Ratings are pretty arbitrary, I think, even on a personal level - and certainly that's the case from person to person. If one doesn't use the rating below 6, what are they there for, I wonder? I think this is known as "ratings inflation." Anyway, that's part of my reason for giving lower ratings these days, but again, I'm never quite sure of them as it is.

And even when they're difficult to follow, subtitles > dubbing, any ol' day.

My mom and I watched Life is Beautiful quite awhile ago. I can't remember much about it except that I liked it quite a bit. We ended up viewing it with the dubbing rather than subtitles. Personally I can't see how anyone could read subtitles and still get into the emotion of the movie; it just feels so bland, and you spend more time looking at the words on the screen then you do at the actual movie. To each his own, I guess. I'll probably look into getting it again sometime. Isn't it a rather long movie?

I'll always be a,
NL101

Really? That's how I feel about dubbing. It takes a while for me to get "connected" to a movie with subtitles, but eventually it happens, and often I even come to the point where I forget that I'm reading the subtitles - it just crystallizes into one big "experience." (Granted, many of the foreign-language films I watched are adaptations of operas, and the music does help in carrying one along in that instance.) I can bear the other approach more when the original actor does his or her own dubbing, which often happens with bi- or tri-lingual performers, but even with a consistency in interpretation, the lack of audio/visual synchronization drives me up the wall. No dubbing for me, no sir.

Most interesting. For all I know I may connect to the movie with subtitles after awhile as well, but I still prefer to watch them with dubbing, unless, of course, it's REALLY poor dubbing (which wasn't the case with Life is Beautiful). In fact I don't even remember ever being irritated with the unsynchronized audio in that one, it just became transparent to me after awhile.

I'll always be a,
NL101

^^ And that very well might be the case with me too, especially with well-produced dubbing. But I really want to hear the real actors say the lines, and I want to hear the language too. As someone who love foreign languages, that aspect of it is extremely important to me. Plus, believe it or not, I think it helps with comprehension. You're going to be dealing with a translation either way - whether it's spoken or written - and there will be meanings that are lost either way, but some of them can still come across by hearing the way the actors say them in their original language. At least, that's my experience.

I'm really enjoying this discussion/debate, btw.

lys: was the voodoo on the good side, or just the bad side? If it was on the good side, that's what I'd have problems with.

Ok, yeah I haven't even asked my parents if I can watch An Education yet so, um, I don't think I will .

My sister and I recently watched a movie called Sophie Scholl: The Final Days. It was about a girl we'd been reading about who was part of an anti-Nazi scheme. The movie was in the original German so it had captions but it was lovely. I liked it alot, b/c it's nice to have the authenticity. And like Robbie said, you forget you're reading captions after a bit. I really liked the movie, though I cried a TON in it. It is a true story after all.

Going back to the last page, I love An Education! The performances were excellent. Carey Mulligan was amazing, and well deserving of her Oscar nod. I also thought that Peter Sarsgaard did a wonderful job as well. He played a character that was so easy to hate, yet at the same time was so charming that you could understand why everyone fell under his spell. Something not easy to pull off as an actor. The story, while disturbing at parts, was very profound, and the script was top notch. Definitely one of my top 5 movies of '09.

Last night I finally got the chance to see The Messenger, an under-rated and under-appreciated film that has pretty much flown under the radar with the exception of a few Academy Award nominations earlier this year. The story follows two U.S Soldiers played by Ben Foster and Woody Harrelson (also deserving of his Best Supporting Actor nomination) who are given the task of notifying military families when their loved ones are killed in the line of duty. The story takes place in the U.S during the modern day war in Iraq.

Given the weighty subject matter, the film is understandably depressing at times, but is at the same time mesmerizing and never falls flat. The intensity and emotion that is displayed every time a wife, mother, or father is notified of their loved ones death is nothing short of haunting.

The acting is amazing. Harrelson's turn as an older, lonely soldier who "plays by the book" was rewarded by the Academy for very good reason. However, it's Ben Foster who steals the show, and after seeing his performance to say that he was snubbed by the Academy would be a gross understatement. I had never seen Foster in anything before, but his performance is so convincing and heartbreaking that I eagerly await seeing whatever the young actor does next. Samantha Morton is also very good as a young widow who is left alone with her young son after her husband is killed in Iraq.

While set within the confines of the current situation in Iraq, the film is not a war movie. It is one that brilliantly explores the psychological effects of war, and human reactions to the situations that they are forced into. It is engaging, emotional, and sometimes painful to watch, but an excellent movie nonetheless.

Oh, guess I need to add this. The movie is rated R for some pretty "adult" content, should that be a deterrent to anyone interested in seeing it.

Okay. Good. Avatar.

I have to preface this by saying that I did not see it in 3-D. Even so, i think the visulas were still stunning and they probably would have been 20 times more so if I had, in fact, seen it in 3-D. (Although I highly doubt it would change my opinion about it).

