partious

....the original Haunting. Which is also well worth watching, unlike the remake, which is pap.

It isn't even remotely scary though....

I haven't actually seen it. But a few (male) friends have told me that it's fairly decent. Like Big but not as good apparently.

Dark water was a bit crap imo. Just really not scary or tense at all (ooh it's water, watch out)and ummm then there was "that bit", which i won't go into for now. But man that bit sucked and took the movie down at least 3 stars(out of 10) in my opinion.

I give it a 4

I have audition and Kairo here waiting to be watched, I might watch one of them tonight actually. I'm leaning more towards The Eye at the moment(mainly because the cover of kairo looks shit)

Edit: I also have Audition but have been putting off watching it because it looked more like a weird or visually disturbing kind of movie than one thats actually scary.

I've never watched pheonix nights and I didn't see last weeks episode of this, but that was fantastic That a-team bit at the end was class. I'll be making sure I watch this in future.

Mirai Shounen Conan (aka: Future Boy Conan) is a 26 episode TV series that is loosely based upon Alexander Key's book "The Incredible Tide". It's probably one of the darkest of Miyzaki and Takahata's works, especially considering that it was supposed to be a kids show. In short, it's absolutely bloody amazing stuff and truly classic anime that needs to be watched.

I have watched the series in one sitting (13 hours) several times in the past few years, and it is the only anime that I can be bothered to do that with (the pacing is superb, and it feels more like a massive film than a TV series).

Ok, I'm going to go watch a few episodes of this right now. You've got me quite excited actually, I hope it's as good as you say it is.

Whats FLCL?

A really weird yet oddly very entertaining Japanese anime series, the plot of which is possbily the hardest thing I can think of to describe. It only has 6 episodes. The music is pretty good and the animation is good. I wouldn't recommend it if you like to be aware of what's going on in the shows you watch though

Empire is ok, their features are good but the reviews aren't great. Also their reader voted "top 100" lists are always terrible. Personally I prefer Total Film, their features are pretty good, and their reviews are much better than Empire's. Sight and Sound on the other hand is the most boring magazine I've ever read in my life.

I don't really buy film magazines anymore though. I get most of my reviews from Ebert's site(I've agreed with his reviews of most films I've seen). This is quite possibly very sad, but I don't actually read Eberts review of the movie until after I've seen it. I find he tends to give away a lot of the plot in his reviews so I like to read it after I've seen the movie to see what his thoughts on the movie were.

With regards to knowing which movies are supposed to be good when choosing which one to watch I usually just listen to recommendations from people I know and people on message boards..

Goddamn it, four pages in and no-one's mentioned Ikiru?

Ha yeah , don't know how I forgot that. I cried at the end of Ikiru alright, really great movie, probably my favourite kurosawa.

Also I can't understand why someone would cry at the end of Battle Royale at all. Oh well I think that's one movie I can safely say I didn't "get".

Also I cried at the end of Braveheart. I'm sure there will be someone here who has a problem with that one

Oh yeah and the end of Terminator 2 , with the thumb and all, heh

Good night for movies all round.

Yeah, just don't watch that Ring 0 video and that comment will remain intact

I saw the first half of this with a friend, then turned it off because I was bored.

Without spoiling me (I assume there must be the best twist evar at the end), can anyone explain why everyone loves this film so much?

It's just slow and boring. Stupid boy goes around sleepwalking with his bunny - pfft, I do that everyday.

If you think it's stupid and boring then don't watch the rest, you'll think thats stupid and boring too. Also you'll likely think the ending is stupid too. In conclusion, you will not like this movie, go watch one that is more to your tastes instead I'm sure there are lots out there.

Yeah, so what, there's been a backlash. That doesn't stop it from being one of the best films of the last ten years.

Now that's just plain wrong. The movie is ok. Not confusing at all (well I didn't think so anyway) I just didn't think there was anything special about it.

It's just another movie that people who like to let everone know that they have different taste than the masses will proclaim to be the best thing ever for a while until the next one comes along. Although as Crispin Glover says now so many people have seen it that lot's of those who originally claimed it was great now say it's shit, because it's not cool anymore.

These are just the (probably wrong) conclusions I've drawn about the movie in the time since me and my friends watched it when it first came out.

A bag of monkey nuts, and they tasted shit

Can't believe I got up at 8am on a sunday for a bag of monkey nuts.......

Basically as the topic title says, I'm wondering about listening to music while studying. Do you think it's a good idea or does it just ruin your concentration? I've never really listened to music while studying but I'm gonna try because I think it'll motivate me to study more(my uni course requires a lot of study and I dont want to sit in silence reading for hours every day). Should I stick to more mellow music? One of my friends reckons you shouldn't listen to music with lyrics while studying, do you agree?

Also if anyone has any recommendations of certain music\bands to listen to while studying feel free to post them.

Yeah it pretty much does disregard the idea behind the other two movies for a lot of the movie. Intriguing it may be(I didn't think so), but it definitly isn't scary, and that was what I wanted from it It's definitly different from the other two, and I'm sure theres a certain type of ring fan who would have liked it , but to me it just seemed like Ring meets Dawsons Creek or something.

