Movie Tab II

Lord of War



Good movie. Nothing special. Had it been any longer though then i might have fell asleep.

7/10

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Ballpark ratings.

The Tree of Life (Terrence Malick, 2011)
Amadeus (Milos Forman, 1984)
The Village (M. Night Shyamalan, 2004) -
Soap Dish* (Michael Hoffmann, 1991)
Easy Rider* (Dennis Hopper, 1969)
Sailor Moon Super S - the Movie: The Black Dream Hole
Lost in Translation (Sofia Coppola, 2003) -
Last Exit to Brooklyn (Uli Edel, 1989) +
Transformers 3 (Michael Bay, 2011) -
Kyodai Makes the Big Time (Aryan Kaganof, 1992)
Super 8 (J.J. Abrams, 2011) +
Yi Yi (Edward Yang, 2000) -
The Player* (Robert Altman, 1992) -
Dances With Wolves (Kevin Costner, 1990) -
Little Big Man* (Arthur Penn, 1970)
The Magnificent Ambersons* (Orson Welles, 1942)
Barry Lyndon (Stanley Kubrick, 1975) -


* re-watches.

Lawrence of Arabia (David Lean, 1962)

Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps (Oliver Stone, 2010)

Tree of Life (Terrence Malick, 2011)

The Adjustment Bureau (George Nolfi, 2011)

Duck Soup (Leo McCarey, 1933)

Super 8 (J.J. Abrams, 2011)

X-Men: First Class (Matthew Vaughn, 2011)

Submarine (Richard Ayoade, 2011)

Longest version of this review and some other reviews are to be found here: http://www.movieforums.com/community...t=24883&page=2


The Greengage Summer




"What can a mere mortal do for a nymph?"

Called The Loss of Innocence in the US, which sounds rather like it could be a sexploitation film from the sixties, The Greengage Summer tells the story of four children who are taken to the Champagne region of France by their mother, who on arrival is forced to go into hospital when she has a bad reaction to a horsefly bite. Luckily at the hotel they get an unofficial guardian- charming Englishman Eliot (Kenneth More). The second eldest, thirteen-year-old Hester (Jane Asher) befriends him, but Eliot has his eye on the eldest- the blossoming sixteen-year-old Joss (Susannah York), much to the annoyance of his French mistress and co-proprieter of the hotel, Mademoiselle Zizi (Danielle Darieux). As Hester and Joss both get glimpses into the adult world as well as going on jolly jaunts with Eliot in the lush French countryside, they learn that it can be as dangerous as it is exciting.

At times the film is a little twee but most of the time it is a charming reminder of that moment when a girl finds that she is attractive to men.

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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)

Amadeus - This was a fantastic movie, totally engrossing, funny, and tragic. I loved it, and wonder why it took me so long to get around to watching it. The actors were all perfect, but F. Murray Abraham was so good at being vile, I honestly hated him.

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

https://shawnsmovienight.blogspot.com/

What a terrible movie this was. It wasn't funny and I can't believe the rating you just gave it.

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"A laugh can be a very powerful thing. Why, sometimes in life, it's the only weapon we have."

Suspect's Reviews

Biutiful (Alejandro González Iñárritu, 2010)

I found this film to be absolutely hilarious! One of the funniest I have seen in quite some time. I can certainly see why it became a sitcom, as at times it can feel like you're just watching 5 episodes of a sitcom back to back rather than a film, but wonderfully so.

Adapted from his own stage play Neil Simon's script is a piece of genius, wonderfully witty and with a number of cracking one-liners. And it is performed beautifully by Jack Lemmon and Walter Matthau, each man having their individual moments of glory as well as coming together with great chemistry for some wonderful back and forth interaction.

I have to say I kinda love Jack Lemmon! This is now the 5th or 6th film featuring him that I've seen and I like him more every time. He's just about perfect here as the neurotic, hapless, cleanliness-obsessed Felix, who has just split from his wife and nothing in his life is going right; he can't even commit suicide successfully. And when you team him up with Matthau's classic slobby, guy's guy, they make for a classic mismatched pair as they become a makeshift marriage of sorts.

In terms of directing this has to be one of the easiest, laziest gigs of all time. Gene Saks pretty much just seems to point the camera at Lemmon and Matthau, then walks off and just leaves them to it.

Performance wise there are also no failures amongst the support cast, with all the actors portraying the fellow card players and the two English sisters all bringing the goods when called upon. Great fun.





