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[Link Prime]

You miserable old soaks- The Inbetweeners is comedy gold!

Indeed. And is it out yet? I thought it was only at the cinemas?

I saw it at the flicks 2 weeks ago, it'll definitely be on DVD before xmas.

And yeah Hawk, it wasn't as good as the 1st movie, but there were enough laugh-out-load moments to allow a free pass.
The water slide scene had me in stitches.

[NapalmKev]

You miserable old soaks- The Inbetweeners is comedy gold!

Indeed. And is it out yet? I thought it was only at the cinemas?

I was naughty, a friend had a 'copy'.

I actually liked some of the series but the films are not the same. I would have preferred to see them bumbling around college/university rather than another 'holiday' movie.

Cheers

[radiator]

Yep, the 'holiday movie' sitcom spin-off is such a lazy cliche (brilliantly skewered in the League of Gentlemen film), can't believe The Inbetweeners did it TWICE.

As for the show itself, I think it's ok. Perfectly watchable (and infinitely preferable to gash like The Big Bang Theory) but a bit too broad for my (admittedly snobby) comedic tastes. I haven't seen either of the films, aren't they all like 30 now?

[Keef Monkey]

I get a fair few laughs out of the series, but thought the first movie was very thin on them. By that I mean, I did chuckle here and there, but I would probably get more laughs out of watching 3 back to back episodes than I did with the movie.

[Greg M.]

The Rover (2014)

It's post-apocalyptic Australia, 10 years after an unexplained 'Collapse', and Guy Pearce, playing the most angry and intense man alive, wants his car back. He meets Robert Pattinson, the slow-witted American brother of the man who stole it, left for dead by his sibling, and together, Pearce and Pattinson track both car and brother down. Their long journey across an Australia where nothing matters any more, including any kind of morality, is punctuated by sudden and bloody bouts of remarkable violence, as we discover just what kind of man the protagonist really is. But why does he want his car back so badly?

I can see this being a real Marmite sort of film. The characters are nasty, the mood is unrelentingly grim, and the pace is slow. Dialogue is minimal – Pearce is great in the role, but his rage-fuelled character is ultra-laconic, and when he does speak, it's often just to repeat himself even more forcefully and terrifyingly. Meanwhile, Pattinson plays against type as a twitching but surprisingly lethal simpleton, though at one point his accent reminded me irresistibly of Old Gregg from The Mighty Boosh. There's elements of 'The Road' in here, but without the redeeming central relationship. It's not an easy watch, and I think a lot of people will be turned off by it. However... the final scene absolutely made the film for me and brought everything into focus. I think that's going to be a very subjective experience though. If nothing else it lets you understand [spoiler]the real reason the film's called The Rover...[/spoiler]

[Hawkmumbler]

Bay of Blood (1971)

Mario Bava's last and arguably most iconic Giallo. Banned as part of the ludicrous "Video Nasties" witch hunt and listed as one of the 50's scariest movies of all time by Bravo (make of that what you will).

I enjoyed it. I've mentioned I love giallo so it's a surprise it's taken me so long to watch this. Though hardly scary, many of the effects are very well executed including the notorious throat slitting and fish hook to the face scene. Though well done the actual gore scenes are somewhat few and rather tame by today's standards. The decapitation and the two aforementioned killings are the most gruesome, while the pole to the spine was very restrained indeed. You could get all the others into a 12A movie right now.

Plot hardly takes center stage in this film, as with many giallo not directed by Argento, with the first ten minuets setting up the key players, the next 30 to teenagers being killed off (possibly this movie was the birth of this trope) and the rest focusing on two parents jumping from incident to incident trying to make clear of whats happening. It's a fairly more structured affair than other Italian murder mysteries, but still somewhat jumbled. But I find that part of the charm of this genre and why I can take it less seriously.

