DVDs and Films You Have Watched Recently #2

[Egg Shen]

assisted suicide is illegal, haven't you been reading the papers!

[HBAndy]

Anyone a fan of Richard Linklater's films? I've been on a right kick with him recently, Waking Life is awesome. The visuals are amazing, its freaky, dreamlike and a strange wandering through the imagination. Also, Before Sunrise and Before Sunset are interesting little flicks. Slacker's another fine example, although the student film look and shite acting can get annoying.

been meaning to watch more Linklater films, i have Slacker but i still ain't watched it. I'll get on it!

I much prefer Slacker to Waking Life. Visuals aside, I thought he went up his own arse a bit with that one. Sunrise/Sunset are the best, although I quite liked Tape, Suburbia and School of Rock too. Dazed and Confused is overrated.

 

Yeah, I found Dazed and Confused very overrated too. And Waking Life clearly isn't the worst film ever made, purely on any technical level. You don't have to like it, but the visuals are clearly stunning.

 

Except they aren't. They're disorientating and annoying. The film itself is nothing but pretentious monologues about nothing. Anyone who actually thinks Waking Life has something to say or connects with it on any level needs to throw themselves in front of a train.

 

They're meant to be disorientating considering its all one long dream. At first I found them exactly that was put off by the visuals, but slowly I became dragged into the film through those visuals. I took it for what it was, a technical experimentation linked with some of Linklater's favourite ramblings and philosophies, which are common in most of his films. I get that the monologues are pretentious, but so what. It all fit with the dream-like structure of the film.

 

I'll be checking the train timetable for a swift and painless exit.

[CAREBEAR LUVVA]

Neon Maniacs

A film that doesn't so much end as the cast and crew just seem to have gotten bored and left the set en masse. Weird mutants with the stupidest weakness ever (they

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dissolve on contact with water, the planet's most abundant element

 

[close spoiler]

");document.close();) terrorise some kids, for some reason. Still, it had its moments, especially the incidental music, which bore no relation to the action on screen.

 

That sounds fucking brilliant, I'll have a hunt round for that one. Sounds almost as stupid as the weakness they discovered at the end of Jack Frost 2 when they

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realised they could kill Jack by mashing up a load of bananas, pouring them into super soakers, then squirting them all over him

 

[close spoiler]

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[Jas]

Can I quickly recommend Blood and Bone staring Michael Jai White on DVD - it's a MMA/street fighting type movie with amazing action choreography and memorable characters. Had no expectations about this and in my opinion this is one of the best movies of last year.

 

Also I defy anyone to find a more badass supercool villian than the one in this movie.

 

Jai White's other movie, Black Dynamite is also out in a few weeks and I wholeheartedly recommend that as well.

[Famous Mortimer]

Except they aren't. They're disorientating and annoying. The film itself is nothing but pretentious monologues about nothing. Anyone who actually thinks Waking Life has something to say or connects with it on any level needs to throw themselves in front of a train.

Aka

Edited February 3, 2010 by Famous Mortimer

[Egg Shen]

Can I quickly recommend Blood and Bone staring Michael Jai White on DVD - it's a MMA/street fighting type movie with amazing action choreography and memorable characters. Had no expectations about this and in my opinion this is one of the best movies of last year.

 

Also I defy anyone to find a more badass supercool villian than the one in this movie.

 

Jai White's other movie, Black Dynamite is also out in a few weeks and I wholeheartedly recommend that as well.

i wanna see that. For a Michael Jai White movie it's had pretty solid reviews. The last thing i watched of his was Undisputed II, but that pissed me off (maybe i watched it at a bad time), but i'll give this one a shot.

Edited February 4, 2010 by Ebb

[CAREBEAR LUVVA]

I've just watched Neon Maniacs, and fucking loved it. I'm absolutely full of questions about it, but I know that none of them will be answered no matter how many times I re-watch it. But I will re-watch it, over and over again, because it is a tremendous piece of mid-80s nonsense, and the song about "let me ruin your evening" is one of the finest songs I ever did hear in a shit film. Thank you, Famous Mortimer, for bringing it to my attention!

[Gladstones Bitch]

I've just watched Blood & Bone after hearing about it on here and another forum I visit. This aint gonna win no oscars are anything like that but its a load of fun to watch like the old Van Damme films, the fight scenes are really good as well so I'd deffo check it out.

[HBAndy]

I recently watched the Bob Dylan bio-pic, I'm Not There. The thing was, it was really quite excellent in some places, Cate Blanchett especially enraptured me with her depiction of Dylan (although she definitely got the luck of the draw in terms or roles) and the young Dylan as Woody Guthrie was marvellous, the rest was tiresome, drawn out and labourious. Other than that, if you're a fan of Dylan, the music was sensational and kept the pace steady. I'd give it a 7/10. Nearly there, but not quite good enough. I'd rather recommend reading his chronicles, then you get THE great Dylan voice worming it's way into your brain.

