Miscellaneous Movie Musings

[CoasterMatt]

Pollock in HD was an awesome experience.

[Bornieo: Fully Loaded]

I just purchased HARD BOILED on DVD. John Woo, Chow Yun Fat and a bodycount of 308 according to IMDB.com. An amazing Hong Kong action picture that is unequalled in the action, style and its wild to see how many films after it totally stole sequences.

The first action sequence is just so cool. Its a Chinese teahouse. Everone's got a gun and just what seems to be 20 min. of stuff- food- bodies flying all around. Just breathtaking.

[Not Afraid]

I LOVELOVELOVE that movie! It's not a genre I generally like (or can even stomach) but Hard Boiled (and The Killers) are so over the top, it's all ok with me.

[CoasterMatt]

If you like Hard Boiled - you gotta see Bullet In The Head, one of my favorites.

[mousepod]

If you like Hard Boiled - you gotta see Bullet In The Head, one of my favorites.

I gotta agree with Matt - Bullet In The Head could be Woo's masterpiece. A lot darker than Hard Boiled and The Killer, and also unfortunately not in print in the US. Of the myriad versions of the movie on import DVD, I'd go for the Hong Kong one by a company called Joy Sales.

[flippyshark]

I had A Bullet In The Head a couple of years ago, and sold it on eBay during desperate times. Wish I hadn't done that.

[Ghoulish Delight]

We watched More (http://imdb.com/title/tt0064694/) (1969) last night. The biggest selling point for this movie is the Pink Floyd soundtrack.

What can I say about it. First off, it's a pretty sucky movie. The writing sucks, the acting sucks.

That said, I really enjoyed it. I think what did it the most for me was the international flair to it. A German guy meets a New York girl in Paris, then follows her to Ibiza, meeting people of all different nationalities in the process. The movie I think captured something of that 60s European youth culture, where it was easy to just hop on a steam ship and bounce around the continent.

It also does a pretty admirable, if oddly sanitized, job of portraying drug use. There were a few good lines. "People who use heroine are people who want an escape from life. People who use pot or acid want to intensify their lives." (or something very close to that, can't find the exact quote).

And the music of course was awesome...when it was there. That was one of the bigger disappointments. It's a 2 hour movie and the majority of it has no score whatsoever. Huge stretches of watching bad dialog being poorly acted without even mind-bending music to listen to.

Overall I'd give it somewhere between a 6 and a 7.

[innerSpaceman]

Sounds like a good cemetary movie (with pot and acid, of course)

[Cadaverous Pallor]

I'm just so very glad I never went for the seriously addictive stuff.

[CoasterMatt]

Yeah, I'm glad I stayed away from hardcore drugs and went straight to cheddar cheese popcorn.

[Gemini Cricket]

Who keeps letting Roland Emmerich make movies?
10,000 BC is at 12% on rottentomatoes.com.
It's early yet but I don't think it will improve much...

[innerSpaceman]

But, but, there's mastodons in ancient Egypt or something. What can be wrong with that?

[Gemini Cricket]

But, but, there's mastodons in ancient Egypt or something. What can be wrong with that?
I guess a lot. It's now at 8%.

[innerSpaceman]

Yet Variety is predicting it will be #1 at the box office this weekend.

[Alex]

True, but it is early March. This time of year you win that title with numbers that barely get you noticed three months from now. I think if mousepod charged every $10 for one of his living room screenings that movie would make the top 20 this time of year.

[Gemini Cricket]

There's also a Raven/Martin Lawrence movie coming out, too. It may do well. It's going to be in a number of theatres. Not as many as 10,000 BC, though.

And if Tyler Perry releases two or three movies this week, they'll do well.
:D

[Alex]

I had to review College Road Trip (the Raven-Symone/Martin Lawrence movie) for MP. If you're watching it on TV for free it isn't actually horrible. But it is way to TV-ish and not nearly good enough to justify buying a ticket for it.

[Gemini Cricket]

Do you think College Road Trip will be a close second? It has the whole family-oriented vibe.

[mousepod]

A.O. Scott's review of 10,000 B.C. (http://movies.nytimes.com/2008/03/07/movies/07ten.html) in today's New York Times made me laugh out loud.

a sample:
...Yagahl, a tribe of snuffleupagus hunters who favor extensions in their hair and eschew contractions in their speech, prepare for their last hunt...

[LSPoorEeyorick]

God, I LOVE A.O.

Here is where I'd quote my favorite A.O. review - if I hadn't just quoted it in conversation with Jesse all of two weeks ago.

[Alex]

Honestly I haven't a clue. I would never pay for it but I also don't have any sense on how hot the teen passion for Raven is. Five years ago I think it would have opened pretty big (when I saw her and the reaction the Princess Diaries 2 premiere I didn't even know she was still working) but I don't know any more.

She's pretty fun to watch, and it is great to see a normal body figure treated as that (as opposed to a normal body figure being presented as fat but ok). It's a good Disney channel movie (in terms of quality it reminded me of Saintly Switch if you ever saw that, which was a Disney Channel movie).

I kind of wondered if they planned it for TV but then got Lawrence to sign on and figured they might as well try something bigger.

[innerSpaceman]

TeeHee, I can't wait for the future casa de mousepod double feature of 10,0000 B.C. and Mysterious Island.



(But where does One Million Years B.C. with Raquel Welch fit in??)

[mousepod]

But where does One Million Years B.C. with Raquel Welch fit in??

...with Clan of the Cave Bear, of course. BTW, we'd have to watch the UK version of One Million Years BC - the US version was edited...


... wait, maybe instead of Clan we could have Caveman with Ringo Starr...

[Gemini Cricket]

Zug zug!

[cirquelover]

Do you think College Road Trip will be a close second? It has the whole family-oriented vibe.


I know we'll be going to it for sure. The boy still has a thing for Raven. I don't mind, she's a sweet girl with a great voice.

[Alex]

And at 22 she is a very attractive young woman. Particularly in the late scenes when she's dressed for an interview. She works professional attire very well.

[Bornieo: Fully Loaded]

Just watched Michael Clayton finally. Really enjoyed it. I was glad they didn't go in the direction I thought they would. The acting was great, even the guy from Caddyshack. Damn, he got old.

[Alex]

I think of him as "the guy who used to beat up Roseanne's sister."

[blueerica]

Too long for me to catch up on this thread.... But....

I watched King of Kong last night. Excellent documentary for those who love video gaming and classic video games.

[CoasterMatt]

King of Kong is also an excellent documentary on a guy who won't stop playing a video game to go help his kid wipe up after going to the bathroom.

[Crazybirdman]

yeah, that was a classic moment. "Learn to play games from me, not how to parent"

[blueerica]

I felt bad with that scene. I actually highly doubt the kid needed help wiping his butt - he just missed his father, who had been devoting so much of his time toward Donkey Kong. I think that moment was a revelation for Weibe, since he seemed to pay more attention to his kids and wife following that incident.

[Not Afraid]

I'm trying to decide what film to watch tonight. I have a stack on the coffee table.

[flippyshark]

I just know that Gwendoline (a.k.a. Perils of Gwendoline in the Land of the Yik Yak) is in that stack. Go for it!

[Prudence]

I <3 Juno.

[Not Afraid]

Who? What?

Suspicion
Belle de Jour
8 1/2
The Go-Between
Or, something from the Almodovar box set.

[€uroMeinke]

Don't forget Lawrence of Arabia and Bonnie and Clyde (both on the DVD in HD)

[Disneyphile]

A movie sounds like an awesome idea. I need some serious sofa snuggle time. It's so nice having some quiet time away from worry! :)

We've yet to unwrap "Harry Potter: OOTP" from Christmas yet. I'm thinking this would be a good time to do so. I'd like to see the ending without the 3D "finale" we saw at the IMAX. I thought it was so overdone and reminded me of the final battle in the last "Matrix" film.

[Gemini Cricket]

I saw Across the Universe at CoasterMatt's.
My reaction was... meh.

[Alex]

This weekend

The Laughing Policeman - Perhaps most misleading title ever. Gritty 1973 police drama starring a thoroughly dour Walter Matthau. Lots of nice street scenery of the San Francisco location but otherwise not a very interesting movie.

A Night at the Museum - Surprisingly not horrible. I don't ever need to see it again but it is harmless enough. Mizuo Peck, who played Sacajawea, is the hotness.

Double Indemnity - Brilliant as always.

The Bank Job - Wouldn't mind knowing more about which parts are true and which parts are poetic license. It's not going to set the world on fire and will be forgotten in a couple years but I enjoyed most of it.

[Alex]

I can't tell you how giddy this makes me. It is about 15 years too late but I saw the trailer before The Bank Job tonight and I went to martial art movie heaven for the brief seconds seen of Chan and Li fighting each other.



http://filmz.ru/films_files/posters/big/b_5183.jpg

[LSPoorEeyorick]

We watched a ton of movies this weekend - Bournes A and B (not yet C, it's on our payperview queue) which were full of action but couldn't quite hold my attention. Elizabeth (2, but not II) which was generally better than I'd been told. Michael Clayton again, which I liked better the second time (and I liked it pretty well the first time.) A really terrific American Experience about Buffalo Bill (this is going to spur another biopic screenplay on the Todi Mooers to-do list.) Miss Pettigrew Lives For a Day, which was generally delightful but about the consistency of taffy. Penelope, which was very pretty eye-candy but hit-and-miss otherwise.

[Snowflake]

I caught Michael Clayton this weekend. It held my interest and I loved Tom Wilkinson (as always a fabulous performance). I love Tilda Swinton, but was her performance so subtle that I missed entirely why she won an Oscar for it? Not so much of her and not so much to do, maybe I need to see it again, but I thought she was much more expressive and commanding in Narnia I.

Anyway, I do not feel it was 2 hours wasted, but there were many points that really went nowhere in the plot and added to the initial confusion.

[Snowflake]

I can't tell you how giddy this makes me. It is about 15 years too late but I saw the trailer before The Bank Job tonight and I went to martial art movie heaven for the brief seconds seen of Chan and Li fighting each other.

How was The Bank Job? It looks like it might be good. I do love me a good heist movie.

[Ghoulish Delight]

Fido - This was a Netflix recommendation (watched it online, connected to the TV. I can't get over how awesome that service is). Really enjoyed it. If you liked Sean of the Dead, and/or Idiocracy, you'll probably enjoy this movie. It falls a little flat, in the same way that Idiocracy does, and some of the acting is not the greatest, but the concept is hilarious and it's overall a good watch.

Mysterious Island - 1961 movie based (I don't know how faitfully) on a Jules Verne book and with Ray Harryhausen animation (sorry, Dynamation). It's exactly what you want out of the genre. Animation was of course great, story epic and cheesy.

[Strangler Lewis]

Finally saw "From Here to Eternity."

Eh. Choppy.

I was also a tad deflated that 30 seconds after the big kiss in the waves, he was calling her a whore.

[Alex]

If you liked Sean of the Dead, and/or Idiocracy, you'll probably enjoy this movie.

What if I loved Shawn of the Dead but despised Idiocracy not only for being unfunny and poorly made but also morally reprehensible in its presentment of the worst type of eugenics and biodeterminism?

[Ghoulish Delight]

Umm, then I guess you may or may not like Fido I suppose. Though it's probably got more in common with SotD than Idiocracy. I made the comparison because they're both "what if" type worlds, but definitely not the same sort of "what if".

