The Film Thread!

[Sailor Steve]

Originally Posted by ajrimmer42

Still not seen that. I'm a massive fan of the Ioan Gruffud ones though, he plays a good Hornblower.

Gruffud is great! I just wish the stories had stuck closer to the books. Still, they did a great job, and I have them all in my collection.

The Peck movie, likewise, is great, but it leaves a lot out (has to, since it sums up three different books).

[Weiss Pinguin]

Reading Kiwi's list made me think of another movie I saw recently, Moon. Basically a guy is waiting out the last few weeks of a 3-year assignment to the moon, harvesting Helium-3. A fairly quiet movie, no action scenes or anything like that, but it's not a mind-screw either. Also Clint Mansell scored it, so the theme is pretty good.


Also, District 9 is up for instant play on Netflix (for everyone who has that), so I watched that again last night.

[Sailor Steve]

Cool! I wanted to see that one in the local art theater, but the timing was bad, so I saw 500 Days Of Summer instead. For a romantic comedy/drama that was quite good. I'll see Moon one of these days.

[Dowly]

Anyone seen The Rampage? Uwe Boll's new movies which is surprisingly getting good reviews.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1337057/

[Weiss Pinguin]

Originally Posted by Dowly

Anyone seen The Rampage? Uwe Boll's new movies which is surprisingly getting good reviews.

I don't believe it

[Dowly]

Gonna see it tonight and let you know how it was.

[Dowly]

Well what'd ya know, it actually was a decent movie.

The main actor is great, easily someone you can relate to (well, before he starts to kill people atleast), the action (read:massacre) scenes are well done with variety of different angles to keep it interesting (tho, some might find the ever changing camera too much, but I liked it, gave chaos-ish feel to it).

The plot had few too many twists to it, I won't spoil it, but the end was disappointing to me, but hey, someone might like it.

Why this movie will probably never get the credit it deserves (for an Uwe Boll movie) is the gore and the few disturbing scenes that happens while he's on the killing spree. But there also are few moments when you actually juuust a little bit cheer for him killing someone (coffee shop scene).

All in all, you either love it or hate it. There's those who hate it and can't see beyond the gore and then there's those who start to think about it and say "Damn, that actually could happen the way our society is today".

Aaanywho, go see some reviews and make up your own mind whether to see it or not.

[Weiss Pinguin]

Saw it on Netflix last night, maybe Friday night I'll take a look.

[Oberon]

Originally Posted by Dowly

Anyone seen The Rampage? Uwe Boll's new movies which is surprisingly getting good reviews.

Originally Posted by Dowly

Well what'd ya know, it actually was a decent movie.

[Raptor1]

That might be the very first semi-positive comment I've ever heard about an Uwe Boll movie.

I bet they paid him to say it too...

[Oberon]

Robin Hood or

Saving Private Robin

SPOILERS AHOY!

Well, all in all, at a broad stroke of the brush and with little historical background, it was an enjoyable film. My other half who has little historical knowledge ('sides what she's picked up from me droning on about it) thoroughly enjoyed it...and if you leave all history and military knowledge at the door then you'll enjoy it too.

However, bring that shield of reality in with you...and you'll soon find it assaulted with indestructible swords, a Marian who struggles one minute to lift chainmail and then rides into battle covered in it the next, medieval cement, laser guided arrows, kevlar shields, French LCAs, a claw-sledge-hammer, and accents that do more traveling than the cast.

To be fair, the film is rather enjoyable at the start, the assault on the French castle is quite nice, the banter between the 'Merry Men' quite enjoyable, and even the initial scenes back in jolly old England are nicely done, their London was quite enjoyable...although I fear that it is grossly inaccurate for the time, but as my knowledge in that respect is lacking I shall move on. The life at rural Nottingham is nicely done, Friar Tuck is well introduced and well played, however the Sheriff of Nottingham has been demoted to a few walk on parts, being replaced by the nefarious Lord Bla-erm...Godfrey, who sets about a scheme to bring a second French invasion. From then on, it goes down hill, with the fake Magna Carta, and then to the climatic battle scene on the beach...

