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

The Departed *is* pretty good, but not as good as Casino or Goodfellas, IMO.

Unlike Casino Royale, which I saw recently. I think it's one of the worst films I've ever seen. Laughable dialogue, ridiculous stunts, no plot whatsoever, and Daniel Craig did nothing other than run up to the camera, look to the side, and then run purposefully away in the other direction for the first hour. Utter, utter shite.

Pirates of the Caribbean 3

Well that was three hours of my life I will never get back.

At least on the plane to Australia I got to sleep through half of the second part of the trilogy.

Finally saw Hot Fuzz the other day: not a patch on (the perfection that is) Shawn Of The Dead but still bloody good, and blessed with a couple of right icky bits!

I'm having a film night

Just watched Smokin' Aces.

Gore fest - heh, heh, heh

Have you ever wondered what it looks like when someone sits on a chainsaw?

Seriously, it tried to be too clever by half and the twists were well sign-posted.

Do you think Roy?

I watched it for the first time since I saw it in the pictures and I now think Hot Fuzz is marginally better than Shaun.

I especially like the car chase with danny saying "bang bang bang" as he shot his gun!!!

I have watched Hot Fuzz several times since downloading, er, acquiring it, so do like it quite a lot, but still prefer SotD. Maybe it's because SotD was so refreshing at the time, or it could be that it's set no more than a fifteen minute bus ride from where I live.

There is much great stuff in Hot Fuzz. The reporter/church incident springs to mind.

I just watched the new Fantastic Four movie, which I don´t think was worse than the first one. I´m not saying it is good, just not any worse. The still can´t get Doom´s personality right though, he is a villain with so much potential.

Just watched Ocean's 13.
Light hearted fun; all style but with some substance.
If you like this sort of thing, you will find that the TV show 'Hustle' does something very similar in 1 hour and with six episodes in the series (for free).

On a recent plane trip, I watched:

Music & Lyrics: Utter, utter tripe, I switched off after about 15 minutes. Honestly, how does this stuff get made?

The Notorious Betty Paige: Actually quite good, and not a little disturbing. Shows how "Senate Hearings" actually work, which has also been a theme in a number of other recent films.

Little Children: Not quite as good as it should have been, but still actually quite good in its treatment of the subject matter without sensationalising it a la Daily Mail. I'd say: watch it. It's not perfect, but its good points outweigh the faults.

Wild Hogs: Now, this is *exactly* the kind of film you need to watch on a plane! It's really good fun, has a message, isan't too heavy, but has a serious point at the end. Enjoy!

Then I returned to the UK and got Hot Fuzz on the DVDVDVDVD thingy...like Roymondo, I feel it doesn't quite have the LOL of Shaun Of The Dead, however it's still a mighty fine film with a load of good luaghs, and you should all go out and watch this now.

There. RF the film critic hath thpoken. Th...Th...Th.

RF

Walk the Line

Really enjoyed this one. Joaquin Phoenix & Reese Witherspoon are simply outstanding. On more than one occasion, Phoenix was utterly convincing as Johnny Cash - despite looking nothing like him. Both have fine voices.

I was uncomfortable early on with the usual trite "poor little waif with a dream, bullied by dad, instant stardom, drugs breakdown" guff, but the performances pulled it through.

Worth watching

Reese Witherspoon looked so-oo much better when she had meat on her bones

Rilly? I didn't think much of that film - it seemed to play too much to "you have to know all about him already" whilst simultaneously pissing off the Johnny Cash fans who were appalled by the concept of *someone else* singing his songs.

As I was neither, I didn't think much of it.

RF

Well, I didn't know anything about him beyond a few of his more well-known songs. The film certainly put 'Jackson', 'Ring of Fire' and 'I walk the line' into a context.

As a neutral and comparing Cash with Phoenix, as I've done tonight with Napster, Phoenix is a better singer than Cash - as is Witherspoon with June Carter.

Music and Lyrics got made for the exact same reason that most things get made there are a decent number of people willing to pat with their hard earned to see it.

If you've ever seen any porn...and I havent......but Ive heard that what plot and dialogue there is is higly derivative and usuall not much of an improvement on other films of that type, but likewise people still get money out of their pockets for the privilidge of seing something not much differen to what they saw last time.

I was unfortunate enough to have to sit through Music and Lyrics and see most of it, tedious as it was it was stil slightly more entertaining than watching the neighbours dog clean his unemetionables or watching the time elapse clock on the DVD player.

