Movie Tab II

The Bourne Ultimatum (2007, Paul Greengrass)

I only recently watched this movie after it had been sitting in my collection for the past couple of months, I have seen the prequels and enjoyed them thoroughly so I had high expectations for this film and I tell you what it met all of them with a high octane punch.
There are so many elements of this film that make it a great conspiracy CIA white knuckle brawler and Matt Damon is great as the amnesic killing machine Jason Bourne.
Move over James Bond theres a new agent in town

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"Tell 'em to go out there with all they got and win just one for the Gipper."

Apocalypto
Mel Gibson, 2006

This has always been one of those movies that you constantly hear people talking about, but I never really thought that I'd have any interest in seeing it. I was actually pretty weary before watching it, too, because of my cousin calling it a 'big waste of time' while I was talking about it with him last night. I'm really, really glad that I decided not to listen to him, because I ended up loving every second of it. I couldn't have even paused it to go use the restroom, even if I did really have to go. It got me hooked so bad, hell it got my entire family hooked. My mom even missed one of her usual shows that she watches on Sunday, because the movie got her so hooked.

This is one movie that I think just wouldn't work without the excessive use of violence. You need every bit of violence in the movie, because without it, the story cannot be told. To me it did seem that a few scenes were a tad over-the-top, but I can mind it because I was so engrossed in the movie. It has some of the best visuals I've ever seen, but the amazing scenery in the movie really helped add to that. This film has left me blown away more than almost any other movie that I've ever seen. I'm not going to call it one of the greatest movies I've ever seen until I've had a re-watch to prove that with.





Gran Torino
Clint Eastwood, 2008

I remember when I first saw this in theaters, and I loved it so much that I gave the full perfect score. I remember that I even put it within the top 15 on my top 100 list, but I feel that list is pretty much crappy and unprepared now anyways. I still think that is a pretty great movie, but nowhere near as perfect as I thought. It's still probably my second favorite of 2008, right behind The Dark Knight of course. The main thing that seemed to stick out with this re-watch is how crappy the main boy's acting was. The entire first half of the movie, I was pretty much fine with his acting, but he got way too melodramatic during the second. Pretty much every part of the movie after he gets the cigarrette shoved into his face is pretty much laughably bad. The main girl's acting was fine throughout, though. I guess I didn't notice that in theaters because I was just too into the movie.

Clint Eastwood is damn near amazing in this, which is his final acting role ever. As a huge Eastwood fan, I'm going to miss seeing him in newer movies, especially because his actings been getting really amazing with some of these final movies he's done. I think in a way, Eastwood's character coulf go parallel with Eastwood's real life acting career. This is still a really great movie, and I'd say that I think everyone should at least try to give it a try.

+

Taxi Driver (Scorsese, 1976)



It just keeps getting better, every time I see it. This was the first time my girlfriend had seen it, and she was blown away.

Pirates of the Caribbean : The Curse of the Black Pearl (Verbinski, 2003)



A fun pirate romp. I still think Knightly's character is sort of a cardboard cutout, though. Also, a bit too much Bloom in this one, and he doesn't have the chops for it. I think I like the second one more. Great score, though.

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Ghost World (Terry Zwigoff, 2001) -

I'm not entirely sure what to think about Ghost World. In a sense, it's made me think more about the nature of some films that I watch. For example, I was left wondering exactly what I disliked more - films with characters and situations that I couldn't relate to whatsoever or films where I related a lot. Ghost World definitely falls into the latter category - yet I don't really like it that much. Is it because it hits a little too close to home for my liking? Some people just don't like mirrors.

Or maybe Ghost World just isn't that good. I don't think it's what you'd call a bad film - at least, not bad in the sense that something like, say, Battlefield Earth is bad. It's competently made, relying less on plot and interesting visuals than on the characters and the way they're developed over the course of the film. Objectively, I can't really fault it, unless of course I point out its strengths as actually being weaknesses, but of course I'm bound to find fans on here who will defend them and in that case, why bother? At least the film is that open where different people can like and dislike the exact same facets.

So yeah, Ghost World - strange film, and I have a strange opinion about it. I don't like it enough to say it's good or hate it enough to say it's bad, I just feel extremely conflicted about it. Maybe the fact that it doesn't inspire such blandly polarised reactions such as "I like it" or "I don't like it" is a good thing by itself. This is a quality that I feel is reflected in the characters themselves - I never found any of them absolutely likeable or dislikeable, just some sort of strange middle ground. This does make the film sound bland, and for all I know, it probably is underneath all the weirdness.

