Beast Wars is legendary and the original 80's Transformers has one of the best soundtracks ever. TRANSFORRMAAHHHSSS!

Slacker: So after really digging pretty much every single movie by Richard Linklater (recently Before Midnight, which I thought was a brilliant conclusion to the Before trilogy) I decided to watch this on Netflix. His first film. And...it's simply too meandering and inoffensive to really leave a strong impression. It shows you small vignettes of conversations had by some people in Texas. Some dropouts, an old ex-anarchist and so on. The problem is that barely any of the characters are interesting in any way. I don't have much to say about it beyond that.

Celeste and Jesse Forever: For a romantic comedy that still tries to be ''serious'', you could do worse. Though, like Slacker, it thinks it's infinitely more clever than it actually is. It's a breezy watch at 90 minutes, the main characters are likeable, and the ending is bittersweet enough, though what it's actually trying to say remains murky. Not something I'll ever watch again, but it had a few funny scenes and was the right thing to watch at 3 AM.

Not trolling, but I honestly thought that trailer for The Mortal Instruments looked rather promising. I'd never heard of the franchise before, but I'll eventually see the movie when RedBox / NetFlix get it. If nothing else, I'm sure watching it won't make me feel as ridiculous as I felt trying to watch True Blood. "Shadowhunters" can't possibly be as cheesy as fairies (that's what Sookie is, right?).

Anyway......

Hatchet 2 - I'll see part 3 next month so I decided to refresh my memory of part 2. I had this impression in my mind that the movie was 60 minutes of nothing but talk, followed by 30 minutes of nonstop tongue-in-cheek gore. Thankfully, it wasn't quite as badly structured as I remembered. Still, it's weird to see Danielle Harris in the lead role, because I can never ignore the fact that "OMG it's Bruce Willis' daughter from The Last Boy Scout!"

Hatchet III is really bad, man. Just nowhere near as good as the first two. Not funny, Harris is just a bitch for the whole thing for no reason, even the gore is ten steps down. I would skip it.

I appreciate the warning. I'll still see the thing; gotta complete the trilogy and all. But after reading that heads-up and re-reading your more detailed review from several pages ago, now I'll go in with extremely low expectations so I can't possibly be disappointed.

They just better not make a Hatchet 4.

The first Hatchet is one of the best slashers since the early 80s. Tons of fun.

Went to the premiere of I'll Follow You Down at Fantasia film festival tonight. It was weird to see the kid from the Sixth Sense all grown up, but he's still a pretty great actor. Gillian Anderson was given something to do in it that was MUCH different than what we usually see her do. Playing a broken, emotional wreck of a character with aplomb. I was riveted up until the anti-climactic ending. As a character study, it really works. As a time travel/science-fiction story, less so. We get treated to a few scenes of DUN DUN DUN DUN DUN COMPLEX MATH AND SCIENCE EXPLAINED REALLY FAST and the actual time travel that happens doesn't end up paying off that well. But if you take the movie as a meditation on family and loss, with science fiction elements, it really is quite good.

I think she's a bitch because

I watched it about a month ago and while it wasn't horrible, it's something I wouldn't watch more than once. I think the Hatchet movies are a bit overrated though.

Notice how Adam Green isn't the director on Hatchet III and it's the only movie in the trilogy that isn't really good.

lol bro, maybe everyone thinks she did it because

Would that budget be with marketing costs factored in?

Well the thing to remember about the published budgets for movies is that they only account for how much it cost to actually make the movie. Stuff like actors' and crew salaries and whatnot aren't factored into that, and marketing gets a budget entirely on its own. That's why when something like Oogieloves was making the rounds as the worst box office bomb in forever last year the press about it would say $20 million as a production budget and $40 million for marketing, meaning that the movie cost $60 million at the end of the day. Considering that it only made just under $1.66 million at the worldwide box office, that is a flop of absolutely epic proportions.

Have you seen the budgets for the last few Paranormal Activity movies? The first one was $15,000...with the others going to 5 million EACH. Johnny Depp and the director of Lone Ranger cut their salaries to make it cheaper.

Is the Hatchet 3 thats out now the unrated version? The blu ray is, but there's only a minute difference.

