Recently Viewed Movies Episode 2: The Vampire Bites Back

[Starmongoose]

@Grim

Talia is Ra's al Ghul's daughter and she's taken over the League of Shadows a few times. She's Batman's often love interest. She's kinda like Catwoman in the sense that her role is ambiguous, sometimes a villain sometimes...um, not. She's also the mother to Damian Wayne (Talia and Batman did the dirty), one of the Robin's.

Her relationship with Bane is much different than what it was in the movie. Her and Bane didn't get on and Ra's al Ghul wanted them married.   

[Dice]

@Grim, I agree with you for pretty much most of it. Although I did like the inclusion of

Talia

, I feel like the reveal could have been better. Though there were clues in the lead up to it,

Bane saying that "Everything has gone as planned" when talking with the board member who used Wall Street to make Wayne enterprises lose all its money and install him as chairman, even though the plan all along was to have Talia seduce Bruce and install herself as chairwoman. Also the scar we see on her back at the sex scene suggests something a little more than what we have seen of her up until that point.

The reveal itself could have been a little bit better I spose.

Spoilz now marked....

Bane has a similar scar as well.  Don't they do a "burn-initiation" ceremony in the League of Shadows???
But yeah, I knew something was up the second they showed the scar on Talia... movie's can't be subtle when you know the tricks of the trade.  When they showed that nuclear device: "Oh gee, I wonder what's going to threaten Gotham this time! >____> "
Poor girl, that's two for two that Marion Coulliard has been a villain in a Nolan movie. x)

Anyways, I was more disappointed with Bane's "reveal".  About two minutes after you find out that he was the "protector" he's shot dead pretty damn quick.

[GrimReality]

@Grim, I agree with you for pretty much most of it. Although I did like the inclusion of

Talia

, I feel like the reveal could have been better. Though there were clues in the lead up to it,

Bane saying that "Everything has gone as planned" when talking with the board member who used Wall Street to make Wayne enterprises lose all its money and install him as chairman, even though the plan all along was to have Talia seduce Bruce and install herself as chairwoman. Also the scar we see on her back at the sex scene suggests something a little more than what we have seen of her up until that point.

The reveal itself could have been a little bit better I spose.

Spoilz now marked....

Bane has a similar scar as well.  Don't they do a "burn-initiation" ceremony in the League of Shadows???
But yeah, I knew something was up the second they showed the scar on Talia... movie's can't be subtle when you know the tricks of the trade.  When they showed that nuclear device: "Oh gee, I wonder what's going to threaten Gotham this time! >____> "
Poor girl, that's two for two that Marion Coulliard has been a villain in a Nolan movie. x)

Anyways, I was more disappointed with Bane's "reveal".  About two minutes after you find out that he was the "protector" he's shot dead pretty damn quick.

Code:

Yeah, but shouldn't Bane be 50 years old or something? How old was he when Talia was the kid in the prison? I see no one addressing this issue.
I certainly noticed the scar, as Bruce traced it on her back. Why didn't HE know what it meant? For some reason, I just forgot about it by the end.
I didn't like how Bane went out AT ALL. Lame.
And what about Talia sticking a knife in Batman? Shouldn't that have killed him? He was obviously in major pain. 
The we have the odd ending. Did Brtuce just set the Bat to autopilot and jump in the ocean? Weird

My movie watching continues...
Mirror Mirror - A mildly amusing take on the Snow White story. The best part was Julia as the Evil Queen, but even that was dialed down a bit. Probably due to the PG rating.
The story, even with it's deviations from the original, was still incredibly predictable.
The girl who played Snow White was crazy cute, but didn't have a whole lot else going for her. At least they showed her being independent and thinking for herself, but in the end, all it came down to was a man. Typical.
The dwarves were amusing for awhile, then just got annoying. At least they appeared to be "real" dwarves, as opposed to those used in the Huntsman movie.
The movie looked fantastic, with all the snowy woods scenes looking downright magical. As with most movies nowadays, they overdid the CG, though. The "beast" in particular, looked ridiculous.
I can see people, kids in particular, enjoying this if they haven't seen the Snow White story 10,000 times before. Otherwise, it's just a prettier version of the same old story.

