Just came back from The Wrestler. Interesting character study. Not a bad flick... not sure if it's a great flick either, though. Sad that all of the hoopla around Mickey Rourke upstaged the excellent performance by Marisa Tomei.

My little sister just bought The Women (2008) on DVD. I think I'm going to cry.
:D

fixed :D

We saw Seven Pounds yesterday. I don't understand why people are saying it has a suprise ending. It was obvious from about a third of the way in. Once I figured out what the "obvious" ending was going to be, I watched the rest of the movie anticipating the twist I thought was coming. When the "obvious" ending became the real ending, without any twists, I was very disappointed.

Chin up. Both of them.

Oh no, no, no.... Please don't get this board started on another The Women quote-a-thon! :eek:

Oh, nobody cares what anybody says these days. Oh, you remember those AWFUL things they said about ol' whats-her-name just before she jumped out of that window? See, I can't even remember her name so who cares Edith?

No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no.....

Will. Not. Respond.

Will. Not. Give. In. To. Temptation.

LSPE and I saw the short this was based on a few years ago, as part of the Oscar-nominated shorts program. It was good. There's a link to it on the trailer page.

I've recently watched two Italian movies from Netflix so it is no surprise that among the recommendations on the home page currently are more Italian films.

Here's a screenshot. You may notice a certain theme to the move posters.



Just goes to show that automated recommendation engines are still lacking. I'm definitely a breast man rather than an ass guy.

So... We know what kind of movie Alex watches.... :evil:

It tells you right there that they are in response to watching Cinema Paradiso and Open City. If you can find scantily clad asses in either movie I missed them.

Not that I'm opposed to scantily clad.

<updates Netflix queue>

I can see the cheeky link between the first two movies, but I don't see a derriere on the Suspiria artwork. Also, I've got Suspiria, and it has many things, but curvy behinds are not among them. (On the other hand, it has Jessica Harper, on whom I had a crush for years.)

A couple of nit-picky things....

I saw "Bolt" in 3D over the holiday.... The movie was great, I'm not sure the 3D really added anything however. If anyone else happens to go see it, I noticed that when Penny is printing out lost posters they have a real phone number on them. Unfortunately my memory is not good enough to recall it. I'd like to give it a call and see if she found her dog....


Also, does anyone have National Treasure II on Blu-Ray? I was watching part of it on the small TV and noticed that they give a brief shot of page 47 in the Presidents book of secrets. I wonder if you would be able to read a freeze frame in HD.

I finally caught The Dark Knight over the weekend. I loved Heath Ledger, he was really awesome and scary as The Joker. I did find the film overlong and the plot was not engaging, what plot there was. I loathed Christian Bale's Batman voice and I am fairly sure this was discussed when the film was new.

I can see how the film was supposed to be dark, but the cinematography was also so dark it seemed murky. Maybe that was better in the theater.

In any case, it was well worth seeing for Ledger and the Rachel character did not die soon enough. ;)

Everything Snowflake said. Dark Knight really ran out of steam in its last third. But Heath Ledger was great. He reminded me of Brad Dourif at his creepiest, and then some.

Dark Knight also keeps up the asstacular Warner Bros. bluray stupidity - the movie starts right into the film, with the legacy audio selected (so you have to switch to the audio menu to put the proper hi-def audio track).

Another Warner Bros. disc I won't be buying.

The Presidents Book Of Secrets

The text on the page referring to the Kennedy assanation is a letter which is hand written and signed by A. Lincoln.

Here is a copy of the letter:

Just watched Bad Seed for the first time in a long time. Oh I wish I'd remembered to stop it as soon as the Warner Bros. logo appeared at the end.

Is there any better example of a movie succeeding and then shooting itself in the foot like Bad Seed does with the closing credits. Bad enough they had to "improve" the ending.

Oh, the spanking gag? Yes, that is a groaner for sure. I could scarcely believe it when I saw it. As I recall, it is possible to stop the film before its final dramatic scene and retain the play's downbeat finish.

Miss Butter-Wouldn't-Melt Fern.


(Sorry, for some reason that line from Bad Seed has always stuck.)

I saw Gaslight the other day. Loved it. Can't believe I have never seen it. I think this was a mousepod recommendation, but I'm not sure.
:)

Anyone else heard of the movie Growing Out? In spite of the word "Out" in the title, it does not at all appear to be a "gay film". In spite of that obvious flaw ;), the story seems pretty intriguing. Please go to that site, watch the trailer first, then read the synopsis, then tell me what you think.

Gonna Netflix it someday for sure.

Trailer doesn't do anything for me, and the synopsis doesn't help.

Certainly doesn't mean it isn't a good movie but what I've seen wouldn't have me putting out any money for it.

Without combing back through the thread, I believe it was Alex who made the comment of Langella's Nixon that it started out not seeming right, but eventually "locked in" (my term) and became very compelling. If I am remembering that comment correctly, I totally agree. I was having much trouble accepting him as Nixon for the first couple of scenes, but it eventually clicked and I thoroughly enjoyed the portrayal.

I wonder how much of my initial inability to accept it has to do with the fact that my mental model of Nixon is entirely saturated by Billy West's ridiculous version.

I think Frost should interview Bush.

Just keep in mind that the movie (and play) tweaked that drama of it all.

Ok - I think the fictional character of Frost should interview a fictional character of Bush that actually admits wrongdoing. I'd at least leave the theater satisfied.

Well, I've not seen the film, but in the clips I've seen, I can't even understand Langella through his Nixonian accent. It sounds like Martian to me. :D

You want a Bush interview that follows the standard expert-over-his-head storyline where the interviewer's cockiness leads him to assume he can just breeze in and excel but early setbacks show him that the world is not necessarily his oyster and he'll need to buckle down and work hard to win [the big game | get the part in the play | ace the interview | win the advertising account | win the love of the woman in his life]?

Seriously though, while I'd love to see extremely long form interviews, unfortunately I don't think the environment exists any longer where it is remotely feasible. At most an hour of Dateline. Bush doesn't need money (and I think Frost paying Bush for an interview would be a much bigger ethics scandal than it was then).

What about the Ex-Pres World Tour Until Incapacitation, complete with highly paid speaking gigs? Seems the same to me...

Dear Movie Gods,

Please, please, please make Clive Owen's next movie, The International, be (at least) decent viewing. Please don't make me sit through another big pile of crap of a movie just for the 1 1/2 hours of Clive yumminess. I mean, look at him
<--------------.
Shouldn't there be a rule about just how crappy of a movie someone that beautiful can star in? I'm not asking for much. It doesn't have to be Oscar caliber or anything, just watchable.

I've spent 30+ years of my life as a Cubs fan, give me something here. Please.

Thanks.
Whitney

Dear Whitney,

The movie gods care not what you say. They do not listen! They do not respond to us, no matter how we beseech them. I have tried, believe me. Take Colin Firth, for example. For every one fabulous thing he's done (Pride & Prejudice, Girl With a Pearl Earring, Love Actually, The Importance of Being Earnest) he has done something twice as horrible to go with it. And I have sat through every stinking one of them: Nanny McPhee, which I must admit I did like a little -- do not judge me -- Hope Springs (Heather Graham!!), What a Girl Wants, The Last Legion... I finally stopped. I have not seen Mamma Mia!. Can you blame me? I could not stand to watch. Jude Law is another case in point. From Cold Mountain to Alfie? Wait, I can't lie. I would watch Jude Law in just about anything. :blush:

Still, I say that the movie gods just don't care what we say.

Love,
Deebs

was it really necessary to remake Friday the 13th? Not like theres going to be a 'surprise' ending.

as much as I love a good horror flick, I have huge doubts this will be anything but another suck-your-wallet-dry ripoff of someone elses ideas

feh.

Okay, I like Nanny McPhee a bit, too. It was filled with too many fine actor people not to like it.

You're right, the movie gods do not care.

I hear there is talk of making a remake of Poltergeist. My question is: why?

Hahaha, I think they should start remaking films that were released only two years ago.

That could be quite a gimmick for the first few of those!

26 year gap? Slackers.

Cecille B. DeMille did The Squaw Man three times in 18 years. And Leo McCarey only waited 18 years before remaking Love Affair as An Affair to Remember.

Do you mean "why" as in why spoil the memory of a good thing or, "why" as in why bother since the first one was one of the worst movies ever made and doesn't have in it a single legitimately scary moment where you think someone might actually die?

Im goin with that second thing.

scary? not

There are a number of actresses that I find quite sexy--Kate Winslet, Julianne Moore, Angelina Jolie, etc.--all of whom are quite talented and all of whom as often as not appear nude in their films in a manner that is not unpleasasnt. Still, neither their presence nor that of any other star, male or female, is enough to make me spend time and money on a badly reviewed movie.

Poltergeist was the pinnacle of scary movies for me. But I was 8 when I saw it. And so I was a young boy who slept in a large second floor bedroom with a mean looking tree right outside the window.

But something about that scare fixed me as I believe it was also the last time I was scared by ANY movie. Movies can induce in me pretty much every other emotion but fear is not one of them. I can be startled, but not scared.

Seriously? You guys don't think this movie is scary? As Alex mentioned, the kid with the evil tree, and the evil clown doll scene? What about when they're getting sucked into the closet? I swear, I could mention most every scene in that movie as wonderfully shot and pretty damn scary. It also has the best ending of any haunted house movie I've ever seen (not that I've seen a lot of them, but still.) The effects hold up, too.

OMG, that movie scared the CRAP out of me when I first saw it, and static-filled TV screens gave me the willies for weeks.

But its brilliance lies in the comedy gold scattered liberally throughout. A movie can scare you only once, but can make you laugh forever. My friends and I had something like 38 lines from this movie that we'd say on a rotating basis, and the film can crack me up ever four minutes to this day.

LOVE, LOVE, LOVE PoLterGeisT!! :cheers:

Not scary.

seriously.....but then dont put too much stock in my opinion. Im the guy who couldnt sit through Devils Rejects without laughing my a$$ off the whole time.

Well, I guess I meant it as it's a perfectly fine popcorn fun horror flick that doesn't need to be done again so soon. What they really should do is do a decent sequel to it. None of the sequels were any good.

The clown doll, the kid-eating tree, the swimming pool full of supermodels.... yeah, I found it extremely scary when I was 10. Scared stiff each and every time I went back to see it...
:D

I give a pass to you folks who first saw it as a kid, but that doesn't make it scary for real. As a kid in Queens I would watch Japanese monster movies in the middle of the night and then look out my 7th floor apartment window to make sure the Empire State Building was still there.

I'll agree that the movie did a somewhat competent job with a few snapshots of childhood fears. But scary in a point A to point B way? In a "Gee, I'm worried that these people I care about might not make it out alive" way? No.

Sorry, I was 22 when that movie came out. Scared To Death.


Go ahead and say it didn't scare YOU. You are absolutely wrong if you say it wasn't scary. All of my companions who saw that Pre-Release Screening (with the extra 4 seconds!) were scared crapless.

If it scared some people, it was scary. By definition. :p



Anyway, GC's right ... it's a great popcorn flick and the sequels sucked (d'uh).

OK, I have to ask.

What 4 seconds were they, and did they make a huge difference ?

BTW: Poltergeist scared the stuffin out of me too. Maybe I couldn't handle those extra 4 seconds... but I have to know.

No the four seconds was not at a scary part. It was when the Freelings went over to the neighbors' house to ask if they were experiencing anything unusual, all the while being attacked by mosquitos.

It was just an inconsequential bit of dialogue, but there's a really noticeably (to me) sloppy jump cut at the end of that scene in the release version where they poorly edited out those 4 seconds.


Anyway, yeah, me and my pals got really high in the restrooms at the long-gone Plitt Theaters in Century City before the show, and that might have had something do with it being really scary ... and subsequently becoming one of our favorite films of all time.



Don't knock Poltergeist around me. :cool:

I'm a total horror movie puss and I can handle Poltergeist.

I'm so relieved I'm not the only one! You're so right -- Imelda Staunton and Celia Imrie, love them both.

Everybody's got to draw their line somewhere. I drew mine at Mamma Mia! Nudity has little to do with anything for me. Men hardly ever go starkers in movies anyway, right? Maybe Kevin Bacon and a couple of others.

Carol-Ann!


Yep.
"This house is clear!"

I remember laughing and being scared.

Those 4 seconds where they visit the next door neighbor was classic. Chubby kid eating pork and beans. Brilliantly hysterical. I laughed at that part.
"A mosquito ever suck on you, Son?"
"I don't know, Dad."
Freakin' hysterical Spielberg crazy kid moment. (Yeah, I know Tobe Hooper directed it, but the movie reeked of Spielberg.)
There are crazy kids in a ton of Spielberg flicks that make me laugh really hard.
ie. Kid bashing the doll against the crib in Close Encounters, the kid with the HUGE headphones in ET, all of Goonies, the toothless kid in Jaws that is imitating his father, Dana flipping the bird to the construction workers in Poltergeist, Short Round...
Classic stuff here, people.
:D

I always thought it was "this house is clean".

One of the weird things about Poltergeist is that it seems like it took place in the same neighborhood at ET.

I stand corrected. With her warbling little voice, it was hard to tell. I always thought it was "clear" said with a weird, almost southern accent, but you seem to be correct, GC.

