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Your review makes it sound like the rating should be much lower.
At best its a
because of the landscape and the first hour and a half was decent. It might actually get a
because of such an abrupt ending, as well as the sloppy pacing.



Sit Ubu Sit.... Good Dog


Beneath Hill 60 (2010)
Directed by: Jeremy Sims
Written by: David Roach


Beneath Hill 60 tells story of a group of volunteer Australian miners who were employed during WWI to undermine and then blow up enemy German positions. The film is so authentic in its presentation of the terrible conditions endured by all sides at the front and is more astonishing as it was filmed in Australia and funded by inter alia The Australian Film Commission. The acting is great, the cinematography though not beautiful does exactly what you want in terms of conveying the filth and the sense of claustrophobia when below ground. They do not shy away from the gruesome detail and Alan Dukes and Brendan Cowell are both excellent leads.



That said there is not one lack lustre performance and every one comes across as believable. The story is told with a use of flash backs but this is so well balanced that it helps the narrative flow. For fans of history it also tells a part of the amazing Allied attack on the Messine Ridge which had at that time (due to the miners placing massive ammounts of explosives under the german lines) the largest manmade explosion ever recorded, anyone who is a fan of war films will love this movie.

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Miss Vicky's Loyal and Willing Slave
Again just posting the last batch of reviews from my movie musings thread. For people who want to give positive rep (which I'm very grateful for) I'd appreciate that if it's for a particular film or two if you could actually leave the rep in my reviews thread seeing as that is where the work has gone in. If it's just for all the ratings in general then that's ok. Thanks


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Assault on Precinct 13


Finally got around to seeing this. As a fan of John Carpenter and cult movies in general why it took so long is a bit of a mystery. Anyway now that I have I can see just what I was missing out on.

This is a very early effort from John Carpenter, indeed it was only his second full length feature following Dark Star. As a result it's not as accomplished as some of his later work, it feels a little callow and a bit rough round the edges. In a way I actually think that's beneficial to the film however, helping to build the raw power and intensity. The same could also be said of the acting. It's certainly not the most skilled but as a result it feels quite genuine and honest. It makes.................

Review continues here

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Day of the Jackal

+

While this film and my previous viewing, Assault on Precinct 13, could both fall under the umbrella term of a thriller, they probably couldn't take two more different approaches to the task of achieving thrills and suspense. While Assault on Precinct 13 was a furious, flash bang affair this is a much more methodical, calculated piece. A film revelling in the minutiae of the whole thing. This political/spy thriller has a real air of quality. What is particularly interesting is that the film starts with a true life event, a failed attempt on the life of de Gaulle, before branching off into a world of fiction. A what if? situation.

The real draw here is the intelligently scripted cat and mouse game...................

Review contines here

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Frenzy


The plot is a familiar one for a Hitchcock film. An innocent man is falsely accused of a serious crime and goes on the run until he can clear his name. However this time we don't find ourselves in an escapist world of espionage, spies and global conspiracy. This time we are in much darker, seedier waters. Coming towards the end of his career (it's his penultimate film) it almost plays as a scrapbook of elements from his previous work. Along with the familiar plot of an innocent man wrongly accused which was found in many a Hitchcock film (The 39 Steps, The Man Who Knew Too Much, Saboteur etc) there is the relationship between Blaney and Rusk that evokes feelings of Strangers on a Train's 'friendship' between Bruno and Guy. There is the sexual deviance of Psycho...............

Review continues here

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The Andromeda Strain

-

While I may be greatly enjoying my 70s thriller season I've came across a problem. I've never felt so paranoid in my life! I feel myself constantly looking over my shoulder and eyeing up shifting-looking people. And that cough/runny nose I thought had been caused by everyone cutting their grass of late? Turns out it's an alien virus!

For people raised only on modern sci-fi films this may not be for them. There aren't any explosions, little action and a real lack of any special effects. This is certainly a film that would fall into the category of 'adult sci-fi'. While it may be science fiction (and let's hope it remains so)............................

