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  1. In Memory of LAJ_FETT: Please share your remembrances and condolences HERE

Amph What was the last movie you saw?

Discussion in 'Community' started by TheEmperorsProtege, Aug 15, 2004.

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  1. CT-867-5309

    CT-867-5309 Chosen One star 7

    Registered:
    Jan 5, 2011

    Tango & Cash is one of the greatest movies of all time. And it's nowhere near a Lethal Weapon rip-off, or trying to be.

    It's more like if Big Trouble in Little China became a buddy cop movie. It's silly and stupid on purpose. It brought us the idea of exploding bazooka boots, the greatest invention of all time.


    [​IMG]

    Argue with that.
     
  2. DAR

    DAR Jedi Grand Master star 4

    Registered:
    Jul 8, 2004
    I actually prefer it to Mary Poppins.
     
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  3. Rogue1-and-a-half

    Rogue1-and-a-half Manager Emeritus who is writing his masterpiece star 9 VIP - Former Mod/RSA

    Registered:
    Nov 2, 2000
    Well, like I said in the review, it's a comedy wavelength that you're either on or you're not. But even if you're not, you can't deny that Key & Peele are dedicated to a very particular, quite unique style of comedy. That they didn't decide to try to tone it down a little with their debut feature is quite a bold decision. I think you have to respect, even if you don't find it funny, that their comedy is in no way mainstream and they have no interest in making something MOR.

    I really like the bit with the parallel exchanges happening on different floors from Ghost Protocol. That really feels like the kind of con you might have seen on the TV show.

    [​IMG]

    Zootopia (2016) – Byron Howard, Rich Moore, Jared Bush

    Everyone comes to Zootopia thinking they could be anything they want. But you can’t. You can only be what you are. Sly fox. Dumb bunny.

    I am not a dumb bunny.

    Zootopia is a triumph of something like epic proportions. It’s a wonderfully imagined story with wonderfully imagined characters and wonderfully imagined themes set in a wonderfully imagined world. The world Zootopia is set in is a brilliant, imaginative world of pure wonder; the city scape of Zootopia is a magical place, no question. The animation is startlingly beautiful, both in terms of the setting and the characters. Judy Hopps and Nick Wilde, our leading characters here, are incredibly expressive and very compelling as characters; much love to the great performances by an emotionally complicated Ginnifer Goodwin and a wry, sarcastic Jason Bateman. And the film pulls off a great feat by structuring itself around a sort of film noir mystery plot that is genuinely engaging. And the way the film uses its premise as a way to talk about race and diversity is absolutely genius, managing to get both hilarious jokes and real sadness out of the parallels between the animated Zootopia and our own real world. This element makes the film feel utterly and absolutely of the moment, urgent and visceral; but it also makes it feel somehow timeless, addressing as it does, with real cleverness and insight, these large issues. But the film is smart enough not to make it a one to one comparison. The film raises a lot of issues, but never pounds the pulpit or gets on the soapbox. And the film is compelling as a comedy, a thriller and a drama. The Mr. Big character is a joke we’ve all seen before, but the design on the character and the way the film just totally commits to the joke had me rolling on the floor practically every second he was on screen. Meanwhile, a rain-forest tree top chase scene plays as genuinely suspenseful and heart-pounding; the film wisely establishes very early that these aren’t the old school invincible cartoons, so we know that these characters can be hurt, even bleed. And the relationship between Judy and Nick feels absolutely real and there are some genuinely powerful moments, like a quiet conversation on a cable car and a rapprochement under a bridge. I will admit to getting a little misty a couple of times during this film. The movie really makes you care about the characters, which, I suppose, is why the rest of the film’s elements work as well as they do. And can I just throw one more thing out there? Maybe we’ve never needed as much as we do now a film about an idealistic police officer who genuinely wants to stand up for tolerance and help people. Look, cops, you’ve been taking some major PR hits and rightly so, but, look, we still WANT to believe in the people who wear the uniforms in our world. I feel like Judy’s proof of that. The cops can stand up for what’s right too and be what we want and need them to be. Regardless, this was a movie I only just got to seeing so I was pretty worried that I’d been overhyped for it and that maybe, as a result, I’d find the movie to be overrated. Not so. I’m not sure you CAN overhype this movie. It’s something really, really close to perfect, a movie of the moment that will stand the test of time. 4 stars.

    tl;dr – animated masterpiece manages social commentary, hilarious comedy, real thrills and surprisingly compelling drama; top of the line in every single way. 4 stars.

