What Movie(s) Did You Watch Today?

[jomari]

just finished The equalizer. grew up watching the television series, and was looking forward to this. wifey never heard of him, so wasnt so pleased seeing the gore in it.

i love every bit of it.

i actually wanted to watch it even when it hasnt even ended. it was that good.

great movie.

 

[Deleted member 133]

just finished The equalizer. grew up watching the television series, and was looking forward to this. wifey never heard of him, so wasnt so pleased seeing the gore in it.

i love every bit of it.

i actually wanted to watch it even when it hasnt even ended. it was that good.

great movie.

I enjoyed the movie as well, however the "gore" was not at all in keeping with the old TV series.

Spoiler alert: I thought that setting the big battle in the "Home Despot" was a touch of brilliance, given the character's proclivity to "McGiver" ways to fell his adversaries.

Jeff

 

[jomari]

just finished The equalizer. grew up watching the television series, and was looking forward to this. wifey never heard of him, so wasnt so pleased seeing the gore in it.

i love every bit of it.

i actually wanted to watch it even when it hasnt even ended. it was that good.

great movie.

I enjoyed the movie as well, however the "gore" was not at all in keeping with the old TV series.

Spoiler alert: I thought that setting the big battle in the "Home Despot" was a touch of brilliance, given the character's proclivity to "McGiver" ways to fell his adversaries.

Jeff

very true! i guess the gore is pretty much an injection by fuqua or simply just a fad that we see so often nowadays. i do recall tho that the old tv series shows him as a straight up 'you deserve this' kinda vengeance. i guess this is where my love affair with vegeance movies stems from. they didnt show it, but the fact that your mind plays its part you know how stern he can be.

the home mart thing was brilliant but just a weeeeee tad long in my opinion. like three or four minutes long, not like man of steel finale. i wish the ending was also a bit better played, but what the hell right?

anyways, check out the extra feature showing 'home mart' commercial AFTER the movie.

they also said its an enterprise, does that mean sequels? i hope not.

 

[MatthewB]

Jamari I loved the old TV series with Alfred Woodward as McCall. Loved his black jaguar and the fact that no matter what your problem was he handled it and even taught you a lesson or two in the process. Like a kid asking for help against bullies and McCall teaching the kid how to defend himself and get payback on the bullies in a brilliant way.

I was amazed that the TV series isn't anywhere on Netflix, Hulu Plus but only available to buy as a disc set on Amazon. I would think with the release of the movie that Hulu would want to release the series for streaming.

For me the best episode of Equalizer was when he was on vacation with his son (played by the actor who was the main bully in Karate Kid 1. Anyway his son is on vacation with his dad McCall who they've had a disjointed relationship because his son never could understand his dad's past or why he was gone so long but after the son witness's a robbery and heads back to the cabin he and McCall are staying at the robbery suspects decide they need to kill the witness. Guess they never considered that his father was a complete bad ass with making explosives out of simple household materials and McCall finally got to show his son some of his skill sets he had a hard time talking about.

Great movie though.

 

[PaulyT]

I enjoyed this one a lot. I didn't really have any expectations going in, and I admit I'm not normally a huge fan of martial arts type movies, but this is a good one. Interesting story, decent acting all around even though I'm not a huge Keanu fan, and in particular I thought the sets, scenery, and filming were excellent. Not quite at the level of Hero, which I think is one of the most artistically gorgeous movies I've ever seen, but up there.

Plus I was highly amused - as was my daughter - that the main female character's name is the same as my younger daughter's.

 

[MatthewB]

Watched "Taken 3" last night. Better than part 2 but not by much. Seriously at this point they are really stretching the bounds of this series. If I were Liam I'd just look at the daughter and tell her that she should just stay at home cause the real world just ain't made for you and "pops" is getting to old to torture people to save your whiny ass.

Seriously I thought with a guy who has all these killer skills maybe by now you wanna teach your daughter a few tricks to defend herself against people constantly wanting to kidnap her. I saw this for free and still feel cheated. For a guy who did Schindler's List you would think Liam would at least look at the scripts given to him either that or they are just tossing piles of money at him.

This movie did have a nice supporting actor in Forrest Whitaker who prolly thought this movie was so stupid that it actually straightened out his wonky eye for most of this pathetic dribble of a movie. It seems Liam has an issue with guns, killing people and just doing anything that made the first movie so good. Your money would be better well spent renting Ishtar.

 

[The DirtMerchant]

Over the last week or two I watched
Lucy (Fun and quick Popcorn flick...wonder if Scarlett will really be in Ghost in the Shell)
The Equalizer (ditto everything above)
Jack Ryan Shadow Recruit (really cheesy...wish it was better)

Up next, either the Interview or Fury...

