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I'll double post, because I can!

Paranormal Activity

I have been so excited to see this movie, mainly because of all the fantastic reviews I heard and because I knew it would be like Blair Witch, which is a movie I really enjoyed. When it was released here, I started hearing negative reviews, but I still wanted to see it, so today, I did. It.. Was.. Freaky. Okay, the movie itself wasn't the most insane, but it relies on the "unknown" factor much like Blair Witch does, and the "what if this happened to me" sort of thing. At first, doors just open and close, just random stuff like that, and everytime at night, it builds up, to the point where you get like, stiff in suspense when the scene turns to their bedroom and the hallway at night. There were scenes that actually ran chills through my back.. A loud noise followed by a swinging chandelier the second night was one of the first scares, but then the guy laid out some baby powder to try and see if he could get the footprints, and you could hear steps, and eventually you could hear it run, and the door slammed. So they turned the light on and the footprints only went in the room, but not out. Since I believe in Paranormal stuff, it creeped me out pretty good, and for more spoilers, just something simple like showing the bedsheets rising in the middle of the night was creepy as ****.. Until eventually it pulls her out of bed. The screaming in the end scene was pretty chilling, and when the movie ended, the lights stayed off for five minutes, and nobody would get up until they turned the lights on :p .

So, simple, low budget, not a super exciting premise, but very effective and creepy. I'll be buying it although I don't think it will ever have the same effect as the first time on the big screen.

8.5/10
 
Watched Cars for the first time this week-end. It was alright. It is one of the more kid-aimed Pixar movies, though I found it to be rather humorous at times.

The plot is ok, but I do prefer being able to empathise with human, or human-like characters and not talking cars.

Not Pixar's best, but I'm probably going to watch Cars 2.

7.5/10
 
Just got drag me to hell on DVD. Saw it in the cinema and I have just reminded myself at how awesome it is! Sam Rami is truely the master of horror!

The last scene where she gets dragged to hell is horrific! And I am not even a christian! ^^
 
LOL so after I saw Paranormal Activity, I was creeped out of course and my mom was telling me I had to sleep on the couch that night. I laughed and called her a sissy, and when night came I ended up sleeping in my bed. Well, 2:00 rolls around, I wake up and I'm wide awak for about an hour (not to mention my dog was howling and my cat was being nosy as heck), until my mom comes to my door and tells me to transfer to the couch. So I do, and all is well, until I realize I'm still wide awake and probably won't end up sleeping since I was so concentrated on every noise. So, I ended up going into my mom's bed, haha.. We were both scared.

It's not often movies scare me.. At all.

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Two films for me, both re-watches of films I've not seen for a long time.

First up, we rented Hercules (Disney) for Maxi-Minor_Furie. It's an odd film, but I do like it. I love Hades, and I reckon he's possibly one of the best Disney villains ever. The film though, it's a bit ropey in terms of technical production. The art style is "to a taste" certainly, but often the animation is poor, and some of the drawings just not up to scratch at all.

Overall though, it's just an enjoyable film, I love the Motownesque sound track and Meg is fab :D Also, any film that has a major character called Phil is epic win :)

MMF loves it, so it passes the correct tests, as the whole family can sit and watch and love it. So, not Disney's best, but still a great film overall.

Then, I made Minor_Furie watch Alien with me. It's a film I would watch yearly without fail, but I bought this copy on DVD around 5 years ago and it was still shrink wrapped. I knew that I had to watch it to make sure that my opinion of it being one of the best films ever was still valid - it was.

Even better, as I'm always learning, there are extra brilliant bits I'd missed before that I caught this time around. A great film that just keeps on giving :)

I'd always loved the opening scene, with the pan across the main living area, stopping and focussing on the empty helmet, with the command function codes from "mother" scanning across the glass. I'd never considered why this was good though, but there's a layer to it. The implication is that mother doesn't care if the humans are there in the suit or not - it's displaying to an empty world, as the crew are expendable, there's not purpose in the screen, and the empty he,llmet watching portrays the empty life expectancy of the crew.

