Last movie watched...

[I, Cosh]

Winter's Bone, which was like Cathy Come Home and Farewell My Lovely, starring the cast of Deliverance.

What a great film that is. It seems no time at all between admiring Lawrence as the moral centre of her community to really falling in love with her in Silver Linings Playbook.

[Mabs]

There Will Be Blood and A Fistful of Dollars.

Both a rewatch. The former; a masterpiece. And Daniel Day Lewis is on FIRE! One of the best performances i've seen by Mr. Day Lewis. You cannot keep your eyes off him, his presence just seers off the screen. And not forgetting Paul Thomas Anderson's aweinspiring storytelling and direction. No Country For Old Men is an awesome film, but i felt There Will Be Blood was more deserving of the Best Picture Oscar, and Best Director for Anderson.

The latter; my favourite Leone directed Spaghetti Western after The Good , The Bad and The Ugly. Such a superb film. And Clint? A god. Morricone's score still gives me the goosebumps. Wow.

[Definitely Not Mister Pops]

Have you seen the director's cut of the Good, The bad and the Ugly? Style wise, it's the movie Tarantino wishes he could make.

[Mabs]

Have you seen the director's cut of the Good, The bad and the Ugly? Style wise, it's the movie Tarantino wishes he could make.

Yes i have El Pops, and i can see what you mean about Tarantino,  i think he stated its his favourite ever film and you can pretty much see its influence in most of his own films!

[Lenny_Zero]

Watched the Blu-Ray of SUCKER PUNCH the other night.  Dear Lord what a pretty film.

I think in several years, this movie will find its footing.  When it came out, most were irked with its rough-hewn ending.

I'd forgotten Scott Glenn was in there pulling a David Carradine.

The dream sequences are borderline hypnotic.

Did I mention that it was PRETTY?

[Michaelvk]

Watched the Blu-Ray of SUCKER PUNCH the other night.  Dear Lord what a pretty film.

I think in several years, this movie will find its footing.  When it came out, most were irked with its rough-hewn ending.

I'd forgotten Scott Glenn was in there pulling a David Carradine.

The dream sequences are borderline hypnotic.

Did I mention that it was PRETTY?

Hot looking girls with guns,what's not to like?

I tried to watch Krull at least twice last night.. Ended up using it as a sedative instead.

[Lenny_Zero]

Krull put me to sleep when I was a teenager in the movie theater back in the 80s.

I tried to find what I'd missed by playing the Atari 2600 game by the same name.

The sedative solution is a good one, and if not, my experience is that the film itself produces its own "knockout narcotic".

[Tiplodocus]

CLOUD ATLAS

Loved it. Its big, sprawling epic and ambitious in a way like pretty much nothing else I have seen. Gorgeous to look at with a fine ensemble  cast, fantastic music and cleverly nested tales throwing the big questions around that you normally only see in films or books that are much less exciting.

Minor niggles? Playing spot the cast member sometimes pulls you out of the narrative. And the frantic to and fro between the tales distracts sometimes. I said "nested"  above but it really is more of a jigsaw that when you work out shows the nesting. But if anyone tells you its hard to follow or work out the connections, don't believe them.

[ThryllSeekyr]

Just watched Time Bandits and it was good.

[Mabs]

Just watched Time Bandits and it was good.

Oh man. I love Time Bandits! A childhood favourite of mine, and pretty scary in parts too; the 'head' used to scare the bejesus out of me as a kid. So many wonderful moments like the glass in the desert, the minotaur vs Sean Connery, John Cleese' mad Robin Hood - its one hell of a ride. Definitely one of Gilliam's best alongside Brazil and Twelve Monkey's.

[Colin YNWA]

Finally watched The Raid last night. Really enjoyed it... but and this is going to be a very strange criticism of a martial arts movie but the fights were a bit too martial artsey. What I mean is the movie had this wonderful grim and dark tone yet many of the fights were so typically and precisely executed as to feel out of place. For me it'd have worked better with shorter or brutal fights... but then it wouldn't be what it was... so I have to acknowledge my criticism is wonky... still can't shake it though.

Still over all wonderful film, GREAT villains and my wife loved it too, which for an action heavy piece is saying something. I will try Dredd on her now...

[Buttonman]

I saw 'The Raid' yesterday and quite enjoyed it. The dubbing on the version I saw was dreadful but the action and the body count was brutal. Real surprise when one of the heroes has a 10 minute fight with the baddie and at the end he gets his neck broken - I thought he was goig to jump onto his feet and roundhouse kick him out the window. good to see some reality in an otherwise OTT kill fest.

Watched 'Kick Ass' this morning and it's always enjoyable - really rattles along with some great action and dialogue. Soundtrack is aces too -Stand Up' by The Prodigy an all time great!

[Frank]

Finally watched The Raid last night. Really enjoyed it... but and this is going to be a very strange criticism of a martial arts movie but the fights were a bit too martial artsey. What I mean is the movie had this wonderful grim and dark tone yet many of the fights were so typically and precisely executed as to feel out of place. For me it'd have worked better with shorter or brutal fights... but then it wouldn't be what it was... so I have to acknowledge my criticism is wonky... still can't shake it though. Still over all wonderful film, GREAT villains and my wife loved it too, which for an action heavy piece is saying something. I will try Dredd on her now...

That's not a strange criticism at all, Colin. The fantastic first action scene, where taking an axe to the floor allows for imaginative and kinetic camera work which moves effortlessly between lateral and vertical planes and action which seamlessly combines hand to hand combat, gunplay and the inventive use of a fridge as a deadly weapon, all had me convinced that the film was going to be every bit the reinvention of action cinema which some reviews promised.

After that breathless ten or fifteen minute sequence, the film settles into a series of incredibly well choreographed but fairly conventional fight sequences in which blows often don't feel like they're connecting and which don't really live up to the variety and the inventive use of physical space that the dizzying opening salvo seemed to promise. I really liked and enjoyed the film, but I'm still a little bit in mourning for the loss of the film I thought I was watching.

[JamesC]

Evangelion 1.11

I've never been a massive fan of anime - I often find the stories a bit obscure and nonsensical. This pretty much followed that pattern.
The action was really good and there were some lovely designs but the story was just a sort of list of things happening (I often find this with Asian films - The Grudge being an obvious example). The main character was the most whiny annoying twat ever.

[Definitely Not Mister Pops]

Robot & Frank

A lovely film, well made. In the near future, in a world not too different from our own, Frank Langella plays an aging ex-con who is getting too old to look after himself, and his children (Arwen from LOTR and Cyclops from X-men), are concerned. So they buy him a robot butler who just happens to have no moral protocols. Intrigue ensues.[spoiler] He teaches the 'bot to pick locks and shit.[/spoiler]

Frank Langela is a treat in this movie. His performance reflects the way several of my older relatives feel about newfangled technologies. For years they were suspicious of it, but given the right gadget (iphones in real life, robots in this movie), they'll fall in love with it and all of a sudden you get sent random pictures of that time you visited them when you were two years old.