I haven't seen that movie in ages. I really hope YTV airs it again soon. And Cloverfeild looks like it will make one heck of a movie. A lot of people actually thought it was anything from a movie of "Chrono Trigger" to "Voltron" when the teaser came out with Transformers a few months ago.8D

i just finished ferris bueller's day off. great movie :)

now im watching elf. its one of those new classics, if you ask me.

In order from the past couple days:
Toy Story
Always a great movie. Though I prefer Toy Story 2.

Ratatouille
It was good, but not my favorite Pixar movie.

Live Free or Die Hard
A great movie, I'm deciding if I like this one or the third one more. Of course none are as good as the original.

Robocop
This was another great movie. Pretty good, nice blend of action & humor.

Robocop II
Not as good as the first one, but still good. Not Kershner's best, but it was a fun movie.

Robocop III
I don't see all the criticism. I thought it was a nice way to end the trilogy.

A Christmas Story
Classic.

The Addams Family Values

I can remember renting this movie as a kid and not especially enjoying it - it is, admittedly, a very difficult film to take in when you're young and sensitive, not just because of its decidedly macabre sense of humour, but also the high volume of subtle gags and one-liners which would have gone completely over my head at that age. Only the other evening when Film Four were playing it did I realise just how funny and entertaining it actually is. There are some really great lines and moments (like Morticia's aghast reacation to the ending of the Cat in the Hat - "Oh no. He lives." 8D), and Joan Cusack is absolutely awesome as the serial killing antagonist (under slightly different circumstances I think she'd have actually fitted in quite well with the rest of the Addams). Not the best movie ever, but it's still an enjoyably devilish way to pass an hour and a half.

Robocop

Fantastic, fantastic film. One of the best action/satire films I've ever seen. It's unfortunate that the sequels didn't live up to their forerunner.

Futurama: Bender's Big Score.

And all I can say without giving away anything about the plot....
It was totally well worth the four year wait.

I feel the say way. I will just say that the opening was the greatest I have seen. Now I can't wait for the next three.

Too true, now to watch it again with commentary, because for the first time ever on a Futurama commentary track (AFIK) they got the always awesome Phil Lamarr to join in the festivities.

i saw a great movie last night, its called "One Last Thing..." and it was AWESOME!

Theres a terminally ill 16 year old kid who's dying wish is to spend a weekend with his favorite supermodel. It was freaking awesome. The ending was one of the best endings i've ever seen.

Go rent this movie now!

Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe

Hard Boiled

Disney really has done a marvelous job with their recent batch of films, Narnia kicked freaking ass, I was so impressed with what an amazing job they did on the famous novel series. Hard Boiled was my first time seeing it.

I don't really think it lives up to the hype so many people told me about it, its was a fun, funky action movie with some great scenes but it didn't reach epic status like so many told it me was.

I liked Narnia. At times it felt like it was trying to be LOTR but that's just my personal feeling. I absolutely loved how they pulled off the centaurs since they're one of my favorite mythical creatures. And Liam Neeson was as great as always as Aslan.

Its funny you should say that because Tolken (author of Lord of the Rings) and C.S. Lewis (author of Narnia) were roommates in college. They both shared ideas both their own personal little worlds, and both were big pot heads I was told as well.

Funny thing is they actually hated each other's worlds. Not sure why. So in fact Narnia wasn't trying to be Lord of the Rings, they were both pretty close to each other's creation date.

What I meant was that it felt like the movie of Narnia was trying to cash in on the success that the LOTR movies had. But it is very cool that the two worked together when they were creating their worlds.

The only thing that particularly stood out for me about the recent Narnia movie was the kamikaze pheonix who shows up during the climactic battle sequence, sets himself ablaze and then dives down on top of his enemies. I must admit that in the context of the film itself it felt a little OTT, but I thought that it was a pretty neat concept on its own. :bloocross:

maybe he was a suicide bomber phoenix?

"Dirka Dirka JIHAD!"

The Big Lebowski. Fantastic movie, though I'm the lost person to ask for an unbiased view of a Coen Brothers film. I especially love the final sequence between the Dude, Walter, and the Nihilists.

Of the films out there, I'm really wanting to see Before the Devil Knows You're Dead, No Country For Old Men, and The Mist. I especially want to see No Country for Old Men because, again, I'm a big fan of the Coen brothers, and I'm currently reading the book, which is awesome. I want to see "The Mist", because I loved King's original novella, but I'm hesitant to go see it because no movie based off a Stephen King film has ever done justice to the source material, the only exceptions being The Green Mile and the original Children of the Corn.

