Weekly movie discussion thread.

[Josh.]

smokin aces was a lot worse than i thought it would be

[MEbenhoe]

[ QUOTE ]
smokin aces was a lot worse than i thought it would be

[/ QUOTE ]

I keep hearing this, and its depressing as I haven't seen the movie yet, but had been really looking forward to it.

[ahnuld]

lol anyone who gives boondock saints 11 has to be a 15 yo guy. It was a good movie, but cmon.

[El Diablo]

Spicy,

I saw Children of Men and Pan's Labyrinth in the theater's recently. Both were excellent, but Pan's is the one that really stood out for me. For those who haven't yet heard about it, it's a tale of a girl's experiences living in Fascist Spain and the fantasy world she creates to escape from some of what she sees.

I saw Ultraviolet on cable yesterday. Oh wow. This is in the running for worst movie of all time. I was doing a bunch of other stuff while it was on in the background and I still was able to tell how horribly it sucked.

The reviews of Smokin' Aces have been horrible, but I feel so compelled to see it still.

[BarryLyndon]

I'm not sure about numerically rating films, but, I will say that "Pan's Labrynth" is easily within my top three of 2007. Half Nelson is within that list too.

I'm not sure how to describe "Pan's Labrynth," save for that it makes an earnest effort to blend fairy tale with a somber commentary on civil war. Unlike 99% of contemporary films today, the direction is deliberate and remarkably consistent in tone. Del Toro isn't trying to score any singularly entertaining scenes; rather, he's working on a cohesive blend of fairy tale and neo-realism, allowing the emotional poignancy and earnestness of his work run the film's engine. Very admirable stuff.

Also, this weekend, I saw "Bad Boys" on TBS. I'll give that film a number - 9/10. Just lots of guns, Martin Lawrence is loud and snarky, and Tea Leoni is one of the more stunning and effortlessly sensual women in Hollywood.

Barry

[danzasmack]

[ QUOTE ]
smokin aces was a lot worse than i thought it would be

[/ QUOTE ]

Did you go in with high expectations? I don't know if this is a spoiler but i'll put it in white anyway:

<font color="white">that was probably the worst end to a movie I have ever seen, like ever. Also the "twist" was beaten over our heads a little too hard.</font>

And I went into it expecting a flashy crap fest and that's what I got. When I first saw the preview I was stoked too, and each day I got less and less excited about this movie.

[PokerFink]

[ QUOTE ]
and the fantasy world she creates to escape from some of what she sees.

[/ QUOTE ]

The labyrinth is not in Ofelia's head - it's real.

Edit: I guess I should elaborate on this.

There are several examples that show that labyrinth is real. I'll put these in white since they could be considered spoilers.
<font color="white">
1) The Captain picks up and crushes the chalk that was given to Ofelia by the Faun.
2) The Captain picks up the mandrake root (again, given by the Faun) and throws it in the fire.
3) Ofelia uses the chalk to create a passage into the Captain's room to get her brother.
4) At the end, a flower grows on the tree now that the toad is dead.</font>

[Boris]

Barry - Why did you like Half Nelson? I thought the movie was horrible.

[durron597]

I saw The Good Shepherd this weekend.

I was expecting it to be one of those "based on a true story" founding of the CIA type stories, with a bunch of action and Matt Damon kicking the crap out of people etc. (kind of like a cross between Bourne Identity and Quiz Show with founding the CIA as the subject matter), but it was really much more of a character drama than that; the story of a very serious, emotionless man thrown into a lot of very emotionally intense situations with his family and his job. I think the writer had a lot of great ideas for a movie that could have been really compelling, but there was just too much going on, even with a 2.5 hour movie. There were so many different plot arcs going on that lots of pieces of the story just seemed glossed over and happened too quickly without much explanation; I can't really go into more detail without ruining the plot, but you'll know what I mean if/when you see it.

In the same vein, the movie had a HUGE, stellar cast but they all had really small parts and no one but Matt Damon's character really got developed well. This was unfortunate because he couldn't really bring off the serious, stoic character across very well; it wasn't believable at all. Some other names:

Angelina Jolie - Has a very small part for someone second billed, and I think you can tell that she's mad about it during the movie
John Turturro - Matt Damon's assistant, and does an awesome job as usual, should have been billed higher
Robert De Niro - Director, and really small part as the force behind the creation of the CIA
William Hurt - Very good, but surprisingly small part for director of the CIA
Alec Baldwin - Another small, undeveloped part but he does a decent job with it.
Joe Pesci - Very good with his very small part, he's lost a LOT of weight, but you can tell it's him because of his very distinctive voice
Michael Gambon - Does an amazing good job as usual

Another gripe I had was that a lot of the characters had very similar looks to them (Alec Baldwin &amp; Oleg Stefan, Billy Crudup &amp; Lee Pace in particular) so sometimes it wasn't trivial to figure out which character we had on screen.

Overall, 5/10. The plot was compelling despite being hard to follow. A lot of good acting, and good plot ideas... basically there was too much good stuff in the movie to actually call it a good movie [img]/images/graemlins/grin.gif[/img]

[PokerFink]

Durron,

I had the same gripe with Syriana.