Movie Tab II

No, but I watched The Shining, and Scatman said "What's up Doc" in that...

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We're on two different continents. I didn't watch it though.

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

I was about to say the exact same thing!

Woah.

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Prince of Darkness (Carpenter 1987)

Guilty Pleasure Rating for Seds:

"We are using to using your brain as a receiver. We are unable to transmit through conscious neural interference. You are receiving this broadcast as a dream. We are transmitting from the year 1-9-9-9. You are receiving this broadcast on all the events you are seeing. Our technology has not developed a transmitter strong enough to reach your conscious mind. This is not a dream. What you are seeing is actually occurring."

This flick seems to be universally derided, but I seem to really dig it. The Schrodinger's Cat pseudo-philosophy, the minimal synth score, the mixing about of science and supernatural elements...it all just works for me, so I guess I have to chock this up as a guilty pleasure. As usual with later Carpenter stuff, things go a bit too far in the third act, but I think he shows a bit more restraint here than in something like say...In the Mouth of Madness, a film with an extremely solid first segment, but much weaker segments that follow. Just as this one is about to become completely unhinged, it ends.

Yeah, it's schlock horror/thriller fare, but I think it's a tick or two above the rest of the pack.

I think Carpenter's stuff falls way off once you get out past The Thing and Halloween, but I think Prince of Darkness is a good deal closer in quality than most of his later flicks...

Oh wait - Almost forgot Big Trouble in Little China, which is pure gold...

Cracks

Adapted from Sheila Kohler's novel of the same name, except the setting is changed from South Africa to England

The film is set 1937, in a girls' boarding school on a presumably fictional English island. The school swimming team is ran by the glamorous Miss G (Eva Green), who had been a pupil herself. The girls are enthralled by her, in particular Di (Juno Temple), house captain and star swimmer. Miss G inspires them with passion, a far cry from their conventional girls' school. But when the beautiful Spanish student Fiamma arrives on the scene (Maria Valverde), passions are awakened and the girls' innocence is lost.

It's basically a mix between The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie and Lord of The Flies, although the latter influence is not nearly as strong as it could have been. There are many moments in the film where it just seems to be The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie under a different name, and there's no denying that Miss G is heavily based on Jean Brodie. The setting change weakens the film a bit and although the main lesbian plot points are kept, the novel suggested that all the girls were experimenting a little.

The performances are all good, particularly Eva Green's, who brings out the neurotic schoolgirl aspect brilliantly. She emphasises the themes that were the attraction in The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie. However the plot is slight and the atmosphere isn't powerful enough- it stays at the level of typical girls' boarding school for too long.

Jordan Scott clearly has potential as a director- there are some nicely handled scenes- and if they kept the South African retrospective setting I'm sure she could have shown more.

It's an entertaining film but the wild tribal aspects of the novel are lost a little in the adaptation.

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You cannot have it both ways. A dancer who relies upon the doubtful comforts of human love can never be a great dancer. Never. (The Red Shoes, 1948)

I re-watched Frank Capra's Meet John Doe (1941) on my mp3 player during a long bus ride last night. I love that movie and can't wait for the new 70th Anniversary DVD at the end of the month. Hopefully the restoration is as good as it sounds like it will be.

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Family DVD Collection | My Top 100 | My Movie Thoughts | Frank Capra

First off, I would like to see some updates of Harry Lime's movie tabs.

Secondly, here is my impression of a Harry Lime Movie Tab (with all the ratings changed to protect the innocent).


(Christine Jeffs, 2008)


(Lloyd Bacon, 1950) +


(Henry Hathaway, 1960)


(Richard Donner, 1978) +



(D.W. Griffith, 1920) ; Classic Rating:


(Bo Widerberg, 1995)


(Lee Unkrich, 2010) -


(William Castle, 1961)


(Elaine May, 1971) -


(John Carpenter, 1992)


(John Farrow, 1951)


(Lewis Allen, 1954)


(Ken Hughes, 1970)


(Joe Pytka, 1989)


(Peter Glenville, 1955)


(Carl Reiner, 1979) +


(Richard Compton, 1975)


(Cy Endfield, 1964)


(Martin Scorsese, 1995)


(Carl Reiner, 1987)


(Akira Kurosawa, 1985)

Just 3.5 for Kurosawa's Ran?

