Last movie watched...

[MR. ELIMINATOR]

I watched sling blade. Can't believe that was billy bob thorton, couldn't recognise him at all. Nice film.

Also, living through chemistry. Nothing really new here but I like Sam Rockwell so it gets a pass.

[The Enigmatic Dr X]

Alien 3

Saw this on TV over the weekend and although I am well aware of all the production problems and criticisms it has received, this still remains one of my favourites of the Alien films.

I love the Brit-heavy cast and the low tech setting and I can even forgive what happens to hicks and newt.  And the ending - well, what finer way to finish than the shot of Ripley disappearing into the furnace. 

I do own the Alien Quad box set but Alien and Alien 3 are the only ones I ever watch and I could watch them both every day of the week. 
P.S. Alien Resurrection has never been disturbed from its packaging! 

The Director's Cut of Alien 3, the one where the alien comes from a cow (or bovine alien livestock) is very, very good. It improves the film, if you ask me, even if there are a couple of scenes where the picture quality takes a dive.

I like Alien 3 quite a lot. Then again, I also am a big fan of the Godfather Part 3.

[Skullmo]

Alien 3

Saw this on TV over the weekend and although I am well aware of all the production problems and criticisms it has received, this still remains one of my favourites of the Alien films.

I love the Brit-heavy cast and the low tech setting and I can even forgive what happens to hicks and newt.  And the ending - well, what finer way to finish than the shot of Ripley disappearing into the furnace. 

I do own the Alien Quad box set but Alien and Alien 3 are the only ones I ever watch and I could watch them both every day of the week. 
P.S. Alien Resurrection has never been disturbed from its packaging! 

The Director's Cut of Alien 3, the one where the alien comes from a cow (or bovine alien livestock) is very, very good. It improves the film, if you ask me, even if there are a couple of scenes where the picture quality takes a dive.

I like Alien 3 quite a lot. Then again, I also am a big fan of the Godfather Part 3.

I cannot watch Alien3, it just doesn't work for me.

Godfather 3 was ok, but seemed like a made for TV movie.

[shaolin_monkey]

but I like Sam Rockwell so it gets a pass.

I do have a soft spot for Sam Rockwell - he is usually the best thing about a film, raising otherwise banal efforts to slightly above mediocrity.  For example, Choke (the Chuck Palanuik adaptation) was utter rubbish - I was hoping it would be daring, as the book ending is superb, but it bottled it 2/3rds of the way through.  This made it utterly pointless.  However, Sam Rockwell as the protagonist was superb.

The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy is another reasonable example - a fairly decent attempt at an adaptation let down by poorly played out action sequences and mucking around with the source material too much.  While I didn't like how they interpreted Zaphod's two heads visually, Sam Rockwell played a masterclass in egocentric selfish hedonism and madness.  This elevated the film somewhat. 

[TordelBack]

This elevated the film somewhat.

The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy is a wholly unremarkable film.  I'm not even sure if I got to the end. 

Didn't mind the way Zaphod's heads were executed, but should have been that way the whole time.  If the BBC felt obliged to have Wing-Davey lug around a papier-mache noggin for five weeks, I don't see why Rockwell couldn't have had some green paint on his shoulder - it's just lazy.

Still, Zooey Deschanel was quite fetching in turned-up flares.

[Frank]

I watched sling blade. Can't believe that was billy bob thorton, couldn't recognise him at all. Nice film.

M-m-m-yep.

[shaolin_monkey]

This elevated the film somewhat.

The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy is a wholly unremarkable film.  I'm not even sure if I got to the end. 

Didn't mind the way Zaphod's heads were executed, but should have been that way the whole time.  If the BBC felt obliged to have Wing-Davey lug around a papier-mache noggin for five weeks, I don't see why Rockwell couldn't have had some green paint on his shoulder - it's just lazy.

Still, Zooey Deschanel was quite fetching in turned-up flares.

Agree, agree, agree.  I still prefer the TV version.  Still, the kids love it, and it has a cracking opening tune. 

