Films Recently Watched

[soundwave]

 

 

 

 

 

 

Eraserhead 8.5/10

Room 237 6/10

The Shining 10/10

2001: A Space Odyssey 7/10

Europa Report 8/10

The Bay 7/10

Yeah, see, that's why people always say to you: No, you're wrong.

Yeah that's great, you're right and I'm wrong. You can pat yourself on the back now.

One would think it was obvious that my remark was not serious.

Anyway, if you're interested in Kubrick and haven't seen it yet: watch A Clockwork Orange.

I saw it two weeks ago for the second time and I was a bit worried that my expectations from the first time I'd seen it (which was at least 4 years ago) were going to be too high because I'd always kept it at the back of my head as a brilliant film and one of his best, but it was even better than I had remembered it, 10/10.

You may not be disappointed with this one.

as a rule I find most Kubrick films get better the more you watch them especially now on blu-ray where you can really pick out the attention to detail with his steady pace.

[Suffocate Peon]

The Thieves. (2012)

 

This is such a peculiar film. It's far too long, in a way that reminds me of a Judd Apatow film, there's a lot of short scenes between characters that have little impact on the story and only establish their relationship to each other, but as each character is massively underwritten anyway because there's about 4 times as many as any other film it meant that a lot of the film isn't that engaging. It really does drag, but there are some funny asides between the characters, and some genuinely funny moments. It's just...odd, because really all that matters in the film are the relationships between the several characters in the film. It's like 4 films in one. Imagine Ocean's Eleven if every other character had a separate love story going on. Even the heist is like watching 4 separate heists in one. Where the film does come together is towards the end, when its laid back manner comes good with a fantastically menacing villain, an extended action scene that's brilliantly shot, intense and exciting...even the love webs become less tangled. Every Korean film I watch is about betrayal, you don't think that at the beginning, but by the end, there it is again, betrayal. And it'll also probably contain an incredible action scene that comes out of nowhere.

 

Had the film been more economically edited, the heist more thrilling than confusing and ponderous, then I think it'd be a film that people would want to really recommend to others. As it is, I still recommend watching it.

 

7 or...8.

[mcbpete]

Zero G porn would be the next logical step for human slime.

It's definitely been done before (IIRC they claimed it to be the most expensive porno ever made) - definitely not going to head Google-wards to find it on this work machine though !

[Suffocate Peon]

The Lone Ranger

 

The Peter Bradshaw Guardian review for this is fantastic,

 

It really is long. I have known movies by Theo Angelopoulos and quadruple albums by Wishbone Ash that seemed shorter. Verbinski has surely modified this film's running time using dastardly new temporal-distortion technology, so that each of its 149 minutes contains 250 seconds. The South American landmass peeled off from the western seaboard of Africa quicker than this.

Really, it's yet another superhero-origin franchise product, like the recent Superman and Dark Knight films, giving massively elaborate explanations for the hero's name and that of his horse. "The Lone Ranger" is finally spelt out haltingly, like "The Bat Man" a legend being born. Pretty soon every film franchise in the world will be rebooted with this origin-myth style: a black-eared rodent called Michael will be tentatively hailed, at the end of a three-hour film culminating in a helium-inhalation tragedy, as "Mickey Mouse".

It mostly just feels longer than it actually is, even though it is long. 2 hours 20 mins (10 minute credits) feels like nearer 3 hours. I went back through the film to see what bits could be cut, I chose an action scene that I thought lasted maybe 10-15 minutes, in reality it lasted 5 minutes. It's not that there's just too much unnecessary stuff in it but that every scene needs to be chipped away so it flows and feels sprightly and light and doesn't inexplicably drag all the time. Even when the characters are being quirky and odd and there's a little funny aside it feels too serious. Depp switched from being hokey to being funny numerous times, sometimes he was both. The funniest joke was about the horse, for me, not sure why, probably because I engaged with that character more than anyone else.

 

It's the rich moody cinematography and something about Gore Verbinski's directional style that feels heavy and slow with a real weight to every single scene and every line of dialogue. He could make a really great thriller, but for a pulpy fun kids film he doesn't seem willing to lighten his mood, with each Pirates sequel he went further into dark obtuseness. When the Lone Ranger theme kicked in towards the end, it woke me up, and despite the action scene being well thought out and fun to watch in theory, the music didn't match and I couldn't enjoy it enough because i felt kind of drained that it took so long to reach that point. I was forever waiting for the baddie to become the baddie because that's all the actor does, he's like the English James Cromwell.

