YES YES YES YES YES.


Kills me that I can't find out if Carruth is going to get another shot.

That movie is out of hand. "Kids" was just a warm-up.
For all of my friends that were shocked by "Thirteen", I recommended "Bully".
Really makes you want to raise some kids today!

I was bored though a few stretches of this. Copploa's Barry Lyndon?

Still, it's a good date movie, if only because Louis XVI (Jason Schwartzman) is a total douche. In the eyes of your girl, he'll make you look awesome by comparison.

One of my friends compared the lighting in this to the lighting in Barry Lyndon. I have yet to see it, but i'll probably make a reasonable attempt now to compare the two.

Saw this:



Not a great film, but definitely worth my $6.50. I can't decide if I think it was audacious or weak to sequester the story from its political context. Same goes for the soundtrack. Don't get me wrong, I like Gang of Four and Bow Wow Wow, but the inclusion feels cheap. A wink at a wink.

Then I saw this:



Freaking awesome.

Alchoholic puppets = major lols

Based on recommendations from this thread, just watched

and



They were both great, and really interesting to watch.

I didn't know what my no. 1 movie of the year would be until I saw this:

My #1 so far as well...holding out big hopes for "Little Children" and "Borat."

#1? Really?

I liked it, and all, but #1?


Re: Primer - one of the best movies I've seen in a long, long time. I recommend it to everybody I talk movies with and they always come back with the same two responses: "WTF!?! That was awesome." and "I have to watch it again....right away."

Yeah, Primer is probably the best movie I've seen in the last few years

just like heaven

this was a well done but rather run of the mill love story. only the order of events have been changed to attempt to create more drama. still, Witherspoon & Ruffalo had great chemistry
and despite its flakey hollywood happy ending (circa a certain Cure song for the closing titles no less) it sheds no harm.





welcome to woop woop

I remember watching Ebert's review of this one and thinking it'd be worth a look.
I also never connected the fact that this is the same director who made 'Priscilla Queen of the Desert' It's just an odd odd movie.

Perfect in its execution, but #1 more a result of there really being nothing that stands out this year. I'm hoping that changes with the holiday movie season.

Definitely top 3 for me, if not #1.

man... I haven't see it but Its hard for me to imagine a 9/11 film being my number one film of the year. What is so great about it? From what I've heard it was just really difficult to watch (emotionally).

I had my own "Bad Film Festival" over the weekend after picking several DVDs up at Big Lots:



Gamera the Invincible from 1965. The first non-Toho "Giant Monster Played by a Man in a Rubber Suit" movie, it posits that an accidental Nuclear brush-up between American & Russian Cold Warriors at the North Pole results in the release of a 200 Million Year Old Ur-Turtle from an icy prison. The Turtle then decides Japan is full of the Heat & Light Energy that he needs to survive, and attacks Tokyo.



War of the Monsters: Gamera vs. Barugon. a trio of greedy Treasure Hunters steal a sacred (but cursed) "Gem" from islanders. One of the three betrays the other 2 & leaves them for dead, only to lose the "Gem" off shore upon arriving back in Tokyo. The "Gem" hatches into a Frost-Breathed, Rainbow-Colored Energy-Ray Spewing, Giant Chamelian (that looks mysteriously like Toho's Baragon, but with much better powers), and only Gamera can stop him! But Gamera cannot face Barugon's Frost Breath, he's allergic to cold! Oh No! Can the scientists stop Barugon, or will Gamera overcome his problems with cold?



Destroy All Planets. AIP had a hit with Toho's Destroy All Monsters, so Gamera get's a related name. It's Gamers vs. the Ring of Giant Beachballs as our favorite Giant Turtle is morally paralyzed by Aliens bent on World Conquest with the simple expedient of kidnapping 2 Boy Scouts & threatening to hurt them. Gamera allows himself to be injected with a neck-mounted remote control mind control device which forces him to attack Tokyo against his will, but the wiley & resourceful Boy Scouts slip their bounds and reverse the positive & negative poles on the Aliens' batteries to free Gamera & themselves. Gamera can then destroy their patheticaly underarmored Giant Beachballs and fight their Giant Squid Alien Leader!



Challenge of the Masters. Kung Fu Masters' deadly fights for prestige via local Firecracker Festivals & Lion Dancers descends into chaos as assassins & Bandit Kings in Hiding drive a young man to learn Kung Fu & prove himself worthy of his Father's teacher.



Flash Gordon Conquers the Universe, all 12 Episodes! A bizare plague, the Purple Death (which kills instantly & who's only mark is a purple smudge on the victim's forehead), is ravaging Earth and it's up to Flash, Dale & Dr. Zarkov to find who's responsible. A quick trip in Zarkov's spaceship shows our heroes one of Ming's spaceships feeding a near invisible dust into our atmosphere, and follow it home to find the cure, have adventures, and overthrow Ming, the Merciless (again), freeing the Rock People & saving their Prince, defeating the "Walking Bombs," and saving Princess Aura, Dale, Dr. Zarkov, and various other friends, from horrible deaths at the hands of Ming, the Merciless (again)!

