h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Saw The Wolverine the other day.

It's pretty good The X-Men films have often set quite a high standard however. Better than First Class - no - better than a number of the others, mmm, probably.
Certainly it was a bit different with the Ninja and Ronin theme but it probably needed more to make it truly outstanding.
Also, the Batman Begins trilogy have set such a high bar now for the superhero films that they're all going to struggle now I think.
Definitely worth a watch and it has been a while since we've seen the Wolverine - Hugh Jackman is starting to look older mind - they need to young-him-up a bit to go along with the not-aging thing.

Maybe "Les Miserables" took a lot out of him. He can sing and act with the best of them. I'm not thrilled that he would go back to the Wolverine character, which was more of a cult thing, but an actor's got to eat, same as the rest of us. Even Laurence Olivier made some cheesy movies at the end of his life, to pay for the insane medical costs he incurred as he dealt with serious illness. I'm not saying that Hugh Jackman is in similar desperate straits, just that an actor acts. It's the public that decides whether the actor should go on to other projects.

Oh it's a good film. Not cheesy at all and he was fine. I guess what I'm saying is that is just another X-men film. They haven't pushed the boundaries with this one.

Shame really because given the comic heritage of Wolverine in Japan, plus how it would allow them to riff on Japanese and Far Eastern cinema tropes if there was ever an opp-ortunity to make a main stream hero film that was also artistic this would probably have been it.

I take it that it is vastly superior to Wolverine Origins?

FB

Ho Yus! I may be being overcritical. Nowt wrong with it really except it's inferior to The Dark Knight Rises and First Class.

Oblivion

Got the twist early on but didn't spoil the enjoyment of a classic sci-fi theme done with a good budget and effects.

Bet I wasn't the only one to think - "Oh look, Jaime Lannister!"

I'm pretty much dis-regarding everything after X2* until Bryan Singer returns with Days of Future Past.

*here on after, the series got rubbish really fast - with the exception of First Class, which being a pretty alight prequel didn't break continuity and was mostly good, and which will feature directly in the third part of the trilogy (yes trilogy, those other films don't exist!) so I am contractually obliged to 'like' it.

I haven't read the comic books that a lot of these films were based on. I read "Superman" comics in the 1950s, but that's about it. I don't anything about Spiderman and Ironman and Batman, etc., beyond what I see on the movie screen. I don't matter, though, to the studios. The studio execs know there's a built-in audience of teenagers or former teenagers who *have* read those comic books and will eagerly look forward to the films. I just go to the movies because I want to keep my finger on the pulse of modern American culture. If I;'m ever marooned on a desert island with strangers [not that this is likely to happen, but maybe I could be stranded in a snowstorm in an airport...], I might have something to talk about if the subject gets around to movies. It's worth a shot, anyway.

I never read the comics either.

I was given and encouraged to read Watchmen, Hellboy and Frank Miller's The Dark Knight Returns by a friend while at uni, but that's it.

I like X-men 2 for all sorts of reasons but BN (Before Nolan) it was the best super-hero movie out there. Plot character, subtext narrative, not bad films for special effect, set pieces or comedy. I like 'em.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zbTyTyizz1s

And then Singer left, it was handed to a lesser director and thereafter it got stupid and terrible

Movie sequels are rather bad, on the whole. I tend not to see them.

The Wrath of Khan, Toy Story 2, The Terminator 2, Empire Stikes Back, Harry Potter: Azkaban, The Godfather Part 2, Back To the Future 2, Spiderman 2, Hellboy 2, Evil Dead 2, The Dark Knight

Just off the top of my head all of those are bloody great and IMHO at least the equal of their predecessors.

FB

I don't think of the Harry Potter movies as sequels per se. They were parts of a story told in serial form. I saw "Hell Boy 2" but not its predecessor. For me, that was the first one. Same with the second "Transformers."

As I think about this, I realize that I've seen more sequels than I thought, though. It's movie adaptations of old TV series that I generally avoid. Many of those are terrible! However, in the case of "Starsky and Hutch" and "Miami Vice," I never saw the original TV series, so I didn't have the originals to compare them to.

Every week, roughly ten new movies are introduced. Many of them go to the arthouse theaters, so I don't know they exist until they pop up on Academy Awards nomination lists early the next year. I see two or three movies per week. There is no way I can see all ten of the new ones. I dismissed "Hellboy" and "Transformers" as not worth watching when they came out. The moviegoing public thought differently, so I went to the sequels.

I never thought "The Hangover" deserved to have one sequel, let alone two. Nevertheless, I went to those sequels. Maybe they were up against one of the Madea or saw movies. I decide among the existing options.