This is a cracking film! Fantastically entertaining. It is extremely cleverly made, with the special effects and inventive tricks a real joy to behold. They are what give the film a large degree of its charm, making it much more engaging than any new CGI-heavy remake would likely be. The director, Jack Arnold, deserves a lot of credit for this. One scene that deserves particular applause is the fight between the now minuscule Scott Carey, and the spider who has become his great nemesis. Considering it was made in 1957 it is a fine achievement, one that still created a real buzz of excitement for me

Richard Matheson's scipt does a great job of realising the sheer horror and terror such an event would create. It also shows however mankind's great will to survive in a world that we have no control over. It's just that in this world those obstacles include cats and spiders. And I really admired that it didn't just drop into a piece of schlocky fun, but aimed for much more in terms of intelligence and being thought-provoking. As a result it reminded me a touch of a Twilight Zone episode.

And after praising the director and writer, I can't end this without paying tribute to Grant Williams. He puts in an excellent performance. All these elements come together to create an excellent piece of science fiction.





I found this to be a highly enjoyable and at times hilarious film. Like How to Marry... it's very light and fluffy but on a different level from that film, much funnier and much more enjoyable.

Tom Ewell is magnificent as Richard Sherman, a man whose imagination is too large for his nerves to cope with. The fantasy sequences that his mind creates are wonderfully entertaining and provide the large majority of the laughs. From imagining his potential flirtations with Monroe, to the nightmare of his wife coming home they're very amusing.

While Tom Ewell is the main player here Monroe is also excellent. I have to say this is the first time that I really 'got' Marilyn Monroe; the first time I really saw the great appeal of her and why she is still the icon that she is. She is very charismatic as the dim, naïve object of Ewell's affection. Just insanely sweet and likeable.

While it's perhaps not one of Billy Wilder's truly iconic films (Sunset Blvd, Some Like it Hot, The Apartment etc more fit that bill) it is still an extremely funny and well done film.





To call this film Hitchcock-lite; while perhaps an accurate description, would also be a tad harsh as it's rather enjoyable in its own right. With a sensual, brooding look to the cinematography and some nice twists its good fun.

Up until this film I had only seen Marilyn Monroe in full on comedy mood in her classic dumb blonde role, but here she is the slinky, sexy femme fatale. And she is rather glamorous at it! The performances of Monroe and Joseph Cotton, combined with some impressive location shooting were the definite highlights for me.

The film actually reminded me a touch of Hitchcock's own Vertigo. Both films feature a mentally unstable man who is obsessed with a beautiful blonde femme fatale, both prominently feature a bell tower as a large element of the film and its finale, and even just the aesthetic look of both films seemed rather similar.





An old fashioned and dated film but fairly enjoyable all the same. The film has a trio of huge, legendary names (Monroe, Grable and Bacall) at its disposal, and as a result it's a little disappointing that the final product isn't better.

Bacall and William Powell make for an engaging duo (Powell particularly is very good), but for me the main thing it has going for it is definitely Marilyn Monroe's turn as Pola, the lovably ditzy blonde who is almost completely blind without her glasses.

A lot of the humour does feel quite dated but there are still a few good laughs sprinkled throughout. It's very light, fluffy and forgettable; but in it's own way a 'classic' piece of old Hollywood, showcasing some of the biggest stars the big screen had ever seen.





My main interest in seeing this film was to see the fabled, single 90 minute take for myself. And while it is impressive that was about the only element that really caught my attention whatsoever here. It is a real artistic accomplishment, I'll give it that. You just stop and look at what's going on at times and it's amazing. There are hundreds of extras on screen, all decked in wonderful costumes, and the whole things is skilfully orchestrated and choreographed.

However I found the film to be a bit of a trial to get through, and came close to giving up a few times. I thought this may be down to my pretty much complete lack of knowledge concerning Russian history. However I talked to a friend of mine who is Russian and he felt the exact same way about it.

As a technical achievement this perhaps deserves a score of 3 or 4, somewhere in there. But my ratings are based on their entertainment value to me, and on that basis I can't bring myself to go any higher than a...

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Transformers: Dark of the Moon (Bay, 2011)

deep wang/10

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

That's it? You're not giving me much to go on here.

True that it wasnt funny in the slap-your-thigh-ROTFL funny, or Rodney Dangerfield/Leslie Neilsen funny - but I think these days the rom-com genre is getting intensely serious and dealing with relationship situations that are far more myriad than your bread and butter cinderella-type "everything works out in the end" stories that existed back in my younger days. Then they throw in a few laughs to try and even it out and justify calling it comedy. Honestly? They should label them dramas and let it go at that.

Maybe its just me?

