Last movie watched...

[House of Usher]

All Quiet on the Western Front. Vintage TV movie starring John-Boy Walton, with Ian Holm and Donald Pleasance in supporting roles.

[Noisybast]

GI JOE: The Rise Of Cobra.

It was rubbish.

[HdE]

Hey, HdE- which one's Ironhide?

AHHHH! YOU WENT AND DID IT! DAMN YOU!!! DAMN YOU TO HEEEEELLLLLLL!!!

[SmallBlueThing]

World of the Dead: The Zombie Diaries 2.

The first one was bloody awful, and sticks in the mind only for some misjudged sexual violence, and while this one takes that particular aspect and runs with it, the result is a far more cohesive film. It manages to be moderately suspenseful from time to time, has proper, shambling, zombies and some army men shooting guns.

Yes, the handheld camera is as annoying as always, and here so contrived as to make little sense. But, in amongst the shaky shit, people and things partially illuminated by only the camera's built-in light or the nightvision, lots of 'fucking hell, you cunt! fuck off!' dialogue, and (let's be kind) 'naturalistic actors' running around, it manages to tell a nice little story, and has a wry ending, that will disturb the easily-upset.

A huge improvement over the first, but again take no notice of the dvd art. Never happens, and no cities are seen-overrun by zoms or not.

SBT

[TordelBack]

Girl with the Dragon Tattoo.  Both wife and mother have been nagging me to read the book for ages, which naturally makes me physically unable to do so, but I thought we'd give the (original) film version a go.  Good stuff, a nice simple murder mystery, well told, with a clever twist.  Wife informs me the book is far better, and far deeper, but well, it was a movie adaptation, what can you expect.  I certainly enjoyed what we got, unpleasant [spoiler]rapes[/spoiler] aside.

For those that know the book and remember the details better than my missus, I have a few questions:

[spoiler]How come Bloomkvist is allowed into Australia when he's waiting to serve a prison sentence in Sweden? 

By the same token, how come every police dept. they visit cheerily opens their unsolved murder files to a disgraced journalist and convicted libel, and a convicted murderer on (what appears to be) lifetime probation?

Is there any explanation in the book as to why nobody noticed the bible references in 40 years?  'Cos I got them straight off, and I'm pretty dumb.[/spoiler]

Finally, should I go back and read the book or would I be okay starting into the second book now?

[Orlok]

88 Minutes[/
Fucking preposterous.

I will complete this review by simply looking at Al Pacino and silently shaking my head.

[Dandontdare]

I will complete this review by simply looking at Al Pacino and silently shaking my head.

Best movie review ever.

[JOE SOAP]

/quote]

'bout time you got your own place.

[Radbacker]

just got back from Dark or the Moon, my what an shit tonne of FX.  New girl looks good but completely forgetable, damn does Bay know how to film action.  Props to the poor cameraman that had to squirrel suit with a 3D camera on his head aren't those things big? best 3D i've seen yet (didn't have 3D cinema when Avatar came out).  Very violent no wonder the kids love it, lots of oil and fluid flowing as limbs were ripped off.  Mate pointed out somethhing quite funny, nearly every Transformer that died has his head pop off.
Wpouldn't mind seeing more but maybe this is something worth re-booting regularly, feels like Bay has told his story (such as it was) they do it in the cartoon al the time.

CU Radbacker

[Tiplodocus]

Both wife and mother have been nagging me to read the book for ages, which naturally makes me physically unable to do so

Curious, I have exactly the same problem (except wife and mother-in-law).


If I recall, Jonathan Ross reviewed I STILL KNOW WHAT YOU DID LAST SUMMER with "A film, and I'm choosing my words carefully, that is even worse than it's title suggests".

And some wag reviewed a Mariah Carey album with "It is enough that good men do nothing to allow evil to flourish."

[I, Cosh]

Dersu Uzala. Something of an oddity, a late period Kurosawa film in Russian. It's about a Russian army captain mapping the eastern reaches of Siberia at the turn of the 20th century and the eponymous nomadic hunter who ends up being his guide and mate. It's got all the elegantly composed, long, static shots of something like Ran or Kagemusha, transposed from feudal Japan to the tangled forests and empty spaces of Russia. The print could've been in better condition but it was still lovely looking.

With it's unsubtle message about living in balance with the natural world and the depressing coda where the aging Dersu can't adapt to the city, you could argue for hints of both Slaine and Crocodile Dundee in there.

A deceptively simple story, well told.

[Professor Bear]

I'm surprised nobody's mentioned what an unlikable prick Shia LeBouf plays in Transformers 3.  I guess it must be okay to treat women like that...

Les Miserables, the 1998 version starring Liam Neeson and Geoffry Rush.  Takes quite a few liberties with the novel, going as far as to omit Valjean's death and the roles of several supporting characters.  Claire Danes plays Cosette and is oddly fascinating in how she veers between awful and okay, but Rush is so detestable as Javert to the point that it's pretty much impossible to see him taking his own life when he does, or why Valjean would describe him as "a stern man, but just" when he clearly delights in the cruelty he administers via a system of inequality of which Valjean has firsthand knowledge and which the entire film is centered around his trying to escape.  Valjean is also oddly quick with his fists against Cosette in a way that I don't think is entirely faithful to either the source material or Neeson's reading of the character, but he's good, as is Rush, their parts are just a little ill-realised by the script.

Bran Nu Dae, an Australian period musical about an Aborigine kid who runs away from catholic school and begins his journey back to his shithole village accompanied by a vagrant and a couple of annoying hippies.  It's not great, but has a charm that defeats the occasionally-palpable tone of smugness and some rough edges.  Good music, too.

[Orlok]

Conviction

Not bad. Predictable but still well made, well written and well acted by the leads. Hilary's Wank doesn't top her Billion Dollar Baby performance and Sam Rockwell does a good turn as the innocent (but still very much a prick) captive, but I enjoyed watching them.

At the end of it I was still conviced that just in The Big Meg, everyone's DNA should be on file. Yeah, there will still be fit ups by unscrupulous bastards but it'll catch more scumbags than it hurts and speed up identification of that hooker they dug out of my back garden last week. 

[Dandontdare]

Green Lantern

It was okay. It didn't make me grin like a loon like Thor did, but on the other hand it didn't bore me like Superman Returns or annoy me like X-men 3. I didn't care for the way they mashed up so many GL story elements into one tale, but the visuals were excellent and there were enough good scenes for me to forgive them. Sinestro was excellent and this bodes well for GL2

[radiator]

Terminator 2 on Blu Ray.

Still just as awesome 20(!) years on.

I was watching the Extended Special Edition and wasn't expecting the very cheesy alternate ending, which is set in the future where we see Sarah Connor in old lady make up, and John Connor playing with his daughter. Never even heard such an ending existed! Much preferred the ambiguous ending of the original cut.