"I don't know, Dad."

Hysterical.
:D


Alex talked about jump scenes before (I think he was talking about the one in Eight Below) but this is one of the best ones ever in cinema history, imho:

I loved Potergeist.

I used to like scary movies - now though I won't watch them. I go more for the psychological thriller then cut em up blood bath types.

Movies like Saw and Hostel I just won't watch - or even be in the same room where I can hear it. My husband though will still watch them.

Even at gross parts on TV shows, I hold my hand up and look away until he's done making a gross out face then I look back. I just don't need to see those things.

Even images that are photoshopped - that I know are photoshopped haunt me years after seeing them. This one for example -saw it years ago and yet - it's the first icky thing that popped into my mind even though I know it's a shop:

nsfw

We kinda liked Nanny McPhee as well. I didn't know that it was something that had to be spoken of so furtively.

Exposing my odd moments of complete cluelessnes, I had no idea until this morning that Benjamin Button was based on an F. Scott Fitzgerald story.

Betty ~ Ew. Ew! and EW!!
:D

I just got through watching the newly released RENT, as filmed on Broadway during its closing performance (or rather, last few performances, really.) If you are a fan of the show and thought the Chris Columbus movie was a soggy and leaden lump, you're likely to appreciate this chance to see the show on its original stage, with its original staging, and an energetic and attractive young cast.

RENT is an acquired taste for most people I know, and many never acquire it. I have to space out my viewings/listenings fairly far apart, as the show contains some vicious ear worms. (Even now, I'm going to have to live with "Seasons of Love" for a few miserable days.) But, it's worth it for the show's many glorious emotional highlights and moments of powerful pop triumph. This new DVD is the ideal way to enjoy it. I'll be revisiting it again in about five years. :)

I bought it today as well.
I haven't had a chance to watch it yet. Maybe tomorrow.
As a die-hard Renthead, I can't wait to see it.
:)

Hehehe, I'm going to rent it.



(Hated the movie, but .... in light of G.C.'s constant love for the piece, I'd love to see a representation of the actual show.)

I watched it Thursday night and enjoyed it a great deal. Did I like watching 'Rent'? Uh, does a Christian dig Jesus?

I loved that the musical was shot in full. Nothing was cut from it. The deletion of "Christmas Bells" from the movie version was a travesty. I still have a special place in my heart for the film because of the number of original cast members in it. Adam Pascal will always always be Roger. Always.

With that being said, the Broadway cast featured on the DVD was great. Here are their grades:
Mark: A-
Roger: A
Mimi: B
Collins: B
Angel: B+
Joanne: A
Maureen: B
Benny: B+
The supporting players: A
My biggest gripe with the cast was that Mimi was lacking. The character of Mimi is an out of control, attention grabbing fireball. The Mimi that on the DVD was subdued in her song "Out Tonight". This song is a show stopper and a chance for an actress to go all out. This actress seemed worried that her outrageousness wouldn't transfer well to film. She should have gave it her all.
The Roger was a yum yum factory. Gorgeous. Yeah, he has no lips but hey he's hot. He nailed his songs and was right on the money.
The Mark was decent. But he's no Anthony Rapp. But this actor did just fine.
The Collins was lacking to me, too. He wasn't as strong as I'd like.

I thought the play's translation to film was amazing. I thought I'd get bored with the camera, but I was pleasantly surprised.

Another small gripe I had with this version was with "La Vie Boheme". It seemed to be on Valium. The song's tempo is a bit faster than what was shown. I don't know, it could be me, I guess.

Watching the original cast sing with the last Broadway cast was touching. The original cast absentees included: Idina Menzel, Taye Diggs and Adam Pascal. Would have liked to see them there, but their absence was understandable.

I'll be watching this one over and over again. No matter what, this musical will always be special to me.

No day but today, b!tches! 'Rent' rules!

I'd say your grades are very much on the money. I wasn't watching very critically, though. I was too busy sniffling and bawling for a lot of it. (There are moments in the score that ALWAYS get me.)

Y'know, I found La Vie Boheme sluggish in both this DVD and in the movie. I've seen four live casts, and they generally pulled it off, though I think it comes off most energetically on the cast album. Maybe I'm mentally putting together a much more kinetic picture of how that song should be staged.

Yes, Christmas Bells was an unforgivable omission from the movie. AND so was "Goodbye Love." What the fvck was Chris Columbus thinking!? (It did show up as a deleted scene in the extras, and it had been effectively performed and shot, and it had NO BUSINESS being cut.) This song is both a very direct shout out to the source opera, La Boheme, and in itself, an emotional moment that should never, ever ever ever ever be cut.

I said in my last post that I would wait a while before watching this again, but guess what - I've already rewatched it.

The boys had Netflixed Forbidden Kingdom last night, it wasn't near as bad as I thought it would be. I'm not a big Jackie Chan fan but I think I liked him as a drunk for some reason, go figure!

Saw Slumdog Millionaire tonight. Loved it! :)
Really enjoyed the shenanigans during the credits.

Finally saw Vicky Cristina Barcelona last night and loved it - okay, I could have done without the voice over, but I still think nobody captures the complexity of love and desire like Woody Allen does. Loved Penelope Cruz in this.

I liked everything about except for the parts with Johansson. Unfortunately that doesn't leave enough for me to say I liked it overall.

I just want to have a 3-some with Penelope and Salma.

If he could watch, I'm thinking Chris would be all for it.
;)

DUH!

Scratch the threesome - I'd rather just have Clive Owen.

Really, I DO enjoy films for more than the eye candy.....really.

Well, DUH right back at ya.
:D

This is next up in the Netflix queue. I can do without Scarlett, but Javier Bardem rowr....

Bottle Shock was fun, I caught that over the weekend. Alan Rickman, I had to.

Waitaminute.

I've been thinking about this movie and I think I have a couple of problems with it.

The moral of the movie as I saw it:

Poor people will be content with their lot (while being absolute ****s to each other) so long as there is a (almost literally) one shot in a billion of becoming suddenly wealthy. Also, love makes misery ok.

The movie is well made and not bad at all. But it didn't work for me and I don't think it a great movie. There was an article at Slate a couple weeks back that perfectly captured my feelings about the movie. My answer to the question in the subtitle of the article is D.

Still, I feel like an unOscarcast-worthy newb if I haven't seen it.

I'm considering going to the AMC, day-before-Oscars BestPictureNomathon. There's three best pic noms I haven't seen. If the running order works out, I just might go. From what I understand, it's $30 for all five films and all the popcorn you can eat.

Well, that's okay - I'll just stand in for you till you finish up with Clive

As a child, I had a fear or open closets (I had nightmares) and of trees that could swallow you whole (one neighborhood tree, in particular, based on stories and older kid told to younger ones). So, when I saw Poltergeist, which had both a closet AND a tree that swallowed kids whole, it terrified me. As a result, I still get residual creeps when I watch it. Heh.

I should have loved Gaiman's Coraline. Instead, I loved the story, the characters and the overall creep factor, but didn't love...what? His prose? I couldn't quite put my finger on it. Instead, I liked the book well enough and was very excited when I found out it was being made into a stop action movie, thinking I would prefer it as a film.

I should have loved Selnick's Coraline.. Instead, I loved the story and the characters of Coraline and the Other Mother, and though the creep factor was there, one's imagination brings an awful lot to a book's table. How I imagined things painted a scarier picture in my mind. I thought Fanning and Hatcher were good. But...but...but... I cannot put my finger on what exactly I didn't like. Whatever, it is enough to hurt my enjoyment of the film and I was left disappointed. I even found myself thinking, "I would probably prefer reading to seeing, except...I didn't." So much to love about both, but not enough to fall in love, I guess.

I felt like a good cry tonight so I watched Terms of Endearment. Yeah, I'm a sucker for punishment. The movie is great. Shirley McLaine is great.
:)

I watched "Bottle Shock" the other night. True story or not, I don't think there was a single believable moment in the film--realistically believable, poetically believable, magically realistically believable or otherwise--but I still enjoyed it.

I'll send him over later.



Oh hell, no I won't. :D

I think the wine was probably pretty good. I thought it captured the feel of the Napa of the 1970s. I enjoyed it, though. And I had a glass of wine, too while watching (Australian). :blush:

Bitch.


;)


We watched Lars and the Real Girl last night. I didn't love it but I thought Gosling was wonderful. I think I would have loved it more if there were more "quirks". I find I am really fond of "small town" drama when there are lots of quirky people and happenings (Northern Exposure, Twin Peaks, etc). I found "Lars" to be both predictable and unbelievable which took away from the sweetness I think I was supposed to feel.

Besides, I don't want to sleep with Gosling. ;)

And I don't want to sleep with the "Real Girl." Those things are creepy and awful.

But intact.

Fine. You send over Gosling then.


And I'll have bewitched sent you Owen.



(After I've had my (3)way with him and Gosling.) ;)

Until last night I was oblivious to the fact that Patton Oswalt is the voice of Remy in Ratatouille. That's odd.

I rented The Dutchess via Netflix. Yeech, what a crashing bore, beautifully costumed. I've come to the conclusion that Keira Knightly has the acting range similar to how Dorothy Parker categorized Kate Hepburn. "She runs the gamut from A to B."

That he was the voice or that you were oblivious?


Watched the original Bedazzled yesterday. Complete snooze-fest (almost literally though I think I warded off actual nap time). Mostly naked Raquel Welch was an all too brief distraction. The attempt at satire was more pointed than anything in the remake, but the most biting satire loses its edge if you're mostly asleep when it happens.

I didn't blame Kiera Knightly for the dullness of The Duchess since as far as I could tell watching it the script and direction simply never provided any justification for the moving having been made. It simply tells us she was an interesting person and assumes that was enough. I thought Knightly did well enough with what little she was given.

We watched Burn After Reading last night. Thoroughly enjoyed the film. The Cohen Brothers never fail to amuse me. Brad Pitt was by far my favorite of the men in the film - which was surprising since I usually really like Cloony and Malkovitch. Cohen always makes me want more Cohen.

Both, I guess, though I was referring to the fact that he was the voice. And by "odd" I mean that he is not the most obvious choice for a Pixar voice, and that one in particular. However he did an excellent job, so cheers to them on the casting.

Brad Pitt as a clueless dork. That was amazing. This was classic Cohen Bros. madness. They really deliver very consistently. ("Lady Killers" stands out in my mind as a rare disappointment.)

Sorry, Alex. You're wrong about Bedazzled. Now, if you made the same comments on the Cook/Moore take on The Hound of the Baskervilles...

Finally making my way through the Oscar nominees. Benjamin Button. What exactly was the point of that movie? It was well-filmed and decently acted, I suppose, but the script seemed... somewhat lacking. Anyone?

I'll accept that I could be wrong. And that it was other factors that had me half-lidded sitting on the couch. But I'm probably not going to find out for sure.

On Benjamin Button, I just read the F. Scott Fitzgerald short story that it was inspired by. Here is what was kept by the movie:

There was a character named Benjamin Button.
That character was born physically old (though in the short story he was born standing 5'9" and able to talk) and aged physically in reverse.
He was from a wealthy family.

Absolutely everything else in the movie was written from whole cloth and can not be blamed on Fitzgerald (though I'll admit that a faithful filming of the short story would have likely sucked many eggs, but who knows). The love story; the travel; the location (New Orleans in general and the retirement home specifically); the adoption by a black woman; etc.

I'll see your pointless Benjamin Button, and raise you an inane Slumdog Millionaire. This is the frontrunner for Best Frelling Picture? WTF???


I've already ranted about Button. Well-filmed, nicely acted, interesting life tale and love story ... but absolutely no point made about the central gimmick of a life lived backwards ... rendering it simply a gimmick. Enjoyed it while it was playing out, started hating it one second after I left the theater.


I didn't hate Slumdog. But I'm astounded this piece of fluff and quasi PoorNogaphy is even nominated for Best Picture, much less the odds-on favorite to win. OMG, I give up.

I've seen all five nominees now and none of them strike me as truly great films. At this point my personal pick would go to Milk.

Yes, I think much of the films emotion is from the current societal zeitgeist and therefore won't age well (assuming progress for homosexuals continues at least slowly in the right direction). But at least it made me feel something, which none of the other four did.

My ranking of the five would be:

Milk
The Reader
Frost/Nixon
Slumdog Millionaire
The Curious Case of Benjamin Button

I'll say again that if those are the best five "Oscar bait" movies of 2008 then it was the perfect opportunity to swing mainstream or really break the mold and get The Dark Knight, Wall-E, and Man on Wire some serious chance.

Rented Burn after reading the latest X files movie over the weekend.

The X Files movie was time wasted I'll never get back. I used to really enjoy the tv show too. What a suck sandwich that was.

Burn After Reading was entertaining until the DVD stopped playing half way through. Bah.

Also have the first season of Californication to watch. Has anyone followed the series? Worth watching?

Saw Coraline. Wonderfully creepy, and I really liked the 3D effects, especially one at the end that was clearly inspired by an Impressionist painting.

I'm behind the times here but I saw I Am Legend the other night. I thought it was just okay. They should have used real actors to play the zombie vampire people. The CG characters looked fake. I'm a sucker for post-apocalyptic movies, though. It was decent enough, they could have stretched the story along a little bit more, I think.

