Recent movie releases graded

[PeteCalvin]

Saw 'Imitation Game' today - it was fairly decent. They took a lot of liberties with the story, but it was probably necessary. Overall, I would recommend.

Did they give any props to the Poles, who are actually the ones who did most of the pre-war and early war heavy lifting on deciphering and reverse engineering the Enigma? They were able to get most of their intelligence people and the code breaking machines smuggled out to England via France before Poland fell. That was huge for the Allies and is what really anchored and accelerated the British efforts to break the German codes. The Germans were light years ahead of everyone in terms of cipher technology and had been developing and advancing it for over a decade before WWII while the US was still using woefully outdated forms of ciphering. The Poles, due to their fear and distrust of the German government, never stopped monitoring German military communications when it was clear Hitler was taking power. They wanted to stay one step ahead of the Germans, so they developed cipher technology to rival and break the German codes. They broke the early versions of the Enigma code, which were Army versions. What became the Enigma we all know about was another version developed in secret and used exclusively by the German Navy. One day the Poles discovered that they could no longer read the messages in full, or at all, and knew the game had changed. That's when they knew they were in trouble. They tried to develop a machine to break the new, far more complex algorithms the Germans were using, but knew they were running out of time and needed help. That's when they devised the plan to move their ciphering team and equipment to Great Britain. The Brits took the work the Poles had accumulated over a decade, including the giant "computer" machines they built to solve the ciphers, and moved it all to the next level, eventually breaking the codes.

History usually paints the Poles as weak and Poland as the country that was overwhelmed by Blitzkrieg, that fell in less than a month, or the Warsaw Ghetto. In reality the Poles provided the Allies with many experienced pilots and the ciphering technology that helped save Britain and eventually the rest of the free world. The Polish pilots who escaped Europe joined the RAF and flew many of the early war missions. They had the most experience against the Germans.

 

[Ghost]

I don't think they mentioned Poland at all. It was all the Brits! You're clearly making stuff up!

They made up some stories about Turing being involved in some spy-gate stuff that never happened. Also, Joan Clarke was not hot!!!!

I read they exaggerated her role/place in the whole thing as well. I just read a few articles prior to seeing it - nothing out of sorts for Hollywood. They also make it seem like he pretty much single-handedly came up with everything w/ some assistants who finally bought in to his work at the end.

 

[PeteCalvin]

I don't think they mentioned Poland at all. It was all the Brits! You're clearly making stuff up!

They made up some stories about Turing being involved in some spy-gate stuff that never happened. Also, Joan Clarke was not hot!!!!

I read they exaggerated her role/place in the whole thing as well. I just read a few articles prior to seeing it - nothing out of sorts for Hollywood. They also make it seem like he pretty much single-handedly came up with everything w/ some assistants who finally bought in to his work at the end.

The real story is so much more interesting. It's too bad Hollywood had to ruin it. When I heard they were going to make this film I just knew that the entire backstory was going to be either glossed over or never mentioned. The Poles were the real heroes behind the Allied cipher efforts.

 

[moqui]

haven't seen all of the December releases yet, but my favorite movie of the year was Whiplash, A+. Next would be Grand Budapest Hotel, Calvary and Only Lovers Left Alive. Guardians of the Galaxy was not a great film but it was great fun and I would round out my top 5 with it. Give them all an A.

I also liked Interstellar, Chef, Foxcatcher, Dawn of the Planet of the Apes, Nightcrawler and Edge of Tomorrow are my A- films. Plenty of other good movies in the B, B+ range out there this year, but those are the ones that I remember liking best.

 

[ImperialOrange]

Saw Hobbit 3: Tokyo Drift this past weekend. I liked it. Battle was 5 pages in the book, and 60% of the movie. It was neat, beautiful, but it all just felt repetitive. 7/10

Finally saw The 3rd Hobbit yesterday. It was a lot of eye candy but didn't really go anywhere and was an absolutely anti climactic ending. Also, instead of following Bilbo home, why not tie up some loose ends or at least address them? What happened with the Arkenstone? What happened with Dale, and the mountain itself? Who was annointed king in place of Thorin? Could've also went anyway besides a yard sale to finish up.

This trilogy was ok but, as I was grading it vs the LOTR trilogy, it came up well short for me. Should've been 2 movies and got rid of most of the things tying it into the LOTR.

