Topic: Rate the last movie you've seen

[Morari]

so the general consensus of Sucker Punch is the trailer is better than the movie?

That's pretty bad. The trailer looks awfully lame.

[Adrock]

The Social Network
It was great. Funny and just plain entertaining. I doubt Mark Zuckerberg is 1) that witty in real life 2) that much of a douchebag. The movie forced the audience to sympathize with Eduardo Saverin and I believe the real Saverin was a consultant on the novel the film was based on so no surprise here. Andrew Garfield sounds like Anakin Skywalker and that's going to be really distracting in The Amazing Spider-Man, but he's a much better actor than Hayden Christensen so I'm not worried.

The Bourne Trilogy
I only finished Identity when it first came out and and saw bits of Supremacy and I refused to watch Ultimatum without seeing the first 2. Well, I finally got around to seeing everything. I was blown away. Besides The Lord of the Rings, this is the only trilogy where each installment is better than one before. I'm upset that they're continuing the series without Matt Damon. What the hell is the point?

Sucker Punch
Everyone bitches about the story not making sense. That wasn't necessarily my issue with it. I got it, but there's so much of it and not that interesting. It's too simplistic to spend that much screen time on it. It took like 10 minutes to get Baby Doll into the asylum and 10 more minutes to get her to do something there. The action scenes are cool; I just wanted more of them. And I don't know how Zack Snyder did it, but somehow he made Jena Malone super hot instead of merely pretty. She also had the coolest action sequence in the movie which no easy feat. Also, Emily Browning shouldn't be allowed by law to not wear a school girl outfit.

[Stogi]

Did you see it in IMAX?

[RABicle]

The Social Network
It was great. Funny and just plain entertaining. I doubt Mark Zuckerberg is 1) that witty in real life 2) that much of a douchebag.

This was the problem I guess I had with this movie and it's the same issue I had with Juno. It's overwritten. People just aren't that cool all the time. Line after line of insightful, memorable quotes. People just don't talk like that. And it makes me hate real people like my housemate who always falls into "it's just like... you know what I mean?"
I say it was a problem I had with the films, I love them both, it's just the only real flaw they both have, they're too cool.

Also, Emily Browning shouldn't be allowed by law to not wear a school girl outfit.

I reckon she could go back to fishnets on her arms any time she likes

It's cool guys, she might be playing a 13 year old, but she was 17 here

[Adrock]

No, I didn't see it in IMAX. I just wanted to see the movie so I went to a matinee with my brother. $5 per ticket.

I'm more willing to accept the witty dialogue in The Social Network than in Juno. In Juno, the character of Juno is portrayed as unique, snarky; smart but not particularly gifted though the entire plot revolves around Juno making a very ill-advised decision. I had a hard time believing a 16 year old could talk like that, especially when there's no explicable reason for her to. While I don't believe the real life counterparts in The Social Network were anywhere near as quick-witted, I was able to suspend my disbelief considering the characterization is far better here. The Winklevii are so-called "Harvard gentleman" so they have that air about them. Zuckerberg is portrayed as a total d-bag and someone who is too smart for his own good which alienates him from others. Sean Parker is portrayed in much the same way, except given no positive attributes and made slimier and far more underhanded and arrogant. Erica Albright has only 1 significant scene but she's supposed to be Zuckerberg's intellectual equal in everything but computers; a representation of intelligence existing outside of the Harvard bubble. All dialogue in every movie is not indicative of real life conversation. However, I'm willing accept it in The Social Network because it's done better and serves more of a purpose than to just make the characters sound cool.

By the way, I hated Juno so I admit I'm biased though part of the reason was the dialogue.

[Plugabugz]

Scream 4 - I enjoyed it. Not the film to make me sit up but i enjoyed it all the same. Funny and witty. And Hayden.

Sucker Punch - I have no clue what was going on. Not a clue. It was, pretty much, two separate storylines. Treat it as that and you have two films to watch.

Source Code - This is a VERY sci-fi film, directed by the guy who directed Moon (another very good sci-fi!), about a person who can travel 8 minutes into the past to try and prevent a terrorist event. Unlike sucker punch which would have benefited from spending time on establishing its universe, Source Code did this very nicely and even played with it. Well worth watching.

