My thoughts are similar. I'd give it about a seven overall. I did have some problems with the story line though. It had great potential. The premise was good, I agree that it was suspenseful, but the situations around the middle began to delve into the ridiculously implausible. ***Caution, slight spoiler below***

She couldn't shoot at first, but became an expert marksman (apparently without any practice whatsoever) virtually overnight. Oncoming car? No problem. That alone annoyed me enough to subtract a couple of points. I found nothing wrong with the performance of any of the actors. Foster gave her standard outstanding performance, but the story line as written went over-the-top for drama. Call it science fiction, make her a vampire or robot, it might have worked. At any rate, I'm glad I rented it and I'd recommend it to rent. I'm also glad I didn't pay to see it in the cinema.

Having watched I Am Legend on DVD - the alternate version, I have to say that I think it's better. It's much closer in tone to the book. At least the title makes sense in that version. If you get the opportunity, I highly recommend the alternate version of I Am Legend, it's actually a more powerful film. Still cops out in the very end, but not nearly as much as it did in the theatrical release.

Saw "the lives of others" - the movie that beat "Pan's Labyrinth"- wow- me and the woman disagreed which was better, being that they were both QUITE good- it was very poignant, and the Wiesler character was, well, a great performance, well written, with no maudlin happy ending or hollywood plot twist.

I liked it- alot. If I were voting between those two movies- it would take some time. Reality vs Fantasy in goverments gone bad? Whoa- tough one there!

Also MOIF- have you ever read any H.P. Lovecraft? If you do- you will appreciate Cloverfield a bit more, and the indestructable nature of the monster!

Juno- feh- whatever- didn't find it all that great. Oh wonderful- another teenage comic/drama about being pregnent. I guess I am the only one that is tired of this glorifying of the teenage mother/single mother. Not that I am bitter or anything.

Okay- not QUITE a movie, per se'- but the third season of Battlestar Gallactica came out this month- wow- again i say- NO cinema or TV show even comes CLOSE to the level of writing and story telling to that show. If sci-fi cable movies could win Academy awards- there would be no contest- BG would be the hands down winner. Stunning special effects. Gripping story lines. Amazing plot twists. Even a new military/space maneuver called 'the adama manuever"- wow- to be seen to believe!

I have all of those on my "que" now. Will buy the boxed set- for sure!

Superbad- did I rate that already- 'cause it was super funny. Slow at first- too "porky-esque" for me at first, but damned if it didn't pick up and become a real milk-spitter!

Party Monster- both the documentary and the McCauly Caulkin movie- wow, sociopaths that party~! james st James was better in person than in the movie. I could hang out with that dude, if he understands I am very straight and all

But whoa- drug use and decadence taken to the ultra extreme- too much of a good thing, apparently?

Also- I have a whole run of "foriegn films" coming along right now, in my "que"- will report back later!

I watched the first episode of Season 4 last night. And all I can say is... aw, yeah. My girlfriend calls it Battlestar Gacraptica, but then I just say 3 words... Rock... of... Love... and she shuts up.

Man, my woman normally HATES anything sci fi- but even she got drawn into it- right down the "hood" comments of "oh no he didn't" and the snapping fingers and neck thang.

As there has been nothing but utter drek at the theaters so far ("Drillbit Taylor?" "Shutter" and another piece of crap from the insanely popular and massively untalented Tyler Perry), I've been catching up with my DVD viewing.

Michael Clayton: An attempt at a 70s style "thriller" complete with Sydney "Three Days of the Condor" Pollack playing George Clooney's boss. The problem is it isn't thrilling at all. It's okay, and Tilda Swinton is effectively eeeeevil in her Academy Award winning performance, but only okay. It's worth a rental, but I wouldn't buy it.

No Country for Old Men: To quote the boys at Spill.com, I'd like to meet Joel and Ethan Coen, shake their hands and go upside their heads for this movie. For 3/4ths of the movie I am absolutely there with them. Josh Brolin is great as a man who finds a stache of drug money in a deal gone terribly wrong and Javier Bardem has created a villain for the ages in Anton Churguth. He makes Hannibal Lechter look like Dr. Seuss. Nobody plays world-weary characters like Tommy Lee Jones and that leathery mug of his. Even the ordinarily obnoxious Woody Harrelson ain't bad in his minimal screen time.

