The Films Thread

[Dragontao]

The "twist" didn't happen in the novella. It was left without an ending, they gave it an ending for the film and it ruined it for me. Thouroughly enjoyed it when I read it when it first came out years ago.

I always hoped King would write a proper ending for the story or at least expand upon it.

[harv]

Also watched The Others earlier and it was excellent. Nicole Kidman, Eric Sykes and Chris Ecclestone. Really nice twist at the end too, definitely one to watch although I did guess what was going on before the end...that's the problem with watching films where you know there's a twist coming. Would be much better if you weren't expecting one.

[Late]

Watched The Others last night. Hadn't seen it before.
As you say, if you know there's a twist coming you're looking for it, so I made a point of not telling our lass there was one - but about half an hour into it she correctly called it. Didn't much enjoy the film. The only thing going for it was the twist, and once you know where it's going it just drags on.

Tried "Contraband", but turned that off after about 15 mins. Might try it again at some point because I'm not sure whether it was boring or I was distracted. Either way, I wasn't getting into it at all.

[jman]

I watched Piranha at the weekend.. god it was crap... except 2 parts.. kelly brooks tits 

2/10  (one for each)

[Dragontao]

I watched Piranha at the weekend.. god it was crap... except 2 parts.. kelly brooks tits 

2/10  (one for each)

Pirannah 3DD doesn't even have Kelly Brook in it (though it does have its moments lol).

[styles]

Rise of the apes - 7/10

Still don't see how the few apes that escaped could take over the planet but mheh. Pretty good.

[Dragontao]

Been a whilw since I watched it but thought it was much better than a 7. I'd have given it a 9 myself.

As to the apes taking over, did you not take note of the virus killing humans, presumably reducing their numbers significantly, allowing apes to become dominant eventually.

[styles]

I reduced it from 8 to 7 due to that particular weakness in the story. I still think the humans would/could have used modern weapons to wipe out the apes in about 6 hours.

[Dragontao]

It may be explained in the second film, but the apes could well have learned to use the waepons themselves. There are enough of them in America and the apes were dispersed in an urban area which would have given them plenty of places to hide and use guerilla (or should that be gorilla) tactics.

Have you ever seen the documentary on the japanese research into how fast chimps learning and reflexes are and hand to eye co-ordination. We would not be the dominant species if they had our level of intelligence.

[harv]

The original second film explained it better than the second remake. In the original sequel there were more apes in homes due to a virus killing domestic cats and dogs worldwide so mankind adopted them as pets. Don't know why they didn't do the same thing tbh.

[ancelotti]

Watched Insomnia last night. Not Nolan's greatest but still worth a watch and Al Pacino is great in the lead role.

Being my favourite director, I'd have to rank his films:

Memento - 10/10
The Prestige - 9/10
Inception - 9/10
Batman trilogy - 8/10
Insomnia - 7.5/10

[Late]

Watched Total Recall last night.
I'm a fan of the original, so I was apprehensive about this. In theory, there's lots to like: I quite like Colin Farrell. I love Arnie, but he's not the best of actors of course. I like decent cgi etc. and effects have definitely improved since 1990, so I'm not opposed to them "improving" the film that way. I like the idea of changing the settings and minutia of the film whilst retaining the core story. And I like the idea of keeping a handful of lines and references to the original film. So this remake ticked all of those boxes pretty well.
All in all, though, I definitely prefer the original. The remake isn't horrendous - it's definitely watchable. But...
Too many lens flares. Not quite as many as Star Trek, but it's bloody close and definitely gets annoying.
Beckinsale looks fine, but puts in a very wooden performance.
Fairly similar looking brunettes as Lori and Melina? You can tell them apart, but in a few scenes you've got to look twice to be sure which one Quaid/Hauser is with.
No "consider this a divorce"!
And don't get me started on the physics of the film's main transport system...

I'll give it 6/10 (and the original 7.5/10). Watchable.



Watched Prometheus earlier this week.
Alien and Aliens are two of my favourite films, so I was excited about this... until the reviews started coming in.
I'd heard it was originally supposed to be a prequel to Alien, but then it was switched to a completely different story but in the same universe as Alien.
To my eyes, though, this was definitely a prequel to Alien. I don't know why anyone would say differently, tbh. Perhaps they wanted to distance it slightly from the old films so youngsters would be more inclined to see this? It's not just set in the same universe - it has lots of back story to the Xenomorphs, the Space-Jockeys (aka Engineers), the Weylan Yutani Corporation, and it even leaves elements at the end of the film which link in with what you later see at the start of the first Alien film.
Very good film. Not as good as the first two, but I thoroughly enjoyed it (and Fassbender plays the Android role beautifully), despite a few problems.

I'll score the Alien films thus (ordered by chronological setting):
Prometheus 7.5/10
Alien 9.5/10
Aliens 9.6/10
Alien³ 6/10
Alien Resurrection 4/10

I'll ignore the AvP films. The first was crap, I never bothered with the second, and I think they're regarded by most folk as separate and unrelated to the "real" Alien films.



Edit - Prometheus, Late, not Promethius you illiterate fool.

[bealec]

Have the full collection of Pixar films now for the boy so we have been watching them repeatedly. My favourites are Wall-E and Up.

[ancelotti]

AvP2 "Requiem" is an abomination. You can barely see anything in the film due to awful lighting throughout. Don't know what the director was thinking.

[bealec]

He probably realised he'd ruined an amazing franchise so got the editing team to make it so dark you can't see it.