What movie did you see today?

After Earth, with Will and Jaden Smith.

Obvious movie is obvious. No suprise Will Smith wrote the story; this was a vehicle for his son. The entire plot played like a handover of the old guard to the new, with Will's character being injured so his son does most of the action. The baton is passed on.

Yet the young Jaden has none of the ample charm and charisma his dad had at around that age in Fresh Prince.

Plot was therefore exceedingly obvious, and topped off with a dozen 'yeah right' moments. I certainly hoped M. Night Shyamalan's direction could inject at least a twist or two, twists being his MO. But nope.

3/10

You forgot that this was Scientology propaganda to boot :)

Hum. Didn't know anything about that. So just googled it.

Some reports proclaiming this being a thinly-veiled Scientology-boosting flick, particularly in regard to Will's character's control of emotion and fear - which is central to Scientology's teachings.

Other reports proclaiming such links as being silly nonsense, and there is no more link between After Earth and Scientology as there is with Lord of the Rings, Harry Potter, or Star Wars.

Smith himself is not a Scientologist, claiming he respects all religions.

He has contributed financially toward Scientology, but then he contributed double that amount to a born-again Christian ministry, and even more than that to the Yesha Ministry, whatever that is.

In other words ... who knows.

Well, there was also this primary school he founded ...

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Timbuk2

After Earth, with Will and Jaden Smith.

Obvious movie is obvious. No suprise Will Smith wrote the story; this was a vehicle for his son. The entire plot played like a handover of the old guard to the new, with Will's character being injured so his son does most of the action. The baton is passed on.

Yet the young Jaden has none of the ample charm and charisma his dad had at around that age in Fresh Prince.

Plot was therefore exceedingly obvious, and topped off with a dozen 'yeah right' moments. I certainly hoped M. Night Shyamalan's direction could inject at least a twist or two, twists being his MO. But nope.

3/10

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Did you pay to see it? Just wanted to know if it was as bad as rumored?

Yes I did, regrettably, the first time in more than a year I've paid for a movie on the Sky box. £3.49 for the (dis)pleasure.

And I hadn't read any reviews of the movie, had heard very little about it, so I can't say if it was as bad as rumoured, just that it was bad.

In on a wednesday night, partner out having cocktails with girly-friend, fancied a sci-fi movie while I curl up on the sofa.

Should have gone for Elysium. :rolleyes:

sounds like you confused video game night with movie night

In the future, check this site out first: http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/after_earth/

I've never seen a good movie that had less than a 50% critic score there.

I really can' t get myself to watching that Hobbit flick after my recently failed attempt at watching the first installment.

Looking forward to watching theatre movies over the holiday. "Philomena" looks good. I'm not very picky this time of year.....it's the one thing we do as an extended inter-marriage family that's fairly easy. No talking. With popcorn.

Gone with the Wind. Recently was looking for a cable and came accross a DVD with this movie. It's 73 years old now, and I think if today a producer would try to remake it, it would have to be re-written beyond recognition. Funny to see how much nostalgia there was for a slave owning society back then.

You assume that changed. :o

The second Hunger Games. It was all right. I've still got all sorts of issues with the story, but I appreciate the effort that went into making the film adaptation follow the book while still having decent pacing, direction, acting, and cinematography.

Biggest beef? The main character never really has to make a tough moral choice - she's always saved by some sort of deus ex machina or other external intervention that saves her from making any real decisions. But that's a flaw of the story, not the movie.

I got a woody Allen DVD from my German aunt - while it does come with English audio as well, the title's in German: 'Stadtneurotiker'. That could be almost any of his films :D (it's Annie Hall, by the way).

Hobbit part 2.

They have pretty much given up on anything that made the book great. Most of the magic, the humor, the poetic way that the events and actions unfold, the guiding hand of "chance" in Bilbo's life. It causes some continuity errors when trying to fill in the gaps that the movie doesn't address (like the Dragon using the Oakenshield title).

But the change doesn't make the movie bad. Its simply not the Hobbit. The dragon was an amazing piece of work and much better than I was expecting considering the less than stellar work done on the liquid gold, river chase and some of the orc CGI. The movie was so close to getting the interaction with the dragon correct, so close to being perfect, but even then its still the best part of the movie.

Disappointed they changed Beorn so much, as well as the LSD trip through mirkwood.

I almost fell asleep watching Hobbit v 2. At the end, there was a collective "ugh" from the filled-to-capacity theater audience.

Saw Saving Mr. Banks last night, in another sold-out, jamb-packed theater, but the audience applauded at the end. The movie wasn't what I'd expected, but it was still enjoyable.

