NOW CLOSED ; List some movies you've watched recently. Theatre, rental, TV... and give a */10

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Muse

Lifer
Jul 11, 2001
37,402
8,038
136
Game Over: Kasparov and the Machine - 5/10 - pretty boring documentary that is more about the drama of the Kasparov vs Deep Blue event than the technology or anything else. Because of this I was bored by it. Learned a few things but i found it stupid.
Kasperov thought that a grand master was helping make critical decisions for Deep Blue and/or verifying that moves were not blunders. Especially in match 2 when Deep Blue did a few things Kasperov never saw a computer do before. Aslso, after match 4 of 6, Kasperov was ready to quit because he was convinced that there was human grandmaster involvement on IBMs side since IBM refused to provide logs that gave an idea of Deep Blues thinking process. Not sure what the log had but I'd assume that it gave a "top 10" ideas along with the actual decision.
Interesting, Kasparov
couldn't help anthropomorphizing the machine.
. I had a primitive chess game (a freebie) on my first computer, a 486 local bus running Windows 3.1. I played it but lost pretty if not absolutely consistently and I started getting very negative feelings about the machine. Initially I'd regarded it as an ally, almost a friend. I immediately stopped playing the game and have never installed another chess game or bought a dedicated chess computer!
The Newsroom : 9/10 - An outstanding new HBO series by Aaron Sorkin. Jeff Daniels is supremely good here, along with an excellent cast and of course exquisite writing. I have a couple of quibbles about things here and there, but overall a great great show.
Has Aaron Sorkin ever done anything that isn't great? Tremendous talent.

- - - -
I'm not looking for someone to grow old with. I'm looking for someone to stay young with.
 
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Sep 29, 2004
18,665
67
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Muse,

That is exactly what happened (your spoiler tagged piece).
His later games were effected by his emotional state. His belief that there was human involvement hurt his focus. In the end, IBM PR told the scientists doing interviews to show no joy. Just answer questions unemotionally. They realized that if IBM started glaoting when Kasperov was so pissed off, that years of publicity from Deep Blue could disappear. When Deep Blue won, the stock shot up something like 15%. Too many people out there do not know what AI in software terms actually is.
I guess the documentary was more interested than i had thought it would be. I'd quite frankly like to sit with those scientists and do an interview with some coworkers so that we could better understand how the software worked. Talk about a dissertation on the traveling salesman problem.
 

Gunslinger08

Lifer
Nov 18, 2001
13,234
2
81
The Newsroom : 9/10 - An outstanding new HBO series by Aaron Sorkin. Jeff Daniels is supremely good here, along with an excellent cast and of course exquisite writing. I have a couple of quibbles about things here and there, but overall a great great show.

I liked the show a lot, but I'm not in love with the politics all the time. I like the idea of calling out politicians about the crazy stuff they say. However, it's not very balanced (don't remember hearing any references to Democratic politicians saying dumb stuff) and plays into "gotcha politics". The two references to asking Michele Bachmann what God's voice sounds like come to mind - we all know that she wasn't speaking literally. Not saying I even like any of the politicians they called out - just that some of the things were pretty ticky-tacky.
 

Muse

Lifer
Jul 11, 2001
37,402
8,038
136
Watched Chinatown again last night. It had been a number of years. I must have seen it back in the 70's, another time when I bought the DVD around 2005. I jotted some words in my movies table, basically this (just a few minutes ago):

My god, watched last night. Amazing movie, and you really should be at your sharpest when watching it to grasp it in depth. The script, the direction are stunningly great and Nicholson's acting (and really, everybody else's) is fantastic. He was not yet a star when he did this. The script won an Oscar, and it was absolutely written with Nicholson in mind, you find that out when you see the extra, an interview way after the fact of the script writer, Robert Towne, Polanski (who was hand picked by the producer), and producer Robert Evans. Evans wanted Polanski because he wasn't American and would have an outsider's view of America. Townes passed up an opportunity to earn $175,000 (a fortune then) to do Gatsby to get $25,000 instead to have this script produced. He didn't want the onus of trying to match Fitzgerald's genius and, of course, coming up short (my words, based on what he said in the interview). Polanski was estranged from Hollywood by virtue of Sharon Tate's murder (duh!), but was lured back to do this, and he said he was completely at home at Paramount.

