Last movie watched...

[DoomBot]

Brave, which was rubbish

But tomorrow I'll be able to say Dredd.

Is it tomorrow yet?

[bluemeanie]

Well sod you lot, I just watched Dre.... oh, crap

Anyway. Yeah. Awesome. Loved it. Thank FUCK for that. If it had been anything less than brilliant at this stage it woulda been horrendous

Next film I plan to see? Attack of the 50ft cheerleader. Cant possibly see how this can be anything other than amazing

[DeFuzzed]

Dredd, 2012.

Loved it to bits. So much fun in doom and gloom, great how they balanced that.

The Losers, 2010.

More fun than expected. Didn't like the Roque twist. Hyperactive Jensen was a blast as was grunting Cougar. But where it fell down for me - there was a trying too hard vibe and too many scenes that had been better done elsewhere. Still, not a deal-breaker and I'd happily watch it again.

[DoomBot]

Dredd 

How full has the cinema been for you guys? I know Saturday afternoon may not be the most popular time but there were only five of us in the whole theatre...

[David Broughton]

Went to see Dredd at 4.40pm Friday so only a handful of people as the sun was blazing away.  However as I have mentioned in other forums I'm a big fan since the start in 1977 and for me Karl was Dredd! The film was AWSOME!  I will be going again next week.

[NapalmKev]

Dredd 

How full has the cinema been for you guys? I know Saturday afternoon may not be the most popular time but there were only five of us in the whole theatre...

There weren't many when I went. It was 1.30 Friday afternoon and there were about 15/20 people there. But then I do live in Exeter and the Dredd community ain't in abundance down 'ere.

Absolutely mental film though. I took 2 of my non-2000 ad friends along and they both thought it was excellent.

[Daveycandlish]

Dredd. It's dark, violent, gritty and bloody. Urban plays it spot on

[SmallBlueThing]

House of Dracula (1945)

Poor old Dr Edelman, it just isn't your day. One minute everything is just peachy, and you're happily living in your clifftop castle with your beautiful hunchbacked assistant Nina, busily working on your botanical experiments... then suddenly, in the middle of the night, you're woken up by your old friend and neighbour The Baron, who's broken in to reveal he's actually Count Dracula and needs you to cure his vampirism. He shows you his coffin in the basement of your house and you regretfully agree to try to help him. Your plants, you think, may hold the secret.

Mere moments later, Laurence Talbot- the Wolf Man- turns up at your door, screaming for help to cure the curse. You agree to try to help him. Your plants, you think, may hold the secret. Talbot remains unconvinced and tries to throw himself off your cliff in one of his periodic queeny strops. However, it's only about a ten foot drop- and so he just basically jumps in the sea. Washed up in a cave when you find him, he then stumbles across the body of Frankenstein's Monster, deposited by a mud-slide and clutching the skeleton of Dr Neimann (last seen at the end of House of Frankenstein- keep up!)

I think this is called "House" of Dracula, in the sense that when you complete your bingo card, that's what you shout.

Right. Let me try to explain some of this: Dr Aldeman is duped by Dracula, who pumps him full of vampiric blood during a blood transfusion to cure the Transylvanian curse. When Aldeman later kills Dracula, by gently nudging his coffin into sunlight, he then falls under the spell of the lord of the vampires- which translates as some mussed-up hair, eye shadow and the desire to run around like a nutter, occasionally killing someone. While doing this, he uses his plants to cure Talbot of lycanthropy. The plants produce spores, you see, which have the effect of "softening bone"- and with this technique he can relieve the pressure on Talbot's brain that causes him to turn into a wolf. He also wants to cure Nina of her hunch by the same procedure, but never gets the opportunity due to murdering her instead.

He agrees not to reanimate Frankenstein's monster, because it has the potential for so much destruction- then does it while under the influence of the madness. Again, the Monster is used merely as a means to close the film down- destroying the lab and causing explosions and fire until "The End" appears.

