Movies

[Key]

Everyone should go watch Dredd, end of story.

And if you know what Dark Heresy or Warhammer 40k is you should watch it twice and squee over the arbite-ness of the whole thing.

so West what do you say to Vae and WtM going as Anderson and Dredd for Halloween

/me has totally not been planning this since februrary....

[Key]

Pitch Perfect

It was similar to any other Group hits a bumpy part in history because of tradition, so new kid comes in and remixes the vibe so it becomes awesome/teen romance.

So the storyline is generally something every knows. But the comedy was FANTASTIC, and the music was BETTER THAN THAT.

I saw it with a bunch of girls so we were dying laughing about half of the movie, and singing along, not gonna lie. But the movie was about the music, and the music was worth it.

[Mike]

Didn't catch Dredd today, had to settle for Looper. Yes it is every bit as awful as West described.

HERE COMES THE BOOM was a lot of fun to see. It follows the typical formula of a Happy Madison film. See Happy Gilmore with MMA. Critics hated this movie, just like every other movie produced by Adam Sandler. But just like everyone else who grew up watching Adam Sandler on Saturday Night Live, I love his movies and this one was no different. Kevin James gave a great performance. He portrayed a character that was hard night to like, and hard not to cheer for.

Ideally, this is a great date movie. It's funny, has a happy ending, that's not so emotional that it will make her/him cry, AND Kevin James with his shirt off won't make you look bad.

Definitely check this one out.

[Wod.Infant]

James Bond, Skyfall.

Overall, 4 out of 5

It couldn't get better in a lot of ways but it misses some of what I consider to be the key ingredients of a bond movie.

As soon as you start watching the movie you are graced with a beautiful intro, you have Adele's soundtrack made specialy for the movie and everything seems perfect. And in a lot of ways it is. The next scene is an amazing pursuit in the rooftops of the Grand Bazaar in Istambul, it's amazing and it makes you grab your sit from minute one until the end.

After watching the movie I couldn't stop but think about how much James Bond Skyfall reminds me of the Dark Knight.
We have an aging James Bond not in his top physical prowess and we have an awesome villain, which in some ways reminds us of Heath Ledger The Joker. We still have the amazing bond charm of course and we have amazing and exotic locations.

With no further ado:

Good: The entire hero feeling that James bond has, the intro, the fight and pursuit scenes are better than ever, the villain, M, Q, we get to know some stuff about Bond's past, the scenarios and places for many of the scenes are exotic and immersive.

Bad: Bond Girl plays a small role, lack of plot twist it lacks thickness and it falls short on the expectations, the less spy agent and more heroic style might turn some of the fans away from the movie, product placement.

All in all a very good movie, a nice twist in the bond series and a recommended movie for everyone, fan or not.

[West]

Cloud Atlas

A lot of things made sense when I saw the credits roll and the Wachowski Brothers' name on the movie.

This movie wants to be special, and clever, and meaningful, but isn't. There's a parallel within the movie, of the movie: the characters talk about how wonderful and special the musical "Cloud Atlas Sextet" is -- but it isn't. Just as the characters fail to convince you that a bunch of pretty notes strung together aren't extraordinary, the movie fails to convince you that a bunch of montages strung together likewise are not.

I've been told the book was good -- and hearing the book described, it seems like something that would make a better tv miniseries, or a four hour movie.

We're shown snippets of stories in different periods which are supposed to be intertwined by the evolution of souls. This is done by using the same actors, along with some bizarre ethnic swapping makeup effects. Some of the montages, I'll confess, make no sense to me. Perhaps they do in the book. I'm normally OK with this sort of movie that shows you a bunch of different things and ties them all together -- but this felt really clumsy and heavy handed. Much like being told the Cloud Atlas Sextet was amazing, using the same actors and actresses felt like force feeding.

One of my big annoyances was the future segment, where dialect ala language drift was used. This is OK in books -- it sucks in movies. I'm guessing from the future progression that asians took over the world before "The Fall" and the language drift was meant to represent pidgenspeak sing-song influence of asian languages on English? Dunno. It mostly came across as unintelligible gibberish that a five year with a mouthful of cookies would prattle.

I file this movie under "Can I have my money back?"

[Key]

West The Cloud Atlas book was deemed as "Un-filmable" in the sense that there was no real way to portray the same message and effect no matter how hard you tried. Looks like it lived up to it's charge.

What I'm wondering is does it have the plastic, over clean feeling that the Starwars Prequels had?

[Mykel]

Ben Bailey - Road Rage

Another find on Netflix, but this time I would recommend not fast forwarding. Ben Bailey is most famous as the host of Cash Cab; but he does a wonderful stand up act too. Very different from the persona on the tv show, and funny as hell. If you like stand up, give it a shot. The best part is, of course, at the end when he talks about road rage on the set of his show.

"What the hell is wrong with you? You're a tv host..."

[West]

Total Recall

I apologize for this review in advance, because it's a collection of thoughts rather than an actual "review" proper.

This movie kind of sucks.
I may or may not have fallen asleep.
Kate B makes a pretty cool villain. Then again, I love the whole villain-accent-switch ever since Alan Rickman immortalized it in Die Hard.
It's entirely possible Len Wiseman would be a jobless nobody without being able to cast his wife in movies.
It felt like any other "We're going to run run run run run" movie.
It's quite possibly the most boring treatment of a PKD to date.
Even with Beckinsale, I enjoyed the first one more... and I'll watch anything with Kate in it.

It's not kid friendly; violence aside, you don't really want your kid to have to sit through this. That's just mean.

[Chrisie]

The Mortal Instruments poster does look cool too!