Last Movie Watched

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Trouble with the Curve, a sports movie somewhat on the other side of Moneyball. An old baseball scout with an eye for talent starts to lose his vision while younger scouts and computer software are pushing him out of the business. Mostly it's about his problematic relationship with his daughter.

Clint Eastwood plays, guess what, a grumpy old man. I do enjoy him in that role though, so I thought the movie could be good since I like sports. But it's average at best. It's very clichéd and it feels like I've seen the same story dozens of times. Father daughter, broken relationship, trip together, mutual understanding, blah blah. Still, if you're in the mood for seeing Clint grit his teeth and raspily say "goddamnit" at anything newer than a rotary phone it's not a bad watch.

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Rise Of The Guardians - I seem to be one of the few people in the world who have seen this and didn't love it. I thought it was fine, but I don't know if it's just that stuff like Pixar has ruined me for kids movies that don't have a set of rules that the story adheres to or what, but the lack of them in this movie bothered me. It seemed like they were purposefully vague about the mechanics of things so that when something popped up out of nowhere, and didn't make sense initially, you'd sit back and say "well, they never said that couldn't happen."

Like I said, maybe the adult friendly kids movies that Pixar and others have been making has kind of ruined other types of kid-oriented movies for me, or maybe I'm just being too anal about this one, I don't know. But I thought it was just ok.


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Killing Them Softly - The last movie Andrew Dominik directed, The Assassination Of Jesse James, is one of my favorite movies of all time, so I went into this with really high expectations and left only slightly disappointed. There was a lot of artsy, slo-mo and scenery type shots, similar to Jesse James, but they didn't seem to me to be executed anywhere near as well as they were in that movie (Jesse James had Roger Deakins as cinematographer, so that explains that) and at points they seemed a little excessive as a result. Other than that, my only gripe is that the movie seemed kind of pointless, but that's minor. Brad Pitt was a lot of fun, Richard Jenkins is always fun, James Gandolfini was great, Ray Liotta etc etc. The story was good and there were plenty of funny moments. I liked it.


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The Other Guys - I think this movie is ****ing funny and bought it on sale at best Buy for $3. I've watched it a few times now and it's still funny.


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Baby Mama - I hadn't seen this movie before because BoobyTrap said it sucked, but when it showed up on cable I decided to give it a chance, anyway. Not only does it have Tina Fey and Amy Poehler, but it's also got Greg Kinnear, Sigourney Weaver, Steve Martin, Dax Shepherd and Will Forte in it, so it couldn't be that bad, could it? Yeah, it could. Well... I wouldn't say it was bad, necessarily, but it was just really bland and boring. There were a couple funny parts and the acting was good all around, but the script just wasn't very funny altogether. It was boring and a waste of time.


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L.A. Confidential - Pretty decent. Guy Pearce plays an ******* really well. Good movie.


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A Dangerous Method - Man, I really wanted to like this movie. I really, really did. The acting was good and it looked nice, but for the life of me I just could not find myself able to care about what was happening much. I was kind of bored. By the way Kiera Knightley's accent was horrendous, but otherwise I was pretty impressed with her performance. If Fassbender and Mortensen were able to do their parts without heavy accents, I don't know why she had to have one. It was distractingly bad.


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The Ides Of March - Solid political thriller. If you enjoy the back-stabbing, scheming type of political thriller, I would recommend it.

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Dummy (2002) - IMDb

Hottest moment? When Mila Jovovich sings.

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I liked this movie. Very quirky, good, but different.
Plus: Sex. I like watching people having sex.

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End of Watch. A more realistic (for the most part) take on the buddy cop movie thing, less comedy and action but more drama and thrills. Two best friends being cops in a very bad neighborhood get caught up in some cartel business. I really liked it, watch it if you get a chance.

Man...2013 started UNDERWHELMINGLY!!!!

