PFA Movie Critique/Recommendation Thread

[vegas1369]

I've found that we have a lot of good movie critics here at PFA. Most of the reviews I've read from you guys over the years have been pretty spot on, so why not dedicate a thread to critiquing and recommending what you've seen lately, and maybe some movies that you saw a while ago and highly recommend...

Rank movies on a 5 star system.

Rush (2013 version)- Excellent movie, even if you're not into F1 racing. True story of Niki Lauda and James Hunt, two outstanding F1 drivers from the 70's. Honestly I liked everything about this movie, from the story line to the special effects. Characters were very likeable, even Niki Lauda, who was pretty much an asshole, but a very likeable asshole.

3 1/2 stars.

Gravity- While a lot of people told me it was meh, I liked it. Effects were outstanding, characters while a little cheesy were still solid. Story line good, but according to a lot of NASA astronauts I saw interviewed said it was far fetched, so that took a little away from it IMO. Overall I felt it was entertaining, and a lot of edge of your seat suspense, so definitely worth seeing.

3 stars.

Lone Survivor- Good movie and definitely worth seeing. A lot of people are going into this expecting a Saving Private Ryan type of movie, since that's how they marketed it, but it is not. IMO not even close really. SPR had an incredible story line as well as being a movie that made you feel like you got to travel back in time in a sense, it also had some Oscar worthy performances, mainly Tom Hanks. Lone Survivor while having some of those tendencies, is more of an action movie and based around one mission gone bad. That said, it is non stop action 25 or so minutes in, brutally realistic and somewhat of a tear jerker. They did kind of Hollywood it up a bit from the real story, but it worked.

3 1/2 stars.

Wolf Of Wall Street- Holy shit what a great movie. Not even going to critique it other than to say it did drag on a little towards the end, and that is the only thing that keeps me from giving it 5 stars. In the first 5 minutes alone Dicaprio tosses a midget, gets a blowjob in a Ferrari while doing over 100mph, blows coke up a hookers ass, and semi crashes a helicopter while completely fucked out of his mind. That's the first 5 minutes or so. See this without question.

4 1/2 stars.

American Hustle- When this movie ended I said Bale will definitely be nominated for an Oscar for this role, he was outstanding IMO. The rest of the characters, while probably not Oscar worthy, were definitely good. Louis CK who had a small role was hilarious, Jennifer Lawrence definitely had some great moments, and Jeremy Renner was solid. Overall the storyline was really good, and the movie never had a point where it felt like it needed to end. It's a very different kind of comedy, definitely worth seeing.

3 1/2 stars.

Elysium- I really liked District 9, so was very much looking forward to this movie. That said, it left a lot to be desired. Story line and performances IMO were just meh. Not even sure if I can recommend seeing this, it was just OK. Effects were cool, but in this day and age effects don't make a movie.

2 stars.

[vegas1369]

LOL... Uh oh...



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vegas1369,
nunbeater,
sonatine

Use lube please kind sir.

[sonatine]

Elysium was virtually straight to dvd, take those two stars and save them for someone who deserves them.

Wolf was a bit overrated. I just felt it was a collection of hedonistic skits, albeit decently filmed ones. I thought American Hustle was the better of the two personally.

Lone Survivor would have faired better if they stuck with the actual true story instead of hamming up the last 15 minutes through the roof.

[vegas1369]

Elysium was virtually straight to dvd, take those two stars and save them for someone who deserves them.

Probably a fair assessment. I can't even say this was an original idea, which is something I really liked about District 9. No idea why Matt Damon would get behind this role. Jodi Foster I understand considering she has done squadushe in recent history from what I can remember. Reconsidering I probably should have given it 1 star max.

[sonatine]

Id give it 1.5 stars, it had some dece effects.

To give you an idea of just how bad that movie was tho, Foster had to re-dub every word she said because she originally affected some god awful French accent during the initial filming.

[vegas1369]

Id give it 1.5 stars, it had some dece effects.

To give you an idea of just how bad that movie was tho, Foster had to re-dub every word she said because she originally affected some god awful French accent during the initial filming.

Her accent was terrible the way they left it. Almost wish they left it with the French accent, at least that would have served some comedic purposes.

It was funny to see Sharlto Copley play a bad ass merc though, especially after his roll in District 9. If there was one thing I enjoyed about this movie it was his performance. It was still all AIDs though.


Next on my agenda...

