All posts in “Movies”

Recent movies #1

Posted 19 years ago · 1 Comment

I've been watching a lot of movies lately, I neglected the local cinema way too much last year, and I've been trying to catch up recently.

Intriguing and surprising story, typical Nolan, great acting.

8/10

Great movie, I like the different stories that don't seem to have much in common, but do when you think a bit about it.

8/10

I was actually disappointed by The Departed, it's surrounded by a lot of hype, winning the Academy Award and all, and that probably got my hopes up too high. Not a bad movie, but not as great as I had hoped.

7/10

Sweet and interesting story, probably Will Ferrell's best role.

8/10

Just as horrific as I expected.

4/10

You don't really expect much from Crank, after reading the plot outline, a guy needs to keep his adrenalin running or he will die. This creates a lot of interesting and fun situations, and that's all you get.

6/10

Grindhouse best movie of 2007

Posted 19 years ago · Tagged: quentin tarantino, robert rodriguez · 6 Comments

I managed to turn off my Xbox 360 and post a small entry. The full theatrical trailer for the Rodriguez/Tarantino project Grindhouse has been released, and I'm going to be disappointed if I rate it with anything less than 10/10 (well, let's say 9/10 just in case). Robert Rodriguez, Quentin Tarantino, Bruce Willis and Kurt Russel, how can this not be fantastic?

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Yippee-ka-yay, motherfucker

Posted 20 years ago · Tagged: bruce willis, die hard · 4 Comments

It's funny to rewatch a movie you've grown up with. I still have the VHS-tape with Die Hard recorded from some random tv-channel more than 10 years ago, it almost became a tradition to watch Bruce Willis kick some ass every time I was sick and couldn't go to school. Watching movies back then was kinda rare, my mom was very anti-everything-electronic, so we had to rent a so-called MovieBox. Anyway, it's probably been atleast five years since I watched Die Hard until today when the Special Edition DVD dropped into my mailbox.

Seeing it again was interesting, I noticed some mistakes I hadn't in my previous viewings, and, once again, I saw how damaging bad subtitles can be. Relying on subtitles was necessary back then, when I didn't understand much English and it's a bit chocking how easy it is to misinterpret dialogues, feelings, etc. when the subtitles have been created by some ignorant twat who didn't really listen when he or she watched the movie. It's almost as bad as translating the original movie titles to ridiculous Danish ones.

Well, back to Die Hard, Hans Gruber and John McClane were both as badass and cool as I remember them being, but Al Powell, the black cop, was a lot more annoying than I remembered. He was really bugging me. Now, I like grading movies, my vote history is steadily growing on IMDb, but when I grade this movie I base it on the memory I have of it, and not on the movie experience I had when watching it tonight. I feel that it's pretty much the same as playing a blockbuster-game today that was released 10 years ago, naturally it won't be the same experience and you would grade it lower now than back then, and the memory I have of Die Hard makes it atleast worthy of a nine out of 10. Bruce Willis (as John McClane) truly is the coolest motherfucker on earth, Schwarzenegger, Stallone, Norris, Seagal, you aint got shit.

Die Hard – 9/10.

By the way, does anyone know the correct spelling of "yippee-ka-yay"?

Blood Diamond

Posted 20 years ago · Tagged: leonardo dicaprio · 3 Comments

Great movie, fantastic performances by everyone except Jennifer Connelly who disappoints in the emotion-filled scenes. Especially Leonardi DiCaprio and Djimon Hounsou act incredible. DiCaprio's accent fails at some points but is believable overall, the Jamaican-like twist to his dialect is funny and makes the character a bit more interesting. The stories in the movie come together nicely, and the movie gives an interesting sight into the creation of child soldiers, the fierceless brutality of the rebel forces, and the trade of blood diamonds from Africa.

8/10.

The Jackal, how to ruin a movie

Posted 20 years ago · Tagged: bruce willis, jack black, richard gere · 3 Comments

This action flick was a lot worse than I remembered, the only remarkable performance is by Bruce Willis playing The Jackal, unfortunately his character goes from genious assassin to arrogant schmuck pretty fast in the end. Let's start with Richard Gere, he plays the protagonist, Declan Mulqueen, an Irish ex-IRA sniper who has been sentenced to 25 years in jail or something like that. First of all, he has got the worst Irish accent I have ever heard, it more or less ruins the movie, secondly I hate movies in which inmates are not only helping whatever amateur investagion-teams that need help, but are also more or less leading the entire investigation. The only reason he is helping them is because he knows what The Jackal looks like, so why the hell do they let him decide what strategies to use, where to attack, etc. Then they try to make him seem like a good guy by letting him say stuff like "Oy nevah used bumbs!" in an angry way.

Back to Willis, I'm just gonna skip to the end, because the character is pretty cool until the last 20 minutes, I was actually rooting for him, the scene where he shoots the arm off Jack Black is priceless. So, he's got his Gatling-gun in his Van, he's found a nice spot, got his Gatling-gun controlling laptop ready and is more or less seconds away from being able to blow the first lady, his target, to smitherens. What I don't understand is why it takes him atleast 20 fucking minutes to open the laptop, aim the gun and press the god damn firing button. As you may guess Declan saves the day by shooting the Gatling-gun's scope (with a sniper-rifle, don't ask me why the marksman from the SWAT team wasn't allowed to fire, and don't even get me started on the fact that they just freely gave a convicted IRA-terrorist a rifle) a few seconds before The Jackal opens fire.

What follows is a chasescene in the Metro, Willis being all cool and mental, Gere being annoying. Finally Willis takes a girl hostage, makes Gere drop his gun, is about to shoot him, and boom, Willis is shot in the neck by some chick who was Gere's girlfriend back in Ireland or something. "How the hell did she know exactly what station they were at?" you may ask, well I have no fucking clue, she was supposed to be hiding somewhere so it doesn't really make sense. This movie could easily have been a lot better, a few stupid choices just ruined it.

To summon it all up, 101 on how to ruin a movie:

Let an American play an Irish guy.

Lower the IQ of the villain steadily through the movie, so it'll hit ~20 in the end. That way the lead character'll win no matter how dumb he is. (as seen in most b-class movies, remember the villain kicking ass and more or less being indestructable until he meets the protagonist in the end?)

End the movie with the most improbable thing you can imagine.