Halx

Speed Racer - 8/10
I liken this movie to 300. It is mostly a string of great action sequences punctuated by motivational epithets. Once you realize that this is just the live-action version of a cheesy old cartoon, you will enjoy it. Despite the monkey.

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Moyaboy

I just watched P.S. I love You.

Very sweet movie. Defintely good dialogue. I'm not a fan of Hillary Swank, but Gerard Butler does a great job in this movie.

My favorite character from the movie is Harry Conick Jr., best lines in the movie.

8/10

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ironpham

From Dusk til Dawn 12/10

All I have to say is they had Cheech play THREE DIFFERENT CHARACTERS.

guthmund

Coincidentally,the same last two movies I've seen--excluding Iron Man, which I've already talked about elsewhere--are Juno and Sweeny Todd...two d's? Who cares?

I'm with you on Juno. It was kind of cute and I laughed a couple of times, but the majority of my time was spent deciphering the whipbangfastsnapdialog and wondering where I could find people who were comparably hip, trendy and or hipster cool to hang out with and discuss obscure horror movies, proper punk rock roots and wear trendy/indie clothing. I'm going lower though because Ellen Page was so very annoying....4/10

I didn't have any problem with the audio on Sweeny. It was a nice enough movie as far as Tim Burton movies go... I just wish they'd written more lyrics to some of the songs. The opening bit was fantastic, quick, witty and very catchy. Then to be followed by 15 minutes of some creepy looking guy singing "IIIIIIIIIIIIIII'MMMMMMMMMMMMM AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAT YOOOOOUUUURRR WIIIIIIIIINNNNNNDOOOOOWWWWWW!!!!!!!" to some creepy looking girl was bit off putting. Pretty good despite that all that 7/10.

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highthief

Iron Man - 8.5/10.

From a movie I had no expectations of when it first premiered this is a really good result. The character lacks the cachet of the big name superheros like Batman or Spider-Man, yet the writers built a really good story out of Iron Man's beginings with a lot of good, light hearted moments. Well played by the cast and director.

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Halx

Charlie Wilson's War - 8/10
This was an enjoyable drama. The women made it more interesting than it should have been. I felt they improperly used a montage where the movie's climax should have been. Then again, what can you do if it is based off of real life?

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RetroGunslinger

Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull - 5/10

It started off alright, but as the film went on it just became a looney tune version of National Treasure 2, with some War of the Worlds and The Mummy mixed in for just the right amount of suck. I took Lucas' advice and didn't compare it to the first three, but that just made it a stand-alone bad movie. The chase scenes were good and the actors did very well, but other than that there's nothing worth watching here. Quite possibly the second biggest letdown of all time, right under Spider-Man 3.

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Willravel

RGS, I disagree. Strongly.


What's more entertaining than Iron Man, more visually stimulating than Speed Racer, has a sense of nostalgia better than fifty Chronicles of Narnia? Dr. Henry Jones, Jr., of course. Indiana Jones 4 has everything I was hoping for and a lot more. I won't give away anything, but as a real die-hard Indiana Jones fan, I left the theater completely satisfied.

Except for one small, tiny, insignificant thing. A thing that goes by the name of Shia. Or Shiuh. Or Shiyuh. I'm not 100% sure. Spoiler: It's not that I didn't want to give him a chance. I did. But there comes a point when even legends like Spielberg and Lucas aren't able to see that a young actor can't shoulder the weight they expect. Shia was perfect in Transformers, where we needed a relatable character. The SON of Indiana Jones? No. I'm afraid that role, or rather that fedora, is far too big for Shia. Maybe in a few years, when he has developed more as an actor, but not yet. It may simply be that the person for this role doesn't exist, which would be sad, but I suspect there were better choices out there, among the 3ish billion males.

But seriously, aside from that it was everything. Sweeping cereal epic with John Williams taking us back to childhood, where we learned what it meant to be a hero.

dirtyrascal7

To those of you who have already seen IJ4 -- was there really as much CGI in the movie as it appeared in the previews? To me, the IJ series is about good (albeit cheesy) LIVE action stunts and special effects. A CGI-filled Jones movie is just... wrong.

