Nicolas Cage and great acting in the same post?!

i thought those two things were not compatible with each other 

looking forward to it.

Shambler, see District 9, good fun, should suit your taste too. 

Yeah, it looks good, looks very heavy-handed with the apartheid metaphor but cool and different otherwise. 

Anyone seen Paranormal Activity?? Was reading about it the other day, apparently it's actually quite scary. Not something that suits my taste but am curious... 

the (heavy handed) apartheid metaphor is pretty much ditched, or at least relegated to the background, after about 15-20 min.

From then on its pretty much your normal chase film, but a good one and with a south african accent :) 

one of the better trailers I've seen in a while :

http://www.apple.com/trailers/independent/themenwhostareatgoats/ 

Sleep Dealer is really good... 

Inglourious Basterds (2009) - Somewhere in the middle with this one. The best scene is right at the start and it never quite lives up to it. Landa and Shoshana were the best characters (and actors) for me and they didn’t get enough focus. Lack of focus in general was my problem and when you have a 150 min film, either focus it or cut it by 30 min IMHO.

And it has a horribly executed climax in my opinion, the sudden change in one of the characters for no apparent reason is a travesty (echoes of Death Proof here) and extremely stupid.

But it gets 5 points for that opening scene alone and the rest of the score is for various good little bits throughout (I quite liked the false tension in the ordering of the milk scene at the restaurant and didn’t mind the first 10-15 min of the otherwise far too long basement scene).

6-6.5/10 

Gone in 60 Seconds (the 70s one)

Watched this earlier. Ace chase at the end. The rest is pretty bad though. Just grab it and skip like 45 minutes ahead. 

Pretty good! 

District 9

Brilliant, one of the best films I've seen in quite a while. Distinctive, gritty, moving in places, very well put together, good action, great deaths (I see what Fric means about the gore now - although I thought some of the "trauma" pushed the 15 certificate more), and actually kept me intruiged the whole way not knowing how it would work out.

Okay there was the odd cliche as it progressed, it could have benefitted from a bigger budget to make some areas more convincing, and there was some faith needed with the plot - but the latter I only realised thinking about it the next day, the general gripping style glosses over that.

Exactly what sci-fi/action film-making needs. 

It was okay. The action scenes were cool, not because they had me on the edge of my seat (they didn't) but because of all the cool FPS throwbacks. It seriously had me itching to play some FEAR2, albeit not a lot.

Story/progression were okay I suppose, I didn't feel the story was anything special, the main character was an asshole but you knew he wouldn't die because hey, he's the main character.

My dad thinks they're opening it to one or two sequels, which would make sense based on the ending, but I figured they would just leave it as is.

So yeah, for all the hype surrounding it, I feel comfortable in the fact that it was pretty much what I thought it was - a decent but not really innovative or genre-defining scifi movie. I would probably rate it like a 7/10. 

Zwiffle, the main character might have been an anti-hero but he certainly wasn't an asshole. 

Yeah, he was. 

He redeemed himself in the end. That's the point. 

although I'm with zwiffle that it was really just a well made chase film in a sci fi setting rather than anything groundbreaking. But I'll tkae that these days, hard enoguh to find something thats decent in sci fi.

oh, and I thought he was an asshole too. But you could still root for him because the others were even bigger assholes :) 

I agree, he was an asshole. I never liked his self serving "just following orders" company man attitude the entire film. He should be first against the wall when the aliens come back. 

I disagree, he wasn't an asshole. He was a bigotted (well he's white saffer WTF do you expect) incompetent way out of his depth and trying to look out for number one, but an asshole, no. He also clearly had some conscience and had to go through a lot of traumatic shit...

It might have been a "fairly" standard chase/action film beneath the style and grit....but hey, form and function, too often such films have too little of either... 

I watched A.I. just a few days ago for the first time, and it was the biggest sack of incongruent shit ever. So D9 rapes it. 

The problem I had with Wikus Van De Merwe was that he basically didn't really give a shit about anyone but himself (until like the veeeeery end as many have said) - for example not really caring about Tommy's lack of body armor in the beginning, really the entire apparent illegality of that whole part about the mass eviction which he seemed to have no problem with, and that one part where knocks out Christopher, essentially forsaking him and his plight at that point, as well as kidnapping his kid, for his own self serving needs. 

excellent Black Comedy of the year, from Peter Jackson. The screenplay and angles reminded me soooooooooo much of Bad Taste, along with the awkwardness of the VERY broad South African Accent, and dress sense.
The special effects were very good, especially the fight scene at the end.
And the part with the fingernails really made me cringe horribly.

Definately held my attention for the duration, with plenty belly laughs and some gripping serious parts.

(District 9 that is) 

Watched D9 last night, brilliant film, need to rewatch when less stoned though.

And yeh the main character is an arsehole. I thought that was the point? 

it was deliberate and it worked but I still dont buy that he wasnt an asshole. Since when is being a 'bigoted white saffa' from whom you shoudlnt expect much not being an asshole :) 

that nice girl married him! And misses him! 

She wasn't nice she was an asshole too.