What have you been watching? (DVD or Films on TV)

[burlivesleftnut]

Watched MUNICH again. Normally this would lead to one of my psychotic rants about CRASH winning Best Picture, but I did that earlier. Needless to say, fuck that piece of shit. Even the Clooney movie was better.

Anyway, MUNICH is some really great shit. And it makes KINGDOM OF THE CRYSTAL SKULL a little more depressing.

Munich was a spy movie for pussies.

[caruso_stalker217]

Hey fuck you, man! Just because I'm a pussy doesn't mean MUNICH is for pussies.

[burlivesleftnut]

Wasn't talking about the audience really. I more meant that there is no real corollation to the characters sensitivity to their actions and their mission. I mean, no one was FORCING them to kill those people. The Israeli government could have easily found other assassins. So I thought their guilt was horseshit, unrealistic and forced. It just proves to me what a wank director Spielberg has become. And then to top off the movie with that nonsensical sex scene... wtf. I probably should have said "Munich is a spy movie for spies who are pussies or for people who don't appreciate dramatic escalation in times of war and terror where it is possible that people who do awful things actual deserve to get punished regardless of whether we believe in capital punishment or not."

[caruso_stalker217]

I thought that the point was that they had assassinated six or seven people, but the retaliation for those killings was much worse. Hundreds killed by letter bombs or in plane hijackings. All they did was cause more killing and the people they assassinated were replaced anyway.

Also, it's not a spy movie.

[Spandau Belly]

I don't know if it was guilt the characters in Munich were feeling, it seemed more like they just couldn't see what good they were doing or accept that this was the modern version of war because it felt so cowardly. I mean, I don't even kill anybody in my job and I occasionally wrestle with the pointlessness of it.

Well, I guess Mathieu Kassovitz did talk about the moral toll of their tactics and how Jews are supposed to be righteous and above this shit. But that makes sense. And all of Eric Bana's crew got killed, I mean he bonded with those guys and it bugged him to see them die.

Israel was still an evolving nation and espionage was still an evolving field. They recruited guys who could gather information and who had various skills and no real records that would draw attention to them.

I mean, if you just recruit psycopath killers you'll end with dudes like that asshole Waingro in that movie HEAT. And a lot of fucking good that asshole did for the crew.

I guess the movie burlivesleftnut wanted was Dirty Dozen, and you're in luck! Quinten Taratino is working on his version of that right now!

[Pacino86845]

Also I had understood from Munich that probably half the guys they were assassinating were just scapegoats, like Israel had to assert itself more than anything else (i.e. finding "real" bad guys)... which in turn led to Bana's character seeing all the hypocrisy in what he was being made to do, how the only thing that really was connected to the Munich massacre in his eyes was banging his wife.

And also Bana's character was seeing more of the Palestinian side of things as he got to meet the dudes he was killing, especially that conversation he had with the guy in the stairwell, who had basically PWNT Bana's character in a battle of righteous debate, or something, no?

[Evil Hobbit]

I watched this on dvd

[DerLanghaarige]

I just watched P2 and I've never seen a movie where you could read its title so often. Could be a cool drinking game. Drink if you read "P2" somewhere! But while watching it I couldn't stop thinking "Man, I wish Florent Siri would direct this". Why? Watch "Hostage"! Just like "P2" it's a movie with an unoriginal and cliche-loaded script, but he managed to make one of the best edge-of-the-seat-thrillers of the last 10 years with that shitty material! And while "P2" wasn't THAT bad, it also wasn't good. It's pretty predictable and for a movie that was written and produced by Alexandre Aja kinda tame. There was one very gory murder but that's pretty much it. Looks like he wanted to make a suspense thriller instead of a splatterfest this time. Well...FAIL! There was no suspense! Like I already mentioned, it was just predictable. And letting the killer walk around and call him all the time "Come out, come out, wherever you are! I won't hurt you, I promise!" is the most idiotic cliche of these kind of movies.
5/10

[Spandau Belly]

I finally watched

Walk All Over Me

A dominatrix crime thriller that was likely subsidised by my tax dollars. This movie was blatantly set in Canada and I'll give them credit for not just filming it all in Vancouver (never been, but I know from maps that it is in Canada) but trying to keep it ambiguous so that they won't lose viewers or whatever it is these movie producers are affraid of. The mention where they are several times and even make the bad guy a French Canadian Montrealer like me. They even use our money, which in my opinion isn't the best move since our money is really funny looking and hard to take seriously with its bright rainbow colors and holographs 'n shit it looks like these gangsters are all paying each other in coupons or something.