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Willravel

There was really only one part, the climax, and it seemed just fine.

Don't worry, Speilberg knows how to keep Lucas in line.

guyy

I saw "Stranger than fiction". Wierd movie. It seemed to want to challenge Hollywood convention, but then backed out. I think it's OK to go further, even in Hollywood. I liked that the director had Dustin Hoffman under control. He does well in these sorts of roles. And i agreed with the prof that Will Ferrel had to die.

Speaking of characters dying and Hollywood convention, why can't we have a Hollywood dogma that has the Robin Williams character die a painful death somewhere early in the film?

MexicanOnABike

the Three Burials of Melquiades Estradas

Great movie!! I'm surprised I never heard of it before last week. it starts off in a weird way where you have no idea what is happening but it's later explained in a ton of flash backs. which is something I like in movies.

If you enjoyed or like the movie style of No Country For Old Men, then you should like this movie. just make sure you have subtitles on. it's half in english and the other half in spanish. The movie takes place from texas to mexico.

I won't say too much about the story but you pretty much see a couple of hunter find a dead guy(similar to no country) and it gets complcated and weird after that.

The acting is top notch from everyone and tommyleejones finally played a different role than a police officer!!

overall, I really liked the movie and rate it a solid: 8/10

--------------------------

I would also like to point out that for anyone using Firefox, you should get this extension: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/2477 called the imdb preview. anywhere theres a link on any page linking to IMDB or even on there, you can see info on the movie or actor without clicking on their name. so as I did three times in my review, all you would have to do is do a mouse over to see what the links are. fun eh?!

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balderdash111

Wow, I couldn't disagree more.

I saw IJ4 last night and was disappointed. I didn't hate it, but I did not particularly enjoy it, either.

It lacked the joy of the prior films (sorry George, if you don't want us to compare, then don't use the same characters), and required a suspension of disbelief even I found difficult to manage (come on - Spoiler: swinging on vines in the jungle, only to suddenly swing out through a hole EXACTLY into the car as it drives past?.

I've been trying to figure out what was wrong with the movie, and I think it comes down to a few things:

Spoiler:
The MacGuffin (Sp?) - It needed to be better, more compelling, and a bigger secret. I think what needed to happen was to have the skull itself be the object of the search, rather than a tool to get there. The final city was underwhelming. Think of the prior movies - the ark, the stones (weak, imo), the grail - they were objects you found at the end of the film, not some location.

The set pieces - the opening warehouse was pretty good, though I think went off the tracks (pun intended) when they got to the rocket sled. The motorcycle was good. The jungle was AWFUL - too contrived, too CGI. I agree with what someone said earlier - part of the appeal of the Indy movies
was the sense of realism and human scale. You lost both in this film

Cate Blanchett - unwatchable.

Script - lacked the punch and wry humor of the prior versions. There were some attempts to reignite that, but it came off as forced. Maybe that's the actors' faults, however.

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jewels

Awake - 5/10

It could have been good, but when I figured it out within a half hour in, the movie lost all suspense and fun for me.

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Martian

V For Vendetta:

I know, I know. I'm very late to the party. The thing is, hype makes me suspicious. When people tell me that a film is totally mind-bendingly awesome and changed their life and gave their girlfriend an orgasm she'll never forget I tend to disbelieve them because it has been my experience that most people are full of shit. I thought Fight Club was a giant wank-a-thon that shat all over the wonderfully written story by Chuck Palahniuk, I figured out the shocking twist of the Sixth Sense fifteen minutes in (he got shot in the opening scene and we're supposed to be surprised that he's dead?) and I thought The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe was about half an hour longer than it needed to be.

So when the teeming masses began raving abo0ut V For Vendetta I said 'I'll take your word for it' and moved on with my life. I realize that taking this policy may cause me to occasionally miss out on a gem, but for the most part I'm okay with it.

When I stumbled across this DVD in the bargain bin for $5 however I figured I couldn't really go wrong. After all, you can't even rent a movie for that much these days and it's one of those lovely two disc deals, so I figured if I hated it at least I'd get a nice matching set of coasters out of the deal.

