I was gonna say, between the vorpal bunny and Bun-Bun, to say nothing of experience with irascible angoras, I have no problem whatsoever taking rabbits seriously as a threat. They're certainly no worse than, say, rats . . .

Here's something a filmmaker should keep in mind. Unless it's monty python, keep this in mind. BUNNIES AREN'T SCARY.

I'm left wondering how many rabbits you've dealt with in real life.

I remember when a rabbit (a wild one in the countryside) saw off our dog (as a nearly grown puppy) simply by staring her out - they were pretty much nose to nose; border collies can be real wimps!

Ray wrote:Here's something a filmmaker should keep in mind. Unless it's monty python, keep this in mind. BUNNIES AREN'T SCARY.

There's this little movie called Watership Down which might change your mind as it has rabbits getting killed, sneered, poisoned and and killing each other and a rabbit general called Woundwort who acts like Hilter..

"Come back and fight! Dogs aren't dangerous!"

Not incidentally, it's the "cute widdle bunnies" stereotype that resulted in a lot of unprepared American children seeing this film, and subsequently receiving a hell of a surprise. From what I can gather, though, WD is considered appropriate for children in the UK and even originated in the form of stories Mr. Adams would tell his girls. US sensibilities toward what kids can handle are notoriously overprotective, so this feels about right to me, but perhaps some of our UK residents can confirm that their kids are assumed to have greater fortitude.

I would say rather that UK attitudes are following US ones, but in this area are still considerably behind.

Finding Dory

Don't get me wrong its not a bad film but then its not a good film ether and it tries way, way to hard to capture the heart of the original but never really succeeds and feels forced. I just feel like Pixar have kind lost there spark when I watched this its like there trying so hard to capture that glory days feeling but don't really get that things are different now and media has moved on and that Dory and characters like Destiny, Bailey being the butt of disability jokes is just not funny any more.

Also I know that Pixar tried to make out that Gerald and Becky weren't disabled but him and Becky are hugely problematic characters because they are mocked, ridiculed and bullied and nether can talk there both silent victims who are not accepted by others and it points to the Pixar creators being so out of touch with the messages they are now sending to a younger audiences.

London Road

No, I've never seen anything quite like it. The film tells the story of the road in the town of Ipswich in Suffolk in which a recent serial killer lived - the reactions of the residents and how they coped with what was going on. The words are taken from interviews with the residents, and then turned into song, of a sort. It started life as a stage musical, and was so successful that rather than simply rely on their film of the production, they (The National Theatre) went ahead and made a full-on theatrical film (still as a musical, of course). Some of the cast transferred, but they brought in some bigger names like Tom Hardy and Olivia Colman to bulk up the appeal. The result is quite compelling, once you've puzzled your way through the opening titles, though a couple of the scenes outstay their welcome just slightly. Some of the interviewees are quite shameless, like the one who wants to shake the killer by the hand for killing five of the prostitutes who were bringing down the area. I suppose it's not great; but it's good and worthwhile. So, recommended as an interesting curiosity, which also gives a thought-provoking view of a real event.

To help make some progress towards my 1001 Animated Films To Check Out project (which you can contribute to by heading on over to this here thread winkwinknudgenudge), I've been watching a good few animated films on Netflix. Tonight's watch was Spirit: Stallion of the Cimarron, one of the later 2D DreamWorks movies that got buried under the post-Shrek hype for CG animated films.

It's a decent film, but one with a very big problem: the exposition. Spirit is a silent movie, where pretty much all the important moments, character beats and attempts at thematic points are communicated solely through the animation, expressions and body language of its characters. Yet, for some inane reason, somebody on board decided to have Matt Damon come in and do some voiceover for the main character's thoughts. Said voiceover adds nothing to what's going on, instead reiterating what we've already seeing (similar to the bastardized Arabian Knight edit of The Thief and the Cobbler, but much less frequent and not even adding a slightly amusing tangent).

It's aggravating that somebody thought audiences would be too stupid to intuit what was going on and felt we needed a celebrity voice to remind us that yes, this horse wants to go home. Not that the animation or even the music could have told us, or we could be trusted to think for ourselves. Honestly, if I had a Mac and a copy of Final Cut Pro, I'd really consider doing a re-edit of this film to get rid of the useless voiceovers (and replace the Bryan Adams songs with instrumentals, since the lyrics also have the habit of restating things we already know/can clearly see).

