Movies Discussion Thread V1: Ratings and Opinions
fieldgunner
Broken In
Ghosts of Girlfriends Past - 8/10
Romantic comedy, fresh treatment, good timepass.
Romantic comedy, fresh treatment, good timepass.
+1 I watched this movie before watching the remake. And yea remake is not that good
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dd_wingrider
In the zone
Drag Me To Hell - Decent horror flick, do watch it if you are into this genre.
Techn0crat
RPG FTW!!!
here is my list:
Cloverfield
Se7en
Insomnia
My Sassy Girl
The Birdcage
Tron
Eternal Sunshine of Spotless Mind(Jim Carrey's best performance)
The Truman Show
10 Things I Hate About You
Cast Away(I would've cried at wilson-vollyball scene if i had watched this movie 5-6 years earlier)
The Shawshank Redemption
Cloverfield
Se7en
Insomnia
My Sassy Girl
The Birdcage
Tron
Eternal Sunshine of Spotless Mind(Jim Carrey's best performance)
The Truman Show
10 Things I Hate About You
Cast Away(I would've cried at wilson-vollyball scene if i had watched this movie 5-6 years earlier)
The Shawshank Redemption
Techn0crat
RPG FTW!!!
Just watched Dark City.Good movie but not as good as The Matrix.Dark City was just like a Clarke/Asimov Sci-Fi.The Matrix incorporated different philosophies and other references.Comparing them is like comparing Harry Potter Series with Twilight.
Krow
Crowman
^Errrr... The Matrix was a rip off of Dark City, with added special effects and instead of the Film Noir style, they used the insect green tone of lighting, mostly due to Croma which can't be done without green/blue BG. But anyway, they have just tried to bloat or alter The Matrix, the original concept is the same.
Techn0crat
RPG FTW!!!
I don't want to start a debate here but want to make few things clear.
"In the late '90s and early '00s, a wave of films played with the notion that what we experience as reality is a false and perhaps malevolent illusion. The idea wasn't new -- it was at least as old as Plato, and it had provided the backbone for many movies already -- but suddenly it was everywhere: in The Truman Show (1998), Dark City (1998), The Matrix (1999), the Canadian eXistenZ (1999), The Thirteenth Floor (1999), the TV series Harsh Realm (1999-2000), Waking Life (2001), Vanilla Sky (2001), and others. The broader idea of prowling about in someone else's virtual world turned up in still more pictures, from What Dreams May Come (1998) to Being John Malkovich (1999) to The Cell (2000). The quality of the films varied widely; the idea at their core did not.
You can credit part of this glut to imitation. But too many of the projects were created simultaneously and independently for that to explain everything. For whatever reasons, audiences at the turn of the century were receptive to paranoid thrillers about inauthentic realities. Call it the demiurge cycle, after the Gnostic notion that our world is governed by a mad ersatz God."
Source:*www.reason.com/news/show/29028.html
So, the core concept is same.I agree with that.If you dissect each and every movie,all you will get are handful of concepts told differently.
You can't call The Matrix as rip-off.It really deals with greater issues than dark city.It borrows inspirations from many things like from books like 'Simulation & Simulacra'(It was given to almost every actor to study),different religion's philosophies,animes like 'Ghost in The Shell' and even fairy tales like 'Alice in Wonderland' and 'Looking through the glass'.Wachowaskies have paid tribute to their inspirations wherever they can(Book used by Neo to conceal disks is simulation and simulacra,Broken Mirror is reference to Looking throught the glass,white rabbit tatto)
Here is something more about this:*en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Influences_and_interpretations_of_The_Matrix
Also,The Matrix was released one year after Dark City and was also filmed at Fox Studios in Sydney.(*en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dark_City_(1998_film)).
The rooftops that Trinity runs across at the beginning of the film are the same ones that John Murdoch runs across in Dark City.(*www.imdb.com/title/tt0118929/movieconnections) ,The rooftop set that Trinity uses to escape from Agent Jones early in the film was leftover from the production of Dark City, which has been remarked upon due to the thematic similarities of the films. (*en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Matrix).Which means that creators were aware of thematic similarities.
