Don't you just love context? (I am trying to find a perfect fill-in for 'PT')

pussy taster???
pussy taser???

Darkon.

Interesting, I had no idea people were doing such things, much less in Baltimore. Brought the giggles more than a few times. In its defense, I suppose it's no different from the people devoted to doing Civil War reenactments. So nerdy, but earnest.



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Very odd little scene.
lol @ guy with sewing machine in background. Probably for making costumes.

How does this hold up as a documentary?

Curious...anyone ever see that Documentary "The Bridge" about folks jumping off the Golden Gate?

Darkon: Decent, but the characters aren't as endearing as other weirdo docs like king of kong, or the works of errol morris.

The Bridge was pretty good.



I've been contemplating starting the Lake County Doc Fest....we'll see.

It's pretty straightforward, goes into the life & potential motivations of one of the "leaders" more than anyone else...they didn't mention the Civil War reenactment angle at all, which leaves one with a suspicion that the directors initially wanted to portray these guys as a bunch of loser crackpots. But they don't come across as such (much).

Living so near the Golden Gate & having walked it a few times, I'd like to see The Bridge.

Death Proof

I dig this on many, many levels. Fucking brilliant hybrid of the old-meets-new. Does tend to ramble a bit during the second act and I kinda wanted more image distortion, but Kurt Russell outshines in this role.

This, however, wasn't quite as innovative yet had solid + editing, but slightly confusing plot at times. Also they kinda went too far on that last (of several) endings... Still, not bad.



Layer Cake

oh lord. what an abismal cover. way to fuck up a good film.. dumbass marketing twits..

Aqua Teen Hunger Force Colon Movie Film for Theaters: Even more deranged than I suspected. I'm glad that absolutely nothing is really resolved by the end of the movie, and am also a big fan of the fact that this film used "In the Air Tonight" better than Miami Vice did last year. I can't wait to watch the Deleted Movie from Disc 2. I only wish there were a special feature that detailed when ATHF shut down Boston amid reports of a terrorist attack. Also, great use of Tina Fey.

It's got guns & dolls, what else is there?

Colm Meaney

Sure did. Wrote about it here.

I cut out of work early yesterday to catch a matinee of Joe Strummer: The Future Is Unwritten at the Music Box Theater. Given that I hold the The Clash's London Calling at least partly responsible leading me on the long and damning path of musical obsession, if anything was going to get me to make a too-rare appearance in a movie theater, it was a Julien Temple documentary about one of my few pop-cultural heroes (at least circa 1980-81).

Although understandably, about half of this 2+ hour-long documentary focuses on Strummer's heady days in The Clash, this is not a Clash movie. There is considerable in-depth material in visual and audio footage of Joe's well-traveled middle class youth and art school and hippie rebellion. More fascinating to me were the clips of the post-Clash, pre-Mescaleros wilderness years. It's a really unflinching portrait of a man trying reconcile the not-so-pretty end of a group that was supposed to change the world, and trying to find himself in that world. And if there is such a thing as a happy ending in a movie where the subject dies a sudden and premature death, it's as clear to me now as ever that Joe Strummer was never as happy doing what he was doing and how he was doing it as he was at the end of his life.

While The Future Is Unwritten was often entertaining and occasionally informing, as a documentary, it left me a little empty. I went into this movie knowing that Joe Strummer was a supremely talented, but often conflicted and contrary man, and exited it learning little else but some particulars. In addition, I was too bothered by technique. Sure you have to have visuals to go with audio-only interviews in a film, but some of the "contextual" footage of boarding schools and Animal Farm animation (wtf) left me scratching my head. I know why Julien Temple chose to do most of the interviews in the flickering glow of big group campfires in London, New York and Los Angeles (the Mick Jones interviews were a notable exception), but that did not make the fluctuating light and flying sparks any less annoying to me. And interviews with Johnny Depp (!) and John Cusack (!!!) were pointless, and brought a few chuckles from a handful of the 20 or so in attendance. And would it hurt to put a caption over those campfire scenes, and identify the people being interviewed? I'm pretty astute in my Clash/Strummer history, and people like Don Letts and Steve Jones are easy to spot, but I'll bet better than 1/2 of them I had no idea who was talking, especially 20-25 years down the road.

So if you are a Clash or Strummer fan, I'd say seeing The Future Is Unwritten is essential. If you're not, as a documentary, this may inform you, but it probably won't move you or entertain you.

LITTLE BRITAIN SEASON 1. OMG YES.

I know why this show is so brilliant...

...an analogy...

Sometimes there are actors/celebrities that I find extremely annoying, and then they take on a role in which they portray a very lucid and merciless mockery of their own annoying persona, and I sort of love them for it. Think Mandy Moore in Saved and Alan Alda in Crimes and Misdemeanors (we have a complicated relationship, Alan and I). Anyway "Little Britain" does this but with like, an entire country.

Never seen this show, though I've always wondered if Wee Britain in Arrested Development was some sort of reference to it.

