[Rice Boy]

The question is, will I bother getting them on DVD? 

I would recommend them both for evenings when you're looking for light hearted fun.  Brendon Fraser's character has much more get up and go and good chemistry with Rachael Weizz (which apparently is important to me). Better in every way I'd say.

[Kingy]

I would recommend them both for evenings when you're looking for light hearted fun.  Brendon Fraser's character has much more get up and go and good chemistry with Rachael Weizz (which apparently is important to me). Better in every way I'd say.

  Funny that, how the appearance of RW could enliven even the most turgid production! Cool I may check them out.

[slackline]

Went to see this last night and thought it was very good.

The stories told very well, especially considering there is no actual footage of the event.  Jumps around using interviews over re-enactments and archive footage and footage of the interviews themselves.  It did seem to gloss over a few details, but all-in-all its very well done and very interesting, and quite an amazing thing to do (and have got away with).

Forgot to mention two things...

• The film is in part funded by the BBC so I expect it will be on TV at some point.
• It was great to watching something about the Twin Towers without them falling down or any mention of 9/11

[robertostallioni]

Right, watched 2 films this week. The Objective(Afghanistain(sic) Roswell), last night and Trans-Siberian(drug running trainfest) tonight. the latter is a 'proper' film. Beginning, middle and end. Ben Kingsley(Russian detective on the payroll so to speak) and Wooden Harrelson in his usual 'pay'role. Trans-Siberian:- Good film for the Mrs. Love interest and a decent plot 7/10. The Objective:- Full Metal Jacket meets X-Files meets Blair Witch, on a budget. Acting is surprisingly decent but film only has a beginning and a middle. Leaves many questions unanswered but lack of general direction meant I was looking forward to making it stop so I could go to bed. I take it as a personal triumph that I stuck it out to the end. Or more accurately, the end of the middle.....

[lagerstarfish]

Hellboy 2 out today!



seen it on small screen, but can't wait to see it on the big screen. The toothfairies made me wince, Johan Kraus is straight out of 'Allo 'Allo, the elf prince shows off some fast sword skills - plot is a bit basic, but creatures and effects more than make up for this.

[Falling Down]

Well I finally went to see Batman at the iMax in Mancland last night.  Quite the spectacle and very entertaining but a bit too long and I didn't need the moral ambiguity theme spelling out for me every ten minutes thank you very much. Gary Oldman is brilliant as Gordon.

On one level I thought the film was a exploration of Al Qaeda vs. Bush America.. Osama (lord of misrule) vs Bush America (millionaire playboy, might is right, fueling the fire).

Lots of guantanamo and torture references.
Shots of ruined buildings and firefighters almost identical to the aftermath of 9/11.
Cellphone explosive strapped suicide bombers.
Extraordinary rendition of the Hong Kong banker pulled out by Batman using CIA techniques.

Just a thought.

(I think Maggie G is quite sexy BTW)

[slackline]

My intake of films has increased of late after having signed up to lovefilm.

Recently I've seen...

The Prestige which I thought was pretty good, entertaining, and a bit "dark" in places.  I worked out the twist in the plot fairly early (much to the annoyance of the missus who'd seen it before and kept on taunting me as to whether I'd sussed it out). 

An Inconvenient Truth which despite being full of self-promotion and tenuous (personal) analogies was I thought very good.  Just the sort of thing many Americans need to see to drive home the message of the scale and problems involved in global warming.  Just a shame they won't all see it.

Black Sheep been waiting to see this for ages, and finally got round to it.  Absolutely brilliant, in the same vein as Jackson's Bad Taste and Brain Dead and just good old fun slapstick gore.  The irony of turning a vegetarian hippy into a flesh eating zombie sheep was just superb.

Next film due to arrive today is Into the Wild which has had some good reviews on here and I'm looking forward to watching this evening.

[Jim]

Watched survival style 5+ last night. A bizarre plot that I didn't understand at all but highly entertaining none the less

[fatdoc]

not read through the thread for a bit....

but my summery of the summer school hols films is below:

Indie - utter CGI over the top with a weak script & all but none of the quick quip humour... too long & sub plots dont make sense

Mummy 3 - just doesnt work without Ms Weiss. although female lead is one of the strengths to the otherwise repetitive poor story and very weak male lead [surprised me i have to say]

Kung Fu panda : is class, really.... it does the pixaresque good vs evil with the underdog shining through type of stuff as usual... but it does it well, a highly entertaining piece of cinema.

