wached synecdoche new york. or rather, attempted to watch it... i got 45 mins through it and couldn't be arsed finishing it. it's all focused on one guy whose life is going downhill and at no point did i give a shit about him whatsoever. just boring with nothing going for it 

Super tense movie, really depressing though. Seems like every new bomb situation the stakes get higher or the situation more convoluted - a simple bomb defuse into a car with a hidden detonator into a bomb sewn inside a dead child into a remote detonated oil tanker, etc.

The main character has a death wish more or less and seems completely involved in the war in Iraq, while his team mates can't wait to get home and are afraid to die. He 'forgets' his gloves down near a remote detonation site of explosives and drives down to get them before his team detonates, and in hind sight makes it look like he wants his team mates to blow him up. etc, etc

Probably meant to show how the soldiers are getting fucked up by the war all in different ways. Was a good ride, but yeah it left me depressed in the end. 

Inception

might be spoilers below.

very cool, dramatic music playing all the time (worked well to create tension), felt quite rough and unpolished, hard to follow sometimes and blatantly obvious at others. i am currently watching 3rd rock from the sun so arthur was super distracting hey little tommy. ending went too fast. way too many idiotic action sequences that added absolutely nothing to the story (or even ridiculed it). character development/introduction was almost non-existant for some key characters and thus it felt rushed and unrealistic (how could the girl agree to join in without knowing shit about it all).
cheesy pretentious bits like the shore of your subconcious, dear god...
how on earth do you give a movie with such a disturbing view on our reality a rating for "12 year olds"?

overall I like Matrix better. 

Yeah I just watched The Number 23 as well rj. Was pretty decent for a thriller, though I did pick who wrote the book before it was revealed, but yeah the weird number 23 thing suddenly took a backseat by the end and left a fairly big loose end, as it was never explained where this number 23 going after people came from or why it existed. It just did.

Still, the cinematography was really good, Joel Schumacher did a great job there, which I wasn't really expecting after rubbish like the last 2 Batman movies before the Nolan reboot, and Phone Booth.

And the best thing was finally seeing Jim Carrey in a good NON-COMEDY role. He needs to do more of these.

Saw Machete last night... pretty average. The trailer they showed at the start of Grindhouse was better.

Saw Fright Night 2 yesterday as well, some good old 80s vampire horror. Slightly above average , on par with the original. 

Joseph Gordon Levitt is actually a really good actor, someof his indie stuff is really good. Check out The Lookout for a fun ride. 

Will do, thanks! 

I didnt think it was it really "what a war does to soldiers" movie, even though there is plenty of that.

And IMHO that's what sets it apart from many other recent war films. Although it has its flaws, the focus on a character that seems to thrive on, if not love, the adrenalin rush of war was an interesting take. Also helps that its ferociously suspenseful. 

The Lookout was quite good. Thanks! 

I found it a very underrated film. 

Pandorum (2009): Good Sci-Fi horror movie like RickyT23 said. The plot twists towards the end and how it pounds it into you like twisting a knife made the slightly above averagish rest of the plot strike big gold.

More independent Sci-fi films like this and Moon, please.

The Social Network (2010). I got somewhat forcibly dragged to this movie by my girlfriend. Despite great reviews, it really wasn't on my list of movies I *wanted* to see. This movie sucks you in big time. Considering it is almost a slightly glorified documentary, the evil cunning portrayed in the movie leaves you in constant suspense. Yeah, I'm sure a ton of people have seen it, but still ...

Punch Drunk Love (2001). Adam Sandler movie from years back. Uncomfortable at times. The comedy towards the end makes it a winner. Kind of dark for Adam Sandler.

Justice League (2009): Crisis on Two Earths. Awesome. A sick and evil Owlman (alternate dimension Batman) secretly plans to destroy all reality. A "good" Lex Luthor teams up with the Justice League and fights the evil alternate dimension Justice League. Owlman is a sick bastard. Lots of good action. Predictable, but delivers what you expect ... Superman fighting an evil superman, super-criminals previously unchecked getting owned, Batman kicking some ass smugly.

Batman Under The Red Hood (2010): Possibly the first Batman animated movie approaching a near anime level plot quality. The unstoppable villain turns out to be a presumed dead Robin who decides to tackle crime by being a crime lord.

The Substitute (1996). Tom Berenger is a substitute teacher in a gangsta school who is really a mercenary. A lot of fun if you like to watch the consequences of a gangsta high school student thinking he can fuck with the teacher.

These last 3 are instant watch on Netflix.

Truecrimes (2007). A Brazillian dubbed independent film with time travel consequences. Such a drawing plot that even though it was captioned only in English, the plot and the absolute shock WAY overcomes that to deliver something almost as sickeningly tragic the movie "The Fly".

Brubaker (1980). A progressive prison director played by Robert Redford seeks to reform a corrupt Alabama prison system. I knew little to nothing about Robert Redford's body of work, this movie is near Shawshank Redemption quality.

Get Carter (1971). Michael Caine as tough guy criminal taking on organized crime in the UK to find his brother's killer. Brutally awesome and witty.

Rob Roy (1995). Liam Neeson. The whole movie is gut-wretching with a quite unexpected plot twist ending. 

Grown Ups (2010)

Disgusting dipshits realise what bad lives they live, talk about it and in good hollywood fashion become true american slightly less disgusting dipshits. When I started watching I knew it was bad, then I thought it had potential but it just kept being more terrible. Had some nice sexy girls though, that's the only upside. Truly ugly movie in my opinion. Utter hollywood trash. 

