What have you watched recently: Electric Boogaloo

marko93

Watched Enders Game and absolutely loved it. Thought it was fantastic

kryogen

Daddys Little Girl

Enjoyed it, as much as you can I suppose!

Some uncomfortable moments for sure, and made me think about some stuff that I would have been certain about before (as in what I would be capable of doing to someone in similar circumstance)

naughto

the new thor film not bad

MilanPan!c

marko93 wrote: »

Watched Enders Game and absolutely loved it. Thought it was fantastic

Jazes. This ^^^ I don't get.

Hugely meh, so obviously brutally condensed (and changed a lot apparently).

Was very unimpressed.

Irish Aris

That Awkward Moment.

I wouldn't consider myself a harsh critic of films, but I found this very bad.
Not funny at all. Even some of the gags that meant to be funny, didn't really work for me. Most of the dialogues are either shallow or nonsensical.

Umekichi

The Snowtown Murders
Very Good Aussie movie about the murders of the same name: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Snowtown_murders
It's very dark and gripping. A lot of the actors in it look very similar to the people they are portraying.

jcsoulinger

MilanPan!c wrote: »

Jazes. This ^^^ I don't get.

Hugely meh, so obviously brutally condensed (and changed a lot apparently).

Was very unimpressed.

So can we take it you haven't read the book?, I didn't care much for the book so will avoid the film if I can.

Mickeroo

The History of Future Folk - An alien is sent to destroy the human race, he has a change of heart and forms a bluegrass band instead after hearing music for the first time.

Sounds daft, and it is but it's also very funny, original and the music is great. The low budget and crude special effects just add to the wide eyed innocence of the whole thing.

Future Folk are apparently a real life band, the director saw their act and decided to make a film out of it. Give it a go if you get the chance.

Sanjuro - Had been sitting on my shelf for a while and finally got around to watching it on Friday. There's a bit more of a comedy spin to this than Yojimbo but it takes an unexpectedly dark turn before the end. Toshiro Mifune is at his charismatic best in this and the widescreen presentation on the Blu-Ray looks great.

zx complex

R I P D
I was expecting this to be pretty crap as most of the reviews I read about it were not that great. Instead I was entertained from start to finish.
The effects were great and there were some good laugh out loud moments, even Jeff Bridges was in True Grit 1.5 mode.

A bit of harmless fun for the family on a Sunday afternoon.

DazMarz

The Rock 1996

What better way to spend a quiet Sunday afternoon than watching one of the best and loudest action films of the 1990's? This is one of the best action films going. Don't be put off by the fact that it is directed by Michael "SPECIAL EFFECTS!!!" Bay. This is genuinely good, taut and thrilling.

The cast is also superb; Nicholas Cage, Sean Connery, Ed Harris, David Morse, John Spencer, Michael Biehn and William Forsyth. Connery's role was also specifically made for him.

Brigadier General Francis X. Hummel, USMC, (Harris) is a legend; Purple Hearts, Silver Stars, Congressional Medal of Honor and every other medal and award for heroism, bravery and dedication in the line of duty. Vietnam, Panama, Grenada, Desert Storm. A most impressive C.V. for the Marine general. However, he is not happy. Under his command, since Vietnam, 83 US Force Recon Marines have died in combat. Because many of the operations carried out by Force Recon were unofficial and bordering on the illegal, no benefits were ever paid to their families, no medals conferred, no recognition from the US Government for these men's heroism. As Hummel himself puts it: "These men died for their country and they weren't even given a military burial."

After years of pleading and appealing to the US Congress to change this injustice and getting nowhere, Hummel takes matters into his own hands. He and a force of his loyal Marines infiltrate a US Navy Chemical Weapons Depot and steal 15 VX-Nerve Gas missiles. Hummel loses one of his own men in the process (a grisly scene that shows the audience the power of this nerve agent). He then leads his Marines to Alcatraz Island (aka The Rock), seizes 81 civilian hostages and points his VX-Missiles at San Francisco. He demands $100 million from the US Government's illegal weapons slush fund (in order to pay $1,000,000 to each of the 83 deceased Marines' families and to pay his own men), or he will launch his missiles into San Francisco.

The US Government responds by preparing to launch an incursion by the US Navy SEALs. But with no knowledge of either the missiles' technical nature or the island's tunnel systems, they are at an impasse. Enter FBI Chemical Weapons Specialist Stanley Goodspeed (Cage) and wrongfully imprisoned, ex-SAS Operative John Mason (Connery). Goodspeed possesses the technical knowhow to dis-arm the missiles, while Mason was imprisoned in Alcatraz in the 1960's and is allegedly the only person to ever escape* and thus has an intimate knowledge of The Rock and its tunnels.

