Wot films are you watching?

[The JG Man]

I thought the entire sequence in The Pit in Rises was stupid. Especially the escape.

Anyhow, I was negligent as over the weekend I saw Ted. It wasn't the kind of film I'd have gone to have seen at the cinema, but me and my best friend wanted something to do. So here's the thing, it isn't a bad film, by any stretch. It's hilarious, especially if you appreciate Seth McFarlane, but that in itself is the problem. It's Seth McFarlane. There is nothing new here. If you take the best five episodes of Family Guy or American Dad and put them together, would you be prepared to pay for them? I wouldn't. As it stands, my ticket was a tenner. Far too much for the film. It is, however, perfect DVD fodder for when you have a load of people round and want something on in the background that you can talk over, but turn attention to every so often and still get it. So it's good, very good, but not cinema-worthy. On top of that, I can't imagine myself wanting to watch it too many times. It's not that the plot wears itself thin, more that a lot of the jokes come with a punch that would surely be lost a second time. Bonus points though for Patrick Stewart's narration, moreso the opening than ending.

More recently and at home...ly, I've just watched Monty Python and the Holy Grail. It's a very funny film, but it's quite inconsistent with pacing and sort of jumps all over the place. It's funny because that's obviously what the Pythons are well known for, at least going into this first film, but I have no problem with it in The Meaning of Life, perhaps because that was made with sketches particularly in mind. So, at about the hour mark in Grail, I found myself kinda losing patience. That said, its jokes are, again, great. It isn't anywhere near close to Life of Brian, although considering quite how good that is, that's not exactly a slur against Grail.

[Bobtree]

I thought the Pit was ok, though predictable, but choosing to fist fight a guy built to break men in half, AGAIN, that's stupid. Letting the publicly known timer run down on your doomsday bomb, instead of triggering it a bit early, also stupid. Discontinuing a working fusion power research project because someone might use knowledge for evil: very stupid.

[Xercies]

Were this the case the ending would be better served were it ambiguous. Obviously it was important in the eyes of the director for us to know, hence we have what was shown.

I still think it is ambigious because its such a different tone to the movie even though The JG Man said differently i still think it might be [spoilers]Alfred's dream, just the way he said dream instead of fantasy or any other word made me a bit suspicious, and remember he did make Inception beforehand which had several shots showing you the kids and then another shot at the end showing the same thing making you think it was still the dream, he could be doing the same thing[/spoilers] but even if it isn't ambiguous i don't think it takes away from the plot, because the film was so bleak i didn't mind there was a happy ending.

[alms]

I just had my mind blown to pieces! Thanks to whoever brought Jin-roh up. And now I'll go beat myself for not discovering this gem earlier.

[Drake Sigar]

Just saw Brave. Fairly straightforward stuff, in my list of favourite Pixar movies it sits firmly in the middle of the pack.

God damn, she has great hair though.

[Similar]

I just watched Battleship. The first half hour is a terribly dull mix of Topgun, some commercial for the navy and teenage comedy. After that it doesn't exactly get less stupid, but at least something is happening. I think the best I can say about it is that I didn't fastforward through it like I did with several of the Transformers movies (granted, I was watching another movie on TV at the same time which may have helped).

[Stanton]

I've recently watched "Shame" with Michael Fassbender. Gorgeous, probably the best things I've watched in the recent few months. Also watched Dictator with Sacha Baron Cohen, hilarious!

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sudoku

[The JG Man]

Just come back from seeing The Bourne Legacy. Yeaaaaah, not a good film. It's not bad, in the sense that you want a refund once it's done, you just wish you hadn't have spent money on it. Which is funny, considering my best friend and I used Orange Wednesday. Anyhow. The first hour or so just seems to drag on and has some iffy plausibility (Drones that low? A shot like that?). Actually, I started dozing off and lost a bit, but it doesn't appear as if I missed anything, so in that regard the prestigious honour of films I've fallen asleep in still falls only in The Golden Compass camp. The pacing does pick up, when the film actually decides to start and from then on it's pretty good. And then all of a sudden it just.

The action itself is kinda weird. There's nothing here that is new. Even compared to the previous three Bourne films, which contain some of the best action I've had the joy of being entertained by, including the third film's glorious roof-top chase sequence. The thing is, unlike that sequence, there never seemed to be too much threat here. The punches that the other three pulled (I can name two off the top of my head) just never felt like they would come here. Still, the final action 'sequence' was pretty damn good and kept the film from being out-right bad.

So the film lands itself firmly in the inoffensive category. I don't recommend it. Not even if you're a Bourne fan. Speaking to my best friend afterwards, we agreed that the only thing this film made us want to do was watch the other three far superior titles. That's something you may need to do anyhow to remind yourself about all the references made to them throughout.

