talkmagic.co.uk

Just recently, I found myself paying more heed to critics. Especially with some of the Summer blockbusters.

My little boy, for example, was mad keen to see Night at the Museum 2, after being blown away by the first one. I thought there was no way they could go wrong with the basic formula, regardless of how much the citics hated it. Sadly, I discovered that the formula could indeed be ruined. Not even Christopher Guest could save that film. It was pants.

A similar situation was found with Tranformers 2. I loved the first one, and reckoned that the formula was so undemanding that there was absolutely nothing anyone could do to stuff it up - not even Michael Bay, and that's saying something. But, again, the critics were right, and it stank.

Goes to show that you can actually ruin a cheeseburger...

Pete

Frankenstein, the kenny branagh remake

Happiness - which i only watched recently, but loved, and now own...

Hellraiser 2 - Doctor will see you now!

the devil's rejects - for the soundtrack, to see a proper, evil and awful family at their work...

Smoochy was AWESOME

Hancock also excellent.

Let us not forget SLC Punk and The Usual Suspect and The Bridge to Terabithia

SLC Punk is amazing AMAZING drama

Bridge to Terabithia is a kids movie but it made me cry amazing film.

--Infy

IAIN wrote:Hellraiser 2 - Doctor will see you now!

Hellraiser 2 - yes, yes, yes! The bit where the girl's figuring out the puzzle box while the doctors looked through the one way mirror and you just know that pin-head's on his way. Makes the hair on the back of my neck stand up just thinking about it.

I've always wanted to own one of those boxes. And if you had one, would you try to solve it?

Anyway, Hellraiser 3? Nah. sh*te.

IAIN wrote:http://www.hellraiserpuzzlebox.com/boxes.html

The one at $400 looks amazing. I was a huge fan of this film. I was also a huge fan of Clive Barker in general. "The Great & Secret Show", "Weaveworld". Wonderful books.

My whole life was a journey to where I am now. If you know what I mean.

Anyway, back on topic. Dumb & Dumber anyone? Funniest film ever. "Your hands! They're freezing!"

Also - Team America - World Police. Really, really good.

I am reminded of Liar Lair

Man that was funny.

Carry, "Have you enjoyed moving into our building?"
Woman, "Oh yes everyone is so nice to me."
Carry, "It's because you have huge melons.. I mean gaznga's I mean breast.... MAMA" makes sucking noises.

the damnation game, books of blood and the great and secret show were/are amazing...

a spanish film, timecrimes is excellent if you like mind bending time travel theories...

the martyrs you should see purely for shock value, and the strange typicaly french ending...

Les Valsueres (or the B@stards) a late 70s french film, about two theives, funny, sad and a bit like withnail and i...but french...

Tin Drum - german, a boy with a glass shattering scream refuses to grow up, the film was banned for many years for certain scenes...

"Pepe Le Moko" - 1930's French film about a French gangster hiding from the law in the Algiers' casbah. The perfect film for a post-New Romantic 17 year old living in Sheffield who dreamed of wearing a zoot suit, smoking Gitanes, and living in the casbah. Gah. It must be late.

A Nightmare on Elm Street was good. tho I hated the 2nd film. Too much man love for a film about teens getting killed off in their sleep. Then they pretty much took the horror of Freddy Krueger and made it like he was a stand up comedian. Which ruined it a bit. As well as them no longer being afraid of him and just fighting him.

Funny story about ANOES is that Wes Craven read about a group of teenagers in Sweden who said they were being chased my a mysterious man in their sleep. So in order to stay awake they took Caffeine pills and stuff.. Then when they went to sleep.. They died..

Some say it was due to all the caffeine in their system causing them to have heart attacks. I choose to believe the masked man got them.

Soylent Green.

V for Vendetta.

Frailty -- Singly the best Gothic Horror produced in modern times. Directorial Debut of Bill Paxton.

The child star is simply stunning.

--Infy

IAIN wrote:Tin Drum - german, a boy with a glass shattering scream refuses to grow up, the film was banned for many years for certain scenes...

Die Blechtrommel was based on a novel by Gunter Grass. The book is a modern masterpiece, and Schlondorff's movie was excellent too.

Oddly, the only US distributer to see the movie's worth when it was first released was schlockmeister Roger Corman.

It won the Oscar for best foreign film in 1979, if I remember rightly.

I don't recall it being banned in Blighty (surprising, since virtually every other movie was either cut or banned during the 80s and 90s), but it did inspire a gestapo-style search-and-seize operation in Okalahoma in 1997.

Schlondorff also made Voyager, based on Max Frisch's book Homo Faber. It didn't even approach the depth of the book, but I still thought it was a good movie.

Pete

Coming to America is an absolute terrific film, see no evil hear no evil another great one that you don't usually hear in the word classic but they so are.

i think Tin Drum was and maybe still is banned in a few countries...i think it was because of the small boy/lady dwarf scene, sipping champagne in the nazi circus...