really science fiction? o_O 

Pffft. 

...I always thought The Unicorn Variation by Zelazny would make an excellent transition to screenplay. 

I pretty much listed authors who've written things that I thought were cinematic when I was reading them.

A few good novels begging for the screen treatment:

Nova and Babel-17 by Delaney
Free Live Free by Gene Wolfe
Forever War by Haldeman
Heavy Weather by Stirling
Life During War Time and Green Eyes by Shepard
When Gravity Fails by Effinger 

some non english writing writers too.

But haven't read that many of the authors mentioned by HT. Mostly gettin what u get from library here, translated.

Probably the plots are too complex, weird or not right to make a low common denominator Mike Bay style film. What has always sucked and will suck about most movies are horrible and completely believability breaking scripts.

But I've ranted about this topic years ago. Nice that someone has similar thoughts.

Have you read Solaris and seen both the films? I don't know what Soderbergh was thinking at times. Why is the space station extremely clean, new and perfectly functional? Totally kills the atmosphere... Why is that one idiot (don't remember was his name changed from Snaut) just eating donut and minding his business as if nothing stressful and weird is happening on an isolated station far and away from everyone, he acts like it was an average weekday night after a normal day at the office? Etc etc... It's as if the director hadn't read the book at all.
Or if he had, he sure got some totally different impression than I did. The Soviet version gets many things right, but it suffers from a completely stiff lead. (co-lead Bondarchuk is amazing though.) 

and I haven't seen the movie versions though.

when I was a kid, some of the science-fiction magazines serialized several of Lem's short fiction works so I've got a lot of his work in the back of my head. I remember stories within a sort of Space Cadet framework that spoofed Heinlein's juvenile fiction as being pretty entertaining. 

has even great short fairy tales, dunno how children would react when read to about all kinds of strange robots struggling in their lives and the weird kings and kingdoms. :)

They could only be done for the silver screen in hand drawn animation format methinks. 

I pity the first person who attempts to make a film of the uplift universe

Also, Player of Games by Iain M. Banks. 

on the Hollywood Reporter to see if 3:10 to Yuma would be worth seeing tomorrow afternoon and I stumbled upon this gem:


While on the subject of time, both versions of the picture owe a tip of the Stetson to "High Noon," which also was governed by a ticking clock and featured good guys and bad guys who wore intricate shades of gray.

What the fuck?!? The villains in High Noon are only there in order to get shot at the end. There are no 'intricate shades of gray' there.

'Gee, Vern maybe we should cut this sheriff fella some slack. It's his last day of service and he is getting married and all ..." "No Innus, my momma beat with a brush handle when I were a yungin' I gots to take it out on somebody.",

No, it doesn't do 'gray area'. The sheriff is principled, the townsfolk are spineless, and the outlaws are cutthroats.

Admit it mister Hollywood Reporter critic, you have not seen the movie.

Anyway, there wasn't a comment forum on the page to harass and taunt the critic so I bumped this thread up instead. 

wanted to make the Simpsons quote stand out from the first quote, but it looks like I'm yelling in that section.

Live and Learn. 

good guys and bad guys who wore intricate shades of gray

He's talking about their clothing. 

though,in this shot I see Quake-ish shades of brown and tan, though this shot doesn't show the villain gang.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/arts/graphics/2007/09/14/bfyuma114.jpg

And if they are dressed in gray with a bold flash of white and black on the trim (like a nifty scarf that would look gay on anyone but Steve McQueen), I guess I would owe mister Hollywood Reporter critic an apology. 

What movie is that shot from? The last posts here are way too confusing for me to tell. 

is the title. It came out last week. I have many complaints about the screenplay, but strong performances from several actors including the two leads, Russell Crowe and Christian Bale made it worth seeing.

Here is a trailer to wet the appetite:

http://www.beyondhollywood.com/movie-trailer-russell-crowe-and-christian-bales-310-to-yuma/ 

as does Eastern Promises and Bourne Ultimatum.

I saw spidey3 on a plane, not the best way to see it but I could still see that the action scenes were awesome and the rest of the movie too long.

6.5-7/10 

"I'VE HAD IT WITH THESE MOTHER FUCKIN' SPIDERMEN ON THIS MOTHER FUCKIN' PLANE!" 

Spiderman 3 - plane impressions were pretty much right. Too long, too convoluted and with too many characters. But there are some great scenes and the action is fantastically shot, a rarity these days IMHO, and Thomas Hayden Church makes a good Sandman. Topher Grace is not so good (then again the whole Venom character looks out of place).

