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2014 MOVIE OMNIBUS THREAD


RIPPA

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Have we discussed 12 Years a Slave yet? No? Well, this might be the best film I've seen from 2013. It turned into a strong year. Beautiful cinematography in this one but it was tough to watch.. Actually, it was extremely difficult to get through but I applaud a more historically accurate portrayal than the usual watered down Hollywood BS. The screenplay is very good as well. I would assume Fassbender, Ejiofor and Nyong'o receive well deserved acting nominations. McQueen should be nominated for Best Director.

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Man, ELYSIUM...What happened, Neil?

I'm not sure it was all his fault, though. All the stuff with the woman and her daughter played like a studio note. "Um, we're investing $200 million in this movie, we need to get some women to the theatre!" They literally serve no purpose but to be put in peril and add to the stakes in an unnecessary way.

All of the backstabbing on the villains' side of thing was totally unnecessary, as well. There's no reason it couldn't have just been "Evil Jodie Foster rules with Ridiculous Sharlto Copley as her iron fist." The double-dealing added nothing.

If you cut the woman and her kid and all the political intrigue, then use that time to flesh out that Spider guy's crew and make it more of a men on a mission type of film...well, there might have been a pretty good movie in there somewhere.

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ALSO: I feel like once Kruger puts on the exo-suit, Matt Damon should be dead 30 seconds later. Assembly line worker in old, recycled tech vs. trained killer in cutting edge tech should = instant death. Damon goes mano a mano with him way too long.

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Yeah, I mean, it's not bad. Once you get past the first 20 minutes, it's much less preachy than I had been led to believe. And Blomkamp continues to be awesome at dreaming up badass future weapons and then using them to splatter the human body all over the place.

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EVA is totally right.

 

Is it worth watching, at least? I've been on the fence about renting it.

 

It's worth at least one watch. IMO, it feels like way too 1994ish. Like the script was one part allusion and one part metaphor, but they didn't have the balls to go all the way because it's a summer movie. It felt way too complex when it had nothing of substance to be complex about. I think Damon is a little miscasted here because he doesn't seem like someone who would just be on Earth by chance as an outcast. You know the creative minds behind this wanted it to look like the other Earth dwellers were helping him, but he still became movie benevolent white person #83.

 

Also, don't like how all the exterior shots of Elysium are pretty much in the trailers. I guess they were trying to save money.

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Watched Sinister last night. Looked really good when it came out, so I picked it up off Redbox. Not sure if I loved it or hated it. It felt like not a lot happened, and some of the graphics were a bit cheesy, but the story was really good, and I liked some of the subtle scares. I feel like they could have done a lot more with it though.

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Nebraska just might be my favourite film of 2013.  Just a terrific little film with Bruce Dern as an old guy who believes he's won $1 million dollars in a Publisher's Clearing House-type contest and wants to go to Nebraska to claim his prize, so his son (Will Forte) drives him there.  Dern's always been a favourite of mine, but man does Will Forte hold his own here as the son who never really felt good enough for his father trying to give his dad some peace, even while he knows the whole thing is bogus.  It's a film that really understands family dynamics and the differences between past generations and current.  There was a scene where Dern's brothers and he all get together, and the women are in the kitchen gossiping and catching up on news, while in the living room the men all sit there in near-silence watching football on TV, punctuated by the occasional question about cars.  Plus, it's also got Bob Odenkirk in a small role and June Squibb stealing nearly every scene she's in.  It's the kind of film director Alexander Payne does so well and it might be my favourite of his films that I've seen.  So good.

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Just watched Prometheus for the 2nd time. Fassbender's android walk freaks me out. I liked the attention to detail, when his head is detached the left side of his face sags as if non-functional. Some dumb lines and a few plot-holes, but an above average sci-fi film and has high re-watch value.

 

Seriously though, Charlize just drop and roll, drop and roll literally 2 metres to safety like Shaw did, that's all you had to do.

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In fairness, this was the same woman who decided to follow her father billions of miles across the galaxy in something she openly admitted was a wild goose chase instead of, you know, staying the fuck at home like any normal person would.

 

Good decisions were not that character's forte.

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The beginning of Elysium was my favorite part, since it seemed like it might be a movie about something.  But then it just became a boring, generic action movie.  I rented it for $1 at Redbox, and I guess it was worth that.  Not much more.

 

Star Trek: Nemesis was brought up, so I'm going to unleash my pet peeve about it:

 

ALL THEY HAD TO DO to make the movie semi-worthwhile was to have the Picard clone laugh after he got speared through the heart.  I mean, why kill him by spearing him through the heart if you weren't going to do a callback to "Tapestry"?

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Went to see Her last night. It's an amazing movie. It's an important movie for our time as well. It also perfectly captures the feelings of a man going through a divorce, when he believes he enjoys being married. Everyone in it is awesome. I'm still trying to digest what I saw, but I know what I saw was incredibly relevant to me. I loved it.

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Watched Sinister last night. Looked really good when it came out, so I picked it up off Redbox. Not sure if I loved it or hated it. It felt like not a lot happened, and some of the graphics were a bit cheesy, but the story was really good, and I liked some of the subtle scares. I feel like they could have done a lot more with it though.

