Last movie watched...

[SmallBlueThing]

Absolutely. I have a hard line cut off point of 100mins. If something is longer than that, i probably wont rent or buy it, largely because we watch films between 8.30 and 10pm, give or take. I no longer watch films because im massively interested or obsessed with the medium. I watch them, as most people do, for easy entertainment in the evenings. From time to time, something will come along that briefly fires the long lost cinephilia i used to have (a new romero zombie, a new carpenter, etc) and then id bend those rules as appropriate. But mostly, not.
SBT

[radiator]

Now that physical media in general seem to be winding down and I have plenty of options for renting or viewing things online, I tend to try and limit myself to only buying DVD/Blu-Rays that are either all time classics, or films that I can watch again and again without tiring of them (and thus are actually worth owning) - the latter tend to be those classic Sunday afternoon comfort films - 1980s/1990s comedies and family films mostly...

[Tiplodocus]

My kids have taken to saying "Apart from it being twenty minutes too long, what did you think?" when we come out of the cinema because that's pretty much teh first thing I say.

Noteable exceptions being The Lord of The Rings films, the Nolan Batman films and Inception all of which I just wanted to carry on and on (especially fellowship).

The problem I had with BURN AFTER READING was that it just seemed to stop dead. In an amusing way.  But I got the impression they just thought "Quick wrap it up with the bloke telling us what happened."  (NO COUNTRY FOR OLD MEN also seemed to end dead in the middle of a great monologue.)  I've not seen these for a while so could be mistaken.

[radiator]

Yeah, BAR does seem to just suddenly stop, but it worked, I thought. I was impressed by the audacity of it, and all the plot threads got nicely wrapped up.

One thing I did think was odd about it was the music, which sounded like something from the Bourne films and very at odds with the off-beat, largely light-hearted sensibility of the rest of the film.

[Keef Monkey]

I've often found Coen Brothers movies don't really resolve in the traditional sense. I still haven't seen one I haven't enjoyed (but I did avoid their Ladykillers remake), but you often get the impression they don't come up with the structure before writing. 'The Man Who Wasn't There' in particular seems to go off on some tangents, it's almost like they start writing the script with a general idea, rather than having the major plot points mapped out first, which I'd assume is the more common approach. It's part of their charm I think, but it does mean the endings sometimes feel like they're tying things up a bit quickly, as if they've written themselves in a direction they hadn't expected and need to wrap it up.

[radiator]

Since we're on the subject of LOtR, I've just been informed that Play.com are currently offering the whole trilogy on Blu-Ray for the insanely bargainous sum of £9.99.

It's only the theatrical cuts, mind. I'm waiting on the Extended Editions to be released myself.

[Keef Monkey]

I watched Alien Resurrection today (finishing off the blu-ray boxset) and quite enjoyed it to be honest. It's definitely my least favorite, and isn't even playing in the same ballpark as the first two, but it's kind of fun. Also I like the look of it (although of the blu-rays the first movie actually looks the best, this one's a tad grainy). I wish they'd had the guts to do something without Ripley, and dramatically I've always thought of Alien as a trilogy ending with 3, but I still think of this as fun in the same way as I do the comics, not canon but alright as it's own separate thing.

[Roger Godpleton]

Saw True Grit today which means I've now seen all but one of the Best Picture noms so now I'm going to rank them from worst-to-best because I have nothing better to do. Didn't get round to seeing 2010: A Lesbian Odyssey

9. King's Speech - TBH I enjoyed all of the noms, but this was the most obvious OB, and that Hitchens takedown did sour me on this somewhat. I have no problem with Col winning Best Actor as it's the best performance technically as well as artisticlikeally.

8. 127 Hours - Franco is fantastic but jeebus is Danny Boyle's directing style in this fucking annoying. It worked in Slumdog but here he just seems to take it too far. TOO FAR. Appropriately enough the best scene He finds some help whilst the music goes all GYBE on us is the one which most glaringly highlights the weaknesses of the film No dialogue, yo.

7. The Fighter - Somewhat OB, but hugely amiable and entertaining with a stellar cast. If anything, I think it felt a bit safe, but in doing so it prolly avoided some pitfalls.

6. Inception - To me, this feels most like the film making up the numbers. Nolan still hasn't made his masterpiece, but this is an excellently stentorian film, where the pieces that listen to their director obey to the listen and where the parts that are compelled to reject such an imposition don't get up to too much mischief.

5. True Grit - A long way off from the Coen's best work (and a steep step down from Larry's travails IMO) but I can't find any real faults with this. What I find to be the unifying theme in all of the best Coen films is the sense of transience. No matter how monumental the events we see depicted are, there is always going to be something else that comes along that we, as observers, are going to find more gawp worthy, even as we leave our protagonists to pick up the pieces of their shattered lives.