Review continues here

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Charley Varrick

++

What we have here is an eccentric, oddball depiction of the criminal underworld and those who reside there. With twists and turns round every corner, and a series of peculiar characters this is a tough as nails, but fun offering from Don Siegl. It's a fairly simple narrative, with a plot that is unlikely to stun anyone with its originality. Therefore if it wanted to rise above most of the other entries in the genre it would have to possess great performances, strong direction and a tight script. It's fortunate then that the film is arguably blessed with all of these. It may look a little dated, not far off resembling an episode of Starsky and Hutch or Quincy at points, but everything else is so enjoyable that I soon forgot about that and just got absorbed into the film.........................

Review continues here

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The Boys from Brazil

+

Look at that plot. I mean really look at it! Creating 94 Hitler clones? Surely that's a plot that belongs to a trashy 1950s B-movie. And yet somehow the project was able to attract such considerable and acclaimed talents as Laurence Olivier, Gregory Peck, James Mason and eh...Steve Guttenberg....Huh....Ok we lost steam a touch there but we'll carry on. What is quite interesting is that the film chooses to treat this silly, ludicrous concept with such seriousness. It's a losing battle right from the start but as a result I found myself almost getting behind it, willing it on........................

Review continues here



Before Sunrise (Richard Linklater, 1994)

I'll labour through the fiddliness of writing a short review on my phone (only source of internet at the moment) because I felt like I needed to share some thoughts on this absolute gem. Without a supreme level of both dialogue scripting and chemistry between the leads, this film falls flat on its face. It's stunning to me how they managed to make it so enrapturing with such dialogue-heavy sequences but I found myself literally hanging on to every word, and what beautiful words they were. It walks a very thin line between actual intellectual and faux-intellectual, but at worst it's always believable and at its best, it borders on prophetic, commenting subtly on love and life itself. The atmosphere is palpable, the emotional impact enormous, and the 90 minutes flew by, just as Jesse and Celine's fleeting romance did. The sequel is on its way to me as we speak, I can only hope I enjoy it as much.




I'll start posting the movies I've watched for the first time here (nothing I've seen before, unless it was so long ago that I didn't really remember it), usually on a monthly basis I think. The reviews here will usually be short; I might start a review thread for a few more in-depth reviews.

Ratings-wise, for me the biggest divide will be between 2 stars and 2.5 (the bad and good side of average)- 2 or below isn't worth watching, 2.5+ is (despite the fact that I watch a fair few movies, I'm not the kind of person who can be satisfied watching a potboiler- a movie better have something interesting to be worth 2 hours of my time). Anything 3 stars or more I must have liked a lot.

First I'll try to catch up with the movies I've seen in 2012 so far. I didn't watch many movies in January, but here are all those I saw that month:

Drive (Nicholas Winding Refn, USA 11)- Another of Refn's slender, fairly stylish ornaments. Good cast (apart from the dependable lead, Ron Perlman always adds something and it's good to see Albert Brooks anywhere). Unpleasant, unnecessary hyperviolence. Nice soundtrack (but not worth buying, as I realised too late).


Melancholia (Lars von Trier, USA 11)- I watched this not long after The Tree of Life and despite their differences they're linked in my mind and von Trier's film is completely in the shadow of Malick's masterpiece. The characters aren't very interesting, the spectacle of family sicknesses seeping out at a celebration has nowhere near the impact of that in Festen, and the unexplained end of the world thing has been done better too, like in Last Night. Dunst does suggest rather more than is there in her terse performance. von Trier's such a prick that I guess I root against his movies, but he's done much better than this.


Hugo (Martin Scorsese, USA 11)- I love many of the silents brought back to life here, I love the story of early cinema, I love that Scorsese has such a deep love of film, and I love that this is a kids' film so maybe it can help my kids love some of those things too. I didn't find much to love in this movie though, I thought it rather staid and lightweight. Still, the material is so interesting that I'll try it again I'm sure.


