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Posted: |
May 23, 2014 - 11:37 AM
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By: |
mastadge
(Member)
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X-Men: Days of Future Past. I guess I'll be the voice of dissent, but I though this was pretty poor. Thematically it's rehashing the same theme we've been seeing since the first X-Men in 2000, the false dichotomy between Magneto's scorched earth approach to mutant survival and Prof X's naive we just have to be nice and they'll accept us. Not even variations on a theme. Just the same conversations yet again. And yet again Singer seems to think they're a whole lot deeper and more meaningful than they are. The plot hinges on a device that's barely acceptable as an extension of one character's powers, and wraps up in a way that doesn't make sense (and not in an I-don't-get-it sort of way but in a way that doesn't even work on the movie's own terms). I understand the decision to reboot the franchise, but what could have been an elegant way to do so turns out sloppy from both the First Class end and the trilogy end. There are some good moments. There's one brilliant scene that's exceptionally amusing even though its physics are completely wrong, and a couple other cracking sequences, but even for a movie not nearly as stuffed with characters as it tried to convince us it would be, very few of them get much of a chance to shine. As for the score, it's okay in the movie, barely -- to my ears it served the movie even less well than The Winter Soldier's score -- and the opening title music is just an ugly and blaring variation on the X2 theme. They even completely missed the point of the post-credits scene. In the Marvel Studios productions, they tend to leave the audience curious or at least amused. Here, the response from the audience was a chorus of "Huh?"s. And don't bother with the 3D. It doesn't add anything to the picture. On the whole, a very disappointing experience. Then again, it is a Bryan Singer film so I don't know why I allowed myself to believe the hype and expect better.
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Posted: |
May 23, 2014 - 12:00 PM
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By: |
mastadge
(Member)
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X-Men: Days of Future Past Then again, it is a Bryan Singer film so I don't know why I allowed myself to believe the hype and expect better. I thought his X-Men 1 and X2 were excellent. Then he did Superman Returns which was a fraking mess. Not sure if he has recouped from that yet. I think Singer's been pretty bad from the get-go. I think The Usual Suspects' success had more to do with Christopher McQuarrie than with Singer; X-Men with the strength of Stewart and McKellen and the luck of casting Jackman; most of the rest of what he's made has been various shades of disastrous, and he's still coasting on the Usual Suspects and early X-Men cred. As for the X-Men franchise, I still think X1 is the best of the X-Men films. First Class has a bit more pizazz but is also more problematic; The Wolverine, too, has its strengths but fumbles quite a bit. X2, on the other hand . . . some good stuff, but for some reason I've never been able to get into it. And how many days does it take to fly from Boston to New York again? On the whole, I find the X-Men movies particularly frustrating because I really, really want to love them. The X-Men were my superheroes growing up. I would love to see an X-Men film that does the comics justice. There's no reason an X-Men movie can't be big and goofy and absurd and spectacular, and yet time and again (and not just in X-Men) we get filmmakers who think they're above comics making comic book movies, and we get the dull and dreary black pleather X-Men out of it.
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I liked the first 2 X-Men and bought them first on DVD and later Blu-ray. But haven't cared for any of the others enough to buy them. My principal interest is Logan/Wolverine, but found X-Men Origins: Wolverine a big disappointment, nor did I care that much for last years The Wolverine or, for that matter, First Class that introduced us to the younger versions of Stewart and McKellan. Looks like Days Of Future Past will be, for me, just another Netflix rental, which is disappointing -- I want a great X-Men that sends me racing out to the theatre!!!
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Watched POMPEII and STALINGRAD, both in 3D. Each film looks like a video game, but POMPEII is fun, and STALINGRAD is about 50 per cent legitimate drama. Both feature excellent picture and sound quality, and from a depth perspective, excellent 3D. I do with film makers weren't so afraid of throwing a major pop out or two our way, especially in something like POMPEII. I'd rate them both 7 out of 10.
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Posted: |
May 24, 2014 - 8:09 AM
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By: |
Francis
(Member)
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3 days to kill 2014 5/10 Co-written by Luc Besson and starring Kevin Costner, this action/light comedy movie about an ex-FBI hitman with a terminal disease who decides to spend his last months with his ex-wife and estranged teenage daughter in Paris while at the same time still taking jobs from the FBI, to me felt like a lot of other movies mashed together; True Lies, Statham's Crank, Uncle Buck and about every Luc Besson movie with the obligatory Paris car chase scene, ... I'll give it credit for not going the 'taken' route and it does have some witty dialogue and ok action scenes, but it did feel overly long and silly at times. Pacific Rim 2013 8/10 Started watching this (2D version) no idea that Guillermo del toro directed it, I honestly thought this was another one of those Michael Bay transformers deals; once I saw the 'lovecrafted' monsters and of course Ron Perlman it wasn't hard to figure out! I liked the concept of the two pilots operating the big robots and everything was just thought out right to make it work; the characters are likable (the scientists a bit goofy but I felt it was part of the genre). It's clear that designs from Del Toro's cancelled lovecraft movie made it in this, and after having seen Pacific Rim, I can't imagine anyone else directing such a feature so finger's crossed it will still happen at some point! One minor setback from Pacific Rim to me was the score; I didn't find the theme all that memorable and a lot of it at times felt like generic TV star trek scoring (think voyager or DS9). Otherwise, the movie impressed me.
