Recently viewed films

[mood swung]

I spent 2 nights trying to watch The Darjeeling Limited and 3 on The Last King of Scotland. I guess I liked Last King better, because I worked harder at staying awake. TDL didn't do much for me at all.

[miss buenos aires]

Finally saw Sex & the City, which was... exactly like watching five episodes of the show in a row. I liked it, but it was definitely ridiculous. My theatermates were snickering just as much as I was, which was refreshing.

[mood swung]

There Will Be Blood made me very glad I'd also received The Wire, Season 1. The only thing I liked about TWBB was the eye that seemed to loom up out of the horizon on a couple of evening landscape shots.


Maybe it was just my tv.


Note to self: stick to the comedies! action! old tv shows!

[johnfoyle]

I'm just in from a preview of The Visitor ( opening this Friday in the U.K.) . Excellent film , beautifully paced , sympathetically acted by a knock-out cast. 'A college professor travels to New York City to attend a conference and finds a young couple living in his apartment' is the basic plot-line. This doesn't even begin to hint at the many other facets of the film. Immigration, stifling academia , gorgeous New York locales - this has it all. The unifying force of music was of especial interest and is a subtle but essential element. Director Thomas McCarthy was there and was very amusing in the q. and a. afterwards. He ably deflated some of the more pompous questions. He was amused by a music question I asked ( can't go into details - plot spoiler) and very informative in his response. His last film was The Station Agent . As director that is. His many acting roles include a pivotal one in the latest Wire series.



http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0857191/

[BlueChair]

Glad you enjoyed it, John. We saw The Visitor last September at the Toronto International Film Festival and loved it to pieces. Richard Jenkins is a very underrated actor, as fans of Six Feet Under are fully aware.

[migdd]

I grew up enjoying the original Get Smart TV series. Obviously a film made 40 years later would be a different animal and it was. Thought the cast was great, the story so-so and the action sequences overwrought. There were some hilarious moments and good chemistry between Carell and Hathaway (I can't think of another actress that comes even close to matching the cool charm of Barbara Feldon as Agent 99). A nice couple of hours of entertainment but it didn't blow me away.

[johnfoyle]

I've just seem My Winnipeg. A bizarre mix of documentary and surrealist drama, this film about what appears to be a very bleak Canadian city is constantly engaging and an absolute hoot. I slept through part of it ( at my age I really should take a nap before going to something after a busy day) which only added to it , allowing me to get totally immersed in the dreamlike mood that features throughout. In glorious black 'n white ( except for a tiny sequence where the garishness of neon was best served by colour) it really should be seen in a cinema.


http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1093842/


A film choice I'm unlikely to make is Mamma Mia ; I just loved this line in Robert Hanks' review in the Indo. -

http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-enter ... 64756.html

What follows is all amiable farce, close in tone to the Cliff Richard vehicle Summer Holiday, though lacking that film's tight narrative and political edge.

[bambooneedle]

Death Proof. Was interested enough in the first half to follow all the excessive cutesy banter in the hope that it would liven up soon when suddenly the film seemed to take a VERY interesting turn with the car smash. Fantastically photographed slo-mo replays. There were great plot possibilities at that that point - what is up with the Kurt Russell character. But there's no follow through. Tarantino was more interested in cute nostalgic kitch effects and trademark dumbed-down "cool" for most of the film it seems. The four new similarly bantering characters make the film drag and then there's just zero dramatic quality. I didn't give a shit by the car action scenes towards the end, especially after Russell was being chased and the jokes were lame. Comparisons made in the bonus dvd to scenes in Bullit and Vanishing Point were so wrong. I'm sick of Tarantino now.

[mood swung]

Finally got to see Walk Hard, which was largely enjoyable but sometimes a little too much R rated Forest Gump. Bad parenting confession: Josie saw it (on dvd) before I did. Austin assures me that he covered her eyes during the "bad parts".

Also saw Hot Fuzz, which was pretty good, but I was expecting Shaun of the Dead, With Uniforms.

[Who Shot Sam?]

Taking the fam to the drive-in tonight to see a double feature of Wall-e and The Incredible Hulk.

[Who Shot Sam?]

Taking the fam to the drive-in tonight to see a double feature of Wall-e and The Incredible Hulk.

Beautiful evening with a light breeze and cool temperatures, and the two movies were both worthwhile. The kids had a blast. We will have to do that again, if it's not too hot or humid.

[pophead2k]

Went to the midnight screening of The Dark Knight. (What?! I'm a teacher. This is what summer is for!). Every single superlative written about Heath Ledger's performance in particular and the film in general is warranted. An amazing performance for the ages. I will probably see it again in the theater. The last time I did that was 1977, when I was ten, and the movie was Star Wars.

[migdd]

I'm looking forward to seeing The Dark Knight. I saw Batman Begins on a cruise ship as it rocked back and forth in a storm. The projector was not bolted to the floor and the picture was constantly drifting off the screen. I just purchased a Blue-Ray player so I think I'll go rent BB on BD this weekend and give it a proper viewing as prep to seeing TDK.