China Strike Force-Following a series of close encounters but unfortunate misses, a Hong Kong cop accepts the help of a Japanese Interpol agent to help take down the international drug kingpin looking to move into the territory. An extremely stunt-happy HK kung-fu flick, this one turned out to be a lot more enjoyable than it really should've. While the plot is ultra-simplistic and goes through the motions with extreme ease, the fact that it doesn't take the route of having the help provide all the newfound success and bail them out of every confrontation but now allows them to win is a nice move, not throwing their incompetence into the picture but shows the added muscle allows them to come out on top of the situation. That said, the real focus here is on the stunt-work which evokes the glory days of HK action films with a spectacular car chase on city streets using a drag racer, a brawl on the roof of a car being towed in mid-air from a helicopter and a fight on the dangling piece of window glass for an under-construction office building, among other fights and shoot-outs that are quite fun and thrilling, due about to their relentless pace brought about through the storyline requirements in such a movie. All in all, while flawed this one was quite enjoyable.

I saw Shaolin Soccer about a week ago. That was something else.

I much prefer the follow-up, Kung Fu Hustle. That was some of the most side-splitting martial arts movie I've ever seen.

Stash House-When a couple move into a new house in a secluded neighborhood, they find the house was previously used as a storage place for a drug cartel and must survive the night when several henchmen arrive looking to reclaim the items still inside. A completely banal and lame thriller that tries to hard to be creepy or action-packed and really fails at both. The use of the high-tech gadgets to monitor their activities tries to make it seem a lot more hip or modern than it really is and makes the film seem to drag on far more than it should when it cuts away to completely arbitrary scenes shot through the security cameras that bleed out the color into a pain-staking series of blues and grays like traditional security footage would be, and that makes it feel quite tired of ideas to use it for such scenes. The tired and cliched notion of throwing in mindless twists simply to keep the film's running time going by forcing the movie to keep going is another rather big strike against it, for as fun as the final twenty minutes are when the gangsters finally enter the house are, it's needless twist upon needless twist for absolutely no reason other than to prolong the running time, and that really conspires against this. A total waste of Lundgren overall.

I prefer "Kung Pow - Enter the Fist"...

Yes, I liked that woman with the sideburns who kept saying "Wii U" years before Nintendo thought of it.

The Fly: Yep, this was no good for me, sorry. Not long enough to really get a sense of the tragedy and characters, Goldblum's actions don't make much sense. In fact, you never really get a sense of why any of the characters are doing anything. It was just impossible to connect with what was happening for whatever reason. I can kind of see why people would like it, I guess, but it was a waste of time.

Frailty: This movie was pretty decent, but had it's fair share of flaws. The acting was pretty great overall, and the directing low-key and effective, but some of the twists and turns were of the ''retarded'' variety. Some stuff is just never dealt with or explained either.

Frailty has its problems but I think it's a great flick. Just an inventive, well-done, gripping sort of thriller...I don't like it as much as I did the first time, but I still think it's admirable and really interesting at times.

"Independent reports that (Frank) Miller will be meeting with (Zack) Snyder soon to discuss the (Batman/Superman movie) project, and a source of the author tells the site, 'Frank had no idea the announcement in San Diego was going to happen so it did come as a surprise. He’s going to be meeting up with Zack in the next few days to go over the plans for the Superman film so things should be clearer after that'."

(From http://www.comicbookmovie.com/fansites/ ... ugR6HB3.99)



Frank Miller is just about the worst fucking person he could consult for this movie.

HOW HARD IS IT TO MAKE A PROPER WORLD'S FINEST FILM GOD DAMN IT?!

Ugh...

You seem to be speaking English, but I don't understand these words at all...

Welp, World's End was incredibly disappointing. I never thought I'd walk away from one of their films without really remembering anything particularly funny. I felt like I was waiting for something hilarious or just worthwhile, the entire film, but it never happened. And then there was the stupid way the characters reacted when the tone (should have) changed. I was worried it might not be good since Wright's last film was just awful, and I'm annoyed that I was right.

To be fair, Miller wrote both The Dark Knight Returns and Batman: Year One, which are fucking amazing. However, there's also the fact that All Star Batman blah blah blah exists, which is bad. So yeah, I have mixed feelings about this, to say the least.

