Movie Tab II

Takeshi Miike's Gozu. 9/10. Probably my favorite out of his bizarre/horrific films like Visitor Q or Ichi the Killer.

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"Loves them? They need them, like they need the air."

He's not alone. I wouldn't go , but I think Death to Smoochy gets a bad rap.

Insomnia (Nolan, 2002)



I had heard this was weak, so I hadn't made it a priority in my queue. Last night while randomly surfing around Netflix instant, I saw this and decided to give it a watch. Not as weak as I had been led to believe. Not a great flick, but certainly not bad.

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Hey, what do you hate about it, Harry? is incredibly low for Death to Smoochy. Besides finding it hilarious I think it's a really artistically edited and shot movie that's almost overloaded with clever transitions and busy, colorful compositions. I haven't read many reviews on the film, negative or positive, but Ebert's review (with a score of 0.5 out of 4!) harps moronically on the fact that it's about two clowns without ever addressing any of it's cinematic qualities. I guess I don't have a problem with anyone dinging the movie on the grounds that the characters and aesthetic are cartoonish and grotesque, the story sometimes juvenile but that seems to entirely miss the knowing irony and other charms of the movie.

That said, might be a little high. I have a hard time deciding which of DeVito's movies is better, between Smoochy and Throw Momma From the Train, which I recently rated . I also realize that having watched Death to Smoochy around 10 times by now I might be getting a little bit sick of it.

It's been way too long for me to provide any kind of respectable response to your question. I probably saw it when it first came out on DVD almost a decade ago but I do know that I didn't like it enough to ever want to watch it again. I remember it being an awkward attempt at satire, that there was a good idea to start out with but it just failed on a significant level. I won't be watching it again in order to provide you with a better and more accurate response, so you should probably just disregard my original post (and this one) but to answer your question: I don't hate it, I just really didn't like it. Looking at my old lists it shows I gave it a D+.

Oh, and Throw Momma from the Train is the much better film.

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"Don't be so gloomy. After all it's not that awful. Like the fella says, in Italy for 30 years under the Borgias they had warfare, terror, murder, and bloodshed, but they produced Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci, and the Renaissance. In Switzerland they had brotherly love - they had 500 years of democracy and peace, and what did that produce? The cuckoo clock."

Besides Throw Momma from the Train, I think that The War of the Roses, Hoffa and Matilda are all better than Death to Smoochy, but I'd give Smoochy at least a C+ (+). I thought it was funny but awkward. Now, I realize that it's supposed to be somewhat awkward, but I thought that DeVito nailed the black comedy tone better in Momma and Roses. Then again, maybe Adam Resnick is more of an idiosyncratic scripter than those of the other films. But what do I know? I haven't watched it a dozen times, and I give Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid .

I'm certainly willing to rewatch Death to Smoochy some time soon though.

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It's what you learn after you know it all that counts. - John Wooden
My IMDb page

Let's all do a chat and watch Death to Smoochy together. I would like to see what you guys liked about it. I hate it everytime I see it.

The Secret of Kells
2009, Tomm Moore




Born to be Bad
1934, Lowell Sherman




Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs
2009, Phil Lord




Baby Face
1933, Alfred E. Green


"A woman, young, beautiful like you, can get anything she wants in the world. Because you have power over men. But you must use men, not let them use you. You must be a master, not a slave. Look here — Nietzsche says, "All life, no matter how we idealize it, is nothing more nor less than exploitation." That's what I'm telling you. Exploit yourself. Go to some big city where you will find opportunities! Use men! Be strong! Defiant! Use men to get the things you want!"


Three on a Match
1932, Mervyn LeRoy




Safe in Hell
1931, William A. Wellman




The White Ribbon
2009, Michael Haneke




The Old Maid
1939, Edmund Goulding

Jackass 3-D
Second viewing.
Click here for my review!

I've only seen War of the Roses once but I like Danny DeVito for more than just his aptitude for black comedy. I remember a scene in Roses where the camera enters the Rose house apparently through a solid pane of glass. There are tons of tricks like that in all his movies that are worthy of Welles, but Smoochy is the one that grabs me the most on a cinematic level. There's a bit (in Roses) where the wife gets pushed and does cartwheels all the way down a flight of stairs. Again, the dark humor of the story is good but it's the bits that come out of left field like that that really get me, how the movie can go from serious to farce with such style and relish.

I feel like between Momma and Smoochy, the former is the more literary and intellectual movie. This may sound funny but I'm completely serious, that movie is brilliant and introduces the idea of competing narratives in a more integrated and subtle way than in Death to Smoochy (where the Ice Show, TV show and "reality" are all separately defined pretty clearly). The bit at the end (of Momma) where the narrative frame shifts from "Throw Momma From the Train" to "Momma and Owen and Owen's Friend Larry" has to be one of the funniest imagined endings in movies. I generally want to like Throw Momma From the Train the best but I go back and forth. The last time I watched it, it seemed completely ludicrous to me that Larry is sexy and charming enough that anyone would put up with the amount of crap his doting girlfriend puts up with in that movie. I think I took a half-point or more off just for that, but it's still a great film.

I haven't seen Matilda or Hoffa yet, but they've been on my list for a while. Get Shorty is another good one that, although not directed by DeVito, feels like it was influenced by his sense of humor and style.

As for 'Sundance', I will watch that movie again some day. I gave it a (also a C+) which usually means "average" but in that case merely signified my recognition that it could well have been external factors that kept me from feeling much about it. I watched it late at night when I wasn't really in the mood for a movie, simply because it was about to expire from my netflix instant-watch queue. Doesn't mean I'm automatically gonna like it better when I see it again, but I don't think it's bad or anything so I definitely will review it some time. I'm not in any particular hurry though.

