Movie Tab II

You can see her ankles in The Queen

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Virtual Reality chatter on a movie site? Got endless amounts of it here. Reviews over here

Indeed.

Caligula is probably the most (in)famous but I remember a quick flash as recently as Calendar Girls (I sound like a stalker now, I know ). I think she's great - a terrific actress who's risen far above what short-sighted (and one wonders why they were so short sighted ) 70s casting directors saw in her.

Taylor Hackford is a lucky fella.

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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

I respect that view and I think a lot of people on this board share a similar opinion on Magnolia (I think we're reviving the old Crash vs Magnolia vs Short Cuts thread actually) - I'd say Crash is the most obviously interwoven and Short Cuts being the most open ended with Magnolia lying in the middle , but PTA is imo the very highest caliber of director and his movie has a much more powerful effect on me than the other two - he's technically given it an epic look , a larger than life technical approach (ex : 2001 theme playing when Phil's given his mission to get a hold of Mackey and the god-like lighting on Mackey during his introduction) , which I thought worked perfectly given the ultimate meaning.

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Yeah, I thought there were some nice bits of filmmaking in Magnolia. All of the seminar pieces were handled wonderfully. I'm starting to get the sense, though, that Paul Thomas Anderson is too much about being a visionary, and not enough about streamlining his ideas and trimming the lard. Tarantino is quickly developing the same affliction, and it's that kind of unchecked filmmaking that leads to overly saturated, self-absorbed final products. With some good, old-fashioned revision and editing, I think Magnolia would have worked. But I fear that Anderson got so caught up in his vision that he couldn't objectify the film enough to make it accessible (or even tolerable) to his viewers.

The Bridge on the River Kwai - 1957 - David Lean - A

Now I know why this movie appears on at least six of the "lists" if not more. It was beautifully rendered and morally engaging. The movie is set in a Japanese prisoner of war camp in Burma during World War II. The opening of the movie features the famous whistling theme music (The Colonel Bogey March). The battle of wills between the British Colonel Nicholson (Sir Alex Guiness) and the Japanese Colonel Saito (Sessue Hayakawa) begins early and is intense. Nicholson eventually becomes the victor as he has less to lose than the Japanese commander. The other battle is between Nicholson's obsession to build the bridge, to create a monument to the British, and Major Sparks' (William Holden) dedication to the task of destroying the bridge by blowing it up. Then there is the battle that Sparks is fighting within his own soul, to do the right thing or follow the easy path.

I enjoyed this movie very much and actually liked it better than, and I hope I don't offend, Lawrence of Arabia. Highly recommended.




Desire Under the Elms - 1958 - Delbert Mann - B

I believe I put this in my Netflix queue a hundred years ago, after I saw Marty which was also directed by Delbert Mann. I think what might have attracted me to this movie was that it involved greed, lust, conflict, adultery, hatred, passion, (did I mention lust?) all set in morally chaste New England. A veritable boiling stew pot of emotions. Not exactly a "must see", but it was entertaining.

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Do not meddle in the affairs of Dragons.....for you are crunchy and good with ketchup.

Blindness



There is usually a few films in which I absolutely hate a certain character. In Texas Chainsaw Massacre, it was Franklin, Marcia Gay Harden from The Mist, just to name two. Yet in Blindness, I hated about a dozen of them. Never in a film as much as this one have I hated so many characters and their actions and Julianne Moore's character has to go down in history as one of my most hated...ever....in the history of film.

An epidemic spreads and everyone is suddenly blind by this whiteness. It's apparently highly contagious and the government decides to quarantine these people and shoot them if they were to try to even come close to someone outside of the facility. Moore's character is somehow immune to this blindness even though she has direct contact with those infected. Does she offer to help find a cure using herself, no she goes into the facility with her husband and pretends to be blind. I can get that, after all love is blind. Yet her actions within this place are extremely questionable.

The entire film is suppose to show how we would fall from our height and destroy our humanity if we were to lose something as precious as our sight. Thus, the film is gritty, unapologetic and disturbing. The facility is split into 3 wards, we never meet ward 2. Ward 1 has Moore, Ruffalo and Glover. Gael Garcia Bernal is in ward 3 and for some reason has a gun, so he decides to take control of the food supply and threaten to shoot anyone who gets in his way. Keep in mind, they are all blind. He, and his ward who all support him, will exchange the food for money, jewelery and other possessions. Why? They don't even know themselves, but they want it. what happens when the possessions run out? They resort to sex. Yes, they exchange food for sex with the women from the other wards.

So begins the rape scene in which the women are beaten, one is beaten to death, all of this happens while Julianne Moore can see and she does absolutely nothing to stop it. Here is a woman who has such a great advantage over everyone else and she doesn't use it. I became so aggravated with this character and her stupid actions to do nothing. Instead, she goes down on one of them. How easy could it have been to steal the gun, or use scissors or a pipe and kill him? They claim it will start a war, so be it, she can still see. I guess the life and dignity of others mean nothing. She even catches her blind husband having sex with another woman, yet she is too tired to even care. When she finally decides to do something, I've given up already. I can't stress how much I hated this character and her willingness to do nothing.

The film is bleak, yet beautiful in it's cinematography and atmosphere. The deserted streets and apocalyptic feel of the world outside is well done. Yet all that does not make up for such a dirty feeling the film left me throughout it's 2nd act. The characters all 'act' blind, for the most part it comes off believable, but I did not care for anyone in this movie. The husband is himself is stupid and weak.