[CoreyVandal]

Just finished watching Planet Hulk. Man that was a disappointment. They'd just taken the middle part of a story that was only held together by it's beginning and ending. Just dull. There were a few nice moments, but overall the animation was dull and sterile, and the story was just by-the-numbers.

After this and Next Avengers I really don't have high hopes for the next Marvel animation, Thor: Tales Of Asgard, but hopefully the live action movie coming out around the same time will make up for it.

Lets hope Disney can do something about the sub-standard level of animation and storytelling in the next couple of years.

[Mr. Seven]

Except they aren't. They're disorientating and annoying. The film itself is nothing but pretentious monologues about nothing. Anyone who actually thinks Waking Life has something to say or connects with it on any level needs to throw themselves in front of a train.

/Aka "I am trying to paint my personal dislike of the film as some insightful objective analysis".

 

Hard to give objective analysis on a truly hateful piece of shit, but here's the best I can offer right now. The film is as pretentious and ponderous as physically thought imaginable, offering absolutely no answers or explanations for the actions of its antagonists (except for one thing, but we'll get to that momentarily), instead choosing to hide behind its title and thus put forward that the problem at hand is as big as an elephant.

 

We get insufferable characters with zero personality and nothing to say and we get to see their inane conversations on repeat, including multi-angle replays of their big nothing happening moments. On one hand, we get some degree of realism with a bunch of "normal" people and conversations and on the other hand we get film student editing wankery.

 

We even get to meet a character (protagonists show up and it cuts to black with their name onscreen) and get his standard introduction only for him to get shot seconds later. OMGZ SWERVE~! As for the aforementioned solo possible hint of an explanation offered as to why the two guys decide to go on a rampage? Oh right, they're gay. That makes sense. They love cock. And also Hitler. AND NOBODY UNDERSTANDS. So you know, it's bullet time.

 

Seriously, fuck this movie. It has absolutely no redeeming features and anyone who argues otherwise is either a complete fraud or a pretentious cunt.

 

PS. It's also a fairly safe bet if you hate it as much as you do, there's something good about it.

 

What a fucked up way of thinking. You really believe that?

 

Edit: Holy fuck I'm so warped I ended up ranting about Elephant instead of Waking Life. My bad, and in fairness to myself, I find they flip-flop as #1 and #2 in my worst list. So apologies to Mortimer, I stand corrected and mildly embarrassed, but I will leave this critique of Elephant up as no doubt it will come up at some point. I wrote something about Waking Life in the other DVD and film thread, if nobody can be bothered to dig it out I'll look for it tomorrow but I really must crash out now. Later.

Edited February 6, 2010 by Mr. Seven

[Famous Mortimer]

I've just watched Neon Maniacs, and fucking loved it. I'm absolutely full of questions about it, but I know that none of them will be answered no matter how many times I re-watch it. But I will re-watch it, over and over again, because it is a tremendous piece of mid-80s nonsense, and the song about "let me ruin your evening" is one of the finest songs I ever did hear in a shit film. Thank you, Famous Mortimer, for bringing it to my attention!

I feel bad I mentioned it now

 

I don't even remember where I found out about it...it's possible I was just trawling some torrent site, saw the name and decided to give it a go.

 

Last night's gem:

 

A Nymphoid Barbarian In Dinosaur Hell

 

Or rather, the first five minutes of it. Troma have a lot to answer for, taking shitty films and giving them stupid names. I ought to have learned my lesson from "Rabid Grannies".

[CAREBEAR LUVVA]

Rabid Grannies has got that kid who says "that's smashing" though, which saves it from any criticism that anyone could possibly throw at it. Nymphoid Barbarian's painful though.

 

I'm going to watch The Room tonight, because it's supposed to be one of the worst films ever made. I tried to watch it on Thursday night but it was really late and I started falling asleep so had to switch it off. The 20 minutes or so that I saw were really really pleasingly bad though. Wikipedia sums it up better than I could ever hope to!

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Room_(film)

[Famous Mortimer]

I've had that sat on my shelf for months, and I haven't drummed up the courage to watch it yet. It's either that or After Last Season - http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1196334/ Decisions, decisions!

[CAREBEAR LUVVA]

I've been waiting for a while, but they keep advertising (and then cancelling) a screening of it at the indie cinema in town, so I put off watching it at home in the hope of seeing it on a big screen. But then I saw one too many clips on Youtube and in the end I couldn't wait to see it. After Last Season sounds great as well - so good that the torrent sites haven't even got it!