 

I actually really liked it otherwise, the action scenes are brilliantly directed with loads of different elements coming into play, one reminded me of The Good the Bad and the Weird and the other was like watching Jackie Chan's Supercop. Only once was cgi obvious for me, maybe twice, but in the major action scenes they felt real and like the actors were physically there in the scene and in genuine mortal danger despite their knack of avoiding the inevitable.

 

I don't think it's fair for critics to lay into it as they have done, but they seem particularly spiky and unforgiving of long films because they have to watch so many in a day (I can imagine hating this if it was my third film of the day), Gore Verbinski isn't a hack and there's a lot of quality to the film.

[Atop]

Having read the novel for 2001 and seeing the film many times, I can't relate to thinking it is anything but amazing.

[mcbpete]

Am I right in thinking that the book is quite different to the film ? I cant imagine there being sections like -

 

"And then he looked out the window and started shaking and then his eyes went all multi-coloured as he looked at tinted footage of volcanoes and hills and that"

[awepittance]

the book's story is not very different from the film but the tone is. Arthur C Clarke had a very different much more triumphant achievement of man story in mind. The film is based off a short story by Clarke called the Sentinel, This was not a scenario where someone adapted a book called '2001' most people don't realize that the actual book of 2001 is essentially clarke's novelization of the movie based on his script. IT basically takes every mysterious aspect of the movie and over explains it. I prefer the movie but the book is worth reading.

the movie 2010 feels a lot more like a Clarke book, and probably why it's just not that awesome of a movie

Edited October 15, 2013 by John Ehrlichman

[Guest HokusPoker]

To me, 2001 is all about the visuals and the sound (more or less), so, not having read the book, I don't know how that is supposed to work in a written form.

I love how there is no way to understand it (I don't only mean the ending), or at least I don't try or even would like to make sense of what is being shown.

Watching it I feel something I cannot describe, and that is one of the greatest things a film can do, at least for me.

 

 

The monolith feels more real and meaningful to me than 95 percent of the human characters in films out there. It makes me feel watched, admonished, asked, animated, … Comfortable and uncomfortable at the same time.

If it doesn't give you these emotions, I can fully understand that it isn't something you want to watch.

[Boxus]

The film is definitely more of a visceral experience, while the book matches its sense of wonder with detailed explanations. I love them both, but I would probably pick the book as my favorite. They are very different from each other. The film has more of an abstract beauty, it's more open to interpretation. The book maintains a sense of mystery, but it does explain much much more about what Clarke envisions actually going on. Still it's full of awe-inspiring moments, like the part where he describes something falling through the layers of Jupiter's atmosphere - that chapter was kind of an interlude in the book, not in the film at all, but it was one of the highlights for me. Really beautiful, imaginative, writing.

 

I'm a big fan of some of his other novels, especially Childhood's End. I like the balance in his work between spectacle and logic.

[lumpenprol]

Yeah, despite the embarrassing emphasis on the paranormal, Childhood's End is a truly fantastic book. If you kept the overall plot structure and events, but tore out much of the dialogue and rewrote it for our current time, you could make an amazing film. In fact I think it would make a better film than Rendezvous with Rama, which David Fincher was blowing his load over trying to get made.

[delet...]

After Earth - I so wanted this to be good. But between will smith's son treating his acting part like an unwanted school assignment he's been forced into by his parents and will smith failing embarrassingly at attempting to act as a character that he's not, namely some sergeant major type tough guy, omG why, will it's so transparent that this is what you are going for, but it comes off as some third tier shallow parody, played by the craft services plumber, actually he would have been better. This film was doomed to failure. Ultimately as a result i think, of the fact that will smith is probably surrounded by yes men and looks like he can't be told no, that would go triple for his son. A major part of his appeal has been his overall likeability, none of this was on display here due to that whole aforementioned 'tough guy persona' mishap. Poor old M. Knight, I'd say that much of the choice was taken out of his hands and given his position in hollywood at the moment, was unable to fight any of the stupidity that was crushing this pic.