Also,their release dates are barely one year apart(Dark City:USA 27 February 1998 and The Matrix:USA 31 March 1999).So you want to say that Wachowaskies watched dark city,decided to copy it,thought about how to fool audiance by making changes,finalize actors,start filming,finished it,then completed post production in just one year?Come on guys,the training for kung-fu alone took few months.
And even after 10 years of release,there are hundreads of sites,forums,communities and groups discussing The Matrix.So,if you still think it was just a simple action movie and did not made you think,please don't say that out loud in front of any Matrix fan.
"In the late '90s and early '00s, a wave of films played with the notion that what we experience as reality is a false and perhaps malevolent illusion. The idea wasn't new -- it was at least as old as Plato, and it had provided the backbone for many movies already -- but suddenly it was everywhere: in The Truman Show (1998), Dark City (1998), The Matrix (1999), the Canadian eXistenZ (1999), The Thirteenth Floor (1999), the TV series Harsh Realm (1999-2000), Waking Life (2001), Vanilla Sky (2001), and others. The broader idea of prowling about in someone else's virtual world turned up in still more pictures, from What Dreams May Come (1998) to Being John Malkovich (1999) to The Cell (2000). The quality of the films varied widely; the idea at their core did not.
You can credit part of this glut to imitation. But too many of the projects were created simultaneously and independently for that to explain everything. For whatever reasons, audiences at the turn of the century were receptive to paranoid thrillers about inauthentic realities. Call it the demiurge cycle, after the Gnostic notion that our world is governed by a mad ersatz God."
Source:*www.reason.com/news/show/29028.html
So, the core concept is same.I agree with that.If you dissect each and every movie,all you will get are handful of concepts told differently.
You can't call The Matrix as rip-off.It really deals with greater issues than dark city.It borrows inspirations from many things like from books like 'Simulation & Simulacra'(It was given to almost every actor to study),different religion's philosophies,animes like 'Ghost in The Shell' and even fairy tales like 'Alice in Wonderland' and 'Looking through the glass'.Wachowaskies have paid tribute to their inspirations wherever they can(Book used by Neo to conceal disks is simulation and simulacra,Broken Mirror is reference to Looking throught the glass,white rabbit tatto)
Here is something more about this:*en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Influences_and_interpretations_of_The_Matrix
Also,The Matrix was released one year after Dark City and was also filmed at Fox Studios in Sydney.(*en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dark_City_(1998_film)).
The rooftops that Trinity runs across at the beginning of the film are the same ones that John Murdoch runs across in Dark City.(*www.imdb.com/title/tt0118929/movieconnections) ,The rooftop set that Trinity uses to escape from Agent Jones early in the film was leftover from the production of Dark City, which has been remarked upon due to the thematic similarities of the films. (*en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Matrix).Which means that creators were aware of thematic similarities.
Also,their release dates are barely one year apart(Dark City:USA 27 February 1998 and The Matrix:USA 31 March 1999).So you want to say that Wachowaskies watched dark city,decided to copy it,thought about how to fool audiance by making changes,finalize actors,start filming,finished it,then completed post production in just one year?Come on guys,the training for kung-fu alone took few months.
And even after 10 years of release,there are hundreads of sites,forums,communities and groups discussing The Matrix.So,if you still think it was just a simple action movie and did not made you think,please don't say that out loud in front of any Matrix fan.
Krow
Crowman
No one here has said that Matrix is a simple action movie. Put it in perspective man. Matrix, after watching Dark City, looks like a big bloat. Dark City has taken a concept and rendered it in a classic unforgettable style/ Notice that it does not rely on too much CGI.
Enter Wachowski brothers. They borrow a few concepts and are inspired by the whole idea and have the backing of Fox for a big budget CGI heavy action flick. They manage to render this with a nice addon of philosophy.
After watching Dark City I realised that the philosophies were merely an addon while it is not so in Dark City. Primarily Matrix sells and is so popular because of the action and breakthrough in CGI and not due to the philosophies involved. Dark City is my preferred movie cz I hate special effects when overdone and if you ask me, the special effects in Matrix have been appearing in Rajnikant movies for decades now (the bullet sequences). Dark City relies more on the psychological aspect than the special effects.
