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Posted: |
Aug 18, 2010 - 8:54 PM
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By: |
Michael24
(Member)
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Sharpe's Rifles - 4/5
I've wanted to check this British series out for a long time now, ever since I read about it after first seeing Sean Bean in Goldeneye. Today I finally got around to seeing Sharpe's Rifles, the first in the series. The DVD looks like little more than a VHS transfer, but presentation quality aside, I really enjoyed it. The "new guy must earn the respect of his soldiers" theme wasn't as boringly-cliched as I usually find it, the story was intriguing, the period costumes were good (love Sharpe's dark green officer's uniform), and Sean Bean was great. I'm looking forward to continuing on with the series and already have the second installment, Sharpe's Eagles, waiting in my Netflix queue.
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Posted: |
Aug 20, 2010 - 2:56 PM
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By: |
DeputyRiley
(Member)
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****WARNING: THE FOLLOWING HAS ADULT LANGUAGE****
There is no way to express my hatred of this movie without swearing.
Piranha 3D -- 1/10
I fucking HATED, HATED, HATED, HATED, HATED this movie. STAY AWAY FROM THIS MOVIE AT ALL COSTS. I was just about running away from the theater, I couldn't get away from this horrible moviegoing experience fast enough. I lasted an hour into it, and I tried so very hard to stay in my seat but ultimately it became impossible and I stormed out of the theater. I have NEVER walked out of a movie before. As I was walking away from my seat, I wanted to shout to the other audience members (about 3 people), "What the fuck are you still doing here?" The final straw in this movie that made me flee for my sanity was a scene of two piranha fighting over a severed penis...and fighting...and fighting..."Hey look public! I was able to film piranha eating a penis! Isn't that a great time?!" This is probably the worst movie I have ever seen in my entire life. I wanted to stand up in the theater with a 12-gauge and blow the screen to pieces. The movie was 3D, so of course I ended up wasting $10 instead of $6 or $7. It wasn't my mood, either...I got to the ticket counter and got my ticket and 3D glasses, and since I was one of the first audience members I got a free Piranha 3D beach tanktop and inflatable beach ball. I thought that was a great silly gimmick, and I was eagerly anticipating the movie. I had an idea what I was in for, just a fun, gory movie with some nudity, perhaps a carefree exercise in excess. The movie started up and I was digging the 3D underwater footage. I was in a great mood. For the next hour, my great mood slowly devolved into a rancid mood. The movie not only contained gore and nudity, but GORE GORE GORE GORE GORE GORE and NUDITY NUDITY NUDITY NUDITY NUDITY NUDITY. Yes, I would classify this as a porno film, make no mistake about it. I don't mind excessive violence or nudity, I love all kinds of horror films, but this was the most vulgar, wretched, disgusting, not-fun movie of all time. There were stretches of soft-core porn that made me want to pull my hair out, they had nothing to do with the movie and made everyone involved look like imbecilic horny drunk college freshmen with about 4 brain cells. No story, no likeable characters, 5 seconds of exposition, otherwise "Hey everybody, come see my movie! I've crammed more breasts into my movie than any movie in history, and it's my finest achievement!" The violence was repulsive and depressing and more over-the-top than Hostel & Saw combined, on acid and steroids, made by a 5-year old. I'd rather watch Friday the 13th Part VIII: Jason Takes Manhattan, a movie which I previously despised but compared to this I will proudly enjoy for years to come. Every single character in Piranha 3D, I mean every single one was a fucking MORON. It briefly made me ashamed to be a human, and I was usually cheering on the piranha. I really like Elisabeth Shue and Adam Scott, but -- WHAT THE FUCK WERE YOU THINKING??? Shame on you, Christopher Lloyd. You come out of retirement for this shit? Dreyfuss, what the hell are you on? Dina Meyer was in it, an actress I really like...she had about, oh, 10 seconds screen time. The movie just showed breasts, breasts, breasts, breasts, until it was laughably ridiculous. I have other ideas of where to go if I want to watch a porno. There is an underwater soft-core lesbian scene, shot in glorious slo-mo 3D, scored to the classical piece "Viens Mallika Sous Le Dome" that made me grimace This movie only gets one star because it had some impressive underwater 3D footage. Otherwise, it is worthless, worthless, worthless sub-trash. I would write more but I am ready to repress any memory of watching this movie from my brain thoroughly and forevermore. GRRRRRRRR.....
