What's The Last Movie You Watched? - - Part 19

[Doctor Jones]

The Expendables (2010)/The Expendables 2 (2012) back to back.

These films, regard a series of tangentially related events, ultimately all of them resulting in prolonged and excessive acts of violence. I find this to be a depressing criticism on the nature of man and the futility of mans life, in the vein of Sam Peckinpah. Man’s inhumanity to man laid bare to see.

The greatest example presented in the film is the death of the sole Expendable to die thus far. Any other film and this scene would be shot in a manner noting the tragic circumstances. In this movie he’s just another victim, the film itself being more concerned in heroically framing Jean Vilain (The villain of the piece), bathing him in sunlight with a loving close up while he bellows an epic one liner and performs an overkill that otherwise would be the climactic kill in a normal film. Here it’s another in a long line of sickly humorous deaths presented without dramatic weight. The Battle of Vilena (The nation where the villains live) serves to further highlight this to pornographic excess. Despite General Garza repenting his sins, the main characters (I refuse to call them protagonists) still proceed to hack, slash, shoot, immolate, dismember, hands, feet, implode and explode, the husbands, sons, fathers and brothers of Vilena with extreme prejudice.

It is noteworthy that at no point during the films are the main characters actually refer to themselves as The Expendables, all of that being left on the cutting room floor. On the films posters, Bruce Willis, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Steve Austin, Jean-Claude Van Damme and Chuck Norris are lumped together with the mercenary group, with no discernment. That’s because we’re ALL expendable. Note the characters tattoos say ‘expendable’ not ‘The Expendables’.

At no point can these films be accused of having a coherent story. But then, could the events of life be considered coherent? If one were to snip a line of dialogue in each film, one could easily jumble both films together in an editing room. In the promotional lead up to Cloud Atlas, Lana Wachowski stated that the future of storytelling will be less traditional and more fragmented. It is this statement that leads me to believe that The Expendables franchise will usher in a new era of cinematic storytelling.

Bra-****ing-vo man!

 

[MMMMM...Pancakes]

The Three Stooges

 

[Lobo]

Grown Ups. I find I like it more with repeated viewings.

Jack Reacher is next on my cinema list.

 

[hammerhedd11]

The Perks of Being a Wallflower

 

[Hunter Rider]

Fantastic script, great acting and a couple of blistering shoot-outs. It's both witty and tense, the only minor issue is it's 20 minutes too long. 9/10



It's like someone decided to make a movie based on the Tatooine section of A New Hope, they mixed in some Road Warrior and sprinkled it with some Shane, the result is this low budget hodgepodge of mediocrity. 4/10

 

[Kane52630]

The Perks of Being a Wallflower

I found it interesting for most of the beginning but it quickly falls into irritating for me at the end. The main character just didn't do it for me, once it got to the end when they were begging sympathy from the audience. Performance wise, all of them did great with what they had. I can see why a lot of people love this story but it isn't for me.
6/10

Side By Side

A very interesting documentary on the film vs digital debate by some of the great directors and cinematographers. It offers a lot of insight on the history of film and most importantly the history of digital. I feel like both sides have good points but it seems like the side of digital is more appealing to me. I do appreciate Chris Nolan and Pfister trying keep film but the way they act towards digital seems very smug. All and all it's something for people who love watching films to see.
9/10

Hitchcock

Such a great biopic of Hitchcock, I was really enjoying Anthony Hopkins going though Hitchcock's personal emotions when trying to make Psycho. Not to mention Helen Mirren and Scarlett Johansson were also great in their roles.
9/10

Django Unchained

I was very curious to see how this would play out and to my surprise, Tarantino pretty much knocked this one out the park. Christoph Waltz was easily the best part about this movie and I can't imagine anyone else playing a character like Django but Jamie Foxx. I would say that the last few scenes dragged and the ultimate showdown could easily be joined with the previous showdown. Overall it was pretty amazing.
9/10

 

[hammerhedd11]

Zero Dark Thirty

 

[NewYorkSpider]

She's All That - 8/10

 

[Spider-Aziz]

Rocky (1976)
Classic

 

[Thundarr]

Clash Of The Titans (1981)

 

[Gianakin_]

Battleship - Didn't finish/10

Resident Evil 5 - 2/10

Taken 2 - 6/10

 

[dude stannis]

Battleship - Didn't finish/10

Resident Evil 5 - 2/10

Taken 2 - 6/10

Sounds like you had an awesome week.

 

[Spider-Aziz]

Battleship - Didn't finish/10

One of the greatest films ever

 

[Gianakin_]

Sounds like you had an awesome week.

'Twas alright, those movies only took 4 hours of 72.

 

[Gianakin_]

One of the greatest films ever

Still better than any Bayformer.

 

[dude stannis]

Not that I've seen it, but it actually sounds better. Just by the sheer lack of Shia Leboof and his parents.

 

[Spider-Aziz]

Still better than any Bayformer.

How many minutes in before you left each film?

Not that I've seen it, but it actually sounds better. Just by the sheer lack of Shia Leboof and his parents.

Shia Lebouf character is actually the one thing I like about Bayformers
Beside seeing giant sized CGI action figures morphing

 

[henry_9305]

9/10

10/10

Still my favorite movie of all time.

 

[Gianakin_]

How many minutes in before you left each film?

I left Battleship at the 80 minute mark. I watched all Bayformer movies till the end, but only because of their sheer awfulness. Battleship wasn't as insulting, but that made it boring. Kinda like New Moon and Eclipse, respectively.

Shia Lebouf character is actually the one thing I like about Bayformers

I'm one of the 3 people on earth who likes Shia, so agreed.

 

[dude stannis]

Shia Lebouf character is actually the one thing I like about Bayformers

I like the concept of the character. Woody Allen in an action movie. The execution is atrocious.

Beside seeing giant sized CGI action figures morphing

Actually the parts I liked where the humans vs. robot action in the third acts.

 

[Hunter Rider]

I like Shia, I love the first Transformers movie, the second gave me a headache, the 3rd has a fantastic last hour but the first hour is as bad as the second film. I like the humans vs robots action as well, like dude. I thought Battleship was much worse than even the second TF film, there was more wood in it than a porn set.

 

[Hunter Rider]

An excellent thriller that is a throwback to the days when the mystery and character outweighed the action, Cruise owns the screen as Reacher. 9/10

 

[Monsieur Xavier]

The Hobbit 3D HFR, very nice ( the 3D was really good but I felt a constrain on my eyes, no idea if it was the 48fps, the active 3D goggle or both ).
Cloud Atlas, I unexpectedly enjoyed it and watched it twice already.

 

[Zatanna]

The Shining

 

[MMMMM...Pancakes]

Base-ketball