So Last What Movie Watch You Did? Vol. XXI

The only good bug is a dead bug.

 

It's a Wonderful Life

I hope they eventually make a sequel where Clarence can show everyone how much better their lives would have been if Uncle Billy had never been born.

 

Hey, we know Uncle Billy is semi-retarded. But let's trust him with a critical part of the business, any way.

Still love this movie, though.

 

Might very well be Verhoeven's finest hour. Has certainly aged better than Basic Instinct.

 

He was great in Watchmen.


Everytime I see him, I have to do a double take because he looks so much like Robert Downey Jr to me. When I was watching Watchmen, I said to myself, I didnt know RDJ was in this and then I came to realize what I always do when I see Morgan in a movie.

 

He reminds me of Javier Bardem.

 

There's nothing good left on OnDemand. Time to pick something from my pile of unwatched DVDs.


Code 46 (2004)

This is a love story set in the not too distance future, spanning the globe from the desert sands of Abu Dabi to the desert sands of Shanghai to the desert sands of Seattle. Instead of nations there mostly exist ultra-cosmopolitan city-states run by corporations, and the most important corporations are a sort of insurance company which knows enough about you to practically predict your future and controls what you can do and where you can go depending on your risk factors. The area outside these megacities is just "outside", uncontrolled by corporations. Basically this is the world where every feared-by-liberals ecological disaster and political issue has hit civilization. But none of that is used to hit the head of the viewer, it's just the world the characters live in and all these features are just in the background and not explicitly mentioned. Other aspect of this world are the viruses used to enhance human behavior, and the ubiquitous use of human cloning. And some people fall in love and things happen between them and to them that only have meaning in this world. The affair, and in fact most of the human interactions, have a slightly alien feel to them.

The movie was enjoyable and thoughtful and slightly unnerving.

 

Added it to the queue.

The only films I've seen of Winterbottom's are 24 Hour Party People and The Shock Doctrine, both of which I really enjoyed. I'll definitely check out Code 46.

 

So good. Everything about it held up to the hype

 

Okay movie, Good story and great acting by James Franco

 

Children of Men held up surprisingly well inspite of the commercial interruptions and the twenty minutes they cut to cram it into a two hour time slot.

 

Not a movie that should be experienced with commercial interruptions, though.

 

Agreed. I saw it during its theatrical release, so I was expecting it to lose more than it did.

 

I cannot believe this movie was watched by the producers, directors, and studio and then release it to the public. This was one of the worst movies I have seen for some time. There were large chunks of the movie where I didnt have the slightest clue what the hell was going on.

Anyone else see this?

 

I did. Your appraisal of it is a bit harsh. It was an interesting exercise, the execution was just lacking. Diaz wasn't the problem, which was what I initially feared.

I found the story itself relatively easy to follow.

 

I saw it a while a go. Just seemed like an extended twilight zone episode. It was different, but quite forgettable. One thing I didn't get, was how the timing of the opening was timed to perfection to the...consequences.

 

It just seems like scenes were left out. From the time where Marsden's character got in the fight with the waiter/student up till near the ned, it seemed like a bunch of fragmented scenes that really didnt go together.

I dont think my appraisal was harsh at all, it is probably the worst movie I have seen in the last 2-3 years. It was really bad.

 

Folks, please post the name of the film as well as an image.

 

Tron - revisited it immediately after work today...

so I could be on top of things when i saw:


Tron:Legacy -- It was an eye-gasm that had me pretty wound up at times... It had some obvious tributes to the original, as i expected, and some pretty decent sequences that nearly caused my stomach to drop a few times... I saw it IMAX 3D, so it was an assault on the senses sometimes, with only a few cheap 3d gimmicks... There were definitely some plot holes i saw but overall, i was VERY entertained... (i bet the purists will claim it sold out, honestly, because it was pretty darn slick...)

 

In the Loop

Some great dialogue and performances, but it seemed to be less than the sum of its parts in the end. Worth watching and enjoyable, but it didn't quite live up to the hype I've heard for it.

 

The Edukators (Die fetten Jahre sind vorbei) (2004)

When I picked this up I though it would be a wacky crime caper, or possibly a funky crime caper, but it was something shockingly different.

It's a good film to watch after seeing The Baader Meinhof Complex. In America, the youth revolutionary movements of the 70's were all crushed, killed, broken up, co-opted into other movements, subverted by government action, or just plain had its youths grow up. It doesn't have any cultural meaning anymore except in Berkeley where it serves as a sort of historical ambiance. But the 70's youth revolutionary movements in Germany are still part of the culture and still has meaning to the three modern youths in the film, Jan, Peter and Jule. They have old-time anti-capitalist ideas and pass out fliers and slogans in a Germany trying very hard to ignore them. But they also have a sideline in being The Edukators, a gang known for breaking into rich people's houses and rearranging the furniture leaving notes saying "The days of plenty are over" to spook them. But one of their break-ins goes very wrong and they end up kidnapping the owner. They take him to a cabin in the wilderness and try to figure out how to use him for their revolutionary purposes. But it turns out the incredibly wealthy executive was a former member of the RAF, and the four begin a search for who they are and who they became.

The film is very earnest. I really liked it. But then, I pretty much like everything.

 

Restrepo. A very interesting look at one platoon in the most dangerous part of Afghanistan for one year from 2007-2008. Shows the difficulties they face but also shows how they can keep a sense of humor about it all.

I watched the screening they put on National Geographic channel, so it had commercial interruptions, but I don't believe it was cut or censored because they left in all the profanity.

It raised a few questions for me-- are cable channels not subject to the same FCC regulations? If not, why don't they just always leave in profanity? In a normal NatGeo show, things would have been bleeped. Or did they take a bleeping holiday because they were showing a serious and important movie?

 

The A-Team



Another action movie heavy on brawn and light on brains. For some reason the Holiday season always wets my appetite for this kind of cinema. This was a massive disapointment. It did not work as a homage to the original TV series. In fact, hardly anything that made us love the TV series is present here. And it doesn't really work as a run-of-the-mill action movie either.

The problems are numerous. For one thing I had hoped Neeson would do more with the Hannibal Smith role. But saying he mailed in his performance is an understatement. He left a scribbled note on the refrigerator, more like. I don't mind quality actors taking on stupid roles for the paycheck, but they have to try and have some fun with it at the very least.

Of the other three team members, only the guy who played Murdock (Sharlto Copley) was able to capture some of the spirit of the original TV character. Quinton 'Rampage' Jackson's B.A. is an insult to mr. T. And Bradley Cooper's take on Face is instantly forgettable. The way they tried to shoehorn in a love-interest with Jessica Biel's character also didn't help.

The plot itself was stupid and full of holes, but that was to be expected and might not have hurt the experience had the rest of the movie been better. But most of the action is poorly CGI'ed, the dialogs are ham-fisted and rarely truly funny (not once do B.A. and Murdock have an interaction anything close to the way the relationship was portrayed in the TV show).

The plan did most certainly not come together here...