Film The Redcafe Movie review thread

It's like The Wire of war films. Once you've seen it, all the war things you watched before and thought were great just seem a little naff in comparison. And you can't go back to tolerating it.
 
There's a genuine surreality about the whole Nazi thing, and that scene in which the motorbike & sidecar is just going round n' round amongst all the horror kinda captures that surreal air (to me, at least).
 
Went to see Elysium yesterday. It's the tits, totally excellent. I only give it a 9/10 as I don't really like Jodie Foster as an actress, but this film has everything. Typical performance from Damon, but Sharlto Copley is my new favourite actor. For only being a 15 the levels of language and violence are ridiculous. A studio needs to let Blomkamp make a Halo film asap.
 
Now You See Me

Now I wish I hadn't.....well not really, its not that bad. Wasn't as good as the person that hyped it to me said it was though.

6/10
 
Goooose said:
Went to see Elysium yesterday. It's the tits, totally excellent. I only give it a 9/10 as I don't really like Jodie Foster as an actress, but this film has everything. Typical performance from Damon, but Sharlto Copley is my new favourite actor. For only being a 15 the levels of language and violence are ridiculous. A studio needs to let Blomkamp make a Halo film asap.
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Seeing this tonight, and very much looking forward to it... though I did make the pretty stupid decision of deciding to give District 9 a rewatch last night... I can't see any way it'll be as good as that, so I should probably start managing my expectations now.
 
Annihilate Now! said:
Seeing this tonight, and very much looking forward to it... though I did make the pretty stupid decision of deciding to give District 9 a rewatch last night... I can't see any way it'll be as good as that, so I should probably start managing my expectations now.
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I thought it was just as good. I'll probably see it again in a few days.
 
Goooose said:
Went to see Elysium yesterday. It's the tits, totally excellent. I only give it a 9/10 as I don't really like Jodie Foster as an actress, but this film has everything. Typical performance from Damon, but Sharlto Copley is my new favourite actor. For only being a 15 the levels of language and violence are ridiculous. A studio needs to let Blomkamp make a Halo film asap.
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Seen it on Wednesday, it's very good, but probably not a 9/10 film. It has too many plot holes / flaws for it to be that good, but for what it sets out to be - a violent action movie, it's definitely worth a watch. Agree on 2 things though; Sharlto Copley - once again stealing the show with his villainous Kruger, he was the best thing in a poor A-Team film and great in District 9. After his performance as a villain in this I'm actually looking forward to seeing him in the Oldboy remake now. Jodie Foster - What a waste, she really didn't need to be in this film, I don't think she's the best of actresses anyway, but this was just dire. Her accent was all over the place and I couldn't take to character one bit, they could of hired a much cheaper actress in this role and she probably would of been twice as good.
 
2 Guns

Below average, and probably raised to that status Denzel Washington and Mark Wahlberg, whose chemistry was really the only enjoyable thing about it. According to IMDB it's an action comedy, but the action wasn't very exciting, and the comedy wasn't very funny. Nice idea with the two guys working for different forces, but the execution wasn't quite there.

4/10.
 
So anyone seen kar wai's new one yet?

I'm trying to think of the last new film I saw.

Probably, the Act of Killing.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2375605/

Saw it at a series at the Museum of Modern Art here a few months back. Really good documentary. Backed by Herzog and Errol Morris. There was a decent Q&A with the director after the screening although I don't remember the specific questions now.
 
mehro said:
KW's new one is the Grandmaster. It's about Ip Man with Tony Leung playing the part
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What's up with all the Ip Man films? This is like the fifth one in something like 7 years. I didn't realise people in Hong Kong were so obsessed with Wing Chun.
 
Elysium - I feel a bit sorry for Neil Blomkamp... the bloke makes a (fecking excellent) sci-fi film with fairly prominant - though never fully explored - aparthied allegory running through it, and suddenly everyone (well, some critics) expect that all his films should be saying something about serious issues... despite the fact that, at the end of it all, District 9 was just a big fun action sci-fi film that, whislt touched upon other worldy issues, didn't have anything overly profound to say about them, and instead used the concepts to build a strong, believable and fully-ralised future world for his action film to take place in.

