Last movie watched...

[Jim_Campbell]

You all were far too harsh on Iron Man 3, by the way. I was expecting it to be a POS, like the second film, but it was a ton of fun.

I really enjoyed it. I laughed more than at lot of comedies, plus some excellent set pieces. IM2 was just dull, but this one just zipped past in hugely entertaining fashion.

Cheers

Jim

[SmallBlueThing]

You all were far too harsh on Iron Man 3, by the way. I was expecting it to be a POS, like the second film, but it was a ton of fun.

I really enjoyed it. I laughed more than at lot of comedies, plus some excellent set pieces. IM2 was just dull, but this one just zipped past in hugely entertaining fashion.

Cheers

Jim

I found Iron Man 3 to be deathly dull (whatever that means)- and monstrously boring, with one good joke (the obvious bit with Mandarin)- which was a joke that has been told so many times before, that I can't believe it elicited anything other than a groan. However, so many other people have told me afterwards they really liked it, I'm wondering if I was in just a particularly bad mood when we spent the best part of fifty quid seeing it at the cinema, and I had to watch not only my kids, but a cinema full of other people's kids, squirm and bitch and moan throughout. Come to think of it...

I've not seen Iron Man 2- it's on the shelf in the Marvel/ comics adaptations section, but I've never felt even the slightest temptation. Which is odd, because I hearted the first film and made lots of big noises when it came out, shouting about how they'd "finally got everything right" in a Marvel movie. After my experience with 3, I was happy to write that off along with Elektra, Punisher War Zone and Man Thing as "Marvel movies I'll probably not buy". Seeing Elektra for a quid and still not bothering was the turning point there. But now- but now- oh, I dunno- maybe. I enjoyed Avengers Assemble and Iron Man so bloody much (honestly, I think AA must be one of my favourite films, ever. I'd watch it again right now if I could) that I really want to love all the Marvel films- and Iron Man 3 is really a showcase among them. A jewel in Marvel's crown, they'd like to think. Did I really miss all that was so good about it? I just remember being driven into the kind of boredom-headache that usually only Tim Burton can elicit. The kind of headache I got while watching Edward Scissorhands and Sleepy Hollow, Batman and Batman Returns. I remember the row of little kids in front of us, all of whom were wearing Iron Man fancy dress, wriggling and shouting and making their boredom known to their suffering parents. And my wife mouthing "this is terrible" to me partway through. And then Iron Man's robot suits flying about, and me thinking "this is no longer about a man in armour with a heart condition, but a man who has some robots- and that's not in the least bit like the Iron Man I want to see". Maybe I just hate it when they go too far from the specific bit of the source material I like- see also Captain America's new suit, Judge Dredd's rubbish leathers and Thor not wearing a hat.

In conclusion then, I will watch Iron Man 2 for the first time and Iron Man 3 again.

SBT

[JamesC]

You all were far too harsh on Iron Man 3, by the way. I was expecting it to be a POS, like the second film, but it was a ton of fun.

I really enjoyed it. I laughed more than at lot of comedies, plus some excellent set pieces. IM2 was just dull, but this one just zipped past in hugely entertaining fashion.

Cheers

Jim

And then Iron Man's robot suits flying about, and me thinking "this is no longer about a man in armour with a heart condition, but a man who has some robots

SBT

I think this may be leading in to Avengers 2 and the movie version of Ultron if rumours are to be believed.

[Frank]

I'm wondering if I was in just a particularly bad mood when we spent the best part of fifty quid seeing it at the cinema, and I had to watch not only my kids, but a cinema full of other people's kids, squirm and bitch and moan throughout. Come to think of it ... Maybe I just hate it when they go too far from the specific bit of the source material I like- see also Captain America's new suit, Judge Dredd's rubbish leathers and Thor not wearing a hat.

Aye, for some reason Urban didn't wear that look as well as some of his co-stars.

I've only bought one Iron Man comic in my life - a hastily painted Colin MacNeil effort from the nineties - so I don't have any problem with preconceptions, but I'd agree that it isn't really much of an Iron Man film. Its entertainment value doesn't come from the baggy mess of a story or the dull suit hoping final fight, but from watching RDJ swanning around delivering acerbic Blackadder put downs and being a rock star. The scene with the fan is brilliant.

I watched the film at home, with piss breaks and a nice walk through the woods breaking up the running time - and bookended by a true life tale of wilderness survival and an episode of This Is England '88 - so our viewing experiences were very different.

[El Chivo]

World War Z
Thought this was awesome! Normally wary of DVD's with 'extra added action scenes' cos it just means it was shit at the cinema but this was gripping & intelligent, nice change for a zombie romp!

Cheers

Chi

[Definitely Not Mister Pops]

Super 8

I enjoyed it well enough, but nothing to write home about. The kids didn't annoy me half as much as I thought they would and I thought a few of them put in great performances. It kind of fell apart at the end though. [spoiler]The alien used space magic to suck all the metal stuff in town together to make his spaceship, and all the cars and spanners magically change size and shape to make a bitchin lookin spacecraft. I would have preferred the end result to look like a bricolage of mismatched parts that don't really fit together or make sense. Maybe that's just not J.J. Abram's thing.[/spoiler] However, it was worth it just for the bit during the end credits.

[Professor Bear]

Watching Tea Party rallies, with hundreds or thousands of folk equating universal health care with Nazism, it's easy to forget that there's another 300 million of you who couldn't care less.

