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Noah (2014)
Prospero's Books
Fantasia
The Wizard of Oz
Labyrinth
Legend
Satyricon (1969)
Hook
The Adventures of Baron Munchhausen

It's a splendid genre which needs a revival..
 
Wolfwalkers: Wolfwalkers are humans who live with wolves, when their spirits leave their bodies they transform into wolves - werewolves. Set in 1650 in Kilkenny, Ireland and the woods near the town. Cromwell has occupied the area and is having the trees cut back, the wolves attack the tree cutters but the wolfwalkers try to mediate. A tale of the daughter of an English wolf hunter meeting up with a girl who is a wolfwalker. A friendship develops to the background of the occupation and the war between wolves and mankind. Beautiful, imaginative animation, the den of the wolves in a cave has rocks engraved with runes and sun wheels. A film which operates at several levels but at all times is entertaining. Directed by Tomm Moore and Ross Stewart from a screenplay by Will Collins. 8/10.
 
I am stoked to see this return of rotoscoped fantasy in the Fire And Ice style!
Ultra-violent, epic fantasy set in a land of magic follows heroes from a different eras and cultures battling against a malevolent force. Starring Richard E. Grant, Lucy Lawless, Patton Oswalt, Betty Gabriel, and Joe Manganiello.
 
At least the Star Wars had Bea Arthur in it.
Though we could've done without the insight into the family life of wookies.

I've a real soft spot for several fantasy films that many might regard with derision. Krull, Hawk The Slayer, The Sword and The Sorcerer. But my one go-to movie to watch on a boring Sunday afternoon is The Prince of Jutland. Starring Gabriel Byrne, Helen Mirren and Christian Bale, it's a straight-to-DVD (I think) film which is a good production quality tale of 6th Century Demark and (allegedly) the history that Shakespeare based Hamlet on. No fantasy dragons etc. as such, but swords, political machinations and revenge in an unfamiliar setting.
I only recently found out that Bill Shakespeare actually had a son (one of twins) called Hamlet/Hamnet who died age 11 in 1596.
 
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Marc Singer in "Beastmaster" :omg:

I would have paid a lot of money to be his loincloth.

I dunno. Less manscaping back then, suede loincloth, probably a fair amount of coke withdrawals. Lots of running around. As Cleveland says "that's got to be pretty nasty".
 
I dunno. Less manscaping back then, suede loincloth, probably a fair amount of coke withdrawals. Lots of running around. As Cleveland says "that's got to be pretty nasty".

Hey - we're talking about Marc Singer. Dude lived for manscaping.
 
Forget Singer's loin cloth, forget the bewbs of the lay-dees, I always thought the strange prisoners-strapped-into-spiked-gauntlets-and-metal-gimp-masks-then-glowing-fluorescent-liquid-poured-into-their-ear maniac killer thingies were pretty hardcore. Like making your own psycho berserkers.
 
My reviewette:

Tale Of Tales: Very Grimm Tales! Got darker as the film developed. An Ogre, Giant Flea, Sea Monster, Shape Shifter and more. Set in Medieval Italy but anachronisms abound: 18th century muskets, llamas, 19th century diving suit - 20,000 Leagues Under The Sea style.

John C. Reilly dons the Vernian diving suit to hunt a Sea Monster. 8/10

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt3278330/

Tale of Tales is on Film4 tonight/tomorrow morning at 00.55 am.
 
It seems a new Dungeons & Dragons movie has begun filming, after languishing for untold years in the Pit of Franchise Disappointment, deep within the keep of the Fortress of Endless Development. Doubtless, many hardy role-players are making saving throws against Getting One's Hopes Up. However, for reasons that escape me, they seem to be throwing money and star power at this project.

Let's hope it's not another bland fantasy tale.

Damn it, I failed the saving throw.
 
The past attempts really struggled.
On one hand, they wanted to make them 'true' to the spirit of the game which - all things considered - was fairly cliche in the fantasy genre. Now we've had Tolkien (inspiration for D&D), Game of Thrones (more political and dark), along with many sword and sorcery movies.
It's hard to think how they're going to compete nowadays.
It's like movies based on video games. When all is said and done, the video game is one punch-up to another, plot is optional. Thus things like Mortal Kombat seems shallow and plot-hole ridden. Some games have deep backgrounds but a balance must be struck between exposition and world-building in 90 minutes and enough CGI action to satisfy modern audiences.
 
