Movie review thread...
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[quote name='Kirwan']That's quite possibly the best review I've ever seen, pretty much agree with all the points he made good and bad. I hadn't even clicked about the Prime Directive being chucked out the window.[/QUOTE]<br />
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Have you seen any of his other reviews? He's the guy who spent an hour eviscerating the first two Star Wars prequels.<br />
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BTW, here's the Black Dynamite trailer:<br />
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[video=youtube;6-wqmnJrOFM] -
Watched the recently-released "MacGruber" full-length SNLer dvd the other night. Quite silly and occasionally very funny spoof, about the same caliber as "Undercover Brother" (if anybody remembers that one). 7/10
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Date Night - with Tina Fey and Steve Carell.<br />
Great movie. Got everything you need as the vital ingredients in a good movie - comedy, great cast, car chase, strip club scene.<br />
Fey and Carell worked off each other very well - as a straight laced couple who's date night goes awry.<br />
Highly recommended! -
At the risk of being stoned and labelled a pariah, I tried to watch The Expendables last night, action scenes were great, but I couldn't watch the rest, maybe it is because I am no longer a teen in the 80s?<br />
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I will try and finish it this weekend -
[quote name='mariner4life']Kick Ass! Great movie, very enjoyable, even Mrs Mariner had fun. Some laugh out loud moments, but the whole premise is pretty amusing, and well put together. Definitely recommend.[/QUOTE]<br />
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Still my fave movie of the year. The "youtube" sequence had me levitating out of my seat. I was giddy thinking, my god!, this absurdity is actually kinda believeable. -
saw Iron Man 2, pretty good, as others have alluded to, is a bit different to the 1st, but still pretty good. Downey Jnr is superb as always as the ever confident Tony Stark.<br />
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Scarlett Johansen is the
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was tough understanding Mickey Rourke half the time, and aside from the plastic surgery, I think he's done a great job getting back into things with the roles he has taken. -
Cant believe anyone liked A-team, was the worst piece of crap I have seen in along time. Right up their with Armageddon for brain dead action movies. I didn't even finish it as my meal came on the plane and I turned it off.<br />
Even with your brain turned off and just "enjoying" for fun - its rubbish. <br />
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I read Roger Ebert - an esteemed critics opinion and I must say he is spot on.<br />
[QUOTE]"The A-Team” is an incomprehensible mess with the 1980s TV show embedded inside. The characters have the same names, they play the same types, they have the same traits, and they're easily as shallow. That was OK for a TV sitcom, which is what the show really was, but at over two hours of Queasy-Cam anarchy, it's punishment.<br />
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The movie uses the new style of violent action, which fragments sequences into so many bits and pieces that it's impossible to form any sense of what's happening, or where, or to whom. The actors appear in flash-frames, intercut with shards of CGI and accompanied by loud noises, urgent music and many explosions. This continues for the required length, and then there's some dialogue. Not a lot. A few words, a sentence, sometimes a statement that crosses the finish line at paragraph length.[/QUOTE]<br />
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Karate Kid - new one was surprisingly enjoyable, Jackie Chan is a the man and even Smith jnr is coming along as an actor.<br />
The Ricky Gervais "Invention of lying" was good, not great, some pretty good laughs throughout.<br />
Fantastic Mr Fox was another surprisingly enjoyable movie, something for the whole family in it. -
[quote name='Quo vadis']I read Read Roger Ebert - an esteemed critics opinion and I must say he is spot on.[/QUOTE]<br />
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I haven't seen A-Team yet, and will reserve judgment.<br />
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Nevertheless, I am a big fan of Ebert's - I met him years ago, read him regularly, and we have corresponded over the years. He's a good guy.<br />
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And - yes, as you say - esteemed. But not everything he says is ex-cathedra. He can sometimes be very-very wrong.<br />
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Ebert absolutely hated "Kick-Ass" giving it 1/4 --<br />
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[URL]http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20100414/REVIEWS/100419986[/URL]<br />
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-- yet it's my fave film of the year, and IMO his condemnation (and perspective) missed the boat so badly, that I am now more curious and inclined to see "A-Team."<br />
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FWIW, by comparison, two action films from this year that he recommended and got me to the cinema were "Salt," predictable and forgettable that it was, he awarded a perfect 4/4; and "2012," a big-budget pieceoshite if ever there was one, he awarded 3.5/4. I am reminded of his excuse for that latter film, and wonder why he can't apply the same rationale to "A-Team":<br />
