Last movie watched...

[Professor Bear]

I hope that isn't a reaction to my moany nitpicking entitled fanboy review of ST:ID,

I suspect it might more have been mockery of the seemingly nice comic writer type Mike Johnson's licence-mandated* output for IDW's Trek ongoing, though I like the idea that someone might have only now noticed that people on the internet have strong and often unreasonable opinions about sci-fi.




* One presumes.

[Jim_Campbell]

I hope that isn't a reaction to my moany nitpicking entitled fanboy review of ST:ID

Hmm. No. Not quite sure where I did mean to post that, but I don't think it was here. Apologies...

Cheers

Jim

[von Boom]

Lucy which was so very bad on so many levels it almost deserves congratulating.

I wholeheartedly concur. Dreadful film.

[CrazyFoxMachine]

You want entitled nitpickery? Look no further than a man who has just sat through the (extended) second Hobbit with his massively furious Tolkienfan of a partner:

LOTR V: THE SMAUG STRIKES BACK

Jackson's tired indulgent re-tread of his LOTR films continues in this abominably bloated second Hobbit film. Unlike the first there are barely any scenes that resemble what appeared in the book - and it largely just boils down to set-piece after set-piece that leads to an arbitrary and dissatisfying cliffhanger.

Martin Freeman's excellent Bilbo (supposedly the central character) keeps being irritatingly sidelined for an elastic CGI Orlando Bloom, a terrifyingly misogynist 'standard female elf' who has been awkwardly crow-barred in for romantic reasons, a nonsensical wizard/necromancer subplot and a source-destroyingly dumb dwarf separation episode.

Possibly worth watching out of grim fascination and to admire the gorgeous proppery and design work of the Weta team, beyond that Desolation is a harsh lesson in meandering over-eggery. More than half of the runtime seems entirely dedicated to padding alone.

Those who thought that the best thing about LOTR was the bit in Two Towers where Aragorn supposedly nearly dies then apparently doesn't die then all the elves show up for no conceivable reason will love it.

[Keef Monkey]

Hey Hawkmonger, reckon it was the International version of Profondo Rosso but can't be sure! It was an old print and there was an explanation beforehand that it was the cut released in the US (so had the title The Hatchet Murders or something like that!) and slightly shorter than the version most people will have seen. Will need to look out for the director's cut.

Went to see Fast & Furious 7 at the IMAX and regret nothing. Great fun, and somehow more insane than the previous films. Not sure how much more mental they can get, but this was fully mental. Vehicle scenes were a bit less coherent than in the past but the punchups were great and some of the big shots were great IMAX-fodder. The long-awaited catch-up to Tokyo Drift was a bit lame and token, and I did have one friend who complained about the very gratuitous use of jiggling ladies at every turn (I was fine with it I think).

Overall though a great installment, and the handling of the Paul Walker situation is surprisingly brilliant, and made for very emotional viewing in places.

So then I rewatched The Fast & The Furious (still holds up pretty well, Vin Diesel is super badass and weird to see it now because it's hard to see how it could eventually turn into the action juggernaut it is these days) and 2 Fast 2 Furious which does not hold up well at all. The other movies are fun in a popcorn trash sort of way but this is a legitimately bad film and doesn't appear to have had a script of any kind. Next up, Tokyo Drift (which I have a real soft spot for) and then 4 onwards is solid gold so can't wait.

[Tiplodocus]

Taking a Tolkien fan to see the Hobbit movies is about as adviseable as taking a Star Trek fan to see Into Darkness.

I also enjoyed FF7 immensely though found it slightly disappointing also. The final action sequence involved helicopter and drone gun ships shooting up a city scape that we have seen in many a thick eared action movie; I like the more specific vehicle based mayhem that FF7 offer.  And the final fight between Diesel and Statham was a bit dull.   

The Tony Jaa fights, on the other hand, had a wit and inventiveness about them that I liked as did the central mountain side heist (of which, despite what you think, you have only seen about 10% in the trailer).

The jiggling ladies are unacceptable, really, especially the lingering shots used to introduce a new character. 

Sadly, there was also an increase in "stupid" with on at least two occassions, characters turning up at *exactly* the right point to save the day despite the fact there is no way, they could have known the predicament of the person they are saving.

But it's a FF movie - and these are genuine (not guilty) pleasures for me.

Plus how huge is the Rock?  He's bigger that Stallone and Schwarzenegger, at their peak, combined.

[Tiplodocus]

SPACE STATION '76
It's paper-thin premise "Hey, let's do a film now but pretend we made it in 1976 so that all of the "future" technology is really lame" isn't helped by a mostly subdued cast and a script that forgets to include jokes. I sort of get the impression that a lot of it was meant to be improvised (which can be a spectacularly lazy way of cheating the viewer) and what came out wasn't funny. It starts nowehere and goes nowhere with a hazy half-resolution at the end and genuinely seems like a randomly connected series of sketches rather than a comedy movie. 