The movie is suspenseful and moves along briskly and the cinematography is gorgeous.

But ohmigawd--that ENDING!

Typically, the complaint about movies made from books is they aren't as good or they stray too far from the source material. Well, not here. But by being faithful to Cormac McCarthy, what may work well in the book falls flat on its face in the movie. My wife walked in 30 minutes into the movie, sat down and got caught up in it and when the end credits rolled, so did her eyes. "Is that IT?", she exclaimed.

Yep. It's that kind of movie. I wanted to love this movie and I almost did, but I can't. I'd buy it, but I'd turn it off before the last 15 minutes. Iconic and open-ended conclusions do not a great cinematic experience make. They just frustrate and No Country For Old Men is extremely frustrating.

After No Country For Old Men, I felt the need for a little "light" entertainment so I rented 28 Weeks Later, the sequel to 28 Days Later. The lesson of this movie is to keep your butt in shape because you never know when you might have to run like hell from a horde of blood-thirsty maniacs who used to be your family and neighbors.

I can sum up the movie thusly: lots of gratuitous gore. Stuff gets blowed up real good. Eyes get gouged. Necks get ripped open. Blood thirsty maniacs are no match for helicopters. Anybody can die at anytime in this movie so don't get too attached to the characters. Good, splatterific fun and it doesn't make a lick of sense.

If you like that kind of thing, that is.

You know NT- you didn't need to use so many words on "no country for old men"- like I said before- Nihilsim for nihilism's sake.

We gave up "pointless existance" as a world culture shortly after we left the Mesopotamian crescent I believe?

Now that you mention it, YES, there were huge holes in the plot of The Brave One. I watched the movie with my mom and brother and we were laughing out loud at the car scene, where she doesn't have the sense to "watch her back" --and the prostitute goes flying through the air. It was beyond absurd.




My huband and brother-in-law watched Michael Clayton and said the dialogue is the best part of it. I tried to watch it, but only got to the part where Tom Wilkinson was ranting about getting hookers to do something to him and all he could think about was math, and the visual on that was a huge turn off, so I turned the whole thing off. I am a fan of Wilkinson, usually, but I just didn't find myself giving a darn about his mental breakdown.

I've already commented on Michael Clayton and No Country for Old Men and am generally inclined to agree with nighttimer, though I think I liked Michael Clayton a bit more and No Country a bit less.

The only decent film I've seen since my pre-Oscar blitz is Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day. The wonderful Frances McDormand plays the title character, an aging, out of work governess in wartime Britain. Desperate, she finagles a job as social secretary to an American actress, Delysia Lafosse - the name tells you all you need to know - played by Amy Adams. It's like dropping some matron from a Depression-era social realist film into the middle of a madcap Noel Coward comedy. Miss Pettigrew is immediately swept up in the social whirl of Delysia, juggling her singer/actress career aspirations with her three current lovers: a young, randy theatrical entrepreneur (we see a shot of his naked butt before we see his face, which tells you all you need to know), a hard-nosed club owner (who enters shouting demands, which tells you all you need to know), and the unpretentious pianist to whom she's engaged (which tells you all you need to know). Delysia's milieu also includes a well-to-do lingerie designer (and his high society fiancée), who becomes something of a love interest for Pettigrew. During the course of a single day, largely through Pettigrew's straitlaced pragmatism and self-effacing dedication to her job, lives, loves, and careers are all - predictably - sorted out.

Despite the soup kitchens and air raids that frame the film, it remains as light and insubstantial as... I don't know, something very light and insubstantial - a soufflé? But it is thoroughly entertaining for its ninety-odd minutes. The pace is hectic, the script is decent (though the dialogue could sparkle a bit more), the design is terrific, and the performers all breathe ample life into a set of more or less stock characters. Then again, I could watch Frances McDormand in practically anything and come away feeling it was worthwhile.

