Author Topic: Movies (Read 309660 times)

Veryslightlymad · « **Reply #1475 on:** December 09, 2011, 06:56:25 PM »

I liked the other Simon and Garfunkle tracks. I just really, really dislike that one. "Hello Darkness" is one of my favorite songs. Well, top five hundred, somewhere.

That boob grab not being in the script is pretty hilarious. And ballsy. Poor Ms. Bancroft.

It's just.... all context. I remember reading a book by Steven Pinker (I think it was Pinker) about linguistics, and he specifically mentioned the Graduate. He talked about the "Plastics" line. I guess in the 50s, "Plastic" was seen as this amazing thing, and people referred to things as "plastic" if they meant it was malleable, adaptable, and cutting edge. But by the 60s, when the movie was filmed, it had garnered the negative connotation of "fake" and "cheap".

I just..... I get the opinion that the bulk of this movie makes no sense since I didn't live in 1967. Maybe it was brilliant in its day. Flipside, Murphy Brown was one of the more successful sitcoms ever, but why would anyone want to watch it now? Is any of it meaningful anymore?

Captain K. · « **Reply #1476 on:** December 09, 2011, 07:42:23 PM »

Wait, did you just diss Scarborough Fair? You are dead to me.

=======

When my mom wrote her memoirs, I found it amusing that one of her best childhood memories was getting a little plastic bracelet. We would find that to be a cheap, insignificant thing now. But plastic was so new and uncommon back then that it seemed special.

Veryslightlymad · « **Reply #1477 on:** December 09, 2011, 08:23:22 PM »

The layered voices are cool. It's just the lyrics are ridiculous. And it plays way, WAY too often in The Graduate.

Also, I just now remembered the song is called the "Sound of Silence" and not "Hello Darkness", and I am SO NEUROTIC that I had to come here and point that out. I was gonna edit my post surreptitiously, if no one had made a new comment.

Sierra · « **Reply #1478 on:** December 09, 2011, 09:12:50 PM »

Rest assured you would have been appropriately lacerated in print had you not corrected yourself before I returned to see it.

Grefter · « **Reply #1479 on:** December 09, 2011, 09:50:19 PM »

Hahaha man I had been telling you to watch it because it is about young adult ennui and really strange relationships, especially the fact that all that shit isn't necessarily what you really want. Sound familiar?

That and the Mrs Robinson stuff is an iconic piece of pop culture. Sometimes you have to put up with some junk to get to them. You might not. Are for them now but they normally pay off eventually. Like now you know the context for he song Mrs Robinson (which I love). If you want to see the impact of culturally iconic stuff note that same song charted in the 90s by a band of little other note. 30 years on it was still a thing. Lemonheads had a bit more going on than just that, but it is there song that stood the test of time and still gets AirPlay.

Captain K. · « **Reply #1480 on:** December 09, 2011, 11:23:33 PM »

Twilight Breaking Dawn part 3.14: Sadly, Kristin Stewart does not die. Apparently becoming a vampire comes with free eyeshadow. Bonus!

Cmdr_King · « **Reply #1481 on:** December 12, 2011, 05:51:33 AM »

Up- This movie doesn't quite work for me. the opening, up until the storm, sets the stage very well, just... okay. The idea in this film is an adventure Carl needed to take to put Ellie to rest properly, right? All the emotional bits work just fine. When the emotional closure comes, it feels closed, complete. The adventure bits fall really flat. I dunno what it is, but I feel this in a lot of Pixar movies, that the adventure bits just lack something. The humor never really resonates and there's not really a sense of awe or wonder about it. It just never really feels exciting, and for whatever reason the adventure and the heart are segmented, or at least I feel that way watching it. The climax is okay, but by then it's almost redundant because the emotional climax has already taken place and was more or less satisfactory. I mean, not that this means you can just cut off the movie there, but the emotional investment isn't the same I guess.

