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| Befade |
 Posted: Thu Jul 03, 2008 1:27 pm |
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Joined: 20 May 2004
Posts: 3784
Location: AZ
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| gromit |
| Posted: Sat Jul 05, 2008 10:02 pm |
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Joined: 31 Aug 2004
Posts: 9010
Location: Shanghai
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billyweeds wrote: Robert Downey Jr. is the main reason--one might say the only reason--to watch the quite annoying teenage rebel dramedy Charlie Bartlett. Downey...Hope Davis ...
Thanks, I've been wondering about that and have been eying the Dvd. The cast sounded interesting, and the fact that the title sounds a lot like Charlie Barnet (the band leader) had me nearly there. I was figuring I could justify it by the fact that I could dump it off on my nieces afterwards. |
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Killing your enemies, if it's done badly, increases their number. |
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| lady wakasa |
| Posted: Sun Jul 06, 2008 3:45 pm |
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Joined: 21 May 2004
Posts: 5911
Location: Beyond the Blue Horizon
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Saw Sukiyaki Western Django yesterday, a joint presentation of Subway Cinema's NY Asian Film Festival and the Japan Society's Japan Cuts. Crazy fun.
(More fun pictures on the DVD Asian site.)
If you took the Japanese epic Tale of the Heike (one of the most pivotal events in Japanese history, comparable to the War of the Roses, or somewhat to the Civil War), ran it through the filter of Sergio Corbucci's 1966 Django, and added toughs carrying guns and katanas, purposefully bad English (the entire cast, except for an extra and an extended cameo by Quentin Tarantino - who also joins in the bad english - is Japanese), wacky colors, and every Western cliche in the book, you'd get a sense of what's going on. The lone stranger riding into town, the baddies made of steel, the dancehall floozy / gritty widow, the tough-drinkin' hard-living crowd, and the classic one liners - they're all here, and "a man's gotta do what a man's gotta do" is only the beginning.
And funny. It's a spoof of the spaghetti western and all it gave rise to, with some bits around Japanese culture and some bits around plain craziness. (The head of the red-garbed Heike clan recites Shakespeare and just wants to be called Henry.) The town's name is "Yuta, Nebada," and you know you're in for something when the wooden sign at the town's entrance reads that - in Japanese. Although I've heard of him for years, I'm not that familiar with Takashi Miike's work. If they're all this entertaining - heck, just this much fun - I'm a convert.
The audience helped, too. They laughed (sometimes at some not-so-funny things), they cheered, they were completely into it. Maybe it was the level of excitement in the sold-out house (I got one of the last standby tickets), maybe it was the festival atmosphere, maybe it was the free t-shirts and beer afterwards. I dunno; it was just fun.
The only real fault I found with the movie was the bad English. It's important to the feel of the film both as a spoof, and as itself (think of all the films you've watched - especially the ones with baaaad Engrish - that you couldn't quite understand) - but a few times subtitles would've been handy. Well, there's always the DVD (although we'll have to wait for the R1 release, as R2's letting us down)... |
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http://www.wakasaworld.com |
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| Syd |
| Posted: Sun Jul 06, 2008 5:43 pm |
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Joined: 21 May 2004
Posts: 12921
Location: Norman, Oklahoma
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Wanted is a lot of fun if you want a snazzy action flick that doesn't make you think too hard. It's about a secret society of assassin weavers called the Fraternity who get their instructions of who to kill by a binary code that appears in fabric from a womb. An office nebbish is recruited since his father was a member and he has inherited his abilities, such as making bullets curve, never missing a target, getting beaten up, and finding spectacular ways to kill people involving crashing dozens of cars, train surfing, firing hundreds of bullets in public places, running police blockades, crashing passenger trains and killing dozens of people; you know, the subtle things that a secret society does. Morgan Freeman is the assassins' leader, and if you can't trust a man who orders hits based on a secret code embedded in flaws in a piece of fabric, who can you trust? Angelina Jolie continues her tradition of playing really hot action heroines, and does it well as usual.
It's all ridiculous, violent, flamboyant and pretty cool, with a nice twisty plot you don't want to look too closely at. |
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I had a love and my love was true but I lost my love to the yabba dabba doo, --The Flintstone Lament |
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| Syd |
| Posted: Sun Jul 06, 2008 5:59 pm |
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Joined: 21 May 2004
Posts: 12921
Location: Norman, Oklahoma
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Hancock is a bit of a mess. If you've seen the previews, you've got the first half of the movie. Hancock (Will Smith) is a superhero who also is a flaming asshole. He's an alcoholic who has a tendency to crash into buildings as he flies--well, really careens through the air. You have to wonder how many more people die as collateral damage to his heroic actions.
One day Ray Embrey (Jason Bateman), a good-hearted PR Man is stuck on the railroad tracks with the train coming. Hancock saves him by flipping the car off the railroad track. Incidentally, the train hits Hancock and is derailed. However, Ray is grateful to be alive, and decides to reward Hancock by applying his skills to making people appreciate Hancock. First step is getting Hancock to serve his sentence.
Meanwhile, Ray's wife Mary (Charlize Theron) seems none too happy to have Hancock around, but her son adores him. As it turns out, Hancock is an amnesiac who woke up with a broken skull in a hospital eighty years earlier, had superpowers he had no idea how he got, no idea what his real identity was, and with nobody caring enough to identify him. Hence his alienation and alcoholism.