You're the second person on here to really like this, the other being Ludinator. I also think Tyler likes it a lot, but not sure. I don't remember too much of this one. I don't remember too much of it, which is strange because I usually remember welmade suspenseful thrillers. Perhaps I should revisit it.

Never Let Me Go 2010 Mark Romanek
Never Let me go is a good film staring Keria Knightly,Carey Mulligan and Andrew Garfeild. This is a story about a group of kids that are born and raised to donate organs.These kids are told at a young age that the only reason they are alive is to grow up to become young adults and then they will have to donate there organs.This film is a really depressing.


The Wild Bunch 1969 Sam Peckinpah
The Wild Bunch is a western film about a group of outlaws looking to do one more job before they retire.The leader of this bunch Pike played by William Holden feels they are to old to go on doing the outlaw thing. I honestly really loved this film and I am usually not big into westerns but this one is really well done and I think I am gonna have to check out some more William Holden films.


Man Bites Dog 1992 ( C'est arrivé prčs de chez vous )
Man bites dog is a disgusting but fun drama that follows a fictonal serial killer around his daily life.A camrea crew follows him around and eventually they join in on his life style. I found this film very funny but it is disturbing if you have a weak stomach I would not suggest this film.


Touch of Evil 1958 Orson Welles
Touch of Evil is a Orson Welles film staring Orson Welles, Charlton Heston and Janet Leigh. This film is a thriller about crime,love,murder and drity cops and the film takes place along the mexican border.Great acting,great story,great direction.


400 Blows (Les quatre cents coups) 1959 Francois Truffaut
Brilliant

Without You I'm Nothing
(directed by John Boskovich, 1990)

Sandra Bernhard (from Roseanne) sings, tells stories and makes a lot of ironic jokes in night clubs where the audiences show very little interest in her.

The Runaways - I kinda knew every beat this film was going to hit because I've seen them in EVERY rock movie since...ever...but I liked the music and some of the performances were good. Interesting movie, but what was the point? That the Runaways were an awesome band? That they were horribly exploited by their management? That horribly exploited jailbait are somehow feminist icons? I dunno.

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"You, me, everyone...we are all made of star stuff." - Neil Degrasse Tyson

https://shawnsmovienight.blogspot.com/

I should hope so. I give it a .

I don't blame you, Mark. It's a strange affair that can bore. I've watched it before and didn't get it but I appreciated it more tonight.

Des Hommes et des Dieux (2010, Beauvois)



Story about eight padres living in an inhospitable looking monastery in the Maghreb mountains. The first thing that struck me is that they seem to live in good relation with the local Muslim community. In a beautiful scene, they even sort of participate in a circumcision event by rhythmically clapping their hands together. But something looms over the padres’ heads: religious fundamentalists make the region unsafe. A couple of Croatian building labourers are found with their throats slit. The governor begs the monks to return to France, but the abbot chooses to stay in his monastery. After all, a good shepherd doesn’t leave his herd when the wolf approaches.

Beauvois chose to turn Des Hommes et des Dieux into a sober, modest and contemplative film. Calmly and serenely, the daily rites of the monks are shown: weeding, taking their meals (French fries!) and their prayers by nightfall. When the eight are exchanging thoughts at the table, the tension is palpable. They are peaceful on the surface, but you can tell they’re frightened. The most beautiful scene of the film is entirely wordless. The monks are sitting at a table, indulging in a few bottles of wine while smiling and enjoying each other’s company. It all sounds very simple and perhaps a bit boring, but as has been shown time and time again, the simply joys are the ones that please us most.

This is a compelling, albeit slow-paced film about the power of true belief and principles in the face of life-threatening danger. I’ve not seen too many very good films released in 2010; but Des Hommes et des Dieux is now a part of that club. Good stuff, highly recommended.




Le Grand Voyage (2004, Ferroukhi)



Sober, benign road movie about a father-son relationship with intense images of Mekka during the Hadj.

+


Kung Fu Panda (2008, Osborne and Stevenson)



Entertaining, at times funny family-animation flick that wraps a typically moralizing plot in a spectacle.




Red (2010, Schwentke)



Saw this at a friend’s place this weekend, as the other guys wanted to watch it. Bruce Willis plays a retired CIA-agent who finds out that he has been tagged by his former employer as Retired but Extremely Dangerous (get it?). *sigh* To save his behind, he reforms his old team one last time. Not a lot to say about the plot and dialogues, as they are shamefully bad. Add to that my dislike of Bruce Willis and this was a class-A turd for me.

+


Made in Dagenham (2011, Cole)



Typical British film about the working man. With a lot of warmth and proletarian humour, director Nigel Cole evokes a piece in the British union history. There are few surprises in the plot, yet I still found myself cheering for those nagging, blabbering girls that marched to Downing Street. It’s nothing special, but not bad either.



And a few re-watches:

Canyon Passage (1946, Tourneur):
The Night of the Iguana (1964, Huston):
The Sugarland Express (1974, Spielberg): +
Devil's Doorway (1950, Anthony Mann): +
Yes Man (2008, Reed): +
Patch Adams (1998, Shadyac): + (I friggin love Robin Williams in this)
Absolute Power (1997, Eastwood): +

The Social Network (2010)


It's A Wonderful Life (1946)

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"George, this is a little too much for me. Escaped convicts, fugitive sex... I've got a cockfight to focus on."

Night Nurse
William A. Wellman, 1931




The Face of Another
Hiroshi Teshigahara, 1966

Wow, Brodinski, I give The Sugarland Express a full and think it's probably the best flick in your tab. On the other hand, Patch Adams makes me gag.