Topic: Some Movies I've Watched....

[AcePylut]

My last post was lost too!  It was like a 5 paragraph deal on the movie "Yamato".

In short:  It's a great flick.  Doesn't make a political statement.  Doesn't vilify the Americans - they are just the nameless faceless enemy. 

[Don Karnage]

is it a recent movie?

[AcePylut]

It was made in 2005, but was made in Japan and not distributed in the US.

[Don Karnage]

is it a movie or is it computer animation?

where did you get it and heard of it?

[AcePylut]

It's a movie, not a computer animation...

here's the trailer:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-nHB_1ua3z8

I heard about it on matrixgames forums, bought a subtitled version off of Amazon with a Christmas gift certificate.  It was worth it imho, if for anything else just to see a different take on a battle.

There wasn't any political commentary (nearly every US war movie has to turn a 18 year old dumbass into a wisened political genius that knows everything about the geo-political situation, this movie didn't do that... it was more like "you are young japanese men and are expected to serve your Emperor when your Emperor calls, and the Emperor calls."  Now, a US movie would be all like "emperor bad - this 18 year old jap that is anti-emperor is the hero", which imho would be pretty unrealistic of a portrayal of the Japanese person). The movie didn't take any pro or anti stand on Hiroshima (just hinted at it... as when the main characters love takes a job in a munitions factory in Hiroshima a couple days before the main char left), no "evil bad american" antagonist.

The movie was more of a "this is what happened", rather than "this is what happened and I'm going to present the view that it was all wrong or right"

It was about a daughter that wanted to find out about what her dad did in the war, she finds this old guy who just happened to be his close friend, and the movie is a "titanic" style flashback, where the main char (the old guy) recounts episodes of the war, from teh day he got on the Yamato as a recruit to it's final mission.

It's actually kind of sad, and not that "all his buddies die", but just sad.  I don't know how to explain it.

The main thinking aspect of the movie was basically how each main char dealth with the inevitable defeat of Japan, and what they would do/how they would approach the end of the war that they all knew was coming, but was unthinkable because it would be a loss and "surrender" is the greatest crime they could commit.

[Don Karnage]

the old man remind me of obiwan kenobi

[_Rondo_GE The OutLaw]

It's a movie, not a computer animation...

here's the trailer:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-nHB_1ua3z8

I heard about it on matrixgames forums, bought a subtitled version off of Amazon with a Christmas gift certificate.  It was worth it imho, if for anything else just to see a different take on a battle.

There wasn't any political commentary (nearly every US war movie has to turn a 18 year old dumbass into a wisened political genius that knows everything about the geo-political situation, this movie didn't do that... it was more like "you are young japanese men and are expected to serve your Emperor when your Emperor calls, and the Emperor calls."  Now, a US movie would be all like "emperor bad - this 18 year old jap that is anti-emperor is the hero", which imho would be pretty unrealistic of a portrayal of the Japanese person). The movie didn't take any pro or anti stand on Hiroshima (just hinted at it... as when the main characters love takes a job in a munitions factory in Hiroshima a couple days before the main char left), no "evil bad american" antagonist.

The movie was more of a "this is what happened", rather than "this is what happened and I'm going to present the view that it was all wrong or right"

It was about a daughter that wanted to find out about what her dad did in the war, she finds this old guy who just happened to be his close friend, and the movie is a "titanic" style flashback, where the main char (the old guy) recounts episodes of the war, from teh day he got on the Yamato as a recruit to it's final mission.

It's actually kind of sad, and not that "all his buddies die", but just sad.  I don't know how to explain it.

The main thinking aspect of the movie was basically how each main char dealth with the inevitable defeat of Japan, and what they would do/how they would approach the end of the war that they all knew was coming, but was unthinkable because it would be a loss and "surrender" is the greatest crime they could commit.

I want tro see this movie.

Here's a cut scene really good.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CUl1mAjTTb0&NR=1

From what I get out of it the Director knew his business and had a sense of something extraordinary, the end of an Age of warfare.  The Yamato was obsolete.  It marked the end of the conventional Battleship.  You can see it in the one scene where she shoots those massive 18" guns in the air at the approaching fighters.  A futile, beautiful, terrible, and ineffective shot.  Amazing to see.  The pacing is phenomenal.  The Alamo comes to mind.

Each and every time she pulled in to drydock they upgraded only one thing, anti aircraft guns.

