What Have You Just Seen... Marks Out of 5

degeneration · Post by **degeneration** » 11 Feb 2005, 10:54

[b]Silmido 3.5/5[/b]

Decent enough film, but a bit over-long. Was like a 90-100 minute film padded out to ~140 mins.

ReconFive · Post by **ReconFive** » 13 Feb 2005, 03:53

[b]Ong-Bak -- 4/5[/b]

Well amazingly this film happened to be playing at a theater relatively close to me, which is very surprising since limited US releases always seem to only play in NY, LA...etc
Anyway, i jumped at the chance to see it with english subs and i have to say it was very entertaining. Very realistic fights, decent enough story, and just the right amount of humor.
Very enjoyable.

degeneration · Post by **degeneration** » 14 Feb 2005, 09:47

[b]Once Upon A Time In High School 3/5[/b]

Decent enough drama, but nothing so great about it to really draw you into the film. On my trade/sale list now.

[b]Wing Chun 3.5-4/5[/b]

Didn't enjoy it as much as I have in the past. Fighting was still good, but there was something missing that I look for in films now... I think I'm getting too old now and things like a good proper story are important to me now, rather than silly humour and good action... oh no. On my trade/sale list as well.

Markgway · Post by **Markgway** » 18 Feb 2005, 03:02

Last three films I saw at the flicks...

The Manchurian Candidate ***.5/4
House of Flying Daggers **.5/4
2046 **.5/4

Last three DVDs I saw...

White Heat ****/4
I, Robot **.5/4
Twins of Evil ***/4

IronMonkey · Post by **IronMonkey** » 19 Feb 2005, 12:15

Warriors Two - 4/5

This is a great film from Sammo Hung. I really enjoyed it (probably more so because I actually learn & teach Wing Chun myself) because of the excellent fights and some goofy comedy which always sits well for me.

Well worth a watch. Its just a shame HKL used the Fortune Star sound mix, but the picture is excellent!

IronMonkey · Post by **IronMonkey** » 19 Feb 2005, 12:19

Once A Thief - 3/5

This is an enjoyable thief caper from John Woo with a few twists (some quite daft - the wheelchair!) but overall it seemed to be trying to mix too many different genres into one film.

The HKL disc is pretty good too.

Guest · Post by **Guest** » 19 Feb 2005, 15:53

Lord of the Rings The Two Towers Extended Edition 5 out of 5

Well it was as good second time round, shame I couldnt have the sound louder! but hey my parents were in and it was late.

The film, well its maybe as good as films get, but I feel it needs to be seen in a cinema as you just miss soo much on a smal dvd transfer. th epic scale just gets to me and draws me in and I just dont want the film to end, good job part 3 is as good.

romerojpg · Post by **romerojpg** » 19 Feb 2005, 15:54

Lets try that agin ater I have logged in dooohh

Lord of the Rings The Two Towers Extended Edition 5 out of 5

Well it was as good second time round, shame I couldnt have the sound louder! but hey my parents were in and it was late.

The film, well its maybe as good as films get, but I feel it needs to be seen in a cinema as you just miss soo much on a smal dvd transfer. th epic scale just gets to me and draws me in and I just dont want the film to end, good job part 3 is as good.
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grim_tales · Post by **grim_tales** » 19 Feb 2005, 16:50

I agree Romero TTT: EE was excellent.

I cant wait to have my HC setup back up. The DTS on the film (when I saw it before we moved) is amazing

I'm watching the 2nd extras disc at the moment in my new room, very interesting.
How do you find the TTT easter eggs?

Guest · Post by **Guest** » 20 Feb 2005, 14:16

Lord of the Rings The Return of the King Extended Edition 5 out of 5

Tht was just silly! far to good! its not fair on other normal films to compare it with them, but....

Pretty much the film I loved, but extended to perfection. Some new parts blew me away I esspecially loved the Mouth of Sauron he was very interesting.

Some parts changed it a little and some big, and the flow of the film worked better and it just never ended and after 4 hours it did end and I felt satisfied and watched the whole end credits as it was worth seeing it all.

