Been thinking about streaming that. Seems quirky, shooting up celebrities.

dew it! it was more like a payoff with americas society.

RIP Tony Scott.

The Hunger Games? Over-long and suckish.

The lead girl is good but the lead boy couldn't act his way out of a chip sack. I blame the director entirely.

Glad I watched it before Izzi; she is squeamish about violence and won't want to see it.

I saw it and read the books before seeing Battle Royale. I really liked the series, and still do. But after seeing Battle Royale, I'm disappointed in Suzzane Collins' unoriginality. Hunger Games used up every aspect of Battle Royale.

The Hunger Games sequel even uses Battle Royale's concepts of danger zones and former winners competing again. Hell, the reason why the 3rd Hunger Games book is everyone's least favorite is because it rips off the Battle Royale sequel (which everyone hates).

Watched the Harry Potter movie about Deathly Hallows? Part 1. It was pretty boring, and it made me remember why I never cared about reading/watching any of it.

We just saw this tonight at a local film festival and it was fantastic.

Part 2 wasn't much better.

The end of this is for you Imke. I can understand not liking the movie, but you had to throw "reading" in there.

I take it you're a Harry Potter fan?

I watched The Limits of Control and really enjoyed it. It's not the best Jarmusch film, but it's really pleasant to watch, even if the point of whole film isn't that plain to see.

Also I finally watched The Graduate, which was absolutely charming for me.

I got a Tom Hardy boner after watching the new Batman movie and then Inception on HBO so I watched Bronson the other night.
That movie is brutal as hell! It's definitely like a sequel (maybe a Part3) to Clockwork Orange. Where it's not quite as good as the original, but it's still pretty damn good.

Jeep Swenson is the true Bane. Tom Hardy wished he could live up to his performance.

I saw a few movies lately.

Limitless was okay but the writer in me called bullshit around every turn. Plus i hate Bradley Cooper.

Ted made me angry, it was that bad. Even Mila couldn't save it. Like the part where they fart and waft it over at the business men. So dumb and poorly delivered.

The Hunger Games was good, i watched the whole thing. I haven't seen Battle Royale though, which is probably way better. Also i had a Hunger Games dream the night i watched it.

American Reunion was so bad, i don't know why they made it. "Our ten year reunion is a few years late, oh well", gimme a fuckin break. That's the attitude of the whole movie too. "This makes no sense and isn't funny at all, oh well." Every character had the same lame-ass girlfriend/wife/old girlfriend subplot and it pissed me off!

So movies still suck, at least as far as comedies go.

They are basically the same. Hunger Games 1 and 2 are basically Battle Royale. And Hunger Games 3 is basically Battle Royale 2. (No one likes Battle Royale 2)

I saw Battle Royale after I read the trilogy and was disappointed at how unoriginal Hunger Games turned out to be.

One of Pica's favourite childhood films :

Nate!

I laughed the whole time when i saw 21 Jump Street. They did a good job with that one.

Yeah, I said it before but - 21 Jump Street really surprised me.

I loved all the cameos. And Johnny... I can't ruin it for people. But come on! Awesome!?

Gonna watch The Avengers soon! Actually looking forward to it.

I wanna see the Avengers. Do I need to have seen Thor first?

More importantly:
Is Izzi old enough for the Matrix?

I'm mostly asking Pepper. But weigh-in.

I think she could handle it, if she's not squeamish (I'm thinking of the cable ripping out of the head part). I haven't seen that movie in years, though, so there might be parts I can't remember that aren't appropriate. I can't recall anything too terrible about it really.

It helps a little to have seen Thor, but you won't be completely lost. Honestly, I thought it was one of the weakest of the series. Not very many fight scenes and paper thin characters.

I didn't like The Avengers. Love Iron Man, the rest sorta sucked (except for The Hulk, he was okay too).

Loki was a good villain, though.

Yeaaah, Thor was actually not bad. You'll enjoy it enough. In order to really appreciate The Avengers, yeaaah, I'd recommend watching the preceding movies. Buuut, yeah, it's not entirely necessary.

Also, I watched The Matrix when I was 9. I... don't think I turned out too bad. But I leave that up to you.

She liked it. There were a couple points where I had to pause-and-explain, but I think she got it well-enough.

Sorry, I rarely check this thread, surprised you would ask my advice (as I always am when people ask me a bout kids). Seems like you worked it out anyway.

I have trouble censoring Lily's viewing habits because of all her older brothers, she ends up seeing movies like the matrix long before i would have let Gabe seeing them. Just in general, that is the way it goes with her. But she is tough from it, and all her bodyguards (brothers) often yell at each other over things they deem unfit for her that another one is watching. It is kind of cute.

