Review the last movie you viewed (NO LISTS) II

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Yeah, the beginning lagged and that's why I didn't give it a full 10. Just based on the last half hour though, I'd give it a 10.

God, I love Simon Pegg this weekend. :love:
 
If the maximum rating on the scale is 10, and the best part of the movie is the last 30 minutes or so, you can't have a final rating of 9. Your math is faulty :nerd:


:blahblah: I might see it this coming weekend.
 
A Night In The Museum

7/10

Great for the kids, entertaining for adults on a rainy night.
Great special effects, that's it.
 
I started doing Netflix about a month ago and made a huge list of all these classics and such that I'd always wanted to see. Last night was:

The Grapes of Wrath
9.5 out of 10 just because some of the hokey music ruined very poignant scenes. The movie is brilliant and heartbreaking, all the performances are incredible. And has anyone else noticed that Henry Fonda and Jared Leto look rather similar (perhaps it's the sparkly eyes)?

I watched the Music Rising special on Sundance before this and there are so many similarities. Why is that when Mother Nature turns on people, their fellow man has to give it to them 10 times worse?
 
Curse of the Golden Flower - 7/10

Worth seeing on the big screen if only because it's probably the most ridiculously opulent film I've ever seen. The imperial China sure makes the court in "Marie-Antoinette" look like an austere Amish village on a grey rainy evening. The story is suitably melodramatic and overblown, and at times the movie sort of buckles under the weight of its own stateliness and grandiosity, but the visuals are undeniably impressive.
 
Notes on a Scandal
8.5/10

I really enjoyed this one - awesome performances from Cate Blanchett and Judi Dench. Very creepy, unsettling movie, and it's short and moves quickly. Judi Dench is just fantastic - there are a number of scenes that just make your skin crawl.
 
Network

This movie is so good and so frightening because it's true, it's all happening. In the age of Fox News propaganda and NBC airing the manifesto of the Virginia Tech shooter, television "news" has become all about sensationalism, entertainment and ratings, just like the film said it was.
 
I finished watching Off the Black tonight. I'd had this one on my Netflix list for months, and it was finally released a few weeks ago.

It stars Nick Nolte as Ray, an umpire for high school baseball, and Trevor Morgan as Dave, a pitcher whose team is eliminated from the playoffs because Ray rules his last pitch a ball instead of a strike. Dave and two of his friends vandalize Ray's house after the game, but Dave is the only one Ray catches. He agrees not to call the cops if Dave cleans up his property, and while he does, they forge a father-son sort of friendship that they both desperately need. Ray has lost his family and drinks heavily; Dave's mother walked out on his family, and since then, his dad has become lost and withdrawn, leaving him and his sister to take care of themselves.

This is a sensitive, well-developed movie. It moves slowly in some places, but it's never sentimental or overwrought. All of the characters are flawed and funny and very real. It's a beautiful look at fathers and sons, and happiness, and forgiveness. It's the best movie I've seen in a long time. I'm convinced Ray's character was written with Nick Nolte in mind, and Trevor Morgan delivers a smart, believable performance.

9/10
 
dsmith2904 said:
Network
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I really liked this movie, too. The only subplot I didn't like was the romance (don't remember which characters ... William Holden and ... whoever it was). It felt out of place. But the rest was great. Eerily prescient.
 
Blood Diamond

6.5/10
Great movie and good performances by Leo and his co-star...which his name escapes me right now, he was in Amistad before...again, great in that movie.

This movie reminded me on one of my all time biggest crushes....
2215083
 
Volver

9/10

This movie was fantastic. I've always found Penelope Cruz a little annoying, but she was fantastic. I've enjoyed all the Aldomovar flicks I've seen, but I think I liked this one the best.
 
corianderstem said:
Volver

9/10

This movie was fantastic. I've always found Penelope Cruz a little annoying, but she was fantastic. I've enjoyed all the Aldomovar flicks I've seen, but I think I liked this one the best.
Click to expand...

:up:

She's not as annoying when she's speaking in her native language :wink:


got_edge said:
If the maximum rating on the scale is 10, and the best part of the movie is the last 30 minutes or so, you can't have a final rating of 9. Your math is faulty :nerd:


:blahblah: I might see it this coming weekend.
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Or a week and some odd days later with Queen Bee (and PlaTheGreat) :flirt:

What did you think???
 
The Queen

8/10

I liked this one more than I thought I would. Helen Mirren did such an excellent job you really start to believe she is the Queen. It really made me think how :| the monarchy is though.
 
Little Children

7/10

Not quite as good as I had hoped, maybe a little long, but I did like it. Kate Winslet was really good, but that's never surprising.
 
Snow Cake - 9/10

Probably the best film I've seen this year. Alan Rickman and Sigourney Weaver both deserve Oscar noms for this. Amazingly touching film. Strongly reccomended to anyone. :up:
 
Karla

2/10

I'm not exactly sure what possessed me to get the movie about Karla Homolka and her husband (starring Laura Prepon from "That 70s Show," no less). I should have just read a book to learn more about it. Oh well.

