What Did You Watch Today?

[Farmer Reil]

b]Beowulf - 2/10

Meh. Avoid unless you're really, really bored, or you want to laugh for the wrong reasons. Or you're a fan of CGI T&A.

Planet Terror - 9/10

Absolutely loved this movie. It's everything you'd expect when Tarantino meets Zombies. It's hilarious in the right places, and it's just generally fucking brilliant.

...except Tarantino's genitalia rotting away and dripping onto the floor. REALLY could've done without seeing that. Every night for a week so far. Wagh.

[Rashid]

Apocalypse Now Redux: 7/10

Okay, it's worth noting I never saw the original cut. And actually, I thought I was watching the original cut until around 2 hours in so I don't know which scenes were added or not. The acting and score was superb and it looked fantastic. It was just mind numbingly boring. I'm pretty sure if I saw the original I'd love that.

[MalaCloudy Black]

Planet Terror - 9/10

Absolutely loved this movie. It's everything you'd expect when Tarantino meets Zombies. It's hilarious in the right places, and it's just generally fucking brilliant.

I may be misreading you, but Robert Rodriguez directed and wrote Planet Terror. Tarantino only had a part as "Rapist #1".

[Fanku Kaibutsu]

The Mist: 8/10

It would've been a 7, if not for the ending. The ending was fantastically depressing. Overall, it was a good horror movie about people in a small space surrounded by Bad Hungry Things and some of those people losing their goddamn minds. I loved the ending, any major movie with the balls to pull off an ending like that is deserving of my commendation.

[Rashid]

Good Luck Chuck

Just saw it today. Wrote the review as soon as I got home:

1986 saw the release of Howard the Duck, an “epic” movie about a duck who is somehow pulled from his own planet/dimension to the Earth that we live on. It was a god awful mess, to be honest, and for a long time I considered it to be the worst movie ever made.

Well, UNTIL NOW that is!

Good Luck Chuck is about a dentist named Charlie, played by “comedian” (I use that term loosely) Dane Cook. It is believed that he gets a curse put on him in which any woman who has sex with him will fall in love with the next man they meet. Word of this gets out and every woman in town wants to fuck this man. This “movie” (I even use that term loosely) is highly offensive and demeaning to woman. From it, I have learned that women are nothing more than objects invented for the sole purpose of pleasing men, and that they are willing to whore themselves out to a stranger just to find “happiness”.

There is sex. Lots of sex. Now, I don’t have anything against sex scenes in movies when it actually means something and has purpose to it. Good Luck Chuck has a MONTAGE of Charlie having sex with innumerable women. There was sex in bed. Sex on kitchen counters. Sex in the shower. Sex in a fucking WHEEL BARREL. And there was probably more sex that I never ever seen as I walked out of the cinema 15 minutes before it ended (should have walked out much sooner).

Jessica Alba is an actress I’ve always had respect for. Her acting was impressive in Dark Angel and Sin City. It was sad to see her sink to this level. Her character had no likable qualities and seeing her crack her head on ice and drown in a pool would have made this movie better. Dane Cook. Well, if you’ve ever seen his stand-up comedy routines, you know he is an unfunny egomaniac. It shows even more so in Good Luck Chuck.

The dialogue was atrocious. For a romantic-comedy, this movie was devoid of any comedy or romance. Even if you’re into raunchy-sex filled-comedies I still can’t recommend this movie to you. Stick to Clerks and There’s Something About Mary. Ah hell even American Pie is a masterpiece compared to Good Luck Chuck.

Now, for a detailed breakdown of what Good Luck Chuck had to offer:

The Pros:

-Surely it’s better than committing suicide … okay, maybe I shouldn’t even say that.

The Cons:

-Everything.

I knew this movie was awful before I watched it, but my (cruel) friends practically made me go. I went in with extremely low expectations, and I was still surprised by how completely horrendous this was. If you want to watch a movie with breasts taking up the majority of the screen time, watch a porno. They have much better acting and production values.

