What movies have you seen recently?

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Ice solders (2013)
Fair action, but does not follow logic,
On 1-20 with 1 the worst, I give it an 12.

Paranormal Activity: The Chosen Ones.

Currently watching what's one of the uninspiring endless sequels to the original. This time with an all Latino cast!

The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug

Part two of the Hobbit Trilogy. The dwarves, Bilbo, Gandalf, continue their quest to reclaim the dwarven kingdom Erebor, from Smaug.

Out of the Furnace

Good premise but Hollywood destroyed it.

1) A one-beer DWI and double-vehicular homicide (not protagonists fault) lands protagonist in jail.
2) What the F is Zoey Saldano doing in that town?
3) Christian Bale can sling some BS about a muscle-car but he forgets his bag of glass on the table after buying it - street creds reduced to zero and anyone sharp enough IRL to sling that BS about cars would have been sharp enough to have not made that mistake.
4) Woody Haroldson's character (who already looks like a Hollywood metrosexual trying to be a hardass methhead) knows his house is getting busted into by SWAT but keeps his bare-knuckle fighting club in the same spot even though he knows that the guy he murdered still had the address on his ledgers.
5) Christian Bale makes the Brad Pitt mistake at the end of Se7en.

I've known guys who were white versions of Alanso Harris from Training Day, had manhood conversations with them, who would have made Woody Haroldson's character their b***h.

Great premise but Hollywood can't hack their own plots. Consulting on this kind of stuff is how Danny Trejo became an actor - it's a shame they didn't have him review this script.

It was entertaining but, overall, I feel a bit dumber having watched it. It didn't have to be like that. It's just that...well... Hollywood's forgetting what makes the world tick.

Vendetta (2013)
English movie, well made with a fair amount of action.
On a scale of 01-20, with 1 being the worst, I give this one a 15.

The Box

An extended 2009 adaptation of a 1985 Twilight Zone short (in turn adapted from a 1970 short story Button, Button by Richard Matheson), starring Cameron Diaz and James Marsden.

Set in the 1970s, a down-on-their-luck family open their door to find a mysterious box with one single button. Shortly afterwards, a man with a key to the box appears, decreeing that if the button is pressed, they will be given $1 million - but at the cost of a human life.

Aside from Diaz's terrible attempt at a Louisianan accent and Marsden's wooden acting, I just couldn't get into this movie. For something deemed a psychological horror, it seemed to stray into "and then this happened, and then that happened..." territory...

Dallas Buyers Club

Heart-wrenching. Breath-taking. Highly-emotive... that's how much I loved this movie.

A major thank you to the person who mentioned it before on this thread, I'm very grateful for the recommendation!

For those unfamiliar with the title, a very recent 2013 biopic on the turbulent life of Ronald Woodrow in the 80s. An unsavoury Texan electrician is diagnosed with HIV after a one-night stand, and is deemed by doctors that he has only 30 days to live. What follows is a difficult period of self-denial, ostracisation, further health deterioiation into AIDS and then a last-minute desperation to live; Woodrow desperately tries out AZT, an experimental medicine thought to prolong the life of sufferers, then-recently approved by the Food and Drug Administration for trial use on humans. After said drug almost kills Woodrow, he then begins a crusade against the FDA by importing more effective but non-approved medicines from Mexico. As Woodrow continues to live, he earns the respect and support of new friends and the HIV+ community, eventually leading to the titular club.

Kudos to all involved in the movie for such stunning cinematography and for depicting the evolution of Woodrow and actually making him believably likeable by the movie's end. Matthew McConoughay's performance as brilliant, as were Jennifer Garner and Jared Leto in particular. So glad it won Best Picture and Best Acting; we definitely need more brave movies like this...

Faust

1920s silent German film based on the Faust legend. The demon Mephisto wagers with God that he can corrupt a mortal man's soul.

I watched Mama, directed by Guillermo del Toro, and starring Nikolaj Coster-Waldau (Jaime from GOT)

Mama is a haunted house/ haunted people story, with some elements you don't often see in the genre. The set-up is that Nikolaj has a nervous breakdown and kills his wife, then takes his two daughters to an isolated cabin intending to shoot them in the head, but a ghost kills him, and sort of ends up raising the kids for several years, until their Dad's twin brother (good, this time) locates them. I would recommend it to people who like gothic horror, and haunted house movies. The ending is unique and memorable.

The Past

French film about an Iranian man deserts his French wife and her two children to return to his homeland. Meanwhile, his wife starts up a new relationship. A secret is uncovered as they finalize their divorce.

Melancholia. I've watched it twice now. Adore.
I also watched Anti-Christ (same directr, Lars von Trier) and it was chilling.

Very different pathos.

Paranormal Activity: The Marked Ones

Yet another sequel to Paranormal Activity. a teenager begins experiencing a number of disturbing and unexplainable things after the death of his neighbor. He comes to realize he has been marked for possession.