What was the last movie you saw at the theaters?

Don't get me wrong, I thought it was brilliant, I just thought the ending could've been better

The Departed

Pike pretty much hit everything i thought about it as a film and in regards to the original. Thought they copied it a bit too closely for example in the How to Spot a Cop a scene. And the psychiatrists role and the interaction between the two boss's were a lot better in the original although I thought they handled turning the trilogy into a single film well. I was a bit amprehensive about some of the casting but by the end they were all great though there was a tendency to neglect a couple of characters which in turn left their conclusions a bit hollow.

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The Last King of Scotland (Kevin Macdonald)

Nicholas Garrigan (James McAvoy) is a young Scottish doctor who has just earned his degree who decides to leave his home and the seemingly dull and safe prospect of becoming a family practitioner with his father. He wants something different. Anything, really. Randomly he chooses Uganda as his destination and he enlists to help a small Mission in the countryside. The year is 1970, and his arrival coincides with the leadership changing hands in a military coup. The new President is Idi Amin (Forest Whitaker), a charismatic General who says he is one of the people and promises a wave of reforms and economic prosperity that will bring growth and shared wealth to the independent African nation. During a tour of the country, Amin has a chance meeting with young doctor Garrigan after a traffic accident involving a cow. Amin is impressed with his strightforwardness, and having served in the British Army in his youth Amin has a natural like and interest in Scots. For his part, Garrigan is charmed by Amin and buys into his rhetoric. Soon afterward Nicholas is invited to the capitol where he is given the position of President Amin's personal physician as well as power shaping and overseeing the national healthcare system and the State hospital. It's more than he could have dreamed of and he truly believes he may do some good. But the real Idi Amin behind the charm begins to surface, and ultimately Garrigan realizes he has made a deal with the Devil.

The character of Nicholas Garrigan, while fictional, is a window into the palace of the infamous Amin. His bloody regime wreaked terror and led to the genocide of approximately 300,000 Ugandans during the nine years of his reign. The Last King of Scotland doesn't show much of the killing, but does try to shed light on the character of Amin, who could be gregarious, magnanimous and funny at times but was only masking deep-seeded paranoia, white-hot hatred and a frightening capacity for cruelty and murder. The narrative puts us at his side from the beginning of his Presidency up through the 1976 PLO hostage situation at Entebbe International Airport. Adapted from a novel by Giles Foden, because the character of the young doctor is a fictional construct rather than an actual person the film doesn't have the air of authenticity and immediacy of something like The Killing Fields (1984) or Hotel Rwanda (2004). Since the story is told from his point-of-view it does detract from some of the power of the underlying history, and the finale of the picture where he makes his escape is a bit too contrived to swallow emotionally or intellectually, lessening the overall impact a bit.

But the story isn't attempting to document history in broad strokes or in snapshots, it's aiming at a portrait of Amin. In that regard it is a success, largely due to a magnificent performance by Forest Whitaker. I've been a huge fan and supporter of Whitaker's since the late 1980s when his performances in Good Morning, Vietnam (1987), Johnny Handsome (1989), Downtown (1990) and most especially Bird (1988) blew me away. Though he rightfully won the Best Actor award at Cannes for his phenomenal work as Charlie Parker in Eastwood's film, he was left out of the Oscars. Eighteen years later that Academy may finally rectify that snub. Forest plays both sides of the contradictory Idi Amin perfectly. His captivating persona coupled with his insanity is amazingly portrayed and scary to watch. As a history lesson there is much detail missing from The Last King of Scotland, but as a look at the human being responsible for some of the most monstrous and inhuman horrors of the late 20th Century it is fascinating.


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

Well, except for one of them, it's basically the ending from the original movie. I don't see how it's a weakness either way, though. Like I said in my review, have you ever read Shakespeare's Hamlet?

I saw Must Love Dogs. Good Movie.

I know that, I'm just saying I think the script was so brilliantly written, that they backed htemselves into a corner and that was the only way out. I just wish the ending would have been a little more original.

Infamous (Douglas McGrath)

The other movie about Truman Capote writing In Cold Blood is here. Covering almost the exact same ground as the Oscar-winning Capote, writer/director Doug McGrath's project went into production shortly after the other but was beaten to the screen by about a year. Because of this the comparisons are inevitable.

