Brief reviews of movies you saw recently

[Industrial Bitch]

I should've figured when the leading character looked like runway models instead of actual people. But I bout the damn ticket anyway. I really want to go see that movie out with Hugh Jackman... Forgot the title but damn it looks good.

[Folder]

Borat: 8/10
This Shock-Comedy gives pretty much everyone the short end of the stick. From Homosexual Bashing to Stereotyping, You name it he does it. While if you can laugh at yourself/others without being incredibly offended, this is a great comedy for you, but if you can't stand anything that is offensive in the slightest way, stay miles away from this movie. While I found it slightly disappointing, I also loved it.

The Benchwarmers:3/10
Ugh, trying to ride on the success of Dodgeball, another "Underdog" story targeted to children rather than a wider audience, it was far from funny and the plot was incredibly stupid.

[LeekClock]

The Page Turner ("La Tourneuse de Pages") 4/5 - highly recommended!

Great psychological thriller.. If i were to say anything about the plot it would probably either give the story away, or make it sound boring (even though it is intense and well directed and acted).

Music is used really well by the director throughout the film. Innovatively and effectively - which is crucial for a thriller. Particularly a thriller set in the world of music, as this one is. I think I read that the director has a background as a composer or conductor... A musician certainly.

I will say that if you have ever learned a musical instrument (piano in particular), you will relate to the film on a deeper level. But it's definitely worth watching even if you haven't.

The ending is really great!

By the way, that's page turner, as in "the person who turns pages for a musician", not as in "a good book".

[Kombucha]

Whale Rider: 6/10
Pretty meh, as was the book. If I cared about it following the book, I would have given it a lower score considering how far away it was from the book, but I don't care. This is really just a warning to people who get pissed off by stuff like that.

[Losperman]

Click - 9/10

I thought this movie was a lot better than most people had told me. Of course it's not as crude and inside-jokish as most of his other movies, but it's still really funny (with some good drama as well). And he does still use some of his trademark jokes. The story itself is pretty interesting as well, even if it is kind of based off of the Scrooge story at it's core. Acting is great all around (Christopher Walken is particularly hilarious) and, yes, Kate Beckinsale is freaking hot.

The Return - 2/10

Fuck. Ing. Sucks. The director needs to learn to tell a story using film. There are so many misused lines of silence and a needlessly confusing plot. Some movies know how to string you along and get you to try and guess the outcome. Not this one. This one knows how to throw random information out there that doesn't have to do with anything and then throw a rushed ending out there in a poor attempt to tie everything together. But Sarah Michelle Gellar is hot.

[Randy Pearson]

Doom:

Alright. I know I have a tendancy to make reviews too long, so I'm gonna' try to sum this up as much as I can. Anyone hoping for a movie at all true to the game will be severely disapointed. Anyone hoping to see just some good old guns, monsters, and action will by severely disapointed. The story line of this film is so incoherent that it really makes you wonder  why they used it. What few monsters are in the film share little to no resemblence to creatures in any of the actual Doom games. The acting is so horrible that I think I got brain cancer watching this hunk of shit. There is absolutely NO REASON to see this movie.

0/10

[Topcatyo]

   Rocky Horror Picture Show - 8/10[/U]

This is a movie that has deeply disturbed me.  I don't know how to explain it.  I lost track of the plot right about when I saw that Butler from Clue in drag.  Then I lost track of the plot I had just understood when Brad Majors "encountered" Frank N. Furter.  I then just stopped trying to follow the plot when everyone was in drag and the house blew up and... what happened now?

[Jimmy McNulty]

Pulp Fiction: 10/10

Amazing. It's hillarious and suspensful at the same time. The characters are great and Samuel L. Jackson is the epitome of badass. Quentin Tarantino has outdone himself.

[AdrenalineClock]

Pulp Fiction: 10/10

Amazing. It's hillarious and suspensful at the same time. The characters are great and Samuel L. Jackson is the epitome of badass. Quentin Tarantino has outdone himself.

How could he have outdone himself when it was the movie that defined his career?

[Jimmy McNulty]

How could he have outdone himself when it was the movie that defined his career?

lack of a better word, I dunno

[Randy Pearson]

How could he have outdone himself when it was the movie that defined his career?

Doesn't that honor really belong to Resevoir Dogs?

Hmm. Naw, in retrospect, I guess that was just his first film. It really was Pulp Fiction that did it.

I read the screenplay for Kill Bill. Exactly the way you think he'd talk, that's how he writes, which is funny and demistifying at the same time.

[AdrenalineClock]

Oh fuck, 500th post.

The last 3 movies I saw were Borat, Casino Royale, and The Departed, and they were all excellent.  Looks like the movie industry might be headed in the right direction.