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Iro's Top 100 Movies v3.0

Revolutionary Road (Sam Mendes, 2008)



Richard Yates' 1961 novel is turned into a well-crafted, well-acted commentary about married people living out their lives basically apart. The young couple, Frank Wheeler (Leonardo DiCaprio) and his wife April (Kate Winslet) have been married for 10 years and have two children. Frank has a job working in an office building, but he doesn't feel fulfilled with his career. After April fails miserably at the center of a local play, she and Frank decide they should go for personal and married happiness and move to Paris, no matter how implausible the idea seems.

Revolutionary Road seems like it's some revisionist look back at the 1950s, but since the source material is almost 50 years old, this is not the case. Personally, I related to the themes of the movie, which I took to be (1) Very few people get a chance to do what they want in this life, at least to the point where they can support themselves and their family while doing it; (2) Marriages are often on autopilot, and the two parties often seem to be leading two completely separate lives where it's difficult to communicate openly with each other based on the fact that their concepts of emotional intimacy are different. Now, Brenda and I've been married a wonderful 21 years, and I believe that we have a strong marriage, but both of those topics have affected us at times. What separates this film from other similarly-themed films of recent years is that the dialogue is much stronger and more believable between the couple. True, I told my daughter Sarah that all you really need to do is watch five minutes of Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? and you'll get the gist of this film, but then you get the Greek Chorus of Michael Shannon, playing a truly unique character, who also offers up some sharp dialogue about the Wheelers' lives and dreams, how "crazy" they may be, and how they relate to the "Real World".


A Perfect World (Clint Eastwood, 1993)



I like A Perfect World, but this viewing left me with a few nagging questions I haven't had before. I realize that many people enjoy it because it's directed by Eastwood and that they think it gives Costner a good role which he plays perfectly, as opposed to his usual craptastic acting. Well, I agree it's a good performance, but I've never had a problem with Costner's acting. He basically seems like a modern version of Gary Cooper to me, so sue me or shoot me to put me out of my misery. In this flick, he plays an escaped convict named Butch who's a man of violence, but when he's forced to take a young, fatherless boy (T.J. Lowther) as a hostage, he treats the boy as he would have wanted to be treated by his own worthless dad. The relationship between Butch and the boy is strong. However, they are pursued by a Texas Ranger (Clint Eastwood) and a criminologist (Laura Dern) in a "hi-tech" motor home (well, at least it has TaterTots). The scenes with the law enforcement pursuers do provide some context for what's going on, but they sometimes play out as comedy relief, and one of the film's flaws I noticed this time is that it's just too long at 137 minutes. Most of the final 45 minutes seem stretched almost to the breaking point, and I believe the film loses some of its power by being elongated. Even so, it's worth another peak, or a first one for any who haven't seen it yet.

Ferris Bueller's Day Off (John Hughes, 1986) -



My vote for the best film that John Hughes was ever involved in is this still-pertinent and hilarious comedy about righteous dude Ferris Bueller (Matthew Broderick) having his day off from high school, spending it with his girlfriend Sloane (Mia Sara) and his best friend Cameron (Alan Ruck), all the while trying to elude the Principal (Jeffrey Jones) who'll stop at nothing to catch him ditching. There's also Ferris's sister (Jennifer Grey) who seems to be the only person at school who doesn't love him. The way that Ferris is able to get away with much of his shenanigans foreshadows some of Hughes' later scripts (Home Alone), but this cast, especially narrator Broderick, who spends half of the time talking to the screen, really pushes this one up to the top of teen comedies. I'm not sure I want to get into the specifics of such things as the shower scene, the parade, the Ferrari, the dog, the baseball game, the "Sausage King", etc. Needless to say, my entire family watched it and still love it.

Doc (Frank Perry, 1971)



This revisionist take on Doc Holliday (Stacy Keach), Kate Elder (Faye Dunaway), Wyatt Earp (Harris Yulin), Tombstone and the gunfight at the O.K. Corral has some strong performances and an intriguing atmosphere, but ultimately it amounts to much ado about nothing. The script tries to give some psychological depth to the characters, but it all turns into smoke because the characters are never illuminated at all by their actions or their dialogue; it's only the actors who are able to keep your interest all the way until the gunfight at the end of the film. Keach is appropriately intense and Dunaway is almost smoldering, but they seem to be working inside a vacuum. Even so, I'd probably rank this as the weakest version of the story I've seen which is too bad because director Perry and scripter Pete Hamill are obviously capable of much better.