I've spent three paragraphs justifying my decision not to see V For Vendetta when it was originally released and part of that is because I feel like an idiot. Mostly, though, it's because I just have no words to describe this film. I want to say things like gripping, intense, and beautiful but these words are all cliched and essentially meaningless. Instead I will relate this anecdote.

About forty-five minutes in I felt an unfamiliar sensation, a sort of tightness in my chest. I thought briefly that it might be a heart attack but decided to wait it out because I really didn't want to have to miss any of the action. That's when I realized what it was; I was actually wholly absorbed in the story. It's been so long since a film has had that effect on me that I'd forgotten what it feels like, but V For Vendetta did it.

10/10

The Hulk

Hoo boy. I found this one in the same bargain bin, and I thought how bad can it be? Bruce Banner gets angry, gives someone an intense look and then Hulk Smash. It's pretty hard to stuff this up. Or so I thought.

The problem with The Hulk is that it tries to be more than it is. Ang Lee has attempted to flesh out the story with explorations of humanity and fathers and sons and daughters and all that happy horse shit. That's all well and good and many a great film has been made using these premises, but the problem here is that an intellectual journey runs counter to everything Hulk is about.

The result is... well, painful would probably be the most accurate way to describe it. The characters are all completely one dimensional and not at all developed and the story meanders aimlessly and stops in a meadow to pick wildflowers from time to time with seemingly no urgency to reach any sort of identifiable climax. This is exacerbated by the cinematography and editing, which I think is intended to evoke a comic book feel but really ends up just confusing the viewer and pulling him out of the experience. I spent more time trying to figure out what was going on than I did enjoying the film; the last time that happened was Memento, but at least that one had a good mystery to it. The result was that, in stark contrast to V, I found myself completely uninterested in The Hulk and had to struggle to even sit through it and pay attention, and I read the comic books. I shudder to think what somebody who doesn't read comics would think of this.

Also speaking as a reader of comic books, I found some of the deviations from the source to be completely unnecessary and contrary to the original tone. I'm not a source material purist and I'm not going to get upset if his skin is the wrong shade of green, but I also believe that if you're going to adapt material from another medium you should attempt to keep in line with the original material stylistically. Changing a few plot points to modernize your story or to suit it better to your new medium and audience is one thing, but arbitrarily changing a character's origin or other details just doesn't jive. It strikes me that Mr Lee seemed hell-bent on including certain films in whatever project he happened to be working on at the time and decided to shoe-horn them into The Hulk regardless of whether they fit or not, and the result is just a great big shoehorn-compressed mess.

I'm going to stop here, not because I have nothing more to say but because I could easily spend pages ranting about how terrible this film is and I imagine we all have better things to do. Suffice to say that I'm being generous when I give this big pile of slop
3/10

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Halx

Amores Perros - 7/10
The first storyline that this movie follows was intriguing, but then it went on to a rather boring one. The final story picked it up and it was satisfying again. Two and a half hours though.. damn.

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Grancey

Indiana Jones 4 8.5

I agree with Will, and I don't think THAT has ever happened.

I enjoyed this film. It was fun. Sure, parts of it were a little cheesy, but it's Indiana Jones people. What did you really expect? The kid behind me who walked out saying, "This really sucked", was too young to have seen the first films in a theatre. He probably never saw them at all.

I had a blast. This was great.

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levite

Indiana Jones 4: 7/10

I really had a feeling this was just not going to be as good as 1 and 3 (I thought 2 really bit), and I really prepared myself for it to blow. Therefore, I was pleasantly surprised when it didn't. It was weaker than all three of the first movies, but considering that Harrison Ford has qualified for Social Security for closing in on a decade, and George Lucas apparently vacated this world to go live in the Magical Kingdom of Suck nigh on twenty years ago, I was not at all displeased.

It was amusing, diverting, and a relatively fun way to waste two hours. I feel like it was money well spent.

And for the record, I actually like Shia LeBeouf. Maybe I just have a soft spot for spunky young Jewish actors...having once been one myself....

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Willravel

You mean as they were chasing a psychic communist and trying to discover [SPOILER]the truth behind psychic alien skulls[SPOILER]? If you were looking for believable, you were in the wrong movie.

