What was the last movie you saw?

After Reservoir Dogs (now its own thread) I took a break with an Animal House rewatch before moving on to another viewing of Apocalypse Now (original version). It can't have the hypnotic explosive effect of a first viewing but it's still an amazing film.

All kinds of weird resonances: the US soldier's shooting spree in the news. It turns out today's the anniversary of My Lai. (Both more viscerally relevant to Platoon, but thematically covered in AN.) And I gather AN borrows from "Heart of Darkness" and the last book I read was Silverberg's Downward to the Earth which, while Silverberg has directly riffed "Heart" elsewhere and is using it to different purposes in DttE, has a similar (mostly land) journey structure with colonial motifs.
 
Just watched Don't be afraid of the Dark with Katie Holmes and Guy Pearce, written (in part) by Guillermo Del Toro. Kind of a kids horror, which is a bit odd as it is rated 15. It would have terrified me at aged 10, but now I kind of enjoyed it. Not all that scary but Guilllermo does have a wondefully creative imagination and his creatures are always a great blend of ancient and new. Worth a watch just for the intricate design of the house.
 
The Best of Sex and Violence (1981) - not really a movie but a straight to video compilation of sordid and sleazy seventies film trailers (wall to wall tits and kung-fu) linked by the late immortal John Carradine. A glorious wallow in pre-compacted trash with a genuinely laugh out loud funny joke in one of the links that I fully intend to use at the first opportunity.
 
Blue Eyes Of the Broken Doll

Partners in exploitation crime Paul Naschy and Carlos Aured, dish out a small slice of Giallo Spanish style. Naschy plays a drifter that is hired to help tend to a country mansion owned by three odd sisters. One is a harlot (Eva Leon), one in a wheelchair (Maria Perschey) and the last with a disfigured arm (Diana Lorys). Not long after a series of murders start scarring the town with young nubile mamsitas being hack up with a meat cleaver and their eyes plucked out.

This film was an obvious cash in on the popular Italian Giallo's of the 60's and 70's. Though done with far less flair than their Italo counterparts. The first killing doesn't happen till around the halfway mark. While there's some nudie bits for the men before this, it's not enough to keep you amused, or awake for that matter.

While I will give the film a plus for some very good camera work, and some typically cute leading ladies, the rest of this film was just plain boring.

2/5
 
Thor. 3/5. Art and special effects very good, story was alright, but some bits came with a bit too much cheese. Some scenes overdramatised without good reason. The villain was a bit too obvious. But overall was an entertaining watch.

The Three Musketeers. 2.5/5. As full on cheese as it comes. The plot was strange, the characters tacky, big name actors that didn't suit their roles. Special effects were good, but story left a lot to be desired. Much better off watching Man in the Iron Mask than this.

Lost Future. 2/5. The premise sounded like potential, post-apocalyptic earth, and it starred Sean Bean - who is one of my favourite actors - but the acting is terrible (with the exception of Sean Bean and Johnathan Pienaar). The script and effects poorly done. The story had potential, but it fell flat with amateur labelled all over it.
 
JunkMonkey said:
The Best of Sex and Violence (1981) - not really a movie but a straight to video compilation of sordid and sleazy seventies film trailers (wall to wall tits and kung-fu) linked by the late immortal John Carradine. A glorious wallow in pre-compacted trash with a genuinely laugh out loud funny joke in one of the links that I fully intend to use at the first opportunity.
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Sounds Great:D

Watched Excalibur last night. There's been a lot of discussion of it here recently so I was itching to see it once more. It's still as enjoyable to me now as when I first saw it. A classic (at least to me):)
 
Robin Hood (2010)

I finally watched this Ridley Scott film starring Russell Crowe. It was a very good version of the classic tale. Seems to be an opportunity for a sequel, by the way this movie ended.

Gas Hole (2010)

Excellent documentary showing how OIL was monopolized by 1899, car companies perfecting vehicles that could get over 140 MILES PER GALLON in the 1950's and other important detailed information on the subject.

Highly recommended film!
 
