A few films recently watched.

Ghost In The Shell 2: Innocence

Crap. Far too shiny looking, it's a film not a computer game for fudge's sake. Humdrum story that failed to grab my attention on any level. They should never have made a sequel or a series of the original which was brilliant.

Corner Of Your Eye

Despite it's all around amateur production / acting etc. this film has it's heart in the right place. Very tongue in cheek Lynchian stuff.

Akira

Still holds up after untold viewings. My favourite anime alongside Paranoia Agent.

The Second Coming

Decent little mini series where Christopher Eccleston is the second coming. Well paced and entertaining stuff. Interesting philosophical / religious angles. Plus has the added bonus of being the source of amongst others, Orbitals "You lot!" rant.

Paul 7/10 - a few giggles here and there but mainly a popcorn film you'd rent out to waste some time before you bang the shit out of your girlfriend after the pizza has gone cold.

insidious - 2/10

Eden Log: 6.5/10

Thriller/ sci-fi movie about an amnesiac who wakes up underground and naked, and attempts to go up to the surface of a bunch of fucked up tunnels made by some corporation known as Eden Log, and ends up... idunno. It involved him, a girl, a tree, mankinds deep animalistic tendencies, and lots and lots of black and grey. Stylistically it was pretty awesome, but the story seemed disjointed and didn't really make any sense.

To quote an Amazon review: "If an interminably long-feeling movie centered around an amnesiac man groping around in near darkness in an environment filled with broken plastic junk, tubes-n-wires, and columns of tree roots whilst pursued by cheesy looking humanoid monsters sounds appealing then this movie is for you! "

True Grit 8/10: definitely way better than i expected.

The Last Waltz 9/10: it would have been so intense to have been at that concert.

Fast Food Nation: 6/10

This had some serious squandered potential; it came across as flimsy and didactic and fairly obvious. I really only felt any sort of emotional connection with the illegal immigrant wife character, and that actress fucking delivered some subtle, devastating eye-acting in her final scene :crai:

lights in the dusk - /10

true grit - 8/10, good stuff

battle: los angeles - crap/shit. fucking awful. half expecting to see JOIN THE MARINES! flash on the bottom of the screen throughout most of it.

also it made the ps3 kick in some cinavia protection scheme bullshit.

Battle Los Angeles: The kid in me that will always love aliens, lasers and fighting kinda enjoyed some scenes, while the badass critic that I have become remained bored all through the movie. The ambient of occasional comments and whiskey made it worth watching though.

  On 6/22/2011 at 9:59 AM, gaarg said:

Battle Los Angeles: The kid in me that will always love aliens, lasers and fighting kinda enjoyed some scenes, while the badass critic that I have become remained bored all through the movie. The ambient of occasional comments and whiskey made it worth watching though.

glenmorangie portwood finish yo!

seriously, the movie sucked so much ass, the best part was when turned the MCFI feature on the tv set ON (smooth cinema/motionflow/natural motion), and boosted colors and contrast so it made it look really intense. also, i was high.

  On 6/22/2011 at 10:44 AM, kokoon said:

  On 6/22/2011 at 9:59 AM, gaarg said:

Battle Los Angeles: The kid in me that will always love aliens, lasers and fighting kinda enjoyed some scenes, while the badass critic that I have become remained bored all through the movie. The ambient of occasional comments and whiskey made it worth watching though.

glenmorangie portwood finish yo!

 

seriously, the movie sucked so much ass, the best part was when turned the MCFI feature on the tv set ON (smooth cinema/motionflow/natural motion), and boosted colors and contrast so it made it look really intense. also, i was high.

Our highness made it all better, yes.

the adjustment bureau - 7/10 - i dunno why i liked this, the plot was really thin and it had matt damon, cant explain it. *shrug*

  On 6/22/2011 at 8:22 PM, kaen said:

the adjustment bureau - 7/10 - i dunno why i liked this, the plot was really thin and it had matt damon, cant explain it. *shrug*

wasn't it based (loosely) on a phillip k dick story?

  On 6/22/2011 at 10:25 PM, Benedict Cumberbatch said:

  On 6/22/2011 at 8:22 PM, kaen said:

the adjustment bureau - 7/10 - i dunno why i liked this, the plot was really thin and it had matt damon, cant explain it. *shrug*

 

wasn't it based (loosely) on a phillip k dick story?

it was indeed, the idea has been touched on in other films too. i guess thats why i liked it, pkd is my one of favourite authors

they tried as hard as they could to muss it up but pkd still shone through the shite

(i haven't seen it but it looked alright from the trailer)

  On 6/21/2011 at 2:02 AM, soundwave said:

Paul 7/10 - a few giggles here and there but mainly a popcorn film you'd rent out to waste some time before you bang the shit out of your girlfriend after the pizza has gone cold.

I just saw this last night - probably give it a 7.5/10 just for the fun of spotting all the inside jokes/tributes.

Yeah Paul was really mediocre and Simon Pegg seems to have hit the pub too much, he looks a bit puffy and dazed and his comic timing wasn't what it used to be.

Just watched Rango and liked it, some nice surreal sequences for a "kid's film." I have trouble believing any part of it was directed by Gore Verbinsky, as the shots seemed way more skillful than I've seen from him in the past. Or at least they had some great storyboard artists. Some inexplicable and distracting low-res texturing and/or UV distortion on some of the character's snouts. Really weird to have a slip-up like that in a feature film. Some of the writing was too over the top, I'm guessing most of what Rango says would fly over a kid's head. Some great animation. 8.5/10.

i love barry lyndon <3

the adjustment bureau 6/10

Unknown 8/10

the Good the bad and the Ugly 8/10

Sucker punch, awufl/10 (perfect example of how to sugarcoat a shit story with lashings of CGI)

Glengarry Glen Ross - 10/10. So good I went back and watched it again. Incredible script and performances, loads of swearing.

  On 6/23/2011 at 2:36 PM, Iain C said:

loads of swearing.

lol for more of this see: Harlem Nights (which isn't a good film)

glengary is a movie i saw when i was too young to appreciate it, but saw it again recently and i was blown away. The scene where Alec Baldwin comes in and lectures all of them at the beginning is one of the best performances of his whole career, in fact Mamet somehow gets Lemom and Pacino to give almost the best performances of their career too. Lemon plays the perfect sad sack behind the curve desperate man. It's too bad David Mamet turned into an insane neoconservative zionist after 9/11, his stuff before that was pretty amazing, he was on a really great trajectory. Now he has a TV show with the Allstate insurance black guy called 'The Unit' about elite terrorism fighters , that is unwatchable

  On 6/20/2011 at 9:23 PM, AJW said:

Ghost In The Shell 2: Innocence

Crap. Far too shiny looking, it's a film not a computer game for fudge's sake. Humdrum story that failed to grab my attention on any level. They should never have made a sequel or a series of the original which was brilliant.

the 2nd film wasn't great, but the series (stand alone complex) is incredible, top-shelf anime. there's a reason it's 8.8/10 on imdb.

  On 6/23/2011 at 9:40 PM, Awepittance said:

zionist

don't use words that you don't what they mean, we've discussed this

two lovers - 8/10 - i think it's an improvement over wotn in every way while the weaknesses are still the same, the sometimes dull dialogue and a bit of a silly story, could be that im just watching too much mike leigh recently. technically its amazing though, they make the scenes so incredibly vivid and atmospheric, sounds kinda corny but you could really feel that you're in there, i can't recall any other movie that did such a great mix of direction, cinematography and lighting.