yay for queen of the damned:D  terrible film but it was my first experience as an extra so i have a soft spot for it...

just finished watching Gran Torino on blu ray. don't really have anything insightful to say about it other than it's a fantastic film.

That's one I've been meaning to watch for a while - Long Kiss Goodnight, and speaking of Geena Davis I do not recall anything from Cutthroat Island so going to try and watch that again. Usually I can at least remember bits and pieces from old films, so I'm kinda bemused by the total blank I'm having.

Not seen They Live. What sort of movie is it, horror? Is that the one with the "I'm here to kick ass and chew gum" line?

• Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows 1 (niece hadn't seen it; best camping movie since Meatballs)

• Without Reservations (John Wayne & Claudette Colbert; she never did it for me)

• Wanted (sight unseen with DIF then first third of it again afterward; actually kind of crazy, silly fun)

• The Road to Singapore (first Road movie; not great; pat-a-cake gag was never funny)

• Salt (good, not what I expected)

• Star Trek 3: The Search for Spock (really enjoyed it)

• Throbbing Teen Penetrations 9 (you really don't need to see 1-8 to follow the plot)

Next on the docket: 2012: Ice Age

Cutthroat Island is lots of fun, I still don't know why it wasn't a hit. Frank Langella was an excellent villain.

They Live isn't really horror, it's more sci-fi. The only scary thing is how relevant the film still feels, even though it was born of Reaganomics.

I'm sure they had a blast with They Live. Certain movies just give off a vibe like the folks working on it were really enjoying themselves. Prince of Darkness is heavy on the atmosphere and definitely something that requires multiple views.

His 90s movies, were good but nowhere near as good as his previous movies. Memoirs of an Invisible Man is very entertaining and I'm not even a fan of Chevy Chase. I enjoyed Vampires but it could have been better. Escape from LA is ok but it's too goofy for it's own good. I may have to watch it again, I haven't seen it in years. Village of the Damned is the only film of his that I flat out don't like.

Yeah, I probably like Never more than something like Diamonds are Forever. It's a remake of Thunderball and isn't 'technically' a Bond film.

Saw Transformers 3 on the weekend. What a fucking trainwreck, one of the worst proper movies I've ever seen. It's nonsensical,  stupid gibberish with no redeeming feature. I am flabbergasted as to how the director of Bad Boys, The Rock and Armaggeddon seems apparently incapable to telling a coherent story. The acting is atrociously over the top, with almost everyone trying to outdo John Turturro in his "how I can turn this character into a  stupid annoying cartoon" approach to his role. John Malkovich, Alan Tudyck, that chinese guy from Community and Hangover, McDreamy from Grey's Anatomy, Frances McDormand! Why the hell are these guys appearing in the movie?

Again, the story is convulated and confusing in all the wrong ways. And once a-fucking-gain the climax is a clusterfuck of bad editing.

The only good thing about this movie is that it will net Paramount the funding for several fantastic movies in the next few years.

If it counts when you try to watch a film, then give up through sheer boredom after an hour, I'll mention Sucker Punch, which was showing on a flight I took on Friday evening.

Now, I didn't make it to the conclusion, but it seemed to me as if someone had taken the ending of Brazil, and padded it out with about seventeen hours of boss fights, skimpy clothing and miscellaneous other 14-year-old-boy dreams. Some of the visuals looked quite good, but if I wanted to stare at visuals for two hours in want of a story, I'd just run the iTunes Visualizer and tape my nose to the screen.

It could be the case that I've foregone a really compelling narrative by not bothering to find out what the hell happened to a bunch of, let's call them, characters that I didn't give a monkey's about bouncing around inside Scott Glenn's retirement plan, but I think I'll take the risk of never finding out.

Uwe Boll doesn't think his films are bad. He takes his craft very seriously and gets very upset if you question it. So does Michael Bay.

And yes, I want Shakespeare. Shakespeare is good, Michael Bay is bad. I would prefer good to bad.

But even Shakespeare wasn't Shakespeare in the way you're using the term. Shakespeare used characters and material that he didn't create. He wrote for a paycheck. He threw in plenty of blood and sex because he knew that's what the crowds wanted and because he knew that's how he would get his next gig. He wrote fart jokes.

But in all of that, he still wrote complex and human characters who were motivated by desires and took action based on those desires (or didn't, in the case of Hamlet). Their actions make sense, given what they want and the situation they find themselves in. The story progresses logically and consistently to communicate some kind of theme.

He was "Shakespeare" and Michael Bay at the same time. That's why he's William Fucking Shakespeare.

The problem is that relative to the number of "films about gigantic killer robots by a film maker who has a long history of valuing style over substance", "William Fucking Shakespeare"'s are virtually non exsistant.

This argument is frustrating, it's akin to taking a slab of Devon and demanding that it becomes foie gras.

We all prefer holistically complete films, but at the end of the day it's a film about guns, pretty people, and robots. As Tim Minchin suggests, isn't this enough?

Nope. I recorded it from a movie channel. Judging from the description on Wikipedia, it looks like it might be worth seeing the director's cut on Blu-ray, especially if they're going to do a sequel.

Now recently seen:

• Prince of Persia (not terrible)

• My Pal Trigger (Roy Rogers was a dangerous troublemaker, as far as I could tell)

• Into the Wild Green Yonder (fourth Futurama movie)

• 2012: Ice Age (People flee a glacier... you read that right)

Last edited by Zarban (2011-07-04 02:46:30)

Yes, yes it was. It was atrocious.