Please dont get me wrong, as a whole, I would like to try to get to the cinema to watch a film, but with money been tight at the moment, sometimes its not always the option. I refused to watch a bootleg copy of Dark Knight. I get cinema rage very easily, and getting during quiet times aint always the easiest. If the chance comes up for Hellboy 2 in the cinema, i'll take it, if not, a drunken day with mates in a darkened room it is (oooerr )

Hey if it means anything, I dont keep my downloaded movies after I watch them

Hellboy 2 is tremendous. Excuse me for not elaborating into a massive essay for the likes of Famous Mortimer but I am drunk and not planning to stay online for awhile and make tonnes of spelling mistakes and such, but suffice to say, it's wonderful. I loved the first one but this is so much better. The acting is great, the set pieces are stunning and the overall tone is perfect. Much better than The Dark Knight, Guillermo Del Toro is one of cinema's finest treasures.

While I enjoyed it almost equally and do feel it may have beat out The Dark Knight I must admit to still prefering the first film. I guess I noticed the new one's flaws a lot more because of how much I rate the first (I consider it the best comic book adaptation film I've seen). I think that the entire German character (I wont elaborate as to avoid spoiling and because I've forgotten his name) should be cut out as he wasn't funny in the slightest - just cringeworthy. I also prefered David Hyde Pierce's voicing of Abe but I guess that couldn't really be helped and Doug Jones did try his best. Sometimes the actors appeared to be forcing the comedy aspects (apart from Ron Pearlman) which, again, brought my overall view of the film down.

Agreed completely on Del Toro though, everything I've seen by him I rate exceedingly high.

Do you want me to tell you an underrated film? "Merry Christmas, Mister Lawrence" with Bowie. Great film.

F*cking great Sakamoto soundtrack too.

You can buy the two of them combined, if you look hard enough. HMV used to have it.

co-signed on the praise for Hellboy, and del Toro is indeed amazing, but there's something quite depressing about how predictable it was that the, um, cinemati were *always* going to go on about how his film was better than the Dark Knight. Cosmo Landesman is such a cunt.

Gad folks think Hellboy II is good, enjoyed the first and should be going to see II in a few hours

I haven't seen all of Hellboy 2, only certain scenes, but the set design in the Troll Market is easily some of the best I've ever seen in a movie.

Shout out to Luke Goss too, who was excellent as Prince Nuada. Great villain.

Doomsday (2008)
Now, I think new films that suck are worse than old films that suck, in a way. There’s no excuse nowadays, people know how not to make a film, how to avoid falling into the same holes that bad filmmakers of the past stumbled blindly into.

Doomsday is an absolutely terrible film. I knew it was going to be bad from the trailer, lots of posing and bad one-liners from Rhona Mitra (the very poor man’s Angelina Jolie) and lots of screaming from Scots people with Mohawks. The plot, which wasn’t revealed in the trailer, is even more stupid – some virus starts killing off Scots people in 2008, and is incredibly virulent, so Scotland gets sealed off with a large metal wall and forgotten about til 2035. Luckily, it’s not virulent enough to spread across the border before it’s sealed, but there you go. A young girl who got out on an army helicopter becomes a police officer and is implausibly sent back up to Scotland as the same disease is now emerging from the slums of London, and they think there might be a cure up there, or something.

Problems so far. If this virus is airborne, then the rest of the UK at the very least would be fucked. If it’s blood-borne, then they should stop crying about it and keep people in hospital for a bit, as it doesn’t appear to send people insane or anything, just a bit grumpy (and then dead). The film doesn’t appear to be able to make up its mind which it is. Oh, and in 28 years no-one bothered looking for a cure for this disease, which you’d think would be cheaper than throwing a massive wall all round Scotland.

So a brave group in a supposedly impenetrable APC goes to Scotland. Oh, someone chucks a brick through its window in the first few minutes, which makes it quite penetrable. The Scots, doing their best impression of the people from Mad Max 3, scream a lot and wield spiked clubs. Ricky Gervais joke: so, a lot more polite than they usually are to the English! Ayethankyew. For some reason, they’ve turned to cannibalism, even though there are fields full of cows (not in the distance or anything, the APC drives through one).