Probably most confusing about the film is the facts it had the most alternative titles of any horror movie. Besides the title it was banned under it was also named Carnage, The Oder of Flesh, Thus Do We Live to be Evil, Blood Bath (The title it was resubmitted as and subsequently banned again as), Before the Fact, The Ecology of Crime, Chain Reaction, Bay of Death and Last House on the Left-Part II (!!!).

The Arrow Video BD has one of the cleanest transfers I've ever seen for a movie of this age and pedigree, and can be bought fairly cheaply on amazon at the moment. The extras include a slightly extended cut with Italian subtitles and plenty of interviews and a reversible cover for the original Blood Bath VHS cover (which I use).

[Tiplodocus]

Managed a triple bill on Saturday.

LUCY
At the IMAX. I've been a fan of Besson and his style over substance approach since seeing Subway as a student (longer ago then I care to remember).  This is accordingly stylish, trite, barking and not quite what you expect in equal measures.  The trailers make it out to be TAKEN but with Telepathic powers but it's far better than that. 

There's a void where Lucy's character should be - this is possibly deliberate because as soon as her transformation begins, [spoiler]she loses all sense of who she was and just focuses on "becoming"[/spoiler]. The exception being a nicely played, if predictable, [spoiler]phone call to her Mum.[/spoiler] 

It reminded me of the MAN WITH X-RAY EYES, INCREDIBLE SHRINKING MAN and that sort of movie where [spoiler]the transformation of the lead becomes metaphysical. And I also see 2001 references in there.[/spoiler]
Oh and I love the fact that the Koreans as baddies is balanced by non-stop Samsung product placement!

This was followed by a second viewing of
GUARDIANS OF THE GALAXYon a normal screen.

Still fun but some flaws started to show;
- the baddies are rubbish - all they do is posture and pose - all talk and no trousers.
- too much gleeful slaughter for the otherwise light tone (especially Groot grinning like a loon having [spoiler]skewered a couple of lines of Necroguards and the curshing immolation of about a thousand Novacorps star craft[/spoiler])

And lastly NIGHT MOVES at the GFT
A plodder (you can't really use the word "thriller") about the consequences of three people and an act of eco-terrorism.  It's very slow, there's minimal dialogue and Jesse Esienberg spends the entire movie with an expression on his face that looks like he has just walked into a room where somebody has dropped one but it's actually pretty good.  The genuine moments of suspense are underplayed and not over-scored. The lines are particularly well blurred with not a hint of black and white on display(there are no evil corporations and executives*, the few "authority" figures they rub up against seem to be decent people, trying to do the right thing).

The only thing it lacks is PASSION. The whole enterprise is shown in a mundance light but I can't imagine people taking these sort of actions without showing a bit more passion as to why they are doing it. (Even if they are "faking it" for various reasons.

I'll take back some of the comment about Eisenberg's performance. [spoiler]His mini-breakdown in the car is quite effective.[/spoiler]


*which when you consider how the executives at, say, Seaworld, behave, wouldn't be a stretch of reality.

[Jim_Campbell]

How To Train Your Dragon 2 which, due to a catastrophic miscalculation of the back-to-school date, was in a auditorium absolutely crammed with children* leading to no small amount of trepidation about an interrupted viewing.

The kids, however, were held spellbound for the film's entire duration. As were we. Funny, engaging, great looking. There must have been a problem with the cinema's air conditioning, because I think were was some dust in my eye at one point but apart from that...

Brilliant movie. Thoroughly recommended for children of all ages.

Cheers

Jim



*No, not complaining that there were children at a kids' film, it's just that we thought we'd cleverly selected a showing that would effectively be deserted.

[Bolt-01]

I'm really looking forward to getting the chance to see this. The first film is a colossal treat and the quality of the graphics in the trailer make it a must see for me.

[I, Cosh]

LUCY At the IMAX. I've been a fan of Besson and his style over substance approach since seeing Subway as a student (longer ago then I care to remember).  This is accordingly stylish, trite, barking and not quite what you expect in equal measures.

