Fun:




Painful:

Uh, no.

Just saw Blade Runner in HD last night actually. The visuals in that movie are absolutely stunning.

I'm not so sure about this Buñuel dude.

I haven't seen it in a long time, but I didn't care for it much the two times I saw it in my teens. I've netflixed the new version, but doubt I'll be swayed enough to think it's one of the 100 best films of all time.

For the record, according to the IMDB top 250...

#51 - Alien
#102 - Blade Runner
#131 - Gladiator
#152 - American Gangster

Dude! Leave some room on the overrated charts for PT Anderson!

I was in the exact same spot as you before seeing it again this weekend. Never really saw the big deal about it when I saw it a couple times in college. Time or age or my HDTV have been very kind to it though, since I was blown away by it this time. Scott really created an entire world. And yeah, other movies "create worlds" too, but they almost all rely on CGI and/or a large chunk of the real world (e.g. Lord of the Rings). Blade Runner's world was created from scratch, with sets and miniatures. So much detail and imagination went into it--some of the best design I've ever seen in a movie.

The movie isn't perfect. The dialog can be a bit overblown, and the end gets pretty hokey. Still, it's one of the better sci-fi flicks out there. Give it a second chance.

Incidentally, I seem to have a pattern with not really liking heralded sci-fi movies on first viewings only to change my mind years later with subsequent viewings. Blade Runner joins 2001 and Close Encounters. Will Brazil be next?

I think you'll like these movies much more....I haven't seen Belle du Jour, but I've seen these, they are the classic surrealist sketches that he is well-known for

L"age D'Or (1930)
The Golden Age

The Milky Way (1969)

Le charme discret de la bourgeoisie (1972)
The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie

Le fantôme de la liberté (1974)
The Phantom of Liberty

Cet obscur objet du désir (1977)
That Obscure Object of Desire

Not to get all Sickpup on you here, but I have no idea what you actually like.

still dont know what to think about it. mad i didnt see it in the theatres, the animation was nice. i laughed a few times but obvs wanted more. wasnt as awful as i thought it would be, but wasnt as good as i hope it would be.

Side boob...nice.

I generally talk all day about shit I like.

The Coen Brothers, Besson, Jeunet, Fincher, Brad Bird, Gondry, Kaufman etc.

You know what, I saw Discreet Charm and was like, "Oh, yeah, this was sort of cool," and then Dr. Jimmy or some asshole was like, "That shit's boring." And this got me thinking, and I realized, "Holy crap, he's right. I love surrealist crap, don't get me wrong, but man, I have to say, fuck this movie. I don't need to pretend that this shit did nothing for me."

Fuck Belle de Jour, too.

Much better:

Ridley Scott can hang his whole career on Blade Runner as far as I'm concerned. The reason he's put out so many duds over the years is that he's really more of an art department guy than a director. It's too bad he lacks the humility to team up with someone with a better sense of story and motivating actors.

Bunuel kinda went in and out and back into surrealism again. The early works like Un Chien Andalou & L'Age D'or for ex. were distinct for this but once he left europe he shot his films in a more neo-realist fashion for a period before slowly revisiting surreal themes. Clearly they're tame now compared to the time in which they were first released. Yes some come off as dull I suppose considering the pace but then there's very few filmmakers who'd follow such an absurdists concept.

I'm sure it hardly comes off as stellar in your eyes but then it wasn't available for a long time and in part it was Scorsese who helped dig 'Belle' up and get it re-released.

btw. I'd rec. 'Simon of the Desert' If you can find it.

this was pretty good, but nowhere near as good as pan's and backbone.
i guess del torro didn't write or direct it but it had similiarities to those, child fantasy and hidden doors.

I think this is the last great Woody movie. I loved it more than I probably should, but some days I feel like it's the best movie he ever did.

"I bet you're hung like a horse"
"Yeah, I can ride a horse"

How refreshing it is to read this. I couldn't agree more. On both counts.

