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I see that Pale Rider is on tonight, so I shall tape it and hopefully watch it at some point; Gran Torino sounds good….some very good films coming out in March..good old Slumdog winning so many Oscars; was in tears watching it on the news! So many films to watch..so little time, and I’ve got to watch all of last year’s Cheltenham before this year’s starts……
Watched "The curious case of benjamin button" last nite, it was a bit long (nearly 3 hours) but watchable enough. Watched the first half of "righteous kill" the other day but didnt make it the whole way through as was getting bored, unless its got a really good ending it wouldnt appear to be that great. My brother and my mate both watched "burn after reading" and thought it was rubbish, but I still thought it was really good, so clearly another that divides opinion. Everyone appear to love "Taken" though.
Off to see "
Watchmen"
tonight. Been looking forward to seeing this for a year and I can’t wait. Early reports suggest it is amazing. I’ll let you know later.
Off to see "
Watchmen"
tonight. Been looking forward to seeing this for a year and I can’t wait. Early reports suggest it is amazing.
Some
reports have been, but I heard Mark Kermode earlier today taking it to pieces as being "superficial", and "comes across as made by a fanboy, rather than a fan". Make of that what you will!
gc
Adoptive father of two. The patron saint of lower-grade fare. A gently critical friend of point-to-pointing. Kindness is a political act.
Good reports so far on my film forum; if Mark Kermode says a film is unmissable I always try to get to see it, but if he is critical I tend to ignore him because I think he can be a bit snobby sometimes..
.
Enjoyed the film, Moe/GC. It’s not the monumental, iconic masterpiece I’d built it up to be in my head, but it doesn’t disappoint either.
There are two compliments I can pay the film. One, I always considered Alan Moore’s "Watchmen" to be an unfilmable classic (the writing genius Moore himself refuses to be associated with the film, incidentally).
I think that’s unnecessary – Zack Snyder very nearly pulls off the impossible. Not
quite
, but very nearly.
Two, the film is stunning to look at: a visual feast of rare intensity. Some of the sequences involving Dr Manhattan left me open mouthed with mute wonder.
I recommend it. Talk about it when other members have seen it – which I hope members do.
Didn’t Terry Gilliam say it could only work as a series and other people have passed it on saying it was unfilmable?
He did, yes. And this is Gilliam, destroyer of the "Meaning of Life" budget.
He was one of many who wanted to do the film.That the film has emerged at all is something of a marvel (not Marvel – see what I did there?) given the troubled birth it has endured.
I always understood – wrongly? – that Moore’s disassociation with the film was not borne out of any belief that it was genuinely unfilmable even if in the right hands, but rather because he’d had his patience with adaptations of his works stretched to breaking point by how
V for Vendetta
turned out.
You and Dr Kermode are at odds where the look and feel of the film are concerned, Max – he regarded the superhero costumes as "Duran Duran naff", and the sex scenes as "straight to video ’80s quality" and "waiting for the cheesy saxophone to kick in". Harsh?
gc
Adoptive father of two. The patron saint of lower-grade fare. A gently critical friend of point-to-pointing. Kindness is a political act.
There appears to be a Definite Contradiction between Mr Kermode and I, GC (see what I did there
). Similar contradictions are emerging on Metacritic where six reviewers have maxed the film (100/100) and others have slaughtered it (20/100).
The current median is a disappointing 56. For reference, "The Dark Knight" is a general 86/100 and one of the best reviewed films ever on the site (deservedly so, but Watchmen isn’t 30 points behind imo).
"Iron Man" is higher rated which is both an indictment of aggregated review scores and a measure of US triumphalism and traditional superhero values because that effort is, essentially, a load of old bo llocks.
http://www.metacritic.com/film/titles/watchmen
I think you might be right about Moore, GC.