Have you seen either of the previous filmings of it?

Of I Am Legend? No.

Well I recommend at least The Omega Man for some Charlton Heston cheesiness and an example of just how bad it could have been (not that I am defending I Am Legend as particularly good).

How many post-apocalyptic films did Heston make, anyway? There are three that my under-educated mind knows of. What about Chuck elicited a "last man on earth" complex?

In addition to the three you're thinking of (I'm assuming Planet of the Apes, Omega Man, and Soylent Green) I'd add Earthquake one of the great cheesy disaster epics of the '70s. Post-apocalyptic, but on a more local scale.

Then there is Solar Crisis in which the post-apocalypse must be prevented. It was a proto-Armageddon (for which Heston provided narration services). Astronauts must go drop a bomb into the sun to prevent a solar flare that will destroy the earth.

Plus a small part in the Tim Burton Planet of the Apes remake.

I think he was just such a big presence on the screen (sometimes good and sometimes bad) that he just needed to be in the middle of massive-scale events for him to not overwhelm things.

Oh - the book (was it a short story?) was WAAAAAAAY better. With a very different ending actually. Totally different - as in changed the whole story different.

Yeah, the short story is justifiably a classic (though I don't care for much else by Matheson).

So is there something wrong with me that I like post-apocalyptic stories/movies? I love The Stand. I recently bought a documentary called Life Without People. It was very interesting, it talked about what would happen to the Earth if man suddenly disappeared one day. I'm even writing a story right now about alien beings visiting Earth five hundred years after everyone on it has died...

I'm right there with you GC. I love the Stand and we really enjoyed the Discovery special too!

I recently saw Omega Man and Logans Run again, the guys having been watching the old movies on netflix. We have to give the kid a good rounded education, don't we;)

You're probably right. Regarding Earthquake, eh, I don't count it.

That's a whole thread in itself. It's far from the best 70's cheesy disaster epic, as Poseidon Adventure and Towering Inferno are leagues better. Oddly, I never did see Airport (or Airport '75), though I did see Airplane! many, many times. I tried to catch some of Airport on TV, but couldn't watch it. It's much harder to sit through those '70's films now, unless you saw them way back when and have a soft spot for them.

I watched Airport '75 on TV in Rome. Needless to say it was in Italian.

That may have helped my enjoyment.

Saw Coraline yesterday. Other than the awesome stop motion animation, it was a complete yawnfest. The only excitement came when my friend's heretofore "unscareable" 4 year old got scared when the 3 Scotty dogs jumped at the door when Coraline knocked.

Ditto that. I didn't think any of them were terrible films. I just didn't think they were great. It was a slow year.

Though three films I really did appreciate (Wall-E, Rachel Getting Married, and The Wrestler) didn't crack the BP category. And that's really too bad.

Add me to the league of Heston Apocalypse enthusiasts. I only wish there could have been more! (Heck, if the "Left Behind" movies had been made in the 70s, with bigger budgets and Heston in the lead, I'm sure I'd count them as guilty pleasures. Kirk Cameron cannot hope to fill such bombastic shoes.)

The first Airport holds up for me as an entertaining sixties soap opera with action/disaster elements. After that, the franchise went awfully cheesy quite fast, with Airport '75 being good mostly for laughs, and the rest close to unwatchable.

Must echo, the original Airport was not a disaster film. It was a soapoperatic melodrama that may have inspired the genre to come ... the first (and best) of which was The Poseidon Adventure. Both films are very decent peices of work (Airport was nominated for Best Picture if I'm not mistaken). Their followers were pretty much pure schlock. Earthquake, in particular, is practically unwatchable - postapocalypto Heston notwithstanding.

I must clarify that when I called Earthquake one of the great cheesy disaster pictures I was not in any way meaning that resulted in quality.

Before "Airport," and "Airplane," there was "Marooned," one of my favorites.

OMG, forgot about that one.


Don't know that it's any more of a disaster film than Apollo 13. I think John Q. Public has to be at risk if it's to be classified as a Disaster Film. Astronauts don't count. :p


But, yes, it was CHEESY.

Ah, didn't realize Airport was more of a soap opera.

Do you guys like Towering Inferno? I always loved it but again, I grew up with it. Steve McQueen, yow!

Towering Inferno is a hoot. Not a very good movie, but a hoot regardless.


Airport is a really good film, if a bit of a melodrama. More of a quality thriller really. Great cast - Burt Lancaster, Dean Martin, Jacqueline Bisset, Helen Hayes and, yes, George Kennedy originating the role of Joe Patroni that would "grace" many of the really crappy sequels that were pathetic disaster movie descendents.



Of course, The Towering Inferno had a great cast, too. I guess it's what you do with it.

Love me some Inferno and Poseidon.

Looks like I'm going to be singing "There's Got to be a Morning After" for the rest of the day.

I've even gone to the extent of reading Arthur Hailey's Airport novel. the movie is a pretty faithful rendering of it. For that matter, i read both of the novels that inspired The Towering Inferno. (The Tower and The Glass Inferno) As soon as I run across a used paperback copy, I can't wait to read Arthur Herzog's The Swarm. From what I've heard, it bears little relation to the awesome crapfest that Irwin Allen unleashed on the public.

Hahah, I read those two towering inferno-inspiration novels, too.

And I liked the Arthur Hailey Airport novel so much, I read a few of his others as well. (Airport was a pretty faithful adaptation; Hotel not so much.)

...and Arthur Hailey also wrote "Runway Zero-Eight", which was based on his script for the 1957 movie Zero Hour!, the movie that Airplane! spoofs.

(According to Wikipedia, the story first appeared as a CBC TV Movie called Flight Into Danger, which I've never seen).

Raising the question of what makes a disaster film. Is it sufficient that people be put in peril? Does the peril have to be a gigantic natural force? Does the peril have to be a form of man's arrogance or complacency coming back to bite him on the ass?

Towering Inferno had arrogance but not a great natural force. Poseidon had both a natural force and man's greed/complacency in that the ship was insufficiently ballasted because they wanted to get it to port faster to scrap it.

If peril and complacency are enough, then maybe a little movie like "The Incident" is a disaster film: New Yorkers terrorized by thugs on a subway train. Or is that urban horror or a monster movie? Is "Alien" a disaster movie or a monster movie or both?

Apollo 13 was exciting, I suppose, but I don't think it inspired much reflection.

You have 45 minutes. You may begin.

I think scale plays a big part in defining a Disaster Film. Towering Inferno counts.

Alien (the first one), is famously an "Old Dark House" variant in outer space. So a horror movie, not a Disaster flick.

I'd imagine that the more fantastic the peril, the less it becomes a Disaster Movie. Perhaps the peril must be elemental: Earth, Air, Fire, Water...

The peril must be over-the-top. An All-Star-Cast of stereotypes must be employed. It must be fiction.

So a movie about The Twin Towers, Chernobyl or the 2004 Tsunami could not be disaster movies?

No.

Disaster movies must be fictional. No exceptions.


The "disaster" is not the only requirement of the genre. Too many movies would qualify. There is a certain "quality" (usually a lack of) that denotes Disaster Movie.

Well, maybe there are a couple of exceptions.

The San Francisco Earthquake, the Titanic etc. could be used as backdrops for Disaster Movies.

so could:

Well, Krakatoa is actually west of Java, so the one depicted in the movie is clearly fictional.

Wait, The San Francisco Earthquake is OK but the 2004 Tsunami (caused by an earthquake) is not?

Is it a date thing?

I'm sure the 2004 Tsunami could be a fine backdrop for a Disaster Flick.

So how are you two going to settle this difference of opinion?

I'll offer to be Mousepod's second if needed.

I'd say that a real historical event could be the backdrop, though best one with little strong societal emotion still involved, but the specific dramas depicted need to be well in the realm of fiction.

Airport '75 and United 93 are both movies essentially about a plane full of people in peril and the reactions of those people as well as spectators on the ground. But emotionally they are very different things. And I'd say there is a certain emotional remove to Disaster Movies that isn't necessarily reflected in the literal meaning of the phrase.

Perfect examples, Alex. Airport '75 is a disaster movie. United 93 is not. If you cannot grok the difference, there's nothing I can do to help.



mousepod is unequivocally wrong. :p Titanic, for example, may be many terrible things, but it is not a disaster movie. Mixing plenty of hogwash fiction with remarkable depictions of fact does not change that the disaster really happened. Such a thing cannot be cheesy enough to rise (er, lower) to the level of a Disaster Movie. And believe me, Titantic tried real hard.

Titanic was both a disaster and a Disaster Movie.

Don't get me started on Titanic....

ok, since you ask (hey, you and i never had that discussion) ...


I loved the verisimilitude of the "look" They bothered to get every set perfect, down to the china patterns. The ship, the costumes, all were top notch and spot-on. The special effects were great. If you turn the sound off, you have a fantastic visual representation of the Titanic's maiden fateful voyage.


That is all. When I watch the film, which I rarely do ... but I'm a Titanic buff, so I must every now and again ... when I do, I simply pretend the director meant to do it in the style of a corny mellodrama of the era.



Too bad the far better film, A Night to Remember, which did not fictionalize the characters, was filmed on a ferryboat with no budget to speak of.

If only the two films could be melded, with the best qualities of each left intact. Le sigh.

Somewhat on topic:

I just saw the funniest logline for a screenplay that supposedly has been sold and will be produced:

"Pride and Predator." An alien crash lands and begins to butcher the mannered characters of a Jane Austen novel.

Sounds like an attempt to capitalize on the success of Pride and Prejudice and Zombies.

This sounds a little like a challenge. I might consider trying a creative editing project.

In accepting his Golden Globe last month, Mickey Rourke thanked his dogs, past and present, saying "Sometimes when a man's alone, that's all you've got is your dog."

Rourke's dog, Loki, died today. Blogger Kris Tapley has written up a nice remembrance, with a photo of Mickey and Loki.

OMG, I would love you. Can I consult?

Adding to the degree of difficulty, one film is in b&w in standard aspect ration, the other in glorious color and Panavision.


Have fun!

Aspect ratios can always be adjusted, and color can be made b&w quite easily (the reverse is more difficult).

Holy crap. I had never even heard of Zero Hour!. And holy crap again, wikipedia says that they bought the rights to the film when they made Airplane! and used the screenplay mostly verbatim. No f'n way! :eek: I must see this.

I bet many of you remember this trailer for Kubrick's The Shining. It still gives me chills to this day, and that's almost completely thanks to Wendy Carlos' genius music track, which was composed for but unused in the finished film itself.

Apparently, Roland Emmerich was mighty impressed by that music as well, because here it is again. This teaser trailer for 2012 pays homage by swiping the piece whole. (I assume Carlos is getting a decent royalty for this.) Of course, there are some added contemporary whooshes and thumps added to the track, though I can't help but think the trailer would be better off without them. (I'm a big non-fan of the un-subtle Mickey Mousing of every single visual element in today's blockbuster cinema.) Still, an interesting tribute.

And there's a question I have. Why is Roland Emmerich still making movies? His movies stinketh. He and Kevin Costner, out ta pasture with the both of yous guys.

Makes me want to watch The Shining again ... RIGHT NOW!


Oh, and with apologies to everyone ... and I've enjoyed my life so very much ... but I've had just about enough, and I wouldn't mind at all if the prophesies were true and the world comes to an end in 2012.




Or before the release of that film ... whichever comes first.

So if 2012 comes out in 2009 and then the world really does end in 2012 could it qualify as a disaster movie or not?

Roland Emmerich, end of the world, blah blah blah.

Has anyone seen the red-band trailer for Miss March?

What a disappointment. I assumed that would be the Jane March biopic we've all been waiting for.

It's the end of the world as we know it, and I feel fine.

I finally got around to Changeling (thanks to Netflix). I wanted to like the film. Period film, LA 1920's-30's, cool. But I really did not like the film very much. Maybe the script did not build in that little extra preliminary lead up to make me care about this poor woman and her son. Maybe AJ's performance was just a little underwhelming? Compelling story, to be sure, but in the end, I came away wondering what was it about her performance that lead to an Academy nod?

I'm with you on that one, Snowflake. I've been trying to cram in as many Oscar nominees as I can before the show, and I also watched Changeling last night.

While it was certainly lovely to look at, I thought that the plot was fairly predictable and sadly not engaging. I've seen similar stories told better. So far, it's Meryl Streep for me for Best Actress... but I still have one more movie to see in that category.

I watched Born Yesterday (1950) last night. Holy crap. Can't believe I have never seen this one. I have heard Judy Holiday's character parodied before but never saw her do it. That voice! Hysterical. The writing in this is absolutely wonderful.

Now watch the remake with Melanie Griffith, Don Johnson, and John Goodman in the main roles.

Yeah, but I'm still mad Gloria Swanson did not win an Academy Award for Sunset Blvd. and it went to Holiday. Who was wonderful as Billie, no question. Of course, this was a year very RICH in worthy perfs, like Bette Davis and Anne Baxter in All About Eve, as well. Damn, who was the fifth nominee? I can't remember!

Back to Born Yesterday, I adore William Holden in this film.

Alex is pure evil.

Eleanor Parker in one of the most critically acclaimed "women in prison" movies.

