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LiveForTheLaunch said:
SPOILERS!

Well Snoo, most people I know have a decent IQ including myself, and we all thought it was going to be creatures living in the ruins, instead of killer plants. You also wouldn't be able to tell from the trailers that only one girl lives.

In a nutshell it was probably the best you could make a film involving killer plants.
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Well cheers Taylor! You could have made it clearer there were spoilers in there!!! :p

Fortunately, my IQ is over 90, so I worked out what it was anyway beforehand :p

Ben said:
No. Little Shop of Horrors will always be the best film about killer plants.
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Absolutely, but now you've ruined the film for Taylor - she knows it's about a killer plant from outers pace called Audrey II now. Though she doesn't know is a musical comedy starring Steve Martin fantastically over acting as the evil dentist! :D

Anyway, I've watched, erm, a couple of films anyway in the last few weeks.

First up was Beowulf
What a mixed bag this was - it's pretty hard to really get a grip on, but I think if you put it in the 'mindless entertainment' category, then it gets an 8/10. If you put it in any other category (story led film, good acting, good direction, animated, etc) it fails pretty miserably.

Obviously the story has aged, it is over 1000 years old after all, but it's still a ripping yarn, and the original poem is pretty epic (yes, I read the book first, but I'm not going to let it ruin the film :p ).

However, the film suffers badly in a few areas (I'll bullet point to make it easier for people to argue with me :p ).
- Voice acting. From pretty good, to absolutely dire. It just feels like the film is a bunch of people in a studio doing voices, not people acting (most animated films at least make you believe that people are really there, even The Polar Express). I don't know if it was the subject matter, script or what, but it just didn't seem to work.

- Animation. At times it's superb, at others atrocious. Like the voice acting, the inconsistency is grating. You start to believe it all and get into the film, then some dreadfully wooden animation happens and you're dragged back into the reality it's an animated film.

- 3-D. 3D films use very specific camera tricks and angles to make the 3D effects good. When you're watching it in 3D, it's a bit of a gimmick and good fun. When you watch it not in 3D, it looks awful. The camera angles are bad, and the bits of long pointy objects (and gratuitous wobbling breast shots), are too long and unbearable. You can't make a film which works as a good 3D film, but also a good film in general.

- Gratuity in general. The film just generally seemed gratuitous for the sake of it. It was simple violent or sexual titillation - which is fine in it's place I suppose, but I could never work out if the film was meant to be a great film, or just simple entertainment.

I think the problem is that the film is full of contradictions. It wants to be an epic, but never gives enough - and covers it's short comings with cheap tricks. There's lack of consistency in the film too, right across the board, which means your interest waxes and wanes. You really want to enjoy it, but it just never quite delivers.

It's not a bad film, but it's hardly great either. I guess it's one of those films you'll either love for it's own particular style, or just not get along with. I loved The Polar Express, so was expecting a little bit more from one of my favourite childhood legends by the same team.

Next I watched the made for TV shocker Stephen King's Desperation

I still don't know why I watch film versions of King books - I think it's just the masochist in me. Or maybe it's the eternal optimist in me, I live in hope that one day, one may be good! :D

This didn't fail to disappoint - despite a promising start. The cop was just comical rather than menacing, which ruined the atmosphere at the start. Then it actually got good in the middle, with some really good high tension scenes. Then it went all cheaply and badly made - the story and dialogue became dire, and it just kind of whimpered out at the end.

Why do I do it to myself??? 4/10 :(
 
The Sixth Sense

I was slightly disappointed. It's just that I was expecting more thrilling/scary stuff. However, thinking back, the film was better than I thought it was at first. It had a good, easy to follow storyline, great acting, and some pretty cool scenes too.

8½/10.
 
Johnny, I pretty much agree with you totally in terms of your review! I was expecting so much more from that movie because a lot of people made a huge deal saying it was the scariest thing ever and so on. I didn't think it was amazing by any means, but it was definitely quality stuff and I didn't expect the twist at the end!
 
Cant be arsed to read back through that many pages, but adulthood is coming out soon, not alot of peoples cup of tea but I like the look of it. It would also help if you have seen the first, kidulthood...
 
Sixth Sense was a good film, in fact a well acted and constructed film.

