Cinemexperience: part deux., Some more filums you saw. Options

[logger]

Mission Impossible 4

Third best of the blandly diverting franchise.

[gulfcoast_highwa...]

Tintin & The Secret Of The Unicorn.

Loved it. They managed to capture the spirit and feel of the books very well. Even knowing where the plot would end up, I still found myself engrossed. Top stuff. I hope there is a sequel or two.

And I continue to be astounded by what they can do with CGI.

Oh, only gripe was Bianca Castafiore not singing the English words to 'The Jewel Song' from Faust. Always a favourite bit of the books for me, when she piped up with that. And they needed a bit of business with a sticking plaster, too!

This post has been edited by gulfcoast_highwayman: Apr 1 2012, 07:49 PM

[logger]

The Hunger Games

Not quite as bad as I thought it was going to be, which is faint praise indeed. Whilst most of it was dumb teen nonsense, with moments that were down right laughable or literally made no sense what so ever, it was way, way too long, and somebody had the bizarre idea to have Michael J Fox as cameraman and Charlie Sheen as editor, there were elements that I liked, like it didn't try to explain the world it was set in right from the beginning, the E! meets Communist Bloc setting, some talented cast members and every now and then the odd moment when I felt like this could have been a very good film (obviously it would have to be rewritten from scratch and not pander so much to a teen audience) but that only happened two or three times. And it is kind of heartwarming that the big, zeitgeist capturing, kids' film of the moment is about the media's involvement in the societal inequalities of class structure.

Better than Twilight, maybe on a par with the lesser Harry Potters.

[NiteFall]

Tintin & The Secret Of The Unicorn.

Loved it. They managed to capture the spirit and feel of the books very well. Even knowing where the plot would end up, I still found myself engrossed. Top stuff. I hope there is a sequel or two.

We watched this last night as well, and you've pretty much summed up how I felt about it as well. A proper adventure of a film, with some fantastic set pieces (the naval battle in particuloar is absolutely stunning in every way) and despite having read all of the Tintin books many, many times as a kid I still found myself enthralled by just how well told and constructed the story was.

As for the sticking plaster, surely that should come in the next film where they'll (hopefully) introduce Professor Calculus?
Seriously though, Tintin On The Moon / Destination Moon could make a fantastic film. Or is that just me remembering it as better than it was?

[GundamGuy_UK]

Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace 3D - Not going to talk about the movie itself as it's been done to death on here, but I thought I'd mention I'd seen it and talk about the 3D effect itself. I enjoyed it. It was nice and subtle, so it didn't look like most 2D movies converted to 3D. Certain scenes, such as the pod race, had more depth than others, and dialog scenes had almost no depth whatsoever (no jokes about the script, please). It was done very well, as can be expected from ILM really. I would say that when the original trilogy come out, it'll be worth seeing them. The fact that the 3D was so subtle meant that the picture quality was excellent, as good as a 2D digital projection. It was just nice to see it on a big screen again, and honestly it made me appreciate the movie a bit more. I noticed lots of little details on costumes and environments that I enjoyed.
It's obviously not going to change anyone's opinion about the movie itself, but it did make me want to see the other five when they're re-released.

The Hunger Games - I saw this having not read the books, not seen any trailers, and knew literally nothing about it other than it was based on a series of young adult books and is apparently very good. I enjoyed it. There are obvious comparisons to Battle Royale, but the setting and the rules of the game are pretty different. There were several bits where I thought "I guess that goes into more detail in the books", such as the lead character's completely superfluous best friend back home, played by an actor far too handsome for such a minor role so I assume he's bigger in the sequel.

[logger]

White Men Can't Jump

Wesley Snipes shouldn't have to pay taxes, he's already done enough for humanity with this one film alone.

[Silky]

White Men Can't Jump

Wesley Snipes shouldn't have to pay taxes, he's already done enough for humanity with this one film alone.

At the bottom of my gut, with every inch of me, I plain, straight hate you.

But dammit, do I respect you!

[logger]

At the bottom of my gut, with every inch of me, I plain, straight hate you.

Funny, I'm fairly indifferent to you.

Also, you're momma's an astronaut.

