What movies have you seen lately? Now with reviews!Movies 

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Hotel for Dogs (3/10)
This was my wife's Netflix pick before we started in on True Blood Season 2. A couple of kids try to hide some strays from animal control in an abandond hotel and it eventually gets out of hand. Family comedy ensues. I am sure kids will like this, as well as anyone else that finds watching cute animals do silly things to aggravate humans. But in the end what seemed like a harmless kids movie turned into a lecture on the cruelty of kill shelters, even going so far as to paint the Animal Control dog catchers as heartless jerks that just see all dogs as mangy strays and take joy in killing them.

I wonder if we could get rid of this stereotype as someone dealing with a dangerous dog shouldn't be told they are cruel for calling animal control. Animal Planet has entire shows devoted to animal control officers that capture strays to protect them. Let them make a movie.


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Stranger than Fiction (7/10)
Harold Crick is hearing a voice. That voice is narrating his life as if telling a story, and then mentions his impending death. I liked this film. It has good acting and an interesting angle. But I have become hung up on the ending.

See, I am a sucker for a good happy ending. I love a Frank Capra ending. But this feels like it cheats, and I think that is the point, but it bothers me. I would have preferred it if he had died. It would have left a much larger philosophical question. Did he save that boy because he would have made the sacrifice or did he do it because he knew he was supposed to? Because part of me wants to believe that him hearing the author's voice was teh catalyst that truly led him to that point and that action. Without that would he have actually done it? We avoid that tough question to instead be given the he made the sacrifice willingly, but didn't die explanation. Happy days.

I like the happy ending but feel like I had something bigger taken away.

I highly recommend this film.
 
Hotel for Dogs wasn't on my wish list but I'll definitely give it a miss now!

I thought it was just me who watched True Blood round here, the second series keeps up the high quality of the first.
 
Fighting. Decent movie and most of the fighting was quite convincing. Worth watching at least 1 time. Terrence Howard was a terrible actor in this movie.
 
EvilNeal
Hotel for Dogs wasn't on my wish list but I'll definitely give it a miss now!

I thought it was just me who watched True Blood round here, the second series keeps up the high quality of the first.
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I have Season 1, but I'm yet to watch it.
 
Tom Servo
I have Season 1, but I'm yet to watch it.
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Give it three episodes before you give up on it when you start. It took my wife and I that long to figure out what our friends were on about.
 
You're not the first one to tell me that, but I appreciate it. I've heard it begins kind of boring and it gets good after the 4th episode or so. I'm currently going through Curb Your Enthusiasm S2 (I'm much better at watching movies than series) and after that it's Battlestar: Galactica S1. And then it's True Blood S1
 
I'm on season 3 now and it's still going strong. I got True Blood S1 on Blu Ray for my wife as a Christmas present and neither of us were sure of it at first but quickly got hooked. There's lots of sex and shocking scenes in it so it's very different to Alan Ball's Six Feet Under but it's just as good which is a huge compliment. The Alan Ball HBO pairing seems to be gold so far.

I would love to patient enough to wait for for each series to come out on blu ray rather than satellite as even HD broadcasts are rubbish compared to BD. The surround sound in particular is on the True Blood BD is the best I've heard yet even on my fairly cheap set up.

...tried Battlestar Galactica but rather annoyingly didn't get into it.
 
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Bubba Ho-Tep

Didn't know what to expect from this - Diego hated it, Famine loved it, and it seemingly splits the critics down similar lines. My verdict: great if you're in the mood for some complete and utter silliness. I must confess, some of the humour is puerile, but genuinely funny. The whole concept of the film is absurd but funny at the same time, and I found myself laughing at some scenes just because they were so ridiculous - which, for a comedy film, is a good thing! I don't think it will make my shopping list any time soon, but it did make my night yesterday. 7/10
 
Touring Mars
Bubba Ho-Tep

Didn't know what to expect from this - Diego hated it, Famine loved it, and it seemingly splits the critics down similar lines. My verdict: great if you're in the mood for some complete and utter silliness. I must confess, some of the humour is puerile, but genuinely funny. The whole concept of the film is absurd but funny at the same time, and I found myself laughing at some scenes just because they were so ridiculous - which, for a comedy film, is a good thing! I don't think it will make my shopping list any time soon, but it did make my night yesterday. 7/10
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👍 It's one of those films that i enjoyed watching at the time, but have no real wish to watch it again.
 
