ysbreker

Movie/TV recommendations

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Anyone seen 'The Mist'? I heard about it a while back and it intruiged me, so gave it a watch. Normally horror films are a bit gash, but this one is good! If you let yourself be pulled into the film, it's really tense and (dare I say it?) actually made me a scaredy-cat! Not all the horror comes from the creatures either - the human element gets a little scary in the supermarket too.

After a violent storm attacks a town in Maine, an approaching cloud of mist appears the next morning. As the mist quickly envelops the area, a group of people get trapped in a local grocery store -among them, artist David Drayton and his five-year-old son. The people soon discover that within the mist lives numerous species of horrific, unworldly creatures that entered through an inter-dimensional rift, which may or may not have been caused by a nearby military base. As the world around them manifests into a literal hell-on-earth, the horrified citizens try desperately to survive this apocalyptic disaster.

Kind of reminded me of a sort of Half-Life story, but told from the perspective of general punters rather than scientists.

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Anyone seen 'The Mist'? I heard about it a while back and it intruiged me, so gave it a watch. Normally horror films are a bit gash, but this one is good! If you let yourself be pulled into the film, it's really tense and (dare I say it?) actually made me a scaredy-cat! Not all the horror comes from the creatures either - the human element gets a little scary in the supermarket too.

I've had this in the mental queue for ages, after reading unexpected praise for it some time ago. I even had a copy at one point but didn't get around to watching it.

Must make an effort to do that now; I love a good, traditional horror flick, not this horribly-played-out teen slasher crap the cinema's drowned in for years now.

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Watchmen

[good review]

One :tup: out of an unspecified amount.

:yep: Definitely. The reviews which I think best summed my opinion said that it laboured under the weight of the comic book. As Moore has always said: Watchmen is inherently unfilmable because it was designed to play to the strengths of a comic book.

Saying that, I DID enjoy it, I just don't know exactly how much, but it's definitely an experience worth having at the cinema.

Overall, I guess it just was a really odd experience - not necessarily great or terrible. For example, copying the comic book so closely makes for a very unusual film. (We saw at least six people walk out.) The structure (Watchmen's strongest point) is retained and it's very odd to actually watch.

Secondly, this was Alan Moore's voice on the big screen... for the first time ever. That was an odd experience to view with a bunch of strangers. No happy endings, no over-sentimentality (certainly no more than was featured in the comic, anyway), very un-Hollywood and a very unforgiving style.

Thirdly, the direction occasionally veered into MTV music video stylee whenever Moore's work wasn't around to set the rules. I'm talking about the fights, in particular. The outrageous violence was interesting (and in places added a bit of counter-balance -- like Dr. Manhattan's emotional coldness when gorily blasting people) but it was the wire-work which seemed a little OTT. These people aren't supposed to be "super"-heroes afterall, but they can do some insanely over-the-top stuff... Punch through walls, hit people so hard that they spin 360 degrees in the air, etc.

Fourthly, the overall message and storyline was massively left intact -- and some of its weaker elements were actually from the comic book (Dr. Manhattan's conversation with Laurie on Mars was almost verbatim, but I wasn't convinced by it).

Lastly, the film actually improved on several bits of the comic. For example, the Dan and Laurie love story was MUCH more satisfying in the film (and very un-Hollywood, too). I really felt that these were two "normal" people struggling with life. Their love scene felt "real" (and actually involved love - gasp!), instead of it just being used as titillation for the audience (or at least less so than the average Hollywood love scene).

The threat of nuclear war actually feels a lot more tangible in the film (in the comic it seems that only the "lunatic fringe" are talking about it seriously) which is REALLY important for the story to work.

Also, the change in the "big reveal" actually made a LOT more sense than in the original comic, and even small added moments like Rorshach's final ink blot were pretty cool, too.

The film did fail in places, too: Whatever happened to Niteowl I? The magazine being introduced in the last scene was a bit of a shock, too. There were some moments that could have been added from the comic (Manhattan giving himself a symbol/the Hooded Justice showing no mercy to Jupiter), but these might well be in the "director's cut" -- it was already really long.

Also, I don't think the "big reveal" was AS shocking/satisfying as in the comic when it was unveiled (I could be wrong), probably because so many moments along the way fell a bit flat.

I feel oddly ambivalent about the whole thing, but I also enjoyed it :tup:

Edited by ThunderPeel2001

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The first episode didn't seem to be cut in any way. It was absolutely packed with swearing, and it ran for a constant 60 minutes without ads.

Oh, wow—I know other HBO shows have been edited for ads and content, so I'm glad to hear that isn't the case here! Maybe FX is different in the UK than in the US.

