What Movie Did You Just Watch? ... And Robin

[Goliath]

The Magnificent Seven (1960)

One of the best Westerns ever made, and one of my favorite movies.

[Linden]

The Magnificent Seven (1960)

One of the best Westerns ever made, and one of my favorite movies.

One of the best scores ever, too. I get so happy in Frontierland when the theme from The Magnificent Seven comes on.

I just watched two movies over the weekend, and oddly enough, they were both dream-related.

Little Nemo: Adventures in Slumberland: On my quest to find good non-Disney animated movies, I saw a few people recommending this online. After watching it (and rewatching it, just to make sure I didn't miss something in my sleepy state), I can't imagine why anyone would recommend it. It has some striking visuals and lots of imagination, but the storyline is rather incoherent. The movie revolves around Nemo, who is summoned to be the heir of Slumerland, as well as the playmate of Princess Camille. He is given a key that will open any door in Slumberland--but there is one door he must not open. With the help of Flip, the green-faced semi-pedophilic clown voiced by Mickey Rooney (!), Nemo opens the forbidden door and unleashes nightmares into Slumberland. Nemo, of course, must right his wrong, with the help of his friends and creepy Flip. Throughout the movie, Nemo wakes up occasionally and must navigate his bed back to Slumberland. These sequences are the most memorable scenes in the movie. The whole movie is rambly, like a dream I guess, and the climax is messy. As for the characters, the only one likeable is Princess Camille, who is much more haughty and bossy than any of the Disney Princesses (she even uses a fake English accent which adds to her haughtiness, imo). Nemo is annoying, but does have a small character arc. His pal Icarus, the flying squirrel, feels like a more cuddly version of Pip from Enchanted. Flip, is just creepy, but for some reason the characters seem to be attached to him. There are a few songs in the movie, written by the Sherman Brothers, but they were bad, surprisingly so. Maybe it was just the perky chorus sing the perky lines that irritated me, but it seemed like the Sherman Brothers phoned the songs in. The visuals are quite good, especially the backgrounds and the use of light. But the design of Slumberland is like Candyland meets the circus. I would never want to fall asleep to go there. Overall I dislike this movie very much.

Inception: Inception more than made up for my experience with Little Nemo. I know most people have seen it, so I won't bother with the plot and characters. I just really liked it and had a great time trying to figure out what was going on. I also watched it twice, and I got more of a grip on it the second time. I don't really think there was much that could have been improved on, aside from the characters. Each character had kind of one note. I guess in an action-packed movie there's not as much time for character development, but I never really got attached to Cobb, the main character. I was more attached to his team, Ariadne and Arthur, in particular. I also liked Robert Fischer (Cilian Murphy's character, not the father). I don't normally like to rate movies or get very specific about how much I like them (that's why I've never ranked my top 10 or top 5 Disney movies, much less rank the DACs from 1 to 50), but for Inception, I'd give it 9/10. It was the most original movie I've seen in a long time.

[disneyboy20022]

Little Nemo: Adventures in Slumberland: On my quest to find good non-Disney animated movies, I saw a few people recommending this online. After watching it (and rewatching it, just to make sure I didn't miss something in my sleepy state), I can't imagine why anyone would recommend it. It has some striking visuals and lots of imagination, but the storyline is rather incoherent. The movie revolves around Nemo, who is summoned to be the heir of Slumerland, as well as the playmate of Princess Camille. He is given a key that will open any door in Slumberland--but there is one door he must not open. With the help of Flip, the green-faced semi-pedophilic clown voiced by Mickey Rooney (!), Nemo opens the forbidden door and unleashes nightmares into Slumberland. Nemo, of course, must right his wrong, with the help of his friends and creepy Flip. Throughout the movie, Nemo wakes up occasionally and must navigate his bed back to Slumberland. These sequences are the most memorable scenes in the movie. The whole movie is rambly, like a dream I guess, and the climax is messy. As for the characters, the only one likeable is Princess Camille, who is much more haughty and bossy than any of the Disney Princesses (she even uses a fake English accent which adds to her haughtiness, imo). Nemo is annoying, but does have a small character arc. His pal Icarus, the flying squirrel, feels like a more cuddly version of Pip from Enchanted. Flip, is just creepy, but for some reason the characters seem to be attached to him. There are a few songs in the movie, written by the Sherman Brothers, but they were bad, surprisingly so. Maybe it was just the perky chorus sing the perky lines that irritated me, but it seemed like the Sherman Brothers phoned the songs in. The visuals are quite good, especially the backgrounds and the use of light. But the design of Slumberland is like Candyland meets the circus. I would never want to fall asleep to go there. Overall I dislike this movie very much.