There's a very nice, sudden twist, maybe fifty minutes into the film, and it turns into a different kind of movie. Let's say a lot of mysteries are solved, and it's very dangerous to solve them. Although the solutions leave a lot of things unanswered; I suspect, the answers are on the cutting room floor.
All-in-all, it's not a bad picture, just a sloppy one, and gets better as you get into it. |
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I had a love and my love was true but I lost my love to the yabba dabba doo, --The Flintstone Lament |
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| mo_flixx |
| Posted: Sun Jul 06, 2008 8:01 pm |
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Joined: 30 May 2004
Posts: 12533
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I vote to move HANCOCK out of the auditorium with the air-conditioning!
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| billyweeds |
| Posted: Mon Jul 07, 2008 12:49 am |
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Joined: 20 May 2004
Posts: 20618
Location: New York City
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I agree with Syd about Wanted, except he liked it more than I did. It sets up the situation well but then gets really monotonous, with endless train surfing, car crashes, etc., like Syd said. Jolie is terrific, Freeman is aces, McAvoy is a star, but the thing runs out of steam. The ending is good, but the tone varies. Some of the movie plays like snarky Fight Club stuff, some like pretentious Star Wars riffing. It's entertaining to the tune of about two-and-a-half stars.
Oh, and my scene was cut. |
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| marantzo |
| Posted: Mon Jul 07, 2008 8:25 am |
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Quote: Oh, and my scene was cut.
Well, so much for that review then. I hate when critics who have an agenda review works of art. |
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| whiskeypriest |
| Posted: Mon Jul 07, 2008 8:53 am |
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Joined: 20 May 2004
Posts: 6916
Location: "It's a Dry Heat."
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billyweeds wrote: Oh, and my scene was cut. |
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I ask you, Velvel, as a rational man, which of us is possessed? |
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| Nancy |
| Posted: Mon Jul 07, 2008 10:48 am |
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Joined: 20 May 2004
Posts: 4607
Location: Norman, OK
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whiskeypriest wrote: billyweeds wrote: Oh, and my scene was cut. Well, that saved me 9 bucks.
Me too. |
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"All in all, it's just another feather in the fan."
Isaacism, 2009 |
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| mo_flixx |
| Posted: Mon Jul 07, 2008 10:18 pm |
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Joined: 30 May 2004
Posts: 12533
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Has anyone else seen SURFWISE? Marc, who's gone legit, screened it here last weekend.
This is a documentary about a fast track Stanford Med. School graduate (now in his 80's) who gave it all up for surfing, SEX, life in a camper, and fatherhood (9 KIDS - count 'em!).
I guess I was supposed to feel all warm and fuzzy about this cantankerous, curmudgeonly octogenarian (Doc Paskowitz) who devoutly recites Jewish prayers in the nude every day, has a terrific sex life, and is one of the great grandaddies of surfing.
But I found Doc kind of creepy. Unfortunately none of the kids ever got much of an education and bounced around doing things like running the family surf camp and performing in rock bands. One of the sons said he really did want to become a doctor but found out that it was not a realistic goal because of his lack of formal education. Doc was always hard on the kids and probably thought they were lazy. One son is burdened with a severely autistic child. It's hard to tell if the kids and Doc have really reconciled or not. At least that was my opinion despite the "feel good" ending.
I found Doc to be a very controlling person. He was always top dog growing up too. His younger brother and sister (both quite elderly) are also interviewed.
Doc and his kids were the poster family for surfing in the '70's. They appeared in "Endless Summer". In his prime, Doc came pretty close to living the life of Peter Pan and his Lost Boys.
It's interesting that one of the producers of this very successful film is Graydon Carter, editor of "Vanity Fair." |
Last edited by mo_flixx on Tue Jul 08, 2008 8:37 am; edited 1 time in total |
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| Ghulam |
| Posted: Tue Jul 08, 2008 8:08 am |
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Joined: 20 May 2004
Posts: 4742
Location: Upstate NY
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| Alex Gibney's Taxi to the Dark Side (2007), the Oscar winning documentary about torture practices in U.S. prisons in Afghanistan, Iraq and Guantanamo Bay is a grim and disturbing movie with superbly coherent narrative and excllent editing. Haunting! |
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| jeremy |
| Posted: Tue Jul 08, 2008 8:48 am |
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Joined: 21 May 2004
Posts: 6794
Location: Derby, England and Hamilton, New Zealand (yes they are about 12,000 miles apart)
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| Syd gets my forumite of the month award for doggedly continuing to see films and post solid reviews despite the distractions of elections, girls in summer dresses, assorted American sports I'd rather not know about and Wimbledon. |
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I am angry, I am ill, and I'm as ugly as sin.
My irritability keeps me alive and kicking.
I know the meaning of life, it doesn't help me a bit.
I know beauty and I know a good thing when I see it. |
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| Syd |
| Posted: Tue Jul 08, 2008 11:08 am |
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Site Admin
Joined: 21 May 2004
Posts: 12921
Location: Norman, Oklahoma
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| We're having cheerleader camps. I need to distract myself. But not from sun dresses, which are one of the joys of summer. |
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I had a love and my love was true but I lost my love to the yabba dabba doo, --The Flintstone Lament |
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| ehle64 |
| Posted: Thu Jul 10, 2008 11:20 am |
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Joined: 20 May 2004
Posts: 7149
Location: NYC; US&A
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http://www.bam.org/film/series.aspx?id=195
Murnau's Sunrise |
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It truly disappoints me when people do something for you via no prompt of your own and then use it as some kind of weapon against you at a later time and place. It is what it is. |
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