What Did You Watch Today?

[Pepsi]

Curious Case of Benjamin Button - 10/10

I'm a sucker for a movie that makes me cry and this movie made me cry about 20 times. Also, 20 year old Brad Pitt was enough to make me melt.

[Mr Evil Guy]

Religulous a couple days ago and Slumdog Millionaire. Both were good!

I saw Yes Man, too. Which was not as good but good!

[CQI13]

Saw a bunch of movies this week, mostly while doing laundry:

The Dark Knight - (again)

Black Xmas - Fun horror movie

The Rage: Carrie 2 - Decent special effects at the end

The Sandlot - You're killing me Smalls!

Sydney White - I liked the modern twist on Snow White.

[Timmoru Suzuki]

Yes Man 7 to a 7.5/10

It's good, Jim Carrey is good and there's a lot of funny bits. What bits aren't so good are the 'serious' bits which are awkward and clumsy at best, and there are a few rough bits which could have been better smoothed out, overall Yes Man is not the "feel good" film it could have been.

However, it is an enjoyable film if only because there are more than enough laughs to warrant a trip to the cinema to watch the film and unlike a lot (Read: All) Jim Carrey comedies it's not just prat-falling and gurning, there's a lot of funny lines too.

And prat-faling and gurning.

[MalaCloudy Black]

A Fistful of Dollars. A jillion stars out of a jillion. Five thumbs up, whatever. Seriously I love this movie really hard. The Man With No Name is all sort of badass.

[zero]

The Strangers

Solid horror, nothing special, but it managed to creep me the fuck out in a couple spots. Definitely nothing more than a one-time rental, but worth watching if you're a horror fan.

The Orphanage

Absolutely fucking brilliant movie and I'm ashamed of myself for not watching this sooner. If you have not seen this movie, you must buy it, rent it, Netflix it, do whatever you can to see it because it immediately earned a spot on my all-time favorite movies list. It is a milestone for the genre and must be viewed by everybody before the eventual American remake comes around and pales in comparison.

Edited January 1, 2009 by Zero

[Baddar]

The Texas Chainsaw Massacre - The Beginning

Better than I thought. I don't think there was ever anything in this movie that could really let anyone down apart from the story being pretty much as you would've expected. It is a prequel and if you've seen the rest, you kinda knew already. The kill scenes were gory and there was a good variation to them. I probably would've sat there for 90 minutes and watched it anyway, after seeing one of the female characters early on. Would shag, as YI would say. ¬_¬

[Blue Rosler]

The Strangers

Solid horror, nothing special, but it managed to creep me the fuck out in a couple spots. Definitely nothing more than a one-time rental, but worth watching if you're a horror fan.

The Orphanage

Absolutely fucking brilliant movie and I'm ashamed of myself for not watching this sooner. If you have not seen this movie, you must buy it, rent it, Netflix it, do whatever you can to see it because it immediately earned a spot on my all-time favorite movies list. It is a milestone for the genre and must be viewed by everybody before the eventual American remake comes around and pales in comparison.

Yay. The Orphanage love! But yeah, I hate how they're remaking the film because "American's won't be able to understand subtitles!"

And I watched Hamlet 2 this morning. It's nothing brilliant, but it's a fun watch. There's a few funny lines but more often than not Steve Coogan is just plain annoying.

[Timmoru Suzuki]

The Spirit 6.5/10

It's OK, with some better scenes. Some of the dialogue and exposition are wince inducing, the plot is a bit "jumpy" and not well developed, I don't think enough is made of Scarlett Johansson and at no point do you really care for any of the fairly under-developed characters as you never get any real attachment to them. Gabriel Macht is generally perfectly fine with the odd scene where he's bad, which is a little weird.

On the whole though it's an acceptable way to spend two hours, a few scenes are pretty cool and in no great surprise Samuel L. Jackson is at worst a lot of fun and at best good.

Not what it could have been, but reasonable enough.

[Timmoru Suzuki]

Not a movie, but a two hour TV special so what the hey:

Jonathan Creek was a British TV series that ran from the mid nineties to early noughties about a guy who solved "impossible puzzles", often for the police, and was almost essential Saturday night viewing in the nineties. Stories involved impossible robberies, murder victims alive and well days after death etc, though frequently involved people vanishing from in-escapable rooms. It was never the same after his side-kick played by Caroline Quentin left in 2000, and a few series of "specials" that followed were generally awful and it hasn't been on the air for several years. I never missed it in it's abscence, but still sat down to watch the first new episode in years, that being a brand-spanking new two hour special that aired tonight.

The two plots could have, and should have been seperated into two one-hour specials to better aid "digestion" for lack of a better word, and story pacing. Maybe even a single ninety-minute special would have sufficed, but at two hours it really felt like they were dragging out the plots to make the 120 minute run-time. Further evidence of this was the poor sub-plot with Jonathan's friend Adam investing in porn (though he was always the series weak link anyway), and the late "twist" that the old woman was EVILS was so blatantly there JUST to fill out another five minutes of the run-tme as it served no other purpose and did not need to happen.

