Dead Ringers (1988) - original, disturbing mindfuck from Cronenberg that has a pair of fantastic performances from Jeremy Irons playing twin gynaecologists who share *everything*. Loses some momentum in a muddled third act but pretty impressive stuff regardless.

7-7.5/10


Death in Venice (1971) - some truly great scenes in an otherwise problematic and far too languidly paced adaptation by Luchino Visconti of Thomas Mann's infamous novel. The source material, a disciplined ascetic composer in his 50's on holiday in Venice finding himself transfixed with the 'beauty' inherent in the physique of a 12 yr old boy, is not really suited for a film and in the hands of Visconti falls into simplistic uncle stevie territory. But every now and then, Visconti manages to combine Gustav Mahler's music, Dirk Bogarde's acting and visuals of Venice as the main character's mental hell into something extraordinary.

6.5/10


Dinner at Eight (1933) - above average ensemble dramedy that obviously uses Grand Hotel as a template but never quite reaches the same heights. The attempted skewering of high society lacks bite but the actors still manage to pull of the mostly mediocre material fairly well.

6/10


French Connection II (1975) - not a patch on William Friedkin's great original, but a pretty good film on its own terms. The setting moves to Marseille as Popeye Doyle continues his pursuit of 'Frog 1' and the first and third acts make for a gripping thriller. The second act, however, brings the movie to a complete standstill but luckily the movie survives that to finish well.

6.5-7/10


Get Smart (2008) - hardly has any of the charm of the tv show, in fact if not for the name it could be any other spy spoof that has been made since James Bond became famous. Its not terribly funny, despite Hathaway and Carrell suiting the roles and the ramped up action is poorly staged.

4/10


Hancock (2008) - somewhere in here is a pretty good film. I would bet good money that the original draft of the script for this was darker, smarter, longer and more coherent. But you can tell that the script got tampered with, probably multiple times, because its schizophrenic in tone from scene to scene. In its current form, it�s a terrible waste of ideas and some pretty good performances from Smith, Theron and Bateman.

5.5/10


L.627 (1992) - like a movie length french version of The Wire. Superb stuff, despite an unfocused and slow start, it does a great job in examining the police fight against drugs with great use of character humour to liven up the overarching despairing tone.

7.5-8/10


The Last of the Mohicans (1992) - great music, great action scenes and nice camerawork but otherwise it�s a strictly above average historical action epic from Michael Mann with stock characters and plot. Daniel Day Lewis is surprisingly flat as Hawkeye and Madeline Stowe looks out of place. But its hard to deny that the last 20 min are anything but memorable.

6.5/10 

Pretty damn scary film. Sure, there's all kinds of humor and wacky situations that pop up as Bill Maher eloquently interviews all kinds of religious nuts, but the end result is a terrifying look into the reality of those wacky religious nuts, aka the majority of humanity. I was thoroughly entertained however, and agreed with pretty much every point made throughout the movie, and now I'm worried I won't be able to go to sleep tonight.

People he interviews range from trucker church-goers to an "ex-gay" minister who married and "ex-lesbian" woman and had 3 children (although you wouldn't be able to tell he wasn't gay anymore) to gay muslim night-club owners in (I want to say Holland, but all those northern european countries get mixed up in my mind) to ex-Mormons. It is truly hilarious and heart-touchingly sad how stupid people can actually be.

I don't have a rating system, so I would just say it was pretty damn good. 

THere is a brief segment of some really hot looking biblical-themed porno where someone was sucking on a nuns tits. Anyone know the name of that ? Maybe I'll check in the credits to see where it's from. 

Married Life (2007) - stylish, well acted 50's set drama that is predictably plotted but the performances from Chris Cooper, Patrcia Clarkson and Pierce Brosnan keep you watching.

6.5/10


Midnight Cowboy (1969) - great characters and generally well made, although it gets a bit self indulgent during at least one extended sequence and the ending (and events leading to it) is a little forced and abrupt.

7-7.5/10


The Square (2008) - well made aussie noir/thriller that borrows a bit too much from numerous better films and features a main character that is just not sympathetic enough, but overall its still a fairly enjoyable watch.

6.5/10


To Live and Die in LA (1985) - above average crime thriller which has a couple of extremely well staged action sequences (the car chase is great) but otherwise features a stock plot and characters.

5.5-6/10


Youth of the Beast (1963) - very stylish yakuza film by Seijun Suzuki which I did find distractingly confusing at times but it all comes together reasonably well if you stick with it.

6.5/10


Mongol (2008) - well made action epic about Genghis Khan's early days with a strong, understated central performance but also a ponderous and meditative tone for what really is a rather stripped down and simplistic narrative.