It's basically like a DTV level Elmore Leonard / Coen Bros movie about a bunch of colorful characters all scheming over a bag of money. The trouble with these types of movies are:

1) Making them make sense and keeping the characters consistant

2) Overcoming the unoriginality of the set-up to and actually making them entertaining

I'll say this one only succeeded in the first category. LeeLee Sobieski was always the shy dope who only made bad situations worse, Trisha Helfer was always short-tempered and pragmatic, the stupid henchmen were always stupid etc. And the scheming and plot twists all made enough sense to me that it didn't feel like there were huge holes in the plot.

But the movie just isn't very interesting. It's not as thrilling or funny or erotic as you'd expect for a movie about dominatrixes versus gangsters for a big bag of Canadian money. In fact, the dominatrix aspect barely played into it. I mean, I know how in Jackie Brown, Jackie was a stewdardess and never did she have use her skills of serving in-flight meals or demonstrating where the emergency exits are during her gangster dealings, but fuck, that's not the same, this is a movie about dominatrixes. I couldn't believe that a whip never got used in a fight scene or something. You'd also think there'd be more humour or at least plot twists based on people exploiting weird fetishes but they just treat this whole dominatrix thing as just a job.

They go for some Coen bros humour like some Fargo/Raising Arizona/Big Lebowski moments about imbreds trying to scheme but fucking it up pretty badly, but nothing on the level or those actual Coen movies. The directing felt very DTV or even TV, well Canadian TV since it's got cussing and perverse stuff in it but you get what I'm saying. The dialogue makes sense, but isn't stylized or very entertaining. So the only thing going for this movie is a formula plot done okay.

So overall, I'd definately say skip this movie.

[burlivesleftnut]

I just watched P2 and I've never seen a movie where you could read its title so often. Could be a cool drinking game. Drink if you read "P2" somewhere! But while watching it I couldn't stop thinking "Man, I wish Florent Siri would direct this". Why? Watch "Hostage"! Just like "P2" it's a movie with an unoriginal and cliche-loaded script, but he managed to make one of the best edge-of-the-seat-thrillers of the last 10 years with that shitty material! And while "P2" wasn't THAT bad, it also wasn't good. It's pretty predictable and for a movie that was written and produced by Alexandre Aja kinda tame. There was one very gory murder but that's pretty much it. Looks like he wanted to make a suspense thriller instead of a splatterfest this time. Well...FAIL! There was no suspense! Like I already mentioned, it was just predictable. And letting the killer walk around and call him all the time "Come out, come out, wherever you are! I won't hurt you, I promise!" is the most idiotic cliche of these kind of movies.
5/10

Yeah this movie was garbage. But I do love Rachel Nichols (the reason I watched it), and I think she did a good job. But what a dumb movie.

Question: I liked the elevator flooding scene, but where the heck did the dead security guard come from? My partner and I watched this and were all like WTF.

[havocSchultz]

I liked it when he drove the car into the guy's head...

[Hermanator X]

I caught Serpico last night on TV. One of those movies that I had never got round to seeing.

I have to say its a piece of work. Had me gripped from start to finish, and the paranoia levels were off the scale.
It seemed to me that it had a big hand in setting the tone for the departed, with a few similar scenes, but done a lot better (I know that Departeds a remake of internal affairs, but the tone of those two versions is quite different, and I feel that in "localising" the departed, Serpico was the inspiration. Thats just what I took from it).

