Now Watching

[Beltmann]

Revolutionary Road - not as horrendous as I was expecting, but pretty bad.

Eastern Promises - Loved it. Cronenberg's use of violence in so impressively matter-of-fact. Reminds me of The Sopranos.

Agree on both counts. I pissed off a friend when I said that Revolutionary Road is like a smarmy, left-wing Sarah Palin, making the shallow assertion that the "suburbs" are somehow less real than anywhere else. Plus, while Winslet and especially DiCaprio each have great moments in the film, too often both seem like they are “acting” rather than embodying the characters.

 

Although I liked A History Violence a whole lot more, Eastern Promises was still probably one of the best films of its year (was that 2008?). It’s no accident that this dense, shadowy mystery, which sinks deep into the tattooed underworld of the Russian mafia in London, turns on the consequences of the global sex trade. Once again Cronenberg explores violence and bodies, this time asking how our external markings function as biography--or at least as evidence of who other people think we are. It's a supremely entertaining crime drama filled with slit throats, oedipal tension, and angelic morality, but mostly it’s about the intricacies of concealing, or knowing, a true identity. It stuck with me for a long time.

 

Last movie I watched: Spike Lee's Passing Strange: The Movie. One of the most purely entertaining movies I've seen in months. Loved it.

[Oil Can Boyd]

Took the wife to see this on the big screen last night for Valentine's Day.

We met 20 years ago seeing that same movie in the same theater.

[Sir Stewart]

Brattle?

[Oil Can Boyd]

Brattle?

You bet!

[Guest Runaway Jim]

A Serious Man - not my favorite Coen bros. movie, and only kind of funny. at times.

Couples Retreat - not as good as I'd hoped, but some good lines.

Funny People - way, way better than I was expecting. I've always been a Sandler fan, and I've liked all of Apatow's stuff, but I had low expectations. It was pretty damn hilarious. It was tremendously long-winded though.

A Perfect Getaway - nice little thriller. I enjoyed it.

[Sweet Papa Crimbo]

Took the wife to see this on the big screen last night for Valentine's Day.

We met 20 years ago seeing that same movie in the same theater.

 

Casablanca is deservedly considered a classic.

 

However, I've always thought that Rick's actions at the end of the movie are not consistent with what we were told of his past actions and character.

[Sweet Papa Crimbo]

I feel dirty and stupid

 

This weekend, I was forced to see

 

 

and

 

 

Now if the wolfman had shown up in Valentine's day and eaten Ashton Kutcher, then it might have been a worthwhile night

[Sir Stewart]

I heard they used Gene Simmons and David Lee Roth to build the Wolfman's howl. For realz.

[Sweet Papa Crimbo]

I heard they used Gene Simmons and David Lee Roth to build the Wolfman's howl. For realz.

 

It may have been the worst movie I have ever seen. I didn't walk out because I kept hoping that it would turn bat shit crazy. Sir Anthony must have needed a payday.

[Guest Runaway Jim]

Wait... It was worst than Valentine's Day?!?!?

 

I've been really looking forward to Wolfman. Too bad it apparently sucks. Pitty rental at best now.

[Sweet Papa Crimbo]

Wait... It was worst than Valentine's Day?!?!?

 

I've been really looking forward to Wolfman. Too bad it apparently sucks. Pitty rental at best now.

 

Actually worse than Valentine's Day. Valentine's Day didn't have high aspirations. Wolfman was silly and portended to be scary.

[u2roolz]

A Serious Man - not my favorite Coen bros. movie, and only kind of funny. at times.

 

I disagree with you on this. This, I thInk, was one of the funniest Coen Bros. movies in a long time. It had me laughing almost every scene and I am not even Jewish. But I loved the build up of dialog "noise" in a lot of scenes that the main character had to deal with. There were many great bits, including the Columbia Records telemarketer. It's deserving of a Best Picture nomination, I think.

 

Valentine's Day - Kind of exactly what I expected it to be and then some. Left my cynicism at the door and enjoyed the parade of movie stars. I was surprised by how touched I was by Ashton Kutcher's storyline and kind of rooting for him. It felt like Garry Marshall was definitely trying to do a Robert Altman movie and some things worked and some were really sugary. EDIT: As someone who did a film in his final year of film school that paid homage to Richard Linklater's Slacker, I know how tough it is to get people booked on the same day (even in college). So I got a kick out of seeing Anne Hathaway pass by Jessica Alba in the hotel lobby, even if it cried out "Look, they're sharing the same space for 2 seconds."

