[duncan]

Is their much concert footage, I heard it was a bit disappointing. And more importantly, does everyone still refer to James Brown as 'James Brown, soul brother no 1'?

I'm sure James Brown would say "rule number one of showbiz: always leave your audience wanting more" (in a somewhat groovier fashion) and the film did leave me slightly wishing it had been two hours rather than 93 minutes long and had a bit more JB in it.  You know there must be hours more footage somewhere and we're not exactly swamped with good quality material from of any of these artists.  I wondered how much it was an artistic decision and how much to do negotiating the release of the material and the cost of song rights.  Either way it's "All killer and no filler" and all the better for that.

[Eddies]

Watched The Hurt Locker yesterday - brilliant film, defo lived up to the 5-star rating that Peter Bradshaw gave it in Friday's Guardian.

Highly recommended.

Same here, best film ive seen since Star Trek.

[BB]

Saw Inglorious basterds last night...

...don't bother. It's not gtipping enough to be a good war film or funny enough to be a good spoof. There's so much talking that it might as well be a radio play. On top of that, the plot is so simplistic and obvious that a child could have written it.

Neither funny nor clever, but most definitely

[Fiend]

Inglorious Bastards - It's okay. Some classy bits, some crass bits, quite patchily put together. The orphanned girl's sections stole the show, some of the violence pr0n was tedious, the more subtle humour was good. It was a bit dumb and felt like it could have been put together a lot tighter, particularly bringing the two strands together towards the climax.

[fatdoc]

Shifty is brilliant, Shifty, a young crack cocaine dealer in London, sees his life quickly spiral out of control when his best friend returns home. Stalked by a customer desperate to score at all costs, and with his family about to turn their back on him for good, Shifty must out-run and out-smart a rival drug dealer, intent on setting him up for a big fall. As his long time friend Chris, confronts the dark past he left behind him, Shifty is forced to face up to the violent future he's hurtling towards. http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1104126/ sorry if it's already been mentioned.

saw this yesterday..

top film.. grim as.. shows the terrible waste that crack and heroin cause in a clear and unglamourised manner.

the 2 main actors in it are awesome.. esp the white bloke - who is the ugliest man i've seen on screen for a long time!

I got the DVD if anyone wants to borrow it.

[a dense loner]

just got back from watching inglorius basterds, unlike the others that have posted i thought it was a decent film

[Duma]

Can't wait to see The Road - Sounds like they haven't fucked with the book too much, I like viggo, and The Proposition is one of my favourite westerns ever. Not got much time spare at the mo so might be a while before I get to a cinema - so if anyone sees it soon, post up, ta.

[Duma]

Just realised it ain't out here till jan. bugger.

[Dr T]

Just been watching the good the bad the weird an excellent korean "western" won't be to everyone's taste but the some great funny moments and some even better gun play, brilliand cinimatography and... well it's just rather good 

[tomtom]

Went and saw District 9 last night.

There is quite a lot of hype surrounding this film and as I also like sci-fi films I was looking forward to seeing this - and generally I wasn't disappointed. Its an interesting plot line - a massive (independence day stylee) ship of refugees turn up above Jo'burg and a humanitarian (OK - they're aliens!) sided government takes the aliens in and tries to integrate them. This does not really seem to work due to their seeming low intelligence and penchant for any fresh meat and in particular cat food - so they end up being ghetto-ised and guarded within shanty town/dump called District 9. The main character (Wilem) is the operations manager of a major multinational corp thats given the job of policing the area (a bit like OCP in RoboCop). And as conditions deteriorate in District 9, Wilem leads an operation to attempt to peacefully evict the aliens (dubbed Prawns) to a new camp outside of town. Thats the context, but without giving too much away, Wilem gets contaminated  by some alien goo (Alien) and slowly becomes more and more like the prawns (the Fly). Ultimately it becomes an action shoot out/chase between Wilem who moves over to the Prawn side of things and the Company security forces - headed up by a Bald hard nut SA mercenary type... This is superbly embelished with alien gadgetry and explosions (a nod to Aliens here)...

The Guardians Peter Bradshaw, was rather disappointed that the film didnt take the allegory (and irony) of  segragation between alien and human in Jo'burg and Apartheid further, and bemoaned how it turned into an action flick. I could see where he was coming from, but I enjoyed how the film went more down the line of a big corp trying to screw the small guy (Wilem) and exploit Alien technology route.

The film (Peter Jackson made) is fantastically shot. The special effects are second to none - and unlike many CGI effects they blend perfectly with the real background. There is a clever and convincing mix between CCTV video, TV documentary style coverage and the regular shots.. The Prawns are euchy at times but not OTT or over disgusting - and the wide shots often have a washed out texture similar to that used by Ridley Scott in Gladiator, which works really well in the hard, dusty and grim confines of District 9.

As I've alluded to above there are scenes, plotlines, ideas that borrow heavily from other sci-fi films - but thats not necessarily a bad thing - and they did not over exploit them. Thankfully theres no cheesy American god loves the flag Independence day ending though there are one or two hooks (at least!) left for sequels to run on from!

