Abhimanyu

 

Gran Torino, while well made and a proper send-off for the Clint, also felt a bit self-indulgent. B+

 

I failed to see what's so special about Gran Torino. It was terribly acted and a horribly obvious story.

Agreed in full. I was baffled by all the praise for that movie. It was clever how Clint delivered a sort of reflection on his career as a gunslinging type but that cleverness is more than outweighed by the badness of everything else.

No offense, Slink, but that sounds like an agonizing 7 hour (or whatever it is) ordeal! The time would be much better spent rereading the book

As the article mentions, it's just dropping names but the fact that the director thinks that a 20something babyfaced English model is ideal for the role of the Saint of Killers says a lot about his grasp of the material. I'm not a stickler for physical appearances in a movie adaptation having to match up to the original material's approach but in this case, the weatherbeaten weight-of-the-world look is essential for the Saint. And given how many great older actors there are who could nail this, it makes me think that DJ Caruso is doing exactly what the studios hired a hack like him for ie. tailoring the material to the PG-13 demographic. Pretty everyone up for the teenagers! Robert Pattinson as Cassidy!

As they say, what's most disturbing is that Caruso thinks this is a story about clearcut good vs. evil. Not to mention that the villain, ultimately, is God and not these 'demons' he mentions.

Anyhow, I guess there really was no way that a faithful Preacher adaptation could ever get made in a no-risk marketing-based blockbuster industry so none of this comes as any real surprise. No point getting too worked up over it.

I seem to recall quite liking the pilot but then thinking that it'd been cancelled and so didn't bother with any more - was surprised to see a thread about it's third season elsewhere recently!

 

It was cancelled on the original network but TNT picked it up and has been producing new episodes.

Think I watched the first episode of that last year, the guy from the OC plays a rookie cop ?

Yeah, that's the one.

It doesn't hit any particular highs. It's no Wire or The Shield but it's more than good enough for a brain-switched off tele session when you don't want anything too dense but not something as actively crappy as Blue Bloods either. It's full of the usual cliches but it's very well acted and comes up with some interesting cases once in a while. I keep a backlog of it downloaded and watch them bit by bit on slow days.

So the first episode of Blue Bloods...quite probably the most cliche ridden 40 odd minutes of cop show I've ever watched, appalling stuff.

Only gets worse from there on out. I made it to episode three.

Watch Southland instead. Also somewhat cliche-ridden but far superior execution.

Well, that's a total win.

Agreed on all counts.

The Chicago Code has underwhelmed me a little more than it has you but since I am still watching it, I suppose our reactions weren't too divergent. It's just too watered down for the networks, too Wire-lite, too tame/unadventurous so far. But we're not exactly experiencing a surfeit of great dramas right now so I'll stick with it.

Not exactly the best news, given that I only just suffered through what might be the worst film I've seen since Transformers 2 and it happens to have been directed by Caruso. People, do not go to see I Am Number Four!

 

Oh, no. Really? I hadn't heard of him and had planned to look him up but got distracted by the stuff in Wisconsin and the earthquake in New Zealand.

He's done some incredibly shit films. Eagle Eye and Taking Lives are two more that spring to mind.

Not exactly the best news, given that I only just suffered through what might be the worst film I've seen since Transformers 2 and it happens to have been directed by Caruso. People, do not go to see I Am Number Four!

In your countries, would every other table of diners react with instant vocal condemnation?.

Not at all. Might get a few looks if the exclamation was very loud, but that's about it.

In India, they absolutely would.

Seconding dogpoet's post. Thirst was one of my favourite films from last year and is really very good.

On another forum people were espousing the same enthusiasm for Hannah's return as us - one of the better suggestions being that he could play his father - who was mentioned as still being alive during season one!

 

Running an episode behind on Lights Out, third episode was good stuff - finally got a little in-ring action as the ground work for season three/four was laid out in a Rocky 5 stylee!

Wait till you get to episode 4. Brutality, MMA style! Good times.

I still don't know why everyone hated Superman Returns, honestly. It's far from perfect but not the disaster that so many people seem to think it was.

I'm glad they poached Cavill away from the Bond franchise! Daniel Craig's my favourite incarnation of Bond and I hope they keep him around for a long time.

What Mark said. Except the Cavill part since I have no clue who he is and cannot, therefore, be enthused (or discouraged) by his involvement.

As long as they don't do some cartoonish Venom-swilling version of Bane, I'm OK with it. And given that this is the Nolan-verse that does seem very unlikely. Still slightly skeptical but as Mark said, Nolan's earned the benefit of the doubt. I was very put off by Ledger being cast as the Joker and look how that turned out.

Oh for fuck's sake. Not again.

He looks a little scary in that picture.

The Company Men was well acted but best movie of the year? Come on. The whole thing was pretty obvious and the characters were completely 2D stand-ins for the various POVs represented in the screenplay. Pretty mediocre film, I thought. Some very good performances though. Tommy Lee Jones really is the man.

Agreed on The Other Guys though. I heard so many good things about the movie, I went in expecting a lot. Very little return on that particular investment.

Yeah, Lights Out had a very promising pilot. I just hope this one doesn't tank in the ratings the way Terriers did. But they've been marketing it much better so that doesn't seem likely.

The new Showtime/BBC comedy Episodes didn't get off to the best of starts, too many groan worthy efforts at humour and no real standout laugh moments but I'll give them credit for the reading from the in-show show. While said reading wasn't hilarious it was kind of funny and avoided the problem that hindered Studio 60 wherein the show within the show looked fucking awful!

Agreed on all counts. And it doesn't help that the crop of meta showbiz related series in the past few years (Larry Sanders, Curb Your Enthusiasm, Extras and so on) feature some slightly more nuanced portrayals of the industry. As awful as I'm sure many industry execs are, the network heard on Episodes was so cartoonishly awful that it put me right off the whole thing. As you say, the gags were very broad and obvious.

It's too bad since the premise is actually quite a good one. I'd love to see a good show about British transplants in LA - this is happening so much in real life that it's an idea ripe for a good crew to run with.

Well, 127 Hours was quite a great movie. It takes some doing to make a kinetic, exciting movie out of what was essentially 127 hours of a guy stuck in a teeny canyon. Also, a pretty incredible performance from James Franco. Worth a rental, for sure.

Just caught The Town and absolutely loved it.

 

My only gripe would be the showdown scene with Dougie and the Florist. Bulletproof vests just don't work that way.

Heh, yeah, I had the same thought. That exchange left a little to be desired.

Fuck this 'London' for a game of soldiers - I'm becoming deputy editor of Time Out Beijing in March 2011!

Congratulations, man. At this rate, you're going to be running Time Out in a few years.

Not to mention the jawdroppingly incredible performance by Natalie Portman. She is so so good in this.

 

Correct. I was talking to a friend today who complained about the

fact that the movie takes a good hour to get to the psychological break and the horrifying bits

, and my only response was: it's Natalie Portman. As long as they keep showing close-ups of her incredibly expressive face, I will never get bored. Her intense physicality makes this movie, and she's onscreen the whole time.

Agreed. If anything, I preferred the disturbing slow build-up to parts of the third act. It's clear that she really put a lot into the role - she looked like she would drop dead of malnutrition through half the movie. Christian Bale, eat your heart out!