Movies you've just watched

[EmperorIng]

Comedy has been in a rut ever since America thought Judd Apatow was funny.

A Fish Called Wanda is 10x the comedy Superbad or 40yr Old Virgin will ever be. And I like 40yr Old Virgin.

If you haven't seen it yet though A Fish Called Wanda is incredibly funny.

[ancestral-knowledge]

I watched "The goon". What delightful movie. Totally digged the violence and stupidity. Nothing intellectual but entertaining.

[Raytrace]

Comedy has been in a rut ever since America thought Judd Apatow was funny.

A Fish Called Wanda is 10x the comedy Superbad or 40yr Old Virgin will ever be. And I like 40yr Old Virgin.

If you haven't seen it yet though A Fish Called Wanda is incredibly funny.

I pretty much agrees - 40 Yr Old Virgin and Anchorman are ok though, but they ain't no Naked Gun though or Airplane

and yeah A Fish Called Wanda is great.

yeah about the Apatow thing, I think his straight funny bits are usually ok, they usually appear in the first 1/3rd of a film, but then it usually descends into all that annoyingly 'knowing'/trying to be weird sh1t, the sorta stuff where they say something like 'did I say that out loud' or some cr4p and, combine this with the fact that in the end they're usually some cheesy happy ending, it's just :s - I'd take any Farrelly or Zuker Bros. film over any Apatow anyday, I'd probably even prefer Freddy Got Fingered to most Apatow comedies...

[Raytrace]

Cobra (Stallone)
JCVD
:

I watched Cobra recently too - pure brilliance

JCVD is great too, love how Seagal keeps on gettin parts just before him haha...

Ha! Yeah, that part about Seagal cutting off his pony tail was gold. I was talking at work about putting my hair in a pony tail just like Seagal. I should probably do that.

you should probably do that deffo, and you could combine it with Cobra shades, or even better, Quattro Bajeena (I can never spell the second name) ones,
you could top it off by chewing a matchstick at all times

[drauch]

Had some Cobra-like aviators last year. Wound up losing two pairs of the damn things.

Watched tonight:

The Perfect Weapon - Really bad 90s action with like every American-asian actor available. Really boring, sadly.

The Devil's Sword. - Indonesian fantasy/sleaze/martial-arts that I've been wanting to see for years. Had a few great parts, but ultimately quite a snooze fest of worthless blabber and hazy pseudo-orgies (usually not a bad thing).

[Raytrace]

have you ever seen The Club with the apparently genuine Triad guy in it, full of kinda horrible machete action, anywayz I remmeber watching that on a VHS release, and at the end, seriously there's footage of the main guy doing some pr0n hahaha - and seriously it does look accidental, it just kinda cuts in late over the credits. The guy in it's a total psycho, does neck strengthening by attaching weights to some string and then lifting up his neck (from a bent over position). I actually still have the VHS somewhere in my parent's house.

[drauch]

I have not! Sounds excellent, though.

Watched that newer Indonesian action film The Raid: Redemption tonight. Some pretty brutal, fast-paced, hard hitting stuff. Only minor complaint is a cliche "twist" plot that was a bit superfluous, but only a minor grievance, really. I think that's my biggest qualm with modern action; too much explaining, technical details, blah blah. Stuff should blow up because it can blow up. No explaining. Art in its finest form.

Followed that up with The Running Man. One of those movies that I should have seen plenty of years ago but haven't for some odd reason. Certainly worth the wait. Absolutely hilarious! So glad Arnold is back in action.

[Raytrace]

I have not! Sounds excellent, though.

Watched that newer Indonesian action film The Raid: Redemption tonight. Some pretty brutal, fast-paced, hard hitting stuff. Only minor complaint is a cliche "twist" plot that was a bit superfluous, but only a minor grievance, really. I think that's my biggest qualm with modern action; too much explaining, technical details, blah blah. Stuff should blow up because it can blow up. No explaining. Art in its finest form.

Followed that up with The Running Man. One of those movies that I should have seen plenty of years ago but haven't for some odd reason. Certainly worth the wait. Absolutely hilarious! So glad Arnold is back in action.

haha Jesse Ventura is class in that too - not quiote as good as his 'goddamn sexual tyrannosaur' role though

I'm pretty sure this is the film I mean:

http://www.mrqe.com/movie_reviews/wu-ting-m100035903

'including the real life triad member/gangster Michael Chan Wai Man as the leading role as Sai, '

I can't find any pics though - which I suppose is good hahahaha - Im pretty sure Manga Ltd. brought it in - I think my VHS was a 'Manga' one.

[drauch]

Lone Wolf and Cub: White Heaven in Hell -Pretty nice finale, although it's slightly disappointing there wasn't much closure (at least for the Wakayama films)

Scorpion - Absolutely dreadful, lost action film from the 80s. Probably a reason it's unheard of.