The "women in prison" movies I've seen probably don't qualify for academy consideration.

Such was my point.

I haven't seen Caged so I don't know if it has the genre requisite naked shower fight. But it was early so not all of the tropes had been established.

What a great year for awesome parts for women!
Well, Anne split the vote between her and Davis by not taking a supporting nom instead. Bad move on her part. OR the vote may have been split between Swanson and Davis. Interesting.

I have never seen a women in prison movie. Hmm, how about a list of mini-genres?

Disaster!
Women in Prison
Last Person
Road Trip
Rags to Riches
Gang Violence (aka Romeo and Juliet)
Snob Learns a Lesson
Ragtag Team Pulls it Together
There's a Bomb on that Bus/Building/etc
Wacky Person (aka every Will Farrell/Jim Carrey movie)

Fish Out of Water is a large net, really. I'd pinpoint "Bumbling at a Task" as a better label.

...

The most fun women in prison movie, and all around great pre-code treasure, Baby Face with Barbara Stanwyck. After the discovery of the LOC print, pre-cut version, oh what a difference 4 minutes of footage makes! Fun and racy stuff. Also a young cameo by John Wayne. This one gets ***** snowflakes.

So, since Chicago lacked the "requisite naked shower fight" scene, and also fit well within the bounds of another category (that being "stage musical turned into a movie"), would it not count as a "women in prison" movie?

As far as WIP movies, I'd recommend "Bamboo House of Dolls". Do I have the DVD? You bet.

I Want to Live!

Am I surprised at this? Absoultely not. ;)

I'm waiting for the Blu-Ray

No, at least not to me. But we can define this one like we did Disaster! and everybody can have a different view on where the lines are.

When I say a "women in prison" movie I don't mean just a movie that has a woman in prison but rather is about the abuse/exploitation of women in prison. Most generally in the form of exploitation films that are primarily motivated by S&M and lesbian tensions. Sometimes a particularly strict boarding school is substituted for the prison.

I wasn't necessarily serious in calling Caged a woman in prison movie. Like I said I haven't seen it. But the plot summary at IMDb read like a perfect description of one. Woman somewhat mistakenly is imprisioned and brutalized by the harsh headmistress.

I've got (and love) The Big Doll House. Pam Grier, baby!

My favorite guilty pleasure movie subgenre is "demonic coven at girl's school" - which is why I wanted to like Suspiria. Sadly, however, I did not.

Well, I expect Baxter and Davis cancelled one another out. Baxter had already won a best supporting Oscar if I am not mistaken and was likely not after another suporting nod. She had won for the always reliable former good girl who goes bad and ends up not only a drunk but a prostitute after family tragedy in The Razor's Edge. You know, the sentimental actress choice, she's so out of character as a drunk, much like Claire Trevor's win in Key Largo.

Holiday was such a breath of freshness, and it was a damned good part. She'd won a richly deserved Tony for the role on Broadway. Yeah, she died young. But, I really think it shoulda been Swanson's year, it was her last great film role and I guess it cut just a little too close to home for some Academy members.

Pretty silly, I'm still arguing with myself over this and I was not even there when this happened!

Hah! Agreed on both counts.

I am a fan of Suspiria, sorry you didn't like it. How about the TV-Movie classic Satan's School For Girls?

I also like Susprira. The scene where the blind man attacked is really one of the most deliciously suspense driven horror scenes I've watched.

LOVE IT!!!!!!

Suspiria - Jessica Harper - <Homer Simpson "gargle of longing">

Apart from that and Satan's School For Girls, what other films are to be found in this sub-genre? I really must know.

I've got The Big Bird Cage, that's one of my favorite "women in prison" movies.

and

Diana Rigg? I may have to look into that one

And Tim Curry? HahahahahahahowdidImissthis?

Bruce Campbell!!! :D

Dude! Tim even sings a abysmally cheesy song in it!

For some reason, he's reminding me of Cojo* in that video.




* You can blame The Soup for my knowledge of who Cojo is

Actual lyrics in this song: "Your dentist could turn into a queen."

That was gawdawful, but in a highly entertaining way.

If you wanna see a funny movie (yes, many call it terrible, blasphemous and worse things) - Jesus Christ: Vampire Hunter

I misread.

We just watched it too -- fabulous! (and it erased the dreck "Atonement" we'd watched finally the night before).

I liked "Atonement," although the "Did any of the foregoing actually happen" ending did diminish my emotional investment in the characters a bit.

I watched "Dr. Zhivago" last night for the first time. As with every piece of Russian drama ever done, there are no likable characters, but I enjoyed it more than I thought I would. Now where have I heard that music before?

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!! :snap: :snap: :snap:

I knew that would make your day. :D

That was so hard to watch!

Haven't seen Milk yet but just watched The Times of Harvey Milk, which blew me away. I knew nothing about him and now feel alternately inspired beyond belief and shocked at the circumstances of his death. It's hard to believe that these things happened within my lifetime - even if I was just a baby then.

Please don't post "spoilers" (though these events are history), GD hasn't seen this and we're both going to watch Milk soon.

Yeah, I'm a douchebag, but y'all should be used to that by now.

I've got nothing against the idea of a Richard Pryor biopic, but Eddie Murphy in the role seems like a trainwreck of a choice.

Finally saw "The Visitor". Good enough movie, but I freaking hated the ending. Perhaps it would have been a bit trite to have him marry the mom so she (and eventually Tariq?) could return, but after all that, you kinda want a semi-happy ending.

Yeah, I was expecting a different ending but I suppose it was prety real.

My issue with the movie is that I loved the relationship he developed with the two immigrants...

Ok now this is really pissing me off.

Twilight Incorporated you are a bunch of evil callous money grubbing nerff herders.

Headliner is excited beyond words that the DVD is coming out Friday. She's doing the whole midnight release party, come home and watch it with her coven friends thing. Which is great. But the grubby corporate pricks at Twilight, Inc. have decided to release the Blu-Ray version weeks after DVD. No doubt in an attempt to get fans to buy both versions. I see it as a callous attempt to prey on the emotions of my little girl for profit and I hope they burn in hell for it.

They had to make sure the blurays could stand up to squealing girls.

With that phrase, you damn most of the entertainment industry. Which is ok by me. Speaking of exploiting little girls, you did see this, right?

If Kevy had posted that sentence, there's not a chance in the universe I'd have clicked the link.

Damn! Ken Russell will be here in Orlando on Saturday night, at a screening of his Crimes of Passion. (The theme of this years Orlando Film Festival is "forbidden films") As of this moment, there is almost no way I will be able to attend, even if it hasn't sold out already. However, a friend of mine is going to be his driver and personal assistant for the weekend. Maybe, just maybe, I can arrange to meet him somehow. (I do love me some Ken Russell!)

consider me jealous

OMG! That would be a wonderful persn to meet.

As a yute, I thought "Crimes of Passion" was the hottest movie ever.

Damn, I had to go all the way back to 1980's "Altered States" to find something of his I've actually seen.

I really need to get out more.

Right. Can I just take a dagger to my eyes right now and save myself the torment to come?

I really can't say that it matters who takes this on, it has got to be the worst thing since the movie Dune.

Jim Carrey, okay. He can definitely do slapstick and he'd be fine as a Stooge. But Curly? Is he gonna wear a fat suit? Would that not impede his physicality?

Benicio Del Toro? Um, no. Moe is not a psychopathic killer. The only qualification Benny of the Bull has to play Moe is black hair.

Sean Penn (I originally thought you meant Penn Jilette) as Larry!?!?! Jeebus zombie christ on a pogo stick, how much crack were they smoking when they thought Sean Penn could play a Stooge? Sure, he's a talented dramatic actor, but not a gifted comedian, let alone someone who can handle slapstick.

Please tell me this is all just someone's idea of a practical joke.

Is "Being John Malkovich" any good? Because so far, with the exception of some really amazing puppetry, I'm bored. Wondering if I should bother with the rest of the dvd.

I suppose that depends on taste, but yes. Yes, I think it's terrific.

Yes, I thoroughly enjoyed being John Malkovich, and I want to see lots more of that amazing puppetry!

For me, like all Charlie Kauffman films, "Being John Malkovich" wore out its welcome in the ending.

As for Jim Carrey playing Curly, he's got a tough road to hoe to make me forget Michael Chiklis. I admired his Curly immensely.

For me, like all Charlie Kauffman films, "Being John Malkovich" wore out its welcome in the ending.

As for Jim Carrey playing Curly, he's got a tough road to hoe to make me forget Michael Chiklis. I admired his Curly immensely.

I loved BJM. I tend to enjoy Kaufman's style.

I like the set-ups. Like BJM, but not all the way thru. The orchid one was good, too ... but again, not thru to the end.

I haven't seen his latest. Heard it was grueling, tho interesting. It's something I would Netflix, but am too lazy too look up. Title, anyone?

On a related note, the trailer for Spike Jonze's version of "Where the Wild Things Are" came out. The island stuff looks cool, but the added back story looks totally wrong.

I can't wait to see the Three Stooges.

I think they made good choices for the cast.

The look of it reminded me of "The Never Ending Story" - which I have now watched 3 times in the last 2 days. The only negative I felt about the trailer was the lame music.

Kaufman's latest was also his directorial debut, Synecdoche NY. It... yeah. It was possibly the most horrific thing I've ever seen. I don't mean it was a bad movie. Though it may have been that. But it was the most brutal absurdist depiction of mortality and failure I've ever seen. There were flashes of brilliance, but I don't think I could watch it again soon. Maybe ever.

iSm, I found my review for you.

Somehow this description really makes me want to see it

I remember reading that when you posted it and thinking I was definitely not up to it. I'm not so much afraid of heavy subject matter, but not-in-the-spooky-way horrifying is too depressing right now.

And this is the part that tempts me to see it, in spite of knowing how difficult it would be to watch.

The description, yes. The review. Toxic Warning. I remember reading it back then, too. And hence why I stayed away. Now that I've forgotten why, I'm thankful of the reminder.

I still have no idea what the name was that he shouted at the end.

Yes, that's exactly why I tried to express that it may definitely be worth your while, or it may definitely overwhelm you, or possibly both. Or possibly neither. It's very abstract and, I would say, worth a viewing if you keep your mind open. I just can't tell you what you're going to think about it. There's a good chance you'll think it's absurdly amazing, and a good chance it'll make you hurt. Or possibly both. Or neither, if surrealism isn't your thing and you've never met with failure.

I saw Monsters vs. Aliens in 3D yesterday. I had a collision with fully sugared soda and freshly buttered popcorn before the movie started, so I really don't know how objective I am about the beginning when I say that I hated it. I just thought it was slow and not amusing, but then, my hair and clothes were wet and the Pepsi had gone down my shirt, both front and back.

Is Reese Witherspoon ever not charming? I like her. I think she should voice many more animated characters. I am so tired of the popular feminine voice: lazy and throaty. I'm done with that. Everyone should enunciate like Reese!

Stephen Colbert usually amuses me greatly, but I hated the character of the president. We all know it is possible to have an idiot elected to the presidency. Did we need to see another moronic characterization? The way he looked reminded me of Greg Proops or Buddy Holly with a Jay Leno chin; mildly creepy.

The beautification of Modesto was funny. Rolling green hills, really? Huh. Nick O' Time, where art thou? Oh, yes. Modesto. And I am in Stockton. There are no hills, green or otherwise.

I liked the music. As much as I hated hearing Reminiscing by The Little River Band and Journey's Who's Crying Now? on the radio at the time those songs were popular, I must admit that when I heard them in the movie yesterday, I smiled.

After seeing the trailer for UP, I am excited about it. I laughed more during the UP preview than I did in the first half of Monsters vs. Aliens. On the whole, by the time I turned in my 3D glasses, I was glad I went.

I don't really want to see a film that is set in the depressing city where I work. Wasn't filmed here though.

I don't think it is, Steph. I think it's set in NYC and environs.

I didn't realize it moved during the film. He starts out in Schenectady, NY.

Agreed. The book is a classic because it is utterly simple, and entirely innocent bit of childhood fantasy with nothing more than a tiny hint of reality. While the trailer LOOKED gorgeous, I can't imagine any way you can add a story to the book and not make it worse.

Me too. One of the quickest ways to get me to a movie is to indicate that it might hurt. Similar advisories have put me in front of Salo: The 120 Days of Sodom, The Cook, The Thief, His Wife and Her Lover, Kids, Thriller: a Cruel Picture, Irreversible, Elephant and any number of other sad, nihilistic, disturbing, transgressive or shocking pictures. Mileage varies widely for those films just named, of course. But I sometimes ask myself, really dude, what the hell?!

Found this posted elsewhere under the heading "The World's Most Baffling Movie Trailer."

Apt.

We watched Molière tonight. Wonderful! The plot conceit uses various bits from his plays cobbled together to create a story of what may have happened in the missing months of his life. The acting is excellent. We were especially taken with the handsome Edouard Baer, who plays a roguish and scheming Count; and also by Fabrice Luchini, who plays Molière's naive and befuddled employer.

A delight!

