What MOVIE(s) have you been....seeing? watching?

Grudunza wrote: I had made some vague plans to drive to Portland on Monday with a friend to see it in 70mm

I'm seeing the 70mm version at the Hollywood Theater tomorrow.

I saw Spotlight last night... loved it.

I'm still thinking about it, so my comments will be brief and somewhat incoherent. It's an obvious homage to All the President's Men, so anyone who liked that film should definitely seek this one out. It's more about the journalistic process than it is about the scandal they uncover. I find it fascinating to watch someone who is good at their job just do the work. Surprisingly understated performances from Liev Schreiber and Michael Keaton. Great cinematography, too. Full of light, yet always framed with a ceiling in view to make it feel oppressive. A really great film.

My buddy said he liked it better than Mad Max. Guess I gotta see it

You know what would be an awesome use for computron now that SS is done with it for the season - We should see if SS would let us borrow it to compile the worst movie crawl ever - FaTTies could submit 2 or 3 turds that only they find a redeeming features in and then computron could spit out the list and some sort of draft order.

Love this idea. Can't wait to submit John Carter

Hateful Eight. I'm a big Tarantino fan and I did not like this movie. I found it boring. The first two hours is just idle conversation that I felt had no tension at all to make it interesting. The last part of the movie I found to be pretty straightforward and lacking any charm. Overall I'm pretty disappointed. I saw the 70mm Roadshow version.

Hateful Eight I agree the first half is a little slow, but by the end I found myself enjoying it and probably rank it slightly above middle in the Tarantino pantheon of movies. It suffers from all Tarantino's usual indulgences.... long winded dialogue that is tangential to the plot, gruesome blood splattered violence that is nearly comical in it's intent, over the top hammy acting. I was worried Samuel L Jackson was going to ruin it for me with his type-cast Jules/Snakes on a Plane type guy, but those fears were unfounded as he was the rock of this 10 or so actor troupe. Be worried about Kirk Russell instead (weak link).

It had some of his usual moments where a clever character may deduce the motives of the other characters for you.

It's biggest strength for me was that it was all very original. After being a little disappointed with a somewhat regurgitated Star Wars it was nice to see some fresh ideas on a big screen.

3.5 out of 5 stars.

Alastair MacDirk wrote: It's biggest strength for me was that it was all very original. After being a little disappointed with a somewhat regurgitated Star Wars it was nice to see some fresh ideas on a big screen.

I thought that Hateful Eight was pretty regurgitated, largely of his own work (esp. Reservoir Dogs, Inglorious, Django). And the premise is Agatha Christie meets The Thing in the Old West. Rarely would I consider Tarantino original in terms of plot, but his *voice* is original and different. That was true here, too. I especially liked the character development, so for me the slower first part was best. The rewind felt largely wasted, and then there was the expected and excessive violence, which I think he has used more effectively other times (though some scenes of that were really great). Eh, I still liked it quite a bit, though, regardless of some quibbles. Sure beats Paul Blart.

I'm guessing that even though no movie is worthy of this everything will be rated on a < or > Star Wars scale for at least one year.

Escape Plan was really lousy. A team-up of Schwarzneggar and Stallone might have been legendary in the '80s, but it was just pedestrian in 2013. The actors were tolerable, but the script was weak and the story was flat. There were a few good moments, but they were largely lost in the overall wreckage of this movie.

The Dirty Dozen was great. I was expecting a shorter and less edgy movie, given that it was filmed in 1967. Big cast, featuring Lee Marvin and Ernest Borgnine, as well as promising new actors such as Donald Sutherland, Jim Brown and a very young Charles Bronson. Gritty, funny, and fully committed to the concept from beginning to end. This movie clearly inspired Escape from New York, and to a lesser degree, the upcoming Suicide Squad movie.