Which brings me to Elysium, which again, uses the theme of class divide and free health care, to set his big, sci-fi, action film in... and, from what some of what I've seen/heard, because this is an action film, and because this has clearly defined heroes and villains, it fails where District 9 succeeded? Despite the fact that District 9 also has those elements... well that doesn't make much sense to me. Now this film isn't as good as District 9, mainly because the world isn't quite as interesting, you don't feel the main protagnists journey as much as you do in D9, the set-peices are more memorable and - well, it's just a better film overall. That's not to say Elysium is bad or anything, I had a very good time with it - definitely one of the best summer blockbusters of the year (though that isn't saying much).

Again, Blomkamp builds a fantastic, fully realised world, that does have it's nuances and he spends time fleshing it out. Matt Damon is, as always, good value as the lead, and does a lot to carry the movie. I also really liked Sharlto Copley as the villain (yes, he is plainly the villain, and though his motivations go unexplained when they probably shouldn't have... Action films have villains, and he fits the bill), showing he has more then Wikus up his sleeve. The action is fun, if a bit too shakey at times, though I think overall Blomkamp uses his style to always keep it interesting.

Jodie Foster is horrible though, what the hell happened there I don't know.
 
4 Months, 3 Days and 2 Days - Cristian Mungiu (2007)

Had put off watching this film for years. It definitely lived up to all the critical hype it had received when it came out. Really powerful stuff accented perfectly by the style it was shot in and excellent acting. Brilliant.

9 cocks up
 
Elysium - 7.5 out of 10

decent movie and you can see the comparisons with District 9. It was very watchable but I felt it as a bit predictable.

for those who have played the Mass Effect game it is interesting to see so many of the ideas taken on into the film
 
buckooo1978 said:
Elysium - 7.5 out of 10

decent movie and you can see the comparisons with District 9. It was very watchable but I felt it as a bit predictable.

for those who have played the Mass Effect game it is interesting to see so many of the ideas taken on into the film
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I must be one of the few that did not like District 9, slightly putting me off Elysium.
 
Wibble said:
Beasts Of The Southern Wilds
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Rooney in Paris said:
Beasts is meant to be brilliant, the critics raved about it. I haven't seen it, so I'm looking forward to see your feedback.
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R.N7 said:
The first two.
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So, I finally got around to watch Beasts of The Southern Wild this morning.

Let me start of by saying that it certainly wasn't a horrible film, but I really don't get all the praise either. The performance from the little girl who plays Hushpuppy was nothing short of amazing for a little girl though.

It's a really forgettable film to be honest. I mean, nothing happens the whole fecking film ffs. When I watch a film I want to be told something more than the relationship between two people. In fact, I could tell the film in two sentences without spoiling anything, because there isn't anything to spoil in the first place.

A very poor family father from New Orleans raises his daughter like a prick because she lost her mother already and he himself is dying. That's his way to prepare her for the future.

There you go, the biggest effort clearly goes to the director for stretching this for +90 minutes. But yeah, I guess I'm not a film specialist and some of the scenes are shot very artistically or some other crap I and most others don't really care about.

The plot was a bit of a mess to be honest, I mean, what the feck was the prostitution boat scene all about near the end? What was the purpose of that? I can't get my head around it.

Oh, yeah. There's also some giant wild boars that make even less sense than four kids visiting a boat full of prostitutes.

RiP, watch the film and tell me what you think, don't expect very much from it though or I bet you'll be pretty disappointed.

Certainly not a 7 or 8/10 film at all, I'd actually struggle to give it 5/10 if it wasn't for that kid's performance.
 
Over the past week I got to watch Before Sunrise, Before Sunset and Before Midnight and I think its a great trilogy.

'A young man and woman meet on a train in Europe, and wind up spending one romantic evening together in Vienna. Unfortunately, both know that this will probably be their only night together.'

