DVD Rental Day (2011 - ?)

[RobertR]

Catching up...

 

The Blind Side

It's an effective melodrama that takes the easy way out on some tough questions. There are no real surprises, but it delivers what it promises. And Sandra Bullock is good. I don't know about Academy Award winning actress good, but good nonetheless.

 

Alice in Wonderland

Terrible. I'm a Tim Burton fan but it's tougher after this film. It may very well be his worst film. The script is terrible. It's a mechanical Alice needs to grow a spine, so that she can face off in a LotR inspired final fight scene? Really? There are bits that work here and there, the Cheshire Cat mostly, but the flashback scene to the young Alice visiting Wonderland is the movie I want to see, not this one. Avoid.

 

Night Train to Munich

Early WWII thriller with some characters carrying over from Hitchcock's The Lady Vanishes. And a pretty fine final set piece. Not an all time classic, but still good fun.

 

Iron Man 2

There's stuff that works. Robert Downey Jr. is still fun, although he comes dangerously close to glib at times. The special effects are good. But there's little weight to anything, and the story feels both too busy and underdeveloped at the same time.

 

Haxan: Witchcraft Through the Ages

A great silent film. Kind of a documentary/essay/horror film all wrapped up into one. Interesting for it's content, exploring the historical belief in witches and what the real source may have been, as well as its style.

 

Night of the Demon

I haven't seen Jacques Tourneour's classic in a long time. And while it's not quite as scary as I remembered it, it's still a very fine movie. Intelligent, scary, full of atmosphere, and some really good acting. Particularly by Niall MacGinnis.

 

Plague of the Zombies

The missing link between traditional zombie films like I Walked with a Zombie and Romero's film. From Hammer. It looks good, has some fine acting, and some really striking imagery. The villain is kind of a non-entity which brings it down a tad, but overall it's a very solid movie.

 

A Single Man

One of the better movies of 2010. I definitely liked it better than the other British awards contender of last year, An Education. It's a little obvious and it probably overuses the color fading/brightening effects, but Colin Firth is terrific and moving in the lead. Julianne Moore is terrific too.

 

Sherlock

That had me at John Watson, Afghan war vet. And kept me through some real clever updating and fine writing that was much more in tune with the spirit of Conan-Doyle's stories than the Robert Downey Jr. movie which sacrificed the detective element in favor of action-adventure set pieces. The modern setting really helps it get out of the shadow of Jeremy Brett. My only real complaint is that it's too short at only 3 episodes. Well, and the 2nd episode kind of suffers from uninteresting villains. Can't wait to see the resolution to the cliffhanger.

 

The Red Shoes

Watched it in preparation for Black Swan. Gorgeous movie with obvious parallels to Aronofsky's terrific movie.

 

Scott Pilgrim vs. the World

There are lots of things I thought were clever, exciting, well thought out, funny, etc. Still, it's a movie I more admire than like. The two leads don't have any chemistry. And they're more involved in the idea of a relationship than a real relationship, which lowers the emotional investment and stakes substantially. Why should anyone care if Scott is dealing with his girlfriend's baggage of ex's if their relationship feels hollow in the first place? It doesn't help that Winstead's character Ramona is a cipher (and a second rate Clementine played by a much inferior actress to Kate Winslet) who Scott falls in "love" with because the plot demands it. There's a lot of geek love out there for this, but I just don't see it in the actual text of the film.

 

Robert

 

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Original Lead:

 

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[TracyThom]

I'm dumping DirecTV for cable at the end of the month, and with that goes all of the movies I have saved on my DVR. I'd like to hear some recommendations of what movies I should watch on my DVR queue. I'll have time to watch 4-5 in the next 2 weeks. Here's what I have:

 

Punisher: War Zone, Push, The Natural, Gangs of New York, The Men Who Stare at Goats, Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs, Wonderland, Blindness, Sukiyaki Western Django, Forbidden Kingdom, American Psycho, Hitman, CJ7 (Stephen Chow), Speed Racer, Sicko, Never Back Down, Mr. Baseball, Zodiac, 88 Minutes, Black Snake Moan, Street Kings, Stephen King's The Stand (miniseries), Reign Over Me, Redbelt, There Will be Blood, Black Dahlia, and In the Name of the King: A Dungeon Seige Tale.

