What have you watched recently: Electric Boogaloo

TICKLE_ME_ELMO

Easy A

Loosely based on the novel "The Scarlet Letter" and referencing it plenty this is the story of Olive, a fairly anonymous high school student who tells a little white lie to her best friend that quickly gets around the school and very much out of control.
I'd put this up there with Clueless, Mean Girls and 10 Things I Hate About You as far as teen comedies go. It's funny, clever, well acted, believable enough story, likable characters and well cast.
Stanley Tucci steals the show a bit as Olive's dad but the rest of the main cast, mainly Emma Stone, Dan Byrd and Amanda Bynes are good too.

Penelope

I saw this a few years ago and thought it was okay but I watched it again this afternoon on E4 and it's better than I remember. It's a modern day take on a Fairy Tale. Penelope (Christina Ricci) is born with a pig face due to a curse cast on her father's blue blood family a few generations back. The curse can't be broken until "one of her own" loves her for who she is. Her mother fakes Penelope's death as a child, hides her away in the house and hires a match maker as soon as she turns 18 to find a rich blue blood who won't run in terror from Penelope so the curse can be broken. Enter Max (James McAvoy) hired by a reporter to pose as a suitor in order to obtain a photo of the "pig girl". Max messes it up and Penelope ends up escaping to the City to experience real life pursued by her parents, the police and paparazzi.
It's silly stuff really but it's done so well. A nice one to watch with slightly older kids and it's got a fairly useful moral at the centre about accepting people, or yourself, for who they/you are, not judging a book by it's cover etc. etc.
Only problem I had is that although set in the US it was filmed in London, hence a lot of English actors doing dodgy American accents. McAvoy's in particular jumps from Scottish to English to American two or three times nearly every time he speaks!

krudler

TICKLE_ME_ELMO wrote: »

Oh, it's awful isn't it. I hate that motion capture stuff, if that's what it's called. If you're going to go to all that trouble and clearly have to have the actors come in and do that much filming anyway, why not make a live action film?

Indeed, especially when they spend a fortune making a CGI Angelina Jolie look like..well Angelina Jolie. Infinite possibilities to animate any character that someone thinks up and you just make the effect look like the person doing the voice. Just put real actors on a greenscreen set if that's what you're after ala Sin City.

I'd much rather something like Kung Fu Panda 2, which has some utterly amazing visuals, the story of the young Po done in that stylised 2D animation was gorgeous.

e_e

I kinda hate the way a lot of Hollywood animation just puts a famous voice in a role to lure the adults in. Instead of, y'know, picking the voice actor who's best for the role.

Birneybau

e_e wrote: »

I kinda hate the way a lot of Hollywood animation just puts a famous voice in a role to lure the adults in. Instead of, y'know, picking the voice actor who's best for the role.

Another reason to respect Pixar. Bar the occasional Tom Hanks or Owen Wilson they tend to steer clear of big names. (Awaits list of big names in Pixar films).

mikemac1

Father of the Bride

Comedy with Steve Martin, Diane Keaton

A few laughs but very, very average. I saw this back in the nineties. Hmmmm...it was not as good as I remembered through my childhood eyes

MilanPan!c

TheMollusc wrote: »

A Serious Man (2009)

Watched this again after having recorded it quite a while back. Loved it the first time and glad to say that I really enjoyed the rewatch.

A Serious Man is an often overlooked film in the crowded, competitive filmography that belongs to Joel and Ethan Coen. It was nominated for Best Picture of course, but not even that seemed to bring it to as large an audience as this film deserved. It is one of their smaller films, more personal too, but make no mistake that this is another terrific effort from two terrific filmmakers.

The Coen's sharpness, humour and nihilism is as present as it ever has been. This is a black comedy that almost seems to laugh through it's own tears. A film that's ultimate theme is about the chaos and unpredictability that is always present in life, we try to understand it but at the end of the day life can't be understood or deciphered, and there is nothing you can do about it. Simply accept it. Accept the mystery.

I personally have fallen into the camp that feels the Cohens have become very hit and miss.