I also have no wish to watch it again
 
PUSH

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Saw this movie over the weekend.... Didnt know anything about and read the description on the TV, which made me think... uh oh... X-men ripoff.. Though the first scene caught my interest so I kept watching. All in all the movie wasnt bad, the powers of the characters were pretty basic and the action scenes are done pretty well. Plot is done quite well in my opinion and thats what keeps your attention with this movie. You keep wondering what will happen next. At the end though it gets a bit mushy and lovey dubbey which kind of killed it for me. Fun movie to watch sitting on the couch with the missus. 👍

6.5/10
 
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2012

If ever a film goes too far with the special effects, it's this one. Given that I received two films in the post this week - Bubba Ho-Tep (see above) and 2012, little did I know that Bubba Ho-Tep would turn out to be the less silly of the two. Frankly, this film is a steaming pile of crap. I actually laughed at some of it, while the rest of it just made me either want to switch it off, or find something better to do with my time - like pulling my own teeth out with pliers. A complete waste of time and energy, and it's only saving grace - some cool visuals - are rendered completely and utterly pointless by the absurdity of the film in general. 1/10
 
Touring Mars
If ever a film goes too far with the special effects, it's this one. Given that I received two films in the post this week - Bubba Ho-Tep (see above) and 2012, little did I know that Bubba Ho-Tep would turn out to be the less silly of the two. Frankly, this film is a steaming pile of crap. I actually laughed at some of it, while the rest of it just made me either want to switch it off, or find something better to do with my time - like pulling my own teeth out with pliers. A complete waste of time and energy, and it's only saving grace - some cool visuals - are rendered completely and utterly pointless by the absurdity of the film in general. 1/10
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Ha, I saw this a couple of months ago and I completely agree. It was like a completely over-hyped CGI fest. Some parts were cringe worthy. I personally thought 'Day After Tommorrow' was one thousand times better. Not because of a slightly more solid storyline but not every scene was embedded with huge amounts of sillyness in terms of the CGI.
 
i just finished watching Red Cliff, imo the best movie i've seen in a while

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amazing fight scenes and battle formations, i like it
 
Touring Mars
pulling my own teeth out with pliers
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If you ever want to feed yourself to pigs, you know what movie to watch first for the sake of the piggies' digestion.
 
FoolKiller
Animal Planet has entire shows devoted to animal control officers that capture strays to protect them. Let them make a movie.
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I agree with you on this, a made-for-TV movie shown on Animal Planet would keep me occupied for around 2 hours, seeing as I've got nothing else to do. If it was released in cinemas, I wouldn't see it, because Animal Planet will be showing it anyway a year or so after its release.
 


Mibu Gishi Den (a.k.a. When the Last Sword is Drawn) (Yôjirô Takita, 2003) -- A kind of biographical movie on a samurai called Kanichiro Yoshimura, who can no longer support his family and is forced by the love for them to leave the city in search for higher pay to support them. Though he is seen as a money grubber, he proves his physical and mental strength by always being loyal to his honor, thus defeating his enemies within the clans as well as his battles. With the rise of the Emperor and the fall of the Shogun, we see his struggle in life as a person as well as Japan's introduction to newer way of battle, like guns and cannons.

It is also a movie about the latter days of the samurais in Japan as the industrial era moved on and abolished the societal levels and the transition to a modern state, told through the lives of the people who were caught in the middle of it, unable to let go of the Shogun era; a movie about their emotions and honor with impressive acting, especially by Kiichi Nakai, great characterization and very nicely done swordplay. My only issues with the movie are the soundtrack which was too intrusive at times, the cinematography seemed too TV-oriented and many scenes seemed to drag along forever; the movie could've been done in less than 90 minutes, yet it lasts about 130. 7.5/10
 
Touring Mars
If ever a film goes too far with the special effects, it's this one. Given that I received two films in the post this week - Bubba Ho-Tep (see above) and 2012, little did I know that Bubba Ho-Tep would turn out to be the less silly of the two. Frankly, this film is a steaming pile of crap. I actually laughed at some of it, while the rest of it just made me either want to switch it off, or find something better to do with my time - like pulling my own teeth out with pliers. A complete waste of time and energy, and it's only saving grace - some cool visuals - are rendered completely and utterly pointless by the absurdity of the film in general. 1/10
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The people who did the effects for this movie had to have come from the SyFy channel because they (& the story) are on the same level of stupidity.

Honestly, I was told this movie this had great special effects. But, when I saw the limo driving off & coming out of the building, I had to think, "When is the last time a limo looked like a plastic toy in real life?"
 