I've been skipping most summer blockbuster films in recent years but this year's crop has me and the kids back in the theatres. Iron Man and Wall-E were top knotch and I expect The Dark Knight will continue the trend.

We saw Journey to the Center of the Earth last weekend, which was skippable. The adventure aspect was fun for the kids but there's not much to hold the attention of adults. Even the 3D effects were ho-hum for anybody who has spent any amount of time in an IMAX theatre.

[ice nine]

The Dark Knight was a good movie, but I'd have to give the awawrd to Iron Man.

[pophead2k]

I immensely enjoyed Iron Man, but for me it was strictly a genre film. Lots of CGI and predictable plot arc. IMHO, the Dark Knight transcends the genre of both comic book and action film. Very little distracting CGI to be seen and loads of Big Questions to think about.

[Who Shot Sam?]

Step Brothers. Some very funny moments. If you've seen a Will Ferrell movie you know the drill.

More ball sack than I really needed to see on the big screen.

And I'm not talking about the French novelist!

[RedShoes]

Saw Dark Knight last night.

Maybe my expectations were too high, or maybe I just don't have the right appreciation for comic book films... but... I wasn't overly impressed. Don't get me wrong, Heath Ledger was INCREDIBLE and beyond disturbing as the Joker. Even if the rest of the film was total and utter shit I would've been glad to have it just to see him in that role. It'll haunt me for awhile. I don't think the rest of the film was awful, but none of the rest of it really blew me away either. And Christian Bale's batman voice annoys me. Why does batman have to sound so frickin' *weird*? All gruffy with a slight lisp. I don't get it.

[pophead2k]

Red, sorry you and Blue didn't enjoy the movie as much as I did. I think (from other posts, etc.) that I tend to be on the same page as you in terms of movies I like. I guess what I really enjoyed about this is that it reminded me of a great crime drama like those of Mann or Scorsese. The fact that it involved 'super' heroes and villains almost seemed incidental. I found that it was extremely topical (dealing with surveillance, and whether societies must suppress individuals in order to keep peace for the whole). I also think that this film will stand the test of time. Because of the lack of CGI, it will never look cheesy as technology continues to advance. I'm anxious to see it again.

[Mr. Average]

Dark Knight - incredible work, beautifully filmed. Heath Ledgers performance is the pivot point that makes the film great. He did what Jack did not do (although it was not within the purview for Jack to reinvent the Joker outside of a comic book character). Ledger made the Joker real, tangible, alive, and plausible as a real sociopathic psychopath. I mean, I could imagine reading the accounts of this evil character in the paper as he serially disrupts and entire metropolis. However, the real art is in the clarity of the filming, and the fact that the city of Chicago allowed the producers and directors to do outrageous things, like tethering an 18 wheeler semi from the front axle such that it does a near perfect handstand...probably the most perversely graceful crash seen I have seen outside of Guentin Tarantino's "Death Proof".

The X-Files "Whatever the new one is called" - trite, insipid dialogue and screen play. Using Fargo devices that have all been done before. A modern day Frankenstein. Boring. Silly. Terrible. Phone it in performances. A total waste of time. Other than that.....

[bambooneedle]

How much screen time does Ledger get? He looks good in the trailers and I'm considering seeing it on the big screen but one look at Batman's plasticky suit and major alarm bells go off.

Then there's the usual problem of other people...

[A rope leash]

I recently rented the movie In Bruges, starring Colin Ferrel. I found it to be very real, seriously funny, and touchingly violent.

I liked it so much I wanted to tell everyone, so here you go. You might want to turn on the subtitles, because the Irish brogue is a bit thick...

[miss buenos aires]

I just had to do that (use subtitles) for The Wind that Shakes the Barley, which is a fascinating movie. Though incomprehensible at times.

I liked The Dark Knight, but it was definitely too long. I don't like my summer movies to be more than 2 hours--I get all squirmy. Heath Ledger was indeed great in it, though.

[ReadyToHearTheWorst]

Just seen the remarkable Heath Ledger in Dark Night and wonder, is it just me or was the Tom Waits voice deliberate?

[ice nine]

I'm watching an old Barbara Stanwyck film on TCM from 1933 called 'Baby Face'. It's about a young pretty girl (Stanwyk) who at the beginning of the film is a speakeasy bartenter. She moves to NYC and works her way up in a bank by cuniving and using her feminine wiles. It's a pretty risque movie for 1933 that was banned in some cities.

[Who Shot Sam?]

I'm watching an old Barbara Stanwyck film on TCM from 1933 called 'Baby Face'. It's about a young pretty girl (Stanwyk) who at the beginning of the film is a speakeasy bartenter. She moves to NYC and works her way up in a bank by cuniving and using her feminine wiles. It's a pretty risque movie for 1933 that was banned in some cities.

Stanwyck was a real firecracker and some of her films were pretty risqué for the time. Ever seen "Ball of Fire"? I liked that one.

Great quote about her...

“She has played five gun molls, two burlesque queens, half a dozen adulteresses and twice as many murderers. When she was good, she was very, very good. And when she was bad, she was terrific.”

-Walter Matthau