Chic, IL What Movie Did you last see?

King of Kong: Fistful of Quarters
Pure awesome. It was refreshing to see that there are gigantic douches in all crazy hobbies not just mine. Seriously, just see it. The soundtrack is killer as well.

"You're the BEST! AROUND!"

 

Run Fatboy Run - Even the awesomeness of Simon Pegg couldn't save this piece of crap. I place the blame fully on director David Schwimmer; why anyone would let that jaggov near any project that requires comedy is beyond my comprehension. The movie is the typical: loser guy screws up relationship with his girl & kid....Mr. Perfect starts dating girl and so loser starts competing with Mr. Perfect. Think Mrs. Doubtfire, only total suckage.

D'

 

We got "Stardust" from Netflix this weekend.

Ehh. It had some nice moments and the actors all do a good job (de Niro's "swishbuckler" act is fun and Michelle Pfeiffer is aging well), but it's all pretty predictable and doesn't really add up to much.

Neil Gaiman apparently never bothered to invest in a notebook for storing interesting ideas. Instead, he seems to cram every notion he has into whatever he's writing at the time, narrative pacing be damned. That worked fine for serialized stories like the Hitchhiker books and "Sandman"; but when you're making a movie, you really need to cut things a little leaner. The idea is to leave 'em wanting more, not to have 'em asking "what is it now?"

-Le Penguin
"I'm god's lonely man."

 

The Spiderwick Chronicles - Having never read, or even handled, any of the books, I can't discuss how well they translated the story. But it was quite enjoyable for both the adults and the kids. Seth Rogan's Hogssqueal steals every scene he is in, but that is not enough to ruin the other characters.

 

I saw Jumper this weekend. It was okay, but I still have questions about his mom and Griffin. Hayden was much better in Jumper than in the prequels.

 

Probly had a different director


and from TV, I saw,

Letters From Iwo Jima

The story of the battle of Iwo Jima between the United States and Imperial Japan during World War II, as told from the perspective of the Japanese who fought it.

Directed by Clint Eastwood.

TV preimer, no commercials, pretty good broadcast for AMC on TV.

Film in Japanese, with English subtitles
(done wrong as usual and so tough to read depending on a scenes back ground)

Pretty well done, and something I was looking forward to seeing,
and for a while thought the only way would be by DVD.

This movie is what Clint Eastwood sees as a
companion film to
Flags Of Our Fathers, which was in general release at the show.

and so,

am Applauding Clint, as producer/director for a film that is
completely in Japanese. He made a good film. Am unsure how it played
in Japan, where no sub-titles would be needed.


On a side note, these two films,

Letters and Flags, try to show both sides during wartime.
and
together they remind me of another fantastic film that
managed to acheive this (and without subtitles)
called
Hell In The Pacific,
where there were only two actors, one American and one Japanese,
and neither could speak the others language.

 

There Will Be Blood - Having seen all of the contenders now I can officially give my stamp of approval to Daniel Day Lewis' win on Sunday. Though the movie would be mediocre at best without DDL's spectacular (and I do mean spectacular) performance, it does have merit in the editing department and an amazing score (done by one of the dudes from Radiohead) which would have deserved the Oscar in that category had the entire thing been written exclusively for the movie (stupid Academy rule).

D'

 

I haven't even finished watching "The King of Kong" yet, but I had to throw this out there:

Gaming referee searching for comparisons to the film's Donkey Kong rivalry: "all the big rivalries throughout history... Yankees-Red Sox, Maris-Mantle, Heckle and Jekyl"

I swear, I don't think he was being funny.

 

Just a quick follow-up to the last post: "King of Kong" is indeed six days, seven nights of awesome. Goat's remarks up above are dead on. Billy Mitchell, Washko and Tasm should get together and form The Legion of Douche.


"Sort of like the abortion issue."

 

Best post ever? Damn close.

 

Fixed.

 

Haterz!!

D'

 

Don't hate the game, hate the players.

 

lolhaterz

 

Flags of our Fathers - Some pretty spectacular war scenes, and a good attempt at slaying yet another myth about war. However, the editing is pretty poor and you never really connect with the characters.

D'

 

"Kiss Me Deadly"

It'd be tough for any film to live up to "Kiss Me Deadly"s reputation as one of the best American films noir, even if it didn't also have one of the best titles ever. I bet when Raymond Chandler saw that title, he threw his cup of bourbon-laced coffee across the diner and snarled "goddammit! Why didn't I think of that first?"

But I digress. The flick's not that great, sad to say. It's pretty good and definitely deserves to be seen by any noir fan (and any fan of "Repo Man"), but its reputation exceeds it. One area in which the movie does excel is in its pitch-black tone. "Mickey Spillane" should be a verb used to describe how, when you've given some character half a chance to be on the level and they haven't taken it, you just go apesh!t on them. Example: "I liked the original version of Episode IV better, when Han Solo Spillane'd Greedo."


