Ok third time starting this thread, hope I have the best options in now.

I'll go ahead and apologize for this poll to those it offends, just hit that back button, but after reading reviews of Poseidon and Scooby-Doo I actually went as far as to check out the prices on Amazon before I stopped myself. They reportedly look fantastic, but I KNOW I'll hate them.. but still want to see them in HD.. just not $22 want :) I've seen Poseidon and was disappointed.

I didn't spend a great deal of time making up these poll options, sorry if other bombs are not listed or you consider some of these to be good movies. Don't vote for them :)

FWIW, I actually didn't hate the Hulk, but put it here so others can vote for it because I know it has its fare share of critics.

For me its a tie between CoR and Aeon Flux.
J

See the problem is most of the movies on the list I own I actually enjoy. The closest to eye candy only was Aeon Flux.

Again, Riddick.

If I would have actually bought Sky Captain, it would take the crown but that's one instance in which I really don't care how great it looks, I'm not adding that retardo film to my collection.

I voted Doom. There are parts that work ok, but it is really a bleeding polyp on the name Doom. Just an unbelievable piece of crap. It should have gone straight to DVD.

I can forgive a lot in a movie like this, but when they CONSTANTLY rip off Aliens and have quite possibly the stupidest explanation for monsters/superhuman abilities in the history of human culture......just wow.

Perhaps the most horrifying aspect of the film is that id software signed off on the script.

That movie could have been SO COOL! They needed large areas, more than 2 kinds of monsters, going out on the surface and had the monsters actually be from Hell coming through a rift caused by the teleporters.

So MANY mistakes. It's one of those times I wish I had been there to slap some sense into the scriptwriters.

woulda been riddick all the way, but i was given the title

I own Riddick, Aeon Flux, and Sky Captain, but actually enjoyed all of them.

I have to pick Tokyo Drift for the corny story line. Just when you though it was pretty bad, it takes a turn for the worse toward the end.

Aeon Flux.

Corpse Bride for me. Magnificent transfer, woefully disappointing film.

Phantom of the Opera, certainly.

Phantom of the Opera, certainly.

Ah heresy

Haven't bought any bad films, but the ones I rented from netflix have to be hulk,posidon,tokyo drift. ALL horrible IMO.

Hands down, Aeon Flux. That was back when there weren't many titles and everyone needed good PQ like a crack rock. Now we're less susceptible as there are many titles to choose from.

After watching The Adventures of Robin Hood and The Searchers I was hearing about Grand Prix and how awesome it looked for an older movie.

I blind bought it and yes is looks amazing and the races are fantastic but it just ain't my cup o' tea.

So yeah Grand Prix

King Kong

I have bought quite of few of those movies, and I only bought them because I like them. For me it would be the searchers, Casablanca, Munity on the Bounty. I only bought because of the PQ reviews. I gave them to my father for christmas.

I rather see Poseidon again before any of those. In fact, I have seen Aeon Flux like 3 times, Poseidon, only once, but all the extras, I won King Kong, and have yet to see it in any format.

Adam

Mission Impossible: III, cuz I wanted to check out the PiP features and stuff. The movie is OK, but not great IMO, and I really don't like Tom Cruise very much. I like Chronicles of Riddick (really!) and King Kong. I was always planning on getting Riddick (on sale). King Kong maybe not, but I got it free with my Xbox 360 HD DVD.

I'm considering wasting a few bux on renting Aeon Flux though.

King Kong is a highly criticaly acclaimed movie..

King Kong Critic Reveiws (http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/king_kong/)

I like King Kong , Aeon Flux , Sky Captain and Riddick .
Have not seen the others yet ...Hmmmm LOL

It was POTO for me.

King Kong is a highly criticaly acclaimed movie..

King Kong Critic Reveiws (http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/king_kong/)

Critics were AFRAID to attack King Kong because of Jackson's ravenous fanbase. Anyone who dared say a slightly negative thing about the LOTR movies was harrassed at work. Giving King Kong a pass is a lot easier than dealing with crap like that.

