Movie/TV recommendations

[Kolzig]

The Easter holidays gave me time to watch a couple of movies again.

I watched Alien 3, but was highly annoyed by the computer graphics Alien that looked so horrifyingly bad. I guess this is what happens to older movies that used computer graphics after time passes on.

The cgi Alien looked really bad. Otherwise the movie is good, back to the more horror roots of the franchise. The movie had those FPS moments with showing stuff from the Alien's eyes, I had no real problems with that, but one of my friends said that he felt it did not fit in to the franchise to suddenly show stuff from the Alien's eyes as that had not been done before and the Alien should be in the shadows as silent hunter.

Other movie we watched was one that I've been meaning to watch for years already.

Donnie Darko.

Now that was one weird movie featuring the young Prince of Jerry Bruckheimer's Persia.

[brkl]

Be sure to see the original theatrical cut and not some director's cut for Donnie Darko.

[Kolzig]

I think it was the original as running time was about 1h 48m, but why is IMDB saying that the theatrical cut is supposed to be 1h 53m?

How bad is the director's cut? It seems to be 20 minutes longer?

[syntheticgerbil]

I watched Alien 3, but was highly annoyed by the computer graphics Alien that looked so horrifyingly bad. I guess this is what happens to older movies that used computer graphics after time passes on.

The cgi Alien looked really bad. Otherwise the movie is good, back to the more horror roots of the franchise. The movie had those FPS moments with showing stuff from the Alien's eyes, I had no real problems with that, but one of my friends said that he felt it did not fit in to the franchise to suddenly show stuff from the Alien's eyes as that had not been done before and the Alien should be in the shadows as silent hunter.

That alien wasn't CGI until one or two scenes near the end (which still looked silly). It was mostly a bunch of terrible green screen with various puppets that weren't cut out well. You can see the reflective green all over the alien in nearly every scene in which it was superimposed.

I really think that's the worst part of the movie. It's so distracting. I sort of wish someone would go back with some current video editing software and clean up every frame the Alien is on, but that would be extremely labor intensive I suppose.

[DanJW]

How bad is the director's cut? It seems to be 20 minutes longer?

The Directors Cut adds some silly chapter title screens (taken from the Philosophy of Time Travel book, which can be found online and in the extras anyway) and montage effects in an effort to explain more of what is going on, thus robbing the film of its wonderful ambiguity and sense of the sublime. There are a couple of extra scenes that are more welcome, but on the whole the theatrical cut is better. That film was pretty important to me when it first came out, dealing as it did with the feeling of disconnection and profundity that comes with many mental health problems.

I saw How to Train Your Dragon at the weekend. Very entertaining, really enjoyed it. Nice voice acting (despite the Scottish Vikings with their American children), good pacing and story structure, good jokes, nods to geekery and exhilarating visuals. I haven't seen many 3D movies, but this was the first one where things actually looked 3D, rather than like cardboard cutouts or a pop-up book (the live action 3D trailers are the worst for this - 3D is the new green screen when it comes to terrible compositing).

Oh and the characterization for the different breeds of dragons was lots of fun.

[syntheticgerbil]

I saw How to Train Your Dragon at the weekend. Very entertaining, really enjoyed it. Nice voice acting (despite the Scottish Vikings with their American children), good pacing and story structure, good jokes, nods to geekery and exhilarating visuals. I haven't seen many 3D movies, but this was the first one where things actually looked 3D, rather than like cardboard cutouts or a pop-up book (the live action 3D trailers are the worst for this - 3D is the new green screen when it comes to terrible compositing).

Oh and the characterization for the different breeds of dragons was lots of fun.

For once, I was sort of interested in a Dreamworks movie because of this. I liked a lot of the character designs and concept art I've seen so far as well as how some of it translated to 3D, but I probably won't ever bring myself to see it since I'll probably really dislike the story and acting.

[Murdoc]

First Blood (Rambo): Guess I never watched this... so yeah, rambo is a hobo, walks into town where a dick sheriff tells is him leave(seems reasonable) though he has an issue with the american flag on Rambos jacket(????) but then rambo acts like a total dick too. So anyway, it ends up that Rambo goes nuts and destroys the poor American town; why is he the good guy in this?

First Blood 2: Thanks to James cameron this became your typical american military romp; as weird as the first one was, I think i liked it better.

Eastern Promises: Kind of avoided this after I didn't really like history of violence, but all and all it was pretty decent. No real highs or lows and nothing over the top, so it was cool. Naked fighting is always awesome; i'm just wondering when a video game will have "realistic" fighting like this in it one day(doesn't have to be naked, but that would make it more awesome too)

edit: donnie darko directors cut: yeah I had the unfortante pleasure of watching that once, did not like the transitions, music, etc... Also I guess the movie took place in the 80s? I never picked that up the first time, it seemed unimportant of a realization, but for some reason it seemed more wedged intot he directors cut.

[brkl]

Hold on, it's reasonable to turn away people from your town if they're a bit raggedy?

[Murdoc]

Hold on, it's reasonable to turn away people from your town if they're a bit raggedy?

If your a sherrif of a quiet little town; why not? I mean it's not overly nice, but it seems pretty reasonable to let a drifter know hes not welcome there, they could be just some poor guy down on his luck or a complete psycho with a giant knife.

He could have been nicer about it and the stuff the other cops did wasn't too cool, but it was only after Rambo was acting like a dick and resisting an arrest.

Considering Rambo had ample time to cool off and had an old friend as a voice of reason, but chose to ignore it and burn the town to the ground, the Sheriff was right not to want this guy in his town.