    Movie Reviews!
     
  4. Havac

    Havac Former Moderator star 7 VIP - Former Mod/RSA

    Registered:
    Sep 29, 2005
    Ferris Bueller's Day Off. A pleasantly goofy, high-energy teenage comedy, its primary weakness is that the main character . . . isn't actually that likable. Ferris Bueller is meant to be an impossibly likable golden boy, but he's just so smarmily self-impressed the whole goddamn time that it's off-putting. It calms down a bit over the course of the movie, but the whole intro spends its time fawning over how amazing and cool Ferris Bueller is, and it's . . . a smug, nasally Matthew Broderick doing a pretty generic "cool rebellious teenager" routine. I still enjoyed the movie, but I had to roll my eyes at its hero worship of such a bland character.
     
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  5. The Krynoid Man

    The Krynoid Man Jedi Master star 3

    Registered:
    Dec 24, 2015
    When a Stranger Calls (1979). The first 20 minutes of this film is a masterwork of suspense. Unfortunately, the rest of it is poor by comparison. I think it would have worked better as a short film.
     
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  6. AndyLGR

    AndyLGR Jedi Grand Master star 4

    Registered:
    May 1, 2014
    Hunger Games I expected this to be extremely futuristic, with the fights going on is some science fiction arenas. Yes you do see some futuristic stuff in the capital, but I think I had The Running Man in my head. I didn't expect a sort of repressed back water town looking like a cross between a prison camp and a wild west town, with an almost Nazi like rule overseeing it. The whole film seems like a mish mash of genres and other things, like the aforementioned Running Man, The Fifth Element or The Wizard of Oz spring to mind too with its eccentric characters and the capital. I liked that they didn't know what type of area they would be fighting in as they boarded the tubes.

    I was surprised to quite enjoy it. The best thing about it was Woody Harellsons drunken character and overall I quite liked the idea behind the story. So much so that I decided to watch the second film the following night as they were both on TV over the weekend. Girl on Fire is pretty much the same story as the first one. The only difference is that you have the political uprising going on in the background that Donald Sutherland is trying to suppress and you have the tyrannical rule, again Nazi-esque, as they try to stamp down on any signs of rebellion. Even going so far as to take it out on the leads dress designer. Its clever that Sutherlands character wants to eliminate the game winners, who could be seen as rebellion leaders, by pitting them against each other in the next round of hunger games. As it was so similar to the first I didn't enjoy this as much. Plus there was too much going on in the dark that was hard to make out what it was and the ending was also too abrupt. But having said that I will try to watch the final 2 films.
     
  7. zisme

    zisme Jedi Knight star 1

    Registered:
    Jan 19, 2016
    watched a lot of movies this weekend thanks to some persistently wet weather, but the last of them was:
    Hard Candy (2006)

    I've been meaning to watch this movie for years, but just never got around to it. I knew the premise and many of the major plot details simply from overhearing conversations, etc. - so i when i noticed it on amazon prime last night i decided it'd be worth it just to finally check the box.

    i ended up still really enjoying the film. ellen page and patrick wilson deliver strong, committed and often disturbing performances. well paced and cleverly shot - great use of tone and color. my favorite aspect of this movie is how it makes you constantly second guess your feelings about both characters throughout their confrontation.

    visceral and challenging. great end credit song too!
     