Zhestokiy romans (A Cruel Romance) (Eldar Ryazanov, USSR 84)- Several charismatic performances, particularly from Nikita Mihalkov as the cad Sergei Sergeivich, light up this somewhat stagey but nonetheless quite engrossing tragedy of a beautiful woman who gives herself away cheaply when her dashing captain carelessly breaks her heart.


There'll be rather more in the February post.



Melancholia (Lars von Trier, USA 11


Hugo (Martin Scorsese, USA 11
Melancholia is a great movie imo. It doesnt explain the circumstances leading to Dunst character Justine's depression, nor the planet itself, because it doesnt need to. The acting was convincing enough, the cinematography (despite the use of hand-held cam) was splendid and the premise of isolating all the action to just one huge mansion was what I loved most about the film. I like how the characters seem small compared to their surroundings, which conveyed the sense of detachment pretty well.

As for Hugo, we know that Martin Scorsese and his world of film foundation has been restoring "lost" films and bringing the attention of arthouse movies such as Soy Cuba, L'Eclisse ,etc.. to American audience. Hugo is all about that.



These are the films I watched in February:

The Descendants (Alexander Payne, USA 11)- Everything is beautiful and nonplussed in Hawaii as the rich deal with ambiguous pain. A little sad and quite sweet, if not as sharp as Payne at his best.


Martha Marcy May Marlene (Sean Durkin, USA 11)- Elizabeth Olsen has freed herself physically from the cult, but her mind is still there. The fear, paranoia, the inescapable trap- all that is portrayed very well.


Mysterious Skin (Gregg Araki, USA 04)- Deeply disgusting (necessarily so I suppose) and hard to shake off.


Shame (Steve McQueen, UK 11)- A quite interesting display of McQueen's artistic vision, but understandably he can't turn the story of a man having lots of sex into anything as searching, troubling and challenging as the Bobby Sands story in Hunger. Fassbender (who's very talented and getting lots of good roles) and Mulligan (fortunately looking a little less than Julie Andrews than usual) are good leads, and she shines in her bug number.


Roy Orbison and Friends: A Black and White Night (Tony Mitchell, USA 88)- Infectiously joyous concert movie as Roy and illustrious guests run through a succession of great songs.


Konflikt (Garri Bardin, USSR 83)- Escalating conflict between matches in a strong, clever, even moving short animation of the cold war turning hot.


Duck Amuck (Chuck Jones, USA 53)- There seem to be many fourth wall breaking cartoons that are similar but more ingenious and funnier... maybe this is the insoiration for a lot of them, but I didn't find it that much fun.


Waterloo (Sergey Bondarchuk, USSR 70)- Superbly staged battle scenes allow quite a clear sight of the manouevrings between Nelson (a commanding Christopher Plummer, determined not to run . around like a wet hen) and Bonaparte (a scenery-chewing Rod Steiger, my only
major complaint about the film). In the upper tier of war films.


All That Jazz (Bob Fosse, USA 79)- I said a little more about this in the movie-trade-off thread. Much more hit than miss, and scuzzily brilliant at times, this is one of the best films I've seen so far this year.


Tsumiki no ie (The House of Small Cubes) (Kunio Kato, Japan 08)- Quite a smart and sweet cartoon short.


Jodaeiye Nader az Simin (A Separation) (Asghar Farhadi, Iran 11)- A decent film about a family tearing apart. Strong characterisation.


Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy (Tomas Alfredson, UK 11)- Gary Oldman and Kathy Burke are excellent as they sadly come to terms with treachery among their old friends. The mood is excellent, the plot is a murky and lacking momentum; maybe these things are simply Alfredson trademarks.


War Horse (Steven Spielberg, USA 11)- I didn't like this cheeseball nonsense at all.


