Carter's What I've Been Watching!

I thought I'd follow Trevin's trend and post a inferior version of my own of his piece about what he has watched in the last week. Hopefully combined we can talk about quite a few movies that otherwise would not be spoken of on here. I will loosely follow the same rules he had for his, that is a 1-10 scale, etc. For me, I will include the movies I have seen in the past week as well as a bonus whatever-the-heck-I-want item, because it is whatever the heck I want. Well, here we go.
The Bridge on the River Kwai (1957) - This Oscar best-picture winner was very entertaining. It is mainly a guy movie as almost every single person on screen throughout the film is male. The cast includes beefcake star William Holden and the original Obi-Wan Kenobi, Alec Baldw... Alec Guinness. I am not sure if this movie would be entertaining for today's audiences but I really enjoyed it. I am a sucker for classic movies. This movie is long [At over two and a half hours] especially for back then but hey, it won seven Oscars so they did something right. It is slow for much of the movie but the last hour or so make it all worth it. If you like classics, war movies, or bridges then I recommend this movie to you.

Rating: 8.5 out of 10

Kick-Ass (2010) - I enjoyed this movie more than Trevin did. He says the graphic novel is better and that even that wasn't too great anyway. I say that makes him a nerdy snob. This movie was certainly entertaining and a pretty fun watch. Maybe I did enjoy it more because I haven't read the book, but based solely on entertainment value, this movie is worth it. Also, this girl is in it.
Rating: 7.5 out of 10

Bonus!

Red Bull - To commemorate my classes starting back up this week I chose Red Bull as my whatever-I-want item this week. I will be drinking lots of it as a result of procrastination. Yay.

Trevin's What I've Been Watching!

A quick word about this segment; since television season is coming up, and since I'm anticipating weeks in the future where I won't have time to watch many movies, I'm going to add TV shows to this segment. I will  try and avoid talking about spoilers, but that may not always be possible. I'll try and warn people if there are spoilers, but just be on the lookout for that.

Scott Pilgrim vs. The World (2010) - I found this movie to be very entertaining. It was fast-paced and original, so I felt like it was a success. It had its fair share of jokes that fell flat, but overall, most of the jokes worked, making this a fun movie to see. It's a shame this didn't do better in the box office, because it's far better than the movies that have been topping the charts.

Rating: 8 out of 10

Spirited Away (2001) - After seeing this, and the first half of Howl's Moving Castle, I think I've realized Hayao Miyazaki is not really for me. While I appreciated both films, and found them visually stunning, I wasn't captivated by their storyline as much as other people have been by his works. Even though his stuff might not be my taste, I can still appreciate an achievement when I see one.

Rating: 7 out of 10

Eat Pray Love (2010) - Now here's an example of a movie that's not my taste that I cannot appreciate. I found this film to be way too long, far too cliched, with terrible cinematography choices, and a questionable comclusion (did I really watch a woman find strength in her independence for 2 and a half hours just to see her get with another man?). There was one reedeming quality to the film, and it had to do with the male cast. This film had a very impressive male cast: Billy Crudup, James Franco, Richard Jenkins, and Javier Bardem, all actors I think have great talent. While most of them seemed to have mailed in their performances in exchange for the paycheck, there was a noteable exception. While Richard Jenkins character was terribly written and annoying (to me, at least) his performance in the scene on the rooftop was sensational. The dialogue in the scene was horrible, but he was very convincing as a man struggling with an enormous amount of guilt he's carried with him his entire life. While that part of the scene (the rest was stupid) is worth seeing, it's not worth the price of admission or the runtime of the movie. Avoid this one.

Rating: 1 out of 10

"Weeds" Season 6: Episode 1 - After the way Season 5 ended, I was very excited to see how this episode would turn out. To my surprise, the episode was actually quite dull. Nothing really happened in the entirety of the episode, which was a huge letdown. Despite that, the episode did allow for an interesting setup for the rest of the season, so we'll see how that turns out.

Rating: 6 out of 10

"Louie" Season 1: Episode 9 - This is a show that's been really hard to figure out, and I haven't decided yet if that's a good thing or not. Louis C.K. is probably my favorite American stand-up comic, so that is why I will give this show the ultimate benefit of the doubt. This show seems to change its style with every episode, causing the audience to stop trying to guess the direction of the show. This particular episode was rather interesting to me. Louie has a run-in with a bully on a date, and finds a unique way to handle the situation. I thought this episode worked very well overall, and I thought it was one of the better episodes of the season.

Rating: 7 out of 10

Carter's What I've Been Watching Segment!

I thought I'd follow Trevin's trend and post a inferior version of my own of his piece about what he has watched in the last week. Hopefully combined we can talk about quite a few movies that otherwise would not be spoken of on here. I will loosely follow the same rules he had for his, that is a 1-10 scale, etc. For me, I will include the movies I have seen in the past week as well as a bonus whatever-the-heck-I-want item, because it is whatever the heck I want. Well, here we go.

