More Movies You've Watched This Week

Off Topic
823

My gal was sick over the weekend, so we rented a bunch of movies. Some of the better ones:

Night of the Demons (remake) - I loved the original (probably one of my top 10 favorite horror flicks). This was a solid redo and a good throwback to the “college kids have a party in a haunted house”-type movies.

The Experiment (remake) - I’ve seen bits and pieces of the original and I think this was essentially the same story. A good performance by Forest Whitaker, a great performance by Adrien Brody.

The Losers - I liked this a bit more than I liked the A-Team. More action, better pace, better characters. I feel like Chris Evans kinda stole the show.

The Disappearance of Alice Creed - From the trailer, I expected it to be about thugs messing with a badass chick. It wasn’t, really, at all. But it was a very solid sort-of suspense/thriller thing.

Plus, it wasn’t until the credits rolled that I realized there were only three actors in the whole film. No extras, nothing. Three actors carried a 90-minute film and made it interesting to watch. That’s good work.

The New Daughter - One of a handful of movies starring Kevin Costner that I actually enjoyed. I just don’t dig seeing his no-charisma-having superblah-face on screen. It felt like an old school Stephen King story-turned-movie. Much better than I expected it to be.

Extreme Prejudice - This was The B-Movie Expendables of the '80s. Nick Nolte, Powers Boothe, and a dozen “oh hey, it’s that guy from that movie”-guys. Good stuff, classic '80s shoot 'em up.

The Prowler - Old school slasher flick for the win. This came out a few months after the original Friday the 13th and has a ton of great deaths. The plot holes in it are large and numerous, but we don’t really care about that with a movie like this, do we?

Lastly, I found out there was a straight-to-video Day of the Dead remake a few years ago that I somehow never knew of:

I put it at the top of my Blockbuster queue.

824

True Grit is the shit son! I can’t gush enough about how good of a time this movie is. The commitment made to the dialogue, the scenery, the way the characters looked, all of it was a damned perfect Cohen bros movie in my mind. In retrospect it seems like they made “No Country for Old Men” as practice for True Grit.

Other notables:

Toy Story 3: Great conclusion to a fun series… Or was it? Hmm?
Inception: Patient in it’s storytelling, suspenseful, artsy in parts, great action, 3.5 stars
The Town: Gritty story-telling, surprise performance from Blake Lively, All good.
Cop Out: Hunk of SHIT movie
Zombieland: Great fun, liked it better in the theater, probably because Scott Pilgrim blew what was previously know as clever on screen text out of the water.

That’s about it for the last week and some change

825

“Funky Monks”

This film is a documentary about the making of Blood, Sugar, Sex Magik by the Red Hot Chili Peppers, the greatest album of the last 30 years as far as I’m concerned. It’s got some funny shit in it, like John Frusciante talking about some chick who did vaginal fisting shows in SF. It also has some rather poignant moments, such as Kiedis talking about what inspired him to write Under the Bridge and his past drug use. And of course, the actual recording of the music is great. The funkiest album since Parliament and Funkadelic were in their prime.

826

Surf Ninjas “Kwan Su!!!”

827

Finally watched The Expendables. I give my thumbs up for an entertaining action packed flick

828

[quote]Fezzik wrote:

Despicable Me - I liked this, but it wasn’t quite as good as megamind.[/quote]

10x better than Megamind. I started losing interest at the end of Megamind and not nearly as funny

829

My girl rented Machete. (She’s too awesome for chick flicks LOL)

It was very entertaining - a good combination of action and comedy. The storyline was a bit thin, but Michelle Rodriquez looked great in it. The only part I didn’t like was what happens to Cheech Marin, who plays a badass priest.

830

Gattica - Haven’t seen it in a long time. Loved it.
Iron Man 2 - Loved it, again. I just love Downey as Stark.
Predator - Came on AMC so I DVR’d it. Loved it for the 100th time.
The Fighter - Really liked it. Bale was great. Wahlberg was good. I like Amy Adams better as a princess than a bar wench, though.
Social Network - Pretty good. Too much hype from the Globes, though. Kid that played Zuckerberg was awesome.

