"Now Showing"

[Rush]

Rush, how can you not like Hot Fuzz? Its a brilliant film, probably better if you've seen some of the films it references. Overall its an excellent British film.

However I still quite liked it. The church steeple murder rocked!

Poor quality but relatively entertaining. Plus it's British. 6/10.

:wink:

I didn't say I didn't enjoy it. As a hollywood blockbuster, it was **** but I still liked it. It's one of those films which has some really cringe-worthy camera work and acting but that doesn't stop it being enjoyable.

I was probably a bit harsh with a 6, more of a 6.5 to 7.

 

[David]

I saw Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull today.

Overall I thought it was a great film. It was quite different from the others and I thought it was quite strange in parts. Although the film was over 2 hours long it didn't seem to drag on at all and I found it very enjoyable to watch. However it is still not my favourite Indiana Jones film.

I'll give it 8.5/10.

 

[furie]

I DIDN'T go and see Indiana Jones and the Crystal Skull but everyone else has and has put it in bold and I was feeling left out

I did however finally get round to watching Big Trouble in Little China which I recorded on the V+ box a few weeks ago for Minor_Furie and myself. It's awful, it's aged really badly (and it was never great to begin with), but it's solid cheese. I can't rate these below par 80's films because I love them, despite knowing how tragic they are :lol:

I also recorded White Noise I left it to play on it's own after about an hour to go and post my huge post in the good old days topic here. It had finished by the time I'd finished the post, and I was happy with that. Such a dull film, predictable, badly written, badly directed and simply tedious.

Finally, I watched Memento for the second time ever Sunday night on DVD (as opposed to Blu-Ray, or on the TV ). The first time I watched it was the night before my wedding back in 2001. I remembered the film, and remembered it being very clever, but couldn't remember the exact details. Second time around, without the head **** of how it's filmed, it's not quite as good, it's actually very simple. Still, an excellent idea, and a great twist at the end (beginning?). Very well filmed and enjoyable to watch. Oddly, I don't think I got the ending the first time around. I suspect I was drunk and chatting with wedding guests, so missed something important :lol:

 

[Ollie]

I re-watched all the Wallace and Gromit films over the weekend.
They are still great fun to watch and bring back great memories of being a kid and sitting in oyur front room watching it while having dinner.

 

[Slayed]

^Wrong Trousers is still stunning .

I didn't like Curse of the Wererabbit though :?.

So Indy 4 has made $311 million in 5 days, and is #1 in 61 countries. I guess this means there'll be a sequel .

 

[peep]

@ Furie...Lol



Just finished watching The Prestige on DVD. Had it for ages but never got round to watching it. I really enjoyed this film it was well acted/written/directed and even David Bowie had a good screen presence. The twist at the end was good but I also kinda saw it coming, still good.

Rating: 4/5

 

[Ollie]

Just watched Cool Runnings
The film is about a Jamaican man who tries to get into the olympics sprinting but fails because he trips.
He then decides to start a bobsled team. The film then follows on showing their hilarious training and all the things that come up to stop them racing such as getting all the way to the Olympics and not having a sled. :lol:

It was one of those old heart warming films that Disney made that tells a story and a moral at the same time.
It's worth a watch but does have a few quiet moments between the good bits.

7/10

 

[thx]

Pulp Fiction - Finally saw this, had it on tape for almost a year. It was good and actually better than I expected, although it wasn't fantastic or anything like that. Some very long scenes, but they still didn't bore at any point as it was quite interesting. 8.2/10

The Crying Game - A bit strange, interesting movie with a few twists, few a bit predictable. Good acting and the movie dealt with some quite unusual issues, also it had some funny moments. Nice. 7.6/10

Rainman - Interesting and well acted movie, but was a bit too much hanging on Hoffman's acting as the story was a bit boring, I guess it had to be that way, still was funny and 'sweet' at times so well... 7.2/10

Nikita - a Luc Besson movie, had some nice twists and in the beginning it was quite awesome, then it toned quite a bit and became more predictable , but still it was very good, with action, suspense and some humour. There was some similarities with the Clockwork Orange, not that they would've made that deliberately though. 7.8/10

Tideland - Quite different from what I expected, also quite different from many other movies. It was a bit funny and 'sweet', but also had a few little disturbing moments. It sort of lacked something big, but thus it also was good as it kind of surprised. 7.2/10

 

[Johnny]

Walk the Line

Wow, Joaquin and Reese gave amazing performances as Johnny Cash and June Carter. It was great to see that they sang all of the songs themselves! I'm glad Reese got the Oscar, but I expected Joaquin to get his more!

