No love for my michael bay in a nutshell what so ever.
Film The Redcafe Movie review thread
- Thread starter golden_blunder
- Start date
None at all.
Miserable twunts took me all of 10 minutes to make that.
Watched about 15 minutes of Fighting today. Awful 15 minutes. Terrence Howard was meant to be a good actor right?
Why is it so hard to find a great newly made film nowadays? Seriously, this is getting ridiculous. I guess there's a ton of good ones that I've missed and I still haven't seen Moon which is supposed to be good, but really.. Is it supposed to go a couple of years between every great film?
Look at the films released in 1976-77:
Taxi Driver
All the President's Men
Network
Rocky
Midway
Annie Hall
Star Wars
Carrie
Among others. How come things have gone backwards since then?
Look at the films released in 1976-77:
Taxi Driver
All the President's Men
Network
Rocky
Midway
Annie Hall
Star Wars
Carrie
Among others. How come things have gone backwards since then?
You have to look hard, part of the reason why is that everything has been "Hollywoodized" not that Hollywood is a bad place or concept, but it's just become so airheady. Films used to be about cerebral enjoyment and putting together a piece of art for the director, now it is about special effects and money. That said, there have been an absolute plethora of great shows this decade, far more than probably any other. When you look at the fact that quite possibly the two best shows of all time, The Sopranos and The Wire had major runs in 2000s it shows there is talent in know how, it just doesnt really crossover that well to the current world of make-as-much as you can as fast as you can Hollywood.
Can't say I agree with that. Hollywood has and always will produce a large quantity of generic crap, granted I find a lot of the mediocre older stuff more bearable but there are still plenty of great films being made nowadays.
I agree with a lot of what you say there Alex. I watch a ton of tv shows and as you say the standard has been increased tenfold. But if there's something that differentiates TV from movies then it's the influence of the writers. They have a lot of influence on tv shows while basically being easily replaced commodities in Hollywood. Maybe there are just too many cooks right now with all these producers with huge budgets and the fear of executives to screw up there just isn't any room for creativity in the field.
Here's a brilliant (and quite hilarious) take on the subject:
Screenwriting Tip Of The Day by William C. Martell - Romeo to Rambo
Generic crap is alright as long as there's some (preferably a lot of) brilliant stuff released too.
While I do love Star Wars, it is a bit ironic to put it in a list of great movies that stand out from otherwise Hollywood crap. Jaws and Star Wars were responsible for the 'blockbuster' mentality. Budgets got higher, movies got less complicated.
Yeah. For an actor known for his over the top performances, he was seriously fecking good as the low key, normal Gordon.
Yay Mexie!!!!
Carrie was rubbish.
Alright I admit that I padded the list with some less than great films to make a point. Carrie probably doesn't belong there either.
Star Wars may not be the kind of movie that wins a ton of awards or great reviews but it's a very enjoyable film nonetheless but yeah I can see the irony.
So then.. Are George Lucas and Steven Spielberg to blame for this mess?
They certainly played a part in it.
Just look at what happened with the last Indiana Jones, see South Park episode for reference
Lucas and Speilberg have gone through a change in their film making. When they started they made films they wanted to see as kids, nowadays they make films they want their grandkids to see, Speilberg though may have seen the light though as apparently he has become a lot more hands on in the production phase for the next Indie film and has pushed for an idea they had a lot earlier on that Lucas shot down.
Sin Nombre - A good movie about a Mexican teenager who tries to escape from a criminal gang. - 7,5/10
Surrogates - Good concept, but a bit meh. - 6/10
My Blueberry Nights - Disappointing, fairly mediocre. - 6/10
Surrogates - Good concept, but a bit meh. - 6/10
My Blueberry Nights - Disappointing, fairly mediocre. - 6/10
Up After the ordinary reviews I didn't have great expectations so I was very pleasantly surprised how much I enjoyed this film. A tad emotionally manipulative as you would expect from a cartoon but great fun despite that.
8/10
Squirrel!
Where the Wild Things Are. I can't remember the book well at all, so I can't compare book to movie. The movie though, is very well made. It's much darker than I thought it would be for a kid's movie. At times it plays like a child's imagination. At time it plays like a child's imagination if he's going through some shit at home. I'd give it a 7/10.
Cirque Du Freak - The Vampire's Assistant
I think that's what it's called, how the flying feck I let my missus talk me into going I'll never know. Biggest pile of shit I've seen all year, and that's saying something. It's a kids film, a fecking terrible film with no cohesion whatsoever. The characters are straight from theatre and placed in this mess of a film with no context and the acting stinks. It's God awful and then it just finishes, with no real ending and no conclusion. A horrible experience.
0/10.
I think that's what it's called, how the flying feck I let my missus talk me into going I'll never know. Biggest pile of shit I've seen all year, and that's saying something. It's a kids film, a fecking terrible film with no cohesion whatsoever. The characters are straight from theatre and placed in this mess of a film with no context and the acting stinks. It's God awful and then it just finishes, with no real ending and no conclusion. A horrible experience.
0/10.
Looked a pile of shit, why would you see it?
Up - Another piece of genius from Pixar, it's so hard to decide whether it's better/worse than their other films because they're all on such a high level. As usual it's based on a relatively insane concept, but it pulls it off so well. One of the best films I've seen this year.
8.5/10
8.5/10
I could tell it was shit, unfortunately the lady friend couldn't make that out from the 2 minute trailer.
