What DVDs/ Video are you watching

[Pariah]

On Batman Begins, the first thing I thought when seeing it was "Yeah!!! No Bat-Nipples!!!"

[Ria Hawk]

Strangely enough, that's exactly what my brother said.

[Ancient Gamer]

Strolen: Not whacked. A connisseur! The movie was a good watch.

Babel: A loooooong movie about people being people no matter where they are. It highlighted intercultural problems and fears and told us that we are all humans and not ravenous Krull or gruesome Borg, as the media in most countries seem to tell us (of course the media has different perspectives as to WHO is the alien monstrosities).
 
Not a movie to be watched by puritans or deeply religious people I guess, as there are some disturbing elements. Sexuality and sexual frustration is a theme that does not sit well with these groups, and the interpretation of this subject it is at times unsettling indeed. The points made are valid however.

All in all it was a looooooong movie, but it sent my mind spinning. It wasn't very exciting though, rather being one of those intellectual movies. I had no qualms with the subject and I thought the content was insightful and well presented.

Conclusion: The movie was way too long and covered many interesting topics, most of which I didn't even get to mention in here. It had its pros and cons and in my opinion it is a: 3.5/5 sword film.

[Strolen]

Aguirre: The Wrath of God Sort of odd, but it had llamas in it so I had to give it a chance. It is a bit dragging in areas and it is dubbed from German, I think. Story about a small group of conquistadors searching for gold. Physical struggles combined with power struggles that end up with one group declaring their own emperor and pushing a path of death down an amazonian river. Somewhat entrancing in the singlemindedness and brutal self delusion of the leader but overall and underimpressive movie.

Drunken Master Jackie Chan... 'nuff said.

[Ria Hawk]

Indiana Jones - The whole trilogy.  I loves these movies, not much else to say about it.  Except, of course, that Sean Connery as Indy's dad was the best part of an already awesome series.

Shrek 2 - The neat thing about the Shrek movies is that the sequal was better than the first one, which means if the pattern holds, there will be some serious squee-ing when Shrek 3 hits theatres.  I hope Puss in Boots makes it into the next one...

The Prestige - Ohmygodohmygodohmygodohmygodohmygod- *slaps self*  Lessee, the director who made Batman Begins, Michael Caine, Christian Bale, Hugh Jackman, and *just* to top it off, David Bowie.  Yep.  A plot centering on stage magic, obsessive madness, rapid and multiple plot twists, and assorted other things I adore.  Oh, and they brought in Nikola Tesla, who does not get nearly enough love, considering what he accomplished.  Yep, kickass all around.  *resumes fangirling*  Eeehehehehe...

[Strolen]

Been on a foreign kick lately.

Z I am unable to describe it myself so "...chronicles the overthrow of the democratic government in Greece. The edge-of-your-seat action closely parallels the real-life assassination of Gregorios Lambrakis, a Greek doctor and humanist whose murder in 1963 led to an abortive public scandal." I will just go with "I didn't like it." Not much of a mystery as you knew what happened. It was interesting to see how the corrupted powers tried to manipulate things, but I just couldn't get into it. (French, I think)

The Seventh Seal A knight coming back from the crusades has stalled the manifestation of death with a chess game and then goes on to do...well...not much. Meets some actors, has some berries and dies. Not really, but there was a lot of dead space to me. Might have been to artsy for me or just too old (1957 Swedish).

Oldboy Now here is a twisted movie. It is the type my wife hates, they only give you a little bit to work on so you have to go on faith through most of the movie. A man is imprisoned in a hotel type room for 15 years for an unknown reason. He is released and he follows clues as to why. Not so much Monte Cristo because it quickly gets warped and the ending is just crazy! Liked it A LOT! (Korean)

[Ancient Gamer]

Pan's Labyrinth
A fairy tale for grown ups. During the spanish civil war a young girl and her mother leaves the city to live with the mother's new husband, a spanish captain in Franco's army. But not everything is as it seems and soon the young girl encounters the denizens of the underworld. The question remains: Are these creatures real, or does the little girl just conjure them up to escape a cold and hostile reality?

