Re: Hunger Games movies, I've only seen the first one but I found it to be decent but tremendously overrated. Irritating overuse of shakycam, weak character/plot development that seemed to only exist to tick off boxes of stuff that happened in the book, without the actual background of WHY those things were happening that the book presumably gave (such as Katniss's relationship with the young black girl who gets killed). Not horrible, definitely exciting with the action and interesting from a visual perspective, but nothing that special, really. I'd rather watch The Running Man.

I don't think the characters/plots better explained in the book was as bad as you're saying. I'll give you that it's definitely an element, and some things probably made more sense to those who read the books, but I don't think it was that much. Overall they are both really genuine epics. I love the sense of scope and atmosphere in them, and the acting is so good that it practically does away with any minor flaws in development, etc - these characters come to life, and I felt right in the middle of the action. The Running Man is good, but it didn't do that for me.

While I will say that the first Hunger Games movie was better than the Twilightized Running Man/Battle Royale I was expecting, it was still nothing beyond being just a somewhat enjoyable action movie for me. Something I'd watch when bored but nothing to write home about.

Anybody see Homefront? I worked on that one and haven't got a chance yet.

There were a few minor things that bothered me about the first Hunger Games movie, the most notable being


Still, I don't really do numerical ratings, but if I did I'd give THG nothing less than 6 out of 10. Actually 7 / 10 feels about right, which means I basically agree with its IMDB average.

I'm sort of looking forward to Catching Fire, but a friend who's read the books told me the third one is by far the weakest. Won't hold my breath for Mockingjay, even if I really like CF.

This movie is great but one of the most depressing I've seen. It has heart and feel good moments but jeez this one really hits hard at times.

What's interesting is Arnold has nothing but bad things to say about The Running Man, he claims the studio heads fired the original director Arnold had a hand in picking, Andrew Davis (The Fugitive), and picked a first time movie director who had only done tv shows up until that point so the wheels quickly fell off. The replacement, who was actually Starsky from Starsky and Hutch, shot The Running Man like a TV show and focused on the action, he overlooked the bigger themes of the movie such as the economy being in the toilet - everybody being out of a job and the sheer depths humanity would descend in the name of entertainment. I don't particularly agree with Arnold's assessment but it's interesting to note.

The Amazing Spiderman 2 trailer:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nbp3Ra3Yp74

Three villains can be seen in the trailer - Rhino, Electro and the Green Goblin. I also feel Harry Osborn seems to have been miscasted.

SO Hollywood has not only been developing two Hercules films side-by-side, but another Jesus movie alongside the Noah's Ark one too!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pSvysvlKmDs

How many more attractive Jesus movies do we need?

Ha, I know,right.
Obviously, until Holywood entertains the sin right out of the sheeple.

Apparently there's an Elton John biopic in the works with Tom Hardy playing the valiant knight. Talk about a completely strange bit of casting.

Three villains? Hope they don't spread themselves too thin.

However, I gotta say that I don't agree with Harry Osborn being miscast. That guy played the lead character in Chronicle, and did an awesome job. He can handle it, I think.

Oh, and by the way, if you pause the screen at 1:14, you'll be able to see what looks very much like the Vulture's wings and Doctor Octopus' harness

Dane DeHaan is a great actor, but he looks quite stupid in his Harry Osborn getup, particularly the haircut. He's such an obvious villain that you could spot it from 7 miles away.

Still, he looks like he was having fun with it. I expect the movie to be great, if only because the same people who made the excellent first one are making the sequel.

Ah, missed the Doc Oc bit.

Gal Gadot has been cast as Wonder Woman in the upcoming Superman vs Batman movie.
http://www.smh.com.au/entertainment/mov ... 2yrox.html

She looks dainty doesn't she?

saw Prisoners, 2 days ago, great movie.

It genuinely is a good movie, very brutal/uncomfortable watch with no compromise in terms of it's execution. In addition it's an exhausting and emotionally draining watch. Although the ending seems rushed and a bit too clear-cut in my opinion, the rest of the movie is an intensely interesting mystery and the acting is right up there. I like that it takes a neutral stance on the subject matter opting for the audience to decide whether it's right or understandable what the father does. It doesn't have an overly preachy tone.

All the Boys Love Mandy Lane - This was made in 2006, but the DVD just came out? Whatever. It's a pretty ordinary "partying teenagers get killed" movie, which I didn't find especially scary or suspenseful. It has its defenders though: some people think it raises fascinating issues about character motivation and high school popularity politics. So if you feel like watching it, you're probably more likely to enjoy it for its supposedly clever writing than, say, for memorable or gory death scenes.

Stoker - Many pages ago when Chan-wook Park's name came up, at least one person absolutely hated this. I didn't think it was terrible, but I still wouldn't recommend it. It felt incredibly slow for a movie that was under 100 minutes, and none of the characters were likeable. Once I figured out what the whole point of the story was, it reminded me too much of

That person would be me. Stoker still takes the cake as the absolute worst film I've seen this year.

Speaking of disasters, producers are quietly warning investors that Keanu Reeves's upcoming samurai epic 47 Ronin could lose in excess of £90m ($150m) at the box office this Christmas, making it potentially the biggest box office bomb in history.

Man of Steel - I really wanted to like this but the action is just absurdly overblown. I had Matrix Revolutions flashbacks towards the end, which is never a good sign. Man of Steel works really well when it's grounded and dialogue driven, scenes that show his power abruptly leave a good impression, and the flashbacks were a nice way to introduce his character without bogging it down as an origin story. Up until the third act it was pretty enjoyable but I found it too hard to wipe away the Roland Emmerich tone.

