Last movie you watched and your critique of it

[Fox]

THE HUNGER GAMES: CATCHING FIRE

Good film! Surprised me. I saw the first Hunger Games on Netflix, which was OK, and this popped up a couple of nights ago so I thought I'd give it a go. Even though there was more 'Hunger games' to do the film benefited by not focussing too much on that, and instead building the relationships between a few key characters. Peeta (or however the heck you spell it) was much more interesting this time around, and they introduced a new guy (Finnegan... I think?) who they set up to be a cocky idiot bad guy but who actually has a lot going for him.

You could tell the main purpose of this film was to bridge a gap - show the aftermath of the first and set up for the bigger events to come, but it did it pretty well and was a definite improvement on the original. Jennifer Lawrence is one of the finest leading women out there at the moment and her performance really elevates a character that isn't written in a particularly impressive way. The entire film hangs on her pulling that role off and she does it very well indeed.

[noxious.sunshine]

I just watched "Julie & Julia"... I have no idea whatsoever Dr why I thought Katherine Heigl starred in this, but I did.

I absolutely loathe Amy Adams in this movie. She just irks me. If that is how the real Julie Powell was .... Then I don't fault Julia Child for chiding her.

I love cooking, though, & I truly truly admire Julia Child. I love that Meryl Streep played her and I love that Stanley Gucci played Paul. Their relationship is just so heartwarming and sweet.

The actual Julia Child looks exactly like my grandmother tho lmao... Srsly

[Freya]

Edge of Tomorrow

It was an interesting movie. the creatures were super cool and Emily blunt is super foxy but the movie was alright. Glad I didn't pay money to go see it in theaters. Interesting enough for a movie night not enough to waste tickets on.

[Shorty]

I just watched "Julie & Julia"... I have no idea whatsoever Dr why I thought Katherine Heigl starred in this, but I did.

I absolutely loathe Amy Adams in this movie. She just irks me. If that is how the real Julie Powell was .... Then I don't fault Julia Child for chiding her.

I love cooking, though, & I truly truly admire Julia Child. I love that Meryl Streep played her and I love that Stanley Gucci played Paul. Their relationship is just so heartwarming and sweet.

The actual Julia Child looks exactly like my grandmother tho lmao... Srsly

I just loved Meryl Streep and Stanley Tucci in this movie. I also have a huge crush on Chris Messina. You're right, though, Amy Adams' role was probably the weakest.

[Night Fury]

Pheesh and I watched Edge of Tomorrow recently.

After laughing at the terrible trailer for it, we decided it was probably going to be too troutty for a watch, but I ended up reading it was okay. So we watched it and actually really, really enjoyed it. I would give it a 7/10 taking into consideration it's genre. If you don't take it too seriously this is a great action flick, and probably Cruise's best in recent years.

[Scotty_ffgamer]

I really enjoyed that movie as well, Locky. I saw it the day it came out in theaters. I was the only one in the theater. It made me feel a little bad because I knew it had to not be doing well.

[Night Fury]

Yeah, I really do think the trailer let it down big time.

[Iceglow]

So I just watched Need for Speed. Unusually for a video game adaptation, it does it well. Yes, both game and movie are effectively car porn, much like Gran Turismo and The Fast & The Furious. However, instead of the progressively darker and more violent tones of the latter, the film manages to deal with an adult storyline where people die and not everything is hunky dory in a way that simply doesn't feel like there's less than no hope. That being said, some of the things involved in the plot are obvious and unbelievable which is after all to be expected.

I like that the film shows the illegal world of street racing and that it doesn't show the racers getting away without recourse all the time. Which is a refreshing change from The Fast & The Furious' repeated pardons or self imposed exile to a country without an extradition treaty to the USA. Even at the end of the film, when the Main Character Toby Marshall (Aaron Paul) has won the race, saved the bad guy and proven his innocence in the death of a close friend he goes to prison for breaching bail and for illegal street racing for another 6 months.

Cast wise, Aaron Paul is a good fit to the role, as is Imogen Poots as Julia. That being said, the last time I recall seeing Imogen on the big screen and not TV was as the young Val in V for Vendetta. (I never saw That Awkward Moment because I heard it wasn't so much awkward as just bad) Though IMDB reliably informs me I should recall her from at least one other movie. You'd think with my penchant for beautiful blondes I'd have remembered but nope.

Over all as the movie is effectively car porn, do not expect to watch it and be blown away or astounded by the plot lines. That being said, with a more realistic approach to the cost and penalties of illegal street racing, and a refreshing lack of CGI (one of the key things about this movie is that most of the car stunts are really done). Of course, some things have to be CGI'd but they did crash and flip a remarkable amount of cars, for the most part I remember Aaron Paul telling Jeremy Clarkson on Top Gear that they used custom kits which cost about 300,000 dollars apiece rather than wrecking 1million dollar cars every other week, but still they look the part and the racing and the stunts have a gritty real feel to them.