I was hoping to have Scarlett Johansson double bill last week. Unfortunately, I didn't make it on time to catch this but Under the Skin was outstanding. Her character in this is deliberately blank too. As with a lot of other things in the film, no attempt is made to spell out exactly what she is: clearly something not quite human but more than that we don't need to know.

What story there is follows a vaguely Star Trekky "What is this thing called love, Captain?" arc but with more humour, oddness and an uneasy undertone of sexual predation as Scarlett drives around the streets of Glasgow in a transit van trying to pick up men to sate her unnatural desires. What those desires are is another thing left open to interpretation. It's clearly powered by a sexual urge but then...

There is, I think, always something fascinating about seeing somewhere you know well on film. Here Glasgow is transformed in different ways. From the threatening, predatory circling of the city centre to a muffled, bewildered take on Sauchiehall Street on a Friday night, the alien gaze makes the viewer look at things differently. Apparently, much of this part was filmed almost candid camera style around town and there's something inherently hilarious about the idea of wee Glasgow guys putting there best foot forward while being chatted up by Scarlett J.

It was pretty entertaining to hear such genuine Glasgow voices on film (no Trainspotting style posh boys here) and even more amusing to have that dialogue subtitled into quite formal German. I guess I'll never know how to say "Chase yersel ya daftie."

Add in some really beautiful shots, a wonderful scratching and buzzing soundtrack and some very bleak humour and you've got yourself a real winner.

TL;DR How about we get to know each other over a nice game of Scrabble instead?

[strangelysaucy]

The Rover (2014)

It's post-apocalyptic Australia, 10 years after an unexplained 'Collapse', and Guy Pearce......

Your little preview/review got my interest piqued and I "borrowed" and watched it tonight.
Straight to my top 20 of all time..really awesome film on so many levels! I've always love Guy Pearce but never seen Robert Pattinson due to Twighligt... but my god what a pair of powerful performances! and a fantastically compelling story..kind reminded me of "A Boy and His Dog" with it's bleak vision of a collapsed world, [spoiler](and in other more obvious ways)[/spoiler] definitely gonna grab this on blu-ray when it comes out and depress house guests with it

thanks for hoisting this into my view!

[Theblazeuk]

I'll have to scratch Under the Skin off the list then. The wife can't understand a thick Glaswegian at all (thinks it sounds German? Which she speaks).

Rewatched Winter Soldier. Much baggier the second time around but still holds up, much better than any of the Iron Men or Thor (but I was of the same opinion of Cap 1 which many did not like much).

[TordelBack]

Rewatched Winter Soldier. Much baggier the second time around but still holds up, much better than any of the Iron Men or Thor (but I was of the same opinion of Cap 1 which many did not like much).

Mmmm.  Rewatched Cap 1 at the weekend in preparation for a projected viewing of Winter Soldier - it's a surprisingly great movie, for all that it's a bit more po-faced than some of the other Marvels.  Evans really is excellent in the role, it's almost impossible to dislike the character, and his raw pluck and basic decency captures the spirit of the early comics wonderfully.  Supporting cast is also great, with Atwell, Weaving, Jones and Tucci all perfect, and the retro-futurist design of all Hydra's gear is terrific. 

What strikes me most forcefully on rewatching is how incredibly good the 'before' sequences of Steve Rogers are - surely the equal of any CGI character work ever done.

[Satanist]

I watched Under the Skin at the weekend. The sight of a wee ned telling a transit van driving Scarlet how to find the M8 via Asda has to be the funniest thing I've seen in a while. Then the Mrs told me to turn it off for being to arty farty.

So then we watched Calvary, A priest is told via confession he has one week to live before the confessor(?) comes to murder him. Its not as good as The Guard but still has some great lines which I wont spoil. Well acted and quite bleak. I really liked it.

[Grugz]

amazing spiderman 2 ...dunno what a lot of people didn't like about it,i thought it was great.