Along with the SEAL team, these two mismatched men (Goodspeed never having experienced anything resembling combat in his career and Mason having been rotting in US Federal Prisons for 30 years) are dispatched to Alcatraz to try and stop Hummel before he unleashes chemical apocalypse upon San Francisco.

Unlike many other action/thrillers, the central villain in this piece has a motive that you can sympathise with, and he does not seem to be a cold, hard psychopathic killer. He is deeper than that; a decorated hero of the Marine Corps who has been ignored, neglected and marginalised by his own government. No wonder he's pissed. His motive is also a pure one; to pay reparations to the families of men he commanded and saw die in the field and for whom he feels a sense of responsibility and duty. It is the means to his end that is deplorable.

Cage and Connery are superb as the chalk-and-cheese heroes; Cage's jittery, nerdy Fed and Connery's hard-bitten, highly trained killing machine ("trained by the best: British intelligence"). There are wonderful moments of humanity between the two as they form an uneasy alliance to try and save the day.

The action of this film is white-knuckle stuff; from the opening salvo of the Marines breaking into the Weapons Depot, to the seizing of The Rock, to the Ferrari v. Hummer car chase through San Francisco, to the running battles on Alcatraz itself, it never lets up. It is executed flawlessly and at times the violence can make you wince (throwing knives through the neck being especially "jumping and rubbing at your own neck"-moments; stabbing yourself in the chest with adrenaline-like drugs with a needle the length of your arm is another...), but it is just so well done.

The action whips along, ably aided and abetted by Hans Zimmer's cracking score that adds a real sense of "epic" to the film.

Unlike most other films by Michael Bay that are just dross with flashy colours and shiny things, this film has a soul to it. There is a story that makes sense (sort of; it's a lot better than most Bay films!), characters you care about, a great villain and, of course, pulse-pounding action.

I remember first seeing this film as a kid when I was about 8, and this was one of the first ever films I got on DVD when DVD's were the newest and greatest technology. So I feel a good bit of affection towards it, but even when I take off the rose-tinted glasses, it cannot be denied that this is one hell of an action film. Much better than most of the nonsense being peddled as action films nowadays, anyway.

*It is a fact that there were numerous attempts to escape Alcatraz and 3 men made good their escape in the early 1960's: Frank Morris and two brothers, Clarence and Maurice Anglin, all escaped Alcatraz and were never found or recaptured.

tusk

Just watched About Time.

Have to say, I wasn't expecting much and at the beginning my expectations were met. By the end I was pleasantly surprised. I won't go into details but it really is a beautiful, touching film.

Would definitely recommend.

Judgement Day

"The Colditz Story" (1955) - Daily Mail promo DVD. I want my 50 cents back.
Slow, unrealistic and never come to life. Supposed to be based on actual events from the WWII German prison. The Jerrys come across as complete buffoons and the POWs have such fun in the prison it's a wonder that they bothered trying to escape. 2/10 - and that's solely due to the presence of John Mills and Ian Carmichael.

darced

This post has been deleted.

MilanPan!c

jcsoulinger wrote: »

So can we take it you haven't read the book?, I didn't care much for the book so will avoid the film if I can.

Haven't read the book.

The first of the final twists was enough to make me go online and read a book/movie comparison - suffice it to say they're very different.

But a good example of the stupidity of the movie is that we're told how much everyone is meant to hate Ender, but for the rest of the film he's basically shoved up through the ranks at lightning pace while earning the respect of all around him. Except for maybe one or two scenes.

It's just so half-baked and under-developed and shallow.

MilanPan!c

DazMarz wrote: »

The Rock 1996

Another movie I will never "get".

Charlie19

Crossing Over 2009

Starring Harrison Ford, Ray Liota and Ashley Judd.

Watched this the other night on Film 4 (fecking ads) and it was quite good, plenty of stories that are centred around immigration. Ford plays a immigration officer that is becoming a bit soft and gets involved with a mexican woman and helps to reunite her son back to his grandparents. Then you have a married couple (Judd & Liota) that work within the system of granting citizenship.

The linking stories kind of reminded me of the way Crash was filmed.

If I had of put a little bit of thought in it, I should of just recorded it and watched without the adds.

Alfred Borden

Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy 2011, had heard nothing but bad about it from some friends but thought they hadnt a clue and i must have been onto something. Great cast, great story or so I thought but how wrong was I. Was over complicated and hard to keep watching even though im all for an intelligent film. 4/10 hugely disappointing.

tusk

Raf32 wrote: »

Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy 2011, had heard nothing but bad about it from some friends but thought they hadnt a clue and i must have been onto something. Great cast, great story or so I thought but how wrong was I. Was over complicated and hard to keep watching even though im all for an intelligent film. 4/10 hugely disappointing.

In definite agreement on this. I was so hoping and expecting it to be superb, but in 3 sittings, still haven't been able to watch it the whole way through.

Whopper let-down..

