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

[DrZoidberg]

Mad Max: Fury Road 5/10

I hate when they do a remake that has nothing of the soul of the original. Then why call it a remake? Why not just call it something else. Just make a new franchise. That pissed me off to no end. Took a lot of the fun out of it.

But otherwise a great film. Lots of good action. That was the only thing actually. It was just cool fighting scenes. The film had zero content. It had nothing to say. Wanted nothing. It was just cool. Cool goes a long way. I docked lots of points for calling this Mad Max. It wasn't a Mad Max movie. It had nothing in common with any of the originals.

Clever frame story though. A good excuse to have lots of hot chicks in it. What's not to like about that?

 

[credoconsolans]

Mad Max: Fury Road 5/10

I hate when they do a remake that has nothing of the soul of the original. Then why call it a remake? Why not just call it something else. Just make a new franchise. That pissed me off to no end. Took a lot of the fun out of it.

But otherwise a great film. Lots of good action. That was the only thing actually. It was just cool fighting scenes. The film had zero content. It had nothing to say. Wanted nothing. It was just cool. Cool goes a long way. I docked lots of points for calling this Mad Max. It wasn't a Mad Max movie. It had nothing in common with any of the originals.

Clever frame story though. A good excuse to have lots of hot chicks in it. What's not to like about that?

It's not a remake. It's a 4th film, supposedly set in the time between Mad Max and the Road Warrior (Mad Max 2).

 

[Colonel Sanders]

It's not a remake. It's a 4th film, supposedly set in the time between Mad Max and the Road Warrior (Mad Max 2).

Is that what's known as an in-between-quel?

Housebound

It's about a young woman with a criminal past who's ordered to live with her mother for 8 months in lieu of jail. It quickly becomes apparent that the house is haunted, and strange things ensue, and there's a twist towards the end that is somehow both lame, but endearing.

Despite the weaknesses, this movie is really clever and funny. The lead actress, Morgana O'Reilly, is so utterly hate-able throughout the first third of the movie that you root against her. But as it progresses, she really wins you over as she becomes more vulnerable and more human. Also, her mother is unlikable as a weak and pathetic character, but also wins you over by the end. The dynamic between the two is so well done because it captures the frustration, resentment, but also the bonding created by shared experiences between parents and children so well.

There's some gore that's well done, but also hilarious at times.

This is one of those hidden gems. See it.

7/10

Passion of the Christ

I hadn't watched it since it first came out so I decided to see if I would view it in a different light lo these many years later.

God (pun intended), what a violent movie. It is difficult for me to think of a flick that visually, is more graphically violent and cruel than this one. The depiction of the torture and crucifixion of Jesus spares nothing. And of course, that's the point--to show how much the Christian savior suffered for mankind's sins. The question though, is whether the viewer truly gets that message, or if this is simply an accurate depiction of the cruelty of the Jews and Romans--or humanity in general. I think it works for the latter, but not the former.

Of course that depends on the viewer. Christians around the world saw this and wept with guilt and horror at Jesus' pain. But ironically, at least from my POV, I couldn't help but think that it's okay because after all, he is God and while this is a really, really, really bad day for him, it's all gravy after this. After all, a trillion years from now, will he even remember this? And what about others who went through even worse? There are certainly many, many other very mortal people who have suffered more and for a longer period than a day. And with that in mind, at least in terms of message, the only thing I can draw from it is that human beings are capable of terrible cruelty. In this case, the cruelty was a result of religious differences. And no matter how much I try to see Jesus' suffering as a sacrifice made for me, all I can think is, "no dude, there are way better ways to accomplish your goals."

As for the rest of the movie, most of the characters are cartoonish and there is much melodrama that without the production values coupled with the incredible torture scenes would have been a quickly forgotten B movie.

5/10

 

[Jayjay]

Mad Max: Fury Road 5/10

I hate when they do a remake that has nothing of the soul of the original. Then why call it a remake? Why not just call it something else. Just make a new franchise. That pissed me off to no end. Took a lot of the fun out of it.

But otherwise a great film. Lots of good action. That was the only thing actually. It was just cool fighting scenes. The film had zero content. It had nothing to say. Wanted nothing. It was just cool. Cool goes a long way. I docked lots of points for calling this Mad Max. It wasn't a Mad Max movie. It had nothing in common with any of the originals.

Clever frame story though. A good excuse to have lots of hot chicks in it. What's not to like about that?