Compared to Star Wars, LOTR is staggering, in every way!

degeneration · Post by **degeneration** » 21 Feb 2005, 09:31

do you not find it strange that in RotK EE there is no mention on Merry and Pippin being taller from the Ent juice, and they even look the same size, despite the new scene in TTT EE with them getting taller? That is one of the few criticisms I had for the EEs of both films. Why add that scene into TTT if it is not going to be continues in RotK?

romerojpg · Post by **romerojpg** » 21 Feb 2005, 15:45

I think they just shrunk back down to normal size again over time, they were a bit busy to go into it and probibly forgot themselves about it as they were in the thick of it

grim_tales · Post by **grim_tales** » 24 Feb 2005, 09:46

That you Romero?

Anyway...

The Battle Potemkin (1926) - 3.5/5

It was a strange, surreal experience for me to watch this, as I'm very new to silent cinema having not seen any before (The Adventures of Prince Achmed aside). It took a while to get used to things like the overexagerrated gestures (since there's no dialogue, theres no way of doing a one-liner), and the Russian title cards, but its' very relevant to many cinematic techniques.

.
Sergei Eisenstien tells the story of a real-life mutiny aboard the battleship Potemkin, with oppressed working class (in this case the enlisted sailors) who refuse to eat the horrible maggot-infested meat they are given. They band together to overthrow their oppressors (the ship's officers), led by proto-revolutionary Vakulinchuk. When he dies in the shipboard struggle, the crew lays his body to rest on the pier, a moody, moving scene where the citizens of Odessa slowly emerge from the fog to pay their respects. As the crowd grows Eisenstein turns the tenor from mourning a fallen comrade to celebrating the collective achievement. The government responds by sending soldiers and ships to deal with the mutinous crew and the supportive townspeople, which climaxes in the justly famous (and often imitated and parodied) Odessa Steps massacre.

As I said its not really my "type" of film, but I'm glad I saw it all the same

grim_tales · Post by **grim_tales** » 24 Feb 2005, 13:26

LOTR: TTT: EE Appendecies (Extras discs) - 4/5

Very interesting to watch IMO, also the documentaries show the cast and crew clearly had fun and a great experience making the movies, and there are some genuinely funny anecdotes, like the one about Viggo Mortensen (Aragon) falling for a "Rohan man" (a Rohan female extra with a beard) or when Sean Astin's wig is torn off.
"I know you idiots are going to come along and do this 'Behind The Scenes' DVD thing, and its embarassing, its' embarassing!" he says.

grim_tales · Post by **grim_tales** » 28 Feb 2005, 10:25

Based on the songs featured in this dazzling, inventive musical/romance alone, (Lady Marmalade? Diamonds are a Girl's Best Friend?) you would never know this film is set in 1890's Paris. But it really doesnt matter.

The costumes, set design and especially music are all fantastic, the film has a wonderful sense of zip and energy (check out the scene where a whole medley of songs are sung, it seems).. Your Song, Heroes, All You Need Is Love, blended seamlessly together. Ewan McGregor does have a very good voice.

In fact both leads (McGregor and Nicole Kidman) do.

Theres also the "story within the story" technique, the "penniless sitar player" character in the play McGregor is writing being an obvious metaphor for his own character in the film, and the Duke (who also loves Satine) being the "Maharaja" in the play.

Surprisingly, the film doesnt lose anything by being told in a kind of "flashback" either, and being told the "outcome" of the film at the beginning as I thought it would. It adds to the romantic element of the story, in fact.

Overall, hugely enjoyable

Now if I could re-watch it in DTS...

degeneration · Post by **degeneration** » 28 Feb 2005, 16:59

Grease 2.5/5

Was made to watch this by my girlfriend, and fortunately it wasn't as bad as I thought it would be. Not the sort of film I'd watch again. The music is just too cheesey now cause it has been played to death over the years. Still at least I can say I've seen it now. Going to be forced to watch part 2 sometime soon... poo.

degeneration · Post by **degeneration** » 01 Mar 2005, 11:46

Hide and Seek 3/5

decent enough, but tries too hard to be one of those films with a clever unexpected twist. Cause it tries to be too clever it isn't really that believable at all. but still a few decent suspenseful moments, and Elisabeth Shue has nice cleavage!!

thelostdragon · Post by **thelostdragon** » 01 Mar 2005, 22:01

Cop Land - 4/5
Watched this again tonight and I am still amazed by that film. Who says Stallone can't act? One of Hollywood's better films in recent years. Well I call 1997 recent years, yes.