[Snowflake]

Next up in the Netflix Queue

Lust Caution and some Miss Marple Mysteries

[Ghoulish Delight]

I heard that the Chinese government started censoring Lust Caution because people were injuring themselves imitating the sex scenes.

[Ponine]

King of Kong is also an excellent documentary on a guy who won't stop playing a video game to go help his kid wipe up after going to the bathroom.

I'm sorry, I lauged so hard at that moment. My son watched that movie with me, and when the child was yelling, he was sitting there saying, Wipe your own butt, you're five!!!

Otherwise, we both enjoyed this movie. Though I had a hard time explaining to my son why the reigning champ was being such "a baby".

On another note, I watched Keeping Mum this weekend.
Maggie Smith is funny. really funny.

I didnt know Rowan Atkinson could play a straight role.

And that movie was totally not what I expected, but I still loved it.
And thats just wierd for a movie with a body count.

[innerSpaceman]

The sex scenes in Lust, Caution are just WHOA. Especially the first one. Sigh, I long to "imitate" that scene. Brutal hotness extraordinaire.


Ugh, sorry you were meh about Across the Universe, GC. I liked it a lot better the second time when I wasn't watching it as a "story," but merely as an operetta of Beatles numbers linked by the flimsiest plot that was cobbled together to fit the songs, and not the other way around.

[cirquelover]

We went and saw College Road Trip, which the boy loved as we knew he would. Raven is just cute and sweet. I love that she doesn't have to be stick thin to be a pretty role model.

We also saw Martian Child. It was slow moving but a touching story. The little boy was cute and it was fun to see the Cusack's playing brother and sister.

[Moonliner]

We passed a bit of a milestone. I took the kid to his first R-Rated movie: The Bank Job.

He liked it. I was less impressed.

[Alex]

Of course he liked it, there were naked boobies within the first 20 seconds.

Really, for many years that's all it took for me to consider a movie to be a classic.

[Strangler Lewis]

We passed a bit of a milestone. I took the kid to his first R-Rated movie: The Bank Job.

He liked it. I was less impressed.

Of course he liked it, there were naked boobies within the first 20 seconds.

Really, for many years that's all it took for me to consider a movie to be a classic.

In the same vein, I happened to catch the unrated version of American Pie: Beta House on TV the other night. I'd say it was the first vaguely mainstream movie I've seen featuring full frontal nudity involving a fully weed-whacked crotch (or whatever it is the girls do to themselves these days). Didn't look like I was watching a naked woman. I almost had to run out to rent a copy of Porky's to reorient myself.

But if I was 14, I know my head would have exploded.

[LSPoorEeyorick]

So I've already stated here that I loved Persepolis.

I do not love the Studio Briefing news service which populates IMDb, among other things. Their headline: "French Animated Film Banned in Iraq." Their story:

The award-winning French animated film Persepolis has been banned in Lebanon, a country with strong cultural ties to France. Daily Variety commented today (Tuesday) that Lebanese authorities acted in order to avoid offending pro-Iranian members of the Lebanese opposition, which includes Hezbollah. Last year the Bangkok Film Festival banned the movie, which had been scheduled to open the festival, after officials at the Iranian embassy protested. The film concerns a young girl's experiences growing up in Iran at the time of the Islamic revolution in 1979. It won the jury prize at last year's Cannes Film Festival.

Sorry, Lebanon /= Iraq.

[JWBear]

We watched The Trouble With harry tonight. I had forgotten how good that movie is. So sweetly twisted.

[Eliza Hodgkins 1812]

The sex scenes in Lust, Caution are just WHOA. Especially the first one. Sigh, I long to "imitate" that scene. Brutal hotness extraordinaire.


Ugh, sorry you were meh about Across the Universe, GC. I liked it a lot better the second time when I wasn't watching it as a "story," but merely as an operetta of Beatles numbers linked by the flimsiest plot that was cobbled together to fit the songs, and not the other way around.

The moral of Lust, Caution is if you have really hot sex ALL OF YOUR FRIENDS ARE GOING TO DIE!

Those were hot scenes, and I'm not sure that was all acting.

[CoasterMatt]

My reaction to Across the Universe was a bit better than meh.

There are two sequences I love - I Want You (She's So Heavy) and Being For The Benefit Of Mr. Kite - I've watched the I Want You sequence 6 or 7 times now, and it's just too cool.

[Snowflake]

Caught Into the Wild last night.

Well worth watching, though not presented as a cautionary tale, more like the tale of an inspired youth in search of adventure and adventure within himself.

I remember reading the original story when it came out and thought, this fool should have feared to tread at least with a map and compass.

I've not read the book on which the film is based or the documentary, though I'd like to see that, too.

[innerSpaceman]

I Want You is definitely the best number in the show. I also love I Wanna Hold Your Hand as a plaintive ballad. And Bono's I Am the Walrus as a tribute to LSD. Joe Cocker's Come Together was also teh awesome. And Happiness is a Warm Gun (featuring Salma Hayeck as a quintet of naugthy nurses) was another standout.

[LSPoorEeyorick]

My favorites were "I Want You" and "I Wanna Hold Your Hand." And not actually that much else.

[Alex]

I don't know the names of any of the songs for the most part so I can't say which were my favorites.

But I enjoyed several a lot. Several I enjoyed conceptually but thought they didn't work. And several more were duds.

By the end I had shifted the manner in which I was watching from being a single movie to being something like that something I remember for one of Michael Jackson's albums ("Dangerous"?) where all the videos were shown together with mild connections between thing he did where he strung the videos for all of the songs on the album into a single somewhat linked presentation (I don't know if that was an official thing or if one of the music channels did it on their own).

At the time I thought it might have worked better if Taymor had just given up any semblance of a single story arc (maybe each song being a vignette from the era) but having seen "Love" in Vegas since then I think I may no longer think that.

[LSPoorEeyorick]

So we watched Nancy Drew last night. We did this for a number of reasons, including our fondness for genre pictures including both kids' movies and mysteries, my appreciation in youth of the pint-sized case-solver, and a fair number of good reviews.

But I have to say to the reviewers: I'm sorry, but retro styling and a young woman unwilling to compromise to fit in does not a good movie make. Better than Bratz? I certainly imagine so. But good? No.

Screenwriting lessons learned (or reinforced, if already understood)...

1) A "Mary Sue" character is written as the embodiment of perfection. She knows the answers to the universe and doles them out to everyone around her. Her face is flawless, her morality is flawless, her intelligence is flawless. She can perform an emergency tracheotomy even at age 16. She has near-super powers of strength. She is completely uninteresting.

2) The only thing worse than writing a Mary Sue is surrounding her with flat characters who fawn over her, and flat villains who dismiss her. I would say that about 95% of the other actors in the movie spend the whole time saying things like "wow, you're right." "You should write a book about that." "I don't know what we'd do without you." It doesn't make the Mary Sue seem any more brilliant, it just makes every other person in the film seem lifeless. And what joy is there in overcoming a villain who topples like a house of cards, 2D and without any strength whatsoever? Even Bruce Willis, in a cameo as himself, has only one thing to say in the film, and that is to tell Nancy that he thinks she should take over directing the movie she stumbles into.

3) If you're going to build your movie around a Mary Sue, and surround her with cardboard characters, don't then undermine her character with flawed information that is accepted by everyone around her. I don't mean flawed information as in "one can investigate 20 people with the same name on different sides of Los Angeles in one day," I mean "one saves someone from choking by doing CPR." In order to set up a flimsy plot point, the snotty 2D mean-girls overhear Nancy saying she knows CPR, so they set her up, making a sidekick pretend to choke so she'll have to perform mouth-to-mouth. Apparently neither Nancy, the villains, or the rest of the basketball stadium knows about the Heimlich. This is not a very big problem to correct; instead of "knows CPR" all they had to write was "knows emergency medical training... CPR... Heimlich... you name it, I can do it!" This would be preferable to teaching scads of untrained kids that one is supposed to push on a choking person's heart.

And, it generally seemed that ALL of their screenwriting mistakes could be easily swapped out with some intelligent script-doctoring. It's not that hard. Or, apparently, it is. But it certainly makes me ever more fervent to finish this slew of screenplays partly-completed, because I really, really believe that aiming for "better than Bratz" just isn't high enough, isn't respectful of your audience - who, believe it or not, are pretty smart - and isn't going to make you as much money as a movie that is appealing AND smart AND avoids condescending to its characters or its audience.

[cirquelover]

So I learned; Don't stay up late watching freaky movies on the Movie Channel and expect to be able to sleep before 4AM:D

[innerSpaceman]

I can't wait to see some of LSPoorEeyorick's movies!!!

[LSPoorEeyorick]

Aww. I cannot giveth you thanks-for-your-support mojo, so I've no choice but to give you XOXOXOX here.

[JWBear]

We watched Rope tonight. I'm ashamed to say I've never seen it. It was very good!

[mousepod]

I watched the Criterion remaster of Sweet Movie (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sweet_Movie) last night.

A very interesting flick. This version is uncensored, in the original languages and is a much better print than the bootlegs that were floating around for the last decade. Still... it's a beautiful mess (if you're in the right mood and have a relatively strong stomach).

[innerSpaceman]

I finally saw Beowulf, and there's something I find very interesting about it.

As a live-action film, I would judge it a cornball failure ... yet as a cartoon, I deem it pretty much a rousing success.

As such, I'll grant it the benefit and consider it an animated tale. The characters pretty much look like the humans in Shrek, so I can go with the animated angle - even though the humans were crafted by scanning the movements of live actors and not by artisans of any kind "drawing" the animation. But there were plenty of creatures and locations that were traditionally animated ... hahaha, in the sense that computer animation has now become "traditional."

Some of the main characters look pretty photo-realistic, but they've still got that Shrek-ish feelling about them, and they move in a vaguely animated way. The background characters, and even some of the character roles, are completely Shrek-like. So it really comes off as an animated movie ... in which the somewhat cornball telling of the Beowulf tale fits just fine.

Oddly, while some of the characters look nothing like the actors who provide their voices (as would be typical for an animated film), a few are disconcertingly designed to look just like the actors who portray them ... further blurring the line between live-action and animation.


It's that blur that makes this an interesting movie for me. I'm fascinated that I apparently have widely different criteria for a successful live-actioner than I do a cartoon.

Also, though I'm certainly no Beowulf expert ... it appears they did a very good job in adapting the tale to movie form. Kudos for that.


Overall - - surprisingly not bad. Oh and Ray Winstone (who plays Beowulf) has a fantastic voice. Love the way he says 'Monsta." ;)

[€uroMeinke]

We watched Poor Cow (http://imdb.com/title/tt0062141/) last night furthering our exploration of 1960's British cinema. While certainly flawed, I was still captivated by this film and it's stark tale of working class life and message that we are all bent. Not sure I'd recommend this to anyone, but it has me wanting to see more of what was coming out of England during this time.

[CoasterMatt]

I watched Frankenstein Unbound (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0099612/) last night. In HD.

Best line of the whole movie - "Meet... My Monster!"

[alphabassettgrrl]

ISM- I had the same thought about Beowulf. The people looked mostly real, but the movements were stilted, and weird. The skin and clothes are too perfect and it feels fake and awkward.

We just watched Miami Vice the movie. I wasn't terribly impressed other than the fact that they hired women with muscle tone. That was hot. I'm glad we didn't pay theater prices.

