I'd echo that Fincher's Girl With the Dragon Tattoo is excellent.

I was in Bangkok when I saw it last week. I was wondering around, it was so hot and hazy and I needed to step into some AC - walked into a mall, looked at the movies playing. Dragon Tattoo was going to start in 10 minutes and I went in knowing nothing about the movie (other than Fincher was the director). I hadn't read the books or the seen the original movie. I was almost blown away at how much I enjoyed myself - even if I was not completely in love with the actual story. The style of the film and the performances were enought to keep me entertained.

Fun note, you need to stand for the national anthem of Thailand before all movies. Good stuff.

gonna have to agree with you gents as well.
my only criticism before seeing it was that i thought the swedish film was well done and didnt need to be americanized.

but Fincher adds a different element. the film felt more dangerous. the scenes that were tense sent a shiver down your spine.

Fincher really hasnt had a bad film. his worst film might be Panic Room, which was still a good film, not terrible by any means.
the Game is very underrated.

You are forgetting he directed benjamin button. I'm jealous.

i remembered.
i enjoyed benjamin button. not a bad film imo.

I love this film.

I can't really say why, but I enjoyed both of the time that I watched it.

What about Alien 3? A bad film by any standard no? Although Fincher apparently doesn't regard it as 'his'.

I'll definitely accept that Alien 3 isn't really "his". A cornucopia of problems with that one that had nothing to do with him. Also, I'd rather watch that again than Benjamin Button anyway.

yeah, i disregarded Alien 3 from him too. also, i compare it to other films in that genre and i dont find it terrible.
speaking of.... recently watched Aliens (2nd) and man, does Cameron bring out the worst acting in people? the lil girl in the film drove me bananas.

Been on a big Woody Allen kick lately. I've seen:

Annie Hall - amazing
Play It Again, Sam - it's bullshit not to list this as a Woody Allen film because he didn't direct it. one of his funniest and most endearing.
Manhattan - beautiful, didn't like the ending though
Sleeper - some of the funniest shit ever
Take The Money And Run - as above
Bananas - almost as funny
Love & Death - fuckin' a
Midnight In Paris - this was just gorgeous. Owen Wilson was so likeable as well, good Woody substitute.
Scoop - so underrated. laughed loads. was pretty drunk/stoned though.
Whatever Works - meh, love Larry though.

Where to next? He has so many, I don't know where to go with the 80s/90s movies.

Check out Stardust Memories, Crimes and Misdemeanors, Hannah and Her Sisters, Another Woman, and Husbands and Wives. I also really like Interiors, but that's not for everyone.

Maybe but the film itself is all kinds of awesome and much better than Ridley Scott's original.

Hannah and her Sisters - probably his best of that decade.

I am a huge fan of Aliens, but this is blasphemy

I don't like Alien at all. I've seen it many times and it's never done anything for me.

Bridesmaids - ***

I really wish they would have gone all out on the comedy, and deleted the "it's a Judd Apatow (produced) movie, so we need to have a love story, and a message about friendship" thing. We rewound the scene in the dress shop like 3 times. Had us in tears. I think it coulda been a great comedy, instead of some movie I will only watch again when I'm flipping channels. Good movie, just wish the trip to Vegas hadn't been cancelled. Personaly, I think it was to avoid doing a female "hangover" - but I think that woulda been great.

And we're only 1 season back on Breaking Bad now. Wow, what a good show.

Ogawa's got it covered...I'd add Vicky Cristina Barcelona, Bullets Over Broadway, Melinda and Melinda or The Deconstruction of Harry (not both), Zelig, and The Purple Rose of Cairo. Cassandra's Dream is good too.

I give a thumbs up to Match Point, a straight ahead drama that Woody haters can love.

Everyone Says I Love You has not been mentioned, and is, depending on my mood, an occasional candidate for my third favorite.

Watch it, especially if you know/love musicals.

Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol is entirely worth your time. I somehow have missed all the three previous films, but went to this on the praise from various sources that this was the best of the series. It doesnt matter if you havent seen the previous ones. The action and tension barely eases off for more than 2 minutes at a stretch.

