What a twist!

I only watch M. Night Shyamalan movies as comedies, they are much better that way.

I JUST caught this last night. What a fucking travesty. Even beyond the shitty concept, the acting from just about everyone was shit you expect from a grade school play.

M. Night needs to fuck off. I am convinced that any good movie he may have made was a complete fluke. His natural state is suck.

Drag Me to Hell is excellent. I recommend it.

Hangover. This movie was funny as hell. A little bit formulaic bachelor-party movie, but had a lot to make me laugh. I'd definitely recommend it.

Hellboy

It was OK, not great but not Ghost Rider.

Ghost Rider was a flaming piece of shit on a motorcycle, so what does that make Hellboy?

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S, Darko: I wasn't even aware they had made a sequel to Donnie Darko. I knew it was going to be bad from the moment I saw the DVD cover. I wasn't wrong. The fact that they missed entirely what made Donnie Darko a great movie, while trying to "clone" it, was just depressing. It didn't help that they REALLY didn't understand the storyline with Patrick Swayze in the original and their "replication" of it in this story was sort of horrifying on a certain level.

Stay away from it. :p I should have, but I can't help but want to know just HOW bad things I know are going to be bad end up being...

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Heh, did you ever see American Psycho 2 ? You know, with Mila Kunis and William Shatner?

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It makes Hellboy better than a flaming piece of shit on a motorcycle

Have you seen Hellboy?

I thought it was "just OK". It wasn't fantastic and there wasn't anything overly new or creative. But, it wasn't offensive to my eyes. It was a good movie to skim while riding the stationary bike and straightening up the basement.

I misread your post, thought you were saying Hellboy wasn't as good as Ghost Rider.

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How come in the first movie the flame chicks flame was blue, but in this one it's orange?

she's not sad and depressed anymore.

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"The Reader" - more Oscar bait. Very well made and acted but ultimately it's just too long and depressing. If you think about it too much both the characters are really unlikeable.

Gran Torino

It was good, but not as good as I had expected. I enjoyed it, but it did drag a little for me. There was a lot of cliche moments, but when a pissed off 80 year old says "don't you hate it when you realize you've fucked with the wrong person" (or something like that), I was sold.

B+

Dead Snow: Yay for B movies that know they are B movies and just have fun with it. The last zombie movie that was this aware of itself that I can remember was Undead (australian flick from 2003 and well worth the find if you enjoy this sort of thing). Definitely a fun (and gory!) flick.

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Shaun of the Dead(2004) was a pretty non-serious zombie movie and definitely amusing.

Oh, I agree in that it was a good movie. But it was, from the start and concept, a comedy. Undead and now Dead Snow aren't. And yet they walk that line of black comedy/camp that B movies are known for while remaining completely serious. The actors never wink and nod at the camera, the way that Sean of the Dead does.

Heck. Undead is actually a better Sam Raimi movie than Raimi has ever made, imo.

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up is really good

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Yeah saw "UP" in 3D. Apparently those new 3D glasses make my eyes tear up a bit.

Watched 'Yes Man' with Jim Carey, your typical romantic comedy but it had a number of laugh out loud parts which made it pretty enjoyable.

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Kuwen Furyblades
Hunter of Memento Reejeryn
Champion of Faydark

I find that the new glasses don't cause eye strain for me like the old school ones did. I couldn't watch a 2 hour movie with those on, but I watched Monsters vs Aliens with no problems.

I enjoyed Up, but didn't really think that it gained much from being 3D. I had far fewer of those cool "stuff popping out of the screen at me" moments than I did with Monsters vs Aliens.

Agreed, I found the 3D glasses added little to nothing. Certainly no where near as cool as the things I saw in Disneyworld (ie. Mickey's PhilharMagic).

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Kuwen Furyblades
Hunter of Memento Reejeryn
Champion of Faydark

I enjoyed UP, but it was not as good as the last few Pixar movies. Still worth the time, but not their best work tho

Wife dragged me to the chic flick, it was my once a year punishment.

So went and saw The Proposal, Sandra Bullock has nice boobies for a 44 year old, younger than me but still !!!!!

I give the movie 2 UP !

that is all

Memento

Wow - if you have not seen this and you like movies that require some semblance of thought, you really need to see it. I wouldn't call it "great", but it was engaging. This is one of those movies you almost need to see twice just to piece together everything after you know the whole story.

Pineapple Express - A few funny parts, but mostly a stupid movie. Might be better if you are a stoner.

