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World War Z 2013
I enjoyed this not as a zombie movie (which it barely was), but as an apocalyptic disease movie. I like those, just not as much as zombie movies.
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The Spectacular Now 2013
A well-crafted film featuring a main character I cared less and less about as the film went on. It's funny: most guys I know really enjoyed watching this and most girls did not. It probably has something to do with whether or not you have ever dated a charming, self-absorbed guy who you thought you could rescue and who ultimately wasted ___ years of your life. If so, you can't help but see the whole story in a different light.
Excellent acting all around though, and I appreciated the sort of meandering way the story unfolded.
But still.
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The Woman in Black 2012
Dear The Woman in Black, thank you for just being a good ghost story set in a creepy location. Thank you for using mirrors, shallow depth of field and makeup instead of CGI to create a creepy mood. Thank you for not making the ghost turn out to be a demon. The world needs more of you.
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Elysium 2013
What a disappointment. They built such an interesting world, but then laid a plot over it that was full of holes and Hollywood cheese. And for the love of god, what was Jodie Foster DOING? I loved District 9, so I was really hoping for something great, but this was just muddled and mediocre.
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Pacific Rim 2013
This is the ridiculously over-the-top summer blockbuster I've been waiting for. It has monsters, giant robots, an impending apocalypse, lots of destruction, bumbling scientists, manly fighters and every cliché line you could possibly imagine ("man's gotta do what a man's gotta do, bro", "as you and I both know...[some complicated scientific exposition they need the audience to know]"). I had a blast.
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Godzilla 1954
Wow, what a great surprise. I had always heard a lot about the original Godzilla of course, but I thought its fame was like Jason and the Argonauts -- more about the technical aspects than the film itself. But Godzilla is the complete package, a tense, deliberately-paced disaster film that tells a larger and more poignant story. Roland Emmerich wishes he could make something this good.
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48 Hrs. 1982
Not as good as I wanted it to be. The plot gets saggy in parts, but not in a slow-burn, awesome way -- the characters (and viewer) just flounder around until the next thing comes along.
Nick Nolte's gruffness started to wear on me after awhile and not even the energy of young Eddie Murphy could pick things up. And almost every female character was either a helpless prostitute being nabbed as a hostage or a crazy girlfriend who was…
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A Band Called Death 2012
Pretty standard in style, but this documentary still tells a story that takes some interesting turns and has a lot of heart. The music is amazing, as are all the small twists of fate that led to Death being discovered by the world.
I feel like there are TONS of documentaries about dysfunctional families, so it was great to watch one about a loving, pretty much functional family -- albeit one with a brooding genius at its center.
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Walking and Talking 1996
Deep in the trenches of Netflix Instant, I found Walking and Talking, a movie I last saw in the late '90s, liked a lot and couldn't remember a single moment of. But the synopsis intrigued me, since it sounds so much like Frances Ha, one of my favorite movies of the last several months.
Happily, Walking and Talking totally holds up. It's smart, funny and full of moments that feel painfully real. Kevin Corrigan as "the ugly guy" who works…