Films The Official bit-tech Movie Thread - What have you seen lately?

Transcendence - 5/10

I liked the idea but nothing about the film had me amazed or made me start thinking about our future possibilities

 

Street Fighter: Assasin's Fist 10/10
A Low budget fan made web series compiled as a full movie. does what hollywood couldnt and make an awesome film that stays more or less true to the SF mythology. focuses on ryu and kens storylines, also also goki, goku, akuma's

must watch for any one who luved SF 2 or still luvs SF games

 

Was babysitting my cousin so rewatched space jam - 8/10. One of my favourite movies as a kid, and I still love it. I don't understand how my little cousin though it was boring, that's just blasphemous!

 

Yeah, this is a awesome SF film.

Spoiler

Really would of liked to see goken face goki (akuma) at the end as he said it's his responsibility not to let ken/ryu inherit.

 

Akira - 8/10
Very incredible, especially considering it was made in 1988. It's aged as well or better than many other sci-fi and animated films of the time. If you haven't seen it, I highly recommend.

G.I. Joe:Retaliation - 3/10
It's stupid and I knew it would be going into it. The plot makes no sense, but there's lots of dumb action that's pretty fun. Watch for the fun of it. Leave your brain at the door.

The Vault - 8/10
This is a web series you can watch on youtube. It is reminiscent of The Cube in some ways, and has some very nice mystery and character development that is similar to Lost (when it was still good). Spend the time and watch. It's free and totally worth it.

 

How to train your dreagon 2 - Crying Children/10

Absolutely brilliant, as good as anything Pixar have come out with in the last three years at the very least. But perhaps not the best for small children, unless you like to hear crying, so, so much crying.

 

Ordering BR instead.

 

Unforgiven - 8.6/10

Surprised this film has never crossed my path before now, only really heard of it recently, reading some film article probably.

I'm not a Western afficianado, but this is definitely a modern take on one. Good mix of drama, comedy and moral ambiguity, although some of the early dialogue felt a bit clunky, and the repeated

Spoiler

Clint Eastwood falling off his horse

, although it did raise a titter, didn't look very convincing.

I've always liked Gene Hackman and you can see why he got his Oscar for this film as he is the standout character.

The film was perhaps heading for OK Land (7-7.5/10) but the ending was good, much more satisfying then I feared it was going to be. Repeated viewings might even turn it in to one of my classics, but I seem to have passed the age whereby I happen to watch films multiple times (unless they're to my daughter's liking).

See it if you haven't already.

 

The Adjustment Bureau

8/10

Gripping, compelling, quite original, I liked it.

 

Castle in the Sky - 8/10

I love this movie, Studio Ghibli classic.

Transcendence - 5/10

Plot is all over the place! I kinda lost interest half way through and more so towards the end.

 

The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford - 7/10

One of those films that will probably require at least another viewing before I can properly judge it, but because it's such a long, slow-burner, I'm not sure I'll get round to doing so.

The beginning of the film is really good, it gets straight on with developing intrigue in the interrelationships of the characters and takes us into a night scene with a train in a woods and at this stage I'm thinking I'm watching a really great film, but after that it slows right down with not much happening. It's quite quiet, with silence and dialogue dominating, but the dialogue was quite difficult to follow, due to the mix of accents and language used. I ended up having to put subtitles on to follow what they were saying, which was disappointing because it meant I couldn't focus on the actors' performances.

The final part of the film makes the previous 2hrs+ finally have a purpose, but I'm not sure whether the time investment is sufficiently rewarded.

 

Up In The Air. I watched this on Iplayer. It was not great. I've seen three legged arthritic tortoises with more pace. You're led to believe it's some kooky film with a cool art style from the off. No.

 

^But, Anna Kendrick *wub*. Pacing is slow I'll give you that, not sure what kind of film it was supposed to be really but it had its moments.

American Psycho

5/10

This film is just plain weird, not at all what I was expecting and the narration took away more than it added. Disappointed.

 

yeah, dunno why peeps were raving aboput it over 10 years ago, the book i read after the film is much better

 

Guardians of the Galaxy - Vomit/10

I have to preface this by saying that I only got an hour into the movie before I ended up staggering out of the screen to puke in the Odeon's toilets and going home. Whether it was the 3-D or the setting at that particular point I'm not sure, but I left feeling like I'd been flung in a spin dryer for twenty minutes, way to ruin my day off.

Anyway, up to that point almost completely ace, the characterisation, sets, casting and effects were all spot on. Without spoiling it the first hour made me think of how I had hoped the Star Wars prequels would/could/should have been, with a big lump of Firefly thrown in too. The Milano is completely gorgeous too, give it a few years and 'that ship from Guardians' will be in there with the Serenity and Conestogas for ultimate cool space ships.

I'll try and watch it again it next week and hopefully keep my lunch down.

Just one small problem,

Spoiler

Thanos looks completely terrible, I don't know if it's an unspoken Disney rule that they have to have one special effects failure per movie or what, but he looks awful. Rocket, Groot, spaceships, cities and even space rats all blend together perfectly, then Thanos rocks up and oh hey welcome to 1998 and Godzilla is still the cutting edge of effects! Josh Brolin's voice is great, but the people who made the model need a slap.

 

Chronicle

7/10

Found-footage movies are annoying, and at times cringeworthy- this is no exception. That said, it is certainly an interesting film if not fairly predictable and formulaic, and borrowed some ideas heavily from

Spoiler

X-men and the Matrix

in terms of the powers the guys develop, going so far as to

Spoiler

pretty much rip-off certain scenes

almost. Worth seeing, but not buying probably.

 

Video Drome - What. The. Actual. F**k / 10

eXistenZ - 6 / 10

Little bit of a VR/Cronenberg kick. The main theme of eXistenZ,

Spoiler

what if virtual reality is so real you can no longer tell the difference between VR and real life

, is pretty interesting. Funny that eXistenZ and the Matrix came out in the same year.

Need to re-watch The Thirteenth Floor.

 

guardians of the galaxy- better than the avengers/10

 

I really enjoyed it. Great premise which they deal with in a very tidy way. Predictable as you say, but something about the film is just very "neat", no glaring errors etc. It was shot on a ridiculously low budget apparently.

 

There area few contrivances here & there...