Save for a twenty second moment when Denzel shows his vulnerability to Crowe and a two minute scene where he's confronted by his mother, this flick is the very definition of mediocrity.
I honestly don't care to see another movie with Denzel from this point on.

Shame about every season after the first.

All hail Takashi Miike. Sure, it's cheese, but what great cheese. ("It's only Gamera!" )

That's what they say.
I saw the first episode of season 2, which is apparently the last good episode ever made.

I have to write a paper on this movie this weekend:

WHAT'S YR TAKE ON CASSAVETTES> [i]A Woman Under the Influence[/i]

I wanted to write about The Conversation but can't find a copy.

Joe Strummer - The Future Is Unwritten

Dug this from frame one to frame last. I understand Bob's contextual problems, but I didn't have them. Since I was married to a nice English girl for a few years, whose parents were in the forces, and she and her brother and sister went to boarding school, I could see where the film was heading. The intercutting of footage of both family and school, provides some context, and also shows the isolation he experienced-- not just from his classmates, but from being cut off from his family.

The 1984 and Animal Farm clips were actually very inspired-- they make a great illustration as to how capricious and arbitrary boarding school life is, even though it's under the mask of order, structure, discipline. It was a great way to give the feeling of the situation, without having to spend 20 minutes explaining it.

If there's a complaint I have about the movie it's just that I am afraid Strummer's life and legacy will suffer the "St John" effect-- everyone will forget the dark parts of Joe Strummer, just like everyone has forgotten the dark parts of John Lennon, and he's become something of a saint. Yoko Ono is doing just about everything she can to to make sure that Lennon is canonized, and attached to that canonization is a steady stream of income. I hope Strummer's widow doesn't go that route.

Incredible movie with arguably the single greatest performance by an actress ever. I wrote about this when I was in college years ago. I'll try to dig it up.

I watched it and IT WAS SO GOOD.

Speaking of Cassavetes, watched this last night:

Rosemary's Baby


later today:

The Lives of Others

Fantomas covers the theme song. As frightening as the film.

anybody see planet terror/deathproof in the theatres and on dvd? the dvds i've watched were possibly missing some great trailers that were shown for the theatrical release...or so i've been told. any truth to this?

This is the strangest movie. On its surface, it's a really cute story about a dog and a cat that are friends and the various adventures they have one day. It's very impressive and amazing how they got the animals to "act out" their scenes, and it's clear that it's all shot in real-time, without digital modifications (which makes sense, as it's from the mid-80s).

But I don't know how you watch it without thinking, wow, they really abused the shit out of these animals. Seriously, Milo the cat gets attacked by crabs, bears, and seagulls, is thrown off of a 50-foot cliff into the choppy ocean (I watched this scene a couple times and that is absolutely a live cat falling into the water), and is put into a small box and sent very precariously down a long series of white-water rapids. You can clearly see that the cat is absolutely terrified as they're filming it, but Dudley Moore keeps on narrating it like a Dr. Seuss story. And Otis the dog tumbles down a rocky cliff and is swiped HARD by a bear.

Don't know if that trumps Disney's crew shoving lemmings off the cliff in the True Life Adventure movie.

Really? I find hard to believe. Usually the DVD has more than what's offered in the theater. The trailers were the best part of Grindhouse...especially "Don't!"

This has been discussed and debated in previous posts, maybe only in Today Is Tuesday.

The original Japanese version was released in 1986 and the reworked English language version was released in 1989 in the United States.

Initially filmed as Koneko Monogatari (A Kitten's Story; alternate English title: The Adventures of Chatran) in Kitakyushu, Japan, the film was completely revamped, trimmed and westernized with added narration by Dudley Moore (Shigeru Tsuyuguchi narrated the Japanese version). Director Masanori Hata and associate director Kon Ichikawa edited the film together from 400,000 feet of footage, shot over a period of four years.

then there's the rumors..

"There were claims that The Adventures of Milo and Otis featured actual scenes of animal cruelty were true. I had a look online myself and couldn't find any authoritative sources to decide well enough one way or the other. What can you find?"

It's the stuff of urban movie legends - dozens of cats/dogs were rumoured to have been killed in the making of The Adventures of Milo and Otis, but it was covered up for the sake of profit.

The film seen here was the "westernised" version of the 1986 Japanese made-for-TV film, Koneko Monogatari.

Apparently, there were some "intense" scenes edited out for western audiences.

i.e. cut from 90 min to 75 min

Furthermore, threre's a 2006 article which says within months of the film being released in Japan, rumours of animal cruelty began to surface, and it is said that as many as 27 cats were killed in the production of the picture.

The American distributor decided to have the Japanese version re-cut, which is apparently a common thing to do with foreign films, in order to better market the movie to an American audience.

But from there it's all very rumour-mill. It has been argued that in some of the movie's scenes, it's still obvious the animals are in distress.

The American Humane Society does not include the film on its list of movie ratings - but the film wasn't shot in the US.

The Japanese director Masanori Hata is apparently a zoologist, who runs an animal farm in Japan.

