Recently viewed films

johnfoyle · Post by **johnfoyle** » Sun Apr 10, 2005 6:05 pm

This weekend I saw -

The Assasination of Richard Nixon

which was excellent , Sean Penn making me forget he was actually acting , he was that convincing as someone who just let the world get to him too much. The whole '70s feel was so real - I had a flask like that once , same shade of red.

Sahara

which was great fun , action in the sunshine , the gorgeous Penelope Cruz and best use of retro rock this side of Bruckheimer.

Mr. Average · Post by **Mr. Average** » Wed Jul 13, 2005 2:24 pm

Dreamworks:"Antz," "Shrek," "Shrek 2," "Shark Tale" and "Madagascar."

DreamWorks Animation reports 2Q loss, SEC probe
DreamWorks Animation SKG Inc. reported an expected loss in the second quarter, reduced its full-year 2005 forecast and said the Securities and Exchange Commission is investigating the company, according to a company release Monday.

The Glendale-based film studio also said it would not proceed with a secondary offering of $500 million of its Class A common stock.

DreamWorks (NYSE: DWA) updated its "no profit" guidance for the second quarter and said it now expects to show a loss of 7 to 9 cents per share for the period.

For the full year 2005, the studio cut its guidance of $1 to $1.25 per share to a range of 80 to 90 cents per share. The company said it made the adjustments based on slow home video sales.

DreamWorks also reported it is cooperating with an SEC inquiry, which has been launched to investigate trading of the company's stock and the disclosure of its first-quarter financial results in May.

The company's shares dropped $3.79, or 14 percent, to $23.29 in early afternoon trading.

ReadyToHearTheWorst · Post by **ReadyToHearTheWorst** » Mon Jul 25, 2005 8:12 am

The War of the Worlds
Is it just Spielberg, or does Hollywood in general always spoil a good adventure with sentimentality? If I'd been her father, I'd have made the kid eat the peanut butter sandwich!

bobster · Post by **bobster** » Mon Jul 25, 2005 1:59 pm

Saw it last night. Was actually really impressed with a lot of it, particularly how low-key and sort of unsentimental the first half was. Actually, the second half was relatively restrained, though I'm not Dakota Fanning's biggest fan either, though I think she did a good job here.

Still, on the whole, nothing too special. And, yeah, Spielberg has a modu operandi these days in his genre movies of a great first half followed up by an all-too conventional second half. (I'm part of the small minority of people who think "Minority Report" was pretty vastly overrated, since it's 2nd half turned basically into a bad 1980's action movie after a first rate opening.)

ReadyToHearTheWorst · Post by **ReadyToHearTheWorst** » Mon Jul 25, 2005 4:33 pm

My gripes with it are:

a) with that much death & destruction, and Tom & Co right in the thick of it, how come the whole family survived? and
b) that bloody kid wouldn't stop whining/whingeing/screaming.

The Terminal is an even worse example of a good 1st half, with some darkly comic moments that might have lead to something thought provoking and grown up, but instead collaped in a heap of cheap soap opera romanticism.

Otis Westinghouse · Post by **Otis Westinghouse** » Mon Aug 01, 2005 6:30 pm

Charlie and the Chocolate Family - utterly fabulous. Don't miss if you care at all for Roald Dahl or the pairing of Burton and Depp. The casting is excellent (apart, perhaps, from Helen Bonham-Carter, though I suppose it's an intentional touch to have her still managing to look like an English rose despite having bad teeth and a diet of cabbage soup). All the kids are fantastic, and their parents. Augustus Gloop traumatised my 4 year old (who was a little young for it all, but enjoyed it well enough), as did the fantastic squirrel scene. there were so many wonderful moments and details that it would be hard to choose which ones to comment on. Suffice to say I loved pretty much everything about it and can't wait for the DVD to arrive in the house. The addition of the Wilbur Wonka/Christopher Lee plot works well, too.

miss buenos aires · Post by **miss buenos aires** » Mon Aug 01, 2005 9:35 pm

Otis Westinghouse wrote:Charlie and the Chocolate Family - utterly fabulous... The addition of the Wilbur Wonka/Christopher Lee plot works well, too.

Tee-hee...a Chocolate Family...I hated the addition of the Freudian subplot, I thought it was the one false note in the movie. Willy Wonka just is...he doesn't need a reason to open a candy factory! Who wouldn't want to open a candy factory?

And I don't understand where exactly the dad's house went, or how WW knew where it was. Is that dense of me?