It's not a remake. It's a 4th film, supposedly set in the time between Mad Max and the Road Warrior (Mad Max 2).

Supposedly? I don't see how it could, since his car got wrecked in Fury Road but was still intact in Road Warrior. Besides it seems like a lot more time has passed since the civilization fell apart in Fury Road, than in Road Warrior.

 

[prideandfall]

It's not a remake. It's a 4th film, supposedly set in the time between Mad Max and the Road Warrior (Mad Max 2).

Supposedly? I don't see how it could, since his car got wrecked in Fury Road but was still intact in Road Warrior. Besides it seems like a lot more time has passed since the civilization fell apart in Fury Road, than in Road Warrior.

when george miller first got the ball rolling for fury road and tried to get it made, it was in the late 90s - that version of the script had the movie styled to be a bridge between mad max and the road warrior... it was supposed to be a road warrior prequel, and would have shown how certain characters transitioned (for example, the original notion for rictus erectus is that he would become lord humongous by the end of the film).
the project was green-lit and pre-production had started (and actually had mel gibson cast as max) when 9/11 happened, and the studio chickened out about having a post-apocalyptic movie coming out "in a post 9/11 world" and tanked the project.
by the time it got around to being made, miller had moved away from the original idea and tinkered with the script to make it more of an original story within the mad max world, which is how it ended up.

it's not a sequel, or a reboot, or a remake. it's just another story within the 'wasteland' world.

 

[Sarpedon]

ok, I saw

Star Wars VII: Chewbacca keeps it real. 8/10

Seriously, how is Chewbacca not considered to be the hero of all these movies? He is the most competent and level headed of the cast. One of the best things about this new movie is that it gave him several moments, whether he's commenting on Han's bullshit or flirting with an admiring doctor.

Anyhow, this movie succeeds in capturing the spirit of the originals at the cost of being very unoriginal. Enough has been said on that subject already for me to belabor it again. However, I think it is generally a quality film that adds to the overall mythos more than it detracts. Some things it does right: While not much time is spent on character development, such that is ends up being effective and good. Finn for example has the best arc, with his nervous, manic energy contrasted with his physical strength and presence, and all against the background of his fears. Poe by contrast is the least interesting, with Ray being somewhere in the middle, with more questions being raised than progress made. On the Evil side, we have the disturbingly young and shrill First Order general, and the also young but less shrill Kylo Ren, who at least has a strong character based motivation for imitating a character from the original series. Ren's character arc is very good and efficient, with each step clearly following from the previous without seeming trite. The General, who's name I don't recall, so I'll call him Stimpy, doesn't have much of a character beyond his brief, obviously Hitler inspired speech. The so called 'Supreme Leader' who's name is Snoke, in continuing with Star Wars' tradition of terrible names, appears only in hologram form, resembles one of the Ringwraiths in the shadow realm, and also manages to be mysterious in a way that doesn't really make you curious about him. But the triumph of the bad guys were the new stormtroopers, who literally do manage to make it cool to be a trooper again. With a new-found elan and competence, slick uniforms, lots of new gadgets, coed policy, and a modicum of individuality, the troopers steal the show.

From everyone except Chewbacca. Chewbacca is the best.

Dishonorable mention has to go to Carrie Fisher for her rather leaden performance of Leia. It would have been better had she just sang Tom Waits songs with her new-found whiskey and cigarrettes voice. Heck, she could have played the role of the voice of Akbar in addition to Leia, just as John Rhys-Davies did both Gimli and the voice of Treebeard in Lord of the Rings.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

The Apartment - It was New Years Eve which means I watch one of my favorite films of all time. This Billy Wilder classic succeeds as a movie with a serious plot while having great comic moments and some incredible one liners. Billy Wilder is one of the best things that ever happened to Hollywood. And this is one of the best movies ever made. 4 of 4

Minions - I think this movie had a lot it had to overcome. The franchise has being moving towards a Minion only movie, but to pull off a quasi-silent film for a long period of time isn't easy. I think the creators pulled it off pretty well. The movie maintained a good pace through out. The movie wasn't incredibly funny, but it was charming and entertaining. 2.75 of 4

 

[prideandfall]

interstellar: 2/10 (and that's being generous largely due to the context in which i saw it)
i think this may well have been one of the worst movies i have ever seen, and if not for the fact i was just sprawled out on my couch with a friend while we both screamed at the TV it would have been utterly intolerable.
i can't even begin to categorize the fucktarded in this shitfest, from the messy and disjointed screenplay to the abysmal writing and dialogue to the horrible characterizations to the hit-and-miss acting to the irrational and idiotic plot and situations, there was not a single redeeming quality to this ass boil of a movie.