Phew. Yes. Do I really need to add "not one iota of this makes any sense at all"? Of course not. But it's glorious to watch a movie that doesn't think that the audience is so boring they won't accept the more bizarre elements of the story and instead tries to make everything somehow "realistic". In truth, this is one of the lesser Universal monster pictures- Chaney Jnr by this point is sleepwalking through the Wolf Man role, and here either couldn't be arsed to shave or thinks a mustache is an interesting new character point. The Monster is played by Glenn Strange- never the best of them- and Dracula is John Carradine, complete with top hat. I can never accept him as the Count, however 'good' he may be.

The best of them is Jane Adams, as Nina the hunchback. She plays it as entirely a physical disability, never once allowing it to encroach on her mental capacity- which for Universal and their unwritten mantra of "deformed equals mad and evil", is something akin to a paradigm shift. When Dr Edelman confesses to her that the friendly old Baron is really Count Dracula, her reaction is sublime. She winces, sighs and looks shocked all at the same time- as if this was just the latest in a long sequence of catastrophes she'd seen while in his employ. Perhaps it was, and the week previously the other-side neighbours had been outed as the Mummy, the Black Lagoon Creature and The Invisible Man.

Bela gave it a six out of ten, but was more worried about his wobbly tooth. His favourite monsters are the Gillman, the Invisible Man and the Mummy, he says, sitting next to me as I type this... so I guess we were a week late as far as he's concerned.

SBT

[Professor Bear]

You'll need to check out House of the Wolf Man next.  It was actually made in 2009, but is black and white, full frame and with a monaural soundtrack, as it's shot to deliberately ape the look and feel of a Universal "House of" movie.

I also reckon the plants thing to cure lycanthropy might be a deliberate call-out to Werewolf of London.

[Bat King]

Dredd 3d for 3rd time. Catching more detail each time.

More in there cinema, couple next to me may have been on first date.

Everyone settled to really enjoy it. Animated conversations as people filled out.

[Richmond Clements]

The Hunger Games. Dunno what popular 'cool' opinion on it is, but I bloody think it's a great movie with something serious to say about control of the populous through the media.
So... blah blah, Battle Royale... I don't care.

[Mudcrab]

The Hunger Games. Dunno what popular 'cool' opinion on it is, but I bloody think it's a great movie with something serious to say about control of the populous through the media.
So... blah blah, Battle Royale... I don't care.

He he, I'm quite looking forward to seeing it. While it may seem superficially similar to Battle Royale, by the sounds of the books it's a completely different affair. Besides, we've all learnt not to judge a film by superficial similarities 

Snowtown - Wow, that's a grim tale. Based on true "serial killer" events in 90s Austrailia. Some really grim stuff in it, so not for the easily shocked. It's got a slightly similar feel to other Austrailian films, such as Bad Boy Bubby and Chopper, but without any of the humour, ir there was any in those. A better comparison might be some British ones, same creepy feel as Dead Man's Shoes. More of a horror film than any horror film, if you know what I mean.

Corialanus - Got half way through it, if that. It's probably quite good, if you like, or more importantly, understand Shakespeare. I just can't though. Probably a hangover from school, but I just can't get the language, it's like it's not English. It's a modern day take on it, but with what I assumed was the original text. Ralph Feinnes and Gerard Butler. Oh and Brian Cox. My mate's an english teacher and it's her favourite Shakespeare thing apparently, so as I say, it's probably quite good if you can understand it.

[Richmond Clements]

Besides, we've all learnt not to judge a film by superficial similarities 

Yeah, I was going to write something to that effect..!

[mygrimmbrother]

DREDD! Head over heels in love with it, exceeded my expectations in every way 

Cinema was virtually empty (this is in Lancaster at 2-4pm), which was a shame. The critics (and the fans) seem unanimous in their approval, we just need Joe Public to go see it in numbers big enough to warrant those sequels eh?

[Professor Bear]

While it may seem superficially similar to Battle Royale, by the sounds of the books it's a completely different affair.

I think the accusations of comparisons come more from the first book having the same premise as Battle Royale and the second book having the same premise as Battle Royale 2.

I've come around to not thinking it's a rip-off, though.  Battle Royale wasn't that boring.