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Last movie watched...

Started by SmallBlueThing, 04 February, 2011, 12:40:44 PM

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Ghastly McNasty

I can confirm Troll Hunter is a film worth watching. Better than Cloverfield, more akin to Blair Witch. The Trolls are a nice touch. It's almost like a new genre in itself. Thumbs up from me.

Professor Bear

Quote from: radiator on 07 September, 2011, 10:42:51 AMI've heard so many people dismiss it simply because "the main characters were horrible thugs and I wanted them to die", which I find quite shocking and reactionary.

We've had twelve Friday the 13th movies made on the assumption that audiences want to see kids get skewered with a swordfish by the mentally disabled - it might be pissing in the wind to hope that a film full of ASBO yobs would be viewed in a different light.

Although I never understood why we're supposed to take delight in the deaths of the cast of Starship Troopers, so what do I know?

Hawkmumbler

I was always under the impresion that the slasher genre was only intended to induce shock (or very least surprise) as apposed to develope a bond between the viewer and the charactors.
Having seen most of the 13th films (I have yet to watch the remake, dont have high hope's for it) I would say that the Nightmare on Elm street films and Pumpkinhead where far superior supernatural thrillers, with predator (Yes, I do count it as a slasher film) toping the list.

Professor Bear

The Friday the 13th remake is not good.  it stars on of them off Supernatural, but it's not even as good as most of the bad episodes of Supernatural.

Slasher flicks do indeed trade in shock value, but they still need lead characters and once you have leads you have an investment in how things turn out.  In theory, anyway.  I don't think anyone believes that people were watching the Elm Street/13th flicks for any reason other than their murderous antagonists and the increasingly inventive ways they went about killing teenagers.

I, Cosh

I find it quite a strange attitude. Does it follow that you wouldn't watch Assault on Precinct 13, Escape from the New York or The Warriors as the heroes are all criminals?

Personally, I thought Attack the Block was great and what it brings to my misty mind's eye is something like Stand By Me (group of kids forced to stick together and confront the way their lives are going while having a fun adventure) but more realistic. The setting was one of the things that made it stand out too. Recognisable British kids as opposed to the American variants of spoilt rich kids, smouldering emo teens, comical stoners or mouthy gangbangers.
We never really die.

radiator

Exactly. I was going to mention The Warriors. Quadrophenia too. I suppose the 'feral' youths in those films are acceptable because they wear fruity 1970s costumes or 60s clobber and the scenes of brutal gang violence are bathed in cosy nostalgia?

Professor Bear

Quote from: The Cosh on 08 September, 2011, 11:13:36 PM
I find it quite a strange attitude. Does it follow that you wouldn't watch Assault on Precinct 13, Escape from the New York or The Warriors as the heroes are all criminals?

Well, apart from Batman or Ace Ventura you don't watch movies just because of characters, you watch them for the story in which those characters appear.  In theory I shouldn't like Goodfellas because everyone in it is a total dick, but the story isn't about them being dicks, it's about how their being dicks is their undoing.  Context is everything: the Warriors are scumbags, for instance, but they're also victims of circumstance and the underdogs in the movie's story, making them sympathetic.  Snake Pliskin is a terrible human being, but his quest is a worthy one, his foes much worse than he is, so while he's not entirely sympathetic in Escape From New York (his only motivation is self-preservation, after all), you're still invested in his story and hope he succeeds.
Of course, these are good movies that you mention - if you'd only mentioned shit movies, people would likely have pointed at unsympathetic main characters as part of the films' problems.

JOE SOAP

#1057
Growing up I never watched films like 'the Goonies' cos I hated the kids, they were too 'nice', cocky, talkin' shite most of the time and the worst thing about 'Temple of Doom' was Short-Round, cocky little fuckers like that made me cringe back then. E.T. had a great and measured approach to the young 'uns but I just about made it to teen-fest 'Back to the Future'...if it hadn't been for Doc Brown...

Give me cynical middle-aged men any day.