I disliked this movie greatly when it came out and would probably actively avoid it in the future. My wife loved it.



For the record I think:

Fargo
Millers Crossing
Blood Simple and
No Country

are basically perfect.

O Brother has greatly faded as has Raising Arizona.

Never ever ever liked Lebowski, Burn or Serious Man.

Never saw True Grit as I actively dislike all westerns - and yes I know I'm a heathen.

Marty McFly

TICKLE_ME_ELMO wrote: »

How To Train Your Dragon is one of my favorite films, animated or otherwise. Saw the trailer for the 2nd one the other day and I am cautiously optimistic about it.

There making a sequel I did not know that, just made my night I'm off tofind the trailer .

Mickeroo wrote: »

I think the reason Casper works so well is the same reason the CGI in The Mask has aged really well too (imo). It was deliberately done to look cartoonish, with LOTR it was supposed to look real which is always going to age badly imo. It's the same way old stop motion stuff looks a bit naff now.

As for Terminator 2, some of the scenes in that still look amazing but some look awful too (when the T1000 explodes near the end for example). I think metal, liquid or otherwise is just easier to render than living breathing creatures, same reason the CGI in Transformers holds up pretty well too. Though you'd have to wonder how they made liquid metal look so bad in the latest Hobbit film.

Jurassic Park is kind of the exception to the rule, the T-Rex scene puts a lot of modern CGI to shame still, but I think that might be down to them having the scene take place at night in the rain and the use of animatronic models to compliment it. Lots of the other CG parts in the film look crap now though.

Yea never thought of that you do have a point there the fact there made to look cartoonish will help in hiding the fact it is CGI.

I think the bit bolded is the main point though in films were the CGI is complimented it tends to work better and hold up better because it can blend seamlessly but too many films these days are going full CGI and it can look just awful one of the worst in recent memory was Wolverine which in parts looked dreadful.

Mizu_Ger

We're the Millers
A good few laughs here. I tend to like Jason Sudekis comedies, but Will Poulter's (Son of Rambow) dopey son is the standout. The others get some laughs, but Poulter's face alone had me laughing. There were some plot contrivances, but a comedy like this is bound to have them. I would have preferred a more cynical ending.

The Right Stuff
First time I have seen this. 30 minutes in and I wasn't liking it. Up to that point it was a very earnest, humourless affair. Looked like it was going to be 3 hours of gung-ho Americana, but then the space race started. Plenty of humour and the characters were much more likeable. The first 30 min made more sense then. Really liked it in the end.

Frozen
I wasn't crazy about the songs, but it looked great (the creation of the ice castle) and had some good humour. My four year old was getting a bit fidgety because he wanted to see the snowman from the trailer. That character doesn't turn up until well into the film! Saw it in a packed audience full of kids and was surprised at the collective gasps and silence during certain sections. It pulled all the right strings!

Now You See Me
Started off well enough, but the whole (small scale) magic concept was dropped early on in favour of action and pyrotechnics. Still passed the time well enough, but can't see myself watching it again. One thing that I still didn't get is

why did the 4 of them agree to put themselves on the line just to follow the directions of a mystery man? They had nothing to gain and everything to lose. They weren't the types to just do it for kicks.

The Hobbit: Desolation of Smaug
Went to see the first part last year with 5 others and none of them was bothered to see the second part! I soldiered on and watched it in 48fps. It whipped along at a good pace, but it really is a bunch of set pieces that are drawn out for too long. The Smaug scenes were excellent (both technically and story-wise). Reminded me of the Gollum scenes in part 1 (which was the highlight of that one). This trilogy really should have been just 2 films. It doesn't have the heft of the LOTR trilogy in it's current form.

The Magician (1958):
Keep getting interrupted while watching this. Driving me mad. I've been waiting to watch it for ages!

MilanPan!c

American Hustle.

Fantastic.

I'm a David O Russell fanboy, yes, but this is great even for him.

Jennifer Lawrence can do no wrong At the moment.

