I found The Matrix quite a bit more compelling, mostly because I was impressed by LF and the agents, not to mention its superior artistic look. Though Ewan does give Keanu a run for his money in the wooden lead department.

I was also heartily disappointed in SJ's role. Yaaawn.

Yeah - how about that? She's all pale and ethereal-looking in the underground lab, but the moment she gets to the surface she magically acquires lipstick and a tan. Nice. Little details like that make me snicker.

Matrix was defintely a more riveting concept, but only the first movie, and only the first hour. The second half was dominated by a "Keanu Reeves - action hero" motif that I just didn't buy, and subsequently lost interest in the film. I really don't know why I bothered to see Reloaded - that was so effin' terrible that I refuse to watch Revolutions - and I don't care how many MAtrix-heads try to tell me that I'm missing out.

On that note - I think Ewan is way more interesting than Keanu (Trainspotting, anyone?) altho you wouldn't know it by watching any of the Star Wars flicks. Island didn't start to lose me until the 85-minute mark, which is right about when the story 'moved upstairs' and quickly began to substitute action for plot. Tsk. But then again, we're talkin' about the dude who directed Armageddon - so I really shouldn't be too surprised, right?

Ewan McGregor
Notable Films:

Trainspotting
Emma
Nightwatch
A Life Less Ordinary
Velvet Goldmine
Little Voice
Stars War I
Rouge Trader
Eye of the Beholder
Moulin Rouge!
Nora (As James Joyce!)
Blackhawk Down
Star Wars II
Big Fish
Robots
Valiant
Star Wars III
The Island

Keanu Reeves
Notable Films

Dangerous Liasons
Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure
Parenthood
Point Break
My Own Private Idaho
Dracula
Much Ado About Nothing
Even Cow Girls Get The Blues
Little Buddha
Speed
Johnny Mnemonic
A Walk in the Clouds
Chain Reaction
Feeling Minnesota
The Last Time I Committed Suicide
The Devil's Advocate
The Matrix
The Replacments
The Watchers
The Gift
Sweet November
Hard Ball
Matrix II
Kid's Story
Matrix III
Something's Got To Give
Thumbsucker
Konstantine
(A Scanner Darkly)

.....

I'm telling you, if I had to pick a list of movies to watch, I'd pick Keanu's. I remember him being really good in Parenthood.

This is a specious take on what constitutes "notable" films, as it includes his animated voiceover work but inexplicably excludes three of his five best (with Trainspotting and Moulin Rouge:) Shallow Grave, The Pillow Book, and Down With Love. In those three alone he shows more range than Reeves does in his entire filmography.

But I'd rather see Reeves in the dopey action films.

Well I fucked that up then.

Young Adam and Brassed Off should also be on that list

Valiant and Robots are animated so they don't count really.

The Island got people's hopes up as it had those two in it. Sheer 30 minutes from it and you might be able to salvage a 7/10 action film from it. Stick Keanu and some bint from The OC and it wouldn't have flopped. Ewen and Scarlett aren't big enough stars in the US to carry that film together.

As much as I hated the Star Wars prequel, I liked McGregor in all three.

And I'm a tool. My bad.

Severely flawed, even in this version (never saw the other one), but Lee Marvin is great.

As you might expect, the Elliott Smith cover of "Thirteen" tore me up.

yeah, I couldn't even see this one through. But I usually watch war movies with a cynical eye anyway. Lee Marvin was great in Point Blank, though.

there are some parts where it drags, but over all I enjoyed this movie.
some parts are laugh out loud funny. Bob Saget & Gilbert Gottfried steal the movie (there is a sentece that has probably never been said before). Loved Sarah Silverman's take on 'the joke'

that guy telling the joke with his infant son sitting on his lap was 50 kinds of wrong, but it just made it that much funnier

If you like the "half his head is a big orange" joke, you'll like this movie. If you don't, well, you have no sense of humor.

when I tell this joke, I have stolen the best (grossest) parts of Saget's & Gottfried's versions and I've added a bit with synchronized swimming

From what I've heard this's the funniest thing Bob Saget's said since that one about having sex with the Olsen Twins...

This film by Steven Soderbergh, what is supposed to be the first film ever released on DVD, Cable and in the theaters all at once is quite an interesting experiment. It's slow moving, the actors are about as real as real can be without being a documentary. Ebert was right, the detective's clinical way of doing his job was compelling. The photography was great (all digital), and the story was involving.

