Oh hey, it's February the 2nd, let's re-watch this for the umpteenth time. :D
If you're looking for an action and "turn brain off now" film, just don't watch it and spare us the 6-7 hearts review.
I for one, am very tired from 500$m crap like Indi Day and Marvel's poop. So I was very excited to watch this one.
This one is more like Spielberg's Encounters from the Third Kind. It's more about the characters in the film and the amazing journey they go through. It's mostly about the human behavior that will make you think.
While it's not an End of the World aliens movie like Battle: Los Angeles, it still offers great amount of military presence and plenty of stuff that's going on.
So if you actually want to care about an intelligent movie and use your head - go. Otherwise, go watch an X men.
Highly recommended for some audience 10/10.
2-feb-2017 edit: Just came out on Bluray and I saw it again. Definitely keeping my rating.
Watching again at July-2023, excited towards Dune II : Excellent. Excellent film. So called plot-holes listed here are negligible when the overall product is really thoughtful and masterfully crafted.
Whiplash was so damn intense. The movie sounds fantastic; the music, the sound mixing, it's all really, really well-done. The acting was all really good and J.K. Simmons' performance in particular is insane(ly good), definitely a contender for Best Supporting Actor. Occasionally he reminded me of a conductor at my high school who got pretty mad at times, but fortunately not quite as much. The editing was nicely done as well, some of the cuts were timed with the music being played which worked really well and made musical performances interesting to watch. The plot's pretty simple but the story manages to not be very predictable and it's certainly very energetic. The climax was incredible. Second best movie of the year so far.
men will literally direct a 2½-hour Oscar bait movie before going to therapy /s
Had a smile on my face the whole time !
This film, although it has undeniable image and acting qualities, is just too much bordering on propaganda of US war on terror and justification of extra judicial killing. No one should support this.
"Oh, Eddie... If I woke up tomorrow with my head sewn to the carpet, I wouldn't be more surprised than I am now."....bahahahaha could very well be the funniest Christmas movie ever made... A ton of one liners and quotes... Chevy Chase at his best when he stomps a mudhole in the xmas display and walks it dry
Great movie. Hell of a way to bring two horror icons together. I was hoping they would make a sequel. Seeing as neither died at the end.
Easily one of the best in the series. It's where Jason stops being a scary threat and starts veering into unstoppable badass territory. It's also campy and takes the piss out of the series. Sending up the whole genre a good decade before Scream came along and did it. Jason looks cool, there are some inventive kills and Alice Cooper plays on the soundtrack. This was the height of the series.
The friend zone has been taken to a whole new mechanical level.
I just want to thank the cinema gods for this absolute dream. It feels like I passed out and when I came to I could remember a very good and satisfying Batman film.
Don’t watch this in theaters if there’s a chance of your friends saying a word.
I don't think I have ever been in love with a movie, like I'm in love with La La Land. From the first few seconds, till the very end. This movie had me and didn't let go. My english vocabulary is not good enough to express my love, heck, my dutch vocabulary is not good enough to express it. This movie is everything.
It is beautiful, happy, magical, romantic and I could go on for a little while longer but I won't. I wasn't expecting it to be this musical-y, but I mean, I love musicals so I'm not complaining. I think this is a great "musical" because there isn't non stop singing, so people who don't like musicals might like this one because it's more "subtle". I can only imagine how much practice went into all those dance routines and don't get me started on the impressive piano skills Ryan Gosling showed us.
Something that really impressed me as well was the way they filmed everything. It's a very creative and different way, which I really enjoyed and think makes this movie a great inspiration for those who love film and camerawork themselves. The build up and flashbacks and stuff were really cool as well. Yea I really enjoyed that. Also, the storyline, which does so much for a movie, was so great.
This is normally the part were I talk about the actors, but seeing that there were mainly only two actors and they were both amazing (I do think tho, that Ryan Gosling his character wasn't a very challenging one for him because we have seen him in roles like these before. Mixing it up with all the dancing, singing en piano playing though, you got something quite different and I loved it), I'm going to skip this part and say that you should watch this movie, do nothing more, just watch it, enjoyed it and love it.
Am I the only one who loved this movie?
Sure, it's not perfect. But it shoots for the moon and, in my opinion, mostly succeeds.
One of the best zombies flim in sometime. There is so much to learn in the movie. Humor, sad, happy and sorrow. No one would expect the movie to be so great. The fun dramatically increase as the movie goes.
Who would guess someone would be so scary as one finally turned in to into zombies. Humans are scary creatures. Selfishness among the same species. No good, no bad. Finally, the one who survives and live on are those who suffered the most.
