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2014 MOVIE OMNIBUS THREAD


RIPPA

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You know what still rules? TOTAL RECALL. Consider it a divorce.

 

I still haven't watched the new one. Total Recall needs someone like Arnold for it.

 

I'm working my way through The Bubsy Berkley collection for a paper. Watched 42nd Street in school. Watched The Gold Diggers of 1933 the other day. Man these Berkely numbers are so amazing and you have to really suspend the belief that all of it is supposed to be on a theater stage and not a movie stage.

 

Ruby Keeler is so adorable. Ginger Rogers is stunning.

 

Gotta plow through Footlight Parade and Dames by Monday night. The Gold Diggers of 1935 is also in the set, but I'm writing about pre-code movies so I don't have to watch that right away.

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I seriously don't buy Ralph Fiennes as Dolarhyde in Red Dragon. He's just too handsome. Amon Goeth in Schindler's List (who was even more of a monster), sure. And yeah I know you could say "Ted Bundy could have been a movie star"... but the character of Dolarhyde, I just don't buy it. 

 

Now I'm thinking of Philip-Seymour Hoffman playing a serial killer. Man, that would have been something.

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I was never a big fan of PS Hoffman, but he elevated M:I3. When Ethan Hunt was impersonating his character, there were times I wondered if it *wasn't* Cruise in a Hoffman costume, as well as Hoffman played Cruise.

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Hoffman was really amazing in The Master, an otherwise forgettable movie.

 

I finally sat down and watched 70s classic Pumping Iron over the weekend.  It sucks knowing that it was a docudrama and that parts were staged, which makes it a little hard to take seriously and calls pretty much the whole plot into question.  Still, it was a very cool look into the bodybuilding subculture of the era.  Arnold was amazingly charismatic and it's easy to see how he ended up with the film and political careers he did.  I felt bad for Lou Ferrigno, who came across as just the nicest guy with a dad who was up there with any stage mom you'd see on Toddlers in Tiaras.  I'd recommend it for any late pass dudes like myself who haven't seen it yet, though it was pretty much just an average film IMO.

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I saw Interstellar this weekend.  Date night for me and the wife, the first since February because kids and 900+hrs of overtime don't leave much time for movies.  I really liked it.  It's definitely long but it's only a negative because of the slow start.  They spent a little too much time on the backstory of what was currently going on with earth without really getting into specifics with what was currently going on with earth.  So because of that, they really didn't need to spend that long on it.  I get it...they couldn't grow food anymore, lets move along.  I get the plot holes but I don't really have a problem with that sort of thing in a movie.  There aren't any more plot holes than any other typical movie in my opinion.  It's entertainment, I'm fine with it.  One thing I thought was odd though:

 

The dude that stayed up in the ship while Coop and Brand went down to the water planet...He was up there 23 years and said he studied all he could from the black hole and took a couple of long naps...Seems like when they returned he would have gone a little nuts. You're not sitting up there in solitary confinement that long without going a little nuts.

 

Ending was great by the way. 

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One thing I thought was odd though:

 

The dude that stayed up in the ship while Coop and Brand went down to the water planet...He was up there 23 years and said he studied all he could from the black hole and took a couple of long naps...Seems like when they returned he would have gone a little nuts. You're not sitting up there in solitary confinement that long without going a little nuts.

 

 

 

I felt like that part of the movie was solely designed to shock the audience and no thought was put into how that would actually work and the effect that would really have on a person.  Because what you said about going a little nuts is exactly right.

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SNOWPIERCER was goddamn terrific. Bong Joon-Ho is gonna get his chance to do a lot more American stuff thanks to this and he deserves it. Extremely well done. Doesn't throw out gratuitous violence just for the hell of it. Got a lot out of Evans, too. Plus, it's a really great story with some fantastic twists and turns. A couple of plot holes (it's a sci-fi movie, so, duh) but definitely one of the best movies made in recent times. Now I have to watch The Host. On the Tabe scale, an easy 9/10, pushing 9.5.

Great succinct review. Saw this over the holiday with my GF and my mom and we all loved it, although some parts got a little violent for mom (she's 68, I'll forgive her). I really wish I had gone to see it on the big screen back when it was out. 

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Snowpiercer is fucking awesome. Go and see it now.

