What films have you been watching recently?

I knew "Cop Out" was supposed to be awful but I needed to boost my LoveFilm list so I'd get a couple of extra rentals so added it.

Christ almighty it's a bad movie, it appears to have fallen through a wormhole from the eighties and it's one of the worst buddy cop movies I've watched.

Kevin Smith should have stayed the fuck away from this as it makes "Jersey Girl" look like "Citizen Kane" and if it was just to be a vehicle for the intensely annoying Tracy Morgan (how his character managed to find someone to marry him is a mystery) I hope it drove over him. Then reversed and did it a few more times.

Avoid!

I watched Cats and Dogs 2 yesterday.

I feel like I've been raped, and not in a good way.

I think the last film I watched was the theatrical version of Time of EVE. Excellent modern take on some classic SF themes, loved it.

Eep, knowing that you're one of the few other fans of Jersey Girl around that review suggests it's a *massive* fail. :-/

Sin City (it's on the iPlayer ATM).

Very slick, sexy, and violent. Oozes cool. Mickey Rourke, Clive Owen, and Bruce Willis play some bad, bad dudes.

Gorgeous to look at, too. (Jessica Alba, rawr)

Sin City is an enjoyable film, in a "shouldn't be" sort of way to me.

I've been trawling Archive.org of late. I've recently watched.

Captain Kidd (1945) - A historically dubious tale with the fantastic Charles Laughton in the lead role. Great fun.

The Beachcomber [AKA - Vessel of Wrath] (1938) - After loving Charles Laughton in Captain Kidd, I found this film where he stars alongside his real-life wife Elsa Lanchester. Laughton's part is superbly acted and the chemistry between him and his wife a joy. One of the best films I've seen. As good as Laughton's equally excellent performance (again with his wife playing his nurse) in Witness for the Prosecution many years later. Not to be confused with the 1954 version.

The Private Life of Henry VIII (1933) - Laughton again as the lead role. Superbly hammy, but to a believable degree considering the role. Again Elsa Lanchester appears as Anne of Cleves. Not to be taken seriously at all, and the more enjoyable for it.

Cyrano de Bergerac (1950) - José Ferrer is probably the best I've seen the role played. The film is a cut down performance of the play so the fantastic dialogue is intact. It's brilliantly paced between action and equally engaging dialogue. A must watch for all, better than the recent remakes.

The Iron Mask (1929) - Douglas Fairbanks swashing buckles abound in this silent film. The version on Archive.org is a re-print with added music, sound effects but most importantly narration by Douglas Fairbanks Jr. Cinema gold.


Next to watch is the original The Little Shop of Horrors (1960). This version has Jack Nicholson playing the part of the dentalgiaphile, a role that was reprised by Bill Murray in the musical remake. Also to watch is the feature remake of The Quatermass Experiment (The TV version was either live-broadcast and not recorded or the tapes were overwritten, I'm not sure) which is up on iPlayer at the moment.

Steve Martin in the remake pretty much stole the show as the psychotic dentist.

The original is pretty cool though. Gawd you'd have given your eye teeth to be Nicholson in his early career, the bloke must've been beating women off with a shitty stick.

Watched The Little Shop of Horrors last night. It's not a well constructed movie at all. It is an interesting watch though and there is some genuine humour in there. It reads as though it was adapted from a stageplay with very little engineering to make it work on the screen. Talking carnivorous plants aside, there are some moments that really stretch the realms of believability, such as Seymours duel with the dentist.

How to train you dragon - The story was nothing special but I really liked the animation or rather the models, especially the hair and fur. :)

Watched Iron Man 2 over the weekend. Some nifty stuff in there but felt a bit disjointed and phoned in after the first film.

I seem to have developed a new appreciation for Scarlett Johansson though. She got back.

The Social Network over the weekend. Very, very good and top performances all round. Facebook itself is still a load of crap, though.

I watched The Social Network too last night. Fuck me they speak very quickly in that film early on.

I heard the screenwriter interviewed by Mark Kermode recently and he said that rather than cut large chunks of the script out, they just got the actors to speak really fast. You do get used to it but it's a bit jarring at first.

now you're ready to watch all 7 series of the west wing :)

sorkin :bow :bow

I've never watched the West Wing even after hearing it recommended so many times.

Actually, that's a lie, I fell asleep watching the first episode once.

but POTUS was in a bicycle accident!

Yeah, I read about that before and so expected it. You have to concentrate, but it didn't help that we had a bunch of stupid chavs just behind talking throughout the first five minutes and over most of the key conversation between Mark and Erica. I was really expecting the worst, but fortunately they shut up for the rest of the film (which says a lot about how gripping it all was).

What on earth did chavs go and see that for!?

it's about facebook innit

Uh...OK

To be fair, they might just have been really noisy and chavvy geeks. :)

Inception. Not Nolan's best. Reasonable but not really one to recommend.

I've seen very mixed opinions on Inception ranging from "meh" to "that's the movie to beat Citizen Kane".

It's an excellent 'blockbuster' and is great if you have no/low expectations of it. The hype doesn't help it.

I really like it but still prefer The Prestige, Memento and Dark Knight. There's a bit more to them but the action in Inception is his best action direction so far.

Iron Man 2. Holds up to a repeated viewing pretty well; it's a bit more vacuous than the first and some bits really should have been cut (the stupid bird bit for one) and more time with the more interesting parts of the plot. Justin Hammer is a bit too shallow as well.

Ah, so it's not just games you do this with? ^^;

?

I just thought it was OK rather than great. He had the whole wide world of dreamscapes and conspiracies to deal with yet turned it into a really linear, over-simplified heist thriller. I think the fact that he seemed to be playing to the summer crowd hurt it - we know he can do great films that play around with the format (Memento) so to see him drop a great concept down to this sort of Janet and John level was really disappointing.

I'd watch it again for a couple of bits but I dunno, I thought the original was definitely better.

Scarlett Johannson's arse is legendary though.

Batmen Begins. I didn't know there was another modern Batmen until a few days ago actually. Not a bad movie, though Dark Knight is better in my opinion. It lacked the charismatic bad guy.
Gets bonus points for having Morgan Freeman in it. :)

I also watched Stranger than Fiction, which I thought was very good. Loved the digital overlays in the beginning for some reason.

I watched A Beautiful Mind last night. I didn't know what it was about before I watched, so I was rather surprised when it dawned on me that it was about the guy who came up with the Nash Equilibrium. Never expected there to be a movie based on the life of John Nash. :D