Which begs you to ponder, surely a zoologist would not wish harm on any animal?

Indeed, this family's web journal account of meeting Masanori contains nothing but admiration for the man.

"He possesses an uncommon knowledge and sensitivity to animals and the world in general-having travelled and lived in every corner from the hidden reaches of eastern Tibet to the vast stretches of Africa."

Unfortunately, it seems anything really authoritative may not exist on the web, and so Milo and Otis will continue to be talked about with innuendo.

The Big Lebowski
Just rewatched this with a couple of friends who hadn't seen it before. Still holds up very well. Almost gets better with repeated viewings.
Ahhh... the glory day of the Coen bros.

It's so weird how there's no definitive answer on whether the animals were abused/killed in making this flick. It's funny too because my son's name is Milo and I can't tell you how many people, when they hear that, say "Oh, just like that movie Milo & Otis. I love that movie!" (Actually, he was named for the lead singer of the Descendents, but we stopped telling people that.)

I'm not trying to impose my animal-loving values on people (disclaimer: for years, my wife and I ran a pet-care company, and she still does, so our affection for cats and dogs is pretty high) but I still think the movie is pretty horrifying. Even my 3-year-old finds the whole thing disturbing, and kept saying, "Milo is crying" which the cat clearly was, in real life.

Anyway, I'm feeling kind of like a batty cat lady writing this, so I think I'll go smear veal all over my nudity.

Tell 'em you named him after the boy from The Phantom Tollbooth



Maybe they will think that's cooler.

Notes on a Scandal: This started with so much promise with Judi Dench s the evil old guard (Sample description of a colleague: "The pig in knickers"), jealous of the new attractive teacher. But, then it kind of peters out and just ends. It's interesting, but had the potential to be amazing. That said, Judi Dench, Cate Blanchett and Bill Nighy are all terrific.


The Last King of Scotland: I was also expecting more out of this one. Forest Whittaker is unquestionably amazing, but I couldn't help but feel that the story wouldn't have been more interesting if you got rid of the Scottish doctor who I found to be completely obnoxious and uninteresting. Also, if one were unfamiliar with Amin, the movie doesn't exactly do a lot to flesh out the character of Amin. For the first third or so, he's a sympathetic, charismatic character, throughout the second third, he's maniacal one minute, moody the next; it's not until the last third of the movie that he's portrayed as a monster, with the almost casual mention during the credits of "Oh yeah, he killed 300,000 people".

Flushed Away

Hey, we liked this. Aardman's designs are fabulous; the characters are well-played; and you just gotta love the slugs.

Soooooo good. I love it when a movie has a great story and is shot beautifully as well.

Good. Supposedly inaccurate, but good.

Yep..been discussed elsewhere...but the DVDs don't include most of the trailers. If i remember correctly, Planet Terror only has "Machete" because that was directed by Rodriguez); and I don't think "Death Proof" has any trailers. The trailers are supposed to be included with a deluxe boxset.

Room 1408

First half of the movie was okay, 2nd half sucked hard.

Superman Doomsday

I had low expectations for this one. Those expectations were not met. Really lame Cliff's Notes version of the Death of Superman story line.

Just picked up 1408, Bridge to Terebithia, Chalk, and You Kill Me at the library. Also in the middle of Talk to Me. Going to be a very movie-busy week.

Do you honestly think that storyline can be told succinctly in a OAV? Introducing Booster Gold, Superboy, Steel, Mongul and all that would have been a mess.

I liked it for the most part. They hit all the important beats of the original story.

My biggest complaints were the missed opportunity to have Henshaw peel away his face in the barber shop and the lines on Superman's face. Timm admitted that the lines on his face didn't translate how they hoped. I'm ok with that.

Lots of murder in the movie. Best part was Luthor shooting Mercy in the face point blank.

The lines on Superman's face did look distractingly odd throughout the movie.

I was surprised, pleasently, that it wasn't aimed at the kiddies.
The violence and implied sexual relationship between Lois & Superman was handled pretty well.

I know DC is planning on doing more of these direct to video movies based on comic story lines, I just hope the follow ups are better. It's a great concept.

Have you been following the news on New Frontier? I got word from an animator that the project is absolutely jaw-dropping.

And all the leaked scenes look straight out of Darwyn Cooke's masterpiece.



Barry Allen motherfuckers~!

A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving on ABC



Who doesn't love the original Peanuts holiday movies? This new one on after is pretty horrible so far though. He's a Bully Charlie Brown. Nothing says forced hipness like Snoopy skateboarding.

Weren't the originals cool without trying with that awesome Vince Guaraldi music.

I was hoping this would be one of the ones where Sally is voiced by Stacy "Fergy Ferg Gonna Love You Long Time" Ferguson, but according to imdb, it's not, so I probably won't watch it.

Charlie Brown specials jumped that shark with "Flashbeagle"
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A great document that contains nowhere near the extensive coverage that was in Woodstock, but Otis, Janis, Jimi and Ravi's performances will bring you towards a plane of ecstatic joy.