The Recommended Movies Thread

[hhfarang]

Based on a true story.....yeahhhhhh right

I never said that Sateeb, don't put words on my keyboard!

[sateeb]

The movie is worth watching if only for John Wayne's hilarious cameo at the end as the centurion delivering his one and only line....."Truly,this man was the son of God"


Movie folklore says that the director,on one take asked the Duke to deliver the line with more awe so on the next take Wayne uttered "Awwwww...truly,this was the...........

[hhfarang]

^ Yeah, I would much rather have seen Wayne put a horse's reigns in his teeth and charge the Romans with a sword in one hand and a shield in the other after saying "Fill your hands, you sons of bitches!"

[sateeb]

And here is Mr Wayne himself......love the pronunciation of God....Gaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaad

[richard]

Needed a green beret or a cowboy hat and spurs

Never could act

[sandman67]

Woop Woop Woop

Yaaaar shipmateys! That be the Sand-O-Matic 6000 Early Warning Radar gon off again!

WAR HORSE - Speilbergs WW1 era Black Beauty With Bombs epic is out is a very watchable DVDSCR format. I clocked the first 50 mins before MrsS came home and it looks worth a watch. Copies are about all over the internet so not too hard to find a copy.

JOHNNY ENGLISH REBORN - Rowan Atkinson is back as the rubber faced worst spy in MI6 for his second outing, and from the ads it looks well worth a giggle or two, Out and about in BDRIP format and at veehd there is a 700mb version.

Full sail ahead me heartys and up into the rigging ye sea monkeys! Last one down gets a lick of the cat!

[sandman67]

WAR HORSE

well, it seems that I was right after all and this film is, in effect, Black Beauty With Bombs after all. Now that isnt necessarily a bad thing.....

The film follows the travels of Joey, a headstrong colt as he passes from one master to another through the turbulent times of WW1. From the field he was born in to the killing fields of France Joey moves through a war torn landscape pasing from hand to hand as masters fall to the machine of war. And its filmed beautifully, using stark contrasts between idyllic rural and pastoral communities and the bomb cratered and blood splattered front lines. There are some fairly moving segments, such as the jingoistic insanity of British Cavalry charging a line of German machine gun nests, but as it is apparently aimed at an audence that may be kid heavy those horrors are gven a vaseline lens cover, and to me thats what had me switched off by reel 2.

Look, I dont want to slate it as Im sure its all done well, filmed and framed beautifully, acted well with an ensemble A lister cast, etc etc. But Saving Private Ryan it aint.....its sort of Lassie Come Home with a horse. I just prefer war films to be more visceral, especially when they concern the mechanised mass slaughter fest that was WW1.

Anyways, there is a very reasonable and watchable quality DVDSCR copy doing the rounds, so if you fancy a couple of hours of family entertainment then give it a spin and see what you think. Its not really a WW1 war film, and if you drop it expecting one you may, like me, just be dissapointed.

A keeper for some. but not me.





PS: If you want to watch a good solid WW1 film check out any of the following:
ALL QUIET ON THE WESTERN FRONT (Both versions are good but the 1930 one is the best)
BENEATH HILL 60
THE TRENCH
ACES HIGH (classic Brit tally ho chocks away chaps figher ace flick)
THE BLUE MAX
FLYBOYS
PATHS OF GLORY (utter classic)
PASSCHENDAELE
KING & COUNTRY (another version of Paths of Glory with a Brit spin)
THE LOST BATTALION (true story)
DEATHWATCH (a horror thriller set in a WW1 trench)
THE RED BARON (great quasi biopic)

all of these have a place of honour on the Sandy hard drive.....and all are solid reccs for fans of the war film genre. Thye are pretty easy to find online...but if you cant find one let me know by PM.

[Pagey]

Good informative info as usual SM, keep up the good work.

[sandman67]

OK.....a couple of quickies

PUSS IN BOOTS

Hollywood contnues with the 2011 "Backstory" fever craze and takes the Ginger Avenger from Shrek and gves him a whole film all to himself, explaining how Puss went from an orphan in a basket to the booted swordsmaster himself.

Puss hears of the location of the fabled Magic Beans, and hopes to use them to regain his reputation that was ruined when his bunk buddy from the orphanage Humpty Dumpty robbed the village bank. Unfortunately Dumpty is also after the beans, and has on his side Kitty Softpaws, ace theif and femme fatale. The three team up to pull the heist of the century, raiding the Giant's Castle for the golden goose. Thrlls spills and some sly lads and dads laffs ensue.

