Anyone see Black Swan yet?

The Regular Guy said it was pretty awesome, including the sexy stuff between Natalie and Mila.

watched two movies recently that pretty much nobody here will have any interest in, but whatever. saw easy a last night and was disappointed. starts strong, on a mean girls/clueless level, but stops being funny or clever around the halfway mark. emma stone was great, as was the rest of the cast, but ultimately most characters were preposterous, and the movie felt manipulative in the worst possible way. i can't think of a less convincing ending than that one.

just finished lottery ticket, which had similar problems to easy a, but was much more satisfying. maybe because as much as it flirts with minstrelism, the characters are well developed and likable. most of them, at least. it's also preposterous, and the concept is deeply contrived, and corny, but the cast really carries the film. and the script isn't too bad either, tbh. there's an interrupted sex scene in the middle that could come off as tacky or misogynistic, but actually ends with an astute bit of feminist criticism. and the moralizing at the end of the film is actually totally apropos of the movie, and doesn't feel shoehorned in. plus, it made me laugh a whole lot. anyone with an affinity for black comedy (as much as i hate to segregate that subgenre, a lot of people won't be willing or able to discern the quality of this movie) should enjoy this one a whole lot. cast of ringers, inc charlie murphy, ice cube, terry crews, mike epps, keith david, t-pain. and the main stars, bow wow and brandon jackson (from tropic thunder) are actually both really great. jackson does such a great job at balancing the comedy and drama, and also at fleshing out a pretty thin role, that i'm a little sad that he's doing big momma's house three next. anyways think i just wrote more about lottery ticket than i have any other movie i've seen this year.

on my living room table right now, next to watch: cyrus, micmacs, mandingo, ichi the killer, collapse and agora. now that i have some free time, i'm busy playing catch-up for a year's worth of missed movies.

i just watched the Switch on a flight and i think we have a clear front-runner for worst film of the year.

Have you seen The Box?

i have not.... could it be worse than a film where Jennifer Aniston plays the same character for the millionth time and tries to pass itself off as a comedy?

No one else wondered why Fishburne's character didn't use that in Predators?Come on. It's been killing me.

i realize hardly anyone has seen it yet, so i will keep my comments to a minimum.

there is a lot more humor in this than the original and the roles that were particularly weak in that one are pretty strong here. i thought there were two major departures from the original. one is very effective and the other is simply a different take that the coens pull off well. i'm not sure if these differences mirror the novel better, but it wouldn't surprise me. anyway, this is definitely worth a view for fans of westerns, the coen brothers, people who enjoy good movies, etc.

yes. it's pretty good. i thought it kinda dragged a couple times, but the last 20-25 minutes, especially the final stage performances, were top-notch and i cannot fathom a scenario in which portman is not nominated for a best actress oscar.

the much-ballyhooed scene between portman and kunis is fine. i preferred an earlier scene, but i was far from complaining.

i wasn't thinking all that much about it. maybe it ran outta predator juice or something. maybe he didn't know how to switch it on without predator power. who knows, it seemed kinda irrelevant to me.

It plagues me. I see his goofy face looking through the vent, his hands fanning the smoke into the chamber and I just can't get it out of my mind that he's not using the god damned invisiblity hemlet that he used when he found them. Why?

I saw it tonight. It has its moments but the theme and key plot points are telegraphed in blindingly obvious ways and sympathy for the Portman character is hampered by the fact that she (and the film) has nowhere to go emotionally; there isn't any sense of normalcy established which the film could then depart from. The tone is single minded from start to finish. What this really needed was a Roman Polanski in his prime.

I liked Black Swan because it reminded me of Polanski in his prime. Obviously not quite as good as some of his stuff. But I liked it just fine. It was creepy, Portman was great, some of the dance sequences were quite impressive. But really all the performances were top notch. Not mindblowing, but I'd highly recommend it. I actually quite liked the creepy off-kilter vibe that's sustained throughout the whole thing.

Jesus Christ, Tron Legacy is bad. I was hoping for SOME level of fun and enjoyment. Even just a little Daft Punk concert would've been alright. Avatar had more interesting shit going on, for God's sake. Is this gonna be a yearly thing now with some ridiculously hyped comic-con driven marketing machine pumping out a Matrix/Star Wars aping piece of crap ever December? Somebody just kill me. Between me and my roommate we contributed $50 to this crap tonight. Holy shit.

