Movie review rant 2013
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nanoboy
Well-Known Member
I'm with zooboy - a movie needs to tell a story, preferably a good one. Special effects such as 3D should complement the story.
Hix
You have raised an interesting point. I have been to a couple 4D theatres where the seats moved to mimic the first-person-view of riding a horse and where water was sprayed on you when the horse fell into the river. I found that to be extremely enjoyable and immersive, and I do wonder if this is the future of cinema theatres/movies.
The flip side is that I don't need all the bells and whistles to watch a rom-com or a biopic, and 3D or out-of-place explosions simply detract from the story for me rather than enhance it.
Having said that, I would be surprised if anyone went to see Madagascar 3 for the story rather than the mindless entertainment (except zooboy and his friends
).
zooboy28
Well-Known Member
Having said that, I would be surprised if anyone went to see Madagascar 3 for the story rather than the mindless entertainment (except zooboy and his friends
Some kids movies are awesome because they have a great story, and are very funny and entertaining, think Ice Age, Shrek, Lion King, Toy Story, Madagascar 1, etc. These are all worth seeing because they have all the ingredients for a great kids film. No-one would really classify these as "mindless", although the sequels (except of Toy Story) are totally mindless, straight to video, drivel. The story is the point of any movie (well, almost any movie), and no matter how it is dressed up, a bad story still means a bad movie.
Speaking of sequels, are you looking forward to the sequel to your ex-favourite animated movie Monster's Inc.? Monsters University (technically a prequel) opens in June:
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SjKiwiBird
New Member
I watched "Life of Pi" the other night and was quite pleased with it. It is a good story with amazing scenery. One downside is that it is quite a sad story that can bring out a few tears for some. But overall I think it's a good movie and I would watch it again.
Who else has seen it? What did they think of the meerkats?
Who else has seen it? What did they think of the meerkats?
nanoboy
Well-Known Member
I don't know man.... I feel like there are some movies on your list that are both funny and exciting but don't have a great story. And conversely some movies have a great story but are neither funny nor exciting - for some reason Dr Zhivago just jumped into my head as does many of the 'Best Picture' Oscar winners.
I am so looking forward to Monsters Inc. I think it will be awesomeness.
nanoboy
Well-Known Member
I watched "Life of Pi" the other night and was quite pleased with it. It is a good story with amazing scenery. One downside is that it is quite a sad story that can bring out a few tears for some. But overall I think it's a good movie and I would watch it again.
Who else has seen it? What did they think of the meerkats?
Welcome!
We have a few threads on this Zoo Cafe forum specifically discussing that movie. Have a quick search and jump in the discussion.
New technology is always amazing, and attractive. But when you get used to it and it becomes commonplace you will start to accept it and look at the other important components such as plot, script, acting, continuity etc.
I remember back in the 70's when colour TV first appeared in Australia - people would sit transfixed to the box watching ads - and not realising they were watching ads - because it was the first time they had seen them in colour. This novelty wore off after a week or two of TV watching.
As I said before: the special effects (whether they be cgi, 3D, Surround-sound, moving seats, or bass speakers in the seats) are to complement the story, not to be the focus of the story.
Hix
nanoboy
Well-Known Member
Django Unchained
Awesomeness - if you are a fan of Tarantino's other movies.
I sincerely hope that this movie wins the 'Best Movie' Oscar because it is just that: the best movie for 2012.
You have seen the trailers, no doubt, so I won't bore you with the plot of a freed slave trying to rescue his wife who is the slave of an evil plantation owner.
This movie was almost three hours long but I felt it could have been three hours longer because the story just drew you in and didn't release you until the final credits rolled.
If you choose to stick your head in the sand thinking that slavery was all about singing songs and picking cotton, then this movie will shatter your preconceived notions. It shows slavery in all its cruelty - I studied the slave trade in high school, but seeing drawings in books and seeing a runaway slave being torn to pieces by hunting dogs on film is like comparing chalk and cheese. The n-word gets used hundreds of times, assuring Tarantino's place as a director who doesn't get caught up with cultural sensitivity and being PC: indeed, cultural sensitivity had no place during slavery, so it was refreshing to see a movie that made the audience wince every time a derogatory term was thrown out to a "boy".
I enjoy gunslinger movies, and Jamie Foxx played one of the best I have ever seen. Samuel L Jackson was an excellent house slave of a lieutenant, and DiCaprio really was deserving of a Best Actor nomination (which he did not get..) for his role as a depraved plantation owner.
