Rate The Last Movie You Saw

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At the theaters.
Monuments Men 8/10. Had a good laugh



Bluray:
Thor 2: The Dark World 9/10. A more deserving movie for Thor than the first one, and Loki steals the show.



Kiss Kiss Bang Bang.

Hmmm. I liked some of it. It had a sharp script at times and the narrated format worked ok. But at other times it didn't know whether to be a full on comedy caper or a serious crime drama. And it suffered as a result. There were funny bits and there were clever bits but it is ultimately forgettable.

5.5/10





12 Years a Slave

So after the Oscars I decided to watch this. A very powerful, emotional movie with unbelievable, beautiful cinematography. The acting was superb throughout and the movie was engaging as we followed Solomon's life during his enslavery. I had wished they shown a little more of his life before he was kidnapped, and I also thought the ending was a little rushed but I'm guessing this was so the movie didn't drag along, and it certainly didn't. Fassbender is absolutely brilliant as the tyrant. Eljofor is solid but nothing really groundbreaking. Overall I really liked this movie, even if I did prefer Django Unchained's take on slavery over this, I am still able to appreciate that this is a great film. Beautifully shot.

8/10



but now you have my attention
Don Jon- 9/10 love it, although I made the mistake of watching it with my wife. now I have no "playstation time" to myself at night.
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12 Years a Slave
Overall I really liked this movie, even if I did prefer Django Unchained's take on slavery over this, I am still able to appreciate that this is a great film. Beautifully shot.
What do you mean by this?
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The Bridge on the River Kwai


This is a grand scale epic that is powerful and thrilling. Alec Guinness and Japanese actor Sessue Hayakawa are phenomenal as opposing colonels, and William Holden adds charisma as a reluctant hero. I love modern movies, but people are right when they say they don't make em like they used to. Great acting, great story, great scenery, great everything.



What do you mean by this?
I think he's saying that he enjoyed Tarantino's interpretation of the time period,incorporating a spaghetti against the backdrop of slavery, moreso than the (presumably) realistic take on those same events.
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-Daniel, There Will Be Blood



Just watched "American Hustle" at long last. Loved it. Enjoyable, fun and interesting. Bale was a class act above anyone else in my opinion. But that's not to say the others were bad. All the cast were good. Storyline was good and kept me guessing right up to the end. Liked the backing music throughout as well which is always a bonus.

Still deciding on whether to give it 8/10 or 9/10. Decisions Decisions.
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The Bib-iest of Nickels

I didn't really know what to expect whenever I discovered Perfume on a shelf at the rental store, but I had heard rumblings about the movie from time to time. Most notably, I remember reading a summary about the plot and being filled with a since of intrigue. I learned that it was based on a 1985 novel written by Patrick Suskind, but I never really noticed that the setting was 18th century France. For those that are unaware, Perfume: The Story of a Murderer is a 2006 German thriller directed by Tom Tykwer. What's funny is while watching this movie, I made this subconscious connection to Cloud Atlas, only to find out that it was actually done by the same director. The movie stars Ben Whishaw, Alan Rickman, Dustin Hoffman, and Rachel Hurd-Wood, and to their credit, everybody is able to bring about an admirable performance by the conclusion of the movie.

The film tells the tale of a boy that grows up at an orphanage, facing numerous hardships while simultaneously honing a peculiar ability that makes him unique, this being his sense of smell. He doesn't take a liking to the deemed normality of life, doesn't take satisfaction in many so-called pleasurable activities, but constantly finds himself infatuated with various smells. He doesn't hold prejudice over good or bad ones, but merely holds the guideline that they have to keep being unique. There were two comparisons that I found myself making with this character, Casey Affleck's performance as Robert Ford in the Assassination of Jesse James and Mary Shelly's Frankenstein. I made the comparison to Robert Ford because the character's portrayal isn't one that you are supposed to be rooting for. He's technically the protagonist, but he's not really an antihero, you completely accept that he's a vile human-being that is completely obsessed, but he doesn't necessarily do anything that makes you want to root for him.

Similar to Robert Ford, I think that Ben Whishaw does a terrific job with his performance, coming across as genuinely awkward, bizarre, bewildered, and disinterested in the world around him. And a lot of that leads to why I make the comparison to Frankenstein, like Frankenstein, the character eventually does terrible things, but he never seems to empathize or comprehend that what he is doing is bad. However, that's where the comparisons end because, unlike Frankenstein, this character is only interested in indulging in his own addiction, which is a precise way of describing what this movie is about. I believe that the character alone is enough reason to recommend this movie, but there is more to be said about this movie than merely praising alone.

