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Thanks for the great review, Monkeyboy.
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I'm not old, you're just 12.
With the war in Iraq raging ever onward, and public opinion becoming more polarized than ever, I decided to revisit two of the most infamous war films of the Vietnam era, Mike Nichols’ Catch 22, and Robert Altman’s M.A.S.H. Both were released in the same year, 1970, but to wildly different results.

M.A.S.H (directed by Robert Altman)

3 ½ stars out of 5

M.A.S.H. follows the episodic story of 'Hawkeye' Pierce (Donald Sutherland), 'Trapper' John McIntyre (Elliott Gould), and 'Duke' Forrest (Tom Skerritt), three surgeons drafted into the U.S. Army and serving in Korea at the height of the war. They’re terrible soldiers, but they’re also brilliant doctors, and like it or not, the Army needs them. The trio of hell-raising misfits bond over their shared life-at-full-speed, nothing is sacred attitudes, and butt heads with the hypocritical and self-righteous Major Frank Burns (Robert Duvall), harass uptight head nurse “Hot Lips” Houlihan (Sally Kellerman), and bully their weak willed commander, Colonel Blake (Roger Bowen). The plot is more a series of incidents than a coherent story, but the film is more of a character study than anything structured.

The first thing that I noticed about M.A.S.H. is that its sense of humor is fairly schizophrenic. The opening of the film is pitch black, with the song “Suicide is Painless” (Written by Altman’s 14 year old son) played over a long shot of helicopters delivering the wounded to the M.A.S.H. unit, the 4077th, that serves as the primary setting for the film. One of the stretchers is dropped by a clumsy medic, and gives us the first laugh in the film. Directly following that is a scene of over the top slapstick seemingly flown in from another film. And the film continues in this vein for the rest of it’s running time. It’s also the most casually cruel movie I have ever seen. Hawkeye, Trapper John, and Duke ridicule Major Burns unprovoked at first and the film doesn’t offer up any reasons for their hatred of the man until later. Major Houlihan gets humiliated because she follows the rules and Army protocols, not for anything she has done, and their cruelty towards her veers towards misogyny. The strange part of all of this is that we still end up liking Hawkeye and his crew, we laugh at their rebellious behavior, and the film defuses a lot of their transgressions with a bit of well placed broad humor. They cope with the horrors of the war by living every day like it’s their last, doing all the things we’d all do if we had nothing to live for.

The screenplay by Ring Lardner Jr. cuts deeply with its mix of black humor and human tragedy, and won the film an academy award. Gould, Sutherland, and Skerritt turn in outstanding performances, and Altman’s direction makes the viewer feel like they are, in fact, there with the characters at every step, no matter how uncomfortable, graphic, and shocking the proceedings become. There is no doubt in my mind that a film like this would never be made in this era of test screenings and demographics. It’s too uncontrolled, it’s too sloppy, too insane and mean spirited and it doesn’t offer up a pleasing ending. M.A.S.H., while being intense, gritty, funny as hell, is hardly a perfect film however. The film’s episodic structure doesn’t allow for character development, plot momentum, or a satisfactory ending. The football game sequence, while funny, goes on far too long, doesn’t fit with the rest of the movie, and adds nothing. It is one of the major reasons that M.A.S.H. falls just short of greatness as is the film’s thrown together final act. It seems like the filmmakers ran out of ideas, and just ended it. Nothing in the rest of the film builds to its resolution, and it just doesn’t make a whole lot of sense.

Catch 22 (directed by Mike Nichols)

4 out of 5 stars

Mike Nicholl’s film version of Joeseph Heller’s anti-war novel was a failure at the time of its release. Critics ripped it apart for not capturing the sense of chaos of its source material, and the truth is, it doesn’t.