JOE SOAP

Quote from: Professah Byah on 08 September, 2011, 11:59:30 PM
Snake Pliskin is a terrible human being, but his quest is a worthy one, his foes much worse than he is, so while he's not entirely sympathetic in Escape From New York


Agreed, I've said it before, if the foe is worse than the protagonist, character-nastiness can be a sliding scale for all personae in a film. Plissken, his cynicism/lack of respect for all things except himself is still the better alternative for the viewer than the Duke of New York. This is something the producers of Dredd '95 always seemed to miss/avoid. It was a trope of many films in the past -film noir et al.- that had somehow fallen-down-the-back-of-the-sofa during the atrocious 80's and irregularly pops-back-up.

People can be easily led into getting behind a questionable protagonist and with a character like Dredd pulling the old switcheroo on the audiences' expectations of what they find acceptable can be interesting. Unfortunately we've yet to see somone -other than Wagner in the comics- really exploit this vital element of how Dredd as a character and story-device can function in a film.

brendan1

Quote from: The Cosh on 08 September, 2011, 11:13:36 PM
I find it quite a strange attitude. Does it follow that you wouldn't watch Assault on Precinct 13, Escape from the New York or The Warriors as the heroes are all criminals?

Personally, I thought Attack the Block was great and what it brings to my misty mind's eye is something like Stand By Me (group of kids forced to stick together and confront the way their lives are going while having a fun adventure) but more realistic. The setting was one of the things that made it stand out too. Recognisable British kids as opposed to the American variants of spoilt rich kids, smouldering emo teens, comical stoners or mouthy gangbangers.

I can relate to the kids in The Goonies or Stand By Me, because they seemed vaguely familiar to me.

However, I've occasionally sat on the top deck of a South London bus - Not often, thankfully - and the tooth-sucking retards garing sullenly at me over the shit, tinny, r&b racket emanating from a mobile phone rather depress me, and therefore a film featuring an entire cast of these dead-eyed dimwits doesn't appeal, unless I can watch them all get killed.


SmallBlueThing

The Last Broadcast

Oh, i cant be bothered. Just utter drivel. Badly conceived, badly made, laughable bollocks, with a voice over that makes you want to hurl rocks at the screen. No wonder it only magically appeared after the infinitely superior Blair Witch Project had broken records.

Some people apparently think this is the 'better' film. I think those people shouldnt ever be allowed to watch a film again.

Just shit. In every way.

SBT
.

Keef Monkey

Well, I watched the first 20 minutes of Time Crimes before the disc become unreadable. I don't blame lovefilm, it's surprisingly rare that it happens and they'll send you out a replacement and an extra film as soon as you report it. Pretty damn frustrating though, I was getting right into it! Also, if you treat a DVD with respect and care then there isn't really any reason it should ever become scratched, some folks are just morons.

Radbacker

please dont start to hurl things at me, its not something I'd usually watch but as I'm visiting the parents we decided to take in a family movie and watched Zoo Keeper.  I feel bad about it but i haven't laughed so much at the cinema in a long time, maybe it was because i was with the family (they live 3000kms away so i dont see them often).  Very predictable but less pee and poo jokes than i'd thought there'd be and some fairly funny slapstick, the gorilla ruled.

CU Radbacker

HdE

Re-watched Steamboy the other day with my pal and his little lad, who enjoyed every minute of it.

I see a LOT of negative, super-nitpicky crap talked about this movie, but it's bloody brilliant!
Check out my DA page! Point! Laugh!
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Tiplodocus

QuoteHowever, I've occasionally sat on the top deck of a South London bus - Not often, thankfully - and the tooth-sucking retards garing sullenly at me over the shit, tinny, r&b racket emanating from a mobile phone rather depress me, and therefore a film featuring an entire cast of these dead-eyed dimwits doesn't appeal, unless I can watch them all get killed.

What a thoroughly unpleasant sentiment.  It looks like the ignore files were also lost in the server move.  Back in you go.
Be excellent to each other. And party on!