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[John91]

I though a couple of Stephen King films were alright, I kinda enjoyed Christine.

I've seen quite a few films recently, due to an influx of cash.

Firstly was Rush Hour 3. I was quite apprehensive about this as I hadn't heard the best stuff about it, but wanted to see it anyway. I really enjoyed it, very funny, very silly and great to just chill out with when you switch your mind off.

Next, Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back. Awesome film, very funny and good to see these two anti-heroes get their own film. One downer was too many cameos, but otherwise excellent.

Spider-man 3. Crap. End of.

Fantastic 4: rise of the silver surfer. Better than the original, and a solid film all round.

Blades of Glory. Very silly but still very amusing. Not Will Ferrell's best, but still good.

Enchanted. Sister's birthday present. Very cheesy but was quite good, which surprised me.

Finally, Terminator 2: Judgement Day. WOW. This film is amazing. One of my favourites already. The story is great, the acting is solid and everything just fits. In parts of it you wouldn't think it was nearly 17 years old, especially with the T-1000 effects.

 

[LiveForTheLaunch]

Yesterday I went to see The Lion King in the West End and the least I could say of it was that it was bloody brilliant. It was probably the best show I've ever seen. I normally don't like musicals but I really enjoyed it. The storyline was mostly similar to the film but with some extra parts added.

See, Lion King IS fantastic. Anyone who says it's not needs a kick in the balls, or a kick in the vagina if they're a girl! It was something I definitely won't ever forget!

By and large, they're all dreadful. The only good ones I can think of are The Shining (disowned by Stephen King as Kubrick 'mauled' it), Shawshank and Green Mile. There are a few which are 'quite good I suppose', but generally, you can guarantee they will suck.

Yeah, those three were very good, but how about Misery, and Carrie? I personally didn't think Carrie was amazing, but I know a lot of people do. Misery was fantastic though, and it's one of my favourite movies overall.

1408 wasn't too bad either, but I know how you feel about that one, Mr. Furie!

It just seems like his good films are great, and his poor films are extreme duds. There isn't too much middle ground with him, it seems, at least not for the movies I have seen.

 

[madhjsp]

Finally, Terminator 2: Judgement Day. WOW. This film is amazing. One of my favourites already. The story is great, the acting is solid and everything just fits. In parts of it you wouldn't think it was nearly 17 years old, especially with the T-1000 effects.

Here is a MAN!
People sometimes give me quizzical looks when I mention T2 as one of my favorite movies, like it doesn't have a good plot or something.

Everything you said is spot on, plus the fact that Arnold is so intensely badass in that movie. It's mind-blowing.

 

[furie]

]By and large, they're all dreadful. The only good ones I can think of are The Shining (disowned by Stephen King as Kubrick 'mauled' it), Shawshank and Green Mile. There are a few which are 'quite good I suppose', but generally, you can guarantee they will suck.

Yeah, those three were very good, but how about Misery, and Carrie? I personally didn't think Carrie was amazing, but I know a lot of people do. Misery was fantastic though, and it's one of my favourite movies overall.

Those two sit in the 'quite good I suppose' category. I also think Christine is okay, and Pet Semetry isn't abysmal by a long way. The Dark Half is also nicely directed by George Romero - it IS however proof that following the story, good direction and good acting can't make his stuff translate to film.

Stephen King is excellent at two things - characters and prose. You really get to know and feel for the characters - you're right inside their minds and with them all the way. The books then rely on his prose to get you from point to point. It's not flowery prose or anything, but he has a rambling style which captures the essence of the story - a story which is usually pretty weak.

Unless you have a superb actor, you immediately lose the character of any remake. That's why it's no coincidence Jack Nicholson, Tim Robbins and Tom Hanks happen to be in the best three King movie translations.

The prose can be translated using excellent direction. Again, the Direction of The Shining, Shawshank and Green Mile are superb. The Dark Half is well directed too and scores some points for capturing the essence of the book. Misery scores highly here too. The biggest thing though is that the director and writer need to understand what works well on paper and what doesn't on on film. All four films here either changed the original work to something different, but which worked, or skirted around the issue by avoiding King's horror.

