This is why I love British cinema. Everything about this film rings true. It's difficult to watch at points because of the subject matter but its strangely gripping. Ray Winstone and Kathy Bates blow the screen apart. Not for those easily offended.
I seem to have gotten into the habit of watching all my movies late at night - with The Apartment I started watching at about 2:20 in the morning because I couldn't sleep. No matter, I still enjoyed it quite a bit. There's not really much I can say about this film that hasn't been said already. I thought it was a very good film, handled well in virtually every way. I especially thought Jack Lemmon's nervy performance was a highlight - many of the funnier moments in the film came about as a result of his unusual quirks and delivery. I thought it was very well-written with believable characters and a damned good plot. All in all, pretty much everything you hope a movie should be.
"You hear what I said, Miss Kubilek? I absolutely adore you." "Shutup and deal."
- The Apartment -------------------------------------------------- Mass Appeal (Glenn Jordan, 1984)
It's interesting to watch this play-turned-fim, which was one of the first to get into the concept of gay priests, especially since it came out almost a quarter-century before Doubt. Although Mass Appeal is a companion piece to Doubt, it looks at things from an entirely-different perspective, even though what we know about the Catholic Church ever since makes the subject matter even more pertinent nowadays. Mass Appeal is about young Mark Dolson (the bravura Zeljko Ivanek) who has just been appointed Deacon, which means that he's well on his way to Priesthood. The Priest at his Parish, Father Farley (Jack Lemmon), is probably the most-popular priest anywhere in the general area, and Farley believes in Dolson. It's just that the chief "Officianado/Inquisador" (Charles Durning} of the local Church believes that Dolson may well have either come out of the closet or gone back in, and thus, he's unfit to be a Priest, no matter how much Farley or his congregation believe in the young man. Looking at this film in 1984 terms, it's obvious that many of the true believers are suspicious of traditional religious teaching, and not to ridicule anyone here, that was probably a decent idea in the mid-1980s. It's just that this film and Doubt are both far-more complex than many people can deal with, and that's usually because they have a knee-jerk response to the red-button subject matter and care less about the humanity of the main characters.
Choke (Clark Gregg, 2008) (Oh my God, meat strikes again!)
This film's strength and weakness are probably both that it seems like a younger brother of Fight Club. Fight Club seems to live and breathe its characters and provide intense visual stimuli detailing the characters' story. Choke is jam-packed with complex characters and wacko situations, but it often seems that it's just nowhere near the standard of its "Big Brother". In fact, you can almost see the filmmakers leave the set near the end and stage two way-too-literal endings for the flick, one on a Bus and one on a Plane, both with extremely-bald narration. It's actually a shame because the subject matter and performances are pretty much inspired, but the low-budget filmmaking, duplicitous location filming, and sense of déjà vu do eventually hang over all the film's good intentions. I still think if you like the book, you'll like the film, but people still have to hold to some standards. You can't just make a sick interpretation of modern society and call it great because it's "modern". Doesn't it have to carry some social or humanistic weight to earn its sophistication? ----------------------------------------------------------------------- I tried to watch all five Oscar-nominated Animated Shorts, so I'm going to post these now and hope you can see them just like I did yesterday. The only one which was incomplete was the first one I'll post.
La Maison en Petits Cubes is actually a Japanese film, the longest of the five. It's 12 minutes long and tells the story of a man who needs to keep building up his houses, one-upon-the-other, due to global warming. Apparently near the end, an emotional epiphany occurs, and the film is suffused with a classical-ish musical score. This is what's currently available to watch as a "Preview".
The 30 seconds are too short for me to rate it, but viewers who have seen the entire film claim that it's strong enough to compete for the Oscar.
Next, Lavatory - Lovestory (Russian)
This is a cute, charming, romantic ten-minute film, mostly very simple and done in black-and-white, not counting the colorful flowers which periodically appear.
Oktapodi (French) is only three minutes long, and it crams a lot of adventure and derring-do into its short running time, detailing what happens to two octapi who might not survive the "trip home".