TB
My wife wants to but our schedule is a bit prohibitive as of late.
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It's supposed to be incredible, if complex. I'm annoyed that there is no simultaenous worldwide release and so must do my darndest to avoid spoilers until Thursday.
 
Tom Servo


Mibu Gishi Den (a.k.a. When the Last Sword is Drawn)
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I really like this film. I can watch the first 15 minutes over and over. It is a bit on the long side, but still a good watch.
 
Red Eye (2005)

I'll be the first to admit that I have little experience with Wes Craven films. He seems to be efficient enough and generally kept the teen slasher flick alive with the SCREAM series. So I didn't know what to expect from RED EYE. It might have lacked some tension at times, but it was pretty taught for most of the ride. In fact, it might have been too-tightly plotted; it's almost as if Craven decided to strip away as much as possible in an attempt to make a lean suspense vehicle. As a result, we don't really get invested in much: Cillian Murphy is a guy who wants someone dead. Rachel McAdams can give it to him. Brian Cox is her father. And Jayma Mays is a ditz. That's all we really know. I found it hard to keep my interest going, because there was no explanation. Why was Jackson Ripner wanting the guy dead in the first place? Who was he working for? Those are just two questions I asked during the film; there was a dozen more, but I've mostly forgotten them. It would have been much more interesting to set the audience up believing that Ripner was a CIA agent trying to infiltrate a terror cell and that he needed Lisa's help to make it authentic and keep his cover intact, only to turn it all around and reveal that Ripner was lying. But that's just me. Overall, it was a fairly decent effort, but if it had run any longer, I think I would have turned it off (but then, if it had run any longer, I think it would have delved into the story a bit more).

6/10
 
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What, no-one has seen Inception yet?
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I'm going next Saturday with my wife before going for a slap up meal, fortunately it's in the cinemas to coincide with our anniversary night out and the boy is at Grandma's so I'll get a lie in the next day :)

I've also been avoiding the spoilers but judging by the review scores it should be awesome. Liverpool has just got it's first Imax screen which I'll be watching it out so it should be double awesome.


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Hard Candy

Saw this last night and really enjoyed it. I can't really give it much of a review without a load of spoilers. I did have a bit of an idea what the plot was but it still kept me interested as it progressed, there's a few twists in it but nothing on the scale of Keyser Söze! The cinematography was pretty artistic which added to the film rather than distracting you as can sometimes be the case. Definitely worth a watch - 8/10
 
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Eh, lucky you. The closest one to me is in Sydney - about 500km away.
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That's a little bit of a trek for a night at the pics ;)

Apparently it's not the full 70mm Imax uberscreen that curves around you but is the Imax [airquotes]Experience[/airquotes] for films shot on digital 35mm format. Either way it's a huge 17.8m X 9.7m screen with better seating and has "laser-aligned digital sound to envelop the audience"! Hopefully it will be worth the inflated price.
 
Saw Inception. Without a doubt one of the best films I've ever seen, it was well acted and well written. It would be a bit hard to follow if you weren't paying attention but I was captivated by it for whatever reason. It was like a more intelligent Matrix meets Blade Runner...sorta. I don't know the best way to describe it. It was a movie that made you think for sure and I want to see it again...which is something I almost never want to do.

What I really find odd is I though is that I hated the Batman movies Christopher Nolan did yet I loved Inception.
 


Harold and Kumar go to White Castle (Danny Leiner, 2004) -- I'm not usually a fan of stoner movies, since they tend to overdo the jokes and treat every scene as a case of the giggles. This one follows that same line, but adds in a 'semi-road trip' to the mix, making it full of win because of it. It stops being just a stoner movie and becomes a very enjoyable and politically incorrect comedy with the expected stupidness of a stoner movie and a few surprises thrown in that not only keep it interesting, they are hilarious, provided you leave your sense of logic and probability at the door. There's a few bizarre cameos and some side-characters that really contribute into making this one a winner. Still, it's just a comedy and though it touches on some strong points in US racism and blatantly exaggerates them, it remains a stoner movie. Great friday night flick. 7/10
 
Joey D
Saw Inception. Without a doubt one of the best films I've ever seen, it was well acted and well written. It would be a bit hard to follow if you weren't paying attention but I was captivated by it for whatever reason.
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Saw it last night and I absolutely agree, 100%. Why can't more great, original films come out now days? Tired of all the remakes and sequels, this was a refreshing change for once. 👍

The one thing that did piss me off is the couple to my left that were having a a makeout session, and the couple to my right that couldn't keep their hands off each other. You pay $10.50 to see a movie, you should probably pay attention to it. Especially this one. :rolleyes:
 
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