Don't see the need for a dedicated thread, but inspired by TATTOO, my ten favorite Fantasy Movies:

First few.

Did some people in this thread say that MI:III was a good, or at least entertaining, movie apart from Cruise's performance? About halfway through, the only thing making this movie bearable are Cruise and Hoffman. The set pieces are impressive, but c'mon - they did the rogue agent thing in the first movie, which at least seemed credible. This movie is one impressive yet completely irrational development after another.

young@heart would have made a passable discovery channel special. terrible documentary. absolutely artless.

In Bruges: The opposite of The Fall in many ways. Piles on powerful emotional substance, but keeps the style very minimalistic. Colin Farrell was stunning, not usually a fan of his. Loved this.

Taxi to the Dark Side: A documentary that delves deep into US policy on torture. Goes into a lot of stuff about Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo Bay. It's actually supposed to be about a taxi driver who picked up three suspected terrorists, was arrested with them, and ended up dead 5 days later in US custody. The topic strays from that main story quite a bit though, talks more about torture in a general moralistic and legalistic sense. Very well done, and highly recommended for those interested in the topic.

Probably my favorite of the three.

I wasn't too keen on Farrell in it myself, Asher. I really liked Fiennes and Gleeson's performances, but Colin did little to nothing for me.

Caught a few minutes of this the other night, need to find & watch from the beginning but what I saw was depressing as fuck.

I should be punched square in the dick for only just now having seen this:



Phenomenal movie. Better late than never.
Thanks SOMB.

OY
this was so good. The scene where they just lie in the bed just gutted me. Connie Nielsen is gorgeous.

I looked at the cast of the American remake, and I think they cast it entirely too young with Portman, Gyllanhaal, and Maguire.

Connie Nielsen is hot, but she has no idea how to accessorize.

Hey produmbass, nice nod to Wizards, but no Beastmaster?

(needs its own thread, yes!)

Sorry, Ag, not a fan.

eastern promises

so looked forward to this and yet was meegerly amused at most. Viggo had his shit down pat but there's part of me that's just too familiar with russian/ukranian dialects to be ultimately disappointed in vincent cassel. even mueller stahl should have honestly been cast differently.

the play on 'translate the diary- save the baby' game was just tired and for the ending I was bewildered by this turn of events.

Even the tattoo art which was inspired by the doc on the work on russian prisoners was anything but disappointing. the workmanship of those is amazing both in detail and style. These just looked bland and sorry looking. overall it just rang hollow to me. HOV was far superior to this..sad but true.

word of advice prof. routinely images fail and the names don't reveal themselves by posting a jpg
perhaps add a name and in this case I've no idea how you'd rank these... although I suppose it's means little to me but I figured I'd just pass on the advice anyways..

Agreed, that was waaaay too neat and simple. It's the trip along the way with Vigo that only matters.

The first part of the advice is much appreciated, held. I do my best to avoid hierarchical rankings - I think quantifying the degree to which I love one thing over another is absurd.

I watched Rear Window, Vertigo and Psycho again over the last week. Damn. Will American cinema ever be that good again?

The new editions have excellent scholarly commentary tracks on RW and P. Unfortunately, Vertigo has William Friedkin in one his typically monotonous rambles but its still worth having for the restored print which took out the awful soundtrack modifications made for the restoration 10 years ago.

I fell asleep watching The Promotion



which reminds me of this funny little site.

I haven't seen any of Harmony Korine's other films in quite some time, but I liked this. It didn't blow me away, but there was some beautiful imagery and it felt much deeper and more genuine than I expected it to.

The Grand: Christopher Guest-style parody of poker tv shows. Some great names in the cast: David Cross, Woody Harrelson, Cheryl Hines, Richard Kind, Judy Greer, Michael McKean, Chris Parnell, Ray Romano, Jason Alexander, Werner Herzog, and some others. Sadly the movie doesn't live up to those names. Mostly feels like a long episode of Celebrity Poker. There are some occasional hilarious moments though. Herzog is great most of the time, and Phil Gordon steals the show as a sort of self-parody co-host. Cross and Hines are way underused. Supporting character moments add up to quite a few laughs. So my rec is only to those who love a bunch of these comedians, and would sit through some bland poker-playing for the funny stuff.