Then your fears are severely misplaced because this film does GREAT justice to King's work, I feel though other King films have done justice but trust me, Mist is MAGNIFICENT. It's not only the best King adaptation I've ever seen, its the BEST film I have seen of all 2007. Its absolutely beautiful.

Its intense, well acted, well paced, and the ending is so freaking jaw dropping, that alone is worth seeing the film. If there is ever any film that has come out this year or any other that I feel is truly worth your hard earned cash, The Mist is certainly one of them.

The last film I saw by the way was Metropolis, the anime one naturally.

The Muppet Christmas Carol

That's right, I have a real soft spot for this movie. There have been so many spins and variations upon the original Dickens novel that I already knew the basic story inside out when I first saw this film at the age of 8, but there's something about this version which has always helped it to stand out above the competition. It has warmth, spirit, a lot of good-natured humour, a really catchy selection of songs (Waldorf and Statler as the Marleys...ooh yes), a genuinely chilling Ghost of Christmas Yet-To-Come and, last but certainly not least, Michael Caine as Ebenezer Scrooge. I'm not overly big on holiday films, but this lovely little flick is definitely an integral staple of December viewing.

the first half of Red Dawn

John Milius is God

"So...who is on our side?"

"600 million screaming Chinamen."

"...i thought there was a billion screaming Chinamen?"

"...there was..."

year without a santa claus.

part of my top seven christmas movies. always a good movie to watch.

The Simpsons Movie on the plane to Perth. I seriously can't wait to get on DVD (unless I get it for Christmas)!

I don't doubt that, to some degree, they are. There have been a lot of movies based off King's books that have been fantastic films in there own right, but suffered fairly poorly at the task of being truthful adaptations of his work. Take Kubrick's The Shining; it deviated greatly from the original novel, but when taken on its own, it is a fantastic horror film (I would say even King's attempt at The Shining miniseries, despite being more accurate to his book, failed to capture the necessary mood Kubrick succeeded at capturing). I also forget It, which I should have mentioned earlier which was, despite being a made for TV movie two-parter, was incredibly true to King's novel while maintaining itself as a good movie on it's own right. While I'd like to see adaptations be 100% faithful, its not a necessity as long as it remains respectful to the original work and is a good film.

As for Metropolis, another example of a film that deviates highly from Tezuka's original manga, yet is a utterly fantastic, fantastic film. It is easily one of my favorite anime films of all time, along with Spirited Away by Miyazaki.

The Corpse Grinders was the last film I saw. An exploitation film from the 70s, its about a cat food company that makes its food with human corpses, which causes housecats to develop a taste for human flesh. Quite possibly one of the stupidest and most boring films I've ever seen, but I expected that; I'm just a glutton for horrid cinema.

I just saw two awesome flicks:

1) Superbad saw it in theaters, got it on DVD, and it is still the funniest movie i have ever seen.

2) The Hebrew Hammer...this was a ridiculously funny movie. so great..."Shabbat Shalom..!" 8D

oh geez...good stuff

Yes that is a terrific film and really a worthy addition to some of the great Christmas Carols there's been. Remember the Blackadder one? That was ace, too.

The main reason that Muppet Christmas Carol stands out, even from the excellent Muppet films, is Michael Caine. He does a similar job in the last film I watched which was The Prestige on DVD. 2nd time I've seen it and while it was gripping the first time, this time is was just fun, like I was indulging myself with a big chocolate cake or something. Hats off to David Bowie as Tesla!

Blackadder's Christmas Carol (which is, of course, a complete inversion on the original story - an effective lesson upon the multiple benefits of being evil) is awesome. Michael Caine doubly so.

The last movie I watched was Blade Runner: the Final Cut, on the big screen, which was a splendid experience.

I admit that I’ve actually never seen any of the previous Blade Runner cuts before (the previous Director's Cut - with which Ridley Scott never felt entirely happy - has been rotting in my rental list for sometime), so please excuse my inability to compare. I thought the opening shots of the futuristic metropolis were absolutely beautiful, though my cinema-going companion, who is much more of an authority of this film and its various levels of existence, was a bit more nitpicky. She complained that they’d blatantly been enhanced with CGI, but in my blissful ignorance I can't say that it bothered me.

