Citizen Rules...Cinemaesque Chat-n-Review

The cheeseburger was ordered "No onions", but it came loaded with onions, and the chocolate shake came out looking like it was chocolate and vanilla horizontal stripes. They fixed the cheeseburger properly, but they tried to fix the shake by adding more chocolate syrup and mixing it, but they mixed it so much that it came out like chocolate milk, instead of a thick shake. When I complained again about the shake, they finally admitted that the shake machine was broken, and they gave me my money back for the whole order, (including Hubby's order that came out right).

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Director: Michael Curtiz
Cast: Humphrey Bogart, Ingrid Bergman, Paul Henreid, Claude Rains
Genre: Drama, Romance, War

About: During the early days of World War II in Casablanca, a jaded American expatriate runs into his former girlfriend, who is seeking escape from the Nazis along with her husband.

Review: I love that photo of Rick (Humphrey Bogart) and Ilsa (Ingrid Bergman) as to me, it encapsulates the movie's emotions. This is a film about bitterness and what it can do to a man. Rick is jaded, he's turned his back on humanity...as he puts it, "I stick my neck out for nobody!" And he means it. People come to this nowhere place in the North African desert, seeking escape from the Nazis...but Rick and the movers and shakers of Casablanca don't care who lives or dies, to them it's all about profit.


But we know Rick wasn't always this way. He had previously risked his neck to help supply guns to Ethiopia and to keep if from slipping into the hands of Fascist. And he did the same thing in Spain, fighting on the Loyalist side. But the loss of a woman's love who jilted him in Paris, turned a teary eyed man, bitter cold.

That's why I love this movie so much it deals with deep emotions, and it deals with redemption. Rick needs redemption and that's why his old flame Ilsa (Ingrid Bergman)shows up at his gin joint.


Casablanca is not only a classic, it's a fine movie, that does world building, multi story layering and complex characters extremely well. And besides memorable performances by it's lead actors: Bogart and Bergman and of course Claude Rains, there's also a strong cast of supporting actors: Conrad Veidt, Sydney Greenstreet, Peter Lorre, S.Z. Sakall, all who add multi layered depth to the film.




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One of my all time favourites! And you describe a lot of the reasons why, CR... awesome you also love it

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But of course! I'm a big Bogart fan, I can't really think of any of his movies I hate. Have you seen many of his films?

One of the best movies ever. I've read that Bogart wasn't as tall as Bergman and he wore cothurnus shoes, when they was making the film.
"Play it again, Sam"

You sold me, Rules. At first glance it might be a movie I'd avoid, but I do tend to like real-life-based historical films, and this sounds really interesting.
I have slight reservations about Michael Keaton ever since Birdman, but I just have to remember that he worked the Night Shift, he was Mr. Mom, Beetlejuice, on the Dream Team and Batman!

I can't say I have. And that's weird because I love him as well. From what I've seen at least. He's got such a great presence about him and you can't beat that voice! I love Jimmy Stewart more out of the old classic actors, but he also got a funny voice. Guess I got a thing for that then.

You are aware that line is never actually said in the film? I believe Bogey tells Dooley Wilson, "You played it for her, you can play it for me...play it."

Yep. Ingrid tells Dooley, "Play it, Sam. Play "As Time Goes By"."

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Captain, I really think you will like The Founder. It's not like Birdman Let me know if you watch it.

Hm, I wasn't aware of that. This quote is so much associated with the movie, that I was convinced it is exactly this line. Good to know, thanks

I'm not sure why, but I have put off watching this film for years, but your review is making me re-think that.

Director: Christian Petzold
Cast: Nina Hoss, Ronald Zehrfeld, Rainer Bock
Genre: Drama
Language: German

About: Barbara (Nina Hoss), is a doctor in communist East German during the 1980's. After she files an official request to leave communist East Germany, she's arrested and 'detained' as a subversive. After her release, she's sent to a small rural hospital to continue working as a doctor. Meanwhile the Stasi secret police, bug her apartment and follow her movements...subjugating her to strip searches to keep her in line.


Review: I was engrossed in the story and captivate by the realistic view it gave me into this woman's life in communist East Germany 1980. The movie felt very real to me, in fact it didn't seem like a movie at all, which is a good thing. It felt as if I was watching real people, in a real place and seeing them going about their daily lives.


Barbara felt like a real person and not an actress playing a character, and that's high praise. I liked the actress too, she was excellent. The movie itself was shot subdued style, with naturalistic cinematography, that worked very well.

I liked the way all the elements of the film fit together to give us an emotionally subdued film, that gave a feeling of cold repression, where hope is bleak...but not all together forgotten.



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Ajeossi (original title)
Director: Jeong-beom Lee
Writer: Jeong-beom Lee
Cast: Bin Won, Sae-ron Kim, Tae-hoon Kim
Genre: Action, Crime, Thriller
Language: Korean

About: A seemingly mild mannered pawnshop keeper has a run in with a gang of drug trafficking thugs, that are connected to an even more violent gang of human organ traffickers. To make matters worse the pawnshop keeper's friend, a small girl is captured by the bad guys.

Review: I first started watching this with the optional DVD English dubs. Big mistake!

With English dubs, the opening action scene, seemed comical. It reminded me of the early Spaghetti Westerns, with their flat and odd way of talking. It's very hard for a voice actor to capture the intensity of the real actor in the movie. The dubs felt like a bad pantomime. To make the effect worse, there were no accents at all! Ugh...

So after 8 minutes of this, I switched over to the original Korean language with English sub titles. I did that during the scene with the little girl and the pawnshop keeper as they eat at a table.