It is a film built with great skill and imagination. A magnus opus, a labour of love. I sat mesmerized for the duration of it, savouring every moment. Where M. Night Shamalyan (or whatever) failed with his "lady in the water", Guillermo Del Toro really, really succeeded.

5/5 swords
3 x Hall of Honour
Golden nomination

[MoonHunter]

Sin City

It was an excellent anthology of three noir stories set in Basin City. It is black and white, with touches of other colors for punctuation. Artifully done, adapting Miller's original graphics. It is perfectly adapted to screen, well like Chandler, Miller writes in a clipped style that translates well to the screen. It is the only comic adaption that actuall does proper justice to the source material.

[Ancient Gamer]

Deja Vu
Yet another terrorist movie. Evil terrorists (tm) threaten and Denzel Washington must set matters right using ultra-advanced US government tech equipment. Einstein-Rosen bridges and purty girls galore. Well executed but I've seen stuff like this a kazillion times before.
3/5 swords

The Departed
Decent mobster movie focusing on rats inside both the mob and the police. Fun to watch.
4/5 swords

[Ancient Gamer]

Finally got around to watching

300
Loved it!

[Ria Hawk]

Pan's Labyrinth - People have talked about this, so I will restrict my comments to the fact that this movie proves that Guillarmo del Toro cannot help but make an awesome movie.

Hellboy - Watching the above got me on a del Toro kick, and that's the only other one I have.  Of course, it's an awesome movie in it's own right, and I like how deadpan Hellboy can be.

CSI Miami (Season 2) - I like the show (moreso than the other CSIs), and it makes for good background noise. 

NUMB3RS (Season 1) - Neat idea, also good background noise.  I like the concept of the show, and I think David Krumholtz is cute, so it's all good.

Doc Savage - This is such an old movie (recorded off cable sometime back in the eighties), and really it's pretty goofy in concept.  Sort of comic book-pulp feel, based on a series of books.  It kind of strikes me as "Captain America" meets "James Bond", which is a pretty odd combination.  Popcorn flick, nothing really deep about it.

Hopscotch - Also a very old movie (on the same tape as Doc Savage, actually; my tape is dying, which is sad).  Walter Matthau, among other people.  Funny Cold War pseudo-spy flick; the spy is making various spy organizations look like idiots.  Also a pretty decent popcorn flick.

The Goonies - There's not much to say about this, really.  If you haven't seen it (although I'm sure everyone has), imagine a very dorky Indiana Jones in grade school.  That would be pretty close.

The Hunt for Red October - THE Cold War/sub movie (K19: Widomaker was okay, but this was better).  Sean Connery, nuff said.  Although I will say that hearing a *very* Scottish actor speaking Russian is... odd.

Hudson Hawk - Do I really have to say anything about this?

Batman Returns - I watch it because I go all fangirl over Batman, but also because I like that version of Catwoman.  Michelle Pfeiffer hit the perfect line between righteous fury and complete and utter psychosis.  Oh, and watching her stalking Christopher Walken is fun too.  The Penguin was just sort of disturbing, but that's okay.

[MoonHunter]

Power Rangers SPD, volume 1, 2, 3, 4, 5

Okay, it is a kids show. Okay it is the Power Rangers. Put that aside for a moment and put your brain into neutral. (Also remember this is not every episode, just five from each segment of the season).

It is science fiction goodness, police men with super powers (which supers should be inducted into police academies), John Woo inspired action (REd Ranger rocks with double pistols leaping and doing Woo inspired shooting), a heaping helping of Bushido, and giant robots and monsters. WOOT!

For a 30 min action show (remember that most action shows are 1 hour), it has plot, contained story arcs, and character development. It does have anime influences (heroes which start off goofy and get better over time, people who have no business being what they are, a few continuity bleeps that just look good)., but you just go with the flow.

It inspires campaigns... it does. 

