Movies you've just watched

[drauch]

Yeah, I really enjoyed the first Gamera reboot film. I forgot about the girl and her connection with Gamera, though! Been a few years since I've seen it. I've got the other two films but haven't checked them out yet. Maybe I'll try that tonight. Anyone here seen Gamera the Brave?

[Octopod]

Yeah, I really enjoyed the first Gamera reboot film. I forgot about the girl and her connection with Gamera, though! Been a few years since I've seen it. I've got the other two films but haven't checked them out yet. Maybe I'll try that tonight. Anyone here seen Gamera the Brave?

I saw parts of it on the Sci-Fi channel years ago I believe. I don't remember anything about it though so I must not have watched much of it at all. It's getting a BR release soon though and I signed up for Amazon to notify me when it is available for pre-order. I'll probably only pick it up if it is pretty cheap or wait for it to drop.

Actually seeing that this was released in 2006 I think I must be thinking of a different film. Not sure if this was ever shown on Sci-Fi or not.

[system11]

Seeking a Friend for the End of the World:

Good call, I really enjoyed that one tonight - very predictable but they could so easily have gone overboard and fucked it up. They got it just right though Final scene is a real punch to the stomach.

[GaijinPunch]

I've heard of UK people picking up US accents after living there for several years, but never the other way around (unless they train to lose the US accent, which some stage people have done.)

My first handful of years here, of my gaijin friends, I think Americans made up about 5%, and Candians another 15%. The rest were a variety of UK and a handful of Australians. I was also speaking a lot of Japanese. As you could imagine, whatever Texas accent I had was long gone about 6 months in, and was using a handful of British slang with a slight UK accent (at least to my friends back home) after a while. It wasn't until I started working at Bank of Shit (Bank of America) in almost 2001 that it started to come back in line, but even then, only a little as I was speaking Japanese at least 50% of the time, and oddly enough there were quite a few commonwealth people working there. Now, people just assume I'm from California. Nobody's ever guessed I'm from Texas, or even the south when I tell them I'm from the states.

Wasn't aware of that. I do need to watch that and The Wire at some point..

Yep -- both super awesome. The Wire has a lot of your people in it!

Good call, I really enjoyed that one tonight - very predictable but they could so easily have gone overboard and fucked it up. They got it just right though Final scene is a real punch to the stomach.

Yep, totally agreed. Pretty funny too, I thought. Not raunchy, but also not kid-friendly. An interesting take on the collective behavior knowing the end of days was near.

[neorichieb1971]

Poltergeist - Holds up quite well story wise, but blu ray ruins the effects. It makes the tree look like rubber and the ghosty swirls look a bit cartoony.

Madoka Magica - Really liked it. I thought I would hate it. But the storyline was actually good so I overlooked the teenage girly attraction thing. Its weird how Japanese think this is normal.. But hey ho.

[xris]

Guess who just found out they are going to go see Nausicca in the theater on Friday? This guy. It's playing at the Dryden Theater at the George Eastman House for one night. But, that's how this place is, they show a different movie every night of the week. I've seen some amazing stuff there, but have missed a bunch as well.

[trap15]

Guess who just found out they are going to go see Nausicca in the theater on Friday? This guy.

Oh man, you lucky fuck. I'd pay $$$ to see that in a theatre. Unfortunately, a plane ticket would cost $$$$

[Daigohji]

Godzilla Final Wars - What the fuck. This isn't a Godzilla movie. This is garbage. Even if this wasn't a Godzilla movie, I'd probably rank it up there with some of the worst films I've ever seen, or at least one of the most obnoxious. Didn't realize it was the same guy who made "stylish" sword/gunplay movies that are so prevalent in Japanese film nowadays, and it obviously really shows. The fights are uneventful (when it's actually a Kaiju battle), the music is incessant and NEVER STOPS, CGI IS EVERYWHERE; it's essentially a Japanese The Matrix--but with monsters! I knew I was in for a hard ride with Gotengo blew up a terrible looking CGI Manda within the first few minutes. I don't understand how movies of the past receive so much flack for using "dated" special effects, yet garbage CGI just sorta breezes by without foul. As a 50th Anniversary Film, this is more of an insult than a celebration. My least favorite Godzilla movie. I almost had to turn it off. KING CAESAR ANGUIRUS BALL SOCCER. No wonder this movie bombed. I'd rather them stop making Godzilla movies if they would continue to be like this.