The action was the only part I semi-enjoyed...was pretty fun overall. The storytelling parts at the beginning had a couple moments that worked, but most of it was too fast, too disjointed and the writing was just kinda shallow. It did try, I guess, better than nothing...but mostly I didn't really get into the "drama" in that movie at all.

http://bloody-disgusting.com/news/32683 ... -godzilla/

The first three official images from the new Godzilla.

EDIT: Oh, and they finally announced a new Friday the 13th movie. Only issue? It might be found footage.

http://www.theguardian.com/film/2013/no ... turn-jason

A found footage Jason movie, you say? That sounds like a shitty idea. Of course I also thought combining Jason and Freddy in one movie was a shitty idea, until I actually saw FvsJ. Now I think that's one of the best from either franchise, so maybe Cloverfield the 13th will pleasantly surprise me.


Ouch! And I thought calling it worse than Identity Thief was harsh!

Identity Thief was innocuous, forgettable, focus-tested, Hollywoodized drivel, but it was strangely watchable and its two leads played well off each other. I also liked that their friendship remained wholly platonic, rather than pitfalling into the well-worn (and vaugely rape culture-y) "opposites attract" Hollywood gambit. It's also awesome that a woman with the body type of Melissa McCarthy can accepted by the average movie goer; good for her, and good for the people who've supported her!

The only thing Stoker had was a few pwetty pictures. Wentworth Miller's script has got to be one of the most flaccid screenplay's that has ever made it to production.

It immediately reminded me of Halloween Resurrection and that movie's horribad attempts at combining found footage elements with an established slasher franchise. Not only were the found footage segments crappy, but the movie altogether was a wretched pile of shit.

I actually 100% agree with this. It was better than average.

Halloween Resurrection was silly, and basically like the equivalent of a child star growing up and releasing washed up crap. There never was another good Halloween sequel after the first one...less said for the remakes. I'm sure the new Jason won't be anything great, but I do kinda like the idea of a found footage Jason. Could be kinda fun.

Halloween 3 was good. 4 was alright, 5 less so, and everything after that sucked aside from the first Rob Zombie movie.

The first Rob Zombie movie was a piece of shit. I didn't mind 2, 4 or H20 much, but is there a point in vouching for those? I mean they're just pale shadows of the original.

Yeah 3 has a bad rap without much basis. I agree with all of what you said except I think that Halloween 5 is a cheesy steaming pile of shit.

Another issue is it being a sequel to the reboot.
Eh, if I want to watch Planes, Trains and Automobiles, I'll watch Planes, Trains and Automobiles. At least that one has heart and you can sympathise with John Candy's character.

The Friday reboot was good. It wasn't Part 4 or Part 6 good, but it was good "back to basics" Friday movie. The only true stinkers in the Friday series were parts 5 and 8.

Also, if I may go off on a related tangent, Jason X was a much better satire of slasher movies than Scream. Scream had good kills, plus the acting was surprisingly good, but it was mostly just a collection of bad meta humor and references to other, superior movies. Jason X was completely unintentional in its satire, and yet it managed to make fun of all the admittedly stupid things about slasher movies while still being very entertaining. I mean, the sleeping bag deaths on the holodeck is the defining scene of that movie for a reason.

Part 6, good? Damn, I freakin' hate that one. I was just going to mention how Jason X did the humor a million times better than 6, and I see you listing it as a top sequel.

4 is my favorite though, more so than the original. I also don't mind 5 even though most people seem to hate it. It has some charm for me.

Part 6 and Jason X did their humor in completely different ways. Part 6 had kind of a laid back yet ridiculous feeling to it, like when Cort is "teaching" the kids about Indian markers by relating it to deadbeat fathers skipping town. Jason X just beats you in the face with stupid moment after stupid moment (see: sleeping bag holodeck deaths, killing the two gamers in virtual reality, and the frozen head smash) and it works because the entire premise of the movie is completely absurd to begin with. Not to mention that Part 6 was intentional with its humor and Jason X wasn't, giving the two movies very different dynamics.

Jason X wasn't intentional with the humor? I mean, it's been a while since I've seen it but I remember one of the virtual reality dudes getting cut in half and saying "ah, shit" or something as he slides in half. If that isn't intentional humor I don't know what is. I do agree that there is some difference, but damn maybe I'm losing my edge here.

It's gets hate and rightly so because there's no Jason in it. At least Halloween 3 was a completely different movie, you don't have to watch the whole thing to realise he's a no show. A New Beginning might as well have been a dream.

I didn't particularly notice any of the comedy in part 6, and just treated as a legitimate Friday the 13th movie. Perhaps I'm used to dumb dialogue in slashers, I don't know. Everything after Jason Lives felt like one long detraction/detour and not really a proper sequel. The stuff with the telekinetic girl felt like a really dumb, mediocre tv series concept. Jason X was funny to me, it walked a fine line between embarrassingly stupid and outright hilarious.

5 doesn't suck just because Jason's not in it for real (he's in the dream sequence at the start, but that's it). It sucks because it's a poorly made, lame movie. The fact that the killer is a Jason copycat (who somehow inherited his superhuman strength as if the mask was Frosty the Snowman's hat) was just the period on the sentence.

Still, if people pay for something they expect what's advertised on the box.

It really was a weak effort overall. The kills were half-arsed, the characters were disposable and it didn't seem to have any direction. It was simply made for cash and it's obvious as hell.

Oh come on, who cares who it was, it was still a dude in a mask slashing people and taking a ton of punishment. It isn't exactly like Jason had much of a personality to start with. I mean, I can see why people might feel a little cheated by the ending, but at that point in the series Jason was fucking dead. It was either going to be the EMT dude or Tommy. Neither one of them is Jason.

A found footage Friday movie you say? *leaves and never comes back*

Dead isn't really a term that sticks with slashers.

Neither are "Final Chapters".