So three years later... I finally saw Garden State.

Don't know why it took so long, I think something came up every time I went to see this one.

I like weird/quirky/strange wit. So it was good for me

Also, watched a Dutch movie the other night that was pretty good. It was called The Memory of a Killer.

The synopsis: When an aging hit-man develops alzheimers, he not only forgets why he's whacking people, he develops a conscience. When he refuses to kill a 12-year-old prostitute, a contract is put out on him. Also known as "The Alzheimers Affair."

Interesting movie. He has to evade other hitmen and the Dutch police while remembering to take his meds and everything else, he's rapidly forgetting things around him.

We just saw 1408 - very creepy!
Woody Allen movie "Matchpoint" good!!
And, Czech movie "Up and Down" pretty good too!

evt

FINALLY SAW.... PIRATES OF THE CARRIBEAN-END OF THE WORLD...

very entertaining.
just what i expected.

except, keith was very lame.

Silk - an asian, semi-horror glick about capturing a ghost with something called "menge sponge". The "scientists" had to spray this substance in mist form on theirs eyes in order to see the ghost ...very intriguing movie with some cool special effects ...and some bad ones.

creepy.

Just saw TRANSFORMERS... Holy Shit! Looks great, action packed and just cool as hell. I might bring one of my toys to work tomorrow.

;-) Great graphics. Jesus they were sick.

Left it open for more carnage too.

Good stuff.

Doc

Watched Freaky Friday - absolutely hilarious!

This is a must see, I don't remember the last time I laughed so much watching a movie.

Took the kids to see Ratatouille the other day ... I thought it was cute. We all liked it.

mud

I saw this really weird and disturbing faux-documentary or "mockumentary" last night on IFC. It was called CSA - Confederate States of America.

Anyone seen this?

Crazy shit. Basically the South won the Civil War with the help of England and France (which was very close to happening in real life, BTW).

Anyway, the thing speculates about all of the horrific crap (slavery) that happens in the aftermath. It's truly, truly disturbing. The thing is shot on video, so it's fairly cheesy and not well done, bad acting, etc. - but still scary as hell. Spike Lee produced this, it should have been better - but oh well. Actually this thing gave me a nightmare last night.

It's designed like a broadcast program with commercial breaks in between for not-so-nice products, as you might guess.

The kicker here (and this is a spoiler alert)....

The products were real in the 20s through the 50s! I can't repeat the names of these things on here, you'll have to watch it. Turns my stomach to see these. I had no idea.

Two products still around and that have escaped detection (at least by me - just went right over my head) and still exploit that despicable era are Aunt Jemima's syrup and Uncle Ben's rice. We all need to sign a petition or raise some hell that these things are still around and get them the fuck outta here!! Like the confederate flag, these symbols need to be placed in the history books and that's IT. No more!! Bad enough that Sambo's restaurant was in operation all the way up until the 80s in some places. And that creepy-ass chicken place in Salt Lake, Portland and Seattle that ran to the late 50s. Nazi bastards.

Sickening! Sickening SHIT!

Some of this stuff is sneaky like the syrup and the rice - we need to get rid of it! I need to be more vigilant too, I never gave either one of these any thought. Passed them in the grocery store a gazillion times - out of site, out of mind.

Anyway, if you're up for a disturbing look at what might have been and some things that still are, take a look at this mockumentary. The web site: http://www.csathemovie.com/index2.html

Here is something that gives me nightmare

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-2927316845773056069

saw Transformers ...I concur ...WOW!

the graphics were amazing! there were some cheesy parts but that to be expected in a movie about children's toys.



what's the big deal about the rice and syrup?

quote:

Ratatouille

yep.

saw it sunday...
it was great!

the animation is so amazing...
things look so real, and so fake, at the same time..

very textural, very stylized....

i'd go see it again.

quote:

what's the big deal about the rice and syrup?

Nothing, if you're ok with exploitation.

I'm not ok with it - bothers me.

It's more toned down and subdued than it used to be (the ads), but it's still there. Started looking into the history of these products and Cream of Wheat as well. The creation of these characters and the ad campaigns surrounding them are repulsive. And it's right under our noses - the history is there, you just have to look it up.