Budget DVDs can be fascinating. I recently got a double feature for $1.00 in a Walgreen's...


BMX Bandits, an Australian dopy kids' adventure movie with 16 year-old, pre-language coach Nicole Kidman.

b/w


Evel Kneivel. Goofy biopic produced by and starring George "Mr. All Seasons Tan" Hamilton. Notable also for the appearance of post-"Lolita" Sue Lyon as the love interest.

Don't think I'll watch these movies ever again, but worth every penny for the first viewing.





Coming down the pike....I found this one for $3.88 at Wal-Mart. I couldn't believe it. This will be my Halloween night viewing.


http://www.mondo-digital.com/incubus.html
While the idea of William Shatner acting in the unsuccessful, fabricated "international" language of Esperanto sounds like the makings of a camp classic, Incubus is really anything but. This pet project of Outer Limits producer Leslie Stevens was rarely seen during its release and appeared to vanish entirely, existing more as a whispered about curio than a genuine film. The result, a sort of mythological mishmash of Horror Hotel and The Seventh Seal, is a strange and compelling experience that demands both imagination and patience from its viewers.

The pared down storyline, set in a vaguely identified pastoral netherworld known as Nomen Tuum, follows the spiritual battle for the soul of Marc (William Shatner), a former soldier who has settled into a quiet domestic life with his innocent sister, Arndis (Ann Atman). An alluring blonde succubus named Kia (Allyson Ames) appears to seduce the inherently virtuous Marc, but when she falls in love with him, a diabolical incubus (the ill-fated Milos Milos) arrives to even the score. .. Extras include a camcorder interview by David Schow with cinematographer Conrad Hall (American Beauty), Bill Fraker, and producer Taylor; the men also provide a running commentary track in which they discuss the threadbare production, with Shatner providing his own separate commentary to discuss everything from the rigors of acting in an unfamiliar language to the challenges of evoking the supernatural onscreen

I'll probably watch this tomorrow.

Sad to say, this just isn't as good as it used to be:



Yeah, it was pretty groundbreaking silliness at the time, and you can see its influence on modern cartoons like South Park etc... but it's pretty slow paced stuff for today.

Still, I remember how enjoyable they used to be, and were infinitely more fun than Beavis + Butthead ever were (but then again, I always hated B + B. 'Twas the most annoying characters ever, IMHO).

Nice performance. FW will probably get a best actor nom, but I don't expect him to contend. Although I'm still not set on who the frontrunner this year is. Usually you know by this time of the year.

Standard white man in Africa movie. The most unique element was the slow and then sudden reveal on Amin's crimes.

The most fascinating Oscar question seems to be how the 911 movies will do. I expect Flight 93 to get a Best Picture nom, but the reception of World Trade Center is a bit tough to gauge.

Heh, I watched this exact set a few months ago. It was kind of mindblowing but I had the luxury of coming into it completely fresh, having never watched it when I was a kid. Too much of it at once could be kind of overwhelming and numbing, though, so I could only watch three episodes per day.


Except this time, the bad guys are actually black, right?

I saw the trailer once so naturally, I think I know what it's going to be about.

Little Children
Very good movie - well-acted, interesting storyline. Todd Field turns in another strong picture.

I was really surprised that the child actor that played the tough kid in "Bad News Bears" shows up to play a freaky sex offender.



Jackie Earle Haley

shopgirl

my wife enjoyed this and was under the impression that I wouldn't care for it and I actually did enjoy it to some extent. the part that was just getting old quickly was mr. martin himself. Yeah he wrote it, stars and produced it and why not? its his thing and all but the act as the additional omniscient voiceover just pushed it over the edge. a little steve martin goes a long way and this was getting more than a tad heavy. I also kept thinking of 'LA Story' for whatever reason.

still, Claire Danes was a perfect fit and Jason Schwartzman worked out fine. Watching him hang out with Mark Kozelek added another unusual quirk. it's a worth a look.



the omen (1976)

somehow my wife had grown up having never seen this classic. so much of this is very run of the mill ala 'Rosemary's Baby' but it fits for whatever reason. i still get a kick out of this one.

I just rewatched this about a month ago for the same reason. I couldn't my wife hadn't ever seen it. Still holds up pretty well.

the beheading scene was a bit too much for her.

I saw the 2-D version when it first came out, and I've seen it on video and a couple of times, and I was impressed. I'm not a huge fan of Burton's (about every 8th movie seems to be OK for me), but this one has held up over repeated viewing. The animation is wonderful, and the big screen lets you see the detail on the characters (something I had forgotten completely).

