Rate the Last Movie You Saw

[srboone]

Life of Pi: the son of an Indian zookeeper gets shipwrecked on a life boat with a Bengal tiger. His story of survival is a reflection on life, death, and the power of faith. This is a stunning movie. The 3D (and I highly recomend a 3D viewing) visuals are absolutely beautiful. You've never seen anything like them before (here's your Best Visual Effect oscar winner). The framework of the story seems a bit contrived, but it all works. I haven't seen a movie this captivating with essentialy a one person cast since Castaway. Once again, director Ang Lee proves that he is a master of all genres. This one needs to be seen on the big screen. I feel for anyone who first views it otherwise.

EDIT: There were several groups of kids in the theater. A lot of the early scenes have English subtitles, which probably did not set too well with them. Also, this movie is rated PG, but it has a lot of animal/animal violence in it, early on. Some parents got up and left with their children in tow.

5/5

[srboone]

Boomerranging back to my Cloud Atlas review. My intial assessment was incorrect (as I felt it would be); the comet birthmark signifies one soul that is reborn through out the ages. I originally discarded that notion for two reasons: 1) one of the stories had no one with the birthmark in it (that I could see) and 2) I could see no reason for the casting choices made in the movie unless each actor represented one soul reincarnated throughout history. But the book makes clear that it deals with only one soul, which makes the casting of the movie a "stunt" more than anything else. That's disappointing. It also makes clear that the segment I thought had no birthmark in it, actually does. My rating won't change at all, but now I really want to see the movie again--too bad it's left KC.

[Dan Hocker]

Yea I missed Cloud Atlas and another one that was out at about the same time, both of which I really wanted to see. I did see Skyfall, Wreck It Ralph, and Red Dawn these past couple weeks though. I enjoyed all of them. Skyfall in particular though, as it's probably the best movie I've seen in awhile. Wreck It Ralph is pretty much exactly what I expected to get from it, and Red Dawn was actually much better than I was expecting it to be.

[Teriw]

I expected much more from wreck it ralph. I was very disapointed. I didnt even know Red Dawn was out. Guess I'll be missing that one til I can download it.

[srboone]

Next up is the 20th anniversary showing of Reservoir Dogs on 04Dec. I don't remember if I ever saw it in the theater (I think it was a video I watched with my friends one drunken night in 93 or 94.) but I will now. then on 06Dec, Pulp FIction is back in theatetrs for one night. I KNOW I saw that one in the theater (far too many times to count since there was a second run theater near my apartment and it only cost $1.00 to see). It's gonna be a Tarentino-kinda week.

[TerryE]

I definitely didn't see Reservoir Dogs in the theater. I think it was already done when I first heard of it in a magazine article. But it sounded so good I found a video when it was out. After that, I was darn sure gonna see Pulp Fiction when it came out.

[srboone]

The rereleases of RD and PF were marred by poor audio. In RD, K-Billy's Super Sounds of the 70's were too soft and went in and out and in PF the music was muted to the point of irrelevancy. Still. It was nice to see them on the big screen.

[srboone]

Caught Dead Snow on Chiller. Eight med students in Norway spend Easter break in a remote cabin in the mountains where a Nazi garrison was located in WWII. I guess it's about as good as a Nazi zombie movie can be. Scattered laughs and a few scares to be found, though the movie hits the right note throughout. Too bad it was English-dubbed.

Those crazy Norwegians...

3.5/5

On the bright side, if the Zombie Apocalypse comes, I know what song I'll be singing as I slaughter me some zombies!

Min dag ("My Day"--English translation)

<chorus>

It is my day today
Lord God what lovely day
It is my day
My day today
Lord God what a lovely day
Lord God what a lovely day
It is my day
My day today

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature...5BVCTgu3A&NR=1

[Lincoln]

Wife and I went to see 'Skyfall' last week. Neither of us are Bond fans, but we both loved it. This is how big budget action/thrillers should be.

'Kill List'. Dark, gritty, low budget Brit crime/horror film. Very well made, with great performances. Best watched with no prior knowledge of the plot. Very hard to watch, in places. That's about all I can say. Outstanding.

[srboone]

The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey: I really wanted to like this movie better. Martin Freeman was an inspired choice for Bilbo Baggins (movie-going audiences last saw him as Arthur Dent in The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy), and he's very good here; and McKellan as Gandalf is always dependable. But what was an enchanting, albeit less substantial than LOTR, child's tale has become (what is to be) a bloated three-ring circus in Peter Jackson's hands. There's nothing new here to see and it's only in the last hour of the film that the movie starts to take off. One can only hope, as Bilbo quips at the end of the move, that "the worst is behind us, now".

3.5/5

I wasn't impressed with the sneak peak of the first 9 minutes of Star Trek Into Darkness either. It looked like a setup for a rehash of The Search for Spock. I was also disappointed to see that Abrams hasn't relinquished his film school training bra of using light reflections on screen.

2/5

And on top of everything, the first 100 pages of Duma Key were less than engrossing (which I read while waiting for the movie to start)!

[Dan Hocker]

I think I'd mostly agree with your review of The Hobbit, though I probably would have rated it a bit higher. I think if you've never read "The Hobbit" or haven't read it in a very long time / don't remember much of the details you will find this a very good movie and will really think it probably live up to LOTR. On the other hand if you've read "The Hobbit" recently or remember a large amount of the details you probably won't enjoy this as much, as Peter Jackson has taken a lot of "creative liberty" with the story to make this fit in his three movie plan. Some of it really wasn't necessary, but other parts I think worked very well. Overall though I think if you're someone (like myself) that can take a movie for what it is, separately from the books, then you will think this is at least as good as "The Fellowship of the Ring".

I sadly didn't get to see the sneak peak of the new Star Trek movie, as the IMAX showing was sold out. I never really thought those long sneak peaks ever really did the movie justice and the actual trailers for the movies ended up being much better.

Of the trailers I saw last night, I think the best one was the one for "Man of Steel" much better than the teaser trailer I saw for it back when the Batman movie came out. Also The Lone Ranger movie looks so ridiculous that I think it'll be a great movie.

[Dan Hocker]

Side note, could you tell a difference with the higher frame rate? Or didn't they have that in the IMAX? I didn't notice a difference at all.

[srboone]

HFR 3D is different from IMAX 3D. In a few days I'll go see it in HFR 3D. Did you see it in HFR?

And after, rereading my review, I should have said that I wanted to like the film "better" (which I edited in.)

[Dan Hocker]

HFR 3D is different from IMAX 3D. In a few days I'll go see it in HFR 3D. Did you see it in HFR?

I did. My room mate seemed to think it made the people look more real and the cgi less real, but I didn't really get that from it. Honestly I think the only way I'd really be able to tell the difference is if I saw them side by side.

[srboone]

I wasn't impressed with the 3D in TH:AUJ anyway. I did like the 3D in some of the trailers last night, though, as some of the shots had the women't breasts in 3D! Oblivion, Man of Steel, A Good Day to Die Hard were the one's shown. Usually a scene will be in 3D, but the woman's chest is in 2D. Not that you'd really know if most of today's actresses' curves were shown in 3D or not.