Ober (Waiter)
Martian Child
Wristcutters A Love Story
The Air I Breathe
I Am Legend


There Will Be Blood
No Country For Old Men

What Love Is

I liked No Country For Old Men.

Afro Punk is another good one I've seen lately.

Bump'n the movies.

Saw last week:

"Cloverfield" - wild-ass ride! Hear there may be a sequel.

"There Will Be Blood" - Daniel Day-Lewis deserved the Oscar. Hmm... can't really be a sequel

Looking to see "Control" about Joy Division singer Ian Curtis.

Fido -best zombie flick since Shaun of the Dead

The new Indiana Jones wasn't bad

Sierra Leone Refugee Allstars was good but brutal.

Funny Games - I've seen a lot of disgusting movies, but this one is the most disturbing movie I've ever seen. At one point it actually made me sick to my stomach. FWIW amazing acting, but I wouldn't recommend it.

The Last Time - pretty good!

Glad to see this thread still alive!

I thought the new Indie was passable, but a letdown.

Speed Racer--really pretty brilliant, except a plot with too many twists and some dumb 'kid stuff' thrown into what really was a groundbreaking update on movies in the 'Tron' tradition. Visually, a genuine paradigm shift.

The Savages--good but having been through a similar situation with aging parents, I could have missed it.

Still my fav from last year--Before The Devil Knows You're Dead.

The Happening- nothing happened. Should be called "The Crappening". The "event" is spelled out 10 minutes into the movie and then ....(birds chirping ...goes to sleep....wakes up, still nothing... go to take pee....comes back ... nothing and then there is the ultra climactic nothing ending that makes you wish you'd have stayed home and done nothing instead) D-

Rambo - gorefest and not terrible. C+

Charlie Wilson's War - Actually pretty darn interesting. Phillip Seymour Hoffman is the best actor of our time. B

Bee Movie - D movie.

Jumper - should have been longer and more involved. Interesting non-the-less. Rachel Bilson is fun to look at. B-

"The Happening- nothing happened. Should be called "The Crappening"

Lol--you stole my thunder! Yeah, although it did manage to be a little scary and a little creepy, mostly it was stiff, flat and dull. Someone please tell Mark Wahlberg that he should attempt to play super brainy science teachers who are awkward around girls. It's just embarrassing.

Everyone sounded as if they were reading their lines for the first time.

Took the kids to see Iron Man a few weeks ago. The dialog, acting, and plot were all fun to watch. It scratched my funny book itch right on the spot. It was one of the most successful TV interpretations of a Silver Age comic book character I ever saw. We'll go have a look at the Hulk tomorrow. Can't be as hard to sit through as the last one, which made me miss Lou Ferrigno in the green makeup...

I really enjoyed Iron Man too. Hulk tomorrow for me as well--we'll compare notes.

Just got back from the Hulk.

Pros: Edward Norton as Bruce Banner
Lot's of subtle and overt (all tasteful) winks and nods at the old TV show with Bill Bixby and Lou Ferrigno. I had the feeling if Bixby were alive, they'd have found a part for him.
I like the way they handled the characters, although I thought the General Ross character was portrayed a little darker than he should have been.
Liv Tyler
Stan Lee gets what several silver age artists/creators probably thought he deserved.
The second hulk transformation and fight was my fav.

Cons: CGI didn't always blend in with the live action as well as in other movies (like King Kong, for example) It seemed better toward the end of the movie.
A couple of loose ends needed to be developed a little. I won't go into them for fear of being a spoiler.
The movie could've benefited from an extra half hour.

All in all, a very entertaining movie for comic book fans. Worth a matinee price.

The Hulk.

Well...it's ok. I found it pretty draggy and humorless, and while he's good, kind of a waste of Edward Norton who plays a guy who really doesn't talk much even when he's NOT the Hulk. I don't think he had more than a hundred words of dialogue. Some very good action, and the special effects are mostly good and sometimes excellent, and even exciting in the last battle sequence. An interesting coordinated marketing effort with another popular film but it felt a little clumsy, mostly because the film that it's linking to is a better one imo.

I wish it was better. I liked the serious tone for a while, but then it started bugging me.