[Sohrshah]

I didn't read IsM's feeling about the animated as being a negative feature of the film. am I worng? He called the movements animated, and ABG called them stilted and awkward.

My feeling is somewhere in the middle. Like IsM, I grant Beowulf the benefit of being an animated film. I also feel that the video capture elements were a little "too" real, a little lacking in the somewhat exagerated tradition of animation - be it 2-D or 3-D. The Final Fantasy movie, and lo, it's earlier video games cousins suffered from the same issues. The more surrent FF video games seem to have resolved most of the awkwardness of having photo-real animated characters moving "too" realistically, but I think that the strange quality of video capture is part and parcel to the technique.

Actors used to use posing as part of acting, and it was over the course of decades that the traditions of acting changed to become more realistic in execution. Animation, particularly the photo-real variety, has seen a very sudden change in its psychosymbolic language. The video cpatue technique is a big part of that sudden change, and it does come with advantages as well as the obivous drawback of awkwardness. Either we will get used to the rather eerie reality, or filmmakers will develop techniques for animating photo-real characters which have more elegant motion.

I think the adaptation was decent, though it was certainly about as true to the original story as "300" is true to the oldest versions of that tale. It's a modern re-creation of an old story. I do like that in this case Beowulf's mother is a creature of cruel beauty, not a hag. We, as a modern audience, can better understand the failure of a king if he is seduced by Angelina Jolie than by a grotesque hag, no matter how terrible her power. It just translates better to film.

[Alex]

I loved Beowulf the first time I saw it. I fell asleep the second.

Apparently novelty was a big part of what I liked.

[Motorboat Cruiser]

Kind of off topic but - Can anyone tell me the name of the movie that we watched at NA's home on New Year's Day? I can't think of the name and it is driving me crazy! :)

[Gemini Cricket]

Kind of off topic but - Can anyone tell me the name of the movie that we watched at NA's home on New Year's Day? I can't think of the name and it is driving me crazy! :)
CQ?

[Motorboat Cruiser]

That would be it! Thank you so much!!!

[innerSpaceman]

Just to clarify, I thought the animated feeling of the character movement in Beowulf was a positive. Anything that leaned toward it being an animated movie made it a better film in my eyes.

I love the adaptations to the story the filmmakers made, and I don't think it took things too far off. It was clear that Grendil's Mother could appear as a beauty, but that it was not her natural form (which seemed to be more a lizard-creature than a hag ... but i think the point being that she could appear as many things). The only bit I absolute hated about her appearance as a luscious siren were the stilletto heels she was sporting to aid the look. I couldn't help but think that, like Merlin in Disney's The Sword in the Stone, Grendil's Mother was a time traveler who visited the 20th century for fashion tips before heading back to the 4th century to seduce Beowulf. Ugh.


I thought the biggest change ... moving the third act from back in Beowulf's native Sweden to the Denmark of the earlier acts ... was spot-on brilliant. It let the tale keep the same set of characters (adding only Beowulf's yummy new concubine) and, for a movie, I thought that was clearly the best choice -- certainly warranting a departure from the version of the tale best known.

Keeping in mind, of course, that the written poem was set down centuries after the tale had been part of oral tradition for hundreds of years. I think it's safe to say the famous poem can not be considered the one, true version of the tale.

And though historians believe many of the characters are based on actual people, the tale of Ogres and Witches and Dragons clearly has fictional elements galore. Changing elements of Beowulf, then, is somewhat different an adaptation puzzle than 300 vs. historical fact.

[alphabassettgrrl]

I liked the Beowulf story but I have mixed feelings about the animation/CGI thing. It's become, lately, more "look how cool the animation is" and they seem to use it as a substitute for actual story. I was glad to see Beowulf still had an actual story, and while I didn't want to see it live-action so much, the animation but not quite realness was distracting.

[NickO'Time]

Had Glory Road on my DVR, finally watched last night. Great film, awe inspiring.
Sports film.

[innerSpaceman]

Sports films. Meh. Hate that genre, sorry.


* * * *

I would have preferred Beowulf as straight animation. It seems like a lazy short-cut to scan human movement to create animation. If you can't draw it, don't do it.

[Cadaverous Pallor]

I would have preferred Beowulf as straight animation. It seems like a lazy short-cut to scan human movement to create animation. If you can't draw it, don't do it.I don't know exactly what technique they used in Beowulf, but if you're knocking motion capture, you might have to never watch anything ever again to get away from it.

If you're talking about the age old practice of taking film and copying it to make animation...

http://www.geocities.com/SoHo/Exhibit/5023/yspictures/card46.JPG
Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds in Yellow Submarine

http://us.movies1.yimg.com/movies.yahoo.com/images/hv/photo/movie_pix/fox_searchlight/waking_life/tiana_hux/life.jpg
Waking Life

[Gemini Cricket]

Waking Life gave me motion sickness. Good film, but I yaked.
:)


I'm watching GoodFellas right now. Uh, why didn't this movie win Best Picture? Love this film.

[wendybeth]

That is probably my favorite mafia film, GC. I like it even better than the Godfather series. Ray Liotta was awesome, as was Lorraine Bracco. Great cast, great score, great editing, etc. :snap:

[Bornieo: Fully Loaded]

Goodfellas was about 45 min. too long. All that stuff with the drugs and helicopters just dragged the film down. The first half is good but the just bores me to death.

[wendybeth]

I thought it did a fantastic job of capturing the drugged-out paranoid state, and then it turns out he was right to be paranoid! I don't know; I suppose my life in the Eighties wasn't too far removed from his, so I appreciated things on a different level. (As far as drugs and such go- I only had casual acquaintances with some minor league mafioso. Spokane is a favorite repository of Henry Hill-types for the Witness Protection Program, after all.)

The Seventies and Eighties were wild. It's a wonder any of us survived, let alone reasonably intact.

[mousepod]

Two quick suggestions (posting from the airport):

€uro: check out Soderbergh's The Limey, if you haven't already. He uses Poor Cow for the flashback sequences. Pretty neat.

iSm: Can you imagine an early 80s punk band featuring members of the Sex Pistols on guitar and drums, a guy from The Clash on bass and Beowulf singing lead? Come to our next movie night, and prepare to be amazed.

[Snowflake]

No no no. What's Up Doc?

One of Bogdonovich's best (Last Picture Show being first best and then Paper Moon or What's Up Doc)

What's Up Doc is the best nod to 1930's era screwball comedy. Madeline Kahn, fabulous!

[Snowflake]

I'm watching GoodFellas right now. Uh, why didn't this movie win Best Picture? Love this film.

I love, love, love this film. Like WB, this is my favorite modern gangster film. Well cast, in fact, perfect casting.

I love Godfather I & II for a period piece, Godfather III was so terribly bad and I cheered (literally) when Sofia was shot on the steps of La Scala and secretly wished that the entire cast and director had been mowed down by tommy guns for making III, P.U.

[Deebs]

Madeline Kahn, fabulous!

Always. Loved her.

I love, love, love this film. Like WB, this is my favorite modern gangster film.

Add me. Goodfellas is by far my favorite. Scorsese is a favorite of mine anyway.

I can't even hear the song Layla without thinking of Goodfellas. Perfectly haunting, in the best possible way.

[Eliza Hodgkins 1812]

That is probably my favorite mafia film, GC. I like it even better than the Godfather series. Ray Liotta was awesome, as was Lorraine Bracco. Great cast, great score, great editing, etc. :snap:

I'm right there with you, Wendybeth. I thought it was more deserving of the Oscar than his win for The Departed.

Sometimes, to amuse myself, I try to say "Karen" the way Ray Liotta says it.

[Gemini Cricket]

I just watched the scene again where Henry takes Karen into the club through the kitchen. All in one shot. It's an amazing shot. Imagine how much prepping they had to do and how many rehearsals it took. Truly a classic film.
:)
Here's the shot (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sWYe-Ef3u5M&feature=related)

[Gemini Cricket]

More on GF:
There's a reason Pesci won Best Sup Actor for this film. It's not only the "you think I'm funny scene" it's way more than that. The scene where he's beating the crap out of the shine-box guy with De Niro, there's a close-up of him that is amazing. "I didn't want to get blood on your floor." His face is doing so many things it's a great moment to watch. He's angry, he's upset, he's panicked, he knows he's out of control, he know he's going mad, he's fond of his friend Henry... Man! It's a wonderful moment.

[Snowflake]

BTW, the Goodfellas special edition (I think) DVD is on sale at amazon right now. I do need to buy this film!

[innerSpaceman]

oh, i'm so tempted. But while I loved the movie, mafia films disturb me greatly and i tend not to watch them again. I've only seen Goodfellas once.


I grew up with mafioso and knew many of their kids. The entire subject matter bothers me, and the genre bugs me. But, hmmmm, I am a huge Sopranos fan. Go figure.

[Gemini Cricket]

Well, don't devastate your life by watching a movie, iSm. Sheesh!
It's all make-believe, don't forget...

:D

[Deebs]

I just watched the scene again where Henry takes Karen into the club through the kitchen.

It's been way too long since I last saw GF...

[innerSpaceman]

Um, except that it's not make-believe, G.C.

I know you were kidding around, but Goodfellas tells a true story. (Though of course it takes dramatic license)

Perhaps that's why I like The Sopranos, but can't stand to watch Goodfellas or The Godfather. Ugh, I hated constantly driving through through those tollbooths where Sonny was gunned down. Yuck.

[Gemini Cricket]

Oy, lighten up, dear.
No one's making you watch anything.

[innerSpaceman]

Ugh, I hate the internet. You mistake my tone, sweetie-darling.


It's the damn Quick Reply feature. It's so convenient, but doesn't offer smileys. But the time I type stuff and then realize a smiley might be appropriate, I'm too lazy to "Go Advanced."



But, um, yeah, those are true stories. The Godfather stories in particular, well, I knew relatives of some of those people. And yeah, those tollbooths were a constant drive-thru.


For perspective though, there's a certain tunnel on Big Thunder Mountain Railroad that scares me every time I go thru it. And I squeal with a combination of fear and delight. And it remains one of my favorite rides.


It's all relative.



Still, I'm not a big fan of mafia movies. For repeat viewings that is. Pfft, I wish I never purchased Schindler's List. Great film, but am I ever in the mood to watch it. Um, No.

[Ghoulish Delight]

\


It's the damn Quick Reply feature. It's so convenient, but doesn't offer smileys. That's an outright falsehood, you fvcking troll.

[katiesue]

:D - posted via quick reply.

[Ghoulish Delight]

That's an outright falsehood, you fvcking troll.
Just in case it wasn't obvious, I'd like to add: ;)

[Gemini Cricket]

:iSm: <-------posted via quick reply lol!

[blueerica]

:):cool::blush::(:D

All that and more via Quick Reply. ;)

I get what you are getting at, though, iSm. However, I'm a big fan of the genre. Oddly, J doesn't seem to be - at least not as much. He has yet to see the Godfather series in any part, and I'm sure there's a bunch of other stuff he missed. I'm not even sure if we own Goodfellas, though I have a feeling we do. I can't wait to catalogue his DVDs.

[innerSpaceman]

Oh, there's a smiley pull-down that I never noticed.:blush:


Woot! Ah, but if G.C. had never perceived me as cranky, I would never have had the smilavailability pointed out to me. Huzzah.

