Film The Redcafe Movie review thread

I agree with Nilsson, I really don't like Sandler in... well everything, basically, but I thought he was pretty decent in Punch Drunk Love. And I quite liked the film.

Just back from Argo, thoroughly enjoyed it. Ben Affleck, after some dreadful movie choices at the beginning of the 2000s, is definitely redeeming himself behind the camera and here he offers us a tense political thriller that mixes the genres by throwing in some comedy (very successfully) and even a sort of hommage to cinema itself thanks to the material of his film. It's very well directed, the essential characters are given enough screen time for us to really get to know them and actually care about them, which adds to the nail biting tension towards the end of the picture.

Really worth seeing.
 
The Amazing Spiderman

This is basically a two hour facepalm experience. Don't waste your valuable time watching this dross.

2/10
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Chronicle

Better than I expected it to be. A film about 3 kids that find an alien rock(?) buried underground and gain telekinetic powers when they come in contact with it. Some of the special effects look pretty cheap but if you can look past it the movie itself is quite entertaining.

6.5/10
 
Couple of oldies I watched this weekend.

Hobson's Choice

Fantastic performances all round, Laughton is funny and the eldest daughter gives a fantastic performance in a role filled with opportunity. John Mills grows through the the film and his wedding night preparation is a great scene. Loved the shots of old Manchester too. 8/10

All The Kings Men

Hmmm I think this has aged badly. It's a strong performance from Broderick Crawford but the support is very weak and the women are all overly dramatic. It's a good story but the end is a bit abrupt. Haven't seen the Sean Penn version...maybe it's better. Hopefully it doesn't have as many montages as this one. 5/10
 
Looper

Entertaining movie which keeps you wondering what might happen until the end - original concept for a movie where individuals are sent to the past to be assassinated

I heard some people compare it to the Matrix but it isn't in the same league as that as an idea for a movie or in terms of the action etc...

Nonetheless definitely worth a watch

8/10
 
Holy Motors - Totally bonkers film. It's about a man that a moves from one parallel life to another, changing his appearance through makeup and taking on different personas. Dream logic was applied and the film sported some truly bewildering, surrealistic segments and also a few film references. It also included perhaps the catchiest accordion performance I've ever seen. Amongst the playful madness there were some moments of depth and I really enjoyed the film on the whole. I reckon this a textbook love it or hate it film.
 
The Apparition

I was hoping for a bit more, than the usual ghost story, but no it was just the same rubbish.
There were a few good bits in it but not much in the way of horror, you get the flickering lights and doors opening when there closed, you get the unexplained death of a dog thrown in.
Has you are watching the film you get the feeling that the ending will be equally has rubbish as the film is, but no you get an ending which is far far worst than the film is.
I could say that it passed 75 mins of a night shift on a quite Sunday , but I cant even say that, I was struggling to stay awake during it.

This film has no redeeming quality's and will be never watched by me again.

1/10
 
Expendables 2

It was just what I expected of a film, with ageing action hero's in, shed loads of blood, bodies and fighting.
There was not much of a plot and the acting was questionable at best.There is lots of cheesy lines inspired by all the great action films everybody has seen over the years.

I loved it and watched it smiling all the way though, it did get a bit boring in the middle when they tried to be all serious, but that soon passed.

Has to be one of this years must watch films.
7.5/10
 
Watched Looper last night, It's a good movie, but it's overrated.
 
Dresilved said:
This is one of the best casts in any movie ever! Pacino, Spacey, Lemmon, Harris, Baldwin, Arkin……. All top drawer actors with top drawer performances, Lemmon himself said it was the best cast he ever worked with, and thats saying a lot!
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Yes, I read up on it a bit because I wanted to know who won the Oscar that year. I thought Lemon was that good!

Apparently some of the Actors took pay cuts to appear in the film.
 
Serpico - A poor mans French Connection. Both are gritty, edgy 70's thrillers but I think the latter one holds up better today, just found myself a bit bored watching Serpico. There were some really strong performances though by Pacino's different hairstyles, facial hair and hats. Not everyone could pull off wearing some of those hats.

Bottle Rocket - A couple of good lines but the plot/crime element was a bit sketchy. Decent film though.
 
jem said:
I despise Adam Sandler. I fail to find anything funny about him, and I judge those that do.
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the only thing that crosses my mind when I see him is that he must have some great connections, an excellent agent - or both - cos he's not getting by on talent.
 
Savages

Oliver Stone action flick about the Mexican drug cartel. Benicio Del Toro's fantastic performance as the bad guy makes this movie great. Very enjoyable movie.

7/10
 
Argo - 7.5/10 - a decent job by Affleck on the directing, real tention built in and nice look stylistically. Not so good on the acting though and he cant be given much credit for the storyline.

I was disappointed to read about how much was changed from the real story and I find the Americanisation of the whole story to be very annoying.
I dont mind some of the things that are added in to increase the suspense etc, but it pisses me off when vital characters and events are completely rubbed from history in this kind of thing.
 
Gone baby gone

I don't know how did I never hear about this movie before, but it's excellent movie. I was randomly searching for Morgan Freeman's movies, and this popped up, I saw high rating so decided to watch it. Just to note, Morgan Freeman isn't main character. Ben Affleck is the director.
Anyway, great movie IMO.

8.5/10
 
Watched Glengarry Glen Ross after having read about it a few times here over the last few days. Wow! Brilliant film, it all rests on the actors's performances and the dialogue, and both are superb. Soma amazing acting by Jack Lemmon, Al Pacino, Alan Arkin, Ed Harris, Kevin Spacey and even a small but solid part by Alec Baldwin (what a cast!).

