Fillums

OBollocks

Dredd is really really good. The well has been poisoned by the Stallone effort, I know, but this is a very faithful and necessarily violent adaptation. Karl Urban is good as Dredd (the helmet never comes off!), Thirlby is great as Anderson, and it's got Avon Barksdale in it. The direction is sound, the script is good (Alex Garland job), and the audio is very nice indeed, serious weight to it. It's a bit of a low budget effort so there isn't loads of CGI (probably a good thing) and you do get lots of nice extreme slow motion shots (often with graphic violence in them), some of which are composed to look like comic book panels.

Total Recall, on the other hand, is a piece of shit.

On Blu-Ray, I'm waiting for The Cabin in the Woods, and The Raid.

Owen

This is going to sound like an odd objection but Karl Urban strikes me as too wiry and thin to play Dredd. It's good that he doesn't take the helmet off, and naturally bonus points for Avon Barksdale.

I want to see The Raid so badly. Have you seen the new Bourne?

OBollocks

It's probably the best thing Urban's done, actually. The body armour bulks him up, he only has to emote with about a quarter of his face, and he doesn't do the stupid growly action hero protagonist voice that is plaguing films these days.

The Raid is pretty ace. Everything outside of the action is played po-faced, and so falls (and feels) flat next to such violent exuberance.

The new Bourne did not impress. It didn't help that I instinctively dislike Renner. It's all competent enough, it just feels like they're milking it now, the story had been told and concluded fairly nicely, I thought. Nothing brilliant, but watchable, and now we're edging into straight-to-DVD release territory in everything but the technicalities (e.g. it's got a big budget).

TheDukester

It's good to see Avon getting some work. Stringer's been in a lot of stuff, so it only seems right that the boss get some screen time, too.

OBollocks

If I had a dog I would call him Avon. I told my brother this and he just looked at me and compelled me to say "Barksdale. BARKSDALE. Dy'a get it?" despite the fact he has seen The Wire and knew what I was talking about. Another option is to call the dog Stringer and give him a toy named Wallace. "Yo String, where Wallace at? String. STRING! Where Wallace at yo!" and just be faced with the dog watching you go mental with the emoting in your back garden.

Stringer was in Prometheus. I thought that was shite as well.

OBollocks

Well, hilariously, CITW has turned up only for HMV to email me to tell me it needs replacing. There's been a problem with the master or something, so they're sending me out a replacement disc some time in the next two weeks. Meanwhile, the disc I have...seems to work fine?

Meanwhile, The Raid is very nice and as good as I remember it being in the cinema. Bought steelbook editions of both because I am a mug.

bjornkri

Stringer was also in BBCs Luther, I believe. Have it on Netflix but never watched. We're getting out of fillum territory here, though.

Been watching the Bourne films, I'd only seen the first one before.

Oh, and Moscow, Belgium. Only because it's shot in my neighbourhood, but it turned out to be pretty good.

TheDukester

A buddy of mine went with me to Thor. He was slightly distracted (not in a negative way) by Heimdall being a black man; I was totally distracted by Heimdall being Stringer Bell. I kept wanting him to tell Thor, "Just say later to all this gangster bullshit."

+++++

Re: Bourne. Love the whole series. The whole jumpy-camera thing gets to be a bit much after a while, but it's a small price to pay for eight hours of excellent cinema.

ChrisNahr

Bourne's the one series that managed to pull off the shaky-cam thing. In all other movies I've seen it in I found it annoying, but in the Bourne trilogy it conveys a sense of realism and speed without too much distraction.

Owen

Anybody seen Looper yet and have some (spoiler-free) thoughts? Going to see it this week.

OBollocks

Just saw it yesterday. It's decent, JGL is good in it, he has Willis' mannerisms and expressions down well. I was expecting more time travel shenanigans though. Pace in't brilliant, it sags in the middle, some ropey effects. It does some fairly brave things for a mainstream film, and the basic story is good if nonsensical once you apply a little thought.

Scameron

Toying with the idea of going to see Skyfall this afternoon. How's it compare to say, Casino Royale?

robthomasson

Scameron said:

Toying with the idea of going to see Skyfall this afternoon. How's it compare to say, Casino Royale?