 

I enjoyed Sinister but some of the jump scares with the evil entity really were kinda stupid.  It would've been a lot more effective if the monster had remained that shadow in the corner.

 

ELYSIUM has grown on me over repeated screenings, but the first twenty minutes will still be pretty ponderous to the first time viewer.

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Watched Sinister last night. Looked really good when it came out, so I picked it up off Redbox. Not sure if I loved it or hated it. It felt like not a lot happened, and some of the graphics were a bit cheesy, but the story was really good, and I liked some of the subtle scares. I feel like they could have done a lot more with it though.

 

I enjoyed Sinister but some of the jump scares with the evil entity really were kinda stupid.  It would've been a lot more effective if the monster had remained that shadow in the corner.

 

ELYSIUM has grown on me over repeated screenings, but the first twenty minutes will still be pretty ponderous to the first time viewer.

 

 

I was waiting for that

During the scene after Ethan Hawk's character sees that German Shepard in his yard, then goes back inside and has that conversation with wife, and all we see is him and his wife arguing on one side of the screen, and the rest of the house on the other side.

 

Probably would have saved the movie for me.

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Over the weekend we watched some screeners!

 

GRUDGE MATCH: So much wasted potential in this movie.  I have no idea why this was marketed as a comedy.  A better director would have gotten this into Oscar contention.  Sadly, THIS director makes some terrible music choices that kills a LOT of the drama from major scenes.  It was competently directed otherwise, and the early scenes of the '80s fights were nicely done effects work.  Give it a watch and I think you'll be able to see what I saw in it.

 

WOLF OF WALL STREET:  I'm not sure what the kerfuffle about this movie is.  Too much debauchery? Belfort gets off easy in the end?  Welcome to the wonderful world of finance, where everyone plays by different rules than you.  The last hour or so of the movie is a man slowly coming to the realization that his life is out of control, while also trying to stay loyal to his friends.  He ends up in a kind of hell, trying to teach idiots how to sell more effectively, completely cut off from the life he once had.  I'd say he learned his lesson.

 

AMERICAN HUSTLE:  I shut it off after 1/2 hour, will likely revisit later. I tried to start it up again, but noticed it'd be over after my self-imposed bedtime, so instead I watched...

 

SECRET LIFE OF WALTER MITTY: This movie is so hollow that this morning I had a hard time remembering I watched it before I went to sleep.  It's telling that at multiple points I thought the entire movie was actually just a daydream.  There's no real adversity in the movie.  "Oh no, a negative is missing, I know I'LL GO TO GREENLAND ON A WHIM" "The guy I'm looking for is in ungoverned Afghanistan? No problem, I'll just take a bus!"  Everything comes so effortlessly to Walter that there's no real character development once he gets on the helicopter.  Even then, at the beginning of the movie, he's basically the personal liaison between LIFE MAGAZINE and their Ernest Hemingway-esque photographer, who refuses to correspond with anyone but Walter.  It's a vacuous nothing of a film.

 

THE ICE PIRATES: Not a screener, but back in '84, when it was in theatres, a friend called me up and asked if I wanted to go see it.  Based on the poster, and the fact that I was 7 I said "Of Course!"  When I asked my mom if I could go, she said no for some reason, and it got me so angry that I ripped the two dollar bills that I had ready to go for admission in half the long way, figuring that if I couldn't see this awesome movie, what did I need this stupid money for anyway?  Cut to 30 years later, and I still had never seen it.  Anyway, I'm not sure why this isn't more of a cult film it's got Robert Urich! Anjelica Huston! John Carradine! Bruce Villanch! John Matuszak! Max Von Sydow! Kung Fu Robots! and RON PERLMAN in his second role!  Said role is an effeminate space pirate/cook, but still!  It's likely something that I would have stopped to watch if I'd had cable TV as a kid.  Not too bad, and the co-star grew up to become Cleveland Brown. 

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WOLF OF WALL STREET:  I'm not sure what the kerfuffle about this movie is.  Too much debauchery? Belfort gets off easy in the end?  Welcome to the wonderful world of finance, where everyone plays by different rules than you.  The last hour or so of the movie is a man slowly coming to the realization that his life is out of control, while also trying to stay loyal to his friends.  He ends up in a kind of hell, trying to teach idiots how to sell more effectively, completely cut off from the life he once had.  I'd say he learned his lesson.

 

 

The only thing I took away from the final scene is that the "idiots" (or, ya know, 99% of us) are willing to let just about anyone off the hook for their own chance to live the dream. That aint hell, it's retirement.  In my mind he didn't learn a thing.

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The beginning of Elysium was my favorite part, since it seemed like it might be a movie about something.  But then it just became a boring, generic action movie.  I rented it for $1 at Redbox, and I guess it was worth that.  Not much more.

 

Star Trek: Nemesis was brought up, so I'm going to unleash my pet peeve about it:

 

ALL THEY HAD TO DO to make the movie semi-worthwhile was to have the Picard clone laugh after he got speared through the heart.  I mean, why kill him by spearing him through the heart if you weren't going to do a callback to "Tapestry"?

That was your *only* pet peeve about Nemesis?  Shit, I take umbrage to the entire existance of the Scimitar.

 

 

And Ice Pirates was fucking awesome.

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