Last movie you saw.

[SOUP]

I just watched Broadcast News the other night.

It's one of those films that's been on my must-see list for quite a long time. Ever since I watched Raising Arizona, I'd been on the lookout for other movies with Holly Hunter.
Well, she didn't disappoint in this movie.
Really top-notch performances, and fantastic dialogue all around. I watched it alone, and it still managed to have my laughing hysterically at a couple of parts.
The whole thing put me in mind a bit of Almost Famous (one of my all time favourites), if it were based around the world of television news. Not so much in plot, but in the themes and the style everything's put forward. Definitely worth watching if you get a chance.

I've never been able to find it in a store, or on netflix, but the Playstation Store had it up as a rental.

[max_cady]

I caught the first midnight screening for The Dark Knight Rises. I might get into further detail tommorrow, but I'll say this much, right now:

Much like The Dark Knight, it's miles ahead of Batman Begins. Now the ultimate issue, is it better than The Dark Knight? No. But it's a very satisfying conclusion to the Chris Nolan Batman saga. The first Superhero Trilogy with three excellent movies. This series is my Star Wars.

[Barry the Nomad]

This series is my Star Wars.

I told a friend of mine that too. More specifically, TDKR is this generations Return of the Jedi. He is 32, I'm 27. While I did grow up on the Star Wars prequels, and love them, the Nolan Batman movies started out as a series in my lifetime. So I've been able to experience each one on release. Difference is, Star Wars went from groundbreaking to great, while the Nolan Batman movies went the opposite direction.

[max_cady]

This might sound strange but I was a little dissapointed in The Expendables 2. What's even more peculiar is that the sequel does everything right. It's got a more focused plot, it's well paced, well shot (no shaky cam in this sucker), Bruce Willis, Schwarzenneger and Chuck Norris actually have lines and they play an important role in the film, not pointless cameos set up just for the promotional trailers.

Jean-Claude Van Damme plays a great villain, and it's more about the team per say, instead of just Staham and Stallone, which was a nagging issue from the original (the other crew members are much more fleshed out), the CG blood is much less cartoony this time around. The jokes are also a little better and I just love how self-aware most of the characters are. I mean, it does everything right, yet... for some reason, it just ends up being a little underwhelming.

When the bullets start flying and the going gets rough, it's all fine and dandy (the opening sequence is just amazing), but the slower parts took quite a toll on me. It's true that the original had some embarrasingly slow parts and took some weird detours (the spousal-abuse sub-plot), but when things halted for a while in TE2 I just felt like I was just waiting for the gunplay to break up the monotony. The soundtrack was one of the lowest notes, however, the soundtrack in general was so much better in the original. No Creedance Cleatwater Revival, sadly...

Don't take me wrong, it's still worth checking out. Watching it with friends is highly recommended.

I can't still quite explain why I wasn't as amped up, there have been a ton of insanely big action flicks this Summer and I watched a couple of 'em: Battleship (the worst of the bunch, but at least it was trying), The Avengers, The Amazing Spider-Man and The Dark Knight Rises (which I personally think is the best one overall). Maybe TDKR took the wind out of me.

[max_cady]

(sorry for the double-post guys, it's just that there's been litterally next to activity in this topic)


Resident Evil: Retribution

More like... "Shoot-Outs the Movie". It's a sad fact that these films have gotten progressively worse, though there's certainly an audience for this, because it's been going for 10 straight years. The fist two films qualified as spin-off or rather parallel stories taking place during the video game continuity. Then they decided to pretty much go into it's own continuity, where it's a free-for-all and the main game characters are there... just for the sake of being there, often times just cosplayin'.

There's not beating around the bush, Ada Wong, Jill Valentine, Albert Wesker, Barry Burton and Leon S. Kennedy appear in this movie, but apart from their names, they bear no resemblence to their counterparts.

The movie's "plot" if you can call it, is non-existent, I have to admit, the first 15 minutes were actually pretty intense, I actually flinched when [spoiler] Alice was playin' a suburban Mom and suddenly there was a zombie outbreak [/spoiler]. Afterwards, it's just downhill from there. Barely any horror, so to speak, what you get instead is massive shoot-outs every 10 minutes, interrupted by someone giving out information about what just happened and how everything ties into the events of previous films.   

The shoot-outs are almost The Expendables, scratch that Commando level of absurdity, [spoiler] you have heroes and antagonists just shooting and almost always never hitting each other, but every other random faceless Umbrella officer always gets shot down[/spoiler].

The overall plot is bad, because when you watch the final scene, it's feels like you were left out of some major events, while you were experiencing a run-of-the-mill search and rescue operation.

Ohhh... and those slow-mo shots... I never fought I'd get bored of 'em.

[Nameless 24]

Could anyone let me know about the film "Dredd" before I decide whether to go or not?

I'd like someone to give me their thoughts about it as I am curious about the Universe of Dredd.

Thanks in advance.

[Aki-at]

Could anyone let me know about the film "Dredd" before I decide whether to go or not?

I'd like someone to give me their thoughts about it as I am curious about the Universe of Dredd.

Thanks in advance.

Actually going to see it myself tomorrow. Though no expert on the universe of Dredd but heard good things.