Rashid’s Rating: Negative Pi/10

[ROC]

Yeah, I'd agree with a good deal of that review, Rashid...and I love Cook's stuff. But yeah, any movie that actually puts fucking numerous women as some sort of holy deed as opposed to what it actually is (which is a pretty awesome but not holy thing) already has their ethics backwards.

Flicka - 4/10

In Hollywood, there is something commonly referred to as the "suspension of disbelief". Mainly because every movie, regardless of how hard the script supervisor department works, will have errors. The best films have the errors you never notice. However, in a film as cliche and formulaic as Michael Mayer's Flicka, it's hard to keep your attention to the simple girl loves horse plot.

For one, what in the world is Alison Lohman doing here? After amazing work in Big Fish and Matchstick Men and even making weak efforts like Where The Truth Lies bearable (admittedly for more than her acting), she goes for a script with nothing for her to do but pout and cry. More importantly, she doesn't get a chance to really grow up here. And for an actress that this year turned 28 years old, and mostly has played teens for her acting career, I wanna see that grown-up role.

I could argue the same thing for Maria Bello and Tim McGraw. Bello is a downright amazing actress with the right script, and one certainly without inhibitions. But I guess those indie movies where she bears her soul and her body don't pay much, so good that she got a check. Meanwhile, McGraw I think has so much more potential. I actually thought he did great in Friday Night Lights and it'd be nice to see him dip for an indie flick maybe as he slows down his career. But here, it's more or less him playing the cliche overbearing father.

Most importantly, it's hard to see what anyone would see from a bad script by (among other projects) Superman IV writers Mark Rosenthal and Lawrence Konner. And to answer the suspension of disbelief point, it's kind of hard to concentrate on the script when the story's just not engrossing. Instread I noticed Lohman is so obviously not 18 nor her brother of college age. Both look about 30 and judging from McGraw and Bello's looks, their parents are playing the hottest 40 year-olds ever to grace a ranch in Wyoming. That just distracted me way too much.

But eh, if you like staring at horses for an hour and a half and don't care that you're seeing the same thing again, then watch it.

(God, that was wayyyyyyyy too long and very much run-on.)

Edited November 25, 2007 by ROC

[Summers]

30 Days of Night is purely wicked.

12 out of 7 stars.

[Fanku Kaibutsu]

The Prestige: 8/10

I had a bad feeling about this movie going in. I'm generally not a fan of movies set in the 1800s unless they involve chinese folk heroes fighting against british imperialism, but I was surprised with how interesting it was. It's about two feuding magicians, one of whom is on trial for the death of the other. It's full of various twists and turns and was all in all a pretty good film.

[Rashid]

Had to watch a couple movies today to counteract the evil that I watched last night.

Cape Fear (1991): 9/10

Taxi Driver (1976): 9.5/10

Scorsese makes the best down-beat movies with scum antagonists and protagonists almost just as bad. Nonetheless, it's fantastic how he brings them to life and makes me sympathize for them. I'm curious as to if he's made any (good) comedies, I'd be interested in seeing those.

Edited November 25, 2007 by Rashid

[Momo]

The Prestige: 8/10

I had a bad feeling about this movie going in. I'm generally not a fan of movies set in the 1800s unless they involve chinese folk heroes fighting against british imperialism, but I was surprised with how interesting it was. It's about two feuding magicians, one of whom is on trial for the death of the other. It's full of various twists and turns and was all in all a pretty good film.

[Doc Funky]

Hitman: 6/10

A decent action movie. I'd give it a 7/10 if I wasn't such a big fan of the games. But since I am, seeing 47 showing so much emotion, or in big hand-to-hand/weapon battles just seems wrong. There's one scene where he strangles someone with this huge scowl on his face, and it's supposed to be really intense, but it took me completely out of the movie.

And it might just be me, but I don't like Olyphant. Especially in this role. He looks terrible as a bald man, and I'm not really sold on him as an actor, either. Whenever he tries to act sad, especially (here or in Die Hard), I just don't buy it.

