I meant "solely by aesthetic standards, as a work of art" as opposed to "completely, ie by ethical, aesthetic and intellectual standards." 

trivialised slavery?

It's one of the few films that showed the true nature of slavery. Whippings, brutal murders, hot box torture, lynchings, mutilation...

Yeah it was also very stylised in the tarantino way, but it was certainly not light viewing. 

it was never going to be critical of the CIA expressly, but I cant exactly say it came across to me as pro-CIA/torture/war on terror. It almost showed the whole thing coming together because of luck and one person's disturbing single mindedness rather than because anything valuable was obtained by CIA brilliance or through the use of torture.

Also, Man of Steel, I will agree with the guys above. First 70 min are pretty decent and then the whole introspective mood is smashed to bits by totalling the whole city over and over. If you are going to setup the whole character as one struggling with choice and then finally having him make the choice to side with humans/earth, at least make him try to save some or think before he smashes the next building. 

I have seen Man of Steel yet, but it's superman... it's a comic movie, there's no way I'm not going to like it. 

Great little comedy. Peter Capaldi as Shambler absolutely kills it. 

Cool in places, cheesy in other places. The whole set-up and concept was a fun mixture of epic and ridiculous, but some aspects could have been explored further - "DRift" gimmick was only well used a couple of times (e.g. chinese burd's flashback). Lead character was a turd and any human aspect involving him was dire, the further away one got from him the better.

Giant monster apocalypse = great
Giant robots fighting back = silly but fun
Human issues controlling robots = neat but wasted - needed more exploration
Human drama = putrid cheese 

Oblivion

Despite it's 'Hollywoodisms' and plot holes it's actually a pretty original scifi flick. The visuals are nice, they actually used old fashioned back projection to great effect.

(it's roughly something like Moon meets Independence Day meets Terminator... or something like that)

Oh yeah, it's got Cruise and Freeman parodying themselves as usual, but whatever...

Pacific Rim

It's a movie about giant robots fighting giant monsters. That's all it is, so if you like that, good, if not, bad. Not enough chicks though. I agree with Shambler. My fav part was when they used 'the sword' for the first time, so bad it was good :) The Russians didn't get enough screen time. The bad guys have the same issue as the ones in Avengers, their origin story is completely absent which makes it all very one dimensional. They have no other reason to be there than being pure evil incarnated. 

I liked it, but Matt Damon was the worst choice for the main character, this would have been an ideal chance to have a young black or latino lead actor in a major action blockbuster, especially because the scenario is clearly modeled on America and those are the groups they are getting screwed, not photogenic white boys like Damon. So bad choice for the lead. The director, however, remains awesome, his vision of a junk-heap ghetto future in this movie and District 9 is visually compelling and unique, and also the design for Elysium itself was similarly beautiful. Favourite part was seeing all these rich people in a manicured golf club type environment panic as a busted up, Firefly-esque spaceship full of illegal immigrants and criminals crashes into a mansion. lol.

Pacific Rim:
Really? When will the director get the chance to do a mature project? He showed so much promise with Pan's Labryinth and you'd think his success would give him some independence, but the studios treat him as their bitch as if he's not good for anything more than visual design and CGI.
Also, can't Idris Elba be given better roles? Overall I thought this movie was a waste of talent, except the lead actor, who has none. 

Del Toro wanted to make Pacific Rim, it was his choice and a pet project AFAIK. 

Maybe I'm just bitter about his failure after 15 years of trying, to get At the Mountains of Madness (AtMoM) made. I see a contradiction between the likes of PR, and Pan's Labryinth (PL) or AtMom. I don't see the difference between PR and Transformers, and I hope we all hate Michael Bay (though he's not the worst). To me, PL is based on sophisticated adult reflections on childhood, fairytales, disillusionment, etc. There's nothing in PR Michael Bay couldn't have done, and man am I disappointed in Del Toro's direction. He had the potential to be a great director and you're telling me he is voluntarily choosing to play with action figures. Sigh. 

but have you seen Devil's Backbone? That's a good one from him. 

it's roughly something like Moon meets Independence Day meets Terminator... or something like that

my thought was moon meets portal!

went in with low expectations, left reasonably satisfied 

actually the more i think about it, the more i realise it borrowed quite a few key plot points from elsewhere... (MASSIVE SPOILERS AHEAD)

