The Last Movie You Saw - Thread 4

The Shipping News
Based on Annie Proulx's novel of the same name. Kevin Spacey plays Quoyle, a loveable loser who works menial jobs and is married to a horrible woman called Petal, who cheats on him constantly and has run out on him several times. Shortly after Quoyle's parents commit suicide, Petal runs off again, taking their daughter Bunny with her. She sells Bunny to a black market adoption agency to get more money, but is killed in a car accident. Quoyle's aunt Agnis (Judi Dench) comes to visit because of his parents killing themselves, and when she finds out what happened to Petal she persuades Quoyle to go with her to Newfoundland where their ancestors are from. Quoyle, Bunny, and Agnis make a new home on Newfoundland and gradually begin to get their lives back, Quoyle especially - he gets a job as a reporter for a small paper reporting the shipping news, and falls in love with lonely widow Wavey (Julianne Moore). It's a really beautiful film, with dark moments, sad moments, funny moments, sweet moments. The characters are all very human. The scenery is amazing. It sticks pretty closely to the book, too, which is a good thing.

Sunshine Cleaning
Two sisters, Rose and Norah, are struggling with their lives. Rose is a hard-working single mum who works for a cleaning service, but longs for success, and for a meaningful romantic relationship. Norah is a slacker who still lives with their father, Joe. Both women are still affected by their mother's suicide when they were children. They don't have much of a connection, except for Joe and Rose's son Oliver.
Rose's detective (and married) boyfriend Mac encourages Rose to start up a crime scene cleaning business because it's a lucrative trade, and she persuades Norah to get involved. They call the company Sunshine Cleaning. As they work, they fight, grow closer, and have some interesting, funny, gross, and sad moments. The film also follows Joe and Oscar. Oscar is a very bright boy and consequently often gets in trouble at school. Joe wants to provide for his daughters and grandson, so often comes up with 'get rich quick schemes' that he gets Oscar to help him with.
A really great film, intelligent and funny and moving, with great characters.

Escape from New York.
A John Carpenter film from the 1980s starring Kurt Russell. Manhattan Island has become a maximum security prison island. The bridges and tunnels have been blown, it's surrounded by high walls and armed police officers. The city itself is run entirely by criminals. when terrorists take over Air Force One and crash it into Manhattan, a ruthless gang kidnaps the president. The prison authorities call in ex-Special Forces, ex-con 'Snake' and persuade him to go in and get the President. Because of some big stuff going on in the world, he only has 24 hours to save the President, and he's been injected with something that means that if he doesn't get him out in time, he'll die.

It's a very cheesy, very 80s, very John Carpenter film, and the acting ain't great (though Russell is pretty good) but it's a damn good film. What makes it interesting, and a little creepy, and a little poignant is that the Twin Towers of the World Trade Centre have a pretty important role in the film and you actually see them several times throughout the movie, up close - Snake lands his plane on top of one of them!
 
The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas - film of the book. Very good.

Paranormal Activity - a young couple, Micah and Katie, discover their house is haunted by a demon that has been following Katie since childhood. Pretty scary and creepy in places. Not quite as scary as it's made out to be (IMO), but scary enough that I was hugging my teddy (Tough Ted!) at times (see, this is why I hang on to my favourite old toys, they do come in useful at such times!), and I also found Micah irritating. But a good film, anyway, and superior to a lot of the trash that's being put out as 'horror movies' these days.
 
Alice In Wonderland (the Tim Burton one)- eh... it was okay. I was expecting it to be a little darker with Burton at the helm. Johnny Depp was great. Helena Bonham Carter annoyed me though lol. I don't really know why, she just did. :lol:
 
Little Man Tate - directed by Jodie Foster and she plays the lead role as well. She plays a working-class, single mother who discovers that her son, Fred, is a genius. Fred is taken under the wing of Jane, the principal of a special school for genius kids. As well as a 'coming of age' storyline for Fred there's also the conflict between Jane and Mrs Tate who want different things for Fred and both think they know what's best for him.
Really good film, I really enjoyed it.
 