I HATED Avatar.
The first time I heard about Avatar was when the first trailer came out. It looked stupid and I didn't want to see it. Flash forward a couple of months and my sister and cousin go to see it and claim that this film is "life changing". This makes me want to go see it.
By this time, it was out of IMAX 3-D theaters, so I went to see it in regular theater.

The first few minutes weren't so bad. It was even somewhat interesting. But once they introduced the "Avatar Natives", that was it. Stupid. Predictable.

HASN'T ANYONE EVER SEEN POCAHONTAS?!?!
I feel like they totally ripped off that story and gave no credit to the real Pocahontas. A cheap copy of a truly great story. And everyone went around as if they had no clue that tearing down nature was a bad thing. As if their "eyes have been opened"......it really took a movie to show you that? People didn't know this before? Didn't you at least see Pocahontas when you were little? Did it really take watching this movie to appreciate nature?
I kept wondering when this "life changing" message would show up in the movie only to find out that the so-called message was something I learned when I was 4-years-old, apparently unlike the rest of humanity.
The story was just carried out so poorly.

A lot of things in the film were just downright ridiculous. They prayed to trees? Maybe stuff like that just annoyed me because of my personal religious beliefs.

I find I just don't have the words to accurately express how stupid and lame I thought the movie was. It is appauling how overrated this film is. I hate how everyone is calling it "The #1 movie of all time". No. It is the #1 grossing film of all time. Just because it made the most money does not mean the material is any good.

I deeply regret spending my money on this film. I hope I never have the misfortune of seeing it ever again in my lifetime.
This movie is a new addition to my 'Worst Films Of All Time' list.

I wouldn't say it's the worst movie I've seen but it's the worst movie I've seen at the cinema (and the most expensive).

Wow, lots of hate. As I said earlier, it wasn't the best movie I'd ever seen, but certainly not the worst. That honor would probably have to go to Transformers 2 or The Day the Earth Stood Still (of films I've seen in theaters).

W4J, have you shared your thoughts on Avatar on this board already? I can tell you didn't like the film but I'm curious to know why exactly.

Okay, yes. Transformers 2 was worse but only marginally.

Yes, I have shared my thoughts here about Avatar some months ago.
Here they are again:

I saw Avatar in 3D last night. I'm not convinced that 3D really adds much to the experience. There were several moments that took full advantage of the technology but most of the time it didn't do anything for me. I've got to say, for all the hype surrounding it, it was only quite good (and that's almost purely because of the impressive visuals). The imaginative fauna and flora were very cool (though I'm not sure why most animals needed an extra pair of limbs and the horse/zebra-like creatures didn't animate so well in a full gallop). The Na'vi were nicely animated and I enjoyed the ending battle and the strangeness of Pandora. The world was nicely realised. The story was beyond bland. It's not even that it has been done countless times, it's that no new perspective was brought to the story. The acting wasn't terrible but nor was it memorable. Sigoury Weaver didn't even make much of an impression. The music was decent at times but most of the time forgettable. Character development wasn't present, except for perhaps Jake and his Na'vi lover (she was probably the most interesting of the lot). I know people don't go to a James Cameron movie to expect quality dialogue and character depth BUT nor should we be happy with something so clichéd and for lack of a better word, 'soulless'.
I don't need great dialogue to enjoy a movie, I don't need great character development, nor much of a story to enjoy a movie but I need more than just pretty visuals. I'm giving Avatar a 6.5/10.

Good review. I would agree with pretty much everything you said, with the exception that, for me, the 3D did add a lot to the experience. As I wrote on the last page, I doubt I'll ever see it again, because without the benefit of the 3D, there's not really anything that makes me want to revisit the movie.

In my experience, most of the hate for Avatar comes from several sources:

1) Those who have a different religious world-view and little tolerance for other religious world-views.
2) Those who have a different political world-view and little tolerance for other political world-views.
3) Those who hate anything by James Cameron.
4) Those who enjoy jumping on a Backlash to anything Extremely Popular (see Anti-Lady GaGa or Anti-Twilight Fans )

Most other people who thought it at least Meh, will cite derivative plot (no such thing as a wholly original story in my book but Fair Enough), weak acting (suspiciously subjective), poor dialogue (with few, if any, actual examples), but at the very least they still think it had amazing visuals.

Then some of us (apparently the folks who made it the number one movie of all time ) think it was Well Done all the way around.

Haters are welcome to their opinion, this is mine.

GB

(see Anti-Lady GaGa or Anti-Twilight Fans )

I don't hate them just b/c they're popular. I have many reasons for my hate.

I haven't seen Avatar yet, but I'm going to be borrowing it from one of my friends (hopefully soon) so they I can state an opinion.

As an Anti-Twilight person, I can assure you my reasons for my hatred of the series are a lot more developed than "Omigosh! This series is popular, so I must hate it!"

I don't know that I'd number The Day the Earth Stood Still remake as one of the worst films of all time. Certainly a Very Bad movie though. But Transformers definitely goes in the worst movies bin, although it did have a nice score.