Err OK, I found the politics of a country being occupied were played out quite well. The Dutch press hated it if that makes you feel better.

I pretty much agree with Mitch on Zwartboek. Lot of flash over substance. Some of the performances were uneven too.

Yet I did not, not enjoy it.

Do you like Verhoeven's movies in general (Robocop, Total Recall)? It's a logical extension of all of them. He's a subversive satirist.

Very much so w/r/t Robocop, Total Recall and even a little Showgirls. I wasn't too crazy about Starship Troopers but I thought the editing and presentation were fantastic and a little ahead of it's time.


I don't disagree. But given the advance word I was hearing on Black Book, led me to believe this was going to be a more..I dunno, a more sobering film.

Like I said, I did enjoy Black Book but I was expecting something a bit different. Does that make any sense?

A Verhoeven film sobering?

I was being told it was Verhoeven's "serious" take on WWII. Expectation /= reality.

That's what I was led to believe about this film, too, based on reviews I read --that this was a more serious film from Verhoeven (not to be expecting Schindler's List, mind you, but something with a bit more nuance of sincerity...)

It is serious and nuanced. It had one irony after the next. Those qualities come across through his usual means of undercutting audience expectations about who the audience should identify with and general critique of any attempt to be a true believer in anything. Which Verhoeven films do you were insincere? (except Hollow Man)

Hallowe'en Trifecta


Sleepy Hollow: This was a lot darker than I remembered, still lots of fun. Despite it being the second or third time I've seen it, I still kind of lost track of the plot by the end, but that's not really the point of this one, anyway, is it?


Shaun of the Dead: What can you really say about this one? Terrific, hilarious, and probably the only thing keeping me from ranking it among my favourite movies of all-time is the fact that I don't watch many horror films, so I'm probably missing about a million nods and references.


Silver Bullet: My parents love this one, and it is actually pretty fun. A kid (Corey Haim) in a wheelchair, does battle with a werewolf. Some fun gore and an especially fun performance by Gary Busey made it a great Hallowe'en night flick. I so need to watch more Gary Busey movies.

So glad I'm not the only one who likes this movie. It unfairly gets lumped in the run of mediorcre-to-horrid Stephen King '80s movies (Firestarter, Christine, Pet Sematary). Megan Follows (PBS's Anne Of Green Gables) was pretty good in it too, as I recall.

Actual family discussion afterwards:
My brother (who hasn't seen it): So what is Silver Bullet about anyways?
Me: It's about a kid in a souped-up wheelchair who battles a werewolf.
My mother: You know when you sum it up like that, it sounds kind of stupid.

But it's completely fun. I think the fact that the acting's pretty solid (Well...maybe not the preacher...) is what keeps it from being completely cheesy to me.

I loved that movie. True, it's cheesy and hokey, but it's fun. Whenever it comes on as a midnight movie, I find myself suckered in.

Oh yeah, I nearly forgot I watched Smokin' Aces the other day. Seeing the previews, I pretty much wrote this off as American Snatch (the movie, I mean, not the vagina), and had no plans to watch it. My sister saw it (for some reason) and told me to watch it and I found completely engrossed and enjoyed it tremendously. Jason Bateman was the best thing in the movie, and I loved every minute he was onscreen, Ryan Reynolds was really good, while Common and Alicia Keys handled themselves capably. I really think the commercial that billed it as "Gunshot. Gunshot. Explosion. Expletive. Plot Twist." undersold it as rather than being straight beginning to end action, it built nicely up to the carnage. Although I might not go as far in my praise as my sister did ("I liked it way better than the crappy Departed"), I was still mightily entertained.

Also, even if you have no interest in the movie, you need to check out the Ben Affleck outtakes. Affleck plays a tough-guy bail bondsman and there is a scene where he explains the situation to his partners, while playing pool. But, it turns out, Affleck is absolutely brutal at pool, so while he's talking all tough, he's missing very basic shots, sinking the wrong balls, and failing to break. It's seriously one of the funniest things ever, as you can hear the crew laughing and getting exasperated with Affleck.

caley is in the American Snatch business.