B.A._Baracus

Star Trek Into Darkness (2013)

Saw it in the cinema when it came out and honestly I felt "well that wasnt as good as the previous and its not that great" but after re-watching its alright I quite enjoyed it this time around. Maybe still not as good as the previous but hey, could of been worse. Its a good watch

ButtersSuki

Haven't posted in ages and have a lot to cover so here's what I can remember:

American Hustle, superb cast (Christian Bale, Jennifer Lawrence, Amy Adams, Jeremy Renner, Robert DeNiro, Michael Pena amongst others…and Louis CK in a small cameo, and Richard from Boardwalk Empire (Jack Huston) in con-artist turned FBI tout movie. As stylish as it is cool, it makes 2+ hours go by effortlessly. Though Cooper is given the lead acting role in the credits, this is really Bale's film and he's absolutely outstanding in this as the con artist. Lawrence commands the screen when she's on it, but is only in a few scenes really. Amy Adams is quite good too, in fact, it's almost impossible to fault any performance in this. I didn't really like The Fighter but I loved Silver Linings Playbook, and O'Russell delivers again here in spades. Won't spoil the plot any further for anyone as I'm pretty sure it's not out here yet, but for me it's an easy 8/10.

The Great Gatsby
Watched it on 3D Blu Ray. Visually stunning as you'd pretty much expect from Baz Luhrman, accompanied by a nice Jay Z selected soundtrack serves up a bit of a feast for the eyes and ears. I knew the story having read the book many moons ago but the way it's sold to the audience here is "modern", to say the least. DiCaprio basically plays himself, Carey Mulligan is infinitely better than in this than the last movie I saw her in (Shame), whilst Tobey Maguire is surprisingly good in his role. Joel Edgerton however was a bit too hammy (the irony of saying that in a Luhrman production) for my liking, which is a shame as I normally like his stuff. Overall though, I found myself liking this way more than I had expected. I'd give it a solid 7.5/10

Prisoners
Had heard almost nothing about this when I discovered it recently. Amazing cast, with excellent performances from Hugh Jackman, Paul Dano and Melissa Leo in particular; ably supported by Jake Gyllenhal, Terence Howard, Maria Bello. In fairness to Gyllenhal, it's prob. the best I've ever seen him but the other performances are just so good they deserve mention as such. A couple of plot holes let it down slightly for me (I won't spoil it for anyone by detailing same), but it's still a very good watch and quite disturbing at times.

Worth it for Leo's transition from old, frail helpless grandmother to gun-weilding psycho alone.

As soon as I saw Dano on screen I just kept asking myself why doesn't he take on more roles? Overall, a 7/10.

The Five Year Engagement
Was made to watch this by the other half, but it was actually ok. Not your average rom com by any means, and very long at well over 2 hours, it follows the arc of a couple on a well, you've guessed it, 5 year engagement. Jason Segel (who also wrote this) and Emily Blunt are he leads, but for me the real star was Mad Men's Alison Brie (Trudy Campbell in MM) who is almost completely unrecognisable from her Mad Men persona and steals a lot of scenes in this. It does have a happy ending, but not before taking many turns yo don't expect from your average rom com. If you're forced as a male to watch rom coms, you could do an awful lot worse than this. 7/10

The Change Up
Another rom com of sorts (this time merged with body-swap genre). Mildly amusing but nothing more than that. I expected better but was disappointed. Ryan Reynolds and Jason Bateman are the male leads with Olivia Wilde and Leslie Mann thrown in for some eye candy for the guys. It won't take a genius to figure out what happens in it, so watch something else instead. 3/10

Now You See Me
Of course a few short weeks after I praised him more than once Woody Harrelson gets revenge on me by appearing in a turkey, along with Mark Ruffalo, Isla Fisher, Jesse Eisenberg and James Franco's brother. I'd expect Fisher and Franco to be in this sort of muck, but what Eisenberg, Ruffalo and Harrelson were thinking is beyond me. This is a painful watch, full of cliches, bad acting, plot holes within plot holes, continuity errors, corny lines, and overall it possesses all the charm and sophistication of Mrs. Brown's Boys in its efforts to be slick. Throw in a couple of what I can only describe as "silly" cameos from Michael Caine and Morgan Freeman doing his best to out-overact Al Pacino and you get this absolute waste of celluloid. A very sorry 2/10 (amazingly this has a score of 7.3/10 on the imdb!!!!! WTF?).

mikemac1

Hitler on Trial

Based on a 1931 trial when Hitler was brought to court to explain the violence from the storm troopers. The script is based on the court transcripts.

