Main Menu

Last movie watched...

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

Previous topic - Next topic

Roger Godpleton

The Prestige is on BBC 2 now.
He's only trying to be what following how his dreams make you wanna be, man!

Professor Bear

Faster, starring The Rock as a crim who does his dime for armed robbery and then sets out to murder everyone who got him banged up in the first place.  It started well until the words "Billy Bob Thornton" appeared onscreen but that didn't ruin things in the end.  While it's a very Grindhouse affair, at one point when the Rock stands at the back of a church I got the impression we're supposed to view him as the Devil or summat, only the direction was a bit too journeyman for that and the rough edges that might have made it a cult classic are instead replaced with a bland competence where the whole thing works just fine, but there's no distinctive character to any of it that might have shone through in flaws in ability or failure of ambition.
It's a solid revenge flick rather than an action movie, though it's not quite essential.  Still worth a watch, all the same.

radiator

This weekend I watched Paul - which was good, but too hit and miss to be truly great - and Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs, which I thought was superb. It pretty much won me over from the title sequence onwards, where it is trumpeted as "A Film By... A Lot of People".

The whole thing is shot through with this absurd, irreverent, and smart sense of humour - kind of what you'd expect from a film that has the likes of Bruce Campbell, Mr T and Bill Hader in it's voice cast. Certainly the best non-Pixar cg animation I've seen.

James Stacey

Quote from: The Cosh on 20 February, 2011, 06:17:26 PM
The only time I'd seen it before was watching it on telly with my dad when I was about ten when I had concluded it was boring rubbish with stupid robots regardless of the moral rectitude. Rewatching now, Bruce Dern gets a handful of great scenes in it. I still hate the stupid robots though.

You have no soul. That film still makes me cry.

TordelBack

Quote from: radiator on 21 February, 2011, 10:46:51 AM
Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs, which I thought was superb. It pretty much won me over from the title sequence onwards, where it is trumpeted as "A Film By... A Lot of People".

Surprisingly fun film that, especially the final gag with Eyebrow Dad.  Another terrific joke was the weather forecast that predicted that the food-based devastation of the planet would commence in cities with famous landmarks before moving onto less well-known areas later... Mind you I was left pondering the fate of the island, which had gone from pretty f'ed to utterly f'ed over the course of the film.

Dandontdare

Quote from: Jomster on 20 February, 2011, 10:19:34 PM
Saw "Confessions" in the cinema today.

ooh which one? Window Cleaner? Holiday Camp? I think Driving Instructor was my favourite.

Spaceghost

Quote from: Jomster on 20 February, 2011, 10:19:34 PM
Saw "Confessions" in the cinema today. A Japanese film about revenge set in a secondary school. It made me realise how glad I am not to have gone to school in Japan!  Japanese school kids are scarily good at bullying, not to mention scarily into extreme acts in a bid to find some sort of meaning or status in the grind of life.  :o

I think you'd have been ok. I'm pretty sure it's not a documentary. :-\
Raised in the wild by sarcastic wolves.

Previously known as L*e B*tes. Sshhh, going undercover...

Buddy

#202
Quote from: Roger Godpleton on 20 February, 2011, 10:46:46 PM
The Prestige is on BBC 2 now.

Watched that (seen it before) with the girlfriend and we both came away with completely different views on what was going on.

I thought that the machine worked and Angier was making duplicates of himself (well, I actually think there are three Angiers 'alive' at the moment he's doing the trick - the original who appears on the balcony at the end of the trick - the duplicate that is created in the process of the trick and the duplicate that is drowned in the process of the trick.

I believe it is this new duplicate that is then drowned when the trick is next performed... and in fact it is only duplicates that are drowned and the original Angier is always there to receive the prestige of doing the trick.

Until last night I thought Broden had duplicated himself but now take it that they are twins.

She thought that the machine didn't work and that it was all done with doubles, although that doesn't explain who that was that appeared when Angier first used that machine, and who was in all those tanks at the end of the film.

Confusing but still a great film.

radiator

#203
QuoteSurprisingly fun film that, especially the final gag with Eyebrow Dad.  Another terrific joke was the weather forecast that predicted that the food-based devastation of the planet would commence in cities with famous landmarks before moving onto less well-known areas later...

