What Movie Did You Just Watch

[Angus]

Sounds like a fun diversion until The Dark Knight Rises occupies people's minds.

[Avaitor]

Barnes & Noble's annual Criterion sale is up, and I FINALLY got a copy of Seven Samurai. I wish I had more money since I'd love to get the following as well:

Yojimbo
The Gold Rush
Modern Times
M
The 400 Blows
Black Narcissus
The Lady Vanishes
The 39 Steps
8 1/2
Ace in the Hole
Masculine Feminine
Island of Lost Souls

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

Last night I saw The Amazing Spider-Man with my friends. I'm a bit too lazy to get really descriptive about it, but I'll do just that, anyways. I will say that putting my own bias for a reboot aside (which I still think was pretty unnecessary so soon after Raimi's SM films), the film was solid. It wasn't great by any stretch, but I could definitely say that at the very least people who didn't like Raimi's films would appreciate this one more, though I don't know if they'd still find it to be good enough or not since I don't know how fans of the comics think about what a good SM adaptation should be. I've heard 2 complaints about this movie that I can say are complete bull-shit: the complaint that it rips off Sam Raimi's SM movies, and the complaint that it rips off The Dark Knight. For the first complaint, that's just retarded. This film is just adapting the source material starting from Peter Parker's high school years, so of course there will be some overlap with the origin story as it was adapted in Raimi's first SM movie. That said it doesn't rip off Raimi's take on the story, and if you watch it events unfold quite differently in this film (plus, everything after the origin is complete different from anything in Raimi's SM films). The second complaint is idiotic beyond belief. People think that just because this SM film is a bit darker and more serious than the older ones that its now trying to be dark like The Dark Knight. Spider-Man still cracks one-liners, there is still humor in the film, and it never gets anywhere close to as dark or psychotic as The Dark Knight, so people are just being anal with that complaint.

That said, I had some problems with the film. For one thing, I think it took way too long to tell the origin story. Lets face it, almost everybody knows Spider-Man's origin by this point, so taking so long on the origin story just made the first half of the film feel ridiculously slow. In this regard its very much like Batman Begins. I know that they were building up Peter's character, but they could still do that after he became Spider-Man as well. The other problem I had with this film was that The Lizard was just a pretty uninteresting villain. Actually, to be specific, I found Curt Connors to be a very interesting character in this film....until he became The Lizard, in which case he just became a generic bad guy in my eyes. I will say that a certain part about the ending redeemed the character a bit in my eyes, but I won't spoil it for anyone.

Anyways, those are my general thoughts on the film. While I still like Raimi's Spider-Man movies just fine and think that that this reboot wasn't really needed, I will admit that I did actually like it well enough. The best way I can describe it is that its very much like the Batman Begins of the Spider-Man movie franchise. Its more serious and probably more respectful of its source material than the earlier adaptations, but it also feels like too much of a retread of old ground at some points (like taking too long with the origin story), and its got some other issues pegging it down. Yet at the same time, it has the potential to be really good if the sequel improves on this movie, just like how The Dark Knight improved on Batman Begins in every possible way, especially with the villain and pacing.

I still don't think that Desensitized would be interested in this movie, and I have no idea what fans of the comics like Avaitor and Foggle would think of it, so I can't really recommend or not recommend it. I guess just see it if you're interested enough and feel like spending the money for a movie ticket.

Oh yeah, I also took my little sister to see Brave today, for her birthday. I think she enjoyed it just fine, which I'm glad about, but I found it....underwhelming....which is pretty much more or less what I expected, so I can't say that I'm disappointed. Its definitely one of Pixar's weaker films in my eyes, but its definitely not bad. I'd say its probably a decent rental, but I wouldn't really recommend seeing it in theaters unless you REALLY love everything Pixar.

[Avaitor]

Someone actually thinks that The Devil's Rejects is one of the best made films of our generation.

lol

[Commode]

I saw American Reunion on the ship last week when we were underway*, and it's really a pretty boring film.  There's a few funny moments sure, and the scene with the boobs(wouldn't be an American Pie movie without one) was pretty good, but they couldn't even make Stifler interesting.  Not a bad movie, just incredibly boring.



*The thing about the ship is when we are in port we have cable, so the TVs in the cafeteria or whatever are always tuned to CNN or ESPN or something, but out to sea we don't get that, so the movie studios send us movies, and usually they are pretty recent, although there are some classics mixed in; the newest batch had The Goonies mixed in with The Avengers(this played about a dozen times last week), The Dictator, and yes American Reunion.

[Avaitor]

Got another Criterion set before the sale ended- this time I went with The Gold Rush.

Always love having some Chaplin!

[Spark Of Spirit]

Forrest Gump was on TV the other night so I watched it. I dunno, I think it's still pretty good.

I saw American Reunion on the ship last week when we were underway*, and it's really a pretty boring film.  There's a few funny moments sure, and the scene with the boobs(wouldn't be an American Pie movie without one) was pretty good, but they couldn't even make Stifler interesting.  Not a bad movie, just incredibly boring.



*The thing about the ship is when we are in port we have cable, so the TVs in the cafeteria or whatever are always tuned to CNN or ESPN or something, but out to sea we don't get that, so the movie studios send us movies, and usually they are pretty recent, although there are some classics mixed in; the newest batch had The Goonies mixed in with The Avengers(this played about a dozen times last week), The Dictator, and yes American Reunion.

Sounds like American Wedding.

[Commode]

I... don't really remember American Wedding.  Seriously, aside from the two strippers, I'm drawing a complete blank in regards to the film's story, or any other scenes.

[Dr. Insomniac]

If it weren't for the pie-fucking, Stifler's mom, or the band camp quote, American Pie as a whole would've been forgotten a year after it was made. There's a reason all but one of the cast haven't had any good roles in the last few years.

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

Forrest Gump was on TV the other night so I watched it. I dunno, I think it's still pretty good.

Was there someone on this board who implied that it wasn't? Because if so, I totally disagree with them.

Anyways, you all know that I hold this film up pretty high on a personal regard, and its one of my favorites, so that's that.

[Foggle]

I don't like it much, but it's undoubtedly an amazing film.

[Avaitor]

If you guys ever watch The Gold Rush, don't watch the 1942 version. It's Chaplin and his estate's preferred take, but he cuts out a lot of stuff and just narrates EVERYTHING. The remnants of the 1925 original is the only way to see it IMO.

[Dr. Insomniac]

That was the version I watched in film class a few years ago. Needless to say, while the brevity helped, it felt odd in places.

[Avaitor]

Boom.

[Spark Of Spirit]

I wasn't even aware The Lorax was out in theaters let alone coming to DVD next week. Did it do all that well?