It's engaging and if you like law films with the cut and thrust of sharp dialogue you will like this

A minor annoyance was the lawyers's mother. Irish actress and her strong Irish accent was a bit laughable

Bullseye1

The awakening (2011) old fashioned ghost story which started out promisingly but petered out towards the end. 6/10

American Hustle (2013-2014) very enjoyable movie with a killer cast. Great turnout from Bale and Adams. 8/10

The Act of Killing (2013) surreal documentary from Indonesia. It's pointless trying to explain in any great detail but essentially high ranking leaders involved in a war that took place in Indonesia who were responsible for murder on a massive scale are asked to relive their stories in Hollywood style reinactments (10/10).

Mike Litoris

ButtersSuki wrote: »

American Hustle, superb cast (Christian Bale, Jennifer Lawrence, Amy Adams, Jeremy Renner, Robert DeNiro, Michael Pena amongst others…and Louis CK in a small cameo, and Richard from Boardwalk Empire (Jack Huston) in con-artist turned FBI tout movie. As stylish as it is cool, it makes 2+ hours go by effortlessly. Though Cooper is given the lead acting role in the credits, this is really Bale's film and he's absolutely outstanding in this as the con artist. Lawrence commands the screen when she's on it, but is only in a few scenes really. Amy Adams is quite good too, in fact, it's almost impossible to fault any performance in this. I didn't really like The Fighter but I loved Silver Linings Playbook, and O'Russell delivers again here in spades. Won't spoil the plot any further for anyone as I'm pretty sure it's not out here yet, but for me it's an easy 8/10.

Just watched this. Damn good movie. Bale is absolutely brilliant to watch when he's in this form. Outstanding soundtrack too.

Sir Digby Chicken Caesar

brother and a scene at the sea

scene at the sea really is a lovely little film.

The Black Oil

The Last Stand

Mostly watchable by the numbers nonsense with a few moments of levity. Forest Whitaker is angry face FBI man (them federal boyos be incompetent, ya see) and some other guy is the empty villain who escapes. Every couple of minutes we have car nonsense, shooting and deaths because how else are ya gonna fill the time? Running parallel we have Arnie as the serious face tumbleweed town sheriff whom you shouldn't underestimate - he quickly starts to pick up the crumbs. Standard 1:1 at the end (corn field was fun, mind), poor green screen with the bridge.

Tony EH

'Wrong Turn'

Five godshites and Quinn from 'Dexter' take a...ahem..."wrong turn" and end up (mostly) as lunch for the lovely cannibal family from 54 Appalachian Drive. Chopping ensues.

'Wrong Turn' is absolutely nothing that you haven't seen before. It basically steals it's entire running time from 'Deliverance', 'Southern Comfort', 'The Hills Have Eyes' and 'The Texas Chainsaw Massacre'. If you've seen any of those (far superior) films, then you'll know the score. It's not actually that bad really and there's something in it to enjoy...sort of? But, you'll have a hard time figuring out exactly what it is. Well...I know I did.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v_mEmbpPiTo

'Wrong Turn 2'

The lovely cannibal family are back!

Despite being blown to smithereens in the first one

. This time, it's a bunch of gobshites and Henry Rollins who are on the menu. Said morons, and Henry Rollins, are part of some reality TV adventure survival nonsense that, fortunately, goes awry. Chopping ensues.