sucker punch: 8/10
a film from 2011 that i hadn't watched since seeing it in the theater, and my movie companion for the night hadn't seen it.
one of the most brilliant examples of visual storytelling in a medium that until this movie i had not realized had so little visual storytelling in it.
it's a brilliant examination of imagination and escapism that has an incredible amount of layered symbolism and metaphor packed into pretty much every single frame.

magnolia: 4/10
weird movie from 1999 - it's like babel or crash in that "several randoms stories connected by theme or happenstance" only less pretentious and more pointless.
was one of those movies that i had a hard time determining the point of - it wasn't fun to watch, it wasn't entertaining, it wasn't poignant, it wasn't thought provoking, and it wasn't innovative. it was just a low-key drama about a bunch of moderately shitty people that ended in an inexplicable fantasy set piece.

 

[TSwizzle]

No Country for Old Men, 6/10: Stars Josh Brolin, Tommy Lee Jones, Javier Bardem. This is a Coen brothers movie, seen one, seen 'em all. Anyway, it's a weird movie about Brolin's character stumbling across a drug deal gone bad. The scene is littered with dead bodies and dead dogs but in all of this is the $2m drug money which Brolin snags for himself. Javier Bardem plays the drug cartel's clean up guy, sent out to retrieve the money and slaughter a lot of people using an unorthodox method, some sort of bolt gun. The first tow thirds of the movie are quite good but as it come to wrapping things up, it just got pretty boring. I think it would have been better (for me at least) to have shortened the running time from 2 hours to 90 minutes.


Among Giants, 5/10: Stars Pete Postlethwaite, Rachel Griffiths. Postlethwaite is a middle aged divorcee, keen climber and outdoors-man who has a sketchy job of painting electricity pylons with an eclectic crew of friends drafted in as painters. Griffiths shows up and for whatever unlikely reason becomes romantically involved with Pete Postlethwaite. Not a great deal to this movie but Griffiths gets her kit off for some full frontal nudity.

 

[Shadowy Man]

No Country for Old Men, 6/10: Stars Josh Brolin, Tommy Lee Jones, Javier Bardem. This is a Coen brothers movie, seen one, seen 'em all. Anyway, it's a weird movie about Brolin's character stumbling across a drug deal gone bad. The scene is littered with dead bodies and dead dogs but in all of this is the $2m drug money which Brolin snags for himself. Javier Bardem plays the drug cartel's clean up guy, sent out to retrieve the money and slaughter a lot of people using an unorthodox method, some sort of bolt gun. The first tow thirds of the movie are quite good but as it come to wrapping things up, it just got pretty boring. I think it would have been better (for me at least) to have shortened the running time from 2 hours to 90 minutes.

I'm generally a big Coen Brothers fan, but they're a bit hit or miss with me, and this one was a miss. I didn't get much out of it.

 

[Tom Sawyer]

No Country for Old Men, 6/10: Stars Josh Brolin, Tommy Lee Jones, Javier Bardem. This is a Coen brothers movie, seen one, seen 'em all. Anyway, it's a weird movie about Brolin's character stumbling across a drug deal gone bad. The scene is littered with dead bodies and dead dogs but in all of this is the $2m drug money which Brolin snags for himself. Javier Bardem plays the drug cartel's clean up guy, sent out to retrieve the money and slaughter a lot of people using an unorthodox method, some sort of bolt gun. The first tow thirds of the movie are quite good but as it come to wrapping things up, it just got pretty boring. I think it would have been better (for me at least) to have shortened the running time from 2 hours to 90 minutes.

I'm generally a big Coen Brothers fan, but they're a bit hit or miss with me, and this one was a miss. I didn't get much out of it.

Ya, I'm the same. Everyone goes on about what a great movie this was, but I just found it to be a boring dud.

 

[Tom Sawyer]

sucker punch: 8/10
a film from 2011 that i hadn't watched since seeing it in the theater, and my movie companion for the night hadn't seen it.
one of the most brilliant examples of visual storytelling in a medium that until this movie i had not realized had so little visual storytelling in it.
it's a brilliant examination of imagination and escapism that has an incredible amount of layered symbolism and metaphor packed into pretty much every single frame.

