Films You Have Watched This Week: With a Vengeance

[Neon Ignition]

With the post threshold reached it's time for this thread to be reborn in it's third incarnation.

Last film we finally brought ourselves round to watching was Rush. Back when the trailers were out it appealed but being a true life story and sports orientated it's taken a long time to sit down and actually watch it. Have to say though, really enjoyed it from beginning to end. Even though not much actually happens and the defining sequence in the middle is briefly handled there seems to be an apt sense of tenseness and drive to the whole film. It feels like it never over sympathises with either men or is wasting time for drama and yet you never feel short changed either. An excellent surprise of a film.

[Finsbury Girl]

300 Rise of an Empire - it was ok, I loved 300 and there was some pretty cool action pieces and swordplay bits but overall just ok. Best bit of course was Eva's assets

[Neon Ignition]

Tried rewatching Ace Ventura: When Nature Calls but it has all dated too much. Only the Rhino scene still amused.

[buster_broon]

Watched dumb and dumber to

I would rate it tripe out of a possible mince

[kryss]

The Interview. Cringing at some parts, sidesplitting at others that possibly weren't that funny (

->Open Spoiler<-

"no worry about being a gentleman, go straight for the balls!! What if it's not a male?? ****-punch that ****ing b****!!!

). On the whole I actually enjoyed it, as crap as it was. Franco's character really was an idiot, and Randaph Park (Kim Jong Un) was very good as the supreme leader.
6 nukes out of 10 landed on target.

[PaTaito]

The Interview. Cringing at some parts, sidesplitting at others that possibly weren't that funny (

->Open Spoiler<-

"no worry about being a gentleman, go straight for the balls!! What if it's not a male?? ****-punch that ****ing b****!!!

). On the whole I actually enjoyed it, as crap as it was. Franco's character really was an idiot, and Randaph Park (Kim Jong Un) was very good as the supreme leader.
6 nukes out of 10 landed on target.

The puppy thing was amusing.

[buster_broon]

st Vincent
Funny and endearing with an enjoyable story - Bill murray is absolutely tremendous

[kryss]

Still waiting on my Frozen 3D to arrive...

[bash]

So I watched Mad Max 2: The Road Warrior last night, after seeing the trailers for Fury Road I thought I'd revisit the best one of the 3 IMHO. I cant explain how influential the setting and costumes are in this movie. From the intro to Beneath a Steel Sky to Fist of the north star . . . . just brilliant, I've seen this setting a million times and to think it all came from Mad Max. The movie itself has dated a bit editing and looks wise, not surprising considering it came out in 1982. However its still chock full of memorable moments of humour and savagery. Mel Gibson as Max speaks few words but little plot twists show he's always thinking, planning based on his cunning survival instincts. The action is still amazing, Some stunts rival anything you see now in regards to "How did they do that without killing themselves" moments. You see what looks like cyclists getting crunched under wheels, or flying over vehicles. This **** beats CGI anyday of the week and I hope the director sticks to his guns when he says Fury is gonna be more of the same. If you havent seen it then check it out ASAP, I saw this film once as a kid and was blown away but last nights revisit pleased me no end as it's pretty much every bit as good as I remember. Fury Road has a lot to live up to.

After that I started watching The Equalizer with Denzel. I only meant to watch the first 10 minutes but got hooked pretty quickly even though the ending was pretty flat and predictable its not a bad ride for the first 2/3rds of the movie. Everyone who'd seen it before me told me there are some pretty memorable deaths and they werent wrong but part of the problem was I just dont buy Denzel as a badass. His dialogue delivery is brillant but, no one can criticise his acting ability but his movement is flaky and it seems as though his movies of the last 10 years have relied on clever camera editing rather than painfully rehearsed choreography. I love him but he just looks old and fat and I dont buy it, I didnt really buy it in Man on Fire, as great a movie as it was. And that was 2004! Also if you're watching this for Chloe Grace Moretz's prostitute (you nerdy perverts) then be warned shes probably in this for a total of 15/20 mins max. If you've enjoyed Denzels output over the last 10 years then you'll love this, others might find this average fodder.

[Lebowski]

Grand Budapest hotel, very funny great cast and excellent to watch, a visual treat as always but then i tend to really enjoy Wes Anderson's stuff this was a highpoint compared to the last few films he's done, but saying that moonrise Kingdom was very good also.