[sabrage]

This is my favorite scene from the Damon Bourne trilogy:

[Labbes]

Watched Prometheus twice this week and...it's pretty, but all the characters seem to lose all common sense at some point in the movie.
Although I did find this trailer: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dJWKe5xgax0 which was nice. I don't quite know what it's about, but the music alone sold me on it.

[Sketch]

Saw Expendables 2. What the first should have been really, loud silly and full of action, rarely takes itself too seriously and is a big fan service. Some parts are cringe worthy though, like Liam Hemsworth's monologue.

Oh and JCVD's acting? He's so good in it.

[Voon]

Kickstarter! WHEN?!

[Ravelle]

Kickstarter! WHEN?!

That trailer has been there for a long time but then nothing happened?

[Voon]

Eric updated his blog saying that the movie never went anywhere beyond that point for two years now (sadly) they're still looking for a script, someone to produce the movie, etc. as well as looking for funding.

[Spider Jerusalem]

if you get a chance to see searching for sugar man, do it. do it now.

[Xercies]

The Girl Who Leapt Through Time - Still probably the second best movie with time travel in it since it is used in how we all would use time travel, try to improve our grades and have things we like all the time. Its a bit japenese high schooly and girly but i think that it adds to the charm of the story.

[squirrel]

A newly released Hong Kong movie in English title Motorway, or if you directly translate its Hong Kong title "Racers", starred Shawn Yue and Anthony Wong.

Those racers are no ordinary illicit racers, in fact they are fighting against illicit racing. Those racers in the movies are cops, uniformed traffic police. Illicit racing is always a serious problem in Hong Kong for decades. While the HKP disband one illicit racing group, there always rise another few. Road safety is of course one of the concern, but as I know that's absolutely not what motivate the HKP to fight against the crime so high-handedly. Illicit racing always involve triad groups, and give rise to other serious crimes like illegal gambling.

One of HKP's approach to the problem is somewhat quite unique in the world as I've learnt from this movie: to form a team of racers themselves driving "stealth racing cars", unmarked police car. In the movie they use Audi, while in real life they now use BMW and previously they used Volvo. The team of stealth racing cars patrol all major highways in Hong Kong, and when they spot what they consider to be highly skilled illicit racers, they will take those bastards on by their own; while they radio normal patrol cars to take on most of the others with low skilled so that they will not blow their cover. Those stealth racing cars racers are in their normal duty uniform just as other HK cops, so that they can prove to the illicit racers that they are on their normal duty with full authority to enforce the law.

In the movie, Constable Chan Cheung is such a green young cop assigned to the stealth racing patrol team. He was a talented racer who dreamed big for his police career and wanted to show off his skill to his superior officer, but was assigned to partner with Senior Constable Lo Fung who, closed to his retirement, though also very experienced and intellectual, was always reluctant to bear any risk. Inevitably quarrels were common among this pair. Talking about the rank of Senior Constable, it's nake-named "the sad match". The squad commanding sergeant, a rank of non-commissioned officer, has "three matches", or three arrows, while a Senior Constable has only "one match". It is rumored that this rank of "one-match" or "sad match" is comprised of experienced constables who have no hope of further promotion for a variety reasons, hence the term "sad". The "promotion" is merely to justify higher salary for those experienced yet old cops who are deemed with no bright career in the police force except for retirement with stable income.

After a number of route missions, there was one such occasion that Jiang Xin, a legendary illicit racer, who was thought to have retired, came to assist a jail-break of one high profile suspect under police custody. The police was unable to stop this racer. Cheung was one of the cop assigned to chase the fugitive, and violating the direct order from the Superintendent Chong who radio Cheung he should not try to stop Xin himself, since Chong realized that very obviously Cheung was not at the same level as Xin, not to mention how rookie Cheung was. Cheung over confidently thought he could stop Xin, and without surprise he suffered a humiliating defeat. But then he learnt that there was some unusual history between his partner Lo and the rival Xin.

[Voon]

The Girl Who Leapt Through Time - Still probably the second best movie with time travel in it since it is used in how we all would use time travel, try to improve our grades and have things we like all the time. Its a bit japenese high schooly and girly but i think that it adds to the charm of the story.

So, basically, it's another Slice of Life with the time-travel schtick?

Not that I have anything against SoLs but Japan keeps churning out the same kind of stuff, nowadays. Though, I heards some good things about that movie.

[Ravelle]

Mr. Nobody
I've never seen it before but what an amazing movie, a mix between Benjamin Button and Butterfly Effect with a bit of sci-fi, the music chosen was also nice.

[Xercies]

So, basically, it's another Slice of Life with the time-travel schtick?

Not that I have anything against SoLs but Japan keeps churning out the same kind of stuff, nowadays. Though, I heards some good things about that movie.

Well i do have a soft spot for Slice of Life to be honest since its not something you kind of don't get in these western shores that much and they usually are very charming and nice. But I would recommend the film to be honest i just don't know how different it is to the others as you say.