Movie Tab II

Changeling would win every award if I had my way.

Have you ever seen Tim with Martin Lawrence in Nothing to Lose? I haven't seen it in ages but if memory serves, it was good for several laughs...

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No, but I do want to see his work that I haven't seen, so I'm going to see it.

One of Tim's best performances is certainly as Bob Roberts, which is the first film he directed.

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It's what you learn after you know it all that counts. - John Wooden
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That looks unbelievably tasty, mark.

I'm going to go put that at #1 on my Netflix queue now.

My comments about said marathon-
Wrong Turn 2 was such a sad experience for me. The original was one of the first horror movies I obsessed over when I was a youngling and it will forever hold a special place in my heart. All of the characters in Wrong Turn 2 sucked, and none of the kill scenes were creative or very gory besides the first one. And they killed off two of the characters from the first one and I was just like...what. You can't kill them, I grew up with them! I did love the pycho teenage girl mutant hick though. So. Crazy.
Silent Hill was awesome as ever. One of the most visually pleasing horror movies out there, and has one of the only death scenes that truly makes me cringe.
Darkness Falls-WHY DO I LIKE THIS MOVIE SO MUCH? It's not exceptional in any way, but it's just so entertaining!

Kaitlyn nooo0o0o0o!!

anyway, you liked that one dude that was cheating on his gf! haha but yeah Wrong Turn 2...

Ha, yeah he was the only one that had any hope of evolving into a not one dimensional character. But I was still rooting for Teeanagegirlmutanthickthing over him.

I watched Singin' in the Rain for the first time today. I'm having a hard time deciding on an exact rating (it would probably be a 4, but that's nothing official and it could actually be a bit higher), but I loved the film. A lot more than I expected to.

And the title song always reminds me of this guy:

Been desperately trying to catch up with worthwhile-looking films from 2008 before all the worthwhile-looking films of 2009 start popping up and so in the past two days I've watched...



Hancock (Peter Berg, 2008)

See, now I think this is every bit the equal of Iron Man and maybe just a bit below The Dark Knight but, for some pretty silly reason, it got trashed by the critical community at large. I dunno, but I get jazzed up by just seeing a new superhero and Hancock serves us a different spin on a genre that seems like it's been spun quite a few times already. How do you not admire it for that?

I can see that the movie's got a bit of an identity crisis on its hands, but that's actually sneakily very meta and self-aware, because don't all superheroes have an identity crisis? And, yeah, okay, I can see that it's got some pretty shaky, convenient superhero mythology type stuff that it rolls out very blandly and matter-of-factly by way of Charlize Theron. But considering this is a superhero that hasn't been ingrained in the public's collective psyche for the past 60 years, I think they did an okay job on that front.

Basically, I'm just saying the positives outweigh the negatives and the negatives aren't that credible to begin with. This is a funny movie. And they reunited Michael Bluth with his MRF, so why is anybody complaining, really? And dang, Jason Bateman has gotta be the definitive, textbook everyman/straight man for this or any millennium. He could ground any movie in reality and he grounded this one in some pretty serious reality, so good job, Bateman!

Will Smith, by the by, even if he does make a bad flick from time to time, should always be given the benfeit of the doubt. On how many different occasions has that man single-handedly saved the world from sure destruction? 8? 9? Either way, dude deserves our respect. Welcome to earf, indeed.






Happy-Go-Lucky (Mike Leigh, 2008)

I haven't seen a whole bunch of Mike Leigh flicks, but the thing I admire most about the ones I have seen is the fact that I feel I personally know someone who's exactly like nearly all of his characters. I'm not sure I described that properly, but I'll also add that whenever Mike Leigh's characters talk, I get the sense I've had some variation on the same kind of conversation those characters are having. This is pretty high praise, so I hope what I just said makes sense.

And as much as I love all the characters in the few Leigh movies I have seen, Poppy in Happy-Go-Lucky is probably my favorite. Part of this is Sally Hawkins, but I give the credit to Leigh, as well. I dig that, at first, you feel like you know exactly who she is but you gradually are given so many more layers until the end when you finally realize how much is actually there. This sounds like regular ol' character development, but it's different and much more organic/unique. And, yeah, Hawkins is the balls. Eddie Marsan is really good, too, as the off balaced driving instructor.

Not that this matters, really, but from the couple of interviews I've read of Leigh's, he seems like a bit of pompous prick. So much of a pompous prick, in fact, that I'm not sure how he'd react when he saw some clown on the internet rating his newest independent rave with the same grade as Hancock. But if you're reading this, Mr. Leigh (and I know you are), just know I really liked your new film and actually why don't you take some advice from your new film: Lighten the flip up, man. You're only as happy as you think you are.




Also saw The Mutant Chronicles. I guess I just like to torture myself sometimes.