The sequel actually got better reviews than the original cinema released first one. Although, this straight-to-DVD extravaganza is probably worse, to be honest. It looks cheap, the acting is generally worse and the only thing going for it really is Rollins, who seems to be taking the piss. At least I hope he was taking the piss.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=npplqC_Bc24

'Wrong Turn 3'

Oh for god's sake...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yYAyDmOjZi0

That's it...I'm out.

longshotvalue

Just watched Flashbacks of a fool staring some of the time Daniel Craig, i thought there are some silly moments, but i really enjoyed it..

Felicity Jones dancing set in the 70s is the best scene in the movie..

And Claire Forlani, back in this for a few minutes..

Barna77

Saving Mr Banks.
Emma Thompson is just brilliant. Saw a docummentary some weeks ago about the whole struggling process of persuading Travers to sign the rights to the movie, so was ready for it. During the credits they play part of one of the tapes she demanded being recorded. You get the idea how she was. Uptight to say the least.

mikemac1

SWAT: Firefight

Gabriel Macht was the main actor

A SWAT sergeant is sent from LA to Detroit to train a team. A hostage rescue goes wrong and the survivor is a CIA/NSA off the books trained killer. He starts a feud with the sergeant and spends the rest of the film making threatening phone calls

The film has the obligatory leggy colleague who sleeps with our hero, the walkout when the officers declare they are a team and if one goes they all go, the slow motion walk with wind blowing through hair after a succusful mission and don't forget the MacGuyver style snip the bomb and stop the timer with one second left.

I like Macht from the TV show Suits which is why I gave it a chance

Music was poor, the shots of Detriot were good and the script was godawful. This was a terrible film, thumps down

A V A

Lone survivor

truly touching movie, but i thought there would be more to the story

Bipolar Joe

Cockneys Vs. Zombies

A group of people in the East end of London go up against the beginnings of a zombie apocalypse. Started watching thinking it was going to be awful, or at least really boring. It turned out to be a really enjoyable film! Sort of a mix between Shaun of the Dead and Attack the Block, with a lot of Bubbo Ho Tep thrown in. Group of young people rob a bank to help save an old folks home, and all Hell breaks loose. It's kind of dumb, but it works for what it is. English alumni like Alan Ford and Richard Briers steal the show, especially Briers, who has my favourite scene (The greatest chase outside of a Bourne movie).

It's a real love letter to the cockney mentality, tongue in cheek without relying on shock humour or farts. Special effects were very good, but there was some CG blood splatter, which I can forgive because of the budget. The practical effects were great, especially when the dude from Eastenders gets eaten, and crazy metal plate head dude

gets turned and then blown the fuck up

. Recommended to zombie fans. If you liked Shaun of the Dead, I reckon you should give this a try. Not as many references to other zombie flicks, which is something a lot of people liked about SotD. Deserves at least a +7 / 10.

ambro25

Polisse (IMDB)

French drama following a children unit team of a Parisian police force.

Amateurish editing, but reasonably well-acted (despite predictability of some characters' development/portrayal).

At times painfully hard (what with the expected topics of paedophilia, parental abuse, etc.), with bouts of hysterical/genius comedy (in a gallows humour kind of way - the scene about the teenage girl being interviewed about getting her mobile back will have you rolling on the floor).

Above all, poignant and which will not (well, should not) leave you indifferent. You can double the emotions if you are a parent, as well.

A cut above Tavernier's L627 (IMDB) in the "gritty police work at the coalface" stakes, IMHO.

ghogie91

Pain & Gain:
I thought this movie was very boring, I had looked forward to it so much and was so disappointed. The Rock is obviously the new action hero in movies now. I actually quite like him in a movie too. But jesus they made a fool of any acting talent in that movie.

