I usually see movies about a year after they’ve been released, since I’m pretty much Netflix-only these days. I also feel stupid either a) bumping a year old movie thread or b) starting a new thread about a movie that hasn’t been out for over a year. So, why not compile them in an omnibus thread?
Book of Eli:
[spoiler]
Fucking terrible. If you like post-apocalyptic movies, go see “The Road”. If you’ve already seen “The Road”, reminisce about how horrible and depressing and awful their world was, and rejoice in the fact that none of them had to see “Book of Eli”. First off, no bibles exist in this world, but a fucking Oprah magazine does? How the hell does that happen? Did every single hotel room on the planet get raided? Secondly, it’s just 30 years after this big nuclear war, and no one knows how to read? One generation is all that takes - I find that very hard to believe. Third - the sky. It looks like something out of a bad 60s movie dream sequence. Hey - put a filter on it, that’s fine, I get it. But the clouds were racing across the screen at one point, and just looked…off. Fourth - so there’s no water. Okay, I get that as well. Denzel’s walking across the desert, and he carries with him…ONE canteen? ONE?!? Nope. Fifth - so there’s no water. Except for, you know, the Pacific Ocean a tank of gas away.
And that doesn’t even touch on the ridiculousness of Denzel being blind. A braille bible is like 5 feet tall!
Finally, if in real life the apocalypse comes, go find Malcolm McDowell! That dude survives everything![/spoiler]
Oh, and post the movie title, and put your review in spoiler tags. The title doesn’t do much good inside the spoiler box.
Just saw the 2007 Julie Delpy film 2 Days in Paris on Netflix streaming.
It was really quite good. Delpy wrote, directed, and stars in this with Adam Goldberg (one of my favorite indie actors) and she does a great job of making it funny, quirky, ugly, gritty, and warm. I highly recommend it to anyone looking for something decent on Netflix streaming.
The Fighter.I really enjoyed this movie. It’s a great story, based on a true story, and it didn’t deviate from the real story in any major ways. The acting by the four main actors was excellent. I was particularly amazed by Amy Adams, who played a character significantly unlike any I have seen her play previously. The bonus feature on the making of the movie was better than most, because it included the two brothers commenting on their lives and on the film.
[spoiler]I knew it was about a pirate radio station broadcasting from a boat off the coast of Britain in the '60s. Beyond that, I didn’t know much going in.
I liked it a lot. It was funny, with a few helpings of genuine emotion. The choppy, almost haphazard editing style used on the ship, against the static and stodgy technique for the scenes featuring Kenneth Branagh and his cronies on dry land, worked perfectly to set the tones. When the ship sank I was kind of blown away; I wasn’t prepared for things to get that intense.
I got curious about how much of this film was based on fact, and what I’ve found out is that while the script is entirely fictional, many of the characters were loosely based on real people or composites thereof. There were actually a number of different pirate radio ships at the time, and some of the events depicted in the film did occur at some point on at least one of them. A DJ did actually get married on board and on the air, and one ship actually did sink.
And, not surprisingly, the soundtrack is great. [/spoiler]
Let me just say THANKS for the thread. I have almost started a similar one many times. I’m among the group who make it a point not to see movies when they first come out (with very rare exceptions) so by the time I see one the new has worn off. And I don’t want to go add comments to months-old threads where all the good stuff would already have been said.
But now, the next time I want to swap ideas on one I just saw for the first time on cable, Netflix or wherever, I’ll know where to come.
The most recent one of that sort I can think of offhand was Winter’s Bone but I’ve already forgotten what I wanted to chat about from it.
I’ll try to be a good customer to the thread in the future, though.
Recently caught Easy A on a premium cable movie channel:
Fun movie, smart writing, good acting. Emma Stone was great as the lead (and super hot, too). However, I was always thinking, “I’ve seen this movie before.” Stock characters play a stock premise in a stock setting. Still garners a thumbs-up.
Stupid. Garbage. Plot holes. Moves from action scene to action scene with the enthusiasm of an accountant poring over IRS tables. Absurd. Doesn’t bother explaining anything. Ending is moronic and needless, but welcome when the credits finally roll. Save yourself the time, I don’t care how big a fan of the series you are.