6.5-7/10


Wanted (2008) - above average brainless film that is enjoyable due to its sheer ludicrousness in plot and action, but is also let down by a badly attempted 'hip' attitude and some really cringeworthy dialogue.

5.5-6/10


Miss Julie (1951) - excellent, stylish film from Alf Sjoeberg Set on midsummer night of 1894 on the estate of a Count in Sweden with a very strong performance from Anita Bjork and some very good dissection of power in its various forms.

7.5/10


Old Acquaintance (1943) - well made melodrama which nicely pits Bette Davis' acting against Miriam Hopkins' mugging but some of the plot turns towards the end are badly rushed and/or highly implausible.

6.5-7/10 

what's the worst film you've ever seen? 

Whomever was asking me about reading The Watchmen comic, well a mate insisted I borrowed it to read, so I did. I quite enjoyed it actually - mostly as a reminiscence about seeing the film. I'm glad I saw the film first because I had the benefit of the plot AND the style/action that way. I also prefered the film's endgame. 

would have to think about it.

Thing is, these days I have a pretty good idea of what I will like (to an extent anyway) and avoid stuff I would truly hate.

300 would have to be up there though, although I think Casshern takes the cake. 

... and I'm glad you liked it.

Funny thing is that your feelings are the exact mirror of what I thought.

I kinda liked the film, mainly for the memories from the book that it evokes, but I prefer the latter. Especially the endgame.

I think this says a lot about the "imprinting" you get from something you get to know first... 

the internet tells me that Casshern is a live-action anime movie - oh dear. Yeah, I'd probably dislike that. 

for 5-6 years, but the film retains the essence of the comic I thought while amping things like action at the expense of character.

Is it better, probably not, the comic was created to be a comic and even though the movie is a decent adaptation, it loses things along the way. 

but its meant to have 'awesome' visuals.

Assuming the dvd I saw was reasonably faithful to what was intended, 'awesome' has a far different meaning to what I thought. Havent seen a more vomit inducing visual style since or before. 

Casshern looks pretty wicked. Saw the Japanese trailer for it a few years ago and pretty much flipped out. Looks like it's mainly story progression broken up with periods of over-the-top CGed action scenes. 

I saw Casshern once and I forgot almost everything about it. That should say all... ;) Didn't think it was thaaat bad. 

It probably would have been a lot more memorable if we saw it when it came out several years ago. The CG was probably cutting edge then, but nowadays good CG is like toilet paper. 

at first i was going to argue against this being among the worst, since it is a bad movie and quite dissapointing, but was at least memorable and somewhat distinctive.

Movies like Highlander 2, Avengers, and Catwoman are as bad or worse, though perhaps the problem is that the truly worst movies are actually quite forgettable, so it's harder to recall the exact level of badness. Like i'm pretty sure Zardoz should be on this list but it's kind of an indistinct blur in my memories.

(Interesting how Sean Connery is in so many of the above movies)

So 300 might not be the worst, but it may be equal peers with other worst movies. 

oh come on, that movie is a classic! it's extremely memorable; where else can you see sean connery shot put a naked woman? 

yeah I know, but I did put a disclaimer saying I dont watch stuff I know I'd hate and the ones you mentioned would fall into that category. As does I Now Pronounce You Chuck and Larry.

But out of stuff I've chosen to see 300 and Casshern would be my picks. 

necros: strangely, I don't remember that scene... :)

nitin: fair enough, I don't seek out crap either, but I sometimes get out-voted in group situations. 

So my friend and his wife invited me out to see a movie. Our choices were Hellboy 2 or Hancock. I wanted to see Hellboy 2. They wanted to see Hancock.

To this day, they refuse to refund me my money. 

but yeah you lucked out, H2 is heaps better 

Why did I not see http://www.celephais.net/board/view_thread.php?id=3545&start=2166&end=2166 earlier? Ok, maybe I would have thought "perfect plain hollywood popcorn for a saturday evening" but that would have been aimed too high.

Amazingly stupid and bad movie.

"Let's shoot that scene somewhere cool!"
"How about in some high snowy mountain scenery? We could play with like totally awesome camouflage and make it look like Hoth!!!"
"OK, Cool!"
"But would it make any sense?"
"No."
"OK, COOL!" 

Actually, what I wrote sounds remotely funny. The movie is shit, seriously. 

talking about Shooter? 

Yes, indeed. 

Has anyone here seen Lachende Erben? http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0024236/
It was banned in Germany by the Nazis and still kinda is (well, banned for minors so yay censorship!). Looks like a nice comedy actually but very hard to find. I wonder if it would be worth the effort getting it.