[nickmitch]

The Adjustment Bureau - Overall, I liked it. It explored the consequences of certain religious beliefs in an interesting way. Matt Damon's acting was good, Emily Blunt not so much. This movie kinda suffered from "how the hell do you fall in love so damn fast over nothing" syndrome, but the premise kind of covers it, if you really think about. This would definitely be a good topic of conversation over late drinks. 8/10

[broodwars]

After Anastasia, I was in a bit of a mood for Don Bluth films I might not have seen (though it turns out I had seen this one before and just forgotten it) so I decided to watch the one that allegedly destroyed his career and the Fox Animation studio: 2000's Titan A.E.

Funny thing, though: the movie is pretty entertaining.  Sure, it's a shallow Space Odyssey filled with archetypal characters really lacking in character development (and, sure, I spent a fair amount of the movie mocking it with Star Wars references), but hey we let Star Wars get away with that and this is pretty solid Science Fiction.  Despite some plot holes that show up near the end of the movie, I thought this film just worked.  The movie is very well-animated and colorful (I'd really like to see this movie on Blu-Ray), the primitive CG is integrated better than usual (certain better than it was in Anastasia), the story has a nice flow to it, and there's a nice sense of "wonder" to the journey.

Unfortunately, Don Bluth films like Secret of Nimh; All Dogs Go to Heaven; and especially An American Tale tended to be rather dark and have a bleak view on life, and Titan A.E. follows the mold of these older films.  This, I think, is why the movie bombed: it takes the medium a lot more seriously than probably American audiences were ready for.  The only "singing" in the movie comes from some extremely 90s background pop musical montages; there are no cute animal sidekicks; and characters in this movie die fairly graphically (one character gets his neck snapped on-screen).  The motives for the villains are also extremely vague, which makes it hard to see them as more than just things that exist to be shot at.

Overall, a pretty decent film that probably just came out at the wrong time and in the wrong country (I'm curious how this movie did in Japan, where they take animation more seriously).

[Ceric]

After Anastasia, I was in a bit of a mood for Don Bluth films I might not have seen (though it turns out I had seen this one before and just forgotten it) so I decided to watch the one that allegedly destroyed his career and the Fox Animation studio: 2000's Titan A.E.

Funny thing, though: the movie is pretty entertaining.  Sure, it's a shallow Space Odyssey filled with archetypal characters really lacking in character development (and, sure, I spent a fair amount of the movie mocking it with Star Wars references), but hey we let Star Wars get away with that and this is pretty solid Science Fiction.  Despite some plot holes that show up near the end of the movie, I thought this film just worked.  The movie is very well-animated and colorful (I'd really like to see this movie on Blu-Ray), the primitive CG is integrated better than usual (certain better than it was in Anastasia), the story has a nice flow to it, and there's a nice sense of "wonder" to the journey.

Unfortunately, Don Bluth films like Secret of Nimh; All Dogs Go to Heaven; and especially An American Tale tended to be rather dark and have a bleak view on life, and Titan A.E. follows the mold of these older films.  This, I think, is why the movie bombed: it takes the medium a lot more seriously than probably American audiences were ready for.  The only "singing" in the movie comes from some extremely 90s background pop musical montages; there are no cute animal sidekicks; and characters in this movie die fairly graphically (one character gets his neck snapped on-screen).  The motives for the villains are also extremely vague, which makes it hard to see them as more than just things that exist to be shot at.

Overall, a pretty decent film that probably just came out at the wrong time and in the wrong country (I'm curious how this movie did in Japan, where they take animation more seriously).

I also think it was after Don Bluth time, if thats the right way to say it.  Take any of the films you listed and swap Titan AE with it and I don't think they be nearly what they are now.

[broodwars]

I meant to mention this in my earlier Titan A.E. post, but I also recently rewatched my favorite Pixar movie, The Incredibles, via the recently-released Blu-Ray.  There's really not much I can say about The Incredibles except that it is IMO the most fundamentally perfect movie Pixar has created.  It's the only one they've done where I can say there is no major flaw, no "disappointing ending/climax" or whatnot that tarnishes the movie.  Like my favorite animated movie of all time (The Lion King, which happily will also be seeing Blu-Ray release this year), Incredibles is bold and set out to do things that hadn't been done in the medium before.  And most importantly, unlike earlier Pixar movies like Nemo it feels like a Pixar movie with its own style, not a traditional Disney film that just happened to be made by someone else.  The film is just full of a pure barely-controlled energy that makes the movie exciting and fun to watch from start to end.  Highly recommended.

