Category: Movies

I am a huge movies fan. Unfortunately (or maybe fortunately) I don’t get much free time to enjoy watching movies. But when I do, I try to share my thoughts about the movies that I’ve seen. Movie reviews, celebrity news, trailers of upcoming flicks, etc – are all in this category.

Shooter

Being a big fan of anything that involves snipers – movies, video games, books, etc – I am surprised that I haven’t heard anything at all about “Shooter“.  It is one of those niche things that is done for the fans only.

The story is not particularly thick or twisted.  On the contrary, it’s quite straightforward and predictable.  But that didn’t spoil the film too much.  It was shot nicely, with some really nice photography.  And the casting was excellent – Mark Wahlberg, Danny Glover, Rade Serbedzija, Rhona Mitra, and the rest did their job very well.

Overall, there is not much too say more.  If you are a fan of snipers, this movie is a must see.  If not, then I don’t know – it’s a nice action movie based on a rather weak story.  4 out of 5.

Beneath Hill 60

I don’t remember how I came across “Beneath Hill 60“, but it was in my watch queue for quite a while.  Yesterday I finally decided to watch it, and now I’m glad I did.  One of the first things that stands out is that it’s not an American movie (it’s Australian).  Even though the main language is English, the story telling, camera angles, special effects, and intensity are all approached differently.

The film tells the story of the Battle of Hill 60 from the First World War.  I haven’t heard anything about the battle before watching the film, and I’ve never thought of the role miners played at war.  In fact, I wasn’t aware they were ever used for military operations, even though not that I think about it – it makes all the sense.

This movie is not a major blockbuster by any means.  But it has a story to tell and it has a soul.  It feels like it was important to people who were making it.  And so, even if you aren’t that much into war movies, it will still be worth your time.

Overall ranking, a 4 out of 5.  Well done.

Flickchart – your own Top 20 Movies of all times

Flickchart is yet another one of those sites that is supposed to help you choose the next movie to watch, as well as share with your friends the list of movies that you’ve enjoyed.  The interface is somewhat simple and straightforward, even though the functionality is plenty.

Basically, you are presented with the two movies next to each other and you have to click on the one you think is better.  If you haven’t seen either one of the given movies, you can skip it for the next.  Flickchart computes your voting into a Top 20 Movies of all times list, as well as a bunch of other sub-lists – by genre, by decade, etc.

Overall, that’s a much needed site with some really cool features.  There is only one problem with it.  It doesn’t work.  I mean, it doesn’t work as I expected it to.  It keeps throwing unknown weird films that I’ve never heard of at me.  It keeps giving me movies for voting which I clearly marked as I haven’t seen.  And the resulting Top 20 Of All Time list is weird at best.  Some of the movies which I want there – are there, yet not at the places I’d put them manually at.  The other movies seem to not make it there at all.

There is a “By Title” voting mechanism which one could use to move things around, but that is not very useful at this stage either.  For example, I had “Avatar” at position #2.  I thought, even though it’s a nice movie, #2 is a bit too high for it.  So I took the “By Title” tour and in just a five or six clicks “Avatar” ended at #46.  Seriously, WTF is going on?

As much as I’d love to use this site, I think it’s still too early.  I need to give it some time to mature.  But I’ll definitely be back to check out later.  Have you tried it yet?