This is, essentially, a period romantic comedy, so don't expect car chases or many explosions, but if you're looking for something as an antidote to films like No Country for Old Men, you could do a lot worse. I'd give it about 7.5 out of 10 - which, so far, is pretty good for 2008.

Speaking of car chases and explosions, there are none, really in the movie I saw this evening. The Bank Job. It's not Sexy Beast, but it's good. I'm not a huge fan of Saffron Burrows, but she manages not to muck this one up.

Based on a true story, the film is sort of a Guy Ritchie does Oliver Stone sort of thing - lots of government conspiracy.

Thanks for the reco. I'd been thinking of catching this - and Stop Loss.

Has anyone seen The Ruins yet? I quite liked A Simple Plan - both films were written by Scott B. Smith, based on his own novels - but the trailer for The Ruins looks pretty cheesy...

Son Of Rambow

Set in an unnamed provincial (i.e. outside London) town in 1983, this tells the story of two young boys who set out to make a sequel to First Blood, the first Rambo film, ostensibly to be entered into the Young Filmmakers' competition of a children's tv film quiz.

One of the boys, the central character, is being raised by a single mother among the Plymouth Brethren religious community, and the other is also the son of a single mother, who is absent throughout the film and he is being raised by an older brother in his early 20s. The two boys meet at their school, and spend their spare time recording video footage on the elder brother's video camcorder. Along the way, they attract the attentions - welcome and unwelcome - of other schoolmates, French exchange students, teachers, family members and religious and school authorities.

The whole film is played as a comedy, and is written and directed as a "Hammer and Tongs" film, the same team that directed the recent cinema adaptation of The Hitchhikers' Guide To The Galaxy. There's plenty of gently humorous 1980s nostalgia for older viewers to enjoy, while the kids-making-friends-and-staying-friends-through-adversity plot is rewarding for all ages.

On the minus side, the film follows the well-established conventions of "heart warming" feel good nostalgia movies that are churned out of Hollywood with metronomic regularity.

On the plus side is everything else about the film. While at times - like many British films - it looks a little as though it was intended as a television film, there are sequences and set pieces that are on a truly cinematic scale. In part, this is because the film uses some really clever and well executed animation (and, pleasingly, it is used sparingly and only to enhance the narrative), which makes the childhood imagination of the lead character almost tangible.

The child actors are all uniformly excellent - unless you're the relevant parent, there's nothing quite as toe-curlingly embarrassing to watch as bad child acting, and thankfully there is none on display here.

There's great support from the adult cast (most of whom, as primarily British tv faces, will be unknown to American audiences, except for cult fans of Brit sitcom Spaced) which doesn't dominate the child-centred storyline.

And, while it is pretty formulaic on sober reflection, the whole thing is done with such brio and warmth for subject, character and place, you can't help but like it.

I'd thoroughly recommend this for viewing by pretty much anyone - kids too. Here it was certificated as 12A, according to it's IMDB entry it is a PG-13 in the USA. It has already had some success in film festivals there, and it's on limited release nationwide from May 2 this year. (Shame on Paramount! - it deserves to be on wider release.)

If you get the chance, go see!

30 Days of Night
Wow. Just wow. Terrible movie.

The special effects are supposed to make me cringe. By the time the money shot comes around—the good guy fisting his way to victory and freedom—I was howling with laughter. This movie is welfare for special effects people in Hollywood. Human hamburger is fine, but the least they could do is watch an actual beheading and come up with a script more compelling than vampires with the charisma of a teething toddler, a wannabe Sun Tzu leader and Marylin Manson look-alike henchmen.

No Country for Old Men
Loved it. I like it when foreign actors "debut" on our screens and Javier Bardem doesn't disappoint. He is one bad guy you want to take the flat end of the shovel to. Again and again.

I got no problem with the ending unlike NT. Some movies don't need a conclusion. Sometimes endings that leave you hanging, leave you suspended, is the way to go. NCfOM is one of those movies.

