Please note that new user registrations disabled at this time.

Movies I've seen lately

Anything goes... just keep it clean.
User avatar
Sytze
Posts: 2659
Joined: Wed Jun 25, 2003 5:11 am
Location: Location:
Contact:

Post by Sytze »

Has anyone seen Alien vs Predator or Hellboy?
I wondered what kind of movies they were. A friend of mine wanted to see Hellboy, but I thought it was a bit childish (judging from trailers). I was interested in Alien vs Predator. I'm not really sure why. Maybe I'm nostalgic, maybe I just want to see some half scary fighting movie.


Hero
I watched Hero -like Morlock- as well. However, I was a bit disappointed. I wanted to see the movie because of the fights, but those did not impress me that much...
But it's true that it's a beautiful movie. The choreography is just fantastic. But perhaps they focussed too much on the choreography than the rest of the movie. Which is a shame, the movie could've been a pearl.
"Sometimes Dreams are wiser than waking"
User avatar
werebeargoddess
Posts: 1096
Joined: Sat May 01, 2004 9:05 am
Location: Stargazing in a field
Contact:

Post by werebeargoddess »

I saw Hellboy, and loved it. I didn't see it in theaters, because I think my family was busy at the time, but we rented it about a month ago. Sadly, it was the only movie I watched for three days straight, and I currently have an obsession with the character Abe Sapien. :rolleyes:
I wanted to change my sig, but I can't think of anything to change it to :(
User avatar
dairy
Posts: 203
Joined: Sun Jul 18, 2004 6:02 pm
Location: My Place
Contact:

Post by dairy »

i just watched Bruce Campbell vs Army of Darkness for the umpteenth time a few nights ago. What a great film with so many great one liners...

"I got a bone to pick with you."
"First you wanna kill me, now you wanna kiss me. Blow."

Ah, good old Ash. Is there anything he can't do?
I am Sancho
User avatar
Gwalchmai
Posts: 6252
Joined: Wed May 09, 2001 11:00 am
Location: This Quintessence of Dust
Contact:

Post by Gwalchmai »

I just saw The Incredibles, and I have to think it had the best super-hero action sequences I've ever seen! I'm starting to think, for true suspension of belief, computer animation is really the way to go. :)
That there; exactly the kinda diversion we coulda used.
User avatar
C Elegans
Posts: 9935
Joined: Thu Mar 15, 2001 11:00 pm
Location: The space within
Contact:

Post by C Elegans »

[QUOTE=Sytze]
Hero
I watched Hero -like Morlock- as well. However, I was a bit disappointed. I wanted to see the movie because of the fights, but those did not impress me that much...[/QUOTE]

Personally, I think it's a great pity that the formely great director Zhang Yimou has started to make Hollywoodesque sellouts, as has his compatriot Chen Kaige.
:(

Together
by Kaige was such a disappointment so at first I couldn't believe this was really made by the same guy who made Farewell my concubine. Cheap sentimentalism and plattitudes one upon the other a la Hollwood. The movie is about a young boy who is a very gifted violinist. The only uplifting thing with this movie was the excellent violinist who is not in the movie but the one who is playing the music: Li Chuanyun. It's worth seeing the crappy movie just to listen to him.
3/10 (and that's only for the music)

Akarui mirai (Bright Future)
Nice but very sad Japanese movie with the typical new-generation directors' way of depiciting very odd characters and behaviours as if they were totally normal and natural, without further comments or metaperspective on the oddities. Includes an extraordinary beautiful, intensly magic river scene worth waiting for.
6/10

Ascension
Absolutely horrible Canadian combined post-apocalypse/fantasy movie which makes the story in Diablo II look deep, original and well thought out. First I thought it was a parody, then I realised it wasn't and fell asleep. A friend of mine who was with me said he tried to sleep, but couldn't because he was too angry the movie was so bad. The common verdict was: it should be illegal to make such bad movies.
1/10, worst movie I've seen in my life together with my object d'haine Pretty woman.

