The London Film Club - A Chat about Films

i'm in agreement with you,major...
the wicker man is a very highly regarded piece of british cinema.
not only very well made but also hugely influential...
i don't see any comparism at all with a film like plan nine from outer space.
i think you'd better explain yourself.young man.

and the remake looks to be the biggest pile of wood ever.
from the couple of trailers i've seen.

 

Simple, it's a dull load of toss about people singing bad folk songs and wearing stupid masks, that has a far better reputation than it should. And how is it influential? What's it influenced?

 

i'm shocked.
well,the league of gentlemen...
both edgar wright and simon pegg have remarked that the wicker man drove them to make good british movies...
tim burton has commented in interviews how much the wicker man and other films of that era have inspired his films...
novelist mike carey,former author of the comic book hellblazer cites the wicker man as one of his favourite screenplays...
the same for horror icon clive barker.
and on and on...

 

lady in the water,a bedtime story.
...but for grown-ups,or so the thing goes.
went to see it earlier...if you are a fan of m.nights previous films you will love this one...
but,if you're a casual movie-goer,it might not have the same impact.
it all boils down to how open-minded you are as a cinema-goer...
unbreakable remains my favourite of his films,based purely on the subject matter,although i regards all of his films very highly.
much has been written of the genesis of this films production,and the critics have swarmed around it,picking at it's bones.
much,if not most,of the critism levelled at the film and its creator is wholly unjustified... they seem to have focused too much on some areas and completely disregarded others...
this film stands head and shoulders above the current spate of hollywood fare and minor quibbles aside,it is a worthy addition to m.nights creative catalogue.
if only his next film was about the action film genre!

 

I'll have to go see it this week then, been eagerly awaiting it, just never got round to going out this weekend.

 

personally im waiting for the new DOA movie and just for those wondering "what is DOA" DOA is Dead Or Alive, its a film based on a massivly succesfull beat em up game. See this link for the film http://movies.go.com/movies/movie?name=DOA:-Dead-or-Alive_2006

and this one if you want to know about the game

http://www.microsoft.com/games/doau/stopGate.asp?r=M&t=http%3A//www.microsoft.com/games/doau/default.asp

 

I'm interested by this new Wicker Man remake, but I think I'm just curious to see how bad it'll be, especially with Nicolas Cage init.

I'm getting more and more tempted to see A Scanner Darkly, anyone else up for that in London??

I also read the other day that Christopher "Batman Begins" Nolan is set to make a film version of The Prisoner. I've heard of film versions for many years now, but I'm not sure if this is just a rumour. It doesn't seem quite right considering Sky are about to re-make the TV series and Nolan is going to start Batman: The Dark Knight very soon.

Never been a fan of the DOA games I'm afarid, I'm old skool Street Fighter II

 

I only found out about the Wickerman remake today when I saw a bus stop poster. I just sighed to myself quietly knowing that it will be a flop. You can't seriously take on a project like that and hope to get anywhere can you? It's like remaking the Italian Job... just, don't!!

 

or superman.

 

A bit of Batman:The Dark Knight news has been leaking through.
Firstly, the film deals with the 'things have to get worse before they get better' notion; secondly the title has been very carefully chosen and will be quite important to the film. Here's the full news from the horses mouth, and they seem to agree with my more subtle Joker feel (perhaps)

Regarding the theme of the film: ?I suppose in loose terms I can say it?s about things having to get worse before they get better.?

Can anything be inferred from the title of the film? ?Ultimately yes. But I?ll leave that for people to infer. The title has been chose very specifically. It?s quite important to the film.?

Will The Joker be different that past live-action interpretations? ?Yes. I would certainly point to The Killing Joke but I also would point very much to the first two appearances of The Joker in the comic. If you look at where The Joker comes from there?s a very clear direction that fits what we?re doing very well.?

A website also stated that Sean Penn was first choice for the Joker, but turned it down. They are also being heavily influence by the Jokers first appearance in Batman #1 1940 and from the 70's comic 'The Joker's Five-Way Revenge'.

All sounding very interesting and rather good

EDIT: Upon further reading, the film will (at the moment) only be known as The Dark Knight. 'Batman' wont appear at all. Can't remember if that point had been established elsewhere but I assumed TDK was a sub-title, but obviously not. I can see WB changing that though

 

Ooooohh... Interesting.


