| Author | Message | ||
     Gcw (Gcw) Username: Gcw Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 86.145.240.86 |
...y'all! gcw | ||
| Gary Fry (Gary_fry) Username: Gary_fry Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 86.0.112.152 |
And to you, GCW! I'm just cooking dinner: rump steak and peppercorn sauce. Yummy. | ||
| Gcw (Gcw) Username: Gcw Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 86.145.240.86 |
Soozy's cooking the dinner - I'm leaving her to it (I'll only get in the way...!  ) gcw | ||
| Mick Curtis (Mick) Username: Mick Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 86.159.82.2 |
Best wishes to all you lot too! We've had a break in the great Christmas present unwrapping, Debs and her mum are sorting the dinner, and same as GCW, I'll only get in the way! | ||
| Allybird (Allybird) Username: Allybird Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 79.70.67.97 |
Just got out of bed last night, after the flu (which the whole family has had). Turkey is in the oven. Roasties, creamy leeks and peas. Hazlenut and apricot stuffing balls. Which just about sums it up as I don't think anyone is hungry..... and Happy Christmas GCW, Mick and Gary and all... and give my love to Suzie and Debs you two! | ||
| Gcw (Gcw) Username: Gcw Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 86.145.240.86 |
Will do! Gotta sign off now...Must go & be sociable  See yer later! gcw | ||
| Gary Fry (Gary_fry) Username: Gary_fry Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 86.0.112.152 |
I'm stuffed. Can't breathe... Ugh... | ||
| Barbara Roden (Nebuly) Username: Nebuly Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 216.232.189.136 |
It's finally Christmas Day here, hours after everyone else started celebrating. Funny to read about people already being stuffed from Christmas dinner when we've only just got up, I'm still on my first cup of coffee, and the presents are waiting to be unwrapped. Happy Christmas to all here, wherever you are; hope the big man in the red suit left some nice gifts under the tree for you! | ||
| John Llewellyn Probert (John_l_probert) Username: John_l_probert Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 90.203.130.71 |
My parents have just left, taking my father's self-constructed remote control ferret with them. Prior to this my neighbour came round to borrow some milk and asked in exasperated tones if I ever wore anything casual? I checked my fob watch and realised I had time to humour them, replaced it in the pocket of my velvet waistcoat, plunged my hands deep into the pockets of my gold paisley silk dressing gown and said how much more casual could they possibly expect me to be this early in the morning. The Probert family singsong around the piano was like something out os a William Castle movie by the way - one day I must put it on YouTube. Now I'm going to sit and read the lovely new Tartarus Guy de Maupassant book and sip port. | ||
| Gary Fry (Gary_fry) Username: Gary_fry Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 86.0.112.152 |
You really need to move away from that council estate, mate. It doesn't become you. | ||
| Craig (Craig) Username: Craig Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 75.5.10.90 |
"Roasties"? "Creamy leeks and peas"? "Hazelnut and apricot stuffing balls"? I have no idea what any of those are, but it sure sounds Christmasy! I think the absolute true Christmas meal has to be an English one, whatever that meal ends up being.... (Ally: read any Tuttle yet?) Me, lasagna at the folks'. Later. Fer now, coffee, fruitcake (I'm one of the few who likes fruitcake), and the yulelog channel droning in the background. I could swear we had a long rolling earthquake - I was about to run outside! - but I've been able to find no news about it yet... whatever, just another day in soCal. MeRrY ChRiStMaS!!! | ||
| Allybird (Allybird) Username: Allybird Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 79.70.67.97 |
Oh yes Craig. I'm into the first few stories and savouring them. Thank you for making this Christmas special as I thought the flu was going to finish me off yesterday! | ||
| Huw (Huw) Username: Huw Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 218.168.190.136 |
Next year I want to spend Christmas at Probert Towers! Got a spare room (or dungeon, perhaps), Lord P? Happy Christmas, all. Ally, enjoy A Nest of Nightmares. It's a hell of a collection. | ||
| Mick Curtis (Mick) Username: Mick Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 86.159.82.2 |
Spare room? I should think he has a spare wing or two. | ||
| Gary Fry (Gary_fry) Username: Gary_fry Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 86.0.112.152 |
I have a spare wing, if anyone's interested. I got my turkey not from Somerfield but from Sellafield. | ||
| Niki Flynn (Niki) Username: Niki Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 78.32.69.29 |
"Got a spare room (or dungeon, perhaps), Lord P?" Trust me, Huw - dungeons are highly overrated. And usually overpriced. Sometimes you even have to provide your own equipment, which spoils the element of surprise. | ||
