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[Recrewt]

Thir13en Ghosts
It is worth pointing out that this film is not scary, but it does make you jump in a couple of places. 

I quite like that film! I thought the ghosts were quite scary. That whole thing with the special glasses (or was it goggles, I forget) that allow you to see into the spirit world added an extra 'brrr'. Factor.

I seem to remember a scene with a character in the bath tub. Cue: vision of the spirit world with a female suicide ghost in a bath full of blood. Dear me.

Indeed - I very much like this film myself but I didn't think it was very scary.  As you say though, the ghosts themselves were superb and really helped raise this film up from the usual dross.

How did I forget to mention the glasses?? You are correct, they need to wear special goggles otherwise they cannot see them.  This was employed well a few times in the film.

[Frank]

Hysteria has the distinction of being the only film I've ever seen about lady wanking.

It's actually really funny, even if you can guess most of the double entendres about taking problems in hand and offering relief before the opening credits are finished. No-one lost any sleep working out the plot either; the hero gets involved with one girl who's dull but wealthy and another who's full of spunk and works with poor kids. He needs to finger an awful lot of posh ladies, and his best friend is conducting pioneering experiments with electrical devices. PM me if you need any help figuring out how either of those situations resolve themselves.

All the fun of the film comes from the endearingly straight faced performances of the cast, and the way the pot shots it takes at the obvious hypocrisy and self-deceit of the Victorian era are only really an entertaining way of pointing up the contradictions in our own attitudes to sex, science and the undeserving poor. Whether it's for you or not depends on how funny you find classically trained actresses in bustles and high-necked blouses having orgasms. If they could have cast Mirren or Dench this would have been a Calendar Girls/Full Monty style hit.

I'm turning this into a period drama sex season by finally getting round to watching A Dangerous Method tonight as well.

[TordelBack]

Hysteria has the distinction of being the only film I've ever seen about lady wanking.

-raises eyebrow-

[Richmond Clements]

Hysteria has the distinction of being the only film I've ever seen about lady wanking.

-raises eyebrow-

<Goes to download the movie>

<...realises he may have said too much...>

[Goaty]

Not see Pleasantville then? Or was it toy?

[Frank]

Okay then; it's the first film I've seen about professional lady wanking. They have an appointment book, a waiting room, and a brass plaque beside the front door of their Belgravia clinic. It's the first film I've seen about lady wanking which stars someone who's been nominated for a Best Supporting Actress Oscar and played Bruce Wayne's girlfriend.

[Ghost MacRoth]

Oblivion:

Some great cinematography, combined with some slick production design is about the only positive thing I can say about this film.  It's not that I have a load of negatives either though.  It's just so......vanilla.  Beige. Forgettable. Speaking of forgettable....Morgan Freeman must have been laughing all the way to the bank!  Second billing for what....10 mins or so screen time??  Nice work if you can get it eh?

Is it as bad as I'd heard? No.  Is it as good as it should have been considering the costs?  No.  Is it worth watching again?  No.  Was it worth watching the first time?  Meh.....

[Professor Bear]

Olympus Has Fallen - North Koreans kidnap the President in a plan to cause Mad Max times, but Leonidas has other ideas, most of which involve pouting so he looks like Hawkeye from the new Bourne films to the point it confuses me.  Some audacious setpieces like an aerial attack on DC and a ground assault on the Whitehouse give way to an hour of wandering around corridors at night in a sub-24 style and the fights from Under Siege (which came out 20-odd years ago, but never mind) while Morgan Freeman occasionally says "Oh ma gawd", so it's not great, but it is at least completely ludicrous so you're under no pressure to take it seriously or to remember where you've seen all the major visuals before (hint: I think the makers are really big Modern Warfare fans).  It is also one of the worst-scripted films you'll see in a while, with plot elements coming and going in really obvious fashion, like Freeman's character having scenes to set him up as a pro-war hawk who doesn't like the North Koreans, and then he doesn't do any pro-war hawking against the North Koreans when he's the acting Prez, or the film establishing in spectacular fashion that the US military own the skies over DC and yet no-one thinks to tell a plane to take a pass at that large massed force of ground troops and heavy weaponry on the Whitehouse lawn because, you know, that kind of thing is why you want air superiority in the first place - but like I say, it's so unashamedly stupid that you probably won't even mind that it's never explained how or why the NKs have ED209 deployed on the Whitehouse roof.
Between this and Salt, it's good to see the nukeleer apokralapse as a baddie in films again after a long stint of the absolute worst thing a supervillain could do being a stock market meltdown or something - now all of a sudden Hollywood films are remembering "oh yeah, we used to be scared shitless we'd be nuked in our beds".  Good times.