I watched Death Proof, Stargate, and Winged Creatures yesterday. All pretty good movies. I hadn't seen Stargate in about 8 years.
 
I saw "Eat, Pray, Love" on Saturday night and I thought it was pretty good. Total "chick flick" and it seemed like it lasted about 4 hours when it really ran about 2 hours 20 minutes, but I still liked it ok. Nothing earth shatteringly good, but not bad either. If you like Julia Roberts I'd recommend it.
 
Hey, I think I neglected to come on here and admit that I saw Piranha 3D... :p Hey, I had a free voucher! :lol:

I cannot tell a lie: I actually didn't mind it. It's a total T&A massacre movie, and yet it was enough of a take on an 80's schlockfest that I couldn't help but be entertained. Probably didn't help that they had decent actors for the most part (albeit in ridiculous scenarios). I laughed, I groaned and I flinched A LOT. :lol:
 
Toy Story 3 - Brilliantly written, hearstoppingly hilarious, tear-inducing no matter who you are. One word to describe it while totally belittling the movie's value is "cute" [and man, I am so sick of hearing that word to describe this movie! It's so... condescending.] It's not just a kid's movie. It's a life movie.


:D
 
Scott Pilgrim vs. The World
I've never read the comics or manga of this, but the movie was amazing! I have never been in a theatre where the audience was so involved. There's were hard belly laughs throughout the entire film, a lot of jokes got applause from many audience members and when the film was over, the entire theatre stood up and applauded. I love Edgar Wright (the director) and Michael Cera (Scott Pilgrim) so this was almost guaranteed to be a hit for me. Kieran Culkin was awesome in this too. I just can't even explain how funny this movie was. It was really comic-book like and it all just worked perfectly. This honestly deserves a 10/10

Dinner for Schmucks
I absolutely LOVE Paul Rudd and Steve Carell is hilarious, so this one was also a huge hit with me. I've actually seen the original french short that this film was based off, and this one was way better! It was absolutely hilarious. It was more teenage/adult humour so I wouldn't suggest it for kids. I would seriously say that this deserves 9/10 at the lowest.

The Expendables
I LOVE SYLVESTER STALLONE. I am the biggest Rocky/Rambo fan and pretty much love everything he's ever done. This film is getting some bad reviews because of the lack of story and the weak dialogue in the script. The dialogue was pretty weak, the story didn't develope that much, and most of the laughs were unintentional, but I LOVED it!! It had every hollywood action heavyweight and Arnold Schwarzenegger and Bruce Willis' cameos were ion themselves worth the wait. I've seen it twice in theatres now, and I really really love it. Stallone was trying to make a movie that felt like it was directly from the 80's. And it did. Stallone did a fantastic job. Jet Li was also adorable in it :p
 
I just saw Scott Pilgrim and I don't think I could say it any better than ^^^. Just an outstanding movie, totally unpredictable and filled with non-stop laughing out loud. The director really REALLY paid attention to detail, and there are just so many amazing things going on in this film, it's impossible to describe. Extraordinarily cool film! :D
 
Clash of the Titans (2010)- It was okay, but I still think I like the original better even though it was campy. The best part about this newer version was
the pegasus. There was a scene that showed a bunch of white ones (I'm sorry, I can't remember the plural version of pegasus lol), but then the one that the main character got to later ride was a black pegasus. The thing that kind of bummed me out though was that the robot owl thing wasn't a big part of this movie. In the original, the owl was flying around giving messages and stuff. In this movie, the main character picks up a stick with the owl attached and it was like a toy or something. That's all they showed of the owl in the movie. The giant scorpion things were kind of cool looking. Then they had Dijinns that looked pretty cool and were kind of good guys too. And the Ferryman and there was Medusa as well.
The movie is a little slow paced. It was good enough for one viewing, but I don't think I'd ever watch it again.

The Back-up Plan- It was a good movie for the most part, there are some things I could have done without though. The ending was kind of comical lol. There's some language in it that isn't suitable for young kids (and I don't necessarily mean curse words either lol) just to warn anyone with little ones.
 
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