A few films recently watched.

[Guest Fishtank]

Machete 6.6/10

pretty much like The Expendables

it's stupid and it takes itself too seriously at times

it knows its stupid which is good but it falls a little flat most of the time

 

how would you compare it to Planet Terror? was it the same level of taking itself seriously?

yes but I enjoyed Planet Terror more mostly because of Brolin playing the Doc and the plot was a little better

[goffer]

Dirty Harry: Magnum Force – 6.5/10

Slowly working my way through all the Dirty Harry’s again since finding the blu-ray box set a few months back. This one is still as disappointing as I remember. Spare the always awesome soundtrack (sampled a pretty awesome break), this was nothing but poor writing with a bit of glorified violence sprinkled on top.

 

The Last Emperor – 8/10

Beautiful film! A visual splendor to say the least. I really enjoyed this… Bertolucci’s attention to detail, especially in set design, extends far past excellence, plus I have a real soft spot for Peter O’Toole and his delightful murmurings.

 

Vengeance Is Mine – 9/10 (Imamura fanboi)

It’s always nice to watch an Imamura film. His films always seem to have a certain unembellished/unexcessive feeling to them…. He is very modest with his knowhow and can be brutal and polite, all at the same time, even the same breath as I have seen in interviews. He takes these abasing subjects, a serial killer in this instance, and doesn’t exploit them, but rather sits them down for a cup of tea and lets the progression naturally flow.

 

The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus – 7/10

I almost shut this off 30 minutes in. I just didn’t see, or want to see rather, where Gilliam was going to take it. It was too cheesy, too operatic, too shiny… I would say too all over the place, but that is what Gilliam is known for… but I held on, even through all the (intentionally??) bad CGI. Eventually I got past the usual Gilliam ambiguity and found a nice spot between here and there to enjoy it/try to understand it.

 

Un Prophete – 7/10

I really enjoyed this. It had a lot of interesting idea’s/tools but none of them felt fleshed out. It almost had too much story for what it really needed… I even got lost at some points trying to remember all these different, faceless characters. I wanted to know the main character more fuck all these subplots… I don’t think the director justifiably got away with the resolution of the story. I just didn’t buy it all.

 

Out of the Blue (2006) – 6.5/10

Interesting little film… visually not too shabby either. About that massacre that happened in New Zealand many years back. I would probably have scored it higher if it weren’t for seeing Vengeance Is Mine a few nights prior because this was just lazy in comparison. Not that I was expecting something of Imamura quality, but this film was just the typical portrayal of said subject.

 

Gangster's Paradise: Jerusalema – 5/10

This was very bad… every bit of it. Fuck.

[data]

2010: the year we make contact

 

since people have always told me it's shit compared to 2001, i've never seen it until now, and while it is a very different kind of movie than 2001 (not nearly as abstract, much more hollywood in script and the way it explains itself), i really liked it. 7.9/10

[YEK]

land of the dead

watched it AGAIN tonight. i seriously can't get bored of zombie movies... this movie might not be textbbook classic but it's always entertaining

 

30 zombie brains out of 40 walking dead

[Silent Member]

Gangster's Paradise: Jerusalema – 5/10

This was very bad… every bit of it. Fuck.

no offense, but this reads more like 1/10.

[AJW]

Have just accumulated a handful of John Carpenter films that passed me by back in the day (They Live, Starman, Escape From LA, Escape From New York)

 

 

They Live 8/10

 

What a great film!! fits the bill "they don't make 'em like this anymore" perfectly. Brilliantly paced, no bullshit, us (the humans) against them (the capitalist aliens invading earth from the planet Andromeda) romp.

Delightfully cheesy with plenty of decent action and one liners. I liked the way the one liners often came at really awkard points, like when he walks into the bank laden with guns, he seems taken aback, but then rears up and calmly announces "I come here to chew bubblegum and kick ass" but the way Roddy Piper shoots them off is so dry it just comes off as hilarious. I was hoping they would play a bit more on this side of his character as the film progressed, like when he takes the woman hostage in her house and she goes into the kitchen I was waiting for a "and make me a fuckin sandwich while you're out there" or something like that.

