Film The Redcafe Movie review thread

A Lonely Place To Die I watched this primarily because it sounded like a "no thinking required" thriller, perfect Christmas holiday fare in other words. After looking at Rotten Tomatoes it looked like a good bet despite the odd bad review such as this very short one (spoilered as it gives the plot away a bit.

Five c**ts go up a mountain. Far too many come down.

It could have been very good especially as it was apparenlty shot on a very small budget but it wasn't. Melissa George's wandering English/Irish/US accent was the least of the film's problems. The huge plot holes, the silliness of the premise not to mention the geography of the setting seeming to defy the laws of physics depending on who is moving through it for
e.g. the "heros" have to either go down a sheer cliff or walk 15 miles to safety yet the baddies walk to their car parked on a road in 5 minutes flat.

All in all a waste of time. 3/10

Warrior If you liked Rocky you will love this. You need to suspend your disbelief to some degree, just as you did for films like Rocky and The Karate Kid, but if you can do that it is great fun and the 2hr 20 mins fly by. Great holiday escapism. The rating I have given it is an indication that it is great entertainment and not meant to mean that it is nearly as good a film as Godfather 2. 8/10
 
Plus Tom Hardy is fecking superb in it. Nolte isn't too bad either.
 
Burlesque 6/10

Not a film for men I wouldn't have thought . Cher is an ageing Burlesque dancer who owns her own club and gives Christine Aguilera a job as waitress until she saves the club from a buy out in true Hollywood style. Cher is Cher with improbably large fish lips and is actually a very good actress for such a good singer, while Aguilera is pretty good too.

I quite enjoyed it but have no doubt all of you would run miles to ensure you missed it.
 
Films I have seen over the past week

Machete - Mindless, enjoyable fun and Lindsay Lohan's tits - 6/10
Black Swan - Brilliant performance from Natalie Portman. Film though is a tad dull - 7/10
Super 8 - Do people like this? Utter shite - 3/10
X Men First Class - has a couple of OK moments. But really not that good. The worst in the franchise - 5/10
 
Watched Alien & Aliens back to back over Christmas, by virtue of not seeing either for ages, Prometheus peaking my interest and Brwned saying how he didn't like the former particularly.

Got to say I can't agree with him at all. Alien is a fantastic film, only hamstrung by a couple of dodgy FX shots (Ian Holm's head & the rubber suit man blown out of the capsule at the end)...Other than that it's a masterfully made suspense/horror/sci fi with great actors and well realised and ingenuous ideas. Lambert's whining grates a little bit at times, but on the whole it's tightly assembled and deserves it's status as a classic.

I'd give it an 8.5 now, and a 9 for 1979.

In contrast Aliens is a bit of a mess at times. It's a completely different genre all together obviously, and actually contains some scenes & shots that surpass the original, but there's a few too many of them (purposefully dramatic scenes, not ones that surpass the original) and the little inconsistencies/cliches/hammy lines/awful child acting restrict it slightly from reaching the pedestal Alien is on.

That said there are a lot of things going for it. Ripley's a better, more rounded character for a start, and Weaver gives a great performance, but the problem is no body else is or does (though I thought Paul Reiser was good in a pretty cartoon role) The marines are all farcically cardboard and dull (with some terrible lines) and if Lambert's whining in the first was grating, Bil Paxton wears off his welcome by about scene 3. Also, for someone who made a big play of the noble savage argument in Avatar, Cameron doesn't half love his military hardware porn.

The first hour or so is great though. Very well built suspense whilst paying homage & lip service to it's predecessor in it's story & refusal to play it's hand with the creature, that it earns it's bonkers Vietnam movie twist upon twist ending.

My main problem with it though was that the need for incessant action in the last 3rd diluted a lot of the menace of the Alien. In the first a small cut on a face hugger caused a tiny drop of acid to burn through half the ship, while in this they're shooting hundreds of rounds at hundreds of adult Aliens in close quarters constantly, and only getting a bit of acid splash back consequence when it's convenient to the plot. The whole acid blood thing was added to make the possibility of killing it conventionally difficult and thus more scary...In this they just ignore that ingenious dramatic device in favour of good old Action movie "shoot the shit out of it" bollocks.

It's a very superior action film though. And the amount of stuff he lifted straight out of it to put into Avatar (which I hated) is probably prejudicing me a tad...It's probably an 8 or a very high 7.

So basically, my opinions on either haven't changed at all. I've just increased my ability to waffle about them.
 
I wouldn't quibble with either of those. Alien deserves high marks just for the set & creature designs alone before you even get to the rest of it. Though I've no desire to watch the 4th one again to make a better judgement on that. My favorite bit of trivia for that one though was the fact that the director insisted on giving the hybrid Alien mixed human genitals which the studio demanded be taken out with GCI in post....I saw a pic of it once and it was literally an Alien, with a vagina, and a massive penis sticking out of it. It was hilarious. But also far too disturbing to want to go and find a picture of.
 
