Movie reviews (new or old)

bill5 · Aug 17, 2014

Thought it would be nice to have people's reviews of movies they've seen recently in one thread, if possible - I would just ask that people please don't give away endings or key plot "twists" or similar stuff, thx. Doesn't have to be new films, could be ones you rented or (like me) saw on netflix etc. My latest:

Iron Man: a good movie but IMO not as great as many seemed to be saying. Good summer fun though, lots of action etc. I like Jeff Bridges a lot but he was kind of wasted here.

Odd Thomas (Netflix): Shamelessly quirky but it works here - it's rare for a film to have such a silly premise/approach but also have credibility, even integrity, but this one did. It was a bit unnecessarily graphic at time (they had a few pointless "gross out" scenes which were lame), but that's my only real complaint.

The Brady Bunch Movie: I actually saw this not long after it came out long ago but forget most of it, so saw again on Netflix. I think it would be hard for anyone who didn't grow up watching this show to really appreciate or "get" this movie - but for those who did, this movie is the best camp piece of entertainment since the original Batman TV show. The casting was incredible and the scenery and music was so laughably faithful to the TV show. The cameos by original cast members was also a kick to see. As a movie itself, it was OK, but it didn't really matter too much, because the main "story" was basically a tip of the hat to this innocent show in a much more innocent time.

KNOTLIKEYOU · Aug 18, 2014

i just watched 22 jump street it was so funny for the first 20 mins i thought i was going to cry then it sort of izzled out and ended rather averagley

USCGrad90 · Aug 21, 2014

Guardians of the Galaxy - (PG-13) Saw it Aug 16 at the theatre. Awesome movie. Best mix of action, comedy, and sci-fi I have seen in a long time. Lots of good laughs throughout, but it does not take away from the plot or serious scenes. The music also makes it really fun. It you liked the Avengers, you should love this. Suitable for kids 10 and up - depending on the tolerance for swear words. Around 20 or so swear words scattered in the movie.

random person · Aug 28, 2014

Do you want to experience psychological tension that bleeds off the screen, exquisitely choreographed sword fights, foreign films possessing rare power and humanism, of highest artistic achievements, profoundly moving, tragic like the best Shakespeare's plays. Anti-samurai character studies that serves as an indictment on Japanese culture and politics set during the Tokugawa shogunate (bakufu):

Harakiri - 10/10
Samurai Rebellion - 10/10
Goyokin - 10/10
Three Outlaw Samurai - 9/10

These films knocked my head off! lol

bill5 · Aug 30, 2014

Tried to endure "Double Jeopardy" tonight (Tommy Lee Jones, Ashley Judd) - didn't make it. Weak story and weak acting.

On the plus side, "X Men First Class" was IMO very well done, despite not being very accurate to the original stories of these characters in various ways.

USCGrad90 · Sep 5, 2014

Mom's Night Out - I rented this from Red Box last night, thinking it would be a fun family film. (I had heard or read somewhere that it was a pretty good movie...)
The movie was slow and I left after about 10-15 minutes to go watch normal TV. My wife and daughter both told me that it never really got much better and were disappointed with it.

bill5 · Sep 5, 2014

(these both on Netflix)

And While We Were Here - This MUST have been made with insomniacs in mind as I only was able to endure about 20 mins or so before becoming so incredibly bored if not outright sleepy that I gave up. There is simply nothing interesting about this movie in any way. Even the sound is so low and people talk so quietly I had to turn the sound way up.

From Time to Time - eh. Interesting enough premise and started out with some sharp dialogue, good character development, and lots of promise....but only got worse and worse as it progressed. Excellent acting, but there just wasn't much to work with after the whole "ghost thing" started happening. They should've focused more on the story line and relationships between characters (eg the Captain and his wife), less of this I'm-helping-the-ghosts thing, which I felt ultimately became silly and utterly lacking in credibility. Worth a watch, but only just.

bill5 · Oct 21, 2014

Thor - eh. Like most comic book movies, a fun summer romp kind of thing but just fair as a movie. Plenty of fun action, the Ice Giant king was good, but Thor was eh...kinda like they settled for Brad Pitt on steroids...shave off that stupid scruffy beard for starters (I realize it's gotta be hard to find someone that can pull Thor off though). Couldn't stand the girl who plays his love interest and her annoying daughter, desperately hoping a car would fall on them or they would otherwise meet a grisly death. The jokes were almost all incredibly lame and a bad idea; this isn't that kind of hero/movie. I thought Loki was done very well by whoever played him. The rest of Thor's "buds" mostly sucked IMO (complete with the token minorities, big shocker from Hollywood.....including the Asian who sounded like something out of a Kung Fu B movie, are you kidding me?). Hopkins as Odin was OK but didn't quite work for me; he had the look and the acting chops of course but his voice didn't fit the role.