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Posted: |
Aug 20, 2010 - 3:43 PM
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By: |
mastadge
(Member)
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Since my last update:
Mifune (Mifunes sidste sang / Mifune's Last Song) (1999) by Søren Kragh-Jacobsen -- The third Dogme film. Not a movement I particularly love, but this movie was pretty good. Kresten (Anders W. Berthelsen) is a newlywed yuppie when his father, whom he hasn't seen in years, dies. He returns from the city to his father's dilapidated farm to take care of estate arrangements and his mentally ill brother Rud (Jesper Asholt), and puts an ad in the paper for a housekeeper. Liva (Iben Hjejle), a hooker who's got a creepy stalker and wants to find other work, but needs to support her little brother Bjarke (Emil Tarding), takes the job. And it all goes predictably from there. It's a well-written, well-acted movie, mostly pretty charming, and the rural Danish location is pleaant, but it has a couple frustrating instances of people going immediately berserk upon seeing what looks like a bad situation. You know where it's going, but it's a pleasant journey to get there. (****)
The Good Heart (2009) by Dagur Kári -- Brian Cox is wonderful as Jacques, an ornery, aggressively hateful old crank of a bartender. In the hospital for his fifth heart attack, he meets Lucas (Paul Dano), a homeless young man who's too nice for his own good. Jacques decides that Lucas will work for him, learn to run the bar so the business will go on after he dies. It could have been a simple story of Jacques growing a heart and Lucas growing some guts, and in large part it is, but it's very well done, occasionally quite painful, and often very funny. The ending is a bit predictable but the movie was a nice surprise. (****)
Greenberg (2010) by Noah Baumbach -- Ben Stiller demonstrates once again that he has some chops when he's not cooing in a baby voice. He manages to make an extremely unsympathetic character watchable as he plays Roger Greenberg, a neurotic, self-centered, abusive man recently out of an asylum following a nervous breakdown, who's now attempting to "do nothing" in his rich brother's house while his brother's family is on a six-week vacation to Vietnam. Florence (Greta Gerwig) is the brother's housekeeper, who's agreed to be available should Greenberg need help -- with the dog, with groceries, whatever. She's all too believable as a 25-year-old pushover, needy and codependent and much too nice, who likes Greenberg despite his continuous abuse -- after all, he had a breakdown, so it's not his fault, and isn't it admirable how he's not participating in the rat race of society, and anyway she can tell he's trying to be more sensitive, right? This movie makes some very funny observations, and is well made and well-acted -- Rhys Ifans is in it, too, and is quite good -- but there was just very little in the characters that I really cared enough about to make their bad relationship worth my time. Also, in the fashion of contemporary literary short fiction, the movie doesn't have an end so much as it just stops without resolution or conviction, which is a trend I don't care for. (**½)
Scott Pilgrim vs. the World (2010) by Edgar Wright -- Not entirely sure how I feel about this one. I enjoyed it a great deal, but not as much as I'd hoped to. I'm impressed by how well they compressed all six volumes into under two hours, but wish that Kieran Culkin and Alison Pill had gotten more screentime. I was a little worried about Cera, but, while neither quite as clueless nor quite as charming as Scott Pilgrim is in the book, he did fine; Mary Elizabeth Winstead, on the other hand, let the movie down a bit. She just didn't have much character, and so I wasn't quite able to buy their relationship. To me her aloofness/distance came off as boredom and lack of passion. That said, this is a jam-packed movie with a ton of fun characters. It's often hilarious, and the most deliciously kaleidoscopic visual feast since Speed Racer. Sounds great, too, though the theater had the volume levels jacked up too high. It lives in its own preposterous cinematic world, which it sells utterly and without wink or apology. So, yeah, a lot of fun; if it had delivered on the romance that's the heart of the story it could have been great, but that one aspect didn't work. (****)
The Other Guys (2010) by Adam McKay -- I'm not a huge fan of McKay's comedies, so I know I shouldn't be disappointed. But, after hearing so many friends talking about how funny it is, I am. Will Ferrell has some very funny lines -- the lion/tuna joke is the funniest thing I've heard in ages -- but Marky Mark simply isn't funny at all, not on his own and not as a foil to Ferrell. The running gags get old fast, many of the jokes simply aren't funny. I didn't hate the movie, even if the nonstop homophobia got on my nerves, and I'm not sorry I saw it, but it wasn't nearly funny enough to make it worth watching again. (**)
Lagaan: Once upon a time in India (2001) by Ashutosh Gowariker -- Widely (though not incontestably) acclaimed as Bollywood's finest hour. I can't confirm that, as it's the only Bollywood film I've ever seen, but I can say that it's glorious. Set in British colonized India in the 1890s, the plot is simple: despite the fact that there's a drought running into the rainy season, the British have mandated double taxes (lagaan) -- which the villagers cannot pay. A reckless youth hits on the British commander's pride, and a deal is made: a game of Cricket, Indians vs British, with the outcome to determine whether the villagers have to pay lagaan. Running nearly four hours, the movie does not feel long: it keeps moving, switching effortlessly from tense to hilarious. It's colorful, the songs are memorable and well-choreographed, the characters are a lot of fun, the villains are old-school villainy, there's love and betrayal and messages of racial and social tolerance, and all in all it's just a magnificently satisfying and fun film. (****½)