Just phenomenal!, and like Ebert said, a tour de force from beginning to end.

From Cinemania, Pauline Kael's remarks add a lot of useful perspective:

Set in the 30s, this nostalgic thriller, in the style of Hammett and Chandler, draws on the history of Los Angeles, specifically the water-rights and real-estate swindles. You can feel the conflict between the temperaments of the scriptwriter, Robert Towne, and the director, Roman Polanski. In Towne's conception, the audience discovers the depth of the corruption along with the romantic-damn-fool detective J.J. Gittes (Jack Nicholson). Polanski, whose movies don't leave you anything to hang on to, turns the material into an extension of his world view: he makes the LA atmosphere gothic and creepy from the word go. The film holds you, in a suffocating way. Polanski never lets the story tell itself. It's all overdeliberate, mauve, nightmarish; everyone is yellow-lacquered, and evil runs rampant. You don't care who is hurt, since everything is blighted. And yet the nastiness has a look, and a fascination. There's a celebrated background story to the film. The script had originally ended after Gittes realizes what horrors the woman he loved, the twitchy liar Evelyn Mulwray (Faye Dunaway), had been through. And then she kills her incestuous, baronial father (John Huston) in order to save her daughter from him, and Gittes helps the young girl get to Mexico. But Polanski, an absurdist, seals the picture with his gargoyle grin. He ends it with the death of Evelyn Mulwray and the triumph of the Huston character, who had raped the land, raped his daughter, and would now proceed to corrupt the daughter's daughter. Polanski's temperament dominates (and he seems indifferent to some of the plot points). Yet Towne's temperament comes through, too, especially in Nicholson's Jake Gittes, the vulgarian hero who gives the picture much of its comedy: Gittes gets to tell wittily inane, backslapping jokes, and to show the romanticism inside his street shrewdness.
- - - -
If you always tell the truth, you don't have to remember anything. - Mark Twain
 
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KeithTalent

Elite Member | Administrator | No Lifer
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Nov 30, 2005
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Chinatown is one of my favourite films of all time. It's amazing, though I may actually give Repulsion the nod as my favourite Polanski film. It's been a while since I last watched Chinatown, so that may change again when I re-watch it.

KT
 

stargazr

Diamond Member
Jun 13, 2010
3,811
3,125
136
Watched Chinatown again last night. It had been a number of years. I must have seen it back in the 70's, another time when I bought the DVD around 2005. I jotted some words in my movies table, basically this (just a few minutes ago):

My god, watched last night. Amazing movie, and you really should be at your sharpest when watching it to grasp it in depth.

You would probably like the sequel 'The Two Jakes' as well.
 
Sep 29, 2004
18,665
67
91
Rising Sun: Christian Hosoi 8/10 - Documentary about who could have been Tony Hawk but drugs got in the way. Goes through the life of Christian Hosoi in chronological order. Kinda slow at the beginning but it just gets better and better as the story progresses. In the end, i was glad that I sat through it. About 15 minutes in, I almost gave up. Give it a shot. watch atleast half. You might be glad you did. it ends somewhat abruptly but i think this where the story really ends.
 

OCNewbie

Diamond Member
Jul 18, 2000
7,603
24
81
Chinatown is one of my favourite films of all time. It's amazing, though I may actually give Repulsion the nod as my favourite Polanski film. It's been a while since I last watched Chinatown, so that may change again when I re-watch it.

KT

If I didn't really like Repulsion, does that mean I probably won't like Chinatown?
 

weirdichi

Diamond Member
Sep 19, 2001
4,712
2
76
A Guy Who Kills People 7/10

Not your average horror flick. It's more slasher with a hint of comedy thrown in. I liked Tucker and Dale vs. Evil more, but this still enjoyable. I'm not going to get into anything technical, just that I enjoyed it. Check it out, as well as Tucker and Dale vs. Evil (more slapstick humor).