Here's the review I gave it after I saw it on opening day:

"I’m not one to complain about long movies, I love long movies. But there has to be a damn good REASON why they need to be long. Boat goes to island, monkey takes girl, guy retrieves girl, monkey rampages in New York. That story doesn’t need 3 hours to tell.

First off, there’s no opening credit sequence. I like opening credit sequences. It apeals to the graphic designer in me I guess. But that’s no big deal. The opening “life sucks” montage is kind of awkward mostly because we’re not sure what we’re being shown or why. You can keep on wondering because it doesn’t really have anything to do with the movie. I’m sorry but a giant ape does not need to be put into historical context.

Cut to Anne Darrow doing a Charlie Chaplin routine. Not kidding. They actually do try to work this into the plot later on but like so much of this film, it’s really forced. Apparently we need some kind of motivation for every character to be on that boat. They’re going to a mysterious island to make a movie, what further motivation do you need? So we spend an hour with that crap.

Most of it works ok, but once we get to the island you can throw it all away because none of it has anything to do with the rest of the movie. I guess this is as good a time as any to mention the acid-cam. What the hell was Peter Jackson smoking when he decided to employ drug-trip acid trails into random shots? I don’t understand what I was supposed to get out of that. It was annoying, but somehow I don’t think that’s what he was going for. 5 letters: S-K-U-L-L! It won't make any more sense when you see the film.

By the way, if you had an entire ship to bed down on, even if the cabins were full and no one thought to share one, would you sleep in a cargo hold full of camel crap? Yeah, me neither. And what was with that scene with Hayes talking about Jimmy’s “origin”? I mean, it was absolutely ridiculous! All of a sudden, out of nowhere, Hayes wanders off like he’s caught in a Nam flashback. I’ll try to reconstruct it here: “It all happened right over there in that cage. It was a dark and stormy night when the kid emerged from it, all sweaty and dirty, his muscles glimmering in the moonlight......he never even told me where he came from....” What was that doing in the movie? Does it pay off somewhere down the line? Nope. Hayes and Jimmy’s little “relationship” should have been left on the cutting room floor.

And speaking of characters I could give a rat’s tit about, how about Andy Sirkis’ demented Popeye act? My God was that painful! At least he had a really cool death. Just talking about that first hour is boring so let’s move on shall we?

So they’re sailing into the fog smooth as glass. But once they get to the island, there’s waves crashing all over the place and they’re smashing on the rocks. Sure there’s bound to be currents, but this was ridiculous! First of all, the ship is gliding into a rock face and the Captain yells out “kill the engines!” Umm, excuse me, I’m no expert, but don’t you mean REVERSE ENGINES!?!?” So guess what happens? Yep, they glide right into the rock face. Physics are a bitch. And that’s one sturdy hull. If Titanic was made out of whatever this little tug is, nobody would know who the hell Leonardo DiCaprio is.

So with all this thrashing and smashing, they decide that the best course of action is to get into a much smaller, more fragile boat. The scene with Anne doing the fake Hollywood scream on the beach isn't in the movie by the way, not that it’s missed.

Meet the natives. I think Tookie Williams started these people up because they are the evilest bastards around. And they somehow possess the ability to roll their eyes into the backs of their heads. Jackson spends lots of time making sure we understand these people are completely psychotic, murderous heathens, though I don’t understand why. But never fear because whitey shows up with a gun and starts blowing them all away. Whew, we sure could have used him in the LA riots eh? Yeah it was pretty bizzare. I’d say it’s just this side of out and out racism.

Now unlike the other films, there is never any interest by the natives in Anne. This is made all the more puzzling when the Kong Island Olympic Pole Vaulting team comes over to the ship, which is strangely about 20 yards away from shore, to steal her. So Jack finds the native necklace on the deck, then looks up and says “ANNE!” Yes, clearly they have come aboard and stolen Anne. Obviously, because there’s a necklace on deck. In the other movies it works because there’s a long bartering scene with the natives trying to buy her then getting pissed when they can’t and there’s sort of a battle as our heroes barely make it off the island. Since that doesn’t happen in this version, it doesn’t make much sense why Jack leaps to that conclusion.

