I watched Eraserhead for the first time a couple days ago. It wasn't really what I was expecting, except the whole weird thing. I has seen a movie about Midnight movies and they talked about it in that and that's about all I knew of the movie aside from David Lynch and again, it being very weird. I'm not exactly sure what to say about it, it's probably not like I'd add anything new. But I am glad I finally did watch it, we got it from Blockbuster.com, we wouldn't have been able to find it anywhere else.

Two dvds I watched tonight:

The Descent Six ladies go cave exploring and dangers await. I liked the suspensful build-up and the action but not the ending. Still worth renting or watching on cable.

Monika Marisa Tomei as a mom who sees things or foresees things or whatever. Much as I love Marisa, here's a film best avoided. It's either predictable or one of those "did that happen or was she hallucinating?" films. There was another Tomei film released on dvd today, Factotum, guess I should have rented it instead.

quote:

Originally posted by crazed:
I watched Cars on dvd the other night. Great animation as expected. The storyline reminded me a lot of Doc Hollywood. Most of all, I enjoyed the Route 66 subplot. Very good film.

The first time I saw Cars, I thought "wow, amazing visuals, but quite booooring". I decided to check it out again, and promptly watched it for a third time as well.

It is so good. I'd say the best animated film for an adult to enjoy (unless Fritz the Cat is your thing ). The story is packed with tiny little details, there is so much to take in, I must have missed a good chunk of it the first time.

Anyway, the story is emotionally resonant, and it really connected with me. Sometimes I long for the slow things in life we never notice until it's too late.

The reason I probably dismissed Cars the first time is because I was prepped for a balls-to-the-walls fast paced, high octane, animated movie. It caught me off guard. It broke away from the norm. This movie has so much heart behind every little animated frame, it is staggering.

Almost made me cry, it's that good.

I, too, recently watched "Cars" and, although I said the same thing about "The Incredibles," it is, without a doubt, the best animated film created. It has more character depth and plot then countless films that are not animated and the action is great. Larry the Cable Guy finally got a role he could shine in, Owen Wilson didn't hijack the film and all of the supporting cast did a stellar job. Probably the most well written film in years. 99/100

quote:

Originally posted by Mike:
I, too, recently watched "Cars" and, although I said the same thing about "The Incredibles," it is, without a doubt, the best animated film created.

Nice comment Mike. You are right about that. Pixar takes it to another level every time they make a new film. They are a solid company, with great values and trust in each director (Bird and Lasseter being the best). I was a bit worried because Cars was the first film they released since being purchased by Disney...but no harm was done. It is a classic. It oozes heart. Amazing.

Over the Hedge Rented this animated film on dvd and watched it last night. A few good laughs but nowhere on the level of "Cars" or "Monster House". Probably not worth paying for a rental though worth a gander once it arrives on cable.

quote:

Originally posted by crazed:
Over the Hedge Rented this animated film on dvd and watched it last night. A few good laughs but nowhere on the level of "Cars" or "Monster House". Probably not worth paying for a rental though worth a gander once it arrives on cable.

Completely agree here. Glad to know you also liked Monster House...I thought it was like a modern day Goonies.

Over the Hedge was better than I thought it would be. Much better than Barnyard (possibly worst ever animated movie) and Shrek (too many pop-culture references). Not as good as the pixar flicks, but decent enough.

One of the (many) benefits of living in a place like New York City is that there is still a vibrant market that shows non-commercial films/foreign films that don't necessarily get picked up for commercial distribution in the U.S. By living here, I often get a chance to see films that I wouldn't get a chance to see if I lived somewhere else.

One of these series is currently running at the Museum of Modern Art, where that august institution is running a retrospective of what it calls "Paolo Virzi Mid-Career."

I admittedly had never heard of Virzi until MoMA's film calendar arrived in the mail, though I had seen one of his films playing in the six-film retrospective. That would be CATARINA IN THE BIG CITY, which I caught back in '94 at the Walter Reade Theatre at Lincoln Center in its annual series of recent Italian films.

