The last movie you saw Thread

[Smaug's voice]

5. Gravity: Yeah, what am I doing on a plane watching two disaster films? It held up wonderfully, even on that tiny screen on the seat back. Just shy of a masterpiece (some of the dialogue doesn't do it for me).

That's an opinion I wanted to know.
Glad to know you liked it in the small screen as well but how did your viewing experience changed from the big to small transition, if anything? There must be something?

[Passdagas the Brown]

Obviously the viewing experience was far less immersive than in IMAX 3D, but it still looked great. The film holds up wonderfully for me because of the strong mythic subtext, in both the narrative and the visuals. It truly is one of the best films I have seen in the past decade.

[Smaug's voice]

The lessening of immersion was expected, but was the emotional impact less this time? ( I suppose it must be)

And I saw Silver Linings Playbook.

Fun movie. Has a certain energy to it and the acting is good. I agree it is JL's best performance though. However, I would really like a bit more varety in the characters she plays in her movies. Usually all these roles are basically girls who have undergone a lot of stress over something and thus "hardened up". I would like to see a more feminine role from her someday.
I liked her perfromance in SLP, but I still do not find it oscar-worthy. P'raps last year was weak in that race?
Overall: 7/10

[Passdagas the Brown]

No, actually. Emotionally, it worked rather well for me on the small screen.

[kzer_za]

I'm going to do a few recent movies (recent for me) over a few posts.

The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford - Loved this. I was kind of expecting an actiony western, but it was much more interesting and psychological than that. I'm glad they didn't go with a romanticized heroic Jesse James - in fact, the movie critiques that sort of hero worship. Fantastic performances from both Brad Pitt and Casey Affleck, with lots of intense cat-and-mouse dialog. Great atmospheric soundtrack from Nick Cave too (though his cameo really is out of place).

Baaria - This is an Italian movie, and it has a lot of things going for it. It's full of beautiful photography, has a great Morricone soundtrack, and is an interesting multigenerational look at Italy over a long period of time from the 1930s to the Cold War. The ending, unfortunately, is just terrible and almost kills the whole movie.

[yovargas]

Great atmospheric soundtrack from Nick Cave too...

Oh, which reminds me, since it was also soundtracked by Cave, I watched The Road a couple days ago. Though the imagery was very beautiful in its own bleak, grey way and the performances were excellent, the movie like an oddly pointless exercise in bleakness for bleakness' sakes.

[Alatar]

Ender's Game. Am really surprised it didn't do better in the Cinema. Really great adaptation of a great book.

[kzer_za]

The Big Lebowski - Very funny, of course. Like The Big Sleep, I enjoyed this much more than the first time because I didn't try too hard to follow the story. Philip Seymour Hoffman is quite funny in his small role as the sycophantic henchman, by the way. I still think Fargo is their best movie.

The Grand Hotel Budapest - My first Wes Anderson movie - not at all impressed. I just don't like this kind of "look at me, I'm so quirky" indie movie. Lots of style, very little substance (and I didn't even like the style very much), and I didn't really care for any of the characters. My friends and I were going to see Miyazaki's The Wind Rises, but went here instead because I got the times mixed up.

[Smaug's voice]

After Earth. 6/10.
It started out good. Then dropped a bit with all the "Ursa-threatening" in the plane and then was quite good when they crashed and Kitai had to walk through the forest. Then the ending was, meh. It had a great potential. All the green foliage was lovely, but I'd hoped to see something more "new" as man had been gone for so many thousand years. And this was probably the worst acting by Will Smith, that I have seen. So very very one-note.

McKenna's Gold. I love classic Westerns, and it's still awesome. I think PtB would like all the still, silent shots of the canyon. Not much to say here, otherwise.

Iron Man. Overhyped. I disliked it quite a bit. The only good moments are RDJ making the suit in the terrorist camp. 5/10

Hugoa Not my first watch. But I really love this movie. The acting, the music, the direction. I haven't read the story, but this was really interesting. Though, I think, it is too long for a kids' movie. 9/10

[yovargas]

I just came back from Noah. It was.....awful. Disastrously, bizarrely awful. It was strange on so many levels not least of which was the WTF inclusion of these weird rock giant creatures which looked and moved (and fought!) SO much like PJ's ents that I have to believe it was somehow intentional. It was a train wreck but a kind of fascinating train wreck.

[Smaug's voice]

Finally saw Frozen.
Lovely film. Visually it's stunning. Quite a few songs are good. "Do you want to build a snowman" was perfect.
The animation was gorgeous. The plot, predictable but the film is not dependent on it.
Probably the best Disney film since the Jim Carrey version of the animated Christmas Carol.
8.5/10

[Jude]

Spoilers!!!111

Hidden text.

