Movies you've just watched

[EmperorIng]

Return of the King is ok, but, and while I know this contradicts what I said, the singing is a -little- obnoxious. But catchy!

I like some scenes though. And heck I'll say it again some of the songs are really catchy.

It's like any Rankin Bass - trippy, with weird, bizarre facial expressions held at awkward moments (like Aragorn in the Towers of the Teeth video linked above). It's fun, I guess you can definitely say that. Its character design is better than Jackson's LOTR films!

[Octopod]

As far as singing in these films I don't see how anyone can not like this.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LLVgGADHg60


BTW, the first time I ever saw the animated Hobbit was in elementary school. Our teacher had us watch it for class. What a cool ass teacher.

Its character design is better than Jackson's LOTR films!

IMO, the animated features are better than Jackson's films in general. Just the fact that there is no shield surfing puts them above them.

[drauch]

And Boris over Frazetta! You have to be shitting me dude. Nah, some of Boris early work is nice but his stuff changed and I just don't really like it. Personal taste.

Haha, yeah...I don't think I mean that. I already feel like deleting it. Frazetta is the king, although I do stand by my comment on his trouble drawing faces. But damn, Frazetta could paint some brutal, dark stuff. Vallejo feels a bit too polished; plus, most of his subject matter is...questionable.

[Octopod]

And Boris over Frazetta! You have to be shitting me dude. Nah, some of Boris early work is nice but his stuff changed and I just don't really like it. Personal taste.

Haha, yeah...I don't think I mean that. I already feel like deleting it. Frazetta is the king, although I do stand by my comment on his trouble drawing faces. But damn, Frazetta could paint some brutal, dark stuff. Vallejo feels a bit too polished; plus, most of his subject matter is...questionable.

I think Boris starting painting from body building magazines. It is not uncommon for people to use body building photos as models for their sword & sorcery art, I know some comic illustrators do it, but Boris looks exactly like that and it is not subtle. I think marrying Julie Bell probably affected his art. His early stuff did not have that glossy polish but her work kind of does. Maybe he was influences by her techniques?

[drauch]

And Boris over Frazetta! You have to be shitting me dude. Nah, some of Boris early work is nice but his stuff changed and I just don't really like it. Personal taste.

Haha, yeah...I don't think I mean that. I already feel like deleting it. Frazetta is the king, although I do stand by my comment on his trouble drawing faces. But damn, Frazetta could paint some brutal, dark stuff. Vallejo feels a bit too polished; plus, most of his subject matter is...questionable.

I think Boris starting painting from body building magazines. It is not uncommon for people to use body building photos as models for their sword & sorcery art, I know some comic illustrators do it, but Boris looks exactly like that and it is not subtle. I think marrying Julie Bell probably affected his art. His early stuff did not have that glossy polish but her work kind of does. Maybe he was influences by her techniques?

Yeah, I definitely agree. Vallejo paints his wife and bodybuilders; Frazetta paints from the heart full of pulp fiction.

[emphatic]

Speaking of Paul Verhoeven, I'm sure you all can recommend me picking up Starship Troopers, right? I feel that that, and Basic Instinct are the other two "must-see" movies in Paul's oeuvre, along with RoboCop and Total Recall.

I've been looking to get a few Cronenberg films, so I suppose I should get The Fly (which I've seen) and Scanners, right?

Watch Starship Troopers with directir's commentary, it's mindblowing.

[Acid King]

I've been looking to get a few Cronenberg films, so I suppose I should get The Fly (which I've seen) and Scanners, right?

My personal favorite is Videodrome. Dead Zone is pretty great, as is Existenz. I liked History of Violence and Eastern Promises as well. Naked Lunch is interesting too. Not so much an adaptation of the book as it is a blend of concepts from Burroughs writing and some biographical bits, Cronenberg really gets out there with this one and Peter Weller is his usual solid, deadpan self.

[PC Engine Fan X!]

Both Videodrome & Existenz go together hand-in-hand...watch them both back-to-back and you'll see some striking similarities indeed.

PC Engine Fan X! ^_~

[spadgy]

I accidentally watched Nintendo advert The Wizard. Playchoice 10 as a platform for competetive arcade gaming? Yeah right! (I'm being contentious, of course - it was great fun, if a little crap).

I also finally watched Escape from Alcatraz, which I loved.

[CMoon]

I believe the animated Hobbit got a BR release. Same for The Last Unicorn.

Man, you guys have a rankin/bass love in and leave me out?