Yeah it is about her early life, I watched it ages ago and can't remember all the details but I do remember that there were certain(major) aspects of the plot that made no sense to me. Anyway, I recommend against wasting your time watching it, but someone else will probably come in here and tell you that it's the best movie ever , so it's up to you

hughes said:

No he's been doing the whole new series of YBF.

He makes it very funny I think, even laugh out loud at times, which is pretty remarkable given the content.

Aah fair enough, I didn't know that, only noticed yesterday when I was switching around. I thought the woman was still doing it. I'm sure he does a better job at presenting it than her, but I'm morally opposed to watching You've Been Framed so I'll never know

Missed this, however I was both shocked and appalled to find Harry Hill doing the crappy voiceover on "You've Been Framed" yesterday. Hopefully this was some sort of once off event and yesterday was some sort of Harry Hill day on ITV or something.

Also, yay to the return of TV burp, without a doubt the funniest program on tv!

Yeah, I agree with you Whizzo, I also thought the Japanese version was far better in terms of creepiness and atmosphere. I think you'll find most people who've seen both will say the same thing.

Also ,I quite liked Ring 2 , and found it quite creepy at the time. Ring 0 on the other hand, is one of the crappiest "horror"(and I use the term loosely) movies I've ever had the misfortune of watching.

I've just watched the film Patch Adams

Big mistake

Anyway you're right the enterprise theme is extremely crappy. Just when I thought that I'd gotten used to it they went and made it even worse (something I once thought would be impossible). The music at the end of the episodes is ok though, they should just write something like that for the start. Or get rid of the words from "Faith of the Heart" and just play the music. I don't know why they havent changed the music yet, I've never talked to a star trek fan who didn't hate it, are they(the makers) just stubborn or what?

Having listened to this album a couple of times now, I can safely say that I don't like it at all. It's all just so boring and there really are no(good) stand out moments at all. It just seems so lifeless. I quite liked reveal , sure there was some filler but at least that album had some energy and a couple of great songs(imo) such as She Just Wants to Be and I'll Take the Rain. I won't be writing REM off just yet as they've released albums in the past that I haven't liked, only liked one song on Out of Time(guess which one ) and two off Monster. They'll never reach the heights of Lifes Rich Pagents again, but I don't doubt that they can still write good songs, theres none on this album though (once again IMO)

Two years later edit: Not that anyone will read this, but I have to distance myself from a comment in this post. Monster is my favourite R.E.M album by far now,has been for about 2 years, probably my favourite album full stop. "two off monster", what a silly billy..

Using the ED example, though, you can have a quantified measure of the character's "freakedness" which actually works quite well- changing the way the player's world looks, sounds, and so on, without changing the fundimental rules of the game.

Say:

You could move, but your character would move in a ropey, wobbley way, stumbling from side to side, and might fumble a bit (TAPTAPTAPTAPTAP) to get the door open. Rather like the existing thing in games where your character becomes sluggish when wounded and bleeding.

Aah, ED is a game that I've always wanted to play but somehow never got around to , so I didn't know that, sounds like it could work quite a lot better than what I was imagining it would be like. However saying that, I still think I prefer the character keeping their emotional distance a bit and letting me decide for myself if I want to be freaked out or not. I'll have to get ED now to see how good that actually works, so that last comment is subject to change

Personally I think that if your character started freaking out when they saw a zombie or ghost it would detract from the experience somewhat and feel less immersive(for me anyway). If I'm playing a survival horror game and I feel scared it'll be because I'm feeling freaked out by whats going on in the game , not because some idiot on screen is having a fit. It reminds me of an discussion I read before(possibly here) about why Ryo in Shenmue has the personality of a plank. Some people reckoned that it was to let the player feel like they were experiencing the things in the game for themselves and not have Ryo tell them how they were supposed to be feeling at that particular moment. I think the idea here is the same, I think the character in the game should just be the players means of exploring the game and shouldn't try to force certain feelings onto the player. I think that if they do this the game becomes less scary and more of a plain action game.

That game looks absolutely terrible(and I love the other 2). Looks a bit (far) too matrixy for my liking.

The end of Its a Wonderful Life.  I always blub at that.  Its lovely, especially the bit when he's running through Bedford Falls.

"Merry Christmas Bulidings and Loans!"

One of my favourite scenes in any film ever ever ever.

Yeah , thats one of my favourite scenes too.

The last 20 or so minutes of the Shawshank Redemption are pretty emotional, probably my favourite scenes from any movie and really gets me every time I watch it.

The end of the Killing Fields.

And ,ahem, the end of Terminator 2

Watched "House of Wax" last night, great movie, Vincent Price is great in it.

I'm about to watch "Bubba Ho-Tep", which sounds great , so hopefully it'll be good.

Saw Freddy VS Jason last night . I had no expectations so it was quite good in a mindless entertainment kind of way. The commentary (Robert Englunds mostly) on the dvd was great, far more entertaining than the movie itself.