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Awix (3310 KP) rated Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977) in Movies

Feb 24, 2018

1977's other great fantasy movie is somewhat forgotten, relatively speaking, probably because it wasn't franchised to death. Scientist Francois Truffaut and everyman Richard Dreyfuss both become aware of the impending visitation of alien beings, must decide how to react.

Not really much of an SF movie, strictly speaking, but it works brilliantly as a both a thriller-drama and a fantasy film. Always seems to me to be a film about what it means to find faith and surrender yourself to it: ordinary guy Roy finds the transcendental and unknown inserting itself into his life, finds himself becoming devoted to it, willing to sacrifice everything to it. Great performances from the leads, but it's really Spielberg's film, containing some of his neatest moments of directorial legerdemain. Still one of Spielberg's most iconic movies, 40+ years on.

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Awix (3310 KP) rated The Three Musketeers (2011) in Movies

Feb 11, 2018 (Updated Feb 11, 2018)

The Three Musketeers (2011)

2011 | Action, Romance

4.9

(9 Ratings)

Movie Rating

Dumb and Dumas

Paul W.S. Anderson, the man behind the Resident Evil and Alien Vs Predator franchises, shows us what real creativity looks like as he gives us his take on a piece of classic literature, adding all those crucial things that Alexandre Dumas inexplicably forgot to include in the original version of The Three Musketeers: aqualungs, flamethrowers, airship battles, Orlando Bloom in a pompadour hairstyle, and Milla Jovovich doing somersaults in a basque.

Pretty much wholly ghastly from start to finish, almost to the point where banning Anderson from reading books seems like a reasonable precaution, just to be on the safe side. About as thrilling as watching your laptop install an update, with all the comic charm of an outbreak of venereal disease. The special effects are technically competent but that really is the best you can say about it.

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Andy K (10821 KP) created a post

Jan 1, 2019

Time for my annual "Movies Make You Feel Old" list.

These movies are now 10 years old:

Avatar
Up
The Hangover
Sherlock Holmes
Taken

These movies are now 20 years old:

Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace
The Sixth Sense
The Matrix
The Mummy
The Green Mile

These movies are now 25 years old:

Forrest Gump
The Lion King
True Lies
The Santa Claus
Dumb and Dumber

These movies are now 30 years old:

Batman
Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade
Dead Poets Society
When Harry Met Sally
The Little Mermaid

These movies are now 40 years old:

Alien
Apocalypse Now
Kramer vs. Kramer
Monty Python's Life of Brian
The Jerk
Star Trek: The Motion Picture

These movies are now 50 years old:

Midnight Cowboy
Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid
Easy Rider
True Grit
The Wild Bunch

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Show all 5 comments.

Beatriz (138 KP) Jan 1, 2019

Ive watched 15 of them and I had no idea some were this old! Thank you for sharing !

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Andy K (10821 KP) Jan 2, 2019

No prob.

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David McK (3425 KP) rated Men in Black (1997) in Movies

Dec 23, 2019

Men in Black (1997)

1997 | Action, Comedy, Sci-Fi

7.8

(54 Ratings)

Movie Rating Watch

"Protecting the earth from the scum of the universe"

The second of the mid-to-late 90s of Will Smit's one-two rapid ascension to movie super stardom (following Independence Day), which sees him recruited by Tommy Lee Jones to join the Men in Black: a top-secret government organisation set up to monitor alien presence on earth.

While we're now up to four entries in the series as a whole following this summer's (2019) by-all-account-disappointing Men in Black: International, it's easy to forget just how well this movie still holds together, alongside some classic exchanges such as:

"Why the big secret? People are smart"
"A person is smart. People are dumb panicky dangerous animals and you know it"

"You do know Elvis is dead, right?"
"No, Elvis is not dead. He just went home"

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Jake (52 KP) rated A Memory Called Empire (Teixcalaan, #1) in Books

Jul 25, 2019

Great premise but poor execution, and poor ending.

Some of the concepts and the worldbuilding were fantastic. Some of the names and places were a little too crazy (using old Mayan language as a basis? Teixalaan is the easiest of the weird words you'll find). Some of the world systems and culture didn't seem to make sense but I went with it anyways.

I was debating on rating it 4 stars but the ending was so poor. See spoiler below for some high-level spoils.

<spoiler>No huge climax, no really interesting turn of events, no facing the alien threat, no facing your darkest fear or something. Just... blah.</spoiler>

Anyway I won't be reading any sequels and I almost wish I would have stopped 3/4 of the way through when I understood the politics fully. Good luck.