[_Rondo_GE The OutLaw]

Just one more thing.  That music sound track, you see how well it meshes into the picture.  Wow, first rate.  Right up there with Lord of the Rings.

[Don Karnage]

you can download the movie with emule, its in 2 part and only in Japanese.

well maybe there a few one with sub title but i don't remember see one.

a great movie that show what happen, good fx, you can see sometime that its gci but well made.

so also here a few good movies

undercover blues:

the stories of a couples of spies who spend they're vacation in new orlean and the he get attacker by a small local thief by the name of muerty (death) in Spanish, he bet him with the baby carriage but later the thief call him and want his revenge and keep losing and keep trying to kill him and his boss at the fbi or cia want him to do a mission, if you want to laugh go buy it or rent it cause on emule i only find it in fench.

[_Rondo_GE The OutLaw]

"There Will Be Blood"

Interesting.  I saw this movies Saturday, before Lewis won his Oscar for it.  I was bored, my wife was working, (matinee), and my kid wasn't interested in watching a kiddy movie.  CHARGE!!!!!  The perfect getaway from em!  (Her older brother was home minding her but she scrammed to her fiend's house).

Lewis plays a turn of the century (1898) silver prospector turned oil man beating out Tommy Lee Jones and whoever.  Now I can see that.  Jones is a very emotive actor but his base personality is so strong he often appears to play himself  (or perhaps another version of the same character he plays).  While I'm sure he did batter than that inNo Country for Old Men he was up against a favorite of mine who is truly a pure craftsmen.   Lewis has fine protean qualities and is one of the best pure voice actors in the business...he transforms his voice for many pictures and this is usually done seamlessly.  Without looking, if you were to hear an audio of him playing Hawkeye (Last of the Mohican's), Bill the Butcher (Gangs of New York), and Daniel Plainview you would probably not know they were the same guy.

About the movie.  I don't know if its based on a novel or not but the story reminds me a little of the naturalistic Frank Norris Novel called "McTeague", about a brute who becomes a dentist because he can pull peoples teeth out with his bare hands.  His wife wins a lottery which turns out to be his downfall as his wife becomes obsessed with the winnings, even sleeping on them.  He beats the hell out of his best friend during a playfull wrestling match during a picnic who turns into his worst enemy etc etc etc ...  and ends up in the desert someplace dying of thirst.  Whew! 

O I read the novel while in college for an Amercing lit class and if your going to ask well "did they make a movies out of it" they sure as hell did, a silent one in the 1920's and one of the all time WHOPPERS ever made, by Eric von Stroheim, that lasted...no kidding... 24 hours.  hehe, well Hollywood cut the crap out of it to 2 hours and after a brief showing, was shelved.

But this picture has some of the twists and turns of stories written during that era, thats why I brought it up.  No sense in doing a plot summary but I'll say this, if you like Lewis like I do see it, otherwise, wait for the DVD or spend your coin elswhere.  It's a good flick that ends badly ...  there are no good guys here.   Just about everyone noteworthy is a scammer.  And in a few parts its gets pretty overdramatic, uncharacteristically so (considering the reserved manner the film is acted in), especially in the ending scene.  Also I wasn't impressed with the makeup job on one of the actors, Paul Dano, who looks like a kid even 15 or 20 years supposedly later in the story. 

And who is Paul Dano?  Whoever cast him as a preacher should lose their license.   Talk about miscast.  The dude tried but...thats just not what he can do.  He's supposed to have amassed a little money reaching on the radio but with that stringy voice he would have been lucky to get a job singing commercials.  He looks terribly out of place spiritually "leading" the typecast American Gothics...


(if ya don't know what I mean)

who they surrounded him with in this film.  I didn't buy it.

Anyway thats my take.
 

 

[AcePylut]

I like Daniel Day Lewis a lot.  He's a great actor.  I haven't seen him in a movie where he didn't "become" the character.  Very few actors can do that.  He's one of them.  I plan on watching it soon.


