Last movie watched...

[Tiplodocus]

RESIDENT EVIL - EXTINCTION
A predictable bleached-out, sunshine-drenched, zombie-infested Mad Max post-apocolypse number that bears little resemblance to the games until Milla finds her way into an Umbrella Complex right at the very end - at which point it is almost exactly like the games.

It really doens't feel like a stand alone movie though.

Plus points; Milla with khukris.

It has speedy "super undead"; were these the first mainstream sprinters or had the Dawn of teh Dead remake preceeded it?


THE WILD GEESE
If you ignore the "white man solving Africa's problems" aspects this is awesomeness in a cigar-chomping,red beret. 

It's totally boys own stuff trying to be more grown up than it needs to be and hence, these days, falls short of both camps. I'm sure it was a bit edgy when first released. 

The shooty bangs and action pieces are quite pleasing but it's no WHERE EAGLES DARE.

I don't know if I just remember it from watching it 30 odd years ago or it was terribly predictable who would live or die ([spoiler]everyone with a relationship and one chap who, and I'm not sure if this is lazy scripting or brilliant meta-text, actually wants to "buy a farm"[/spoiler])

Richards Harris and Burton on one film set - I'd like to have seen the bar bill.

[ThryllSeekyr]

Snakes on a Plane

[Theblazeuk]

RESIDENT EVIL - EXTINCTION
It has speedy "super undead"; were these the first mainstream sprinters or had the Dawn of teh Dead remake preceeded it?

That was 2007; 28 days later was 2002, actual undead (not infected) running zombies appear in the remake of DotD (2004) but had actually already appeared in a few zombie movies beforehand, particularly the other Living Dead movies - Dan O Bannon's Return of the Living Dead first came out in 1985. There the zombies run until they fall apart to the point of being slow.

[pictsy]

9

Put in on yesterday as more background noise and movement for a sketching session.  The sketching never happened and I watched the film instead.  One of the best animations of recent years that I have seen with an interesting style and dark backdrop it reminded me of the more grim animations I saw when growing up (although perhaps never attaining those depths of grimness).  I really enjoy this film and it's nice that it's different in tone to Pixar and Dreamworks.

[GrinningChimera]

Solomon Kane. 10/10. GO AND BUY THIS MOVIE! I couldn't believe it was in the bargain bin for less than $10! On blu ray! If you like fantasy adventure movies but don't feel like watching a million zillion hours of lord of the rings, this is a good alternative. Visual effects are amazing. Story line is great, if not somewhat predictable in places. But the violence more than makes up for it. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lalm_kkczVM

Currently halfway though John Carter before I went to bed. Will continue watching this morning but so far I am very impressed. Failing to see why this was a box office bomb.

[Karl Stephan]

The Men Who Stare at Goats

Very cool comedy based on Jim Channon's First Earth Battalion, i.e. hippie new age super soldiers ('Jedi Knights'). Ilove the Cloon and Jeff Bridges in this. I'll be tracking down the book it's based on.

Also watched the old 1972 Amicus classic Tales from the Crypt with Joan Collins and Peter Cushing. I prefer this to the 80's/90's American TV series. More scary with less comedy.

I see someone's uploaded several (if not all) of the 80's adaptations of Hitchcock Presents on Youtube. I watched them back in the day and remember them being far darker and grittier than the 60's version. Going to have to make time for that.

[Ghost MacRoth]

Snitch

Is it just me, or is Dwayne 'The Rock' Johnston getting better at acting?  Have really quite enjoyed a few of his roles of late, as opposed to hating such shite as 'walking tall', and 'the scorpion king'.

Good film, great choreography of the action sequences, which are very realistic in their execution, decent script, good cast, and quite entertaining.

[Tiplodocus]

Mad Max 2: The Road Warrior

With Tiny Tips. Inspired by the plentiful "homages" to Mad Max in Resi Evil Extinction, I pulled out this belter to contnue his education in the great Action Movies of the Eighties and Nineties.

Needless to say he loved it. 

Amusingly, he pointed out that the practical and physical nature of all the stunt work means that all of the set pieces still hold up today. 

"It's timeless!". he says. And he's right.

(I could do with a shiney, cleaned up print on Blue Ray though). 

We both hated the music. So histrionic in parts you'd swear you were watching Doctor Who.

[NapalmKev]

Pacific Rim.

I didn't like it.

I think It's massively overrated, badly acted; and the plot and script are an absolute joke!

The only good thing I can say about it is that the special effects are excellent.


