Movies you’ve watched recently

Apocalypse Now – With the amount of critical acclaim this film has received, I expected this to blow my balls away, instead, I feel rather disappointed with it. With Spec Ops: The Line deriving from this film in a lot of ways, with the development team actually quoting this as an inspiration, I expected quite a lot of moral themes to be questionable upon the viewer(s), etc. Essentially, the film is Max Payne 3 with the shitty monologue about how Capt. Willard despises normal life, is sort-of depressed, and wants back into the “game” including your friendly cold one, alongside him. 

I thought the first two acts of the film were actually really well crafted, building towards what would potentially be an incredible mind-blowing ending that would make the viewer reflect on what was presented in front of them, however, throughout the entire third act, the only thing I thought of was, “The ***NO PROFANE LANGUAGE PLEASE***.” I thought the second act started to drift off a little bit, plot-wise, with nothing really happening, just a death or two here and there which weren't even slightly emotional or memorable. 

And lets get to this third act, which was absolute shit. What the ***NO PROFANE LANGUAGE PLEASE*** happened? Kurtz is exactly what the generals assumed he was, an insane lunatic trying to wage the Vietnam war as if he was a god. This last act, when Willard encounters Kurtz and his “heart of darkness”, made me question as to why the ***NO PROFANE LANGUAGE PLEASE*** I would waste 189 minutes of my life on this shit. Aside from the crisp clear HD version and vivid sound quality this film presents, this third acts eradicates whatever decent feelings I had towards this entire film. 

Managed to watch about 30 or 40 other films this month, but the list is mostly long and forgettable, including titles such as Premium Rush and Total Recall, which were suprisingly entertaining and others such as Paranormal Activity 3 & 4 which were even viewed due to wanting something in the background whilst I complete assignments for my virtual courses.

I773D33MABL3 said:

@scotty

Don't be so harsh on Apocalypse Now man, you need to realise that it really is a movie of it's era. It's like The Deer Hunter. At the time it pushed boundaries and was shocking. But the themes have all been done to death since then so we just see a watered down version of what we're fed regularely. 

Yeah, I know, man; you do know Apocalypse Now is just an adaptation of Heart of Darkness, by Joseph Conrad, eh? Apologies for being a prick – just enjoy letting people know  

Anyway, I've seen my far share of cinema since my last post; You're Next, Silent Hell Revelation (half-way through), The Collection, and some other things – more than likely forgettable trash.

You're Next is easily one of my top films of this year alongside Star Trek Into Darkness and The Place Beyond The Pines   The film is reminiscent of Scream, a childhood classic for me, due to it's hilariously vicious depiction of the genre it presents: horror-comedy. The killers are incredibly iconic due to their masks and the sheer brutality each kill is presented; one kill was hysterical from start to finish!! One of the features of this film I enjoyed tremendously was the fact that it's a Cat and Mouse game – one of the victims becomes the hunter and begins to hunt the other hunters, which is definitely a change of pace from the usual Friday the 13th-esque, film. While I love those films, I'm absolutely bored of the same attempt at home invasion/serial-killer horrors that involve the deus ex machina towards the end where the victim magically saves the day  

Worthy of the 2 wait

The Collection on the other hand, was one hell of an enjoyment. It's one of the first films in a while where I was thoroughly immersed and enjoying it, where I didn't care about whatever problems were presented in it's script or direction – it was fun. While The Collector, I feel, was an alright film, The Collection evolves the stakes on a whole new level with one of the most bad ass endings around! Finally, a film where it delivers a kick ass ending these types of films don't present

As for Silent Hill Revelation, it's a joke of a film; it's script is terrible, the acting is a mixture of being wooden with Shakespearean type delivery of the dialogue. I'm going to continue watching it until the end 'cause it's been hitting every funny bone in my body

@ gr8

I saw the film on release and should've lowered my expectations, to be honest; it's Bloomkamp's second film, so trying to reach the pinnacle heights of District 9 would've been awfully impossible for him to do, and even if he even did, there still would've been drivel criticism.

To address the first point, they didn't particularly “copy” anything from District 9, since it could be Bloomkamp's direction he likes to control for his films, which I absolutely adore. The violence actually settles in the film quite nicely, due to the film's overall themes of how harsh, dire, and downright brutal it is to live in this particular world at that time; maybe WALL-E will suit your needs?  Also, to inform you, Sharlto Copley is from South Africa, so the accent you witnessed during the film could truly have been his original accent.

Another thing goes out to the problems of the grenade: I'm somewhat puzzled by that scene; I'm not doctor, so I didn't question it at all since Star Trek Into Darkness had a similar problem towards the end. As for the black tendril scene, I can't comment too much on that since it's been a month since I've seen the film – could have been hinted at earlier what it does?