Cmdr_King · « **Reply #1482 on:** December 18, 2011, 11:13:15 PM »

Wall-E - The first time I feel comfortable saying a Pixar movie lived up to its hype. Engaging the whole way through, great characters, great animation, etc etc.

Sierra · « **Reply #1483 on:** January 01, 2012, 07:14:14 PM »

Super 8: We turned this on during the Twilight Zone marathon yesterday to get away from that godawful camera episode (seriously, do they have to show that one every year?) I've encountered elsewhere the opinion that J. J. Abrahms is good at building tension but has no idea what to do with it, and I find this wholly accurate. Movie is an entertaining enough diversion that has no solid idea what to do with its second half. Particularly irked by the triumphant music played over the alien's escape. Y'know, he probably deserved to get free, and I can't much hold against him massacring the army guys who'd tormented him for years, buuuut those were a whole lot of civilian bodies hanging from the roof in his hideout, movie. Decent, just yeah, more evidence Abrahms is a technically proficient director without adequate discipline for storytelling. Smart enough to know that the best thing to do in an age when everyone's used to CGI monsters is to keep one in the dark, at least. I will also add: I loved the end credits, over which they play the short film the kids were making throughout the movie, which is hilarious. Here, have a 70's zombie movie homage: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mwMz9Ydj378

superaielman · « **Reply #1484 on:** January 02, 2012, 05:33:07 PM »

Battle for Los Angeles: Oh man. The director hit some of the small things dead on (The scene with the marines drinking) but the plot is literally ripped from V and Independance day, with a dash of generic action film thrown inn. Should have been much better.

Veryslightlymad · « **Reply #1485 on:** January 07, 2012, 03:20:37 PM »

Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows

Dunno why this premiered so poorly. I found this to be quite the enjoyable little romp. Very fun movie, highly similar to the first one, so if it didn't float your boat, then this definitely won't, either. Personally, I like Downy's take on Sherlock Holmes, and if it gets anyone upset about not being how they pictured him or not authentic or whatever, they can bugger off because he's public domain. I could write a story about Sherlock Holmes where he's an anthropomorphic dog-robot and there's nothing you can do about it.

Anyhow, I like how the movie -does- show you everything you need to figure out what Holmes is doing, even if it's often so minute that you probably wouldn't bother to. I definitely made a note of Holmes attempting to grab something of Moriarty's in the hotel when he was disguised as a bus-boy, so that plot point coming up later didn't bother

Otherwise..... Fun little nod to the Dark Knight at one point. Too much nude Stephen Fry and not enough nude Noomi Rapace.

Lady Door · « **Reply #1486 on:** January 07, 2012, 10:18:22 PM »

That's pretty much how I felt about Sherlock Holmes, vsm. In fact, seeing the first one -- and then the BBC mini-series, season 1 -- spurred me to reading the Sherlock Holmes tales just to see what they'd taken from the character. (You can take from this, too, that I like the TV show House, which is supposed to be loosely based on the mannerisms and overarching characterizations in Sherlock Holmes.)

You know what? It's not that far off. Holmes was a crazy motherfucker in the stories, if perhaps less invested in steampunk victoriana and explosions. As far as I'm concerned, these movies are just a Hollywood-ized version. And you know what? That's fine because they also chose to maintain the integrity of the characters as best they could while making all the explosions and things make sense.

So yeah. I liked it too. And hooray for Stephen Fry even if, ugh, nudity, really?

superaielman · « **Reply #1487 on:** January 07, 2012, 11:54:40 PM »

Hangover II: This was a pretty notable downgrade from the first one. The first movie had a lot of rough humor but nothing too bad , the second one more tended towards viciousness (Hi, everything that happened towards Stu besides the tattoo). It had a few funny moments, but for the most part felt like a cash in.

Batman: The first year: This should have been called 'Jim Gordon owns and will kick your sorry ass'. Batman was very secondary to Gordon, which suited the story fine. Batman's genesis as a hero is well established lore, so focusing instead on Gordon cleaning up the police was a cool take on it.