I don't care if people have been discussing the movie for a hundred years, the fact remains that Dark City is true to the genre of sci-fi while the Matrix is merely a sci-fi masala movie. The masala sells. The true film doesn't but is well appreciated by fans of the genre.
Talking about the brothers again. Lets just assume that Fox didn't lend them the script of Dark City for "inspiration", then going by that standard, both are awesome filmmakers. How in the world did they make two extremely crappy sequels? They spoiled the name of their movie totally.
Meanwhile, Dark City is even today regarded as one the movies which most deserved a sequel. True mark of a classic : Make the viewer think. Don't "spoon-feed" (no pun intended) the viewer's imagination. What the lead character could have done with his powers is a lot of fodder to make a movie (Dark City II). But no, the epilogue is open to the audiences.
Yes, in front of a blind Matrix fanboy, I won't say that it didn't make me think as I wouldn't want to make an effort to cull his ignorance. Fact remains however, thatDark City is a much deeper movie than Phatrix. To the open minded ones, I would openly say that Dark City was the original hardcore sci-fi film and Matrix comes nowhere close. Matrix is a better movie for the action sequences, but Dark City rules sci-fi Film Noir genre and is the true classic movie.
Enter Wachowski brothers. They borrow a few concepts and are inspired by the whole idea and have the backing of Fox for a big budget CGI heavy action flick. They manage to render this with a nice addon of philosophy.
After watching Dark City I realised that the philosophies were merely an addon while it is not so in Dark City. Primarily Matrix sells and is so popular because of the action and breakthrough in CGI and not due to the philosophies involved. Dark City is my preferred movie cz I hate special effects when overdone and if you ask me, the special effects in Matrix have been appearing in Rajnikant movies for decades now (the bullet sequences). Dark City relies more on the psychological aspect than the special effects.
I don't care if people have been discussing the movie for a hundred years, the fact remains that Dark City is true to the genre of sci-fi while the Matrix is merely a sci-fi masala movie. The masala sells. The true film doesn't but is well appreciated by fans of the genre.
Talking about the brothers again. Lets just assume that Fox didn't lend them the script of Dark City for "inspiration", then going by that standard, both are awesome filmmakers. How in the world did they make two extremely crappy sequels? They spoiled the name of their movie totally.
Meanwhile, Dark City is even today regarded as one the movies which most deserved a sequel. True mark of a classic : Make the viewer think. Don't "spoon-feed" (no pun intended) the viewer's imagination. What the lead character could have done with his powers is a lot of fodder to make a movie (Dark City II). But no, the epilogue is open to the audiences.
Yes, in front of a blind Matrix fanboy, I won't say that it didn't make me think as I wouldn't want to make an effort to cull his ignorance. Fact remains however, thatDark City is a much deeper movie than Phatrix. To the open minded ones, I would openly say that Dark City was the original hardcore sci-fi film and Matrix comes nowhere close. Matrix is a better movie for the action sequences, but Dark City rules sci-fi Film Noir genre and is the true classic movie.
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@Techn0crat Also, 12 Monkeys and Pi - around the same time period too.
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hmmm... The more you think about the Matrix, the more you pull it apart, the stupider it gets. A lot of the things in the series is redundant. If only they had made just the first movie and forgotten about the sequels... the first movie and Animatrix. Dark City was good but the mind battles in the end seem dated by today's standards.
And I don't think that the Matrix sold only on FX. Pirates of the Caribbean had more complex CGI than the Matrix, but the characters, even the CGI ones - Davey Jones, or Turner Sr stood out much more than say the Twins in the Matrix or the hundreds of Smiths. Pirates was a nice fun movie, but casually put enough things to think about if you wanted to, instead of forcing you into a wt? like the Matrix did.
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hmmm... The more you think about the Matrix, the more you pull it apart, the stupider it gets. A lot of the things in the series is redundant. If only they had made just the first movie and forgotten about the sequels... the first movie and Animatrix. Dark City was good but the mind battles in the end seem dated by today's standards.
