Eh, I'm a little fed up with a lot of new films, they tend to be overproduced with flimsy storylines, unneeded effects, pretty little actors that all look pretty similar, pointless plots and worthless themes. :(

So anyway, I needed to watch something while I was drawing, I had a look at the movies on my comp and saw one I hadn't watched yet:
Fahrenheit 451.

-I'd downloaded that a couple of years ago by mistake, I was trying to get the Michael Moore film... I didn't watch this one because I don't really like the image of fire on screen. But today I decided to, and what a revelation!

Wow, interesting actors that don't look like the usual; a story with what is really a very silly concept, but a great theme and plotted very well; good cinematography, great use of non-cg effects to get the desired look (heat shimmers, zoomed scenes, night skies)... But overall, all the scenes were so well shot and nicely framed, the actors were good and not like the modern day sausage factory produce, music was excellent, all in all a well done film.
-Even the old style of acting was a nice change: instead of trying to be ultra real, they... act? Hard to describe but not uncommon generally, just less common in modern drama.

I'm watching The Sand Pebbles, about an American Gunboat patrolling the waterways of pre-Revolution China.
Steve McQueen, baby! Raaaaawr.
I like how the pace of old movies is much different. The director doesn't assume we're all ADD-babies.

In the last year I watched The Good, The Bad and The Ugly as well as The Seven Samurai

I expected these to be good...but I was totally blown away with just how good they really were.

Since you brought up Michael Moore, I just saw his newest "Sicko."
I found that surprising, and shocking.
I don't mean to side track your thread but is he exagerating?
I'm just wondering cause I'm Canadian.
~Brad

Lets see:

Afro Samurai
Death Note
The Fountain
300 (although that didn't surprise me)
Transformers
The Golden Compass
The Chronicles of Narnia

...

I most thought all of those were going to suck ('cept 300 and Afro Samurai, but those two were surprisingly awesome).

Infernal Affairs just shocked me at how good it was.

Life on Mars. It's a BBC TV series, so I'm not sure how available it is outside the UK but, if you see it in your TV listings ... do not miss it!

I chose not to watch it first time round because it sounded so predictable (cop goes back in time to the 1970s and finds his modern policing methods at odds with the norms of the time). Then I accidentally caught a few minutes of an episode and was spellbound! Without wanting to give anything away, it's packed full of twists, turns and tragedy with great acting and - despite being a drama series - more laughs per minute than any sitcom of the last 20 years. Unmissable!

Movies I was surprised when watched...
well its hard to say, I have seen a lot.
The most recent movie which I was surprised was good was Death Sentence with Kevin Bacon.

For the most part, I go into movies expecting to be entertained, so I'm usually only surprised when a movie turns out to be utter garbage when people keep telling me it's good (like Transformers). I can't say anything in recent years has really surprised me with its high quality.

Ziffy88
Infernal Affairs just shocked me at how good it was.

And that is the reason why it was remade as a Hollywood film "The Departed". "The Departed" was a copy of the 3 films compressed in 1.

Well I loved the Departed so I won't hold that against it, plus I loved the ending.

Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox story... The preview makes it look like another cookie-cutter stupid comedy but it's actually insanely funny.

I didn't think I'd like Heroes but I did!

Eunice P

Ziffy88
Infernal Affairs just shocked me at how good it was.

And that is the reason why it was remade as a Hollywood film "The Departed". "The Departed" was a copy of the 3 films compressed in 1.

No it wasn't. It was a remake of the first Infernal Affairs movie. The second Infernal Affairs movie was a prequel about how the Jack Nicholson character came to power and is easily the best of the three. And the third Infernal Affairs movie (if I remember correctly, I didn't pay as much attention because it was easily the worst of the three) was about the power vacuum left after Jack Nicholson's character is killed and about Mark Walburg's character, and a new undercover cop (not Leo DiCaprio) trying to expose Matt Damon's character because he didn't die at the end of the first infernal affairs movie like he did in the departed. The third one took place during and after the first two movies.

They were all ok. Problem with Hong Kong crime films is the character arch's in the scripts. They try to do too much with too many people and end up doing alot of it poorly. I'd love to see a sequel to the Departed based on Infernal Affairs 2. It would really focus on Jack Nicholson, and Martin Sheen.

Superman: Doomsday
It got some negative hype for some reason, but it kicks ass.
A billion times better Superman Returens.
~Brad

ozoneocean
Eh, I'm a little fed up with a lot of new films, they tend to be overproduced with flimsy storylines, unneeded effects, pretty little actors that all look pretty similar, pointless plots and worthless themes. :(

Only recent ones? Crap films are nothing new. Go back in time to the 'golden age' of cinema, and you'll find more cinematic abominations then a you could shake a shakable thing at. People only think old films were better because the only ones we still see around today are the good ones. Every problem you mentioned in your post have been around since the inventor of moving imagery woke up after having a very odd dream.

Sorry for the off topicness, but it really infuriates me when people ejaculate mindless praise for things that are older than themselves, while needlessly sprouting out hate against something they clearly do not understand.

Custard Trout
but it really infuriates me when people ejaculate mindless praise for things that are older than themselves, while needlessly sprouting out hate against something they clearly do not understand.

I'm not "ejaculating mindless praise" for anything. I clearly state my reasons for liking the one film that I said I did. And as for "hate", I merely comment on a tendency in the majority of recent films I've seen, I mention no exclusivity in that tendency, you merely infer that because it suits the tone of the reply you wanted to give.

Seems to me that you may have "ejaculated mindlessly" and "needlessly spouted hate against something you didn't fully understand". lol!
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But back to the topic of shows and movies that surprise... The Nero Wolfe Mysteries. That recent series was absolutely brilliant in every aspect, from the title credits, to the choice of casting for every single part. The way they used much the same pool of actors for each episode (extremely accomplished actors), many in different roles each time was lovely.

In this cynical age, I think My name is Earl has a pretty sympatic story.