But yeah, a decent action movie with a few comedy bits here and there.

Edited November 26, 2007 by Doc Funky

[Skummy]

Ed Wood

I'm amazed it took me so long to watch this film; I'm a huge fan of schlocky B-movies and as such Ed Wood is something of a pseudo-hero to me, I think Johnny Depp's one of the finest actors of his generation, and I quite like the work of Tim Burton when he's not being too obviously "kooky" and "goffick", yet up until today I'd never seen this, even after it sat on my bookshelf for a good couple of months.

Anyway, I absolutely adored it. Depp was good, although far from his strongest performance, it wasn't one of those "forget you're watching Johnny Depp" roles like Edward Scissorhands, Jack Sparrow or Raoul Duke to name but three, but he was perfectly adequate. George "The Animal" Steele and Bill Murray were uncanny as Tor Johnson and Bunny Breckinridge respectively, but the star was clearly Martin Landau, being more Bela Lugosi than Bela Lugosi ever was. The script is fantastic, again with most of the best lines going to Landau, and the black and white presentation really helps the film...it would have been so easy to make this The Producers without the songs, just a slapstick comedy about a useless director, a washed up old film star and a group of misfits, but Burton managed to make it beautiful, sentimental and utterly heartfelt, without ever getting too tacky with it (although the scene with "Orson Welles" comes damn close), and without ever making too much of a deal about Wood's transvestism being either a positive or negative aspect of his personality...it's always a major point, but never something you're pressured into feeling one way or the other about.

[zero]

No Country For Old Men

Caught this one over the weekend. It's rare that a movie leaves me speechless, but this one did just that. Without a doubt, one of the best movies of 2007 and I'd be stunned if it doesn't get a best picture nomination. To add to that, I'll be furious if Javier Bardem doesn't walk away for a nomination for best actor as he steals the entire movie as one of the most terrifying villains ever.

People bitch about the ending, that's because your average moviegoer needs everything tied up in a neat little bow at the end of a film; you won't get that here. It's based off the Cormac McCarthy book and it stays true to it, that's all I'll say on the ending to avoid spoilers.

If you're in the mood to get away from wave of family comedies coming out around the holidays and you're looking for a movie unlike anything else out there, definitely catch this one before it's out of theaters.

[CQI13]

Awake

Starring Hayden Christensen, Jessica Alba, and Terrence Howard (who seems to be everywhere since Hustle & Flow)

Very entertaining movie, comparable to Red Eye & Phone Booth; two movies that given the setting and premise can't be stretched to 1h 30m and still you don't feel ripped off because you paid $17 (tickets & concessions). It's about this guy who is given anesthesia for his surgery, and yet he can he hear everything that's going on. In this case, his doctors are trying to kill him (a fact that is shown in both the previews and the movie poster). Pleseantly surprised. If you enjoyed either Red Eye or Phone Booth, you'd probably enjoy this.

[Pesci]

Hitman - 7/10

Better than I expected. Wasn't anything like the game, but it was only "based" on it, not taking it for gospel. Went in with very low expectations and it surprised me.

[GA!]

I've seen five films since Wednesday...

Kid Glove Killer (1942)

I had to watch this for a presentation I have about film noir this Thursday. I didn't like KGK - it was empty in all departments (direction, story, soundtrack etc) with a shockingly cheesy ending where the scientist asks his assistant to marry him despite never even dating. She said yes of course, its 1942, you rarely had bad endings in films back then.

Stranger on the Third Floor (1940)

I really liked this. It was a much better example of film noir, and is credited as the first film noir film anyway. There's great sequences, especially if you have a shadow fetish (I know I do <_ all the clich that happened in film noir started here dumb cops women as complete thicksicles and that.>

Clerks (1994)

It wasn't the funniest film ever, but very enjoyable. I really liked the premise of it and its $27000 budget feel. Even after Clerks II, I don't get why it’s in black and white though.

Clerks II (2006)

Again, not the funniest film ever but very enjoyable. It did feel like just another comedy film because of its slicker production (despite the budget being only $5 million) and its… Donkey fucking. Yeah.

