League of Extraordinary Gentlemen: great! I could have done without Tom Sawyer, and someone like Ian McKellen or would have made a way better Quatermain than Connery did, but all the other characters worked really well. Totally going to be Captain Nemo when I grow up.
The Hulk: decent to so-so. I was going to say "it would have been better without the Nick Nolte parts", but then I realized that that was most of the movie. Well, it's hard to have a good movie without a good villain, and the villain in Hulk was boring. Actually, the Mr. Hyde bits in League were a better Hulk story than Hulk was.
28 Days Later: excellent and genuinely scary. It's definitely in the Night of the Living Dead ballpark. Though the plot had some surprising similarities to Resident Evil of all things. Sadly, though, it was shot on DV, which looks like total ass on a big screen, so you really won't miss much of the moviegoing experience if you wait for video.
Terminator 3: not bad. I expected it to suck, and it exceeded my expectations. It's sillier than T2, which is bad, and has some dumb plot holes, but it's a reasonable sequel, and not the disaster I dreaded. There are some subtle plot elements and time-travel fu that I wish got more attention: I think there was a more clever movie in an earlier draft. Maybe the inevitable "director's cut" will make it better.
Charlie's Angels 2: not merely bad, but OH MY GOD BAD. And I liked the first one. This movie was like an unordered pile of Saturday Night Live parodies of the first movie. Stay far, far away.
No Such Thing: a recent Hal Hartley movie I stumbled across on TV. The plot is kind of all over the map, but it's entertaining. I really like all of his movies.
The Animatrix: ranges from ok to really good. My favorites were "Beyond" (the one with the cat) and "Matriculated" (the one with the captured robot.) Totally could have done without "Kid", and I expected more from "Second Renaissance."
Personally, I thought Nolte's "I'm completely fucking bonkers!" rant at the end of Hulk was the best thing in the movie. (Of course, it was immediately followed by the worst thing in the movie, the abysmally stupid end fight.) It was an OK summer comic-book movie, but I expected better from Ang Lee.
Have you read the Graphic Novel the League is based on?
One of the best things I've read in ages.
And I have to admit to enjoying the sheer gratuitousness of Charlies Angels 2. No pretence of anything other than sheer ridiculousness. Not quite as cool as the first one, but still good.
Yeah, the League comics are great.
House of 1000 Corpses: Rob Zombie must pay for his crimes against humanity.
I would probably have tried to forget that as well.
You don't have to wait for the DVD if you have an R2 DVD player - it was released in the UK last May. It has two alternate endings on it, in case you thought the one they used was retarded (as I did.)
-J
Yes, but are any of the other endings better?
Personally, I wasn't a big fan of the movie in its entirety. As one reviewer noted, the first half was basically Day of the Triffids redone, and the second half was Day of the Dead, with the shopping trip from Dawn of the Dead thrown in for good measure. I felt sorely let down by a movie that promised to "reinvent zombie horror."
"Charlie's Angels 2: not merely bad, but OH MY GOD BAD" - Thankyou :) - I went with a bunch of people, and was the only one who hated it! I too liked the first one, I was so bitterly disappointed.
I totally am with you on "Beyond" being one of the best. I haven't found too many who agree with me on it.
I loved the concept of a sanctuary that none of the world's problems could touch. A place where people could just Be. And then its ultimate fate when it is discovered . . .
Btw, great journal. Added you.
Huh? That place is called, like, "the bathroom."
But a place where gravity works all funny, now that is cool.
Well there are different interpretations I suppose . . . :P
pirates - agreed
league of extraordinary gentlement - agree with your points on characters - and i thought M being Moriarty was great - but i still think it was a dissapointing adaptation.
hulk - thought it was TERRRRRRRIBLE. although i do agree with you that hyde in league of extraordinary gentement made a better hulk than the actual hulk movie did.
28 days later - agreed, although i do think it's a good big screen experience because i tend to believe that it is scarier that way...
the rest i haven't seen.
and YOU want it to be scarier?
and YOU want it to be scarier?
Definitely NOT! I just know it matters to other people. I recall people saying that Blair Witch, for example, wasn't scary at all on VHS when it was on the big screen (it was plenty scary for me both ways).
In fact, if i had it my way i would have watched 28 Days Later AT HOME, on my 19" TV, and in BROAD DAYLIGHT. Unfortunately, i really wanted to see it, and didn't want to wait, so i made my peace with sleeping with the lights on for two days. I don't always make that decision. I still haven't seen The Ring, for example, because i knew it would be too much for me to see in a theater. I'll eventually get around to seeing it, but, like i said, it will be in broad daylight... and i will have resigned myself to sleeping with the lights on for three nights.
Of course, none of this was as scary as that Notorious scene in Donny Darko...
I didn't find DD at all scary, and I wasn't sitting next to you to know which scenes were freaking you out. Was it the "take it off!" scene?
Blair Witch was soooo not scary on the big screen. Boring was more like it. Of course, we saw it on that same tiny screen that we saw DD last weekend, before it hit the big theatres, so maybe that had something to do with it.
the donnie darko comment was a joke. the movie wasn't scary. i didn't watch any of the scenes with fred in it... and i didn't look at him when he took the mask off... but the rest of it wasn't scary.
RE: blair witch - it's already well documented that i am a pussy.
I saw Blair Witch on opening night, and it was Scary As Fuck. But it's not nearly as scary on repeated viewings, and I imagine that having heard the hype and spoilers first would have spoiled that too.
I think there was probably like a 5 day period when it was a scary movie.
The second time I saw Blair Witch was at that same theatre you saw it at, and I couldn't tell if it was the theatre or just seeing it the second time that made it have less of an impact. Saw it opening night with //4orm_viru$ in Berkely though, and that was awesome, and what was best was right at the end of the movie, as the credits were starting to roll and people were starting to leave, the power went out on the whole block and we had to get out in pitch black! It was great! :)
They really need a "spoiler" tag in livejournal...!!!
Captain Nemo? Feh. I'm going to be Dorian Gray when I grow up. He's got that cool Trent Reznor/The Perfect Drug thing going on. What's the point of having super powers if you don't get to look cool?
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/south_yorkshire/3060297.stm