It's pretty good. I think the "journey" section drags on a little longer than it needs to and Barry Pepper doesn't bring the chops necessary to make this one really sing. I very much enjoyed the zigzag cross-cutting and subtle plot development in the first act. Jones and the guy who plays Melquiades are excellent and Dwight Yokam is pretty great too. The colors are bright and arid, but Jones rarely lingers on the scenery Ford style like Ang Lee does in Brokeback. Though there is a nice quote of Clint dragging Eli through the desert in The Good The Bad and The Ugly. I think weaknesses in the foundations of the diner love quandrangle, the Pepper-and-wife malaise, and the Jones-Melquiades relationship prevent the powerful resolution sought in the third act. The movie could be improved greatly if that middle section was refocused on strengthing those bonds through additional flashbacks or plot developments, instead of unnecessary rambling through the desert. The stop off at the deserted old man's shack could have been cut entirely. The one relationship Jones did reinforce and then revisit (that of Pepper and the immigrants he accosted at the beginning) paid off quite nicely.

**1/2

One-word review: Autopilot.

I liked it, although in the end I wish it had wrapped up its slight story a bit more. Still, if you are into the cinema-verite style of Altman, this is great.

Natural Born Killers

First time I've seen this. I found the stylized violence entertaining (I am an American after all)
Over all the movie seemed a bit preachy. I sorta enjoyed the over the top style of direction. There are a few stretches that bored me.

Watched Broken Flowers. Sad and funny, it deserves the high praise it gets around here.

One aspect not mentioned often....Alexis Dziena the hot chick from ABC's Invasion is the "Lolita" in Broken Flowers. Knowing now that she's legal, a guilty fantasy is not so guilty.
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The Life of David Gale

Roger Ebert gave this one 0 stars in his review when this came out in 2002. He was outraged at the core morality going on in this film. Kevin Spacey is a college professor and capital punishment abolitionist accused of a brutal rape and murder, about to get the chair; Kate Winslet plays an overly emotional journalist who gets to interview him days before his execution. Did he or didn't he do the crime? Will Kate Winslet change her mind about Spacey? You'll find out.

A good portion of the movie flashbacks the alcoholism that brings Spacey's character to his depressing downfall. The revelation of how and why a character in the film dies--and why Spacey is involved--isn't morally outrageous as Ebert would have it, but it is certainly preposterous. I couldn't buy it, either. I love Alan Parker's movies, and this certainly has his style, but there is way too much fake newscasters and man-on-the-street interviews that gloss over the compelling issue of capital punishment with really trite cliches, plus there's those pointless goofy flashcuts between scenes of words like "BETRAYAL", "LUST", "INNOCENCE"--WHY?. Without the nudity and swearing that occurs throughout, this could have a CBS Movie of the Week. Meh.

I kept hearing about how this is one of the great chillers and the best of all Henry James adaptations. What a crock. Tedious and totally superficial. This ain't Henry James. Meh. 'The Others' has this beat.

'in her shoes'

we caught this over the weekend and were pleasantly surprised. much heavier than i expected, certainly, as it's not twee chick-lit adaptation with the occassional burst of heehee giggling.

maybe i'm biased by my unabashed love for all things featuring toni collette (who can do no wrong in my book). and she does give a really strong performance. yeah, there are definitely some saccharine moments and the ending feels pretty pat (especially the daddy/mom-in-law reconciliation). but i thought that the film held up on the whole.

This was much more entertaining than I thought it would be. Maybe it's because I live in Vegas, I dunno. But the writing and characterizations are a total hoot. None of the plots are anything we haven't seen before on, say, Roseanne, but it's a nifty-re-interpretation of those plots. Basic premise: everything revolves around the animals in Siegfried and Roy's Secret Garden. At first, I thought this was really, really odd - and when I discovered that Siegfried and Roy gave this their stamp of approval, it seemed even odder - especially when you see some of the things the S + R characters do onscreen.

But man... this is some funny stuff. Check it out sometime.

But for NBC to even think that this was going to be the next hottest thing...that is THE oddest. What a flop.

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Gozu is Takeshi Miike's direct nod to David Lynch. Freaky stuff as to be expected, but the DVD's essay text helpfully explains some of the Buddhist mythology symbols. If you love Mulholland Drive or Lost Highway, this is your cup of tea.

