[vwinter]

Some objectively bad movies i enjoyed revisiting for no reason i can comprehend other than my childhood, mostly:
 
Getting Even With Dad [6/10]
 
This is the kind of movie they don't really make anymore. Most would argue for good reason =)
It was a staple of the 90's and films like this were made in the 80's and maybe moreso the 90's in an attempt to connect with a younger audience, where the message was, kids are smart, resourceful, adventurous and capable of driving a story. Kids just want to be taken seriously and these movies provided an outlet for that.
 
This one was a hodgepodge of many themes and a metric ton of tropes, which would be bad news if casting didn't deliver and the supporting characters didn't ham it up with fun performances
Ted Danson puts on a fun display as an ex con cake designer looking for one last score. You can see he's having fun and it helps the movie. Macaulay Culkin is being himself, somewhat reprising a slightly more mature Kevin McCallister, and it works, but nothing to write home about. 
 
The plot is actually amusing in design and creative enough if a bit asinine. There are good helpings of blundering numbskullery, and given the right actors (Saul Rubinek as Bobby steals the show), it doesn't come off as annoying. I'd say this is a good one to jump back to an interesting time in cinema if you aren't in the mood for anything else and are okay watching something stupid once in a while. But be warned, going in with any expectations at all will probably ruin this for most.
 
 
 
Son in Law [5.2/10]
 
Pauly Shore. This was a thing. The perpetual fish out of water. Probably one of the better of his movies and arguably the godfather of the Fish Out of Water Quadrilogy (no, Bio-Dome doesn't count). Highlights include Kelly Kapowski strip tease, wheezing on grindage, "Oh, I don't wanna be rude or anything, but, Mrs. Warner, you're givin' me a semi."
 
At the end of the day, these movies send a positive message and are a good stupid watch. Personally, I like In The Army Now better.
 
 
 
You Don't Mess With The Zohan [6.5/10]
 
 
Probably a 6 at most, but an extra half a point for the chutzpah.
This movie is insane or rather absurd. I have no idea how it even got made. But i'm kind of glad it did. I applaud someone taking a bit of a chance something this ridiculous. Rob Schneider and John Turturro as Palestinian national would be terrorist assassin greedy cab driver and terrorist extraordinaire, respectively; Adam Sandler, huge, silky smooth and persistently positively smiling, pretzel-izes people and threatens Paul Mitchell.
 
Visual comedy that should insult practically everyone and likely insults no one. That's probably an accomplishment. Grab a container of hummus, turn off your brain a bit and give this one a shot, you can only be horribly disappointed 

 
 
 
End of the day, it's hard to recommend any of these for people to spend their time or money on, but at the same time, its a great break from general cinema to see how broad the art form is and, for the first two, a real generation of the history.

 

[BobG55]

We were soldiers **** out of 4
 
Say what you want about Mel Gibson but he's a hell of an actor.  He has his personal demons as we all do.  I neither condone nor do I condemn Gibson.  Who am I to judge this man.  But I certainly enjoy most of his movies and he is truly gifted both as an actor and as a director.  
 
This movie is about the first American ground troops to fight in Vietnam in November of 1965.  In my estimation it's one of the best & most realistic films about the Vietnam war.  Gibson plays Lt. Colonel Hal Moore who leads his men into this new war against an unknown enemy in an unknown country and fighting conditions.  He pledged to be the first to set foot on enemy soil and the last to leave.  He also pledges to leave no soldier behind, dead or alive.  
 
At one point during the battle the Americans are surrounded and outnumbered & appear as if they're going to be slaughtered. While the fighting goes on Lt. Colonel Moore is ordered on two different occasions via radio to jump aboard a chopper and report  to Headquarters in order to give the general a personal account of the situation.  Both times Moore tells the radio operator at the other end that he refuses to obey the order and that he is staying with his men.  There are probably a few officers who, evaluating the situation would have gladly jumped abord a chopper to save their own behind.  Gibson doesn't over act in this part of the film.  
 
There's a scene after the battle is over where Moore talks with a reporter who witnessed the same atrocity of the battle and at one point had to put his camera aside and take part in the fighting.  Gibson his very convincing in this scene.  As Lt. Colonel Moore we see a man who's body language and facial expressions go through a myriad of painful emotions.  He tells the reporter, shoulders hunched over, eyes full of tears but in a steady voice that he feels guilty so many of "his boys" died while he is still alive.  The fact that his voice reflects the fact that he's still maintaining some control makes the scene believable and not over played / over acted.  We see a broken man who truly loved and cared for these young men he was in charge of and who have lost their lives, their future, some of them leaving wives and children behind and we see that he feels all of that.
 
