was curious why they no longer made these kinds of films, but they do, they're just Grown Ups 2 instead of this.  I'm interested in seeing the 4 hour cut that's included, but I'll have to clear out a block of time.  Currently watching surreal French crime film Judex.

The sale runs until the 15th, or so I think.  Just in time for Scanners to come out.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0250687/ ?

Looking forward to picking up Life Aquatic on Blu-ray, finally.

[Bebpo]

Rec 3: Genesis was ok.  Entertaining and short, but not really sure what they were trying to do with the film besides popcorn entertainment and bringing in $$$.  The tone is like PG-13 silly, sometimes funny, but then everyone dies all the time and it's like "ok, there goes the comedy bit".  Then there's the whole trying to connect the film to the previous two with the lady upstairs and Judgment day and it's like on one hand they're trying to make this epic DARK ANGELS RETURN judgment day thriller that ties Rec together and otoh it's this campy wedding film with dudes in knight armor.  Tone is just super inconsistent.  But wasn't a bad watch I guess. 

[Eric P]

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0250687/ ?

Looking forward to picking up Life Aquatic on Blu-ray, finally.

yeah they also remade Around The World in the same vein.

[Madrun Badrun]

The first star trek movie.  This and nemesis are the only ones I've never seen. It was shitty.  Look at this 15 min long sequence of moving a along a space ship.  bleh. 

[Kara]

Undiscovered Country is the only one I've ever enjoyed.

Probably because it's just a Cold War movie with Star Trek slapped over it.

[Tasty]

Yeah, I liked Undiscovered Country too.



Dat rage

I also like Khan, of course. The first was boring shit. Have a soft spot for First Contact and Generations, although the latter I recognize was pretty crap.

Haven't seen most of the others.

[Kara]

First Contact was kinda alright in that you got to see how badly we fucked up as a species before we got a bailout from the Vulcans.

Time travel and the presence of the Borg nullify a lot of those gains, doe.

[Tasty]

I liked the Borg/Picard aspect of First Contact. And the Borg Queen was hot.

[Eric P]

Jug Face - this is actually pretty good for a low budget horror film.  more of a weird tale than a horror film.  it's about these backwoods people and the rites and rituals they perform around a pit which guides their lives and then what happens when someone disobeys the wishes of the pit.  Worth a watch on Netflix

NYAFF continues today with a double feature of hopping vampires

Mr Vampire - still good and still funny.  I didn't realize how effective some of the suspense scenes were until I saw the film on the big screen.  a lot of fun.

Rigor Mortis - this is being released by Well Go so it will hit Netflix at some point.  Watch it when it does.  It's a dark fantasy made for adults moreso than an actual horror film.  It's got ghosts, vampires, murder, albinos, kung fu and older protagonists contemplating the end of their lives.  It was really quite good.

[Tasty]

The Grand Budapest Hotel...

Well, that was depressing as fuck.

[chronovore]

I had Inside Llewyn Davis rented for a month and it expired before I could watch it.  :'(

In better news, I've finally seen the first Zatoichi movie on Criterion, and it was perfect. PERFECT. What a great movie.

First Contact was kinda alright in that you got to see how badly we fucked up as a species before we got a bailout from the Vulcans.

Time travel and the presence of the Borg nullify a lot of those gains, doe.

I liked the Borg/Picard aspect of First Contact. And the Borg Queen was hot.

Star Trek movies are generally crap except for Undiscovered Country and Wrath of Khan. That's it. That's all there is.

spoiler (click to show/hide)

Search for Spock nullifies anything done right by Wrath of Khan, Save the Whales is a comedy that throws the Prime Directive out the window, but it has a young Go-Go's Jane Wiedlin in Starfleet cosplay, so it's OK with me. Kirk vs. God was abysmal and unforgivable. Shatner's ego in full effect, manages to kill the series so badly, it almost doesn't recover.

After-or-at the TNG transition, Generations is just crap, crap, crap. Lame way to ditch Kirk, meaningless integration of Data's emotion chip, and Geordi's contacts replacing his visor was annoying. First Contact manages to destroy the effectiveness of the hive-mind Borg by giving them a hierarchy who is lonely for Picard, or maybe Data, and is the first instance of throwing away the ensemble cast in deference to "real actors" Patrick Stewart and Brent Spiner, a trend which continues through the end of the TNG movie era.

[close]

I won't bother with Insurrection or Nemesis. Just watch the RedLetterMedia channel on YouTube for a thorough dissection of those if you ever feel an urge to re-watch them.

[benjipwns]

Undiscovered Country is actually my favorite because of how it cuts between the different plot lines, but I have to always admit Wrath of Khan is the superior picture.

Nemesis' space battle needs to be watched at least once. And I'd watch it again if it didn't get pulled from YouTube.

I contend Generations is the worst movie. And that V is better than being the worst because of the character moments with the trio, and "what does God need with a starship?" One of the ten greatest lines in movie history not from Wrath of Khan.