  8. Sith_Sensei__Prime

    Sith_Sensei__Prime Chosen One star 6

    Registered:
    May 22, 2000
    The Hunger Games: Mocking Jay Part 2

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    In a word: meh.

    I felt the series lost a lot of momentum by splitting the final chapter into two films to milk the franchise. As such, I couldn't remember the happenings in Part 1 so there wasn't any build up or anticipation for Part 2.

    The conclusion of the film reminded me a lot of the conclusion to the Matrix trilogy; flat and uninspiring.
     
  9. Rogue1-and-a-half

    Rogue1-and-a-half Manager Emeritus who is writing his masterpiece star 9 VIP - Former Mod/RSA

    Registered:
    Nov 2, 2000
    The Man Who Knew Infinity (2015) – Matthew Brown

    [​IMG]

    An equation means nothing to me unless it expresses a thought of God.

    The Man Who Knew Infinity tells the unlikely story of Srinivasa Ramanujan, a basically uneducated clerk in India who found his way to Trinity College in the years just prior to 1920 due to a strange, intuitive understanding of incredibly advanced mathematics. The film is very much a standard biopic; it doesn’t do much of anything really innovative with the form and this does kind of start to get a little dull in the second half of the film. But the performances do a lot to elevate the film. Dev Patel, a really fine & charismatic actor who is unfortunately hindered by his ethnicity, gives a really solid performance in the lead and Jeremy Irons is . . . better than he’s been in a few years, I’d say, as mathematician G.H. Hardy, the English professor who befriends and works with Ramanujan during his time at Trinity. Toby Stephens is quite good in a supporting role as a likeable colleague of Hardy’s and Jeremy Northam gives a very naturalistic performance as Bertrand Russell, though he’s quite underused. And then there’s a wonderful performance by Devika Bhise as Ramanujan’s wife, struggling with being left behind in India; it could easily be a totally thankless role and it’s pretty underwritten, but Bhise is really incredibly good and I hope to see more from her in the future (she gets an “introducing” credit here, so presumably she’s early in her career). The first half of the film is quite compelling and entertaining, but the film starts to drag once it really begins to hit all the standard biopic beats, though the performances keep the film from ever really becoming bad or completely dull. The film does a good job at balancing the wondrous incomprehensibility of higher maths with occasionally giving us something to hold on to. Ramanujan sees his equations as art and when you see the incredibly long, utterly incomprehensible formulas he writes out, there’s a kind of awe in seeing them and in not understanding them. But the film takes a beat and has Hardy explain the principle of partitions to his secretary in a “no, look, even you can understand this” moment that feels incredibly organic and so as you see Ramanujan and Hardy work toward cracking the partition formula, a mathematical problem thought to be impossible, the “rabbit hole of the universe,” in Hardy’s words, it has real weight and energy. All in all, I found it to be a warm, sincere biopic, buoyed substantially by a stellar cast, all fully committed. The script could be better and I should just mention that the score is pretty sappy and almost continuous. Not a world-shaker, but a pleasant enough watch, certainly if you’re at all interested in Patel or Irons as performers. 3 stars.

    tl;dr – film leans on standard biopic clichés more heavily than it should, but a cast of committed performers buoy the film with their performances; likable, if not always compelling. 3 stars.
     
  10. CT1138

    CT1138 Jedi Master star 4

    Registered:
    Sep 4, 2013
    Finally got around to seeing "The Man from U.N.C.L.E." and I really enjoyed it. Henry Cavill could not have been a more perfect fit with a perfect mix of wit and stoicism. The movie really brought a sense of humor and fun to the gentleman spy scene that I haven't seen since "Kingsman". With a lot of fun twists that keeps you guessing the whole movie, I thought it was a fun movie all around, and I wouldn't hesitate to give it a pure 5/5 stars.
     