 

[Capt. Tuttle]

haven't seen all of the December releases yet, but my favorite movie of the year was Whiplash, A+. Next would be Grand Budapest Hotel, Calvary and Only Lovers Left Alive. Guardians of the Galaxy was not a great film but it was great fun and I would round out my top 5 with it. Give them all an A.

I also liked Interstellar, Chef, Foxcatcher, Dawn of the Planet of the Apes, Nightcrawler and Edge of Tomorrow are my A- films. Plenty of other good movies in the B, B+ range out there this year, but those are the ones that I remember liking best.

Cavalry was well done (of course, because Brendon Gleeson was in it), but just strange. Not sure what the characters represented, or what the last scene was about (an alliance revealed or a meeting for forgiveness, or something I totally missed).
Other Gleeson favorites: In Bruges, The Guard, Perrier's Bounty, The General.

 

[jvbj01]

The Equalizer with Denzel Washington was good.

Night crawler was excellent.

Foxcatcher was interesting, especially if you knew the story before.

The Drop was good.

Gone girl was good.

 

[CuseCPT]

Finally saw Godzilla and loved it. I was a big fan of the franchise when I was younger, though. Certainly lightyears better than the last attempt.

 

[moqui]

in the last week I've seen The Babadook, which is a solid B, maybe a B+, and The Interview, which was a D. I think Seth Rogen is a talented comedic actor, but as a writer he shot his comedic wad with the excellent Superbad. Everything he has written since then has been on a scale from bad to stupid.

 

[upperdeck]

anyone seen whiplash? heard it was real good.

 

[Crusty]

Did they give any props to the Poles, who are actually the ones who did most of the pre-war and early war heavy lifting on deciphering and reverse engineering the Enigma? They were able to get most of their intelligence people and the code breaking machines smuggled out to England via France before Poland fell. That was huge for the Allies and is what really anchored and accelerated the British efforts to break the German codes. The Germans were light years ahead of everyone in terms of cipher technology and had been developing and advancing it for over a decade before WWII while the US was still using woefully outdated forms of ciphering. The Poles, due to their fear and distrust of the German government, never stopped monitoring German military communications when it was clear Hitler was taking power. They wanted to stay one step ahead of the Germans, so they developed cipher technology to rival and break the German codes. They broke the early versions of the Enigma code, which were Army versions. What became the Enigma we all know about was another version developed in secret and used exclusively by the German Navy. One day the Poles discovered that they could no longer read the messages in full, or at all, and knew the game had changed. That's when they knew they were in trouble. They tried to develop a machine to break the new, far more complex algorithms the Germans were using, but knew they were running out of time and needed help. That's when they devised the plan to move their ciphering team and equipment to Great Britain. The Brits took the work the Poles had accumulated over a decade, including the giant "computer" machines they built to solve the ciphers, and moved it all to the next level, eventually breaking the codes.

History usually paints the Poles as weak and Poland as the country that was overwhelmed by Blitzkrieg, that fell in less than a month, or the Warsaw Ghetto. In reality the Poles provided the Allies with many experienced pilots and the ciphering technology that helped save Britain and eventually the rest of the free world. The Polish pilots who escaped Europe joined the RAF and flew many of the early war missions. They had the most experience against the Germans.

Without a doubt, the Poles played a critical role in breaking the German Enigma code. With the help of a spy, the Poles broke the code when they discovered that a 3-letter message key was sent twice at the beginning of each message. They developed the Bomba, a mechanical device used to decipher the cribs and learn the wheel settings of the Enigma machine. Since the Poles had acquired a couple of Enigma machines they could then decipher the messages.

When the Poles broke the code Enigma was in trials before the war and the key was changed only once every few months. When the war started, the Germans changed the code once a day creating 159 million million million possible key settings, rendering the Polish Bomba useless.
Turing had to use a completely different approach based on a known text placed at a certain position in the text. He made the critical changes to the original Polish Bomba and Gordon Welshman's diagonal board greatly improved its efficiency.

Turing's brilliance and importance is hard to overstate. Certainly many others, including the Poles, played critical roles, but Turing was the key player.

 

[Toga]

anyone seen whiplash? heard it was real good.

 

[moqui]

anyone seen whiplash? heard it was real good.

I gave it an A+ in my grades above; best movie of the year that I saw. So good I went back to see it 2 more times.

 

[CuseFaninVT]

So, I've taken my kid to see Penguins twice now. There's a part where the lead Penguin, Skipper, is eating some cheese puffs with gusto that makes me laugh so hard I can't breathe for a little while. No idea why it gets me, just does.

That's all I got.

