Recently watched movies!

[lhb412]

King Kong (1933)

I'm amazed by this film. I'm amazed that it was made in 1933 and that special effects animation carries the entire second half of the film. Once Kong shows up he hardly leaves for the rest of the run-time, and he's such a great character. I love how it follows one crazy action set-piece after another but you're always right with the story's progression. We tend to think of the pre-Kong part of the film as unremarkable when compared to the awesome that follows, but it really does an excellent job of setting up exactly what's to come; who these people are, what they're after, and where everything is. You're always with the film with whatever leap in logic it attempts. I mean, it's crazy that they're able to bring Kong into New York City, but after what all we've seen and heard about Denham's crazy exploits we don't question it at all.

[Dr Kain]

I just watched the Lawrence of Arabia BD I got for Xmas and wow, this movie was fantastic. The visuals were excellent, the music kicked ass (not to mention the BD's audio was outstanding), and the story was excellently paced and done well. I had been told by many people the movie is way too long for its own good and it was not worth seeing due to the running time, but they were wrong. This movie flies by just as quick as Return of the King. The only thing I can really complain about is how there seemed to be some information missing when Lawrence went insane, as one minute he does not want to go back to Arabia, the next he wants to take Damascus, then he is back to not wanting to be in the desert, which kind of lost me. Outside of that, this was a great movie.

Ibh, yes, the original Kong is still an excellent movie. It was also the very first movie I owned on VHS that was not recorded off tv.

MFW, glad you enjoyed Django Unchained and I also agree with every word of what you said about people upset about the n-word being used. Although, I did not know Spike Lee had an issue with it, but then, the guy is a worthless dick anyway, so anything he says comes out sounding like a trumpet.

Hell, I find it funny how it is such a bad word, but then you hear people saying it like 50 times on one bus ride as if it was just a normal word. I still love last year when I was on the bus this older black guy started yelling at these two black teens for spouting it like every 5th word, telling them he fought for his rights to be a person and not have to hear that word used by anyone and it is people like them that make their race look shameful and full of stereotypes.

[MouthForWar]

[Reaper G]

[Dr Kain]

[MekaGojira3k]

[Destroysall]

Skyfall

So much better than the previous film!! I loved this movie, truly one of the best for me this year. It had a few good moments and the acting I felt was really well done. The intro music by Adele was really sweet. A few twists here and there, but the reboot of the James Bond series is starting to branch out its roots. I eagerly await the next film.

Overall rating is a 4.5 out of five.

The Hobbit

Overall, an interesting film indeed. I felt this film was much more "lighter" in tone than the Lord of the Rings trilogy, which could be because it originally is a children's novel. I enjoyed it however. The visuals are simply stunning and the humor was a nice plus.

Overall rating is a 3.75 out of five.

Forbidden Planet

Such a fantastic film. I haven't seen it for well over five years, so it felt very refreshing as if I had seen it for the first time. I loved every minute of it. The special effects were brilliant along with the "futuristic" (and purely analogue) score. The photography was excellent and very surrealistic in appearance.

Overall rating is a 4.5 out of five.

Killing Them Softly

Here's the thing with this film. It's raw, made up almost entirely on dialogue, and didn't do any "fancy" visuals. The story was pretty heavy on the overall moral of the film, which I didn't really mind (gave the money some meaning). The cinematography is what got me here. I believe they used a GoProHD camera in this film for a few scenes, which I felt were amazingly done. So while I didn't expect this kind of film, it was indeed a nice surprise and I walked out with joy.

Overall rating is a 3.5 out of five.

[MekaGojira3k]

[lhb412]

The Navigator

Love this one. My fav Buster Keaton film (along with Our Hospitality, The General, and Sherlock Jr., of course).

The native chief here is the same guy who plays the native chief in King Kong, Noble Johnson. I just looked him up, interesting guy.

