What Movie Did You Just Watch?: The Just-Us League (Vol. 11)

[AwallaceUNC]

Welcome to Volume 11 of the What Movie Did You Just Watch? thread.

Find Volume 10 ("...Rises") here.

The last movie I watched was Mame, which is plenty ridiculous but excessively maligned as movie musical.

Carry on, movie lovers!

[DVDBuff1]

Excalibur (John Boorman)

The plot’s pacing is awkward/ rushed in places, and some of the costume/ technical designs don’t look like they belong in Middle Age Great Britain, but overall: I liked this film. The acting is fantastic, especially Nigel Terry as King Arthur and Nicol Williamson as Merlin. Fitting all key moments of Arthurian legend to film is not easy, but I felt this movie did it better than the “Merlin” miniseries featuring Sam Neil, which I liked for what it attempted, and that Jerry Bruckheimer produced piece of schlock named “King Arthur”.

[disneyboy20022]

The Incredible Burt Wonderstone. I enjoyed it quite a bit. It was a comedy done with good taste, not just sex joke after sex joke. That's refreshing to see in a comedy

[Elladorine]

Pssst.... Regardless of the font size, you're supposed to keep statements like that to yourself...

Goodness!
Er, I mean, goodness.

Anyway . . .

I finally got around to The Hunger Games. Yes, I know . . . I've been living under a rock. I guess I was expecting more due to all the hype, but I still enjoyed it. I've been wanting to read the series of books.

[PixarFan2006]

The Hobbit an Unexpected Journey (2012)

Boring boring BORING! I wanted to give this movie a chance, being a fan of both the LOTR trilogy and having read the original Hobbit book. Sadly, I lost interest about 40 minutes in. It had some instances where it resembled the book to an extent (with a few alterations). My problem however is that there was far too much filler and backstory (the beginning as an example). The riddle scene with Gollum and Bilbo was probably the only thing the film had going for it. The visual effects were some of the worst I have seen in a film for quite some time (I've actually seen better CGI in video games). I am definitely not seeing the other two installments if this is how they are going to be.

5/10

[Kraken Guard]

... My thoughts are the complete opposite of the person above me. I adored the movie.

No worries, though.


The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey.
All I have to say is: Squeee! I've been watching the Extended Editions of the Lord of the Rings trilogy in anticipation for the DVD.

[disneyboy20022]

I saw it today and honestly, I enjoyed Rise of the Guardians much better. I thought The Croods wasn't bad, to me it was just meh to average

One of the most distracting things about the movie is that I hear Nicholas Cage's voice and it was distracting me. Usually I'm not one to bash on celebrity voice overs, but his stood out. When I watched G-Force I couldn't believe that Nicholas Cage voiced Speckles. It didn't sound like Nicholas Cage talking. Other than that I enjoyed it.

[DVDBuff1]

Splash (Ron Howard)

a romantic comedy about Tom Hanks falling in love with a mermaid. The effects they used for Daryl Hannah as the mermaid was pretty neat. Eugene Levy plays this hilariously obsessive scientist that Butch Hartman admitted was the inspiration for Denzel Crocker from “Fairly Odd Parents”. John Candy’s funny too, but I had difficulty buying he’s Hanks’ biological brother. While I wouldn’t consider it a personal favorite romantic comedy like “The Princess Bride”, I’d still recommend giving it a viewing just for being another good film featuring a Mermaid that’s not by Disney Animation (This film came out 5 years before Ariel’s debut to the big-screen btw).

The Forbidden Kingdom (Rob Minkoff)

This is actually the second time I watched this flick, and honestly, it’s not as good as I remember it. It’s basically the story structure of “The Wizard of Oz” with Kung Fu, featuring a fight scene between Jackie Chan & Jet Li. The fight scene is entertaining enough to hold my attention, but the rest of the film is pretty dull. Once should’ve been enough for me.

[Pokeholic_Prince]

"Safety Not Guaranteed" review here http://theconnoisseurreviews.tumblr.com ... eed-review

“Safety Not Guaranteed” is a fairly quiet and genuine film about taking chances. That life should be taken advantage to its full potential, whether it be with an idea or loved one. There is also an underlying message about regret and how we should cope with it. We could either live with it, forget it or try to fix it.