A great biopic with an interesting story of Johnny's life. Watch it purely for the acting; it's brilliant.

8½/10.

 

[Ollie]

Leaving at 8:00pm to see Indiana Jones
Really looking forward to it, but will write my review tomorrow as I won't be back till late.

 

[Hixee]

^Now that was clearly a way to get two posts.

I went to see Iron Man this afternoon.

It was bloody good. The graphics and effects were spectacular. I can't really think of much more to say though.

Easily a 9/10.

 

[LiveForTheLaunch]

Rainman - Interesting and well acted movie, but was a bit too much hanging on Hoffman's acting as the story was a bit boring, I guess it had to be that way, still was funny and 'sweet' at times so well... 7.2/10

OMG Rainman is a fantastic movie. Hoffman's acting was excellent, but overall I just thought it was very well-done, a fairly different plot to what you usually see in movies, and it was also a tear jerker. It's definitely one of my favourite films.

 

[A-Kid]

I saw Indiana Jones just now. I thought it was great. Some of the graphic work was brilliant.

Probally 9.5/10 would be the rating.

 

[John91]

I also saw Indiana Jones recently. Great film, a good adventure that was very entertaining and witty. Better than the Temple of Doom but not as good as the other 2. 9/10

Also just got back from What Happens in Vegas. Very cheesy and very predictable, but it was still a funny and entertaining film. 7/10

 

[Uncle Arly]

Wicked

What a musical! I've been wanting to see this for over a year now, and OMG was it good!

Proper gutted Kerry Ellis wasn't Elphaba today but her understudy more than made up for it, she had such an orgasmic voice!

All the music and the staging was spot-on and the actors all had great chemistry with each other, and it flowed so well.

I think it's knocked off Les Miserables from my Number 1 musical!

10/10

 

[Ollie]

Back from Indiana Jones and the temple of the crystal skull

Very good movie and tried to stay true to the originals. Had quite a few references to past films as well.
Had some laughable moments which makes every Jones film what it is and had some great scenes.

I was expecting more though and the ending completely spoilt it as it had absolutely nothing to do with Indiana Jones and should be an entirely different film all together.
The CGI was noticeable (especially in the final scene) and it had a couple of 'as if' moments.

Apart from all that it's still definitely worth going to see. But only seems like it was aimed at us who have grown up with the previous films and didn't feel like it was trying to draw in new crowds.

Also I was expecting some good scenes with booby trapped temples. But there was none.

Still worth going to see and gets a hefty 8.5/10 from me.

 

[Hixee]

^You lied...

 

[Slayed]

^Blatantly spam!

I've started going through my backlog of films. First up was A Sound Of Thunder, a messing-about-with-time sci-fi based on a Ray Bradbury short story.

This got heavily delayed before being released, and dear gods I can see why. Bad script, some awful acting (from Ben Kingsley!), CGI that you could do better on your PC with Blender. Yet another bit of sci-fi literature plundered then, your average Dr Who episode is better! But at least I now know that giant killer baboons sleep like bats. 2/10.

 

[furie]

Well, went to see Indiana Jones and the Kingdom fo the crystal skull - I know I was all bold before, but now everyone has seen it and I feel embarrassed to be jumping on the band wagon last night. Orange Wednesday, so got Minor_Furie in for free so it was good.

Are we ready for an epic_furie review? :lol:

There may be spoilers ahead

The films annoyed me immediately with 'cute' CGI. Yeah, this film is going to have no CGI :roll: It gets going okay, I liked the American Graffiti kind of start, and I liked the way they kept Indy from view initially - kind of bringing him into it almost slowly. Seeing Ford as an aged Indy was a real shock though. I've not seen Ford in a film for years, and he's aged and it's a shock. Still, they try to keep the action going and gently ease you into the 'old' Indy.