| Allybird (Allybird) Username: Allybird Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 79.70.84.240 |
Yes I will Huw! Hey - I got my husband from Sellafield, Gary (he worked there briefly). And for Craig. Todays's meal will be turkey, wild rice, cranberries and pecans followed by trifle - containing blueberries, rasberry jam, custard, cream - sprinkled with crushed pistachios and chocolate. Mind you I've just opened a rather fine bottle of Castillo San Lorenzo Rioja which actiually tastes rather nice. So Tuttle/drinking wine - versus cooking is looking rather interesting. | ||
| Allybird (Allybird) Username: Allybird Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 79.70.84.240 |
Mmm - you can tell by the spelling mistakes that I've drunk a glass already :>) | ||
| Craig (Craig) Username: Craig Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 75.5.2.200 |
Yum! What's "trifle"? So do you Brits have two big lavish meal days in a row? | ||
| Huw (Huw) Username: Huw Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 218.168.198.197 |
More than three in my house, Craig! I'm going over to my folks' place for another turkey dinner tonight.... Trifle is a sort of pudding made of layers of jelly (jello), sponge, blancmange, bits of fruit, and so on. That's the way we always made it, anyway (we put sherry in it too). Niki, I've always imagined the dungeons at Probert Towers being rather comfortable! Lined in velvet, absinthe fountains, that kind of thing... ;-) | ||
| Craig (Craig) Username: Craig Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 75.4.227.228 |
"Blancmange"... wasn't that some 80's pop group?... never heard of it, Huw... but it sounds pretty good.... Well, Xmas is over now. Time to smash in the front doors of my neighbors, and torch their Xmas trees with my flamethrower. A little holiday tradition of mine.... | ||
| Niki Flynn (Niki) Username: Niki Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 78.32.69.29 |
That sounds like a fine tradition, Craig! I spent a chunk of Christmas Day downloading photos of derelict lunatic asylums (looking for shoot locations). And laughing to read the complaints of the current residents of Danvers State Hospital - sorry, "Avalon Danvers". From idealistic grandeur:  To true beauty:  To blasphemy:  Ugh! And on Boxing Day I was running through a deserted hospital corridor (gym was closed), positive that I could hear slow, measured footsteps behind me. But (alas?) no one was there when I looked. I'm sure my nervous state is completely unrelated to this particular Christmas gift:  The "eyes as dead as pebbles" certainly stuck in my mind. | ||
| Hubert (Hubert) Username: Hubert Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 78.21.22.37 |
That's the asylum from SESSION 9! Not much of the building remains nowadays  | ||
| Niki Flynn (Niki) Username: Niki Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 78.32.69.29 |
Just ordered SESSION 9 - never seen it, but sounds like my cup of poison tea. | ||
| Hubert (Hubert) Username: Hubert Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 78.21.22.37 |
Prepare to be amazed . . . I'd say it's one of the very best 'horror' movies around. Have a look at this (spoiler alert!): http://www.aboutfilm.com/features/session9/interview.htm | ||
| Niki Flynn (Niki) Username: Niki Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 78.32.69.29 |
I'll look at it after I see the movie. Thanks for the spoiler warning. | ||
| Tony (Tony) Username: Tony Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 81.157.50.168 |
It's not bad at all. I think it loses it a little the nearer you get to the end, but till then it has many truly unbearable moments. | ||
| Craig (Craig) Username: Craig Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 75.5.14.95 |
Niki, SESSION 9 is a good horror movie, a very good if not great one, creepy and low-budget but looking like a few million bucks, well worth your time. And, as someone here pointed out long before I'm about to - Joel was it? - the final line of the film resonates, disturbingly chilling in retrospect.... | ||
| Tony (Tony) Username: Tony Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 81.157.50.168 |
For me the odd thing was David Caruso - the rest of the piece felt quite real, the actors sort of unknown apart from him. It felt like there was a tv star in a mostly realistic thing. | ||
| Zed (Gary_mc) Username: Gary_mc Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 81.96.242.126 |
SESSION 9 is one of the best horror films ever made, IMHO. Utterly flawless, it has everything I look for but so rarely find every time I sit down to watch a horror film. | ||
| Zed (Gary_mc) Username: Gary_mc Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 81.96.242.126 |
Btw, I wrote an article for All Hallows a couple of years ago examining the film as a working class male counterpart to Shirley Jackson's THE HAUNTING OF HILL HOUSE. | ||
| Simon Bestwick (Simon_b) Username: Simon_b Registered: 10-2008 Posted From: 86.24.165.182 |
