Testy Area 51 - Page 815

I hate watching depressing films too Rick one of the reasons I've rarely watched Schindler's List since it's 1993 release. I still haven't watched my dvd of the film. The last time I watched The Color Purple was when I rented the video back in the 80's.

I will eventually see The Lovely Bones though because it's Peter Jackson and it's bound to look great, with huge dollops of unnecessary CGI to distract me from all the pain and sadness.

Jim if Jeff Bridges did play a black girl who endures unimaginable hardships in her young life, abused by her mother, raped by her father, she grows up poor, angry, illiterate, fat, unloved and generally unnoticed, he would almost certainly win the Oscar for Best Actress, sorry Actor. Or win a special Razzie award, it could go either way. But after winning Best Actor at the GGs Bridges must be favourite to win the Oscar, unless it goes Clooney's way. Last year we thought Mickey Rourke had a good chance at winning but was beaten at the last hurdle by Sean Penn.

Bought the Bourne trilogy on Blu, £25 from HMV,  they look great and I love all that picture in picture malarkey they put on these discs. I say that and when it comes to actually watching the films I make sure all picture in picture modes are switched off.

I cry when tree fell down in Avatar. [sniff] Why why why! Why kill tree? eh? [wipes eyes] What harm it do? Anybody else cry when big tree die? I also is cry when big monkey dies in Kink Konk.

I know a couple of people who cried when that massive tree fell in Avatar, a tree for chrissakes! If James Cameron can make people cry over a tree no wonder the film's such a huge hit. I was too busy staring at the wonderous eyepopping visual effects, didn't realise I had to sob over a plant.

I'm not made of stone though I did get a bit teary at a couple of scenes in Pixars's Up.

Cut it out! Cut it out! Cut it out! The hell's the matter with you? Stupid! We're all very different people. We're not Watusi. We're not Spartans. We're Americans, with a capital 'A', huh? You know what that means? Do ya? That means that our forefathers were kicked out of every decent country in the world. We are the wretched refuse. We're the underdog. We're mutts! Here's proof: his nose is cold! But there's no animal that's more faithful, that's more loyal, more loveable than the mutt.



Who saw "Old Yeller?" Who cried when Old Yeller got shot at the end? I cried my eyes out. So we're all dogfaces, we're all very, very different, but there is one thing that we all have in common: we were all stupid enough to enlist in the Army. We're mutants. There's something wrong with us, something very, very wrong with us. Something seriously wrong with us - we're soldiers. But we're American soldiers! We've been kicking ass for 200 years! We're 10 and 1!

Now we don't have to worry about whether or not we practiced. We don't have to worry about whether Captain Stillman wants to have us hung. All we have to do is to be the great American fighting soldier that is inside each one of us. Now do what I do, and say what I say. And make me proud.

Yeah I'll be rooting for Jeff Bridges too, come Oscar night. I haven't seen the film but I like Bridges and have liked him since first seeing him in Thunderbolt and Lightfoot back in the 70's, he was Lightfoot to Clint Eastwood's Thunderbolt. I remember seeing that film when it was reissued on a double bill with a Bruce Lee film in the late 70's. I think it was Way of the Dragon aka Return of the Dragon. Being a kung fu nut it was the Bruce Lee film that was the big attraction for me, but I really enjoyed Eastwoods film.

Another film I remember reissued on a double bill with a Bruce Lee film was Freebie and the Bean, starring James Caan and Alan Arkin. Loved it and watched that same double bill, with Enter the Dragon, again and again at the cinema. I had to wait 10 years before Freebie and the Bean finally made it into my dvd collection, and uncut too, our asshole censors cut out some of the violence, including the final kill.


I enjoyed both Bourne sequels Jim, you should do what I do and shake your head up and down while watching them, but you will need a rest and an aspirin afterward. .



I saw Birth of a Nation last year in a restored print, it was more offensive than Mandingo. The Klu Klux Klan were the avenging heroes and the blacks were portrayed as either simpleminded or nasty brutes. The main baddie is so obviously a white actor in blackface it wasn't funny. Some scenes stood out, the Civil War and the assassination of Lincoln, and I'm almost ashamed to admit shots of the hooded Klan riding their horses at night, "spectral crusaders" as one newspaper at the time called them, still generates a certain 'frisson' nearly a 100 years later. I wonder if they'll ever remake this film.

I liked 9, it was weird and different and refreshingly lacking in naff singing and dancing sequences.