[TooLiveBrew]

The only films of those that I've seen & recommend are Gangs of New York, There Will Be Blood, & The Natural. I've heard good things about Zodiac & American Psycho but haven't seen them.

[Schlitz001]

If I had to choose 5 of them I would go with: There Will Be Blood, American Psycho, The Natural, Gangs of New York and Sicko (beware of usual Michael Moore spin). I hated The Men Who Stare At Goats and Black Snake Moan, but I know others really enjoyed them. Zodiac is good, but overrated in my opinion. It seemed to drag on.

[jjkoestler]

The Natural - Classic

Gangs of New York - Entertaining and great acting

Sukiyaki Western Django - If you dig this check out Ichi the Killer. Make sure you get the unrated version.

Forbidden Kingdom - Jet Li and Jackie Chan... Not a great movie but entertaining.

American Psycho - Christian Bale with a chainsaw.

There Will be Blood - I wasn't a huge fan, but a lot of people love this flick.

Sicko - A must see if you're into Mike Moore

[pitchleague]

I watched the movie "Flyboys" tonight while my wife was out. I enjoyed it. You don't see too many World War I period pieces. Yeah, it was "Hollywood-ized" but I took it for what it was worth-entertainment-and got my money's worth (I recorded it during a free preview weekend this past summer.)

[Team Canada]

Watched Moon tonight. Nice sci-fi piece with solid performance(s) by Sam Rockwell.

Also saw How to Train Your Dragon recently and thoroughly enjoyed it.

[Katuluu]

I'm dumping DirecTV for cable at the end of the month, and with that goes all of the movies I have saved on my DVR. I'd like to hear some recommendations of what movies I should watch on my DVR queue. I'll have time to watch 4-5 in the next 2 weeks. Here's what I have:

 

Punisher: War Zone, Push, The Natural, Gangs of New York, The Men Who Stare at Goats, Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs, Wonderland, Blindness, Sukiyaki Western Django, Forbidden Kingdom, American Psycho, Hitman, CJ7 (Stephen Chow), Speed Racer, Sicko, Never Back Down, Mr. Baseball, Zodiac, 88 Minutes, Black Snake Moan, Street Kings, Stephen King's The Stand (miniseries), Reign Over Me, Redbelt, There Will be Blood, Black Dahlia, and In the Name of the King: A Dungeon Seige Tale.

Watch everything in the bold. The rest are pretty forgettable at best.

[TooLiveBrew]

Watched Moon tonight. Nice sci-fi piece with solid performance(s) by Sam Rockwell.

Also saw How to Train Your Dragon recently and thoroughly enjoyed it.

Moon is excellent. And I've heard nothing but excellent reviews of HtTYD.

[Schlitz001]

Has anyone seen Dogtooth yet? It comes out on DVD tomorrow I believe. It's a very bizarre Greek film with fresh direction. It might not be for everybody, so read a summary on it first. Even if you don't particularly like the movie, I guarantee you'll be thinking about it once it's over.

[GAME05]

i used to work at a video store and would always try to recommend lesser-known movies to people so they wouldn't say "saw that already." haven't seen these in a while, though.

