Last movie watched...

[Gonk]

Things like that is becoming common. The advent of the mobile phone is a godsend for annoying idiots, it's the world we are creating for ourselves unfortunately.


You've read the book now see the film


John Ford's famous 1940 adaption of Steinbeck's novel. Migrant workers looking for better wages. Ironic that a film that was accussed of being pro-Communist was banned by Stalin in the Soviet Union because it depicted American citizens who were too poor to own a car. With films it is always a fine line between art and propaganda.

[Professor Bear]

For the rest of my giant robot marathon, I watched Crash and Burn, Robot Wars, and Real Steel.  Crash and Burn only has a giant robot at the end, despite what the cover may imply with its "the weapons of the future are alive" tagline, which is misleading again as this actually refers to a Terminator-type robot that chases the cast around a warehouse for most of the film in between scenes with a young Megan "Dark Skies" Ward pouting at the viewer/into a mirror while mashing her baps.  It's alright, I suppose, but looks very cheap and isn't the best-acted thing you'll come across.
Despite being billed as a sequel to the trashy-but-fun Robot Jox, Robot Wars has nothing to do with that film, and does try to have a lot more going on than there was in Jox despite not having much of a budget to work with.  It charts a day in the life of an arsehole bus driver (I imagine that narrows it down), except instead of buses, they have giant robot scorpions armed with lasers in the future, and the scorpions get shot at by pirates and for some reason people think this is a safer mode of transportation than flying.  I would have so many reasons not to take the interstate roboscorpion even before someone mentioned that mutant pirates shoot at it with tanks, but this is the future and they do things differently here, like having huge showdowns between giant scorpions (that look copyright-threateningly close to a certain Zoid design) and a giant robot wrestler that cap off a film and which just ends in the middle of the fight with nothing resolved and the baddie still alive and his big robot still functional and then the credits roll.  That is bullshit, the main character is a prick, and no-one says anything amusing.  This flick should have been great but is just dull.
I did not expect to like Real Steel, but it is surprisingly fun.  It's the kind of film where a character says "What I want, dad, is for you to fight for me!" in the context of a conversation about contested legal guardianship of a child, but which the dad thinks means "beat someone up even though this in no way will reward you with legal custody" and the dad is 100 percent right and anyone who brought common sense to this film - which opens with a rodeo fight where a robot does a suplex on a bull in the middle of a fistfight with it - is doing it wrong.  Hugh Jackman is a total asshole until he suddenly isn't for some reason, and there's this bit where he comes into the bedroom of this woman he's basically had an adversarial relationship with - not even flirty - while she's asleep and gets into bed with her and snuggles up and rather than wake up screaming and going for a knife, she just sleeps on like it's nowt - the human relationships in this film are really strange, with plots looking like they might go somewhere but then don't, even the robot seeming to have a plot suggesting intelligence or emotions ("he's like no robot I've ever seen", then long close-ups of the robot silently observing people or sitting alone staring into space) that goes nowhere at all.  There's also lots of anachronisms like non-digital photography and Bing still being around in thirty years when it's a huge failure in the here and now, but even though it doesn't make any sense and lots of scenes are unnecessary and meaningless, it's just so unrelentingly dumb you'd have to be a real jerk to hate it, if for no other reason than it's a film about robot boxing and you know what you'll get going in.  It's loud and stupid, and if that's your bag, you'd maybe like this.

[Hoagy]

Just watched Brighton Rock and as the story goes the original stands out a mile, in tension building and dramatics. As cinematography goes it beats Tinker Tailor by a mile. All the olive and tan sepia filter thoroughly clogged up the story. Most of the time your eyes are wading through mould to see any interpersonal communication. Or plot development. Or feel tension building.

Both fail on bringing to the screen anything more than subdued realism of humdrum lives through the acting. I really do wish people were that unpredictably calm. Everywhere.

[Keef Monkey]

We watched Insidious last night and despite being quite hardy horror fans I'm ashamed to admit a little bit of fear poops came out here and there. It's really refreshingly old school, in a sort of eighties Poltergeist-esque haunted house thrill ride sort of way, and genuinely fecking creepy for it. The scares tail off at times (it does better when it's teasing the hauntings instead of giving them a ton of camera time) but overall it was a very good ghost house movie. Also, great title sequences seem to be a dying art but the titles in this film are lovely, very subtle and atmospheric and with a super old school title card. I approve.

