Because it's just not awesome. It's boring as hell and fails at being scary or tense. I know you'll disagree but eh, that's all I got.

V/H/S 2 under 'disappointments,' and You're Next under 'worst of.' It seems you aren't a big fan of "mumblegore"! (I still don't know what that means.)

Did you see Pain & Gain? It's not that I strongly disagree with your list, but P&G pissed me off in a way that none of those movies even approached.

I think mumblegore is just something some idiot made up. It doesn't seem to have any definition. The movies called that are usually just recitations of classic horror plots.

Nope, didn't see Pain and Gain.

Just watched Captain Phillips. It was watchable, but only just, and Hanks put on a brilliant performance during the last ~10 minutes or so of the movie but was otherwise bland throughout. Definitely the worst of this year's nomination-laden movies I've seen so far, by a huge amount.

Paul Greengrass is such an outrageously overrated director. One masterpiece (Bloody Sunday) and one great action film (Bourne Ultimatum) does not a world-class director make.

Well, that's a bummer. I was looking forward to seeing it someday.

I was honestly amazed at how bad it was considering how much praise has been heaped on it. I hate to say it, but Barkhad Abdi's performance wasn't really all that captivating, either. The movie also left a bad taste in my mouth because it was so clearly trying to have its cake and eat it, too; Phillips and the American military and whatnot are clearly the heroes of the movie so it had that sort of US Armed Forces propaganda thing going on, but at the same time they tried to spin the plight of the Somali pirates as this tragedy. Maybe a really deftly crafted script and truly talented director could've made that work, but here the contrast is just clumsy and a bit gross.

Not a fair criticism in this case. I get it if you're watching a fictional story and the old USA Forces recruitment pitch pops up and is unwelcome. But Captain Phillips is based on a true story, where the US Navy were clearly the heroes and rescued an innocent civilian. The American military actually are the good guys here; it does happen once in a while.

It's marketed as being based on a true story, but I've read shitloads of accounts by the other crew members which claim that loads of stuff in the movie is completely and utterly fabricated, so there's no way in hell I'm taking the movie's word for it that that's exactly how events unfolded, including the actions of the US military.

Edit: I watched Disney's Frozen tonight and it was pretty good. Definitely a throwback to classic Disney animated movies. Sure, it's CG, but it definitely had that olde Disney animated classics feel to it. Amazing animation of the snow/ice effects, of course a very solid story adapted from Hans Christian Andersen's The Snow Queen. The songs were pretty decent, some really good, though they did sometimes veer a little too close to bombastic Top 40 radio pop and away from the more showtunes-ish music style usually associated with Disney movies. Bonus points because the movie also had Napero in it:

It felt like Insidious 2 set in the 70's only without The Further. Like a slightly more subdued 2005 Amityville Horror remake, only that film was quickly forgotten. Too much was shown when the film works best without overtly spooky visuals, the psychological horror aspect was it's only saving grace, predominantly with Ed and Lorraine Warren. It being a rehash/homage wasn't the problem but rather it's plain lacklustre delivery with remnants of dumb cliches.

bingo. it wasn't half bad until the shit really hit the fan... then it was just bad.

the unknown and the anticipation of what 'might be' is always scarier than what the 'known' actually is... can't remember the last time there was a monster reveal etc. in a recent horror/suspense movie that wasn't a let down.

Well... I 'kinda' take that back. The end of Cabin in the Woods, where they open all the doors, that was pretty cool and surprisingly well done for being all CGI but it wasn't scary, just neat!

All of James Wan's movies start excellently with creepy, low angle shot empty rooms. Truly unsettling. And then he shows you too much and it gets fucking stupid. It's a common tenant of all modern haunted house movies. They feel they have to reveal something when in reality it is far more frightening to never truly know. Granted, that kind of movie is possible for that exact reason.

I feel like The Shining probably came closest to pulling that style off successfully. Sure, we saw the ghosts on occasion, but we never had more than a vague idea of what was actually going on in the house. As my friend said, "What makes The Shining scary is that the characters don't have any idea what's going on outside of some kind of test from God."