Very good comparison, Zed- the Asylum, like Hill House, works on the characters' weak points till they turn into stress fractures. All the men go crazy in their different ways, at different speeds. SESSION 9 is a brilliant movie, no question. Also a reminder that David Caruso actually can act... which makes his 'performance' in CSI Miami even more mystifying. Step 1: Remove sunglasses. Step 2: Drawl... out... lines... very... slowly... in... gravelly... monotone. Step 3: Replace sunglasses. Step 4: (optional) Whip out Sig-Sauer automatic, hold in cool two-handed shooting stance, and fire more ammunition than used in the entire Battle of the Somme into the bad guy. Step 5: Remove sunglasses. Step 6: Replace sunglasses. | ||
| Joel (Joel) Username: Joel Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 91.110.173.60 |
Does the cinema have a more appealing formula to offer than that? | ||
| Joel (Joel) Username: Joel Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 91.110.173.60 |
Damn! Simon got in the way between me and Zed. On the other hand, that could... oh, never mind. | ||
| Simon Bestwick (Simon_b) Username: Simon_b Registered: 10-2008 Posted From: 86.24.165.182 |
Consider that image an extra, belated Xmas present to you, Joel.  | ||
| Hubert (Hubert) Username: Hubert Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 78.21.22.37 |
There are horror elements in SESSION 9 - to this day I'm not sure whether there's any genuine supernaturalism in it - but in essence it's a tragedy. Strange as it may seem I actually sympathize with the Gordon character. | ||
| Craig (Craig) Username: Craig Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 75.4.253.136 |
The "session tapes" are what stick most in the mind, of course - an aural sensation of horror, made all the more effective because (as in King's best theory of horror) the mind must evoke all the images, and fill in all the gaps. Structure-wise, there's a great "Kaiser Soze" moment very early on; where the horrors of such places are, again, painted purely with words, in a deSade-esque "fairy tale" that has the strange effect of being quite terrifying - though relying, yet again, only on the power of words and the imagination. It's what ushers us into this film's world, where the horrors come purely from the head... until, they don't.... All that being said, I do think it's sadly flawed - sadly, because unnecessarily. But one can't have everything. | ||
| Hubert (Hubert) Username: Hubert Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 78.21.22.37 |
Flawed in what way? | ||
| Tony (Tony) Username: Tony Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 81.157.50.168 |
For me it was because the denoument felt limiting rather than stretching. It felt like it was going somewhere vast but then retreated. And it felt less well-directed towards the end. But I realise I'm treading on a much-loved film, and maybe need to give it another whirl. | ||
| Joel (Joel) Username: Joel Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 91.110.138.238 |
I'm all for closure, me. Slam a door in the viewer's face, block out the light. Never fails. Of course, this may be a defect in my attitude. | ||
| Zed (Gary_mc) Username: Gary_mc Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 81.96.242.126 |
Tony, the ending is basically what the film is leading towards all along - the small hints of madness, the clues, the effect of a haunted place on a haunted mind all culminating in those last few minutes. I thought the finale was breathtaking. And the end coda - the oft-mentioned killer line "I live in the weak and the wounded" - is simply stunning. Btw, just watched THE DARK KNIGHT. Superb stuff - and you were right about it having so much more depth and meaning than the usual "superhero" films. It was basically a crime film, and a study of criminality and chaos. Ledger was so good in it that the film suffered when he wasn't onscreen. He managed to mine a seam of madness I've only ever seen utilised by DeNiro in TAXI DRIVER: his Joker was utterly charmless, demented and chilling. | ||
| Craig (Craig) Username: Craig Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 75.5.7.160 |
I thought it a bit longish - could have been edited for pacing. I found the storyline kind of a stretch, with the set-up about the boiling water, etc.: it felt either crazily off-kilter, that, or perhaps not adequately explained. There was an absurdity to the killings, like bad Italian giallo/horror (so why didn't I like that?... dunno...). Creepy and commendable, thoroughly enjoyable, but flawed - that's all. | ||
| Gary Fry (Gary_fry) Username: Gary_fry Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 86.0.112.152 |
I fort it woz ded gud, me. Laymen art taynted by perspicacity. | ||
| Zed (Gary_mc) Username: Gary_mc Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 81.96.242.126 |
"I found the storyline kind of a stretch" Yeah, stick to "high concept" stuff like TRANSFORMERS and you'll be ok.  | ||
| Allybird (Allybird) Username: Allybird Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 79.70.10.1 |
I knew Zeddy would like Ledger's performance. I can't wait to see the film again. | ||
| Zed (Gary_mc) Username: Gary_mc Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 81.96.242.126 |