[Eliza Hodgkins 1812]

:):cool::blush::(:D

All that and more via Quick Reply. ;)

I get what you are getting at, though, iSm. However, I'm a big fan of the genre. Oddly, J doesn't seem to be - at least not as much. He has yet to see the Godfather series in any part, and I'm sure there's a bunch of other stuff he missed. I'm not even sure if we own Goodfellas, though I have a feeling we do. I can't wait to catalogue his DVDs.

I'm not a fan of the genre, which is why the sheer excellence of Goodfellas really stands out for me. I've never watched The Godfather. I did watch the first season of The Sopranos, because it was a satire. I think it began to veer away from that in the 2nd, and so lost interest in the show.

[innerSpaceman]

Oh, uh, to re-focus the thread on movie musings.

I'm amused that Paramount is going to take another shot of adapting Dune into a movie.

And bemused that Sam Raimi will direct an attempted revival of the Jack Ryan franchise (which will likely take the Bond route of a just-getting-started Ryan in a present-day adventure).



:iSm: - but, God, that makes me so happy! :)


Where's the Total Serious Happy Thread?

[blueerica]

I actually think that Godfather I, and to a lesser degree Godfather II are above the 'genre' as it were. While it is definitely a 'mobster' flick, I really felt that the films were about the drama of a family, and the surrounding people, being pulled apart at the seams.

[LSPoorEeyorick]

I'm not generally a fan of the mafia oeuvre, either. I can see the quality of the films but I don't typically enjoy them. For me, however, it's the first Godfather that stands out as the one I will watch and re-watch. I really think it might be the best-filmed film ever. The quality of light? The shadows? I'm a sucker for something that good-looking. I'm also a sucker for ironic voiceover: boy howdy does the baptism at the end get me every time.

ETA: Erica, jinx!

[blueerica]

Your sentiments are mine, in terms of the beauty as well. Ditto that for the ironic voiceover. I just need to sucker J into watching it. He knows my enthusiasm, and he wants it, too. I am not spoiling it with a marathon.

[Chernabog]

I just saw the movie "Ordinary People" on Sunday (best picture from 1981 I think), which was REALLY good. I guess it seemed really progressive at the time for its positive portrayal of psychiatry when going to therapy was a stigma and therapists were mostly seen as quacks. It was good to see Mary Tyler Moore in a non stereotypical "cold hearted bitch" role... :) Timothy Hutton was actually kinda adorable too (oh man did I identify with him), whereas now I see him as creepy lol.

My primary thought while watching was that I felt like a voyeur to the real life of this family, totally deserving of the award.

[innerSpaceman]

Did Gemini Cricket instigate that viewing??

[Chernabog]

Did Gemini Cricket instigate that viewing??

Whose, mine? No, I actually had it from netflix. GC and I played Super Smash Bros. Brawl for 4 hours and never watched a movie :)

[innerSpaceman]

Oh, because he insists that film is a biography of HIS family.

[alphabassettgrrl]

Watched "Balls of Fury" last night. I laughed. :) A lot. Christopher Walken is amazing. And it's got George Lopez!

[Gemini Cricket]

Oh, because he insists that film is a biography of HIS family.
It is. It truly is.
Without the suicide attempt.
I'm Timothy Hutton, my dad's Donald Sutherland and my mom's Mary Tyler Moore. There also have been a ton of Judd Hirsches in my life.
:)

[Not Afraid]

I thought that was my family. Or maybe that's Interiors.

[Gemini Cricket]

I thought that was my family. Or maybe that's Interiors.
Dear, your family is Aristocats combined with Born Free.

:D

[Not Afraid]

Nooooo, not my CHOSEN family, my other, non-chosen family.

[blueerica]

Watched "Balls of Fury" last night. I laughed. :) A lot. Christopher Walken is amazing. And it's got George Lopez!

Ping-PONG?

I got a kick out of the movie, too...

They have a Peppermill in Wendover and I giggled.

[Gemini Cricket]

Elizabeth: the Golden Age
I am 15 minutes in and all I have to say is: ick!
The screenplay is far too choppy, the characters are introduced quickly without even getting to know them and Elizabeth has been portrayed so far as some sort of winky supermodel. Ick.
The editing is by far some of the worst editing I have ever seen in a film. You can barely breathe watching this MTV video style cutting. It's almost flickering in places because the cuts are so quick. I know there is a lot of ground to cover, but a well told story can take its time and hold its audience...
The only reason I don't press eject is because I adore Blanchett and Owen so much.
Ick.

[innerSpaceman]

That's harsh.


The first 15 minutes is practically a montage. It's a stylistic hook. It's a set-up. Sheesh.


Warning: The last half-an-hour is very stylistic, too. It's supposed to be operatic, according to the director, Shekhur Kapur.

In between, the pace and styling is more mainstream, but still with plenty of what came to be known as Kurpurisms ... stylish camera moves and angles and fancy editing for stylistic effect.

You might not like the stylisticness. But that's precisely what it is.


I found the Kapur stylings far less sophisticated in Golden Age than they were in Elizabeth, but I enjoyed them nonetheless.


To be sure, an inferior film in every way to the original .... but I happen to like Kapurisms and Kapuristic styles, so Liz II seems an interesting failure to me.



Ok, what about those costumes, G.C.? Did you like them at least?!?

[Gemini Cricket]

If a film does not grab you within the first ten minutes or at the very least the first twenty minutes, it never will.

This film is dung.

Elizabeth has been reduced to some sort of Harlequin Romance Novel heroine. It's detestable. She was not a giddy starlet fawning for Raleigh. Her greatest romances were with Dudley and Essex. Raleigh was a favorite but not a love interest as was portrayed here. And what ever became of Dudley? Disappeared. He was a huge influence on her until the day he died. But there's no sign of him. Ugh!

Elizabeth has been reduced to some sort of powerless bimbo in this movie. She was not.

God's Death!* What a hideous film.

Costumes and makeup do not a movie make. It's beautiful if only the shot would stay long enough for us to enjoy them.

His editing is erratic not stylish. It flaws the entire film.

And might I add, there is an air that there's some sort of lesbian relationship between Elizabeth and Bess. Wrong!


*One of Elizabeth's favorite exclamations. ;)

[Gemini Cricket]

Might I also add that there are age problems in this film.

During the time the film takes place, Elizabeth would have been in her fifties. The suitors were presented to her when she was in her twenties. 50's would be past her childbearing time.

Also, Blanchett does not look like she's in her 50's.

Also, Mary Queen of Scots was 44 or 45 when she died. She was old and grey (well, you know, for those days). The actress cast in her role was in her twenties. Also, with MQofS, it took 3 strikes to cut her head off. And they cut the best part. When she was beheaded, the executioner picked up her head and her wig came off showing everyone that she was as grey as an old, old lady. AND when her head was held aloft, her lips were still moving in prayer. Why on earth would any director leave that out? It's as cinematic as can be.

AND

SWR didn't command a ship. He was an adviser only. Not only that, but Bess gave birth 3 years after the war with the Spanish not before.

[innerSpaceman]

Historical accuracy? Is that your gripe? Hahahahahaha.


Your other criticisms are well-founded ... but I don't find perfect adherence to historical accuracy to be a requirement of a costume drama.

In fact, though, Elizabeth reaching older age was a pretty strong theme in this film ... and good use was made of having the same actress play the role 10 years later.


Sorry if it wasn't 30, G.C. But, Sylvester Stallone aside, it's pretty rare an actor revisits a role 10 years later.







Oh, er ... Indy.

[Alex]

And Jack Lemmon/Walter Mathau with The Odd Couple (30 years). And Brude Willis with 19 years between the first and last Die Hard (and 12 years between the last two). And Schwarzenegger with 19 years between first and last Terminator (and 12 years between the last two). And Sharon Stone returning to Basic Instinct after 14 years. And Dan Ayckroyd with 18 years before being Elwood Blues again. Sigourney Weaver's Ellen Ripley spanned 18 years. Paul Newman's Eddie Felson saw 27 years of life fly by between The Hustler and The Color of Money.

Only 9 years for Ethan Hawke and Julie Delpy in Before Sunrise and Before Sunset. Of course, a whole mess of people got to watch their characters age in the 16 years between The Godfather, Part II, and The Godfather, Part III.

My favorite, Patrick Swayze waited 17 years to reprise his character form Dirty Dancing in Dirty Dancing: Havana Nights - which was technically a prequel.



All of that means nothing and has nothing to do with the topic at hand. It was just fun to think up the list. On topic, I'm closer to GC on this one. It was booooooooring enough that I barely paid enough attention to have an opinion on costuming.



ETA: Forgot about 13 years for Linda Kozlowski and Paul Hogan between Crocodile Dundee II and Crocodile Dundee in Los Angeles. I'm probably going to spend the whole night have others pop into my head.

ETA2: And there are rumors floating that Eastwood's next movie, Gran Torino, is going to be a "Dirty Harry returns as washed up retired detective" movie, which would be 21 years since the last Dirty Harry movie, The Dead Pool. But I really hope that rumor is wrong.

ETA3: See, my mind is going crazy now. Also later this year, early next we have the return of Fox and Mulder after a decade.

ETA4: ****, three other obvious ones. Anthony Perkins, 23 years between Psycho and Psycho II. Jack Nicholson with 16 years between Chinatown and The Two Jakes (and if, as has been rumored he tries it a third time it would be another 18 years since that second one). 29 years between The Last Picture Show and Texasville with many cast members returning (including Jeff and Beau Bridges, Cloris Leachman, and Cybil Shepherd). Ok, I promise to stop now. Unless I can't help myself.

[Eliza Hodgkins 1812]

I think I may have liked Across the Universe more tham most, as I thought more than a couple of numbers that stood out. As a whole, the character development was kind of shoddy, but I found myself relying on the music to stir my emotions (which, when it's a musical, I don't mind a bit), and so by the end I was kind of a happy, blubbering mess. Of course, some of that is probably PMS. Heh.

What the film accomplished for me, and which I wasn't expecting, was a stirred up and renewed appreciation for the Beatles. Not since Roxeanne's makeover in M.R. has the use of popular music been reimagined so well on film. I found myself paying a great deal more attention to the lyrics, and I really *liked* the versions of these songs very, very much. I found them all effective and moving in their own way.

Definitely there were problems, but by the time "All You Need is Love" started playing, I found myself believing it. I only wish I saw it on the big screen, because the visuals were most impressive and I probably would have gotten more out of it had they filled my range of vision. Surround sound would have been nice, too.

If anyone ever asks me to recommend a flawed movie worth watching, this would be on the list.

[Gemini Cricket]

I've finished the film Elizabeth: TGA and nothing redeems it. This take on Elizabeth's is tarnished.
I hereby decree that this film be banished to the White Tower and never released. The editor of this film will also enter through Traitor's Gate as a traitor to good film making and also sent to the tower where he will be fated to watch this tripe on a continual loop for the rest of his years. Ms. Blanchett and Mr. Owen shall be spared my anger. For their past efforts which outclass this one, they are forgiven. Mr. Kapur will be denied an audience from me henceforth. If there is to be a third installment of the Elizabeth tale, I shall weep five hundred year old tears.

As for you, Mr. Spaceman, this queen demands historical accuracy for a film portraying my most cherished historical figure and leader. You may find it laughable, but I do not. What does attribute to folly is your famously bad taste in films. For that, you will be sent to the rack... my rack of DVDs for a collection of truly great films for you to reference.*

HRH Crickebeth the First





*For those not familiar with humor, this take on Steve is in jest and in jest only.