My favorite Tea Party moment was last week-ish when GOP reps turned out to protest the effects of the government shutdown, which is a bit like shitting in your neighbour's yard and then calling out the rest of the neighbourhood to form a mob angry about people with shit in their yard.  Being the Tea Party, I also liked how they used war veterans as a human shield between themselves and police.

Iron Man 3 was great fun, balancing grit and snidey mumblecore dialogue brilliantly.  I agree with those who didn't like that the end was just loads of robots and very little in the way of superheroics, but then I also often forget that this is a film and it's not meant for comics nerds like me, as though I have never willingly bought an Iron Man comic I still know what superhero stories are like and what should be expected of a film about Iron Man, and like others this sometimes gives me preconceived notions that spill over into a sense of entitlement.  IM3 is a very entertaining film.  Not Shakespeare and will likely annoy many fanboys because it branches so far off the secret identity and supervillains-in-costume track, but it made a shitload of money for a reason.

I watched the first hour and a bit of Star Trek Into Darkness, and despite watching the previous film at least 8 times in the space of one year, when Spock goes "Captain, you are going to team up with Kahn" I was done.  It was basically a very expensive episode of Funny Or Die poking fun at how bad a remake of Wrath Of Kahn would be nowadays by that point, and was really not for me.

Payload - a short sci-fi film available to view on Youtube.  I am watching a lot more of these nowadays and this one is typical of those done well - not exceptional in any areas, but well-made and sustains the right atmosphere for the kind of story it tells.  Well worth 17 minutes of your time if you're a fan of analogous sci-fi.  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eLWYgOFDBnA

[Jo-L]

Yep - US nationals aren't any more prone to chauvinism or credulousness than any other people, there are just a lot more of you. Watching Tea Party rallies, with hundreds or thousands of folk equating universal health care with Nazism, it's easy to forget that there's another 300 million of you who couldn't care less. Any Americans I've met in person have been smart and self aware, and you only have to look at the cultural output of the country to see the same balance of smart and incredibly stupid you find everywhere else.

So I agree that...

Wait a second, are you calling me an asshole?

[Frank]

Wait a second, are you calling me an asshole?

All Brits speak and act as if we're in Downton Abbey, so if I had issued an insult you'd just find it charming and twee. Cheers for the recommendation, Pro; I prefer my sci-fi to be more Children of Men than Prometheus these days, now I'm bored and old.

[HdE]

Well, the old man decided he wanted to see 'The Last Stand' ... the only thought in my mind was: WHEN did audiences decide that this sort of garbage was acceptable quality for entertainment?

The Last Stand

Budget                           $30,000,000

Worldwide Box Office       $37,183,273

Domestic DVD Sales:        $3,751,068

Interesting to know, but it doesn't really answer the question I posed. So it sells? Great. But that doesn't change the fact that it's a woefully awful movie.

There's nothing surprising about that situation at all. But, really, we're living in an age where the quality of popular mainstream entertainment is really and truly in the toilet. I despair of any audience that laps this sort of thing up.

[willthemightyW]

Dead Man's Shoes

So I'd heard a lot about this, I'd heard a it was really bad, I'd heard it was brilliant, and I agree with neither. I don't what I feel about it. I just came away thinking 'what a hollow movie', which is the last thing I expected.

Will

[Jim_Campbell]

I despair of any audience that laps this sort of thing up.

I don't think sauchie's numbers were supposed to show any kind of audience 'lapping it up' — taking $10M over production budget at the box office plus domestic DVD is almost certainly a loss once marketing and incidentals are thrown in.

Cheers

Jim

[pictsy]

Ooo, Dead Man's Shoes.  I liked the concept and the more down-to-earth execution.  I wasn't blown away by it either, but it left an impression on me.  It's a good film and didn't fair any worse for me on a second viewing.

[willthemightyW]

I liked certain bits of it, but it all seemed a bit melodramatic, and the bits where they had the black and white flashbacks with pseudo-religious music playing (I'm thinking primarily of the one where we REALLY find out the main character's motivation, [spoiler]the hanging bit[/spoiler]) were unintentionally laughable, mainly because it took itself too seriously be able to use that kind of pretentious flashback successfully. I also think structurally it is rather weak, how it spends longer than the first half of the movie with the first set of drug dealers (and we are with them, not our protagonist) and then suddenly when all that has run its course the film turns it's head and goes: 'but wait, there's more' and we start what is apparently only the second act.
  That said, the performances are spectacular, the music (when not being too morbidly po-faced for its own good) is really nicely used, it's really nicely shot, especially in the montages of them walking at the beginning and (the new beginning) half way through. I like the idea of essentially making the protagonist a slasher film villain as well! And the writing (and I'm talking about the dialogue as opposed to the story) is brilliantly realistic and for want of a less pretentious word: 'raw'. The main source of the films (little) sense of fun comes from the dialogue between the small-time gangsters, and the confrontations between Richard (the main character) and the thugs, where Paddy Considine is clearly revelling in playing someone completely unhinged.

Will

[Spikes]

I really like Dead Man's Shoes, it has its faults, like all of Shane Meadows films, unfortunately.
This film suffers the least. Bit of a fave, actually. It certainly stands up to repeated viewings, with the scene with the last gang member usually fast forwarded, though. And for the reasons that youve given.

But after catching the rather good Small Time, i so wanted to like his films, but seldom do.