Yeah, his performance elevated the entire film. It was mesmerising examination of an uncompromising human evil; far better than Nicholson's pantomime villian in the Burton film. Realy liked this. The more I think about it the more impressive an achievement it becomes. | ||
| Huw (Huw) Username: Huw Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 218.168.192.194 |
Glad you liked The Dark Knight, Zed - I saw it recently and also thought it was excellent. I agree with you about Session 9 as well - it's easily one of the best horror films of the last decade, as well as a haunting character study of a disintegrating personality (of recent films, I think only A Tale of Two Sisters was better in this respect). | ||
| Zed (Gary_mc) Username: Gary_mc Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 81.96.242.126 |
I've just ordered BATMAN BEGINS cheap on Play.com. I wasn't in a receptive mood when I first saw that one, but DARK KNIGHT convinced me to give it another go. Ordered THE RUINS, too. I know, I know...but I haven't seen it and it was cheap. | ||
| Weber_gregston (Weber_gregston) Username: Weber_gregston Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 212.121.214.11 |
Simon - you missed the Smell the fart bit out of David Caruso's acting style. Between your steps one and two he appears to smell someones fart - starts with looking down to his left, the nose curls and he moves his head till he's looking up to the right, all the time with that curl to the nose and slight quizzical tilt to the eyebrows, as if trying to work out what the farter had eaten for dinner. | ||
| Niki Flynn (Niki) Username: Niki Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 78.32.69.29 |
Let me add my praise to the mix re: Dark Knight and especially Ledger's performance. I finally watched it last week. I agree with Craig about the pacing, and the bits that were too "comic book" didn't do much for me. But Ledger was stunningly good. So much better than anything else in what was still a surprisingly good film. I'm haunted by his performance. | ||
| Craig (Craig) Username: Craig Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 75.4.235.213 |
I agree with Craig about the pacing... [etc.] Add psychic to your many fine attributes, Niki - I've not seen THE DARK KNIGHT yet! (but I hope to tonight) | ||
| Tony (Tony) Username: Tony Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 81.157.50.168 |
Thought you were talking about it, too! You were talking about Session. I was about to tick you off, too, and yet agree that the film was a bit long... | ||
| Niki Flynn (Niki) Username: Niki Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 78.32.69.29 |
LOL Sorry, Craig - didn't realise your post was about SESSION 9! Though I'll certainly put psychic on my CV if you decide DARK KNIGHT should have been edited for pacing. | ||
| Craig (Craig) Username: Craig Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 75.4.253.238 |
No worries. What's funny, Niki & Tony, to me, is that if you both thought I was talking about THE DARK KNIGHT, then I guess I have Italian/giallo-like murders and a scene with boiling water to look forward to in it... hell, maybe I'm the one who's psychic!  | ||
| Zed (Gary_mc) Username: Gary_mc Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 81.96.242.126 |
I thought THE DARK KNIGHT was beautifully paced...but I don't suffer from ADD. Watched TRANSFORMERS with my five year-old son today. He loved it; I thought it had about three very good action scenes (and one excellent shot of a robot flying in slo-mo over a woman's head), a surprisingly likeable lead turn from an irritating young actor, and the rest was a bit tiresome. This evening I watched THE INCREDIBLE HULK: enjoyable nonsense with a quality cast. Ang Lee's flawed film was a lot better, but I'd love to see a version of THE HULK that was a mix of these two efforts... | ||
| Zed (Gary_mc) Username: Gary_mc Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 81.96.242.126 |
Watching those last two titles, I realised that Michael Bay can often do action scenes beautifully - the rest of the running time of his films is filled with moments of bombastic sentiment and scenes of cringeworthy bathos. I think he's a genuienly talented second unit director who somehow gets money to direct features. If he'd have filmed the action scenes for the Hulk film, it would've been borderline excellent instead of simply okayish. | ||
| Zed (Gary_mc) Username: Gary_mc Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 81.96.242.126 |
Yes, I have insomnia again.  | ||
| Craig (Craig) Username: Craig Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 67.116.103.241 |
See, Zed...? TRANSFORMERS wasn't so bad after all, was it...? I've said since the beginning, that the 1st half of the film beats the 2nd half, where the cutesy Transformers actually come into the film. And don't knock Shia (sp?) too much, he was quite good in DISTURBIA. HULK too I enjoyed, but it's a pure popcorn movie: you eat popcorn, you like popcorn - but when you're done, you're done.... | ||
| Gary Fry (Gary_fry) Username: Gary_fry Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 86.0.112.152 |
