like spirit said, the dir's cut is about 3.5 hrs. 

is an ideal last date movie 

Just watched Hoodwinked again (4th time I think). I still love it and highly recommend it. The animations are very crude at times, but overall it is miles ahead of the mainstream animation movies for me (especially after watching Madagascar 2 recently...).
A shame it is such an underdog. 

Just watched Hoodwinked. For a kids CG movie it's badass.

As you say, the actual graphics are a bit dated (on par with the early CG stuff like Toy Story, mebe a bit better), but the writing/acting/depth is a lot, lot better than majority of animated films. 

30 Rock Season 2 - even more uneven than the first series but the good episodes are worth wading through the all the mediocre ones. The show seems to have only one setup for a joke (someone makes a comment to the effect of "that can never happen" and then it does) which also makes it routinely predictable but luckily the performers are good enough to still milk the joke that you are expecting. But when it call comes together, as it does in about 3 episodes in this season, it can be very very funny.

6.5/10 (just)


Entourage Season 4 - still entertaining but there is definitely a feeling of lazy familiarity through the whole season, particularly with the storylines of Vince and Eric.

6.5/10


Lost Season 4 - probably the most consistent show on tv, it continues to toy with interesting ideas even though it keep stretching out its main story a little too unnecessarily and keeps adding more and more new characters for no particular reason. The use of flash forwards added a fresh dimension though and was used quite well too instead of just being a gimmick, hinting at the overall arc of the series.

7/10


Life Season 1 - it's pretty tragic when good characters get stuck in mediocre shows but that's Life I guess. Damian Lewis plays a cop who is released from prison and rejoins the force after being incarcerated for 12 years for a crime he did not commit. There is an overarching story about his investigation into who framed him but the general structure of the show is standalone police procedural episodes.

Unfortunately, despite good characterisations and performances, the standalone investigation episodes are just plain weak. To be fair, the longer the season goes, the better it gets but the early episodes are just plain bad. By the end of the season though, I was looking forward to more so overall I guess its worth a watch.

6-6.5/10


Rachel Getting Married (2008) - a little bit self indulgent at times but otherwise a fairly fine film from Jonathan Demme. I'm not quite sure the Dogme camerawork was all that necessary, and its particularly distracting in the first fifteen minutes or so, but eventually the strength of the script and performances win out over its detractions. Anne Hathaway is excellent in her role as a recovering addict out of rehab to attend her sister's wedding and causing all sorts of family tensions to come out during her visit.

There is no real plot throughout the movie, its basically a covering of the day before and of the wedding in a home video fashion but the script from Jenny Lumet (Sidney Lumet's daughter) is filled with great moments of character interaction that nicely manage to interchange between black comedy and serious drama. Look out for a hilarious scene involving a dish loading competition.

7-7.5/10 

it keep stretching out its main story a little too unnecessarily and keeps adding more and more new characters for no particular reason.

They are just restocking the Red Shirts, for more mayhem and bodies blowing up fun!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Redshirt_(character)

I didn't care much for Faraday (still too much a cryptic bastard) and Charlotte (easy on the eyes though, but not nearly so much as Juliette) as new characters, but Miles and the one played by Jeff Fahey are great. Last week, Fahey's character had a great quip that ended that show. Also the new antagonist Kimmi filled his villainy roll with gusto, his Black Water tattoo, nice touch.

While last season had some strong episodes, the Sayid, Desmond and Ben centric ones come to mind, the strongest episode in my mind still remains the mind blowing 3rd season finally.

It is still doing strong this season with a solid and interesting episode last night that had the rare quality in this show of answering more questions than it left you to ask (like is Ben really a villain. Why, YES, YES, YES, how could you have ever doubted it!). 

Hellboy 2 : The Golden Army (2008) - really enjoyed this, heaps better than the first one. It's everything a popcorn blockbuster should be : exciting, funny and imaginative. Every frame is filled with some very creative detail and the pacing is perfect too. I think The Hobbit is in good hands.

7.5-8/10


Aguirre the Wrath of God (1972) - not sure the film itself is really all that great but you have to marvel at Werner Herzog's sheer audacity in taking a film crew to the Andes to shoot his story about a group of spanish conquistadors trying to find the city of El Dorado in the amazonian jungle. The film definitely is a posterchild for location shooting, the sheer lushness and overwhelming nature of the Amazon just could not be achieved artificially. The lack of any real structure or focus hurts the movie though as although there is some attempt at displaying a madness in the Aguirre character (ala Heart of Darkness), its pretty hard to care as most the effort seems to have been expended on just shooting the damn thing.

6-6.5/10


Alexander Nevsky (1938) - Sergei Eisenstein's movie about the conflict between the Teutonic Knights and the russian people of Novgrod has obviously served as a template for every single epic film depicting a battle between two armies but it lacks audience connection with its characters. The movie is proudly patriotic, so maybe you have to be russian to connect, but I found it difficult to sympathise with any particular character.