EvaUnit02 · Post by **EvaUnit02** » 02 Mar 2005, 11:58

Yojimbo - 3.5/5
Good film. It had a little more story than A Fistful of Dollars, but AFOD has superior action IMO. In regards to Yojimbo vs. Joe (aka Man with No Name), Eastwood's character is cooler IMO. The finale fight was spectacular... while it lasted. The quick abrupt action reminded me of Leone's style.

Sanjuro - 4/5
I was under impression this would've just like For a Few Dollars More, obviously the source where I had read that FAFDM was remake of Sanjuro was dead wrong. Very amusing flick IMO. Had well written humour, a great cast (naturally Mifune was the best), and some good swordplay. Overall I liked it better than Yojimbo, but no where near as good as Seven Samurai (thus far I've only seen the aforementioned Kurosawa films, but just received Ran from the Netflix-esque rental service I subscribe to. Will hopefully watch it today or tomorrow.).

JSA -5/5
Utterly excellent. Everything about this movie was superb. I'm really pumped for Oldboy, I hope Amazon UK is prompt with my Tartan SE.

thelostdragon · Post by **thelostdragon** » 02 Mar 2005, 13:22

"JSA" indeed is one of my favourite Korean films. The only problem I had with it was that the scenes with English dialogue weren't really well acted.

Sword in the Moon 3/5
Hmmmmm... style, style and style. As with so many other Korean films, this was unfortunately style over substance again. I didn't have such a big problem with the ending as many other people did, though. The fight scenes and the soundtrack were very good in my opinion.

Good film, but gets confusing the longer it runs.

degeneration · Post by **degeneration** » 03 Mar 2005, 09:43

Royal Tramp 2.5/5

Meh... nothing special about this one at all. Smirked at a few scenes, but that was about it, except the scene where the twins were being his arms. That made me laugh out loud. Other than that, nothing great int eh comedy factor here, some decent fighting though!

EvaUnit02 · Post by **EvaUnit02** » 03 Mar 2005, 10:54

Ran 5/5

Superbly shot, well-written movie. Almost every character seemed to be fleshed out. I've never read King Lear (The only Shakespeare texts I've read have been the superb MacBeth and Othello, the mediocre Merchant of Venice and the craptacular Comedy of Errors.), but definately want to after seeing this film.

tom2681 · Post by **tom2681** » 09 Mar 2005, 00:08

Cutie Honey : /5

WTF was that ?!

I have seen many crazy movies (mainly from HK) but this one is... so crazy I don't think there is a word to describe this movie.

The heroine is an android dressed in pink who battles demons in the name of love.

The plot doesn't make any sense, the fighting scenes don't make any sense, the music is very weird and the bad guys look like that:

After watching this, I have only one thing to say:

Honeeyyyyyyyyy-Flashhhhhhhhhhhhhhh !!!!

degeneration · Post by **degeneration** » 11 Mar 2005, 10:06

Kung Fu Hustle 4 - 4.5 /5

While I really enjoyed this film, it wasn't as funny as Shaolin Soccer IMO. There were some very much slapstick humour scenes and other scenes that was laughing out loud at, but in general there wasn't as much humour as SS.

However there was plenty of fighting this time round, with some very nice choreography in there. Once the fights get going though there is a lot of CG enhanced fighting, which while great to look at, it would have been nice to get more not so much enhanced fighting!!

[spoilers]

SPOILERS

What I don't get though is that when Chow first goes to pig sty alley, he challenges the old woman to a fight and she hits him hard, implying that she is a kung fu master. The same with the hair dresser guy, the way he acts with his "I'm not afraid" talk kinda suggests he is one too, and then when the #2 of the Axe Gang gets hit, I thought it was him that did it.

Then later in the film it turns out that Pig Sty alley only had the 5 masters there... so what was the old woman's ability to punch all about??

[/spoilers]

Wayne's World 1.5/5

I just don't really like this first part. Part 2 is brilliantly funny, whereas this one just isn't. Tia Carrere looks great though... Just wish she'd done her Playboy shoot when she was that age!!!

tom2681 · Post by **tom2681** » 11 Mar 2005, 22:24

so what was the old woman's ability to punch all about??

She tells Chow she's a farmer.
He doesn't want to fight with her because he knows Chinese farmers are very tough, that's all.

Also, Chow's character is very weak.
Remember the scene where the four-eyes is hitting him ?

Bullets 'n' Babes

What Have You Just Seen... Marks Out of 5

Moulin Rouge - 4/5