I just finished watching The Lives of Others. I'd been anticipating this movie after its Oscar win (particularly since I'd seen Pan's Labyrinth and thought it was a fabulously crafted, eerily beautiful film) and was not disappointed. Basically, ths story is set in 1985 East Germany where the secret police (Stasi) are keeping a close watch on anyone stirring up 'trouble' (in their eyes) for the state. Georg Dreyman is an "artist" (playwright) with ties to the West and some infamous 'troublemakers'. He is placed under surveillance (bugged) by the Stasi and Wiesler is charged with reporting on his actions. Wiesler is rewarded for his spying with lots of internal strife and the film does a fantastic job of portraying the impact that "the lives of others" can have. The actor who played Wiesler was phenomenal. His mannersisms and facial expressions were so believable. This was a very well-written film and the score was great as well. I give it a 9 out of 10 (I gave it 5 stars on Netflix because 4 just wasn't quite enough).

Okay, I've now seen The Bank Job and Stop-Loss and can highly recommend both.

The Bank Job, as entspeak mentioned is a sort of Guy Ritchie type film with some governmental skulduggery driving the plot. As heist movies go, I rather appreciated its low-tech approach - no Ocean's Eleven gadgetry or cons, just a bunch of guys with shovels and drills knocking holes in walls. As a sort of bonus, there's a royal scandal, a government scandal, and a police scandal all waiting to happen. There are no automatic weapon shoot-outs or marital arts demonstrations when things, predictably, go terribly wrong: these guys use their panicked wits - or throw freakin' bricks at each other. There are about a half a dozen conflicting interests at work in various levels of government, law enforcement, and the criminal class, but all of the various threads come together for a pretty satisfying resolution.

Stop-Loss is worth seeing for the performances alone, especially Ryan Philippe, Joseph Gordon-Levitt (who has become a pretty fine actor), and Channing Tatum as three friends from Texas, all members of the same unit, who have just returned home from a tour of Iraq where they lost a few friends and are all more or less shell-shocked. The film centers on Philippe's character who's trying to put the war behind him when he learns he's been stop-lossed. Torn between his genuine patriotism and what he feels is a betrayal by the military and its civilian leadership, he goes AWOL trying to figure out how to contend with his situation. The film doesn't pull any punches, but it tells the stories of its damaged vets with subtlety and sympathy. The plot is character-driven and focuses on the exploitation of our military without necessarily criticizing the politics behind the conflict itself. This highlights one aspect of the situation with compassion, but without getting bogged down as moralizing polemic. parts of the film are harrowing, some of it is very moving, and the ending, while not as satisfying as a more routine Hollywood movie might be, is pretty effective - without itself exploiting the situation.

At a time when political tensions are running high and many of us begin to question where the world is going and if any of this matters in the grand scheme, I recommend you this movie:

Into The Wild

The film has an all-star cast:
Emile Hirsch
Marcia Gay Harden
William Hurt
Catherine Keener
Vince Vaughn
Hal Holbrook

And the screenplay is written and directed by: Sean Penn

It's based on a true story. I'm not sure how close to the actual events the movie comes, but the emotional depth and truth about human relationships is heartbreaking and inspiring.

It follow a college grad as he embarks on a trip that ultimately takes him to Alaska. The interesting part is that he does this trip without anyone knowing his whereabouts. He gives all his money to charity and leaves his car in the dessert and literally makes his way through several states of the US with no money and no vehicle. He even spends some time in South Dakota (which is my home state).

Ultimately, this film is about the spiritual journey and realizations of a man who has not found happiness in the conventional, materialistic ways that seem to prevail in the world around him.

The film strikes a deep chord and you probably just need to see it to find your own meaning.


Definitely the most moving film I've seen in a very long time. It brought my opinion of Sean Penn up a few notches as well.

Went to see Iron man- BEST SUPER HERO MOVIE EVER. LOVED it.

Also- saw Juno- inspired another thread about "over-rated" movies.

Enchanted- liked it alot- very nice- I was impressed much more than I thought I would be- kids loved it, I liked it quite a bit.

Beowulf directors cut- I am not usually into an "adult" (r-rated) movie being SOO CG- but I liked it- we watched it 3 or 4 times. Pretty good flick.

Next- gone baby gone and the Valet!

I was wondering when someone was going to weigh in on Iron Man.

