V for Vendetta Movie pics

[Matt Timson]

That last paragraph is just pure gibberish- what the hell is he talking about?

[Mike Carroll]

"Alan Watchmen, The League Of Extraordinary Gentlemen Moore"

Lord, I absolutely hate it when movie journalists do that! Ten years ago I stopped buying Empire because of all the references to Harrison Indiana Jones Ford and Stephen Close Encounters Spielberg. I've never bought a copy since, so I don't know if they still do it.

Still, this could be a good movie. I was a bit worried a couple of months back when there were a lot of mentions about how it was set in an alternative world where the Nazis won World War II...

I hope they stick to the story of the graphic novel. That would make a nice change for an Alan Moore adaptation.

Mike No Middle Name Carroll

[Funt Solo]

I think it's a workable grammatical device, but only with some kind of further formatting or punctuation:

Alan "Watchmen" Moore
Alan Watchmen Moore
Alan (Watchmen, The League Of Extraordinary Gentlemen) Moore
Alen Moore (author of "Watchmen" and "The League Of Extraordinary Gentlemen")

- fate amenable to change

[Byron Virgo]

Well don't expect Empire to get anything even vaguely factually or grammatically correct - they're a bunch of talentless tits who are only interested in printing the same old Hollywood bullshit that you see in every other bloody magazine.

I'm glad I don't buy it anymore (it makes me feel slightly better about the way they messed me around some years back).

[Dudley]

If you look, the device used is bold, so:

...they also adapted from Alan Watchmen, The League Of Extraordinary Gentlemen Moore's graphic novel...

[Byron Virgo]

It's an ugly effect, though - quotation marks or brackets are much more effective.

[Quirkafleeg]

I seem to remember Empire (and Total Film) being quite good magazines... but that was some time ago. Now they get flick through in Smiths if that.

If only we could something as good as 'Vox' again

The worse for An 'Film he appeared in' Actor was this free mag in a cinema I used to go, that was just reprinted press releases. Hilariously bad I always use to pick one up just to laugh at it in the five mins between finding seat and half-hour of ads starting.

[Byron Virgo]

"I seem to remember Empire (and Total Film) being quite good magazines..."

You remember wrong. In film magazine terms, these are the equivalent of coming from Essex, driving a Ford Fiesta, wearing a baseball cap, polo shirt and gold neck chain and listing your hobbies as drinking hooch and cider in a children's playground.

[Funt Solo]

Well, that's one point of view, Byron.

Empire (IMO) gives consistently fair reviews to movies, regardless of hype, studio pressure, moolah per movie or genre.

Their reviews are always well written, they go to pains to avoid spoilers (most of the time, but let's face it, it's a minefield) and they never review a movie until they've seen the full release version.

On the other hand, they often present large articles on upcoming movies that do seem more hype-based.  But even if they present a 10-page article on the next big blockbuster, their review may still say "poor".

From what you posted previously, it appears that you have some personal gripe with them.

[Byron Virgo]

Indeed I do have a personal gripe with them over fucking me over some money they owed me for an article.

However, I do know some people who still work for them who I respect for their journalistic skill, but I hated Empire as a magazine for a long time before - their film reviews are dismally poor. You claim that they'll say a hyped film is poor if they actually thought so, yet I've seen no evidence of this - they jump on every band waggon available to them, and their only interest is in the largest scale end of Hollywood.

I mean this is the magazine that gave Phantom Menace 5 stars (the very fact that they operate a star system shows how far into the gutter they're dredging), for God's sake!

They are the Heat magazine of film reviews.

[Dudley]

I like both Heat magazine and Empire.

[Funt Solo]

I didn't realise that operating a star rating system was a gutter-dredging technique:  I find it quite useful.  If a film gets one star, it's probably crap on several levels (acting, script, photography et al), if it gets 4 stars it's pretty much hit all the right buttons.

The special 5-star rating does not mean it's better than a 4-star film:  it means it's considered "unmissable".

ID4, Jurassic Park and Phantom Menace all got the "unmissable" 5-star rating because they were (apart from anything else) cultural events in themselves.

Jurassic Park:  the first time dinosaurs had looked anywhere near that real in a movie.

ID4:  uber-hyped, teaser-trailer perfection:  this was the first time a serious "alien invasion" movie on that scale had been attempted in years.

Phantom Menace:  I don't need to explain the cultural relevance of the first Star Wars movie in n years, do I?

I don't find Empire a perfect magazine:  their habit of disguising adverts as articles twists my melons, and the splash-ads on their web-site are eeeevil.  Plus, as I said, they do hype up blockbusters outside of their actual reviews (regardless of the quality of the material).

However, I have every faith in the accuracy of their reviews, having read every issue since 1991-ish.  I have tried other film magazines and have never found a clearer format with a better reviewing system.

There are too many examples to mention of hyped movies that receive poor or average reviews:  just go and look at the latest issue on the shelves - I'll bet you find an example.

- this post sponsored by the Empire Editor's mum

[Art]

Interestingly history has show two of those films to be a bit duff, though I still rate the first Jurassic Park.

[Tiplodocus]

Back on topic - It's a while since I read V but there seem to be rather a lot of new names, faces and ideas popping up in this film for it to be a faithful adaption.  Will we have the feared words:

"It's not a character Alan Moore used in the original but I think introducing Keanu as a slow motion kung fu fighter remains faithful to the spirit of the original book"

I stopped reading EMPIRE when it went a bit too LOADED for my taste. And they started trying to make ALL of the captions to photos funny.

Tiny Tips watches all three Jurassic Parks on an almost endless rotation.  If you could edit the kids using UNIX to save the day out of JPI it'd be a belter.  JPII is mince but JPIII is great "does exactly what it says on the tin" fun - a non-stop chase featuring every dinosaur under the sun apart from the PLOTOSAURUS.

[Byron Virgo]

Perhaps we look at films from different perspectives: I try and look at them from some artistic critical perspective, whilst you see them as part of a wider cultural trend, so I guess we've just got to agree to disagree.