Movie Tasters

Um… Yeah. So… Hi. It’s been a while. It’s been a really long while. Life kinda happened, and our group of MovieTasters kinda fell apart. It got hard with Stevo in school at nights, and working some nights at his job, The Girl and the Guy being all married and stuff, and I picked up mountain bike racing as a hobby. Needless to say (but yet I’m saying it), we all kinda got busy and the time to watch movies and the time to write about them kinda got scarce. In fact, there are drafts on this blog for 4 movies that we’ve all watched and rated, yet no one has written anything about them.

So that just leaves me. I’m not quite sure how I’m going to deal with this change. I really do want to leave this all in a format that more people can join later, so I’m probably going to just keep what we were doing before.

Anyway, “The Decoy Bride”. I was looking through Netflix for a movie to watch and start this blog up with again. While I was browsing the new releases I saw this movie and I was thinking “isn’t this an older movie? Why is it here?” Then I saw it was starting David Tennant and I was just curious how he would be as “Not the Doctor”. And I have the deep dark secret of actually liking romantic comedies.

The movie itself was alright. I’ve seen worse and I’ve seen better. There was nothing expressly wrong with it; the acting, music, lighting, dialog all was delivered well and didn’t detract from anything. There was just a hint of… weirdness… that I think could have been really explored and really set the movie apart from the rest of the millions of romantic comedies.

As for “Not the Doctor”, he did alright, though his costar Kelly Macdonald really stole my heart. It’s probably just her accent, which I didn’t know that I liked until this movie.

Anyway, I did the math and I gave this movie a 6.9.

Finally! After 7 long weeks, we’ve managed to watch 4 movies. And since I’m the oldest, I go last (who’s idea was that? Mine? Fine…).

I picked the movie “O Brother, Where Art Thou?”. I remember loving this movie and it’s soundtrack when the movie came out (11 flippin’ years ago!), and I just recently saw it on my dad’s shelf when I went home for Christmas last month. So, I simply snagged the movie and looked forward to sharing it with the group for 2 whole weeks!

The story revolves around one man’s trip home to his wife in a retelling and re-imagining of Homer’s Odyssey.

How’d everyone like it?

Stevo: 9.3
So many words to describe this movie. I think “entertaining” would be my pick if allowed only one. There are so many quirky turns to keep you wondering what’s going to happen next that you’re best choice is to just sit back, relax and enjoy the ride.  Its light, yet its convincing enough to suck you right into the adventure. I found myself satisfied with the journey of the characters as well as the conclusion.  The acting, the humor an the story line are just a few of the things that make me want to share this movie with all of my friends.

The Guy: 6.9
Over all a fun movie. Music was fun. Story is fun. This movie I would watch again.

The Girl: 8.0
Over all I thought the movie was great. It was incredibly well made and the actors were phenomenal. I felt like the movie was appropriate for all viewers even though it was based on The Oddessy. I caught myself wanting to review the book after watching the movie so that I could catch all the parallels between them. The music was appropriate for the film and even though it had lyrics it didn’t bother me (a lot of movies with lyrical sound tracks annoy me). I wouldn’t want to watch this movie very often – maybe a couple times a year or so but over all I’d say its a superb movie.

Andrew: 8.7
I love this movie, and was super glad I picked it out. I love the excellence that this movie was shot with. The cinematography, set design, costumes, acting, music were all spot on and examples of how things are done right. I don’t think there’s an actor in the movie that gave a lack luster performance and the dialog was believable and entertaining. Some of my gripes with the movie are these: the pacing gets kinda slow at times, and I wish I knew the Odyssey better.

Overall rating: 8.2

After quite a long holiday break, the MovieTasters reunited for our first movie review of 2012. And it was my turn to pick the movie… no pressure or anything.