[innerSpaceman]

It's a movie, G.C. Get over it. By definition, it cannot be historically accurate. I happen to prefer when it's more so than less so, and I regret this one was very much less so.

I also regret it portrayed Elizabeth as a lovesick teenager obsessed with menopause. Bah. And I hated the portrayal of Walter Raleigh as Stock Debonnaire Adventurer.

But I liked the art direction, and the directorial stylisticness. I agree, a poor film. But, to me at least, an interesting failure.

I'm with you on most of the critiscims, G.C. .... but please show me an historically accurate history movie or two. Alex was prolific with decades-later role revisitings; surely you can provide a handful of historically accurate, non-documentary films.


* * * * * *

EH1812 - right on, sista, about Across the Universe. The vividly and imaginatively re-worked covers of Beatles tunes revitalized my interest in their music.

Interestingly, I ran right out and bought the Across the Universe CD ... but found the songs were lame without their visuals. Not lame, exactly, but not a one where I preferred the cover to the original. Yet, in the film, I find most of the covers absolutely brilliant.

They work for their medium. I like that. And yes, the characters are weakly drawn and rely on the music to propel their meager arcs and the minor story. But it's an operetta, after all, with barely 20 minutes of dialogue. And, as I've mentioned before, major points for non-lip-synching 90% of the time. Live singing captured on film. Name me the musical that's done that before.


Alex???

[CoasterMatt]

iSM, which version of the CD Soundtrack did you get?

[innerSpaceman]

The single disc. I was going to nab the other tracks from the 2-disc set from some kind soul ... but I was not really inspired to. I was so surprised to be "meh" about the songs out of their context. And yet, even when I watch the movie now, I love the numbers musically as well as visually.

[CoasterMatt]

Well, I've been watching my favorite bits from the movie over, and I've got the soundtrack on my iPod - they DEFINITELY need the visuals.

I was meh with the movie on first viewing, now it's kind of grown on me.

I watched One Flew Over The Cuckoos Nest this morning, and now The Wild Bunch is on - Damn you HDMovies for stealing my day ;)

[flippyshark]

And, as I've mentioned before, major points for non-lip-synching 90% of the time. Live singing captured on film. Name me the musical that's done that before.

At Long Last Love - Peter Bogdanovich's disastrous 1975 musical starring Burt Reynolds, Cybil Sheppard and Madeline Khan singing Cole Porter standards. The singing was performed live on set, which was highly touted in the film's publicity. The result was apparently so awful, and the reviews so scathing, that Bogdanovich ran an apology ad in the papers.

I caught a little bit of At Long Last Love on TV back in maybe 1982, and it did look pretty bad, but I'd happily watch the whole thing given the chance. It's never been released on video, but perhaps it turns up on AMC or something now and again. Anyone have it?

[Gemini Cricket]

I just watched Sicko by Michael Moore. I didn't see it in the theatres.
A very interesting documentary. I really, really liked it.
It's astounding how bad our health care system is.
Yes, that whole Cuba scene was dorky and clunky, but the rest brought up very interesting questions that need to be answered.

[Gemini Cricket]

CoasterMatt, madmonkeygirl and I watched Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band at their abode.
It was... well it was what it was.
For me, it was one of those movies that are so bad that it's good.
Loved Aerosmith and Earth Wind & Fire in this one.
Man, there must have been Costco-sized hairspray cans all over the set just for Barry Gibbs' do alone.
It made me long for the Beatles' versions of their songs.

Let's just say that this movie made Across the Universe look like Casa-freakin-blanca.
:D

[wendybeth]

It was hideous, but Peter Frampton was pretty darned cute.


(And Gibbs looks like an Aqua-net extra firm rock hard insoluble polymer kind of guy).

[wendybeth]

We watched August Rush the other night. I wanted to shoot myself. (That is generally a bad sign.) It didn't suck as badly as The Holiday, but it was close. I really hate movies that lack subtlety and beat the absolute **** out of you with their horrid dialog and one-trick-pony premises. A client made me watch Holiday because she wanted her hair cut like Cameron Diaz's, and she's lucky I like her because I seriously considered giving her Jude Law's do instead.

[Alex]

I can highly recommend the Jesse James movie as a sleep aid. OMG, what a bore! Brat Pitt plays a piece of wood named Jesse James, and Casey Affleck is actually really good as the creep Robert Ford who kills him and puts us out of our misery. The movie is only enjoyable in the last half hour after James is killed, when Ford is making himself infamous as a cowardly assassin. The cinematography is beautiful, but the movie is dullsville.

However, I did enjoy the stunt casting of Garret Dillahunt in a supporting role, since he played Jack McCall on Deadwood, the Cowardly Assassin of Wild Bill Hickok. Tee Hee, I was amused.

I finally got around to watching it. I avoided it in theaters and have had it from Netflix, sitting next to my TV since before the Oscars.

I loved it. I completely understand why the people who don't like it, don't like it. And it wouldn't have taken much to push me into that camp. But I'm thoroughly in the camp of those who loved it.

I didn't notice Garret Dillahunt but the stunt casting that really was a poor choice was in using James Carville (yes, the political consultant) as the governor of Missouri. Took me right out of the movie for several minutes.

[flippyshark]

I'd like to see this, because I'm intrigued by the subject matter, ands I really like The Long Riders, a movie about the James gang that is nothing but stunt casting. (If I'm not mistaken, I wrote this movie up much earlier in this very thread.)

[Gemini Cricket]

I'd like to see this, because I'm intrigued by the subject matter, ands I really like The Long Riders, a movie about the James gang that is nothing but stunt casting. (If I'm not mistaken, I wrote this movie up much earlier in this very thread.)
I thought the cast was made up of real life actor brothers?

[flippyshark]

I thought the cast was made up of real life actor brothers?

Yeah, that's what I meant by stunt casting. (In that it was a gimmick, but one that worked.) The DVD can easily be found for under 10 bucks, so you can't go wrong.

[Gemini Cricket]

D'oh. Sorry. I thought you meant only stuntmen were cast. Like, you know, to do mega-stunts while also acting...
Nevermind.
:D

[Alex]

Based on the comments from when mousepod showed it, and a general curiosity about Javier Bardem I put Perdito Durango at the top of my Netflix queue.

Watched it yesterday.

Maybe it is a good crowd movie but I watched it by myself. Someone please tell me how I can get those two hours back.

[Not Afraid]

Awwww! I really loved Perdita Durango. I actually liked it as much as No Country for Old Men.

[Alex]

I certainly did not.

Javier Bardem was actually fine. James Gandolfini showed more of Tony Soprano than any other pre-Sopranos role I've seen from him. But considering all the action it somehow felt like it was just moseying along doing nothing. Rosie Perez was awful. The two teenagers were worse than Perez. It had the "enjoying rape" cliche.

I should have given up on it but it was the only Netflix movie I had at the moment and I kept telling myself "it has to get better, there must be a point made eventually, redemption is around the corner..." and then it ended.

[€uroMeinke]

Heh - yeah

[Alex]

I did see something called "the Director's Cut" and I know it was probably edited differently than original release so I'll just decide that it was destroyed in the version I saw and consider it my bad luck.

Maybe if Tommy Lee Jones had been there to create a context.

[innerSpaceman]

I haven't seen either version, but mousepod made a grand point of saying the edited, U.S.-release version, which is the one available via Netflix I presume, was pure crap.


so when i sadly I missed the screening, I knew there was no way to see the same version of Perdita Durango which screened at la casa (much less one with the customized subtitled care of senor mousepod).


Le sigh.

[Alex]

What I saw was the "unrated director's cut" not the US theatrical version.

According to comments on IMDb what was cut was mostly Rosie Perez nudity and rights-difficult TV and movie clips.

I don't know what was happening during that nudity and I've read how Vera Cruz was involved. Somehow I don't think that seeing her boobs would have made Perez any more palatable but as with fried pork penis, I won't say I didn't like it until I've had it; but I'm not going to go out of my way.

[Not Afraid]

So, in the version you saw, was the film Vera Cruz featured twice? (I especially want to know if it appeared at the end of the film.)

Here's a listing of all of the cuts. (http://www.sensesofcinema.com/contents/00/5/perdita.html)


We watched One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest tonight. I haven't seen that film since the late 70's. It is amazing how it holds up to time and is still such a great film!

[Alex]

No, Vera Cruz was cut from the end as that page described. Of all the cuts listed that is the only one I see possibly having a huge impact on the film. Somehow not seeing the dad watching Mary Tyler Moore or an extra shot of Perez's boob doesn't seem significant.

Did I mention that Rosie Perez was really, horribly awful? Whenever she was off screen for a few minutes I felt myself warming up to things a bit. But then back she'd come.

[LSPoorEeyorick]

Yeah, it was that last use of Vera Cruz that really sold the film for me. Very, very important to appreciation of the whole thing.

[Alex]

I'll just have to take your word for it. I don't see how it could be (especially since I've never seen Vera Cruz) though. A payoff in the final 2 minutes doesn't really help with being bored silly for the first 119.

[innerSpaceman]

Two films by Wong Kar Wai last nite:

Happy Together - 1997 movie about a dysfunctional Chinese gay couple stranded in Argentina. OMG, botched mess of bad editing, script, cinematography and concept. The fuctupness of the two guys and their on-again-off-again lives together and not was relentlessly distressing. But Tony Leung is a total cutie as the more sympathetic of the two lovers.

-and-

In the Mood for Love - beautiful but sad film about neighbors in 1962 Shanghai who find their respective spouses (his wife, her husband) are having an affair. They start spending a lot of time together, fall deeply in love, but refuse to carry on like the spouses they are so upset with ... and never fulfill the promise of their romance.

I found it astonishing that, in 2000, just 3 years later, the same director and cinematographer created this work of stunning beauty. Gorgeous cinammontography, assured editing, stylish directing, fantastic use of music. Evocative and moody, but not a downer until near the end when you realize the two lovesters will never be lovers. They are played by the yummy Tony Leung (a little older than he was in Happy Together, but still so handsome) and the unbelievably gorgeous Maggie Cheung.

It took me a while to remember where I'd seen them as a couple before ... and it was in Yimou Zhang's stunning 2002 film Hero (which I also hearily recommend if you haven't seen it).

[Alex]

Wong Kar Wai is one I generally don't see the appeal of but I really did enjoy In the Mood for Love.

[Eliza Hodgkins 1812]

In the Mood for Love - beautiful but sad film about neighbors in 1962 Shanghai who find their respective spouses (his wife, her husband) are having an affair. They start spending a lot of time together, fall deeply in love, but refuse to carry on like the spouses they are so upset with ... and never fulfill the promise of their romance.


Tony Leung is so frellin' gorgeous in Mood. I love this movie so much. I've avoided the "quasi-sequel", 2046. Even though he's supposed to be just an echo of the character he played in Mood, I rather like how the other film ended. How he was left. I'll probably watch it eventually.

Amazon description of 2045, behind a spoiler tag because it's lengthy.

