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A system of cells interlinked
Red Eye (Craven, 2005) - Pretty cruddy, Cillian was the only bright spot in an otherwise dim film... R McAdams is a TERRIBLE actress.

OldBoy
(Park, 2003) - Now, this is more like it. Very well done...
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The People's Republic of Clogher
Joint Security Area (2000, Chan-wook Park)

4/5

The first part of my triple bill from Korea's most recognisable director. JSA is ostensibly a whodunnit revolving around three deaths on the North/South Korea border but, through a delightful series of flashbacks, we find the friendship which has built up among four border guards (two from the Communist North, two from the 'democratic' South).

There's a lot of gentle humour in this surprisingly touching tale with Yeong-wook Jo's (who also memorably scored Park's later Oldboy) haunting music swirling throughout.



Sympathy For Mr Vengeance (2002, Chan-wook Park)

4.5/5

Kidnap movies are a staple of our filmic experience. When they're done well they approach the grim majesty of Chan-wook (are his fans called Wookies?) Park's Sympathy For Mr Vengeance. There's substance here, to go with the undoubted style (Tony Scott take note). There's also gallons of blood and a bright orange Daewoo Matiz.....I once sold 7 of those little buggers in one day, but that's a different kettle of bananas...

I've always preferred this film to Oldboy.

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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



In Soviet America, you sue MPAA!
Damn good double bill there, Tacitus. I myself prefer JSA to Mr. Vengeance, but both are impressive works that everyone should check out at some point. Have you had a chance to catch Lady Vengeance yet? I was dissapointed with it, but a lot of others really loved it...

Anyways, over the weekend:

House of the Dead 2
The Dark Hours
Dead Meat

Season 2 of "Arrested Development"
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Horror's Not Dead
Latest Movie Review(s): Too lazy to keep this up to date. New reviews every week.



The People's Republic of Clogher
Originally Posted by OG-
I myself prefer JSA to Mr. Vengeance,
It may very well grow on me even more as tonight was the first time I'd seen JSA.

Haven't seen Lady V as yet but that won't take long in being remedied. I'd got 10 minutes into Oldboy before realising that I was possibly a bit drunk on the director....all wook up, if you will....so will leave it til tomorrow.



i'm SUPER GOOD at Jewel karaoke
can anyone tell me if any of the sequels to the original Planet of the Apes is worth adding to my netflix queue? i have Beneath the Planet of the Apes at home right now and I just started it. so far so good, but can anyone tell me anything about the rest of 'em? thanks...
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Originally Posted by ash_is_the_gal
can anyone tell me if any of the sequels to the original Planet of the Apes is worth adding to my netflix queue? i have Beneath the Planet of the Apes at home right now and I just started it. so far so good, but can anyone tell me anything about the rest of 'em? thanks...
The first sequel is watchable, then they get progressively worse...and fast.
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"Film is a disease. When it infects your bloodstream it takes over as the number one hormone. It bosses the enzymes, directs the pineal gland, plays Iago to your psyche. As with heroin, the antidote to Film is more Film." - Frank Capra



A system of cells interlinked
The Matrix (Wachowskis, 1999) - Had to watch this on the new system, sounded fantastic. Seeing this made me realize how overwrought the series became in the sequels. Still love this first one, though.


Tacitus - Thanks for the comments. I just watched Oldboy, and I want to see these other works now...



Do you know my poetry?
The Aristocrats, B
2005 - Paul Provenza

All the Real Girls, C+
2003 - David Gordon Green



In the Beginning...
Originally Posted by Sedai
The Matrix (Wachowskis, 1999) - Had to watch this on the new system, sounded fantastic. Seeing this made me realize how overwrought the series became in the sequels. Still love this first one, though.
Check out the January 2006 issue of Rolling Stone Magazine for a bizarre-yet-interesting article on the secret life of Larry Wachowski.

(Wow, that sounded like spam. I don't work for Rolling Stone!)