It's a romantic story so it wont be everybody's cup of tea but I thought the dialog and cinematography were top class. In fact iv never seen dialog like this before, all 3 movies are carried by the conversations of the 2 lead characters. I guess this could come across as boring for some viewers but I thought the connection was great. One of the best Romance/Drama stories iv seen, I loved it.

8.5/10
 
Vato1979 said:
So, I finally got around to watch Beasts of The Southern Wild this morning.

Let me start of by saying that it certainly wasn't a horrible film, but I really don't get all the praise either. The performance from the little girl who plays Hushpuppy was nothing short of amazing for a little girl though.

It's a really forgettable film to be honest. I mean, nothing happens the whole fecking film ffs. When I watch a film I want to be told something more than the relationship between two people. In fact, I could tell the film in two sentences without spoiling anything, because there isn't anything to spoil in the first place.

A very poor family father from New Orleans raises his daughter like a prick because she lost her mother already and he himself is dying. That's his way to prepare her for the future.

There you go, the biggest effort clearly goes to the director for stretching this for +90 minutes. But yeah, I guess I'm not a film specialist and some of the scenes are shot very artistically or some other crap I and most others don't really care about.

The plot was a bit of a mess to be honest, I mean, what the feck was the prostitution boat scene all about near the end? What was the purpose of that? I can't get my head around it.

Oh, yeah. There's also some giant wild boars that make even less sense than four kids visiting a boat full of prostitutes.

RiP, watch the film and tell me what you think, don't expect very much from it though or I bet you'll be pretty disappointed.

Certainly not a 7 or 8/10 film at all, I'd actually struggle to give it 5/10 if it wasn't for that kid's performance.
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Don't watch 3 Colours Blue if you think nothing happened in BOTSW.
 
Star Trek: Into Darkness I really wanted to love this but despite great special effects the nonsensical plot made this a huge disappointment. Not a patch on the previous film in the reboot. 5/10
 
Only God Forgives: Nowhere near as bad as its been made out to be by most, but also nowhere near as good a film as it clearly thinks it is. A very average attempt at the type of laconic, enigmatically shot and sporadically violent movie that Asian cinema has made its own over the years. Not a hopeless movie just not one that appears to be making any real points and isn't even nearly as profound as it thinks it is. Still it is actually well shot and kind of reminded me in parts - because of the way it is shot - of a Kubrick movie (albeit a really dumb one).

5/10
 
buckooo1978 said:
Elysium - 7.5 out of 10

decent movie and you can see the comparisons with District 9. It was very watchable but I felt it as a bit predictable.

for those who have played the Mass Effect game it is interesting to see so many of the ideas taken on into the film
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The first thing I thought of when we saw people on Elysium was Mass Effect, it was just like the citadel
 
BAMSOLA said:
Only God Forgives: Nowhere near as bad as its been made out to be by most, but also nowhere near as good a film as it clearly thinks it is. A very average attempt at the type of laconic, enigmatically shot and sporadically violent movie that Asian cinema has made its own over the years. Not a hopeless movie just not one that appears to be making any real points and isn't even nearly as profound as it thinks it is. Still it is actually well shot and kind of reminded me in parts - because of the way it is shot - of a Kubrick movie (albeit a really dumb one).

5/10
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Sounds like a pretentious movie with stupid acting that isn't worth watching. If you agree that it's not worth watching then why does it matter just how bad someone else perceived it to be?
 
Brwned said:
Sounds like a pretentious movie with stupid acting that isn't worth watching. If you agree that it's not worth watching then why does it matter just how bad someone else perceived it to be?
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I mentioned that its not as bad as people perceive it to be for much the same reason that I said that with Drive, because the opinions of a few might make some believe its one of the worst movies ever where as there is a good movie in there somewhere it just never surfaces and this type of movie has been done hundreds of times and better in Asian cinema.

As for having stupid acting I've not said that anywhere in my review and i'd disagree with that judgement but I can understand why somebody might draw that conclusion if they weren't familiar or comfortable with the type of style of acting on display. And yes it is pretentious but that doesn't make it a terrible movie, just not a very good one.

In short if you have 90+mins to spare and nothing else to do it is still worth watching just don't expect to see anything profound or life changing.
 
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