[MouthForWar]

Ruby Sparks- An indie romantic comedy starring Paul Dano about a screenwriter that wills his dream girl to life. This was really clever, a kind of deconstruction of the "manic pixie dreamgirl" stereotype found in so many indie films. This movie points out why that stereotype could never exist in real life. Good stuff.

21 Jump Street- The only reason I even gave this the time of day was because of several reliable friends (who know I'm the pickiest person ever when it comes to comedies) that insisted that it was good. Well I'll be god damned if they were right! This thing had me laughing WAY more than I'm ok with. A great meta-parody of the original show (there's a great scene where the police chief is explaining that they are reviving the Jump Street program because "the people in charge lack creativity and just keep rebooting things hoping nobody will notice"). I don't like Channing Tatum OR Jonah Hill and this movie made me laugh out loud quite a few times. Ice Cube is especially great (pretty much everything that comes out of his mouth made me laugh). And the cameos at the end were fantastic. Highly recommended! Don't be an idiot like me and make a knee jerk reaction. This is good stuff. This movie had no right to be this good... no right at all.

Easily the only American non-indie comedy, (aside from Scott Pilgrim) that I've enjoyed in a decade. Speaking of Scott Pilgrim, this movie actually shares a screenwriter with that film.

[metal_bryan]

[MekaGojira3k]

[lhb412]

The Bachelor and the Bobby Soxer

Charming old romantic comedy back from the old days when romantic comedies were charming. Cary Grant is an artist playboy who gets in slight legal trouble and crosses paths with female judge Myrna Loy. When Loy's teenage sister (Shirley Temple!) develops a manic, possibly dangerously unhealthy crush on Grant it's decided by Loy and cohorts to get Grant to pretend to be Temple's boyfriend on a few controlled dates for a little while so that exposure to Grant's unsavoriness will break the spell of Temple's obsession. Naturally, Loy and Grant begin to fall for each other.

There are a few really great set-pieces in this, such as a scene where an ever increasing number of people barge into a nightclub and sit at Grant and Loy's table introducing themselves with the line "You're probably wondering how I found you hear-".

[MekaGojira3k]

Watched Sleepwalk with Me - Fairly solid and pretty enjoyable. Probably worth a watch if you have netflix and like indie comedies.

[Tom R VanSlambrouck]

Not so much a movie but I started watching a 13 part documentary series from the BFI on the history of film. The first part I really didn't care for the narrator because his delivery just fell flat.

[lhb412]

Cloud Atlas

6 interwoven and inter-cut stories that range from 150 years in the past to our present to the far far future and focused on people who are possibly reincarnations of the same few characters. Despite this seemingly complex plot my thoughts are that you should just relax and enjoy what is a very sweet and uplifting (not to mention visually beautiful) film. Anyone who grew up reading sci-fi novels or watching Japanese cartoons should be able to just enjoy the story and do the work of connecting themes stretching through the various timelines unconsciously in the back of their minds, anyway.


Humorously, there are several moments in the film that that basically nudge the audience with a "yes, all this old-age and eithnic makeup and over-the-top acting could be seen as silly, but just go with it!" It's a film that's unafraid and enjoys it's affinity for just going with it.

[MekaGojira3k]

Watched Fire in the Sky. I didn't really like it at all. Wasn't really accurate to the material and didn't really change anything for the better.

[jellydonut25]

[heroforhirerob]

[MekaGojira3k]

[lhb412]

The Wizard of Oz (1939)

Gotta say, I don't think it was all a dream. I think it was the reality bending properties of the ruby slippers. Wouldn't it have been great if the film ended with a shot of Dorothy's feet with the slippers on for the coup de grace?

After reading the Baum book I see that despite leaving a few details out and restructuring the narrative it's still a pretty faithful adaptation. A lot of dialog is straight from the book and the designs are pretty much as close to the book illustrations as one could hope for given late-'30s technology.

[jellydonut25]

[king_ghidorah]

[klen7]

[DannyBeane]