one of the goodies, although I still prefer Stagecoach out of all the john wayne westerns. You might enjoy it too spirit. 

I definitely need to watch some more John Wayne. Somehow I never really knew about him, sure the name and all, but I watched Rio Bravo without knowing any of the actors. Weird how one can block out things. 

Apocalypse Now last night.

OMG soo much better than I remember it! :))) 

also check out some of director Howard Hawks' other stuff like The Big Sleep and Only Angels Have Wings. Not westerns but have all of the qualities you listed above.

ricky, are you one of *those* people that prefer the redux version :) 

Oh I did watch The Big Sleep and loved it. Gonna get the Angels film too then. Bogart is great (and apparently Howard Hawks too). 

some more Hawks recommendations (in roughly order of quality IMHO) :

To Have and Have Not (also with Bogart)
Red River (also with john wayne)
Bringing Up Baby
His Girl Friday
Twentieth Century

The last 3 are screwball comedies so that may or may not be your thing. But definitely try Angels and the first two above. 

*those* people aye? ;p

...

redux is better tho... 

but I know the one I watched was about 3 hours 13 minutes long. Didnt get bored though. Except for maybe the bit in Cambodia with the French folk. Interesting though...... That chick was hot - I wonder what they were somking in that pipe..... ? 

the french plantation scene is the biggest difference, plus some other new scenes and rearrangement of old scenes. But that plantation scene is the big difference. 

Elegy (2008) - quite a good little drama with strong performances and a script that starts off fairly predictable but then goes into some unexpected directions. But its really Kinglsey and Cruz that make this with good supporting turns from Patricia Clarkson and Dennis Hopper as well.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0974554/

7/10


Serenity (2005) - havent seen Firefly, the tv show of which this is a spin off, but I thought this was an above average sci fi epic. It seemed a bit rushed in its plotting and characterisation was a bit weak (although I'm assuming the characters are fleshed out in the tv show so they don�t bother building them again for the movie) but it has a memorable villain, a very important component movies like this, and some nifty sequences.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0379786/

5.5/10


Fighting Elegy (1966) - Seijun Suzuki's bizarre, farcical satire of repressed facsist youth in 1930's japan is definitely an entertaining film, if not a cohesive one. Anything that can juggle cartoonish sound effects, brutal action, stoned continuity, split screens, sudden fits of slapstick and still has something to say about conformity and militarism is worth a watch.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0060586/

6.5/10


Deception (1946) - decent 40's melodrama with Claude Rains and Bette Davis carrying the show. Rains is deleciously over the top as a grand, tyrannical, jealous composer who hates giving Davis' character up to her former lover who has just returned from Europe at the end of the war. Mind games ensue and while the result is less than convincing, its definitely a very watchable and reasonably entertaining ride.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0038461/

6.5/10


Delhi 6 (2009) - good bollywood film with a rubbish ending that undoes a lot of good work but until then it�s a loosely plotted but pleasantly made look at life in one of Delhi's corners with one particularly interesting theme. On top of that, some of the musical numbers are fantastic and extremely well integrated into the narrative.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1043451/

6/10


In Treatment Season 1 - excellent new show which is effectively 43 episodes of watching therapy sessions. Although that means 43 episodes set inside a therapist's office with a maximum of three people simply talking throughout each episode, the writing and acting for the majority of the season is of a very high standard. Gabriel Byrne is phenomenal in the main role of Paul, a therapist with a variety of patients but also many troubles of his own. The regular guest stars making up Paul's patients, especially Melissa George and Mia Wasikowska, as well as Dianne Wiest as Paul's own therapist and mentor manage to manage Byrne quite well. It lags a bit in the middle stretch but the start and end more than make up for that.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0835434/

7.5-8/10


True Blood Season 1 - has some very unique and clever ideas and builds on them beautifully for its first 4-5 episodes. Twin Peaks was obviously the reference point as the show abounds in various quirky characters but the show unwisely seems to shift focus onto the characters' lives from episode 6 onwards, leaving behind all the ideas and themes that it successfully built on in the background. I honestly found it quite tedious in the second half, with most the characters serving a plotline rather than the other way around. Overall thoughm its worth a watch, if only for the style along and the first half of the season.

