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

[Unbeatable]

Proxy.

Very emotional psychological horror film. A pregnant woman approaching her due date is walking home from her OB when someone knocks her out and hits her in the belly repeatedly with a brick, causing her to miscarry. In the hospital, she's recommended to a support group. Then things get weirder.

It's not like the other horror films I've seen, not even the psychological ones. There's nothing supernatural in this film, nobody being chased by a psychopath, no jump scares, no foreshadowing that something horrible's on its way. The horror's all a function of people's unexpected actions and hidden motives. Most of the time, it feels like a quiet, subtle drama about grief and trauma, with no clear direction. But every so often there's a twist that makes things a bit more disturbing. And it proceeds like this all the way to the end.

My only complaint is that the makeup/prosthetics for the fake pregnant belly weren't very good.

8/10

 

[blastula]

Hercules with the Rock.
6/10

This one takes the god half out of the demigod, which is a premise I liked, but it couldn't completely overcome the Brett Rattner kiss of death into mediocrity, and some heavy handed scripting which was probably meant for younger viewers. It kind of cheats too by given him very, very, very powerful strength for a mortal. I gave a 6 still because the Rock factor is a plus for me as usual.

 

[Ford]

World War Z

I had heard there was some sort of controversy regarding this film, so I waited until after I'd seen it to read about all that stuff.

What I saw was a solid zombie movie with your typical regular (if extremely good looking) guy who just happens to have a past as a secret agent/international man of mystery he's trying to leave behind when the end of the world arrives. You know that him and his nearly perfect family will survive and he'll save the day, so it is just a matter of how and how long it will take to go from point A to point B.

Story moves along nicely, the close calls/rescues aren't too ridiculous (except

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the plane crash

), and the "cure" for the zombie virus is creative enough. The movie wrapped in an odd way with what seemed like a very truncated ending coupled with Brad Pitt delivering narration which seemed tacked on. An unsatisfying end to an otherwise decent movie.

5.5/10

Then I read up on the movie.

Turns out there were some major re-shoots, and the ending seemed tacked on because it was completely redone.

 

[marc]

World War Z was ok

It was hampered in a big way because the book was excellent, and the film has almost nothing in common with it other than the title. The book takes place 10 years after the zombies apocalypse, and is a series of interviews that tell the whole history of it.

 

[DBT]

Why did Lucy's 'brain whatever' increase by discrete percentage points, accompanied by big numbers flashed on the screen? Was the drug in her system a time-release capsule?

it was basically a visual metaphor gimmick - the movie is jammed full of them, flashes to totally abstract and unrelated images that are visual metaphor for what's happening in the plot. it was rather on-the-nose a lot of the time and not used consistently, but it was there enough to establish it as being part of the movie's visual dialogue.
the percentages on the screen served no purpose aside to denote A. when more powers unlocked, and B. as a gauge of time to denote when the 'final form' was reached, the basic idea being that once she unlocked 100% of what she could do within the confines of a human brain, she would stop being human. they could have been removed and it would have been completely obvious what was happening, but like i said the movie is full of these weird little cut-aways that are really on the nose.

The movie also implied that we are a part of some sort of virtual world, a world where Lucy as a user/controller could travel back in time, 'swipe' the scenery in front of her, delete and change aspects of her environment, etc.

 

[MarkW]

Shooter

6.5/10

A routine action thriller adapted from Stephen Hunter's novel Point of Impact. Antoine Fuqua, who directed, has always handled action quite well, and there are some good set-piece sequences in this one. Otherwise, there's nothing here that hasn't been done better--and in the case of the convoluted conspiracy plot, more plausibly--in other films. Mark Wahlberg is decent as the protagonist, although I always like him better in edgy character roles (Three Kings, The Departed) than as a standard leading man. The likeable Kate Mara is given too little to do, while most of the supporting cast, even Danny Glover and Ned Beatty, make little real impression. The exception is the late Levon Helm in one of the eccentric old-timer roles that he made a bit of a career of in the last few years of his life--he's very good. Otherwise, while this isn't a bad film, it's kind of bland.

 

[Tom Sawyer]

Guardians of the Galaxy - 8/10

A hilarious and very well done movie. Based on what I'd seen in the previews and write-ups, this movie was going to either really work or really flop and they managed to make it work. It was campy as hell, but they just went with it and it was fun to watch.

The nitpicky nerd in me did have a couple of issues, however.

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How the hell did these Xandarians have a thousand year war against the Kree where they did so well as to fuel Ronan's rage for killing so many of his people for so long? They couldn't even defend their own homeworld against a single fucking Kree warship, but they battled the 100,000 planet strong Kree Empire to a stalemate? Even if the Kree Empire isn't as big in the movie as it is in the comic, battling that one ship was like Bambi vs Godzilla even before Ronan used the infinity stone.

