Cinco de Mayo: La Batalla (2013)

Watched it in my Spanish class a while ago, but I had never reviewed it until now. I liked it. It's a nice historical drama, with some great battle sequences. A little heavy on the gore, however, but how else are they gonna get their R rating? By the way, it's all in Spanish, with the exception of some French and one or two lines of dialogue in English from French and British characters.

8.2/10

The Patriot (2000)

Another R-rated movie. Why are all my middle school teachers showing us these kinds of films? Don't they typically save the R-rated stuff for high school?

Anyways, this is a Roland Emmerich movie. And my first thought was "Oh great, the 'genius' behind such disaster movies as 2012, Independence Day, Godzilla, and The Day After Tomorrow is gonna try his hand at a war flick." But, I was wrong. I mean, the battle sequences aren't the best that I've seen in a movie. But, they're all right. It keeps me interested, and it'll keep any history buff interested, I'm sure. And there are some good performances from Mel Gibson and the late Heath Ledger.

9/10

The Crossing (2000 made-for-television movie)

WHAT IS WITH ALL THESE WAR MOVIES?!?!

Just kidding, I don't really mind. But this one is cool. Jeff Daniels as George Washington is leading his troops across the Delaware River into Trenton to combat the Hessians during the American Revolution. And it gives viewers a different perspective than PBS Kids' Liberty's Kids, where an episode shows the Hessians as "fat drunks" (even though they very likely might have been these things), and they don't show any real fighting going on. The battle scenes are nicely filmed, and the film does a good job at conveying these tense moments during the historic March on Trenton. The quality is also pretty well done, considering it's a TV movie.

7.2/10

The thing about his films is that they are so cliched, and silly, and cheesy. They wouldn't make good stand-alone films, but I really do enjoy The Patriot. Even though it is all of those things, I seem to enjoy it more than his other films. I'm unsure why, but maybe I like seeing his take on a war film, instead of another goofy disaster flick.

The Matrix Revolution (2003)

Wasn't as bad as people said it was. Could've been better, but it had a meh story along with meg visuals. Still won't be able to beat the first Matrix movie.

3.14159326535/5

A movie is indeed a good form of escape from the realities of life, but if it's not a good movie, sometimes you just can't escape the reality of it's badness: in those case I can't concentrate on the movie, so I'm still stuck in this reality.

Citizen Kane

I didn't enjoy it.
There was quite a lot of very good makeup, and several very interesting and well-done shots which at the time must have looked very impressive, but besides that I found the cinematography horrible.  Often times a long shot for a conversation will only focus upon one speaker, and you won't get to see the other side of it at all, which was infuriating.  Also, there are several points where the lighting doesn't illuminate the character's face which is left to be almost pitch black, and yet some other random thing like their chest is fully illuminated but still you can't see their face and so you start looking at the other random thing that's illuminated but it really bears no significance to what's happening.
I also found the fact that basically everything is in focus very unsettling.  Having a stuff be out of focus adds some depth to shots and lets you put emphasis upon certain subjects, but with everything in focus I wasn't always ever at all sure where upon the screen my eyes were supposed to fall.

On top of this, the storytelling is quite boring.  The entire film is summed up in the first few minutes and then we get almost two hours basically saying the same thing as the first few minutes but with some more detail.  Because of this, I felt like it really wasn't going anywhere at all the entire time.  I didn't even find myself remotely interested or attached to any of the characters.

If not a good film I was expecting this to be at least decent, but I found myself deeply wanting the film to be over after less than a quarter way through.  And all I get at the end is a reasonably clever twist however unable to make watching the film be worth it.  And then music plays as though I've just watched some happy feel-good movie and feels entirely unfitting.

Catching Fire

I'm glad that the guy running camera doesn't seem to be drunk anymore.  Better than the first.

Are you sure you weren't watching a dodgy version? Like a botched re-master or a compressed online copy?

Your other comments are fair. I've always thought that they summarised his life at the start to show how the world saw this man, then we interview all these people to try and find out what he was really like - and eventually we don't really find out because no-one knew him. But thats just my interpretation, and my interpretations are usually weird. I'm one of those nuts who thinks Bruce Wayne is gay (despite there being tons of evidence that suggests otherwise, such as his 'Its Complicated' relationship with Catwoman)...

Godzilla 2014

Well worth it.  I also saw the word "Mothra" and a picture of Mothra.  An edge-of-your-seat fest.  I don't get to go to the movies often, but am glad I did.

Oh, forgot to add: the special effects looked very realistic.

I also thought about it and I'm going to set aside my preconceived notions and when the Lego movie comes out, watch it.  Maybe I'll find that I'm wrong.

Last edited by HoldingOurOwn (June 1, 2014 (01:55pm))

Spiderman 3
Nope
2/10

Pacific Rim
Great film, acting was quite poor, but the action and effects were great.
8/10

Escape Plan
Not much to talk about here, but...
Terrible story line, pointless violence, awful acting, effects were worse than expected; no point watching, unless you like that kind of stuff.
3/10

X-men Days of Future Past
Now this is a film worth talking about!
The story, cinematography, effects, acting and music were great. The only couple of things I didn't really like was that it was shot in 50 frames a second (not as bad as Captain America) and a couple of special effects shots didn't seem to fit right. Other than that it was great.
9.5/10

With the last day of school upon me (it's tomorrow), my teachers have been showing us a multitude of movies this past 4-day school week.

The Phantom of the Opera (2004)

Despite what critics said about it, I enjoyed it. If you loved Les Miserables, you'll like this one. Yes, I do mean "like". It's a fun watch, but it isn't perfect, and it does have it's weird aspects/moments. Gerard Butler is cool, but I do have to agree with most film critics when I say that he's more awkward than scary. But any musical theatre fan would like it.

Just don't expect Michael Crawford.

7/10

Cirque du Freak: The Vampire's Assistant (2009)

I remember when this movie came out. And I remember seeing a lot of kids walking around with their noses stuck in a Darren Shan book. It got a lot of hype, but not from critics. I can see why. It's just unpleasant to watch, and I didn't enjoy it that much. It's star-studded cast can't do anything to fix it.

3.5/10

Finding Nemo (2003)

It isn't my favourite Pixar classic, but there's little about the movie I really hate. If you've never heard of it, which I doubt you have, it's true! Kids and adults alike will love this one!

9.3/10

National Treasure 2 (2007)

The sequel is just as fun as the first one. It has its funny scenes,

and it's fast-paced action thrill-rides, and neither one overrides each other too much. It's a near-perfect mixture.

8/10

Labyrinth (1986)

This campy cult classic was absolutely delightful to watch. And that isn't an auto-censor (if so, wouldn't it be italicised).

This overload of well-known household names (Jim Henson directs, Terry Jones of the Monty Python troupe is the screenwriter, George Lucas is the executive producer, and David Bowie, who not only portrays the antagonist, but also writes his own original songs for the film), and an enchanting, exciting wonder. It has its cliches, and Jennifer Connelly can get a little too theatrical with her performance, but you shouldn't knock until you've watched it.

9/10

Oh, and have a Happy 8,000th Post!

Last edited by Mickey (June 6, 2014 (08:58am))