Skyfall is least on a par with Casino Royale and is probably that bit better.

OBollocks

Safety Not Guaranteed is a pretty good film. Too naive in places, but I liked it. The set up (chap places personal ad asking for a partner to come time travelling) is pretty amusing.

deathmtn

Lincoln was incredible. Serious, full of character, but not humorless. Daniel Day-Lewis can indeed do non-over-the-top accents.

Owen

I cannot wait to see Lincoln. Going to see The Master next week.

@oBollocks - I didn't realize someone was making a film about that. Am I incorrect that we're talking about this: http://timetraveler.ytmnd.com/

devensega

I'm late to the party but Skyfall is brilliant, I think it celebrated past Bonds but was somehow new too. I liked the shoot out in the parliamentary inquiry, there have been so many lately I had started to fantasise about something similar :)

Dredd was great, friends I was with did not think so; I think you have to be a fan to appreciate it. I had prepared by ploughing through all my Complete Judge Dredd's again which took some weeks. I felt they had captured the essence of him and Megacity 1 but a bigger budget would have been nice.

OBollocks

Owen said:

@oBollocks - I didn't realize someone was making a film about that. Am I incorrect that we're talking about this: http://timetraveler.ytmnd.com/

That's the one! Worth a watch.

OBollocks

Oh, and check out the script online for the Alien prequel Prometheus was supposed to be, before Lindelof did what he does. It's not brilliant, but it's better than what ended up on screen. It was on Scribd but 20th Century Fox had it taken down, but I'm sure some googling will do the trick.

Owen

Are you talking about that amazing script for Alien 3 that William Gibson wrote? http://www.awesomefilm.com/script/Alien3.txt

OBollocks

No, no, it's Spaihts' script for a full-on Alien prequel (e.g. the planet is LV-426 etc) then Lindelof got hold of it and hacked it into Prometheus.

Owen

We saw The Master last night.

I love PT Anderson - Boogie Nights, Magnolia, and There Will Be Blood are all films that I walked out of the theater raving about. Walking out of the theater last night, Lady F and I were both scratching our heads.

If the movie exists purely as an acting exhibition, then it's extraordinary. But it doesn't make a ton of sense. I couldn't even begin to explain the protagonist's character arc to you.

Worth seeing for the great performances, photography, etc - but doesn't quite work as a film for me.

OBollocks

Sounds a bit like Synecdoche, New York (also a PhiSeyHof film) in some respects (e.g. not quite working). Still interested, but wary now, like a deer that has scented a mate and a mountain lion simultaneously.

devensega

They really loved it on Film 2012, bummed it in fact.

A positive review from them is usually enough to put me off.

OBollocks

I can see that in quotes right now. "We bummed it." said Film 2012.

OBollocks

End of Watch was fairly predictable and formulaic, but some good performances from the leads, and a healthy dollop of tension and humour save it. Quite watchable, very much a bloke film.

athros13

Having several cops in the extended family, and my wife the former sheriff, they all said the back and forth between the leads was spot on.

Owen

I really want to see that now. I'm fond of Gyllenhaal - he was good in Jarhead.

OBollocks

Killer Joe. Matthew McConaghey's best performance ever (not saying a great deal is it). Dark, not very funny, basically everyone is horrible. The End.

OBollocks

The Man With The Iron Fists. Genuinely unsure as to how good it is, but it is very entertaining. Some parts are quite silly, and it goes overboard on referencing/imitating old kung fu films, sometimes to excellent effect and sometimes it just makes your face quirk. The RZA should have hired someone who could act to play his part, Crowe seems to be in it for all the Asian lovelies, and Lucy Liu A) does good stuff in a limited role and B) is going to let me kiss her very soon now, I know it.

The CGI is very cheap, I think they would have been better off spending the money on improving the practical aspects of the fight scenes. It doesn't really break new ground for martial arts films, the fights are decent but when they're at their most inventive is when the quality drops.

OBollocks

Expendables 2. A fairly good action film from about...1982? 85? Somewhere around there. Quite embarrassing to watch, really. Sly trying to run is particularly painful. Some good action scenes, a few one-liners managed to raise a smile. That's it.