[GundamGuy_UK]

Cars 2 - It felt a bit like Disney told them they had to make a sequel, and Pixar didn't want to so instead they made another movie and then cast vehicles as the roles. McQueen and Mater were barely in it, and everyone else was a cameo. It was okay, but the worst Pixar movie. By no means a bad film, it had some great moments and some excellent visual references and so on, and the plot was pretty good. It just didn't have any Pixar magic.

[Silky]

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.
It's held up surprisingly well over the last 22 years.

[sweetbutinsane]

The Hunger Games

Not bad at all. I was actually quite pleased that they cut certain parts out that were in the book.

[maian]

Tabloid

Errol Morris tells the story of Joyce McKinney, a woman who became the centre of a tabloid frenzy in 1977 when she supposedly kidnapped a Mormon and forced him to have sex with her/took the love of her life from a place in which he had been brainwashed then had consensual sex with him (delete as applicable). Allowing the McKinney and assorted other people involved in the story (except for the dead and those who opted not to take part) to relay their interpretation of the events with little to no editorializing on Morris' part creates a fascinating film about truth: Morris leaves it entirely up to the audience to determine which of the equally crazy options offered is true, or whether some combination of them is more likely to be the case, and as someone who didn't know anything about the case because I am young, I found that approach hugely invigorating.

The Artist

Watched it three times on the plane. It was this or Hugo, and thirty seconds of that convinced me I never want to sit through it again.

Citizen Ruth

Debut by Alexander Payne (Sideways, The Descendants) about a young woman (Laura Dern) who finds herself at the centre of the debate on abortion when pro-life and pro-choice advocates try to use her as a propaganda coup for their side. The wacky tone is both refreshing given the material, but also kind of tiring by the end, though I did appreciate the even-handedness with which Payne and Jim Taylor treated both sides, essentially saying that their both manipulative and that they ignore the interests of the person at the centre. Burt Reynolds is also very, very funny in it.

Permanent Vacation/Stranger Than Paradise/Mystery Train

I decided to fill in some of the gaps in my knowledge of Jim Jarmusch's work by watching his first, second and fourth films, which were interesting, good and great, respectively. As far as debuts go, Permanent Vacation feels like a student film - which is basically what it is - and Jarmusch's decision to cast non-professional actors does not pay off, since pretty much everyone in it is terrible. However, you can clearly see his style emerging and the script is pretty good, making some of the little vignetters entertaining, even if the film itself suffers.

Stranger Than Paradise was much better, owing to better performances - also from non-actors - and an altogether stronger concept: exploring the relationship between three characters on a journey, rather than just one listless young guy wandering around New York. It's also a great deal funnier, and it's easy to see why it has proved to be one of the most influential independent films ever made, since it mixes a non-commercial style and aesthetic to a really accessible story.

Mystery Train is great. This may at least partly be because I love Joe Strummer and was delighted to see him share screen time with Steve Buscemi, or just because I think Memphis is a really cool place, but I really, really enjoyed the three stories that unfolded over the course of the film, and was glad that whilst they overlapped they didn't intersect, so there wasn't any sense that Jarmusch was trying to create a grand tapestry or anything: he just wanted to tell three funny stories about people in Memphis, all of which in some way relate to Elvis.

[logger]

Crank: High Voltage

I still have no idea what "Chicken and broccoli" means.

[Jessopjessopjess...]

I've seen three excellent and entertaining movies this last week:

Attack the Block - a faithful ode to 80s monster movies with a modern urban twist. It was good to see the inner city London "yoot" portrayed accurately, despite them being little shits.

Gentlemen Broncos - a typically weird and absorbing Jared Hess movie with fantastically over-the-top turns by Jemaine Clement and Sam Rockwell. I'll never think about yeast in the same way again.

Cabin in the Woods - a not-at-all-scary but very funny and rather gory tale with the post-modernism of Scream and a Whedon-esque mythology. It's not as groundbreaking as we were lead to believe but it's raucously entertaining, well put together and brilliantly performed.

[sweetbutinsane]

Aquamarine

I'm so glad I'm not a teenage girl.

Seven Pounds

It was interesting enough, if a bit predictable. I had the feeling that the filmmakers really wanted the audience to cry at the end but it just didn't work for me.