We now come to the nine-minute British This Way Up, which I find to be an incredibly-entertaining super-BLACK comedy, and therefore I give it a .
Presto became one of my fave shorts of all-time when I watched it at the theatre before WALL·E. The five-minute short's easily a , and from me, probably on the high side.
I hope this helps you all to pick your choice for Best Animated Short, as well as just give you a good time for about 45 minutes. One of the interesting things about the five films is that they apparently don't have any characters who actually speak in decipherable words.
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It's what you learn after you know it all that counts. - John Wooden My IMDb page
Watching it again, second time in a couple of weeks. I think I read somewhere that Hitch said he wanted to make a film where he could torture Cary Grant for a couple of hours.
5/5 (I still haven't figured out that dang popcorn rating)
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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."
Watching it again, second time in a couple of weeks. I think I read somewhere that Hitch said he wanted to make a film where he could torture Cary Grant for a couple of hours.
5/5 (I still haven't figured out that dang popcorn rating)
[rating] insert number 1-5 here [rating], only without the spaces and add a / into the second rating, so it'll look like .
Yikes, this movie kind of sucked. I don't wanna reduce myself to just throwing around a bunch of critic buzz words here, but I'd say contrived, predictable, silly and ridiculous would all do the trick in accurately pinning down this one. If you can think of a sterotypical bad movie trapping, Slumdog's got it and it's got it bad. Cookie-cutter characters? Yep. A dumb, single-minded plot that weaves through time frames a lot less expertly than some of these reviews would have you believe? Yep. Unbelieveable coincidences that M Night Shyamalan would have a hard time fitting into a movie? Oh yeah.
I mean, come on, how can you have a fairytale romance featuring two leads (at least in their teenage and young adult incarnations) who have about as much chemistry together as two people who have zero chemistry together? Seriously. And what is the purpose (I know there isn't a purpose, but I'm asking anyway) of the brother's crime syndicate subplot? It's a lame, modern, Indian take on Dickensian fluffery. Fine. Why does it feel it also has to be City of God 2: Return to the City of God? I have a lot of other complaints, but this is getting boring and if you want to get bored, I'd suggest you just go watch Slumdog Millionaire.
Now, okay, I did mildly enjoy some of the flashbacks of main character Jamal's childhood, but it's nothing your average moviegoer hasn't seen before. I also dug some of the choices Boyle made, like foregoing a clumsy narration as well as some pitch-perfect soundtrack selections. And, yeah, I give Boyle credit - Slumdog's a technically very well-made movie that's shot superbly. But for a film that's banking so much on hitting you in the gut and winning over your heart, technically well-made isn't gonna cut it. How is the movie "winning" and how is it even remotely a crowd pleaser when it's this flippin artificial? And soooooo predictable? And, for the love of God, how many rhetorical questions can I fit in this post?!
Guess I'm in the overwhelming minority on this one, but sheesh, I don't get it.
You know, when I first read this I thought you were talking out of your ass (like you do sometimes) and was determined to like it (no, love it) regardless so I'm pretty sure this hasn't influenced me in the least bit but I pretty much agree word for word (except the part about being bored). I'd say this is the biggest disappointment, not just of last year but a whole lotta flippin' years. And I'm pretty sure it's not the big expectations that weren't met, I don't understand how this film could be winning over anybody in saying anything more than "It was awright :\"
So yeah, I don't get it either...*shrugs confuzzledly*
In the Land of women(2007)-Oh my God where was this movie going to it took me 3 nights to watch it and I still don't know I gave it a chance in the second night don't be fooled by the cover
"Before I was the Thumbprint Killer, I killed a lot of people. In a lot of different ways."
A fantastically dark, twisted story of a serial killer with a murderous alter ego that convinces him to kill again after a two-year interlude. This movie is sub-plots galore, and each one of them drives the main plot home perfectly. Awesome, awesome movie. I had seen it before, but it didn't strike me on this level then as it has now, tonight.