Just watched it, and I agree with the recommendation. The US was so wrong on so many levels with what happened, from the top down.

Is The Cook the Thief His Wife & Her Lover enjoyable? Turns out my library has the OOP dvd-- should I pick this up tonight while I wait for my round of Netflx movies?

Haven't seen it since '91, but back then I thought it was hallucinatory and wickedly good fun. I assume I might still feel the same.

Yeah...I highly suggest that you eat dinner BEFOREHAND.

There's a lot of symbolism floating around in it, btw--particularly the color of the rooms. It's supposed to be a critique of conservative U.K. politics, but don't watch it for that reason.

If you like this, try also The Pillow Book, A Zed & Two Noughts, and Prospero's Books also from Peter Greenaway (among others)...this is very different filmmaking.

So I keep hearing. What sounds intriguing about this one is even when you read sites where people seemingly try to spoil it for you, it still remains a mystery. I really have no clue what's gonna happen in this one, besides cannibalism.

Peter Greenaway is one of my favourite directors of all time. very light treatment of highly artistic subjects, love his use of the metaphor and detail. The Draughtsman's Contract is also amazing

That much-hyped aspect is HIGHLY OVERRATED, and has been explored more graphically in many other movies. Frankly, the first 10 minutes are more gag-worthy.

Draughtsman's Contract was good, but isn't as outrageous as the others mentioned, the only reason I didn't mention it. Some day I will also get Belly Of An Architect and 8 1/2 Women under my belt, too.

Since you guys are talking about Taxi To The Dark Side, I think you might be interested to know that Errol Morris' absolutely fantastic Standard Operating Procedure is out on DVD this week. I haven't seen Taxi so I can't speak to which is better, but it covers the same material in typically brilliant Morris fashion. His views on truth and photography, in particular, are very interesting. One of the better films I've seen this year.

Netflixed/moved up in the queue. This looks great.

CSNY/Deja Vu

I knew this was gonna be a bad idea. This may be a great doc, or at least really interesting, but I just have no stomach for the ignorant, and when they got to the Neil Young fans telling him to shut up and how dare he and missing every single point available to be missed, not least of which being his absolute right to say what he believes, it got to be too much and I turned it off.

I can't explain it - I can watch a Farenheit 9/11, and I can watch the debates, and some years I can even wade my way through the Great Lake of Pure Shit we've called a Bush State of the Union address, but I can't handle mixing the music I love with the voices of the angry dumb. Recommended if you can make it through two hours without wanting to hurt people.

Apparently, I cannot.

Agri was right- pretty much different from anything I've seen. Really beautiful and vile at the same time, which I love. A movie that I can't say how much I really like because I still have to digest(ahem) it a bit. Great stuff by all the leads though(Helen Mirren was smokin), and I'm shocked I haven't seen more of Greenaway- I'll have to fix that.

This movie reminded me a lot of Clockwork Orange for some reason. Probably just for how Gambon and his associates in the movie acted in general(maybe also because of the use of solid colors,especially the bright white in the bathroom-very Kubrick). Tim Roth was a disturbing creature as well. Good stuff.

Not really sure this movie deserved the death sentence that is NC-17, though. It was disturbing, sure, but as far as violence and nudity goes, there are far worse films that are given the R rating. Hm, oh well.

That's a decent cast for the remake but I doubt they'll do justice to one of my favorite movies of recent memory.

Yes! Pointless brilliance. This is as close to Fargo as anything they've done. I loved it.

I saved your ass. It was great.