Horror works best when you feel for the character, so Paul getting his foot broken worked because you really felt for him due to the great direction keeping Kathy Bates full screen all the time (I saw Misery at the cinema, and it's a real cinematic experience). However, in the book, she cuts off his foot. If this had been in the film, the gore would have been the prevailing focus, it's too much for the viewer, and detracts from the character and situation build. You only see one foot being broken, because you're still reeling from the shock of it when she breaks the other - no need to show it, you've still got the first break in your minds eye!

You may have noticed that this is something of a pet subject of mine. I've been reading Stephen King books for around 22 years now, and when I started, there were only 6 or 7 films of his books (of any real note), and while they varied in quality, they were all pretty much alright or good. All had very little influence by Stephen King though, which I think helped a lot. So I've watched the films since, and been waiting for more decent ones, but the misses still fair outnumber the hits considerably.

It just seems like his good films are great, and his poor films are extreme duds. There isn't too much middle ground with him, it seems, at least not for the movies I have seen.

Nah, his hits are very few, there is a good middle ground of earlier stuff, but most of the stuff is just dire.

T2 is a good film. It's got a piss-poor story, but it's a superb action flick. I thought it had dated really badly actually.

 

[LiveForTheLaunch]

Alrighty Furie, that was a lot to take in at seven in the morning.

I pretty much agree with you, except when you say most of his films are dire, but I guess that all comes down to personal preference. Another movie I forgot that was pretty decent would be Dolores Claibourne, but yeah that's not exactly up there with the best.

I totally agree with you when you say that King really makes you feel for the characters. The Green Mile is probably the prime example of this one, and it did a good job too, as from the time Delecroix got executed, I don't think I stopped crying until the very end! Misery is also a really good example of this, because you just wanted Paul to escape so freakin bad and then he kept getting caught and she was turning mental.

Either way, most of King's movies that I have seen have been pretty good and most people I know enjoy them as well. The Mist, which was the latest one I seen, was a dud, but for the most part, the ones I've watched have been good. I think I might be a bit biased though since most of the ones I've watched are considered good. Actually if you want a list of the ones I've watched, it would be Green Mile which is undoubtably my favourite one, Misery which is my second favourite, Shawshank which is overrated but still good, The Mist, Dolores Claiborne, 1408, Carrie, Pet Cemetary which was sort of crap, parts of Cujo, and parts of Christine. I'm sure I'm forgetting one or two but for the most part I've watched King movies that are considered pretty good, give or take a few.

So yeah I might be a bit biased when it comes to him because I've only seen the majority of his good films and less of the crappy ones. Either way, we're all entitled to our own opinions and I do agree with you for the most part!

Sorry if I didn't make sense, I'm dead tired right now. Time for school

 

[peep]

On Saturday I decided to watch Enchanted on blu-ray (I point this out cause I have it on DVD too ). I love this film and I love trying to spot all the references to other Disney classics. I also played the D-Files extra on the disc which plays the movie but will then have a question when a reference pops up and then if you answer correctly then it plays a short clip of the reference and tells you why the director chose to place it within the film, best extra ever!


When I was watching TV in bed I came across Robocop 3 on Virgin1. I have no idea why but I decided to watch it (I missed like 20 mins). This film is so bloody random, I used to love the first film as a child but I feel they were running out of ideas by film number 3. I suppose there are some good performances in there despite the terrible dialogue and story. Meh, very random, 2/5.

 

[furie]

You've only watched the good ones Taylor:
http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0000175/

108 films/mini-series listed, I've seen about half - I'd say ten are good (or at least alright), the other 50 or so I've not seen I wouldn't watch anyway because I know for a fact they'd suck harder than The Shining TV series

#Films/TV series which suck outnumber the good stuff by 10 to 1. I dare you to go through that list as an experiment to find which ones you haven't seen which are actually any good - you'd be in a mental home by your 16th birthday!

 

[mrclam]

When I was watching TV in bed I came across Robocop 3 on Virgin1. I have no idea why but I decided to watch it (I missed like 20 mins). This film is so bloody random, I used to love the first film as a child but I feel they were running out of ideas by film number 3. I suppose there are some good performances in there despite the terrible dialogue and story. Meh, very random, 2/5.

I presume you're too young to remember the story of robocop 3.

The studio which was making it went bankrupt before even a 3rd of it was made - Mostly the expensive parts on jetpack, etc.. But not much of the story which joined it all together.

