Hilarious!

It's a metal zine hosted and created by her. The only nudity is when she does a surreal rant about how censorship sucks and how George Bush sucks while in a bubblebath. It's cool that she likes the heavy music so much, but egads, this is amateurish.

I don't know why so many people think Jasmin St. Claire is so good-looking. Coupled with that gang bang thing she did, the ick factor is way high with this lady.

The angle about Wonka's father in the remake suuuuuuuuuuuuuucks.

The angle about Wonka's father in the remake suuuuuuuuuuuuuucks.

war of the worlds

It's not bad but its not great either. Moreover, its Spielberg revisiting many of his previous works to create the imagery for this story.

V For Vendetta

Wow! Timely story. Well acted. Well made.
Watch this movie!

Pop cannibalizes and regurgitates everything, including history, and in normal circumstances only a literal-minded prig would treat graphic novelists or big-screen fantasists as if they had any responsibility to truth. But events overtook this pop apocalypse on the way to the malls. Scheduled for release last November, “Vendetta” was temporarily shelved, according to its distributor, Warner Bros., “to accommodate the film’s post-production schedule.” The delay, however, was announced in August, a month after Islamist terrorists bombed the London subway and buses. The filmmakers, whatever their intentions, hit reality with an embarrassing thud. At this point, a few simple questions need to be asked of them, such as, What in the world are you doing? It may be relevant to point out, for instance, that Guy Fawkes, who is at the emotional center of the movie as well as of the graphic novel, was no liberator but a Catholic dissident who, in 1605, wanted to destroy the Protestant aristocracy by blowing up the House of Lords and killing King James I. Captured beneath Parliament with thirty-six barrels of gunpowder, Fawkes was tortured and hanged, and, ever since, on November 5th (the anniversary of the Gunpowder Plot), he has been burned in effigy all over England in celebrations both merry and ironic. If Guy Fawkes has become a sympathetic figure, it’s his failure—his incompetence as a mass murderer—that has made him so.

“Vendetta” was not so much imitated as pillaged: the puritanical tone of the English dictatorship, the omnipresent surveillance, the Big Brother figure screaming at everyone—all this has been lifted from George Orwell’s “1984,” with no more than a token attempt at disguise. Orwell was drawing on his experience of England during the Second World War, when every human being and teacup from Kent to Northumberland was mobilized to resist a German invasion. In “1984,” he projected the bleakly austere wartime atmosphere into the future and filled it out with details from totalitarian rule in Germany and the Soviet Union. However much he invented as he created his dystopia, he was also relying on actual events and situations. What is the actuality behind “Vendetta”? The last time I looked, London seemed more like a prosperous pleasure garden than like the capital of a jackbooted, dehumanized future.

The Wachowskis clearly wanted to weigh in on current politics, so they threw in references to the Bush Administration’s political use of Christianity. There’s also talk of “rendition,” and the secret police repeatedly throw black hoods over people’s heads, Abu Ghraib style. The society we see onscreen, its civil order crushed by fear, is meant to be a nightmare vision of our own society. V may begin his rampage in search of personal vengeance, but in the end he attacks the entire system, and, as the movie tells it, the system deserves to be attacked. It turns out that the government once released a deadly plague on the British citizenry in order to pose as its savior. But this kind of comic-book paranoia doesn’t seem as playful or innocent as it used to.

It’s true that one man’s terrorist is another man’s freedom fighter, but, by sticking to the blowing-up-Parliament template, the Wachowskis have stumbled into celebrating an attack against an icon of liberal democracy. No one’s questioning the filmmakers’ right to do any damn fool thing they want, but “Vendetta” doesn’t parse. Who might it appeal to? “Matrix” lovers, certainly. And the movie’s sullen, chain-clanking atmosphere connects with punk, Goth, grunge, and all the doomy tones of white teen rock for the past three decades. For aging kids stoned on pop rapture, it could be a trip. And for people driven mad by the ineptitude and folly of the Bush Administration this film may seem like a brazen romp. Only the West could have made a movie in which blowing up civic temples is a “provocative” media statement.

The country “doesn’t need a building,” V says. “It needs an idea.” Yes, but “Vendetta” doesn’t have any ideas, except for a misbegotten belief in cleansing acts of violence. How strangely doth pop make its murderous way, as V might say. The quarter-century-old disgruntled fantasies of two English comic-book artists, amplified by a powerful movie company, and ambushed by history, wind up yielding a disastrous muddle.

Ben, don't pull Tony Baloney on us. It'd be better if you said it, rather than cribbing

All I know is it's a varied take on the same book that 'Quick Change' was based on and I think that pretty much gives away much of the plot so why it is they're playing this off as some thriller. I don't know but isn't this also the biggest box offfice Spike has ever gotten? Admittedly I'm looking forward to his New Orleans Doc that'll be on HBO.

Inside Man, bad movie. Don't listen to Tony.

How is this?

Tony, we already played this game. I won't post it again, but the Anthony Lane review is all this movie deserves.

The biggest problem with the schmuck you quote is that he says things that are patently untrue. Repeatedly. In the first sentence. In the words of Bill Hicks, this isn't a matter of taste. This isn't an opinion. I can prove it with a home computer. The movie is not sharp, nor sly, nor efficient. It's disjointed and boring. The ending is maybe the most deflated, pathetic excuse for a climax in the history of the heist genre. Good god what a snooze. And that Jody Foster character is as laaaaaaame as anything all year. If it wasn't for Denzel's electric presence, it would collapse entirely. It's a nothing. But apparently I'm supposed to forgive all that because Denzel is a white suit is so ridiculous! Cheese ball camera tricks, flat cliched characters and other bad things about the movie just prove how cool it is. What? Your critic is terrible. How many parenthetical asides can I be expected to bear? And what's up with net people and their fixations with setting up other critics as some vague abstract foil for themselves. Half that review is made up of limp parries at "other critics." The other half is superfluous punctuation.

