Just noticed that the old Movies thread got pruned. And since summer tentpole season is coming upon us quickly, figured I might as well start this off again.

Has anybody else seen the trailer for King Arthur? I'm giggling over the "the true story" bits. But it looks like it's this year's attempt to clone Pirates, given that it's produced by Bruckheimer, and has Keira Knightly as Guinever (apparently a woad-blue Celt warrior maiden in this version). And Clive Owen as Arthur and Ioan Gruffudd as Lancelot. (swoon!) Looks like fun.

And on a chick-flick note, has anybody seen The Prince & Me? Is it worth it? Or should I just go see Jersey Girl again?

I haven't seen the The Prince and Me yet, but one of my friends said it was really good. I want to see it soon, but school is loading on the homework...

I saw The P and M. It was ok, and I know some people who have seen it four times and are probably seeing it again right now, but I wouldn't watch it again and again and again. But it's worth seeing.

Cool! Thanks!

Also, I'm curious, is anybody under the age of 30 actually interested in seeing Thunderbirds? Does anybody under the age of 30 even know what Thunderbirds or "super-marionation" are? (This is not outside the realm of possibility, given that TechTV's been airing them, but still....) I'm just curious if it's going to appeal on a Gerry Anderson vibe, or a Spy Kids vibe. Because the trailer looks like a hoot and a half to me.

I knew Thunderbirds was somewhere in production, but didn't know it was actually scheduled to be released this summer. Nifty. You can get a taste of 'supermarionation' if you have ever seen the Orbitz.com commercials.

Waiting for Alien vs. Predator, HP: Prisoner of Azkaban, Spiderman 2, and several other things. The lack of good movies the past six months, I believe is attributable to the writers' strike as of 2 years ago. It takes approximately that long for an average movie to go from greenlight to canned. Oh, yeah, the new Punisher movie just looks... bad.

I'm waiting HP3 but I also wanna see Hellboy. Troy also looks good, oh, and THE ALAMO. I watch all the trailers at apple.com

Ok, I saw The Prince & Me and it was fun, and I especially like the bit where they're trying to study in the library, but overall, it was kind of a paint-by-the-numbers Romantic-Comedy formula piece, where all the conflicts got resolved quietly in not-so-realistic ways. Great cast, wasted in a flat script. I'm glad I used a free ticket to see it.

db, meteorite: yeah, I'm waiting on HP3 as well (and I love the apple movie trailer site), but I think my look-forward-tos are Kill Bill, part II (especially since it's supposed to be less blood-drenched than Part I, and more Sergio Leone than HK kung-fu), King Arthur, Shaolin Soccer, Sky Captain and the world of Tomorrow, Shrek 2, The Terminal (Spielberg & Hanks), De-Lovely (Kevin Kline as Cole Porter), I, Robot (I know, it's not going to resemble the book in any way, but I'm a sucker for anything with Susan Calvin and the Laws of Robotics in it), Zatoichi, Hero (Jet Li!) and Thunderbirds. Spiderman 2 will be fun, but I'm really gonna hate the fact that Alfred Molina will be famous for Doc Oc. (yes, he's been here all along--he was the guy who had Indiana Jones brush off his tarantulas waaaay back when...)

The Punisher looks bad, but it also looks like its own thing, and not just YA comic-book action flick, which is surprising. Especially as Van Helsing looks like it's trying to be every damn thing a tentpole can be. (I'm not mentioning Catwoman. I'm just not.) And i'll probably go see Shall We Dance? in that road-accident kind of fascination, just to see how badly they screw up the Japanese original.

Not sure about Godzilla, but I think it's way cool we can finally see a Raymond Burr-less version with subtitles. Troy I'm also on the fence about, simply because the last person I'd have picked to be an Achilles is Brad Pitt (and one wonders just who is playing Patroclus). Princess Diaries 2, I dunno.

And then, after all that's over, I can start looking forward to The Incredibles.

Yeah. About Troy...

WHO is playing HELEN!? I saw nothing of this chick! Honestly, they fight a war over her, and they don't even show her in the preview!? JEEZ!!

LOL, that's true Rysade.

I wanna see Shrek 2 too. By the way, who liked HULK? I absolutely HATED it! I'm tired of fighting IRL with people about how it stunk, what're your opinions?

I haven't seen the Hulk. but as for HP3 I was really surprised it's coming out on my B-day! I was like WHOA that's strange. Sorry for rambling. I just thought that was cool.

I never saw the Hulk. It didn't sound like anyone liked it. As for Harry Potter 3... The first two were okay, I don't know what to say about the third one. Ella Enchanted. *Shudders* All I can say is "..." Spiderman 2 I think I'll see. How does it look?

Okay you guys there really should be an international tease Daniel Radcliffe site. I don't know those HP movies are really horrible. The first one is really good but the second ones are all laughs. Rupert Grint does a good job portraying Ron as a scaredy cat. (Which made me mad because the Ron in my head acts a little less scared.) And Daniel Radcliffe does an okay job doing Harry Potter but if you look at the 2nd movie when Harry is supposed to be scared. The actor has absolutely no emotion. My friend is also mad because she wanted Haley Joel Osment to ge the part of HP. (She's in love with Haley Osment. It's very sad.)

I didn't like the first two. They didn't have anything on the book and most of the actors didn't know how to act. (Rupert Grint was mostly good though). But now since the third one is with another director I got my hopes up.

I'm getting Harry Pottered out. I'm gonna see the movie but It's not something that I'm waiting for.
Didn't see the Hulk but I don't really want to either....