I thought The Hulk was shite. Compared to Iron Man or Dark Knight, that is. | ||
| Niki Flynn (Niki) Username: Niki Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 78.32.69.29 |
Just got up and saw Gary's comment was posted at 8 am. My clock says it's 7.42. What time will it say this comment was posted?  | ||
| Zed (Gary_mc) Username: Gary_mc Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 81.96.242.126 |
Both TRANSFORMERS and THE INCREDIBLE HULK are popcorn movies. The former has a just about watchable first half and a couple of good action scenes before you get bored; the latter is watchable for its entire length, and at least makes an attempt at having depth. IRON MAN is next up. Interesting end coda to the Hulk film, where Robert Downey Jnr pops up and says something about putting together a little team. Are all these Universal-produced Marvel films no going to be linked in this way? Seems like they're setting the groundwork for some big superhero epic... Gary - you know I have a soft spot for the Hulk. | ||
| John Llewellyn Probert (John_l_probert) Username: John_l_probert Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 213.253.174.81 |
My Xmas viewing has been a little more varied than the usual cavalcade of horrors. I watched A FISTFUL OF DOLLARS all the way through for the first time since my mum made me watch it when I was about 12. Zed & I have already discussed this but it is, of course, a brilliant horror film (as all the best films are when Zed & I come down to it). My copy has the USTV prologue as an extra that was filmed to justify the Eastwood character's actions rather than letting him remain the mostly amoral opportunist that was the film's intention. Last night I watched SUPERMAN RETURNS on the TV and was utterly non-plussed by it. Although I would quite like to be a supervillain & I think I'd do quite a good job of it. My most chucklesome viewing so far has been the DVD of Ripping Yarns - the Terry Jones / Michael Palin follow up to Monty Python, episodes of which contain the kind of perverted hilarity you just don't see on TV nowadays. In 'Across the Andes by Frog' a request for guides to help the team get to India 'the silly way' results in Denholm Elliot at his most rumpled providing them with several young ladies dressed as girl guides, while in Tomkinson's Schooldays the school bully, on account of his status is 'allowed to miss morning prayers in Big school and instead have a young unmarried Phillipino girl in his room'. Reminds me of my youth. | ||
| Joel (Joel) Username: Joel Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 91.110.242.145 |
Have we met him? | ||
| John Llewellyn Probert (John_l_probert) Username: John_l_probert Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 213.253.174.81 |
Her | ||
| Joel (Joel) Username: Joel Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 91.110.168.48 |
The youth, not the girl. Maybe 'youth' is gender-neutral though? | ||
| Chris_morris (Chris_morris) Username: Chris_morris Registered: 04-2008 Posted From: 12.165.240.116 |
"I realised that Michael Bay can often do action scenes beautifully - the rest of the running time of his films is filled with moments of bombastic sentiment and scenes of cringeworthy bathos." Ee-yep. Zed, have you seen the parody script "Michael Bay's The Dark Knight"? It's here: http://tinyurl.com/5c8czb | ||
| Craig (Craig) Username: Craig Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 75.5.12.243 |
Having just seen THE DARK KNIGHT last night, it's too early to judge it completely. I found it very enjoyable, like reading a novel - a genre novel. The plot is deliciously, but sometimes unnecessarily, complicated (plot is the film's fetish; but it plays that instrument better than, say, Lucas did in his latest endeavors [er, mixing metaphors there...{?}]). There were odd gaps - after Batman saves Rachel on the roof, what happened to the Joker and his crew's invasion of the party?... Why did it feel that Bruce Wayne's reaction to Rachel's death was hardly a glimmer of response?... As it was, Bale's character was overshadowed by the other players: Heath Ledger, Gary Oldman, and Aaron Eckhart - even Ms. Gyllenhal - felt like they had richer roles than Bale's albeit-needed straight-man. This becomes the problem with comic book superheroes, after a while: they are mere reactors, in endless no-one's-ever-really-defeated wrestling matches. Like I said, I ate up every minute of the film with great delight... but did I eat a rare and amazing Christmas feast, or a handful of better-than-average popcorn?... time will tell.... | ||
| Weber_gregston (Weber_gregston) Username: Weber_gregston Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 195.8.175.44 |
Just read the fake script. I think the comments are almost funnier. There's loads of people posting who don't realise it's a spoof. | ||
| Hubert (Hubert) Username: Hubert Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 78.21.22.37 |
Everybody likes a good vilain, but apart from Ledger's performance . . . I don't know. I wasn't satisfied. | ||
| Zed (Gary_mc) Username: Gary_mc Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 81.96.242.126 |
