Films Recently Watched

Paranormal Activity 4

3.33/10

Pretty dull and that's saying a lot considering I enjoyed the first 3. Nothing new to the plot. The characters were likable enough and there was an effectively creepy kid but that's about it.

Highlight of the movie was when the dad like went full dad when he was watching this "ghost" video and was like, in the most fake excited apathy was like "WOW. neat. You kids and computer stuff. K gonna go be a dad and watch tv and pay bills and shit" That part was funny. (apparently that actor died at 48 right after the film was made )

  On 11/1/2013 at 8:29 PM, xox said:

Ender's Game

- 9.5/10

 

Very true to the book (thank god) and very well done.

good - I'm going to see it tomorrow

I loved Gravity - guess I'd give it a 9/10 - ranted and raved about it here

  On 11/1/2013 at 8:29 PM, xox said:

Ender's Game

- 9.5/10

lol

reign of fire

this is some underrated shit. i used to confuse this with d-war. really not as bad as i expected. christian bale pre batman, it's very weird that this movie even exists. 6.5/10

the people under the stairs

pretty fun but wtf ending.

thor : die darken der worldenhausen : Thor saves the world with the help of a massive subsidy from the London tourist board which helps him battle against something (not sure what but i read somewhere it was bernie eclestone ) with the help of his bro Loki (played by 90s pop lesbo KD Lang) and natalie portman (here played by natalie portman ) featuring Sir anthony hopkins as tired old bearded narrator guy , and with rene russo from lethal weapon 3 as hey whats that woman out of again + i think thats stringer bell with glowing eyes but not sure as guy wearing a stoopid helmet. anyways i have no idea what this movie was about + they didnt bother to have a recap at the start but it was an ok thing to veg out to for 2 hours.........and thats about it reallly.

funf out of zehn

Spring Breakers - 8.5/10

Perhaps the most devilish of satires since In The Loop. It's up there with Starship Troopers. Franco rocks.

  On 11/2/2013 at 1:27 AM, zaphod said:

 

  On 11/1/2013 at 8:29 PM, xox said:

Ender's Game

- 9.5/10

 

lol

 

reign of fire

 

this is some underrated shit. i used to confuse this with d-war. really not as bad as i expected. christian bale pre batman, it's very weird that this movie even exists. 6.5/10

 

YES I AGREE.

Side Effects

This was a steady 7/10, it grabbed me and I was getting quite involved - until the ending came. What the hell? How could Soderbergh leave such a gigantic plothole in it? I don't want to spoil anything but if you have a pinch of intelligence in your head you too would be offended by it. The plot hole is like a gaping asshole destroyed by a stampedo of money-hungry producer dicks. Too bad. 3/10

So Side Effects is basically Goatse's anus.

Basically.

The Perks of Being a Wallflower 7/10 the acting in this was too clumsy to be completely emersive, generally a fun coming of age drama

The Girlfriend Experience 7/10 the lead character in this was not nearly entertaining enough, in fact i thought they were pretty dull.

Carnage 8/10 this is an adaptation of a play i went to see a few years ago with Ralph Fiennes in. i prefer the stage version, Ralph was brilliant.

  On 11/4/2013 at 9:44 AM, xxx said:

Felt pretty solid to me. Care to put your complaint in spoiler tags?

Hostel 3 - hilarious/10. Don't go to Vegas for a bachelor party!

Ender's Game.

Really surreal watching this, having read the book in high school and then re-reading it this year with a more mature and broader perspective.

Pros:

- Great casting, like really well done considering how limited the character interactions were. Ford was perfect as Graff, and Asa Butterfield who played Ender coincidentally grew 2 inches taller during the film, which made his training over years more convincing.

- Battle scenes and Battle Station sets: fucking amazing job, I actually got chills when they unveiled the battle room. This more than anything is why it was a good thing that the film was put off for so long.

- Violence and horrendous scope of the war was done in a fairly convincing manner, at least for a "safe" PG-13 film. (thought this was the case with Hunger Games too, both of them re-affirmed violence and mortal fighting in a very disturbing manner contrary to stylized action so often seen in media)

- They incorporated all of the emotions presented by Ender's 1st person narration in the book, which was quite a script challenge.

Cons:

- Pacing seemed really rushed at the beginning and end of the films. Now, I personally have to accept that this was necessary for them to outline the plot for audiences unfamiliar with the book. Beyond splitting it into two films it had to be done.

- Could of used more context info on the Bugger-Human war.

- The last scene

I would of personally given it a 6.5/7 out of 10, but this was a really hard book to adapt, especially to a box office audience, so I'd give it a 8/10 overall. Was very happy to see it after all of these years of speculation and waiting.

nick cage and joaquin phoenix wearing leather pants go after a motley crew of tawdry pornographers who ended up offing a girl for a rich prick holed up somewhere in pennsylvania. it's also got a lard ass named machine that loves to listen to aphex twin at high volume after his mom goes to church.

despite being part 2- the beginning is chronologically part 1 of the missing in action trilogy. chuck and some other dudes are arrested in vietnam by a dictator wannabe and give the 'head in a bag with a rat' torture thing before things go balls to the wall "action!".

Daredevil

oh my. This superhero makes no sense. His "sight" is worst than if he could see, it would only be an advantage in the dark, but he never takes the lights out before he attacks. why does having good hearing also make him able to jump really long distances?

so so bad but i knew that, thats why i watched it

However I would have loved it if they made the film entirely in his vision, as that looked great. better than in recent batman when he has sonar, that looked shit.

  On 11/3/2013 at 3:37 AM, Schlitze said:

Spring Breakers - 8.5/10

 

Perhaps the most devilish of satires since In The Loop. It's up there with Starship Troopers. Franco rocks.

i wish i picked up on it in the same pay, parts of it were definitely satirical and really well done but i didn't think there was enough satire. Starship troopers looked like a slapstick comedy in comparison.