As for the Blu-Ray, it's a typical Pixar Blu-Ray: a near-flawless video/audio transfer and loads of extras both new and old.  The most notable new feature, though, is a disappointingly-short 22 minute roundtable discussion between key members of the creative staff discussing the production of the film.  Now this is the kind of experience I want in roundtable interviews like this: it's extremely casual and full of behind-the-scenes inside jokes and stories you wouldn't hear or see otherwise.  In fact, I was surprised to see a section of the discussion where they talked about "a key Disney executive" who flat-out hated the movie when it was pitched to him (to the extent that the Pixar guys thought Brad Bird was going to punch him, so Bird asked Pixar head John Lassetter to go to bat for them), especially since he didn't think they could do it and didn't understand why it wasn't live-action.  Now, they don't name names (my money's on Michael Eisner), but it's an interesting story as it brings to light another similarity with Lion King: it was an underdog project staffed by people determined to prove themselves, and it ended up being extremely successful.  And let's just say that there was some friction between the Pixar staff and Bird's staff when he joined up with Pixar, which coincidentally probably led to the big villain Syndrome looking exactly like Brad Bird.   :

[Despicable]

Last one I watched was 8 Mile, not the first time I've watched it though. Anyway 10/10.

[ShyGuy]

Tron Classic film, amazing effects for when it came out.

Tron Legacy Decent sequel, I wish they had kept more with the original art style.

[Morari]

Tron Legacy Decent sequel, I wish they had kept more with the original art style.

The updated visuals weren't the problem. They were surprisingly good, if not different. The real problem was the generic, dumbed-down story. They should have taken a few pages from Tron 2.0's book instead of trying to cater to Facebook's "we can barely even turn a computer on" crowd.

[Stogi]

For me, everything up to the Disc Wars and the subsequent light cycle battle was the ****. After that though, the story started to come into play and it got boring, well until the trippy airplane battle (which was drawn out too long). Still, it easily had the best soundtrack and visual production of any movie last year.

[broodwars]

Tron Legacy Decent sequel, I wish they had kept more with the original art style.

The updated visuals weren't the problem. They were surprisingly good, if not different. The real problem was the generic, dumbed-down story. They should have taken a few pages from Tron 2.0's book instead of trying to cater to Facebook's "we can barely even turn a computer on" crowd.

While I have lamented the extreme downplaying that Legacy does on the whole "world inside a computer" concept, I still prefer its story and execution over that of the original Tron.  I find the original Tron a painfully dull movie, like watching Star Trek: The Motion Picture.  Legacy, for all its faults, is at least entertaining.

Besides, we have Reboot for all our "world inside a computer" needs!   

[bustin98]

The late 70s - early 80s were pretty weird with the consistency of spacey sci-fi films. You have Star Wars, which is pretty entertaining. And then you have Star Trek, Tron (not really spacey but it's in another world...), Black Hole, 2001, Dune and several others that while have a decent premise tend to get a bit long and boring. Blade Runner falls into the same trap here and there. Alien/Aliens avoid it pretty much, but they seem to be more horror/suspense just set in outer space. Star Trek 2 breaks out, and when do we see another decent sci fi film? I like many, but can be regarded as B movies. I guess the next best space oriented program would be Star Trek: TNG.

Has there been any good space opera type film since Star Wars? I'm racking my brain and not really coming up with anything. With all the amazing books, you'd think there would be more.

[Morari]

Did you seriously just say that 2001 and Dune are boring? Wow.

Star Wars is simply a high fantasy styled story set in space. It's pretty far from what I'd generally consider science fiction. Besides, it is boring. Most people just have a lot of nostalgia for it that clouds their ability to see it for what it is.

[NWR_insanolord]

2001 is a fantastic movie (though it's a better book), and is one of the few things I've bought on Blu-ray. I haven't seen all of Dune, or read the book, but the parts I saw were pretty interesting. However, I will not sit here and allow you to insult the original Star Wars trilogy. Your're right that it's not really science fiction, it's just set in space, but the same could be said about Battlestar Galactica (the recent one), and it doesn't make that any less awesome either. It's by no means deep, but it's highly entertaining, and I think the movies hold up really well, especially the first one and The Empire Strikes Back.