The first star trek movie.  This and nemesis are the only ones I've never seen. It was shitty.  Look at this 15 min long sequence of moving a along a space ship.  bleh.

The Motionless Picture amirite

[benjipwns]

I love that they changed the ending because Kirk getting shot in the back wasn't a heroic enough way for him to go out.

Then they dropped a bridge on him.

And they were too stupid to make it a "no-win" scenario Kirk couldn't defeat to complete the arc for the character.

At least "All Good Things..." is amazing. Moore said they were writing that and Generations at the same time and kept getting the scripts confused. I'm glad all the good stuff got into one and all the shit into the other.

spoiler (click to show/hide)

And Kirk should've asked why they didn't go back farther and arrest Soran earlier. Or sent Kirk back to the Enterprise-B to have an "accident" kill him then and send Chekhov or Cameron Frye down to fix the thingy. Kirk never gave a shit about the timeline before.

god i hate that movie 

[close]

[Stoney Mason]

I like nearly all of the old trek movies. That is partly nostalgia of course.


I even like Star Trek 5 which most people detest. I like the original Trek movie also. I understand why people don't like it, but I legit think its a good movie. It's the last time time Trek was going for that old school 70's sci-fi vibe. Meaning it was slow and boring for most people but I always kinda dig those aspects

For whatever reason I never got around to seeing generations until about 4 or 5 years ago. Man that was terrible.

[Joe Molotov]

Everybody gives Insurrection a hard time, but I like it. It's just a chill, laid back movie, with Picard smanging some milf and singing Gilbert and Sullivan with Data.

But I also liked The Motion Picture too.

spoiler (click to show/hide)

Mostly because of the soundtrack, tho. 

[close]

[Stoney Mason]

I remember coming out of Star Trek: Nemesis thinking it was "average". I mean relative to what trek had become at that point. I didn't realize the backlash that one would get which would effectively end Star Trek movies until the reboot.

[benjipwns]

The Directors Cut of the Motion Picture is a bit better, thankfully you can fast-forward through all the space porn which I really wouldn't want to not exist. That and McCoy when he comes on board are so historically of the time it was made.

Insurrection's just kinda underwhelming more than anything, it's not actively bad.

Joe (or anyone I guess), have you read Fade In by Michael Piller (unpublished but out there on the net) about the making of Insurrection? It originally started out as Apocalypse Now with Picard.

One other thing about Generations is apparently Paramount had like this massive list of all these things that needed to be in the movie, most of it terrible and self-sabotaging, I think Moore posted some of those back on the usenet/AOL chat things he did. Then with First Contact they were more like "whatever, do what you want" to Frakes and co.

[Joe Molotov]

I remember coming out of Star Trek: Nemesis thinking it was "average". I mean relative to what trek had become at that point. I didn't realize the backlash that one would get which would effectively end Star Trek movies until the reboot.

I remember going to see it with my brother during it's second weekend, and we were the only people in the theater.

Joe (or anyone I guess), have you read Fade In by Michael Piller (unpublished but out there on the net) about the making of Insurrection? It originally started out as Apocalypse Now with Picard.

No, but I may have to give it a read.

[Kara]

It was cool to have a movie about Romulans, but not the actual movie we got.

The whole Manchurian Candidate thing in Nemesis was too.

Too bad the reboots made Romulans shitty from the first movie, I can't really hope for a good Romulan movie there either.

No love for Space Romans.

[benjipwns]

Nemesis sucks because of all the Picard/Data shit and the Remans. I don't know how much of it is to blame due to the director who thought Geordi was an alien.

And they wanted to do an "updated" Wrath of Khan with a NEMESIS only they fucked it all up and had no idea how to invoke the tension of Wrath of Khan.

The funny thing about Star Trek (2009) is that it's basically the same premise as Nemesis. Romulan dude with massive ship has a beef with some dude on the Enterprise who didn't do anything to him.

I remember going to see it with my brother during it's second weekend, and we were the only people in the theater.

I think there were like ten people when I saw it.

The only movie I've ever had a "private screening" of was when me and three friends went to see Hot Fuzz. On opening weekend.

[Joe Molotov]

I remember going to see it with my brother during it's second weekend, and we were the only people in the theater.

I think there were like ten people when I saw it.

The only movie I've ever had a "private screening" of was when me and three friends went to see Hot Fuzz. On opening weekend.

:demicry

One afternoon I was bored, so I went to the dollar theater by myself and watched Elizabeth: The Golden Age. No one else was there, it was literally only me. I probably should have tugged one out to Cate Blanchett while I was there.

[benjipwns]

I liked those second run theatres, it was probably like how going to a porno theatre used to be, everyone there seemed like they felt shameful and didn't want to make eye contact. Probably same amount of semen on the floor.

[Joe Molotov]

Sadly and unsurprisingly, this place went out of business probably within a year of that. I feel partly to blame, I probably should have bought popcorn. Just keeping the A/C on and running the projector had to cost more than a buck.

