[Movie] Movies/Shows you have seen recently?

Aw, it wasn't that bad. The action sequences are decent enough although the fight in pitch darkness in Shanghai was a bit pointless. Compared to other Bond films, it was better than QofS and on a par with Casino Royale, not as good as any of the Connery or Moore ones, better than Dalton all the Brosnan ones except Goldeneye and nothing is as good as On Her Majesty's Service which is so awful it's amazing.

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In other film news, I went to the cinema again this evening, this time to watch Gambit. It's a funny movie and Cameron Diaz isn't nearly as annoying as she often is. Ending was a bit of a leap of faith but it's worth a look.

I am a dolphin, do you want me on your body?

Hahaha, I think you're clutching at straws a little bit there mate, you seem pretty determined to hate the movie. I also think you're missing the point of every Bond movie ever to some extent in your analysis.

The whole point of this film as I see it is a reset of the series. They tried making Bond all moody and modern with the first two Craig films and they were both weak. They looked like they were copying films that had originally copied Bond to start with, Bourne specifically, and that led to a real weakening of the brand. They were ok films but they weren't Bond films. So now they've made a conscious decision to go back to making Bond films again and this is the bridging movie.

Bond has always been a wanker. Read the books, he's a proper wanker in those. He's a heavy drinker, can't obey orders, a serial womaniser and has incredibly weak morals. His one redeeming feature is his sense of duty and responsibility, all of which is why he's such a popular character in the UK, it's what we all aspire to be. How you can possibly say that a Bond film being mysoginistic is a bad thing is laughable, strong female characters are a recent addition to the series, only since Brosnan and marked the start of the decline of the franchise. Even the "strong" female characters in earlier ones like Grace Jones eventually end up being extremely weak and either falling for Bond or needing him to rescue them. The silly women is just going back to Bond's roots.

Again, I think your comparisson with QofS is arse about tit too. In QofS, Bond is off around the world for purely selfish reasons, it's a lucky conincidence that he ends up further the needs of the UK in the process. That's not what Bond does. Bond does whatever it takes to complete a mission given to him by the British Government, his overriding sense of duty is what seperates him from thousands of other action heros.

For better or worse, the theme of this film was doing what was needed versus doing what was right. It's Bond's humanity set against M's cold duty. Bond wants to save the dude at the beginning but isn't allowed to. He wants to beat the guy on the train but doesn't get the chance and in the process, feels betrayed by M and takes the chance to retire, until his sense of duty brings him back. By allowing the asassination in Shanghai, he learns more about the plot, he's not there to stop the shooting, he's there to get the gunman. Getting info from a random bird he bumps into in a casino is classic Bond fare, he does it in more films than he doesn't. He takes up the shooting a glass challenge thinking the other guy will play fair, he doesn't know he won't and he doesn't do anything while he's getting groped because he already hit the transmitter, all he's doing is stalling to let the choppers get there. Chasing bad guys is another Bond staple, there aren't many Bond films without a chase like that. Bond rescuing M is because he personally cares about her, he takes her to Scotland because he knows he can win on his own terms. The rest is just Hollywood silliness and plot holes.

I do get where you're coming from with your comments but it does read a bit like you've never seen a Bond film before. The whole film ends as a big set up for the next Bond film to be a proper, traditional, Connery/Moore Bond film and that can only be a good thing.

As an action film, Skyfall is worth a look. It's a bit too 24 perhaps but then nobody watches Bond films for the plot, unless they're an idiot. The main criticism I would level is that Daniel Craig is no good at delivering Bond one-liners. Plus al the continuity errors are distracting. To call it the worst Bond film ever though is being angry on the internet for the sake of it and is also ignoring the existance of the previous two Daniel Craig Bond films, most of the Brosnan ones and whichever Roger Moore one it is with the figure skater in the ski resort which is truly, truly terrible.

I was speaking idiomatically.

The US version of Shameless is fucking terrible. They showed it on E4 last year and it just completely misses the point of the series. I mean, worse than the American Office missed the point of The Office by having jokes in it, US Shameless is just far too nicey nicey and, well, American. Steer well clear...

What kind of toxic man-thing is happening now?

Watched Mother's Day last night. Silly horror film that was mildly gory and kinda interesting story-wise if a little predictable.

Watched Brotherhood of the Wolf the other day, French martial arts come horror film. Horror wasn't scary, martial arts were too thin on the ground till the end, the plot is silly and it's 45 minutes longer than it needed to be. Not many tits in it for a French film either.