White Sun of the Desert (????? ?????? ???????) (1970) by Vladimir Motyl -- Apparently a Soviet classic, this is a film, an Leone-ish "eastern" about a man (Anatoli Kuznetsov) on his way across the desert back home to his wife when he stumbles across a situation involving a band of counterrevolutionary bandits. Being a good Soviet, he does his duty without complaint and ends up taking on the bandits with the help only of Sayid (Spartak Mishulin), a man-with-no-name sort whose life he saved in the desert, and a young incompetent soldier with a malfunctioning rifle. This is a rather clumsy, low-budget looking film even by the standards of the time, but it's charming and amusing (sometimes downright funny), the actors are good, and, at 80 minutes, doesn't outstay its welcome as many Soviet classics do. (***½)
Fat City (1972) by John Huston -- "Maybe we're all happy." Stacy Keach as a washed-up bum of an ex-boxer, Jeff Bridges as a young boxer whom we know will have a struggle not to be Keach ten years down the line. This is powerful, masterful stuff that manages to convey hopelessness without making you want to slit your wrists. This is actually the first Huston film I've seen -- for whatever reason I skew toward seeing a bunch of new stuff rather than seeking out older classics -- but it will not be the last. This is a very humanistic movie that really gets under your skin and stays there. (****½)
The Losers (2010) by Sylvain White -- A reasonably fun action film of the variety where maybe one shot in a hundred lasts more than three seconds and the score (by John Ottman) isn't bad but never shuts up. It's a team movie, and the team has decent enough chemistry, although a little more kick-ass professionalism and a little less cracking wise would have been welcome. Honestly, this movie has some problems: Jason Patric as the villain can't decide whether he wants to be a Euro-slick Bond villain or a parody of same, and either way isn't all that threatening; his henchman Holt McCallany is also far too boring. A crack team just isn't worth that much unless there's a decent threat for them to counter, and a jokester in a white suit and an army of generic guards don't cut it. Also, Zoe Saldana is awful as, well, whatever her character is -- the movie doesn't seem quite sure what to make of her, or what to do with her, other than have her participate in an arbitrary gratuitous fight scene and then an equally gratuitous soft sex scene. Still, the team is likeable enough, the film doesn't take itself too seriously, and on the whole it's a decent action movie, certainly much better than Predators. (***½)
Cop Out (2010) by Kevin Smith -- Don't know what went wrong here, but this is just awful. I mean, Tracy Morgan's usually obnoxious so I kind of expected this to be pretty bad, but there's one single funny moment in this entire comedy, and not a single interesting or exciting or sexy thing happens. This is just an absolute waste of a couple hours with no redeeming qualities, no reason to be glad I've seen it. One of the worst films of the year for sure. (½)
Huh. I'm not sure a single one of these movies passes the Bechdel test.
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Deputy, after your rant about the new PIRANHA movie I've decided not to spend 10 dollars going to see it, but it's going to be the first film I rent on DVD when it comes out.
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Posted: |
Aug 21, 2010 - 9:26 AM
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By: |
DeputyRiley
(Member)
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Deputy, after your rant about the new PIRANHA movie I've decided not to spend 10 dollars going to see it, but it's going to be the first film I rent on DVD when it comes out.
Yeah, sorry, I did rant a bit, but I wanted to share how negatively the movie affected me. If I'm going to go off on a rant, it should be for the worst movie I've ever seen. I went in expecting fun, silly trash, not the kind of excruciatingly joyless trash that insults my intelligence. Since seeing the movie, I have asked myself, "What's your problem, Deputy? What did you expect from this movie anyway? Why does it disgust you so?" For one thing, as much as I love women, I cannot stand the soulless abomination that is "Girls Gone Wild," and Piranha 3D is essentially a 90-minute "Girls Gone Wild" 2 a.m. infomercial with some piranha attacks thrown in. I don't enjoy watching, nor do I root for, vapid, vacuous youth of America shakin' their shit for 2/3 of the movie. Apparently it's getting relatively decent reviews and the Yahoo users' average rating is a B (or B+), so I might be in the minority, and I certainly don't judge those that enjoy that movie. After all, I'm a staunch defender of the Saw movies and Texas Chainsaw Massacre remakes, so I know a little bit about thoroughly enjoying horror movies most people despise, and if enjoying those movies has taught me anything, it's that everybody has different taste and can enjoy them for reasons that aren't apparent on the surface. I will emphasize, however, that one should definitely go see Piranha 3D if they want to get their rocks off seeing the most tasteless nudity-and-sex-obsessed horror movie in history. It's hard not to say something like that without coming across as a puritanical prude, which is definitely not the case at all, but I think if you see the movie you'll understand what I mean -- a time and place for everything.
My inflammatory reaction to the film might be a good example of "there's no such thing as bad press," so maybe Alexandre Aja may end up having the last laugh. And yes, I do see the humorous irony in a movie I despise so much eliciting such a verbose reaction on my part. Henceforth it shall be banished from my mind!
But still, worst movie I've ever seen.
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Very nicely expressed, Deputy. I've decided not to rent it on DVD either now. That would have been 2 hours of my life I could never get back. Cheers!
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