The old movie thread: ratings and discussion' or some shiz

The Runaways Pretty good film about the creation of the first all girl rock band. The film spends a whole hour on their beginnings and the second half of the film on Cherie Currie's drug addiction. Their stardom period is more like an after thought presented by big letters over magazines & newspapers articles. Dakota Fanning does a decent job as Cherie Currie in what is by far her most controversial role to date. The real revelation here is Kristen Steward as Joan Jett: not only she looks like a young Jett, she acts like a young Joan Jett pure hardcore rebel rocker. This is a more meaty role for the "Twilight" princess and she nail it right. The film has its flaws by following the same cliche path of many rock movies bios of over emphasizing the drug addiction aspect and down playing the fame parts. Its low budget shows in the very brief Japan concert where you barely get a glimpse of the audience giving the impression the song "Cherry Bomb" was performed at a small locale. Also the roles of Lita Ford and Jackie Fox had very little to do and spend most of the film as background decoration. By the end Lita Ford had some dialogue coming out as a complete bitch. Still I like it. 8/10

 

The Cove This powerful Academy Award winner documentary is about the slaugther of dolphins in a small cove of Taiji, Japan. A film crew follows the exploits of former tv show "Flipper' dolphin trainer turned brave activist, Ric O'Barry in his quest to stop the cruel yearly massacre of 23,000 dolphins in Japan. Equipped with a daredevil team recruited from around the world and equiped with state of the art film an audio equipment to try to infiltrate the secret cove where no one is allow to enter, followed day and night by police and possible hired assasins, OBarry and his team go lengths to accomplish their mission. OBarry states he feels responsible because he helped build the multimillion dollar industry of sea aquariums when he spend 10 years training dolphins for the tv show. It took the suicide of Kathy, the main "Flipper" dolphin, to make him turn around and fight against the industry. ""I spend ten years helping building it (sea aquariums) and the last 35 years trying to tear it down." The film delivers the goods many actions films can't: espionage adrenaline rush with a shocking message and emotional resonance. The final sequence of the dolphin massacre is truly hard to watch while the cove shore waters turns crimson with the cetaceans blood. This is not only a highly entertaining,eye opening, shocking documentary. It is a great film. Period.
10/10

 

IP MAN Based on the life of legendary wing chun kung fu master and Bruce Lee teacher,Yip Man. Donnie Yen does a magnificent portrayalof IP man, but the film treats him almost like a saint and saviour. Truly a modern kung fu cinema classic. The scene he fights ten japanese karatekas is awesome. I heard part 2 is even better. 9/10

 

Traitor
Starred Don Cheadle and Guy Pearce. Movie about a former US military soldier with explosives experience with a Sudanese background (Cheadle) deep undercover in a terroist organization (or is he?). Pearce plays a FBI agent trying to capture him. Was a pretty decent movie and held my attention.

6/10

 

The Expendables Oh boy, did Stallone missed the boat in this one! This could have been a great movie.With all the stellar cast it merit something more memorable than the half baked product we got. The cast is ok, we get it, but the film two biggest flaws are its lame ass script (by Stallone) and its clumsy direction (by Stallone again). What should have been a modern version of The Dirty Dozen or The Magnificent Seven, turned out to be an unmemorable so-so, forgettable action film. Stallone at age 62 still has that prima donna ego that gets in the way of good creative judgment. ALL and I mean all the stellar cast is utterly wasted to glorified cameos to allow room { ALL room!} to only two actors to be on every scene: Stallone & Statham. Jet Li, Dolph Lundgren and the rest served as little more than decoration in the few scenes they share together. The only semi-memorable scene is when Arnold, Stallone & Willis share a scene, but the dialogue is so bad that you stop listening to what they say just to thrill yourself with thoughts of 'cool! these guys are sharing a scene!', but then the magic evaporades when you notice the editing: aparently Arnold & Willis were NEVER in the same room at the same time! You notice the camera clumsily leaves Willis out shot and only gets close-ups or only close to Stallone, but never together with Arnold. But even if they were, this was such a small cameo from Willis & Arnold that if you sneeze you'll miss it.The movie doesn't have much of a plot and even the action scenes at times gets tiresome. Mickey Rourke was totally wasted in a role that honestly was not neccesary for the film. Looks like Stallone once had him committed didn't knew what role assign him and gave him the one of a Tatoo parlor owner. I went to this film expecting a little more. I was terribly disappointed. 5/10