[Nicholololas]

Looking forward to Pacific. On in 40 mins. It looks great.

How do you like it so far? I've watched the first three episodes and to be honest it doesn't really do much for me. I'm not quite sure what I was expecting considering I found Band of Brothers to be pretty trite, but it just seems like more of the same to me. It's not really bad or anything, most of the actors are decent, the music suitably pompous and action scenes exhilarating enough, but I was sort of hoping for more this time around.

As far as proper recommendations go, I've been rewatching all the Peep Show series over the past week or so, anyone who hasn't seen it should get the first season immediatedly, it's bloody brilliant. Definitely one of the funniest sitcoms of all time.

[Armchair General]

I agree mostly Nicholololas. It's definitely more of the same. I have seen only the first two episodes (screened in the first showing in the UK). I like it for sure and it will be good to highlight what happened in that theatre of war, which is perhaps relatively unknown over here in comparison to the European arena.

I found it a bit predictable I think. It was no surprise that they made a thing of mowing down Japanese soldiers. It could improve by showing the human side of the Japanese infantryman in my opinion, but it may still do that I suppose.

I'm a sucker for stuff like this though I have to say. The fellas who fought in the world wars have my upmost respect and gratitude. Thus whenever anything like this is on I am compelled to watch

6/10 so far, maybe it will improve a bit.

[Patters]

Kick Ass. It does what it says. Slick presentation, decent, yet fairly predictable story. Despite thoroughly enjoying it, I'm kind of bored of Origin stories in film.

[Rueler]

Kick Ass. It does what it says. Slick presentation, decent, yet fairly predictable story. Despite thoroughly enjoying it, I'm kind of bored of Origin stories in film.

Whoa! It's out already?

[ThunderPeel2001]

Whoa! It's out already?

Can't speak for "Chi-Town" but it's been out for over a week now.

[Patters]

Can't speak for "Chi-Town" but it's been out for over a week now.

It's not out in the US yet, it's due out on the 16th over their it appears.

[Garple]

First Blood (Rambo): Guess I never watched this... so yeah, rambo is a hobo, walks into town where a dick sheriff tells is him leave(seems reasonable) though he has an issue with the american flag on Rambos jacket(????) but then rambo acts like a total dick too. So anyway, it ends up that Rambo goes nuts and destroys the poor American town; why is he the good guy in this?

The problem with the Jacket is that it's military issue, and the sheriff thinks Rambo is just some hippy wearing it ironically or something which would be seen as an insult to the military...like he has no right to wear it if he didn't serve. He doesn't know and can't imagine Rambo was actually in the military. He goes nuts because he has post-traumatic stress disorder from having fought in Vietnam. It's triggered by the situation he finds himself in and he suddenly thinks he's back in the war. I'm not sure he's "the good guy" per se. Also, a town is not private property, so the sheriff really has no business kicking him out.

[ThunderPeel2001]

It's not out in the US yet, it's due out on the 16th over their it appears.

[Armchair General]

Just been to see Clash of the Titans... PANTS

Save your money and watch it on Skymovies in a few months....it ain't worth it imho. I saw it in 3D, the characters are strictly 2, maybe even 0.5 dimensional.

[Freezerr]

Just been to see Clash of the Titans... PANTS

Save your money and watch it on Skymovies in a few months....it ain't worth it imho. I saw it in 3D, the characters are strictly 2, maybe even 0.5 dimensional.

I've heard the vision of the original screenwriter was pretty much raped in post-production, and in an effort to make it more mainstream and accessible, character motivations were radically changed. Of course, that's pretty much impossible to do in post-production, so a real shame if true.

[elmuerte]

You mean the screenplay of Beverley Cross? You know, who wrote the screenplay of the original in 1981.

[Armchair General]

I've heard the vision of the original screenwriter was pretty much raped in post-production, and in an effort to make it more mainstream and accessible, character motivations were radically changed. Of course, that's pretty much impossible to do in post-production, so a real shame if true.

I'm generally not as insightful and creative as the dudes who frequent the Thumbs and I can leave my brain at the cinema door and just sit back and enjoy most impossible action films...BUT even I spent alot of the film wondering who the fuck many of the characters were and why they would get involved with so little dialogue of explanation.

There was literally no character development, I cared (in the flimsy film sense) not a jot about any of the characters, it felt rushed and dumbed down. Mads Mikkelsen was the best in it by a long way and he got killed off too soon.

It's worth a watch just to see Mads Mikkelsen but overall; an opportunity to bring exciting Greek mythology to life was missed, supplanted by a dogshit film fit for dullards.

2/10 for Mads Mikkelsen.

[Nachimir]

I've heard the vision of the original screenwriter was pretty much raped in post-production, and in an effort to make it more mainstream and accessible, character motivations were radically changed. Of course, that's pretty much impossible to do in post-production, so a real shame if true.

I suspect this might be a standard thing writers say to distance themselves from cultural fallout as they roll a wheelbarrow full of money away.

[Freezerr]

I suspect this might be a standard thing writers say to distance themselves from cultural fallout as they roll a wheelbarrow full of money away.

I have no way of knowing, and certainly, the film wasn't going to be high art either way. Here is one of the places I heard this from: http://tinyurl.com/yczzfh6.

[Sombre]

I'm warming up towards the new Doctor:tup:

[pabosher]

I'm warming up towards the new Doctor:tup:

I think he's an absolutely fantastic Doctor. Already better than Tennant, and I thought Tennant was fantastic.