Cannonball Run
Absolutley hate it...

but at the same time, love it too...

"...duh du duhhhh captain Chao's!!!...."
(Dan dan dan They tik urh jerbs!!!, Tue 22 Jul 2008, 12:08, Reply)

Nuts in May
I don't post much on here (I'm extremely lazy) but I felt I had to spread the word about this Mike Leigh film from 1976.
About 10 years or so ago, a uni mate of mine produced a videotape of 'At home with Vic & Bob' from christmas 1993 - a crazed mixup of Vic & Bob with various comedy sketches. To end the night was "Nuts In May".
It's a hilarious & infinitely quotable film whilst remaining pretty much plotless. But I can honestly say it's one of the funniest films I've ever seen.
It's a bit marmite: people I've pressed to watch it (watch it watch it watch it!!!) are either crying with laughter by the end or looking at me with a bemused & quizzical "wtf that was shit" expression.

Imdb...
www.imdb.com/title/tt0074988/
(big_treacle, Tue 22 Jul 2008, 11:59, 2 replies)

The Cruel Sea

British cinema was all downhill from there.
(Seance Trumpet has got no beef with a man enjoying a croissant, Tue 22 Jul 2008, 11:35, Reply)

happy gilmore
shooter "dont worry kid, I eat pieces of shit like you for breakfast"

happy "you eat pieces of shit for breakfast?!?"

shooter "...hnnnooo...its jus..i wa..hmph!"

best put down ever
(Dan dan dan They tik urh jerbs!!!, Tue 22 Jul 2008, 11:27, Reply)

Flight of Mother Fucking Dragons!

(Seance Trumpet has got no beef with a man enjoying a croissant, Tue 22 Jul 2008, 11:25, Reply)

has anyone heard of Idiocracy?
its a very funny and puts across some very good question of where the human race is heading.

shame it was restricted upon its launch... i reckon it could have done very well, had it not been taking the piss out of the audience it was aimed at.
(Dan dan dan They tik urh jerbs!!!, Tue 22 Jul 2008, 11:17, 4 replies)

Wizard of Oz
This review of the beloved family film always makes me chuckle:

“Transported to a surreal landscape, a young girl kills the first person she meets and then teams up with three strangers to kill again.”
(RobNob, Tue 22 Jul 2008, 10:58, 2 replies)

Arachnaphobia
Lara offered to toss me off in Arachnaphobia, after I had the wit to throw pieces of popcorn over her and pretend it was bits of spider. Sadly I didn't really undertand what she meant and declined.
( browser still relating boring anecdotes into a void on, Tue 22 Jul 2008, 10:53, 2 replies)

Brian Jonestown Massacre
If you like music, took drugs, have ever been in a band, or even found Spinal Tap funny you must check out 'Dig'. The story of the Brian Jonestown Massacre and the Dandy Warhols.

Best quotes:

- I've never seen them eat. All I've seen them do is drink liquor and snort drugs

- (narrating] Under the local Communist Party's headquarters the band played for an audience of ten, and performed for almost as many hours.

- They're stalking us now. I will not have them anywhere near me again. I'll still buy their albums though

and everyones fave...

You fucking broke my sitar, motherfucker!

Pure genius!
(Tugnut Ex of this parish, Tue 22 Jul 2008, 10:18, Reply)

Battle Royale
A great film, well-executed (teeheee)

however...

I saw the film first, several years ago and I read the book a little while ago (thoroughly enjoyable, I recommend it) and thought that the film had done a good job of representing the book, until I watched the film again yesterday.

For some reason they decided to introduce the character Kitano, an old teacher of the class as the guy running that particular Battle Royale and for some reason make him obsessed with one of the students.

Why on earth would they do that? I asked myself. there seemed to be no reason....

still a good film though.

I urge you, if you enjoyed the film (or if you haven't seen it, watch it) then read the book.
( Vipros. clever got me this far, then tricky got me in, Tue 22 Jul 2008, 8:44, 9 replies)

we already know about Spinal Tap and The Blues Brothers
so, here are some of my not-the-most-famous-f&cking-movie-ever-made favorites.