So the natives have this elaborate rig to transport Anne over to the little alter thingee. I guess I don’t have a real problem with that, it just seems a little overly complex. When Kong shows up, he rips Anne off the thing. Her hands were tied to the posts with ropes so I’m surprised it didn’t rip her arms right off. I’m a little unlcear how the door to the gate works because it’s not a normal door either. It looks like sort of half a door with a bunch of spikes in front of it. Not a big deal, but it's annoying when things that should be easily conveyed aren't.

Jack and the gang are off to save the girl. Enter Demented Popeye with a stupid abominable snowman joke. And it’s on to another puzzling sequence. Again, it seems really forced. They happen across sort of a valley filled with grazing Brontosauruses. Unfortunately at that exact time, a couple of raptor-type dinos attack the herd, which promptly chases our characters down a ravine. I can’t help but wonder what the raptors plan was because they immediately start zipping around between the Bronto’s feet. Maybe this is a sort of game for them. “Hey Paco” “What do ya want Pancho” “Let’s start a bronto stampede and run around between their feet!” “AGAIN?.....Alright fine, but I’m getting a foot rub out of this.” It just doesn’t make a lot of sense. But whatever. So now the people are all scrambling around between the Bronto feet AND dodging snapping raptors. But then one of the Brontos trips and there’s this huge pile-up. See what I mean about forced? It just doesn’t feel natural at all. The composite of the characters dodging the feet doesn’t look too convincing either.

So we cut back to the girl and the monkey to see him shaking her around like a rag doll. This would break her neck of course, but nevermind that. He’s taken her to some sort of killing ground. We can tell this because it’s filled with human skeletons. That opens up a whole new can of worms. In the first two films, it is never outright stated that Kong intends to kill Anne, or anyone else for that matter. She is to be his “bride”, take from that what you will. This is a ritual that has been repeated several times we assume because it is interrupted by the group when Anne or Dwan is desired as a replacement. Since there is no such ritual in this version, we’re not really sure why the natives give her to Kong in the first place. But be that as it may, we now have proof that Kong is killing people. He’s not eating them, he’s just killing them. By the way he’s tossing Anne around, we can assume that he simply hates people and likes beating them till they die, like a cat with a mouse. That's not necessarily a bad element to add, but it does beg the question why he doesn't just kill kill them at the alter.

This is when Anne repeats her Charlie Chaplin routine. It works ok because of the context. She’s not trying to entertain kong, she’s trying to distract him from killing her. So I’m alright with it, although doing back-flips wouldn't probably be the first thing to spring to my mind when about to be killed by a giant ape. I also think Kong’s reactions are a bit too human. She stops the act (again it seems odd since it's the only thing keeping her alive), he throws a fit and swings away. Anne takes off back towards the ship.

The spider pit scene is fantastic. I really loved that part, but again, things get weird. The bugs come out to investigate right away and Jack throws a flare at them which sends them back into the rock face. Now is it just me or would you immediately start trying to get the **** out of there? Jack decides this is a perfect time to lament the dead. Yeah, let's all gather round and hold hands! The attack itself is absolutely fantastic though, until one character who is a self-described coward suddenly swings into frame like Tarzan and starts shooting all the bugs! Talk about out of left field! And It also just felt like a cop-out that 2 guys show up with guns and those hundreds of bugs just dissapear.

We catch back up with Anne as she encounters some crocodile-like dinos, some big centipedes and the infamous V-Rex (although PJ refers to them as T-Rex’s in the Production Diaries. Has Spielberg trademarked the name T-Rex or something?).

The following battle is spectacular, if again, forced. Why are vines stretched 50 yards across a cravasse? They must be made of titanium too.

