If you haven't seen this.....

I watched the first three or four episodes via fansub when it was airing in Japan, but never finished it. Worth catching the DVDs?

I thought it was amazing. I saw most of the series off the of the dvds, and hit the final 2 or 3 or something via fansub (I couldn't wait). I think I might like the fan subs more.

hmm, saw knocked up a few days ago. solid comedy. my only complaint is the lack of connection between the 2 main characters. i just didn't feel like they bonded as much as the movie wanted us to believe they did, which shouldn't be the case for a movie that is just over 2 hours in length. but yea, great moments in this one...doormandoormandoormandoorman.

paul rudd after taking his hand out of his mouth...it tastes like rainbows.

been re-visiting the three colors trilogy.

i have always said my favorite was blue, but wow, julie delpy's character is so fucking great i may have to change my opinion on that.

Yeah, I watched Knocked Up again last night. "Solid" is definitely the right word there. Shit holds together, much better than The 40 Year Old Virgin could have hoped to. At least the more tangential and distracting scenes managed to be really fucking funny.

"Fetch!"

And yeah, White. That and Red constantly battle it out for top of the Colors pile for me. Love Blue, but man, I'm more about the kickass unraveling "bunch of awesome shit contained in these awesome movies" plots in White and Red than the "beautiful symbolism, blah, blah, blah, hot chick on screen the whole time being hot" understatedness of Blue. Great movies all around, though.

"They have five types of chairs in here!"

It was a pretty funny movie.

DADJ was excellent.






This Is England was alright. I had some trouble deciphering the accent and slang in the beginning. The "lost childhood" theme seemed forced, too.

I couldn't agree more. I thought Tom Hanks performance in Castaway was too show-offy. But Smith's performance was very natural. Without being overt, he clearly portrayed a man living on the edge of sanity. One of the best of the year.

the Prestige

2nd viewing = still a pretty cool flick.

Could this movie be any longer or more convoluted/generally batshit insane?

Glad it's (supposedly) the last one.

Batshit insane in a good way, esp. with Johnny Depp in the desert talking to himself.

We bought Harry Potter & The order of The Phoenix. Get the 2-disc one for 6 bucks more, just for the docs. Male HP dorks like me will fall for Natalia Tena a.k.a. "Tonks", the host of a behind-the-scenes tour featurette. Why hasn't anyone written more about her?

That deluxe edition stuff is garbage, every store is hiding it somewhere ridiculous so you'll accidentally buy the lame one, then have to come back for the real product later.

It's pretty much a standout, with the holographic tinged cardboard sleeve.

I just watched it for the first time. Much better than expected. There were some great moments with Seth Rogen and his friends. And surprisingly Katherine Heigl wasn't nearly as intolerable as she is in Grey's Anatomy.

Heigl said last week that she didn't really like the movie. Nevertheless, she's pretty well cast in it considering how uncomfortable she has to be in every scene while each of them are being stolen from her by better, funnier actors and actresses.

She said something along the lines that she thought it was sexist and she didn't like the film. Someone then reminded her that Judd Apatow is probably the most powerful comedy director out there right now since his comedies have grossed somewhere around a billion dollars during the last 3 years.

She has since backtracked and said that working on "Knocked Up" was one of the most rewarding professional experiences she has ever had.

1408

Well, not what I expected. And what I expected totally.

What I expected:
Cusack's trademarked expression register (blank stare, blank stare with mouth open, looking puzzled, looking puzzled with mouth agog), and voice (slightly gruff drama teacher or slightly gruff drama teacher punctuated with "What!")
A miserable third act and conclusion
Sam Jackson saying "fuck" at some point

What I didn't expect:
Some really nice direction, particularly with the pacing of Cusack moving from room to room, looking for "it"
Imaginative transitions when shifting from delusion to delusion [spoiler](the post office being destructed back into the room was great)[/spoiler]
Nice little bits of macabre, used in hotel parlance [spoiler](express check-out)[/spoiler]
[spoiler]No explanation of the room and why it might be the way it was-- very little backstory, which was a good idea[/spoiler]

Over the weekend I also caught:

Which was on a cable access station out of Waukegan. They usually run The World of the Weird Monster Show, but this time they ran some other cable access program, that tried a MST3K-style serving of the movie. It didn't work. The thing that was interesting was the movie actually cut through the jokes, and it held my interest throughout the entire showing.

I also watched it a couple of days ago and had the same reaction.

Loved that movie!
http://soundopinions.org/forum/index.php?s...mp;#entry257368

And clever use of The Carpenters.

I drove by Campus Cinemas in DeKalb and saw that this was playing.

At first I thought it might have been a rare local production about Sausage.

Days of Heaven. I could take or leave the writing, but the acting was good and it was so gorgeous. Shot almost entirely at the "magic hour" most of the exterior shots are silhouetted, and I am easily stirred by flat landscapes and big skies.




Also, like Apocalypse Now, I need to watch M*A*S*H (the movie) at least once a month to keep my spirits up.