4. Winter's Bone - If this was nominated to make up numbers, I'm glad they did it as it deserves to be seen by all. I guess what I really like about this movie is it's steadfast refusal to cast judgements on those kerazzy hillbillies whilst still allowing us to cast judgement and not casting judgements on our casting of judgements. The only bad aspect of Jennifer Lawrence's performance is how she is way more attractive than everyone else. John Hawkes should get Best Supporter.

2 co-habiter. Toy Story 3. Very close to number 1. A great way to introduce children to the wonderful world of melancholy.

2 co-habiter 2. Black Swan - Far from perfect, and I probably wouldn't even say it's "better" or maybe even "as good as" my 4 and 3, but this is easily the most gleefully chaotic and fun of all the nominees, even as it takes it self so very seriously. It would clearly fall apart without our liddul preencess, but Portman just does an amazing job in holding it all together and is the easy pick for Best Actress in a very strong category. The ending is absolutely magnificent and marks this as a film with the most sincere desire to uphold its principles.

1. The Social Network. The snarky tone is what most obviously stops this film from holding up as truth, but as fiction it compels a film with flawless foundations to dizzying heights. Just a perfect movie.

[SmallBlueThing]

We've just had a very romantic evening with 'The Last Exorcism'; an in your face mocumentary following a fundamentalist preacher with a crisis of faith as he attempts to use tricks and psychology to 'help' a girl in louisiana, whose father believes her to be possessed.

Absorbing, very clever, convincing and very frightening in turn, only to make one narrative turn too many in the last ten minutes, riunding it all up in a brilliantly deranged manner that'll have long time fans of hammer and dr who's metal dog chum grinning from ear to ear, while sensible people moan.

SBT

[Keef Monkey]

We've just had a very romantic evening with 'The Last Exorcism'; an in your face mocumentary following a fundamentalist preacher with a crisis of faith as he attempts to use tricks and psychology to 'help' a girl in louisiana, whose father believes her to be possessed.

Absorbing, very clever, convincing and very frightening in turn, only to make one narrative turn too many in the last ten minutes, riunding it all up in a brilliantly deranged manner that'll have long time fans of hammer and dr who's metal dog chum grinning from ear to ear, while sensible people moan.

SBT

Yeah, I moaned! Was quite enjoying it up to a point, but I didn't ever find it scary to be honest. It was also guilty of the old sin of throwing in some creepy shots in the trailer which weren't in the film, always annoys me a bit. Not bad, but a bit disappointing.

[SmallBlueThing]

Yeah, I moaned! Was quite enjoying it up to a point, but I didn't ever find it scary to be honest. It was also guilty of the old sin of throwing in some creepy shots in the trailer which weren't in the film, always annoys me a bit. Not bad, but a bit disappointing.

I didn't see the trailer- I rented it entirely based upon a review I read somewhere (may have been the Meg, or may have been elsewhere) and the cover. I didn't even read the back of the box, except to check the running time! It's just the kind of movie made for Valentine's Day chez-BlueThing.

As for the end, I was just impressed with their audacity- as I honestly thought that an ending like that was thirty years dead. Didn't expect to see that again, and it made me very happy. But I can see why others would be annoyed or let down.

SBT

[Professor Bear]

All Star Superman.
Far too literal in places yet stitches those moments together with bad dialogue and clumsy animation.  It also omits the standout emotional moments that made the source material something other than a cold repackaging of Silver Age silliness ala the horrendous Batman/Superman: Public Enemies - though fair play that was coming from an awful story with no redeeming creative value and there's only so much turd-polishing even talented film-makers can accomplish.
The episodic nature of ASS is especially noticeable where it becomes obvious something has been omitted (the Bizarro segments, the death of Johnathan Kent, Jimmy Olsen's Doomsday turn) as Superman makes a really big deal about going off into space to save the Bottle City of Kandor and makes a big farewell to Lois, then less than five seconds later he's back on Earth two months later and doesn't mention what happened in the interim.  Jimmy Olsen's plot arc being omitted is also problematic as the script still retains moments where he wears women's clothing and it's treated as a joke, giving proceedings a slightly hateful undertone that wasn't in the comic.
The rest is a condensation of a lot of the comic joined by improvised improvements (sic) that only holds together for me because I've read the original and know what's missing, but as an objective bit of animated film-making this is a mess.  It comes so close here and there because there's so much potential in the book to work from, but the end result is a pointless work devoid of the joy of the original, with the complete destruction of the Lex Luthor/Leopold Quintum subtext a sad indication of just what a journeyman effort it all is.

Still, nice explosions, and Supes manages to have some fights here and there.  I imagine that's all that really matters.

[Tiplodocus]

Gnomeo and Juliet.

On paper it probably looked good. The computer animation vibe of Toy Story, the dramatic writing of Shakespeare and the songs of Elton John

What you get is the dramatic writing of Elton John,  the computer animation skills of Shakespeare and the songs of Toy story (sorry Randy).

Utterly. Fucking. Dire.

[Kerrin]

Gnomeo and Juliet.

Utterly. Fucking. Dire.

Shit. And I had such high hopes after watching the trailer.

[radiator]

Was it twenty minutes too long?