Tony EH

Judgement Day wrote: »

"The Colditz Story" (1955) - Daily Mail promo DVD. I want my 50 cents back.
Slow, unrealistic and never come to life. Supposed to be based on actual events from the WWII German prison. The Jerrys come across as complete buffoons and the POWs have such fun in the prison it's a wonder that they bothered trying to escape. 2/10 - and that's solely due to the presence of John Mills and Ian Carmichael.

The film is based on Pat Reid's book and probably closer to the truth than most modern takes on POW stories.

Colditz was actually a pretty good place to spend the war as a POW (mostly officers), in comparison to a lot of other places.

Conditions in Colditz castle were rather lenient, as the Germans believed that if circumstances were good for the POWs in general, there would be less escape attempts and therefore less hassle for them.

Unfortunately for the Germans, the fact that Colditz was such a lenient place, it enabled the POWs to attempt a rather large number of escape attempts, including some truly elaborate schemes.

Mickeroo

Watched Keanu Reeves' directorial debut, Man of Tai Chi.

Surprisingly it was pretty decent. Keanu puts in one of the worst (and funniest) acting performances of his career but he's only in a supporting role and the very well choreographed and filmed fight scenes more than make up for it.

The film breaks no new ground but there's a rather good old school vibe to the whole thing. If you like martial arts films then give it a look.

MilanPan!c

Mickeroo wrote: »

Watched Keanu Reeves' directorial debut, Man of Tai Chi.

Surprisingly it was pretty decent. Keanu puts in one of the worst (and funniest) acting performances of his career but he's only in a supporting role and the very well choreographed and filmed fight scenes more than make up for it.

The film breaks no new ground but there's a rather good old school vibe to the whole thing. If you like martial arts films then give it a look.

Completely agreed. Surprisingly not ****e. Not... Great. But very old school.

PunkFreud

Raf32 wrote: »

Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy 2011, had heard nothing but bad about it from some friends but thought they hadnt a clue and i must have been onto something. Great cast, great story or so I thought but how wrong was I. Was over complicated and hard to keep watching even though im all for an intelligent film. 4/10 hugely disappointing.

I don't know, I must say that I found it an absolutely superb movie. It was a slow moving movie (oh so very slow) but it needed to be. The whole point was to shake away the delusion of spying that we've got from James Bond - this fast espionage does not happen in reality.

Gary Oldman gives an acting masterclass, in a movie filled with actors giving phenomenal performances. With all the Shakespearean scene-chewing we get in film, it's a delight to get an actor who understands the art of subtlety. He's so muted that sometimes you forget he's on screen; he gets lost in the scenery - the whole point of a spy.

There are some absolutely beautiful shots throughout aswell. A lot of the time Alfredson says more through what is not said, than what is said. It's definitely one of my favourite films.

tusk

PunkFreud wrote: »

Gary Oldman gives an acting masterclass, in a movie filled with actors giving phenomenal performances. With all the Shakespearean scene-chewing we get in film, it's a delight to get an actor who understands the art of subtlety. He's so muted that sometimes you forget he's on screen; he gets lost in the scenery - the whole point of a spy.

There are some absolutely beautiful shots throughout aswell. A lot of the time Alfredson says more through what is not said, than what is said. It's definitely one of my favourite films

Based on that, I'm willing to give this try number four. I really, really, really wanted to love this. Perhaps the time and mood needs to catch me correctly. I'll report back tomorrow night, after having watched it (hopefully the full way through).

Alfred Borden

Yup its something i thought i would love and your post has convinced me to give it another go tomorrow night, will pay far more concentration this time.

Barna77

Grabbers
Just for laughs... sort of

krudler

Barna77 wrote: »

Grabbers
Just for laughs... sort of

Ah I liked Grabbers, it had loads of charm and quite decent effects for a small Irish movie, some great one liners and spoof moments too.

TICKLE_ME_ELMO

Stoker

Ahmmmm......... what was that?

Visually I loved it, amazing. The story though, mental and kind of obvious. I thought it was far too obvious so I must be wrong about what was happening but then it was exactly what I thought. That said it was still quite enjoyable, kind of like watching a really high quality soap, of you know what I mean. It was all kinds of ridiculous but still entertaining.

LuckyLloyd

Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy is magnificently crafted but the object of the medium is to entertain. The film asks too much of its audience and doesn't give back nearly enough in return. Ultimately, I didn't care enough and lost interest after 50 exhausting minutes (I actually fell asleep watching it in the cinema before the end).

Mickeroo

I only watched Tinker, Tailor...... the once but found it completely gripping the whole way through.

tusk

Mickeroo wrote: »

I only watched Tinker, Tailor...... the once but found it completely gripping the whole way through.

I really thought by only saying the first part of the title you were alluding to the same issue myself and another fellow had. I smiled.

But alas, twas not to be...