To the best of my knowledge, The Hobbit never got a BR release (I can't find any evidence of it), but with the new movie it will undoubtedly happen at some point. Problem with the DVD release is that the sound is all messed up. Sound effects missing, music mixed inappropriately, etc. Actually this may be why we haven't seen a blu ray reissue.

That aside, I've always thought The Hobbit was a really nice film (yeah, those are TopCraft guys working on it and you can see the talent), which makes smart cuts and keeps the pace moving along. Personally I even love that hippy-dippy soundtrack. If you gotta watch a cartoon with songs in it, this actually works since it fits in with the action instead of stopping it.

And yeah, Smaug pretty much rocked. There's nothing they are gonna do in this new version of the hobbit that is gonna match Rankin/Bass Smaug.

[EmperorIng]

Well, actually, since Jackson loves giving homages to the other LOTR film, maybe he'll pay homage to the animated Hobbit by making HIS Smaug an incredibly drunk, surly asshole.

[jugemscloud]

frazetta used to be my favorite fantasy artist until i discovered arthur rackham he puts him to shame (an insanely hard task) pretty much set the characterisation for the vast majority of fantasy/fairy tale stuff. the comparisons of his illustrations of alice in wonderland to the disney stuff as a prime example.

[CMoon]

Well, actually, since Jackson loves giving homages to the other LOTR film, maybe he'll pay homage to the animated Hobbit by making HIS Smaug an incredibly drunk, surly asshole.

I'll get back to you on that in 2014/15

And really, let's think about this: all Smaug does is sleep on that giant pile of gold, period. I'd be a surly, drunken bastard too!

[neorichieb1971]

I watched the trailer to pacific rim. Which looks absolutely fantastic.

If you like dinosaurs and robots.

[MX7]

I'm interested in Pacific Rim as it seems like a bare faced Evangelion rip-off. I know ADV were pissed off about Gainax not letting them do an American film version of it... I wonder if this has something to do with it.

Pacific has the potential to be amazing anyway.

[Mortificator]

I mostly like the aniHobbit, but it dropped the ball at the Battle of Five Armies. The awesome battle from the book became clouds of dust in the distance. It's probably partly because of budget and partly because of a different focus with that adaption. Peter Jackson, on the other hand, can be guaranteed to masturbate the one military clash in the book for all the war-jizz it's worth.

[Octopod]

frazetta used to be my favorite fantasy artist until i discovered arthur rackham he puts him to shame (an insanely hard task) pretty much set the characterisation for the vast majority of fantasy/fairy tale stuff. the comparisons of his illustrations of alice in wonderland to the disney stuff as a prime example.

I'm a huge Arthur Rackham fan myself. His illustrations for Grimm's are just fantastic. Another great fairy tale illustrator is John Bauer. I have a book of Swedish fairy tales with his stuff and I just love his trolls.

Man, you guys have a rankin/bass love in and leave me out?

To the best of my knowledge, The Hobbit never got a BR release (I can't find any evidence of it), but with the new movie it will undoubtedly happen at some point.

Hmm. I thought I had seen it at Walmart or something but it might have been something else.

I have the two sets of Rankin-Bass Christmas specials they put out a couple years back or so that have about 17 films between the two of them. One of my favorite parts of this time of year is watching these films again. I think tonight I am going to watch Santa Claus is Comin' To Town. Burgermeister Meisterburger is my favorite Christmas movie villian.

[blackoak]

Man, you guys have a rankin/bass love in and leave me out?

Haha, yeah. You look away for just a second...

Love of Rankin Bass is pretty much a family affair for me. With my cousins and siblings, it used to be we'd annoy everyone around us constantly singing (fragments of) songs from The Hobbit, ROTK, and The Last Unicorn. I also like Flight of Dragons, although its mediocre in a lot of ways.

The Last Unicorn is up there in top 5 favorite animated movies though. The book is excellent too, sits comfortably in the "mature fantasy" pantheon alongside Neverending Story and Calvino's work...

[Leandro]

"True Grit"... Great western. Washed away the bad taste in my mouth from having watched recently "Perks of being a wallflower", yuck.

[Octopod]

"True Grit"... Great western. Washed away the bad taste in my mouth from having watched recently "Perks of being a wallflower", yuck.

Did you watch the original or the remake?

[Leandro]

The remake. I plan on watching the original sometime

[PC Engine Fan X!]

