Final Destination 3 - Very enjoyable.. for me with Destination films its all about the death scenes and FD3 had the goodies. Cool shit, check it out!

I watched The Aristocrats on DVD over the weekend, which I know was mentioned earlier in the thread (Seven said it I think). It's about 75 comedians telling the same joke in a different way.

Sounds odd but after about fifteen minutes of settling into it and 'getting it' it becomes absolutely hilarious as comedians ranging from Eddie Izzard to Gilbert Gottfried to Whoopi Goldberg displaying their respective genius. I heartily recommend the DVD to hoover up the generous extras packed with extra gags (George Carlin's Dirty Doctor comes highly recommended).

I'd be quite interested in seeing a more UK-centric version of this too.

Capote - Great film. Phillip Seymour Hoffman is fantasic as writer Truman Capote. A Terribly sad film about the conflict of loyalty, friendship and justice.

A Cock and Bull Story - Funny as hell, a must for any Coogan or Brydon fan. A very well constucted and clever comedy.I loved the Pacino impressions as the credit rolled.

Breakfast on Pluto - A fun little film. About identity, sexuality and flared trousers. Cillian Murphy is great but I didn't think he looked all that like a woman!??!?! Really realisic use of the backdrop of war torn Ireland.

Anybody seen that "Grizzly Man" documentry thats out in the cinemas today? You know, its the one where the guy gets ripped at the end by a bear.

Fancy it.

yeh i wanna see Grizzly Man, looks interesting.

Love, Honour and Obey

An enjoyable film, I've been watching the 1st and 2nd Series of Operation Good Guys over the past couple of days and this is made by the same people and has pretty much the same cast, with a few extra actors in, it's a British gangster flick but don't look at it in the same way as Lock Stock etc because it's different. It's completely improvised and if you like Operation Good Guys then you'll like this film as it contains the same sort of absurd and juvenile humour.

8/10

I saw this on Friday evening. How gory?? Very enjoyable though.

I want to go to the cinema tonight, anything else good on at the moment?

If you haven't seen Brokeback Mountain watch it. It's brilliant.

Funny you should say that, I've just been reading about this film on IMDB.

Tenebrae
A good film, with an interesting and enjoyable story, but not really good enough given its praise as a great movie or a masterpiece. The action (death) scenes are inconsistent - some are pretty unimpressive (and are over-acted), while some are very good. There is no real flow to the film for the most part, as it seems to jump around a lot, and the dubbing is off and really poor at times. You are left guessing until the end (as to who and why), but I had an idea of the killer from just watching the trailer. On the whole, Tenebrae hasn’t really stood the test of time, with better films being made since (for example Se7en). The film has a very good last 20-minutes or so leading into a good ending though, and you can see Tenebrae’s influence on films like Seven and Bone Daddy.
(***)


Koma
A pretty good film, which is entertaining, has good special effects, and a good and effective soundtrack. The movie also has a pretty straight-forward plot, with some interesting if predictable plot twists, and is quite bloody and violent at times. The director Lo Chi Leung (Inner Sense, Double Tap) shows potential for better things in the future, and the two female leads are good throughout - Angelica Lee (The Eye) and Karena Lam (Inner Senses, Heroic Duo). The opening 10-minutes and end 10-minutes or so of Koma are very good, but the film is far too short at 82-minutes, and on the whole is pretty predictable.
(**1/2)

Is the gay sex explicit in Brokeback Mountain? I don't fancy sitting in an empty cinema whilst two cowboys are rodeo-ing each other.

I must see it however.

From what I've read about the film, no it's not.

I watched North by Northwest again last night.

10/10 and in my opinion (and those of a few other people i know) it is the greatest film of all time.

If you haven't seen it, then you should. Wonderful film.

No, it's not explicit, its a bit aggressive and quite sexual though. You do see Anne Hathaway and Michelle Williams' norks though so it evens out.

