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Which movie did you watch today and how would you rate it?

Colonel Sanders said:
Last House on the Left (new version)

Truth be told, I don't really know if this movie is any good. At some point IFC decided to start editing its movies like normal cable. For example, you know that "Fuck" is not going to be said on TBS or any of the major networks for that matter.

It's not that the F word is required for a movie to be good, but in a flick like this, for it to be effective, it can't be sanitized (e.g. poorly dubbed in "frick").

So fuck you IFC. I'm never watching another movie on your shitty channel again.

Anyway, the movie tried to emulate the sleazy feel of the 1970s original version, but the production values were way too good. It's one of those things that just can't be faked. Part of the impact of 1970s movies of this stripe were their pure rawness, part of which came from doing them on a severe budget. But that also lent itself to a realism that gave the viewer the feeling they were watching this shit actually happen. It was creepy and realistic.

This version, from the portion that I watched, made an earnest effort. But I don't know if it was IFC's sanitizing of the language and visuals that caused it to fail or if it would have failed anyway. If it comes on HBO or Netflix, I'll have to watch it again. Until then:

?/10
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I hate all forms of Bowdlerisation. With a passion.
 
Bridge of Spies (2015)

It's a Spielberg movie, so everything moves along in a tidy procession. Too tidy.

And I don't know the actual material, other than a vague recollectoin of the U2 incident.

But it's an engaging story, with good performances by Tom Hanks and Mark Rylance.

7.5/10

I just ordered the source material, Strangers on a Bridge: The Case of Colonel Abel and Francis Gary Powers.
 
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DrZoidberg said:
Colonel Sanders said:
Last House on the Left (new version)

Truth be told, I don't really know if this movie is any good. At some point IFC decided to start editing its movies like normal cable. For example, you know that "Fuck" is not going to be said on TBS or any of the major networks for that matter.

It's not that the F word is required for a movie to be good, but in a flick like this, for it to be effective, it can't be sanitized (e.g. poorly dubbed in "frick").

So fuck you IFC. I'm never watching another movie on your shitty channel again.

Anyway, the movie tried to emulate the sleazy feel of the 1970s original version, but the production values were way too good. It's one of those things that just can't be faked. Part of the impact of 1970s movies of this stripe were their pure rawness, part of which came from doing them on a severe budget. But that also lent itself to a realism that gave the viewer the feeling they were watching this shit actually happen. It was creepy and realistic.

This version, from the portion that I watched, made an earnest effort. But I don't know if it was IFC's sanitizing of the language and visuals that caused it to fail or if it would have failed anyway. If it comes on HBO or Netflix, I'll have to watch it again. Until then:

?/10
Click to expand...

I hate all forms of Bowdlerisation. With a passion.
Click to expand...

Right? Who does IFC think is going to be watching this movie? Are there really people out there who will not watch a movie like this unless all the language and graphic violence is removed? This type of movie is one that caters to a very narrow audience, and that audience doesn't want to see the movie castrated.

If they have to cut it up to make it acceptable to a general audience, then they shouldn't show it.
 
Evil Under the Sun

6/10

A rather middling adaptation of an Agatha Christie novel to screen. Peter Ustinov, in his second outing as Hercule Poirot, takes a rather comic, sometimes hammy approach to the material, and he is joined in this endeavor by most of the cast, including Diana Rigg, Maggie Smith, James Mason and Vera Miles.
 
Star Wars: The Force Awakens finally wound up at my favorite local discount theater.

I saw it at Christmas time, but didn't have anything else to do and spent 3 whole dollars to see it again.

I'd read a lot of criticisms of it in the ensuing months...about how it was just a retread of the original movie...about how it was just a cash grab...about how it was just fan service.

Yep. Those criticisms are valid but miss the point entirely. Star Wars was George Lucas' attempt to recreate the kind of science fiction movie serials he loved as a child. Flash Gordon and Buck Rogers and the like...low budget pulp fare that wasn't all that deep, but got you into the theater to watch each and every episode as it was released. They were fun, mindless entertainment. Not deep social commentary or drama. Just something to enjoy on a Saturday afternoon.

And aside from a near pitch-perfect grasp of the "feel" of the original Star Wars, The Force Awakens managed to get back to what inspired Lucas in the first place. There's clearly defined good guys and bad guys in an adventure with ray guns and space ships and heroes and princesses and it is great, mindless fun.

9/10
 
My Big Fat Greek Wedding 2 - 7/10.

If you enjoyed the first movie, this reprise with the same characters and cast return in a similar themed plot (over-bearing and interfering family members) in a sweet and amusing feature.
 
Ford said:
Star Wars: The Force Awakens

And aside from a near pitch-perfect grasp of the "feel" of the original Star Wars, The Force Awakens managed to get back to what inspired Lucas in the first place. There's clearly defined good guys and bad guys in an adventure with ray guns and space ships and heroes and princesses and it is great, mindless fun.

9/10
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YES!!!
 
Saw all the making of the Aliens movies. All of them. Awesome. Everyone of these films has a fascinating story of how they came to be. Most interesting I think is Alien 3, ie why it sucked so much. Basically the Fox bosses were so anxious about this being better than the previous ones that they micromanaged it to death. Also cool is how small budgets the first two had. How they did so much with pretty simple visual tricks. Giger cracks me up. What a loon! Interesting how the director of Alien vs Predator was the most shallow director imaginable. He really had nothing to say, and that really came through. What a shit film.

