The Movie Thread

[Rhodes]

Originally Posted by Dowly

Ghostbusters (2016) review by Nostalgia Critic:

Ui, it must be good. Be going trought many of the nostalgia critic clips. A few are quite good and funny. Never know that there was a holiday special of star wars...

[Betonov]

Originally Posted by Dowly

Ghostbusters (2016) review by Nostalgia Critic:

Now I got to see it.
If it's really crap or just average liberally seasoned by the internet like NC said.

[Dowly]

RedLetterMedia made also a nice review of it:


Also, 'Scientist Man Analyzes Ghostbusters (2016)' (by RLM)

[mapuc]

Talking about "remakes"

Some day ago I saw The Thing from 2011 after watching it for about 30 minutes I change channel and saw something else.

OK there may be some who like the new version of the Thing, I like the old John Carpenters version of The Thing from 82.

Markus

[Dowly]

I wasn't too bothered by the 2011 version of The Thing, which btw was a prequel not a remake.

[Sailor Steve]

Originally Posted by mapuc

I like the old John Carpenters version of The Thing from 82.

And a lot of people in 1982 didn't like that version, preferring the old version from 1951.

[mapuc]

Originally Posted by Dowly

I wasn't too bothered by the 2011 version of The Thing, which btw was a prequel not a remake.

Thanks. then I should have seen it to the end and see them using a helicopter to shoot the shepherd.

I also should have noticed them using Scandinavian names which I didn't.

If this Danish TV channel are showing it a third time I will see it to the end.

Markus

[Subnuts]

I finally got around to seeing In The Heart of the Sea, or as I'll call it from now on, Moby Dew,last Friday. I haven't been so disappointed in a movie in a long time. I posted a review of on Amazon, which was promptly downvoted by someone who probably worked for the studio. Thanks, guys... Anyway, here's my review for anyone who wants to read me bitch about a movie for a couple minutes.

Was this movie really made by the same guy who made Apollo 13 and Frost/Nixon?

That's the first thing that crossed my mind when I took this movie out of my Blu-ray player. Ron Howard is such an inconsistent director, I'm tempted to find out what position the planets were in when he made his good films. In the Heart of the Sea takes a fascinating true story, a rich but barely-mined historical setting, a fine cast, and squanders them on a frustrating misfire of a movie. Granted, it does have some effective moments, and does a fine job at depicting the realities of early 19th century whaling. The acting is mostly decent, although the dialogue does sound rather modern to my ears. Unfortunately, it goes seriously off the rails about halfway in, and never really recovers.

In fairness, the movie held my attention until the whale attacks and sinks the Essex. After that point, the movie deviates so sharply from actual historical events it comes across as a shoddy piece of Moby-Dick fan fiction, with the titular white whale swapping roles with Captain Ahab. Yes, the whale actually stalks and terrorizes the survivors of the Essex like the shark in Jaws: The Revenge. I found myself groaning every time the whale reappeared and starting behaving like a slasher movie villain. Speaking of Moby-Dick, the film features an awkward framing device involving Herman Melville and the last survivor of the Essex, who dutifully recounts his story to the struggling novelist. Never mind that Melville never actually met Thomas Nickerson, or that story of the Essex wasn't exactly a secret in 1850. The screenwriters apparently thought that anyone paying good money to see a movie about an 1800s whaling ship being rammed and sunk by an enraged Sperm Whale couldn't make the Moby-Dick connection on their own. I know fan service is big these days in Hollywood, but I can't imagine anyone cranking out a Moby-Dick prequel trilogy, or a Queequeg origin story, any time soon.

The real problem with this movie, though? It's friggin' UGLY! Even in its more effective moments, I found myself cringing at how nasty the cinematography was. The color grading is absolutely hideous; a good third of the film looks like it was soaked in an industrial sized vat of Mountain Dew for two weeks. Another third looks like the cinematographer was holding a urine sample directly in front of the camera. The CGI and green screen shots are frequently so obvious they totally kill the film's verisimilitude. It's shocking how much better Master and Commander looks; heck, even John Huston's Moby Dick still holds up reasonably well. If Ron Howard thinks this movie looks good, he needs to talk to his ophthalmologist.

In The Heart of the Sea is competent, but ultimately let down by awful cinematography, goofy deviations from historical reality, and a truly clunky framing device. I love a good boat movie, but this is a mess. If anything, it made me want to re-read Nathaniel Philbrick's book. I suggest you do the same.

Well written and said, I agree.
I was looking forward to this movie and then struggled to even finish it. Now I barely remember it as if I had seen it 10 years ago.

What I do remember is an irritating, annoying and completely overdrawn Chris Hemsworth, who lost me as soon as he gave his wife this 'manly' testosterone and romance-loaded "This is all I know!" speech.
And he made me cringe when they left port, when he barked orders out so we would believe he seems seaworthy. He wasn't.
Oh, or when he nearly dropped that boy over board at night, as a joke. Hahahahaha...yes very believable there, sure...
(imagine he would have slipped... good luck stopping/turning a sailing ship and find a man in the water at night (who can't swim IIRC?), with lanterns...)

He was 19th Century Chris Hemsworth with perfect teeth on some boat. He was not whoever he had to be - if you know what I mean. While I admit that I do not like him in general for most of his roles, I have to say that he did at least one superb job: Rush.
The movie was badly written and the casting, at least that of Hemsworth, was a terrible mistake. Let him do his crappy super hero movies, that's where he belongs.
As to Ron Howard... yeah... his last good movie was Rush as well it seems.