[Morari]

I've not watched the new Battlestar Galactica, so I can't comment there. Star Wars never really did it for me the way it seems to for everyone else though. It does some things right, and has a lot of good ideas, but is truly overrated. The first film is sloppy on a multitude of accounts. It's definitely worth watching once or twice, but I've always felt that it receives a lot of undue credit and accolades. The Empire Strikes Back holds up much better and is technically a superior film. It doesn't feel nearly as generic plot wise, and greatly benefits from it. Return of the Jedi doesn't really go anywhere... it just wraps things up neatly. I've only caught bits of the prequels and was never impressed enough to follow up on them.

Dune really must be watched in it's entirety. There are a lot of different edits out there, as Lynch was never completely happy with the end result. The longer the edit, the better experience you're likely to have. The books are also some of the best fiction ever written. It has everything you'd want in good sci-fi: epic scope, political intrigue, religious allegories, etc. I haven't been overly impressed with the way Brian Herbert has continued the series. He's definitely not his father. Still, at least "Hunters of Dune" and "Sandworms of Dune" provide the closure that we've all needed from the mainline series.

[broodwars]

2001 is a fantastic movie (though it's a better book), and is one of the few things I've bought on Blu-ray. I haven't seen all of Dune, or read the book, but the parts I saw were pretty interesting. However, I will not sit here and allow you to insult the original Star Wars trilogy. Your're right that it's not really science fiction, it's just set in space, but the same could be said about Battlestar Galactica (the recent one), and it doesn't make that any less awesome either. It's by no means deep, but it's highly entertaining, and I think the movies hold up really well, especially the first one and The Empire Strikes Back.

And I, sir, will not sit here and allow you to insult the new Battlestar Galactica on that issue (that show is flawed in so many ways, but not on that one).  It's a series about humanity in the future fleeing genocide by cybernetic beings, with episodes focusing on stories centered around the human condition (with parallels to modern life) and how the war and space travel effects it.  If that's not Science Fiction, nothing is.

[bustin98]

Dune the movie drones on and on. It prattles about the connection of spice to the rest of the world and takes forever to make a point when if you were paying attention you saw it coming a mile away. Though I'm sure its one of the problems of converting a book to a movie. And why I think 2001 is boring.

Don't misunderstand me. Boring != terrible. I love Blade Runner. I actually love Dune. (I haven't been able to find any personality in 2001, sorry). But it seems to me that many movies of a particular era fall into a pattern of sorts in their storytelling.

I never watched the new Battlestar Galactica either. If the first couple of episodes don't catch me, I don't bother.

Though, I did forget about my love of Stargate SG-1. Great tv ruined by the invasion of Farscape.

I did think of a fantastic spacey sci-fi film - Fifth Element. Bruce Willis adds to about any movie he is in (but Chris Tucker takes away half of what Bruce gives)

[SixthAngel]

You guys have to be huge Lynch fans.

Dune has so much that is ridiculous and is one of those movies that assumes you've read the books.  Many of those effects looked terrible even in the 80's and were obviously a bad idea even then.  Polygonal fuzzy force field armor!  The costumes were atrocious and of course Sting!


After someone mentioned Titan AE I decided to give it a shot since I like animation in general.  It has a weird mix of cartoony/realisitic that was offputting.  The bug guy dies in the beginning but has a Loony Toons syle death where his disembodied mouth says a one liner before falling to rest with his exploded body and yet later we have necks getting snapped and guns actually leaving holes.  The bad guy aliens have a pretty terrible design in general although I liked the pure energy idea.  They also have quite a few moments that are there to pretty much show the CG (like the ship flying scene) and the CG outside of the icefield just isn't very good.  The lack of motive for the bad guys that was mentioned I also didn't like.  I never understood why making a new planet was such a big deal anyway.  The old planet was blown up so it's not like a new completely undefended one wouldn't be an even easier target when most humans are dead.  The whole idea of it saving them never made sense to me.  I wouldn't recommend the movie.

[Ceric]

Dune the movie drones on and on. It prattles about the connection of spice to the rest of the world and takes forever to make a point when if you were paying attention you saw it coming a mile away. Though I'm sure its one of the problems of converting a book to a movie. And why I think 2001 is boring.