I strongly recommend to anyone who hasn't yet seen it like me before this evening, it's 100 minutes or pure joy!
 
Total Recall (2012)

If I had not of seen the original film, I would of enjoyed this one better.
The acting was good, the plot was just a rehash of the original , with a few differences, the main one being not set on Mars.
Colin Farrell and Jessica Biel worked well together. Kate Beckinsale was excellent and played her part well and looked stunning.
Bryan Cranston did not impress me very much, all I could see was him has the Dad, in Malcolm in the Middle and that spoilt it for me.
I liked the way they worked in a couple of nice references to the original film into this one, the girl with the 3 boobs, and the women who's head turned in to a bomb.

Has a standalone film, it was decent enough and easy to watch but has a remake it sucked big time, I hated it for that.

I will give it 2 score's.
Standalone film 6.5/10
Remake 3/10
 
If you just see Bryan Cranston as the dad from Malcolm in the Middle you need to get watching Breaking Bad sooner than immediately.
 
Any Given Sunday: I don't know what to make of it really. I saw the last hour of it in 2001 after a long flight and I remembered enjoying it. I decided to watch the whole film last night and It was very much style over substance.
It was very long, but didn't seem to drag, which usualy indicates a good film. The problem is that the characters were all sports film cliches and they were never explored enough to give them any depth, despite the length of the movie!

I think the sports scenes are what save the film, as they're pretty intense and enjoyable. That being said, they did overuse a particular slow-mo shot of a ball spinning towards the camera. There was a completely unnecesary injury scene involving an eyeball that didn't really serve any purpose except to add to the visual bombardment. There was a meeting between Pacino and Foxx which was interspersed with scenes from Ben Hur to really ram the gladiators theme down our throats which didn't really work for me and felt a bit overcooked.

So, to summarise, I enjoyed the football scenes, but the rest of the film was weak. Still strangely worth watching though.

Mockney's shouty Pacino theory might not work in this one because he plays a football coach, which is a bit shouty by definition!
 
I really enjoyed it, but couldn't especially explain why. It's not only the football scenes (which are very good), it's just the whole film, I like the rhythm of it, Pacino's OTT performance, Jamie Foxx being crap like he knows how to, James Woods being creepy like he knows how to, good performances by Quaid and Eckhart... I really liked the relationship between Pacino and Dennis Quaid's characters, and the scene with the Ben Hur flashes, which is probably one of the most important scenes of the film (where the old generation meets the new one and fail to understand each other, and that can still find an echo in sports nowadays) really worked for me.

And the rap clip by Jamie Foxx "I'm Willy Beamen" just cracked me up!
 
Rooney in Paris said:
I really enjoyed it, but couldn't especially explain why. It's not only the football scenes (which are very good), it's just the whole film, I like the rhythm of it, Pacino's OTT performance, Jamie Foxx being crap like he knows how to, James Woods being creepy like he knows how to, good performances by Quaid and Eckhart... I really liked the relationship between Pacino and Dennis Quaid's characters, and the scene with the Ben Hur flashes, which is probably one of the most important scenes of the film (where the old generation meets the new one and fail to understand each other, and that can still find an echo in sports nowadays) really worked for me.

And the rap clip by Jamie Foxx "I'm Willy Beamen" just cracked me up!
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That was quite amusing when Pacino looked up to see that on the tv.

I didn't think there was much of a relationship between Pacino and Quaid. Pacino trusted him because he had used him for years and Quaid was the faithful old war horse. They must have shared about 5 minutes of dialogue in the whole 2.5 hours. As for the Ben Hur scene, I thought the clash of ages/understanding was dealt with when Pacino tried engaging with Foxx on the plane. Pacino fibbing about knowing the Rap artist and Foxx's blatant dismissal of Jazz music. Then when Pacino offered to tape him some and Foxx pointed at his cd's because tapes are out of date. It was finished by Pacino's offer of advice about not having a father which was met with apathy.

I think the Ben Hur thing was a bit clunky and their disagreement didn't really need the Ben Hur scenes. It was just more style over substance. Then Charlton Heston appears in a cameo later in the film, just for shits and giggles.
 
R.N7 said:
Serpico - A poor mans French Connection. Both are gritty, edgy 70's thrillers but I think latter one holds up better today, just found myself a bit bored watching Serpico. There were some really strong performances though by Pacino's different hairstyles, facial hair and hats. Not everyone could pull off wearing some of those hats.
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:lol:

Yep, it's dated badly. I remember watching it a few years ago and thinking exactly the same. It's a seminal film about police corruption, but it's a really boring seminal film about police corruption.

Bottle Rocket - A couple of good lines but the plot/crime element was a bit sketchy. Decent film though.
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I watched Moonrise Kingdom on a plane yesterday, and I thought that was really boring too.

I like Anderson, but this felt a bit like being smothered to death by Wes Anderson films.
 
How an earth can a eye be forced out of somebody's head?

Best sports movie ever is Slap Shot....nothing else comes close.
 
Grinner said:
How an earth can a eye be forced out of somebody's head?

Best sports movie ever is Slap Shot....nothing else comes close.
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I've not seen slapshot. It's difficult to recommend sports films as I've not seen many since I was a kid.

I used to love Wildcats and Major League, but if I watched them now, I'd probably have a different opinion. I'd have to have a think, but I saw Moneyball recently and I enjoyed that.
 
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