Goodbye Lenin
Comedy about a young man who is trying to protect his mother from the reality of the fall of East Germany. The mother, who has been a devouted Party member, had been in a coma after a heart attack when the Wall fell, and her doctor instructs the family that she will not survive another great shock. The entire family gets entangled in creating the deceit that everything is like before. Not bad to be a comedy.
5/10

The Pianist
I think I have reviewed this before, but since Jelinek (who wrote the novel this film is based on) got the Nobel prize in literature this year, I again would like to emphasise what an excellent film this is. Directed by Haneke who like Jelikek never fears the unconventional, disturbing or umpleasant, this film about a piano teacher (played by Isabelle Huppert) is one of the best filmatic interpretations I've seen of a deeply psychiatrically disturbed person. A colleague of mine who is a psychiatrist called it "a real feel-bad movie" :D I really recommend it.
8/10

Hiroshima mon amour
Beautiful and reflective, with a strange sense of dust and dirt, this film is not so much about the war as about the relationship between the human mind and time, memory and present. The memories from the war is relived when a French woman and a Japanese man spend one single night together.
7/10

Tiresia
A transgender prosititute is kidnapped by a priest and held prisoner in his cellar . Slowly, Tiresia transforms to more and more masculine features since the priest withholds her hormone treatment. Could have been a really good movie, but in the end, mysticism cheapens it.
4.5/10 (good acting though)

All tomorrows parties
Dystopic post apocalypic movie, this time set in China after the fall of the communism and a war. People who escaped from a camp struggle for survival in a barren landscape and empty, desolate cities. Utterly boring and uninteresting, save a few moments here and there.
4/10

Two documentaries from the present Stockholm documentary film festival:

To live is better than to die
The life of a Chinese family who, like 1 million other farmer's, have been infected with HIV when they sold blood to the government and infected needles were used. Could have been very good, but wasn't due to poor timing and bad filming.

Sahara Marathon
About West Sahara's forgotten struggle for independence. Well made documentary showing the life in the refugee camps in Algeria and the annual marathon in the desert.
"There are in fact two things, science and opinion; the former begets knowledge, the latter ignorance." - Hippocrates
Moderator of Planescape: Torment, Diablo I & II and Dungeon Siege forums
User avatar
Xandax
Posts: 14151
Joined: Thu Nov 16, 2000 12:00 pm
Location: Denmark
Contact:

Post by Xandax »

Saw Van Helsing on DVD the other night.
Funny movie and very predicatble (except for one thing that the ending, where I had though a different ending).
Steals from many genres - including the James Bond movies (Van Helsing is James Bond and the friar guy is Q).
Funny still - and was okay to spend time on

Resaw an old sci-fi/adventure flick again as I got it cheap on DVD.
Krull.
Decent movie if one can abstract from the cheesy 80s movie-effects. But basically similar to much other in the genre and dosen't really stand out.

Terkel i Knibe.
Danish cartoon commedy from one of the most current comedians in Denmark at this time.
Extreemly funny if you are into dark humor and I can strongly recommend it.
The story is predicatble, but it is so dark that I laughed out many times.
Basically it is about a guy called Terkel at the age of 12-14 (can't remember) that recives deathtreaths - and the story is then about from who and why and all the things that happens across the way.
But this cartoon isn't for everybody - you need to have a dark sence of humor so you can laugh at the horrendous things that happens - like when the "overweight" girl at schools jumps out the window and when Terkels (drunk) uncle Stweard(sp?) beats up two kids and gives advice at the children-help line
Funny - very funny.
Insert signature here.
User avatar
Morlock
Posts: 1363
Joined: Tue Jun 19, 2001 10:00 pm
Location: Jerusalem, Israel
Contact:

Post by Morlock »

I hated Van Helsing. It's just mindless CGI, and very little fun. The opening sequence is good, as is Alan Silvestri's ridiculessly over the top music.

