movie recommendations

[fragger]

Has anyone seen John Carter? I didn't get around to it when it was in the cinemas (well, I almost never go to the movies these days anyway) and am waiting for it to come to my local rentals. I am curious to see it as I read some of Edgar Rice Burroughs' Carter stories as an adolescent (he was also the creator of Tarzan, but I was never a big fan of the yodelling loin-clothed one).

[Fiach]

I saw it in the cinemas mate, I didnt particularly like it, but I never read the books, so maybe i would have liked it more, if I had read them.

The main character used to be in Friday Night Lights, a tv series about a high school football team and he was brilliant in that, its well worth checking out.

[fragger]

Cheers mate. Knowing the way filmdom mangles novels I fully expect to not like it either, but I may be pleasantly surprised (astounded would be more like it). That's why I'm waiting for a rental release, so I can not like it for less money and in the comfort of my own home :-()

[Jim di Griz]

...so I can not like it for less money and in the comfort of my own home :-()

A wise choice - anyway, if it turns out to be great, there'll always be a cult status 'big screen' re-showing of it at some point.

[fragger]

True, if you can find a truly big screen... The "big screen" nowadays doesn't look much bigger than a picnic blanket tacked to the wall. Plus the cinemas are tiny, the sound is turned up way too loud and the picture always seems to be slightly out of focus - and in this country you pay through the nose for your film-going experience (about twelve Aussie dollars for an adult the last time I went, which was about five years ago now, and that was sans drinks, snacks, etc). So I prefer to watch at home these days. I can drink beer while I watch, go to the loo without missing anything, and if I really hate the film I can slash the seats with complete legality :-()

[Art Blade]

 :-()

Maybe bigger cities have bigger screens so if you call that tent which will already be maxed out with 50 people a theatre then it is indeed a big screen when it is close to the size of a picnic blanket. We have theatres containing more than 10 cinemas that can hold thousands of people at the time with screens that, if laid out in the open and tacked to the ground, could serve as a parking lot for the residents of a suburb. Of course you do pay through your nose for tickets and the same amount for an additional snack like a small bowl of nachos with a pint of soda pop. But then again, the chairs are the size of a Buick, too :-()

[Jim di Griz]

We're pretty lucky here, most cities have an old run-down cinema tucked away somewhere where they show cult films - being an old cinema it still has a proper size screen  :-X

[fragger]

Good point Art :) Us yokels don't gennerly get to the movin' wall pitchers much :-()

Actually there still are some of the old-style cinemas in the big cities, but the more recently built suburban and small town multiplexes and so forth seem to be designed along the lines I described. I haven't been to the movies since before I moved up here from Sydney. There's a multiplex in the nearby town which has four cinemas in it but judging by the size of the building they're in I don't see how they could be very large. There are in fact a couple of places in town that clearly were cinemas once upon a time but now contain shops of various sorts, but you can tell that they would have been decent-sized cinemas in their day. The town has a population of around 40,000, not tiny but certainly not a big enough place to warrant sprawling cinema complexes.

@Jim, there are a couple of those types of cinemas in Sydney (or were - to the best of my knowledge, they're still going). My fave was a charming old inner-city one called the Valhalla which would show a different film every night, from all different countries and decades. One night you might get something like Metropolis and the next night you might get A Clockwork Orange, then next night it might be The Birds, and so on. You name it and they'd be showing it at some point. They would put out a big poster-type advert every six months or so listing what movies would be coming up and when.

There's certainly nothing like that in my current neck of the woods :-()

[Jim di Griz]

One of the trailers for A Prophet was for Perrier's Bounty yet another fun outing to the Dublin underbelly with Cillian Murphy and Brendan Gleeson - plus Jim Broadbent doing a very credible Dublin accent and a great role.

Perrier's Bounty

Also, I found the opening scene for Intermission which is possibly the best film opening scene for a long time: Intermission - opening The worrying thing is, I knew exactly what he was about to do...

[Art Blade]

when I watched that, I thought he was quite a pu$$y for not doing her face in with a proper headbutt which was what I expected him to do.   >:D  ??? 8-X :-D

I have both films and they're great  :) :-X

[Jim di Griz]

when I watched that, I thought he was quite a pu$$y for not doing her face in with a proper headbutt which was what I expected him to do.   >:D  ??? 8-X :-D

Probably worried about not being able to get far enough over the counter  :)

On another (but similar) topic - just saw Repo Men - not the Harry Dean Stanton one: Repo Man - which is also a fine film for anyone who hasn't seen it.

Jude Law does his stuff again, along with Forrest Whittaker in yet another completely different role from all the others he's done recently. I thought he was great in The Last King of Scotland but he's equally believable in this; a cold eyed killer working under the motto: "A job is a job."

It's a near futuristic film where artificial organs are freely available for most body parts - trouble is, if you can't make the repayments, they come and reposess them.

It had a beautiful nod to the corridor scene in Oldboy right near the end - made doubly enjoyable by firing up Burn My Shadow Away by Unkle - the opening theme to Fuel. It felt so weird hearing that in such a different context.

The end wasn't your typical film ending either - I like films that do this.

[Art Blade]

I got both Repo Man films :) I like Jude Law a lot, can't name any film he wasn't great in.

Just watched the BR version of the Sci-Fi film Hirokin (the fallen empire) which was crap. Julian Sands and Wes Bentley and the rest of the cast played quite well but the story was wanting. Like a mixture of Dune (oh man, do I love Dune) because of the desert environment and several other elements, the last samurai because of sword fight and one gaijin being the star, star wars because of a few desert outlets, some vehicles and particularly because of Bobafett probably being the source of inspiration regarding some of the outfits. The story lacked proper character introduction and background stories as well as convincing concepts as to why people did what they did.

