Movie Tab II

Holy ***** that actually exists?!!!

Although come on lines. I know it's you and all, but 1/5 for Miracle on 34th Street? Bah humbug indeed!

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Jingle All the Way 2 stars Larry the Cable Guy. Not sure if that makes it better or worse than the one with the Schwarz (it's def. a little less insane though).

Miracle on 34th Street (1990s version, I make no claims for or against the original, which I haven't seen since childhood) might have been passable (so like, a ) if our god-forsaken culture wasn't already awash in badly-written, cloyingly-staged courtroom dramas.

Movies like these... had better die, and decrease the surplus population.

Gospel Road: A Story of Jesus



Johnny Cash stars, narrates, sings, writes, and produces this film. His wife, June Carter Cash, contributes as producer, singer and stars as Mary Magdalene. Robert Elfstrom directs and stars as Jesus Christ.

Poorly acted, horribly shot, this is one of the worst films ever made.

.


Eww. They couldn't even get Sinbad to return? That's when you know you've got a s*it movie on your hands

You're darn tootin'!

The Hobbit: Battle of the Five Armies (Peter Jackson, 2014)
Guardians of the Galaxy (James Gunn, 2014)

I felt the movie was pretty mediocre too (and this is coming from a Marvel fan). Thank god not everyone's just as blind.

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“It's now very common to hear people say, 'I'm rather offended by that.' As if that gives them certain rights. It's actually nothing more... than a whine. 'I find that offensive.' It has no meaning; it has no purpose; it has no reason to be respected as a phrase. 'I am offended by that.' Well, so ****ing what." - Stephen Fry, The Guardian, 5 June 2005

The Hobbit: Battle of the Five Armies (Peter Jackson, 2014) - IT's always third movies in trilogies that fail most often. This one doesn't at all, and is my second favorite of the Hobbit Trilogy, after the first film in the series. It moves along at a brisk pace, it has moments of humor amongst all the epic battle, and at the center, quietly, sits Martin Freeman, who is pretty much perfect as Bilbo Baggins. Plus it introduces possibly my favorite character in all of these Peter Jackson fantasy films, Dain (played by Billy Connolly), a hog riding, loud mouthed Scottish dwarf who swings a mean hammer and absolutely LOVES to fight. My goodness he's awesome. This guy should get his own film...lol.

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"You, me, everyone...we are all made of star stuff." - Neil Degrasse Tyson

https://shawnsmovienight.blogspot.com/

Watership Down (1978) - Martin Rosen
A great story with good animation. Perhaps the only real issue I had with it is that the animation was done in a relatively realistic style and the voice acting was very natural so the characters kind of blended together lessening any emotional impact. Still, I liked it. +

The Plague Dogs (1982) - Martin Rosen
A more character focussed film than the above thanks to there only being a couple of main characters and the fact that dogs don't all look the same.

The Iron Giant (1999) - Brad Bird
An interesting idea let down a bit by a pretty average script.

The Castle of Cagliostro (1979) - Hayao Miyazaki
One of my least favourite Miyazaki films. Lacked the emotional attachment of his others due to it being an adventure movie with some people whereas many of his later films are about people with some adventure if that makes sense. -

Rocky V (1990) - John G Avildsen
Not as bad as IV, which was a music video pretending to be a movie, but still really, really bad.

Sleeper (1973) - Woody Allen
My least favourite Allen film. The slapstick wasn't funny (and there was too much of it) and Diane Keaton looked kind of lost most of the time - like you could see her trying to think of something funny to do. Apart from that it did have some good moments though.

Breaking Away (1979) - Peter Yates
A nice growing up movie with good lead main characters.

Hukkle (2002) - Gyorgi Palfi
A Hungarian movie with almost no dialogue ... or story if you aren't paying attention. The focus seems to be on sounds and it makes the whole thing quite hypnotic. The second movie I've seen of Palfi's and I'm looking forward to seeing more.

Princess Kaguya



New Ghibli flick animated in a pretty watercolor style. A very peaceful movie about an extremely repressed girl that came out of a bamboo stalk.




Secret of Kells



Another tranquil animated movie that begs to be seen on a huge screen. The story is brief, with a couple loose ends (the movie is only about an hour and 15 minutes). It reminded me of How to Train Your Dragon, without the annoying characters and cliches. Almost every shot is designed to look like a painting, the visual style is incredibly detailed and awesome.



Talhotblond



A documentary about a man in his 40's (alias name MarineSniper) who plays Pogo.com bingo with a kid from his work (Beefcake) and then they both meet someone claiming to be an 18 year old girl (Talhotblond) on the chatroom (in pogo bingo) and form a devious love triangle.

