Last movie watched...

[Professor Bear]

The Birds.  I don't quite know what to make of this

This amusingly foreign gentleman does.

In a word: no.

He posits a valid hypothesis in the singular instance of the Matrix as offering too binary a challenge to its central protagonist in choosing either solipsism or empiricism in pill form to catalyse his spiritual journey, but he explains his over-arcing concept poorly in conflating difficult circumstance with disruption of the nature of reality.  Cinema merely disrupts normal social circumstance in order to create situations which can then be played out for the duration and this context is all-important, with allegorical content and philosophical implications a secondary concern - if not a serendipitous byproduct - of the end result.  I don't argue that cinema cannot be art by dint of its nature as a commercial artifact, of course, I merely offer that Chuck Norris has made over forty films and all of them are shit.
Also that guy has a stupid beard and talks funny.

[willthemightyW]

A lot of what Hedren says about Hitchcock is not true, or is greatly hyperbolic. He did some horrible things yes, things which I am by no means defending (ruined her career because he wouldnt let her work with anyone else for one) but she has so many conflicting stories on what happened, often saying he never made physical advances, just verbal, and then saying he did, then back to the other again. It's hard to tell what really happened as while the core of what she says is almost certainly true (made sexual advances, had her sign a contract that only let her work for him) everything around it keeps changing when it comes from Hedren. :/
Will

[Recrewt]

Thanks to the Horror Channel, I was able to watch:

Return of the Living Dead 3

This was one of those movies that I remember the fantastic posters from as a kid but had never seen.  Well, now I have but unfortunately its another example of an 80s/90s movie where the posters were far better than the movie.

The plot involves the military experimenting on re-animating the dead.  Meanwhile Colonel Reynolds son and girlfriend have an accident in which Julie is killed.  Curt has a cunning plan though - he sneaks her into his dads lab and brings her back to life.  Unfortunately, Curt doesn't follow correct quarantine procedure  and pretty soon they have an outbreak on their hands.  To make matters worse, Julie starts acting very strange.

I absolutely love the first Living Dead movie but this one is nowhere near as good.  The original mixed horror and humour whereas this one seems to be played straight but just isn't up to it.  Its a nice idea following Julie as she degrades and this might have had more impact if I hadn't already seen Ghosts of Mars.  Unfortunately it just seems to run out of steam half way through and never really picks up again.  And to make things worse, I don't think I even heard one of the zombies say BRAINS. 

[JamesC]

Thanks to the Horror Channel, I was able to watch:

Return of the Living Dead 3

This was one of those movies that I remember the fantastic posters from as a kid but had never seen.  Well, now I have but unfortunately its another example of an 80s/90s movie where the posters were far better than the movie.

The plot involves the military experimenting on re-animating the dead.  Meanwhile Colonel Reynolds son and girlfriend have an accident in which Julie is killed.  Curt has a cunning plan though - he sneaks her into his dads lab and brings her back to life.  Unfortunately, Curt doesn't follow correct quarantine procedure  and pretty soon they have an outbreak on their hands.  To make matters worse, Julie starts acting very strange.

I absolutely love the first Living Dead movie but this one is nowhere near as good.  The original mixed horror and humour whereas this one seems to be played straight but just isn't up to it.  Its a nice idea following Julie as she degrades and this might have had more impact if I hadn't already seen Ghosts of Mars.  Unfortunately it just seems to run out of steam half way through and never really picks up again.  And to make things worse, I don't think I even heard one of the zombies say BRAINS.

Is that the one with River Man?

[Recrewt]

Thanks to the Horror Channel, I was able to watch:

Return of the Living Dead 3

Is that the one with River Man?

James - yes, that's the one.

[Frank]

Cinema merely disrupts normal social circumstance in order to create situations which can then be played out for the duration and this context is all-important, with allegorical content and philosophical implications a secondary concern - if not a serendipitous byproduct - of the end result. 