Its good fun all the way, even if there are a couple of very odd out of place dance segments thrown in for no apparent reason. The animation is up to the ususal lovely detaled Shrek standards, and the whole shebang has a nice morality tale wrapped around it. Good fun for lads and dads of all ages.

Out and about in a very good quality DVDSCR format copy.

Three Cheers.




JOHNNY ENGLISH REBORN

Rowan Atkinson returns as the rubber faced worst spy in the world in this sequel. When a plot s uncovered to assassinate the Chinese Premier at a meeting between the UK and PRC the worst spy in England, Johnny English, is called out of retirement where he was sent after causng an international scandal. He returns to find the agency he worked for a much changed place, and that he is now a dinosaur whose methods are out of favour. Johnny sets out on the trail to find the three man assassination team and take them out before they kill the Chinese PM and kick off a global conflict, assisted by Tucker - a no use partner with no field experience and a tendency to faint whenever blood is drawn.

Its good fun slapstick and satire in the same vein as the first flick, with a good steel toecap smackdown at the UKs "customer facing"/privatsed government departments culture of PC crazyness. Lke the first film it riffs heavily on the spy flick genre, has a good few nods of deference to the original Sellars Clousaeu flicks, and Atknson is excellent as English. Gillian X Fiies Anderson is English's boss and is damn sexy as hell with a cut glass English accent.

Definitely well worth the download time, and easy to find in a reasonably sized 700mb BDRIP format all over the place. A solid Three Cheers keeper all the way.

[m_right]

Any tips on where I can procure some decent copies of DVD's of recent movies. I have gone through stacks and stacks of crap titles at a few shops. Some of the titles Sandman talks about would be great if I could find them. I haven't had any luck with torrents recently. My Thai IP address doesn't help matters. I can't even buy music from napster or google unless I get a VPN.

[sandman67]

re DVDS.....no hope bro. Tesco is your best bet for current releases or Macro/Big C. Compared to the UK they are pretty reasonably priced and subbed/dubbed so you can watch them with your missus.

The shops are useless and staffed by goofs who just look at you wth a blank stare when you ask for a specific DVD. Have a laugh....try finding a English subtitled verson of one of the massvely popular thai mega epic KING NARESUAN films. I can tell you where you can find a copy....in any HMV back in the UK. Here in Thailand you have two hopes, and one of em is BOB.

As to torrents.....well mate Id give up on them. Use direct file downloads from places like megaupload or filesave, whch you can get through sites lke oneclickmoviez or go join a site lke veehd and download them from there. stagevu is another. Torrents are as buggy as hell and you dont know what you are getting is what you think it is, as was discussed earler in the thread.

Finally, you can always use Google. Construct a search term like:

"Film Name"+AVI+megaupload+DVDRIP-torrent

the -torrent secton gets rid of all the torrent links.

Goodluck bro

[richard]

OK.....a couple of quickies

PUSS IN BOOTS

Hollywood contnues with the 2011 "Backstory" fever craze and takes the Ginger Avenger from Shrek and gves him a whole film all to himself, explaining how Puss went from an orphan in a basket to the booted swordsmaster himself.

Puss hears of the location of the fabled Magic Beans, and hopes to use them to regain his reputation that was ruined when his bunk buddy from the orphanage Humpty Dumpty robbed the village bank. Unfortunately Dumpty is also after the beans, and has on his side Kitty Softpaws, ace theif and femme fatale. The three team up to pull the heist of the century, raiding the Giant's Castle for the golden goose. Thrlls spills and some sly lads and dads laffs ensue.

Its good fun all the way, even if there are a couple of very odd out of place dance segments thrown in for no apparent reason. The animation is up to the ususal lovely detaled Shrek standards, and the whole shebang has a nice morality tale wrapped around it. Good fun for lads and dads of all ages.

Out and about in a very good quality DVDSCR format copy.

Three Cheers.




JOHNNY ENGLISH REBORN

Rowan Atkinson returns as the rubber faced worst spy in the world in this sequel. When a plot s uncovered to assassinate the Chinese Premier at a meeting between the UK and PRC the worst spy in England, Johnny English, is called out of retirement where he was sent after causng an international scandal. He returns to find the agency he worked for a much changed place, and that he is now a dinosaur whose methods are out of favour. Johnny sets out on the trail to find the three man assassination team and take them out before they kill the Chinese PM and kick off a global conflict, assisted by Tucker - a no use partner with no field experience and a tendency to faint whenever blood is drawn.