  On 11/4/2013 at 9:15 PM, John Ehrlichman said:

 

  On 11/3/2013 at 3:37 AM, Schlitze said:

Spring Breakers - 8.5/10

 

Perhaps the most devilish of satires since In The Loop. It's up there with Starship Troopers. Franco rocks.

i wish i picked up on it in the same pay, parts of it were definitely satirical and really well done but i didn't think there was enough satire. Starship troopers looked like a slapstick comedy in comparison.

 

  On 11/4/2013 at 7:00 PM, Nebraska said:

 

nick cage and joaquin phoenix wearing leather pants go after a motley crew of tawdry pornographers who ended up offing a girl for a rich prick holed up somewhere in pennsylvania. it's also got a lard ass named machine that loves to listen to aphex twin at high volume after his mom goes to church.

Pay attention to Cage's mock outrage when he is watching the snuff film. He is clearly enjoying the murder, but lays it on thick with the fist biting and the "'omg, this is soooo awful, i can barely bring myself to watch, i'm going to bite my fist to portray my frustration at being unable to intervene with what I am seeing''. Either that or he overacts the scene terribly. He goes on a mission to find the girl, out of guilt at his own perversity. Also, note the attempt to portray Machine as just an average joe who got mixed up with wrong crowd. And Phoenix as an innocent victim of circumstance.

^^ those are valid criticism, although i have to say my favorite was gandolfini was the classic sleazebag working in downtown los angeles as a dodgy adult film agent and dino velvet as such uber-weirdo although i thought for over-acting, the oscar goes to janet (the dead girls mom). she really sucked up her scenes- heavy

in other news, cronenberg thinks kubrick didn't understand the horror genre

  On 11/5/2013 at 8:08 PM, Nebraska said:

 

 

in other news, cronenberg thinks kubrick didn't understand the horror genre

I kinda see where he's coming from. The Shining is a bit overrated really. This is just my opinion. Not looking to start beef.

  On 11/5/2013 at 9:25 PM, olo said:

 

  On 11/5/2013 at 8:08 PM, Nebraska said:

 

 

in other news, cronenberg thinks kubrick didn't understand the horror genre

 

I kinda see where he's coming from. The Shining is a bit overrated really. This is just my opinion. Not looking to start beef.

 

i think so too. and stephen king was famously quoted as saying "he hated it".

i've never understand why it's considered in such high criterion for horror films. the thing about cronenberg though is he hasn't exactly made anything interesting since existenz and (or) spider.

ender's game

i haven't read the book. this was disturbing. ender is a little innocent destroyer of worlds. the whole movie has a pretty creepy vibe. seemed like ender liked violence and created a necessity for it. felt like a 12 year old's power fantasy and eventual scolding by a parent. very warped morality on display here, based on motive and not action. ender feeling bad at the end doesn't make sense anyway. if he's preparing to destroy the home world of these aliens, why is he surprised when he eventually does it? why is anyone surprised? that's the whole purpose of their training, and suddenly they're sad when they put it to use? movie makes no fucking sense.

  On 11/5/2013 at 10:35 PM, Nebraska said:

 

  On 11/5/2013 at 9:25 PM, olo said:

 

  On 11/5/2013 at 8:08 PM, Nebraska said:

in other news, cronenberg thinks kubrick didn't understand the horror genre

I kinda see where he's coming from. The Shining is a bit overrated really. This is just my opinion. Not looking to start beef.

 

i think so too. and stephen king was famously quoted as saying "he hated it".

 

i've never understand why it's considered in such high criterion for horror films. the thing about cronenberg though is he hasn't exactly made anything interesting since existenz and (or) spider.

 

ehhhhhh cronenberg adapted a stephen king novel too , was that not a commercial thing to do ? was remaking the fly not commercial? sounds like sour grapes from dave to be honest

  On 11/6/2013 at 6:46 AM, zaphod said:

ender's game

 

i haven't read the book. this was disturbing. ender is a little innocent destroyer of worlds. the whole movie has a pretty creepy vibe. seemed like ender liked violence and created a necessity for it. felt like a 12 year old's power fantasy and eventual scolding by a parent. very warped morality on display here, based on motive and not action. ender feeling bad at the end doesn't make sense anyway. if he's preparing to destroy the home world of these aliens, why is he surprised when he eventually does it? why is anyone surprised? that's the whole purpose of their training, and suddenly they're sad when they put it to use? movie makes no fucking sense.

It was extremely hard to make a movie out of it, the book is heavy on his internal thoughts and emotions, and there's very little in the film that explores his sensitive and compassionate side compared to his brother. His siblings are also both very intelligent, and he's sort of the middle ground between their personas. Both his sister and brother are involved with a subplot in which they infiltrate and steer a lot of political events on earth incognito. Also the movie skims over a lot of build-up in the military and political world he lives in, in which he and almost everyone is convinced that the Buggers are approaching them for a second invasion. There's also a huge geopolitical split about to occur that's tentatively being held off by a global alliance to defend Earth. They didn't sell the huge reveal as well as they could of either

To me the film was really a well-done visualization of the battles and the space station. It's extremely condensed. The book is fairly divisive, well actually the praise is pretty universal but a minority of very visceral criticism has existed for two reasons:

1. Author is notably conservative politically, his support for the Iraq war and anti-gay marriage stance in particular. He's actually more subdued than his detractors make him out to be - for example he said it's now law because SCOTUS said so and personally I thought the idea of boycotting the film was absurd and misguided.

2. His moral ideology in the book isn't bad imo - he's not like an Ayn Rand objectivist or fascist or anything - but a