Movies wot I saw 2011

Aodan · Teiam Member

Movies wot I saw 2011

ddvmor · **I am the Jammie King!**

Let the Right One In was a fantastic bit of film making. I haven't seen the English language one. I think Hollywood generally has expectations of how a movie should be paced and makes assumptions of the IQ of their audience that European directors pretty much ignore. It's very refeshing to watch a movie that doesn't hand it all to you on a plate and instead requires you to keep up!

that said, I like big explosions and stuff!

Aodan · Teiam Member

Let Me In (the English version) wasn't terrible.. definitely watchable. But there is a beautiful subtlety about how the relationship between Oscar and Eli develops in both the book and the Swedish movie that the English version completely misses. They tried to do a scene-by-scene remake, but it comes across being flatter than the original. Not to mention they changed their names and glossed over one of the major plot points (what Eli actually is -- and I don't mean vampire).

-- Edited by Aodan on Friday 23rd of December 2011 02:30:45 PM

ddvmor · **I am the Jammie King!**

Megamind was pretty entertaining. I didn't enjoy it as much as Despicable Me which had a similar Supervillian premise, but it definitely had it's moments. I wouldn't normally watch a movie that starred Will Ferrell, let alone one that also starred Ben Stiller, but I gave it a go on the basis that I couldn't see their hideous faces and could pretend that they weren't actually in it.

The plot followed a fairly predictable route and the performances were pretty good. I can't help feeling that giving voice acting jobs to people like Brad Pitt is a bit of a cynical gimmick though. I mean, he's okay... but he's unlikely ever to be as good as a professional voice actor.

Right... before we run out of year... what are you looking forward to in 2012? For me it's the new Bond flick, Skyfall; The Dark Knight Rises; Ridley 'It's not an Alien Prequel'Scott's Alien prequel, Prometheus; Joss 'I might have bitten off more than I can chew but it'll still be awesome' Whedon's The Avengers; and the Hobbit; with maybe a smidgen of The Amazing Spider-Man which I'm hoping will be better than the awful mess of Spiderman 3. It's possible, although unlikely, that the Total Recall remake won't suck. I'm also expecting disppointment from Dredd.

I think that's it. Are there any I've missed?

Truckman · Old. But wise!

ddvmor wrote:
I'm also expecting disppointment from Dredd.

Could it suck any worse than the original?... disbelief ...Ben

ddvmor · **I am the Jammie King!**

The original sucked slightly more than my spelling of the word 'disappointment'. The new one's a much smaller production with a lot less to prove and no megastar actors trying to muck it up. It'll still suck, though.

Aodan · Teiam Member

Really looking forward to The Hobbit -- but there's a whole year's worth of movies in between now and then. Also looking forward to Dark Knight. What I'm REALLY looking forward to is taking my kids (especially Rowan) to see Brave when it comes out in June. There's another Underworld movie coming out too. I probably won't see it in theaters, but I'll get the DVD as soon as it's available.

I'll see the Avengers, and I'll probably be dragged off to see the Snow White movie (the one with Kristen Stewart) and on that line, in November, I'll have my "creepy old lady date" with my cousin while we go see the final Twilight movie.

ddvmor · **I am the Jammie King!**

Aodan wrote:
What I'm REALLY looking forward to is taking my kids (especially Rowan) to see Brave when it comes out in June.

That does look like it'll be pretty good. Pixar have an excellent track record (although I thought Cars was very, very average).

What's weird is that I think I saw a trailer or something for it ages ago, but I thought it was called something else. Maybe something with 'Bears' in the title.

Aodan · Teiam Member

I think they were calling it "The Bear and the Bow" but they seem to have pushed back the release date and changed the name

Aodan · Teiam Member

I knew it was going to be bad, but I figured with Neil Patrick Harris in it, there must be SOMETHING redeemable about the movie "Beastly". I'm not sure why I put it on my netflix queue (probably because of NPH) but figured I'd watch it so I could get back to Supernatural. I was feeling unwell yesterday and was hoping for something mindless and stupid to watch. Stupid teen movies usually fit that bill, and are total crap, but sometimes enjoyably so. This was not so with Beastly. It was just garbage.

What I also found on Netflix was holiday special thing that had a mini-movie with the How To Train Your Dragon people (They also had a Shrek episode, a Madagascar episode, and something else). That was a fun little thing and made me wish I had the original movie on hand to watch.

-- Edited by Aodan on Thursday 29th of December 2011 08:03:23 PM

Aodan · Teiam Member

My last review of 2011.

Because apparnetly I've got wolf on the brain, I finally got around to watching Catherine Hardwick's "Red Riding Hood". Visually, it was beautiful, as the previews promised. The story had the potential to be a really interesting take on the Riding Hood story, and it even had some big names like Gary Oldman but the acting was just awful. Flat and unimagined and boring... even Gary Oldman! I didn't think that was possible.

It's not a terrible film -- despite what I just said -- but the trailer promised a much more interesting film than the film delivered. It's watchable, it just could have been better.

Here's hoping 2012 makes for some better movies.

ddvmor · **I am the Jammie King!**

My last 2011 movie is Paul, a road movie with an alien hitch-hiker, written by and starring Simon Pegg and Nick Frost. It was pretty good, but missed being awesome by casting the bland Seth Rogen as the alien and the lack of Edgar Wright directing - that guy always gets the best out of of Pegg and Frost - when they're bad they're good, but when they're good, they're fricking AWESOME. Still, it made for an amusing hour and a half.