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Post 14 Jan 2013, 2:52 pm

D'jango
Silver Linings Playbook
Zero Dark Thirty
Moonrise Kingdom
Argo
Lincoln
Les Miserable
Life of Pi (3d version)
Skyfall
Hunger Games
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Post 16 Jan 2013, 8:04 am

You saw all those movies? Wow. All the ones I saw last year were aimed at the 12 and under crowd. :-( Jealous.
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Post 16 Jan 2013, 8:56 am

Me too, for the most part, although I have seen Argo and I saw Zero Dark Thirty last night. Argo is top notch. 0-Dark-30 was good, not great.

I was wondering about Ricky's view on the torture scenes. I found them hard to watch and disturbing. The movie suggests that they were essential in 2 ways:

1. That's where they got their initial leads
2. They were having problems getting info after Obama changed the policy.
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Post 16 Jan 2013, 9:46 am

D'jango
Silver Linings Playbook
Zero Dark Thirty
Moonrise Kingdom (saw it)
Argo
Lincoln (saw it)
Les Miserable
Life of Pi (3d version)
Skyfall (saw it)
Hunger Games (saw it)

Of the four I had seen, I thought Lincoln was the best (partially because of the historical plot), loved Moonrise Kingdom (great quirky character interaction), Skyfall, was ok, and the Hunger Games was entertaining, but not too deep. Neal Andereth and I will be seeing Zero dark thirty pretty soon.
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Post 16 Jan 2013, 4:19 pm

My wife and I try and see all the Academy Best Picture nominees. Since we see a movie every other week it isn't that hard. That, and the airmiles rewards include movie tickets...
I wanted to add End of Watch as top ten, but couldn't decide which to drop. Probably Hunger Games,, but I have a soft spot for Jennifer Lawrence and couldn't do it...

There was an interesting rebuttal to Zero Dark Thirty, if thats what it could be called, by the former head of CIA clandestine...(I think). He disputed the amount of "torture" and also disputed the information that was suppose to have been culled - according to the movie.But then he also disputed calling what his guys were doing torture....
I'm not sure that there's a moral tale being told here... The prisoners are fairly one dimensional and you never learn much about them, what brought them to their fate. Whether they hold information or not...
The movie is really just a procedural tale.... Bigelow has a way of conveying mood, and image along with a tale that is quite remarkable. There isn't character development or growth just continuing exposition of the sacrifice and the drive and the fear. Its paced amazingly well.
So I didn't really get the fuss about the torture in Zero Dark....
A movie that really takes on the moral dilema of torture/terror was Rendition with Jake Gyllenhal. You see the side of the innocent victims on both sides of the equation.

Now, the violence in Django .... that was a large part of the story. And where some critics thought it over the top , I thought it fit. It made the impact of the violence enacted on slaves harder to ignore. And it realistically portrayed what guns do to people. I wonder if sometimes the love affair with guns is because they've been "romanticized". That the reality of the violence that a bullet or bullets do to people was sanitized for so many years...
I'm settling on Silver Linings Playbook as the best movie of the year though. Its a bit of a throwback but it deals with mental illness, and the pain from loss better than any movie I can remember,
Haven't seen Amour or the movie with the 6 year old in Louisiana yet... Probably won't unless they get re-released wide. They only showed at a couple of downtown theaters.
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Post 17 Jan 2013, 10:00 am

D'jango (Last Tarantino movie I saw was Pulp Fiction, which was before I was smart enough to pre-screen)
Silver Linings Playbook
Zero Dark Thirty (saw it)
Moonrise Kingdom
Argo
Lincoln
Les Miserable
Life of Pi
Skyfall (saw it)
Hunger Games

I intend to see Lincoln.

I enjoyed Skyfall.

I thought Zero Dark Thirty was not well-plotted early on, but the last half was top-notch.

I do want to see Argo and Lincoln. or Django. It's rough for me to even want to go see a Jamey Foxx movie after all the idiotic things he's said.

I really liked Jack Reacher. If you combine a typical Tom Cruise pic with a CSI-trained Dirty Harry, you pretty much have it. Fun.

I also liked The Hobbit enough to go see it again.

I have no desire to see Hunger Games or Life of Pi.
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Post 17 Jan 2013, 12:24 pm

Doctor Fate wrote:D'jango (Last Tarantino movie I saw was Pulp Fiction, which was before I was smart enough to pre-screen)


I agree. Tarantino has issues that he leaves on display in the movie theater. I will not be seeing D'jango. One exception, however, is Jackie Brown, which I attribute to keeping Tarantino keeping true to the Elmore Leonard script.
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Post 17 Jan 2013, 3:07 pm

geojanes wrote:
Doctor Fate wrote:D'jango (Last Tarantino movie I saw was Pulp Fiction, which was before I was smart enough to pre-screen)


I agree. Tarantino has issues that he leaves on display in the movie theater. I will not be seeing D'jango. One exception, however, is Jackie Brown, which I attribute to keeping Tarantino keeping true to the Elmore Leonard script.