At times I did feel as though the movie should have been a two-parter like Kill Bill, and Tarantino himself said he toyed with the idea and had to delete a few scenes. There were also a few scenes that didn't need to be in a stand alone movie but would have been right at home if we were looking forward to 'Django Unchained 2'. For example, Jonah Hill et al provided a huge dollop of humour that seemed out of place given the tone of the rest of the movie.
Overall, it is one of Tarantino's best films ever. Watch it if you are a fan. Watch it if you need a lesson on slavery. Watch it if you enjoy gratuitous, stylised violence. Don't watch it if you are like Spike Lee and detest the use of the n-word.
9.5/10 (where Inglorious Basterds was about a 9)
Awesomeness - if you are a fan of Tarantino's other movies.
I sincerely hope that this movie wins the 'Best Movie' Oscar because it is just that: the best movie for 2012.
You have seen the trailers, no doubt, so I won't bore you with the plot of a freed slave trying to rescue his wife who is the slave of an evil plantation owner.
This movie was almost three hours long but I felt it could have been three hours longer because the story just drew you in and didn't release you until the final credits rolled.
If you choose to stick your head in the sand thinking that slavery was all about singing songs and picking cotton, then this movie will shatter your preconceived notions. It shows slavery in all its cruelty - I studied the slave trade in high school, but seeing drawings in books and seeing a runaway slave being torn to pieces by hunting dogs on film is like comparing chalk and cheese. The n-word gets used hundreds of times, assuring Tarantino's place as a director who doesn't get caught up with cultural sensitivity and being PC: indeed, cultural sensitivity had no place during slavery, so it was refreshing to see a movie that made the audience wince every time a derogatory term was thrown out to a "boy".
I enjoy gunslinger movies, and Jamie Foxx played one of the best I have ever seen. Samuel L Jackson was an excellent house slave of a lieutenant, and DiCaprio really was deserving of a Best Actor nomination (which he did not get..) for his role as a depraved plantation owner.
At times I did feel as though the movie should have been a two-parter like Kill Bill, and Tarantino himself said he toyed with the idea and had to delete a few scenes. There were also a few scenes that didn't need to be in a stand alone movie but would have been right at home if we were looking forward to 'Django Unchained 2'. For example, Jonah Hill et al provided a huge dollop of humour that seemed out of place given the tone of the rest of the movie.
Overall, it is one of Tarantino's best films ever. Watch it if you are a fan. Watch it if you need a lesson on slavery. Watch it if you enjoy gratuitous, stylised violence. Don't watch it if you are like Spike Lee and detest the use of the n-word.
9.5/10 (where Inglorious Basterds was about a 9)
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I just saw this yesterday and I loved it. In fact I think I liked it more than the LoTR movies. I'd probably give it 8 out of 10. I don't like Gollum but the guessing game scene was the best in the movie. I did have a few problems with the movie, which taken collectively will no doubt make it sound like I hated it all, but never mind.
The worst thing about it was that many scenes were just plain silly, and there were some very misplaced attempts at humour (e.g. the death of the Great Goblin). Peter Jackson basically started reverting back to his earlier type of movies, whereas he held that mostly in check for the LoTR trilogy.
The CGI wasn't great. It was good, but not on the level of the LoTR movies. Many scenes just made you think "that's some bad CGI there" instead of being able to believe it was real.
The dwarves were too "un-dwarf-like". Some of them looked like dwarves, but several (especially Thorin, and Kili and Fili) just looked like regular humans dressed in dwarf clothes.
I didn't mind the singing near the start but the party tricks while clearing the dishes was too Mary Poppins and shouldn't have been in there.
Still, a fantastic movie and I definitely don't think it was too long and boring as zooboy28 did! In fact when it ended I wanted it to keep going. I just hope that in the next movie the CGI for Smaug is better than what you saw at the end of this one....
Flight
Denzel Washington plays Airline Pilot 'Whip' Whittaker in a role that has earned him a nomination for Best Actor at this years Academy Awards.
On a routine 52 minute flight from Orlando to Atlanta the plane becomes unresponsive and goes into a dive. Whittaker is able to bring the plane out of the dive and successfully crashes the plane into a field with only the loss of 6 lives out of the 102 on board. He is praised as a hero because what he did was so difficult that pilots in simulators were unable to replicate his actions without killing all on board.
