[Hideyoshi]

Lunatique, great recommendations (and taste for that matter )!
Lives of Others was indeed brilliant and powerful! One of the few German movies I actually like
Last King of Scotland was also damn fine! Whitaker is intense in that and fully deserved that Oscar!
And now I am gonna check out 'Let the right one in - thanks Nag and Lunatique!
But Slumdog I found absolutely overrated! 8 Oscars?! Come on, that was just ridiculous and totally undeserved! Though it's not a bad film of course.

Affected: totally seconded! Gran Torino is great! The asian boy's acting was pretty weak though...

I'd like to highly recommend Seven Pounds. Will Smith reunited with the Pursuit of Happyness director. Strong story!
More random suggestions: Dead Man Walking, Doubt, The boy in the striped pyjamas, Planet BBoy (for anyone who is into breakdancing), Harsh Times (Christian Bale!)

[Returner]

Second that Hideyoshi Whitaker is great. He always comes across as very genuine and emotionally intense. It's captivating and truly touching to see.

Great promo there for Let the right one in Luna Downloading it now, and hey! I don't even need the subs! My own language for once, hoping there will be an even more direct punch to it because of it.

Saw the movie "In the name of the rose" recently. Very moody and atmospheric. With Sean Connery taking of his wig playing a 1200 century monastery monk, solving creepy murders. A great and perfect fitting soundtrack.

[Matthew Is Godzilla]

Anyone of you that saw that workprint of X-Men?

Watchmen was just weird, can't decide if I liked it or not. I debate the same thing with my brother but he liked it though.
Watchmen was filled with doublestandard and confusion.

[xbrianx]

[Matthew Is Godzilla]

xbrian, yea true, but surprisingly I didn't find it that disturbing... special fx are mostly too much bling bling anyway.
What surprised me the most though was that I thought it was gonna be more fx and blue screens than it was.
It was the best X-Men so far if you ask me, think I will go see it on the cinema aswell.

[Returner]

I'm glad you liked Wolverine Godzilla, and it was OK. Compared to x men 1-2 it was your average high school film project though. Not a great script, not enough suspense. And no wow feeling about the mutants, more like watching wrestling.

They could have done a hulk like build up of Wolvie during the Vietnam war/ww2 or something. Where were you Bryan Singer??

[Returner]

3 good things about salvation: Some homage scenes to the t1/t2. The bridge scene. A good showcase of Worthington's talent, more excited for Avatar after this. No mood or tension to speak of. I would argue t3 was a better movie. The insult that was the script irritates the hell out of me. All good scripts have something unique about them, an experience/outlook the writer has. Terminator 4: the money machines....

[Returner]

Has this thread had it's run? Everybody 2 busy chasing skirts and plean air painting in the summertime??? I sure am.....

[Lunatique]

I've been more immersed in TV shows lately than films. I find that many films just aren't as satisfying in terms of character development and plot development--just not enough time to really do a premise justice.

TV series I really liked a lot recently are Breaking Bad and Mad Men. Two of the most innovative and best written shows on television currently.

[Returner]

Yes agree, But the atmosphere and grand feeling at the cinema, (and theater even more!) will save movies from extinction hopefully.
The theater when done good is incredible though, my good, It's in 3d!
And they can spice it up/change the pace whenever if the actors are any good.

Thinking (Writing) about theater actors; Marlon Brandon in some of his later movies didn't bother learning his lines. Instead he read them from signs or in one case had a tape recorder he controlled by flexing his stomach during the take. Become more and more excentric Marlon. Wonder if that was something that helped him be great, Hemingway answered a question once about exercises for writings saying: "the single greatest writing exercise is a troubled childhood, second to that analyzing a certain situation. What made you feel a certain way.".

I read somewhere in a quick summary that comedians (and maybe actors aswell?) are the way they are because of early childhood experiences trying to cheer up their mothers. That's the start of their careers so to say.


Downloading Mad Men now, Mixed reviews though. Likeable guy Jon Hamm.

[Affected]

Had a little movie night with some friends a few days ago. It consisted of:

The Day of the Triffids, a 6-part BBC series about human civilization as we know it failing and carnivorous plants pretty much going on rampage everywhere. Great, although the plants (Triffids) are very clumsily made.

Followed up with "Last Night", a film about the last few hours before the end of the world, which has been known to be coming for several months already. Also great, a kind of feel-good feel-bad movie.

And since we were on a roll, finished with "La Moustache", a film I'm sure I've hyped up before. It's about a man who shaves his moustache and no-one notices, prompting a spiral deep into doubt and insanity.

Altogether a very successful streak of films, I heard people didn't really sleep much that night.

[Returner]

That's why I'll never grow a mustache Affected. Also because the only mustache type I really could see myself in is hard to pull of after Hitlers fashion atrocity.

Star Trek, well a great movie but a big leap from the old movies which was more adventure drama. It didn't matter if you went for a leek in the middle back in those days, now you can't blink.
Felt sad when I heard Leonard Nimoy's voice over in the end, an era gone, ashes to ashes. Maybe a completely new crew instead of rehashing the old one like this? Probably better but a big no can do from the studio. Next generation had a TV series to build up fan base off, and an in between film to help pass the torch from Kirk to Picard.

Missed Shattner's clipped dramatic narration. Come to think of it Chris Pine who played Kirk was the only drawback for me acting wise. In comparison to Shattner i felt he had no nerve or authority to speak of. That was not Captain Kirk!

Particularly good to me was Ben Cross as Sarek, spocks father. That guy can can play an emotionally restrained Vulcan if I ever saw one,
hats of and fingers V-ed for that guy.