An American Werewolf in London (John Landis, 1981)



I never get tired of watching this flick. It's really amazing how much you can put into 90 minutes of film and produce a rollercoaster ride of terror, laughs, sex and love, music and tragedy. The title makes you think that you're going to get a spoof, but the spoofy elements are mostly present in the porno movie playing in Piccadilly Circus. This film is the real deal, and if you're one of those people who claims that you've never been scared by a movie, I want to present Exhibit A: the scene on the moors near the beginning of the movie with American tourists David (David Naughton) and Jack (Griffin Dunne). That is one crackerjack scene that always impresses me. However, that's just the beginning. The film is really quite nerve-wracking all the way through and presents a world where it's difficult to discern reality from fantasy, at least until it's too late to do anything about it. It definitely has characters and implications which I've never seen depicted in any other movie. One other thing I have to say about the film is that although the transformation scene is impressive and placed in the middle of the film, it's just another scene, and to me, it's no more "special" or better than the scenes with the balloons or in the subway or at the hospital with lovely nurse Alex (Jenny Agutter). I remember my nephew watching the movie and being enthralled by it all the way up until the disturbing ending. Then he said, "I didn't like it", and I said, "That proves how good it is!"

Bringing Up Baby (Howard Hawks, 1938) -



Classic screwball comedy doesn't get much screwier than this. Paleontologist David (Cary Grant) receives the intercostal clavicle of a brontosaurus which will complete his reconstruction of the fossil dinosaur for his museum and proceeds to the golf course to try to obtain a million dollars from the lawyer of a rich benefactor. He immediately becomes entangled with flighty Susan (Katharine Hepburn) who just happens to be the niece of the benefactor (May Robson). Susan is taking care of her brother's pet leopard Baby, and when David visits her home, Baby escapes and the family dog becomes interested in David's bone and proceeds to take and bury it somewhere. What started out as manic turns into insanity as a visiting big game hunter (Charlie Ruggles) tries to hunt the leopard, and another, wild leopard gets added into the mix. Grant is an expert farceur here and plays well against Hepburn's slightly-quieter, yet equally-outrageous manner. There is no doubt that there's sexual attraction between the two leads, at least as much as possible between scientific "Dr. Bone" who "just went gay all of a sudden" and a 12-year-old girl running around in a 30-year-old's body. (Trust me, that last line makes sense.) Screwball comedies are basically romantic comedies at heart, but they just try to disarm you with crazy laughter before you accept the fact that the couple is a match made in heaven... or at least in this case, movie heaven.

To Have and Have Not (Howard Hawks, 1944)



Another match made in heaven, Bogie and Baby. This was the first teaming of Bogart and Bacall, and it was instigated by director Hawks and his wife "Slim". Hawks made a bet with Ernest Hemingway that he could make a good movie out of Papa's worst book, so Hemingway said he had to adapt To Have and Have Not. Slim Hawks had seen Bacall on a Harper's Bazaar magazine cover and brought her to the attention of her husband who cast the 19-year-old as the female lead. Hawks hired William Faukner and veteran screenwriters Leigh Brackett and Jules Furthman to retool the novel into something more along the lines of Casablanca, and the rest, as they say, is history.

Bogart became another romantic hero who was doing the right thing against his better judgment. Instead of Sam in Casablanca, the piano player here is Hoagy Carmichael's Cricket. It's still a Warner Bros. film, so that's another reason why it seems so similar to Casablanca in the sets, costumes, music, etc. One thankful addition is Walter Brennan as Bogie's rummy friend Eddie who accompanies him in his boat travel around Martinique. Eddie gets a line ("Was you ever bit by a dead bee?") almost as memorable as Slim's (Bacall's) lines to Bogart, "You know you don't have to act with me, Steve. You don't have to say anything, and you don't have to do anything. Not a thing. Oh, maybe just whistle. You know how to whistle, don't you, Steve? You just put your lips together and... blow". Bacall and Bogart next made The Big Sleep with Hawks and were married the next year, and they stayed married until Bogie's death from cancer in 1957.