I liked it, but then I watched it right after someone I cared about straight out randomly admitted to me they were sleeping with someone else other than their spouse, which was also someone I cared about - and I spent 2 wks or more debating with myself whether to keep the information from the person getting cheated on, so as not to hurt them, or if keeping it from them would hurt them worse, or if the cheater was such a coward that they had intentionally told me so I WOULD tell the other person so they wouldnt have to. Kind of a screwed up situation, but the person found out anyway with no interference from me and took it pretty well - (what a relief! )

That said. I liked it. Like I said before - not largely appealing, but probably understandable for people who've been placed in that position.

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something witty goes here......

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Just seen it at the cinema. In 3-D.
It was okay. Better than Revenge of the Fallen. Am i the only one who thinks that the fight in Chicago was dragged on for too long?

I don't want to write a full review of it...

7/10


For me, the first one is the best in the trilogy.
Did anyone else feel sad when Ironhid died?

The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp (1943)

"But war starts at midnight!"

It’s surprising that I’ve taken so long to get round to this film, considering how much I admire The Red Shoes and Black Narcissus. The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp is counted amongst Powell and Pressburger’s classics, though Winston Churchill hated it, for reasons which will become clear.
The film follows the life of General Clive Wynne-Candy (Roger Livesey, in some impressive make-up and prosthetics), told in flashback from the Boer War to 1943. Each war (the Boer War, World War One, and World War Two) marks an important change in the life, though not outlook, of Clive. Each war also brings a new woman (all of which are played by Deborah Kerr). Though the nature of the wars change rapidly, Clive’s friendship with the German Theo Schuldorff-Kreutscher (Anton Walbrook) is a constant.
‘Colonel Blimp’ represents the sort of sportsman chivalry that is so typically British, and the film is both a celebration and critique of it. Churchill wasn’t keen on Wynne-Candy as a representative of Britain, or perhaps the sympathetic portrayal of a German. For anybody who likes war films, this is a must-watch, and it’s more proof that Powell and Pressburger changed British cinema forever. This film is typical of the duo and so is a good introduction to their work, although I confess that I prefer the non-war films. I can’t fault the performances but the film is a little slow to get going. It only really kicks in just after the WW1 segment but once it has kicked in, whether you watch many war films or not, you will discover themes that still resonate today.

Stake Land (Jim Mickle, 2010) -
Take a generous slab of Cormac McCarthy's The Road, add a pinch of Ruben Fleisher's Zombieland, The Hughes' The Book of Eli, and the Pastors' underrated Carriers, then throw in some vampires and give it all a whirl. Yup Stake Land is as derivative as horror gets, but it's also a compelling, unrelentingly gritty, yet suprisingly tender hotchpotch of ingredients that come together beautifully. Well made, and extremely well acted by a cast of virtual unknowns (unless you count the almost unreconisable Kelly McGillis) the film pretty much delivers on all levels; just a shame it all feels so familiar.



Hobo With A Shotgun (Jason Eisener, 2011)
This began life as a fake grindhouse trailer which ended up winning an amateur competition created by Robert Roderiguez. I loved watching that trailer on Youtube, and ever since a movie spin off was announced with no less than Rutger Hauer in the lead I was positivley drooling with anticipation. Unfortunately Jason Eisener's finnished product is such an over-the-top excercise in ineptitude; my inevitable opening night visit to the local multiplex was one of crushing disapointment.

Imagine an ultra-crass mixture of J. Michael Muro's Street Trash, and James Glickenhaus' The Exterminator pumped full of amphetamines in a crime infested city that makes the old Detroit of Verehoeven's Robocop look like a teddy bear's picnic...got it? Well you're still only half way there. Shot on the cheap in Canada, Hobo is intended as jet black comedy that attempts to glean laughter from sheer gratuitousness. Nearly every scene is a ridiculously extreme, expletive packed orgy of violence, torture and depravity that would never have got past the censors if it wasn't so exaggerated and fake looking. Complete with leering pop video camera work, and token 70's colour saturated visuals (though overall stylistically the film plays more as 80's homage) Hobo substitutes any semblence of satirical substance for sheer ironic excess. Still, if a school bus full of kids being flamethrowered to death by rayban wearing goons to the tune of The Trammps Disco Inferno sounds like your cup of tea...then you may well be inclined to disagree.

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100 Favourites From The Future: REWIRED

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

Just rewatched Night of the Creeps for the first time in a long time...

Great little B-horror spoof! Cool old-school effects, nice performances.

I give it 8/10

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#31 on SC's Top 100 Mofos list!!

Drive Angry - So bad it's awesome?