I can't really recommend this flick. It's well made and has the same feel as films like Children of Men, except it's nowhere near the quality of those films. I just can't recommend a film that made me feel disgusted by characters and actions.

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"A laugh can be a very powerful thing. Why, sometimes in life, it's the only weapon we have."

Suspect's Reviews

^^^

I'm currently reading the novel of which that movie is based. I haven't seen the movie so I have only skimmed through your review just incase there are any spoilers. But from what I can tell the old saying (that I just made up ) "It's never as good as the book" is quite apt here.

That's not entirely true, but it's late and I can't be bothered to keep typing.

Good book though.

Transformers:Revenge of the Fallen(Michael Bay 2009)-I was in Salt Lake City the other day so I wanted to see it in IMAX my God it's freakin' huge and Megan Fox running in slow motion on such a big screen now that's sexy



Cruel Intentions(Roger Kumble 1999)-I haven's seen that one in a while but all I remember is that it was really good and as the title refers "Cruel" but that makes it even more interesting Ryan Philippe and Sarah Michelle Gellar make an amazing performance

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I'm in movie heaven

Star Wars Holiday Special - Watched it fully intact with advertisements and all. Just as it aired in 1978......but with Rifftrax




300 (with Rifftrax)




Jurassic Park (with Rifftrax)




Cloverfield (with Rifftrax)





War of the Worlds: The Extinctive Cut

&e

Funny People - 8/10...I guess?

I don't know. I still have a lot of pondering to do on Funny People. It wasn't really what it was advertised to be. It was good...I just have to figure out if it was great, or just decent. Can't really tell yet

The Good, The Bad, The Ugly


What can I say which hasn't already been said? This is the movie that got me into westerns and made me really appreciate how good some westerns are. Leone is a genius.

Perfection

Encounters at the End of the World (2007, Werner Herzog)

4/5

Of Mad Werner's recent output it's the documentaries which have lit my fire - Grizzly Man and the wonderful White Diamond.

The visual and aural poetry on offer in Encounters at the End of the World is up there with both those films.

The focus here is less on the lone Messianic misfit (although there is a guy with weird fingers who thinks he's an Inca king and a deranged penguin!) but the collection of men and women who hoover up taxpayers' money in the name of scientific research. Oh, and the wildlife and scenery of Antarctica...mustn't forget that.

That it's not just concerned with one central figure/nutter means that the structure is probably not as tight as it could have been - the encounters in question are highly episodic and could probably have been presented in any order or, whisper it, a TV series but the slight misgiving here is balanced some of the most beautiful underwater footage you'll ever see.

And seal song.

I'm not talking , fine choon that it is, but rather the sounds seals make while underwater. That's seals, not Seal. Damn, stop digging Dave.

They're mournfully majestic and worth getting hold of the film for on their own.



Imagine that in surround sound...

In case you thought that the deranged penguin bit was a cheap joke then think again. As if!



EDIT - I forgot to mention the score. Stunning.

Fast & Furious (2009) ... no, I didn't rent or buy this... my cousin brought it over to watch... and all I can say is that Michelle Rodriguez had the right idea...

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Sin Nombre - 2009 dir. Cary Fukunaga


Amazing. I implore you to go see this movie when you get the chance. Beautiful and heartbreaking

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Undercoverlovers 100 REDUX

I know what you mean, I hate watching a movie wet.

Teeth



I'm all for good horror comedies and reading up on the premise of Teeth ad me rolling in laughter. It had the same feel of films like I Spit On Your Grave, the idea of a woman using her sexuality as a weapon to detach a man from his...manhood. Teeth could have played up the comedy a bit more and I would have enjoyed it more than I did, the problem was it played it way too straight.

The premise of the film is based on old myth's that would scare boys into staying virgins until they were married. Females had teeth in their vagina that would bite off your penis, aptly titled Vagina Dentata. This horrid little circumstance has happened to our lead character, who is a virgin and a speaker for purity before marriage.

She befriends another member of this group and has feelings towards him, he is a born again virgin. They go for a swim and his penis gets the best of him, he tries to rape her. Well, chomp chomp. His penis is bitten off and falls to the floor. He dies from falls back into the water and either drowns or dies from blood loss. It's never clear. She of course freaks out and goes to a gynecologist to see how things are down there. This is the funniest scene in the entire film.

My problem with it though is that this film depicts every male character as either a pervert, rapist and molester. The step-brother degrades women and views them as sex objects, the friend tries to rape her, the gynecologist molests her, another man has a bet whether or not he can bang her and it ends with a creepy old man wiggling his tongue around suggesting more sexual things. Two separate times we see a penis detached from a man and one tries to have it surgically re-attached, to which the doctor mentions during the operation "almost doesn't seem worth it"

Teeth doesn't really have much of a climax, or a story. It follows this one girl as she turns from a scared virgin to a slut dealing out death by vagina dentata. If your curious to see the flick, give it a go. If anything of this disgusts you, give it a skip.

Also, for you're viewing pleasure. The gynecologist scene.

Batman Begins: Dark Cut - A more streamlined version of Batman Begins, with fewer cheesy jokes, less un-Batman-like behavior and, most importantly, a more tolerable Katie Holmes.



Army of Darkness – Primitive Screwhead Edition - Features 3!!! extended versions of ARMY OF DARKNESS, available via seamless branching, featuring both alternate endings and the alternate beginning.

ANOTHER AOD dvd???

edit - It's one of your fan edit flicks? Never mind then.

I want to see a fan-edit that links all three movies together at all the right points.

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Iro's Top 100 Movies v3.0

There is one..it's called Evil Dead Trilogy Ultimate Fan Edit