Ha, must have missed that. The line "You can't run away from you own feet" pretty much summed up the tone for me - so refreshing to see a 'kids' movie that is genuinely funny - a lot of the attempts at humour in these sorts of films are just dire and irritating - Shrek and the like (again, excepting Pixar - Toy Story 3 especially has some hilarious moments).

Also: Spoiler tags, people - I would actually like to watch The Prestige at some point!

Buddy

Quote from: radiator on 21 February, 2011, 11:55:12 AM

Also: Spoiler tags, people - I would actually like to watch The Prestige at some point!

Ah yes... noted.
[spoiler]Sorry 'bout that.[/spoiler]

radiator

Another movie that I watched for the first time recently was Rocky. I'd never been remotely interested in seeing it before, but my girlfriend convinced me, and I must say - I thought it was great. It actually left me with a much greater admiration for Stallone than I have had previously - the young Sly is really charismatic and cool in the film, and the fact that he wrote the script is also impressive.

Overall I really liked it - it has a really nice tone and it feels very evocative of a specific time and place. The characters were well drawn and I found the training montage, despite being so heavily referenced and parodied, still really effective and powerful....  BUT I have zero interest in watching any of the sequels. To me, the ending was perfect - and the trailers I have seen for the other films look very cheesy compared to the sparse, gritty and largely downbeat original. Balboa becoming a successful boxer (even world champion?) seems totally at odds with what is established in the first film - [spoiler]after all, he is no great fighter - he doesn't even win the fight at the end, but holding his own against Creed is a personal victory for Rocky, and is all the more effective for it.[/spoiler]

Tiplodocus

rE: THE PRESTIGE.  My take was:

[spoiler]The machine does work. It makes a double of Angiers.  When the machine first works, Angiers immediately shoots and kills the double it creates.  Then he resolves to set up Borden for murder. He does this by doing the trick every night.  A double is created on the balcony (who takes the applause), the original falls into the water tank below to drown.  Every night, Angiers effectively walks to his death just to get back at Borden. But nobody cares about the man in the box.

The only bit that confused me was how he knew on which night Borden would turn up and go back stage so he could be set up (I'm guessing he looked out for him every night and on the night when he sees him on-stage examining the kit, he resolves not to reveal himself for the prestige.

Also, a bit of a coincidence that the Tesla wild goose chase Borden sends him off on, actually ends up with a working machine and the whole doom of both of them.[/spoiler]

But I liked it a lot; intensely unlikeable but understandable, driven characters. (But twenty minutes too long)
Be excellent to each other. And party on!

House of Usher

I really do not like Silent Running. I thought it was superb when I was a kid, but after three or four viewings it lost most of its charm for me and is just a big downer. It's a bunch of hippy crap, and the plot makes little sense.
STRIKE !!!

TordelBack

#208
Quote from: House of Usher on 21 February, 2011, 01:52:13 PM
It's a bunch of hippy crap, and the plot makes little sense.

That's the weltschmerz talking!  What doesn't make sense about moving giant greenhouses to space and then [spoiler]blowing them up[/spoiler]?

Buddy

Quote from: Tiplodocus on 21 February, 2011, 01:26:01 PM
rE: THE PRESTIGE.  My take was:

[spoiler]The machine does work. It makes a double of Angiers.  When the machine first works, Angiers immediately shoots and kills the double it creates.  Then he resolves to set up Borden for murder. He does this by doing the trick every night.  A double is created on the balcony (who takes the applause), the original falls into the water tank below to drown.  Every night, Angiers effectively walks to his death just to get back at Borden. But nobody cares about the man in the box.

The only bit that confused me was how he knew on which night Borden would turn up and go back stage so he could be set up (I'm guessing he looked out for him every night and on the night when he sees him on-stage examining the kit, he resolves not to reveal himself for the prestige.

Also, a bit of a coincidence that the Tesla wild goose chase Borden sends him off on, actually ends up with a working machine and the whole doom of both of them.[/spoiler]

But I liked it a lot; intensely unlikeable but understandable, driven characters. (But twenty minutes too long)

Re The Presitge...

Scarlett Johansson... [spoiler]is a complete BABE![/spoiler]