Recently watched movies!

[eabaker]

[Dr Kain]

[lhb412]

The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh

Right in the childhood, guys! Pooh was always my favorite Disney character as a kid, and this my favorite Disney film. The warmth and kindness of these characters and this world is just irresistible. Of course, it's actually three short films packaged together as a feature, but it ends up working excellently because A.A. Milne's books were short story collections anyway, and each of the shorts actually sandwiches together two of those short stories. The result, a film featuring six short stories, is true to the format of the original books.

Some Pooh purists have always complained about about Disney making Milne's work into a more generic product, but I disagree. I think Disney tried harder to capture Milne's stories than perhaps any other adaptation they did. Peter Pan? Alice and Wonderland? The Jungle Book? Very little like reading the originals. They were completely Disney-fied. Winnie the Pooh feels half-Disney/half-Milne, and I think that was a winning combination. There's also a Russian Pooh adaptation from the '70s which similarly merged Milne's content with another (very different) distinct animation style. It's great, too.

[jellydonut25]

I LOVE The Many Adventures....I really need to watch that in the near-future. It's been YEARS, and I remember watching it at least once a month as a kid. It's got basically all of my absolute favorite Winnie the Pooh moments. Much as I enjoyed the newer film, it didn't measure up to the greatness of The Many Adventures.

[DannyBeane]

I watched 300 Rise of an Empire today. I'm just going to copy my thoughts I posted on facebook grammar errors and all.

I'd give it a solid B. Its definitely worth a watch even though its a flawed film. It fixes up the flaws of the original 300 while having its own list of problems. There is a lot of exposition that kills the pacing at times. Also some of the naval battles can be hard to see since they take place when its cloudy/raining during lots of huge waves, The fight scenes were top notch. I also thought the acting was less cheesy than in 300 and the main villain Artemisia was better than Xerxes even though he is also in this film. The main disappointment though is that this is 95% a tale of what the Athenians are doing while Leonidas is off doing his thing in Thermopylae so it isn't as much of a sequel as much as 300 and 1/2. Don't let my criticisms chase you off though. It was a fun movie and I would definitely consider watching it again.

[Dr Kain]

We watched both Robin Hood Men in Tights and The Princess Bride today. Both movies are excellent, funny, with some great dialog and fight scenes (especially the one between Roberts and Montoya). Both movies get a nice 8/10.

[Dr Kain]

Tiger & Bunny: The Rising - Anime movies based on a TV series can be a dangerous thing. When they are good, they tend to be really good. Unfortunately, this is not always the case, as "Cowboy Bebop: Knockin' on Heaven's Door" and "Fullmetal Alchemist: THe Stars of Milos" have shown they can feel out of place as if the writers did not even know the characters they were writing. This can be both frustrating and annoying to fans of that respective series. Thankfully, The Rising fits into the former as it really does feel like an episode of the TV show. It takes place after the series, so make sure you have seen the finale before even watching this or you will have spoiled yourself, and it keeps in tone everything that was great about the show. The characters are still doing their normal tropes while also showing that they have grown a bit. The characters do have quite a bit of development here, but it is Fire Emblem that easily steals the show when it comes to growth, as we get a great insight upon his character and what his life style choices did to him. This was an unexpected turn of events and not something I would think a movie that acts as a continuation of a show would do. Golden Ryan is essentially the Booster Gold of the movie, but he does it in such a way that he is a likable character. Time has advanced and you do see characters grown up a bit, and that not everything was as happy go lucky as it looked when the screen faded to black after the epilogue to the series. The story is fun, it has great action, loads of comedy, but again, it retains the spirit and dignity of the show and is for anyone looking to enjoy more "Tiger & Bunny." If you were a fan of the series, you will definitely enjoy this. If you did not like the series, or only slightly tolerated it, there is nothing here that will change your mind. I give "The Rising" an 8/10 stars.

