Film The Redcafe Movie review thread

R.Nilsson7 said:
Dersu Uzala - Capitan! Capitan! One of Kurosawa's most accessible films, with themes like the ruthlessness of nature and friendship. I liked the shot when they were sitting by a fire alongside a stream talking about the anger of fire, water & wind...then a gust came and blew at the opposite way the stream was going, almost putting out the fire.
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Watched this one recently, but the damn subs stopped working after 3/4ths of the film. Extremely annoying. Enjoyed it up to that point.
 
EricaNo7 said:
Inception 9/10

Finally got around to watching this - brilliant film, very well acted and written

it can't have been a dream as Michael Caine wasn't in his dreams - well I hope so, anyway
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Can't remember if I posted my thoughts about this or not so here goes. Loved it, the cinematography, acting, plot, execution and also the soundtrack was just about perfect. I can't wait to watch this in blu-ray which I have now ordered.

The spinning top wasn't spinning perfectly at the end unlike earlier when it was constantly spinning perfectly in the dream.
 
Leg-End said:
Can't remember if I posted my thoughts about this or not so here goes. Loved it, the cinematography, acting, plot, execution and also the soundtrack was just about perfect. I can't wait to watch this in blu-ray which I have now ordered.

The spinning top wasn't spinning perfectly at the end unlike earlier when it was constantly spinning perfectly in the dream.
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yes it looked like it was going to topple over, I thought

I can't wait for the blu-ray either.
I can't remember the last time I enjoyed a film as much!
 
Grown Ups

I'm not normally a fan of Sandler (other than Happy Gilmore), and even less of a fan of the others in this movie. I just don't like the pointless infantile humour they normally use. The only reason I watched it was my mate needed a pick-me-up and this was the movie he wanted to see.

However, this was a hell of a lot better than I was expecting. Probably because there were no stupid ideas or cringeworthy things that were central to the storyline. Sandler, Kevin James and David Spade are fully realistic, acting pretty much exactly how you'd expect a bunch of mates catching up after a couple of decades would act. Chris Rock's maybe a little 'different', but nothing excessive. So that leaves just Schneider as the only out-there character, but the others play off him and tease him just enough to make it work.

Certainly not the greatest movie, but a lot better than I expected. 7/10

The Hangover
I said it when it first saw it, and I'll say it again - arguably the best comedy of the last decade. 9/10
 
Harry Potter 7 Part I

If you have read the books, expect to be extremely disappointed. I thought that the films were split into two so they could include more detail...there wasn't that much detail in the first instalment.

Still, some well shot scenes, and a kind of mild porn scene between Harry and Hermione.

6/10

I just hope Part II isn't a long, drawn out battle scene
 
The Last Airbender

One of the worst films I've ever seen, certainly one of the worst big-budget movies I've ever seen. The dialogue was atrocious, the acting totally wooden, the whole thing was genuinely awful. Shyamalan is a hack and he should never direct again. The only redeeming feature was that some of the sets looked nice.

A very generous 3/10
 
Public Sex. Apparently all Geordies do is hang out in parking lots fecking in their cars. Also, I can only understand one or two of them. It's a pretty boring movie with a premise I didn't really care for, and it never really goes anywhere.
 
EricaNo7 said:
Inception 9/10

Finally got around to watching this - brilliant film, very well acted and written

it can't have been a dream as Michael Caine wasn't in his dreams - well I hope so, anyway
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That is not the reason. The reason it is not a dream is because the top wobbles a bit at the end. In the dream, it does not and it keeps spinning.
 
All the President's Men - I enjoyed this one, basically knew nothing about the Watergate scandal on beforehand. I like calmly paced investigation type of movies like this. It reminded me a bit of The Wire.

Angel's Egg - One of the strangest things I've ever seen. Most of it is basically nonsense, but incredibly atmospheric nonsense that stays in your mind a long while after watching it. Very dark, psychedelic and biblical at times. Recommended for those who like thought-provoking anime or surreal films in general.

Miller's Crossing - Loved it.
 
Machete

Awesome! A very entertaining movie with a great set of actors involved. It started out life as a trailer released with grindhouse and is of a very similar style. If you go to watch it you will be entertained. Alba is a very talented actress and by talented I mean fit as anything!! Go and watch it, sit back and let the bloody awesomeness entertain you!

8/10
 
Machete. Mashitty. I lost interest after an hour. I was fully expecting to love this, too.
 