The movie itself is wonderful - gripping, sad and haunting. Aside from a couple of scenes of icky violence which had me squirming in my seat, I thoroughly enjoyed it. Damn, now I'm going to have to dig out the original Philip K. Dick novel, "Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?" again, though the similarities were pretty vague. There are no sheep in Blade Runner for a start.

Drive-Thru

Despite looking completely stupid and utterly craptacular cheap budget horror movie, this turned out to be quite entertaining. The plot was utterly ridiculous and cliche, and some of the gore looked cheesy, but oddly enough, it was a movie I enjoyed sitting through to watch.

It was about a fast food icon called Horny the clown, going on a killing spree and putting the people he killed into his hamburgers. The acting was pretty good, writing was surprisingly above the usual crap par low budget horror flicks have and even though it failed to accomplish this, it had a neat spiritual sub plot.

Unlike most D grade horror movies I've regretfully seen, this one I am glad to have watched. Its good for a laugh and for fun, don't expect anything grand out of it but I sure as Hell found it to be a good way to kill 90 minutes.

The Golden Compass

I haven't yet picked up and read Philip Pullman's His Dark Materials trilogy, but then I don't think you'd have to to realise that they blatantly cut back a whole deal upon character, complexity and thematics in this adaptation. I'd be lying if I said it didn't entertain me, but more than anything it's just left me hankering to read the books, because there were so many interesting concepts and events in this film which were never explored in enough detail or ever given a particularly satisfying explanation. It's like the movie equivilent of a skim-read. I remember garnering the impression from the Lemony Snicket movie that they'd presumably rushed through a lot of the novels' extra details (which I similarly hadn't read prior to seeing the film), but I still found that movie to extremely colourful and enjoyable in its own right. Something, however, was missing here.

The CGI animals weren't particularly convincing, but you got used to them, so much so that it felt slightly disconcerting whenever a real animal appeared on the scene. I quite enjoyed Sam Elliot's contribution - thanks to the Big Lebowski, his is a face which I always find it comforting and familiar to see. But yes, overall you're left walking away with the gaping feeling that this is really a thin substitute for the books. Fortunately my brother has agreed to lend me his copies over Christmas.

The Alamo movie that stars John Wayne as Davy Crockett. I've always enjoyed John Wayne movies and this is one of my favorites. The action is just great. And seeing Jim Bowie on screen makes me want to go finish cleaning the rust off of my old pioneer knife... and get a real Bowie knife.;)

Ditto on The Golden Compass.

Like jekylljuice, I haven't yet had the time to read the His Dark Materials trilogy, but friends of mine who have were understandably keen to see the adaptation, so I went along with them as a sort of crash course, to see what the fuss was all about. Said friends seemed to get something out of the experience, in terms of seeing favourite characters and moments brought to life by the excellent cast and admirable production design (though they were disappointed with the truncated ending). I, being unable to appreciate the film on that level, instead had to judge it on its own merits as a film, and in those terms, I have to say that I thought it failed. Like, really, really badly. :madwilt:

If I had to illustrate concisely what I thought was wrong with the film, I would simply say this; aside from the opening and closing ten minutes, the scenes in the film could have taken place in literally any order, and it wouldn't have made the slightest bit of difference to the overall meaning of the story. The Golden Compass is a film with no sense of any progression at all: there are no character arcs; there is no coherent unifying theme; there is no emotional journey; there is no sense of why any of the events taking place are even happening, much less why they are important. Instead of giving us a single, unified scenario driven forward by a cast of logically employed characters, the film instead vomits onto us a series of malformed and fundamentally disconnected mini-situations, each of which is staffed by its own set of sketchily drawn and ultimately unimportant bit-part players, who shuffle onto the screen, deliver a chunk of clunky exposition and then vanish from the film before we can engage with them either as personalities or as players in a larger scheme. The only tenuous thread that remotely holds these disparate segments together is the presence of the central character Lyra, but despite the best efforts of the likeable young Dakota Blue Richards, and despite the fact that her "rescuing her friend" storyline, flimsy and underwritten as it is, is the only thing in this film resembling a continuous plot strand, it doesn't change the fact that her "journey" has no logical structure to it, instead seeing her passively and seemingly randomly shunted around from place to person to place in a way that makes her actual progress impossible to gauge, and thus impossible to invest in.