I watched Woody Allen's Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Sex But were Afraid To Ask this week. It was fun, but I still prefer his dramas to the comedies. I want to watch Alice next.

I watched that unbeknownst to my parents when I was about 11 and I really didn't understand it at all. I should watch it again.

Got our tickets to see The Master next friday! Wheeee

That looks like a perfect movie.

Love Paul Thomas Anderson, I'm pretty damn excited for this movie. Looks like Joaquin Phoenix and Phillip Seymour Hoffman are going to be in fine form.

Isn't Joachim Phoenix dead? And hasn't he been for a while now?

Edit: He's not! Wth? It's weird. I thought he OD'd or something. I feel kind of gypped

River is the dead Phoenix. Joaquin just went nuts and "quit" acting for a few years, pretended to be a rapper, turned out it was all for some movie/documentary. The Master is his first real film role since then.

watched this movie 'eyes wide open' on netflix. i knew going in that it was a movie about two gay orthodox jews but it was more than i expected.

it was well done in the sense that it shows how incredibly difficult it is to be like them living in an ultra conservative culture. to add to the dynamic, one of the guys is married with kids. it's the sort of life that i'm not exposed to.

oh, i just remembered i also watched 'jiro, dreams of sushi'. it's a documentary about a man and how he lives his life as one of the best sushi chefs alive.

dude has three michelin stars and charges $300 / 30000Y for a meal. his restaurant only allows ten guests a night and you have to reserve a spot a month in advance. he lives his life with such precision and consistency (higher than typical japanese standards) and i kind of feel bad for his kids (two sons) who are living under the shadow of this man and his accomplishments.

one son is being groomed to take over jiro's restaurant while the other opened his own restaurant. it's an interesting documentary and highlights not just the passion these guys have for making sushi but also the passion their suppliers (fish dealer, rice seller, etc) have for their own trade.

they've said more than once that it's not about the money, which is in sharp contrast to how typical american entrepreneurs view their business ventures.

Netflix keeps recommending that Jiro thing to me, I should check it out one of these days

finished watching this documentary called 'happy' and it's good. i think most of it is based partly on the book 'stumbling on happiness' by daniel gilbert since the premise is the same.

the key to happiness, at least according to the movie, is really so simple but a lot of people don't realize it.

Well... What is it?

people who value intrinsic goals vs those who value extrinsic goals are less happier.

the extrinsic goals being:

- personal growth
- building relationships
- community feeling

the intrinsic goals being:

- money
- status
- image

basically, living an altruistic life, achieving personal goals, and belonging to a group (accepted and contributing) give you a better chance at living a happier life.

I didn't like Immortals. I saw the last hour of Where The Wild Things Are, which quite intrigued me. I instantly loved Carol, and the ending made me sad. This morning I watched The Beginners, which was quite a heavy movie, but I liked it.

Bull. I am all about personal growth and I always want to be community oriented. I'm not any happier though, because something always gets in the way.

I've been watching super hero movies lately, all the ones I missed in the last five years. I got bored of them around the time that Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer came out (2007) and, aside from Batman, I just left the entire genre alone until now.

In the last two days I've watched X-Men Origins: Wolverine, The Incredible Hulk, Ironman, Watchmen, and Thor. I walked out on Hellboy 2, which is hard to do when you're watching movies at home. I had to walk out and then walk back in and turn it off. The movie is stupid, though; lots of lame jokes, a main hero who just shoots a gun and punches, which is alright, but when you want superpowers and all you get is a guy who is a giant fish, who is never in water, and then they bring in a 1950s looking robot... No idea what the hell they were thinking, and it looked like it was gonna end with the golden army, the massive undestroyable army element of paperback fantasy--a borefest, all of it.

I'm looking at a list of American superhero movies on wiki.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_American_superhero_films

It looks like Tim Burton's Batman was the first good superhero movie, and nothing noteworthy came from Marvel until X-Men in 2000. When Spiderman came out in 2001 I watched it three times in theaters. Its been so long since I watched it that I don't remember how good it is, but if you look at Worldwide Gross, it made more money than any superhero movie before it, and no superhero movie matched it or passed it until Spiderman 3, which was in 2007.

By then I was completely bored of the genre, watching only Batman movies. It seemed when Spiderman came out, there was the feeling that they can finally do this now, they have the special effects to make Marvel movies and do it well, and everyone expected a slew of awesome super hero movies. Between Spiderman 1 and Spiderman 3, there was pretty much just six years of crap: Elektra, Daredevil, Fantastic Four, Catwoman, Hulk, Superman Returns, and then two X-Men movies that I didn't think were any good at all. The best superhero movies of that time were all outside of Marvel: V for Vendetta, Constantine, Batman Begins.