1. a male and female protagonist pair are presented to reside in a clean, airy, futuristic home above the ocean, years after a reported apocalypse-type event, with the hope that one day they will leave for a faraway place to join the rest of humankind (the island)

2. the main character suffers flashbacks in the form of dreams, which are eventually explained as remnants of a past life before his memory was wiped, and hold clues to the story (total recall)

3. the characters are told to stay out of marked no-go areas for health/safety reasons, when the areas actually hold secrets key to the plot, and a twist for the viewer (the village)

4. as part of the twist, the main character realises he is merely a clone with implanted memories, farmed for work purposes (moon)

5. the woman giving orders and promising a happy ending starts out helpful and friendly, but gradually turns more robotic and malevolent, and is revealed to be an evil piece of artificial intelligence with a single, glowing eye, residing above the floor in a huge metallic chamber where the protagonist eventually defeats her/it (portal)

6. after a surprising switch, the main character sacrifices his life by blowing up the huge celestial object on which he resides in order to save mankind and ensure a happy life for the woman he loves (armageddon)

also, why did the scavs dress themselves up to look like aliens? (or should that be predators...) 

On the money about stuff there. The hispanic styling of Matt Damon's buddies was far more charismatic than he was.

Del Toro....yeah I dunno what he was thinking. As well as PL and DB, The Orphanage is bloody great, even if I did watch most of it from behind a sofa! 

Orphanage didn't hold up as well for me on later viewings, but I really enjoyed it the 1st time around. Think I mentioned that years ago in here... 

but I did like Julia's Eyes in terms of spanish horror/thrillers. 

Shallow, silly, forgettable but still fun. Would be a good plane movie. 

The East: Didn't like the main character but overall a pretty nice thriller.

Now You See Me: Started great, got worse and worse. Not recommended.

The World's End: Not as good as Shaun or Fuzz but still lots of fun. Lots of it sucked but I didn't notice while watching. Lots of great laughs. I expected more but wasn't disappointed. Great cast and it even started with a tune from Spaced (not one you would have expected). Also, Tires! 

And now I really want to watch the world's end again and again. 

Some quickies too then.

Safe: had this recorded but put off watching it for weeks because I thought it'd suck. It didn't. Great action flick.

Horror Express: shitty 70s horror with Christopher Lee and Peter Cushing. Not worth watching.

Killing Them Softly: decent cast, I like Brad Pitt. James Gandolfini, Ray Liotta. Shame it was a pointless movie that went nowhere. Boring crap.

Skyfall: not as good as I was expecting, lots of silly moments and plotholes.

Ruby Sparks: nice romance. Cool idea. Touching ending. Bit of a downer is the main character not being that likable.

Lovely Molly: typical modern horror. Not bad actually, especially the main actress being so damn cute. I enjoyed.

Land of the Blind: Ralph Fiennes, Donald Sutherland. Despite the poor imdb ranking, this is a pretty great movie. Very underrated, better than everything I've listed above. 

THE ICEMAN: Michael Shannon is the best actor working right now. With another actor this might have been a so-so movie, but his performance is really impressive.

MUD: Anyone who has read Mark Twain, or run around the forest getting in trouble as a kid, will love this. Not sure about the guy who plays Mud, it could have been someone else, but overall great.

CHASING ICE: Remarkably egotistical given its stated goals, or maybe that's just me saying I'd like to see more footage of ice and less of humans, but the footage of ice here was amazingly beautiful.

THE EAST: Some strong performances (Page, Skarsgaard, Marling, basically in that order) but too obvious as a fantasy of what hippie activists WISH they were (lol like James Bond stuff). A not-so-serious discussion of serious issues, and hippies are kinda ridiculous, but worth watching.

LUTHER S3: Not as unique or weird as before; still worth watching but seems like they lost something.

PILLARS OF THE EARTH: haven't read the book but this is disappointingly conventional, somewhat nonsensical, and seemingly a waste of a high budget and a good cast. I assume the book will be better if I ever get time to read it. 

Tronyn,

seen Frozen Planet? 

I googled it and saw some national geographic style stuff but I think I've only seen the underwater icicle, and I think that might have been a promo for something or other a while ago ;) 

Good, there's some scenes which I'm not sure why they're there. 

definitely worth checking out.