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  11. Ramza

    Ramza Administrator Emeritus star 9 VIP - Former Mod/RSA

    Registered:
    Jul 13, 2008
    Does Irons come across as the sort of man who would write a lengthy essay about how his particular subdiscipline is the most beautiful subdiscipline because it has no practical applications just as his subdiscipline is about to become indispensable to the rapidly burgeoning field of cryptography? This is a potential deal breaker.
     
  12. Darth Basin

    Darth Basin Jedi Master star 5

    Registered:
    Aug 15, 2015
    I'll add a little bit more 2 my review of CACW then ok.

    It's really feels like "filler" until we get Infiniti War. Spider-Man was fully cgi but noticeable cgi unlike IM & WM. Forgettable main villain. But interesting yet predictable twist at the end. Probably better if 1 of the sidekicks like Hawkeye (still no uniform) or WM died.

    Long story short AM was better.
     
  13. The2ndQuest

    The2ndQuest Tri-Mod With a Mouth star 10 Staff Member Manager

    Registered:
    Jan 27, 2000
    Batman: Year One- Clearly the story basis for much of Batman Begins, this adaptation of the graphic novel is pretty solid. Great cast too (Cranston as Gordon and oddly enough, Ben McKenzie [who plays Gordon on Gotham] as Batman, etc).

    Only major short coming is that it feels too abbreviated (the movie is just a few minutes over an hour long)- even though this might be the result of being faithful to the source material, I think they could have easily expanded upon the content to at least a full hour and half. As it stands currently, some subplots like Catwoman's feel extraneous and without resolution.

    Beyond that, there's not much to dislike here (though, even with the PG-13 rating, the movie still feels like lighter material than The Animated Series) and ultimately comes across as one of the better DCU animated features. It's still not a must-see but it's not too shabby.
     
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  14. The_Four_Dot_Elipsis

    The_Four_Dot_Elipsis Jedi Grand Master star 5

    Registered:
    Mar 3, 2005

    One of the best examples of editing in recent times. No surprise then that it is done by deadset legend Paul Hirsch, who did the first M:I, most of De Palma's films (which are roundly superbly edited) and of course the original two Star Wars films.
     
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  15. PCCViking

    PCCViking Chosen One star 10

    Registered:
    Jun 12, 2014
    Money Monster
     
  16. The Krynoid Man

    The Krynoid Man Jedi Master star 3

    Registered:
    Dec 24, 2015
    The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes. An enjoyable parody of the Conan Doyle stories with Robert Stephens making for an excellent Holmes.
     
  17. Mortimer Snerd

    Mortimer Snerd Force Ghost star 4

    Registered:
    Dec 27, 2012
    The Martian

    Yeah it was pretty good. I'll watch it again.
     
  18. Todd the Jedi

    Todd the Jedi Mod and Loving Tyrant of SWTV, Lit, & Collecting star 6 Staff Member Manager

    Registered:
    Oct 16, 2008
    Sounds faithful to the comic then (IIRC). :p It's been years since I read it though, so I could be wrong.
     
  19. Master_Lok

    Master_Lok Force Ghost star 6

    Registered:
    Dec 18, 2012
    So, in between reading some awful Literature (can't wait until I can move on) and writing an assignment for my Fiction Writing class, I revisited Masked Avengers as I was testing my Taiwanese dvd and got sucked in.

    "Chicken blood? That's dull." Well, if you're a debauched gang of killers for hire who wear demon masks and use tridents to kill, I guess it would be boring to cut your wine with chicken blood. Anyway... one of the most straight forward and to-the-point Venoms films. And one I really like now.

    Ditto for Shaolin Temple (1976) which is now one of my favorite Chang Cheh films. The last 25 minutes feature a variety of wonderful kung fu on display: Wing Chun, Hung Gar, acrobatics, weapons and other such things by really great people. Still, I could watch Ti Lung Wing Chun the crap out of a tree (obviously built over one of the Wing Chun wooden men) for at least 30 minutes. Great movie in which you care about the young students at the temple and are intrigued by the bad guys. Excellent and endlessly watchable.
     
