Rate the last movie you watched out of 10

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My main argument against tokenism or complaints about casts lacking in variety is that physical appearance aside, I don't think there's the damndest bit of difference. I don't see why a rough, tough person or a meek, gentle person can't fill exactly the same role in a story regardless of their gender. To use Rui's example, would Bilbo behave any differently if he was female? No, because it would still be Bilbo. Changing a character's gender wouldn't change their personality, so I really don't think it matters.
 
ayase said:
My main argument against tokenism or complaints about casts lacking in variety is that physical appearance aside, I don't think there's the damndest bit of difference. I don't see why a rough, tough person or a meek, gentle person can't fill exactly the same role in a story regardless of their gender. To use Rui's example, would Bilbo behave any differently if he was female? No, because it would still be Bilbo. Changing a character's gender wouldn't change their personality, so I really don't think it matters.
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Well they did kind of have tokenism anyway because the Cate Blanchett character isn't in the book. Like I said I suppose the fault is probably more with the books than the film.
 
Thirst

8.5/10

Best Vampire film. Park Chan-Wook's best film too, just manages to edge out Oldboy. I think it's a more accomplished film than anything else he's done and has me all the more excited for his upcoming English language directorial debut. His work has such a lovely quality to it, it's so visually pleasing at times.
 
Well they did kind of have tokenism anyway
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Tokenism in Tolkienism? sacre bleu!

I'm not sure I'm going to bother with The Hobbit personally, due to the fact that I'm not a big fan of Tolkienism (or Tokenism), I was unable to get on board the hype train for the LOTR movies either (no matter how many people told me they loved them and have watched them a bajillion times) and found them distinctly boring. I think the only things I could genuinely appreciate in them were the special effects. Though it's not surprising, I never got more than about 100 (probably less if I'm honest) pages into the first book before giving up on it.

I saw The Man With The Iron Fists the other day, which is Rza (of Wu tang Clan's) first attempt at directing an old school martial arts movie. It's not great. It does nearly nothing well. The story is..well I'll be honest, I don't know what the story was, as far as I could tell it was just a hodgepodge of embarrassing one liners and poorly choreographed fight scenes. It still could have been a great movie if the one liners were just a tad less embarrassing and old, and if the fights were a lot better, but alas it wasn't to be. Still, it has a better cast than you'd expect....well it has Russell Crowe in it anyway. I'm actually impressed that Crowe was willing to say some of his more cringe-worthy lines, such as: "Shall I stick this babies arm inside you now", and while holding some kind of metallic dildo "Shall we play a game and find out which of you ladies are good Catholics and which are heathens". Obviously to a certain extent Rza knows this is awful, and he's clearly going for some kind of tongue-in-cheek 5th rate Tarantino knock off. It's not all bad though, the dialogue, script and acting are at times so poor that it brought a genuine smile to my face. I also found the segment of the movie that charts Rza's journey from escaping the plantation through to winding up shipwrecked on some kind of Shoalin monastery full of metaphorically colour blind monks, to be genuinely touching and sincere in it's own way, even if it was executed very poorly. Also Lucy Liu and Jamie Chung are in the movie and they're always pretty to look at. Though, when I say Jamie Chung is in the movie, I mean in a couple of scenes she's sort of just there, she's the main love interest in the movie but I don't recall her even speaking, I don't think she was even required to give any emotive facial expressions...

5/10 for the effort nonetheless.
 
vashdaman said:
I'm not sure I'm going to bother with The Hobbit personally, due to the fact that I'm not a big fan of Tolkienism (or Tokenism), I was unable to get on board the hype train for the LOTR movies either (no matter how many people told me they loved them and have watched them a bajillion times) and found them distinctly boring. I think the only things I could genuinely appreciate in them were the special effects. Though it's not surprising, I never got more than about 100 (probably less if I'm honest) pages into the first book before giving up on it.
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I tried reading LOTR after the first film came out, but honestly couldn't get into it. I found the descriptions of nature to be overbearing and superfluous, while nature is a key theme I still thought it was too much. I was much more interested in reading about adventures and battles, not how majestically the dew drops on a specific species of flower glisten. If I tried to read it again now I'd probably just skim those bits. But, yeah, if you're not a fan of the LOTR films then The Hobbit film isn't going to change that.
 