 

Agreed. Inception was excellent. It has enough stuff in it to be worth of rewatching, but it was not too complicated by any means.

 

Hadn't watched any movies in a while, but finally saw the Ghost Writer. Somewhat interesting piece, not too bad overall, I liked the performances from McGregor and Brosnan, among others, although it has a wtf kind of ending.

Also saw Green Zone...fast-paced Iraq war movie with Matt Damon as a soldier, the kind of role he's quite good at, along with Brendan Gleeson, as a CIA officer. Overall, I'd say it's pretty solid.

The Wolfman...I like a lot of the actors in it, but this is just not a very good movie, even some of the special effects seem rather poor.

 

Ghost Writer 7.5/10: Wasnt expecting much, thoroughly enjoyed it.

Green Zone 6/10: Been done before, still good fun for what it is.

Wolfman 5/10: Boring, didnt like this one much. Anthony Hopkins gave a good performance.

 

AN EDUCATION Very entertaining film that in the wrong hands could had turned into an average chick flick, but fortunately it is compelling drama with great performances. Except for the last 15 minutes of the film, this is a movie that charms you all the time and lets you feel the joy of these characters. In a weird way you kinda forgive the fact that the main character,Jenny,is a minor and that her lover is an adult. Pedophilia has never been presented as inocent as in here. By the end of the film is when the title has its real resonance and everybody comes to their senses. 8/10

 

A Single Man Colin Firth gives an oustanding performance as the grieving gay college profesor who can't face life without his long time companion who died in a car accident. The film follows this character as he deals with daily life routine while contemplating suicide. Two new guys emerge as possible new love interests and then there is Julianne Moore's straight lady character who somewhat tries to cheer him up...and get laid without success. Not a bad film, but not as great as critics are heralding it (there was another film many years ago titled "A Long Time Companion" with exactly the same theme, so this film is not as groundbreaking like some like to label it. 7/10

 

Rewatching a bunch of old film favorites.I'll start with...

LOGAN'S RUN (1976) This one of my all time favorite scifi films. Watched it when it was released on 1976 and loved it. Father time hasn't been good to this film though. Its pre-star wars special effects looks cheesy now, but the good thing is that they kept them at a minimum, which was the norm for this genre before Star Wars came and special effects became the stars of the show and not a tool to serve the story. The Plot: it is the 23rd century in a post apocalyptic earth the remnants of mankind are gathered inside gigantic domes where its citizens live only for pleasure since computers run everything. There is only one catch: you must die at age 30 to keep the domed city from overcrowding. Those who willingly accept their fate enter the Carrousel where they believe will be reborn. Those who know better opt to run for their lives and are called 'Runners'. To terminate the Runners there are the Sandmen who chase them and fry them with their ray guns on the spot. Logan 5 (Michael York) is a Sandman who is enlisted by the main computer to pass as a runner and find the mythical Sanctuary where Runners believe they can hide. Helping Logan is Jessica 6 (Jenny Agutter) who is a member of the secret group who knows better about Carrousel and seeks Sanctuary. Logan's Sandman friend, Francis, hunts them down all the way to the "Outside" where they find the ruins of Washington DC in particular the Lincoln Memorial and the Capitol where they encounter an old man (Peter Ustinov) for the first time as well as dozens of cats. Like I pointed out the film looks dated with its old fashion special effects, sixties scifi electronic music, costumes straight out of the tv Star Trek and lame ass aluminum foil robot. What is still effective are its plot, acting and direction. It is still a very entertaining film despite its flaws. And Jenny Agutter was plain gorgeous a contrast to today's superskinny sex bombs. The Blu-ray treatment is no better than the dvd version. This film deserved a better transfer. And you now can see the strings on the floating Carrousel victims while in the theater version I never noticed that. A remake has been rumored for years. I hope if they do make it they don't turn it into a 'dark, dirty, grim future' like they are doing with remakes today. 8/10