The Long Kiss Goodnight: This was great. As a man who likes to listen to funny people be funny (legtimately funny people be funny, I might add) and a man who likes to see big things blowed up, this pretty much sets the bar. Geena Davis is pretty good as local teacher/mommy with amnesia who wakes up to find out she has a hidden past, and Samuel L. Jackson is sooooo good delivering Shane Black's (dude who wrote and directed Kiss Kiss Bang Bang) snappy dialogue, like the above quoted part which occurs just after where Davis' character takes the gun, blows out a window, they dive out the window toward a frozen lake, where she shoots the ice, they climb out and run away and shes asks "What just happened?" and Jackson's character replies "I saved your ass. It was great." Black and Jackson need to make another movie together now.


Wendy? Darling? Light, of my life. I'm not gonna hurt ya. You didn't let me finish my sentence. I said, I'm not gonna hurt ya. I'm just going to bash your brains in.

The Shining: I know, I know, the book is better, the miniseries is better, blabbity, bloobity blah. It turns out I had never seen this until this week and it's great. Fun performances, amazing sets, good and scary. The ending is a little hammer-you-over-the-head until you get that it's really him in the photograph, but otherwise, enjoyable, even if I knew most of the details thanks to the damn Simpsons.



My sister is trying to convince her boyfriend that this should be their costume for Hallowe'en this year. I gotta say I agree with her.

I never fault Kubrick's Shining for its awesome eerieness, but the fact is that he changed Stephen King's moral intent of the book.

OTM, Ag - exactly my complaint.

See, I haven't read the book, so it doesn't bother me at all.

Truly a frightening film.

Same here. Kubrick is a great artist, though, and great artists should certainly be allowed more freedom in adapting things however they wish. He could've turned Moby-Dick (certainly a greater book than The Shining, though I could be wrong) into an African tale about a white elephant and a tribe of cannibals and I wouldn't have cared. As long as it's a great work by itself. And Kubrick's The Shining is certainly that.

sanity.

I'm not even halfway through this boring-as-shit movie and am having trouble fighting the urge to not just turn it off and watch Dodgeball or something.

Wonderful film. Do you think Kar-Wai is boring in general? Or this film in particular?

I don't know, I thought In The Mood For Love was good, but a bit underwhelming. I don't love it like a lot of people seem to.

Really having trouble with this one, though.

I mean, it looks great. And there are Asians fucking and stuff, so I guess it's "erotic." And "a beautiful film." I just don't care, that's all. Nothing is grabbing me. Sort of what I expected.

Snow Angels

This movie set out to destroy me and did so. Boy, I read this was depressing, but Jesus-fuck... Ugh. So well acted, so well written- everything felt true to life, which is probably part of why this was so sad. How DGG went from this to Pineapple Express(both really good), I will never understand. The man sure does do good work though.

I can understand that. You might try watching Days of Being Wild or Chungking Express. Those are both probably more instantly engaging Kar-Wai films.

Yeah, I've been thinking that Days of Being Wild is going to be a better bet. Thanks for further assurance of this.

I loooooove WKW (On some days, Chungking Express is my favourite movie of all-time), yet I found that Days of Being Wild left me cold. 2046 was great, but mainly because I loved In the Mood For Love so I was excited for a pseudo-sequel. I can totally understand being underwhelmed by both, though, as they're very much "Ooh, everything is so pretty to look at" films. If you want an easy-to-follow, more grabbing WKW flick, go with Chungking Express or Fallen Angels because they both have a lot more...well, I hesitate to use the word 'action' but...action. Actually, Fallen Angels is probably the most engaging: it's got a hitman, a hot girl who loves him and twice pleasures herself onscreen, a completely loony girl who also falls for the hitman, and an AMAZING second half about a mute who breaks into businesses at night and runs them. Hmm, I might have to go watch Fallen Angels right fucking now.

Happy Together is the best WKW.

Ladies and Gentlemen, The Fabulous Stains! (1981)
The fictitious Fabulous Stains included a teenage Diane Lane and Laura Dern, who start a trendy grrl movement. Not a great film by any stretch, but I got a kick out of seeing Paul Simonon, Steve Jones, Paul Cook, and a very young Ray Winstone playing bandmembers that toured with the band.