Last movie you watched?

[Mr. Marshmallow]

Originally Posted by frankie_fan

I didn't know you had your own YouTube channel.

Yeah, I run anime reviews and movie reviews as well as my own made music videos from my youtube page.

Oh and the last movie I saw was Batman: Mask of the Phantasm which in my opinion has the best Batman movie musical score out of all Batman films. The opening opera like sequence of the Batman theme is beyond beautiful in my opinion.

[frankie_fan]

Monsters vs. Aliens

I just got back from seeing this, and it was funny. Seth Rogan and Hugh Laurie were brilliant in their roles, as was Stephen Colbert.

I just want to clarify one thing: for anyone who's seen Monsters vs. Aliens, when the reporter appears before the President approaches the robot, was he voiced by someone from your own country? Because here in Australia, he was voiced by one of our own stars.

[some guy you dont know]

Hunchback of Notre Dame

You know, I've only seen this movie once before, back around ten years ago. Back then I didn't think it was all that good.

Today, however, I watched it. I gotta say it is much better than I thought it was. Frollo was a much better villain, and the story was great. I find it odd that this got a G rating, though.

[jekylljuice]

Originally Posted by some guy you dont know

Hunchback of Notre Dame

You know, I've only seen this movie once before, back around ten years ago. Back then I didn't think it was all that good.

Today, however, I watched it. I gotta say it is much better than I thought it was. Frollo was a much better villain, and the story was great. I find it odd that this got a G rating, though.

Cool, I'm glad that you thought so. I was eleven years old when I first saw Hunchback at the cinema, and back then, I too was a little uncertain what to make of it. I think that audiences in general were rather thrown off by it, its tone and content being so much darker and more extreme than they'd come to expect from a typical Disney outing, and I'm really not surprised that Disney felt the need to follow it up with the highly colourful, all-out comedic Hercules. But several years later, I rediscovered it, and suddenly found myself extremely taken with it. True, it makes some compromises here and there (I know that at least some form of comic relief was required, but that threesome of wisecracking gargoyles just don't feel like they belong in this particular movie) and it's far from faithful to the Victor Hugo novel in many regards (particularly the conclusion), but, given the circumstances, I think that it's about as faithful as you could reasonably expect, and that, by Disney standards (post-Walt, anyhow), it's still very brave and daring, and all the more fascinating for it. I think that Frollo is the real stand-out element here - he's simply amazing, both as a villain and as a Disney character, period. As I've said elsewhere, he's definitely the kind of bad guy that the House of Mouse will only ever do once in a lifetime. He's callous, conceited, a hypocritical bigot and much more besides that, and I totally love the guy.

[taranchula]

Originally Posted by jekylljuice

I think that Frollo is the real stand-out element here - he's simply amazing, both as a villain and as a Disney character, period. As I've said elsewhere, he's definitely the kind of bad guy that the House of Mouse will only ever do once in a lifetime. He's callous, conceited, a hypocritical bigot and much more besides that, and I totally love the guy.

And to top it all off, he's voiced by Tony Jay, you can't get anymore awesome than that.

[Lynnie]

I just finished watching Remember the Titans, but wasn't paying much attention. I'm kind of distracted today. I remember it being a good movie though, despite my not having much interest in football. I'm much more into basketball or hokey.

[jekylljuice]

Originally Posted by taranchula

And to top it all off, he's voiced by Tony Jay, you can't get anymore awesome than that.

Yes, exactly. Hurrah for Tony!

[jekylljuice]

Cube

Wow.

Until yesterday, I’d known only very vaguely of this late 90s Canadian cult classic, but the little that I did know had been intriguing enough to leave me itching to see it, so it was just my good fortune that I happened to stumble across a copy on video in a charity shop earlier this week. And again, wow. I was absolutely mesmerised by this film. It’s been ages since I last saw a horror/sci-fi flick with so pure and simple a concept, yet with so much freshness, involvement and ingenuity. The basic scenario is truly the stuff of your most grisly and claustrophobic of nightmares, executed here with expert degrees of tautness and tension, and on a pretty limited budget too. It’s a cult classic status well and truly earned, and, to those who haven’t seen it, I can’t recommend it strongly enough.

Six individuals (technically there is a seventh, but, eh, I don’t want to give away one of the earliest plot twists, do I?) wake up to find that they have been abducted from their daily routines and planted, seemingly at random, inside a giant cube. The cube itself is an elaborate maze made up of hundreds of interlocking cube-shaped rooms, some of which allow safe passage, while others contain lethal booby traps which will dispose of their entrants in all variety of gruesome manners. None of them know who built the cube, or for what purpose – and indeed, neither does the audience, who are kept in the exact same darkness for the entirety of the film. I should warn you not to get your hopes up if you’re expecting any kind of explanation as to the external significance of the cube, or that of the forces behind it (if, indeed, any such significance exists at all). Truthfully, such explanations would merely detract from the purity of the story, and aren’t really relevant to the task facing the characters at hand; that is, to find their way out by their own means and stay alive. The motley assembly includes a police officer (Quentin), a professional criminal with a special talent for prison breaking (Rennes), a doctor (Holloway), a maths student (Leaven), a mysterious businessman (Worth) and an autistic man (Kazan) – only through a combination of skill, logic and, most crucially of all, co-operation, do any of them stand a chance of making it to the outside world with their lives and their body parts fully intact. Unfortunately, and as if the cold mechanical callousness of the Cube weren’t antagonism enough, human vice starts to seep its way in, in true Lord of the Flies fashion, as individual struggles for power and leadership threaten to disrupt the mutual struggle for survival.

