It's Back: Exceelent Movies I've Seen Lately

[DMT]

I couldn't get through the first Twilight, total drek IMO. Here's some movies I've seen recently.

Kick-Ass - This movie does indeed kick ass! The soundtrack is excellent as well. Highly recommended. 8/10

The Fighter - Fantastic performance from Christian Bale, his Oscar was well-deserved. It had some great moments but I wasn't blown away like some people. It was cool seeing the real-life brothers at the very end. 7/10

Social Network - Another solid movie that I wasn't blown away with. Great jobs by Jesse Eisenberg and especially Justin Timberlake. The fact that both this and The Fighter were nominated for best pic shows how silly it is to nominate 10 movies.

Mother and Child - Hard to believe a man (Rodrigo Garcia) wrote and directed this, as all of the major characters are women and the plotlines all revolve around adoption. Annette Bening plays a wacko who gave her child (Naomi Watts) up for adoption and another woman (Kerry Washington) looking to adopt. Another excellent performance by Bening, not sure how she has never won an oscar. Very sad overall, probably a 6 but +1 for nude scenes of Watts and Washington. 7/10

What Doesn't Kill You - Based on a true story, Ethan Hawke & Mark Ruffalo play two childhood pals who have grown up getting by as criminal gophers but have bigger plans. Decent but nothing special. 6/10

The Open Road - decent premise about a struggling minor league ballplayer (Justin Timberlake) who tries to get his baseball legend/failed father (Jeff Bridges) to come home to see his mother before surgery. But the script was lacking and the entire movie just didn't seem to go anywhere. Bridges is fine as the spoiled drunk stuck in the past who always has a story to tell but not much else worth seeing. 4/10

The Experiment - apparently a remake of a German film about the Stanford prisoner/guard experiments, starring Adrian Brody and Forrest Whitaker. I don't think this was released in the US so hopefully no one actually paid $ to see this. Honestly, this is one of the worst movies I've ever seen. 1/10

[TranaGreg]

Would you watch either of these again?

doubtful tho it did kind of renew my interest in vampire movies - got me thinking of The Hunger with Catherine Deneuve ... that I'll watch a second time ...

[johnnya24]

I saw the trailer for Source Code earlier in the week, and thought "meh ... looks like another run of the mill sci fi movie". The reviews on the other hand say it is outstanding ... and I've read two 5 star reviews from newspapers that normally pan formulaic Hollywood movies.

Might go see this tonight as a treat to myself.

[revo]

Went to see Source Code a few nights earlier. Highly entertaining and, while not philosophically provocative, quite unique. It wasn't on the level of, say, Inception but it was quite good. For the sake of full disclosure, I am a total sucker for Gay Cowboys. Jake G. played a good lead and was extremely easy on the eyes.

Fixed.

[Fresno Bob]

He is pretty dreamy, it's true.

I'd rather spank his sister....

[nullnor]

source code

[johnnya24]

Hanna. Pretty good movie. Complete nonsense, but very entertaining and fast paced. All the main characters and actors were very engaging, which helps you forget the stupid premise.

Source Code. Hollywood directors should be forced to watch this movie. Short, to the point, concise and satisfying. Simple idea, played out at a fast pace, without too much over-elaboration or condescension towards the audience.

Kill The Irishman. Pretty run of the mill gangster-against-the-odds drama, but worthy of a couple of hours of your time. Would be interesting to see how much of this has been romanticised, given that it is based on the truth.

The Lincoln Lawyer. I have always really liked Matthew McConaughey, and always felt it was a shame he didn't get (or choose) more roles that suit his particular style. This is right up his street. A pretty entertaining lawyers and crooks drama.

[revo]

Middle Men - the dawn of the internet porn era, as discovered by a couple of stoner f_ckups. Luke Wilson is great, as is Giovanni Ribisi. Well worth a rental.

Buried - the entire film never leaves the box Ryan Reynolds is buried in, yet it works. You can take your eyes off it for a minute or two and you wouldn't have missed much, but it still is a very good flick.

127 Hours - a similar movie to Buried (one man show, claustrophobic-type setting), James Franco is the lucky dude who gets his arm trapped by a boulder in the middle of nowhere. Good flick, Franco was great as Aron Ralston.

Robin Hood - a little long at 2 hrs 45 minutes, it's more like Robin Hood:Origins than what we know of him. Still, if you can sit through such a long movie, it's a solid entertainer.

Due Date - pretty amusing, some scenes are very very funny. Not one of my favorite comedies, but not gawd awful overrated either.

Unstoppable - action packed from start to finish. I loved it.

The Next Three Days - Russell Crowe is excellent, as usual. Another flick well worth the time.

