Movie Reviews 2.0

[homerdog]

Meh ...

Spoiler

Nuking from orbit is just an expression, they can throw down kinetic energy weapons too (hammer of the gods). Or poison the atmosphere, whatever. Basically they started a war they can not win, even with gaia's help, this ain't no starship trooper's world with biological anti-spaceship guns.

Spoiler

Well high speed projectiles would cause catastrophic damage not dissimilar from a nuclear explosion but I see your point.

But we don't know how far the humans are willing to go to get their precious metal. Maybe this corporation was overstepping its bounds and/or doesn't have the resources to launch a genocidal campaign against the blue people. I imagine spaceships are expensive even 150 years in the future.

And if they were planning on an all out war they would've at least brought a bomber instead of rigging the shuttle to drop a bunch of high explosives out the loading hatch.

Point is, the blue folks can't win the war, but they can perhaps make it too much trouble to bother.

 

[RobertR1]

Sherlock Holmes. 2/10. Terrible. Trying to hard to be witty/funny/cool ALL the time.

 

[Laa-Yosh]

Spoiler

Private corporations probably don't have access to weapons of such scale. All the gear on Pandora is manufactured on site, thus it's relatively cheap to get the designs on the market. They didn't have anything bigger then that Dragon gunship there.
Sure, they can bring something with the next cargo ship, but then they're under international supervision and as corrupt as future Earth may be, such a strike would probably not be tolerated. Or... it could be a plot in the now inevitable sequel...

Also, the original scriptment is a very good read, so much more story and scifi elements then the movie as almost half of it has been cut. Although some of the rewrites make sense in a mainstream movie and the box office results justify them completely; and of course at 160 minutes it's already almost too long.
So I suggest you guys get a hold of it and think about it like it's the novel that's been adapted to the big screen.

Spoiler

In that script, Pandora's ecosystem has been capable to develop counterviruses for all the infections that the humans have brought in; and so avatar Jake threatens the humans that if they ever try to come back, Pandora will welcome them with new, deadly viruses of its own, thus making the planet completely uninhabitable for them. So the resources are completely lost to the company, and any orbital strike would only be retaliatory and a huge waste of money.

 

[Sxotty]

Avatar, all visual flare and unfotunately very little substance. Easy to get carried away and lose track of time with you're staring at next-gen CGI, though.

Exactly I don't know what everyone was so worked up for. It was decent though I would say 6/10 better than average, but nothing stupendous.

 

[MfA]

Spoiler

Private corporations probably don't have access to weapons of such scale.

Spoiler

They have ships with engines which can cross the galaxy, finding a nice rock and nudging it towards the planet won't be beyond them ... drop a couple into the oceans and most life will be whiped out without really affecting anything else, and viruses are easy enough to avoid.

 

[Sonic]

I saw Inglorious Bastards recently. It wasn't a bad movie, it's just that the pacing was way weird. The action scenes were too short and the time in between was too slow. My friend said she liked it better than Kill Bill and Pulp Fiction mainly because she's a WWII buff and can except liberal alterations of history to make a story. It was just the worst Tarantino film I've seen mainly because I wanted it to be over the first 20 minutes of it.

 

[Mize]

People may slam Tarantino, but I thought Pulp Fiction was genius - making you laugh at horrific sights. Kill Bill was a comic book, nothing more. Reservoir Dogs, pretty gritty. He makes entertainment, not high art cinema...some of his stuff is pure trash and others fun if shallow.

 

[Sonic]

I love Pulp Fiction. It's got a great feel to it and you are correct it has a certain type of dark humor I enjoy. Inglorious Bastards had a few spots that made me laugh but again it is just the pacing that made me really tired of it I guess. No slam to Tarantino, I love his directing and scripting as it is comic bookish with a good taste of Spaghetti Western.

 

[Sobek]

I saw Inglourious Basterds recently and really liked it. The way Col. Hans played with everyone during his extremely long tension-building scenes was actually pretty damn hilarious for me. He'd do that fake laugh and sleazy smile and you just KNEW he had the whole situation wrapped up before walking in the door... Though it's mostly the actor that sells the part for me.

I just liked it. 8/10.

*edited* That was supposed to be an 8, not a 7.

 

[Laa-Yosh]

Some Avatar related reading:

http://chud.com/articles/articles/21969/1/PROJECT-880-THE-AVATAR-THAT-ALMOST-WAS/Page1.html

 

[Rys]

I saw Inglourious Basterds recently and really liked it. The way Col. Hans played with everyone during his extremely long tension-building scenes was actually pretty damn hilarious for me. He'd do that fake laugh and sleazy smile and you just KNEW he had the whole situation wrapped up before walking in the door... Though it's mostly the actor that sells the part for me.