Then there was Spiderman 3, Ghost Rider, and Rise of the Silver Surfer, all in a row, and that was in 2007 when I gave up on these movies. I've decided to get back to this genre because it's blowing up; ever since Ironman came out, these movies are making money and getting high ratings on IMDB. Dark Knight Rises, the Avengers, and The Amazing Spiderman, came out all in a row and each one of them made more money than any superhero movie to come out in the previous four years.

Ironman and The Incredible Hulk were both good, but they both had the same problem and they both solved it in the same way. The problem was that the hero was the strongest thing in the film and had no equal enemy to battle with; the problem was solved in both movies by recreating the hero as a villain--an evil Ironman, an evil Hulk.

Thor was ridiculous. If you look at it on any level, it just doesn't seem to line up. That which hangs in the balance is always integral to a superhero plot; usually it's the earth itself that hangs in the balance. In Thor, the main villain wants to destroy a planet full of 'Ice Giants,' who we know only as being heartless bad guys who live on a planet of ice. This fight, over a place that the writer has ensured us to have no reason to care about, takes place on Thor's planet, while most of the movie takes place on earth and involves earthling characters that end up having almost nothing to do with the plot. There are two important action sequences; in one, Thor fights his little brother to save the Ice Giants, and of course Thor wins because the two are equals, except Thor is bigger and he has the power of Thor, the hammer, all that. In the other fight, Thor throws his hammer at a giant robot that shoots fire. Thor's one redeeming quality is that it was funny.

X-Men Origins: Wolverine, was surprisingly cliche. It has the dead wife, scream at the sky scene; it has an explosion and a guy walking away scene. To actually write these scenes into a movie, you've gotta be out of your mind. Wolverine's intentions were all over the place. When he showed up to destroy everything at the place where he was made, and then he discovers that his wife is still alive, he pretty much gets mad and leaves and that's it. At that point in the movie there is nothing to be tied up; the plot has worked itself into conclusion. What ends up happening is that the wife follows him and he finds out that there are mutant prisoners, so he decides on a whim to save them, which results in him destroying the entire place which is what he showed up to do in the first place but decided not to do because he was cryhurt--then he fights the villain, who, like evil-Hulk and evil-Ironman, is Weapon XI to his Weapon X, an updated version that he and his brother work together to destroy.

Everything in Origins was just waiting for the action scenes to start. You know his wife will die, you know he's going into surgery to get his skeleton, you know he's gonna break out and go nuts on everyone's face. Once he escapes, he stops by at the first farm house he comes across and you know he's gonna get the motorcycle, but you have to wait and watch him have dinner with the old couple before they get shot down.

The thing that made the movie worth watching, and the reason I'll probably watch it again, is that there is just so much action. There is war after war, there's the Blob vs Wolverine in a boxing ring, there's disappear guy vs Sabertooth, Wolverine vs Sabertooth, Wolverine and Sabertooth vs Weapon XI, Gambit vs Wolverine, Wolverine vs the military a few times. Even the scene where Cyclops is captured is full of action, he blows the roof off of a goddamned school and shit. When I was a kid this would have been my favorite movie, but the plot just wasn't there for me; everything new was lame, everything I already knew was too obvious.

I'm gonna watch Captain America and Ironman 2 tonight.

I had more to say about these movies but I have to go. Why the fuck did Thor make so much money? Thor and Ironman... superheroes that most people don't even know. Is that something to do with it? Are these movies more interesting when we don't know the characters, because we're tired of seeing Spiderman get bit by a spider, tired of seeing Wolverine in his glass tub with scientists all around him? How is possible that Dark Knight Rises, Avengers, and the Amazing Spiderman came out one after another and cleaned up to that extent, making more money than any three superhero movies have ever made in a row like that? Did the genre suck for so long that we were mystified when it became decent? Why is Ironman so good? Why is Mr. Manhattan so goddamn OP as fuck?

Ok you had a long post Dan so I'll comment as I read.

Our opinions differ as I'm one of the few that actually likes the Daredevil movie. X-Men 1 and 2 were great. Constantine was horrible. Boring as crap.

Every single Avengers movie did the Bizzaro hero villain thing. Iron Man vs Nega Iron Man. Hulk vs Nega Hulk. Iron Man 2 vs Nega Tony Stark. Thor vs Nega Thor (his brother, close enough) Capt America vs Capt Nazi. Get the drift?

I don't remember Thor that much. It was boring.

Origins was what it was. Mindless action.

Thor did well because 1. It was leading up to the Avengers movie and 2. Women find the lead actor hawwwwt.
Iron Man simply kicked ass.

Watchmen was terrible but had good action scenes.

I liked Constantine.