Quake3World

It's 12% now! Wooh!

Anyway, when are you guys going to learn to watch trailers, so you don't end up watching a lame film like that? I can tell from the trailer.

The number of trailers i've seen that weren't absolutely godawful / spoiled the movie / portrayed the movie in a completely different light / were worth my time / etc are very few.

I pick my movies by looking at what people who'se taste i trust like.

*silence* *cue to laugh* *music begins again*

A friend invited me to an advanced screening of World War Z. It's nothing like the book at all, but then again that was written as a "historical" reference manual of outbreak cases rather than anything with a plot, but then yet again the plot doesn't go particularly deep in the WWZ movie.

[synopsis with mild spoilers but nothing you don't already know from seeing the trailer]
Brad Pitt's character is a retired UN investigator guy who had been in the thick of things in past wars and emergencies, but gave up that life to live like Goof and flip pancakes for his stupid kids in the mornings. I have no idea what his wife does, the movie really doesn't bother developing it's characters to the point where you'd care. Anyway, superhuman zombies who move like stampeding wildebeests invade like locusts and Brad gets his family safe to a U.N. navel fleet, the leaders of which want Brad to find the origin of the zombie outbreak and find a vaccination to protect the remaining survivors of the planet. Brad leaves his family behind and goes on a quest as if looking for Carmen Sandiego as he follows leads around the planet.
[/synopsis]

So, what makes a good zombie movie and why Brad Pitt in World War Z wasn't one of them...

All the best zombie movies aren't actually about zombies. You could really replace zombies with anything else, say double donged aliens or carnivorous ponies. The zombies are really just a source of chaos, danger and suspense that forces the characters from behaving like normal everyday citizens to desperate people who are tried to their limits to survive.

Zombie movies are really about the characters. You have to care about the characters to feel anything when one of them gets killed, and when one of them becomes infected. WWZ makes the mistake of putting a lot of focus on traveling around the world and killing zombies and at no point do you feel as if you care about any of the people. Brad leaves his family behind pretty early in the movie at which point they might have not existed at all in the first place and save us about 20 minutes of screen time. Brad meets various soldiers and scientists along the way, some of which die and others survive, not that any of that matters since they all remain rather nameless and devoid of all character. Brad looked completely stone-faced, at no point do you feel as if he is genuinely scared or worried.

Zombie movies are often social commentaries. They are often about what people do when faced with anarchy and a fight to survive. Some people are paralyzed with fear, others want to fight back, others sacrifice themselves to save others, others will kill fellow humans for their own survival. Brad is really the only character in this movie, so there is little interaction between him and other people to really make any other plot threads possible.

tl;dr: it's another mindless Hollywood movie with some neato CG effects (mass crowd movement algorithms are pretty good to look at) but lack of plot and character development means there's little to remember of it. 5/10. Recommended movies instead: Dawn of the Dead (both the original and remake), Shawn of the Dead, Zombieland, 28 Days Later.

Yeah, figured it'd be like that.

Why the hell the author didn't opt to make it a series is beyond me, the book fits that format much better.

obsidian wrote:A friend invited me to an advanced screening of World War Z.

tl;dr: it's another mindless Hollywood movie with some neato CG effects (mass crowd movement algorithms are pretty good to look at) but lack of plot and character development means there's little to remember of it. 5/10. Recommended movies instead: Dawn of the Dead (both the original and remake), Shawn of the Dead, Zombieland, 28 Days Later.

Aw come on man, you just know you're going to incur the wrath of xer0s or LawL for not liking mindless Hollywood movies. Why do you set yourself up like that?

Phantom = 6/10 - Saw a torrent so I grabbed it. A very low budget Hunt For Red October-ish type of affair in an old Russian sub out to cause WW3. Good performances for the most part from a relatively ensemble cast, but alot of cheesy performances as well and overall an acceptable effort from the cast. The sets and VFX were all done very nicely. The movie suffers from feeling like a made-for-tv movie, but slightly higher quality and the story will keep you engaged the whole way through up until the extremely cheesy ending. Not great but watchable and not horrible.