Talking of weird, Russ "finally got his hands on" a documentary about boy molesters, um and how many years have you been searching for this long lost treasure Russ? And whats next on your 'must find' list? "A Weekend with the Klan"? "Worlds Best Executions Captured on Film"? "Freaks and Deformities, a pictorial guide", "I Married a Horse"?

Transformers 2, one of the more enjoyable films of last year is one of the leading contenders at this years Raspberry Awards *tthhppttt* along with Land of the Lost, New Moon and GI Joe. It may not be a great film but I enjoyed TF2 a hell of a lot more than Mooo "Sam Rockwell talking to himself for 90 minutes" ooon. 

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100201/ap_en_ot/us_film_razzies

You should be interested Elizabeth, it looks like one of your favourite films of last year will win the big one and Bigelow the first woman in Oscar history to bag Best Director, especially after becoming the first female to win the DGA award.

Jim, I wish Watchmen did get some recognition, but it opened nearly a year ago maybe the voters had already forgotten it. That was one of my 5 favourites of 2009. I thought Dr. Manhattans blue penis might be up for a special award but no.

I seem to be the only person glad there are ten nominees this year, I'm glad because I know if it was the usual 5 it would mean no Avatar, no District 9 and probably no Basterds either. The whole idea of making it 10 instead of 5 is to add some well recieved films that more than a hundred people have seen and get more people interested in watching the show.

The Dark Knight was one of the best reviewed films of 2008 and was shut out of the top 5, instead films like The Reader which had mixed reviews got picked by the snooty academy.

  But that's just it Walter, Moon is a neat little SF tale, I liked it too. But it's not an insanely over the top robot vs robot superfight. It doesn't have robot balls dangling over John Turturro's head, Moon didn't make me laugh as much as that 'can't take seriously for a moment' summer smash. Moon didn't make me laugh at all come to think of it. Transformers 2 was a guilty pleasure for moi and I'm not ashamed to admit it. I hope Bay keeps making them.

For instance, if I told you I enjoyed Jurassic Park a hell of a lot more than the multi-award winning 'very important' Schindler's List, both directed by Spielberg and both released in 1993. Are you really going to scratch your head and think this guy is nuts?

Well Walter you just admitted yourself that you enjoyed TF2 as a 'guilty pleasure' movie, so it shouldn't be that shocking that I would enjoy it more than you did.

We shouldn't be too dismissive of 'guilty pleasure' movies, many of my favourite movies are of the 'guilty pleasure' variety. If I had to pick 20 'desert island' films, some would be guilty favourites leaving out some of the established greats.

But if I had to pick one favourite guilty pleasure movie which one will it be? hmmm I think I'll pick David Lynch's Dune, a film that was trashed by everyone and even the director can't bring himself to talk about it. I watch it at least once a year, recently in HD.

Ah yes Remo "you move like a pregnant yak!" Williams, I watched that movie many times on video back in the Eighties. That was a decade full of guilty pleasure movies. I never did read any of the Destroyer novels it was based on. Fred Ward was great and I also enjoyed Joel Grey as Chiun "You move like a baboon... with two clubbed feet". Hopefully it'll one day turn up on Blu in it's correct ratio.

Good on yer, chief!

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I am the master of my fate
I am the captain of my soul
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Quickie Quiz: Famous words from an old poem. Which of this years Oscar nominated films is it connected to? Anyone?

Cheers Jim I thought I'd killed off the thread with that last post, I was about to replace it with a picture of Chuck Heston in a loincloth damning everyone to hell.

Invictus it was, oh I love those words. I think I'll have them tattoo'd on my arm, or... how about a tattoo of Chuck Heston in a loincloth instead? hmmm I can't decide, damn it. Wait. Raquel Welch in a loincloth? Or... Sean Connery in a nappy? What was the question again?

I enjoyed Zombieland too, that beginning was great fun and inventive but it was sort of downhill after that. The star cameo was great though.

We watched The Lovely Bones a couple of days ago. Didn't find it all that depressing or distressing, in fact I wasn't affected by it at all. Maybe I am made of stone. It's no spoiler to say the film is about a 14 year old girl who gets killed by a child molester, hmmm was she molested or just killed? Anyway she spends the rest of the film in a colourful computer enhanced afterlife trying to communicate with her grieving family and give them clues to the killer's whereabouts. The film was well made, well acted and not a bad way to spend two hours. 3 out of 5.