 
The film also shows what some of these men are like afterwards.  The emotionally broken down reporter who was told by Lt. Col. Moore that he must write and tell the American people everything he witnessed and who struggles to do so because of the horror of the memories.  The movie shows the same emotions and human frailty suffered by the north Vietnamese and one wife/ girlfriend in particular who learns of the death of her husband.  
 
It's not a film that glorifies war or that condemns it either.  The message is how war affects the human condition no matter which side or nationality you are.  

 

[SHAMuuu]

 
 
Good one to see what your cans are made of  8/10

 

[JuanseAmador]

Dr. Strange: 4/10

 

[Hutnicks]

Inferno (2016)   5/10
 
 Run, chase clues, have female sidekick half Hanks age. Typical Dan Brown plotting, without find and replace he would never have had a career. The big twist you will have seen coming in the first 5 minutes so when it happens it's just a relief that you know you don't have longer to go.
 
 Fans of Brown will love it, fans of thrillers and mysteries will be entertained by the art lesson and Italian venues.
 
Out Kind of Traitor (2016) 4.1/10       or LeCarre for Dummies.
 
  Wow two really bad adaptations of the spooknovelists works in such a short time span. One would think that after the rather brilliant adaptation of Tinker Tailor the bar would have been raised somewhat on LeCarre adaptations. Not so. What we get here is a very poorly directed visual cliffs notes version of what is not the best of his novels. Stillborn and under-utilizing the talent here you could almost imagine Skaasgaard in character on set yelling "Why the eff is nobody else acting here"? This would have been a mediocre TV effort at best which should be no surprise as the director comes from that genre with not a great pedigree. McGregor must have seen a new motorcycle or two that he really wanted in order to take this one on. He's as flat as a pancake phoning in his lines from one of his bike trips no doubt. Than again with such ho hum and predictable dialogue you really cannot blame him. He and Skarsgaard seem to have most of what little dialogue there is here and I was shocked at how little Saskia Reeves plays out in this. Literally the writing is horrendous and sparse as fur on a snake. It takes LeCarre and shoehorns it into a very basic TV "Mystery/Thriller" level Except there is no mystery and you definitely will not be thrilled. It's a lifesucking experience for fans of the genre.
 
The locations do not get a particularly fair shake here either. This makes me think there was about 2 days worth of external location shooting tand the rest done on some of the most drab sets ever conceived. Almost to the point of "hey were out of budget lets shoot this in a storage locker".
 
 When this is on TV , which will be soon I am sure, turn the channel .

 

[WraithApe]

 
Out Kind of Traitor (2016) 4.1/10       or LeCarre for Dummies.
 
  Wow two really bad adaptations of the spooknovelists works in such a short time span. One would think that after the rather brilliant adaptation of Tinker Tailor the bar would have been raised somewhat on LeCarre adaptations. Not so. What we get here is a very poorly directed visual cliffs notes version of what is not the best of his novels. Stillborn and under-utilizing the talent here you could almost imagine Skaasgaard in character on set yelling "Why the eff is nobody else acting here"? This would have been a mediocre TV effort at best which should be no surprise as the director comes from that genre with not a great pedigree. McGregor must have seen a new motorcycle or two that he really wanted in order to take this one on. He's as flat as a pancake phoning in his lines from one of his bike trips no doubt. Than again with such ho hum and predictable dialogue you really cannot blame him. He and Skarsgaard seem to have most of what little dialogue there is here and I was shocked at how little Saskia Reeves plays out in this. Literally the writing is horrendous and sparse as fur on a snake. It takes LeCarre and shoehorns it into a very basic TV "Mystery/Thriller" level Except there is no mystery and you definitely will not be thrilled. It's a lifesucking experience for fans of the genre.
 
The locations do not get a particularly fair shake here either. This makes me think there was about 2 days worth of external location shooting tand the rest done on some of the most drab sets ever conceived. Almost to the point of "hey were out of budget lets shoot this in a storage locker".
 
 When this is on TV , which will be soon I am sure, turn the channel .

 
What was the extra .1 for? 

 

[Hutnicks]

   
What was the extra .1 for? 

Skarsgaards makeup which reflects his "I hope no one recognizes me in this turkey" aspirations.
 
Seriously, I half expected him to be the first Actor to use an Alan Smithee credit

 

[SHAMuuu]

yi yi / in the mood for love - meh 7.5/10 ish for both

 

[Subhakar]

yi yi / in the mood for love - meh 7.5/10 ish for both

"In the Mood for Love" is a poem of a film. Lovely OST. Wong-Kar Wai could never improve on this one. It's up there.

