It looks like you're new here. If you want to get involved, click one of these buttons!
^ Back to Top
The MI6 Community is unofficial and in no way associated or linked with EON Productions, MGM, Sony Pictures, Activision or Ian Fleming Publications. Any views expressed on this website are of the individual members and do not necessarily reflect those of the Community owners. Any video or images displayed in topics on MI6 Community are embedded by users from third party sites and as such MI6 Community and its owners take no responsibility for this material.
James Bond News • James Bond Articles • James Bond Magazine
Comments
Again - theatrical version or the superior Director's Cut?, TWoK is great and I wanted to get it on blu-ray but it is only the theatrical cut…mind as I already have the DC version on DVD might be nice to have both versions.
Star Trek Marathon Ranking:
1. Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan
2. Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country
3. Star Trek: The Motion Picture
4. Star Trek III: The Search for Spock
5. Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home
6. Star Trek: Generations
7. Star Trek V: The Final Frontier
The international - A smart movie about the dark side of banking with Clive Owen doing a credible job, really worth a watch this movie.
<center><font color = darkblue size = 4>part 11/30</font></center>
<center><font color = darkblue size = 6>The Loft (2014)</font></center>
Five men share a luxurious loft. They use this place for secret rendezvous with mistresses or prostitutes. One day a dead woman is found naked in the bed. What happened? Who did it? With every next reel of film unspooling in this erotic mystery thriller, another set of twists and turns comes our way. The film will play this game with you until its final reveal; and the twists are deliciously unpredictable.
Yet I knew everything before going in. That's because The Loft is a remake of a 2011 Belgian film called Loft that was very successful in my little country. So when Antwerp based director Erik Van Looy received a Hollywood invitation to do it all over again across the ocean, many of my fellow countrymen naturally assumed it would do equally well in the USA. I didn't. Because The Loft has two things going for it that American audiences don't like. 1) It doesn't follow formula and it breaks the rules; for this reason, Licence To Kill and Alien³ had been rejected by American audiences while most other territories had welcomed those films. 2) It doesn't feature a single likeable character.
That second point is important. All of the men commit adultery, the women put out for practically every guy that comes their way, and drugs or alcohol are no taboo either. So with all these characters being despicable to say the least, who's our 'in'? Who are we to root for? I guess in Flemish cinema we're more or less accustomed to such widely unorthodox characters and situations. Our rating system is fairly liberal. Most of our films come without hard age restrictions, even if some serious "doing it" ensues on multiple occasions. However, American critics' responses to The Loft are in my opinion very indicative of their still somewhat uneasy relationship with a film that defies a prude's every moral rule. They call out the film's unpleasant characters; they refer to the storyline as "sleazy". Some critics are even willing to go so far as to suggest that Flemish audiences are far less sophisticated than American audiences for wanting to swallow such filth. I would turn the tables and say that perhaps we have already learned to accept that not every film has to centre around a boyscout or goody-two-shoes, a moral virgin, a staunch practitioner of abstinence. Because real life isn't like that either.
Perhaps the cast can persuade you if the characters can't. Karl Urban, James Marsden, Rachel Taylor, Isabel Lucas, Wentworth Miller, Rhona Mitra and Eric Stonestreet are all talented people who inject this film with a healthy dose of mature acting. You may have seen half or more of these actors in science fiction or fantasy spectacles but when they are dressed up as affluent, serious upper-class men and women, they transform into people I wouldn't mind hanging out with for one night. That includes one final cast member, Matthias Schoenaerts, a Flemish actor who actually reprises his role from the original film. Schoenaerts is slowly building an international career for himself - though it's still unclear if he actually wants one - with meaningful roles in such films as Blood Ties, Far from the Madding Crowd and The Danish Girl. A gifted actor, Schoenaerts's talent isn't entirely done justice in Wesley Strick's nonetheless faithful screenplay adaptation of Bart De Pauw's original, but he still delivers.
