Children of teh Atom

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hiccup · Posted: Mon Mar 12, 2007 4:39 pm Post subject:

Ninjadmin · Posted: Thu Mar 15, 2007 8:09 pm Post subject:

i watched flags of our fathers today. it's about the famous photograph of the american soldiers likting up the stars and stripes on iwo jima, and the soldiers who featured in the picture coming to terms with being used as 'heroes' to promote the USGs drive to raise more money for the war with japan

i thoght it was really good, paid tribute to the soldiers and showed how 'war heroes' are forgotten about once the war is over. i thought that clint (eastwood, director) broke it up to much splitting between the war and back in america through flashbacks, and didn't make the battle as intense as it shold have been. but overall he handled quite a difficult theme with a lot of taste imo

flick · Posted: Sat Mar 17, 2007 1:43 pm Post subject:

i watched The Host (Gwoemul) yesterday. it's a South Korean monster movie, i watched the english sub version - finally (d/l warning - we got a copy of this with spanish dubbing and some sort of arabic subtitling before we found this version).

the movie begins as an American mortician instructs his Korean assistant to dump a load of formaldehyde down the sink, its ultimate destination the Han river. this bit is based on a true event.

a couple of years later, some fishermen find a funny looking 'fish', but it escapes them. a few more years on, the creature, now huge, comes ashore and munches down on some people, including the schoolgirl daughter of Kang-du, a dopey snack shop worker, before returning to the river. the government tries to cover up the existence of the creature by spreading stories of a virus, and everyone who saw it is rounded up and carted off by government people in radiation suits. whilst in custody, Kang-du gets a phone call from his supposedly dead daughter, Hyun-Seo, who says she is in the sewers and come help! Kang du and his family - his father, sister, and brother - escape and go to rescue her.

the family characters are what makes this movie better than most US monster movies. you know how the characters are always cliches - theres the good looking hero dude, the love interest that probably doesnt like him to begin with and will probably need rescuing at some point, his best friend who always dies, the deceitful bad guy who wants to make profit on the monster, and a few other characters that exist purely for munching on? this movie has none of them, not a one. Kang-du is a good hearted slacker who everyone thinks is a bit of a muppet, his dad is a caring but grumpy old dude, his sister is an Olympic archer (who doesnt require rescuing at any point and does no flirting or showering or any of that crap), and his brother - well i never worked out exactly what his brother does (my partner tells me hes an umemployed graduate student, i mustve missed that bit) but he's handy with molotov cocktails and swears a lot.

i did enjoy this quite a bit and id watch it again if i was flicking through telly channels, but its not something id race out to buy. its not a must-see, then, but still id recommend it for a decent monster movie night in with a big bag of tortilla chips and some dips.

wraeth · Posted: Sat Mar 17, 2007 2:45 pm Post subject:

We should get these reviews on the wiki

J · Posted: Sat Mar 17, 2007 3:50 pm Post subject:

watched the fifth element this morning.

s'not bad, but not exceptionally good.
dont really know wha they were trying to do, everything just seemed a bit flat.

flick · Posted: Sat Mar 17, 2007 4:00 pm Post subject:

i didnt think much of it first time i saw it either, but it grew on me.

J · Posted: Sat Mar 17, 2007 4:11 pm Post subject:

mmm it could well be a grower, had the same kind of thing with fight club. i think a lot of it might have to do with the sound on our tv making you think youre hearing it after the audio has been filtered through an olympic sized swimming pool being sandblasted by several tornadoes.

bristle-krs · Posted: Sat Mar 17, 2007 4:27 pm Post subject:

Ninjadmin · Posted: Sun Mar 18, 2007 8:43 pm Post subject:

watched 300 last night

it's an adaptation of a frank miller comic, it's about 300 spartans who stood up to the mighty persian empire. the evil king Xerxes offers the king of sparta more power than he has if he will surrender rather than fight a battle he can't win, but of course being such a warrior he will not kneel etc.
was really good, basically it's just a big battle for just under 2 hours, not really much in the way of plot, but it does play like a comic, and is definetely entertaining with lots of colourful characters and backgrounds

worth a watch

Soreenkid · Guest

I second that and would like to add its full of gratuitous shots of muscle men wearing very little. With only a few glimpses of titty

Soreenkid · Guest

Just finished watching Taxi again, fucking class film about a pizza boy who becomes a taxi driver but really wants to become something else... Germans, fast cars, french girls and no shitty hollywood car chases

bristle-krs · Posted: Sat Mar 24, 2007 10:08 am Post subject:

all film reviews on this thread to date now on the wiki

bristle-krs · Posted: Sat Mar 24, 2007 10:49 am Post subject:

see here:

http://coolestradio.com/wiki/inde...?title=Category:TCTE_film_reviews

a detailed help thread on writing reviews for the wiki coming soon!

