What was the last movie you saw at the theaters?

Just saw The Departed. Awsome movie!!!

Saw The Grudge 2 yesterday. I didn't like it as much as the first one, but the part in the psychiatrist's office really creeped me out.

santa claus 3: the escape clause

cute, very cute, but doesn't measure up to 1 and 2...it's got it's funny bits with spencer breslin taller and his voice being on the verge of changing

all i can say is that i miss bernard!

Watched grudge 2. Also didn't like it as much as the first one. Tried the whole "lets try scare them with outrageous horror" and it back fired.

True last movie was little miss sunshine. I really didn't enjoy the comedy and watching a disfunctional family really doesn't bring a whole lot of entertainment. The people I saw it with however, found it was funny and told me I have no idea what Arthouse movies are. Well I'm here to say I don't enjoy Arthouse movies.

Saw 3

- Vomitsville

i went to see saw 3 and it was awesome

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ooooh! i just saw the movie "the prestige" with christian bale, and it WAS AWESOME. i have never seen a movie with so many plot twists before!

Way too graphic for me usachatnow! Esp the turning head bit.... nuff said.


I find some horror films these days find it hard to grab viewer's with plot originality at times so they try to compensate by turning up the volume on being gruesome and graphic instead...

They show graphic stuff like that enough times, people will become desensitized to it...

Worrying?


Don't know, just a thought...

The last movie I saw was Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Beginning. It was so gory I felt like puking afterwards, but a perfect movie for the Halloween season.

the last movie that i saw it was depaarted of scorsese

Harsh Times (2006 - David Ayer)

The directorial debut of David Ayer, the screenwriter responsible for Training Day and Dark Blue, it isn't ultimately as strong as his previous work. Harsh Times is the story of two buddies in South Central L.A. We're never told how they met or how long the've been friends, so I guess it isn't important. One of them is Jim Davis (Christian Bale), an ex-Army Ranger looking to use his skills in some form of Stateside law enforcement. His buddy is Mike Alonzo (Freddy Rodriguez from "Six Feet Under"). Mike is currently unemployed, much to the dismay of his wife, Sylvia (Eva Longoria from "Desperate Houswives"). Mike had paid all the bills while Sylvia was going to law school, but now that she's made it he's just been killing time drinking beer and watching television. To put it lightly, Jim is not the best influence.

While waiting to hear from the various agencies around town, Jim takes Mike to some of their old haunts as they drink and toke up and even commit some minor crimes. It's clear to us (and to Sylvia) that Jim is a psycho. Just about everybody gets that except for Mike, who has a blind spot for his wild friend. The L.A.P.D. gets it too, and they reject his application. This turns his insanity up a notch, but then he gets a call from the Department of Homeland Security. They want him all right, but they want him because he's a psycho; they intend to unleash him in Columbia to do black bag ops against drug cartels. Through a couple dreams/flashback and some photos we see the kind of Hell Jim was a part of in the Army (serving in Iraq or Afghanistan, it's not made clear which), and however unstable and reckless he was as a lad on the streets of Los Angeles the military uncorked a psychotic mess. He's made an attempt to become something like normal, with a young Mexican finacé on the other side of the border and hopes of settling in L.A. or San Diego as a cop. When it is spelled out for him that he is only valued as an inhuman tool of bloody destruction, that small sliver of hope he had evaporates. But will he take Mike down with him, too?

The post-traumatic stress psycho stuff is only mildly interesting, and while Bale is a very good actor he's only asked to act out a bunch of clichés. Like Training Day this is an amped up, overly stylized morality play with little grounding in reality...which is too bad. A movie that more seriously looked at the character's psychology may have made for a good film. As is it's a device in a video game, and not much more. Rodriguez does all that he can with what he's given, but the character has to make a couple of leaps that don't make much sense in order to move the plot forward. Longoria is only in about fifteen minutes of the movie and she's mostly fine as the worried wife, but her part too is underwritten and only seems to react for plot machinations. On screen Bale is compelling, as always, despite the film's flaws in focus and tone, but by the last act it's just not enough to make a difference and there aren't any real surprises along the way. Training Day and Dark Blue were no match for the likes of Serpico, Q&A and Prince of the City that had inspired them, and now Harsh Times is even less than that lowered bar.


GRADE: C-

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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

Agreed. I was very disappointed when I saw "Remains of the Day" on film. Didn't come close to capturing the novel.

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May I ask who or what you are agreeing with?

Flushed Away -

That was the part I was talking about...in the warehouse.

I don't get why people laughed. So far, I've heard that's happened at a lot of theaters.

Just seen Borat the other night. It was definately vulgur but oh sooo funny! Laughed till I cried!

Last movie i saw (yes I know it was a while ago) was Superman Returns. Definitely the best movie of the summer I thought for sure. Been mainly watchin old DVDs recently - but I cant wait to add this one to my collection, sick movie overall.

