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[Guest Runaway Jim]

Rachel Getting Married was, quite easily, the worst film I have ever seen in my life.

 

I finally got around to watching that. Well, I should saying trying to watch that. I made it about a half hour and was so annoyed with everything about it, that I turned it off. Mostly, just the way it was shot sucked.

 

I can't really say that it's the worst movie I've seen in my life, but I can say that it wasn't good enough for me to even give it a chance.

 

In other news, I watched The Abyss again. Good lord, that movie is just awesome.

[Guest Runaway Jim]

Saw Avatar in 3D.

 

Simply amazing.

[nalafej]

Not impressed by Up in Air last night. Acting was fine (Although Clooney is just Clooney) but the story is boring and predictable. Worst opening titles sequence I've seen in a long time too. Oh well - I was looking forward to that one...

[u2roolz]

Not impressed by Up in Air last night. Acting was fine (Although Clooney is just Clooney) but the story is boring and predictable. Worst opening titles sequence I've seen in a long time too. Oh well - I was looking forward to that one...

 

I have to disagree with you on that. I really thought that that movie was the closest thing to a perfect movie I've seen in a long time. I'll stop there since you made up your mind about what you saw and I can't obviously change that. Not that I want to change your mind. I do (hold it in) find it troublesome to use a phrase like "not impressed" when discussing a film. It sounds like talking about a blind date, that person across the bar, a puppy's trick, etc.

 

A friend of mine uses that all the time and it pisses me off to no end. I picture him in a dark theater with his ass sliding off the bottom of the chair going 'impress me". It doesn't help him that he only seems to like the typical male comedy and action movies. Not that there's anything wrong with that.

 

Although, I could picture myself saying "I wasn't impressed by Avatar" simply because the word on the street is about the amazing special effects and not the story. But do I want to be that guy that is simply "not impressed" by a $300-400 million "spectacle"? I hated Transformers 2, but I never said that it "didn't impress me".

 

Ok enough venting. It's not an attack on your sensibilities. I'm merely projecting and venting about my hate for the phrase "not impressed" used by said friend. What you wrote sounds very much like something that he would say.

 

Edit: I guess I have more of a problem with how he says it as opposed to what he says. He tries to come off sounding like Seinfeld to me.

[Beltmann]

I really thought that that movie was the closest thing to a perfect movie I've seen in a long time.

Same here. Loved it. A witty, mature, serious story featuring resonant, original characters--it's a throwback to a time when Hollywood regularly made smart movies for grownups, instead of just spectacles for 12-year-old boys.

[Beltmann]

Lazy Saturday = Two movies on DVD: Sin Nombre and Medicine for Melancholy, both enjoyable.

 

[u2roolz]

Beltmann,

 

I'd like to get a copy of your syllabus for your FIlm & Society (?) course that you are teaching.

I'm curious to see what films are on there.

Have you considered putting Watchmen on there? I'm not sure if you teach high school or college (obviously not appropriate for high school)?

I'm reading Watchmen & Philosophy and it has opened my eyes to things that I didn't really notice and/or had trouble to put into words or concentrate on.

 

 

Cheers,

 

Kristofor

[GtrPlyr]

[Winston Legthigh]

Just finished District 9. What a big steaming pile of shit that movie was.

 

Where do I begin?

 

For starters, the protagonist is an asshole - he wasn't likeable, so why would I give a shit about his problems? He took delight in killing alien babies, he knocked out the one alien who was trying to help him, and he only acted to save his own ass until he was protected by alien armor.

 

OK - so what was the deal with getting the aliens to sign the eviction notices? Was this a private-military-assisted move or not? Somehow the South African constitution provided rights for these aliens, and to make it legal they needed signatures?

 

Was the protagonist in charge of the eviction process or not? If he was in charge, why was he doing the grunt-work of collecting signatures, and not giving anyone orders? How did he know the security codes to the underground lab? Why did the bad guy in charge start firing at him immediately after he was told to take him alive?

 

If the prawn kid knew how to program the secret pod to summon the mothership to use its tractor beam, why did they wait 20 years to do so? Why would they collect fuel for the escape pod for 20 years if they could simply use the tractor beam to suck the escape pod up? Why would a low level clerk (the protagonist) be fluent in the alien language? If he was fluent, then more people would be. How did they become fluent, and why were they not communicating with the aliens to learn about them and their technology?