Des hommes et des dieux (Xavier Beauvois, France 10)- Reconstruction of monks who refused to leave their people in Algeria despite terrorist threats quietly illustrates the struggle toward true faith and true valor.


Incendies (Denis Villeneuve, Canada 10)- This viciously hard hitting movie takes the viewer along with the central characters from our safe lives to horrors most of us will never see but far too many people in some places cannot avoid.


Meek’s Cutoff (Kelly Reichardt, USA 10)- Nicely reconstructed atmosphere of a desperately hard type of American life. It's an intelligent plot, the characters play their positions well, but there's something missing- maybe it's just too dry to make the film involving enough, and the ending powerful enough.


Midnight in Paris (Woody Allen, Spain 11)- It's been a while since Allen made a movie I really liked, so I went into this not expecting much. Then I enjoyed every minute. Lovely concept, and plainly one Allen was having tons of fun with. Owen Wilson was really good with the Allen dialogue.


The Help (Tate Taylor, USA 11)- I mean it's hardly the most piercing analysis of an issue, or the deepest character study, or the best example of crackling dialogue, but it's not a bad way to pass the time.


Nostalgia de la Luz (Patricia Guzman, Chile 10)- Excellent documentary about the Atacama desert, with its unparalleled view of the stars above and the horrors of the nation's dictatorial past buried below.


The Guard (John Michael McDonagh, Ireland 11)- Gleeson's in great comic form here, and Cheadle works of him well, even if the film doesn't sustain its hilarious start.


Shi (Poetry) (Chang-Dong Lee, South Korea 10)- Carefully constructed, thoroughly melancholy. Shows all the aging lady's pain as she struggles to deal with life letting her down in ways she can't understand, and like her, occasionally still manages to find moments of beauty.


Senna (Asif Kapadia, UK 10)- Riding with the in-car camera on Senna's last lap is one of the most gruelling things I could imagine seeing on film. Other than that, the doc looks great but doesn't say much that's new or fully illustrate Senna's difficult charisma or unmatched talent.


A Dangerous Method (David Cronenburg, UK 11)- Keira Knightley's gurning had pretty much ruined the film for me within the first few minutes and it never won me back.


Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close (Stephen Daldry, USA 11)- Extremely **** and incredibly ****.



The Deer Hunter (1978)

- Loved it.

The Hunger Games (2012)

- Didn't want to see it, but was glad I did. High entertainment.

Footloose (2011)

- Not funny, not solid, but enjoyable.

The Muppets (2011)

- Funny, amusing, perfectly nostalgic, but a horrible storyline and a big let down of an ending.



The Easy way (2008) - Rouve - -


The subject is immediately intriguing: a journalist wants to do interview the guy who masterminded the 37 million dollar Casse de Nice heist back in 1976. He was caught but quickly escaped captivity in France and fled to South America. Unfortunately, the director, who also does double duty on screen as the big brains behind the operation, never decides what story he wants to tell or even correctly film some of the scenes and ideas. After a boom mike appeared in the film for the seventh time, I stopped counting.

Miral (2010) - Schnabel - -


Julian Schnabel's heart is obviously in the right place; I can only imagine the amount of flack and demonization the poor man must have suffered for making a film that dares to show Palestinians as decent human beings. Unfortunately, the episodic structure (four stories of Palestinian women) and an extensive use of the passive voice ruins the film. Example: during a protest march, Miral's (Freida Pinto) best friend is shot, the film only shows her dead body in the street, but never contextualizes her murder. Time and time again, the film removes any direct links to Israeli culpability.

There's actually one funny scene, when Miral stays with a Palestinian family later in the film and the son brings home his Israeli girlfriend and his mother---who is completely westernized and multilingual---just for the dinner, she turns into a devout Muslim woman and pretends she doesn't understand Hebrew just to screw with her future daughter-in-law.


Enter the void (2009) - Noé - -


Now this got one of the strangest reactions I've had to a film in recent memory.

