What I've Been Watching: The Catch-All Film Thread

Just saw Mutant Chronicles, a movie based on the role-playing game of the same name. I'm not familiar with the RPG, but the movie was good enough that I would definitely recommend it. Very cool atmosphere with a combination of sci-fi and steampunk.


Check out the trailer here…

http://www.mutantchroniclesthemovie.com/

It had Ron Perlman so that's a plus.

Originally Posted by danutz_plusplus
It had Ron Perlman so that's a plus.

It had a phenomenal cast for an indie film: Thomas Jane, John Malkovich, Devon Aoki, Sean Pertwee, Perlman…

I used to play Mutant Chronicles (but even moreso Doomtrooper, the trading card game that preceded the RPG). I haven't seen the movie, but I heard that they dumped one of the megacorporations that was so important in the game (my favorite company at that). As I haven't seen the movie I don't know if it's good for the movie that Cybertronic isn't in it, or if it's the other way around…

Saw something very interesting yesterday. A friend gave me a couple of older episodes of a show running on the French-German culture channel Arte. It's called Durch die Nacht mit … (Into the Night with … ). Two artists (actors, painters, poets, singers …) who have usually never met before, meet in a city one of them is connected to but which is fresh for the other. They drive with a limo from location to location for a whole night, do what they wanna do, eat, drink, talk about whatever they want. There's no script apart from the places the host artist decided to invite the other to. All the talk is completely natural. The cameras are filming every second of it. Photography is of very high quality. Often "experimental" talent is invited as guest director. Always interesting to watch, because everybody is given so much time that you can clearly tell when they're acting and when they're natural. Language is usually original with subtitles, often English if at least one doesn't speak German.
What makes this so interesting is the risk involved. Both artist cannot know if they'll connect with the other one. It's possible they're stuck for 12 hours with somebody who bores them.
I've seen 2 episodes:

1. Painter / artist Joe Coleman & actress Asia Argento meet in New York. Guest director: splatter movie director Jörg Buttgereit. Superb stuff. Maybe Coleman painted one serial killer too many. Argento is also weird, interesting and interested in a lot of strange things. And she drinks a lot. Buttgereit knows his craft. Intersting pictures of a lot of strange things. Talks are mostly about nonsense. And death and related stuff. The highlight is their visit at David Blaine's (think Copperfield) house. Blaine plans a project in which he spends 3 days with three hungry lions. He wants ot feed the lions. Coleman suggests the ultimate artistry in this context would be to bite out a piece of his own flesh and feed it to the lions. Good job by all three of them.

2. Iconic actor Dolph Lundgren and German actor Ralph Herforth (TV tough guy, often cops or gangsters. Solid actor with above average physical presence.) meet in Stockholm. Dolph shows Ralph his old Karate gym. They work out, then have a 5 course menu and apparently a different wine for each course. They meet a young designer with a lot of creative ideas. Talk is quite serious. They're chatting about why both no longer want to live in the US, AIDS, the Irak war, their job as actors, holidays on caribian islands. Interesting stuff and nothing acted. Lundgren is actually quite an intelligent guy. Well educated, down to earth. And he was European champion in full contact Karate.

Avatar in digital 3D
The 3d wasn't bad. It actually added some to the already impressive visuals, while most 3d movies get no bang for the buck. The story was adequate, although it turned a bit preachy at the end. Most folks here would probably approve of the sermon, though, so that's probably a non-issue. None of the performances really stood out as particularly good nor particularly bad. I still enjoyed the show quite a bit, though. The whole concept would play well to folks on this board, me thinks. If you're going to see this show, you MUST see it in the theatre. The incredible CGI work would be wasted on a small screen.

I hadn't gone to see Avatar if a friend hadn't rented a theater; now I'm glad he did or I would have missed a nice movie.
I agree with dte insofar as nobody likes to be hammered with some writer/director's opinion . Especially not when the message is of the 'yeah, it's obvious and we all know this' type and the viewer is in 'gimme more meat' mode.
The use of 3D was nice and unobtrusive. The most important thing, however, was that those Blue Indians were really, really fine to look at .

Yeah, finally a good cinema movie this year.

The nice thing about it is that I probably went into it with a bad attitude. I'd seen so damn many commercials and previews that I was just about ready to puke. The movie is very well-paced. Enough action to keep it interesting and the visuals are just incredible.

Avatar.
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The visual is very good indeed, although overall i'm slightly underwhelm by its formulaic story and plot. Early positive reviews probably make me set the expectation too high. Still all in all a very good action movie, at least better than the laughable dialogs in Transformers 2.

Did a re-run of some of my favorites which I now got on blu-ray. That includes Lady in the Water, Unbreakable, V for Vendetta and Sin City. Awesome movies.

Rewatched one of my old favourites. Soldier. Starring Kurt Russel. A very underrated movie, imo. A wonderful film. Certainly not for you highbrow types, though

Looks interesting. I'm a fan of Kurt Russel, but I've never even heard of that movie.

Originally Posted by JDR13
Looks interesting. I'm a fan of Kurt Russel, but I've never even heard of that movie.

Here is the RottenTomatoes page … it was not kindly reviewed, to say the least.

Yeah, proceed with extreme caution. That seems to be one of those things that everyone but me hates

I do have to mention though that I was very surprised to find that the general opinion of the film on http://www.amazon.com/Soldier-Kurt-R…/dp/0790740443 seems to be very high for some reason.

I absolutely love the movie and can not for the life of me understand how someone could not like it: Genetically engineered super soldiers, tons of cool guns and a trash-planet with a nice post-apocalyptic feel to it.. and it actually has a sensible and satisfying plot of sweet sweet revenge.

I'll be sure to check it out when I get the chance, even though it doesn't appear to be on the same level as Kurt Russell classics like The Thing, or Tombstone…

Chipmunks 2
The Wild Dogs insisted. When it was over, even they decided this movie wasn't very good. Avoid at all costs. This stinker is on par with Beverly Hills Chiahuahua.

Whitechapel
A new English mini series about a Jack the Ripper coypcat in today's London. Short (3*50 min.), fast and well-acted series. Modern look, characterisations could have been a bit deeper. The solution is the typical lucky incident most Ripper movies use. Very entertaining, highly recommended.

I also re-watched the mini series from '88 or so, with Michael Caine and Lewis Collins. A masterpiece with more money behind it and 45 minutes more time. A typically high-class British TV mini series. The new one tries to look like an US TV show.

Originally Posted by Gorath
Whitechapel
A new English mini series about a Jack the Ripper coypcat in today's London. Short (3*50 min.), fast and well-acted series. Modern look, characterisations could have been a bit deeper. The solution is the typical lucky incident most Ripper movies use. Very entertaining, highly recommended.

I also re-watched the mini series from '88 or so, with Michael Caine and Lewis Collins. A masterpiece with more money behind it and 45 minutes more time. A typically high-class British TV mini series. The new one tries to look like an US TV show.

I just rewatched the Caine version myself - brilliant stuff!

Yeah, there's a lot of really good english crimes from the 80s and 90s, if your willing to look past the image quality.

Might I throw in another recent mini-series: Murder Rooms: Mysteries of the Real Sherlock Holmes.