Technically though, it's a marvel. The 30 min battle sequence at the end is extremely impressive (and has been copied as recently as the LOTR battle scenes), powered on by Dimitri Prokofiev's memorable and stirring score.

6/10


Centre Stage (1992) - fairly interesting biopic of the tragic life of China's first famous movie actress, silent film star Ruan Lingyu. For a biopic, the structure is quite unconventional, with the narrative of the main events in Ruan's life broken up with production talks between the director and the stars and also interviews of witnesses who knew Ruan.

Its quite slow, the pacing very glacial in parts, and it takes a while to get into as the movie assumes some familiarity with events and characters but Maggie Cheung is mesmerising in the main role and keeps you interested throughout.

7-7.5/10


Clash by Night (1952) - decent if unremarkable noirish melodrama from Fritz Lang. The first half is particularly strong, with some very strong atmosphere and dialogue. The second half loses some of the edge and becomes fairly predictable but its worth a watch overall.

6-6.5/10


Changeling (2008) - Decent if overlong and disjointed film from Eastwood. Jolie is excellent, much more restrained than she could have been and better for it, and the movie works well within each of its three interconnected stories but struggles a bit to bring them all together.

7/10 

The Cooler (2003) - William H Macy plays a 'cooler', an unlucky individual whose presence is used to end the good luck streaks at Alec Baldwin's casino. But when he meets his 'lady luck' in Maria Bello, things start to go a little wrong.

Finely acted but there's something not quite right about Wayne Kramer's movie, most noticeable the tone which veers from fantasy to romantic comedy to film noir without entirely gelling.

4/10


Le Deuxieme Souffle (1966) - definitely overlong but this is another stunner from Jean Pierre Melville. The plotting is familiar, as are the characters, but Melville once again manages to make his crime/heist thriller incredibly fresh with some brilliantly executed sequences that turn the mundane into the riveting

7.5/10


Early Summer (1951) - the second film in Yasujiro Ozu's unofficial Noriko trilogy and it sits comfortably in between Late Spring and Tokyo Story in terms of quality. Setsuko Hara is again outstanding as an independent woman trying to make her presence felt in post-war tokyo and Ozu manages to create some very touching scenes between her and her family members.

7.5/10


Five Graves to Cairo (1943) - nice, tense little WWII flavoured thriller from Billy Wilder which, although highly implausible, displays admirable skill in the creation and maintenance of suspense. The script has a reasonable amount of the customary Wilder spark, this time mainly through characterisations rather than dialogue but it�s the top notch direction throughout that keeps you interested.

7-7.5/10


Pineapple Express (2008) - quite funny for the first half, theres some pretty inspired stuff actually, but the second half is just plain stupid. It tries to go all Hot Fuzz at the end and fails miserably. Its also too long, but that seems to be an Apatow 'feature' generally.

5.5/10 

and some more :

Fury (1936) - above average socio-drama from Fritz Lang with Spencer Tracy playing a man who becomes a target of a lynch mob after being falsely charged with a crime. The characters and themes are too simplistic but Lang does a reasonable job in his set piece scenes to not let those detraction get too much in the way.

6/10


The Grifters (1990) - rewatch and I am still not quite sure why I don�t really like this. It has interesting characters and some very fine acting from Annette Benning and Anjelica Huston but Stephen Frears' film about three different con artists feels oddly paced and only seems to have good individual scenes and never quite gels as a whole for me.

5-5.5/10


Gun Crazy (1949) - effectively another variation on the Bonnie and Clyde story and while it is nowhere near the same league as Arthurn Penn's classic or even Nicholas Ray's excellent They Live by Night, its still fairly entertaining stuff thanks to its brisk pace and some very innovative direction in key scenes. So while the plotting is fairly predictable, its presented in quite a fresh manner.

7/10


I Know Where I'm Going (1945) - another strong film from Powell and Pressubrger with Wendy Hiller playing a young, independent woman who travels to the Scottish isles to get married to a rich industrialist and ends up becoming unsure of her own ambitions along the way.

The location shooting is absolutely incredible as is an amazing mid movie sequence involving a whirlpool which completely upstages all the effects that Pirates of the Carribean 3 mustered up in a somewhat similar sequence. But what gives it its true power is the script which contains natural, unforced dialogue and some beautiful characterisation.

7.5/10


The Incredible Hulk (2008) - pretty solid entertainment till the ridiculously stupid and badly misjudged climax which is just plain silly and way too long. Until then, its quite well made if disposable entertainment with well staged action sequences and good pacing.

6.5/10 

Yippee - a modern action movie with (OMG) a small amount of character development! :)

I thought they had given up on such things ("Naah - character development is for pussies!") 

iron man and TDK handled that aspect better. But yes, it does have some which is a rarity these days anyway. 