THE DARK KNIGHT managed to make a comicbook into proper film noir. For me, it transcended the source material in much the same way that Burton's BATMAN RETURNS did - but that one was a German Expressionist horror film. | ||
| Niki Flynn (Niki) Username: Niki Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 78.32.69.29 |
With you on every word, Zed! | ||
| Craig (Craig) Username: Craig Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 75.17.14.211 |
THE DARK KNIGHT definitely transcended the source material, and is surely one of the better "superhero" movies ever made. But there is an attendant lack of "depth"... the plot is king over character development (like much of noir); and Platonic Ideals serve as major themes, over "relationships in transition." These major themes of TDK are - frankly, honesty - tired and worn, and do not transcend their genre; they are presented anew with interesting, glitzy spins... but those spins are "comic book"-y all: extravagent exaggerations characterized by leaps of logic, and myth-like unreality. And don't tell me the SAW movies didn't play a major inspiration to the storyline as well! Heath Ledger's Joker is really no more, than Jigsaw's scarred left face.... | ||
| Zed (Gary_mc) Username: Gary_mc Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 81.96.242.126 |
extravagent exaggerations characterized by leaps of logic, and myth-like unreality. Er, isn't that what comic books and superhero stories are all about, what defines them? Your views on film often puzzle me, Craig. You seem to pick up on points that don't really need to be pulled apart. Criticising a comic book adaptation for the above is akin to writing off a horror film for containing ghosts. I agree about the first part of your SAW reference, though. | ||
| Tony (Tony) Username: Tony Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 81.157.50.168 |
Craig - Dark Knight was like greek myth. It disposed with the need for personal detail and relationships and got on with the crux of the matter, that of morality. It had such huge themes they were all that were needed. I adored it, and to try to find too much fault with it is to be like those old critics of the etchings by Dore of London's poverty riddled streets who complained that some of them were 'badly composed'. I think DK had uber balls, grabbed our lapels and made us think long and hard about where we stand. For me, the film it most resembles isn't noir but rather a western; Shane. | ||
| Tony (Tony) Username: Tony Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 81.157.50.168 |
Zed - I want you to writhe about more when saying you agree with me about it being truly great...! | ||
| Zed (Gary_mc) Username: Gary_mc Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 81.96.242.126 |
Hear-hear, Tony. | ||
| Tony (Tony) Username: Tony Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 81.157.50.168 |
That'll do. | ||
| Joel (Joel) Username: Joel Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 91.110.244.94 |
"I think DK had uber balls, grabbed our lapels and made us think long and hard about where we stand." You've got me well beat in the double entendre stakes, Tony. | ||
| Craig (Craig) Username: Craig Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 75.5.7.106 |
Hey, like I said, I really can't assess what it's value is (to me) until some time has passed. And, as I said, I greatly enjoyed it. I ate up every second. Perhaps I should leave it at that. But so far... it's remained curiously flat in my mind... unlike the first one, which stayed with me powerfully (because it was new?). Themes are grand, even when they're uber-themes; and everyone loves a good plotline. But unless there's character depth, dimensions of character that soar beyond the 2D (should I be this way, or this way? Save her, or save him? hero, or hero sandwich?), a movie struggles to retain staying power with me. But it's at least as deep as the SAW movies are... or, the SAW movies are as deep as TDK.... | ||
| Gary Fry (Gary_fry) Username: Gary_fry Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 86.0.112.152 |
Is this a good time to mention 'bracketing the natural attitude'? What do Husserl and Batman have in common? Me! It's not a good time. | ||
| Hubert (Hubert) Username: Hubert Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 78.21.22.37 |
What we need for the next one is a good Robin. | ||
| Craig (Craig) Username: Craig Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 75.4.227.93 |
Day two on THE DARK KNIGHT watch... and it's slipped farther down on my retained-impressiveness scale... *sigh*.... | ||
| Steve Bacon (Stevebacon) Username: Stevebacon Registered: 09-2008 Posted From: 90.213.27.228 |
"What we need for the next one is a good Robin." Didn't I read that they were looking at Shia Leboeuf for this role? | ||
| Tony (Tony) Username: Tony Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 81.157.50.168 |