Yesterday I watched former Nickelodeon duo Kenan and Kel's film Good Burger. I was expecting complete nonsense even though I loved the series and was pleasantly surprised at what un folded before my eyes. It was a funny, inoffensive film that kept me entertained all the way.

Damn I miss those two..

Just a couple of other films I've watched over the past couple of weeks...

Comedian

A documentary on the return to stage of Jerry Seinfeld and an extremely arrogant upcoming comedian Orny Adams. Anything with Jerry is really funny and really interesting as you get to see the mental agony these guys go through, anything with Orny is annoying and funny as well.

8/10

Bram Stoker's Dracula

A huge big budget film based on the original book. Quite interesting and a great cast with Gary Oldman and Winona Ryder especially good. Keanu Reeves sucks out all the life out of every single scene he's in. Didn't find it that great as the story was very choppy and didn't hold much of my attention. Great looking though.

5/10

East is East

First time I watched it I didn't think it was that good or that funny, watching it a second time was much better and it was much funnier. Can't be bothered to write much more about this. Mildly entertaining.

7/10

Mindhunters
A very good film, which is great fun to watch and very entertaining. The movie has a good and very interesting story, some good plot twists (keeping the viewer guessing who the killer is throughout), and good set-pieces. The film also has some great death scenes, good special effects and make-up effects, and a great final couple of action scenes, but the ending doesn’t make too much sense. Lastly, there is mostly good acting from a pretty good and capable cast (Val Kilmer(Batman Forever), Christian Slater(True Romance, Broken Arrow, Alone in the Dark), Jonny Lee Miller(Trainspotting, Hackers), Kathryn Morris(Cold Case, Paycheck), LL Cool J(SWAT, Deep Blue Sea), Eion Bailey(ER, Band of Brothers), Will Kemp(Van Helsing)).
(***1/2)

They actually change alot of stuff from the original book. Like the whole, she falls in love with Dracula plot that drives the entire film is not in the book. In the scene in the movie where she is willingly drinking Dracula's blood so that she can be undead with him forever...yeah, in the book Dracula sneaks into her room and forces her into drinking his blood while she begs God to save her.

I read somewhere that it went back to the original source material and based the film on that (that being the book) and didn't just revamp the more well known Dracula tale, I haven't read the book mind so I guess you're right.

Corpse Bride
A good Tim Burton effort, where he follows his trend of casting Johnny Depp and Helena Bonham Carter, as a jittery groom and a dead woman respectively. And, by jings, she's thinks they're married! Apparent nepotism aside, the voices were well suited as was the notable score by Danny Elfman.

Philadelphia

Classic. Washington and Hanks both proved themselves in this one, and I don't think anyone can deny the fact that this movie is a great one.

Maniac Cop - cult classic movie starring Bruce Campbell, this comes off as a cross between an 80's detective movie and some crazy as b-horror, this is great stuff...love the suspense music through pretty much the whole thing, bad ass fucking movie.

The Return of The Incredible Hulk - damn! this brought back some memories, i used to love the origional Hulk show, aint seen it in well over 10 years (possibly 15), i stuck it on and the music hit and it all came flooding back! this is a tv film made after the show finished, absolutely brilliant...Thor is in this too and he kicks ass! you can't beat the old 80's tv shows. i want more!!!

Hitman's Run - bog-standard action/thriller starring Eric Roberts (the main reason i checked this out). Pure made-for-tv trash, but still kinda entertaining...this is the kinda movie you find on tv late and night and for some reaon keep watching. Cliche' Gangsters, one decent car chase, shit dialogue, and some piss-poor action sequences...if their the things you like, check it.

Yeah its 100% real. Its on the "Executions" video, the cover of which is below..



Sendit.com link: http://www.sendit.com/video/item/7000000035848

The whole scene lasts about five minutes.

Just mentioning it due to the fact I've just finished watching "Hotel Rwanda" and remembered somebody mentioning that scene. Great film. Should have won a ton of Oscars.

