CAPTAIN AMERICA TWS: 9/10 - those Marvel movies are so damn shallow and sooooo damn entertaining at the same time. It's just a good time and that's what I like in movies.
Just caught Pacific Rim on HBO Go last night and was surprisingly entertained. Not much of a story, but who cares? Fantastic VFX and it's a Guillermino del Toro flick. It's odd to think that he walked away from The Hobbit to film this, but I hate to admit that I liked it. And this coming from someone who despises The Transformers. 7/10
Saw "Edge of Tomorrow" last night. Pretty good sci-fi flic. Not exactly what I was expecting, but good. 8/10.
X-Men: Days of Future Past Entertaining enough, but not a great deal like the comic book story it's supposed to be telling. If you know nothing of the original story, it's probably a great movie...if you do know, it's distracting and brings it down to a good movie. I don't resent seeing it but probably won't be wanting to see it again anytime soon either.
I just saw that a couple weeks ago when my ship was at sea. Not a big Tom Cruise fan, but I forgot I was watching him cause the movie was so engaging.
Carrie, the 2013 version. This one actually made me feel bad for Carrie. Chloe Grace Morertz did a great job playing the character. But the scene where her mom literally bible thumped her made me laugh so hard I had to pause the movie for a few minutes.
For folks who havea hard time withtheaccents watch Graceland - Tennant plays the same character with American accent
Hud It may be my favorite Paul Newman movie. Just a great film and Patricia Neal was fantastic (and hot, IMHO). 10/10
Tim's Vermeer Watched this on @evenflow 's recommendation. A cool little documentary by Penn Jillette about a guy recreating a famous Johannes Vermeer painting in order to test his theory of how the painter was able to create works that were so different from his contemporaries. I really liked it. A number of years ago, my wife and I crashed the Christmas party put on by the "Tim" in the movie (he owns a big video technology company a couple of miles from my house). 7/10
Saw Annabelle last weekend. Okay, pretty scary, nothing great though. Three stars out of five but barely.
A Million Ways to Die in the West, Seth McFarlane's comedy western. Surprisingly funny and engaging. 7/10
I love them both. At the time Superman was considered serious in comparison to what was expected of comic book stories. It had its humour but it stayed serious enough to never venture into camp. Even today watching it I love the score which always comes in at just that right moment. It's uplifting and really pulls you in to what's going on. I really missed that stuff when watching Man of Steel. Even with the advantage MOS had with decades of improvements in movie making IMO it doesn't hold a candle to Superman. It's just too bad Donner was let go for the sequals. The Dark Knight is different but then again so is Batman so naturally it would be a more serious and realistic take. There's no way you can ground Superman in reality.
Which is exactly why Man of Shite fails. The attempt to install bleakness and melancholy into the Superman world rips the heart out of the character himself.
Just watched Noah with Russel Crowe. I love Darren Aranofsky's films, and while this one had all the usual artistic trappings of his films, yet was surprisingly Hollywood in a lot of ways. Still, it was a good flick, very entertaining and lots of little nods to all the conspiracy theories about the ark. 8/10
The Court Jester - classic, classic comedy. You know, the one with the pestle and the vessel and the flagon. Insert complaint here about how they don't make 'em like this anymore.
BRAINDEAD (early peter jackson) for the first time in 20 years. still the best damn zombie movie ever made. 9/10 on the trash scale. also, REC which everybody seems to love. total crap IMHO.
The Madwoman of Chaillot -- nothing to do with the Lady of Shallot that I can tell. I was visiting family, so not paying proper attention, and didn't stay through the end, but it really struck me as the result of a writer going through his "ideas" file, pulling out a bunch of amusing stuff, and trying to pass it off as a cohesive plot. A lady (Katharine Hepburn?) walks the streets with that detachment from others' concerns that can be so amusing (but is just mildly amusing here). Then there's a satirical scene where some French officer proudly tells his underlings that France has shunned all her friends and now has the bomb, and if the rest of Europe ever blows itself to cinders then France will do herself proud as well. Then some rich guy shows off the collection of latrine graffiti from around the world that he's spent millions of dollars on, and I think it's supposed to be a satire on art appreciation. Later there are the World's Worst Spies Who Aren't Jacques Clouseau, a satire on wine, and a ripoff of Mark Twain's line about keeping a parrot. The individual scenes are amusing, but I doubt it coheres much later without losing the humor. I rate it incomplete but promising.
JUPITER ASCENDING. d because I missed in the theater. Not getting the universal hate it created. I thought it's a fun little movie with two of Hollywood's hottest young stars, plenty of action and a good idea at its core. It's also a bit of a mess and could have used some script cleanup but other than that - perfect blockbuster material. I cannot understand why it tanked so hard. 8.5/10 if you have an adult attention span and don't go in expecting a philosophical masterpiece.
The Good, the Bad, and the Weird. Korean made quirky action/Western movie set in Manchuria in the 1930's. Too fast paced for my tastes, but it's well made, well played, etc. But more for a younger crowd no doubt. Kind of a Jackie Chanish movie but very violent and dark humored. I give it a five out of ten.
Caught Silver Linings Playbook last week. Pretty good. Great perfomance by the two leads papered over whatever flaws there were. 7/10.
Damn it! My reading sucks - I accidently bought a ticket for Sex Machina starring James Brown and Pimpbot 5000. Two thumbs up though!
Saw "Age of Ultron" and like just about everyone liked it a lot. But I caught an Australian film on cable called "Lost Christmas" with Eddie Izzard which was very interesting. Considering Eddie is usually a comedian, (think Monty Python) this was more serious. 9/10