Curly's World

Maria and I went to the cinema for the first time in a very long time. Yesterday was the opening day for a new Disney movie, "Wreck-It Ralph". We went to go see it, as I'd heard it actually sounded interesting.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1772341/

I figure most of the people here would find it interesting too.

Bought a big bucket of popcorn and shared it between us. Sat in the back row, in the corner close to one of the speakers. Movie was pretty interesting. While I'm not usually a fan of Disney's newer animation, it did seem to suit the movie's theme quite well.

We felt like a couple of teenagers in the theater, were laughing at a lot of things that ordinarily, we wouldn't. Almost forgot that we were two adults, with a baby at her grandma's house, and just about everything else, including that we have enough money in the bank to buy several Pace division's entire fleet at fair market value. Was a sort of magic last night in the air, felt like a first date again somehow. That's the sort of thing a DVD at home cannot provide!

Ive heard good things about new movie by Michael Haneke, to the point that I even plan to see cinema from the inside, after a long break. In fact, White Ribbon, also by Haneke, was last or one of the last movies which I watched in cinema. So I may not be disappointed.

Amour
The new movie by Michael Haneke. Hard to bear (like most of his movies) as it confronts the viewer with several strong emotions and questions about what will happen to us when we get old or can't care for ourselves any longer. The two main actors show one of the most impressive performances I've ever seen in a movie (especially Emmanuelle Riva).



The Angels' Share
Some losers from the Glasgow underclass wants to steal the most expensive whiskey of the world to start a new life. Pretty entertaining and director Ken Loach takes a lot of time to make his characters likable and believable. But on the other hand I have the feeling that he slowly gets mild with the age (like other great British directors). Some years ago there wouldn't have been an ending like this.



Le Cochon de Gaza
A Palestinian fisherman fishes a pig out of the sea and tries to get rid of the impure animal. Works pretty good as a comedy, but also shows the madness of the Mideast conflict. Recommended!

I wonder if you read the post above, before submitting yours.

Yes, I read it and I'm curious to see what you think of the movie.

Lore
At the end of World War II a young girl and her siblings have to cross Germany from the Black Forest to Hamburg to get to their grandmother. That doesn't sound very interesting and I wouldn't have watched it (to be honest I'm a little tired of all the World War II movies that come out in Germany every year) if I haven't read some good reviews about it. And in fact it was surprisingly good, mainly because of the the great actors (especially Sakia Rosendahl in her debut movie), the the good work of director and editor (who both had some nice ideas) and the fact that there isn't much black and white in this movie (when it comes to characters), but very much grey.



On the Road
Sal and Dean and Mary-Lou on their roadtrip through America.
I'm a little bit torn here and not sure if it was a good idea to make a movie out of the cult-book of Jack Kerouac. Sometimes the movie has great, nearly hypnotic scenes that makes you really feel desire for freedom and the lust for life of the Beat Generation. On the other hand there are several scenes that are trivial and arbitrary. So it's not a complete loss of time to watch this movie, but maybe you are better of if you read novel instead.



Die Wand
A woman is alone in the woods. Suddenly over night an invisible, indestructible wall appeared and everything outside of it is frozen and dead. After the shock she has to deal with the situation and try to stay alive completely isolated and on her own.
Pretty intense and the movie deals with some interesting questions like what makes us human and how we could stay sane in a bizarre world that makes us fight for survival every single day.

The poster pillar!

My most recent viewing was a rather popular one. I went with two friends to see Skyfall. And I have to say that I was pleasantly surprised. I have to say that the opening was AMAZING - and set up with Adele was EXTRAORDINARILY AMAZING!!

I loved how they played Bond in this one, and the whole cinema went "DAMMMMMMN" at more than one occasion. The best being when he actually uses some of the classic Bond characteristics. It is a must see even if you think it is too mainstream - see it as an homage to the classic Bond.

If yours was popular, how about mine - The Expandables 2.

It is a bad movie. I mean bad in literal sense, because I was expecting sort of an intelligent B-movie (B in an artistic sense, because it is obvious it is high budget film), but while action sequences were quite ok the unfunny one-liners killed it. After the first one one could have expected more - that Stallone will use the popularity of first installment to do something more funny and clever, but obviously he's not capable and is interested only in money. Pity.

Wait, the first one was popular?

You mean Skyfall or first Expandables?

Scythe wrote:Wait, the first one was popular?

I guess so. It was a perfect 80s B-class action film, all down to the totally unnecessary romantic interest and craptastic videogame license.

There was a first Skyfall?

