Film The Redcafe Movie review thread

Skyfall A great fun Bond movie and nearly as good as the first Craig Bond and very much back to basics Connery style in many ways. Of course it is all a bit silly at times but it a Bond movie after all. So if you like Bond movies you will love this one and if you don't why are you watching a Bond movie? What did you expect? 7/10 Less if you expected something else.

Very true, I loved it.
 
Code Unknown: Incomplete Tales of Several Journeys - Pretty good, but there were some elements that I just didn't care for that much and it felt like Haneke put them there just to fill out the running length. Swedish filmmaker Ruben Östlund must have been heavily influenced by this film as his films use the same format and his last one 'Play', is basically a more in-depth exploration of one the best parts of Code Unknown, but moved to Sweden in order to shed light at some very important issues in Swedish society and to expose the mentality of the more privileged Swedish people.
 
Dances with Wolves (1990)

Considering that I'm very interested in all things Native American, I was quite bored by this film. Even Kevin Costner sounded bored to death while he was narrating/reading his journal; it was like The Waltons with wolves. And it didn't help that the Lakota-to-English subs were missing...

6/10
Yeah, it did nothing for me either when I saw it. I had a lecturer who used to rail against it, but that was pretty much par for the course for her. I guess the more you know / care deeply about Native American studies, the greater chance there is of being an angry, constantly offended person. Not sure if you saw the Rich Hall documentary that was shown a while back - I thought it was pretty good. It's on youtube, probably amongst other places.


Vysotsky, Thank You For Being Alive (2011) - after reading about it, I thought it was going to be a Last Days type film, but instead it felt like some weird Western action film with no real action. It's about the final few months of the Russian songwriter/actor Vladimir Vysotsky's life, focussing on the KGB's attempts to bring him down. Most criticism I read was over its depiction of him as a drug addict without any obvious genius. Showing him broken down would actually be interesting, but it's like he may as well not have been in the film at all, as hardly anything's shown of his character one way or another. As a result it feels pretty pointless.

Timecrimes (2007) - low budget spanish time travel film. It's great in that it doesn't feel as if it's trying to sell itself as anything other than a crazy, entertaining series of events. I wish Looper was more a high-budget version of this, but it seems like we're getting the Hollywood remake anyway.

Till Human Voices Wake Us (2002) - it's vaguely to do with the poem by Eliot, Prufrock, that it takes its title from in that it's about someone taking action, trying to overcome repressed memories - most of the film's a visual representation of that. Some lines were a bit hokey, but maybe they were examples of us giving greater meaning/poignancy to moments we remember...or maybe that's giving it too much credit! Even if it didn't always work, I liked the idea & overall feel of it.

Kiss Me Kate (1953) - maybe I'm a weirdo but I think old film musicals stand up amazingly well, even if Kiss Me Kate is a pretty exceptional example. Amazing music, cast & choreography.

Innocence (2004) - a surreal look at some themes of childhood for girls. Bleh. I've never read the book but there were only a very a few moments where the film touched upon a meaningful point about childhood & I don't think I needed to experience life as a pre-pubescent girl to say that. Some nice imagery but who cares when there's nothing of substance.

The Captivating Star of Happiness (1975) - historical drama about the fallout from the Decembrist revolt, focussing on the wives & families of those exiled to Siberia. It's one of my friend's favourite films, but I struggled to get through it. There was very little to emotionally connect with & the historical scenes didn't exactly wow to make it feel worth it from that perspective. Maybe it's different if it feels a part of your history.
 
Thanks for the link, LITA. :)
 
La Haine - 10/10...Best film I've watched in a long time. The ending was class.

Great film.


East of Eden - I'm not sure if James Dean was acting in this or if he was genuinely emotionally disturbed at the time. He was the shining light of a decent but very dated film. Lots of melodrama and shoddy acting.
 
The Telephone Box.

EXCELLENT, short simple story, I loved it.
A Spanish film but with English subtitles but really you don't need them.
Funny in places and the music towards the end just added to it.
I thought the horror ending was brilliant.

For horror fans this is a must

10/10
 
Just watched Men in Black 3. Got exactly what I was expecting from this movie and that was a pretty fast moving gag filled flick to watch with the kids. Predictable as hell but that was even to be expected.

7/10 for the family.
 
The Telephone Box.

EXCELLENT, short simple story, I loved it.
A Spanish film but with English subtitles but really you don't need them.
Funny in places and the music towards the end just added to it.
I thought the horror ending was brilliant.

