[karstart]

Ordinary Men - The "Forgotten Holocaust" - 9/10

 

[Philimon]

V for Vendetta

Rating: 2.5/4

Okay movie but with stand out acting / voice of Hugo Weaving (agent Smith of the Matrix) as the titular character. Besides Hugo's voice, redeeming quality is the major theme against oppressive government. Funny that John Hurt played protagonist in 1984 but is the tyrant in V for Vendetta.

I re-watched the film after recently reading the comic. The movie adaptation was poorly executed...

• The story and characters were immensely rewritten and seemingly not for sake of condensing story for reducing film running time. Besides changing and omitting, they also added a bunch of junk that was not originally in the comic.
• The comic doesnt really show any gratuitous scenes of violence, its all between the panels - in the imagination. The film couldve been more subtle in general and been better. The film did not need to go R-rated or need to add kungfu action. There was barely enough content in the film to justify sacrificing your PG-13 audience, seemed like a poor decision simply financially.
• Directing, editing, screenplay were all meh.

The ideologies and source material were surely appreciated by some involved in the film, Im thinking specifically of Natalie Portman who shaved her head for the role. However, V for Vendetta clearly was not wholly made to such a standard or reverence like The Watchmen (a film I've discussed before in this thread).

Writer of the comics:

Alan Moore, dissatisfied with the film adaptations of his other works, From Hell (2001) and The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen (2003), declined to watch the film and asked to not be credited or paid royalties. (wiki)​

 

[tdockweiler]

The One That Got Away (1957) - 8.5/10

One of the very few above average older WWII movies.
This is about one of the only people who successfully escaped a British POW camp and made his way back to Germany (!).
He attempted it in a British POW camp, but was caught. Later he attempted it again in Canada in the middle of winter.
It's based on a novel and is a true story.

I watched this maybe 10 years ago and just had to buy the DVD of it, but at the time it was hard to obtain.
It's now on Amazon Prime.

Another thing I found interesting is how the escaped POW almost used the same methods that hackers often use to get passwords.
I guess they call it "Social Engineering". This German POW would somehow convince people he was a Dutch pilot on a secret mission and ask them to let him use one of their planes after his was shot down. They even sent a car for him to transport him to his plane! He had everyone fooled.

Reminds me of similar scenes in "Von Ryan's Express", which is another favorite.
That's a POW escape movie, but on a train! It's starring Frank Sinatra.
Not a true story though and is more of an action movie.
I'm surprised they never tried to remake it.

 

[lifeson]

Re-watched last night, just as mad as I remember 9/10

 

[tdockweiler]

Race to the Summit - 5/10

Latest Netflix mountain climbing documentary.
This one was only 1 1/2 hours but felt like 5.
It focused way too much on interviews and speeches. Then it tries to add drama from new reports etc.
I don't know how they made a movie about speed solo climbing so boring.
Some of the cinematography taken from helicopters was pretty good.
And of course what they all were able to do is pretty impressive for sure.

PS my favorite mountain climbing movie I think is "Meru". It's worth checking out.

 

[Whazzzup]

Absolute trip and stunning. Think I rated this a while ago but worth mentioning.

 

[M3NTAL]

5 of 5 puffs?

 

[tdockweiler]

Those free solo climbing documentaries are so hard to watch sometimes. One wrong move and they're dead. The scariest part to me looked like the sections where they had snow drifts and ice covering the rock.

Another crazy extreme sport i've come across is rooftop parkour. So stupid and scary! Or jumping off the top of mountains with only a wingsuit.

Have you heard of the annual bike messenger street races? I can't condone this type of behavior and I even have issues with just watching videos of it

This is just insane. The photographer is on an E-bike just to film it all and keep up with the leader.
A high speed bike ride through NYC with no brakes and one speed? Count me out!
It's 34 miles or so and not many rules I think except for some checkpoints.
This year there was only one injury I think.

OK since this a rate the movie thread i'll give the "movie" a 0/10 and the cinematography a 10/10:



Pretty amazing Wingsuit video:

 

[megabigeye]

OK since this a rate the movie thread i'll give the "movie" a 0/10 and the cinematography a 10/10:

Okay, I'm not going to watch the whole thing right now, but that's pretty amazing. I used to ride a fixed gear around Providence and outside of Boston. It is definitely an extreme sport, especially if you don't have a hand brake (you can always back pedal to slow down or stop and you can see some of the riders "skipping" as they go through intersections). The fastest I ever went was drafting a firetruck, but nowhere near what these guys are doing. There were some insanely close calls in this video. Squeezing into a shoulder-wide gap between a moving bus and a truck? My balls are not that big! This would be amazing to watch on IMAX, or something.