So Rhona Mitra and her pals have a series of stupid adventures through the Scottish countryside. Back in London, Prime Minister Him-Off-Of-Deep-Space-Nine, Chief of Police Bob Hoskins and some bloke with a sinister accent have a bit of a sub-plot which has a stupid resolution. The one redeeming feature of this film is the high amount of gore which is liberally splattered throughout, with limbs and heads flying all over the shop.

All in all, it’s down there with Ultraviolet in films starring women, futuristic-style, that suck. It’s not just that it’s bad, although it definitely is, it’s that it’s stupid. No-one read through this script at any point and went “why does this happen?” or “does this make any sense?”

I don't need to read any further. Best.Film.Ever.

I thought he was the best thing in the film by quite a distance.

I did enjoy Hellboy II, sometimes it felt a bit too 'popcorn' but was a good fun hero movie.

Yeah. co-signed on the abuse for Cosmo Landesman, although I still enjoy reading his reviews even though I think he's a total bell. I think I just like getting angry


Hellboy 2 was fun, and a good film. But nothing amazing...

The trailer alone made me never want to see this. It was pretty clear that Neil Marshall is one of those directors that completely loses the plot when they have access to a bigger budget. Dog Soldiers was fucking amazing, Descent was alright, but really overrated. If it had been men instead of pretty women, the reviews wouldn't have been half as good. "Ooh, it were all a dream!" But then you get a trailer where there's a ridiculously attractive woman who's the ultimate slow-mo, jiggling boobies killing machine - right up there with superbrainy scientists played by Tara Reid in glasses - who says "nice car, I'll take it!" or whatever that Godawful line was at the end of the trailer. I know trailers are mostly out of the hands of the director and often portray the film differently than it actually is, but dreadful lines like the ones in the Doomsday trailer wouldn't have been in there if they hadn't been written and used in the film.

I'll probably rent it someday, but that was the first trailer that made me go from being excited about a director to saying "fuck this guy."

The Exorcism of Emily Rose: More of a thriller than a horror, but still a little disturbing in parts. I really liked the film, and the scene where Emily is on her dorm room floor all bent up and stiff actually made me go 'errrr'. I thought Tom Wilkinson was really good in this film. I've always seen him as a sort of bit part actor, or main character in smaller films but I think he done exceptionally well. One of the better films I've seen recently.

Isn't it hugely tongue in cheek though? That's the impression I got, that it's a British Escape from New York, or Mad Max 2. Over the top, camp, completely insane plot, but just good old fashioned entertainment.

Incidentally, I don't think Descent was overrated, I think it was a really high quality work, and a step up from the low-budget feel of Dog Soldiers. It wouldn't have worked with an all-male cast, as men react differently to women in such situations - a lot of the really unpleasant stuff in that film came from seeing the "friends" basically sacrificing each other in an attempt to escape themselves.

If Doomsday does turn out to be a "serious" film, then I reserve the right to hate it, mind you

i loved Doomsday, the fact that its so ridiculous and over the top is what i loved.

Neil Marshall has said he just went wild and paid homage to all his favorite movies.

I could tell the very obvious homage to Escape From New York, and 28 Days Later, and Mad Max 3, and even I suppose Apocalypse Now, but unfortunately just having plots and scenes that were reminiscent of other, better, films, does not in itself a good or interesting film make.

