[V2] Last Movie You've Seen

Pompeii... An unintentionally hilarious and terribly twee disaster movie.

I didn't go in expecting much, but I'd read a couple of online articles that claimed that the creators had paid attention to historical accuracy when forming this movie. This turns out to be true for some details (such as the fact that Pompeians ate bread, had paintings in their houses, and there were many street-fountains), but false for many, many other big things.

As someone who has visited Pompeii itself recently, I was surprised by how small the movie made Pompeii appear, and some of the buildings seem to be completely misplaced. This is really quite lazy since a 5 minute Google search for the map of Pompeii would have fixed that. The scale is off, and also some of the aerial-view shots of Pompeii in the movie seem to place the large amphitheatre closer to the centre of the town (closer to where the theatre is in reality). At least that is how it appears in the movie when we get the occasional brief glance. The pacing of the film doesn't allow the viewer to really soak in the atmosphere of the town at all. That in itself is a wasted opportunity.

The eruption itself wasn't correct either. The movie has
giant fireballs destroying half of Pompeii (and apparently all of its inhabitants), and then an enormous tsunami sweeps through part of the town, dragging a boat through the streets with it
. The ash-fall and falling pumice stones that Pompeii's eruption is most known for were given about 5 seconds of screen time. Also, whilst the lead character
on horseback chased the chariot-riding villain through the then deserted streets of Pompeii (we're to assume that only the main characters have survived at this point) giant fissures open up in the ground, and whole sections of the town crumble away
...

Pompeii is in a much better state of preservation today than it appears within 20 minutes of the eruption in that movie. It was damaged and covered, yes, but not destroyed to the extent seen in this movie. The wonderful thing about Pompeii for us today is the brilliant state of its preservation after it was excavated, not its ultimate destruction.

As for the acting... I've seen a lot of these actors in other things, and they have been good in their other films / TV serials / etc, but in this (probably down to the script), few people seemed to have their hearts or minds in the right places. The best performance for me was Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje as an African slave-gladiator. He had his heart in the role, it seems. Somehow he managed to get on board with it. I'm a bit confused by his name though (I forget if it was explained in the movie), since he was I think called Atticus, suggesting that he's from Attica in Greece, though he's meant to be African. A slave name given to him by a former Athenian / Attic slave-owner? Who knows! It's Latin, so it sounds right!

Aside from this, many other characters were talking to each other without really talking to each other, and the script wasn't believable.

They also essentially recycled an entire scene from Gladiator.

I see what they were trying to do with this film, and I respect that there may be people who enjoyed it, but unsurprisingly for me it fell far short of being an engrossing and emotional Pompeii story. With this movie I just didn't care about any of the characters at all, Atticus aside. But it was entertaining in a b-movie sense. It actually caused me serious discomfort because the very last scene in particular was so twee, and I was in agony trying to contain my laughter so that I didn't ruin the experience for other people in the cinema.

Oh well. :argor:
 
My boyfriend Jay and I started to watch Brave the other night... neither of us were particularly enthralled and decided to stop it halfway though. :/ The trailer sets up a story which is completely different to the actual plot!

The weekend before that, we watched Life of Pi, which was a beautiful, heartwarming film. The plot was fascinating, and the plot twist at the end - which at first seemed a bit random and pointless - made one think, which is always a bonus!
 
My Way. Saw it the other night on Netflix. Great stuff, easily one of my top rated war-themed movies. Heard it's one of the most expensive South Korean film too.


 
We saw Guardians of the Galaxy at the weekend.

It was at the top end of "very good" territory, without being amazing. 8/10, I'd recommend it.
 
Was on a 4 hour drive back from Pittsburgh yesterday and I have a DVD player in my car. So the Mrs. wanted to watch something to speed up time so we popped in that new Disney movie, Frozen. It was like watching a kid how excited she was to see this movie again. haha, can't beat Disney movies on a cold night.
 
Nightcrawler
Quite possibly Jake Gyllenhaal's best performance to date. He was dark, intense and creepy which matched the tone of the film perfectly and he really lead every scene. He was morally quite ambiguous, having very good reasons for why he did some pretty disgusting and horrible things. It was also visually amazing, probably one of my favourite cinematic pieces of the year so far.

Interstellar
I've only just watched this and I'm struggling to decide what I think of it. It's definitely a great film, because Chris Nolan doesn't have it in him to make a bad one, but it really doesn't hold up at all when you apply logic. I think overall it might have been a bit of an overly ambitious film, and it sadly wasn't anywhere near as clever as it thought it was. But it was still interesting and although it unfolded a little predictably (uncharacteristic of Nolan), it still felt satisfying and rewarding by the end. It was another visually fantastic film (very characteristic of Nolan) with a great score. I did think quite early on that it would make a solid TV show, I noticed definite points where it could be broken up for one, and by the end I'm sure of that.
 