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It's what you learn after you know it all that counts. - John Wooden
My IMDb page

Ooh, harshness. I think Black Pearl is by far the best in the series, and sets a great standard for modern adventure films. The script is sharp, the pacing is almost flawless, and the production is unwaveringly focused. Bloom and Knightly are weak links, that's true, but I think there are plenty of fun characters around to offset that. I also kind of like how their "damsel-in-distress/knight-in-shining-armor" relationship is more of a singular parody of yesteryear's adventure cinema (and yet, the writers still found ways to upend that, such as making Elizabeth a resourceful woman who fights back).

Nevertheless...




Crude Impact (Wood, 2006)

No, this isn't a sequel to Deep Impact. It's a recent eco-conscious documentary highlighting the ongoing worldwide scramble to keep increasingly oil-thirsty nations nourished, and the harmful effect this behavior is having on our planet's health. The issue is certainly nothing new, and like every other documentary, Crude Impact attempts to use spine-tingling facts to frighten people into believing that something must be done now.

I can't speak to the facts themselves, but I will say that the film effectively takes a "hard numbers" kind of approach, coupled with biting images of the many crimes against humanity committed in recent years in the name of crude oil. As one might expect, there's a hefty indictment against the U.S. government's continuing role in these phenomena. Certainly, it makes sense: here's a nation that depends on petroleum products - by far - more than any other, and yet makes up less than a tenth of its population. Believe what you will about America's intentions, but it's no secret that the U.S. has consistently paid large subsidies to petroleum companies like Exxon, Shell, and others, who are responsible for some of the most negligent practices you'll find in the world. (There's a particularly despicable segment about Shell's involvement in eradicating a nonviolent protest organization conducted by the Ogoni in Nigeria, whose drinking water had been contaminated by decades of the company's careless waste dumping.)

What I think is most alarming about the film, and about the issue in general, is that change isn't going to come from guilting elected leaders into action, or swapping out our incandescent light bulbs for flourescent ones. There's money to be made on oil, and that's the end of it... natural and human casualties be damned. It's been such an enduring truth for so long that our entire way of living is dependent on it, and the only remedy is a worldwide preening of population, industry, and dependence on petroleum... which is impossible. Some of the speakers in the film are even skeptical that the pendulum will really swing back once the world's supply of oil is gone. Because when you've committed to a lifestyle of exponential growth, pretty soon you realize just how finite the rest of Earth's resources are.

Night at the Museum 2(Shawn Levy 2009)-This one was too much the first part was kind of better maybe because we haven's seen something like this before and here we had a lot from everything.The movie has a lot of laughs but I don't think that Ben Stiller delivers that much it's mostly Owen Willson,Steve Coogan and Hank Azaria.All in all it was OK if you don't have nothing to watch

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I'm in movie heaven

Bram Stoker's Dracula (Coppola, 1992)

ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ




eXistenZ (Cronenberg, 1999)

ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ

The Good , The Bad , and The Ugly 1966

My first viewing of this one with my "noggin screwed on" , I ended up liking just as much the first time I saw it (which was a ways back when I first started my review thread). There were a few moments where I thought "that's just classic" , but most of the time I felt it made very awkward jumps in telling it's story which didn't feel like it was going anywhere special the whole while. I guess that's a trait I appreciate in movies , when you can speculate on what's going to happen and then seeing how it actually unfolds.





Yojimbo 1961

Maybe I'm a bit backwards , but often times samurai movies capture my own sensibilities than westerns. An ingenious plot completly followed up on with twists performed by an older/wiser Mifune than the one we see in Seven Samurai.





The Hangover 2009

Funny actors with bad chemistry , a director who brings nothing good to the table whatsoever , and a few funny moments - make this one of the most forgetable movies of the year (at least I can forget it , unlike Dead Snow .... ).

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Nice review Sleezy.

Have you seen Lessons of Darkness?

It was so good that Leone borrowed it for A Fistful of Dollars.

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"Don't be so gloomy. After all it's not that awful. Like the fella says, in Italy for 30 years under the Borgias they had warfare, terror, murder, and bloodshed, but they produced Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci, and the Renaissance. In Switzerland they had brotherly love - they had 500 years of democracy and peace, and what did that produce? The cuckoo clock."

