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jeremy
Posted: Mon Sep 04, 2006 7:26 am Reply with quote
Joined: 21 May 2004 Posts: 6794 Location: Derby, England and Hamilton, New Zealand (yes they are about 12,000 miles apart)
It appears that Marc's and Billy's prophecies of the likely awfulness of The Wicker Man seem to be on the button.

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whiskeypriest
Posted: Mon Sep 04, 2006 9:47 am Reply with quote
Joined: 20 May 2004 Posts: 6916 Location: "It's a Dry Heat."
jeremy wrote:
Whilst slumming it at Rotten Tomatoes I noticed that Jason Statham's latest heavily armed fighting vehicle, Crank, but hated by the cream of the crop critics, but loved by the hoi poloi. This occurs quite often with with crowd pleasers, especially those awash with more Testosterone than an American athlete's blood urine sample, like Crank.

Leaving aside the question of by whom and by what criteria the world's cinema critics so insultingly divided, I'd ask is that the 'reputable' critcs are to po-faced to enjoy the simple pleasures afforded by an hour and a half of mindless mayhem or is it that those whose writin' and finking is not quite up to somebody's scratch are all young male wanabes who spend to much time in dark rooms without a girlfriend.
I think that if your job is to watch and think about movies all day, every day, it becomes harder and harder to get with the formulaic and repetitive, even if it catches the public's attention.

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chillywilly
Posted: Mon Sep 04, 2006 9:55 am Reply with quote
Joined: 20 May 2004 Posts: 8250 Location: Salt Lake City
jeremy wrote:
Without the warranted reverence or even with a degree of antipathy, is this how WTC will be viewed outside America?

I hope not, given that the film (which I've not seen yet) is based on the story of the two PA cops and not the link between Iraq and 9/11.

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mo_flixx
Posted: Mon Sep 04, 2006 10:03 am Reply with quote
Joined: 30 May 2004 Posts: 12533
jeremy wrote:
From a report from the Venice Film Festival in today's Guardian:

Quote:
The worst film at Venice, probably the worst film of the year, is Oliver Stone's World Trade Center, presented out of competition. Nicolas Cage plays the real-life Port Authority cop buried in the rubble, and rescued, with a surviving comrade. The film is pompous, over-sentimentalised, desperately dull, filled with deeply misjudged phoney-baloney Hollywood acting from the doe-eyed wives, and finishes with a preposterous squeak of propaganda, insisting on a link between 9/11 and Iraq.


Without the warranted reverence or even with a degree of antipathy, is this how WTC will be viewed outside America?


A-hem...not just OUTSIDE America, jeremy.
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gromit
Posted: Mon Sep 04, 2006 10:32 am Reply with quote
Joined: 31 Aug 2004 Posts: 9005 Location: Shanghai
Lucky Number Slevin didn't do much for me. Then again, I'm not really much interested in such elaborate revenge dramas. In Westerns -- where things are more traditional, time stands still, and memory is long-- I can accept such ideas. But the recent urban revenge dramas, imported from Asia, just don't hold my interest.

Slevin has a clever underlying premise, and a few good moments, combined with a reasonably winning turn by Josh Harnett, in a role that has echoes of The Dude from Lebowski.

A couple significant flaws though. Towards the end, there is a long patch of exposition explaining the back-story. Really took the momentum out of the story and went on for too long (and was rather predictable once it got underway). Morgan Freeman was largely wasted, given little or nothing to do in his cartoonish rivalry with Ben Kingsley. Lastly, I did end up wondering how the main lead knew a few of the details that he knew. Not to mention the relationship of Bruce Willis's character to virtually everyone in the film. Which at least meant the film made enough of an impression for me to think about and add up afterwards, unlike my recent viewing of Cache.

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chillywilly
Posted: Mon Sep 04, 2006 10:34 am Reply with quote
Joined: 20 May 2004 Posts: 8250 Location: Salt Lake City
I'm very curious about this one. From Sunday's SL Trib.
http://www.sltrib.com/arts/ci_4274762

Quote:
A free screening of "On Native Soil: The Documentary of the 9/11 Commission" is set for Wednesday at 7 p.m. at the Vieve Gore Concert Hall in the Emma Eccles Jones Conservatory at Westminster College, 1250 E. 1700 South, Salt Lake City. The film, narrated by Kevin Costner and Hilary Swank, details the findings of the 9/11 Commission, which investigates how the terrorist attacks happened five years ago - and where the U.S. government failed (and continues to fail) in protecting us. The film's producer, Utah resident Jeff Hays (who also produced the anti-Michael Moore doc "Fahrenhype 9/11"), will answer questions after the screening. A reception is set before the film, at 6 p.m.


If nothing is going on that night, I may just go to this.

My biggest curiosity is to see how an anti-Michael Moore filmmaker portrays his view of "where the U.S. government failed"

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Syd
Posted: Mon Sep 04, 2006 4:48 pm Reply with quote
Site Admin Joined: 21 May 2004 Posts: 12887 Location: Norman, Oklahoma
jeremy wrote:
It appears that Marc's and Billy's prophecies of the likely awfulness of The Wicker Man seem to be on the button.