I think it's probably the fact that Tolkien's ideas had already been used and reused to death before I was even born. I was bored of Dwarfs and Elfs and white wizards and sweeping battles against Orc hordes before I even knew who Tolkien was. So when I did finally get around to trying to read the seminal work, I found it an absolute snooze fest. I found the films no better, people kept banging on about how epic they were, but I could have happily sleept through any of them.
 
Hard Boiled

Picked this up pre-owned out of HMV a couple of months ago (with a number of other films I'm only now getting round to watch), stuck it on last night only to find out that this version is only in dubbed English. I can't watch live action dubbed, turned it off after a couple minutes and it's getting traded back to them.

Ichi The Killer

5/10

I watched this instead. Like a lot of Miike's stuff it's exceptionally hit and miss. The typical over the top violence he brings to it is always fun, but his frenetic, frenzied style of jumping around the plot doesn't help with this film. It fails to command your attention and really draw you in at any time. Also, going by the cover and brief clips I'd seen I was under the impression that Kikihara was actually the titular Ichi.
 
The Shinjuku Incident

6/10

It gets a bit ridiculous at times, but overall it's fairly enjoyable and interesting, does enough to hold your attention. Jie has to be on of the unluckiest characters in film, in the space of two minutes he has two scenes getting the snot beat out of him because he's not cut out for the world of crime.
 
Professor Irony said:
Do try and pick up a subbed copy if you can.
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Yeah, I'm gonna try to at some point.

Battle Royale

7/10

Good fun in its over the top and violent approach, but I was expecting actually a bit more in terms of ridiculous violence.
 
Jack Reacher

8/10

Despite Cruise not being "6 foot 5 with hands like supermarket chickens" he was pretty convincing in the role, but then I've enver read the books so can't compare. Still, he put himself across very well in being able to do what he did. Biggest applause has to go to Christopher McQuarrie though, as I thought the direction and writing were both excellent. I thought the atmosphere was built extremely well throughout, not surprising considering this was the man who wrote The Usual Suspects, and it was refreshing to see fight scenes that were clear and concise, were you could actually see what was going on.

I was pleasantly surprised how much I enjoyed this.

Oh, one last thing, or make that two: Cleavage shots of Rosamund Pike :oops: .
 
Das Experiment

6/10

It feels a bit "made for Tv-movie" production wise at times and could do without the whole "romance" angle. Seriously, they meet for about 10 minutes, have a shag and then decide to long after one another for the rest of the movie as if they're soulmates. Actually, I think it's more just the woman is a complete bunny boiler as he doesn't spend much time thinking about her, whereas she desperately tries to find him, breaks into his flat and decides to just start living there while he's away. Despite all that nonsense it's still a pretty interesting movie.
 
Into The Abyss

5/10

There's some tremendously emotional moments, but the documentary fails to hold a strong narrative I feel. I found myself not really paying attention for periods.

Killer Joe

8.5/10

Yeah, this is still just as awesome second time around, definitely in my top 5 of 2012 (thus far...yes, the actual year is over but the release of films here from then isn't eg. Les Miserable, Django Unchained, etc.).
 
Batman: Year One
I enjoyed this, but...there were no redeemable characters whatsoever. Everyone was a massive douchebag, just at different degrees. What didn't help Bruce Wayne was, the only scene he had where he shown any emotion...was when he was deliberately trying to come across as a misogynistic oath xD

Also, how the feck is everyone so damn muscular? I bet even Barbara Gordon could have kicked the asses of most guys in the street.

I enjoyed it, but couldn't find any appealing qualities in any of the characters.

5/10
 
Joshawott said:
I enjoyed this, but...there were no redeemable characters whatsoever. Everyone was a massive douchebag, just at different degrees.
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Welcome to the world of Frank Miller (at least, before his shades of grey outlook turned to one of black and white and he too became a massive douchebag). While I have yet to see the animated adaptation, Year One remains my favourite Batman title - I love how morally grey it is.
 
ayase said:
Joshawott said:
I enjoyed this, but...there were no redeemable characters whatsoever. Everyone was a massive douchebag, just at different degrees.
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Welcome to the world of Frank Miller (at least, before his shades of grey outlook turned to one of black and white and he too became a massive douchebag). While I have yet to see the animated adaptation, Year One remains my favourite Batman title - I love how morally grey it is.
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I kinda appreciated it for what it was doing (Batman never really has struck me as a good guy beating bad guy with love and justice kinda title anyway), but the lack of any redeemable qualities in characters made it hard to find a hook to get emotionally invested in it. I thought Jim Gordon's actions (such as beating that corrupt cop and leaving him naked in the snow) were over the top, but sorta justified (not like that same guy and a mob beat him a baseball bat or anything. But cheating on his wife was where he drew the line with me.
 
