The Movie Trade-off Tab

I have to ask, is a DVD of Shiner on its way to your house or can you remove it and watch something else I'll pick? I know there's no way in hell you're going to like Shiner and I feel bad for picking that since you gave me such a good movie and I only thought it would be funny imagining you watching Shiner. So if you can, I'll choose another movie for you, unless it's too late.

Little Big Man will get a repeat viewing from me someday and I will recommend it to others. It doesn't show its age at all, really, and it was both funny and masterful.

It wouldn't get mailed before tomorrow, so I can switch it if you really want me to.

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There's another movie that I watched recently starring Courtney Love and Lili Taylor called Julie Johnson.



It's about a woman (Lili Taylor) whose husband won't let her go to college, but she's really bright in science, and she ends up kicking her husband out and having a lesbian relationship with her friend (Courtney Love). I liked it a lot and it's a much easier watch than Shiner, which has horrible production quality. If you haven't seen this, I'd go with it, but if you're really curious about Shiner, go ahead.

First of all I just want to say thank you to Ash is the Gal for recommending such a good film.

Dark Victory 1939 directed by Edmund Goulding

I really found this film very entertaining and very emotional.I enjoyed this film alot so I looked it up on Wiki and apparently Dark Victory's screenplay was based on a Unsuccessfully play by George Brewer and Bertram Bloch In 1934.Its hard to believe that the play bombed because I honestly really enjoyed the screenplay,The overall story was probably my favorite thing about this film besides Bette Davis's performance.



Bette Davis played Judith a strong but doomed young heiress who has a big lust for life. Judith Finds out she has a terminal disease and at first she turns to alcohol to help with the pain but in the end she realizes that death is not beatable and she learns to face death calmly and with courage.This is my first Bette Davis film and I absolutely fell in love with her,she was amazing in this film and she played Judith beautifully. This film also stars George Brent, Humphrey Bogart,Ronald Reegan and Geraldine Fitzgerald and they all performed very well.


So I really enjoyed this film alot and I absolutely fell in love with Bette Davis so Ash If you have any suggestions for Davis films let me know.





Judith "Nothing can hurt us now. What we have can't be destroyed. That's our victory - our victory over the dark. It is a victory because we're not afraid."

i'm so glad you enjoyed it, Holly. i'll have to respond to this later because i'm on my phone. but if you're looking for some good Bette Davis films to fall in love with her further, i am so your girl.

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oh, what did you think of the "i think i'll have a large order of PROGNOSIS NEGATIVE!" scene, with her eyes bugging out in that Bette Davis way of hers? hehe.

I loved it,her Facial reactions are priceless and I loved the way she made a game of it at lunch , the way she reacted to the news felt very realistic.If I found out some one lied to me about something like that I would probably be a little upset myself.

Julie Johnson (Bob Gosse, 2001)



OK, Sexy, you have to know that upfront this rating is positive. It's just that I find the flick very low-key, but it's balanced out by being mostly believable and almost something resembling lovable. So, in that way, I understand why you love it even though I thought you had a problem with lesbians in general. This is a modern tale of two best female friends who are both going through problems with their significant male others. Lili Taylor is the smart one, married with two kids, who just can't take her oblivious husband telling her no any more. She dropped out of school to get married but she really is much smarter than her husband and could probably earn much more money if she carried through with her education. Courtney Love is the sexy one who remembers how sweetly she thought about her friend when she was younger and thinks it's the right time to do something about it since she's fed up with her boyfriend. They begin a romance but as with most such movies, too many people and "things" get in the way.

Julie Johnson is a very sweet movie. For those who worry about such things, it doesn't deserve more than a PG-13 and has no nudity or "sex scenes". Instead it has, for an unfortunately brief amount of time, two attractive, mature, heretofore seemingly-straight women giving themselves over to a loving relationship which is far more tender than they ever received from the men in their lives. If the reasons for their changeover are basically skipped over, it's no biggie to me. The human heart is a mysterious thing and open to many fluctuations... as if you didn't know. The Liz Phair song score is a positive for the movie. I just wish these kinds of movies with such bittersweet endings had some better closure involving the kids and/or the people being dumped. Otherwise, Julie Johnson is just about what you would expect, at least if you just finished reading what I just wrote.