Writing in the film is fairly strong as it tries to juggle three different stories…well more like two and a half into one fully realized experience. The lines of dialogue are genuine and usually pretty funny. However, the film has a layer of heart. It makes you feel for the characters as you learn more and more about them. The main story about a girl who meets a wacky guy is sweet, but the most compelling story of the film is about one of the side characters who tries to rekindle a old romance. That story works in so many ways where we see the pain and joy of the characters and it doesn’t feel tacked on.

Characters are generally pretty great as they are relateable and the actors do a fine job of bringing them to life. Darius, Aubrey Plaza, is awkward at first, but slowly turns into a more lovable character. Her dead pan humor is hilarious and she says most of the best lines. Plus, Aubrey Plaza manages to bring a lot of emotion to the character. Jeff, Jake Johnson, begins as a sex obsessed jerk, but turns into a very sympathizing character. Jake bring the right amount of cockiness and and emotional depth to the character. He even becomes helpful and really helps develop another character in the film. Mark Duplass does a good job as the on edge Kenneth. The rest of the cast is fairly good as well.

Overall, “Safety Not Guaranteed” is a really enjoyable film that is not only entertaining, but brisks by. The characters are compelling and offer up more than what they initially promise. However, it doesn’t reach a level of greatness, but it still is one heck of a film. It had me laughing, feeling, and drawn into the story. I give it 4/5, funny, genuine, and filled with great performances and characters.

A purely genuine film that is worth your time. It's funny, heart touching, and has characters we could all relate too.

[dvdjunkie]

A Hard Day's Night (1964) DVD

Hard to believe that we are coming up on the 50th Anniversary of the release of this film to movie theaters across the country. I personally remember standing in line for over seven hours to get in on opening day.

Directed by Richard Lester, this film was supposed to follow The Beatles (John, Paul, George and Ringo) as they travel to London to make an historic television appearance. There are lots of songs along the way, and even a very sweet storyline about this funny old man who Paul claims is his grandfather.

A very heart-touching scene in the film is when Ringo goes out away from the group, with "Ringo's Theme (This Boy)" playing in the background.

All in all this film was magic and broke all box office records at that time, and I am glad that I got to see the film then and that it is in my DVD collection now.

[pinkrenata]

The Blob (1958). It was ... boring. Steve(n) McQueen was one old 17-year-old boy!

[JohnnyWeir]

The Blob (1958). It was ... boring. Steve(n) McQueen was one old 17-year-old boy!

LOL. I love this movie, and yes-steve mcqueen looked a little rough for 17
The part where he blows a kiss is so weird. I always have to watch that part like 5 times to get it out of my system...

[JohnnyWeir]

Last night I watched kick-ass for the millionth time. I love this movie so much, I dont think ill ever be tired of it.

[disneyboy20022]

GI JOE 2: Retaliation

it was an okay movie. It was entertaining, and it was a fun movie for what it was.

[dvdjunkie]

The Big Trail (1930) Blu-ray

Among my favorite actors, John Wayne rates in my Top Five, and I have ever seen this movie until I bought it on a 'blind' buy.

Raoul Walsh directs this very vintage, big-scale film that made John Wayne the star he was in the many years to come. This film is offered in two versions on the same Blu-ray Disc, one is the Academy Aspect Ratio - 1:33.1, and the other is what Fox called the Grandeur Vision version. The Academy version runs about 15 minutes shorter than the Grandeur version, and if you watch this film, watch the Grandeur version, it is equal to what is now called 70mm.

The story of a young trail scout, Breck Coleman (John Wayne), who is leading a wagon train of new settlers on the Oregon trail, and all of their hardships along the way, including a brutal snow storm that some weren't prepared for, and a surprise Indian attack that Coleman has warned them all about since the first day.

The Big Trail is among the first full 'talkies' film and was a box office flop because not enough theaters were able to use the 70mm sized film. Fox at the time owned the projector company, the motion picture camera company, was a major stockholder in the film processing company, but not enough theaters would subscribe to the installation of special equipment in their theaters to show this movie.

