Movies

[Veryslightlymad]

Nim's Island:

Pretty darn good movie. Actually, if it weren't for the magical animal friends who killed my suspension of disbelief, this would have been a very good movie. It had a nice parallelism to it, that, once the movie got into the meat of itself and dropped the weird direction quirks, worked out very well, I would say. All in all, if you have any young people in your family, watch this movie with them.

[Sierra]

Hot Fuzz: Good times. This is how you do genre parody, people, and the hacks doing those Insert Genre Name Movies need to be locked in a room with this until they figure it out. Not as sharp as Shaun of the Dead, but definitely a lot of fun. Crowning moment of awesome = the Point Break reference's payoff near the end, though there were a lot of contenders ("Fuck off, grasshopper," the mine in general, flying kick granny in the face).

Also, mad props for excellent use of Dire Straits and Crazy World of Arthur Brown songs.

[Anthony Edward Stark]

The thing I liked about Hot Fuzz is that it escalates. It doesn't start out as a straight up parody, it drops little bits of crazy in every little bit and it adds up.

[metroid composite]

Nim's Island

Highly enjoyable.  Granted, several of the character archetypes seem to fit my taste very well: the badass little girl, the scientist interested in things that nobody else cares about, the writer afraid to go outside.  Good stuff.

The deleted scenes were interesting, since they weren't so much deleted scenes as deleted characters.  Good choices on the whole (since removing the characters made Nim seem more competent, and Alexandra seem more paranoid).

Have to agree with VSM about the animal friends ruining suspension of disbelief at times, though.  Granted, the turtle and the lizard (Freddie) were perfectly fine.  Selkie the sea lion was also generally fine--sea lions are pretty playful so most of the scenes work...with the exception of the one "Selkie, I choose you!  Selkie, use your stink attack!"  But whatever--as far as kid-style fanservice goes I'm sure that scene does the job splendidly.  The pelican, Galilleo, however, is unforgiveable.  I can forgive the "hey, that's my fish" scene because it's actually pretty funny, but subsequent scenes are even less believable and not especially funny.

[metroid composite]

Sweeny Todd

Hmm...
I certainly enjoyed it, though I get the feeling I would have gotten more enjoyment out of a movie with less blood (not that I really see a way of reducing the gore in the plotline).  So...not really my style, though objectively certainly good at everything it did (excellent acting, good music, nice plot twists, excellent camera cuts).  File under "Artistic", or something.

[metroid composite]

King of Kong:

Lives up to the hype.  The amount of drama and politics surrounding the Donkey Kong high score is actually kinda alarming, but makes for an excellent movie.

[Captain K.]

Damn straight.  Everyone here needs to watch King of Kong.

[Shale]

Speed Racer: In this movie, a guy driving a racecar makes the car jump 10 feet in the air so he can punch a man wearing a viking helmet directly in the face. Later, John Goodman wrestles a ninja. Remind me why the Wachowski brothers ever tried to do serious plotlines?

Edit: also, the most astonishing thing about the movie may be that Spritle and Chim-Chim, the eight-year-old kid brother and his monkey sidekick, weren't annoying. This is a major achievement in modern cinema.

[Grefter]

The Illusionist - Did I forget to hype this?  Yes I did.  This was good and worth your time and money.

[Captain K.]

Hellboy 2:  The Golden Shower:  Good flick, lots of nice character interaction.  Prince Nuada is bad-fucking-ass, despite being a poncy elf.

[Sierra]

Burn After Reading: It is a Coen brothers movie. It is about extraordinarily stupid people. It is a Coen brothers movie about extraordinarily stupid people. You know what this means: it is awesome. J.K. Simmons is godlike as always. "At least we learned something. 'Don't do it again.' Whatever the fuck it is that we did."

Go see it.

[Shale]

The Simpsons Movie: Basically 85 minutes of one-off jokes, but mostly good one-off jokes, some of them very good. Worth paying for. Getting Albert Brooks as the villain was absolutely perfect, of course.

Vantage Point: Better than I was expecting it to be. Took me a while to buy into the concept (a terrorist attack told six times over in interconnected ten-minute shorts, leading into an extended ending-cum-chase-scene), but it was pretty engaging once it got rolling. Some of the plot twists were way too easy to guess (especially the one at the end of Dennis Quaid's chapter), and the writers liked ending the vignettes on cliffhangers a bit too much, but overall all of that's more or less excusable. Good plot, neat ending, mostly good acting - Sigourney Weaver in particular.

[superaielman]

Knocked up: Very funny and I liked the relationship dynamics in it. Was worth watching.

[Captain K.]

Saw Max Payne.  Kind of meh.  Cinematography sucked.  Too many flashing lights - it's like watching an episode of Japanese Seizure Monsters.

[metroid composite]

Tenacious D in the Pick of Destiny

Bleh.  Has some good moments, but mixed in with a lot of bathroom humor.  The opening credits is two cartoon characters doing rocket-farts, and the maturity level dips that low several times throughout the movie.

School of Rock

I got about half an hour in; I'll probably watch the rest of it eventually.

[Cotigo]

Had you listened to Tenacious D before that?  Exactly what the fuck were you expecting if not that?

[OblivionKnight]

Not completely a movie.  But still awesome...

Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog.  Badass incarnate. 

Joss Whedon is still godly.  Neil Patrick Harris and Nathan Fillion are also sexilicious.

