Film 2011

[murphy's law]

Animal Kingdom is fantastic, very dark, best film if the year so far for me.

Also been working my way through entire Coen brothers back catalogue, The Big Lebowski & Fargo are superb, Burn After Reading not so much.

Favourite Coen brothers film anyone?

 

[vegster]

Animal Kingdom

A brooding and tense drama indeed…. A very dark story of the feud between the Police and the Cody family, a family of drug dealers and armed robbers.

Great performances from all except “J”, the nephew, and focus of the film as he becomes more enmeshed in the family’s world of crime and retribution. There are several murders, quite often unforeseen, but the true genius of the film is the tension it creates as the murders begin to rack up. J wanders in and out of the periphery of the story with wide eyes and little else. It’s difficult to feel much for the character of J as it is very very difficult to read what he is thinking.

A great yet disturbing film which will have you jumping at backfiring cars or other loud noises for at least a couple of hours after leaving the cinema.

8.2

 

[Stat Brother]

Favourite Coen brothers film anyone?

Never easy, Burn After Reading was shithouse.
Their other couple of shithouse films are slightly less shit, then you're in with the big boys.

Fargo probably just wins.
Oh Brother, I've probably watched the most, an awesome soundtrack.
Barton Fink is great.
No Country is seriously impressive.
The Big Lebowski, I need to watch again.
Blood Simple has a great 'feel', which reminds me of classic atomspheric films like, In The Heat Of The Night.

Yes I'm a Coen fan!.
I love their use of scenery, temperature, the horizon, light, colour, and John Goodman!.

 

[Peter Grummit]

The Big Lebowski. Cult classic.

PG

 

[Acker79]

I'd go with O Brother, Where Art Though? followed by True Grit.

I had a triple-header today.

I Am Number Four
There wasn't anything stinkingly bad about it, it just wasn't that great either. Typical high school kid discovers he has super powers along the lines of percy jackson, only more serious and thus less fun.

Drive Angry 3D
From the makers of My Bloody Valentine 3D, this was quite fun,ad being shot in 3D meant it made greater use of it. William Fichtner was delightful.

The Rite
I found this one to be quite dull, and just didn't enjoy the resolution on several levels.

 

[cw00]

you watched 3 films in a cinema in 1 day!!!

 

[Acker79]

you watched 3 films in a cinema in 1 day!!!

It was a slow day.


I have a cineworld unlimited pass. I have on a couple of occasions watched 5 films in the cinema in one day. As it happens, I also watched The kids are all right before I went to the cinema (really enjoyed it) and The social network when I got home. (Also enjoyed it, but I tend to enjoy Sorkin's writing). But I only tend to give my comments on cinema films.

 

[keaton]

Best Coen Brothers movies for me
1- Miller's Crossing
2-No Country For Old Men
3-True Grit
4- A Serious Man
5 - Fargo

 

[Uncle Spielberg]

The Coen brothers are SHIT. Vastly overrated imo.

 

[Acker79]

March

Apparently bumped from last month’s schedule, Liam Neeson tries to recapture Taken form, when he wakes up from a coma to find his identity has been stolen, and not even his wife believes him, in Unknown. Also stars Mad Men’s January Jones, Diane Kruger, Frank Langella and Aiden Quinn. (trailer)

Based on a true story, Fair Game sees Sean Penn and Naomi Watts tell the story of Valerie Plame, whose position as CIA agent was exposed by George W Bush’s White House in an effort to discredit her husband’s NY Times article accusing the Bush administration of doctoring evidence to support the Iraq war. (trailer)

Industrial Lights and Magic make the jump from special effects company to animation studio as Johnny Depp stars as the titular chameleon who has to help a town fight off bandits in Rango. Also stars the voices of Bill Nighy, Timothy Olyphant, Ray Winstone, Isla Fisher and Alfred Molina. (trailer)

Julie Taymor takes on Shakespeare with The Tempest, with the twist that the manly Prospero is now the womanly Prospera, played by Helen Mirren. Also features Felicity Jones, Djimon Hounsou, Russell Brand, Chris Cooper, Alfred Molina, Alan Cumming and Tom Conti. (trailer)

Mad Men’s John Slattery and Superman’s Terence Stamp star as agents for The Adjustment Bureau - the source of fate, which is trying to keep Matt Damon and Emily Blunt apart. Will their love be a match for fate? (trailer)

Don’t be Afraid of the Dark is a horror that sees a young girl move in with her father (Guy Pearce) and his new girlfriend (Katie Holmes) only to discover the new home has monsters that want to take her for their own. (trailer)