 

Yeah, if there is a movie begging to be remade, it's this one. I always thought it was a brilliant concept from a sci-fi standpoint.

 

Guess I'll catch up on some reviews from stuff I've seen the last couple months.


Inception - As good as advertised. Best film I've seen in a long while. Blows Christopher Nolan's "Batman" movies away as far as I'm concerned. It's "Memento" with a budget. Not much I can say that hasn't already been said. May suffer in the transfer to the small screen, but it does have a solid plot, so maybe not so much. 9/10


Scott Pilgrim vs. The World - My surprise of the year. Was out with the family and decided to pop in the movie theater. This never would have been on our list but it was a choice between this or "Dinner For Schmucks".

I have to say.........it was cloying, trite, tried too hard to be clever..........all the analogies you can make for a modern teenager/young adult angst filled comedy. Complete with the typical clever, sarcastic dialogue. It was "Juno" for Video gamers/Comic Book nerds.

That said. I thoroughly enjoyed it. It was just a fun movie. Micheal Cera was funny, playing a character even more pathetic then usual, though it's still nearly impossible to picture him as a leading man or romantic lead. The supporting cast was great. Everybody hammed it up pretty effectively and it had a very original visual style to it.

I didn't have very high expectations but I'm glad we went to see it. 7.5/10


Heaven - A film from 2002 I hadn't even heard of until recently. Cate Blanchett and Giovanni Ribisi star. Mostly done in Italian with English sub-titles by the Director of "Run Lola Run".

Blanchett's character tries to murder a drug dealer in Italy. It backfires and innocent's are killed. Ribisi serves as the English to Italian translator in the Police station that Blanchett doesn't really need............but it serves as a plot device to bring them together.

A nice little movie. Blanchett is a pro as usual but Ribisi is the surprise here. Usually a very kinetic supporting actor, he gives one of his most subtle and controlled performances I've seen.

A great touch is the movie makes most of the characters much smarter then they appear to be at first. Some great cinematography shots also, especially near the end.

Nice little gem........but something just seemed to be missing, though I can't quite put my finger on it. Probably paced just a bit too slow for my tastes and some of the early scenes when you think characters are just making bad decisions for the sake of it, can be a bit frustrating. 7/10


Dying on Everest - Another documentary in the Mountaineering genre, of which I'm a big sucker for. This story focuses on a man who summits Everest and never makes it off the mountain. He takes shelter under a ledge on the way back down at about 25,000 feet, and never moves from that spot again. 30 climbers pass him on the way up the next day and again on the way back down, while he slowly dies of hypothermia.

One of those men who passed him is the first double amputee to climb Everest. This story is about the moral dilemma of what should be done to try and rescue somebody, when the environment dictates that a rescue would be nearly impossible.

Were the climbers who summited being selfish for continuing on their quest and life-long ambition, or should they have abandoned their dream and possible one shot of climbing the mountain (along with the finances involved in such a feat) and put all their resources into trying to rescue a man, who may have been beyond rescuing?

Also, has the "business" of Everest, begun to overshadow "safety" on Everest?

