A few films recently watched.

i dont know, i guess i reveled in the campy shitiness of it all. to each their own.... plus it had this guy in it and i always enjoy his performances for some reason

I also thought Gremlins 2 was better than the first when I was a kid, but after reviewing them later in life, I came to the conclusion that the first one is indeed superior. While the second one had some LOL-worthy moments, it still seemed like just a loose collection of zany scenarios where gremlins might be funny and some of it is just outlandish.

gremlins 2 is outlandish, who wouldve thought..

but im perfectly willing to concede this one. it seems ive given into my juvenile nostalgia on this..

  On 7/21/2010 at 4:32 AM, data said:

 

gremlins 2 - awful, cringeworthy film (ironically this was my favourite of the two as a kid).

i think you either missed the point or are not a very big fan of Joe Dante, this was like the best sequel in so many ways its not even funny. it was an epic satire and over budget masterpiece of what a sequel should be.

first one is better i'll admit that. but don't take it from me i actually really enjoyed Looney Toons Back in Action (his last real movie)

  On 7/21/2010 at 4:32 AM, data said:

after.life - christina ricci naked for 1½ hours.

cute christina or junkie alien christina?

Technically speaking the 1st may be the better movie, but the 2nd is oh so much fun. It doesn't take itself seriously at all, and the sheer insanity of it makes up for any lack of achievements in film making....

I've just purchased 9 (the animated one) and Collateral for later viewing.

i liked how the first movie was a mix of scary/funny/weird (much like the movie in awepittance avatar, which thankfully never got a sequel).

the second one, while getting off to a good start, just tried too hard imo, instead of funny it wanted to be "hysterical", but failed misserably (gremlin wedding, gremlin singing sinatra, gremlin musical, gremlin bat leaving a batman sign shaped hole in the wall), and blah blah whatever ..i guess i was just disappointed since i loved it when i was a kid and now i didn't.

  On 7/21/2010 at 8:35 AM, analogue wings said:

  On 7/21/2010 at 4:32 AM, data said:

after.life - christina ricci naked for 1½ hours.

 

cute christina or junkie alien christina?

she's playing a corpse.

Great acting from Cristina Ricci as usual.

  On 7/21/2010 at 4:32 AM, data said:

after.life - christina ricci naked for 1½ hours.

  On 7/21/2010 at 1:34 PM, data said:

  On 7/21/2010 at 8:35 AM, analogue wings said:

  On 7/21/2010 at 4:32 AM, data said:

after.life - christina ricci naked for 1½ hours.

cute christina or junkie alien christina?

she's playing a corpse.

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  On 7/20/2010 at 11:34 PM, azatoth said:

Defendor - 7/10

 

Thought it would be one of those comedies about a crazy superhero wannabe, but was instead surprised it was a pretty mellow and even touching portrayal of a mentally challenged person trying to be a superhero. Woody Harrelson did a great job playing Defendor. And Kat Dennings is so boner inducing it's not even funny. And the end credits song is really catchy.

I hadn't heard of this before (doesn't look like it had a UK release?). Just watched it and it's made me realize woody is my favourite actor. He's consistantly great and brings some real character to his roles. Great film. The ending hit me fairly hard, very feel-good and inspiring. Recommend it. I don't like rating things with figures but I'd give it at an 8 - 8.5/10. Minus a few points because there were a few points in the first half or so where I wasn't sure if I should be watching it as a comedy or a more serious film.

Yeah, it was slightly difficult to classify if it was meant to be a comedy or a serious movie. I wouldn't want to call it a "dramedy" either. It was more of a drama with some funny bits in it, IMO.

oh, by the way, Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind is out on bluray

Ricci needs to do some straight up slut films, fuck this half-assed nudity bullshit.....the only way to save her corpse of a career....and the film was unwatchable

Finally got to see Bad Lieutenant Port of call New Orleans after it being mentioned by someone brilliant in here. And I really enjoyed it I must say, Herzog really makes a fine little actor out of our beloved Mr Cage, just they way he waddles about and his hair, great stuff. I reckon he could have been a little bit 'badder' the scene with the young partygoing couple, more scenes like that. But on the whole a really good crime film with good characters. It has prompted me to definetely soon watch the original 8/10

Special 7.5/10

Continuing on the theme of superhero wannabe's I've got going, watched this little film from 2006 starring Michael Rappaport is about a lonely man who participates in a clinical drug trial and suffers from side effects where he believes he has superpowers. Some hilarity ensues but it quickly becomes rather sad when he is totally delusional and paranoid. Rappaport pulls off a good and subdued performance and overall the film is well shot and well done considering the small budget.

