Film The Redcafe Movie review thread

VHS 2

I was not expecting much from this sequel but it was better than I thought it would be.
Searching for a missing student, two private investigators break into his house and find collection of VHS tapes. Viewing the horrific contents of each cassette, they realize there may be dark motives behind the student's disappearance
The short films were pretty good and made the film watchable, first one and last one are good, but the middle 2 are excellent, Safe Haven the 3rd short film is has good has any full length horror. What was the let down was the rest of the film.

In the house you got glimpses of people watching who was in there, but you dont find out who they are or what they are there for, which I did not like. Also after the girl watched the first couple of tapes, she needed some aspirin so her mate went to get some, found her on the floor, but did nothing and just watched another tape, there were questions that remained unanswered.
Still a film worth watching if you like blood and guts.

6.5/10

 
thepolice123 said:
The Hunt (2012)

Once in a while a movie comes along and blows you away. The Hunt is one of them. It is a simple story, man is maligned and ostracised. But the beauty of it was the way it portrayed some very depressing and difficult subject matter. Mads Mikkelsen was a tour de force, a performance that will leave you emotional drained and gutted.

9/10
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Yeah I reviewed this a while back. Outstanding film, really powerful.

pauldyson1uk said:
VHS 2

I was not expecting much from this sequel but it was better than I thought it would be.
Searching for a missing student, two private investigators break into his house and find collection of VHS tapes. Viewing the horrific contents of each cassette, they realize there may be dark motives behind the student's disappearance
The short films were pretty good and made the film watchable, first one and last one are good, but the middle 2 are excellent, Safe Haven the 3rd short film is has good has any full length horror. What was the let down was the rest of the film.

In the house you got glimpses of people watching who was in there, but you dont find out who they are or what they are there for, which I did not like. Also after the girl watched the first couple of tapes, she needed some aspirin so her mate went to get some, found her on the floor, but did nothing and just watched another tape, there were questions that remained unanswered.
Still a film worth watching if you like blood and guts.

6.5/10
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It wasn't really a full length feature, so much as four short films with one other short film wrapped around them. All of them were completely enclosed in their own little world. That said I found it very enjoyable, thought the structure worked. Are there any other decent found footage films? I've seen one of the Paranormal Activities and it was garbage, and I've seen both the VHS films.
 
The Hobbit - A bit overdrawn in places but still thoroughly enjoyable, I expected it to be worse tbh.

Basquiat - Decent, well acted and cast but I couldn't help but think that it lacked a bit of substance.
 
World War Z

I thought it was pretty good actually. Haven't read the book so the film stood a fighting chance. It's tense in all the right places and the zombies are sufficiently repulsive. The Israel section was easily the weakest for me, the eye rolling was off the charts. Then there's another weak part straight after which is like Snakes on a Plane, but with zombies. Not zombie snakes though, that would be too much. Anyway despite that, and despite a really terrible "Mother Nature is a serial killer" monologue earlier on, I enjoyed it quite a bit.

Warning: Film contains Piers Morgan's face.

7/10
 
Joy Ride

I only watched this because it was on straight after Die Hard 2.
It was a decent film, about 3 teenagers taking a road trip home and play a trick on a truck driver over the CB radio and it has the expected results.
Not a patch on The Hitcher or Duel and the ending was a bit predictable.

6/10
 
Scrumpet said:
World War Z

I thought it was pretty good actually. Haven't read the book so the film stood a fighting chance. It's tense in all the right places and the zombies are sufficiently repulsive. The Israel section was easily the weakest for me, the eye rolling was off the charts. Then there's another weak part straight after which is like Snakes on a Plane, but with zombies. Not zombie snakes though, that would be too much. Anyway despite that, and despite a really terrible "Mother Nature is a serial killer" monologue earlier on, I enjoyed it quite a bit.

Warning: Film contains Piers Morgan's face.

7/10
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Agree mostly. It looked like a grander but less emotional version of I am Legend. Visually stunning with a taut screenplay...but the plot line lacks strength.

Some plot questions I did not get are:

The line on airplanes being carriers did not hold good. As the bites take effect within 12 seconds zombies can never remain hidden for a whole flight. This also applies for the Zombie in a plane scene. Don't see how the zombie did not get attracted to the noise and remains hidden till the door opens. This additionally makes the worldwide infection all at same time logic flawed.

Defintiely worth watching. 7/10
 
Fruity Kate said:
Agree mostly. It looked like a grander but less emotional version of I am Legend. Visually stunning with a taut screenplay...but the plot line lacks strength.

Some plot questions I did not get are:

The line on airplanes being carriers did not hold good. As the bites take effect within 12 seconds zombies can never remain hidden for a whole flight. This also applies for the Zombie in a plane scene. Don't see how the zombie did not get attracted to the noise and remains hidden till the door opens. This additionally makes the worldwide infection all at same time logic flawed.

Defintiely worth watching. 7/10
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Yeah not really sure how the zombieness was brought in by flight. When he was in South Korea I think one of the soldiers said it took something like ten minutes for the ones they had to turn, so maybe it was even longer before.
 