Nostalgia Critic reviewed it very recently..


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Speaking of A Dark Candyland



http://www.salon.com/entertainment/movi ... ger_quotes

Last week, the sweet world of nostalgic board games got a little bit more bloody. Glenn Berger, one of the writers for the upcoming "Candy Land" film, told Entertainment Weekly to "envision it as Lord of the Rings, but set in a world of candy."

While my first reaction was to send that idea to Yikers Island for a life sentence, Berger's bold vision grew on me. Think of how many jokes there are to be made here! Lord Licorice bellowing from the Cupcake Commons, "NONE SHALL PASS ... UNTIL THEY PICK A PURPLE CARD FROM THE TOP OF THE PILE!" And that's just from the top of my head! I could think of so many more jokes by the time the film actually came out.

So anyone who thought Berger was going to try to backpedal from that grandiose claim was badly mistaken. If anything, the writer wants audiences to know how committed he is to doing a J.R.R. Tolkien thing for the Hasbro game. Also, how committed he is to candy:

That’s precisely, I think, why we got the job on CANDY LAND. But that’s also why we were excited about getting the job on CANDY LAND. It’s something that, on the face of it, seems like a huge challenge: it’s a board game for kids, and there’s no strategy involved. But what it does have is the opportunity to set an action movie in a world made of candy. So when we meet with the director, Kevin Lima, and he says, "I want this to be LORD OF THE RINGS but with candy," you could either laugh at that, or say, “If you could pull that off, that would be really cool. We’d love to be a part of that because we love LORD OF THE RINGS and we love candy."

That should just be the film's tag line: "Love 'Lord of the Rings'? Love candy? You'll love this movie!"

Hey, if you can think of a better tag line ... or even a better "'Candy Land' meets 'Lord of the Rings'" joke, let me hear them in the comments.

[Disney's Divinity]

As for the characters, the only one likeable is Princess Camille, who is much more haughty and bossy than any of the Disney Princesses (she even uses a fake English accent which adds to her haughtiness, imo).

That's because the English are all kinds of evil.

That said, I always loved the movie. I always think of it as a Miyazaki/Bluth hybrid--cutesy, but incoherent. Watching it without the lens of nostalgia, it isn't a great movie, but I don't think it's that bad. I've always loved the scene where the darkness is released and how it basically devours the King. There's so much tension and atmosphere there.

[Linden]

As for the characters, the only one likeable is Princess Camille, who is much more haughty and bossy than any of the Disney Princesses (she even uses a fake English accent which adds to her haughtiness, imo).

That's because the English are all kinds of evil.

That said, I always loved the movie. I always think of it as a Miyazaki/Bluth hybrid--cutesy, but incoherent. Watching it without the lens of nostalgia, it isn't a great movie, but I don't think it's that bad. I've always loved the scene where the darkness is released and how it basically devours the King. There's so much tension and atmosphere there.

That's not really what I meant about Princess Camille's fake English accent. It reminded me of how Grace Kelly used a fake "upper class" accent and how stuck-up it made her seem.

I liked the scene when the nightmare (?) is released too and all the tension waiting for the door to burst open. I was quite impressed with the design of the nightmares (?) once the door did open. It reminded me of Venom from that atrocity Spiderman 3. But I thought it looked cooler in traditional animation with red lights through it.