Oh dear...oh dear god...

I will and can only quote from another review I found on the interwebs which I think describes this:

Originally Posted by willco1

The landing on the beach, and subsequent battle, at the end took whatever bit of my brain governs historical pedantry out of my skull, ran it through a blender, then added a large dollop of faeces to it, turned on the blender again, then poured it directly into an anus-shaped mold, waited for it to set, then had it f*cked to pieces by specially trained giraffes, at which point said pieces were set fire to. And then pissed on the ashes. Wait, just wait, until you see the French (and I ****ing kid you not) landing craft - literally wooden LCAs with oars on the sides, complete with ****ing drop-down ramps. Did the British Ministry of War send them the blueprints back through an effing time machine??? A retreat is called, and they turned on a sixpence like jet-skis. Sweet ****ing Jesus!!! I didn't know whether to laugh or cry. The only way there could have been more wrong with this scene is if Crowe had called in a flight of Harriers for air support.

Yes folks, the French have landing craft right out of the Longest Day and Saving Private Ryan (hence the second title), sure they lack machine guns and there are oars in the side but goddamn it...they are LCAs! I even cried out "AUF MICH ZUUU DIRECKT!" and was promptly hit by my other half.
Then, in the only good tactical decision of the battle, they put the archers up on the cliff to rain down fire on the French below, complete with slow motion bleeding sinking soldiers underwater, just like Saving Private Ryan but with arrows. So with a large cliff on one side, no French archers below and only one way up the cliff edge, what would you do?
Sure, let the archers pick them off until they become too demoralised and disorganised to perform and either let them retreat or send in the cavalry to mop them up. But no! Two volleys and in goes the cavalry. Big fight scene on the beach, and in goes the archers as well...yes...archers in hand to hand combat, did I mention that Private Robin, as a trained archer is a fantastic long swordsman as well? I didn't, ah well, there you go, he obviously rolled some lucky dice whilst levelling up.
So, whilst the archers and cavalry are mixing it up, along comes Joan of Loxley, suddenly able to wear armour, heft a sword and/or draw a heavy bow. Pretty good for a woman who isn't an Amazon warrioress!
There's the inevitable sword fights, the inevitable 'You think he/she's dead but he/she isn't' and then Godfrey is killed by a laser guided arrow fired from a good two-three hundred meters away.

THEN, the Sheriff is actually given a scene, as Robin is finally declared an outlaw, and the proper, normal, standard Robin Hood fare of living in the forest and robbing from the rich, etc, etc, can begin!

And then the film ends....

So, like I said, for an enjoyable romp it is....enjoyable, even though the story flits all over the shop, but leave all sense of history and military knowledge at the door...and try not to hurt your head when you facepalm at the French LCAs.


I think I still prefer the Kevin Costner version though, sure it takes some stretches but at least it doesn't try to tell a bigger story than it can hold, and the characters are much more memorable.



One good thing to come out of it is a hankering to play Medieval Total War again. A shame I don't have II at the moment...still, Kataphraktoi ahoy!

[Raptor1]

And...


...









...


I told you so...

sort of

[Dowly]

Haha, though the landing crafts looked familiar when I saw the trailer. Ah well, gonna watch it anywho...

[Oberon]

Originally Posted by Raptor1

And...


...









...


I told you so...

sort of

Well, you covered the broad inaccuracies, I filled in the detail

Still, good marks for the setting, and I did love the ferry ship across the Channel (Master and Commander: Far Side of the Channel?) and the music, and the art style in the credits was nice.... Although the bit with the beheading of the Muslim is bound to get some over sensitive PCs back up somewhere, just you see. Although I suspect they may just get drowned out by the Historically Accurate crowd this time

[Oberon]

Originally Posted by Dowly

Haha, though the landing crafts looked familiar when I saw the trailer. Ah well, gonna watch it anywho...

Oh, it's definitely worth a watch, I won't deny that. Go and see it once. You probably won't need to do so again, and probably won't need a DVD, but it has its good parts, I won't deny that.