[metroid composite]

Had you listened to Tenacious D before that?  Exactly what the fuck were you expecting if not that?

No, I'd only seen clips of the movie; notably the opening clip with the kid Jack Black rebelling against his father.  I figured "if they can keep that level of quality up throughout the movie, it will be awesome".

[metroid composite]

Wall*E: Good.
Not much else to say, actually, other than I apparently avoided spoilers very effectively despite watching previews and such.

Mama Mia: I think I may have a new favourite movie ever.
...Okay, so in fairness I just slammed "Tenacious D in the Pick of Destiny" for appealing to people with the maturity of 12-year-old boys.  You could probably argue that Mama Mia is the same kind of movie but appeals to people with the maturity of 12-year-old girls.  Then again, 12-year-old girls have much better taste than 12-year-old boys, so nyah!

LotR, Two Towers, Extended Edition: Eh...watchable.
Stuff with Gollum was badass.  Stuff with Eowyn kept my interest, I suppose.  The rest felt kinda like filler.  Overall this feels true to the spirit of the book >_>.  In fairness, Saruman seemed lamer than he did in the books, though a fair few of the characters around Rohan seemed marginally more interesting than I remember; it balances.

[Dark Holy Elf]

Two Towers is definitely the weak link of the movies. What possessed them to remove Shelob and the confrontation with Saruman, I'll never understand. In the case of the former, Movie 3 didn't need the help; in the case of the latter... way to go, removing one of the better psychological battles in the books, and generally the climax of the "Book 3" (the Merry/Pippin/Aragorn half of Two Towers). Idiocy.


Anyway!


Indiana Jones and the Crystal Skull - Solid enough Indy goodness, I guess. Ford's still got it, and his interaction with the kid was cool. Cate Blanchett's character was fun. There are a few issues that drag the movie down, though (uh, spoilers)

-Those damn ants. That was way over-the-line stupid. I couldn't decide if I was supposed to be scared or laughing, but rest assured I was neither.
-Mac's character. Didn't need to exist past the first 15 minutes. The movie seemed to have no idea whether he was a dirty, greedy traitor, or this guy for whom redemption was in reach, and he generally came off as muddled, right down to his final scene.
-The villain's fate. EXPLODED BY KNOWLEDGE what the fuck, that was worse than Raiders' ending. After all the buildup I was expecting something much more ironic and clever.
-The fact that it takes all of 15 minutes for Indy, his ex, and his son to patch up 20 years of estrangement, and get back together as a happy family. What the fuck. I know this isn't a character work, but c'mon.

But then I pretty much always have an issues like this with Indy movies. It lacks a scene as legendary as the boulder chase and "Indy shoots flashy swordsman" from Raiders, but aside from that it's really no better or worse than the others, delivering a modestly entertaining package, mostly carried by Ford's own charisma. (Note that I have not seen Temple of Doom.)


Get Smart - Was generally more satisfied with this than the above. Pretty funny, with no real glaring flaws that I can think of. There's pretty much all levels of humour here, from the rather clever to the puerile to the very silly. Most of the characters are well-acted enough for what they had to do. The Rock, in particular, was a pleasant surpirse. Above average, but not a movie I'll remember much about a month from now, though.

[Cotigo]

Quark of Catharsis:  I had heard a lot of bad things about the film (it was too confusing, nothing got resolved, etc. etc.) and it's all bollocks.  Anyone who thinks that either hasn't seen Casino Royale or hasn't seen it recently enough.  Good film, I rather enjoyed it, unlike most of the Bond films.  It turned Bond into a real character instead of the typical ball of dry witticism and charisma you get in most of the bond films. 

[Idun]

Knocked up: Very funny and I liked the relationship dynamics in it. Was worth watching.

Riskily I may suggest, that you watch Something's Gotta Give with Jack Nicholson and Diane Keaton. A lot more tempered in storyline presentation - less identifiable because of their ages, but something almost paralleled besides a spontaneous pregnancy that keeps the movie interesting. It's on TNT today. Watch it D: I don't think you'll miss anything besides her naked body full frontal.

[Sierra]

Quark of Catharsis:  I had heard a lot of bad things about the film (it was too confusing, nothing got resolved, etc. etc.) and it's all bollocks.  Anyone who thinks that either hasn't seen Casino Royale or hasn't seen it recently enough.  Good film, I rather enjoyed it, unlike most of the Bond films.  It turned Bond into a real character instead of the typical ball of dry witticism and charisma you get in most of the bond films. 

Because I'm lazy. I don't think I liked it as much as Casino Royale (we lack an adversary with as much innate sliminess as Le Chifre and Bond doesn't have as much chance to bounce off the ones that are here) but it's good.

[Captain K.]

Twilight:  Fairly faithful to the book.  The romance between Bella and Edward blossoms too quickly, but there's only so much you can cram into a couple of hours of movie.  Casting overall is quite good, and the girl who plays Bella is quite competent in her role.  The one casting flaw is Edward, who sucks (HA HA FUNNY VAMPIRE JOKE).  He mumbles his lines so much that several important plot points get missed.  Basically, if you liked the book, you'll like the movie.  If you didn't like the book, the movie isn't going to do anything to change your mind.

Also, Alice is fucking KAWAIIIIIIIII!!!!!!!  <3 <3 <3

[Cotigo]

Full Metal Jacket:

Awesome.  Awesome awesome awesome.