Little Nemo: Adventures in Slumberland: On my quest to find good non-Disney animated movies, I saw a few people recommending this online. After watching it (and rewatching it, just to make sure I didn't miss something in my sleepy state), I can't imagine why anyone would recommend it. It has some striking visuals and lots of imagination, but the storyline is rather incoherent. The movie revolves around Nemo, who is summoned to be the heir of Slumerland, as well as the playmate of Princess Camille. He is given a key that will open any door in Slumberland--but there is one door he must not open. With the help of Flip, the green-faced semi-pedophilic clown voiced by Mickey Rooney (!), Nemo opens the forbidden door and unleashes nightmares into Slumberland. Nemo, of course, must right his wrong, with the help of his friends and creepy Flip. Throughout the movie, Nemo wakes up occasionally and must navigate his bed back to Slumberland. These sequences are the most memorable scenes in the movie. The whole movie is rambly, like a dream I guess, and the climax is messy. As for the characters, the only one likeable is Princess Camille, who is much more haughty and bossy than any of the Disney Princesses (she even uses a fake English accent which adds to her haughtiness, imo). Nemo is annoying, but does have a small character arc. His pal Icarus, the flying squirrel, feels like a more cuddly version of Pip from Enchanted. Flip, is just creepy, but for some reason the characters seem to be attached to him. There are a few songs in the movie, written by the Sherman Brothers, but they were bad, surprisingly so. Maybe it was just the perky chorus sing the perky lines that irritated me, but it seemed like the Sherman Brothers phoned the songs in. The visuals are quite good, especially the backgrounds and the use of light. But the design of Slumberland is like Candyland meets the circus. I would never want to fall asleep to go there. Overall I dislike this movie very much.

Nostalgia Critic reviewed it very recently..

For one thing, I'm Linden, not Goliath. I don't normally watch the Nostalgia Critic because he's a little obnoxious for me. But I just watched the review you posted, and I agreed with basically everything he said (even if he is still obnoxious). I especially loved the incorporation of a clip from the Inception score. That's my weekend right there!

I forgot to mention I also saw the western Silverado over the weekend (busy weekend ). It was one of the worst westerns I've ever seen. I wanted to stop after the first half, but I didn't say anything because my dad had chosen that movie to watch and it was Father's Day. So I was a good daughter and suffered through the entire stupid movie with as few snarky comments as I could manage. I even watched some of the "making of" featurette without a whimper.

[disneyboy20022]

That's because the English are all kinds of evil.

That said, I always loved the movie. I always think of it as a Miyazaki/Bluth hybrid--cutesy, but incoherent. Watching it without the lens of nostalgia, it isn't a great movie, but I don't think it's that bad. I've always loved the scene where the darkness is released and how it basically devours the King. There's so much tension and atmosphere there.

That's not really what I meant about Princess Camille's fake English accent. It reminded me of how Grace Kelly used a fake "upper class" accent and how stuck-up it made her seem.

I liked the scene when the nightmare (?) is released too and all the tension waiting for the door to burst open. I was quite impressed with the design of the nightmares (?) once the door did open. It reminded me of Venom from that atrocity Spiderman 3. But I thought it looked cooler in traditional animation with red lights through it.

Nostalgia Critic reviewed it very recently..

For one thing, I'm Linden, not Goliath. I don't normally watch the Nostalgia Critic because he's a little obnoxious for me. But I just watched the review you posted, and I agreed with basically everything he said (even if he is still obnoxious). I especially loved the incorporation of a clip from the Inception score. That's my weekend right there!

I forgot to mention I also saw the western Silverado over the weekend (busy weekend ). It was one of the worst westerns I've ever seen. I wanted to stop after the first half, but I didn't say anything because my dad had chosen that movie to watch and it was Father's Day. So I was a good daughter and suffered through the entire stupid movie with as few snarky comments as I could manage. I even watched some of the "making of" featurette without a whimper.

Sorry about that....I fixed it....when I quoted you I must have taken your username out and instead left Goliath....my bad....

[dvdjunkie]

Linden wrote:

I forgot to mention I also saw the western Silverado over the weekend (busy weekend Laughing ). It was one of the worst westerns I've ever seen. I wanted to stop after the first half, but I didn't say anything because my dad had chosen that movie to watch and it was Father's Day. So I was a good daughter and suffered through the entire stupid movie with as few snarky comments as I could manage. I even watched some of the "making of" featurette without a whimper.

Don't know how old you are, but "Silverado" is rated very highly among those who like a good western, and considering the cast which includes Kevin Costner, Danny Glover, Brian Dennehy, Linda Hunt, and many others, this western is loved by critics all over the world.

I am glad that you did keep your "snarky" comments to yourself, and tried to enjoy it. That was good of you, especially on Father's Day.