Thanks, Jason.

Got mine through today gonna watch it later

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The Wild Bunch



First off, let it be said that William Holden is a BAMF. He is absolutely everything you could ask for in this role, and his performance was probably my favorite part of watching this film. The other performances were also good, but William Holden just blew me away.
This film also blew me away with it's editing. Just absolutely superbly edited, especially the action sequences. One of my favorite moments was in the opening shootout when a body falls off the roof in slow motion and clips of the the rest of the shootout at normal speed are flashed during the falling shot. That's just one example of the great editing, but there were many.
Unfortunately the movie did have a few pitfalls. I felt that a few of the scenes could have been shortened (like any of the three different scenes of the townsfolk walking around singing) and that some of the camera work was a little awkward. Specifically, there were some zooms and close ups that felt really oddly placed to me.
Another thing that should be said about the movie is that I had a real problem getting attached to the characters. I absolutely loved Pike but the other characters were not all that well developed and, more importantly, just weren't likeable. I'm kind of torn about this because on one hand I think it's kind of interesting to put blatantly unlikable characters as the "heroes" of the movie, but on the other hand I think that I would have liked the movie more if the whole group had the even good/bad mixture that Pike had. I wanted to care about all of the character's survival but it's hard to care about someone when they're using innocent women as human shields ya know...

So overall-

Glad you liked it



As a big fan Of Yule Brynner His performance is what really makes the movie, I was keen to watch Westworld again it has been a few years since my last viewing but I liked it just as much

Westworld is a Wild west theme park, where the bad guys are all robots, they can be killed and no humans can be hurt. Brynner is brilliant as the robot who is supposed to die in every shoot out till he starts to malfunction, He sets out for revenge. He is like the terminator hard to kill



Westworld, is a fantastic thriller, Suspense story

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I recently learned about WestWorld. I'd like to watch it someday soon.

Kasper, I will be back here with your movie review soon.

Westworld's a good film. I actually like Futureworld, too.

La Belle et La Bête

Beauty and the Best - this time with real emotions and awesome costume and design sets.

having only been familiar with Disney's version of Beauty and the Beast up to this point, i have to say i was thrilled to bits that a movie like this exists. i really love how Jean Cocteau's version is every bit as magical as the Disney version - moreso, in fact, because it feels so real.

what a beautiful looking movie this was, Holly. all the castle bits were slow, dramatic, and luminous. it was both creepy and heartwarming, much like the Beast himself.

i also really liked the way the love story was dealt with. it isn't over romanticized at all. the chemistry between Beauty and her Beast is at first plagued with fear and pity, but then evolves into a deep respect, fondness, grief, and then finally, love. the love between the two is less sappy and more a deep connection that was established through compassion and loneliness. i also thought the twist where the Beast turns into the double of another man was a pretty neat spin. i think it says something about Belle herself, that she was able to again look past appearances and love the Beast for his compassion and goodness.

ohhhh, how these kinds of movies always remind me of Jane Eyre and make me feel all nostalgic inside.

YAY I am so glad you enjoyed this film as much as I did.The set design,the costumes,the acting,the characters everything is just amazing and I m so stoked that you liked it. I was so excited to see what you thought of it. When I watched it a couple Weeks ago i got butterfly's in my tummy I think I want you as a partner again Just curious did you like the ending as much as I did???

aw!

yeah, i thought the ending was great. i loved how non-traditional it all was. i hadn't known what to expect and for the last 30 minutes of the film i was sitting on the edge of my seat in anticipation.

The Dead Zone
(directed by David Cronenberg, 1983)



***Movie selected by KasperKristensen***

Odd. The Dead Zone seems to have a positive reputation based on what I'm seeing online. But I came away from it underwhelmed.

The story concerns a schoolteacher who seems to have everything going for him -- mainly, a girlfriend who's crazy about him. He tells her he's gonna marry her one day... later that night, he gets into a car accident and goes into a coma. Five years later, he wakes up and his girl is gone. She has married someone else. Understandably, she could not wait for him - she had to move on with her life. The schoolteacher, Johnny (Christopher Walken), soon realizes that he can see the future whenever he touches somebody.