Battle for the Planet of the Apes
J. Lee Thompson, 1973

The final installment in the Planet of the Apes series, and it pretty much matches up with the other sequels. This is probably my second favorite of all the sequels, after Conquest of the Planet of the Apes of course. The plot is still pretty rediculous, but it's done better in this than say Escape from the Planet of the Apes. The final battle sequence in this was pretty great, but very short. The entire series really lead up to this final battle, and I was left wanting more. The final climax in the series just didn't deliver like it had promised. I still wouldn't mind buying the entire series sometime, because even though I haven't exactly rated the sequels high, I've still enjoyed all of them.





Get Carter
Mike Hodges, 1971

Let me first start off by saying that I wasn't exactly in the mood to watch this today, but I still watched it for some reason. It would probably show why I gave it such a low rating. It just didn't seem to interest me much, which is a pretty big surprise because this would seem like the kind of film that I would love. Once again, it all may be because I just wasn't in the mood today. Michael Caine was pretty great in this, though. Probably the youngest I've ever seen him. I don't really want to say much more until I give it a re-watch, though. I'm pretty much postive that my rating will improve greatly when I'm more in the mood to watch this kind of movie.





Cabaret
Bob Fosse, 1972

This movie surprised me so much, because I thought that I wouldn't like it one bit. It looked so un-interesting to me, and the only reason I even watched it was because it is one AFI's Top 100. I was totally surprised when I ended up loving, though. This was probably the best movie that I watched all day. I do tend to like musicals, and this one certainly isn't an exception. The music is great to listen to and the dancing is pretty great as well. What makes it so great, though, is that it has an amazing story to back up the music. There actually wasn't even that musical numbers in this anyways, and it mainly relied on it's story. I did feel that the last 15 minutes could've been cut off the movie to make it even better than it was.

Liza Minnelli is incredibly hot in this, and I mean really hot. I could watch this movie over-and-over again just to look at her pretty face as much as I can. She's a pretty great actress and singer on top of that, so she's just great all around. She worked really great with Michael York, too, who was a pretty damn good actor as well. I'd definitely recommend trying to give this movie a try sometime if you haven't yet, because if you're like me, then you won't be disappointed by it.

+



Wall-E
Andrew Stanton, 2008

I forgot how great this movie actually was, but after seeing Up this past weekend, I want to try and re-visit all of Pixar's previous films. I decided to start with this one because my DVD of The Incredibles is all scratched up and skips a lot, which I've been meaning to re-buy for awhile now. I remember liking it a whole hell of a lot more with my previous viewings of it, though. This is still pretty amazing visually to look at, and this is probably Pixar's finest film yet visually. I feel the story is great, too, but doesn't compare to some of Pixar's other films. I loved all the references to past sci-fi movies, namely 2001: A Space Odyssey. The score played during some of the movie, and the entire ship's computer sub-plot is an obvious homage to 2001. Making the people blurry during the hyper-jump is also an obvious homage back to Star Trek.

Watching this again tonight really just made me relize how great Pixar movies really are, and it also is a conformation that I like Up more. It's still a pretty great movie, and I still remember how much it surprised me when I first saw it. After Cars and Ratatouille, I was beginning to think that Pixar was losing it, but this really showed me that they haven't lost it just quite yet. I do really need to go back and give Ratatouille another try, though, because I've only seen it once before, and that was the first day it came out in theaters.

Nope. Should I?

W (2008, Oliver Stone)

2.5/5

Disappointingly average.

I guess that Stone decided not to be overtly personally opinionated about Bush in order to let the man's actions, or various writers' views on his actions, speak for themselves. As such it falls between two stools - It seems to leave out too much to be a straight biopic and isn't as bile-fuelled as, no doubt, a lot of people want to see in order to cleanse themselves of a man that they voted into office. Twice.

That said, Brolin brings a basic likeability to Dubya the bloke that I think got him over many hurdles with the American public.

Likeability is a rare political skill (and I think of it as a skill, not a gift) thesedays - Blair had it while his successor Gordon Brown, while trying to implement the same basic policy, does not. Economic crisis or not Gordon, while a decent man in my opinion, will never win an election and was lucky to come in mid-term.

Anyway, I think Stone dropped the ball here. It's not a bad film and zips along at a fair pace when compared to some of his more turgid work but it could have been a lot more provocational. Pull yer finger out Oliver!



