What was the last movie you saw at the theaters?

Superman Returns

Double feature (I was bored and doing nothing else so why not) Superman Returns followed by The Break-up (Just felt in that type of mood).

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Father of Apollo....Mount Olympus. Don’t f$%£ with me or I’ll shove a lightning bolt up your a$$ - Zeus - Samuel L Jackson, Die Hard With A Vengeance

Scoop- I needed this reminder of why I agree with the Simpson’s Ned Flanders when he says, “I like Woody Allen films except for that nervous fellow that’s always in them.” Allen’s annoying character kills this movie. The fact that great talent like Scarlett and Hugh are wasted doesn’t help either.

5/10 at best

Miami Vice - not as good as Collateral (or The Insider) but a great action flick nonetheless. It's even better when you compare it the horrible Bad Boys II

Scanner Darkly, a REALLY REALLY enjoyable flick. Had one of those plots that had nothing to do with the movie until the very end, and although difficult to grasp, I wouldnt classify it as "high-brow" material. I hate to be redundant, but I really really REALLY enjoyed it, and was probably among the top 7 films I've seen all year.

Seres Queridos - Only Human (Dominic Harari & Teresa Pelegri)

Funny and ballsy politically incorrect farce that is a bit of Billy Wilder by way of Pedro Almodóvar. It's a darkly funny tale of a daughter (Marián Aguilera) returning home with her new serious boyfriend (Guillermo Toledo) to meet her family for the first time. They are Sephardic Jews. He is Palestinian. They don't know this yet. The comedy practically writes itself. OK, well maybe not. But co-writer/co-directors Teresa Pelegri and Dominic Harari have crafted a darn funny screwballer just the same. When Mom (Norma Aleandro) takes the news of her potential son-in-law's heritage badly, the evening is off to a rough start. But things escelate exponetially when this man may or may not have accidentally killed the girl's Father (Mario Martín). Or was it just a random stranger? How will the newly religious brother (Fernando Ramallo) take to the idea? What about the grandfather Holocaust Survivor (Max Berliner) who is blind as a bat but can still load his rifle? Or what about her promiscuous belly-dancing single mother of a sister (Alba Molinero)? And how did the hooker get involved? Is the couple's love strong enough to look past their religious differences and cover up a manslaughter, even if it winds up being her Dad?

Never boils to the point of Keystone Cops energy, but keeps the lunacy rooted in some kind of reality without falling into sitcom traps. This isn't Weekend at Bernie's Bar Mitzvah, it's more subtle than that - despite all the wacky ingredients. And it's definitely the best and funniest romantic comedy farce about Israeli-Palestinian relations yet made by man. It was released in Spain in 2004 and is just getting a limited arthouse run in the U.S. now. In a weird way, the timing couldn't be better. Even as a silly cinematic fantasy, that love might be stronger than the hatred is a swell idea.


GRADE: B

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"Film is a disease. When it infects your bloodstream it takes over as the number one hormone. It bosses the enzymes, directs the pineal gland, plays Iago to your psyche. As with heroin, the antidote to Film is more Film." - Frank Capra

"Apocalypse Now Redux" was the last movie I saw in a theater. I live in China and for those who now DVDs are pretty cheap here. Since my arrival I have set up my own surround sound theater in my apartment; so we often have movie nights at home. I have been here four years and have accumulated over 1000 movies. Loving it.

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Gort! Deglet ovrosco!

Lady in the Water
Miami Vice

You didn't like it? What was it that you didn't like? I haven't seen it I was just wondering.

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Health is the greatest gift, contentment the greatest wealth, faithfulness the best relationship.
Buddha

Let me disagree there.

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The Night Listener (2006 - Patrick Stettner)

Yet another movie that can't ever figure out what it wants to be. The result is a dull and hollow piece that meanders to a muted conclusion. Robin Williams stars as Gabriel Noone, a writer who has a degree of fame with a latenight NPR-type radio show where he tells stories about his life. But he's lost his enthusiasm a bit lately, and the relationship (with Bobby Canavale from The Station Agent) most of his tales have centered around for the past eight years is coming to an end. His friend and publisher (Joe Morton) gives him an unpublished manuscipt to read. It proports to be a memoir from a fourteen-year-old boy who was the victim of years of sexual abuse at the hands of both of his parents and is now dying of AIDS. Gabriel finds the book moving and the author a courageous soul. This boy, Pete (Rory Culkin), starts calling Gabriel and a fast friendship is formed. He also begins a phone relationship with the kid's adoptive mother and protector, Donna (Toni Collette). But there's always some reason why he can't meet them in person. He finds out the publisher has never met them either, only on the phone. Doubts begin to form. Is Pete real, or just an elaborate fabrication?

In the wake of last year's James Frey A Million Little Pieces scandal, this could have been a timely dramatic take on those issues. I haven't read Armistead Maupin's novel, but I can see how this material would play as literature, examining what it is to wrtie and create by drawing upon autobiography and the inherent dangers of too much public self-examination and the loss of truth in the process. But as a film that's all really a mild subtext, and it probably wouldn't easily have made the transition to screenplay. So the movie tries to build a mystery with some thriller trappings. But it also wants to be a subtle character piece. And the "twist", such as it is, wants to take the last part of the picture in a different direction still. The suspense elements, the character stuff and the diagnosis that ties the plot together just never come together in a satisfying or compelling way. Frankly it all would have played better as an episode of "Law & Order: Special Victims Unit". Though the actors do solid work, all things considered. Robin Williams has become much more interesting and competent as a dramatic actor than a comedic one, and his depiction of the sad then angry Gabriel is well done. Toni Collette, who's always good, does the best she can with the material playing a character who treads the line between sympathetic and horrific. But the lackluster direction and awkward mechinations of the story kill the movie over and over.