Zero Dark Thirty:

I quite enjoyed this, it's not as good as Bigelow's masterpiece (Point Break) but it certainly kept me interested and entertained. There was one bit featuring the word motherf*cker that jarred me straight out of the film and made me roll my eyes, but that was a minor niggle in an otherwise decent film.

Well worth a watch.
 
Watched a few films over the past few days

Away We Go - A nice little Sam Mendes film that has some good acting, is well shot, has a decent soundtrack, and has some genuinely good laughs here and there. It drags a bit towards the end when it gets a bit bogged down in more serious stuff, but overall it was a decent, inoffensive watch.

Transformers 3 - I actually managed to appreciate this film a whole lot more after seeing Man of Steel. The destruction of a city is far more entertaining/visually stunning/constantly changing here then in comparison to Man of Steel... though it's still not a good film. The first hour makes sure of that.

Whip It - Ellen Page puts on some roller-skates and comes of age. It plays pretty much exactly how you'd expect it to. Meh.

The Twilight Samurai - A really understated portrayl of an understated Samurai. Action makes way to character building and story telling - it's a slow burner and it's not for everyone, but if you like this sort of thing you'd do well to check it out.

Shooter - What's this? A Mark Wahlberg film that actually had me intruiged? Who'd have thought it... well, the first hour had me intruiged anyway, it then descends into nonsense and has a really underwhelming ending/conclusion to tie it all together. Shame really, as it set up quite a good consipracy thriller in that first hour. Wahlberg is still terrible though... he should never do serious roles.
 
World War Z - 1/10

I'm going to start this by saying I'm not impressed by CGI for its own sake. If it actually makes a difference, great, but when it's just there for no apparent reason, I begin to struggle.

That said, this movie was one of the worst movies I've ever seen. It was the most inexplicable, stupid, lazy, downright insulting movie I can remember seeing in ages. I feel much, much stupider just for having seen it. It was like they just jumped forward a few minutes at times and then didn't bother explaining what had happened.

For reasons I don't understand, I don't have spoiler tags, so:

SPOILERS
The CIA bloke....that was handy, wasn't it? Him knowing all of the answers and that, when everyone else was struggling. Turns out he wasn't mental after all.
The bloke with the sore leg. So he was terminally ill and didn't know it then? Okay. That doesn't seem remotely important to the movie, or anything ever. Plus they'd already done that trick with the old man and the young kid.
Blowing up your own plane seems a good idea, doesn't it?
Crash landing within walking distance of the medical facility you'd been desperate to get to is a real stroke of luck too.

feck off, Brad Pitt. feck off, Brighton Odeon.
 
Brophs said:
World War Z - 1/10

I'm going to start this by saying I'm not impressed by CGI for its own sake. If it actually makes a difference, great, but when it's just there for no apparent reason, I begin to struggle.

That said, this movie was one of the worst movies I've ever seen. It was the most inexplicable, stupid, lazy, downright insulting movie I can remember seeing in ages. I feel much, much stupider just for having seen it. It was like they just jumped forward a few minutes at times and then didn't bother explaining what had happened.

For reasons I don't understand, I don't have spoiler tags, so:

SPOILERS
The CIA bloke....that was handy, wasn't it? Him knowing all of the answers and that, when everyone else was struggling. Turns out he wasn't mental after all.
The bloke with the sore leg. So he was terminally ill and didn't know it then? Okay. That doesn't seem remotely important to the movie, or anything ever. Plus they'd already done that trick with the old man and the young kid.
Blowing up your own plane seems a good idea, doesn't it?
Crash landing within walking distance of the medical facility you'd been desperate to get to is a real stroke of luck too.

feck off, Brad Pitt. feck off, Brighton Odeon.
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He didn't know all of the answers, he just knew that Israel had built a big ol' wall. And North Korea had banned teeth or something. The bloke with the sore leg was before the old man and the kid, maybe he did know he was terminally ill and didn't like to talk about. Maybe sorelegitis is the next big killer of our time. Doing nothing on the zombie plane meant certain death, blowing up the plane means slightly less likely than certain death in movieland. I think it said they were about to land when the zombie appeared on the plane, and I think we're supposed to assume they were walking for a long time. There was a montage after all.
 
Scrumpet said:
He didn't know all of the answers, he just knew that Israel had built a big ol' wall. And North Korea had banned teeth or something. The bloke with the sore leg was before the old man and the kid, maybe he did know he was terminally ill and didn't like to talk about. Maybe sorelegitis is the next big killer of our time. Doing nothing on the zombie plane meant certain death, blowing up the plane means slightly less likely than certain death in movieland. I think it said they were about to land when the zombie appeared on the plane, and I think we're supposed to assume they were walking for a long time. There was a montage after all.
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All of these are spot as and your review was pretty much the same. Its a little odd that people are giving a decent movie scores below 5/10.

Was it really that bad or were peoples expectations so ridiculously high that the ultimate disappointment (and it is disappointing in many aspects) has caused them to go overboard in their criticism?

Genuine question as I really don't see what was so terrible about the film.
 