Lance Uppercut said:
Machete. Mashitty. I lost interest after an hour. I was fully expecting to love this, too.
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Really!? It got a great reception in the cinema I watched it, granted there weren't a great deal in there but apart from one lady who I presume didn't understand the background to the movie or the genre everyone seemed to really enjoy it. Perhaps your expectations prior to watching it have not helped because I went in hoping it'd be decent but prepared for a let down so maybe that's why our views differ.
 
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hollows Part 1. Overall I thought it was a bit boring. The middle part is basically just 3 kids walking around and sleeping in a tent. Also, if Harry Potter is supposed to be 'the one', why is he such a raging vagina. Always relies on his friends to bail him out. There were some good moments, and outside of the middle part, it's a decent movie.
 
olesmyhero said:
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hollows Part 1. Overall I thought it was a bit boring. The middle part is basically just 3 kids walking around and sleeping in a tent. Also, if Harry Potter is supposed to be 'the one', why is he such a raging vagina. Always relies on his friends to bail him out. There were some good moments, and outside of the middle part, it's a decent movie.
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I've never seen a Harry Potter film, and I'm not sure I want to - I just don't like that Daniel whateverhisnameis
 
Sky1981 said:
Unstopable

6/10 The premises is quite new,
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Runaway train 1985 is better. So the premise thing not really that new.
Runaway train sequnces have been used in Hollywood numerous times.
 
So I rented 'Video Nasties - The denitive guide' from love film and Disc 1 of 3 arrived over the weekend.
Disc 1 contained the documentary 'Moral Panic, Censorship and Videotape' which is pretty interesting.

Now, I am not too sure what the other two disks are going to contain. It seems from Amazon that they contain simply a list of movies which were banned and thirdly a list of movies that had their ban over-turned.

I'm not really sure how the final two discs will be covered? Trailers? People describing them?

Has anybody seen this and if so can they give me a bit more insight into Disc 2 and 3?
 
The American:

A nice film, but a little bit too slow. Nice cinematography, lots of brooding, not much conversation. The main actress has great breasts.
I think the film was about Clooney's character trying to escape from his lifestyle. If you don't appreciate slow films with little dialogue/action then this will not be for you.

He seemingly failed at the beginning of the movie and he was doomed to failure at the end. It was a nice ending with the butterfly floating towards the sky. They didn't explain the butterfly thing properly, although with his tatoo, the book and the scene with the picnic all suggest at a fascination. I'd imagine the book goes into it a lot more.

one thing that really didn't make sense in the film.

The sniper at the beginning let Clooney walk across a field with no cover, before trying to shoot him just as he reaches cover.
 
Koyaanisqatsi - Amazing. No plot just lots of time-lapse photography and etc, the cinematographer later went on to do Baraka. The score gets a bit tedious at some places but is generally cool I guess. I liked the first half more than the second.

Mind Game - Utterly insane. A visual feast of energetic creativeness. I wasn't too keen on the animation at first but ended up liking it. The final escape attempt was INTENSE. Entertaining stuff.
 
R.Nilsson7 said:
Koyaanisqatsi - Amazing. No plot just lots of time-lapse photography and etc, the cinematographer later went on to do Baraka. The score gets a bit tedious at some places but is generally cool I guess. I liked the first half more than the second.

Mind Game - Utterly insane. A visual feast of energetic creativeness. I wasn't too keen on the animation at first but ended up liking it. The final escape attempt was INTENSE. Entertaining stuff.
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How does it compare to Baraka? and is it shot in 70mm?
 
olesmyhero said:
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hollows Part 1. Overall I thought it was a bit boring. The middle part is basically just 3 kids walking around and sleeping in a tent. Also, if Harry Potter is supposed to be 'the one', why is he such a raging vagina. Always relies on his friends to bail him out. There were some good moments, and outside of the middle part, it's a decent movie.
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I was just wondering, are you a Harry Potter fan who reads the books and watches the movies or not a fan who just watches the movies?
 
Spoony Youngblood said:
How does it compare to Baraka? and is it shot in 70mm?
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I would probably rate them as being on par with each other, though I favour Baraka slightly more...I think. They both share some similiar themes, with Baraka being more global.

Don't think so, it's really crying out for a blu-ray release though.
 
R.Nilsson7 said:
I would probably rate them as being on par with each other, though I favour Baraka slightly more...I think. They both share some similiar themes, with Baraka being more global.

Don't think so, it's really crying out for a blu-ray release though.
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Baraka's by far the best BR in terms of picture quality. Nothing else quite matches it.
 
peterstorey said:
Stop fannying a boot and give us the low-down on A Serious Man. Which I thought was a slighly irritating 'adult entertainment', rather self-indulgent and full of in-jokes probably only gettable by the makers themselves.
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Okay, you asked for it. Here is my theory of A Serious Man, though it's a bit foggy now as I can't remember the film that well. It made perfect sense at the time, anyway.