Did anyone else realise that when an important moment was going to happen, the colour red appears? e.g. red balloon, red doorknob, red dress etc
 
SpeedJunkie said:
adulthood is coming out soon, not alot of peoples cup of tea but I like the look of it. It would also help if you have seen the first, kidulthood...
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Yh the origional was good, but no sure if adulthood will meet the standards taht kidulthood set.

Will have to wait and see!
 
I've watched two films recently.

The Detonator

Aside from a few good lines this film was ****

The Man Who Sued God

I really liked this. The plot was quite well thought through. Even though the idea of it is stupid, the ideas and agruements that the character comes up with in it are great. At times it can be funny, but it was just due to the outrageous nature of the main character. I really do recommend it.
 
Sixth Sense was a good film, in fact a well acted and constructed film.

Did anyone else realise that when an important moment was going to happen, the colour red appears? e.g. red balloon, red doorknob, red dress etc
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Didn't notice that actually. I'll have to look for that next time I watch it.

I agree that it was well acted and well constructed, but the only beef with it that I had was that everyone made it out to be the creepiest thing, with "I see dead people", whereas I didn't find that part to be anything mindblowing. There were definitely some creepy parts in the film, but not as scary as people said.
 
No idea if anyone's reviewed this yet, but anyway...

Well last night I watched what is indubitably (my favorite word in the English language, btw) one of the worst movies I have ever seen: The Mist

I think I might take a leaf out of furie's book, here.

Acting: Apart from the insane religious woman, the acting was pretty meh. None of the other characters were really very convincing. I didn't get a sense of urgency or even a real sense of fear from anyone else. Most of the characters were also so stupid it was irritating. Honestly... giant bugs with massive deadly stingers seem to be attracted to our lanterns, and are flying all over the store, so let's turn on some more lights! Things like that make a movie difficult to watch, IMO.

Writing/Plot: Honestly, there's hardly any plot development in this movie. Fault that to Stephen King if you will. Two things that particularly bugged me: 1) The ending just plain sucked. The protagonist killing his friends and his own son was unnecessarily grim and completely unexpected. And then how do they explain the mist? Of course, they pull out the old "the military did it" cliche... weak and completely unrealistic. When the ending credits came up, my friends and I all made the same sort of disgusted/confused facial expression and asked "What? Is that really it?! What a sh*t ending." 2) Early on in the film, all the black people leave the store together to seek help, and are presumably gobbled up by the monsters lurking in the mist. It was the most blatant example of "black guy dies first" I have ever seen in a film. It disgusts me.

Computer Animation: The film's only redeeming quality was its use of CGI effects. Although the monsters were completely other-worldly and a few of them were kind of dumb (like giant spiders that have skulls as heads... come on, that's childish), the animators made them believeable in their appearance and motions. It was fairly impressive.

Basically, this was a horror movie that failed to scare me, but worse, it failed to even make me laugh as even a really moronic horror movie will. The only emotional release I was able to get out of it was when the stupid religious b*tch got shot in the head... that was pretty satisfying. Otherwise, it left me flat. A movie should make me feel something for it to be good.

I feel like I may be judging a little too harshly, but oh well.
2/10
 
I just saw two films, one last night, and one this morning.

Last night I saw The 40-Year-Old Virgin.

Great stuff. Reminded me of Knocked Up quite a bit, what with the similar cast and similar style storyline. Overall a really fun movie with some awesome characters!

8½/10.


This morning, I saw Little Miss Sunshine.

Another great movie, with a really messed-up, but nevertheless awesome, easy-to-watch plot! There was one particular scene which was just ridiculous, not at all in a bad way, but just what actually happened!. Anyone who's seen it will know what I'm talking about :). The acting overall was great, with the Grandpa being hilarious, so I'd recommend it.

8½/10.
 
Well last night I watched what is indubitably (my favorite word in the English language, btw) one of the worst movies I have ever seen: The Mist
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Lol, it wasn't that bad! Okay, so the things lurking in the mist were hardly exciting, but I'm not even gonna lie, though huge bugs don't seem thrilling in a film, if I were trapped in that store and there were bugs of that size I'd have probably dropped dead of a heart attack before they could even get to me.

It certainly wasn't as good as the majority of Stephen King films, but what can you do? You can't expect them all to be amazing. The end was pretty interesting though, and like you said, completely unexpected.
 