An early contender for my favourite DVDs of 2006. But then again, I'm a longtime Nardwuar fan.

Yeah I'm really late to this party...




Probably top 10 material for sure. Beats the hell outta batman.

Yeah- not the best movie of the year but certainly light years more inventive and compelling than Batman.

I thought Batman Begins was especially inventive--which only magnified how not compelling it was.

I watched this shit last night.

Thinking XXX - HBO Doc.

I don't know what I expected exactly when I sat down to watch this last night...

OK that's not entirely true. I expected to be turned on. I knew about this book when it came out Oct 2004 and thought there'd be nothing hotter than a fat book of porn star layouts. Only instead it was really telling about the industries personalities of both the past and present. It turned from a sexy voyeuristic moment, to a surprisingly straightforward bio where the illusion was shattered in a matter of fact way. By know means a bad piece but given it really made me feel somewhat disappointed to perhaps maybe pity for the life these people lead. Some appear to be happy with it while others do seem to be walking about continually telling themselves that they're more than just the skin they live in.



Also saw 'Hide & Seek' with DeNiro. Boy that thing seriously stunk. Waste of time, even on cable.

Now that the Simpsons viewing is finishd I can start on the Pre 1950's poll stuff. First up A film that might be bound for my top 10 if it's still as good as it was the last time I watched it.

Haven't seen the documentary, but the soundtrack is excellent.

Watched this for my Cinema class. What I noticed most about the movie was the cinematography and great acting by all of the actors. Clooney is "a hoot." Too bad I don't want to go work on my paper for it... ugh.

hadn't seen this before today. i liked it, but the music drove me crazy (i think that was the point, though). also made me crave pudding.


haven't seen this one in a while. good stuff. made me want to kick someone's ass.


so f*cking funny. "niggaWHAAAA?" i still haven't seen the beginning of the goddamn film, but i'll get to that one of these days.

so yeah, three movies, one day. whew.

I caught part of 'Grizzly Man' on the Discovery channel over the weekend. It was annoying as hell when the station is doing this tickertape/bubble adverts for the screening and the next day repeat... i mean what the point in watching that shit.

Again having only caught part of it I'm not entirely up on the whole deal and I know this sounds like a sick thing but I for some reason want to see the footage of this guy getting attacked.
I suppose I only wonder what it is he did exactly to cause the bear to react (if anything)

Gotta say what everyone else pretty much has by acknowledging that the guy was in fact 'nuts'.

I'm also a tad confused about how it is the friends are gathering to discuss 'the film' when it seemed to me that they were in 'the film' unless there's actually 'another' film but again I haven't seen it all yet and I'm not sure where this is all supposed to go.


btw. When did A&E start to take a dive? I'm flippin channels when I find they're doing some Celebrity Playboy Centerfold Expo. On A&E?! Seriously. I don't understand. I expect this stuff on 'E!' but not A&E..

That's quite the triple-bill. Jealousy ensues.

Who's seen this 80s camp classic? About as good (bad) as I remembered it to be.

Shit. I remember when A&E ran operas and Shakespeare. I also remember when Bravo ran jazz performances, independent art films and ballets. I remember when AMC ran MOVIES, and when MTV ran MUSIC...



That isn't the Mark Lester of Oliver! is it?

don't count A&E down for the count yet -- they'll be showing "Murderball" (oscar nom docu) tomorrow night and various other times this week.

so i saw 85% of "the Door in the Floor" yesterday. bleh.

Nope. It's American camp/exploitation specialist Mark L. Lester who directed Roller Boogie, Commando and 'Armed and Dangerous'. And a sort of sequel to this one called Class of 1999. About 10 years older then the Brit who played Oliver.


As for A&E you can track their decline by Biography. They used to do people like Galileo now its usually Martha Stewart or Paris Hilton.

Cinema class, I love this movie though so it should be a pretty simple essay.


Didn't like this as much as Life Aquatic of Rushmore but still classic Wes Anderson, very funny.

seriously? you prefer Life Aquatic over Royal Tenenbaums? That's mind blowing to me.

otm re. Gosford Park. I never tire of watching that movie.