Erotic thrillers are usually not my thing but The Loft is a film I can thoroughly enjoy. Technically, I could be accused of allowing some chauvinism to shimmer through but let me assure you that nationalistic pride has nothing to do with it. I like the story, the acting, the settings, the cinematography and John Frizzell's score, even though the latter apes Wolfram de Marco's score for the original film without improving on it. I agree with the critics that you're not going find any of the characters likeable - however I disagree that that must necessarily pose a problem. I have a feeling that most of these critics are either excessively puritan or have a stick so high up their butts that they can't retire scruffy old formula in favour of something more morally challenging or 'naughty'. To prove my point, one critic actually attacked the accents that Schoenaerts and Urban bring to their performances; they don't sound American enough. I hope this man never tried watching Total Recall, Predator or End Of Days then. If you must resort to being so finicky, I think you want to downgrade the film, even if you have very few arguments to legitimately do so. Frankly, I'm a little annoyed by the widespread nitpicky attitude towards The Loft; this film deserves better. At least imdb rates it higher than Die Another Day... But as it tanked at the box office and received harsh criticism, I must consider it a guilty pleasure.
MY GUILTY PLEASURE RANKING
Great because it's actually not bad.
Last Action Hero
Dagon
Under Siege II: Dark Territory
The Loft
Great because it's the best acid trip you ever had without acid.
The Avengers (1998)
Zardoz
Ghost Rider Spirit Of Vengeance
Great because it's fun to see people go totally off the rails.
Showgirls
Nick Fury: Agent of S.H.I.E.L.D.
Batman & Robin
Great because I just happen to like these things and I'm not too proud to admit it.
G.I. Joe: The Movie[/quote]
I saw this about 2 weeks ago and it was fantastic. When Margot Robbie turned up explaining things whilst in a bath tub I was a bit confused because I wasn't expecting it. I didn't think it was necessary to pull such celebrate cameo stunts but I did appreciate it though. Steve Carrel was awesome in this.
A seriously WTF? movie if there ever was one. I can't say it wasn't entertaining, but seriously, WHY Salma? Was it a big paycheck? It was like a 70's brutal rape/revenge flick. There were moments where I actually laughed out loud, but in the end I cringing a bit.
If it wasn't for Salma Hayak's sheer beauty I might have bailed halfway through...
This was my first viewing of The Wolverine, and while I have no idea of what receptoin it had, I really enjoyed it. I might even go as far as to say that it is my favourite X-Men/Wolverine film. After watching the film, I was expecting to find on the IMDB page, that The Yakuza (1974) was an inspiration, turns out it wasn't.
Yes, Carell was great. I liked the whole cast. I knew to expect the bath tub scene, and the other cameos, and I think they worked really well. They were a bit like footnotes can be in a book, and they were kinda necessary here - I suppose the other option would have been some form of exposition by the characters... well there was the jenga tower, but the cameos and texts were a great help. (The fish stew metaphor was brilliant.) Not explaining this stuff was not really an option; to assume the general audience would have any idea what the heck a collateralized debt obligation is would surely be madness... and CDOs were kinda essential in the whole mess, so they couldn't be ignored, either.
If you meant that the cameos didn't need to be by celebrities, yeah, sure, but that they were was sort of part of the story, like the clips of pop culture and pics of what was in the news/what people were talking about at the time. Like Baum (Carell) says in the movie, and like McKay has said in interviews, people pay more attention to celebrities than they do to "boring" stuff like what might be happening in the financial market, even though the latter actually has real impact on their lives.
And btw, my appreciation of Margot Robbie went up several notches when I heard what McKay said about her. Obviously people in the industry talk about each other, and directors with any sense try to make sure they approach and hire the right people, and apparently the word was that she's really cool. McKay said you don't want to offend anyone, but he was assured that she's cool, she'll get it, so he asked her, and he said she was indeed cool, and got it and loved it.
I'll go see it again in the next couple of days.
My Son said the same.
Not great, but good, and certainly interesting movie about psychological tests in the 1960s testing how people obey authorities - apparently far more than they think they would, and so much that it's scary. Peter Sarsgaard and Winona Ryder as leads.
The Departed (2006)
Good, yes, but I still didn't actually enjoy it much.
Hungover (2009)
Absolutely terrible. Made tons of money and there were sequels? People actually liked this? They found this funny? Why?
Mystic River (2009)
I remembered liking this the first time around, and it was indeed very good. Maybe could have been a bit more streamlined at parts, but that's nitpicking. Excellent cast, good story. (Well, Lehane writes good stuff - worth reading the books, worth watching the movies.)
I know it's a hit. I'm not surprised. A lot of movie goers these days prefer style over substance.
Star Trek Marathon Ranking:
1. Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan
2. Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country
3. Star Trek: The Motion Picture
4. Star Trek: First Contact
5. Star Trek III: The Search for Spock
6. Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home
7. Star Trek: Generations
8. Star Trek V: The Final Frontier