I loved the character quirks, the outfits, the fairly realistic relationships shown, and the whole world of the movie. Especially the ballerina girlfriend. Jebus. She was like Jessica Beil but a lot hotter. Wooof! It doesnt really have seemed to have aged, and remains a good period piece. The only parts I think have aged, were the popgun effects for gunfire, which are pretty run of the mill standard effects for the movies time.

Obviously I also had our very own Pacino in mind when watching it, and then the onscreen text at the very end freaked me out.

Along with the blurb saying what happened after the events shown, the final line of text revealed that "Serpico is now living in Switzerland."

So Pacino, I ask you this, is this a Zoner injoke I have only just cottoned onto, or do you actually live in switzerland, and ARE Serpico, taking on the Pacino Persona as a homage?????

[havocSchultz]

The Zone's Pacino is actually the ballerina girlfriend...

[Pacino86845]

You guys can joke all you want, but let me tell you this:

1) I DO really live in Switzerland
2) I DID actually have a ballerina girlfriend
3) And on top of that Serpico was produced by Dino DeLaurentiis

[havocSchultz]

You were produced by Dino...?

[Tyrone_Shoelaces]

Dino's powers are limitless.

[Spandau Belly]

And I'm going to disagree with you guys on P2, as many cliches as it has, it also comes up with just as much crazy stuff out of left field.

I mean, the bad guy stopping in the middle to sing Blue Christmas over the PA system? The part where they play chicken and she cusses a whole bunch to rev herself up? The killer trying to help her resolve her workplace harassment issues? That stuff was all hilarious! Wes Bently cracked me up the entire movie.

[Fawst]

Finally been catching up on some films on DVD. I've had Bourne Ultimatum and Stardust from NetFlix for fucking EVER and finally got around to waching Stardust the other night. In short, I thought it was a great little adult fairy tale. It wasn't perfect by any means, some of it was a bit rushed, but overall it was a great little story. I haven't read the book, so I came at this one "pure." I've heard from people that have read it that the film was slop. *shrug* Watch it if you haven't read the book, you might have the same reaction as my fiancee and I.

Before going after the two NetFlix DVD's (still have to watch Bourne), we decided to rent some movies from Blockbuster. Picked up Eastern Promises, The Mist and Sunshine. Watched Eastern Promises the other night. I LOVED that one. It was a tight little thriller, didn't try to break any major new ground, and my fiancee had it all figured out long before I did. That was one of those rare occurances where I am so drawn into a movie that I just didn't try to work it all out. Good for her Viggo is amazing, what an incredible actor he is. Brave, too, considering the bath house sequence. And I don't mean to say "omgzorz, he was fending off knives while naked, oooh the danger!" What I mean to say is, it takes ... pun intended ... balls to shoot such a long scene like that, fully nude, and not hidden by trick shots at all. Just out there for the world to see.

Tonight, I think we'll watch either Sunshine or The Mist. I've been waiting for both for a very long time, so it's a tough call! Bourne is definitely last on the list. I liked the first two, but I'm not really in the mood for shaken-baby-syndrome camera work tonight.

[travis-dane]

OOPS!
Bollywood has gone Bye-Bye!

[Pacino86845]

Tonight, I think we'll watch either Sunshine or The Mist. I've been waiting for both for a very long time, so it's a tough call! Bourne is definitely last on the list. I liked the first two, but I'm not really in the mood for shaken-baby-syndrome camera work tonight.

I recommend The Mist.

[Peven]

i watched "Serenity" and "Robocop" this afternoon, both in HD, and i have to say it was a hell of a double bill. first off, it has been a while since i have seen either, couple years for "Serenity" and at least 5 for "Robocop" and i have to say that "Serenity" is even better than i remember and "Robocop", one of the best comic book movies ever, holds up with flying colors, both really looking great with the HD treatment. these are the kind of movies that make me thankful i spent the $ on a big HD flatscreen last year, and both could be source for sequels/remaquels i would want to see if done right.