[GrimReality]

We Need To Talk About Kevin - Wow. It's creepy how timely my viewing of this is considering the recent killing sprees of late.
Right from the start there is a sense of dread hanging over the film.
The movie jumps back and forth from the early days of the family to the present. We see right away that  Eva is living alone, and wonder what happened.
Kevin, as both the younger version, and the teen, is one messed up kid. He gets along well with his dad, but has an extremely contentious relationship with his mom. This is key to one of the parts of the movie that really bothered me. That the father could be so clueless as to the way Kevin really is. Any decent parent can't be fooled by their children. Plus, any decent husband trusts his wife when she indicates that there's something wrong. The way Franklin acted in this movie was not at all realistic. At least not in my world.
Tilda Swinton is fantastic as the mother. The movie is really hers, and she nails it. You feel for her right from the get go. I wanted her to punch the damn kid in the face a couple times! He SO deserved it, too. The things she puts up with drove me insane.

I can't say much more without going into spoileriffic details. The movie feels like a giant flashing warning sign for all parents out there. It really does make you think and wonder how the choices you make as a parent really do have lasting effects. Then again, you can be the best parents ever, and still have your kid become a criminal.

[Starmongoose]

We Need To Talk About Kevin is an awesome movie, I talked about it a few pages back. More people should watch it.

[GrimReality]

The Four Feathers - This was a convoluted mess. I never felt invested in any of the characters.
The title basically describes our "heros" cowardice in the face of being shipped out to war. IMHO, he deserved the feathers. Then because of the shame of receiving the feathers from his friends and fiance he suddenly gets some balls and finds his way to Sudan. The movie becomes even more of a convoluted cluster once it gets there. We have a war that is never really explained, and characters that make no sense at all, like Abou Fatma.
I'll give Heath some credit, as he was decent in the role. Kate Hudson, as his fiance, is utterly pointless. All we know about her is that she's beautiful, which the characters feel the need to remind us of.
The movie looked ok, with some decent cinematography, but had a totally generic soundtrack. I can't remember any of the music, and just watched it 12 hours ago.
This was not worth my time. I really don't know why I even put it in my queue.

[Dice]

The Bourne Legacy.

Pretty damn good.  It keeps the tone of the first movies, the good chemistry of Franka P and Matt D, and the action and mystery is just as there as every (and though still suffers a shakey cam, it's much more coherent segments).  It does suffer a bit of "We're doing a sequel", some parts don't feel too fleshed out, and unfortunately Rachel Weisz character complains or is hysterical for about a good 1/3 of the film.  A minor thing I noticed, in keeping with the previous three films COLOUR tone, about 90% of the time people are wearing blue while any light appears yellow.  It's the little things like that in a film I love.  Anyways, the plot was a little more convoluted than it needed to be, but still packs a few surprises (I was especially curious about Jeremy Renner's past, who, by the way, makes a way more exciting/interesting lead than Damon who played 'innocent' where Renner plays a bit more of a 'fun' type of guy). I'd love to see a sequel, I thought this was a pretty damn good effort for a reboot/sequel.

[GrimReality]

The Sword of Doom - An entertaining movie that, if thought about too much, becomes much less. The story is hardly even present, and makes little sense. We never even learn why the main character says and does what he does. He's like some sort of misunderstood anti-hero without any reason at all for us to sympathize with him.
The sword fighting is cool, but very cartoony in nature. The bad ass fighters somehow manage to take down 30 men single-handedly. Each with a single stroke. Then they talk about it as if it was no big deal.
I wont even go into how the women are treated here. Ugh.
On the positive side the movie looks great, and has a beautiful sense of style to it. I would like to visit this world.
I was shocked when the darn thing just ended in the middle of a big sword fight. We never even get a resolution to the main "conflict! It just stopped. Weird.

[Yoda]

It's a traditional Japanese movie, really old school. What was up with that crazy hat he was wearing? like a freaking lampshade.