Watched the crazy & "it never takes itself seriously" campy movie of "Karate Robo Zaborgar" on Netflix the other day. It looks like another one of those Japanese flims that pay homage to those 1970s shows of a hero & his robotic sidekick, Zaborgar, battling the baddies to save the world for another day. Even the ending credits show what KRZ could've been like on serialized TV back in the day (complete with the proper old-school 4:3 aspect ratio format & dirty film grain effects for that aged visual gloss/vibe). Those articulated dragon tits/dragon ass are something else, wtf? This KRZ flick was released in Japan back in 2011, so it was finally released for digital distrubution (via Netflix) just recently.

The "Tokyo Gore Police" flick still hasn't been topped due to it's over-the-top presentation.

PC Engine Fan X! ^_~

[Daigohji]

I'm interested in Pacific Rim as it seems like a bare faced Evangelion rip-off. I know ADV were pissed off about Gainax not letting them do an American film version of it... I wonder if this has something to do with it.

I don't see how you're getting the slightest Evangelion vibe from Pacific Rim. Evangelion: angsty teens piloting anorexic, virtually identical "robots" against often abstract-looking enemies (giant geometric shapes, giant beach balls, etc). Pacific Rim: gung-ho adults piloting a variety of chunky robots against traditional kaiju.

Guillermo del Toro is clearly channeling the super robot shows and kaiju movies of the 60s/70s, not Anno's depression fuelled 90s post-modernism. One of the robots even has a rocket punch, for fuck's sake. Personally, I can't wait for this movie.

[lilmanjs]

The Living Daylights. To me one of the most underrated bond movies. Good story and action is fantastic. Sad that Dalton only did a single movie after this. And tonight to watch if I can manage to do it, all 4 hours and 40 minutes of Gods and Generals: Extended Directors Cut. My first movie on Blu-Ray.

[CMoon]

FINALLY saw Sunset Blvd which certainly deserves its reputation. A sort of Hollywood metafilm where the plot itself is enormously self-referential, directors and actors play themselves, etc. There is a bit of Hitchcock's Psycho here, but also a bit of Citizen Kane, and one helluva lot of uncomfortableness that all takes place in the decay of once glamorous hollywood mansions.

I thought maybe this was going to be some kind of drama, but so many friends recommended it to me I know I had to give it a shot. Damn, another great movie that anyone who claims to love movies really needs to see.

[trap15]

Just watched Die Hard.

I don't remember a thing

[njiska]

The Running Man

This could very well be my favourite Schwarzenegger film, barring T2 of course. Great world, great characters, a simple story that does just what it needs to and some of the best "one-liners" of Arnie's career. Plus Richard Dawson playing Damon Killian is just perfection and the end credits music is really good.

[Leandro]

"Sub-Zero? Now he is just Zero!"

I had this movie in VHS as a kid, can't forget this line

[drauch]

FINALLY saw Sunset Blvd which certainly deserves its reputation. A sort of Hollywood metafilm where the plot itself is enormously self-referential, directors and actors play themselves, etc. There is a bit of Hitchcock's Psycho here, but also a bit of Citizen Kane, and one helluva lot of uncomfortableness that all takes place in the decay of once glamorous hollywood mansions.

I thought maybe this was going to be some kind of drama, but so many friends recommended it to me I know I had to give it a shot. Damn, another great movie that anyone who claims to love movies really needs to see.

True dat. Awesome movie that I need to rewatch again sometime soon. Don't feel bad, though; I still haven't seen Citizen Kane.

[MX7]

I'm interested in Pacific Rim as it seems like a bare faced Evangelion rip-off. I know ADV were pissed off about Gainax not letting them do an American film version of it... I wonder if this has something to do with it.

I don't see how you're getting the slightest Evangelion vibe from Pacific Rim. Evangelion: angsty teens piloting anorexic, virtually identical "robots" against often abstract-looking enemies (giant geometric shapes, giant beach balls, etc). Pacific Rim: gung-ho adults piloting a variety of chunky robots against traditional kaiju.

Guillermo del Toro is clearly channeling the super robot shows and kaiju movies of the 60s/70s, not Anno's depression fuelled 90s post-modernism. One of the robots even has a rocket punch, for fuck's sake. Personally, I can't wait for this movie.

I still get a massive Evangelion vibe off the trailer, if not stylistically but thematically. Yeah there are some western blockbuster paradigms substituted for some Japanese ones, but this is still a very similar scenario. Not surprising since both Evangelion and Pacific Rim are homages to daikaiju eiga, anime, and apocalyptic angst. The self relexivity of Evangelion is even present in Pacific Rim by it having that mardy AI from Portal (interesting idea, completely split in my flat if it's a good one... I say yes cus I'm a sucker for metanarrative)
I can't wait to see it too! Just wanted to point out some thematic similarities to pique people's interest.