I wouldn't say it was predictable - the way the suitor turned on her totally took me by surprise.

[Smaug's voice]

Spoilers!!!111

Hidden text.

I wouldn't say it was predictable - the way the suitor turned on her totally took me by surprise.

Not to me.

Hidden text.

I had suspicions seeing how easily Anna fell for him, and then the Prince stayed back at the city/town to "look after it". I was quite certain of it when Anna and Hans grew closer. Though by "true love" I did start to doubt my guess that it would be rather Hans who'de be Elsa's true love than Anna.
But hey, my parents had no clue about the real villain. So you're not alone!

[Frelga]

We went to see Grand Hotel Budapest. The son was on a school trip and it seemed like a high time to watch an adult movie for a change, none of that childish superhero and fantasy nonsense.


We got to the theater, looked at each other, and bought tickets for Captain America.

Which I enjoyed a great deal. It had a near-perfect balance of action, character moments, and silliness. And Anthnony Mackie (Falcon) is hotter than blazes. There were the inevitable "wait, what?" moments, but not nearly as many as in DoS.

[Smaug's voice]

We
went to see Grand Hotel Budapest. The son was on a school trip and it
seemed like a high time to watch an adult movie for a change, none of
that childish superhero and fantasy nonsense.


We got to the theater, looked at each other, and bought tickets for
Captain America.

Which I enjoyed a great deal. It had a near-perfect balance of action,
character moments, and silliness. And Anthnony Mackie (Falcon) is hotter
than blazes. There were the inevitable "wait, what?" moments,
but not nearly as many as in DoS.

I actually disliked it quite a bit. Way too long. Way too much noise, car crashes and explosions. The plot was thin. And the cramming in of two genres into the same movie while failing to deliver either of them.

DoS was faaar better than this!

[Griffon64]

Grand Hotel Budapest was quite a fun movie. We saw it a week or so ago. Ralph Fiennes was great.

[Frelga]

SV, I saw that the filmmakers said Captain America 2 was really a 70s thriller pretending to be a superhero movie. I can see that, but I thought it was really well done and added to the fun (if you are old enough to have watched 70s thrillers)

I was actually surprised at how well the action scenes were done. The fights, while I'm sure digitally enhanced, looked to be at the far edge of what the human fighters can manage, which made them more fun than the whoosh-bam superpower combat.

And I'm a total sucker for this sort of interrupted friendship story. That was the cherry on the cupcake.

Of course all of that with the footnote of "for what it is". I don't know if it can be compared to DoS straight up, but I do think it's a better example of what it is than DoS is of what IT is. For one thing, over the top silliness is a feature of a superhero movie much more so than a Tolkien adaptation.

[Voronwë the Faithful]

Plus, it has Robert Redford in it. So it must be good. (I haven't seen it, and I have not idea how good it is, or even what RR does in it.)

For one thing, over the top silliness is a feature of a superhero movie much more so than a Tolkien adaptation.

Because the Tolkien book being adapted has no over the top silliness at all. [Yes, PtB, I know that Tolkien's over the top silliness is different than Jackson's. You don't have to point that out.]

[Smaug's voice]

Its exactly the opposite Frelga. CA2 misrepresents its genre. All the good superhero flicks are a good mix of heart and muscle. It was pretty thin on the previous and almost overdependent on the latter. Car crashes,
explosions, bombers, fistfights all stretched to 2 hours long with a dull plot. The shaky cam was egregious. Acting did not stand out much
besides Redford. The cramming of two genres was poorly executed - made me feel like watching two films at once. I might have not seen 70s thrillers but why should one to enjoy a superhero flick? Thats a terribly limiting factor then. All in all it felt like the last hour of Dark Knight Rises stretched to a long time.

DoS however represents its genre pretty well. We are talking about films as films not as adaptations - for which I agree its quite bad. Regular people don't care for how well it
represents Tolkien. DoS has good acting, plot, visuals and OTTnes is not OOC of fantasy films - like POTC. And overall just a nice sense of
escape from RL which is what fantasy should be. The barrels was better than anything in CA2. Actually, CA2 also felt like the Laketown attack sequence stretched to two hours.

Not the worst superhero flick but the dullest I have seen in the theatres in a while.

[Passdagas the Brown]

Plus, it has Robert Redford in it. So it must be good. (I haven't seen it, and I have not idea how good it is, or even what RR does in it.)

For one thing, over the top silliness is a feature of a superhero movie much more so than a Tolkien adaptation.

Because the Tolkien book being adapted has no over the top silliness at all. [Yes, PtB, I know that Tolkien's over the top silliness is different than Jackson's. You don't have to point that out.]

Excuse me?