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ThunderPeel, I'll certainly buy that a good director can make all the difference, you could always tell when you were watching a Whedon episode, but we'll have to disagree the acting quality in Buffy/Angel (both of which I love btw).

I'm really heartened to see everyone enjoying Watchmen, or at least not hating it. You all seem confused as to how much you actually enjoyed it which if nothing else is making me curious to see it.

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Fair enough.

I can easily see how a lot of people might not like it.

My own viewing and subsequent reaction to it felt strangely personal, almost intimate, despite seeing it with friends. Maybe it is because the act of reading a book or comic creates the story inside your head, and I've subsequently had the story living inside my brain for several years. Witnessing the same story appear on the big screen still felt just as subjective. As a result I'm more interested in working out exactly what I think of it than defending it against those that dislike it. A strange experience, as Thunderpeel said.

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Just came back from watching it a second time and I do believe that Dan might have hit the nail on the head: If you've read (and enjoyed) the comic book, watching the film is like having those intimate moments brought to life... and you're probably filling in some of the film's lapses yourself.

I have to say: Time might prove me wrong on this one, but I LOVED seeing the comic book come to life the second time... and I prefer the tweaks to Dan and Laurie's personality and I much prefer the ending, too.

But I doubt I would have these feelings if I hadn't liked the original comic book first.

Such an odd cinema experience...

Snyder gave the fanboys exactly what we wanted, but now we've got it, we're not so sure... As Alan Moore once said: "It's not the job of an artist to give an audience what they want, it's their job to give them what they need."

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ThunderPeel, I'll certainly buy that a good director can make all the difference, you could always tell when you were watching a Whedon episode, but we'll have to disagree the acting quality in Buffy/Angel (both of which I love btw).

Fair enough (I've just discovered them both and, to my utter amazement, I have fallen head over heels -- what @#£%ing brilliant TV).

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I didn't enjoy Watchmen. I think a large part of it was due to the fucking assholes in the row in front of me who were laughing at and loving the most perverted scenes. They laughed at the rap scene. The laughed when The Comedian shot the pregnant woman. They couldn't get enough of him killing random people on the street. But, then again, I couldn't help but leave that unrelentingly violent movie feeling like it may have been targeted at the assholes in front of me. What the hell was up with that soft-porn scene set to Hallelujah?

I saw Synecdoche, New York last week as well. Now there's a movie worth watching. :tup:

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I didn't enjoy Watchmen. I think a large part of it was due to the fucking assholes in the row in front of me who were laughing at and loving the most perverted scenes.

That's really shitty and ruins the experience, regardless of the film. :(

I had a similar sort of thing happen when I went to see The Dark Knight at my local flea pit. I avoid our local cinema somewhat dogmatically, as it's poorly kitted out, isn't very comfortable and is generally populated by... well, let's just come out and say it: scum.

Fortunately, the group of shit-heads in question - whooping, running about and texting on their phones most of the way through - didn't spoil the film for me. However, I enjoyed it a lot more watching it at home on my 30th last month with Mrs V. :tup:

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Man, the last few times I've been to the cinema, I've had to shout at scrotes like that. The very last time, we were watching 'The Changeling', 3 teenage girls had been messing around all film, up and down, in and out, then I heard one of their phones ring. Fair enough, thought I, they'll quieten it. But no. Oh no, no, no, no, no. She started talking on it. Whispering fairly loudly and giggling. THEN SHE PASSED IT TO HER FRIEND SO SHE COULD TALK. A fuse blew. I jumped over to them and grabbed the phone and told them to fucking shut up and fuck off out of it. I nearly threw the phone down the stairs, but I gave it back to them. Then they shut up for a bit, until it started again. I went and told one of the attendants, and fair play, she was right on it - got a burly security guard to watch over them for the rest of the film. A pyrrhic victory, since the film (and it's atmosphere) was already completely wrecked. Little, little, little bastards. :(

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Whedon seems to be a very poor judge of acting ability, particularly when it comes to young women.

This doesn't hold up in the face of Firefly - the cast were superb throughout.

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What with Watchmen being over 18's only and all that (at least here in the UK), you think there'd be less of this sort of thing.

But I've had some horrible experiences in cinemas. I remember when I saw Will Ferrell's attempt at The Truman Show (the average Stranger Than Fiction) there was this horrible couple that just kept talking loudly through the entire film -- I was half the cinema away from them and I could still hear them clearly... People were politely telling them to please be quiet, and they were being told to "fuck off!" in reply.

It'd be one thing if it was scrotes, but this couple were in their 30s, and the people they were aggressively telling to "fuck off" were in their 60s... What the hell is all that about? Eventually more people got involved but it was pretty clear that these people were not quite "right in the head" and I don't think anyone fancied tussling with them. Thankfully they left of their own accord, but not without creating such a horrible atmosphere that it had ruined the film for a lot of people.

