Rate The Last Movie You Saw - 2

[GLASSJAW]

the martian: 5.5/10

jeez, i did not enjoy this. really confused about the praise here, even after reading some of the reviews. to me, it just seems like Armageddon meets Apollo 13. pure hollywood cheese.

the movie closes on a few dumb comments about death, as if the 2 hours that precede those closing moments were about death too. but they weren't. they were all about optimism in American Know-How, and the value of "Science!" in a universe where all philosophical or emotional problems can seemingly be solved like math, or ignored completely

"disco sux" and "i wanna be iron man!" are among the last lines in the movie. that says it all for me.

Edited December 11, 2015 by GLASSJAW

[riffraff]

I thought Revenant was showing this month. Is it January?

 

just show already!

[The Bookie]

6 hours ago, riffraff said:

I thought Revenant was showing this month. Is it January?

at the theatre the other night, poster said Jan 8

[g_bassi13]

9 hours ago, GLASSJAW said:

the martian: 5.5/10

jeez, i did not enjoy this. really confused about the praise here, even after reading some of the reviews. to me, it just seems like Armageddon meets Apollo 13. pure hollywood cheese.

the movie closes on a few dumb comments about death, as if the 2 hours that precede those closing moments were about death too. but they weren't. they were all about optimism in American Know-How, and the value of "Science!" in a universe where all philosophical or emotional problems can seemingly be solved like math, or ignored completely

"disco sux" and "i wanna be iron man!" are among the last lines in the movie. that says it all for me.

I enjoyed the movie, but you're right. There's a lot of things I could say about the movie, but it being emotional in any real way is not one of them. He kept facing new obstacles, but solved them without panic and in short order. There was no real tension, and I didn't believe anyone when they tried to act worried.

But I did enjoy that cocky swagger, and it's what made the movie for me. Anything outside of what Damon was doing on Mars did little to carry the movie, other than act as a tool for exposition.

At the end of the day I really liked the movie, but more for the unique problem solving emergency science stuff, but that's to the credit of the writing from the book, rather than something the filmmakers themselves were able to achieve. I'm not too sure why Ridley Scott got the nomination as he did, but if I could give these guys credit for something in particular, I did forget I was watching a movie, and that I wasn't actually watching a guy stranded on Mars.

[GLASSJAW]

2 hours ago, g_bassi13 said:

I enjoyed the movie, but you're right. There's a lot of things I could say about the movie, but it being emotional in any real way is not one of them. He kept facing new obstacles, but solved them without panic and in short order. There was no real tension, and I didn't believe anyone when they tried to act worried.

But I did enjoy that cocky swagger, and it's what made the movie for me. Anything outside of what Damon was doing on Mars did little to carry the movie, other than act as a tool for exposition.

At the end of the day I really liked the movie, but more for the unique problem solving emergency science stuff, but that's to the credit of the writing from the book, rather than something the filmmakers themselves were able to achieve. I'm not too sure why Ridley Scott got the nomination as he did, but if I could give these guys credit for something in particular, I did forget I was watching a movie, and that I wasn't actually watching a guy stranded on Mars.

 

yeah, this is just not how i like my sci fi. but i'm the first to admit i'm EXTREMELY picky about my sci fi movies.

2001 is one of my favourite movies of all time (top 3, if not top 1), and i just love how meticulously bizarre and unemotional it is at times, but even at its most "unemotional" its so evocative at the same time. its challenging. Some people, like Tarkovsky, said it was TOO clinical, which is why he made the emotional/philosophical jumble Solaris (which I also love). both deal with pretty intense aspects of space travel. and while i understand those movies deal with the future, i think they totally question very basic aspects of human nature. i'm a liberal arts kinda guy, i like human nature stuff far more than science stuff.

i liked Interstellar (a lot more than most around here, it seems) for more or less the same reason. it's like a blend between Solaris and 2001 For Dummies, condensed in a pretty billion dollar package. this is also why i hated Gravity. it was a pretty package, but no heart.

i think The Martian would have been way, way, way, way more interesting if it was SOLELY about him growing his crops and trying to survive. but i have no idea how that would have worked? one negative review I read said that the tension of the movie is completely removed by the fact that Damon's character never seems alone. he's either talking directly to the camera (with almost total confidence), or he's talking to people back home, or his scenes of solitude are so brief and intercut with NASA sequences that the tension is cut right out. I really have to agree with that.

