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

Dirty Rotten Scoundrels

7.5/10

Like most good films about con artists and their capers, this one is light and entertaining throughout. Michael Caine and Steve Martin play off each other very well as the rival grifters, while Glenne Headly was terrific in a breakthrough role as their intended mark.

I heard so many good things about this. 30 minutes in I was bored to death. Never did finish it.
 
Dirty Rotten Scoundrels

7.5/10

Like most good films about con artists and their capers, this one is light and entertaining throughout. Michael Caine and Steve Martin play off each other very well as the rival grifters, while Glenne Headly was terrific in a breakthrough role as their intended mark.

I heard so many good things about this. 30 minutes in I was bored to death. Never did finish it.

It was never all that good/even in it's day it was a snooze.

UFOs Are Real

This is more of a documentary--from 1979. But it's fucking creepy. Yes, a lot of it is long disproved stuff that's still kept alive by fanatics, but it has just enough eerie realism to be cool. I watch these kind of things for pure escapism and this one provides that. For those of us who like to fall asleep with the TV on--or in this case, the laptop, all you have to do is get on Youtube and watch this thing for free. Turn the lights off, tune into the creepy campiness of this film, and know that you can safely close your eyes and not miss anything important.

I don't know. It works for me.

7/10
 
Whisperer in Darkness 2/10

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1498878/

Another attempt at shooting a Lovecraft novel. Here's the thing, his plotting is shit, his characters are paper thin, stories are stupid, his imagination of monsters is basically just writing icky words in a string that don't make sense, he's a technophobe and he was an outright racist. The underlying message of his books is how anything not white and Anglo-saxon is highly suspect. Mixed race characters are invariably referred to as "degenerate" at some point. But his books are still awesome and kick-ass because he had such an amazing grasp of the English language. Few authors have ever been able to craft sentences like he did. Especially capturing vague uneasiness. That's why he is famous, why he keeps being read and why he deserves being among the more famous authors in the world ever. That's why I read him and enjoy reading him.

So here's the problem... movies made from Lovecraft books have everything else apart from the sentences. All the bad stuff. So does this. This is a stupid film. The plot and story is idiotic. The monsters are stupid. It's just big spiders with wings basically. The brains-in-a-jar-machine isn't horror at all. It's comedy. Also, this is a b-movie. The acting is not good. It's not quite Ed Wood level. But not far from it. And the books are full of subtle psychological stuff. It needs good actors to make it work.

I gave it a 2 because at least they tried. But they probably deserve a 1.
 
Mr. Holmes 9/10

Excellent movie. You don't have to be a Sherlock Holmes fan to really enjoy this movie. Good plot, good pace, and excellent acting from all. While there are a few interwoven mysteries, this is more than a mystery movie. Holmes as a very old man has some lessons to learn and teach about life yet to give.
 
The November Man

7/10

A rather unimaginative but competently-executed spy thriller, this one holds together thanks to strong lead performances from Pierce Brosnan and Olga Kurylenko. It's adapted from one in a series of novels by Bill Granger--I suspect rather loosely, as cliches of the genre turn up left and right, some more plausibly than others. Veteran Roger Donaldson knows how to handle action and delivers some solid sequences. This one didn't really have any surprises, but I still found it quite watchable. If nothing else, this one demonstrates that Brosnan was capable of making a more serious James Bond film--along the lines of the Daniel Craig movies--had the producers been so minded.
 
Ne le dis a personne/Tell No One

8/10

A very solid French adaptation of Harlan Coben's novel "Tell No One," pretty faithful to the source material other than the setting being changed to France, and part of a long series of French crime thrillers that maintain the tradition of directors like Chabrol and Melville. Francois Cluzet is very good as the protagonist, a Hitchcock-style hero (i.e., spends most of the movie dodging both cops and killers) who learns, eight years after what he believed was the murder of his wife, that she may be alive. The pacing is a little bit slower than a typical Hollywood thriller, but this one is worth watching. The supporting cast is solid; Kristin Scott Thomas and Nathalie Baye are probably the most recognizable names for most American viewers.
 
Ne le dis a personne/Tell No One

8/10

A very solid French adaptation of Harlan Coben's novel "Tell No One," pretty faithful to the source material other than the setting being changed to France, and part of a long series of French crime thrillers that maintain the tradition of directors like Chabrol and Melville. Francois Cluzet is very good as the protagonist, a Hitchcock-style hero (i.e., spends most of the movie dodging both cops and killers) who learns, eight years after what he believed was the murder of his wife, that she may be alive. The pacing is a little bit slower than a typical Hollywood thriller, but this one is worth watching. The supporting cast is solid; Kristin Scott Thomas and Nathalie Baye are probably the most recognizable names for most American viewers.

Reportedly, Harlen Coben, the author of the novel on which this movie is based, said that the movie's twist ending was better than the one in his novel. That may be a first.

Coben also had a cameo in the movie.
 
Sherlock Holmes

9/10

I'm pretty sure I wrote about this one previously at the old forum. At any rate, my take on it has not changed much in the nearly six years since it came out. Guy Ritchie essentially gave us a Victorian era James Bond film. Robert Downey's take on the title character emphasizes the bohemian, and sometimes dissolute, characteristics that were only hinted at in the Conan Doyle canon--but not at the expense of the man's intellect or ego; it's a bit of a controversial portrayal but I find it effective. Rachel McAdams as Irene Adler and Mark Strong as the villain are quite satisfactory. Far more than satisfactory is Jude Law, who is likely the best, and definitely the most badass Dr. Watson of all time.
 