All Is Lost

Man of Steal

Metallica Through the Never

Captain Phillips

12 Years a Slave


I also recently saw Pacific Rim. I am probably biased with a movie like this considering I spent a lot of time in my early childhood watching reruns of Ultraman. So, Japanese style giant monsters destroying cities is right up my alley. I did think the last Godzilla was terrible though, so I'm not completely biased. Anyway, I enjoyed Pacific Rim. I went into it expecting it to suck but was somewhat pleasantly surprised. Obv the story line is kind of retarded, alien monsters coming through the ocean floor and all, and humans being able to produce giant fighting manned robots in the very near future by the dozens to combat them, is, let's say a little far fetched, but the effects were cool and the acting wasn't terribly over the top horrible. The fight scenes, while kind of Transformer type fights where you couldn't really tell all of what was going on, were pretty cool too. What was definitely lacking was some hot broad to keep your mind off the silliness of it all, but in the end it served its purpose.

2 1/2 stars.

[LLL]

It's a few months old but "The Place Beyond the Pines" has been on HBO recently. It's a good movie to go into completely cold but if you like the choices that Ryan Gosling had made you'll probably want to check it out. Not the best thread for it as the less said the better before a first viewing.

[vegas1369]

It's a few months old but "The Place Beyond the Pines" has been on HBO recently. It's a good movie to go into completely cold but if you like the choices that Ryan Gosling had made you'll probably want to check it out. Not the best thread for it as the less said the better before a first viewing.

Speaking of HBO and somewhat off topic stuff, True Detective has been pretty fucking good so far.

[offthetop]

For me gravity, was the best movie of the last 10 years. Loved everything about it.

5 stars

I was on vacation and saw wolf on wall st with my parents. BAD DECISION. Great movie, hilarious and well Acted but it might as well sit in the soft porn section of blockbuster.

4 stars

Just saw prisoners with hugh jackman and jake gylenhall on the weekend. Its a solid thriller, will a couple of twists and a good ending.

3.5 stars

[offthetop]

It's a few months old but "The Place Beyond the Pines" has been on HBO recently. It's a good movie to go into completely cold but if you like the choices that Ryan Gosling had made you'll probably want to check it out. Not the best thread for it as the less said the better before a first viewing.

Its hard to have critiques and recommendations in the same thread. I would discuss the major plot twist in the middle if this film, but will leave it so as to not spoil it

[DRK Star]

Vegas,


Did you ever watch THIS as a kid? I think my brother and I watched every episode.

Note: to all you "youngins", this is the type of High Quality special effects us older folks grew up with.

[ShadyJ]

Dont you nerds do anything else with your time? Fuck like 6 movies that just came out and youve seen them all already? Join a bjj gym or something Id much rather spend my time rolling with dudes.

[Dan Druff]

Wolf was a bit overrated. I just felt it was a collection of hedonistic skits, albeit decently filmed ones. I thought American Hustle was the better of the two personally.
.

Funny, this is exactly what I assumed the movie to be, and I haven't seen it beyond the trailer.

Still kinda want to see it, though.

[JUSTIFIEDhomicide]

Dont you nerds do anything else with your time? Fuck like 6 movies that just came out and youve seen them all already? Join a bjj gym or something Id much rather spend my time rolling with dudes.

A lot of us watch movies at night with our girls. I know, what nerds. You definitely made your point when you finished your post with "I'd rather be rolling with dudes"

[JUSTIFIEDhomicide]

I'll start with the Netflix route. We watched The Boy in The Striped Pajamas. It was pretty good. Not as slow as I thought it'd be. 3.5 stars.

We just watched The Way Back. Real good cast. Kinda slow. Based on an incredible true story(Same with Boy in The Striped Pajamas). I'd give The Way Back 3 stars. Watchable and entertaining but not something I watched and was completely connected to. Maybe because they spoke a lot of Russian and I never feel bad for Russians.

The Iceman. Its an older movie(2008?) Another great cast and true story based on a serial killer who performed almost 100 mob hits. Incredible story and I love Michael Shannon. 4 stars.

[JUSTIFIEDhomicide]

Dog Pound. Another Netflix movie AFAIK. Movie about threw different kids and how they deal with being locked up in a juvenile correctional facility. Virtually unknown cast. Really entertaining. Acting was suspect but had to give these kids a break for their first try. 3.5 stars.

An older one I've seen a bunch on Netflix is The Goon. Really good Sean William Scott movie. I think that's his name. Stiffler. Anyway great movie. Really entertaining and you get into the emotion of the main actor. Loved it. 4 stars.