[Sir Stewart]

Fun to watch, but good lord the melodrama.

[Beltmann]

 

Park Chan-Wook's vampire story Thirst is no Let the Right One In, but it's light years away from Dracula or, er, Twilight. It's a lunatic experience--philosophical, maddening, voluptuous, sometimes overtly silly--but I enjoyed it.

[Sir Stewart]

Cadillac Records - a rockin' good time.

Reign Over Me - I'm sure there was a good movie in here somewhere at some point, about pain and loss and mental illness and friendship, but it was swallowed by poor casting, a sterile romantic comedy sheen, ineffective pacing and an overwrought, unnecessary courtroom scene. I really thought I'd like this one, but it just proved that some movies are better left unseen, and some screenplays are better left produced by independent filmmakers.

Up In The Air - hard to tell so far. It could end up forgettable or it will stick with me. Experience tells me that means it's good. One thing's for sure - Vera Farmiga got a bum deal in The Departed: all those bad lines and that bad accent - she's great in this.

[Analogman]

The Landlord (1970)

 

If nothing else, I love the look of the films made during this time period.

 

The This-TV MGM collection is made up of six distinct libraries (Cannon, United Artists, Polygram Filmed Entertainment, Orion, Samuel Goldwyn Films and MGM) that will provide a consistent flow of quality entertainment. This-TV will be the place for movies.

 

They run a lot of movies from the 1970s.

[Beltmann]

If it weren't for Transformers 2, G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra would easily be the most boring movie of 2009. I don't really mind movies made for 12-year-old boys--I pretty much loved Avatar--but I do mind when the movie thinks I must be a retarded 12-year-old boy.

[GtrPlyr]

 

Revisiting some old favorites. Finished the first 2, now onto the "The Good, the Bad..."

[Sweet Papa Crimbo]

Saw Avatar in 3D.

 

Simply amazing.

 

I have resisted seeing this because of the very lukewarm review D-man gave it. He called it "Pochontas with aliens".

[kidsmoke]

I have resisted seeing this because of the very lukewarm review D-man gave it. He called it "Pochontas with aliens".

 

I haven't seen it so I can't comment there, but that's a pretty funny description!

[Moss]

 

Not as bad as I expected but not great.

[u2roolz]

Juno (I wrote this on IMDB because I had to get it out of my head and into words. People over there keep thinking that Mark is a pedophile. I guess it's something that I never discussed with someone before. Usually you talk about the witty lines and not this. I'm sure I'm not the only who thought the following? Maybe all those posters on IMDB are just a bunch of kids? )

I just watched this movie for the 1st time in 2 years. Being a man in my early 30s I could definitely feel what Mark was going through. Also, being a 16 year old at one point I think I knew what Juno was going through too. It's something that hasn't been brought up. I don't usually post on here, but I felt that I should put in my .02 on such a topic. It's also how I felt when I 1st saw it in 2007.

 

My opinion: In a nutshell, Mark sees Juno as the way that he wished Vanessa still was or maybe never was when they were that age. (I for one think that Vanessa looks like a grown up version of Juno. Not exactly, but the director could have cast someone completely different looking. Deliberate casting I think. I'll get to Mark & Paul later) Remember that Mark says that he went to the prom with a different girl. (Paul went to the prom with a different girl too. Soup girl) So at some point Mark & Vanessa met and maybe in his mind he thinks that if he met a girl like Juno when he was her age, they'd be together and happy due to similar interests. Maybe that girl at one point was Vanessa and now she has "grown up". Remember that scene with the two paints being shown off to Mark? Notice that Vanessa is wearing an Alice In Chains shirt which was a famous band around the time of 1993 (Mark's favorite period for music & possibly when he was in his band). Well, more importantly notice that it's filled with yellow paint. She has no emotional value to the shirt. Or did she at some point and now feels the need to use it to get dirty instead of something nice. Did she like Alice In Chains? Perhaps it's just Mark's old shirt and she used it because she didn't want to use something of her own. This speaks a lot I think about their relationship. (Also, notice their proximity on the couch to each other when they 1st meet Juno, they are sitting rather far apart. Then Vanessa moves closer to Mark.)