I learned that Prometheus 2 is coming next year. Awesome. After that Alien 5, which is already in production. Even awesomer

All on Youtube

Alien
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SYJXaEN8F4Q

Aliens
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VWLKwrmYd6A

Alien 3
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hip868rxkg4

Alien 4
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ncAhHeUSdsU&list=PL20F0F6185A9A2FAA

Alien vs Predator
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YLE8zyiCWxk
 
Alien is one of my all time favorite movies, near perfect. They occasionally show it on TCM uncut.

Aliens is also one of the greats. "Get away from her, you bitch!"

The rest, meh.

I was torn about Prometheus. Entertaining flick but so many problems concerning the Alien timeline.
 
ZiprHead said:
Alien is one of my all time favorite movies, near perfect. They occasionally show it on TCM uncut.

Aliens is also one of the greats. "Get away from her, you bitch!"

The rest, meh.

I was torn about Prometheus. Entertaining flick but so many problems concerning the Alien timeline.
Click to expand...

What I like about the Alien franchise is that each new director does something completely new with it. I don't mind the fucked timeline at all. It's not just the timeline that is fucked. It's everything. If you pay attention you'll notice that the alien changes quite a bit for each film. Each film is only internally consistent. Well... barely. Alien 4 didn't even bother with that.
 
ZiprHead said:
Alien is one of my all time favorite movies, near perfect. They occasionally show it on TCM uncut.

Aliens is also one of the greats. "Get away from her, you bitch!"

The rest, meh.

I was torn about Prometheus. Entertaining flick but so many problems concerning the Alien timeline.
Click to expand...

Both Alien and Aliens are one of my favorites. I saw Aliens in the theater with a packed audience, and I never saw such audience craziness in my life as when Ripley emerges from behind the door wearing the loader saying, "Get away from her, you bitch!". Just total pandemonium.

I saw the documentary "making of " videos a couple of years ago. Great stuff. I like how in Aliens they used a giant mirror to make it seem like they had more sleep chamber pods than they had budget for.
 
James Brown said:
DrZoidberg said:
If you pay attention you'll notice that the alien changes quite a bit for each film.
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Isn't it supposed to? I thought the alien took on physical characteristics of whatever host it chest-bursted out of?
Click to expand...

That was a gimmick they came up with for Alien 3. It was an afterthought. An idea they came up with quite far into production. Each director didn't give a fuck about continuity. All they cared about was how to do their movie different from the ones before. They all talk about how the core of the alien is that you hardly ever see them. Scary. That's it. The alien in the first film is a hell of a lot sneakier than any of the others. As the series progresses gestation of the alien speeds up. The head of the alien in Aliens is different than the one in Alien. The reason was that the suit used for Alien would break for the stuff Cameron wanted to do. So he just changed it. All the directors talk about how there's very little of the alien that makes sense, and that's the point. It's an alien. It's supposed to be weird. As for what the alien is supposed to represent has been all over the map. In Alien it's an allegory for sex. In Aliens... not so much. Wildly different metaphors and therefore films.
 
But the trilogy’s a treat for armchair semioticians as well; burrow under the high-tech scares, and you’ll find the fossil footprints of the distinct pop cultures that produced them. Watched back-to-back, the Aliens span a journey from late-’70s malaise to full-bore Reagan-era action to the downer cynicism of the early ’90s; one might even say that the overriding tone of Alien 3 is Bushed.
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Link
 
ZiprHead said:
Alien is one of my all time favorite movies, near perfect. They occasionally show it on TCM uncut.

Aliens is also one of the greats. "Get away from her, you bitch!"

The rest, meh.

I was torn about Prometheus. Entertaining flick but so many problems concerning the Alien timeline.
Click to expand...

Agree. Both Alien and Aliens are amazing movies and they're totally different in tone.

My favorite quote from Alien "If we ain't outta here in 15 minutes, we ain't gonna need a rocket to fly through space".

Aliens has aged well. The only time there is a slip is when Ripley refers to a "portable terminal". Nowadays we call that a laptop.

I, too was torn about Prometheus. I enjoyed the heck out of it, but even a cursory skim of the movie reveals that it's pretty stupid plot-wise.
 
The Fifth Wave 3.2/10

High school girl with a gun. Apocalypse. Aliens. Much older guy. Did I mention she has a gun?

I gave this an extra 0.2 because the fx are really good. There is a breathtaking tsunami scene that makes the movie worth seeing. If I was 14, I would totally dig this movie. Later in life I would appreciate the indoctrination efforts made by the producers of this, and the other teen-oriented fallen society movies popping up lately.
 
Amadeus

10/10

If you are an extreme stickler for historical accuracy, this adaptation of Peter Shaffer's stage play may set you off just a bit with it's fictionalized version of the relationship between Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and Antonio Salieri. But setting that issue aside, this is a terrific film--a great period piece and a compelling story, with an outstanding lead performance by F. Murray Abraham as Salieri. Abraham's deserved Best Actor Oscar was one of eight that Amadeus won, including Best Picture. And of course, it has a score filled with music written by one of the greatest creative geniuses, in any medium, that the world has ever seen.
 
Brooklyn 9/10

Straightforward love story set in 1950s Ireland and Brooklyn. Period piece with a light touch that never takes it eye off the ball. Music immaculately done.
 
MarkW said:
Amadeus

10/10

If you are an extreme stickler for historical accuracy, this adaptation of Peter Shaffer's stage play may set you off just a bit with it's fictionalized version of the relationship between Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and Antonio Salieri. But setting that issue aside, this is a terrific film--a great period piece and a compelling story, with an outstanding lead performance by F. Murray Abraham as Salieri. Abraham's deserved Best Actor Oscar was one of eight that Amadeus won, including Best Picture. And of course, it has a score filled with music written by one of the greatest creative geniuses, in any medium, that the world has ever seen.
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It was based on a play. But yes, the movie is great and the music is glorious.
 
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