Recently watched movies

[Shangas]

I tried to watch '1408'. Sounds like a hell of a film. I never reached the end, though.

Buck-buck-buck-bu'kawww!...

Latest film I watched was "The Dam Busters".

[Mike Covell]

Last night the wife and I watched "Vantage Point" about a political assassination! The film stars Dennis Quaid and is quite well done.

Essentially the President of the USA is due to speak at a summit, he does and gets shot, but it's not quite as clear cut as that and the lead upto the assasination and aftermath are shown from several viewpoints.

Needless to say, its a tangled web of deception, action and raises questions over what we actually see via the media's eyes.

A great film which keeps you on the edge of your seat, and Dennis Quaid is ace as the bodygaurd with a past!

[Mike Covell]

On Monday night the wife and I settled down to watch "1408" starring John Cusack and Samuel L Jackson.

The story revolves around an author who is writing about haunted locations, and who stumbles upon a hotel with a room so haunted, it is locked off from the public following 50+ strange deaths!

It is a pretty good film, with plenty of twists, turns and jump out of your skin moments!

[Maria]

Hi all:

I have not seen this Sweeny film but I do like the actor Johny Depp, he is so handsome ! I liked him in ' Chocolat " since I like chocolates aniyway, but the film was magical and romantic too.

Maria

[Victoria]

I loved Sweeny Todd with Depp....still sing the songs while doing housework lol.

I have seen The Dark Knight twice so far....Heath Ledger did a wonderful job playing the Joker in my opinion. Anyone want to share their thoughts on this movie?

Esther

Hi Esther,

I loved Sweeny Todd with Depp also .. and I just bought the dvd
yesterday, on special $9.95, that is Australian dollars, very reasonable
as it is relatively new.

I've seen The Dark Knight also and really enjoyed it .. Heath Ledger
was mesmerizing, his portrayal of the joker so different to Jack's.
Thought that fellows half blown off face was strange, too unbelievable
or didn't come across well, but loved Batman's good moral judgements
in the end, for the good of mankind .. and of course, another movie
follow up.

Victoria

[sdreid]

I haven't seen either but I did watch 21 the other night about the MIT students who beat Vegas at Blackjack. It was entertaining so I'd give it a tepid recommendation but it wasn't quite as good as I'd hoped it would be. I guess my expectations were excessive.

[Mike Covell]

Hi Mary Kelly, welcome to the casebook. Hope you won't be vanishing on the 9th of November

I enjoyed Sweeney Todd, and loved both the Depp and earlier version with Ray Winstone playing Todd. I don't recall any of the songs though!

I have yet to see Dark Knight but hope to do so very soon!!

[Esther Wilson]

I loved Sweeny Todd with Depp....still sing the songs while doing housework lol.

I have seen The Dark Knight twice so far....Heath Ledger did a wonderful job playing the Joker in my opinion. Anyone want to share their thoughts on this movie?

Esther

[Mike Covell]

I loved National Treasure 1 and 2 and watched them both back to back recently. The cast and acting was fantastic and some of the sets were amazing.

I have Romero's Diary of the Dead on standby to watch at some point this week. I also have The London Job at the ready to watch.

I enjoyed both Ray Winstone's and Johnny Depp's performances as Sweeny Todd, both were really atmospheric, and again the sets were great. I was a bit baffled to see Ali G acting against Depp, but was glad when depp killed him.....Booyakasha!

The Happening was far from.....Happening, which was a real shame as I enjoy Mark Wahlberg and look forward to the Italian Job 2! Shooter was a great film.

[downonwhores]

ST

You know what is interesting is how Jack became a myth the way Sweeny Todd became a myth. We still don't know if Sweeny was real or not. I know they actually found a mass grave under the church on fleet street where the corpses were not even buried but other historians have said that Sweeny Todd wasn't real and that he was just made up. Any Ideas?

[Becks]

Ok so I watched Sweeny Todd and Run Fat Boy Run on the weekend I enjoyed both! ST was good but it was kinda hard to follow the singing lol! RFBR was a really good feel good comedy
I agree about No Country For Old Men! Great movie! I had to look something up at the end to clarify something, but I loved it anyways

[downonwhores]

Movies

Loved Sweeny Todd with Depp. Hated the original. No Country for Old Men is the best movie since Unforgiven. Anyone see The Happening? Any good or does it suck? Although Sweeny Todd the movie not the musical with David Bradley from Hellraiser and Harry Potter is the best

[Magpie]

Hi Mike.

I saw The Cottage a few weeks back and I was a little disappointed.

Some GREAT performances, but I thought the story was a bit "by the numbers". I totally agree with your comments about the cast.

I thought the movie showed immense promise as a "caper gone wrong" flick, but I thought it dragged when it shifted gears into the standard psycho-killer story.

I saw both National Treasure movies this weekend. I really liked the first one. Top rate! The second one was good, although I thought the scenes in the City of Gold weren't very plausible. Helen Mirren was brilliant (but then, when isn't she?) and the "bad guy who's actually quite a decent chap" was a really nice touch.

I saw Harold and Kumar Escape From Gitmo, too. It was quite funny--stronger story than the first one, but not as many laugh-out-loud moments. Neil Patrick Harris stole the show (again). The George Bush scene was hilarious, but went on just a touch too long--it's basically a one joke riff that they repeat for 20 minutes. But overall I was glad I saw it.

[Mike Covell]

The Cottage

Finally got round to watching "The Cottage" last night and it was not a bad film at all.

Jennifer ellison was fantastic as the feist female, kidnapped and held to ransom. She has a mouth on her that young lady, as every other word was "F-This", "F-That" and "F-you, you F-ing F-er"

Serkis was great as the dominant elder brother, but the big suprise came from Doug Bradley.
He was in the film for mere seconds, but had a great English accent.

It took a while for the blood and gore to arrive and when it did it was both shocking and funny! The scenes involving the blood and guts were really well acted. Usually in a hooro film, when someone gets stabbed, they get up and run, not so in this!!

The ending was quite suprising too!

[Magpie]

Stan: That sounds almost as good as "Night Of the Lepus"--with the "giant" killer rabbits that are obviously normal sized rabbits rampaging through a dollhouse

I've been on a movie watching jag the last couple of weeks. Took the wife to see Wall-E last week. Good movie, but a little slow for the first half.

Here's a rundown of recent viewings:

The Mist--awesome movie. Very close to the book, The ultimate downer ending, but a great movie all round.

The Black Dahlia--Well, almost. I got halfway through before falling asleep. Talk about slow--and not "suspenseful" slow either. Just slow.

The Machine Girl. Japanese mayhem! I can honestly say that this is the most insane movie I've seen to date. 2 hour movie, 10 minutes of dialogue, 110 minutes of gushing blood, severed limbs and flying implements of death. Great fun for the most part, although it occasionally crossed the line into mean-spiritedness

Ready To Rumble--guilty pleasure from the nineties. Wrestling/Road Movie/Teen Comedy/Buddy Flick. What more can you ask for?

Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon: Finally got around to seeing it. Hard to see what the fuss was about, quite frankly. I guess for western audience who have never encountered this kind of movie before it would have been amazing, but truthfully, I can think of several movies that do it better (Iron Monkey, Azumi, Hero, to name a few)

Forbidden Kingdom: Awesome movie. Jackie Chan, Jet Li, Taoist Mythology and time-travel all in one funny, action-packed movie.

I Am Legend. Good movie. Little slow at times. Will Smith's sudden outbursts of insanity seem out of place. Overall I enjoyed it.

That's it for now. I'm just settling in to watch V For Vendetta I liked it at the theatre--let's see how it works on the small screen.