[benjipwns]

For some reason I have vivid memories of the closest one to me when I was younger bringing in like twenty of these giant prepopped bags of popcorn that took like four people to carry and they were stacking them up by the door to the storage room. I wanted to jump on them and stuff.

[Kara]

The funny thing about Star Trek (2009) is that it's basically the same premise as Nemesis. Romulan dude with massive ship has a beef with some dude on the Enterprise who didn't do anything to him.

 

[Great Rumbler]

I like how Star Trek: The Motion Picture is slow and boring, that's the kind of thing that appeals to me in a scifi movie. I've only seen the director's cut, though.

[Mupepe]

Robocop 2014 is boring. Fuck

[Stoney Mason]

I like how Star Trek: The Motion Picture is slow and boring, that's the kind of thing that appeals to me in a scifi movie. I've only seen the director's cut, though.

The Motion Picture is a sci-fi movie. And we have so little of that nowadays that its refreshing. It's not an action movie pretending to be a science fiction movie which is the norm in the modern age. It's a legit sci-fi movie.

[Boogie]

Great-to-good Star Trek movies:

Wrath of Khan > Undiscovered country > Voyage Home > First Contact

then as a former uber Trek nerd, Star Trek movies I still enjoyed:

>Search for Spock > The Motion Picture > Generations > Star Trek 2009 > Insurrection (barely)

aaaand finally spiralling down into irredeemable shit:

>>>V: The Final Frontier >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> Nemesis = Into Darkness

[Raban]

now that's something I'd pay to see

[Phoenix Dark]

Why do we fall, Bruce?

So we can bottom.

[Rahxephon91]

I really like Wrath. I enjoy Search For Spock a lot. Always enjoyed this exchange.

Kirk: You should take the Vulcan too.
Kruge: No.
Kirk: But why?
Kruge: Because you wish it.

Christopher Plummer quoting Shakespere is also very entertaining in Undiscovered Country. It was also nice to see more Bones as well.

Honestly the only Star Trek movies I like are 2,3,4,6 and I guess First Contact if only because it's fine as an action movie.

Anyway, I saw Edge of Tomorrow, which was really good. Just really clever and smart. Funny, but not in that "everyone is witty" way that seems to be every movie starting RDJ.

But..

spoiler (click to show/hide)

The ending was the definition of the save "hollywood" ending and that kind of sucks. Now, yes an ending where they all die is a bit much. Sure, you're not going to get that in a big budget movie. Something a bit more bittersweet though would have worked. It's there, but the movie dosen't stress the fact that for Tom Cruise everything has happened, but for everyone else it hasn't and they don't know him or will over know him. I guess we're supposed to believe him and Emily Blunt will perhaps be ok, but quite honestly no relationship should develop because there's no reason for thier to be one.  I don't know, it felt like a rather cop out ending for something that had been rather interesting up until end. It was really safe and kind of predictable towards the end which is a shame, because it was actually a really good ride until the end, but it felt kind of like it wrote itself into a wall when it realized it needed an endgame, when it realized it needed to actually save the world in the end.

[close]

[Eric P]

NYAFF Update.  Sadly Jimmy Wang Yu had visa issues so he wasn't at yesterday's screening of One-Armed Swordsman, which is still an awesome film.  Today's film is The Chinese Boxer an excessively violent bit of anti-japanese agitprop from 1970.  should be pretty fun

[Joe Molotov]

Expendables 3 is PG-13. 

[Great Rumbler]

[Madrun Badrun]

Expendables 3 is PG-13. 

wtf?

[Mupepe]

Has anybody seen Snowpiercer? The synopsis kinda sounds like an adaptation of High Rise (which excites me) but I'm not sure if I am misinterpreting it.

[Rahxephon91]

Have had Snowpiercer sitting on my computer for a while now..

Maybe I should actually watch it.

[Mupepe]

Do it and let me know bb

[Eric P]

I watched it a while ago and didn't like it that much.  I felt it was 30 minutes too long

[Madrun Badrun]

Turns out I haven't seen star trek 5 (and I'm thinking 6 now too).  5 is so shitty.

Going to start 6 now.


Also the raid 2 is up on torrents and coming out on bluray in 2 days fyi. 

[Joe Molotov]

Turns out I haven't seen star trek 5 (and I'm thinking 6 now too).  5 is so shitty.

Uhura's erotic fan dance, tho.

[Joe Molotov]

Don't see Deliver Us From Evil. I should have checked Rotten Tomatoes before I went to the theater.

I kinda wanted to see if based on the preview where the director says something like "We're ready for the Devil, but what I want to know is if the Devil ready for this movie?"

[Madrun Badrun]

Turns out I haven't seen star trek 5 (and I'm thinking 6 now too).  5 is so shitty.

Uhura's erotic fan dance, tho.

I was so wtfing with that.  She is granny haired.  yuck.

[Rahxephon91]

Also the raid 2 is up on torrents and coming out on bluray in 2 days fyi.

SO EXCITED!!!!!!!

[fistfulofmetal]

Iron Sky

was insane, entertaining, and had an incredibly depressing ending