Fun with Photoshop

Some of these are pretty good.
:D

I saw 3/4 of the Sara Marshall movie last night. I was better than expected. The advertising was really geared for a much younger audience than the movie seemed to appeal to. I had just read the Vanity Fair article about current comedians so I found it interesting to place them in a film context. Not sure if I want to explore the genre now, but it was good to have a taste.

I actually think that Apatow's work (especially the comedies he wrote and directed - he only produced Sarah Marshall) are absolutely not geared towards the younger generation (no matter how much we market the films to them.)

The Forty-Year-Old Virgin and Knocked Up are surprisingly funny AND surprisingly sweet. And definitely written with adults in mind.

I love Apatow's stuff. And Paul Rudd has been making some good choices lately and the films that he is in outside of the Apatow stuff are pretty danged good too.

Sarah Marshall wasn't as good as the others, too. You may want to check them out. 40 year old virgin was a fantastic film on all levels.

We finally saw Milk, and I have to say that I didn't like it nearly as much as the documentary. Way too much romantic storyline, meh. I dislike that in any doc style movie, regardless of sexual orientation. It was kind of cool that they put all that personal, seriously gay stuff in without worrying about backlash, but personally, I'm more interested in the politics. Some of my favorite details from the documentary were left out of the film.

We also watch Burn After Reading last night.

Meh. It was clever, and I got a little more onboard after the mid-movie debriefing scene, that helped. But the characters, while on some level were fun and well performed, were all pretty flat, too one-dimensional. It helped if I tried to think of it like we were watching a novel written by someone like Malkovich's character, but even in that context it just doesn't have enough to make it more than a little amusing.

Hahaha, I finally saw the documentary this week, and have to say I didn't like it nearly as much as the film.

The documentary COMMENTARY was very interesting. Apparently, and this is borne out by the film, it's NOT a biography of Harvey Milk. In fact, the title is often mistaken, even in print advertising, and that's why I - and apparently so many others - think it is called "The Life and Times of Harvey Milk" when, in fact, the title is "The Times of Harvey Milk" - - and so the subject matter is the politics and not the man.

The subject of the theatrical film is the man, and that's why his LIFE is more central to the story. I think the balance is better in the movie ... and it turns out to be so much more based on fact that I at first dramatic-licentiously assumed, that I find it a better document of Harvey Milk than "The Times of Harvey Milk."

Both films are important, and moving, but the Oscar-winning movie is - imo - more entertaining and far more moving (I think I cried at 4 or 5 points, while I shed narry a tear during the docu.).



Obviously the subject matter has become very important to me in the last few months. Watching both films this week, it struck me that I had lived in California but 3 months when Harvey Milk was assassinated. And though I was aghast at the news, it meant relatively little to me. It's so odd to realize I never could have known at 18 in '78 how central to my life the tale of Harvey Milk would become 30 years later.

Ironically, I also started a complete cold-turkey withdrawal from gay activism this week, and will remain on hiatus until the Supreme Court decision is handed down. Work in the activist community is completely focused on losing, and it's been badly affecting my perhaps naive optimism re the outcome.


Of course Harvey Milk remains a rather inspirational figure to me. The documentary filmmakers remark that Harvey's story was already fading into the mists of history when they started their work, and hoped the film would cement the story for posterity. I rather think the Sean Penn movie accomplishes that worthy task far better and with much more lasting concrete. But each film offers a unique angle on an important chapter in the American story of civil rights struggle.

Great Double Feature. :snap:

Funny, I bawled while watching the doc, and barely teared up during the film. Perhaps it's because I purposely didn't look up the history so I would be surprised (and shocked and appalled), and once the surprise was gone the emotion was too.

I should have saved the doc for afterwards. Oh well.

I plan to go in film/doc order, and very soon at that.

I tear up every time I remember the story. It was a tragedy I'll never forget.

Came home and re-watched the documentary after seeing the movie. Hadn't seen it in about 15 years. Sobbed.

The documentary is one of my all tie favorites, I never cease to weep all over again. Moved me far more than the film, and the film was very moving.

I watched the Jiggidy Johnson's Jammin' DVD Volume 2 tonight- I can't wait for June.

We watched Desk Set (1957) tonight. Hepburn/Tracy. Classic.

My phone buzzed with text messages a few times, prompting me to reflect that it probably has ten or a hundred times the supposed computing power of EMERAC.

Point Break! Finally! :D

I had never seen this film. The reason being that I was so hot and bothered for Keanu but I was totally uncomfortable watching such a film with my family in the room. My dad has seen it countless times, but I'd only seen snippets.

I have to say I loved this movie. It's an early 90's encapsulation that was like traveling back in time. There are some pretty large leaps in story (read: holes) and ridiculous circumstances, but the pace is great, the story is fun and involving, and the direction is awesome (James Cameron? I had no idea). Who doesn't love Busey going nuts, and Lori Petty? I've never been a huge Swayze fan but he did a good job. Yeah, Keanu is a piece of wood, but I love him anyway (or maybe because of it).


Admittedly the only reason we watched it is because our DVD player is getting cranky in its old age and giving us sh.t over Netflix discs. Nope, not Slumdog Millionaire, we watched Point Break (on Netflix direct download to Tivo). :D

You gotta see Point Break Live!- and sit in the "wet seats" - I think I wanna go back and try out to be Keanu for the evening.

Actually, I read that a bad batch of Slumdog discs went out - it might not be your DVD player that's the problem?

I believe that the problem with the discs (if it's the same that I read about) was that separate discs of Slumdog were printed for renting and buying. The rented ones were printed with no special features - just the movie. But apprently some of these discs ended up being sold instead of rented, making those who bought them unhappy.

I believe the problem is that Slumdog is the most overrated film in decades. No since The English Patient also undeservedly won Best Picture has there been such ado about nearly nothing.


If it were not so overly hyped beyond all enjoyment, your player would have played it. Blame the Machine, not the machine.

No, our player has been flaky of late and very picky about which discs it'll read.

Maybe your player just has good taste.

I'm glad to hear Slum Dog is out on DVD so I can watch it.

Oh blast! The ONE time I forget to check woot before going to bed....$30 upconverting DVD player. Already sold out this morning.

*cough*Chicago*cough*

But I won't argue the more general point.

We watched 'Slumdog' last night- while I enjoyed it and thought it was a very good film, I was really questioning the Best Picture award. It was good, but not that good.

Yes, but were any of the others that good either? Milk and Frost/Nixon are the only two we've seen. Both good, but not amazingly good where I'm surprised that something else won. I could see the argument that Milk "deserves" a leg up because of its timely emotional and political importance, but those are external factors and don't change the fact that outside of its context it's just a pretty good, maybe very good, but not great film. I imagine that people for whom the realities of Indian poverty is an important issue would feel that Slumdog deserves the same artificial leg up due to ITS timely emotional and political importance.

Nope, I think MILK was very good. Hard to separate my bias, but as soon as I watched it, I felt its script was way beyond standard biopic kaliber and deserved the Oscar (which it won), and that Penn's performance was his best in forever and deserved an Oscar (which he won). The film was very well directed, and packed an emotional wallop (hence me crying many times) ... yeah, perhaps more of one for me, but everyone has a different emotional threshhold anyway.

So, with all those things going for it .... why not Best Picture? It was waaaaay better than Slumbog in every conceivable quality.


OK, it's all subjective. I happen to LOVE Chicago.




But that's because I'm so GAY ... and that's not the reason I love MILK.

For the record, for the widespread raves it got, Wall-E should by rights have won Best Picture.


Same with The Incredibles. Easily the Best Picture that year. Probably true of many Pixar films.


The Best Animated Feature category is a rip.

Slumdog was glossy and the music was great. I don't know if it's Best Pic either but I'm beginning to care less and less about who/what the Academy picks for their awards. For me, a movie validated with an Oscar doesn't mean much any more. I don' know if it's just me getting older or having worked in the industry for a period of time but movies that I love are ones that impact me personally or which have such a unique and interesting take on a subject that it makes me take notice. Some awards can be bought and can be way too political to deserve much merit. Milk was not perfect but it hit me in a specific way that many, many others before it have not. That makes it a good picture, that makes it important to me. And, ironically, the awards Milk won are also political. Not sure if it would have won the two it won if Prop 8 didn't rear its ugly head close to its release. But I guess the Oscars mean stuff to lots of people and if it makes people actually watch the film then I guess I'm fine with that aspect of the awards thang regarding Milk and my own gay activism. I guess if you've read this far, you've realized that I'm just thinking 'out loud' and am rambling.
:D

---------------

On a completely different note, Jackie Earle Haley is apparently going to be the new Freddy Krueger in the new Nightmare on Elm Street movie. I'm sure that'll make him some dough, but I'm not sure I'd accept the part in fear of being type-cast as Freddy.

Wall-E was not best picture material.

Wall-E was better than Slumdog Millionaire, so while I agree I wouldn't pick it for best picture I'd say it was more deserving than the one that won.

No, it wasn't a great year. None of the actual nominees really soared and the Oscar bait movie I liked better was roundly canned by critics and did nothing at the box office.

But of the five nominees I rated Slumdog fourth or fifth (I'd have to go back and find where I said it to be sure of my mood at the time).

For me, Slumdog was simply poverty porn where we get to pat ourselves on the back for feeling bad about how such people live because poverty doesn't deprive you of the life-fulfilling happiness of true love, and hey maybe one of them will get lucky and win the lottery. In my opinion it infantilized those it was portraying.

I liked Chicago too, so I'm not sure how much I can go by Alex's ratings guide.

Piping in to say (or repeat from earlier discussions) that while Slumdog is flawed, I think Milk is also flawed, as is The Reader, as is Frost/Nixon, as is Benjamin Button. It wasn't that great of a movie year. Wall-E and The Wrestler would've been my top two picks, I think.

Holy crap, it's at the Alexandria Hotel in downtown....where I attended my very first rave. :eek: Awesome place.

While I tend to enjoy any movie that reminds me of the great hair bands of old (wow! Haven't heard from Cinderella in years!), The Wrestler seemed to consist largely of Mickey Rourke grunting.

The Wrestler vs. The Slum Dog Millionaire Kids would have been a far better movie. In 3D!

Wall-E was good. Well, the first half was good. The rest of it was just okay. I don't think it was Best Pic material (I guess my idea of what Best Pic should be). Finding Nemo (if you erase from your mind the sub-par ride at the park) was Best Pic material, imho. I liked that one a lot. The Incredibles was good, too but not Best Pic material.

Adventureland: Solid meh. Kristen Bell's character just wasn't real enough to drive the psuedo-Michael Cera character's actions.

The Ryan Reynold's character was intriguing but served only to distract.

Nothing objectionable or bad, just nothing all that interesting. Biggest distraction was that all characters seemed to be in the range of 22 but were treated and acted like they were 18.

We watched The Triplets Of Belleville tonight. Odd but strangely charming.

That song is a total earworm. I liked the movie a great deal. And ya didn't have to know French to understand what was going on either.

"Monsters vs. Aliens" was a lot of fun. The rare animated movie where the busy scenes of animated peril actually make sense in the context of the drama and don't just scream out "And now: filler. Just to show what we can do."

Last night I watched Let the Right One In, a vampire movie from Sweden that shows Twilight up as so much overhyped cheese. LTROI is full of cold, icy exteriors, low key dramatic scenes, and an atmosphere of impending dread, done better than I've seen elsewhere in a long time. The horrific moments are few and far between, but terrific when they arrive. I'll say no more other than, it's well worth seeing.

But the bad news - I saw the dubbed version, and much of the voice acting is horrible, distractingly so, rendering some dramatic moments unintentionally comical and undermining a lot of good stuff along the way. Alas, reports on the interwebs indicate that the initial run of DVDs contain subtitles that are scarcely a better option, containing misspellings, nonsensical translations and more. I think the Blu-Ray may have an improved subtitle track, but double check before you purchase. (And renters like me will just have to live with what they get.)

As for the movie itself, it has a handful of special effects sequences, most of which are brought off flawlessly, so it's a pity that a single scene went completely off the rails. (I'll spoiler-tag it in case you want to determine for yourself which it was - but it seems to me it will be very obvious.)



That scene wasn't all that crucial to the rest of the film, so I just pretended I didn't see it. Otherwise, it's a rewarding experience, language issues aside. Check it out.

Oh thanks, I've been meaning to see that. Reminder, yay! Bad dub, boo.

It sounds like something I really should see!

I think you will appreciate it, but I fell I should warn you that there is a



It's the one scene I mention above that didn't work due to crappy CGI. I really doubt it will bother you, though.

Saw Grey Gardens the Drew Barrymore/Jessica Lange film on HBO this weekend. I liked it. I think their Boston accents were iffy but the film itself was good.

Watched Prayers for Bobby tonight. Wow. I can't tell you how powerful it was watching that film with my mom. One single, solitary film got through to her more than me trying so hard to talk to her about the "gay thing" for the past 20 years. Sigourney Weaver rocks. The film was not perfect, but I think it was crafted in such a way to connect to a broad audience. It hit certain chords right and that's what matters. It did the book and the real Mary Griffith justice, imho.

I really liked Grey Gardens, too. Though I'm not sure they were actually attempting Boston accents. Little Edie was born in NYC and only lived there and Long Island (before and during the action of the film.) I figured it was more of an "old money" accent, but spotty nonetheless.

