movie recommendations

[fragger]

How about Von Ryan's Express? Not sure if that one's been mentioned, but another good train-based movie.

I always wanted to have a model train railroad as a kid, but that fat bearded guy in the red suit never brought me one. I'm starting to think he doesn't really exist. Or maybe I was just never good enough to get one...

[Art Blade]

Next time I see that fat bearded guy in the red suit I'll punch his lights out. When he wakes up, I'll tell him to buy you one and if not, that I'll beat him up so bad that by the time he wakes up people will think that he doesn't exist any more.  >:D

[PZ]

How about Von Ryan's Express? Not sure if that one's been mentioned, but another good train-based movie...

I love that movie - good one, fragger   :-X

In fact, I have it in my DVD collection, but my wife doesn't like war movies of any kind.   :'( Frank Sinatra plays an excellent role  :-X

[fragger]

Next time I see that fat bearded guy in the red suit I'll punch his lights out. When he wakes up, I'll tell him to buy you one and if not, that I'll beat him up so bad that by the time he wakes up people will think that he doesn't exist any more.  >:D

^+-+ :-X

Thanks mate! While you're at it, remind him that he also stiffed me on the telescope and the air rifle. He has it coming, if you ask me...

I love that movie - good one, fragger   :-X

In fact, I have it in my DVD collection, but my wife doesn't like war movies of any kind.   :'( Frank Sinatra plays an excellent role  :-X

Cheers PZ :) I agree, I think it's about the best acting performance that Frank Sinatra ever gave.

[Art Blade]

Apart from his divorces. Brilliant acts as they say. ;D

[PZ]

I have a simple mind that needs simple entertainment, and here are a couple of goofy spy spoofs that I really like:  In Like Flint and Our Man Flint starring James Coburn.  If you want over the top ridiculous spy entertainment (ala Austin Powers style out of the '60s) these may be your cup of tea.

[RedRaven]

This evening I felt like watching a sci-fi flick again called Equilibrium (check IMDb) starring Christian Bale, Sean Bean and Emily Watson.

Quality film, I'm a big fan of Sean Bean (and not just because we have same home town). He is now in a new TV show called Game of Thrones that started in the USA on Sunday 17th, UK on Monday 18th. Have a long standing argument with my son as I keep telling him some of the best actors come from my town or county, Brian Blessed being a childhood hero of mine from 2 towns up the road. And Patrick Stuart is from a little further north too.

  Sean Pertwee is good in Equilibrium too, very under-rated actor and son of Dr Who star John Pertwee.

Too keep this post short here is a quick list of some of the films I've seen and enjoyed during my hibernation from OWG.

Inception (Good performance by Dicaprio, Page and Gordon-Levitt)
Shutter Island (Nice to see Scorsese branch out and Dicaprio just gets better with age)
The Blind Side (Sandra Bullock on top form)
Whip It (Ellen Page being quirky as usual)
Ultramarines (CGI film set in the Warhammer 40k universe - DVD only)
Battle: Los Angeles (better than expected it to be)
Paul (Big fan of Simon Pegg since his first TV show Spaced)
Tron Legacy (Jeff Bridges rules)
The Social Network (as a non face book member didn't expect much from it but found it to be a fantastic film, kind of reminds me of Rashomon. And Jesse Eisenberg has been good ever since The Hunting Party, another good film)
Zombieland (Eisenberg AND Woody Harrelson AND Emma Stone, not to mention very very funny)


Still to see / looking forward to-

True Grit (Jeff Bridges rules - again! )
J.Edgar (Dicaprio as J.Edgar Hoover)
Black Swan (liked everything Darren Aronofsky has done since Pi)
127 Hours (James Franco is good and a few friends have highly recommended it so got to see what's what)


There is more as always but I did intend to keep this post short - Errm FAILED....."

[Art Blade]

nice list.. I need to buy (and watch) Tron Legacy.

[mandru]

The recent (well for me anyway) Alice in Wonderland I think was pretty well done without too much damage to Lewis Carroll's original story.  Depp was an excellent Mad Hatter.

[RedRaven]

Forgot about Green Zone, which is excellent.


Alice in Wonderland was good although I find Helena Bonham Carter a little annoying at times, but Depp is a great actor.