I wasn't impressed with the whole 'hokie religion' telekenesis/telepathy bit at the start though. It was all a bit Star Wars really.

The film carries on in a very similar story form to the original and third films - which works. Action, university, discovering mystery, fly off to solve mystery, sub mystery, main plot, action, action, action.

Sadly, the whole Mutt/Marian story is obvious from the trailers - it's hardly a Luke/Vader moment. They make light of it, but you can't really polish that turd.

There's a lot of solid references to the Young Indiana Jones series, and more than the occasional nod to the original three films - and this is were one of my biggest gripes comes - it wasn't actually an original film. It was just a collection of nods and references to Lucas' and Spielberg's prior works. The whole film was just a great big tribute to both their early films. Yes, they were both great once, but surely they can do something new?

They also took the piss at times too. Yeah, Indy is a survivor and it's based on those serials where the good guy also cheated death, but they put their tongues too far in cheek at times - most notably with Mutt and the monkeys!

There were also scenes cut, and bad editing which made some of the action and story flow a little off. The two guys attacking them in Peru in the graveyard - it was never explained! There was always a reason in the old films - there may have been a slight hint as to why, but it was never followed up.

The biggest problem for an Indy film though is that there are no memorable set pieces. Think of any Indy film, and you remember the boulder rolling, or the Nazi burning his hand in Nepal, or the mine train cart, or the bridge cutting scene, or Indy and his dad in the fireplace, or the entire end sequence of Last Crusade. Each film is just a collection of superb set pieces, linked together by a story woven around them. Lucas went at this the other way (much like he did with the new Star Wars) and created a story first, then fitted in the action. Lucas is poor at telling detailed tales, but great at creating action - I don't understand why he thinks he's Tolkien, he just isn't, and he should stick to what he's good at!

Phew, are we nearly done yet. My final gripes are with the effects. I wasn't chuffed with the in your face CGI which was unnecessary. A film like this doesn't need it, it doesn't need cheap laughs with a CGI rodent. Worse though was the skull. It's Crystal Skull, not Plastic Skull. It looked, sounded and was handled like a lump of plastic all the way through. For what is a major prop in the film, most of the way through, it needed to be spot on, and it wasn't - even slightly.

Well, that's all the bad stuff out of the way

The original Indy films set the level for all action films in the future to meet - they're the milestone, and I don't think anyone has got close since. Everything about them is spot on - the pacing, acting, script, direction and story are all spot on - even Temple of Doom! KOTCS also doesn't meet up to the milestone set by the original trilogy (I think it's better filmed and made than ToD, but I don't think it's as enjoyable a film to watch) - but it certainly comes closer than any action/adventure/superhero film I've seen since Last Crusade was released 16 years ago.

So, it's not a great Indy film - it's weak in all the areas the others were strong, but Lucas and Spielberg are STILL great artists (not as good as they were maybe, but still great) - and it does shine through compared to most of the formulaic CGI nonsense churned out mass production style from Hollywood.

So worst of the series, but still a decent enough film - 3.5/5 (3 as an Indy film, 4 as an action adventure) :lol:

 

[Slayed]

^There was one shot with the skull I liked, when Indy's staring into the eyes, but yeah it looked like a piece of tat otherwise.

They've admitted that the script is a lot of bits of previous scripts cobbled together, and that's what lets it down in the end, but it's still not a bad film.

Film #2 in my catch-up list was Next, a sci-fi based on a Philip K Dick story. It's an interesting premise - a man can see 2 minutes into his future - and at times the film presents it well; imagine seeing multiple futures at once.

But the story goes off on a fairly unbelievable tangent, Nic Cage is dour and creepy, Julianne Moore doesn't bother, and it just doesn't get the best out of the concept. Oh and it has a rubbish ending. Why bother making a film from an intelligent idea and then dumbing it down? 4/10

Also watched Dangerous Days, a documentary about the making of Blade Runner. I've read the book Future Noir which covers the same ground, so there were no surprises, but the documentary covered everything well, spoke to all the key players, and is a great watch for fans. It's on Sky+ Anytime at the mo (thanks Plod ).