In any event, I caught two of Virzi's films last night at MoMA:

KISSES AND HUGS. This one was a mis-fire, a comedy with some dark overtones that involves a family of loveable losers trying to make a go of it by raising ostriches in Italy. I kid you not. The family members are hoping that a sister's boyfriend, who holds some sort of job with the Italian government, will approve a loan. The sister doesn't make it home, but her boyfriend -- or who the guy who the family thinks is the boyfriend -- does and they go to great lengths to impress this guy until they inevitably figure out that it is the wrong guy. A theme of Virzi's films is one of loveable losers. This one was too broad and missed the mark. Rating D.

AUGUST VACATION. This film worked a lot better for me. It focuses on two families living/vacationing side by side on a summer resort island. One group consists of a bunch of left-wing intellectuals and the other consists of some philistine, lower class people. They invevitably clash, but the film goes deep in exploring the feelings and crushed dreams, particularly among the lower class people pictured. There is much more to these people that first depicted. A terrific film whose best known actress in the ensemble cast was Laura Morante, an Italian beauty who has been in a number of films that made their way to the U.S., most notably John Malkovich's directorial debut, the terrific DANCER UPSTAIRS. Rating. B+

Spider Forest Has anyone else seen this Korean suspense/horror-thriller? I saw the film on dvd tonight. The story begin as Kang Min approaches a forest cabin at night and we see someone injured in the foreground. Min enters the cabin to find a co-employee brutally murdered and his girlfriend dying as she speaks her last words to him. The killer is still in cabin but flees with Min in pursuit. Somewhere in the forest the killer attacks Min and stabs him. Min hobbles away only to be struck by a pick-up truck but survives. From that point on, we get the mixed-up time elements of "Memento" and "Mulholland Drive". The story backtracks, flashbacks and it's pretty much non-linear storytelling- or is it? Whose point of view we're seeing at times may also be lost in the spidery cobwebs of the film. Worth renting, worth watching multi-times, it's a pay-attention movie, well, at least for cobwebbed minds like mine.

Stay (2005)-Had I known this movie existed last year, it would have easily made my top three. I started the movie having no idea what to expect and found that it was one of the most captivating movies I have seen. The film is directed by the director of "Finding Neverland" and is about a psychiatrist who attempts to save a patient from committing a suicide he has decided to commit in three days. The twist is that the movie's cinematography is akin to "Eternal Sunshine of Spotless Mind" and things seem to get stranger and stranger. After looking at what the reviewers had to say, it seems to be a hit-or-miss film. The best thing about this film is how emotionally charged it is, when the credits started rolling, I was drained. 85/100

DREAMGIRLS. I'm starting to knock off the plethora of end-of-season Oscar nominees and yesterday I caught up with the musical DREAMGIRLS, which I liked quite a bit. Not a great film by any stretch, the sausage factory, in this case Paramount (w/ an assist from Dreamworks) did a better job than the sausage factories did with other Broadway musicals that were made into films (EVITA, PHANTOM OF THE OPERA, RENT, THE PRODUCERS). I did see DREAMGIRLS on stage back in the eighties and the one thing I remember about it was the movement and dance numbers and the person I most associate with the play is the late Michael Bennett, who directed and choreographed the original stage versions. This film doesn't have much dancing and big musical numbers, but the songs are good, the acting is top notch (nice to see Eddie Murphy in a watchable movie) and it is a first class production. Rating: B.

HARDBOILED EGG. Another one directed by Paolo Virzi, who is unknown in the U.S., this is another Italian flick from '97 that went undistributed in the U.S. It is also another terrific film, basically a coming of age story of a poor Italian kid whose mother dies, father ends up in jail and whose brother is mentally retarded. He lives with his mean stepmother, retarded brother and baby half-sister in the Italian equivalent of a U.S. housing project. He is a good student and is mentored by a teacher (Nicoletta Braschi, Roberto Benigni's spouse) who gets him into a good school where he meets a rich kid he bonds with and the story continues on until young adulthood. Good insights into the poor and working class, Virzi has great affection for these people. Rating: B+.