I am quite ashamed that I've only seen one of the movies CE mentioned, and the most poplar one at that (goodbye, Lenin). Some movie fan I am.
"Veni,Vidi,vici!"
(I came,I saw,I conquered!) Julius Ceasar
User avatar
Vincent Vega
Posts: 35
Joined: Sun Mar 14, 2004 1:35 pm
Contact:

Post by Vincent Vega »

I thought that Van Helsing was awful, this was made worse by the fact that I had just watched for the first time pretty much all the Dracula based movies my friends and I could find so it not only paled in comparison, it died, rotted, shriveled up, and willed itself out of existence.

Last night I saw two very strange movies

Blind Swordsman Zatoichi- a Japanese samurai film based off a much older Movie and TV series about..well..a blind swordsman, the plot was very reminiscent of many Samurai movies I have seen:there is a town being run by warring Gangs, samurai comes in and Kills the gangs and saves the town. High points of this movie included rather funny computer animated Kill Bill-esque blood spurts and some really cool scenes featuring varius workers or farmers pounding hammers and turning up soil to the beat of the music. the best part was at the end there was an elaborate song and dance number featuring everyone in the movie.

The other was called "A Day without a mexican", and the story goes like this,one day all the mexicans in California vanish, and since a good deal of menial labor, and almost all of the farming jobs are held by latinos, the entire state simply stopped functioning. this movie was obviousely ment to make a very political syatement about How much california needs its Latino population, it even goes so far as to have popup facts featuring statistics about californias economy and the like.
All in all this movie takes itself way too seriousely and I dont think it ever really grasps on to how rediculous the premise is, but this also makes for quite a few laughs.

they had both of these movies at blockbuster
User avatar
Tower_Master
Posts: 2003
Joined: Thu Jul 29, 2004 7:37 pm
Location: The floor?
Contact:

Post by Tower_Master »

[QUOTE=Gwalchmai]I just saw The Incredibles, and I have to think it had the best super-hero action sequences I've ever seen! I'm starting to think, for true suspension of belief, computer animation is really the way to go. :) [/QUOTE]

:D I just saw The Incredibles yesterday, and I couldn't stop laughing. It was AWESOME. GREAT flick. :D

Also saw Van Helsing - funny enough, I guess, but not good by any means. Kind of soul-less.
I sincerely wish we could re-consider this plan from a perspective that involved pants.
User avatar
Weasel
Posts: 10202
Joined: Wed Nov 29, 2000 11:00 pm
Location: Gamebanshee Asylum
Contact:

Post by Weasel »

Two late movies

Due to me being lazy

The Lady Killers: Not great, but not bad. Sadly towards the end you can start to predict what will happen next. This is a remark of a 1955 movie by the same name, which I have not seen, so I cannot compare the two.

Summary: A group of con-artist meet their match.


The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen: Would had been a complete waste of money if not for the kick-butting Nemo put on the bad guys. :D Other than that, it was a waste. Did I say Nemo kicked butt!!

Summary: Nemo kicks butt..thats about it. If you find this movie in the bargain bin at Walmart, keep looking, there has to be something in the bin better.
"Vile and evil, yes. But, That's Weasel" From BS's book, MD 20/20: Fine Wines of Rocky Flop.
User avatar
fable
Posts: 30676
Joined: Wed Mar 14, 2001 12:00 pm
Location: The sun, the moon, and the stars.
Contact:

Post by fable »

[QUOTE=Weasel]The Lady Killers: Not great, but not bad. Sadly towards the end you can start to predict what will happen next. This is a remark of a 1955 movie by the same name, which I have not seen, so I cannot compare the two.[/quote]

I've repeatedly seen the original, and it was great; but what a cast it had...! Among the gang's members with Herbert Lom, Peter Sellers, Cecil Parker and Alec Guinness. The film had a great sense of understated tension. It was truly a black comedy.
To the Righteous belong the fruits of violent victory. The rest of us will have to settle for warm friends, warm lovers, and a wink from a quietly supportive universe.
User avatar
Xandax
Posts: 14151
Joined: Thu Nov 16, 2000 12:00 pm
Location: Denmark
Contact:

Post by Xandax »

Don't know if this qualifies as a movie, but hey ... sure it does :)

This weekend, saturday, I watched "The 10th Kingdom" - a miniseries. It was 7hours long spanning 3 DVDs (I belive I've read somewhere it also existed in a 10hour version).

