Why So Blu?

The Terminal - not as bad as the trailers would have led me to believe.

Amistad - damn good film and features one of the best court speeches outside of Kevin Costner in JFK.

asianxcore

The Sacrament (2013)

hanshotfirst1138

Ben Hur- William Wyler's sweeping, sprawling, massive biblical epic, seen as a DCP at my local AMC, and not a very impressive one either, curiously muted colors and somewhat muddy. Add to that the fact that you have one of a small handful of films ever shot in super-wide Panavision 65, and they put it on their smallest, dingiest, most pissant little screen in the whole multiplex. Still, I'll never see it 70mm or even 35mm, so a cinema screen is still a cinema screen. Anyway, the film is unwieldy, uneven, sometimes silly, and occasionally dated, but also robust, bold, engaging, exciting, beautiful-looking, sometimes thrilling, and frequently awe-inspiring, and has a well-deserved reputation as the kind of spectacle that CG has all but dulled completely. The kind of thing that cinema is all about, nearly four hours that get your your money's worth the whole time. And that chariot race? Wow. James Cameron, eat your heart out. 55 years later, it's still a breathtaking knockout.

Giles

iNCREDiPiNOY

Godzilla 3D IMAX - 4/5 - Not enough Godzilla. I loved it!

Why So Blu?

Don Jon - We had a good time with the film - I think this is the hottest Scarlett Johanssen has ever looked. She was lean and mean. She had great cakes.

Walk of Shame - I never really cared for Elizabeth Banks but she was sexy and adorable as hell in this flick. There were many laugh out loud moments in the film and I really enjoyed the ensemble cast.

james2025a

I Frankenstein - One of the worst movies i have seen in a long time.
The Lone Ranger - Pathetic mess.
Sleuth (1972) - One of my all time favorites
Lock Stock and Two Smoking Barrels - Seen it plenty of times before. Its good...but never as great as many would believe it to be.
About Time - Got this for the wife and we both ended up really enjoying it. Surprisingly good.
Escape Plan - Nonsense...but a little fun for 90 minutes or so.

EddieMoney

Did I Frankenstein have some amazing Matrix-esque effects??

inri222

The Escapist - 2.5/5

A man doing a life sentence plans to escape from prison when he finds out that his young daughter has become a drug addict. Could have been better if the narrative wasn't fractured for the purpose of heading into cliché. Worth watching for Brian Cox.

Hazel Motes

The Other Woman-Saw it with my mom. it sucked.

hanshotfirst1138

I've had a TCM HD of this on my DVR for a while now. My DVR is getting full, I have to find some way of storing the damn thing so I can delete it. It's a bitch to find, it's never been releases on Blu, and the DVDs have long been out of print. What is OAR for this movie?

Seeing Arnold and Sly together was pretty fun, it was a decent 80s-style action flick. Nothing great, but certainly passable fun.

Jory

The marathon is over:

Rocky (1976) - Monday, 5 May
Rocky II (1979) - Tuesday, 6 May
Rocky III (1982) - Wednesday, 7 May
Rocky IV (1985) - Thursday, 8 May
Rocky V (1990) & Rocky Balboa (2006) - Friday, 9 May

I thought I would get sick of them, watching them all in a row like this, but they're sufficiently different to avoid that. They're all hugely entertaining, even the worst of them... which may be Rocky V, I can't decide, because it doesn't seem all that awful sandwiched between two other movies. I guess it seemed more disappointing when it was supposed to be the final movie. Point is, all six of these movies kick ass. I'd rather watch the worst film in the series than whatever "dark and gritty" thriller is passing for entertainment this week.

Bring on the Paulie sitcom!

inri222

Alien - 5/5

After receiving a transmission from a planet, the crew on a spaceship is awoken from cryogenic sleep by it's computer. While on the planet they discover a life form that attaches itself one of the crew members and eventually wreaks havoc on the ship. A sci-fi horror classic that IMO happens to be Ridley Scott's best film.

inri222

Prometheus - 2/5

The findings by a pair of archeologists convince a rich man to fund a trillion dollar space expedition. The goal of the expedition is to find the alien life that created humanity. This supposed prequel to Alien drops the ball big time in trying to make the intentions of the original seem deeper that just a sci-fi horror film. Pretty on the outside and dumb on the inside. Ridley Scott takes a dump on his legacy for a buck.

inri222

Ms. 45 - 4/5

Abel Ferrara's low budget cult classic about a woman who after being raped twice in one day becomes unhinged.
An angel of vengeance willing shoot any male that she perceives is a threat to women.