Then as the crew go into the derelict, it shows Giger really understand the sexual undertone of the whole alien life cycle. The doorway to the derelict is shaped like an open vagina, which adds weight to the idea that the crew are part of a sexual reproduction. The lucky John Hurt is the sperm that joins to the egg. Then the roles are reversed and the alien egg ejaculates the face hugger and John Hurt then becomes the female sex organs in the cycle.

While the chest burster scene has aged in terms of effects (but thank you Ridley Scott for not doing a CGI rehash), it is still a striking scene. The actors weren't told exactly what would happen, so when Hurt fits, they are ad libbing. I love the noise and the way the scene moves from joking, to shock, to controlled action, to horror. It's all "real", with the noise being fantastic, then the sudden silence as the blood bursts and all the actors are stunned. Veronica Cartwright is brilliant in her reaction to getting a face full of blood too.

It all points to the thing that I really like about the film, the realism on the characters. You could put it down to bad acting, but the fumbling over lines all adds to the fact that you're drawn into a believable world.

Right from the start, you notice how functional everything is, it all looks just right. The characters are all real characters, with honest opinions and issues. It's pretty dull stuff, but it all enhances the idea that you're there with them. This belief in the world then helps you connect as the characters meet their untimely ends. You may not care much about them as people, but you do believe in them.

Jonesy the cat is also a brilliant minor addition, I love the way that he leads a character to their death, but then just sits there with an innocent face watching them get disembowelled. The viewer, of course, rarely sees the alien so much, which all adds to the horror and suspense.

Finally, the soundtrack is beautifully silent. It never gives away in advance anything by becoming tense. The music is as silent during a conversation as it is one second before an attack. The music only comes in when you are already aware of the danger. Absolute master stroke. What music there is is suitably haunting and chillingly "alien".

Still one of the best films ever, still 10/10. Minor_Furie thought it was a fantastic film, but hated the fact is so scary :lol: Anyone disagreeing is just plain wrong ;)
 
^^ Brilliant film.... personally I think i prefer Aliens.... But I have never watched them in sequence...

Went to see Mr Fox. It was good, definatly not a "kids" film though. It was too slow, and the humor is pretty dry at times. I really enjoyed it though, and the relationship between the male fox's is brilliant! The animation and style of the farmers, and the movie in general is to your own taste... but I loved it

7/10
 
Alien and Aliens are both great movies, but I liked Alien better. That film really built up and sold the alien better than Aliens did. The creature in the first one just seemed more menacing, and Scott did a great job putting in those slow shots during the attacks to build up the suspense and fear. It also showed just enough of the creature to freak you out, but still be mysterious. And no one could kill the thing! The alien in the first one just had an air about that made it seem more than natural. Aliens, however, put 'em all out in the open (with far less dramatic camera work) to have them get blasted away with a few shots. The aliens just seemed liked really dangerous animals, nothing more. The suit in the first also looked much better than those in the second. Don't get me wrong, Aliens is awesome too and is definitely more re-watchable, but Alien just has something extra that puts it ahead. Oh, and Ollie, before you even post, your wrong. :wink:

Anyway...
The Informant
Overall, a decent film, but grossly mismarketed. Despite what the trailer would have you think, this definitely isn't a comedy, granted there are a few humorous parts. It drags at times (lots of times, actually), but the ending patches up some of what appeared redundant before. If you're interested in seeing this, I'd recommend it as a rental when it comes out. You should also know that the movie can be a little confusing before you watch it.
7/10

Zombieland
Also pretty good, but not as good as people say it is and not even close to being as good as Shaun of the Dead. The whole movie was "humorous" but there weren't many parts that actually made me laugh. Everything just seemed too obvious. The cameo by...has it already been spoiled in this thread?...was great, though. Overrated, but solid.
8/10
 
furie said:
Aliens is still a 10/10 film anyway :) It's also "fun" to watch!
Click to expand...

How old is Minor Furie now?

I had visions of that haunting his life forever.. then remembered i've been away from england for a while and he's now probably a teenager or something
 
LOL! Yep, he's a teenager now, and older than I was when I first watched Alien :)
 
Knowing:
I kinda liked it. Took a while to get going and it could of done with a couple more disaster scenes. Also the ending was weird and left me slightly disappointed. Also Nicolas Cage can't act to save his life and I had no sympathy for his character at all. That said though it was quite a good film until near the end. Could of done with a bit more action but it was pretty decent.
7/10
 
ciallkennet said:
Finished watching Sunset Boulevard in Film Studies today.