Cheers

[pictsy]

Mad Max 2 is definitely the best Mad Max.  Real Post-Apocalyptic chic.  The acting is hammy in places, though.

Push
First time I saw this was just after I had watched Jump.  Of the two films this one is the superior.  The plot is pretty flawed which is a shame as there is loads of hidden potential.  Some of the scenes and concepts were nice.  I love the setting and the look of the film in general.  The substance of the film is a bit messy, but I certainly appreciate the style.

Groundhog Day
I love this film.  One of Bill Murray's finest.  A man repeats a single day of his life ad nausium.  Sounds like a cheesy concept for a Jim Carrey comedy.  Thankfully it's not.

[shaolin_monkey]

Groundhog Day
I love this film.  One of Bill Murray's finest.  A man repeats a single day of his life ad nausium.  Sounds like a cheesy concept for a Jim Carrey comedy.  Thankfully it's not.

I have a soft spot for that film.  It starts off as a zany comedy, but by the end it's a heartfelt story of someone's transformation into somthing better.  Good stuff.

[radiator]

Pacific Rim.

I didn't like it.

I think It's massively overrated, badly acted; and the plot and script are an absolute joke!

The only good thing I can say about it is that the special effects are excellent.

I've heard this from others, but I'll defend this film to the hilt. Yeah, it's corny as all hell and the performance's are largely broad and some weak (the lead especially), but since when is that a crime? Some of my favourite films of all time have corny dialogue and stilted acting!

As for the plot and script being 'a joke' - it's clearly no work of literature and exists primarily to facilitate big robots fighting big monsters, but when you actually break it down on a storytelling level you'll find that, as blockbusters go, it isn't littered with massive plotholes, redundant characters, pointless subplots and awkward contrivances and manages to portray a coherent narrative with some excellent world-building and successfully carries off arcs for all of the main characters within a tight running time, and does so with a bit of heart - which immediately makes it infinitely more successful than just about every other blockbuster so far this decade in my book (the only exceptions being The Avengers and Dredd). I think it's if anything underrated.

Oh, and Groundhog Day is easily one of the best films ever made, and Bill Murray's finest hour. A solid gold classic, and one of those rare films I could watch every day - boom!

[Theblazeuk]

Agreed.

[JamesC]

Pacific Rim.

I didn't like it.

I think It's massively overrated, badly acted; and the plot and script are an absolute joke!

The only good thing I can say about it is that the special effects are excellent.

I've heard this from others, but I'll defend this film to the hilt. Yeah, it's corny as all hell and the performance's are largely broad and some weak (the lead especially), but since when is that a crime? Some of my favourite films of all time have corny dialogue and stilted acting!

As for the plot and script being 'a joke' - it's clearly no work of literature and exists primarily to facilitate big robots fighting big monsters, but when you actually break it down on a storytelling level you'll find that, as blockbusters go, it isn't littered with massive plotholes, redundant characters, pointless subplots and awkward contrivances and manages to portray a coherent narrative with some excellent world-building and successfully carries off arcs for all of the main characters within a tight running time, and does so with a bit of heart - which immediately makes it infinitely more successful than just about every other blockbuster so far this decade in my book (the only exceptions being The Avengers and Dredd). I think it's if anything underrated.

Oh, and Groundhog Day is easily one of the best films ever made, and Bill Murray's finest hour. A solid gold classic, and one of those rare films I could watch every day - boom!

I didn't like Pacific Rim either - found it really boring. Then again I usually find the anime films that it's riffing on boring too.

I don't like Groundhog Day either so maybe I just have bad taste!

[radiator]

Fair enough if you didn't like it or it didn't click for you - it's not a perfect film by any means, and I can totally understand how Del Toro's comedic sensibilities would put people off - but I just take issue when people dismiss it for really superficial, surface-level stuff like cheesy lines of dialogue.

On the surface, sure, it's a 'dumb' movie and very easy to write off, but I think it deserves more credit than that for the reasons I stated above. To me story, pacing, economy and narrative coherence - the real nuts and bolts of a film - are so much more important than the odd bit of soap-opera acting or iffy dialogue. In the case of PacRim, it all actually added to the charm for me - it's basically Top Gun meets Godzilla after all and the broad, larger than life tone felt very deliberate - they were clearly playing it as a live-action cartoon. It felt like what it was - a script co-written by two people working on the same wavelength, not like most blockbusters, which are very obviously written by committee, feel like a Frankenstein's monster patchwork of endlessly rewritten and rewritten material, and are an absolute dogs dinner narratively as a result.

There's no justifiable reason for not liking Groundhog Day, though - that's just depraved!