But six people died, and someone has to pay for that. The airline wants to blame the manufacturer, the manufacturer will blame the airline for poor maintenance. And if they can, both may try and blame the pilot. It doesn't help Whittaker's case when a blood toxicology report says that he had alcohol in his system at the time.
This is not an action movie, but there is a lot of suspense and drama; I found myself quite engaged with this movie and Whittaker's character in particular. While many movies today seem to follow a formula, this one did not appear to do so and I could not predict what was going to happen next (which might be why I found it so engaging). Towards the end of the movie the NTSB investigator threw in a little twist which was completely unexpected, and as a result nicely rounded off the story.
The story was great. Denzel Washington was brilliant and was ably supported by Bruce Greenwood, Don Cheadle, John Goodman, and Brian Geraghty is entertaining in both his scenes ("Praise the Lord!"). Kelly Reilly does a good job of portraying a drug addict that he meets while in hospital , and Nadine Velasquez has a small but memorable role - I'm looking forward to seeing more of her in future movies.
Washington has been nominated for Best Actor Oscar, and the movie has also been nominated for best Writing - I'm surprised it wasn't nominated for more as I think it would have given a few movies a run for their money in Best Film, Direction, and Cinematography.
Hix
Denzel Washington plays Airline Pilot 'Whip' Whittaker in a role that has earned him a nomination for Best Actor at this years Academy Awards.
On a routine 52 minute flight from Orlando to Atlanta the plane becomes unresponsive and goes into a dive. Whittaker is able to bring the plane out of the dive and successfully crashes the plane into a field with only the loss of 6 lives out of the 102 on board. He is praised as a hero because what he did was so difficult that pilots in simulators were unable to replicate his actions without killing all on board.
But six people died, and someone has to pay for that. The airline wants to blame the manufacturer, the manufacturer will blame the airline for poor maintenance. And if they can, both may try and blame the pilot. It doesn't help Whittaker's case when a blood toxicology report says that he had alcohol in his system at the time.
This is not an action movie, but there is a lot of suspense and drama; I found myself quite engaged with this movie and Whittaker's character in particular. While many movies today seem to follow a formula, this one did not appear to do so and I could not predict what was going to happen next (which might be why I found it so engaging). Towards the end of the movie the NTSB investigator threw in a little twist which was completely unexpected, and as a result nicely rounded off the story.
The story was great. Denzel Washington was brilliant and was ably supported by Bruce Greenwood, Don Cheadle, John Goodman, and Brian Geraghty is entertaining in both his scenes ("Praise the Lord!"). Kelly Reilly does a good job of portraying a drug addict that he meets while in hospital , and Nadine Velasquez has a small but memorable role - I'm looking forward to seeing more of her in future movies.
Washington has been nominated for Best Actor Oscar, and the movie has also been nominated for best Writing - I'm surprised it wasn't nominated for more as I think it would have given a few movies a run for their money in Best Film, Direction, and Cinematography.
Hix
nanoboy
Well-Known Member
Flight
Denzel Washington plays Airline Pilot 'Whip' Whittaker in a role that has earned him a nomination for Best Actor at this years Academy Awards.
On a routine 52 minute flight from Orlando to Atlanta the plane becomes unresponsive and goes into a dive. Whittaker is able to bring the plane out of the dive and successfully crashes the plane into a field with only the loss of 6 lives out of the 102 on board. He is praised as a hero because what he did was so difficult that pilots in simulators were unable to replicate his actions without killing all on board.
But six people died, and someone has to pay for that. The airline wants to blame the manufacturer, the manufacturer will blame the airline for poor maintenance. And if they can, both may try and blame the pilot. It doesn't help Whittaker's case when a blood toxicology report says that he had alcohol in his system at the time.
This is not an action movie, but there is a lot of suspense and drama; I found myself quite engaged with this movie and Whittaker's character in particular. While many movies today seem to follow a formula, this one did not appear to do so and I could not predict what was going to happen next (which might be why I found it so engaging). Towards the end of the movie the NTSB investigator threw in a little twist which was completely unexpected, and as a result nicely rounded off the story.
The story was great. Denzel Washington was brilliant and was ably supported by Bruce Greenwood, Don Cheadle, John Goodman, and Brian Geraghty is entertaining in both his scenes ("Praise the Lord!"). Kelly Reilly does a good job of portraying a drug addict that he meets while in hospital , and Nadine Velasquez has a small but memorable role - I'm looking forward to seeing more of her in future movies.
