What Did You Watch Today?

[Benjamin]

Huh, I almost bought tickets for that for tonight. Poster looked cool, but I was apprehensive as I knew nothing about it. Nothing else interesting is on, though, so I had to get cheap Hunger Games knock off-looking The Maze Runner. Pretty sure it'll be shit, though.

[Arjen Robben]

It's another one of those annoying found footage films isn't it? As Above, So Below I mean.

[Benjamin]

Holy cow, guys, the Maze Runner was actually pretty fun!

[Summers]

I wanna see it. I just finished the first book and it was decent. Similar style to Hunger Games really, but the film could be really good if they get the Grievers right and the young cast perform.

[SlicedBread]

Watched When The Game Stands Tall. Really good movie that doesn't hit every sports movie cliche. Although my sister did ruin part of the movie when she told me the one dad in the movie is the guy that does the voice for Mr. Krabs from Spongebob.

I couldn't unhear that.

[Benjamin]

I wanna see it. I just finished the first book and it was decent. Similar style to Hunger Games really, but the film could be really good if they get the Grievers right and the young cast perform.

Is the book good? I think I'd hate the way it's written, though. I don't get why a bunch of kids would call stuff "The Grievers" or "The Blades" and stuff. It's not like Hunger Games, where it's been going on for 100+ years, they've only been there for 3 and the kids have made up all this fanciful names for everything. The worst one was that they're all apparently "Keeper of the whatever". Just irritated me. It also suffers from "annoying lead" syndrome.

Movie is really fun, though, especially the third act.

[JasonM]

So last night I watched Ender's Game.

Now I haven't read the novel, so maybe people who have can enlighten me. And I'm sure that a lot of explanation has been lost in translation from book to film.

Throughout the entire film I found Ender to be extremely unsympathisable and at times ultra overbearing and whiney.

You have an external threat, that almost wiped out the earth 50 years ago, and the entire movie you're fed the simple premise of ''They're coming back to finish the job''. And we need these hyper intelligent kids to become our tactical gods to beat them before they beat us. It's a bit far fetched, but that wasn't my problem.

My problem was Ender himself. Because during the entire first half of the film you see him wanting to do what he's supposed to do, and he want to be the guy to beat the aliens. Then at a tipping point he does a complete 180 and suddenly wants to go back home and rather be with his sister... At that point I completely switch off, because it doesn't make any sense in any sort of perspective.

You have a threat that will kill everyone, including his sister. For the better part of the film he's been fed the idea that he's ''the chosen one'' in terms of being the guy that has to lead everyone to victory. And then he makes the decision to just call it quits because he wounded someone in self defense.

And then you have a very very far fetched idea about the aliens contacting him through a ''thought game'' that's being molded by his subconscious mind. Never you're even given the slightest inkling about possible communications, and what you're left with from those game sequences is that Ender is an idealist with the hope that they can be reasoned with, not with the actual knowledge.

Then after the huge climax they suddenly throw it on you that they wanted to communicate with the Humans, despite never in the 2 hours before having gotten a single real solid idea that such a thing was the case. So they suddenly throw the holocaust analogies right in your face and try to be overbearing and go ''This should never have happened''.

At that point I just completely stopped giving a shit about the film, because it made no sense from having watched the entire film prior. I ended up symphatising with the guys who you should've hated after the climax.

But the thing is, Graff and the other army leaders might have done something extremely evil by killing an entire species. But they had to make a choice between human extinction and alien extinction. Call me a praghmatist, but that choice is pretty quickly made.

Once more, never in the entire film are you given the idea that there's a diplomatic third option. It's always a them or us affair. Maybe it was meant to feel like that, but I came away from the film very dissapointed and confused.

So yeah, I'm sure that the novel explained the entire premise a lot more and gave us more hints towards what was going on. But I felt that the film failed to really put me into the mind of Ender. And the acting skills of Ford shone through because he's simply that good.

It wasn't a bad film, but I felt that it was sorely lacking in a lot of areas. I also could've missed some stuff because it was between 2-4 past midnight and I went to bed directly after.

[stokeriño]

I've not seen Ender's Game, but reading that it sounds like halfway through the film the kid turns into Shinji Ikari. If so, I concur that this would be massively infuriating.

In fact that whole film sounds rather Evangelion. I may have to see it just so I can spend the whole time drawing comparisons.

