Last movie watched...

[Buttonman]

Where the fuck are these monster movies Man of Buttons? Or was Dragon Tattoo one?

Are you referring to 'The Creature Feature'? - it's not about monsters, silly! It's about animals and is presently in the gestation phase (Wild Geese 2 already nailed). I need to clear out the exising 'The' and 'W' films first - I can't expect people to ignore 3 blogs! 2 blogs on ignore is plenty.

I also have to watch some none 'The', 'W' or animal films to keep the wife off the scent. I mean 'Flight' - that ain't nothing!

[Mabs]

Sorry, just forgot to add something; was it the David Fincher/ Daniel Craig remake of Dragon Tattoo you watched, Buttonman? If so i need to add it on my must watch  list. I have the original versions sitting somewhere at home, still haven't watched them.

It was indeed the Fincher/Craig version and although disturbing it was excellent and a fast near 3 hours. I have the 3 Swedish ones but have yet to take the plunge.

Tonight I watched Wichita (1955) and although not entirely charmeless it was pretty crappy.

I loved your review of Wichita - absolutely hilarious! 

[TordelBack]

Conan, the most recent one.  Ah here, lads, if you're going to go to the bother of actually making a film is it too much to ask that you come up with a story and/or script?  The actors do a decent enough job, and looking at the list of thousands in the credits you would suspect lots of people at least turned up most days, but somebody forgot to write anything for them to work around. 

It starts well enough, with suitably portentous gubbins and some nice scene-setting where Hellboy Junior beats up some Hurons and everybody completely misunderstands the process of making iron/steel weapons and rather than be embarrassed about it make it into a Thing.  Then it sort of peters out over the remaining 90 minutes, and the all-powerful McGuffin that drives the 'plot' turns out to be totally useless at doing anything.   Conan is endlessly searching for the 6-Fingered Man, who turns out to be really, really famous and live in a giant castle, and his best mate knows all about him, and the thief he met earlier actually has keys to his basement, so he just shows up and they have a sword-fight in the Temple of Doom.  The end.

Momoa and his requisite giant man-boobs are pretty good as Conan (I like his grin), but he has nothing resembling a character to work with.  One minute he's assuring us he just 'slays and loves and is content', the next he's been on a monomaniacal 20-year quest to avenge his people.  At the start his father is telling him he needs 'ice to temper his fire', at the end he's kneeling in the ruins of Dad's forge looking satisfied with himself, but we've had no indication that any tempering took place in the interim. 

Every location is some form of natural rock-arch (I lost count) and some wind-scoured columns, every battle is the result of a some clanking army sneaking right up on Our Heroes (including on the open sea), every scrap ends with Conan yanking someone's chain (which may be a clever commentary, but almost certainly isn't). 

Bah, what a waste.

[I, Cosh]

Conan is endlessly searching for the 6-Fingered Man...

Is he really left handed?

[TordelBack]

Conan is endlessly searching for the 6-Fingered Man...

Is he really left handed?

When the story is about the son of a swordsmith who devotes his life to finding and defeating the man who killed his father in front of him, left a scar on his face, and stole his sword it's hard not to draw unflattering comparisons.   It's The Raid all over again.

[shaolin_monkey]

Conan is endlessly searching for the 6-Fingered Man...

Is he really left handed?

When the story is about the son of a swordsmith who devotes his life to finding and defeating the man who killed his father in front of him, left a scar on his face, and stole his sword it's hard not to draw unflattering comparisons.   It's The Raid all over again.

Films sharing similar plots?  INCONCEIVABLE!

[Professor Bear]

Considering it had a 90 million dollar budget, the Conan film makes a lot more sense if you go in assuming someone pocketed most of that and the film was just something they knocked out to avoid jail.

[TordelBack]

Considering it had a 90 million dollar budget...

Crom!     On this basis the average episode of Spartacus must cost twice that, seeing as they pay for a writer as well...

Forgot the other Netflix thing I almost watched last night: Iron Man Extreme. Luckily I decided to vet it before letting the kids watch it (not wanting to be one of those Outraged Parents).  What the hell is that crap?  I lasted 5 minutes, including fast forwarding, and the kids will not be watching it.

I tell you, trying to stretch out Breaking Bad by forcing ourselves to watch other things sometimes is not going well.