[Atop]

Frozen - 7.5/10 - this might seem a low rating for a film I enjoyed tremendously but in my rating spectrum it fits. Great plot idea. More suspense than I have seen in any recent film. Truly a horrific situation and well executed. Don't think I will ever ski now, never have and this being the Jaws of skiing, I don't think I ever will now....

[data]

Frozen - 7.5/10 - this might seem a low rating for a film I enjoyed tremendously but in my rating spectrum it fits. Great plot idea. More suspense than I have seen in any recent film. Truly a horrific situation and well executed. Don't think I will ever ski now, never have and this being the Jaws of skiing, I don't think I ever will now....

 

not the type of movie i'd usually enjoy, but this one was pretty good. the scene with the

 

 

wolves eating the guy alive was fucking nasty, i cringe just thinking about it.

 

 

[Guest Panthroid]

Well said but still the feet?

True. I still don't know what to make of that. Can't tell if it was actually a deliberately destructive act, or just her violent way to keep the child close to herself/nature (as another scene showed him running off on his own a lot).

[Guest the anonymous forumite]

Antichrist

Misread -and thus underrated- by many. This movie fits perfectly in the Lars Von Trier anthology. Once again we have a female idealist who sacrifices everything (her sanity and physical health) for a greater cause (to fully undergo the grief she feels she deserves), only to be brutally abused in her vulnerability (in this case by the cold hard reason of the know-it-all husband). He tries to degrade the complexity of her mourning to mere phases (the fear-phase, anger-phase, etc). A bit further into the movie, when the much-discussed torture scenes kick off, I could imagine her thinking "Well, what would you call *this* phase, motherfucker?".

Apart from all of the character/psychology/ethics stuff, this is a damn fine moodpiece. Amazing visuals and a very nice creepy-drone-laden soundtrack.

 

It wasn't bad nor good, in terms of Von Trier filmography. I read it the same way as you did (can there be another way of reading it ?), the meaning was pretty obvious but still I found it to be a little over the top, flirting with ridicule sometimes. And it was quite predictable. Some great ideas as usual with Lars though, aesthetically beautiful. However, the psychological depth of the main character in Breaking the Waves or Dogville was way more refined, thus more successful, point which I believe to be crucial to Von Trier's movies.

[goffer]

Gangster's Paradise: Jerusalema – 5/10

This was very bad… every bit of it. Fuck.

no offense, but this reads more like 1/10.

I'm sorry my numbering system offends you... it works on a scale from the worst movie I have seen (1/10) to the best movie (10/10). This was not the worst movie I'd ever seen thus I couldn't rate it accordingly.

5/10 = 50% which is a failure by academic standards. It had some interesting concepts,warranting the 5 points, but above all it was a waste of time. 1/10 is a bourgeois concept anyhow.

[Guest Benedict Cumberbatch]

the disappearance of alice creed 6/10

not huge expectations for this one and it was good but not great. some of alice's dialogue was really bad ("take me back to my family","daddy" etc i think it was the dialogue rather than the actress). the cast was all good. it was well shot.

 

 

 

the 2 twists weren't totally successful but at least they weren't predictable.

 

 

[Guest Benedict Cumberbatch]

Gangster's Paradise: Jerusalema – 5/10

This was very bad… every bit of it. Fuck.

no offense, but this reads more like 1/10.

I'm sorry my numbering system offends you... it works on a scale from the worst movie I have seen (1/10) to the best movie (10/10). This was not the worst movie I'd ever seen thus I couldn't rate it accordingly.

5/10 = 50% which is a failure by academic standards. It had some interesting concepts,warranting the 5 points, but above all it was a waste of time. 1/10 is a bourgeois concept anyhow.

 

i find 5/10 an odd rating for a film you hated too (although from your follow-up explaination you didnt hate it ). also i believe it possible to give a 0/10

[Guest the anonymous forumite]

a failure by academic standards.

 

Which academic standards are you talking about ?

[Guest Deep Fried Everything]

the american - i liked this minimalist reduction of the spy genre, but the audience i saw it with seemed totally baffled by it. some really good cinematography.

 

really want to see this; you should check out corbijn's only other feature film "control" if you liked the photography.

[Guest disparaissant]

a failure by academic standards.

 

Which academic standards are you talking about ?

if you get 50% on a test, you still get a big fat F.