In Wong Kar Wai's quasi-sequel to In the Mood for Love, 2046 is a hotel room, a futuristic story, and a state of mind. Tony Leung returns as Chow, but perhaps not the same Chow who appeared in the first film. Starting three years later in 1966, we see Chow on various Christmases as he lives, loves, and writes in a hotel and nearby restaurants. Although he is less sensitive and more of a ladies man now, Chow's love life always seems to exceed his grasp. Whether the character is the same (the director calls this an "echo" of the first movie) might be trivial. Hong Kong filmmaker Wai is such a visualist (Time magazine tabbed him as the "world's most romantic filmmaker"), the images wash over with swirling smoke, neon lights, and the faces of his outstanding cast, all lovingly photographed and smoothly scored. There's a lot more going on than the visuals, and Wai's fans will certainly find more and more details on repeated viewings. We travel into Chow's futuristic story, where the acquaintances become fictional characters traveling to a place where "everyone goes" to recapture lost memories. Often Chow talks about never seeing a lover ever again, but eventually bumps into her. The final result is a film some will cherish; others will long for the more traditional storyline of the first film. Wai certainly finds a new direction for actress Ziyi Zhang (House of Flying Daggers) as a prostitute who becomes one of Chow's many lovers. And Leung continues to be one of the world's great film actors, with a face and acting style the camera just loves. --Doug Thomas

[Alex]

It took me almost a week to watch 2046 on DVD. Every single time I started it I would be asleep within 15 minutes. Seriously, the most powerful sleeping aid I've ever experienced.

[innerSpaceman]

Really? Though I'm usually so skeptical of sequels, I rather like those that use a small connection to go off in a different direction and a different tone.

Maybe I'll rent 2046 and keep it handy for a sleepless night.

[Eliza Hodgkins 1812]

Really? Though I'm usually so skeptical of sequels, I rather like those that use a small connection to go off in a different direction and a different tone.

Maybe I'll rent 2046 and keep it handy for a sleepless night.

I tend to agree. But part of what I liked about him was that he wasn't a ladies man. I know I'll watch this eventually, though. Would help if someone watched it first and posted a review. :)

[innerSpaceman]

But what if he felt he could never love another? And so decided to just use his incredible good looks to bed countless women in meaninglessness, to feed his broken heart and fulfill his twisted destiny to never again know romantic love until the day someone unplugs that obsure hole in a crumbling temple in Angor Watt and releases the echo of his secret.

Until then, he sits holed up in the hotel room where he wrote stories with his true love, and writes and writes and writes. He never sleeps with his token women in that room. But that is where he creates and feels joy and the shadow of love.




Hmmm, maybe I should rent it just to see if I'm close. ;)

[Eliza Hodgkins 1812]

Hmmm, maybe I should rent it just to see if I'm close. ;)

I think you are very, very close, actually. Huzzah!

[Alex]

Just saw 21.

It wasn't horrible but it wasn't great. Definitely suffered from too much familiarity with the geography of Vegas. It kind of ruined the moment of cool they were going for when I realized the slow escalator rise of the main character would, in reality, be bringing him out of the Spice Market Buffet at Planet Hollywood.

Or when someone was asked up to the comped suite at Planet Hollywood and it was obvious that the room was in Paris. Or the Friday evening drive down the Strip with no traffic.

Plus, the blackjack wasn't well explained. They made it look like when you have a positive count you win every hand.

Plus, the way the kid gains Kevin Spacey's respect and attention was by knowing the answer to the Monty Hall problem, something I learned in the ninth grade (back before Marilyn vos Savant made it famous; and though a lot of kids never did quite grasp why the answer was correct, it is definitely not senior year MIT subject matter).

Plus, it telegraphed the ending to an unforgivable degree.


Wait, now I'm talking myself into it being horrible. Guess I'll see how I feel about it in the morning.

[mousepod]

Count me as a big Wong Kar Wai fan. Unfortunately, my favorite of his films, Ashes Of Time, is not available as a watchable DVD anywhere. The original Hong Kong release is a straight copy of the laserdisc (i.e. not anamorphic, with English and Chinese subs burned-in), the American DVD takes the HK release and blocks out the subs with a huge black bar (and obscures a huge chunk of picture) and then adds a different set of burned-in English subs. There's a French DVD that came out a couple of years ago (with no English subs - but that's fixable), which has a beautiful audio and video transfer - but unfortunately contains a new edit of the movie as done by WKW. If you think Star Wars got screwed around by Lucas, you should see how much the new "Director's cut" changed this masterpiece...

[innerSpaceman]

Ooooh, i smell double feature. Beautiful craptastic director's cut and craptastic-looking original masterwork.

:iSm:

[Ghoulish Delight]

We watched The Departed last night. Great movie, but I have to take points off for the final shot.

[Prudence]

Saw Leatherheads today. It was mostly innocuous. Parts of it were amusing. Two things that bugged me: 1) the gag before the fight at the railroad tracks went on too long. Once through the body parts = mildly amusing. Twice? Painfully awkward. 2) in our introduction to the heroine, she waltzes through the newsroom with a dozen comments on her hat. Goes into the editor's office and takes off the chapeau. Gets her assignment. Leaves - without the hat. That she made a big deal about. It bugged me for the rest of the movie.

In other news:

Please please please let the Get Smart movie be funny. In a non-sucky way.

[Alex]

I saw Leatherheads today as well. I do enjoy watching George Clooney on screen. And I liked the idea behind what he was doing.

But it just didn't work. Zellweger gets Rosalind Russell's lines but nobody gets Cary Grants so she just stuck out like a sore thumb. They handled Clooney being way too old for his role, but not the fact that John Krasinky is also way too old for who he was playing. Either that or I missed something. It is mentioned a couple times that at 31 Zellweger's character it too old for Krasinky's, and it is said he is 23 years old. But he fought in WWI, it is 1925, and he has four years of college under his belt. The math doesn't work. Plus, the movie is set at a time when the NFL has already been established. The football scenery was more like the 1900s or 1910s but then Zellweger's character probably wouldn't have been possible in the same way.

And the fact that I was thinking about that shows how little I was caring about the actual movie.

[Snowflake]

I watched No Country for Old Men this weekend. I think this is my favorite Coen Bros. film. I loved it and Bardem was very creepy!

[Gemini Cricket]

I actually did not buy There Will Be Blood today on DVD because of its packaging. The case was made from thin cardboard. There was barely a spine visible with the movie's title. Cheap-o, cheap-o.

[wendybeth]

Eric rented Nancy Drew- I fled the room after the first four minutes. The critiques I've read were spot on: one giant suckfest of a movie. Well, the first four minutes, anyway. I've no intention of going back in that room until the movie is over.

[cirquelover]

I have to agree with you. Zach rented it at Redbox and thankfully it quit working after 15 minutes or so. They gave us a code for 2 rentals so now he wants Chipmunks!

[innerSpaceman]

Heheh, sounds like out of the frying pan and into the fire!


* * * *

I'm surprised there's such cheap packaging for a prestige pic like There Will Be Blood. Hmmph. That won't stop me from buying it though, since I am purchasing ... to my mind ... the movie I want to watch and not the box for my nearly useless collection of movies on the shelf.


Hmmm, maybe I'll Netflix it after all. :iSm:

[wendybeth]

I have to agree with you. Zach rented it at Redbox and thankfully it quit working after 15 minutes or so. They gave us a code for 2 rentals so now he wants Chipmunks!
Lol- that's funny....We rented (well, Eric did, so it's his fault) both ND and AATC at the same time. The chipmunks were cute, but not cute enough to hold my attention for longer than 1/2 hour.

[LSPoorEeyorick]

My ND review is northwards in this thread... but my AATC review is only this: woe to the execs who made me listen to "Funkytown" every day for four months.

[Strangler Lewis]

Eric rented Nancy Drew- I fled the room after the first four minutes. The critiques I've read were spot on: one giant suckfest of a movie. Well, the first four minutes, anyway. I've no intention of going back in that room until the movie is over.

Then you missed the heart of the movie.

[cirquelover]

Lol- that's funny....We rented (well, Eric did, so it's his fault) both ND and AATC at the same time. The chipmunks were cute, but not cute enough to hold my attention for longer than 1/2 hour.


Sadly, I think I'm going to have to sit through both ND and AATC tonight. I wonder if alcohol will make it less painful? It could just make it worse though. Good thing I get to torture him with sheperds pie for dinner!

[Gn2Dlnd]

I actually did not buy There Will Be Blood today on DVD because of its packaging. The case was made from thin cardboard. There was barely a spine visible with the movie's title. Cheap-o, cheap-o.

Perhaps, because plastic is derived from oil, there was a message behind the choice of packaging. Paul Thomas Anderson probably wouldn't have made the movie if he didn't have strong feelings on the subject.

[Gemini Cricket]

Perhaps, because plastic is derived from oil, there was a message behind the choice of packaging. Paul Thomas Anderson probably wouldn't have made the movie if he didn't have strong feelings on the subject.
Meh. I'm still not buying it. There are ways to do packaging without it looking like that. Have you seen it in person?
The same reason I didn't buy An Inconvenient Truth. (That and it's price $24.95.) I have several DVDs that are made from cardboard. TWBB's packaging makes it look like a pamphlet.

[innerSpaceman]

Good friend as he is, I think I will buy TWBB to counter GC's (imo) insipid consumer argument. I'll stop short of buying movies with blatent product placement for the same semi-spiteful rationale, however.:p

[Alex]

DVD cases don't even remain in sight. As soon as I get them home the DVD goes into a small jewel case for cramming more storage into my TV cupbard. The actual DVD box gets stored out in the storage closet on our patio.

It would save me space and be better for me if they just sold the DVDs in Netflix-style envelopes (but I feel compelled to keep the boxes in case I ever want to sell or dispose of them).

Speaking of product placement, I was surprised by how much product placement was slipped into both Nim's Island and Leatherheads, two genre pics where it stood out a bit.

[Gemini Cricket]

Good friend as he is, I think I will buy TWBB to counter GC's (imo) insipid consumer argument. I'll stop short of buying movies with blatent product placement for the same semi-spiteful rationale, however.:p
Interesting that you would buy it for that reason even without seeing it in person. iSm: the merry Mary who's quite contrary...
:D

I stand by my position of product placement in movies. It's an eyesore.

[innerSpaceman]

No of course I won't buy it for that reason. But I do want it, so I'm going to examine the packaging carefully.

I remember being upset that the Simpson's Heads packaging was so shoddy it would fall apart after opening twice. If this appears to be the same, it likely would indeed affect my consumer decision.

The Simpsons offered regular packaging as an alternative, btw. A reasonable compromise, imo.

[Snowflake]

Okay, I have not gone back and read previous postings on There Will Be Blood. Thanks to Netflix I saw it last night.

Let me preface, I loved Paul Dano and Daniel Day Lewis. I did not love the film. I really thought it was a colassal bore. I did not get the EPIC nature of the film at all.

I loved the nuance at the very end in DDL's cry I'm Finished (in more ways than one). Paul Dano was, I think, creepier than Javiar Bardem in NCFM (which I loved as a film and will buy on DVD)

What am I missing here?

[innerSpaceman]

I think you're missing, perhaps, seeing it in a theater. Ugh, I miss too many movies that way ... and I know they suffer for it.

Or, it may not be your cup of tea.


Or, you may have really poor taste. :p




I don't think there was necessarily anything "epic" about it. It was just about some good themes of greed and vengeance and human personality disorders and the oil business of nastiness and the religion business of hokum and freakiness.

I thought it explored those themes with some facsinating, well-played characters, and interesting situations.

End.


Sorry you didn't get it. Eh, it just didn't work for you.

Too bad. Great film. Worthy of the many Oscar nominations it received and the critical raves it garnered.


