Movie/film thread: resurrected

"Diana" starring Naomie Watts was a movie that made me feel sad. I just wished that Dianna could have ended up with Dr Hasnat Kahn. The thing that really makes me sad in life, is to see folks wasting their life in an unhappy/unsuitable relationship. I just wondered what her boys will think of seeing this aspect of their Mum's life, put out there for all to see.

Whenever the US attacks people like that using special forces and helicopters and so on I always just think 'they could just give them the money they are going to spend on killing them ...

What fun would THAT be?  Having an army is like having a lawyer.  Sooner or later you're going to use it.  For the excitement, if nothing else.

"The Butler" was a look at the life of Cecil Gaines, an American Negro, who served eight Presidents as the White House's head butler from 1952 to 1986. Oprah Winfrey also had a role as Cecil's wife. It was interesting to see the political and racial history being made.

just went through a marathon of planet of the apes - the originals. Loved them as a kid but now watching them again it is amazing at the messages in them when looked at from a different perspective than just entertainment.

just went through a marathon of planet of the apes - the originals. Loved them as a kid but now watching them again it is amazing at the messages in them when looked at from a different perspective than just entertainment.

I did that a few months ago. I couldn't believe how hokey the shows are now but at the time . . .

I finally realized the "slavery" theme. I wash't too bright back then
(Ain't too bright now either, but at least I know I'm not)

Last Days on Mars

Excellent monster movie - in the vein of Sam Rockwell's Moon, but with Mars, an ensemble, and--wait for it--ZOMBIES! ZOMBIES ON MARS! And the movie was good even before that!


Ender's Game

Don't watch the cam currently making the rounds. I will watch this movie again when a better copy comes out, but what I'm thinking currently is the movie stays close to the book, which is good for the book but bad for the movie. Ender's skills are kind of invisible (and the creation of Dragon army doesn't happen the way it should), and the movie seems like it becomes a collection of incidents. Maybe it'll all seem better when the special effects and vistas aren't all auto-focusing out of focus all the time or the screen suddenly going black. Or the back of some dude's head isn't in the bottom right quarter of the frame for an hour.

Last Days on Mars

Excellent monster movie - in the vein of Sam Rockwell's Moon, but with Mars, an ensemble, and--wait for it--ZOMBIES! ZOMBIES ON MARS! And the movie was good even before that!

I just watched it the other day. I found it tedious. No story development (explanation) and the conclusion was "meh"  The characters were cardboard.

Really, this is Gilligan's Island gone bad

Isolated research mission + personalities wearing thin + alien bacteria = YOU CAN'T FAULT ZOMBIE MOVIES ON SCIENCE!!!

They even had the characters say the whole plot out loud!

Irwin: People don't really change. Put them under enough pressure, you find out who they really are.
Kim: God, that is deep. Are you gonna put that in a poem?

Kim = that was the Sigourney Weaver type lady? She was the only reason to watch this dreck

I don't remember names

It's pretty interesting in retrospect. That snippet of conversation occurs in the context of the mission crew talking about the first men on the moon, and how landing on the moon changed them. Kim, the Sigourney Weaver type lady, was complaining their own mission to Mars will be worthless. "So what do you reckon," she asks, mocking. "We all go back home, find god, write a poem about it like the moon walkers did."

Only, their own mission does change them... IT CHANGES THEM INTO ZOMBIES!!!!!!!


That the movie managed to get away with that kind of referencing without succumbing to hipster irony but instead actually telling some kind of people story--WITH ZOMBIES!!! IN SPACE!!!--it's on a higher level, man. A higher level.

They even deployed that old chestnut, "are the zombies still human on the inside?", and made it look like a real question!

/tour de force

"Prisoners", starring Hugh Jackman and Jake Gyllenhaal is a descent into the darkness of the human soul. Jackman is a struggling Carpenter with a strong survival streak and an aggressively religious attitude towards right and wrong. His daughter and her friend go missing and he decides to take matters into his own hands. He is the desperate father who will do whatever it takes to find the girls and in doing so, the viewer is left wondering about when the line is crossed between seeking justice and becoming a vigilante. This is certainly a movie which is unafraid to ask uncomfortable questions. Some of the ladies in the audience (my neighbour included) were horrified, so you have been warned ladies.

Now that this treasure trove of Nazi-stolen artwork has been found:

http://onpoint.wbur.org/2013/11/08/nazi-treasure-trove-discovered

I'm really looking forward to the movie, "The Monument Men".

"The Counselor" was certainly an interesting thriller. When it first started, I thought that I must have been in the wrong theatre.   The Texas lawyer known as Counselor (Michael Fassbender) was having an interesting slobbering time under the sheets with his girlfriend. My neighbour's hair started to "curl" slightly and all I could think was "get on with the story".  The stakes are three oil drums packed with cocaine and secreted inside a waste truck to be driven across the Mexican border, bound for Chicago. The importer is the Counselor. Cameron Diaz played the part of the slinky feline girlfriend of nightclub king Javier Bardem. I thought she played a really good part and showed just how manipulative and deadly some women can be. I think the guys would get a smile out of her making love to the car windscreen; you really have to see it to believe it. Don't ask me who thinks up these things, but Javier Bardem's jaw was open the whole time as he watched from the other side of the windscreen. I'd love to know if any of you folks have seen it.

It didn't sound that interesting . . . until you said "making love to the car windscreen"

This just moved into my "MUST SEE IT" list.