Yossarian (Alan Arkin) is an Air Force pilot stationed in Italy during WWII. He’s watched as his friends die off one by one, and he gets an idea. He tells the unit’s doctor that he’s insane, so that he’ll be sent home and will not be allowed to fly anymore missions. But there’s a catch. “In order to be grounded, I've got to be crazy and I must be crazy to keep flying. But if I ask to be grounded, that means I'm not crazy any more and I have to keep flying.” Yossarian becomes increasingly more paranoid and his behavior becomes more erratic. His fellow pilots start cracking under the stress as well, and his commanders are completely oblivious. Like M.A.S.H., Catch 22 has an episodic plot, relies heavily on character, and mines human tragedy for dark humored laughs. Major Major (Bob Newhart) is an inept, nervous man who won’t allow any of his troops to come into contact with him. Lt. Milo Minderbinder (Jon Voight) is a despicable, opportunistic war profiteer. The company’s commanders (Martin Balsam and Buck Henry) are unfeeling glory hogs, and General Dreeble (a HILARIOUS Orson Wells) is a tyrannical megalomaniac. The flight crews are made up of Yossarian, the seemingly insane Captain Orr (Bob Balaban), the naive Nately (Art Garfunkel), the amoral Captain Aardvark (Charles Grodin), and Lt Dobbs (Martin Sheen). The film builds up an Us vs. Them situation, only to reveal that nobody is as innocent as they seem, and that the real cost of war is the loss of human decency.

Alan Arkin gives a funny, twitchy, almost desperate performance as Yossarian, the film’s shaky moral center. The rest of the cast is uniformly good, but Arkin is the stand out. The script by Buck Henry doesn’t capture the tone of Heller’s novel, no, but it packs more than a few shocks and pitch black humor in its own right. Catch 22 may not succeed as an adaptation, but it works on its own merits as a film. Mike Nichols juggles the film’s hilarious first half with its tragic second half very well. He rips away the black humor and forces the audience to deal with the reality of the situation. Characters that were played solely for laughs at first become disturbing, Yossarian himself becomes a grim shadow of the rebellious soul he was at the beginning, and it all becomes painfully serious in a hurry. The only major misstep is the film’s final image, a scene played for laughs long after Nichols has shown us that war just isn’t funny.

Catch 22 is a better-made and more structured film than the scrappy, low budget M.A.S.H., but it lacks the visceral punch that Altman’s film does. Halfway through M.A.S.H. one is tempted to start crying. It’s so relentlessly dark and cruel and cynical, that you can’t help but feel depressed and guilty for laughing sometimes. Altman’s film rips apart it’s heroes without passing judgement, it slaughters any sacred cow unlucky enough to get in it’s way, and leaves the viewer uncomfortable and questioning what they’ve just seen. Catch 22 tries the same thing, but settles for a tone of moral disgust in the end, and distances the viewer from the actions of it’s characters just enough that there’s still a comfort zone between the two. The two films are similar in subject matter, yet different in tone and approach. Catch 22 is the better film, but M.A.S.H. is the more effective in engaging the audience.
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Originally Posted by Monkeypunch
Team America: World Police (directed by trey parker)
When I saw the PG rated previews for Team America, I thought "This sucks." It wasn't funny at all and looked totally worthless. But after reading some good reviews, I went to see it anyhow. And IMO, the movie WITH the sex, violence and naughty language was 100% better than the sanitized previews.

Maybe I'm still in my juvenile stage but I found parts of it hilariously funny. The "Hey, those are puppets" factor never wore thin for me. It was precisely because the filmakers never played up the fact they were puppets. They played it straight (so to speak). The actors just happened to be wooden.

Parts of the movie fell flat but enough of it was wildly entertaining to be worthwhile.



Originally Posted by Monkeypunch
Daredevil: The Director's Cut (directed by Mark Stephen Johnson)

4 out of 5 stars
I'm one of the twelve or so people who liked Daredevil. After your review, I'll check out the director's cut.

I think Daredevil fared better than some other comic books brought to screen such as Hulk and Fantastic Four.



Originally Posted by Monkeypunch
The Incredibles (directed by Brad Bird)

5 out of 5 stars
I agree. The best animated movie in quite some time. I see quite a few movies that are primarily aimed at kids and there's always a chance they'll be awful for an adult. Not so with The Incredibles. It was truly a great movie for everyone.

A word about the actors...Craig T Neslon was outstanding. I was never aware it was Nelson. When the voice becomes associated with the actor, that can detract from the movie. It hurts the rhythm and flow and can damage the suspended reality necessary for total enjoyment.

And while I love Holly Hunter, she has a distinctive voice and I was constantly aware of it. It didn't really hurt my enjoyment much, just a small quibble. Perhaps actors with nondescript voices are best for animation.



