Films! good, bad, recomendations, and general film talk

[_tom_]

Drive - awesome. Really liked it. Great soundtrack, looks really nice and Christina Hendricks. What's not to love?

[Ian Price]

Tonight I watched Rambo. I was expecting a turkey but rather enjoyed it. It reminded me of being young (well, relatively young) and watching First Blood and First Blood part II.

The violence was a bit too violent for much of the film but it was still a decent enough watch. Good to see that Rambo may have found peace at the end too (assuming that is the last in the franchise!)

[_tom_]

Dredd - not bad but having seen The Raid it's just a blatant rip off and the action scenes are not nearly as good. It was fun and the visuals/soundtrack are awesome, but too similar for my liking - there was even a fight in a drug lab ffs!

[Andrew W]

Dredd - not bad but having seen The Raid it's just a blatant rip off and the action scenes are not nearly as good. It was fun and the visuals/soundtrack are awesome, but too similar for my liking - there was even a fight in a drug lab ffs!

I don't think it's a rip-off. Dredd was in production for a loooong time. I know people who were working on visuals, meaning the script was already pretty much done, in late 2009 which is a long time before The Raid came out. I like 'em both but prefer the style and visuals in Dredd, but then as an old 2000AD fanboi I'm very biased. The action in The Raid is fantastic though.

[_tom_]

Ah, did not know that! Strange how they're pretty much identical films then.

[juansolo]

Yeah, and they both borrow from the original Assault on Precinct 13 when you think about it (which itself was a remake of Rio Bravo...). Certainly The Raid has many Carpenter cues (including musically). There's nothing original any more. I still loved both.

Dredd finally did the character justice. Shame then that 2000AD was never big in the States. It's only relatively recently they've got into dark nihilistic comics, so it passed them by, and their only exposure to it was the travesty that was the Stallone film. Hence it's struggled to make it's money back. Which is a crying shame as I'd love to see them do another.

[Philly Q]

I've just watched Dredd too. 

Enjoyed it, but making the inevitable comparison with The Raid, all the shooting and CGI blood is nowhere near as exciting as hand-to-hand combat scenes.

I really enjoyed the score and sound design, though - my subwoofer hasn't had such a workout for a very long time!

[Hammerheart]

Dave Grohl's new movie Sound City is great. It's well worth a watch.

[Nadz1lla]

Been watching a few movies recently, I was curious to see what else Tom Hardy had been in as I saw Bronson on T.V a while ago and recently watched The Dark Knight Rises. So I bought Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, Warrior, Bronson and This Means War.

I knew I liked Bronson already, so re-watching that was good. He's got that scary unpredictable quality coming through really well.

Tinker Tailor, whilst the performances of the actors was brilliant, was just so boring. I kept up with it all, but felt disappointed at the end. My Mrs said "Well, if I had wanted to watch old men in suits bickering, I could have gone to work!"  :lol:

This Means War was a lot of fun and we both really enjoyed it. For anyone who hasn't seen it, it's kind of a Romantic Comedy with a little bit of action here and there...like at the beginning and the end. But well worth it, I had a good laugh.

For me, though, the winner was Warrior (Tom Hardy, Joel Edgerton and Nick Nolte). The performances were amazing, the American accent coming out of both Hardy and Edgerton (who is Australian I believe) were great and didn't feel awkward at all, and Nick Nolte... I don't mind telling you that there's a bit in the film where he had me in tears, really moving stuff. Not jsut your average "Fighting" movie. Really impressed, highly recommended for fans of the Rocky series etc.

[Ian Price]

Tinker Tailor, whilst the performances of the actors was brilliant, was just so boring. I kept up with it all, but felt disappointed at the end. My Mrs said "Well, if I had wanted to watch old men in suits bickering, I could have gone to work!"  :lol:

On a rare night to myself (Jane out, kids asleep) I rented Tinker Tailor. Same experience as yours, great acting spoiled by a really boring film. I felt like I lost my night to myself!

[Philly Q]

Tinker Tailor, whilst the performances of the actors was brilliant, was just so boring. I kept up with it all, but felt disappointed at the end. My Mrs said "Well, if I had wanted to watch old men in suits bickering, I could have gone to work!"  :lol:

On a rare night to myself (Jane out, kids asleep) I rented Tinker Tailor. Same experience as yours, great acting spoiled by a really boring film. I felt like I lost my night to myself!

I've heard enough good things about that film that I'd like to give it a try.  My problem is that whenever I sit still for more than half an hour or so nowadays I tend to fall asleep, so unless a film has lots of explosions and flashing lights I'm probably wasting my time.  I've pretty much given up on "serious" films except during the London Film Festival (and even then I do a fair bit of nodding off in the cinema....)  :lol:

[Ian Price]

I also suffer from the same problem. I did drop off during TTSS but stayed awake throughout Rambo.

[Philly Q]

It's a pain, isn't it?  My worst "nodding off time" seems to be early evenings, around 6pm, but unfortunately at the weekends that's exactly the time I'm most likely to have a window of opportunity to watch a film. 

I'm fine late at night, but I can't upset the neighbours by having the surround-sound system on at that time!

[Ian Price]

It is a pain indeed. Quite often Jane and I will watch a film, half of which I will have missed due to snoozing. By the time of the end of the film Jane goes off to bed and I am wide awake again, all ready for perhaps another film thatJane probably wouldn't want to watch (not a porn film - just thought I'd mention that before Afghan pipes up).

[Philly Q]

I've just watched (without falling asleep!) Perrier's Bounty, an Irish thriller with Cillian Murphy, Jim Broadbent and the always-excellent Brendan Gleeson.  It reminded me a bit of In Bruges - lots of funny, clever dialogue but some quite serious violence!