Robert Pollard did the music for "Bubble" as well...if that sort of thing interests anyone.

I'm about to watch this.

finally got around to checking out enron: the smartest guys in the room recently. i'd only ever skimmed over articles about this scandal and didn't know anything about their connection with the california blackouts, other than that they were somehow involved with california energy once it became deregulated. it's not really the type of movie i like or don't, but i definitely learned a few things.

Some Mothers Do 'ave 'em! 4 Episodes on one DVD: Have a Break, Take a Husband/ RAF Reunion/Cliffhanger/King of the Road. Some great physical comedy, and who'd a thunk that Michael Crawford would make such a great nebbish?

I was touting that one on the old board. Kids can be so adorable, esp. when kept at a safe distance.



thank you. That movie has been stuck in my head ever since, and I have no idea why.

Betty, The cat done a whoopsie in my beret!

Compelling, but simplistic and sometimes dubious (ex. Gore Vidal being allowed to insist, unchallenged or supported, that Truman dropped the atomic bombs for no reason other than to intimidate Stalin).

I think Dargis nailed it in the Times: Here..

"I love children...prefeeably sauteed with onions..."--attributed to W.C. Fields

Haven't seen this in over a decade, never saw the widescreen, never heard the original non-dubbed audio track, and I tell ya, it's about fucking time they made this available to us lowly Amerikanz:



Quick review : the bonus materials are only so-so, but damn the print's been cleaned up considerably. Plus, you finally get to hear the original Australian actor's voices (which aren't hard to understand at all - I have no idea what prompted the AI studio to overdub the film for all these years). No, this isn't a great film, but wow the stuntdriving is unreal. In the mini-making-of-documentary, the photographer mentions about how he was sitting on the back of a motorcycle, shooting a high speed sequence, and didn't notice how fast they were driving until he saw the speedometer in the rushes - 120 kph. They were really crazy filmmakers back then - actually tear-assing around the Australian countryside like bats outta hell with souped-up police cars, racing bikes and a couple of biker gangs for extras. Now, that takes some balls, yo. And nobody got killed. Amazing.

All in all, this latest release is definitely worth the $10 I spent. If anything, it finally feels like an actual movie and not just someone's backyard experiment, and after all these years, I finally get what all the fuss was about over this film.

Consider me pulverized.

Not only was this way better than it had any right to be, it instantly joined my pantheon of films I could watch anytime. Monster kudos to Clan Depravity for putting me on to this.

^^^^^^ that is a really great movie. not at all sappy like i though it would be.



9 songs - well, well, well... had i known this would be straight-up porn with a few concert clips thrown in, i might've rented it instead of buying it. even i was squirmy during the sex scenes and that never happens to me.

Tim Burton's Corpse Bride sucks balls. I knew it would suck balls, but seriously, it sucks balls better than a Thai teenager.

Cinderella Man might be a 'feel-good blahdie blah..." but it's one of the best feel good blahdie blahs I've seen in a while. I mean--even though you know where it's going--they actually allow some suspense and tension to creep in. 15 rounds--Jeebus Christ! Giamatti was good, but it certainly wasn't his best. If he gets the Oscar, it'll be because he shoulda got it a long time ago.

The Aristocrats is fucking hilarious. CARTMAN steals the show!

And I just read you guys talking about "the Island". Jesus fucking Christ?! You folks are actually paying money to watch Michael Bay movies?

I mean if you want to watch something falls apart in the 2nd half by going into action and losing the plot, you could just watch "I, Robot".

Michael Bay? Makes me think of that song from Team America...

Still waiting on "Oldboy" and the rest. In the meantime, got this:

"Happy Endings" was an awful experience. Some okay moments, and yeah, Maggie Gyllenhaal is sort of sexy, but the writer/director needed to figure out how to cut, cut, cut.

Excellent and as 'adult' a look at marriage as any movie these days. Donen's best feature along with 'Singin in the Rain'. A 1967 precursor to 1970s cinema.

One of my favorite movies. Let me know what you think.

btw, Syrianna is the best movie I saw in the theatre this year. I just wish there would've been a gay character in it, then it would have a chance at the Osars.

Gay is the new handicapped to the Academy.

Wasn't black hot for while?