 

Sexy Beast--great-acted action-type starring Ben Kingsly

Snow Walker--my "will make you cry" recommendation for the ladies, though not overly spectacular

Saint Ralph and World's Fastest Indian--my "uplifting, cheer-for-the-character" movies

Bubba Ho-Tep--recommended "really weird but good"

Dummy--very creative with interesting characters. smart and funny

[homer]

Some people might be tired of the 1st person, Blair Witch style that's almost become cliche in horror films but for some reason I still find it entertaining. One indie film that made one of the most recent attempts is The Last Exorcism. It's about a Louisiana preacher who readily admits his sermons are more show than substance. But he justifies his "act" by saying that it's what the people need to feel good so what's the harm? He also has a similar attitude towards the exorcisms he "performs" until he sees that people are taking it upon themselves to exorcise demons and end up hurting the supposed possessed. So he gets together a documentary crew to take them on his last exorcism so the world can see what a farce it is. The problem is that this exorcism turns out to be a little more than he's used to. I thought it was film with good performances and a solid film even if the ending wasn't up to par with the rest of the movie. One other complaint...even though it was a "mock u mentary" type film using one cameraman, they had multi camera edits and some cheesy horror music in the second half of the film. I assume that was producer Eli Roth's doing because he's an idiot.

[RobertR]

Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans

Werner Herzog is perhaps the perfect director to harness Nicolas Cage's craziness. The film, which is sendup/homage to the type of "cop in moral crisis" films that regularly make the rounds. Cage acts every scene like he's hopped up on something different, and it works like gangbusters. All is forgiven Nicolas Cage. Well, almost all.

 

The Kids Are All Right

 

I think I appreciated the message more than I appreciated the actual film. Not that it's a bad film. It's well acted, it has a nice colorful look to it, and it's legitimately funny. But, IMO, it cops out on the resolution in favor of the safe ending.

 

Winter's Bone

Bleak is the most appropriate adjective to describe Winter's Bone. It's perhaps a cousin of a noir detective story or a western such as The Searchers where the protagonist must venture into dangerous territory on a mission. The setting, rural Ozarks, and Jennifer Lawrence really set this one apart. Jennifer Lawrence was well deserving of her Oscar nomination. John Hawkes too.

 

The Other Guys

The premise, mismatched everyday cops going after Wall Street corruption has a lot of potential that's only occasionally reached. Will Ferrell is definitely better playing an actual character rather than being an endless stream of screaming and non-sequitors though. And Michael Keaton is gold is a supporting role. But, it almost seems like they went in with half a script and were going to rely on ad libbing for the rest.

 

The Social Network

I was very impressed with just about everything about The Social Network. The script was sharp, handled talking heads in a sharp, exciting way, and had plenty of ideas. The film was crisply edited, looked sharp, was paced great, and made its point succinctly. The score was great. The acting was across the board excellent. Yeah, it might not have been the "true" story, but it's still a very good story told well.

 

Get Him to the Greek

Some funny stuff here amid the debauchery. To me, it felt a bit underwritten and obvious, but I laughed fairly regularly.

 

Red

 

The cast makes this film. Particularly Helen Mirren and Brian Cox. They play against type and class up the film considerably. Bruce Willis doesn't seemed to have aged a day in the last 20 years either. It's too slight to give it a strong recommendation, but it's an enjoyable enough romp for what it is.

 

Easy A

This is a film that obviously was written by adults, full of references to classic literature and 80s movies, and I don't buy it as an accurate representation of today's teens. But, it goes the extra mile and is smarter than the average teen comedy. Emma Stone carries the film and it's a really solid performance, albeit I'm not much of a fan of the way the story is framed. She's helped out a lot by the adults in the cast, Patrica Clarkson, Thomas Haden Church, Stanley Tucci, and Lisa Kudrow.

 

Hausu (House)

 

Batxxxx insane. Honestly, I've never seen anything like it. It's like a live action anime, mixed with equal doses of Evil Dead 2 and Suspiria. It's completely baffling to quickly peg, which is both its strength and weakness. Does it work as horror? As comedy? As fairy tale? Heck if I know, it's practically its own genre.

 

Robert

[homer]

Robert,

Have you ever seen one of Gaspar Noe's films? I recently watched Irreversible and Enter the Void and while I can't say that either is a "great" movie they were both very unique and I thought a lot about them afterwards. Just curious if you had an opinion.

[RobertR]

I haven't seen either, although perhaps I should.