The receivers picked the movie up and finished it off as quickly and as cheaply as possible - shooting just enough to make the film kinda make sense.

Thus the randomness of it all.

There - you've now learned something today

Still not as crap as terminator 3 was though.

 

[LiveForTheLaunch]

Lol Furie, which is why I said I'm biased because I have only seen the good stuff. There are actually some movies on there I've seen which I didn't know were based off of his works, or I just forgot about, like Firestarter, Children of the Corn, and Secret Window. Was his story Boogeyman adapted into a movie in 2005, or did they just share a common name?

Either way, you've seen more than me, but as it stands I still think the films based on his books are great.

 

[mrclam]

Actually thinking about robocop 3..

it's probably a good thing that "Rank" movies went bankrupt.. what with Johnathon Ross doing film reviews and all that...

 

[mrclam]

Either way, you've seen more than me, but as it stands I still think the films based on his books are great.

Watch "Cats Eyes"

 

[Ben]

On Saturday I decided to watch Enchanted on blu-ray (I point this out cause I have it on DVD too ). I love this film and I love trying to spot all the references to other Disney classics. I also played the D-Files extra on the disc which plays the movie but will then have a question when a reference pops up and then if you answer correctly then it plays a short clip of the reference and tells you why the director chose to place it within the film, best extra ever!

Well, I just watched Enchanted as well.

OMG, how did I not see this film before? It's actually like, the best film ever. Although, I felt a bit sad getting all the James/Idina/billboard references, but whatever, apart from making me feel like a right geek, I loved it.

 

[Johnny]

Last night, I saw my first japanese animated film (that isn't a Pokémon movie), Spirited Away.

It was amazing. The whole thing was just immensely creative, and well, beautiful really. The characters, the setting, the story; EVERYTHING was just brilliant.

I watched it with the original Japanese audio with English subtitles, which I had heard was better. Even though I didn't watch it with English audio, it was still easy to watch with the original Japanese audio and English subtitles.

9½/10.

 

[Rush]

Two films I've seen recently.

On Monday I saw 21. It was an alright film, it had a decent theme to it but I thought it got far too repetitive. There were times as well that I didn't understand what was going on and it helps to know terms for cards as well. It wasn't really my type of film so I'd give it a 6/10.

Today I saw The Simpsons Movie and my god it was awful. The storyline and plot was completely lost. It was unimaginative and the humour (or lack of) was completely off. It only made me smile once, not a laugh at all. The first 20 minutes were completely irrelevant and it was all just a mess. I wasn't disappointed however as I didn't have high expectations of it. I'd give it a 2/10.

 

[Hixee]

^I agree about The Simpsons Movie. I thought it lacked a decent plot. I did find some parts funny, but not laugh-out-loud funny. I was dissapointed, as I expected more.

 

[Snoo]

Saw the entire Star Wars 6-ogy these last few weeks, and remembered why I loved it.

In order of love..

3, 5, 6, 2, 4, and 1.

 

[scan]

Recently i saw Dodgeball: a true underdog story while watching one of my favorate movies of all time, my memory thought comedy films are not dead after such fiasco's as Ace ventura and the dreadful Nacho Libre.

Dodgeball set the benchmark for great comedy, and these just didn't cut it

 

[Johnny]

^I agree about The Simpsons Movie. I thought it lacked a decent plot. I did find some parts funny, but not laugh-out-loud funny. I was dissapointed, as I expected more.

I liked the Simpsons Movie. Considering that the more recent episodes aren't as good as the ones from around season 9, they made a pretty damn good effort at the movie.

But had the movie been made around the time of the really good episodes (like around season 9/10), it probably would've been AMAZING.

 

[John91]

^The Simpsons was a typical case of hollywood leaving stuff too late. Like Terminator 3 and most probably Indiana Jones.

 

[Pokemaniac]

6-ogy

It's called a hexology.

Actually, I sat in cramps during my first view of the Simpsons Movie. However, the film went black after about half an hour, just before the !!!SPOILER!!!Dome-over-Springfield scene/SPOILER!!!.
Watched it again some weeks later, and from the point where the previous try failed, the jokes became gradually worse.
Why I liked it may have had something to do with the fact that I never watched The Simpsons (due to a lack of channels). Anyway, I'm not going to rate it other than less than ten, more than six.