[HdE]

Saw 'Limitless' and 'Sherlock Hlmes' last night at a friend's.

Limitless was a movie I had very low expectations of, but it's actually pretty good. Neat premise, and it's that rare beast - a modern movie that DOESN'T completely waste Robert DeNiro.

I'd not seen the first Sherlock Holmes movie before. Pleasantly surprised. Robert Downey Jr. makes a great Holmes. Rachel McAddams  would make a better Mrs. HdE.

[Gonk]

All the snow outside put me in the mood to stick my feet up by the fire and watch this before bedtime.
I love it, a charming horror film a bit in the style of Hammer films. Inspired a song by the group "Bad Brains".

[Professor Bear]

Creature From The Black Lagoon is pretty awesome for an old flick.  The Gill Man is still really impressive in the underwater bits, a mix of terrifying and creepy when he's swimming about under hot tamale Julia Adams, especially when you realise that rather than just not grabbing her and dragging her to her watery grave because the director is drawing things out for cheap tension, the creature is engaging in a kind of mating dance and doesn't realise he can't be seen.  There's some spooktastic bits like the monster just coming on board while people are sitting around having a chat and murdering whom he pleases, and the odd genuine jump.  Great flick.
Revenge Of The Creature sees him reduced to more of a fishy stalker who farts out the top of his head when he swims now for some reason, and isn't as good as the first one, but there's some solid moments in there, like his total lack of horror movie monster logic by not hiding or engineering the best moment to jump out on people for maximum scares, he just clambers out of his fishtank and starts throwing people around and roaring at kids while tannoy announcers pretty much just shout "THE FISH MAN IS COMING TO KILL YOU ALL" as people shit kegs and run like billy-o all over the place, which is probably sensible since he starts throwing cars rather than walk around them at this point.  The last bit of the film is just him skulking about being a fishy rapist before the exact same shot of his "death" is re-used from the first film.  Still a good flick, mind.
The Creature Walks Among Us has a scene early on where someone says "let's find the creature and fix the only weakness that has allowed him to be stopped during previous rampages."  This plan does not end well.  Diminishing returns has set in by this stage, but there's still the odd bit that's good, like the atypical (for the 1950s) shotgun-toting trigger-happy totty and still-impressive Gill Man suit.

[Evil Pants]

Reviews of The Grey, and Chronicle!

http://fourcoloursandthetruth.wordpress.com/2012/02/06/movie-reviews-chronicle-the-grey/

[Van Dom]

I agree about Creature frm the Black Lagoon, I saw it for the first time about a 2 months ago and was very impressed by how well-made it was, particularly the underwater scenes. The costume was great.


I watched a movie called Train last night. Another one of those slasher/serial killer/torture porn type things. This one worked very well though and ticked all the right  boxes for me. Good cast, characters I actually worried about and wanted to see survive, despicable, horrible villains who I couldnt wait to see get what was coming to them...and Thora Birch. I really like Thora Birch, she seems to elevate anything she is in from what could be mediocre or meh to something highly watchable. She was great in this. Enjoyed.

[Buddy]

Watched A History of Violence on Sat night... Seen it before but it's a real crackin film, only spoiler in it is William Hurt hamming it up with a silly beard... and he got oscar nominated for it too!

This was followed by The Fly (Film 4 doing a Cronenberg double bill).. loved it on initial release and it still holds up very well.

[Gonk]

"They don't like it up 'em. And it's true you know, they don't."

[Van Dom]

I actually saw that a few years ago and it was horrible, horrible, horrible, and not in an enjoyable way.

[Gonk]

It was a low budget film, so the sfx weren't all that good. Was that why you didn't enjoy it?

[locustsofdeath!]

Watched A History of Violence on Sat night... Seen it before but it's a real crackin film, only spoiler in it is William Hurt hamming it up with a silly beard... and he got oscar nominated for it too!

And the horrible "Philly" accents.

Like, you know when the Sopranos was really big and everyone walked around trying to do "Big Pussy" impersonations? Remember how horrible that sounded? That's the way the accents in A History of Violence sound to the ear of a native Philadelphian. Viggo's in particular.

[Van Dom]

It was a low budget film, so the sfx weren't all that good. Was that why you didn't enjoy it?

I don't think it was that, I'm not that bothered about fx really. From memory it was just a bit too surreal for me. I have a feeling copious amounts of alcohol and/or drugs being consumed beforehand would make it much more enjoyable!