A few films recently watched.

Harvard Beats Yale 29-29 - great doc, very humbly produced with minimal production value, but none of that mattered. The story and concept for the production were perfect.

The Road 8/10 - Really well-done adaptation but some of the music cues were distractingly maudlin.

seen these in span of 2 weeks (film festival)

UN CHAT UN CHAT - 3/10: pretty annoying actually, french take on the popular quirky romantic comedy...

JOULUTARINA- 5/10: children's movie, quite watchable actually, but the screening was in absolutely horrid english overdub.

VALHALLA RISING - 9/10: amazing!

SIN NOMBRE - 8/10: this is a good movie. recommended.

BRONSON - 6/10: not sure what all the fuss is about, i enjoyed valhalla rising much much more. haven't seen pusher trilogy yet.

COCO CHANEL & IGOR STRAVINSKY - 7/10: enjoyable.

O' HORTEN - 10/10: beautiful! Norway has it! everybody should watch this.

MADEINUSA - 5/10: really ... weird.

MORFIY - 9/10: i really enjoyed this, expertly shot and well made movie alltogether!

DUGGHOLUFÓLKID - 2/10: children's movie, a boring "horror" for the kids. went to watch it because it's Icelandic.

PANIQUE AU VILLAGE - 7/10: hilarious stop-motion animation, non-stop LOL action, but felt a bit too long to me.

UNA SEMANA SOLOS - 9/10: absolutely beautiful, recommended!

BAD LIEUTENANT: PORT OF CALL NEW ORLEANS - 8/10: entertaining.

RYSA - 7.5/10: good and quite powerful, at least to me.

GO GET SOME ROSEMARY - 8/10: one of the best american indie movies i've ever seen. too bad it was screened with wrong aspect ratio (i know, wtf?)

THE EXPLODING GIRL - 7/10: allright i guess.

THE GIRLFRIEND EXPERIENCE - 8/10: interesting and very well executed. sasha grey!

NANAYOMACHI - 11/10: best film ever and i mean it. absolute favorite of the festival and probably one of my top 3 ever.

NORD - 10/10: Norway again! i had low expectations for this, but it turned out really really nice!

CHUGYEOGJA - 8/10: very good actually, although i rarely (never) watch this kind of movies.

SEBIL-E MARDOUNEH - 5/10: really not that good.

memories of murder - annoyingly farcical korean serial killer tale. gets good when they drop the nonsense. 6/10

sunshine - surprisingly good danny boyle sci-fi. i expected it to be shit and it wasn't. 6/10

Winter Light - 8/10 - Been digesting my Bergman trilogy... this was an excellent film though vastly different to any of the other Bergman films I have seen. It's a very cold film... even the cinematography was bleak and chilling. Usually when Bergman feeds us him melancholic ideals he'll dress them in beautiful photography and angelic movement, but this film the camera was stuck, isolated, just as the characters. Lovely little film.

Inglorious Basterds - 7/10

No masterpiece but Tarantino still writes excellent dialogue

  On 11/30/2009 at 11:08 PM, chimera slot mom said:

but Tarantino still writes excellent dialogue

I'm glad I'm not the only one that thinks so...

Second Skin - That doc about MMORPGs. Woah. Craziness abound. Thanksie and her b/f are semi main characters. 8/10

King of Kong - Billy Mitchell is the devil. Seriously, fuck that guy. 8/10

X-files: Fight the future - 10/10 I love this movie. '

X-files: I want to Believe - 7/10 Not great, but it didn't deserve a total panning by the critics imo.

on tv:

40yr old virgin lol/10

still like this movie, not as much as I did when i first saw it. but the fact that i enjoyed it even on tv means something.

the incredibles 6/10

didnt like it that much. it was ok

on netflix play instant:

SNL: best of adam sandler 6/10

operaman and anything with chris farley in made me laugh most. saw adam sandler play powderfinger WITH neil young reccently. trippy

moon - 4/10: what the hell?

dead man - ?/10: i loved everything i've seen from jarmusch so far, but this... i mean it was funny and clever and all. but i feel like i'm missing a lot.

Moon and Dead Man are both great films

heres another couple good ones:

Dead End

Session 9

no, moon is not a great film. it's a tired, 1000th rehash of a sci-fi short story, blown into a boring 90min amateur attempt.

I Am Legend - 4/10 - Not as bad as I thought it was going to be. Mr Smith had some surprising moments and as did the film. For a quick second at the end I thought they were going to give us a The Mist type ending, but sadly not :( Probably the worst usage of CGI I have seen in the last few years.

  On 12/1/2009 at 2:02 PM, kokoon said:

no, moon is not a great film. it's a tired, 1000th rehash of a sci-fi short story, blown into a boring 90min amateur attempt.

Who wrote the original and who else has done film adaptions of this? Must admit the story was the strongest thing about this film, would like to check out some of the original stuff

Solaris and 2001.. more specifically the '72 Tarkovsky adaptation of Solaris.

And don't forget Blade Runner

  On 12/1/2009 at 9:48 PM, goffer said:

Solaris and 2001.. more specifically the '72 Tarkovsky adaptation of Solaris.