The documentary tries to argue a very stupid opinion and employs really goofy cringe inducing film techniques, but if you're a fan of black comedies this should be right up your alley.



The Hobbit 3



Saw this with my girlfriend who actually likes The Hobbit movies, we both slept through most of it. Once Smaug is out of the picture there's no reason to watch. Hobbit 3 is the culmination of all the bad decisions made by the series. The film is mostly one long CGI battle scene with zero drama or entertainment value. I suggested after seeing Hobbit 2 that they could have made one good film by just cutting the good material out of the three films, but there is only about 8 minutes of good material here in this 2 hour 30 minute abomination.



Blackfish



Smart, engaging documentary film-making. This one is about how dangerous and unnatural it is to train orca whales to perform for our entertainment. It also exposes Seaworld as the typical multimillion dollar company pulling shady stuff every two seconds. There are some really heart pounding intense scenes involving the angry whales and awe inspiring footage of the whales in nature and the crazy stunts the trainers were able to achieve with the whales in their performances.

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Home Alone (1990, Chris Columbus)


National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation (1989, Jeremiah S. Chechik)


Die Hard (1988, John McTiernan)


The Hunger Games: Catching Fire and The Hunger Games: Mockingjay, Part 1 (2013/2014, Francis Lawrence)


The Book of Life (2014, Jorge R. Gutierrez)


Penguins of Madagascar (2014, Eric Darnell and Simon J. Smith)


The Interview (2014, Evan Goldberg and Seth Rogen)


Gone Girl (2014, David Fincher)


Nightcrawler (2014, Dan Gilroy)


Dumb And Dumber To (2014, The Farrelly Brothers)


Dawn of the Planet of the Apes (2014, Matt Reeves)


Lucy (2014, Luc Besson)


Sin City: A Dame to Kill For (2014, Frank Miller and Robert Rodriguez)

The Awful Truth (Leo McCarey, 1937)

+
My Favorite Wife (Garson Kanin, 1940)

Wabash Avenue (Henry Koster, 1950)

Treasure Island (Byron Haskin, 1950)

Long John Silver (Robert Newton) threatens to harm Jim Hawkins (Bobby Driscoll) if he doesn't get the treasure map. Since "Long" implies cannibalism, maybe Silver wants to eat Hawkins too.
Atlantiques (Mati Diop, 2009)

The Farmer Takes a Wife (Henry Levin, 1953)

Oliver! (Carol Reed, 1968)

How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying (David Swift, 1967)

Window washer Robert Morse rises to the top of the corporate ladder and learns he loves his secretary Michele Lee (far right).
Powder (Victor Salva, 1995)

+
Death of a Salesman (Laslo Benedek, 1951)

Jason’s Lyric (Doug McHenry, 1994)

-
Find Me Guilty (Sidney Lumet, 2006)

Jack DiNorscio (Vin Diesel) acts as his own lawyer in the longest mob trial in U.S. history. He’s wearing his “gangster hat” to prove he’s really only a "gagster".
The Big Fisherman (Frank Borzage, 1959)

Miracle on 34th Street (George Seaton, 1947)

Snow Gets in Your Eyes (Will Jason, 1938)

’71 (Yann Demange, 2014)

IRA supporters roam the streets of Belfast in a search for an English private left behind by his own men.
Cheech and Chong’s Next Movie (Tommy Chong, 1980)

Still Smokin (Tommy Chong, 1983)

Compliments of the Season (Arthur Hurley, 1930)

Meet Me in St. Louis (Vincente Minnelli, 1944)

Teenager Judy Garland hopes her youngest sister Margaret O’Brien has a Merry Little Christmas.

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It's what you learn after you know it all that counts. - John Wooden
My IMDb page

The Salvation 2014

The Wicker Man 1973

The Orphanage 2007, rewatch

September 11: The New Peal Habour 2013

Cover Girl (Charles Vidor, 1944)

The Interview (Evan Goldberg & Seth Rogen, 2014)

Snow Birds (Jules White, 1932)

Deep Blue (Andy Byatt & Alastair Fothergill, 2003)

+

Beluga whales in the Antarctic
Street Knight (Albert Magnoli, 1993)

The Big T.N.T. Show (Larry Peerce, 1966)

Wicked Little Things (J.S. Cardone, 2006)

The Rolling Stones Rock and Roll Circus (Michael Lindsay-Hogg, 1996)