Meh this is probably in the wrong topic.... however I want to review it.....

Yesterday I went to see The Lion King in the West End and the least I could say of it was that it was bloody brilliant. It was probably the best show I've ever seen. I normally don't like musicals but I really enjoyed it. The storyline was mostly similar to the film but with some extra parts added.

The acting was superb, all of them got theior characters EXACTLY right.(but I still prefer Jeremy Irons as Scar) The singing and the dancing was brilliant also even though at times it looked as if they were doing sign language. Some of the songs gave me goosebumps especially the opening. It really exceeded my expectations.

Finally the best part was probably the costumes and the set. They were absolutely amazing. The effort gone into them was amazing and it looked really good especially the giraffes and hyenas. (I would not fancy being one of them.) The set was also stunning, I never expected so much could come up from that stage, it seemed to be impossible.

Whoever in another topic said it was crap, you're wrong. I'm sorry but you are VERY wrong!

I would recommend it to anyone, even if you don't like musicals as I am not a fan of them. However I suggest don't go to matinee one as there are a lot of young children continuosly talking and a couple screaming. Also I would say if you're children are under 8 or cannot sit still for long then I would say there may be some parts they don't understand. However it's always best to see the film first. :) I also suggest the stalls in the aisles for the best experience. :wink:

So definitely a 10/10 or even over that in fact. It was absolutely amazing and it has got me hyped up to seeing Wicked! in a couple of weeks!
 
I love you Taylor - you posting in this topic (particularly about Stephen King films) makes my day! :D

LiveForTheLaunch said:
It certainly wasn't as good as the majority of Stephen King films
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By and large, they're all dreadful. The only good ones I can think of are The Shining (disowned by Stephen King as Kubrick 'mauled' it), Shawshank and Green Mile. There are a few which are 'quite good I suppose', but generally, you can guarantee they will suck.

LiveForTheLaunch said:
, but what can you do? You can't expect them all to be amazing.
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You can stop watchnig them and stop encouraging them to be made [/hypocrite]? Or you could expect even 10% of them to be good?

I don't even know how the Mist was made into a film, it's a dreadful short story. King's best works are dreadful films, so why on earth would his worst story be a good film???

Anyway, the reason I put a [/hypocrite] tag above is because I watched 'The Shining' (TV movie) last night. Well, I say watched, I turned it off after an hour and a half because it was so utterly dreadful. I seriously couldn't stand it anymore.

Poor acting, poor scripting (scripted by Mr King himself, and produced by him, no nasty Mr Kubrick here to ruin it, Stephen can ruin his own films just as nicely thankyouverymuch), poor direction, poor CGI, poor, poor, poor, abysmal!

It gives me something good to say about 1408 - it's not as bad as The Shining.

1/10 (going back to the rental place with two disks unwatched!)
 
I've seen The Mist and I thought it was quite good. It was suspenseful and it was like a cross between War Of The Worlds and The Fog.
 
furie said:
By and large, they're all dreadful. The only good ones I can think of are The Shining (disowned by Stephen King as Kubrick 'mauled' it), Shawshank and Green Mile. There are a few which are 'quite good I suppose', but generally, you can guarantee they will suck.
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You mean you didnt like cats eyes?

Every step you take...
 
Rent

Seen it before, but havn't actually given it a review. Well, for amusical film, its actually very good, it holds true to the orignal musical, and doesn't dtray to far away from the actual plot. There are some minor changes, like some sung word being changed to dialogue, but other than that it's pretty much the same.

I like how you get a feel for the chracters, without having much back story to them.

The music of course is fantastic and flows really well, with uptempo and ballads.

It's not your average musical like Grease or Hairspray, it's more grown up and has real-life issues in it, without them bearing down on you so you can't ennjoy the comedy thats in there.

I have to say, without being bias, it's a very good film musical, and if your not into musicals, then its still a great watch, just don't pre-judge it on other musicals you may have seen.

9/10
 
ciallkennett said:
Sixth Sense was a good film, in fact a well acted and constructed film.

Did anyone else realise that when an important moment was going to happen, the colour red appears? e.g. red balloon, red doorknob, red dress etc
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What important moment? Do you mean the bit where we find out he was dead all along?
 
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