[dvdjunkie]

Dragonslayer (1981) Deluxe Edition DVD

A collaboration between Paramount Pictures and Walt Disney Pictures this film was well received by those who saw it. Directed by Matthew Robbins (Corvette Summer (1978), Legend of Billie Jean (1985), *batteries not included (1987) this movie stars Peter MacNicol, Caitlin Clarke and Sir Ralph Richardson.

The story is about a wizard who has made a deal with a Dragon that as long as they sacrifice young virgins to the dragon he will leave the kingdom alone. Enter MacNicol as a young knight who is trying to save the King's daughter, who is next in line to be sacrificed.

It is remarkable that a movie like this made in the 80's is rated PG and contains some graphic gore, violence and slight nudity, and is still rated as family fare. Unfortunately even this special edition DVD did not have any extras on it.

Good movie, but really wish there were some extras along with this great movie.

[TheSequelOfDisney]

Let's see:

The Importance of Being Earnest (2002)
Tarzan (1999)
Pulp Fiction

[Goliath]

Mr. Nobody (2009)

Very intense, surrealistic, bizarre kind of movie; one of the most special I've ever seen. It basically tells the life-story of a 120 year old men (seen from his perspective in 2092), but it shows us how his life would have been depending on all kinds of different choices he would've made. But we never get to know which choices he *did* make, and different life-stories even have him ending up dead. All these stories aren't told chronologically, and they're all mixed together, so you really have to pay close attention. And even then, there are lots of things you won't 'get'. But I didn't care. This was a wonderful experience, thanks to clever writing and excellent visual effects. Very artful film.

[ajmrowland]

The Butterfly Effect-

Good movie. Not really intended to be scary it seems, no matter how it's dressed up to look that way. It' much more of a drama. And what a nice one it is. Some interesting stuff about Time Travel and Chaos Theory. Not to mention Ashto Kutcher.

[Dr Frankenollie]

Scott Pilgrim vs. the World (2010)

This movie is one specifically tailored for the modern generation of, say, 12-year-olds to 30-year-olds. It is stuffed with pop culture references, especially references to video games such as Pacman, Mortal Kombat, and I’m sure many more, but I’m not a video game fan, so I remain ignorant of every reference.

Perhaps because of this, I’m not qualified to review this film-or at least in the eyes of imbeciles. A film which centres on a particular topic may be targeted for a particular group or number of fans should still be accessible to people who have no idea what the topic is about. Or, to put it in simpler terms, even if you don’t know what a film means, references or is parodying, you should still enjoy it. Cases in point: Animal Farm and Airplane! Animal Farm is still a great and timeless novel to read, and I enjoyed it before I even really understood Stalin, Lenin, Communism, etc. It’s accessible. Airplane!, meanwhile, is a comedy which makes fun of thrillers from the 1970’s, but more specifically the Airport movie. I hadn’t even heard of Airport when I first watched Airplane!, yet I couldn’t stop laughing when I watched Airplane! The point is, even if a film is made for a particular reason or target audience, it has to be accessible to others; otherwise, it can’t standalone, and will be dated in a few years.

It’s about a 22-year-old loser named Scott Pilgrim (Michael Cera). He’s Canadian, in an awful band named ‘Sex Bob-omb’, and currently dating a 17-year-old Chinese girl named Knives (Ellen Wong). Scott soon encounters a mysterious, purple-haired girl named Ramona (Mary Elizabeth Winstead), who he has been seeing in his dreams (the author of the comic book this is based on, Bryan Lee O’Malley, ripped off Brazil with this), and quickly loses interest in Knives, and falls for her. Unfortunately for Scott, the only way to be with Ramona is to defeat her ‘seven evil exes’-led by the wealthy Gideon (Jason Schwartzman).

What follows is a film that has the same fight, used again and again and again. Scott uses guitars, swords or occasionally his fists to fight the exes, who when defeated explode into coins. The film’s visual effects are inventive, but also forgettable and unimportant. Who cares when thousands of tiny pixels explode into millions of even tinier pixels? I yawned during the final fight scene. It’s soulless action. It has to have emotion with it; North by Northwest has one of the slowest action scenes of all time, but that’s the greatest scene I’ve ever seen in a movie (I’m not pompous enough to say it’s the definitive greatest, as I have yet to see every single movie ever made). It has rising tension, it has suspense, it’s not repetitive and it has realism-any one of those alone would make a scene great. That’s what gives it power. Scott Pilgrim has the most boring fight scenes I’ve ever watched; those scenes are just bright, jazzed-up colours for the easily satisfied, mixed with incoherent noise.