Idiocracy (Mike Judge, 2006)



Good sci-fi adventure comedy, somewhat in the spirit of Demolition Man, where the most-average American soldier, Joe (Luke Wilson), and an on-the-run prostitute, Rita (Maya Rudolph), agree to be guinea pigs for a year-long hibernation experiment, but unfortunately, they end up in hibernation for half a millenium. When they come out, they find the United States inhabited by complete morons and the President (Terry Crews) is a former wrestler who wants to recruit Joe as Secretary of the Interior (because his I.Q. test says he's currently the world's smartest man) in spite of Joe's constant run-ins with the law due to his inability to adapt to the current world's idiocy. Along with the help of Rita, Joe tries to solve the current food crisis since nothing seems to grow anymore. Even if some of the jokes are overused, there are plenty of laughs in this film which I'm also tempted not to call sci-fi or comedy. I don't find it a reason to laugh when so many of my students and the "average citizens" of the U.S. are so ill-informed, superstitious and just plain brain-dead. Sorry, Swedish...

Invasion of the Body Snatchers (Don Siegel, 1956)



This B+ sci-fi flick, released in the year of my birth, is a stripped-down paranoid thriller, where your friends and neighbors aren't so much dumbed-down as they are turned into unemotional inhuman beings. Back in the day, it was a belated response to McCarthyism (Joseph, not Kevin), but I think it plays out better as pure horror/sci-fi than a political commentary. The cast does quite well, and Kevin McCarthy and King Donovan have probably never been better. When the pods and "pre-humans" start showing up, your skin will probably crawl. For some reason, I've never fully embraced this version, but it's great filmmaking and took director Siegel to another level from his usual action flicks heretofore. I recommend this one, but I like Phil Kaufman's remake even better. Oh, yeah; remember, "You're next! You're next! You're next!"

Shall We Dance (Mark Sandrich, 1937)



This is a later Fred and Ginger musical extravaganza, and somehow it gets forgotten amongst their greats, but I'm here to remind people of several reasons why this is one of the best. Did you watch the video above? "They Can't Take That Away From Me" is probably the best song ever in one of their films. Fred sings it beautifully, and the entire film consists of George and Ira Gershwin winners. Edward Everett Horton may well give his most hilarious performance as Fred's manager, and Eric Blore, who is often a laugh riot, creates a major riot at the Susquehanna Street Jail when he tries to phonetically spell every damn word he says to the clueless Horton over the phone. The plot is basically inconsequential because every one of their films has a mistaken identity/hate-turns-to-love plot, but just let them dance up a storm, have Fred sing a love song and have the second bananas be just as funny as they can naturally be and "That's Entertainment!"

Journey to the Seventh Planet (Sidney Pink, 1962)



The first half of my John Agar C-movie sci-fi festival is this Danish flick, which, although made a decade before the original Solaris, incorporates some of that film's plot points about people bringing their memories and emotions with them to another planet (in this case, Uranus) where other beings can use them to control us. (Allegedly, the novel Solaris was released a year before this film was, so maybe this cheapjack flick did steal from it.) Anyway, this film is also somehow set in 2001, when there are five male astronauts who land on Uranus, but before they do, they are unknowingly put into stasis by something who probes and analyzes them, so when they land on the cold, gaseous planet, it somehow transforms into a lush Garden of Eden world, complete with beautiful blondes. There are a few interesting photographic effects of the spaceships and some weird abstract imagery using multiple fluctuating color arrangements, but the whole thing is just so cornball and amateurish on so many levels. If you like low-budget 1960s color sci-fi, you may want to watch it, especially since it seems prescient thematically to Solaris and 2001: A Space Odyssey, but don't expect anything cool like Planet of the Vampires.

Invisible Invaders (Edward L. Cahn, 1959)



This film came out the same year as Plan 9 From Outer Space and covers much of the same ground, even though Plan 9 was filmed three years earlier and basically went unseen for quite a time. This flick begins with scientist John Carradine blowing himself up in an atomic experiment, and his best friend, Dr. Penner (Philip Tonge), resigns from leading the military's nuclear program. However, that's bad timing because invisible aliens are pissed at us for our latest dispersal of radiation into the galaxy and have come to Earth to possess all dead humans (including Carradine) to try to destroy the Earth before we can send more destruction out into space. What's amusing about this film is that we have a narrator, a la Plan 9, but it's no money-grubber like Criswell, and besides, this idiot narrator never even gets to say anything unintentionally funny. I mean, he sounds funny, but his words aren't funny at all. There are a few silly goings on concerning macho "Major Jay" (John Agar) who fights it out with a cowardly scientist (Robert Hutton) for the affections of Penner's daughter (Jean Byron), but with all the undead walking around outside their mountain compound, you would have thought that something semi-exciting or incomprehensibly-ridiculous would happen. Instead, Invisible Invaders' sin seems to be that it's borderline competent without a sense of camp. Well, I guess there's only one Plan 9 From Outer Space.