I figured what the hell, I'd hit up the midnight show. When I found out they were also playing the fighter at midnight, I changed my mind.

Uh, yeah. Been that way a while now. Gimme your address. Leave gas money on the kitchen table.

I just watched 45 seconds of The Mummy. I had to stop, because there is no way the rest of the movie could have maintained that sublime level of complete and utter perfection.

Based on the scene where Brendan Fraiser is flying in the old school airplane, screaming, and shooting a giant sand storm in the face with a machine gun, I have concluded that The Mummy is the greatest film ever made.

It does, though. The Mummy is ridiculously great and greatly ridiculous and the harder they tried to find that spirit in the sequels, the more it ran out, like Saharan sand, through their fingers.

Oh boy... it's a date. This is gonna be movie night at the family house if I ever get out of here in time for Christmas.

Great stuff -- the dancing is wicked, obviously, but so are the background storylines. Almost impossible to not pull for the underdogs (and nearly impossible to not dislike the French, natch). Terrific scenes as some kids encounter foreign food for the first time.

I rewatched Avatar on HBO, and god is it bad. You take away the imax/3D spectacle, and the movie's mostly shit. I don't think many trumpeted the story (except Cameron) on its release, but it gets even more threadbare after repeated viewings. I still liked most of of the action sequences, but they are completely dragged down by the acting and 150+ minute run time.*

And another thing, the special effects really aren't all the outstanding compared to other movies. The navii still seem very cartooney. I thought Golem in LOTR was a much better example of importing human emotion into a digital creation.

*I can't believew Cameron had the gall to re-release with an additional 8 minutes. Avatar needs an editor much more than it needs "special" footage.

But have you seen Enter the Void yet?

I turned Avatar off maybe halfway through and went to read in bed.

just finished agora. was decent. oddly conservative, at least cinematically, for a work of pro-atheism propaganda. felt like passion of hypathia at points, but swapping out pharisees for christian cultists. still enjoyed it though, production values were very high for a movie that was doomed to arthouses. it's a little simplistic, but rarely hokey, and there's at least one rachel weisz ass-shot. what more can one person ask for?

My mom's review of Avatar: "It's Dances With Wolves with blue people."

I watched "Lombardi" on HBO last night. Pretty good sports documentary. It was a glowing praise of the man, which normally I'd criticize...especially with a personality such as Lombardi. However, even as a pretty big fan of football, all that I really knew of him is the hardass caricature.

The documentary did a lot to dispell that hardass persona. Lots of interesting tidbits that I learned:

-He regretted the "Winning isn't everything, it's the only thing" quote;
-He was a Kennedy democrat, and supported interacial marriage on his team, despite external pressure not to do so, including pressure from Pete Rozelle;
-He really listened to his players, and took their advice. I think this surprised me most.

It was also really touching to see all the former players, relatives, co-workers breaking up, forty years later, talking about his death. Anyway, good doc.

I think your mum's opinion is a widely held one.

That was word for word, the first review I heard from anybody. I think the main reason folks are going to continue to hate on it, was that it was so over-hyped. Honestly, IMO, if you dismiss the hype, and watch it with low expectations, it isn't that bad. I thought it was actually good. But great?! No fucking way.

I saw "How Do You Know" last weekend with my sisters. I don't get why critics are slamming it so badly, I liked it. It's not the greatest movie ever made but it was good. It was nice to see a romantic comedy that wasn't whiz bang slapstick joke joke. I enjoy frothy rom coms too but this was a nice departure from that. I didn't care too much for jack Nicholson's character but everyone else was very enjoyable.

Love.

I thought "Crazyheart" lived up to its promise. Bridges sang some great T-Bone material, the love story was realistic, and shit-- who knew COlin Farrell could sing like that?!

Easily a ***1/2 movie. Enjoyed it a lot. And Bridges not only deserved his oscar at that time, but he might have justly earned it for his performance alone.

What I really can't believe is how damn good all the songs were. I normally hate any "new" country music.

just watched that yesterday. thought the performances (all 3 main actors) were great.
performances > movie as a whole.

i really enjoyed Colin Farrell. i like that he's not afraid to take good roles that arent the lead role.

