I wasn't calling out Dune as an example of a quality scifi -- I was calling it out as an example of a David Lynch scifi, since you we're saying you'd like to see David Lynch take a crack at the genre. 

What I meant that some good and respected person who can communicate their vision, and doesn't need to be too mainstream, could do some decent hardish or philosophish or just a more serious scifi flick. (Or are there much such people anymore, is everything very finely "produced" nowadays?)

I don't know the history of the Dune film very closely, but I understand the director was not happy with it. Cuts and shit.

Maybe they could pick something less ambitious. 

Devil in a Blue Dress - so so modern attempt at a noir with some rather pedestrian direction and a badly miscast denzel washington. There's an art to doing a noir voiceover and denzel was not up to the task in this film. 

XMEN 3 Is Going To Be Awsome

Fucking hell, first the regular spam, then bots and now we're a target for stealth marketing bullshit.

Just my opinion - but maybe now is a good time to disable posting for non-registered users. 

I'd call that bloody obvious marketing.

Just watched Daredevil, and it really was as bad as people said. Avoid. 

i can't see myself liking it; just out of principle for them still not including Gambit at all. I mean, what the hell. Expect a biased review. 

Yeah Gambit rocks hard. I think they have way too many mutants in this one. But I'm looking forward to seeing beast. 

looking forward to it :)

ps : I also saw The Grifters which I found to be far too meandering and uninteresting. 

TO be honest, I did like XMEN2 so I am looking forward to the next one. 

x2 was ok, opening 5 min with nightcrawler were great as were 2-3 scenes with wolverine, but the rest was so so.

As for x3, brett ratner is quite the hack, so Im' not expecting much. 

Spartacus - The Criterion print is spectacular but I found this to be quite underwhelming. It starts off well enough but after Spartacus' escape and the beginning of the revolution, I found it fairly unremarkable.

At 198 min, I also found it to be extremely bloated, especially given the poor writing of many scenes. The acting, like most aspects of the movie, varied in quality with Kirk Douglas quite average in the title role. I enjoyed Peter Ustinov, Lawrence Olivier and the ever reliable Charles Laughton but Jean Simmons single handedly undid their good work with a very weak show. It probably didnt help that her character was not well written though.

The score was also fairly variable, great towards the start but being overly bombastic far too frequently.

And it is also the most un-Kubirck film I've encoutnered thus far, but that in itself is not necesarrily a bad thing IMHO.

5/10 

Get Shorty - Underwhelmed again. Leonard thinks this is the best adaptation of his work but I'd take Out of Sight or Jackie Brown over this anyday.

Not that this is bad, far from it. But it's strictly average and just seems as if everything was by the numbers. Maybe that comes from Barry Sonnenfeld being not much of a director and Soderbergh and Tarantino being far more capable.

5.5/10 

It was hilarious. I'm glad that after the first movie they got the idea to have more fun with the concept, since it was a bit too preposterous to be otherwise. It continues to be in the third installment, but it's always fun to watch Rube Goldberg as Death hatch his little plans and manage to get rid of the latest annoying teen. You've got to admit -- it's better than Chucky. 

I was searching credits at IMDB for the PC game Mafia, and one of the VO actors is in a Cthulu movie:

http://www.cthulhuthemovie.com/

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0478126/

A Seattle history professor, drawn back to his estranged family on the Oregon coast to execute his late mother's estate, is reaquainted with his best friend from childhood, with whom he has a long-awaited tryst. Caught in an accelerating series of events, he discovers aspects of his father's New Age cult which take on a dangerous and apocalyptic significance. 

Phait, you unworthy little human, how can you mispell Cthulhu twice when it's written correctly in the url and everywhere on those sites. Please kill yourself, if the old ones don't get you first. ;D

Anyways, that movie looks pretty cheap, not really expecting much. =\

Anyone played the Call of Cthulhu game that finally came out? (on console only I think) 

I've been waiting for that game for years, then out of nowhere they release an Xbox version first (in OCTOBER!) and the PC version (the platform it was originally developed for) STILL isn't out.

Damn the Xbox's theft of PC games!
I've even heard microsoft will pay a developer to release their game on xbox and delay the release to PC for 6 months, which may have been what happened to this game. 

I have the Call of Cthulhu game on Xbox - I played it for a bit a couple of months ago, but I had to put it on hold in favour of RE4, and I never got around to getting back to it.

It was ok - kinda creepy, mostly adventure game-feel, where you have to scour every dark corner for clues and stuff. I wasn't that convinced by the atmosphere, which felt more like 40s film noir, rather than turn-of-the-century Lovecraftian stuff (mostly due to the cheesy voice comments from the world-weary detective character that you play). I didn't really play enough of it to be qualified to have much of an opinion though. 

This is the FILM THREAD, duh. To pleasantly divert the discussion down the right path, I submit this: http://www.cthulhulives.org/cocmovie/index.html 

Deadwood Season 1 - HBO is responsible for many quality shows but this is IMHO their best. Pretty much perfect throughout the entire season, it hardly puts a foot wrong in any of the 12 epsiodes.

The production values are first rate, the writing is excellent, and most the acting is brilliant. It also features arguably the most interesting character yet in a tv series, Al Swearengen, expertly played by Ian McShane.

There has been a lot of hoopla over the swearing but it is so well integrated into the writing, that after a little while it's hardly noticeable, unlike some other shows (The Sopranos comes to mind) where at times the swearing draws attention to itself.

9/10 

I've seen Deadwood -- my sister got addicted to it with the OnDemand cable service available in Knoxville, and made me sit and watch a couple of episodes. Of course, it has Brad Dourif (Doc Cochran) in it, and that immediately had me watching -- but I rather liked the show. Too bad I don't have HBO, or else I'd still be a fan. However, I don't agree with you about the swearing, it seemed like someone went behind the writer and added as many bad words as they could to many of the scenes, and the whole thing seemed forced. It doesn't detract one bit from the show, however.

And dammit, this is the FILM THREAD. Sigh. 

Phait, you unworthy little human, how can you mispell Cthulhu twice when it's written correctly in the url and everywhere on those sites. Please kill yourself, if the old ones don't get you first. ;D

Maybe he was just trying to avoid their attention? I know I'd try to do that. 

Neil Gaiman + Dave McKean + Jim Henson Studios - a big budget - action - any actors you could think of = a small, strange indy(ish) flick with limited potential and a long way to go to achieve any.

I was a bit disappointed in this because McKean's imagination and Gaiman's writing go so well together -- in books -- but there wasn't any real sense that Neil wrote this screenplay. McKean's abstract imagination was represented well in a few CG scenes, but the costuming nearly ruined the whole thing for me. Still, the girl was cute and Valentine was a good character so I give it a 1 out of 3 fish. 

Does anybody have an recommendations for free DVD player software? I'm currently using VLC, but it seems to startup on the wrong menu track on some DVDs, and that's started to annoy me. DVD players without flashy menu stuff are preferred, and keyboard shortcuts are handy. 

I dont know, to me after about 10 min, I didnt notice the swearing at all. It just fit with the rhtyms of the dialogue.

And if you listen to some of the audio commentaries and interviews on the dvd, the creator David Milch talks about how he tried to replicate the bizzare nature of how people talked in the town, a strange mix of Victorian English and foul mouthed swearing. 

is pile. of something. boring too. first one was better