I took the night off when the film opened last Friday and took my son to a evening showing. That's how hardcore I was to see the movie because I rarely if ever pay full price for a movie.

I wouldn't call it the best superhero flick I've seen (I still reserve that for Spider-Man 2), but it's easily in my top five with a bullet. Good fun, impressive CGI, the right amount of humor and action and a winning performance by Robert Downey Jr.

This is the best reviewed movie of the year according to Rottentomatoes.com with an amazing 92 percent positive reviews. That's a testament to how the good it is or how horrible 2008 has been for movies so far.

Part of the reason for the film's success is the spot-on casting of Downey who embodies everything Stan Lee and Marvel Comics had in mind for the character of Tony Stark. Downey's well-documented struggles with drug addiction neatly mirrors that of Stark as a recovering alcoholic in the comic books.

Iron Man has definitely set the bar high for The Dark Knight sequel and The Incredible Hulk relaunch. A perfect popcorn movie.

Hey, CruisingRam, you did stay until all the ending credits rolled, right?

Nope- I heard there was more- with Samuel Jackson part? Nick Fury? My boy just HAD to go potty darnit!

Is Iron Man okay for the kiddos? The previews looked kind of violent.

I just saw Speed Racer yesterday. Wow, my kids loved that one. I went into it with very low expectations, and found it to be enjoyable. The reviews for this film aren't very good, does it a bit of a disservice, I think. Some of it is what you would expect...the bad guys are really bad, good guys good, yadda yadda. But it was a fun movie, done well, and definitely better than quite a few I've seen recently. Not realistic, but anyone going into a film like that expecting gritty realism isn't thinking straight....

And fathers can gawk at cutie Christina Ricci looking hot and wearing spandex and stillettos in nearly every scene she's in.

Naah. It's PG-13 violence which means there is action and violence, but no blood spurting and heads being ripped off. The night I went there were plenty of kids in the audience (including the little jerk sitting behind me whom I had to turn around and tell him to stop kicking my chair or he was going to get pimp-slap his narrow little butt into the back row).

Now that could have become violent.



That's all very well and good, Mrs. P, but after seeing Christina Ricci walk around like this for most of Black Snake Moan, spandex and stilettos almost seem overdressed.

I saw Iron Man and I really rated it too - it's good to see such a talented actor as Robert Downey Jr finally get the kind of public attention he deserves (for the right reasons). And I stayed until the end of the credits more or less on a whim and saw the set-up for the sequel.

A couple of weeks ago I went to see In Bruges with Brendan Gleeson, Colin Farrell and Ralph Fiennes.

This is a black, hitman comedy so dark that by the end you're wondering if it wasn't really a film noir with some knob gags, but it was an enjoyable movie and I'm glad I went. Brendan Gleeson is always watchable, and has a fantastic line in deadpan (just watch Lake Placid on one of it's inevitable late night re-runs - "He seemed... taller") which is well used here.

Colin Farrell is really well pitched here as the novice hitman whose mistake is the reason the partners are on the run. Like Downey Jr in Iron Man it makes a pleasant change to be giving attention to an actor for his acting skills rather than chemical or bedroom adventures.

I don't generally like Ralph Fiennes (aside from Schindler's List I hadn't enjoyed any films he'd been in or any of his performances in them. And, Norman-French affectations aside, his name has an 'L' in it. But in this he is well-cast and convincing.

There's good support too from the largely French and Belgian supporting cast, the key member of which is the town of Bruges itself - the centre of which looks not only beautiful but quite spooky and foreboding in the film.

It film is definitely adult in it's language, themes, violence and gore (the most convincing high fall in cinema history is genuinely stomach-churning, spoiled only by giving the character dialogue from his barely-bruised face when the rest of him is basically roadkill).

The film's US release was back in February and was quite limited, but I'd definitely say that if your in the mood for a little twisted modern Irish charm and dark humour in a medieval European town.

I really didn't like In Bruges. It really has more to do with expectations. The movie is advertised as a comedy, but I think the last third ruins the whole thing, and gets more and more ridiculous. The fall Julian references I think was just pathetic and unconvincing. I think the movie started out really well, but then just spiraled into totally unbelievable. I do think that it was wellcast and that the acting was good. Sadly, the story line ruined the move.

