geoffery rush is 56

Hmm--I wouldn't have guessed. But I'll have to check it out.

Good call. Seriously, those movies wouldn't have made a dime with any other bony haughty chick in the role.

I'd be willing to bet that's due to a very weak ad campaign coupled with bad timing for the release. They shoulda waited 'til fall or winter. Oh well - it'll probably get it's investment back with DVD sales + rentals, internationally.

But since when has a film's financial statement truly related to how good it actually is?

Case in point: Closetland. Lost a fortune, and is one of the most intense films I've ever seen. Will it ever see the light of DVD in America? Probably not. And it's a pity, 'cuz Alan Rickman + Madeline Stowe are brilliant within the confines of the one single set throughout the entire film.

When have I ever equated financial success with quality? (Hopefully you'll understand that's a rhetorical question, but just in case: Never.)

My only point (and it was minor--hell, it was just semantics) was that a movie can't be a "sleeper hit" unless it's a hit. It's still a sleeper, though. I was glad to hear it was good.

Ah, you are correct sir! My bad...
It's just so eeeeeeeasy to climb on my hi-horse at the drop of a hat these days... I must really need a vacation.

Ebert gave it 1.5 stars...

An interrogator and a prisoner, alone in a room. The interrogator a man, the prisoner a woman. The country, unnamed. The charge: sedition. She has written a children's book that he believes is an allegorical attack on the state. He blindfolds her, assumes threatening personalities, browbeats her, plays mind games, and then moves along to various refinements of physical torture. She resists courageously. Being mistreated by men is nothing new for her. This very same man assaulted her when she was a child.

All it requires to make "Closet Land" complete is a pious screen note at the end of this story, assuring us that the torture of political prisoners continues all over our world today. The movie does not disappoint: The slogan appears right on schedule.

What is the politically correct response? To cry out with horror? To rush from the theater and devote my life to ending injustice? What are the makers of films like this hoping for? Their movies are never seen by the torturers, and bring no fresh news for the good of heart, who are already well aware of the corrupted world we inhabit. The movie seems intended for the already converted, as an exercise in self-congratulation. They can refresh their outrage.

The evil torturer in this movie is of course a white Western male, perhaps because he is a politically correct enemy, although most officially sanctioned torture today takes place in the Middle East, Asia, Africa and South America. The victim is of course a woman, although most political prisoners are men (in many of the countries where official torture prevails, women are not permitted sufficient freedom of movement to become politically dangerous). I am of course opposed to torture, but I preserve sufficient irony to be offended by the smugness of this film.

The story takes the form of a long dialogue between the man, who is known as "Man," and the woman, who is known as "Woman." She is played by Madeleine Stowe, the heroine of "Stakeout," and he is played by Alan Rickman, the man who held the building hostage in "Die Hard." She has written a book in which a young girl locked in a closet escapes into her mental fantasies. He sees the book as an attack on the society he represents - although neatly, too neatly, he knows that as a small girl she used such fantasies as a means of escaping from his own sexual attentions. The tyranny of rape and of the state are thus combined in one tidy symbolic package.

Man and Woman are enclosed in a space which could be called Space. Its pillars and vistas divorce the characters from any particular time and place. But this is not a simple allegory; we are given details of the Woman's fantasies, as they exist in her books and mind, and so we are forced to wonder if she would really be treated this way in any world other than the manipulated one of this movie.

The film was written and directed by Radha Bharadwaj, who was inspired, I understand, by her commitment to Amnesty International. I have no doubt it is a labor of love, but there is a temptation to praise films like this because of their noble sentiments, without asking whether the work is good filmmaking. Is is possible to be against political torture and still dislike this film? I think it is. I was particularly unconvinced by the ending of the film, in which Woman prevails for no better reason than that she is Woman, and the fight was fixed. She absorbs all the mental and physical abuse Man can throw at her, and finally defeats him through her capacity to absorb more suffering than he is willing, or able, to administer. The film would have been truer to itself and the real world if at the end the man had simply executed her.

Prisoners do not often defeat their captors simply through an indomitable will - especially when the villains hold the trump card of death.

Man is indeed inhuman to man, and woman, in this world.

Often that is because we are seduced by rigid ideological righteousness, ignoring the admonition that we should do unto others as we would have them do unto us. If you think you are Right and others are Wrong, it takes only a small step to rationalize doing wrong to others. One way to take that step is to objectify others into the personification of evil. "Closet Land" is an exercise in that process, and not nearly as nice a movie as it thinks it is.

A quick Imdb check says produced by Brian Grazer / Ron Howard

Yeah, well, I heard Ebert also liked the Garfield sequel. So his opinion on Closetland really doesn't carry much weight with moi.

This films kicked so much ass!
seriously, i usually get bored half into some silent film but this one is easily top 10 films of all time.