wraeth · Posted: Sat Mar 24, 2007 1:56 pm Post subject:

Ninjadmin · Posted: Sat Mar 24, 2007 11:59 pm Post subject:

i just watched usual suspects. it was a 'stylish crime thriller'

hiccup · Posted: Sat Mar 31, 2007 12:29 am Post subject:

Inside Man
Spike Lee directed bank heist thriller. Enjoyable. A few nice subversions of the genre (Denzel Washington as the main cop guy isn't a picture of morality, and makes mistakes and stuff), along with some comforting clichés, like the Police Chief character ("The D.A.'s gonna have my ass for this!" etc etc). Not all that thrilling for a thriller, and the twists are more like gentle curves, but was pretty enjoyable nevertheless. Not overtly a Spike Lee film, but his influence did show through in places, like when the sikh guy gets arrested ("Oh my God, he's a Muslim. Is that a bomb?"). Undemanding, but entertaining enough. Am now planning new career as a bank robber. Bank robbers are teh cool.

flick · Posted: Wed Apr 04, 2007 4:20 pm Post subject:

i watched Children of Men a few nights ago. it was easily one of the worst movies ive seen in recent years. it was so dull that even within the first twenty minutes i was wishing it would hurry up and finish. i kept watching, thinking that it might pick up any minute. it didnt. considering the birth of a child was a major part of the movie they could have made some effort to learn about how it works. it was so dull i just wanted everyone to die, soon and quickly. it was pretentious, predictable, boring, it dragged on and on, it wasnt believable in any way, and no character was likeable. id heard that michael caine was the best thing in it. anyone who thinks that must have an even lower opinion of the rest of the movie than i did. how this got decent reviews ill never know.

bristle-krs · Posted: Wed Apr 04, 2007 8:08 pm Post subject:

flick · Posted: Wed Apr 04, 2007 9:09 pm Post subject:

if you thought otherwise then its probably because you were wasted or not paying attention.

bristle-krs · Posted: Wed Apr 04, 2007 9:14 pm Post subject:

nice try, not biting :P

flick · Posted: Wed Apr 04, 2007 9:24 pm Post subject:

bristle-krs · Posted: Wed Apr 04, 2007 9:29 pm Post subject:

i *heart* clive owen anyway, ever since 'close my eyes'. 'second sight' and 'sharman' were great telly too

bristle-krs · Posted: Wed Apr 18, 2007 3:45 pm Post subject:

Slacker
Relay race-style business, following underachievers, losers, wastrels and heroic idlers around Austin in one day, as they bum around town, looking for interesting shizz to do. Fun stuff.

Ninjadmin · Posted: Wed Apr 18, 2007 3:56 pm Post subject:

i've never even heard of that

bristle-krs · Posted: Wed Apr 18, 2007 4:12 pm Post subject:

thats cuz you a l00ser :P

Ninjadmin · Posted: Wed Apr 18, 2007 4:17 pm Post subject:

but not a slacker!

districtline · Posted: Wed Apr 18, 2007 4:19 pm Post subject:

bristle-krs · Posted: Wed Apr 18, 2007 4:19 pm Post subject:

tell that to jeff, man!

Ninjadmin · Posted: Wed Apr 18, 2007 4:20 pm Post subject:

me eyes man

bristle-krs · Posted: Sat Apr 21, 2007 6:54 pm Post subject:

Waterworld

A soggy ''Mad Max'', with fish-man Costner displaying his magnificent cold fish thesp abilities in his defiantly chemistry-less chemistry with Tripplehorn. Some rubbish about a flooded world, blah blah blah, semi-civilised atolls, blah blah blah, petrol-obsessed 'Smokers', Dennis Hopper, blah blah blah, 'legend has it far, far away there be a place called... DRY LAND!!!" and ooo how convenient! This orphaned child has some kind of a map to find it! Blah. Blah. Blah.

I'd never seen it. I just assumed all the bad reviews were a reaction against the huge budget. Now I know better. It's just a bit, well, lame. And boring.

bristle-krs · Posted: Sat Apr 21, 2007 6:58 pm Post subject:

am working through a backlog of reviews... woo hoo! we've got 101 reviews on the wiki now though

http://coolestradio.com/wiki/inde...?title=Category:TCTE_film_reviews

Ninjadmin · Posted: Sat Apr 21, 2007 7:17 pm Post subject:

Letters from Iwo Jima

This and Flags of our Fathers were released at the same time, this shows the battle from the perspective of the Japanese army, abandoned by the 'homeland' and awaiting certain death at the hands of the invading US army.
Probably the first US film I've seen about WWII which portrays the japanese as sympathetic characters, and communicates how they are just normal kids in a messed up situation, same as Europeans and Americans
Another really nice touch about the two films together is how the same characters and battles are played out from different sides, one of the heroes of this film bayonets a major character from FooF
If you don't mind the fact that it's yet another WWII film I would recomend both of them highly

bristle-krs · Posted: Mon Apr 23, 2007 5:16 pm Post subject:

