Movie Tab II

Neither do I, not after watching the trailer a few days ago.

Mr. Deeds Goes To Town
Frank Capra, 1936

Another great movie from Capra, but it still ranks as one of my least favorites from him. As you may have noticed I still gave it a great score, but that just really shows you how great his other movies are. I still have quite a few to see though, so I doubt it'll stay like this long. I've seen the remake of this, so I basically already knew the basics of watch this was going to be like. They were actually pretty different though, so that's a plus. One thing I wasn't particually fond of was the ending, I don't know, but something about some bigger people trying to walk over little people really upsets me. I've actually been seeing it done a lot in older movies, but usually it still ends up with a happy ending.

Jean Arthur is becoming one of my favorite actresses, between this, You Can't Take It With You, and Mr. Smith Goes To Washington. She seems to have done a great job in all of those, but I've still only seen 3 of her movies. Gary Cooper is a pretty damn good actor as well. I noticed a lot of similarties in his character in this and in Meet John Doe, which just happens to be another Capra movie. Still it was a great movie, and it'd be one that I think you should check out if you haven't yet.

The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford (2007, Andrew Dominik)

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"Don't be so gloomy. After all it's not that awful. Like the fella says, in Italy for 30 years under the Borgias they had warfare, terror, murder, and bloodshed, but they produced Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci, and the Renaissance. In Switzerland they had brotherly love - they had 500 years of democracy and peace, and what did that produce? The cuckoo clock."

Cowboy Bebop : The Movie

It looks great and has the very strong support of it's 26 episode series. This is one of the best translations from TV to film I've seen and exactly how it should be done - uses the characters you already know and puts them into a bigger theatrical situation. Although the movie is far from perfect , it's one of the more enjoyable anime films out there.

The music choice is pretty far out there though , I much prefer the Jazz from the series to this random assortment.





Platoon

I think this may be the worst war film I've ever seen. With the director having served in Vietnam himself , Stone somehow has produced one of the most formulaic dumb action movie interpretations of war. The script is terrible from the start , applying a 2 swears to 1 real word ratio - the characters have no believability in them and it just gets worse as you go on.

The visuals are pretty garbage as well , some of the scenes look good and most of them look terrible. Lighting is as abysmal the camera-work , everything has a dull tint. Oh yeah , the musical score amounts to one song - which is completely over the top every time you hear it.

After watching this atrocity , I found that it won Best Picture , Best Director , Best Sound , and Best Film Editing ... The only thing I give this movie credit for , is really wanting me to watch the real Vietnam film Apocalypse Now.





The Wrestler

If you thought this movie was great alone , wait until you see it after Platoon. Everything here comes together beautifully , an original core idea , strong acting , meaningful visuals , and awesome music.





The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp

With stunningly modern camera-work this film serves as the perfect tutorial in being a gentleman. Very enjoyable film about the military , with a surprising absence of fighting and an abundance of great dialogue.

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I really liked Alien... but my favorite has to be the second one... Aliens... Have you seen it yet?

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Any thoughts? I like that film a lot.

I liked the acting across the board, but especially Casey Affleck (who is the most talented Affleck for sure). Excellent cinematography, the train robbery scene at the start had a great feel to it. The film did a good job of not falling prey to the myth of Jesse James and instead gave me a bit of a history lesson in the process. It's running time was long, and most of the time I wouldn't care about the length unless I notice it, which I did. And those little interludes with the voiceover and its attempt at hypnotic visuals didn't quite work for me. But all and all a decent commentary on honour and integrity, as well as celebrity and legend in America.

Fast and Furious (2009)

Now when I say I had high hopes for this, I don't mean like compared to The Dark Knight, I knew it wouldn't top the first. Fast and Furious was disappointing and depressing, it felt like a anti-hooning ad, what happens to your life when all you care about is cars and money. And while the F&F movies are never that realistic this was even less realistic and reminded me of Transporter 2 in its stupidity. The only redeemable feature is seeing Dom and Brian back together, a few nostelgic feelings. The ending was pretty good considering. This has nothing on the original.

Haven't seen Aliens yet, i plan to soon.

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Children of Men -



This was such a awesome movie and story. I loved the film a lot. I'm sure it will come into my top 10. At the moment, one of the best movies that Clive Owen has stared in yet...

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Destry Rides Again
George Marshall, 1939

I probably wouldn't have seen this for awhile had it not been for a special showing on the battleship in my town. It was actually pretty cool watching an older movie other than at my own house, because it helps really add to the experience of a movie. My only concern is that someone in the audience didn't speak english, so they had spanish subtitles up during the whole movie. It's always great to see some more of James Stewart movies, though, I honestly think that he's my favorite actor easily. Seeing him in a western, which is one of my favorite kind of movies, really helps a lot too. It was more of a comedy western, though, but I still thought it was great. The ending ended up being really great, but the endings to westerns never really seem to disappoint me.

James Stewart is so great in this, but then again, when is he not great in a movie. It's just so amazing how he can have completely different characters in all of his movies, and make them all work great. Any Stewart fan or western fan needs to check this one out if they haven't had the chance to yet.

Boiling Point (1990, Takeshi Kitano)
I have to get a hold of more Takeshi's films now.


Ocean's Thirteen (2007, Steven Soderbergh)
Soderbergh and gang should of stopped at eleven.


Role Models (2008, David Wain)
The first half of this movie was a lot better than the second.

New Alcatraz -



It was OK, some of the CGI was pretty average, but the movie itself was alright, probably not something i would watch over and over.

