I like the way you think!

Agreed!

"Tastes like butterscotch" (Man that kid is annoying!)

You should also check out Bully, also directed by Clark.

Nick Cave And The Bad Seeds - Road To God Knows Where / Live At The Paradiso

disk one - great 1990 German documentary of Cave's US tour (I already have this on VHS, but the additional short "One Song" alone is worth the rental). Can't wait to see disk 2.

Cinderella Man

Great story for a small slice of life via the depression/boxing. Can't say I found anything revolting about it. It's Opie so he's kinda got this thing down now it seems. Giamatti was great in this too.



40 Yr Old Virgin.

I caught the end of this like a week ago and wasn't exactly ecstatic about it but then when I started from the beginning it was a whole lot more entertaining than I'd first guessed.
between this sequence, the indian co-workers talking smack and the first backfired love scene really made this worth it. Very funny.


The Grudge

Sometimes I'm late to the party when it comes to the horror genre but then I just don't get out like I used to either. I'd seen several from the genre already and having not seen the original over this remake. I suspect I'm missing some of the context that might have been lost. Admittedly Ringu and The Ring weresn't too far off from one another. Can't say I was blown away by this but it certainly set the mood right.


Zatoichi

Beat Kitano is a fantastic performer but I've never been a fan of his directing. Perhaps it's that dry pacing of his that oozes Ozu over Woo. Needless to say I remember being gaga over the concept of him playing out his version of Zatoichi. So to say I'm disappointed with his take on the blind samurai has more to do with the characters that surround him more than his own performance. The Stompesque dance number wasn't necessary either. Never thought I'd say that I'm old school when it comes to blood shots cause those CGI effects were stupid.


Zatoichi: Darkness Is My Ally 1989

So lucky for me I also got to see the real deal. Shintaro Katsu is the man.
I didn't even realize he'd done one this recent. Glad I found this one was on.



Brothers Grimm

I've always loved the way Gilliam tells a story and when it comes to fantasy adventures he usually does a great job at creating the illusion. However, once in a while it comes down to the basics of where the story is going and this one was all around kinda lost. In addition, I think he was treading water a bit by clearly recycling a bunch from his prior works (Munchausen specifically) which lessened the thrill. Still beautiful photography and worth a look. Just don't expect to be completely blown away.

I suspect that we have the exact same conversation about Kids every six months.

Wow.

Rebel Without A Cause, for the Outdoor Film Festival last night.

Interesting usage of symbolism throughout. Dean was damned good, but it quickly falls apart by the time the cops show up at the planetarium. Amazing what they got away with for Sal Mineo's character. Cool seeing a pre-futzed up Dennis Hopper. Natalie Wood was a cute but shitty actress.

How does it fall apart? It's great from start to finish.



Damn is this good. One of the best American films of the 1960s by a filmmaker who helped shape the '60s' sensibility. Has anyone seen 'The Bed Sitting Room'?

SPOILER AHEAD
Maybe I don't get what the ending was supposed to signify. Actually....all of a sudden, maybe I get the ending...Dean, Wood and Mineo are the next "family" of modern society, which is ultimately doomed? It just got all too melodramatic for me by that point.

I didn'tt like the final look Mom & Dad gave each other...all of their problems are solved? Unlikely. It felt like the resolution was tacked on to appease conservatives.

Maybe I was expecting Dean to be sacrificed. A product of it's time, it's still a courageous film, all in all.


Haven't seen either.

Well yeah it's melodramatic. That's the genre Ray was going for. Didn't you notice the screaming expressionism of the direction. Characters stuck on the edges of the frame to show their isolation. Post war Suburbia is a like a petrie Dish they're stuck in. Cinemascope filmmaking doesn't get any better then that. It's easily one of the very best films of the 50s.

I had no problem with the camera angles (mom and dad and Jim arguing on the stairwell...wow!)and the Freudian symbols...I had a problem with the script attached to it.

(in addition to the continuity, boy that was bad-- how an actor in one angled shot would face another angle in the next!)

The family psychology you mentioned earlier does seem a bit obvious today but the film is so breathtaking as a film that it dwarfs those niggling little flaws. The scripts of 'Imitation of Life' and 'Vertigo' weren't much to write home about either. As for continuity, 20 years later screenwriter Stewart Stern wrote the teleplay for the Sally Field drama 'Sybil' so obviously he was always plagued by the inability to keep his characters straight.

It falls apart shortly after the opening credits for me. Also, when Dean yells "You're tearing me apart!" I almost fell outta my chair laughing.

Yeah, I know it's about another time, another place. But I just can't relate to these kids. I mean - punks in leather jackets settling their differences with cars? Sorry, I come from a much more violent time where semi-automatic weapons with armor-piercing bullets riddle the newspapers every day. Rebel didn't faze me, and in fact I didn't see what was so hearalded about Dean in that film (so far, it's the only Dean film I've seen). Kids is much more shocking, and can really knock you across the room with its intent. Rebel might have been a shocker (heh) back in tha day, but it hasn't aged well and anyway the Wild One is better.

I don't think 'shock' is a valuable criteria for judging artistic worth. A snuff film would be even more shocking then Kids. So what? RWAC is not Realism. It's the Teen drama as a monumental Greek Tragedy. It's a good thing too because nothing dates as fast as 'stark realism' Look at The French Connection which is now indistigushable from the cheesy 70s cop shows that it inspired.

As for Dean watch 'East of Eden' as well. However if you can sit through Giant without dozing off then you're a better man then I.

I do think 'shock' is a valuable criteria for judging something's artistic worth, but it's certainly not the end-all defining standard. It's useful as an occasional element for breaking thru a jaded filmgoer but when utilized too often it just loses shape. Curiously, I feel the same way about CGI action sequences....

