The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King

IMDB
First time viewed: No
Current Release: No
Watched With: Jordan, Morgan, Amberly

Epic. Man what a day, that last stretch is the hardest. Mainly because of all the fade to blacks where you are sure it's going to end but then it continues on. There's a lot added to this extended edition too, the film is over 4 hours long now.

But I had an awesome time watching this through again and discussing with friends and making some hilarious discoveries along the way. They all look great on bluray and watching them projected on a big screen again was neat too. But I think we have all overdosed on sugar so I'm about to crash pretty hard.

Bring on the Hobbit!

The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers

IMDB
First time viewed: No
Current Release: No
Watched With: Jordan, Morgan, Amberly

Wow there's a lot of this film I blended in my memory into one of the other two films. Besides the epic battle at Helms Deep there's just a lot of filler in this one, probably why I can't remember all of it.

But this one has the introduction of Gollum. And he's great. I also like the additional moments with Treebeard. We imagined what a Treebeard stand-up set would be, it was the cause of much amusement.

Time for some dinner and on to part 3!

The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring

IMDB
First time viewed: No
Current Release: No
Watched With: Jordan, Morgan

Time for another marathon! I've held off getting he blurays until they released these extended cuts. I've just grown used to them now and it seems strange to have all those incidental scenes missing when watching the theatrical cuts.

Man, It's been a really long time since I've last watched these all the way through though. So great to sit and watch them all together, in a row for the first time. They really are bloody fantastic films. The actors, the design, the sets, the locations, the effects, the sound and music, it's all great.

Fellowship probably has the most iconic moments though, it's a lot of peoples favourite and probably mine too. I really love the whole sequence in the mines with the cave troll and the watcher and the balrog. And Gandalf the Grey > Gandalf the White. Another reason I'm excited for The Hobbit. I just love the look of Hobbiton.

But enough writing, on to part two.

Jaws

IMDB
First time viewed: No
Current Release: No
Watched With: Amberly, Jordan

Classic, Good to watch through again. I love ol' Bruce.

It's strange showing this to people for the first time. It really doesn't seem that spectacular now even though many of the sequences still manage to create tension or excitement and the performances are great.

It's another one of those notorious films I've probably read and seen more about the making of than I have of the actual film itself. It's been billed as the first blockbuster by some and been responsible for a number of peoples fear of the ocean.

Last year I watched through all 4 in a row and this is definitely the best of them, the get progressively worse. But really this is the only one anyone really cares about. It's an amazing accomplishment.

Return to Oz

IMDB
First time viewed: No
Current Release: No
Watched With: Myself

After Watching The Wizard of Oz yesterday I couldn't resist watching this one again. This one is just a much better fit for my sensibilities. It's much darker, there's no singing and there's some very adult themes woven in. I love the idea that Dorothy is probably just completely insane and the debate over if it was a dream, insanity or actually took place are much more vague in this instalment.

Anyone that watched this as a kid will remember being traumatised by the horrific screeching and manic laughter of the wheelers. But even more scary is Mombi and all her heads. Stuff of nightmares.

I also really love the gnome king and his gnomes. The traditional animation that brings them to life fits so perfectly for the characters. And the utter seriousness in which they proclaim the arrival of a chicken is hilarious to boot. Jim Henson's workshop created several amazing puppet creatures for the film including Tic-Tok and Jack Pumpkinhead. I've read a little about how they had to bring them to life and it sounds extremely uncomfortable but it absolutely pays off. They are great characters.

David Shire's score is to my mind one of the best things he's ever written. It's absolutely gorgeous. Give it a listen! It's such a wonderful fantasy score and one of my all time favourites. I find myself humming it all the time.

This was probably the first time I saw Fairuza Balk too. I haven't seen her in anything for a while be she does do the crazy well. Although in this film she's perfectly innocent. I have a little trouble with Piper Laurie as her mother but only because I know her mainly as a crazy psychotic bitch from other films.

Much love for this one.

Red

IMDB
First time viewed: No
Current Release: Yes
Watched With: Myself

Yeah this one is alright but didn't blow me away. I find the music a little grating, it just seems to be trying so hard to be quirky and fun and it just ends up being annoying. Same goes for the whole film really.

