Last movie watched...

[JamesC]

Red State I had to watch this in two sittings as my girlfriend made me turn it off the first time as it was too distressing.
I thought this was a great film and it challenged my expectations quite a bit. Even the scene where they [spoiler]first meet the woman who they think is going to give them sex is quite surprising. If this had been a more mainstream film she'd have been a more traditional 'milf'. In this she was much older and less glamourous than I would have expected - and less than the boys expected but they were going to go for it anyway.[/spoiler]
Great ending too. [spoiler]I always assume that these cult leader types don't actually believe in what they're preaching - it's just a way to exert power over others. This guy was a true believer though and the actor played it brilliantly.[/spoiler]

Double Jeopardy was pretty rubbish really. Like a sort of chick flick version of The Count Of Monte Cristo.
The whole [spoiler]prison section was totally undeveloped. She did all this training and learned from the cons in prison (as is the formula for these sorts of films) but when she got out she was still pretty crap at being on the run. [/spoiler]
It's one of these films where the baddie is much better than the hero. I thought he was quite cool even though he was a total shit! [spoiler]How did they not suspect that he might have a gun in his office at the end though? By rights he should have shot them both and got away with it![/spoiler]

[HOO-HAA]

Straw Dogs (1971). Very 70s feel to this caper: kinda reminded me of The Wickerman meets Clockwork Orange. I enjoyed it very much.

[Roger Godpleton]

Cosmopolis - Well, this was frustrating. Robert Pattinson is really good here, and I'll be interested to see what he does next, but the film as a whole wallows in inertia unbecoming of its themes. I haven't read the book, but you get the sense that Cronenburg is trying to put on as literal an adaptation as possible, what with the endless static close-ups. I enjoy DeLillo speak as much as anyone else, but it isn't generally something that translates well to being spoken out loud. There were a bunch of walkouts, and I very nearly succumbed during the endless last scene, which only grew more clumsy as it built to the inevitable bullshit Sopranos tribute.

[SmallBlueThing]

Stretching the topic a wee bit- we're currently going through a bit of a classic star trek phase, having introduced the kids to it a while back. Fifteen random episodes in, and loving it all over again.

Also watching tales from the crypt series six- with tonight's being a crappy alaskan vampire thing that apparently predates 30 days of night by about forty years (...) and a brilliant piece of early digital technology-porn where we had an entire episode featuring humphrey bogart. As always with tftc, however good the stories are, the glue that holds it together is kevin yaegher's work with the crypt keeper- on these particular episodes of both an unbelievably high technical quality and charmingly witty.

We also tried selected episodes from the 90s live action swamp thing tv show- but it's literally unwatchable. 'cult classic' my arse, it's just shit.

SBT

[El Chivo]

We Need To Talk About Kevin

Really good, quite arty psychological thriller, puts me in mind of [spoiler]Gus Van Sant's Elephant[/spoiler] (bit of a spoiler that, now that i think about it)

Great performances from two really creepy kids & that woman with the weird face

Cheers

Chi

[shaolin_monkey]

Straw Dogs (1971). Very 70s feel to this caper: kinda reminded me of The Wickerman meets Clockwork Orange. I enjoyed it very much.

I found that scene very uncomfortable. I appreciate it was all part of how the situation was going to play out, and I certainly appreciate it's a good film, but I probably couldn't watch it a second time.

[Kirbs]

Final got around to watching Let The Right One In. Not as good as I thought it was going to be after all the good reports I'd heard. Enjoyable but not a all time classic in my opinion anyway.

[Spikes]

The man who would be King (1975). Glorious fun.

[The Legendary Shark]

"Detriments! Detriments, is it? It was detriments like us what built this bloody empire, and the Raj! 'Ats on!"

I love that film

[Dandontdare]

The man who would be King (1975). Glorious fun.

I absolutely LOVE that film! -
"Peachy - look at this ruby"
"Nah Danny boy - THIS is a ruby!"

