What was the last movie you saw?

[Mouse]

Wonder Boys. I'm doing the LoveFilm free trial thing (mostly because I get a £20 Amazon voucher!) so that's why I'm watching lots of films lately.

I had no idea what this film was about as I just typed 'Alan Tudyk' into the search on LoveFilm and this came up so I rented it. Turns out he's barely in it. Still, it was an interesting film. About writers writing actually. And one of the writers was called James Lear. Which I found hilarious. (Google it.)

[Star Girl]

How to Train Your Dragon - Great film! I loved it so much! I loved the story and the characters were so good.

[Rodders]

I watched the Hangover last night. Not bad.

[slack]

Originally Posted by Rodders

I watched the Hangover last night. Not bad.

Ohh, in the face! IN THE FAAACE!

[Connavar]

Originally Posted by CyBeR

Let's be fair here, it's hard to find a good, engaging horror film. Even Quarantine that scared the pants off of me a couple of times is just a standard zombie flick once you strip it down to the bare basics.
But I found Silent Hill engaging and fun. It was visually pleasing for me, the whole mood of the film was very eerie and nicely done and the story presented itself well (unlike that of some of the games *cough* Silent Hill 4: The room*cough*).
It's by no means as bad as the original Halloween or Jason X or Cursed or An American Werewolf in Paris and so forth. When a film manages to make the cute girl next to you squirm and stick to you more...I'd say it's done its job quite well.

I find Final Destination semi fun in shut of your brain type film. Also the fact there isnt many good horror films from hollywood these days doesnt make Silent Hill better.

If you dont want lower your standards you know there is good horror films from europe like Spain, South Korea, other countries.

[HoopyFrood]

Silent Hill would be my all-time favourite horror film -- great music, completely eerie and downright horrible at times -- if it weren't so ruddy CGI-ised!

Just watched Riki-Oh for the second time. Laughed almost all the way through. My god, it is the perfect blend of bad in all ways that makes it transcend into bloody fantastic.

Rogan's kung-fu is unorthodox!

Brilliant.



And next is The Thing! I love me some 80s body horror.

[Foxbat]

The Gorgon a fairly decent Hammer flick from Terence Fisher.

[HoopyFrood]

Watched Warrior King earlier. Man, I love this bone-crunching, face-kicking film. And if it teaches us anything, it is to NEVER steal Tony Jaa's elephant. Just...don't

Where're my elephants, indeed.

[alchemist]

Four Lions - a jihad satire. Fabulously funny.

"Is a wookie a bear?"

[biodroid]

Gnomeo and Juliet - It was ok, a bit cheesy but it had big name actors voicing the movie which saved it a bit.

Warriors Way - What a load donkey trollop, the worst story and the worst acting in a movie in a while. I can't believe Geoffrey Rush actually acted in it, what a waste of his acting skills. Kate Bosworth looked really nice in the movie but she was the worst actor there.

[Daisy-Boo]

Captain America

I saw it in 3D on Saturday night. I'm not crazy about 3D but it was used well in Captain America. The film has a good plot and though you have to suspend belief in some respects, that doesn't interfere at all with the enjoyment of the movie.

The acting is solid and Chris Evans is well-cast. The supporting cast is spot-on, particularly Tommy Lee Jones as the craggy Army general, with a deadpan sense of humour.

CGI is used well, especially for pre-transformation Steve Rogers. I never felt that the CGI overwhelmed the actors and the story.

I highly recommend this film.

[JunkMonkey]

Originally Posted by Daisy-Boo

Captain America

I saw it in 3D on Saturday night. I'm not crazy about 3D but it was used well in Captain America.

So how often is the sheild thrown in the audience's face?

