Now Watching

[Lynch]

 

I have been obsessed with this show lately.

[GtrPlyr]

 

I'm a sucker for these Classic Album docs.

[Oil Can Boyd]

[GtrPlyr]

 

This has the complete broadcasts of each Sullivan Show the Beatles appeared on including the ads which is kinda cool. I can just imagine the kids at home getting impatient as they sit through a magician, Frank Gorshin, the cast of Oliver (with a young Davy Jones), waiting for The Beatles to reappear.

[PopTodd]

Just watched The Wizard of Oz with the kids. My younger son (9) enjoyed it a lot: "This is soooo weird!!!"

My older son (11) seemed to enjoy it at first, but then walked out, citing "cheezyness".

Personally, I had forgotten how much i enjoyed it. Or, maybe I just enjoy it more now that I'm older.

[u2roolz]

Oliver Stone 1-2 Punch:

 

U-Turn - rented this last week as I had never seen it, but worked at a movie theater when it was out for like 2 weeks. I really enjoyed it, although it was very, very dense. After a half hour had passed it felt like the film had been on for an hour and there was still 90 minutes left to go. Definitely a rental and not something to sit through in the theater. It was nice to see Sean Penn in a leading man role where he can be funny in a mean & condescending way towards the townsfolk of that awful town out in Arizona. Billy Bob Thornton & Joaquin Phoenix both turn in great performances: Thornton as a redneck car mechanic with a lot of grease on him and Phoenix as a hot head with a pompadour protecting "his girl" played by Claire Danes. Jennifer Lopez & Nick Nolte round out the cast as a married couple with their own agendas that bring Penn into play.

 

Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps - Awesome! Stone really took the time to set up the pieces to this incredible story that uses Douglas' Gordon Gekko as kind of the backbone and driving force of the film. You don't really see him much in the beginning, but he slowly comes into the picture. It reminded me a bit of the Joker in The Dark Knight. Stone frames the film around Gordon Gekko, thus not really making him the main character. The main character is played by Shia The Beef who is quite incredible here as the young man torn between the chase of getting revenge & money and loving his girlfriend who just so happens to be Gekko's daughter. The film comes off as really operatic in its epic quality. Stone pulls all the right punches in terms of character & motivation and has brought his visual panache back to illustrate the Dow Jones Index via the tall skyscrapers of NYC among other such things.

 

Oh, and the music is quite amazing. Stone uses about 98% David Byrne & Brian Eno tunes and ends the film with This Must Be The Place.

[Analogman]

I watched Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid (1973) last Saturday night. I had not seen it since the early 1990s. I was struck by a few things. It's really not that great of a movie, Dylan was definitely stuck in there for no good reason, Kristofferson acted like a rock star, and finally, I never noticed that was Rita Coolidge playing Maria.

[Sir Stewart]

I watched Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid (1973) last Saturday night. I had not seen it since the early 1990s. I was struck by a few things. It's really not that great of a movie, Dylan was definitely stuck in there for no good reason, Kristofferson acted like a rock star, and finally, I never noticed that was Rita Coolidge playing Maria.

 

I started that a couple of weeks ago (hadn't seen it in about 10 years) but I was interrupted about 40 minutes in. I was surprised how much I was drawn in though - I think I remember feeling like 'where's the story here?' first time around.

[Analogman]

I started that a couple of weeks ago (hadn't seen it in about 10 years) but I was interrupted about 40 minutes in. I was surprised how much I was drawn in though - I think I remember feeling like 'where's the story here?' first time around.

 

I saw it because it was on the free On Demand channel. I should have also mentioned it was most certainly the uncut or director's cut version.

 

That scene where Dylan is made to read the can labels - I did not get that. I understand Garrett had power, but that just seemed sort of dumb.

[Winston Legthigh]

Watched Full Metal Jacket over the weekend. As far as war/military films go, it's hard to top FMJ's first hour. It's pretty much the blueprint of how to do bootcamp on film. The "Lawrence goes crazy" scene hasn't aged well though. And the 2nd Act doesn't live up to the first, except for the scene of Colonel Waldorf Salad chewing out Modine. I love that scene merely for being a Fawlty Towers fan. The slo-mo sniper scene at the end is dreadful. The movie starts so strongly and ends so weakly.

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DQFWAIFzoZ4

[Guest Jules]

Don't forget, "Sarah Palin's Alaska" starts Sunday on TLC.

[u2roolz]

I've been meaning to post this all week, but I kept forgetting about it. That's odd because this film and the amazing fucking performance by Tom Hardy as Charlie Bronson is unforgettable.

 

Watching this reaffirms that talent is always out there and ready to take on something challenging and probably not too well seen at the time.

 

Nicolas Winding Refn does a phenomenal job directing this. The whole film has a Kubrick quality to it, since it employs a fusion of violence, classical music and opera.

 

I really can't say much more about Tom Hardy. You really can't see the Tom Hardy (The Forger) that we all saw in Inception. He's buried in his buffed up, shaved head, mustache wearing body. He will be recognized soon by the Academy. People will know his name in due time. And he will be playing a villain of Batman in Nolan's follow up to The Dark Knight. I have no idea who he is playing, but I know that he can be trusted to be memorable.