But now this is where the movie really started to lose me. Kong kills the last dino and sits next to Anne with his nose in the air as if they had a lover’s spat. That’s just nuts. He gets up and walks away and, hold onto your butts, Anne chases after him yelling “WAIT!”. Without missing a beat he swings her up onto his shoulder, as if he knew she would follow him all along. PJ could have made this more plausible if Anne looked around in the jungle and maybe saw a tree move or something. But she’s not scared of that place, she just wants to be with Kong cuz she’s crushin’ on him. It plays really weird.

Back at the cave, Anne teaches Kong sign language as if he’s Bobo the friggin’ chimp and they stare off at a sunset together like love-struck teenagers. The movie doesn’t bother to explain how Jack finds her, but when he does, Anne is dozing comfortably in Kong’s open hand. They are the picture of domesticity as Kong snores in the background. But into their tidy love-nest comes barging this guy, who she was just making out with not long ago, who has this crazy idea of breaking up her new marriage in Dino-and-giant-bug-world. The GALL of the bastard! In fact, she looks almost HORRIFIED at the prospect of leaving her new groom, but she does. This time instead of pteradactles attacking, it’s giant bat-creatures. And yes, Jack and Anne fly away on one, but not like Gandalf on an eagle. They grab onto one’s foot and it limps away towards the ground below so I don’t have a big problem with that.

The capture sequence works well, but Jackson just can’t help swelling that music up and squeezing it (ergo stretching it out) for all it’s worth. It’s really sappy and over-dramatic, but like I said, as a whole it works.

It does strike me as odd that the ‘76 remake showed how Kong was transported but Jackson’s 3 hour opus couldn’t shimmy it in there. Not a huge deal, but it’s a bit of an abrupt cut. Yes I realize the ‘33 one did that too, but then it was half this length wasn’t it?

This time Anne has opted to do A Chorus Line instead of stay with Kong. And we spend precious minutes watching Jack's eyes glaze over at a play. I'll just say that by this point, I know how he felt. Why are we made to endure this? Anyway, soon enough Kong breaks loose and starts bustin’ heads. This part is fairly cool I guess, but by this time I’m really just wanting the film to be over.

Then he takes the bitch ice skating and it’s eye-rolling. How in God’s holy hell would a gorilla from the tropics get the idea to do a belly-slide the first time he sees ice? How is that ice even holding him up? PJ is trying to play this scene like Lady and the Tramp meets Bambi and it’s just crazy.

The end of the movie just doesn’t pack a punch hardly at all. If PJ cut out all the longing stares between Kong and Anne, this film would be about 10 minutes shorter. The ‘33 film had the ending pretty short. The ‘76 film managed to find lots of different things, both dramatic and action-oriented, on top of the WTC along with reactions on the ground. This movie just doesn’t do that. It’s "battle of the teary close-ups". I wanted Anne to SAY something so at least there’s some reason for them to keep staring at each other. Oh yeah, and then they jump through the time vortex and go from 7:30 p.m. to 6:00 a.m. just so they can forcedly witness the sunrise together and Bobo can mimick back his newly learned sign language. It’s all so stupid. Just the way PJ worked it out dilutes the whole thing. You just have to watch it to see what I mean. To top it all off, when Kong falls we’ve got that high-pitched female singing from LOTR and it feels really out of place.

“Gee Fett, it actually sounds like you prefer the ‘76 version to this one!” Don’t get me wrong, there’s bad stuff in the ‘76 version, but it flows much better than this one. Everything makes sense and you genuinely feel for Kong. It’s just too hard to do so in this one. There’s too much sappy crap. So much so that the Kong/Anne relationship actually gets annoying. When the credits rolled, they should have blasted “My Monkey Love”.

