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

I've watched quite a few movies lately given that we have Now TV with movies. Man, some of them were just terrible.

The best of an incredibly bad bunch, however, was Beautiful Boy. It's about a teenager who goes off to college and then goes on a shooting spree, only it isn't. The movie spends hardly any time on that and instead concentrates on what would cause it. IE - his parents about to separate, and the fallout it has on them.

It was quite gloriously miserable and acted well throughout.

Now onto the bad.

Mama. This actually started out rather well, before becoming completely stupid. When you were finally met with Mama it looked like Sloth from the Goonie's sister. I should have gone "eww" or "wow" or something but instead I burst into laughter and said to my lady "God, I don't think any one would shag that".

In their skin. A great idea for a movie, tragically ruined by the fact it was completely ****ing stupid from start to finish.

And I saved the worst 'til last.

Gone. Never before have I seen such a terribly chit film. The promise was good, a serial killer who failed to kill one of his victims returns and kidnaps her sister. But the story was worse than picking pieces of scrunched up tissue paper from my rectum and I actually cringed throughout most of it. It was so bad I had to watch it in three sittings, thinking that maybe it was just my mood.

But no, I can safely say that it was acted about as well as a B rate porn movie. Just tragic.

Now I'm not really a movie person tbh. I have my set of favey films and other than that I prefer to game or watch documentaries and factual TV (good old Autismness) but seriously after watching this recent crop of crap I have now affirmed why there hasn't been a decent movie made in years.

Only Law Abiding Citizen came close to being even so much as passable and that was full of holes...

 

Papillon - 6/10

Too long and drifty for my liking. It's a great story, just not well told.

Steve McQueen films are hurlting towards my overrated category.

 

Watched this this evening! Immense!!!!

Yaka,

Spoiler

Did Joon-seok put the order on Dong-Su or was he tired of the humiliation of running and confessed for the honor of taking the fall? Did he save Dong-Su the humiliation of putting a hit on a friend? Maybe we'll never know.... and that's ok!

 

glad you liked it as well, i try to watch it atleat once a year as i like it that much

imho he was both tired and had no choice but to order it. the bit right at the end he was suposed to be heading to his execution. the tv series is supposed to explain the ending better but the actors arnt as good as in the film. wonder how the sequel is gonna explain how joon-seok did get executed.

 

Elysium - 8/10

"AKA All South African's are evil" - getting a bit tired of this tbh.
I'm a sucker for a good sci-fi and it certainly delivered, although the "space atmosphere" and core message that's hammered into you like a brick is a bit bleh.

 

Elysium: 7/10

Instead of writing a comprehensive positive/negative review of it on my iPhone, I'll just tell you the three things I knocked points off for. Like Bindi, I'm a sucker for sci-fi so I enjoyed the film, but the terrible SA accent combined with the 'All South Africans are evil' cliche lost it a point. Spyder's over-acted character along with his ridiculous voice lost it another one, and the last one for

Spoiler

the fact that no actual explanation was given as to how Elysium's core would be able to identify all new human citizens without ID tags, never mind those in need of medical attention at the end of the film.

What I'm saying is that I think the last part of the story felt very rushed.

I look forward to watching the 'Cinema Sins' video for this one, because whilst I enjoyed it overall, I'm pretty sure with their nitpicking view, they'll tear it apart.

 

Man of Steel 7/10 maybe?

It was pretty good but the action was quite repetitive, excessive building smashing. I had thought the point of superman was to save everyone but the sheer number of fatalities as a results of his reckless fighting style must be massive. Also

Spoiler

it was a bit of an anticlimax that he just snapped Zod's neck, after all this invincible **** it seems he had the same weakness as a human.... hmmmmm

 

Spoiler

The whole film is paper thin if you start thinking about it:
How easy it is to get into space
How easy it is to crash onto the surface
Blow up ships in space and you don't have to deal with the debris? Would be hell for a MASSIVE orbiting space station.
How a renowned mafia with lots of guns and ships didn't just try to take the station before?
How Spider - a man that extorts money and services from people - suddenly decided to be the source of all good and open Elysium for everyone, rather than make himself king.
How being stabbed in the gut can be cured by putting pads on it. It requires surgery at the very least.
There wouldn't be a ****ing riot on earth with those medical ships? Oh, sure, everyone will wait in line. Still doesn't cure the main environmental and social problems though, does it?
Why had noone stolen the medical technology to make their own tables? Or was Elysium just America's problem?
What was Jodie fosters accent?
She has direct dial to her South African and no one suspects a thing?

 

Spoiler

All very true indeed. As an aside, this is one of the only reasons I'm glad they didn't make the Halo film... I'm pretty sure Hollywood would have made it just as thin as Elysium, although having said that I suppose there has been a lot of story telling and background info in the game franchise over the past 12 years.

 

+1 for The Emperor's New Groove. It's full of wonderful little self-referential gags.

 

All Is Lost - 9/10

Without a doubt, this is one of my favourite films of 2013. Thoughtful, memorable and meaningful film-making - the more I think about it, the better the film gets for me. Robert Redford was absolutely sublime.

 

Lone Survivor. 9/10
About time a good non biased American movie came out. Even the whole build up in the beginning was brilliant.

 

Finally got around to seeing The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo

Very slow paced and almost boring in places, and quite raw and violent in others, but thoroughly absorbing throughout. 8/10

 

BattleStar Galactica Series 1-5

8/10

Only a few issues that lost it points really:

Spoiler

The over-arching religious backbone to the story, in so much that it wasn't like StarTrek: DS9 ( religion > wormhole aliens ), more over that the religious element was just used as an excuse or explanation & driving force for every-sodding-thing that happened pretty much, whether cylon or human related.

Starbuck died, but she just magically comes back, with a brand new viper, after being dead for all those weeks/months ( 6 hours in her mind ), and zero explanation is given as to how or why? Oh, and she just disappears at the end as though to imply she was indeed an angel who crossed over ( again ).

Serious piles of BS that spoiled an otherwise great series- I guess they needed something to appeal to the mainly American audience and religion/fate/destiny/gods-will worked a treat, even if anyone with an ounce of cynicism could see through it as the less than ideal backbone it was intended to be.

But meh, loved it all the same...

 

Django Unchained

9/10

Another Tarantino masterpiece. Only thing that really lost it a point was the Doc being silly and shooting Mr Candy when they had the chance to leave, just for the sake of a handshake. Still, awesome film and great exposition & acting.

 

The Hunt (Jagten) - 8/10
Mads and others give great performances. Terrifically agonizing to watch. Movies like this, wrongfully accused, always make me anxious to watch, but in spite of this, this movie was very good.

I thought I saw someone recommend it in this thread, but now I can't find it. If you did, thanks!

American Hustle - 7.5ish/10
Bale gives a great performance as usual. Adams and Cooper aren't too shabby either . Felt a little long, but writing/story/unexpected humor make up for it.

 

Yea that pissed me off too. Doc is all about the long-game, then suddenly that feels very out of character.

 

I enjoyed it, but it was about an hour too long and DiCaprio over-acted the arse out of his character - yes, I know it's hardly a groundbreaking criticism to level at a QT movie.

7/10

 

No need to watch that now, thanks to the spoilerific review - thanks, just gave me many hours of my life back.

Do us a favour - I've just watched the pilot for Breaking Bad - have you got some spoilers for that series too to save me another 50hrs+?

 

Good point Porkins, spoilerised for anyone else, just in case.