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Thanos's plan in the Avengers now makes zero sense, even in comparison to Thanos's plan in the Avengers before this movie. He rescued Loki and had him access the tesseract so that Loki could get to Earth and use it to open a wormhole for Thanos and his army to get there because they had no other way of getting to Earth for him to grab the tesseract. Loki even specifically told Thanos to stop trying to jerk him around because without him doing his part to open the wormhole, Thanos was stuck on the other side of space and had no way of getting to Earth.

Then Yondu was quite easily able to fly to Earth to pick up Starlord and then fly over to Xandar which is a couple of days away from where Thanos was. Why didn't Thanos just fly to Earth himself and grab the tesseract? I realize that this would have been a plan that lacked overly complex machinations for the sake of of adding unecessary complexity, but I still find it curious.

Also, on the subject of Thanos, why did the Nova Corp take the infinity stone? They know that Ronan was trying to get it for Thanos and made a point of linking them together. Given how completely bitch-slapped they were by just Ronan, what's the motivation behind the thought "Hey, let's keep this thing that Thanos wants here with us as opposed to a long, long way away from us"?

 

[KeepTalking]

Guardians of the Galaxy - 8/10

A hilarious and very well done movie. Based on what I'd seen in the previews and write-ups, this movie was going to either really work or really flop and they managed to make it work. It was campy as hell, but they just went with it and it was fun to watch.

The nitpicky nerd in me did have a couple of issues, however.

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How the hell did these Xandarians have a thousand year war against the Kree where they did so well as to fuel Ronan's rage for killing so many of his people for so long? They couldn't even defend their own homeworld against a single fucking Kree warship, but they battled the 100,000 planet strong Kree Empire to a stalemate? Even if the Kree Empire isn't as big in the movie as it is in the comic, battling that one ship was like Bambi vs Godzilla even before Ronan used the infinity stone.

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Because the Nova Corps are more bad-ass than Ronan, but they were apparently busy elsewhere during this incident.

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Thanos's plan in the Avengers now makes zero sense, even in comparison to Thanos's plan in the Avengers before this movie. He rescued Loki and had him access the tesseract so that Loki could get to Earth and use it to open a wormhole for Thanos and his army to get there because they had no other way of getting to Earth for him to grab the tesseract. Loki even specifically told Thanos to stop trying to jerk him around because without him doing his part to open the wormhole, Thanos was stuck on the other side of space and had no way of getting to Earth.

Then Yondu was quite easily able to fly to Earth to pick up Starlord and then fly over to Xandar which is a couple of days away from where Thanos was. Why didn't Thanos just fly to Earth himself and grab the tesseract? I realize that this would have been a plan that lacked overly complex machinations for the sake of of adding unecessary complexity, but I still find it curious.

Also, on the subject of Thanos, why did the Nova Corp take the infinity stone? They know that Ronan was trying to get it for Thanos and made a point of linking them together. Given how completely bitch-slapped they were by just Ronan, what's the motivation behind the thought "Hey, let's keep this thing that Thanos wants here with us as opposed to a long, long way away from us"?

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Technically, it wasn't Thanos nor any army of his that attacked Earth in The Avengers. It was the Chitauri, led by The Other, who attacked Earth, and it was The Other with whom Loki was interacting. It was only revealed at the end of the movie that The Other was working for Thanos. So, any travel limitation would be a purely Chitauri limitation, as well as a convenient plot device. Though powerful, Thanos was never powerful enough to confront Earth's superheroes directly until he obtained the infinity stones. I see his influencing the Chitauri as a test of Earth's defenses, one that nearly succeeded, but ultimately revealed that he would need more power if he was going to defeat the Avengers, which led to his hunt for the infinity stone(s).

Of course, it is all a departure from the comics, as Thanos never really cared much about Earth at all. He was motivated by his love of Lady Death to hunt for the infinity stones so that he could use them to kill half of the sentient life in the Universe for her.

 

[Underseer]

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How the hell did these Xandarians have a thousand year war against the Kree where they did so well as to fuel Ronan's rage for killing so many of his people for so long? They couldn't even defend their own homeworld against a single fucking Kree warship, but they battled the 100,000 planet strong Kree Empire to a stalemate? Even if the Kree Empire isn't as big in the movie as it is in the comic, battling that one ship was like Bambi vs Godzilla even before Ronan used the infinity stone.

Ronan is an Accuser, so that probably isn't a standard military-issue ship he's riding around in. Even if it is, he can just stick his damn Accuser hammer out of any porthole and obliterate anyone who so much as annoys him.

I completely agree with you about the Thanos stuff.