[Pacino86845]

I rewatched Robocop not too long ago, and to me it seemed like it had really aged... especially since I was a wee lad when I'd seen it, and back then Robocop was one of the most awesome things ever to me. Robocop himself is still as cool as ever, but all the stuff around him doesn't have the impact it once had... like the villains are so '80s cartoony it's kind of distracting in a couple of instances, and the PWNTing of ED-209 is kind of lame to me now. When I was a kid that movie was really brutal and shocking, all the violence, the Verhoeven touches... I still think it's pretty good, but I'm really glad Verhoeven made Starship Troopers, which I have since declared to be his masterpiece.

[Leckomaniac]

I rewatched Robocop not too long ago, and to me it seemed like it had really aged... especially since I was a wee lad when I'd seen it, and back then Robocop was one of the most awesome things ever to me. Robocop himself is still as cool as ever, but all the stuff around him doesn't have the impact it once had... like the villains are so '80s cartoony it's kind of distracting in a couple of instances, and the PWNTing of ED-209 is kind of lame to me now. When I was a kid that movie was really brutal and shocking, all the violence, the Verhoeven touches... I still think it's pretty good, but I'm really glad Verhoeven made Starship Troopers, which I have since declared to be his masterpiece.

Incidentally enough, I just also rewatched ROBOCOP. And while I do agree that Starship Troopers is spectacular, I disagree about ROBOCOP aging poorly. When I rewatched it...I hadn't seen it for a number of years and watching it again it just blew me away. I was stunned by how AWESOME that movie is.

I do enjoy Troopers more, but that is only because it was released when I was growing up so the nostalgia kicks in. Still, both films hold up extremely well if you ask me...


"bitches leave."

[caruso_stalker217]

Anybody saying ROBOCOP hasn't aged well is insane. Shit, the subject matter and the themes and, uh, shit and stuff alone is more relevant now than it was when the film came out.

[BuckyO'harre]

Duuude...

Anybody saying ROBOCOP hasn't aged well is quite mistaken.Crap, the subject matter and the themes and, uh, poop and stuff alone is more relevant now than it was when the film came out.

Fixed so burl doesn't can your ass!

[DerLanghaarige]

I think the only thing that hasn't aged well in Robocop is the satire. But only because everything you see in it is now reality (more or less)!
Now that I think about it...no, it probably makes the movie even better!

[caruso_stalker217]

Duuude...

Anybody saying ROBOCOP hasn't aged well is quite mistaken.Crap, the subject matter and the themes and, uh, poop and stuff alone is more relevant now than it was when the film came out.

Fixed so burl doesn't can your ass!

I like your version better. I sound a little smarter.

Except for the "poop" part.

[Pacino86845]

Anybody saying ROBOCOP hasn't aged well is insane. Shit, the subject matter and the themes and, uh, shit and stuff alone is more relevant now than it was when the film came out.

HAHA, yeah that's true... I guess what I meant was from the technical standpoint, effects and depiction of thugs now appear quite sub-par to me... thematically it is a brilliant film, and for that I'd still rate it highly today. Starship Troopers, on the other hand, holds up just as well by today's standards, on all fronts, as it did when it was released some 11 years ago.

[so sorry]

I wasn't quite sure where to talk about this subject, but this seemed like a good place.

I may be WAAAAAY behind the times, but I just discovered this website called hulu.com that offers full length uninterrupted streaming movies and TV shows for free. Totally legit. You just can't download anything (well, I'm sure there's a way around that, but I digress). So over the course of this week I watched all three seasons of the FX TV show Always Sunny in Philadelphia. Fucking awesome show. This morning I was looking around the site for what else they have, and they have a nice collection of free movies (fairly contemporary), and hundreds of TV shows/episodes.

check it out...

/not a plant for hulu.com

[Pacino86845]

Damn, it's only available for the U.S... will have to find one of them fancy shmancy IP-masking things.

[Bayouwolf]

I wasn't quite sure where to talk about this subject, but this seemed like a good place.

I may be WAAAAAY behind the times, but I just discovered this website called hulu.com

I've been watching old eps. of Doogie Howser MD and The Fall Guy.

Pure unadulterated inner-child bliss..

There is some recent TV too (6 eps of BSG at last count)


They've got ALF!!!! HA I kill me...