The cast is average at best. Pilgrim’s portrayer Cera is the best of them, sporting charisma and charm, but not in the classic Hollywood way utilised tthrough the likes of Cary Grant, James Stewart and Errol Flynn. He is a geek but also a superhero of sorts, a popular characterisation for the 21st Century (the far superior Kick-Ass was also released in 2010, and that also featured a geek as a protagonist). Cera is clearly a talented actor, managing to make lots of lines that could be said quite badly work well (case in point: ‘I can...not...have tea’). But unfortunately the script doesn’t give him enough material to work with, fashioning Scott Pilgrim as a flat, 2-D character.

Winstead’s portrayal as Ramona is mediocre, but it’s hardly her fault, as attempts to give her character depth fail, and really she’s just a more cynical version of Bella Swan. The less said about the talentless other cast members (besides Schwartzman), the better.

Alongside its lack of entertainment value for non-video game fans, lacklustre action and below-average acting, what really irritates me about Scott Pilgrim is its catering to the generation of movie-goers who have an attention span of 0.2 seconds. The scenes are hurried, and cut quickly, not staying put. It’s not relentless energy, it’s relentless nonsense; the dialogue is sometimes muffled by the music and sound effects, and the speed of the plot makes it often difficult to understand what is going on. However, the usual amount of dialogue is quite poor-besides Scott, all the characters revel in spouting cynical, sarcastic and pessimistic lines obviously engineered to be witty, but they’re only funny a few times.

Bafflingly, the director and co-writer is Edgar Wright, one of the brilliant men behind fun comedies like Shaun of the Dead and Hot Fuzz. I theorise that this movie’s lack of good comedic material is probably due to Wright experimenting with styles, or perhaps he’s following the comic (which I’ve never read) too closely if there is similar dialogue there. His comedies with Simon Pegg and Nick Frost may not be masterpieces, but they are laugh-out-loud funny. They worked. And you know the old phrase: ‘If it isn’t broke, don’t fix it.’ Mr Wright should’ve stuck to what he knows.

Overall, Scott Pilgrim vs. the World is an immensely disappointing vehicle, and I’m glad it flopped-if it had been a success, we might’ve got sequels. On the other hand, if you prefer loud rock-and-roll music, flashy SFX, and uninspired action scenes to excellent acting, character depth, inventive storytelling and originality, then Scott Pilgrim is for you.

[Avaitor]

Overall, Scott Pilgrim vs. the World is an immensely disappointing vehicle, and I’m glad it flopped-if it had been a success, we might’ve got sequels.

Nah, the movie covered all of the graphic novels in it. I don't think Edgar Wright would have been willing to expand upon the world without Brian Lee O'Malley's input, even if it was a huge hit.

[Linden]

Don't know how old you are, but "Silverado" is rated very highly among those who like a good western, and considering the cast which includes Kevin Costner, Danny Glover, Brian Dennehy, Linda Hunt, and many others, this western is loved by critics all over the world.

I am glad that you did keep your "snarky" comments to yourself, and tried to enjoy it. That was good of you, especially on Father's Day.

I don't know why my age would have anything to do with it, but I've seen my share of westerns, and there's many others I like far more than Silverado. The characters were hard to connect with, with the exception of Mal and, to some extent, Paden. Emmett, who seemed to be the main character, reminded me A LOT of Chuck Norris both in looks and acting, which isn't exactly a good thing (I'm not a Chuck Norris basher at all; I just think his acting isn't good). The plot was almost non-existent, and the dialogue was filled with requisite machoisms. I did love the scenery, though, and there were some beautiful scenes, like when they drove the horses through the snowy canyon. Maybe the critics do like it (76% on RottenTomatoes), and it does have a star-studded cast. But, try as I might, I just couldn't like it. My dad was disappointed with it too.

That said, I'm sorry if I offended you with my comments. I really don't like hurting anyone's feelings.