As soon as I switched it over to Korean, I warmed up to the characters, especially the little girl who was sympathetic. Anyway that was a good experiment between dubs vs subs.


If you love, non-stop action with an ultra-cool, mysterious Chinese James Bond type, you'll be in heaven. Especially if you like twists and turns at every corner with lots of fighting and martial arts!....Unfortunately that's everything I hate in a movie.

The movie is ultra violent with graphic scenes of torture, not my thing!
I did however like the bad guy who looked like Zulu from the original Star Trek (George Takei). He was the crazy one.

The Man From Nowhere was well made and looked great, but nothing that I liked personally. I did enjoy the first 30 minutes with the pawn keeper and the little girl.


After the pawn keeper cuts his hair, he lost some intensity. Still I think he was a good actor, but after the dance club scenes and endless twists and turns, I got burnt out. Sure I liked the revenge on the brother of the organ harvesting guy. The nail gun bit was actually good. But when he finally walks into confront the head guy and he's standing in a room with like 15 henchmen and it turns into a big old martial arts fight, I lost interest. But others would probably love that sort of thing.

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You must see it right NOW!

Director: Oliver Stone
Writers: John Ridley (screenplay), John Ridley (novel)
Cast: Sean Penn, Jennifer Lopez, Nick Nolte, Billy Bob Thornton, Jon Voight
Genre: Crime, Drama, Thriller

About: A man (Sean Penn) driving to Vegas to pay his gambling debts off before the Russian mafia can get to him, takes a U turn into the wrong town. After his 1965 Mustang convertible breaks down he's forced to stop in a small town, where the odd characters who live there interact with him in ways he could have never dreamed of. As a result everything than can go wrong does.

Review: I thought I might really like this, and after the first few scenes I started getting into it...I do think Oliver Stone owes Quentin Tarantino a royalty check, this movie was like Pulp Fiction Part II in the way it was edited and filled with quirky characters speaking deeply irrelevant lines. Still I was liking it, as it was like a updated version of The Twilight Zone.

Sean Penn is excellent. IMO he's the best actor working today. He might not be my favorite to watch, but I can't think of anybody who has the acting range he does. Jennifer Lopez, sure she was decent too, better than I would have expected. I can't really complain about any of the actors, they were all quite colorful.

I liked the Mustang too, very cool. I use to own a 1969 Red Mustang convertible, so that was fun to see. Though it pissed me off to see Billy Bob Thornton scratch the hood with a cry bar.

My favorite character was John Voight as the blind Indian. Favorite scene was when Sean Penn beat the crap out of Joaquin Phoenix AND smacked annoying Claire Danes (her character is annoying, not her.)

But the movie started to get repetitive after about an hour, and it drained me...I just wanted it to be over. Towards the end I didn't care who killed who.

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This looks fantastic...I love Michael Keaton...adding it to my watchlist.

Director: Alfonso Cuarón
Writers: Alfonso Cuarón, Carlos Cuarón
Cast: Maribel Verdú, Gael García Bernal, Daniel Giménez Cacho
Genre: Adventure, Comedy, Drama
Language: Spanish

About: Two sex crazed teenage boys who take a road trip in Mexico with an attractive older woman and discover life along the way.

Review: Where do I start?....there's a lot I loved about this film and a lot I didn't. I'll start with the bad news first, as it's always good to end on a positive note.

The two guys Julio and Tenoch were annoying dumb asses. I felt like I was watching 14 years old. Which made the first part of the film seem like a Mexican version of Jackass The Movie...And yes, I know they're portrayed that way deliberately, so that the director can set up the last shot which shows the coming of age scene in the cafe, where they're much more mature and serious. Still, they were hyperbolic and grated on my nerves.


But when Luisa enters the picture the movie went up a notch for me. She made the film poignant and I felt for her character. Especially when she first gets the phone call from her husband and he tells her that he's cheated, she's so torn up, that you can see the pain on her face. Which later in the film is kind of odd, as she says she knew he had been cheating on her and multiple times. I guess hearing it was harder than knowing it for her, or maybe it's because she knew something that we won't know until the end. Luisa on the phone was a powerful scene and she's a fine actresses for sure.

I loved the you-are-there cinematography, as it was like we were along for the ride in the Mexican countryside. Some road trip movies short change the viewer as we don't really get to see much of the road trip, but here we get to see a lot of amazing scenes in Mexico. Which I enjoyed as it reminded me of vacations I took there.

And yea, it looked like that too, well except for all the swimming pool diving board scene, I could have done with out that.

Sometimes the voice over narration added interesting stuff like the story behind the road side cross marking an accident which involved dead chickens and fatalities. I think that was important as it showed that while the guys were goofing around, life was a serious business with death right outside of their car window. That's a theme that will come back at the end of the film too.

There's lots of little bits of life in this film that we usually don't see, like the wedding party with a horse vaquero show and the dead pedestrian that marks the start of their journey. And the pigs on the beach! I don't know why but seeing them and hearing their story was cool All those little bits tie into the theme of life and death, so the director is very skilled and created an artistic film here.

This will be a hit or miss film with movie fans.

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Cool. I think U-Turn might be my favorite from Stone. Quirky desert movies are a nuanced taste of mine. I can understand how the style could wear on you after a while though. I actually don't think it's that Tarantino-esque either. At least, not compared to myriad other 90s crime flicks.

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I like quirky desert movies too. There's something about the isolation and oddness of the desert that makes movies set there fun...Do you have any quirky desert movies to recommend?