I wonder if somehow all of Gotham's electricity gets shut down

 

funnily enough,i heard that they might have the film take place over the course of one night.
like micheal manns collateral...(sp?)

 

Very interesting
That would make a lot of sense given the title and could be on the mark you know. Sounds very ambitious for this kind of film, but if they pull it off (and I think they can) then it could work really well. In some ways Memento is the same sort of thing as that takes place over a small period of time (except for the flashbacks) and is it coincidence then that Chris has got his brother to work on this, as Memento was his story too??

I was also thinking....Sean Penn seems a good choice for the Joker but when you think about it, the prospect of Heath Ledger playing it is far more exciting because you have no idea what to expect, while someone like Penn doing it would be quite predictable (and dare I say boring) I feel. So am I warming to the idea of Ledger being the Joker?!?!?!?! I think so

 

Me and Ant saw A Scanner Darkly last night, and very good it was too.
The rotascope animation looks fantastic and kept it quite fresh through-out, and for an adaptation it kept very close to the original novel (which is a very good thing). The animators even made Keanu Reeves act like a proper actor, it was quite something
Maybe for the more high brow audience, it has some great moments, super performances and quite unlike anything else out there right now. Gets the thumbs up from me and I thought I'd hate it after being quite close to the source material

 

from our resident dick expert,that's high praise indeed.

 

I read yesterday that Peter Jackson's next film project will be a remake of The Dambusters. Why? The original is one of the classics of British cinema, any new version will just impair the reputation of the original. I really do wish that filmmakers would invest their money and energies into making new films with something relevant to say rather than rehashing past glories, badly.

 

having made a hash of king kong?
simply shocking.
i look forward to this about as much as i do stephen somners doing flash gordon,if that's still on the cards.

 

Haven't been to the cinema in a while (not quite sure why) but I did but Silent Hill yesterday and I loved it. It's pretty freaky, good casting and the music is perfect for it. I've never played the games but it's made me want a ps2 just so I can.

 

considering other video game adaptations that I saw that I wasn't too impressed about (like doom and resident evil), I was quite impressed with Silent Hill as well. It's not really a horror/suspense movie like I was expecting, more like a dark drama. I liked the angle of having two different views/worlds to the story.

 

Hey Liam, some peeps might not have seen it yet or know the storyline. You've just told them all, . Shocking, lol.

 

My sister will probably buy Silent Hill so I'll borrow it off her I think. I'm always very unsure of these video game-to-film adaptions because they always miss the point, and who can forget the Street Fighter film

I've managed to catch up on some recent DVD purchases. Firstly I saw Garden State and thought it was fab. My future wife was brilliant init, and having never watched Scrubs I wasn't sure what I'd make of Zack Braff, but he was great and obviously very talented. I didn't even recognize Ian Holm at first, I don't think I've ever heard him with an American accent on film before. French, yes (Time Bandits ) but American, no.....not even in A Life Less Ordinary where it felt required. Heck, he's 75 too....looks darn good for 75. Excellent music too.

I also saw Crash (the recent Paul Haggis one) and again this is top notch stuff. Incedibly thought-provoking, well shot and acted and great soundtrack. Very deserving of its praise.

 

whoops... way to make my debut on these boards. lol!

As far as video games to movies are concerned, I'm not sure if the problem with the movies is not getting the point OR not being able to make a point out of a game that doesn't really have any point other than walking from level to level, blowing up heads of zombies and whatnot, who just increase in number and difficulty to kill. If you stick too close to replicating the game on screen tit for tat, it'll end up like sitting next to someone who's playing a computer game --> quite boring since you're not the one behind the controls.

 

Hey Tice, I can't belkieve you've never watched Scrubs! It's wicked!!

 

Whoa whoa whoa.. That was a good movie! Kylie WAS terrible but surely doesn't Jean Claude Van Damme make up for everything? I'm still waiting for the second one after the very end that had

 

I find a lot of PC Game adaptation films aren't quite to the standard of the game.

The Resident Evil films were Ok, but I found them a bit predictable.
Doom was enjoyable, but seemed to be very unlike the game apart from a short sequence with monsters from it.
Mortal Kombat is the best game adaptation I've seen. It has a lot of holes, but it's good fun.
Final Fantasy seemed to be like the game in name only.



I'm hoping they might one day try a Half Life movie.