Its good fun slapstick and satire in the same vein as the first flick, with a good steel toecap smackdown at the UKs "customer facing"/privatsed government departments culture of PC crazyness. Lke the first film it riffs heavily on the spy flick genre, has a good few nods of deference to the original Sellars Clousaeu flicks, and Atknson is excellent as English. Gillian X Fiies Anderson is English's boss and is damn sexy as hell with a cut glass English accent.

Definitely well worth the download time, and easy to find in a reasonably sized 700mb BDRIP format all over the place. A solid Three Cheers keeper all the way.

A MUST

The last 2 minutes will have you in stitches

Thais love this stuff too. Rowan A is slapstick and they enjoy the facial/body language stuff as they do Charlie Chaplin

Seen Thai kids as young as 9 years old point to my laptop when playing some old movies and shout 'Charlie, we love Charlie'

[sandman67]

M-Right

bear in mind as well bro that when I review stuff its doing the rounds on the interwebby as DVDRIP or BDRIP (Blu Ray Disk Rip) format....so the DVD has been released a week or so before. So there should be copies of the real DVD down at Tesco or Macro or Big C.

I rarely review stuff that is a DVDSCR (DVD Screener - filmed off a TV) copy, and never review CAM or SCR copies as they are utter unwatchable arse.

The last alternative I suggest is some of the DVD stalls round town. Wait till you see a review then give t a couple of weeks and go see a DVD seller. The couple of weeks allows them to sell on all the crappy CAM copy disks and have their stock replaced with the DVDRIP copy versions. As these wll be from a local source disk they will, like the Tesco ones, have proper subtitles and mult-lingual tracks. Use a stall wth a player and a telly and ask the seller to play the disk to check its quality. There are some good sellers round town.

Good luck sport



Now....a review

IMMORTALS

The makers of 300 do a CLASH OF THE TITANS re-write of Greek mythology in the same live comic book ultra stylish visuals way as 300 with the myth of Thesius. Yes it has sod all to do with the actual Thesius myth, but its utter ripper stuff.....splattery doobery slo mo Matrix style fights, mass battles, orrible monstrous bad guys, and compelling watching from start to end.

There is a war in heaven, and the victorious Greek gods exile the loosers, the Titans, to a prison beneath Mt Tartarus. Unfortunately during the battle they manage to loose the one weapon that can open that cage, the Epirus Bow. An evil tyrant, King Hyperion, hears of this and sets out to take his war on the gods to a new level. He intends to free the titans and bring hell on earth. All that stands in his way is the hot as hell Syballine Oracle and young Thesius and his band of mates.

Its top eye candy all the way in the same ultra stylish 300 manner...so really the acting (which is OK) is irrelevant....ts the visual spectacle and story that carry the day...and it does so perfectly. Lovely to watch from start to end.

Out and about in very watchable DVDSCR format, although some copies have a short sound drop out or two.

Three massive cheers and a solid keeper.....look on YouTube for the trailer.

[sandman67]

Another quickie

TREASURE ISLAND

Sky Drama (the guys who make the Discworld stuff) turn their attention to this classic piratical tale and cast the excellent Eddie Izzard as orrible old Long John.

Its a real brickbats and boquets job...there are some excellent points like making the film more about Jim Hawkin's troubled relationship with the untrustworthy and villainous Silver, and the way it also breaks the mould and has Squire Trelawney as an equally bad character whose greed and backstabbing leads to disaster....thus leaving old Jim caught between a rock and a hard place. The supporting cast is good as well, and the acting is top stuff.

But then there is the sometimes annoying arsey trying too hard to be edgey and arty camera work. Its not too often, but when it happens its annoying as hell. That sort of puts the black spot on the production, which is otherwise top quality stuff.

Izzard really does make a lovable if psychotic Silver....there is something about his smile that suggests he strangles kittens for laughs when nobody is about, and the first episode also explains how he lost his leg to the rotten as hell Captian Flint. The mark of a good villain is that you feel you could have a good pint and a laugh with him, even if that would probably end with you in the gutter with a dagger twixt your shoulder blades....and Eddie is just that sort of bad lad. At about 3hrs long its also a real epic, but the good bit is it never feels that long whch shows it is done well.

Anyway, its out and about in HDTVRIP formats at oneclckmovez and veehd, so if like me you are a fan of the piratcal stuff then drop it and have a watch.....well worth it IMHO and a sold three cheers keeper.

[PeteC]

Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World with Russell Crowe is on the True movie channel this week. One of the few movies that can hold my unwavering attention start to finish. Authentic right down to the buttons on their uniforms IMO. Unfortunately the true movie channel tends to cut their movies a bit. I think this one is about 20 minutes short compared to the original version. Pete