Go watch Fellowship of the Ring again and you won't agree with what you just said. The threat of evil in the An Unexpected Journey was much much greater. Peter Jackson depicted the orcs in LOTR as mindless orc/goblin hybrids. In The Hobbit, he showed them as proper orcs that we're more familiar with nowadays. Also, this group in the Hobbit are not amazing fighters like everyone in the Fellowship. I found An Unexpected Journey super refreshing.
It's not Lord of the rings. Because it's the same world, a lot is familiar but the tone is completely different. It's a lot more comical and light hearted.
Friday the 13th VIII: Jason Takes Manhattan Meh. I thought this might be a bit of kooky fun but it really wasn't very good at all. Certainly not a patch on VI, the very pinnacle of the series. I've give this 5 machetes out of 10 hockey masks.
I still prefer the 1968 BBC radio dramatisation to Peter Jacksons version to be honest. I think they cast bilbo perfectly.
Hands of the Ripper Added this one to my collection of Hammer oldies recently. Despite having one of the flimsier plot constructions to appear in a Hammer film, this one manages to pull off some genuine "shock" moments and has some quality performances by the actors involved. One of the more well thought out endings too.
The Wild Bunch I've seen this Peckinpah flick multiple times before in the past, but rewatched it again after getting a fairly cheap HD "Director's Cut" download recently. HD looked great, but this is a film that doesn't necessarily get better with repeated viewings. There's something a bit heavy-handed about it, and the dialogue is a weak point. Not a bad film, but it's more middle of the pack when it comes to classic Westerns IMO.
Finally saw Braveheart, don't let anybody tell you it's not, it's a chic flick definite romeo and juliet stuff in there. I was a little suprised. One might say that's not the main crux of the story but it's up there.. I'd say the main storyline would be 'FREEDOM!!!' but beyond that it's a chic flick. Just scared myself real good xD I decided to blindly go into something I find on Amazon Prime/ Netflix that isn't a horror/ action/ drama shithole and what did I come acrossed?? I shoulda' known when it was a Hannah Montana movie (actually Miley Cirus 'PROUD TO BE AN AMERICAN!' but... same thing minus the mickey mouse club) but I thought I'd give it 10 minutes... that's all it got. The movie in question is Lol. Avoid it like the plague.
@pdraggy Even though I think Mel Gibson is a racist, misogynistic scumbag in real life, Braveheart is still one of my all time favorites. It has something for everyone. It is indeed part chick flick, but it also has plenty of action that guys can enjoy, and a good message about freedom and the human spirit. The ending is unbelievably depressing though, and it takes a lot of liberties with the history on which it's based.
Rise of the Guardians Not Dreamworks best material but it was alright. VHS This was perhaps one of the most unusual horror movies I've seen. It was like they couldn't decide which direction to go so they did a bunch of unrelated short movies inside of a larger one. I guess I liked it.
That's actually what the whole concept of the movie was, not that they couldn't decide on the direction. The movie was made of 6 shorts, each with its own director. Some of them independent directors, some bigger well known directors. I watch a ton of horror movies and this is probably one of the most unique ones I've watched in more recent years that I liked. The made a sequel, S-VHS.. or vhs2, I'm not sure what they decided on. It was played at sundance earlier this year. The list of directors is even more impressive this time. Not sure if this is for better or for worse, but I'm really anticipating that one.
I see. It was the switch from super natural to non-super natural stories that I though was inconsistent but I guess if there were multiple directors it makes sense.
I think they were trying to hit each genre with those. Demon girl, snuff looking film, slasher film, not sure what the webcam thing was, and then exorcism film. They were adding to the mysteriousness of what was on those tapes they had to break into the house to get. A few things were funny in the story but you just had to ignore.. like the guy wearing the glasses with the camera in the first short. It was obviously being recorded digitally. So someone had to transfer that back to VHS... who does that. Same thing with the webcam footage.
I thought it was taking place in the 80s because of the tapes but then I saw the smart phone and was like whaaa? There were also two people that fell down and couldn't get up.
Roger Ebert has died: http://www.usatoday.com/story/life/people/2013/04/04/critic-roger-ebert-dead/2053935/