Movie Tab II

Close Encounters Of The Third Kind -

This has to be the greatest the Sci-Fi movie that I've ever seen, Spielberg really is a god at filmmaking, he's by far the greatest director I've ever seen. I was automatically hooked in to right from the very start, it just had such mystery to it that I wanted to know what was gonna happen. Alien's have always intriged me, so I sorta already knew that I was at least going to like it some, seeing as the movie is based off aliens. But I swear, Richard Dreyfuss is moving his way up to my favorite actors list, even though I've only seen two of his performances I can't decide which one is better either this or Jaws. I really loved how this movie really didn't focus on it's effects up until the ending, it just gave you a sense of the aliens were there, but you didn't actually see them right until the ending. This movie has just blown me away, I'm so glad that I decided to buy this off Amazon, and the money to get the 30th Anniversary Edition was totally worth the price. I think you just have to see the movie to get what's so great about it though. I hope to type up a more detailed review sometime tomorrow, I would do it now but I'm too tired to.

I figured that would be your reaction MovieMan, glad you liked it.

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Thanks for the recommendation, undercoverlover. I plan on seeing Bride of Frankenstein in the near future, as I don't have access to it yet. I watched the original on DVD at a buddy's house.

Well said, Swan, and agreed. Except for the rating; I'd give it a flat-out . I think you already knew that, though: the remake of Black Christmas is probably my least favorite theatrical film of all time, and this is coming from a fan of Michelle Trachtenberg, but even *she* was bad in that movie. Just ugh.

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Narc (Carnahan, 2002) -

If you haven't already gathered from the name, Narc is an undercover cop film. It follows the rather clichéd teaming of both a young, relatively straight-laced detective (Jason Patric) and an older detective with a penchant for rule-bending and rule-breaking (Ray Liotta). They are assigned to the investigation of the shooting death of another narc, who turns out to be a friend of Liotta's character.

In favour of Narc, I will say that it has its moments of greatness. The opening sequence - a quick, breathless and violent chase on foot through a run-down suburb - is probably Narc's most memorable scene. I should also give some props to both Liotta and Patric, who, despite the "been there, done that" dynamics of both their characters and the dynamics of their relationship, manage decent jobs in both. I also reckon the surprising twists of the third act of the film (where the pair finally close in on the supposed murderers of the narc) are a good addition.

So what exactly does Narc do wrong (at least in my eyes)? For one thing, I find it tends to get a bit confusing at times. It seems like a good deal of the dialogue in the film is incomprehensible in some way. I don't know if it should be thought of as a side-effect of the film's low-budget production or an intentional decision by the makers (it's pretty clear in quite a few scenes where several characters are talking at once), but either way I consider it a strike against the film. The film's visual language is also somewhat garbled - the worst it got was when the film delved into a "quadruple montage" (as in four separate montages played out on screen at once), as with some of the film's more frenzied editing and blink-of-an-eye cuts. This disorienting quality was an annoyance, intentional or not.

In the end, I have to admit I really wanted to like Narc, and while I admit it was an OK film, it wasn't as great as I was expecting it to be. I found it weighed down by some weak plot points and an "edgy" style that hindered the film as much as it helped. It's still worth watching once (and for all I know, people may like it more than I do) but yeah, I wouldn't recommend it particularly highly.

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Iro's Top 100 Movies v3.0

Not for nothin' but that seems a pretty fair review and rating Iro.

The Spiderwick Chronicles (Mark Waters-2008)



I really enjoyed this. It had a lot of the charm that I feel the Harry Potter machine has been missing since the first Harry Potter movie really. This is also based on a series of books, but here's to hoping they just stop at one and not make the same mistake that Potter has. I'm sorry I waited so long to catch it. We almost went to see this in the theater and now I wish I would have. Oh well. Good stuff though, if'n you're into the whole fantasy thing.