[Ria Hawk]

Star Wars: A New Hope and Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back.  Old skool versions, before George Lucas went and messed them up.  The limited edition release has both the Digitally Remastered (bleck) and Original Theatrical Release versions.  The only reason I didn't get Return of the Jedi is they were sold out.

I have nothing else to say about this except

[Ancient Gamer]

The Children of Men - Bleh. What a poor excuse for a dystopian movie! Actually I loved the camera work, especially in the street to street battle, but the plot itself was rather unexiting and bland. I felt strangely unmoved by it all.

The Last King of Scotland - WOW! A must see!

[Ria Hawk]

Die Hard - I got the trilogy on DVD, I like these movies very much.  It's just fun to watch Bruce Willis blow stuff up.  Not much to say other wise.

Various MST3K episodes that Muro gave me.  MST3K is always good.

Some assorted anime-
King of Bandits Jing, which is highly amusing, sort of a steampunk fantasy setting involving the greatest bandit in the world, a kid named Jing.

D.Gray-Man- Victorian gothic horror, pseudo-religious themes.  Excorcists are trying to keep a madman from bringing about the end of the world with akuma, the unholy mating of demons and technology (actually, that's pretty accurate, now that I think about it...)  Seems to hit somewhere between steampunk and high fantasy (in any other setting, all of the excorcists and the characterized villians would be seen as either mages or supernatural species.)  It's very pretty, very creepy.

Princess Tutu- I swear to you, when I first heard of this, I thought it would be wretched.  It's a magical girl show, which I loathe on principle.  It's a fairy-tale type story which is rarely done well in anime.  A major theme is *ballet* of all things, to the extent that even fighting is done as ballet.  It really shouldn't work.  It does, tho, and is awesome.  It's told in the manner of the original classical ballets, and uses a lot of authentic music.  I didn't see anything that would be inappropriate for children so this could be watched as a family.  So I'm spreading the word.

[MoonHunter]

Note about: Doc Savage -

If you haven't read the books, you need to do it. They did an awful job in the movie. Sure they hit all the basic points of the stories in the movie, but it is fairly weak all around. Now once you read a book or four, you will see why someone would want to make a movie of this guy. Just not this movie. Still popcorn for the mind.

In the same vein, I have recently watched...

The Shadow: Truly one I recomend. You can watch it and enjoy it not knowing anything about The Shadow. If you know the series, the movie is a campy blast to watch. It updates the characters some and makes it fairly interesting. It is self contained, so you don't have to know anything about the character to enjoy it. But after you have read a book or seven, you will truly adore the movie.

The Rocketeer: A rolicking goodtime thrill ride. It has good looking characters, lots of actions, some good dialog, and an actual to God PLOT!  The dialog is the fun part.  The comic book run, which you can get as
graphic novel, is EXACTLY THE SAME as the movie in tone and action, so you will enjoy that as well.

[Scrasamax]

No movie is complete without a gunfight on the top of a Nazi zeppelin. ~ the Rocketeer

Blastingly good, and without CGI

[Chaosmark]

Wait wait wait! The Shadow had a series?! Now my life feels incomplete again...

Clearvision Drama Co. (3 dvds with their skits on them)
~Clearvision: Live and Kickin'
~Chronicles of an Angry World
~Humor Me

Clearvision is a Christian drama group, so all of the skits have a spiritual message to them, but they're all amazingly halarious. Well, except for Chronicles. That one has a very serious outlook. Hence the name. If you don't like the sound of screaming, avoid that one. The others have some great skits though.

Oscar
Holy crap. This is one of the original Silvester Stallone movies, where he plays a gangster who is trying to go straight after making a promise to his dying father. Problem is, nobody believes that 'Snaps' Provolone would ever go straight, and it seems like everything goes wrong all at once. The entire movie takes place within the space of the morning hours, save for the very last scene, which is a little while later. Amazing movie. Watch it. Now.

[MoonHunter]

The Shadow has a series of Books. And some radio dramas that you can get on DVD. Not a series of movies.

