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ddvmor


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Date: Jan 11, 2010
Movies wot I saw 2010
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Yep. This weekend I went to see James Cameron's Avatar in glorious 3D.

Unfortunately they were sold out, so I had to settle for Sherlock Holmes instead, which was fine cos I wanted to see that too.

It was very pretty. The sets were opulent and Victorian London was well realised both with real streets and with much CGIness. The acting was spot on - Robert Downey Junior was awesome as you would expect and the supporting cast were all excellent. It hit all the points that you'd expect from a Sherlock Holmes movie but with a bit of action thrown in for fun. I particularly enjoyed the music by Hans Zimmer.

But there was something wrong with it. I'm not sure what it was. We came out of the cinema a little disappointed and none of us could quite place the problem. It could have been that it was an unusual way to present Holmes - almost (but not quite) as an action hero - but I think that aspect of it worked fine.

It could be that the plot was a bit sensational and simultaneously dumbed down for mass appeal. It was a bit blockbuster-y. It's hard to explain why without giving the plot away, but trust me on this!

I also had the distinct impression that the movie was a set-up for a franchise. There were a few loose ends and a few pointers toward the inevitable sequel and I wonder if this one was was simply being used to set up the characters and the feel of the franchise so that the second movie could just get on with it without any mucking about. It didn't feel as memorable as perhaps it should have done. I guess time will tell on that!

Either way - it was a fun movie, but don't expect miracles!

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JonnyStead


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At the beginning of 2010 I saw "The Boat that Rocked" - a Working title film from Richard Curtis about the old Pirate Radio ships in the 1960's.

It was polished and well written and shot and had some great lines in it. The real strength though came from the excellent casting. Everyone was cast to type but that's what made it work and the soundtrack was simply awesome.

I heartily recommend it as one to grab on DVD !

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Aodan


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Finally got around to seeing "9". So many of my friends recommended it, but I wasn't overly impressed. It was decent enough, but I've realized that Elijah Woods' voice grates on my nerves, and I had to do something else while it was on just for a little distraction. The kids liked it though, so it served it's purpose.

Last night I watched Reign of Fire which I didn't really have much faith in, but watched it because Gerard Butler and Christian Bale are in it drool lol

It actually was pretty entertaining.. a weird concept for a post-apocalyptic film, but done really well. Obviously it's full of CGI, but it was remarkably seamless, except for one weird scene that was so obviously in front of a blue screen even though there was nothing particular going on... it stuck out harshly, when the dragons and everything else were worked beautifully.

JonnyStead wrote:

At the beginning of 2010 I saw "The Boat that Rocked" - a Working title film from Richard Curtis about the old Pirate Radio ships in the 1960's.

It was polished and well written and shot and had some great lines in it. The real strength though came from the excellent casting. Everyone was cast to type but that's what made it work and the soundtrack was simply awesome.

I heartily recommend it as one to grab on DVD !



As soon as I saw the preview for this I was really excited to see it.  Gonna have to get it on DVD as soon as I can.




-- Edited by Aodan on Monday 11th of January 2010 02:02:53 PM

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Truckman


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I just finished watching the first season of "Have Gun - Will Travel" ...Yes, all 39 episodes...I was amazed at how many future stars were seen in minor roles on that series...Tonight I'll watch "Heat" again...teevee.gif...Ben

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ddvmor


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Heat is one of the all time greats!

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Truckman


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ddvmor wrote:

Heat is one of the all time greats! biggrin.gif


I think I'll follow it up over the next couple of nights with "Red Heat" and "City Heat", both classics...I think I'll take a pass on "Chained Heat" and "Caged Heat", however...no...Ben

 



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Aodan


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Those sound like porn.

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Truckman


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Aodan wrote:

Those sound like porn.


I wouldn't know anything about that so I'll bow to your expertise...wink...Ben

 



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ddvmor


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Date: Jan 15, 2010
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So I just turned off Starship Troopers 2 after ten minutes because it was utter poo. The first one was kinda fun, but missed the point of it's source material by a cubic parsec. This one... well... Just don't, OK?

Then I sat through Max Payne. It was pretty. Pretty shit, that is. Which is a shame cos, again, the source material was awesome!

Coming soon... District 9, super-extended Watchmen and Frost/Nixon.

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Aodan


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Watched District 9 last night... I went in knowing very, very little about it other than what was in the original previews. Kevin had seen it and had told me that it was well worth a watch.

It definitely was, but it left me with this awful feeling in the pit of my stomach. Not in a "don't watch it" sort of way, but in a "you really should watch it" way. I don't want to say anything until you've seen it, so when you do let me know, cuz I'm curious what your take is on it.