  20. GregMcP

    GregMcP Force Ghost star 5

    Registered:
    Jul 7, 2015
    Gods Of Egypt.
    I completely dismissed this movie when I saw the trailer. And my initial impression was right. It's a big video game, and they didnt have the budget or skill to do the CGI up to 2015 standards. CGI characters have that early 2000's animated look of having no inertia physics. That feeling that nothing is "real" means that you can't invest much emotion into the story. "Oh no! Egypt will be destroyed!" doesn't hit hard when Egypt is a video game level.

    But the movie is fairly light hearted on the whole, and it plays around with Egyptian mythology and gets inventive at times. It's an easy watch. It tries for a bit of an Aladdin vibe with a kid off the street messing with the gods, all for the love of a hot babe. You don't get too invested in any character, but you don't get outright repelled by their cardboardiness.

    Anyway, I ended up liking it more than I expected.
     
  21. TiniTinyTony

    TiniTinyTony JCC Super Bowl Pick 'Em Winner star 7 VIP - Game Winner

    Registered:
    Mar 9, 2003
    The Hateful Eight [2015] - As expected, the movie was very Tarantino, with the violence and the cursing, which I loved, but also very slow at parts. I felt it spent a little too much time in the carriage. I didn't realize that essentially the carriage and the Haberdashery would be the only two set pieces, but I enjoyed the mystery of it all once everyone was at the Haberdashery. The use of the N word seemed a little overboard than usual, but only because my girlfriend pointed it out which made me more aware of it during viewing, otherwise it didn't bother me. Most of the acting was excellent save for Jennifer Jason Leigh who seemed to be channeling Melissa Leo, Tim Roth who seemed to be doing a poor impression of Christoph Waltz, and Zoe Bell who seemed a little too over enthusiastic for her small part in the flashback scene (the scene itself felt very similar to the scene before the Massacre at Two Pines in Kill Bill V2 - needed, but too much happy in it and less normalcy if that makes sense).

    Despite the above little nitpicks, I enjoyed this film and would choose to watch this again soon over Django. Sam Jackson definitely steals the show and I loved the idea of the Lincoln letter.
     
  22. Mortimer Snerd

    Mortimer Snerd Force Ghost star 4

    Registered:
    Dec 27, 2012
    The Revenant

    Beautiful scenery. Man that guy just couldn't catch a break.

    Damn.
     
  23. Juke Skywalker

    Juke Skywalker Force Ghost star 5

    Registered:
    Mar 27, 2004
    Did you happen to go see it on the big screen? I know when I caught Civil War they showed previews of some older films getting limited runs and I remember both Ferris Bueller and Top Gun were getting May releases for their 30th anniversaries.

    I'm with you on FBDO. I worship at the church of John Hughes, but FB is just not one I've ever had any love for. I'd have been okay if Cameron and Sloane had gone off on their own adventure and left Ferris at home.

    Have you read the novel? Absolutely worth it, even if you've seen the film. Hard science mixed with humor? Sold!

    DCU usually does right by Batman. I'd put Year One below The Dark Knight Returns Pt.1, Under the Red Hood and Assault on Arkham, but above Batman and Son, Batman vs. Robin and maybe the somewhat uneven Gotham Knight.

    Definitely looking forward to the R-rated The Killing Joke with Mark Hamill back as The Joker!
     
  24. Chancellor_Ewok

    Chancellor_Ewok Chosen One star 7

    Registered:
    Nov 8, 2004

    Agreed. Its sort of undermined by the filmmakers' lack of familiarity with the mythology of Pharaonic Egypt, ie they kept pronouncing Thoth wrong, but at the the same time there are lots of mythologically correct Easter eggs, ie the gods bleed gold,, so they did some research and it actually made it into the movie. So overall, it was middle of the road. Its not a great movie per say, but there are enough fun moments to at least make it watchable.
     
  25. PCCViking

    PCCViking Chosen One star 10

    Registered:
    Jun 12, 2014
    Beauty and the Beast
     
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