I'm not old, you're just 12.
Finally a new review. I've been slacking, I know. Well, I do work 48 hours a week, and manage to write and draw a soon to be published comic strip, so...heh.

Anyway:

Last Days (2005, Directed by Gus Van Sant)

5 out of 5 stars

Gus Van Sant's latest, Last Days takes a very minimalist look at the final days in the life of a drug addicted rock star named Blake, who is very obviously meant to be Kurt Cobain. Blake, who's run away from the hospital, returns to his home to find that he isn't alone. A group of "friends," parasites who want something, be it money or advice or help with their demos, have taken up residence in his guest rooms, and his estranged wife has hired a private detective to look for him. He wanders around mumbling to himself in a druggy stupor, trying to avoid contact with his guests, dead inside, lurching sickly towards the film's already foregone conclusion.

Michael Pitt plays Blake, and what an oddly hypnotic performance it is. He is painfully withdrawn, his dialogue almost impossible to understand, his hair obscuring his face most of the time. When we're given a good look at him, you can see all the pain and depression and lonliness in his eyes, and it's heartbreaking. Despite the good work by the other actors in the film, it really is his show. He wisely underplays everything, and is haunting. I'd say that he deserves an Oscar for it, but everyone knows that the Academy has no time for subtlety, and rewards the showier performances every time. Its a shame, really.

The film was largely improvised by Van Sant and his actors, and it seems more real than any Hollywood film about this same subject would. There are moments of humour, like Ricky Jay's monologue about a magician who could catch a bullet in his teeth, or Harmony Korrine's cameo as a deadhead who played D & D with Jerry Garcia, and theres the awkwardly funny scene where Blake, wearing his wife's clothes, has a conversation with a yellow pages salesman, but mostly, the film is serious. Van Sant shows the events but refuses to make any sense of them, he leaves a lot to audience interpretation, and it's actually kind of freeing. You never feel manipulated into feeling a certain way about the things you're shown. It seems more like a documentary than a fictional film, it seems like you're actually watching the final moments of someone's life.

A bit of a warning. This film is extremely minimalist. There are no real plot points, there are no themes or foreshadowing or writing devices of any kind to make the grim proceedings go down easier. If you think that you are going to be bored by a 97 minute film where there isn't much in the way of dialogue, no action, and where you leave with more questions than answers, then yes, you are. Go watch something you will enjoy more than this. Last Days is mesmerizing, but either you buy into it's slow, deliberate pace, or you don't. It meanders, it spends a lot of time showing mundane things. It's more like an art piece than a movie. But I think that if, like me, you had any affection for Kurt Cobain when he was alive, you will be moved. I honestly cried for awhile after this ended, because I still remember the day Kurt was found dead in his home vividly.

Last Days is a disturbing, funny, sad, and ultimately unforgettable film that I give my highest possible recommendation.



I'm not old, you're just 12.
Originally Posted by adidasss
i don't know man...i saw elephant, it was ok, but i read not so good reviews about this film....
My personal opinion. thats what this thread is all about. It's a love it or hate it kind of film anyways. Don't judge it untill you've seen it for yourself, and then form an opinion of your own!



Finally got caught up on all of your reviews... great job and I hope you have some more headed our way...
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I'm not old, you're just 12.
Finally time for a new review...

Hall Pass (2011, directed by the Farelly Brothers)

3 out of 5 stars

Have you ever noticed that most, if not all of the current "regressive" comedies out these days are secretly conservative in their values? In Wedding Crashers, which more or less started the trend, two hormone addled buddies go to weddings to score with the bridesmaids, only to find that what they were really looking for was love, not no strings attached sex. That's pretty much the same plot of The 40 Year Old Virgin, and for that matter, Knocked Up. Man-Children grow up with the help of women who are smarter than they are...And that's kind of what you're in for with Hall Pass, too. Raunchy, gross, knuckle-headed laughs with a heart felt ending. But the laughs were enough for me to recommend this one, actually.

In the film, two guys (Owen Wilson and Jason Sudekis) have grown bored with married life. Wilson can't get any alone time with his gorgeous, supportive wife (Jenna Fischer) because of their three kids, so his eye and his mind start to stray, and Sudekis is feeling caged by his fairly high maintenance wife (Christina Applegate), both of them lust after a hot barrista at the local coffee shop (Nicky Whelan) and their rampant hormones and sexism get them into trouble with both friends and family. Their wives decide that to save their marriages, they need to give their husbands a "Hall Pass," one week off from marriage to get this all out of their system. The two guys are thrilled at first, but it soon becomes apparent that their days of being able to pick up hot women may be long behind them. Meanwhile, their wives decide to get in on the deal too...