Please, do tell...

c'mon, everyone knows toy story 3 is a better movie.

(full disclosure: I rate Freaks higher than Ran)

Some of the films I've seen somewhat recently:


Charulata (1964, Satyajit Ray)

Days and Nights in the Forest (1970, Satyajit Ray)

Death by Hanging (1968, Nagisa Oshima)

The Man Who Left His Will on Film (1970, Nagisa Oshima)

Elegy of a Voyage (2001, Aleksandr Sokurov)

Whispering Pages (1994, Aleksandr Sokurov)

Mother and Son (1997, Aleksandr Sokurov)

Interrogation (1989, Ryszard Bugajski)

Benny's Video (1992, Michael Haneke)

The Hour of the Furnaces (1968, Octavio Getino and Fernando Solanas)

The Profound Desire of the Gods (1968, Shohei Imamura)

The Band of Honest Men (1956, Camillo Mastrocinque)

Pretty Village, Pretty Flame (1996, Srđan Dragojević)

The Man Without a Map (1968, Hiroshi Teshigahara)

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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."

The Princess and The Frog

The long-awaited return to old-fashioned animation- but was it worth the wait?

The story is your basic Disney story, with a little twist- Tiana (Anika Noni Rose) is not a princess; her aspiration is to run her own restaurant, not to marry a handsome prince. Not a bad addition to the Disney Princess canon. It's her boy-crazy friend Charlotte (Jennifer Cody) that wants to marry a prince. She's a typical Southern Belle so cue references to Tennessee Williams' plays. It's a hint of the old Disney wit but this film is not a child/adult crossover in the same way that The Lion King is, for example.

So, which prince do we get to add to the Disney Prince/Hero canon, that includes such hunks as Eric and...well, we'll include the Beast as being an awesome Disney prince? We get Prince Naveen (Bruno Campos) from the made-up foreign country of Maldonia, vain but fit. Little girls may swoon over him.

And our Disney villain? Dr Facilier (Keith David), a slightly camp voodoo doctor. He falls more into the Hades group, as in he's more witty and a bit scary rather than terrifying. As such, he never really poses much of a threat, and he doesn't equal Hades' wit.

And of course, a Disney classic must have a classic song. Unfortunately the songs are a letdown. 'Almost There' is probably the 'star' song; 'Friends on The Other Side' isn't that bad, but Randy Newman just isn't that strong a composer. The love song is generally classic in a Disney classic- think 'Beauty and The Beast', 'Kiss The Girl'...even ones that aren't ballads, like 'I Won't Say I'm in Love'.

So to summarise, the film will no doubt appeal to children, but the pressure to make a commercially successful film means that there is not much crossover appeal for adults. Hopefully they will produce another 2D film- the medium still works- and will take a risk, like The Hunchback of Notre Dame.

A Clockwork Orange

Controversial films are not solely controversial because of their topic matter. There's also the question of quality- is this art or just a talking point? Arguably in A Clockwork Orange's case, it's both.

The film is narrated by teenage yob Alex [Malcolm McDowell, who is frighteningly convincing and strangely charismatic], who enjoys the unusual combination of milk, rape and Beethoven. It's set in a surreal dystopic future (cue sixties kitsch) where Alex's band of youths go around terrorising people. Unsuprisingly, Alex ends up in jail. When he hears of an experimental technique that will reform him and release him from jail, Alex volunteers. But at what cost will his freedom come?

It has iconic stamped all over it- whether you enjoy the film or not, it screams cult status. Kubrick manages to keep it on the fine line between sinister voyeurism and pornography- just about. The black comedy helps with that aspect, such as playing the threesome at double speed. The 'ultra-violence' the yobs exact on harmless victims is truly disturbing. It might put you off 'Singing in the Rain', that's for sure. It'll certainly put you off Beethoven.

The slang that the yobs use and their sinister culture is what saves the film from being sci-fi porn. It's a sinister blend of childish baby-talk, archaic language, and gang speak. For those who struggled to read the book because of the slang, on the screen it all seems to make sense. This is youth with all the power- society's nightmare. The film is basically a voyeurist nightmare.