I'm about halfway through Jackie Chan's Drunken Master, and right now, I'm leaning towards , but I'll write that one up next time.

Sneak Preview (Coming Attraction):


I also rewatched the [original] pilot of "Twin Peaks" with my wife and daughter (the latter has never seen it and requested it). That is far superior to anything else Lynch has directed in the last 20 years. As an aside, did "Twin Peaks" have the most attractive female cast ever?

Weyy, Mark getting through some of my favourite stuff there. The choreography in the final fight of Drunken Master is nigh on flawless. And as for Twin Peaks, don't forget about Heather Graham joining in the Second Season, so in answer to your question, yes, yes it does have the most attractive female cast ever. I'd be interested to know your take on the final episode though? As it shows the other side of Lynch's directorial spectrum, i'd say.


Oh, and girls, Wrong Turn 2 is FAR better than the original. C'mon Henry Rollins is bad ass. And despite the cliches and hokey bits, it still has far more un-pretentious fun with itself then the most other STDs

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Most attractive female cast, period

See what I'm talking about?

You're wrong, Marko. It's good that everybody's at least a little ill-informed or brain-dead. I guess we all already think that we know everything, but how horrible would it be if we actually did?

Once Upon a Time in the West -

With the exception of a couple here and there, this was the first "big," real Western film I've ever seen. And I'm not quite sure what to make of it. The story was gripping, excellent performances all-around were delivered, and the locations of the film were beyond beautiful, but quite a few things bothered me about the movie. With the exception of a few, every single scene seemed to d r a g on and was *much* longer than I felt needed to be. For example, the opening sequence last around fifteen minutes, and about eight of those minutes were spent watching the one man sit on the chair, trying to blow a fly off his face.

I can understand building up suspense and setting a tone, but what happened here seemed a bit excessive.

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"The mind is its own place, and in itself
Can make a Heaven of Hell, a Hell of Heaven."
John Milton, Paradise Lost

My Movie Review Thread | My Top 100

Kinky Boots - Another britcom jostling for position in the Full Monty pouch. Pretty patchy, but boasts a full-bodied performance from Chiwetel Ejiofor. Ok, so in real life the struggling shoe factory pimped its wares in equally dowdy Dussledorf, not the Milan of the film, but everyone likes some colour and safe sexual-allusions with their feel-goodness right?

Reminds me i also saw...

Calender Girls - I'm not really the target audience for this equally 'true story based' tale of mumsy nudity, so found it about as rebellious as headbutting a dandelion. Still stays true to the FM tune of worthy-entrepreneurialness and slow-paced raciness in a pretty endearing way.


Garden State - Hmm, had its moments, but this damaged home-coming felt like almost too-personal a journey by Zach Braff on one hand, and then a bit too blandly generic on the other. Criticism of over-medication is one worthy strand i felt was handled well, and the slightly more upbeat mini-adventure in the final third also added some popcorn appeal.

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

I didn't love Garden State or anything, but the fact that Peter Saarsgaard's character collected Desert Storm trading cards was just about perfect. That's pretty much the only thing I remember about the movie, so while that may not be a good sign, at least it's a fond memory.

L'Eclisse (Michelangelo Antonioni, 1962)



A masterpiece of tone and composition, this glorious piece of trademark Antoniennui lit up Cannes in 1962 and sparkled in my living room in 2008. Antonioni continues to develop the constant themes in his work; social anxiety, the fragmented nature of post war Italy, artificiality of human emotion etc.

For me Antonioni was one of the great painters of European Cinema. Although Antonioni often eschews any sense of plot, the sheer beauty of his work continues to utterly mesmerise me. The gorgeous Monica Vitti is simply poetic as the sexually repressed Vittoria. She pines for love but struggles to hide her difficulties in expressing it. Never is she aware of where to find it or what to do with it. Its a beautiful conception and an unsettling meditation on the subtleties of body and soul.

Alain Delon, who is probably better known for his gangster roles as Jef Costello and Corey in Melville's Le Samourai (1967) and Le Cercle Rouge (1970), gives a magnificent turn as ambitious stockbroker Piero. Like Vittoria, Piero lacks any sense of direction; his afternoons are spent in a bustling bank turned stockroom competing with other disenchanted Italians attempting to turn their thousands into millions.

Piero and Vittoria are one of the most interesting Antonioni couples. Although they lack the desperation of Sandro and Claudio from L'Avventura (Antonioni's masterwork in my opinion), they are equally perplexed by love and its intracacies. They know they want and need it but are at pains to discover how to access their emotions. This is reaffirmed through Antonioni's ambiguous closing sequence; a melding of used story components and other, similarly bewildered couples.

Grade: A

Nice review. Although my thoughts here seem to disagree with you, in the case of Antonioni I believe that there is plenty of room for common ground even if the ratings drastically differ.