Which soundtrack?

[EDIT] List of Metropolis scores/soundtracks.

original 1927 by Huppertz, newly arranged by Heller

And quoting someone else's star rating is about as useful as a fart in a windstorm.

what?

No. 10 doesn't believe in the quote function.

I do so. Now, carry on.

Ebert gave that reply 1.5 stars.

Ah, yes. For that retort, I have a tall, cool, frosty glass of ShutTheFuckUp™

I think we've brought Artem up to speed now. Kudos.

thank you, guys

The Royal Tenenbaums - Excellent.

Miss Potter - Really incredibly boring, and extremely over the top cheesy.

Dragnet - Funnier than expected, pretty good.

Vertigo - Wow. Really, wow.


Also saw Potter 5 again, not as good as the first time through. And rewatched Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, even better the second time, a frontrunner for my favorite movie of the decade thus far.


In the middle of Mean Streets right now, good so far.

Much better than I expected, but then again, I wasn't expecting much at all.
Pretty grisly - not for the squeamish.

No End In Sight

Best doc I've seen since Enron. No amount of head-chopping in 300 or Apocalypto induces the nausea I felt while watching these bastards who run our country.

Cinema Verite at its finest. Beautiful movie. Best of the year.

Meh. I appreciated the whole "different perspectives" but thought overall it didn't do much. The one thing I thought about after the movie was over was[spoiler] the perspective of the wife of the killer and how she acted but didn't act on it[/spoiler].

Definitely best of year. Great movie and soundtrack. I also loved [spoiler]the lack of a Hollywood ending[/spoiler].

very good film in the neo-realist tradition

Toni by Jean Renoir

very good film in the neo-realist tradition. although i guess it predates the rise of the genre by 20 or so years.

I'm checking this out either tonight or tomorrow night.

TRAPPED ASHES

5 directors = 5 short films?

Yeah. It sounds promising.

"...Ken Russell’s wonderfully cheesy “The Girl with the Golden Breasts,” in which a starlet’s unorthodox boob job leaves her with “vampire tits."

whoa

have you seen eros?

No. And I'm actually kicking myself for missing the Antonioni retrospective last month. Plus, Wong Kar Wai! Is it any good?

it's good. kar wai's film is good, antonioni's is odd, but soderberg's is the best out of the three.

Ken Russell movies are the champions of cheap special effects immortalized on hi-quality film stock.

I'm glad WOMEN IN LOVE came a couple of decades before he got comfortable with his style.

Don't forget your SHOOOOOES!!!

Harold and Kumar Go To White Castle - Extreme Unrated Version

I'm trimming my pubes. Hey, check it out: it's like a bonsai tree.

FLESH

This is the type of film that's great based on it's history more than it's substance. Although, it's silent counterpoints on the otherwise deeming criminal views on abortion, sex and money are strong and valid. Also, Dallesandro's antihero commitment to marriage is something unexpected, considering his character's line of work.

Evil Dead

yeah, it's pretty great

this must be the first film ever to have a homosexual love triangle theme going on. 1924! good film.

Killin' time before work with the commentary for:



Star Wars: Attack of the Clones

OK, the movie still sucks holy hell - it's got as much charisma as a cardboard box. However, the commentary is pretty interesting in regards to the truly astounding amounts of effects sequences. But it's pretty unbefuckinglievable that the filmmakers were able to cut+paste/split-screen entire conversations together from "the best take by each actor" and yet, the main character performances are the most damning element of these prequels. Makes you wonder: how bad were the rejected takes if this was the best they could assemble?

Scary.

On a related note: I really miss Star Wars. I haven't watched the original series in at least a decade, mostly because there isn't a high quality version of the films available. I absolutely hated the special editions, and with all the technology they've developed over the past 25 years it stuns me that they can't simply remaster the original theatrical releases for modern home cinema. Sigh....

Yeah, it is.

Lots of people prefer the second one, but man, I'm all about this first film. The weirdass claymation gut spilling stuff, the awesome, awesome ending, everything... fantastic.

Classic.

Good shit.

ps: heard the sequel to harold and kumar is in the works for next yr. but i have no idea if that is valid information.

Star Wars Episode IV - A New Hope (1977 & 2004 Versions, 2-Disc Widescreen Edition)

Lucas did release DVDs recently with the original cut included. However, they were pretty much trashed in reviews because they did no work on the sound/video to update them for current DVD expectations, such as 5.1 surround sound.

Oh I got those releases - and they look absolutely terrible. The original edits are considered "bonus material" and they're not in surround, they're not anamorphic for widescreen TVs, and the prints used are lousy transfers (colors bleed together, low contrast, etc). Bloody shame, really.

it's not just a rumor

they're going to the netherlands or wherever that girl on the elevator told Harold she was going to

just finished clueless.
woefully underrated.