Chic, IL What Movie Did you last see?

"There Will Be Blood" - excellent film. Acting, images, sound and editing are all superb, though Dave's right when he mentions above that the movie wouldn't be nearly as good without Day-Lewis's anchor (rumor has it that Anderson was committed to making the film if and only if Day-Lewis signed on.) Also: one of the best endings to any movie I've seen in a long, long time.

p.s., there's a neat little snippet of an interview with Anderson on IMDb's "trivia" section for the movie in which he explains the origins of the "milkshake" speech. Fun stuff.

"I see the worst in people. I don't need to look past seeing them to get all I need."

 

10,000 BC


well, do not try to watch this for accuracy, as to what was what in 10,000 BC
or about 12,000 years ago.


The film itself, was just barely OK,

It's main failure, was to establish,
that the story,
that the audience is viewing,

is the legend/tale/mythos of tribal lore, as envisioned by the shaman/Imam/witch doctor/high preistess/etc.

oh, and not my choice. I was dragged into it.

 

I saw Horton Hears a Who! on Saturday. I thought thought it was really well done and entertaining. The acting (both voice and animated) was very good especially the Mayor of Whoville (voice of Steve Carell). There are even a few cameos from other Seuss creations in the background.

Phil

 

Jumpers - Excellent idea...poorly executed...WAY POORLY EXECUTED! I had no problems with the acting, except that Hayden Christiansen just doesn't have a lot of character and really brings nothing notable to the screen. The real problem was in the rushed plot and the FORCED love story. It's so jumbled, stupid and cliche' that it's impossible to really give a crap about anyone that you're supposed to. I really wanted to like the movie since the trailer is pretty sweet, but overall it was a huge let-down. Anyone read the book? Like I said, the concept is really cool and probably reads better.

Wristcutters: A Love Story - It has good ratings, a decent cast and the synopsis makes it look like it'll be a nice dark comedy, but failed in all categories. Despite some Beetlejuice-type afterlife stuff it was uber-boring. Another (possibly) decent idea poorly executed.

Cat's Eye - Somehow I'd been able to avoid this film for the past 23 years...A bad Stephen King short-work collection that has aged poorly. James Woods is cool (but when isn't he?) and the troll thing was kinda cool too, but overall it's just terribly dated and are mostly just Tales From The Crypt episodes.

D'

 

Disk space maintenance reminded me that I had "This is England" still taking up a valuable gig of memory, so I threw it in when I couldn't sleep. It's a very good movie, though the director/writer is better at conveying the "aimless youth" scene than the hardcore nationalist movement that preyed upon it. The second half isn't bad by any means, but the first 40 minutes or so are damn near perfect.

"Really."

 

Settled down with "Seven Brides for Seven Brothers" the other day.

It's an above-average Hollywood musical, but I was a little disappointed since it was directed by Stanley "Singin' in the Rain"/"Charade"/"Indiscreet"/etc Donen. The songs are good but not great, and the story is fun in a lighthearted, caveman mentality sorta way. The one shining moment is the extended dance-off between the brothers and rival suitors that is essentially the center of the film. You can see the whole thing here; It's a mix of dance and acrobatics, done mostly in long takes, that I could watch over and over. There's a tangible sense of joy and excitement in the performers as well as the filmmakers that turns a technically exceptional scene into something really special.

Similarly, The AVClub's Videocracy linked this yesterday. It's full of talented dancers, but I couldn't find any real energy or enjoyment anywhere in there, despite the near-constant cheering on the soundtrack.

Fortunately, that joyous "Golden Age of Musicals" mix of choreography, camerawork and exuberant performances is still around... it just found a new genre.

"Heroin, peppermint-flavored heroin."

(oh yeah, and Lee Meriwether plays one of the Seven Brides. Even when she's dressed in quilted fabric instead of a catsuit, that woman just radiates sex.)

 

That's Julie Newmar, not Lee Meriweather dumbass! Get your Batman bimbos straight.

D'

 

It's all the same in the dark.

 

Election - I'd seen it before but not for several years. Still holds up as a dark comedy. All of the characters are entertainingly repugnant with the exception of the brother & sister....who are just entertaining.

Out of Time - Denzel sure can pick some crap movies to star in and this is no exception. Bad acting from everyone but Denzel, who just plays the typical slick "Denzel Cop" that we've already seen half a dozen times in the past decade. The mystery is no mystery to anyone with an IQ in triple digits. You know what's going to happen and how the movie is going to end 10 minutes into the movie (even though absolutely nothing happens in this movie for the first 30 minutes....I'm not kidding). Oh, and Eva Mendez is fully clothed throughout the entire movie....FAIL.


D'

 

Southland Tales - A tale of poverty, war, teen horniness, terrorism, pimps, and the end of the world. The Rock's wife, Mandy Moore, dances with Sarah Michelle Gellar as Sean William Scott holds hands with himself and tears a hole in the 4th dimension. The Scilian from "The Princess Bride" looks slightly less creepy in drag.

Is Richard Kelly related to David Lynch somehow?

List of people that I recognized:

Dwayne Johnson
Seann William Scott
Sarah Michelle Gellar
Mandy Moore
Justin Timberlake
Nora Dunn
John Larroquette
Bai Ling
Jon Lovitz
Holmes Osborne
Cheri Oteri
Amy Poehler
Miranda Richardson
Wallace Shawn
Kevin Smith
Beth Grant
Christopher Lambert
Curtis Armstrong
Janeane Garofalo

-Haz
"Nothing that an 8-ball, a porn star, and a tattoo parlor can't cure."