 

 

And then we get to their design aesthetic ... Anyway, started skimming, then dropped it altogether, DO NOT WATCH./10

[MadameChaos]

To me, 2001 is all about the visuals and the sound (more or less), so, not having read the book, I don't know how that is supposed to work in a written form.

I love how there is no way to understand it (I don't only mean the ending), or at least I don't try or even would like to make sense of what is being shown.

Watching it I feel something I cannot describe, and that is one of the greatest things a film can do, at least for me.

 

 

The monolith feels more real and meaningful to me than 95 percent of the human characters in films out there. It makes me feel watched, admonished, asked, animated, … Comfortable and uncomfortable at the same time.

If it doesn't give you these emotions, I can fully understand that it isn't something you want to watch.

 

no. 2001 is all about the very subtle build up of suspense in the battle of wits between a man and a machine in the face of unspeakable danger.

 

i think this is lost on many people as these days films are much too overwrought and in your face with messages and meaning etc.

 

the visuals and the editing is just the icing on the cake, if that's really all you are taking away you're not paying attention.

Edited October 16, 2013 by MadameChaos

[Guest HokusPoker]

 

To me, 2001 is all about the visuals and the sound (more or less), so, not having read the book, I don't know how that is supposed to work in a written form.

I love how there is no way to understand it (I don't only mean the ending), or at least I don't try or even would like to make sense of what is being shown.

Watching it I feel something I cannot describe, and that is one of the greatest things a film can do, at least for me.

 

 

The monolith feels more real and meaningful to me than 95 percent of the human characters in films out there. It makes me feel watched, admonished, asked, animated, … Comfortable and uncomfortable at the same time.

If it doesn't give you these emotions, I can fully understand that it isn't something you want to watch.

 

no. 2001 is all about the very subtle build up of suspense in the battle of wits between a man and a machine in the face of unspeakable danger.

 

i think this is lost on many people as these days films are much too overwrought and in your face with messages and meaning etc.

 

the visuals and the editing is just the icing on the cake, if that's really all you are taking away you're not paying attention.

 

 

Says she who only talks about the next to last episode, the battle between man and machine, as if nothing else happened in the film.

If it's all about the battle, why did Kubrick bother to add a few hours before and the brilliant episode after it?

The man looking at and becoming his own future, the floating fetus, all just icing on the cake?

Man vs. machine has been done before.

[yshf]

maybe theres just fuckloads of icing

idek

[Suffocate Peon]

After Earth

 

It's really really really bad isn't it. A film that convinces you Jaden must have wrote it himself and his dad put his name to the story (as what appears at the end) so he'd take all the flack, because it's just so stupid, po faced, humourless, predictable. Not even predictable, just obvious, inevitable, like you know within 3 minutes where the film will end up, actually you know before even watching it every single moment of the film if you're just slightly aware of the premise. And I really wanted to like it ! M Night just seems like a really boring person. Even his alright films are boring. I think just being in his presence is probably boring. So a film as dumb as this challenges your fight to be engaged. It challenges you to not wish a terrible death on Jaden. You want him to jump off that cliff and smash his skull against the rock face, and be taken away by the big bird and delivered as food to all her hatchlings. The cgi of the arachnid alien thing was alright, but you'll be surprised how bored you'll be. You'll come out of it feeling like you maybe don't like watching films after all. It's so devoid of interest, intrigue, even adventure. I mean, I'd have preferred it if Will Smith and Jaden just dossed around on this planet, tried to make each other laugh, daring each other to do wilder things until they mess with the wrong animal and Will Smith can only watch from afar as Jaden is mauled to death. Cut to credits. Right there, a better film.

 

White House Down

 

I enjoyed the hell out of this, it's the most action packed film I've seen in ages, i think cliche ridden-wise it's no better than Olympus Has Fallen, but in terms of direction and acting and being often very funny rather than lame and naff and tonally off, i think it's better. OHF is like an unintentionally bad B movie, which isn't often tense enough and knowing enough and silly enough to be funny. When it's bad, it's the cgi, or the poor direction, and those aren't funny things, they aren't enough to laugh at the film. With White House Down from the very beginning I was laughing with the film, in a way I didn't find it stupid because everything is so clearly intentional to poke fun at itself. From the very beginning, it sets the tone just casting Channing Tatum in the lead role, after 21 Jump Street i just find him naturally funny (he's probably the only actor who can make the line 'you don't use blogging?...i just learned that' funny, it was like watching him in 21 Jump Street again as the old kid at school not understanding anything). Jamie Foxx is coming off Django and James Woods is James Woods with a flat top hair cut.

