Friday, March 11, 2011

MOVIES FOR THE WEEKEND

It's all about Battle: Los Angeles this weekend -- seeing it Saturday afternoon.  All I'm expecting is two hours of intense street-warfare between Marines and Aliens.  That's all I want to see...

From Netflix is Woody Allen's latest romantic dramedy You Will Meet a Tall, Dark Stranger.  Looking forward.

10 comments:

Joel said...

I have now seen "Battle: Los Angeles." What a worthless pile of cow dung that was. Jonathan Liebesman, the director, is less imitating Bay (one of the greatest directors of explosions) than he is an epileptic blind chimpanzee with no arms that's wagging the camera around with his mouth while indecipherable carnage is passing right through the audience's cornea and being zapped by brain synapses. I'm not asking for much here, Liebes. It could have been a brainless for all I care. I'm talking about the simple basic understanding of the filmmaking process that you got wrong.

In short, one of the ten films I've ever seen that I would give zero stars.

And I'm being completely, deadly serious here, Nick. Not trying to pull your leg or even go along with the critical consensus. In fact I seem to have hated it even greater than most critics. I longed for the rich stylings of McG's fluid direction of "Terminator Salvation." (Note the sarcasm.)

Joel said...

Woops. A brainless EXPLOSIONER. Skipping words, oh me...

Actionman said...

Wow. Harsh words. Somehow I'm guessing I might like this a bit more than you but we'll have to wait and see...

My expectations are to see a war film with aliens instead of enemy soldiers. I'm not expecting anything of any real and true substance -- just looking for intense action.

Joel said...

Yes, but for it to be intense, you have to at least be able to see what's going on. You can't. Liebesman fails on a basic level of filmmaking. You never actually properly see the aliens, for instance, and the carnage is unbearably nonstop for literally 80 of the 116 minutes. Even Michael Bay knew, when he made a 55-minute finale, that there is a limit of tolerance. Unfortunately, Liebesman doesn't abide by any sort of rulebook, and so the jittery camerawork (there's less of it in "Cloverfield," for Pete's sake) actually makes that action unwatchable by the 8-minute mark. There's 71 more minutes of it.

Actionman said...

Interesting. I'll let you know what I think tomorrow. Did you see Black Hawk Down?

Joel said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Joel said...

Oh yeah, and my year so far, in order of preference:

Take Me Home Tonight
Rango
The Adjustment Bureau
The Eagle
Gnomeo & Juliet
No Strings Attached
Just Go with It
The Mechanic
The Dilemma
Drive Angry
I Am Number Four
The Green Hornet
Sanctum
Unknown
The Rite
Season of the Witch
Red Riding Hood
The Roommate
Battle: Los Angeles

Actionman said...

Well...I really liked it. It's far from perfect but I had a lot of fun.

My list from 2011:

The Adjustment Bureau
Rango
Battle: LA
The Green Hornet

Have you seen Black Hawk Down or no?

Joel said...

Hmph.

Glad to see you liked "Rango."

And no, sadly, "Black Hawk Down" has till now escaped me. :/ I know, I know...

Actionman said...

Like Battle: LA, Black Hawk Down is pure fighting for almost the entire runtime. Battle: LA is nowwhere near the masterpiece that BHD is but it's clear to me that they were striving to mix the BHD aesthetic with War of the Worlds, and in that sense, the film was a success for me. Sure, there was lots of cheesy dialogue and war-movie cliches but I expected all of that.