A few films recently watched.

  On 1/16/2010 at 11:03 PM, zaphod said:

the road

 

much better than i was expecting. it looked exactly how it needed to, with that pennsylvania in winter look, and viggo is a fine choice for the man. my issue with it was that it lacked much imagination, and revered the book. the book is very flawed. i recently read it again and the writing is cornball at times, almost always monotonous and allows very little room for the reader to engage in the characters. the movie was actually more effective in its bleakness, but i still think it's too monotone to be considered great. calling the road bleak is probably like saying schindler's list is a bit of a downer, but you can make a movie about the end of the world and still display some variance in tone. this is probably the best adaptation they were going to make, and i'm impressed just how bleak it actually is. but the source is flawed and so something this faithful was bound to be flawed as well. i want a riddley walker movie. that's a book with something to say about life.

I was really surprised at how depressing and dark they had made it - and I loved it! It shows just how fucked the world is and for once no matter how dark it all was there were NO comic reliefs at ALL. *high fives John Hillcoat*

one of the only scenes in the lovely bones that i thought was well done is when he takes her into his little underground lair, the rest of the movie was absolutely terrible. I am really sad for what PJ has become

Thin?

boring and thin. It's hard to believe the Lovely Bones is made by the same filmmaker that did The Forgotten Silver or Meet the Feebles

duplicity

entertaining enough, but tedious at parts. expected better of it.

6/10

I've watched Aliens after a few years. Good action movie, it really works alright. Maybe a bit too hard on the action side for me.

9/10

The Road was so tedious and uneventful....

hated the scene with the black fellow being mistreated, and yes I realize he had done wrong to them, still felt really awkward....

would love to take all of the shots with no acting in them and cut them out to use for visuals (to play music over).....

the cinematography made the film bearable...

avatar - 2/10

  On 1/16/2010 at 11:03 PM, zaphod said:

the road

 

much better than i was expecting. it looked exactly how it needed to, with that pennsylvania in winter look, and viggo is a fine choice for the man. my issue with it was that it lacked much imagination, and revered the book. the book is very flawed. i recently read it again and the writing is cornball at times, almost always monotonous and allows very little room for the reader to engage in the characters. the movie was actually more effective in its bleakness, but i still think it's too monotone to be considered great. calling the road bleak is probably like saying schindler's list is a bit of a downer, but you can make a movie about the end of the world and still display some variance in tone. this is probably the best adaptation they were going to make, and i'm impressed just how bleak it actually is. but the source is flawed and so something this faithful was bound to be flawed as well. i want a riddley walker movie. that's a book with something to say about life.

yes!

sounds like a great novel, will track that one down...

la haine - 10/10 man that movie was kickass

a serious man - 8/10 - still need some time to digest this one but my first reaction is "great film!". love the cohen brothers sense of humor. also, the end seemed pretty ominous.. need to read some interviews and reviews to piece together what it all means.

being there - 9/10 - i really love this movie and peter sellers is excellent

house - 4/10 - i always remeber house 4 being on tv when i was a kid.. overall a pretty horrible 80s horror/comedy with a few funny wtf moments

Up in the Air - 8/10

I hated Juno so I wasn't really expecting anything from this movie but it turned out to be alright. George Clooney always does a great job and this was no exception and then there's Vera Farmiga... she is absolutely beautiful so she deserves to be rated as well.

Vera Farmiga - 10/10

Romper Stomper: kind of a weird flick. Ostensibly anti-racism, but partway through it effectively turned into a zombie film with hordes of faceless Vietnamese implacably chasing down a group of skinheads. Borrowed a few pages from Clockwork Orange too. The main thing I took away from it is: skinhead girlfriends in Australia look like hideous tranny Siouxie Siouxs. 6.5/10.

where the wild things are.

Too long, too boring, too unimaginative, too much angst. The fact that some scenes are like Jackass in muppet costumes didn't help either. How to rape a simple story about escapism and children's imagination with cringeworthy angsty pseudo-psychology.

