Film The Redcafe Movie review thread




Lawless

Very good. After seeing a lot of dross at the cinema lately, this was very much welcome. Tom Hardy manages to wear a wooly jumper and a cardigan at the same time, and still look like the hardest man to have ever lived... and he's excellent in it, as is Guy Pearce, who plays a total black & white bad guy, but he makes you hate his character so much, I didn't really care that there weren't more shades of grey to him. To be fair, all the performances were pretty good... even from Shia, though I could have done without his narration.

The story is fairly unspired, but still fine and entertaning, it looks great, the action is good... if it maybe had trimmed 10 minutes of fat, it would have been even better.
 
gooDevil said:
I haven't seen 'Black Swan', did anyone like it? I didn't realize it was directed by guy who made 'Pi' and 'Requiem for a Dream", but I still can't imagine it being good.
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I love Natalie Portman but the movie wasn't that good.
 
I really liked Pi and Black Swan, the rest of Aronofsky's stuff is a bit hit-and-miss for me.
 
Stealing Las Vegas Utter utter shit even allowing for the low budget. You will never get this time back people so avoid.[/b]0.5/10[/b]
 
amolbhatia100 said:
Memento - 8.5 or 9 (undecided)

Thoroughly engaging film. Still not sure exactly what the ending meant. Going over the possible scenarios and which makes the most sense.
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One of my absolute favorites, great film.

There's another earlier Nolan movie called Following, which is also good, but nowhere near as good as Memento.

I didn't care for his Batman flicks simply because I'm not a fan of superhero movies, and his Inception was a huge letdown.
 
antihenry said:
One of my absolute favorites, great film.

There's another earlier Nolan movie called Following, which is also good, but nowhere near as good as Memento.

I didn't care for his Batman flicks simply because I'm not a fan of superhero movies, and his Inception was a huge letdown.
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I grew up being hugely into Batman so I loved Nolan's film trilogy.

Inception was average.

Really liked Memento, but I think he goes overboard with his "let the viewer interpret it his own way" style. It would have been even better for me if he hadn't let the story just hang in the air at the end.
 
Master and Commander [2003] - 8

If you like movies about the golden age of ships at sea then I suspect you'll love this one. Very authentic and Russell Crowe's as the captain was very charismatic and believable. The doctor was annoying at times but it the cinematography was fantastic and the supporting cast was good. Set around the beginning of the 19th century.
 
What I also really like about Master and Commander is that the kids in it have real roles. Often in American films, kids are just used either as comic relief or as the cute aspect of the story. In this one, they're real characters with a real utility for the whole story. The kid who also played in Rome was very good.

And no I am not Arsène Wenger.
 
Citizen Kane. I don't think my opinion of it has changed after a second viewing, it does have a certain timeless quality to it but I don't think it's all that it's made out to be. I have however grown to appreciate the audaciousness of it and the fact that a 26 year old rookie went and created a film like that at that time deserves a place in history. The Battle Over Citizen Kane was a decent documentary, giving interesting backstories on Welles and Hearst.

Secrets & Lies - Powerful stuff.
 
Hana-bi (1998) - 8

Bittersweet drama, sweet action scenes, Final Fantasy-esque music, quirky humour, cool art; weird movie.

Chungking Express (1994) - 9

WKW is brilliant.
 
Citizen Kane is and still is one of the most boring films I've ever seen.
 
Brwned said:
Hana-bi (1998) - 8

Bittersweet drama, sweet action scenes, Final Fantasy-esque music, quirky humour, cool art; weird movie.

Chungking Express (1994) - 9

WKW is brilliant.
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I think Chungking Express was the film that turned me into a film buff. He really pissed on his legacy with My Blueberry Nights but he's still my joint favourite director of all-time.

Kitano is also great but he likewise hasn't done anything of any real note in like 10 years.
 
Spoony Kobayashi said:
What is he doing these days?
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He's doing a Yip Man biopic that has been delayed like forever. He really needs to start working with Chris Doyle again.

peterstorey said:
Dunno. Hasn't made a film since the execrable 'My Bueberry Nights' with the execrable Norah Jones in 2006.
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It really was bad wasn't it? It was like an amateur had attempted to copy his style or like if someone had put one of his 90's films into Google translate.
 