[GrinningChimera]

Need For Speed

It was like a more realistic Fast And Furious movie. (read better) If you are a car guy or girl you will love it. Lots of exotics with some excellent engine sounds. Nice visuals too. And as an added bonus we got an extended preview of the new Captain America movie in 3d.

If you go in expecting nothing more than fast cars and explosions you will not be disappointed.

[CrazyFoxMachine]

The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy is a wholly unremarkable film.  I'm not even sure if I got to the end. 

Agree, agree, agree.  I still prefer the TV version.  Still, the kids love it, and it has a cracking opening tune. 
[/quote]

The years have softened my outlook on the HGTG film - principally because it'll never get the sequel it was so desperately angling for, so it'll remain a fairly curious experiment and nothing more. I disliked it fiercely at the time being an enormous fan of the radio/tv/written versions of the story - but looking back it's an awkward but wildly imaginative affair with some cracking design. The Hammer & Tongs team were responsible for some of the most interesting music videos of the last two decades and have inventiveness in spades - the score by the League of Gentleman's Joby Talbot is very good - Rockwell is fantastic and Mos Def is very charming. I'm still not a huge fan of Martin Freeman (he definitely works his grumpy realism schtick better as Bilbo - and I had always imagined the lanky and awkward and Simon Joneslike Jack Davenport in the role so I was biased) and Zooey Deschanel is singularly crap in pretty much everything she does. Nice fringe though.  However once you realise a lot of the new things were written BY Adams and that he had insisted that the Arthur/Trillian thing should have been more intense on screen to make up for how shy he was at writing it out in the book - it forgives it some of the schmaltz. Not all though some of it is deeply uncomfortable - and the "please everybody" ending never sits right with me. Still, bygones and all that. It's a nice attempt at a go at it - there have been far worse adaptations of things I reckon.

I'LL NEVER READ THE EOIN COLFER BOOK THOUGH. HERESY!

[Goaty]

I don't know if it me or when every time I try to watch The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, I find it so boring. The SFX looks great but just bah.

[MR. ELIMINATOR]

Snowpiercer. A French/Korean Post Apocalypse Train movie with Western Actors. Sounded interesting enough.

I really liked the first half but by the end it was all the same old twists and turns.

[Skullmo]

Just watched Avengers Assemble for the first time - I had heard mixed reviews but really enjoyed it. I was especially impressed with the script!

[CrazyFoxMachine]

Gutted Snowpiercer ain't as good as it looks - I was looking forward to that!

Meanwhile... Requiem for a Dream is a turgid mess of moralistic pretentiousness that I've never been able to get on side with. It is so overbearingly simple it's likely how very privileged people view addiction - which is fine but really this just aches of "film studies fodder with no actual meaning" to me. Like all of Aronofsky's films with the exception of the The Wrestler.

A special feature on the DVD - where Ellen Burstyn talks with the late writer Hubert Selby Jr who had coped with lifelong addiction and depression makes her look so staid and patronisingly worthy and he so profoundly and funnily honest it starts to make a mockery of the entire films po-faced outlook. His impassioned comments are more inspiring than the repetitious speedy cuts and (almost funny) grindingly bleak ending could ever be.

[Theblazeuk]

After reading Doctor Sleep and re-reading The Shining, I felt I should watch the Kubrick movie again. I think the whole 'Shining' aspect kind of falls flat in the movie and Jack Torrence is a complete prick from the beginning, not a loving father and husband with deep problems. I suppose the biggest thing is that the Jack of the book is remorseful about every loss of temper, cruel word and mistake. Whereas the Jack of the movie never says sorry even before he falls to pieces (which happens incredibly suddenly in the movie rather than gradually). Still does have a creepy atmosphere and it is wonderfully shot - the scary bits are done extremely well. But the bits in between fall really flat.

[Ghost MacRoth]

If you haven't seen it yet, watch 'Room 237'.  Made a lot of sense of 'The Shining' for me, which was always a movie I both loved, and hated in equal measure, and was never sure why.  I think I know now!