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It seems a new Dungeons & Dragons movie has begun filming, after languishing for untold years in the Pit of Franchise Disappointment, deep within the keep of the Fortress of Endless Development. Doubtless, many hardy role-players are making saving throws against Getting One's Hopes Up. However, for reasons that escape me, they seem to be throwing money and star power at this project.

Let's hope it's not another bland fantasy tale.

Damn it, I failed the saving throw.

Hoping for an adaptation of the cartoon.

Would watch for certain.
 
It seems a new Dungeons & Dragons movie has begun filming, after languishing for untold years in the Pit of Franchise Disappointment, deep within the keep of the Fortress of Endless Development. Doubtless, many hardy role-players are making saving throws against Getting One's Hopes Up. However, for reasons that escape me, they seem to be throwing money and star power at this project.

Let's hope it's not another bland fantasy tale.

Damn it, I failed the saving throw.

If it's not shite I'll swallow my D20.
 
The past attempts really struggled.
On one hand, they wanted to make them 'true' to the spirit of the game which - all things considered - was fairly cliche in the fantasy genre. Now we've had Tolkien (inspiration for D&D), Game of Thrones (more political and dark), along with many sword and sorcery movies.
It's hard to think how they're going to compete nowadays.
It's like movies based on video games. When all is said and done, the video game is one punch-up to another, plot is optional. Thus things like Mortal Kombat seems shallow and plot-hole ridden. Some games have deep backgrounds but a balance must be struck between exposition and world-building in 90 minutes and enough CGI action to satisfy modern audiences.
I've often thought high fantasy movies are a hard sell to general audiences. You lose them straight away by setting them in a world entirely separate to ours. Pulling then back into the narrative can be tough. There has been a handful of movies and webseries combining role-players and their relationships with their characters in the game. The Gamers franchise plays well with this idea. It allows plenty of opportunity for humour, a little drama, and all the CGI environments and monsters you could hope for, and it's truer to what D&D is than just another fantasy movie, but it's never been done on a decent budget. I'd love to see that.

Hoping for an adaptation of the cartoon.

Would watch for certain.
I would have hated that idea, before seeing that great car commercial.
 
I've often thought high fantasy movies are a hard sell to general audiences. You lose them straight away by setting them in a world entirely separate to ours. Pulling then back into the narrative can be tough. There has been a handful of movies and webseries combining role-players and their relationships with their characters in the game. The Gamers franchise plays well with this idea. It allows plenty of opportunity for humour, a little drama, and all the CGI environments and monsters you could hope for, and it's truer to what D&D is than just another fantasy movie, but it's never been done on a decent budget. I'd love to see that.


I would have hated that idea, before seeing that great car commercial.

The preponderance of fantastical stuff post LOTR/Potter/Spider-Man and its dominance of global box office has retrained the straights to tolerate this stuff.
 
If Fantasy is not acceptable...then why is sf ok?
For the longest time, it seems, fantasy and sci-fi were not acceptable to general audiences. But sci-fi usually has more of a link to the world in which we live. These days, they seem to have more of a general popularity.
 
For the longest time, it seems, fantasy and sci-fi were not acceptable to general audiences. But sci-fi usually has more of a link to the world in which we live. These days, they seem to have more of a general popularity.

A friend of mine flat out refuses to watch Sci-Fi, superhero, Fantasy, Horror or anything animated. It’s either “rubbish” or “a load of bollocks”. This is his reaction to both TV and Film, unless it is Sport related or rooted in the real world. He claims that Hot Fuzz is the worst film ever made.

But it does say a lot when his favourite two movies are Pretty Woman and Seven Brides for Seven Brothers.

My mother-in-law, before she got dementia, was adamant that anything set in space was for, in her words “babies”! She also couldn’t see the point in reading fiction.

I‘ve always thought that people who thought that way lacked imagination, but my mother-in-law was a fantastic seamstress and cake maker (she designed and made my wife’s wedding dress and our wedding cake that was shaped like The Bellagio where we got married), and my mate is a cabinet maker by trade, so I’m not too sure about that theory now. Or can you lack imagination and still be creative?
 
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