RugbyRebels

Lizard wrote:The only movie I've seen that was better than the novel it was based on was Forrest Gump

blimey that must have been one hell of a shyte book

Banquo wrote:

joshfishkins wrote:

Banquo wrote: well spotted.

The Godfather....is better than the book imo. Silence of the Lambs?

Yes and no (imo).

The Godfather novel is rather dull, but Silence of The Lambs is superb. I'm probably alone in hating Anthony Hopkins version of Lecter. In the book he is supposed to be charming and charismatic. Hopkins plays him as a bug eyed loon from the start. The original Manhunter film does a much better Lecter (Brian Cox).

True on Lecter portrayal, but I still found the film compelling; call it a draw then. Manhunter for me felt a little amateurish and over stylised tbh.

Don't disagree with that - overall Silence of the lambs is a better film, but Manhunter has a better Lecter.

joshfishkins wrote:

Banquo wrote:

joshfishkins wrote:
Yes and no (imo).

The Godfather novel is rather dull, but Silence of The Lambs is superb. I'm probably alone in hating Anthony Hopkins version of Lecter. In the book he is supposed to be charming and charismatic. Hopkins plays him as a bug eyed loon from the start. The original Manhunter film does a much better Lecter (Brian Cox).

True on Lecter portrayal, but I still found the film compelling; call it a draw then. Manhunter for me felt a little amateurish and over stylised tbh.

Don't disagree with that - overall Silence of the lambs is a better film, but Manhunter has a better Lecter.

..interesting that the Hannibal and Red Dragon (a remake of Manhunter) films (which I thought weren't as good as Lambs) had Lecter/Hopkins as the urbane charmer at least in part..

Lizard wrote:The only movie I've seen that was better than the novel it was based on was Forrest Gump

Battle Royale (film suffers from some of the same issues as the novel, but also is vastly improved by getting rid of a lot of things that bogged down the book as well, like de-Mary Sue-ing the main villain)

The Shining (ooooh, controversial opinion! Kubrick got rid of a lot of shit that would've been shit when he made the film, and through omission, added/emphasised a lot of depth that King didn't in the characterisation)

You can also make a strong case for The Martian as well.


Anyway, on topic:

The Booth - a low-budget Japanese horror set in a radio booth where the host of a late-night talk show must record in what appears to be a haunted radio station. Works extremely well within its limitations.

Torihada - a film version of a popular Japanese anthology horror series, which operates under 5 iron-clad commandments (1. No ghosts - the focus of the scares should be based around encounters with insanity, 2. Nothing supernatural at all, for that matter - nothing in it can not be shown to be beyond rational explanation, 3. Don't use music cues to get cheap scares - you can only use ambient noises or no sound or music at all, 4. Don't try to use any sort of artificial effects to make things scary - the scares have to come naturally, 5. Everything has to be plausible - no sci-fi elements like parallel worlds, as it all has to be grounded in reality). Extremely, really good. My favourite was probably a short segment where a dude is sitting on a bus and noticing the girl is texting someone about stuffing someone into concrete and how awesome it was. Not a single line of dialogue, and all done through wordless acting.

Both films are on youtube, by the way.

Banquo wrote:

joshfishkins wrote:

Banquo wrote: well spotted.

The Godfather....is better than the book imo. Silence of the Lambs?

Yes and no (imo).

The Godfather novel is rather dull, but Silence of The Lambs is superb. I'm probably alone in hating Anthony Hopkins version of Lecter. In the book he is supposed to be charming and charismatic. Hopkins plays him as a bug eyed loon from the start. The original Manhunter film does a much better Lecter (Brian Cox).

True on Lecter portrayal, but I still found the film compelling; call it a draw then. Manhunter for me felt a little amateurish and over stylised tbh.

I think that may be due to it being filmed a lot earlier than SotL, on viewing these days I find it amazing that Jodie Foster got an oscar for it, she overacts quite badly and it's not really a portayl of an FBI agent. Mind you that said I haven't read the book so I should reserve judgement until then, agree regarding Cox, much better Lecter, the fava beans Hopkins bit makes me laugh these days but I remember it being much scarier at the time in the cinema.

Apocalypse Now Redux or Editor's Cut. What a mess that was. Worth a look though just to see things spiral. And spiral they do.

Oblomov wrote:Apocalypse Now Redux or Editor's Cut. What a mess that was. Worth a look though just to see things spiral. And spiral they do.

Speaking of Apocalypse Now, get this on blu-ray.

http://amzn.to/1SY9MuC

It's got both versions and Hearts of Darkness. It's fabbo.



On topic, got round to seeing Batman v. Superman: Dawn of Justice. It's shiiiiiiiiit.