It's a genuine shame, really, because as has been discussed at length, the source material is a veritable goldmine not only of memorable characters and wild imagination but of genuinely thought-provoking philosophical ideas, and as I mentioned before, the cast and production design is difficult to fault. The problems with this film seem to stem almost entirely from writer/director Chris Weitz, who, whilst having produced well-regarded work on smaller projects (American Pie, About A Boy), seems clearly incapable of dealing with a story of this scale, something he himself must have realised when he originally abandoned the project back in 2004; he was eventually coaxed back, and having seen the final result, I can't say I'm pleased that he was. In the context of Weitz's film, Pullman's interesting (and highly controversial) ideas are reduced to a barely intelligible footnote, whilst the A-list stars - in character terms, cast almost perfectly, so say my Dark Materials-literate friends - by and large feel totally wasted in a series of immemorable cameos. Daniel Craig, contrary to what the marketing men would have you believe, has barely ten minutes of screentime before disappearing almost completely; Christopher Lee has literally less than five seconds; and Sam Elliot and Eva Green, as the cowboy aeronaut and benevolent witch who ride to Lyra's aid in dire moments, are hamstrung by roles that feel like lazy plot devices at best, ridiculous deus ex machinas at worst. Weitz does pull one effective sequence out of the bag, the much-vaunted polar bear battle (which includes a moment of violence that, as much as they tried to sanitise it, really pushes the boundary of the PG rating), but three effective minutes out of 113 does not bode well for a would-be tentpole franchise. I'll concur with jekylljuice that watching this film does make me curious to read the source novel, but that's borne mostly of a desire to ascertain that this beloved book, by one of Britain's most acclaimed authors, is in fact better than this plodding, barely coherent CliffsNotes version makes it look. :madbloo:

Yeah, so, I didn't really like it. :bendy: Enchanted looks quite fun, though. :D

And me 3 on The Golden Compass

As in, I just got back from seeing it, and I feel pretty much the same way everyone else has on this board feels. Before I begin though I want to state honestly and quite bluntly that I do not care AT ALL how authentic or how inaccurate this movie off the book series, I judged the film on one simple rule: was it good or was it bad? Nothing else undermines my judgment.

And in the end: it was bad, pretty bad as a matter of fact. I didn't have extremely high hopes for this film nor had I known much (nor did i want to) about the books prior to the film's release. The fact of the matter is despite all the obvious lovely fantasy elements and great special effects, this film is stiff and cold as the ice the Ice bears run upon and cracking with thin threads.

Unlike previous movies such as Narnia and Harry Potter, Compass blows their first mistake by failing to do what Narnia and Potter did: integrate into this new world and give us time to really understand the logistics of it, instead we get a brief like 5 minute narration and a poor one at that of the "rules" of the world. The one rule I "did" like at first was the whole devian/demon thing.

The fact everyone's soul was embodied in a personal creature was a unique one and it helped make the world seem more original, as with their rather fantastic looking vehicles. Unfortunately, the animal gimmick becomes stupid and more or less pointless when NONE of the animals talk outside of Lyra's constantly changing Pan and the Ice bears who chat as normal as humans do.

It's a rather stupid idea, even if it was in the books, having so many animals provided great opportunities to have many different personalities by having the owners talk with their deviants, instead they do nothing more then prove to be totally useless other then squeak, chirp, and burst into a fire cracker when their owner dies. Other then that, there pretty pointless to have.

The whole story here is pretty translucent and most notably, incoherent. The only real concept here is a story about a majestic empire that is fearing of losing its power and influence by having people leave to other worlds, and this magical compass supposedly tells people's personal stories and the truth. I honestly can't explain it any better because the movie did it the same way.

The story is jumbled, confusing, and much like the dialog, stiff and lifeless which was my biggest problem: the dialog. I felt so ashamed to see talented actors like Daniel Craig and Nicole Kidman waste their careers on a film with such incompetent ass writing. The dialog is completely drab and dull, there's no life behind these people's words and its rather plain and simplistic.

There's imagination everywhere else except the words the actors speak, nothing is sharp or witty or anything to quote about. Speaking of quotes, no offense to the British but their kid actors seriously need to speak a little more clearly. I couldn't understand half a word they said, it was mumbled up or using words that sounded too goofy or cluttered to understand their talking.

