The Summer Movie Megathread

SubJeff on 25/8/2013 at 21:45

Yep, I really liked it.

I said so ages ago itt I think. It came out ages ago in the UK. I think it'll become more of a classic than Hot Fuzz, certainly. Shaun of the Dead is hard to beat though.

Scots Taffer on 25/8/2013 at 23:57

I thought The World's End suffered from almost the opposite problem of its protagonist - far from being in a state of arrested development, I think Wright and Pegg's writing here shows their age and I think they lost a lot of the opportunity for more fun. I have a strong suspicion that two ideas fused together early in the conception of this story, one being the reliving of the pub crawl and the other being how they worked back from the final image of King as a sword-swinging warrior in an apocalyptic landscape perpetually reliving his youth with his band of merry men.

There were no "the greater good" or "you've got red on you" quotables in this.

There were no "Dire Straits"/"Throw it" or "You're a doctor, deal with it"/"Yeah, motherfucker".

By contrast the biggest laugh this movie got was when Frost turns to leave the bar and puts his arm through the window.

Also, I hate to say this because of how it sounds, but the over-reliance on constant swearing and casual dropping of the C-bomb just isn't as funny as the many well thought out lines in the prior two movies.

On the positive side, it was visually awesome and still had strong directorial flourishes, though I felt even some of these were toned back to not want to appear derivative of the previous movies. Whilst the fight scenes were kinetic, they lacked the variety of HF or SotD.

demagogue on 27/8/2013 at 01:01

I like following Terry Gillium's FB updates on his latest movie, The Zero Theorem, but today an actual (http://www.aintitcool.com/node/63845?utm_source=full-feed&utm_medium=feed&utm_term=reviews&utm_campaign=1307_RSS) review came out & it was so stoked it was hard to to catch its enthusiasm.

It almost reads like he made a movie version of The Stanley Parable, except not just a gimmick but with a story ... that and playing off HHGttG's supercomputer that figures out the answer to the universe but then has to compute the question, except in this movie it's a programmer & he's under a lot of stress.

faetal on 29/8/2013 at 12:13

I watched Star Trek: Into Darkness last night. I didn't really enjoy it much - it felt so disconnected from itself. Real disappointment.

My main problem with Affleck as Batman is that I've just not seen Affleck in a lead role I thought he was any good in. He's a decent enough supporting actor, but he just doesn't have the charisma required for Batman I think. Bale walked the role, Keaton was surprisingly good and I can take or leave Kilmer / Clooney. I just feel that there are dozens of better choices for Batman. I do think it could be fun if Casey Affleck was Robin though and Batman constantly belittles him in a south Boston accent.

Angel Dust on 30/8/2013 at 23:25

I suppose this isn't technically a summer movie (the summers season has finished now, right?) but I reckon it might have appeal to some here:

[video=youtube;r6UmqNuMdY4]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r6UmqNuMdY4[/video]

It's Bong Joon-ho's newest film and English language debut. I reckon he's one of the best directors around at the moment (Memories of a Murder and The Host are both very good and Mother is a masterpiece) so I'm excited for this even if the trailer isn't the best. It does look a little bit too generic "dystopian future with sharp class divide", but it's apparently based on some French graphic novel and the few reviews that are out are very favourable, noting that Bong hasn't lost any of his distinct directorial flair in the jump to English language.

It's also got the South Korean actor, and Bong regular, Song Kang-ho (The Host, Thirst, The Good, the Bad and the Weird) in it too, which is awesome.

demagogue on 31/8/2013 at 00:55

Zero Theorem trailer is up.
Did I mention how much I adore Terry Gillium movies?

[video=youtube;AKT296jh8xg]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AKT296jh8xg[/video]

Fafhrd on 31/8/2013 at 06:25

Apparently not enough to spell his name correctly.

SubJeff on 31/8/2013 at 10:21

Ha ha Faf. Lols.

That looks great btw. I love the stuff I've seen of his but it all has some weird sadness to it. Time Bandits, Jabberwocky (which I really want to watch again now), 12 Monkeys, Fisher King, Brazil, Baron M.

They're all so... dreamlike. I never saw Fear and Loathing (though I loved the book, which I read in the early nineties) or The Imaginarium but I heard that The Imaginarium wasn't all that. Tell me otherwise and its on.

demagogue on 31/8/2013 at 15:24

pfft ... ask Quentin Tarantino to write a single sentence without a spelling error to save his life, then try to say he doesn't get movies... I'm typing on a phone. That makes opening a new window to confirm spelling a pita.

But my real answer is Time Bandits was the bomb long before I I was old enough to know wtf about anything in life. Imagination at that level doesn't tolerate such pedestrian details. =)

Angel Dust on 31/8/2013 at 23:06

Quote Posted by Subjective Effect

That looks great btw. I love the stuff I've seen of his but it all has some weird sadness to it. Time Bandits, Jabberwocky (which I really want to watch again now), 12 Monkeys, Fisher King, Brazil, Baron M.

All good films but there is a problem with that list - the newest film on it is 18 years old. Gilliam hasn't been firing on all cylinders for quite a while* and I no longer get as excited about his upcoming films as I used to. I'm still interested, of course, because there is always that chance of a return to his glory days and he's always got something going on visually at least. That new trailer looks pleasingly zany and the collaboration with Waltz looks like a good fit but I'm still skeptical. Please prove me wrong, Terry!

* I realise a part of this could be due to the financial and production difficulties he faces in getting his projects made (as seen in the great doco Lost in La Mancha, easily the best Gilliam related film since 12 Monkeys) but the problems of Tideland, Grimmand even Parnassus, a somewhat muted return to form, run deeper than that.