[Beltmann]

I found Bronson fascinating, but unsettling, too. For those who haven't seen it, the movie recounts the story of a real-life petty thief who borrowed his name from the American action star and, through notorious violence, turned a minor sentence into a lifetime of solitary confinement in the British prison system. At the start, Charlie declares that he always wanted to be famous, but the director, Nicolas Refn, seems skeptical of that motive--his movie implies that “Britain’s most violent inmate” is driven by a deeper need, even if that need is ultimately unknowable. Throwing up his hands, Refn instead emphasizes how we’re locked out of Bronson’s mind while he’s trapped within, which explains the stylized, claustrophobic tone and the occasional breakaways to theatrical monologues Charlie delivers from a darkened stage to an audience that exists, apparently, only as a delusion. I'm with u2roolz about Thomas Hardy... his naked, imperious, utterly commanding performance as Charlie (with his shaved dome and counter brush mustache, he resembles a crazy-sexy-cool Cannonball Man) was easily one of the year's most magnetic sights. It’s a serious performance in a serious film, and yet it leads to a serious question about the seductive powers of cinema: Should we be so massively entertained by a vicious half-animal merely because he’s the most charismatic presence in the room?

 

Speaking of Refn... are you interested in Valhalla Rising, u2roolz? It played last night in Milwaukee at the UWM student union theater; wish I had been able to go.

[Oil Can Boyd]

[u2roolz]

Speaking of Refn... are you interested in Valhalla Rising, u2roolz? It played last night in Milwaukee at the UWM student union theater; wish I had been able to go.

 

Yes! As soon as I finished watching Bronson, I went to IMDB immediately and looked up his other work. I seem to believe that it came to Boston at some point during the spring or summer. The title sounds very familiar.

 

I am definitely going to seek it out. I enjoyed the trailer.

[GtrPlyr]

 

Now I can't get "Leaning, Leaning..." out of my head.

[Winston Legthigh]

Watched Ridley Scott's Robin Hood. Kind of a stinker.

I LOLed at the medieval French having front-loading landing craft - (an innovation not made until the 20th century).

[Sweet Papa Crimbo]

[El Picador]

I enjoyed this one a few nights ago:

 

El último verano de La Boyita

 

http://www.laboyitafilm.com/

[Beltmann]

 

[El Picador]

[uncool2pillow]

We watched How to Train Your Dragon last night. I loved it. The kids were in and out of it. Just reminded of the genius behind the Pixar people to make movies that almost always enthrall everyone.

[froggie]

[GtrPlyr]

[u2roolz]

The Fighter

 

I was born and grew up in Lowell. I went to elementary school there. I was in the 8th grade when this story begins in the film: 1993. I remember my dad telling me about Micky Ward and how he came from Lowell and was a "could have been amazing" boxer. Then I remember soon after that Lowell being put on the map by HBO with their High On Crack Street documentary special where they interviewed Ward's half brother and also ex-boxing phenom Dicky Ecklund. Needless to say it was an embarrassment to say you were from Lowell. It was a run down old mill city that was being filled with people that weren't white and the Lowellians would make a point of this, even though they came here mostly from Europe. I guess it could have been like any other city, but as a young kid you're too young to realize that.

 

In the opening scene of this film there is a shot of Cupples Square where my grandfather used to have his convenience store. Now it is boarded up and has been for decades. There are many places that I know like the back of my hand that are featured here. Somehow I am watching this film that has been Mark Wahlberg's passion project for quite some time. Everyone in town kept asking when they would be making a movie about "The Pride Of Lowell". Finally, the day that Wilco came to town in July of 2009 Mark Wahlberg also came into town to begin filming this. I tried hard to work on this any way that I could and I was unsuccessful, even though I stopped by a few nights to check out filming from a distance. They were shooting a car chase outside the local Greek restaurant (The Olympia) in town where I've had many a mercy meal for the Greek relatives in my family. This was all very surreal. Mark Wahlberg and Christian Bale were portraying these two brothers. I couldn't get over it. Then some time had passed and I didn't hear anything about a release date. I was worried. I thought that this wasn't going to get a major wide release and it would be "local" hit. Finally, over this past summer this film had found a release date in December. Now as a movie fan that means that the studio has some hope that it will garner some awards. I was getting excited.

 

Something happened this past Friday that has me in amazement: the local chain theater is one of the 4 theaters across the country to exclusively show this film, until this Friday when it opens wide to 2,200 screens. There were several premieres and after parties that were held last week that was the hottest ticket in town. Sadly, I didn't get to go to any of them. After seeing this I really wish that I did, if only for the audience's reaction to this.

 

I recently just came back from a showing of this in the Lowell theater and I am simply blown away. This film had me all the way through. I had goose bumps, tears, and pure excitement running through me. Everyone in this film does terrific work. The story that I knew enough about was told perfectly. This is not just a boxing film. It is a film about family and trying to break free from that and do things on your own and speak up for yourself and not be dragged down by negativity. I'm also quite happy about the format and style of the film. An audience of about 30 people on a week day were cheering on Ward. I can only imagine this in a packed house. The experience must be amazing, especially for the local folks. I really think that this story transcends geography and will be a crowd pleaser. The boxing scenes were about realistic as you can get.

 

It was quite the surreal film experience and makes me proud to have come from such an amazing city that has picked itself up and revitalized itself. Much like the HBO documentary was a mirror image of the city back in the 90s, this film is a unique story where Ward & the city fight to come to such great accomplishments. I think I've said more than enough, but I can't leave without giving words to Christian Bale who is scarily believable as a crack addict. His physical and mental transformation is a sight to behold and I think he's got some gold in his pocket for this one. Thanks for reading....