And I don't think that the Matrix sold only on FX. Pirates of the Caribbean had more complex CGI than the Matrix, but the characters, even the CGI ones - Davey Jones, or Turner Sr stood out much more than say the Twins in the Matrix or the hundreds of Smiths. Pirates was a nice fun movie, but casually put enough things to think about if you wanted to, instead of forcing you into a wt? like the Matrix did.
asingh
Aspiring Novelist
Where in my post did I say the following about Matrix:
1. It is a copy of Dark City...??
2. That the directors of the script had copied Dark City..??
3. Matrix is a rip-off.
And since a debate has been started:
I immediately understood Matrix and the subliminal messages it was sending across to the viewers. They basically borrowed concepts from the worlds two oldest religions, which was pretty lame -- and wrapped it around modern day hi-tech science fiction.
No Matrix did not make me think..!..Because:
1. The concepts are age old.
2. I was exposed to the concepts since young. (read below).
3. Nothing new in the movie.
If someone can show concepts not listed below I am more than happy to re-think the Matrix.
Christianity:
There is going to be a saviour Neo (Jesus Christ), who will save the world. He is talked about by everyone, but no one knows who he is. But he will come and fulfill the prophecy. Zion is a word from the Bible which was the promised land for the people of God. It also signifies a 'fortress' in the Bible. It is used umpteen times with same reference in Matrix I,II, and III. Morpheus is depicted similar to John the Baptist -- the one preaching the coming of the the savior.
Hinduism:
What ever we see is not actually true ------------ MAYA.
We have to break away from worldly concepts (Matrix/Maya) and achieve a higher life --------- ACHIEVE NIRVANA.
Nevertheless it is a great film.
If you want to see sci-fi movies with concepts/make you think..watch Blade Runner, Soylent Green, Planet of the Apes (1968).
1. It is a copy of Dark City...??
2. That the directors of the script had copied Dark City..??
3. Matrix is a rip-off.
And since a debate has been started:
I immediately understood Matrix and the subliminal messages it was sending across to the viewers. They basically borrowed concepts from the worlds two oldest religions, which was pretty lame -- and wrapped it around modern day hi-tech science fiction.
No Matrix did not make me think..!..Because:
1. The concepts are age old.
2. I was exposed to the concepts since young. (read below).
3. Nothing new in the movie.
If someone can show concepts not listed below I am more than happy to re-think the Matrix.
Christianity:
There is going to be a saviour Neo (Jesus Christ), who will save the world. He is talked about by everyone, but no one knows who he is. But he will come and fulfill the prophecy. Zion is a word from the Bible which was the promised land for the people of God. It also signifies a 'fortress' in the Bible. It is used umpteen times with same reference in Matrix I,II, and III. Morpheus is depicted similar to John the Baptist -- the one preaching the coming of the the savior.
Hinduism:
What ever we see is not actually true ------------ MAYA.
We have to break away from worldly concepts (Matrix/Maya) and achieve a higher life --------- ACHIEVE NIRVANA.
Nevertheless it is a great film.
If you want to see sci-fi movies with concepts/make you think..watch Blade Runner, Soylent Green, Planet of the Apes (1968).
Backaroo Banzai! Great sci fi film, with some strange physics theories thrown in that stand their ground even today. Basically sub-atomic space is by and large a void, empty of matter - what if matter from other dimensions occupies this space? If the guys who made Backaroo Banzai made the Matrix, Neo, Morpheus and Trinity would have a rock band that performed at Zion, the Machines would be a misunderstood bunch of really nice beings actualy, and the Oracle would be a hack no one really listens to.
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abyss88
Broken In
school of rock, saving private ryan(contains violence), bourne trilogy(i guess the first part contains a kissing scene but nothing after that), letters from iwo jima(contains violence), kung fu panda
, wall E, bolt,shooter
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y2j826
Journeyman
Pearl Harbor(just one scene), The Dark Knight, Batman Begins, Vantage Point, Armageddon
Krow
Crowman
school of rock, saving private ryan(contains violence), bourne trilogy(i guess the first part contains a kissing scene but nothing after that), letters from iwo jima(contains violence), kung fu panda
abyss, seriously are you nuts? Reservoir Dogs for a family entertainer? It's extremely graphic with the famous ear-cutting scene, extremely explicit language and violence. How the hell is it a family entertainer?