You know, coincidentally, just two nights ago I saw the trailers for both Arther and Troy, and my immediate reaction to both was "ARG, gotta go scream about these in Movies. right now, but I have to watch this film* first."

Okay, so, I have to rant about Troy. Firstly, WHERE WAS ODYSSEUS?? As far as I can see, checking internet cast lists, site summary, etc, etc, he doesn't even get a mention. This is causing problems for me because, well, he did sort of come up with the whole horse idea, didn't he?

And, yes, what is BRAD PITT doing as Achilles? (Er, he actually looks okay. But there's just something morally wrong here.) Beyond that, there's a line in the triler "Achilles cannot be controlled," or something like that. I am mildly terrified that they're going to completely screw him up, and then I will get annoyed and throw things.

Helen is apparently being played by Diane Kruger, and she was in my trailer- admittedly for about five seconds and then snogging Orlando Bloom (Paris. I nearly had apoplexy because I thought someone else in the trailer that was Paris, and so I was wondering exactly what twisted things they did to the plot line). I don't know that she's exactly the face that launched a thousand ships but... she'll do, I guess. (Except I wonder if Greeks are usually blonde.)

Now to Arthur. This actually looks okay- Lancelot looks the part, anyway, and I think their Galahd will be good. But. Kiera Knightly. Don't get me wrong: I loved her in bend it like Beckham and I liked her in POTC. But. I'm sorry. She's SO NOT A GUINIVERE. So not. >.<

*Girl With Pearl Earring. It was okay.

db--sorry. I loved the Hulk. But we don't have to fight about it. We can always discuss energetically, but politely. :-) The reasons I liked it are three fold, the main one is that I like the way Ang Lee tells the story (I've only ever disliked one of his films). He comes from a similar cultural background to my parents (Taiwanese/Chinese) and that may explain some of it. But I also love the way he does labs as real labs (unlike, say how fake and Hollywood-impossible the labs were in Spiderman), which stems from Lee being married to a microbiologist; and the visual addition of Cold War elements. The second reason I loved the movie was because I grew up in the '70s and for me the Hulk was equal bits the Jack Kirby/Stan Lee comic book and the Bill Bixby/Lou Ferrigno television show. I loved how Shamus managed to combine elements from both shows and come up with something new of his own. The third thing I love about it is the CGI animation. Most CGI animation doesn't have weight or gravity to it, let alone an emotional element. The stuff that ILM put together for Hulk had all three.

I can understand why it doesn't work for some people. It's morally ambiguous, it isn't rock'em sock'em action. It isn't Kirby & Lee's Hulk. I get that. But for me, it was a deep, thoughtful and thought-provoking retelling of the Hulk that showed affection and respect for the original.

Tui: Sean Bean's playing Odysseus. You need to check the IMDb for this kind of thing. He'll be there. Y'know, I still maintain that he was completely wasted in LoTR (Boromir. Pfeh. Not even Faramir). I still can't believe they didn't cast him as Aragorn, but that's just me.

And as for Knightly, I have a feeling they've written a completely different Guinevere from the trad. one, given that she's running around half-naked, painted blue, waving a sword and going all Braveheart in the trailer.

Thank. God. I swear I checked about eight different sites...! But that's good, that's good, we have an Odysseus, all is right with the world once more.
Personally, I liked him as Boromir... and Faramir as Faramir. Sean Bean just wouldn't have looked right standing next to Miranda Otto in the last five secodns of the movie. (I kinda have to say that, though; my best friend is obsessed with Faramir.)

As for Guinevere- yes, I noticed that. I'm not usually a canon fanatic, because I generally assume other people are going to fanatacise for me... but I worry that no-one's going to do it for Arthur. I don't know... I liked Arwen's slightly expanded role, for example, but I don't think I could have stood much more. It just wouldn't have worked. Similarly, this problem of changing Guinevere doesn't work for me. I liked her as a serene figure. Swords do not equal serene.

OTOH, some of us are Sean Bean-obsessed and have been ever since Sharpe first appeared on television (of course, when I saw it, I kept thinking how both Sharpe and Harper were miscast, because they looked NOTHING like the characters in the book, and how we really needed Ian McKellen as Richard Sharpe--but of course, that was back when McKellen still had dark hair.) Snert. Casting games. They're fun.

And don't worry. I'm sure some Arthurian folks are going to be going nuts over the flick. Me, I'm just happy I get to see Clive Owen as not-a-thug. I liked Croupier and all, but he really has been cornering the market on shady London underworld characters for a while--I blame those BMW commercials.

Dunno if I'd think of Guinevere as serene, mind you. I mean, tipping an entire kingdom into war ala infidelity/treason isn't exactly the act of a serene woman... OTOH, at least this time you can see why Guinevere chose Lancelot over Arthur (unlike, say, when it was Richard Gere and Sean Connery, and every woman in the theatre was going, "say what??!")

Also, I like the pseudo-Roman helmets everybody's got on.

It's okay. But I still liked X-Men as a Marvel movie better .

I can agree with that. My only complaint about X-Men is that they should have give Chris Claremont a screen credit somewhere, if not stuck his mug up on the screen in a cameo. He wrote practically all of the story material that's being used for the movies, and nobody bothers to remember he's the guy who wrote that stuff, not Stan Lee. I mean, they're using Storm, Nightcrawler, Wolverine, not Iceman, Angel, and the Beast.

I was EXTREMELY happy to see him getting interviewed in the extras for the DVD of X-Men 2. About time he got some of the kudos due him.

BTW, did you know that DD knows Chris Claremont? I can't remember exactly which one (Wounded Sky? My Enemy, My Ally?) but she lists him in the dedication of one of her Star Trek novels.