Last movie watched...

[JamesC]

The chest bursting is great, but I feel the alien should have scuttled or slithered away - not sat upright and whizzed away as if it's sat on a rollerskate going wheeeeeee!. It's the one bum note in the whole thing

Like this?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XU1MAokrrUk

[Keef Monkey]

My only concern was the creature escaping from the table after bursting out of Kane's body (should I have spoilered that? Surely everyone knows that bit?!). The chest bursting is great, but I feel the alien should have scuttled or slithered away - not sat upright and whizzed away as if it's sat on a rollerskate going wheeeeeee!. It's the one bum note in the whole thing

Yeah, that and the alien drifting away from the ship are the only two effects shots that look ropey to me, but that's not bad going at all. Actually, after rewatching them all when the blu-rays came out recently it was the first one that looked the best of them all.

[Mardroid]

My only concern was the creature escaping from the table after bursting out of Kane's body (should I have spoilered that? Surely everyone knows that bit?!). The chest bursting is great, but I feel the alien should have scuttled or slithered away - not sat upright and whizzed away as if it's sat on a rollerskate going wheeeeeee!. It's the one bum note in the whole thing

Yeah, that and the alien drifting away from the ship are the only two effects shots that look ropey to me,

I know what you mean. When you see the creature drifting away in spacefrom behind, you can tell it's a bloke in a suit. It actually reminds me a bit of how Godzilla looked in those old Japanese films. A good example of how lesser is often better.  But boy did they get that right pretty much everywhere else in the film!

I think the only other point that looked slightly dodgy was when you see the shadow showing the Alien's silhouette crouching down, shortly before ambushing someone. (I think it was Lambert.) Again the shape and movement is suspiciously human-like. At this point, it does sort of work, though as it can provide a bit of misdirection for people watching it for the first time. And one of the main concepts of the creature is that, while it is very alien in some ways (particularly the life-cycle, that skeletal look and the head, which actually reminds me a bit of a Sperm Whale) it's takes aspects from the host too. 'Cain's son' as one character (I think it was Dallas) says.

I do have a soft spot for the more stalky sauropod look of the Aliens from Resurrection though. They're bipedal, so they've adopted something from the human host, but there's no sense of humanity there. They looked really predatory. If you're going to see the whole thing, that's not a bad way to go, although I'm glad they toned it down for the AvP films.

[Roger Godpleton]

I just watched The Godfather all the way through for the first time, and I can say that I have seen better films, for example 1982's Zombie Bloodbath. Marlon Brando's scene in the funeral parlor after Sonny's death isn't a patch on the scene where a bunch of zombies walk into a propellor blade but then they clog up the propellor blade and then they eat the pilot.

[TordelBack]

Contact the CDC, It looks like the SBT Virus has broken out of the Hastings Alienation Zone.

[Keef Monkey]

Finally got around to Source Code, really enjoyed it. I didn't like it as much as Moon but it does share some of that film's atmosphere and is, like that film, one of the most interesting sci-fi films of recent years. I was a little worried from the trailers that after Moon being a bit of an indie darling this would be more generic Hollywood fare, but while it does seem more commercially targeted it's way more interesting than your average blockbuster, and has a similarly emotional pull without overdoing the schmaltz (just about). If this is what a more commercial Hollywood-style movie from Duncan Jones is like then I'd be more than happy to see more.

Also, I still think Gyllenhall is a great actor with a ton of presence, even if most of the folks I know seem to bash him a lot.

[Hoagy]

[spoiler]What's great about both of the Duncan Jones films is that both protagonists have an unofficially happy ending. [/spoiler]

[brendan1]

I just watched The Godfather all the way through for the first time, and I can say that I have seen better films, for example 1982's Zombie Bloodbath. Marlon Brando's scene in the funeral parlor after Sonny's death isn't a patch on the scene where a bunch of zombies walk into a propellor blade but then they clog up the propellor blade and then they eat the pilot.

Hahahahahahaha!

I am guessing this is a slight dig at the man with the worst taste in everything, small blue thing.

[TordelBack]

I am guessing this is a slight dig at the man with the worst taste in everything, small blue thing.

Except women, comics and books.  All the important things.

[Hoagy]

Awakening.

Some lovely cinematography. Which kind of ruined the chill of it. All in all we do do a nice ghost yarn though.

[Van Dom]

Made it through fifteen minutes (yeah, its more than you would!) of Uwe Boll's latest masterpiece Blubburella. As impossible as it might seem, he is actually getting worse. He seemed to be going for Airplane/Top Secret style comedy stylings with this but it was so brutally filmed and put together that every attempt at humour came off cringe-worthy. There were maybe 2 or 3 instances of witty storytelling from the script, which made me smile, I'll admit, but the direction/production of the movie was so dreadful, even getting to the fifteen minute mark was an almighty feat.
Anyone else have a crack at this one?

[SmallBlueThing]

And sunglasses. I've never tried to look like Bono. Mine are much better.

Now then- I've been sitting on this for a while, trying to get my head around it. Last week I saw the 2011 remake/ prequel to The Thing.

Derided right across the board, I've been very wary of all the criticism I've read. So much of it was, frankly, from people whose opinions on films are basically the babble of confused children, or the elitist wankery of smug twats. That's not to say they'd prove wrong in this case- if ever any film was going to have to work overtime to receive even a cursory nod of approval it was going to be this. After all, John Carpenter's The Thing is one of the greatest films ever made, in any genre. More than that, it's a seminal movie of my generation's shared youth, and the poster boy in the 'war' between those who champion special effects of the practical, prosthetic kind over the keyboard-tapping variety. In a climate of endless pathetic Hollywood remakes of the films we love, if anything was going to feel a perhaps disproportional outpouring of disgust, it would be this. Unless it somehow broke a similar number of taboos as Carp's film, it was going to get slaughtered. And it did.

