Dare I ask...?

Not until the final edit...

Ahh, where would the film industry be without incessant paranoia?

I got around to viewing the Chronicles of Riddick today, mainly due to a mass boredom influx more than anything.
Wasnt as bad as i was expecting after reading all the shit it got critically on a pretty much universal scale; ludicrous plotholes and blatant star wars/lotr rippius officus aside, it was ratherly watchable.

Azumi - a rather entertaining teenage Zatoichi wannabe.

Not great, but it has its moments at regular intervals. Even though nobody's read the Manga over here...

I would've seen a sneak preview of HHGTTG on Tuesday...if the staff at the Croydon Warner's (or whatever they call it now) realised that their instructions were "give away tickets on the night, doors open at 6pm" as opposed to "give the tickets to anyone who turns up and asks two weeks previous."

i saw super size me on ch4 last nite and god did it make me think twice about eating a maccy d's for awhile (if not forever..)

Haven't been to the cinema for a good while but I've just bought a stack of DVDs, which I probably won't have much time to watch but they're all movies I've already seen anyway, and it's just good to have them. The Good The Bad and The Ugly, Once Upon A Time in The West, Scarface, Metropolis, Close Encounters, Casablanca. Fopp came up trumps once again on the super-bargan front with Texas Chainsaw Massacre (uncut original), Rollerball (original), Olivier's Richard III and a wedge of Hitchcocks, all for a paltry fiver apiece and Godfrey Reggio's aesthetically stunning (and with fab Philip Glass soundtracks) Koyaanisqatsi/Powqaatsi box set there for a mere ten-spot. Also splashed out on some old foreign faves: Kieszlowski's Three Colours trilogy (Juliette Binoche in Blue..... Yummmmmmm!); Jean-Jacques Beneix's atmospheric operatic thriller, Diva; Carax's flamboyant yet touching Les Amants du Pont-Neuf (Juliette Binoche again); Herzog's brilliant Klaus Kinski vehicles, Fitzcarraldo and Aguirre, Wrath Of God and, best of all, Kurosawa's Throne of Blood and Ran. These last two have to be the finest adaptations ever of Shakespeare for the big screen, being MacBeth and Lear respectively, and I highly recommend them to all fans of The Bard. I'm kinda pissed though that Blade Runner is STILL unavailable on DVD because of some petty legal wrangle. Fuckers!

the last film i tried to watch was top gun/interview with a vampire but since i was otherwise occupied i didnt get to see much of 'em

Finally got to see H2G2 the other night.
Rather good, although Mos Def was miscast beyond belief (even bandini can't claim racism on that one) and the tagged on happy ending missed the point somewhat.

Can you go into a bit more depth here please? I'm kinda obsessed with King Lear at the moment - It's the grea-*test*-('") work of literature ever! - and I'm going to see it tomorrow but a good and adapted version, even if it is Japanese, would be AMAZING.

I like Baz Lurmann's R+J a lot, very well done, but to be honest I've not seen owt else so I can't really comment.

I don't know if you're familiar with Kurosawa's work. He was influenced by, among other things of course, the Westerns of John Ford though that's not blatantly to the fore in his films. Then Hollywood borrowed from Kurosawa when Seven Samurai was recast as The Magnificent Seven and then later, Spaghetti Westerns when Yojimbo became the basis for A Fistful Of Dollars (and also for the dreadful Bruce Willis effort, Last Man Standing). Kurosawa is a million miles away from the Holywood ethos of cinema. Visual poetry in abundance but no superficial gloss or fake sentimentality. I just know you'll love Ran which, in a nutshell, is Lear transposed to feudal-era Japan with three sons rather than daughters. It cuts to the bleak, obsidian heart of the play and doesn't pull it's punches. Get this masterpiece - an overworked word but entirely appropriate here - for a tenner at HMV.

Sons??? Hmmm, not sure that works. The daughters thing emphasises the topsy-turvy-ness of it all and also provides the sexual tension and competition stuff with Edmund which in turn leads to all the debasement of sex in the play (eg Gloucester's adultery most obviously, and Lear's speech about letting 'copulation thrive') which is crucial, I think. Anyhoo, the production of Lear I saw yesterday was fan-bloody-tastic, Acts II and III being the best theatre I have ever seen. Chichester Minerva Theatre. See it if you can - it is the most powerful work of literature I know, about 350 years ahead of it's time, and tickets are cheap (£6.50) and available (there were spare seats in quite a small theatre - unbelievable!) King Lear is the best thing ever. Not knowing jack shit about films I have no idea what a lot of your post meant having seen nothing you mentioned, but I shall look for Ran when I next go to HMV, which might not be for a while becuase of the fun and frolics of A-levels. Gaah.

I'm going to go and read it.

I probably didn't stress clearly enough that it's an adaptation rather than a totally straightforward film of the play. That said, I still think you'll love it. You're pretty open-minded so maybe after last night's experience (sounds fantastic BTW though, as I've said elsewhere, I personally consider The Tempest to be a greater, more visionary work) has had time to settle you might feel up to tackling Kurosawa's dark(er) vision of Shakespeare. I think you're maybe being a little too tempted at the moment by some of the traditional cliches of Shakespearean analysis but in case you still have doubts, remember that this isn't just any old film director we're talking about but a cinematic artist on a level with Kubrick, Hitchcock or Fellini, and Ran was ten years in preparation so your objections will, hopefully, seem less important when you see it. Now the bad news. I've checked my till receipt and Ran cost me £19.99, not £9.99 as I'd first thought. Sorry about that. Still worth the price, but maybe you could find it cheaper elsewhere?

Sin City is every bit as good as it has always promised to be. I SUPPOSE it's most recent peer is the Kill Bill franchise, and it wipes the floor with it. Great movie.

Big Fish made me smile like a bug-eyed child. One of the few films me and my girlfriend both love.

saw that for the first time a few weeks ago. Almost made me cry. Attains the baffling feat of being both alien and generating the most sublime pathos. Score and cinematography is pretty perfect, Rutger Hauer is probably the best actor in the world on his day, no one dominates a screen, gets under your skin like him (see the Hitcher if you haven't. You must. One of my favourite films of all time).

As for Shakespeare, my dad has Ran at home so i will watch that as soon as i get back. Also has a boxset of histories - including the two Henry IV's - which ive only read previously, so that should be good. Girlfriend and dad are going to see A Midsummer Night's Dream in Stratford in July. Lear is brilliant, especially Lear's mad-storm rages, but for me it's just below the premier league of tragedies - for me, Julius Caesar, Othello, Hamlet and Romeo and Juliet. Maybe i'm missing something, but comparatively it's a little less nuanced.

It's my dad's favourite though, and has been for years. If i had to choose it'd be Hamlet, though.