is good fun, as is Staarship Troopers.

Right, car chases. Only going to go back 15 yrs or so, theres a number of good ones before that but I dont think there'd be too much interest in those.

So from that period to now, Ronin set the standard IMHO with its 2 brilliantly shot car chases through narrow european streets. No reliance on fast editing to generate excitement, just a couple of killer car chases.

Since then, Matrix Reloaded definitely had a ripper, the only good scene in the movie too.

I'm also a big fan of the rainstorm car chase shot from the inside of the car in the otherwise only above average We Own the Night.

The TDK and BB car chases were ok but no shot that well. One thing Nolan hasnt quite mastered yet is action scenes, shot too clost to the action and generally chaotically.

The Bourne Supremacy had a decent chase at at the end, even though I'm not a huge fan of the choppy editing style used. But it was definitely exciting.

The best car chase since Ronin though has to be the one in the middle of The Town. Its absolutely spectacularly shot and great to watch on a big screen. The movie also ha the best shootouts since Heat. 

good picks for car chases, I need to add PATHFINDER (lol yes not so great a movie - but it features the only MEDIEVAL CAR CHASE I can think of). 

Re my disappointment in batman's character. It wasn't so much his action sequences and toughness, but more that he was just a really dull character. He had no life to him. I found him to be an unlikable ass, at least in TDK. Bruce Wayne should be charismatic and debonair. Hell, a bit more like James Bond (pre Daniel Craig) would have been fine!

I did still love TDK and BB, BB more so because it showed the beginnings of Batman.

One thing that annoyed me in TDK was, considering this reboot features normal villains, rather than super-villains, Two Face running around with half his face missing was a bit unrealistic for me.

Watchmen was I loved, but way too long and slow paced to watch again. An extended directors cut would be a nightmare.

While Batman has a bigger universe built around him, I think Wolverine is a more likable superhero than Batman. So if Aronosky can create a darker, much more realistic movie with The Wolverine, it'll be a winner. Obviously it's not as bigger movie franchise as Batman, but Nolan had to follow the abysmal Batman & Robin. At least Wolverine Origins was better than that. 

Oh and by the way, watched Martyrs last night, a french horror. Best horror i've seen in years, since probably The Ring and A Tale Of Two Sisters
(j-versions not the US jokes). 

was hilarious. Had pretty good laughs most of the way through, and defo less scary than the US's "The Ring." 

TDK bruce was definitely less interesting than BB bruce, but TDK had to be an ensemble piece. nolan's movies are getting too big to be personal (ie inception) that may be a flaw... LOTR avoided this by making THE atmosphere /environment/meaning the major character. I don't think Bale was the problem though, at least not since he did what he could with his screentime, especially in seeming way less confident personally, while way more physically powerful as Batman, as if he were compensating for his own lack of faith with increasing violence. God would I love it if they ever took Batman into truly adult territory, and portrayed him as the tormented, delusional, vengeful violent obsessive that in my view he is. Anyway back to Bale: He just needed a better love interest, gyllenhal was the movie's weakness, as bad an actress as katie holmes is there was more chemistry in BB. As for Two-Face, I think they made him as realistic as possible: a crazed guy running out of the hospital with a gun under a lot of mental and physical pain for a killing spree, is an understandable "origin" for the two face legend... having him as a recurring villain (or having the joker as a recurring villain) is too unrealistic, so I think TDK handled that well.

Wolverine's more blue-collar and more likeable that way. You could have a beer with him. Batman is a rich psycho aristocrat, you could not have a beer with him. Anyway, Aronofsky rocks. 

i kind of assumed harvey dent would have died from infection anyway... running around with his face burnt off like that. 

this kind of property damage level seems to always occur in superhero films and no one seems to even notice

Warren Ellis' Authority handles this very well. Good parody of the entire superhero genre (at least in volume 1, the later volumes are pretty weak).

Not as good as Transmetropolitan tho (little is). 

Yep Batman in adult/horror territory would be awesome. Batman should be a dark, tormented character.

Yeah I totally forgot about Gyllenhal, she was awful as a love interest. WAAAAAAAY too average looking for a badass millionaire like Bruce Wayne. Katie Holmes wasn't right either. Scarlett Johansson would have been good, ala Prestige.

RE Bale, as much as I like his acting and many of the movies he's been in (Machinist, Prestige, Equillibrium, American Psycho are all brilliant), he has always been in more serious roles. I think this reflects his true personality, as he seems to be an arrogant cock in real life. 

Harsh Times? He plays an ex-army wigger type guy in that, and it's kind of awesome. He makes the movie really. Whether he's playing high class or low class, he is typecast in his most effective role: arrogant unreasonable asshole with rage issues. This is why he is suited for Batman, I just wish they portrayed him as even less reasonable in BB. He's lame in other roles, a one-trick-pony to use a gay cliche. 

Harsh Times is pretty cool, and Bale is very good in that. 