The Fifth short film on the DVD was pretty funny too. :D
 
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Arkaign

Lifer
Oct 27, 2006
20,736
1,377
126
I liked the show a lot, but I'm not in love with the politics all the time. I like the idea of calling out politicians about the crazy stuff they say. However, it's not very balanced (don't remember hearing any references to Democratic politicians saying dumb stuff) and plays into "gotcha politics". The two references to asking Michele Bachmann what God's voice sounds like come to mind - we all know that she wasn't speaking literally. Not saying I even like any of the politicians they called out - just that some of the things were pretty ticky-tacky.

I'm in agreement with this overall. Showing some balance with the similar great writing and reasoning blasting stupid/hypocritical things that both parties do would be awesome. Overall I don't let it bother me too much, but it would take it to a near-perfect score for me if they did that.
 

Aquila76

Diamond Member
Apr 11, 2004
3,549
1
0
www.facebook.com
Metal Tornado - 6/10

Lou Diamond Phillips cashes a paycheck as some kind of solar physicist (they never really divulged his title) working to get free energy from solar flares. Of course, it goes wrong and a giant, invisible
apparently nobody can see it although it is full of metal and other destroyed objects; this is never explained
, magnetic tornado starts destroying Pennsylvania, of all places. My favorite scene was some lumberjack almost getting decapitated by his chainsaw, then 30 minutes later it's still running as it spins around in the tornado. Also, they make another solar flare energy tapping attempt in France and
Paris is levelled
.

Food of the Gods - 8/10
This is by far the cheesiest, hoakiest sci-fi I've seen in a long time. Nature gets pissed that man is destroying it, so it makes a puddle of goo that looks like potato soup. The goo makes anything that eats it monstrously huge. Some farmers find it and mix it with chicken feed, making two of the hugest cocks you'll see outside of porn. Of course, wasps and rats get into it and start killing all the islanders and visitors. Along come a couple dudes and clear the whole mess up
with shotguns and a couple pipe bombs that undamn the lake and drown the rats
.
I'm not entirely sure, but it reeeeally looks like they shot actual live rats with BB guns to match the shotgun blasts of this movie.
And then drowned them.
This was made in 1976, before PETA came along, so I dunno.
 

JimKiler

Diamond Member
Oct 10, 2002
3,557
205
106
Watched Chinatown again last night. It had been a number of years. I must have seen it back in the 70's, another time when I bought the DVD around 2005. I jotted some words in my movies table, basically this (just a few minutes ago):

My god, watched last night. Amazing movie, and you really should be at your sharpest when watching it to grasp it in depth. The script, the direction are stunningly great and Nicholson's acting (and really, everybody else's) is fantastic. He was not yet a star when he did this. The script won an Oscar, and it was absolutely written with Nicholson in mind, you find that out when you see the extra, an interview way after the fact of the script writer, Robert Towne, Polanski (who was hand picked by the producer), and producer Robert Evans. Evans wanted Polanski because he wasn't American and would have an outsider's view of America. Townes passed up an opportunity to earn $175,000 (a fortune then) to do Gatsby to get $25,000 instead to have this script produced. He didn't want the onus of trying to match Fitzgerald's genius and, of course, coming up short (my words, based on what he said in the interview). Polanski was estranged from Hollywood by virtue of Sharon Tate's murder (duh!), but was lured back to do this, and he said he was completely at home at Paramount.

Just phenomenal!, and like Ebert said, a tour de force from beginning to end.

From Cinemania, Pauline Kael's remarks add a lot of useful perspective:

Set in the 30s, this nostalgic thriller, in the style of Hammett and Chandler, draws on the history of Los Angeles, specifically the water-rights and real-estate swindles. You can feel the conflict between the temperaments of the scriptwriter, Robert Towne, and the director, Roman Polanski. In Towne's conception, the audience discovers the depth of the corruption along with the romantic-damn-fool detective J.J. Gittes (Jack Nicholson). Polanski, whose movies don't leave you anything to hang on to, turns the material into an extension of his world view: he makes the LA atmosphere gothic and creepy from the word go. The film holds you, in a suffocating way. Polanski never lets the story tell itself. It's all overdeliberate, mauve, nightmarish; everyone is yellow-lacquered, and evil runs rampant. You don't care who is hurt, since everything is blighted. And yet the nastiness has a look, and a fascination. There's a celebrated background story to the film. The script had originally ended after Gittes realizes what horrors the woman he loved, the twitchy liar Evelyn Mulwray (Faye Dunaway), had been through. And then she kills her incestuous, baronial father (John Huston) in order to save her daughter from him, and Gittes helps the young girl get to Mexico. But Polanski, an absurdist, seals the picture with his gargoyle grin. He ends it with the death of Evelyn Mulwray and the triumph of the Huston character, who had raped the land, raped his daughter, and would now proceed to corrupt the daughter's daughter. Polanski's temperament dominates (and he seems indifferent to some of the plot points). Yet Towne's temperament comes through, too, especially in Nicholson's Jake Gittes, the vulgarian hero who gives the picture much of its comedy: Gittes gets to tell wittily inane, backslapping jokes, and to show the romanticism inside his street shrewdness.
- - - -
If you always tell the truth, you don't have to remember anything. - Mark Twain