"Three days ago, I was figuring I'd have to finance a new tux to bury the corpse."

 

Considering how bad most tv-to-film adaptations turn out, it's odd that I'm not automatically and completely turned off by the new "Get Smart" flick. Maybe it's Carrel's intense-yet-measured style (similar to Don Adams), or maybe it's the prospect of watching an Anne Hathaway movie without feeling ashamed of myself. Either way, I may just have to see this.

"Would you believe..."


(as a side note: we're quietly approaching 2,000 posts here, just in time for the summer movie onslaught to ramp up. Who'll get lucky # 2k?)

 

Running Scared - The thing about leaving your Netflix account stagnating for 6 months and then abruptly starting it up again is that you tend to forget why you added something to your queue. Oh, "House of Flying Daggers" I understand, but this one...just doesn't seem like something I would normally watch. Maybe I meant to add the Gregory Hines/Billy Crystal flick of the same title. That's more my speed. I dunno. It's not a bad movie, it's just not my cuppa-tea. Getting to see Vera Farmiga in a thong and the resulting cunnilingus was nice ("Wow, are they gonna...wow, he's...OK, that's NOT her bellybutton.") but I don't see me watching this again.

Hmmm, I might have to bust out the "Roar" for old-times sake...

 

Yeah, that happens to me a lot even with an active account. Sometimes it's just a mystery for the ages.

... and sometimes the answer's right in front of you.



"You know what, you can leave!"

 

No, that wasn't it.








Oh, wait...yep, you are right, that was it.

[image=http://stickandballguy.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2007/05/smack-forehead.jpg]

 

I AM LEGEND (Alternate Ending)

Not great, but better than what we got in the theaters.

D'

 

Finally caught up with "Thank You for Smoking"; excellent film

Now I gotta go back and watch "In the Company of Men" again...

"So how does it feel?"

 

Enchanted - Despite it's perceived (on this board) emasculating qualities, after watching it I am still the incredible slab of studly man-meat that I ever was. Though not great, it wasn't horrible. The music was pretty sub-par compared to its other Disney counterparts. Amy Adams is incredibly cute and this was by far James Marsden's best role ever. I usually find him mediocre at best and irritating at worst. However, his comic timing and attitude was great in this. Timothy Spall plays the typical Timothy Spall character, so he's fun to watch as well. The story is predictable and the end is bleh, but still recommended.

Sweeney Todd - Timothy Spall plays the typical Timoth Spall character, so he's fun to watch as well. I liked half the music, hated the rest. The problem that I had was deciding to like or sympathize with the despicable lead characters or to dislike them.....good luck trying to dislike Johnny Depp, no matter how despicable he tries to play.

Though not a movie, I saw a live version of Fiddler on the Roof this weekend as well.....I'm F'ing done with musicals for at least the next 3 months.

D'
"Well, I'll do everything humanly possible. But unfortunately, we barbers are not Gods. You know, medicine is not an exact science, but we're learning all the time. Why just 50 years ago we would've thought your daughter's illness was caused by demonic possession or witch craft. But now adays, we know that Isabelle is suffering from an inbalance of bodily humors. Perhaps caused by a toad or a small dwarf living in her stomach."

 

10,000 BC.
Saw it at the Hollywood brew-n-view at 75th and Lemont Rd. The trailers play up the mammoth hunt, and the action. What they don't tell you is that it's actaully a prehistoric love story: boy follows girl-- over the alps, among other obstacles--captured and enslaved by evil middle-easterners. I think it was PG-13, but that would be just the usual filmic violence.

We went for the cuisine served there and a night out for my 34th b-day, but were pleasantly surprised with the story. Thumbs-up, maybe 7.5-out-of-ten for the movie. I was mosly impressed because the FX really deliver the goods, so I'll put the DVD on my very selective amazon.com wish list-- in hopes of a good breakdown of the CG work they did.

On the downside:They go a little far into the tear-jerking at the end, killing the girl only to have their tribe's shamen-ess perform a long-distance resurrection on her.

 

The Mist - I read the short story by SK several years ago, and the brevity of it was merciful, as it was fun but dumb. The movie is fun but dumb, however it is also unmercifully long. The movie is relatively true to the written version plot-wise with a somewhat different ending. I don't think anyone expects good acting from any Stephen King movie that has monsters in it, but this one has some particularly bad acting. The CGI is kinda crappy too. However, it does have some fun stuff in it that's worth watching....though I'd recommend a few cocktails or five beforehand.

D'