Yeah, huh, see, I'm trying to think of what I even expected from either film. Maybe not a totally ridiculous bizarro shitstorm, but somehow, the tone of both films completely failed to grab me. And I'm not always bored by films with that kind of pacing. Even the more brutally incongruous sequences didn't shake me the fuck up like I wanted them to. I'm going to check out That Obscure Object of Desire, of course, just to see if I totally don't get this dude. This Simon of the Desert looks good, though. Eh.

And a "fuck yeah" to Mighty Aphrodite, definitely. Saw about 3/4 of it recently, then got it from Netflix and watched the whole thing. Stellar film. I think I'm going to investigate some of his shitty 90s movies. Why not. They'll probably be worse than this one, of course. But Ebert loves Everyone Says I Love You and if Deconstructing Harry is really as awful as so many people make it out to be, it must at least be remotely entertaining.

"I like acting."

Alright, picked up a ton of good looking stuff again at the library. I need the SOMB to decide what I'm gonna watch first again:

The Hudsucker Proxy
Schindler's List
Sleeper
Network
Twin Falls Idaho
Dr. Strangelove or How I learned to stop worrying and love the Bomb
The Commitments
Great Expectations (the Gwyneth Paltrow one)
Tideland
End of the Century: The Story of the Ramones
The 400 Blows

Decide now.

Go with Hudsucker.

"Life is bullshit, Miroki."

If you've not seen these, you need to see them. If you're feeling more lighthearted, don't watch 400 blows. Save it for later.

If you want the most "New Years" themed go for Hudsucker (great underrated film). Come to think of it, I feel like I should watch it now as it is probably the most new years appropriate film I own.

on either side of seeing Jon Brion last night, we saw The Diving Bell and the Butterfly and The Savages.

Fucking GREAT 24hours.

The Savages is the worst movie I've seen all year.

So cloying, so precious, so not fucking funny at all. So fully in love with it's non-cleverness, so faux-poignant. So condescending, so insipid, so poseur-tastic.

Worse than Disturbia. Worse than Fracture. Worse than Revolver. Worse than Mr. Brooks. Worse than Perfect Stranger.

Just middling, pseudo-intellectual masturbation. Worst score of the year, continually at odds with the material. Occasional flashes of camera technique that serve no thematic (or artistic) purpose. Bouts of yelling masquerading as emoting. Linney seriously miscast as a character who was written as someone homely. Entire shots lifted out of better movies, most notably Alexander Payne's (turns out the movie was produced by payne, so the director was either beholden or smitten.) Huge tonality issues, overuse of inappropriate faux-ironic music tracks. And it totally abuses Philip Bosco as an actor.

Seriously, fuck that movie sideways.

Still looking forward to Diving Bell and The Butterfly, though.

You see too many movies.

edit: You see too many bad movies.

Trading Places

A classic!

Talk To Me: really wasn't that good.
Seemed pretty false.

Amazon has another sweet B1G1 sale on Blu-ray discs right now.

http://www.amazon.com/gp/feature.html?ie=U...11&plpage=1

Grabbed the first four Harry Potter flicks for $39.90 shipped. Sure, why not? I'll eBay the DVDs I have.

My least favorite Besson?

Christ that cover's awesome, though--what's the deal with this one?

It's probably his final directorial.

It's B&W. Kind of a drama/comedy/lite sci-fi. Unlike any of his movies. Although, I remember an interview at the time where he said...besides Nikita/Professional, he had never really made any similar movies, so he made a kids movie and this...

Having seen it revealed in the trailer, I don't think it's much of a spoiler that Angela [spoiler]is an Angel from heaven sent down to save the main character from killing himself.[/spoiler]

I don't know, I mean...it's like a 7/10, and I feel like that's the worst he's ever done, but it's still worth watching.

The chick is WAY bangable.

Wow, much better selection than the HD-DVD ones they've been having. I'm jealous. (And most of those titles are available in HD-DVD too)

Tell me, though, you didn't like the movie?