[CosmicCastaway]

I've heard it's a pretty faithful adaption and it's much better than Stallone's version.

[Nameless 24]

Actually going to see it myself tomorrow. Though no expert on the universe of Dredd but heard good things.

Thanks guys, sounds like it'll be better then the 1995 one.;

[Barry the Nomad]

Got into the series just a few months ago, and am kicking myself for coming in so late. It's a freakin HILARIOUS show! I describe it to friends as Superbad meets Freaks & Geeks. Next to The Office and Extras it's my favorite British tv show. Caught the movie, via... "Arr, ye mateys!" methods since the closest theater showing it was in New York. It wasn't anywhere near epic film quality, but it was a great extended episode of the series. I liked that a lot of characters had stories resolved and I really hope they do one more movie, just to see how they part ways for college.

[Aki-at]

So I watched Dredd. Was a good action flick and much more loyal to the source material, Dredd didn't even remove his helmet once! The action was not the best I've seen but certainly still enjoyable enough for any Dredd fan (Watched with one too) so I give this film a thumbs up out of thumbs up!

[max_cady]

Saw it today. And I agree. It was awesome. I barely remember the Sylvester Stallone version, but this plays a bit like Die Hard and District 9, the plot shares some of that DNA. On the surface, it had everything to be just a bland sci-fi, run-of-the-mill film that studios dump in September because they know that it's bad.

But not this Dredd. It's a great action movie, they've cut a lot of corners (the action takes place almost entirely inside a huge building/slum, while the outside is clearly just a greenscreen) but for the most part it's amazing what they did here with limited resources.

Karl Urban plays his role as Dredd flawlessly, he plays the character as he should be, a faceless, ruthless and amoral police officer. Everything you need to know about the character is given to you in the first five minutes. His sidekick is played by a very convincing Olivia Thirlby (the last time I'd seen this girl was in The Darkest Hour, so good job). The main villain is a bit of a dissapoinment, to be honest, she's a plot device. But nevertheless you will always be interested in what's coming next.

The world in which they innhabit, is as impressive as the main character, it's a post-apocalyptic future that's still somewhat grounded in reality. If you have a choice between Resident Evil: Retribution and Dredd, go with this one.

[CosmicCastaway]

I saw Hotel Transylvania yesterday and it was fun. It's not one of the better movies of the year, but there are a few great jokes in it and I loved the zany animation that is reminiscent of Genndy Tartakovsky's earlier works and I was pleasantly surprised to see he was the director of the film. I enjoyed it, don't know if I would want to own it but it was decent. There's an absolutely hilarious "Twilight" joke towards the end.

[max_cady]

I've seen two movies lately... I was definately dissapointed by both.


Taken 2

Perhaps the most pointless sequel since Jaws 2. Liam Neeson tries his best, but quite honestly the film suffers from a variety of problems: an expanded role for both Maggie Grace and Famke's Jansen's characters that don't really add much, flimsy antagonists that should only stay confined to direct-to-DVD Disney sequels, confusing camera work and overall terrible fight coreography.

Try your best to pretend that Taken was this great standalone movie that nobody saw coming.


Skyfall

OK, what the heck was this!? I paid to see a James Bond film with Daniel Craig kicking butt and taking names, this was a film that was too concerned with making so many references to older James Bond films that somehow they forgot that they had a budget of 200 million dollars (that features terrible CG affects, by the way) which could have been used on something a little better than what I saw here tonight.

Like I said, a fairly dull plot that, like I said before, is far more concerned with nods to the classic films, that ironically was the direction that MGM was trying to stray away from since Casino Royale. Sam Mendes also seemed more concerned with making pretty shots, but like I said, pretty images can only get you so far. There's a ton of jokes and quips that don't produce as much as a chuckle, just a bunch of very audible sighs in the audience. About the CG...[spoiler]apart from producing an amazing effect for Javier Bardem's character in one very shocking scene, there's a ton of obvious greenscreen shots, some fairly obvious scenes where they CG-ed Daniel Craig's face into a stunt double. The most comical of all, Daniel Craig hoping on a CG komodo dragon should become an Internet meme as soon as these words go viral: Hopping the komodo.[/spoiler] With Javier Bardem is a great villain and perhaps one of the saving graces in this flick. Javier Bardem, brough something interesting to the table, he was a weird combination between the scary antagonist in "No Country for Old Man" with the over-the-top flamboyance of the Joker, it's excellent in it's own way, but nothing that we haven't seen before. It rings true because [spoiler]one major scene in the film when Silva is caught and breaks out of MI6's new headquarters in order to get to M, is completely ripping off The Dark Knight. "Influenced by TDK", my butt, it was the exact same routine.[/spoiler]

Don't waste your time on this one.

[Nameless 24]

I don't know why, but I liked Skyfall, it felt like Daniel Craig for me has finally become a Bond since CR and QoS didn't interest me enough. (watched the former at the Cinemas).

There was less fighting I admit, but it was pretty good for what it was.

Oh, and is Taken 2 the case of "I don't know who you are but if I catch you, I will kill you" to the movie itself?

Yeah, that'd be a good meme for the future.