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

Lifeboat (Alfred Hitchcock, 1944)

Lifeboat begins in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean, just after a freighter is sunk by and in turn sinks a German U-Boat. The only survivor in the lifeboat is spoiled foreign correspondent Connie (Tallulah Bankhead) who is typing a story about the incident, but slowly, more survivors come across and into the lifeboat, and all but one is from the sunken freighter. The last survivor is Willy (Walter Slezak), a German from the U-Boat. The survivors make up a cross section of ethnicities, so the film turns into an interesting character study centering around the ethics of class and war. Willy turns out to be the most-knowledgeable seaman aboard, and reluctantly the others allow him to take charge of setting a heading for Bermuda.



Hitchcock uses John Steinbeck's story as a showcase for him to make one of his patented claustrophobic, one-set films. (Others he would later make include Rope, Dial M For Murder and Rear Window.) Hitch builds suspense by showing the dangers of the sea (weather, sharks) and by the fact that there is just not enough food or water for everyone to be able to survive the long voyage to Bermuda. One by one, each character has a big scene, but Willy seems to just be stronger and brighter than the other characters. It's this last point which caused a backlash against the film. Even though Lifeboat was released to critical praise and big box office in its limited opening engagements, after a brief time, a few columnists decided that somehow the film celebrated the Nazi "Superman", and 20th Century Fox chief Darryl Zanuck decided to not fully release the film due to fear of it sullying his reputation. That's actually pretty shocking because you don't especially consider the WWII era as some kind of "politically-correct" age, and Lifeboat, after all, is a gung ho, pro-Allies film.

The Gods Must Be Crazy (Jamie Uys, 1980)

This international hit still packs plenty of entertainment although I'd imagine that many of today's audiences would find it just too hokey and silly for words. I mean, back in 1984, when it was released in the U.S., we understood that the film was low-budget, old-fashioned, fake, slapsticky, amateurish, and had a chintzy musical score, but it was also charming and somehow just plain funny. The combination of disparate characters is probably one of the main things going for it. You have the wise Kalahari bushman (N!xau) with his Coke bottle, a gift from the Gods, which goes from being the best tool ever given to Mankind to being a horrible curse. Throw in an incredibly clumsy-around-women biologist (Marius Weyers) and a female office worker-turned-teacher (Sandra Prinsloo), and have most of their encounters center around a Jeep with a mind of its own, and you have the makings of a slapstick romantic comedy crossed with a nature travelog. Add in some warring factions racing across the desert and shooting up places along the way, and then you've got plenty of action put into the mix. As I said above, it's still very entertaining, but maybe younger audiences just won't get it or be able to get into it.

Appaloosa (Ed Harris, 2008)

Set in the town of Appaloosa in the New Mexico Territory in 1882, this film tells how two friends and itinerant lawmen come to to help the town bring to justice the rich local rancher (Jeremy Irons) who had three lawmen killed. Virgil (Ed Harris) takes on the marshall job and Everett (Viggo Mortensen) works as his deputy. The two eventually bring the rancher to trial, but even though he's convicted and sentenced to hang, he's able to "beat the rap". During this time, both lawmen carry on romances of a sort, but it's not clear if these are conducive with bringing down their adversary. Eight years after his decent directorial debut Pollock, Ed Harris returns with a strange, enervating western. I found some of the film slipshod and lazy (especially the opening scene which set a bad tone for me), even though the characters played by Harris and Mortensen are both really quirky and therefore interesting. It's just that most of the other characters and the "plot" seem generic and almost pointless. I mean, there are a few other offbeat characters, but it really rambles on and on to a totally predictable conclusion. Too bad.

The Wrestler (Darren Aranofsky, 2008)

This is another character study, and who would have thought that the world of wrestling would provide such believable characters? I haven't really paid attention to wrestling since the 1970s, but the first two bouts in this film do provide the goods as far as both the violence (which seems to get mentioned a lot here) and especially the humor. These bouts are downright funny, and that was the main draw for watching wrestling when I was a kid anyway. I just thought is was really funny to see people "sneak up" on somebody or see the referees get creamed. Anyway, I should leave my personal anecdote aside and address Aranofsky's newest film. I believe everybody knows it involves an aging wrestler (Mickey Rourke) who is nearing the end of the line and is trying to find some semblance of normal life by romancing a stripper (Marisa Tomei) and making amends to his estranged daughter (Evan Rachel Wood). The wrestler's other problems involve having financial problems and then learning that he has extreme health problems which will keep him from ever entering the ring again.