Sadly not, so all I can do is say that this film could have done without Matt Damon's presence (if you must have a horse movie starring Matt Damon, consider doing it in the vein of A Horse Named Keanu).

Halloween (1978)

A great scary movie that takes full advantage of the night atmosphere to produce scares that still hold up to this day. I never fully realized how little of a role Donald Pleasance had despite him getting top billing over Jamie Lee Curtis who is given nearly all the screen time which gives us plenty of time to sympathize with her good girl archetype in the face of all the drug binging and sex by her more promiscuous friends who by horror logic, meet premature ends.

Showgirls (1995)

Absolutely delightful! The rivalry between Nomi and Cristal is sizzling and electrifying. One thing I didn't like was that the movie hammers in the fact that most of the male characters are soulless scumbags who want to get you into bed the easy or the hard way and also that despite her past, Nomi is NOT a whore.

Saw First Blood (Rambo) for the first time. The first 40 minutes or so are good stuff, but the film sadly peaks too soon with the iconic “Don’t push it” line. As soon as we enter the cave all tension is replaced by silliness, Rambo’s objectives aren’t clear and the lead up to the ending feels rather awkward.
The ending itself is an interesting one; the action hero breaks down into tears? I like it. My only problem was the Polish DVD had original English audio but no English subtitles, so I had to try and make sense of Stallone’s mumbling with only my ears…

Watched the Star Wars trilogy over the Easter weekend. The deep note was on the special edition VHSs, but it was missing from the rental DVDs. Bummer.

A few weeks ago, my speech teacher at school recommended me a movie that she'd thought I'd like called Garden State. The jist of it is that a lost young man is coming home for his mother's funeral, and along the way he reconnects with some friends and a girl he meets at a doctor's office (Don't ask).

Well, my speech teacher was right, I really did like it. There's a sweet quality to the writing and characters and how they go through the movie's themes. It's constantly funny, but never loses sight of it's heart.

Dracula Untold (2015)

Okay I confess I thought I was gonna hate this one as I really like the (1992) Bram Stokers Dracula because to me Garry Oldman nailed everything about the character so I sort of envisioned reborn being a train wreck. Yet surprisingly its not, granted it not as good as the 1992 version by a long shot but its not bad and in places it does some really clever things with the source material and the final battle with Mehmed all dressed in gold and glowing like the savour/angel figure surrounded by silver even though he isn't a savour was a really clever way of doing role reverse while having Vlad all in black and red.

The problem with this film though is Vlad's character and its not Luke Evan's fault its the script writers and directors because they don't have these moments right from the start where he needs to be shown keeping in control of his blood lust and more violent nature as its hinted through out the movie that he has issues with blood lust and enjoys killing people yet you just never quite feel it and you just don't get this moment in the film where he really lets loose and rips people to ribbons and then comes home drenched in blood even when he becomes a vampire its just not shown till the very end but it still feels like its been toned down because of the pg 13 rating.

I really like Dracula Untold and when I heard it was getting no follow up it killed my interest in the monsterverse.

I think a straight up good guy version of Dracula in a reselling of the Bram Stoker novel would be a really fun romp. Especially with Charles Dance as the villain.

Alas.

Chuckman wrote:I really like Dracula Untold and when I heard it was getting no follow up it killed my interest in the monsterverse.

That really sucks because the ending is a cliff hanger hinting a further modern retelling and the guy who is playing Dracula's creator who I thought was meant to be Nosferatu says "Let the games begin." and I would have really liked to see where they were gonna take that. Yet instead Universal wants to throw money in to a mummy reboot which I don't see doing well at all...

Saw A Silent Voice last night.

First, be clear that this is not a WAFF experience as Your Name is; you need to concentrate to work out what is really going on, at least until near the end - I'm sure that a second watch will make it easier. Second, this is not (a mistake I made, because of my personal interest in the matter) a film about deafness; sure, deafness underlies and propels the plot, but the subject of the film is the MC's halting journey towards redemption after his treatment of the deaf girl back in elementary school (and the interaction of that with other children who did the same), and her journey towards understanding her relationships as well. Anyway, what I liked was the lack of inevitability in reaching a satisfactory conclusion - you kept being reminded that things seeming to go well on the surface may well not be good underneath, and that failure is an option; the sequence in which the MC ends up in a coma shows this most dramatically.

