The Movie & Book Review Thread
 

I felt like startiing this thread, cause I like to watch a lot of movies. What movies have you seen that you really liked? This can include recently, or awhile ago, or whatever. I'll start...
The last movie I saw was "The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo".

My wife got a Kindle Fire for Christmas and she got the subtitled version of that movie for free. We watched about 5 minutes of it until we said let's just go to the theatre. The American theatre version was a bit different.
I felt "The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo" was pretty good, but it was very sexually violent and long. Sexual violence as in ---- rape scene, which I was semi disgusted with...but then it takes a satisfactory twist. This is a David Fincher film...he made fight club, which just might be my favorite movie of all time.
Next Movie...
Before the last movie, I saw "Drive".

I really loved "Drive", but my wife and my best friend and his wife were like "meh".
New years Eve...I was across the street and I was watching "The Big Lebowski". I saw this movie a while ago, but it's phoenominal. It's right up there with American Psycho and Pulp Fiction.

We have a "Modern Cinema" thread, but this works too.

As for The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, don't get me started. Not seeing it.

Well $hit. I didn't notice that other thread, so mods please delete if necessary.
As for the girl with the dragon tattoo, I think I'm going to honestly say I was very dissapointed with that flick and I would not recommend it to anyone. Daniel Craig should only be allowed to be James Bond, that's it.

You should definitely copy/paste your reviews to the other thread.

To anyone who is thinking about seeing the movie, "The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo", please, for the love of humanity and kittehs, read the book. I shat you not, it's incredible.

¿Por que?

Book notwithstanding...

The 'Murica version of Dragon tattoo was much less visceral and emotionally involving than the original. Anyone who is interested in the series needs to skip the Fincher version and go straight to the Euro movie. I'm pretty sure it's on Netflix/dvd.

Thirdgen...the rape scene in the latest one make you squirm? The original is lightyears more devious and sadistic, but that makes the revenge scene even more gratifying :D The portrayal of the guardian in the Fincher version does not scratch the surface of performance in the original. Same goes for the climax scene, where Daniel Craig is about to go bye bye...

See the original. You won't regret it.

I'll check it out! Thanks.

Just saw "Act of Valor", it was really good and I'd see it again. It was played by active Navy duty SEALs, which is really cool.

Haven't seen the American version of "Dragon Tattoo," but the original was very faithful to the book - and all of the books are great reading.

I finally saw "Drive" on DVD a few weeks ago... and... it might have been the worst movie I've seen in the last 10 years. Just absolute crap, and not at all the action thriller it was made out to be. I kept waiting for some kind of payoff but it never came. It was just a slow, plodding, wannabe-artsy-fartsy flick with really, really, really, really really, bad "action" scenes. The "car chases" were just comically terrible. I'm surprised it wasn't up for an Oscar...

"The Wrestler" - Saw this when it opened in theaters a couple years ago. A really good movie where Mickey Rourke is perfectly cast. Not exactly a warm and fuzzy date flick, but very, very well done if you like downward-spiral stories like "Requiem For a Dream." Marisa Tomei's naked body makes lots of appearances too, so that's an added bonus.

"No Country For Old Men" - I read the book first, and I highly recommend it along with the movie. The movie is an almost spot-on translation of the book. The acting is superb - Javier Bardem takes the prize for one of the most ruthless and creepy bad guys to come along in a while. Another gold star for the Cohen bros.

"TRON: Legacy" - Yeah, yeah, I'm a sucker for TRON. I felt like an 8 year old all over again when I saw this at the IMAX. I'm sure it's a little thin on plot and acting, but I was too busy looking at all the shiny pretty things to care. And the Daft Punk soundtrack is pretty badass too.

"Step Brothers" - So ridiculous that it still makes me snicker when I see bunk beds - so much room for activities.

"Hot Tub Time Machine" - One of the best 80s movies ever...

I've a certain fondness for 70s vintage dystopian science fiction. Just watched THX 1138 this evening, in fact.

