What Was The Last Movie You Watched and Rate it!

[paris]

I must admit that I didn't think my claim through. But I'm difficult about video. The ones mentioned that wwere originally from books, were based on books I didn't get to big a thrill out of either. I'm such a narrow-minded grouch.

2001 - OK, this was pretty much a great movie. I saw this in Bangkok in 1967 or 1968. I smoked some Laotian pot just before I went in to the theater (beautiful theaters with reserved love-seats - and you coulkd smoke!) and between the movie and my own hallucinations, it was quite experiential. Quite.

Close Encounters - Meh

Moon - Good drama but not very Sci-Fi

Gattaca - Good drama but not very Sci-Fi

Inception - If they had skipped the level where it was cold and the gunfire was incessant (without reloading) I would have given this 4 stars but that gunfight lowered it to 2.87535

Pandorum - Never heard of it. Will check it out.

Richard Dreyfuss building a giant hill of crap in the middle of his living room in CEO3K was brilliant. Anyone can relate to that.

 

[paris]

alien is more horror. it isn't really about how new technology and future developments will impact human society and culture, which is generally what sci-fi is understood as

What? Alien is about a spaceship crew on their way to mine a distant planet who are awaken from hypersleep because of a strange radio signal. Their investigation leads them to battle with an uncontrolable alien of unknown origin. It couldn't get more sci-fi.

 

[paris]

Currently watching Contagion (2011).

Lots a familiar faces including Gwyneth Paltrow but she dies within the first ten minutes, thankfully.

 

[Ben K.]

Alien is indeed sci fi. It has your typical all powerful corporation trying to capture and engineer an alien bioweapon plus their agent on the inside is an android.

It couldn't take place anywhere or anytime but in a futuristic space setting.

 

[specklebang]

What is CEO3K ? Could not find it.

Richard Dreyfuss building a giant hill of crap in the middle of his living room in CEO3K was brilliant. Anyone can relate to that.

 

[Dr. Chuckles]

What? Alien is about a spaceship crew on their way to mine a distant planet who are awaken from hypersleep because of a strange radio signal.

Right, but the conflict of the story isn't based on any of the actual technology in the film. You could literally make the exact same film in a more mundane setting like a sea going vessel, without changing the general plot. Which is a monster running around killing people and the characters trying to kill it first.

 

[Dr. Chuckles]

What is CEO3K ? Could not find it.

CEO3k= Close Encounters Of the 3rd Kind

 

[specklebang]

:3oops:

CEO3k= Close Encounters Of the 3rd Kind

 

[Dr. Chuckles]

Alien is indeed sci fi. It has your typical all powerful corporation trying to capture and engineer an alien bioweapon plus their agent on the inside is an android.

It couldn't take place anywhere or anytime but in a futuristic space setting.

But none of the future elements are integral to the story. Take the android for example, you could simply replace him with a sociopathic character who exercised a high degreee of loyalty to the company, like they did with with Paul Reiser's character in the sequel.

You really can't do the same with the future elements of 2001. Without the monolith, space travel, and Hal, you have no story

 

[ChrisL]

Well, unfortunately my son had The Fast and The Furious on today. What a piece of crap movie that is. :roll: Horrible acting, horrible plot, horrible movie.

 

[paris]

Right, but the conflict of the story isn't based on any of the actual technology in the film. You could literally make the exact same film in a more mundane setting like a sea going vessel, without changing the general plot. Which is a monster running around killing people and the characters trying to kill it first.

But none of the future elements are integral to the story. Take the android for example, you could simply replace him with a sociopathic character who exercised a high degreee of loyalty to the company, like they did with with Paul Reiser's character in the sequel.

You really can't do the same with the future elements of 2001. Without the monolith, space travel, and Hal, you have no story

Well you could replace the monolith with the Washington Monument, space travel with voter frauds, and Hal with The Supreme Court, to end up with W.