I don't think Shia was too jewy for the part, either. Joseph Gordon-Levitt is really jewish and he could have carried this part like a champ. The problem is that he doesn't look anything like Harrison Ford.

BTW, Robert Downey Jr. is jewish. And he's fucking Iron Man.

Hain

He's just not Iron Man... he's The Fucking Iron Man.

Also you might want to fix those spoiler tags.

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blahblah454

Indiana Jones 4 - 6/10

Harrison Ford was awesome. The oodles of CGI was not awesome. The fact that the movie opened with a CGI scene made me want to just walk out of the theater, but I stayed. And the entire movie was filled with it.

But despite that I thought it was pretty good, even Shia was decent. The ending was a little too cheesy for me though.

Overall a pretty decent popcorn flick, but I dont know if I would recommend paying the full theater price for it.

levite

Robert Downey Jr. is Jewish?!!

YES!!!

Score one for our side!

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Halx

Indiana Jones 4 - 1/10
Before I went to see it, I was hanging out at a bar. One random patron decided to tell everyone how bad it was and how stupid the ending was. He described what happened, much to my dismay. He was saying such preposterous things that I naturally assumed he was just joking around. So, I proceeded to go to the theater and watch the movie. And now I know he wasn't joking.

At least it wasn't as bad as Spider-Man 3.

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ShaniFaye

you said what I wanted to say so I will just quote you. I think part of the reason I loved it was that I am sick to death of comic book/super hero movies...This may not have been Indy at his finest.....but it was great to me

I think the ants are gonna give me nightmares lol

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speshul-k

I think it was Iron Man for me too.
Coming it at about an 8, or 8.5.

Really enjoyed it.

Laugh-O-Matic

Indiana Jones hasn't been released yet, but I enjoyed the reviews

The Darjeeling Limited: 8.5/10

I watched The Darjeeling Limited. It's a nice movie, though there isn't much scope for any of the actors to really show off their skills. The movie is about 3 brothers who are on a spiritual journey to India (Starring Jason Schwartzman, Owen Wilson and Adrien Brody) Whether or not they did reach the spiritual destination is still obscure.

The movie is categorized as 'Comedy', but don't look for crude toilet jokes a la Epic Movie and the rest that seem to be the latest craze. The humor here is slight, and won't make you roll of your chair and crack up- it's got more to do with the events that take place around the actors and to them. Though the ending was a dampener, I still liked the movie a lot. All in all, a good watch~

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blahblah454

Strange Wilderness - 2/10

One of the worst movies I have ever seen

Tully Mars

7/10

Saw Indy 4 last night. After reading through some reviews here and other sources I had resolved to wait for the DVD release. But the heat and a failing A/C at home felt me looking for a night out. IJ4 was the only thing playing that was even remotely interested in seeing. I went in expecting REALLY bad. I didn't think it was that bad. You have to get past logical realistic issues. But all Indy Jones adventures are like this, most action adventure flicks are. I loved the first one but I don't think there's a realistic chance of finding an "ark" that contains the "power of God."

If I listed the Indy series in order of my favorites:

Raiders of the lost Ark 10/10
The last Crusade 9/10
Crystal Skull 7/10
Temple of Doom (now that one sucked, IMO) 3/10

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sapiens

Before The Devil Knows You're Dead 7/10

Directed by Sidney Lumet. With Philip Seymour Hoffman, Ethan Hawke, and Albert Finney. Two brothers rob their parents jewelry store. Things go wrong. It wasn't a bad movie. It wasn't a great movie either.

m0rpheus

Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspien

1/5
I had read the books but not in years and years so I was going in fairly fresh.
Anyway, the first half of this movie I was bored as hell. There was a quick chase scene which was okay at best and a few quick action scenes but for the most part I found the dialog dull and the plot just plodding along.
Then all of a sudden it became a comedy. It wasn't supposed to but damn there was some funny stuff in that had me laughing (and about half of the people in the theatre too) out loud. Gets one star for unintentionally being one of the funniest movies I've seen in theatres in a long time.

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Halx

War, Inc. - 4/10
I was only mildly entertained. It tried too hard to be Spaceballs and Dr Strangelove.