Keith Richards, Charlie Watts, Mick Jagger, Brian Jones (in his final Stones performance) & Bill Wyman are master of ceremonies of a tight ‘60s concert TV special which never got aired.
We Are the Best! (Lukas Moodysson, 2013)

The Three Stooges (Farrelly Bros., 2012)

The Strange Color of Your Body’s Tears (Hélène Cattet & Bruno Forzani, 2014)

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Ernest & Celestine (Stéphane Aubier, Vincent Patar & Benjamin Renner, 2012)

Starving Bear Ernest tries to eat mouse Celestine, but even though their folklore says they should be sworn enemies, they become fast friends.
The Book of Life (Jorge R. Gutierrez, 2014)

Carry On Teacher (Gerald Thomas, 1959)

American Violet (Tim Disney, 2009)

Headhunters (Morten Tyldum, 2011)

Headhunter Aksel Hennie’s “second job” of art forgery/theft gets him in way over his head in this fast-paced, twisty thiller.
The T.A.M.I. Show (Steve Binder, 1964)

An American Hippie in Israel (Amos Sefer, 1972)

Lady Sings the Blues (Sidney J. Furie, 1972)

The Man from Nowhere (Jeong-beom Lee, 2010)

Even bullet-proof glass breaks when fired upon from point-blank range by pawnbroker Bin Won.

The Twilight Zone



I watched 7 episodes in one day and all I can say is it's amazing. The stories are very varied, but all of them are witty and have a dose of suspense and enigma that escalate the joy of watching the series by so much it's impossible to stop after only one episode. The quality is so high I have trouble with picking my favourite episode. My least favourite has to be the Sunset Boulevard inspired one, but what about my favourite? The first one was a glorious ride of madness and mystery, the second a heartbreaking story. There's a story of a man, who wants to return to his childhood so much, the past sucks him in and a devastating tale of a convicted man living alone on an asteroid until he's given a certain gift. And that's only a beginning, because everything can happen in The Twilight Zone...

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Look, I'm not judging you - after all, I'm posting here myself, but maybe, just maybe, if you spent less time here and more time watching films, maybe, and I stress, maybe your taste would be of some value. Just a thought, ya know.

(Anthony Russo & Joe Russo, 2014)

Starts off great, with the boat scene and Nick Fury's car chase, with the character of Robert Redford and the underlying storyline and feel of paranoia that seems to pay homage to the Seventies era, making the film highly enjoyable. But then there is a point in the film where things go downhill to me, I am not sure if it was the talking computer or the character with wings, but after they are introduced the film descends into an ordinary superhero affair with one massive, overlong fight complete with many cheesy lines. I still enjoyed it overall, but I thought this had the potential to be better.

-

My second viewing, this time at home with my family. I do not really have any new thoughts to add, I enjoyed it pretty much the same, although seeing it at the cinema was naturally a little better (check out my review thread for my thoughts). My mum and brother both enjoyed it quite a bit. One of my favourite films of 2014 so far.



My mum wanted me to watch this and it was absolutely dreadful. Her and my younger sister had seen it before and enjoyed it, but I thought it was unbearable at times. The main point of the film is a less than intelligent character who acts like a child and goes along with them instead of the teacher (Martin Freeman), and it is completely not funny and actually very awkward as it feels like it wants us to laugh at this 'simple' character. Martin Freeman does his normal, awkward, "what am I doing with these idiots?" performance, and it is fine. That is about it.

(Damon Beesley & Iain Morris, 2014)

The first film was not great, although compared to this it is much better. I admit I did laugh a few times watching this, but I think they all came within the first half an hour, after that it goes massively downhill, relying on stupid moments rather than clever teenage comedy. The plot is absolutely terrible but to be expected, a lot of the gags are overdone and then whole thing just seems to end abruptly. I am not sure why this got so much praise.

(Dean DeBlois, 2014)

A good film, not up to the level of the first, but still a good film that the majority of people will enjoy quite a lot. I was wondering after the first, what would they do with a second in terms of story, but somehow they managed to make it more complicated than necessary. There are parts that I thought were unusually dark for a film mainly children will watch, maybe I need to watch it again. Had its great moments like the first, but overall I did not think it was such a fun experience as it.

(Steven Spielberg, 1981) +

All three of the original trilogy are on TV this week, so I will try and watch them all. I loved them as a kid, and it is about time that I rewatched them. It has everything you want from such a entertaining blockbuster, a likable rugged hero, romance, humour and action, with many great scenes stuck together. I forgot just how 'universal' the film is, what I mean is the great use of locations used in it. I watched it my brother who seems to insist on hating Steven Spielberg (I am not quite sure why), but by the end of the film, he was smiling and turning the volume up to hear it better, I think it had turned him round by the end.