Cannibal! The Musical
Made by a pre-South Park Matt & Trey, this may be the best non-Monty Python movie ever made.

Shakes the Clown
The Boston Globe called it "the Citizen Kane of alcoholic clown movies."

Freaked
Alex Winter (the other dude from Bill & Ted's), Randy Quaid, Keanu in an uncredited role as Ortiz the Dog Boy, and Mr. T as the Bearded Lady. It doesn't get any better than that!

Idle Hands
"Tell me everything you know about the devil!" And Jessica Alba in a teeny tiny angel costume. Mmmm-mmmm.

Meet the Feebles
Must be seen to be believed. And yet the director lived to make Hobbit movies.

The Opposite of Sex
At least one of the Friends could actually act.

The Zero Effect
Did Zero box office, because people hate things that don't fit into their pre-defined boxes. But the speech about looking for anything instead of something is pure gold.

Cemetery Man
Rupert Everett and zombies. Made years before the current rom-zom-com craze.

Worst movie ever made? Meet the Parents. Personally I thought Ben Stiller should've drowned the fiancee in the bathtub and set fire to her house about twenty minutes in. Now that would have been a good movie.
( madrabbit is fully prepared, Tue 22 Jul 2008, 0:44, 6 replies)

Old Geeks
.
I've seen things you people wouldn't believe. Sun-servers on fire over the shoulder of Ryan. I watched tape-reels glitter in the dark near the Mailgate. All those backups will be lost in time, like tears in rain.

Time ... to die.

Cheers
( Legless Mister Stabby - shanks for the memory, Tue 22 Jul 2008, 0:23, 6 replies)

random 3
dead man's shoes
y tu mama tambian
princess monoke
(ewe, Mon 21 Jul 2008, 23:47, Reply)

Not the "Best Film Ever" but...
I rather like the film "Lords of Dogtown".
Didn't do too well at the box office but its pretty damn good overall.

A drama based on the trials and tribulations of the legendary "Z-Boys" skateboarders with a screenplay written by Stacy Peralta and a great 70s soundtrack too. If nothing else it's worth a watch to see the late Heath Ledger play the slightly eccentric leader of the group, Skip Engblom.

I would be watching it on Channel 5 right now if it wasn't for the lack of reception on my shitty portable bedroom tv.

So yeah, keep an eye out for it.
(chrisdood Why yes, I am the shizzle, Mon 21 Jul 2008, 23:28, Reply)

Am I allowed to list my worst film ever?
Inseminoid, with the quite fetching Stephanie Beacham. Unfortunately her charms weren't enough to ameliorate this rancid pile of pigwank. Jesus Christ.
(JohabMorelli is spenging merrily away, Mon 21 Jul 2008, 23:12, 1 reply)

Melody
is my all time favourite (sometimes known as SWALK). I think it's a Children's Film Foundation film. The cast includes the two boys from 'Oliver!'. It has a stonking soundtrack - mostly pre-disco Bee Gees - and it was written by Alan Parker. In a nutshell it's puppy-love as seen through the eyes of children. Just an all round great, witty film. Sadly though it's never been released on DVD and so there are only various dodgy copies for sale on the internet. I am clinging on to the copy I taped off the the TV about 20 years ago.

Also in the great children's film section, I can heartily recommend The Amazing Mr Blunden. All the classic tropes of a great ghost story with a bit of time travel and Diana Dors thrown in for good measure. The most quoted film in my family.

Ahh, the nostalgia!
(Innogen, Mon 21 Jul 2008, 22:59, 1 reply)

Sort of the opposite of the Hello Nurse...
And if by the end of the movie, you aren't rendered slightly ill whenever someone tells you that their stomach hurts...
Well, it may not exactly have changed my life as films go, but it did feature Heath Ledger in a dress. So it's worth it.
(Anvilicious, Mon 21 Jul 2008, 22:47, Reply)

The Commitments
Saw it again a few days ago, easily on of the funniest films ever made, and it's got some truly classic lines;

'But I'm blind without my glasses'
'So's Ray Charles'

'God sent him'
'On a fuckin' Suzuki?'

