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Jaws (1975)
Jaws (1975)
1975 | Thriller
EPIC
Best Shark Movie Ever

Aminity Island which is a small island getaway is approching it's speak visitor month which is july get visited by a Great White Shark that starts picking off swimmers one by one. The chief enlists the help of a Marine Biologist and gets the local Top fish killer involved in going to take out the shark. They end up on a wild boat ride trying to kill one of the earth longest living eating machines that is not willing to just roll over and die.


Roy Schider, Richard Dryfus and Robert Shaw give an amazing performance in this suspenseful ocean tale.


One great piece of movie history from this movie is that the line "You're gonna need a bigger boat" was improvised and done on the first take. It is part of AFI's 100 greatest quotes.
  
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Awix (3310 KP) rated The King in Yellow in Books

Aug 12, 2019 (Updated Aug 12, 2019)  
The King in Yellow
The King in Yellow
Robert W. Chambers | 1895 | Fiction & Poetry, Horror, Romance
7
7.0 (1 Ratings)
Book Rating
Much-mentioned but seemingly little-read collection of short stories by Robert Chambers. The anthology owes most of its fame to the fact that HP Lovecraft was sufficiently impressed by some of the stories to retroactively incorporate them into his own mythology, something Lovecraft's disciples built upon with more energy than finesse.

The best of these stories do have a sense of subliminal encroaching madness and unease, as symbolised by the mysterious play mentioned in the title and its associated motifs, which is very impressively created. However, much of the remainder is a set of essentially interchangeable tales of rich young Americans studying art in Paris and swooning over beautiful young mademoiselles; they are quite heavy going and possibly not worth the effort of reading. The opening few fantasy stories are very good, on the whole; the rest not so much.
  
A Nightmare on Elm Street (1984)
A Nightmare on Elm Street (1984)
1984 | Horror
The original and by far the best of the Nightmare series. Wes Craven’s film is like most 80’s movies looking a little dated in 2019 particularly in its special effects but to me still holds up very well as an original and unsettling horror thriller that puts a unique supernatural spin on the well established slasher formula. The film’s ace is in it’s boogeyman Freddy Krueger, coming after the silent killers of ‘Halloween’ and ‘Friday the 13th’ Robert Englund’s iconic Freddy actually had a personality and the sequels realising his popularity put him front and centre with much more screen time and subsequently making him considerably less scary . Craven conjures up some memorable kill scenes here and the concept of being vulnerable somewhere seemingly as safe as in your dreams makes for a great horror movie.
  
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Nick Beaty (70 KP) rated The Irishman (2019) in Movies

Jan 26, 2020 (Updated Jan 26, 2020)  
The Irishman (2019)
The Irishman (2019)
2019 | Biography, Crime, Drama
De Niro is the best he has been in a long time...
First off any movie that has Robert De Niro, Al Pacino, Joe Pesci and Martin Scorsese connected to it has me from the get go.

De Niro is the best he has been in a long time as mob hitman Frank Sheeran, Joe Pesci is excellent in a much more reserved role as Russell Bufalino and Al Pacino is superb as the loud and brash Jimmy Hoffa. All the buzz is around the three lead actors, as all have been nominated for Oscars. Although for me Stephen Graham more than holds his own alongside these legends, as the cocky and destructive 'Tony Pro'. Some of the best scenes are with him and Pacino not seeing eye to eye on various occasions.

Personally I felt it wasn't as Scorsese as I expected, it didn't have the same narrative or feel as say Goodfellas or Casino, I'm not saying that is a bad thing as it's still a very good movie, it's just not on their level in my opinion.

There has been a lot of talk about the 3 hour 29 minutes running time. I personally don't understand all the fuss, as there have been many classic, award winning movies even longer than this. Gone with the Wind took home the Oscar in 1940 and ran a whopping 3h 58m. Ben Hur won best picture in 1960 at 3h 32m and more recently Titanic in 1998 was slightly less at 3h 14m.

I also feel the need to mention a couple of scenes that felt very reminiscent of one of my favourite movies Pulp Fiction. The opening sequence when the words 'I heard you paint houses' flash on the screen felt very Tarantino and the whole car scene with Jesse Plemons & Louis Cancelmi talking about the fish, was very Jule's & Vincent like. I'm not sure if that is just me or whether other people agree.

Overall I get that it is a long movie and people have very busy lives but if you get the chance you really should watch it, just to see these big screen legends at work and doing what they do best.
  
The Irishman (2019)
The Irishman (2019)
2019 | Biography, Crime, Drama
Robert De Niro (1 more)
Al Pacino
The CGI De-Aging (0 more)
So after months of hype does this all star blockbuster live up to the hype...well yes it does.

It's been many years since we have had a great gangster epic and the master of those films finally brings one that will be enjoyed for many years to come.Unlike his other epics this film focuses more on the relationship between the main protagonist frank sheeran and his boss jimmy Joffa.The violence is not as extreme as you would find in goodfellas or casino.

The only tiny criticism I have was the de-aging process used on some of the actors,the faces seemed a little animated and fake.

De Niro was incredible and has to be a strong favourite for the best actor oscar,pacino and pesci were brilliant as well and could get a supporting actor oscar nomination.
  