KingLV · Oct 22, 2014

bill5 said:
Thor - eh. Like most comic book movies, a fun summer romp kind of thing but just fair as a movie. Plenty of fun action, the Ice Giant king was good, but Thor was eh...kinda like they settled for Brad Pitt on steroids...shave off that stupid scruffy beard for starters (I realize it's gotta be hard to find someone that can pull Thor off though). Couldn't stand the girl who plays his love interest and her annoying daughter, desperately hoping a car would fall on them or they would otherwise meet a grisly death. The jokes were almost all incredibly lame and a bad idea; this isn't that kind of hero/movie. I thought Loki was done very well by whoever played him. The rest of Thor's "buds" mostly sucked IMO (complete with the token minorities, big shocker from Hollywood.....including the Asian who sounded like something out of a Kung Fu B movie, are you kidding me?). Hopkins as Odin was OK but didn't quite work for me; he had the look and the acting chops of course but his voice didn't fit the role.

Chris Hemsworth is a much better actor than he showed in Thor, watch Rush, a biopic about formula 1 racing. One of the best movies of 2013

KingLV · Oct 22, 2014

KNOTLIKEYOU said:
i just watched 22 jump street it was so funny for the first 20 mins i thought i was going to cry then it sort of izzled out and ended rather averagley

I was basically in tears the entire movie

jubileeLEE · Oct 27, 2014

I never thought I would get tired of animation but I'm a nanny to 2 toddlers, boys. I love boys so much I was thinking at first the mom could leave them home from preschool with me all day :hug:

- nahhhhh. I'm glad I never voiced that out loud. :doh:

Anyway, I sat down with them to watch:

Wreckit Ralph - loved it, didn't think I would. Don't think rude is cute in kids so the little girl in distress irked me a bit. It actually had me wondering how Ralph was going to fix all these problems that he caused. It's not as good as Finding Nemo but better than Frozen IMO.

The 3yr. old kept asking for Frozen :bow:

, which I already saw and didn't want to see it again. I think the supporting characters, mainly the snowman make the movie watchable. Much too much singing in the first 20 minutes. It made more money than the Lion King, Nemo, Incredibles and I don't get it.:o

Most recently we watched The Aristocats, an old Disney flick on Netflix. I was filled with nostalgia listening to Gabor voice the mother cat. I was conflicted with the the moral implications of a single female mother (where was the father?) :preach:

and the extravagance of their lifestyle being portrayed as a good thing. It corrects this at the end I think. When the kittens were told to focus on self improvement and began their studies I felt uncomfortably lacking & wondered what I could be doing instead of watching a cartoon to better myself. :sorry:

It's bad when a cartoon makes you feel inferior, like the fictional characters are your betters.
The part with the dogs helped me to relax and enjoy a laugh. It's my first time seeing the whole thing but I've seen their clips multiple times and it's always hillarious. Now, they need to do an entire animation around those two characters.

bill5 · Nov 15, 2014

Capt America: my journey to catch up on "comic book movies" continues...

On the whole this was well cast (Chris Evans was born for this role, even though he's just a mediocre actor), well written, faithful to the origins and spirit of the character, and had its share of action as you'd expect in a film like this. However, the writing, though good overall, had me rolling my eyes at times, the acting was more often than not weak (with the notable exception of Hugo Weaving), as was the directing...and it loses a star alone for its annoying deference to the almighty race card, as Marvel proves they like the rest of Hollywood are slaves to such politically correct idiocy run amok. FYI and clue to Marvel: the armed forces were segregated AFTER WW II, not before or during. But God forbid we not have that token black and token Asian guy as supporting characters, and make sure to get a few more squeezed into shots whenever we can. Barf. Still, it was a worthwhile watch.

PixieSunbelle · Nov 17, 2014

Maleficent!

