[Tinu.]

[theBSDude]

I'd hesitate to buy a DVD at 25.99USD. But in Pounds, that's like 50 bucks.

They're asking you the price of a video game for a CD?
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...In accordance with the prophesy.

TheBSDude, dubbed 'BS' by Asa and nicknamed 'Thebes.'
Keeper of the Tristam, The Amazing Non-Emo Vampire!(tm) and a Massive List of Webcomics.

"I'm like a ninja with no hopes or dreams." --Wally of Dilbert

[Ravenna]

Yup. I'm assuming because it's an import of the soundtrack for both films, but still, I'm cheaper importing cds from Japan at that kind of price!

I still need to see 'Russian Dolls'.
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Bernard [about the job]: The pay's not great, but the work is hard.
~ Black Books ~

[Tinu.]

I saw "Inkheart" today. For an adaptation, it was pretty good, and they did a nice job of making it a happy ending. However, I was very disappointed with the casting. Most of the casting was ok - not great, but passable. However, Basta and Farid were horrible. The actors for both weren't great, and the characters were seriously downsized in the movie - which is a pity, they're good characters. They cut the plot back so much though that it was almost like I blinked and the movie was over.
I did like how they tried to incorporate other details from the second and third books though - like Meggie's writing and a mention of the Bluejay. That was fun.

So, it was good, but not great. I think they did a better job with "The Thief Lord".
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Keeper of Gaia and all the books on Earthsong

"If you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, it will spend its whole life believing it is stupid."
~Einstein

[TheBritishInvasion]

I thought Basta was an awful character Nu, in the book he's a serious, mean mostly competent character. In the film I just couldn't take him seriously. I think it was the mustach.

I also had an issue with a couple of plot holes:
At the end of the film all the characters get read back into their books, except Dustfinger though they didn't really explain why, I assumed it was because he wasn't close enough. So what the heck happened to Rapunzel? She gets dragged off and no-one sees her again, no-one seems to care either.

Second, more serious plot hole, I may have just missed this but Mo reads the characters out of Inkheart, then spends years searching for another copy of the book. What happened to the one he had? Did Capricorn take it when I wasn't looking?

Any ideas?
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Britland as dubbed by AsA
Avatar courtesy of Footloose
Keeper of Tengu's electricity and Willow's 'what did you just say' eyes.

[Tinu.]

I agree about the mustache. The mullet didn't really help either - or the way it was slicked back. He looked almost exactly like a teacher I used to hate. They were both incompetent.

As to the plot holes:The Rapunzel question - It's assumed that every woman who is read out of a book is made to work for the Magpie (who was also casted horribly in my opinion. She's supposed to be scary and cunning, but she just reminded me of an aged Mrs. Lovett). If we assume this, we assume that she was present at the time of the reading, which means she was sent back. The creatures had been released and were at the scene of the reading too, so they got sent back. So everyone in the immediate vicinity was magically transported home - the only ones who weren't were Dustfinger and Farid. It fits, but the problem is that to make such an assumption in the first place, you have to have read the book. So we're assuming that we're supposed to assume that she was sent back. =/

In the book, Mo did have a copy, he kept it hidden and that's the main reason Capricorn was chasing him in the first place. Again, I'm guessing we're supposed to assume that it was stolen. It never really explains that well either. It's mentioned that the author's copies were stolen, but it's not mentioned that other copies were as well.

Basically, that's a lot of assumptions. If you haven't read the book you're left hanging with a lot of questions, and if you have you're confused over bits of plot that were snipped.

All in all, I think they rushed it too much. It was a sloppy job. They could have easily filled in some holes, it's not like they had to worry about movie length - I was surprised it was so short.

I really didn't care for how "kiddie" they made it. I guess that's why Basta's silly, instead of scary. You can't have a character competently wielding a knife and killing people in a PG movie.
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Keeper of Gaia and all the books on Earthsong

"If you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, it will spend its whole life believing it is stupid."
~Einstein

[Tinu.]

I just saw "Eagle Eye"and man was it amazing! It has bee a long time . . . or possibly never, since I've seen an intelligent action film. It normally bothers me how impossible action sequences in movies are, but these were at least feasible - that made me very happy. The plot was great too - I loved it!

If I say any more I'll be tempted to gush, so I'll be silent now.
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Keeper of Gaia and all the books on Earthsong

"If you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, it will spend its whole life believing it is stupid."
~Einstein

[UFAlien]

Well, the new Friday the 13th just had the best opening weekend for any horror movie ever...

So here's my review as posted to Slasherpool:



After the excellent My Bloody Valentine remake and a good trailer, I was hoping this movie would be good, or at least entertaining. Unfortunately, instead it's a boring, generic mess of a film with only a few redeeming qualities.