But I do appreciate Helen Mirren with a machine gun. And John Malkovich is rather funny too. Some alright action stuff. But one the whole I found it an average effort.

The Wizard of Oz

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First time viewed: No
Current Release: No
Watched With: Leith

I went to see Wicked tonight so I thought it would be a good time to watch the nice cleaned up bluray version of this projected on the big screen. You can see some of the colour flicker in and out a little here and there but there's not a scratch or bit of dust anywhere to be seen. All painted out and looking good as new.

Good to see ol' Hans from Freaks again. And even though I prefer Return to Oz to this, you can't deny it's a timeless classic.

The Mummy

IMDB
First time viewed: No
Current Release: No
Watched With: Myself

Great way to start the day. If you aren't a purist, and I certainly have no particular affinity for the original Mummy, then this film is a lot of fun. Stephen Sommers does make very entertaining popcorn movies. His script is funny and is filled with delightful characters and some cool action and effects.

The cast is great together, ILM's groundbreaking visual effects are still pretty good today and Jerry Goldsmith's score is awesome. This is a great comfort movie. This, Twister and Dante's Peak are my go to films. It's just pure fun. Love it.

The Last Exorcism

IMDB
First time viewed: No
Current Release: Yes
Watched With: Tyler, Geoff

If not for the last 7 minutes of the film this would probably be one of the best exorcism/mockumentary style horror films in the past few years.

The acting is just phenomenal. Rev. Cotton Marcus is a character that just pops off the screen. He's so believable and effective for the story. Patrick Fabian, Ashley Bell and the rest of the cast really manage to sell the reality of the world.

The structure of the story also manages to position the audience and greatly helps suspension of disbelief. By actually denouncing the act of exorcism and showing how it's faked upfront it eases the scepticism and creates a nice false sense of security for when things start to get a little too real. It's a great device.

The scary stuff in the middle section works very well, there are some great sequences, but it's really actually a very small part of the film. The very realistic drama of this family and the girl with possible mental problems is actually quite engaging by itself, without all the supernatural stuff. If the film had ended with one of these revelations I would have been perfectly happy with it.

But there is a twist at the end that seems rather abrupt and doesn't work for me at all. It's still well worth checking out because the rest of the film is so strong, but I think they went for a big finish and dropped the ball at the end.

The Dark Crystal

IMDB
First time viewed: No
Current Release: No
Watched With: Myself

Big clean up from Harry Potter Marathon. So what better way to wind down from the high fantasy of those films than with this classic gem. It's a film that is told so much through the music it makes the perfect background cleaning movie.

That's not to do a disservice to it's amazing visuals and Hensen puppetry, but I do know this film off-by-heart so I can see it all in my head whilst vacuuming and washing dishes. It also makes it hard to judge objectively, again more heavy nostalgia. I can admit the storytelling can be a little clunky at times, but I won't ever have a problem with it.

Good to have on again and the bits I did see projected in HD from the bluray look great.

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2

IMDB
First time viewed: Yes
Current Release: Yes
Watched With: Michael, Jess, Jim, Kim, Paul, Tyler, Matt, Amberly, Aden, Ichina

Holy fuck that was satisfying.

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 1

IMDB
First time viewed: No
Current Release: Yes
Watched With: Michael, Jess, Jim, Kim, Paul, Tyler, Leith, Amberly, Aden, Ichina

I haven't watch this at home yet, Good to have the opportunity to see it at the cinema again right before the last part, they do need to be watched together. Unfortunately the projector bulb wasn't that bright and the whole top of the image was very dark. Either that or it has the same problem as part 6, too much digital grading and vignetting.

This is the calm before the storm and the best character building of the leeds in the series. While it does have some good upbeat sequences it's mainly more to do with the character relationships. And they start cavalierly dispatching main characters. Some of them you barely notice and some of them hit pretty hard.

There's also a few good creepy bits too.

While it's really laying the stage for an epic finale, it manages to be one of my favourite parts. And as I think back on it now it hardly even feels like it's own film, watching them all in succession like this it becomes merely part of a whole. That's pretty impressive.

Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince

IMDB
First time viewed: No
Current Release: No
Watched With: Michael, Jess, Kim, Paul, Tyler, Matt, Jordan, Amberly

Here's my pervious write up.

