Movies

[Shale]

Alice In Wonderland: A very pretty movie without a whole lot of there there. The good: The visuals are meticulously designed and very, very Carrollesque, which isn't easy to pull off while still being original but Burton does it. Definitely worth the extra few bucks to watch it on Blu-Ray. The cast, especially the voice cast, capture their characters really well. This film marks the first time the March Hare has ever amused me, and any praise for the Cheshire Cat would be implied in the fact that it's Stephen Fucking Fry doing the voice.

The bad: the story is about as un-Wonderland as it's possible to be, too simplistic and cliched to be engaging on its own terms, and clashes with the good parts over and over and over. Alice as the prophecied hero of Wonderland? The Queen of Hearts/Red Queen as a pure villain, with the White Queen as a Fisher King? Characters saying "Frabjous Day" over and over until I wanted to stab somebody? Honestly, I liked the LOOK AT US WE'RE SO DARK AND SERIOUS retelling/sequel hybrid better when Tin Man did it, and that's not much of a compliment. Also: "Underland". Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaargh.

Still, very, very pretty.

[Scar]

Machete was freaking gold. Go watch it now.

[Idun]

AIW was pretty. I was just expected the typical story from the title. It's a pseudo-sequel I've been told?


I've watched a crapload of movies since. Most notable is Milk though. I wished for particular characters during the Movement to gain a bit more background, but the movie was about collectivism for equal rights with Milk at the helm. Great soundtrack, too.

*Edit: I've been ruminating on the voyeuristic element it presents for people unexposed to the personal lives of homosexual men. I'm not too certain the depictions would help solidify discriminating ideas of the anti-homosexual population, but I do applaud the movie as it humanizes them contrary to the creatures blindsided people love to consider them as.

[Shale]

Kiss Kiss Bang Bang and Inglorious Basterds were both good entertainment. I expected more bloody fun in Basterds, but once you start appreciating the movie for what it is instead of what the trailers said it would be, it's a pretty damn good movie.

[Grefter]

Kiss Kiss Bang Bang going in cold is an awesome watch.  You highly underrate Inglorious Basterds.

[NotMiki]

Kiss Kiss Bang Bang going in cold is an awesome watch.

[Shale]

Iron Man 2: Meh. Downey's cool as always (better in KKBB though), and Iron Man wrecking Mandroids is never not going to be fun, but aside from Rhodey putting on the suit the whole thing felt pretty pointless. Iron Man's going to be in the Avengers? What a shocking development. And they'd have been better off just cutting every scene that had to do with palladium poisoning. Tony survives the movie? Really? AMAZING!

Still, I liked how Hammer used Vanko the exact same way the Ten Rings terrorists used Stark, and whoever casts these movies continues to be very, very good at his or her job. Rourke + Rockwell = good times. And yeah, Iron Man wrecking Mandroids.

[Meeplelard]

I think the point of the Palladium Poisoning was to explain why Tony Stark was suddenly acting like a bigger dick and went into this massive "Who cares" state, cause from his perspective, he's going to die soon anyway, why not just do what he WANTS to do and be irrational about everything, rather than show any remote sense of care about himself?  When he finds out a way to survive the poisoning, suddenly "Oh, hey, better start caring about life again!"

...I didn't say it was effective at it, mind, but I think that's the logic they were going for.  You can argue its still pointless if you want! (I personally thought it wasn't very necessary myself; trying to force out an aspect of Tony that just didn't really work)

[Shale]

The thing is, if you want Tony to act like a gigantic jerk, there's a ready-made solution. Booze! Hell, I could have sworn IM2 was going to adapt Demon In A Bottle at some point in its development.

[Captain K.]

Easy A:  Entertaining, reminded me a lot of Saved!  Also has big tits*.


*That's a reference from the movie, not a chauvinistic remark.  Not that I'm above making a chauvinistic remark.

[DjinnAndTonic]

Saw the Dead or Alive movie on TV today.

It's... even more horrible than I expected. And for that, it is hilarious.

[Grefter]

CIA ALERTED

[Idun]

Okay, so I've sheen (I'm keeping this typo, haha) a seet load (keeping this solecism too) movies I haven't documented in chat. I suppose I can go in reverse order.

Inception, 5/5. Bad. ASS.

Toy Story 3, 4/5. It's great seeing an older animation stick firmly to its visual aesthetic and develop it without muddying its original perspective. Storyline wasn't as great as I thought it would be - many people said it brought them to tears. I thought it was a bit too maudlin. Spanish Buzz Mode was win though. Evil monkey was when. I forgot Mrs. Potato Head was so fucking annoying.

Metropolis, */5. Need to rewatch this one. Fell asleep multiple times during the movie - beautiful but a bit to anarchist in its story for me.Needed better voice actors.

