Well, I just came back from Pan's Labyrinth...
Pan's Labyrinth by Guillermo Del Toro
I am actually quite shocked. It was a beautiful film that was fun and approachable yet dark and mysterious. My expectations were high and it matched them. Possibly the most intriguing film I've ever seen, the acting was brilliant as well as the cinematography. The music was subtle as can be but you will still find yourself in awe of how well the arrangements and film fit together. The fantasy scenes are very well-executed and filled with emotion and imagination. War and Religion are clear and poignant themes throughout the whole movie. The ending will leave your jaw on the floor because not only is it so upsetting, it's just downright brutal. Guillermo Del Toro is a genius and this film is further proof that modern cinema is (arguably) just as good as classic cinema.
10/10
The best film of 2006...

An Inconvenient Truth.

***1/2 / ****

This is an important film. Yes, about 20 to 30 minutes of, well, campaign ad, is stuffed in there edgewise, but the rest is fascinating and very compelling. I urge the people of this forum to see it.

Prediction: Al Gore will announce his run for President when he picks up his Oscar.

A WONDERFUL NIGHT IN SPLIT. A Croatian film playing in the Musueum of Modern Art's Global Lens 2007 series this one is a very good yarn about various denizens of the city of Split. The film, shot in a highly stylized black and white, focuses on New Year's Eve, with vignettes of various low lifes whose paths cross. It is structured much like PULP FICTION as the director plays around with time. The film isn't told in chronological order. There is a drug dealer; a drug runner; young lovers who drop acid; a junkie; some American sailors; an old woman who rents out a room for trysts by prostitutes. Their paths all cross at one point. Rating: B+.

Memento
A vividly pleasing look into short-term memory loss, Memento captures the life of a man who wants to seek revenge because his wife was raped and murdered. It is a violent film but that just makes it more thrilling and raw. It almost seems like a never-ending bliss of flashbacks, killings, and tension but in the end it consumes everything and starts over again. A great movie but not one you should bring your girlfriend to, unless she likes bullets and psychological trauma.
9/10

quote:

Originally posted by Everyoneanindividual:
Memento
A vividly pleasing look into short-term memory loss, Memento captures the life of a man who wants to seek revenge because his wife was raped and murdered. It is a violent film but that just makes it more thrilling and raw. It almost seems like a never-ending bliss of flashbacks, killings, and tension but in the end it consumes everything and starts over again. A great movie but not one you should bring your girlfriend to, unless she likes bullets and psychological trauma.
9/10

I love this movie, in fact it is my current favorite. It gets better every time I see it, and deserved both Oscars for which it was nominated (and more).

It didn't even win Best Editing. Come on!

Unfortunately, Volver (which is now at another theatre) was not at the theatre I went to so I had to go see Letters From Iwo Jima and I am happy to say that I loved it!
Letters From Iwo Jima by Clint Eastwood
Flags of Our Fathers was great but this is just excellent. I'm actually sorry to say that I liked it more than Pan's Labyrinth which was at the top of my list since my viewing of it yesterday. Iwo Jima not only rebuilds Flags but it destroys everything you loved about that movie and makes at least 500x better. Clint Eastwood has made the best film of 2006. It's remarkable and sastifying. The beauty is always interrupted by the hatred and the war is always interuppted by suicidal tendencies. God, I love this film and every single person in the world should see it!
10/10
Movies I still need to see:
The Last King of Scotland
Volver
The Queen

quote:

Originally posted by Dork:
Prediction: Al Gore will announce his run for President when he picks up his Oscar.

You know, I was thinking about this just the other day. I think that it makes perfect sense and it will shock a lot of people. However, more and more people are saying that he should run for president and that he has a strong chance of not only winning the Democratic election but the whole thing. Wouldn't it be nice?

Saw III (2006, Grade: A-)

Extreme gore all throughout...the movie had noticeably much more gore than its predecessors. Wouldn't prove to be a downside for horror geeks who are well-accustomed to such graphic brutality and thus welcome gratuitous raw flesh, blood and guts. The games were also much harder to get out of. Makes viewing all the more interesting.

