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I think that's ridiculous but that's just me. Anyway back to movie reviews.

Couples Retreat

Was a pretty good movie. My sister and I could pretty much guess the storyline after about the first half hour but it was still nice. It made me laugh a lot, especially all the dirty humor like when they basically show a guy getting an erection and seeing a big black guy naked. But pretty good.

7/10
 
Went to see French film, MicMacs tonight.

It's the same writer/director as Amelie (which is absolutely amazing, if you haven't seen it yet, please do). It is visually stunning, every scene has been thought about so much that there is almost too much to look at. The story is a bit bizarre and it is a very quirky film but I found it very entertaining and at times, highly amusing. So yeah, I recommend but it's not as good as Amelie.

Rating: 4/5
 
nadroJ said:
Corpse Bride is ****.
Click to expand...

I know that you immediately have to have the opposite rating for any film Ollie posts about, but lets not get carried away :p

Corpse Bride was pretty good, it was just no "Nightmare". It doesn't do too well on the rewatch either - but it's okay and BoJangles is fab :)

Well, I watched The Towering Inferno

Got to love 70's disaster movies. It's just a collection of the moments biggest stars in a film with the biggest budget and lousiest script. Actually, the script isn't that bad, but the whole thing is a little Avatar :p

So yeah, you get to see some of the biggest names to come out of the sixties and seventies (Paul Newman, Steve McQueen, Faye Dunaway, Richard Chamberlain, Robert Vaughn (yes, he was famous before Hustle) and Robert Wagner). If you've never heard of these people, you need to seriously catch up on some of the best films and TV from the past (Butch and Sundance, Bullet, Great Escape, Hart to Hart (TV)(LOL), Shogun (TV), Little Big Man, Bonnie and Clyde, etc, etc, etc. Some good film recommendations there for you right away.

Anyway, Towering Inferno was THE disaster movie. It's the granddaddy of them all - the one which set the level all others must reach (and have been found failing). It's aged, but not as badly as you'd imagine. It's big, bold and has that kind of "silly" running through it. However, it's still fun and exciting. If you love disaster movies, this is a nice warm, welcoming blast from the past.

8/10
 
Nah furie, Corpse Bride is pretty forgetful and by Burton's standards (i.e NBC), poor...

It's not the worst film ever made but it's not the best either... It stands in the middle trying to reach the heights of Nightmare but doesn't get there...
 
You do realise that Burton only wrote and (I think) produced Nightmare before Christmas. Whereas he wrote, produced and directed Corpse Bride. Meh, I look forward to his next stop-animation feature, Frankenweenie :D
 
I'm just really and continually disappointed by Burton's recent work (by recent I mean, past 10 years I suppose). It's just gotten crap, predictable and overly Johnny Depp-ish.

I LOVE Nightmare, love Edward Scissorhands and, somewhat controversially, I love Sleepy Hollow.

I HATE Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, hated Corpse Bride and most recently loathed, detested and got quite angry at Alice in Wonderland. Everything has just gotten too predictable, it seems like now Burton has found a money-spinning formula he's decided to stick to it and as a result his most recent films have been extremely lacking in originality and general goodness.

And yes, while I do quite enjoy annoying Ollie, I think you'll find we both have a penchant for ridiculously crap slasher movies ;]
 
Haha I don't care if people disagree. I just rate films based on how much I enjoyed it. Not if the actual film is any good or not. :p

Anyway I really want to see this film called The Room It's one of those films that looks sooo bad it's good. Should be a real laugh but can't find a copy. :(
Here's the trailer so you can see how TERRIBLE the acting is in it. :p

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yCj8sPCWfUw[/youtube]

Also our Media department in college got in the paper. :)
http://www.portsmouth.co.uk/people/Film ... 6149024.jp
 
Corpse Bride is **** .
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I wouldn't go quite as far as saying it's ****, to be honest, aha, but it's not his best work. I've never been much of a fan of Nightmare, actually :p .

I dunno, I like his work, but Sweeney and Edward Scissorhands remain my favourite. Alice was probably my least favourite.

I actually thought Coraline was a Burton movie until now.. It definitely has that feel about it, but I guess I was wrong.
 
Two things:

LFTL, just what you say now about 3D, did folks say in the twenties and thirties as well. "Why do films have to have SOUND? We're here to SEE a film, not HEAR it!" or "Bah... the new film makers rely too much on this "colour" gimmick. Nobody makes a good film any more", etc. We're hitting a new era, and it's best to just accept it here and now.

And furie, The Towering Inferno is quite cool. I haven't seen the movie, but this is a fun fact regardless:

T H E T O W E R I N G I N F E R N O

anagrams to

N O T W O R T H F I R E E N G I N E
 
Lots of films that I've watched the last few weeks:

Watched Slumdog Millionaire on Saturday night, it was ok, over-hyped, but quite a nice film. Another film to tick off...