It was simply wonderful this movie, and it has stayed with me since I watched it.
Its story is typical "fairytale" - filled with cliches and very predictable, and actually takes place in an alternate dimension where most of our wellknown fairytales takes places as real life events, this means Cinderella, Snowwhite, Jack and the Beanstalk etc.
But all this matters so little when it is so nicely implemented.

The story starts as the Prince of the 4th kingdom is to be crowned (there are 9 kingdoms in this land of magic) - a real spoiled and stuck up prince, but the evil Queen - the protogè of the Evil Queen from Snow White - esacpes from the maxium security prison by the aid of trolls. The prince gets turned into a dog but escapes to our world where he bumbs into (literal) a young woman leading a not so perfect life.

This movie was great, I can't remember last time I watched something that made me feel this way - I just can't shake the film.

The only bad thing is the 3 troll children (Ed O'Neil makes a decent troll king), which act rather bad in my view.

The rest of the acting is rather good, and especially Scott Cohen as Wolf is wonderful. Maybe a bit much at first in the movie, but that is still in-character; so if one can look beyond it as simply "bad acting" it really is good and in-character and very versatile.
Kimberly Williams played a good leading role, and shows some debth.

The movie doesn't boast of tons of CGI and movieeffects and they aren't terrible well done - there are some effects because it is a fairytale/adventure - but they are there for only to advance the story or to illustrate the setting/mood. Which is unlike so many other movies that simply put effects in for the sake of the effects.

I can only recommend this movie/series and I recommend to watching it all on the same day if that can be overcomed.
I'd give this 9.5 out of 10. Only 9.5 because in my view nothing is ever as good as it could be - and esepcially the 3 trolls (Blabberwort, Burly and Blue Bell) pulls it a notch down from the perfect 10.
Insert signature here.
User avatar
Aegis
Posts: 13412
Joined: Sat Dec 30, 2000 12:00 pm
Location: Soviet Canuckistan
Contact:

Post by Aegis »

[QUOTE=Vincent Vega]Blind Swordsman Zatoichi- a Japanese samurai film based off a much older Movie and TV series about..well..a blind swordsman, the plot was very reminiscent of many Samurai movies I have seen:there is a town being run by warring Gangs, samurai comes in and Kills the gangs and saves the town. High points of this movie included rather funny computer animated Kill Bill-esque blood spurts and some really cool scenes featuring varius workers or farmers pounding hammers and turning up soil to the beat of the music. the best part was at the end there was an elaborate song and dance number featuring everyone in the movie.[/QUOTE]
You forgot to mention the idiot neighbour's boy. He was great. And yes, the Stomp performance at the end of the movie was extremely well done (if somewhat inappropriate for the period).
User avatar
dragon wench
Posts: 19609
Joined: Tue Apr 24, 2001 10:00 pm
Location: The maelstrom where chaos merges with lucidity
Contact:

Post by dragon wench »

I saw Kinsey this evening, Liam Neeson's latest movie. It was amazing.. at once human and humanist.... A profound, honest, and sensitive portrayal of Alfred Kinsey and his seminal work on human sexuality.

So as to avoid spoilers, I don't want to say too much... but it is well worth seeing for anyone who gets the chance.
Spoiler
testingtest12
Do not meddle in the affairs of dragons, for you are crunchy and taste good with ketchup.
Spoiler
testingtest12
.......All those moments ... will be lost ... in time ... like tears in rain.
User avatar
C Elegans
Posts: 9935
Joined: Thu Mar 15, 2001 11:00 pm
Location: The space within
Contact:

Post by C Elegans »

The United States of Afghanistan

Yet another documentary from the documentary film festival. The interesting thing with this movie is that it's made according to the strict Dogumentary manifesto. Dogumentary is Lars von Trier's follow-up on the Dogma 95, and the aim is similar: to move the viewer closer to reality, away from effects and away from conceiveing the viewer. In Dogumentary, all cuts must be marked with a black frame as to make it obvious for the viewer. All filming must be done of location, after production of sound and image is not allowed. Not even cutting in historical sequences is allowed. Everything must be here and now and only here and now.