I wanted to like it, just a miss for me

[The Bookie]

Black Mass 5/10

Can't pinpoint why but the movie never really took off for me, like I watched the whole thing waiting for it to really start. Competently made and acted. But it just felt like a checklist of his crimes, no real style or pacing. And Johnny Depp .... on the one hand it was nice to see him really acting again vs. playing another Burton cartoon. On the other I've heard people saying he should get an acting nomination, but Jack Nicholson took pretty much this exact role ten years ago and turned him into a legit unhinged psycho. Depp's Bulger just came across as an annoying asshole.

 

World's End 9/10

Think I gave this 8 or 8.5 after seeing it in the theatre. I knew it would be better on a rewatch, these Edgar Wright movies always are. The jokes are so multi-layered and the visual scenes so stuffed with detail. My favorite that I missed the first time was after fighting the twins in the garden, when Rosamund Pike thinks Simon Pegg is offering her a hand, and he's like "Oh no love just give us a ciggy!" and then pockets the pack. Probably need another couple viewings to really catch everything.

Edited December 12, 2015 by The Bookie

[g_bassi13]

Horrible Bosses 2 - 5/10

I laughed a lot more than I really should have. But for much as the humour did work on me at times, it was still a $&!# movie. Start to finish, nothing happened, and nothing was gained. It was definitively pointless, not only in its lacking execution, but really its purpose in existence.

In what was probably the movie's only subplot, which ran alongside the central non-plot, Charlie Day's character Dale attemped to remain faithful to his marriage, while his worried wife wonders where he was, and in a re-hash of the first movie, a desperate Jennifer Aniston chased him down for sex. He avoids her again, but at the end of the movie it is implied by her that she raped him while he was in a coma, and that she has now slept with, and is going to continue sleeping with, his wife who he was fighting for. Because humour, I guess.

Outside of that cringe ending, I do have to say that the entire cast phoned in that movie. They went through the trouble of hiring an ensemble cast of people with easily recognizable faces, but no one involved treated it like anything more than a simple cash-in. Which is what it ended up being. Except for the part where it flopped, and the studio didn't get to cash out.

 

1 hour ago, The Bookie said:

World's End 9/10

Think I gave this 8 or 8.5 after seeing it in the theatre. I knew it would be better on a rewatch, these Edgar Wright movies always are. The jokes are so multi-layered and the visual scenes so stuffed with detail. My favorite that I missed the first time was after fighting the twins in the garden, when Rosamund Pike thinks Simon Pegg is offering her a hand, and he's like "Oh no love just give us a ciggy!" and then pockets the pack. Probably need another couple viewings to really catch everything.

It definitely picked up in a second viewing, and then again in a third one. Probably leaped ahead of Shaun of the Dead in the trilogy for me.

[Down by the River]

On 11/12/2015 at 5:02 AM, GLASSJAW said:

the martian: 5.5/10

jeez, i did not enjoy this. really confused about the praise here, even after reading some of the reviews. to me, it just seems like Armageddon meets Apollo 13. pure hollywood cheese.

the movie closes on a few dumb comments about death, as if the 2 hours that precede those closing moments were about death too. but they weren't. they were all about optimism in American Know-How, and the value of "Science!" in a universe where all philosophical or emotional problems can seemingly be solved like math, or ignored completely

"disco sux" and "i wanna be iron man!" are among the last lines in the movie. that says it all for me.

I'd rate it higher, but I also thought that:

Spoiler

The whole 'slingshot around planet 'X' to deal with our problems' concept seems to be done in like 50% of all space movies. Enough.

