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What DVD / Video did you watch last night? (pt3)

More episodes of Roobarb inc When It Wasn't Thorsday (The Gods get their revenge on Roobarb for pretending to be Thor and throwing lighting bolts round the garden, & he briefly becomes a dog on wheels ridden by Custard :D :D)
about half of a Redemption TV live metal sampler - some good bands
 
Chloe, Atom Egoyan's most mainstream film to date. This falls vaguely within the territory of the erotic thriller, but because Egoyan has always made more interesting and complex films about human sexuality than most directors who have gone there, this never becomes quite as trite or tacky than these films tend to be. A remake of a French film which I haven't seen, this is about a well off woman (Julianne Moore) who suspects her husband (Liam Neeson) to be having affairs. She then hires a high class prostitute (Amanda Seyfried) to seduce him and to report back. Then things get a bit more complicated than she bargained for. Towards the end it becomes a bit generic and melodramatic, but mostly it's a lot more subtle and shaded than most films of its kind.
 
I didn't think there was anything hugely harrowing or particularely worthy to tut about in the film. That girls childhood was not much worse than my middleclass childhood and she's a likable character. There are dysfunctional parents in all classes and while the mother was a cow, she wasn't a complete monster.

There are certainly dysfunctional parents in every social class but somehow it's the working class/underclass who cop by far the most flak for it. I liked Fish Tank but think parts of it were very cliched - I never said the mother was a 'complete monster' but she was a lazy stereotype of the kind regularly found in tabloid newspapers. She had no depth or characteristics beyond being shit at raising her kids, swearing and getting pissed. And I certainly found aspects of the film harrowing - the grinding poverty, the way Mia and her mum are betrayed by Conor, Mia's 'audition'; I could go on...
 
Lust,Caution - beautifully looking, a bit too long and slow moving though, with some saucy sex to liven it up a bit, not a bad film, but could have lopped 30 minutes off it (whilst keeping the sauce)
 
He Loves Me... He Loves Me Not

Not knowing what the film was about, I enjoyed the storytelling method.
Audrey Tautou for once played someone that is not as lovable as she always is in other films.
 
Jennifer's Body - enjoyable, silly-arsed demonic possession romp with Megan Fox and Amanda Seyfried. In tone it reminded me of 80s movies like Fright Night which also mixed horror and comedy.
 
Galaxy Quest - Enjoyable Sci-Fi Parody, about a bunch of TV stars who get enilsted to help a whole race of aliens who are descended from Kevin Eldon.
 
Orang Utan said:
no, it's guilt at being a bad driver


eta: here's a synopsis to save you the bother of watching it:
will smith is sad. you know it cos he's frowning and the film's first scene is a flashforward to him reporting his own suicide. then he's driving around being horrible to people. it turns out he's some kind of medical insurance claims adjustor. so you think, oh that's why he's horrible to people. he's even horrible to a blind woody harrelson. oh, and at some random point he does a soliloquy about how fascinating he found jellyfish as a kid or summat. but anyway, then he starts being nice to people. downtrodden people who need a break in life, like blinds, abused wives, sick people. then it turns out that he's not a medical bastard, but he's just pretending to be one, using his brother's credentials. people are puzzled about why he is being nice all of a sudden, including a beautiful lady with a weak heart. he fixes her printing press and they fall in love, but he's all hot and cold and she's all hurt and confused. then it transpires that he's feeling sad cos a while ago he wasn't paying attention to the road and he crashes his car, killing his wife and some people in an suv. it turns out that the number of people he's helped (guess how many?) is the exact number he's killed. then he gets in the bath filled with ice water and releases a box jellyfish. he has a hilarious fit and then dies.
I'm lying here imagining the writer pitching it to the movie execs.
 
I watched Fritz Lang's M on Blu-ray. I hadn't seen it in a long time. Amazing how contemporary it is in it's attitudes and then two years later the Nazi's plunged Germany back into the middle ages.
 
We watched a rather strange French animated film called "Fantastic Planet" (La Planete Sauvage) that id recorded on Sky Arts.
Then "Frailty", have to say i didnt expect or suspect the ending.
 
We watched a rather strange French animated film called "Fantastic Planet" (La Planete Sauvage) that id recorded on Sky Arts.

Ahh I adore that film. Has one of the best openings of any film I've seen. If you enjoyed it you should also see Les Maitres du Temps, kind of a sequel in that it's set in a similar sort of world/time, but not a continuing story line.

I watched Rec which was a pretty stupid idea as I'm alone in my parents old house that makes strange noises :hmm:

Last night I watched Moon, which was ok, not what I was expecting which makes me wonder if I was thinking of another film but I don't know what.

I also watched Noise which was something I picked up on a whim at the video store because it sounded good, and I did indeed enjoy it :). I liked the whole urban soundscape throughout.
 
the human centipede - beyond the initiial horror of the idea, it doesn't sustain a whole movie. the mad scientist is suitably manic and creepy, but it's not particularly horrific or exciting. you don't feel for any of the characters. beyond showing that the mad scientist hates humans (we know this cos he says 'I HATE HUMANS)' and that he's fonder of dogs (he fondles a picture of some rottweillers he centipeded earlier), no attempt at characterisation is made. occasionally the victims hold hands to show solidarity, but we know nothing about them, so we're indifferent to their fate.
it's one of the things that irks me about modern horror films - we need to care about the victims to some extent to feel fear on their behalf, though there's a certain grim satisfaction to seeing paris hilton-alikes being brutally butchered, but that's a different kind of film altogether...
 
Somerstown

quite a sweet film, funny, reminded me of Ken Loach films from the 80s/90s, I know the area as well, so it was a case of 'I've been there!' at several points in the film.
 
Monsters Vs Aliens.

It's the second time I have watched it, not sure why I watched it again. It's ok I suppose.
 
"Let The Right One In" - loved the book and really enjoyed the film. Though the film inevitably leaves quite a lot out that is in the book I liked the fact that it focused on the relationship between Oskar and Eli, both of whom gave excellent performances. Beautifully shot too.
 
i watched "black cat white cat" again, a serbian gypsy comedy, it is very good, don't think that film could ever get boring.
 
Motorama! Definately a feckin weird film[ every 10 to 15 mins i kept saying Wtf is going on here? Couldnt figure it owt at all but kept watchin all the same. IMBd genre says it all really (adventure,Comedy,Crime,Drama,Fantasy,Mystery,scifi,Thriller) Wtf!! Recommended just to see if yer can figure out what the hells goin on. Answers on a postcard.
 
Legion - Terminator meets Evil Dead but without the charm. A truly terrible film comprising of plastic characters/ ideas borrowed from iconic movies.
 
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