10/10 would watch again.

 

[SilverEars]

There's a lot of hype with this right now. #1 on MyDramalist

 

[SilverEars]

Re-watched last night, just as mad as I remember 9/10

I remember during the times when internet was just starting to develop, there was an Asian movie review site called, "Kungfu Cult Cinema," and it was the such a hidden gem. Because at the time, Asian cinema wasn't well known, and this website was the only source I found at the time that specialized it. It was an amazing website with such a great selection of flicks. It was during the time when Korean flicks were at the rise. I recall Versus was one of the top movies that was reviewed at the time.

It was a real gem because I've not heard of majority of the flicks they reviewed and recommended on the site.

I guess they are trying to bring it back, but it's not the same as what it was originally. You had access to interesting stuff you do not see anywhere. Unfortunately at some point they stopped the site.

You can see the OG reviews on site they recently started. They knew what movies to select and recommend. I'm glad they are keeping those OG reviews around now and times to come. They are golden.

http://kfcc2.com/

 

[Lenni]

Pretty amazing Wingsuit video:

Pretty reckless hobby. He died on June 23. RIP.

 

[Philimon]

Pretty amazing Wingsuit video:

Insanity. Reminds of paragliding accidents.

 

[tdockweiler]

I remember during the times when internet was just starting to develop, there was an Asian movie review site called, "Kungfu Cult Cinema," and it was the such a hidden gem. Because at the time, Asian cinema wasn't well known, and this website was the only source I found at the time that specialized it. It was an amazing website with such a great selection of flicks. It was during the time when Korean flicks were at the rise. I recall Versus was one of the top movies that was reviewed at the time.

I remember that site. Around the same time I was a member of another one called MHVF or Mobius Home Video Forum. It's still around but mostly dead I think. They had a forum for talking about Asian Cinema, which was really good. Another good reference at the time was koreanfilm.org that is run by the English translator of Parasite!
The first two I saw were "Nowhere to Hide" and "Peppermint Candy" (which is amazing).
One thing that always impressed me about Korean films is the cinematography.

I miss the days when you could visit nearly ANY USA video store and there would be a Kung Fu section. Unfortunately they would also add in any other Asian film made outside the USA in that area too. Even the John Woo films! At least they had an Anime section, but they only sold the dubbed versions usually.

The movie Chungking Express from Wong Kar-Wai (and the action films) made me want to go visit Hong Kong. I went there back in 2002 for my first ever vacation.
Came back with probably 100 DVDs (no bootlegs!). I wonder if DVD stores still exist over there. I imagine so.
They used to be only $5, but the quality was usually horrible.
The one that was the cheapest was "Cheapy's Movie Platform". Probably doesn't exist anymore.
Most annoying store in the world to shop in.

Back in the day I used to rent like 8 Hong Kong movies a week on DVD. There was this Netflix clone that only rented Asian films on DVD! It was called Webjade.
I don't know if this is still the case, but 99% of Hong Kong movies came with English subtitles. I believe it was required?

I remember when Versus came out and everyone was raving about it.
I thought i'd hate it but ended up liking it a lot.

They also loved Takeshi Miike films too, which I refuse to watch.
I once rented his big hit "Audition". After watching it I had found out Blockbuster censored it and didn't even mention it to customers!
It's like they made it into a PG-13 version. To this day I don't even know what I missed (probably a good thing).

PS I acquired my love of Asian Cinema after watching Akira Kurosawa's "RAN" and all the Zhang Yimou films like "To Live" etc.
I was reading these MASSIVE movie review books and every Kurosawa film always got a 5/5 review score it seemed like.
That made me want to seek out his movies.

My video rental store had one small shelf of "Foreign Films" but weeks later I found that the WMU campus had a video store with an entire floor filled with International films. Can you imagine that? A 3 floor video store! Even a "Cult Classics" category. LOL even a curtained off section, which wouldn't fly these days
Things were so different in the early 2000s.

I must be the only person that actually misses video rental stores! Now most computers don't even come with a DVD drive. New computer cases don't even have the slot for installing a drive. Couldn't believe it when I saw it.

 

[SilverEars]

There's a lot of hype with this right now. #1 on MyDramalist

Saw the first episode today, and it's pretty good. The trailer said it's based on a webtoon, and I'm thinking it must have been a good story. I like the way the series is unfolding the story, and I like the characters in this series. I think the right actors/actressed are in the roles.