Last movie you watched?

Glad to hear that, I've been dying to see it!

*is a bit of a Wolverine fangirl*

It was no Star Trek, but Wolverine was about as good as the second X-men. I kind of wish they hadn't killed off Deadpool so quickly.

The last thing I saw was a black and white (old) German/Denmark movie called Vampyr. It was pretty good. If a little confusing at times.

I love old movies. The General with Buster Keaton is one of my all time favorites.

Yeah. I've not watched many old films. The only reason I bought Vampyr was because the (limited) audio was in German. Thought it'd help me learn the language some.

One German movie that I've seen and I really want to own: Was tun wenn's brennt? (what to do in case of fire?) It was a good movie. A story of what happened to the anarchists after they grew up a bit.... well, and there's bombs involved.

And did it help?

Some. THere's not a whole lot of dialog in that movie. It's very near a silent film.

Saw Orphan tonight and thoroughly enjoyed it. Lots of dark comedy, loved the character of Esther who was basically 'what would happen if Wednesday were an orphan and was placed with the Brady Bunch' and the two little girl leads were amazing, especially the little deaf girl.
I also thought it was hillarious but not for the usual reasons I think Hollywood horror flicks are hillarious. The twist wasn't bad either. It wasn't overly obvious but if you've seen enough horror films you can figure it out, but the way it's revealed is very good and just makes her actions all the more creepy in retrospect. If you can overlook the similarities with 'Joshua' and the whole 'they stole that line from the Ring' thing, you can spend a very enjoyable coupe of hours laughing at how dumb the father is and just how long it's going to take them all to figure it out. Be prepared to cheer for Max (the deaf girl). A lot.

Max finally saw the Addams Family movie all the way through!

I watched "300" the other day. It is good, enjoyable, heroic, if slightly homo-erotic, stuff, but I am left with a few thoughts:

1) The Spartans wore armour at Thermopylae, they were too sensible not to. Why did the movie makers decide to send them into battle in their speedos?

2) Thermopylae possibly did change the course of history, and divide the west from the east, but the Spartans were hardly champions of freedom, given their habit of ambushing their own slaves to hone their martial skills.

3) The Spartans in the movie appeared to have about a dozen greek allies, rather than the 2000+ that history records (Including the 700 strong Thespian contingent that remained with the Spartans until the very end). Not that this in any way detracts from their accomplishments, as modern estimates still put Xerxes army at around 210,000

4) Was Leonidas hard of hearing? All his men seem to constantly bellow at him during the film, even when he is just a few feet away from them.

5) Hair. The Spartans in the film all have scruffy hair cuts. Actually their hair was the only vanity that Spartan men were allowed. They grew it long, and kept it carefully oiled and curled.
When the Persian spies got behind the Greek lines at Thermoplylae, they observed the Spartans carefully combing and oiling their hair. The Persians took this as a sign that the Greeks were actually a bunch of namby-pamby pretty boys who probably wouldn't cause too much of a problem.
Bit of a mistake that, in retrospect.

All valid points dear Emperor although I have my suspicions regarding how #3 came about.

Afterall '210,000 give or take a few dozen greeks' doesn't really have the same ring to it.

Should anyone be going to see District 9 in the near future can you tell me if you've seen that ending before in another movie? I'm sure I have but I can't remember where and it's killing me.

Taraiha wrote:

All valid points dear Emperor although I have my suspicions regarding how #3 came about.

Afterall '210,000 give or take a few dozen greeks' doesn't really have the same ring to it.

But there is a sizable difference between "The brave 300, and a few dozen Greeks" and "The brave 300, and their three and a half thousand allies"

Poetic license.

I just got the Blu-ray disc of Nightmare Before Christmas.

what an awesome blu-ray disc includes many many extras including a special about NBC Holiday Haunted Mansion

Only 14 days til Dorian Grey comes out

guys--gotta get Nightmare Before Christmas on Blu-ray disc! it is soooooo cool. even the front Menu is just excellent

I'll put that the top of my list.

... after a Blu-Ray player.

Dorian Grey was a bit of a let down.

The first half hour was good, the last half hour was awesome. The bit in the middle was just one long orgy that added little ot the storyline.

So in that respect it was a lot like the book!

However, considering it's a BBC production I expected more. I expected something of the callibre of their mini-series like Desperate Romantics or The Tudors. But it was... lacklustre for want of a better word.

Ben Barnes is really good though and showed himself to be a realyl good actor. Colin Firth aged 25 years but he had make up. Ben Barnes got older and acted older without actually being made to look any older. That has to be difficult for an actor. He certainly out-ranked Robert Pattinson.

Twilight.
Oh I'm sorry. I really really am sorry but... I actually quite enjoyed it. It was sort of fluffy and lacked substance but it didn't take itself too seriously, as so many films are wont to do whenyou mix teenage hormones and vampiric abilities. It's not the best film ever, but add a bottle of wine and it could make for a fun Sunday afternoon.

Eastwick
Not a film, but a new series and also quite fun. Not winning any awards, but it was entertaining fluff. Quite true to the film so far and it was nice to see Veronica Cartwright reprising her role as the town nay-sayer. I'm sticking with it, it's better than reality tv.

I made the mistake of starting to watch Oliver Stone's "Alexander" last night.

I had wondered how they intended to deal with such a complex character, given to such extremes of both virtue and vice.

Simple: They glossed over all the bits they didn't like and made him stunningly bland. Gone was the tempestuous and passionate genius and in his place we had Colin Farrell in a blonde wig.

There was far more to Alexander than simply a catalogue of his achievements.


On a more positive note...
We also saw the remake of "The Day The Earth Stood Still" this weekend, and it was much better than I expected.

Keanu Reeves was surprisingly good in the role of Klaatu. Of course it helps that Klaatu displays very little emotion and frequently speaks in a stilted fashion.
(This may just have been the best bit of casting since Arnie Played the Terminator!)

Alexander falls into the same category of film as JFK, Titanic, Joan of Arc et al. 3 hours too long and you aready know how it ends.

The best ever bit of casting will be when they cast Keanu as Pinocchio. Although he might have a bit of a problem with the whole 'I'm a real boy' portion of the film.

Apocalypse wrote:

Should anyone be going to see District 9 in the near future can you tell me if you've seen that ending before in another movie? I'm sure I have but I can't remember where and it's killing me.

There were a number of references to other movies, mostly sci fi.

I think the list I spotted was.

The Fly
Independence Day
Alien Nation
Robot Jocks
Transformers
A Chip of Glass Ruby

Cool movie, will enjoy seeing it again!

Taraiha wrote:

The best ever bit of casting will be when they cast Keanu as Pinocchio. Although he might have a bit of a problem with the whole 'I'm a real boy' portion of the film.

I see a lot of potential for a whole Pinocchio/Matrix crossover movie (with Team America style special effects)

"I'm a real boy!"
"No, Mr Anderson, what you perceive as reality is little more than stimuli being fed directly to your body through strings attached to your limbs..."

Man, if that isn't on YouTube already it ought to be.

Let the right one in - for about the fourth time. I just adore this film, it's dark, sinister and totally beautiful

The book is even better