Final Wars is the only movie I've bought on the same format twice. When I bought the DVD the first time, all I knew was that it was from the same director as Azumi and Aragami (both of which I like), and had the largest budget of any Godzilla movie. I watched it once, hated it, and sold it. About a year later, I found myself inexplicably wanting to see it again, so I bought another copy, watched it again, and I appreciated it differently on the second viewing. I'd been expecting a movie that built on the style and production values of the earlier millennium movies, maybe even something to rival the quality of Gamera 3, but Kitamura ditched all that in favour of an unabashed love letter to the later Showa movies (mostly the Jun Fukuda ones). It's a stupid movie with a reach that exceeds its budget, but I love it for being stupidly fun. This is a Godzilla movie firmly in the vein of shie dances, flying drop kicks and shaking hands with giant robots. As a one-off throwback, I have no problem with that.

Yeah, I really enjoyed the first Gamera reboot film. I forgot about the girl and her connection with Gamera, though! Been a few years since I've seen it. I've got the other two films but haven't checked them out yet. Maybe I'll try that tonight. Anyone here seen Gamera the Brave?

The 90s Gamera trilogy are three of the best kaiju movies out there, and it gets better as it goes along. Despite being 13 years old now, Gamera 3 remains the high water mark for effects in a kaiju movie--the brutal destruction of Shibuya is not something you will forget quickly.

Gamera the Brave is a quality movie. A lot of people badmouth it, but I think that's due to it being a reboot rather than a direct sequel to Gamera 3. G3 ends on a cliffhanger, and I think a lot of people were annoyed by GtB's failure to continue on from it. Judged on its own merits, GtB is a solid, more family oriented movie, and well worth watching.

[system11]

Breakin' (aka Breakdance: The Movie) - 8/10

Yes - I realise this is pure 80s nostalgia cheese, but I watched it again tonight for the first time in decades and it's still a ridiculously fun feel-good film. The dancing still rocks too. The sound quality on the BR release (Germany only for some reason) is shocking on the English audio, it improves a little after 10 minutes but it's a bit rough. Broom scene still a favourite. Ice-T appears in it as a MC, and has since disowned it, calling his performance 'wack'.

[GaijinPunch]

Guess who just found out they are going to go see Nausicca in the theater on Friday? This guy. It's playing at the Dryden Theater at the George Eastman House for one night. But, that's how this place is, they show a different movie every night of the week. I've seen some amazing stuff there, but have missed a bunch as well.

Dude, that's sweet. Subtitled or Dubbed?

Breakin' (aka Breakdance: The Movie) - 8/10

Surprise of the thread... all 99 pages. Haha. I saw this at the dollar theater like 100 years ago.

[CMoon]

The 90s Gamera trilogy are three of the best kaiju movies out there, and it gets better as it goes along.

This is something I've never understood. For some reason the 90's Gamera movies always rubbed me the wrong way. I think most kaiju fans love them, but I juts don't get it with those films. I think it is a persona issue with the director, since when he directed a Godzilla film, I also really didn't end up liking it. *shrugs*

[xris]

Nausicca is going to be the dubbed version, which I've never seen, so I don't know how it is. The last few of his movies have been pretty good with the English dubs. They're showing his movies all week, Spirited Away, Howl's Moving Castle, Totoro, Nausicaa, and Princess Mononoke. I'm just just going for Nausicaa - I've seen a couple in the theater before. I really wish they were playing Castle of Cogliostro as well though.

[trap15]

If they had Cagliostro as well, I think I'd be going fucking mad right now Nausicaa and Cagliostro are in my top 10 movies I'd say.

[drauch]

Nausicaa dub is horrible. Most of the Ghibli stuff is. You've been warned.

[emphatic]

Breakin' (aka Breakdance: The Movie) - 8/10

Yes - I realise this is pure 80s nostalgia cheese, but I watched it again tonight for the first time in decades and it's still a ridiculously fun feel-good film. The dancing still rocks too. The sound quality on the BR release (Germany only for some reason) is shocking on the English audio, it improves a little after 10 minutes but it's a bit rough. Broom scene still a favourite. Ice-T appears in it as a MC, and has since disowned it, calling his performance 'wack'.

JCVD is in it too.

[njiska]

JCVD is in it too.

Reminds me I really need to watch JCVD.