The Expendables (which, oh dear, oh my, don't make me remember, I've actually seen) was a stinking pile of... you get the picture (pun intended). And I love 80s action B-movies. The action scenes in the Exs were horrible, every role - including the leads - were cameos, it didn't look like it had a script, and... ugh, I'm getting upset over here. Clearly the entire budget was spent on the casting.

On the other hand, Dolph Lundgren looked like he was having fun. Which made him the only good thing to come from that entire miserable disaster. Then they made a sequel................................................................

Scythe wrote:There was a first Skyfall?

No, I was confused - I wasnt sure whether you refer to first Expendables or first movie mentioned in recent discussion (Skyfall).

Everything you mentioned as downside is even worse in sequel, so you can now rush to the cinema.

Oh, and third movie is already in production.

It's indie games movie weekend! I just watched Indie Game: The Movie, because it was recommended at work and because it was on the latest Humble Bundle. I think it makes a good job of showing the flaws of the human beings behind the three games. It probably helped they picked quite controversial guys to focus on.

For me, the coolest thing was when Edmund McMillen broke down when he said that he thinks there's a kid who will be inspired to create his own stuff because he knows that the Super Meat Boy was made by just two guys so probably he can create something as well. I think that was quite powerful.

Tomorrow there's a screening for the Minecraft documentary. I know that at least those who have Xbox Gold membership (in some selected countries) could see it on Saturday (aka today), and those who had backed Double Fine Adventure can see it on Sunday (Mayan time zone).

First highlights in 2013:

Django Unchained
Probably the movie Quentin Tarantino always wanted to make. Extremely entertaining, extremely bloody and with so many references to old blaxploitation movies and italo western that you can hardly count them. With an amazing Christoph Waltz and Leonardo DiCaprio in one of his best roles so far. A must-see!




Beasts of the Southern Wild
I won't give anything away, but this movie is pure magic!




And the first big diasapointment in 2013:

Die Abenteuer des Huck Finn
After the great "Tom Sawyer" movie from last year, I thought I might enjoy this one (made from the same team) as well. But this movie is really awful. While the scenes with Huck and Jim are ok, there is awful overacting and slapstick in nearly all bounty hunter scenes (which means in at least half the movie). Maybe the producers did it, because they thought the story is too dark for younger kids and they wanted to lighten up it that way. But all they did was to destroy a classic story and make this movie unwatchable for adults.

Pater Alf wrote:First highlights in 2013:

Django Unchained
Probably the movie Quentin Tarantino always wanted to make. Extremely entertaining, extremely bloody and with so many references to old blaxploitation movies and italo western that you can hardly count them. With an amazing Christoph Waltz and Leonardo DiCaprio in one of his best roles so far. A must-see!

I liked the acting, I liked the set pieces, but I did not care for the "story" (if you could say there was one). I think it would be nice if Tarantino stopped making revenge movies and started thinking about something else, even though a wannabe semi-spaghetti western must of course be about revenge. However, since it isn't really a personal revenge, so much as it is a revenge for every wrong done to U.S. slaves, it fails to really be anything like what it wants to pay homage to.

Too much genre mixing, too much "now we show why these guys must take revenge and why their revenge must be much bloodier than what was done to them, and now we show that revenge in gory details, and now you must feel good about it."

Yeah, you should probably see it for the good parts, but it did not blow me out of the seat.


I'll back you up on Hush Puppy though.

http://www.salon.com/2013/02/01/how_net ... o_puppets/?

One thing the author of the article missed is that when people become aware that Netflix is gathering data about their viewing habits there may appear certain groups who will deliberately use this knowledge to push shows into more ambitious directions.

eMTe wrote:http://www.salon.com/2013/02/01/how_net ... o_puppets/?

One thing the author of the article missed is that when people become aware that Netflix is gathering data about their viewing habits there may appear certain groups who will deliberately use this knowledge to push shows into more ambitious directions.

I think the biggest mistake is assuming that the current shows are the result of an auteur process. I'd argue that with better data it's possible to viably make a show that is different instead of trying to make more of the proven stuff.

Also, House of Cards is pretty good.

edit: I'm reminded of a Calvin & Hobbes strip where Calvin answers a survey deliberately wrong to get more interesting ads in the paper.

De rouille et d'os
Two broken people on their way back to live. He is a man who lost his way, suddenly has to care for his 5-year-old son and only feels alive during brutal freefighting competitions, she is a trainer for orcas who lost her legs in an accident. They meet and start to care for each other, she falls in love with him, but he is unable to show emotions.

Not without clichées, but pretty rough, intense and powerful, even if the ending takes away some of the intensity.