Same issues as before with Maguire and Dunst who vary wildly in quality from scene to scene but, on the whole, this was decent enough.

6.5/10


13 Tzameti (2005) - A twistedly cruel little french thriller that is extremely well made despite the thinness of the material. Gela Babluani's film is at its best in the first 30 min or so when the movie is simply oozing with tension and atmosphere as a poor young carpenter follows instructions meant for someone else in the hope for money.

Where it ends up after that is not as interesting but you still have to admire Babluani's skill at keeping things extremely tense for the entire duration, aided by some very precise and skilful camerawork and some excellent sound design. There are scenes in here that will literally make you squirm, and not because of gore but out of sheer anticipation.

Hollywood remake on the way too.

7/10


The Woman in the Window (1944) - Fritz Lang's well directed and acted film goes along beautifully for about 90 min or so, despite what seems to be odd logic gaps and bizzarre occurrences. Then it gets short cicruited by an ending that is very logical but also very undermining of the material.

Till then though, it's an atmospheric noir piece with Edward G Robinson turning in a very good performance and Lang in control of his material.

6.5/10


The Grapes of Wrath (1940) - I have never really warmed to John Ford's output but this is one of the great american films. It is surprisingly directed with minimum sentimentality by Ford, which is strange given how prone the material (John Steinbeck's original novel) would have been to such an approach.

There is still some unnecessary comedy sequences but they are kept near the start, and for the most part it is an exquisitely shot, written and acted piece. This is pretty much as good as cinematography gets and it is used to great effect to highlight the impact of every scene.

Henry Fonda is pivotally great in the central role of Tom Joad and he gets some very good support from John Carradine and Jane Darwell.

There is also a bit of abruptness about the ending but, overall, there is not much wrong with it.

8.5/10 

Seriously, what was going on there? So many different things and ideas randomly thrown together...
Either I'm just to blunt to get the gist of it, or this is a good example of vodka-affected scriptwriting.

No Nescafe this time. ;) 

the's the exact same reaction I had to Night Watch, the prequel. 

I thought nightwatch was just standard mishmash wannabe-badass generic balls, but most people think it's great... I get the feeling people think it's got some extra level of depth they should be appreciating because it's Russian trash as opposed to American or British trash. 

i hated night watch with a passion :) 

Though this one easily surpasses Night Watch by far. The theme had some potential but it wasn't properly executed. I usually like strange movies (or elements within movies) but there has to be at least some coherence. 

I seem to be the only person I know who watched that film and decided it was the best kung-fu movie I have ever seen. Im even willing to say its THE best kung-fu movie ever made. Tony Jaa (or whatever hes called) IS Bruce Lee. If you havent seen it, watch it, and agree. Or if you can honestly tell me that you've seen a better film that I haven't then I'm dieing to know what it is! 

I discovered the awesome http://cinemageddon.org/ recently (torrent site, but should be quite safe for its content). It's all about B-Movies and alike.

The first movie I watched from there was
For Y'ur Height Only
http://imdb.com/title/tt0200642/
http://www.youtube.com/v/M5KeUMxyAwM
http://www.youtube.com/v/eqh5O9LbjhY (so catchy!)

Mr. Giant has kidnapped the brilliant Dr. Van Kohler and is planning to use the Doctor's invention, the N-bomb, to hold the world hostage. The only one who can foil Mr. Giant's evil scheme is Agent 00, a 3-foot-tall filipino martial arts master, expert marksman, top-class romancer and all-around superspy. Can Agent 00 rescue Dr. Kohler before it's too late?

It's as awesome as it sounds. Really bad and really awesome. I am looking forward seeing the sequel.

Next was Hardware I think, I posted #1981

Now I just watched Warlords of the 21st Century
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0084887/
http://i9.photobucket.com/albums/a91/Metalian/movies1/1-2.jpg
http://i9.photobucket.com/albums/a91/Metalian/movies1/2-1.jpg
It was so-so. Some good acting, some great effects (explosions!), some cool dialogs. The story was very kitschy and shallow though. Not nearly as great as I hoped after seeing the pictures. The truck is damn cool for sure and some other vehicle later too. The "good guy" is too much of a smug(?) to like him, but the bad guys are great. 

but saw bits of The Protector and thought that it was nowhere near as good as Ong Bak in the action scenes. Everything looked and felt more slicker, less intense, and PG. Probably the effect of a hollywood backing and a bigger budget.