A system of cells interlinked
Originally Posted by Sleezy
Check out the January 2006 issue of Rolling Stone Magazine for a bizarre-yet-interesting article on the secret life of Larry Wachowski.

(Wow, that sounded like spam. I don't work for Rolling Stone!)
Right, I read something about that. Guy has really flipped out, it seems. I also wonder what has happened with the lawsuit over The Matrix authorship rights...



Thursday Next's Avatar
I never could get the hang of Thursdays.
Originally Posted by Sedai
I also wonder what has happened with the lawsuit over The Matrix authorship rights...
I don't know about the lawsuit, but the Matrix has ripped off so many other films/stories/concepts that they would have a hard time proving any authorship. I have just seen Total Recall (pretty lame, btw.), another one to add to the long list of 'inspirations' ...the phone call, the red pill, even the pursuit by agents...



Lets put a smile on that block
Dear Wendy (Dir. Thomas Vinterberg, 2005)

Really interesting. But not as interesting as the other Vinterberg (And Lars Von Trier) movies that i have seen. I was expecting a bit more from the characters in this one. It felt as though for the first time Trier has just decided to ignore his characters and maybe even the story and just go straight into the message of the film.

Although it did make me want to buy a gun and dress it up and take it out to dinner then never call it again.

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I'm not old, you're just 12.
Originally Posted by ash_is_the_gal
can anyone tell me if any of the sequels to the original Planet of the Apes is worth adding to my netflix queue? i have Beneath the Planet of the Apes at home right now and I just started it. so far so good, but can anyone tell me anything about the rest of 'em? thanks...
I loved the original, Beneath the Planet of the Apes is fun and kind of freaky, I didn't much care for Escape from the Planet of the Apes, it was too silly, too much comedy for my tastes, but I absolutely LOVED Conquest of the Planet of the Apes (the best of the sequels, I think) and, Battle for the Planet of the Apes is worth watching for John Huston (!) as the Lawgiver, but not a whole lot else. It reeks of the studio wanting a less violent film than Conquest, and it just sits there.

I just watched;

Tim Burton's The Corpse Bride, which I liked very much, it seems like a return to Beetlejuice/Edward Scissorhands form for him after so many of his newer, less Tim Burton-y films (Planet of the Apes, Charlie and the CHocolate Factory).
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The People's Republic of Clogher
Oldboy (2003, Chan-wook Park)

3.5/5

Oldboy sees a director brimming with confidence. It's supremely stylish, has a wonderful score and Min-sik Choi's central performance is reminiscent of late 70s/early 80s DeNiro (with big hair).

It just gets a bit too comtrived and messy in the final act for me. I'm all for Kitchen Sink drama but throwing everything, including the kitchen sink into the mix, is another matter entirely...

Memorable though, and a wee bit iconic for some.




I am having a nervous breakdance
Outfoxed: Rupert Murdoch's War on Journalism (2004 - Robert Greenwald)

Very biased but still very interesting and occasionally upsetting. I was a bit confused though since I felt that I had seen some segments elsewhere but I don't really know where or when. I think I've seen a French documentary about Fox News that had some of this material in it as well. Or did it?
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The novelist does not long to see the lion eat grass. He realizes that one and the same God created the wolf and the lamb, then smiled, "seeing that his work was good".

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They had temporarily escaped the factories, the warehouses, the slaughterhouses, the car washes - they'd be back in captivity the next day but
now they were out - they were wild with freedom. They weren't thinking about the slavery of poverty. Or the slavery of welfare and food stamps. The rest of us would be all right until the poor learned how to make atom bombs in their basements.



