[Tiste Simeon]

Finally saw VALHALLA RISING the other day. Woah, wasn't really expecting that! I thought it would be an ultra-violent action flick with lots of battles etc. It's a moody, slow, dark (and also pretty violent in points) film with hardly any dialogue and lots of beautiful shots. I really enjoyed it, which I was quite surprised at as slow films normally bore me but they did this well enough that despite nothing really happening I was hooked from the beginning.

Watched MONSTERS. Holy poop on a stick, that film is excellently made! Seriously, considering it had only 2 actual actors in it and the budget of about twenty quid and the promise of a pint afterwards, it was brilliant! Definitely recommend it to everyone!

Watched BAD LIEUTENANT. Ugh. I am in the "Nic Cage is very on/off" camp, and this one is definitely off. I feel like I wasted 2 hours of my life...

Watched 2001 MANIACS a horror comedy set in the deep south about a village that hasn't quite got over the civil war and basically pray on 8 students on spring break, killing them in very gory ways. Nothing special but pretty funny, also the hot lesbian cousins are hot.

[polishgenius]

Saw Hanna. Thought it was cracking. Love the dreamlike atmosphere he's got going with it- action thriller via fairytale. And it looks absolutely stunning.

[Jade-Green Pig-Hog Swine-Beast]

 polishgenius, on 08 May 2011 - 08:08 PM, said:

Saw Hanna. Thought it was cracking. Love the dreamlike atmosphere he's got going with it- action thriller via fairytale. And it looks absolutely stunning.

I really want to see this. I want to see Thor and 13 Assassins, too. Not enough time or money though, at the moment.

[polishgenius]

Make time... >_>

Another thing that I should have mentioned about it is that the soundtrack - by The Chemical Brothers- is amazing.

[Adjutant Stormy~]

My inner (or maybe outer?) comic book nerd just had a Thorgasm.

[McLovin]

Saw Blade Runner was coming on, so DVR'd it and watched last night.

Amazing how well that film holds up, nearly 30 years later. Ridley Scott and his production design team did an outstanding job making that world feel real.

I've seen things you people wouldn't believe. Attack ships on fire off the shoulder of Orion. C-beams glittering in the dark near Tanhauser Gate. All these moments will be lost, like tears in the rain. Time to die.

I give it 5 retired replicants out of 5.

[Binder of Demons]

Went to see THOR this evening. I thoroughly enjoyed it. Natalie Portman is still cute as can be.

Psyched to think of what The Avengers movie will be like.

[Tiste Simeon]

Yeah THOR was excellent, one of the better Marvel offerings in recent years.

Going to see 13 ASSASSINS tonight.

[Aptorian]

Watched Crazy Heart and Inglorious Bastards during the weekend.

Crazy Heart: This film wasn't as good as expected. After Jeff Bridges Oscar nomination and the rave reviews in the news papers I was expecting a really intense drama. That wasn't really what we got. If you take away the performances of Bridges and Gyllenhal the content of the film looks like a "TV-drama" rather than a Cinema flick. The movie just seemed to be going through the motions. Underdog fighting his way up. Meh. Bridges did well, but I think they could have gone a bit more extreme.

Inglorious Bastards: Probably the worst Tarantino film I have ever seen. This was not actually a movie. This was Tarantinos patented "Great scenes with intelligent convoluted dialogue" but without any context. The premise of the film just seems to have been an excuse for killing some nazis in morbidly funny fashions. I honestly don't understand how this manuscript made it to the big screen. It is paper thin.

[QuickTidal]

 Battle Plaptypus, on 11 May 2011 - 05:54 PM, said:

Inglorious Bastards: Probably the worst Tarantino film I have ever seen. This was not actually a movie. This was Tarantinos patented "Great scenes with intelligent convoluted dialogue" but without any context. The premise of the film just seems to have been an excuse for killing some nazis in morbidly funny fashions. I honestly don't understand how this manuscript made it to the big screen. It is paper thin.

It's funny how popular Tarantino got because of how visceral and violent RESERVOIR DOGS was, and how PULP FICTION flew by on uniqueness of storytelling....but beyond that is Tarantino a good writer? Hells no! The guy can't write for shit...his films are filled with long expository meaningless dialogue sometimes connected by violence or a cool shot or effect.

For example, I re-watched KILL BILL P1 on the weekend again and to be honest, aside from Uma's performance, that film falls FLAT on its face. The dialogue is wearying to listen to, the action is piss-poor at best...seriously, that dojo scene uses wires like a low-budget made for TV hong Kong flick. Like Gen-X Cops or Kung Fu Hustle have WAY better action sequences. Note Tarantino...if you are going to use wires...get a good choreographer. He was making a genre flick that includes a heavy-asian influence (at least in part one) and didn't bother having the right people choreograph. The only brawl worth a damn is the one between the Bride and Vivica...even the one with the girl with the mace in the dojo is hackneyed looking. Uma flips around clumsily enough that I think it would be better to just SHOW the wires...as no suspension of disbelief was making me believe it.

His acting is even worse to be honest...he even ruined the 4 minutes he was in the Japanese flick SUKIYAKI WESTERN DJANGO...and don't get me started on his coffee dialogue in PULP FICTION. Fuck off Tarantino...you can't act.

His films since PULP FICTION have been middling to awful and I personally can't stand the reverence he seems to get for making subpar movies.

..and if his douchery/wussyness knew any bounds he wouldn't act like this:



Also, I hate Tarantino.

[Aptorian]

Whoah. Somebody does not like Tarantino.