I thought Grey Gardens was excellent. Both Lange and Barrymore were terrific.

I also caught Frozen River this weekend. Compelling little film with a predictable ending, but still I do not feel the time was wasted. Melissa Leo was terrific. I don't care, you would not have caught me driving across the damned river. The tires on her car must have been something else!

Have you seen the original documentary? I think the accents were spot on.

No, that is on my must see list now.

Yes and I'm not sure I agree. But it has been awhile. I must dust the DVD off and watch it again...

I have no recollection of having heard of it before or adding it to my Netflix queue, but last night I noticed a movie called Tell No One available on my Watch Instantly list (via the Roku).

Decided to watch it and was very pleasantly surprised. It is a very well done French suspense thriller (Ne le dis à personne).

Eight years after his wife was murdered by a serial killer a Paris doctor is once again put under suspicion when two buried bodies are discovered with evidence suggesting her murder was just staged to look like the work of the serial killer.

The evidence piles up, the police circle in, he starts getting mysterious emails suggesting things are even more unlike they seem than it seems.

It is a pretty complex piece of work but in the end it all hangs together beautifully (if slightly anticlimactically).

And it is understated throughout, having a very '70s feel (something like Three Days of the Condor -- in understated style, not content) where the filmmaker doesn't need to go over the top with supervillains, crazy technology, or painfully complex plots. Just honest confusion, real tension and an unambiguous payoff in the end. Even the obligatory chase scene shows such restraint and as a result feels almost realistic.

Not a world changing movie by any stretch, but a strong recommend from me.

Thanks Alex, moved to the top on my queue. Looks good and I love a good thriller/suspense.

What's that smell? Oh, it's the new Wolverine movie. P freakin U!

This movie was shot like a movie of the week. Lighting was too bright, no plot, the dialogue was trite and cheesy... bad acting...

Yeah, Jackman's great eye candy but still. Yikes.

I'm a huge X-Men comics fan but avoid this one at all costs. Wait for Netflix.

Hey Brad, Netflix finally sent me "Rent." The Broadway version, not the movie.

Hmmm, mixed feelings. I liked it better than the film, that's for sure. It's basically just vignettes to music, and I think that works much better as a stage device. There's really not much 'plot.'

But, for what it is ... pretty much a bunch of songs connected by a thin thread of 20-something AIDS-related relationship drama ... the songs are pretty much all really good. And that's what counts, I guess. I found it entertaining because it was all music, and I enjoyed a good 85% of the music.


BUT ... I was surprised to really hate the way it portrays homosexuals. The lesbian couple was allowed to be lesbian. Two women were shown being in love. The male couple, however, was a boy and a tranny. All the scenes and songs of them together and in love have the imagery of a man and a woman, not a man and a man. This bugged me no end.

In fact, I'm pretty sure the Angel's not in drag for the brief scene where they meet only so the audience can "know" that it's a gay relationship ... because once she's in drag - on stage much moreseo than on film - the character is a girl even if it's played by a boy (and Angel is a pretty convincing girl).

I hated, hated, hated, hated this. One more hypocritical example of how it's "ok" to portray two women together, but two men together cannot be shown.


Yes, during Angel's illness, two men were shown in a care-giving situation very intimately. But the images and musical numbers of Angel and Tom Collins falling and being in love were all boy/girl, and it pissed me off for what is reputed to be such a gay-friendly piece.


Bah.



Oh, plus when Roger confronts Mark near the end of the second act ... I thought he was going to out him. But instead, he just nails him for being detached. Um, he's the gayest character in the show!!! Queer as an eight dollar bill. WTF?


So, I hate the way Rent deals with Gay. But the songs are great!


I think I'd like the CD better than the show.



But, since I never got to see it ... I'm glad I finally got to watch a filmed version of it. I kind of grok it a little at least. The movie version was just a mess.

I liked it in a mild way. Not a good standalone movie but viewing it more like an old movie serial and just a part of ongoing storytelling I was fine with it.

Though the CGI was surprisingly bad at times.

But I am not a fan of the comics (not that I don't like them, I just never read them) so I don't have much in the way expectations. I thought it was much improved on the truly horrible and much bigger budget X3.

You'll have to blame La Boheme for that. The plot is lifted pretty much note for note from the 1896 opera. (Which, in turn, was lifted from a novel called "Scenes de la vie boheme." And that was... surprise surprise... a collection of less-connected vignettes that Puccini adapted to be a singular story, though still episodic in form.)

Though there WAS no relationship between Colline and Schunard in that - it was added for Rent. Without that addition, there would have been no gay relationship at all (male-tranny or male-male or anything.)

re: CGI

other stuff:

I think you are critiquing "Rent" if it premiered today. When it came out (so to speak) in 1996, it tackled a lot of issues that had only been scratched by a some mainstream films (ie. And the Band Played On, Philadelphia) and plays ("Angels in America" comes to mind) at the time. "Rent" highlighted the following: talking about living with AIDS and being unashamed of being infected with it, out of the closet gay relationships, transgender identity etc. The play also featured a love song between two men and a sort of love song between two women. These things were rare back then. But Larson found a way to incorporate it into one musical and still have it be wildly popular.

I don't see anything wrong with the way the relationship between Angel and Collins was portrayed. It's one example of one gay relationship. Not all gay relationships are "a certain way". Angel was seen without his drag in one scene to show people what someone with AIDS looks like when they are deathly ill.

As for this specific version, besides Gwen Stewart (an original cast member who portrays the "Who the f*ck do you think you are" Bag Lady) and Rodney Hicks (another original cast member who plays Benny in this version but was ensemble in the original version) only Wil Chase gets close to depicting his/her character as well as an original cast member. Everyone else is lacking some aspect or spark that someone had in the original cast. This is why the original cast recording and, yes, the movie are precious to me. Mark's character is not gay despite being played originally by out actor Anthony Rapp. Adam Kantor's Mark played gay to me too but mostly because I think Kantor is gay or fey and this being his first mainstage appearance it showed.

I think "Rent" is a thin AIDS-related story as much as "La Boheme" is a thin Tuberculosis-related story. And remember AIDS back then was more of a death sentence than it is now and still the play was had an extremely hopeful view of the disease (that was also rare back then).

The cast of the closing RENT production can't hope to match their strongest predecessors, but they mostly worked their charms on me pretty well - and having such an up close record of the original staging and every single note and word of the show in one place is a joyful thing.

Yeah, the movie is still worth checking out for its cast of veterans, but, jeez, what a wet squib it is.

For what it's worth, I can think of at least half a dozen people, several of them family members, for whom RENT provided a lasting jolt of consciousness-raising that changed them to this very day.

I got to show Rose "Shaun of the Dead" today.

She loved it :)

Well, it's too bad I never saw it in its day. (Rent, that is, not Shaun of the Dead).


I still dig it as a good take on earlyish AIDS. And I do like most of the songs so much I'm thinking of getting the original cast CD.


But, yes of course I know the Tom and Angel relationship is just one of all possible gay relationships ... it just happens to be one where they don't have the horrible inconvenience of images of two men falling and being in love.

Eternal meh on that. It's nice to appreciate art for its effect in its day of debut ... but art that doesn't stand the test of time loses points with me. This was, imo, a dreadful cop-out. If you're going to do a story, thin though it may be, about AIDS ... have the balls to feature a male homosexual couple.

</rant>

I was blown away by Rent the first time I saw it (on stage, that is) and then bored with it the second time. Not entirely sure why that is.

Is it too much to ask the universe for a man as handsome, carefree and fun as Albert Finney is in the movie Tom Jones? I think not.
:)

Ah, but look how he aged. All that fun took its toll.

I need to watch Tom Jones again. I absolutely hated it and consider it the worst movie (I've seen) that won Best Picture.

But maybe I was in a bad mood because a lot of people seem to like it. But then a lot of people like Chicago and Forrest Gump and they're all obviously wrong.

As for Albert Finney's declining looks I cut him slack for being 70+ years old. Not everybody gets to age like Paul Newman.

Well, that did not happen to Alan Bates, Richard Burton, Peter O'Toole, Richard Harris, Robert Newton, right?

Now, Cary Grant, he looked great at 30 and great at 80. :cool:

Oh, I'm not saying it happens to everybody. And I'm not saying Albert Finney did not and does not remain a fine actor.


His particular path to age has not been graceful in the looks department. And I was just kidding about its relation to the hard-partying life of his early famous characterization of Tom Jones.

I don't follow celebrity who-ha, and have zero idea about Albert Finney's private life.


I admire his professional life quite a bit. My personal favorite performance (not indicative of his best, by my fave) is as Ebenezer Scrooge in the bizarre, fantastic 1970 Brit musical "Scrooge."

I loves me some Scrooge. I usually watch it at some non-Christmas time of year.

I loved Albert Finney in Scrooge. I try to watch it at least once during the Christmas season, but my only copy is a funky old VHS tape from way too long ago, which does take away some of the enjoyment.

At 83 -- not so much.

The DVD can be found very cheaply, and the movie fills every bit of its widescreen frame with elaborate detail, so whenever you have a chance to graduate from your old VHS, you may well find it a revelation.

Heheh, I remember the first time I finally saw it in widescreen. Revelation indeed!

Okay, I just watched perhaps the most bizarre and most definitely "mislabeled" movie ever. Grizzly Man is listed on IMDb as a "heartrending" tale. Heartrending? Not. One for the Darwin Awards? Most definitely. All I could think of throughout the entire movie was Christopher Guest thinking, "Okay, I can retire now. Someone [Werner Herzog] has bested me. This movie is Life intimating Art."

Grizzly Man was a Pauly Shore comedy, right? ;)

Very close indeed.

Well considering Timothy Treadwell's heart was rended from his body when the bear ate him, that seems like an apropos description. :evil:

Saw The Incredible Hulk. Pretty enjoyable. The homages were fun, acting good, over-the-topness done right. The Hulk himself still looks like a cartoon character though and only seemed real in a couple of shots. I can't say that it was pulse-pounding. When the evil guy started tearing up the city and Banner says in a flat voice, "I have to fight him", it reflected my own non-excitement at the obvious conclusion. (I would say "spoiler alert", but from the first 10 min you know how this will end.) Not that I expected a plot twist...

After seeing Stark at the end I realized it just made me want to see Iron Man again and that that movie was much better. Anyway, it was good, as these films go.

I am SO looking forward to seeing this film!

Outrage (click for trailer & homepage)

Synopsis (cribbed from that site)
Academy Award nominated filmmaker Kirby Dick (This Film Is Not Yet Rated) delivers a searing indictment of the hypocrisy of closeted politicians who actively campaign against the LGBT community they covertly belong to. OUTRAGE boldly reveals the hidden lives of some of our nation’s most powerful policymakers, details the harm they've inflicted on millions of Americans, and examines the media's complicity in keeping their secrets.

Wow, opens this weekend? Cool. Um, busy weekend. Will.Find.Time.

I saw part of Inkheart on the plane. Mediocre. But probably better than Paul Blart: Mall Cop which is playing on the way back.

(Actually, the interesting thing about Inkheart is that it's about reading characters out of books into the real world, and I was also reading a book about jumping between the book world and the real world. The book series is much better, btw. Full of literary references and Wales as a socialist republic and just a totally engrossing read.)

One Eyed Monster
Yes, it's what you're thinking.
No, it's not quite work safe.

Looks like it could be cheesy fun.

We Netflixed The Cat Returns yesterday. It was a fun and enjoyable story. Of course I love cats and Miyazaki, so I figured I would enjoy it. So now the boy is all antsy for when last years Miyazaki movie will make it to the US!

Saw Angels and Demons yesterday. I liked it. After reading all the horrible reviews of it, I thought I was going to hate it as well. I liked it better than Da Vinci Code. But I think I like the book/story of DVC better than A&D.

Sherlock Holmes
 

I'm not happy :(

Trailer here

It was definitely better than The Da Vinci code, but that is a low bar.

The ultimate conclusion was too obvious but didn't really matter. And, the justification given at the end for what was happening made no sense in that it did nothing to deal with that which was claimed as the cause.

But it had better energy and tempo than the first and it was a very nice replay (in locations) of our week in Rome last October. Hardly a location that we weren't standing in just months ago (though most of those locations were actually sets since no permission was given to film in church-owned facilities. Must be a daunting task for a set-building team to be told "Sistine Chapel, please."

Just wait until Guy Ritchie gets a hold of Peter Rabbit. Actually, I'm kind of intrigued since it is a such an odd genre choice.

===

Other movies I"ve watched recently:

Born Yesterday - The original with Holden/Holliday/Crawford rather than Don Johnson/Melanie Griffith/John Goodman. Took a while but quite liked it by the end.

Nobody's Fool - Doesn't really go anywhere but a pleasant movie with fine performances.

Superbad - Saw it in theaters and still find it mostly hilarious. Michael Cera is wearing out his welcome though so I hope he finds range (Year 1 trailer provides no evidence of it though).

Noise - More an exploration of an interesting idea than a coherent movie. The sex scene was either unnecessary or had a purpose I couldn't divine.

Penelope - Amusing fairy tale. Only problem is that the movie had people running fright at the sight of Penelope (Christina Ricci) with her pig nose. Yet she was still completely adorable. Still looked relatively normal here (ignoring the nose) but sad to see she's apparently gone to the anorexic side based on her recent gig on "Saving Grace."

