The Movies Discussion Thread

[justabagofatoms]

This has to be one of the best threads on the forum.


Here Comes Mr. Jordon, (1941). Robert Montgomery and Claude Rains, who plays the heavenly Mr. Jordon. This is the film that the inferior "Heaven Can Wait" was based on. Claude is splendid.

I Married A Witch, (1942). Frederic March and Veronica Lake. Her hair alone makes it worth catching.

[Keith Jordan]

Here Comes Mr. Jordon, (1941). Robert

Just watched District 9. Took a long long time to get going. But I sort of enjoyed it in the end. Wouldn't recommend it highly as I didnt like its early narrative structure and techniques of representing the story. Uninteresting possibly.

[David Smith]

Saw The Social Network last night and would highly recommend it - brilliant film about a subject matter that should not lend itself well to cinema (how Facebook was created) with some brilliant drama and a very moving ending

[justabagofatoms]

Oddly enough, David, when I heard about that film, it made me think of your writing. I hope you have had time to write, lately.

I invited my friend to a movie of her choice. She chose Afterlife. We got to the theater only to be cheerily informed that they had randomly changed the starting time that day (who does that??), but that we had probably only missed the first minute or two. I didn't want to go, she did. I thought..."what could we have missed in the first two or three minutes?".
Apparently...EVERYTHING. The only interesting scene in the entire movie takes place in those first two or three minutes. I was so stupefyingly bored that I was trying to fall asleep, but it was just irritating enough to keep me awake. I'm going to write to Clint Eastwood and ask for a refund. And the first person that nominates this for an Oscar deserves to be blacklisted. But that's just my humble opinion, you might love it.

[PublicImage]

There is a good Japanese film called After Life which might help you recover from the trauma caused by 'Afterlife'.

[David Smith]

Is that the one where people can pick a memory to go to the afterlife with? If so i haven't seen it, but read a lot of really good things about it.

Recently saw a most amusing slasher, Final Exam, which is famous for having a killer with no mask and utterly no motive to speak of. In other bad horror stuff, me and my buddy Ryan are looking to run through the 9 amtiville films being that neither of us has been bothered to go past the first one yet.

[princessDungan74D]

I want to see Dr.Strangelove and Clockwork Orange. I just wanted to know if they are OK movies?

[J Ed]

they are both very OK movies, absolutely essential viewing in fact
Clockwork Orange has some explicit violence and some folks I know have been bothered by the rape scene, but its beautifully filmed, hilarious in parts, and full of ideas
Strangelove features classic performances from Peter Sellers (3 different roles), George C Scott and Slim Pickens
both films have been referenced a lot in other peoples films in the decades since, so are worth being familiar with just to catch those references, and both are quoted by people in the media and in every day conversation
eg both Mars Attacks and Canadian Bacon explicitly reference the war room scenes from Dr Strangelove
and I often refer to my friends as "my little droogies"

[danielcaux]

All Kubrick's movies are OK to watch. Yes, some of them have nudity, sex, and violence, (some even WAR) but all of that in the right and fair proportions. But Strangelove is by far my favourite Kubrick movie, funny as hell.

Saw Where The Wild Things are last night and thought it was great

Why?

I was bored to death by it!

Finally saw it last night. One of the dumbest movies I have seen in a long time. Amazing cinematography and monster costumes and FX, but that's about it. The movie was completely devoid of real emotion, it was all cardboard characters whining and growling and hitting each other with sticks and rocks, ...and then crying and fighting and getting mad...

The story was so bad it made Lady In The Water, another faux-"childlike metality" movie, look good by comparison.

And the worst thing was the soundtrack, why did they feel the need to shove us through our ears all those pretentious indie songs, all sounding the same, whenever an action sequence unfolded?

I just can't understand why some many critics liked so much this movie. Guess this is the kind of movie some hip people are predisposed to love, after all it has both Karen-O and a "sensitive" child hero in it!

[David Smith]

Why?

