Saw the Lego Movie last night. Basically I was utterly entranced by the animation the entire time. Apparently they used microscopes on actual Lego pieces to generate textures and the cracks where two bricks meet and that sorta stuff, then they did all of the setbuilding using Lego's actual Lego Digital Designer software so that everything seen in the show are legit Lego bricks put together realistically. Then, all of the animation was done in a method that simulated live-action stop motion cinematography, so despite being CG the whole thing looks fucking meticulously stop motion animated. Pretty much nothing is non-Lego; explosions, laser blasts, flames, everything is built of Lego bricks.

The story was also pretty neat, loads of laughs, and even more loads of fan service to Lego and Lego-affiliated IP's (Lord of the Rings, Star Wars, Harry Potter, DC Comics stuff, etc.). Will Arnett's super moody and angsty Batman totally ruled, haha.

Great movie, can't wait for the sequels, etc.

That LEGO movie was great - if you think of all the things from our childhood so to speak that Hollywood has fucked up (Transformers, Star Wars prequels, GI Joe etc) they did a good job with it. BTW, there is a ten hour loop of that Everything Is Awesome song on youtube, that's your entertainment on your flight to Korea sorted out right there.

It's been a long wait since this was announced sometime last year. The trailer's alright. I'm looking forward to seeing this just for old times sake...and that van!

Edge of Tomorrow was definitely worth seeing. I echo the sentiments about the ending, though. It seemed thrown together at the last minute to achieve an all too convenient outcome. I've got back and forth with my friend trying to resolve why or how the ending transpired, but I keep coming back to that conclusion. There really doesn't seem to be an explanation.

To Thiestru's question:

Edge of Tommorow was really fun to watch. It especially connects to those who are gamers and play the really difficult ones that require continous restarts via check points and saves. As for the ending, yeah. I agree, but not as negativly as others. Here's my thoughts on how it should have ended.

I don't care what anyone says, I'm excited as fuck for this.

Basically this. Was very pleasantly surprised by this movie - I am often skeptical about Tom Cruise movies because I often feel like he's one of those cases where it feels like I am just watching the actor instead of the character he's trying to portray. Didn't feel like this at all with this one, and I think him starting off as a bumbling coward helped with this. I think the aliens where incredibly well done and more humanoid ones probably would have damaged the movie. I do have to agree that the ending was underwhelming.

Definitely the best Wolverine from the movies, although



About the sentinels:



And I CAN'T buy McKellen's Magneto. Even if he got on roids for a decade he'll never look as imposing as the original character. Looked underwhelming a bit to me.

Pompeii - Like Gladiator, only with Jon Snow from Game of Thrones in the Russell Crowe part, Mr. Eko from Lost in the Djimon Hounsou part, and PG-13 disaster movie stuff in the final 30 to 40 minutes. But nowhere near as good as Gladiator. Not especially recommended.

Dark of the Sun- Rod Taylor and Jim Brown are a pair of mercenaries in the Congo on a mission to rescue trapped civilians from sadistic rebel forces, and maybe snag up $50 million in diamonds on the way. This was a better flick than I thought it would be. Well acted and good action scenes. The movie is also surprisingly dark in tone and pretty violent for the time; there are a few genuinely gut-wreching moments in it, further amplified by the eerie progressive score. I really recommend it if you dig older action/adventure movies with a gritty edge.

So I'll echo what everyone said about Edge of Tomorrow: mostly a great movie with a pretty shit ending that reeks of focus testing. I actually didn't find the romance aspect forced or flagrant. I think it was played relatively subtle. It was awesome to see Tom Cruise play with type, it's no secret that I love that man. Basically the best videogame movie ever while not being based on a videogame. Cool alien designs, cool concepts, slightly less cool shots during some of the action. I felt quite a few of the shots were blurry, and the 3D just added to the shittiness. I'm really not a fan of that type of modern hollywood action shooting, but at least it didn't have those constant, infuriating quick cuts. So I'll take what I can get.

https://twitter.com/TMNT_Fansite/status ... 37/photo/1





That image about sums it up. Michael Bay, less can be more.....

That armor has too many things.

It looks like the bastard mutation of Shredder, a transformer, Wolverine and Edward Scissorhands.

