Last movie watched...

[radiator]

Just finished watching the first series of Community. Great little show - it's like Scrubs, if Scrubs was good.

It's certainly not to everyone's tastes (I've tried and failed to get my girlfriend into it) - its very 'meta' and self-aware - the fourth wall is pretty much nonexistent, and the constant pop culture referencing goes far beyond anything I've seen before. I'd kind of written that whole thing off as a bit tired, but it somehow seems quite fresh in this case. I especially love the constant digs at Glee.

The setup - a collection of assorted mature student dropouts forging a dysfunctional family unit within a community college - proves to be amazingly versatile and allows for all kinds of imaginative stories and scenarios. The episode 'Modern Warfare', though covering very similar ground to the paint balling episode of Spaced, is an incredible piece of television.

Apparently it's circling the plug hole of cancellation at the moment, which is a crying shame. When will the short-sighted US networks learn?

[Devons Daddy]

Community,
seasons 1 and 2 where good,
not classic to me, as some have said, but good.(though the paintball episode was brilliant)
it may be better to end it now, before it gets dragged out and dies a painful death.

[Devons Daddy]

watched Rise of Planet of the Apes,
whilst on the plane to UK.

good, pre-equal,saw the 70s original in the cinema with family. so all the elements where good,
the lost mission to mars nod. cleverly done.
the poorly lab assistant,not in your face moments, but if you knew the movies it was an excellent link.
also the ape characters used. very subtle. 

I enjoyed it.

[Mardroid]

Just rewatched those scenes again to check, but didnt notice any sound drop on the dvd.

I noticed a drop in sound but not in those places. For me it was when a small group go into the underground area (I think it was just before Havoc's training.)

[James Stacey]

Community is awesome although the third season hasn't been the best. I think its currently rated as more likely to get picked up again than not.

Last film I watched was RotPotA. Really enjoyed it. Some of the references back to the originals were a bit forced but others were nice touches. I was a little disappointed with the CG in places, well animated but had that ILM blue sheen to it that made it look like it wasn't really interacting with the scene. Looking forward to where they go next. They have clearly set up the Icarus getting lost enroute to mars, and personally I'd rather see that than the direct sequel of Caesar and the boys conquest. Not sure if the Burton remake might be too fresh in peoples minds though.

[SuperSurfer]

Eyes wide shut while wrapping Xmas presents. Felt rather short changed by the ending.

Were at inlaws on Xmas day so following (very nice meal) retired to living room to sit like zombies to watch whatever crap was on tv. Big chuck of Ice Age which is torture for me. (One Xmas I had to point out to Mo in Law that no, those are not real penguins they are made with computers which was news to her!) Then all of Ratatouille. Not my kind of film though I appreciate it is good if you are into that. Luckily I kept on falling asleep so not only did I miss lots of the film but also the Mo in Law's commentary of every single scene though the entire film! Then Gruffalo came on and enough was enough so I was out.

Painful stuff.

[Greg M.]

Well, after putting my faith in the critical recommendations of a Small Blue Thing and being rewarded with The Dead, I thought I'd trust him once more and get hold of Stake Land (2010), recommended by the little cerulean fella a couple dozen pages back on this thread. And yep, it's another good 'un, a vampire (zombie, effectively) road movie, which at times reminds one of 'The Last Man On Earth' fused with 'The Walking Dead'.  Plenty of visual flair and stylish moments (vampire-fishing with a blood-soaked teddy-bear is one stand-out), with a real and pleasing sense of setting as the characters try to make their way to the promised land of Canada. On the downside, the 'Christian' baddie brotherhood is a bit clichéd (particularly developments involving their leader, Jebedia), but their presence thankfully doesn't overshadow the film. Thumbs up from me (and cheers once more to SBT for bringing this 'un to my attention.)

[Mardroid]

(One Xmas I had to point out to Mo in Law that no, those are not real penguins they are made with computers which was news to her!)

Heh. While I was watching Rise of the Planet of the Apes, my Dad and his wife were present. 2 or 3 times I heard her muttering 'it's a man in a monkey suit'. The first time, I actually told her it was CGI but I don't think she was listening as she said it again a couple of times later.

To be fair, I suppose she is right in a way. There were human actors behind the CGI apes after all, so I suppose it's a costume of a kind if entirely in Cyberland.

I thought her statement curious, considering that some people actually criticise the CGI for not looking real. I can understand where they're coming from - I thought it was excellent, but I could tell it was CGI albeit that didn't bother me, any more than the fact the apes in the original movie series had human proportions - but it makes me wonder how much foreknowledge of these effects colour what people notice and their views.

My Dad and his wife's continual references to the chimps as 'monkeys' bugged me a bit too, but I understand that's probably me being pedantic.