Hunter Sopko · « **Reply #1488 on:** January 08, 2012, 04:20:56 AM »

Quote from: superaielman on January 07, 2012, 11:54:40 PM

Hangover II: This was a pretty notable downgrade from the first one. The first movie had a lot of rough humor but nothing too bad , the second one more tended towards viciousness (Hi, everything that happened towards Stu besides the tattoo). It had a few funny moments, but for the most part felt like a cash in.

It all makes sense if you picture Stu as OK.

Shale · « **Reply #1489 on:** January 22, 2012, 03:54:25 AM »

~~Batman Year One~~ The Jim Gordon Badass Hour Guest Starring Batman: See Super. They cut the Year One story down to its core to fit it into an hour, and the core of the plot is all about Jim Gordon. Suits me fine, since Jim Gordon is a total badass and more stories need to emphasize this. Plus Batman's actor ranged from meh to god-awful, so giving him fewer lines is a good move in general. Other than that, my only complaints are superficial - mainly the fact that Gordon's wife was apparently nine months pregnant for ten months.

Cotigo · « **Reply #1490 on:** January 22, 2012, 04:37:56 PM »

Bridesmaids: I watched this. I am a hungry bear.

Anyway now that I'm on topic, VSM FOR THE LOVE OF GOD WRITE THE SHERLOCK HOMES ANTHROPOMORPHIC ROBOT DOG NOVEL. Do it now.

Meeplelard · « **Reply #1491 on:** January 23, 2012, 02:05:29 PM »

Rise of the Planet of the Apes: It was a 12 hour plane ride and I had already rewatched Captain America! That said, I think the movie would have benefited more from not being associated with Planet of the Apes (heck, the title feels like its tossed on to make it sound more appealing, because, you know, PLANET OF THE APES.) My main beef is knowing its related to Planet of the Apes makes it hard to cheer for the Apes when the movie wants you to against the oppressive marines, knowing how things will end up in the future. If the movie was just a self contained "Chimps gone smart and go wild!", probably would have enjoyed it more. That said, it wasn't as bad as I was expecting, and kept me entertained for an hour and 40 minutes or whatever.

Walk on Water: I got a glimpse of this on my Israel trip, when we were learning about Israeli Cinema, just as a random night activity, and it seemed interesting, and it was also being offered on the plane for free, so I figured why the hell not? Movie...its not my style. I can't say its bad so much as just pure dramas like that don't really catch my attention unless they're really freaking good (Shawshank Redemption comes to mind.) Amusing though watching a movie shift between 3 different languages (English, Hebrew and German) on a whim, and how the subtitles shift accordingly (when its German, it just has both English and Hebrew)

Veryslightlymad · « **Reply #1492 on:** January 24, 2012, 12:36:58 AM »

Quote from: Makkotah on January 22, 2012, 04:37:56 PM

Bridesmaids: I watched this. I am a hungry bear.

Anyway now that I'm on topic, VSM FOR THE LOVE OF GOD WRITE THE SHERLOCK HOMES ANTHROPOMORPHIC ROBOT DOG NOVEL. Do it now.

I'll give it serious consideration after I finish my Kung-Fu Emo story.

Shale · « **Reply #1493 on:** January 29, 2012, 04:56:07 AM »

X-Men First Class - Pretty damn good. Solid superhero action, and Xavier, Magneto and Mystique are really well-realized characters. The writers obviously made it their first priority to show how the three of them fractured into two camps, and they did a great job - in a way that mostly holds true with the first two movies, to boot (and makes me want to punch Brett Ratner that much more for the bit where Magneto leaves Mystique for the wolves in the third). McAvoy and Fassbender nail their roles, and Jennifer Lawrence carries Mystique well. The writing....it rings true with the characters as presented, but the way circumstances play out, Magneto is hard to blame at all for acting like he does while Xavier is on multiple occasions an utter tool. Young Charles Xavier is indeed a jackass, but Erik comes off as entirely justified where you'd expect some level of overreaction. There are also some unfortunate scripting choices re: Black Dude Dies First (and doesn't even get to do anything useful before it! Lame.) and the fact that villains not named Shaw or Frost get a total of maybe one line.

