Miscellaneous Movie Musings the Sequel

[Eliza Hodgkins 1812]

X-Men: Competent and fun, but really mostly all about the awesomeness that is Michael Fassbender. He was the only one who stood out and though I loved Jennifer Lawrence in Winter's Bone I found her a bit flat here. January Jones is a terrible actress with some of Grace Kelly's looks and none of her talent, though a mighty fine pair o' boobies. She had something in Madmen Season 1 but whatever it was has since been lost. I think a few reviewers oversold it as better than X-Men and X2 and I still prefer those films.

The Hangover Part II was always going to be a ridiculously massive hit despite how lazy it was. I didn't think it was any more or less mean spirited than any of Phillips' films, and the only one I really like is The Hangover. I watched Due Date right after my dad died and thought it was hilarious. Rewatched it recently and it's unfunny and fairly awful.

Eager to see:
- Tree of Life
- Submarine
- Green Lantern (finished; I only saw an early cut and quite enjoyed myself)
- Rise of the Apes (which looks like awesome sauce to my eyes, and does make me excited about the franchise again)
- HP7 Part II
- Cowboys and Aliens
- Captain America (preview intrigued me more than I would have thought)

Going to see Captain Blood tonight, as part of Last Remaining Seats. Yay!

[Snowflake]

Originally Posted by Eliza Hodgkins 1812

Going to see Captain Blood tonight, as part of Last Remaining Seats. Yay!

Jealous!!!!

Try to go to some of the Raoul Walsh films at the Egyptian if you can. White Heat! Among many others. The Strawberry Blonde is another gem that I've long wanted to see on the big screen.

[Alex]

Yes, January Jones is an awful actress.

It's funny but when you said her name my reaction was "January Jones was in X-Men?" Weren't the only women pretty much Mystique, the moth lady, and the CIA lady? None of those were Jones, were they?

I had to go to IMDb and be reminded that Emma is in it. Jones just immediately evaporates from the brain.

[innerSpaceman]

Have to agree about Jones. She's become less fine and less relevant as Mad Men has dragged on. I think they should write her out, along with that whole useless storyline of the main character's divorced family that no one really cares about anymore (least of all the main character).

However, I think cold frostiness was appropos for Emma Frost, and I liked the movie better than all the priors except X2, which remains my fave.



Looking forward to seeing Super 8, Cowboys and Aliens, Tree of Life, Apes, Last of Potter, and Green Lantern - - wasn't a certain someone going to attempt arranging a group screening outting?

[Cadaverous Pallor]

None of the comic book movies appeal to me anymore. The Green Lantern ads/trailer/billboards/etc all just look like a noisy mess to me. The movie looks like a wacky cartoon with that guy's face glued onto it. The posters are all diagonal, what's up with that? It's annoying. Getting old and cranky like flippy. I might see the X-men prequel on Netflix but that's not even a 50/50 possibility.

[Strangler Lewis]

"Water for Elephants" was surprisingly good. Witherspoon was a bit dishwatery and ill-defined early on, but Pattinson did his sick to the depths of his soul thing well, and the supporting players were all great. Good meaningful violence and a decent wallow in circus grotesquerie. A great looking film, too, plus an elephant. What more do you want for your dime on a Saturday afternoon?

[Betty]

Just watched "That's What I Am" on Netflix streaming. I'd not heard of this movie before - it came up on some search they thought I'd like and it had a bunch of stars so I gave it a shot.

Great movie with a theme on tolerance. Will have to put it on the kids viewing list.

[flippyshark]

During my middle and high school years, I spent quite a bit of time making dumb Super8 mm films with my friends, so I was eager to see JJ Abrams new release, Super 8. A few comments, guaranteed spoiler free:

- It will remind you of a lot of other movies, but it does find its own genial vibe. And it gets the whole Super 8 Filmmaker thing just right. (Ah, Super 8 Filmmaker magazine. I used to have a subscription.)

- Though I enjoyed it, I don't get why Abrams insists on that silly lens flare that creates a horizontal line across the screen. It seems to be a trademark, but it's kinda annoying. He should ditch it.

- Apart from that, Super 8 gets most things right. It's a summer movie that places its focus on an engaging bunch of young characters, and the genre element is a distant second place. (So much so that when it eventually comes to the fore, it's a little underwhelming.) The slow build-up to the weird events was nicely played, even if the destination wasn't anything terribly new.

- It has the best end credits bonus I've seen in quite a while.

I will add one quibble that probably isn't even quite a spoiler, but I'll treat it as such anyway.

Spoiler:

If your movie has a missing dog element, you must actually show the dog (or dogs) returning. It isn't enough to just have some dialogue where someone says "We found your dog." Honestly!

[RStar]

Originally Posted by flippyshark

- It has the best end credits bonus I've seen in quite a while.

So I should hang out after the credits on this one as well? I hate when they do that, but I hate it more when I leave and find out I missed something...

And I think 95% of the audiance wouldn't know when Rubik's Cube came out, so I don't think it's going to be a huge deal for most. Not that that is an excuse for doing a poor job on the research. Makes me wonder, though. The person who's job it is to make sure things are in the proper time period (what's that job's name again?) if they told someone about it and someone okay'd it, or if it was an oversight or misinformation? Inquiring minds want to know!

[Alex]

Originally Posted by RStar

So I should hang out after the credits on this one as well? I hate when they do that, but I hate it more when I leave and find out I missed something...

Well, so long as you don't sprint for the door as soon as the screen goes black on the last scene it would be hard to miss. It isn't something that plays after the credits but during them.

And I think 95% of the audiance wouldn't know when Rubik's Cube

I don't know. This isn't a kids movie for kids, it is a kids movie for adults to reminisce about when they were kids. So I'm guessing that somewhat more than 5% would confidently say that Rubik's Cubes were an '80s fad.

But you're right that it isn't a big deal, just something so not obscure that I wonder if it was intentional (there are some other meta-nods to its genre nature, such as:

Spoiler:

There's a train wreck that is just completely over the top impossible for how it was caused and actual physics. One of the kids says "there's no way a car on the tracks caused this" and other replies "well obviously it did." Abrams way of saying "shut up and go with it."

)