A decent war thriller. At least I didn't want to stab myself in the eyes after watching it.

Could you show me where I gave the wrath for not liking mindless Hollywood movies?

Jesus. You've had a go at me about 5 times in the last six months alone and you've basically had an issue with nearly every negative review I've written of the "popular" crap...probably because I insult your comfortable sense of ignorant stupidity.

Show me where I said anything about you not liking "mindless Hollywood" films.

You can't. Because I haven't. You are so obsessed with me, you actually fabricate these posts of mine...

lol...I can embarrass you again if you like. It'll just be another Tuesday for you.

And if it helps refresh you memory, you usually twaddle at me when you have someone else slagging my reviews because, like a typical Conservative, you can't fight your own battles.

Where's the "douchebag" smiley?

Where's the posts?

xer0s wrote:Where's the posts?

Dude...just go back 5 pages and read up to this point. You'll find plenty.
You'll also find plenty of posts of me making fun of you getting upset that I don't like stupid movies...and examples of you putting effort and energy into figuring out why I don't like dumb movies.

Oh yeah and you'll also find a few examples where I've asked you direct questions asking for answers of your own dubious claims about me...with you turtling.

You truly are a moron if you think I'm gonna actually dig through and find your idiotic posts. Because that makes baby Jesus cry and you haven't earned any favors.

lol, that's what I thought...

obsidian wrote:A friend invited me to an advanced screening of World War Z. It's nothing like the book at all..

This reminded me, I caught John Carter on TV the other night and turned it off after 20 minutes. It was nothing like The Princess of Mars, and I really didn't want it to ruin it for me. I may try it again someday, when I forget the book...

how about now?

xer0s wrote:lol, that's what I thought...

GONNAFISTYA wrote:And yet another question, but this one more targeted,"Why does it bother xer0s that I don't like the same stupid movies he does?"

You answer this question instead of dodging it again and I'll honestly make the effort to quote every single one of your dumb comments directed at those who actually want a story with their explosions.

Watched Room 237.

A documentary with various analyses and theories about Stanley Kubrick's The Shining.
It's a mixed bag of interesting insights and some crackpot theories. From how certain objects represent cocks to the movie being an analogy for the holocaust.
One guy even goes into detail how Kubrick really was relaying his involvement in staging the Apollo moonlanding through this movie. Crazy thing is, he almost makes it sound plausible.

Definitely entertaining to watch, if you have an interest in Kubrick, or more specifically The Shining.

lol, does goof make an appearance?

I started nodding off watching Room 237. There are some interesting historical facts and very intentional symbolism in the film, but it seems as if they started running out of things to present to make a full length documentary and decided to fill the rest of it with tinfoil hats.

Yeah, it's not for everyone. You really need to have an invested interest in Kubrick or the movie.
And a lot of the "analyses" are just wtf bullshit idiocy.

I'm actually a Kubrick fan and loved The Shining. It just felt as if they were really reaching on some of the theories just to make it a full documentary instead of a 30 minute feature.

2012



Made in 2009 ..Stars John Cusack & others

An epic adventure about a global cataclysm that brings an end to the world and tells of the heroic struggle of the survivors.

IMDB

I don't mind disaster movies in the main but this just didn't cut the mustard

7/10

2012 was a giant pile of horse wank. roland emmerich should have been boiled alive in his own piss for making that cheesy dong of a movie

The Battery 8/10

Two baseball fans in a post zombie apocalypse world try to stay alive by trekking around in a wooded depopulated area, taking supplies from houses and moving on. One rather digs the whole survival thing, the other desperately tries to enjoy the few creature comforts that are left. Thought it was rather good, it pretty much nails the whole bleakness thing.

Giving it a whole extra point for a very uncomfortable scene where one of the dudes mastrubates to a somewhat hot female zombie that pushes her tits against a car window trying to get inside... eww.