All Star Superman is great and so is The Dark Knight Returns, I doubt they'll go with that and take a 50 years old Batman but some parts are probably be inspired by it and that's totally fine, hopefully no Robin though. Sin City's adaptation was decent, Miller is ok. I can't wait to know who will play Batman, if they decide to go with an older Bruce, Jon Hamm would be perfect!!!

Very true although Dark Knight Returns is a terrible story for Superman. I know Zack Snyder's always wanted to make a DKR movie but shoehorning plot points from that book into a Man Of Steel sequel would be atrocious.



If they make Batman anything like his bastardization in All-Star Batman & Robin, I think I'll spontaneously combust.



Also very true.



If Zack makes Batman the master detective he was in DKR and Year One, that would be perfect.

My concern is that this'll be yet another exercise in emphasizing how awesome Batman is, even though everyone and their mother already knows that. Honestly, he's the hero that needs the least emphasis in the DC movie universe. I'd have prefered to see a Flash, Shazam, Martian Manhunter or Wonder Woman film before seeing Batman again.

Beyond that, so many people maintain that Superman is exactly the same as he was in the Silver/Golden Age; a do-gooder doofus that could sneeze entire galaxies out of existence. This sequel needs to fully dispel those notions and develop his character properly. I mean, the first film set everything up perfectly...



Turning Superman into the stooge he was in DKR would be the worst thing Snyder could possibly do.



That's funny, Jon Hamm is easily my first pick for Batman. He couldn't pull of the Year One version but I don't think that's where they're gonna go with it.

I really want this film to be great though. Man Of Steel is easily the best film I've seen all summer.

Just saw that recent move Safety Not Guaranteed. It's about a journalist who works for a magazine going to some small coastal town to investigate a dude who put an ad in the classifieds asking for someone to be his partner on a time traveling expedition. Aubrey Plaza plays the lead, an intern at the magazine who winds up having to do all of the legwork while the journalist dude tries to hook up with an old girlfriend who lives in the town.

It was pretty good overall, though the ending felt a bit rushed/forced, like they didn't really know what to do to wrap the story up. Still pretty enjoyable though, if you like quirky comedies.

Fuck, I wrote like 3 big paragraphs and Chrome crashed, I'll try to resume what I wrote.

I think the important thing to do is put the emphasis on Superman, it's a Superman sequel after all, Batman had his own recent trilogy (looking bad at it, I'm disappointed by many things including the whole TDKR movie but that's another subject). Bruce can be introduced easily as Lex Luthor's business adversary. Even though I dislike Luthor (Cranston is a great cast btw but I'd like him somewhat younger, in many adaptations, he's not older than Kent, like in Superman's Birthright, if he wants to go bald again, here's his chance to play something else than an half assed Robin: JLG ), he's needed to show Superman's human side. Furthermore, Batman will need to do that, to keep the man of steel human and kind. Something that could easily test the godly dude is Bruce Wayne's charm, As shown in World's Finest, he can be a love interest to Lois Lane.

Talking of Lane,. Wayne could then come and fuck their new found love and maybe it would be one of the reasons the 2 DC warhorses could crash. We then need a charismatic actor to portray Batman if we want a legitimate rival to Henry Cavill's extremely good looks, Jon Hamm would be an ideal candidate of course (he's only 4 years older than Amy Adams if she's coming back). I agree that we need a different Batman, a smarter one than Bale's adaptation, one who's more classic Batman, the best detective on earth, eh? Once again, Hamm is that guy!

The movie also needs to introduce more than one villain if we need a bridge for the Justice League, Brainiac would be ok, I guess.

I agree with your interpretation of Superman in TDKR, I don't want him to be a patriotic asshat boy scout like in this comic, based on Man of Steel, it won't be the case.

Finally, something I'd like to enforce is the tone of the movie, Superman doesn't fit the dark and gritty tone he had in MoS (even though I liked the movie) and he doesn't need it, it can be both dramatic and intense while being a bit funny at times too. I don't want campy but I don't want something as overtly sterile and serious as Nolan's trilogy, it's superheroes for fuck's sake, calm the fuck down with your philosophical bullshit.