[Summers]

I wanna see it. I just finished the first book and it was decent. Similar style to Hunger Games really, but the film could be really good if they get the Grievers right and the young cast perform.

Is the book good? I think I'd hate the way it's written, though. I don't get why a bunch of kids would call stuff "The Grievers" or "The Blades" and stuff. It's not like Hunger Games, where it's been going on for 100+ years, they've only been there for 3 and the kids have made up all this fanciful names for everything. The worst one was that they're all apparently "Keeper of the whatever". Just irritated me. It also suffers from "annoying lead" syndrome.

Movie is really fun, though, especially the third act.

It's decent.

And the slang makes some sense. They were all dropped there with no memories - so it makes sense they'd use other words for stuff. Add in the fact that they're young, yeah - I get why they'd have made up slang words for some stuff.

[Roster Depth Sicko No. 2]

Just saw Guardians of the Galaxy with one of my uni mates. Never expected to laugh so much from what I expected to be primarily an action film. So happy there's going to be a sequel.

[Nick Adams]

I saw When The Game Stands Tall yesterday. That was a decent film, although since it was based upon real life, the plot was a bit jumbled in places. The fact that they tried to stay true to what really happened means that the narrative is going to be jarred, but for the most part, it's worth seeing if you're into football movies.

[Monkey D. Lars]

Eastern Promises (2007) is fucking amazing, Aragorn, I mean Viggo Mortensen is awesome in this one as a Russian!

[Benjamin]

Starred Up (2013)

Incredible. The intensity and tension in every scene is just so mad, I was on the edge of my seat. It's absolutely worth a watch, I recommend it to anybody.

[Jimmy]

I really loved that film up until the end. I still thought it was excellent, and had some extraordinary performances but

The message was too in your face at the end, especially the revolving doors. I think it'd have been so powerful to end it when the dad was flipping out because he knows the police are going to try and kill his son. That'd have been brilliant. Instead, I just kind of felt it was way too in your face and it'd kind of undermined how subtle it'd been before. It's kinda like they panicked and thought people wouldn't pick up on what they were going for.

[Benjamin]

I really loved that film up until the end. I still thought it was excellent, and had some extraordinary performances but

The message was too in your face at the end, especially the revolving doors. I think it'd have been so powerful to end it when the dad was flipping out because he knows the police are going to try and kill his son. That'd have been brilliant. Instead, I just kind of felt it was way too in your face and it'd kind of undermined how subtle it'd been before. It's kinda like they panicked and thought people wouldn't pick up on what they were going for.

I thought the revolving door message was great. I didn't realize that people thought it was subtle, it seemed like what they were going for was how the current prison system actually seems to send prisoners backwards instead of rehabilitating them, and it would be a never-ending cycle. It would have left me feeling empty, I think, if it ended with the dad just knowing that they were going to stage Eric's suicide. The part that shouldn't have happened was the father actually managing to save the son, I think.

Still, the group session with the two guys just standing off and one going "Enjoy your smoke, man" over and over again was incredible.

[Tyrone]

Kazaam

I couldn't appreciate the greatness of this fim as a kid. After seeing Space Jam yesterday, this felt like the logical next step. Holy crap, this was incredible. Max was such a jackass. Much preferred him as a bald biker in Veronica Mars. To sum up this film, I'm going to quote one of Shaq's many awesome raps. "Hang on, I'm contagious. Outrageous. Spontaneous. You can't contain this. I am Kazaam." Let's Green Egg and Ham it. I love this movie.

[Benji]

Seven Psychopaths was fun. Didn't know what to expect going in and from the title I expected Smokin' Aces kind of film. All the actors were great and the story itself was amusing.

[Maxx]

Tusk

Well...that was definitely a movie about a guy turning another guy into a walrus. Interesting flick, haven't seen that story before.

[Nick Adams]

Finally got around to watching the Summer Finale of Suits. Gotta' say, that was quite the twist at the end, but frankly, I love it. The second half of this season is going to be crazy; I hate that I'll have to wait a month after it starts back up to start watching again.

[Tyrone]

How to Be a Man

I was roaming Netflix and came across this. Plot caught my attention. I really enjoyed the movie, one of the best I've seen as of late. Some fun characters and one scene in particular that was reaaally long, but very entertaining and definitely worth it. Would definitely recommend.