Underworld Trilogy - Enjoyable. I am usually pretty hard on fantasy movies, but these were totally watchable - all 3.. In today's movies, that is saying a lot.

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I do not agree with this. Well, maybe seeing it twice is fine, but anything more is just pointless. Once you know, the point is kind of lost. I have the special edition DVD, and I have to say that I've watched it the least of any other in my collection. I'll probably want to watch it again in a few years, because it really is well crafted and does something unique very well, but it's a movie that you should only be allowed to see once (maybe twice).

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The Wrestler

Rocky is not really about boxing. Instead, boxing is more of a backdrop. I expected the Wrestler to be similar - with wrestling just happening to be the context of the love story / tragedy / triumph / whatever.

What surprised me (and I really enjoyed) is that on top of being a story about a beaten man, it was also a fairly damning look at wrestling - without trying too hard to do so. The fact that most retired wrestlers are ruined, crippled, and otherwsie disposed of is one of the dirty secrets of the business. The fact that roids are rampant and wrestlers die at an astonishing rate is also touched upon. Much the same is done for strip clubs - glancing at the filth, but moving on.

In the end, the story is about 2 people who have been used up and spit out.

Really enjoyed it. I felt it was maybe a little overhyped, and I'm surprised non-wrestling fans liked it as much as I did.

The wrestler was one of those movies that I enjoyed and thought was very well executed, but have no desire to see again. It's good without being much fun.

The International

This movie is the suck. Takes itself way too seriously. Ends up being long, meandering, and mostly boring. Throws in just enough action movie cliche so that they could fool you with the previews, I suspect. Waste of a dvd rental.

I don't know, I thought the international was ok. Certainly not anything I'd spend $20 to own, but worth a dollar at the Red Box. The Wrestler was a well-made and well-acted movie about people and things that I couldn't really make myself care about.

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The International sucked balls. Just watched it last night. Terrible movie, dumb ending.

Frost / Nixon

Man, I really loved it. I remember doing a report on Watergate in the 5th grade (1985 I think) and always had an affinity for Nixon. Much has been written about Nixon's self-loathing and other anti-social qualities, but this movie put it into solid context, making him slightly sympathetic. One thing I liked is that he is not portrayed as a tyrant, but he is also not depicted as some tragic figure. At first, he has a lot of swagger, but that decays as his guilt compounds. The really fascinating part is in the special features when they show some of the real interviews, and how some of the most dramatic parts are almost word-for-word.

One thing nice about the movie is that it comes in just under 2 hours, and even at that length it felt brief (which is a great quality for a movie imo).

Anyhoo - if you are any sort of a American, I think this is a film worth watching. Also, if you're a Bush hater, it might make you sad to realize that you will never see Bush exposed in this manner.

The Hurt Locker

Not sure what everyone saw in this movie. It was well-acted, sure, but there doesn't feel as if there's a point to it. Slow-paced, nearly plodding, no plot to speak of. I didn't dislike it, but I certainly didn't think it was great. Boring, actually.

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Man On Wire : Entertaining enough, nothing super spectacular, but worth watching.

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Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince

Overall not a bad movie. It had its share of amusing parts (like most teen-oriented movies) and it had a much darker tone than earlier movies have had. It didn't feel like a two-and-a-half-hour movie, so it went fairly quick. The ending felt kind of anti-climactic. But it does leave you looking forward to the next one.

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Public Enemies

Can't say I really enjoyed this. It's slow in a lot of parts, and while it's well-acted I just couldn't get into it. Depp is, as always, excellent in his part, but it really feels like it's a part we've seen him do before. The rest of the cast, even Bale, was mostly forgettable. There's a lot of name actors in bit parts scattered throughout, so that was interesting, but why put them in those parts with nothing to do? See it on DVD, it's not worth a trip to the theater.

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The Unborn: Not a half bad horror flick. I love that they just throw you into the middle of the story without spending half the movie doing back story. More people should do this. Very surprised it was a Michael Bay flick. I saw that on the credits and was all..."wuh?"

The Uninvited: About halfway through this movie, I suddenly realized I was watching an american remake of a korean horror flick I'd seen a few years back called something like "The story of two sisters". I'm torn. The Korean flick pulled off the actual element of the story better, but the american remake had better acting and stronger production values while still getting the base elements across. Ultimately, I think the korean one wins. I finished it and immediately wanted to watch it again. This one ruined at least one key piece of the original story.

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The Asian version is usually way creepier than the US remake (The Grudge, The Ring, etc).