[manfred]

Wolfhound / Volkodav

Another Russian fantasy movie, this time an epic piece, with a mighty hero out to avenge his family, commit heroic deeds uncounted, and cut his way through even more flunkies of the big bads. It is quite Conan-like, with a pleasant slavic feeling. There's some cool special effects, a neat pet animal, and of course a princess. What else could you want?

(Recommended, but unknown if an English version exists already.)

---

Terry Pratchett's Hogfather

If you haven't read some of the Discworld's books, well, too bad for you.

Of course, any movie based on one is going to be just an imperfect copy, but I suffered this and was well entertained. There is the trademark silliness, the small jokes, and a little philosophy to boot. If you liked the books, go see it.

(English two-part movie.)

[Ria Hawk]

The Ninth Gate - fairly strange movie involving Johnny Depp and a book that apparently summons the devil.  Has a nice theme of increasing paranoia (of course, they really are out to get him...).  Draws heavily from Christian mythology, only in the sense that the evil force is the devil.  The ending didn't make a lot of sense to me, but I liked some of the symbology and the general "wtf?"-ness of the movie.  I'm sure someone could get really philosophical about it, but it's also a pretty good movie to watch just for the entertainment value.

Stargate - Woo hoo, the bargain bin rocks my world.  The movie that started the whole Stargate franchise.  Not much to say about it 'cept it's cool.

Atlantis - Thus proving that Disney really can make cool movies when they want to.  Neat mix of traditional 2-D animation and 3-D computer generated animation.  Continues the trend of Disney movies (well, the good ones anyway) being good for kids to watch, but also with more mature themes you catch later.

Bedknobs and Broomsticks - Thoroughly silly little psuedo-musical, concerning a not-very-capable British witch taking a correspondence course in magic to do her part for the war effort; set during WWII.  Angela Lansbury, cute movie but not really deep.  Good popcorn flick if you're in a sappy mood.

Se7en - Oh.  My.  God.  Really, really disturbing thriller, with one of the most imaginative serial killers in film history.  If you've seen it, you know what I mean, if you haven't, you wouldn't get it anyway.  I will say nothing more about it.

Muppet Babies - Found a couple of old tapes at McKay's.  I miss my childhood...

(Wow, looking back at that list, I've just realized that my viewing habits would probably scare people.)

[MoonHunter]

Se7en, the only movie that left me stunned at the end of it. It wasn't just me.  A lot of people were just staring at the screen in disbelief.  There were people actually shrieking and sobbing at the end.

The movie scared me to the bone. it is not a kinetic "boo" kind of scare. It is a, "Oh my god! I am going back to church" kind of scare. And I don't scare easily.

Nineth Gate was interesting. Worth watching.

Stargate and Atlantis, both good films.

Atlantis has a cartoon OVA (looks like the first 4 episodes of the cartoon they aired. Still it was a great disc).

Do not get the Star Gate Unlimited Disks, nor watch them. And I like cartoons and I am telling you this.

If you like SuperHeroes:  Justice League Unlimited Disc I and II are out, III will be out this year.  There are five straight Justice Leage discs including the original episodes and their movies.

Batman Beyond. Almost nobody remembers this series. There are times I think I lived in an alternate timeline and was shifted into yours. But there it is, on my shelf  Season 1 and 2.  They totally rock combining elements of Superheroes, Cyberpunk, and good Sci-Fi, plus some of the best characterization of the Warner Hero Supers.

[manfred]

I've just happened across the last Babylon 5 movie (okay, two stories in one, sort of two episodes). I like the Babylon 5 universe.



...




Well.




It had good special effects.

[MoonHunter]

B5 is great. You need not appologize

[manfred]

I actually meant that it sucked pretty hard. It is amazing, but the old progression still seems to be in effect... every following B5 movie is worse than the one before it (and the first wasn't good to begin with).

Then again, it might be just my idealized memories. Oh, sweet Babylon 5.