Night of the Living Dead in 3-D +++

Click

Babel (2006 - Alejandro González Iñárritu)

Alejandro González Iñárritu and Guillermo Arriaga, the director and screenwriter who teamed for Amores Perros (2000) and 21 Grams (2003), come together again for a fractured multiple character tale of suffering and human frailty. There are four main story tracks within the narrative set in Morocco, Mexico and Tokyo, and where they overlap puts a spotlight on some of the artificial borders that abound in a world full of "others".

The Moroccan story begins with a humble goat herder in the mountains purchasing a large calibur rifle from another local. The purpose is to kill the jackals that threaten his goats, and he leaves it in the charge of his two young sons Ahmed (Said Tarchani) and Yussef (Boubker Ait El Caid). Out of curiosity and boredom they start shooting at distant targets to see the supposed three kilometer range the rifle has. After tiring of rocks they take a couple of shots at the moving vehicles in the valley far below. One of the bullets hits a bus full of tourists, and inside hits one of the passengers, Susan (Cate Blanchett). Her husband, Richard (Brad Pitt), is in a panic as there are no doctors or medical supplies on board and they are many hours from a hospital. He makes the desperate decision to head to the small village of the guide and translator (Mohamed Akhzam) who is leading the tour. It's the closest option.

Back home in San Diego Susan and Richard's two young children Mike (Nathan Gamble) and Debbie (Elle Fanning) are being looked after by the family's trusted longtime live-in nanny and hosekeeper, Amelia (Adriana Barraza). But she's faced with a bit of a delimma, though at first less critical than the one facing the parents; Her son's wedding is taking place that day, and with nobody else she feels she can leave the children with she decides to take them with her to the celebration in Mexico. Her nephew Santiago (Gael García Bernal) who also lives in the United States is driving them across the border.

The third setting is Tokyo as we meet a teenage girl named Chieko (Rinko Kikuchi) who is alternatively depressed, angry and rebellious. She's also a deaf mute, and we learn she lives with her father, played by Kôji Yakusho, and that her mother has recently died. She has a small group of girl friends from school who are also deaf and her Dad knows sign language, but when she walks around the teeming streets and clubs of Tokyo she is very much alone. She's dealing with that isolation as well as the grief about her mother and the usual awkwardness of being a teenager by acting out in sexual ways. She takes off her panties to show a group of boys in a cafeteria and she makes aggressive but unsure attempts at seduction with men like her dentist during an appointment.

It's immediately obvious how the Morocco and Mexico storylines are interlinked but late in the movie before we learn how the Japanese segment intersects, though it does and I won't reveal it in the review. The narrative constantly shifts between the four stories, and it's purposefully kept unclear where each timeline fits in exactly with the others. The Moroccan story is the most straightforward in many ways and probably the least surprising in terms of guessing what will happen, but the acting from Brad Pitt and Boubker Ait El Caid, who plays the younger of the two boys with the rifle, elevates the material. I've always been a fan of Brad's, despite his sex symbol status and being a regular on the front of gossip rags. I think by in large he's underrated as an actor, and he does some of his best work yet in Babel. Unglamorously playing his age (he'll be forty-three in December) and having to go through shock, love, horror, anger, empathy and fear in trying to save his critically injured wife, it's a showcase for how strong he is and tools we don't get to see him use in some of his more popular fare like Ocean's 11 and Mr. & Mrs. Smith that are movie star parts. Pitt has one Oscar nomination from a decade ago (12 Monkeys) and he may well get his second.

The least effective story for me was the Mexican tale. Taking the children to the wedding seems like a perfectly reasonable solution, except for one key piece of information is withheld from the audience, and we don't find out until they're coming back home to San Diego. Gael García Bernal has become one of my very favorite actors (see also The King and The Science of Sleep from this year), but for the sake of the plot his character has to abruptly change direction out of the blue. I didn't buy the hairpin turn, and it makes the trauma that follows more annoying than suspenseful. Iñárritu and Arriaga are both Mexican and Amores Perros as well as Tommy Lee Jones' The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada which was also scripted by Arriaga are brilliant, but it's like they went to the well once too often. The Mexican storyline is the most contrived and least satisfying.

Ultimately the Tokyo tale is the most interesting, if only because you don't really know where it's going or how it even links up to the other stories. The twenty-five-year-old Kikuchi is wonderful and totally convincing playing a sixteen-year-old-or-so girl, and her performance never becomes full of the kind of histrionics lesser actors might have relied upon. Her pain, confusion and anger are palpable, and you hope she is going to save herself before something happens that can't be undone.

Taken with their previous two movies, Iñárritu & Arriaga have created a cinematic triptych of the human condition in the 21st century, and while Babel is more flawed than Amores Perros and 21 Grams it still holds plenty of emotional power with some very good performances.


GRADE: B