So that people who aren't so inclined don't need to read through the whole review, I'll give summarized pros and cons here:

+Some decent jumps
+Nice homages to the originals
+Some good humor

-Poor editing
-Rushed, but still boring
-Terrible characters
-A "Jason" that seems more like a bad Jason ripoff

Now for the meat of the review:

The movie opens with a flashback to June 13th, 1980. A camp counselor is pursued by a maniacal Mrs. Voorhees, and proceeds to cut her head off as she tells Jason to "kill for her". All this is in super-shaky-closeup-quick-shot-during-a-rainstorm and almost completely indecipherable, and lasts about 2 minutes.

Flash forward to "Present day" Crystal Lake. A group of kids are camping near the abandoned... well, camp. Their GPS screws up and they don't know where they are. One of them goes off to find weed and gets killed (In indecipherable super-shaky-closeup-quick-shot). Another couple goes out to explore the camp, and the last two have sex. The two in the camp find a building with Mrs. Voorhees' head and a locket with her picture, noting she looks a lot like the girl. The boy is killed (In indecipherable super-shaky-closeup-quick-shot) and the girl runs away. Back at the tent, the two having sex hear a noise. The guy goes to investigate, finds the weed dude's body, and then gets caught in a bear trap (In indecipherable super-shaky-closeup-quick-shot). Then the girl gets wrapped up in her sleeping bag and roasted over the campfire (In some surprisingly steady shots). Finally, the other girl comes back, Jason kills the dude in the bear trap and rushes the girl, fade to black. All this happens in about 10 minutes, and again is largely impossible to watch. Oh, and he's wearing a sack that looks kinda like the one from Part 2.

Flash forward about 6 months. A bunch of stereotypical, annoying teenagers are going to the jerkiest of them all's house on the lake. They run into a dude who's looking for his lost sister named Whitney, that one who looked like Mrs. Voorhees. They're all jerks to him except for head jerk's girlfriend. We're "treated" to some random scenes of the teens being stupid at the house and Whitney's brother riding around on a motorcycle asking locals if they've seen her while they act all foreboding. Eventually Jason shows up and kills one of said locals, who happens to be in a shed full of random crap that includes a hockey mask.

The rest of the movie is the typical "Kids do bad things and get killed" slasher movie, which in itself I don't have any problem with. What I DO mind is how poorly it's done. There is no suspense to be found, save for one short scene that turns out to be a bit of a cheat anyway. There are scenes where I could say "I'm supposed to be in suspense". The problem is, in the right hands and at the right time, silence can be scary. But these scenes were desperately in need of music if they were going to be anything but overlong and boring. Actually, the entire movie lacks music, and anyone hoping to hear Harry Manfredini's classic score will be disappointed - aside from a few "ki ki ki ma ma ma"s over the credits and sparsely dotted through the film, it's been replaced with generic "loud chase scene music".

A common complaint with Friday the 13th: Part V is that Jason's not the killer. Well, same here. Sure, there's a killer wearing a hockey mask named Jason, but it is not Jason. It feels like a cruddy Jason wannabe. They tried to make him more dangerous here - he is now a perfect shot with a bow and arrow (and has childhood trophies to prove it), a professional axe-thrower, a bear trapper, and - get this - he has an ENTIRE UNDERGROUND TUNNEL SYSTEM. Complete with an ALARM SYSTEM and hidden exits inside wrecked cars.

He's also back to his old teleporting tricks from Part 8... instantly appearing on the other side of the lake and a completely inaccessible roof. I didn't mind it so much in Part 8, which was tongue in cheek anyway (Remember the hockey team billboard?), but here I found it out of place and distracting.

Even when he sticks to the machete, it doesn't feel right - he goes through the motions without any personality, determination, or frankly, scare factor. And at the end, his "death" is the least convincing of the series - even somebody who'd never seen a slasher could've guessed he was coming back for a "last scare".

Oh yeah, and towards the end, there's a lot more of that indecipherable super-shaky-closeup-quick-shot crap again, probably influenced by producer Michael Bay.

To be fair, there are a few amusing jokes, mostly from the token Asian guy, and some decent jump scenes. But for me it just never added up to anything scary, entertaining, or even all that interesting.

2/5
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Just because I like scary things doesn't mean I'M- okay, it kinda does sometimes.

Dubbed Loofah by Asa
UFAlien = UFA = oofah = Loofah

[Magus Gar Kan]

Ah movies, my personal favorites are musicals and fantasy, and to be honest, it's all about the villains.