I watched:

Colossus: The Forbin Project (1970) - another one of the Great SF films of the early Seventies - that brief moment when Hollywood got away from radioactive gigantism and bikini-girl craving sea monsters long enough to make a few films in which characters and ideas were the at the centre of the story. Another film about to be buggered up forever by a Hollywood remake. (Starring Will Smith!?)
Colossus (1970) is one of those wonderful low-key, ambiguously ending tales about the dangers of putting all your eggs in one sciencey basket. The original is about both sides in the Cold War (gods! that seems so long ago) handing over control of their nuclear arsenals to giant, incorruptible, emotion-free, and utterly impregnable super-computers. (The rational being that the computers are programmed only to act in defence and are incapable of attacking.) In true Frankenstein tradition things go a bit awry when the computers team up, decide they are smarter than the human race, and take over. For the betterment of Man, you understand; to make Man happy, free from war, famine, and disease. All they require in return is blind obedience. At the end of the film the Human Race is utterly screwed facing a conformist, rigidly controlled, future and the computers are in control. The whole thing, like most good SF, is an allegorical view of the period in which it was written and, like most good SF, has resonances for the present day and the future too.
The sequel will probably have lots of explosions and people crawling around tunnels lugging infeasibly large hand guns as a crack team of sweaty American action heroes tunnel into the giant computer and blow it up - thus saving the world with only seconds to spare. There will be hero with a troubled past relationship (almost certainly with someone who helped design the thing in the first place - an estranged wife perhaps? - and here's a guess: the killer password they find they need turns out to be the name of their daughter's kitten? and shitloads of CGI; buckets, and buckets, and buckets of it.) and I'm not looking forward to it one little bit. Go see the original before it's messed with.

[Daisy-Boo]

Originally Posted by JunkMonkey

So how often is the sheild thrown in the audience's face?

A few times but it's not overdone.

[Metryq]

Originally Posted by JunkMonkey

Colossus: The Forbin Project (1970) Another film about to be buggered up forever by a Hollywood remake.

Let's hope not. And if you're interested in sequels, read the original "Colossus trilogy" by D.F. Jones (Colossus, The Fall of Colossus, Colossus and the Crab). The movie is based on the first book. As might be expected, the book is better than the movie. The two things that really irritated me about the movie version were:

• The noisy parties on the other end of the video phones where someone must shout to everyone to quiet down. It's not necessarily unrealistic or anything like that, but the filmmakers made it too long, two often, and thus it was too annoying. The same sort of thing is done when the President is talking with the Russian ambassador, while Forbin is talking with his team in the background. Maybe this was deemed some kind of "cinema verité," but it came across as simply annoying.
• Maybe two or three times there are references to "burn outs." Dr. Markham tells Forbin that an infra-red satellite had a power failure, but Colossus switched over. Another time when Colossus is taking a long time to respond, Dr. Markham (again) suggests that maybe there was a burn out. I don't think any vacuum tube computers were still in use in 1970, although resistors and capacitors were the size of sausages, and transistors looked like spinach cans. (Watch the opening titles. Oh, those refrigerator-sized hard-drives are a hoot!) I wouldn't think of building an untouchable, perpetual computer with such hardware, but then the book took place in a future with flying cars. Although, the future in the book still had the two superpowers locked in a Cold War—something even Clarke had in 2010: Odyssey Two. (Who but the economists would have foreseen it? And now we wait for the other shoe to drop...)

Anyway, the books are a good read. The "son of Colossus" mentioned at the end of the movie (a new computer designed by Colossus) is finally defeated in the second book just when humanity unexpectedly really, really needs the protection.

Historical note: A real computer named Colossus was built by the British to break codes during World War II.

Movie note for American SFFC members: For some bizarro reason, a recently made Region 1 DVD is still cropped for NTSC! This movie is 2.35:1—the really wide widescreen—and the opening title matte paintings of Colossus must be seen. Get yourself a Region 2 copy and run it through Handbrake so that you can watch it on your computer.

[HoopyFrood]

Watched (well, forced to, heh) I'm a Cyborg last night. Was very nice, reminded me of Del Toro and the mixture of fantasy and the real (and the fantasy covering the dark reality). I love that type of fantasy, that encroaches on normal life.

We were gonna watch Planet Terror but the DVD was buggered, got a crack somehow, so we watched...Evil Dead II! Best. Film. Ever. I love it and always will.

Groovy.