Bangkok Girl, 4/5. Documentary about Thailand's exploited/exploiting sex industry. Definitely liked the connection he made between the smiles all the Thai women provided for the falang, unfortunate ending . . .  I would like to note the lack of any "colored" falang in this movie, including everyone but whites. Why? Just watch the documentary.

Code Monkeys - 3/5. Charles made me watch part of the series. Not a movie, I know. But it's kinda like Tosh.0 - trying a bit too hard.

Raging Phoenix - 3/5. Should be 2/5. Movie confuses the viewer with drunken style compared to the DRUNKEN CAPOEIRA it actually was. Great music, esp. Buddha Bless's Young Wai. Ended up being too long.

Legend of the Tsunami Warrior - 3/5. . . .  M m m m m m . . . . . I don't quite remember this one. I think it suffered from excessive length though and a bit too much CG.

Appleseed - 3/5. Yeah. Predictable movie.

Amelie - 5/5. Hey. French films can be great too. Despite that I could actually talk about the movie, but its cinematography and Amelie's quirks are too interesting to get into.

Fargo - 3/5. "Don't ya know?"

Child's Play - 3/5. Saw this again. Ages bad. Humor doesn't.

The Goods - Live Hard, Sell Hard - 5/5. I think I overrated this but am not interested in changing it. Very funny movie.

The Aviator - 4/5. Fucking long as shit. Could tell too, because I started getting all germophobic and OCD like Hughes.

Kick-Ass - 3/5. It's like the scenes paused to wait for me to laugh. Lame.

Date Night - 4/5. "I'm GUNNA COUNT TO THREE . . . .  ONE, TWO . . ."


Did not see all the movies I expected to see at the dollar movie that night. Lame.

[Grefter]

Mang you just gave a Coen Brothers movie the same score as Kick-Ass.  You are a scary person miss Idun.

[Luther Lansfeld]

The Aviator is absolutely fantastic and one of my fav movies. Glad you liked it. (And I will reveal how many movies I've seen by saying "And I've never seen any of the others.")

[Idun]

My experience with the Coen Brothers is that I absolutely love their characters, but don't really prefer their plots or endings. I ran into a similar situation with Burn After Reading. Kick Ass bordered on a 2, but Chloe Moretz's acting brought it up a notch. Matter-a-fact, Hit-Girl was the best thing about the movie.

[Captain K.]

She was the only thing about the movie actually.

[Grefter]

Nicolas Cage is pretty good as well.  Much more disgust at you rating a Coen Brothers the same as it than the fact that you gave it a 3.

[Hunter Sopko]

To be fair, Burn After Reading wasn't their strongest work and kinda deserves a 3/5. Don't know what kind of Mickey Mouse operation they were running on that set. Fargo though... unforgivable.

[Sierra]

I found Burn After Reading pretty consistently hilarious. If there's one where they dropped the ball, it's Ladykillers (still has its moments and isn't a bad movie per se, just what I'd call the worst they've made if asked. Edit: wait, I completely forgot that Intolerable Cruelty even existed. So I guess that one takes it).

If Idun at least likes their characters, she should watch Barton Fink for sexy John Goodman action. She still won't like the ending, but hey, sexy John Goodman action.

[Grefter]

Machete - Best Rodriguez movie ever?  Yes.  Most awesome movie ever? Pretty close.  So many good times here.  Ticket says movie is 2 hours. I had like 30 minutes of ads (what the fuck, seriously we walked in late and I checked the time as the movie started, I sat through 20 minutes of stuff and turned up at least 5 minutes late), so for a 90ish minute movie the start of the movie and the end of the movie have a lot of stuff happen between them.  This movie never stops.  Crank: High Voltage is a pretty close analogy I guess, this movie really is just Rodriguez taking his existing body of work and cranking the rule of cool up to a million.  There is no room for reality in these movies compared to his last ones (note: Once Upon a Time in Mexico had a blind Johnny Depp shooting dudes up with a silenced SMG and shotgun sniping), just balls out stupid awesome.  I love this movie and hope the sequels happen. 

So essentially this is 90 minutes of Danny Trejo fucking people up, banging chicks and generally ruining people's day.  Also the cast is pretty amazing.  Watch this movie.

[Scar]

My thoughts exactly, but since Greft says it, now people will flock to it. Go figure. heh

[Grefter]

Hah, people don't flock to things I say are good.  They pick them up 4 years later and ask me if I ever played them.

Also disclaimer of the movie just came out down here and I wasn't as late to the party as it looks.   Would have seen it back around when you did if I could have.  I had been looking forward to it so very much.

[Anthony Edward Stark]

Watched Over the Top this weekend.

Stallone wrote AND starred in this movie about a truck driver who competes in the International Arm Wrestling Championship to prove he is a fit caregiver to his son. I think I don't need to say more.

[Grefter]

It involves him turning his cap backwards to power up and win at arm wrestling.