Craig - did you see it at the cinema? I don't mean to suggest that the big screen adds anything, but for me I saw it late at night in a fairly quiet screening. I was sort of half drowsy, and not really looking forward to it (like Zed I think Superhero movies are a bit passe now - or were). What I experienced was one of the best things I'd seen at the cinema, and one that has conversely to your opinion grown in stature in my mind. Odd, isn't it? | ||
| Craig (Craig) Username: Craig Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 75.5.3.214 |
No, indeed, I did see it on the small-screen, Tony. Which perhaps is to see it as not-intended to be seen. There is that, then. But it's curiously fading away from me. I found it asked grand questions, but was not as a whole excessively deep. I found the characters extreme, but not profoundly so - Batman with his highly-affected rasping voice, is less logical necessity (i.e., that he further hide his identity), than comical. Heath Ledger's Joker is clearly the personification of the capricious chaotic, but [SPOILER] his very character is defaced, when at the end, he tries to prove that all men deep down are selfish self-serving fiends: that he is in a struggle to prove this, lends him a logical core - and that is directly antithetical to his power as an agent of chaos. In the end, the grand villain is revealed to be no more than another petty trickster with a plot-heavy agenda - but not so revealed satisfyingly, to me. The movie was startlingly aesexual - which is the discourse of comic books; which is what will forever render comic books below the level of, let's call it, "world literature." The Aeneid and Genesis are comic-book-ish too, to name but two; but they are highly sexually charged - they acknowledge and even hinge upon the emotionally realtional/inner-world reality of human existence, in-between their heroes' derring-do. When you remove this element, you can Plato-like ask some deep questions in dialogue form... but its resonance as a story, is only going to be so deep, and no more.... ... But maybe I'm asking too much from this kind of movie?... | ||
| Hubert (Hubert) Username: Hubert Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 78.21.22.37 |
I liked the Catwoman in the camp television series, though. And Robin definitely looked the part, too. And wasn't there quite a bit of sexual inuendo betwixt Pfeiffer's Catwoman and Batman in Batman Returns as well? | ||
| Chris_morris (Chris_morris) Username: Chris_morris Registered: 04-2008 Posted From: 98.220.71.248 |
>> Didn't I read that they were looking at Shia Leboeuf for this role? According to Internet sources, there has been no casting done for the next film, and all speculation about who'll play the villains (etc) for the next film is just that: speculation. Further, Chris Nolan has said that Robin will never appear in his series of Batman films. (He says his series is about the young Batman, not the older one with the boy ward.) He also has expressed doubts that the Penguin will appear, because the character is difficult to mesh with the "real" world Nolan is trying to portray. In a recent interview Gary Oldman speculated that the next film would have to do with Commissioner Gordon's hunting of the Batman. Oldman guessed that the next villain would probably be The Riddler, although he admitted he had no inside information to back this up. | ||
| Adriana (Adriana) Username: Adriana Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 99.230.239.233 |
Merry Christmas, indeed! "My parents have just left, taking my father's self-constructed remote control ferret with them." Whaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaat????? | ||
| Adriana (Adriana) Username: Adriana Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 99.230.239.233 |
I agree with Tony when it comes to Session 9. | ||
| Zed (Gary_mc) Username: Gary_mc Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 81.96.242.126 |
Didn't I read that they were looking at Shia Leboeuf for this role? Let's frigging hope not. If that's true, all the respect I have for Nolan will evaporate... I hope Chris Morris' post above is more representative of what's to come from this re-envigorated franchise. | ||
| Tony (Tony) Username: Tony Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 81.157.50.168 |
La Beouf has been in some serious movies. In fact he'd probably sy he were more at home in them. Anyways, Di Caprio should be Robin. | ||
| Zed (Gary_mc) Username: Gary_mc Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 81.96.242.126 |
The kid gets on my nerves, Tony. He has one of those faces you just want to slap. | ||
| Craig (Craig) Username: Craig Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 75.16.79.143 |
... this thread resurrected, only because of my comments above, referring now to: I've finally seen QUANTUM OF SOLACE, and it was for me what I was hoping THE DARK KNIGHT would be - better than the original (and I loved CASINO ROYALE!). What a film! The depth here in QOS, makes TDK look amateur, side-by-side.... A byzantine plot like TDK, but character and relationships are always the core here; where subtlety, artistry, is not an affectation. Everything makes sense, no matter how mystifying at first blush; and another movie (speaking of our recent SESSION 9) where all is not totally clear, until the very, very last lines of the movie.... The action sequences too, for me, blew every one of TDK's into the dust. Should be up for best picture... or am I merely too bedazzled, so early on? Yup, you Brits sure do some things better, lemme tell you.... | ||