Dredd 3D.

A pretty good brain-off actioner. Dredd and his partner are trapped in a high rise building with a drug gang trying to wipe them out. Dredd is better than I expected it to be, and it probably has the best use of 3D since Avatar. There is a drug called slo-mo and we get treated to the viewpoint of people on the drug and the 3D kicks in with some slow motion water droplets, shards of glass, bullets etc floating out of the screen. It would probably look pretty good if you watched it whilst being on drugs!

It might grate a bit after the 3rd or 4th time they use it, but I thought it was a good effort to try and make use of the gimmick and it worked well to get the drug effect across. The main problem I had with the film is that Dredd is such an emotionless character that I didn't really care about him being in danger. The fact that he spends the whole film with his helmet on probably doesn't help with regards to his emotional impact on the viewer either!

Worth a watch at the cinema in 3D, I'm not sure how well the drug scenes will translate in "normal" vision if you wait for dvd.
 
I love the balls out mechanism of writing in a drug that makes everything slow motion. I'm amazed John Woo didn't think of that 15 years ago.
 
Mockney said:
I love the balls out mechanism of writing in a drug that makes everything slow motion. I'm amazed John Woo didn't think of that 15 years ago.
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Indeed, a drug that induces images of slow motion doves!
 
R.Nilsson7 said:
He's doing a Yip Man biopic that has been delayed like forever. He really needs to start working with Chris Doyle again.



It really was bad wasn't it? It was like an amateur had attempted to copy his style or like if someone had put one of his 90's films into Google translate.
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Don't even remind me. And yes, get him back with Doyle.
 
This weekend, I saw:

- Lawless; really enjoyed it, usually can't stand Shia la Beouf's face but in this, he was okay. The rest of the cast was top notch, and the cinematography, costumes and decors were great. Loved Nick Cave's score (as well as the screenplay which he apparently wrote) and the film confirmed John Hillcoat, in my mind, as a very good director, after two of his previous films (The Proposition and The Road) which I'd very much enjoyed. It's a very good gangster-period film, and will probably age pretty well.

- Killer Joe: mental film. Loved it, even though it was really sick at times. Here also the cast is very good, may it be Emile Hirsch or the guy playing his dad in pathetic losers roles, Juno Temple in an audacious part, or Matthew McConaughey in what is probably his best performance (or at least one of his best performances). Very well directed, and the finale (the last 20 minutes) is brilliant. Not for the faint of heart, but I'd definitely recommend it if not.
 
Sweeney

Enjoyable romp which was better than I expected. Loads of fighting, shooting, car chases and rhyming slang, what more do you want? A lot darker than the series was, with Plan B being pretty much the opposite of Waterman's character (ie- broody). He didnt quite swing it for me, even though he gave it a good go, but Winstone was convincing coz he was basically playing himself.

Well wurf da munny.

I give it a monkey out of ten you slags. is a monkey about 8?
 
Saw Anna Karenina and was very good. Didnt think i would like it at all.
 
The Incident.

An film about a group of cooks stranded in a nut house during a massive Thunderstorm and predictably the nutters they get out of there cells and riot.
The film contains some nice gore and other violent scenes along with some intense moments. The film lacked a story to it and it had a very predicable ending but I still thought it was good and worth a watch
6/10
 
The Raven

Cracking film, good plot , well written with some excellent acting.
Plenty to keep you on the edge of your seat and watching till the end
John Cusack did a good job playing Po and Luke Evans was excellent has Detective Fields.

Definitely worth a watch, best film I have seen this year.

8/10
 
Moonrise Kingdom

Very good, saw it yesterday. It's pretty surreal.

8.5/10
 
Sunshine
First half was good but the second wasn't, in fact was a bit annoying.
6/10
 
pauldyson1uk said:
The Raven

Cracking film, good plot , well written with some excellent acting.
Plenty to keep you on the edge of your seat and watching till the end
John Cusack did a good job playing Po and Luke Evans was excellent has Detective Fields.

Definitely worth a watch, best film I have seen this year.

8/10
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Even I wasn't so keen on this, and you and I usually like the same sort of film . I'd only give it 6 - And 4 of those would be for an ageing John Cusack
 
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