Soldier, which is some damn fine old-school productioning in the final days before CGI went and fucked everything up.  Huge sets, brilliant vehicles that look like GI Joe toys and lots of asplosions.  Sure, if you stop and examine any part of it the thing falls apart pretty quickly, but it is absolutely dedicated to its lo-fi premise and hi-concept setting even if the central story of people getting over their initial concerns about him when Todd straight-up murders the shit out of dozens of people seems like worryingly poor judgement to me.  When Todd kills Caine I also found myself saying "no, Superman, don't do it" at the tv, though this has little to do with Soldier being an average story with above-average production and more with Man Of Steel being a bit shit.

[Keef Monkey]

One of my favourite pieces of movie trivia is the nugget about Soldier being a Blade Runner sequel/spin-off! Even watching it I had no idea.

[Charlie boy]

Soldier

Are you talking about the Kurt Russel one here? I've seen it before but it was a long time ago; I'm sure his name was Todd in it tho. I liked his final kill, simply because it brought in the fact that [spoiler]his 'main' enemy in it no longer had a sense of depth perception [/spoiler] due to what happens near the start! And is it just me or is there a scene in a tank at one point were you hear a split second of Led Zep's Immigrant Song and not a second more?

[amines2058]

Not see Pleasantville then? Or was it toy?

This had been bugging me all morning but it was not Pleasantville but The Road to Wellville you were thinking of. The one with Anthony Hopkins as Doctor Kellogg (he of cornflakes fame) and his patented lady wanking device to cure feminine hysteria.

[Goaty]

Not see Pleasantville then? Or was it toy?

This had been bugging me all morning but it was not Pleasantville but The Road to Wellville you were thinking of. The one with Anthony Hopkins as Doctor Kellogg (he of cornflakes fame) and his patented lady wanking device to cure feminine hysteria.

Joan Allen in bath. 

[amines2058]

One of my favourite pieces of movie trivia is the nugget about Soldier being a Blade Runner sequel/spin-off! Even watching it I had no idea.

Yes hadn't the Soldier [spoiler]fought in the battle of Tannhauser Gate [/spoiler] or something, I am sure he says that in the movie, which links him to Rutger Hauer's speech in Blade Runner

[Frank]

Joan Allen in bath.

Colonel Mustard in the library, with the candlestick. The Road To Wellville's a great shout for my Victorian Sex Season, amines - I remember finding Lara Flynne Boyle's corpse-like seductress oddly attractive. I imagine Tim Burton felt the same way.

[willthemightyW]

The Book of Eli

Not half bad, can anyone tell me why it was seemingly universally hated upon release? It wasn't great, no, but it was certainly enjoyable. Beautiful to look at, brilliant score (I now know where Hans Zimmer got his... 'inspiration' shall we say, for the MOS theme) and the acting was good pretty much all around. I don't think, like many do, that the film is religious propaganda, though I do think it could have done without some of the heavier elements. I am by no means a religious person at all, but the film showed that faith is something people need and (whether you like it or not) that faith is in God; and that is a fact, whether you believe in God or not. It also did a good job of showing how that faith can be manipulated, much like it is in many present day instances, through Gary Oldman's character, who in my eyes was essentially representing organised religion's ability to brain-wash people for their own gain, which is pretty much the opposite of religious propaganda!

The film treats the book as a weapon (I believe Oldman's character even says as much), so imagine any other action film where the plot device is a new super weapon or super soldier serum or something, it can be used well in the right hands (in this case for cultural documentation and to give faith to people who are starving and dying) and if it falls into the wrong hands it can be a powerful tool for bad.