[dvdjunkie]

*batteries not included (1987) Special Edition DVD

From Universal Studios we get this little masterpiece directed by Matthew Robbins, and starring Hume Cronyn, Jessica Tandy and Frank McRae.

It's the story of tenants in a little tenament building who have been given vacate notices and they refuse. The developers hire some thugs to force the people out, but unbeknownst to them some alien ships have come to visit the tenants. The humor in this movie isn't the typical "in your face" type, but the kind where you laugh and say to yourself, "yep, that's they way it is!"

Good little movie that some people tend to compare to "Cocoon", but I think this film stands on its own with the story and characters.

On the Junkie Meter I would give it 4 out of 5 stars.

[PixarFan2006]

Super 8 (2011)

I thought this movie was decent. It wasn't terrible, but it was far from perfect. All the kid actors were good, nothing to complain about. The CGI effects were okay at best, but not completely amazing. There were also a few too many loud moments (where a loud sound suddenly happens). Despite these few flaws, I still enjoyed this movie from JJ Abrams, though maybe not as much as Star Trek (2009).

[ajmrowland]

^Doesnt help that the movie only ended shooting a few months ago.

True Grit(2010)-A good movie. I never really go for the Western and it was a bit boring, but strong performances, nice moments, but never truly great.

[TheSequelOfDisney]

The last two days I've watched:

Wall-E
The Emperor's New Groove
Brother Bear
Frost/Nixon

Seriously, Wall-E is the cutest, most adorable robot I have ever seen ever. It's definitely one of my favorite Disney/Pixar films.

[Avaitor]

Here's my next set of random reviews.

Touch of Evil

Considered one of the last great film noirs during the noir age, this Orson Welles classic has the big man play a crooked cop investigating a suspicious scene occurring on the border to Mexico. Also being written and directed by Welles, Charlton Heston and Janet Leigh co-star as they deal through Welles' questionable methods.

Like most good noir, this film is pretty dark and unrelenting in terms of ethics. I recorded the 1998 restored version from TCM, which follows Welles' memo sent to the studio 40 years prior requesting to stick to his original vision, and as far as I can tell, this is the definitive version of the film. Really good for fans of noir, Welles, or film in general.

Father of the Bride

The original 1950 classic, this Vincente Minnelli comedy features Spencer Tracy as the father of Elizabeth Taylor, who plans her wedding with her mate. I thought the film was a little light on laughs, but the emotional center is very sweet. Tracy especially does a great job portraying the stern-yet-loving father. I haven't seen the sequel or the remake yet, so I can't compare them.

Let the Right One In

Sometimes I need to watch a film made from my time, which is why I finally checked out the 2008 Swedish vampire flick. It's about a bullied young boy who finds love with a sweet girl that only appears at night. There's a reason for that...

I didn't think this was very scary, but I dug it alright. The romantic aspects were cute, and from what I could tell, the acting was fine. The cinematography is where the real credit must go to. The scenery looked great, and the effects really impressed me. There's one scene that I thought really stuck out, but without spoiling, let me just say that it was at a community pool.

Haven't seen the recent American remake, so again, I can't compare.

The Spirit of St. Louis

Caught this one on TCM on Wednesday as a part of a small marathon celebrating Billy Wilder's birthday. He's one of my all-time favorite writer/directors, but I haven't seen this one before. It features Jimmy Stewart as Charles Lindbergh during his legendary transatlantic flight from New York to Paris.

I enjoyed it pretty well overall, although I'll admit that I'm not too familiar with Lindbergh's ordeals. It's a little drier than some of Wilder's other films, but a couple of lines were gold, and Stewart was great as Lindbergh. It also did not fail to hold my interest throughout, which is a good thing.

[Disney-Fan]

Cars 2 - I came in with extra-low expectations. As if the first wasn't a bland fest of a movie, the bad reviews didn't help matters. That being said, I had a BLAST. I enjoyed the flashiness of it, the espionagesque storyline really worked well for this universe, and the movie got quite a few laughs from me, something the first one never managed to properly do. It's not as emotional as Pixar's recent outings but I guess this reminds me of some of their earlier work so in that sense it kinda worked for me. That being said, the movie was a bit too long and the whole concept of cars existing in a world without humans still bothers me to no end. 7/10