[GaijinPunch]

Nausicca is going to be the dubbed version, which I've never seen, so I don't know how it is. The last few of his movies have been pretty good with the English dubs. They're showing his movies all week, Spirited Away, Howl's Moving Castle, Totoro, Nausicaa, and Princess Mononoke. I'm just just going for Nausicaa - I've seen a couple in the theater before. I really wish they were playing Castle of Cogliostro as well though.

Only one I saw in the theater was Spirited Away, in Japan, in Japanese, no subs. I knew enough Japanese at the time to enjoy it. Of all those, while the hipster in me says see Totoro, I'd probably buck up for Mononoke Hime. I actually moved to Japan about 2 months after it left the theaters WAAAAY the fuck back in 1998.

[EmperorIng]

Mononoke Hime, along with Porco Rosso and Laputa, are probably the best Ghibli movies. My personal favorite being Whisper of the Heart, though. But that's because I'm a softie.

I like the Nausicaa dub, and it has good performances from Uma Thurman and Patrick Stewart. The girl playing Nausicaa, eh, not as much, but the heroines of these movies are always miscast.

I like the ideas and set-pieces in Nausicaa (at times it seems Evangelion/Akira-esque, and I think one of the guys who worked on those series worked on Nausicaa), but I think they were better realized and developed in Mononoke.

[drauch]

Went ahead and watched my copy of Gamera 2: Attack of Legion - A pretty good Kaiju film, although I wasn't as impressed as I was with the first of the reboot films. I will applaud the miniatures, though, for those were some really fantastic looking sets--that got blown up and set on fire. Legion is a pretty interesting monster, as is the plot for the most part. My main complaint is the ending battle, which is quite uneventful. Still, a fun romp despite a few flaws.

Delta Force - Cannon's first in a series of films with Chuck Norris, as well as Lee Marvin in his last role before his death. A weird film with a cast stuffed full of old Hollywood actors. Oddly emotional airplane terrorist heist in the first part of the film with the aforementioned aging Hollywood stars; second half is Norris riding a motorcycle with rocket launchers on the front and back, as well as a machine gun mounted on the front. The entire Delta Force team gets in on the action: dune buggies, motorcycles, lots of LAWs and explosions, ziplines, etc--THE GOOD STUFF I LIVE FOR. Ends on a random depressing note, making this quite a bizarre film. But hey, that's Cannon for you.

[njiska]

Just got done watching Network. What a great, feel-good movie for a person in my current life situation. Fantastic acting and sabre-rattling by Peter Finch. There's tiny little inflections in his numerous rants that add a much deeper edge to the mindset of the character and the meaning of his preaching. Great cast all round.

[drauch]

Fantastic Voyage - Really had high hopes for this one. Raquel Welch and 60s SF are some of my favorite things, yet I can't help that the film falls kind of flat. Groovy set pieces and trippy visuals, but I guess there really isn't much you can do with 140 minutes inside the human blood stream. Travel a ways--get stuck, find the exit. Travel a bit more--get stuck again, get blown around a bit, find the exit. A bit preachy with a blatantly obvious antagonist, it's still worth seeing for sci-fi fans--just didn't really meet the expectations I had.

[CMoon]

Fantastic Voyage is a film I doubt has aged particularly well.

The Network on the other hand may be more applicable now than it was when it was made.

[njiska]

The Network on the other hand may be more applicable now than it was when it was made.

That is kind of a scary truth that I was pondering the entire time I was watching it. What is satire when it becomes reality?

[mesh control]

Black Rat
Revenge movie with high school kids.
Pretty short and that's why I liked it.

[njiska]

Skyfall

Finally having it's North American debut; I went to the lunch time showing. I was not at all prepared for the level of quality the film brought forth and simply put I believe it to now be may favourite of all Bond films. Here are the points that stuck with me, as spoiler free as possible.

The Opening
A nice emotional opening leading into one of the better chases scenes of Bond's career. Well choreographed and edited, with a solid pace that continues to amp up all the way to its thrilling, but spoiled by trailers, climax.

The Acting
Great performances all round, but I feel the most attention needs to be paid to Dame Judi Dench who reminds us why she is an award winning actress. M plays a much larger role in the film then in previous and Dench more than rises to the occasion. We get to see the cold hard M that she's portrayed since GoldenEye, but we also get to see a significantly more human side. She is a strong woman, unafraid and determined, but also ultimately someone who has a lot of ghosts in her closet that she's forced to deal with. We get to see how and why M justifies her actions and the entire experience is far deeper than one would expect from a Bond film.