There are certain aspects of the movie that are identical to the book. Likewhen Keanu Reeves character (woteva his name is) is caught in the tower is exactly like the book and the same with Daisy turning into a vampire and the insanity of Mr. Renfield.

But the love story is not in the book. The book ends with Dracula dead and everyone happy about it.

Urban Legend
An entertaining if forgettable movie, which is silly at times yet still very enjoyable on the whole. The film has an entertaining and interesting story, and some good plot twists, but it does gets a bit predictable (and obvious who the killer is) towards the end. The movie also has a good young cast (Alicia Witt, Jared Leto, Rebecca Gayheart, Tara Reid, Joshua Jackson, Michael Rosenbaum, and Danielle Harris) and the experience of Robert Englund. The film is nothing special, but it is worth watching if you are a fan of movies like Scream or I Know What You Did Last Summer.
(**1/2)


Urban Legend 2
An entertaining if forgettable film, which is silly at times, but still enjoyable. The movie has an interesting story, some good plot twists, and a good young cast, but on the whole is nothing special. Like the first Urban Legend film though, if you are a fan of movies like Scream or I Know What You Did Last Summer then you should enjoy this film.
(**)


Urban Legend 3
A poor film, with poor acting, poor use of CGI, an unimpressive cast, and which is predictable (with no shocks or surprises). The film has moments when it is watchable (the 2nd death scene is interesting and pretty good), but is nothing like the first two films, and feels like a low-budget DTV movie or made-for-TV movie. On the whole it seemed like the makers of the film were just trying to cash-in on the recent success and craze of supernatural films like The Ring and The Grudge.
(*)

Switchblade Romance (France, 2003, Alexandre Aja)

Switchblade is a french horror film, which loves TCM, Halloween and Fight Club(!?). I loved the gore factor, the style, the direction and the constant product placement! The basic plot is about a killer attacking this family home, and its about two women's romance they have for each other. Although being extremly entertaining the film has some major faults, the cliches, plot holes and over homage. A well made, scary and highly exciting movie.
(***1/2)

Elephant (America, 2003, Gus Van Sant)

I think everybody knows the score on this movie now? Its based on the columbine shootings, but shot in an arty and very creative style. I believe its pretty hate or love, but after watching this movie after the recent Switchblade it was a good relief to have a great narrative to put me in a very consentrated state of wonder what was going to happen next. I'm a lover of this film, very recomended.
(****)

This upsets me.

Elephant is the single worst film ever made. Shame on you.

Lovely opened minded response!

As I said its clearly a love or hate movie, and its love for me. I love battle royle and RATM too if it will help you sleep.

If you wanted open-minded all you had to do was ask. I wrote this over a year ago and I stand by it:

The winner of the coveted Palme D'or at the Venice Film Festival. The acclaimed "masterpiece" that takes on the Columbine issue and gives it's opinion on things. Only it doesn't. Gus Van Sant (who hasn't made one good film in my view) assembled a cast of unknowns to give the movie that "realistic" feeling, however this only gives the film the most wooden performances this side of Eastenders. 80 very long minutes of nothing happening is hard to take, but here it's almost impossible. A guy walks from one end of the school to another verrrrrrrrry slooooowly with the camera following him and again, nothing happens. Two guys talk in the corridor about nothing and we get to see this again from another character's perspective, not just once, not even twice, but three times.

No explanation is given as to why the killer's shoot up the school (which by the way doesn't happen until there's about 5 minutes left) and infact, the only possible hint given is that the two guys are bullied because they're gay. To suggest that because these guys are gay they're going to go on a killing spree isn't just stupid, it's irresponsible and offensive. There is nothing good about this film, it contains horrible acting, no character development and literally nothing happening. It really is my most hated film of all time.