Such a bizarre and horrible experience... why bother going to the cinema if you don't want to watch the film?? It's not like it's a cheap way to spend the evening.

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Not so long ago I was thinking that a real cinema club could work because of these kind of stories.

A small cinema with just one room, but created to have a comfortable cinema experience.

Like a gym you would not by a simple ticket but a membership. It would immediately filter all the jerks and you will just watch the movies with other cinema lovers.

One of the member is a jerk, just cancel his membership, he will not come back.

Because you know and trust your customers and you deal with a smaller crowd you can do a lot of things:

- Get the coats at the entrance that you don't have to bother with them during the movie.

- Have clean seats!

- You can reserve your seat from the cinema club website

- Your customers could even ask for specific movies (new of old).

- But also small details, like they know how tall you are so your kid of small wife will not have a giant in the seat in front of them.

Yes I know, I like to dream. But it would be so cool...

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This doesn't hold up in the face of Firefly - the cast were superb throughout.

Couldn't agree more more, Firefly was superb.

Except for Morena Baccarin

Not so long ago I was thinking that a real cinema club could work because of these kind of stories.

There was something similar when I was at uni. We'd pile into a lecture theatre with a projector and watch films and tv shows. Then we'd head off to a pub and socialise after. It was really cool :tup:

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Who else here thought, like me, that the Watchmen movie ending might actually have been better, in some ways, than the comic? Not that the movie is better on the whole, by far not,

but the twist that it was actually Manhattan instead of a squid monster... made sense.

I must disagree with the person who said on the previous page that the nuclear threat was felt more in the movie than in the comic. Sir, you are mistaken to a quadratic degree. It was quite the opposite. The movie diluted that aspect by tying it into a modern 'energy crisis' narrative, and the comic book had almost every panel plastered with newspaper headlines of imminent war and lots of details, sidecharacters like the stand owner having conversations about the war, etc etc.

What I was a bit apprehensive about was the way Veidt was immediately portraited as the conglomerate bad guy. Even though he never literally said anything to the effect of ambiguity towards his purpose (stopping the war and trying to straighten everything out), the acting was so incredibly obvious. There were pauses in his lines, slow turns, lingering eyecontact... to my mind it screamed I AM THE BAD GUY SOMEONE ARREST ME!!.

Great ending though. I loved how there was an added emphasis on the loneliness of Ozymandias, which he himself had created by his actions, with the lyrical score of Mozart's Requiem and Shelley's poem among the ruins of his Antarctic fortress. It was a small moment, but super.

But the best bits were the Rorschach and Dr. Manhattan scenes. I could easily bear a whole movie of Manhattan's ruminations on Mars, accompanied by Philip Glass pieces.

Edited by Rodi

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Can we remember to use the spoiler tags here please? Although I have read Watchmen I haven't seen the film yet and, given the praise it's been getting, I was rather looking forward to seeing the new ending for myself.

Edit: Thanks Rodi :tup:

Edited by SignorSuperdouche

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Absolutely Rodi, a few of us said the same thing above,

about the ending being more elegant in the film.

But the best bits were the Rorschach and Dr. Manhattan scenes. I could easily bear a whole movie of Manhattan's ruminations on Mars, accompanied by Philip Glass pieces.

Heh, at the beginning of the Mars scene, I thought "This sounds a bit like Koyaanisqatsi, I wonder if they've used music by Phillip Glass" then the more strident part used also in GTA IV kicked in :)

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I'm going to chip in on the Watchmen debate while it's still going:

I really disliked it. It's one of those films, like The Dark Knight, where there's so much stuff going on, all slickly presented, that I come out of thinking to myself that I probably did like it, until I start remembering all the bad stuff about it that adds up to make it actually not that good a film at all.

[FULL OF SPOILERS:]

As mentioned already, they're too afraid to cut things out, and so it's this very dense piece with no structure to hold onto. The comic manages the mix of flashbacks and present events perfectly, but the film isn't able to replicate it. The central whodunnit mystery gets lost, as does the Comedian/Laurie revelation; a lot of stuff could have been cut, eg Rorshach's origin, Nite Owl I.

Also, it's full of those little inexplicable changes that suggest the director/screenwriter doesn't actually understand why certain setpieces are cool - young Rorshach eating the teen's face rather than stubbing the cigarette in his eye, pointlessly putting in the newsvendor and black kid for the nuclear explosion rather than the two cops whom we've actually seen before, Rorshach defeating the second Big Figure thug by smashing his head into the toilet with the electrocution merely an afterthought - that cropped up in Sin City too.