 

I liked that for the whole film Cale and President are basically being chased, the amount of slow motion diving across tables Tatum has to do, you think he's gone for. All I remember from OHF is Butler trying to be funny on the phone and creeping around in poorly lit rooms easily picking off unsuspecting baddies.

 

Even when it doesn't make sense it was more funny because of it rather than just inane, such as

 

 

the line 'your first action as president is going to be to blow up the white house?' and the thought not only that but an air strike directed at the president, given that he was alive as Cale explained to Maggie Gyllenhaal's character but for some reason it doesn't register with her and she doesn't think to relay this vital information to intervene. I also got a silly kick how neatly it all ties up at the end and Cale offers his daughter a ride on the helicopter, after all the previous twists and turns I was half expecting there to be another, it seemed like the least safest place to be at that moment.

 

Also the line, 'you're going to jail for that!' made me laugh, not all the other stuff he's done, just shooting a guy in the leg.

 

Is there a funnier scene this year than the limo chase. 'How can you lose a rocket launcher??' is like something straight out of 21 Jump Street

 

 

White House Down accepts it has no new ideas but at least tries to be very entertaining in repeating the same formula and is frequently amusing and silly in the way it does it.

[delet...]

White House Down

 

I enjoyed the hell out of this, it's the most action packed film I've seen in ages,

 

Yes, i've been looking forward to this, unlike my not unexpected disappointment over Olympus has Fallen, which despite the grandiose title, will most likely be seen as the pale shadow to White House Down's unstoppable marauding force (hopefully). Funny how Hollywood has to pump them out in twos isn't it. They're always making fun of that company that makes C-film knock-offs of their films to fool customers in video stores. But hollywood itself feeds from the same commuter hotel lounge buffet of morality. Anyway, Roland Emmerich has pretty driven pacing in his action films, all the concepts and scenes have a point, propell the story forward (talking about 2012 mostly, which i love). So all should be well.

 

I've been good and not watched any trailers, so i won't be checking your review.

[MadameChaos]

 

To me, 2001 is all about the visuals and the sound (more or less), so, not having read the book, I don't know how that is supposed to work in a written form.

I love how there is no way to understand it (I don't only mean the ending), or at least I don't try or even would like to make sense of what is being shown.

Watching it I feel something I cannot describe, and that is one of the greatest things a film can do, at least for me.

 

 

The monolith feels more real and meaningful to me than 95 percent of the human characters in films out there. It makes me feel watched, admonished, asked, animated, … Comfortable and uncomfortable at the same time.

If it doesn't give you these emotions, I can fully understand that it isn't something you want to watch.

 

no. 2001 is all about the very subtle build up of suspense in the battle of wits between a man and a machine in the face of unspeakable danger.

 

i think this is lost on many people as these days films are much too overwrought and in your face with messages and meaning etc.

 

the visuals and the editing is just the icing on the cake, if that's really all you are taking away you're not paying attention.

 

 

Says she who only talks about the next to last episode, the battle between man and machine, as if nothing else happened in the film.

If it's all about the battle, why did Kubrick bother to add a few hours before and the brilliant episode after it?

The man looking at and becoming his own future, the floating fetus, all just icing on the cake?

Man vs. machine has been done before.

It really depends what point you think Hal goes insane at. The monolith is a machine too you muppet.

[Guest Jimmy McMessageboard]

Jack Reacher Weiner Herzog/10

[mcbpete]

Jack Reacher Weiner Herzog/10

I give it 5 bags of popcorn and 6 sodas

[Guest HokusPoker]

 

 

Says she who only talks about the next to last episode, the battle between man and machine, as if nothing else happened in the film.

If it's all about the battle, why did Kubrick bother to add a few hours before and the brilliant episode after it?

The man looking at and becoming his own future, the floating fetus, all just icing on the cake?

Man vs. machine has been done before.

 

It really depends what point you think Hal goes insane at. The monolith is a machine too you muppet.

 

 

I don't think it goes insane before it exists. Also the monolith is a black something.

It doesn't matter what it may be in the book or that it was planned to have a display, if that's what you mean.