Overall, nowhere near the best of this genre. No questions were asked that hadn't been asked previously, many times over............and they seem to get a lot of mileage out of the rantings of Sir Edmund Hillary on the matter, even though he comes across as a bit out of touch with reality, and appears to probably be suffering from old age dementia or Alzhemiers. I believe certain "controversies" were probably exaggerated for the purposes of the documentary. 6/10

 

In the last three years there have been three different directors attached to this remake with Bryan Singer (X-Men; The Usual Suspects) as the most recognized name. The last one is a new director, Carl Rinsch, who will start filming first a Keanu Reeves film next year,"47 Ronin", and then will do "Logan's Run". From a low budget short film this guy did,titled "The Gift" it looks like he is a good choice since he delivered great visuals on a shoestring budget.

watch the short film here...hey, and Michael York is now old enough to play the Old Man, and he will not need make-up like Peter Ustinov did!

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I watched The Beat That My Heart Skipped. A very very good film about a young French gangster-type, who looks to have found a new direction in life though classical music.

The guy playing the lead is fantastic.

 

I've just been pointed to the plot summary of 'A Serbian film' on wikipedia. It sounds utterly depraved and horrific.

 

The Untouchables (1987) Rewatched this film again with my girls. I asked them to cover their eyes during the bloody scenes (they are too young to watch R rated scenes, but they can tolerate a few bad words). This is a film that remains powerful even after multiple viewings. You know the plot: Elliot Ness (Kevin Costner in his best role ever) and his Untouchable buddies, Malone (Sean Connery in a very deserving Academy Award winning performance), Stone (Andy Garcia) and Agent Wallace (Charles Martin Smith) battle Al Capone (Robert DeNiro in one of his last great memorable performances; after that he sold his soul) and his gangsters,among them the cold killer Frank Nitti (Billy Drago). The film has great cinematography, a wonderful musical score from italian legend Ennio Morricone (The Good, The Bad & The Ugly), a sharp entertaining script, marvelous direction by Brian DePalma (the Union Train stairs shootout is one the best movie sequence ever) and solid acting performances from all its cast. It is an almost perfect film. Almost. Its historical inacuracies still makes me cringe (Frank Nitti was not killed by Ness, he committed suicide and there were eleven members of the untouchable squad instead of just four and in real life none of them were killed). Still I love this film. Will watch it again for sure for the 20th time. 9/10

 

The Untouchables is worth a look because of RDN's and Connery's performances, but it was not a very good movie overall.

 

I have it on DVD. A newborn baby get's sexually penetrated by some bald guy. The main guy kills a guy with his penis. :atu:

 

oh, and the lead guy has sex with his 8 year old son.

 

yeah it was.

 

Kassim The Dream - I posted about this in the boxing section also.

I can't believe I barely heard a peep about this when it originally came out. There have been lots of very good to great boxing documentaries made (Rings of Fire, When We Were Kings, Unforgivable Blackness, Thrilla In Manila, etc.).

This is near the top of the list.

We know the story of Kassim Ouma pretty well from the tidbits we were fed by HBO and ESPN. This film really puts it into perspective. From the horror he faced as a child to the horror he was forced to perpetrate on others.

Kassim comes across as a very intelligent individual..........but with a child like sense of honesty most people cynically grow out of as they mature. He is not afraid of repercussions, though he does get a bit nervous when he returns to his native Uganda, not sure what the government will do to him once he gets there...............but he goes anyways.

When he returns it reminded me of Ali driving and running through the streets of Zaire............only this time, Ouma was truly one of them.

This film does not romanticize his career, and doesn't make him out to be better then he was. It actually features a couple of his losses (Karmazin and Jermaine Taylor) more prominently then his wins.

It does put us in his shoes, makes us feel for his native land, and interested in his strong personality. This guy was really a whirlwind, inside and outside of the ring. Maybe that was the reason for his eventual downfall in the ring.

It makes me wonder how he is doing in the midst of his present losing streak. Is he still the happy-go-lucky guy he tries to portray himself as..........or does that simmering darkness he has in him sometimes boil to the surface?

It looks like he has control of his demons at most times, but it's there. You can see it in many moments of the film. How does he cope? He smokes weed and has a large support group of people. He really loves other people.

It's only when the camera catches him alone that you truly see in his face the past which haunts him.