I just saw Ironman and it was great! Thanks everyone for the recommendation. You were right, it was good for the kids, too! During the first ten minutes or so it had me a little worried though. When the flight attendants were dancing around the poll on the plane, my nine year old whispered in my ear, "Mom, um, are you sure this is going to be okay for us to watch?"



Well...I liked that movie but parents can't take the kids with them to see it. And she's much much cleaner looking in Speed Racer.

Now see, that is when I would have turned around and whispered back, "Aw sure, it's okay. Dad goes to watch ladies dancing on poles every Friday night."







Clean brunette or dirty blond, it seems Ms. Ricci in spandex and stilettos wasn't quite enough of an enticement for audiences over the weekend:

Superhero movie "Iron Man" pounded the competition at North American box offices for the second straight weekend, landing at No. 1 with $50.5 million in ticket sales, according to studio estimates on Sunday.

The movie about a comic book hero in a high-tech suit of armor took in $12,284 per theater at 4,111 locations, and saw its total box office rise to $177 million after only about 10 days in theaters.

"Speed Racer" finished in the second-place spot with $20.2 million in ticket sales to $20 million for No. 3 "Vegas," according to Sunday's estimates. But those figures could change when Monday's final weekend tallies are released.

"Speed Racer" got off to a slow start for the big-budget film's backers at Warner Bros. who had high hopes the movie would prove to be a runaway hit for kids and their parents.

"We were disappointed with the results over the weekend," said Dan Fellman, president of domestic distribution for Warner Bros.

"Speed Racer" was estimated to have cost $150 million to make and another $100 million to market, according to a recent story in the Los Angeles Times.
link

I'm actually very happy "Speed Racer" crashed and burned. At a cost of $250 million to make and market, the chances of it turning a profit are lousy and that suits me fine since The Wachowski Brothers stole over four hours of my life with those two terrible sequels to "The Matrix."

"Iron Man" reign at the top will probably end next week when "The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian" opens and definitely in two weeks when a 65 year old
"aging archaeological adventurer" named Indiana makes his return to the multiplexes after an absence of almost 20 years.

Should be very popular with kids who weren't even alive when the last movie was made. Hooray for marketing!

I just saw Iron Man tonight and it was awesome! There's not much to say that wasn't already said about the film, I just wanted to add my two cents, in case someone is debating whether or not to see it.

I really enjoy Marvel characters for the simple fact that, in theory, they could all be you. Tony Starks didn't have super powers, he was just a genius.

I am also excited for The Dark Knight. It looks amazing.

I think you overestimate the prevalence of genius in your theory. In my experience, one is more likely to come across the ability to leap tall buildings in a single bound.

Thanks for the further reco, though - I quite like Downey and have been looking forward to Iron Man. It's good to see that it's getting a broad range of good reviews here.

Yeah. That's also the reason why Batman has always been much cooler and more interesting that Superman.



Indeed. I've always preferred the DC characters to the Marvel ones - those that have made it to the silver screen are okay, but in the comics of my youth there were rather too many that were bitten by a radioactive this or scientists exposed to a dose of radioactive that for my liking. Stan Lee thought up some great superheroes, but his stories for how they got to be that way were always a bit samey to me.

I saw the new trailer for The Dark Knight in the preamble to Iron Man and it looks terrific.

Now, if Hollywood can just get around to making film versions of The Watchmen and The Dark Knight Returns, I think I might just burst with the excitement...

Indeed, I would love to see the Watchmen, but I fear that Moore's stories often get botched when they make it to the big screen (League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, anyone?). And while I liked V For Vendetta, I also felt that that movie was a bit ruined because they changed the ending...

Thor and sub-mariner are the two marvel movies I want to be made BAD.

Iron man was just SOOO spot on- he was never that sympathetic in his alter-ego as spider man- who is, essentially, a nice teenage kid, that happens to be uber-smart (I have to be with Wertz on this one) but Tony Stark is a much less nice character than when he is in the suit, really.

Captain America was always a bit TOO good-two-shoes-aw-shucks for any soldier I have met- WW2 or not!