 

[PaulyT]

So after mentioning this movie above, I had to watch it again. My opinion stands. This has to be in my top ~3 favorite movies of all time, and if you asked me right now, I'd probably say it has the top spot. I'm sure I've seen it 5-6 times at least now, and there's still stuff I pick up when watching it again. This time I was paying particular attention to how the colors change with the different narrative perspectives. It's ... genius. One scene, in the circular room with the stacks of scrolls, is told three times, each time with different perspective and details, and totally different color. All monochromes; I love that.

Anyway, sorry to go on and on about this. It's not an action movie per se, despite being martial arts based, nor is the plot especially complex (though it has some real subtlety, I think). But it's the artistry of the colors and sets and filming, along with the telling of the story, that makes this movie so great in my opinion. It really resonates with me.

I also noticed in my viewing tonight that Itzhak Perlman did the violin, didn't pick up on that before. Cool.



Carry on...

 

[Botch]

That's "Hero"? Guess I'll have to order, the only other movies in that genre I have are Bruce Lee's top film (can't even remember the title right now) and "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Bass Player".

 

[MatthewB]

Pauly I love "Hero" just a spectacular movie. A movie that hardly anyone mentions but is beyond epic on a grand scale is "Red Cliff" not the two hour Americanized version but the uncut four hour epic. Just fantastic. It's like "Curse of the Golden Flower" ten times over. If you haven't seen it do yourself a favor and buy the four hour version.

 

[PaulyT]

Yes Botch, Hero (2002, directed by Yimou Zhang). Actually the one of the main characters in Crouching Tiger, the younger girl (Ziyi Zhang, no relation to Yimou), is in Hero and at least one of Yimou's other movies (which I have now ordered). And I don't really consider Hero to be a martial arts movie, exactly; the fighting is not the focus of this movie.

Matt, I own the extended version of Red Cliff as well - actually I think based on your recommendation some time ago. That's a good one, and the sound effects in that movie are great demo material! I think I've only watched it once, though, should go through it again.

 

[heeman]

Are these sub titled or in English?

 

[PaulyT]

Both. There is an english-dubbed audio track for Hero on the blu-ray. But I much prefer watching the original Chinese with subtitles.

 

[Huey]

Both. There is an english-dubbed audio track for Hero on the blu-ray. But I much prefer watching the original Chinese with subtitles.

Agreed! I would rather have the movie shot in English, but it is a big world out there. Also, if memory serves me correctly, the english dubbed selection is also a lower sound quality than the Chinese. Hero is such a stunning movie visually, and the story was pretty good as well.

Another movie that we've talked about before which is a very vivid movie to watch is The Fall. Worthy of a rental at least.

 

[PaulyT]

Actually for Hero it's the opposite, at least on my BD; the original Chinese soundtrack is DD, whereas the English dub is DTS-HD. I was minorly annoyed at that. But it's not a movie where sound (and sound effects) are especially key. I certainly didn't notice any deficiency in the sound.

 

[Huey]

Actually for Hero it's the opposite, at least on my BD; the original Chinese soundtrack is DD, whereas the English dub is DTS-HD. I was minorly annoyed at that. But it's not a movie where sound (and sound effects) are especially key. I certainly didn't notice any deficiency in the sound.

It's been a long time since I've seen it, but I could have swore it was the other way around. It must be the way you say it is, can't imagine them doing it differently with multiple discs.

 

[MatthewB]

Today had the house to myself so watched "The Judge" with Roberts Duvall and Downey Jr. hard movie to watch about a strained relationship between father and son. Not typical of recent outing by Downey but still worth a rental but wouldn't buy (which I did for 5.00).

Next was Lian Neeson in "A Walk Amongst the Tombstones" I really liked this one kinda a Sam Spade thriller with three serial killer/kidnappers and Liam as an ex cop private eye hired by a drug king pin to find who chopped up his wife. This one had a great story and kept me on the edge of my seat. Really glad I bought this one.

Finally watched "Gone Girl" with Ben Affleck loved this movie till the very end which pissed me off because well I don't want to give it away but when the credits started to roll I was like "Hell No, that's it". Karma needed to be done hardcore. Great movie though and just goes to show marriage is hard and Tyler Perry actually did a great job as a lawyer.

 

[jomari]

glad you liked walk among tombstones...

 

[PaulyT]

Just finished Curse of the Golden Flower... wow that was a trip. I got it because it's one of the movies by the same director as Hero, which I talked about recently. This one has pretty cool sets and costumes, but is a totally different movie from Hero. Not really sure what to think of it yet, gonna have to watch it again I think.

 

[MatthewB]

Just watched the horror movie Ouija please for all that is holy save your money. I get these scary movies well basically they scare the shit out of Michelle and I love seeing her jump and bitch about why I get these movies. After this one even she was like "that was the lamest dumbest movie I've ever seen". Had to agree. Just stupid on so many levels. Not even worthy of a free rental from Redbox.