Had a free rewards thingy, so I got four over the weekend

Invasion - Nicole kidman, Daniel Craig.

It's another remake of Invasion of the Body snatchers, and when you think about it... how many re-makes do we really need? Kidman seems to do well in sort of creepy, weird movies—something about her. But, I could have passed on this one. The premise of the movie: Don't fall asleep. The audience needs that warning too.

Untraceable - Diane Lane.

FBI Cybercrimes specialist goes after another psycho murderer. Nothing new with this one either - could have been a TV show. It was ok, not great.

The Kingdom - All star cast in this one.

This was interesting, in that, we live in times where we're heavily mixed up in middle eastern affairs - which sucks. This is essentially a Cop movie, good guys try to catch the bad guys, etc., but with the twist that it's in Saudi Arabia. The Saudi's aren't necessarily eager to solve the crime and resent having an FBI ERT team there to assist. A few interesting comments about life there though; segregation of women, the treatment of women in general, fundamentalist wahabi-ism, the portrayal of the royal family, etc. Interesting from that standpoint, otherwise just your standard shoot-'em-up with a few car chases and "fanatics with automatics" for a twist. Sounds like a new band name

Juno - Ellen Page and a very good supporting cast.

This one had some humorous bits, liked it the best out of the four. I found it kind of clunky in a way though. The scriptwriter, it seems, was so concerned with being hip and cool, that it just comes off as somewhat too clever by half. And, while Ellen Page will most certainly enjoy a long acting career (she's good) and be a heartbreaker, I just kept getting the vision of a young Janeane Garofalo, which was a huge turnoff. Fortunately though, the Juno character, while witty and quick, wasn't bitter and sarcastic.

Back to the dialog. It just seemed so contrived (which is probably why it won an Oscar® ) that you could almost time when Juno had to break through with a witty comment - which she always did, which got old quick and left me kinda flat after a while. Overall the movie is a bit shallow, somewhat emotionless (or confused/misplaced emotions) and too focused on the tricky/gimmicky dialog (all tore up from the floor up). The story isn't as good/quirky as other offbeat comedy/dramas like The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou, Rushmore, Garden State, etc., but it's still worth a watch.

I'm not sure that, in the end, Juno is a very honorable character - she seems somewhat amoral - kind of just cruising through life without much thought, which begs the question... do I like this character? I'm not sure that the story isn't completely forgettable, but Ellen Page is a good actor, I think she'll go far. It's worth seeing just to watch her work and for the parts of her parents - great actors, those two. Nice to hear Kimya Dawson in the soundtrack too, I've followed her for a while now and she's worked very hard to get her music heard.

As for Jason Reitman, he needs to talk his father in to a 3rd Ghostbusters movie dammit

I've been catching up on some movies recently. Other that some of the ones already mentioned, these stand out for me:

"Into The Wild" (moving, provocative and well done)

"Lars and the Real Girl" (a big surprise! this turned out to be an intelligent, highly creative film, producing a roller coaster of emotions). I've been recommending this one to a lot of my friends.

quote:

Originally posted by drbam:
"Lars and the Real Girl" (a big surprise! this turned out to be an intelligent, highly creative film, producing a roller coaster of emotions). I've been recommending this one to a lot of my friends.

I liked that one too.

"Invasion - Nicole kidman, Daniel Craig.

It's another remake of Invasion of the Body snatchers, and when you think about it... how many re-makes do we really need?"

I wrote a review of this when it came out, where I pointed out that we need new proposals about what aliens are interested in to keep the genre alive. After all, I no longer believe that they would travel billions of light years just to inhabit our shitty, aching bodies and go to work at our shitty little jobs and every shitty little thing we already do, albeit at 1/3 the speed.

As for Juno just going through life without a care...were you ever 16?

quote:

After all, I no longer believe that they would travel billions of light years just to inhabit our shitty, aching bodies and go to work at our shitty little jobs and every shitty little thing we already do, albeit at 1/3 the speed.

Well, you know, times are tough in their galaxy, and they're just doing the jobs Americans won't do.

The Bucket List

quote:

Well, you know, times are tough in their galaxy, and they're just doing the jobs Americans won't do.

Lol.