[u crank]

Agree completely with you Sir. My daughter gave me Philbrick's book for Christmas and I was enthralled by it. Fascinating true story and history and very well written. I love that kind of stuff. I saw the movie about a month later and what a let down. Like you said, once the whale did that Jaws thing I was not impressed. To bad. Once again Hollywood takes a interesting true story and screws it up. Not surprisingly the movie was a box office bomb. I wish I had skipped it.

[Rhodes]

Suicide Squad, this:

[Platapus]

Originally Posted by Rhodes

Suicide Squad, this:

It all makes sense now. That must be the reason for the sucky movies.

[Skybird]

A very good one.

German movie, made 2014, title is "Zwischen Welten", meaning "Between Worlds."



The movie is made very anti-sensational, which I liked. Little or no music, little to now special effects, certainly no popcorn movie. Much is said by what is not being said by anyone. Entertainment factor: low, years ago i saw two BBC productions on the Ireland conflict and the British mission in Bosnia, which were in parts run with a comparable level of soberness and understatement. But something keeps you hooked. The beginning is almost wordless. The movie was shot on original locations in Afghanistan, despite the risks and costs.

The movie can be seen for free on media channel of ARTE for another 19 days from today on. Beware: this is all in GERMAN. No subtitles.

Shockwave Flash needed. Just saying.

http://www.arte.tv/guide/de/048255-0...ten?country=DE

For those not understanding it and not watching it therefore, I give the story here. If you want to watch it, you may want to skip the following.
If there is one movie or film document that illustrates the pointlessness and questionable and contradictory nature of the Western engagement in Afghanistan, then it is this movie. Highly recommended.

################################################## #####

SPOILER

A German captain returns to Afghanistan for his second term. His brother recently got killed there. The captain still is in a troubled state of mind, and fights inner demons.

A young Afghan was hired as translator for the Germans, his sister is with him. Their father got killed by Taliban years ago, for cooperating with the foreigners. The two young people are under threat and intimidation as well.

The captain gets sent with a small group to some godforsaken outpost, where they should cooperate with a local Afghan ´commander an dhis men. The camp is in a bad sahape, the methods of the Afghan commander get questioned by the german, and the German gets lectzured and doubted by the Afghan as well. Difficult start.

The young Afghan joins them, always torn apart between his worries for his sister'S sdafety left at home, who is targetted for being his sister, and for joining an bridge engineer's education course at school.

German and Afghans int he camp somehow arrange themselves with each other. But a night attack by the enemy at some nearby village distroys the small trust when the Gemans get forbiddne by High command to leave the camp at night. The Afghans go out, and fight. In the mornign they return bringing in their dea done. The Germans stand and salute. The Afghans are not sure what to amke of this.

The translator asks and gets permission to bring his sister into the cmap, into the household of the Afghan commander. While he does so, they get ambushed on the road , and the girl gets shot of the bicycle. He carries her to the cmap, and the Germna captain desperately tries to get permission to evacuate her into hospital. High command refuses to give permission. Furious, the captain takes a civil pickup, loads the girl in, plus two afghans and her brother, and drives her to the main base, ignoring his orders, but getting respect by the Afghans. His deputy meanwhile takes over his command and has the daily patrol getting out, as usual. It gets ambushed, the Dingo gets blown up, Germans die. At hpsital, the girl gets saved at last minute. The captain gets sent back ti germany, faces court martial, and gets kicked out without honours. Last you see him sitting in the green of the cliffs at the German Baltic coast, wondering. The translator in Afghanistan stops his bicycle at a railroad crossing, another car arrives and stops beside him, and when the train is gone and he wants to continue, the camera zooms to the distant horizon, and you hear a shot, then see only the foreign car racing away. End of movie.

---

[Skybird]

Just found that it is set up at Youtube as well.

2-minute trailer:


movie:


English Wikipedia lists critics' positive reception:

Deborah Young describes in the Hollywood Reporter that the "territories are bound to appreciate the realism and muscular shooting by a woman director and crew (shades of Kathryn Bigelow and Zero Dark Thirty) on location in northern Afghanistan" and that "the immediacy and tension with which Aladag conveys the daily life of the soldiers is something to take home".[4]
Guy Lodge writes in the Variety that the film "is a sensitive corrective to more partisan war dramas" and that the "film's visual palette, as well as its marriage of classic melodrama with contempo grit, is most strongly reminiscent of Susanne Bier's earlier work; if seen in the right places, it’s slick enough to potentially secure her an English-language assignment".[5]
Fionnuala Halliganut wrote in Screen Daily that Inbetween Worlds is a "nuanced story, stylishly shot with a good deal of integrity", which '"should attract international arthouse audiences intrigued by the added weight of a German military presence in a modern battle zone".[6]

The movie won a small handful of national and international film awards, as well as a few more nominations. It debuted at the International Berlin Film Festival 2014. The director also wrote the screenplay. Despite her foreign name Feo Aladag (due to marriage), she is Austrian by birth (born as Feodora Schenk).

[Dowly]

Saw a good thread about movies recently.
http://www.subsim.com/radioroom/showthread.php?t=204774