[LeekClock]

Rio Bravo

This Howard Hawks directed Western ticks all the boxes! All I can say is..

DUDE!111 Check it out. Highly entertaining

[Topcatyo]

The last three movies I've seen are Borat, Date Movie, and Tenacious D and the Pick of Destiny.

Date Movie sucked.

[Randy Pearson]

Borat: Cultural Learnnings in America for Make Benefit Beautiful Nation of Kazakstan

This is the single most offensive film I've seen in my entire life. I loved it. It was funny as hell, and even though it was filled with really crude humor, it was also a very intelligent film. This is not for the skemish or easily offended, though. You have to have pretty broad tastes to enjoy this movie fully.

10/10

[SnakeClock]

The Prestige - 9/10

A wonderful period piece depicting the spectacle and trickery of turn-of-the-century stage magic, the art of the turn, the pledge, and the prestige, with the new wonders of electricity courtesy of David Bowie as Nikola Tesla thrown in for good measure. It's also a gripping mystery and a harrowing tale of obsessive oneupmanship; you can never expect each new punch just around the corner, as they steadily climb in destructiveness. I just wish the whole thing didn't hinge on something as preposterous as that silly machine.

[StrangeClock]

Pirates of the Caribbean 2: Dead Man's Chest

I always have a hard time finding people to go to movies with; I don't know if it's just a thing of the people I know or of the Dutch as a whole, but everyone seems to think of going to a movie theater as a special thing you don't do more than once every two months or so. As I watched this movie I was kicking myself that I didn't just go see it alone, something I think I'll start doing more often - I'm not much about the company aspect of watching a movie anyway, and the stigma attached to going to the theater alone is crap.

But, the movie. Grand, spectacular, everything a movie should be. Good writing, acting, effects, action, great music and great characters. Stellan Skarsgard and Bill Nighy are excellent additions and fit their parts well, and the voodoo lady is pretty cool too. The parallels to Monkey Island seem almost too blatant to ignore, ie the dog with the prison keys in his mouth from Monkey Island 2. Drama and intrigue are dosed well. I wondered if maybe they could've made the CGI a bit more subtle by using more prosthetics for Davy Jones's crewmen, but maybe this is cheaper on such a grand scale, though I think CGI of this kind is very pricy. I seem to remember from the Two Towers director's commentary that they were going to make a slime Balrog CGI sequence that would've cost like tens of thousands of dollars. It certainly beats the first one, which was already a great movie. It certainly got me pumped to see the next (last?) one as well.

One thing that did slightly bug me was how quickly, in the end, they set it up for Jack Sparrow's 'rescue'. It's like, let's drink to his death, but oh by the way he can be saved, well let's do it then! And, didn't Barbarossa get shot or stabbed at the end of the first movie? I'm sure it'll be explained in the sequel, but I immediately wondered. I briefly thought I was going to see Keith Richards coming down the stairs.

[StrangeClock]

Jesus Camp
This was posted about in Youwhore; a documentary about an evangelical bible camp where children of Christian fundamentalists are programmed about the notion that church and state should become one body again.

Saw this today at the IDFA (International Documentary Festival Amsterdam). I was expecting to be less amused and more disturbed. At times fascinating, but mostly just funny cause you're looking at wacky people. Unfortunately the filmmaker got stalled or something and he wasn't there to answer questions and give commentary about his documentary.

[LeekClock]

Braindead (by peter jackson)

There's a sort of naivity and/or theatrical bent to Jackson's earlier films which I find sort of distractingly twee, and somehow charming at the same time.

Once you get over the fact that plot and acting clearly aren't what you should be focusing on, you can see the film in a much nicer light. It's enjoyable for what it is: an entertainingly innovative and over-the-top gorefest.

Recommended if you like gore or peter jackson or zombies or all three.

[DigitalLemonClock]

the Squid and the Whale 8/10

Really amazing perfomances all around, especially the kids. The way of thinking portrayed in this film; the desperate clenching to intellectualism, is one i've observed in a lot of people, and is very amusing to see. The ways of coping with circumstances and the consequential effects on eachother play out really nice and make it a nice, whole film.

Clerks II 4.5/10

I kind of liked the the first one when I saw it years and years ago, but this one seems to have made no progress at all. The production, when released from it's financial bounds, starts to crack and wither.

American Splendor 8.5/10

Effective use of the comic-movie interaction and the footage and narration of the actual peekar add a lot to an already impressive and enjoyable film.

the Cabinet of Dr. Caligari 9/10

1920's era silent german expressionist film. You can see where Tim Burton got his inspiration for Edward Scissorhand's appearance. A great film.