[tdockweiler]

Ghostbusters (2016) - 4/10
 
Easily the worst i've seen this year I think. I really tried to enjoy it, but I really couldn't. I probably laughed only about 2 or 3 times during the movie and one part was about....soup.
Melissa McCarthy was easily the best character of the movie. Kate McKinnon was easily the worst, but probably not here fault. Even Bill Murray was totally wasted in his role here.
 
PS I was OK with the idea of an all female cast, but unfortunately everything is just so badly done in this movie.
 
One of the few movie scripts where I thought it had too much dialogue!
 
Stalag 17 - 10/10
 
Did I rate this one before? It's one of my all time favorites. It's so old and the comedy is really hard to like at first. Now I find it hilarious.
This one seems to work best when you don't take some of it too seriously.
One actor I really like for some reason in this movie is Robert Strauss. He's the gravel-voiced guy with an obsession with Betty Grable.
 
It's probably a bit sexist and they do make the German prison guards look like complete idiots mostly.
A lot of the comedy is almost cartoony. It's hard for me to watch a movie where it's comedy one minute and then something serious the next.
 
Apparently without this movie we would have no "Hogan's Heroes". I can't stomach watching any episode of that show really.
 
 
 

 

[oqvist]

Bird Man. Nice casting didn´t recognize that old superhero Keaton. Or well I remember seeing him but couldn´t place it. Quite good 7-8/10

 

[Hutnicks]

Jack Reacher: Never Go Back (2016)  6.5/10
 
   Some over obvious plotting holds this film back significantly. All the current events tropes are in full play here and that does not really aid a film that could have been so much more. It winds up more actioner than the thriller it set itself out to be. Cruise may well have found his mein in this emotionally crippled character however and the foregoing of a sap laden ending was a relief. The female lead does well enough when her mouth is not stuffed with the boring and overused "It's so hard to be a woman in this mans army" nonesense. Generic bad guys really add nothing to this one and halfway through I was sort of hoping for a real heavyweight villain which never materialized.
 
 Then again, what do I really expect when film has turned even Blofeld into a prancing ponce of late.

 

[mutabor]

Around 10 years ago I watched a cool documentary ( shot by an American if I remember) about a young Kazakh guy in Mongolia who learned an art of eagle hunting from catching an eagle, training it to an actual hunt. It seems that this documentary passed generally unnoticed in the world.
 
Now there is another documentary The Eagle Huntress about a 13 year old Kazakh girl in Mongolia who was trained to become an eagle huntress and this documentary got into spotlight not because of interest to Kazakh culture but because ( articles' headlines)
 

Teenage 'Eagle Huntress' Overturns 2000 Years Of Male Tradition

 

 I asked Bell why the film is drawing such strong responses. It embodies, he said, universal themes — a girl who won't be held back by gender-centered tradition.

 

'The Eagle Huntress' an enchanting tale of girl power ...

 

[Hutnicks]

Snowden (2016) 4/10
 
                                 Levitt puts in a stellar performance Woodley is her typical ditz in a typical "History is what I say it is" Oliver Stone vehicle. Preachy overblown and underachieving in the exploration of Snowden. Stone here once again takes an actual event and uses it for his own personal soapbox. Much in the way Tarantino puts the shoulder to his audiences of late with his "See how clever I was with that scene" direction Stone firmly puts his finger in your chest with more of his "I know more than anybody about this" attitude. Except he doesn't and that is certainly evident in the manner in which he mis films the technology  and avoids tackling it directly at every turn. His co opting and outright shouldering aside the efforts of the much better Citizen 4 makes me want to strangle him.  To me his films more and more seem like some sycophantic visual resumes aimed at getting him into the Illuminati.
 
Take away the name brands and Levitts performance and this is nothing more than a 4 dollar bargain bin thriller for a weekend to wet to mow the lawn.
 
 Just watch Citizen 4 instead or better yet read one of the two books that Stone used all of a half page of for his script.
 
On the other hand....
 
Twixt (2011) 8/10
 
  A minor film by Coppola that shows that there is at least one mega director in Hollywood who can put his ideas together for less than a trillion dollars and make a decent "Small Film" . Campy overtones in a horror film with texture galore and dear me an actual plot. Not a terribly new one but a very good take on some old chestnuts. Did I mention texture? Atmosphere works in here as well and sporadic but charming performances by Val Kilmer and Bruce Dern. Imagery abounds here and a grounding in classical literature will help out on this one but is by no means mandatory.
How did I miss this little gem?

 

[WraithApe]

 
Twixt (2011) 8/10
 
  A minor film by Coppola that shows that there is at least one mega director in Hollywood who can put his ideas together for less than a trillion dollars and make a decent "Small Film" . Campy overtones in a horror film with texture galore and dear me an actual plot. Not a terribly new one but a very good take on some old chestnuts. Did I mention texture? Atmosphere works in here as well and sporadic but charming performances by Val Kilmer and Bruce Dern. Imagery abounds here and a grounding in classical literature will help out on this one but is by no means mandatory.
How did I miss this little gem?

 
You differ wildly from IMDb - average rating 4.8! I'm normally suspicious of anything under 5, but I'll have to give this one a watch at some point now since you've bigged it up. Always interested to see what FFC is up to as well (other than appearing in Jay Leno's garage.) The most recent film of his I watched was Tetro, which I found a real slog, mainly down to having the charisma drain that is Gallo in the lead role.