Angelina Jolie is Maleficent. In this movie you see the transformation in which Maleficent goes through when she becomes the evil fairy. Her pain is visible and you see her relationship with Aurora and finally the breaking of the curse. The movie definitely spins Sleeping Beauty in an unexpected way. I would say it's worth a watch.

Oz, The Great and Powerful

I love prequels that explain the events prior to old movies! This movie explains the Wizard and The Wicked Witch of the West. I feel like Mila Kunis portrayed her very well. In this movie you see her as a scorned woman and how Glinda prepares The Wizard for his role in Oz.

bill5 · Mar 24, 2015

Life as a House (on Netflix): I love the premise of this movie (about a man dying from cancer and trying to re-connect with his family). I love the actors in it (Kevin Kline, Kirsten Scott Thomas, and so on). I was therefore immensely disappointed when it turned out to be this disjointed and ultimately trashy (I would use a word that rhymes with "gutty" if you know what I mean) and downright bizarre pile of garbage that couldn't begin to be what touts itself as. And that is a massive shame, because given a quality script and a director who knew what he was doing, this could have been greatness. They would occasionally tease with tiny little snippets of that greatness that could have been.......but quickly go back to being weird and "grungy" and just plain bad; Hollywood as it's Hollywood-ish worst. In fact, it got so frustratingly bad, about 2/3 of the way through I was wishing for most of the characters to die a fiery death, and that's never a good sign, so I turned it off and stopped wasting my time.

bill5 · Mar 24, 2015

TRANSFORMERS:

Filled with incredibly hokey cliched characters and rather devoid of any serious character development......and an excellent film. For what it is, that is. Clearly aimed to kids, esp younger kids, and all the more reason for the things I mentioned initially, and given that, lots of silly cliched fun and an "about time" kind of movie you'd WANT kids to see, yet adults can enjoy it too. I've heard the sequels were like most sequels (lame and simply milking the original), but glad for this one.

bill5 · Mar 29, 2015

Parallels: (on Netflix, not sure about rental availability) eh. The writing, directing, and acting is often amateurish if not downright pathetic (esp about the opening 10 mins), and the ending is a love it or hate it thing...but if you go in with modest (OK, low) expectations and really like sci fi, esp the whole alternate realities concept, you should find it worth a watch. Movies like this tend to bug me because it could have easily been so much better; a little quality character development (replacing some boring and pointless dialogue), some more action, and improved script overall could've made a big diff.

bill5 · Jun 14, 2015

Three Days of the Condor - an old (70s?) spy/thriller flick starring Robert Redford. This simply was a poor effort. Even given the time frame and allowing for some lack of realism (as you often need to, being a movie and all), it was not at all believable. The relationship with Redford and Dunaway was esp. weak, so much so that I actually laughed at how not believable and cliched it was, esp the token love scene. Further, Redford is well out of his element in a spy thriller; whoever cast him here just went for the star power and made a glaring casting mistake. Generally, it just came off flat; not only didn't I follow it much of the time, but ultimately I didn't even care what "plot twists" would be eventually revealed. ugh. Not exactly Redford or Pollack's finest moment.

Avengers (the first one): loved it. Not only was it fun with tons of action, but each character was written and played well. Hulk pretty much stole the show, lol. I hope against hope the new one out is even close to as good...

Abishai100 · Jul 4, 2015

Adventure Anchovies

1. Jurassic World (2015) - I saw this in 3D, and I was impressed by the visual presentation and the atmospherics. The conceptual presentation of the theme park, with the nifty little bubble cars, was a nice touch too. The story wasn't too strong, but it was bolstered by the contributions of the interesting dinosaurs and a great last 1/3 film dinosaur rival battle.

2. Batman Returns (1992) - This Tim Burton comic book adaptation features the Dark Knight tackling multiple villains --- Catwoman, Penguin, and the diabolical Max Shreck. This film is strange and artistic but also true to the gothic aspects of Batman (DC Comics) stories, even if it does seem a bit indulgent for Tim Burton's private sense of creativity. People seem interested in how the psychology of Batman is relevant to the confrontation with multiple super-villains --- i.e., "Batman must deal with Scarecrow, Bane, Poison Ivy, Penguin, Two-Face, and the Red Hood Gang who have teamed up to take Gotham City Library for ransom. Batman ponders how this confrontation will affect his confidence as the Gotham City socialite/businessman Bruce Wayne."

:hug:

"Almost Got 'Im" (Batman: The Animated Series)

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