Bill Nighy collects a cheque in this year’s tween girl offering Chalet Girl about a lower class young girl (Felicity Jones) who gets a job at a ski resort, and falls for rich Ed Westwick. Will their relationship possibly work out?! (trailer)

Not to be confused as a sequel, Apollo 18 is a horror that tells us “the real story” of this particular space mission. Yeah, I doubt it’s really the real story, too. I mean, we all know the moon landings were fake... (trailer)

Kate Mara, Paul Giamatti, Brian Cox, and Mackenzie Crook come together to tell the story of the Templar Knights defending Rochester Castle in Ironclad. (trailer)

Danny Glover and Vinnie Jones are the only recognisable names in The Age of Dragons - a retelling of the classic Moby Dick tale. (trailer)

More familiar by its subtitle World Invasion: Battle Los Angeles sees Earth after an alien invasion as humans fight back, starting in LA. (trailer)

Hollywood shows it can empathise with real life in The Company Men, which follows the life of three men as the company they work for undergoes downsizing, showing how this impacts on them and their families. Stars Ben Affleck, Chris Cooper, and Tommy Lee Jones. (trailer)

Owen Wilson and Jason Sudeikis are two men given permission from their wives to go out and have affairs in The Hall Pass, will they still be happy when they realise their wives are engaging in their own extra marital activities? (trailer)

A woman starts to feel she isn’t alone in her apartment, then discovers her landlord has a fixation with her in The Resident, starring Hilary Swank, Jeffrey Dean Morgan, and Christopher Lee. (trailer)

Hollywood’s latest hot stuff, Bradley Cooper stars as a man who discovers a top secret drug that gives him super powers. Limitless also stars Robert DeNiro, Abbie Cornish, and Anna Friel. (trailer)

You Will Meet a Tall Dark Stranger sees Gemma Jones and Anthony Hopkins marriage fall apart, which causes their daughter, Naomi Watts to start living her life in accordance with a fortune teller’s advice, from Woody Allen. (trailer)

Matthew McConaughey continues to confound all logic and gets another role, this time as a lawyer who practices mostly from the back of his car in The Lincoln Lawyer. (trailer)

Chaning Tatum, Donald Sutherland, Mark Strong and Jamie Bell tell the story of 140ad Britain with a young soldier determined to find the emblem of a lost legion to restore his father’s honour in The Eagle. (trailer)

Country Strong sees Gwyneth Paltrow starring as an fallen country singer who starts to fall for her rising star song writer, which complicates matters with her husband/manager (country star Tim McGraw), and younger up and comer (Leighton Meester) (trailer)

Can a return to action give Dwayne ‘The Rock’ Johnson’s career a new boost, or will his previous run of kid friendly movies make it had for the audience to take him seriously as a tough ex-con who is out for revenge against the peole who killed his brother in Faster (Not to be confused with Fast 5). (trailer)

Richard Ayoade steps out from The IT Crowd to write and direct Submarine the story of a 15 year old who wants to lose his virginity, and stop his mother leaving his father. (trailer)

 

[albion534]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pi-6bLFp_6w



best 2 seconds of cinema

 

[Cheeky Monkey]

Animal Kingdom - simply one of the best films that I have ever seen. Somewhere between Australia's Pulp Fiction, Crash and Goodfellas. The quality of every actor/actress on screen is outstanding, as is the cinematography and direction, the plot, the soundtrack - everything about it is just very very impressive.

9.25/10

 

[Spider]

I really enjoyed Animal Kingdom as well - the lead actor is frustrating with his lack of emotion and failure to respond to the increasingly dangerous situation he was in, but I don't think it was a bad performance.

Also finally got round to seeing The Fighter, which I really loved. I thought it was going to be a fairly run-of-the-mill triumph over adversity sports movie, which it kind of was but it's very well done and doesn't always go the way you expect it to. Bale and Wahlberg are both very good. Only problem is the way Bale's character comes back into the film at the end, which I never felt was justified well enough.

Tonight I watched the documentary Catfish. Not sure how well known this is, it's essentially about a guy who starts an online relationship with several members of a family, the youngest daughter of whom is a prodigious painter. It's difficult to explain where it goes without ruining it, although you'll realise from the off that not all is as it seems. Most discussion about this film centres around whether it's real or fake, which admittedly does play on your mind whilst watching the film, but it's a riveting watch nonetheless, whilst the final third (where the truth is outed, as it were) is quietly moving and ultimately pretty heartbreaking. Definetely worth a watch, and serves as a good companion piece to The Social Network.