| Tony (Tony) Username: Tony Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 81.157.112.5 |
Really? Strange - I really was disappointed with this when I saw it. It just seemed like every time a lackey appeared it was time to run around and fight and do an impression of Bourne. I mean, I will see it again, and this opinion might change, it just felt to me the heart of the first film was sort of missing. | ||
| Allybird (Allybird) Username: Allybird Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 79.70.91.247 |
QUANTUM OF SOLACE - Brilliant film. | ||
| Tony (Tony) Username: Tony Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 81.157.112.5 |
And weren't the director and writers American? | ||
| Protodroid (Protodroid) Username: Protodroid Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 78.152.202.107 |
Elizabeth was on last night. I know very little about Tudor history but the anti-Catholic propaganda in this was hilarious! Apparently Mary was an ugly witch who lived in a scary castle (blue filter over lens) tended by a hideous dwarf and tortured her angelic innocent half sister (slow motion twirling in summer garden) from jealousy. | ||
| Tony (Tony) Username: Tony Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 81.157.112.5 |
Do you do this? Feel you can judge a film by the first five minutes? It doesn't always work, but sometimes your heart just sinks, doesn't it? You know you have something of an endurance ahead, and it feels like an hour and half of work. | ||
| Protodroid (Protodroid) Username: Protodroid Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 78.152.202.107 |
Yeah, I had to turn it off. It had that constantly crabbing camera so characters seem to move against each other that Charlie Brooker described as drama on a merry-go-round. Re-watched There Will Be Blood. Magnificent. I think Day-Lewis give maybe the best performance I've seen anyone give, in anything, ever. It's a film that requires the right technical setup to work, though. Good sound and picture are essential. If you're not immersed in that world, it'll bore you. | ||
| Craig (Craig) Username: Craig Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 75.5.3.204 |
Give it another go, Tony. I will myself, just because I'm sure there's so much I missed. Some things [SPOILERS?]: the super-secret organization is never named in the movie (? - if so, I missed it... Spectre?...), and I really like how it's nicely left dangling - something to be developed in a later film, and something left terribly ominous in this one. Daniel Craig is a God here, and he falls under that hero-lead type: God protagonists, unlike most film protags, cannot fail - Batman is a God protag - no matter what goes awry, God will best it, and succeed. What screws things up are the "humans" in the way, not even events or nature (God is in control of events and nature, but not human beings and their free-will); and so, the more humans try to best the God, the more he must struggle, innovate, wrestle, manuever, and squirm, to the already-secured goal. But a) God's actions can produce awful effects on human beings, and often human beings die or are destroyed as a consequence of the God - the God is too powerful for human contact, and His occasionally struggling with that very human nature he is loftily above, is what makes the God character poignant; b) God's ways, are not the ways of men... and so, one never quite knows what God is intending, until all is finally revealed.... My mind is always stuck on (anal)yze.... But yes, I really like God-hero movies, when they're done well, like QOS was. | ||
| John Llewellyn Probert (John_l_probert) Username: John_l_probert Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 90.199.0.208 |
Interesting. I enjoyed QUANTUM OF SOLACE a lot more than DARK KNIGHT (and I thought BATMAN BEGINS was overall a better film than DK) but I might not have had my enjoying movies head stuck on during DK (although my mark of a truly good film is when it forces me to like it under any circumstances). I still can't figure what everyone likes so much about THERE WILL BE BLOOD so I may have to watch that again - to me it felt overblown, underwritten, and with a great central performance desperately in need of a more substantial film to hang it on | ||
| Allybird (Allybird) Username: Allybird Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 79.70.14.17 |
Over on Shocklines The Dark Knight is getting a little trounced yet again... | ||
| Chris_morris (Chris_morris) Username: Chris_morris Registered: 04-2008 Posted From: 12.165.240.116 |
"a great central performance desperately in need of a more substantial film to hang it on" Right-o, Lord P. My sentiments exactly. Additionally, I found PT Anderson's cribbing of various Kubrickisms for no purpose whatsoever terribly distracting. (Particularly the silent-for-no-apparent-reason 2001-like opening sequence.) |