Perfume has a run-time of one-hundred and forty-seven minutes which doesn't manage to match Cloud Atlas' near three-hours, it does, however, manage to induce a feeling of being dragged out. Given it what is due, there is a fair amount going on within the movie, however, it feels so disproportionate and inconsistent with what the message is meant to be that it's easy to become disinterested. I believe that a lot of the scenes were unneeded or stretched in-such a way that you could probably get across the exact same thing, all of the scenes and everything, in under two hours. There is also a certain ridiculousness to the concept itself that felt unnecessary, for example, there are a lot of scenes where the protagonist is able to smell things from literally miles and miles away. There's a difference between being obsessive and having superpowers. I don't believe that it was necessary, I don't believe that it really added to the in-depth look into obsession, and while it may have made enjoyable scenes from a cinematographic perspective, I don't believe they were needed for the story.

Then, I wonder whether or not I am actually justified for annoyance when it comes to his smelling ability when I am fully aware that the audacity of this film propels itself onward to uncharted territory by the conclusion. There is only one problem about it though, I like what they did in the final thirty or so minutes. I mean, it was an absolute mess of random and mind-jarring happenings that it is likely capable of turning somebody's brain into mush, but that doesn't mean I didn't like it. I thought it was very bizarre, and very different, but the problem is that I never believed that the movie itself could have been capable of such an intricate and bewildering climax. They didn't go together at all whatsoever, something more grimed in-reality, it came off more uneven than it should have, like squeezing a square block into a slot specifically made for circles or two puzzle-pieces that only fit because you make them fit.

In an effort to keep it simple, I'll summarize my thoughts with a final verdict: The movie isn't absent of ambition, and oftentimes, it even has the merit capable to back it up. Ben Whishaw brings a very powerful performance about a despicable and morally repugnant, however, that isn't enough to keep from being undermined by a script and story that don't really have a steady rhythm about them. It feels allover the place, but if you can focus yourself long enough to find reason in the madness, I do believe that there is a lot of enjoyment to be had with Perfume.





Wow. I totally regret having not watched this movie before. Life changing. Memorable. Wonderful.
(I never give 5/5s).



What do you mean by this?
Well I constantly found myself referring back to Django Unchained throughout. Basically just saying that even though I don't think 12 Years is the best take on slavery I still very much liked the film.



In the Heat of the Night


This Oscar winner for best picture got me hooked right at the beginning, and never let me go. Sidney Poitier and Rod Steiger are perfect in their roles in one of the best movies I've seen, where racism is a central theme. Honeykid called this an excellent watch; that's exactly what it is.



The Bib-iest of Nickels

Percy Jackson & The Olympians is amongst the several young-adult books attempting to capture the same, ahem, lightning in a bottle that Harry Potter was able to seize. I'll open this up with saying that I absolutely adored Harry Potter as a book-series and movie-franchise, and I believe that they have cinematic brilliance on numerous accounts. Ever since Harry Potter's success, there has been a lot that have tried to do something similar, and some of them have even succeeded. For example, while Twilight obviously wasn't able to garner the same critical success, it was able to capture a considerable amount of success. And more recently, The Hunger Games has begun carrying the torch as a money-maker and well-received movie-franchise based on young-adult books. However, for all of these, there are those that don't make strong critical success and those that don't capture the audience as what they were aiming for.

Whether it be Mortal Instruments, Beautiful Creatures, or Vampire Academy, there are countless that try to play off of that bewildering formula that made individuals gravitate toward the more popular franchises. Percy Jackson & The Olympians: The Lightning Thief is the first step toward a middleman. While the movie hardly got critical acclaim, the movie was followed by a sequel, which is also soon to be followed by a sequel, and made made over two-hundred million dollars in the box-office. And so, where do we begin, where it begins, of course, and so, let's look at this adaptation of the highly beloved Percy Jackson book-series.

Percy Jackson & the Olympians: The Lightning Thief is a 2010 fantasy film directed by Chris Columbus, who, besides discovering America, actually is responsible for directing Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone, as well as Chamber of Secrets. It stars Logan Lerman, Alexandra Daddario, Brandon T. Jackson, as well as one or two others that I don't feel like naming. I suppose that it's time for a roll-call, we have a director that has already proven himself capable of directing a young-adult movie, and who are the actors? We have the main-girl from the Texas Chainsaw movie, that I wanted to see naked, but they were like, no, and instead gave me a terrible movie. Then, there's Brandon T. Jackson, who I have never heard-of, but last and most important to me, we have Logan Lerman. After making this movie, Logan Lerman would go onto have a tremendous performance in a movie alongside Emma Watson, called The Perks of Being a Wallflower, and so, that's enough for me to go ahead and say, I am sold for this movie! but then, I watched it.