Apart from the weak sub-plot and the fact it should have been two shorter specials, or just half an hour shorter with better pacing and a lot of the chaff cut out of it, it also felt like they ignored the main point of the story (the nightmare room) to create and play out the kidknapping plot to then go back and quickly solve the MAIN MYSTERY in seconds still with half an hour to go. This meant the main reason for the entire show and the plot with the most intriguing mystery was solved and made the remainder of conclusion seem quite flat.

However, it was still an enjoyable story, the writing was generally decent, there was some mystery and a few bits of genuine tension, it was great to "have Jonathan back" for a short while, and was a lot closer to the charm and watchability of the original series than the weak later series. I'd give it a 7/10. Less would have been more I feel.

Edited January 1, 2009 by timmayy Aaron XXIV

[zero]

Wall-E

If you don't enjoy this movie, you have no soul.

[YI]

I went to see that Australia last night...what a pile of wank.

Although, it was worth it...only just though...only just.

Edited January 4, 2009 by YI

[h0mic^_]

I just finished watching the last episodes from my Twin Peaks Definitive Gold Box Edition. This night will be dedicated to the extras of the box. Might as well watch "Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me" tonight, although it hasn't been too long since the last time I watched it.

If you have never seen nor heard about Twin Peaks... Then you should buy and watch it right away. It's, as Agent Dale Cooper would say, both, a strange and beautiful trip.

Edited January 4, 2009 by h0mic^_

[Enter Blue Guy]

I picked up How I Met Your Mother seasons 1 and 2 not too long ago. Cold purchase. Knew little about the show, but I was looking for something funny to watch, and without watching it, it seemed almost along the lines of a updated and fresh version of Friends.

Started watching season 1 and for a second I was thinking "why the hell did I pick up two complete seasons of a show I have never watched?" before I gave it another chance at got into it. At first I was convinced Ted was way too much of a sappy loser for me to take him serious, Marshall and Lily were overly mushy in every scene, and was not getting into the Robin character at all. Barney was awesome from the first episode all the way to the end. Despite the problems I had with show, it was still incredibly funny, no matter how annoying I found most of the characters, I laughed my ass off enough through out the episodes to look forward to popping in season 2.

I started watching season 2, I dunno whether it got better or I suddenly "got" it all. Probably both. I haven't rewatched season 1 yet to know for sure. Ted is supposed to be an unlame version of Ross from Friends, Lily and Marshall are supposed to be painfully crazy about each other. At first I thought everybody was being over dramatic and sappy just for the sake of it. While watching season 2, I realized the shit that annoyed me at first is supposed be there in spite of the comedy (honestly, I don't know if that last sentence made any sense). And Robin is just too hot to hate. Barney some how managed to up his awesomeness by 10 fold. That game he plays in Atlantic City and the Price is Right scenes are gold. Oh and the Letterman top ten list for names for the van too.

It's breezy enough that I don't have to feel committed to dive into the DVDs, but there is enough story there to keep me interested as the seasons go on. And it is really funny. I'll be looking forward to season 3 when it arrives.

Edited January 4, 2009 by Enter Blue Guy

[ROC]

Gran Torino - (Y)

The first hour was about as funny as Tropic Thunder, in all honesty.

The second hour, well, it worked under the context of the story, though, this is about the third movie this winter where

Spoiler: Click here to view

we just basically see the lead die. It makes the most sense with Clint, though, being that this is supposed to be his last performance.

[zero]

ROC - GET OFF MY LAWN!

Edited January 4, 2009 by Zero

[Richard Bangher]

Watched Gran Torino and Seven Pounds today.

Gran Torino was probably one of the better movies I have seen, but, lacks in some parts. And Seven Pounds, ugh, someone mind explaining this one to me?

[livid]

It's shit?

Yeah, that's about as good as it'll get.

[MalaCloudy Black]

Paranoid Park. I liked it, but I tend to believe Gus Van Sant hasn't ever made a bad film, sooo.

[Boogey131]

Taken - A great action movie, with fight scenes similar to the Bourne movies and I really liked Neeson in this role. Maggie Grace playing a 17 year old was a little odd to say the least but, I really enjoyed it. 8/10

Dance of the Dead - A cheesy low-budget zombie movie which takes place during a high-schools prom night, with a group of nerdy/outcast kids fighting off the zombie plague. It's as bad as it sounds. It killed an hour and a half of my time and couldn't quite decide what it's influences were. The zombies went back and forth between running and shuffling and...driving cars. Add in an atrocious love story portrayed by horrible actors and you got...a 3/10. The 3 is for shoving a zombies arm down its throat for the kill.