The Breakfast Club was great, probably one of the best teen movies I've ever seen. Despite the stereotypes that all the characters are, they're still fun to watch and I particularly liked Allison. The only major problems I had with it were the really bland adults and the absolutely terrible ending.
The coupling up was completely unnecessary and Allison was way cooler pre-makeover; she basically changed everything that made her who she is because hurr gotta wear makeup and be pretty. I would have been perfectly happy if everybody had stayed the way they were and just been friendly with each other. Grrr...
One of the most influential movies out there!!!
This was pretty bland. Not really that funny and the action wasn't great. I thought Chris Hemsworth and Tessa Thompson would be fun but they were just fine. Kumail Nanjiani's character was the best part of the movie.
Whether you like it or not, Taylor Swift is the greatest entertainer of the 21st century. I for one.... I love her more than life itself.
I thought that the movie was just alright until the last third where shit just went crazy. Just like Mima, I couldn't tell what was real or not. This was definitely a unique and awesome mindfuck. Satoshi Kon (Paprika, Millennium Actress, Paranoia Agent) is without a doubt a master of the psychological thriller genre. I just wish that he could have gotten the chance to create many more films.
One of the best
Lost in Translation was a slow but beautiful movie. It's pretty understated and subtle, with very nuanced performances by Scarlett Johansson (whom I don't usually like; apparently she was 19 when she made this) and Bill Murray. Probably one of the best romance movies I've seen, though definitely not for everybody.
Why does everyone hate on this movie? I think it's great. This, Elf, and A Christmas Story are must-watches every year.
One might guess that it is a no-brainer to rate this movie a 10/10, however, for me it wasn't. The reason is that Tolkien is one of my favorit authors of all time. I've read everything that he ever published, and also everything that he didn't but that was published posthumous. This includes letters, and scripts, essay-like writings where he just describes how certain islands look like, or how certain plants look like, family trees, etc.
My favorite book, by the way is the original release of Narn i Chîn Húrin, which is a loose collection of chapters that did not really fit together and that missed some chapters - in Germany at least it was released as single book, in England/America it is part of the Unfinished Tales. Recently (2007) his son Christopher Tolkien edited that story into a finished tale and released it as new book under the title "The Tale of the Children of Húrin" (which until now I haven't read because I am really content with the J.R.R. Tolkien-Version).
But I digress. What I tried to point out is, that while being his famous work, I think "The Lord of the Rings" is one of his lesser works, with his best being those about the early times (which are really unfilmable). Still being a fan of Tolkien I've read Lord of the Rings several times and some of my favorite parts are the first encounter with the woodland elves, as well as the adventures in the Old Forrest and of course Tom Bombadil - non of which appeared in the movie. Instead, you get the feeling, that Frodos travel to the prancing poney is a days jorney (it isn't, and in the book it takes months to prepare and further months to reach), and that meeting Aragorn and going on to Rivendale is another day or twos journey (again it itsn't) - all in all it takes 9 months from Gandalf telling Frodo about the Ring to the journey of the Fellowship starting in Rivendell. And the time between Bilbos birthday and Gandalf returning from his research about the ring is 17 years, rather than the same evening (what some people actually believed after watching this movie).
So while watching it for the first time in cinemas I felt totally rushed through the story, I missed important parts in the book, and instead Peter Jackson added things that never happend, e.g. all the scenes with Arwen (Arwen in the books is a sidenote, that Tolkien takes when finishing the third book and explaining what happend to all the characters of the book, after they disband). And also Galadriel getting all blue-greenish ghostlike. And I hated, the soupy romantic scenes "I choose a mortal life. - You cannot give me this. - It is mine to give to whom I will. Like my heart." ....
So, even though I hated it, befor it came out to cinemas I did buy tickets for two shows at once, one with German dubbings and on the next day in original Language. And at second viewing, while knowing what to expect, I liked it a bit better - still being angry of course, I had time to take into account all the little things. And of these, the movie has plenty, such as using the Rings engravings in Black Speech as background song at the Council - something only true fans of the book would recognize - as well as adding parts of Bilbos journey (the stone Trolls), or the Lore of Middle Earth with Aragon singing about Beren and Luthien. Some things are so well hidden, that even hardcore fans will have a hard time recognizing them, for instance when Boromir dies the music uses elvish singing using English quotes from the book. So we find references to all of Tolkiens other works, showing that Peter Jackson has read them all and understood their importance and relationship to the Lord of the Rings-Story. He also wanted Christopher Lee in his Cast, because Lee is famous for being a Tolkien fan, and at own admission reads books by Tolkien every year; furthermore he was the only one in the crew to have met and spoken with J.R.R. Tolkien in person, which is why his input was valued highly - most of the scripts where rewritten daily to incorporate such input, and even Tom Bombadil was to have an cameo which in the end they couldn't shoot. Besides we have homages and cameos hidden all over the movies, paying tribute to famous Tolkien artists as well as people who have had any connection with Tolkiens works (Ian Holm voiced Frodo Baggins in the 1981 radio series, many scenes where taken straight out of Ralph Bakshis 1978 animated Lord of the Rings moive, etc.)