Great voice work by Gandolfini though. Boy's acting was ok too.

Watched avatar too. 3D gave me a massive head ache. Yes I was entertained. As someone else mentioned it's more of an entertainment park ride than a great cinematic experience. Really disappointing sound though. Almost every creature sounded the same. Explosions, guns, aircrafts, etc We have heard those kind of sounds millions of times before.

Pretty underwhelmed about the whole 3d technology. It's just a technique used to make a very tacky and poorly written action movie.

On second thought I probably got a headache from manically trying to switch my brain off to enjoy this as a mindless blockbuster.

Now let's hope Weaver's avatar gets a spin off movie. She looks freakin hilarious.

The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford - 10/10

Thoroughly impressed. Casey Affleck really outdoes Brad Pitt in this movie. Along with strong performances, the movie has some of the most beautiful visuals and a perfect soundtrack to go with it.

the road - 9/10 - a beautifully devastating film. almost perfectly shot.

institute benjamenta, or this dream people call human life - 9/10 - ive loved this film for quite some time. stop motion animators the brothers quay make an extremely bizarre (live action) film that has a magic to it that i cant put my finger on. someone put the whole film on you tube if anyones interested.

the trailer-

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L3_A9X1XB44

the film-

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YCrxjk0ULR0

sherlock holmes

fun flick, better than i expected (seeing how guy ritchie haven't made a movie that wasn't shite since snatch).

6.8/10

Trailer Park Boys : Countdown to Liquor Day 8.5/10

Lots of lols, but the ending left me hanging a bit. The guy that plays Layhey should win an award for his drunk acting. It's so perfect.

tyson 6/10

semi interesting. forgot how fast he was. but really his life story isn't inspiring or sad or anything. he was a great athlete who lost his way a bit and never really came back from it. the editing the overlapping voiceovers/multiple video was annoying.

primer 6/10

hhmmm odd one. i read the wiki straight after watching it as i didnt follow the film at all. the story on wiki reads well but in film form its a mess. most likely an intentional mess, to mimic the time travel effects on the viewer. i'm sure its more interesting on second viewing, but as entertainment its not really entertaining. mulholland drive doesn't make much sense but its entertaining. primer only really works when you know whats going on whereas mulholland works better when you don't know. i know primergot lots of attention on watmm along time ago but forget whether ya'll loved or hated it

The Damned United

Great film, but probably of no interest to those not interested in football/soccer. Michael Sheen plays a convincing Clough. Will probably check out the book, I liked David Peace's Red Riding books.

9/10

Fantastic Mr. Fox

not going to give a number rating, not sure what i'd be scoring

I love it. You can really see how much work went into every little set and the models. Everyone's adorable, voice acting is top notch, good timing, good editing. I hope there's a 6 hour documentary covering the making of

trinity and beyond

a/h-bomb porn, after about 30-40 minutes and what felt like the 547'th nuclear blast set to dramatic classical music i got bored and just let it run on mute in the background. as awesome as nuclear explosions may be, more in-depht interviews with the people behind the bombs / bomb victims etc. would've been alot more interesting.

5/10

  On 1/17/2010 at 11:28 PM, sneaksta303 said:

Trailer Park Boys : Countdown to Liquor Day 8.5/10

 

Lots of lols, but the ending left me hanging a bit. The guy that plays Layhey should win an award for his drunk acting. It's so perfect.

Hmmm, I consider myself a huge TPB fan, but I really thought it was dull and flat. Like they worried too much about the plot and forgot to make it funny. I really didn't like the first TPB movie either... they probably should have ended the show on a high note after season 5.

Have you heard about their new series? They've gonna have to live up to massive expectations.

http://www.cbc.ca/canada/nova-scotia/story/2009/11/12/trailer-park-boys.html?ref=rss

Blood Simple: Riveting, but ultimately the story was kind of lifeless and generic. 7.5/10