Just have time for dinner then off to the theatre for 7.1 and 7.2

Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix

IMDB
First time viewed: No
Current Release: No
Watched With: Michael, Jess, Kim, Paul, Tyler

Previous review.

I think this one and 7.1 have my favourite looks. This one really is one of the better films isn't it? It's really good.

Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire

IMDB
First time viewed: No
Current Release: No
Watched With: Michael, Jess, Kim, Paul, Tyler

Here's my previous write-up.

I like all the character developing stuff and the underwater stuff in this one. Cedric's death is done well but so soon after they are laughing off the end of another year, I don't like that. I like Sirius in the fireplace more from this film than in number 6.

Well, Gotta go enjoy some butterbeer and get started on the next one!

Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone

IMDB
First time viewed: No
Current Release: No
Watched With: Jess, Jim

So while everyone was recovering from last nights events and preparing for the upcoming epic day, I put this one on again only this time with the delightful Wizard People, Dear Reader commentary.

If you don't know what that is or have never heard it, have a look here. It's rather wonderful. And a great fun start to the day.

Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban

IMDB
First time viewed: No
Current Release: No
Watched With: Michael, Jess, Matt, Kim, Paul, Jim, Tyler

YAY this one is my favourite. This film just opens everything out.

I remember seeing this in the theatre and the first shot after the titles I knew immediately I was going to love it. All of a sudden the camera was rough and handheld, and character talked over each other, which after the very stately classical approach of the first two quite literally shook things up. And that's what this whole film does. The location shooting, the wardrobe and hair change, the freer camera movement, all the added details in the background just make this film take off when compared to the first two chapters. It also looks remarkably clearer on bluray than the first two, probably because this was the first to be entirely digitally graded so they would have had a digital master instead of having to scan a negative. Just a hunch but it is much cleaner.

I love all the little vignettes with the whomping willow showing the passage of time. Little touches like that make this one stand out from the others. Time is also prominently featured throughout, for reasons that become apparent at the end. I've said many times before I'm very particular about how my time travel works and surprisingly this is one of the few that adheres to my more non-paradoxical notion of how it should work out.

Lupin is one of my favourite characters too, and the scenes with him and Harry in this film have more heart than the entire first two films combined. Those and the scenes with Buckbeak, which is one of the coolest things in the series, especially coming just after Dobby in part 2.

Loads of people I know didn't like the adaptation because of how much it cut from the book. It was my favourite book but also my favourite film because I appreciate that this film stands on its own and totally works as a film. It doesn't try to cram as much stuff in as the first two and consequently is much more succinct. It has one of the shortest running times of any of the films.

And one of the coolest and unique looking werewolfs onscreen. Awesome.

Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets

IMDB
First time viewed: No
Current Release: No
Watched With: Michael, Jess, Matt, Kim, Paul, Jim

Wowza the extended edition of this goes for 3 hours, there's a whole bunch of extra stuff in the first 3rd. Mainly little nods to extraneous plots from the book that are never paid off anyway.

Well I don't like this film much compared to the rest of them. Probably my least favourite. A large part of that could be because of the sickly sweet end that makes no sense. And Dobby. I do not like Dobby. At least not in this film...

Still classically shot like the first film. Still pretty safe and family friendly. Except maybe the Spiders. I loooove the spiders. Freaky.

It's actually not as bad as I remember though, it's still a great deal better than most kids films anyway. But the next one reinvents the series for the better.

Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone

IMDB
First time viewed: No
Current Release: No
Watched With: Michael, Jess, Matt, Kim, Paul

And so the marathon begins. So this is where it all started. The greatest thing Chris Columbus did was assembling the cast that would for the most part stay with the series for a decade. I'm not a big fan of the first two, they are much lighter and fluffier but really that's needed in order to build in further instalments, something the series does extremely well.

We watched the extended edition, I think it's the first time I've seen this version, there were a few little extra bits here and there but nothing major. The thing that stands out most watching this again is the look and the tone. So far from where we are now.

Also the ghosts! They kinda just ignore them for the whole rest of the series don't they? Ahh well. The CG is fine for the most part but not all of it holds up, especially the digital doubles.

This is gonna stay brief, we've already started the next! Time for Pizza too.

Transformers: Dark of the Moon

IMDB
First time viewed: No
Current Release: Yes
Watched With: Michael, Jordan

Here's my original review.