Layer Cake (2004)
What's been said above. Can't recommend it. 5/10. Had potential. nitin summed it up nicely two times. ;-D 

Flonking amazing film. Hard to believe Pixar just keeps cranking out these amazing films. TS3 is probably their best one yet. Had me laughing so hard I couldn't breathe at one point, and it wasn't nearly as sad as I thought it would be based on word of mouth. The ending is actually kind of sappy but not really sad at all imo, probably the only logical conclusion to the story. Also, I actually said "What a dork" at the end about Andy. Definitely worth seeing. 

TS3 is looking like my film of the year; loved every bit of it. probably the best 'part 3' to any series i've ever seen, too 

the good...

good will hunting (1997) - some of the best dialogue i've ever heard in this... whether it was being poignant or emotional or hard-hitting or funny or just plain entertaining it was always razor sharp. i loved the bar / park bench scenes especially. the characters were great, especially williams' shrink. wasn't a massive fan of the ending but still a nice story in all.

brazil (1985) - this surprised me. it's nothing like twelve monkeys at all... in fact a lot closer to monty python in terms of dark humour and overall bizarreness. hugely entertaining and visually immense, with a brilliant ending

the bad...

despicable me (2010) - ok maybe it wasn't THAT bad... it's mildly amusing and occasionally cute, but unlike - for example - TS3 (or most pixar titles), it never really advances beyond being a kids movie. the characters are pretty weak and underdeveloped and it never felt like there was anything running below the surface for adults to appreciate

what dreams may come (1998) - ugh, this was just a non-stop barrage of sappiness that got stuck in the slow lane early on and never picked up. the visuals looked nice but as far as metaphorical images of heaven & hell go it was all pretty cliched and unadventurous, despite a clearly large budget. the plot gets complicated towards the end but i stopped caring enough to actually follow it

and the ugly...

in the mouth of madness (1995) - how the blazes this got a 7.0 on imdb is completely beyond me; it's one of the worst horror films i've ever seen. half baked concept riddled with plot holes and cliches, 2-bit characters, laughable acting, terrible effects and cheesy-as-hell soundtracking throughout. the only thing going for it is one unintentionally hilarious scene where a pack of evil dogs are set on a bunch of men with guns... "shall we use the guns??" "of course not! we'll just panic, run backwards and fall over!" *various disorientating close-ups of dogs gnarling prosthetic body parts* 

Il mercenario (1981)
Mixed bag western. One of the better Morricone soundtracks. Felt quite rough, not well told. Sometimes very cool. The woman was just annoying. 

I recently re-read the first book of Lord of the Rings and yesterday we watched the first movie. Dear god, how blinded must I have been that I considered the movies excellent when I saw them in cinema. Compared to the book this one was quite rubbish. So much silly hollywoodism and deep things being changed for the sake of special effects and fighting. Especially the squid at Moria and the "the black riders are 1 meter away from Arwen & Frodo but hey, let's ride for another 2km because it is so much fun fun fun!" left a bitter taste in my mouth. What a shame. Other parts are stuffed together so quickly and harshly that there is no sense for the journey at all. Not to mention all the crap with Isengart and Saruman. 

but as adaptation they are probably fair.

Whats on the page does not always translate well to the screen. 

and high-five to Shambler for using "hollywoodism" too, earlier in this thread 

 

Just watched The Nines, with Ryan Reynolds in a serious role. What a great little fantasy drama (sci-fi if you ask me, but not according to imdb). Probably an 8/10 - best i've seen in the last few weeks (since I wanked on about Martyrs).

Saw Centurion today as well. Not usually my type of movie, the historic epics have been done to death. But it's Neil Marshall (Dog Soldiers, The Descent) so I had to give it a shot. It'd at least have great cinematography. Wasn't a bad film either. Predictable with the normal historic flaws but good visuals. Ended a little abruptly though, i'm guessing to set up a sequel. 

Elijah Wood/Frodo was just too annoying for me to ever have a chance of enjoying LOTR. Even Harry Potter would have been more bearable. 

I thought the LOTR movies were as well done as possible. The books are the real thing, but the movies are pretty good. I like the squid. I also like goofy things like Sauron's Mouth.

The one part that I found a bit cheesy was the green undead army in part 3. Oh well.

Some things are really beautiful in the movie, such as the use of Anglo-Saxon or whatever it was (Old English?). Generally part 2 is my favourite.

Elijah Wood was casted before 9/11, back when it was still OK to be all weak and sensitive.

I think what you call Hollywoodism is simply Jackson's total fanboyish reverence of the whole thing and a lot of it is already in the books, really.

The fighting is actually really good in LOTR. I could do without goofy dwarf jokes in between though.

If you like LOTR, you might be able to stomach The Nibelungs, the semi-recent made-for-TV version I mean. In some ways that is quite refreshing (set in the early middle ages instead of the late, for example, with matching costumes etc). Watching Kristanna L�ken brawl her way through the movie with various weapons is kinda entertaining, at least.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VjiLVk76TOo&feature=related

It's an international production, more in line with things like the 13th warrior etc. than LOTR. Mostly. It's known under several names, like Dark Kingdom or The Dragon King. 

Just got done watching Star Wars Episodes 1 through 6. What is the big flonking deal? Were 6 episodes necessary? The only characters I liked were Liam Neeson, black/red Sith bro, Emperor when he wasn't being a bitch, and Han Solo because he's Harrison mother fucking Ford.

Not sure why everyone likes the movies or whatever. I will probably never watch these again in my entire life. 

The Curse of the Ring: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0387541/

I swear that movie has more names than I can keep track of. Saw a Spanish dub on a bus once. Truly enthralling experience.

On fantasy epics, in March HBO will start showing the first series of A Song of Ice and Fire.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=atFX6keD95o