Technically, it is, as you expect these days, a good-looking film. I do find myself disliking the effect of 2D animation set against photorealistic backgrounds, though (both in the aesthetic mismatch making the characters look pasted on, and in particular the way that feet move jerkily against a smoothly scrolling background); I'm not saying my reaction to this is any worse in this film than others - rather I think that seeing it on a big screen (it's the first anime I've seen this way) emphasised this effect.

Anyway, once you get the chance do go and see it. I was engrossed throughout, and found it an enjoyable experience overall (except for the most uncomfortable cinema seats I know!).

I apologize in advance for the length of this post...

cyharding wrote:I remember watching this at home with one of my brothers and he spent the whole movie tearing through all the inconsistancies in terms of plot, technology, etc... and it made sense. It was both the most horrible and beautiful thing I had ever witnessed. I particularly remember his criticism of your favorite scene DarkBluePhoneix.

Nemesis (and Star Trek in general...) is just something that everyone has very varied opinions on. I mean, how many Trekkies like ST:ENT. I do, but it's also the first series I was able to watch as it progressed from beginning to end. I do see how impractical it is to do the whole ramming thing in reality, considering that two phaser banks and the quantum torpedo launcher, not to mention that sick ass captain's yacht and several RCS thrusters all got destroyed with the maneuver, meaning if weapons power was restored they'd be unable to actually fight and maneuver properly (also there is a load more shit that would become apparent but would take forever to explain). But I was a kid when I first saw the movie, and like with many movies I love, there's always inconsistencies, especially in the Star Trek properties.

I can't stand several of the movies, mainly TMP and V, because, just because there's so much wrong with them. II and First Contact are my favorites, with IV, VI, Generations, and Nemesis being close at heel.

Now, as for the most recent movies I've watched, namely Skull Island and Power Rangers.

Skull Island... I was unimpressed. While Kong himself was wonderfully done, the rest of the plot was meh. I guess it's mostly casting (Hiddleston and Larson mainly, bad acting...), and the time-frame they set it in, which while having a retro feel with post-Vietnam has just been overused. It time to lead the dead and rotting horse alone. A modern settting movie would have been far more interesting IMO, Kong destroying an F-22 or F-35 would have been way cooler than some helicopters. Now in further reading about the movie, the fact NGE was an inspiration (which explains why the Japanese pilot was named Ikari) is cool. Thwn the reveal of a potential (or forthcoming) Godzilla vs. Kong movie is both cool and yet another shared universe we must deal with. So, overall, 6/10.

Also, for Power Rangers, the plot was interesting, Zordon as a former Red Ranger, and Rita as the corrupted Green Ranger was impressive, and the effects of the Power Coins on the characters was well explained. However, the whole "Super Sayian" approach to morphing was lame (you need to need it) as were the uniforms themselves, which ventured into Green Lantern territory. The zords were ok, and looked like Zoids... so yeah. Also, hearing a clip of the original theme music was awesome, so nostalgia points there. Also, it was nice they avoided the MMPR mistake of casting by skin color to role, again, points there. So overall, I'd give it a 7/10.

Finally, I'll add this because I saw this last night. The Absolutely Fabulous movie. It holds very true to the show, and brings the antics of Edina and Patsy into their aging lives, where they are even more removed from trends due to being stuck in the past. Seeing all the characters from the show, even in shot cameos was nice, and all the celebrity cameos were impressive. The plot was just as outlandish as the show, so points to that. Also, they knocked a great many tins, such as the 24 hours news cycle and some other more subtle jokes, which were amazing. However, if one were to watch this without having seen the show (and subsequent specials) they would be quite lost. Overall, I give it an 8/10.

TL;DR - Star Trek has a lot of opinions within its fandom, putting even NGE's fandom in its dust. Kong was ok and had NGE as an inspiration, Power Rangers was a nice nostalgia flick with some issues, and the Ab Fab movie was hillarious in the context of the show.