Sweeny todd, excellent dark musical, truly evil villain an he's the one you're rooting for.

If the villain gets a song cue and the music is good, I'll probably like the movie.

I tend to prefer the stuff that came out in the 80's and 90's. Such as Krull, Dragonslayer, Princess Bride, Black Cauldron, Labyrinth, Dark Crystal, Original SW Trilogy, etc. There is just a style and a quality to them that I prefer to what is coming out now.

There are some more recent ones I love: LoTR, Ironman, the new batman movies, and most of the stuff put out by pixar and dreamworks.

Now that I've rambled on like a drunken fanboy, I will pass along a word of caution to all.

Do not, under any circumstances watch the animated Dragonlance movie unless you want to be dissapointed.

The animation is mediocre, the cgi is terribly jarring and the dialogue is just plain bad. The only thing that they really got right was the voices for the main characters. Overall the whole thing looks as if it should have been a made for tv special open for a series. Which would have been cool, I could have accepted that, but not this. Dragonlance deserved better.

Ok I've ranted and raved long enough, I'm going for food.
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Dubbed Marcus by Asa
Magus Gar Kan = Magus = Margus = Marcus

"Nothing is predictable in regards to humans, save for their infuriating ability to do the unexpected."

I'm not dead, just lurking and very very tired.

[TheBritishInvasion]

Thred res so I can talk about Watchmen.

It was bloody brilliant.

And I mean that literally, there's lots of gore, lots by my standards anyway, fortunatly I knew when to look away so I avoided most of it.

The film is startalingly close to the graphic novel, they used the same dialouge, the same angles, same chronology, it's like they pointed a camera at the comic book.

The only complaints I can think of are that it's very long and the end seemed rushed, they didn't explain things as well as they could have. Other than that it was one of the most enjoyable films I've seen in a long time.
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Britland as dubbed by AsA
Avatar courtesy of Footloose
Keeper of Tengu's electricity and Willow's 'what did you just say' eyes.

[Nem]

Today I went to see Watchmen. Some good laughing bits; great cinematography. Thank god they shot whoever ruins most action films these days by putting a trembling camera in.

I found the blue glowing guy almost impossible to sympathise with, which is an interesting dualism to the state entertained by said character in the film. Not sure whether that was intentional or not. Most of the characters however I found really easy to sympathise with, so I guess it spans a decent range.

I felt the ending was a bit optimistic, but whatever it's nice to have a feel good film once in a while. And there was a bit that made the cynical Nem smile deep down inside. Unfortunately I could work out the main twist of ending about halfway through, and I guess if you’re paying attention most people can too, not a particularly complicated plot. Which left me wondering why on earth the characters didn't see it coming; especially blue glowing guy; but then again they didn't have the god's eye view of the film like the audience did.

It's also an extremely long film, from the time I sat down to the time I got up was easily 3 hours including the trailers at the start of the movie. Considering the certificate of the movie I expected there to be more screaming a begging and so on to go with the violence and gore. Blood is just blood; in Nem’s book it doesn’t earn an 18 without an additional component of human suffering like those squicky traps in Saw.

Good film. I recommend you go and see it.
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Never forget,
We stroll along the roof of hell
Gazing at flowers.
- Issa

[Squeeself]

Squee hasn't watched the movie or even really read many reviews of it, but...Watchmen optimistic? Eh? Gotta have changed the ending if it ended up that way, 'cause the comic Watchmen is the epitome of pessimism...

[Nem]

In all honesty it probably has more to do with the fact that I idealise order than any objective aspect of the film.
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Never forget,
We stroll along the roof of hell
Gazing at flowers.
- Issa

[Nem]

Saw this in part of the adverts for a film I went to see yesterday.

Avatar trailer:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-9ceBgWV8io

Pretty @_@

Edit for different vid:
I've yet to work out why companies get their trailers removed from youtube, it's like they don't want people to go and see their movies.
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Never forget,
We stroll along the roof of hell
Gazing at flowers.
- Issa

[spawnofjaws]

@ Nem: I saw the previews for that, too. I mean, I love his work, but I'm just not sure....

On other notes, on Saturday I got to see 2012, it was...interesting...I'm not really a fan of John Cusack, so that probably didn't help.
Aaand, tonight I watched The Ugly Truth for the first time.
It was cute! I liked it!
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Hoffman icon courtesy of my very good friend, Isaymakebelieve, on LJ, check her out! http://community.livejournal.com/isaymakebelieve/
In my brain, I'm someone famous AND important!
Dubbed 'Egg' by ASA, but also responds to "spegg"...
Keeper of Oliblish and Teh Poodle Stick....
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