Me and the girlfriend watched "Godzilla vs Megalon" the other night. God help me, I love it. Its the best of the "bad" Godzilla movies, better than the shitty "Godzilla's Revenge", the half-decent but mostly boring "Godzilla vs Spacegodzilla" and the overrated "Godzilla: Final Wars".

You have obviously never seen the glory that is Destroy All Monsters...

The name alone is so bad I fucking punched myself in the head cool.

Today's movie adventure was The Secret Life of Walter Mitty. It was actually really enjoyable. Kind of in the Forrest Gump vein of touchy-feely everyman adventure, but I thought it actually felt a little more genuine. Gump's simple, childlike character almost makes him a non-entity; though he's very much written as a character, his lack of strong opinions, reservations or passions (other than Jen-nay, of course) make him just sort of an ideal spectator of 20th century American history. This movie isn't really like that, though. Instead it's more of a midlife crisis movie about self-rediscovery so is more about the character than the events he experiences. Not mind-blowing good but really enjoyable for sure.

It ends with a SmackDown-style tournament where guys in rubber monster suits take turns waling on each other (gently though--wouldn't want to damage the suit as it's gotta last for at least 10 more Kaiju movies!), all while it's narrated by a machine-gun voiced sports announcer in a safari suit.

And here's the thing: it's all dead. fucking. serious. (!!!)

Masterpiece.

On a related note, Godzilla: Destroy All Monsters Melee is a beautiful video game.

This discussion reminded me of that old PS2 game War of the Monsters. That game was cool.

The first NES Godzilla game wasn't too bad either. Had good music.

A new trailer for Maleficent popped up a few days ago.



I am officially a Lana Del Rey fan now.

Lana Del Rey has been the zenith of modern pop for quite a while now:



No need to like her merely because of her cover of a super-old song from a Disney movie (even if said cover is brilliant like all of her other works).

EDIT: Oops, I thought this was the Free-for-All. Ehh, fuck it, my love for Lana Del Rey transcends thread topics.

Uh....yeah I have. I've been a Godzilla fan since I was 5 years old.

Well I already liked some of her songs before, but the Once Upon a Dream cover pushed me over the edge into being a full on fan. I liken that cover to Aereogramme's brilliant cover of Disciple by Slayer, as both songs take the original tune and morph them into something completely different through really haunting, atmospheric music and bone chilling vocal performances.

Llama Del Ray is fucking horrible, dunno what you guys are all on. I'd rather listen to Ke$ha over her re-tooled "sex kitten Nancy Sinatra" any. fucking. day. Hell, I think I have.

RoboCop (1987) - Not especially excited for the remake, but its upcoming release got me thinking about the first movie again. It's pretty much a perfect 1980s action movie IMO: completely badass main character, memorable villains, quotable dialogue, explicitly bloody action (hooray for the R-rating!), and special effects that have held up pretty well. I'll see the remake on DVD, but I'd be surprised if it's even close to as good as the original.

Robocop is one of my absolute most favorite movies. I can quote the whole thing. Not excited for the reboot, especially the PG-13 rating ALTHOUGH Michael Keaton as the villain intrigues me.

Robocop as anything but R rated is total bullshit. I will pretend it doesn't exist just like the recent Total Recall and The Thing remakes.

Today in film: Ender's Game

Honestly...it wasn't THAT bad. From what I'd heard, people who loved the book hated the everloving shit out of it, and people who hated the book also hated the everloving shit out of it. Though it's been a long time since I've read it, I think it pretty much translated the book pretty well, excepting the parts intentionally left out (like the whole deal where Valentine and Peter take over the world by blogging super, super hard). I think the book is quite crap though and the movie did a great job of confirming this. Ender is an obnoxious, whiny shithead, and none of the other characters are remotely interesting (ably conveyed through the utterly wooden, lifeless performances). The only thing that could have saved this movie (other than completely abandoning the story in favor of one that doesn't suck) would have been to spend a lot of screen-time on the zero-G battles in Battle School (clever name, Orson Scott Card!) or the strategic "simulations" in Command School (where are this fucking guy's Hugo and Nebula awards? Oh, he won them? Shit.) but unfortunately they don't do this at all; I think the Battle School battles get maybe 15 minutes and Command School maybe another 15 out of the whole movie. But, at least what was there was pretty, I guess. Still, having seen stuff like Avatar: The Last Airbender, I really can't say this is quite on that same level of hilariously awful, unfortunately.