X-MEN ORIGINS: WOLVERINE. (Gavin Hood - 2009)



Throughout the film, I kept on thinking how much Jackman looks so much like a younger Eastwood. Am I alone in thinking this?

Anyway, the film was so-so. I could care less for it. It's entertainment value was decent.

Elite Squad (Jose Padilha 2007)



A gritty, violent movie about an elite special forces unit called BOPE. I did like this movie a lot, but I wish at times it had slowed down just a little. The somewhat frantic pacing had me feeling a litte disconnected at times. B

A Scanner Darkly



Disappointing. I still think the animation is awesome to watch, but the story was just lkjfgbqejbfbdssa. There was so much stuff in there that was so pointless and I thought it was gonna come back and have something to do with the overall plot but nooope it was just thrown in there for no apparent reason. Yeah, overall I felt like it was trying to be an artistically messy movie and it just ended up being the messy part. Like I said, still visually interesting and it did have some cool parts and a good cast to give it some points.

Altered States

This one was quite a random pick , but it turned out to be an interesting surreal ride. Altered States rarely connected at any deep point in my mind , but any movie that goes this far above and beyond to keep you involved can't be anything but enjoyable.

There are a bunch of different meanings you could decide to pair up with this film and it does create the weird sense of atmosphere you get when told two stories each at their separate pace.

Visually this is a mixed bag , there are many scenes that look brilliant and some that have become terribly dated even to the point of looking so bad it's funny. Obviously cheap green-screen effects can't top classic top grade cinematography.

Dream film addicts I recommend this one to you.





Videodrome

Here's another off the wall chaotic surreality. This is the first of Cronenberg I've seen and it sure won't be the last , the visuals and effects here are pretty top notch for their obvious limits. Unlike Altered States there is a wise dodging of the more cheaper effects and it's messages and themes effectively resonate with me - even if they aren't very meaningfully.





No Country for Old Men

Now here's a class example of portraying simple themes in a much more complex manner. Strong performances make these characters instantly believable and their dialogue is wise and universally knowledgeable.

It's a suspense thriller , but one packed with much more than your expecting. There is no formula tying these events together , there is no ounce of predictability about the story - other than your assumptions about the characters themselves.

What would a great action movie be without encompassing images. Be it's setting be the enormous dessert or the old small housings , there is a heavy sense of personality and symbolism layered onto everything seen here.

Easily one of the best , if not best film that has won Best Picture. Even if it isn't my favorite film to come out of the great 2007 film year , it's the one I'd most highly recommend to audiences of all kind (except the weak of stomach).





Indiana Jones and The Temple of Doom

Surely my favorite of the now quadrilogy , over the top performances match the completely insane , awesome action the film continues to dish out again and again. Not only does it work as the perfect action/adventure movie , but is itself a satire of it's own genre and the old serials that inspired it.

Right from the endlessly twisting , eye opening introduction - it's visual and musical energy never deafen : big booming punches and a familiar loud brilliant orchestra light up the magnificently done sets.

^^pretty accurate review, theres a lot in scanner darkly i hate and a lot i love.

13th Warrior



My flatmate spent months trying to get me to watch this, finally saw it tonight. One word.

Badass.

On paper it has the stoopidest plotline but in practice its awesome. Antonio Banderas? Yes. Vikings? Absolutely. Weird bear-like crazy people? Definitely

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Undercoverlovers 100 REDUX

Halloween
John Carpenter, 1978

I literally just typed up a really long review, but I accidently deleted it, so I guess I'll try and do it again. I constantly hear how great of a horror movie this is, and since I haven't seen it since I was a kid, I thought it was about time that I revisited this and gave it another watch. I remember liking it a lot more as a kid, than I do now. Maybe since I was younger, it just freaked me out more than it does now. I was pretty surprised at how much of it I remembered, though the remake did help me with some of it. Something that just really seems to irk me is how stupid they make the characters in this, but that's really just a rant about horror movies in general. I wish a horror movie would come out that actually gave the characters a brain. My only real problem with this is how slow moving it is. It seems like they tried to drag things out on purpose just to make it so it would be an hour and a half.

Something else that I didn't really like was Jaime Lee Curtis as Laurie, I much prefer Scout Taylor-Compton as Laurie. She can act much better than Curtis, and she's also insanely hot, which Curtis really isn't. I'd actually go as far to say that the entire female cast in the remake was much better than in the original. Despite me sounding pretty negative about it, I still really liked it. I just didn't like it as much as I remembered, but I guess it's just because I got older. I still respect what it did for the slasher genre, this and Psycho were easily the two most influencial slashers out there.

100% agreed on all points, meat. Although, I have yet to see Crystal Skull, the newest installation in the series.

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"The mind is its own place, and in itself
Can make a Heaven of Hell, a Hell of Heaven."
John Milton, Paradise Lost

My Movie Review Thread | My Top 100

Twilight (Hardwicke, 2008) -

After finishing with this, I was wondering what rating I could possibly give this film. I've considered taking a page out of Used Future's book and giving the film two ratings - one, a genuine rating and one a "trash" rating. If pressed to go that was, I'd say my genuine rating for this would be , but as far as enjoying it in a totally schaedenfreude manner, I'd probably go so far as to give it a , simply because it made me laugh a lot. Between the one-note performances, noticeably fake effects and stuntwork and badly written dialogue, I feel tempted to call Twilight the best "comedy" of 2008 (suck it, Rogen). Who knows how many people I would've annoyed if I'd seen this at the theatres, I laughed so hard at it.

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Iro's Top 100 Movies v3.0