Femalien II (1998)

Every time I go to my mate's house after midnight, we seem to watch a softcore porn film on the Sci-Fi channel for a laugh. This one was no different. Random sex scenes, bad acting and Pat Sharpe look-alikes, OH MY!

[Skummy]

A Very Long Engagement

Another DVD I bought some time ago, and for some reason never got round to watching, but I wish I had, because it's fantastic, and goes some way to cement Audrey Tautou as my favourite actress right now. It's from the same director as Amelie, shares a lot of the same cast, and has some of the same hallmarks...introductory voiceover, which each character being introduced with a quick summary of their foibles and idiosyncracies, a quirky and at times obsessive-compulsive seeming female central character, and some beautifully composed shots, although nothing that stands out quite as wonderfully as much of Amelie does, but then A Very Long Engagement is hardly a film about twee prettiness and naivety.

The film is about Mathilde, played by Tautou, a Polio sufferer who's fiancée was apparently killed two years earlier in the First World War, but who refuses to believe it, and the film follows her efforts to find out what happened to him and to find him still alive, predictably meeting a cast of colourful characters along the way. While the ending's a massive cop-out, the route it takes to get there is fantastic, and all beautifully acted, although does suffer from some poor characterisation in parts, although much like Amelie the films does manage to keep up an illusion of there being existing relationships between characters when they're not on camera quite well.

Overall it's a fantastic film and well worth watching, and it's a nice attempt at a not overly original premise.

[tristy]

My parents got that mail-in Blockbuster thing, so I've been watching a plethora of movies they want to see. Recently...

License To Wed - 6/10

It wasn't bad, but it wasn't good. I'm a sucker for anything Mandy Moore (sue me), and Jim from the Office plays the likable yet makes all the wrong (right) mistakes. And how can you go wrong with someone like Robin Williams as a priest? It's destined for success. The always lovable Christine Taylor is in this as Mandy Moore's sister, and she delivers as a depressed, cynic, divorced older sibling. Somehow, though, with all the right cast members playing their roles to a 'T', something didn't click, which is odd given Moore's track-record with romance movies. Oh well, it's still a good little movie that I wouldn't object to popping into the DVD player again on a Friday night/morning.

The Reaping - 7/10

I can't really wrap my head around the idea of this movie, but it was pretty cool. The whole time you're led to believe one thing, and you THINK you get closure at the end, but you don't. I hate shit like that. It had all the right plot twists to make a OMGWTF reaction, but the last 2 minutes of this movie totally ruined it for me. The Reaping 2: Electric Bugaloo, I won't be watching (especially since it'll probably be straight to DVD or something). But, the special effects were cool, and the little girl in this movie was like the Satanic version of Datoka Fanning (which is 10 kinds of awesome). Religious movies with Satanic cults, alcohol, sex and little children (not combined) = awesome.

[CQI13]

Haven't seen License to Wed yet, but I'm not a big Robin Williams fan in roles where he tries to be funnier than he actually is.

As for what I saw yesterday:

This Christmas

Very good Christmas movie about a family that gets together for the holidays, and they all have their baggage/issues. Great in the sense that not everything is revealed at once, but everything gets resolved in the end. The first line of the movie is not explained until I'd say half an hour in (and even then, not all the characters know about it). And I loved the fact that most people should be able to relate to the movie (everyone knows someone like one of the characters in the movie). It does have Chris Brown trying to act (and does an adequate job of it). But there is one scene where he's at an open mic night, and he's acting all nervous on stage but by the end acts like Chris Brown and has a good stage presence (this from someone whose character is explained in the movie has never performed in front of people before). Skipping that though, a very enjoyable movie with very little to complain about.

[Pippa]

I watched The golden Compass the other day, took me until the end of the film to realise that it is the Philip Pullman book, Northern Lights, as it says so at the end.

Only read the first couple of chapters of Northern Lights so i'm not really to blame that i didn't get that right away...