What ensues is an extremely gripping, original and enjoyable slice of sci-fi horror with tension, surprises and irony galore – heck, put it in black and white and stick a Rod Serling voice-over at the beginning and the end and you’d have a drama worthy of the original Twilight Zone, but with a distinctly 90s twist. Overall, though, I found it to be a seriously effective exercise in human judgement – like the cube itself, the film is wrought with twists and turns, the greatest of which have to do with the various ways in which the characters are developed. None of them are quite who they appear to be, and, as Cube demonstrates, initial impressions can be truly deceptive. Throughout its entirety, the film continuously pulls the rug from under us, convincing us to invest our faith and adherences in one character whilst distrusting another, only for something to happen which completely disrupts that and forces us to reconsider our perceptions of them. Characters who initially appear to be benevolent and heroic may later reveal themselves to have a darker side, while even the most ostensibly useless or dubious of characters may have a hidden skill or understanding which proves integral to their escape.

In the end, it's maybe not 100% perfect (though for what it is, it can't be too far off), but it makes its point with more than enough potency, and it's a seriously involving, impressively-executed ride to be a part of. My only regret is that the DVD of this movie currently appears to be out of print, since I would really have loved to owned it and have heard the director's commentary. There were a couple of direct-to-video sequels, apparently, but since the general word about those two has been a lot more mixed I'm not so sure if I'll bother right now. This one, though, was fantastic, and I really hope it gets a re-release soon.

[Mr. Marshmallow]

(Laputa) Castle in the sky

One of the older of Hayao Miyazaki's anime films and one of the few ones I have yet to see until now. I recently got back from an anime convention called "Anime Detour" in St. Paul, Minnesota and I picked this movie up just before I left. I've seen majority of Miyazaki's work and was a bit weary since I felt his most recent work hasn't been as good as I had hoped.

However that was not the case with this film. This was a brilliant example of how a simple story filled with love, heart, and adventure can still spellbind people without huge explosions, gore and guts, or overloaded special effects. I found this movie to be absolutely adorable. The two characters of Patsu and Sheeta were just so sweet, so well done and so enjoyable to watch.

They had great dub voice actors and I really felt their performances gave the characters more warmth and charm to their little love that grew as the film continued, not to mention the always enjoyable Mark Hamil as the villain (who I was not aware was even IN this film). The animation is fantastic as always, Miyazaki has one of the best animation styles I have ever seen.

The music was also superb, Patsu's little horn piece in the beginning was a sweet and really lovely sounding little piece. My only complaint if any and this is more of a fault of mine for finding it first but, anyone who has seen the anime series "Nadia: Secret of blue water" will find STAGGERING numbers of reference to it.

The movie is practically the exact same story as the series, the characters designs, story arcs, even the outfits and hobbies/jobs of the characters are the same as Nadia. I know Nadia came first due to its age so I have a strong feeling Miyazaki was heavily influenced by Nadia judging by all of the similarities. But that's nothing against the film itself and I absolutely loved it and am so glad I bought it when I did.

[koosie]

Perhaps because of unfortunate choices I have made in my life, I've had little time this year to watch any movies, let alone write about them. It is a most unsatisfactory situation but it is all to the greater good and will turn out well in the end I'm sure. Unlike the 3 I have managed to see which I'm absolutely dying to acknowledge somehow. as they're all fantastic albeit all a bit minor-key movies, if you know what I mean. Anyway I'll rattle through 'em as best I can.

Persopolis is an animated film adapted from the autobiographical (I think) graphic novels of chief protagonist Marji (Marjane Satrapi), an intelligent and fun young lady who comes to the west to escape the stifling fundamentalism of post-revolutionary Iran. To my shame I approached the film with a little trepidation, knowing the history and politics behind the story I expected a lot of tragedy and obviously there's a lot there with events so awful you wonder how anyone could possibly cope. However the predominant feeling was one of familiarity. Persopolis is about growing up and leaving home and making mistakes and becoming wise to what really matters and not letting all the bad stuff get to you. All the stuff we all have to grow through. Marji's felt like a friend I'd never met and that was nice. Now the version I watched was dubbed into English from French and I was a little sorry about that but everyone did OK even bizarre half-naked blitzed rocker turned insurance salesman Iggy Pop. Nice going, Iggy. Now put some clothes on.

Lust, Caution is the story of a young actress in Japanese-occupied China who infiltrates the household of a powerful collaborator as part of an assassination plot concocted by her naïve patriotic drama-student friends. I loved this film so much. The tension is built by keeping you guessing on several important issues: Is she really attracted to her target or merely acting? Is he aware that she's deceiving him? At one point she she sings for him and does one of those beautiful expressive dances that seem to involve these funny little shuffling bits. Timing is so important.

Save the Green Planet is a Korean film, not Japanese like that IDIOT said in the 'What ticks you off' thread. What a crass error. I'm glad I'm not that jerk. Um...Anyway Save the Green Planet is the story of a young man who kidnaps a successful businessman and tortures him in the belief that he's an alien with hostile intentions to Earth. It's a bit yuck sometimes but manages to be very funny indeed and by the end you're moved to tears. Favourite character is the Tightrope walker girlfriend, who's one of the sweetest characters ever though I also liked the cynical ex-detective who reminded me of my Dad for some reason.

It's cheating really but I also listened to the soundtrack of Koyaanisqatsi today by Philip Glass. I love that music so much and must see the actual film again (and its 2 sequels, which I've yet to see) soon. Watch this space.