@Art hope you enjoy Tron Legacy. watched it about 5-6 times so far and now want to watch it again.

[mandru]

Alice in Wonderland was good although I find Helena Bonham Carter a little annoying at times...

I think her part in the movie was to be a total annoying git... Err, or do you mean outside of her role in Alice?   ????

To be honest I watch so few movies I've no idea who Helena Bonham Carter is or anything about any other roles she's played if any.   :-D

Nine out of the last ten movies I've watched have been animated.

Yeah sad, I know but there has been so little that has interested me coming out of Hollywood for the last 15 years I'm not going to throw money at them by watching because that says to the movie makers "Please, Sir, may I have some more gruel?"

Inception the only non-animated movie I've seen out of the last ten fortunately was worthy.

Though when I've discussed it with several friends I've come to the conclusion that most people aren't catching the real subtle twist established by the way the movie itself begins with no opening credits other than the production company as if to say "How did we get here?"

^-^ (<-- Closest emoticon we have to a smirk)

[RedRaven]

I think her part in the movie was to be a total annoying git... Err, or do you mean outside of her role in Alice?   ????

To be honest I watch so few movies I've no idea who Helena Bonham Carter is or anything about any other roles she's played if any.   :-D

In most things, she was in Fight club, some of Harry Potter films but cant think of others, usually try to blank her out.


Animated films are great, watch Ghost in the Shell again last week - AWESOME film. Going to w@&k through the 2 series as well next.


Have you seen Despicable Me ? was really funny in 3D, as was Gomeo and Juliet.


(like the smirk idea too)

[fragger]

Yeah sad, I know but there has been so little that has interested me coming out of Hollywood for the last 15 years I'm not going to throw money at them by watching because that says to the movie makers "Please, Sir, may I have some more gruel?"

^+-+

Boy, can I relate to that comment 8) It must be too much to ask that movie makers produce films for intelligent people to watch. The lowest common denominator accounts for the most bums on seats, apparently.

[mandru]

Despicable Me was good we enjoyed it.  I'd not heard of Gnomeo and Juliet but after checking out the trailer for it it's on the list of movies to check out.  Thanks for the heads up on that one.  :-X

Anime like Ghost In the Shell (a classic) is one of my secret pleasures.  Well not so secret seeing as how I start prattling  on about them any time some one mentions anime.  ::)  At least I don't open conversations with strangers with "Hey! did you hear that Gosick was extended to a second season?" like a total Otaku   :-D


:-X @ fragger

If I want to sit down and watch something light, funny or silly the animated movie makers at least had to have some though and effort put into assembling them and occasionally you get one that really shines.  Most live action humor movies end up feeling like they are trying to out stupid Dumb and Dumber.   ???

I actually was talked into watching Inception by a friend that for twenty+ years has used me as his Sci/Fi goto guy.  He had really liked the film and had watched it 3 times but wanted someone he could question about some of the fine details he wasn't getting his head around.  It worked out good for both of us.   ;D

[JRD]

CUBE by a chap named Vincenzo Natali

All this talk about Portals brought a movie to my mind. I can see a connection between this movie and Portal, not the sharp humor though... this movie is disturbing, rather wicked but I lik it... P1&2 is more easy to cope with but the whole test subject in a maze thing...

http://www.totaleclips.com/Player/Bounce.aspx?eclipid=e10074&bitrateid=471&vendorid=102&type=.mp4/

[RedRaven]

I remember CUBE, awesome film, sequels not so good (as usual).
Watched LEON the Professional again yesterday, not seen it for years, was my first exposure to Jean Reno and Luc Besson as well as being Natalie Portman's first role.

Reno is also ace in RONIN.

[Art Blade]

Agree about CUBE, got both the first and second film. "Disturbing" kind of sums it up.

LEON is a great film, watched that DVD more than once :)

Same with RONIN, Robert DeNiro and the guys did a splendid job  :)

[fragger]

I've seen CUBE but not the sequel. I like how it was never explained who or what was responsible for the cubes, why they existed or how the people came to be there. It just added to the scary alieness of the whole thing :-X

[RedRaven]

Same with RONIN, Robert DeNiro and the guys did a splendid job  :)

Love the scene where DeNiro ambushes Sean Bean, excellent move.

