Last movie watched...

[Cursed Earth Dweller]

True Grit - 2010 by the Coen Brothers.

I still think this is way better then the John Wayne film, the cinematography and sheer weight of the acting by Jeff Bridges and Heilee Steinfeld alone cannot be compared. And the Bear Skin dude should have won an oscar!

[Richmond Clements]

And the Bear Skin dude should have won an oscar!

True dat.

[willthemightyW]

Brilliant, isn't it?

[Spikes]

True Grit - 2010 by the Coen Brothers.

Ahh, ive yet to see this, and i am curious. Has this been shown on Film4, or such like yet?

[Mardroid]

Twilight. Although I didn't finish it.

I've read a lot of negative stuff about these films (to be fair largely from guys. I know my female colleagues at work like them.)  but when I saw it was on film 4, I thought I'd give it a go. Quite often when people dislike something my reaction is more positive.

In this case though... no it's not very good is it? At least the part I saw. I did find it watchable (although I wasn't that fussed about stopping) but... no. Rather soppy, I thought. But then I guess it was supposed to be.

To be fair, I'm probably not the target audience. I'm not completely against the whole 'vampire with a conscience' thing if it's done well, but it's getting rather repetitive*, and this film just felt rather derivative. I wonder the books are better? Not that I'm in any rush to read them. Or probably will, at all.

Nice scenery though.

*I liked that Canadian Vampire cop show called Forever Knight for example, although it went a bit downhill. Also, Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Angel for example. Although my reaction to the relationship stuff was much like this.

[JamesC]

Twilight. Although I didn't finish it.

I've read a lot of negative stuff about these films (to be fair largely from guys. I know my female colleagues at work like them.)  but when I saw it was on film 4, I thought I'd give it a go. Quite often when people dislike something my reaction is more positive.

In this case though... no it's not very good is it? At least the part I saw. I did find it watchable (although I wasn't that fussed about stopping) but... no. Rather soppy, I thought. But then I guess it was supposed to be.

To be fair, I'm probably not the target audience. I'm not completely against the whole 'vampire with a conscience' thing if it's done well, but it's getting rather repetitive*, and this film just felt rather derivative. I wonder the books are better? Not that I'm in any rush to read them. Or probably will, at all.

Nice scenery though.

*I liked that Canadian Vampire cop show called Forever Knight for example, although it went a bit downhill. Also, Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Angel for example. Although my reaction to the relationship stuff was much like this.

I saw 'Twilight: New Moon' and thought it was awful.

The series is called 'Twilight', I'd assumed, as an allusion to the twilight world that the vampires are forced to inhabit as they can't go out in the sun. Wrong - these vampires can go out in the sun, it just makes them sparkle!
So what does the title actually mean?
As for the 'New Moon' part, I'd assumed that the moon was referencing the werewolves. These werewolves are not affected by the moon though. The moon is no more relevant to these werewolves than it is to you or me. So what does 'New Moon' mean and why use it as the title?
It may as well have been called 'Sunny Day: Pork Pie' for all the relevance the title has to the characters or plot.
Other than that it was alright as a sort of Dawson's Creek Halloween Special I suppose - I'm not the target audience.
I think that the scenes of the main character grieving for her lost relationship were over the top though. The scenes of her literally screaming herself to sleep were way over the top and I felt that it reinforced the teenage girl attitude of 'no one understands my pain' a little more than is healthy. I honestly wouldn't have been surprised if she got the razor blades out and started cutting herself (Hey, Twilight fans, having uncontrollable emotional pain makes you edgy, cool and interesting to boys)!

The other thing I don't understand is what the downside is to being a vampire. Traditionally the downside is hunting your own species, not being able to go out in the day, not being able to have children, outliving your loved ones and being an abomination in the eyes of god.
In Twilight, the vampires live off animals blood, go out in the day (and go to school!), can have children, and seeing as it's not a bad life can presumable turn all their loved ones into vampires too! The only sticking point is the religious angle but seeing as this wasn't explored AT ALL in the film I saw I can't see that it would be a problem.


The whole thing reminds me very much of 'The Hunger Games' where the author treats the subject very superficially in order to concentrate on the 'Emotional Drama'. But if they just explored some of the more interesting implications of the main situation the emotional bits would carry so much more weight.   

[Professor Bear]

I ended up watching New Moon as I was in the city for an all-night anime movie marathon and it was the last film before that started - buggered if I was going to dander about for two hours - and the audience was pretty much nothing but 8-16 year old girls.  Fair enough, you might think, because we've been laughing about that being the case for years now, except that they seemed to be in on the joke: when the "werewolves" showed up there was a collective sigh of "awwww" from the audience followed by howls of laughter, and the theater was in complete stitches at that scene where Ed and Bella are running through a field in slow motion like an Ormo ad, so I'll go out on a limb here and suggest Twilight is a triumph of good marketing more than it is a triumph of good storytelling - those kids were there because it was a pop-cultural event, not because they thought it was a good film.

[JamesC]

It's only a pop-cultural event because so many people bought the books.
I doubt they were reading those ironically were they?

[Professor Bear]

They sell well because they're printed in big letters and have boffing in them.  It's the YA novel equivalent of lots of clipart, maze puzzles and a free toy on the cover.

[Cursed Earth Dweller]

True Grit - 2010 by the Coen Brothers.

Ahh, ive yet to see this, and i am curious. Has this been shown on Film4, or such like yet?

I wouldn't know I'm afraid, I purchase my films on DVD almost exclusively.

[Spikes]

I wouldn't know I'm afraid, I purchase my films on DVD almost exclusively.

No probs. Being about 2 years old, i guess if it hasnt popped up on Telly by now, then it will be at some point soon.
Which, if i cant borrow a film, is were i usually catch my films for the first time.

[willthemightyW]

I wouldn't know I'm afraid, I purchase my films on DVD almost exclusively.

No probs. Being about 2 years old, i guess if it hasnt popped up on Telly by now, then it will be at some point soon.
Which, if i cant borrow a film, is were i usually catch my films for the first time.

Don't think it's been shown on terrestrial t.v yet.

[MR. ELIMINATOR]

Watched the Amazing Spider-Man. It's OK, but seeing as the first half of the film we saw in the first one seems like an hour was wasted. Having said that, I thought the first half of the film was the best, and when it actually was about super hero stuff it got a bit shit.

Also a film called Safety Not Guaranteed. That was alright as well, definitely better then the trailer made it look.

Now for Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter...

[NapalmKev]

Paranormal Activity 4: it's basically the same as the first 3, with the added bonus of piss-poor acting/scene setting, and a few corporate adverts shoe-horned into the plot (xbox kinect, plus others).

Not worth watching at all!!!

Cheers

[SmallBlueThing]

A Halloween Night double-bill of John Carpenter's HALLOWEEN (first viewing for the boys) and new Universal Studios monster shocker WEREWOLF: THE BEAST AMONG US.

I dont need to comment on Halloween, other than to say it's as great as ever. Both boys found it very tense and scary, though Bela proclaimed it "cheesey", which nearly earned him an early night i can tell you.

Werewolf:TBAU is a whoooole other kettle of fish. The bad stuff, which idiot killjoys will focus on, includes it being awfully paced, in the sense that 'stuff happens, then more stuff happens, then there's a battle and it ends', and there's way too much cgi. However, it gains huge bucketloads of points for a number of reasons.
1) this was to be the sequel/reboot to universal's 'wolf man' franchise. It still is, sort of, and so continues the century-old tradition of universal's lower-budget cash-in sequels being as hugely entertaining as their showpiece blockbusters.

2) it's massively gory. Horribly so in part. For the first time (cont)