Then I turned on the Kill Bill series on TNT, and was reminded how much I enjoyed them - and was surprised by how much I enjoyed them! I need to get those on DVD.
 
Little Miss Sunshine is one of the more affecting films that I have ever seen. Although billed as a comedy, it makes subtle yet exceedingly poignant commentary on family, social pressures, bureaucracy, and the meanings of failure and success. The characters, although highly eccentric, are somehow believable as well, all of them managing to evoke both sympathy and frustration. Overall, one of the better films that I have seen in quite some time.

9/10
 
Capote 8.5/10

Very good movie, very interesting, and great performance by Phillip Seymour Hoffman :up:

Usual Suspects 8.5/10

Have seen it numerous times before, but watched it again last night. I'm usually compelled to watch it when its on.
~Kaiser Soze ~
 
Babel - 2.5/10

I really wasn't sure how to rate this film, so I just gave it 1/4 the points for being 1/4 a great film.

Really, the Japanese story was the only genuinely touching one of the four. The majority of the film was extremely contrived and more importantly BORING. I don't remember the last time I've been so bored watching a movie. I almost felt like the three other stories were just long-ass boring commercials I had to suffer before the good part came back on. Seriously, outside of the Japanese story, I didn't care about any of the characters, anything they did, anything that happened to them, and I sure as hell didn't care about Cate Blanchett pissing herself.

Worst of all, the poor execution of "tying all the stories together" was near cringe-worthy. Those connections were some of the most predictable plot devices I've seen in recent history. In truth, almost the entire film was mind-numbingly predictable. Just poor film-making to be honest. I mean, technically it's a nice film, if not a noteworthy accomplishment. But god damn, has there been a more contrived script in the past 5 years?

But like I said, the Japanese story was truly touching. Even though the her total screentime couldn't have been much more than 25 minutes, I deeply cared for the deaf-mute girl. The character, the whole story really, was just so fascinating, and surprisingly turned out to be the most resonant segment of the movie. For some reason, this was the most elegantly shot segment as well. The whole piece was just really beautiful and had me thoroughly engaged. Too engaged in fact, that the other 3/4 of the film just started to piss me off. I would have seriously been much happier if the Japanese story had been made into its own feature. So, I'll take a literal approach and score this film 2.5/10, for being 1/4 fabulous and 3/4 awful.

:down::down::down::up:
 
Lancemc said:
Babel - 2.5/10
Really, the Japanese story was the only genuinely touching one of the four. The majority of the film was extremely contrived and more importantly BORING.
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It is funny that you say this, because I believed the Japanese girl's story to be completely unnecessary; that is, the segment that had only a tenuous connection to the rest of the film. Then again, I felt that film failed rather catastrophically in conveying its major idea, which was impossibly ambitious from the beginning. It really would have worked better as a film about the manner in which bureaucracy and political concerns oppress the individual; because I wanted the film to concern intself with this, I consequently ceased caring about the Japanese girl. In any case, if you did not care for this, stay away from 21 Grams, which is essentially the exact same movie.
 
I saw 21 Grams several years ago and thought it was fantastic. The characters in that film were actually engaging, and the film's structure served the ultimate goal instead of distracting from it.

And eventually I stopped caring about Babel's "major idea" because I was so bored. (I hate saying that too, because I like to believe I'm a fair and reasonably analytical film viewer) I fact, I tend to defend most films I see, almost to a fault, overlooking sometimes fatal flaws in light of the greater vision. I just couldn't stomach this film. Maybe I enjoyed the Japanese story BECAUSE it was disconnected from the main storyline...I thought the main storyline was mess. :shrug:
 
A few oldies and classics:

Annie Hall 6/10 My first W. Allen movie, a good writer and Diane Keaton is good but I can't say I was blown away, save for a few laughs.

One Flew over the cuckoo's nest 10/10 I've been meaning to see this one for a while. Good performances all around, I especially liked the rivarly between J. Nicholson and nurse Wretched, and a good story.

Schindler's list. I did see this one but never in full. One of the few Spielberg movies I haven't seen yet. Another 10/10, this is essential watching due to the topic of the movie, and his second classic after E.T. Good performances by Ben Kingsley and Liam Neeson but Ralph Fiennes takes the cake - one of the creepiest villains.

Pulp fiction. My first - full - Tarantino. Good writer, but again, not blown away. 6/10. Great soundtrack. For mafia/gangster movies I'll take Scorsese instead and for funny gangster movies I prefer Guy Ritchie.
 
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Lancemc said:
Maybe I enjoyed the Japanese story BECAUSE it was disconnected from the main storyline...I thought the main storyline was mess. :shrug:
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That makes sense. When it was reviewed on Ebert & Roper, the latter and his guest critic had a similar discussion about the Japanese girl. In any case, I would agree with you that Babel was essentially a failure.
 
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