Last movie watched...

[Tiplodocus]

Continuing my "Films Mrs Tips won't watch so watch them while she's away" I went for:

DAY OF THE DEAD (Romero, 1985) - Was eating a vegan omelette while watching this which felt illogical. Nowehere near as good as I remember (last seen in early 90s) despite some spectacular, really spectacular
gore.  I imagine this is how most of you lot view The Walking Dead when you say it's got no likeable characters and all they do is talk (or in this case shout) at each other.  And, I know Romero's sympathies have always been with the Zee but the learning, talking, tool using, sarcastic "Bub" zombie is an utter disaster.

LAKE PLACID 3 - Willfully incompetent with the most useless leading man I can recall seeing in this kind of movie.  About a third of the way through, the director latches onto the fact that one of his cast is rather easy on the eye and has her disrobe at various points and then run around in a tight t-shit and jeans with her elbows tucked into her side but her arms held high so that she jiggles just so.  Primeval would be ashamed of the special effects and since when could crocodiles leap so far when out of water.

Biase Moi - more like Baise Merde.  I went in with vague ideas of a pRono version of Thelma and Louise but in French and all arty and relevant like.  But it really was just a pRono version of Thelma and Louise.  The directorial choices did strike an authentic chord with what little pRon I've seen. Though I didn't time if it stuck to the 18 minute rule. Still struggling to see what it was meant to be about? Were the two protaganists a metaphor for something - if so, the obvious choices didn't quite get followed through at the end?  Was Karen Bach's character motivation only that she had nothing better to do? It was blissfully short. Still, at least it made me think a little meaning that it did have some artistic merit and so, by definition, isn't just pRon.

[judgefloyd]

All of the Kermode clan watched Napoleon Dynamite last night and loved it - very funny and sweet-natured sort of flick.  It has the basic structure of a lot of teen-nerd comedies, but doesn't go for the obvious punchlines. 

[Beaky Smoochies]

And, I know Romero's sympathies have always been with the Zee but the learning, talking, tool using, sarcastic "Bub" zombie is an utter disaster.

Really, Tiplodocus dude, I thought Bub was one of the few highlights of that film, it made sense that the authorities would try to experiment on the dead to find some cure for the reanimation process or weapon against them (other than chronic head trauma), and his scenes were the only ones in Day... where you got some actual (black) humour in an otherwise unrelentingly grim and downright depressing movie...

[JamesC]

Watched Escape From LA which I'd recorded off the telly the other night.

I hadn't seen this film for ages but remembered liking it when it first came out. I was actually quite shocked at how bad the CGI is in this film - real Playstation stuff! The effects didn't spoil my enjoyment at all though - in fact they just added to the B-Movie appeal.
I love films like this that just revel in their own genre - this is pure pulp sci-fi action. It's just such a fun film and Snake Plissken is an utter, utter badass. My favourite bit was when he tried to machine gun the two military types before he got in the submarine!

[Professor Bear]

I've never understood the animosity from Carpenter purists towards Escape From LA, but then I also find Ghosts of Mars to be one of JC's more outright entertaining efforts, too.  EFLA is a big goofy adventure through a comically exaggerated world based on the California of the 1990s in the same way New York was derived from an exaggerated view of the Big Apple in the 1970s, but if I did have a criticism, it's that Pliskin is a little too knowingly camp in his second outing and it takes a little away from some of the potential humor.  Otherwise it's a decent remake of New York.

[SmallBlueThing]

Prof, did you just pay a compliment to Ghosts of Mars? I thought if there were two people who liked it on any continent, the world would end or something. The only carp films i really dont like are dark star and village of the damned- everything else hits the spot.

SBT

[Mudcrab]

Sucker Punch Possibly covered already but I'm not searching... Took a while to decide whether it was the worst or the best film ever, but you know, it turned out to be pretty good really. Aside from obvious reasons (as a healthy bloke), it was a bit more reasoned than I'd first thought and it's a bit of a blast through various fantasy lands of giant samurai robots, steampunk nazis and a rather cool dragon. Kind of sad (in the proper sense of the word, not geeky sad, depending on your point of view, but I assume I'm safe saying that here  ) in the end (and throughout really) and very enjoyable overall.

Also enjoyed Thor last week, though my love of Natalie helped a lot. As it did in Your Highness.

[brendan1]

I would suggest that the main problem people have with Escape From LA is that it is a emphatically shit film, made even shitter by the knowledge that the man who made it is creatively bankrupt and is churning out risibly shit films on a fairly regular basis, about 20 years since he last made a good one.

I don't know how the fuck anyone bankrolls Carpenter, or who watches his shit films.

Christ knows, The Thing, Halloween, Escape from New York and They Live are among my favourite films. It makes me weep trying to sit through tramp wank like EFLA and fucking Ghosts of Mars.

Also, can anyone tell me who - apart from Zack Snyder - thought spending 100m on Sucker Punch was a good idea. Who, apart from lonely 14 year old boys, would watch that laughable piece of shit? It's probably one of the worst, stupidest, most ill-advised films I have ever seen half of.

