DVDs and Films You Have Watched Recently #2

[WU LYF 4 LYF]

Yeah, Radcliffe is horrific, I liked the books when I was younger but can't watch any of the films. He brings absolutely nothing to the character, if it was me I'd change it up a bit and make Harry a bit colder as the series wore on but instead he just looks passive, characterless and one of the least people you'd ever expect to be any good at fighting evil.

 

Then again, I'm currently watching Kenneth Williams playing Caesar in Carry On Cleo and class it as one of my favourite film performances of all time...

[Green]

Just watched Asylum and enjoyed it a lot. It hasn't aged anywhere near as badly as you might expect and you can't help but get swept up in the plot. The basics of it is, a psychiatrist trying out for a new position at this asylum for the "incurably insane" is given a test in order to get the job; to decide which of the four patients he visits are actually the recently committed Dr. Star, who lost his mind a few days prior and attempted to kill one of his colleagues. It did suffer from the curse of me guessing the ending long before it happened but there was still enough there to keep me interested. The final shot is brilliant too. It left me with a big smirk on my face with it's little nod toward the fourth wall. Highly recommended. I think I'll finish the night off with some Yank horror maybe. I'm thinking Hatchet.

[patiirc]

Watch United last night on Bbc2, about the Munich Air Crash, very good 1st half up until the crash itself and then it didnt really know what to do with itself which was a shame became a bit of a mess more concerned about pulling on heart strings than anything else.

 

David Tennant was trying to summon his best Michael Sheen for the portrayal of Jimmy Murphy and failed and Dougray Scott as Sir Matt was also an odd choice. Bobby Charlton didnt come off so well either.

 

So- So in the end

[Harvey Dent]

Saw Thor today in glorious 2D, and it's very good. Chris Hemsworth is really at home as a blockbuster star despite his limited cv, both looking the part and bringing charm and charisma to role. The action hard hitting, the plot and script are solid and it looks damn cool. Being the most far fetched off the Marvel stories, there was a big chance that this would end up a campy mess, but thankfully it sidesteps that and is one of the strongest superhero movies around.

 

The only bad point of it is there's a character whose only purpose is to spew out pop culture references to broaden the appeal to morons. She serves no purpose and is just vomit inducing. It's a shame they feel things like this and gimmicky 3D are needed to sell the film. But even this doesn't dampen one of the best blockbusters you're likely to see this summer.

Edited April 25, 2011 by Harvey Dent

[Green]

Is that the one that drops the horrible Facebook reference in the trailer? If so, it sucks that she does it throughout the entire film.

[chokeout]

Is that the one that drops the horrible Facebook reference in the trailer? If so, it sucks that she does it throughout the entire film.

 

She only has a few scenes and is easy to ignore.

Just got back from Thor and have to say it's very well done. As mentioned it was the easiest of the marvel films to make a mess of but they managed to make it work. No idea how much they cut out for pacing (it's on for 2 hours) bur rene Russo literally has 3 lines of dialogue and the warriors 3 are mainly background characters but it's very enjoyable. Wont spoil it but the random cameo wasn't needed but was a cool addition

[martyngnr]

Just watched Asylum and enjoyed it a lot. It hasn't aged anywhere near as badly as you might expect and you can't help but get swept up in the plot. The basics of it is, a psychiatrist trying out for a new position at this asylum for the "incurably insane" is given a test in order to get the job; to decide which of the four patients he visits are actually the recently committed Dr. Star, who lost his mind a few days prior and attempted to kill one of his colleagues. It did suffer from the curse of me guessing the ending long before it happened but there was still enough there to keep me interested. The final shot is brilliant too. It left me with a big smirk on my face with it's little nod toward the fourth wall. Highly recommended. I think I'll finish the night off with some Yank horror maybe. I'm thinking Hatchet.

I love that film. My Dad taped in on ITV "Night Time" when I was about 9 and let me watch it. It shit me up big time and I was afraid to go to bed. Having seen it a few times since it's got better every time.

I really need to pick it up on DVD though.

[Green]

Just watched Asylum and enjoyed it a lot. It hasn't aged anywhere near as badly as you might expect and you can't help but get swept up in the plot. The basics of it is, a psychiatrist trying out for a new position at this asylum for the "incurably insane" is given a test in order to get the job; to decide which of the four patients he visits are actually the recently committed Dr. Star, who lost his mind a few days prior and attempted to kill one of his colleagues. It did suffer from the curse of me guessing the ending long before it happened but there was still enough there to keep me interested. The final shot is brilliant too. It left me with a big smirk on my face with it's little nod toward the fourth wall. Highly recommended. I think I'll finish the night off with some Yank horror maybe. I'm thinking Hatchet.

I love that film. My Dad taped in on ITV "Night Time" when I was about 9 and let me watch it. It shit me up big time and I was afraid to go to bed. Having seen it a few times since it's got better every time.

I really need to pick it up on DVD though.

It's quite hard to get hold of actually. I got the US import for about

[Mr. Seven]

Hey chokeout, can you give spoiler details on the random cameo please? I know who it is, I just want to know what happens, what the costume looks like, etc. Thanks.

[sgmilne]

Recent films I've watched include Unknown, Scream (first time I've ever seen it was the other week) and the Passion of Christ. I've written some pretty extensive reviews on the blog linked in my sig if you want to check them out.