[Peven]

You guys can joke all you want, but let me tell you this:

1) I DO really live in Switzerland
2) I DID actually have a ballerina girlfriend
3) And on top of that Serpico was produced by Dino DeLaurentiis

AND he was shot in the face.......












.....by Kirk....













but Kirk wasn't using a gun....

[John-Locke]

Just saw Swedish boarding school film "Evil". Fucking off the nut. Can't recommend it enough. And if you have Netflix, you can watch it right now!

Thanks Burl, I'd heard of this film a while ago but you convinced me to track it down.

I've seen a lot of good films recently, Ondskan/Evil had the best story of the lot. I love films like this, school films always appeal to me, boarding school films even more (I even like that Brendan Fraser film School Ties) IF... being my absolute favourite, now I'm not sure, it's very different from IF... but there are also some similarities. Definitely a film I should watch countless times over the years.

As with most films it's not perfect but at the moment I'm willing to see past the few imperfections and contrivances, hopefully it'll stand the test of time for me.

9/10

Excellent film (which is mainly down to the excellent story but the acting and direction etc ain't too shabby either)

[bastard_robo]

Just finished the Last Season on DVD...


Time to move on now...

[Leckomaniac]

Anybody saying ROBOCOP hasn't aged well is insane. Shit, the subject matter and the themes and, uh, shit and stuff alone is more relevant now than it was when the film came out.

HAHA, yeah that's true... I guess what I meant was from the technical standpoint, effects and depiction of thugs now appear quite sub-par to me... thematically it is a brilliant film, and for that I'd still rate it highly today. Starship Troopers, on the other hand, holds up just as well by today's standards, on all fronts, as it did when it was released some 11 years ago.

FX wise, the stuff in Starship Troopers is astounding. Despite the fact it came out 11 years ago it STILL looks better than most of Fantastic Four. It is a visual achievement, if you ask me.

[caruso_stalker217]

Shit, JURASSIC PARK still has better effects than a lot of movies out there.

[havocSchultz]

Anybody saying ROBOCOP hasn't aged well is insane. Shit, the subject matter and the themes and, uh, shit and stuff alone is more relevant now than it was when the film came out.

HAHA, yeah that's true... I guess what I meant was from the technical standpoint, effects and depiction of thugs now appear quite sub-par to me... thematically it is a brilliant film, and for that I'd still rate it highly today. Starship Troopers, on the other hand, holds up just as well by today's standards, on all fronts, as it did when it was released some 11 years ago.

FX wise, the stuff in Starship Troopers is astounding. Despite the fact it came out 11 years ago it STILL looks better than most of Fantastic Four. It is a visual achievement, if you ask me.

I remember thinking back when I first saw RoboCop some of the f/x were a little meh...
It's the whole stop-motion thing they used...Burton used it quite a bit too...for example in Beetlejuice where the sculptures come alive...and when I first saw that as a wee lad I was annoyed and pulled out of the film by it as well...

So in that respect, technically RoboCop hasn't aged at all...it's pretty much the same to me now as it was way back when...
I still love it, and think it kicks ass...but it's those few moments that always kinda bugged me...

[LaDracul]

I had seen "The Pirate Movie" and "Annie Hall".

Both were okay...although I now have "Tootsie" at home to watch later.

I am watching "My Neighbor Totoro" now...and that opening song is terrible. I wonder if it sounds better in Japanese...

[magicmonkey]

I am watching "My Neighbor Totoro" now...and that opening song is terrible. I wonder if it sounds better in Japanese...

That tune is the finest topping to the whopping introductory images. I find myself singing it randomly far too often... go raaa , to marrr ei goooooooo, ichi maroooooooooooo, TOTORO! TOTORO!

The drums are also legendary.

[Spandau Belly]

I watched The 6th Day starring Arnold Schwarenheggar.

This is a sci-fi movie in the vein of Robocop and Demolition Man in its quest to be both a violent action movie, but also have huge amounts of social satire.