 

[Superfly]

2001 seems like it would be an amazing viewing experience in a theater. Every time I watch it at home, I can't help but feel I'm missing out

I've always wished somebody would open theaters or drive ins that would cater to older films that we may have missed in the theater. I'd love the opportunity to watch some of the older blockbusters in the theater that I missed the first time around.

 

[Superfly]

Currently watching Contagion (2011).

Lots a familiar faces including Gwyneth Paltrow but she dies within the first ten minutes, thankfully.

Yes. Love that film, and Gwyneth Paltrow actually dies very well. I love that look of horror on her face when she first gets into the hospital.

 

[ChrisL]

Yes. Love that film, and Gwyneth Paltrow actually dies very well. I love that look of horror on her face when she first gets into the hospital.

I think she's a very good actress.

 

[Superfly]

She's alright. I really liked her in Hush.

 

[PerfectStorm]

Argo.

3 of 5. This got Picture of the Year? Must have been a slow movie year.

 

[Gathomas88]

I must admit that I didn't think my claim through. But I'm difficult about video. The ones mentioned that wwere originally from books, were based on books I didn't get to big a thrill out of either. I'm such a narrow-minded grouch.

2001 - OK, this was pretty much a great movie. I saw this in Bangkok in 1967 or 1968. I smoked some Laotian pot just before I went in to the theater (beautiful theaters with reserved love-seats - and you coulkd smoke!) and between the movie and my own hallucinations, it was quite experiential. Quite.

I honestly think that's the only way 2001 can really be enjoyed. :lol:

It's just a lot of pretentiously boring long shots and special effects set to classical music otherwise.

Moon - Good drama but not very Sci-Fi

Gattaca - Good drama but not very Sci-Fi

To the contrary, both of these movies deal with the social and human consequences of theoretical technology. That's about as "sci fi" as these things come, to be honest.

I'd actually argue that it's more a legitimate approach to science fiction than the one taken by films like Star Wars.

Don't get me wrong. The original trilogy was great, but it's really little more than a fantasy western set in space when you get down to the nuts and bolts of the thing. It's hardly "high concept."

By way of comparison, Gattaca was pretty classic dystopian science fiction in same vein as Blade Runner or 1984, and Moon was highly reminiscent of the kinds of short stories Asimov or Heinlein might've written back in the day.

Pandorum - Never heard of it. Will check it out.

It's sort of like Alien mixed with Event Horizon.



I thought it made for fairly enjoyable sci-fi horror suspense, and it had a decent twist at the end, though it lost it's mind a bit and tried to turn into a goofy action movie in the second half of the film.

 

[Dr. Chuckles]

I'd actually argue that it's more a legitimate approach to science fiction than the one taken by films like Star Wars.

Don't get me wrong. The original trilogy was great, but it's really little more than a fantasy western set in space when you get down to the nuts and bolts of the thing. It's hardly "high concept."

actually things like star wars are referred to as "space opera"

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_opera

 

[Gathomas88]

actually things like star wars are referred to as "space opera"

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_opera

True. I was simply saying that the genre generally isn't considered to be "hard" science fiction.

Take something like Warhammer 40K, for instance. Between the genetically engineered crusading space knights, the flying cathedral starships, and the gussied up sci-fi orks, It's good, goofy fun.

However, I don't think that anyone would argue that it's meant to be taken particularly seriously.



A given story does not have to be exclusively about starships and laserbeams to be considered "science fiction."

 

[shlunka]

Full Metal Jacket, would rate it 10/10 honestly.

 

[Porchev]

I highly recommend seeing this movie: The Impossible. A true story about one family's experience during the 2004 tsunami.

 

[Kane]

Disagree. I think you can only think the old Star Trek movies are better, when you look at them through rosy glasses (like childhood nostalgia or something). The acting of the new actors easily beats the entire old crew, and in two new movies, there is much more character development already than in 79 tv episodes combined. IMO.

The new movies beat at least the TNG movies by miles.