I also finally watched Chinatown on Netflix instant a month ago. I loved LA Confidential and if anyone else liked LA Confidential i would definitely say you will like Chinatown. Although I give the nod to LA Confidential which had both Russell Crowe, Guy Pearce, Kevin Spacey, Kim Bassinger, and Danny Devito.

But I still give Chinatown a solid 8/10 and i would give LA Confidential 9/10.
 
Oct 25, 2006
11,036
11
91
The Raid: Redemption- 8/10

Was freaking awesome. Doesn't mess around with unneeded love BS, gets to the point, is simple, and extremely suspenseful.

Only complaint was that at some point, the pain tolerance gets out of hand. Tons of characters take like 15 direct hits to the head and can still pull off insane counters and blocks when they should probably be unconscious.
 

JimKiler

Diamond Member
Oct 10, 2002
3,557
205
106
The Raid: Redemption- 8/10

Was freaking awesome. Doesn't mess around with unneeded love BS, gets to the point, is simple, and extremely suspenseful.

Only complaint was that at some point, the pain tolerance gets out of hand. Tons of characters take like 15 direct hits to the head and can still pull off insane counters and blocks when they should probably be unconscious.

I loved it too and agree with its flaw. I hope Dredd will be just as good or better than this movie. But first I have to watch the french movie The Assualt which looks as good as The Raid.
 

Gunslinger08

Lifer
Nov 18, 2001
13,234
2
81
Lawless - 8/10
I really didn't know much about this movie other than that it was based on a book by guy who went to the same college as me. I ended up enjoying it a lot. I don't think it's going to win a bunch of awards, but it's entertaining and it definitely knows how to evoke real emotions towards the characters. I definitely hated Guy Pearce by the midpoint.

Cinderella Man - 10/10
I had never seen this and I'm not sure why. It was excellent. Don't know that I really need to explain.
 

KeithTalent

Elite Member | Administrator | No Lifer
Administrator
Nov 30, 2005
50,235
117
116
Lawless - 8/10
I really didn't know much about this movie other than that it was based on a book by guy who went to the same college as me. I ended up enjoying it a lot. I don't think it's going to win a bunch of awards, but it's entertaining and it definitely knows how to evoke real emotions towards the characters. I definitely hated Guy Pearce by the midpoint.

Going to finally see this on the weekend; your review seems to sum up the general feelings on the film. The book was great and I love John Hillcoat so can't wait for this one!

KT
 

Dr. Detroit

Diamond Member
Sep 25, 2004
8,143
608
126
Expendables 2 - 7/10
Thank you Stallone for making an action movie without a sappy love story. Body parts, blood and bullets flying everywhere. A true popcorn flick without much character development. They are badasses and kill people. 'Nuff Said.
Ridiculously over the top and unbelievable in every way but still a fun movie.

Hit & Run - 1/10
Save yourself, the previews looked funny, we were not paying so figured how bad could the reviews really be. The writing was atrocious, it moved painfully slow, the car chase scenes were garbage. I chuckled 2 or 3 times. Best scene was at the grocery store with the dog owner.

Lawless - 8/10 - Solid story, good acting, great cinematography. I was amazed at the violence in this movie, whoa. Left me gripping my seat a few times. I will say, and this is not a spoiler - when they said they were the Bondurant family and knowing the booze runners ended up in NASCAR I thought to myself, was this the Bob Bondurant racing family?

ATOT - what was in the bag they dropped off at Special Deputy Rakes house?
 
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