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Last 3 movies I watched. In The Loop 4/5 brilliant political satire. The American President 4/5 nice rom com with a dash of satire and The Sixth Sense 5/5 so good. GOing to see The Last Airbender tonight, I just hope it isn't as bad as people are saying. I really wish Shyamalan would find his talent again.
 
Nobody's liked that movie. Fans of the Manga/anime want to cut his nuts and impale him, people who are not familiar with the manga/anime weren't impressed either. I stayed away from it just because of the bad reviews.... I can watch it on FX in a couple of years.
 
I just saw Mulholland Drive, written and directed by David Lynch. I'm not even going to try to explain the plot, but it's a thriller set in Hollywood that quickly becomes very convoluted as it's never clear if the scenes take place in reality, somebody's dream, many people's dreams, alternate universes or whatever. It was originally conceived as a television pilot, which might explain some of the unresolved storylines, but I'm pretty sure a television series would just have become even more incomprehensible anyway.

Now, I don't particularly care for this sort of thing. It can be interesting to see a bunch of mysterious scenes that seem to be connected in various ways, but it's far more interesting to see a resolution that ties everything together in unexpected but coherent ways. The events in Mulholland Drive do seem to fit together somehow if you can make up your mind about what's a dream and what's not, but there are still lots of parts that seem to be completely random. Lynch insists that the story is coherent and comprehensible, and maybe if you watch it many times and pay attention to all the little details things will start to fall into place, but I doubt that it's worth the effort.

This is not to say that the movie is bad. It's very enjoyable to watch, and many of the scenes are delightfully creepy in a surreal way. However, I'll leave it to the Lynch fanatics to try and figure out what's actually happening.


For what it's worth, here's my basic interpretation:

The character of Diane Selwyn is real. She is a failed actress who takes revenge on her ex-girlfriend Camilla by having her killed. Consumed by guilt, she retreats into a hallucinatory dreamworld where she's a talented newcomer in Hollywood and "Rita" is in love with her. However, the happy dreams become progressively darker as the real world starts to creep in. Eventually, she is driven insane by her hallucinations and commits suicide.

Not sure how much that explains, but it's what I gathered from it.
 
The Last Airbender: 0.5/5. James Newton Howard's score was good. HOWEVER if Shyamalan thinks this is gonna be "the next big fantasy trilogy" he's sadly fucking mistaken. It's difficult to know where to start with this movie. I suppose the actors is as good a place as any. All of them were appalling. That's that covered. The script? Worse than Lady in the Water but there's no-one like Paul Giamatti here to even try to make it work. The plot? Kid needs to master Earth, Air, Fire and Water elements to save the four worlds. THAT'S IT!

I watch a lot of sci fi and fantasy. All of it is nonsense. It's an easy target and we delight in ridiculing it. The ones that succeed are the ones with characters we care about. If all these cunts had imploded in the end I'd have been satisfied. Given the talent and budget involved, this is without a doubt the worst example of the genre I've ever seen and I've seen some bad ones, believe me. I watched Sixth Sense last night and I just cannot believe it's the same film maker. Finally FUCK 3D. Again a constant annoyance, though 2D couldn't have saved this giant turd  DO NOT waste your time or money.
 
Last night I confirmed a hunch I've had for a few years now. Some movies from your childhood should stay in you childhood. Case in point, I watched Best of the Best last night, because I had Netflix instaque available and had very fond memories about it when I was a kid. Oh my god what a piece of crap!

The movie had potential as it has a decent cast: James Earl Jones, Eric Roberts and Chris Penn (yeah, Sean's brother of "Footloose" fame). It is martial arts movie from the late 80s/early 90s and I have no idea why I liked it as a kid. It is supposed to be a "tournament" in which the U.S team will fight the team from Korea... yeah that's it. a "tournament" with two teams. What's the name of the tournament? No name... not the olympics, not a summit (like that between the USSR and Canada in the 70s for hockey...), just a generic "tournament." Even if it was a "summit" it makes no sense. Again the example of Canada and the USSR, those were and still are the two hockey powerhouses in the world. in this movie the Americans were MAJOR underdogs..... why are they fighting against a superpower? AAAAH just makes no sense.

Also, besides Eric Roberts and the main character, "Tommy Lee," played by Philip Rhee (who didn't do shit except 3 more Best of the Best moves) you just don't care about the others... even Penn. Penn plays a racist cowboy from... Florida... yeah figure that one out, who gives Rhee a hard time just because his of asian decent, then one day, they become friends. Was there a scene to illustrate the change? Nope. ANY evolution in character? No. Just random training montages, a bar fight where they are supposedly bond and become "a team."