The Departed
It's a peculiar film in its structure and in the way it unfolds; to me it feels like a two and a half hour trailer, with the same sort of distance between the audience and the material, like watching a film through a narc haze or something. That's not to say it's not thoroughly professionally executed - the performances are pretty much uniformly good, and believable within the parameters of the piece - but it's a film at a remove. However much I concentrate on watching it, it feels like its holding me at arms length. Perhaps in large part this is to do with the editing, which teases, suggesting the promise of longer scenes but then cutting to the next (a by product of the large amount of material we have to get through, I guess), but, fuck it, who knows.

But you know when you're watching the second or fifth or whatever part of a mini-series? And the first half an hour is just endless catching up on what's already happened? Everything edited together, all plot points and action and the odd line, but rattling through it, no time for characterisation except the odd caustic line or whatnot? Well, The Departed is that for two and a half fucking hours.

Yet despite the moaning, there's some decent stuff in there, and the final half hour rattles along nicely, if only Scorcese coulda done that the whole flick through. Can't really fault the main performances, just there's not a lot for them to do some of the time. And there's just too many decent actors relegated to mid-ground mugging (like Alec Baldwin).

Fuck it, it scooped Oscars & shit, so what does Scorcese care?

Ninjadmin · Posted: Mon Apr 23, 2007 5:26 pm Post subject:

yeah, there was something about that film for me as well, i think you hit the nail on the head there, it doesn't really draw you in, it's like it's always promising you something rather than just flowing on it's own

and it's criminal that he got best film for that when he didn't get it for any of the genuine masterpieces he made. completely shows the tokenistic nature of the oscars. giving scorces that oscar for his body of work, and passing over the great films made last year

bristle-krs · Posted: Mon Apr 23, 2007 5:40 pm Post subject:

yeah, it's such a fucking joke, "oh, we all know this isn't your best flick, and that there re better films out this year, but have a stifficate anyway!!! gold star!!! pat on the head for the good boy!!!"

bristle-krs · Posted: Wed May 02, 2007 2:38 am Post subject:

Marx Brothers in full!!!

The Cocoanuts
A pretty fast-paced stage musical-to-screen transfer, based on a development boom in 1920s Florida, which sees Groucho and Zeppo running a crappy hotel, Chico and Harpo as guests intent on rinsing the place dry, and Margaret Dumont as an acksuall paying guest, a rich if rather prim widow whose daughter (Mary Eaton) is in love with an impoverished architect (?!) (Oscar Shaw), who is accordingly framed for various nefarious deeds by Cyril Ring (the dowager's choice as a beau for her daughter) and his secret lover Kay Francis...

Confused? Well, it's not plot ya here for - it's pratfalls, puns, inappropriate gags and much running riot.Back in the early pictures it was all a lot more free and fun, and ''The Cocoanuts'' is no exception - in fact, it's setting the tone for the next few flicks: Groucho is the linchpin of it all, a fast-talking, fast buck-chasing, amoral yet lovable swine; Chico is a swindling, back-chatting panhandler, backed up by his mute, harp-playing, fast-fingered oppo Harpo, whilst Zeppo plays the kind of sappy, bland über-straight man (well, he'd be diluted 3-to-1 if he didn't lay it on thick) which for some reason was a popular film archetype back in them days, and acts as a sort of dramatic maypole around which the other three brothers can dance their merry way into ever-greater dizziness. Oh yeah, and then there's Dumont, who ended up a proper regular feature of Marx Bros flicks - here establishing herself as a straight-laced, straight-faced, poker-up-her-arse snob of the first order; and yet still she puts up with so much abuse!

Gag-per-pound, it's not too high-density, and the sound isn't great, but it's still proper laugh-out-loud business.

Ninjadmin · Posted: Tue May 22, 2007 5:55 pm Post subject:

Batman vs Dracula (marvel cartoon)

was kind of funny but kind of crap as well, was quite cool the parralels between batman and dracula, and dracula is always a class baddy, and the joker was cool as fuck as a mental vampire, so was the plot, so was the artwork for the most part. but i just didn't really get into it, i dunno, all of those batman cartoons, i love what they are trying to do, there is just always something not quite there, like they tick all the boxes, but they don't have the va-va-voom to keep me interested for the full hour and a half. to be fair i don't think it was aimed at 27 yr olds

flick · Posted: Tue May 22, 2007 6:06 pm Post subject:

bristle-krs · Posted: Tue May 22, 2007 6:13 pm Post subject:

Ninjadmin · Posted: Tue May 22, 2007 6:16 pm Post subject:

too many big words for me