Goddamn, it's not only the turtles that they've messed up, even Shredder hasn't been spared. This is such a far cry from the cartoons, 90s movies etc.

http://www.theguardian.com/film/2014/ju ... ttle-china

Great piece on cult films and why they almost invariably suck.

I immediately stopped reading when the dude started shitting on Big Trouble in Little China and The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the Eighth Dimension, because those movies are fucking hilarious. And not unintentional, so-bad-they're-good hilarious; they're comedies that were intended to be funny and, guess what, they both were. I feel bad for that guy's sense of humor - it must have starved to death long ago.

Yeah, he launched his rant based on one of the few John Carpenter movies I actually like.

I admit in the case of BTiLC, it's possible much of my appreciation is based on the factors he discussed near the end. No, I wasn't "with a girl I had a crush on" the first time I saw that movie, but I was probably in elementary school. And if you had given 9 year old me a few million dollars to make a movie, I probably would have included a lot of the same stuff: magic, martial arts, strange creatures. I remember laughing so hard when that expanding ninja exploded, I rewound that part over and over.

That whole article was a lot of huffing and puffing without that much to really say. So he can name drop a bunch of old cult films and give shallow, never-elaborated-upon opinions on them, but it's OK because he constantly repeats the "cult movie fans don't want to share" mantra a few times? Cool. It's a two-paragraph article stretched out meaninglessly to a full page.

Cold Comes the Night - 4.25/5

Bryan Cranston and Alice Eve star in this seedy thriller about a nearly blind mafia man kidnapping a family to secure some drug money. I liked the eerily desolate setting, the acting was pretty first rate and the characters were well done - extra props for Eve's protagonist not just being eye candy there to look pretty, but actually out there doing shit. So refreshing to have that in any movie. Cranston kicks ass too, but that's to be expected. This was a bit on the short side and the ending tapered off a bit, but for the most part it was a highly enjoyable ride.

Devil's Knot - 4/5

Apparently this dramatization of a killing case in Arkansas in which three young boys were brutally murdered was panned due to not bringing anything new to the table compared to the highly successful real documentaries from years ago. I don't know, I haven't seen any of those other documentaries, but I thought this was an entertaining crime film. The acting was first rate and it had a lot to say about media perception and about how religion can work its way so deeply into the blood of these small towns. I'll have to see the documentaries.

Only Lovers Left Alive - I wasn't overly excited to see this since Jarmusch's recent output has been pretty dreadful, but Dead Man and some of his 80s movies are still favourites of mine. This is basically a vampire-allegory of The Fall, which becomes pretty much evident when you're introduced to main characters Adam and Eve. Adam is an underground musician and Eve is... i'm not sure. Nothing much happens but that's kind of the point, the characters slowly self-destruct reminiscing about the past and how shitty man has become. Anyway, it's a solid film which, given the material, could easily have been overbearing and dogmatic. The main problem it spends so much time establishing Adam as a cool rocker who wrote songs for Schubert and knew Byron and Galileo and this is rubbed in your face for a good hour. Also the idea of 20th century underground rock heroes as the modern Bachs and Shakespeares is more than a bit iffy. So yeah, another movie about social misfits but I saw it as a decent return to form. John Hurt is terrific as usual but I think Tilda Swinton needs to disappear for a while, she seems to pop up in every new movie I go to see.

I think the film was portraying them as having two different but related approaches to immortality - Adam is a creator of art, while Eve is a consumer. There was tons of that kind of thing, with the names, him wearing black and her wearing white, and I think there was even a shot that hat them explicitly lying in a sort of Yin Yang position. Anyway I thought it was a pretty cool film, definitely the best recent vampire movie.

Well yeah, the movie went to lengths to show how different they were but in the end with the entanglement thing it wasn't clear whether it was Adam giving in to Eve's way or the other way round. At one stage Eve gives him a lecture about just enjoying life rather than brooding about, but both of them still refuse to kill. Maybe it was neither and the Genesis comparisons shouldn't be taken too literally.

I don't think either of them "gave in" to the other's way of life, it was more about Adam regaining faith in his own way, what with finding that new protege to mentor and whatnot. That's what I got out of it, anyway.

Sleepaway Camp - This is an ordinary low budget horror movie in many ways, but wow, that ending floored me the first time I saw it.

^ *Checks Google Images for "Sleepaway Camp ending" to see if movie I was thinking of, not gonna sleep anytime soon*

Somebody on the IMDB forums uses the Sleepaway Camp "evil face" as an avatar.

