Dom Hemingway

Wow to this thread.

A few personal opinions I want to share, though nobody will care about: Snow-piercer was a good concept in some ways, had some pretty reasonable acting... and it started off strong. I watched. I was engaged. But somewhere along the way (around the time the piano playing teacher whips out a skorpian) it just fell flat on its arse. I watched to the end, because I felt compelled to. When Ed Harris shows up (someone I consider to be a high caliber actor, when he sinks his teeth into the right role) and gave this shameful performance... I lost all fascination with the film. If you have to watch it... watch it as an example of how to start off a great idea, and how to kill it within 20 minutes. How to make half a decent film, and half a shitty cliche ridden pile of awful.

Saving Mr. Banks was a good film, I enjoyed it (even teared up in some parts)... but I was well aware (even not knowing the film's characters backgrounds) that they embellished on those characters a bit. Disney was not that passionate about story, I can garan-damn-tee it. He saw the dollarsigns in Mary Poppin's eyes the moment he read the book... and chased it down. That being said, Mary Poppins was a great film... even without her creator's involvement in the final film... but it made everybody rich... which was it's intention.

Anything Soderbergh makes (there are exceptions)... these are movies I cannot get into. I've read reviews and threads galore telling me how awesome "The Limey" was... and in my second and third viewings (I have a lot of time to waste apparently) I still fail to see it's "awesomeness". The editing must have been done either by Soderbergh himself while he was jerking off... or it was given to a 10 year old. Intercutting completely useless footage that has nothing to do with the scene/story being told... it threw me right out of the movie. Moving on to some of his good films though: The Ocean's trilogy... which was a fun ride. I'll be honest... I cared none about any of the characters involved, I just wanted to see how they fooled the next guy. It was great. Che PT1 and PT2 are very very good films, a fine mix of story and cinematography. Soderbergh attempts to throw his choppy-editing hat in the ring here but it manages not to screw with the viewing. It's a very good insight into Che, and they cast the actor playing him very well. There isn't much else I've watched from Soderbergh that I quite enjoyed as much as these films.

The whole discussion here about films needing heroes is bullshit. In the modern day, people are tired of seeing heroes. We get bored of it. There are some movies that throw us a hero or two, but for the most part we cop an anti-hero.

And Vitaly, throw this film on your list:

Standard Nick Cage fare, complete with over the top screaming and acting. A score that makes you laugh at times, and some cliche-riddled dialog. But, it's one of those films with a character that deserves to die...

Robocop Remake

It is just bad - bad script, bad directing and mostly bad acting.

Yet it has some fun parts.

Like Chinese factory scene :-)

And Michael Keaton who actually portrayed Steve Jobs better than anyone did it before on screen :-)

P.S. Small tip. If you want to read reviews on IMDB on any big budget movies, do it after week or so as it is in cinema and start with 3-5th pages. Of course you must understand that if studios spend huge money they have some to pay special firms to make proper reviews and push them to the top, aren't you?

Just trash

This year have all chances to set absolute record

I finally saw GRAVITY. I was expecting flimsy weak characters and red hot tension and suspense. I ended up with decent characters, reasonably developed that I sorta cared about, and luke warm suspense. Two stars. Barely worth watching.

Well as a former astronaut, I can vouch for the authenticity. Okay, I'm actually not a former astronaut -- though some of the stuff I smoked in college might qualify me. But here's what a real astronaut said about GRAVITY and Hollywood science. http://www.forbes.com/sites/quora/2013/10/17/what-does-a-real-astronaut-think-of-gravity/

Maleficent - good film if you like computer generated effects, all else is mostly trash

The story has complexity as did the characters. Excellent VFX and alternate world.

Film lack any story at all, at least one that you can follow. VFX was nice, but always in place.

A woman betrayed, folded into a B story of raising a child that isn't hers.

Many users think that whole plot was wrote by some feminist or lesbian (seems to be close to reality). As no positive man figures exist :-) Also under story I mean something that has logic and progress. And some match to the character history.

"Many users think that whole plot was wrote by some feminist or lesbian"

This was definitely a female-centric movie. Men were not portrayed in a flattering way. That's okay though, 98% of movies are about some version of Superman. Gotta throw the chicks a bone once in a while. Besides, it's Angelina.