One of the few good things about this movie is that they make a point at the beginning of letting you know that the main character is 20 years old, even though they dress her as a young teenager. That means that you don't need to feel awkward when masturbating to her. There's some decent softcore anime-ish porn throughout it, but the whole layered symbolism thing that they were going for either tried too hard or didn't try hard enough and just completely missed what they were going for.

 

[prideandfall]

One of the few good things about this movie is that they make a point at the beginning of letting you know that the main character is 20 years old, even though they dress her as a young teenager. That means that you don't need to feel awkward when masturbating to her. There's some decent softcore anime-ish porn throughout it, but the whole layered symbolism thing that they were going for either tried too hard or didn't try hard enough and just completely missed what they were going for.

i completely disagree with both your implied point and your explicit one - the first being that the movie is in any way fetishistic or erotic (which i don't find it to be at all), and the second that it failed in what it was going for.

 

[Colonel Sanders]

sucker punch: 8/10
a film from 2011 that i hadn't watched since seeing it in the theater, and my movie companion for the night hadn't seen it.
one of the most brilliant examples of visual storytelling in a medium that until this movie i had not realized had so little visual storytelling in it.
it's a brilliant examination of imagination and escapism that has an incredible amount of layered symbolism and metaphor packed into pretty much every single frame.

One of the few good things about this movie is that they make a point at the beginning of letting you know that the main character is 20 years old, even though they dress her as a young teenager. That means that you don't need to feel awkward when masturbating to her. There's some decent softcore anime-ish porn throughout it, but the whole layered symbolism thing that they were going for either tried too hard or didn't try hard enough and just completely missed what they were going for.

They were going for a movie that was equal parts action and jack-off material for those who don't have internet access.

It's an interesting looking film at times, but it's pretty, indulgent garbage, and not a lot more.

 

[Colonel Sanders]

One of the few good things about this movie is that they make a point at the beginning of letting you know that the main character is 20 years old, even though they dress her as a young teenager. That means that you don't need to feel awkward when masturbating to her. There's some decent softcore anime-ish porn throughout it, but the whole layered symbolism thing that they were going for either tried too hard or didn't try hard enough and just completely missed what they were going for.

i completely disagree with both your implied point and your explicit one - the first being that the movie is in any way fetishistic or erotic (which i don't find it to be at all), and the second that it failed in what it was going for.

So, fishnet stockings, garter belts, bare midriffs, women dressed up like girls, bulging boobies hanging out of bras about 5 sizes to small, heavy makeup, sexual slavery and deviancy have nothing to do with erotica?

In other news, Saving Private Ryan wasn't a war movie.

 

[prideandfall]

So, fishnet stockings, garter belts, bare midriffs, women dressed up like girls

the implication here is that the being women automatically makes them ipso facto objects of male sexual desire by virtue of their existence, which quite frankly i think is an incredibly fucked up way to view the world.

bulging boobies hanging out of bras about 5 sizes to small, heavy makeup, sexual slavery and deviancy have nothing to do with erotica?

well the first in your list doesn't exist in the movie, flat out, and the rest are contextually appropriate within the story.
is memoirs of a geisha automatically smutty male erotica because it has partially naked women in it?
again you're making an implication that if a woman exists in any state but fully clothed, they are inherently nothing more than fodder for male sexual urges... which rather ironically was one of the point being argued against in the film.

 

[Tom Sawyer]

the implication here is that the being women automatically makes them ipso facto objects of male sexual desire by virtue of their existence, which quite frankly i think is an incredibly fucked up way to view the world.

bulging boobies hanging out of bras about 5 sizes to small, heavy makeup, sexual slavery and deviancy have nothing to do with erotica?

well the first in your list doesn't exist in the movie, flat out, and the rest are contextually appropriate within the story.
is memoirs of a geisha automatically smutty male erotica because it has partially naked women in it?
again you're making an implication that if a woman exists in any state but fully clothed, they are inherently nothing more than fodder for male sexual urges... which rather ironically was one of the point being argued against in the film.

Well ya, that was one of the points being argued in the film in the same way that the Thor movie was making the argument that ancient societies wouldn't have been able to tell the difference between aliens and gods, so religions are evidence of extraterrestrials. You can see that argument there if you squint and look at the film crooked, but it's not actually what the movie was about.