 

Edge Of Darkness - A great dark revenge thriller with a great performance from Mel Gibson. I think if Deniro had played the Ray Winstone character the movie may have performed better. More of a story than Taken.

 

From Paris With Love - I really enjoyed this piece of guilty action movie pleasure. I left the theater thinking that I really wanted to see a sequel with these 2.

 

Flirting With Disaster - Something that I picked up at my local Blockbuster's going out of business sale for a buck. I thought that this was insanely great and I can't believe that I missed this for this long.

 

An Education - A pretty solid drama with a terrific performance from Carey Mulligan. Her role and acting is much better than Sandra and Meryl. Although, I don't know if I agree with a Best Picture nomination on this one. It doesn't linger with you long enough. At least not me. Peter Sarsgaard really deserved a nomination. He walked the fine line of charming and creepy.

 

Crazy Heart - Fan-fucking-tastic!! Wow! The music was killer and so was Mr. Bridges. It was odd to see this and An Education in the same day, since husband & wife team Maggie G. & Peter Sarsgaard played similar roles in each respective film.

 

Legion - A fun B picture with an interesting, playful premise that has a lot of action in one place. I can't believe that this got a loud applause when I saw this on a Sunday night evening showing. But I can believe it because it felt like everyone in that very moment was along for the ride.

 

When In Rome - A forgettable comedy that is romantic. People like Will Arnett and Jon Heder are wasted in tiny doses of "hey, here I am again to annoy Kristen Bell."

 

The Book Of Eli- Wow!!! I really can't believe that this film was like it was. I thought that it was going to be a straight up action picture, but boy was I pleasantly surprised. The tone and atmosphere and Denzel took this to another level. And Gary Oldman knocked it the fuck out of the park with his 1st crazy-as-shit performance in a long time.

 

Disclaimer: This dates back to January 15th.

[Guest Runaway Jim]

Unrelated question...

 

What does it mean when they give a writing credit like this...?

 

"Written by Jon Favreau and Vince Vaughn & Dana Fox"

 

Does it mean that Favreau and Vaughn wrote it and then Dana Fox did a rewrite or something?

[Sir Stewart]

You mean the "and" vs the "&"?

[Guest Runaway Jim]

You mean the "and" vs the "&"?

 

Yes, exactly. It seems to me that it denotes a separation of 2 of the writers from the 3rd writer. Either "Favreau and Vaughn" & "Fox" or "Favreau" and "Vaughn & Fox", in this example.

[Guest Runaway Jim]

I disagree with you on this. This, I thInk, was one of the funniest Coen Bros. movies in a long time. It had me laughing almost every scene and I am not even Jewish. But I loved the build up of dialog "noise" in a lot of scenes that the main character had to deal with. There were many great bits, including the Columbia Records telemarketer. It's deserving of a Best Picture nomination, I think.

 

I thought the telemarketer bit and the Denist story/2nd Rabbi scene were great. Those aside, I didn't much laugh. I kept thinking "Am I missing something? Should I be laughing?" It also occured to me that maybe it would be funnier if I were Jewish.

[Guest Speed Racer]

I'm embarrassed to say I haven't seen A Serious Man yet, but all of the scenes in the academic facilities were filmed at my alma mater. Woo hoo!

 

Agree on both counts. I pissed off a friend when I said that Revolutionary Road is like a smarmy, left-wing Sarah Palin, making the shallow assertion that the "suburbs" are somehow less real than anywhere else. Plus, while Winslet and especially DiCaprio each have great moments in the film, too often both seem like they are “acting” rather than embodying the characters.

 

You know, I got that from the movie too, but I interpreted that more as if their characters were that dramatic and histrionic. It worked for me, at least, to read them that way. I think it helps that both of them are so good at what they do in general that I thought the overracted was an intentional act to make their characters seem to have more dramatic personalities.

 

I actually kind of liked the movie, though I was expecting it to be terrible, and it not being terrible might have made it seem better in my eyes.

[u2roolz]

Unrelated question...

 

What does it mean when they give a writing credit like this...?

 

"Written by Jon Favreau and Vince Vaughn & Dana Fox"

 

Does it mean that Favreau and Vaughn wrote it and then Dana Fox did a rewrite or something?

 

The WGAE and WGAw both resolutely reject the auteur theory—that only the director is the "author" of a film—so a "production executive" (a producer or director) who claims credit must meet a higher standard than others to receive credit. An original writer must contribute at least one-third of the final screenplay to receive credit. Subsequent writers who work as script doctors must contribute more than half of the final screenplay to receive credit. A production executive who works on a script must contribute at least half the final product to receive credit (WGA Screen Credits Manual, section III.C.3).

