Messages

"This fish is 34, but feels older."

I wouldn't know ... I've never felt you.

Cheers!

Jim

Thirty-eight in April. You old fart!

Cheers

Jim

"The Borg!"

Nerd! I'm beating you up and taking your milk money.

Cheers!

Jim

PS: I may -- or may not -- have stolen this joke from CB15. If you thought it was funny, then it was my idea. If not, it's all his fault.

"Of *course* it is! If some pissed-up twat punches you for no reason in the town one day, what are you going to do?"

The last time that happened to me, I didn't do anything. It was so totally out of the blue that I just couldn't believe it.

Luckily, the pissed-up twat's mates all jumped on him, otherwise I think I'd have had a right pasting!

Cheers

Jim

"There are people I went to school with that I'd still seriously like to see floating face-down in a river with their throats slit even now, nearly 20 years on"

Heh ... I know that feeling!

Of my three tormentors, I don't any particularly festering ill-will towards two of them, because they were remarkably stupid. Their dead-end small-town council estate lives are more than punishment enough.

The other one, though ... he was clever, and quite gifted. And he hated me for no reason I could ever work out. Although he wasn't averse to giving me a good kicking, he liked his bullying psychological as well.

I was shy and very nerdy back then, and I didn't make friends easily, and he systematically drove wedges between me and my friends, mocked and belittled me, and told lies about me to the point where most other kids would barely even speak to me.

It's an old wound, and it doesn't trouble me if I don't think about it, but, to this day, if the opportunity presented itself to do that bastard an ill turn, I'd fuck him over like a shot and smile while I was doing it.

Jim

"In hindsight, I know he was totally out of order, but by God we loved him for it. "

Well, yes ... this is the problem with school bullies. All the stuff you know in your head is right goes out of the window, because these fuckers only understand and respect violence.

I was plagued by three of these cunts for the first four years of my time at comprehensive. One or other (and sometimes more than one) of these bastards would beat me up literally every day.

At some point in the fourth year, I snapped and punched one of them in the face. He beat the crap out of me, but after that they all left me alone.

Of course, all they did was go and find someone else to bully, and of course, I did nothing to stand up for that poor fucker.

I saw one of them a couple of years ago in the pub when I returned to my home town one Christmas, and he seemed genuinely perplexed as to why I was so hostile towards him.

Sorry, mate, I know it was twenty years ago, but do you really think you forget being punched unconscious? Being spat on? Being humiliated on a daily basis for four years?

Shooting's too fucking good for them.

Jim

"MASSIVE SPOILER"

Thanls for that, Mr Fleeg ... I will be having words with NTL about this ...

Cheers!

Jim

"I never really thought much of X-Men 1 so didn't watch more. Are they any good (i.e.) better?"

PVS ... X1 never recovers from the fact that the plot makes no fucking sense whatsoever. It garners points for getting a few of the characters, particularly Wolverine, absolutely spot on.

X2 manages a marginally more coherent plot, and features a bunch of cameos for the benefit of die-hard X-fans. It does have the benefit of seeing Wolverine cut loose in the mansion invasion sequence .... it's not great, but it's not bad either.

I'd certainly resommend seeing X2 before seeing X3, which I thought was worth seeing ... it's good fun. As a fan of pretty much the whole of Claremont's run on the X-Men, I missed Nightcrawler (although I wasn't especially fond of Alan Cumming's version of the character in X2) in this movie, but liked seeing Kitty Pryde and Colossus in X3.

So ... yeah, on balance, I'd say that the series is worth a go. X2 is basically the Wolverine show, and Jackman is the stand-out performance in all three films, but X3 is damn good fun.

Cheers!

Jim

Veering off the Rocketeer subject (although I have this vague recollection that Dave Stevens did a regular-style book for Comico prior to any graphic novel ... Wikipedia appears to back me up on this).

Just watched X-Men 3 ... a fairly unfaithful adaptation, but easily my favourite of the three, I think. It may be that I actually went to the cinema for the first two, and thus my expectations were higher, but I thought that this one had easily the most coherent plot and was really rather a lot of fun.

BTW ... it may just be my (admittedly atrocious) memory, but didn't someone mention a post-credits scene? If there was one, it was missing from the NTL on-demand version.

Cheers!

Jim

"No mention yet of A History of Violence? Not having read the comic, I wont comment except to say I loved the film."

To be fair, I did specifically say superhero adaptations at the top of this thread, which would exclude HoV.

I have read the comic, which is excellent. We recently bought the DVD (surprise - the missus is a Viggo fan), but haven't yet watched it. I have this feeling that it's a film you need to be in the mood to watch.

That said, whilst I've never been one to actively seek out Cronenberg movies, I've never actually been disappointed by one his films. I'll freely concede that I may just have been lucky on this score![1]

Cheers

Jim

[1] See also: David Lynch.

"Have you seen extras when Sir Ian says that he had to explain to Peter Jackson that he was not in fact really a wizard but an actor, Brilliant."

I was more amused by the story about Jackson trying to give direction to Christopher Lee for Saruman's death scene.

Lee, who saw active duty during WWII, politely enquired whether Jackson had ever actually heard the sound a man makes when stabbed in the back ...

Cheers!

Jim

"Remember it`s what acting is all about dear boy."

I'm assuming that's a reference to the legendary (and probably apocraphyl) story about Marathon Man.

Dustin Hoffman is alleged to have asked Lawrence Olivier how he got into the mind of a Nazi war criminal without using the Method Acting technique of actually experiencing something of what the character has been through, to which Olivier is supposed to have replied:

"Have you tried acting, dear boy?"

Cheers!

Jim

"Plus, Australia is quite close to Asia, and if you take the u,t,r,a, and l out of Australia, it spells Asia."

And the left-over letters spell 'ultra' ... By George, I think you may be on to something here!

Cheers

Jim

"And no votes yet for Sin City? How refreshing."

I thought Sin City was visually stunning and in many places looked exactly a Frank Miller comic.

Unfortunately, I found the characters unengaging, and the violence bordering on the nauseating.

So ... a lot like a Frank Miller comic in that respect, too.

Guess we'll have to call it a success.

Cheers!

Jim

"Best super-hero movie for me? The Incredibles! Captured everything that the super-hero genre should have had."

No argument from me. Best superhero movie ever, but not an adaptation ...

Cheers!

Jim