I knew this was a “chick flick” going in, but either my husband or I recorded it to DVR and it was HIS choice to watch it over the weekend. SUCKED! I did not read the book, so I don’t know how it compared, but the movie was just horrible. Julia Roberts divorces here wimpy husband and goes on a soul-searching trek to Countries that Start with the Letter I: Italy, India, Indonesia. In Italy she learns Italian and eats. In India she goes to an ashram and prays. In Indonesia she continues to pray, won’t make a decision without her medicine man, and falls in love. Ugh. I wanted my money back and I didn’t even pay to see it. Give me my two hours back. damnit!
I liked it very much, though not quite as much as the John Wayne version. However, I thought the new Mattie Ross and the new LeBoeuf were tremendous improvements on the characters from the older movie. Jeff Bridges, although I adore him, made Rooster seem a bit more befuddled than he ought to be, IMO. But the scene of the botched shootout at the cabin was just Coen-awesome. I’d watch it again, for sure.
I recently saw both the 1960’s version and the 1990’s remake of Cape Fear.
The original was okay. Not very scary, and the family seemed a little dumb, but you’ve got to cut an older movie some slack.
The remake? Oh my gawd, how we laughed. When Cady followed the family to the houseboat by hanging on underneath the car, I think I peed myself a little bit. And then at the end, when he takes a lickin’ and just keeps on tickin’. I half expected him to sprout wings and fly after them.
Another problem with the remake was that the lawyer actually did do something for Cady to be pissed about (not so in the first movie), plus he was cheating on his wife. Jerk!
Well it WAS a remake of “The Scarlet Letter” (this is not a spoiler) only done with intelligence, wit and charm that the original never had. Makes the Demi Moore version look SO dumb! What it reminded me of was “10 Things I Hate About You” which was a remake of “The Taming of the Shrew” done with wit, intelligence and charm that, if not matching Shakespeare’s, certainly had nothing to be embarrassed about. Both films are about capable, self-assured, smart women who challenge the norms among their peers. Excellent movies in each case, even though they are set in high school, not exactly my demographic, but excellent is excellent.
I just watched my Netflix DVD of Grizzly Man last night. It was sad and annoying and horrifying, and completely compelling. The nature scenes were stunningly beautiful. I liked Herzog’s running commentary, in which he praised Tim Treadwell as a filmmaker but called him on his BS view of the bears, and nature in general.
I actually came away from it a bit more sympathetic toward Treadwell than I expected to, for the simple reason that I thought he was almost certainly mentally ill. Considering that he got his girlfriend killed horribly alongside him and definitely did the bears some harm and no good, I’m not totally sympathetic. Just moreso than I might have been if I thought he was a mentally healthy douchebag.
The odd part to me was how many of the people in the film seemed to be just plain weird. Treadwell’s robotically stiff parents, his actor friend who seemed to be in perpetual acting mode, his ex-girlfriend who just sort of had an oddness about her. And the coroner- the hell??? It would not surpise me at all if someday we’re all watching a documentary about him, too, and the horrific discoveries in his secret basement “laboratory.”
Really good documentary, if you can stand all the weirdness.
I just watched “I Am Number Four.” It was okay, but very tv-like - like it would have made a good mini-series or something. I’m not sure if I’d recommend it - I rented it from my local library, so I didn’t pay any money for it. If I had, I might feel ripped off. 2 1/2 out of 5.
We watched “Source Code” a couple of weekends ago - again, not bad, not bad at all. Fairly intense, but they do a good job of playing the same scene over and over without boring you to tears. 3 1/2 out of 5.
Set in East Timor, with a present day framestory and the main story set during Indonesia’s 1975 invasion of East Timor. The performances are superb (particularly by the East Timorese woman), the story engrossing and as far as I know the history reasonably accurate. I can’t recommend this enough. It’s a travesty that IMDB rates this as only a 7 (on a side note looking at the ratings - the raw mean is 7.5 and the median 8 WTF?).