[GrimReality]

It's a traditional Japanese movie, really old school. What was up with that crazy hat he was wearing? like a freaking lampshade.

Well, yeah, that's why I added it to my queue. A lot of people consider it a classic. Another "classic" of Japanese cinema, Tokyo Story, I will be watching tonight. I've been making an effort to diversify my movie watching the past few years. There are a lot of great Japanese movies out there that I've missed.

I wondered about the hat, too. I guess it just added an air of mystery about him. It sure as heck wouldn't help in any conflict.

[Yoda]

Have you seen the Kurosawa classics?

Rashomon is one of my favorites.

[GrimReality]

Have you seen the Kurosawa classics?

Rashomon is one of my favorites.

Not enough. Rashomon is in my queue, among others. I loved the Seven Samurai.

[Yoda]

Have you seen the Kurosawa classics?

Rashomon is one of my favorites.

Not enough. Rashomon is in my queue, among others. I loved the Seven Samurai.

Once you see Rashomon you'll realize where almost 100 other movies or tv shows got their inspiration.

[(Tunnels)]

Have you seen the Kurosawa classics?

Rashomon is one of my favorites.

Rashomon is fucking fantastic. I also liked the other two Kurosawa films I saw: Yojimbo and Sanjuro.

I've been reading the Walking Dead recently, and it put me on a major zombie kick, so I bought Romero's Dawn and Day of the Dead, and also the Night remake done by Tom Savini and the Dawn remake. The Night remake was my first zombie movie, so it holds a special place in my heart, and while it's still a good film, I think I was remembering it with rose-tinted glasses. The characters are certainly more likable (Barbara) than the original, but it loses the theme of racism with the modern translation. Also there was some unnecessary cheesecake that just didn't fit with the movie at all.

Dawn (original) is one of my favorite movies of all time, and I could watch it every damn day. Love love love love love this movie, and it still holds up, blue zombies and all.

I didn't like the original Day when I saw it years ago, but it has grown on me. It has some of the best-looking zombies I've ever seen, and that's no surprise, since Tom Savini is an FX master. Now that I've seen it about 3 times, I can safely say it is one hell of a good zombie movie, even if the middle parts drag and the whole Bub storyline is a bit hokey.

Haven't watched the Dawn remake yet, but I have seen it, just been a while. I imagine I'll still like it, and try to overlook the irritating bits that I blame on Zack Snyder.

[GrimReality]

The Hunger Games - This turned out to be a very good companion to the book. I say companion because of the differing perspectives. With the book being in first person we are given a decidedly limited view of the goings on  in Panem. The nice thing about the movie is that we are able to see what was going on outside of Katniss' viewpoint. We see more of the Capitol, and the denizens therein, which helps to flesh out the world.
The movie, despite being a daunting 2hr and 22min, moved along at a very brisk pace. Events that took weeks or months in the book, seemed to happen overnight here. This kind of threw me off at first, but I understood why they did it. You still get the general idea of of what's going on, including the rift between the Capitol and the districts. District 12 really feels like a 3rd world country. Then we see how the Capitol people are living, and it's obvious something is very wrong here. The parallels to our modern world and obvious, but still relevant.
Jennifer Lawrence as Katniss was fantastic. This I expected. I thought Woody made a good Haymitch, and Elizabeth Banks seemed to be having fun with Effie. Cinna totally got the short end of the stick, though. he's barely shown, and not developed at all. We get no feel for the closeness between him and Katniss. Hopefully, part 2 will rectify this, otherwise a certain scene won't be as powerful as it could be.
I did not like the two guys who played Peeta and Gale. Neither of them are particularly good at acting, and they just reek of generic white male syndrome. Hopefully CF will fix this.
It was filmed in a very realistic, almost "reality tv" manner, and it fit well. The soundtrack threw me off a few times, with, IMHO, poor chosen background music, but for the most part it was just there.
I was baffled by a few changes they made from the book. Namely how the Mockingjay pin was obtained. Why change that? Odd.
Overall, a surprisingly good movie that I might even appreciate more upon a second viewing, as I was comparing it to the book too much in my head. I look forward to seeing what they do with Catching Fire.