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OK. First off. What a pile of ****! On multiple best of lists, terrific word of mouth...WHY. A ridiculous mess of feeble, nonsensicle 'stories', populated by douchebags and filmed in the most infantile of possible ways. I GET going with an all handheld cheapy self shot vhs look. I do. But even the most retarded of amateur filmakers do not CONSTANTLY SHAKE THE CAMERA like the offspring of Michael J. Fox and Audrey Hepburn. It's ****ing unwatchable. If I had seen this in a theater I might have walked out. There is ONE story that has a hint of promise(the 4th?) that has a skype meets Rosemary's Baby feel. But it is also unsatisfying because it leaves you with more questions than answers. This is not a movie. The 'framing' story is especially weak with a WTF ending that comes BEFORE the end of the movie???? What????? How is that a framing device? Is that the height of creativity? OOOOh we ended our bookend before the end of the movie. Juvenile. AVOID AT ALL COSTS!!!!!!!

But things are looking up...

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DEFINITELY on my best of 2012 list. The more I think about it...the better it gets. The mark of good sci-fi. Ok...the JGL makeup/contacts were a bit much, but he does the subtle Willis smirk/headtilt/look of condescending surprise really well. The story, and the origin of the Reignmaker was a little too convenient, but damnitall Rian Johnson stuck the landing for a real kickass resolve. I don't care about the faulty mechanics time travel wise...because the story is so damned good. Love this movie and will watch again.

I saw Life of Pi last night. I think it just edges out Moonrise Kingdom for my favorite of 2012, though there are still a few 2012 films I want to see that may have some say in the matter.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by LetTigerIn

I saw Life of Pi last night. I think it just edges out Moonrise Kingdom for my favorite of 2012, though there are still a few 2012 films I want to see that may have some say in the matter.

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Warms the heart that you agree with me...this movie floored me visually and emotionally. Did you see it in 2 or 3d?

I saw this at 3am(bad back woke me up)...

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and yes. I love Fincher's dark, underappreciated Aliens3. I think his Panic Room is flawed yet still terrific. But this movie and Fight Club demonstrate a level of 'height of your powers' that nothing he has done since, at least for me has lived up to. Art direction/sound design/visual fx(****ing Rob Bottin bitches!!!!!!)/acting(yeah...I happen to think Pitt is a great actor)/just everything coming together to create one of the best movies of the past couple decades that simply stands the test of time. If you have not seen it in a while...rewatch and tell me I am wrong.

Getting caught up a bit....

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Ah, badassery 80's cheese filled with one handed gun fights and a ridiculous extended fight scene

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A shockingly good cast plopped into a mediocre Christmas movie that felt like a Vince Vaughn ego boost.

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Great family film, found myself smiling quite often at all the dialogue

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Actually saw this during late run in the theatre, I'm not a big sci-fi fan but I really loved this movie.

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Speaking to my lack of sci-fi love, I can admit I started to watch this last week, got through 1 hour 10 minutes of wanting to drill a hole in my head and turned it off. Sacrilege I know... Maybe I will return to it in the future but I found absolutely nothing about this movie I wanted to watch.

I got tired of catching up on my TV shows on my DVR and actually played some of the movies I recorded off HBO. 30 minutes into Bridesmaids I was completely confused why the movie was so highly regarded when it was about as funny as a new NBC sitcom. Women can do gross-out humor too? Groundbreaking!!!!! The British brother and sister were 95% creepy, 5% funny. But, after the first half hour, once the characters got on the plane to Vegas, the movie started being pretty funny and I enjoyed the rest, although the main chick needed to be 10 years younger to be that much of a mess and not be completely pathetic. And while Melissa McCarthy was great and the best part of the movie, I wouldn't go giving her statuettes for it. High B.

The Town was fantastic, with the best realistic gun battles since Heat. Ben Affleck's top skill as a director is choosing thrilling stories that are set in the real world and populating them with very good actors. The dramatic parts were well done but I just didn't buy into the relationship part enough for it to affect Affleck's character that much. I don't know if it was the actress or the writing (or Affleck), but it drops the movie to a high A- instead of a high A. I also could have used an early scene of Jeremy Renner's character being friends with Affleck and exhibiting a not too-crazy bit of his craziness instead of having them talking about it 75% into the movie. Also, when the police are actively looking for a specific suspect, I don't know if wearing a bus driver uniform is going to fool them then.

RoboCop 2 was not on the same level as RoboCop, but it had its moments of satire and having the kid villain was inspired. The part at the beginning where one crime leads into another and that leads into another was genius too. However, the stop-motion animation was maybe even worse than in the first RoboCop and the matte paintings when they were hanging off the building were embarassing. The change in direction halfway through the movie made it feel like two separate disjointed parts. Low B.