LIVING IT UP. This one from '94 and again directed by Paolo Virzi, this one never made it into a U.S. art house and again a terrific film about a steelworker who is laid off and his relationship with his wife, the lovely Sabrina Ferilli, who was also in AUGUST VACATION. Ms. Ferilli has an affair with a local tv personality and finally reconciles and then leaves her husband for good. Again, Virzi takes some insightful looks at Italy's lower classes. Rating: B+

Apocalypto

Let me preface this by saying that when I heard about the abhorrent, grotesque amounts of violence, I prepared myself for the absolute worst. And the violence wasn't as bad as I imagined. Still pretty bad, but tolerable.

The movie was at least entertaining, it kept my attention for almost the entire running time.

Also, I agree with what my newspaper's review said about the beginning. When the movie is at its peaceful beginning before the conflict starts, Gibson manages to capture some genuine love and friendship among the families and fellow tribesmen.

After that...It stays very exciting but slowly gets more and more far-fetched and implausible. At times the violence does get gratuitous.

The main character basically escapes certain death 3-4 times and possible death a couple of times, all while running almost non-stop with an arrow wound.

The good thing is that the visuals and sounds are amazing, so if you can forget how unlikely some parts are, it will seem like a great movie.

Letter Grade: B-

If you saw it:
You know the part on the sacrifice block where the guy would stab someone and take out their heart? The heart looked like something plastic from a halloween store. You'd think they could have splurged a bit for something more realistic.

I had a pretty good time with APOCALYPTO and I'd give it a B. It is really a genre film, but Gibson knows how to keep things moving and it is certainly a well-crafted film. Also, it is virtually a silent film. All action, little dialogue.

THE GOOD SHEPHERD. I caught up with this one yesterday and entered with much trepidation. It has received very mixed reviews -- pans in the "Voice" and "Variety" but a solid review in the "Times." Metacritic gives it a 62 overall. I must say I was blown away by the film. Maybe it was the subject matter, but I found the film riveting and DeNiro was firing on all cylinders with this one. Basically the story of the OSS/CIA focusing on a counter-intelligence specialist well-played by Matt Damon, whose character is based on the real-life CIA spook, James Jesus Angleton. DeNiro really gets the WASPY, Ivy League, good ol' boy network of the CIA down and it is a beautiful looking film shot by the *great* Robert Richardson, cinematographer on many of Ollie Stone's best films. Even Angelina Jolie was good. What a year for Damon, with this and THE DEPARTED. I chuckle when I contrast the career choices of Damon and his pal Ben Affleck. Damon has made one terrific choice after another: THE TALENTED MR. RIPLEY, THE BOURNE SUPREMACY, THE BOURNE IDENTITY, and this year's one-two punch of THE DEPARTED & THE GOOD SHEPHERD, while Afflect makes junk like GIGLI & THE SUM OF US, just two of the many turkeys he made. Well, I guess there is a reason why Damon is the one who went to Harvard. Rating: A.

MY NAME IS TANINO. Another one by the Italian director Paolo Virzi, this one was a mess. You could tell Virzi was out of his mileau when he moved the setting of his film from his native Italy to the U.S. Basically the story of a film student who gets drafted into the Italian military who takes a powder to the U.S. and then the film has three remaining acts that don't work. In the first, he shows up on the doorstep of Rachel McAdams and her family (he met her in Italy and they had a brief tryst) but McAdams is wasted as various complications ensue. The second vignette begins after the protagonist flees and meets up with some family members who had emigrated to America and were successful. He hooks up, or gets hooked up, with the corpulent, repulsive daughter of a mayor and various complications ensue which cause him to flee again. In the final act, he ends up in New York City where he meets up with a film professor he admires. The film is a big drop-off from the other four Virzi films I saw. Rating: F.

TARAS BULBA. I saw a badly faded print of this one -- it had turned to pink -- and this film's bad reputation is well deserved. Yul Brynner is the eponymous title charachter, a Cossack, and Tony Curtis is his son. They battle the Poles for control of some steppes in the Crimea. Curtis falls in love with the Polish Prince's daughter to add a love interest. A badly directed, static, dud. Rating: F.

The President's Analyst A favorite film from 1967 I picked up on dvd. James Coburn plays a psychiatrist selected to help the President, who we never see. Soon the analyst becomes the target of spies and assassins. My favorite scenes are the musical pieces among the hippees. Great fun flick.