In my most humble opinion.

[Moonliner]

Shipping for Thursday: The Life of Brian (Blu-ray)


Ohhh goodie goodie gumdrops.

[Alex]

I loved the theme of conflict between religion and capitalism for control of society. I love that capitalism won and it wasn't shown as a gentle "good" victory.

I loved the performance from Day-Lewis. I loved the cinematography.


I did not love the Paul Dano performance. I thought it was really weak, especially when being forced to go toe-to-toe with Day-Lewis. I did not like the length, feeling it meandered too much and undercut its own story with a languid pace. Despite providing the resolution of the greater conflict, I though the final act was too over the top and too odd when viewed from the personal character perspective.

The end result for me was a lot of respect for Paul Thomas Anderson's vision as a filmmaker, amazement he got it made, and regret that he doesn't seem to have a filter on the worst of his excesses. In the end I left feeling "meh."

It has settled on me over the moths and I think my memory of it now is better than my experience of it was then.

[Snowflake]

I think you're missing, perhaps, seeing it in a theater. Ugh, I miss too many movies that way ... and I know they suffer for it.

Or, it may not be your cup of tea.


Or, you may have really poor taste. :p



Heh, you're prolly right.

I don't think there was necessarily anything "epic" about it. It was just about some good themes of greed and vengeance and human personality disorders and the oil business of nastiness and the religion business of hokum and freakiness.

I thought it explored those themes with some facsinating, well-played characters, and interesting situations.

End.


Sorry you didn't get it. Eh, it just didn't work for you.

Too bad. Great film. Worthy of the many Oscar nominations it received and the critical raves it garnered.


In my most humble opinion.

I got all the themes, I thought the performances were top notch and I'll go on the limb, I loved bardem in NFOM, but I think I would have loved to see Dano get the nod at the Kodak, he truly deserved it. Then again, so did Tommy Lee Jones and Bardem (so a tough year). But, I still thought the whole thing was a bore. Meh, so I save myself a few bucks not buying, it's okay!

[LSPoorEeyorick]

If Snowflake didn't like the film, I say she has excellent taste. I saw it in the theater and it did nothing for me aside from making me acknowledge once again that Day-Lewis is a good actor. That is, until Mousepod nudged me about the whole "John Huston" thing, and that pretty much ruined the only thing I liked about this film.

[Snowflake]

Thanks LSPE.

Alex, I did not love the cinematography nearly as much as NCFOM (which had real sweep and beauty to me) but I can appreciate your thoughts on it, and the film.

I also did not find Dano weak. You're right, weak against Day-Lewis, but I think a very respectable (if) over the top performace at the end. I do feel like the red-herring of his character dissapearing and then coming in at the end for a hand out kind of a lame plot twist.

That said, I have not read the original novel, either.

[Alex]

Oh, I wasn't comparing TWBB with NCFOM. The latter is far superior in my opinion and that includes cinematography.

My understanding is that TWBB really was "inspired" by Sinclair's Oil and that they are pretty divergent.

[innerSpaceman]

It's an adaptation of a single chapter in Sinclair's "Oil," but I've no idea if it's otherwise divergent of the contents of that chapter.


To each his own, my friends. I LOVED There Will Be Blood and I was hardly alone. I was only kidding when I put Snowflake down for poor taste (but never kidding when I do the same to Gemini Cricket, heheh) :p


VIVA LA DIFFERENCE!

[LSPoorEeyorick]

Indeed! I still loved iSm when he professed his love for Crash. I just knew we were never, ever going to agree on Oscar movies. (Still, he makes for wonderful Oscar night company.) (And, sometimes, we do agree. When are we going to watch The Orphanage!?!?)

[innerSpaceman]

mousepod has it scheduled for soon after the BluRay is released. Eh, perfectionist.

By that time, his thread for that event series should return from seder and boob talk.

[JWBear]

We watched I Am Legend tonight.





I'm sleeping with the lights on.... :eek:

[wendybeth]

Won't they find you if the lights are on? I mean, sunlight was a pretty effective deterrent, but by the end of the movie the scary people didn't seem to mind electric light. Better keep a grenade or two under your pillow.

[Bornieo: Fully Loaded]

I saw Superhero Movie! and it's hard to believe someone directed this. Had some funny moments - most of them in the trailer but the worst part about it was during the credits the played "cut" scenes which were actually funnier than most of the film. It's like "stay and watch our names and we'll show you all the funny parts we could figure out where to edit into the film."

I hope there is a "unrated" version on DVD. Hmmmmmm....

[Gemini Cricket]

Watched Halloween and parts of Cars in BluRay at Cherny's and Gn2Dlnd's. Pretty cool indeed.
Halloween is a great film. In the horror genre it's one of the best. The use of suspense in this films is terrific. I like it when horror movies use suspense rather than gore to entertain.

[Strangler Lewis]

Tired and stuck in my chair, I watched Peter Jackson's "King Kong" again last night. I don't think there was a single scene, fight, gesture, look between characters, pause before speaking, etc., that was not two to three times longer than it needed to be.

[cirquelover]

We watched I Am Legend tonight.





I'm sleeping with the lights on.... :eek:

We rented it this weekend and Gary let the boy watch it too. I was concerned because he's already not sleeping but I guess it gave him something different to be worried about:rolleyes:

I liked it more than I thought I would. I was sad about the dog though:(

[alphabassettgrrl]

The dog thing disturbed me, too. I saw it coming, but ... ::shudder:: Not happy.

[Moonliner]

I'm just back from seeing "Forbidden Kingdom"

AKA - Jackie Chan and Jet Li do "Lord Of the Rings", Badly.

There were a few fun moments, and the Witch was hot. Overall a definite 1/2 Meh.

I took Moonie Junior who ever since the X-men movies always asks "Is there anything after the credits?"

My reply? Naw, not on this movie, let's go. I was about half way down the exit ramp when it hit me: DOH! This is a Jackie Chan Movie! The guy who pretty much invented the after movie outtakes.

So back into the theater we went, and here is what we saw:

Zippo. Nadda, Zilch. No outtakes at all. Bummer.

[Mousey Girl]

The next Star Trek movie was being filmed in Kern County over the last few weeks. They did some shooting at Fort Tejon and then spent a week out at Buena Vista lakes. It was supposed to be kept hushed, but word did make it out. I heard that Winona Rider is in it.

[JWBear]

The next Star Trek movie was being filmed in Kern County over the last few weeks. They did some shooting at Fort Tejon and then spent a week out at Buena Vista lakes. It was supposed to be kept hushed, but word did make it out. I heard that Winona Rider is in it.

She plays Spock's mother.

[Moonliner]

I heard that Winona Rider is in it.

She plays Spock's mother.

I feel old. :(

[JWBear]

I feel old. :(

Don't feel too old, she plays his mother in a flashback showing him as a young boy (or so I've been told).

[Snowflake]

Very late to the party, but I watched Juno last night. I really loved it, a very sweet film.

King Kong, ugh I paid money to see that with a friend. I think I posted here, I want those endless hours of my life back. I much prefer the 1933 version, Kong had heart and pathos in 1933.

[Gn2Dlnd]

This is a Jackie Chan Movie! The guy who pretty much invented the after movie outtakes.



I'm thinking Burt Reynolds, Smokey and the Bandit. Now that there's some good outtaking.

[cirquelover]

I haven't thought about those movies in forever! I admit I enjoyed watching them. How could you not love Sally Field going from a flying nun, then Sybil, to this wacky sexy lady! A true blast from the past

[DreadPirateRoberts]

Snowflake, maybe if you get a chance you can see this for me this weekend:

"Walt & El Grupo (http://www.waltandelgrupo.com/)"

It's playing at the San Francisco International Film Festival, April 24-May 8

[Gemini Cricket]

The movie Dazed & Confused is 15 years old. Tonight, I watched it for the first time. Cool movie. Great cast.

It was a double feature with Cheech & Chong's Up in Smoke. Dumb movie. A couple of laughs here and there, though.

[Chernabog]

Up in smoke is best watched in altered states.

[innerSpaceman]

Both of those are.


Speaking of which, some friends want me to go out with them tonite to see Harold & Kumar Escape from Guantonamo Bay ... but I hear it's a kinda lame sequel.

[Strangler Lewis]

The movie Dazed & Confused is 15 years old. Tonight, I watched it for the first time. Cool movie. Great cast.

It was a double feature with Cheech & Chong's Up in Smoke. Dumb movie. A couple of laughs here and there, though.

When I was in high school, I took my girlfriend in the station wagon to a drive-in double feature of Airplane and Up In Smoke. I folded down the rear seat, and we settled in to "watch the movie." But with Airplane I was "Wait a minute, stop, this is funny. Cut that out. This is funny." "Up In Smoke" posed no such distractions.

[flippyshark]

At least Dazed and Confused works fine whether the viewer is baked or not. Up In Smoke is pretty lame by itself. (I remember going to see this with my older brother back in the day. I was probably fourteen or so. We went to see it at a theater called Don Pancho's, an independent in Albuquerque, New Mexico. The movie screen was shrouded in a white haze, which was pretty common when seeing movies at that venue. Does that happen anywhere anymore? Not that I want it to, since I detest the smell of cannabis, but it seems remarkable to me that just a couple of decades ago, thsi happened so frequently and so casually.)

[Alex]

Been a long time since I smelled pot at a movie theater but I went to a Warriors game (NBA basketball) earlier this year and was surprised that I was smelling it constantly through the entire evening.

[Strangler Lewis]

Been a long time since I smelled pot at a movie theater but I went to a Warriors game (NBA basketball) earlier this year and was surprised that I was smelling it constantly through the entire evening.

Were they playing Portland?

[Gemini Cricket]

I know a ton has been said about Cloverfield, but gosh I love this film. The intensity of the acting was just right and the effects were great. The pay off wasn't great, but it was decent.
Love this film.
:)

[CoasterMatt]

I watched "History of the World, Part I" tonight.

My favorite part is still "Jews In Space" :D

[Gemini Cricket]

I watched Ratatouille with two Ratatouille virgins tonight. They loved it. I did too. It's like my 7th time watching it. Love it.

Something I noticed that I hadn't before was that Anton Ego's typewriter from the back looks like a skull. Very cool.
:)

[CoasterMatt]

I like Ratatouille, I just can't stand the animation of the people.

[Gemini Cricket]

I like Ratatouille, I just can't stand the animation of the people.
I came up with one theory tonight. When animators try to make people look like people, the result is creepy and wrong. ie. Polar Express, Final Fantasy and Beowulf (all humans looked weird with dead eyes).

[innerSpaceman]

Yep, Beowulf / Shrek people are creepy.

Bambi notwithstanding, the point of character animation is not to duplicate the look of actual creatures. (Even Bambi's animals were highly stylized).


* * * *

I think I'll watch Cloverfield tonight and see if the jittery camerawork holds up on the small screen.


Heheh, I also just bought There Will Be Blood ... mostly to piss off Gemini Cricket.

:evil:


I actually didn't buy the cheapy slimline package, which I agree is craptacular. I wonder if GC has the same opinion of the 2 disc set, which is also less lasting cardboard instead of plastic. I compared it with my other purchase, the Cloverfield disc ... which used the standard plastic DVD case with a simple cover insert. The end.

The Blood packaging, on the other hand, featured nice art direction, a fold-out package with imagery from the film on multiple panels. Yes, the materials were more flimsy. But I'd rather have packaging that has some design intention, rather than the slapped together DVD case I can make at home.