Personally, I think the Dogumentary style would be very beneficial for instance in news and other media reports that are supposed to be objective.

The style aside, the movie was however fairly uninteresting in content. The director Hollander and a stupid Swedish pop singer travel to Afghanistan, and the movie is more about their ignorance and stupidity rather than the situation in Afghanistan. As a demonstration of ignorance of other cultures, it was good though, and I think this was really the aim of the movie.
"There are in fact two things, science and opinion; the former begets knowledge, the latter ignorance." - Hippocrates
Moderator of Planescape: Torment, Diablo I & II and Dungeon Siege forums
User avatar
frogus23
Posts: 421
Joined: Wed Sep 22, 2004 2:10 pm
Location: Rock 'n Roll Highschool
Contact:

Post by frogus23 »

Saw Plan 9 From Outer Space, and yes it is really that bad. More fun to talk about than to watch...but it does fall slightly on the 'hilarious' side of the 'awful' line, but only just :p
SYMISTANI COMMUNIST
User avatar
fable
Posts: 30676
Joined: Wed Mar 14, 2001 12:00 pm
Location: The sun, the moon, and the stars.
Contact:

Post by fable »

[QUOTE=frogus23]Saw Plan 9 From Outer Space, and yes it is really that bad. More fun to talk about than to watch...but it does fall slightly on the 'hilarious' side of the 'awful' line, but only just :p [/QUOTE]

Oh, yes, that's the classic over-the-top movie, the thing so outrageously stupid that you sit around with your friends and watch in amazement and laughter. I've seen several reputable critics' reviews that consider it the worst general release film of all time. If you watched it alone, that effect of general hilarity might well have been severely reduced.
To the Righteous belong the fruits of violent victory. The rest of us will have to settle for warm friends, warm lovers, and a wink from a quietly supportive universe.
User avatar
frogus23
Posts: 421
Joined: Wed Sep 22, 2004 2:10 pm
Location: Rock 'n Roll Highschool
Contact:

Post by frogus23 »

[QUOTE=fable]Oh, yes, that's the classic over-the-top movie, the thing so outrageously stupid that you sit around with your friends and watch in amazement and laughter. I've seen several reputable critics' reviews that consider it the worst general release film of all time. If you watched it alone, that effect of general hilarity might well have been severely reduced.[/QUOTE]It definately does have genuine hilarity....as a freak specimen its valuable.

It has an unbelievably bad script including constant misuse of very long words in the wrong context, 'continuity' (such as two people talking to each other being in the same place, or even the same time of day) is abandonned, innappropriate stock film is used incredibly frequently with the effect of confusion more than artistry, and the plot revolves around aliens who reanimate the corpses of the dead by remotely electrifying their pituitary glands (!) and it claims to star Bela Lugosi, but doesn't.
SYMISTANI COMMUNIST
User avatar
Morlock
Posts: 1363
Joined: Tue Jun 19, 2001 10:00 pm
Location: Jerusalem, Israel
Contact:

Post by Morlock »

The movie's known as the worst movie of all time, by the worst director of all time- Ed Wood. The making of the movie is described in what many feel is Tim Burton's best movie- Ed Wood.
"Veni,Vidi,vici!"
(I came,I saw,I conquered!) Julius Ceasar
User avatar
arno_v
Posts: 1395
Joined: Sun Apr 11, 2004 8:30 am
Contact:

Post by arno_v »

I just saw Shrek 2 yesterday. I think it's a funny movie, I like the voice acting of Mike Meyers, but Pus is the best :D
Post Reply