The Wrestler didn't really draw me in with the opening scenes because Aranofsky used the camera technique pioneered recently by the Dardenne brothers of following close behind the protagonist and following wherever he goes. I realize that it's meant to make the viewer feel inside the world of the character, but it often seems a substitute for having to actually focus on the character's face to not only see the world he sees but to see it reflected through his own eyes. (Besides, Dardenne brothers' movies seem to spend half of their time focusing on "walking around"; if I wanted to put the viewer into somebody's world, I'd use subjective camera rather than this stalker stuff.) Anyway, once the camera started to actually focus on the characters' faces, I felt more empathy for them and they came alive. There is a lot of unspoken life in all the characters' actions and reactions and it gives The Wrestler its quiet power. I liked all three main performances, even if I didn't fully understand their exact life situations, I could believe in them more than some of my own friends and family because sometimes it's really difficult to crack through the outer shells of those you "know". Mickey Rourke nails his role because you can see that he's made a lot of mistakes and he wants to make amends, but he just really has no experience at living any kind of "normal" life. All he knows is the life of a loner wrestler, and although he enjoys the camraderie and the notoriety, he realizes it will never make him a whole man.

Nothing But the Night (Peter Sasdy, 1973)

This is the umpteenth teaming of Peter Cushing and Christopher Lee, and it was actually made under the banner of Lee's own production company. It's an offbeat and relatively well-made mystery about a strange little girl who seems to have memories of an accident which don't correlate to the physical evidence concerning the event. She also lives at an orphan home on a remote island, and the trustees of that home have been dying under mysterious circumstances lately, leading a retired policeman (Lee) to enlist the aid of his doctor friend (Cushing) in helping him try to prove there is a murderous conspiracy afoot. Although there are many more details and characters, they're not especially worth mentioning right now. The first half of the film takes place in an urban hospital and the second half is set on that island orphanage. There is a big "plot twist" at the end which is OK, but the chief problem with the film is that it has an underdeveloped script. Director Sasdy uses lots of location work to try to disguise the fact that the film is repetitious and drawn out. As it is, it would have worked better as a "Twilight Zone" episode, albeit a rather weak one. It does have some unintentional humor near the end when the girl's mother (Diana Dors) seems to spend an eternity creeping and crawling around the island trying to get to her daughter, apparently just to pad out the running time. It's not really all that bad, but it's not exactly a horror film; at least not compared to something like Rosemary's Baby.

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Excellent write-ups, Marky Mark. Your Appaloosa review could use a little more Zellweger hate though, in my opinion. She flat out killed every scene she was in. And that's not the good kind of "kill" either. Other than that I agree with your review but I did seem to like it a tad bit more than you.

Well, I did go out of my way not to mention her. I wanted to mention Ariadna Gil from Belle Epoque who plays Mortensen's "squeeze", but it just seemed like I'd have to go into too much detail about the women over something seemingly unimportant in the long run.

Mystic River -

Yep, this is almost the greatest movie that I've ever seen, Jurassic Park is the only movie that I think is actually better than this. This film is just perfect, there's really no other way to describe just how amazing this is, especially the ending. Even the score for this is absoluteley amazing, it just fit so well with the different scenes of the movie that it was put in, it was just so powerful. One of the best things about this though, if not the best, was Sean Penn's acting in this, his performance in this may very well be the best acting performance that I've ever seen, he really deserved that oscar he got for his role in this. Tim Robbins also very well deserved his oscar for this too, I do think that Kevin Bacon should've got one too, because he did just as great a job, if not better, than Tim Robbins. This also has the best acting scene that I've ever seen in a movie, which just happens to be mainly because of Penn, the ending to Schindler's List would come in a close second though. Do yourself a favor sometime, if you haven't had the joy of seeing this yet, do so in the very near future, because I doubt that you'll be disappointed. I feel truely sorry for you if you are disappointed though.