 

Irreversible has never really appealed to me between the subject matter, the structure, and I just get the impression that it really has only one thing to say and is saying it as obviously as possible.

 

OTOH, I hear very good things about Enter the Void. I'll have to add that one to my queue.

 

Robert

[DuWayne Steurer]

Bad Lietenant SPOILER alert.......

 

 

 

 

 

 

Robert, I didn't like Bad Lietenant at all. At the end of the film, he suffered ZERO consequences for his actions. I guess that was kind of the point, but it just left a bad taste in my mouth. I was literally sitting there thinking "SERIOUSLY? NOTHING? This is crap!"

[GAME05]

trying to think of the last few videos i saw....

 

"Frenemies"--the cover has a huge picture of Zach Galifanikis on it, which made me get it. but since it was released before he became a star, it actually has very little of Zach in it. This is one of those movies about two opposites-attract friends (though it's hard to believe they'd be friends) and their well-scripted back-and-forth dialogues. never actually made it through the whole movie, though.

 

MacGruber--ok, i like idiot comedies. generally speaking. groin-punch movies are still too low-brow for me. i'd heard that this was one of those where the jokes were dumb and obvious, but it still worked. those people were very wrong. the jokes were only stupid. the movie was three decent chuckles and nothing too much more.

 

Grown Ups--i'm also a fan of feel-good movies, particularly ones that are on the dumb side and don't involve relationships and "feelings." this was definitely nothing that would leave you saying "wow" or even have you wanting to watch it again, but overall i really enjoyed the movie. it is what it is, and in that respect, it didn't disappoint me at all.

[homer]

OTOH, I hear very good things about Enter the Void. I'll have to add that one to my queue.

 

Robert

I recommend it for no other reason than you will never see another movie like it.

 

Dropping some acid beforehand might help enhance the experience http://forum.brewerfan.net/images/smilies/smile.gif

 

Some of my other recent Netflix rentals:

Monsters

Super low budget sci fi by Gareth Edwards. He wrote it. He directed it. He was director of photography. And he did all the CGI. Talk about a one man show. Its sort of a District 9 type film where a group of walking octopi looking aliens are segregated into a large area in Northern Mexico (called the Infected Zone in the movie). An American journalist must accompany his billionaire boss's daughter across the border and as you would expect they fall for each other while dodging monsters. Touches on some social an political topics (the US has built a giant wall along the southern border to keep out the aliens) as well. On the whole it moves pretty slowly and there aren't enough encounters with the monsters to satisfy. The ending was weak too. But given the budget (which I believe was under $1 million) it's pretty decent.

Mother

Korean film about a mentally challenged man who is accused of killing a young girl. His mother staunchly believes in his innocence and sets out to prove it. Some stunning cinematography and decent script make this worth a rental.

 

Mugabe and the White African

Documentary about a white farmer in Zimbabwe who is being forced off the land he's owned for 30 years by dictator Robert Mugabe. Really interesting story about a country I knew basically nothing about. Mugabe is not a nice guy.

Seven Days

Not for the faint of heart, this French Canadian movie is about a surgeon whose daughter is raped and murdered. They catch the guy through DNA evidence and just before he goes to trial the surgeon kidnaps him. Here's where the fun begins! He takes him to a remote cabin, shackles him up, and tortures him repeatedly for seven days. It's brutal stuff and not for the squeamish. However, the movie was more than a snuff film. The larger themes were about loss and how different people deal with it. The main cop in the movie lost his wife to a botched robbery and acts as the conscience of the surgeon. As with Mother, some really good cinematography in this one as well.

[RobertR]

Bad Lietenant SPOILER alert.......

 

 

 

 

 

 

Robert, I didn't like Bad Lietenant at all. At the end of the film, he suffered ZERO consequences for his actions. I guess that was kind of the point, but it just left a bad taste in my mouth. I was literally sitting there thinking "SERIOUSLY? NOTHING? This is crap!"