[Professor Bear]

Days Of Darkness - cheap as heck zombie flick which has bits of  the odd sci-fi classic like Day of the Triffids and Night of the Comet, but also a smattering of "women ruin everything" (thanks for rebooting that trope, BSG remake!).  Some bad acting and scripting are offset by grossout moments like a fetus cut out of a zombie's pus-filled scrotum and an abortion sequence (that makes the one in Prometheus look like the height of common sense) which basically entails a womb jumping out of a woman's vagina and trying to throttle the hero - all in all if you just want an illogical splatter movie about a bunch of unlikable pricks being killed off one by one, this might be for you.
The final scene, though, is completely hilarious in a way I don't think was intentional, [spoiler]as the two survivors of the massacre* - having discovered that the aliens are repelled by alcohol** - grab shotguns and run around getting drunk as fuck and shooting things at random, laughing their balls off while doing so.  Clearly it's supposed to be a cathartic moment where we discover that the aliens can be repelled, but it just looks like the two characters are stereotypical rednecks.


* although one character, the butch latino lass, just disappears between scenes and is never seen again, so might have survived for all I know.
** SO WHY INVADE A PLANET THAT IS FULL OF IRISH PEOPLE?[/spoiler]

[HdE]

Cowboys And Aliens - which I really liked.

Well, I say 'really liked', but if I'm honest, the pacing went a little bit wonky about halfway through, and things seemed to jump ahead of themselves. Hollywood needs to knock that crap on the head. Now.

Other than that, good fun. Even Damon Lindelhof's name in the credits couldn't hurt it too badly.

[brendan1]

Cosmopolis - Well, this was frustrating. Robert Pattinson is really good here, and I'll be interested to see what he does next, but the film as a whole wallows in inertia unbecoming of its themes. I haven't read the book, but you get the sense that Cronenburg is trying to put on as literal an adaptation as possible, what with the endless static close-ups. I enjoy DeLillo speak as much as anyone else, but it isn't generally something that translates well to being spoken out loud. There were a bunch of walkouts, and I very nearly succumbed during the endless last scene, which only grew more clumsy as it built to the inevitable bullshit Sopranos tribute.

I can't help feeling that lots of the very wordy chunks of dialogue were included simply because if trhey weren't, the film would be about half an hour long.

It's really more of a "novella"

[Professor Bear]

Scooby Doo: The Mystery Begins and Scooby Doo: Mystery of the Lake Monster - two kid-oriented spin-offs of the mostly tiresome SD franchise made for a US kids' digital channel.  They're both very cheap to the point Scooby doesn't interact with people or objects much to keep the budget lower (which is really saying something considering how cheap CGI is these days, especially of the quality seen here), and the acting is... well, let's be charitable and say "variable", but for the life of me I can't bring myself to say these are worse than the SyFy budget dvd horror releases I watch every now and again, because their structure is basically the same as a horror b-movie, only the use of slapstick actually makes pointless scenes that go nowhere seem to have a viable purpose in the Doo films, whereas in stuff like Swamp Shark or whatever they just feel like clear evidence of shitty film-making.
Occasionally rubbish Scooby aside, the CGI creatures in Lake Monster are pretty good, with a decent mid-film rampage through a crowded party and some freaky last-scene cave runarounds.  The oh-so-tiresome-but-in-2012-obligatory meta-awareness is kept largely to a minimum apart from Lake Monster's fun music video after the end credits where the cast swap roles, but I would actually rate Lake Monster as a better meta-horror than Scream 4 as it genuinely manages to wrong-foot expectations with the reveal of the (human) villain and its use of guest stars who contribute nothing to the plot beyond making you assume "they must be onscreen for some reason", but nope - Uhura is just there to keep you guessing.
Lord knows they are not great films by any stretch, but they are entertaining and daft, and if you can get past the acting, nowhere near as hatefully smug as the big-screen live-action outings from years back.  Surprisingly enjoyable.

[Richmond Clements]

The Raid. Honestly, it probably really is the best action movie I have ever seen. Relentless in pace, astounding in execution.