Last movie watched...

[Greg M.]

Wake In Fright (1971) - in which a school teacher gets himself stranded in a little town in the Australian outback, and plunges into an abyss of moral degradation, thanks to what he terms "aggressive hospitality". Anything, he observes, is permissible in the local culture – apart from refusing a beer. As such, he spends the entire movie drunk or hung-over, his every encounter torrid and demeaning, rapidly losing his grip. Probably one of the darkest films I've ever seen – a constant atmosphere of degeneracy and squalor pervades every frame, and the nocturnal kangaroo hunting sequence (filmed on a real kangaroo hunt) is pretty tough to get through. The film's not without humour, of course – there's a great bit where one local ponders the masculinity of the protagonist:

"What's the matter with him? He'd rather talk to a woman than drink?"
"School teacher."
"Ohhh."

Brilliant performance by Donald Pleasence as the local doctor – educated, alcoholic and sexually ambiguous, contemplating the nature of civilisation one minute, smashing up a pub the next. Excellent film (regarded as one of the greats of Australian cinema) but not an easy view.

[Buttonman]

Gangster Squad was shite and not even historically accurate shite - [spoiler]Sean Penn's character lived for 20 odd years after he was 'taken down'.[/spoiler]

I've been catching up with my homework with Hollywood Satire What Just Happened and then to quoth The Raven plenty more.

Oooh and I'll need that one of Greg's too..

[Professor Bear]

I'm not defending Gangster Squad or owt, but it does have a recruiting scene pretty early on where Elliot Ness recruits a cowboy, a ninja and a rocket scientist.  Historical accuracy was never going to be its problem, and it is pretty up front about this.

[Goaty]

I'm not defending Gangster Squad or owt, but it does have a recruiting scene pretty early on where Elliot Ness recruits a cowboy, a ninja and a rocket scientist.  Historical accuracy was never going to be its problem, and it is pretty up front about this.

But Elliot Ness did recruits Irish American (with Scottish accent), accountant and future Godfather.

[Ghost MacRoth]

My major problem with Gangster Squad was [spoiler]the bit when they assault the hotel.  After a brief gunfight, you get the two lead guys, breaking through the bad guys, and entering the hotel.  But before they do, they are parallel with the bad guys defending, and for some reason don't shoot the buggers!  So they leave a 2 on 2 battle outside and enter the building, where the two of them take out dozens of baddies, only for the chief lieutenant to escape, exit the hotel (also ignoring, and being ignored by the 2 on 2 shootout) to find that the 2 on 2 is STILL FACKING GOING!!!!!!![/spoiler]  Such shit shots or what??

[johnnystress]

Not much Eliott Ness as Eliott Mess

eh? eh?

[Buttonman]

Elliott pish but that doesn't scan.

I watched worthy western White Feather followed by the slightly more fun The Spoilers.

[Emp]

Blyhte Spirit...cus it was on when i got in last night and is still brilliant.

[Charlie boy]

Recent talk of movie knock-offs has me determined to watch Iron Hero pretty soon (a gag Xmas gift from a mate a few years back. Bizarrely, I bought it for him as a gag Xmas gift that very same year). Tag lines include The Heart of 'SUPERMAN'. The mind and body of 'TERMINATOR' and Part man... Part Machine... All Hero. The blurb on the back mentions Iron Hero taking on Reed's (?) ninja henchmen and ultimate secret weapon 'the Mecha Terror robot'. The "awesome powers" of the Iron Hero suit includes invisibility, which I'm guessing will be used quite a lot.
Now finding myself wondering how I have managed to resist this for so long, I may actually put it on a little later.

[Professor Bear]

The Host, which is not very good, but kind of sort of held my attention even when outright laughable.  Some almost-formed ideas about the well-trodden bodysnatching alien energy blobs plotline can't disguise that it is still the well-trodden bodysnatching alien energy blobs plotline, or that the actual drama of the main character's dilemma is knackered by the chosen narrative mechanics employed to portray two minds in one body: the actress walks around looking at everything from people to furniture with the expression of a startled bunny while a valley girl shouts conflicting emotions at her, the body being the alien and the voiceover being the human.  I would've liked to see just one side or the other of this dynamic - no voice-over from the trapped human mind explaining every plot and character detail so that the alien comes off as alien rather than just shy, or the actress narrating the entire film - but the mix of both just comes off as clumsy and often undermines what should be head-scratching moments for the audience as they try to grasp why they are watching a film that is genuinely pushing a love triangle with four people but two of them are in one body.
Eventually, because a millennia-old alien has never in all her travels encountered the notion of lube and thus can't wrap her head around the idea of one guy in front and one guy in back, she decides to top herself and I was like WHAT and then Sucker Punch was in it with brown hair for some reason and I was distracted by the fact that she is clearly the tiniest person in the whole world, but her presence resolved the need for a three-way to break the tension and then it was over after a seemingly random tacked-on end that served no real purpose except to confuse people who didn't know if they were watching a pilot episode of something, because it all comes off in the end as looking like a pilot episode of yet another slightly unoriginal tv show with a budget and/or cast it doesn't really need.
It isn't original, it doesn't really do anything you haven't seen before with the premise (I have a suspicion that there are a couple of Outer Limits writers who phoned their lawyers after seeing it) and I think some of the conundrums thrown up in the course of the story were really just going on in my head because of the film's slow pace, but it's all competently made Saturday afternoon viewing if there isn't an episode of Stargate SG1 on somewhere.

[Radbacker]

 

Eventually, because a millennia-old alien has never in all her travels encountered the notion of lube and thus can't wrap her head around the idea of one guy in front and one guy in back, she decides to top herself and I was like WHAT and then Sucker Punch was in it with brown hair for some reason and I was distracted by the fact that she is clearly the tiniest person in the whole world, but her presence resolved the need for a three-way to break the tension

dude you owe me a damn keyboard, mines now cover in tea. 

CU Radbacker

[Satanist]

Watched Sightseers the other night, has anyone used Shiteseers yet? If not then thats my review.

[Dandontdare]

Eventually, because a millennia-old alien has never in all her travels encountered the notion of lube and thus can't wrap her head around the idea of one guy in front and one guy in back, she decides to top herself

It isn't original, it doesn't really do anything you haven't seen before

I'm having trouble reconciling these two statements, but I definitely want to watch this.

And Iron Hero

[Tiplodocus]

FLIGHT with Denzel Washington.

Flight?  More like Sh...





... shockingingly good movie actually. Denzel is really good as a tortured soul - who is cool as all fuck when in the cockpit. And the plane crash is executed in fine style.

[Professor Bear]

Eventually, because a millennia-old alien has never in all her travels encountered the notion of lube and thus can't wrap her head around the idea of one guy in front and one guy in back, she decides to top herself

It isn't original, it doesn't really do anything you haven't seen before

I'm having trouble reconciling these two statements

You need to watch more sci-fi, then, as NOW I HAVE DISCOVERED HUMAN EMOTION I DON'T WANT TO GO BACK TO MY ALIEN WAYS I WOULD RATHER DIE is a common trope (especially as presented in The Host, as it comes off as more of a riff on Highlander and New Amsterdam's "I outlive all my family and friends" angle), as is THE ALIEN IN MY BODY LOVES SOMEONE IT SHOULDN'T AND NOW WE ARE BOTH CONFLICTED.  I can think of at least three separate occasions where both popped up in the (deliberately) aforementioned SG1, and at least three times across the two spin-off series as well.  Also a regular occurrence with DS9's Dax - especially in the final season when the character was played by a different actress - and obviously happened a couple of times in the other Trek shows.