Funny thing is: if I see Pulp Fiction on TV, I like it. I bought the soundtrack just so I could here "Zed's dead baby; Zed's dead."

I remember sitting in the theater and it taking me half the movie to realize what was going on. Wait a sec--that guy's dead!

I really have no interest in seeing a movie where someone had to be coached on how to say the n-word. N-O thanks!
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Post 18 Jan 2013, 7:14 am

I saw several movies over the past year but most are not (and should not be) listed here. It's hard to even remember what I saw. One not mentioned that I did really enjoy a LOT was Ted. It was very dirty,, very crude, very dumb, but it made me laugh and isn't that worth something?
I did see the Hunger Games and thought it was incredibly stupid, I guess it was well made but the whole concept was so idiotic I simply couldn't get my head around it, I kept thinking how this and that was stupid.

Skyfall was so-so. I like Bond movies a lot, I think Daniel Craig is a guys Bond and like him but this particular movie was too long, had too few special gadgets, hardly any womanizing, and while I have no problem accepting (and even appreciate and like) the over the top action scenes that simply could not happen in real life ...he's Bond after all, I just had too much trouble with this villain and the way he escaped, it was poorly thought out in my mind!

Of the list, I would like to see Django the most, I love Tarantino movies, you need to realize the movie is going to be comicbook-ish and the blood and gore will be over the top but I LIKE that and want to see this movie. The Hobbit is on my must see list as is Jack Reacher (I may wait for the Hobbit to get to the second run theater now while Jack Reacher is a rental in my book as is Argo)
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Post 18 Jan 2013, 9:01 am

Forget last year! What about this year?

http://www.rottentomatoes.com/gallery/1 ... S/?_r=true

Well, okay, one more from this year: I really enjoyed "Trouble With the Curve."

Was it a bit formulaic? Sure, but it was so well done. Excellent movie about Father/Daughter relationship with a bunch of great baseball thrown in. Sweet.
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Post 18 Jan 2013, 12:42 pm

oh, one more I saw that completely escaped me.
I saw this at the second run theater with a buddy and his 15 year old son, a sort of boys night out for cheap.
Nobody will ever put this forward as any sort of academy award nominee but damn, we laughed more than you would think.

..The Three Stooges!
Yep, corny, stupid humor, lot's of dumb sophomoric humor but we laughed and that counts for something. I believe it's currently on HBO, if you want to waste an hour or so of your life, I can't really "recommend" this movie because it's soooo very stupid, but it's worth a peek maybe? (the guy next to me at work was just telling some people how he saw it the other night and thought it was funny, far more than he thought possible by a movie he knew was stupid ...go figure)
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Post 21 Jan 2013, 2:26 pm

Actually saw a real movie this weekend. Lincoln was great. And it was a shame I knew so little about the passage of the 13th Amendment.
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Post 21 Jan 2013, 2:42 pm

geojanes wrote:Actually saw a real movie this weekend. Lincoln was great. And it was a shame I knew so little about the passage of the 13th Amendment.


It's about the only one I've not seen that I'm really motivated to see.
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Post 28 Jan 2013, 7:06 am

rickyp wrote:D'jango
Silver Linings Playbook
Zero Dark Thirty
Moonrise Kingdom
Argo
Lincoln
Les Miserable
Life of Pi (3d version)
Skyfall
Hunger Games


I've seen half of these so far, ZDT, Argo, Pi, Skyfall, and HG. Of these, Argo was the best, IMO.
* ZDT was good, but lacked tension, and I couldn't not think about the controversial portrayal of the significance of torture in finding the key lead.
* I really enjoyed HG, and something about the film lingered with me quite a while afterwards.
* I have the same comments about Pi and Skyfall: in both all of the individual elements were strong (e.g. nods to Bond history in Skyfall, stunning visuals in Pi), but somehow, for me at least, the whole was less than the sum of the parts. Oh, and [Spoiler Alert] I didn't care for the fact that in Skyfall Bond fails to save either girl.
* I thought Argo was the complete package. I realize that elements were added/simplified/exaggerated for dramatic effect, but I thought that the result was successful, and didn't significantly impact the facts of the story.

Another film worth mentioning from 2012, but one that may not qualify because it didn't get theatrical release, was HBO's Game Change.
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Post 28 Jan 2013, 11:11 am

ruden
I thought Argo was the complete package. I realize that elements were added/simplified/exaggerated for dramatic effect, but I thought that the result was successful, and didn't significantly impact the facts of the story.

You know in Canada, its generally felt that the facts were altered too much. Mostly because, in truth, the CIA extraction team actually played a very small part....
well, according to Ken Taylor.

Still, it won the SAG and the Golden Globe.So its got a great shot at the Oscar. I'm still awarding my prize to Silver Linings Playbook.