 

[mistahclarke]

caught up on a few films this weekend -

Unstoppable - Tony Scott's Denzil Washington vehicle about an unmanned and unstoppable train. Quite enjoyed it actually and it kept up momentum. 7.5/10

Tron Legacy - I really enjoyed this. Special effects excellent, one for the sci-fi fans - 8/10

The Next Three days - Russell Crowe film which I liked immensely. Paul Haggis wrote and directed (same for crash, and wrote screenplay for quantum of solace, casino royale, million dollar baby, in the valley of elah) - 9/10

re-watched The Escapist (2008) too - Excellent British/Irish-made film with Brian Cox 8.2/10

To balance it up I watched an awful Sean Bean film called the lost future - absolute toilet - avoid!

 

[Couldn't Be Hyypia]

The Adjustment Bureau - oh dear. The story - Up and coming senator meets a girl by accident and it turns out he should not have done. The people that control these things then "wrestle" with trying to set things right. Indomitable human spirit and self-determinism may triumph! Who knows? and frankly, who cares.

Interesting idea (ish) but development was feeble. Film seemed very impressed with its own wafer thin intellectualism. Just dull. Slow, ponderous, lacking in credibility. Characters weren't fleshed out. Bloke from Mad Men was an embarrassment. Couldn't work out if it was an ad for some Christian sect or just pathetic attempt at cod philosophy. Emily Blunt should have been a welcome distraction - but by the end I just wanted to shove her off the tall buildings they were running in and out of. Matt Damon doing Bourne Lite Lite.

People were leaving the cinema after an hour in T Wells. Might recommend watching it on DVD/Sky but don't bust a gut. 4/10 (or as Uncle Spielberg would say, 4.2/10)

 

[Cheeky Monkey]

Anyone know why this soundtrack isn't available on CD in the UK? Or if it is where? Possibly on MP3 download but can't find it on CD.

 

[Meade's Ball]

I had a doublebill on Friday arvo, cycling between two London cinemas to catch a couple of first-days of what turned out to be bad films. The second was The Adjustment Bureau which, as TRHK said, it wasn't the best of shows. Magic hats and doorways through dimensions. That it was based on a Philip K Dick story should give it some psychotic undertones, but it's supposed complexities were drab and uninspiring. The worst of it all for me was that i could see the boom mic for about 38 minutes of it. Very very poor film-making to let that sort of thing go. I wondered if they had let is slide as Matt Damon was on-contract to only do three takes of any scene, or if K Dick had it constantly mentioned in his story. Basically, it's shit craftsmanship and takes you out of the fantasy straight away.

The first of the day was Unknown. Obviously, me having been in a fortnight-long coma, i thought this would speak to me of the paranoia of reawakenings, of rebirths, of the tippexed out memories of all things past slowly revisualised, repainted in full. Liam Neeson, though, fights crime within about 3 hours of becoming himself again - a biotechnologist who is attending a conference in Berlin only to find that someone else is also him. What? It's laughably bad all the way through and for that reason alone not the worst film of the week. A really ticklesome conspiracy of dunces. Miss it if you can, but if you can't argue your way out of seeing it then don't expect anything other than a theatreful of rolling eyes and looks around of disbelief.

 

[Acker79]

I had a triple bill

Rango
I think my dislike of westerns made me not enjoy this as much a I otherwise would have. There was a great Fear and Loathing in LAs Vegas reference, but it wasn't particularly standout. Some kids were quit upset y the appearance of Rattle Snake Jake, so if you're taking little 'uns, be warned there's a very dark and scary moment.

The Adjustment Bureau
I didn't dislike it as much as the last two posters. It wasn't the bestfilm ever, but it wasn't particularly challenging, I find Matt Damon to be quite watchable most of the time, I think I'm developing a bit of a crush on Emily Blunt and always enjoy seeing John Slattery and Terence Stamp.

Unknown
I worked everything out from one of the trailers, so it all felt quite predictable. Not best enjoyed as the third in a trebler, but passable.

 

[Acker79]

I'm going to have re-see True Grit. I understood about 15% of Bridges' mutterings. I thought it would be better than it was. Still, a good effort and fun enough to watch. Nowhere near the intensity of No Country For Old Men and was rather orthodox in style for a Coen Brothers film.

True Grit With Subtitles - CollegeHumor video

 

[Uncle Spielberg]

Due Date

After the dissapointment of the Social Network 5.1 this reached new depths. Made by the director of the over rated, The Hangover this is a horrible and dire film with no redeeming qualities. A blatant rip off of Planes, Trains and Automobiles but with a 1/10th of the warmth, humour and acting abilities of Candy and Martin. Downey Jnr plays an arrogant cock and Jake whathisname plays a complete plankton. There is no chemsitry, no funny scenes and no point to the film. There is a moment in the film when Downey Jnr spits in the face of a defenceless Dog for no apparent reason which sums up this mean spirited film. Avoid 3.6