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Well, I've never quite figured this out myself but I really am an A-HA fan.  I love 'em to bits. Still buy the albums, went to see them in concert several times (last year even).  Morten Hacket's chiselled features and airy falsetto sit so uneasily amongst all my CLASH, SMITHS and CURE albums but I just really can't get enough of them.

The other amusing thing about this thread is that no matter how bad something is, MK13 seems prepared to defend it in a "No, it's really cool" kind of way.  He's right, you know- using musical taste as the basis of which to lambast someone is nonsense.

I think there's more of a Cosmic Ray thing going on there.

Ornella Muti. Mmmmm. Swann in Love.

Now, EMPIRE absolutely hacks me off and I refuse to buy it. Sadly, nearly all movie magazines are the same style these days  and as I glanced through one in the airport the other day I was reminded why I've stopped buying them.

An article about the FIFTIEST FUNNIEST MOMENTS in flim - I forget the magazine.  About third on the list is the bit in Star Wrs wehre a stormtrooper slightly bashes his head when walking through a door.  I used to like Star Wars but the recent films and this sort of reverence "We must have Star Wars in ANY list" is starting to really hack me off.  It's not even funny and most people don't even notice it.  

I'd fuck a monkey in a hat if I thought I could get film magazines to change their tune but I guess it's just outside my circle of influence.  

So, people, tell me, where can you get good movie reviews other than the overly psuedy Sight and Sound (and I've not bought that for years because I never get to see proper films any more...). Most "genre" mags aren't critical enough for my liking but I'm willing to try new ones.

Despised it.

Me too - if I'm going.

Bionicles get very scarce in the next few months so stock up now if you plan to do the Santa thing.

And they are great toys - even if preformed Lego does sort of defeat the purpose of the product (like alcohol free lager).

TWO POUNDS FIFTY A TICKET?

That means there was a misplaced decimal on last years ticket.

Glad we've finally got a date. Hope I can make it. A pithcfest - I've got to make it....

Never saw it. But from what I've seen, I prefer him to most of the other magic bollocks. At least he's honest enough to say it's all psychology and he's just very good at reading people.

"Control, Dredd here. I'm just coming up Wyatt's back passage" would have been better.

OK, I'll have to reconsider that "serious" SIN/DEX statement if those big long stories were serious ones.  

The trouble is, I must have read EUROCRASH and DOWNLODE TALES but I can't remember a single thing about them. Possibly I was skip reading because I'd decided that I didn't like SIN/DEX by that point.  

Maybe I only like the more serious one-shot SIN/DEXs (mentioned above) and the rest of the time, I abhor the strip.  

Probably my loss but I don't think I'll have time (and I certainly don't have the inclination) to go back and catch up on longer serious adventures now.    

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DREDD - nearly the same comments as last week. Liked the simple story. I liked the technical bits of the art but I disliked the overall designs (character and buildings) behind it. You wouldn't have known you were in Mega City if it weren't for the Judges. That's not right.

SIN/DEX - so they had an omnitron to help get them out of trouble all along. What's the point when the writer can just make up a bit of technology at the drop of a monkey's hat to get his heroes out of trouble?  Also, are we meant to feel anything for SIN (or is it DEX) because of his relationship with this Carrie woman?  I don't think the tone of SIN/DEX has been consistent enough over the years for this to work. DANTE is a serious story with some fun moments and some out and out comedy episodes so I think it can get away with the hero mourning lost chances and relationships.  SIN/DEX, in my memory, has nearly always aspired to be jokey and I don't think it can pull off proper character stuff. (Funny, the episodes I do like (and there is the odd one) are nearly all serious in tone (BULLET TIME and that one with the bloke with the gun arm recently)

FROM GRACE - I thought this was a weak ending but endings are very hard to get just right.  It was pretty one note stuff - no depth that I could see but it did employ some nifty narrative tricks and had some good indivdual set pieces and ideas in it.  Top marks for trying, average marks for achieving.

PAST IMPERFECT: I wasn't a fan, I'm afraid. I liked the opening shots of the "tank" coming across the battlefield but after that all we had was a NECRONAUTS LITE (or CABALLISTICS) style tale.  I didn't feel obliged to root for the central characters in any way. And the ending was a bit glib.  Still top marks to Gary for getting in!

I quite enjoyed STALINGRAD (film, not the siege that broke the back of the wermacht). Like DAS BOOT it's several hours of german soldiers/submariners farting... er... I mean... a grittily realistic portrayal of the horror of war.

The set piece tank attack has one of the grossest deaths I've ever seen in cinema. And I don't mean the old "guy falls under tank tracks" routine. (especially when you think about what would go through your head if it happened to you).

Cross Of Iron always makes me laugh - I swear if you cut out all of the shots of mud being flung into the air by artillery barrages, the film would be half an hour long.  My, are those real T-34s we see?

Can anybody tell me of a film that favours my all-time favourite tank evah - the PANTHER?

Rumours that PVS is going to cut and paste this thread into the WAR themed issue of Solar Wind are as yet, unsubstantiated.

Yeah, the Tigers in Kelly's Heroes are just great aren't they.

And I liked the way that they thought long and hard about how one sherman could take out three Tigers.

Hippy creeps is bad though.

I'll go for...

ZULU - just because it shows you can get a great anti-war message across in something which looks superficially like racist, boys own hokum (don't get me started on the reprehensible policitcs of the loose remake - yet strangely also based on a real event - BLACK HAWK DOWN)

BRIDGE TOO FAR - I think this just about captures the "lions led by donkeys" feeling again. Top moments for me include Sean Connery being asked for a cup of tea, Redford leading the boats across the Rhine and the James Caan bit that could easily have been cut out but I still liked it.  

It's not as fulfilling as reading the Cornelius Ryan book though, Screenwriter Goldman has said himself that once he decided to make the film a sort of "cavalry charge", he lost a lot of the stories about the valour of the men involved (including one Para who took out several Tiger tanks armed only with a PIAT).  

SAVING PRIVATE RYAN - with the caveat that most people have of knocking off the first and last five minutes.  It's a bit of a distillation of great war movie cliches but I like all the characters (even Hanks!) and the way they play off each other  (though the bible quoting sniper seems a bit too "written"). But what I really love is the attention to detail on the equipment - it certainly passes my untrained eye (I can normally spot modern yank tanks with swastika painted on them).  And I just love the graphic effects of war - odd that I always knew that machine guns probably did that to people but it took this film to ram it home.  (Oh yeah, and Speilberg obviously saw COME AND SEE before he filmed this).

WHERE EAGLES DARE is one of my earliest cinematic experiences and still a favourite even with it's ropey special effects (I can't believe someone complained about the helicopter!)."Right now, I'm about as confused as I can get".

I always had a hankering for ATTACK (i think) with Jack Palance as a cowardly captain ordering his men into all sorts of trouble.

I'd love to have BAND OF BROTHERS - the attack on the gun emplacement in episode two is marvellous, there's more in that CARENTAN epiosde than in most two hour films and the bit in the battle of the bulge  where the sarge drops his helmet after the shelling is eloquent.

Can I have LAWRENCE OF ARABIA as well? "No prisoners. No prisoners". Outstanding.


Logan's choice is interesting. I have this theory that there are barely any war movies that deal with tanks very well.  I'd have thought they'd be ideal for the cinema - striking design, lots of opportunity for big explosions. So why haven't there been any decent tank movies? And in this age of CGI, aren't we about ready for a film about some of the gigantic tank battles on the russian front?

A rather pisspoor week for films by the look of it.

Maybe I'll get time to finish off Magnolia and The Good the Bad and The Ugly.