That is all.

Ooooh... good stuff...

And of course you know that THX-138 was the plate number for John Milner's '32 Ford Coupe in American Graffiti two years later... right? Those are about the only Lucas flicks that he hasn't gone back and effed up...

The fact that I'm not the only person on here who knows the existence of THX-1138 makes me happy

I am watching the old SEAL movie with Charlie Sheen, and it is one of the biggest POS wastes of time I have seen. I think I'd like it a lot more if I was drunk. Good to know the new one does not suck.

Maybe this is just civilian ignorance talking, but I think its a bad thing that there has been so much interest in the SEALs specifically lately. I think the support of the military independent of political BS is fantastic and I am glad I don't live back in the BS days of the 70s. But it just seems like a really terrible idea to have active duty SEALs basically demoing tactics and whatnot. If I'm the head of some intelligence service for some country that's in/may be a war with us, that might be some useful information. Along with the faces of military personnel who may be involved in said war. I don't really need to know the specifics of how SEALs kill/kidnap/rescue/sabotage/reconnoiter/etc. I just need to know that they do.

Hijack mode off.

From what I saw nothing was shown that reveals anything about any special tactics used by SEALs, to me it looked like pretty normal stuff, but what do I know. But yeah, I think it would be better if there wasn't so much of a spotlight on them, but on the other side of the coin it shows the sacrifice they make. At the end of the movie a list of names is show who are the SEALs who where killed in action since 9/11, there where a lot more names then one would imagine.

I agree on all of these except with Tron as I havent seen it. Drive was such a disappointment

Also I saw Midnight in Paris today. thought it was pretty good and interesting, but it's definitely out there

Yeah, and a thousand other places. Luke (disguised as a stormtrooper) claimed to the guard that they were transferring Chewbacca from cell block 1138. The helmet that Leia wears which freeing Han from Jabba's palace has "1138" painted on the side. An unnamed speaker over the PA system at the German harbor in Raiders calls out "eins, eins, drei, acht" (1138 in German.) In the Library, MCXXXVIII (1138) is clearly written in Dr. Jones (Sr.)'s Grail Diary.

(I'm such a geek.)


Actually, he did.

The 2004 "Director's cut" of THX 1138, which is the only copy I have, has been quite thoroughly CG'ed. For instance, everything behind the glass in the hot-cell rooms, where they're manufacturing the androids, is 100% CG (and the most visually discontinuous) but they also added in a bunch of cars in the garage, expanded several crowd scenes, copied-and-pasted actors into new CG sets in a couple of places, and just generally made the whole thing look like a poorly-compiled fan film which constantly cuts back and forth between, say, Episode 1 and the original 1977 theatrical print of "A New Hope."

I've actually never seen the original, unaltered version. It's never been released on DVD, only VHS and Laserdisc.

Examples:

CG Background added:

https://www.miataturbo.net/attachmen...ine=1330312821


Upper 2/3 of factory is new CG:

https://www.miataturbo.net/attachmen...ine=1330312821


Interior of hot cell is 100% CG (no original shots remain of the android manufacturing process in this version):

https://www.miataturbo.net/attachmen...ine=1330312821


Ah, well. It's actually not that bad, as compared to, say, Greedo shooting first and Han stepping on small-Jabba's tail. And there's still plenty of bald Maggie McOmie hotness.

I just watched Goon. Some hockey flick with stifler from American Pie. The movie was terrible. But I LOL'd hardcore when in one of the beginning scenes the main character's brother, who is gay, has his boyfriend roll up in a flaming red miata. HAHAHAh.

Seriously? Come on, we all went through a Star Wars phase in which we learned all kinds of nerdy facts about George Lucas and bought "The Hero with a Thousand Faces", right?

I saw Midnight in Paris recently too. I enjoyed it but felt I was too uneducated to fully appreciate the movie. For example, I know a bit about Hemingway and Picasso, which made their characters more enjoyable. My knowledge of the other writers/artists/musicians, not so much.