Ha ha, i love when people ask a question like that on imdb and a flurry of posters will automatically assume the person didn't get it. Fair enough question. I thought it tugged at the heart strings a lot, and it made a nice statement about the need for parental authority, without being to preachy about it. I liked that it was a film about childhood rather than being a childrens film, and i also thought the visuals and the voice acting was brilliant.

The movie was completely devoid of real emotion, it was all cardboard characters whining and growling and hitting each other with sticks and rocks, ...and then crying and fighting and getting mad...

Different strokes, i thought the whole bit towards the end when the wild things appeared to realize that they will never be happy because they inevitably spoil it for themselves (particularly the Tony Soprano one) was a really moving sequence. With their blatant disregard for others all of them ruined it for themselves, and i thought the sadness that came from that, and in fact surrounded their entire play based regime, was really well captured.

Yeah the actiony sequences became a bit tiresome, but i guess they set out to capture that these things just live like children and part and parcel of that is the roughness and aggression that comes with it and sort of managed to.

The story was so bad it made Lady In The Water, another faux-"childlike metality" movie, look good by comparison.

Now that IS harsh

And the worst thing was the soundtrack, why did they feel the need to shove us through our ears all those pretentious indie songs, all sounding the same, whenever an action sequence unfolded?

Fair comment, it pissed me off to. But then those little actiony bits were by far my least favourite bits in the film.

I just can't understand why some many critics liked so much this movie. Guess this is the kind of movie some hip people are predisposed to love, after all it has both Karen-O and a "sensitive" child hero in it!

While i do feel that critics did overrate it (i did like it a lot, but when people started moaning that it never got any oscar nominations i thought they were being well over the top). I think the problem is that some fans really overly intellectualise it by suggesting that certain wild things are supposed to be representing everything from the boys dog to his teacher, and his mum's career etc etc While there was no doubt a lot of correspondance between the characters he encountered and his life at the time, it seems some people were really trying to overly analyse a really fairly simple film

[danielcaux]

So didn't anyone watch TRON or what????!!!! IS LIKE THE BEST MOVIE IN HISTORY!! RIGHT THERE WITH INCEPTION!!

Just kidding. Watched it last week, one of those disapointing movie experiences where you see a lot of potential in some of the premises that are proposed at the beginning but nothing really important done with them at the end. The movie had some interesting if REALLY underdeveloped ideas: quantum digital "teleportation" as a new frontier for mankind, digital programs self-evolving like bio-organism, Zen conflict of action vs. inaction, digital duplication of identity/consciousness in a virtual reality environment. It also had an overall nice dark ambience and mood but the plot development and dialogues were just plain bad. Of course, I know this was just a Disney movie intended for kids and teenagers and all that, but I think there's also room for intelligence in childhood. I quite enjoyed the Daft Punk soundtrack though, some nice atmospheric synths and orchestra there, and sure Quorra was great eyecandy for the primitive masculine mind. End of line.

[David Smith]

Not being a fan of the original Tron i had pretty much no urge to see the sequal to it. Effects did look pretty nice from the trailer though. Recently saw the documentry Catfish though which i thought was pretty decent. All the reviews are recommending you go in and see it blind, and i would have to agree with this. Unfolds in to something pretty creepy the more you think about it, just remember it is a documentery and is not a blair witch style film or anything like that

[wiped]

Watched Young Frankenstien (again) the other night .... fantastic film - worth a watch for Gene Wilder's hair alone.

[Gem]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3FqZEDY_rV0

[danielcaux]

Watched Black Swan last week. I thought it was a fun and even smart horror movie, there were no ghosts, no serial killers, no monsters, but still all the classical elements from those genres were there. I was expecting a tragic drama about ballet and annorexia, instead I got a horror movie dealing with what happens with your life when you forget to buy a nail clipper, what a pleasent surprise!

One thing I didn't understand was who was the woman she saw when she was under the water in the bathtub? Her mother? Herself? Lily?