"Live Free or Die Hard" is a fun, stupid action flick. Probably just as good as any of the other Die Hard sequels. Olyphant should play more villains. He could be the next Wilhem (sp) Defoe.

That fight scene with the Aisan lady was right up there with Jackie Chan's shit.

Speaking of Cusack: "The Contract" with Morgan Freeman was a lot better than I expected. It could use a little more editing, but hats off to Beresford for for taking the road less taken for most of the movie.

one of the best biopics ever

I saw DADJ about a year ago. Thought it was a pretty good doc, but didn't quite see what the big deal was. DJ was an interesting, troubled man who had his 15 minutes of fame in a not quite completely Syd Barrett-sort of way.

And his songs weren't that good.

Sorry.

for me its the fact that his love of music was the best thing about him. you felt his entire soul in all he did

One of these does not belong...

I know a guy who's writing/recording some songs w/ him. My feeling is that it will end badly.

Well, if I had a gun and Dax Shepard said, "look in your heart," I would blithely shoot him in the face.

I disagree, as would many people who've covered his songs.

I woke up early this morning to watch the ABC Family classic, "Christmas Every Day."

By far, it is my favorite cheesy, horrible, Christmas movie.

Vanishing Point
Pretty cool movie. Thanks for the reminder, shock.
Quite a few parallels with Easy Rider, though thankfully without the indulgent "arty" sequences and a lot less hippies.
I really dug the way they shot the desert landscapes.

Yah, it's a fun one. Couldn't tell ya about the Easy Rider parallels for I couldn't make it thru more'n 20 minutes of that one. Dunno why, it just didn't grab me.
But Vanishing Point - yeah, cool flick.

Speaking of Cool Flicks - check out what juuuuuust arrived in the mail last night:



Blade Runner - 5-disc Ultimate Edition

^OK, spill. I read about the contents, but the question is (of course): is this worth it?

My guess is no but then I'm itching to see the 'final' version myself w/o being devoted to buying the whole set.

The briefcase is silly, but the stuff inside is kinda cool in a nerd-sorta way (film cell, miniature origami unicorn, toy futuristic police car + original art design drawings). The 5-disc is the only way to get the work print in addition to the 3 previous versions + the new final edit. No, I haven't watched the films as yet (altho I've been a fan of this flick for years) but I leaped right into the 3+ hour long documentary - which was really awesome. Now that I know how it was made, I can't wait to watch the film thru "technical" eyes.

Being that both the Blu-Ray + HD versions are sold without the silly limited edition briefcase, I suspect they'll release the 5-disc version on conventional DVD sometime in 2008, and probably for a little less money.

What's the "work print"?

I have the briefcase-less, 5-Disc Blu-ray version sitting under my tree right now. My brother picked up and is currently watching the 2-Disc DVD version. I promptly asserted my claim to future greatness.

Revisiting an old friend:



Teachers

I'd almost totally forgotten about this one. So many entertaining (if cartoon-ish) performances, solid writing,... yeah.. still holds up. It was decent way-back-when, and it's still decent now. Some great lines flit through every scene, although the timing of certain lines occasionally skips a beat. Ralph Maccio is absolutely dreadful as a rebel-with-a-heart-of-gold, buuuuuut Nick Nolte's big drunk scene with Judd Hirsch is hilarious and brilliantly executed.

"I GOT TENURE!!"

amazon just delivered this one to my desk, and this is a sweetheart deal:


How The Grinch Stole Christmas (+ featurettes and the Horton Hears A Who! cartoon special)
The Year Without A Santa Claus (+ featurettes)
Rudolph's Shiny New Year
Nestor The Long Eared Christmas Donkey
Frosty's Winter Wonderland
'Twas The Night Before Christmas
Rudolph & Frosty's Christmas In July

All in one shiny box for $20. Coupled with the original Rudolph/Santa Claus/Frosty box set, I won't need to buy another Xmas DVD ever again.

Nice! That is a deal!

"We're the last stand of civilization. Without us: anarchy. Or worse: a baby boom. Do you know what those little monsters would be doing if they weren't in school? Fucking! Like fucking little rabbits!"
"You mean I'm a contraceptive?"
"Yes, and one of the best."

recent viewings...


Stunningly bad in so many ways, but even amid the countless swing-and-a-miss attempts at humor (did I really hear "your nipples are dumb"?!), overlit swamp scenes, and completely incongruous score, there is some entertainment to be gleaned from the insane ferocity of the kills, which were all done as practical effects rather than CGI. Billing itself as "old school American horror", it is essentially a typical post-Scream Myspace generation horror flick, mostly suspense-free, never establishing a convincing atmosphere and not nearly as clever as it thinks it is.



Maybe my 3rd viewing? I'd probably put it in my top 5 Bonds. Lean, unpretentious fun that perfectly sets the stage for the series. And I always seem to have forgotten just how hot Ursula Andress was. Yowza.