Movie Tab II

I think I agree - They should have used someone other than Broderick. I'm not sure who else they could have used though. Yep, agreed, Freeman and Washington were excellent!

Professione: reporter / The Passenger (1975 - Michelangelo Antonioni)

Nice one. A bit more accessible and conclusive than the other Antonioni films I've seen but still typical for the director, I guess. I'm watching it now with a commentary track by Jack Nicholson. Really good.

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The novelist does not long to see the lion eat grass. He realizes that one and the same God created the wolf and the lamb, then smiled, "seeing that his work was good".

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They had temporarily escaped the factories, the warehouses, the slaughterhouses, the car washes - they'd be back in captivity the next day but now they were out - they were wild with freedom. They weren't thinking about the slavery of poverty. Or the slavery of welfare and food stamps. The rest of us would be all right until the poor learned how to make atom bombs in their basements.

On The Outs - Not a bad independant film. This folLows the lives of three girls-a drug addict, a drug dealer and a runaway. It portrays drug use and street crime very well. 3.5/5

EDIT:FORGOT AN "L"

The Last King of Scotland (2006, Kevin Macdonald)

2.5/5

Ho-hum. I'm probably one of the few people who didn't think that Touching The Void was 'an astonishing piece of documentary filmmaking' or whatever, lets make this clear from the start and keep things brief.

Big Forest is fine in the role of Big Idi but that's about it as far as casting goes. I've never been a fan of James McAvoy and as for the lantern-jawed plank that is Gillian Anderson, she's not bad in TV shows I guess...

As for the film itself, it's yer typical Innocent Abroad flick. Worth a watch if there's not much left in the video store but don't expect much more than a TV movie with a bit of cash thrown at it. The commentary got turned off after 15 minutes, however, because of the plummy director's continued insistence at how thankful those poor innocent Ugandans were to have big posh film crews taking over their villages.

Colonial in attitude, workmanlike in execution then. Oh, and they didn't have TD5 Land Rovers in 1972.

In terms of recent mainstream films about modern Africa I'd take that one who's name I forget about the hotel in Rwanda over The Last King of Scotland. By a short head.



Big Forest suddenly realises that The New Bohemians aren't gonna turn up and gets back to his tray of snacks - sheep bollocks...

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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

My Super Ex-Girlfriend (Reitman, 2006)

Silly. I like Uma, tho, and man did she look good in the G-Girl gear... The lead was TERRIBLE. Where did they find this guy? Still, I liked watching Uma...errr, I said that already...

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The Fountain (Aronofsky, 2006)

Eh. Well, it was a gorgeous film, that's for sure. I just felt like I was supposed to gush over a bunch of pretentious allegory and symbolism that isn't quite cleverly communicated, but still acts like it is. I guess the message is inherently a good one, or at least true. But I never felt that hook which connected me to the whole idea that death is inescapable, and that new life via death is the silver lining we never think about. I felt like the "present day" segment was supposed to provide that, but it never did. Medium.

Smokin' Aces (Carnahan, 2006)

Cool little cult action/drama. The whole concept had a very Tarantino/Ritchie-esque stink to it (which is a good stink), but what those types of films sometimes lack, this one happened to make up for: strong emotional performances, particularly from Ryan Reynolds and Jeremy Piven. This is a fledgling sort of film with some disjointed character motivation and other minor issues, but I'm impressed with the result. I also rather liked that it was a nice mix of realism and stylization, which gave it a flavor all its own.

Titanic (Cameron, 1997)

Okay, so this is a guilty pleasure. For all its cheesy melodrama and laughable characterization, I'm a sucker for Titanic lore, and on that front this film delivers. The sheer attention to detail and scale is phenomenal, even down to the baker at the stern of the ship who happened to really be there. This film just puts me right on deck where any Titanic enthusiast has pondered over just what it was like to stand there. Hell, even the "cant-be-together" romance has grown on me since I first saw it at the cinema, now that I've had a few experiences of my own to draw from. Not the best of flicks out there, but certainly a fun one.

Hard to Kill (Malmuth, 1990)

A masterpiece. Steven Segal is on the mark in this one, second only to a fantastic showcase in screenwriting by Darkman II: The Return of Durant scribe Steven McKay. I mean, to think a fallible human could have penned such elegant and flawless lines like... "I'm gonna take you to the bank, Senator Trent. To the blood bank!" ...is simply too unbelievable. Truly one of the great marvels of American cinema.