 

[GLASSJAW]

polar express: 4.5/10. deus ex machina chugs along at the speed of a train, i guess. the landscapes look nice, but the human animation is so bad to the point where it's distracting in almost every scene. looks like a cut scene from a video game from 2009. i read a quote from Rick Rubin earlier which said something to the effect of "the art that is supposed to look like tomorrow quickly looks like yesterday" - seems applicable here.

how the grinch stole christmas (2000): 1/10. "the noise, noise, noise, noise, noise"

[The Bookie]

Crimson Peak 3.5/10

Unfortunately del Toro & co. seem to have spent so much time designing sets, costumes and props that they forgot to check if the script is any good. Turns out it isn't. It's a melodramatic soap opera that takes itself so seriously it almost comes off as a parody of gothic haunted house stories. What a waste for a good director to make a big budget horror flick and have it go splat like this. Better acting would have probably elevated it to a neutral 5.

Really was nice to look at though. Points on that alone.

[g_bassi13]

13 hours ago, Down by the River said:

I'd rate it higher, but I also thought that:

  Hide contents

The whole 'slingshot around planet 'X' to deal with our problems' concept seems to be done in like 50% of all space movies. Enough.

 

Spoiler

True, though it is very valid and necessary move when talking about space travel in certain contexts. It would be nice if it wasn't so overused as a critical plot point in these movies. Also, the less your movie could have in common with any element of Armageddon, the better.

[Down by the River]

6 hours ago, g_bassi13 said:

  Hide contents

True, though it is very valid and necessary move when talking about space travel in certain contexts. It would be nice if it wasn't so overused as a critical plot point in these movies. Also, the less your movie could have in common with any element of Armageddon, the better.

Exactly. Make it a casual an obvious part of the conversation, and then make all the intracacies behind it the point of emphasis. The way it was used in the movie was like nobody had ever heard of the concept before. If the guy has seen Ironman, surely (albeit regretably), he has seen Amageddon.

[Down by the River]

The twitter hashtag #ExplainaFilmPlotBadly is pretty good for some laughs.

[g_bassi13]

After religious indoctrination by a bearded desert hermit, a teen joins a violent insurgency. #ExplainAFilmPlotBadly

[Ghostsof1915]

On December 7, 2015 at 4:56 PM, falcon45ca said:

Batman: The Dark Knight Returns Part 1

The quintessential adaptation of Frank Miller's 80's classic, if you're a Batman fan it's must watch...even my wife enjoyed it. Animation is great, action is punchy & real, voice acting is top notch...frankly it's probably the best Batman screen adaptation, makes Nolan & Burton's versions look campy by comparison.

9/10

I wished Batman: Year One was done better. The comic just has more depth, and emotion. Bad choice in voice actors? 

[nuckin_futz]

I always read this thread and have found a few gems from your posts, but I rarely contribute. Figured I'd rate a whole bunch at once. If the description is in quotes it means it was lifted from IMDB as it's better than I could have described it.

Terminator Genesis (2015)  2.5/10 This once proud series needs to end here. It was bad

The Whistleblower (2010)  6.9/10 "A drama based on the experiences of Kathryn Bolkovac, a Nebraska cop who served as a peacekeeper in post-war Bosnia and outed the U.N. for covering up a sex scandal." ..... It's dark, depressing and violent but that's the world of human trafficking. Stars Rachel Weisz who was very good in it.

Everest (2015)  7.2/10 No need for a description, you all know what it's about. The scenery is fantastic.

The 33 (2015)  6/10 Story of the miners trapped underground in Chile for 69 days. It's a little too Hollywood and cheesy at times.

Take Shelter (2011)  8.3/10 "Plagued by a series of apocalyptic visions, a young husband and father questions whether to shelter his family from a coming storm, or from himself."  Michael Shannon was excellent in this, Jessica Chastain was not bad either.

Beasts Of No Nation (2015)  7.2/10 "A drama based on the experiences of Agu, a child soldier fighting in the civil war of an unnamed African country." Idris Elba was great in this, as was the young actor who played Agu. This film is exclusive to Netflix (and every torrent site out there).

You Can Count On Me (2000)  7.6/10 "A single mother's life is thrown into turmoil after her struggling, rarely-seen younger brother returns to town." .... This is a bit of an overlooked gem from the year 2000. Has a great cast featuring Laura Linney, Mathew Broderick and Mark Ruffalo.

The Exorcism Of Emily Rose (2005)  3.5/10 Didn't find it scary at all. I would have been happy if it simply could have held my interest.