Otis Westinghouse · Post by **Otis Westinghouse** » Tue Aug 02, 2005 2:19 am

Well it was a good opportunity for more comedy and poignancy ('you haven't flossed once', etc.), and a suitable reflection of our times that we want to know his motives, etc. And a good reason to have Christopher Lee in the movie. For me it worked. It's obviously influenced my view of the story, hence the retitling! The transplanted house was hilarious. Who knows who they found it, they just did. A lovely Tim Burton touch, the same house, separated from everyone.

tallulah · Post by **tallulah** » Tue Aug 02, 2005 10:52 am

Yeah, I found the whole dad/WW subplot pretty boring as well. Why do they have to make it cheesy and meaningful? Why can't it just be? As Charlie says "candy doesn't need to have a point - that's why it's candy".

I did love the Oompa Loompas musical numbers though. God, they cracked me up.

bobster · Post by **bobster** » Tue Aug 02, 2005 12:10 pm

Saw "Wedding Crashers" -- sort of by accident (a timing issue at the multiplex) -- but this is that rare #1 movie that actually deserves its success.

Starts out like a standard frathouse sex comedy in a not-entirely-successful or amusing opening, but turns into genuine screwball comedy. Occasionally goes off the rails, but this is a very strong farce. Gets an 8 on Bobstermeter.

Otis Westinghouse · Post by **Otis Westinghouse** » Tue Aug 02, 2005 6:38 pm

tallulah wrote:Yeah, I found the whole dad/WW subplot pretty boring as well. Why do they have to make it cheesy and meaningful? Why can't it just be? As Charlie says "candy doesn't need to have a point - that's why it's candy".

But why not invest the story with more meaning? It was a good way of making Charlie's such for an heir more touching, and the dental motif contrasted with the non-point-havingness of candy. And it led to the great flossing gag. And the haunting image of the solitary house.

Can someone explain to me the 2001: A Space Odyssey refs? The Observer reviewer praised the lack of refs to other films, citing this as a now tedious standard requirement in many current kids' films, and said the exception was a witty ref to the opening of the above. I can't think what he's thinking of. The formation Oompa Loompa swimmers in chocolaate were straight from Busby Berkely. I got that one!

selfmademug · Post by **selfmademug** » Tue Aug 02, 2005 7:01 pm

The whole Television Room sequence riffs off the Kubrick film, from the super-white-whiteness of the room (like the on-board sequences in 2001) to the Strauss music, with the massive chocolate bar stading in as monolith first in the white-white room (incl. camera angle, same shot really) and then, when shrunken, in the apes-with-bones scene in the TV.

My parents took me (and my two older sibs) to see 2001 when it opened. Pretty damn freaky (and LONG) movie to take a 5-yr-old to. But I loved it, and it's etched in my brain.

Otis Westinghouse · Post by **Otis Westinghouse** » Tue Aug 02, 2005 7:52 pm

Ta! I've only seen bits of it late at night under the influence.

tallulah · Post by **tallulah** » Wed Aug 03, 2005 9:08 am

Otis Westinghouse wrote:
tallulah wrote:Yeah, I found the whole dad/WW subplot pretty boring as well. Why do they have to make it cheesy and meaningful? Why can't it just be? As Charlie says "candy doesn't need to have a point - that's why it's candy".
But why not invest the story with more meaning? It was a good way of making Charlie's such for an heir more touching, and the dental motif contrasted with the non-point-havingness of candy. And it led to the great flossing gag. And the haunting image of the solitary house.

I guess so. I just thought it was schmaltzy in an otherwise silly fun movie. I don't really go for "touching" unless it is more subtle than I thought it was. I also think the search for an heir is because he is getting old (the gray hair) and I didn't find the father/son story to really enhance that for me in any way.

Otis Westinghouse · Post by **Otis Westinghouse** » Wed Aug 03, 2005 9:38 am

For me Johnny Depp makes the misfit weirdo terribly moving, to greatest effect as Edward Scissorhands, but here too, so the story played to his strengths as an actor very well. I loved his latex gloves. They looked like they should be purble kid-skin, but they were latex, a twist on his dad's standard issue dentist ones. I find the Depp-Burton pairing strong in that it's weird, funny and moving, all at once. Not schmaltzy, I'd say.

selfmademug · Post by **selfmademug** » Wed Aug 03, 2005 10:07 am

I was annoyed by the additional plot line at first, but mainly because it took away one of the warmest, most satisfying moments in the book, where WW immediately, post-elevator-crash, embraces Charlie's little family and they know all will be well, they're not going to starve to death.