In terms of marks out of 10, I'd give the movie a pretty solid 8, the films story is enjoyable if not ultimately too realistic, but it has it's moments. The acting in the film is probably what I would expect from Aaron Paul (he gets over 70% of all screen time, along with Imogen Poots so much so that almost all other casting decisions are irrelevant). The stunts feel more realistic than those of the latter The Fast & The Furious films with a pretty good sound track to go with that isn't afraid to embrace the fact that not all car enthusiasts are in to rap.

[Shiny]

Aaron Paul is not believable as a bad ass ex con. He should have gained more weight for the role.

[McLovin']

So I just watched Need for Speed. Unusually for a video game adaptation, it does it well. Yes, both game and movie are effectively car porn, much like Gran Turismo and The Fast & The Furious. However, instead of the progressively darker and more violent tones of the latter, the film manages to deal with an adult storyline where people die and not everything is hunky dory in a way that simply doesn't feel like there's less than no hope. That being said, some of the things involved in the plot are obvious and unbelievable which is after all to be expected.

I like that the film shows the illegal world of street racing and that it doesn't show the racers getting away without recourse all the time. Which is a refreshing change from The Fast & The Furious' repeated pardons or self imposed exile to a country without an extradition treaty to the USA. Even at the end of the film, when the Main Character Toby Marshall (Aaron Paul) has won the race, saved the bad guy and proven his innocence in the death of a close friend he goes to prison for breaching bail and for illegal street racing for another 6 months.

Cast wise, Aaron Paul is a good fit to the role, as is Imogen Poots as Julia. That being said, the last time I recall seeing Imogen on the big screen and not TV was as the young Val in V for Vendetta. (I never saw That Awkward Moment because I heard it wasn't so much awkward as just bad) Though IMDB reliably informs me I should recall her from at least one other movie. You'd think with my penchant for beautiful blondes I'd have remembered but nope.

Over all as the movie is effectively car porn, do not expect to watch it and be blown away or astounded by the plot lines. That being said, with a more realistic approach to the cost and penalties of illegal street racing, and a refreshing lack of CGI (one of the key things about this movie is that most of the car stunts are really done). Of course, some things have to be CGI'd but they did crash and flip a remarkable amount of cars, for the most part I remember Aaron Paul telling Jeremy Clarkson on Top Gear that they used custom kits which cost about 300,000 dollars apiece rather than wrecking 1million dollar cars every other week, but still they look the part and the racing and the stunts have a gritty real feel to them.

In terms of marks out of 10, I'd give the movie a pretty solid 8, the films story is enjoyable if not ultimately too realistic, but it has it's moments. The acting in the film is probably what I would expect from Aaron Paul (he gets over 70% of all screen time, along with Imogen Poots so much so that almost all other casting decisions are irrelevant). The stunts feel more realistic than those of the latter The Fast & The Furious films with a pretty good sound track to go with that isn't afraid to embrace the fact that not all car enthusiasts are in to rap.

An 8!? Geez louise you must give Fast and the Furious a 10 then.

[Slothy]

John Wick.

Watch it. It's good.

Slightly longer review: it's Keanu being given an excuse to spend an hour and a half or so killing a bunch of people. And it's one of those action movies where the action elevates violence to an art form. He's brutally efficient and it gets the blood pumping.

[Iceglow]

An 8!? Geez louise you must give Fast and the Furious a 10 then.

Actually, I'd have given The Fast & The Furious no higher than an 8 either (and that would drop considerably for number 2 and Tokyo Drift... though Tokyo Drift may need re-evaluating as it's story is more intergrated with the main series. It was rated quite lowly because it came out of nowhere at the time). I like cars so movies where I get to watch a bunch of super cars doing ridiculous trout for a few hours please me, but don't make the mistake of thinking that as a result my 10s come that cheap, getting to an 8 is fairly simple if the movie is pretty good and I enjoyed watching it... it's gotta do something special to get higher than that though.

I disagree with Shiny regarding Aaron Paul putting on more weight for the role. Looking at him in that film my guess is he would be around 75 - 80 kilos and in very good shape. Had he gone up to 85 - 90 Kilos we'd be talking Christian Bale in Batman Begins/The Dark Knight sort of size which wouldn't have suited him at all or the role. With the added factors in the film such as the fact that in a prison you'd have limited access to calories and protein, no supplements to assist the bulking process and the time frame of his prison sentence (2 years served for the manslaughter of his friend, undoubtedbly a good behaviour early release) it would not have been logical for him to come out any bigger than about 75kg.