I like the Farelly Brothers as filmmakers. They make, for the most part, very funny major studio comedies. Nothing really challenging or artistic, but good for a few laughs. Dumb and Dumber, Kingpin, There's Something About Mary, and Fever Pitch remain their best films, but after a string of mediocre (Me Myself and Irene, Shallow Hal) to plain awful films (Stuck on You, The Ringer,The Heartbreak Kid), this one is a bit of a return to form. It doesn't preach like their worst films can do, but it isn't as fall down funny as their best. I laughed enough to say it's worth your time. Jason Sudekis (consistently one of the funnier performers from the current SNL cast) gets the better of the two parts as Owen Wilson's horn dog buddy who has a list of pick up lines and no game, and delivers a lot of the funniest moments in the film. I think he works better because Owen Wilson is just too likeable in a hippie sheepdog sort of way. I don't believe for a second that he'd really cheat on his wife. For that matter, Jenna Fischer is too darn loveable, she's like the girl next door, you can't imagine her being unfaithful either, so you kind of already know how this will end. But Sudekis and Applegate bring a bit of edge to their characters, so they get to shine, comedy wise.

I'd watch this movie again, it made me laugh, a few times very loudly, and that's good enough for me.



I'm not old, you're just 12.
Another one, this time one of my favorite comedies...

Hamlet 2 (2008, directed by Andrew Fleming)

5 out of 5.

"It doesn't matter how much talent you lack as long as you have enthusiasm..."

That line pretty much personifies Dana Marschz (Steve Coogan), a high school drama teacher, and the hero of this very dark, very funny movie. He imagines himself an inspirational figure like Robin Williams in Dead Poet's Society, but in reality, he's a poor teacher, a failed actor who's claim to fame was being an extra in infomercials, adverts for Herpes medication, and Xena, Warrior Princess. He constantly puts his only two students into badly conceived stage versions of popular Hollywood movies, and is bedeviled by a grammar school aged theater critic who is much smarter than he is. He's a recovering alcoholic, his wife (Catherine Keener) is a cruelly dismissive former pot dealer, and his cheery, often idiotically optimistic, demeanor is basically a mask hiding his barely concealed rage at his entire life. I told you this was dark.

Still, Dana soldiers on blindly, hoping against all hope he will one day create a masterpiece. When he finds himself with a larger than normal drama class due to budget cuts in other programs, Dana sees his chance to do something great. He writes a blindingly tasteless and artless play called Hamlet 2, where Hamlet, along with Jesus Christ, Albert Einstein, and what appears to be the cast of Grease, travels back in time to save the lives of all the characters who died in the original Shakespeare play. Oh, and it's a musical. And it's even worse than that description sounds. And it's also even better than it should be.

Starting with Steve Coogan's riotous performance, the cast is pretty much brilliant. Coogan plays Dana as a delusional, incompetent failure of a human being, but steps back just shy of ridiculing him. He's over dramatic, he's often inappropriate, and blindly hopes that everything will work out in his favor even when it's clear it won't. Catherine Keener's character is actually pretty loathsome, she's flat out brutal to her strangely adoring husband. The actors playing the students do a good job with what they're given, but it really is Coogan's show. It's a totally egoless performance, anything for a laugh. Also of note is Elisabeth Shue, playing herself as a nurse, having given up acting to get away from Hollywood B.S., and a small part by Amy Poehler as an ACLU lawyer protecting Dana's right to put on his play, even if it's offensive and borderline pornographic.

The film walks a fine line of mocking and celebrating it's cast of misfits and losers, the play itself is bad, but in it's awfulness it becomes transcendent, a celebration of the strange, the tasteless, and the just plain terrible. The two songs, "Raped in the Face" and "Rock Me, Sexy Jesus" are surprisingly catchy and will continue to stick in your head for a long time after watching the film. I often wondered why I found this pitch black farce so funny, but in the end, I just gave in to it's weird charms and it's since become a favorite that I watch often. I can't recommend this one enough.