Jodie Foster's death would've been much more ameliorate if this film possessed a writer supporting Bloomkamp, instead of him soley writing the script – District 9 featured Terri Tatchell (who's actually not too bad looking ) as the main screenwriter where as Bloomkamp took the backseat. Also, to point out, those machines to resurrect people weren't present, I don't believe, and even if so, the nurse (Damon's “love” interest) was sure as hell not going to risk her and her child's life putting some cunt back into that machine when you have sociopathic war criminals scouring all throughout Elysium. The cherry blossom tree used in the background was more of a symbolic/metaphoric use, from my personal perspective, since from what I remember it there was a red center with white around it? Anywho, it more than likely stood for how Elysium (white) represented innocence and purity while the blood (red) being shed by others was what formed Elysium, meaning people died to either get there or to keep this society in-tact. 

Oh, please, let me explain the data surge portion of the film, since it's relatively simple, I think; during the first portion of the film, Matt is given the exoskeleton, which is connected to the back of his brain. The reason I bring this up is because when during the middle half of the fim, when the “heist” occurs, Matt is supposed to put any intel the guy had in into the skeleton, but to be more precise, his brain. Later in the film, when Matt and Spider realize what has to happen in order to give Matt's “love” interest's daughter normality, he has to connect his brain to the program which would have to shut down Elysium completely – essentially override the entire system then bring it back with entirely new coding and software. If that doesn't make sense to you, basically, Matt's brain had the data and in order to transfer the data, he would practically have all his brain fried, etc. to have the overriding process completed.

The reason critics probably didn't care too much for the flaws of the film was due to Bloomkamp's inexperience with developing a proper script on his own and holds the film with the beautiful visual effects presented. Also, don't listen to Rotten Tomatoes – their site is riddled with pompous critics or spout bullshit across the board.

From my personal opinion, I think I would've loved Elysium if I went in with a different mindset instead of expecting a rehash of District 9, essentially. The film boasts gorgeous visual effects that pleasure the eye as well as questioning problems that we face in our current modern day world. I found the different languages spoken on Elysium and Earth to be very intrigueing and interesting due to how French is spoken for the higher class individuals where as Spanish is a lower class language, per se, but that requires me to list reasons for those languages that you wouldn't even read anyway. 

I actually wouldn't mind seeing Elysium again, especially in an IMAX theater to properly enjoy it. It's a film that I'm going to be more than happy to purchase on Blu-ray to enjoy with great sound and flawless visuals. 

Pain & Gain was actually very entertaining with some great performances from Dwayne Johnson and Mark Wahlberg. Some of the events that occurred in the film were drivel, and Mark's character was irritating a good parts of the time with me finding it difficult to try to find a real motivation as to why Mark wanted to even perform these crimes? Oh well….

I thought the medbay thing was obvious. The medbay cannot revive dead people. Matt Damon's brain fried and he died. Jodie Foster bled out and died. Kruger's face got blown off, but his heart was still pumping, his brain was in one piece, and he was quickly taken to a medbay. Stranger things have happened in real life. At the end, Kruger gets his exoskeleton spine ripped from his nervous system and then left for dead where no one would be able to revive him in time even if he wasn't already dead at that moment.

Anyway, Elysium is not a movie worth bitching about. I don't think there is a movie worth bitching about.

gr8jrfan said:

Seibei4211 said:

The medbay cannot revive dead people.

---

Except that it literally does…  And this isn't bitching. This is discussion and pointing out plot holes and inconsistencies.

Actually, no it does not; the entirety of the Medbay is to cure any abnormalities possible in a human being, not to revive them, which was addressed throughout the film numerous times.

Also, you're not wrong for not liking Elysium and I'm not right for liking it; we've different tastes in film. You weren't necessarily wrong for enjoying Man of Steel as much as you did, I just wanted to point out how you claimed that the problems others had with the film were just “nitpicks”, when in retrospect, they weren't. Hell, if you want to know a film everyone else thinks is flawed and I enjoyed the hell out of, Kick-Ass 2 is right there for you – I loved that film from start to finish, and blatantly saw all of it's flaws, however I was immersed and invested that I didn't give a single ***NO PROFANE LANGUAGE PLEASE*** as to what others thought. 

Kick-Ass is one of my favorite films, 2 didn't break boundaries, however I loved it thoroughly

Thor: The Dark World

Enjoyed this despite the occasional dull bits. Quite humorous throughout and was surprised how much of it was set in London! My only gripe is the villain. Bland, bland, bland but that might just be due to my dislike of Christopher Ecclestone.

emdeepee said:

Thor: The Dark World

Enjoyed this despite the occasional dull bits. Quite humorous throughout and was surprised how much of it was set in London! My only gripe is the villain. Bland, bland, bland but that might just be due to my dislike of Christopher Ecclestone.

Totally agree with you. Man, I loved how Loki stole the show and how much better it was compared to the snooze-fest that was the first Thor. Can't wait for Winter Soldier dude.