Last movie watched...

[Dandontdare]

inspired by this thread I just rewatched Threads. Jeez, I'd forgotten how grim that was.

[Beeks]

Just watched some crazy Korean monster movie called 'The Host' on film4

Bizarre isn't the word

[JOE SOAP]

inspired by this thread I just rewatched Threads. Jeez, I'd forgotten how grim that was.

What an uplifting ending though.

[Rog69]

Just watched some crazy Korean monster movie called 'The Host' on film4

Bizarre isn't the word

Yes!!!
I saw the trailer for this a couple of years ago and then couldn't remember the name of the movie until I googled it on the back of your post.

I'll have to keep an eye out to see if they repeat it.

[Beeks]

Just watched some crazy Korean monster movie called 'The Host' on film4

Bizarre isn't the word

Yes!!!
I saw the trailer for this a couple of years ago and then couldn't remember the name of the movie until I googled it on the back of your post.

I'll have to keep an eye out to see if they repeat it.

Korean films are mental

Was worth staying up for..just haha

[Radbacker]

Watched Kingdon of Heaven Directors cut today, what an epic movie musical interlude and all.  Only ever watched the original cut in the cinema and it bored the pants of me this longer more meandering cut seems to work much better, much more rounded story for the main hero (stil doesn't help that its Orlando Bloom, the epic rousing speech just doesn;t come of from him) and over all much better movie.  Still brings the shit in some nice choppy action stuff and the night time opening bombardment of the final seige is visually spectacular (even if it is a bit of a reprise from Gladiator).  i also like that the Saracens (Muslims) aren't portrayed as the bad guys, quite refreshing.

CU Radbacker

[Spaceghost]

ANNIE. Yes, that's right, Annie. It's a motherfuckin' hard knock life, bitchez.

Kids loved it. There are more 'skirts flying up in the air to reveal stockings and suspenders' dance moves than I remember...

[mygrimmbrother]

Right At Your Door, it's on iplayer at the moment. Heard good things about this a while back and been meaning to check it out. Yeah, it was good, very tense, a disaster movie without any explosions or exposition, which suited me just fine. Claustrophobic in the classic John Carpenter sense, and pretty brutal in its portrayal of our handling of such an event (dirty bombs detonated in major city).

[Professor Bear]

Was Right At Your Door the one that was all "stay indoors and shun outsiders, America" until it became "STAYING INDOORS IS WHAT WILL KILL YOU" at the end?  I thought that was shit.  The only good thing about it was that I was forced at girlpoint to watch it, thereby absolving me of all blame.

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows pt1.  Boring, overlong and joyless.  Washed-out colours, dour characters, and at least one character death that I am reasonably certain wasn't supposed to be funny.  "We will bury him properly - without magic!" also confused me on an existential level, as the dead chap was a magical being and thus a non-magical burial is surely a kind of slap in the face?  Like burying a Muslim with a side of bacon or something.  Also not sure Harry and Hermione making out in the nuddy was really necessary for a kids' film, but to be honest, I don't think there were many of those at this, as it seems to be aimed at the audience of the first few films on the assumption that they have grown up and got an attention span of more than five seconds, but that doesn't change that the plot is "find the seven crystals" and then "no, scratch that, find the three other crystals instead" and then it just ends.  Unsatisfying.

[mygrimmbrother]

Yup, that's the one 

[TordelBack]

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2.  Unlike the Prof, I really enjoyed the gently paced, pared-back character-based Potter film that was Part 1.  Part 2 on the other hand predictably and perhaps inevitably goes entirely the other way,  explosions, explosions, more explosions and somewhere in between half-glimpsed and bizarrely off-screen deaths for major characters whose introductions once took up most of an entire film.  I think Ron and Hermione were in it, but I'm not sure where...  In fairness, when you view this as the second half of one film, those two did get their moment in the spotlight too.  Not so everyone.

The book, and the whole series, has three real strands, Harry's story, Snape's story and Dumbledore's story - of which Snape's is the most engaging, and Dumbeldore's the most intriguing.  This film (consistently at least) keeps its focus on Harry, but throws Snape a bone in the shape of a brief if illuminating flashback sequence.  Dumbledore's entire story is relegated to pretty much one line, possibly a good thing considering the surprisingly poor performance by a woefully miscast Ciaran Hinds as Aberforth.  I must seem like a glutton for punishment, but I'd really love to see an extended DVD version that covered Albus' obsession with Grindlewald, and all that meant for him and his family. 

On the plus side the explosions are good explosions, the monsters are good monsters (Voldemort in particular mugs and capers wonderfully), and while there's absolutely nothing new visually this time (Shell Cottage is a missed oppotunity), the action sequences are quite intense and sustained.  Neville's moment in the sun is certainly there, and I appreciate the time he and Luna are given, but by eliminating a lot of his suffering it lacked the punch it had in the book.