Sorry, G.C. :blush:

[Gemini Cricket]

Buy it, watch it, stick it up your vagina... who cares?! lol :D All I was complaining about was the crappy packaging of the single disc DVD. The 2 disc set is adequate.

[CoasterMatt]

Buy it, watch it, stick it up your vagina... who cares?!

That would be AWESOME to see on the jacket of a DVD :D

[JWBear]

I just read that Dubya is a big fan of the Austin Powers movies.... :rolleyes:

[innerSpaceman]

Cloverfield is brilliant.



On a hunch, i decided to listen to the commentary track first, which I only do if I expect a story of quite unusual movie making ... and I was not disappointed.

Getting the verisimilitude of the hand-held disaster film was tricky business, and fascinating. The film was shot in something like 36 nights. How they achieved all they did on the rush, on the cheap, is a great story of a most uniquely made studio movie.




Watch it twice, 'cause the commentary track is almost as interesting as the film. Which, by the way, is a surprisingly terrific monster movie.

[CoasterMatt]

I just got home from an awesome totally non-related double feature.

First up - "Shine A Light"
The Rolling Stones in IMAX by Martin Scorsese - Absolutely brilliant, incredible visuals, concert volume sound, a couple of good guest appearances, and even Keith getting to do lead vocals for a few songs.

then, I hurried down the hill to meet up with mousepod, and to a screening of "Colossus: The Forbin Project" - excellent movie, so nice to see it on a big screen, with an appreciative audience.

[flippyshark]

It's been a looong time since I last saw Colossus: The Forbin Project, but I remember being amused that this powerful uber-computer
set the main character up with quite a swinging bachelor pad, and happily allowed for a booty call when told that it was necessary. Pretty understanding for an evil power-hungry super computer.

Is this on DVD? I'd love to see it again.

[CoasterMatt]

Is this on DVD? I'd love to see it again.

Unfortunately, the current US DVD release is full frame, not widescreen :(
The movie makes GREAT use of all the screen real estate, as I witnessed tonight.

There's a widescreen special edition dvd coming to Region 2, May 26 (http://www.dvdtimes.co.uk/content.php?contentid=67423).

[mousepod]

I have to publicly thank CoasterMatt for the heads-up about Colossus, and second his comments.

Paranoid American sci-fi movies made in the late 60s-early 70s are rarely bad. This one is particularly fun.

BTW... Sunday night, 9pm at the Steve Allen Theatre on Sunset: WESTWORLD!

[cirquelover]

BTW... Sunday night, 9pm at the Steve Allen Theatre on Sunset: WESTWORLD!


Why oh why can't I live closer to the cool stuff:( As long as I've had a dvr I have searched for that movie. I found Futureworld and forced the boy to watch it with me but West is the best! Darn

[flippyshark]

So, tonight, as part of my convalescence, I watched the classic Spanish film The Spirit of the Beehive. I've read a lot about this one over the years, and I went in with lots of expectations, so I'm sad to report that the experience was often a slow, excruciating one. I don't blame the film. It's me. I've been poisoned by several decades of fast-cut, all questions answered, no subtlety storytelling. This movie is quiet, reflective, VERY deliberately paced. There were some haunting moments, including a very effective ending, but I was sad to find myself so impatient with a movie I was supposed to, and was prepared to, be knocked out by. (I found myself mentally writing dialogue for the long scenes in which nobody spoke.) It was a tedious enough experience that I'll be disinclined to revisit it anytime soon, but I feel bad about it. I know a few scenes will stick with me, and the young girl who gives its central performance is flawless.

In spite of that, I'd be curious to know what others make of it, and I can see where it would have been an influence on Sr. Del Toro and his ilk.

[mousepod]

Flippy, like you, the gap between knowing about Spirit of The Beehive and actually seeing it was years. After seeing (and falling in love with) Pan's Labyrinth, I finally sat down with Heather and watched it...

...and I loved it.

Admittedly, it was slow, but it was slow in the Picnic at Hanging Rock sort of way, as opposed to the Hail Mary way. Clearly, it's an "art" film... but I found that the exploration of innocence against the backdrop of post-Civil War Spain was perfect. The cinematography, the spare script, and the acting... oh the acting.

I will certainly revisit the film. Perhaps when the lure of LA is too much for you to bear, we'll watch it together.

[CoasterMatt]

I'd like to see Spirit of the Beehive, and I have no idea what it is.

I've always tended to like movies that other people told me were "slow" or "pointless".

[flippyshark]

Since I adore Picnic at Hanging Rock, I'll commit to giving Beehive another chance, and la casa de mousepod would be an ideal venue, I'm sure.

[flippyshark]

Oh, and while I'm thinking of it, did any of you, way back in elementary school, learn a song about Senor Don Gato? (Oh, Senor Don Gato was a cat, on a high red roof Don Gato sat, he was there to read a letter - meow meow meow, where the reading light was better - meow meow meow) Well, chances are some of you are now humming the tune. Anyhow, my point is, this very tune shows up in Spirit of the Beehive, played on a guitar, no singing. I'm going to guess it's a traditional Spanish melody, and the silly Don Gato lyrics were added by elementary music textbook publishers. but it means that at a particularly lyrical moment in the film, I was singing to myself - "Oh Don Gato jumped so happily, he fell off the roof and broke his knee, broke his bones and all his whiskers - meow meow meow, and his little solar plexus - meow meow meow, Ay Caramba cried Don Gato." I've got to guess this was not what the filmmaker had in mind.

[Not Afraid]

We started watching the Indy films last night in preparation for Indy 4 (or whatever the name is). I just adore that first film. I'm in love with the sets and settings. Maybe tonight will be film #2.

[Gemini Cricket]

Raiders of the Lost Ark is by far my favorite of the three. It seemed to be much more gritty looking than the others. A lot of it seemed to be shot on location. The other two, I don't know. They seemed to be shot on a lot of sound stages and the lighting was brighter. Can't really explain it but the first one looked more real. If that makes any sense.
:)

[innerSpaceman]

And it was brilliantly plotted and scripted and directed and acted while the other ones were comparatively lame in every such department. Especially the scripts, which were clearly of sequel quality.


I watched Temple of Doom over the weekend, because mousepod says it's an homage to Gunga Din. Sure, I've always appreciated some of the elements ... they are serial chapter fun ... but they are assembled into a piece of crap.


There's only two minutes of actual plot ... where Indy is taken over by the Evil Twin spell / potion. The rest of the movie is moving from room-to-room inside Pankot Palace and having a set-piece occur in each room, with a thrill ride rollercoaster in a great room, and a cool swinging bridge bit in the back-yard. It's a theme park experience, and not a movie.

Yes, and as GC points out, the lighting and cinematography are all bright and crystal clear, so it looks 100% soundstage (which it is), and totally fake (which is fitting).


The Children-Are-The-Real-Stars sentimentality was pure anti-Raiders sickeningness. Kate Capshaw was supposed to be an annoying ditzy blonde, but she annoyed the hell out of anyone who saw the movie, and everyone wanted her to die. When people razz Indy for saving the girl, that's not a good sign.


The jeuvenilization of the humor in the 2nd movie is pure George Lucas M.O. Gak. I want to be ill.

There are great little parts. Short Round is a great little character. The movie completely sucks.


The third movie was better only in that it didn't completely suck. I was relieved. But it's almost unwatchable today. It's a pale shadow of Raiders of the Lost Ark ... which is still emminently watchable 27 years later, and I daresay will remain so forever.


It's a fantastic classic, one of my favorite movies of all time. I saw it 80 times in theaters during its unbelievable 18 months in initial release.

Find a movie nowadays that's in release for over 18 weeks. Most don't last 18 days.


It's my love of the first movie that has me lining up for all the sequels. I love Indiana Jones, and enjoy at least parts and bits of all the movies. At least the new one still stars Harrison Ford, so it's got a leg up over the cautionary tale of the horrid Star Wars "prequels" also released decades after the originals.

But George Lucas is still involved, and Spielberg has some horrible instincts that he can succomb to. The chances of this movie sucking are very high, but I remain retardedly optimistic and very excited.


I just don't know why.

[Gemini Cricket]

My biggest gripe with Last Crusade was how Sallah and whatshisface (Denholm Elliott's character) were both downgraded to stupid sidekicks. Yikes. And the film had the worst looking greenscreen blimp ever in it. AND the female lead was completely unlikable. Yeah, even Willie Scott was likable compared to her.

[Not Afraid]

It's been so long since I've seen these films that I forget what they were like. I don't think I've ever watching them all in a row.

[Alex]

I was contemplating watching all of them in preparation (I think I watched Ark when we bought the box set and then I never got around to the other two) but when we moved all of the DVDs ended up jumbled up in a drawer of the entertainment center and I can't find the energy to actually paw through them to find a specific movie.

But I have five days to find the energy.

[Tom]

Don't forget that LSPE and I are screening the first three this Sunday for the general LoT public. Don't everyone go watching them on your own when you can watch them with fellow swanksters.

[€uroMeinke]

Raiders was a blast to see again, I was instantly transported to when I saw the movie for the first time and sat at the edge of my seat from the opening practically through the credits. We'll see how the other's fare...

[innerSpaceman]

Don't everyone go watching them on your own when you can watch them with fellow swanksters.

I have been avoiding them for this very reason. And I didn't so much watch Temple of Doom as have it on in the background.

I spent the entire week constructing a FrankenBox to ship my Giant Raiders of the Lost Ark 3-D Promotional Display (http://zlick.livejournal.com/14457.html?mode=reply) in. The lucky ebay winner bid $25 over my asking price of $1,500. I'm giving the Good-Reputation Seller a cut, ebay takes a cut, shipping and insurance will be more than I asked the buyer for, and I'm going to tip the participants of the photo shoot. I'll net maybe $1,200.

Sigh. The day the sale went thru, I get a notice from the IRS saying they changed my income tax return, and I now owe them $1,200. I hate the way the universe works, but am amazed nonetheless.

Anyway, it took the wind of my FrankenBox construction sails. To keep me in the mood, I had the John Williams Raiders soundtrack playing in the background while I built it .... for 3 nights. For the final session, I couldn't stand that anymore ... and put the DVD of Temple of Doom on in the background.


But I swear I barely watched it. And that's good news for Tom and Heidi's upcoming marathon. The bad news is, I can barely bear to watch it. I hate that movie with such a passion, but if I'm allowed to laugh at it, I won't go out to the lobby for 20 cigarettes while it's playing.


What time does the marathon start? Are you going to have mousepod-style intermissions lasting hours? If so, how many days are you alloting for the Indiana Jones trilogy?? ;)





oh, maybe this entire line of tangent should be moved over to the Indy thread.

[Tom]

What time does the marathon start? Are you going to have mousepod-style intermissions lasting hours? If so, how many days are you alloting for the Indiana Jones trilogy??

We haven't set a starting time yet. We were thinking of perhaps starting about noonish, but we have no other commitments that day, so if attendees desire something different, they need only speak (or type).

And I don't think we will have Mousepod-style intermissions. Among other reasons, we don't have as many things to entertain you with between movies. But maybe we'll try to pull up a couple of musical numbers, and we can have quick sing-a-longs during the intermissions.

[innerSpaceman]

Hahaha, many swankers are familiar with "Happy Birthday" sung to the tune of Raiders of the Lost Ark.