Whether you are a boxing fan or not, I don't think I can recommend this movie enough.

9/10

 

INCEPTION

SCORE - 8.5/10

GENRE - DRAMA/ACTION

PREMISE - Decaprio is a rogue operative who enters people dreams to steal ideas, but is offered a big payday to enter a dream and instead plant an idea. He works with a small crew who help him out and he must also deal with his own demons that begin to affect his ability to successfully work within the dream.

CRITIQUE - This is such a complicated and long story that one has to really pay attention. What makes it work is everything is thoroughly explained (though pretty quickly) by bringing in and training a new operative. The special effects are awesome as is the dialouge. I found the action on a lower scale than everything else as IMO this was more a drama than anything and the story took precedence. The planing and execution of the final mission was done in a way that resembles missions done in movies like Mission Impossible or Oceans 11-13. My complaints were the movie was too long and there was occasionally too much going on at once that it seemed to suffocate you and not let you focus on the film like you should naturally be able too. I also felt most of the action sequences were too unrealistic for this type of movie. They felt more like they belonged in your typical action movie consisting of a star who's unkillable. You mean Leo and his companions are not only experts at dream planning and invasion but also super duper expert special forces killers too who out run guys shooting at them? Amazing. Still it's a good movie and definitely worth watching, but I'm not sure I'd give it repeated viewings.


THE TAKERS

SCORE - 7/10

GENRE - ACTION/DRAMA

PREMISE - A professional group of bank robbers who meticulously plan their robberies and follow strict guidelines and rules are offered a new job with a huge payday by one of them (T.I) who's just gotten out of jail. For starters none of them seem to excited to see their fellow member nor do they seem to trust him, but the payday is so good they decide to take the job dispite it breaking a couple of their rules. You also have a side story of 2 cops (1 being Matt Dillion) on the trail of these bank robbers since their last robbery which occured in the films opening.

CRITIQUE - What on the surface looks like a popcorn movie thanks to it's popcorn headlining cast (T.I, Hayden Christensen, & Chris Brown) actually turned out to be a pretty decent movie. The action was good and not over the top and the dialogue was decent as was the acting. The movie will hold your attention. My main gripes was T.I's character had no real motive for his ulterior motives IMO. You also had a humongous bag of cash that was stashed outside a busy intersection in the bushes during a chase that was never mentioned or shown again, and one of the guys getting shot but the movie ending before you know whether he actually survived or not. The ending felt way too abbrupt. Still, I'd recommend this movie to anyone as it is a good one.

 

Takers was absolute BULLSHIT! I give it a 5/10, and thats pretty generous.

 

In the words of the late great Patrick Swaze "opinions vary," but I did feel -- before I read your post -- that I rated it 1 point too high, so I made a change.

 

I dont even like TI as a rapper... but when I see him act I rather listen to his music.

 

I think people put too much emphasis on actors. Instead of sitting there picking apart how well somebody is acting I tend to just let the story unfold and watch it. I've already read some other reviews about how horrible T.I was but honestly I didn't see it when I was watching the film. I thought he did a fine job, not that it was an Oscar worthy role in the first place.

 

I just see Takers as being a wannabe Heat. Differance being Heat had a great plot that was greatly executed, terrific suspensful action scenes, and of course brilliant acting from Pacino and Deniro. The idea behind Takers had potential, but it was just very poorly executed and acted, and was just highly unrealistic.

 

See you can't look at movies like that. Takers has to be taken as it's own entity and judged by itself especially when taking the cast into consideration because there's no comparison there.

I remember when Gladiator came out I spent the whole movie unfairly judging it against Braveheart and came away hating it. Til this day I'll argue with guys at work about how bad and overrated Gladiator is.

Is Gladiator really a bad movie? Of course not. Am I unfairly judging it because it wasn't Braveheart? Of course I am. Will I still argue Gladiator sucks? Yep. Because I still don't truly enjoy watching it but admittedly it isn't as bad as I argue it is.