News | Forum | People | FAQ | Links | Search | Register | Log in
Film Thread.
I thought a trio of themed threads about other entertainment media might be good. If you're not interested, please just ignore the thread and pick some threads that interest you from here: http://celephais.net/board/view_all_threads.php

Anyway, discuss films...
First | Previous | Next | Last
Megaman 
no it most definitely was not. 
71 Into The Fire 
Excellent Korean war movie about some student soldiers fighting for South Korea in the Korean War. 9 out of 10 from me, very powerful, good resolve. Anyone here a fan of war movies? Watch this :) 
Ricky 
heard good things about that one although it got compared to Taekugki which I wasnt a huge fan of. 
Well 
I saw both versions directly after another, and in this scenario, the first one shat all over the new one. It might have to do with the audience knowing all about the story at that point and how easy it is to just concentrate on the differences between the movies...

but seriously, the old one was charming, laid back, with lots of western clichee style, but still not boring; the new one was just a freak show compared to that, everything felt so overdone and contrieved... it was kinda awful. Not a single moment did the characters feel realistic to me. The "kid" has (almost) no childish moments at all (the old movie is very strong in portraying her as a kid with certain strengths/strong will, in the new one she feels just like a bitchy old woman in a child's body), and the marshal cannot be taken seriously for a single moment, while in the old one it was quite interesting to see him balancing at the border between skilled and lousy, eventually failing.

Interesting enough, almost everyone i spoke to after that screening felt the same way. But yeah, I have to rewatch (because i have a lot of respect for the coen brothers).

Maybe your view is flawed because the old movie isn't commonly seen in cinemas? 
Flawed? 
My view can't be flawed, as whether or not i liked the old movie or the new movie more is a subjective value judgement. 
Yeah 
I think we can agree to be cinematically relevist here.

I haven't seen the new one - but I know a surprising amount of people who feel the remake was 'wrongheaded,' 'unnecessary,' etc. I think some negative feedback is coming from that typical thing with remakes - don't try to recapture the magic etc (which is not something I agree with at all but meh).
to sum up: everyone is right, and nobody is wrongm, ever. hahahaha 
There's A Lot Of Nostalgia For The Old Film 
for Wayne's oscar and I'm usually in the anti-remake camp, but I dont think the old one is even a good film (saw it first about 2-3 years ago), let along a better one in comparison. 
Prestige 
Not sure if I liked this one. It's good ol Nolan though, so it's got the atmosphere and quality you'd expect, but the secrets that get revealed, at least to me, seem hokey and downright Soap Operaish in nature. I will admit the little tells led me to think what I was supposed to, but the revelations of both magicians' tricks was pretty lame, it just kind of left me in disbelief.

I was expecting a more down-to-earth sort of show down, but instead got wacky cartoonish plot twists. I dunno. Other than that I was pretty into it. 
Mein Führer, I Can Walk! 
Dr. Strangelove was great. 
There Cannot Be A Mine Shaft Gap 
 
 
i liked the prestige twists - particularly jackman's character's - although i can see how some people wouldn't. i think it depends on how well you can suspend disbelief when it comes to the supernatural; there is part of me that wants to believe that stuff is actually possible and that tesla did actually achieve similarly crazy results before he went insane and died. his disappearance in the film - together with a lack of scientific explanation as to how the machine worked - imo did a good job in leaving things relatively shrouded in mystery, which i found much more satisfying than - for example - guy ritchie's sherlock holmes, where similar illusions of magic are all debunked and brought down to earth with a clatter.

actually watched it for the second time only a week or two ago, knowing the ending, and enjoyed it even more than i did the first time. has that typically excellent nolan feel but with a much more subtle, mysterious feel which made me prefer it to inception/batman movies 
You Can't Fight In Here, This Is The War Room! 
Probably my favourite movie ever :) 
Strangelove 
Yep, easily the best comedy of all time. 
The Prestige 
is probably my favorite Nolan movie after Memento. 
 
Easy A
Incredible hot Emma Stone (if you like her type) in an incredibly dumb movie. Should have known by seeing the image alone, those kind of colours/setting usually mean one thing... 
The American 
Interesting, if amazingly badly marketed, movie. The blurb on the back of the DVD had me expecting a Bourne identity type thing, and while the plot is actually not that far from that type of film, everything else is utterly different. Well shot and well acted, but also quite cliched. 
Source Code 
Wow! What a headfuck. Totally loved it. 10/10. Must see. 
Really? 
Looked kinda dumb. I'll torrent it. 
Yeah 
not a huge fan of Moon (idea was good, execution was not) but will give this a shot. 
BSG 
about halfway through Season 1.

Still liking this quite a lot, but I wish they had retained the cinematic visual style of the miniseries (long tracking shots, strobing cameras etc) rather than the standard tv style adopted for the series proper (basically alternating close ups and establishing shots). 
The Prestige., 
Good film, great book. Great film if you haven't read the book. 
More On Source Code: 
The only thing about the film really is the title. It doesn't have much to do with source code. Its does, but 'source code' is just a name for something else, which would probably be called 'quantum consciousness displacement process' or something really complex-sounding, so they just went for 'source code'. But the film itself is great! 
Source Code (possible Spoilers) 
i kind of enjoyed it but several things bugged me:

- the inventor was rather annoying and unconvincing, and his explanation of how (the inexplicably named) 'source code' worked was cringeworthy; not to mention completely at odds with the plot (and, indeed, general common sense). it isn't clear whether he actually believes that is how it is supposed to work or whether he is simply lying to colter, but neither really makes that much sense (there didn't seem a reason for him to be lying)

- the ending felt thrown-on. the freeze-frame seemed like the perfect point for the film to end at but it couldn't resist descending into hollywoodesque schmaltz after that point. it also (as alluded to above) makes a mockery of the initial explanation. granted, it makes some sense if you ignore everything about brain afterglows and 8-minute memory periods etc, and instead run with a standard time travel / multiverse theory (where you somehow return to the present / original universe whenever you die in one of the forked timelines) but it took me a while to get round to that. maybe it needs a second viewing

- no thought is given to the consequences of the ending; ie. how someone is simply able to slot into someone else's life in an alternate reality and live happily ever after. not to mention the moral side of things; at least when something similar happened in the thirteenth floor it's the bad guy who eventually loses out, whereas in this film, 'sean' is merely an innocent bystander, who either gets killed by the bomb or has his life taken over by colter depending on the timeline.. tough break!

still. there were some poignant touches and some entertaining groundhog day style moments. gyllenhall was decent too. not an awful film by any means providing you don't think about it too much 
 
and speaking of alternate reality headfuck movies i recently saw eXistenZ (1999) (small e, capital x, capital zee). now that shit is fucked up. very squeamish in places but had a slightly offbeat feel which i loved, as well as working on several allegorical levels. ultimately very similar to the aforementioned thirteenth floor in terms of theme & plot (including obvious twist) but with a totally different feel and much better chemistry between the lead actors (sexiest lead character ever? discuss. and no i'm not talking about jude law)

i need to check out more cronenberg films.


also saw the machinist (2004). decent film ruined by a terribly out-of-place score - i read afterwards the screenwriter wanted trent reznor to do the music, which would have been awesome, but alas the director opted for some corny hitchcock imitation; just felt a bit wrong considering the film's grimy/industrial nature 
Archer 
anyone else watching this? Loving it pretty hard - it's an animated comedy, kinda like Arrested Development meets James Bond being a dick to everyone. 
First | Previous | Next | Last
You must be logged in to post in this thread.
Website copyright © 2002-2025 John Fitzgibbons. All posts are copyright their respective authors.