These are enourmous levels of detail, and once you get over the fact, that the Lord of the Ring movies are not 1-to-1 adaptions of the book (which is impossible to do) you will actually realize that the adaption per se is pretty darn good. Everything you see, meets your expectation, there is always the highest amount of detail, even all the little things matter, nothing seems arbritary. A lot of craftsmanship was put into the movie - they use CGI only where absolutely neccessary and if used, it is extremely good. But hordes of orcs are masked extras, weapons have been forged, a lot of carpenters, gardeners, mansons, blacksmiths, landscapers, etc. employed to create middle earth. The score is one of the greatest in the last years, with a number of themes that all have their single purpose (we have the theme for the wraiths, the theme for Gondor, the theme for the hobbits, a theme for the fellowship, one for Gollum, etc); in the end, listening just to the score, when closing the eyes you can see the entire movie in your head!
The acting of course is also great, everyone was put through a lot, by having to learn languages such as different Elvish languages (Quenya and Sindarin), dwarfish language and orcish language (which all exist! Tolkien was a philologist, and in one interview he said, that his stories are just a side product as any good language mus have it's story of origin - so in the end, what he really did was develop at least 6 languages with all their words, pronounciations, grammatic rules and writing systems!), they had accent coaching, Gandalf for instance talks in the same accent that Tolkien did!, they had to learn to fight and to ride, etc. And it is all turned into perfection, nowhere is it half-hearted. The scenes and locations are great, the camerawork is beautiful, all in all it is a good movie in every aspect.
I've ended up watching the movie 6 times in cinemas, then I got a copy of the movie and watched it for half a year nearly every weekend at least once, until the official home release of the cinema version of the DVD, and half a year later, I of course got the extended cut, and watched that at least as many times as I did the DVD. So to sum up: It is my most favorit, most often watched movie - even today I am not tired of watching it, altough I nowadays only watch it once every 1-2 years. If compared to other movies I wouldn't say it is the best movie ever, because of several reasons: First and foremost it is an adaption, and therefore not an original work, which I think is an important factor - I wouldn't know if I was a fan of the movie if I never read Tolkien or disliked him - then and only then would I be able to judge the movie without prejudice. Also - I am a big fan of all the works so I get a lot of the little hints, which to me are a "wow. how cool is this"-moment. But that is just me (and some other hardcore fans), but to the general audience these little acts of greatness that influence my judgement go unnoticed. In addition to that, a movie that has so much to tell and three overlength movies to do so, escapes the boundaries of a traditional movie, i.e. to bring across a story, emotions, and a message, to make the audience meet new people that they like and that they understand, in just under 2 hours. That, I think, is a hard job to do and a reason why most movies might be "okey" but only a few are great.
So is it the best movie ever made? Certainly not, although it deserves to be listed beside those. It is however the best adaption I've ever encountered, it is the greatest, most fan-friendliest movie that takes into account everything available to that fictional universe and it is one of my alltime favorites and the best tribute that could have been paid to the works of J. R. R. Tolkien.
It's beautiful. The cinematography and color are spot on. You'll have a smile on your face the entire time, it's a funny feel-good movie that's not sappy or infantile.
Magnolia was absolutely perfect. The sheer scope and ambition alone is amazing, but the fact that it all comes together, that PTA managed to pull it all off, is incredible. This huge mosaic of intertwined stories, of individually fantastic performances and moments that weave together to create this audacious tapestry of a movie. The flawless opening sets the stage and introduces the many seemingly disparate characters, all played by an unparalleled ensemble cast, but as the movie gets underway, connections and similarities emerge as the storylines begin to entangle. Listing all the things that make the film the masterpiece that it is would just mean listing everything that makes a movie. Magnolia is beautiful, it's perfect, it's the second best movie I've ever seen and I love everything about it.
GIVE THE DOG AN OSCAR