Man With a Gun -
A "bad guy versus worse bad guys" drama starring Michael Madsen and Jennifer Tilly. Madsen's character is a hitman who has never had to kill a woman before, and when ordered to do so by his boss (Gary Busey), he refuses, taking the girl into refuge. Some cool action and chase scenes, but there was absolutely nothing notable at all here. Decent to watch once.
__________________ "The mind is its own place, and in itself Can make a Heaven of Hell, a Hell of Heaven."
John Milton, Paradise Lost
I don't know what it was, but I felt a tad underwhelmed with tonight's viewing of this. As you may have noticed I rated this .5 of a point higher when I first saw it, but it just didn't seem nearly as great this time. Some of the scenes just really seemed to drag for me, the acting was definitely the most notable thing about Changeling though. I have to point out that, even though it probably won't happen, Angelina Jolie totally deserves 'Best Actress' for her role in this; I've never seen her acting anywhere close to as great as in this, but this does not mean I don't think she's a great actress all the time though. My main problem with this is I felt the ending was just really dragged out; it should have ended after the trials IMO. Aside from the very last 5 minutes, which I felt were really needed, the last 15 minutes or so could've been cut out of the film. I'm still not sure I'd put it in my top 5 of 2008, hell this wouldn't even be Clint Eastwood's best movie of 2008, but it was still a great movie nonetheless. Even though it isn't Eastwood's best of 2008, I stll don't think this and Gran Torino could even be compared because they're two different movies; Changeling is a very emotional drama, while Gran Torino is more of a light-hearted drama with a lot of comedy thrown into it. Still I'd really recommend Changeling for people to see, because it was one of the biggest surprises of 2008, especially for me because the trailer didn't even really have me interested in it; the only reason I even decided to see it was because of Clint Eastwood and all of the great reviews it was getting. I'm sure glad I did decide to see it though, because I was very pleased.
I'm going to watch Changeling tomorrow, and it's easy to tell that it's Clint's class production of the year with the pumped up art directon and cinematography. However, I want to make it clear that I believe that many people here seem to have no comprehension at all about what Gran Torino is about. Gran Torino is certainly not about Clint "being a badass". It's also not a comedy, although it's much-funnier than most films I've seen this year. What the Eastwood character does, hopes to achieve and actually accomplishes in Gran Torino almost elevates him to one of the most self-actualized characters in film history. He knows what his life is like and he knows how he wants it to turn out, and he's one of the few people in recent film history who can make things work out for him and all of those he feels the need to apologize to based on his version of reality. To me, Gran Torino is one of the better recent SERIOUS films which is immensely-entertaining while trying to explain reality to those who still seem to have no clue whatsoever. People who criticize Gran Torino seem to be very narrow-looking individuals who smugly believe themselves to be better than an auteur who knows that he doesn't know it all! HA!
I don't think I'm better than Clint, I just think there are a lot of filmmakers out there that are infinitely more talented. And no, I don't think Grand Torino is a good film and I'm pretty sure not many people will consider it a classic of any kind 20 years from now. It's an ordinary film from an ordinary filmmaker with lots of bad acting and a worn out story.
I thought Gran Torino was near-great; the Walt character was great, but the acting from the supporting cast-- GAH! That component of the film was definitely not clicking for me.
See, I don't see how that could be just a minor gripe, I thought it detracted from the experience a great deal. For example, the pivotal scene near the end depended a great deal on the delivery of the supporting cast, which they failed to do, thus undermining what could have been a very powerful moment. Granted, I'm not a big fan of Clint so even with a more capable cast I would have thought it was an average and forgettable film...:\
I thought you were talking out of your ass (like you do sometimes)
I know my brain can sound like an ass sometimes, but I assure all you MoFos that I always, always, talk out of my brain. I really do think Speed Racer runs out of gas well before its third act kicks into gear just like I think Bon Iver duped every faux hipster into thinking that he was the second coming of Christ last year. If these or any other controversial opinions I may have shared here make me seem like an ass who talks out of his ass, I accept that, even if I disagree. I'm glad you think Slumdog is lame, too, adidasss.
I'm going to post a monster, epic movie tab soon. I've been watching movies lately.
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