Last night I watched Aliens. I have the boxed set and want to watch them all prior to Prometheus. Not looking forward to the fourth one as the newborn alien gives me nightmares... :(
 
The Day After Tomorrow
Aye its good n all, but I so wish they wouldn't use the phrase Global Warming, its so misleading and just breeds nay sayers. Its Climate Change.
 
I watched the movie version of HHGTTG last night and found it rather entertaining. It doesn't hold a candle to the book, radio series or TV series, but it was good fun and they did kind of put their own stamp on it.

I also watched I, Robot. Again, a very enjoyable movie that deserves more credit than it gets IMO.
 
Rodders said:
I watched the movie version of HHGTTG last night
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Please don't "text" with a full keyboard in front of you; what is "HHGTTG"? Thanks.

I also watched I, Robot. Again, a very enjoyable movie that deserves more credit than it gets IMO.
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I found myself liking I, Robot "more than I should" because of the score. There are many worthwhile features to the movie, but the writers blew it when they got to the bit about Sonny having two brains. Working backwards, I'll mention the little details first.

Since Dr. Calvin had been ordered to decommission Sonny, and she had already learned that he had two brains, why the decoy of decommissioning an alternate NS-5? She could have blitzed Sonny's "official" brain without touching the hidden one in his chest. On top of all this, there would be some way of confirming which NS-5 had been decommissioned—serial numbers, MAC addresses—something. So a simple shell game with the robots would not have worked.

The two brain ploy was pivotal to the entire mystery of Dr. Lanning's death, which is why this plot hole ruins the whole movie. Dr. Calvin explains that Sonny has the Three Laws but can "choose" not to follow them. This makes no sense at all. Sonny can't have two brains equally in control of his actions—one must be dominant. Depending on which brain that is determines whether or not Sonny is constrained by the Laws.

All in all, the movie is not based on the I, Robot anthology by Asimov, but on Roger MacBride Allen's novel Caliban, set in Asimov's robots universe. The novel features a massive roll-out of New Law robots designed to avert the collapse of terraforming on Inferno, a colony world. The theme of the book is the atrophy of human society from over-reliance on robots and the "trap" of the Three Laws. The New Law robots, however, will not mix with humans, so humanity is still declining even if the planet survives.

Enter Caliban, an experimental No Law robot intended purely for laboratory study. The researchers wanted to see if Caliban would formulate his own morality (his own Laws). But Caliban appears to be guilty of an apparent murder before "escaping" from the lab. The fate of the world literally depends on finding him.

Too bad the movie dropped the ball.
 
Devilfish (1984)

Director Lamberto Bava directed this film about a large prehistoric shark with big teeth and tentacles that enjoys munching on people. This is Mr Bava's version of JAWS, except with a poor screenplay, bad acting and so-so special effects. However, Lamberto keeps your interest with fast paced direction and the fantastic crew of Mystery Science Theater 3000 make it a funny film. Worth a watch for B-movie monster fans.
 
Plan 9 from Outer Space, again. While the tinfoil saucers on strings (and especially the flaming one) and not-Bela Lugosi are easy, and there are a million other things to choose from, I think my favorite is the two guys and the girl in the "plane". I have never seen a film capture solidity, groundedness, and a lack of mechanism and electricity like those "plane" scenes. It's really magical. :D

-- I left out that you can totally feel all those "passengers" in "the back" of "the plane", too.

Oh. And honorable mention for the fact that it's daylight -- no dark -- no dusk -- wait, dark again.
 
Aaron Stone said:
Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. Are you google-ly challenged as well? :D
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Hmmm, then we seem to have an extra "H" in there where one should find a "G," depending on whether the first word is two words, or hyphenated yet still deserving of another letter in the acronym. Google's reply was "Perhaps you mean HHGTTG?"

Yes, of course. It should have been obvious to anyone. I read the books once, which is fine when one is 13. And I saw the movie—once—which was too many times.
 
Metryq said:
I read the books once, which is fine when one is 13. And I saw the movie—once—which was too many times.
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Agreed. I first came across it in its original Radio outing (which was fun), then there were the novels (which were less so), then the text adventure (played on an Amstrad PCW) then it was an LP (Google them, you whipper-snappers) and then a TV show... by the time the film finally arrived it was so reworked and mined out I'm surprised anyone even noticed.

'Epic' it was not.
 
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