In other words: 105 minutes of nice colourful pics but a story that doesn't last long enough to make you want to watch it again.

[Jim di Griz]

Alright, just finished watching the film and I still have a smile on my face :)...

Overall.. slow-paced but interesting enough to keep you watching it in a single go without really feeling the need to get up to fetch a snack. I did that after the film  :-()

Ah, good - at least you enjoyed it - not sure how I missed this post though...or maybe it was my other self that read it?

I get really nervous recommending stuff, just in case it falls flat.

[Art Blade]

Don't worry :) If you keep commenting what you like and dislike it will be easy to risk watching or to avoid a film once people understand and appreciate your taste. In my case it is likely to follow a recommendation of yours, others will probably avoid what you recommend, depending on how similar one's taste is compared to yours  ^-^

By the way, DUNE is out on Blue Ray (get the extended cine version rather than the cheap TV version) and boy, did they improve the quality. I have already got two different versions on DVD which are so old I can't turn the German subtitles off when I want to watch (of course) the English version. It was mainly my hope to get a modern version which allowed me to turn off the subtitles that made me buy the BR and I was utterly surprised what a digital remastering on BR did to it. Excellent  :-X

[Jim di Griz]

You sound like my brother-in-law  :) he has every version of Blade Runner.

I enjoyed Dune, despite the curious warp-effect when the ships jumped...

I'll definitely look out for that on BR - cheers. The remastering techniques seem to have come into their own now as I saw some of the Star Trek: TOS clips that have been remastered, really nice.

[Art Blade]

 :-() I've got the first DVD of Blade Runner when it was released (very old now hehe) and a director's cut or whatever they called it. Great film, one of my favourites :)

Kind of reminds me, check out Strange Days with Ralph Fiennes, Angela Bassett and Juliette Lewis -- another one of my favourites :) :-X

[fragger]

Blade Runner is one of my faves too - even though I can't see L.A. looking like that in just seven years' time :-()

I really liked Rutger Hauer's performance in that, I always thought he was quite a talented guy :-X

[Jim di Griz]

Definitely one of Rutger Hauer's strongest roles - he is good but has equally done some terrible films. I know that can be down to the script and director too...

Blind Fury, Salute of the Jugger, Ladyhawk all are quite good too and of course The Hitcher. Recently he did Hobo with a shotgun in which he appears to parody himself a bit - definitely a b-movie parody of the b-movie genre. I do think he's become something of a Chuck Norris figure nowadays  :)

Cheers Art - I'll keep an eye out for Strange Days as that does look interesting.

[mmosu]

Say this during the Olympics last night:

Wreck-It Ralph Teaser Trailer

[Jim di Griz]

Definitely going to see that!

[mmosu]

Yeah, me too!

There's going to be some major nerd name-dropping in that one - in that little therapy session we've got a who's who - Zangief, M. Bison, Bowser and Dr. Robotnik in one room!

[Jim di Griz]

On the flight back home I got to see Battleship which I fancied seeing for some time based on the trailers coming out

Battleship Official Trailer #2 - Rihanna Movie (2012) HD

As you can see from the one above, it's SF and promises an all action ride with big alien ships against the usual human, state of the art war machinery.

In truth the film came in with something different. For a start it slipped off into a chunk of backstory that seemed like its was only going to get worse - I stuck with it though because something in there reminded me of The Final Countdown from so many years ago (modern day aircraft carrier gets sucked through a vortex and appears off Pearl Harbour in 1942 - guess what happens next...) Perhaps it was just the Pearl Harbour setting  ;)

It's not that the film's opening half-hour or so was bad - it's just that the story seemed to be veering off into another direction entirely, one that was doing little except get in the way. By the time the action started, I wasn't expecting too much to be honest. I appreciate that film hype can be dangerous, as it can very easily portray things out of context; yet that proved to be the perfect standpoint from which to to be viewing what followed.

I was expecting a power-romp, all big guns vs bigger alien ships in something that could be a mighty powerful film. The story once it settled down came in with a left-field surprise that made the last half a really good bit of action story telling. Without giving too much away, none of the set piece solutions were handled in a predictable manner: well, okay, there was a bit of blind, taking-it-on-the-chin heroism going on in the background, but that didn't spoil the overall feel.

The turn around in the struggle was fresh, unusual and when the last part came around - it truly did feel like The Final Countdown with that heart-swelling 'hell-yeah' gut response to what I'd just seen. Maybe we won't all share that emotion - I did thoroughly enjoy the film as a consequence and will definitely be getting it on DVD.

I hope others enjoy it too.

[Art Blade]

The Final Countdown used to be my fave film back in the day, along with The Black Hole. I got both of them on DVD, of course  :-D

[fragger]

I like The Final Countdown, particularly the intelligent fashion in which it was handled. If it was made today, it would probably be full of all the usual cliche-ridden, over-the-top CG'd nonsense.

The parts of TFC that I liked best were the sequences where you got to see some of the machinery on board a modern aircraft carrier in operation. Some of that hardware is amazing, even if it is a few decades old now.

Thanks for the report on Battleship Jim, that sounds interesting. I knew of the movie but had no idea what it was all about :)

[Fiach]

The main character in BS, his name escapes me at the moment, was the main character in Friday Night Lights a brilliant TV series based on a college football team, I dont like american footbal, but its one of the best TV series I ever watched (didnt like the FNL film so much though, but it had mostly different actors), but he really held the show together in an ensemble of great characters (his mate in BS...looks like a fugly Matt Damon... was also in FNL, his character developed really well as the series progressed).