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JonnyStead


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I saw district 9 over christmas. Definately worth a watch and a nice take on a familiar theme. Deliberately apt that it was set in South Africa though -

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Aodan


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Watched Ink last night... interesting movie story, interesting execution. It's not perfect, but for a low-budget film, it really worked. The only thing I think they could probably have done without is anything having to do with the Pathfinder. He seemed oddly out of place both in attitude and purpose... but overall the film was enjoyable.

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ddvmor


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Date: Jan 16, 2010
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Hmm. Interesting. I'd never heard of it before. I shall add it to my list!

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1071804/plotsummary

I accidentally lost most of the day watching Star Trek The Motion Picture and The Wrath of Kahn which happened to be on the HD movie channel today.

TMP is a horrible mess of a movie - all the pacing is wrong, most of the acting is wooden and no-one needs to see Scotty's willy through his skin-tight jumpsuit and I can't work out why Dr McCoy keeps wandering onto the bridge, makng no contribution of any kind and then wandering off a few moments later. It must be a contractural screen time thing! There are a couple of decent character moments in there, though. If you looks really carefully.

The whole thing feels like the script for a single episode that's been stretched out to fill a couple of hours (I think the script had originally been intended as the pilot for a new Star Trek tv show) and it it doesn't work. Ugh.

Then I watched the Wrath of Kahn in glorious HD. This has always been one of my favourite ever movies! It's so quotable, and the late Ricardo Montalban was just magnificent as Kahn. It was a bit odd though, cos it was a slightly different version that I'd never seen before - lots of extra little bits here and there.

All together now...



It turns out that all of the other old school Trek movies are on over the next week. Sweet. I even like number 5.

-- Edited by ddvmor on Saturday 16th of January 2010 04:23:36 PM

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ddvmor


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Coincidentally, when Kaz and I watched the latest episode of The Big Bang Theory this evening, it was the episode with Wil Wheaton (yeah, we're a bit behind over here in the UK). Sheldon spent the entire episode quoting The Wrath of Kahn.

Check out 3 mins 45 secs in this clip:









-- Edited by ddvmor on Saturday 16th of January 2010 09:31:46 PM

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ddvmor


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Date: Jan 18, 2010
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So this weekend, we donned our 3D glasses and headed out to the cinema to see Dances with Wol... no... Last of the Samu... no, that's not right either. Avatar. That's it, Avatar! You can tell the difference because the Native Americ… er… Samuar… um… alien dudes are BLUE!

Man, was that a pretty movie! The 3D started off as a bit of a distraction but I soon got used to it, although I did duck once near the end when some shrapnel flew out at me, but covered it up by pretending I was shifting in my seat.

So yeah. It was a good movie. Nothing very original in it - the plot, as I may have intimated above, has been done any number of times before. The floating mountains can be found all over anime and in fantasy literature; and the crazy crazy alien animals and bizzare fauna can be seen in all sorts of fantasy art; and the spaceships were mostly nicked from Aliens.

But it was very nicely made, decently scripted and performed and the CGI was good enough that after a while I forgot it was CGI. And the inevitable great big battle scene at the end was very, very well orchestrated - it's not often you see a great big battle scene that doesn't waste any shots on frivolous killings. It goes on for just as long as it needs to and then it finishes. Hoorah.

So if you haven't already, go and see it!

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JonnyStead


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I did take a look at Da on Sunday evening as I was looking for something 'gentle' and had it sitting on my shelf for some time.

Its a Martin Sheen movie from 1988 based on a play of the same name which Barnard Hughes won a Tony for and he reprises the role here.

Its conversational between a son and his recently deceased father and is set in Ireland - it is very Irish so anyone with Irish background, like me will find elements of familiarity in the script and delivery.

Most importantly the performances are all exceptional. Sheen, when he wants to can really turn it on as we know and he does in this movie and Hughes and the 'mother' also deliver in spades.

There's no action or CGI or twists or clever things to make you go "Oooh" or "Ah" but if you want an extremely well written, brilliantly performed and shot adaptation - then this is the one for you (on dvd of course - no blu-ray here!)

-- Edited by JonnyStead on Tuesday 19th of January 2010 09:06:37 AM

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Aodan


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Date: Jan 20, 2010
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Finally got around to watching The Machinist with Christian Bale.

It was appropriately creepy, not over the top, just kind of low-level heebie jeebies throughout (which works) and did keep my interest even though I wasn't sure it would. About halfway in I figured out the ending almost to the letter, but it didn't detract from the enjoyability of the film.

Christian Bale's physical condition is shocking, even if you've seen screen caps of it.

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ddvmor


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It is an excellent movie. Bale's very next movie was Batman Begins for which he had to bulk up massively. All natural, of course! wary

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Aodan


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naturally :)

of course when you let yourself get that thin I'd imagine a bacon cheeseburger a day would help in rapid bulking :)

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Aodan


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finally got to see Avatar in 3D. Everything the JDK said, plus I'm a sap and found myself getting weepy at oddly random moments (his first "clean kill" the water works started... couldn't being to tell you why and when they did the ritual over Grace). I didn't see it in IMAX, but the 3D was effective enough. There were only a couple of times where I was aware that I was watching something in 3D because it didn't look quite right around the edges, but I think that had more to do with where I was sitting in the theater, and the fact that the 3D glasses didn't quite fit over my glasses very well. Most of the time I was too involved in the experience to notice anything wonky. I definitely enjoyed myself.