Toby Jones stars as Capote. In physicality and voice it is really much, much closer to Truman than Philip Seymour Hoffman's lauded turn. But here's the beginning of the big differences between the two projects: while Jones' transformation is dead-on for a night club comic, Hoffman's portrayal is so much deeper, so much more complex, so much...better. I've seen Capote interviewed over the years on outlets like "The Tonight Show" and "The Dick Cavett Show" and in things like Muder by Death all where he was playing-up his persona to the hilt. And I'm sure that while he was happy to amp that up for public consumption, most of that is just plain really and truly how the man carried himself behind closed doors as well. But the problem for me and Infamous is Toby Jones' Capote is 100% over-the-top for virtually the entire movie, save a few moments here and there. If Hoffman's Capote Capote is less accurate in some way because he's more restrained than Truman was in life, in the adaptation he embodies the duality of the man as an artist, the contradictions between his persona and his writing, especially his writing on In Cold Blood, and in that sense it is extremely realistic. While Hoffman may have inserted more nuance into each scene than the public Truman Capote managed in a decade, the result is a compelling embodiment of his essence, if not an accurate impression. What Toby Jones creates is a terrific impression, but it has none of the duality of the man's inner nature. As Juliet Stevenson's New York fashion socialite quips in Infamous, Truman wasn't eccentric, he was interesting. Then how odd that the central performance of the film plays chiefly to the eccentricities and doesn't have a clue how to artfully integrate the interesting parts.

The structure of Infamous is a bit different than Capote in that it spends more time in New York, looking at the most famous side of Capote: the witty, campy gadfly of the rich and famous. Because there aren't really many layers to peel back here, Toby's Capote is well suited for the comic one-liners and casual betrayals of confidence as he gossips around midtown Manhattan with a verve that charms even those he's gossiping about. And if Infamous had been about that part of Truman's life, or even that part post-In Cold Blood, Jones' performance and the movie might have had some fun and possibly even found something to say. While it spends more time on the New York scenes than Capote, from there we do go to Kansas where Truman must ingratiate himself with the locals and County Sheriff Alvin Dewey (Jeff Daniels). With childhood friend Nell Harper Lee (Sandra Bullock) by his side, he eventually manages to win the small town over. When the killers are caught, Capote's piece takes on extra dimensions, including interviews with the killers and the bond he forms with Perry Smith (the new 007, Daniel Craig).

But much like Toby Jones' performance, the script and direction as well as the other performances have no subtltly or artistry to them. Frankly it looks and plays like a TV-movie, and I mean that in the pejorative. Which isn't to say Infamous is unaware of the deeper more complex issues of the story, it just doesn't present them well. Rather than showing the complexities on screen through performance and tone, the filmmakers have to resort to simply stating them out loud in dialogue. It's all telling and little showing, which is emotionally uninvolving and pretty amaturish. The best example of this weakness is the Capote/Perry relationship. While Truman's sexual attraction to Smith is a powerful element of Capote, it isn't on display in a simple overt fashion. Infamous has them caress and kiss and make the whole thing sorid and trite. Whether or not those two men ever acted upon their urges in a physical way is something only they know for sure, but by portraying it on screen it really trivializes the feelings and replaces them with a bit of man-on-man action. It's a cheap, easy and ultimately far less effective approach to the material.

And that happens over and over again throughout Infamous, with the big and small issues and characters. I think it's pretty clearly inferior to Bennett Miller and Dan Futterman's Capote in every single way, but even if that great film didn't already exist Infamous would still seem hollow and schlocky. In comparison it's downright awful.


GRADE: D

To chime in on this, the ending bothered me a little too -- not that it was a Shakespearean ending, but that it didn't seem to agree with the sense of reality that permeated the film's first and second acts. I felt like much of The Departed was believable (or at least semi-realistic), particularly the attitudes and motives of the characters. But toward the end, the film started to venture out of reality and into Greek tragedy. Of these two treatments, I very much preferred the former. I like Greek tragedies, but I didn't think Scorsese's The Departed needed to be one, no matter the source material.

We should continue this is the thread devoted to The Departed, yeah? It's HERE.

Saw The Pre viewing of the Man Of The Year.

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See Ya At The Movies

http://i111.photobucket.com/albums/n157/MSakuro/me2.jpg

Yeah, I saw it a couple weeks ago (my review is back a page). I gave it a D-, but the more I think about it that may be too generous. It's probably more like an F.

Horrible flick. Avoid at all costs.