While watching this movie was somewhat enjoyable and I really loved Christopher Walken's character, I found the movie too simple, too depressing, too silly at times and it had a mediocre vibe. Is it because it's a 1980's movie? I don't know. It's got that creepy Stephen King vibe (who wrote the book the movie is based on) but it just didn't feel strong and smart. There's an incredibly hokey moment in which Christopher Walken's character gets picked apart on television by news reporters regarding his psychic ability and we see his mother, who's watching it on TV, get so upset that she appears to have a heart attack. Some other moments were bloody and disturbing. Most of all, though, I felt the movie was a great big downer. How tragic that someone would go into a coma for five years, lose the love of their life, then get this power that basically destroys their own future and happiness once they wake up.

I had read the book its based on, also called The Dead Zone, years ago, but never saw the movie until now. I remember liking the book a lot. From what I can remember, there's been some changes between the book version and the movie, but I'm not sure that I'm right. I've still got the book and I'm tempted to re-read it (although, I'm sure that feeling will pass soon).

Martin Sheen appears in the third half of the movie as a senator who's had a vision of himself becoming the president -- unfortunately for him, Christopher Walken has also had a vision of him basically destroying the world once he becomes president. So, you get to see Christopher Walken go after some tiger blood in this movie. The movie ends successfully for what it is but in my opinion The Dead Zone could have had more complexity and more realism and more sophistication than it did. Maybe being simple worked for most people with this movie, and I can see the charm bracelet it's wearing, but I thought this movie was too easy and lacking warmth and happiness and solid entertainment. It's hard for me to describe why I feel this way when it seems hard to point out big flaws... it's just too plain. It's not edgy, it's not rich, it's bleak and dismal and it made me sad. It feels cheap -- like a cheap horror film not really fleshed out. It shocked me that David Cronenberg made this movie. Christopher Walken was good, though -- but his character seemed too thin. What else was there to Johnny besides his love for the girl he lost, his caring attitude towards others and his psychic gift? A movie involving psychic phenomena just needs a lot of depth, I think, than standard, acceptable traits like caring for others. What if Johnny didn't care sometimes?

generally speaking, you're not one who cares much for depressing films, are you, Sexy?

I hate depressing anything for the most part, but if it's done right, I think there can be a lot to learn from material like that. In The Dead Zone, I didn't really learn anything. I just saw a guy with a bad life and some upsetting things happening around him - or about to happen - or could happen. It is admirable, though, that he does certain things to better the world, and maybe this is something to learn, but... I wasn't totally there with him. It was a little like watching a video game character move around with the intention of completing a mission while knowing he's cursed and every so often getting a message on the screen from the love of his life, who he can't be with, just popping up to check in. It just seemed like I was watching one level of the movie - one painting of it, you could say - but not knowing what's beyond the painting, what the painting was. The Dead Zone is a picture that says 100 words instead of 1,000.

Heartless (Philip Ridley, 2009) +



This is Godoggo's recommendation, and since I know Ridley from the weird The Reflecting Skin, I thought I'd give it a shot. It's about young Londoner Jamie (Jim Sturgess from Across the Universe) who was born with a large heart-shaped birthmark surrounding his left eye. He feels very insecure and unlovable, but just about the time he meets a young woman (Clémence Poésy), he also starts seeing scary gang members roaming the back alleys in what appears to be demonic masks and hoods. This gang begins to terrorize the city by attacking citizens, and Jamie becomes more and more entangled with them, especially when he becomes certain that the gang members aren't wearing masks.



The film has a lot of style and atmosphere and crams many incidents, characters and plot points into the first 45 minutes. I believe that this is probably the best part of the movie since it's tense and unclear what is going on and why. Later on, the film turns more into a traditional horror film with at least three scenes of extreme violence so those might appeal to the regular horror crowd. The flick remains entertaining but it begins to feel a bit overlong because there are basically two ways everything's going to turn out and once it starts going a certain direction, it gets more predictable. There's also an attempt at the end to add on extra tragedy but since I feel that scene sends mixed messages, I think it doesn't especially work. Still, anybody looking for a psychological thriller/horror film could do a lot worse, especially in this day and age where demons seem so omnipresent in movies.

Thanks for the rec, Godoggo.