 

[prideandfall]

The movie also implied that we are a part of some sort of virtual world, a world where Lucy as a user/controller could travel back in time, 'swipe' the scenery in front of her, delete and change aspects of her environment, etc.

not at all - it in no way implied that.
that was all just another visual metaphor for how she was processing the data - how else could you visually represent in a movie that she could detect and interpret cell phone signals?

 

[Tom Sawyer]

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Because the Nova Corps are more bad-ass than Ronan, but they were apparently busy elsewhere during this incident.

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You mean in the months when Ronan was running around destroying Xandarian colonies and they were completely helpless to do anything against him except whine to the Kree Ambassador? There was nothing bad-assed about the Nova Corp. They pretty much sucked.

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Technically, it wasn't Thanos nor any army of his that attacked Earth in The Avengers. It was the Chitauri, led by The Other, who attacked Earth, and it was The Other with whom Loki was interacting. It was only revealed at the end of the movie that The Other was working for Thanos. So, any travel limitation would be a purely Chitauri limitation, as well as a convenient plot device. Though powerful, Thanos was never powerful enough to confront Earth's superheroes directly until he obtained the infinity stones. I see his influencing the Chitauri as a test of Earth's defenses, one that nearly succeeded, but ultimately revealed that he would need more power if he was going to defeat the Avengers, which led to his hunt for the infinity stone(s).

Of course, it is all a departure from the comics, as Thanos never really cared much about Earth at all. He was motivated by his love of Lady Death to hunt for the infinity stones so that he could use them to kill half of the sentient life in the Universe for her.

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The Chitauri were Thanos's army and the plan was all Thanos's plan. There's nothing technical about it. Also, when Thanos took Gamora, he destroyed her entire planet. His deal with Ronan was that he'd destroy the entire planet of Xandar in exchange for the infinity stone. This is a guy who can destroy entire planets. The Nova Corps refer to him as "The most powerful being in the universe". There's nothing for him to worry about from the heroes on Earth.

He never cared about Earth, he only cared about getting the tesseract, which happened to be on Earth. It wasn't to defeat the Avengers that he wants this power, it just so happens that the Avengers were inbetween him and one of them.

 

[KeepTalking]

We probably don't need to keep hiding this stuff, so I'm going to just post normally, there are no real spoilers here anyway.

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You mean in the months when Ronan was running around destroying Xandarian colonies and they were completely helpless to do anything against him except whine to the Kree Ambassador? There was nothing bad-assed about the Nova Corp. They pretty much sucked.

I am referring to the source material. Nova Corps was bad-ass, until they were annihilated by Annihilus. Then the Worldmind consolidated all the power of the Nova Corps into Rick Rider, and he became the ultimate bad-ass, Nova. Those Nova Corps shlubs in the movie bore no resemblance to the actual Nova Corps in the comics. It is my contention that the real Nova Corps was off doing something significantly more bad-ass while the movie was being shot, leaving some unworthy scab Nova Corps wannabees to defend Xandar.

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Technically, it wasn't Thanos nor any army of his that attacked Earth in The Avengers. It was the Chitauri, led by The Other, who attacked Earth, and it was The Other with whom Loki was interacting. It was only revealed at the end of the movie that The Other was working for Thanos. So, any travel limitation would be a purely Chitauri limitation, as well as a convenient plot device. Though powerful, Thanos was never powerful enough to confront Earth's superheroes directly until he obtained the infinity stones. I see his influencing the Chitauri as a test of Earth's defenses, one that nearly succeeded, but ultimately revealed that he would need more power if he was going to defeat the Avengers, which led to his hunt for the infinity stone(s).

Of course, it is all a departure from the comics, as Thanos never really cared much about Earth at all. He was motivated by his love of Lady Death to hunt for the infinity stones so that he could use them to kill half of the sentient life in the Universe for her.

Show

The Chitauri were Thanos's army and the plan was all Thanos's plan. There's nothing technical about it. Also, when Thanos took Gamora, he destroyed her entire planet. His deal with Ronan was that he'd destroy the entire planet of Xandar in exchange for the infinity stone. This is a guy who can destroy entire planets. The Nova Corps refer to him as "The most powerful being in the universe". There's nothing for him to worry about from the heroes on Earth.

He never cared about Earth, he only cared about getting the tesseract, which happened to be on Earth. It wasn't to defeat the Avengers that he wants this power, it just so happens that the Avengers were inbetween him and one of them.

Sorry, but the Chitauri were not Thanos' army, he did not appear in The Avengers until after the credits, and Loki never interacted with Thanos. Thanos certainly used the Chitauri, but they were obviously following their own leader, The Other. Thanos never had direct control of them, he only influenced them through The Other. At that point Thanos was just working behind the scenes, likely because the Chitauri would not have followed Thanos if he had tried to assume direct control.