Meet The Feebles - 10/10
Pulled this from my DVD collection because I needed to see it again. This is one of Peter Jackson's first films and I think it is fucking brilliant. This is the most fucked up good movie you'll ever see. I strongly suggest it. Jackson's skill as a director is apparent, even with a shoestring budget.

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mrklixx

Indy 4 6/10

Uneven movie who's extremes of suck and great land it somewhere in mediocre.

I agree with Tully Mars' list albeit with slightly different numbers.

Raiders of the lost Ark 10/10
The last Crusade 9/10
Crystal Skull 6/10
Temple of Doom 4/10

For a more in-depth review/commentary from me check out the Indy thread http://www.tfproject.org/tfp/showthr...=1#post2457475

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Bear Cub

Cloverfield: 6.5/10

It had its moments, but the sheer absurdity of certain scenes, coupled with irritating love story sub plots just "meh'd" the whole thing for me.

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guyy

The last movie i saw was Ozu's 晩春, (Late spring, 1949). This is the first of the Noriko movies and the first of the season movies. I thought i'd seen this one previously -- because but i never had.

This one had an odd effect on me. I'm usually not a fan of Hara Setsuko, but i even thought she was sexy in this one. Ryu Chishu was very cute as the overly attached father. Even Sugimura Haruko was good. Sugimura usually gets too into her characters, but in this one, she delivers her lines precise diction, that delivers just the right effect. That i have this opinion of her may be because i've seen her in more Naruse films. Naruse was more willing to let actors be themselves. On the other hand, Ozu had an idea of how each particular performance should unfold. (Not that Naruse didn't have an idea -- he did. He just knew what he was going to get from each member of the cast, and let them do their thing -- within certain, very well-defined limits, of course.)

Immediately afterward, the film had me thinking about my daughter, my family, and left me feeling a bit nostalgic and sad. It was a bit of a downer, really, but i suppose the nuclear and sub-nuclear family is itself a bit of a downer.

The DVD came with Wenders' Tokyo-ga, which i'd seen before. Tokyo-ga is a film about watching film and the alieanation that entails. Wenders goes to Tokyo in search of the city he's seen in Ozu films. It's not there, of course, and Ozu and Werner Herzog rip on contemporary Tokyo because of that lack. Wenders and Herzog end up acting out their own alienation from the alienation they argue is at the core of Ozu's films in ridiculous ways. So where does that leave the viewers? I think it leaves them with an antidote against the Orientalist readings of the films given in Tokyo-ga.

Wenders' voiceovers are in English, but i swear i saw this in German once. My memory fails me. It was made for German TV.

Halx

American Gangster - Eh/10
I didn't get to finish it 'cause the DVD was damaged. What I did see was interesting, but not great.

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pan6467

Elizabethtown: great movie one of the best romances I have ever seen.... love the idea of the cross country trip and how it went along the way. 10/10 (The only bad part ..... and it isn't "bad" I just felt that Drew Barrymore would have done much better.... but Kirsten Dunst did the best job I have ever seen her do.)

I Am Legend..... good movie, a couple jumps..... pretty predictable.... sad when Sam dies..... 6.5/10

The Reaping..... interesting take on prophecy, not a bad movie.... 5/10

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imouseone

Indiana Jones and the Crystal Skull: 7/10 - The nostalgic factor alone makes this entertaining. They even use the old punching sound effects! But the story is really far out there (literally) and some scenes are just plain rediculous. George Lucas has lost his mind. Still a movie you should eventually watch though just b/c it's Indy!

SSJTWIZTA

i usually come here to see what others think of a movie before i waste cash on it. spoilers defeat that purpose, damn it. oh well, i guess i can cope.

i just say the made for tv movie "the Andromeda strain."

thats 4 hours of my life ill never get back... crap/10

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Then they came for me And there was no one left to speak out for me.
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jewels

Sorry to hear that. I thought it was going to be a series and had meant to watch that as I was fascinated by the movie when I was a kid.

Was it the story itself or the production that you didn't like?

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xepherys

I thought the remake of Andromeda Strain was okay. It was predictable, but that can be said of virtually all action dramas these days. It was certainly not a 10/10, but I'd give it maybe 6.5/10. Not great, but not a total wash.

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