6.5/10


Dollhouse Season 1 - on the other hand, Joss Whedon's new sci fi themed show starts off terribly for the first 4-5 episodes which are self contained. Then it goes into overdirve until the final episode, concentrating more on the major story arc than the week to week stories that dominated the first 4-5 episodes. Its quite strong during this patch, mixing interesting and unique ideas with suspenseful plotting and action. It all leads to final episode which is a bit limp but that is more than made up for with the unaired episode Epitaph One which is set a few years after the current timeline of the regular show. Epitaph One is the best episode of the season and sets up Season 2 very nicely.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1135300/

6.5/10


Weeds Season 4 - Season 3 was a big disappointment and while the first 3-4 episodes of this season promise a return to form, it falls apart totally after that, returning to the same level of silliness that most of season 3 operated on.

6/10 (just)


The Wire Season 4 - best season of drama tv. ever.

10/10 

The TV show is much better than the movie, although the movie in and of itself is good, esp. considering that its based on a TV show. Most movies that are spun off TV shows suck.

The problems with Serenity are a) that while it does a good job of introducing the characters and premise, its just not as much fun if you don't know the back story and b), the actors are TV actors. They are great TV actors and it's a fantastic ensemble, but they don't all make the transition to the big screen equally well.

I'm a big fan of Firefly and Serenity and I wish there would be a continuation, but if you liked the movie and are interested, go ahead and watch the show, too. It's also better than Dollhouse in my opinion, which I find interesting but not moving at all. Watching an episode of Dollhouse is fun, but I don't care about any of the characters at all. Not so with Firefly, which after just 14 episodes left a big whole cause I wanted to see more of these characters and their stories. 

go watch BSG. It was the best show on TV. Personally, I found it even better than The Wire. 

yeah been meaning to watch BSG but I was just waiting till my unwatched pile goes down a bit. Which wont happen anytime soon :)

Firefly I can sneak in since its only 14 eps.

As for Dollhouse, I seriously think it would be a much better show if the focus was not on Echo (Dushku) but on Sierra (Lachman). Better actress, more interesting character. 

noooooooo, never watch a movie based on a tv show before the tv show. Firefly is nice. 

Didn't find her to be particularly interesting either. But knowing Joss Whedon, the whole thing might take off in the second season. He's an amazing writer and I'm willing to stick with the show for a while longer.

BSG: Space battles alone are worth it:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4oFBydWOO7E 

the difference between cinema and tv for actors? 

I can just say that in my opinion, it's different and that some actors simply don't work quite as well on the big screen for me. Maybe it's got less to do with screen size than with differences in cinematography - scenes, cuts, lighting and such. The scripts are different, there is less time to establish a character in a movie than there is in a TV show.

Take Nathan Fillion, the Firefly lead, for example. I liked him very much in the TV show, but he didn't do as well in his movies in my opinion. That may have to do with the scripts and other factors, but even in Serenity, I found him to fall a little flat when compared to other actors, esp. Summer Glau and Chiwetel Ejiofor, who stole the show. He was good, just not as good as in the TV show. 

Best actor in firefly was Richard Brooks, who played Jubal Early the bounty hunter in the final episode "Objects in Space". What a great performance (fantastic script also). It remains my favorite episode. 

jubal early was a strange character. that scene where there are short cuts to him making faces is creepy.
firefly was awesome for blowing away typical sci-fi and action tropes. i remember laughing out loud watching episode 13, where they're being chased on a planet and wash takes the ship into a canyon independance day style to try to loose them. they're crowing on the bridge 'they're not behind us anymore' and then wash looks up and the bad guy is just flying above them, outside of the canyon where they would be easily seen.

re 3028: i think that battle scene is what sold me on the rest of the series. it was well put together with a realistic look to it. not to mention the 'documentary style' camera movement is something i like a lot. 

Rawr!

I love the episode too. 

yeah, that line too. it really moved early away from the typical villain. the way he interpreted that question was just strange. i mean honestly, who would think someone is asking if they are a lion. o.o; 

Uh. What the hell?! It's like they took a good story idea/execution/direction and then let Peter Jackson fart all over it. It has soldiers with no hair but red mustaches and ak47s shooting aliens in sets lit in green and blue! (yes, inside the crashed shuttle)

Can he please stop making movies, or go back to c-movie-splatter-fun?

Well, it's not that bad, but without the jacksoness it could've been a good movie.

Oh, to the writer: it's perfectly possible to locate cellphones even when you are not currently on the phone/speaking 

After watching it, I'm in fear that my lady-friends extremities start to explode when I touch them. 

for me, the main difference in acting style is that generally tv has a lot of closeups and most tv actors tend to do everything with their face (and sometimes overact as a consequence too). So when they get to a movie, they still try to just use their face even when the shots are longer which does not always work.

Take Chiwetel Ejiofor in Serenity, half of why why he is so good in that film is because of his body language and the way he moves. 

Awesome.