Valhalla Rising: One of the most simply interesting movies I've seen in a while...weird stuff. I'll try and come back and actually say something worthwhile about it later, but I recommend seeing this if ya haven't.

My Son, My Son What Have Ye Done: I know you can tell me plenty of ways Bad Lt. is a more important film, but this one affected me more immediately and simply. Descending into the guy's mind is awesome ("Can't you see it Lee! This is the tunnel of time.") and I never complain about a Dafoe performance. Typical Herzog foray into obsession, but the whole obsessing over a performance within a performance piece angle is well handled.

Holy shit! A Magnus sighting!

Valhalla Rising was a terminal bore, imho.

Yeah, saw that reaction around when I looked about. I think it's one of those "it clicks or it doesn't" movies, the pacing worked just right for me. I think the movie faced the danger of its premise/title, it's easy to want a Viking epic, but instead we get this odd little reflection on pure rage and that feeling of pointlessness that can easily eat away at man so-minded. I dunno, still gotta actually compose my thoughts on that one.

Trying to watch Girl with the Dragon Tattoo right now and, silly angle to criticize it from perhaps, but I can't buy the relationship between the hacker girl and her "mentor"/Parole Officer or whathaveyou. Partially because the

Spoiler/NSFW: click to show/hide

cruel, abusive authority figure thing is just so damn played

and partially because just can't buy that

Spoiler/NSFW: click to show/hide

she'd have no avenue to report rape/that with her smarts she wouldn't just record his ass and send the evidence to where it needs to go

.

And ah yes caley, I do occasionally rise from the dead.

I saw this at best buy, so obviously I picked it up. I mean, look at it.
I watched it, and.... a riddle popped into my head:

A train carrying the world's attempts at artsy movie making, complex winding plotlines, and weird camera fuckery departs New York at 2:55 PM traveling 60 mph. Another train, traveling on the same track, in the opposite direction and at 65 mph departs chicago at 3:05 PM. This train is sponsored by Rambo: First Blood Part III and Van Damme's Bloodsport.

Q: a. When and where will the trains meet? b. what will be the result?

A: a. Dolph Lundgren is the Killing Machine b. A confusing and entertaining trainwreck with lots of people getting killed by Ivan Drago.

Has anyone seen Tiny Furniture yet? Wondering whether to see that or The King's Speech.

Haven't seen either yet, but The King's Speech looks infinitely more appealing.

Edit. INFINITELY!!

Anyone seen 'The King's Speech' yet? Was thinking of hitting it up tomorrow.

Anyone seen 'The Fighter' yet? Was thinking of hitting that up New Year's Eve.

Anyone? Anyone?

The Fighter is really good. It won't blow you away with it's narrative complexities or innovation, but it's well-crafted and fun and full of enjoyable performances. Definitely a good film for New Year's Eve.

This was pretty riveting, and a hell of a lot of fun. Hoax though it may be he managed to capture some great reactions from people. The look on Diddys face when he was listening to the CD was great.

i can't be objective about this whatsoever as i am sucker no. 1 for talking dogs.

I like to go to the movies during the holiday season and I think I'm going to see one this weekend. It's a toss up between The King's Speech & Black Swan. I really want to see both but funds are tight so I have to pick one.

I saw Tron: Legacy 2 days ago and The King's Speech yesterday. Good and very good, respectively.



This had its moments but it didn't really blow me away like I expected it to. I wish I didn't know its secret before watching it. Also, probably not a good movie to watch while drinking.


The King's Speech is excellent but it'll be around here and there for probably another month, at least. I would see Tiny Furniture if it wasn't only in Chicago.

It's witty and good. Anyhow I'm a sucker for Colin Firth, quasi-history and buddy pictures.



Yeah, Tiny Furniture is only playing in SF so far and parking there's a bitch.

A Serious Man was just on HBO. I've seen it about 3 times, but sat thru it again. The last 60 seconds of that movie leaves me completely COVERED in goosebumps every single time. It's perfect.

Has there ever been a more harmless film than The King's Speech to get the R rating?

Finally saw Bad Lieutenant:Port of Call New Orleans. The most gloriously deranged film I've seen in a long time.