It’s an ok movie. The special effects are fantastic, but the movie is way too damn long, not because it’s a “feast” but because it’s overloaded with needless exposition and side tangents that have little or nothing to do with the main story. I think you guys have over-estimated this films take. It will be lucky to make it past $275M domestic. Oh it’ll have a monster weekend, but it’s tough to reccomend this film to people and condemn them to 3 hours of overbloated sentimentality. This film is beautiful at times, exciting at others, but mostly it just sits there and weeps quietly. That’s simply not enough for me.

C+"
http://www.rottentomatoes.com/vine/showthread.php?t=452595

Critics were AFRAID to attack King Kong because of Jackson's ravenous fanbase. Anyone who dared say a slightly negative thing about the LOTR movies was harrassed at work. Giving King Kong a pass is a lot easier than dealing with crap like that.
I don't know why some people claim this. I personally thought King Kong was not bad to pretty good, and the LOTR movies ranged from good to outright great.

Perhaps Jackson has a "ravenous fanbase" because people actually like his movies?

I don't know why some people claim this. I personally thought King Kong was not bad to pretty good, and the LOTR movies ranged from good to outright great.

Perhaps Jackson has a "ravenous fanbase" because people actually like his movies?

I've been a huge fan of Jackson's since Bad Taste. Most of Jackson's fans never heard of him until LOTR. I've loved every film he's made until Kong.

I've been a huge fan of Jackson's since Bad Taste. Most of Jackson's fans never heard of him until LOTR. I've loved every film he's made until Kong.
Just because you didn't like Kong doesn't mean every other reviewer is wrong in their opinion. Do you think I'm "wrong" for liking King Kong?

I must admit that I wasn't planning on buying this movie, but there are many movies I like that I don't buy.

I like King Kong , Aeon Flux , Sky Captain and Riddick .
Have not seen the others yet ...Hmmmm LOL

Apprently we watch and like the same movies.

PQ + AQ + CGI/Special Effects = good movie. :) Who needs plot?

Adam

King Kong for me. Not that it's a bad movie, but I wouldn't have bought it if it weren't Tier 0.

Hey hey, for once my choice made the highest(most popular) answer. Haven't seen doom or Scooby but the other are far and away better movies than Aeon.

Now if I can only get a concert disk featuring Barbra or Yanni in glorious HD

Don't kick me out but I really didn't like Kiss Kiss Bang Bang.

Why wasn't Swordfish on that list? If Halle Berry isn't eye candy in that film I don't know what is!

Why wasn't Swordfish on that list? If Halle Berry isn't eye candy in that film I don't know what is!Yep! Here's a picture I took at a friend's theater meet last month (http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?p=9100116&&#post9100116)...

http://crtforum.com/img/cliff03.jpg

The screen was 12' wide... Halle was life-sized!

As far as terrible HD-DVD movies that look good, my vote goes to Charlie & The Chocolate Factory (http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?p=9100198&&#post9100198).

Ok third time starting this thread, hope I have the best options in now.

I'll go ahead and apologize for this poll to those it offends, just hit that back button, but after reading reviews of Poseidon and Scooby-Doo I actually went as far as to check out the prices on Amazon before I stopped myself. They reportedly look fantastic, but I KNOW I'll hate them.. but still want to see them in HD.. just not $22 want :) I've seen Poseidon and was disappointed.

I didn't spend a great deal of time making up these poll options, sorry if other bombs are not listed or you consider some of these to be good movies. Don't vote for them :)

FWIW, I actually didn't hate the Hulk, but put it here so others can vote for it because I know it has its fare share of critics.

well, I only KK from that list and I actually think that is a really good movie. i don't have sky captain yet, but i liked that one too (i know this seems to garner very strong opinions of either love or hate, with probably more hating, but anyway. one odd thing, in this one group I was in, all the conservatives hated it and all the liberals liked it, probably just random coincidence due to small sample size though, not sure why it should be).

I have proudly bought none of these movies. I still may get an Xbox 360 HD DVD drive, but I would just put the King Kong disc on Ebay.

Especially now, there are plenty of HD DVDs to choose from, and no need to buy for "looks only".