My main problem is that they took the perfect source material and dumbed it down to the point where it doesn't resemble the book. Generic zombie/actio/blockbuster with a star name, loads of CGI, and the violence toned down to the point where it basically became a 12A. All for the money with no soul.
 
The little I've heard about the book does sound completely different to the film. It's a wonder they bothered buying the rights. I'll check it out sooner or later.
 
I understand but books and cinema are two completely different mediums which is why there are so many substandard movie versions of books (albeit there are more than a few cracking adaptations out there). I find it best to forget that most movies are adapted from books (not hard in this case as I hadn't read the book) as this means its easier to actually judge the film on its own merit in terms of how well it works as a piece of entertainment ( a book has license to be far more of an experience than most movies can ever hope to be due to their scope).

I really don't see how it is a terrible movie despite its dumbing down and lack of serious gore factor. Yes it had the scope to be so much more but what is there really isn't terrible.
 
It's all subjective though isn't it. My benchmark for a good zombie film is Dawn of the Dead (2004) and it fell well short of that in every aspect.
 
Taxi Driver

I enjoyed this, De Nero was excellent, one of his best roles for me.
Story was well written and acted.
Jodie Foster as the child prostitute Iris Steensman, Cybill Shepherd, Peter Boyle and Harvey Keitel as a pimp called Sport, all played there parts extremely well.
The filming caught the seedy side of New York very well.
De Nero with a Mohawk was a strange sight and for me made him look evil.
The ending shocked me , I was expecting him to be carted away and locked up, not painted has a hero.

A stunning film and anybody that has not watched this , should go and do so.

9/10

 
Scrumpet said:
The little I've heard about the book does sound completely different to the film. It's a wonder they bothered buying the rights. I'll check it out sooner or later.
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That's disappointing then. Was going to watch the movie this week cause I loved the book, but if there are that much different then I guess there is no point doing that and I'll be sad after I finish it.
 
Revan said:
That's disappointing then. Was going to watch the movie this week cause I loved the book, but if there are that much different then I guess there is no point doing that and I'll be sad after I finish it.
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As someone who loves the book my advice is to swerve it completely.
 
Killer Klowns From Outer Space
killer-klowns-from-outer-space.jpg


A race of murderous clowns from another planet land in a small American town and start cocooning the townsfolk in candy floss so that they can later drink them through elaborate curly straws. Absolute gold from start to finish, everything you want from an 80s horror-comedy. 10/10
 
Brophs said:
World War Z - 1/10

I'm going to start this by saying I'm not impressed by CGI for its own sake. If it actually makes a difference, great, but when it's just there for no apparent reason, I begin to struggle.

That said, this movie was one of the worst movies I've ever seen. It was the most inexplicable, stupid, lazy, downright insulting movie I can remember seeing in ages. I feel much, much stupider just for having seen it. It was like they just jumped forward a few minutes at times and then didn't bother explaining what had happened.
Click to expand...


That's how I felt when I watched Avatar.
 
pauldyson1uk said:
Taxi Driver

I enjoyed this, De Nero was excellent, one of his best roles for me.
Story was well written and acted.
Jodie Foster as the child prostitute Iris Steensman, Cybill Shepherd, Peter Boyle and Harvey Keitel as a pimp called Sport, all played there parts extremely well.
The filming caught the seedy side of New York very well.
De Nero with a Mohawk was a strange sight and for me made him look evil.
The ending shocked me , I was expecting him to be carted away and locked up, not painted has a hero.

A stunning film and anybody that has not watched this , should go and do so.

9/10
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My favorite Scorsese movie of all time
 
Weirdly also watched it for the first time last week. The opening two scenes are almost too great for the rest of the film to live up to I think, though it was probably entertaining and funny enough. Any scene involving the dad was a squirmathon, probably the most uncomfortable I've ever been watching a film. Have either of you seen any other Solondz films?
 
I think I've seen all of them except the last one, Dark Horse. They're all petty much along the same lines of fecked up middle class people, especially the child abuse theme. I really like his films and they're very heavy with some dark humor, but I think you have to understand what he's really trying to say about middle class America's suburban underbelly as opposed to being just turned off by the dark themes. Great filmmaker, imo.
 
paceme said:
Just been to see despicable me 2. Good family film, very funny at times and a nice enough story.
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just watched despicable me on my laptop. alongside toy story, got to be the best animation movie I've watched. cannot wait to watch the sequel now.
 
In Time

Fun enough even if it does take itself too seriously at times. Pete Campbells gonna Pete Campbell.

5.6372/10
 
Odd Thomas

I have never read the books or even heard of them, so I did not know what to expected, but I really enjoyed it.
It had a bit of everything in it, horror only very mild though, laughter some mystery and some great sadness.
Anton Yelchin has Odd, Willam Defoe and Addison Timlin has Odd's rather tasty girl friend were all excellent.
The story was pretty good and I had no idea of the twist at the end.

7/10
 
Interesting views.

I agree with AN! though, over here, Despicable me did really well and got very good reviews, I didn't get it at all. I thought it was very childish, had nothing on the Pixar films and wasn't even that good looking.
 
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