OldBoy

The Untouchables...so classic.

OldBoy

Frozen...again...so incredible.

Fist of Doom

Charlie's Angels
Charlie's Angels: Full Throttle

I like 'em. Don't you fucking judge me.

hanshotfirst1138

In the Line of Duty IV- Many action movies claim to be "non-stop," but this one absolutely is. A turbo-charged thrill ride with 95 minutes of nonstop stunts, fights, and set pieces, Yuen Woo Ping's post-Police Story Kung-Fu action fest is held together by a mostly coherent (if only just) script, decent chemistry from its leads, and some minor actual character development. But that's just the grease for the wheels of the countless action sequences with Donnnie Yen Ji-Dan and Michelle Khan fighting and fighting and fighting and hanging off the side of buses. Occasionally repetitive the way martial arts films get to be, but pretty exhilarating.

Police Story III: Supercop- Or what's left of it in this Weinstein hack-job version, albeit still with the Cantonese track. Some of the most breathtaking stunts ever, the film has a plot which largely holds together as much as it can, but the real draw is the once-in-lifetime pairing of Jackin Chan Kong-Sang and Michelle Yeoh Choo-Kheng, and what a pairing it is. Their incredible physical skills and truly death-defying stunt work are the kind of thing than lives up to every ounce of hype they get and are a reminder of the gloriously analog stunts that cinema can offer. Fun comic timing too, even if their rapport isn't quite as sparked with chemistry as you'd hope. Now, to track down that IVL trilogy boxed set on eBay....


To be fair, all Alien ever was was a glorified B monster movie dressed up with modern FX gloss. The problem with Prometheus isn't that it tries to be intelligent (which under most circumstances, would be admirable), but they it seems to think that it's smart when it really isn't. This you wind up with a big, loud, empty film that pretends to be profound and about everything when it really isn't about much of anything. Fassbender, however, is worth the price of admission for his brilliantly creepy performance, and the visual grandeur is truly stunning. It's unfortunate that film intent on referencing such rich classics as Lawrence of Arabia and 2001 is just a glorified remake of 50s pulp monster movies. It's SO pretty though.

inri222

Blue Valentine - 4/5

The blissful beginning and painful disintegration of a marriage. Ryan Gosling & Michelle Williams give it their all in this "anti-romcom" filmed in a loose Cassavetes like style that for some may hit a little too close to home with it's realism.

inri222

Thus my 2 star rating : one star for Fassbender and the other for the visuals (the only area where Ridley Scott doesn't disappoint). As much as I have been disappointed by Scott for the last 20 or so years, I am for some reason curious about The Counselor, but I will wait for a price drop before I check it out.

wakwak007

I finally was able to get out and see Captain America: Winter Soldier. Well worth the wait; I enjoyed it!

asianxcore

Godzilla Vs. Biollante (1989)

Goofy as all hell. The film's pace also drags pretty heavily. At least Biollante looked cool!

Jory

Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl (2003)

It's too bad the video game developers at LucasArts never filed a lawsuit over this blatant work of plagiarism to get some of the money and recognition they deserved. I understand that one of the screenwriters had previously turned in a Monkey Island script to Disney, and I'm just going to assume that this script was recycled with minimal changes.

Which wouldn't bother me if the movie weren't so mediocre. For every moment of genuine wit and creativity, there's half an hour of Big Generic Pirate Movie, watered down and slicked over for maximum mainstream moviegoer satisfaction. I can't call it entertainment for the lowest common denominator, since lowest common denominator entertainment is sadly far worse than this, but it's just pirate movie #7,549. I think it got good reviews for the same reason the remake of Dawn of the Dead got good reviews: it wasn't as terrible as people were expecting.

And this is supposed to be the good one. Maybe I'll enjoy the sequels more, since they're generally hated by the same people who love this one.

Decker

No you won't. The sequels are far inferior and much more convoluted.

I just watched The Princess Bride for the first time since I saw it on campus in college at an advanced screening they did to gauge word of mouth or something. Anyway, it holds up really well. Fun film and the cast meshes so well. Andre the Giant is pretty hard to understand, but the rest of the cast really crackles and it makes me wonder why Cary Elwes never became a bigger star. One of those star cross-roads things that Bill Simmons likes to talk about - how two similar stars at the same time can't both succeed (i.e. Tom Hanks vs Michael Keaton). I think Val Kilmer stole Cary Elwes' career.