Black Christmas
A good film, which is mildly humorous and entertaining, whilst also strange and creepy at times. There is good acting from a good cast (Olivia Hussey is very good, while John Saxon and Margot Kidder are both good), and the movie just about stands the test of time. Black Christmas is an influential film (it pre-dates the likes of Halloween and Friday the 13th by a few years – and you can see the influence on Halloween in particular), but it is not the classic is it made out to be by many, and it also has a very inconclusive ending. It will be interesting to see what the remake turns out like.
(***)

Elephant is a five-star film. And if that statement disgusts you, there's nothing I could possibly say to change your mind.

The Aristocrats

I got this as part of my play.com bonanza which included Old Boy off the back of a game in this thread, I went away for a couple of days and both these DVDs were waiting for me, I watched this first. I'm fascinated with comedians, almost as much as I'm fascinated with wrestling, and this film was an indication of how comedians are with each other and the relationships that they form with each other, its like a brotherhood, infact one comedian likens it to your family. The premise was very simple but didn't get dull and the stories were pretty funny each time, obviously everyone's humour is subjected but I'm pretty certain that anyone will laugh at something foul in this film.

7.5/10

Suspiria
A pretty enjoyable film, but disappointing given the praise the film seems to get. The action scenes are pretty unimpressive (they are over-acted and the special effects are pretty poor – e.g. blood which looks like red paint), most of the music used in the film distracts from what is going on, and the shocks/scares are predictable. The quality of the film improves somewhat in the 2nd half, and the last 10-minutes of the film are pretty good, but that fails to make-up for the rest of the movie being slow and boring for the most part and not at all scary! Suspiria might have been ground-breaking and great in the 1970’s, but not so in 2006 where it now looks dated and is embarrassing to watch at times. In fact the likes of Hostel and so-called throw-away teen horror movies like the House of Wax remake are better and more entertaining!
(*1/2)


Das Experiment
From the director of Downfall (Oliver Hirschbiegel), Das Experiment is a very good, interesting, and entertaining German film. It is also gritty, disturbing, realistic, violent and bloody, with an interesting and engaging story. There is great acting from all involved throughout, and in the end the movie is an interesting study of how out of control a situation can get with the corruption of power.
(***1/2)


Very Bad Things
A pretty good film, which is entertaining but slow starting (it is pretty good for the most part once it gets going after about 30-minutes). It is a bloody and violent film at times, and whilst amusing it is not as funny as I hoped it would be. There is good acting from a good cast though (Cameron Diaz, Christian Slater, Jon Favreau, Leland Orser, Jeremy Piven, and Daniel Stern - with Christian Slater’s performance standing out), but all in all I was disappointed with the movie.
(**1/2)

Watched War of the Worlds this morning thought it was very good

March of the Penguins

Between waking up and PWG I needed something to do today so I trapsed around Bromley shopping centre with 3 bags other my shoulders in search of a cinema, eventually, after about 50 minutes, I found one. This was the film that was showing, so I purchased my ticket and sat down. It was ok, I mean how long can you look at penguins and be genuinely interested? At times I half expected them to start talking but alas this did not happen. I was bored rigid at times as the shots were very similar and of course the setting is similar. I'm not really into nature shows and the like and this failed to change that.

4/10

love that movie.

Watched the free "Taggart" DVD you got with Scotland's Daily Record newspaper up here. "Death Comes Softly". After I watched that I stuck on the other free one you got with the Record a few months ago "Death Before Dishonour".

Taggart is awesome. Best show ever.

I could imagine me bubbling during that film.

Patriots - Superbowl XXXIX

Bargain at a shade over £3. Season documentary with snips of all the games and the entire Superbowl as an extra (game clock). NFL Films really do put together nice packages.

8/10

In the past two days I've seen Blade Trinity, Freddy Vs Jason and Doom. Doom was okay, Freddy Vs Jason was crap and Blade Trinity was fairly good. None of the three blew me away and I'm glad I didn't pay for them.

In my case, a very very long time. Penguins, monkeys and meerkats are incredibly watchable, as are most animals.