The Road (2009) - This movie was quite good in my opinion. Every shot has an absolutely dreary gray aura, which is perfect for the post-apocalyptic world that it is set in. Cormac McCarthy is one of the best authors in the world today [See No Country For Old Men] and this adaptation of his work is excellent. It is not a movie for those looking for fun for it is depressing. However, Viggo Mortensen gives an outstanding performance and I feel that no one overplays the depression felt in this movie. At times, this movie feels terrifyingly realistic, as if you or I am going to have to live in this dark, scary world. I was in a bit of a depressed mood when I watched it so perhaps that is why I liked it so much but overall I think this movie is very excellent.
Rating: 9 out of 10




Mega Shark vs. Giant Octopus (2009) - I bought this movie for $5 at Walmart one day for three reasons: 1. The cover was an octopus attacking the Golden Gate Bridge next to a shark jumping out of the water eating an airplane 2. It came with a free digital copy (iPod!) 3. It had a sticker saying "One of the Top 10 film trailers of 2009!" So I had to get it. Starring Deborah Gibson of 1980s pop fame, this movie lived up to that cover. It was absolutely ridiculous, seriously hilarious, and downright stupid. Nevertheless, seeing an octopus tentacle slap a F-22 jet out of the air is AWESOME. I recommend this movie to anyone interested in bad movies. The only problem I had was there was too much dialogue and not enough shark and octopus.
Entertainment Rating: 7 out of 10
Actual Rating: 2 out of 10*

*In comparison to other movies of actual value [i.e. The Road]

Bonus!

Dexter - This is what has been taking most of my free time. Instead of watching movies onmy Netflix, I have been watching Dexter the Showtime TV series. This show is awesome. If you haven't seen it I recommend that you check it out. It is one of the best shows I have ever seen. I absolutely love it, and I'm only in season 2 out of 4 so far. Watch it.

New Feature! Trevin's What I've Been Watching Segment!

Hey guys! I'm starting this new feature that will appear sometime between Sunday and Tuesday each week, and that's the "what I've been watching" segment. In this feature, I will break down the movies I watched the previous week, give a short paragraph review of them, and give them a rating between 1 and 10. This allows me to talk about movies that came out many years ago that I normally wouldn't have a reason to mention, but are worth discussing. A few words about how I rate; while many critics are conservative with their 10 out of 10 ratings, I am not. Since I assume we are all human and nothing's perfect, I don't feel as if a 10 out of 10 rating represents perfection necessarily, I just feel as if it represents the highest level of success. So, if you see many movies with that rating, that is why. So, without further ado, here's what I've been watching this week, starting with my pick of the week.

Man on the Moon (1999) - I thought this film was fantastic. If you are unfamiliar with this one, it stars Jim Carrey as the late comedian Andy Kaufman in the story of his career. This film was exceptional in the way it portrayed the career and the personality of Kaufman, especially with the tone and feel of the film. Director Milos Forman has been very selective in his projects as of late (he has only made 8 films since his 1975 hit, One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest) and I'm glad he chose to do this project. This film also shows Jim Carrey does have talent when he's not doing his slapstick roles. I felt as if this was by far his best performance, because he nearly perfectly portrayed Kaufman unlike anybody else would have been able to. I did feel like this film had a few flaws, mainly the casting of Courtney Love to portray Kaufman's wife. While I didn't think her performance was terrible, neccessarily, I felt as if she didn't do a good enough job to justify casting someone with her personality. Nevertheless, I felt as if this movie served as an important message to other artists; don't necessarily be who you feel like the general public thinks you should be, if you want to be an artist, you shouldn't be afraid to create art you feel is important just because the general public may not like it. In conclusion, I cannot reccomend this movie highly enough.

Rating: 10 out of 10

Kick-Ass (2010) - Overall, I felt as if this film didn't succeed beyond the point of entertainment. I read the graphic novel, and while I wasn't too impressed by it, I found it more successful than the movie. The biggest twist in the novel, and one of the strongest points, was revealed in the first five minutes of the movie, which I felt was a poor decision. Nevertheless, this film was entertaining, and there were many scenes that were just plain cool.

Rating: 6 out of 10

The Other Guys (2010) - This new film starring Will Ferrell and Mark Wahlberg was surprisingly entertaining. I originally thought this movie was going to be terrible when I saw the trailer, but I was pleasantly surprised to find it wasn't. I thought this was Ferrell's best comedy since Anchorman, even though I don't feel like that's saying much. In short, go see this one, you will probably enjoy it.

Rating: 7 out of 10

The Book of Eli (2010) - For a film based on religious themes, this one was of very high quality, but that's more of a statement on the lack of quality in religious cinema and less of a comment on the success of the film. I found this one to have many holes throughout. While I liked the art direction at times, it seemed a bit forced and unoriginal at times. As far as casting goes, this was a normal performance for Denzel Washington, not anything terrible, but nothing very exciting or mind-blowing. While I thought Mila Kunis did her best, I felt like she was a victim of bad casting, which isn't neccessarily her fault. The best part of the film is the performance of Gary Oldman, who portrayed the villian perfectly and gave me a reason to keep watching. Also, I watched this movie with the knowledge of the final reveal at the end (someone spoiled it for me), and I found it to be implausible and inconsistent throughout the film.

Rating: 3 out of 10

So what did you think of these movies? Which ones do you want to see now?