So underwhelming. Overlong, bloated, and in dire need of some serious editing. It has the same problem with Man of Steel, in that there's a really good 2-hour movie trapped in a mediocre 2.5-hour one. There's just way too much superfluous shit in this that would was utterly meaningless and unnecessary - case in point that dream within a dream (what is this, fucking Inception?) with Dictator Superman and those flying bug-man-things. Like, the fuck was that? All of this just means the movie bogs itself down in building up to what ends up being an absolute wet fart of a fight, concluding in an utterly nonsensical way. It's literally "OMG, your mum's name is the same as my mum's name!" THE FUCKING STATE OF YOUR SCRIPT, MATE.
For all of the length, or possibly because of it, characters have way too little to do, like Alfred, Superman and Wonder Woman. Alfred is barely seen, Superman doesn't do much other than look glum and Wonder Woman is just... there.
Then we have shit portrayals of iconic characters - Lex Luthor and Lois Lane, I'm looking in your direction. Jesse Eisenberg is a fab actor, so I'm gonna go ahead and blame Zack Snyder for this one and seeing Luthor reduced to basically Renfield for what is obviously Darkseid at the end was disheartening. Even the Luthor from Superman Returns had more depth than this shit.
Moving on to Lois Lane: I also like Amy Adams. But shitting dicks, man, the script reduces her to basically a thing that's just there to be constantly rescued by Superman, and she can't go 10 paces without ending in some sort of calamity. And then we have the bath scene. Why was she in the bath to begin with? As it is, it's completely gratuitous, reducing her to an object to be ogled at by gross boys. It's annoying enough that she's basically characterised as an incompetent McGuffin that is there simply to be captured and/or menaced by an assortment of baddies - and while the film admits to this, it doesn't negate the fact that they then go ahead and do it anyway. It's the same criticism I had about Spectre's Bond Girl - the way she's treated is pretty fucking egregious, especially when it's within 12 months of Furiosa and Rey.

That said, when Wonder Woman actually got to do stuff, she was kicking copious amounts of ass, and Ben Affleck was actually pretty damn decent as Batman, which makes me actually look forward to the solo upcoming Wonder Woman and Batman films.

20,000 days on Earth. It helps if you're a Nick Cave fan I suppose but I thought it was excellent.

Southpaw.
All a bit cliched and ho-hum. Jake Gylenhaal in good shape and the boxing settings (not the fight sequences themselves) were very authentic. Just a bit too predictable and a little pointless tbh.

This might be a little immature for you lot, but I thought The Book of Life, animated feature from Guillermo Del Toro was absolutely fantastic. Genuinely one of the best films I've seen in a long long time.

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I took the boy to see Zootopia.

He was probably a bit young for it, but it wasn't too painful to sit through.

I haven't seen an animated feature in years - it's amazing what they can do now.

Just back from Eye in the Sky

Enjoyed it. Nice to be able to sit and moralise (that's a word. Yes it is) with a bag of popcorn in hand. Must be Rickman's last film too.

Speaking of animated films, saw Inside Out. Genuinely really liked it. One of the best films from 2015 is about a little girl's feelings.

Special Correspondents.

Thought it was a reasonably good premise but completely let down by the script and Gervais. He loves playing this type of character. Bit of a loser, hard done by, but a great guy at heart and always ends up doing the right thing and ending happily ever after. I wanted it to be good but I don't think Bana and Farmiga were particularly interested either. Perhaps that was how it was supposed to be?

cashead wrote:Speaking of animated films, saw Inside Out. Genuinely really liked it. One of the best films from 2015 is about a little girl's feelings.

Great film

10 Cloverfield Lane.

Rather godo I thought. A few scenes felt a little obvious like when , also when they were .

Apart from that, I thought the film was excellent. You could almost sense the ambience at times with the sound of the fish tank in the background.

Thought Goodman was excellent.

Son of Saul. Unrelentingly brutal and exhausting. Probably the closest potrayal of how I'd imagine camp life to be, and it's something I've read a fair bit about. A diificult watch throughout, but a very worthwhile, and timely one.

I always thought that camp life was most realistically portrayed in Priscilla: Queen of the Desert.

Colonia (2015)

Set in Pinochet Chile, starring Emma Watson, about https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Villa_Baviera

Good film

Got round to seeing Chronicle. Meh. It wasn't terrible, but it felt rather hamhanded with nothing particularly original to say. It didn't help that they killed off the only likeable protagonist relatively early.

Michael Moore's 'Where to Invade Next'.

Meh.

The Occupation of the American Mind

http://therealnews.com/t2/index.php?opt ... ival=16286

You can stream it for a donation.

About Time made to terrestrial over the weekend. Excellent cast in a whimsical Richard Curtis film. It tries to make a serious point about living your life to the full but, being whimsical, it doesn't really land the punch. Includes some clever titter-worthy quips and awkward social moments.

12 Years a Slave made a it to terrestrial too. A bit up and down I thought, often very good, not sure it's Oscar-worthy (if that even means anything any more). It's such a powerful story it seems to overwhelm the film a bit. Could have done with more of Northup's background praps as juxtaposition. Still, a lot of good, cast was great (maybe Pitt wasn't entirely up to scratch) Ejiofor is class to his very core, Tom Hiddlestone might have made a better fist of it though.

Grimsby.

Disappointing on the whole. Tries too hard to offend and neglects everything else. Some funny, if extremely puerile moments though.