I suppose this bit of the post is going to have spoilers in it, so skip to the bottom if you want to watch it. Ebb, the film had logic holes you could have driven several tanks through. Why had no-one come up with an antidote to the virus in the intervening 27 years? Why did they bother making a point about how good the APCs were if they got totalled the first time they were called upon to act? If the virus was blood-borne, how did it kill so many people, so quickly? If it was airborne, why didn’t it infect everyone around the Prime Minister when the infected guy ran up to him and got shot near the end? How did the car start first time and have a presumably full tank of petrol after having been sat in a storage container for at least 27 years? Why did the woman near the beginning know what the GPS device was, and that it was valuable to Rhona Mitra? Why were the only people to survive crusties? Why did they eat people when it had already been established there were cows in abundance? Why couldn’t that incredibly good, powerful car outrun that shitty police car at the end, a police car which must have been 60 years old at that point and that had had no access to a proper mechanic for almost 30 years?

These are just the questions off the top of my head. That’s leaving aside a whole bunch of other stupid, implausible events. There’s one bit near-ish the end where two of the good guys go “it’s okay, I think we lost them” and then the next instant two trail bikes come flying over a makeshift ramp and a truck comes lumbering round the corner. Were these stealth trail bikes? They’re noisy fuckers, so the English soldiers must either have been deaf or extremely stupid.

If a film sets out to be over the top, like, for instance, “Shoot ‘Em Up” (a superb film), it takes delight in ignoring logic and the laws of physics. This didn’t, and if it’s being sold as that now it’s only because it failed miserably at what they intended it to be. It wasn’t suspenseful or exciting or funny or interesting to look at or terribly well-acted. It had a villain who might as well have been wearing a monocle and twirling his moustache, he was so obvious. It had a terribly bland presence as a leading lady.

Went to see Rock N' Rolla at the cinema tonight. Very Guy Ritchie esq in that its concerning cockney Gangstas, various main characters overlapping in their own little intricate plots and one item which everyone is after.........but it was good, not too long and funny in places. Nowhere near as good as Snatch, nor Lockstock for me but better than Layer Cake. Worth checking out.

Watched Near Dark again today.

Thought... "I wonder if...."

Then 5 mins later found these:

Henrikson wants in on Near Dark Remake

Near Dark Remake "Production Crew"

First reaction "YES!" if they don't rehash the original and make it a prequel/sequel then it could be quite good.
But I just get the feeling they are going to fuck it up.

/sigh

Edit:

Director - Samuel Bayer (done loads of music videos it appears...)
Producer - Michael Bay (Transformers etc)
Writers - Matt Venne (White noise 2: The light)


Uh oh...

Went to see Get Smart last week thought it was very funny and a top 5 film of 2008. Going to see Step Brothers tonight so hoping thats good.

How big is Stringer Bell's part in the film? I think this will pretty much decide whether I bother to see it or not.

Hulk

The one with Eric Bana in it. I think for all the criticism it got, it's not a bad film. Plenty of action, interesting plot, fun to look at, quite art-y for a superhero film...from the end of the film, it looks like the new one kinda follows on from it, but not really, or am I just reading too much into the ending of this one and what I've read about the beginning of the next one?

I'm not sure. See, I'm sure I remember reading that they wanted to distance themselves from the last film and that the Norton movie was a franchise reboot but I thought the new one followed on from it quite successfully too.

Ah here we go, Wiki with the answer:

Fair do's. I enjoyed it more than the bad reviews I'd read led me to expect though.


The Promotion

Seann William Scott and John C. McGinley in a gentle comedy tale of two men going for a promotion at a supermarket. Just nice and gentle and peaceful for a Sunday night when you can't be bothered with anything more before work.

The Terminal

Tom Hanks/ Catherine Zeta Jones film, I quite liked it.
Wasnt the best film in the world ever, and isnt a patch on Ferry to Hong Kong (which I havent seen in years but I remember it being good) but still engaging enough, even if a little predictable.


Red Dawn

Was on Virgin 1 t'other nite.. Oh hell yes, film.. cold war Cuban and Russian American Invasion, school kids guns, bombs and bullets.. Charlie Sheen and Patrick Swayze among others... Class film. Could watch time and time again, even if is jingoistic.... Doesnt have the trad happy ending and is really quite grim all the way through....


