I recently watched "V for Vendetta" and mostly agree with Lord S. I doubt that most would consider this film to be categorized as an "Action" but it was clever and had a couple unforeseen twists. I may even be willing to say that I enjoyed the movie more than "The Matrix." 89/100

I took a look at FIND ME GUILTY last night. It is Sydney Lumet's first movie in seven years. I actually thought it was pretty good. It starred Vin Diesel in a role where he actually had to act and it is based on an actual court case from the late 1980s.

I was skeptical about this film, but good reviews in "The Times" and "Village Voice" led me to check it out. Lumet's last few films were awful, i.e., the lame GLORIA remake, NIGHT FALLS ON MANHATTAN and CRITICAL CARE.

While not top shelf Lumet like DOG DAY AFTERNOON, THE VERDICT or NETWORK, it is a nice return to form.

V for Vendetta - I liked this a lot. I liked the "talky" nature of it and would argue that its love of words and ideas might, perhaps, make Mr. Moore at least think about how the filmmakers love his work. I think it might be the first verbiage-action flick I've seen. I especially liked the "knife-time" sequence at the end. Oh, and it was a little more "superheroey" than I remember the graphic novel being, but its been a few years.

Recent dvd views-

A History of Violence.
I liked this but felt there something missing. More emphasis on the past motivations of Viggo Mortensen's character perhaps.

Good Night, And Good Luck
Interesting docudrama, glad to have seen it, doubt I'll ever want to see it again.

Howl's Moving Castle
Hayao Miyazaki has never failed me in the past and doesn't fail me here. Themes of identity crisis, anti-war, beauty and beast romance are prevailant here. Great characters, as always, in a Miyazaki film. Doesn't knock Porco Rosso off the top of my favorite Miyazaki movies but comes close.

I just watched Beau Travail for the first time in probably over and year and I was reminded why I bought it in the first place. It's bewilderingly beautiful, unapologetically elliptical, and altogether brilliant. Also, for the risk of understatement, it has my favorite ending of any movie. EVER.


And yeah, I just saw Howl's Moving Castle too. I thought it was great too, though I wish I'd seen it on the big screen.... Shucks.

I also saw A History of Violence recently and felt that hollow feeling too. I saw the comic-booky symbolism too easily, c'mon Philadelphia as the site of the fratricide and the baptism after the desert purging, oh well. Disappointing.

V For Vendetta was a much more interesting and well made comic book movie.

Four Brothers sucked. I hated the stereotypical characters, the overly-macho script, and the indecisive direction.

I just saw Kurosawa's "Ikiru." This deserves to join the list of most Libertarian movies ever, up there with "Unforgiven." Fabulous.

I saw "relax, it's just sex" three days ago. An interresting movie, but maybe more interresing for gay people. Kind of 7/10 for me.

The Door in the Floor (Williams, 2004, Grade: B-)

Like most John Irving adaptations, this film is a blending of quirky comedy and tragedy. This one comes from the perspective that the tragedy has already occurred before the movie starts, and the lead characters, a writer/"artist" (Jeff Bridges) and his wife (Kim Basinger), are trying to deal with it while undergoing a separation and switching off each night at the family home with their daughter (Elle Fanning, Dakota's younger sister). Into this scenario, a young assistant (Jon Foster) for the husband is introduced, although his reason for being there is initially vague but becomes apparent soon enough.

I don't really want to go into details, but the film begins rather slowly and depressingly, but as things move along, it does get rather funny, and there's a fair share of sex and nudity displayed (including Mimi Rogers, as Bridges' current "artist's model", completely full frontal.) Both Jeff Bridges and Kim Basinger register strong performances, and the ending is tantalyzingly ambiguous in its reference to the film's title.

"Matewan"

Most boring movie ever?

Not by a long shot, but that must be because it's a true story based on a strike.

Yeah, I gathered that much...

Did you gather anything else?