Delicatessen- Well worth the wait for me to finally see it. Absolutely perfect in my eyes.

[xbl0x180]

I cannot deal with the Jeunet look of movies: Way too gaudy and rich in every frame. I can only handle this type of film for seconds at a time and, most likely, will never finish watching it (as I did with Delicatessen and "Children Of The Lost City")

[Skykid]

Love Exposure - 2009

More undiluted complete and utter bullshit from Japan's woefully inept class of film director. Appalling.

[xbl0x180]

Oof! BURN! Hahaha. I need to buy some more modern Japanese movies

[Sly Cherry Chunks]

Paranorman starts out as this average Corpse Bride/Coraline retread then HOLY SHIT, THE ENDING

[EmperorIng]

Rewatched Alien the other night.

Reaffirmed why I am such a huge fan of the series, even though every single film has been worse than the previous. I even have the shoddily-packaged, but oh-so delicious Quadrilogy boxset, with all four films, each with their own bonus disc of featurettes. Mm mm mmm.

Still had all the great acting, beautiful set-pieces, claustrophobic atmosphere, and attention to detail that made me love the movie the first time around.

Though the mystery of the space jockey is kind of gone now that I've seen Prometheus... Alas.

[Mischief Maker]

Though the mystery of the space jockey is kind of gone now that I've seen Prometheus... Alas.

Remember when Trekkies banded together and declared Star Trek V non-cannon? Remember when audiences were so enraged by Highlander 2: The Quickening that the series dumped all references to Zeist throughout every additional sequel and TV show, no matter how awful?

In this age of constant retcons and reboots, I have no problem filing Prometheus away in the same category as any one of hundreds of Roger Corman "Alien" rip-offs. Just another bad movie trying to steal the thunder from a great one.

[Hagane]

Also, I've never seen the sequel, but Crank remains the only Jason Statham movie I've ever watched that is any way half-past decent.

Didn't like Snatch?

[drauch]

Ugh...watching so much. Probably won't remember it all:

Ride With the Devil - Awesome Jack Starrett flick with Peter Fonda and the always lovely Warren Oates. Fantastic car chases and satanists!

Blind Woman's Curse - Teruo Ishii is a fantastic director, and I love Meiko Kaji, but I felt this one kinda goes in circles. Some fine cinematography and some generally bizarre stuff but certainly not the best from either.

Bad Day at Black Rock - All star cast: Spencer Tracy, Robert Ryan, Lee Marvin, Ernest Borgnine in a fairly dark tale of mystery in a corner of a sleepy little town in the American desert.

Class of 1999 - Ridiculous. Android Pam Grier. Rocket hands. High school gangs. Much better than Class of 1984.

The Lost Empire- Made by the same guy who did Chopping Mall. With help from busy starlette Raven De La Croix from Russ Meyer's Up!, who acts, produced, made costumes, etc for the film. Pretty bland, really. So many boobies that never get shown. Plus a weird cameo by Angus Scrimm (the Tall Man from Phantasm) as the lead baddie. Pretty awful.

Last Hurrah for Chivalry - Early John Woo martial arts film. Amazing choreography! Tragic ending, of course.

Fist of the North Star - The terrible American film with Clint Howard, Chris Penn, Malcom McDowell, Downtown Julie Brown, etc...so awful. But you knew that.

God Bless America - Everything I hoped it would be. Hits a little too close to home for my neck of the woods.

I think that's it...

[Ed Oscuro]

Going out on a limb: Has anybody seen The Black and Blue Lamp (1988 British telefilm), and better yet, do you have a copy of it for me? I don't care if it's timecoded, I NEED to see this. Badly.

[Sly Cherry Chunks]

In this age of constant retcons and reboots, I have no problem filing Prometheus away in the same category as any one of hundreds of Roger Corman "Alien" rip-offs. Just another bad movie trying to steal the thunder from a great one.

We did the same with Ressurection and the 2 AVPs. Some idiots even discount Alien 3.

[BIL]

Class of 1999 - Ridiculous. Android Pam Grier. Rocket hands. High school gangs. Much better than Class of 1984.

Haha, I've been thinking of re-watching this sometime... one of the "video nasties" I recall most fondly from my childhood. Ah, the horror aisle at Blockbuster and its scary VHS covers.

[EmperorIng]

Alien 3 has a lot of problems, but taken on its own it's actually a very beautifully-shot, atmospheric and gloomy movie, with a lot of great performances (hell yeah Charles Dutton).

The music score by Eliot Goldenthall is probably my all-time favorite film score, as well.

It just sort of shits all over Aliens' feel-good ending, and that's probably the number-1 reason people don't like it. Which is understandable, because the way the many scripts wrote away Hicks and Newt is very poor, clumsy, and infuriating. That and I can't forgive the movie for the attempted rape scene. It was awful, it made me FEEL awful, and it was just really fucking stupid. Shame on the writer who snuck that in.