I got a kick out of the little kids eagerly waiting to see Frozen, many dressed in costumes. Adorable. :D

heh, my kids dressed up for that movie

Hobbit 2. Better than the first one, okay in general. Not my favorite.

The Secret Life of Walter Mitty, directed by and starring Ben Stiller.

A fun and playful movie, and, much as I utterly despise the term, it was 'life-affirming'. Rather sweet, I enjoyed it.

7/10

~

Life of Pi

Didn't know what to expect from this, hadn't read the book by Yann Martel - knew very little about it apart from it involving an Indian boy stuck on a small boat with a Bengal tiger.

It worked for me - I was captivated. I felt I was always on the leading edge of expectation - without it ever being quite met - the story moving away from that expectation at each poignant point.

The cinematography was spectacular - this would have been a movie for the big screen. I feel it was too grand for the TV.

Certainly unusual, I can't quite equate it with any other film I've seen.

I do tend to like open-ended movies too, which leave the viewer to decide what to make of it. Very un-Hollywood in that respect.

8/10

Saw Frozen tonight... it was really nice! Not quite as sneakily grown-up as some other animated movies, and uniquely villain-free... cute but not sickening, fun characters, good voice-acting, very pretty, decent musical numbers... good date movie if you and your date like animated Disney films :o Kristen Bell is of course one of our top celebrity crushes but I don't think her involvement has influenced my judgement too much

catch Rapunzel at the coronation?

47 ronin, sleep inducing literally, but looked very pretty and thank god I saw it in 2D. The 'Dutch Island' was hilarious.

Mandela; lang walk to freedom. Very very very bland movie, with some astonishing inaccuracies. Of course a crazy person like me would read the biography before seeing the movie, so other people may not have noticed. But they take some liberties with the facts that were really breath taking.

Jack Ryan, shadow recruit. This is one of those movies that people a year or so down the line will enjoy on their FTA TV programming. For a night at the cinema it was too bland, and the plot holes big enough to drive a minivan through.

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Originally Posted by Aimless

Saw Frozen tonight... it was really nice! Not quite as sneakily grown-up as some other animated movies, and uniquely villain-free... cute but not sickening, fun characters, good voice-acting, very pretty, decent musical numbers... good date movie if you and your date like animated Disney films :o Kristen Bell is of course one of our top celebrity crushes but I don't think her involvement has influenced my judgement too much

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Loved Frozen too...and the kids manged to pay attention to most of the movie as well.

Finally Ender's game has made it to Holland. Still don't understand how it took so long. I liked it as a movie, would have liked it a lot more if I hadn't read the book. I had also forgotten enough about the book not to get my panties in a twist over 'adaptation errors'.

I happened on old TV movie, already in progress....with a young Donald Sutherland playing the role of an "idiot". He was so good, I didn't recognize him until it was almost over. :D

It was fun waiting until the end to see the credits. I recognized Stefanie Powers early on, but couldn't pinpoint the "star", and thought it might be Patricia Neal because of her gruff voice. Turned out to be Tallulah Bankhead in "Die, Die, My Darling!" :up:

Saw Expendables 2 on Netflix the other day. It was all right - thinly plotted, poorly scripted, and absurd, but there were good moments of hilarity and cultural in-jokes that made it enjoyable. Not a really big recommendation though.

American Hustle

As good as the hype. Strong performances from Lawrence, Cooper, Adams, and the consistently brilliant Bale.

Story was involving, didn't know which way the twists and turns would take us. A lightness of touch too, with unexpected funny moments, particularly from Lawrence's portrayal of a forgotten and slightly unhinged wife.

The 70s setting was completely convincing, with fabulous outfits and hairy hairstyles. Adams in particular looked lusciously seductive.

Captain Phillips, very very strong movie. But damn what stupid procedures can lead to is also made blatantly clear by it.

Spoiler:

Running for cover as a ladder is attached to your ship? How is letting armed men aboard ever the safer option?

Saw Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs 2 on saturday... it was fun and sweet and just so frickin' adorable =) I had my reservations about the first one and loved it, and I was worried this sequel would be horrible, but I almost enjoyed it more even though it was simpler in many ways and I didn't like the ape. Berry's translation of N-Woo's speech to the foodimals, his sequence with the sentinels and the Jurassic Park references were some of my favourite aspects, but it was all just nice and fun. The ginger jumped out of her chair due to acute squeeee when they began playing "Yummy Yummy Yummy" and I was close behind--it was the first song I ever caught her singing :)