Don't misunderstand me. Boring != terrible. I love Blade Runner. I actually love Dune. (I haven't been able to find any personality in 2001, sorry). But it seems to me that many movies of a particular era fall into a pattern of sorts in their storytelling.

I never watched the new Battlestar Galactica either. If the first couple of episodes don't catch me, I don't bother.

Though, I did forget about my love of Stargate SG-1. Great tv ruined by the invasion of Farscape.

I did think of a fantastic spacey sci-fi film - Fifth Element. Bruce Willis adds to about any movie he is in (but Chris Tucker takes away half of what Bruce gives)

While I enjoyed SG-1 and Agree that it did start taking itself too serious later and become a refuge of Sci-Fi actors, I can't stand for you slandering Farscape.  I enjoy Farscape and am Currently rewatching the whole series.
Did I do it right : :


While I'm typing and all 2001 gets my vote for boringest movie of all time.  Tron and Star Wars is something I believe everyone should watch at least once for their relevance and some of the items they bring up.  Beyonde once I leave that to personally preference.  I'm actually not a huge Star Wars fan but, I get lumped into it because of my field and hobby.

The original Dune has the Slowness of that time period.  Conan the Barbarian is another good example of that.  I'm not very much into that style of pacing.

I Believe the original Star Trek movies, after the first one, are vastly superioir to the TNG ones, even though TNG was the better series.  Though I enjoyed the new one except I hated what they did with the Spock character.  They made him into one of those whiney emotional Enterprise Vulcans.  I'll still go to see a new one of those movies.

Last movie I fully watched was Hop and Tangled.  I enjoyed both.  Hop has some great graphics in it.  Though its your pretty typical escape from responsibility film. Tangle was very clever and poked fun at itself.  The movie has self referencing layers and everything seems to be just so for a reason.  I recommend seeing it at least once, its a fun ride.

[Morari]

You guys have to be huge Lynche fans.

Dune has so much that is ridiculous and is one of those movies that assumes you've read the books.

Maybe that's the problem then? I'm biased. I love just about everything Lynch has ever done, and I was already a huge fan of Frank Herbert's books when the Dune film came out. Outside of a few discrepancies like the voice modulator, the film is so stylishly done that it's inconceivable to me that anyone would dislike it.

I'm starting to think that maybe you guys just all have ADD... Dune boring?! 2001 boring?! Star Wars = Awesome?! Sad, sad world.

[broodwars]

I Believe the original Star Trek movies, after the first one, are vastly superioir to the TNG ones, even though TNG was the better series.  Though I enjoyed the new one except I hated what they did with the Spock character.  They made him into one of those whiney emotional Enterprise Vulcans.  I'll still go to see a new one of those movies.

I would agree with a few exceptions:

1.  Star Trek 5 is crap.  It's not as bad as Star Trek 1, but it's still worse than even Insurrection.

2.  I will argue that Star Trek Generations is at least as good as Star Trek 3, and is certainly better than Star Trek 5.

3.  First Contact is IMO as good as the best of the Original Series movies (2, 4, and 6).  It's probably my favorite Trek movie, and it alone makes up for the massive amounts of disappointment that were the TNG movies.

I recently sat down and watched the Beetlejuice Blu-Ray.  That movie gets stranger every time I see it.  Some aspects of the movie come off a little too goofy or cheesy now than I remember it, but I still really enjoy the movie.  The acting's solid, the story has a good flow to it, the production design is still amazing in its sheer oddity (it's probably the purest expression of Tim Burton's art style), and the special effects are...well, ok they look like crap now, but I get the feeling that like Ghostbusters the effects were never really intended to look "good", exactly.

Something that's always bugged me, though: why is the movie called "Beetlejuice", and why do characters in the movie call him that?  Whenever we see the name written out during the movie, it's written as "Betelgeuse".  The Maitlands even pronounce it "Beetle-gice", and then all of a sudden they use the more familiar pronunciation.  Weird.

As for the Blu-Ray, it's one of the laziest I've seen so far.  The transfer is decent, though dark scenes seem to suffer a bit.  The real culprit is the appalling lack of extras of any sort outside a few assorted episodes of the cartoon series (which hasn't aged well and I don't find very good now) and a music-only audio track.  And that's it.  We don't even get a commentary track from Tim Burton.  This movie deserves a lot better than this.