 

[prideandfall]

Well ya, that was one of the points being argued in the film in the same way that the Thor movie was making the argument that ancient societies wouldn't have been able to tell the difference between aliens and gods, so religions are evidence of extraterrestrials. You can see that argument there if you squint and look at the film crooked, but it's not actually what the movie was about.

except for the part where the director of the movie has explicitly stated that was the intention, and i saw it as the primary theme of the movie from the first time i saw it, and others have seen it as the primary theme of the film from the first time they saw it.

look, movies are clearly subjective and people will get out of it whatever they get out of it, but using your own example: saying that sucker punch is about masturbatory eye candy is like saying that thor is about idealizing life in rural southwest small-town USA.
if you choose to take that away from the film, so be it - that's valid for you to see it that way, but you are factually wrong when you try to state that was the film maker's intent or that there isn't something else going on, regardless of whether or not you picked up on it.

 

[Tom Sawyer]

Well ya, that was one of the points being argued in the film in the same way that the Thor movie was making the argument that ancient societies wouldn't have been able to tell the difference between aliens and gods, so religions are evidence of extraterrestrials. You can see that argument there if you squint and look at the film crooked, but it's not actually what the movie was about.

except for the part where the director of the movie has explicitly stated that was the intention, and i saw it as the primary theme of the movie from the first time i saw it, and others have seen it as the primary theme of the film from the first time they saw it.

look, movies are clearly subjective and people will get out of it whatever they get out of it, but using your own example: saying that sucker punch is about masturbatory eye candy is like saying that thor is about idealizing life in rural southwest small-town USA.
if you choose to take that away from the film, so be it - that's valid for you to see it that way, but you are factually wrong when you try to state that was the film maker's intent or that there isn't something else going on, regardless of whether or not you picked up on it.

No, I picked up on it - in the same way that I picked up on the fact that the Star Wars prequels were an insightful analysis on the nature of evil and the corrupting influences of power. In the same way as those, however, the movie failed to deliver. Sucker Punch is a circle jerk of half-conceived ideas, sophomoric fantasies and idiotic musings done by hollow and stupid characters. While I give both Lucas and Snyder props for trying to do something different and having a unique vision for a film in a time when the majority of movies are bland and generic cookie-cutter variations of the same basic themes overseen by corporate committees more concerned with mitigating risk than delivering a quality product, taking risk means risking failure and they both failed spectacularly at what they were going for. I accept that there are people out there who think that Anakin's fall from grace was deep and moving, but those people just also need to accept that that they are fucking wrong. They are reading elements into the film which weren't actually what the film gave and it's the same thing with Sucker Punch.

Sucker Punch clearly wanted to be more than it is. They were going for the next Matrix, but instead delivered nothing more than the next Matrix Revolutions. It has some stunning visuals, but it's constant beating the audience over the head with its mediocre attempts at meaning and insight were a complete miss.

Edit - I do have to give the film some respect, though. Rarely has such a mediocre and irrelevant movie generated such passion of opinion about it on both sides of the issue.

 

[DrZoidberg]

Maggie 6/10

A touching and deep drama about a family where a daughter in the family is slowly succumbing to a deadly disease. Decent acting. Even from invincible Arnold. The mother can't deal with losing her daughter and retreats in on herself, and the father is just full of denial. The authorities try to be nice but ultimately have to put their foot down. Interesting with a film like this where it's the main character who's the idiot and the authorities are actually the good guys.

The problem is that this is a zombie-flick. The whole thing about the dead walking ruins a lot of the effectiveness of the drama. There's a zombie tradition which makes me expect certain things, that this film isn't delivering any of it. There's very little zombies jumping out. And there's zero focus on creating ways to kill zombies. Sometimes they don't even show the killing. There's almost no gore in it. Another diversion from the genre is that the world hasn't fallen apart. Society copes really well with the zombie apocalypse. Things are just a bit tough right now. But things are mostly much like normal with zombies well contained.

The fresh zombie take is interesting. A gave them extra points for it. But ultimately it didn't work. By reinventing the zombie genre they lose what makes zombie movies work. I've never seen zombie movies as an exploration of disease. Good zombie movies just gloss over it and never bother with explaining it. I've always seen them more as critiques on society in various ways, ie how little disruption is needed for the worst in humanity to come out. This film had none of that.

I think they would have been better off if they'd just made a straight drama about a real deadly disease, like Ebola, AIDS or something like it. Which is what this film really is about. That was my impression anyway. If they'd done that the emotional and dramatic impact would have been a hell of a lot more powerful. Which is what we want from a drama. So nice try but ultimately meh.

I also added points for Arnold. I love that guy.