I mean, tell me with a straight face that "Star Trek V: The Final Frontier", "Star Trek: Insurrection" or "Star Trek: Nemesis" were better than the new movies. I wouldn't believe you.

Treason! Damn you!:mrgreen:eace

Shatner is THE MAN. The new crew better than Leonard Nimoy and the old Dr. McCoy??? NO way!!! Its a travesty how the new digitially remastered DVD letterbox versions of the old films zoom back from the actors faces, what great peformances they were. You must be getting some good greens out there in Germany, bro. Thats what you'd need to get thru an hour of the new cast! BTW, Star Trek V was EPIC!

The new "Kirk" better than Patrick Stewart??? Are you high??? What about the great cast of Data, No.1, and Geordy??? Those are great performances and actors!!! Not always great lines in the films, granted, but superior actors by far. The new crew doesn't even have a Deanna Troi or Uhura. Whos the hot chick supposed to be???

Its not nostalgia, those actors are just better performers. Also the new cast, of which I could stomach only a half-hour of before turning it off, is just stuck in a bad production crew, writers and director, so all the piercing sonic digitial booms and explosions at annoying volume, couldn't save this mess, even if their acting technique was good. The obvious, played out, overuse of special effects angle, is a really tired gimmick in lieu of a story. Sci-Fi has to have a good story, I'm an old book worm. Not Asimov, but some signficant depth or perhaps a Lovecraftian mystery.

And dont no one get me started on the new Doctor Who. :2wave:

 

[German guy]

Treason! Damn you!:mrgreen:eace

Hahaha ... well, I have to reach you an olive branch: I grew up with the "old" Star Trek and it will always have a special place in my heart. The Abrams movies are fun, but will never mean the same to me as "the real McCoy".

And you're right, at least Stewart and Spiner are probably better actors than the new actors. Agreed on that. But I'd say they weren't really allowed to let their talent shine in the terrible last two TNG movies.

I'll take TNG, the series, over any Star Trek movie, old or new, any time of the day... which is why I said I think it's not fair to compare 178 hours of tv to two two-hour movies. The movies will always dumb down their material in order to appeal to a mass audience, along the lines of a "popcorn-flick" formula: Lot's of action, lots of battles, always a big bad villian, always some kind of romance, and so on. I'd just say the Abrams movies do just that better than the TNG movies. Abrams is better when it comes to less cerebral popcorn-action than B&B were.

I really hope they'll make a new Star Trek tv series eventually. Star Trek will never really be back until it's on the small screen again. That's why TNG and DS9 were so great: They didn't need to follow this mindless big-screen formula, but could bring episodes for the taste of everybody... some action today, some moral dilemma next week, a theatre-like bottle show thereafter. When you didn't like today's episode, you could be sure the next will be better.

And Shatner ... well, I love him as Kirk... but by all means, I don't think he's a good actor, objectively speaking. What else has he achieved besides (over-)acting Kirk? "T. J. Hooker"? "Tek War"? Some direct-to-video B-movies? I have always been more of a Spock and Picard fan than a Kirk fan.

 

[German guy]

Watched "Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Chrystal Skull" and "X-Files: I want to believe" on DVD again last night.

I don't hate Indy 4 as much as many others. I think it's worse than movie #1 and #3 (the Commies aren't by far as impressive as the Nazis), but better than #2. I give it 7 out of 10 points.

"X-Files: I want to believe" was a disappointment. 4 out of 10 points.


Last week, I watched "Nausea" by Roman Polanski from 1964 (IIRC). Kind of an inofficial precursor to "Rosemary's Baby" and "The Tenant", as it deals with psychosis too and mostly playing inside an apartment. Not bad, but you can see Polanski is still pracitizing. 7 out of 10 points.

 

[OscarB63]

Watched "crazy stupid love" on HBO at the hotel this weekend.

pretty good. anything with Emma Stone, Marisa Tormei and Julianne Moore can't be bad. I give it 3.5 out of 5 boners