I'd heard Hansel & Gretel: Witch Hunters was quite campy fun but it felt like I was watching a Medieval episode of buffy where Hawkeye has a big plastic shotgun instead of a Bow, it had us in stiches at points like the bit where Hansel has to take injections because he has Sugar poisoning from eating to much gingerbread house as a child, So he's Diabetic??? , we turned it off at the 30 minute mark.

[QualityChimp]

I watched John Carpenter's The Fog.

I could have sworn I had the special edition with the commentary, but it was some sparse version with a trailer and short making-of featurette.

Anyway, it's a great film and they made really good use of a small budget. Scanners came out a short while before it and the gore went down well, so the makers of The Fog were actually were given more money to go back and do some reshoots to make it more gory, pushing the budget up from $900k to $1.1m. The early scene on the boat was one of the violent additions.

The residents of Antonio Bay gather to celebrate the 100th year of the founding of their town, but their forefathers may have placed money above compassion and now their past is coming to get them...

It's not quite up there with the greats of Carpenter's r?sum?, but it's definitely worth seeing. The use of the fog to hide the horrors coming to get their revenge on Antonio Bay is a great device and was inspired by a trip to Stonehenge when a fog bank was rolling in and Carpenter turned to Debra Hill (Co-Writer and Producer) and said "Imagine if there was something in the fog?"

Although not as iconic as some of his other scores, The Fog has a great soundtrack with repetitive synth notes upping the tension. More than any other of his films, The Fog uses jump-scares quite a lot as one of his tools to keep the audience on edge.

Bonus points to John Carpenter for getting both Adrienne Barbeau and Jamie Lee Curtis in the same movie...

Nice article on the film here:

http://bloody-disgusting.com/interviews/24247/why-john-carpenters-the-fog-still-matters-with-richard-christy/

Here's Orange Goblin's homage to Carpenter's spooky cult classic ~HEAVY!~:
[hide][/hide]

[kryss]

Finished Man of Tai Chi last night, amused that Keanu directed it and wasn't to bad it seems.
Tonight is Wrath of Vajra while I pretend to do my complex analysis homework.

[EvilBoris]

So I watched Big Hero 6 which was great, they could have had even more of Baymax faffing about though. The film was a really comfortable length and ended when it felt like it should. Was pretty predictable and had one too may sci-fi tropes.

Also Saw Project Almanac, which despite looking like it was a time travel version of Chronicle,was just a terrible time travel version of Chronicle. Not recommended.

[k0pp0]

Netflix is getting a beating at the moment so I've watched

The Hobbit
Desolation of smaug
The indie game movie

First 2 were like watching through a pair a Vaseline glasses. And strangely depressing..

The indie game movie was.. I don't know. I felt empathy for the team meat guys and Mr Blow, but still none for Phil Fish.

Interesting to see the amount of pressure the guys both were put under and put themselves under.. but did make me want to put on my coding gloves again.

I've also seen the chipmunk movies more times than I care to mention.

[bash]

OK so checked out St Vincent, me and my mate had the house to ourselves so we got some popcorn in. It was funny but not LOL funny and as much as we both love Bill Murray we decided to watch something else as it was too much of a slow burner. If anything I found Chris O'Dowd from IT crowd funnier for the 5 or so minutes he was in it.

So to turn it up a notch I fired up John Wick. I had been looking forward to this for months as the trailers suggested it was Jason Statham B-movie nonsense but at least Keanu and his action team were bringing a tough work ethic to the package and we werent let down. Let me get it out of the way, the plot is crap but its held together by some very nice gun and hand to hand action. Its not on the level of Hard Boiled or The Matrix obviously but theres still a lot to enjoy. Its so nice watching an American action film where you can actually see what the fighters are thinking tactically. I recommend it, way better than the recent crap from Statham, Stallone, Willis and Arnie.

Today I just finished watching Nightcrawler and I just knew I wasnt going to like it as, like the recent complaints, the viewer has no one to root for. Gyllanhal is all out skinny, creepy semi-sociopathic wannabe cameraman and Rene Russo is equally trashy as the TV news director who is spurring Jake on in a bid to help her flagging career. Theres a tense car chase about 3/4s in which I enjoyed and Riz Ahmeds acting and accent is enjoyable too. It stuns me so many Brits take American parts. Are the majority Hollywood men just muscle bound wooden CK models ala Chris Pine and his mates? Anyway its worth a watch I guess, it has some nice shots in and says something about the state of american media coverage/story telling although if you consider yourself an "informed" person then it wont tell you anything new. The performances are good all round, its just a seedy, dirty business type film.