Would you trust this man to sell you a slightly used right-wing agenda?

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"Critics are like eunuchs in a harem; they know how the Tatty 100 is done, they've seen it done every day, but they're unable to do it themselves." - Brendan Behan

Walkabout (1971 Nicolas Roeg) A



On the Town (1949 Stanley Donen) A



Sexy Beast (2001 Jonathan Glazer) A

Ben Kingsley was 52 shades of crazy.



And what's with the crazy rabbit guy...reminded me of Frank.

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Do not meddle in the affairs of Dragons.....for you are crunchy and good with ketchup.

Riki-oh: The Story Of Ricky (Ngai Kai Lam 1991)

Trash rating

This martial arts-gore hybrid adapted from Tetsuya Saruwatari's manga ''Riki-oh'' is one of the craziest movies I've ever seen. By crazy I mean Kerrr-Ray-Zeeee...no Kidding...The Story of Riki makes Ryu Kitamura's Versus look like a Sunday school play performed by swatty bedwetting ten year olds.

Hong Kong actor Sui-Wong Fang is the superhuman Riki-Oh of the title. A hard-as-nails do gooder dumped in a futuristic prison inhabited by the kind of inmates who'd give Vinnie Jones nightmares. Unsurprisingly the place is corrupt and the warden's a complete bastard who (very surprisingly) likes to show off his porn collection (which takes pride of place behind his desk - I'm not kidding). So far so what right? Well yeah, but wait for it...you see Riki's quite literally so hard that when he hits people he reduces them to raspberry puree. Cue a gleefully yucky succession of ultra-gory fights and madcap black humor all offset by one of the funniest (and by that I mean ineptly terrible) dubbing tracks of all time. Oh and the scene in which the warden's overweight son (who looks like he's been taking lessons from Casper Jnr in Miller's Crossing) trips and falls whilst entering the prison is comedy gold. La la-la-la ooh. Essential viewing for trash fans.



Street Law (Enzo G. Castellari 1974) Trash rating
In crime ridden Genoa, mild mannered engineer Carlo (Franco Nero in wimp mode) gets kidnapped during a post office robbery by unsavory types who slap him about and leave his semi-conscious body in docklands. Has Carlo's family been raped and murdered? No. Has his girlfriend (Barbara Bach) been molested, attacked or mugged? No. Yet Carlo suddenly goes all Charles Bronson on us swearing revenge against the vile hoodlums who attacked him - and would clearly have him for breakfast if this film was zero point five percent more realistic.

Street Law is jaw droppingly dumb right from the get go beginning with the kind of disorganised heist that'd have Neil McCauly from Heat spinning in his grave. Credibility is stretched to breaking point and things just spiral out of control as Carlo (who's so wet you can almost hear him squelch with every step) tries to infiltrate the underworld to track the robbers down. But for what? Soon after he blackmails and subsequently befriends!!!??? Tommy (Giancarlo Prete who looks like Cameron Vale from Scanners) a sympathetic thief with all the intelligence of a lobotomized flea. Together they concoct a surprisingly clever scheme to spur a reluctant police department into action, and lure the villains into the open...



Despite my somewhat cynical comments I found Street Law rather fun. Castellari's (who cut his teeth on Spaghetti westerns and made around fifteen films with Nero) direction is pretty standard for this type of fare. It's all slow motion violence (his trademark) and second rate car chases; complimented by some nice location work (particularly the shipping yard), an amusingly meek performance from Nero, and a knockout psychedelic-funk soundtrack from italo legends Guido and Maurizio De Angelis. Naturally it's dubbed, the incoherent story is ludicrous, and the violence layed on with a trowel. But seen as I kinda' knew these things going into Street Law, the overall experience was a satisfying one.