I agree that "The Twilight Zone" is a great show, and yes, it's hard to pick a favorite episode, but shouldn't this post be in the Television Tab, not the Movie Tab?

Been put for awhile, haven't been watching or posting much. Maybe because football, or the holidays. But gotta catch up on my favorite thread.

I agree with you about Raising Arizona, but....


Btw I haven't their full filmography but here's how I'd rank them
True Grit
Barton Fink
Miller's Crossing
The Big Lebowski
Fargo
O Brother Where Art Thou?
Raising Arizona
No Country For Old Men



Two of my favorites

Definitely opened my mind more on an issue that I've always been kind of in the middle on. Also made me realize I don't care for either side of the activists.

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Adam’s Rib (George Cukor, 1949)

Third-Dimensional Murder (George Sidney, 1941)

+
The King of Kings (Cecil B. DeMille, 1927)

Foxcatcher (Bennett Miller, 2014)

-

Wrestler Mark Schultz (Channing Tatum) seems to be absorbing the insecurities and depression of his coach John du Pont (Steve Carell).
The Boss (Fernando di Leo, 1973)

+
Robinson Crusoe (Luis Buñuel, 1954)

The Pearls of the Crown (Sacha Guitry, 1937)

The Story of a Cheat (Sacha Guitry, 1936)

As a mature Lothario, Sacha Guitry recounts his life through flashbacks and witty narration. As a child, played by Serge Grave, he survives by being punished for stealing and being denied a dinner which kills his family who eats poisonous toadstools.
Flamingo Road (Michael Curtiz, 1949)

Dark Passage (Delmer Daves, 1947)

Lady in the Lake (Robert Montgomery, 1947)

-
Outrage (Takeshi Kitano, 2010)

The world-weary yakuza Takeshi Kitano is used to cleaning up the messes of his underlings and bosses.
What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? (Robert Aldrich, 1962)

Beware, My Lovely (Harry Horner, 1952)

Back from Eternity (John Farrow, 1956)

Lord of the Flies (Peter Brook, 1963)

After their plane crashes near a remote island, a group of British schoolboys breaks up into two sides – one supporting a more-civilized life and one promoting a more “back to nature” path.
Super 8 (J.J. Abrams, 2011)

+
Immortals (Tarsem Singh, 2011)

Vampire’s Kiss (Robert Bierman, 1988)

The Holy Mountain (Arnold Fanck, 1926)

Dancer Leni Riefenstahl and her engineer love Luis Trenker approach the Ice Palace of the Holy Mountain in their dreams since in reality, he’s stuck on a mountain in a storm with another climber who also loves her.

Cool World - Interesting but a total failure to create an "adult" Who Framed Roger Rabbit. Studio interference, poorly chosen female lead, and half finished animation doomed this one, and that's a shame. Some of it is gorgeously filmed and animated.

The Nine Lives of Fritz the Cat - Inferior sequel to the cult classic animated film Fritz the Cat, featuring no input from either Fritz' creator, underground comix legend R. Crumb nor the first film's director, rebel animator Ralph Bakshi. Some of it works, most of it is tame, lame, and poorly executed. Some bold but troubling satire on race relations, and a funny/awful sequence making fun of Hitler get laughs (or gasps), but the rest seems afraid to be as outrageous as the first film.

A Prairie Home Companion - Robert Altman's final film tells the story of a fictionalized version of the long time NPR favorite, facing cancellation. A great cast does good work, and Woody Harrelson and John C Reilly get some laughs, but I felt depressed after watching it. The film is about death and loss and grief, but trying to make that into a warm, gentle comedy. Nope, but it was well made, so

The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey - The best of the Hobbit trilogy, and the one I've watched the most. There's just a...glee to the film, it's the most light hearted thing Peter Jackson will probably ever make. I loved the goblin king, Gollum and Bilbo's game of riddles, and the songs.

The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug - The first time I saw this film, I'd just gotten out of hospital, and was really uncomfortable sitting in cinema seats for it's long running time. This made me not enjoy it as much as I could have. I liked it a LOT better this time. Sure, the ending seems dragged out too long, but the effects are fantastic, Smaug is a great character, and the fast paced action leading up to the climactic confrontation with the dragon are swift and fun.

Heartbeats (2010) -


Yes, it is David's human embodiment in the rain of marshmallows. Got any problem with that?!

My first Dolan. I'm watching his debut tomorrow.