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Had to watch Sweeny Todd as a choice musical for my theatre class.

Now, I tried to be clear minded abut it. This being the movie that wrecked a previous relationship, I didn't have a good opinion about it after the first viewing (I missed half of it due to, uh, "situational difficulties") so I kept my head fairly clear.

It's not bad.

Would like to point out I hate 99.99% of all musicals. The main reason is I hate people talking (in this case singing) in unison and really creeps me out. Why this is an exception is there is never more the 2 people singing at the same time.

Storywise is good, with Sweeny wanting revenge on a judge but instead goes out killing any guy who comes in alone to his barber shop. He has Mrs. Lovett there wanting him so bad but he's too caught up in killing to really care. So pretty much this movie is one where (you guessed it) everyone dies. A good sense of karma plays in where only the 3 people who really did nothing wrong to begin with are still alive.

Effects are good and realistic, which can scare the crap out of you. Music is well done with the actors singing pretty damn good, and again no more then 2 at a time. The whole feel is very dark, which fits perfectly with the dark story going on.

Overall, good film, but as I'm not too fond of musicals, won't be seeing again anytime soon.

7/10

 

[Lewis]

RockNRolla

Urm, it's alright. It's nothing different from every other Guy Ritchie/Gangster film, but at the same time it's rather funny and still rather enjoyable!

8/10

 

[furie]

Where to start... Shame I guess :lol:

Final Destination 3 - the one with the rollercoaster Watched it with Minor_Furie for a laugh, and it was. Leave you brains out and enjoy the deaths. I love the way the writers don't really make you feel sorry for the characters about to die - they really make you want them dead.

Utter dross, completely unbelievable, but great mindless fun.

Next.

Kung Fu Panda
Jack Black being an irritating, bumbling character who comes good. Some gorgeous CGI, lovely film at times. Bland, predictable and instantly forgettable.

Planes, Trains and Automobiles

I loved this when I was 14. Minor_Furie loved it too. It still made me smile a little. Films like this are old hat now. An attempt to produce a film which combined character, story AND comedy all in one place. It's aged and I doubt there's enough sick humour to amuse a modern day teen audience. However, it's a happy, roll-along comedy from a different era. I enjoyed it, but it's nothing spectacular. Poor old John Candy...

 

[Slayed]

On Tuesday night I was lucky enough see a screening of LOTR: Fellowship of the Ring, at the Royal Albert Hall, with a full performance of the score by the London Philharmonic Orchestra, The London Voices and The London Oratory School Schola, who all recorded the score originally.

WOW. Talk about being blown away! It's astonishing to hear the score come at you full-on while watching the film, in a way that no electronic version can ever reproduce. Coupled with the fantastic vocal work, it was massively powerful.

It was a great way of deconstructing the technique of film score composition too. My respect for Howard Shore and this score in particular, has gone through the roof, the complexity is awesome.

It's also great fun to hear a delicate refrain on-screen and then look down to actually see it coming from some bald bloke playing a whistle :lol:. Quite an experience.

Oh, saw some films too :-

Rec
Nice low-budget idea this - cheap TV camera crew get caught up in a situation in a block of flats. It started off well too, looking authentic and interesting.

*SPOILERS*

And then the zombie granny shows up! Was it just me who found that funny? The zombie sprog was amusing too :lol:.

Despite the liberty of the camerawork complimenting the anarchy of the situation nicely early on (and giving an unsettling air of "anything could happen"), it lost me once the zombiework kicked in - I didn't find it at all scary, it felt like AmDram night, or something you'd find on TV as a cheap drama. The ending was a bit of a Silence of the Lambs rip-off too.

*END OF SPOILERS*

Overall, a good start let down by a cliched horror device, weak plot and actors running around like headless chickens.

5/10, extra point for the quality sound editing (sorry Ollie!).

Tropic Thunder
I had very low expectations for this, as the trailers at the time were awful and put me right off it.

But shock horror, it's funny! Some great comic acting by everyone (even Stiller), plenty of jokes and humour, and if the story eventually meanders to a fairly limp conclusion, there was fun to be had getting there.

Awesome cinematography at times too, altough there's something obscene about throwing THAT much money at a spoof!

7/10, RDJ is reason to watch if nothing else.