I still wanna check out Smokin' aces

Smokin' Aces is actually pretty good, although it doesn't tread any new ground in the whole "mob action ensemble" genre.

I wish. Those guys can really fly.

The War of the Worlds - Special Collector's Edition

Good: Color restoration is excellent; stereo sound restoration is pretty clear; commentaries + documentaries are cool.
Bad: You can still see the wires.

What a disappointment. I think I forced myself to laugh a couple of times just to snap out of boredom.

Complete shit. 1 star.

Gotta say I completely disagree. I thought it was hilarious, though not as funny as Superbad but probably a better movie. All of the stuff I found really hilarious, usually centered around Paul Rudd's character, like the rotisserie baseball and when his wife is pointing out all the sex offenders who live in the neighbourhood and he says something to the effect of "Well I won't go asking them to babysit".

But, I can also see one being completely non-plussed about this movie as the hype going in pretty much guarantees disappointment.

EDWARDS SCISSORHANDS

I had not seen this movie in years, but watched it last April when my mom gave it to me as a b-day present. I didn't think much of it anymore, it felt flat. Then I saw it last night, and fuck, it's wonderful. Excellent camera work, acting by Johnny Depp, etc. The ending is still a bit sloppy, but I just love this film.

I almost rented this one the other day..... then I remembered it was highly recommended on this forum.

If you want your IQ to drop 40 or so points, feel free. I still haven't fully recovered.

Especially insulting was the use of the "dying soldier scene" music from the Good, the Bad and the Ugly for a very unfunny, forgettable moment.

Really enjoyed this one. Unfortunately the version I watched was the Director's Cut, and IMHO had the weaker ending. The theatrical release ending seemed superior.

I found the first half to be the better portion of the film.

If the fantasy baseball thing is the best you can cite as an example that says enough. It was completely predictble. I wanted Ben to die by the end. Serious. He wasn't funny. His jokes weren't funny. His friends weren't funny. Had they all died from the MRSA skin disease I would have given it a standing ovation.

It's like Jud Apatow is some untouchable director that no one wants to diss. His movies suck.

Freaks and Geeks was his high point. Dude should hang it up.



You totally saved your time & money.



Now, I just watched Deathproof. That is a fucking movie I fully endorse. Brilliant.

Definitely leagues better than Planet Terror. The first half was brilliant.

But didn't the ending feel tacked on?

I don't know about that. The bar dialogue in the first half, the lap dance, the music, Kurt Russell were all so perfect. I had no idea how he was going to conclude the car chase scene at the end. So, I feel like he didn't either but just really wanted that car chase scene to be so bad ass the end didn't matter.

Dexter
I'm in the middle of watching season one of this show.
Nice to see that one of the six feet under cast got another quality show.
Dexter, the sympathetic serial killer

I really enjoyed the first half and the characters in first batch of victims. The dialogue was forced - I couldn't see the female characters talking in Quentin-speak, but whatever, I can give that a pass. After the first half, the rest was so anticlimactic. Also, I couldn't take the overexuberance of the stuntwoman - she should've kept her mouth shut. Definitely could've used some editing, but nobody seems willing to stop Tarantino when he's busy masturbating on screen.

the only problem i had with planet terror is the casting of tarantino. one director who should never have screen time.

goes without saying..everyone should own this.

Get the original. It's a classic.

well yea, but so is this and should be treated as such.

Yeah, that was really wild animation. Saw it at Doc Films a few years ago.
I never thought of looking for the DVD, but it would definitely be worth doing.

Gone Baby Gone

Goddamn, it's good. I mean really, really good. And not just 'cause I loves me some Casey Affleck. Total morality play going on here -- methinks it's gonna roam around my head for a while.

We watched 1-5, damn it was tedious. Soon we'll be on to the Friday the 13th flicks.