Outlander(2009)-we've all seen 13th Warrior,yes?Well that was 13th Warrior meets The Relic. Still good fun though

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I'm in movie heaven

The Wild Bunch (Peckinpah, 1969) -

One criticism I tend to make of my movie-watching habits is that I never watch as many Westerns as I think I should. The Wild Bunch definitely asserts that notion - despite my limited experience with the genre, I reckon it's one of the best Westerns I've ever seen, perhaps even the best. This marks my second viewing (the last one was sometime in 2005) and it is way better than I remember it. Everything is superbly realised - the action is sublimely created and used in just the right amounts (there are three major action set-pieces throughout the film, each one more intense and amazing than the last) and the film's storyline and characters are also incredibly thought out and expertly handled. I didn't quite comprehend the film's emphasis on the characters when I first saw it, hence my relative disappointment with it, but in the end that's what really does raise The Wild Bunch to another level.

That camera technique was used for a very specific reason, though. He's a wrestler. Some wrestler's entrances mirror that - see Goldberg's or this Stone Cold entrance. I guess Aranofsky used it a lot to emphasise that wrestling is a huge part of his life, or is his life, even. Like when he made his way to the deli counter for the first time, though the bowels of the supermarket - only when he stepped out through the curtains, he wasn't greeted by thousands of adoring fans but a meanial job. You could hear the crowd in that scene - I don't know if it was supposed to be in Randy's head or not, but it sort of adds to the fact that he wishes it was a match. It was charming when he tried to add some crowd-pleasing sportsmanship there, too. He's alwyas a performer, even when he's not supposed to be.

The bouts weren't 'funny' to me. Yeah, the pantomime stuff is, but you could see some of the physical strain of the wrestlers even in the first few. It iss all in good fun, though, and that clealry comes accross in the first match, and it contrasted with the 'hardcore' match well.

I think people have this weird snobbery about wrestling. It's just a soap opera. Better than a soap opera; funnier and more entertaining. People get hurt, people die, wrestlers have heart-attacks at fourty because all they want is the fans to cheer - or jeer - their name.

I like and agree with most all of your post. even if you implied I'm a weird snob.

Stone Cold link fixed. Watch it if you've seen The Wrestler it'll be very familiar.

And it's okay, Mark! Most people are wrestling snobs, and I can understand why. I get really defensive about the subject for some reason. I mean, I know it's ridiculous. But there's a part of me that loves it so much. Every time a wrestler dies a part of me dies. The British Bulldog, Ravishing Rick Rude, Eddie Guerrero... all childhood hereos of mine, all died from heart-attacks in their forties. Sob.

I recommend 'Beyond The Matt'; a wrestling documentary focussed more on the backstage elements, specifically Mick Foley and his hardcore matches, which was all pretty hardcore. His wife and daughters are in the crowd at one of his matches, and it's heart-breaking.

Also 'A copy of the documentary was given to screenwriter Robert D. Siegel by Darren Aronofsky for inspiration when writing the script for the 2008 movie The Wrestler (2008 film)'

Sweet.

St. Elmo's Fire (1985) ... If I had paid to see this thing, I'd want my money back… Rob Lowe definitely deserved the Razzy he won for this and it's a shame they didn't all get one... 0/5

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Save the Green Planet (2005) -

Awesome movie. And I think I will love it even more the next time I watch it.

I wish more films were made like this.

Tenacious D in the Pick of Destiny (2006) -

I love this movie. It's one of my favorite comedies and it has Tim Robbins! I find Tenacious D to be an extremely great band. Not just because they are so hilarious but also because they are very talented and their songs are very well-done. At least I think so. Top it all off with my favorite comedian of all-time and you have one of the best bands ever.

