So Last What Movie Watch You Did? Vol. XXI

and

 

Two posts in an I already have to remind people to type out the names of the movies (and preferably what you thought about it, including plot summary for unusual films). Many image sites for movie posters don't allow hot linking, such as IMP Awards.

 

Erick never posts anything about the films he's seen, nor their names. I think he's just dense.

 

This reminded me of the following fake cover:

 

Surveillance by Jennifer Lynch. I have to say I was quite surprised how much I liked this. There are slight influences by her father but combined with the nuances of the film she managed to come up with a style that's unique. It's a very finely crafted script that's only tainted with a few cliches - but none that take away from enjoying what is one of the most fun thrillers and suspense films I've seen out of the United States in quite a while.

 

Not Another Teen Movie: Director's Cut - yep, I should be good for another six months or so.

 

There's a great movie in there somewhere, in search of a good editor.

 

Halloween 2

Incredibly graphic and gruesome. This was only rated R? I just got over a bad case of food poisoning so just the thing I needed was to watch Michael Myers cut open a dog and begin eating it -- raw.

Now on to the previews...

Tim Burton's Alice in Wonderland: Enjoy it if Burton's tired look is your bag or you think this tale is the greatest thing ever written and has deserved the zillion film interpretations we've been bored by. CGI characters all over the place. And what's with Johnny Depp doing stuff like this and Willy Wonka?

The Road looks damn interesting. Seems more action-oriented than I thought it might be. Definately checking this one out. The only Cormac McCarthy novel I've read is Blood Meridian so most of the details of this story will be new to me. Wonder what those familiar with the book will think.

The Wolfman: This release has been pushed back until February. Benicio Del Toro doesn't look at ease and I hope to hell Anthony Hopkins wasn't allowed to go off on one of his weird character takes. I'm concerned, but the werewolf looks fine. Geraldine Chaplin is playing Maria Ouspenskaya's role from the original -- you have all seen the 1941 classic, I hope.

 

Coraline - one remarkably trippy "kids" show. My daughter loves it, and I finally sat down to watch with her. It's really something.

 

Did your daughter read the book?

 

Appaloosa: meh. I wanted to like it. But it's getting to the point where everytime I see Zellweger in a movie, I wonder what would happen to the universe if she sucked on a lemon. Probably something along the lines of crossing the streams or dividing by zero.



Max Payne: What a pile of suck. This movie had everything. Except a good writer, editor, and director. But mostly a good editor. And director. And maybe a writer. Or two.

 

In The Loop

I thought this was the best I've seen in a couple of yrs. A brilliant comedy and it literally had me rolling out of my seat. Completely enjoyable, and the script was HILARIOUS. Gandolfini was good in his role, Peter Capaldi as Malcolm Tucker is by far the best. As a matter of fact, the Scottish characters are the best!



I saw both District 9 and Bastardos Ingloriosos. This movie blows them both away to be honest.

 

I mentioned this before, but if they had just used the cutscene-comic book from Max Payne two as the basis for their screenplay, they would have ended up with a better movie than this. It was really, really awful.

 

Slumdog Millionaire

I have to say that I'm rather surprised at all of the hype this got. I kept waiting for it to get good and kept waiting and kept waiting....and it never really happened. There were so many things wrong with it, I don't even really know where to begin. If this movie had been set somewhere not as "exciting and exotic" as India, it probably wouldn't have even made it into production...much less gotten all the hype. Frieda Pinto is the only thing that made it bearable.

 

I assume you mean her attractiveness and not her acting, since she's even worse than Patel, and the two of them have zero onscreen chemistry.

 

Yep.

 

Regular Lovers by Phillipe Garrel

Reconstructs the France May 1968 events and Esutache with an unabashedly romantic fervor. Proces once and for all the stupidity of Bertolucci's The Dreamers.

 

Always and awesome film with awesome quotes

 

Aside from being too loud for my (at best) middle aged ears, District 9 was really cool. Lots of layers of stuff to think about, and lots of violence.

 

But does it have as much bush as The Dreamers?

 

The Son by Dardenne brothers

This is the perfectly distilled Dardennes film and there's hardly a thing in it I can find fault with, so I'm at a bit of a loss why I found it so dissatisfying. It's almost as if the Dardennes have become too predictable- nothing in the film surprised me. Every emotion felt like a familiar recitation. Even Olivier Gourmet, who startles me in every performance, felt a bit rote.





Paranoid Park by Gus Van Sant

Van Sant trades in the formal rigor and expressive body language of Elephant for pop psychology and Christopher Doyle. I found the few scenes of random high school life much more satisfying than anything related to the crime or the fetishism of skaters.