I liked it. I was forcefully lent the comic a few days before it opened and had read most of it by the time I saw the movie -- and it's amazingly faithful to the source material. It's basically "the incredibles" for grownups :) 

but wasn't The Incredibles the Incredibles for grown-ups? 

given 300 but I'd like to be surprised. Might watch it next week. 

watchmen looks good, but then, the trailer for 300 made it look awesome, and it was terrible. 

...is a clever WATCHMEN ripoff.

This flick here, I think will be the Superhero movie I'll hate most.

Poor Zack has alredy done an ugly enough job in turning a wonderfully dry tale of pride&power(300) in a syrupy melodramatic nonsense.
I think it's about time he gives up comics movies for good and moves on a field that suits better his talents.

Like flipping burgers.

I'm dead scared of what he may have done to one of the greatest GNs of all time... 

General consensus among hardcore Watchmen lovers around the office is that the movie rocks. Just FYI. 

...I hope everything turns out well...

But, from the screens and trailers around the net, it seems to me that ol' Zack did it again...

I got a bad vibe about the characters having even half the depth of their paper orginals...

A fit and muscular Nite Owl, for example, gives away a lot about how misrepresented he has been...


I'll be happy to change my mind, though... 

I guess. I don't really know the original book myself but those who I know who do, loved the movie. They even loved the ending and say it was changed for the better.

You seem extremely negative on the whole thing and are probably going to not like it out of spite or something, but hopefully you'll be surprised. 

...yes, I guess I'm extremely negative on a whole lot of things, lately, and I think you're right.

But I will try to look at it with the best disposition.

As for the book... Well, I suggest you give it a look. If you love superhero comics, even slightly, you're really missing something. I somehow envy all those who still don't know it.

I'd like to go on with an angry rant about From Hell, but I think the old boring man inside me has said enough for today!!!

I'll go watch the Watchmen(so we finally found Who Watches them, we do!) on Wednesday. We'll see. 

If you already feel so negative about it, why are you even watching it? Why not simply keep the images and fantasy you have of the comics? 

And, maybe I really don't know...

Because lately I'm buried at work, and when I'm not in the office, I'm home working?

It's nice to have a night out, every now and then.

Because a lot of friends want to go see it with me?

It's fun to argue upon a very useless matter with someone as nerd as you...

Do I think it will ruin my view of the Comic Book?

Nah, impossible... I read it every year or so and it never fails to impress me. I learned to keep movies and comics in separate drawers of my brain. No matter how hard they try. They're simply 2 very different media formats, and it takes a very good artist(be it a director or a writer) to merge them functionally... Better than the ones that usually have a go at it...

In the end, if I don't like it, it'll end up there with the other stuff I watched and did not like... And they sure are not all Comic based movies.

And, mind you, I'm not saying it will necessarily suck as a movie, but it may suck bad as an adaptation of a very complex and multi-layered novel. 

If you act like a sheep, she comes back after going on a fucking tour of the world and you'll get together and have a happy life.
Ok yeah whatever.

Otherwise it had its moments. 

shouldnt you factor that in though?

The LOTR films are great but as adaptations of the books, they're not so great. Heaps of stuff is omitted/changed/modified but luckily mainly for the betterment of having a movie instead of fetishistic translation.

From Hell isnt a great film, but its a pretty good one, even though its a poor adaptation of the actual novel.

But I do tend to agree that, from the trailers, Watchmen looks more like what V for Vendetta turned out like rather than any of the above.

Still, plan to see it next week. I'd be happy if they only get Rorshach right. 

In fact:
"I'm not saying it will necessarily suck as a movie, but it may suck bad as an adaptation of a very complex and multi-layered novel"

Your observation about LOTR is right.
I wouldn't agree about From Hell being a good film though,IMO, it's a bit of a mish mash of ideas from the GN (very few) and standard Hollywood fare. I did not like this one.

From what I read above, you're much more competent and informed than me about cinema, so that must be taken into account.

V for Vendetta, yes, it was pretty good, and I'd be happy if W turns out like it. Probably it will.

A person from another forum brought up an aspect of this kind of operation that I think must be considered

"The "too faithful" aspect in WATCHMEN for me were a lot of places where actors and cameras moved in an overtly contrived manner to "land" on iconic images from the book, and instances where dialogue that should never have been spoken out loud was transferred from the page verbatim."

This has been, from what I saw, a common trend in later comic based productions, and I can see a certain logic behind it, but only if done with good measure.

Rorschach, well, I totally agree with you.
A very good comic book artist, that maybe you're familiar with, John Byrne, said on his forum on this very subject:
"WATCHMEN is considered a literal translation? Rorshach is about the only
character who looks like himself!"

So I guess we can rest assured about that one.