[Teenwolf]

I've watched a ton of movies lately, but I'll stick to the exceelent (or close to it).

Get Carter - What a crazy flick this one is. It starts off as a pretty run-of-the-mill investigation into a murder, but the key here is that Michael Caine just doesn't give a f***. If you were involved in this murder, even in a very VERY indirect way... you're gonna die. Fascinating to see a protagonist with zero empathy.

Gambit - Another early Michael Caine flick, this one much more lighthearted. Highly recommend this one for an interesting heist/romance flick. Your significant other would probably like it.

Tamara Drewe - British romantic comedy, but much better than that makes it sound. Directed by Stephen Frears (High Fidelity), and makes the very small list of romantic comedies that I've found enjoyable. There's more meat here than most rom-coms. Centres around the girl with the big nose who moved off to the big city, and comes back having had a nose job, looking stunning. Your significant other might also like this.

The Parking Lot Movie - Really great documentary about one parking lot, the people who work there, and the scum of the earth that they have to deal with on a daily basis. It's just over one hour, and that hour flies by.

Tell No One - French mystery/thriller, which I watched the dubbed version and found the voice acting surprisingly well done and not distracting. Really dug this.

Convoy - 1978 trucker movie, based on the song. Stars Kris Kristofferson, who is actually pretty badass in this. Centres around some truckers who beat the crap out of dirty cops, then go on the run, but there's more to it than that.

River's Edge - I had been meaning to watch this for a couple of years, and I'm glad I finally did. This is a cult classic, starring young Keanu Reeves and Crispin Glover, about a kid who murders his girlfriend, and the ambivalence his friends have toward the whole thing. Also has Dennis Hopper as a drug dealing recluse in love with a blowup doll.

An American Werewolf In London - Good but not great horror/comedy, but definitely gets props for being way ahead of its time.

Altered States - I've been taking some hallucinogens lately, so I figured it would be appropriate to check this out. From 1980, it shows some pretty interesting scenes simulating his drug trips, but sort of meanders towards the end. I found the message at the end interesting, the conclusion being that drugs are just a distraction from the real world (though I'm really oversimplifying it here). So I guess I got something out of it, even if I still feel a distraction is necessary now and then.

Scream 4 - Pretty well done, and interesting that it works as a whodunnit. Some of the humor misses the mark, but that's a minor quibble. I still think that Wes Craven did the whole "meta" thing best with New Nightmare, in which the actress from the Nightmare On Elm Street films is stalked in real life by the Freddy character. Not sure why nobody ever talks about that one, or makes the connection between that and the Scream franchise.

[heyelander]

Hanna. Pretty good movie. Complete nonsense, but very entertaining and fast paced. All the main characters and actors were very engaging, which helps you forget the stupid premise.

For the first half of the movie I was trying to think of all the people I would need to recommend it to. Then it just sort of got long and substituted chases for plot development. For someone who was bred to be the ultimate weapon, she spent a lot of time running from people.

[Fresno Bob]

I've watched a ton of movies lately, but I'll stick to the exceelent (or close to it).


River's Edge - I had been meaning to watch this for a couple of years, and I'm glad I finally did. This is a cult classic, starring young Keanu Reeves and Crispin Glover, about a kid who murders his girlfriend, and the ambivalence his friends have toward the whole thing. Also has Dennis Hopper as a drug dealing recluse in love with a blowup doll.

The story this is based on went down in the SF Bay Area when I was in high school. As much as I love Mr Hopper, there was no Feck character in the real story. Dream roles for Keanu and Christian

[johnnya24]

For the first half of the movie I was trying to think of all the people I would need to recommend it to. Then it just sort of got long and substituted chases for plot development. For someone who was bred to be the ultimate weapon, she spent a lot of time running from people.

Spoilerville:

Start spoiler:
I guess it didn't become clear until near the end what her role was. I knew nothing about the story before I went it to see it ... Cate Blanchet is usually all it takes ... so I wasn't sure she was some genetically engineered killing machine until about 1 hour in. To be honest, apart from the revenge element, I wasn't sure what the point was. That premise was the weakest thing to me ... especially considering that all he (Bana) needed to do to get at Cate's character was reappear ... all that effort so Hanna can kill Cate was just stupid.
End spoiler:

That said ... all the characters were played really well ... Cate, Bana, and especially the little girl were excellent.

Spoiler is a strange looking word if you stare at it.

[Trader Mac]

I just saw Thor last night and it was pretty good.

[johnnya24]

Since we don't have a "Movies that were much better than the trailer suggested" thread ... this will have to do:

Limitless

[Trader Mac]

I just saw Just Go With It with Adam Sandler and Jennifer Anniston. I haven't laughed as hard during a movie since Dumb and Dumber.