Medium Cool - B-
The Limey - A-
Aguirre - A+

Sleeze marks The Fountain 3 boxes and then turns around and gives a Segal film 5 boxes...

Oh, woe is me.

I don't think Smokin' Aces was a good movie, but it was hella fun, so I gave it a 7.

Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (2007 - David Yates)

To Have and Have Not (1944 - Howard Hawks)


The Big Sleep (1946 - Howard Hawks)

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"No form of art goes beyond ordinary consciousness as film does, straight to our emotions, deep into the twilight room of the soul." ~ Ingmar Bergman

Me,Myself and Irene(The Farrelly Brothers 2000)-One of Jim's funniest movies ever this is my third time watching it and still I can't stop laughing

Holes(Andrew Davis 2003)-

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I'm in movie heaven

The Host
I Now Pronounce You Chuck and Larry

I guess than means the sarcasm in my review of Hard to Kill was lost on my readers. Here's my real review:

Hard to Kill (Malmuth, 1990)

The only reason this even gets half a bucket of popcorn is because when I put the DVD in my player, it actually started working... which, I guess, if you think about it, could be a bad thing. Still, the entertainment value inherent in watching something so goofy and stupid that was actually supposed to be taken seriously... well, that should at least count for something.

I got it sleeze... I was also being silly, but I guess I didn't get that across, either... I figured you didn't think it was the best film ever...

"Who do? White boy Hatcher??"

Yeah, I have seen it...

The Queen (2006 - Stephen Frears)

Really nice ensemble piece. It worked hard though to depict Blair as the nice man of the people (football jersey on, electric guitar in the corner, fishfingers for dinner) and the royalties as stiff cold robots without hearts. A bit too hard perhaps but at the same time it works as a nice set up for the final where Queenie explains the reasons for her actions (or non-actions).

Ren & Stimpy: The Lost Episodes


You can see the birth of Ren. "It was smelly and then there was a crack of light." Some of the things they do and say in these episodes are ridiculous. After Ren is born this Bambi type baby deer comes into screen and runs off with all the left over just-born-baby-goo. And, Ren & Stimpy are gay for each other. There is no question about. Stimpy wants a piece from Ren but instead Ren has stimpy kiss a rat's throbbing puckered out ass.

I recommend it.

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A-ge-man (1990) - (there will be a few spoilers in this post, but the movie is kind of obscure and hard to find). The film Juzo Itami made between A Taxing Woman's Return and Minbo. Must be really weird directing a movie in which your wife plays a geisha who gets called ugly and old, dumped, raped and beheaded (in a dream). A lot of the satire is so blatant that it's hard to miss even as an American, but I'm sure there's still very much that I'm not getting. This movie features an old would be political financier (with an eye patch and a ridiculous moustache) who has a dream that he's shaving the pubic hair of the geisha's corpse to keep as a lucky talisman. I guess it's easy to be impressed by exoticism like that but it's still worth something. On the other hand the movie uses that device where a guy wakes up from a nightmare twice consecutively (a dream within a dream), which only kind of works the first time you see it. Can anyone else name movies where this device was used for easy shock value? American Werewolf in London is the one that I'm thinking of but there must be others.

Never Give a Sucker an Even Break (1941) - WC Fields movie. I don't think it's as uproariously funny as some of his others, but it's weirdly poignant. Half the jokes are things about how WC Fields (which is his character's name in the movie) is a washed up drunk who can't get anyone to let him make a film anymore. It's not self-pitying though (this stuff is used for humor just like any other movie, it just makes it sad too knowing this was his last). Good movie.

Transformers(Michael Bay 2007)-ho ho ho the movie of the year definitely.It was such an amazing experience I can't describe it so many explosions and robots beating the crap out of each other it was so beautiful and ILM have outdone themselves with the CG.The robots looked so real.I'll probably wait a few days for the excitement to pass and go see it again

Watched Dodgeball on tv late last night, still dont like it!!

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Disturbia(D.J. Caruso 2007)-Haven't watched Rear Window and I heard that this is some kind of a remake but I really enjoyed it 5/5

Codename:The Cleaner(Les Mayfield 2007)-2/5