WARNING: "Enter the void" spoilers below

So near the end of the film, the sister and her brother's friend finally hook up and get into in a taxi and they are hit head on by another car and killed and I immediately thought: Gaspar Noé ... you piece of %!@&!. You just had to kill her off. You couldn't let her live, you bastard! Then the film went on for another 20 minutes with my anger increasing with every fricking minute. Yes, I get it, the aerial shots signify a wandering soul looking for it's next host body. Fine. Pick a body. Start living again. You ameba brained junky dope dealer.

Then I remembered something: were two people in the front seat of the taxi? So I rewatched the scene again and found it consisted of three quick cuts: the Girl screams in terror, another car passed them---almost---clipping them; then an flashback insert to when her parents are killed in their fatal car crash. O villainous micro-cuts! I may forgive Noé sometime in the future, but for the time being, boy do I hate this pretentious little slimy French snot of a film director.


Love crime (2010) - Corneau - -


Two women in a large investment firm: the successful older one has broken through the glass ceiling and the brings along with her starry eyed protégé. Kristin Scott Thomas' relationship to the younger woman is kind of ambiguous, she seems to openly flirt with her from time to time. Ambition comes between them and they have a major falling out. The editing could have been a little crisper. And the intricacies of the plot may have worked a lot better as a reveal at the end.

Bellissima (1951) - Visconti - -


A working class mother hears about an open casting call from Cinecittà for a young girl and desperately tries to land her daughter the role. Although she begins to make larger and larger sacrifices for her daughter, the story seemed to lack tension and it suggests more than it actually shows. The main attraction here is Anna Magnani. She's a wonderful actress. She talks a mile a minute. She's got those wildly gestural hands, she's a great bundle of energy and she'd do anything to secure her daughter's future.

Django (1966) - Corbucci - -


This was probably my first real spaghetti western. I was immediately hooked by the opening scene where Django plods through a desolate landscape, he's got no horse so he shoulders his saddle. He also ominously drags a coffin behind him. Wtf? There's strange leaps in logic in the film. There's tons of continuity errors: in the exterior scenes, the shadows hop around like grasshoppers. Although it's the frontier, this rogue's gallery seems to be delightfully stylish, there's an appalling amount of shawls, sashes and scarves that brighten even the dullest cowpoke or bandito with splash of color. And the final shoot-out where Django faces the bad guys all alone in a quick draw ... despite having his fingers pistol whipped and broken; his hands stomped by cowboy boots and his arms trampled by horses. And don't forget those strategically placed pits of pesky quicksand! This was a fun watch just because it was so completely insane.



28 days...6 hours...42 minutes...12 seconds


Enter the void (2009) - Noé - -


Now this got one of the strangest reactions I've had to a film in recent memory.

WARNING: "Enter the void" spoilers below

So near the end of the film, the sister and her brother's friend finally hook up and get into in a taxi and they are hit head on by another car and killed and I immediately thought: Gaspar Noé ... you piece of %!@&!. You just had to kill her off. You couldn't let her live, you bastard! Then the film went on for another 20 minutes with my anger increasing with every fricking minute. Yes, I get it, the aerial shots signify a wandering soul looking for it's next host body. Fine. Pick a body. Start living again. You ameba brained junky dope dealer.

Then I remembered something: were two people in the front seat of the taxi? So I rewatched the scene again and found it consisted of three quick cuts: the Girl screams in terror, another car passed them---almost---clipping them; then an flashback insert to when her parents are killed in their fatal car crash. O villainous micro-cuts! I may forgive Noé sometime in the future, but for the time being, boy do I hate this pretentious little slimy French snot of a film director.
You mean you don't hate him for wasting 3 hours of your life by watching the camera float above people as they do mundane things, then watch the film turn into porn at the end?
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"A laugh can be a very powerful thing. Why, sometimes in life, it's the only weapon we have."

Suspect's Reviews



Sit Ubu Sit.... Good Dog
Enter the Void was just nuckin futs, I don't know if I will ever recover after seeing that, yes I do know the point of the movie but..............