I think you're being unfair. He can definitely write. True Romance, Resevoir Dogs, Pulpfiction. They're great movies in my opinion. Good stories. Good dialogue. Good characters. And he can certainly act, I loved him in From Dusk to Dawn. Maybe that is question of taste.

How ever it does seem like that the bigger he goes, the more rope he gets, the more likely he is to hang himself with it. Inglorious Basterds had some awesome scenes and characters. The problem is that nothing really connects. They could have alleviated that by having a co-author on the manuscript tying things together.

[amphibian]

 Battle Plaptypus, on 11 May 2011 - 06:25 PM, said:

Whoah. Somebody does not like Tarantino.

I think you're being unfair. He can definitely write. True Romance, Resevoir Dogs, Pulpfiction. They're great movies in my opinion. Good stories. Good dialogue. Good characters. And he can certainly act, I loved him in From Dusk to Dawn. Maybe that is question of taste.

How ever it does seem like that the bigger he goes, the more rope he gets, the more likely he is to hang himself with it. Inglorious Basterds had some awesome scenes and characters. The problem is that nothing really connects. They could have alleviated that by having a co-author on the manuscript tying things together.

You're actually right about something movie-related...

[MTS]

One of the many brilliant things about the movie Desperado is that Tarantino gets shot. In the face I believe.

[QuickTidal]

 Battle Plaptypus, on 11 May 2011 - 06:25 PM, said:

Whoah. Somebody does not like Tarantino.

I think you're being unfair. He can definitely write. True Romance, Resevoir Dogs, Pulpfiction. They're great movies in my opinion. Good stories. Good dialogue. Good characters. And he can certainly act, I loved him in From Dusk to Dawn. Maybe that is question of taste.

How ever it does seem like that the bigger he goes, the more rope he gets, the more likely he is to hang himself with it. Inglorious Basterds had some awesome scenes and characters. The problem is that nothing really connects. They could have alleviated that by having a co-author on the manuscript tying things together.

Haha, and all my film nerd friends would have me for lunch if they knew that I felt that way...and I get enough flack already from them for not liking Stanley Kubrick.


They love Tarantino...and my buddy Mike and I had it out over how KILL BILL P1 and P2 don't even really go together "filmicly". He thinks they do and both parts are genius, and I try to tell him how the first part is like a modern kung fu flick and the second part is a 70's kungsploitation flick....and they are disconnected....even so far as the colour filters he uses between parts, the first part is all blue and green filter and the second is all yellows and oranges...if the film was one piece it would look...odd....

But yeah, I think Tarantino is a douche-nozzle mostly. Even DEATH PROOF, which I would argue is his best work, has too much talky-talky for nearly an hour before the plot decides to move forward.

Yeah, I am teh sour grapes. I know. LOL

Also: He is tolerable in FROM DUSK TILL DAWN because he doesn't do his long winded dialogue spiel thing....and Salma Hayak was half nekkid. Points for that.

This post has been edited by QuickTidal: 11 May 2011 - 08:38 PM

[Aptorian]

 QuickTidal, on 11 May 2011 - 08:29 PM, said:

But yeah, I think Tarantino is a douche-nozzle mostly. Even DEATH PROOF, which I would argue is his best work, has too much talky-talky for nearly an hour before the plot decides to move forward.

Clearly we look at this from separate sides because I thought Deathproof was good for the first hour and then it just became stupid.

All that dialogue, lapdancing, scarred kurt russel eating nachos - that shit was cool. Then the first attack ends horrifically and the movie resets with uglier, less interesting more aggressive girls.

There really was no need. The film should have ended with the first crash.

[QuickTidal]

 Battle Plaptypus, on 11 May 2011 - 08:38 PM, said:

Then the first attack ends horrifically and the movie resets with uglier, less interesting more aggressive girls.

..but that was the point of the story.... It was that he wasn't death proof at all and all it took was nastier ladies to show him that and beat the fucking tar out of him.

You puzzle me sir. You truly do.

[QuickTidal]

Also, Zoe Bell



and Mary Elizabeth Winstead




and Rosario Dawson



are NOT...I repeat....NOT uglier girls sir.

[Beezulbubba]

I think Death Proof is Tarantino's poorest work. If you cut out the inane dialog in that movie it would be maybe 45 minutes long. And if you look closely at what is good about the movie, you really just have a so-so chase movie.

Inglorious Basterds was good if for nothing else Christoph Waltz and Brad Pitt.

As a personality, he is profoundly annoying. Top of the list of what makes him annoying is his pompous attitude about his work.

[polishgenius]

I think Tarantino is often brilliant and that Inglorious Basterds is one of his best works. I also agree that he's a dickhead with a proneness to pomposity and even Pulp Fiction isn't perfect.

I can see why QT doesn't like him though, coz the dialogue (in my opinion usually brilliant) is the point of most Tarantino movies so if you don't like that, you're kind of screwed.

Definitely got to take issue with complaining that Kill Bill used crap wirework in its action: that was the point, no? The whole movie was a tribute to things he loved which weren't necessarily good themselves.
I thought that scene was brilliant, anyways, though admittedly the buildup to it (Kill Bill Vol.1 is probably his best-paced film) is probably more notable than the scene itself. And the fight with GoGo is a bit dull- it's the one with the Crazy lot that I don't skip on rewatch...

[tiam]

Id say true romance is his best film and he didnt even direct that. Reservoir Dogs and Pulp Fiction is good and is well held together by the solid cast. Kill Bill is arguably not very good at all but I thought Death Proof was terrible, which I know it was supposed to be but I didnt like it at all. Inglorious Basterds gets credit for having the balls to kill Hitler in a theatre.