Movie Tab II

Never thought I'd see this.

No disrespect intended, but was there ever any doubt in your mind that this film would blow donkeys? If only people would stop seeing his films, maybe Uwe Boll would finally fall back through the cracks he oozed up from.

The French Lieutenants Woman (1981) 3½/5

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I See a Dark Stranger (Frank Launder, 1946)



This is a really terrific suspense film in the Hitchcock/Michael Powell tradition, with lots of dark, and occasionally daft, humor thrown in. Deborah Kerr plays Bridie Quilty, a young Irish woman, who, inspired by her father's often fanciful tales of the good old days of the IRA, decides to try to fight against the British during WWII. She becomes involved with Nazi spies, an English intelligence officer (Trevor Howard) who falls for her, and something involving secret plans for D-Day.

The whole film is a joy, filmed in beautiful B&W, with great music. Deborah Kerr, one of my favorite actresses, probably never looked any more beautiful, and that's saying a lot. But it's really the confidence and wit of the writing/producing/directing team of Launder and Sidney Gilliat which makes this about as good as Hitch's and Powell's best from the '40s. Search it out on DVD. Their other great flick from the times was the killer murder mystery Green For Danger, where Gilliat is credited as director, and Alistair Sim gives one of his best. They really don't make 'em like they used to!

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Batman: The Animated Series

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I used to be addicted to crystal meth, now I'm just addicted to Breaking Bad.

Saracasm eh?

My latest tab...

The Wanderers -

The Searchers -

Cabaret -

Sonatine -

Chinatown -

Fast Times at Ridgemont High -

The Lavender Hill Mob -

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Iro's Top 100 Movies v3.0

Traffic (Soderbergh, 2000)

Excellent yarn about the ins, outs, and ramifications of drug trafficking, from the street level all the way up to the brass. I wasn't floored by one performance in this piece, but as an ensemble it works very well (with the exception of Zeta-Jones, who seemed miscast). What I really liked was the segment on the drug-addicted daughter: drug usage among blacks and hispanics could have easily been the focus of the "who's getting high" aspect, but the fact that Gaghan makes us see the young, priviledged, naive impressionables falling into drugs is hard-hitting. I also loved Del Toro's scenes; he's just a treat to watch in this film. Lots of character depth with not a lot of dialogue. I was somewhat distracted by the color changes in the film, though I found the "Mexico orange" a bit more tolerable than the "Picasso blue," which seemed to be used less consistently (though not as much).

About Schmidt (Payne, 2002)

Payne's little-known Sideways is one of my all-time favorites, so I was excited about finally watching this one. For the most part, it doesn't disappoint, though I find myself struggling to relate as easily with Warren Schmidt as I do with Sideway's Miles. Yet, the quirky-but-genuine quality of this film really made it a treat to watch, not to mention Jack Nicholson's mild-mannered and loveable performance. Charming, heartfelt movie.

The Cotton Club (1984) 3½/5

Yeah I've been on a serious Bond kick lately, I tend to rate them all pretty similar. I give most of them a solid . A few have been lower and only a few have been higher. Overall I probably would rate the Sean Connery Bond's a tad bit higher than the Roger Moore Bond's.


I love that flick, plain and simple. Especially all the stupid lines in it.



Yeah, I don't know I just wasn't blown away buy Sunshine, it was good just not great. That's just me though, I liked the cast and for the most part the story but the main part that a lot of people seem to think was the strength of the film (the blurry nut-job) I really thought detracted from it. I was hoping to get at least one good look at the guy but no joy. I've seen some posts regarding this and some seem to think that was the point. But I didn't like it. I also didn't really care for the side trip to the first ship, I think the film would have been more enjoyable if they just continued and every one had to deal with that fact and the weight of their mission. As soon as they reached the ship I knew what was going to happen for the rest of the film and so that's why I give it a . There certainly wasn't anything groundbreaking or new to get me to give a higher ranking. But that's just me and I've probably seen to many of these types of Sci-fi movies.

Anyway, now on to a brilliant film that I watched last night, why this film isn't on the lists is beyond me. This was really good.




Wow, absolutely incredible! William Powell and Myrna Loy's first movie together gives us a very good look at why they became such a fantastic on screen couple. They're first scene together in the Taxi cab is priceless. Clark Gable is also extremely good as 'Blackie' and best friend to Powell's 'Jim Wade'. The last 20 minutes of the film are very emotional as Jim has to stand by his decision and I found it astonishing how well this came across the screen. They really could act in those days, very few props and mostly dialogue just ram the issues right down your throat. An extremely well done film with a very small budget is a must see if you've become a William Powell and Myrna Loy fan.

Next up...




Also very good and very funny. It was good to switch to something a little more light hearted after the first one that was a total tear fest.

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We are both the source of the problem and the solution, yet we do not see ourselves in this light...

demolitian man is awesome

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Undercoverlovers 100 REDUX

I would actually agree with you there. Not because he was blurry and I wanted to see him, but because that whole aspect mirrors the one thing I didn't like about 28 Days Later (Boyle and Garland's last team-up). Everything was nice and unsettling, being on the edge of space strapped to a city-sized nuclear payload with only your thoughts and your housekeeping work to pass the time. Very psychological, and you could see in little ways how the crew were finding themselves affected by that.

Of course, there needs to be some action, and how can you have action when the ship is already nine-tenths of the way to the Sun at the start of the film? The whole Icarus I segment, and the resulting chaos, was as predictable as it was clearly a plot stone to inject the movie with some action. In my view, the last 45 minutes or so do not really follow logically (or realistically) from the setup Garland gave us, and once again...



Still, I think it's got some deep, intense filmmaking and worthy performances to its credit. Kudos to everyone for making such a daring project on a budget. I'd call it a win.