 

[WraithApe]

 
Alraune - 6/10
 
A flawed but interesting re-telling of an old German folk tale about the offspring of a woman impregnated with the root of a mandrake. Stylistically, there's a clear lineage to its Expressionist forebears, with deep shadows seeping into every frame and a pervasive sense of the Gothic. Though this makes for some gorgeous photography, the pacing and editing seem a bit off at times, suggesting some cuts may have been enforced.
 
Hildegard Knef plays the eponymous Alraune, a femme fatale in the truest sense, luring men to their untimely deaths; beautiful, alluring, but heartless. The source material is adapted for the times - Alraune is the product of artificial insemination, and as such should be viewed as being against nature; she must ultimately be made to pay for her aberrant origins. This viewpoint is difficult to stomach for a modern audience, but makes more sense when seen in its historical context. Coming only a few years after the fall of the Third Reich, the film is clearly meant to serve as a warning about the dangers of eugenics and the potential of science for evil. Its dogmatism ultimately makes it difficult to really enjoy the film as pure fantasy, but as a historical document and a good example of the legacy of expressionism in the cinematic lexicon, it's worth a watch.

 

[SHAMuuu]

"In the Mood for Love" is a poem of a film. Lovely OST. Wong-Kar Wai could never improve on this one. It's up there.

 
You know what i mean i kind of round my ratings, so i should clarify
 
In the Mood for love is like 7.7/10 rounded to 7.5, where as yi yi is like 7.3 rounded to 7.5. Both miss something, but are great movies. There is just one spice missing, but i cannot say what. There is a tad bit of that "artsy farsty" , just a little bit that annoyed me.
 
7.5 is relatively high, In the Mood for Love I would give an 8 if not for ChungKing Express is a solid 8.
 
In the Mood for Love reminds me of The Painted Veil, which I also would rate in between a 7.5-8. Close to a masterpiece, but just falls short. IMO
 
All in all, great movies. But I can't throw masterpiece left and right. There are good movies, great movies, and masterpieces.

 

[WraithApe]

 
Tenebre - 9/10
 
Dario Argento returned to the genre he had been so influential in spawning with this story about an American author who goes to Rome to promote his new book and becomes embroiled in a real life murder mystery. As giallo goes, I'd say this is pretty much best in class and certainly on a par with Argento's own mid-70s masterpiece, Deep Red. In fact, the only film of his I'd rate higher is Suspiria.
 
Tenebre is a masterclass in style; visually striking and driven by a propulsive score from Goblin (or at least, three founding members of the band.) For this film, Luciano Tovoli, also DP on Suspiria, returned to work with Argento and deserves a lot of credit for the look of the film. One crane shot, which pans around the exterior of a building for fully 3 or 4 minutes, is especially memorable but the film is bursting with bravura; clever tracking shots, stark lighting and compositional brilliance. The use of architecture is notable too; lots of brutal concrete edifices and the sharp lines of futurism, which accentuate the film's feeling of cool detachment - it feels like the kind of near future Ballard often used to write about and Cronenberg also captured in early films like Shivers.
 
It's quite a provocative film - Argento was often accused at the time of violent misogyny in his films, so with Tenebre he decided to play to type to infuriate his critics. The author Peter Neal, is kind of a stand-in for the director. In one scene near the start and again later in the film, he's grilled by an interviewer about the sexism and violence in his book and the effect it may have on society. Argento might have made the point that the same critics who had happily watched Native Americans slaughtered by the hundreds in the old Westerns of the 50s were suddenly appalled by screen death, but instead he just set about elevating murder to an art form. For me, this is everything the genre should be: ultra-stylized, fast-paced and gleefully bloody.

 

[Hutnicks]

Was that a dubbed version or Italian with subs?

 

[WraithApe]

  Was that a dubbed version or Italian with subs?

 
With this one, it's actually best to watch the English dub. It's one of those giallos where all the actors (even though most of them were Italian) were actually speaking their lines in English - if you watch their lips move, you can easily see that (also, if you try it in Italian, you quickly realise they aren't actually speaking in Italian!) So the screenplay was actually in English, but because all the actors obviously spoke with strong accents, they decided to overdub that with American voice actors. And then it was dubbed into a number of other languages for countries they intended to sell the movie to - including Italian, bizarrely!

 

[Hutnicks]

   
With this one, it's actually best to watch the English dub. It's one of those giallos where all the actors (even though most of them were Italian) were actually speaking their lines in English - if you watch their lips move, you can easily see that (also, if you try it in Italian, you quickly realise they aren't actually speaking in Italian!) So the screenplay was actually in English, but because all the actors obviously spoke with strong accents, they decided to overdub that with American voice actors. And then it was dubbed into a number of other languages for countries they intended to sell the movie to - including Italian, bizarrely!

I wondered about that as the disk I looked at had multi languages as well as subs.