I watched some things recently:

Final destination 3

OK, so who wants to take bets on the fourth one going straight to DVD? I'm all for it continuing as an increasingly shoddy franchise as long as they continue to bring the tremendous kills. You know that this is on that borderline where a franchise starts to lose any pretensions and become unashamed schlocky trash for a number of reasons.

1) Gratuitous nudity.
2) No effort at all to introduce any new attempt at beating the curse despite what was learned in the first two movies.
3) The full tilt from horror to violent comedy being complete (the flaming sunbeds cutting immediately to twin coffins was met with laughter from the whole cinema and the rest of it was like watching an indy spotfest, with people "popping" for the increasingly spectacular kills.)

So yeah, this was great fun. The kills are wonderfully over the top, there was a bit more intentional comedy this time following on from the exploded barbeque kid at the end of the last film and the only real downers were the lack of Candyman and the fact that the rollercoaster scene came nowhere near the awesomeness of the Final Destination 2 opening pile up of log-in-face death.

Watch it in a group. Oh, and before the initial premonition you should all pick one of the kids sweepstake style (aside from the girl who has the premonition obviously). Then, whoever's kid survives the longest is the winner and the others must pay for their ticket or snacks or something.

And finally, "Texas Battle", what a bloody marvellous name.

Die Hard With A Vengeance

People reckon it ain't as good as the first two.

Meh, still a good film.

Chinatown - being a movie fan i feel abit of a git that ive never seen a roman polanski movie, so i finally got around to watching one...this is a classic detective story, you kinda put in the shoes of Jack Nicholson's (whos is fucking amazing) character and follow him through the whole story and there's plenty of twists along the way, brilliant.

The Burning - early 80's slasher that got left behind due to the success of Friday the 13th, the movies are very similar in story (kids at a holiday camp get fucked up) and both had the legendary Tom Savini handling make-up. I guess it arguable which one you prefer but one thing is for certain this movie is much more graphic, there's some proper sick shit in this especially the whole raft/canoe scene. If you're into slashers this is a must-have.

Baise-Moi (France, 2000, Virginie Despentes)

Thelma and Liouse for the millenium. The best parts of this film are how well its shot on a god awful budget (dv cameras) and the originality. The down parts are.. Its basically a glamourtised, well directed porn. Some crap acting and unoriginality let it down but it still remains highly inspiring.
(**1/2)

That was just my stance as I don't find these things particularly interesting, I'd much rather have a human being talking and revealing thoughts, emotions and motives than watching a penguin flail about for 90 minutes.

Watched Rashomon last night.

Interesting film from Kurosawa, Centeres around the same story from the perspectives of 4 different people. The three involved and the one who finds them. And it's told between 3 people (including the one who finds them) taking shelter during a storm.

The basic outline is:

A Samurai and his wife are traveling and are, confronted by a bandit. The Samurai ends up dead, the wife missing and the bandit runs away (no, this isn't giving anything away!) and you hear the story from their perspectives and the man who found them.

It's basically a story about the human spirit and how it forms lies to protect it's own image and sometimes the others around it. It's a story that's been done a number of times since but Kurosawa once again proves to be a master of his art. Well shot, good acting and of course. Toshiro Mifune and Takashi Shimura in the main parts giving superb performances.

I recommend it to any student of Japanese Cinema, or even to those of western Cinema who may well recognise some of their own favorites in the plotlines.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qF5w7NBa2lk...=penguin%20fall

That > Shawshank redemption.

Oldboy

Finally got round to watching this after having it in my possession for about a week, although it's been a hectic week. Anyway, great film. The storyline focusses on a man imprisoned for 15 years without knowing why and then released for no reason. He has 5 days to find out why and away we go. If anyone's put off at all by subtitles then your missing out on a lot, I loved the story in this, some people say that the last 30 minutes kills off the rest of the film but I totally bought it and I thought that the twist was superb. Some great fighting scenes as well, the corridor scene ~. The directing was superb and it was creative and manipulated into the story really well.

9/10