[JUSTIFIEDhomicide]

I saw American Hustle. I wasn't that impressed. I was hoping good fellas type feel but it wasn't close. Bale was obviously amazing but nothing else was that special. Amy Adams was good. I thought the rest of them just got to act like themselves but dressed in retro. 3.5 stars. I was hoping 4.5

[PLOL]

I won't use the star system, but I'll give my opinion on some movies that I've seen recently. I tend to wait for movies to come out on DVD before I'll watch them, so I can torrent them and watch from the comfort of my bed. I'll try to put all spoilers in a spoiler tag
Gravity:
I thought this movie was way overrated. Maybe it's just because I tend to be a contrarian, but I just don't get how people are saying it's the best movie of the year. To be fair, I watched it on my 40" TV and not on a giant 3-D imax screen. The movie wasn't terrible, but it certainly isn't a movie I'll be watching again. I thought Sandra Bullock was mediocre with her performance.

 

I'll be honest, I was really hoping for Sandra Bullock to die at the end. I probably would've liked the movie a little more if that was how it ended. As it is, the ending is cliche and boring.

Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close:
Probably my biggest problem with the movie is their usage of an ampersand in the title. I don't think any movie should use an ampersand in their title, but in this case I can sort of understand where it's aesthetically better. Despite mediocre to bad reviews, this movie was excellent, and I thoroughly enjoyed it. I looked at the release date and saw that this came out on Christmas. I think that was a mistake. The film is a little too dark and not the type of movie that you'd really want to see on Christmas day. The kid who plays Oskar puts on one of the best performances that I've seen from a 'child actor'. I'm not going to lie, I did tear up towards the end. In general I don't think very highly of The Academy, but kudos to them for doing the right thing and nominating this film for best picture in 2011. If you were scared off by the mediocre reviews, I would recommend giving the movie a chance. It's one of my new favorites.

Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events:
I had actually already seen this film, but I was something like 13 years old when I saw it in theaters. I grew up with (and loved) the ASOUE book series. The book series is 13 books in total. The original plan was to do a film based on the first 3 books, then 4-6, 7-9, 10-12, and then a movie for the 13th book for a total of 5 movies. Unfortunately this movie (which is based on the first 3 books) had a huge production budget and only did 'okay' in the box office. I think the movie was pretty good. Not amazing, but pretty good. If you have kids and are tired of the typical kids movies, I would check it out. It's probably one of the darker kids movies out there. You probably won't enjoy it by yourself the way you might with a Pixar movie. It can feel a little episodic, which is bound to happen when you condense 3 books in to a movie. The kid actors in it are just okay, and can get annoying at times (especially the baby). Jim Carey did a much better job playing the villain. But overall, a fun watch with plenty of witty dark humor in it.

Man on Wire:
This movie came out in 2008 and somehow managed to get a 100% on Rotten Tomatoes with no 'rotten' reviews out of 151 reviews. In general, I think movie reviewers are idiots (see also: Gravity) but that's pretty impressive. I really didn't think I'd care for this movie. It's about the guy who tight rope walks across the twin towers in 1974. It reminded me of the guy who did it across the Grand Canyon and I thought that was really dull. There's basically two ways you can go with this type of stunt. One is, "Look at this incredibly dangerous stunt I'm doing. Aren't I crazy and great?". Or you can say "Look at this beautiful form of artistic expression. I hope to inspire you". The grand canyon walker took the former approach, this guy took the latter. The movie actually was kind of inspiring in a way that I wasn't expecting. Not to mention the fact that I love the guy's French accent.

[vegas1369]

Dont you nerds do anything else with your time? Fuck like 6 movies that just came out and youve seen them all already? Join a bjj gym or something Id much rather spend my time rolling with dudes.

This can't be real.

[vegas1369]

The Iceman. Its an older movie(2008?) Another great cast and true story based on a serial killer who performed almost 100 mob hits. Incredible story and I love Michael Shannon. 4 stars.

It was actually made in 2012 and released in 2013. For this post alone I am glad I made this thread. The Iceman has always been IMO the best murder/mystery documentary HBO has ever done. The Autopsy Files with Michael Baden were right up there with it, but the Iceman interviews were simply amazing. I've been avoiding the movie since I didn't think it would hold up vs the interviews, but I'll give it a shot now, and yeah, even though Michael Shannon starred in the worst movie I have ever seen (Bug), I like him a lot and feel he could do this part justice.