 

Credit can be apportioned for the story, a short treatment of the plot and characters, and the screenplay itself when all writers were not equally involved in the creation of both. A credit might read "Story by John Doe. Screenplay by John Doe & Richard Roe."

 

Where a team of writers works on a screenplay, names are joined by an ampersand (&), and when two teams of writers work successively on a script, the teams are joined by and. So, a credit reading "John Doe & Richard Roe and Jane Doe & Jane Roe" means that there were two writing teams, John and Richard on one and the two Janes on the other.

 

Where a film has been based on a previous film, but does not remake it, a "based on characters created by" credit is given, such as on the show Frasier. Every episode gives credits to James Burrows, Glen Charles and Les Charles, the creators of Cheers, the show where the character of Dr. Frasier Crane originated.

 

Only three writers may be credited for the screenplay if they collaborated and a maximum of three teams of three may be credited no matter how many actually worked on it. For example, Lethal Weapon 4 (1998) had about a dozen writers, as did Hulk (2003). The film adaptation of The Flintstones (1994) supposedly had over sixty writers. This limit doesn't include those awarded credit elsewhere for creating characters or the original story.

 

The Guilds also permit use of pseudonyms if a writer requests one in a timely fashion, but has been known to refuse to accept one that makes a statement. For example, screenwriter J. Michael Straczynski wanted to take his name off the Babylon 5 spin-off series Crusade and substitute "Eiben Scrood" ("I been screwed") to protest script changes the production company made. According to Straczynski, the WGAw refused because "it 'diminished the value' of the show and basically made light of the studio."

[Guest Runaway Jim]

I almost just PMed you u2roolz. I knew you'd answer that question.

 

So in my example, Vaughn & Fox wrote as a team, and Favreau wrote alone.

 

Does the order in which they're listed matter?

[u2roolz]

To add some more meat to the And vs. & question. The above came from Wiki and this is coming from my experience.

I love the film High Fidelity and I followed the development of that film early on.

 

Peter Travers, in his review for Rolling Stone, wrote, "It hits all the laugh bases, from grins to guffaws. Cusack and his Chicago friends — D.V. DeVincentis and Steve Pink — have rewritten Scott Rosenberg's script to catch Hornby's spirit without losing the sick comic twists they gave 1997's Grosse Pointe Blank."

 

They are credited as followed: Screenplay by: D.V. DeVincentis & Steve Pink & John Cusack And Scott Rosenberg.

 

So to answer Runaway Jim's original question, it looks like Vince Vaughn & Dana Fox wrote the script in one team and Jon Favreau did it on his own or either did a rewrite or vice versa. I can't find that info. I'd assume he did a rewrite, since he is listed first as in the above High Fidelity example.

 

Couples Retreat: Jon Favreau And Vince Vaughn & Dana Fox

 

Edit: Posted this after I saw your response.

[Guest Runaway Jim]

Now that I knew where to look, thanks to you, I found this.

 

G. ORDER OF NAMES

 

The order of writers' names in a shared credit may be arbitrated. Generally, the most substantial contributor is entitled to first position credit. Where there is no agreement among the arbiters as to order of names, or where the Arbitration Committee determines that the credited writers' contribution is equal, then the Arbitration Committee shall order the writers' names chronologically.

 

So my guess is that Favreau was either the most substantial contributor, or the first contributor.

[RainDogToo]

[u2roolz]

 

Absolutely Incredible! This needs to be seen to be fully appreciated for all of the camera "tricks" that were either aesthetic choices or the effect of having a poorly trained film crew. Also, there is the unapologetic exposition & character motivation practically spoon fed to its' demographic. Excellent dialog and a top notch performance from Michael Jai White who makes this film work wonders. Trick someone into thinking that this is a 70s film, they would never know.

 

Oh! How could I forget the amazing Anaconda Malt Liquor commercial that precedes this 80 minutes of cinematic heaven and ties in ever so cleverly into the amazing plot revelation? BTW, you have never seen a Richard Nixon quite like this.

[Analogman]

The This! channel is running one of early blaxploitation films this month:

 

Cotton Comes to Harlem (1970)

[Sir Stewart]

The This! channel is running one of early blaxploitation films this month:

 

I think you asked me somewhat recently if I had seen something on This. I had. It's the best station. We call it "Two Stars" because almost everything they play gets exactly that.

Watched some of Moby Dick last night on This.