Walsh shot both versions at the same time, and the Academy version suffers a lot from the ability of the 70mm print to use large scale panoramic views in certain scenes. In the extras that are on the Blu-ray disc, they tell you about the limitations that were faced in making this film.

Since they didn't know about over-dubbing, or sound looping, back in the 30's, the film's outdoor scenes suffer some sound problems because they only used one microphone and had to keep it from showing up in some of the large panoramic scenes that fill the screen at times. They also tried to market this film in foreign countries by casting actors who spoke the country's particular language. They used a German cast for the German version, Mexican cast for the Spanish version, French Cast for the French version, etc.

Among the co-stars in this film are Tyrone Power Sr., who is the 'bad guy' in this film, his only talking picture appearance. He was a big star in the Silent-era films, but never got used to having to speak up for a microphone.

If you are a history buff, this film will fit right into your collection very well. The Fox Grandeur version runs just over 2 hours, and the Academy version is about 1 3/4 hours in length. Considering the age of this film, the Blu-ray looks excellent, the sound is DTS-Mono, and is very well presented with very little scratchiness, which is what you find a lot of in films of this genre. This film will join my Top 100 List of favorites today.

[UmbrellaFish]

In the past few days

Prince of Egypt- still very good. Goes at a break-neck speed once the plagues kick in, but that's to avoid making the movie as long as the DeMille rendition, I guess. Music and animation remain the best part.

Zero Dark Thirty- I didn't begin liking the movie until the last thirty minutes, but after I was finished I wanted to watch it all over again.

Lincoln- Bleh. I thought this was supposed to be good. Wasn't even interesting. Best parts were with Mary Todd Lincoln and Thaddeus Stephens. The biggest letdown of all-- despite Day-Lewis' transformative performance, I didn't leave the movie caring for Lincoln-- who's like the greatest American president ever... What?!?

Dangerous Liaisons- I've been waiting to see this movie for a year now, and I finally blind-bought it from Amazon. It wasn't nearly as good as I had hoped it would be. Glenn Close, John Malkovich, Michelle Pfeiffer, Stephen Frears... I think my expectations were too high. I'm going to come back to it later and see if I'll appreciate it anymore.

Argo- Very good. Out of the five Best Picture nominees I've seen, this has been the best overall movie. But there is something off, I just can't quite put my finger on it...

[Pokeholic_Prince]

I recently watched "Amadeus," it's a really loud and in your face movie, but it is well acted especially the guy who plays Soliari. It's very punk and the costumes and sets are grand. It'squite funny the script is incredibly strong.

After watching it, I want a laugh like Mozart

[Scarred4life]

The Phantom of the Opera 2004

Umm, okay. There are so many things wrong with this movie, and yet, I cannot bring myself to hate it. Emmy Rossum's singing is sub-par (her high notes in the title song are extremely weak), as is Patrick Wilson's. However, Minnie Driver is excellent, and who can hate the opening scene? Excellent visuals. Gerard Butler, though many don't like him, works for me. His voice, while not perfect, works. It works well. He does a great job of conveying emotions through his singing, All I Ask of You Reprise, Final Lair, and the ending of Point of No Return have the power to bring me to tears. Overall, this is not the best version of Phantom, but that doesn't make me love it any less.

[SillySymphony]

However, Minnie Driver is excellent, and who can hate the opening scene?

^ Did you know that those operatic notes weren't Minnie Driver's? Margaret Preece was her singing voice.

Hatfields & McCoys (tv miniseries)
Engaging, well-acted treatment of the infamous family blood feud.
Genres: Drama | History | Romance | War | Western
*Caution for kids under 12: The majority of scenes are intense and shocking. Violent choices that the characters make are meant to confuse and distress the viewer. My brother (11) kept asking "Why did they kill them?". Usually there was no reasonable answer. Senseless crimes are difficult enough an adult to rationalize, let alone the young ’uns.

[Scarred4life]

However, Minnie Driver is excellent, and who can hate the opening scene?

^ Did you know that those operatic notes weren't Minnie Driver's? Margaret Preece was her singing voice.

Yep! I was speaking about Minnie's acting choices and such. But Minnie Driver actually has an excellent singing voice, she just can't sing opera.