I don't feel like starting a new thread for every movie I watched this weekend but I'd like to share anyway. Since this happens to me fairly often, I think I'll just use this thread to talk about any movies I see from now on. You can too, if you want.
This weekend I watched:
Little Miss Sunshine - This was really cute and funny. I liked.
L'Enfant - This was very gripping. The fact that I kept yelling "Kill the bastard!" to Sonia near the beginning but came to sympathize with Bruno by the end, indicates to me that the French are much better at developing deep characters than Americans.
The Departed- This was as good as I expected, given the all-star cast and how much I like gangster flicks. Plus, rarely does a gangster flick still inspire a "holy shit! I didn't see that coming" 10 minutes before the end.
Babel- I don't know what this was about, but it was very beautiful and tragic. I highly recommend it, but not if you're in a bad mood.
Sou is a genius at finding free previews, so we've recently seen these:
Blades of Glory Your basic Will Ferrell movie, lots of slapstick comedy and improvised dialog. If you like Will Ferrell, you'll probably like this movie. I did.
The Illusionist Ed Norton is one of my favorite actors and besides the too predictable ending this was a great movie, well worth seeing.
Painted Veil Ed Norton again and alsmost as good as The Illusionist, a sad story, but again well worth seeing. Even with the horrible fake british accents
Also, I watched Casino Royale last week. I didn't expect to like it, quite honestly, but I did. A lot. Daniel Craig is an awesome Bond!
Hear, hear. I expected to not hate it, but I didn't expect to be totally riveted by it, and by Craig in particular. I might have to watch it again today.
The Departed- This was as good as I expected, given the all-star cast and how much I like gangster flicks. Plus, rarely does a gangster flick still inspire a "holy shit! I didn't see that coming" 10 minutes before the end.
I bought that in February and still haven't watched it. Maybe tonight.
The Departed- This was as good as I expected, given the all-star cast and how much I like gangster flicks. Plus, rarely does a gangster flick still inspire a "holy shit! I didn't see that coming" 10 minutes before the end.
I bought that in February and still haven't watched it. Maybe tonight.
And so I did. Excellent movie with a great cast, as expected.
The Departed- This was as good as I expected, given the all-star cast and how much I like gangster flicks. Plus, rarely does a gangster flick still inspire a "holy shit! I didn't see that coming" 10 minutes before the end.
I bought that in February and still haven't watched it. Maybe tonight.
If you haven't seen "The Fucking Short Version", then search for it on YouTube. I'd provide a link myself, but the YT is blocked here. You'll like it.
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I thought 'Notes on a Scandal' would be better. I like Cate Blanchett so that is why I rented it, but if I'd have known the story was centered around a mean old psycopathic lesbian and her obsessions I probably would have skipped it. Other than that it was alright i guess. lol.
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Sort of watched The Prestige--it was playing on a computer while I was in the same room--seemed ok, should probably watch the entire thing from start to finish before giving it any more of / than that. Finally caught The 300 in the theater. Very violent, script played fast and loose with some of the historical elements, but I expected no less from a movie based on a graphic novel based on an earlier movie loosely based on Herodotus. It was about what I expected and I was entertained.
We were going to go see a movie this weekend (Killer of Sheep. It's old.), but I was punished so I couldn't go.
However, I am going to take this opportunity to re-recommend Tears of the Black Tiger, which is being released on video in the US TOMORROW. (There is a version already out, but apparently, that one sucks. Wait for the tomorrow one.)
I watched most of The Shootist and then fell asleep during Short Cuts on the weekend. The Shootist is John Wayne's last movie, also with James Stewart, Lauren Bacall, Ron Howard, Harry Morgan, etc. JW plays this dying gunfighter with cancer. It's kind of corny, but I like it. I guess everybody's seen Short Cuts. I've seen it two or three times now.
The Queen with Helen Mirren is very well done, and worth seeing, IMHO.
I cannot bring myself to see Blades of Glory just because it's a comedy and it's got Will Farrell in it, a most unfunny person since he quit doing the George Bush impression on Saturday Night Live.
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L'Enfant - This was very gripping. The fact that I kept yelling "Kill the bastard!" to Sonia near the beginning but came to sympathize with Bruno by the end, indicates to me that the French are much better at developing deep characters than Americans.
I watched this movies as one of my first netflix films and I did not enjoy it at all. Thinking about the couple's kitchen was the most interesting part of the movie for me.
Quote:
Babel- I don't know what this was about, but it was very beautiful and tragic. I highly recommend it, but not if you're in a bad mood.
I loved this movie, though.
Recently, I watched The Motorcycle Diaries and Crash, which are not new movies really, but I had not seen them. They were both very good, in my opinion.
This weekend's movies were Stranger Than Fiction, The Good Shepard, and Rocky Balboa.
I highly recommend Rocky Balboa. It was very well done and was a good story. Stranger than fiction was quite entertaining. Interesting premise that was handled pretty well. Seemed to lose its way at one point, but overall a pleasent comedy.
I was disappointed by The Good Shepard. It was interesting, but very sluggish and doesn't connect a lot of the dots. (Maybe I just need to be spoon fed a plot or something, but I don't think it was me.)
Spiderman 3 (as mentioned elsewhere) and 28 Weeks Later this weekend. I thought 28 Weeks was great, but I preferred the prequel (28 Days Later).
I just thought 28 Weeks was less suspenseful because everyone knew what they were dealing with going into it. Still a pretty scary flick, though.
I saw 28 Weeks Later yesterday.
Though it wasn't as suspenseful as 28 Days Later, naturally, I thought it was pretty good.
I really dislike the Nausea-Cam shooting style, though. I know it's supposed to simulate the fear and confusion the people feel as they're under attack, but after the first 10 seconds or so I felt myself wishing they'd cut it out already!
Though some people in the movie made some choices that were, in retrospect, spectacularly wrong, I liked the fact that they portrayed the people as being, for the most part, professional and intelligent. Bad things happened not because of stupid plot contrivances or because the main characters were drooling idiots, but in spite of the characters' best efforts.
Of course, the central irony of the story is that the virus wound up getting to the European mainland -- which, for practical purposes, doubtless means the end of civilization and most of the human race -- precisely because the Medical Officer was trying to preserve the boy and girl, in the hope that their blood would allow the development of a cure.
(Incidentally, it's hardly likely that eye color is related in any way to possession of genes for viral resistance.)
The hardest premise to swallow is the initial one. Given how devastating and contagious the virus was, and given that it might easily still be surviving in non-human animals that were acting as reservoirs, I couldn't believe they were planning to repopulate the British Isles. Certainly, not so quickly, anyway. Under those circumstances, I'd imagine it'd be at least a full year before they'd allow anyone to set foot on British soil without full biohazard gear. And then, only after there had been a very thorough testing of the local wildlife.
Keeping the repatriates in a "Clean Zone" was a good idea, but there's no way the kids -- much less their mother -- should have been allowed back into the Clean Zone without zealous decontamination and isolation procedures. Especially after they found out the mother was a carrier. There should have been lots of armed guards around her isolation chamber with strict orders to shoot anyone who tried to get in without full biohazard gear.
I saw Hot Fuzz last weekend, by the same people who did Shaun of the Dead. I thought it was pretty good. Not so outright funny as was Shaun of the Dead, but quite enjoyable nonetheless. After the slow buildup, the last 30 minutes or so have to be seen to be believed. [Note: There are a few scenes that are pretty graphic and perhaps not for the faint of heart.]
Cheers,
Michael
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