I like the movie, not as much as the other two (though the cartoonishness of Cameron's Aliens wears thin sometimes - he is not a nuanced or skilled writer, period.), but enough that it is a good enough end to the trilogy.

Alien Resurrection is only entertaining as a hilarious shitty sci-fi B-movie, what with Ron Perlman gorilla face and Winona Ryder's painfully-stilted acting. It's really funny, but that's not how an Alien film should be!

[njiska]

My main reason for disliking Alien 3 is that it feels like a disjointed mess at points. Beautifully shot, but terribly edited. I greatly prefer the Assembly cut and would love to see the work print Fincher created before he walked off the project, fully restored.

And yeah, it does kind of shit all over the end of Aliens.

[EmperorIng]

Yeah, even though the Assembly Cut has less-than-stellar CGI for the Alien (understandable because it's unfinished), the extra time they give to character interaction, development - and you know, plot - make it the preferred Alien3 viewing experience. Though some parts there are a bit out of place (I think most of the ending works better in the theatric cut but that's me).

I have the Quadrilogy boxset, so it's a great collection for an Alien fan, even if it has some of the worst packaging for a boxset I've ever encountered. You know you're doing bad when the DOLEMITE TOTAL EXPERIENCE* boxset is better packaged.


*any true fan of Rudy Ray Moore needs this set.

[Ed Oscuro]

Alien 3 also shits over the vastly superior scripts penned for it, too. What did they think they were making, Superman III?

[EmperorIng]

FOX wanted a big-blockbuster franchise film, so executive meddling quite literally destroyed every single version of the film until what we got was the leftover scraps.

[njiska]

I have the Quadrilogy boxset, so it's a great collection for an Alien fan, even if it has some of the worst packaging for a boxset I've ever encountered. You know you're doing bad when the DOLEMITE TOTAL EXPERIENCE* boxset is better packaged.

You need the Anlien Anothology Blu-Ray, my friend. Unlike the Quadrilogy's Assembly cut, for the Blu-Ray release they actually brought the original cast back to do proper ADR on the new scenes. Sounds a thousand times better.

FOX wanted a big-blockbuster franchise film, so executive meddling quite literally destroyed every single version of the film until what we got was the leftover scraps.

Sounds like every Fox product of the 90s. As I recently relearned with Sliders.

[BIL]

Through the wonders of the 21st century, I am watching Class of 1999 for the first time in over two decades... in Russian! That is, a couple of actors speaking over male and female parts respectively. Maybe the second is a really camp guy? Do they have those in Russia? Never mind, with cinema of this calibre it's not important. There sure are a lot of semi-automatic weapons in the suburban USA of 1999! Explains a lot.

edit: oh snap nigga, a sparkly-clean non-dubbed rip arrives! Now I can enjoy this dystopian masterpiece for real...
edit2: so many mullets! and Malcom McDowell.
edit3: when designing super-powerful androids, make sure to give them the personalities of sadistic assholes!
edit IV - the final chapter: not a bad little sub-b film, really. not a good one either, but a starving man's Terminator is still worth a laugh.

[njiska]

Can't believe it's taken me this long, but I just finished watching A Better Tomorrow (Ying hung boon sik) for the first time. Suffice it to say, I was impressed. The story was far more involving and moving then I had expected; the action was less intense than I'm used to with John Woo, but still plentiful and well choreographed; the only problems I had were with the presentation.

I'm starting to believe that while the Chinese can produce great stories and choreograph amazing action scenes, they seem to lack any kind of skill with the basic, technical aspects of film. Although the framing was good, unlike some other Hong Kong film's I've seen from the era, I was surprised how often the camera was not in focus, or focused on something other than the object of the scene. The audio was similarly crap. From the way is sounds, I'm guessing the movie wasn't shot with sync-sound and was entirely dubbed in post production. Wouldn't surprise me as this is how Hard Boiled was shot 6 years later (Though the dub was way better).

Still, these are minor complaints that are completely overshadowed by the plot. I now understand why the Hong Kong Film Awards declared it the second best Chinese film to be made as of 2005.

Hopefully going to get to watch A Better Tomorrow 2 or The Killer tomorrow.

[drauch]

Just wait until A Better Tomorrow 2! And yeah, The Killer is my favorite Woo film. It's perfect.

[njiska]

Just wait until A Better Tomorrow 2! And yeah, The Killer is my favorite Woo film. It's perfect.

I'm definitely looking forward to it. Still trying to track down a 126 min copy of Bullet in the Head and the 280 minute Red Cliff BD.

Finally ending my shame of having only seen Once A Thief, Hard-Boiled and half of The Killer.