[unclesomebody]

I've just finished being amazed/confused/intrigued/saddened/impressed by Mister Lonely. I came across this film very randomly and didn't know what to expect, so I guess I had zero expectations. It far, far, far surpassed that zero level. It's exceptionally well shot, has a very strange storyline, but ultimately I would definitely recommend it. It follows in the vein on my previous recommendations so perhaps not to everyone's taste all of the time. It also has a wonderful soundtrack, which is emotive enough to fit perfectly with the film. Anyway, blah blah blah. Just enjoy it!

[Fiend]

The Prestige which I thought was pretty good, entertaining, and a bit "dark" in places.  I worked out the twist in the plot fairly early (much to the annoyance of the missus who'd seen it before and kept on taunting me as to whether I'd sussed it out).

I need to see this. Really enjoyed the book as I do almost all of Christopher Priest's stuff.

Hellboy 2: entertaining nonsense. All quite shallow but good fun and some cool monsters and creatures. I quite like Hellboy himself. (Never saw the first one nor read the comics)

[andyh]

might i recommend "otto: or up with dead people" which i saw last week.

as gay zombie pr0no's go its utterly classic, funny, clever, political an lots more. there was applause in the cinema when it finished, which i've not seen since rocky 4.

think this was a one-off reshowing, but probably available on dvd

[Yossarian]

Has anyone seen Somers Town yet?

[Stubbs]

I think Hellboy II has gone too far to the side of 'ooooh check me out I can make creatures with funny faces' to the point where the plot is thin, even by comic book film standards, with a ridiculous amount of holes in it.  I thought it was way worse than the first installment, but still just about worth the cost of the ticket.

[Moo]

i thought it was shit but i can see why people would like it there was too much noise for me couldn't hear what anyone was saying no doubt it was visually impressive in parts

[Kingy]

Saw the Wackness yesterday with Ben Kingsley - great movie, would recommend seeing it. Lots of nostalgic tunes from '94, Biggie and Tribe called Quest. Some side parts on show and public phone boxes in place of mobile phones.

[Yossarian]

I just watched Eden lake. Great review in the guardian. Pretty nasty stuff. Worth watching but you'll probably want to run over a few little shits on the way home so it might be worth picking up a stolen one just in case. If you do run them over then make sure they're dead though.

[robertostallioni]

Watched the Guy Ritchie flick on Saturday night and have just finished watching the De Niro/Pacino newie. They are both ok(just ok?) yes, the Guy Ritchie film is similar to his first couple LSATSB and Snatch, though of a slightly lesser quality. Still watchable, mainly due to the jock.
Righteous Kill was also OK, and they were typically great on screen  but the story itsef is shallow and really just a vehicle. The highlight was De Niro's up close questioning of his girlfriend's monogamy. Cue half grin/smile and nodding head "can I trust you?". Weak ending.

This is an accurate review.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/26661877/

[SteveM]

Die Welle (The Wave). Really really powerful and well worth the watching.

[slackline]

I just watched Eden lake. Great review in the guardian. Pretty nasty stuff. Worth watching but you'll probably want to run over a few little shits on the way home so it might be worth picking up a stolen one just in case. If you do run them over then make sure they're dead though.

Had read a couple of good reviews of this too so went to see it last night.

Not a particularly easy film to watch, but very good.  My wife who teaches at Sheff College said the mannerisms and looks of the youths were spot on with what she deals with day-to-day (thankfully the prolonged violence wasn't).

Was on foot though so couldn't run any little shits over on the way home.

[Moo]

I've seen two films in the last two days firstly appaloosa. anyone who likes any western will like this film its set at the right pace has a good storyline with good performances and a few good one liners 8/10 in my opinion. Second up i went to see death race, thats right i paid money to see deathrace. This film is entirely predictable and in no way at all is it clever, 80% of the film is driving and shooting 2% revolves around the storyline and the rest is sort of lost in translation with the glorification of prison life. I reckon this film would be good if had managed to get into the cinema with your fake I.D to watch it

[SteveM]

Not a particularly easy film to watch, but very good. 

I found this quite difficult to watch too, though I didn't find it as gratuitous as some of the torture-pr0n like Hostel II and the Saw series. And Saw V is out later this year too, urrrgggh.