 

[Hutnicks]

I have not seen Tetro. We seem to be in agreement on the Gallo factor though.
 
Twixt is worth the rent though.

 

[mutabor]

  Snowden (2016) 4/10
 
                                 Levitt puts in a stellar performance Woodley is her typical ditz in a typical "History is what I say it is" Oliver Stone vehicle. Preachy overblown and underachieving in the exploration of Snowden. Stone here once again takes an actual event and uses it for his own personal soapbox. Much in the way Tarantino puts the shoulder to his audiences of late with his "See how clever I was with that scene" direction Stone firmly puts his finger in your chest with more of his "I know more than anybody about this" attitude. Except he doesn't and that is certainly evident in the manner in which he mis films the technology  and avoids tackling it directly at every turn. His co opting and outright shouldering aside the efforts of the much better Citizen 4 makes me want to strangle him.  To me his films more and more seem like some sycophantic visual resumes aimed at getting him into the Illuminati.
 

 

Film director Oliver Stone has finished shooting a documentary about Russian President Vladimir Putin. The film is in post-production, the date of its release is still unknown, producer Igor Lopatenok said in an interview with RIA Novosti.

"Oliver Stone’s documentary about President Vladimir Putin is a great and very interesting picture. Filming is finished, now it's in post-production and the release date is a secret, but the film will be interesting for the audience, especially in the U.S.," Igor Lopatenok stated.

Lopatenok is a director and film producer, widely known for his work in the field of film colorization. He is the executive producer of Oliver Stone’s latest picture, Snowden.

 
Lopatenok is a Kremlin puppet. Russian side helped to finance Snowden movie.
 
Lopatenok shot a documentary "Ukraine on Fire" which was produced by Oliver Stone ( pretty sure that shot on Russian money). This documentary is pro-Kremlin and anti-American. It blames USA that it sponsored and provoked revolution in Ukraine.
 
Curiously that radical left in America like Oliver Stone and Noah Chomsky in their anti-establishment rhetoric had taken Putin's side ( which is radical conservative) against American politics. 
 
 

 

[mutabor]

Snowden movie budget $40 m
Box Office $29 m
 
Three production companies non of which are major. 
 

1. Endgame Entertainment ( US)
2. Vendian Entertainment ( US)
3. KrautPack Entertainment ( Germany)

 

Country: Germany, US.

 

Very suspicious Germany side. Snowden is their only film. Conclusion: KrautPack is a Russian company registered in Germany to produce Snowden movie.

 

Two small American companies were used to get into American movie market. But most financing came from Russia.

 

[Hutnicks]

   
 
   
Curiously that radical left in America like Oliver Stone and Noah Chomsky in their anti-establishment rhetoric had taken Putin's side ( which is radical conservative) against American politics. 
 
 

 
I see nothing at odds there whatsoever. The so called radical left is in reality neither. It is a firmly entrenched mindset that they are the only ones who know the truth and how things should be run. In short precisely the mindset Putin has. Wonderful it is that American film has now embraced Oswald Mosleys method of swaying opinion to their side.
 
Put another way. A liberal Facist is a Facist nonetheless.

 

[mutabor]

Marvel movies are on the edge of technology. I can't afford newly presented Macbook Pro or Surface Studio PC nevertheless I HAVE TO know what are these products. 
 
I feel that I HAVE TO watch upcoming Marvel's masterpiece of cinematography Doctor Strange for the same reason why almost everybody talks about new iPhone 7.

 

[vwinter]

Marvel movies are on the edge of technology. I can't afford newly presented Macbook Pro or Surface Studio PC nevertheless I HAVE TO know what are these products. 

I feel that I HAVE TO watch upcoming Marvel's masterpiece of cinematography Doctor Strange for the same reason why almost everybody talks about new iPhone 7.

If it makes you feel any better about your decision, the studio WAITED for Benedict Cummerbatch.

 

[mutabor]

If it makes you feel any better about your decision, the studio WAITED for Benedict Cummerbatch.

 

 

[WraithApe]

 
The Strange Love of Martha Ivers - 7/10
 
Solid film noir. Tightly plotted, with some punchy dialogue, and nicely shot too - those long shadows in all the right places. It's definitely on the melodramatic end of the noir spectrum though and the saccharine score swells to ridiculous levels occasionally, actually making it hard to hear the dialogue. In terms of the characters, Barbara Stanwyck is outstanding as the phenomenally wealthy but morally bankrupt Martha Ivers and Van Heflin shines too, as Martha's estranged lover. Lizabeth Scott in the femme fatale role is a poor man's Lauren Bacall (maybe a bit harsh, she does an OK job in this) and Kirk Douglas, in his first movie, is anemic, but then that's what the role demands.
 
A couple of notches down from the true noir classics, but settling down to an elegant period piece and being transported to a bygone era is almost always more appealing than going to watch Hollywood's latest CG fest at my local multiplex!

 

[metalsonata]

The Babadook (2014): 9/10
 
As a horror film, The Babadook is a bit ****. It's just not very scary, and the silly monster design (or its poor implementation in the film proper--as it appears in the pop-up book featured early in the film it's actually quite creepy) makes what ought to be terrifying moments more laughable than anything else. But as an unhinged exploration of a single mother's stress it's absolutely terrific and makes for some seriously emotionally engaging viewing. In some ways it's not unlike The Witch, which I reviewed earlier this year and also loved--both fail at being horror movies (though I think it's arguable that neither really wants to be a horror movie) but both are staggering successes elsewhere. Recommend.