A Land Far Away

SPOILER: This movie was boring.

I fully recommend you spend your day watching ice melt, your toaster while it toasts bread, water being brought to a boil, grass growing, or any number of infinitely more interesting plots than the one presented in this film.

There was nothing really wrong with the movie. I wouldn't say it was a bad movie.

But, boy, was it boring and, boy, did I not care about anyone in this film.

Save your money and watch a nature documentary instead.

OK, the last one wasn't really a spoiler, knowing that American Gangster is boring won't ruin the movie for you. It already ruined itself.

So here's a real spoiler:

The Mist, latest horror release based on the works of Stephan King, is actually a comedy.

I went because I hoped that good ole Mr. King might still have it in him to give me a scare and the New York Times reviewer was apparently smoking crack when he watched it.

He says, "The first part of the movie is scary, then they introduce the monsters and then it's passable."

By the first part, he meant the somewhat suspenseful first 10 minutes of the movie, after which we are introduced to a cheap tentacle monster in a death scene you saw coming from the lobby.

After that it was all giggles and gore. Which sucks when you wanted to be scared.

I was horrified. That I paid money to see this movie.

It tries to go deep with what happens to normal people in bad situations and then pulls a shallow ironic plot twist at the very end. Poor protagonist. If you weren't an idiot, I might actually feel bad for you, but you fail at acting.

Watching a movie like this makes me wonder... if EVERYONE in the theater demanded their money back... what might happen?

No Country For Old Men: if the villain doesn't get an Oscar nod, I'll kill the Academy.

This movie is fucking awesome. The ending's a bit weird, but aside from that: awesome. Pure, unadulterated awesome. Go see it. Now.

JaydeMoon wrote:I went because I hoped that good ole Mr. King might still have it in him to give me a scare...

If you wanted 'a scare' from Stephen King, you'll need to read one of his books. And not just any SK book is scary or intended to be. King's works run the gamut; suspense, horror, sci-fi, fantasy, and most if not all have his quirky sense of humour worked in. The Mist was brought to the screen by Frank Darabont, who also brought us two other King book-to-movies, The Shawshank Redemption and The Green Mile. I enjoyed Shawshank but not the Green Mile and really am not interested in this Mist nonsense, though I'm sure the book is a fun read.

So, wanting a scare from King? Go with The Shining, It, and Salem's Lot. Forget about the movies.

Watch SK's Nightmares and Dreamscapes collection. Crouch End is particularly good.

Now here's a movie worth seeing:

Double yew tee eff.

Saw Beowulf today, most violent CG movie...ever. Amazing art direction, animation work, and the texture detail blew everything else away. I would recommend it simply for the technical work, but it also remains fairly faithful to the old epic poem. Go see it, now.

My impression is that Beowulf is a slightly less stupid version of 300 (yes, I regard that as a good thing). Is that accurate?

Its the intellectualist's 300, essentially.

American Gangster was definately disappointing, really nothing in it you haven't seen before in other formulaic gangster movies. It put me in mind of a serious New Jack City(It even had the naked girls processing drugs scene in it).

***Spoiler***

The absolute most unforgiveable sin of this movie however has to be the epilogue where we learn that Denzel's character is later represented by Crowe's in court and has his 70 year sentence reduced to 15. Now absolutely nothing in the movie prepares you for this fact, nothing to really explain why the investigating cop/prosecuter would turn defense attonrney and defend the drug kingpin he put into jail. Now that would have been a movie...basically the movie should have started where they instead ended and the most interesting thing was the written epilogue.

Nyar, you are wrong!

There was totally a mini-, two minute montage just before the textual epilogue you refer to where Denzel and Crowe work together to put crooked cops behind bars.

In the last 15 seconds of movie, Crowe smiles at Denzel and that's totally where you surmise they had become friends.

After that smile, how could he NOT represent him in court? Duh.

So, American Gangster has some flaws then? Like, say, a few GAPING PLOT HOLES!??