le havre



kaurismäki is just amazing. if you watch this on the criterion disc don't miss the press conference footage.

I am Love

Not always sure what I think about it overall but if nothing else it looks gorgeous.



American Gigolo

Seems to be a darling of a lot of critics but it's dated horribly now.

It's a very well made movie, looks and feels very much like a M. Haneke work.
Everyday live of a paedophile who keeps a young boy locked in his cellar, rapes and tortures him...
hard to sit through.

DEVILS AT THE DOORSTEP



this movie is amazing! it's advertised as a comedy but it's no comedy in spite of having some hysterically funny sequences-- most of the movie is insanely funny actually. but it's not a comedy--it can get very fucking dark and disturbing. regardless, you need to watch this. yes, you!

on the surface it's the story of a chinese village under japanese occupation in the final days of the 2nd sino-japanese war. which is why it was made in black and white-- to resemble old war movies. but there is so much going on here…

great screenplay/characters/camera work/pacing/dialogue (i mean, subtitles, but still)... really an amazing movie.

it's surprising that i had never heard of jiang wen. you probably hadn't either, but you have to watch this.

if you get the disc with sodherberg's intro definitely skip that because the sucka will spoil the movie with his spoilers. watch that thing afterwards for some interesting tidbits though.

Savages

Meh all round. Not terrible just massively ok.

WEIRD

i remember the interviews when all of that came out. i like salma hayek-- she's hot, smart, funny, and impervious to the passage of time.

movie looked a bit ultraviolent.

Very violent, but not in any kind of interesting way. I enjoyed it and for such a long film it wasn't boring at all, But maybe it was a bad film for Oliver Stone to direct. I hate to say it but Tarantino would've been in his absolute element with it.

Somewhere on this thread I complained about the violence in SAVAGES. Just gave me a slightly queasy feeling.
---


Watched AMADEUS after who knows how long. Has anyone NOT seen this movie?

It was sillier than I remembered. Kinda soap operaish. But that last scene with Salieri helping dying Mozart write Requiem is still great.

Too bad it never happened. Like 3/4 of the shit in this movie. Absolutely slanderous toward Salieri, who was cool to Mozart, Beethoven AND Schubert. Quite a guy. As an old man, he did suffer from mental illness and slashed his throat, and he did confess to killing Mozart, but by poison and no one at all took him seriously. Because he was sick.

Taking advantage of a feeble old man for the sake of a story is pretty low.

not very effective as a documentary since the dude won't say anything about himself, but cool songs and photography watched cisco pike after and it was pretty good

kurosawa's "high and low"



at the beginning i made the wrong assumptions and thought "meh"; but by the end-- wow!

High and Low was not liked by me when I was 18, but I watched it again around age 32 and i found it awesomely gripping.

Re-watched ''Last Exit To Brooklyn'' with my flatmate. Such a great movie.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bjEmLYMY0EE

I watched a fucking Friday the 13th marathon last friday. Moral of the story, the 2nd and 6th one totally fucking suck, and Jason Goes to Hell is the best hands down.


This is one of my all-time favorite flicks, its a total mind fuck and I felt the acting and production was superb. They just don't make thrillers like this anymore..

Another great flick. American Psycho was just totally misunderstood, people were hoping for something more like Saw instead of Dexter

I watched Bugsy yesterday and Dark Blue today..



You know, I really liked Warren Beaty's performance in this movie, he captured the essence of happy-go-lucky-out-of-touch-with-reality that
really should accentuate gangster life. Also, was well produced and frankly old Hollywood glamorous at times. Definitely better than Casino..

As to Dark Blue..



I think this movie got shit on too much, probably because it was actually more serious than the other police corruption flicks of the era.. This one tried to dig into something deeper about police corruption in Los Angeles, the racial element, but it just tap danced around it and didn't actually come out and say it, making it too complex for most audiences and even critics! It wasn't the greatest, but honestly between say Narc and Training Day I thought it was a bit better simply because the storyline and plot is more elaborate and nuanced.

Admittedly they did cram a bit TOO much into this, like, really, how was Kurt Russel getting set up to be killed on the same day as the LA Uprising, and how was he then driving through the Uprising in the chase scene?? Also, the melodramatic ending was a bit too much, could have been a bit less a drama queen about it.

Saw an original 35 mm print of Space is the Place at the art museum over the weekend.

Cool movie, cool experience.

oh man!! that movie is awesome.

i haven't been posting here lately because i've cancelled my netflix for the duration of the world cup, ha ha ha.

I miss when movies used puppets and actually built sets and even sometimes blew up actual shit. Even Hollywood blockbusters used to have a semblance of art and craft..... CGI has destroyed cinema...

Isn't there some irony in that CGI comment given how much innovative CGI went into T2: Judgement Day?

T2 bridged the gap. Yes, it was groundbreaking for its use of computers, but it still predomentantly is a conventional 1980s blockbuster filled with animatronic puppets, large and small scale set building, real fire and explosions, and extensive movie make-up and prostestics. Just watch the difference between T2 and T3 to see what happens when the exact same concept switches from actual movie magic more towards computer magic. T2 used CGI to enhance more conventional special effects. Yes, they were groundbreaking, but it was still 1991 and there was only so much they could do. Keep in mind that they built dozens of puppets, used endless make-up, crashed half a dozen cars including big rigs, blew up an actual building....

For the LA nuclear blast they constructed an ACTUAL model of the city and blew it up, not a computer... For the T-1000 melting scene they used mercury..

CGI accounts for only FIVE minutes of that 120 minute movie......

THAT is what I miss. Today movies don't use puppets or even build sets, they just overly rely on green screen magic and its making film look too much like video games.

Making of Terminator 2 which may surprise you..

God Bless the Muppets

Repo Man. pretty much the ultimate 80's movie.

LIFE ITSELF

The Roger Ebert doc, made by the dude who directed HOOP DREAMS.

One of the most wonderful, life affirming films I've ever seen. Anyone who isn't deeply moved by this movie is an asshole.

We Are The Giant, doc about the Arab Spring, 9/10

Seeing Boyhood on Monday, really looking forward to it.

I wanna bone Jake Johnson

Boyhood 11/10

Tim Burton's Batman and Jack Nicholson will ALWAYS be the Joker, period!

hm.

that movie is great, but damn, i feel bad for the guy

i am still sad

you love the sad stuff though

The Grand Budapest Hotel. Pretty good.

Was watching a documentary earlier this week about a mid-1950s NAVY program to design fighter and bomber jet engine sea-planes because duh, there were no nuclear air-craft carriers. Also talked about how the bombers could deliver nuclear bombs, duh, there were no long range missiles let alone nuclear submarines. Moral of the story, even though nuclear war was more likely to happen in the 1950s than after, the contemporary nuclear weaponry and technology is much much scarier :(