Those guys kill me as well. My son and I wanted to see it but couldn't find it playing here. We might just have to go tonight. We love those Penguins.

 

[CuseFaninVT]

haven't seen all of the December releases yet, but my favorite movie of the year was Whiplash, A+. Next would be Grand Budapest Hotel, Calvary and Only Lovers Left Alive. Guardians of the Galaxy was not a great film but it was great fun and I would round out my top 5 with it. Give them all an A.

I also liked Interstellar, Chef, Foxcatcher, Dawn of the Planet of the Apes, Nightcrawler and Edge of Tomorrow are my A- films. Plenty of other good movies in the B, B+ range out there this year, but those are the ones that I remember liking best.

Loved Chef. The family loved Chef. The early scenes were a bit rough for watching with my 11-year old, but once they got to Miami the movie was great fun for all. Have taken my wife to both of the places shot on the road (literally the same joints) so that was kind of cool to see as well. The story was completely unbelievable, but really fun nonetheless. And so many dang stars in that movie. Clearly the A-listers like Favreau.

 

[moqui]

saw The Imitation Game and was underwhelmed. First, the miniature work was terrible - the naval ships looked like kids toys in a bathtub & the planes looked like they were being jiggled on fish line. maybe it was an homage to 1940s style filmmaking, but it was disconcerting.

second, the persecution of homosexuals story felt tacked on. I have no problem with making a movie about that theme, but that's not the movie they made. they made a thriller about the race to win the war (with Turing's sexuality as a minor sub-plot), but at the very end they tried to make a point about the century long persecution of homosexuals by British law enforcement. It was disconcerting and out of step with what we had just watched. The latter would make an interesting film and I'd be happy to see it - but that is not the film they made!

Grade: B

 

[MiniCuse]

I saw Inherent Vice the other day. I wouldn't directly compare it to "The Big Lebowski" or "Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas" but it had shades of both.

 

[Capt. Tuttle]

American Sniper. Fantastic, but in an almost voyueristic way. Upon reflection, it feels as if we were dropped into the middle of this man's amazing life and allowed to observe as events unfolded.
Absolutely great movie making, an incredible story, a heroic person, and a true tragedy.

 

[Ghost]

I only read one Tom Clancy novel, 'Without Remorse,' quite a long time ago and always thought it would make a good film. Looks like it never happened though. Red Storm Rising - might check that out.

Huh.

Ghost was wrong. Horribly wrong. Dead wrong. Very, very wrong. Bad film. Very bad film.

I've never seen a movie have less to do with a book.....pretty formulaic and bad anyway.....but a tad confused what the movie had to do with the book other than the character names.

 

[4evaOrange]

Huh.

Ghost was wrong. Horribly wrong. Dead wrong. Very, very wrong. Bad film. Very bad film.

I've never seen a movie have less to do with a book...pretty formulaic and bad anyway...but a tad confused what the movie had to do with the book other than the character names.

Wow. I was actually looking forward to this.

 

[Ghost]

Wow. I was actually looking forward to this.

Eh, maybe if you didn't read the book it will be great!!!

I don't want to spoil it - just not at all what I expected.

 

[upperdeck]

Hunt for red october was different than the book and was a great movie. so were several others..

 

[Ghost]

Hunt for red october was different than the book and was a great movie. so were several others..

How different though? In the book was the submarine actually a spaceship?

For me, this would be akin to reading 'Little Women' and then watching the movie 'Little Women' and seeing a film about a meek *** housewife named Jo March joining her sister Meg March for a road trip to Mexico where they pick up some thief named Laurie Laurence and then end up driving off a cliff.

It didn't align that well with the book.

 

[4evaOrange]

I just watched Mortal Kombat, and liked sub zero and scorpion and Kano was great, but it just felt a little off still. Don’t know, want to see the actual tournament, and some better graphics some just looked plain out video gameish.

Also watched Kong v Godzilla and enjoyed that a lot, tho lacking otter titans or references. And it made Godzilla out to be a and easily dislikable, Kong was bomb.
The journey to the center of earth was dope would love to see that in a future installment.

And also watched Raya and the last dragon and was kinda let down. With all the reviews that were so positive thought I’d be getting something better. But I’m still glad I watched it.

 

[4evaOrange]

Eh, maybe if you didn't read the book it will be great!!!

I don't want to spoil it - just not at all what I expected.

I mean I’ll be the first to say i read the Mitch Rapp books and American Assisan was a let down, and assuming if you don’t read the book you’ll like the movie so it’s expected I guess.