It doesn't say it is a computer in the film. What it may be in the book cannot change the film, because the film is the film, not the book.

 

You muppet.

Edited October 16, 2013 by HokusPoker

[awepittance]

Hal never goes 'insane'. In the movie Kubrick throws in some possible allusions to Hal almost becoming sentient when he says things like 'this mission is too important for you to jeopardize' almost as if this computer has some stake in the transformation of man kind into god-like beings. This is more a testament to the genius of Kubrick's ability to create ambiguity in his movies.
In the book it's much more clear what happened, and wasn't fully explained until 2012. The seemingly linked relationship between the ship getting closer to the large monolith and Hal's attempted murder of the crew is coincidental (well more like to Hal the only thing he cared about was having to achieve the mission itself, and the crew asking questions became an impediment to that). I also think that interchange between Hal asking them if they think 'anything strange' was happening with the mission wasn't in the book either. That was another touch Kubrick added himself (could be mistaken about this)

 

 

The novel explains that HAL is unable to resolve a conflict between his general mission to relay information accurately and orders specific to the mission requiring that he withhold from Bowman and Poole the true purpose of the mission. With the crew dead, he reasons, he would not need to be lying to them. He fabricates the failure of the AE-35 unit so that their deaths would appear accidental.

Edited October 16, 2013 by John Ehrlichman

[soundwave]

 

 

 

To me, 2001 is all about the visuals and the sound (more or less), so, not having read the book, I don't know how that is supposed to work in a written form.

I love how there is no way to understand it (I don't only mean the ending), or at least I don't try or even would like to make sense of what is being shown.

Watching it I feel something I cannot describe, and that is one of the greatest things a film can do, at least for me.

 

 

The monolith feels more real and meaningful to me than 95 percent of the human characters in films out there. It makes me feel watched, admonished, asked, animated, … Comfortable and uncomfortable at the same time.

If it doesn't give you these emotions, I can fully understand that it isn't something you want to watch.

no. 2001 is all about the very subtle build up of suspense in the battle of wits between a man and a machine in the face of unspeakable danger.

 

i think this is lost on many people as these days films are much too overwrought and in your face with messages and meaning etc.

 

the visuals and the editing is just the icing on the cake, if that's really all you are taking away you're not paying attention.

 

Says she who only talks about the next to last episode, the battle between man and machine, as if nothing else happened in the film.

If it's all about the battle, why did Kubrick bother to add a few hours before and the brilliant episode after it?

The man looking at and becoming his own future, the floating fetus, all just icing on the cake?

Man vs. machine has been done before.

 

It really depends what point you think Hal goes insane at. The monolith is a machine too you muppet.

 

 

 

In 2010 you find out that HAL was told to lie and you can see the point where this happens in 2001 when he says "wait a minute, wait a minute" then makes up the faulty antenna, from then he goes haywire as Dave and Frank are therefore working against his new mission parameters and goes all Skynet on their asses.

The ending is explained a little bit better in the book but the limits of 60's sfx had already been pushed beyond their limits of the time so Kubrick too some artistic license but basically Dave Bowman is transformed into the next stage of evolution or 'Star Child' as it's referred too which connects to start of the with the film apes evolving to use weapons/tools after coming in contact with the first monolith hence becoming the dominant species on earth and so forth.

 

[MadameChaos]

There is dialogue in the film about Hal going insane due to having two conflicting directives which are to complete the mission yet protect the crew. I don't know if this is the case in the book but it's quite clearly stated in the film. However as you said it's open to interpretation. In my opinion HAL is sentient hence his fear of death.

[awepittance]

yes i forgot about this, but isn't the discussion in the movie just that mission control's HAL is having the same malfunction, that they discovered he was glitching out? I don't think they ever say in the movie that HAl's conflicting programming made him feel the need to murder the entire crew. If that had been established I highly doubt any of them would have done a spacewalk after that point, they would have just shut him down right there.

[Guest Jimmy McMessageboard]

 

Jack Reacher Weiner Herzog/10

I give it 5 bags of popcorn and 6 sodas

 

 

yeah it was kinda fun. seeing herzog and cruise on screen was special. there were some terrible one liners in this film and the explanation for what the bad guys business plan was was hilarious

 

 

 

something like

they take over government contracts and build roads that nobody needs?

 

what?

prisoner human played it like the badest badass