Ralph Fiennes also deserves a nod for his portrayal of Intelligence and Security Committee Chairman, Gareth Mallory. Again, a much deeper character than we were first lead to believe and one that should prove to be an excellent addition to the series moving forward.

Ben Whishaw is an very different kind of Q, but one that I think is fitting for the new direction Bond is taking. He's far more an over qualified basement hacker than an old gent that likes to fiddle with toys. Even going so far as to point out that Q branch is going to be a practical place, not somewhere that produces exploding pens. He seems to share a nice onscreen chemistry with Daniel Craig, possibly owing to their previous work in Layer Cake, and while I doubt he'll last as long in the role as Desmond Llewelyn, he should be here for a while.

Lastly I want to call attention to Javier Bardem whose delightfully flamboyant and over-the-top portrayal of Silva, the primary antagonist, somehow manages to fit in this otherwise very serious film. It's like he's captured the perfect mix of insanity and charm, without descending to the level of Heath Ledger's Joker. Which leads me to my next point...

The Bizarre Similarities to The Dark Knight
James Bond has always been an orphan and come from a reasonably well off home, but when you decide to explore those aspects of the character while adding an insane, calculating, "One step ahead of everyone else" villain, some comparisons have to be drawn. Without spoiling the specific points, though I'd be happy to discuss them in a more spoiler aware thread, Bardem's character follows pretty much the same story arc as the Joker did in The Dark Knight. It's ever-present in the back of your min when watching the film and could be a turn off to some.

The Cinematography
Bond films have generally been shot well and Skyfall is no exception. From the opening shots of Turkey to the cold moors of Scotland, there's not shot that isn't beautifully framed. Add to that some nice camera effects, like Bond's initial reveal and the silhouette fight and you get one great visual experience.

The Plot
Skyfall is a well constructed Bond epic. The story delves deep into M's past and takes a rather serious look at the morality of the messy side of the business. I don't wish to say more other than you will not be disappointed with direction the film takes. There are obvious departures from realism in terms of where the action goes, but I found that did little to detract from the deep themes the plot is centred around. There's a good reason why everything is happening and contrary to Skykid's view, I found Silva to be very well developed. He has a clear motive for his actions, and his insanity is grounded in a story of betrayal, suffering and disillusionment. One conversation with M alone does much to further the character.

The Computer Psuedoscience
This is the only part of the film that bothered me, mainly due to its complete absurdity. I feel the film would have been better served by leaving much of it unexplained and just simply acknowledging it's happening. I literally cringed at a couple of things that were said.

The References
It's been a trend in recent Bond films to have throwbacks to previous endeavours. In Quantum of Solace this came in the form of a direct duplication of the famous gold painted girl scene in Goldfinger. Here it's a better executed and comes primarily in the form of a quaint little Aston Martin. Yes the DB5 is back again, but this time it serves a purpose and is actually used as it was intended to be.

Conclusion
All in all Skyfall may still not be a story about Ian Flemming's James Bond, but it is a great logical evolution of the Bond created in Casino Royale. The film is grounded, drifting away from realism for some high-engery action scenes, but never reaching the level farce seen since Connery first hung up the PPK in 1967. The acting is the best it has ever been and the very deep, serious nature of the fim's core themes make it my personal favourite Bond outing.

[njiska]

In addition now that I have completed watching all 23 Bond films, I have ranked them in my own order of preference. Many were kind of a toss up as they were on equal footing.

Skyfall
Casino Royale
From Russia With Love
Goldfinger
GoldenEye
Dr. No
Man With The Golden Gun
Tomorrow Never Dies
Live and Let Die
The Living Daylights
Quantum of Solace
Diamonds Are Forever
The World is Not Enough
Die Another Day
On Her Majesty’s Secret Service
A View to a Kill
Octopussy
Moonraker
For Your Eyes Only
The Spy Who Loved Me
You Only Live Twice
Thunderball
License to Kill

[CMoon]

I also just got back from Skyfall. I definitely give it a thumbs up, but can see where bond fans might not appreciate it. The film is slow, brooding, and where you'd expect the film to erupt into a massive climax it instead becomes a smaller, more personal affair. The film is very much about mortality--not just out right getting killed, but becoming older and irrelevant. As critics have pointed out, there are shades of Dark Knight, and I don't think this is a bad thing, but fortunately it isn't overplayed. Also, this not an action packed bond--seriously, lots of mood with waves of beautiful cinematography that makes this a very different outing for the venerable spy. Even the plot (which is really nothing special) is almost secondary to the larger themes at work here.