Also, the cameos were great. Well played, Vaughn.

Captain K. · « **Reply #1494 on:** January 29, 2012, 06:05:29 AM »

Inception: Pretty good, but you could see the Lady and the Tiger ending coming like a freight train barreling down a city street.

Captain K. · « **Reply #1495 on:** February 03, 2012, 08:30:03 PM »

The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo (Daniel Craig version): It's very frantic. Probably difficult to follow if you haven't read the book. They curiously omitted the stuff with Cecilia which was a major plot point. And the Harriet resolution is completely different. They also leave out a lot of dialogue between Mikael and Lisbeth, so when they have sex it's just totally random and nothing more than an excuse to show Rooney Mara naked again. Not that I'm complaining, mind you!

Also, the opening credits have got to be one of the weirdest fucking things I have ever seen. Someone who walks into the movie a few minutes late will probably think they've walked into a German BDSM bar. Except that still doesn't adequately describe these credits...

Oh look, I found a video:
http://brightcove.vo.llnwd.net/pd19/media/694922499001/694922499001_1377661317001_blur-openingcredits12.mp4

Cotigo · « **Reply #1496 on:** February 11, 2012, 02:19:08 PM »

I saw the Phoenix Wright movie with a couple of other ALTs today. It was in Japanese, but thanks to having played the game it was pretty easily understood (and I feel like I caught about 40% of the subtleties beside that, so, hey, go me). The costumes and casting were great, and aside from one exceptionally trite gimmick (you can guess when you see it) it managed to capture the feel of the game pretty well.

Also, in Japanese, Larry Butz is "Just as I thought" and Phoenix Wright is "I see". (Yahhari and Naruhodo). This is excellent, and I wish I understood the other characters' name puns as well.

So, keep in mind that I saw the movie in entirely Japanese, and delude myself though I may my Japanese still isn't that great. That said,

What it did well: It managed to make the courtroom scenes engaging and captured the feeling of said sequences. If you played the first game and like seeing references to things you've seen before you'll enjoy this movie no doubt, even if it's in a language you don't understand at all.

What it did poorly: This is where my Japanese skill (or lack thereof) plays a part, but I really don't feel like this is a good movie if you HAVEN'T played the game. They do very little character building work for Mayoi (Maya) and the whole DL6 case was changed ever so slightly and details may have actually done well and I just didn't understand, or may have not made any goddamn sense at all. Also, how they portrayed Manfred Von Karma's link between case 4 and the DL6 case didn't make sense to me but I am pretty confident that that was the language barrier there.

What it did ugly-ily: NO WENDY OLDBAG. 0/10 WOULD NOT WATCH AGAIN.

Dark Holy Elf · « **Reply #1497 on:** February 11, 2012, 06:05:15 PM »

Quote

What it did ugly-ily: NO WENDY OLDBAG. 0/10 WOULD NOT WATCH AGAIN.

This is... unforgivable!

More seriously, did 1-3 end up being cut entirely for the movie? I remember speculation about this although Dee Vasquez was in the previews so nobody was sure.

Cotigo · « **Reply #1498 on:** February 12, 2012, 12:48:17 AM »

They're all covered. 2 is the focus of a good portion of the start of the film. Makes sense, as it introduces Maya. 1 is like the intro sequence. 3 is the one that gets glossed over almost entirely, but has a brief scene that references it. Considering it's a 2 and a half hour movie as is this is a decision I'm pretty OK with.

Still. No Wendy Oldbag. Fuckin' film sucks.

Shale · « **Reply #1499 on:** February 13, 2012, 12:51:38 PM »

50/50: Surprisingly good. Well-written, well-acted, well-cast (although Anna Kendrick's teeth are terrifying) - just an all-around good comedy/drama. With Taggart!

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Author Topic: Movies (Read 309660 times)