Far as the actors concerned, none of them are worth mentioning outside of the 2 I listed. Their below average, stiff as board, breezing through their performances with little care or effort. The whole movie ends on a completely stupid point, leaving it on a wide open cliffhanger (again I don't care if this was how the books were, its a stupid ending no matter who did it first).

The trouble is there's nothing in here that screams out "we must have MORE". This is nothing grand, no matter how much they want it to be. People complain shows or movies don't use authentic story lines from comics or novels. Well sometimes, god forbid this happens, the comic story is CRAP! Just because something comes 100% authentic from another source doesn't mean its fun to watch.

This movie could have been page by page, word for word exactly like the book and it wouldn't matter a single bit because it was NOT fun to watch. Other then a kick ass Polar bear brawl and some really neat looking vehicle designs, every other fantasy movie out there is worth seeing more then this one. Its a dry, shiny husk of a good movie with little to stand on and little to watch for.

It'll still probably get plenty of curious viewers who simply want to see what all the religious controversy is about.
I doubt I'll be seeing this one. I've been keeping my eye on it but it just hasn't grabbed me by the shoulders and yell "You have to go see this movie!" to my face.

The only thing religious connected to this movie is that its just like the Bible: we all hear about it but no one really wants to read it.

The Golden Freaking Compass

Mark Twain, polar bears, and gypsies fight Russian Catholics led by Nicole Kidman. In blimps.

the only good thing about this movie was when i was walking in and i saw a muslim and i said "happy Hannukah" and he gave me a dirka dirka jihad death stare.

I guess all of you that saw The Golden Compass saw the Speed Racer trailer?

BTW, the last movie I watched was Hot Fuzz on DVD. Still a very funny action-packed movie.

No Country For Old Men and The Mist

Having read the book No Country for Old Men, I'm torn on what I think. While the craftsmanship of the film is incredible all the way through, they had to make incredible sacrifices to the story and character development in order to fit the film into a watchable whole. This is completely understandable, as if they included every bit of conversation from the book into the film, the film would have been unwatchably long. The problem, though, is that every bit of that text was necessary in order to fully understand what the hell was going on. In the end, I'd say it was easily the best made film I've seen all year.

As for The Mist, I had low expectations for the film, and I was slightly surprised to find it was somewhat better than I expected. It remains oddly truthful to King's novella, a trait that's fairly rare in movies based off his work. In the end, there was only one thing that bothered me: the ending of the film.

Spoiler Below

I've yet to see the Golden Compass, but I want to inform everyone that the version seen is not the one the director wanted. It was edited in such a way by the studio to avoid a possible boycott by religious leaders, and a fat load of good that did. The ending of the book was indeed shot and included into one of the cuts, and was later removed. Pullman himself even said he enjoyed the version he saw, and from all the reviews out there I would wager that was not the final cut.

As a film fan I'd love it if they would release the director's cut on the big screen if this version does well. I've heard from many that it's just a joy to behold and really the start of a fantastic film series.

As for my thoughts on the book, the first one was excellent, the second one was enjoyable, and the third one was a chore of a read. Muddled ideas everywhere and seemed to leave the themes of the first two books in order to get on a soapbox of its own.

I'll be going to see the movie tomorrow, but mostly for the production design. I'm a sucker for steampunk, art deco and neoclassical. What can I say?

the day after tommorow

lord of the flies (60's version)

jason and the argonauts

all for school, but all pretty good. i liked the lord of the flies one. the black and white set a great mood for the movie.

I don't recall so. The only trailers I got were for Bee Movie, some upcoming movie starring Tom Hanks, the name of which escapes me, and Enchanted (the last one being the only one that I currently have any interest in seeing - it looks like a real hoot, and it's nice to see Disney utilising 2D animation again, if only for a small portion of the film).

EDIT: The Tom Hanks movie was Charlie Wilson's War.

Sorry to burst anyone's bubble but the animation at the beginning of Enchanted was not done by Disney. Their department for such an endeavor was shut down at the time. I know I was bummed out about it too.

I can't wait to see Charlie Wilson's War. I've heard nothing but good things about it. I hear Charlie Wilson was quite the character while in Congress. Plus a movie written by Aaron Sorkin, directed by Mike Nichols and starring Tom Hanks would make for an epic fail if it did fall into a shambles. So it's win/win for me.

Charlie Wilson...lessee what Wiki has to say...

wow. So its his fault the Taliban are firing Stinger missles at our planes now?

thanks a lot Chuck ::)