[Returner]

Cmon post people!
Write about a movie experience that moved you some way, this is a side of the forum where you can act out the inspiration you got from a movie. An outlet to get some vivid discussions going, or just give your own opinion.
No shortage of inspiration out there!

Viva la Cinemateque! Marcello Mastroianni! James Cameron! Bergman! Italian food! Post people! When you've counted to five you will have started writing a post 5..4..3........

[Lunatique]

I finished reading Let the Right One In recently, and for those of you who loved the film, you may not want to read the book, since it's quite different in many ways--all negative IMO. I think the film took the best elements from the book and omitted the elements that distracts too much or explains what should've been kept ambiguous.

I finally saw Watchmen, and it wasn't as good as I had hoped. It's one of those instances where I think the material suits specific mediums more than others, and Watchmen was perfect as a graphic novel. Crammed into a feature length film, it just doesn't have the same poignancy.

[Nag]

I understand where you�re coming from Luna, the book and the movie are two different things. I loved the book as much as the movie, but for different reasons. It�s much darker and more sinister.

[Returner]

I've only seen the first half of watchmen but from what I've seen sofar it's more drama than action, a very atmospheric and dark story.

Like Nag said two different things, the comic and the movie. "Based on movies" must be frustrating especially if the director want to make sure he'll work again especially with Watchmen being what it is. I guess having the movie 300 on his CV freed him up a bit.

Ideally the director at some point in the process do his unique take on things and I liked how this turned out, it felt ambitious and very fresh.

[Lunatique]

Watched The Assassination of Jesse James By the Coward Robert Ford last night, and while I was initially a bit surprised by how slow it was, it turned out to be a good film--reminds me of Unforgiven for its unconventional approach to the western. Casey Affleck can act circles around his older brother (Ben said so himself), so it's a good thing that Ben has taken up directing and is very good at it (Gone Baby Gone was really good).

[Affected]

I saw "Megaforce" at the film archive here. Definitely not new, but just about the most ludicrous film I've ever seen. Watch it.

[Returner]

Watched Woody Allen's Annie Hall. I've somehow managed to miss out on the beauty of his earlier movies until last night and WOW. Guess they just called for a bit maturity with all those neuroses and anxietys jokes . The dialogue is just "smack" cara mia. Now I'm gonna have to get me a vintage looking Woody Allen poster....and a trip to New York. Now there is a risk I'm gonna overdose on Allen movies.

Affected is that Megaforce movie bad on purpose or just bad? the imdb rating isn't skyrocketing on that one.

[Affected]

Returner: I honestly don't quite know. It's very entertaining, though. The kind of movie where the audience breaks into cheers and applause spontaneously.

[Joe84]

i watched 'Thirst' by Park Chanwook, director of 'Old Boy' and thought it was pretty good. Its probably the first asian vampire movie ive ever seen done, but more importantly i thought it was done well as it seemed to break and follow vampire conventions where you would least suspect them.

[Lunatique]

I watched Vexville yesterday, and I was disappointed. I liked both of the Appleseed CG animated feature films, so i thought this one would be a no-brainer (same team), but it was pretty lame overall. Improbable premise, one-dimensional characters, surprisingly bland lighting in most scenes, lack of variety in facial expressions, and not a very good score (by Paul Oakenfold). There were maybe a couple of action scenes that were pretty good, but otherwise, such a waste of budget.

[Returner]

Watched Fellinis Amarcord the other night, it's Fellinis nostalgic account of his childhood in the small town of Rimini during the 30's fascist regime. He plays the viewers emotions like a true Maestro. This movie has a sporadic approach, so we never forget it's Fellinis own interpretation of his childhood Rimini were watching. Very nostalgic with almost a magical touch sometimes. It isn't a childhood depiction but rather how fellini remembered those days, jumping from characters nonstop. Loads of atmosphere.
Not as symbol heavy and deep as some of his other movies are, but still a classic nonetheless. Won the oscar -73 for best foreign film. The directness and spontaneouty, humour and warmth of this movie is pure Fellini and very Italian to me.

[[Shizo]]

District 9?

Sounds like DirectX 9, hehe.

Anyway, I've seen this spoof thing made by some geeks back in the day about alien refugees living in South Africa. Now it turns out they made an actual movie? I just watched a trailer on Youtube.

It's cool, but I liked the spoofs better, the aliens were more mysterious (they always wore the suits, which left more for the imagination). And the fighting scenes seemed more realistic and less hollywood.. I'm afraid they fudged up a great idea.

[Sumaleth]

I thought District 9 was great. A darkly satirical action-packed scifi with some actual, genuine characterization and storytelling.

Tip: if you are going to see District 9, go to it knowing as little about it as possible.
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Art Links Archive -- Artists and Tutorials

[Max Ostap]

District 9 has to be the best sci-fi i've seen to date. Freshest story with most amazing effects.

Definitely half-life inspired. You got the same aliens albeit with 2 eyes and 2 chest arms, city 17, dog the robot suit, the gravity gun. But in completely new setting and scenario.

Amazing movie and all that with 30 million. Hard to believe aliens are all CG.

[med]

[Lunatique]

[Sumaleth]

I didn't mention HL because I didn't want to spoiler it.

But yeah, the parallels aren't subtle.
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Art Links Archive -- Artists and Tutorials

[Max Ostap]

nothing i said wasn't in the trailers

found the original skit, great atmosphere even here, u aren't gonna get anything out of this that isnt in first 5 minutes of the movie

http://www.spyfilms.com/#neill_blomkamp/alive_in_joburg