The Fourth Kind


I watched it the night before with my boyfriend,


and holy shit that movie is trippy. I was so amazed, interested, and a little confused too.

It came out in 2009, but I've never even heard of it before. I saw it on Netflix and began watching it.


I was so in love with the movie that I want to do more research over it :hmmm:


It gave me some nightmares of getting kidnapped by aliens though :gasp:

I remember watching that just because my Milla Jovovich was in it. I really liked it for the most part, even if I do find aliens in this sense a load of bollocsio. She's a great actress :griin:.

EDIT: lol I just realised how old this post was. I'll leave it here though :wacky:.
 
Wish Upon A Star (the one with Kathrine Heigl) and The Nightmare Before Christmas with the kids today. Just a chill day with games and movies, which is a nice change since I haven't had any form of entertainment lately.

@Busta Akula - Lol great movie and everything, but I am sick to death of that movie by now. My son watched it over 50 times this year.
 
Berberian Sound Studio
A fantastic little film about an English sound engineer working on an Italian horror film during the 70s who starts to feel the mental strain of working for a tough producer. It's really a film for the sound artists in the film industry; I know a few who all love the film, probably because they're the unsung heroes of film making. Rather than the usual formula applied to the horror genre, it uses sound to unsettle, disturb and throw you off what is really happening, and for a change the visuals of the film take a back seat to the sound, which is completely fair.

Kill Your Darlings
A look at the early life of Allen Ginsberg when he was at university and part of the Beat Generation, along with Lucien Carr. Daniel Radcliffe was brilliant as Ginsberg, and Dane Dehaan was even better as Carr. They had a great on-screen rapport which helped get the relationship between the two characters across. I think my biggest problem probably comes from the fact that I know so little about Ginsberg, and about poetry in general. I found that the story moved too slow, not knowing really what was happening, and that several parts felt quite pretentious, but not in the enjoyable Paul Thomas Anderson way.
 
Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade.

I of course have seen this years ago and many times, but now it's on TV so I'm enjoying his journey to find the holy grail before the Nazi's do. Great classic movie as all Indiana Jones' ones are. (Didn't care to much for the one about aliens though)
 
Stations of the Cross

Austere (it takes place in 14 'chapters' relating to the actual stations of the cross, and each chapter is one scene as a static camera shot, with one or two exceptions) but fascinating German film about a teenage girl whose family are part of a very extreme Catholic group. The girl and her mother are both terrific performances.
 
Guardians of the Galaxy

Pretty entertaining and highly recommended for fans of the Marvel Cinematic Universe.


I didn't think I would like that movie, but surprisingly I found myself chuckling throughout the movie. I wouldn't mind buying the DVD.

Last movie watched: The Hunger Games: Mockingjay, Part 1

Okay, I know a lot of people said the second movie was better. I agree, but I don't have a problem with Mockingjay, Part 1 either. I read some reviews and people thinks they could've crammed the two parts together. I'm kind of glad they didn't, but that's just me. I like long drawn-out movies even if there wasn't much action here. Jennifer Lawrence was brilliant.
 
I remember watching that just because my Milla Jovovich was in it. I really liked it for the most part, even if I do find aliens in this sense a load of bollocsio. She's a great actress :griin:.

EDIT: lol I just realised how old this post was. I'll leave it here though :wacky:.

Yes, she's a very good actress and shes hawt too. ;)
Haha well I haven't been on in ages.. so your reply is old to me too... but i'll leave it here though :wacky: :smartass:


The last movie i saw was the new Hunger Games movie. I've never read the books, but I think the movies are pretty damn good as a series.

lol I guess i'm a fan girl... but not too much xD.
 
The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies
I found it wholly underwhelming. It felt like a massive deleted scene from a two part film, which makes sense really since that's how it was originally envisioned. About 90% of the film is a one big battle scene, which isn't as cool as it sounds. This meant that it was at a constant fast pace and there was very little story actually told, and considering the majority of the story wasn't taken from the novel I found this quite annoying. I was really excited when I heard that they would be telling the story of what happened to Gandalf when he left the party but that was quite a big let down. It really doesn't feel like it was directed by the same person who directed The Lord of the Rings, and I'm really disappointed at the amount of CGI in the whole film which I found quite unconvincing at times. I'd need to watch the whole trilogy again to see what I really think, but it ain't all that.
 