What an odd, quirky film. Certainly leaves you thinking 'WTF?!', but not at the film itself, more the plot and characters.

It voted 52nd best film ever by Channel 4 and their long-arsed poles, but it's not all that good at all.

6.5/10
Click to expand...

I know that this a week late, but you are just SO WRONG! Yeah, yeah, entitled to your opinion... Fair enough, you might not get it yourself, but the fact that you're studying it in a class and the teacher FAILS to explain what's so **** ing awesome about that film is a quite pathetic.

1. Gloria Swanson playing a has-been, washed-up, silent movie star: Norma Desmond, the biggest silent movie star of all time. Gloria Swanson WAS one of the biggest silent movie stars of all time, famously receiving "10,000 letters" a week from fans and, at the height of her fame, living in a mansion on Sunset Boulevard. She hadn't worked for years until this film came along.

2. Erich Von Stroheim playing Max Von Mayerling, who is reduced to being Norma Desmond's servant after once being one of the "big three" silent film directors, alongside D.W Griffith and Cecil B. DeMille. In real life, who is actually widely regarded as the other of the "big three" silent film directors? Erich Von Stroheim! He never quite gained the recognition of the other two as he was forced to give up directing after being fired from Queen Kelly after huge arguments with the star of the film. Who was the star? Gloria Swanson! Which of "Norma's" silent films do we see clips of in Sunset Boulevard? Queen Kelly!

3. Norma desperately trying to get work from Cecil B. Demille (played by himself). Gloria Swanson made her most successful movies under DeMille, back in the '20s, just as Norma had.

4. The nameless "waxworks" playing cards in Norma's house, all supposed to be her friends from back in the day. Who's actually playing them? Anna Q. Nilsson, H.B. Warner and Buster Keaton, all huge stars who hadn't worked for years.

Ok, so watching it you wouldn't know all that, why should you, but since you're studying it, these things should have been pointed out.

All that aside, Sunset Boulevard is, without doubt, one of the best films EVER made! The tension and atmosphere is fantastic, the script is brilliant, the acting is amazing, and that's before you go into all the cruel, ironic humour I've already mentioned. It is one of the most quoted, parodied films of all time, and has created, quite possibly, THE most iconic female character in film history!

EPIC FAIL!
 
Well it's Halloween and me and some friends went to the cinema so guess what we saw...?

9 (I've already seen Saw 6)
:p

I'd not really looked into this film alot apart from a few trailers and it didn't really look that interesting but people kept saying it looked good. Went to see it anyway.
The animation was really good, the humans looked crappy but everything else looked great and it was all dark and gritty. I first thought it was a kids film but when the 12A appeared on the screen before it started I was wondering what was going to happen in it to make it that rating.
The film was alright although it was very weak on plot and which direction they wanted it to head in. Also there were so many main characters to keep track of it got confusing (11 of them I think). Also the fact that all 9 of the sack people things were numbered made it hard to remember who was who as when they spoke about so and so you had to try and think which one it was. It doesn't make clear what the whole point of the movie is until right the very end and even then it's slightly disappointing. The whole film feels like it's not moving forward and doesn't really involve you in the film.
It was alright but nothing fantastic.
6/10
 
Watched Monsters vs Aliens with my little sister (who's almost 7) today.
Not very good at all. Rubbish plot and not funny AT ALL. Even my sister got bored and didn't laugh much. I wasn't expecting much of it anyway in the first place so it wasn't too disappointing but it's certainly not as good as some people say it is (Snoo ;))
Anyway boring, not funny and rubbish plot.
4/10
 
Long story short, I "watched" Hannah Montana: The movie today. That is, I had to have a book to read to distract me from it (couldn't leave the room), but I managed to get a basic understanding of what was going on. The music was horrible, the story was horrbile, the cliches bloomed, and some parts were just unbelievable. That is, it completely failed to convince me that something like this ever could happen. And there would be a lot more broken bones if physics were what they once used to be, as people fell from places all the time.

2/10. I feel that it isn't worthy of a 1, because that would make people go see it because "it's apparently that bad". It totally jumped the shark at the end too.
 
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