Bloody fun and grimness. Depp sings eerily like early Bowie, Helena Bonham Carter wipes away any thoughts of Angela Lansbury. Sacha Baron Cohen nearly steals it. Fine performances all around. [spoiler]Mrs. A. figured out the twist in the plot long before I did.[/spoiler]

For how expensive BR/HD discs are, they seem amazingly affordable with these crazy Amazon sales. The only full-price Blu-ray I've purchased is Superbad, but with these incoming Potter discs, I'll now have 10 BR movies/sets.

apocalypto (aka mad max goes to the jungle)


Numerous good things can be said about "Apocalypto," the director's foray into the decaying Mayan civilization of the early 1500s, but every last one of them is overshadowed by Gibson's well-established penchant for depictions of stupendous amounts of violence. (Kenneth Turan)

Let's face it: Hardly anyone will go see "Apocalypto" out of genuine interest in the pre-Columbian Maya civilization that is so problematically captured here. People are curious about this movie because of what might be called extra-textual reasons, because its director is an erratic and charismatic Hollywood figure who would have totally marginalized himself by now if he didn't possess a crude gift for crafting violent pop entertainment. No one but Gibson, arguably, would have tried to make an expensive studio-scale film on remote Mexican locations, shot in the Yucatec language with a cast of unknowns. (Andrew O'Hehir)

I couldn't take my eyes away from this despite its rudimentary plot and the bizarre facial expressions of many a victim from the numerous death scenes. Kind of a strange foreign-action historical piece circa mel. I'm sure there's plenty of mayan historians who'll say its complete crap but hey that's hollywood for ya.

Thank the format war for that. Also thank the format war for $100 HD-DVD players (which is how I'm in the game). Word is that Warner will go format-exclusive soon, which would effectively end the whole thing one way or the other.

saw sweeney todd yesterday. movie fucking sucks.

this however was worth my time:

Yeah, I supposed I showed about as much subtlety as the movie did. My bad.

Sweet. Wasn't crazy about this one, but I just ordered the first four films on Blu-ray from Amazon and my folks picked this one up for me at Disc Replay while in Orland today (saw it there last week). I swapped my regular DVD copies of the first four Harry Potter flicks for it since my parents wanted 'em.

Watched this last night. Wow.

The Night of the Hunter
with Robert Mitchum

See it if you haven't.

Funny, The Night of The Hunter just shipped today from Netflix.

Should be watching it tomorrow night or the next. Definitely a movie I've been very interested in seeing for quite some time now.

yeah i'll get the movie.
i find the movies a bit sprawling for me. maybe i'll read the books when my kids read the books. that gives me what? 20 years til thatll happen

Did not particularly care for this motion picture.

Now you can fully appreciate the layers of this Held post .

Heh--it would've been more humane to pm me! Some amazing performances there, for sure.

Bertolucci was a master. Pretty spotty in recent years, but those early films are undeniable.

I'm on break and have seen quite a few films recently.

Here's the short version:

Prime (meh, I watched it for professional reasons)

Fracture (ok, but predictable)

Rescue Dawn (pretty good, but very literal interpretation)

1408 (why does this movie exist?)

City of God (very good, and the featurette is just as good)

Once Upon a Time in America (pretty good, but not up to other mob-related films)

Full Metal Jacket (my expectations were high, and not met, but maybe because they were so high -- the Lee Ermey and Pvt. Joker scenes were GREAT, though)

7 Days (a Mexican film with U2 -- what's not to love? Except for all the cliches and the fact that the same story has been done far better many time before?)

Ghost World: At first I thought this was just going to be a teen chick flick with the benefit of having Scarlett Johanssen. And then it turned into one of the best movies I've ever seen. Thora Birch was great, Buscemi was great, and the movie was great. Highly recommended.

Later tonight: Best of Youth and Ponette.

Why not?

Once is my number on©e of the year. I'm surprised at the controversy on the SOMB.