The Woodsman (2004)  6.4/10 "A child molester returns to his hometown after 12 years in prison and attempts to start a new life." Kevin Bacon was quite good in this. It has a slow pace to it. If you're looking for car chases then avoid.

Kill The Messenger (2014)  7/10 "A reporter becomes the target of a vicious smear campaign that drives him to the point of suicide after he exposes the CIA's role in arming Contra rebels in Nicaragua and importing cocaine" .... Based on the story of Gary Webb an investigative journalist. Really liked Jeremy Renner's performance in this film.

Shame (2011)  4.5/10 - "In New York City, Brandon's carefully cultivated private life -- which allows him to indulge his sexual addiction -- is disrupted when his sister arrives unannounced for an indefinite stay." ... Didn't seem to have much of a point to it. Plus I could have done without seeing Michael Fassbender's willy as often as it was shown. Not to mention I am baffled how Carey Mulligan continues to get work.

The Gift (2015)  8.6/10 "A young married couple's lives are thrown into a harrowing tailspin when an acquaintance from the husband's past brings mysterious gifts and a horrifying secret to light after more than 20 years." ... I really liked this tale of revenge. Jason Bateman takes a break from his usual easy comedies and plays a bully to near perfection. Joel Edgerton who wrote and directed was tremendous as "Gordo the Weirdo". The ending is ambiguous. So for those who have seen it. Did he or didn't he?

Felony (2013)  6.4/10 Joel Edgerton wrote this and plays an Australian cop who's driving home drunk one night and smokes a kid on a bike. Then proceeds to lie about his involvement. It gets a little off the track at times but it's enjoyable.

The Gunman (2015)  3.2/10 How can a movie starring Sean Penn, Javier Bardem and Idris Elba be this bad? Starts out decently enough then quickly becomes a raging dumpster fire. I have no idea why Sean Penn would want to start playing an action hero at age 55. Maybe he saw Liam Neeson raking it in and figured what the heck.

Transsiberian (2008)  7.1/10 "A Trans-Siberian train journey from China to Moscow becomes a thrilling chase of deception and murder when an American couple encounters a mysterious pair of fellow travelers." ... American couple gets mixed up with Russian drug traffickers. Stars Woody Harrelson, Ben Kingsley and Kate Mara. It's quite dark and violent at times. Especially the torture scene.

Sideways (2004)  7.4/10 "Two men reaching middle age with not much to show but disappointment, embark on a week long road trip through California's wine country, just as one is about to take a trip down the aisle." ....Great script, great acting from Paul Giamatti and Thomas Hayden Church. Giamatti plays Miles who's hung up on his ex. Thomas Hayden Church plays Jack who's a horndog about to get married who'll bang anything with a pulse. The scene in the winery where Giamatti pours the spit bucket down his throat is priceless.

[falcon45ca]

2 hours ago, Ghostsof1915 said:

I wished Batman: Year One was done better. The comic just has more depth, and emotion. Bad choice in voice actors? 

I though Bryan Cranston was good, but the movie just didn't quite meet expectations. Not bad, but not great. I'd give it a 7.5/10

Edited December 13, 2015 by falcon45ca

[Phil_314]

Spectre - 5.5

Standard, predictable Bond film.  Watched the first scene thinking "wow if the whole movie has this momentum it'd be great!" but too bad it wasn't very action packed.  Too much dialogue (fell asleep during the talking), very contrived love relationship almost forcing Bond and the girl to be together in very cliche Bond fashion and the ending made me  (some flaws in the getaway at the end and noticed some details about the villain that I couldn't help but focus on given how the movie was mediocre).  Q was alright, had some funny moments, but dashes of those and some action in an overall dragged-out movie don't help to salvage much, especially after only watching Skyfall again before Spectre and enjoying the older film more. 

[Monty]

Over the Top - Holy Sh*t/10

Sylvester Stallone ARM WRESTLING/SEMI TRUCK DRIVER/FATHER-SON BONDING film from the 80s.

This made zero sense. Unbelievably stupid.

[HC20.0]

Spectre. 6/10. Like any Bond movie, fun to watch Bond survive the impossible, decent action. As always, Daniel Craig is pretty good. Not as good as previous Bond movies though.