831

Up in the Air - Good movie with good humor. Overall message (basically that roots are important even if they keep you grounded) was solid. I used to travel a ton for work and really identified with Clooney’s character. The road (airports, hotels, etc) really does become your life.

832

Up in the Air was an awesome movie. My girlfriend who really never watches any deep movies or pays attention to how the movie was shot and so forth really got into it so was glad that she got to watch it with me. I mean her dad lost his job recently and it was hard for to watch but in the end, great film.

This week worth mentioning:
Taxi Driver
FIreflies in the Garden

I always have enjoyed Ryan Renolds as an actor, I think despite his massive popularity and whatever Heat hottest man shit, he really is a great actor. I mean his range of roles and how he plays them is terrific.

833

City of God - Had never seen, great movie watched with the wife. Sad and gritty no doubt

The Other Guys- if you watch it with The Naked Gun in mind its cute and something to watch on a Sat afternoon

Band of Brothers #1 and #2 I have blockbuster so they will be sending this over time for me to watch. Really hate that I missed watching this back in the day.

Knowing had it DVR not as bad as I thought. I really hate the fact the Nick Cage has basically did a shit load of shitty movies over the past few years. Makes me very hesitant to watch his movies

834

Paths of Glory- I love this movie. Watched it recently. It’s slower, but the plot is just… it’s an incredible movie.

835

Miami Blues. Second time I watched it. Alex Baldwin plays a great part as a career criminal along with Fred Ward who plays the cop. I’m not sure who the girl is that plays Baldwin’s girlfriend, but she also does a nice job in this movie. I’m probably alone here, but I was kind of cheering for Baldwin throughout the movie.

836

[quote]OctoberGirl wrote:

I watched "Knowing with Nicholas Cage.

I was disappointed. The premise was good but then they kinda junked it up.
[/quote]

Watched this last night on cable. Started really well, then they f***ed up the ending, probably about an hour and twenty minutes into the film.

837

Exit through the gift shop. Hilarious.

838

I think I’m gonna give True Romance another viewing tonight…Gary Oldman’s character is a pretty big transformation for him. Given the cast, it’s pretty surprising a lot of people have never heard of it, let alone seen it.

839

Let Me In did it right. I enjoyed this just as much, if not more than the original, “Let The Right One In.” Awesome movie.

840

Just finished watching the Band of Brothers, long story short during that time they came out I was working two jobs and going to school full time.

Anyway this was very, very awesome. I salute all men in uniform and thank them for what they do.

841

Watched Prince of Peria sands of time and I was pleasantly surprised.

Also Spartacus Gods of the Arena…another good one not much action in this one though.

842

[quote]Chris Colucci wrote:
Lastly, I found out there was a straight-to-video Day of the Dead remake a few years ago that I somehow never knew of:

I put it at the top of my Blockbuster queue.[/quote]
So I received and watched the Day of the Dead remake. Great stuff. I wouldn’t have minded paying to see it in the theaters (if it had actually gone to theaters).

Some nice references to the original, with plenty of action and a solid-enough story (given the plot). For a straight-to-DVD movie starring Mena Suvari, Nick Cannon, Ving Rhames, and that snooty-looking, sometimes-hot chick from Nip/Tuck and the new 90210, it was really pretty good.

Also saw Death Race 2. It’s another one I really wouldn’t have minded paying for in the theaters. I kinda liked it more than the first. There was a little less car destruction, but plenty of other violence to balance it out.

It also had more backstory, since it’s basically a prequel that takes place before the first movie with Statham. Good stuff overall, but I did feel like Danny Trejo was under-utilized. His part was, unfortunately, small enough that it could’ve just been “generic speaking role #4”.