Remember the [spoiler]death scene[/spoiler] with the gorilla?

Jacienth*: That one's big!
Dad:  He's an ape. (This is after referring to the Chimpanzees as monkeys throughout.)



Bless their hearts, they enjoyed the film  though, my Dad especially.

*My dad's wife.

[Roger Godpleton]

Community's fourth season is presently on indefinite hiatus, but it's likely that it will be continued. It's my understanding that if it was on any network other than NBC it would be dead, dead, dead by now. It's up against Big Bang Theory (BARF) in it's timeslot.

[SmallBlueThing]

Apollo 18

Do you like these post-Blair Witch, "found footage" mockumentary wotsits? You do? Great! Cos so do I- amateur trash like 'The Last Broadcast' notwithstanding.

Apollo 18 posits that "there's a reason we never went back to the moon", and then shows us why via the medium of recovered footage supposedly from the [spoiler]doomed[/spoiler] astronauts of the titular mission, back in 1972.

Basically, two go down in the lander while one stays in orbit- and they find out that others have got there first.... but those that got there first are by no means the least of their troubles.

Yes, it suffers from the same tropes that all these things do. The first twenty minutes or so shows them setting up as many cameras as is humanely possible, supposedly to assist in whatever "experiment" the Department of Defense are planning (but actually just to give ample coverage), and then the remaining sixty-odd shows them strangely reluctant to drop their cameras even when running for their lives. But we accept all that as part of the form. People who find this sort of thing brings on motion sickness will probably find that here too, and people who know the inner workings of the lunar expeditions back to front will probably find a few bits to quibble over. But on the whole I thought this was one of the better examples of this controversial little subgenre that just refuses to die, twelve years after the one that started it all.

The recreation of the moon's surface is excellent and mostly completely convincing, the effects mostly subtle and at times quite frightening, and even when it blatantly nods in the direction of Paranormal Activity's most infamous sequence, the sheer alien-ness of the location allows you to forgive it and play along. And, most importantly for me, it obeys rule number two in my list of How To make Any Film Better Than It Would Otherwise Have Been; which I'm not going to divulge here, because it would ruin it for you.

Of the multiple alternative endings on the DVD, they definitely went with the best one in the commercial cut- which is a change for the norm for these things (hello PA), and if I were forced to offer some criticism it would be that it perhaps asks a little too much of the viewer's suspension of disbelief- ie) we know it's all bollocks. But then, since so many are even now convinced that the '69 landing took place in a studio and this does nothing to discredit such an idea (by looking more like the actual Moon than any "real" footage I've seen, bizarrely) maybe not.

In short, worth a watch.

SBT

[Steve Green]

Insidious.

A film of two halves, the first half is vastly better than the second, and it really doesn't recover from a ludicrous [spoiler]Seance/gas mask sequence which reminded me of the sex party in the League of Gentlemen, was expecting her to start moaning Juliet Bravo at some point...

The backstory killed it for me, as well as the astral plane sequence which just looked like a meatloaf video, it felt like it started off as Paranormal Activity and then turned into Beetlejuice[/spoiler]

[Beeks]

Just watched 'Attack The Block'

Quite enjoyable actually 

Films I want to see on DVD

Troll Hunter

Kill List

Drive

[Toni Scandella]

I love Community.  Te scene in the Halloween episode where Abed is Batman are hilarious - and his Alien in the Season 2 Haloween special was every bit as good.  The paintball episode is especially great.  Not sure why this show isn't bigger than it is.

Just watched Rise of the Planet of the Apes and was very pleasantly surpised by how enjoyable it was, especially after HATING the Tim Burton reboot.

[radiator]

I got the limited edition Harry Potter DVD/Blu Ray complete set a few weeks back and have been rewatching them.

The third - Alfonso Cuaron's The Prisoner of Azkhaban - really does stand out a mile from the others in terms of quality, perhaps because, as well as setting the template for the rest of the films visually (after the rather bland and flat first two films - Philosopher's Stone looks alarmingly 'Teal and Cyan' to my eyes these days), it's probably the boldest in terms of cutting down the unwieldy books to make a smoother narrative arc on screen.

Deathly Hallows Part One remains my second favourite and holds up surprisingly well on second viewing - it has a wonderful atmosphere and really resonates with that feeling of leaving school and making your own way in the world - and the animated sequence looks astounding on Blu-Ray.

[TordelBack]

Agree completely with you there, Radiator.  Azkhaban is by far the best of them, even allowing for it apparently forgetting to explain most of its plot in Harry's last scene with Lupin, and Deathly Hallows Part 1 is my next favourite, for its relaxed character-focussed pace, and for taking a totally unforgiving attitude to its audience's level of knowledge.  No muggles need apply.