HAVE YOU WATCHED CAPOTE THE PERFORMACE OF SEYMOUR HOFFMAN IS SIMPLY CLASSIC HOFFMAN DESERVES OSCARS AND THERE IS NO DOUBT THAT THAT FILM IS OF CONSIDERABLE BEAUTY ACCORDIN TO DANIEL OF NYRB
THANK GOD FOR HOFFMAN THANK GOD FOR HIS CLASSIC ROLE IN CAPOTE
FROM LAGOS NIGERIA

quote:

Originally posted by mark f:
Did you gather anything else?

I gathered that I was supposed to feel sorry for the coal miners and to admire their "union," but instead I just found myself siding with "the company." I didn't find Chris Cooper's struggle particularly inspiring at all.

Maybe someone has already written towards this topic but I just saw "Cache" and want to talk about the beginning, middle, and end. It was provocative, challenging, and frustrating.

I don't know what to think.

Memoirs of a Geisha [Rob Marshall, 2005, Grade: low B]

Visual feast which accumulates more emotional detail from pure cinema than I've seen from Godard and Antonioni rolled into one. Yeah, the "plot" is as old as the hills, but since people's lives are that old, what's wrong with it? Just because it would have fit comfortably into the D.W. Griffith oeurve is no reason to do a knee-jerk reaction and dismiss it as some kind of racist chick flick.

This story of a girl and her sister sold by her family to be geishas (they're not what you probably think) and then separated, does play like an Asian version of The Color Purple, so I guess that it makes sense that Spielberg wanted to make it, but he just produced it this time. And for objective folk, John Williams provides one of his most moving (read: non-sentimental) musical scores with plenty of solos by Yo-Yo Ma and Itzak Perlman.

The thing which makes this melodrama worth watching is that the visuals show another world (in that way, it most closely resembles Bertolucci's The Last Emperor) in a completely-unique manner. The performances by Ziyi Zhang, Li Gong and Michelle Yeoh are excellent. The sunglassed Godard...I mean, Wong Kar Wei, should take notice.

"Crash," is a movie that I ignored while it was in theaters, but quickly was interested in after it was so critically acclaimed. I think that this is mainly attributed that I didn't hear any of the noise about it until then. Overall, the film is excellent in its sense of irony and drama. The concept is very interested as well, just take a group of seemingly unrelated people and go through their lives while at the same time connecting them together through events. 89/100

I have yet seen this. I am so far behind in seeing any of the movies I want to see. I took on a night job. And I don't have as much down time as I use to.
Donna A.

quote:

Originally posted by Mike:
"Crash," is a movie that I ignored while it was in theaters, but quickly was interested in after it was so critically acclaimed. I think that this is mainly attributed that I didn't hear any of the noise about it until then. Overall, the film is excellent in its sense of irony and drama. The concept is very interested as well, just take a group of seemingly unrelated people and go through their lives while at the same time connecting them together through events. 89/100

Planet of the Vampires (Bava, 1965, Grade: C)

Lobby Card

First off, this has nothing to do with vampires, but American-International, who distributed it in the U.S. was trying to cash in on Mario Bava's horror films when they named it for the U.S. A literal translation would be Terror in Space. Although the film is low-budget and hokey, it does create a unique atmosphere and seems to have inspired such classics as Solaris and Alien.

It's the story of two spaceships who forceably land on an alien planet, where the crew of one of the ships is found to have all died. Only later, it seems that they're not really dead. The plot isn't so important, although the ideas are visionary. What matters is the trademark Mario Bava lighting schemes and the weird sets and effects all done on a shoestring. For American audiences, the lead is Barry Sullivan; the rest of the cast is Italian. One other interesting thing about the film is its double-twist ending. If you watch it, be prepared for lots of campy moments, but remember that this was made 14 years before Alien, which is actually considered to have been inspired by the even earlier It! The Terror From Beyond Space (1958). Whatever you think of this, giallo maestro Bava deserves some attention from film buffs.