Neato stuff that HBO dropped. I like to call it "Twin Peaks on the Dust Bowl". Season 2 just came out, too (which I haven't seen yet). It would probably benefit reading The Bible's Revelations to get some of the subtext.

Hard to say. I've never really judged him for his thespian chops or lack thereof. I think he gets the job done most of the time, and I actually think that he's cast well (in most of what I've seen him in, I'm sure there are exceptions) in most of the parts he plays. I don't necessarily know if he really gets more one-word lines than any other actor does ("Uh," "Whoa," etc.), or if it just seems that way because we watch for it in him more.

They could have got an actor that looked like this guy instead:

Robot Chicken Season 1 Disc 1

very funny stuff
15 minutes is too short, the dvd format fixes that

Beautiful film.

(finally) Kiss Kiss Bang Bang.

I laughed my ass off, even if I got confused with the mystery plot. I loved the way the characters interacted with each other like no other "Hollywood" movie that I could remember (which of course, was the whole point of the thing).

What a chilling viewing experience. There's so much tension in this movie that I actually felt a pain in the back of my neck when it was over. I was taking deep breaths throughout.

My highest recommendation. Don't miss it.

CB4 is always a classic. I also like Odd Couple 2 for some weird reason.

Loved this movie. Not sure why it wasn't a huge hit.

Gayness, no doubt. Also was marketed more as a crime thriller than as a comedy, maybe?

Yeah, they definitely should have played up the comedy.

Bulletproof Monk

Gee. Only in America would a film be made starring Chow Yun Fat as a Kung Fu fighting Tibetan Monk who simultaneously would be some sorta gun slinger. Clearly a film made with the fanfare of the Woo Days in mind. The words ridiculous and stupid come to mind but its goofy fun anyways for TV watching.

My other extended comment is for anyone who watches the Fox Movie Channel when they show these action movies. It's always a guy and gal. Same pudgy dude along with some taller and far more attractive co-host who take those idiotic jabs at each other and add these little extra fillers at commercial breaks. Then in addition, they show all this making of effects/stunts/interview/DVD extras shit while the movie is still going. It's usually a double feature thing. I've caught it a couple times when they've shown something I missed or didn't bother to pay to see. Just kinda mystified that they'd bother to add something so lame when they'd make folks a lot happoer by just showing the movie commercial free but then I guess that's what HBO is for.

Enduring Love

I don't know what it was but I completely missed this when it came out.
By far a top ten item for that year. A seriously compelling and rather shocking opener that is just low key enough to keep you interested gobsmacked by this thriller. I can't recommend this enough. Well worth the rental

I guess you missed that scene, huh? Chow Yun Fat disarms a couple gunsels and covers their accomplices with their guns, and then ejects the guns' clips & kicks them at the Bad Guys, taking out two. It's a goofy wire-flying, superhero Kung Fu movie, and it's coping it's fighting style from The Matrix & Crouching Tiger, but those movies took theirs from Chop Socky epics of the preceeding 20 years.

Yes, Enduring Love is a very good film.

Gotta marvel at the Rhys-Ifans in back-to-back hot-air balloon movies factor.

Probably for fans only. I can't imagine anyone else even beginning to understand what's going on in it. Worthy follow-up movie only tainted by the departure of a few actors (the original Mr. Blank and Orlando), though the guy that stepped in to play her brother did a good job. Thankfully, Maria Thayer was still playing Tammi. Why they made Mr. Noblet the science teacher, I don't know.

Wild at Heart is showing on the big screen at AFI tonight. I've never seen it. Should I go? I'm already there tomorrow night for the 70mm of Lawrence of Arabia.

Damn you people with your good movie theaters. I'd give a nut to see Lawrence of Arabia in 70mm.

You have 24 hours and 23 minutes to make it to Silver Spring, Maryland. I'll be the asshole in ragged jeans and a green t-shirt.

I saw Lawrence of Arabia in 70mm, last year
WOW


what say you about LMS?

Well, the message manages to somehow be both hamfisted and muddled. Yet, there's some really funny parts, a few winning scenes, and a beautiful, almost Shakespearean, dance scene for a finale. Really, every movie should end this way. Although it's a pretty tough one to dislike, I think the big close accounts for most of the energetic reviews.

I caught a screening at the Music Box a few years ago, GORGEOUS, I just wish the screen was bigger and the seats had more knee space. It was also the "director's cut" to boot...easy to spot, during the opening when Lawrence crashes his bike, look for a close-up of his goggles hanging from a branch, that's the first shot they reinstated for the director's cut - I think the director's cut is usually the one people show, but the first time I saw it in a theater, it was actually the shorter, theatrical cut.



Man, this was tough to get through, one of the most challenging pictures I've seen due to the Taiwanese history involved (a subject I'm barely familiar with) and the way this was made...if you knocked The Godfather II for juggling one story too many, you may have a tougher time with this one, which blends flashbacks, a present day story, and historical flashbacks (or a film within the film or the imagination of the female protagonist...it's left a little bit open, but it's not that important, just that the historical storyline has a correlation to the present one) all together. Taken with the director's minimalist style and the complexity of the ideas, this is very challenging stuff, you may need to see it twice, but it's pretty amazing.