Little Big Man (Arthur Penn, 1970)
Midnight Cowboy (John Schlesinger, 1969)
Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (Mike Nichols, 1966)
Cabaret (Bob Fosse, 1972)

To quote Slug's favorite, Gomer Pyle,

In response to your spoiler sleezy...



That's not to say I didn't like the movie, I did, and I may even come to like it bit more with another viewing or two. I'm still relatively new here so let me just say this, a from me is still a pretty decent rating. I don't give too many films below a simply because I won't watch them. Bless his soul, but we've got jrs to watch movies like Meet The Spartans for us so we don't have to. Now, you may be saying to yourself (but Demolition Man is pure crap!) and you may be right but I just happen to love it and I'm sorry but I can't help it. It's on my top 100, so you know its gotta get at least a !

Yeah, for the most part I'd agree with you here just not enough to say that I loved it, you know?

Heat -

Films which portray two camps in a conflict rarely give both an equal amount of on-screen time, and even more rarely refrain from blatantly passing moral judgment and taking side which feels morally right. Heat, a 1995 crime drama directed by Michael Mann, shows downsides of being on the wrong side of the law, but never succumbs to the usual moralizing that films talking about similar subjects often do, and decides to portray its main protagonists as likable and at times "cool", but also as flawed and realistic. DeNiro's character is shown as a man who has moral values, but is not given a sad history and is not shown as someone for whose wrongdoings we should blame someone else (like society or bad parents) - crime is a path that his character has chosen, just like Pacino's character chose his path.

Visually flawless, featuring rich and complex characters and subplots, this is an epic which takes itself seriously, but never becomes overly ostentatious. Several scenes, like the balcony scene with DeNiro and Brenneman and the closing one, are done with so much style and beauty that occasional traces of pretentiousness on Mann's part never take away from the movie's qualities.

Heat is a remake of Mann's own L.A. Takedown, an 80's made-for-TV film. Recently, Mann has been busy making remakes, or if you decide to be exceptionally critical, you may even call them parodies, of Heat. Collateral and Miami Vice are examples of films made by a director desperately trying to cash in on his old glory, changing his film making style into one perhaps visually more modern, but also trading interesting characters for cool suits and believable emotion for roaring soundtracks. What I liked so much about Heat, other than displays of coolness and machismo and a slick directorial style, was the ingenuity with which Mann has approached seemingly clichéd characters and a formulaic plot and made Heat into something far more engaging.

A lot of the complaints about Sunshine on this last page were wrapped in all sorts of personal qualifiers that are kind of hard to argue with, since personal reactions are just that. I have to vehemently disagree with the content of Sleezy's spoiler though, which I think completely misrepresents Cillian's character.



As for my own general praises for that movie, which perhaps I should post in the Sunshine thread:

For a movie that is under 2 hours and follows the stories of 9 major characters, it left a lot ambiguous, which one could argue was good or bad, or successful in some instances and not in others (I thought everything worked), but one thing Boyle and Garland made a point of doing very well was defining the characters in relation to their jobs and the mission. I really don't see how the movie could have done better at that and not been a completely different film. It does a more thorough job and retains more of it's initial ensemble feel than, for example, Alien which is of course no slouch in introducing a social network and defining the individuals within it very quickly and fluently. I think Sunshine also has a tougher job (than Alien) in that the characters have to come across as believable professionals/elite scientists at the same time as it places you amongst them, and because the major threat/conflict in the movie is of a much more ambiguous nature.

As to the question of whether it breaks new ground, maybe not in terms of the situation or plot, but it certainly has a very distinct look and mood, which one could call original. I've never seen a movie that had as rich an expression of supernatural (both words in that compound should be equally emphasized) light, which is a pretty big deal to me. So I guess I'm in a weird position here, saying the main reason to see this movie is it's amazing visual presentation. At the same time I wouldn't go as far as to say that the save-the-world plot is just an excuse for those visuals though, because the visual FX act as an intense dye on the fabric of the story and characters.

I'm not even just talking about all the pretty-looking "money shots" of the sun and corona or walls of flame, either: Capa's dream, that shot of Harvey's reflection on the surface of the ship, the flash cuts in that one scene (I'm deliberately avoiding detail in that description), all the close-ups of light bouncing around inside irises, and yeah, the blur effect (which it should be noted is not total and not limited to that one effect: certain aspects can be seen in detail, and the intensity of blurring and bending fluctuates quite a bit), all the images of light reflecting on the front and back of the shield, the oxygen garden. The very first and very last shots in the movie. All that stuff blew me away.

EDIT: thanks for the heads up about the spoiler problem, Powderedwater

sweeney todd - awesome it a good enough word. Not 100% convinced on johnny depps voice, loved helena's, and as i feared not enough was made of laura michellle kellys astounding voice. The aesthetics are beautiful, burtons style continues to flourish. Really good find in the young boy who played Toby. Fave song right now is Not While Im Around or Priest, cant decide. Very graphic and bloody but totally awesome, the skull smashing chair was spine tingly

I thought he did fine. Did you know he sang before he was an actor?

I did, I watched "What it Takes" on Reelzchannel, they had one on him before POTC3.

yeah he was a rock singer, not the best credentials for a musical. Hes got a good voice but maybe purely on a vocal performance there was somebody better for the role. However on acting, there is no one better to have taken on the role in a burton film than Depp.

It's like a foul mouthed version of the Gilmore girls, and even though sometimes the quirky cuteness came dangerously close to inducing a gag reflex, overall it's an enjoyable watch, if nothing else for Michael Cera (so friggin' awkwardly cute!). Don't really understand the Oscar nomination though. A contrived continuation of the "little film that could" mini-tradition? Meh, who cares about the Oscars anywhae aye...

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