There are a couple interesting ideas floating around and fine performances, but it doesn't add up to much.


GRADE: C-

I saw The Night Listener tonight and I thought the same thing. The movie just didn't go anywhere. I kept waiting for the "thriller" part of this supposed "psychological thriller" and it was never there.

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

I saw Scoop this should be another success for Woody Allen. Scarlett Johannssen was brilliant as was Hugh Jackman. The story was also very well written and kept the audience interested throughout.

the last movie i saw was pirates of the caribbean : dead man's chest. This movie is great, even better than the first one I believe and will be the best movie trilogy out there

The Descent probably the worst horror movie i've seen i dunno if i should even call it a horror movie or a comedy i laughed thru most of it its ridiculously bad

just terrible terrible movie

The Great Raid. Did not really like the movie.

Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby
Favorite movie so far this year.
You can see my short review under the reviews forum, but its definitely A++

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"You smell that? Do you smell that? Napalm, son. Nothing else in the world smells like that. I love the smell of napalm in the morning. You know, one time we had a hill bombed, for twelve hours. When it was all over I walked up. We didn't find one of 'em, not one stinkin' dink body. The smell, you know that gasoline smell, the whole hill. Smelled like... victory."

-Lieutenant Colonel Bill Kilgore

L' Armée des Ombres - Army of Shadows (1969 - Jean-Pierre Melville)

Fantastic "lost" entry from Melville that stands as tall as anything in his career. Army of Shadows is a look at a few months of The Resistance in occupied France in late '42 and early '43. Lino Ventura stars as a middle-aged seemingly mild-mannered engineer who is actually a wiley and cooly determined higher up in The Resistance. The members of his cell include Paul Crauchet, Claude Mann, Christian Barbier, Jean-Pierre Cassel and Simone Signoret, plus the leader of the entire operation who he reports to, played by Diabolique's Paul Meurisse. We follow them through various missions and escapes from the clutches of The Gastapo and The Vichy, doing what they can to establish an underground network and defeat the Nazis. They are smart, careful and resourceful, and they all agree the real glue of the operation is Signore's Mathilde, a housewife turned cunning espionage agent. The couple action sequences are tense and extremely well choreographed and even reach Hitchockian levels of suspense, but mostly this is a quiet character piece about a small group of courageous patriots doing what they can under the dire circumstances of war. These are not a muscled, square-jawed bunch of commandos, but ordinary people thrust into extraordinay events. It's a different and very effective take on wartime mission flicks like The Guns of Navarone, The Dirty Dozen and Where Eagles Dare.

This one has "lost" status because though it was released in France in 1969, somehow it had gone completely unreleased in the United States for the past thirty-seven years (it wasn't even released in the U.K. until the late 1970s). Thankfully it has made it's belated debut, and the restored film is a time-capsuled treat for movie fans. Made at the tail end of Melville's career when he was in his gangster cycle of Le Samouraï, Le Cercle Rouge and Un Flic, this one deserves all the reputation and accolades of those better known works.


GRADE: A-

Shadowboxer (2006 - Lee Daniels)

Woah, Momma. This is a horrible movie.

Cuba Gooding, Jr. stars as a cool and successful hitman. His partner in crime and partner in bed is Rose, played by Helen Mirren. But she's dying of cancer, and on what is supposed to be her last mission she is overcome with a need to hang onto life, so instead of shooting the pregnant woman who is their target she helps birth the baby and spirits them both away to safety. Gooding knows this is a bad idea, especially as the woman is the girlfriend of a scuzball psychopath (Stephen Dorff). But deferring to Rose, he goes along with it. They all set up a house together and raise the child, but how long can the truth stay hidden from that raging wacko?

With the exception of a couple of the casting decisions, like Gooding and Mirren as a romantic couple and another pairing that has Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Mo'Nique as lovers, every single element in this flick is recycled from other better movies. What's left are six dozen clichés and a completely implausible plot, even in genre terms. It is sloppy, poorly made and boring. Gooding, Mirren and Gordon-Levitt do the best they can given the silly and tired material, while some of the others like Dorff, Vanessa Ferlito and singer Macy Gray make the crap even crappier. This is a first-time director, and likely it'll be his last. He had been a producer before this, with the gritty and dark Monsters Ball and The Woodsman to his credit. He needs to go back to finding interesting projects to shepard to other directors and leave hack garbage like this in the trash can where it belongs. If you've never seen a hitman at a crisis of conscience movie like Léon: The Professional, Ghost Dog: the Way of the Samurai, Le Samouraï, This Gun for Hire, Grosse Pointe Blank and two dozen others, I suppose there's a possibilty that the offbeat casting might be enough to mildly hold your interest. For the rest of us, this is just a stinker to forget about (hopefully).


GRADE: D-

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