So, does this film have a point beyond shock-value? Well, it has your common dystopia themes of a corrupt nightmarish society, and what happens when you take away free will, but it does probe into the fear of a society controlled by youth and the consequences of one. The torture experiment is suitably sinister but the ending felt a little bit like Kubrick noticed that there hadn't been much porn for a while so he decided to stick in some X-rated image.

Speaking of controversial films, i just watched Irreversible and i feel quite gross



I could barely make it through the rape scene in this. The thing that made this movie not just a revenge movie with the most brutal rape scene ever, was the fact that it was told backwards. You see the violence first and it really makes you pay extra attention to the happy parts. I don't remember how to do the little popcorn thingies but i give it a 4/5 it's definitely not something i'm going to be watching again anytime soon though. Or ever for that matter, once was enough.

A Passage to Marseille (1944)

I just got finished watching this on TCM and missed the beginning but I am really hoping to catch it again. It is quite the nail-biter. It is about a crew of Free French bomber pilots who were escapees from Devil's Island, a notorious French prison.

Humphrey Bogart plays a journalist who is very vocal in his opposition to France's patronization of the fascists and the Third Reich. His newspaper is attacked by a mob and he is framed for the death of a pressman who is murdered during the riot. He is subsequently sent to Devil's Island where he meets Peter Lorre and others who are planning an escape prinicipally to fight against the Boche ( a disparaging French term for the Germans).

Peter Lorre, Sidney Greenstreet and Claude Rains all have small roles in this exciting propaganda film.

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Louise Vale first woman to play Jane Eyre in the flickers.

How about the flashback inside a flashback inside a flashback?

LOL I started watching it a half hour into it so I only got the flashback inside a flashback.

Scott Pilgrim Vs. The World - I don't know what to say about this, it's totally unique, hilarious, and full of geeky in-jokes. Any film that makes a joke about Launchpad McQuack in the first five minutes is good in my book. Plus is it me or is Michael Cera essentially turning into Beck?

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

https://shawnsmovienight.blogspot.com/

Best. Biopic. Evar.

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

Watched this one to kill time, laying in bed sick. I dozed off a couple times but for no more than three minutes. It seems like a lot of this movie might as well have ended up on the cutting room floor. It was a little disappointing, and I don't think it's as good as the sequel Along Came a Spider. There just didn't seem to be anything impressive about it. Nothing the characters did were all that impressive. Nothing the characters said was all that impressive. No acting moments were all that impressive. It's been a week and I'm already having trouble remembering it. It was entertaining enough though. The cast was ensembled, and Morgan Freeman is great for the role of Alex Cross. Ashley Judd does her usual tough girl routine that usually fails to strike me. The Casanova villian I think could've been made a whole lot creepier though. Anyway, not bad just not memorable.

Kiss the Girls: +




Great gritty prison movie. If you think the movie would appeal to you than watch it. It starts out feeling pretty dated and even a little sappy, but once Stallone gets thrown in the big time slammer, it gets intense. The movie is so well-casted with Stallone, Sutherland, and Amos. Although it naturally gets a little unrealistic at points, something in the story keeps you interested. Toward the end I literally asked my dad, "How does this even end?" He says, "Great." The ending was perfect, and I'd say if it looks like your type of movie, definately check it out.

Lock Up:



Possibly the greatest sports drama of our time. The inspiring story and touching moments aside, this is a truly entertaining movie. We get to like the characters, played by a familar and terrific cast. I had no doubts that Washington was a great choice for the lead. Will Patton's character in his suttle way was even more impressive to me. For once, I see him playing a likable character. Hayden Panettiere nearly steals the show as his football obsessed daughter. The actors playing the team were a great ensemble of young actors. The soundtrack was fun and the thrill of the game scenes blended perfectly with engrossing dramatic scenes. It's got a bit of a Disney feel, but it wasn't too noticeable. I'd recommend this one especially for family movie night. It's great entertainment for the adults and the kids just might learn something

Remember the Titans:




One of Neil Simon's better later comedies, in my opinion. Goldie, Chevy, and Grodin make one of the best comedic trios I can recall seeing. The comedy is subtle but sometimes silly and can make you laugh out loud. The romantic tension is kind of masterful in the way it held my interest. There isn't much to say about this one except that is was fun, quirky, and the perfect laugh for a rainy day (imo).

Seems Like Old Times: +

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How did you see that one? I've been looking for it.