At the beginning of the film, Larry is explaining Schrödinger's cat
to his physics class. Almost the whole film is in fact a version of this thought experiment.

(If you don't know Schrödinger's cat, read the Wiki page or this slightly rubbish potted version:

Schrödinger's cat is a thought experiment, almost a scientific parable, to explain the strange behaviour of subatomic particles, which can exist in various states, and until they're observed do not resolve into any one state. It's absolutely not just that until you observe it you can't tell which state it's in: the maths says that in a real, though somewhat incomprehensible, sense it actually is in all of them at the same time.

The idea with the cat is that this situation with the particle can be magnified to our scale of things, by imagining that a cat is in a box connected to a phial of poison, which is triggered to pour into the box by the decay of a radioactive particle that has a certain probability of decaying. So until you open the box and look at the cat, you don't know if the particle's decayed or not, and in the quantum sense the particle itself hasn't decided either, so the cat is both alive and dead at the same time! (It's not really meant to be taken seriously re the cat, but to illustrate the indeterminacy of the particle state, and hence the absurdity of Quantum Theory.)

My theory:

The whole of A Serious Man, after the shtetl parable at the beginning, is set in the box. Larry is the cat. At the beginning Larry has the X-ray test. Until the results of the test are observed, the result is indeterminate (in an analagous way, though also as it happens in the actual quantum sense - it depends on the path of an X-ray, a particle of light). Apart from the shtetl parable, and the very end, the film takes place during this indeterminate period.

So Larry is the cat, and opening the box ("collapsing the waveform") is in his case looking at the lab results. What is the particle? It is the Korean student's test score. At the start of the film it's an F, but once he enters Larry's office the 'experiment' begins, and its state is neither F nor C, it's somehow neither or both - it's indeterminate. Throughout the film - which on my reading is Larry's feline sojourn in the black box - he wrestles with his conscience and his problems, the money sits in his drawer, unspent but unreported, and the score remains indeterminate. At the end of the film - right at the point where the X-ray result comes through - the waveform collapses and the score is decided - C.

The two 'test results' - exam score and X-ray - are tied together, like the state of the radioactive particle and the fate of the cat. When you open the box and see the state of the cat, the fate of the particle is resolved - it has decayed. Did the decay of the particle release the poison and kill the cat (classical causation), or did the act of observing the cat somehow make the waveform collapse and decide the status of the particle (quantum acausation)? Did Larry's act of 'moral decay' - upgrading the student's score - cause God to punish him by giving him cancer and sending the tornado to kill his son? Or are they two unrelated events in an amoral, godless Universe?

God, or the Universe, or whatever, has inserted into this black box space a series of moral tests for Larry, that suggests he might have Free Will, that he can decide whether to resolve himself into a live or dead man. Meanwhile he is both dead and alive: as he keeps saying, he's "done nothing" - like a thing, a dead weight drifting through a deterministic Universe; but he's also in a way come to, aware of himself, his choices and his being. (Strictly speaking the X-ray results make him both dying and alive, rather than dead and alive, but let's not split hairs). The question at the end is what he's resolved into - physically we assume he's dying but morally he's possibly confirmed as a living, suffering being.

There is an alternative though - that there is no Free Will, the Universe is completely deterministic. This possibility is offered by the opening shtetl prologue. If this couple have a biblical-style curse on them, down to however many generations, then Larry's moral struggle seems to be in vain - or, if you like, his passivity is vindicated (as in the Rashi quote at the beginning: "Receive everything that happens to you with simplicity"). He is doomed whatever he does, a victim of his great-grandmother's rashness... and more generally, we are all doomed to do whatever we were always going to do in a deterministic universe.

(But it can't be that simple, because the prologue is itself a kind of folkloric version of Schrodinger's cat - is the dybbuk/Reb Groshkover a dybbuk or not, and alive or dead? Does the wife's stabbing him resolve it one way or the other? So the various possible ramifications are more complicated than i've suggested.)

The role of the son I couldn't work out, I can't understand quite what they're doing with him as a character. He has a parallel version of Larry's bribery story - the $20 he owes to the big boy, which is returned to him with the radio but which he never gets to give back. i don't know why.

If my theory is right, they missed a trick by not setting it between Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur. That's the main period of moral reflection in the Jewish calendar, where believers are in an indeterminate state between being written down in the Book of Life and the Book of Death states. It would have fit the film perfectly. Idiots.
 
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