The Heat:
Although it was tipped as a girly movie and only watched it as the GF wanted to. I ended up loving it and think its one of the better films of 2013

Would You Rather:
From what I took from this movie that it was a low budget movie (although I could be very wrong) but I though it was very good, nothin like a movie that makes you squirm back into yourself and havnt come across anything like that since the Saw Movies. Worth the watch

We Steal Secrets:
Thought this was a very informative and interesting movie to the others I watched it with. Since I actually followed the entire story of Julian Assange and Wikileaks as it was unfolding I though the movie itself was kind of taking a stab in the dark at some of the facts it tried to put across. There is a total lack of interviews with key witnesses and associates, they compensated for this with older acquaintances and like minded people rather than worth while interviewees. Still, for those of you who dont know the story of it, it would be worth the watch, not to be taken as truth in its entirety

Cant think of the others off hand...

maguic24

ButtersSuki wrote: »

Haven't posted in ages and have a lot to cover so here's what I can remember:

American Hustle, superb cast (Christian Bale, Jennifer Lawrence, Amy Adams, Jeremy Renner, Robert DeNiro, Michael Pena amongst others…and Louis CK in a small cameo, and Richard from Boardwalk Empire (Jack Huston) in con-artist turned FBI tout movie. As stylish as it is cool, it makes 2+ hours go by effortlessly. Though Cooper is given the lead acting role in the credits, this is really Bale's film and he's absolutely outstanding in this as the con artist. Lawrence commands the screen when she's on it, but is only in a few scenes really. Amy Adams is quite good too, in fact, it's almost impossible to fault any performance in this. I didn't really like The Fighter but I loved Silver Linings Playbook, and O'Russell delivers again here in spades. Won't spoil the plot any further for anyone as I'm pretty sure it's not out here yet, but for me it's an easy 8/10.

The Great Gatsby
Watched it on 3D Blu Ray. Visually stunning as you'd pretty much expect from Baz Luhrman, accompanied by a nice Jay Z selected soundtrack serves up a bit of a feast for the eyes and ears. I knew the story having read the book many moons ago but the way it's sold to the audience here is "modern", to say the least. DiCaprio basically plays himself, Carey Mulligan is infinitely better than in this than the last movie I saw her in (Shame), whilst Tobey Maguire is surprisingly good in his role. Joel Edgerton however was a bit too hammy (the irony of saying that in a Luhrman production) for my liking, which is a shame as I normally like his stuff. Overall though, I found myself liking this way more than I had expected. I'd give it a solid 7.5/10

Prisoners
Had heard almost nothing about this when I discovered it recently. Amazing cast, with excellent performances from Hugh Jackman, Paul Dano and Melissa Leo in particular; ably supported by Jake Gyllenhal, Terence Howard, Maria Bello. In fairness to Gyllenhal, it's prob. the best I've ever seen him but the other performances are just so good they deserve mention as such. A couple of plot holes let it down slightly for me (I won't spoil it for anyone by detailing same), but it's still a very good watch and quite disturbing at times.

Worth it for Leo's transition from old, frail helpless grandmother to gun-weilding psycho alone.

As soon as I saw Dano on screen I just kept asking myself why doesn't he take on more roles? Overall, a 7/10.

The Five Year Engagement
Was made to watch this by the other half, but it was actually ok. Not your average rom com by any means, and very long at well over 2 hours, it follows the arc of a couple on a well, you've guessed it, 5 year engagement. Jason Segel (who also wrote this) and Emily Blunt are he leads, but for me the real star was Mad Men's Alison Brie (Trudy Campbell in MM) who is almost completely unrecognisable from her Mad Men persona and steals a lot of scenes in this. It does have a happy ending, but not before taking many turns yo don't expect from your average rom com. If you're forced as a male to watch rom coms, you could do an awful lot worse than this. 7/10

The Change Up
Another rom com of sorts (this time merged with body-swap genre). Mildly amusing but nothing more than that. I expected better but was disappointed. Ryan Reynolds and Jason Bateman are the male leads with Olivia Wilde and Leslie Mann thrown in for some eye candy for the guys. It won't take a genius to figure out what happens in it, so watch something else instead. 3/10

Now You See Me
Of course a few short weeks after I praised him more than once Woody Harrelson gets revenge on me by appearing in a turkey, along with Mark Ruffalo, Isla Fisher, Jesse Eisenberg and James Franco's brother. I'd expect Fisher and Franco to be in this sort of muck, but what Eisenberg, Ruffalo and Harrelson were thinking is beyond me. This is a painful watch, full of cliches, bad acting, plot holes within plot holes, continuity errors, corny lines, and overall it possesses all the charm and sophistication of Mrs. Brown's Boys in its efforts to be slick. Throw in a couple of what I can only describe as "silly" cameos from Michael Caine and Morgan Freeman doing his best to out-overact Al Pacino and you get this absolute waste of celluloid. A very sorry 2/10 (amazingly this has a score of 7.3/10 on the imdb!!!!! WTF?).