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ayase said:
Welcome to the world of Frank Miller (at least, before his shades of grey outlook turned to one of black and white and he too became a massive douchebag). While I have yet to see the animated adaptation, Year One remains my favourite Batman title - I love how morally grey it is.
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Agreed!

On all accounts, including loving the comic but yet to see this adaptation, though I have been meaning too so I'm a bit disappointed to hear you didn't like it, Josh. I'll get round to seeing it (and The Dark Knight Returns adaptations) eventually. If you want a great Batman DC animated film then I'd highly recommend Under The Red Hood, which features John DiMaggio giving a superb performance as The Joker.

Anyway, today I seen:

The Impossible

6/10

The water effects for the tsunami were brilliant (first time I've ever wrote the words 'tsunami' and 'brilliant' in the same sentence), so too was the body horror stuff. Seriously, whoever did the effects for this film get them working on a decent horror production now! There was something weird about the opening scene, it was almost as if the entire thing had been dubbed in post, it just looked and sounded a little off. Better than I thought, but still tries to forcefully yank at the heartstrings. The whole 'they just missed each other' moments are just about always pretty awful and hackneyed in films, in my opinion. I actually had to laugh a bit that the Americans were portrayed as being unhelpful dicks who were more concerned about talking to a manager to complain, while the Europeans were totally helpful and caring.
 
Joshawott said:
I kinda appreciated it for what it was doing (Batman never really has struck me as a good guy beating bad guy with love and justice kinda title anyway), but the lack of any redeemable qualities in characters made it hard to find a hook to get emotionally invested in it.
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And really, we have Miller and Year One to thank for that. So much of what the characters are to today is owed to that book - The Nolan movies certainly wouldn't have existed in the form they do for a start. As for
Gordon's affair, I have such an uneasy relationship with the idea of relationships as they exist for the majority of people in the world today that my thoughts probably wouldn't mean much to anyone else
. Though I suppose I do think that expecting any particular individual to be above doing things you consider morally wrong (or being disappointed when they do) is a little naive. I wouldn't be surprised if Miller got flak for that at the time though, he certainly got plenty for the first depiction of Catwoman as a prostitute - But these things which for some tarnished these characters simply made them more human to me.
 
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A handy distraction from real work.

Predators (2010)

Ignoring both the risible 'AVP' films and (sadly) the much-maligned Predator 2, this Robert Rodriguez-penned third entry seeks to do for the original Predator what Jim Cameron did for Alien.

The idea is quite interesting, abducting a handful of elite warriors (and Topher Grace) from earth to be hunted as sport by the Predators on an alien world. In practice, however, it merely feels like a shinier retread of the first film, sadly lacking both its suspense and snappy dialogue.

Predator 2 was not a good film, but it did have a furious sense of invention, which might have really helped things here. Instead, our identikit killers (and Topher Grace) wander around the forests, slowly being picked off by their alien foes in much the same fashion we've seen many times before.

As an entirely predictable time-waster, it is still quite watchable though. Adrien Brody snarls well as the gnarled hero, Alice Braga is thoroughly winsome as a glamorous IDF sniper, and Topher Grace, er... and Topher Grace.

Essentially, Predators is a handsome B-movie that boasts plenty of action and good special effects work, just don't expect it to linger in the mind after the credits roll. And Topher Grace.
 
It's not so much that I didn't like Year One, it's just that I found it hard to relate or grow attached to any of the characters, so instead of getting me emotionally invested in the story, it felt more like that I was watching it through a window or something (which I kinda was, but ssh). That kept me from thinking it was amazing. I guess it would work better in a printed form than in something as "absorbing" as a movie.

I do agree that characters having more morally ambiguous sides to them can help make them more human (hell, how many of us have watched anime illegally at one point?). I guess in this particular instance, Miller did try and distance us from it by making his wife a minor character anyway. Seriously, most of her appearances are her lying in bed asleep.

As for Under The Red Hood, that's actually next on my list.
 
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