I just think the Superman/Batman crossover will completely fail if it is anything like Man of Steel or TDKR. Neither of those was good enough to really hold the weight of a movie with both icons in it. On their own they were shallow and pretty inconsequential, but if the big, talked-about live, big screen debut of both of them together is as lame as either of those movies, as lacking in substance, then I just can't see myself enjoying it much. Bring some Avengers-level directing and acting to the mix!

i.e. keep Zak Snyder out and Christopher Nolan, too, if he can't bring back some of the old magic...get some new blood in the director's chair, and that doesn't mean the guy who directed The Spirit either!

*insert "get Whedon for it" post here*

A more nutso fanboy of his would start claiming that if he did the movie it'd be the greatest thing in the history of history's history and we should just hand over all pop culture to him.

The problem with the DC movies is that they try to be so unrelentingly gritty and angsty that it just clashes with the concept of "dude wearing colorful tights and a cape punches crime and saves the day." The Marvel movies are generally much more light-hearted, with plenty of jokes, so they just end up being way more fun. Gritty works for Batman, but for this supposedly upcoming Justice League movie, can you really imagine a gritty, angsty Flash? Or Wonder Woman? The Flash is the epitome of light-hearted, wise-cracking superheroes, and there's no way to include ANY of Wonder Woman's actual accessories without changing them completely. Lasso of Truth? Invisible Plane? I mean trying to ultra-grit Superman was bad enough in Man of Steel, but it would be even worse with the others.

Wonderwoman is actually a very serious character, which I admit is hard to get when she wears one of the most ridiculous outfits out of the three biggest superheroes in DC.


All Star Superman was written by Morrison, not Miller. Miller's apparent talent had long since dried up by then. Just look at the the Dark Knight Strikes Again.

Anyone here hyped on Elysium? After District 9, I've been craving for more Blomkamp. Plus, we get to see Sharlto Copley going all baddie in this one.

I never said All Star Superman was written by Miller, don't know why you imply I did. And yeah, Miller sucks since a while. And as shown in the recent Justice League movie, The Flashpoint Paradox, Wonder Woman and even Aquaman can be pretty serious and gritty characters.

Serious =/= gritty. Also, what works in cartoons and comics isn't necessarily going to work with live actors. These are the two costumes they used for the recent failed TV show pilot:

Can you really imagine that character filled with existential angst, fighting horrific villains that murder hundreds of people, breaking people's necks while screaming savagely, etc.

No, but boobs. Anyway, I think they're stuck with her costume, they can't quite change it thoroughly, I mean they removed Supes' underwear and many fans weren't quite happy. They can't do anything without making some people unhappy.

Just give Wonder Woman a tubetop and a flashy red G-string pulled up to her armpits. That's gritty, baby.

I Saw The Devil - 4/5
Killer! Korean Revenge Film, a cop's wife got brutally raped and killed by a serial killer. The cop got his revenge on the suspect in a way in which I think that most viewers would like to do, lol!

Grotesque - 3.5/5
A torture film to end all torture film! Sadistik, Sick and twisted! Banned in so many countries!

Van Helsing-Hearing of strange activity in Romania, a monster hunter travels to Romania to help a small village that stands in the shadows of Dracula's castle as he plans to unleash a swarm of vampire children in his possession that will help him overtake the world. This turned out to be quite a fun effort once you look past the one glaring problem here in the quite ludicrous and overblown CGI that runs rampant here. More often a distraction than not, this is for how busy the scene is when it appears rather than instilling any sense of realism, for what that's worth, into the moment and just looks blotchy and unremarkable, overall taking away from the desired effect. As well, rather than give it an epic feel that it so clearly was aiming for, the fact that the action scenes tend to drag on a little longer than they should ends up making this way too overlong, necessarily adding around fifteen minutes to this that really shouldn't be there when scenes like the Paris encounter, the first daylight village ambush and the carriage chase all last far longer than they really should've. That said, there's some huge action pieces that are quite fun, the story holds your interest throughout as Dracula's master plan comes unraveled and the past secrets get revealed, and it's always fun when something blows up nice and good, as frequently happens here. Overall, this was really enjoyable.