Tony, we already played this game. I won't post it again, but the Anthony Lane review is all this movie deserves.

The biggest problem with the schmuck you quote is that he says things that are patently untrue. Repeatedly. In the first sentence. In the words of Bill Hicks, this isn't a matter of taste. This isn't an opinion. I can prove it with a home computer. The movie is not sharp, nor sly, nor efficient. It's disjointed and boring. The ending is maybe the most deflated, pathetic excuse for a climax in the history of the heist genre. Good god what a snooze. And that Jody Foster character is as laaaaaaame as anything all year. If it wasn't for Denzel's electric presence, it would collapse entirely. It's a nothing. But apparently I'm supposed to forgive all that because Denzel in a white suit is so ridiculous! Cheese ball camera tricks, flat cliched characters and other bad things about the movie just prove how cool it is. What? Your critic is terrible. How many parenthetical asides can I be expected to bear? And what's up with net people and their fixations with setting up other critics as some vague abstract foil for themselves. Half that review is made up of limp parries at "other critics." The other half is superfluous punctuation.

I watched Inside Man again the other day and it's a superior genre film. would you prefer the latest Tony Scott storytelling impaired sensation/color filter fest.

(Oh, and THAT FUCKING SHOT--you know the one dopey thing he and Dickerson came up with that's in every single one of his films, that needs to GO.)

Yes, yes I would. I'm sick of Tony's oversaturation and blowing-out-the-whites and Oliver-Stone-On-Crystal-Meth editing techniques, but...

Inside Man was just one letdown after another. First off, Spike used a bunch of those Tony Scott lighting nuisances, especially during the interrogation scenes. Clive Owen is wasted on a character with no real development, Willem Dafoe is completely thrown away, probably to some wrongheaded edits, and while I disagree that Jodie Foster's character was, as Ben eloquently threw down, "laaaaaaaaaaame", she strains credulity to the breaking point.

He seemed to be onto something with elements of this film, especially where he scratches the surface of post-9/11 NYC, but they get steamrolled by formula, and everything suffers accordingly.

(Oh, and THAT FUCKING SHOT--you know the one dopey thing he and Dickerson came up with that's in every single one of his films, that needs to GO.)

(Oh, and THAT FUCKING SHOT--you know the one dopey thing he and Dickerson came up with that's in every single one of his films, that needs to GO.)

Is any Best Picture winner from the last 50 years or so held in less regard then this? 6.8 rating on IMDB. Pretty bland stuff but not terrible.

Is any Best Picture winner from the last 50 years or so held in less regard then this? 6.8 rating on IMDB. Pretty bland stuff but not terrible.

Is any Best Picture winner from the last 50 years or so held in less regard then this? 6.8 rating on IMDB. Pretty bland stuff but not terrible.

I don't know why 'Oliver!' scores a 7.5 at IMDB. The principle actors couldn't even sing (except for Jack Wild as The Dodger)---the whole movie is the primary influence for Monty Python's "Every Sperm Is Sacred" number.

Ron Moody couldn't sing? He was in the original stage production. I love that movie.

I thought it was Clive Revill in the original production. Back in the day, I listened to that cast album many times, and scratched the hell out of it.

I can't stand Mark Lester in the role...it was a big deal when he revealed that he didn't do his own singing...could it be less obvious?

mr and mrs smith

OK so I saw this last night and I'm still scratching my head about whether I'd describe this as good, bad or just kinda well I dunno..ridiculous?

It's one thing to suggest that a couple have a relationship where they're both assassins. It's another to suggest that they both co-exist in this world together without noticing what each other do/have or say without someone having a clue about what's going on.

An easy part (or lack of actual making/benefiting from) would be the scenes with the neighbors. It's one thing to notice your neighbors behavior. It's another to not react or act differently towards it. I suppose on some really mindless level this is supposed to be lighthearted but the disconnect from who they work for. what they do or who they really are is so convoluted I just expected these two to both get killed by Vince Vaughn so the guy would move out of his parents house or some shit like that... and the therapy sessions!?! Hell with it. I'm sure Hitchcock is rolling over in his grave.

The Big Lebowski was just on TV so I watched it because it's a good movie.

Tony, we already played this game. I won't post it again, but the Anthony Lane review is all this movie deserves.

The biggest problem with the schmuck you quote is that he says things that are patently untrue. Repeatedly. In the first sentence. In the words of Bill Hicks, this isn't a matter of taste. This isn't an opinion. I can prove it with a home computer. The movie is not sharp, nor sly, nor efficient. It's disjointed and boring. The ending is maybe the most deflated, pathetic excuse for a climax in the history of the heist genre. Good god what a snooze. And that Jody Foster character is as laaaaaaame as anything all year. If it wasn't for Denzel's electric presence, it would collapse entirely. It's a nothing. But apparently I'm supposed to forgive all that because Denzel in a white suit is so ridiculous! Cheese ball camera tricks, flat cliched characters and other bad things about the movie just prove how cool it is. What? Your critic is terrible. How many parenthetical asides can I be expected to bear? And what's up with net people and their fixations with setting up other critics as some vague abstract foil for themselves. Half that review is made up of limp parries at "other critics." The other half is superfluous punctuation.

From this we learn that Robert Redford is over rated in most every regard

Couldn't be more wrong. He's never made a better picture...though Quiz Show comes close. There's a reason why this picture is a common staple of the so many college psych courses...a perfect embodiment of narcissistic personality disorder.