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[B]This is fun. "2012" delivers what it promises, and since no sentient being will buy a ticket expecting anything else, it will be, for its audiences, one of the most satisfactory films of the year[/B]. It even has real actors in it. Like all the best disaster movies, it's funniest at its most hysterical. You think you've seen end-of-the-world movies? This one ends the world, stomps on it, grinds it up and spits it out.<br />
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[URL]http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20091111/REVIEWS/911119994[/URL]<br />
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That sounds a lot like my expectations for "A-Team." -
[quote name='dK']At the risk of being stoned and labelled a pariah, I tried to watch The Expendables last night, action scenes were great, but I couldn't watch the rest, maybe it is because I am no longer a teen in the 80s?<br />
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I will try and finish it this weekend[/QUOTE]<br />
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Did nothing for me either. Wanted some brain-candy to enjoy but found it tedious and formulaic. <br />
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That being said, it's the first film recommended on this thread I haven't enjoyed. -
[quote name='Tim']Ebert's most notorious review was of [I]Blue Velvet[/I] (which he hated and didn't get at all). It was reprinted in the DVD reissue.[/QUOTE]<br />
Didn't Ebert write a bad review for the Godfather and then recant it not long after? Or was that the other guy? I know one famous reviewer did.<br />
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I like the Expendables but I just took the whole thing as very tongue and cheek. -
Don't know about the [I]Godfather[/I], Nepia. Ebert was younger and hipper back then (and co-wrote [I]Beyond the Valley of the Dolls[/I]). Perhaps it was a[I] New York Times[/I] critic you are thinking of?<br />
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On a topical note, check out his reviews of Chabrol's excellent film [I]Une affaire de femmes[/I], if you want to see a critic completely miss the point. -
[quote name='Tim']Don't know about the [I]Godfather[/I], Nepia. Ebert was younger and hipper back then (and co-wrote [I]Beyond the Valley of the Dolls[/I]). Perhaps it was a[I] New York Times[/I] critic you are thinking of?<br />
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On a topical note, check out his reviews of Chabrol's excellent film [I]Une affaire de femmes[/I], if you want to see a critic completely miss the point.[/QUOTE]<br />
I'm thinking it may have been that years Vanity Fair review. Edit: I'm sure it was Pauline Kael but I can't find anything about it on her Wiki page.<br />
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I don't know who was the reviewer in the Times in the UK, but when I was living there (circa 1998 - 2001) I used to pretty much do the opposite of his review. He was just a pompous arse and missed the 'entertainment' part of movies point completely. -
watched Robin Hood...after which I had to go and read up about the legend as this was a different version than I'd heard before.<br />
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I did like it, just was very different tale from the other versions -
[quote name='Tim']Ebert was younger and hipper back then (and co-wrote [I]Beyond the Valley of the Dolls[/I]). [/QUOTE]<br />
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From what I recollect, Ebert wrote the script, then was embarrassed by the result and kinda disowned it and blamed it on director & co-writer Russ Meyer, then years later when it became a beloved cult classic, he learned to love his movie (which, truth be told, is awesome - I once watched it three times in a row on a Saturday night, then woke up Sunday morning and watched it again.).<br />
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BTW it was announced a couple days ago that Ebert will be producing (and starring?) in a new TV show about movie reviews and bringing the "thumbs" back. Curious how that will go, 'cos with that cancer that took away his lower-jaw I don't even think he can talk right now. (Maybe he has one of those Stephen Hawking-type voice thingies??) -
in an effort to keep this thread fresh 'n alive and to report back on a little movie theme I've had running lately.... I've been trying follow up on viewing BAFTA winning movies. I found that it put me onto movies that were not necessarily mainstream but were good none the less.<br />
Some that have appealed are:<br />
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Up in the Air - George Clooney doing his thing<br />
Fish Tank- gritty British Council housing thingee<br />
Man on Wire - cool docu movie on high wire adventurer<br />
The Lives of Others - Cold war East Germany -
[quote name='papamoan']Man on Wire - cool docu movie on high wire adventurer<br />
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My fave movie of 2008. One of the most suspenseful, amazing and superhuman athletic achievements of all time. -
Watched "Eagle Eye" last night, and i didn't mind it, it was entertaining. The first half was excellent, trying to work out what the hell was going on, it lost a bit when it was revealed who the "bad guy" was, and the hollywood ending was a bit disappointing to me (but the wife was happy), but overall another mindlessly entertaining action/thriller.
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Watched Exit Through the Gift Shop on the plane the other day. It's a bloody good documentary about the main players in the 'street art' movement and one quirky French guy who follows them. There are rumours that the whole thing was a hoax but either way it's a damn good behind the scenes look at the lives of Banksy and other street artists and it has a nice twist at the end. You'll like this film even if you're not in to art. 9.5 out of 10 for me.