FELIPE NO

I just watched Battleship and fuck me if it isn't one of the worst films ever made. Ridiculous idea, rammed with plot holes and delivers cliche after cliche, overlaid with the graphics left over from the Transformers movies and more stock sound effects than a bedroom produced mixtape. Absolutely shockingly bad.

Previously I watched The Courier which is a crappy thriller with a plot that makes no sense and is stupid.

Also watched the latest Underworld film, called Awakening or something. Much the same as the others to be honest, not awful but not really worth going out of your way for.

What, you don't want my bikini-clad body?

This evening we watched Dredd which was actually pretty good and in a whole different league to Stallone's car crash. Decent action, no silly plot getting in the way of the perp-killing and Urban was suitably gruff as Dredd. Good one if you're in the mood for watching people get shot especially in slow motion.

Jam it back in, in the dark.

Watched Sherlock Holmes and the Game of Shadows last night. Glaring anachronisms and a couple of monster plot holes aside (Seriously, reverse pickpocketing a note into someone's pocket referencing a line they say before they ever say that line?), it's an enjoyable action film. Jude Law still can't act but his part in this is pretty minimal. Worth a look but not as good as the BBC series, Sherlock.

There's nowhere I can't reach.

I take it that was the 1971 Andromeda Strain, not the terrible remake? I love that film, one of my all time favourite sci-fi films. The setting in the different colours in the base really adds to the tension and I'd love to think someone would be mental enough to paint an entire level of an underground base bright red.

You might be able to help me with this. I'm trying to remember the name of a movie I watched a few times when I was younger that I'd love to see again. It's about an engineered contagious disease I think that someone steals and threatens to release. I remember little of the details except that it ends with the hero in a helicopter above a sports stadium of some description. It ,ust have been from the 70's I'd guess. Not much to go on I admit...

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Just finished watching The Raid, it was pretty good although I lost interest towards the end. Kick Boxing is far better suited to one guy kicking the fuck out of a bunch of scrubs than protracted one on ones and that's really clear towards the end of this. The best scene is where the dude is stabbing the shit out of a bunch of people in the hallway, each fight after that is progressively less interesting culminating with an overly long brawl at the end. I know it's a film and suspension of disbelief and all that but it doesn't matter how nails someone is, you smash their head into a wall more than three times in a couple of hour period they get knocked out.

The plot is predictable as fuck but then you don't watch a film like this for the story. It's definitely worth a look if you like kick boxing films but only if you've previously watched Ong Bak, Warrior King and Blood and Bone as they're all much better.

How ya doing, buddy?

I watched Expendables 2 last night as part of a romantic Valentines evening in with the Mrs.

It's fucking funny if nothing else. I mean, it's completely ridiculous and rammed full of plot holes but who cares, it's everyone from the 80's killing people en masse, what's not to love. Shame Jet Li ducks out so early and Lord knows why Sly dyes his hair such a dark black colour but ignore the fact that they spend two days driving from their plane to the mine then five minutes going back to get it and ignore the varying power of their guns from one shot to the next and ignore Jason Statham picking a fist fight with six dudes when he clearly could have just gunned them down in an instant and revel in the explosions and gun fights and references to other films they've all been in and Vandamme spin kicks and especially love the fact that a snake bit Chuck Norris then three days later the snake died. Fucking awesome and hilairous and silly and by the sounds of things much better than Die Hard 5.

How ya doing, buddy?

Watched The Invention of Lying the other night. Ricky Gervais plays the only person on the planet who can lie and makes himself Jesus. It's decent enough, got a few plot holes in it and Ricky Gervais can only play Ricky Gervais but it's worth watching if it happens to be on tv I guess.

What kind of toxic man-thing is happening now?

Today was a good day for tv with both Hear no evil, see no evil on and Dirty Rotten Scoundrels, the former being slightly funnier than the latter but both being ace.

FELIPE NO

Just watched Piranha 3DD. It's fucking terrible of course but I was in the mood for something silly and it's certainly that. The disc was fucked and it skipped about ten minutes of the main "plot" at the end so I've no idea how half the people died or how they killed the piranhas but I'm not sure that's in any way lessened my enjoyment of the film.

What, you don't want my bikini-clad body?

Originally Posted by wvlfpvp

So watching Gene Wilder Willy Wonka, and I had a crazy theory:

Wonka is even more of a Magnificent Bastard than he already is? I think that Wonka HAND-PICKED Charlie; there's a line where Wonka says "You were being tested" and I totally heard that as a SINGULAR "you." Think about it for a second; the Slugworth stand-in shows up AWFULLY fast after Charlie gets his ticket, unlike the other kids, who were visited by him only by the time that they were on TV. While, yes, Charlie lives in the part of America that Babe (the movie) takes place in (you know, Not-England), which is also where Wonka's factory is, there's no way that Wonka could have sent the man to meet him less than a minute after he finds the ticket, mob of people or not (creepy lady shouting RUN HOME CHARLIE). This means that Wonka is just a dick who was trying to teach a lesson to the other kids while letting Charlie understand his way of thinking.