Continuity, however, is quite essential; you would have to have seen Saw and Saw II to make sense of the sporadic flashbacks making references to events in the aforementioned preceding movies and to occurrences that supposedly came to pass even prior to the first movie. The loose threads in the past and the mystery surrounding Jigsaw and his accomplice are now finally resolved in Saw III

The acting is a bit on the mediocre side, perhaps worse than the first two installments. The actresses playing the roles of Amanda (the accomplice) and the surgeon were a little unconvincing. The emotional elements of the movie were very closely tied to their characters, and their sub-par acting is blameable for the movie's slight failure in connecting with the viewer at this level. Tobin Bell, however, has been consistently superb in his performance as Jigsaw.

The ending is, well, a little open-ended. Just a little. All I was thinking at the close of the movie was..."He deserved it! He f*cking deserved it!!!"

For those who haven't seen this movie, I totally recommend watching it. Especially to all you horror fans out there.

quote:

Originally posted by FragileKidA:

quote:

Originally posted by Dork:
Prediction: Al Gore will announce his run for President when he picks up his Oscar.

You know, I was thinking about this just the other day. I think that it makes perfect sense and it will shock a lot of people. However, more and more people are saying that he should run for president and that he has a strong chance of not only winning the Democratic election but the whole thing. Wouldn't it be nice?

He already won the election once.

I hope Gore runs. As much as I would like to see Barack or Clinton in office, I'm not sure a minority could overcome the challenges of small-minded people. Gore could do it, and I hope he does. Otherwise we may get stuck with... McCain.

*shudders*

This upcoming election, the Dems have no shortage of good candidates. I love Obama, but think that he may not have enough political experience right now to win it. Senator John Edwards is a great candidate and is the most likely to take votes away from the republicans. I, however, am not a big fan of Clinton, she seems sort of sneaky and over the past several years has been moving towards the right for political purposes. But this is the wrong place for this discussion, I will have to find the Politics thread.

VENUS. This one ended up on some critics' 10 best lists from '06 and Peter O'Toole I believe bagged a Best Actor nom. I liked this one quite a bit from the team of director Roger Michell and writer Hanif Kureishi that most recently gave us THE MOTHER, one of the better releases back in '04. Sort of like Pygmalion -- I saw O'Toole on a Broadway stage playing Henry Higgis -- Peter is well cast as an aging, semi-retired actor who becomes infatuated with the somewhat uncouth, but pretty, grand-niece of one of his elderly acting buddies. They enter into a relationship. A real intelligent film. Rating. B+.

THE SACRED FAMILY. A Chilean film playing in MoMA's Global Lens series it is a low-budget film about a dysfunctional family. Set in a beach house in a picturesque part of Chile, the film has some Oedipal overtones and is somewhat abstract as a son brings his girlfriend to say with his parents over Easter weekend. The mother leaves -- I'm not clear why -- and the father and son's girlfried end up in an affair and the son finds out about it. Subplots about a female neighbor who doesn't speak who the son has eyes for and two gay neighbors round out the film. Rating: D.

ENOUGH! This one also unspooled in MoMA's Global Lens series it is a French/Algerian coproduction set in Algeria in the 1990s. The lovely Rachida Brakni -- so good in CHAOS -- is a doctor. Her husband disappears. She and a friend set out to find her husband who she thinks has been taken by some Muslim extremists. There is a stage of siege as the authoritarian government is cracking down on the fundamentalists. There is some comment on the violence and the way women are treated this one is a bit difuse. Like KILOMETRE ZERO not much happens. Rating: B-.