The re-release is good, too. The sound has been remixed and it's definitely a lot LOUDER than I remember, but the foley effects have great stereo placement. Effectively, the sound is in 3D

As for the 3D picture, yeah, it's good, and it works for about 70% of the movie. (Any shots where there is background/foreground motion, or the figures stand still for a bit seemed to be the best. High-contrast pictures [for example, where dark figures are walking across a light background] suffer greatly-- the figures shake while they move.) But you get nifty polarized glasses and the kids loved it, so how could you miss?

And, as an added feature, the movie kicks off with the old Pixar short Knick Knack which is still great, even after the Incredibles, two Toy Stories, Cars, and other shorts like Boundin'. The thing that shocked me was the editing they'd done. When they used to show the short at animation festivals, the beach girl character had a very large chest. Now, she has no chest. (After reading the entry in Wikipedia, I guess they edited it when Finding Nemo was released.)

Oh, Disney pushes about a thousand little inserts before the feature, each showing off an aspect of the 3D rendering system. Tiresome.

Not good.

Well....yeah, you want to strangle that Irish tenor by the third time he sings "The greatest adventure, is what lies ahead...". And the Japanimation is a bit on the cheap side. But still, coming from the makers of "Rudolph The Red Nosed Reindeer" and "Frosty The Snowman", I really admire the attempts to get the Tolkien look and language encapsulated into a bite-size package. And the voice actors are top-notch....before the "Rings" trilogy, I couldn't feature anyone else but John Huston as Gandalf, or Brother Theodore as Gollum. Peter Jackson could give it the full treatment, I suppose, but why would he want to?

Out of curiosity. Was this the first time you've seen it? I was a little kid when I first saw this and yes while it hasn't aged well and has obviously been outdone by Jackson's version. I did think this was alright at one time. The 'Return of the King' was far more interesting in comparison.

Brother Theodore? I thought it was strange when they were showing all the voice actors in the opening credits and then someone just named "Theodore" was listed. Should I know who this is?


Yes. And I've never read the book either but pretty much knew what was going to happen from the accounts of it in The Lord Of The Rings.

A truly odd fellow, he was sort of a gallows-humor Andy Kaufman.

Heerrrrre's wiki

Here's a bit of Youtube, 2:33

And on David Letterman, :33

He used to show up for brief segments on Letterman (when Letterman was on NBC and still decent). He could go on tears that would make Dennis Miller turn green with envy. I think he's also got a small role on The 'burbs.

Hastily added, here's Theodore on Letterman, :33

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rGt08GUUz1g

Flushed Away
Screen writing 101. I was pretty bored. Looked good though.


Who Framed Roger Rabbit
This has held up pretty well.


Animaniacs
Hellooooo Nurse! Great stuff. The only downside, I can't get the theme song out of my head.


X-Men III
I'm glad I d
ugh, I'm glad I didn't see this in the theatre

Had nothing much to do at my parents' house yesterday so I just crashed on the couch and watched the Military Channel.

Brokeback Mountain.
I hadn't seen it, and while it was OK, it was nothing special in terms of story. It's a tragic love story and that's about it. It's beautifully shot, and the acting is superb, but the story just left me bored.

The Departed
I enjoyed it. Dicaprio's performance was solid, the script was OK, and it was a good crime-thriller drama thingy. Only real gripe was the length, and the final shot of the state capital building.

so fucking good

This was pretty mindblowing, and every bit as confusing as I was lead to believe.

I liked that there is pretty much no expository dialogue. Movie hits the ground running and you just have to catch up.

Awwwwww yeah. I finally have every damn episode - and I can't tell you how many I've never seen. This is gonna be a fun, spooky winter.

contains spoilers:
Primer Timeline

(warning: your head might explode)

I want this for Christmas for sure... 200 bucks.
C'mon Mom and Dad what do you say?

I saw The Prestige this weekend. Thought it was pretty good, character development was pretty weak on Scarlett's character I thought. That and I predicted the end basically as soon as I saw multiple hats/cats being produced. Didn't take away from the film. Would recommend.

That's ridiculous.

I finally got to see this the other day. Nice 3D Effects, but the movie's already getting shown on TV. I'm glad I didn't pay more then $7 a ticket.

Fuckin' zombies, mang.

Haven't walked out of a movie in a long time. Beyond horrible.

Hadn't seen this in years. We lived about an hour away so my childhood was filled with day trips to Bodega Bay. It holds up pretty well, all things considered. Never realized what an insufferable bitch Tippi Hedren's character is at the beginning of the movie. There are a couple of shots--when Jessica Tandy stumbles upon the dead neighbor whose eyes have been pecked out, and the cut to the playground that's suddenly overrun by menacing crows--that should've been included in my Scariest Moments list.

Nice.

Evil Dead 2 is the BEST, tho. Make sure you check that out.

Yeah, it's next on the Netflix qeue. Although, from the reviews and plot summaries that I have read, it looks like it's more or less identical to the first one (but better, apparently.) Not that that's a bad thing at all.