You have read the book, right? Also, Great Glass Elevator.

I watched Ted the other day. I thought it was hilarious and much better than I thought it was going to be actually.

Jam it back in, in the dark.

Just watched Alex Cross. It was shit.

I'm so sick of clichéd cop films. Why would it be so hard for cops to occasionally put on a proper evidence suit before entering a crime scene? Why are there never any proper procedures followed? Why do the bad guys never get arrested, they always get killed?

Alex Cross is about the most clichéd film I've seen in years which is odd as the books are actually pretty good. James Patterson must just not give a fuck any more to have put his name to this.

There's nowhere I can't reach.

Noos bought the complete boxed set of Wire in the Blood. Watched the first couple of episodes tonight on the projector for no reason at all other than fuck yeah I've got a projector. It's aged well, better than I thought it would have and it's been long enough since they were first on that I can't remember what happens which is good.

This thing is sticky, and I don't like it. I don't appreciate it.

Watched Snow White and the Huntsman last night and God damn that Twilight bitch cannot act. She's not even that pretty, who the fuck was in charge of casting? An otherwise really good film completely ruined by her one facial expression all the way through. I thought putting Frodo in Green Street was the worst casting decision of all time but this seriously tops that. The sooner she does a Lohan and fucks off to drug-addled unemployment the better for everyone.

I am a dolphin, do you want me on your body?

Just watched Total Recall 2012. It's not a terrible action film but it is really, really hard to take it seriously when there are so many gaping holes in both the plot and setting. There's been a chemical war at the end of the 21st century leaving only Britain and Australia habitable. It also seems to have had the effect of giving everyone in both countries American accents, making the British authorities rename the motorways as interstates and replacing the London Underground with the New York Subway system. There's a shot of Big Ben underneath the stacked up vertical city so you know it's London, although someone moved the river Thames but then once they travel outside the "Safe zone", there's a shot of the BT tower so you know we're still in London yet this London is all single level. So after a chemical war that wiped out most of the planet, there were enough resources and people left in half of London to build structures into the sky, invent anti-gravity motors and dig a fuck off great tunnel through the middle of the planet so you can reach Australia in 17 minutes?

I know it's only a film but if you're going to use real world locations, make them make sense and if you're going to pander to an American audience, set your film in America.

I was speaking idiomatically.

I just watched The Hobbit. It was alright, funnier and less "epic" than LOTR and either they spent less on the cgi or I'm getting better at spotting it because lots of bits suffered from being obviously computer graphics. Probably won't bother seeing the next two at the cinema and I'm not convinced the book really needed to be chopped into three films.

What kind of toxic man-thing is happening now?

Just watched The Girl Next Door, the 2007 film about two girls getting tortured by their aunt. It's an awful, awful film and why I watched to the end I will never know. Shit script, hammy acting, terrible editing and badly shot. If you want to watch a film about girls getting tortured (And who wouldn't?) do yourself a favour and watch either Martyrs or Mum and Dad.

FELIPE NO

My film session this weekend finished up with Ghost Rider - Spirit of Vengance. It's an ok film as so many Nick Cage films are but the film completely lost me when the whole premis of Ghost Rider, the fact that he turns back into a normal guy in sunlight, was completely ignored with no explanation or reason. If he can be Ghost Rider during the day then he's basically Superman, invulnerable and super-hard and Superman is the most boring character in the history of comics.

What, you don't want my bikini-clad body?

Today we watched Thor 2 or whatever the official subtitle is. It was a suitably enjoyable, mindless Marvel flick falling neatly onto the conveyor belt behind all the other Avenger films. I think they're doing a decent job with these although they need to try to limit themselves to one interpretation of how the universe works. Every time they delve further into Norse mythology they make Thor a far more important hero than any of the others in the recent franchise which is fine because the Thor films have certainly been better than the Captain America film and probably the Iron Man advert breaks films. The traditional Stan Lee appearance in this one was funny and the Captain America cameo was pretty amusing too and actually the film is pretty light-hearted. Worth watching although don't go for the story, obviously.

Jam it back in, in the dark.

Well of course you like Iron Man, he is the only black Avenger.

How ya doing, buddy?

Watched the recent remake of Evil Dead. It was a'ight but unsurprisingly not as good as any of the original three.

This thing is sticky, and I don't like it. I don't appreciate it.