Looks like WW2 is becoming quite the Japanese film industry "go to" era.  A new movie about kamakazi's is coming out (if not already).  First I heard of it.

http://youtube.com/watch?v=imtQEMU9BEg&feature=related

http://youtube.com/watch?v=uJ8xbP2wzso&feature=related

[Don Karnage]

i was looking at old Godzilla movie, erk that so bad and boring, if you get one in English the voice are just doll.

a bad translation and the story is always the same the monster destroyed all and leave, they keep using the same think but keep loosing.

a lot of building are destroyed and the economy don't seem to be affected by that 

one is not bad and its from 1993, the created a mechanical Godzilla to battle him, they lose since it got destroyed but Godzilla leave with the baby and in 2003 its happen after they created a new one and beat Godzilla, with the help of a giant moth, not too bad but its worse that the power ranger, and power ranger can be boring 

so a good movie wold be alvin and the chipmunks, good animation and good music, but old song re sing with beat to make it more 2007, they should have sing new song.

[_Rondo_GE The OutLaw]

No Country For Old Men

Somebody may have reviewed this already but here's mine.

I see it as another assault of the America’s small town archetypes and maybe some "dregs of the west" type thematic material thrown in for good measure.  The two clowns that made this movies made Fargo.  But they did better twith Fargo because it was a true story.  Here they made up a list of stereo typical goodies and baddies (well one baddie) with twists built in.  But the result is not entertaining and no way is this movie "deep".

The movie starts off with a run down cowboy (actually a welder) out hunting.  He misses.  Then he sees a wounded dog (haha maybe he thinks he hit the dog with such a bad shot).  Comes on a busted drug seen with dead bodies everywhere.  Finds some money.  Decides to keep it...and the plot and drama begins.

The villain, well played by Javier Bardem who puts in the best performance in the film, is real psycho-candy who wins because he is pretty much self reliant, more so than anybody else he is pitted against.  He even performs surgery on himself predator style (indeed I see some similarities here).  He’s also pretty smart and has a unique weapon (some kind of air gun).  Just how he gets on the radar and how such a loner is somehow involved in this big drug deal is another strange and large gaping hole in the plot.

The sheriff, a man nearing retirement played by Tommy Lee Jones, is essentially a non combatant and there is never the old west style confrontation between good and evil.    The movie is almost halfway done when we actually see him.  And when we do it isnt much; he’s content to sit back with the newspaper in a diner and spin folksy wisdom.  How Tommy Lee Jones got a nomination for academy award for this is beyond me.  We find out later in the film that he feels “overmatched” by his nemesis.    Ok I get it.  He’s old.

Woody Harrelson also makes a cameo appearance as a bounty hunter and true to form Woody ends up losing in the sweepstakes to catch the bad guy.  The fact that he goes meekly to his death in a very public place is something one wouldn’t think a typical bounty hunter would do…haha I remember being told by a TV Bounty Hunter on one of those police shows that you NEVER let someone take you to a secondary crime scene because your chances of survival are much less than the first crime scene.  That stuck with me.  Maybe Woody shoulda watched that show because it sure as “Sugar” he gets it.  We find out he’s an accountant (or something) in his day job (bawhahahahaha).

The bad guy finaly gets justice.  But not really.  More like the justice the average motorist gets on the LA Freeway from time to time.  He mustn’t have been wearing his seat belt.  Lol!

The movie ends abruptly after another folksy passage from the good sheriff  as if the people who made it were saying…”ok, that’s enough, you can go home now.”  Either that or they ran out of money or characters to throw at the bad guy.

Game over Bad Guy XX (lots of bodies in the double digits) Good Guys 0. 

Save your money.  Nothing to see here.

[AcePylut]

Dang Rondo, that's exactly how I felt.

After the movie I was like "dude, this movie sucked.  I can't believe it was up for all these awards"

[Dracho]

If you're watching Japanese sub-titled movies, don't skip Akira Kurosawa's "Seven Samurai".

It was the basis for the "Magnificant Seven".


Actually, a lot of Kurosawa's movies have been remade in the West (not Western Genre).

[GDA-S'Cipio]

I believe that you two are the only two people IN THE KNOWN UNIVERSE that actually LIKED Timothy Dalton's Bond.

Make me three.

I really liked Dalton as Bond.  Living Daylights is still a movie I enjoy re-watching.  Unfortunately, License to Kill sucked, and Dalton's Bond career went down with that film.

-S'Cipio

[Corbomite]

I believe that you two are the only two people IN THE KNOWN UNIVERSE that actually LIKED Timothy Dalton's Bond.

Make me three.

I really liked Dalton as Bond.  Living Daylights is still a movie I enjoy re-watching.  Unfortunately, License to Kill sucked, and Dalton's Bond career went down with that film.

-S'Cipio

Ditto!