The Jim Crow Museum

I just think of them as good tasting products. I'm not sure I care about the color of the faces on the labels.

I believe he's suggesting that you think about them again, Blue.

I loved the first half of Transformers--the crackling dialogue, the truly scary and spectacular special effects. SPOILER ALERT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!



SPOILER ALEART--DON'T READ ANY FURTHER IF YOU DON'T WANT TO LEARN SOMETHING YOU MIGHT NOT WANT TO KNOW AHEAD OF TIME!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!



I MEAN IT: SPOILER ALERT!



Anyway, when the robots started talking, I just hated the direction it took. Cheesy dialogue, aimed at pre-teens (sure, but the rest of the movie was not). In the end, I enjoyed it, but I really didn't like the whole 'personality' thing they did with them.

I can only speak for myself on the exlpoitative products/ads - I was completely oblivious to them and what happened, how they got their start. This is the wrong thread for this discussion, let's just say it's worse than disgusting IMO. The proper vocabulary escapes me just now, but gut reaction: it strikes me as vile, repugnant, non-intelligent, insulting, degrading. Something along those lines. Why even the smallest embers of this kind of stuff is still around, is beyond me. I assume it's because most people (like me) didn't/don't pay any attention to it. Just subtle enough to get under the radar, etc.

quote:

Anyway, the thing speculates about all of the horrific crap (slavery) that happens in the aftermath.

I looked over the Website and watched the trailer. The shackle infomercial makes it look like we would basically be a similar nation to today except every household would potentially have slaves had the South won. I always thought a southern victory would've meant we would have started out from that point with two very much weaker countries. The CSA was trying to secede from, not conquer, the United States. Had the South been successful at secession, this would have been tried again and again over the decades every time the needs of a nation as a whole conflicted with the needs of one or more states. By now, our portion of the continent would be split into a bunch of nation-states. Slavery might still exist for some of the wealthy. We would not have seen the same technological advances or prosperity, so I might be a poor cotton picker like my parents and grandparents were up until WWII. Who knows. Our second language might even be German. I hope to get around to watching "CSA" one of these days. I would like to see the part about the commercial exploitation, even though the writer's "what if" scenario sounds like a bunch of bologna written for it's entertainment value.

back on topic:

The Fountain ....weird and sort of entertaining. Hard to comprehend exactly what the symbolism was ...if it actually was symbolism?! It might have been very straightforward you read a backstory about the story ...or something.

Reno 911 ...hilarious if you like the wtf type of jokes, like I do.

I thoroughly enjoyed Reno 911 too.

In the last few days, I've been on a movie frenzy (back in the states, lots of work to do, lots of 2 hour breaks so I can work late a night):

Ratatouille--extremely enjoayable, a little slow and weird in the middle, but oine of the most gorgeous final acts I've ever seen, an acting tour de force for Peter O'Toole as the food critic.

1408--a Stephen King movie with John Cusack. Trite but watchable.

You Kill Me--a dark comedy with Ben Kingsly and Tea Leoni. The casting of Kingsly, as an alcoholic hit man trying to dry out, is fine. The casting of him as the romantic interest of Leoni didn't work for me, and I noticed that the director never showed them kissing till the final scene--probably creeped him out too! Still, enjoyable.

Harry Potter--probably ok, but I fell asleep towards the end. What I remember seemed alright.

quote:

Ratatouille--extremely enjoayable, a little slow and weird in the middle, but one of the most gorgeous final acts I've ever seen, an acting tour de force for Peter O'Toole as the food critic.

Here here! I loved the, uh, camera work (?) when he first tastes the rat's creation!



mud

I love Brad Bird. Lord willin', I will own Ratatouille on video and place it right next to "Iron Giant" and "The Incredibles" on my movie shelf.

The Mrs and I loved "Knocked Up."

Harry Potter was enjoyable. It was edited a bit short for the story to flow well.

Good videos we have watched recently include "The Gift" and "Uncle Buck"

Our favorite TV shows this past year were "Supernatural" and "24"