Topically Warrick Davis shows us the origins of his Too Short character in the superb Griphook, a wonderful if-probably-construable-as-horribly-racist caricature who was pretty much my favourite thing in the film.  All hail practical make-up and a decent actor. 

It's a pretty good series finale as these things go, and credit is due for just keeping it all together over 8 films and taking no prisoners in terms of its expectations of its audience, but it does seem to miss the point that the actual climax of the book is not the Big Battle, but the revelations about its main characters, and the resolution of their character arcs.  That said, the epilogue was very well handled - the aging of the characters was very restrained, and the details quite sweet.  I'll have to see how it works watched back to back with the first part as a single film, but as a Potter fan it was certainly worth a watch.
 

[Eric Plumrose]

The stylistically-baffling IN TIME. GATTACA for cheese enthusiasts.

[Tiplodocus]

ZULU DAWN - Well, it's always going to pale in contract to the brilliant, brilliant original but it falls even farther short than you'd think possible.  It fails almost entirely to give you any engaging characters (save a brave try from Simon Ward and Burt Lancaster) and spends far too much time at the garden party. (The only cool and clever bit is the arrival of the Zulu ambassador type at the Krall being juxtaposed aaginst his arrival at the garden party).  But my goodness, did they really just take 5000 people and plonk them in South Africa and film them?

THE MUMMY RETURNS  - The Brendan Fraser, Rachel Weisz, Stephen Sommers etc. version from the turn of the millenium. 

More like "The Shit Returns". 

And if you can imagine how unpleasant it would be if a shit did actually return from whence it came, you are getting close to what it feels like to watch this film. The Rock is awesome in the earlt scenes though.

[TordelBack]

pleasant it would be if a shit did actually return from whence it came, you are getting close to what it feels like to watch this film.

It's incredible how bad this film is, for no good reason.  The first one was light and inoffensive, John Hannah aside, but this... ugh, I can't even force myself to think about the specifics of its awfulness.  Through some appalling luck I ended up seeing this thing in the cinema three times.  I began to see the appeal of having one's brain liquidised and extracted through the nose.

[radiator]

I don't think there were many of those at this, as it seems to be aimed at the audience of the first few films on the assumption that they have grown up and got an attention span of more than five seconds, but that doesn't change that the plot is "find the seven crystals" and then "no, scratch that, find the three other crystals instead" and then it just ends.

That's more a fault of the (in some ways poorly-plotted) books than the films, though.

In all honesty, the first thing the screenwriter should have done is combined the Deathly Hallows and the Horcruxes into one thing. As it is there's an almost comical amount of Maguffins.

Unlike the Prof, I really enjoyed the gently paced, pared-back character-based Potter film that was Part 1.  Part 2 on the other hand predictably and perhaps inevitably goes entirely the other way,  explosions, explosions, more explosions and somewhere in between half-glimpsed and bizarrely off-screen deaths for major characters whose introductions once took up most of an entire film.  I think Ron and Hermione were in it, but I'm not sure where...  In fairness, when you view this as the second half of one film, those two did get their moment in the spotlight too.  Not so everyone.

The book, and the whole series, has three real strands, Harry's story, Snape's story and Dumbledore's story - of which Snape's is the most engaging, and Dumbeldore's the most intriguing.  This film (consistently at least) keeps its focus on Harry, but throws Snape a bone in the shape of a brief if illuminating flashback sequence.  Dumbledore's entire story is relegated to pretty much one line, possibly a good thing considering the surprisingly poor performance by a woefully miscast Ciaran Hinds as Aberforth.

I also seem to be in the minority that preferred Part One to Part Two - the latter seemed to come across as somewhat flat to me - imo most of the important character beats were fudged or glossed over, and though I enjoyed his scenes, there was a borderline-damaging amount of focus on Neville (a very marginal character, especially in the films thus far) to the point where he almost becomes the main character. In contrast, I thought Part One was a very interesting, subdued, well-paced road movie with a bit of substance to it.

Imo they should have entirely jettisoned the Albus/Aberforth Dumbledore strand - could never work out why any of that stuff was given so much prominence in the book in the first place. I would have dedicated a lot more time to Snape - by far the most interesting character in any of the films or books.

I still can't for the life of me work out why they didn't make the Gringotts bank heist the climax of Part One, it would have provided a bit more of a satisfying ending than what we got, whilst leaving time for more character stuff in Part Two...

the epilogue was very well handled - the aging of the characters was very restrained

You have got to be kidding - it had the entire audience in stitches - me included - when we saw it. Dan Radcliffe was the only one who looked in any way convincing in the old make-up - and the girls looked like teenage girls playing grown-ups in a school play - the hair, the clothes - it was excruciating. Right up to the last minute there were suggestions that the whole thing had been cut because they couldn't get it to work, and while that would have been a shame, I wish that they'd explored other avenues for doing it - perhaps as an animated scene over the end credits or something..?