Going back to the source material again, Thanos never had anything to do with the Chitauri in the comics. I don't care what the Nova Corps schlubs in the Guardians movie said about Thanos, AFAIC they were just being a bunch of drama queens. Thanos only became the most powerful being in the universe once he controlled all of the infinity stones, and at that point he no longer needed an army.

 

[DBT]

The movie also implied that we are a part of some sort of virtual world, a world where Lucy as a user/controller could travel back in time, 'swipe' the scenery in front of her, delete and change aspects of her environment, etc.

not at all - it in no way implied that.
that was all just another visual metaphor for how she was processing the data - how else could you visually represent in a movie that she could detect and interpret cell phone signals?

Sure, you can see it as a visual metaphor, but Lucy's power over matter was presented as being actual, she is shown to levitate people and objects, travel back in time, dematerialize, etc, which implies the ability to manipulate matter on a quantum level, rearranging probability wave/particle position, to suit her needs, etc. The swiping away of the scenes before her, the north American natives and so on, as you do with tablets, offers the suggestion of virtual but physical constructs, but in the form of our quantum/classical World.

 

[Dolorian]

Locke - 7/10

Tom Hardy is really great in this.

 

[bradw]

Pumping Iron (1977) Arnold is a jerk and bodybuilding can look like a very strange activity. 6.5/10

Temple Grandin (2010) I'm vaguely familiar with Temple Grandin's story through news articles and a TED talk, but I don't feel qualified to comment on the authenticity of the movie. I think the movie presented her in a reasonable way without anything that appears to be an overblown Hollywood embelishment. Don't be put off by the happy, glowing images of Claire Danes as Temple that are used to advertise the movie. The story is not presented that way.

An impressive person and an enjoyable and (I hate to say this, it's almost trite) inspiring movie.

9/10

 

[DBT]

The Rover. 8/10. ''10 years after a global economic collapse, a hardened loner pursues the men who stole his only possession, his car. ''

 

[Daioh]

Son Of Batman
6/10
So this movie is about Batman finding out he has a son (Surprise) and the kid is out for revenge
Now the kid is mostly fine, he does sometimes stumble into the whole "headstrong kid" territory bordering on annoying, but it is often saved by the rather dry wit of both Batman and Alfred
The overall plot is solid, nothing surprising or particularly groudbreaking but overall put together well
The biggest weakness is probably the villain Deathstroke who in this one is really really trying to come across as the sort of casually awesome badass, but often just sounds a bit of a whiner
The animation is very good
And overall the movie is good, not great

Superman: Doomsday
5/10
So this one has everything
A solid script, likeable characters, solid animation and an overall decent presentation
HOWEVER
It just lacked something
It never really gives you the sense that it cares, and so all of the good stuff just seems to be going through the motions
So while there is no part of this movie that I think you can call bad
It just doesn't seem to want to stand out either

 

[DrZoidberg]

Pumping Iron (1977) Arnold is a jerk and bodybuilding can look like a very strange activity. 6.5/10

Temple Grandin (2010) I'm vaguely familiar with Temple Grandin's story through news articles and a TED talk, but I don't feel qualified to comment on the authenticity of the movie. I think the movie presented her in a reasonable way without anything that appears to be an overblown Hollywood embelishment. Don't be put off by the happy, glowing images of Claire Danes as Temple that are used to advertise the movie. The story is not presented that way.

An impressive person and an enjoyable and (I hate to say this, it's almost trite) inspiring movie.

9/10

Temple Grandin was recently interviewed by Ginger Campbell on the Brainscience podcast. In the interview they talk about the film. At no point did Temple criticise it. They talked about it as if it was a factual account of Temple's life. Temple was a consultant in the movie to get it correct. Also... Temple's character. She cares only about truth, warts and all. After all... she's an aspie. She most likely wouldn't even understand what facts to cover up in order to look good to an audience.

Also... Pumping Iron should be seen as a mockumentary. Most of the shots are staged and scripted. Everybody in it wanted to increase the drama in order to promote bodybuilding. So they willingly participated in staging shots. I do love Pumping Iron. But I also love bodybuilding. So I'm biased

 

[Ford]

Muscle Shoals 8/10

If you ever wondered what that line meant in "Sweet Home Alabama" where they sang "now Muscle Shoals has got the Swampers," then this is the movie for you.

Or if you ever wondered how Percy Sledge got that sound on "When A Man Loves A Woman." Or who played on the records that made Aretha the Queen of Soul. Or where the Allman Brothers came from. Or how the Stones got funky on "Brown Sugar." Or if you just like music and want a glimpse into how the sausage is made.


The only thing that doesn't really fit in the movie is Bono. He's there for some reason, and he's there too much.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

Streetcar Named Desire - Pretty much like Pretty Woman, just not as glamorous and substitutes consensual sex with rape.

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