Krull - When I was a kid the spinning blade thing was the coolest thing ever and we all wanted one. And yet none of us had actually seen the movie. Should have left it that way.

Half Nelson - Ryan Gosling is going to be our next national treasure in the realm of acting. And he gives a great performance here as a history teacher struggling to function through drug addiction. Shareeka Epps also provides some great natural child acting. The only drawback is the movie is beyond deadly boring. I had to watch it over five sessions since I kept falling asleep or getting distracted by anything else.

Yeah... But it has a young Liam Neeson in it, and Kenneth Marshall was hot.

Born Yesterday - I was so curious about this movie for awhile and got to see it on TCM on Demand just recently. Loved it. I had heard people impersonate Holliday before but had never seen the real performance behind it. Good stuff.

Nobody's Fool - Liked Newman in this one. Such a cool, mellow movie.

Superbad - I can watch this one again and again. It's so much fun.

Krull - Liam Neeson's in it. I think this was one of his first films. I liked it as a kid, don't think I'd enjoy it now. I think the last time I saw it was on HBO in the 80's.

Half Nelson - Couldn't get through it. It was too dull, imho. Liked Gosling's acting in it but not enough to keep me tuned in...


Last night, I watched 3/4 of The Great Ziegfeld. It's a good film, but man it's loooong. Weird that Myrna Loy gets second billing she shows up 2hrs into the film. The spiral staircase scene is still one of my favorites of all-time.

I'm reminded how little attention I pay to movies I Netflix by taking Alex's advice to rent Tell No One. It's been sitting at home for weeks waiting for the time I can spare to uni-task watching a film with subtitles.


I may just have to return it unwatched and move on. I don't see that day coming any time soon.

We've now seen 4 of the movies nominated in the top Oscar categories, a coup in the Sloan household.

Most recently it was Slumdog and The Wrestler.

I guess I'm in the majority with Slumdog. A good watch, but I didn't find it amazing. Plus, the guy who played Maman looked too much like Michael Ian Black for me to take seriously.

I really like the Wrestler. I particularly liked that he was not portrayed as a complete asshole, or some incompetent jerkwad that couldn't handle a simple job. Just someone who though he was doing the right thing by committing to doing what he knows best, finding himself out of his element when that doesn't pay off for him. Rourke was very good, but not so amazing that I'd consider Penn's win an upset.

I just checked of the discs I currently have from Netflix, the last was mailed to me more than 3 months ago. But in the meantime I've watched 22 movies via streaming (on my regular TV with the Roku).

T4 is Awesome


That is all.

It kind of looks like a bone-headed remake of Billy Wilder's The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes. Anyway, how ghastly - plus that trailer is rife with all the cliche whooshes, quick edits and canned hyper-chorus music that makes me roll my eyes and decide not to attend SO MANY MOVIES! Are you trailer editors listening? I've been ranting about this for years now! Cut that shyt out!

I have to agree. I do not buy for a second that this is Holmes. :( My cheese is sad because I love both Downey Jr. and Jude Law.

I absolutely loved The Wrestler. I grew up watching WWF so my standards were pretty high on that end. I was tickled at the terminology and the inside peek at how they pull it off (however inaccurate or fictionalized, I wouldn't know, but it's the closest we'll get.) I bet the reason they did not get ANY past wrestlers on board (and those guys are attention whores, making it extra surprising) was simply because they were honest about the faking. I also had a wake-up moment when he cut himself because I'd seen plenty of blood in the ring but always thought it was fake blood. Really realistic fake blood...but now I know what I was really watching and it's changed my perspective quite a bit.

Everything else was fantastic too, very realistic, and damn, Marisa Tomei is now the ultimate MILF. I hope I look half as good at her age.

I haven't seen The Wrestler yet but if you found the behind-the-scenes aspect interesting I really recommend checking out Beyond the Mat, a 1999 documentary that kind of covers the same ground.

Thanks, added to my queue.

I've seen a movie, nay, an Oscar nominated film, that you haven't seen?

Apparently. The Wrestler was poorly timed for me so I didn't see it in theaters and then I'd crammed in so much "heavy" viewing that I was kind of worn out.

I did move the DVD to the top of my queue but it has now been several months since I last watched a DVD instead of streaming. Plus I've already seen Marisa Tomei's breasts once this year (she's a stripper I assume she's naked at some point, could be wrong) so I don't want to overdo it.

Saw the Sherlock Holmes trailer BIG at the Chinese last night before T4, and agree I cannot buy Downey, Jr. as Holmes at all ... at least from the trailer. But those are covers by which I never judge the books.

I walked out on the trailer for Harry Potter because it looked like it was going to show every image in the movie. Hate that.


Terminator 4 was really good, though. I was surprised.

You're the first person I've heard really go for it (T4), but Lani wants to see it so I'll overcome my Bale dislike and go see it.

Hope to be happily surprised.

The friends I saw it with all liked it, but we all liked T3, too. That was widely panned.


This movie's, so far, getting only mid-30's on Rotten Tomatoes. I don't get it. I liked it WAY better than that.

Okay interesting. I kinda liked T3 also, so that makes me want to see this one now.

I'm looking forward to seeing UP nest weekend. Looks cute and different.

I caught Frost/Nixon last night on DVD and was very surprised how well I liked it. Langella was channelling Nixon (ew) so well I forgot he wasn't Nixon. Michael Sheen (whom I normally like) was not channeling Frost, more like Austin Powers. Nonetheless, always nice to see Oliver Platt and is is me or is Kevin Bacon just very good at being kinda creepy? The big surprise was Patty McCormack as Pat Nixon, I had to look her up because was she really the same Patty McCormack from The Bad Seed, yes, she was. :eek: It may have been mentioned before but I missed it and was surprised. I think Toby Jones needed larger glasses for Swifty Lazar. I missed the Rance Howard cameo.

I'd said I would be seeing it because of Lani and hoped to be pleasantly surprised. The result:

To start out by saying something good: McG failed to descend to the level of craptitude he achieved with Charlie's Angels: Full Throttle.

To follow up with something bad: McG is a blight on humanity for which one day we'll all be judged harshly. If he is the creation of a benevolent god his purpose must be only to elevate our regard for the crappiest of Michael Bay crap.

Perhaps it could have been different, when the story was away from John Connor (and the increasingly laughable Christian Bale) it actually showed some tremors of life and coherence.

Also, SkyNet is the apparently the stupidest sentient computer ever presented on film and that includes Keanu Reeves.

Yep, agree about Skynet.

Didn't fully realize the Total Fail of Bale until the movie had sunk in. He's laughable and pretty horrible. I didn't realize till a day or so later that he made zero case for John Connor being the revered leader and messianic savior of his repulation ... and our quarter-century expectation.


But I liked the Marcus Wright character, and it was basically his story with John Connor as an afterthought.


I'm not a fan of Bale's Batman either, so he should retired from the craft.


Still enjoyed it. Except for the original, in all its B-Movie nonpretentions, the Terminator films have tons of flaws to be glossed over by general slick entertainment appreciation.

In honor of dead soldiers everywhere -- well, not everywhere, those dead Falkland Island soldiers got what was coming to them (no offense to anybody who lost loved ones in the Falkland Islands War-Type-Thingy but if we can't mock the military dead then Al Qaeda has won) -- today has been Masochist Movie Day.

I've been going through and watching the last halves of movies that were bad enough that I never finished watching them (via Netflix's Roku).

The Hudsucker Proxy - I know! This isn't a commonly accepted "bad movie" like the others will be but, frankly, you're all wrong if you're going to defend it. Paul Newman was the only good thing in the movie and he was only in the movie for 8 minutes. Tim Robbins was demonstrating every bad overacting tic he has and Jennifer Jason Leigh was killed by the writing; yes, I know what the writing was trying to do but it was still murder.

The Bonfire of the Vanities - Sometimes you swing for the fences and whiff completely. That's understandable. Sometimes the bat flies out into the 15th row and you corkscrew yourself onto your ass and everybody laughs at you. I could see how things looked brilliant on paper but everybody here ended up on their ass.

This Girl's Life - A look at an empowered porn star. James Woods, Rosario Dawson, and Michael Rapaport all show up for this poorly shot and edited waste of tiem.

Xanadu - I assume the acid was good back then. Not because it was psychodelic but because I draw a parallel to my experience with acid. I spend a fair portion of the evening writing and while I wasn't amazed by what I was writing I thought I was writing it in the most perfect penmanship ever. Later I found that it wasn't even legible, just scribbles. Something like that is the only reason I can't think anybody involved with making Xanadu thought there was anything remotely close to merit in their output.

This is not meant to belittle any opinion contrary to my own but rather is honest curiosity. What did you like about Xanadu? After all, it was such a humiliation that after its release Gene Kelly died.

I liked Xanadu - but only really because I think I was in 8th Grade and it makes me all nostalgic. As a movie it's craptacular. Most of it makes no sense. But I had the issue of Seventeen Magazine that showed you how to achieve all of Olivia's different hairstyles - I praticed a lot. And I think I may have taped parts of the soundtrack off the TV. And there was roller skating, and the Tubes.

I loved ELO and also saw it for Gene Kelly and came away sad.

I think the shame of being in that movie is what caused the Pan Pacific Auditorium to burn itself down nine years later.

I love Xanadu, but fully acknowledge it's a crappy movie. I love it for its unabashed craptacularity. The same way I love listening to Mrs. Miller butcher a Beatles ballad or Mary Schneider yodel the classics. Call me Leonard Pinth-Garnell if you will.

thankyouthankyouthankyou a thousand times thank you

LOL

I think Mrs. Miller delivers the definitive "Yellow Submarine." And her "Downtown" brings tears to my eyes!

On the other hand, Xanadu makes me want to smash things.

Sczcerbiak - Have you endured the awfulness that is The Apple?
(Surely this must have come up here before.)

Happy to be of service. FYI, her "greatest hits" CD is still available.

About 20 years ago I rented it, but have not seen it since. I may have been too young to appreciate it for its craptacularity.

I'm watching a SciFi movie, "BloodMonkey" (no, I don't have a good excuse).

It's awful in an indescribable way.

Nothing says entertainment like a giant primate golden shower scene.

submitted to quotes :evil:

This weekend's fare (besides UP) was Ne le dis à personne (Tell No One) and The Reader.

Tell No One stretched plausibility a good deal, but it was not a bad film. I especially liked the character Bruno.

The Reader was, well, meh. Beautifully filmed okay performances, but can any explain to me why Kate Winslet won every award imaginable for this? Do not get me wrong, I like her, but she's done other work that more richly deserved, say, an Oscar nod than this (Eternal Sunshine).

UP was totally the highlight and I think I must go see in 3D very soon.

Saw Angels and Demons. I enjoyed the book a few years back. It was a fun Saturday morning diversion. I don't remember if it follows the book exactly or not.

I recently watched My Man Godfrey. I loved the writing for the most part, the set-up and William Powell. But I found myself liking Carole Lombard's character less and less as the film progressed. Despite her being Lombard, I was hoping her character was a foil and the real romance was going to develop between Godfrey and the maid, whose character was more interesting. I may have been more fond of Irene Bullock if there was more to her than bliss ignorance and kindness (though I loved that about her at the beginning). I don't know. The film ended and I felt like she got more than she deserved. Namely, William Powell. Heh.

Is it just me or does Land of the Lost look really, really bad?
I have no desire to see it.
Only 6 reviews in at rottentomatoes.com... These 6 critics give it a 00%. But it's early.

It does look not-so-good BUT they did not seize the opportunity to do a slick digital monster update on the Sleestaks; they look just as cheesy as the 70s TV series, so I will give the movie a chance.

I don't personally trust rottentomatoes - it's like they assign a pass or a fail to each critic's review. Clearly nothing is that black and white.

I find that metacritic.com is a much better resource for a movie's full potential. Each critic's review is assigned a number that reflects how good they thought the movie was. So when a critic doesn't think a movie is all that great but it's better than, say, The Love Guru, it can get a 52%. But when a movie is super-brilliant, it can get a 98%, reflecting that a critic thought it was wonderful but, say, had a small problem with the ending. If you average all of those scores, you get a much better idea of how good the movie may be. If you average the rotten tomato ratings, you're just averaging whether the critics thought it was good or bad - no matter if good is 52% and bad is 48%.

For instance, a movie like Up might have a 98% on metacritic (based on the average of the critics' reviews) and it might have a 98% on rottentomatoes (based on how many of the critics gave it a fresh tomato instead of a rotten tomato.) But then a movie like The Brothers Bloom might have a 49% on average on metacritic, but they'd have a 61% on rotten tomatoes because many more critics felt moderately positive about the film, despite having problems with it. rottentomatoes is telling you it's fresh, when the majority of the critics think it's not actually a good film.

But, no, I don't expect Land of the Lost to be very good, no matter how much I love Anna Friel.

Watched Sex and Breakfast yesterday. Mostly because I was curious to see Macauley Culkin as an adult. This kid is 28 years old! That means I'm old! It is bad enough that I'm starting to see baseball players born when I was in high school.