Brother Bear(2003)-The things you watch to impress a girl and believe me it's not worth it at all even though when she is sitting next to me and doesn't understand what I am writing at this exact moment(her English is very bad) but its not about the girl it's about the movie and Disney doesn't work for me anymore with all that singing and shallow plots at least they put always some stupid characters(the two goats screaming at the echo-that was good and the moose's ) to keep the movie going plus I fell asleep through the last 20 minutes.It seems that cartoons don't work for me anymore

Star Trek 2: The Wrath of Khan (Nicholas Meyer - 1982)

Star Trek 3: The Search For Spock (Lenard Nimoy - 1984)

Star Trek 4: The Voyage Home (Lenard Nimoy - 1986)

I guess I can understand when people can say these flicks are dated and what not. They are 27, 25 and 23 years old now,respectively. I don't care though. These movies are good, so was the show for that matter. I like most of the spinoffs too for what its worth. I guess I would qualify as a 'Trekkie'. I think the stories in these earlier flicks are pretty great. Especially the first 5 or 6 flicks. I agree, that the even numbered ones are better than the odd numbered installments but they are all still very watchable. And I still get a kick out of all of them. As I mentioned in the new Star Trek thread, to me, what sets these flicks apart from the newest one is the villians.

Apparently, I'm only allowed to bad mouth the flick if I absolutely hated it though or something. At least that's the feeling I've been getting when ever I make a comment and someone else around the board expresses shock and awe as to how I couldn't love what was truly a pretty mediocre flick. Maybe I'm just getting old and can't let go of how attached I am to the original crew. Or maybe the gimmick used in the new Star Trek used to "reset" the entire series is really nothing more than a gimmick and I'm right in thinking that if it didn't say 'Star Trek' on the title they wouldn't have gotten half the business that they got. Anyway... give these flicks their due and also give them a watch whille you're at it. I contend that the Star Trek universe didn't need to be completely reset, but maybe that's just me.

The 40 Year Old Virgin (Judd Apatow- 2005)

Man, I really love MoFo and the people here. And I am so glad that there are plenty of folks here who don't mind pointing out the fact that I am really missing out on some quality flicks when I talk about skipping a movie like this. This flick was funny as all get out and I'm an idiot for waiting so long to see it. I'm done skipping flicks I think. I'm just going to watch it and love or hate it or whatever... The musical interlude at the end of this flick was a definite high light for me. Steve Carrel is rapidly becoming a guy that I am going to watch in anything he is in.

Tank Girl (Rachel Talalay - 1995)

One of my favorite movies and likely always will be. It is so much fun and I think the writing is terrific. It reminds me of a lot of the writing from Buffy The Vampire Slayer, which is a really good thing. I can certainly understand anyone who can't get into it or just thinks its corny or cheesy but these are the kind of flicks I enjoy the most. Probably part of the reason I enjoyed this next one so much...

Wristcutters: A Love Story (Goran Dukic - 2006)

What happens when a person commits suicide? As a much younger teen I wondered that at times myself. I basically came to the conclusion that nothing happens. Maybe though, just maybe you don't die at all but you are reborn in the exact same town with everyone else who has ever commited suicide and you just continue to live your life, only here no one smiles and everyone is even more miserable. Plus, "its hot as balls". Such a great line. This is a very good flick and I really enjoyed it. Tom Waits was also in this for an extended time and that is always a good thing. As a matter of fact my ratings invariably tend to rise everytime he's in something. I love that dude. He agrees with me on many, many levels. It's funny, the wife heard him talking and she said he sounds like someone from another flick we watched awhile ago who's name escapes me right now, to which I quickly pointed out, nope. That's just someone else doing Waits. He has been talking and singing that way for as long as I've been alive and even before that. They broke the mold with Waits.

The Hangover (Todd Phillips - 2009)

I'm giving this a pretty fair rating because of how funny I found most of the characters to be. The story in the flick itself was basically nonexistent but the guys in the flick were pretty damn funny all around.

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We are both the source of the problem and the solution, yet we do not see ourselves in this light...

Touchez pas au Grisbi (1954, Jacques Becker)

An aging gangster played by Jean Gabin and his partner in crime for over 20 years plan on retiring now that they've pulled off a huge score in this stylish film of vice and crime. He's been getting soft as the years have progressed and the inevitable occurs as a gangster of the younger generation makes a move. Slow and patient in its approach right up until its fateful conclusion.



Fires on the Plain (1959, Kon Ichikawa)

On the Philippine island of Leyte it's a desperate time of survival for the Japanese soldiers all but abandoned near the closing of World War II. PFC Tamura travels throughout the island after being turned away from the hospital despite his tuberculosis, meeting various soldiers and citizens of the island. Humanity and fight to hold on to it has a major part to play in this battle against the elements, the self, the body, and his fellow man whether it be the enemy or the soldiers on his side. Excellent performances and images that impress themselves upon your mind add to a film with such important themes that it should not be missed.