Sherlock Holmes

9/10

I'm pretty sure I wrote about this one previously at the old forum. At any rate, my take on it has not changed much in the nearly six years since it came out. Guy Ritchie essentially gave us a Victorian era James Bond film. Robert Downey's take on the title character emphasizes the bohemian, and sometimes dissolute, characteristics that were only hinted at in the Conan Doyle canon--but not at the expense of the man's intellect or ego; it's a bit of a controversial portrayal but I find it effective. Rachel McAdams as Irene Adler and Mark Strong as the villain are quite satisfactory. Far more than satisfactory is Jude Law, who is likely the best, and definitely the most badass Dr. Watson of all time.

Many purists and others were not happy with the strong homoeroticism that runs through the series, but that's just one more of the things I enjoy about it.
 
X + Y

8/10

Just finished this movie about kids preparing for the International Mathematical Olympiad. I liked it, even if the math-geek autism stereotyping was a little much.
 
Young Victoria
6/10

Docudrama-lite. Very shallow story of young queen Victoria, how she became queen, the infighting and personal drama of her immediate family. Some interesting parts, how she was basically verbally and possibly physically abused by her mother's consort who wanted to use her to seize power, how her mother refused to help her and kept her isolated and totally under her control.

There is some implication how she wasn't ready to rule since her mother was to be regent with her and so they kept her pretty stupid and when Victoria refused to go along, she ended up on the throne unprepared. And since Victoria wasn't precocious like Elizabeth I was as a child, we end up watching a naive, not very well educated young woman try to catch on and that's not very interesting.

The politics around her ascension are dealt with as serious, but a sideshow that isn't given as much weight as needed. Seems like since our focus is on Victoria, we're as much in the dark about what's going on politically around her as she is.

Also, not interesting.

Her love affair with her cousin moves very quickly. I don't see how they became so deeply enamored of each other. I guess the movie implies that they write each other a lot, but you don't get that feeling that they connected very well.

Fast forwards through a lot of things.

Lavish costume drama, an eyeful to look at, pretty-faced leads,both him and her, and since it's a British production, almost everyone who's anyone in British cinema is in it and recognizable, so excellent acting all around.

Vaguely enjoyable. Seems like they really could have done something more serious here, but missed the opportunity.

Anonymous
8/10


Amazing story of the Oxfordian theory of Shakespeare authorship that holds that Edward de Vere, 17th Earl of Oxford, wrote the plays and poems traditionally attributed to William Shakespeare. VERY complicated story of the cultural restrictions of nobility, treason, the fight over the ascension to the English throne after Elizabeth I, religious clashes, bribery, blackmail, and murder.

Yeah, once you find out the secrets, it's really far fetched, but it's extremely enjoyable, another costume drama, very realistic.
 
[...]

Anonymous
8/10


Amazing story of the Oxfordian theory of Shakespeare authorship that holds that Edward de Vere, 17th Earl of Oxford, wrote the plays and poems traditionally attributed to William Shakespeare. VERY complicated story of the cultural restrictions of nobility, treason, the fight over the ascension to the English throne after Elizabeth I, religious clashes, bribery, blackmail, and murder.

Yeah, once you find out the secrets, it's really far fetched, but it's extremely enjoyable, another costume drama, very realistic.



Yeah, yeah, it's a long drawn-out analysis of Independence Day, but early in the video, Moviebob talks about Anonymous and speculates that the movie is essentially a metaphor for how director Roland Emmerich sees himself and his work.
 
Yeah, yeah, it's a long drawn-out analysis of Independence Day, but early in the video, Moviebob talks about Anonymous and speculates that the movie is essentially a metaphor for how director Roland Emmerich sees himself and his work.

Should I know about Moviebob? He talks bout 3 times too fast for me.
 
X-Men: Days of Future Past (Rogue Cut)

Well worth the extra 17 minutes. The extra footage intertwines nicely with the theatrical release, even drawing chilling parallels between events in the future and the past. If you liked Days of Future Past, Rogue Cut is definitely worth it.
 
Inglorious Basterds

I've seen this movie a few times now--mostly because I've never stayed awake to see the end.
I don't get it.
Not that it doesn't have its moments, it does.
Or maybe I've committed the horrible sin of thinking that the Holocaust and the Nazis have had their day in cinema, and it would be just fine if not another movie was ever made about either again.

4/10
 
X-Men: Days of Future Past (Rogue Cut)

Well worth the extra 17 minutes. The extra footage intertwines nicely with the theatrical release, even drawing chilling parallels between events in the future and the past. If you liked Days of Future Past, Rogue Cut is definitely worth it.
Thanks. I've been holding off on getting the Days of Future Past when I heard about the Rogue Cut going to be released.
 
Some Like It Hot. This is a comedy classic in B/W. The late Jack Lemon and Tony Curtis best work on my humble opinion. I've watched this film at least a dozen times, and it gets better the older it gets.
 
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