Anyway, it is a horribly boring movie. A movie 98% about sex and it has almost no sex. A movie with Eliza Dushku and Alexis Dziena and it tries to impress us with their acting rather than their bodies (and the acting thing certainly isn't their strong suit).

A big part of the problem is their apparent age. This movie is about two young couples having sex issues so they seek out sex therapy. Group sex therapy (though there isn't really ever any group sex, just swapping partners). The big problem is that they seem way too young for this (not just for the having problems part but for the seeking therapy part).

The four young uns are Culkin, Dziena, Dushku, and Kuno Becker. In real life they were 27, 23, 27, and 29. On screen they looked 19, 15, 20, and 22. Just didn't work. And was boring.

So, I strongly recommend that you rush out and see this so that I am not alone in having experienced this clunker.

And of course the problem with combining the ratings is that not everybody is working from the same standards.

Some critics review every movie against Citizen Kane, while another will review it against the genre or against what it is trying to be (Ebert claims to do this, thus what some people consider overly generous reviews; Crank may not be a good movie on the full spectrum of all movies but it could be a well above average action movie).

So I find RT and Metacritic interesting (I find all statistics interesting) but not necessarily useful. It is of know use to me to know that the critic for the Podunk Advertiser-Gazette didn't like X without the context of knowing how he approaches movie criticism.

Just watched Jodhaa Akbar. It's a Bollywood film starring Aishwarya Rai (available for instant viewing on Netflix!)

Enjoyed it a lot. Sort of a medieval middle eastern tale. Work checking out.

Watched Starman, it's been quite a while but I still like it for its relative simplicity if not completely confusing purpose of them being here.

Anyway, it's been about 24 years, so the baby should be fully into his knowledge. Wouldn't mind seeing what that means if Hollywood is looking for retread ideas. Sadly the last Indy movie showed that it might not be a good idea to have Karen Allen back.

Saw The Hangover. I love a good stupid Vegas bachelor party movie and this didn't disappoint. laughs all the way through.

I enjoyed it but it never really took off for me. Solid laughs (and very solidly constructed in how it all ends up hanging together without going too off the wall).

Just got back from The Brothers Bloom. Really liked the style and the first 70% was a lot of fun and then The Big Finish just didn't fit well with the experience that came before. But that is a flaw of almost all con movies.

So far this weekend...

Away We Go
A charming but a confused pregnant couple goes on a journey to figure out not just where to raise their baby, but how to raise their baby.

This little gem of an emotional comedy was not well-reviewed but neither Tom nor I agreed with the points the reviewers were making. It made me laugh, right out loud, and frequently. At moments it became so wonderful and fragile and thoughtful. A common complaint was that the film was mean-spirited in its comedy, but I thought it was no more so than your standard comedy. I loved it. A lot.

We went to see it primarily because it was the first screenplay written by my favorite modern author (Dave Eggers, "A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius") and his wife (Vendela Vida "Let the Northern Lights Erase Your Name") - they are the co-founders of literacy/tutoring non-profit, 826 Valencia (and locally, 826 L.A.) The film was directed by someone I don't always like (Sam Mendes) and it starred someone I adore (John Krasinski) and someone I didn't know I adored (Maya Rudolph.) Plus a huge slew of wonderful supporting characters played by Maggie Gyllenhaal, Allison Janney, Catherine O'Hara, Jeff Daniels, Melanie Lynsky and others.

See it, and ignore the reviews.

Night at the Museum II
If you feel compelled towards family-type films, this is a harmless one. Diverting. Mostly notable is the charming Amy Adams as a tarty (almost Katherine Hepburn-like) Amelia Earhart. My love for her knows no bounds (and I can't wait for "Julie and Julia" later this summer.)

Angels and Demons
Similarly diverting. It kept my attention through its two and a half hours. I hadn't read the book, but I admit I enjoyed the etymology and puzzles within DaVinci Code (book, not movie so much) and that kind of thing followed here.

The Hangover
I worked on the website so I may be slightly biased, but I found this to be fun and pretty consistently amusing. Especially Zach Galifianakis, whose awkward creepiness was good for many of the laughs. If you enjoy Vegas comedy, or the "dude-where's-my" genre, definitely check it out.

Drag Me to Hell
I can tell that this movie is fun, gory, gross horror. It unfortunately might've been too soon to watch a horror movie; a few things started bringing back some bad memories I'm valiantly trying not to think about, so I don't think it was exactly a good experience for me. But if you love retro-style thrills and gross-out horror, you'll probably really enjoy it.

I'm intrigued by Away We Go but where David Eggers is a big plus for you, I can't really stand much of anything he's ever produced so I'm not sure I can overcome that. It'll probably stay on my Netflix DVD queue (assuming I can ever add it since it is maxed out and I haven't watched an actual DVD in months).

Oh, and something that occurred to me while drifting to sleep last night. Why is it called The Brothers Bloom? Only one of them is named Bloom. The other is Stephen.

Please don't compare this to Dude Where's My Car! <shudder>

You're right, Galifianakis carries the movie.

I wouldn't say he carried it, everyone else was great too. He just gave it that extra punch that made it more interesting than the scores of other Vegas bachelor party flicks.

Considering that Ed Helms has never shown a lick of acting ability on The Daily Show or The Office I was most surprised by him.

Galifianakis!

Aww. I love Ed Helms. And now I finally committed his name to memory and I don't have to yell "that guy from the Office!" anymore. He doesn't look like an Ed Helms to me.

Yeah, I do think the rest of the cast was great. Didn't hurt that the 3rd lead was hotness. (Haven't worked on his name at all.)

Ed Helms funfact of the day (doubtless Alex has already learned this, from the same source I did). No makeup or special effects needed for the missing tooth. Ed Helms is actually missing that tooth, it never grew in, he's had an implant since he was 20.

Now you know!

I just watched the Grey Gardens doc again last night. I take it back, I agree with you. Lange and Barrymore did such a good job.
:)

If anyone here hasn't seen it, check it out. It's great.

I just watched "The Corndog Man" on Netflix streaming.

It's not an easy film to watch- it's a very dark comedy, but it's got an excellent blues soundtrack, including Otis Rush's version of Willie Dixon's "Violent Love" (many of you know the Oingo Boingo cover), and an excellent performance by Noble Willingham.

Saw Night at the Museum 2 - It was funny and had an Amy Adams fix. Had some good moments but I felt it was nothing more than a popcorn film. Not totally brainless but an enjoyable ride.

I watched half of Hellboy the other night before falling asleep. I found it implausible.

Sean Penn is reported out for the role of Larry in the Fareley brothers' 3 Stooges film. Names being bandied about as an alternative are Paul Giamatti, Adrien Brody , Simon Pegg and even Zach Galifianakis. I suggest Pegg, simply because it would be easiest to alter any existing advertising images by replacing the n's with g's.

Totally unrelated to the interest in the Iranian election and the major stuff going on over there, a spin over to HBO brought me to The Queen and I. A fascinating film and quite moving and touching.

I don't see how it's un-related. The revolution to oust the Shah resulting in worse tyranny that was being rebelled against.

Careful What You Wish For. Out of the Frying Pan, Into the Fire. These phrases are tropes for a reason. They happen again and again. It happened in Iran. The film seems to touch on that quite clearly, though I haven't seen it (but would like to).

When do these Sundance films become Netflix films??

Now is also a good time to watch Persepolis, if you haven't seen it yet.

Sorry iSm, it was just I happened to catch this and was not seeking it out in view of what is happening right now. That's what I meant, unrelated to the coversation going on in the election thread.

I have no idea when this will end up on DVD, but I'd like very much to see it again, and see what other additional material that did not make the cut.

10 Best Picture nominees? That's certainly going to bloat the broadcast next year.

And what if they still don't get any mainstream studio pictures into the mix? Though maybe they could cut the separate Foreign Language, Feature Documentary, and Animated Feature categories and give the top nom from those categories guaranteed slots in the Best Picture category.

Huhwhat?

The Academy is being stupid.

Please say this is a joke.

So instead of having a bunch of people narrow it down to 5, and then the same bunch of people pick 1 winner, they'll narrow it down to 10 before picking 1 winner? And that's supposed to make things better how?

And as quoted from a movie that was the best of its year and deserved a nomination when there were only five spots ....

" ... because when everyone is special ... NO ONE WILL BE."

But, I get you totally iSm, 100%.

Are they going to stop best foreign film noms and include foreign films officially as BP or what?

Ah, thanks for the correction. Um, and -- d'uh.


What I hate, hate, hate about this is that animated films and foreign language film will likely still be relegated to their own category, as if it were impossible for one of them to actually be among the best pictures of the year.

Beauty and the Beast proved otherwise, and not simply because there was no animated category at the time. It was plain and simple one of the year's very best movies. And the same is true of the film I so stupidly misquoted, The Incredibles.



Where is the link to this? I just can't believe it. Though with ratings tumbling even with what I thought was their best awards show in years, I guess they have to pull whatever shenanigans they believe will include at least some pictures someone has seen in the main event.

Haha:


Though I suppose 8 of the ten will be released in December ... still, it's been quite the cruddy year for "Oscar-type" films. Or is this their bid to indeed include popular films like Harry Potter?

Great, now "nominated for Best Picture" means nothing.

I've now heard (on the Hollywood chatter sites, don't know how reliable) that the expectation is that this will get quality foreign language and feature animation into the best picture pool (wonder if that will produce a return to the early years of the best foreign language category when because of different eligibility rules for best picture and foreign language you'd often have the same movie nominated in successive years for the two categories). Apparently the thinking is that if Up doesn't get a best picture nom with the expanded pool that then they'll dump the animation category altogether since it is obviously ghettoizing the genre.

I'm not necessarily opposed to 10 nominations (it was that way for the first decade or so anyway) as there's nothing magical about 5, and it should help dilute the nomination politicking while maintaining the overall advertising dollars. I just don't see how it could possibly be good for the show unless they dump other categories. Back when they used to have 8-12 best picture nominations they had fewer categories and most only had 3 nominees.

But it could be worse. In 1934 there were 18 nominations for Best Assistant Director.

I guess it was too much to hope that the new transformer movie would measure up to the origional. Rotton Tomatos has it at 22%.

I'm hearing such consistently horrible things about it that I'm tempted to go see it just so I can honestly rag on it.

The first one was so miserably bad that I haven't been at all interesting but I'm wondering if it is possible that it is had descended through that floor and into enjoyably mockably bad.

Though thinking about the nominees thing, since the official explanation is that sometimes there are just too many deserving movies I think this might be a way to reflect that:

When the nominating ballots go out, have each member vote on their 5 picks for Best Picture, then consider nominated any movie that makes some percentage (say 40%) of the total ballots with a minimum of five and a maximum of 10.

This would guarantee that any film nominated had a significant amount of support for it.

Saw Frost/Nixon today. I liked it. Solid performances. Slow in places, but all in all, I liked it.

Oh, and just to avoid pulling scabs off wounds not yet healed, my comments above were not in any way meant as a judgment of people who erroneously enjoyed the first Transformers movie.

From Roger Ebert's blog expanding on his very negative review of Transformers 2:

Until 1939.

Personally, I think it's a good idea for no other reason then to dilute the mostly pretentious films which usually permeate the category.

It's a pretty good point, since I don't usually see any of the 5 noms anyway.

Eh, I see all 5 every year. This is really going to through my predictions game out of whack. (I take an unreasonable amount of pride in it.)

Favorite critics line about Transformers 2-

"It's the teenage male version of snorting cocaine off a hookers A**"

Saw it- not thrilled. It was...ok, had moments that were amazing, and moments of pure WTF-the result was not pleasing.

Considering I hated the first Transformers movie and felt like a tool for being convinced to see it by all the rave word of mouth and reviews, I'm not likely to EVER see a sequel that is considered even by not-me people to be horribly worse.

Nephythys, am I remembering correctly that you really liked the first one?

Loved the first one-was disappointed in most of the 2nd. HUGE let down-

Daybreakers looks like an interesting twist on the vampire mythos. Here's the trailer.

LSPE how was the premiere last night?
 

Any stylish photos of you on the red carpet?

I heard they deleted the LaToya Jackson scene out of respect for the family, but no word yet whether it will be restored with the film premieres July 10 in the U.S.

Because it was approximately 700 degrees here to day we decided that a trip to the drive-in might be a pleasant way to spend the evening.

Drive-in requires movie that is sure to be bad but might be fun bad (we don't want to subject a good movie to the much degraded viewing experience that is the drive-in). Only candidate was Transformers 2 so that's what we saw.

Not even a hint of good bad. Yes, I hated the first one. This one makes that one look like the pinnacle of summer blockbuster fare.

Borderline racist black stereotype transformers. Leg humping transformers. Transformer testicles. Robot mysticism. Transformer fights between machines even more indistinguishable than last time.

Remember last time how we went on and on last time about how stupid it was that the group left Hoover Dam and 10 minutes later were in downtoan LA? Well, this time they start out at (sorry, some might view this as a spoiler)



Then there's this fine piece of badass calculus (this really is a spoiler)



Megan Fox truly serves no purpose in this movie other than having boobs (aka tits, since I know some here prefer that word) and looking good in Daisy Dukes.

Truly, painfully bad. It is as bad an action movie as Godzilla was. Battlefield Earth was actually better than this movie.