Not one of those has a similar theme to Moon?

Nor does blade runner.

  On 12/1/2009 at 10:41 PM, GORDO said:

  On 12/1/2009 at 9:48 PM, goffer said:

Solaris and 2001.. more specifically the '72 Tarkovsky adaptation of Solaris.

 

 

Not one of those has a similar theme to Moon?

 

Nor does blade runner.

They all carry similar motifs and themes, maybe not a central theme. But Solaris holds the title for ultimate space madness film.

Also check out Ren and Stimpy's Space Madness

Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs - 9/10

Definitely one of the funniest and best animated movies I've ever watched. It was hilarious and original right from the beginning, and the characters were wonderful.

Fuck Disney up the ass.

  On 12/1/2009 at 8:00 PM, AJW said:

  On 12/1/2009 at 2:02 PM, kokoon said:

no, moon is not a great film. it's a tired, 1000th rehash of a sci-fi short story, blown into a boring 90min amateur attempt.

 

Who wrote the original and who else has done film adaptions of this? Must admit the story was the strongest thing about this film, would like to check out some of the original stuff

actually, i'm sure i've read at least 10 different short sci-fi stories that all incorporated:

* 1 man in a remote setting,

* 1-5 of his clones,

* relationship between them.

i'm not saying it's really a BAD movie (although i think it faaaar from being a good movie), but most of all, i'm puzzled by how so much of the sci-fi crowd thinks high of it...

so, if you want "some of the original stuff" - go to the library, grab any collection of short sci-fi stories from the 50s-60s (heinlein, dick, lem, ...) and you'll be surprised.

Noticed some talk of Solaris in this thread. It's a film I've been putting off watching for ages, but I just took the leap and ordered it (along with Stalker and Mirror). Anyone else get really anxious about watching Sci-Fi films? I find that as a genre it should easily be the best, but so few films get it right, seems to be a more successful genre in books... 2001 probably tops it as far as a sci-fi movie goes, in my experience at least. But I've heard a lot of good things about Solaris (and Tarkovsky) so I'm finally going to give it a look.

Finally got around to watching Event Horizon yesterday, one I can't believe I haven't watched before, one of the ones that slipped past back then.

Wow it's awesome, nice theme, dabbed with good tension a little gore and just nice flim all around. I lol'd when I heart the end title theme playing was Prodigy, classic 90's memories :D

  On 12/2/2009 at 9:07 AM, Obel said:

Noticed some talk of Solaris in this thread. It's a film I've been putting off watching for ages, but I just took the leap and ordered it (along with Stalker and Mirror). Anyone else get really anxious about watching Sci-Fi films? I find that as a genre it should easily be the best, but so few films get it right, seems to be a more successful genre in books... 2001 probably tops it as far as a sci-fi movie goes, in my experience at least. But I've heard a lot of good things about Solaris (and Tarkovsky) so I'm finally going to give it a look.

You're in for a treat, if you can stomach long shots, films made on no budget, and the quirks of the "Russian soul." The orig Solaris and Stalker are two of my favorite films. Mirror, however - I've never been able to sit through it to the end. Sometimes Tarkovsky is just too obscure! Good luck though.

  On 12/2/2009 at 3:58 PM, lumpenprol said:

  On 12/2/2009 at 9:07 AM, Obel said:

Noticed some talk of Solaris in this thread. It's a film I've been putting off watching for ages, but I just took the leap and ordered it (along with Stalker and Mirror). Anyone else get really anxious about watching Sci-Fi films? I find that as a genre it should easily be the best, but so few films get it right, seems to be a more successful genre in books... 2001 probably tops it as far as a sci-fi movie goes, in my experience at least. But I've heard a lot of good things about Solaris (and Tarkovsky) so I'm finally going to give it a look.

 

the quirks of the "Russian soul."

I'm interested in finding out what you mean by that!

From a couple of his film descriptions he sounds like he's rocking a similar vibe to Herzog. Who I've recently gotten into and I know you're a huge fan of (I love Strozsek).

Yeah, he's somewhat similar to Herzog, the reason I have such a crush on Herzog is he combines the surreal, the documentary, plus a good dash of warm humanism, all in one. Tarkovsky is more serious, and it should be said is totally open to the charge of being willfully obscure and pretentious (as is Malick, imo). I'd say the way Tarkovsky and Herzog are similar is in their love affair with nature, and their deep understanding of human ambition and desire, and how they are both unavoidable, but also often self-destructive/futile. They also both love fucked up outsiders (though Herzog more than Tarkovsky, it seems). If you liked Strozsek, I might try Stalker first, the character of the stalker has a similar outsider vibe (and the ending is just so beautiful, much less downbeat than Strozsek). Also, if you end up liking anything about Tarkovsky, I would check out Andrei Rubelyov (sp?). It's a bit hit and miss but the final "chapter" could easily have been made by Herzog.

Black Dynamite - 10/10 The best film for black people, ever made!

DYNAMITE!

DYNAMITE!