Nixon's face is awful, Leonard Cohen over the sex scene makes it super-camp and unfortunately sounds like Rorschach was singing the vocals, the midnight clock metaphor is turned into a bad cardboard prop, there's no sense of nuclear terror, several beats are missed in the Dan/Laurie relationship, Dr Manhattan's schlong is like a third leg. Veidt was miscast and misinterpreted - he felt like a criminal mastermind from the get-go, rather than a cheesy, publicity hungry, savvy sell-out superhero. Also, the film doesn't feel grimy enough - everything outside has a CG sheen, and everything inside feels like a studio set. It's almost the same aesthetic as Mystery Men.

Phew!

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I'm going to chip in on the Watchmen debate while it's still going:

[FULL OF SPOILERS:]

Phew!

All good points. Although I must correct you in that all the outdoor shots (other than the wide-pan) were real outdoor sets. And I loved them and the indoor sets both.

And I still liked it.

I think I'm going to go back and see it again next week. It's definitely a film that deserves consideration, if nothing else.

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I'm going to chip in on the Watchmen debate while it's still going:

I really disliked it. It's one of those films, like The Dark Knight, where there's so much stuff going on, all slickly presented, that I come out of thinking to myself that I probably did like it, until I start remembering all the bad stuff about it that adds up to make it actually not that good a film at all.

[FULL OF SPOILERS:]

As mentioned already, they're too afraid to cut things out, and so it's this very dense piece with no structure to hold onto. The comic manages the mix of flashbacks and present events perfectly, but the film isn't able to replicate it. The central whodunnit mystery gets lost, as does the Comedian/Laurie revelation; a lot of stuff could have been cut, eg Rorshach's origin, Nite Owl I.

Also, it's full of those little inexplicable changes that suggest the director/screenwriter doesn't actually understand why certain setpieces are cool - young Rorshach eating the teen's face rather than stubbing the cigarette in his eye, pointlessly putting in the newsvendor and black kid for the nuclear explosion rather than the two cops whom we've actually seen before, Rorshach defeating the second Big Figure thug by smashing his head into the toilet with the electrocution merely an afterthought - that cropped up in Sin City too.

Nixon's face is awful, Leonard Cohen over the sex scene makes it super-camp and unfortunately sounds like Rorschach was singing the vocals, the midnight clock metaphor is turned into a bad cardboard prop, there's no sense of nuclear terror, several beats are missed in the Dan/Laurie relationship, Dr Manhattan's schlong is like a third leg. Veidt was miscast and misinterpreted - he felt like a criminal mastermind from the get-go, rather than a cheesy, publicity hungry, savvy sell-out superhero. Also, the film doesn't feel grimy enough - everything outside has a CG sheen, and everything inside feels like a studio set. It's almost the same aesthetic as Mystery Men.

Phew!

I agree with basically this entire post! Except for the blue dong, which I thought was hilarious and a good inclusion.

But yes I very much disliked this movie and it felt very unnecessary and sterile to me.

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All good points. Although I must correct you in that all the outdoor shots (other than the wide-pan) were real outdoor sets. And I loved them and the indoor sets both.

Yeah, there were some nice sets there (little video about it here: http://io9.com/376622/building-the-watchmen-sets-before-your-eyes). I think it was more the cinematography/post-production that made everything feel shiny and clean...

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I must disagree with the person who said on the previous page that the nuclear threat was felt more in the movie than in the comic. Sir, you are mistaken to a quadratic degree. It was quite the opposite. The movie diluted that aspect by tying it into a modern 'energy crisis' narrative, and the comic book had almost every panel plastered with newspaper headlines of imminent war and lots of details, sidecharacters like the stand owner having conversations about the war, etc etc.

Hmmm. I think that was my point really, it was only people like the eccentric news vendor that were actually discussing the possibility of war. As the film progressed the war felt more imminent and real -- in the comic it felt like something less tangible (to me). Maybe I should read it again.

What I was a bit apprehensive about was the way Veidt was immediately portraited as the conglomerate bad guy. Even though he never literally said anything to the effect of ambiguity towards his purpose (stopping the war and trying to straighten everything out), the acting was so incredibly obvious. There were pauses in his lines, slow turns, lingering eyecontact... to my mind it screamed I AM THE BAD GUY SOMEONE ARREST ME!!.

I'd definitely agree that Veidt was the weakest characterisation - far too OTT and what was with that hair??, but he's probably the hardest to pull off I guess. I think Veidt should have had oozed genuine charisma, but the way they played him didn't come across that way at all.

As for portraying him as a "conglomerate bad guy", I think you may have added that yourself -- or at least I don't see it as being much different from the comic in that respect.

He did have a scene where his "real motives" were subtly revealed, though: When he tried to get everyone together as a team again, and Blake set fire to his map (why didn't anyone put it out, btw?!).

Edited by ThunderPeel2001

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