Last movie watched...

[SmallBlueThing]

Stephen King's SILVER BULLET (1985)

Now, this was interesting. My boys had the "novelette" upon which this was based as their bedtime story for a while last year, and ever since i've been meaning to get them the movie. The only problem being i remembered the movie as being really, really shit- and my intention is to inspire them to love horror, not put them off by showing them the worst.

Pester power prevailed, however, and in the end i really shouldnt have worried. Silver Bullet, my friends, is aces.

Of course is. Forget the direction- which is workmanlike at best (though effective when necessary, at least judging by my cowering, petrified, giggling, guffawing, screaming and cheering offspring) and dont even worry too much about Carlo Rambaldi's bobble-head werewolf suit- that's used sparingly, and is effective when shown in abstract close-up only becoming ridiculous when shown in full at the end, and even then better than most. No, what Silver Bullet's really about is (cont)

[SmallBlueThing]

(cont) the beauty of Stephen King's characters and dialogue- he's on screenplay duties here, so the words are lovely- and the joy of seeing those words delivered by a dream mid-eighties cast of Corey Haim, Gary Busey, Everitt McGill and Terry O'Quinn. Busey, especially, is just in a class of his own, and i'd argue that in Busey as Uncle Red and Haim as paralysed Marty you have just about the most perfect synthesis of King's words and actors' performance put on film. It just fits and feels entirely right.

King's screenplay isnt perfect by any means, and suffers from forcing the original story into places it was never meant to go, but the dialogue never falters and is always joyfully full of the kind of Kingisms we know and love.

No one will ever claim Silver Bullet to be a classic- but watching tonight in optimum conditions (with two small boys afeared of monsters) i am prepared to concede it's a work of underrated loveliness.

Just a shame about the woolluff.

SBT

[Mardroid]

That's one King book I've never read.

I've seen the film a couple of times though, and I thoroughly enjoyed it too. I'll admit it's as much about the kids adventure side of things as the werewolf itself. Not that I remember the costume being particularly bad, but then I have a high tolerance for these things.

[SmallBlueThing]

Definitely pick up the book Mardroid- lavish colour and and b&w illustrations by Swamp Thing creator Bernie Wrightson aside, it's a beautiful thing. Originally a calender, i understand, sent to King's friends. It needed some on-the-fly editing when being read to small boys, but like the film is a scary monster-story for (mostly) all ages. Pick it up along with the Creepshow graphic novel, for a double dose of King and Wrightson horrors.

For those keeping tally- Silver Bullet contains a few "piss"es, a couple of "bitch"es, and multiple "shit"s- none of which worried me in relation to the boys (mummy's away in milan) but two potentially problematic "fuck"s. However, both are used in such a way as to drive home that it's a bad word that shouldnt be said- here, on the phone by a nice cop who admits he'd waited til the recipient had hung up before unleashing his obscenities. It's also a gag, which is better than the word being shown to have any power.

Gore-wise, there's a nice beheading that went down (cont)

[SmallBlueThing]

(cont) well in my house and a couple of nicely-shot and splashy woolluf attacks. Eyes get shot out twice, but the scariest bits (if my two are any indication of such things, and they are) are the p.o.v shots of the woolluf stalking his victims and, crucially, climbing the side of a house to get to a bedroom window. We had sleepover last night 'just in case of midnight werewolf visits'.

SBT

[vzzbux]

Caught the ending of Cowboys and Zombies last night on the horror channel. I have seen better acting in porn movies. Horseshit is too kind a word for it.





V

[willthemightyW]

