1. I feel this thread should be stickied. 2. I feel you kids are not watching enough movies lately grr! I watched "Beginners" Saturday night. I had not seen such a gloomy yet feel good romantic film in years. Arthur, the dog,gets me every time. 8.6/10
Captain Phillips - 7.5/10 Superb acting all around. Intense ending. It was good, but oh my goodness....this movie DRAGS. Sometimes it was slow because it needed to be, then others it was just painfully slow and nothing moves forward. That's my only complaint though. Other than that very solid movie.
Troll Hunter. No rating. Still trying to figure out if it was good or bad. Was it funny or serious. Or was it funny in its seriousness. I will note that it received rave reviews, including here. And it is being remade, by the director of The Descent. Free on Netflix.
Gravity 8.5/10. Great movie experience. The Lone Ranger 7/10 Didn't understand the hate for this one. I totally enjoyed it. Fast 6 7/10. Stupid but just as fun as the last one. Monsters University 6/10 This was terribly unoriginal and a terrible Pixar movie overall. The Conjuring 8/10 Haven't been scared in awhile and this one did the job. Great movie overall. Insidous 6/10 This is just terrible. It's like a night and day comparing to The Conjuring. Sure it's a low budget but it was just terrible maybe due to the editing that they have to cut it down to a PG version.
Here my problem with Troll Hunter, the film basically repeats itself every thirty minutes. You get 95% of the story in the first half hour, then the movie enters into a loop, which repeats itself a couple of times, before the cliched X Files type ending. It's a clever film, with only one real actor (the hunter), and the scenery is spectacular, but the ending didn't live up to the rest of the movie.
Dark Shadows, and it's a mess from beginning to end. The dialogue is flat, the action is dull, the comedy is stale. Nothing in the film is fresh. The actors looked bored. The story is a rehash. No chemistry between actors. This is easily the worst collaboration between Depp and Burton. And one "climatic" scene came straight from Buffy The Vampire Slayer. This could have been the vampire version of Austin Powers, but it's obvious that no one involved gave a ####, so you get two hours of early 70s pop culture references that no one under 45 is going to relate to.
internship - meh after earth - fell asleep.. jayden smith is not an actor, tired of these privileged kids being born into star roles..
World War Z - 7 or 7.5. Could have had a lot more depth but I also get how it would be extremely difficult to fit into one movie. Would really love to see more of them that address the outbreak in more detail. Still, had some good suspense scenes
I think that's all true however the fact that it is so much different then what you see in the US nowadays makes it very entertaining. I really enjoyed it. A lot of the foreign movies I see on Netflix are so much more original and different than the cliched crap that is routinely spewed out in Hollywood.
Man of Tai Chi 7/10 Saw this On Demand on U-Verse (had a coupon) Had heard pretty good things about it. Keanu Reeves is not really the 'star', but he is a major character, and he did direct it. The star is named Tiger. If you remember the Matrix movies, in the second movie when Neo had the big 'staircase fight' with multiple bad guys all leaping around and using various weapons, then you will recognize the star - he was the smallish Asian guy who Neo kills last with a mace smash to the face. Well, he is the star here, as the titular character. And of course, just like in The Matrix, and Iron Monkey, and Crouching Tiger, the action is all done by Yuen Wo-Ping, which is usually an instant win as far as I am concerned. The story is rather mundane - Keanu Reeves is the corrupt American in Hong Kong running a high-dollar security company, while secretly managing an illegal underground 'fight club' sort of thing, which is broadcast to the jaded wealthy elite customers. The downside, as we learn, is that Reeves has a bad habit of eventually killing his fighters when they lose. After offing his latest star, he has to find a new 'contender', and happens to notice Tiger on television, in some kind of national martial arts tournament, a 'dark horse' contender, touting Tai Chi as an actual effective fighting technique (think Ip Man using a 'women's fighting style - Wing Chun- and how he was the champion of that style and made it popular). Tiger continues to win, and Reeves decides that he is the perfect candidate to be his new champion. Tiger is at odds with his Shifu about the role of Tai Chi - his Master tries to make him understand that it is for harmony and balance, but Tiger is consumed by the raw power of his techniques, and therefore rather easily succumbs to the seductions of 'Donaka', as Reeves is called. The cops are on Donaka's tail too, because the guy Reeves kills at the beginning just happened to be an undercover cop, the killing of which was a no-no. So anyway, Tiger climbs the ranks in one pretty cool fight after another, until he reaches the inevitable 'to the death' fight, which of course Tiger wins, but refuses to kill the opponent. So, as Reeves is about to have him killed, the cops bust in, Reeves escapes, and Tiger is rescued from the evil clutches. Then of course, Reeves shows up at the temple where his Master resides, and Tiger and Donaka have a true fight to the death, which, again, Tiger wins. And everyone is happy, yay. Kind of typical. The good: The fight choreography is top notch, and Reeves has been paying attention during his time working with martial arts movies and Wo-Ping in particular. A lot of it is 'old school' to me, which I liked. The acting was fine, most of the cast was of course Chinese, and the acting was typical of what you would find in a big budget Chinese action movie, so no complaints there. I will say, it was really kind of weird seeing Reeves towering over everyone like a giant.. heheh he is SO much bigger than Tiger, that the fight at the end was almost comical. But it was ok, all in all. If you like martial arts movies, and if you like Wo-Ping choreographed fight scenes, then I will recommend this one. It's not going to win any awards, but it will be decent to add to your DVD collection whenever it hits the Redbox.
The Conjuring - 9 out of 10. Yikes. Lots of scares, great acting, the first 2/3rds of the movie might have been perfect movie-making.