It's almost 8am and I'm not exactly sober but just to imagine an alternate-reality project:
Batman: R

They either hire Bale to play a totally different and even darker version of Wayne/Batman or hire someone else (and yeah imo Bale was the best batman so far). Aronofsky directs. Rating is R, at least. Wayne has a harem as anyone in his status would. Yet he's alone. He has this weird compulsion to hurt people at night. Beating those outside the law, is the best way to satisfy this compulsion, since they won't go to the cops. There's a lot of blood. He abuses criminals the way pimps abuse prostitutes - to get his own desires fixed for a short time, without giving a shit. Maybe he even pays money to advocates against the legalization of drugs or prostitution - since the "scum" who peddle those goods and services are mostly minorities and it's easy for a rich guy like him to demonize them. He needs enemies, because in a perfect world he would still have mortal enemies in his head. And his parents' murder does not excuse that, explain that, or make any sense of that. He was born violent, angry, fucked up, the sum of unacceptable maleness, and being a character in a story he can't understand why and that just pisses him off more. Lol k that's my take on Batman. 

but with better writing :) 

Wasn't the Blue's Brothers one awesome? Or did I mis-remember that??

Anyway, films:

Mulholand Drive - stylish, hot chicks, kinda intriguing in places but mostly boring. I couldn't really care what David Lynch was trying to say when he makes it this obtuse and full of irrelevant and confusing filler. 

I think lynch is beyond "trying to say something" and wants to inspire you with as much random shit as possible. Kinda like experimental art. I love it. 

Mulholland drive was ok and interesting, not just due to the lesbian love scenes... Inland Empire was plain unwatchable IMO. 

The lesbian love scene was pretty nice. 

i've never actually seen a david lynch film.

i have a few queued up though, including mulholland drive, eraserhead and blue velvet. felt it was about time i got involved.

last night i saw equilibrium. i was a little bit disappointed as from the premise i thought it was going to be more clever than it actually was, when really the story just seemed like an excuse to show lots of matrixy action scenes. it was ok i guess. the scene where he looks behind the mirror to find his dosage is gone.. i actively said out loud 'the kid will show up behind him and say "looking for something?"'.. so yeah bit predictable in places 

and it made reaosnable sense to me, I mean its essentialy the same story as Lost Highway.

rj, start with Blue Velvet, Mulholland Drive and finish with The Elephant Man.

Equilbrium is ridiculous fun but dumb. 

lost highway is another one in the queue, didn't know it was by him.

just also finished terry gilliam's twelve monkeys. second time viewing after the first went completely over my head a few years ago. even now i've just spent the last half an hour reading up on explanation/FAQ sites to fill in the gaps but it all makes sense now. pretty fascinating film with great performances from the lead actors and loads of clever touches.. very rewarding 

Mulholland Drive is, imo, one of the greatest movies of all time. Movies like Star Wars and Indiana Jones are just popcorn entertainment, compared to the artistic depth of MD.

I know it feels like theres lots of filler crap, but I think ALL of it meant something. Its just that it hasn't all been figured out, or isn't obvious. Lynch isn't the kind of person to put pointless shit in. Persona, on the other hand, which Mulholland Drv drew inspiration from, i'm more skeptical of. I wouldn't be surprised if there was no deeper meaning in that film at all, and Bergman just wrote a boring movie about nothing.

Eraserhead is pretty cool if you can hunt down the correct (supposedly) theory behind it.

Saw Jennifer Lynch's (his daughter) Boxing Helena a month ago. Supposed to be kind of lynchian. Fuck, that was a predictable borefest not worth bothering with. 

terry gilliam is a really underated writer and director. 12 monkeys and tideland are my favourites of his, but all his movies are decent. 

agree about Gilliam he is awesome. Lynch, not so much. It's good if you're looking for atmosphere, he can do some weird-ass shit really effectively, but his movies effectively have no plot (well his later stuff anyway, Blue Velvet had a plot but I never saw why it was so great). In Twin Peaks given the serialized format he kind of had to have a plot, and that I was his best work I think - his obsessions with beautiful women, bizarre scenarios, and the uncertainties of reality came across really well there - but it was still too plotless to not frustrate me, and it fell apart in the second season. I think I speak for many people when I say what's frustrating about Lynch is that he clearly has talent yet he chooses to be an ass. Ambiguous doesn't have to mean semi-incoherent. 

whilst I agree on Mulholland Drive being a great film, I disagree on Lynch not putting stuff in that has no meaning. I think he puts in a lot of distracting stuff to create a mood (so in that sense it may not be filler), but not all of it means something.

Persona on the other hand does feel like a movie that is made by someone that intended to make a movie where everything meant something. Whether or not it actually does is another topic :) Also, I quite like Persona. but despite being a big Bergamn fan, Mulholland Drive is also more interesting to me. 

have people seen The Elephant Man and The Straight Story? Probably his two greatest films, and they are very un-Lynchian, at least on the surface.

Gilliam - I really like Brzil and Twelve Monkeys, hate everything else he's done. Fear and Loathing being a prime example.