Happy Feet Caught this at the theatres last night. Another excellent animated film, I'd place it up there with "Cars" and "Monster House". The story follows Mumbles, a penguin in the Antartica who, unlike the rest of the penguin folk, cannot sing. But he can tap-dance, and this makes him even more the outcast. Great (and sometimes weird) blend of music, teen angst and environmental concerns. Worth the ticket price, as with "Cars", I'll pick this up on dvd too.

MAINE-OCEAN EXPRESS. This may have been the worst movie I've seen this year and one of the worst I've ever seen. A putative French comedy from 1986, it screened in MoMA's Prix Jean Vigo series and it was a total stinker that follows the escapades of two train conducters, a lawyer, her sailor client, a Brazilian bombshell and her impressario. It didn't even make any sense and was tough to sit through. Rating F-.

SAYONARA. I finally got a chance to see this film on the big screen after viewing it on video years ago and since it was shot in one of those wide screen formats so popular in Hollywood/Sausage Factory land in the 1950s that was a treat. The problem is that the cameras used to film in this style were so cumbersome the films tend to be static and bloated. This film was watchable mainly because Marlon Brando gave a solid performance in the lead. However, the story loses its kick because a Japanese-American romance today elicits a yawn and I guess back then, or the period portrayed, Japan right after WWII, it was considered scandalous. And Hollywood being Hollywood, they cast Ricardo Montalban as a Japanese actor. That made me howl, but thankfully his role was a small one. Rating: B-.

I recently caught Dave Chappelle's Block Party, and what an excellent film. What could've been a run-of-the-mill concert film, was one of the most uplifting films I've seen all year. Michel Gondry and Dave Chappelle offer a great portait of hip-hop, black culture, and the burrough of Brooklyn.

Grade: A

I've heard good things about BLOCK PARTY and I've got to add that one to my Netflix queue.

SAME TIME, NEXT YEAR. I caught up with this 1978 film yesterday after seeing on TV years and years ago a couple of times. The first time I was captivated and the second time I viewed it I felt the film didn't hold up so I was skeptical that I'd like it when I caught it in a theatre. Well, the film is mediocre, but does get better as it goes along. Based on a stage play -- and the film didn't escape its stage origins despite a mighty effort from director Robert Mulligan -- Alan Alda and Ellen Burstyn meet one weekend a year to continue an affair that started in 1952. The film is episodic, showing their meetings every five years up to 1977 so you can see the changes in clothing, hair styles and culture. I don't think Alan Alda is really an actor; he's more of a personality and gave a terrible performance. He's a classic TV actor. He doesn't have the presence to hold up on the big screen. Burstyn was better and she was on the top of her game back in the 1970s. The film often felt like a TV sitcom, though. Rating: D.

I just watched Lawrence Of Arabia all the way through for the first time. Is it just me, or is it actually pretty boring. And I don't mean it's too long. Sitting in one position for hours is one of my hobbies. I just mean, well... it's fairly tedious. I can appreciate why everyone talks about the cinematography, and the soundtrack, but Peter O'Toole's performance is one of the most overrated I've seen. 6 out of 10

Have I just committed sacrilege?

I watched Saw yesterday for the first time and found it to be a somewhat predictable horror film that had stiff acting and some interesting twists. Even though not on the level of this year's The Descent it was at times extremely entertaining. But it all comes down to the gratuitous violence that was overshadowed by the dull and emotionless acting.
6/10
P.S.- It's nice to see Danny Glover do something!

quote:

Originally posted by Everyoneanindividual:
I watched Saw yesterday for the first time and found it to be a somewhat predictable horror film that had stiff acting and some interesting twists. Even though not on the level of this year's The Descent it was at times extremely entertaining. But it all comes down to the gratuitous violence that was overshadowed by the dull and emotionless acting.
6/10
P.S.- It's nice to see Danny Glover do something!

The Descent is one of the most surreal attempts at a horror movie I've seen in awhile. The fact of the matter is, it leaves you with two sides at the end. Meaning that it actually supplies you with two endings (and to think I wasn't sastified already). The acting may not be as top-notch as you hope but when you least expect it you'll find that the cinematography is a chilling background to a diverse and at times quirky story. This grabs on to you until you know there is no hope left, possibly because there was no hope at all.