They are. The movie is dreadful and ludicrous. Kate Beahan as Cage's ex-girlfriend and Rowan's mother gives one of the worst performances I've seen in years. The climax was peculiarly satisfying and I wish I could have joined in.

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lshap
Posted: Mon Sep 04, 2006 10:14 pm Reply with quote
Site Admin Joined: 12 May 2004 Posts: 4246 Location: Montreal
jeremy wrote:
From a report from the Venice Film Festival in today's Guardian:

Quote:
The worst film at Venice, probably the worst film of the year, is Oliver Stone's World Trade Center, presented out of competition. Nicolas Cage plays the real-life Port Authority cop buried in the rubble, and rescued, with a surviving comrade. The film is pompous, over-sentimentalised, desperately dull, filled with deeply misjudged phoney-baloney Hollywood acting from the doe-eyed wives, and finishes with a preposterous squeak of propaganda, insisting on a link between 9/11 and Iraq.


Without the warranted reverence or even with a degree of antipathy, is this how WTC will be viewed outside America?


That paragraph is as pompous and filled with deeply misjudged phoney-baloney as it accuses the film of being. World Trade Center is not at all a great film, but it's way too effective a production to ever be classified as "worst" anything.
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shannon
Posted: Mon Sep 04, 2006 10:29 pm Reply with quote
Joined: 21 May 2004 Posts: 1628 Location: NC
Quote:
World Trade Center is not at all a great film, but it's way too effective a production to ever be classified as "worst" anything.


Not necessarily. Maybe the effectiveness of the production is what makes it the worst film of the year. Mediocrity is worse than simply being bad. Sure, a Rob Schneider movie will objectively be a worse film, but a film that promises greatness but falls short is ultimately much more disappointing and worthy of scorn.
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Mr. Brownstone
Posted: Mon Sep 04, 2006 10:42 pm Reply with quote
Joined: 21 May 2004 Posts: 2450
So...

Little Miss Sunshine is the best movie I've seen in a couple years.

Hope to see WTC & Invinceable soon, but I'm already spewing a nut over The Departed.

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Trish
Posted: Tue Sep 05, 2006 8:24 am Reply with quote
Joined: 21 May 2004 Posts: 2438 Location: Massachusetts
Nancy wrote:
Trish,

I assume you've noticed that Clive Owen made the cover of GQ. With a beard, yet.


Yeah we've discussed the pic here - at first the goatee didn't appeal to me - but I have to say after getting actual magazine - Clive with a goatee has grown on me tremendously - its a very sexy pic. But I just saw a recent picture of him at the Venice Film Festival and the goatee's gone so Joe - you can go back to admiring him again
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Joe Vitus
Posted: Tue Sep 05, 2006 10:14 am Reply with quote
Joined: 20 May 2004 Posts: 14498 Location: Houston
Whew!

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ehle64
Posted: Tue Sep 05, 2006 11:07 am Reply with quote
Joined: 20 May 2004 Posts: 7149 Location: NYC; US&A
Mr. Brownstone wrote:
Little Miss Sunshine is the best movie I've seen in a couple years.


I loved it, too. However, we watched Friends With Money again this weekend, and it's still on top of my list as Best of 2006, with LMS, Le Temp qui reste, and Quinceañera right behind them.

NYFF coming up. New Frears, Lynch, del Toro, among others, so who on earth knows what will happen. . .

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gromit
Posted: Tue Sep 05, 2006 2:21 pm Reply with quote
Joined: 31 Aug 2004 Posts: 9005 Location: Shanghai
Running Scared is sort of like a comic book, with non-stop scenes of violence and danger. Not my type of film, though I guess one can admire the effort to ratchet up an entire film. But it was all so over-the-top and with poor dialogue and mediocre acting, that it was hard to get involved at all or keep from laughing at inappropriate moments. If you want to see a film about the search for a missing gun, I'd recommend Kurosawa's Stray Dog instead.

**SPOILAGE of the mean and evil sort**

Throughout the whirlwind of horrors, I think I cared more about the car (a fine cherry-red Mustang convertible), than I did any of the characters. I wasn't interested at all in who turned out to really be a good or bad guy, or who really got shot. Also, why on earth would he keep murder weapons hidden in his basement, rather than in police custody? And when would he have put on a wire, especially knowing that his crime boss didn't trust him. Maybe something slipped by me, but I can't see why it matters if the police find the gun or not (which is what sets the whole plot in motion).

**END SPOILAGE**

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Earl
Posted: Tue Sep 05, 2006 3:37 pm Reply with quote
Joined: 09 Jun 2004 Posts: 2621 Location: Houston
Tim - Good to see your posts again, as always. Hard not to like anyone who makes this comment...

Mr. Brownstone wrote:
Little Miss Sunshine is the best movie I've seen in a couple years.


...while having this as his tagline:

Quote:
"My name is Gunnery Sergeant Major Highway. And I have drunk more beer, pissed more blood, banged more quiff and knocked more skulls than all you numbnuts put together." - Clint Eastwood, Heartbreak Ridge

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