Watched Boogie Nights the other night. Probably the most entertaining movie I've seen in a long time. It's hilarious.

I just sat down and gave The Necessary Death Of Charlie Countryman a spin. Loved it. Great movie. Extremely atmospheric and interesting to look at and good performances all around. Funny when it needs to be, but touching and serious when it must.

Continuing my movie kick, tonight it was Filth.

This was...alright. Sort of reminded me of Trainspotting meets The Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call: New Orleans: Too Many Colons in this Unreasonably Long Film Title, but wasn't quite as awesome as that sounds on paper. James McAvoy was great as the main character, who starts out just seeming like an alcoholic, sex and drug addicted scheming asshole but shifts more heavily toward utterly insane as the movie progresses. It tried to ride the line between over the top comedy and dark and serious drama but didn't quite pull it off; the comedic elements weren't ever really gut busters and the dark humor kind of detracted from the more dramatic bits rather than enhance them. Still a pretty decent watch, though.

Also Imogen Poots is the most gorgeous person ever.

Philip Seymour Hoffman was found dead today.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/02/0 ... 1391366139

R.I.P. to one of my favorite actors.

I'm at loss for words. Just the other month I watched The Master and his performance was outstanding.

Moneyball was recently before that and again simply riveting, Hoffman was a superb actor who effortlessly delivered time and time again. Who can ever forget his startling performance in Mission Impossible 3 as Owen Davian, one of the most unsettling villains ever put to screen? While Magnolia served as the first instance I became aware of his noticeable potential, each subsequent role became more remarkable than the last, his intense on-screen presence was unquestionably captivating like few others. Virtually every movie I can think I've seen him in has been good to great, he was almost incapable of a bad performance, a complete natural who quickly exceeded his potential and will surely be missed.

Yeah, and even only so-so movies were totally elevated by his performances. Remember him as the sleazy journalist who gets tortured/murdered in Red Dragon, or as the phone sex pimp guy in Punch Drunk Love?

He didn't always get a lot of huge acting roles, but he was in a ton of movies and did great at all of these side character roles he took. He bought a unique presence to each film and played a ton of different characters - he was the opposite of typecast. He bought a lot of charisma and presence no matter what he was doing. Some of my favorite roles of his included Before the Devil Knows You're Dead, Ides of March and the Mattress Man in Punch Drunk Love. Was really great in Big Lebowski and Moneyball too.

RIP.

God, I'm terrible with names, but I Google searched that going, "God, I hope that isn't who I think it is." Lo and behold once it was who I thought it was I exclaimed, "FUCK!" out loud. Goddamn it. He was grand. Awesome, awesome, awesome. I really hope 2014 isn't as crappy for deaths as 2013 was.

Well, you guys nailed it already. He was a terrific actor. One of the best working today, really. And every single piece of shit that will inevitably come out of the woodworks and say no one actually cares or is pretending to care like every single time someone famous dies needs to can it.

Ugh, yeah. I actually saw some dude on Facebook ranting on and on about how he was actively offended and infuriated that people would express condolences over the death of an actor. Typical "you won't care tomorrow, this doesn't affect you at all, blah blah." Seems like almost an alarming trend lately to have attitudes like that. I enjoyed the guy's art, I'm upset that he won't ever make anymore, and furthermore I'm not going to deny the basic psychological bond audiences form with actors and actresses they really enjoy - that, through their work and their characters, you feel like you get to know a person, even if that's not really even remotely true.