Randall Flagg said:
Films I have seen over the past week

Machete - Mindless, enjoyable fun and Lindsay Lohan's tits - 6/10
Black Swan - Brilliant performance from Natalie Portman. Film though is a tad dull - 7/10
Super 8 - Do people like this? Utter shite - 3/10
X Men First Class - has a couple of OK moments. But really not that good. The worst in the franchise - 5/10
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I hate films like Machete. You can't completely pan them because "they were meant to be crap". It's not an excuse for making a god awful film. It pained me to see De Niro in it, just retire you old fool.
 
Mockney said:
I wouldn't quibble with either of those. Alien deserves high marks just for the set & creature designs alone before you even get to the rest of it. Though I've no desire to watch the 4th one again to make a better judgement on that. My favorite bit of trivia for that one though was the fact that the director insisted on giving the hybrid Alien mixed human genitals which the studio demanded be taken out with GCI in post....I saw a pic of it once and it was literally an Alien, with a vagina, and a massive penis sticking out of it. It was hilarious. But also far too disturbing to want to go and find a picture of.
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Jeunet is a mad genius.
 
Starship Troopers was very tongue in cheek though. It was like Verhoeven's spiritual successor to Robocop. Aliens is played very straight. I've decided Cameron is shocking at writing dialogue (though tbf every now and then, one of his cheesy clunkers hits the spot) He's basically a cleverer, less complacent George Lucas.
 
Mockney said:
Starship Troopers was very tongue in cheek though. It was like Verhoeven's spiritual successor to Robocop. Alien's is played very straight. I've decided Cameron is shocking at writing dialogue. He's basically a cleverer, more idea laden George Lucas.
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(I'm ignoring the Lucas comment for the sake of this thread)

Verhoeven is incredibly hit and miss. I mean the film he did before Starship Troopers was Showgirls. But he did make Turkish Delight and Total Recall.
 
I changed "Idea laden" to "less complacent" cos, to be fair to the hairy cornflake, he has (or had) ideas. He just can't be fecked to do anything with them anymore.

I don't think Verhoeven takes his films at all seriously. Sometimes that pays off....Sometimes it doesn't.
 
Mockney said:
I changed "Idea laden" to "less complacent" cos, to be fair to the hairy cornflake, he has (or had) ideas. He just can't be fecked to do anything with them anymore.

I don't think Verhoeven takes his films at all seriously. Sometimes that pays off....Sometimes it doesn't.
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Lucas made (written the story, produced and co-directed) a perfectly new film, it's coming out in January.

Doesnt look too good, though.

 
feck...that looks horrible. I'd like to just see all the action scenes and skip through the cliched crap that you know will be saturating the dialogue.

Any film with Cuba Gooding Jr. is probably best avoided. He's the poster boy of bad career choices following an Oscar.
 
Grinner said:
feck...that looks horrible. I'd like to just see all the action scenes and skip through the cliched crap that you know will be saturating the dialogue.

Any film with Cuba Gooding Jr. is probably best avoided. He's the poster boy of bad career choices following an Oscar.
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To be fair, his Oscar was the poster boy of bad Oscar choices.
 
the nominees:

Jerry Maguire Cuba Gooding, Jr. Sony / Columbia $153,952,592
Primal Fear Edward Norton Paramount $56,116,183
Shine Armin Mueller-Stahl Fine Line $35,892,330
Fargo William H. Macy Gramercy $24,611,975
Ghosts of Mississippi James Woods Sony / Columbia $13,323,144


pretty weak field.
 
cinc said:
To be fair, his Oscar was the poster boy of bad Oscar choices.
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He was brilliant in Cabaret. Definitely worth the Oscar.
 
R.Nilsson7 said:
Look at his face, is that the face of an Oscar winner. He looks like Curious George.
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:lol:

He was wonderfully sinister in Cabaret. I can't stand musicals, so for me to admire the film & the actor says it all.
 
Ralph Fiennes really should have won it in 1993 for his performance in Schindler's List instead of Tommy Lee Jones. The Fugitive is an old favourite of mine and Jones was very good in it but Fiennes' potrayal of Amon Göth was as chilling as they come.
 
The Adventures of Tintin

Great in 3D. Visually very accurate and complimentary to the original Hergé comic books. 8.5/10
 
Dial M for Murder.
What can I say , this film blew me away, just has with Casablanca I was not expecting to enjoy it so much.
Ray Milland was excellent in it , this planing of his wife's murder was faultless.
Grace Kelly was stunning , what is it with leading lady's from these early films , they look so much better looking than today's
But for me the person that stole the show was John Williams ,playing Chief Inspector Hubbard , at times he looked like he did not have a clue what he was doing.
When he pretend to find the key on the floor , I did not have a clue where he was going with it , the ending with him on the phone combing his tash was just class.

I have no problem in giving this 10/10
 
Just saw The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo. It's very good and compares well to the Swedish version; both are good in their own way except the tattoo is much better in the Swedish film!!! I hope they make the other 2 now as well.
 
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