Amph What was the last movie you saw?

Pulp Fiction. I fell asleep right after The Wolf showed up. The Bonnie Situation is completely ridiculous, which is what makes it kind of funny, even though each time I watch it Quentin Tarantino's overacting of Jimmy drags everything movie down.

 

Virus (1999)

Meh.

M.A.S.H. (1970)

Hysterically funny. I had low expectations going in because I despise Altman, but this is easily his best and most quotable film. I'm not even a fan of Elliot Gould, but he was perfect as was the always criminally underrated Donald Sutherland.

Village of the Damned (1995)

Cast of 70's-80's has-been's can't save this lackluster remake. It almost feels as if Carpenter was trying to go mainstream because most of his films before this one have sort of a quirky "bite the hand that feeds you" mentality.

They Live (1988)

Such an utterly goofy and strangely, incredibly smart alien thriller. The fist fight between the late Roddy Piper and Keith David is the highlight as is the hilarious ending.

The Hustler (1961)

Man this was a great film. So utterly bleak for a 1960's flick. Newman is fantastic, but the real standout is George C. Scott who inhibits a sense of controlled menace. I really need to see the sequel, The Color of Money.

 

It is a great movie, and as you say, Gould and Sutherland are perfectly cast.

George C. Scott is The Devil in this movie - total evil, though with a certain charm and style. The film is pretty bleak, though masterfully done - don't expect the same sort of movie from The Color of Money, which is slick lightweight entertainment.

 

The Color of Money is fun, but one of Scorsese's lesser efforts. The Hustler, though, is one of my all-time favorite movies. You can't go wrong with anything from Newman in general, but especially from that era.

 

The Matt Damon Ridley Scott should stick to unoriginal scripts. This is the first movie of his I've really liked since Gladiator.

 

No Holds Barred (1989) - My thoughts about No Holds Barred can best be summed up by this classic moment from the film itself.



- 3/10

 

Yeah, I had the unfortunate pleasure of seeing Village of the Damned theatrically.


They Live was the last great Carpenter movie for me anyway. It's it's loosely based on a short story called "8'o'clock in the morning." I think John has been trying to go mainstream since 1983's Christine. I wanted him to do one more film with Kurt Russell for years now, but at this point, I've just let it go; especially after his consulting and okaying the Boom comic sequels recently.

I'm content with Carpenter's output between 1976 and 1988.

 

The Harvest. 2013. Michael Shannon, Samantha Morton.
It's a little thriller I wasn't expecting, with some nods to Misery.

 

Fury

 

Super 8: Enjoyed it.

 

I watched Wise Blood last night on a whim. It's been so long since I last saw it, I had nearly forgotten how great it is. One of the rare novel to film adaptations that I don't hate.

 

Super 8 was a really good movie.

 

Before I Go to Sleep (2013) – Rowan Joffe

You had an accident. It was a bad accident. You had head injuries. And you have problems remembering things.

What things?

Everything.

In Before I Go to Sleep, Nicole Kidman has Leonard Shelby disease; she awakes every morning having no memory of the past few years; her mind has refused to form new memories since she was brutally attacked years ago by unknown assailants. Colin Firth is her long-suffering husband & Mark Strong is her sympathetic psychiatrist. But things are not as they seem. What is her husband hiding from her? What is her psychiatrist doing by treating her secretly? What are these strange flashes of memory hinting at? And what really happened on that night all those years ago? Well, I’ll answer all of those at once: nothing all that interesting. This kind of movie is right in my wheelhouse, but this one just never coheres. Strong and Kidman are fine, neither as good as I know they can be. Firth is very good; it’s apparently impossible for the man to give a bad performance. But the big reveal, when it comes, makes no sense. The solution to this mystery doesn’t just strain credulity, it snaps it right in half; there is no plausible way that the events posited could have happened in a million years and even if they could have, the character motivations make no sense either. There are a few nice flourishes, particularly involving a camera on which Kidman records messages for herself to watch the next day and Firth has some good acting moments, but on the whole, this is just one to skip. Recommended against. 2 stars.

tl;dr – mystery boasts a few nice moments, but the idiotic solution is anti-climactic and more than strains credulity. 2 stars.

More Movie Reviews!

 

Yeah, I was wondering why Russia, 1/3 of the nations to have sent people into space-- and the one currently ferrying Americans to the ISS-- wasn't mentioned.

 

The Martian. Simply superb. Simply one of the best films I've seen this year (though arguably, they're hasn't been that many). There are a few technical issues that I don't think were properly explained (maybe I missed it, but I wondered throughout most of the film how did Mark have enough oxygen throughout that whole year and a half up there), but they weren't deal breakers. The cast was fantastic and all performances were excellent. I need to see it again and then grab the book.

Funny detail: I think the Mars In The Title thing was worrisome to...someone, because the title was inexplicably translated in Spanish to something along the lines of "Mission: Rescue". I and several others groaned out loud. As Mark would've said, WTF!

 

I was highly amused that the title sequence evoked Alien.

But such a fun movie. Seeing it again this weekend.

Here's my dream movie franchise: Fox hires Weir and Goddard to do a series of stories about manned exploration of the solar system, some kind of space anthology. Maybe a few recurring NASA characters, but otherwise essentially unrelated films.

 

Dunno if it's different from the book, but Hollywood being Hollywood and the Chinese market being so important..well, you can do the maths. But still, good point about Russia.

 

Into the Woods. Watched this live-action musical film yesterday with my wife and kids. We all enjoyed it. It's got a pretty big cast and was adapted from a stage musical, which is pretty evident. The story is a very clever weaving together of multiple fairy tales, and with an interesting twist on "happily ever after" at the end.

 

Hotel Transylvania II

Thoroughly mediocre, most jokes fell flat, and of course my kids liked it.

 

There. Fixed.

 

A Walk to Remember (2002)

Love means never having to force your significant other to watch this (or The Notebook/other Sparks properties). More like A Movie to Forget. The most tragic aspect of the movie was Daryl Hannah's face. Oh and it has a 10 minute long sequence that shamelessly promotes and advertises Mandy Moore's singing which pissed me off to no end. It could've been 10 ****ing minutes shorter. Poor Man's Scott Glenn (Peter Coyote) was easily the best thing about it.

Love & Other Drugs (2010)

Kind of strange that Edward Zwick would direct a romantic dramedy since most of his filmography consists of heavy handed war dramas. This one works for the most part due to the great performances from Jake (who's basically the same character that he was in Nightcrawler toned down a bit) and Anne. Oh, and I love Oliver Platt in anything, so **** yeah and stuff. A few things don't work such as Josh Gad, the ending which ties up everything way too nicely, and the fact that George Segal is only in one scene in the beginning and completely disappears. I'm assuming for the rest of the film he was in the corner smoking weed or something.

Nights in Rodanthe (2008)

Well look it's Scott Glenn! Yay! He's easily the best thing about it, though Richard Gere is pretty darn good too as is any scene with the always wonderful Mae Whitman. Otherwise Diane Lane is awful (as always), the plot is contrived as ****, it takes way too damn long to end, and James Franco wanders on set. But why does WB keep adapting Nicolas Sparks besides for financial gain? They're the exact same plot in every single goddamned movie. He is such a manipulative piece of piss ****. Why?

 

It would be nice to have Watney/Damon shout the words "they drew first blood! They drew first blood!" while he holds his pressurized gloved fists in the air.

 

You know, I'd really like to know what was in Mark's (definitely) expletive laden message after being told to watch his language after being told his crew want told about his survival.