I guess there are worse things one might do to pass the time.

Up in my queue:
The World
The Bow
Superman Returns
Palm Video Director Series: The Work of Jonathan Glazer

I was way early for Into the Wild so I snuck into this and saw the first 45 minutes or so...not bad...but does it get much better post the scene where Affleck sits down with the badass drug lord in his crib?
The early scene in the shady bar where Casey pulls out the gun seemed a bit over the top. I could also do without the stereotype cop as played by the usually excellent Ed Harris.

Come on aggie...voting season is almost upon us. Replace those films with some 07' releases. Something's got to compete with Ratatouille and Bee Movie for your #1 this year.

Gone Baby Gone was so implausible I just couldn't believe any of it. So forced, so contrived. Ugh.

Watched "Spiderman 3" last night. What a huge sucktastic crapfest. That flick is a huge fall from grace after "2," which is arguably the greatest comic book super hero adaptation out there. I don't even know where to begin with the problems, so here's a few bullet points:

(1) Acting this time around wasn't just horrible, it was embarrasing. When Tobey was going through his dark symbiote phase, he wasn't dark, he just started wearing dark clothes. Oh yeah, and they messed up his hair and had him do a horrendous John Travolta/Saturday Night Fever impersonation.

(2) Too many fucking villains, and zero character development. For Christ's sake, the movie is only 2 hours 15 minutes, and Venom didn't get introduced until 1:35 into the flick.

(3) The CGI was horrible. This has always been a problem with the Spiderman movies, but it was less noticeable in the other two films (plus the otherwise good quality of the film balanced everything out). Here, it felt like the flick would literally cut from live-action to computer animation anytime Spidey started swinging around.

Anyway, sorry if these complaints are way late to the party.

Nobodies OTM on all points.

I can't believe the love for "Death Proof" and I'm a pretty big Tarantino Fan. I own both DP and Planet Terror; I have watched them both multiple times; and PT just kicks DP's ass all over the place. I said it elsewhere on this board, but Rodriguez just understood the exercise way more than Tarantino. PT has zombies, gore, lesbians, guns, stupid cheesey dialogue, etc. That's a grindhouse flick.

DP is "My Dinner With Andre" with a car chase tacked on at the end. I guess, to borrow a Tarantino analogy, there's PT people and DP people, and I'm most certainly a PT person.

Weren't there just as many villains in Spider-Man 3 as in Spider-Man 2, in three baddies?

(Also Planet Terror was pretty shit in comparison to Death Proof.)

I'd love to, but free movies from the library trump the cost of any other movie as of late. The last time we went to the theater was Harry Potter&tOotP. We will probably buy Ratatouille later this year just because it is what it is.

Oh- assumed when you mentioned 'In Q' that you had Netflix. Ya know- you can get it free for the first month then just cancel if you don't want to pay the $16.

No, there was really only one enemy in "2," Doc Oc. Harry Osborn and the Green Goblin make a brief appearance, but don't really have anything to do with the central plot of the flick.

My bad. (and I never use that phrase).

Also awaiting most of my movies from the library. Just picked up Knocked Up this morning, no sign of Superbad on their order list yet though which is disappointing. Wind That Shakes the Barley, Paris J'taime, Into Great Silence, Live Free or Die Hard, Pirates 3, The Host, and a few others on hold coming in soon.

Also watched Reservoir Dogs yesterday, loved it almost as much as Pulp Fiction. So now that I've seen those two, what's the next Tarantino to get?

Here's how I'd rank QT's directorial output:

(1) Pulp Fiction
(2) Reservoir Dogs
(3) Kill Bill Volum I
(4) Kill Bill Volume II (I flip-flop on Vols. I and II, so I might call it a tie)
(5) Jackie Brown
(6) Death Proof
(7) QT's segment for Four Rooms (which is a short film, so I'm not sure if it counts)

Hm. Didn't Doc Oct have a henchman or something? I don't remember. All the Spider-man films were terrible.