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I sure would love to see an American made monster movie where the monster appears on a smoke-free, dust-free, sunny day. If they could do it, successfully in the Koren-made THE HOST, why the hell can't we?!
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Over the weekend I watched the entire first season of "Weeds" on my new Blu-ray set of the entire series, and I kept thinking "I'll stop after this one," but just couldn't. And the finale of the first season made me want to watch at least the first minutes of the second season and I ended up watching the first episode as well as the beginning of the second. It's a wonderfully produced set with lots of extras and I wish that the folks who put together the DVDs and Blu-rays of "Dexter" (also from Showtime) could have given us HALF of what the folks at "Weeds" gave us. And today I watched Cinemax's marathon of the second season of "Banshee," which I like more each time I see it, and realized that I had never bought the Blu-ray of it. But I didn't buy it because it's not been released yet. So I hope they bring it out soon. It's a wild and wonderful series, though not very subtle!
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SORRY, RAY HARRYHAUSEN has left us, If my memory serves me well IT CAME FROM BENEATH THE SEA, 20 MILLION MILES TO EARTH, ONE MILLION . B.C, AND VALLEY OF GWANGI had over 90% of the monster action in daylight. BEAST FROM 20, 000 FATHOMS was 50/50, about. THE GIANT BEHEMOTH-was about 75% in daylight. GORGO was mostly night, GODZILLA 54 was mostly night etc etc. I'm talking about NOW. Not 50 years ago. Yes, Ray Harryhausen, on a shoestring, made films a billion times more entertaining than what they are making, today.
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PhiladelphiaSon: I mentioned this elsewhere. Several years ago my friend Thomas bought the original metal frame for Harryhausen's "Mighty Joe Young" and sold it at auction at, as I recall, Sotheby's, and they put it on the cover of their program for that particular auction. Peter Jackson bought it from my friend for $110,000, which was considerably more than he had paid for it!!! But that was his business, trying to buy things cheap and selling them higher. Doubt he ever made more on one of his purchases!
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Posted: |
May 27, 2014 - 10:31 AM
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By: |
Ralph
(Member)
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Watched POMPEII and STALINGRAD, both in 3D. Each film looks like a video game, but POMPEII is fun, and STALINGRAD is about 50 per cent legitimate drama. Both feature excellent picture and sound quality, and from a depth perspective, excellent 3D. I do with film makers weren't so afraid of throwing a major pop out or two our way, especially in something like POMPEII. I'd rate them both 7 out of 10. Agree on both films. A little less than eight minutes into “Pompeii,” Joe Pingue’s fattie Graecus, in braided beard and a wig with black curls hanging down his forehead, is moaning that the gladiator games ain’t cutting it, that he needs “something new, something fresh” to spark things up. In walks orphaned slave Kit Harington as an Eric Banna wannabe with titanium 6 pack abs and Pingue’s reaction almost delivers the promise of Frank Thring resurrected. From this point onward, we know there will not only be plenty of laughs but also plenty of borrowings, mostly from “Gladiator” and “2012.” Kit’s black comrade Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje is a Vesuvian Issac Hayes; Kit’s love interest Emily Browning is a deb Sophie Marceau; Kiefer Sutherland revels in his harmless counterfeit acting (we enjoy it too) and his champion is Sasha Roiz as a Jewish Paul Ryan. The chariot climax is way over the top, maybe too funny, though who’d want it any other way? Fedor Bondarchuk’s “Stalingrad” is more impressive than most of us would have expected, and you’re right, it looks like a bruised blue & gray video game a bit too often. The sets are real — taking six months to construct — and the CGI isn’t overwhelming. (Didn’t see this in 3D but many of the effects are very decent in 2D.) What surprised me more than anything else is who becomes the film’s central focus — Thomas Kretschmann (aka Tomas Krechmann) as the German Kapitan Kan. If unprepared for the shift, it’s obvious the director is more invested in the character than any other except Mariya Smolnikova’s Katya, a famished version of Juliette Binoche. Walking the tightrope of war duty and sexual desire, Thomas’s Kan’s reflects the Reich’s maleficence with a stealthy bit of eroticism, displacing as well as protecting and falsifying the supposedly morally uptight Russkies. (They would duplicate retaliatory rape of captives when entering Germany through Poland.) This isn’t Thomas’ only appearance in the city during war — he’d do the 1993 German “Stalingrad,” and he plays the lone “savior” of “The Pianist.” How we segue from the 2011 Japan tsunami to the Battle of Stalingrad (and back again) appears to be Putin-like agitprop, while most of us might prefer a larger view of actual conflict. But, constrained by $30 million budget, Fedor delivers. His father would be proud.
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POMPEII is equal parts TITANIC (the love story parts), GLADIATOR (the gladiator parts) and DANTE'S PEAK (the disaster film parts). Yes, laughable, but fun!
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