Video piracy: I used to think it was cool in reality it just means you can see rubbish that bit quicker and cheaper

Speaking of fims with flimsy plot and the same sort of dialogue you've heard before in other films, do yourselves a favour and dont watch "Turisma - Paradise Lost". In it people are drugged against their will, get flung off cliffs have head wounds treated with staple guns all in about the first fifteen minutes. I fell asleep and woke up to see people being chased through the jungle by sadists, blugoned to death with rocks and having a gnerally bad time. To be honest I envied them because watcing the film was definately a worse experince than any of that even though I fortunately missed most of it.

I just watched Bloodrayne, a movie made over a computer game. I wanted some mindless action and I guess I got that. But this movie really should get a Razzie award, it was quite badly made. As a re-enactor it also bothered me that they seemed to have tried to save money on the weapons. The swords looked like they were cut out of sheet metal. But they seemed to work, people would often start to bleed even before being hit by the swords.

I watched "Jaws" for the umpteenth time, now in its "30th Anniversary" DVD. Number 56 on the newly updated AFI list of alltime movies. I have to agree, since I think movies in general should be fun entertainment. With a perfect cast, a score so good its become a textbook, and a director not (yet) full of himself ...

Oh, and a scary story, you really need that.

Of course, I live near the coast ... (dum, dum, dum...)

Finally got around to seeing "Revenge of the Sith".

Well firstly one has to admit it is markedly superior to either of the other two prequels.

But....

Well I cannot help feeling rather dis-satisfied.

Why could Lucas not got some of the really talented writers who have done the story lines for intersting games like Tie Fighter and Knights of the Old Republic to write the scripts?

And Lucas may well be good at ideas but a class director with some idea of quality control (especially when it comes to deciding aobut the inclusion of special efects) he isn't.

I ask you imagine sith's storyline handled by say Guillmero Del Torro? Wouldn't that be something?

I went to see "Tell No-One" last night. It's really very good - you will need to pay attention as there's quite a few characters, and it changes time frames a bit...but the effort is rewarded. HI says so too.

RF

Agree about Revenge of the Sith. Better than the first two, but still plagued by screeds of unnecessary visual effects that were out of context or just didn't make any sense.

Yeah, they oculd have been sooo good if handled differently, here are my main suggestions:-

The events of PM and AOTC could easily have been just one film.

The second film could then have been aobut the clone wars. Instead of us feeling Anarkins fall because he was a cute kid be would have seen him being "The hero of the rpeublic". I think this owuld have been better.

No Directing for George Lucas, easily the best Empire was directed by someone else.

CGI is not yet good enough to replace models, even in Sith some of it was pretty ropey. When Yoda is not fighting he ought to be a model still.

On the topic of CGI in live action films generally not just Star Wars please folks *less is more*. I am talking all three SW sequals, Van Helsing, King Kong etc, etc ad infinitum.

Remake without Hayden Chritiensen or whatvever his name is, ok he did the bad ass Anarkin allright but he had been annoying as hell for a whole film and a half.

Oh yeah and the biggie

No fracking Jar-Jar

Hannibal Rising.

Wholly disappointing. The events of Lecter's tormented childhood are well handled but far too much time is spent lingering on the war torn field of Eastern Europe.

This is in and of itself not necessarily a bad thing (and chimes with Lecter as *just* a child - hence not the focus of the movie or as *the* main character - so the grander events can legitimately take centre stage), but given how unbalanced the movie later turns out to be, this is a matter of some regret.
For while we get to see the literal origins of Hannibal Lecter (Castle, family, massacre, orphan, victim etc), which imparts also the the 'ah-ha - so that's why he's a cannibal!' moment; this is at the expense of seeing anything of real interest about his later life or transition into genius psychiatrist and serial killer.
There are deaths, naturally, so he *is*a multiple murderer by his early 20's but qualitatively not of the same order as the later Lecter, so as a prequel I feel it fails. For it does not add to the legend nor explicate it, only muddle it.