A system of cells interlinked
Originally Posted by Thursday Next
I don't know about the lawsuit, but the Matrix has ripped off so many other films/stories/concepts that they would have a hard time proving any authorship. I have just seen Total Recall (pretty lame, btw.), another one to add to the long list of 'inspirations' ...the phone call, the red pill, even the pursuit by agents...
I just don't agree that it is bad, though. Also, all these ideas have been done over and over, it's how they are done that makes us watch them again. Really, many film ideas have been used and re-used, it's the nature of the beast. How about the "Guy from now goes back or forward in time" paradigm. That has been done to death, yet we staill liked Back to the Future, The Terminator, and other contemporary films like these. I mean, those concept were definitely done before those films hit, be it in another movie, or a sci-fi television series like The Outer Limits or The Twilight zone.

Sure, The Matrix was treading an old road, but they repaved it wil slick action, slick editing, and wrapped it all up in a fun and interesting package that we hadn't seen before. Sure, Reeves is weak, but it's a sci-fi picture, and many of the supporting actors are good, so I can overlook a weaker lead for the material. Really, The Matrix borrows heaviest from the writings of William Gibson, moreso than any other film (which also borrow from the master of cyberpunk). I am fine with that, as I like the genre, and feel that earlier films hadn't quite reached that level of slickness that Gibson writes about in his books.

The Terminator is supposedly the same story as The Matrix, just told from an earlier time point, before the machines fully take over. The lawsuit I spoke about actually covers The Matrix Trilogy as well as The Terminator Trilogy (Joel Silver produced both), and the author sung the Wachowsjis, Joel Silver, and James Cameron claims her screenplay "The Minds Eye" was the basis for both trilogies. The Wachowski's supposedly recieved the screenplay as part of a contest they held in the 80s for fledgling screenwriters.

Does the case hold water? Seems a bit fishy to me, but I do knoe Harlan Elison already got his name attached to The Terminator when he sued the director/producer for stealing the idea from an Outer Limits episode called The Soldier, in which a soldier from the future is sent back in time to take down another person from the future. Sound familiar?

I guess my point is, ther is no definitive version to these concepts, jsut the versions we have been exposed to first, second and so on. Something becomes original to us when we see it first, and think of it as the original.

All these stories have been told a hundred times, only the names have changed.

Take the alien invasion paradigm. How many times has THAT been done to death. Way too many to count, yet we like some of the later iterations as they have evolved the concept a bit past Wells War of the Worlds, which was written in the late 1800s..

Also, Total Recal is not lame!! Sure the effects are dated at this point, but it's a great Phil K Dick story done pretty well. I have always liked Total Recall, fake pop-out eyes not withstanding...

Meanwhile:

McCabe and Mrs. Miller (Altman, 1971) - Wonderful story, told by a great director, and shot by Mr. Vilmos Zsigmond...See it!



The People's Republic of Clogher
Originally Posted by Sedai

McCabe and Mrs. Miller (Altman, 1971) - Wonderful story, toldby a great director, and shot by Mr. Vilmos Zsigmond...See it!
Geez, I've bought so many DVDs in the past few months that are still unwatched. Thanks for reminding me of this one.



King Kong 8/10
Special effects 10/10, brilliant fight sequence between Kong and the T-rexes and Andy Serkis should win best actor for his performance as Kong.

Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas 8/10
Excellent movie!

The Usual Suspects 6/10
Extremely overrated, it's a very well made film, but really I can't understand how the script won an oscar! I mean it doesn't really explain anything at all.

Dark Star 7/10
Great, cheesy low-budget sci-fi from the writer of Alien.
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Originally Posted by Travis Bickle
The Usual Suspects 6/10
Extremely overrated, it's a very well made film, but really I can't understand how the script won an oscar! I mean it doesn't really explain anything at all.
What are you talking about? If anything I take a couple points away from the filmmakers for explaining everything too much at the end. They really hit the viewer over the head with it. I like the twist, I thought it was buried in the story very effectively. But in the big reveal in those last couple minutes (not the walk down the street, which was great, but Chaz in the office realizing the truth) they slowed down too much and all of the sudden assumed the audience needed their hands held to see the answer. I didn't, and I find the sentiment and editing choice insulting.

Now what did you think wasn't explained at all?