I'm about to watch Withnail and I
How about that then?
How about that then?
I didn't think it was all that at the time and when I watched it again a few weeks ago I hated it it.
Excellent.
Now that I'm expecting feck all it'll probably be great.
Now that I'm expecting feck all it'll probably be great.
Withnail and I
To be fair, I was expecting some sort of undergrad comedy about two young bohemian types doing lots of drugs and shagging lots of birds. Instead I got one about two young bohemian types doing lots of drugs and trying to escape being buggered by an extremely fat old gay man with a penchant for Baudelaire. Minor differences.
Not a bad movie at all, the hour and forty minutes flew by.
There's some proper laughs as well, such as when 'I' runs towards the bull shouting 'ahhhh' and when they're driving through the storm with one working wiper. But they could have done far more with the premise. In particular I thought that the Withnail character, although highly annoying, also had the potential to deliver lots of acerbic dialogue. Sadly they didn't write too many standout lines for him and we were left with a whiny twat of a character indulging in a lot of tedious histrionics.
7/10
To be fair, I was expecting some sort of undergrad comedy about two young bohemian types doing lots of drugs and shagging lots of birds. Instead I got one about two young bohemian types doing lots of drugs and trying to escape being buggered by an extremely fat old gay man with a penchant for Baudelaire. Minor differences.
Not a bad movie at all, the hour and forty minutes flew by.
There's some proper laughs as well, such as when 'I' runs towards the bull shouting 'ahhhh' and when they're driving through the storm with one working wiper. But they could have done far more with the premise. In particular I thought that the Withnail character, although highly annoying, also had the potential to deliver lots of acerbic dialogue. Sadly they didn't write too many standout lines for him and we were left with a whiny twat of a character indulging in a lot of tedious histrionics.
7/10
I saw Wolverine last night. It could have been a decent action flick if it wasnt packed with some reeeeeeeaaaally bad scenes. Still I guess they can be overlooked in action flicks. 6/10
You really need to just look a little harder. There's plenty of great films around, both small and big budget stuff. Having a quick look at some films released over the last 2 years, you've got:
Up
Gran Torino
The Wrestler
Coraline
Star Trek
The Dark Knight
Wall-E
Juno
Persepolis
Cloverfield
All I'd say at least 8/10 films that I've seen in that time, and that is without looking outside of America (except perhaps Persepolis). And then there's a bunch that I've still not got round to but received at least very good reviews like Distrct 9, Slumdog Millionaire, Inglorious Basterds, Fantastic Mr. Fox, There Will Be Blood, No Country For Old Men. Plus there's the upcoming The Lovely Bones, Where The Wild Things Are, Avatar, all of which I have high hopes for.
You have to remember looking back at a certain time in film will always make it seem better because the crap has already been filtered out for you, while you have to put up with the current dross whether you like it or not. Look at '99 for example, was a vintage year with American Beauty, South Park, American Pie, Fight Club, Three Kings, Being John Malkovich, Election, Toy Story 2, The Matrix, The Sixth Sense, The Iron Giant, Magnolia. And yet on closer inspection you had Wild Wild West and Deuce Bigalow too, plus Phantom Menace... Every year has it's great films and it's bad ones, but there really is plenty of good stuff out there at the moment, nowhere near as bad as you make out.
I thought it was absolutely awful, which pisses me off because it had the potential to be excellent. However I am still looking forward to X-Men Chronicles: Magneto
Agreed, it's Sturgeon's Law and it's the same with any form of enterainment media.
Especially if the rumours that Singer is returning to direct it are true.
I thought the opening sequence to Wolverine was well done. Where they go through all the wars he's been in. After that it turned to shit though.
I wonder who they are going to go after for the lead, since surely it will involve for the most part I would think a younger Magneto. Hopefully whoever they get is class, hopefully McKellen gets some of the screen time, he is excellent in that role. I thought they actually got most of the roles right in the X-Men series, and he was certainly spot on.
vvvv
Well said gentlemen....To claim there's been nothing to match Rocky or Star Wars in the last 30 years is ridiculous (though I'm not sure if you're actually saying that)...I think you just have a penchant for films of that era. I wouldn't rank any of them in my top 10 for example...
Moving on but staying on the point of romanticizing the past, I watched Superman 2 today, generally considered the best Superman by many fans and at one point called the best comic book film ever....
Why? feck knows, cos it diabolical. The effects not withstanding (cos being the late 70s that's irrelevant, and unfair to judge it on) the acting is atrocious, Margo Kidder is a shocking Lois Lane, as well as an appalling actress, the script is pathetic, the direction is woeful (from both directors as far as I could tell, at one point when Terrance Stamp, imitating a BeeGee, and his cohorts are 'blowing' the city apart, not only are cars flying about whilst people are still struggling along in mime slow motion, the camera cuts to shots of the wind blowing things in completely opposing directions)...It's just awful, yet being seminal, it's regarded as great, both by critics at the time and by many fans of the genre....dated really isn't the word for it. I was laughing all the way through it. Ridiculous film, not even so bad it's good, just bad, no matter how many directors and different cuts it's had. This was a film made after the Godfather I & II, I won't accept the 'well standards were lower back then' crap...
2/10
I never rated the Superman films nor enjoyed them much even at the time.
Starwars and Star Trek were much better effects movies.
I liked the latest Superman movie tbh