[mandru]

This is about the movie Crossroads but I'll get to that in a bit.   ;)

I've come across a web site called Crackle ( http://www.crackle.com/ ) which is a media service providing free access to movies and some TV shows.

Last night my wife and I had an evening together with no demands which is unusual for us for a Thursday.  While we have 250 channels on satellite TV there was nothing on we wanted to watch so I went in to look at the movies available on Crackle and came across the Crossroads which is an old favorite of mine but my wife had never seen.

I'm not sure if Crackle will allow users to access it from outside the U.S. but to find this movie on the site (if you can) click the Browse link that's right under the page's search window and then with the very handy Refine tool (on the next page's left side) Select "Movie" and under Genre Select "Music" it will be one of the 8 selections that come up.  Because of the language (less offensive than FC2's) it has been rated R so unless you set up a free membership and are logged in it will ask that you enter your date of birth to verify age appropriateness.

I should also mention that because Crackle is a Commercial site the movies have commercials embedded in them that you have to put up with.  However, it seems that there's a bonus with Crossroads being as old as it is (1986) when we watched it last night it would reach a commercial break and then go straight back into the movie with no ad ( :-D :-X) and other than a small non-obstructive pop-up just above the video control that goes away on its own after a few seconds leaving no 30 second gaps in the storyline while marketers try to sell you feminine hygiene products ( :D) which is often more offensive than FC2's language.

I think the free membership removes the ads completely but the trade off is probably personal info I'd prefer to not share with them.

*Getting all of that technical crapola out of the way*    Now about the movie.   :-D

In some aspects I think that this story is a modern adaptation in the nature of other literary allegorical pilgrimages like Dante's trilogy Inferno, Purgatorio and Paradiso.  Crossroads is an interesting blend of myth, legend and a Siren's musical call that once heeded allows no turning back.

Sheltered and privileged a talented young musician being schooled in the finest tradition of classical guitar has earnestly absorbed his lessons from classical instruction but the raw living edge and powerful draw of the Blues and the mystery of a missing unrecorded song by an early Bluesman at the dawn of recorded vinyl whose haunting style shaped modern music leaves him entangled in a struggle for self realization and destiny at the Crossroads.

I'm not a big fan of the Blues being more of a heavy metal rocker or even more drawn to driving techno instrumentation and beats but the Blues numbers presented in this movie were seriously compelling.  The music selected for this film added to the appeal of this movie for me probably more than the thin acting skills of Ralph Macchio (Karate Kid, yes yes a formula feel good movie  ??? ) but adding the intriguing story line it's made this a movie that I've watched several times over the years and happy to get to share it with someone that had never seen it.

And who can resist a character named Scratch?   >:D

[Fiach]

yes it was a great movie, the devils guitarist was none other than a budding Steve Vai, being a metaller meself, I imagine that you would like his stuff, he made a great album (or two?) with Dave Lee Roth of Van Halen fame.

Ralph was a pretty decent actor, with a few great movies under his belt, The Karate Kid and one of the funniest movies ever, My Cousin Vinny, featuring Joe Pesci, if you have not seen this movie, get it now, buy it if you have to, but it is awesome, with a great Marissa Tomei as Vinnys long suffering girlfriend :)

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0104952/

[JRD]

And Steve Vai plays both guitar solos on that movie... Ralph just moves his fingers  8)

[mandru]

Interesting JRD.  :)  I figured he was coached to look like he was playing but didn't realize Vai had played both the parts in the duel.   :-X


Fiach I'll have to look up My Cousin Vinny.   :-X

[Fiach]

Well I kinda figured Vai would play his own parts, he's pretty awesome on guitar, Man, immagine someone claiming that they did Vais Guitar stunts in Crossroads lol :). I never knew that about Ralph, I wonder who played his stuff then?

Mandru, really, check it out, its funny and Marissa is absolutely stunning in it, she plays a really "noo york-ish"  italian girlfriend, the kind that grew up in a house full of brothers and knows exactly how much torque to apply when changing a tap washer, she really makes the movie shine, but the rest of the cast are no slouches either, honestly if you havent seen it, try to make it your next movie :).

[JRD]

I guess Ralph actually plays the guitar and in many parts of the movie he is playing his own parts. Someone wrote and taught him maybe.

What I know is that Vai wrote and played both guitar in the duel, Ralph would never beat Stevie  ;)