MOVIE RATING THREAD 2012

[Shawn]

BEAUTY AND THE BEAST 3D

RED TAILS

I had to put Beauty & The Beast on the list, just so it could be clear Red Tails is on the bottom.  It was like a TV movie version of one of the Prestige parodies in Tropic Thunder.  The pod race... Er, the dog fights are pretty cool.

[sean]

Joe Carnahan was actually supposed to be at the screening tonight, since he’s a Sacramento native and owns a house here, but didn’t show. He’s kind of the worst. NARC was generic, SMOKIN’ ACES and A-TEAM were dumb and bad, and now there’s this. This is not the filmmaker Sacramento deserves nor needs right now.

I've always thought of Joe Carnahan as the guy Troy Duffy would've been if Troy Duffy weren't such an asshole.

[BrianLynch]

Red Tails NEW NEW NEW NEW NEW

RED TAILS is hokey as all get out (the first line in English is "Nazis!  Get'em!") but it's really enjoyable. Fun and crowd pleasing and emotional, very well acted...but also, again, REALLY REALLY HOKEY.  Everything is underlined in a big way.   Audience ate it up.  And there was some very loud crying.  But the movie kinda earned both. 

[Wolfe]

CHRONICLE NEW
HAYWIRE
THE DEVIL INSIDE
THE GREY

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CHRONICLE is pretty great. There’s a lot more to it than you’d think from the trailer. There’s some surprisingly complex character work and more emotional heft than I expected. And it’s frequently exhilarating in a way that movies rarely are. I was impressed.

[BrianLynch]

Red Tails
Chronicle

CHRONICLE is fine.  The characters are extremely one note, and there isn't really a surprising moment in the movie.  But it was entertaining enough.  The flying stuff was well done.

EDIT: I think I was too hard on it.  I thought the leads were great.  Ending was pretty awesome.  Just wish they had not made it so predictable.

[Wolfe]

I didn't think the main trio was one-note. Maybe the cousin a little, but not the main dude or the class president guy.

[BrianLynch]

I don't want to spoil it, but the main character was a huge cliche, there was no surprise at all to what he did, or what happened with him.

Class President was a bit better, and had some surprising moments.  But he wasn't original either.

I think both these actors were great, and really rose above the script.

[BrianLynch]

I should point out that RED TAILS also has one dimensional characters, but is a lot more fun.

[sadecki]

Why don't you fucking marry Red Tails!?

[Rev. Danny]

I didn't think the main trio was one-note. Maybe the cousin a little, but not the main dude or the class president guy.

They were all cliches, but it sort of worked because they were cliches from different movies. The super-popular guy, who can actually be down-too-earth and make friends with kids from different social circles; the main dude may not have been literally "one-note" but he was BEYOND cliche. No one would need to see a single trailer to know that he would be the one that would A) master the powers the quickest and B) turn bad.

It was, for the most part, enjoyable, but quite a bit of the effects were obvious, and for this kind of movie (absolutely no Name Actors, appearance of low-budget) I was expecting most of the budget to go into making the floating objects as perfect as possible, like CLOVERFIELD.

SPOILERS BELOW.....





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I enjoyed it enough that, if it's successful enough, I'm intrigued where they could go with sequels, and have faith that they actually wrote out exactly what t.he guys found, hoping to explore that detail in one or more sequels. .

[DerickA]

Red Tails was pretty boring, but to be fair I was asleep during a lot of it.

Chronicle was fantastic.

[sean]

HAYWIRE


I saw this last week and forgot to post it.  When it's good, it's really good, and I liked the woman, but it could've used a bit more plot; there's a pretty long stretch where you're just waiting for somebody to do *something*.  It's also funny how similar, up to a point, the opening scene is to the opening of 'Martha Marcy May Marlene'.

[LpF]

the main dude may not have been literally "one-note" but he was BEYOND cliche. No one would need to see a single trailer to know that he would be the one that would A) master the powers the quickest and B) turn bad.

The thing I kept thinking about was that, huge cliche or not, I see and/or work with kids EXACTLY like that in very similar situations (pre-powers, naturally) and how that's pretty much what would happen with those kids.  It's cliched because it's unbelievably accurate.  Does that make it better?  Probably not, I guess, but I could see the reality in it.

Regardless of its flaws, I really liked the movie.  Fantastic indeed.  Honestly, just halt production on the American Akira now because we need it even less than before.

[Wolfe]

Yeah. It almost certainly was more the performance than the writing, but that character felt very real. His sadness and self-loathing giving way to anger was done really well. I felt sympathetic toward him all the way through.

[BrianLynch]

SPOILERS

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I definitely wanted him to live, instead of the other dude.  He's the much more likable/interesting character.  I could care less if there was another movie about the nice cousin and his nice girlfriend.