What have you watched lately?

[Scots Taffer]

Just caught it

And...? Seeing it tonight.

[doctorfrog]

I just watched 15 baffling minutes of easily one of the worst movies I've ever seen onscreen. I just had to look it up after seeing a ridiculously young Tupac dance around with a bloke with a keytar.

Funny, I knew exactly which movie you meant. This is one of my favorite terrible movies of all time, forever. Right up there with Hudson Hawk.

I've been binging my way through Star Trek: Voyager. I'm a huge Trek nerd and I've never seen most of these because I couldn't stand the Voyager series when it first ran.

I've also just started watching TV series Millennium. It's surprisingly good TV.

I'm almost done with The Prisoner series. Pretty obvious how great this show is. I'm swirling and sipping it slowly over a six month period.

In general, I've returned to the junk food TV of my late teens and early twenties after getting my degree and being too good for most forms of entertainment for a couple years. Gettin' awful dry up there on that high horse.

[Taffer36]

I've been checking out Christopher Nolan's films. Just watched Memento and Insomnia and he's easily one of my favorite directors now.

There's some amazing versatility in his work, from pure emotion-in-your-face blockbusters like The Dark Night, to straight-forward thrillers like Insomnia, to mess-with-your-brain artsy films like Memento.

Looking forward to Inception.

[Molock]

Alive, the miracle of the Andes with Evan Hawke, 1993.

The true story of a rugby team crashing the airplane in the Andes, surviving 70 days in about 18000 ft+ altitude eating the dead. Only survived thanks to some guys climbing over the mountains up to 20k ft without any alpine climbing equipment, oxygene bottles and as food only meat of the dead in a bag.
They called the choppers after they arrived civilization, they were climbing about three weeks.

The film was...ok, I dont like Evan Hawke and he wouldnt have been my 1st choice for this movie.. but nevermind. I am just thinking which body part I would eat from a human body if I had to.
I think I would stick with meat from the calves and back.

[Andarthiel]

It was a really nice Australian indie film called Gabriel.
Picked it up quite cheaply and really enjoyed it. Didn't expect it to have so much depth.
Basically the story is set in Purgatory where the Seven Fallen Angels have taken over (Samael, Asmodeus, Lilith, Balan, Baliel, Moloch and Ahriman) and the Angels(Gabirel, Michael, Uriel, Amitiel, Iruthiel, Raphael,Remiel) have been taking turns in trying to bring light back into Purgatory. Gabriel is like the latest and last arrival to Purgatory and the whole film just explores their nature and shows that they aren't their perfect beings that they're cracked to be(like Gabriel who tried bring light into this world but does it through aggresive and brutal means).
Apart from the plot it has some great action scenes too as well as a dark Underworld-esque visual style.
I highly recommend it.

[Muzman]

An Aus indie with great action? I admit I was sus until I looked it up (I'd never even heard of this). I think I saw these guys' tropfest entry years ago. I can't remember what it was called. It was just Kung-Fu Hobo with a Baby to us. And that's exactly what it was; like an action demo reel where a Kung-Fu Hobo beats up guys who are trying to get this baby he found.
Probably should check it out. It's amazing how that sort of thing just disappears from the radar around here (cue: endless rants on how Aus cinema actively ignores or spurns genre films)

Anyway, I was watching The Stand again recently. Oh man.
It starts pretty well, despite being old, hokey, and cheap and TV (spotto: it's all the Rev from Deadwood's fault). Then it all came flooding back. Yes terrible fornicating women, embittered would-be-fornicating geeks (Parker Lewis!) and insane people will all turn to the dark side at the drop of hat, and head for that font of evil Las Vegas. But thank god for good hearted heroes, the disabled, the chaste and jesus living over in South Park.
By the end it's descended into complete hilarity with all the sing alongs, endless jeebus/d3vil visions and a contest to see how many times they can say the word 'Stand' in an hour and still have dialogue (Steve King himself shows up to give us a few). Not to mention a legendary You Must Be Fucking Joking ending.
Oh well, points for effort.

[Scots Taffer]

Yeah, that's a spectacular case of great start, promising early middle and fuck me it disintegrates into completely stupid gibberish.

[Aerothorn]

I'll only mention the really enjoyable films here, as I don't want to spend energy being negative about films that were disappointing (I'm looking at you, Let The Right One In).

I recently watched Barcelona and thought it was absolutely phenomenal. I followed that up with Metropolitan, which wasn't quite as good but was still worthwhile.

In the same "proto-Wes-Anderson" vein, there was Noah Baumbach's Kicking and Screaming, which wasn't particularly original but was throughly enjoyable nonetheless.

Oh, and I just watched the Star Wars Trilogy again. Good times.

[rachel]

Yeah, that's a spectacular case of great start, promising early middle and fuck me it disintegrates into completely stupid gibberish.

Could be said about the book too. Without the supernatural shit it could have been awesome. Then again it's Stephen King.

I reread Malevil this summer. It's the story of a few survivors after a nukular holocaust and it's still incredibly good albeit dated.

[David]

The Hurt Locker is a good film, really does seem to capture the fuuuuuuccckkkkk situation of modern warfare, but there was way too much shakeycam in there.

