Movie Review Thread

[Winchester]

Kid's talked me into watching Guardians of the Galaxy when they were back for Christmas. I actually enjoyed it quite a bit... great soundtrack too.

[Spider]

That movie was just fun.

[micfranklin]

How can anyone not see the regular fun had in that movie?

Also I haven't seen Kingsman yet but I heard it was fantastic.

[Kane]

Saw Kingsman. Was cool but the comedy felt kinda...tone deaf? I don't know, the best parts where the egregious kills but even that felt slightly tamped down. I wanted to like it more (It's over and over the top) but it just kinda fell flat for me. The lines weren't all that witty aside from some segments at the end where they kind of acknowledge what's going on. And that was more of a "har har" kind of laugh.

7/10

[exploited]

I'd go with 8/10 for Kingsmen, but Kane's assessment is accurate. I just liked it more.

[Kane]

I'm seeing Chappie tomorrow so I'll report back on that. I have high hopes but the premise never really enticed me that much. I'm hoping that Blomkamp can really shine is his take on Aliens.

[NAB]

Got around to seeing some of the other Oscar nominees I hadn't seen yet (one right before the awards and one a few days ago): Birdman and Whiplash.

Birdman: 7.5/10. Somewhat overrated as a whole (story), but the acting was pretty badass (over the top, but it was centered on Broadway, so that's to be expected) Ed Norton was particularly good imho.

Whiplash: 7/10. Silly premise but good acting. I've a particular bias on this one because I actually studied jazz for a brief period and the whole premise was nonsense, as was some of the "heros" the kid had (Buddy Rich, really?). The whole Charlie Parker story the movie is centered around was completely jerked with and missed what really made Parker great. Very Hollywood re-creation of course. That said, the music scenes were great and the two leads did a fine job. The kid was actually really good and did a nice understated job of showing that naïveté and singlemindedness someone at that age would have.

Still can't believe Linklater didn't get the director nod for Boyhood though. That was my personal standout film and it got stiffed for the most part. It was the one film that I saw that felt truly "real", which is a lot harder to do and requires restraint from a director rather than create the typical Oscar candidate which are usually full of overacting and over the top performances.

[micfranklin]

Just remembered I saw "Focus" on Saturday. Pretty good film, funny, very complex and kinda messy near the end though. 7.5/10

[Kane]

Chappie:

9/10 for Kane

Just a disclaimer: Kane grew up on movies about robots. Kane really really liked a movie called D.A.R.Y.L. when he was growing up - about a boy that didn't know he was actually a robot. And Short Circuit...so when I watch these movies I get a little giddy.

That said, the action in this film is pretty spot on. And watching the robot develop and adhere to its environment just as a child would is pretty awesome. I've never seen anything like it before. It does follow the now predictable plot line of most of Blomkamp's films but the deeper story that follows Chappie's development is fun to watch. I'm thinking the movie got panned for being more of the same rather than being bad altogether - expectations are loftier for Blomkamp. I didn't mind it at all. There's some blatant advertising for the PS4 that you'll see in this movie but aside from that, I didn't find anything too distracting.

[The Dharma Bum]

so... what do you think of die antwoord?