[Pumpkin]

White Oleander. It was my 4th time watching the movie and the first time after reading the book. Absolutely love it and now that I have read the book, I can say it does the book justice, I think.

9/10, one of my favourite movies

[Shiny]

Steve, your film critique lost credibility to me when you gave Need for Speed an 8.

Aaron Paul's character would have been ass raped in jail. Many ex cons come out of jail full diesel because they know what's up. He is not intimidating as they present him to be and thus not believable. If he couldn't put on the weight they should have casted someone else.

[Iceglow]

Shiny, I'm going to have to say that unless you happen to shack up with former convicts on a regular basis, living with or otherwise I think you don't particularly have a damn clue what the hell you're on about. Regardless of whether you think Aaron Paul's character would have been ass raped in prison is irrelevant, he's about the same build as Charlie Hunnam who plays Jax in Sons of Anarchy and does he get ass raped in prison?

Anyhow, this past week I have seen the new Godzilla, which I felt did ok, it could have been worse though it was unnecessarily dark, lighting wise in my opinion (though it is understandable when the MUTO (Mothra) is abound because he emits an EMP knocking out electricity it was also too dark and gloomy when he wasn't in many scenes). Aside from questionable choices about lighting the film was pretty good as monster-beatdown fare goes. On this outing Godzilla returns to the traditional shape and build which kind of does and does not work well as whilst the original was a man in a suit this is all CGI and so having this classic but biologically wrong shape to it is both great if you watched the original Japanese Godzilla movies but also one of the worst aspect if you think of how it should look as a bipedal amphibious lizard scientifically speaking. I wasn't as impressed with this though as Pacific Rim so whilst it is a good film if you're a traditional Godzilla fan it's not as good as other recent entries in the genre. Rating out of 10? I'd say that this was a fairly solid 8/10 (Pacific Rim would have gotten a 9 if I'd rated it myself)

The other film I saw this past few days was the new Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles I'll use some spoiler tags because some of you may be planning on seeing it for yourselves. Yes, it's Michael Bay, yes it has Megan Fox in it, and yes, there were a few unnecessary explosions. I went in to this with some reservations, the original cartoon was great, the old live action films were a big part of my childhood, which I have had the common sense not to revisit because I know that the movies were actually pretty terrible. So how did this do? Well, as there will be spoilers ahead lets mask from here on out... read at your own risk:

(SPOILER) First of all I was relieved that the origins story that was going through the gossip train (aka the Internet) the one where Michael Bay supposedly made them all aliens wasn't true. Essentially the origins story was pretty true to the cartoon with a few notable differences. Such as the fact that Splinter wasn't a human prior to becoming a rat, he was a rat all along given the same mutagen as the turtles. April O'Neill's father was a scientist working on the mutagen at a firm, he finds out Shredder is behind it and the plan for it so tries to destroy the work to prevent this. He's killed as he burns down the lab. April somehow is in the lab at the time of the fire, manages to save the turtles who are normal baby turtles at that point in time and shredder who was a rat and releases them in to the sewers so they can live. Though, quite how she fails to remember the fact that her Dad's former boss is the one who shot and killed him is beyond me.

They upgraded Shredder's armour for this movie in a big way, in fact it's slightly ridiculous as it adds like 3 feet to his natural height and he's got about 9 samurai blades on each hand and can fire them as micro missiles recalling them at will, if you think of the armour worn by the final big bad in The Wolverine, you'd be along the right lines. It's like they took the idea of Shredder and mixed in a little Kang. Likewise, Donatello's Bo Staff is now technologically upgraded to have an extender feature meaning he can use it to do silly stuff like flip an entire Humvee, despite the staff only being a few inches round and made of wood (presumably hollow too to allow for the collapse/extending system).

The films a fairly predictable plot and doesn't break the mold. Raphael's independence has been updated to give him a fairly atrocious attitude problem however, which sucked as in the original cartoon he was a badass and very independent but didn't have such an overstated attitude issue. He does go it solo in one segment of the plot to rescue the other turtles from the bad guys lair however, he quickly runs in to Shredder who kicks his ass in no time at all which again kind of ruined the fact that it happened at all.

Sad to say, that this film tries to be quite funny but whilst my 12 year old nephew did laugh, it never managed to crack so much as a wry grin out of me hell even Megan Fox bouncing on a trampoline failed.

On the rating system I'd have to give this a mere 5/10 in the fact that I was pretty ambivalent about it. I didn't particularly feel it hit any of the right buttons to make an excellent movie but it did have good solid filming angles, lighting and special effects which made it OK to watch with my nephew in tow.