 

Juno's "feelings" for Mark are a strange, but honest manifestation of how she wants/wishes Paul Bleeker to be when he reaches Mark's age. I thought that this was pretty obvious, at least to me, they both play the guitar and can banter Juno style. To push it further, both actors played father & son on a now cancelled show. So there must be some subtle similarity in them to cast them in this movie in their specific roles. You could even say that Juno kept showing up when Vanessa wasn't home to fulfill some fantasy in her head that she was pregnant and Mark was a grown up version of Paul Bleeker and all was well. But unfortunately everyone's timing was off in terms of years.

 

I think that they both learned valuable lessons from each other. Mark really felt the need to hold onto his youth for dear life and felt no need to be a ready parent so he left. Juno realized that she inadvertently caused Vanessa & Mark's split and quite possibly will have her child grow up in a single parent home. (Juno grew up with her dad/stepmother and her mother left her. Is Juno doing the same thing by giving up her baby for adoption?) This fear of abandonment may have lead her to Paul and a realization that she is indeed living in the now and not in the future (Mark). You know? Grow old with her cheese man.

 

That's my opinion. I went to school for filmmaking. Not that I use that to discount anyone's opinion on here. I'm just explaining why I would go to such lengths to analyze a character(s). When I write something I'll put an effort in to get such things like these across(in a subtle manner). Then sometimes they appear after you've written them and of course everyone is free to have an opinion and it's quite possible that no one is right. Even the writer behind it.

 

Thanks for reading.

[jimmyjimmy]

 

Not as bad as I expected but not great.

 

I couldn't get through it. The setting was too bleak, too dystopian. Never had a real chance to get invested in the characters.

 

 

 

 

Loved this, Loved it!

 

This thing is like candy, instant gratification. "Here's the bad guys, and why you should hate them. Here's our flawed heros and why you should pull for 'em. Here is the premise, interesting isn't it? Here's the moment that, even though you know it's coming still evokes a little 'eeep' outta you when it happens! Here's the conclusion: satisfying huh"?

 

It's right up there w/ Jackie Brown as my fav. Tarantino flick.

[Guest Runaway Jim]

Juno (I wrote this on IMDB because I had to get it out of my head and into words. People over there keep thinking that Mark is a pedophile. I guess it's something that I never discussed with someone before. Usually you talk about the witty lines and not this. I'm sure I'm not the only who thought the following? Maybe all those posters on IMDB are just a bunch of kids?

 

I think you are spot on with your post. I never once thought that either was sexually interested in the other. I especially never thought Bateman's character was a pedophile.

 

Maybe all those posters on IMDB are just a bunch of kids? )

 

Bingo.

[Sir Stewart]

There Will Be Blood - second viewing, first time on DVD. Holy Christ does this movie's visual impact get castrated on the small screen.

[cryptique]

We watched Infernal Affairs again last night, because we recently noticed that the two sequels are now available via Netflix (though I gather that the second film is actually a prequel). Wanted to refresh our memories before moving on to the other films, both of which should arrive later this week.

 

Such a great film. After seeing it again, I'm even more puzzled how anyone could think the American remake was better.

[Guest Runaway Jim]

We watched Infernal Affairs again last night, because we recently noticed that the two sequels are now available via Netflix (though I gather that the second film is actually a prequel). Wanted to refresh our memories before moving on to the other films, both of which should arrive later this week.

 

Such a great film. After seeing it again, I'm even more puzzled how anyone could think the American remake was better.

 

Here we go again...

 

I guess I need to see Infernal Affairs again, but to me The Departed is far better. I'm not much of a foreign film guy so that's probably why. Not that I dislike a movie because it's not American, but rather I just tend to not like them as much.

 

My question is, why do you think it is so much better?

[Sir Stewart]

For one thing, when Martin Sheen's character asks DiCaprio's character to take on the assignment, he says "do it...for me." It's clear he's supposed to be a father figure, but the emotional component rings empty because we haven't seen any connection between these two before this scene. As far as we know, it's the first time they're meeting. I haven't seen it in a long time, but if I recall correctly, in Infernal Affairs, the close bond between those characters is fleshed out.