 

[Lain]

On Tuesday night I was lucky enough see a screening of LOTR: Fellowship of the Ring, at the Royal Albert Hall, with a full performance of the score by the London Philharmonic Orchestra, The London Voices and The London Oratory School Schola, who all recorded the score originally.

WOW. Talk about being blown away! It's astonishing to hear the score come at you full-on while watching the film, in a way that no electronic version can ever reproduce. Coupled with the fantastic vocal work, it was massively powerful.

It was a great way of deconstructing the technique of film score composition too. My respect for Howard Shore and this score in particular, has gone through the roof, the complexity is awesome.

It's also great fun to hear a delicate refrain on-screen and then look down to actually see it coming from some bald bloke playing a whistle :lol:. Quite an experience.

JEAL.

OUS.

How did that come about, then?

 

[Ollie]

Rec:
Inset review here

Slayed is wrong.
The first woman was funny but the whole atmosphere of the film and the way it is done is great. It's one of those films that when you watch it at the right time you get really caught up in the atmosphere and adrenaline of it all.

 

[Slayed]

JEAL.

OUS.

How did that come about, then?

They do this kind of thing on occasion, just have to catch it! Howard Shore was there too.

They're selling tickets for The Two Towers for next year already.

It's one of those films that when you watch it at the right time you get really caught up in the atmosphere and adrenaline of it all.

I kind of filed it in the same drawer as Blair Witch (but a WHOLE lot better than that piece of ****!). I just found there was lots of screaming and not a lot else.

 

[Ben]

Over the last few days I've watched a few more.

The Bourne Identity - I always thought this movie was a bit slow, but, hadn't seen it for years, and I was buying the other two anyway and it was £3... yeah, still a bit slow. A bit plot-heavy, not that that's overly bad, but, a bit more decent action would have been appreciated. 7/10

The Bourne Supremacy - Uh, beyond nothing happened. 5/10

The Bourne Ultimatum - Certainly the best of the trilogy, quite exciting and thrilling, with lots of London-porn. Nice story line, but, really not IMDB top 250 worthy. Still, better than the recent Bond crap 8/10

Inland Empire - More Lynch. This is 3 hours long, and MAD. It started off as a number of short films, which he then flung together when he realised they sort-of-fit. Very loose plot is that a film crew are remaking a doomed Polish production, and the lead actress falls for her fellow actor, starts to go mad and then... well... it just gets VERY messed up. A bit overly long, and a bit overly pretentious and arty, this is still GREAT. While it doesn't make sense, it's VERY interesting and exciting. The visuals are fantastic. Mulholland Drive is better, though. Simply because it IS that bit more comprehensible. 8/10

A Clockwork Orange - UGH. Kubrick. This wasn't as bad as The Shining, but, still, WHY DID YOU EVER MAKE FILMS. It's good because the source book is SO brilliant, you can't go wrong. But, the actual film as a film - overrated. Kubrick just seems to love taking a big steaming dump on fantastic books. 6/10

 

[kimahri]

Rec:
Inset review here

Slayed is wrong.
The first woman was funny but the whole atmosphere of the film and the way it is done is great. It's one of those films that when you watch it at the right time you get really caught up in the atmosphere and adrenaline of it all.

*ZOMG SPOILER!*

He's just upset the bald character got zombied

*END SPOILER*

 

[LiveForTheLaunch]

I kind of filed it in the same drawer as Blair Witch (but a WHOLE lot better than that piece of !). I just found there was lots of screaming and not a lot else.

SH, Blair Witch is bomb.

 

[Rush]

I watched Quantum of Solace today. Oh dear.

What went wrong? I LOVED Casino Royale but when it comes to Quantum, just like the ride, it sucks majorly. So there's a car chase. And a boat chase. And a jump over buildings chase. And a bustle through crowds chase. And some more running chases. And a plane chase. That seems to be the main theme of QOS and it gets repititive and each chase is dull. The camerawork is shoddy and it's hard to understand what's happened. One minute, there's a car going into a tunnel, next thing it's crashed into a lorry and exploded. All it needs is a magic carpet chase.

The plot? What are they doing? What actually is it on about. It only mentions Quantum once, and that's right at the end.