[GDA-S'Cipio]

The Good Shepard.  Spy thriller supposedly based on the "actual" account of the formation of the CIA told from the point of view of a "fictional" character.  Right.

Robert Deniro (Director and supporting role in movie) seems to have control (somewhat) of his medium but this movie suffers from "plot muddle" and credibility. 

What the movie tries to do is make you feel uncomfortable  ..  the CIA is made to look like the brainchild of the "ruling elite" of Anglo Saxon protestants who attend Yale and Harvard and are pretty ,much a bunch "bigots"... "the rest of you are just visiting" says Wilson when asked what he thinks of blacks, Jews, Catholics, etc…

Here's a funny fact for you to consider:

Damon's character was based upon the real CIA agent, James Jesus Angleton.

As you might guess from his name, he was Mexican-American.

-S'Cipio

[_Rondo_GE The OutLaw]

The Good Shepard.  Spy thriller supposedly based on the "actual" account of the formation of the CIA told from the point of view of a "fictional" character.  Right.

Robert Deniro (Director and supporting role in movie) seems to have control (somewhat) of his medium but this movie suffers from "plot muddle" and credibility. 

What the movie tries to do is make you feel uncomfortable  ..  the CIA is made to look like the brainchild of the "ruling elite" of Anglo Saxon protestants who attend Yale and Harvard and are pretty ,much a bunch "bigots"... "the rest of you are just visiting" says Wilson when asked what he thinks of blacks, Jews, Catholics, etc…

Here's a funny fact for you to consider:

Damon's character was based upon the real CIA agent, James Jesus Angleton.

As you might guess from his name, he was Mexican-American.

-S'Cipio

Actually I wouldnt since he could have been a bible belt hillybilly too.  But your right he was half that through his mother and his dad was an Army officer.

I found this film interesting in a strange way; the elments of Angeltons life are all rearranged as they often are with thinly veiled "fictional" biographies of real people.   A strange film for Robert Deniro to direct.  I sense some of Deniro's own paranoia there.

A think a direct  take on Angelton's life would have been better;  his life (Like that of Idi Amin), would have been interesting enough without recourse to this mode.

[_Rondo_GE The OutLaw]

Iron Man
Last weekends blockbuster lives up to some of the hype.  Saw it on the big screen and this is definitely a movie for the big screen.

Like most of these remakes from the comic book the film is a composite of various elements in the Iron Man saga but Pepper Potts survives the cut and (Gwyneth Paltrow) puts in a credible performance playing her.  Tony Stark/Iron Man is played by Robert Downey Jr., who like his fictional counter ego, has had some real life problems with booze, drugs, and generally growing up.  Cigar chomping Obadiah Stane is played by Jeff Bridges who puts in a pretty good performance.  Matter of fact it took me a while to recognize him.

The movie itself is actually the first movie completely controlled by Marvel, so any quibbles we fans and former fans may have with the actual story line in the comic book fall by the wayside.  Like they did with Captain America in the 40', 50' then 70's, they are quite literally remaking not retelling their character to fit the times.

And it's an interesting story with some well placed humor here and there.  During a PR trip to Afghanistan to show off his latest nasty missile to the troops, Tony Stark's convoy is attacked and slaughtered by the bad guys in an ambush in which he's almost killed  (shrapnel now lodged near his heart).  Taken prisoner and kept alive by some crude magnets a fellow scientist inmate has devised, Stark is told to build his captors some quality weapons or else.  So Tony Stark creates his alter ago through necessity, in a gambit to gain his freedom from the bad guys who we find out later were hired to kill him (but renege on the deal). In the process Stark notices that a lot of his weapons are being used by the Insurgents.  Stark tricks them and escapes using a crude prototype of things to come.

Back home Stark as a change of heart. Haunted by his companies logo on most of the weapons the Terrorists are using and decides to stop making weapons.  Well.. all but one weapon, a new improved version of his crude Iron Man suit he uses to escape.  He decides to remake on his little invention in Afghanistan.   He tests it out on his "friends" back in Afghanistan. He he, not a great start for a guy whose looking to turn over a new leaf  but the victims are all the bad guys. 

At this point the plot thickens.  His business partner Obadiah Stane gets a hold of his original Iron Man prototype and starts working on his own version, one that reminds me of Iron man's comic book nemesis the Titanium Man.

I won't divulge much further and spoil the fun.  Good flick.  If you have a few coins left after gas go see it while it's still on the big screen.