Glad it flopped. It fucking deserved to. Abomination of a film. Almost as bad as anything John Carpenter has released in the last two decades

[Professor Bear]

What's it like being crazy, Brendan?  Do you even see the same colours I do?

Another Earth - sci-fi is a funny old genre: on one hand Captain Kirk getting in a wonky teleporter and coming out as two people - one who reads Twilight novels and calls his mates at all hours of the morning just to see what they're doing and another who's addicted to rape and brandy - who can only resolve their differences not with fisticuffs but with a big hug is just dandy for me, while on the other hand something like Never Let Me Go is really down to earth and focussed on character and drama and is dull as fucking ditchwater on top of being so up its own hole that none of holds water as science or drama.  Another Earth falls into this trap, being about another Earth that appears in the sky that is a mirror duplicate of our own world, right down to the shape of our continents and our history, including that time the world was thrown out of the orbit of the sun and traveled to another solar system and nobody died along the way because we didn't have a sun, or that time a planet appeared in the sky and the tides were all right.
The drama is equally dumb, being lots of long tracking shots to sad music and a character at one point taking a hard look at herself in a mirror.  It is cringe-inducing stuff that I would describe as being on the level of an amateur Youtube film made by bored teenagers, only I've seen some of those that have actually been better than this, and a fraction of the running time.  An awful film.

[The Legendary Shark]

I quite enjoyed Another Earth, although not enough to watch it again. To me it seemed to be saying that the answers we all need are not in other places or times or on other planets or in mirrors or in other people, but firmly fixed within each and every one of us. Not a particularly novel idea, granted, but I think that we all need reminding of this fact from time to time.

[Professor Bear]

My tolerance for pretentiousness is significantly lower than my indulgence of camp and possibly this has a great deal to do with why I didn't get on with Another Earth, though its reactive characters are also problematic as I couldn't buy either of them being capable of the initiative to connect to each other in any meaningful way, making their relationship as unbelievable as the science.  It also does not help that Futurama covered the same ground - several times over - with more believable characters and a more interesting and adult take on the story and themes, though I suppose not being as good as Futurama at science, drama and characters is no great criticism if I think about it.

[JOE SOAP]

Not a particularly novel idea, granted, but I think that we all need reminding of this fact from time to time.

Should it take 90 minutes of arse-time to tell you that though?

[DeFuzzed]

Saw Fast and the Furious and Fast and Furious on the TV last night, back to back.

Forget bromance, it's total romance! Hot chicks about, do they get eyefucked? Hell no. That's saved just for Dom and Brian. It's awesome, actually, the sheer blatant gall of it all.

People can criticise it all they want, I find it a fun franchise, perfect popcorn movies. Even enjoyed two, not so much 3 though but that's more down to the fact that movies set in Japanese cities make me feel claustrophobic, irrational but true.

And Five was just a crazy show of massive car destruction. With Plot. Loved it.

The director, Justin Lin, is supposed to be handling the Highlander reboot, and going by the sheer fun and gorgeous visuals he brought to these FF movies, I can't wait to see what he does with immortals and beheadings and quickenings.

[House of Usher]

I've got an awful feeling the last movie I watched was The Way We Were, starring Barbra Streisand and Robert Redford.

I saw a lot of films over the Bank Holiday, including -

Death Race (2008)
Death Race 2000 (1975)
The Likely Lads (1976)
George and Mildred (1980)
The Magnificent Two (1967)
Dawn of the Dead (2004)
Deadline (2009)
Funny Girl, (1968) and
The Way We Were (1973)

[IAMTHESYSTEM]

THE THING [2012]

Not bad, worth viewing certainly. Prequel to Carpenters 1982 classic I felt it achieved  the setting and atmosphere right though some of the backgrounds looked very like Matte paintings.

I thought the characters were ok-ish  though they obviously parachuted the Americans in for as bit of audience identification. Mary Elizabeth Winstead was very good as the Paleontologist sent to investigate the Alien body found by the mostly Norwegian Research team. She doesn't have much to do except look confused,scared then really pissed off while firing a Flamethrower. Were Flamethrowers standard issue for Norwegians in 1982?

Having the Norwegians played by what appeared to be genuine Scandinavian actors was a nice touch but I'm afraid they didn't last too long!

Indeed you didn't quite get long enough to know enough about the characters in order to feel truly involved in their obvious peril. 

The 'Thing' itself sometimes looked a bit ropey effects wise and the designs tended to be of a similar vein large, chomping, circular, mouth with spiny arms, tentacles sprouting off. The 'double header' horror is  good too but it's a occasionally very obvious it's a cgi creation. Even the best design [for me] the 'end beast' which was very Cthulian and horrible would look a little ropey particularly with someones head poorly mapped onto it!. Some of the effects particularly the helicopter scenes looked like something you'd see on Sci Fy Channel.

Some good moments though and there is a Brit at the Station who reappears in Carpenters Film. [spoiler]He died human though! [/spoiler]

Worth seeing but don't expect to many jump out your seat moments. There's a little bit of a twist at the end and you see the events that lead up into the 1982 Film. Fun and I was drinking Nutty Black beer so I was bound to be in a good mood while watching it.