Million Dollar Baby (2004) -

This came as a HUGE surprise. Even though it's a Clint Eastwood film and it stars both him and Morgan Freeman, it has always just looked decent to me. Nothing more. Boy was I wrong. I couldn't find a single flaw. Instead I found a fantastic story, great acting and directing, and an awesome narration. I've never really cared for Hilary Swank but this completely changed my opinion about her. She gave such a good performance.

I know I've given a few perfect scores lately, but I couldn't possibly give those movies anything less. And I think Million Dollar Baby has been the best film I have seen since Midnight Cowboy (even if it still doesn't hold a candle to Cowboy). It's at least up there with Rosemary's Baby and Little Big Man, which I think are the only other movies I've given a perfect score to since Midnight Cowboy.

Me, Myself & Irene -

It wasn't quite as funny as I remembered it, but it still had its moments of laughter. A decent plot with some interesting characters.

Blue Crush -

I don't ever really remember seeing a Kate Bosworth movie, but she was really good here in Blue Crush. A somewhat predictable/cliche film with a non-surprising ending, but the characters were really cool and relatable. I liked it.

Mickey Blue Eyes -

A comedy/near-spoof of mob and gangster movies (that stars Sonny from The Godfather ). It was pretty good with some interesting characters, and it contained some very funny moments. However, it wasn't consistently funny and the story didn't consistently keep my interest peaked in the story.

Josie and the Pussycats -

"Meh" pretty much sums it up. The best thing about the movie was Rachael Leigh Cook's performance and the funny British guy.

Milk (Van Sant, 2008) - +

This marks the first time I've seen a film directed by Gus Van Sant and the second Best Picture nominee I've seen (after Slumdog Millionaire). I'm a little unhappy about the fact that I saw this before I had a chance to see The Times of Harvey Milk (which I have been unable to find for various reasons) but I still reckon this was a rather good film in and of itself.

I liked the usage of grainy stock footage from the actual period and major events of the film, especially when it was deftly mixed together with the film itself. I also found that despite the dramatic overtones that the marketing and subject matter imposed, Milk was actually rather amusing. I couldn't help but find myself laughing at just how ridiculous the anti-gay proponents and their arguments were (although it was rather shocking that they actually seemed to work to some extent in reality). I've noticed that the last few films I've seen in theatres (with the exception of TRON) are all decidedly dramatic films, but undercut with a sense of humour and amusing characters. I can see this serving the more emotional undercurrent of the films in question - it makes it much easier to turn the dials from happy to sad, so to speak. I wonder about the validity of manipulating an audience's emotions in such a way, but I find I don't really worry so much because it makes the films work.

I'm also still wondering whether or not Sean Penn will win Best Actor over Mickey Rourke in The Wrestler. They're both two very different performances, and Penn is going for his usual highly dramatic award-baiting role, which is what he does and he succeeds aptly at it. He will most likely win and I won't mind if he does. As for any other awards - say, Best Picture or Best Director - it seems like it has a very good shot at Best Picture, albeit maybe not so much Best Director. I don't know, I'm not much when it comes to predicting Oscars. Doesn't matter, what matters is that I enjoyed Milk quite a lot.

(edit post)



Mortal Kombat (Anderson, 1995) -

Videogames and movies are like pizza and ice cream - both are pretty awesome by themselves, but attempts to combine the two have often proved less than stellar. Mortal Kombat has been hailed as one of the best videogame-to-film adaptations to date (considering the quality of many adaptations, this is either a very easy or very hard feat to achieve). Although this means virtually nothing in the context of film history as a whole, it's important to remember that, like most videogames, Mortal Kombat is intended to be nothing more than a spot of mindless fun. It achieves this aim admirably.