With so many movies waiting for me in theaters, I fear I'll miss something important if I don't at least try to see them.

I have just returned home from seeing The World's End - the last in the Cornetto Trilogy (!?). (Or is it the last in the trilogy? After all, it IS known that trilogies don't have to be restricted to three).

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n__1Y-N5tQk

Filmed largely in Letchworth Garden City and Welwyn Garden City, I was lucky enough to be able to see it at The Broadway Cinema which featured in the film and afterwards go back to my car which was parked in a car park which had featured in the film as well. Just a little surreal.

Standard Simon Pegg fare I would say. If you liked Shawn of the Dead and Hot Fuzz, you'll like this.

Mrs PP swears that she didn't like it. And that it wasn't her that I heard laughing at it.

PP.

I just got back from seeing "The Way Way Back," a film about Duncan, a 14-year-old boy in a broken family -- he, his mother, her boyfriend, and her boyfriend's daughter go to a beachfront cottage for the summer.

Duncan doesn't fit in well -- he'd rather be with his father. As he explores the town, though, he finds a place called Water Wizz Park, which has water slides and other fun water sports. Owen, the manager, takes him under his wing and gives him a job for the summer.

Steve Carell plays Duncan's mother's boyfriend. Sam Rockwell plays Owen. Rockwell, you may remember, played Zaphod Beeblebrox in the movie version of "Hitchhiker's Guide to the Universe."

Discovered an oversight in my DVD collection recently which was that I only have The Godfather films on VHS! So I just bought the box-set on DVD.
The revelation of this is that despite me remembering it as rather silly - The Godfather part III is actually a fine film in its own right! Watched it with the missus last night and we thoroughly enjoyed it.
I guess the trouble is that the first two are hard acts to follow and it isn't quite on their level - still a fine film anyway though.

Since my post, I've caught up on a couple of summer blockbusters.

Tuesday night, I saw "Pacific Rim," which seemed to take inspiration from "Godzilla" and "Iron Man," only bigger and more deadly/violent, and with a story subplot about cloned monsters from another dimension getting into a sub-Pacific trench through a wormhole or something like that. The hero was likable, the special effects were what you'd expert from a movie helmed by Benecio del Toro [spell check says I got the spelling wrong there ]. There are enough scenes of fast and furious martial arts combat to please males ages 18-35. Not much for women, especially given that the main woman character breaks down when she first finds herself in a combat situation. Who saves her? The big, strong, steady male hero, of course!

Thursday afternoon I saw "R.I.P.D.," which seemed to take inspiration
from "Ghost," "Ghostbusters," and even "Men in Black." Ryan Reynolds is easy to take, though, and Jeff Bridges hams it up with enough laughs to make you almost forget about the plot holes and general silliness. In "Pacific Rim," most of the big cities around the Pacific rim get trashed. In "R.I.P.D.," Boston gets destroyed, and yet in the last scene it seems as good as new. How did they rebuild it so fast? One big quibble: The evil dead who have come back to Earth to escape final judgment can get knocked, kicked, run over by bus and trains, all without apparent harm, but a shot to the head from the Bridges character's gun, and they vanish in a puff of smoke. Are they special celestial guns or something?

The Unbearable Lightness of Being, Daniel Day-Lewis, Juliette Binoche & others starring in a 1988 film directed by Philip Kaufman. Good acting in a observational quasi historic film / black comedy following womaniser surgeon (DDL) in an enduring ménage a trois across the backdrop of the prague spring and subsequent Soviet invasion. None of this rim of the pacific nonsense, just great acting, human relationships and forms of oppression. "Don't worry, I'm a doctor". Available on all good BBC iplayers:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b014kjs5/The_Unbearable_Lightness_of_Being/

I liked "Unbearable Lightness of Being" a lot! I didn't remember that Daniel Day-Lewis was in it, but it's been awhile.

Re Pacific Rim >> ps in the good ole days of hollywood, it used to be pesky Indians scalping the god fearing and peaceful European settlers, only for the good ole US Cavalry to come to everyone's rescue by riding in and kicking Indian butt. <<

Quotes:

“Gypsy Jaegar is the very special Jaegar that is the sort of hero Jaegar” Idris Elba
“Gypsy Jaegar we wanted very much to feel like a classical gun-slinger and we gave it the anatomy of a big cowboy” Guillermo del Toro

i.e. Pacific Rim = reworking of Cowboys & Indians Q.E.D.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ggyg6zlxwN8 [2.30 to 2.45]

Nice analysis, Stone Aart!