Seen Prisoners in the cinema before Christmas, great film!!! 8/10 for me!!

Gamayun

Final Destination 3 (2006)
Death kills stock characters via several gory mousetrap/Pee-Wee's-breakfast-machine/Wallace-and-Gromit-contraption style techniques. OK.

Sky High (2005)
Nice, uncynical, kids/family film about a superhero academy. Enjoyable.

bnt

My Christmas movie viewing consisted of:
3 x Toy Story movies;
2 x Harry Potter movies - or, I should say, one movie in two parts.

I've never read any of the Harry Potter books, and while I have seen the first six movies, I didn't follow every detail of the various plots. I did read up on the "horcrux" things before seeing Deathly Hallows, so I wasn't at a loss when it came to the main story arc.

Spoilers ahead - I'm going to assume most interested folks have seen it by now. I had been wondering whether the story would come full circle, or even whether Hogwarts was going to be part of the story at all, so it was interesting to see how it looked like London during the Blitz at one point. Very heavy on the CGI, though I suppose that was unavoidable, it would have been impractical to do those effects "practically".

I thought it was pretty good, but I still quite don't get how huge the whole Harry Potter thing became straight away. It's highly derivative of older works e.g. Hogwarts is a magical version of one of the Public schools found in Just William or Billy Bunter. But this isn't the forum for that discussion, I suppose ...

TICKLE_ME_ELMO

bnt wrote: »

I thought it was pretty good, but I still quite don't get how huge the whole Harry Potter thing became straight away. It's highly derivative of older works e.g. Hogwarts is a magical version of one of the Public schools found in Just William or Billy Bunter. But this isn't the forum for that discussion, I suppose ...

The thing about the Harry Potter books is that they matured with their readers. The early books (and films) are aimed at 11/12 year olds. So you had a whole generation of kids for who this world was their first exposure to that kind of thing. They weren't aware of the other similar things out there that other generations would have read. Each book got a little more mature and serious and so the original kids that read the first book would have happily stuck with them throughout while younger kids were discovering the earlier books again and again.

poundapunnet

bnt wrote: »

My Christmas movie viewing consisted of:
3 x Toy Story movies;

I watched Toy Story 3 for the third time yesterday as my mother was watching it, thought I'd surely be immune to the emotions this go round but nope. It's the strongest of the bunch in my opinion, I've never seen another kids' film like it in terms of reducing grown ups to blubbering wrecks while still being very entertaining and appropriate for children, makes for a few jarring shifts in tone but overall a tricky balance finely managed. A film revolving around toys

escaping from a day-care centre

shouldn't be able to make you think about your own mortality, the nature of love and dependence and the gut-punch of letting go of childhood like that! Me and my mam had to take a break after the scene

where they've accepted being burnt in the incinerator

because she was too upset (she's terrible at sad films, can't do them at all). I had to convince her to watch the rest and stay for the credits to cheer herself up. An incredible way to wrap up the trilogy

Sir Digby Chicken Caesar

The Comedy

don't know if this film is fantastically strange or strangely fantastic. The main character is waiting for his father to die so he can collect the inheritance.. although maybe that's not the right way to put it as it doesn't seem like he gives a toss either way. The film is mainly him and his friends being drunk the whole time and being unbelievably insincere and cruel to random people they meet. It's like social graces are just something that happen to other people. I might be making it sound like a remake of the hangover part fifteen but it's nothing like that or that kind of buddy arsehole movie, it's just.. odd but brilliant.

well, I thought so anyway. Going by imdb and RT I'm in the minority.