Sorry, more like SHIT STATION '76.

[Famous Mortimer]

Alone In The Dark

DAMN YOU UWE BOLL

DAMN YOU TO HELL

[Mattofthespurs]

Hey Hawkmonger, reckon it was the International version of Profondo Rosso but can't be sure! It was an old print and there was an explanation beforehand that it was the cut released in the US (so had the title The Hatchet Murders or something like that!) and slightly shorter than the version most people will have seen. Will need to look out for the director's cut.

The Director's International cut, with some scenes only in Italian (and subbed) is superb. Adds a few romantic scenes which aren't necessary, but is my preferred version by far.
The Arrow Blu Ray is good but flawed (picture wise), so go with the Blue Underground (region free) for the best quality version of the film if you want to see it.

[Steve Green]

Interstellar.

The length and so-so reaction online put me off, but I quite enjoyed it.

It certainly looks and sounds pretty, despite any misgivings I might have - like the 'here's how a wormhole works' gear crunch.

Maybe my expectations were lowered - still, I enjoyed Into Darkness as a fun bit of nonsense...

[Professor Bear]

Taken 3 is possibly one of the worst-directed action films I have ever seen, with one bit with a car being pushed over a cliff by a 4x4 featuring camera angles that changed every time the soundtrack did a booming sound so it looked like someone taking the piss out of Captain Scarlet, only I genuinely think the camera angles changing in time to the music was coincidence - it's that kind of bad.
I am tempted to call it a stupid movie on account of the plot making no sense at all, only the makers have so much overdubbing and Taken reading his emails and texts out loud to the audience that I'm convinced the makers thought the film was too brainy for audiences, which I find a mind-blowing concept.  The director wouldn't even put his real name on the end credits, unless there really is someone called Oliver Megatron - in which case a lot of this film's flaws start to make sense as this is clearly his revenge on the world.  If that was his intent: job done.
If his intent was to make a film that didn't suck ass: not so much.

[Definitely Not Mister Pops]

I liked the bit where Liam Neeson finds the evidence that would effectively clear him, then when the cops show up seconds later, instead of showing them it, he beats up a load of them then wreaks havoc across a freeway, probably maiming and murdering hundreds.

[Jim_Campbell]

The director wouldn't even put his real name on the end credits, unless there really is someone called Oliver Megatron

I suspect you already know perfectly well that his name is Olivier Megaton, which isn't his real name and his choice of nom de guerre demonstrates a special kind of clueless, tasteless stupid if Wikipedia is to be believed:*

Fontana was born in France, 20 years to the day after the atomic bombing of Hiroshima, and his choice of the artistic name, Megaton, was influenced by this, even though the Hiroshima bomb was only 16 kilotons (0.016 megatons).

Cheers

Jim

*Yes, I know, but I was buggered if I was going to spend more than two minutes googling the fucker.

[Colin YNWA]

Been to see two films with the kids over the Easter Holidays. My daughter's choice Cinderella does exactly what it says on the tin, to use an advert based cliche. Luckily she didn't know it came with a Frozen short at the start, its was a delightful surprise for the kids and so my 3 year old son bought into the deal before the off and the dumb grin never left his face through the next 1 1/2 of entirely adequate, but utterly uninspiring, glowing, literal fairy tale reguritation that followed.

He got to chose this weeks movie and since the weather was so much nicer we were all a little more tired from funnin' it in the sun and so there seemed more pressure on this. However Spoungebob the Movie 2 something, something something was a smashing surprise. Now I know a little, but not very much about the telly show, which may be a big shame if its anywhere near as funny as this nonsense. Now don't get me wrong at no point does it pretend to be of any real value*, at no point does it even dally with the idea of having any real themes, or subtext, or anything thats not on its weirdo surface. Its not bright, its not clear and it might have flagged a little (just a little) in the middle third, but by gosh it made me, my 3 year old boy and my 5 year old daughter hoot with laughter from start to finish. You know what I'd heartly recommend this. Fantastically silly movie and Matt Berry's time traveling universal watchdog dolphin is quite possibly his finest role to date, which is saying quite something!

*Well of course laughter has its own inate vale you can ignore that come to think of it.

[Professor Bear]

Fast & Furious 7.  Great fun, and proves in our post-Clarkson world that you can be into car things without having to be a c[spoiler]un[/spoiler]t, though I did wonder why anyone in their right mind would call their car event "Race Wars" when they clearly don't employ any non-white strippers and all the ethnic groups tended to stick to their own kind in little clusters.  Loved the bit where the Rock has to remove a cast from his broken arm so he just flexes his muscles and it explodes, the way Diesel's car establishes his alpha credibility by literally fucking Statham's car onscreen, and the billionaire Arab bloke being so posh that the water coming out of his fountain is made of gold, as are his strippers.  The final shot was nearly perfect compared to how other references to Paul Walker were over-egged, and a good place to leave things.