For horror fans this is a must

10/10

Wicked, really pleased that you liked it. I'm glad to share it with somebody else. I first saw it around christmas time back in the 1980's and was blown away by the ending. Such a simple but effective film.
 
The Signalman

After watching the excellent The Telephone Box there was a recommendation for this BBC short film based on a novel by Charles Dickens.
Again a very simple story but very well told and acted, Denholm Elliott was excellent has the signalman.
The full film is on utube.



8/10
 
Moonrise Kingdom

It's about as Wes Anderson as Wes Anderson can possibly Anderson.

8/10.

I enjoyed Moonrise Kingdom, like all of his films, but it seems like Anderson's films are getting more and more Wes Anderson and thus completely structured to the bone, when I personally think they should be more loose and less structured.
 
Who has seen Jack Reacher yet? Likely gonna see it tomorrow.


Seen it.

Its not terrible but it ain't good either its just a very misjudged movie. I expected a dark thriller but instead got a quite light hearted action movie that does nothing original and already suffers from the problem of miscasting Cruise in the main role, as well as a sub-standard script.

If you have the option of seeing this or Life Of Pi, watch that instead. It isn't great but its better than Reacher which is mediocre.

5/10
 
Hey, that rumour about Cruise has never been proven true.
 
Rurouni Kenshin (2012) - The live-action film adaptation of the anime/manga series. It was definitely better than I expected, I thought it was going to be a rubbish, bastardized, corny version but it was actually a decent, passably entertaining Samurai romp. It never came close to matching the goodness of the anime though. One problem with the series is that nothing of any real note happens in the first arc whilst the second arc is awesome with a proper villain. This film is based on the first one so the sequel will probably be a lot better.
 
The Hobbit.

I was not expecting to enjoy this just as much has I did. I even nearly turned it off before it was 10 mins old. I am glad I carried on with.
Excellent story, very well acted, just an all round cracking film.

I have just one question.
When Bilbo reappeared in the woods after taking the ring off, why did Gandaf not want the rest to know about the ring, he knew Bibo had it.

I will watch this again and also watch LOTR's

8.5/10
 
I forgot to post in here about The Hobbit. I loved it also and I've not read the book nor do I have any real interest in Tolkien's stuff. I'd say I enjoyed it just as much as any LOTR film, was great entertainment. Didn't feel like it dragged on for me either or that it was too long as some others were saying.

About your spoiler, this is just a guess

I thought he didn't want the others to know because he had an idea of what power the ring possessed and didn't want the dwarves to become corrupted by it, perhaps?
 
The Hobbit.

I was not expecting to enjoy this just as much has I did. I even nearly turned it off before it was 10 mins old. I am glad I carried on with.
Excellent story, very well acted, just an all round cracking film.

I have just one question.
When Bilbo reappeared in the woods after taking the ring off, why did Gandaf not want the rest to know about the ring, he knew Bibo had it.

I will watch this again and also watch LOTR's

8.5/10


He also just simply didn't know it was the ring. He saw him put something in his pocket, but he won't have known what it was... he almost certainly wouldn't have thought it was the one ring that has been 'lost' for generations. Any suspicions he had at that point would be just that.
 
Kiss Kiss Bang Bang - A thoroughly entertaining neo-noir/action/comedy. I put it on late so I had trouble following what was going on, but it didn't impact my enjoyment of it much.
 
Dredd

If you've seen The Raid then you've seen this albeit this has a really cute chick playing the part of Judge Anderson and no martial arts. Loads of slow mo balletic shoot outs and it looks great in 1080p on an HDTV.

Seriously though, how is this so much like The Raid? I googled afterwards to see who had copied who but apparently this went into pre-production/was written first but the Director of this doesn't think they copied him either. feck off. This is too much of a coincidence. I demand answers!
 
Skyfall A great fun Bond movie and nearly as good as the first Craig Bond and very much back to basics Connery style in many ways. Of course it is all a bit silly at times but it a Bond movie after all. So if you like Bond movies you will love this one and if you don't why are you watching a Bond movie? What did you expect? 7/10 Less if you expected something else.

Was a good watch indeed. Don't you think Daniel Craig's a bit bland though? I don't think he can pull off the effortlessly suave, witty remarks all that well. The pacing was a little sketchy too I thought - it went from being a British Mission Impossible in the first 10 minutes to going overly slow for the next hour, and I felt it ended suddenly. Still thoroughly enjoyable.