Little Miss Sunshine. I must have been in a cranky mood, because it didn't do much for me. All I seemed to do was think, "Oh, yeah. That's funny," but I didn't actually laugh. As I said, me so cranky.

Solaris (1972)

Uhm. It was THE DEPARTED.

A remarkable return to form, and a really great tableau of character study.

The Departed....10/10....best new movie ive seen in a while

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"Hey, I'm a firm believer in the philosophy of a ruling class. Especially since I rule." Randal Graves from Clerks.

The Grudge 2
Me and my friends need to think of something better to do on Fridays when there aren't any good movies coming out. It was this or The Marine. Let it be known I voted for The Marine but was outnumbered. I knew going in that the movie would suck on a planetary scale. My feelings toward the film, however, proved to be premature. The Grudge 2 does not suck on a planetary scale. It sucks on a galactic scale. Easily one of the worst films I have seen in my life. On the upside though, it was one of those flicks that sucks in a funny sort of way. I was laughing out loud throughout much to the displeasure of those around me. Obviously, this movie was made to scare people and I guess it would have succeeded if the advertisements had been tweaked to reach a younger audience. Say around four years old. I'm not quite sure how I'd rate this movie because it was terrible on every conceivable level but I still had fun watching it. Aww, what the hey? I'll give it a big fat F.

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"No form of art goes beyond ordinary consciousness as film does, straight to our emotions, deep into the twilight room of the soul." ~ Ingmar Bergman

Better late than never, right?

The Black Dahlia

Overall I thought it was just ok. Maybe it was the theatre I saw it in, but some dialogue was hard to hear and the 1940's hip talk that worked so well in the book had my fellow movie patrons scratching their heads & wondering what just happened. Novel dialogue can be very different from the way real people talk, especially when spoken quickly.

One of biggest gripes would be that I felt the movie lacked tension. Successful noir movies rely heavily on building tension, yet this always seemed to either telegraph what would happen later or somehow an earlier mystery seemed forgotten and then when they showed a conclusion, you just numbly accepted it.

because you never got a good grasp on any particular character's interiority.There were far too many scenes of characters lighting cigarettes (which falls foul of my dislike for such props in trying to recreate a time period) and not character building. None of the characters appeared to grow or change at all during the course of the movie. This is the opposite of the book, where characters were revealed in onion like layers. This had the effect of emotional distancing and it didn't convey a real sense of good vs evil within the characters (which is pivotal in Ellroy's work) & it didn't feel like any of the characters were particularly driven to either solve or commit the crime (same note on Ellroy).

The music may have been period correct, but was instantly forgettable. It didn't add to the movie one ounce and again, where it could have added tension, instead it did not. Despite having period correct vehicles & scenes (although old cars are a seperate hobby of mine & I did spot a couple of 1948 Fords when the movie was set in 1946), it seemed more like they just happened to be wearing 1940s style clothes than them actually living in that time. Maybe it was just the comfort level the actors seemed to have, it didn't seem like what they were wearing was their own. Maybe it was little things like actresses having modern rounded bras instead of the old torpedo shaped ones.

As an ex unfiltered cigarette smoker, another thing I noticed was what looked like a tip on at least one cigarette. Unfiltered cigs require dry lips & holding the butt at the very outside of your lips. To me it looked like they may have had problems with loose tobacco on the teeth, so tried discretely to cover this, but to the experienced eye it was there.

Factually it's a little incorrect too. They state that Betty Short was from Medford, Massachusetts (co-incidentally a place I have spent quite a bit of time) when in fact she was wasn't born there & only briefly lived there.

It's hard not to compare this with the vastly superior LA Confidential, which seemed a better all round movie. I'd see that one again, definitely read the book, but wouldn't go see Black Dahlia.

I read how James Ellroy watched hours of the unedited footage and praised it, but after seeing the final movie, said it was nearly incomprehensible. Apparently a whole hour was trimmed from the movie "which linked events and facts together" so that version may well have gotten more praise from me.

THE GRUDGE 2

Incoherent garbage. Probably the worst I've seen all year.

The Devil Wears Prada for €2,20 at the Cinema

I categorize this as something like 2 weeks notice, but this one is so much sweeter. Meryl Streep is one of the best actresses nowadays and she is just marvellous in the devil

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I Amsterdam

And do check my "art": Deviant

I just Open Season...very funny!