 

i've been on a huge bergman kick lately. wild strawberries, fanny and alexander, and the seventh seal all in the last few days. i fucking love bergman.

[Silent Member]

a failure by academic standards.

 

Which academic standards are you talking about ?

if you get 50% on a test, you still get a big fat F.

 

i've been on a huge bergman kick lately. wild strawberries, fanny and alexander, and the seventh seal all in the last few days. i fucking love bergman.

Did you watch the 312 minute cut? It's amazing.

[goffer]

Gangster's Paradise: Jerusalema – 5/10

This was very bad… every bit of it. Fuck.

no offense, but this reads more like 1/10.

I'm sorry my numbering system offends you... it works on a scale from the worst movie I have seen (1/10) to the best movie (10/10). This was not the worst movie I'd ever seen thus I couldn't rate it accordingly.

5/10 = 50% which is a failure by academic standards. It had some interesting concepts,warranting the 5 points, but above all it was a waste of time. 1/10 is a bourgeois concept anyhow.

 

i find 5/10 an odd rating for a film you hated too (although from your follow-up explaination you didnt hate it ). also i believe it possible to give a 0/10

I did hate the film, but not as much as say High School Musical which I would score a 2/10. There are different levels of hate, just as there are different levels of love and disgust.

[azatoth]

Into Eternity 8/10

 

Catched it on the TV tonight. An oddly haunting documentary about the project to build an underground storage space for nuclear waste here in Finland that would need to be safe and unaccessible for at least 100000 years. It's written in the form of a message to the future humans who might have discovered the storage with the experts involved giving their thoughts on the subject. Beautiful cinematography.

The whole idea that our civilization will leave behind hundreds of tons of extremely dangerous waste that will be radioactive for the same amount of time it took us to leave the savannas of Africa and harness nuclear energy is mindboggling. What is the best way to keep it away from future generations? Dump the waste and simply hide it and forget about it and keep telling future generations that it's a bad place and should not be explored. Or build huge monoliths with an assortment of languages and pictograms explaining the site. Will humans or whatever might still be here in 100000 years understand it and keep away or think of it as some sort of treasure and get exposed to deadly radiation?

[Guest ruiagnelo]

Into Eternity 8/10

 

Catched it on the TV tonight. An oddly haunting documentary about the project to build an underground storage space for nuclear waste here in Finland that would need to be safe and unaccessible for at least 100000 years. It's written in the form of a message to the future humans who might have discovered the storage with the experts involved giving their thoughts on the subject. Beautiful cinematography.

The whole idea that our civilization will leave behind hundreds of tons of extremely dangerous waste that will be radioactive for the same amount of time it took us to leave the savannas of Africa and harness nuclear energy is mindboggling. What is the best way to keep it away from future generations? Dump the waste and simply hide it and forget about it and keep telling future generations that it's a bad place and should not be explored. Or build huge monoliths with an assortment of languages and pictograms explaining the site. Will humans or whatever might still be here in 100000 years understand it and keep away or think of it as some sort of treasure and get exposed to deadly radiation?

 

wasn't Finland also building a huge bunker to store specimens of all plants and other biological material, to be safe for a long time? not sure if it was in your country, but it was definitely in northern europe. you must have heard about it already..

[Guest Z_B_Z]

so this is that joaquin phoenix doc. was contemplating on making a thread but i guess ill just post it here. what do you guys make of this? i assumed it was a joke thing, but man this seems really depressing. at the very least, itll be interesting to see if casey affleck is a competent filmmaker

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y2spHiYOORc

[Silent Member]

It's the Svalbard global seed vault.

[Guest ruiagnelo]

so this is that joaquin phoenix doc. was contemplating on making a thread but i guess ill just post it here. what do you guys make of this? i assumed it was a joke thing, but man this seems really depressing. at the very least, itll be interesting to see if casey affleck is a competent filmmaker

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y2spHiYOORc

 

i still don't understand the point behind making a documentary about this guy.

i don't think it is the right time yet. but that's just my opinion.

[Guest ruiagnelo]

It's the Svalbard global seed vault.

 

that's it! i remember watching about it on tv one day.

 

i really admire the way scandinavians think.

[Silent Member]

You sure this isn't a mockumentary? Looks nice.