As I am the only girl in the group, I felt compelled to pick a movie that wouldn’t bore the dudes in the group and hoped that this movie would serve as a good middle ground. And that is just what it was, middle ground. Nothing extraordinary what-so-ever. I had reasonable expectations for this movie from the previews I had seen however, it failed to dazzle me. So there you have it, my first movie to pick AND the first movie of the year and it was a bore.

Stevo: 5.3
The main thing that comes to mind for this movie is that I wasn’t gripped by it an any way other than the fact that I just wanted to see the end in order to get the resolve since I can’t stand unresolved stories. While it looked good visually, there just wasn’t much substance in the plot to pull me in… No surprise twists, no complex problems, and I don’t feel like the initial dilemma was delivered thoroughly enough for me to be completely drawn into the main character and her emotions, but maybe that’s my insensitive side coming out.  I was grabbed more by the previews leading up to the film than the film itself. I don’t think I would watch it again or recommend it to a friend… unless that friend needs a reminder that chicks can be bad-asses too.

The Guy: 6.4
Over all I liked the movie. The action and adventure, the story was fun too even though all Colombian movies are about killing- at least the ones I have seen are killing each other. I do love the new twist they put into this movie.  I like that the girl has the strong side of- let’s get it done- bad ass chick. It’s worth watching. Have fun!!!

The Girl: 6.1
Overall I really connected with the main character as far as connecting with the emotions portrayed. I loved the struggle between the desire for love and the inability to become intimate and share anything about herself to her boyfriend. I think the fact that a woman played the part it made it a lot more easy for me to relate to than say ‘Man On Fire’ (which is an amazing movie). However still disappointed in the originality of the storyline. Not too disappointed however, because I felt it met my expectations – but did not surpass them in any way either. I also liked that there was action and suspense but not too gory (I can be a bit sensitive to blood and guts). I think they could have tied the characters together better and given more background to the story.

Andrew: 6.1
It was an okay movie. It just seem to drag. It started to set up for such a big/epic/awesome action-filled adventure, but it never really delivered.  I was kinda disappointed by it all. Also Scribblenauts was really entertaining, much more so than the movie. The action, acting and all the production stuff was well done and wasn’t lacking in anyway, I just never got that “oh my gosh, she’s not going to make it” feeling. I didn’t connect with her plight and didn’t really care how it all turned out. One of the things that kept me for rooting for her was that I really didn’t see how the bad guys were bad. I guess they all had a part of the killing of her family, but you don’t see much more evilness than that.  I felt that she should have gone though some forgiveness instead of killing them all. It would have been a better movie.

Overall rating: 6.1

So for our second movie, The Guy chose one of his favorite movies, Rambo. Here’s our thoughts on it:

Stevo: 6.6
Rambo had a very simple plot line that was easy to follow, but there weren’t really any surprising twists or complex problems outlined: Get the missionaries where they want to go, missionaries get into trouble, save the missionaries, roll credits.  While the intensity of the situation outlined in this movie was conveyed well, its not a film you would want to pop in on a family movie night… or to show off to emotionally sensitive friends. There was a lot of blood and some very intense violence in this movie.  If you can handle that kind of stuff and are into badass action with a sense of moral justice then Rambo is for you.  If you’re sensitive to blood, people being in pain, people being blown to little pieces or you are an aspiring missionary then I would avoid this film.  For fans of the Rambo movies in general, I’m sure they can all appreciate the closure this film seems to offer for the series.

The Guy: 8.9
This is one of my favorite movies. Love all of it. Yes! Please can I watch it again?!

The Girl: 5.4
Overall, I think the movie depended too much on the ‘legacy’ of the previous Rambo movies. I think they could have had much better actors, script and story line. The story, if you watch the special features, has a lot of depth and emotion in the actual story behind the movie but it didn’t come through effectively.

Andrew: 5.7
This movie was strange.  It had some good action and explosions, but the acting and dialogue and story kinda just sucked. I felt that they could have taken the story and told it a lot better. I really thought that the story was pretty much tacked on as a way to get as much fighting in there as possible.

Overall rating: 6.6