Good whiskey make jackrabbit slap de bear.
RoboCop (1987)



It's a solid, over-the-top, 80's satire, but I wasn't as impressed with it as I wanted to be. I wanted it to be another example of Paul Verhoeven wonderful filmmaking techniques and a sci-fi classic. And while it achieves in being the former, it falls short of being the latter.

+
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"George, this is a little too much for me. Escaped convicts, fugitive sex... I've got a cockfight to focus on."



Waterloo (Sergey Bondarchuk, USSR 70)- Superbly staged battle scenes allow quite a clear sight of the manouevrings between Nelson (a commanding Christopher Plummer, determined not to run . around like a wet hen) and Bonaparte (a scenery-chewing Rod Steiger, my only
major complaint about the film). In the upper tier of war films.
It's Wellington, not Nelson, who's the hero of Waterloo. Nelson died 10 years earlier.

Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy
Have you see/are you aware of the BBC tv series from the 70's? There's also a follow-up series called Smiley's People.

Senna (Asif Kapadia, UK 10)- Riding with the in-car camera on Senna's last lap is one of the most gruelling things I could imagine seeing on film. Other than that, the doc looks great but doesn't say much that's new or fully illustrate Senna's difficult charisma or unmatched talent.
I felt pretty much the same about this and, like you, I was greatly affected by that last lap footage. So many memories came flooding back while watching this, though. I think that was the best thing about it, for me.



[quote=Tyler1]As for Hugo, we know that Martin Scorsese and his world of film foundation has been restoring "lost" films and bringing the attention of arthouse movies such as Soy Cuba, L'Eclisse ,etc.. to American audience. Hugo is all about that.[quote]

I think that's admirable and an admirable part of Hugo- it's the film itself (plot, character, thrills) that fails to hit the heights for me.

It's Wellington, not Nelson, who's the hero of Waterloo. Nelson died 10 years earlier.
LOL, I don't know why I put Nelson when I knew it was Wellington- how stupid of me.

Have you see/are you aware of the BBC tv series from the 70's? There's also a follow-up series called Smiley's People.
Heard great things about the BBC version, never seen. Is it as good as its made out to be?



Here are the films I saw in March-

Hands on a Hard Body (SR Bindler, USA 97)- Rather involving doc about a competition to win a pickup truck by standing with your hand on it for longer than any of your competitors. It has the extra intrigue of the competition (who's your money on? The religious nut? The fitness nut? The guy who's won before?), it tells a lot about character from a simple situation, and best of all it starts silly and follows the competitors down and down into a dark depth as exhaustion crushes them. From the hair, clothes and DVD cover you'd think this was about 10 years older.


Pingu’s The Thing (Lee Hardcastle, UK 12)- I'll save everyone the two minutes and say that this is exactly what one would expect from a Pingu version of Carpenter's film. Hilarious idea though.


Sid and Nancy (Alex Cox, UK 86)- The Sex Pistols and their associated junkies are shown here as the most revolting scumbags imaginable. If there's anything impressive here other than the atmosphere, it's how it makes the viewer care so little about the deaths of the main characters.


Osenniy marafon (Autumn Marathon) (Georgi Daneliya, USSR 79)- Pathetic man does pathetic job of having an affair.


Autobiografia lui Nicolae Ceausescu (Andrei Ujica, Romania 10)- Telling Ceausescu's stories entirely through his predictably flattering 'home movies' was an interesting gambit, and this is not an easy three hours. It does build an immensely damning portrait of a man preoccupied with diplomatic idiocies as his people suffered and died.


Carmen (Carlos Saura, Spain 83)- Adds another element to the setup of the previous film in the trilogy, as this time the flamenco troupe are much more clearly going through their version of the story they're rehearsing. Not as fresh or impassioned as the first, but still quite exciting.