I seriously have to leave Alabama. We have one theatre in Birmingham that plays indie films every now and again, and it is a terrible theatre. Add to this the fact that they've been showing Thank You For Smoking since March. I think this weekend is the first weekend they didn't show it. The Alabama Theatre (check your Drive-By Truckers liner notes) plays old movies during the summer, but they are prints that they own; and they are scratched and the sound is terrible. Yeah, I'm complaining. And I swore off complaining.

Movies theaters were the one thing I really missed when I moved away from Chicago. If you don't live in a city, you really have no good choices at all. It's a wasteland out there.



Not to rub it in, but it was pretty great. The camels were my favorite part. Just beautiful photography. I never noticed before how much Ghandi cops from LoA's fifth act.

Rosenbaum makes the case that by basing an epic film on a central ambiguity, LOA influenced 2001. Not to mention Patton, Apocalyspe Now and so forth. Before production, David Lean screened John Ford's 'The Searchers' to study how best to film indivduals against landscapes and it shows.

I compensated by watching The Godfather on Turner Classic and eating a large bowl of strawberry ice cream.

O'Toole is hardly ever anything but an ambiguity. It's really hard telling where his character is coming from half the time. His moodswings are pretty hard for me to track.

I think the reason the character is difficult to discern is because of the very small amount of exposition. It's really almost unbelievable I could say that about a film this long, but the only background we get on the character's connection to the Middle East is the one scene at the beginning where he's excited about the newspaper.

The unintentional Iraq parallels that come up through the movie are quite disturbing. Beyond the now ironically humorous bit from the American newspaperman who says something like,"We Americans were colonized too and we will work to help you Arabs get your freedom," there are strong themes about a white man imposing a national identity on fragmented tribes and the difficulty of transforming militia leaders into parliamentarians.

Love the first appearance of Omar Sharif, riding that camel from hundreds of yards away. They don't make movies that way anymore.

That Jose Ferrer torture scene is absolutely bonechilling. How they got away with it back then just blows my mind.

French Connection
Kinda of dated. Hackman is pretty great. How can you not love THE chase scene?


Barnyard
If you are under 10 years old, you'll really like it
If you are over 10 years old, it borders on painful.
Animation wise, the backgrounds are pretty good. The Animals, very weak.


Born Into Brothels
I couldn't look away from this film. I was horrified by the parents who refused to let their kids go to boarding school so they could have a chance at getting out of Calcutta's red light district


David Cross- Let America Laugh
painfully bad. I turned it off after about 20 minutes
comedy should be funny

Made by Richard Lester right after 'A Hard Day's Night'. Quite risque for 1964. You can see where The Monkees picked up a lot of their sight gags. And a great John Barry score to boot.

It disturbs me that the male cows in this film have udders.

I saw the 70mm version when they did the big re-release back in '89, I think. Incredible. I was at the old McClurg court. It was so crowded I ended up sitting in on the floor in front of the front row. Like watching the world's biggest TV. I could have sworn there was sand in my hair by intermission.

O'Toole was talking about the sequence Grimmy mentioned. It took years to do the whole film. He said in that sequence you see Lawrence, then you see Sharif way in the background, and then you cut back to Lawrence. In that sequence he's 32 in the first shot, and 34 in the second shot. I can't imagine what it would be like to film for 2 years straight anywhere, much less the desert.

Oops. You're right. The picture does make it misleading kind of and I didn't miss the scene. Only remembered it wrong.



I think there's plenty of people who got to view it this way. The whole time it was being sceened there it seemed that they filled the theatre beyond capacity. Still, one time the best lasrge screen in town. I don't a have a clue if any of the remaining theaters have a screen nearly as big anymore.


Indeed. It'd be a very good trivia question.

Lawrence Of Arabia... well, I tried to watch it. Fell asleep within 20 minutes. Tried again = same result. Ah well. Guess the 2 of us will have to co-exist in a striclty platonic manner.

Not much more to say about this one at this point, I guess. Good movie, though.

saw Tsotsi (at least 80% of it) on Sunday. that's a good flick. you're really torn at the ending on what you want to happen to the main character. he obv did something wrong but he's headed in the right direction.

then watched Once Upon a Time in Mexico for the 8th or 9th time. i love that movie.

Interesting. Of all the Robert Rodriguez films I have seen, that one I was most disappointed in.

i didn't really expect much from it the first time i saw it, i just think its great entertainment and lots of fun.
robert rodriguez is pretty fucking awesome too.

You need to rent Spy Kids 3.

I know you are winking, but I did see that and I enjoyed it. Sharkboy & Lava Girl was much crappier as far as his kid movies go.

Good shit.

Hilarious!

uh. Is this a porno or a metal combo/show or both?

It's a metal zine hosted and created by her. The only nudity is when she does a surreal rant about how censorship sucks and how George Bush sucks while in a bubblebath. It's cool that she likes the heavy music so much, but egads, this is amateurish.

I don't know why so many people think Jasmin St. Claire is so good-looking. Coupled with that gang bang thing she did, the ick factor is way high with this lady.

Unlike all of the other gang bang girls that don't have an ick factor.

I didn't say that.