He needs to do some whoring and drinking!

I guess the rumor is "mathew mcconeghy" (sp) for Captain America- so far. Slated for 2010!

Sub-mariner is a royal jerk- literally- his character will be interesting, and Thor's character is all viking, with a conflictd crippled doctor for an alter-ego.

The one Marvel character I'd love to see make the jump into feature films is Dr. Strange. I'd love to see the Sorcerer Supreme doing his thing on the big screen. The only thing that would worry me is if they tried to play Dr. Strange as a conventional super hero. He's not.

To do the Master of the Mystic Arts right you'd have to allow a director with a certain kind of visual style to do the good doctor justice. Guillermo Del Toro of the Hellboy, Pan's Labrinyth, and Blade II flicks has expressed an interest, but with him committed to The Hobbit movie, he's going to be tied up for a while.

If I can't get Del Toro my second choice would be Timur Bekmambetov. Who, you ask?

Maybe you've seen the trailer for Wanted, the summer movie starring Angelina Jolie and Morgan Freeman? Now there are a few "you've got to be kidding me" shots in that trailer, but Bekmambetov must have been on some heavy duty drugs when he made Day Watch.

I don't know if a Russian director is the right guy to bring a America comic book hero to life, but if nothing else Bekmambetov has the imagination to do it.

As it happens, shooting has wrapped on an adaptation of Watchmen and it's in post-production with a release scheduled for sometime in 2009. It's being directed by Zack Snyder, who was responsible for 300 (and the relatively okay Dawn of the Dead remake). The cast is relatively unknown (to me, anyway), though Billy Crudup is playing Dr. Manhattan. If you've seen Little Children, two actors from that film are also in Watchmen: Patrick Wilson (who played the stay-at-home dad) is Nite Owl (II) and Jackie Earle Haley (the sex offender) is Rorschach. I've had stock in the film at HSX.com for about a year or so now.

I've also had HSX stock in Doctor Strange (for ages) - and it's finally making a profit. Guillermo del Toro was rumored to have approached Neil Gaiman about doing the screenplay.

Just saw "Children of Men" with Clive Owens- OMG- what a gem! Amazing movie! A tear jerker even for a battle hardened dude I am afraid though!

Michael Caine's performance was incredible- of course, but his pot smokin' and farting is something I have never seen from the dude!

Some really funny parts in it even- no hollywood ending here though.

Hobbes recommended this film during the debate about American stupidity and ignorance as an example of where the US is headed.

'Idiocracy' is a post apocolyptic film about life in the USA in five hundred years time and its both frightening and hilarious at the same time. The premise of the film is that stupid people will outbreed intelligent people now the pressures of evolution have been removed by science (note that its a comedy). Apparently this film was neglected by its owners (Fox I believe), perhaps because it doesn't portray them in a very flattering light at all. Its too bad. This is a film a lot of people might be well employed to watch.

Essentially this film is a biting comment on contemporary American society, but if I'm honest, I found plenty of jabs poking into my guilty conscience too. Its easy to laugh at Americans, but to be honest, the rest of the world isn't any better. Stupid people continually pumping out billions of babies is a global problem.

Luke Wilson isn't my favourite comedian, by any stretch of the imagination, but he does a reasonable job of playing the 21st century man who wakes up in 2525 after being freeze dried and forgotten by the US military. Waking up in a dystopian society populated by the offspring of 'dumb people', he is soon found to be the most intelligent man in the world, this despite being the quintessential average man in his own time.

4/5

I only get out to the movies occasionally and the last trip was a huge disappointment. I went to see the happening and it was one of the most pointless movies I have ever seen. As in a lot of movies the hero emerges as young, male scientist who puts the threat together and saves his girlfriend and a young girl from one of the strangest disaster scenarios I have ever seen. I thought it was a zombie flick and since Romero's remake of Dawn of the Dead I have been hooked on them. It was a fatalistic melodrama that meandered with virtually no underlying moral to the story. The dialog was pretty good at times but punctuated by sick and morbid shock scenes. I just hope they don't make a sequel because I'll probably go see it just to see if it actually has a point.