MI:4 is over two hours of unrelenting badassness. One of the best movies I've seen in IMAX format.

i didn't care too much for match point, but i would be willing to sit down with it again because everybody i know seems to like it. which has me thinking...it must be me.

anyway, i love this scene from midnight in paris. reminds me of the marshall mcluhan scene in annie hall.


next up: miss potter.

'Match Point' is schematic and tin-eared. Allen doesn't have the talent to do that sort of psychological drama without falling back on cliches.

I recall Slackmo hated Match Point, too. I had only one misgiving, a certain dream sequence straight out of Bergman that was not at all necessary to the plot. But I thought it was sexy and tension-filled. To each his own.

I thought Matchpoint was fair, but no great shakes. You want a thriller? See Strangers on a Train.

Caught 'Hugo'. Very charming and you can feel the joy that Scorsese had in recreating Méliès' film-making process. It's a shame that this thing isn't really drawing audiences.

Interesting. When we went last week, it was nearly a full house in a regular-size multiplex room...granted, in Evanston, Northwestern University's hub.

I'll finally be going next week when it opens at the indie/art house near me. I moved recently and the megaplexs around here charge way too much even for matinee so I had to scale back on the theater trips. The indie theater is much more reasonably priced though even with the 3d surcharge. Really looking forward to seeing this one.

Good choices.

For me, I always go back to Broadway Danny Rose. The scene in the Macy's Balloon warehouse still kills me.

margin call/moneyball. haven't really been in the mood for action films lately and these both fit the bill. stanley tucci should have at least a bit part in every film that comes out of hollywood.

^ What he said

The Descendants. A nice movie, but not all that. Beautiful locations. Solid supporting performances (Robert Forster, still one of the best grizzled guys out there). Clooney's at the range of his acting abilities in this one. Some beautiful slack-key guitar. But it sorta felt like "Little Miss Sunshine" for 2011.

"Ah, Gil, I hardly think he'd be lecturing at the Sorbonne if he's a pseudo-intellectual. "

Great film. I think I'm so sympathetic to Woody's style that I even like his (supposedly) "bad" films, ie Scoop. Scoop is fucking awesome. Hugely quotable movie.

"I see the glass half full, but of poison."
"I was born into the Hebrew persuasion, but when I got older I converted to narcissism."
"The man is a liar and a murderer, and I say that with all due respect."

watched this last night.



it was excellent.

So I watched ten movies the last two weeks after not watching anything since Avatar.

Every movie is now a parody unto itself. Film sucks. Dead.

and this guy knows from self-parody

And this guy knows.

you feel comfortable making a universal claim from a sample size of less than 1%?

The Last Temptation Of Christ.

BO-RING!
\

Wow, I find TLTOC absorbing from start to finish. If you want boring...


I missed this when it came out and just saw it the other day. What utter pablum. This could really have been generated by a computer given the task to produce an 'award winning humanist masterpiece'. The gloppy music is particularly offensive.

agreed. Awful film. A total bore. Scorcese's worst. Hugo much better. Anybody notice that Scorcese gets weirder and weirder looking every year?

Really? It has been called "one dickens of an American movie."

It has no vitality whatsoever.

Great post/avatar/board personality combo.

MARGIN CALL

wow, just watched this and one of the best films of the year.
great cast, quite thrilling. wish i watched it in time for voting.

Fairly well crafted as far as this sort of thing goes and Olsen is cornering the market on 'Damaged Goods' parts but there are only so many ways something like this can turn out and it becomes more and more predictable as it continues. Oh and Olsen's cleavage is photographed lovingly in virtually every shot.

One of the weakest of his early films. It's just not all that funny. The SF stuff weighs down the jokes.

Seriously intense trailer right there.

Just came here to post the same. Great movie more then a few very tense scenes. Really flew by my only complaint was that I would have liked to have seen maybe 30 minutes more to show the next day fallout. This is the movie I was wishing Wall Street 2 was gonna be.

Awesome.

game change
really good. julianne moore was exceptional. republicans watching this (or not watching this) might think this film was not too kind, but as a non-republican i found myself actually feeling sorry for sarah palin. i never wanted that to happen!

also, took in Drive. liked it, don't understand the hype. i had a hard time making a connection with gosling's character.

Metropolitan

Charming.


Barcelona

Annoying as fuck.


It's recently come to my attention that I love Chloë Sevigny.