 

So was it any good? I've heard nothing but bad about Southland....like it's turrible bad.

D'

 

Haven't seen it myself, but it sounds wonderfully bad (a la "The Wicker Man".) As a card-carrying "Donnie Darko" hater, I may have to rent this just to fuel my dislike of Kelly.

"We're not just proud of it, we're smug about it."

 

Cinemax had a free weekend a couple weeks ago, so we taped Idiocracy and watched it.

I was disappointed. It just...wasn't all that funny. Maybe I wasn't drunk enough or in the right altered state of mind, but I seriously laughed only a handful of times.

I liked the movie in theory; it was a really clever concept and it played out well. It just didn't hold a candle to the hilarity of Office Space.

 

Depends on your definition of "bad", I suppose. It was more coherent than "Eraserhead" and "Mulholland Drive" combined (admittedly, that's not saying much), but I was still left with a sense that...well, you know that crazy homeless guy that you can't have a conversation with because he's in his own little world? Well, every character is like that, and none of them are in the same world as anyone else. Like, they believe that whatever they have to say next is incredibly witty, but whomever they're talking to is an idiot. It's beautifully shot, and I applaud Dwayne Johnson for taking a role that is such a departure from the Scorpion King or whatever it is he normally plays.

I dunno. I'm glad I've seen it, so if someone asks I can say, "Yes, I saw that", but if I had to choose between it and an episode of "Ninja Warrior", well, I'm just going to have to see if anyone can make it to Stage 3.

 

I didn't find "Office Space" very funny, but I liked the characters a lot (and the story to a lesser extent.) I only laughed a few times, but they were "it's funny because it's true and that makes me want to kill myself" kind of laughs, and those are tough to do so Judge earned big points there.

I had a similar reaction to "Idiocracy." It's a funnier movie than "Office Space", and the laughs come from the same painful place, but I like it more for the satire and characters, just as with the earlier film.

I guess that's a roundabout way of saying that I don't think either are terribly good comedies, but they're both pretty darn good movies, cajun style.

"We should hang out."

 

RIP, Chuck Heston.

Commence "damn dirty ape" and "cold dead hands" jokes, along with references to his youthful hamminess and late-period flakiness. But through it all, try not to forget that, when firing on all cylinders, Heston the actor could own the screen like few others in film history. (audio sync is off, unfortunately. Hopefully a better quality version will be available in light of his passing.)



"Where's your messiah now, Moses?"

 

Cloverfield - Which I thought was pretty fun. Some of the down-time segments were a minute or two too long...not sure if that was to try to make it more realistic or cheap filler....probably both. Other than that, it was really smart....in that they smartly re-issued some of the oldest monster movie cliche's in the business and still make you jump. Even on the small-screen I could have used some Dramamine.

D'

 

The Onion wrote up a nice Seuss-esque editorial:
http://www.theonion.com/content/opinion/stop_making_movies_about_my

Imitating his style is tougher than it seems, but they get it (mostly) right.

 

SuperHero,

with

Leslie Nielsen...doing Naked Gun like humor

Marion Ross......still a favorite as mom

Brent Spiner ...kinda the crazy scientest, like in 4-th of July

Robert Hays ....of the Airplane series




well, I liked the geek/nerd joke about halfway into the film.

seems the action spilled over into a scifi convention of some kind called, HERO CON

anyway, this is a typical comical farce much like,

the Naked Gun.

It seems to parody Spiderman the most.

and it is extremely short. Actual film runs 1-hr and 10-minutes.

Fortunately the credits are about 20 minutes long and have many many jokes (some good!)
in them.

However, I was with a typical audience, that, the second they saw credits,
they all got up and left immedicately.

Normally, I kinda chide these types for missing one or two moments of extra film
at the end of the credits, or maybe some out-takes, during the credits,

but this time, I think there is a little more than the usual amount at the end of the film.

anyway, it is a fun romp with lots of in jokes for us-types, and frequent movie goers.

But, I would wait till you find your favorite least expensive way to see this.

unless you have nothing better to do, as apparently I do

 

It wasn't recently, but I was surprised a lot by how good the Mist was.

 

I also saw "The Mist". Being a HUGE King nut, I liked that about 90% of the movie was in the book. The only thing I didn't like was the ending. It wasn't in the book and it just ruined the movie for me. I actually felt sick to my stomach.

 

Just saw, Horton Hear's A Who,

not too bad. Jim Carey and Carol Burnette do a very good job.

 

Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story - Despite being way too long and containing 90% craptastic SNL formula comedy, it has some pretty entertaining musical bits. Probably the funniest moment is The Beatles skit that most people have already seen.

D'

 

I am Legend
Finally saw it on DVD. I really liked it. Some plot holes such as, with so much access to military equipment Neville has no NVGs. I found that to be incredulous considering the obsessive nature that Neville has. Overall though I really enjoyed it. I liked that there was pretty much no musical score which was very different.

 

I also liked I am Legend, but feel it should be rated R because I thought some parts were too scary for me. My big question about the movie is how did Anna and Ethan get there and away if the govt sealed the city?