Brilliant film.
(peterlynch, Mon 21 Jul 2008, 22:33, 1 reply)

So darn quotable -
Silence Of The Lambs. It has a quote for every occasion. For example, I work in a court and carry a little bottle of dry handwash, which I offer to other court staff. If they accept I say 'It ruuubs the lotion on its skiiin' and if they refuse I say 'It rubs the fucking lotion on its skin!'
(Juan Quar is clinging to her front teeth on, Mon 21 Jul 2008, 22:26, 1 reply)

top five films
my top five fave of all time are
1 leon
2 american history x
3 leaving las vegas
4 shaun of the dead
5 battle royale
(bizkitmoggy, Mon 21 Jul 2008, 21:54, Reply)

Monty Python and the Quest for the Holy Grail
This has to be one of my all time greatest films, not least because of the solace that Monty Python afforded me in my days of being the weird unpopular kid at school. When everyone else would be at their friends house, I would be sat in front of the TV, watching Flying Circus on repeat. I started watching them when I was about 8, and by the time I was 11, I knew every bloody line. Start me off anywhwere, and I could complete the scene for you. I still can. Nights in watching the films with like minded friends and pissing ourselves, Monty Python allowed my to realise that I wasnt a total waste of space, and had redeeming features. I bonded with people, made my first friends.

And then I had the game. Don't know if any of you still remember the 7th Level game that came out, but it was fantastic. I must have played it 50 times, and knew it inside out.

So the other night, when Mr Marlboro professed that he wanted to watch Holy Grail for "research purposes" (he being a writer, apparently this is all funded through 'expenses'), I drove straight down to Blockbuster and got it out. We curled up on the sofa, rolled a joint, and settled down to be taken right back to my youth.

Except I wasn't. No longer in the grip of my passionate love of the Pythons, it had lost it's magic. I watched the film by wrote, knowing every line, every twist, every joke. Disappointedly hearing the lines in my head before they even came out.

So there you have it. I lost a little bit of magic on Saturday.

Meh.
( Madam Marlboro wonders if you've found her yet, Mon 21 Jul 2008, 21:05, 4 replies)

Now of course the answer is...
Jet Li's 'Fearless'.

Astonishing acrobatics, amazing weapon-work and an authentic Mandarin sound track. Also containing a genuine rebuke about 19th century colonialism in the real-life story of Huo Yuanjia.
( Rotating Wobbly Hat That's not a banana. THIS is a banana., Mon 21 Jul 2008, 19:25, 1 reply)

Sir Henry At Rawlinson End
With Trevor Howard at his pompous best, filtered through the medium of Viv Stanshall's splendidly warped mind.
Any film where the butler is called "Old Scrotum, the wrinkled retainer" and the hero comes out with lines such as "If I had all the money I've spent on drink .... I'd spend it on drink". has to be a winner.
(onefishtwofish Redfishbluefish, Mon 21 Jul 2008, 19:25, 1 reply)

"Robert DeNiro's waiting, talking Italian.."
Bloody racists.

They can all talk.
(apeloverage committed the vile act of onanism on, Mon 21 Jul 2008, 19:04, Reply)

Religious Films
I am of the belief that our early experiences shape us in some way or other.

I have always had a thing for French Existentialism - well someone has to.

I know where I got it from and I can't believe I'm writing about it on B3ta, however, I've never let shyness come between me and telling a story, so here goes….

At the age of 13 my parents took me and my sister on an unusual family holiday.

As many of you will know, I was brought up as a Roman Catholic. I went to Catholic convent schools from the age of four to 18. I had my first communion at the age of seven and attended mass at school on a weekly basis - not on Sundays because my dad often worked weekends and my mother couldn't be bothered to go, neither could I, so we were Catholic in name but very much of the Can't Really Be Bothered Sect.