Was highly recommended to see The boy in the striped pyjamas too - described as harrowing and without a hollywood ending - I think it's just finished a week at the Showroom cinema tho.

[moose]

a summary of some recent watchings

Indiana Jones... Crystal Skull:
Worst. Ending. Ever. (wresting prize from A.I.)

Rescue Dawn:
Dramatization of the documentary "Little Dieter Wants to Fly", about the only chap to escape from a Vietnamese POW camp.  Perhaps unfairly dismissed by critics whose main motive seemed to be to show that they had seen Werner Herzog's earlier, admittedly far superior, films.  Okay, so compared to Aguirre Wrath of God it's a bit "I'm a Celebrity Get Me Out of Here" crossed with Tenko, but, it's good solid entertainment and well worth a look (sappy ending though).

Eden Lake:
Deliverance directed by the The Daily Mail.  Reminiscent in tone and content to Wolf Creek, although the escapability of the English countryside, compared to the Australian outback required a bit more suspension of disbelief regarding mobile phones and daft behaviour.  But... it drags you in with its air of the perfectly possible.  Like the Texas Chainsaw Massacre and Blair Witch there's a creeping sense of "there but for the grace of God"  and a gratitude for ones location and circumstances.  It is an extremely nasty and effective piece of work.  Certainly added a new terror to my next trip to the job-centre (and a fervant desire to avoid "fun pubs")! 

Dark Knight:
I wasn't expecting to enjoy this.  I found Batman Begins to be a mirthless, tedious and confusing assault on the senses.  I generally find "adult" comic book adaptations to be laughablly simplistic exercises in turning the lights off and stripping away any humour.  But.... this won me over.  For possibly the first time I truly understood why Batman goes to such ridiculously inefficient lengths: kung-fu and gadgets, rather than just buying a gun and lurking around the subway like any other would-be vigilante.  It's because he wants to hurt people.  Bruce Wayne likes to feel people's faces against his fists.  The fact that society tacitly approves of his targets is just a happy bonus... he'd do it anyway and probably has nightmares about running out of criminals.  Regarding the film itself, it motors along nicely and although long, doesn't drag and is refreshingly unpredictable at times.  Heath Legers's Joker is a magnetic presence with some gruesomely comic touches and there are some striking visual moments.  A scene outside a hospital comes to mind - a disaster in bright sunshine - startlingly vibrant compared to the usual dirty deeds in darkness.

Gone Baby Gone:
The first half of this is fantastic: an investigation of a child's kidnapping with a real sense of working-class place and people (set in Boston).  It's low key, but not dull or drab, with some tense scenes and a sly sense of humour.   In one of my favourites, the mother trying to dodge confirming whether she knows a suspect, is told: "No. It don't "sound familiar", Helene. He's a violent sociopathic Haitain criminal named Cheese. Either you know him or you don't."!  Unfortunately, the film later wanders into a police subplot that, whilst interesting, seemed a bit of an unwarranted complication.  More of an excuse to allow Morgan Freeman and Ed Harris to justify their billing rather than being strictly necessary.  Still, whilst not the film it could have been, it remains very good indeed and well worth a look.  A crying shame that it's cinema release was stymied by sensitivity over the Madeline McCann case (presumably because noone had ever been kidnapped before that).  Also hard to believe that it was directed by Ben Afleck - a man hiding his talents under a Peal Harbor sized bushel.

[Rice Boy]

Watched The Walker recently.

Written and directed by the guy who wrote Taxi Driver, American Gigilo and many more ... forget his name.

It's a character film following Woody Hareleson's (great performance) gay socialite through Washington's high society. The plot is engaging enough but doesn't overpower the character study which is the meat of the film.  The film comes across very subversive like the other two.

The director talks of the films running in sequence; Taxi Driver sees the character in his 20s, Gigilo in his 30s, ??, and Walker in his 50s.  If you like the preceding two I'd highly recommend the Walker.

[Kingy]

Tropic Thunder = very funny. An irreverant piss take at times with good performances from Ben Stiller, Robert Downey Junior, Jack Black, an almost unrecognisable Tom Cruise plus Steve Coogan (before he gets blown to smithereens). Plenty of in jokes about the movie industry and the gag count is high. Go see!!