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ddvmor


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Aodan wrote:

...found myself getting weepy at oddly random moments...



Probably something to do with your imminency! Goddam hormones!

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Aodan


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Well, I'm pretty sure the guy in the row next to me wasn't suffering the same affliction, so I'd like to hear what his excuse for snotting all over himself was ;)


Forgot to mention that I also watched Gamer the other night.  If you want a out and out mindless action film with pretty colors, big explosions, brain matter, and an odd dance sequence with Dexter, this is a great movie to watch.  There's a plot, which in a different context might be an interesting, thought provoking concept, but the story was kind of secondary to the action - however,  not necessarily in a bad way.  It was done by the same guys that did the Crank movies (which were pretty much mindless action movies with ZERO plot and Jason Statham) so it had that kind of feel.  Not bad for what it was. 

We also attempted to watch the Jack Black movie "Be Kind, Rewind.  I really wanted to like that movie... I like Jack Black, and I liked the premise, but the movie was so boring that we actually turned it off.  It's rare that I won't watch a movie all the way through, even if it's not great.. but this was really unwatchable.


-- Edited by Aodan on Monday 25th of January 2010 12:55:45 PM

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ddvmor


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Gamer is on my list, so it must have hit my radar at some point!

I tthink the biggest problem with 'Be Kind...' was that it assumed it's premise was hilarious enough to carry a whole movie and it really, really wasn't. An example of how it should have been done is 'Son of Rambow' which is frakkin' awsome!

How many decent movies has Jack Black headlined? Now compare it to the total number of movie's hes headlined. it's not pretty.

I did like Kung Fu Panda, though...

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Aodan


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I think it would have been funny as a YouTube sketch.. but you're right.. a whole movie it was not.

Kung Fu Panda was cute, he was a great supporting actor in High Fidelity, and I like Tenacious D. He's not an A-lister by any means, but he's funny. This just wasn't.

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ddvmor


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We saw The Men Who Stare At Goats at the world's smallest cinema in Nottingham. (I'm not entirely sure what qualifies this.)

Anyway - the movie. I was convinced it was a Coen Brothers movie and because I didn't pay any attention to the credits, came out afterwards, still convinced of this. It isn't though. But it kind've is, cos it feels just like one. If you liked Fargo and No Country for Old Men and The Big Lebowski, then you'll probably like this. It even has The Dude in it (not the The Dude, Ben. The real one!) It's a film based on a book about the US army's supposed experiments with psychic weapons (A.K.A. Jedi Warriors) in the early 80s and stars George Clooney, Ewan MacGregor and Jeff Bridges. It was pretty damn funny and there were no girls in it. Well... maybe a couple, but they didn't have any speaking roles!



That is all.

-- Edited by ddvmor on Wednesday 27th of January 2010 08:57:02 PM

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Aodan


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I really wanted to see this in the theater, but missed it.

To the netflix queue!

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Susan


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Sounds like it's one to see.  It's going on my list.

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ddvmor


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Oh dear.

Last night I had a few mates round and we watched a little movie called 'Mega Shark vs Giant Octopus'. To say it was bad is an understatement.

We didn't go in expecting a good film. We did kind've hoppe, however that it would be bad in the same way as, say Snakes On A Plane was bad. That movie knew it was bad and revelled in it's badness. This one clearly thought it was awesome. It was so serious. Not even the slightest hint of a tongue in a cheek.

Every actor in the movie was awful. The dialogue was awful. The men dressed as soldiers just looked like blokes they'd pulled in off the street and put camo jackets and sunglasses on 'em. Sunglasses . The special effects were dire. You barely saw the two monsters in question - they reused the same bits again and again and the quality of them was such that I reckon I could knock them up in an afternoon using the freebie 3D animation software on my home PC.

What it was good for, however was a bit of cliche bingo. If you ever feel the urge to watch this movie, write down every movie cliche you can think of and I guarantee you will have ticked them all off by the end of the movie. What would be even more fun than that, though would be sticking your head in a bucket of turps and taking a good, deep lungful!

After that, we watched Something Something Something Dark Side, the second Family Guy Star Wars spoof, based on The Empire Strikes Back. It was awesome. So awesome in fact that it singlehandedly rescued the evening from awfulness of the Sharkzilla movie!

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Truckman


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I watched Bullitt again last night...I'm never disappointed with that one...Ben

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ddvmor


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Date: Feb 11, 2010
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How many hubcaps did that mustang have again?

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