 

I can understand that. But, for me, the injustice and indifference of the universe to Cage's actions made it of a piece with Werner Herzog's filmography. He just channelled his normal pessimism in a new direction.

 

Robert

[DuWayne Steurer]

Bad Lietenant SPOILER alert.......

 

 

 

 

 

 

Robert, I didn't like Bad Lietenant at all. At the end of the film, he suffered ZERO consequences for his actions. I guess that was kind of the point, but it just left a bad taste in my mouth. I was literally sitting there thinking "SERIOUSLY? NOTHING? This is crap!"

 

I can understand that. But, for me, the injustice and indifference of the universe to Cage's actions made it of a piece with Werner Herzog's filmography. He just channelled his normal pessimism in a new direction.

 

Robert

Ironically, while I didn't like the movie, or perhaps, didn't like the resolution, I can honestly say it's one of Cage's few very good performances in recent memory.

[DuWayne Steurer]

I finally launched myself full force into Netflix, and it's like my crack now.........so I've watched a lot of movies lately, and have gotten to watch some that I otherwise wouldn't have.

 

2012. While not as bad as I expected it to be, it was basically The Day After Tomorrow with earthquakes instead of blizzards. Ridiculously schlocky, and one of the few films in which I don't like how they used Oliver Platt 5/10

 

District 9. Interesting film. Wasn't sure what to expect. I'm not a real big fan of the low budget Blair Witch/Cloverfield camera work, but it didn't take away from the movie. I always enjoy movies without any A-list castings, as you don't have any pre-conceived notions about how the actors are supposed to behave. 7/10

 

Wasabi. Loved it. 8/10

The A-Team. I got exactly what I expected out of this. Guns, explosions, a few witty one-liners. 6/10

Planet 51. Just not a very well done movie. Plot kind of lurches along, and there's just not much humor here. Dwayne Johnson needs to go back to wrestling, and just stay there. 4/10

 

Despicable Me. Liked it. Good story, some enjoyable humor, and enough 'adult' in it to keep me there for the duration. 7/10

 

Zombieland. Loved it. Woody Harrelson's finest moment (IMO) Much better than I expected. I didn't even mind Eisenberg in this one, who usually ranks up there with Cera on the 'actors I just can't stand' list for me. 8/10

 

Up. I had already seen this a while back, but the wife wanted to watch it again. This may be the best animated film I've ever seen. Carl is one of the best characters Disney has ever put out. Ed Asner's work was fantastic 9.5/10

 

Metropolis. I had seen the 2001 animated version a while back, and really liked it, so I figured I'd gut it out and watch the old silent film. I had nothing to do at work yesterday, and often sit for 2-3 hours at a time with nothing to do on Sundays, so I gave it a go on the instant queue. Interesting. Not something I'd watch over and over, but I enjoyed it. Those types of stories always keep me interested, and it was obviously visionary for it's time. I'll give it a solid 7/10

 

Up next in the queue......

 

Inception

From Paris With Love

Once Upon a Time in the West

Silverado

Legion

[Katuluu]

Honestly, I've never seen anything like it.

I have. http://forum.brewerfan.net/images/smilies/smile.gif

 

Try out Deathbed: The Bed that Eats next. You can thank me later. http://forum.brewerfan.net/images/smilies/wink.gif

[RobertR]

Honestly, I've never seen anything like it.

I have. http://forum.brewerfan.net/images/smilies/smile.gif

 

Try out Deathbed: The Bed that Eats next. You can thank me later. http://forum.brewerfan.net/images/smilies/wink.gif

 

Honestly, after seeing a girl named Melody get eaten by a piano and a kung fu fight between another girl and a killer lamp, a bed that eats just doesn't sound strange enough. I know, I never thought I'd write that sentence either.

 

Robert

[jjkoestler]

You should definitely check out the Patton Oswalt bit about "Death Bed." Its hilarious.

[Katuluu]

Would it help if the bed was possessed by a demon and their was a painting on the wall that narrated all the events of the film?