But the holiday when I was 13 that was to change all that for a week at least.

We went on a Pilgrimage.

A proper Pilgrimage.

To Lourdes.

For those of you who don't know Lourdes is a small village in France near to the Basque region of Spain. It's very mountainous and is famous for a little girl called Bernadette who saw Our Lady. Bernadette was an uneducated child yet she managed to tell the village priest that the lady she saw was the Immaculate Conception - words that she would not know. Over the last hundred and thirty or so years since then Lourdes has become a very popular destination for thousands, if not millions of people praying for a miracle or simply wanting to visit somewhere holy.

At the age of 13 my response to my parents telling me we were off to Lourdes was not positive. The idea of spending a week going to mass and praying with a net curtain over my head was not appealing. However at the age of 13 I didn't have much choice in the matter.

In all honesty I don't remember a great deal about the trip; I remember not taking any make up because I was sure my father would disapprove, I remember being mistaken for 18 by a group of elderly nuns, I remember being chatted up by loads of students who had come as volunteers, but most of all I remember the sheer joy and party atmosphere of the place.

On our first night we went down to the grotto where Bernadette saw her visions and we took part in the candlelit procession - just imagine thousands of people, many of whom were in wheelchairs, each carrying a single candle and walking while singing. This wasn't a place for non-believers or 13 year old cynics, not because they weren't allowed but because of mass hysteria, the strength of faith, whatever, everyone was swept away by the atmosphere there.

For that one week I was a fully paid up believing member of the Roman Catholic God Squad.

Our second night was spent going to the one and only cinema in the town.

It showed only one film on a permanent loop.

"The Song of Bernadette"
In black and white and in French.

The cinema was packed with a multitude of people many suffering from disabilities which then in the 80s prevented them from being visible members of society. I don't remember the film, I do remember the rapt audience - many of whom had never been to a cinema before.

The rest of the week passed in a buzz of religious rugby songs, cheers, laughter, and sheer joy of being alive.

On our final morning my dad and I rose early and went down to the one and only mass that we attended - while there we had got to know a young priest from Yugoslavia - as it was then - and he had been given the opportunity to say mass in the grotto itself with two other priests.
So at 4.30 am my dad and I stood amongst a handful of others in the cool shadow of a beautiful mountain grotto and listened to a Latin mass. The walls of the grotto are covered with crutches and walking sticks handed in by those who are cured and the hills echo at that time of the day with the songs from the women who work in the baths where the faithful are plunged into the ice cold water taken from the spring that Bernadette was shown by her visions.


I can't say that the trip changed my opinion of the Church and my ever diminishing faith but it did leave me with a sense of wonder at the unexplained in our world and a continuing love of French black and white films.
( chickenlady b3ta's very own Elizabeth Taylor, Mon 21 Jul 2008, 18:48, 7 replies)

Steamboy
I've always been a bit questionable about manga ie whether there was anything which would stand out for me other than Akira until I watch this one recently. Damn finely animated film, good story and a great alternate historical steam-age setting, very good show ol' Chink.
( Jeccius Steam Borderlands 2 junkie, Mon 21 Jul 2008, 18:32, 1 reply)

Critters
Scum, rompa stompa (a good message against racism) and quadrophenia also withnail and I and brighton rock. Staple childhood films no wonder ive grown up so well.
( Trollman, Mon 21 Jul 2008, 18:27, 1 reply)

I'm going to predict...
That the new Batman film makes it into my favourite films, but I am not going to see it until Thursday so unless the QOTW change is massively late I can't say for sure!

From what I have seen Heath Ledger's Joker looks absolutely fantastic and the previous film, Batman Begins, really took the franchise back to the dark and slightly sinister origins after the travesty of Batman & Robin (I like cheesy films, I like Legally Blonde 1&2 but Batman and Robin was too bad even by my standards).

Also the new Batmobile is sweet, it's like a hummer on steroids crossed with a tank on acid.

Length: 152 min
( TGB checking Off Topic is still shit at, Mon 21 Jul 2008, 16:59, 5 replies)