Rambo

The new one. 76 mins from start to start of the credits WTF? Not enough Rambo.. Too much of the team, though Matthew Marsden was quite good in it,. What was with the CGI blood? Other than that okayish actioner, nowt special though.

Got In Bruges this past week. Quite funny and really sad, with quite a good ending which i didn't really see coming until it was over. There's a couple of real funny scenes and the classic buddy pic.

Re-watched Catch Me If You Can the other night, which i think is a very good film despite the appearance of DiCaprio as the main character. And my brother finally gave me back my copy of Dogma. Love that film, especially Alan Rickman's several appearances. Also makes me wonder why no other directors than Kevin Smith see Jason Lee and Ben Affleck as the bastard characters?

The Shooter..this makes 3 mark wahlberg movies that ive really enjoyed now the others being ''4 Brothers'' & his role in ''The Departed''

The shooter see's mark as a ex sniper in the U.S, army Danny glover gets him to work out how a sniper could kill the president..its a really good film not gonna give anything away but its one that should be watched.

Smokin Aces.

I wanted to watch this because it was jam packed with some well known acters. It was just a huge mess start to finish. The attempt of a 'twist' was really shit aswell. Reminded me of a shit version of Lucky Number Slevin.

how's a shit version of shit work, then??

saw Step Brothers over the weekend. Whilst as a film is rubbish, it is goddamn funny. Its just a series of very funny stupid things and really gets by on the comic strength of Will Ferrell and John C Reilly, who are both brilliant. Great watch for a laugh.

I watched this a couple of nights ago and thought, bar one scene (paper bag), it was abysmal. For a comedy I found it had an exceptionally small number of jokes. I'm assuming the audience was supposed to be amused by the rivalry between Stiffler and Ferrel-Lite however... there wasn't really any rivalry. At points the two seemed like good friends and the extent of their struggle appeared to be minor actions or words that, at worst, would put the other in a mildly awkward situation.

The supporting characters were as routine as possible - the mouthy gang in the parking lot, the "wacky" banjo-playing fag next door, the down-trodden manager (the fire walk fall was too embarrassing), the bland straight wives (with added appalling Scottish accent), the smarmy board members.. it was all too predictable. On top of this Stiffler's acting was at points beyond horrible which only added to the overall effect of turd.

My main gripe however was the basic lack of story. So little happened! The small incidents that did occur were played in such an understated fashion by the cast that it was nigh on impossible to gain an interest. Combine that with the overall lack of laughs and the utter non-ending (it was like they ran out of money and wrapped it up in a day) and The Promotion quickly establishes itself as one of the most boring movies I think I've ever seen. And what the fuck was up with the foreign slapping tit? That just bugged the hell out of me. Fuck this movie.

On an equally downbeat note I watched Superhero Movie last night. It really was a bad cinematic weekend in my house. Though Leslie Nielson still made me chuckle a couple of times so there was a small, 90 second consolation.

P.S. - not aiming this at you FM, I just really disliked this stinking flick.

Watched The Strangers on Friday, it's ok but the ending was really flat it felt like i'd walked out of the film and then came back in at the end and missed something in between. It seems like they couldn't think of a really good ending for the film and instead opted for one more cheap scare which you could see coming a mile off.

Watched a couple of films yesterday, had them for ages but been waiting to get around to seeing them:

Run, Fatboy, Run
I really enjoyed this. It wasn't laugh out loud funny, but it was amusing. The casting is good, particularly the beautiful Thandie Newton and Simon Pegg, although quite how he'd ever get her in the first place is a wonder. Dylan Moran is great, as he often is. The story is a slight twist on your average rom-com, but has some really good dialogue, especially the balcony scene with Pegg and Newton where he lets her know why he let her go, which is really touching. The actual run is a bit too hollywood but the end is good. It's a happy ending, not a sappy ending.