I think the first time I rented that movie, the boxcover actually showed that face, instead of the knife through the sneaker. Even the face is rather spoiler-ish, but I was still completely punched in the gut by the final few minutes.

Need help identifying a horror movie..,

Essentially, a woman is haunted by this black smokey mist and the film ends with her in a new house realizing it has followed her again. It's like late 70s or early 80s. I could be mistaken and it may be an episode of Tales from the Darkside or something. Not sure.

I just remember the grainy black mist floating in the room and the woman slowly turning around to see it. Any idea?

Saw that 300 sequel...pretty much a load of boring crap. CGI looked way worse than the first movie, the story felt like it was aware of its own boringness and kept trying to make references to the first movie and the events at Thermopylae, the combat scenes were mostly boring, terrible pacing, etc. Not even Eva Green's boobs could save it.

I think The Raid 2: Berandal might be even better than the first movie (edit:fuck it, it is better than the first). Started the movie worried about the 2:30 hour runtime along with the plot/premise being quite a bit more complex than the last movie. Incredible execution when it comes to the tension, action, and even the drama. The violence and gore was so well done that you'd think the actors were actually getting their heads smashed in.

Hammer Girl might be my new favorite movie miniboss.

^ Totally agree with that. Hammer Girl <3

Raid 2 is definitely one of the (if not THE) best movies to come out this year so far for me. It's better than Raid 1 in terms of the characterization and also the story. Btw, Gareth Evans says that the next Raid movie will be more of a prequel and showcase the origin stories of Hammer Girl, Baseball bat-man and others.

In shitty movie news, TMNT released their second trailer. And fuck! This abomination releases in theatres on my birthday.

"So they're aliens?"
"No, that's stupid. They're turtles."

Ha freaking ha Michael Bay, playing off early fan rage about changing the origin story. Going back and making fun of the rumor dosn't do you credit cause the product still looks like it needs to be saved.

Was it The Entity?

My top movies so far this year are How To Train Your Dragon 2 and The Raid 2. Only other notable movies off the top of my head look to be Sin City and Hobbit. I wouldve added Expendables 3, but they manage to fuck that up already.

New Mad Max apparently, with Tom Hardy and Charlize Theron.

http://www.theverge.com/2014/6/26/58450 ... first-look

Cloverfield - I often say that Friday the 13th Part VI has the best opening scene of all time. This is the opposite end of the spectrum. Among movies that I generally enjoyed, I can't think of one that gets off to a worse start than Cloverfield.

I realize that even in an action / horror thing, you need to establish who the characters are. And in found footage, you need to explain why they happen to be filming everything. But the first ~20 minutes were already getting on my nerves, then it descended into high school gossip territory. "Dude, Rob and Beth slept together!" Awful.

Fortunately just when I thought I couldn't take it anymore, the monster stuff started happening. 20 terrible minutes followed by 55 of pretty well done action (yes, ignoring the end credits this movie is about 75 minutes long) - I guess the good stuff outweighs the bad.

Haha yeah, that opening scene in Cloverfield really does need some serious editing, but I do enjoy the movie on the whole.

I had seen Cloverfield once before, when it was fairly new on DVD. I knew re-watching it I'd have the same problem with the opening as I had the first time, but this time was slightly less painful because I amused myself by pointing out actors and actresses I didn't know a few years ago. "Hey look, 'Barbie' from Under the Dome is dancing with the nurse from Evil Dead! And is that Juice from Sons of Anarchy?"

Problem is, the movie was already so short, if they trimmed the opening the runtime would have been barely more than an hour, minus end credits. I think they should have rewritten the script so that the main group who went on the quest had at least a couple more people. Then the monster portion of the movie could have been longer, with an extra death scene or two.

The Raid 2 was fucking rubbish.

I can't say the first The Raid did much for me, despite all the handjobbing people here seem to give it. Of course it doesn't help that I watched it in terrible fucking dubbed English. Did most people here see it subtitled? Not that that would really save it much, most of the drama bits seemed like they spoke the international language of suckballs. Yeah, some of the fighting was pretty badass, but still... not a particularly good film. I'd still watch the second one out of curiosity, though.

Saw Prisoners the other night. It was pretty well done, definitely one of the best thrillers/crime films I've seen in a while. The only things that bugged me were