I would too...I enjoyed the characters more, as a whole.

I just watched the Criterion edition of this! Good stuff.

Never saw it before - pretty daring for 1960.

I would say so. Filmed in 1959! Of course it was released in the U.S. pretty heavily cut at the time.

maybe i need to watch it one more time... i was really tired when I watched the last half hour of it.

An extra 49 minutes that don't add up to shit. Stick with the (still flawed) original.

I have yet to see either version of this film.

The Tarkovski film is one of my favorites of all time. This was my first time seeing this one, and I'm still confused as to why I had gotten so bored with it in the middle of the plot. It's very different from the book, and from the russian film. The soundtrack is good, and the storyline is interesting. I think the only downfall is the acting; emotionless and weak character building.


Holy Shit! has anyone else seen the Special Edition of this movie? It's totally different from the mainstream release. There is a full half hour tacked on to the end of the film. It blew me away.

man, totally disagree. redux >>>>>> the original. the film breathes more easily in the extended cut.

I think your charges are accurate, but not necessarily pertinent. What I really liked about this movie, which I would rank as one of the overlooked gems of the decade, was its unconventional, airless 2001:ASO-style plotting.

I heard they completely re-edited the movie, so there may be different takes/shots and different cuts, but I didn't really notice much of a difference outside of the added scenes. I think I'm missing one scene, possibly two, but for the most part, you get:

more about the napalm ruining the surf and a bit more story about Willard stealing Kilgore's surfboard
trading diesel for the Playmates
the long French plantation sequence (confrontation in the fog + burial + meal + bed scene)
Kurtz reading old articles (during and after LBJ) from Time magazine suggesting that the war's going well

The added surf segments are okay, amusing, but stick out a bit too much.
The scene with the Playmates didn't really work for me. There is something interesting about Chef being so enthralled by the image projected by Miss December (actually Miss May, but he keeps thinking she's Miss December) in the magazine than the woman herself - the wig, the pose, etc., but the sequence as a whole is pretty shakey.
The plantation sequence was just tedious, especially the meal. A tiny bit was in the documentary ("Heart of Darkness"?) on the making of this picture, and it seemed interesting in that context, but I think they cut out some narration that was used for the doc but not Redux - something about these people being ghosts clinging on to a colonial past. What's left seems to go on forever. The burial wasn't interesting and somewhat superfluous (I never found myself asking "What happened to so-and-so's body?" in the original).
Brando seems stiff and uninterested in the Time magazine scene, which still doesn't fix the film's ending.

Yeah, I still can't figure out what it was that made me lose interest toward the end. It is a good film in many respects and merits a repeated view in my book. Probably my fault for watching the Abyss directly afterwards, it stole the thunder of Solaris.

Re; Redux or not

The playbunnies bit is OK, Plantations is boring overall. Any extra time with Kurtz and Kilgore is worth it though.

I edited out the scenes I didn't want to see last time round on DVD.

To be fair, the extra time with Kilgore and later Kurtz probably added up to 5 minutes. I don't think they were necessary, but the Kilgore and Kurtz material flew by pretty quickly.

The plantation scenes must've been 20, maybe even 30 minutes long, and it really lost me when the Frenchmen were going back and forth with their critique of the war. (And that egg metaphor was pretty bad. "Whites go, yellow stay.")

Just saw this too...I think it's one of his best.

I'll back ya on this. I fucking hate the Redux. I think it's a prime example of why a 'director's cut' isn't always a good thing.

The plantation scene is incredibly weak. It's a fart in the middle of a good blowjob.

Broken Flowers is very good. Ambiguous, but very good.

And...Walk the Line--Phoenix was good, but Reese Witherspoon was fucking awesome while singing June carter Cash--give her the fucking Oscar, already!

'Dodgeball'.. I was prepared to throw my hatred behind this which is still sorta true but there's a funny moment in it with Hasselhoff and another with Chuck Norris so its not completely useless.

'Walking Tall' - Me Rock, me carry big stick and show scars to become sheriff and save city... absolutely mindless action flick. I still want to see the original.

Cable/Satellite Movie channels are like these never ending pools of crappy films being played over and over again.