The film is like a blend of Enter the Dragon and Big Trouble in Little China - three human warriors, former Shaolin monk Liu Kang (Robin Shou), Hollywood action star Johnny Cage (Linden Ashby) and special forces soldier Sonya Blade (Bridgette Wilson) are all brought together to fight in a martial arts tournament held on a deserted island by evil sorcerer Shang Tsung (Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa). Their victory (or defeat) will determine the fate of the world, for only by succeeding at Mortal Kombat can they stop Shang Tsung from taking over the "realm" of Earth.

Yes, I know it all sounds very silly - and I have two words for that - "so what"? Anyone who knows about the games will not really expect much in the way of amazing cinema from the film - the game even defies several of the expectations of the games (mainly the games' trademark over-the-top gore and violence, which is conspicuously absent from the film). What you can expect is a handful of kung-fu sequences, accompanied by an insanely catchy score (if there's anyone who disagrees with the brilliance of the Mortal Kombat theme song, let me know) and some ridiculously colourful and over-the-top enemies. Seeing as I have been a fan of the games for as long as I can remember, I'm not entirely sure if anyone who's not familiar with them will share my same enthusiasm for them, but when it comes to videogame films, you can do far worse than Mortal Kombat (paging Uwe Boll.)

Crips and Bloods: Made in America - I hesitate to give this a zero, I don't know why. For those who don't know me I don't really rate on how entertaining I find a movie. If I finish watching it, I found it entertaining, and since I finish almost everything I start to watch, it wouldn't serve any purpose for me to base ratings on that. I also don't get bored very often, and when I do it's usually due to feeling trapped in my own skin for some personal reason or another, not because the things going on around me are intrinsically boring, sometimes they just can't penetrate at a given moment. I was feeling fine watching this movie, which sounded like it could be cool.
I liked Dogtown and Z-Boys too.
This movie just has nothing worth holding on to.
It's not stylish. I think in the former case what made it work was that it's all about style, they show you that style while the people who created talk about the style. This one is dumb, didactic tv-style documentary, meaning a collection of facts and talking points assembled into an ordinary narrative while they show you some film clips, interviews and educational-graphics. What's worse, the form of the narrative is a bunch of half-baked lectures. Dumb people lecturing you on what it means to waste a life. Pundits lecturing you on how institutional racism and poverty add up to societal instability. Culture-study wags and so on.

These things are supposed to add up to an explanation for why these specific gangs formed at this specific place and time but of course it doesn't come together the way they tell it. This movie is a superfluous joke. If you think you have nothing better to do and you like to get riled up about stuff you might find it an entertaining way to spend a couple hours, but don't kid yourself, you easily could have found something better to do.

Benjamin Button
I watched this last Friday sitting in between my sister and my girlfriend. I thought the extended beginning and end were amazing. The middle portion, with Cate Blanchett and Brad Pitt doing fun stuff in a herpes-medication-commercial-esque montage didn't do as much for me but was still decent. I'm feeling too lazy to do a review so instead I'll just respond to Mark's question (as an alternative way to write about this movie).

I did cry several times during this movie:

Some obvious overwhelming (cue the swelling string section) bits such as:



But many more-idiosyncratic moments as well:



Not that this stuff made me feel especially sad (except for the obvious ones), but is it possible to feel nostalgic for things that never really happened? I think that's what the scenes listed above did to me.

The Lost Boys (1987, Joel Schumacher)
Slightly over-stylized, lacking in originality and very silly, but all quite fun at the same time. Though if it weren't for the two Corey's I'd probably knock half a popcorn bucket off my rating, as most of the fun was provided by them.


The Cincinnati Kid (1965, Norman Jewison)
When infamous stud poker player Edward G. Robinson comes back to town, a game is quickly set up to see him face "The Kid", an up-and-comer in the gambling world played by the always cool Steve McQueen. A gritty sixties movie that has a lot more to it than just poker.


The Philadelphia Story (1940, George Cukor)
A delightful romantic comedy that truly stands the test of time. The great cast headlined by Cary Grant, Katharine Hepburn and an excellent James Stewart deliver the script's witty banter to near-perfection. About time I saw this timeless classic.

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