Holden, you were certainly right when you called this film a masterpiece.



A Generation (1955, Andrzej Wajda)

The first film of Andrzej Wajda's War Trilogy can't compare to Kanal or Ashes and Diamonds but is still a decent film about resistance and the price one must sometimes have to pay in order to challenge those who oppress. Stach is a young Polish teenager living with his mom who only wants her son to get a good job and earn a living. Although partly due to his youthful ideals, and partly due to a beautiful outspoken girl, he joins up with the Union of Fighting Youth and forms his own cell to wage war on the Nazi regime.

Side note: A very young Roman Polanski can be seen as one of the "Fighting Youth".



We Own the Night (2007, James Gray)

Subpar acting from those you would normally expect a little more, and an unconvincing story that tries hard to look as cool as some of the similarly themed films to come before this one are a few reasons why this film was not worth my time. A nightclub manager has to decide whether to ignore his father and brother's (who are police officers) request for information when they inform him of a certain amount of attention on his club due to a major drug dealer operating out of it. Full of annoying characters and some really lame and poorly timed slow motion, I don't want to get into it.



Au Hasard Balthazar (1966, Robert Bresson)

Balthazar is an ass, a donkey that is, and we follow him through his life moving from one owner to another, some compassionate and some cruel. Balthazar experiences all what the humans around him experience, that is except for the fact that we humans can understand what is happening to us, Balthazar just lives without that knowledge. I was reminded of Nietzsche's The Ass Festival from the last part of Thus Spoke Zarathustra while watching this, as the humans that surround Balthazar are so extremely flawed, unable to control certain actions of theirs, and Balthazar is there the whole time with that same look on his face. Bresson was known to erase all ideals of performance when dealing with his actors and Balthazar is no different.

Dog Day Afternoon
Sidney Lumet, 1975

This has always been one of those movies that looked pretty interesting to me, but never was really in a mood to watch. I decided to just go ahead and watch this earlier today, and I'm pretty happy that I did. I ended up really liking it. It started off slower than I was expecting it to, but after the first 15 minutes or so, the movie really picked up. It's pretty surprising to, because most of the entire movie takes place in this one bank, except for the ending. By the end of the movie, though, you're left feeling sorry for the bank robbers. It was great seeing Al Pacino and John Cazale back together for a team.

As those you who've seen The Godfather, you'll know that John Cazale plays Pacino's brother, Fredo, in that. He was very quite throughout the entire movie, though, and never reall said a whole lot. Al Pacino is in every second of the movie, and his acting really shines throughout. He's the character that does all the talking. I don't know, there was more stuff that I wanted to say earlier about this, but I really can't remember any of it anymore. I suppose I'll just leave off with saying that you should see this movie if you haven't yet.





The Poseidon Adventure
Ronald Neame, 1972

I never really even meant to watch this, I accidently clicked this while trying to click something else in my Netflix instant queue. I would've watched it eventually, though, so I just continued watching it. It turned out to be good, but nothing really more, which is what I had expected. This is a good action/thriller, but I think it just takes to long for the ship to actually flip over. I've seen the remake before and it had some similarties, but it was pretty different overall. The entire cast seemed to work well together, but I guess out of the cast, Gene Hackman was the best. I don't know, but I don't really feel that there's much more to say this one this one.

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Peeping Tom
Michael Powell, 1960

I constantly hear how similar this is to Psycho, which always had me excited to finally see it, with Psycho in my top 5 after all. I must say that I was somewhat disappointed, even though I did really like it for the most part. I can see why this didn't get as big as Psycho now, even though they both did come out in the same year, actually this one beats it by a couple of months. My main problem with this one is that there's like no suspence in it what-so-ever. It has an overall creepy kind of feel, but none of the scene really ever sent shivers down my spine, like Psycho for example.

Another big problem that I seemed to have this one was the leading role they chose, Carl Boehm. He didn't seem psychcotic at all, but instead he came off as just more unsocial and weird. I would've liked it better if they hadn't shown why he was like that, too, but instead they showed that he was like that because of his troubled childhood. Of course this is just another advantage that Psycho had over it. Despite me not sounded incredibly postive with this, like I said before, I still thought that it was really good. I'd say that people wanting to see it should still give it a try sometime.

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