Kick-Ass 6/10

Thought it was rather pointless and didn't catch my full attention. The guy playing Kick-Ass annoyed me somewhat, but I liked Nicholas Cage, which was pretty LOL. Feel like having a little girl swearing and being a general bad-ass was there just for novelty value.

Dark Knight 8/10

watched on a 60inch tv is kind like imax if you sit close enough. the major problem with this film is the batman/joker final fight scene in the building with the sonar.that scene just stinks. the music is bad. the imaging of the sonar is bad. the lucuis fox voice sounds all processed and horrible. i just really hate that scene. doesn't realy seem good enough end to the batman/joker battle. otherwise i like the film still 2 years on.

i hear they may shoot batman 3 completely in imax and joseph gorden-levitt to play the riddler.

  On 7/22/2010 at 5:25 PM, Benedict Cumberbatch said:

Dark Knight 8/10

watched on a 60inch tv is kind like imax if you sit close enough. the major problem with this film is the batman/joker final fight scene in the building with the sonar.that scene just stinks. the music is bad. the imaging of the sonar is bad. the lucuis fox voice sounds all processed and horrible. i just really hate that scene. doesn't realy seem good enough end to the batman/joker battle. otherwise i like the film still 2 years on.

 

i hear they may shoot batman 3 completely in imax and joseph gorden-levitt to play the riddler.

Love the movie to death. But agree, the final scene with the joker is a let down, considering how epic all the other scenes are. Very anti-climatic. Then it's like "oh hey! let's throw the two face thing in there at the end that will be a great climax" and I think it's poorly placed and too jumbled up. They could've started the next movie with it or had it happen pre-joker/batman showdown. That whole scene with the boats and the building keeps building and building and it's like 5-10 minutes of the end of it got chopped out. Iirc Heath died post filming, so they should've had plenty of opportunity to add to it. I think the hospital scene climaxed well, not necc. b/c there is an explosion, but just the drama following it. Joker's clam/funny walking away from the building, and sneaking onto the bus with giant explosion in the b/g. The mystery of him on a bus full of unsuspecting "citizens".

Also the movie opens with such a punch it's shame the ending is just kind of a slow come down without any pivotal climax. I mean I guess two face falling off the building/gordons suddenly kidnapped family rescued, could be considered good in some people's mind. But I just think the flow and placement is awkward.

the ending to Dark Knight is shocklingly anti climactic. For all the stuff that was supposed to impact us it all kind of winds down at the end. The way the joker goes out was pretty unforgivable in my book. I know Nolan probably wanted to use Joker again later, but at least show some epic fight. not 40 seconds of him sending dogs at batman and then batman hanging him up by a rope. For that alone i will always prefer the original Joker in Burton's batman. Even though people like to talk shit about it, at least he knew how to properly pace the final climax in his movie and gave his villain center stage.

  On 7/21/2010 at 9:46 PM, AJW said:

Finally got to see Bad Lieutenant Port of call New Orleans after it being mentioned by someone brilliant in here. And I really enjoyed it I must say, Herzog really makes a fine little actor out of our beloved Mr Cage, just they way he waddles about and his hair, great stuff. I reckon he could have been a little bit 'badder' the scene with the young partygoing couple, more scenes like that. But on the whole a really good crime film with good characters. It has prompted me to definetely soon watch the original 8/10

Aight, I absolutely loved that film. Probably the best film I've seen this year, preferred it to inception.