I wouldn't say that it's a movie, but I watched a stand-up special on Netflix.

Jim Jefferies. Hes from Australia... apparently he has a TV show... called Bare though I never seen it because well.. I couldn't be damned.

Hes a very smart man and he's very fucking funny. I've enjoyed watching his special on Netflix. Totally worth a check out if you haven't heard of him and like his type of humor.

Heres a bit I found about gun control.
 
P.K.

Very entertaining Bollywood film, which manages to be both funny and poignant in the potshots it takes at organised religion. And there is some nice chemistry between the leads.
 
killing-them-softly.jpg



:ohoho:

What a fantastic fucking film. I mean really, how amazing. I was expecting this to be a casual-ok-film from Brad Pitt but this turned out to be one of my favorite crime films, if not one of my favorite films of all time. First things first, the directing is very beautiful. It's based on a 70s crime book but is set in 2008. I thought it was brilliant how Andrew Dominik incorporated 70s themes into the entire film. Not just the economic parallels of the 70s and 2008, but the use of gold tint-lighting, the sun-flares, even the shots chosen for the film reminded me of 70s films, the use of 70s-like clothing, even the music all incorporated the 70s' feel, which I thought was extremely talented of him to think of. :lew:

But the acting is outstanding. Scoot McNairy (Frankie) was my favorite, even over Pitt (Jackie). I just thought he outperformed everyone else, including Gandolfini (mickey) and Liotta (markie). Everyone was brilliant, but Scoot was by far my favorite. I never knew him before this film but he got my interest with the way he played this character frankie. I get that brad pitt sells and he's the man of the film (the big metaphor) but the posters should have included scoot since he's also a big metaphor. Another person worth mention is Ben Mendelsohn (russell), another actor I never knew but nonetheless blown away by. That said, Brad Pitt, to me, wasn't that eye-catching in this film until the closing moment. That entire last scene is where his acting truly shines. I mean, it is by far my favorite pitt role since Kalifornia, Se7en and Inglourious Basterds. Because to me acting is in the eyes and Pitt just fucking does that shit so well in all of these films. As for Liotta, i thought he out did Gandolfini (who i love), which I was very surprised by.

The only thing is, I wish it didn't make the economic crash so blatant as if the viewer was an idiot that wouldn't catch or understand that by themselves. I feel like the constant radio-play of the politicians was overkill. I mean, I guess he wanted everyone to understand what he was getting at but, he was directing an intelligent film so he shouldn't have played to anything else--intelligent people would have caught on to what he was doing without all those constant reminders through the film. It just felt like when a bad tv show has a flashback moment of a scene that happened in the same episode. We're not stupid, we were there, we get it.

That said, I like the overall meaning to the film. I know dominik said it was about the evils of capitalism, but as pitt put it, I think it's more about the evil side of people polluting capitalism and there not truly being capitalism. Because the entire 2008 bank bailout is the exact opposite of what capitalism is. True capitalism would have let those banks fail and allowed bigger and better corporations to take their place. Capitalism is not when you continuously help out companies that cannot handle themselves. So i don't know if dominik just has no idea what he's talking about and was merely lucky when he made this film or if he was just saying that in order for his film to not be panned by critics, and the latter makes sense to me since people started saying it was 'anti obama' with what it portrayed him as in the film. Which is absurd. It's crazy people can't take criticism even in the slightest form. Dominik also said that mob-life itself was like capitalism. Which, I thought truly showed his ignorance on the matter. Capitalism is about letting the best survive because people choose whatever goods they provide. Capitalism is about letting the best rise and the worse fail, not because puppet masters pull the strings but because the people decide what is their providers. But Dominik said that mob-life was like capitalism because both are 'greedy' and I found that extremely ignorant of him. I know he is Australian so maybe he just doesn't genuinely know what he's saying but if he chooses to be political he must actually learn what he's talking about. He sat out to make a film that shows how greedy capitalism and mob-life was, but really he ended up making a film that showcases why we need capitalism more than ever. Yes, mobsters go about their money-making illegally but he also forgot to focus on the part where money was stolen from the mob organization. That is not capitalism. That is corporatism.

For it's beautiful directing, talented cast, brilliant and historic parallel, over-kill plot reminders and over all political misstep I give it a 8/10
 
Killing Them Softly was incredible; that ending is one of my favourite ends to a film ever. I completely agree about Scoot McNairy being the star of the show because he was on top form in it, and I'm so glad because he's been worthy of recognition for a while. And the scene when Markie got beaten up was so horrifying
 
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