The story incorporates numerous intricacies brought about by Greek mythology, declaring Percy Jackson as the demigod son of Poseidon, and telling us about how Zeus' magical thunderbolt has been stolen, leaving with Percy to take the blame. This leaves for Percy Jackson to come face to face with his destiny, collect some magical orb-things, before delving into the underworld for a reason that he hasn't really thought out. The movie has an extremely fast-pace that doesn't ever take the time to breath at all, not even, not even once, not even once, once, once, and that's a jagged pill to swallow whenever you consider that it actually carries a run-time of almost two-hours. Let's get an understanding here, the movie is two-hours long, and that doesn't stop it from feeling ridiculously high-paced. As I have already said before, there are two other main-characters opposite Percy Jackson, but it doesn't feel as though either of them really has much of a reason for being here.

Neither of them actually feels developed much at all whatsoever, instead, the audience feels as though it's merely supposed to accept that they are friends because the great storyteller in the sky said that this was how it had to be. Then, and this is going to hurt me to say, Logan Lerman felt extremely out of his element in this movie. I think a lot of it has to do with the writing, everything happened way too quick, and not only did it seem like the audience didn't have much of an identity for the character, I don't believe that the actor had much of an identity for the character. There are also a lot of parts in the movie that feel disproportionately childish like whenever they go into Las Vegas, and I feel like a lot of the scenes could have meant more if it felt like the movie actually seemed like it meant for them to mean more.

This movie had enough material to successfully span out as a three-hour movie, and I know that is frowned upon for whatever reason, but the alternative is something that feels premature. Similar to a photograph with a lightened tint because it was underdeveloped, yes, we might have to wait a little bit longer, but the clarity would have been certainly worth it. While the three-main characters themselves seem dangerously underdeveloped, that is nothing compared to the antagonist, and the so-called twist, feels more like the twist you'd expect from a low-budget horror movie meant to surprise you, even though the reason you wouldn't guess it is simply because of how stupid it is. Even still, I will say that the cast is capable enough to keep this from plummeting to the mediocrity of something such as Mortal Instruments, which is just absolutely awful, and there is an entertainment-value to be had with the movie.

I can't figure out whether or not it's the special-effects or the Greek mythology, but there is something about this movie that kept me at least somewhat immersed into the story that they were trying to tell. As a final verdict, I will call this a borderline average movie with entertainment value, but not nearly as enjoyable as what it could have been.



i'll admit that i loved the Percy Jackson books when they came out, but the movie kind of sucked in comparison, and I have no desire to see any of the sequels. good review, though.



The Bib-iest of Nickels
i'll admit that i loved the Percy Jackson books when they came out, but the movie kind of sucked in comparison, and I have no desire to see any of the sequels. good review, though.
Thanks, but the first thing that I did after watching the first Percy Jackson, for all the problems that it had, and as I've said, it had a lot of problems, was watch the second. They are making a third as we speak, and if that holds as well as the first two, there is going to be a fourth, and a fifth. Afterward, they may even do an adaptation of the other five Olympian novels. I am hoping that the phrase, "Even a broken clock is right twice a day" will stand true for Percy Jackson.





Great movie. Some say that it's great only for Matthew McConaughey and Jared Leto's acting and that's fair, because they make up the bulk of the movie. There are two actors, Jennifer Garner and Griffin Dunne, who give ample support but their roles are nowhere near as compelling as the two newly Oscar-winning stars. They simply disappear into their roles and become Ron Woodroof and Rayon, respectively. I've heard arguments that the real Woodroof and Rayon weren't like this or didn't say that...well, I don't care. McConaughey and Leto tear into what is in the script and are the faces of the story. Highly recommended. 9/10
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the samoan lawyer's Avatar
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The General (1926)

Well, my first Buster Keaton didnt let me down. Really enjoyable and actually had me gripped from fairly early on. Going into it, I wasnt sure i would particulary like this as i dont have much experience with silent movies, how wrong i was. I was glad that it wasnt slapstick humour, in fact i didnt really find it overly funny at all, i much more enjoyed the action, the stunts and even the romance.

Excellent.