 

I have my reservations about Gwoemul. 

 

On the one hand, it has some of the most realistic scenes of mass panic that you will watch. They really are brilliant. 

 

Also, the monster effects are top notch.  The creature itself is very unsettling looking.

 

On the other hand, the "human" story is lacking.  The central family is odd at best and horribly dysfunctional at worst and the characters are so two-dimensional that they are less like people and more like caricatures.

 

Government officials are either inept or, as in the case of the portrayal of the US, just plain mean and stupid as to be offensive.   Koreans get to be angry with the way Korean-Americans are portrayed in Hollywood movies, yet when Americans get angry about the way we are portrayed in films like this, we just get the old "please forgive our cultural references" bullshit.

 

Scenes with people in them drone on and on until you are praying for a scene where people get eaten by the monster.

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I seriously don't buy Ralph Fiennes as Dolarhyde in Red Dragon. He's just too handsome. Amon Goeth in Schindler's List (who was even more of a monster), sure. And yeah I know you could say "Ted Bundy could have been a movie star"... but the character of Dolarhyde, I just don't buy it. 

 

Now I'm thinking of Philip-Seymour Hoffman playing a serial killer. Man, that would have been something.

 

Interestingly, David Tennant is rumored for Dolarhyde in Hannibal. Apparently he almost got the role of Hannibal, but even when they eventually chose Mads, Fuller liked him so much he penciled him for the role, schedules permitting etc.

 

He could maybe have the same problem, but he's a lot less conventional than Fiennes is at least.

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Reviews from the weekend:

 

3 Days to Kill - A rather un-serious take on the spy thriller genre.  Costner is an assassin who has just retired and wants to establish a relationship with his daughter before he dies.  Turns out he's got some cancer that's going to kill him.  He also has specific knowledge and skills the CIA needs to another assassination.  They, in turn, have some magic medicine that's going to make Costner all better.  Quid pro quo, ya know.  The result is a pretty entertaining movie with some nice funny spots, like Costner's phone ringing at inopportune times with his ringtone for his daughter.  Amber Heard co-stars in a completely useless role.  She's Costner's CIA contact but her shtick is some kind of noir femme fatale or something.  Whatever.  She can't act and her part is terrible.  Fortunately, she's not on screen all that much.  Anyway, this is hardly a great movie but it's amusing and Costner is pretty good in it.  5/10.

 

Vantage Point - Dennis Quaid is a Secret Service agent seeing his first duty since taking a bullet for the prez some time ago.  That dude from Lost is his partner.  They're in Spain for some conference with a gazillion other world leaders and the prez is going to give a speech in the courtyard of a palace or something.  Anyway, the prez gets shot and all chaos breaks out.  The gimmick, and title of the movie, is that we see the same 15 minutes or some from all different vantage points in order to piece together what all happened.  The action is fast, the movie is slick, and the gimmick is a fun one.  There's some twists and turns, of course.  There's also a much higher than I remember body count (this being the second time I've seen the movie).  Anyway, this is a well-done movie with everyone doing a good job in their part.  Entertaining, definitely.  7/10.

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I actually liked Three Days to Kill probably because I thought it was going to be downright awful. I thought it was a fun, little Taken-lite cliche action movie. If Costner played it serious the whole time, it would have been a big stinker.

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I actually liked Three Days to Kill probably because I thought it was going to be downright awful. I thought it was a fun, little Taken-lite cliche action movie. If Costner played it serious the whole time, it would have been a big stinker.

I liked it more than the 5/10 rating might indicate.  I was entertained throughout - except when Amber Heard would appear onscreen from whatever movie she thought she was actually in - and I appreciated the humor.  It wasn't at all what I was expecting, though like you I also thought it would be pretty bad.  

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Re-watched Sinister. Yeah, it that's rare film that has such a great opening sequence the rest of the movie can't even hope to live up to it.

 

Ethan Hawke also had a thing against turning off lights apparently. 

 

One of those films you watch and think, "Yeah, there's a classic movie in here...somewhere."

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Re-watched Sinister. Yeah, it that's rare film that has such a great opening sequence the rest of the movie can't even hope to live up to it.

 

I watched Calvary last night. Even though I really enjoyed the movie, I don't think anything topped the very first line of the movie. Just a soul crusher.

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