Angel Heart (1987)
Angel Heart (1987)
1987 | Drama, Mystery
8
8.0 (3 Ratings)
Movie Rating
Dark and brooding occult movie that reveals its hand pretty early on and throughout its runtime, but you may miss this due to being totally engrossed by the fine performances especially from Mickey Rourke who turns in what I believe is a career best as the detective who decends into madness whilst investigating a case.
It's quite an effective thriller/detective story dripping with genuine dread and its share of disturbing and intricate scenes that will still spook you, even in today's era of CGI trickery.
Rourke really surprises here and you wonder what really happened to his star over the years as he showed real promise as an emerging new talent at the time and showed some glimpses of this greatness in 'The Wrestler' much later on in his career.
Robert De Niro plays only a small but extremely memorable and effective role that will chill you to the bone.
  
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Bostonian916 (449 KP) rated All the President's Men (1976) in Movies

Aug 30, 2020 (Updated Aug 30, 2020)  
All the President's Men (1976)
All the President's Men (1976)
1976 | Classics, Drama, History
I'm always interested in historical movies, which is what drew me to this film in the first place. In addition to the fact that it stars Robert Redford and Dustin Hoffman in arguably some of the best performance for either.

All the President's Men has been listed as one of the most historically accurate films ever made. It explains, from the young reporters point of view, the discovery of exactly what took place at the Watergate that caused the downfall of a president.

While the movie was sometimes slow, as it was data filled, I never found myself bored or wishing it would get along. Everything that happened during the slow periods were very relevant and needed in order to tell the story.

A wonderful representation of what historical drama should and can be, I highly recommend anyone with even a slight interest in American history to give this a watch.
  
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David McK (3207 KP) rated Sherlock Holmes (2009) in Movies

Nov 1, 2020 (Updated Jan 13, 2024)  
Sherlock Holmes (2009)
Sherlock Holmes (2009)
2009 | Action, Drama, Mystery
Guy Ritchie's 2009 very different take on Arthur Conan Doyle's most famous literary creation, starring Robert Downey Jr as the great detective himself, Rachel McAdams as Irene Adler ('the woman') and Jude Law as Dr. Watson.

Unlike the more-contemporary set TV 'Sherlock', this is still set in Victorian times although, I have to say, that I never really took to the portrayal of Holmes in this film at all. It's also a completely-new (to the best of my knowledge) mystery for him to solve; not based on any of the Conan Doyle stories. That's both a good thing and a bad thing: it does mean that it's 'fresh' (unlike, say, another retelling of 'The Hounds of the Baskervilles'), but - I have to say - it also lacks the fun, the sense of mystery, the sheer enthrallment of the Conan Doyle stories.
  
Outlaw King (2018)
Outlaw King (2018)
2018 | Action, Drama, History
Clear passion to retell the story (1 more)
Excellent battle scene
Pace (0 more)
Watchable
After seeing an advert for the Outlaw King, I was excited to watch the movie. Despite this I found that the film missed my expectations, and I found that it became almost boring in places.

The writers of the outlaw king had a clear passion to retell the story of Robert Bruce and his fight to regain the Scottish crown from the English in the early Plantagenet period. To the best of my knowledge, the story was told as accurately as possible, however this did mean that there were a lot of scenes centred around the politics of Roberts plight. The slower scenes were unbalanced with the battle scenes which meant that the pace of the story dipped many times during the film - I have to confess it took me three attempts to watch it in full as a result of this.

As the writers tried to cram too much into such a short film, I found that the movie had a bit of an identity crisis - was this an action, romance or political film? Had the writers focused on just one area, I believe the movie would have been a lot more watchable, instead the movie felt overloaded.

The acting in general was okay, and reasonably well cast, except for the relationship between Robert Bruce and his wife. I struggled to believe the romance between the two actors. Although this is ultimately my opinion, I struggled to believe that what was ultimately an arranged marriage between the two, could rest in the two characters falling for each other as quickly as the film portrayed.

In general, the film is watchable, although it is not one I would go to as a first choice. There are some good parts of the film, for example the relationship between Robert and his men, and the final battle scene. The film also teaches us about part of Scottish history that tends to be overlooked by many schools during history lessons.
  
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Nicholas Sparks recommended Forrest Gump (1994) in Movies (curated)

 
Forrest Gump (1994)
Forrest Gump (1994)
1994 | Comedy, Drama, Romance

"Forrest Gump. What I appreciated about that — I believe it ended up winning the best picture and an Academy Award for Tom Hanks, both of which were well deserved — but I just loved the interplay of putting him back into actual historical footage of meeting the presidents, and at the time it was so much fun to see that play out on screen. It captured entire eras and major issues, everything from racism in the south to the horror of the Vietnam War — the protests of the Vietnam War — to AIDS toward the end. And, of course, the theme, which is right up my alley, which is, “Hey, it’s about a guy who loves a girl forever.” [laughs] That’s a little bit like The Notebook in this regard. And yet, it was done in a way that I never would have considered doing. I believe it was Robert Zemeckis who directed that. It’s phenomenal."

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