This is clearly another one of those movies like Total Recall where the lead character was definately not written for Arnie but more a guy like Bruce Willis. I mean, with a guy like Arnie you've kinda got to write the parts with him in mind because his larger-than-life star quality just dominates whatever character he's playing. Arnie was born to play guys like Conan, The Terminator, Dutch, John Matrix. But when you get him playing these guys who are supposed to be average family man American Joes only they're hulking boldbuilders with booming Austrian accents it just kinda messes things up. But in this movie I'll say it ended up working in the film's favour. Arnie's larger-than-life quality kinda held this whole ridiculous thing together and he reminded me a lot of Charlton Heston's muscular presence and dedication to absurd sci-fi movies and this movie was definately in that same realm as Soylent Green.

This movie is about cloning and our fears about cloning. I think any of these movies that deal with cloning or people travelling through time to meet themselves and stuff like that all come down to their twists and gimmicks, and this one's got plenty. My favorite was when a clone that's only 84% done starts chasing Arnie around trying to kill him, but he looks like a 6 foot fetus all naked and covered in mucous with weird skin and missing one ear but still making all sorts of sarcastic banter.

The jokes are really funny, and they work them into the action scenes well. There's this creepy AI doll that keeps making all sorts of annoying comments during a car chase and Michael Rappaport is pretty funny as a dude who fucks a hologram. And of course, we get two Arnies on screen and they don't make a big deal of really rubbing the humour of that situation in your face. I mean, two Arnies? Playing that shit straight is already hysterical, pushing it too far into wink-wink nudge-nudge would've killed it. Arnie also gets a really choice line that he delivers to the bad guy near the end.

So I definately recommend this movie for people who like stuff like Demolition Man. It's pretty fucking funny and the action is good too.

[Pacino86845]

I've had this sitting on my DVD shelf for a long time, and after reading your review I think I'll finally take the time to watch it tonight. It's either this or Chuck Norris's "Invasion USA."

[Peven]

i don't know, Pacino. i don't really agree with Belly's assessment of it being as enjoyable as 'Demolition Man" or "Total Recall" or even "Running Man", and i REALLY disagree with any sort of comparison at all to "Soylent Green". imo it is one of Arnie's least watchable movies, down there with "Eraser"

but then...if it is between this and Chuck Norris in "Invasion USA" then watch 6th day, at least it has Bobby Duvall

[Pacino86845]

LOL, I've been studying all day so I feel the need to watch something really dumb.

[John-Locke]

I watched Starship Troopers 3 yesterday and have just watched Rogue, both on Verns suggestion.

ST3 was okay, a few bits of nice gore but I was hoping it'd be a little bit better overall (and I wasn't expecting much to start with). Not really worth going out of your way to see.

Rogue on the other hand was pretty damn good, beautiful cinematography and some nice tense moments, it's a good little horror film that I think everyone will enjoy.

[Fried Gold]

I watched Starship Troopers 3 yesterday and have just watched Rogue, both on Verns suggestion.

ST3 was okay, a few bits of nice gore but I was hoping it'd be a little bit better overall (and I wasn't expecting much to start with). Not really worth going out of your way to see.

Rogue on the other hand was pretty damn good, beautiful cinematography and some nice tense moments, it's a good little horror film that I think everyone will enjoy.

Does Starship Troopers 3 go anywhere near a move back to the greatness of the first film?

And is Rogue the killer crocodile film with the actress from Pitch Black?

[John-Locke]

To answer your first question...

No

To answer your second question...

Yes

[burlivesleftnut]

To answer your first question...

No

To answer your second question...

Yes

Adding Rogue to queue, thx.

[travis-dane]

LOL, I've been studying all day so I feel the need to watch something really dumb.

Then you should watch INVASION USA.It is a Masterpiece.
Really insane story,Chuck Norris at his "stoic" best and some crazy Action.It is far better then "The 6th Day" in terms of "dumb".
But "The 6th Day" is really dumb too,so you will not be disappointed if you watch it.

[Pacino86845]

I'm watching 6th Day right now, it's pretty badass!! Invasion USA will have to wait 'til after my exam.

[travis-dane]

I'm watching 6th Day right now, it's pretty badass!! Invasion USA will have to wait 'til after my exam.

Enjoy!