This time I went to the fake IMAX, which was ok because unlike number 2 it never opened up into full frame, so nothing was lost. Actually it didn't add that much to the film except the better sound.

DOA: Dead or Alive

IMDB
First time viewed: No
Current Release: No
Watched With: Myself

Now this is also a pretty bad film, but I'll be damned if it isn't entertaining as hell. There's so much fun to be had with this one and It's actually one of the better video game adaptations I've seen. Mortal Kombat is still the most successful fight game I've seen translated to film but this one has some damn fine action sequences, superbly directed.

This one looks slick and commercial. It's short and sweet, moves at quite a pace and the few characters they focus on usually have a lot of fun stuff to do. Ridiculous but fun.

Don't write this one off, the action alone is worth it and it was one of the best times I had in the cinema in 2006. Fun way to cap the night.

Dungeons & Dragons

IMDB
First time viewed: No
Current Release: No
Watched With: Myself

Wow, this movie is as bad as I remember. At least Jeremy Irons looks like he's having fun hamming it up. Hell, even Eragon was better than this.

Marlon Wayans is the most despicable display of comedy relief ever thrown into a fantasy film. EVER. I don't even blame him fully all the actors struggle under the hopeless dead weight of the script.

The effects don't hold up too well either, I think video games today have better graphics. It looks like something I could happily cook up on my laptop today.

And that ending! Bah! it's just hilariously inept.

Don't like. No sir.

Supernova

IMDB
First time viewed: No
Current Release: No
Watched With: Myself

Wow, could only find a TV Spot for this film. I did find a trailer I couldn't work out how to embed and it was a very bad trailer anyway, completely inappropriate for the film. Made it look like some kind of 90's comedy. But there's not much funny stuff in this one, it takes itself petty seriously.

Actually it has kind of a pensive tone throughout and it never really connects for me despite quite a few cool sequences and concepts.

The thing I like most and the one part I always rememberd from this film was their version of a warp drive. It's not all nice and shiny like in Star Trek, that thing is dangerous, no-one wants to use it because everytime they do someone dies. And in pretty gross Cronenberg type ways, being turned inside out and fusing with their saftey pods. Nasty.

The other thing I remember was the strange alien artefact they find and what it does. They leave the consequences, as well as quite a few plot points, open for interpretation. It wants to be Solaris and Star Trek all in one. And it doesn't quite succeed at either but it's never horrifically bad either. On the contrary it's quite enjoyable for the most part.

The cast is cool. James Spader and Angela Bassett are fun to see in a sci-fi. And Robin Tunney! Remember when she was in films? Good times. The effects hold together pretty well, It looks great and David Williams gives it a cool score.

Great to rediscover this one all over again.

Black Swan

IMDB
First time viewed: No
Current Release: Yes
Watched With: Michael

Black Swan! Black Swan! Black Swan!

You guys... It's Black Swan!

Rango

IMDB
First time viewed: No
Current Release: Yes
Watched With: Michael

Rango! Rango! Rango!

You guys... It's Rango!

Gulliver's Travels

IMDB
First time viewed: Yes
Current Release: Yes
Watched With: Myself

Well It's not a good film. I don't think anyone expected that. So much wasted cast, effects work, production design, lighting, even music. Those elements were really good, but the script is not. I think Jack Black does his best not to get too annoying, which is greatly appreciated but he's still required to deliver random pop culture references and a few rock songs that are painfully wedged in.

I loved the fake tilt-shit photography for the opening credits though. The rest of the time was just a pain, especially if you know anything about the original story.

Crack in the World

IMDB
First time viewed: Yes
Current Release: No
Watched With: Myself

After just watching The Core I happened across this one so I thought I'd give it a try. It's an okay old disaster film that involves a lot of nuclear devices being set off deep in the earth, both to start the disaster AND avert it.

The central love triangle is kinda lame, it's pretty lopsided and the guy that's being difficult is terminally ill anyway so there's no real competition or drama there. But who watches these for the drama? What about the 'splotions?

They were ok. Not great. An island blew up which was nice, but then they cut to stock of a nuke test. There's a lot of stock in this. But the best bit was a train on a bridge being smooshed by rockslide.

It's definitely not the best of it's kind but I do enjoy the miniature work.