Roald Dahl's inclusion of hunger as enemy number one to kids is always brilliant, and he uses it often. A chapter in CATCF is entitled 'The Buckets Begin to Starve,' (and btw could there be anything more hungry than a bucket??) and there's one in Fantastic Mr. Fox called 'The Foxes Begin to Starve.' Hunger is very SCARY in both books, and in both cases plentiful food and delight in eating are the reward and happy ending. In the book (can you tell I just recently read it to my son?) Charlie ravenously eats a full chocolate bar before finding the ticket in the second, and it doesn't seem excessive. He is HUNGRY.

I'm starting to enjoy the changes in the movie version as a story unto themselves. Burton doesn't really convey how hungry they are, cause Charlie is not the main focus of the story, Willy Wonka is. He and the last filmmaker should have swapped titles!

One thing from the book that was emphasized a bit more in this film version is the definite sense that WW is trying to punish, but also fix, the four bratty kids (and their parents). Again, since Burton is more concerned with WW than with Charlie, there's never that satisfying parental/god-like warmth of love for Charlie's goodness on WW's part, the redemption after suffering, which I think kids especially find particularly satisfying. Burton shifts that to WW and his Dad, because Depp's childlike qualities (as an actor) mean more to him than Charlie's (as a character).

I'm sure that's more analysis than anyone wants on this movie!

tallulah · Post by **tallulah** » Wed Aug 03, 2005 12:07 pm

selfmademug wrote:Again, since Burton is more concerned with WW than with Charlie, there's never that satisfying parental/god-like warmth of love for Charlie's goodness on WW's part, the redemption after suffering, which I think kids especially find particularly satisfying.

WORD. I think that was the part that was missing for me. As usual, you said it better than I could.

You're right as well about the titles! I fully agree.

so lacklustre · Post by **so lacklustre** » Wed Aug 03, 2005 12:22 pm

I was less than satisfied with cathcf. Depp just about kept the movie going. I Can't compare to the book 'cos I haven't read it, but imo a film based on a book doesn't have to follow it to the letter, what's the point they are totally different mediums. I found the use of 'candy' annoying all the way through as it not a word that regularly used over this side of the pond (that is a reference to the Atlantic ocean by the way). I'm sure there were other annoying americanisms but I can't recall them now. Why didn't they just call the film Charlie and the Candy Factory?.

Have also recently been to see Madagascar which was very disappointing.
And thi week also went to see War of the Worlds which was better than expected although I don't really like Cruise.

Who Shot Sam? · Post by **Who Shot Sam?** » Wed Aug 03, 2005 12:25 pm

so lacklustre wrote:I was less than satisfied with cathcf. Depp just about kept the movie going. I Can't compare to the book 'cos I haven't read it, but imo a film based on a book doesn't have to follow it to the letter, what's the point they are totally different mediums. I found the use of 'candy' annoying all the way through as it not a word that regularly used over this side of the pond (that is a reference to the Atlantic ocean by the way). I'm sure there were other annoying americanisms but I can't recall them now. Why didn't they just call the film Charlie and the Candy Factory?.

How 'bout Charlie and the Lolly Factory? No, that doesn't work either, does it?

Are lollies and sweets the same thing? And which, if either, category does chocolate fall under?

selfmademug · Post by **selfmademug** » Wed Aug 03, 2005 12:33 pm

Well, the author was English and the book was about "candy" of all sorts, chocolate and otherwise.

Post by **BlueChair** » Wed Aug 03, 2005 12:47 pm

selfmademug wrote:Well, the author was English and the book was about "candy" of all sorts, chocolate and otherwise.

I thought he was Welsh

selfmademug · Post by **selfmademug** » Wed Aug 03, 2005 12:52 pm

Well, maybe he lived in Wales, I dunno. I just mean he spoke and wrote UK English as opposed to North American English, in reply to SLL's complaint of the over-use of the (possibly very American) word 'candy'.

Actually I think his family was from Norway, whence that last name.

Who Shot Sam? · Post by **Who Shot Sam?** » Wed Aug 03, 2005 12:55 pm

Born in Wales, to Norwegian parents.

So it should be Charlie and the Sukkertøy Fabrikk.

Post by **BlueChair** » Wed Aug 03, 2005 12:59 pm

In any case, I haven't seen it. Was rather excited at first, but it kind of faded and I'm selective about what I see in the cinema these days, for affordability sake.

I think the next cinema experience for me will be Broken Flowers, the latest Jim Jarmusch film starring Bill Murray, which won 2nd prize at Cannes. Opens on Friday.

miss buenos aires · Post by **miss buenos aires** » Wed Aug 03, 2005 2:07 pm

So, sll, you're concerned about the overuseof the word "candy," but you didn't notice that the woman in the shop offered Charlie five hundred DOLLARS for the Golden Ticket? That struck me as odd.