I liked it, one of the best films I've seen this year (not the best but up there) and Mrs TT seemed pleased (though not as pleased as after StarTrek 15 - or whatever it was..).

T

[magpie]

I found District 9 really quite traumatic, it's a very good film but it left me feeling a bit sad and hopeless, definitely not what I was expecting.  Worth seeing though.

[SA Chris]

The main guy is actually called Wikus, a fine Afrikaner name. I think the fact that the film is based in Jo'burg is purely because the guy who wrote and directed is South African and wrote about what he knows, and any allegory of segragation is purely coincidental to the main storyline, although the title is no doubt reference to Cape Town's District 6.

Anyhoo, I was glad that there was no effort to transfer the plot to a better known city in a High Fidelity style, and that it appears to have been flimed mostly on location (no doubt this is a cheaper option). Most of the actors are local and relatively unknown outside SA, although a couple of faces are from SA TV.

I enjoyed the film, thought the story, acting and pace were excellent, but desperately hope that they don't try and make a sequel.

[Fiend]

any allegory of segragation is purely coincidental to the main storyline,

Yeah right. Please tell me you don't actually believe that. The whole first part of the film couldn't have been more of an apartheid (strictly, post-apartheid-but-don't-worry-the-economic-segretation-is-still-as-strong-as-ever) message if it had been subtitled as such in every shot.

and that it appears to have been flimed mostly on location (no doubt this is a cheaper option).

Obviously. Just kick the blacks out of a township for a while, and they didn't even need to build any sets for District 9 itself...

I liked the setting though, it added character and had some cultural tones there already that gave the film more conviction.

Anyway...

District 9

Brilliant, one of the best films I've seen in quite a while. Distinctive, gritty, moving in places, very well put together, good action, great deaths (the most people I've seen exploding in a 15 certificate - although I thought some of the "trauma" pushed the 15 certificate more), and actually kept me intruiged the whole way not knowing how it would work out.

Okay there was the odd cliche as it progressed, it could have benefitted from a bigger budget to make some areas more convincing, and there was some faith needed with the plot - but the latter I only realised thinking about it the next day, the general gripping style glosses over that.

Exactly what sci-fi/action film-making needs.

[Jaspersharpe]

I grew up in South Africa during Apartheid and I very actively wanted to make a film that had science fiction placed in that African setting, specifically that South African setting. There’s no question that there’s many, many, many elements of Apartheid and segregation and now xenophobia in South Africa that have made their way into the film but they provide the sort of foundation that the film rests on top of. It’s like a framework that’s there and it provides a very strange alternate reality because there’s aliens involved, but it doesn’t beat you over the head. So if you see the film, it’s like I’m not trying to force those kind of soapbox beliefs of mine onto you. I’m simply saying this is all stuff that affected me when I was a kid and I put science fiction into it. Now you can take from it what you want within a sort of satirical, dark humor kind of backdrop.

So you're both right. 

[SA Chris]

Shot bru.

[SA Chris]

Oh, I also saw the International. It's pretty shit.

and Donkey Punch, which is fascinatingly shit.

[Durbs]

Possibly a little old, but recently seen a slew of good films, namely:
Lucky Number Slevin (9.5/10)
3:10 to Yuma (7/10 but good)
Childeren of Men (9/10)

[Ena]

I thought District 9 was tremendous, 9.5/10. Funny too, as well as harrowing and quite exciting. The cinema should have banned the sale of popcorn though.

Also watched Inglorious (sp?) - very good, very Tarantino though. You know what to expect to some extent. Saw the odd and nasty Far North at home as well. I'd skip that one, it sounds like it'll be really interesting but all the characters are so horrible, you don't really care if they all die. Or not.

[Jaspersharpe]

Possibly a little old, but recently seen a slew of good films, namely:
Lucky Number Slevin (9.5/10)

Good film that.

[SA Chris]

I found it surpriisingly enjoyable too. And Josh Hairnet didn't annoy me like he usually does.

[Obi-Wan is lost...]

Donkey Punch, which is fascinatingly shit.

Is that a level of shit worth watching or not? I have it on the hard-drive and not sure i can be bothered.

[lagerstarfish]

I watched Bedtime Stories the other day. It is a bit of a Tom Hanks type film, but without Tom Hamks in it, so is therefore OK. Russell Brand actually helps the film work.
Overall, nowhere near as shit as I thought it would be.

[SA Chris]

Donkey Punch, which is fascinatingly shit.

Is that a level of shit worth watching or not? I have it on the hard-drive and not sure i can be bothered.

Only as a benchmark to see how shit a film can actually be. You could play count the cliches or see who can guess how the rest of the film pans out first? Amazing that someone convinced someone else to finance a film like that.

[SA Chris]

Watched Fish Tank last night.

Only go and watch it if you are very into bleak depressing urban dramas. Laughs were few and far between.

[robertostallioni]

Sold! I think I'll take our lass.