[jellydonut25]

Frozen - pretty fantastic. Who'd have thought from the previews that Olaf would be not only tolerable, but AMAZING?

[Dr Kain]

[XvGojira]

Saw Muppets Most Wanted the other night. And it was a mixed bag. None of the cameos were all that memorable all that memorable. Christopher Waltz was like the first one and I sat there waiting for something to happen but no, he just showed up danced with Sweetums and vanished I don't think he even said a word. They easily could have, and I think should have, done a version of their ballroom segments from the show. The focus seemed more on the villain than Kermit or any of the other muppets. Ricky Gervais was surprisingly bland. Walter shouldn't have come back because anything he did could have been done by quite a few other muppets and he really didn't even do much in the movie anyway.

Although Ty Burrell and Sam the Eagle were great, and even though it'd be a slight retread Ty could easily play a new good Clouseau.

The songs were alright, the best was the interrogation one with Sam and Ty.

[Hybrid Gojira]

Rocky III and Rocky IV - these movies hold a soft spot in my heart. Rocky is one of the most boneheaded, stubborn characters and somehow is extremely likable.

Rocky IV is especially nostalgic for me because my roommate had it playing on out tv constantly... The soundtrack is tons of fun and somehow Rocky overcomes the evil that is communism

[jellydonut25]

[MekaGojira3k]

[klen7]

The marketing on Frozen was such a miss, i thought there was only one girl in it that looked like Rapunzel and she went through some sort of transformation while hanging out with the annoying reindeer from 'Open Season' and an even more annoying snowman... not sure if it was a case of "same face" from the animators or if i was just oblivious.. by the time i saw it the movie had so much hype that i wasn't blown away.. but also (at best) i tolerate musical numbers in films.. and Frozen was 70% singing

[lhb412]

Treasure of the Sierra Madre

Bogart and Walter Huston are great in this! This is the first "guys brave the elements to dig up gold/diamonds/silver" - type movie I've seen. It was an enormously popular genre in the late 19th, early 20th century. I keep running into it in reading.

[Dr Kain]

[MekaGojira3k]

[Dr Kain]

The Godfather II - Holy crap, I just realized who half of the characters were in this movie now that I am seeing it for the second time. Everything with Deniro is still nothing short of amazing. I also understand the whole thing in Cuba with the revolutionaries so much better now. Oh, and the ending is just incredible. While it doesn't end as solid as the first one's did, it ends with a bittersweet sadness as it shows that Michael has always been alone because he was not only the favorite son, but the one who had his future already decided for him when he was a baby. DAMN!! 9/10.

[lhb412]

The Third Man

Beautifully shot, wonderful (and quite novel) score, razor-sharp script, and wasn't it oh-so-clever for the filmmakers to cast Orson Welles for a part that needed to make a huge impression with very little screen time?

[Dr Kain]

American Hustle - 9/10.

[XvGojira]

The Keep - Early Micheal Mann film and Sir Ian McKellen's first American film. It might have been that the copy was old and worn (but its the only version Netflix had, looked like an old VHS copy), but it had this dream-like quality over the whole movie. Like the screen was covered in vasaline, and I'm sure the Tangerine Dream score helped too. It felt like a dark fairy tale. Basically it's a based on short story but it's more or less a Jewish golem story set in WWII Nazi occupied Romania. I just really like the vibe the whole movie had. The golem at one point is just muscle with glowing eyes and looked like some good Attack on titan cosplay. It wasn't outstanding, but I was glad I watched it.

Section 24 - People get stuck in a large labyrinthine u-store-it with a violent alien. Pretty boiler plate stuff. The alien design isn't outstanding, it's got toothy mandible filled mouth and has stilt legs. There's a good bit with a windup dog toy but other than that it's fairly cookie cutter.

[DannyBeane]

[Tom R VanSlambrouck]

The Hangover 3- It was alright non of the films in this series where anything special. Like the rest this one had a few moments in it that where funny the rest meh.

[lhb412]

[Dr Kain]