Definitely disagree with some of the negative reviews I've read. The movie mostly seems to be hitting on all four cylinders and except for the crap computer hacking scene, is pretty damn effective. The biggest question is whether Bond fans will enjoy this more, mature vision or whether its just all about one-liners and exploding pens.

[Skykid]

The biggest question is whether Bond fans will enjoy this more, mature vision or whether its just all about one-liners and exploding pens.

It has more in common with exploding pens than Casino Royale did. Also exploding scriptwriters, forgetting about evolving important secondary characters and making Bond into a gun-disarming Bourne agent rather than an sleuthy MI6 agent. I met up with an old friend recently and he felt the same way about the - SPOILERS - crappy villain death, his prattling on about "oh yes, it's right that it's here" (even though the Scottish Highlands and Skyfall have no poetic relevance to his vendetta against Q whatsoever), his gross underuse and wastedness as an entitiy (and unexplored backstory), generally banal scripting, racial equality Moneypenny (50yrs, time to be liberal!) pointless iconography and self-referencing (that DB5 belongs to a different film, it was literally tacked on in this) and ridiculous lift holding, tube train through walls (they're never that on time when you actually need on in London), motorbike across rooftop antics.

That said, it's still better than QoS and most of Brosnan's stuff. Even though I gave my thoughts on it before, I just find as time goes on I've started to think even less of Skyfall than I did during the intial credit roll. Once yes, but not worth a second viewing really.

In addition now that I have completed watching all 23 Bond films, I have ranked them in my own order of preference. Many were kind of a toss up as they were on equal footing.

Skyfall

So... you thought Skyfall was the best Bond movie of them all?

Wow. Amazing what a big screen, an expensive ticket and surround sound can do to dull the rational senses.

Props for From Russia With Love high up, but Die Another Day and Quantum of Solace don't actually qualify as movies, can't believe they're not buried... off screen.

[njiska]

In addition now that I have completed watching all 23 Bond films, I have ranked them in my own order of preference. Many were kind of a toss up as they were on equal footing.

Skyfall

So... you thought Skyfall was the best Bond movie of them all?

Wow. Amazing what a big screen, an expensive ticket and surround sound can do to dull the rational senses.

Props for From Russia With Love high up, but Die Another Day and Quantum of Solace don't actually qualify as movies, can't believe they're not buried... off screen.

Good old Skykid, being offensive again, probably without realizing it. Look we may not agree on the merits of these films, but to imply that my opinion was swayed by flash instead substance is just to insult my intelligence. You've made quite clear that you only care about a Bond that is a strict adaptation of Flemming's Bond. I do not. I care about entertaining, well made films and I think I've done well enough to justify my opinion on Skyfall. You don't have to agree, but don't need to be insulting either.

I also just got back from Skyfall. I definitely give it a thumbs up, but can see where bond fans might not appreciate it. The film is slow, brooding, and where you'd expect the film to erupt into a massive climax it instead becomes a smaller, more personal affair. The film is very much about mortality--not just out right getting killed, but becoming older and irrelevant. As critics have pointed out, there are shades of Dark Knight, and I don't think this is a bad thing, but fortunately it isn't overplayed. Also, this not an action packed bond--seriously, lots of mood with waves of beautiful cinematography that makes this a very different outing for the venerable spy. Even the plot (which is really nothing special) is almost secondary to the larger themes at work here.

Definitely disagree with some of the negative reviews I've read. The movie mostly seems to be hitting on all four cylinders and except for the crap computer hacking scene, is pretty damn effective. The biggest question is whether Bond fans will enjoy this more, mature vision or whether its just all about one-liners and exploding pens.

Sounds like we're on the same page.

[BIL]

Casino Royale (2006) is my favourite Bond film hands-down, the sickly dialogue between Bond and Vesper in the latter third aside, and I'd have preferred more of its brutal ilk. Mads Mikkelsen is a better antagonist than Bardem upon repeat viewing of both films, far more believably evil. But I do appreciate what they did with Skyfall. It's a throwback to the more fantastical Bond films that still maintains a more than sensible distance from the inanity of Moonraker and Die Another Day. A compromise for sure, but not the worst one.