V for Vendetta
(as you mention); John Constantine being played by the extremely American Keanu Reeves without the raincoat, the dense and impenetrable
From Hell
shorn of it’s Imperial politics, and the generally villified
League of Extraordinary Gentlemen
all caused the camel’s back of his patience to bend even further.
The Wizard has had enough of Hollywood it seems.
I hear DC are considering adapting Moore’s ground breaking "Swamp Thing" cycle. That’ll go down well in Northampton. Hehehehe.
Alan Moore’s Wikepedia entry is fantastic, by the way. Comic creators are well served on that site generally.
Just wondering whether anyone has an opinion about "Revolutionary Road",Sam Mendes’s new film.I thought that "Road To Perdition" was superb, one of the best I have ever seen and that music!
Goodlife – I’ve seen Revelutionary Road and was disappointed. Mid-life (well, a little earlier than mid-life) crisis and disillusionment with suburan routine can be a fertile subject for a realy good story, but this doesn’t reach any great heights. So the couple are bored and want to get away from the rat-race? So what? What’s special about this couple? Nothing. And so it’s impossible to empathise with them. 3 out of 10.
Have recently seen:-
The Reader – get’s better as it goes on. Kate Winslet gets her kit off early on and spends a good part of the film exposing herself. But the film really takes off when the boy she seduced goes to law college. 7.48 out of 10.
Gran Torino. In spite of some modest reviews, I really liked this and it has a good ending. 8.6 out of 10.Just wondering whether anyone has an opinion about "Revolutionary Road",Sam Mendes’s new film.I thought that "Road To Perdition" was superb, one of the best I have ever seen and that music!
I prefered American Beauty of Mendes’, Road To perdition was one fo those films that just didnt work for me, Tom Hanks is suited to certain roles, because he can be very boring to watch, but didnt think he was great in that one, amongts many others. A brilliant Paul Newman just about made it half decent.
Agree about Gran Torino, really decent movie, not Eastwoods best but not the sort of movie your likely to come away from and be disappointed with.
I dont really rate that Metacritic site, the amount of decent films that are rated below toy story says it all to me. They also have The Godfather on 100pts and Goodfellas only on 89pts. Strongly disagree with that. Clearly some of the people on there dont know their arse from their elbow. Sligblade gets 84pts though which is probably nearly about right, it’s a good movie, if not a bit slow for some and billy bob thornton is quality in it.
The Metacritic site showcases five or six brilliant film reviewers, though, Bullers. Some of the reviews I read on there are probably better scripted than the films they scruitinise.
Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun Times, or his friend and colleague Michael Phillips of the Tribune are just two who can make or break a film with a single well crafted euphemism or a timely illumination. On "Watchmen", they couldn’t be more oppositional. Yet both reviews add to the whole process.
I think we struggle as a country with film – and film reviewers. Kermode isn’t in Ebert’s league (I don’t think he’s even as good as Alex Cox). Phillip French has a huge weakness in that everything is a Vietnam analogy; assign him to review "Lesbian Vampire Killers" and he would weave in something about Kent State, which comes across as contrived and manufactured.
No, we’re much better with other forms of writing – the French and Americans p**s all over us with film. Thank God for our horses.
I loved Road to Perdition and American Beauty…..the former making me see Tom Hanks in a new light having,
seen it before Green Mile…..sad case that I am I keep Phillip French’s Observer film reviews in a drawer and re read them when I’ve seen the film [yes, I know you’ll all say to keep them in the drawer..] I’m not too good with superhero films [or James Bond’y things] because I struggle to understand the plot, quite often because there isn’t one. I’m not wishing Cheltenham away because I’m so looking forward to it, but there are a lot of films to get to see when it’s over…a film called Anvil about a heavy metal band has had rave reviews and, of course The Damned United;both out soon. Annoyingly, when the nights drw in and we wanted to go to the cinema there was nothing to see and now we don’t know where to start.Iron Man and Hellboy 2 are must buy dvd’s along with I’ve Loved You So Long..and I still haven’t seen Appaloosa…
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