[Hawkmumbler]

Tordleback, what exactly is it that's inappropriate about Iron Man Extreme? I've never seen an episode, but now i'm interested.

[TordelBack]

Tordleback, what exactly is it that's inappropriate about Iron Man Extreme?

It's shite.  What little I saw of it anyway: and sorry, I mis-typed, it's actually Iron Man: Extremis.  It looked like a cross between a motion comic (all static bodies and wobbling heads), a badly coloured porno-comic (inexplicably 'by' Adi Granov), and those Taiwanese animated news stories. The VO work seems to have been subbed out entirely unironically to the guys from Archer.  Within 10 seconds of the start there was a guy vomiting blood, then after the credits there's graphic suicide from a first person perspective with the subsequent dialogue: " ... I think he's dead.  Part of his head's missing.  He's shot himself in the head".  After that there's a 10 minute interview sequence with 'John Pilinger' on landmines, followed by a long board meeting about the Stark iPhone.  Skipping ahead there was some dangerous bullshit about magic mushrooms improving your eyesight.  I don't think I even saw the Iron Man armour in the time I was watching. 

In short: not one for my kids, although of course I appreciate not everything has to be.  Not Ellis' finest hour.

[Professor Bear]

I liked that Ellis took the time to do some Pilger-bashing that basically amounted to "you journalists, all you do is report on things" like it's an insult rather than a job description, and in true straw man style, not-Pilger is struck dumb by someone pointing this out because 1) it has never ever occurred to him before that when reporting on wars and stuff that he should have grabbed a gun and joined in and shot some baddies, and 2) the real John Pilger has never been insulted by his interviewers before - never ever.

[Hawkmumbler]

Tordleback, what exactly is it that's inappropriate about Iron Man Extreme?

It's shite.  What little I saw of it anyway: and sorry, I mis-typed, it's actually Iron Man: Extremis.  It looked like a cross between a motion comic (all static bodies and wobbling heads), a badly coloured porno-comic (inexplicably 'by' Adi Granov), and those Taiwanese animated news stories. The VO work seems to have been subbed out entirely unironically to the guys from Archer.  Within 10 seconds of the start there was a guy vomiting blood, then after the credits there's graphic suicide from a first person perspective with the subsequent dialogue: " ... I think he's dead.  Part of his head's missing.  He's shot himself in the head".  After that there's a 10 minute interview sequence with 'John Pilinger' on landmines, followed by a long board meeting about the Stark iPhone.  Skipping ahead there was some dangerous bullshit about magic mushrooms improving your eyesight.  I don't think I even saw the Iron Man armour in the time I was watching. 

In short: not one for my kids, although of course I appreciate not everything has to be.  Not Ellis' finest hour.

I'll give it a shot, violence in animation I can take (Hell, most of my anime collection is extreme hyper violence. Elfin Lied anyone?)  but when it's aimed at kids you gotta be careful. Suicide is a big no-no for a start.

Watched Lincoln on sunday. Clearly OSCAR fodder but you can pick worse movies for said dubious title, Tommy Lee Jones was a POWER house in this but Daniel Day-Lewis steal's the show as the titluare president. Some outstanding performances and never dull considering the subject matter.

[Jimmy Baker's Assistant]

Saw Warm Bodies yesterday and it was unexpectedly awesome. Funny and exciting, with a great performance from Nicholas Hoult.

I am a 38-year old man, so not the apparent target audience, but this movie has lots to offer even those of us who are allergic to Twilight.

[Buttonman]

Shitey The Swarm - there was a talk pulling this apart at the last Hi-Ex, but like a bad curry it just keeps on giving.

[Frank]

Django. A guy at work was passing this round and I didn't realise it was a dodgy copy until the first scene where Christoph Waltz gives a speech and FOR YOUR CONSIDERATION flashes up on the screen. It was like a warning: DANGER: THIS SCENE MAY CONTAIN ACTING. The scene with the KKK is the highlight, and it's probably the funniest thing I've seen in a film in the last year. I didn't even notice the length, but I was watching at home and able to stop the film for a pish whenever I felt like it.

I was expecting it to be a bit shite from reviews I've read here and elsewhere, so my expectations were well lowered going in; consequently, I enjoyed every second of it.