7/10

Watched An Education, another film from my list. I was unsure what to expect, but I found it simply amazing.

It was charming, witty and Carrey Mulligan with long, dark hair = omnomnom. I'm not too keen on her short, blonde hair though...

It was the best film I've seen so far this year, and I couldn't stop thinking about how much I enjoyed it. Brilliance at it's best.

9.5/10

Anchorman. I didn't really know what to expect, and having heard so much positivity around the film, I felt a little dissatisfied afterwards. Yes it was funny at times, and yes I understood it all. But why was it on my list? God knows why...

It was worth a watch.

6.5/10

Watched Dirty Pretty Things in Film for the crime unit. It was ok, it flowed well and was quite clever. A nice little Brit film.

7.5/10

Watched Double Indemnity for the American unit in Film Studies. It was an old black and white film, but was very, very good. It was very enjoyable, very clever and a very good watch.

8/10

Another film from my list: Up In The Air. It was quite good, had an above average storyline and was mildly charming and witty at times. A nice all round film.

7.5/10
 
Watched Rollercoaster last night.

Like Gavin, it's a film I'd not watched since I was a kid (kid loosely defined as before drinking age, so up until about 14 or 15 really :) ).

I didn't remember much other than a crashing coaster, guy on a woody with a suitcase, something to do with a cable car and "Death by Schwartzkopf" (though obviously as a kid I didn't know it was a Schwartzkopf) and that it was quite a good thriller.

It's a funny film really to review. My memory of it was positive because it was the first time I'd really ever seen "a big American park". Revolution at the time was still a major ride, so it held appeal for the latent enthusiast in me.

Of course, watching it now is excessively geeky... There's some great footage of Kings Dominion and Magic Mountain back in 1976. Having been to Kings Dominion, it's great seeing coasters I've been on and the place is easily recognisable actually. I don't know how much Magic Mountain is like the bits shown, but (like KD) it looks very barren back then...

The Rocket, the first coaster in it was a classic and was actually demolished the year after the film was made - so it's a good bit of footage of a dead ride (the ride was demolished on film for a film "Death of a coaster" :lol: ).

So, enough geekery, what's the actual film like?

It's a thriller. A very intelligent blackmailer is planting bombs on rides and making it look like accidents. He blackmails the owners of several park chains saying that there will be more accidents and more people killed unless he gets a $1,000,000. The majority of the film is based around the "money drop" at Kings Dominion and trying to find the bomb at Magic Mountain. These sections are pretty standard mid-budget 70's thrillers. Imagine moustaches, chain smoking, bouffant hair, token black cop, gruff bosses and cars with trampolines where their suspension should be. If that kind of things cooks your biscuit, then you'll get a lot out of the film.

Other than that, it's pretty poor by today's standards. Filming on the rides is good quality, it's not low budget tosh - but it's never anything other than "okay I guess".

Rating...
Fairly watchable 7/10 for most people. 8/10 if you love watching lots of coaster and ride footage ;)
 
ciallkennett said:
Watched Double Indemnity for the American unit in Film Studies. It was an old black and white film, but was very, very good.
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I love that: it's black and white BUT it's good, as if the two are mutually exclusive. Double Indemnity is an excellent film.

I got home early today and watched Myra Breckinridge, which is probably one of the worst films ever made. Horrendously awful. Terrible. Train wreck of a film. Possibly the single worst adaptation of a book committed to film. It's amazing!

I LOVE Mae West for so many reasons, and I still can't believe she ever agreed to do this piece of trash. She's almost 80 in it and still insisting on playing the sex bomb. She manages to get a couple of her trademark one-liners in, and they get her to rap in it. Brilliance.

Raquel Welch looks stunning in it as well.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3WnhX3TKqLU[/youtube]


[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C6IEn3hvAYM[/youtube]
 
I watched Shutter Island last night.

I've been looking forward to seeing this, as I quite liked the book despite some flaws, and was curious to see what Scorsese would do with it.

Turns out it's probably the most faithful adaptation of a book I have ever seen - apart from a tiny bit of trimming and the short final scene, it's EXACTLY what's on the page, down to the dialogue itself. This never happens, and for good reason.

Adaptations from books should be exactly that - adapted for film, not directly copied. Consequently it doesn't matter how many tricks Scorsese pulls from his bag, many of the scenes are way too long and exposition heavy, with the dialogue sounding very contrived.

It also means that all the book's problems are now in the film too. Despite the smart use of artifice the book never managed to convince, and the film is exactly the same (I won't pull it apart in detail to avoid spoilers).

I'm also fed-up now with Scorsese continually casting DiCaprio, he was miscast in Gangs of New York and The Aviator, and now he's miscast in this - he's meant to be a "legendary" US Marshal and war veteran, yet he looks 22.

So the clever adaptation I was hoping for never materialised - it's perfectly watchable, but not what it should be. 2.5/5
 
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