I just liked it. 7/10.

Saw it a couple of times at the cinema, and again the night before last on Blu-ray. It's probably the movie of 2009 for me, and I'd like to see Christoph Waltz walk away with an Oscar for his performance. From the opening chapter to the hilarious penultimate scene in the cinema, I was hooked. Landa's the most loveable psychopath I can remember in my film watching career, and it seems everything hangs off of that character and how Waltz plays it.

Brad Pitt is superb (he's one of the best actors of our time, straight up) and the supporting cast of Basterds, the Nazis and Shosanna are all pretty terrific. Really really love this film, easy 10/10 for me. Looks fabulous on Blu-ray too.

 

[Sobek]

Saw it a couple of times at the cinema, and again the night before last on Blu-ray. It's probably the movie of 2009 for me, and I'd like to see Christoph Waltz walk away with an Oscar for his performance. From the opening chapter to the hilarious penultimate scene in the cinema, I was hooked. Landa's the most loveable psychopath I can remember in my film watching career, and it seems everything hangs off of that character and how Waltz plays it.

I meant to put 8/10 as my score FYI (corrected that above). I couldn't agree more about the quality of his performance... He made the movie as far as I'm concerned. If you took Waltz out of the picture and left it to stand on it's own with just a few 'well known' (by most average folk I mean) actors, it would be pretty dull. Surprisingly, Brad Pitt had extremely little camera time compared to what I was expecting, which I actually really liked. It didn't over-glorify any one particular actor simply for the sake of satisfying their legions of fans...

Brad Pitt is superb (he's one of the best actors of our time, straight up) and the supporting cast of Basterds, the Nazis and Shosanna are all pretty terrific. Really really love this film, easy 10/10 for me. Looks fabulous on Blu-ray too.

I honestly can't stand Brad Pitt, but I really liked his performance in this movie (not to mention Burn After Reading). For Inglourious Basterds, I honestly felt that every single actor fit PERFECTLY. In most movies, you find yourself having even at least one or two actors or characters that constantly annoy you or stand out like a sore thumb, and just don't fit the role... I got none of that in IB. I sat down and right from the get-go I was glued to the screen, satisfied.

 

[PhilB]

Some Avatar related reading:

http://chud.com/articles/articles/21969/1/PROJECT-880-THE-AVATAR-THAT-ALMOST-WAS/Page1.html

Interesting stuff. Some things in there I agree might have made the already amazing story (imo) better but some was probably better left out. All in all one of my favorite movies of all time.

 

[Laa-Yosh]

I've liked the original story more, however I also think that Cameron made the right choices: he had to aim for the widest possible audience, because of the insane budget. Avatar is more of a Hero's Journey story now then a hardcore science fiction movie, but there's nothing wrong with that - not to mention that so few movies manage to get this right anyway. And a lot of the concepts and ideas are still there, if one's willing to look for them.

 

[John Reynolds]

I really liked Pitt in Curious Case too (and Fight Club, and 12 Monkeys and a few others).

 

[MfA]

I've liked the original story more, however I also think that Cameron made the right choices: he had to aim for the widest possible audience, because of the insane budget.

He made the right choice in simplifying it ... the only problem is that he simplified it by simple omission rather than rewriting it so it still was internally consistent.

 

[suryad]

Some Avatar related reading:

http://chud.com/articles/articles/21969/1/PROJECT-880-THE-AVATAR-THAT-ALMOST-WAS/Page1.html

Quite a vivid imagination from Cameron I must say. That man is a genius and that article just reinforces that point a lot more for me. That movie if made in that fashion would have been 5 hours long! Not that I would have minded but that is quite a lot of stuff to get across to the viewer.

 

[Sxotty]

JR 12 Monkeys was a sweet movie al around.

 

[DuckThor Evil]

Inglorious Basterds 9/10
Pretty good! Hans Landa was brilliant and the rest of the characters were pretty good too. I pretty much like all Tarantino's movies and this was near the top.

G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra 5.5/10*
Pretty bad! kind of weird movie, it had some brutality, but the plot and most of the acting was so ridiculous that It kind of felt like a kids movie gone bad. Basically only reason I give this any points is because I know that if were 12 when I saw this, I probably would have liked it

Crank 2 8/10
So over the top and crazy that I couldn't help but smile throughout most of the movie. Like the first Crank this does not stop for a breathers Funny stuff.





*my scale is basically 4-10, that's how we are graded in our primary and hich school and it stuck with me.

 

[PARANOiA]

An Avatar question: do the 3D glasses work with people with (vision-correcting) glasses? I can't imagine wearing two pairs of glasses would work too well.