LOOPER

It was pretty good. The acting was solid, especially JGL doing his best young Bruce Willis, all my fears about that were put to rest. I would however liked to have seen more of Bruce Willis himself, as he didn't seem to have much screen-time. I feel the same way with the city and all the cool near future stuff, rather than [spoiler]spending half the film on a farm[/spoiler] although I understand that might not have serviced the story as well, and I can't have it both ways. I think there were some really cool bits, especially [spoiler] Seths older self falling to pieces as he was running away, and they were cutting off the limbs of young Seth[/spoiler], but I don't really like the direction they took with [spoiler]the child, I knew when the mentioned TK that it would have something to do with "The Rain-maker" (stupid name by the way) but something about the kids part in it just didn't sit right with me. Oh and also, there's no way that kid was ten.[/spoiler] I would have liked to have seen more of what this [spoiler]"Rain-maker was going to do[/spoiler] as I feel I didn't really see enough to be worried about what could happen. The small glimpses we got, like people mentioning [spoiler]mass executions all at once[/spoiler] really intrigued me though. But why was [spoiler]he closing all the loops, or did I miss something? I mean, I gather that he's become the crime boss or whatever, and that loopers expect to have there loops closed, but the way they were talking about it made it seem like he was doing it too early, or doing something he shouldn't be, and the loops were being closed when they shouldn't have been, for some nefarious purpose. [/spoiler] Anyway, it was pretty cool, and enjoyable, and there were some beautiful shots in there, however, like I said, something didn't ring true for me, but I just can't put my finger on what, especially in the finale. I guess I hyped it up to much in my head, as I've been really looking forward to it. I'll watch it again though, as I said, I found it enjoyable; probably not in the cinema, I'll wait for the DVD/Blu-Ray.

Cheers,
Will

Sorry for the long post!

[Professor Bear]

Age of the Dragons, which I'd seen before but this time picked up on dvd as I wanted to reward the chutzpah of the kind of mindset that would greenlight such a project (Herman Melville's Moby Dick with dragons instead of whales) even if the execution is excruciatingly ham-fisted and knackered less by Vinnie Jones' hilarious turn as Stubb (that they handed Vinnie Jones a lengthy monologue scene is fantastic) and more by the fact that they only used the elevator pitch of Moby Dick as their plot, missing that MD is a heavily humanist tome full of timeless symbolism about the eternal struggles of man and not just some blokes throwing harpoons at a big white thing.  It also has that dodgy gender politics thing that all low budget film-making seems required by law to have where instead of just casting a woman in a certain part and then getting on with things, they shoehorn in scenes where she gets nuddy or is threatened with rape out of nowhere so the hero can establish enough cred for later boning.  It's an awful, awful film in its own right and as adaptations go it's the All Saints cover of Under The Bridge: the original is a harrowing allegory about the euphoria and dysphoria experienced during extended heroin addiction and the beauty found in even the smallest measure of human decency, while the All Saints cover is about someone who is under a bridge.
By all means buy the dvd and reward the making of audacious high-concept fantasy on a limited budget, just never watch it while sober and like Schrodinger's pussy the potential will at least be there.

[COMMANDO FORCES]

That was on the telly last week. I saw a 2 minute clip and thought this is Moby Dick and so turned over!

[Mabs]

I watched Gattaca with the missus last night. It's not the first time we watched it, maybe our 2nd viewing together (and my 3rd) - and she's the one who suggested we watch it and so I popped the DVD on.

I think its a hugely underrated film, and kudos to Andrew Niccol for writing and directing a thoughtful, moving film about a 'Gene-ist' society in the future, where those born different, ie 'normal' or 'invalids' are seen as second class citizens. I loved the whole idea of our protagonists desire and dream to travel into space to see the moon's of Jupiter.

Ethan Hawke puts in a powerful performance, and Jude Law is great too aswell as Uma Thurman. I loved the 'cameo' by the late Ernest Borgnine! Any film he is in has to be worth a look!

The last scenes just before boarding the Gattaca ship, when we see the guy testing Hawke's urine find out he's an 'invalid' and say nothing, and the look on Ethan Hawkes face is really moving. Not to mention his 'going home' speech at the closing stage. I love the whole sepia toned feel of the film -  bringing a dreamy nostalgic feel to it. The music is also beautiful.

One of my fave sci-fi film's. A great film about triumph over adversity and a real gem.

[willthemightyW]

^^^SPOILERS!!!!!^^^

[Mabs]

^^^SPOILERS!!!!!^^^

Oh damn! I didn't realise I just gave something away mid way through! 

I wish I could edit it, but I can't. Why don't we have an edit option on this forum? I know you can edit but only straight after posting, even then most of the time it doesn't show.

Anyway, apologies for that!

[Pete Wells]

Well, to totally bring the tone down, today I saw The Three Stooges and I can't remember a movie giving me so many belly laughs.

[Daveycandlish]

Yay for Pete! I saw that a few weeks back and I was the ONLY person in the cinema - it meant I could guffaw as loudly as I liked without anyone staring at me 
You can't beat a bit of poke in the eye with a boink effect!

[radiator]

Re: Looper - Cid isn't ten years old. She was lying to put the gat-man of the scent.