This is true, but in this particular story....creepy doesn't necessarily have to be there. I can't really clarify more without spoilers.

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I really liked Public Enemies.

Moon

Overall a good movie. I didn't really understand the dynamic between him and the robot but it's not too much of a stretch to make sense of it.

Harry Potter

Haven't read the book, thought the movie was ok. Then I read a review that outlined everything that was left out and just wow. Probably the worst of the series' film adaptations. They really emphasized the wrong things in the film. It was also odd that a spider got a longer funeral than a lead character. Unless they plan to lead off the next movie with it, it's pretty sad.

They've already said they are.

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Ah, well in that light I'll just say it ended a little dry.

They leave out tons of stuff from the books. The Goblet of Fire might as well have been a recap of the book with the maze scene onward being the last chapter.

If they didn't leave things out, the movies would be ridiculously long. Hard-core Potter fans might want to sit through a five-hour movie. I'm not so keen on that.

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I'd watch Potter movies for the scenery/effects/etc and even the acting anyway over the story. The story isn't exactly something that'll go down through the ages as an epic tale.

Maybe it's just the effect of reading the books but it lacked fluidity. It doesn't need to be 5 hours long to achieve that.

The movie for the last one is going to be two parts over two years. I haven't read it, but I hope there's a big fat cliffhanger right at the middle, because if they can make two complete movies out of one book, it's not really one book, and I shouldn't think I'm waiting two years to see one book.

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Well, more to the point I found the things left out to be far more interesting than what was in the film. The situations didn't feel dangerous, and more time was spent to portray the difficulty in getting Slughorn's memory than on the actual parts that make the memory interesting.

Too formulaic, and kinda boring because I guessed he was going to drink the luck potion from the start.

The watchmen - I just got around to watching this, I didn't catch it in theaters and haven't read the graphic novel. I really liked it, it was pretty interesting seeing heroes in that light. I didn't see the ending coming until they showed what pyramids parent company was.

Highly recommended unless you have a strange fear of blue penis.

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Black Snake Moan

My friends make fun of me because I have a penchant for anorexic girls who show a flair of white trash. That's the main reason I rented this - I wanted to see Christina Ricci in hillbilly cosplay.

I actually enjoyed the flick. It won't go down as a great movie, but as long as you don't mind the absurd (and slighly misogynic) premise, it should keep your attention and maintain some tension.

B+

I liked Black Snake Moan as well. I have to admit though, I've always thought Cristina Ricci was hot, so I had a predisposition toward liking it.

I used to think Cristina Ricci was hot, but over the years she's just gotten strange-looking.

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The Proposal:

I got stuck going to this with the BF and his mother. Oi. The only really redeeming part of it....wait...there was no redeeming part of it. The usual hollywood tripe, and people eat that shit up, so I expect it will do well. The BF looked over at one point and said, "wow, you REALLY hate this." Yes, yes, I do. :p


Moon:

I liked this one. It had some pacing issues in spots, but overall, a well done story. I can't decide if I like that the mystery touted in the trailer is over in the first 20 minutes or so and then the story becomes something else entirely. Then again, it would have been hard to advertise that story without giving away the first bit...so I guess I understand why they did it.

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"Monsters vs Aliens" - Fun. The usual sorts of jokes. Some nice nods to old sci fi movies.

"Robinson Crusoe on Mars" - Needed to see it since I discovered it was shot in Death Valley. Its "Castaway" on Mars. Good stuff and a really abrupt ending.

"War of the Planets" - ugh. Italian space opera from the 60s. Its a looong 80 minutes.

"Creation of the Humanoids" - very cheap scifi from 1962. But some good stuff about robots and humans. Clearly influential, seen a ton of other films do much of the same plot lines. A guy gets mad at his sister for consorting with an Android and it predates the Quicksilver/Wanda/Vision storyline. Hmm.

"1612" Russian historical epic about the Poles attacking in yes, the year 1612. Some surprising ultra violence and nudity. Its very russian.

I started on "Blood Car", clearly all those involved sat down and said "Lets make a film specifically for varan"

I started watching Surveillance but it was too fucking boring so I stopped it and deleted it from my DVR.

500 days of summer and funny people are both very good. summer is probably the best movie of the year, and funny people is a nice serious movie about foolish people.

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Nick and Nora's infinite playlist - everybody all together now "awww". I found myself quoting the guy on the porch in "Its a wonderful life"..."You gonna kiss her or talk her to death?!"