I watched it at a small cinema cafe with a 250 pound dude wearing suspenders and sporting gigantic gray beard mere inches away.

I just watched that the other night. Visually great, the lighting was excellent, and I was totally into the idea up unitl Victor claimed he would voluntarily end his life to stay with the Bride. That little character fuckup brought home all the other flaws in the film, and I wound up thinking it was gibberish when all was said + done. Not enough music to be a musical, not enough intelligent characterizations with which to identify, and let's just admit that if someone gave you the remains of your beloved pet as a wedding gift, you would turn tail (egad) and run like the wind.


I liked Island a lot more than I Robot. Well, the first half, anyway. I don't think the "Michael Bay" effect kicked in until the characters got to the surface. Then it truly annoyed me. I was snickering with every line of dialogue from 80 minutes 'til the end. Pity. Was such an interesting idea, too.

Was thinking of watching either Broken Flowers or Downfall tonight. Any recommendation for which way to go?

The Island was actually very involving for the first half, but it just went on auto-pilot afterwards. The scene with Michael Clarke Duncan fighting for his life has to be the most heart-wrenching moment Michael Bay has ever produced.

Downfall is very good. The acting is superb. Haven't seen Broken Flowers but Jarmusch is hit or miss with me. I've heard good things about this one though. Let us know how it is if you decide to watch it.

Watched Roman Polanski's infamous 1971 stab at Macbeth. Cofinanced by Playboy. Good stuff. Atmospheric and effective. Extreme violence to be expected since this was the first film he made after the Manson murders. Hasn't been a better one since but there's a couple coming in the next year or two.

It was one of my faves from last year, but to be fair, I gave those flaws a pass. It was more like eye candy, which is why I went to see it, not for the story.

A Nightmare Before Christmas was a better movie, but I still liked Corpse Bride for what worked.



Powerful, the acting was great. The whole pictured walked this fine line where it was funny one moment and wrenching the next, like the scene were Cynthia gradually remembers Hortense's father. It's hilarious for a moment, up until she just falls apart and refuses to talk about him. I've only seen two other pictures by Leigh, Topsy Turvy and Vera Drake, but it's amazing what he can get from the actors.

Pretty much everything I expected it to be, but still a good old-fashioned piece of American filmmaking. The boxing scenes were some of the best I've ever seen though. I've never cringed as much while watching a choreographed fight.




A little late to this one, but wow, what a terrific movie. I might look at it again tonight before I go to bed. Surprisingly tense.

when i saw spellbound in the theater, people applauded when the kid on the cover was eliminated. it was great.

That's what we wound up watching. Yeah, the acting was pretty tight. One day, I would like to see a well-done epic about how the entire WWII unfolded. i've always wondered just how did a looney like Hitler get the job? I mean, sure I could read a history book, but I am of our modern media culture and would really only like to dedicate SO much effort to finding things out, you know?


"Do I sound like a ro-bot?" had us in hysterics.

The Pillow Book.
EDIT: OK somebody else said it. Wish we could still delete posts.

It bore repeating.

He was elected. The Nazis won a small percentage of seats in the Geman parliment and assumed complete control through bullying and backroom deals with the President.

See? It's just not as captivating to read than it is to watch on a big screen, with guns, explosions and dead bodies everywhere.

Don't take it personally, but I DESPISED this movie. I cringed throughout. But, if it makes you feel better I'm usually a sucker for well done romances. I loved "The New World" and the recent "Pride and Prejudice" flicks. (and your avatar shows you probably like the same kind of comedies I like!).

Nice to know you picked "Downfall". I hope we get that one soon. I think we are getting "Broken Flowers" very soon.

And visually, the 'nightmare' of CB was interesting. But c'mon, the WORST part of these last 2 flicks--Elfman's music! I just can't believe that the Oingo Boingo iconoclast has finally fun out of hooks...

Ah, Elfie's been stuck in a serious rut since the first Batman flick. Ever notice how all his themes sound alike? As in more than just stylistically? Danny needs to fiddle around with something other than soundtracks for a while. I miss hearing his lyrics.

That's exactly how I expected to feel about it. And yeah, in a lot of ways it's a spectacular mess of a movie--it throws way too many stories at the screen, a couple of which don't quite work, and at times it's a strange mix of characters and caricatures--but for some reason, maybe the circumstances, it just hit me like a ton o' bricks.