To put that point another way: this is Kill Bill by another name, a revenge movie that minus the legend of Lecter would be more-or less indistinguishable from any wrought, indicvidual out for revenge against those who wronged him and encountering extraordinary circumstances en route. (Aristocratic, Japanese, samurai cult worshipping, widowed aunts, are ten-a-penny in Paris.)
Hence we are given instead of a true insight into the origin of the character, wince-inducing, liberal dollops of Lecter-lore such as fondling the iconographic and pointless samurai face-mask, (intended presumably, to invoke the image of Anthony Hopkins strapped to a gurney in Lambs) and assorted detective-types muttering is hushed tones and wincing at polygraph read-outs that apparently show that the burgeoning mass-murder is as emotionless as a Deckard Replicant taking a Voight-Kampf test. Oooooooh.

Credit to the actor, who DID invoke Anthony Hopkins more than once to good effect (almost but not quiet 'quid-pro-quoing' the detective a la Clarice Starling some thirty years later) and one feels he did the best with what he was given, but the story offers little or no arc to the later Lecter. I struggled to think of how to phrase this: but it is as if he the character is out of character the whole time.

There is perhaps one high note, which comes early on, and that concerns a particularly loathsome nazi collaborator; where we see the slimmest of Lecter at his most moral - which is to say avenging the impropriety of a savage remark with an equally brutal and savage murder.
Recall of course his twisted sense of amoral genteelism is a theme throughout the chronological later movies (persuading Miggs to swallow his own tongue, etc) and here that is recalled, briefly; because, then we are off and running with the revenge plot and thereafter Lecter as nascent character all but vanishes,

Wholly concerned with revenge alone, there is no real sense of the whimsy, callous, capricious, sadistic, cruel and discerning killer he is supposed to become. His motives for killing here are rooted in passion and revenge and, were we not introduced to this person as Hannibal Lecter, it wouldn't matter if it wasn't Lecter. These events don't attach the character in a meaningful way and hence don't explain the transition that the origin is supposed to reveal.

This is a problem because it skews the rest of the movie and leads to the confused and nonsensical sequence of events on the boat and the rather naff and disappointing ending: a brief coda set in Canada (presumably to explain Lecter's coming to America after leaving Europe) and an entirely wasted, pointless and predictable joke that's nowhere near as good as "I'm having an old friend for dinner."
So many questions are left unanswered that it brings into sharp relief the time spent at the start of the movie that could (possibly) have been so much better spent actually explaining something at the end.

I've compiled a short list:

How did this SURGICAL student become a psychiatrist? No answer given.

Why did Lecter resume killing once all the perpetrators of the original crime are dead by his hand? No answer given.

What made him kill in the ways he later did (the out-of-tune flutist being the one I can recall - killed for nothing more than the bum note, and then fed the orchestra board.)

Take the films as canonical: how do we go from the scene in Canada to Lecter sat across a desk from Will Graham about to be rumbled as the Chesapeake Ripper?

How is it that Lecter is such a mystery to later authorities when this film so clearly associates him with the murders he not only commits - but is openly suspected of committing!

Whatever the films may pretend, this is not in keeping with the Lecter of the other three movies. Nice try, and some minor flashes of interest but overall a failure and this is I feel because it purports and flaunts to show us Lecter at the start of his career of killing and while we get a lot of dead bodies, Rising would have us believe started out life killing his way through Parisian war-profiteers and *somehow* progressed - but worryingly doesn't or daren't stray into the far more interesting and terrifying tale of what Lecter did *next*.

So why is this so worrying? Well apparently, the entire production was okayed by Thomas Harris himself. I didn't get around to reading the book when it was published so I presume to suppose that the film does not depart to far from the author's work and the special features on the dvd tell us that Thomas Harris was at the end of the phone constantly to fine-tune aspects of the story and that this, therefore, is indeed definitive. So I suppose that means I am questioning the entire premise of which the novel is presumably written and from which the movie takes it's inspiration.

Something I would be intrigued to see on film (and mentioned first in the book 'Hannibal' was Lecter's memory palace, wherein we first got to learn about his sister Micha which forms the opening for this movie.) I was reminded of it when I saw the Stephen King, Morgan Freeman, pot-boiler, alien-invasion, damp halibut: Dreamcatcher, Wherein we see Brit thesp, Damian Harris running around the catacombs of his own mind to escape the invading alien force. A true glimpse inside the psyche of Lecter is probably far to literary a device to survive the transition to the screen, although Dreamcatcher, for all its multiple flaws suggest perhaps not.

This simply, does not deliver to the viewer a sense of how Lecter became the killer he was famous for. And that is a missed opportunity that beggars belief.