 

I'm looking forward to seeing Thor, Scream 4 and Monster.

[chokeout]

Hey chokeout, can you give spoiler details on the random cameo please? I know who it is, I just want to know what happens, what the costume looks like, etc. Thanks.

 

<-- click on 'spoiler' to show/hide the spoiler

Jeremy Renner turns up as Hawkeye when Thor tries to get into the SHIELD compound. Its only a few short shots (to be honest it looks like it was filmed after the rest of the film) Coulson radios for someone to stop Thor from a distance and it cuts to someone looking through a rack of Sniper Rifles and grabbing a Bow. He gets into a lift and is looking down on Thor beating the shit out of a SHIELD goon waiting for Coulson to give the order then says something along the lines of 'You better let me shoot soon cause im starting to like this guy' A nice little cameo for anyone that likes Hawkeye. No costume as such, hes dressed as a more special forces looking SHIELD agent, am hoping for something that is a mix of that and the traditional purple/ pointed helmet look.

 

[close spoiler]

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Also for any Marvel Geeks out there

 

<-- click on 'spoiler' to show/hide the spoiler

Theres a few scenes in the hall of Artifacts / Odins treasure room, The Infinity Gauntlet is in there, possibly setting up the Skrull being the baddies in the Avengers and The Cosmic cube from Captain America turns up with Nick Fury after the credits

 

[close spoiler]

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[Stephanie]

Saw Water For Elephants this weekend. I really enjoyed it. Robert Pattinson haters can go fuck themselves. It's like Leo all over again. Everyone hated him because of Titanic and it's the same with Rob and Twilight. They can't see past it.

[Mr. Seven]

LOL. The difference is that DiCaprio is an excellent actor who has progressed brilliantly throughout his career. By the time Titanic came out he had already turned in great performances in The Basketball Diaries, What's Eating Gilbert Grape? and to a lesser extent; This Boy's Life. Pattinson is not dreadful by any means, but he's quite generic and I'd be stunned if he ever puts in a performance that matches some of the stuff DiCaprio has done.

[Amazing_Red_Fan]

More people should see The Basketball Diaries. It totally sold me on DiCaprio (I only saw it about a year and a half ago) as he is truly phenomenal in it.

 

(I picked it up in CEX for about

[neil's bitch]

So the last of my recently rented (and for the first time in nearly a year), returned on time DVD's! No fines for me this time!

 

Anyway:

 

Despicable Me

 

In all honest, i thought this was going to be totally rubbish, but as with most recent non pixar/dreamworks jobbies have shown me, there are some decent animation movies floating about.

 

So the gist is that a supervillan is trying to plan something big, after a rival supervillan steals the pyramids. As it goes on some great little gags are thrown in, such as to fund these projects villans need to visit "The Bank of evil" to get the money, and the rival supervillan has this pyramid in his back yard.....but has painted it blue, with cloud on it. For me its little jokes like that, that make a proper comedy.

 

On top of that you also have some grade A "Slapstick" as well as a great role beign played by Russel Brand, who does the voice of the villans assistant, who keeps mis-hearing everything. Again im not a fan of Mr Brand at all, but in this film he's comedy gold. His best lines are when the villan asks for "Cookie-Robots" and a "Dart Gun", but he makes "Boogie robots" and or course.....a "Fart Gun". Its all real simple jokes, (for the kids) but his over the top voice over (his charecter is a really old rough voiced londener) acting just makes this part.

 

Steve Carrell also plays the main charecter, which he does spot on. All in all a good movie, alot better than i expected, and worth a watch for way more reasons than any of the adverts bothered to tell us about. (All the adverts kept mentioning the "Minions" charecters, which whilst they are funny....are only a small part of this film).

 

If you like stupid comedys, with great slapstick and a few silly little background jokes then this is for you. If you also liked "Cloudy with a chance of meatballs", this is also for you.

 

Great Stuff 8.5/10.

 

Also:

 

Dinner for Schmucks

Personally, i loved this film. If films with annoying charecters aren't for you........then stay far away from this. Then again if you love people just being stupidly arkward, then this is deffo for you.

 

The general idea is a bloke (Paul rudd) is up for a promotion, all he has to do to get it is attend a dinner. Although in this dinnner you must bring somebody who is in effect, a massive loser.......and the biggest loser gets a trophey, thus all the top brass businessmen get a big laugh out of it. He finds Steve Carrell who is just about the stupidest person on the planet, who also makes display models with dead mice. Yep, thats right. He dresses them up and puts them in crazy little outfits and poses them.......strange stuff.

 

Anyway of course this leads to all sorts of crazy shit that i wont go into now, but gets some cameo from David walliams, Jeff Dunham (Ahmed the dead terrorist), The beard guy from the hangover , Jason segal (I love you man/ how i met your mother) and a couple of others.

 

Great stuff, i might go out on a limb and say this is very "Planes, Trains and autmobiles" for those of the classic comedys, but then again i could be completely wrong. I say this in its very "Smart guy meets stupid guy. Stupid guy ends up being a nice enough guy, but is very annoying. They fall out, become friends again, and stupid guy has various issues etc etc".

 

Anyway, a good comedy for me, if you like this sort of thing, but otherwise stay away if you get easily annoyed.

 

Really funny, great film! 8/10

Edited April 26, 2011 by Bowyo T