Out of pure chance, after seeing Port of call New Orleans in the cinema, I went back to my friends house, and the original movie was on tv the same day o_o

It was such a different movie. And I absolutely hated it. It was a really horrible experience to watch, but I must say that it must have been really something different around the time it was released. There was barely any character development, and it was just full of really crude blatant symbology (images of jesus suffering on the cross etc). Other than that, it had a couple of really amazing scenes. And Harvey Keitels performance was great, but the film as a whole was just a hypnotic descent into substance abuse hell, without much in terms of plot or characters... It just felt as though he was trying to distract people from the lack of plot development by firing ultraviolence imagery at the audience.

Could be worth watching though, but I wouldn't recommend watching it with high expectations after seeing Herzog's movie.

Abel Ferrara's reaction to the remake is hilarious though :)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bad_Lieutenant:_Port_of_Call_New_Orleans

  On 7/22/2010 at 9:22 PM, Awepittance said:

the ending to Dark Knight is shocklingly anti climactic. For all the stuff that was supposed to impact us it all kind of winds down at the end. The way the joker goes out was pretty unforgivable in my book. I know Nolan probably wanted to use Joker again later, but at least show some epic fight. not 40 seconds of him sending dogs at batman and then batman hanging him up by a rope. For that alone i will always prefer the original Joker in Burton's batman. Even though people like to talk shit about it, at least he knew how to properly pace the final climax in his movie and gave his villain center stage.

I bet Nolan wasn't just expecting the death of ledger. Because he aint getting another joker like that, ever.

Yeah Nolan said as long as he is doing Batman, there will not be another Joker.

But yeah, the Original Batman/Joker showdown built, and built and built, and then delivered very well and then had the cool "ah aha ha ha ha ha" laughing bag gag on jokers dead body.

It's a shame they couldn't even bother to meet half way. And I agree, it's obvious that the scene is set up for Joker to come back in the next movie. But still! It needed some kind of closure, at least for that "chapter".

I'm trying to work out a comparison to the first one of the newer series, which focused on scarecrow. I can't for the life of me remember the final 15 minutes of that movie atm.

  On 7/23/2010 at 8:12 PM, Brandi_B said:

Yeah Nolan said as long as he is doing Batman, there will not be another Joker.

 

But yeah, the Original Batman/Joker showdown built, and built and built, and then delivered very well and then had the cool "ah aha ha ha ha ha" laughing bag gag on jokers dead body.

 

It's a shame they couldn't even bother to meet half way. And I agree, it's obvious that the scene is set up for Joker to come back in the next movie. But still! It needed some kind of closure, at least for that "chapter".

 

I'm trying to work out a comparison to the first one of the newer series, which focused on scarecrow. I can't for the life of me remember the final 15 minutes of that movie atm.

Batman Begins has a crap ending is why. It goes from "small movie" to "generic big movie". Some kind of villainous plot happens but you dont give a shit because it's unconnected to the rest of the film, which is excellent.

I actually think the ending of The Dark Knight works just fine - it's fully in keeping with the Silver Age feel of the film and it rights the wrong of Batman Begins' ending. The Joker's hypothesis throughout has been that Batman is just as harmful as the villains he fights, and Batman has been ready to believe it, but by saving the Joker he achieves his ultimate triumph over that assertion. It's an appropriately small and character driven scene in contrast to the 70s disaster movie shens that precede it. Good ending.

ghost writer - 12/13

it's just great, definitely his most entertaining since frenzy, humorous and eh...contemporarily biting, flawless direction (the note scene is sheer brilliance) and good acting.. by brosnan especially

see it

  On 7/21/2010 at 4:48 AM, data said:

gremlins 2 had [...] hulk hogan

The VHS version of that is so much better (with the screen going on full-noise) compared to the burn-in cinema version!

It also has a kick ass pastiche score by Jerry Goldsmith.

He makes references to all his movies, it's a crazy stop&go action like Looney Tunes Back in Action (his last score while he was basically on his dying bed). Referencing his own Rambo score, etc...

(I'm a soundtrack geek)