[rachel]

Same could be said of Public Enemies. I'm usually a fan of shakey but damn that was so unnecessary there.

(Movie's excellent though, catch it if you can)

[Scots Taffer]

Rewatched Pacific Heights. lol.

[gunsmoke]

Rewatched Pacific Heights. lol.

Michael Douglas, right?

Anyway, the girlfriend and I watched Tales of Ordinary Madness, a film adaptation of this Charles Bukowski novel.

Excellent, excellent Italian indie film done in English. Highly rec'd by both of us!

Also, tried to watch Gran Torino. Key word: TRIED. Kinda reminded me of a wannabe 'Crash'.

Sorry, Eastwood, you've slipped. I wish you would just go back to westerns

[SubJeff]

Saw The Time Traveler's Wife. Quite enjoyable but this type of time travel romance thing has been done before.

Also saw Die Hard 4.0 for the first time. Meh.

[quinch]

Just this minute finished watching 'Taken'. Nasty horrible rubbish.

[Scots Taffer]

Michael Douglas, right?

Negative.

Matthew Modine and Melanie Griffith play the hapless couple to PSYCHO Michael Keaton.

God, it's such a hangover from the 80s movie.

[PigLick]

Yeah, that's a spectacular case of great start, promising early middle and fuck me it disintegrates into completely stupid gibberish.

as raph alluded to earlier, thats pretty much every Stephen King book written.

[Rogue Keeper]

Gee, I'm watching so many great things lately I don't know where to begin. Some are Xth re-runs of my golden stuff, others are my premieres. Everything on original DVDs or DivX, because the TV channels full of disgusting commercials can kiss my refined taste for a good wine (like dethtoll would probably put it). Just something :

-The Andromeda Strain
-Children of Men
-The Green Mile
-Fahrenheit 451
-Death Becomes Her
-The Graduate
-Phenomena
-Kramer vs. Kramer
-The Man Who Wasn't There
-The Big Sleep
-Born Innocent
-Requiem For A Dream
-Dark City
-The Maltese Falcon
-Blood Diamond
-The Fly
-The Birds
-Labyrinth
-Taxi Driver
-Das Boot
-Evil Dead
-Firestarter
-The Noah's Ark Principle
-Dune
-Forbidden Planet
-The Day The Earth Stood Still (1951)
-North By Northwest
-Memento
-The Black Hole
-The Shawshank Redemption
-Silent Running
-Renaissance
-Vertigo
-Un Chien Andalou
-The Life And Death Of Peter Sellers
-Dances With Wolves
-The Exorcist series
-Jurassic Park series (Rrrrroarrrr!)

And I'm sure I forgot a piece or five.

A careful eye has probably noticed high amount of films featuring Jennifer Connelly. That's right, I'm a fan.

Lately I watched The Quiet Earth. Quite peculiar and pretty good too. The ending!

Wow, man, I've been wondering about the name of that film for ages! I've seen it as a kid, but forgot the name. Thanks, I should look for it somewhere. But isn't it ridiculous that the original movie poster is spitting the final point right in the face of the audience?

[henke]

Haha, ambitious! Over what timeperiod was that Rogue?

Besides Inglorious Basterds I also saw The Hangover and Fanboys last weekend. As I am typing this The Hangover is at #212 on IMDb's Top250 list. WTF. It had some funny bits but it's so far from deserving to be in the top 250 that it's ridiculous. What IS up with IMDb scores lately though? It seems that many new films have much higher scores than they deserve. I swear it didn't use to be like this.

Fanboys (trailer) was fun. Dan Fogler is in it. There's something about Dan Fogler that really makes you root for him, even though neither this, nor Balls of Fury were all that great. It feels like with the right script and the right director this guy could be hilarious.

[Aja]

I went to an advance screening of Nine (or, "9", I guess). I found it aesthetically appealing but dumb. Brand-name actors like Elijah Wood and Jennifer Connelly detract, if anything. The animators and sound effects people deserve Oscars.

[Matthew]

I sat down and indulged myself by watching Innerspace yesterday. Great fun.

[Rogue Keeper]

Haha, ambitious! Over what timeperiod was that Rogue?

Since about the beginning of this year.


Matt, if you liked the idea of Innerspace, look up for original http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fantastic_Voyage. It makes somewhat naive impression today, but if you like the naivité of some old sci-fis, you may enjoy it.

[Scots Taffer]

as raph alluded to earlier, thats pretty much every Stephen King book written.

Well aware of that. Adaptations of his work tend to strengthen the core King attributes: a sense of time and place, dialogue, early character work, but also jettison his penchant for completely destroying everything when unable to think of a reasonable ending.

[Fafhrd]

Somebody hasn't seen Dreamcatcher...

Stuff seen since District 9: The Mist (Blu-Ray. The black and white version continues to be the superior version), Inglourious Basterds (excellent), In The Loop (also excellent), Hot Fuzz and Shaun of the Dead (Blu-Ray. Gorgeous. I have obviously seen these before)

[Matthew]

I remember Fantastic Voyage, Rogue, though I've never seen it the whole way through - must look it out some time. I do remember the Amiga game adaptation of course.