According to QOS, all dictators look like Stalin. What was the purpose of that French guy? Seriously, it's a poor sequel which is probably only a bridge for CR and another Bond film. However, it's one of those wonky wooden bridges with planks missing! It left me feeling 'huh?' What's the point with half the characters? They're just there to be killed or only there so that they can have a sex scene, and that sucked too. (Pun not intended.)

I know it's based off the novel which I haven't read but QOS is a boring, all action, no audience interaction film which is there to show off special effects. (Which weren't too bad I suppose.)

I suppose the acting was pretty good, although that's one of the only positives I can think of.

Score: 3/10.

Let's not **** up the next Bond film.

 

[Slayed]

^It's no accident that 2 of the best "recent" Bonds, Goldeneye and Casino Royale, were by the same director.

QoS was Marc Forster's first action film, which may explain why the action sequences are a bit of a mess (doesn't excuse the rest of the film though).

Here's one for you Ben: http://www.celebritytweet.com/david_lynch/. He's quite sweet ^_^.

 

[Ben]

^Hehe, I'm already following him. He's well cute, bless him. He just needs to get over meditating and make me another film

 

[peep]

^^^QoS wasn't really based off a book, just a few short stories kinda messed with a new plot which meant they could carry on from Casino and then chose a title from another short story. Tbh I think Casino Royale is over-rated too. I just think the new Bond writers should be sacked, they've ruined Bond for me and I'm not happy.


Slayed that sounds cool. I went to a thing at the Barbican a couple weeks back where the LSO (London Symphony Orchestra, read as: best film orchestra out there) played parts of film scores/themes that they made original recordings for. It was awesome and to actually have an orchestra play live in front of you is such an amazing experience, makes the music really come to life.


It's a shame you didn't like Clockwork Orange Ben, I think it's one of the best films I've ever seen. I think Kubrick is very hit and miss, for example I'm not keen on 2001 but most think its amazing. meh.

 

[Nic]

There's a staircase in clockwork orange that I used to walk up and down at least a couple of times a week. how exciting.

 

[Ollie]

Both Bond films with Daniel Craig are crap.
They just don't feel like James Bond films.

 

[Dave]

A Clockwork Orange is a very good film. Over-rated because it was banned.

 

[kimahri]

Just finished watching V for Vendetta on Blu-Ray.

Epic.

Very Epic.

I'm about halfway through the book as well.

Also Epic.

I'm done.

 

[Ben]

There's an ex-cinema on my road that was shut in the 90s for illegally showing A Clockwork Orange.

It's still over-rated though, and I think it would have been much better if Kubrick hadn't directed it. Shame, it should be made to the standard the book deserves. Which, isn't Kubrick's standard.

Anyways, I am watching Aliens. Which is distinctly more awesome than Clockwork. This is such pure James Cameron through and through. I'm only just realising how similar it is to the decent Terminator films in feel and style.

 

[Gavin]

Had to watch Sweeny Todd as a choice musical for my theatre class.

What is it with your (incredibly lazy) teacher constanty showing Hollywood movie adaptations in your theatre class?

A few I've watched over the last couple of days:

Milk. I liked it well enough I suppose. It was very well acted, I grudgingly admit since I'm really not a fan of Sean "Chasing Oscars" Penn.

It was clever, if a little obvious, in telling the whole Proposition 6 story in light of the recent Proposition 8 stuff. I think the point being made was obviously that while we may think gay rights have come a long way, not much has really changed at all. I'm not saying I agree with that necessarily, but it definitely makes you think. 8/10

Repo: The Genetic Opera. Awful, awful, awful...I loved it! Such a piece of complete, unadulterated trash. Sarah Brightman as Blind Mag was great. Even Paris Hilton did a good job of being awful.

I'm not sure if it was intended as high-camp, over-the-top, so-bad-it's-good, but it does that very well. If nothing else, it looks amazing. Think theme-park-style haunted house meets ultra-modern technology. 9/10, but it's crap. Hope that makes sense.

Amusement. Basically a gorier take on a 70s/80s horror theme. Creepy child gets revenge as an adult on the kids that were mean to him.

I used to love that style of film when I was a kid (thinking of Prom Night, Slaughter High etc.), but wasn't too keen on this one. 5/10