But really, what did they expect? There are thirty-one years between the Christian Nyby original and Carpenter's remake. And twenty-nine years between Carpenter and Matthijs van Heijningen Jr's 'prequel'. Instead of a complete reimagining, as would befit that length of time and would serve to show the timelessness of John W. Campbell, Jr's story, van Heijningen Jr choses to in all senses that matter just remake Carpenter. I'm reminded of the similarity of intent and execution between Halloween and Halloween II- except there at least Halloween II benefited from an increased bodycount and more gore to make up for the lack of directorial elan calling the shots. The new Thing cannot possibly offer us anything really new- for one, obviously, we know how it ends. And secondly, there's no way Rob Bottin's effects can be bettered- they can't be made more gruesome, or get under our skin any further. With some practical rubberwork and a lot of cgi, the new film only just about earns its '15' rating. yes, flesh bubbles and little tentacles move under skin in ways Bottin couldn't manage- but the dollar per second ratio cuts these scenes down to the minimum required by the story, so we don't get the kind of lingering looks that Bottin's rubber, plastic and goo horrors could afford us. Nothing elicits a response as honest as "You've gotta be fucking kidding...", though they do try very hard and come close at times- notably the brilliant arm monster. But then, nothing moves very far from Bottin's template and is always scuppered by a quick, cash-saving, cutaway.

So, why am I bothering to go into a fair bit of detail about a movie everyone and his wife has written off as a piece of shit? Well- because, despite all that I've said above... I really, really liked it. It tries very hard not to undermine the Carpenter movie. Everything looks right, and the cast is mostly spot-on. They have beards, they have lived-in faces, they are rugged. Only the token women (there are two) seem out of place- notably because there is no attempt made to make them appear as if from 1982. Both sport "attractive 2011 hair", for instance. They should've had the full Farrah Fawcett or at the very least maybe a Toyah. But really, there is no need for them being women at all- neither character behaves in any way that necessitates her being a she. In fact, I'd go as far as saying that the original, first draft, lead was the bad professor's male assistant, until he was sidelined by an executive who demanded women be included. The assistant is there from the off, follows behind the lead throughout and could easily be swopped with no real change to the narrative. Even his 'death' is inconsequential and could be swopped with any of the other characters. Indeed, that the lead is female is irrelevant throughout, except right at the end, when it suddenly becomes a major plot point. That the ending is both potentially as affecting as the Carpenter film's AND totally fluffed at the same time, is a perfect example of how fine the line is with this movie. if only they'd made more of her relationship with the American pilot, the ending would have made sense and been so much more confrontational. As it is, well- I won't ruin it- but it's about half as powerful and you have to take a bit of a leap to really 'get it'.

So- was it worth it? I'd say yes. In the end, The Thing (2011) is a very expensive fan-film, no more 'important' than the Dark Horse series of comics from years back, in comparison to the 1982 film. But if you take it as a fan-film, it's one made with a real love for the material and a typically fannish fear of moving too far from the source. if you accept that, and share the obvious love for the material as van Heijningen Jr and his cast and crew, and if you're in a forgiving frame of mind, you might just find yourself loving this one just a little bit, as I did. And until John Carpenter decides to revisit the material and make a sequel, or until a clever director decides that Carpenter got it wrong and the REAL story of 'Who Goes There?' should be told like THIS... it will have to stand as a bloody good try that was crippled by having to live up to what is probably the best film any of us will see in our lifetime.

SBT

[Professor Bear]

Derided right across the board, I've been very wary of all the criticism I've read. So much of it was, frankly, from people whose opinions on films are basically the babble of confused children, or the elitist wankery of smug twats.

Not sure what reviews you were reading, SBT, as the ones I read here on the board seemed to be of the opinion that it was a competent film whose greatest failing was connections to the Carpenter version, a point you make yourself.
For some, mere competence wasn't enough, while for others it was the best - or better than - they'd hoped for, and to get that much I think it's doing pretty well given the venom being spewed at it by purists before it was actually released.

[SmallBlueThing]

Not sure what reviews you were reading, SBT, as the ones I read here on the board seemed to be of the opinion that it was a competent film whose greatest failing was connections to the Carpenter version, a point you make yourself.
For some, mere competence wasn't enough, while for others it was the best - or better than - they'd hoped for, and to get that much I think it's doing pretty well given the venom being spewed at it by purists before it was actually released.

I agree entirely. As I said about the reviews, "so much of it..."- and that was the ones I'd accidentally stumbled across, as I'd purposely avoided everything I could for the last year or two. Now I've seen it, I've done my usual check on the 'Loved it'/ 'Hated it' reviews on IMDB and other places- and, as you say, the sheer vitriol directed towards it is shocking.

To be honest, I could have rambled on for ages, as I've been thinking about it for much of the last week or so- the attempts to mirror the paranoia of the first, which fall a little flat but which cement it as more a remake than a prequel to my mind; the creature design- which is pretty damn good throughout... and then completely ballsed up in that ludicrous sequence in the alien spaceship; and the film's almost-descent into generic monster runaround in the last third.

It would have been far more interesting if, rather than tying up to the Carpenter version with the dog, they'd have somehow bypassed it completely- perhaps shooting the mutt and throwing the audience a curve-ball, only to reveal Kate was a Thing after all, as she escaped and was en-route back to civilisation. I dunno. But, as a film in and of itself, I really liked it.

SBT

[Beeks]

Well if anything SBT you've actually made me think about giving it a whirl again

I was a little excited when I heard it was going to be made..then wary..then hostile..then indifferent...then hostile again when I read some reviews

I..like you..grew up with this film buried in my psyche..so I feared another 'Phantom Menace' moment

After that thoughtful and honest review I might have a rethink