Shadow of a Doubt (Alfred Hitchcock, USA 43)- You get a few good thrills and a compelling performance from a misanthropic Joseph Cotten.


Run of the Arrow (Samuel Fuller, USA 57)- Raw and determined and full of conflict in the Fuller style, this features a man who can't come to terms with the USA after being on the losing side in the civil war and joins a Sioux nation instead.


The Far Country (Anthony Mann, USA 54)- Not quite as crisp and coolly brilliant as Mann's best, still good though, great setting.


Judge Priest (John Ford, USA 34)- Homespun 'wisdom', other corn, a dash of racism- this has not aged well. Hopes Rogers would say something like 'the prosecution pecks for a mistrial' were dashed.


Night Moves (Arthur Penn, USA 75)- Ruthlessly edited, fat-free thriller keeps rushing forward. Hackman at his best.


Game Change (Jay Roach, USA 12)- The story of how the formerly respected John McCain came to select some horrible eejit as his running mate is told with style and more than a little sympathy. Palin is portrayed as ignorant and highly dishonest, but otherwise humane and genuinely caring about people, and that's about as positive a spin as can still be put on her with a straight face, but I'm sure she's castigating "the media" for this anyway as she does for all her failings.


The Grey (Joe Carnahan, USA 11)- This looked like being rather enthralling, what with Alaska, a plane crash and Liam Neeson, all things I like. Then the fecking dire wolves showed up.


L'arrivée d'un train à La Ciotat (Auguste Lumiere/Louis Lumiere, France 1896)- People debark wearing very strange headgear. It's quite an exciting moment- who's there? why are they wearing such headgear? and one that would be a staple in the next 116 years of cinema.


Chimes at Midnight (Orson Welles, France/Spain 65)- I like Welles' performance, and that Shakespeare seems to have been quite good with dialogue, but I haven't yet found the heart or power I was hoping for in the film.


Katakuri-ke no kôfuku (The Happiness of the Katakuris) (Takashi Miike, Japan 01)- I reviewed this in the Movie Trade-Off Tab thread. I thought it was another case of Miike throwing everything he could think of at a film, hoping something would work, and in this case nothing did.


The Long Day Closes (Terence Davies, UK 92)- Like Carmen above, this is similar too but not as great as the director's preceding film.



I'll start posting the movies I've watched for the first time here (nothing I've seen before, unless it was so long ago that I didn't really remember it), usually on a monthly basis I think. The reviews here will usually be short; I might start a review thread for a few more in-depth reviews.
I'm really enjoying your comments. It's also nice to have another "serial-underrater" here. I pretty much agree with you about Hugo and The Descendents. I like Duck Amuck. I agree that it's not quite "ingenious", but it's based on a decent twist on the gag in Sherlock Jr. (which really is ingenious) and it's possibly even more self-referential than that film. There are a few "fourth wall breaking" Bugs Bunnies that I like better too, though. At least as of right now I'd probably go with Hare Tonic and I might even prefer A Hare Grows in Manhattan by a little bit, even though it seems more conventional maybe.

Sid and Nancy (Alex Cox, UK 86)- The Sex Pistols and their associated junkies are shown here as the most revolting scumbags imaginable. If there's anything impressive here other than the atmosphere, it's how it makes the viewer care so little about the deaths of the main characters.
[Rating: 2]
Haven't seen Sid and Nancy. What do you think of Repo Man?



I'm not old, you're just 12.
Easter was apparently Julie Andrews day. I watched:

The Sound of Music - I unashamedly love this movie, and not in any sort of ironic way. It's the most adorable film that features Nazis as a major plot point. I have seen it a ton of times (It was one of my mum's favorites), and it doesn't get old for me.

Mary Poppins - I'm sure that 36 is an odd age to see this for the first time, but I'd NEVER seen it as a child, and I feel like I missed out. I still loved it as an adult, though. For me the entire movie belongs to Dick Van Dyke's silly but wise Chimney Sweep. That is a masterpiece of physical comedy.
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