Washington has been nominated for Best Actor Oscar, and the movie has also been nominated for best Writing - I'm surprised it wasn't nominated for more as I think it would have given a few movies a run for their money in Best Film, Direction, and Cinematography.
Hix
I enjoy movies about airplanes, often despite the story, simply because I like planes.
I saw the trailer for this and I wondered whether there was anything left to be seen in the movie, given that we know he made a successful crash landing but had alco in his system and they try to nail him to the cross.
From your review, it sounds like you have to watch the movie for the one twist at the end. Is it worth paying to see it in the cinema in 2D then?
(On a side note, an old boss of mine was an aircraft crash investigator here in Australia. He said the call always seemed to come in the middle of the night when he was fast asleep. Anyway, get this, he had to write a standard operating procedure for not getting infected with HIV from the blood that often drips from the remains of the airframe: if you look up, a drop could fall in your eye or if your scratched hands wipe away blood etc. Scary stuff. I always thought it would be cool to be an aircraft crash investigator for the military though. They knock on your door and whisk you away to a waiting helicopter or military aircraft. How Hollywood is that?
)
zooboy28
Well-Known Member
nanoboy
Well-Known Member
zooboy28
Well-Known Member
Hansel & Gretel: Witch Hunters
There seems to have been a recent revival of fairy tale movies lately, with this "action-horror dark-fantasy" following Snow White & the Huntsman, and preceeding Jack the Giant Slayer, the trailer for which promises a pretty average movie.
Anyway, we went to see Hansel & Gretel in 3D, and it was pretty much as expected: low on substance, high on gore, but certainly entertaining enough. There was just one amusing joke - Hansel is diabetic as a result of being forcefed candy as a child! Classic. The movie could probably be improved by a few slow scenes to build suspense for the action, which ends up being 90% of the film. Maybe some gratuitous nudity would have helped. I don't really think the 3D added much to the film, although there were some cursed villagers whose guts spewed out to the audience when they exploded. Might be a good place to add a 4D effect...
The movie was quite short, only 88 minutes, and is probably not worth forking out for, especially when there are several other movies currently out (at least here), which are likely to be much better. Wait for the DVD.
Rating: 6.5/10
On a side note, one of the actresses in the film, Pihla Viitala, previously starred in an Icelandic horror film called "Reykjavik Whale Watching Massacre", which sounds a most interesting movie. Anyone seen it?
There seems to have been a recent revival of fairy tale movies lately, with this "action-horror dark-fantasy" following Snow White & the Huntsman, and preceeding Jack the Giant Slayer, the trailer for which promises a pretty average movie.
Anyway, we went to see Hansel & Gretel in 3D, and it was pretty much as expected: low on substance, high on gore, but certainly entertaining enough. There was just one amusing joke - Hansel is diabetic as a result of being forcefed candy as a child! Classic. The movie could probably be improved by a few slow scenes to build suspense for the action, which ends up being 90% of the film. Maybe some gratuitous nudity would have helped. I don't really think the 3D added much to the film, although there were some cursed villagers whose guts spewed out to the audience when they exploded. Might be a good place to add a 4D effect...
The movie was quite short, only 88 minutes, and is probably not worth forking out for, especially when there are several other movies currently out (at least here), which are likely to be much better. Wait for the DVD.
Rating: 6.5/10
On a side note, one of the actresses in the film, Pihla Viitala, previously starred in an Icelandic horror film called "Reykjavik Whale Watching Massacre", which sounds a most interesting movie. Anyone seen it?
Nanoboy - there is soooooo much more to the movie than what was in the trailers. I was deliberately vague because I don't want to spoil it for anyone who hasn't already seen it.
A really good movie. I don't normally give ratings out of ten, but just for you: 8/10
Hix
A really good movie. I don't normally give ratings out of ten, but just for you: 8/10
Hix
Do you know about the International Airshow at Avalon in march?
Tickets | Aust Int'l Airshow: General Admission - Lara VIC at Ticketmaster
Hix
Tickets | Aust Int'l Airshow: General Admission - Lara VIC at Ticketmaster
Hix
nanoboy
Well-Known Member
Do you know about the International Airshow at Avalon in march?
Tickets | Aust Int'l Airshow: General Admission - Lara VIC at Ticketmaster
Hix
The last time I went was in 2009. We don't seem to get really good aircraft coming to Oz, although I think the F22 Raptor was here 2 years ago - that's the one from Iron Man and Transformers.
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