I was just remembering all the old-school hype over how "shocking" and "eye-opening" which is often identified with Rebel. I mean - were those zip guns? Get outta here....

You certainly nailed it with the French Connection = cheezy 70's cop shows. You know, I never did see FC, mostly because I figured it would be pretty dated by now. But Gene Hackman's always cool (well, except for Superman IV) - Didja ever see the COnversation? Is it any good?

With older films you often need to see them when you're younger and you haven't been inundated by a ton of media.

The Conversation is great despite some glaring flaws. Hackman had a great early appearance in Robert Rossen's 1964 film Lillith. One of the few great American features of the mid 60s.

This is the good shit.

The only gun used by non-cops in the film was a pistol that Sal Mineo had, taking the story into tragic turns. The only other weapons were switchblades and male bonding ( )

Hadn't seen any of Jim Jarmusch's earlier films until renting this one. Good stuff--very miminal, but utterly charming.

Watched this one a couple weeks ago--last movie which I viewed...


and I can't wait to see this when it gets a proper release in Sept...


http://www.sonyclassics.com/americanhardcore/

Watched these on the various plane flights to + from Chicago:


Charade
Decent little old-school thriller about who's the good guy / who's the bad guy? Hepburn was her ususal charming self (can I have a crush on an older woman?). Cary Grant seemed a bit tired of the whole Hollywood thing by this point in his career, yet still pulled off enough style to keep his character interesting. Was perfect for the flight from Vegas, for I was seated next to a very chatty covered-in-glitter still-drunk tourist lady. Not being a fan of talking to drunk people while I'm sober (or listening to them, for that matter) I flipped open the laptop and tuned out her random babblings about the inflight movie, my computer, her ex-career as a stewardess and how long of a movie I was watching. Maybe I shoulda brought something grotesquely violent, like Dead Alive - but she might've tossed her boozed-out cookies on my lap.



Terminator
Haven't seen this one in quite a few years, and much of it is showing its age. Still a great premise, and many of the effects are still pretty good despite the low budget and advent of CGI. But some of the background music (especially in the nightclub) is absolutely miserable, a poor man's equivalent of a rough impression of what 1984 supposedly sounded like. Egads. And we won't get into the stop-motion chases or incredibly fake Terminator heads that make the occasional appearance. Instead, the glimpses of the future are still rather stunning, along with that famous time paradox which used to drive us nuts when we first saw this one.



Futurama
When I first watched these I wasn't too impressed. But they've actually gotten better every time I view 'em. So I bought all 4 seasons and now I'm enjoying the hell outta the commentary tracks - which are occasionally more entertaining than the show itself.



Family Guy
Starting to get a little redundant, yet this show still makes me laugh more than most. Quagmire used to steal the show, but now I'm becoming a big fan of the weatherman ("It's rainin' sideways!").



Robot Chicken
God, is this funny. Can't stop watching...



Battlestar Galactica
Yeah, still workin' out way thru season 2. Not bad, not great, but interesting enough to keep us watching to see what happens next.

The best thing about the Terminator is the way the action is directed. It's relentless and quite graceful actually. The music is classic! Cameron reused it in his early 90s sequel.

And the funniest thing are the Apple II assembly code snippets that he used in the overlays for the Terminator's POV shots.[/geek]

Happiness of the Katakuris
http://www.kfccinema.com/reviews/comedy/ka.../katakuris.html
[attachmentid=516]
Totally blew me away with tears of laughter. If you don't smile at least once during this oddball movie, you are a hopeless depressive.

I'll admit the main theme is nice, and the percussion is dope. But the action sequences have some of the silliest, wanna-be Miami Vice music ever committed to posterity.

Based on dates I'm thinking the music was composed before MV hit the air.

Yeah, this looks awesome.

That Minutemen movie needs to be moved to the top of my Netflix queue right now.

So gorgeous.



I didn't actually start listening to the Pumpkins until a couple of years ago, so I was glad to see them in their prime and happy.



Sappy perhaps, but the protagonists were appealing and not entirely predictable.

I had no desire to see this until I read the M. Night Shyamalan/Kevin Smith thread this week. Thanks (?) guys.

I thought Hero was better.

Plot, cinematography, or both?

I liked this one better on all counts...plus it wasn't as "over the top."

Plot. I couldn't really get behind the shrinking down of the plot elements down to the duel between the last 2 characters (and that was certainly "over the top" IMHO)

I thought both Hero and HOFD were stultifyingly dull.

This is the awesome.

Ain't it though?

Wow. The "Trapped In The Closet" of 2006?

Of course you do. HOFD was just a chick flick, with special effects.

Nothing can really prepare you for this.

Motherfuckin' Hitchcock, motherfuckers.

This one really pissed me off and totally had me rethinking biogenetics.

Pretty good. Looking forward to that new PT Anderson film coming out next year, should be great.

Saw the new print at Music Box. I've never seen it all the way through before, just the beginning and ending. Needless to say, it's now on my top ten of all time list.

For the gazillionth time:



For the first time:

Sympathy For Mr Vengence

I really liked this. Not quite at good as Old Boy, but still very entertaining.

Quite a charming enjoyable movie.

Adding a title helps. From the jpeg name I'd guess it's 'Worlds Fastest Indian'?

Image not working? Oh, you probably have them turned off.

Just watched Sybil on DVD. This thing scared the crap outta me when I was young.

The Nomi Song.

It was kind of heartwarming to learn that he was kind of a down-to-Earth guy, even though he seemed to be from another planet (Watch his nervous pride sharing pie recipes on a late night TV show). This was the first time I ever heard discussion in a non-fiction film about the onset of AIDS, so it was very sad to hear about how Nomi was treated by his peers at the end of his life. A fascinating lifestory.