Volver
Pedro Almodovar is an unstoppable force, his movies are not only genre-defining but unique in every way. Volver surpassed my expectations as a film about love gained, love lost, and a ghostly mother. The stunning Penelope Cruz stars as "Raimunda" an outspoken woman who represents independence. Her performance was not only unbelievable but raw and showed great versatility. Murder, Rape, and Death are constant themes throughout the movie each plagued by Almodovar's dense symbolism. Overall, the movie was one of the best of last year and contained a certain thrilling edge of resistance and shock. Looks like we know who the Academy Award for Best Foreign Film is going to ...
P.S. Fragile dude, you seriously need to check it out!
Score:
10/10

The only flaw with that final sentiment is that Volver didn't get nominated Best Foreign Language Film.

I've been putting off seeing this because my wife wants to watch it, but she can't seem to fit any time into going to the movies right now.

Oh My God, you're right... That's not cool. Thanks for the heads up, It would have been funny to wait until Oscar night and realize that Volver wasn't nominated when the announcer is about to give the award. Mark, I think you'll be glad to know that I'm going to see Children of Men tommorow (and I am so excited ).

Sure I'm glad, but I'll be happier if you like it. I forgot to mention the awesome score and Michael Caine's wonderful John Lennon "impression" in my write-up.

Yeah everyoneanindividual, I really want to see Volver really bad but I am in a bind similar to that of mark's. I want to see it and my girlfriend really wants to see it as well, so I am waiting for her but she can't find time either. Just have to keep waiting...

As for Children of Men, is it really great? And if it is, why do you think it got overshadowed and overlooked by the Oscars? What does some of the score include because in the previews they use a song off of Muse's 2006 release (my personal number one). Just curious, thanks!

quote:

Originally posted by FragileKidA:
As for Children of Men, is it really great? And if it is, why do you think it got overshadowed and overlooked by the Oscars? What does some of the score include because in the previews they use a song off of Muse's 2006 release (my personal number one). Just curious, thanks!

Haha, this is funny. As much as I love good Sci-fi, the song was what got me interested in the film in the first place. (I'd see it, but I only watch DVDs for the most part.)

Idiocracy.

Plays out like a long comedy-sketch, but not in a bad way. Focuses on the idea of de-evolution of humans. The idea that trailer trash reproduce at an alarming rate and people with higher iq's only have one or two children.

It focuses on an average man being frozen in a military experiment who wakes up 500 years later and is the smartest man in the world. It's sci-fi comedy. Some really big laughs. A good idea, but not awesome. Just good, mindless fun.

B+

FINE DEAD GIRLS. The best film I caught in MoMA's Global Lens series, this is another Croatian film that involves the denizens of an apartment house. Two attractive girls move in and the older female super takes a shine to them because she has a ne'er do well son who could hook up with one of the women. The women, however, are lesbians and that sets in motion a series of events where the super takes a hatred to the girls when she finds they are lesbians; the son, who keeps getting rebuffed by one of the girls, finally rapes the girl and the girlfriend takes revenge by attacking the super's son, who falls in front of a train during the fight. Then the rest of the house residents chase the girl who killed the son and she gets pushed down a flight of stairs and dies. No doubt some sort of allegory about what has gone on in the Balkins, this is just a terrific film that this description doesn't do justice to. Rating: A.

REGULAR LOVERS. As good as FINE DEAD GIRLS was this one was just as bad. Trouble was FDG ran only 77 minutes and RL ran for 3+ hours and numerous people walked out. Directed by French avant-garde director Phillip Garrel, it focuses on some of the same territory that Bertolucci covered in his last film, the student and worker demonstrations in '68. RL, which received some good reviews and played in the '05 New York Film Festival, reinforced every negative stereotype about subtitled, foreign films. Long, static, talky and just boring. Rating: F.

Children of Men by Alfonso Cuaron
A film that starts off brilliantly and ends abruptly. For the most part the film is fast-paced and very tense. The film tells the story of a futuristic earth, a future where babies can't be born. The film's stylish cinematography is chilling and barren. Theo (Clive Owen) is the main character who has to save a pregnant woman from the abandoned fate of the world. The action scenes are absolutely incredible, certain elements of war and religion control the film until the end. A surprisingly bold work that should leave you wanting so much more ...
Score:
9/10