The Freudian or Lacanian argument is that the intent of the film maker is irrelevant (or secondary, at any rate) to the operation of the unconscious. Hitchcock might have figured himself as a controlling switchback railroad operator, pulling levers to elicit a response from a helpless and vulnerable audience, but he can't help giving away much of his self - his repressed desires, his self image - in the construction of what he considered mere entertainments.

It's interesting that the minute the leading lights of the French New Wave hailed Hitchcock as a genius and explained all this to him, he shrank from nakedly exposing the self he loathed in such a raw and public manner, and only made (largely unsuccessful) films which were consciously and determinedly the perfunctory and impersonal narrative froth he had always imagined he was making previously.

[Ghost MacRoth]

World War Z.

Pretty poor overall, just didn't engage at any point with anyone in it.  Although I did spot the cameraman during the 'Philadelphia' sequences, lol! 00:11:20, just behind the soldiers, blonde camera operator, with a 2 man crew!!

Did enjoy watching the Glasgow bits, made the effort worthwhile, but so much missing.  Like, what happened to the RV driver??  I recall filming a death for him, but we don't see it.  And the Russian plane out of Jerusalem?? Guessing that was a bad patch job to make up for dropping all the Russian stuff they shot, or maybe I was just not bothered enough to pay attention by that point.

[Frank]

World War Z. Pretty poor overall ... I did spot the cameraman during the 'Philadelphia' sequences, lol! 00:11:20, just behind the soldiers, blonde camera operator, with a 2 man crew!!

I was going to watch it tonight ... but maybe not, now. You worked on it, and you were in it, and you don't even get sent a free DVD copy? I see Outpost is now a trilogy - are those still paying your rent, Ghost?

[Ghost MacRoth]

Lol, unfortunately not!  Only worked on the first one (the good one!) thankfully, as the other ones sucked donkey bollocks both to watch, and to work on (so I'm told)!  And crew generally make bugger all but a wage off these things, producers, directors, actors and such can get 'points' in order to share in profit (usually as a substitute for a full wage when you've no idea if it'll be a hit) but it's very rare for crew.

But hey, WWZ is still worth a watch for a bit of bubble gum for the brain.  Just don't expect to be 'wowed'.

[Professor Bear]

but she has so many conflicting stories on what happened

Trauma victims are not always reliable witnesses.

The Freudian or Lacanian argument is that the intent of the film maker is irrelevant (or secondary, at any rate) to the operation of the unconscious.

When evaluating the Freudian arguments, it's worth bearing in mind that Freudians argue that all men want to sleep with their mums, and I am wary of any psychiatric school birthed entirely on the fact that no-one went "no, I think that's just you" at the appropriate time and caused Freud to either take this as agreement with his hypothesis, or he realised his only option was to keep digging - either way, we ended up with Freudian - and by extension Lacanian - psychology and some bearded guy probably arguing that the long necks of The Birds are substitute willies so Tippi Hedren is being slapped by loads of cocks that represent "a challenge to the dominant male protagonist's attempts at procreation" or somesuch.  I don't know about that, I just thought the daffy cow could have learned to use a bloody doorknob.

[JOE SOAP]

bloody doorknob.

How Freudian.

[Frank]

Sometimes a doorknob is just a cock doorknob.

[TordelBack]

Angels and Demons.  You know how some films are really bad, and yet so lavish in terms of cast and location and visuals and even ambition, that they're kind of magnificent at the same time?  Enjoyable as heroic failures?  Not this one.  You might think that a[spoiler]n eeeeee-vil[/spoiler] prospective Pope [spoiler]and adopted son of the previous murdered Pope [/spoiler] (Ewan McGregor failing to do an Irish accent) parachuting into St Peter's from a helicopter as an anti-matter bomb detonates above the Vatican during the Papal Conclave would at least be exciting, or even amusing for its excess.  It is not.  A film of a Dan Brown book that is worse than the book.  Jeepers.

[Link Prime]

Angels and Demons. 

I lasted 9 minutes.

[shaolin_monkey]

A film of a Dan Brown book that is worse than the book.  Jeepers.

  How...  how can that be POSSIBLE?!?