Walk The Line
I thought this was excellent. Love the story, love the music and love the actors. Reece Witherspoon was amazing and very, very sexy. Phoenix is really good as Johnny Cash too. Having not read JC's autobiography yet, it's difficult to know how much of it is real and how much is pure theatre, but regardless, it was a good story that was well told. It didn't paint JC in the best light, but I suspect that if you told the story of 99% of our idols, you'd get the same impression.

You deserve whatever you get for voluntarily watching "Superhero Movie"

Fair points, really. I liked the odd foreign slapping fella, I thought it was a pleasantly silly moment. And I think the two mains aren't proper rivals - sometimes they're friends, sometimes they try and screw each other over. It reminded me in part of "Rushmore", where the two stars try and screw each other over but you can tell their hearts aren't quite in it. Where you see lack of focus, I see "real life".

The Scottish accent was appalling, no argument on that score, and Jenna Fischer's part was underwritten. Why have such a brilliantly talented comic actress in there and just use her to be nice to Stifler? But I enjoyed the gentle pace of it and the way it ended by not really ending - again, it was more realistic than most films where everything gets tied up neatly by the end. I dunno, I just dug it. But your opinion is equally valid, of course.

This is going to leave me open to having the shit kicked out of me next time I go to Liverpool event but the Power Rangers Movie. Ah the nostalgia.

yeh i agree, i saw the film on saturday afternoon and it cracked me up.

Exorcist III - Legion - finally finished watching the Exorcist series. This was the 2nd sequel and was directed by the man who wrote the original (William Peter Blatty), who incidentally despised the original sequel. This movie pretty much has nothing to do with the Exorcist, it's based on Blatty's novel Legion and is basically a serial killer-detective movie, there's a brief mention too the exorcism but that's it (an actual exorcism scene was tagged on at the end after being demanded by the studio and is pretty stupid). This was a very good movie, it's definatly been hurt by the fact that is carries the Exorcism tag. But watch this with an open mind and expect something a little different and you'll probably get a kick out of it.

The Exorcist series is probably my favorie series of horror movie, i've said before any horror that involves religion just appeals to me for some reason. It's a pretty diverse series.

Resident Evil Extinction - never been in a rush to watch this, but i picked it up for £5. I never really liked the first 2 films, but this was fun. Basically a group of survivors trying to get to safety but being surrounded by zombies wherever they go. It's fast paced and full of action/gore. Not the kind of movie that would ever win over the critics but it's very enjoyable. Zombie birds muthafucker.

Son of RamboW - one of my fave films of the year! if you a fan of coming of age films like Stand by me then this is for you! its got a good mix of funny and sad

yeh Son of Rambow is good stuff

anyone thats seen the butterfly effect..is it worth checking out?

I certainly didn't mind The Butterfly Effect. It's laughable at points, but I didn't care too much.

I watched Vacancy, Speed Racer and Hancock over the last couple of days.

Vacancy wasn't good at all. Mainly because the bad guys were incompetent morons who weren't sinister in the slightest and the lead characters, while not suffering from horror movie idiocy, were annoying. I quite liked the idea behind the movie, but that's just about it.

Hancock was good, but the second half of the movie felt like over an hour's worth of plot crammed into almost 40 minutes. Can't say I was too pleased with that side of things. It was still entertaining though.

Speed Racer was just great, great fun to watch. A bit distracting at first because of how colourful it is, but once I got past that, I loved it.

its well worth a viewing.

The Butterfly Effect is a strange film in that it's not amazing, but alot of people consider it their fav. film (especially girls)...go on myspace/facebook or whatever and a hell of a lot of girls list it as one of their favorite movies, fucking weird.

Make sure you get the good ending though!

I saw it with my missus a couple of years ago on Channel 4 and we both really liked it.

Saw Anger Management with Jack Nicholson and Adam Sandler yesterday - had me in stitches

As one of my favourite film reviewers said, The Butterfly Effect is a clever film for thick people.

I'm far from thick and still thought it was clever. God damn I hate smart arse film critics.

I said that!

Indeed you did

I did like the film myself.

It was a good way to waste an hour and a half

Self harming for 90 minutes would be more enjoyable.