And then it all came crashing down. My poor health has slowed my film watching to a crawl. I was using it partially to make sure I stopped and rested for an hour or two, but now finding it too hard to keep my attention on a movie.

On the plus side, I've watched some good ones! And to the end of February I've managed 63 films, which is a great start.

21st February
Shorts

22nd February
The Harder They Fall

23rd February
Short Circuit

25th February
Halloween (2007)

26th February
The Incredible Hulk

( Thoughts and graphs under the cut. )

2nd February
Ghost in the Shell

3rd February
The Man Who Laughs

4th February
Hulk

5th February
The Thief of Bagdad
The Satanic Rites of Dracula

7th February
Harvey

9th February
King Kong
The Legend of the Seven Golden Vampires

Write-ups below the cut... ( Read more... )

While I'm still coughing, and flat out looking after two children and not doing much of anything else, a lot of things improved in the last days of 2010, including my movie watching. So here's the list of flicks watched to date. Eighteen so far, so rather pleased with that.

( Read more... )

Okay folks, one of the things that we decided was that when we bought a house, Sharon would get her Thermomix, and I would get a tonne of DVDs, since neither of us would have much cash for a little while.

I have a list in my head of DVDs I'd like to buy, but I'd like recommendations because you may suggest a few things that I have forgotten about, or that I've never heard of but are absolutely tremendous.

Below the cut is the list of what I currently have on DVD to help reduce doubling up, and to give to a feel for my tastes. Generally speaking I don't want to buy TV series, that said, I'd like to buy West Wing and maybe Star Trek (original) and/or Deep Space 9, so Tv series aren't out if they're awesome enough. No need to mention any Doctor Who DVDs :)

Okay, so, recommend away!

( Read more... )

6th April
Kung Fu Panda
Hellboy 2 - The Golden Army

7th April
Clash of the Titans (2010 version)

11th April
The Silence of the Lambs

17th April
Red Dragon
Serenity

20th April
Kenny

21st April
Hannibal

25th April
Day of the Triffids Pt. 1

28th April
The Incredible Journey

30th April
Battlestar Galactica: The Plan
Day of the Triffids Pt. 2

Technically I didn't finish Kung Fu Panda, the DVD froze, I had been really unimpressed, so didn't bother to try and hire another copy. Clash is okay, but it's really just another disposable film that no-one will know or care about in a decade.

Kenny was really good - surprisingly bitter-sweet, too. It avoids some of the obvious and easy toilet humour, most of the characters are believable, it was everything I'd been told it was. I'd wanted to watch it but had been avoiding it because every time I saw the lead actor, Shane Jacobson, being interviewed, he managed to annoy the hell out of me with his humour.

Review of Day of the Triffids to come. Short version, disposable.

( Pie charts on genre & year below cut. )

16th March
Stranger Than Fiction

18th March
Transformers

19th March
The Creature from the Black Lagoon - in 3D!

20th March
Hot Fuzz

22nd March
Wanted
The Man Who Would Be King



I rather enjoyed Stranger Than Fiction while Transformers was worse than I remembered. My plan was to watch Transformers then watch the sequel, but it was fucking painful, don't think I'll bother. A film with only one likeable character (female computer geek) is just a wasted effort.

The 3D version of Creature works for all the same reasons Avatar did - the 3D is used to immerse you in a world. I remember seeing this at the Valhalla cinema in Melbourne, and the bits the audience reacted to were relatively simple shots with fish swimming about. In fact, even though I'd seen the film many times before the Valhalla screening, I'd never realised it was 3D feature, there was nothing in the direction that would be out of place in a regular movie. And the most important thing is, I genuinely love the story.

Man Who Would Be King was very good. Sean Connery and Michael Caine playing a pair of utter bastards, but still managing to make them likeable. The end of the film still guts you, even with fore-warning.

Just grabbed the following from this article

"The film industry pumps $NZ285 million ($220 million) into Wellington each year."

Which has me wondering what Australia's film industry manages to turn over.

I'm partially wondering because I know that Peter Jackson's company is one of the one's that has helped create this number. And a fair chunk of that company's output has been genre based.

I just can't help but wonder about the claims that Australians aren't interested in Aussie produced SF&F film/tv hold up against this. So we won't accept Aussie genre product, but NZ is okay?

No point behind this, just thinking out loud.

Oh, for the record, I think the Wellywood sign is a bad idea. If there's a need to explain the humour to the locals, it's a problem. Plus if the industry slides down the track, it becomes a painful and embarrassing sight.

That said, I think a sign that just says Wellington would be great!

Not likely to get anything watched until Monday at least. Daybreakers was disappointing, but the rest were all great! No time to do or say more, already late for driving to Melbourne!


19th February
Daybreakers

20th February
Angels with Dirty Faces

21st February
Buckaroo Banzai - Across the 8th Dimension

23rd February
Saw VI

24th February
District 9

1st February
The Evil of Frankenstein

2nd February
Spirits of the Air, Gremlins of the Clouds

3rd February
The Bourne Supremacy

4th February
Apocalypto

5th February
Dracula: Prince of Darkness

6th February
Lost in Translation

8th February
Frankenstein Created Woman

9th February
Dracula has Risen from the Grave

( Read more... )