Tommy plays the stereotypical badass with a dark past... the martial arts equivalent of a Vietnam Vet. Turns out the guy he has been paired to fight against killed his brother 15 years earlier in a tournament. So even though he is a 6 Dan Black Belt he hates fighting... ugh. There's a "boo-hoo poor me" montage and then he gets over it and comes back and kicks ass.

The ONLY redeeming thing about this movie is what his opponent does at the end of the movie. I caught it on youtube a while back and nearly cried, VERY moving. It's too bad the rest of the movie sucks so bad, because that is still a very emotional part before it degenerates into a cliched feel good moment where members from both teams exchange Gis and medals...

This clip catches the tail-end of the fight, a flashback, Tommy showing mercy, but more importantly... the speech by Han:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g5MXqqGWhBA

Again, sadly not enough to redeem the movie. I wish I hadn't watched it again...
 
Jesus' Son was on tv tonight.  I was sure I'd written about it before in this forum, but couldn't find it.  I'm writing again because I freaking LOVE that movie.  My highest possible recommendation doesn't do it justice.  It's very funny at times, very intense at others, very sad at others, and generally "packs an emotional wallop" in the parlance of critics.  Unbelievably well-written, in part because it is based on a critically-acclaimed set of stories by National Book Award-winning author Denis Johnson, who is literally a poet.  Also, a great cast: Billy Crudup, Samantha Morton, with cameos by Denis Leary, Holly Hunter, Dennis Hopper and Jack Black, who has never been funnier  than he is in this brief role.  If I could retroactively award an Oscar to a film that had been ignored, this would be it.  Why are you still reading this?  Why haven't you gone to Netflix to rent it yet?? 
 
Stan said:
Haven't seen Inception yet, but I promised I will. Everyone's masturbating to it.
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It is so worth it.  The friends we went with saw it for the second time, so they could catch all the little things they missed.  Apparently, there was a Duck Tales episode that had a similar plot - dreams within dreams.
 
I just watched 'The Room' which some critics panned as the worst movie of all time.  If you see clips of this film on Youtube or in its entirety you'll understand why.  The whole thing was a brainchild of one Tommy Wiseau who managed to spend $6 mil. for lousy writing and acting, particularly from Wiseau himself.  The story is about a man whose fiancee cheats with his best friend.  The unintentional comedy of the film has prompted a cult following.  One of oft-repeated lines, and an unintentionally funny one at that, is the "you're tearing me apart, Lisa!".  The movie also suffers from bad pacing.  Watch it with a friend so you can laugh at it together. 
 
thatguywiththeglasses.com's Nostalgia Critic did a review on it. Wissaeu's lawyers made him take down the review for "making him look bad," even though the Critic encourages people to watch it. I was lucky enough to catch the review before it was taken down. Since then the other reviewers on the site have inserted little inside jokes among their own reviews. Specially doing their own versions of the  "Your tearing me apart," line. Fucking awesome.
 
The Stranger said:
Now watching Futurama: Bender's Big Score. A bit odd so far. I'm not saying it's not funny, but it's missing something from the series.
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The (four?) movies that made up the fifth season, while not as good as the classic first four seasons, are far better than the new episodes.
 
Now watching one of my favourite movies of all time: Patton.

Not only does the movie get the history fairly correct, they it features what I consider to be one of the greatest acting performances in the history of film: George C. Scott as Patton. He was so good that every other actor in the movie (and there were some great ones like Karl Malden as Bradley and Michael Bates as Monty) looked like garbage. The movie was written by Coppola and directed by Schaffner, who also did the original Planet of the Apes.

The movie follows Patton's career from Kasserine Pass through the fall of Nazi Germany, and portrays his greatest strengths as well as his many weaknesses and quirks, including the infamous slapping of a PTSD-afflicted soldier and subsequent apology. It shows how he was a prima donna who sometimes cared less about the safety of his soldiers than the need to defeat his rival Montgomery. And it shows how he was a hard-driving personality who got shit done. They don't try to gussy Patton up, as simply emulating the man needs no additional spit and polish.

There is combat in the film, but it's more the story of a great (in the historical sense) American than anything else.
 
I remember seeing that movie with my father very young something like 10 years old,
and despite I was very young to notice actors' performances and such stuff,
I remember to have been completely impressed by Scott. I need to see him again.

I've been told about two interesting entries : The new Stalone movie with an Arnold Swarzenegger in guest appearance,
as well as the new Batman which apparently is turning to be one of the biggest movies ever -quality wise and box office as well.

I liked to see them both. Anybody's seen them already ??
 
Watched Laura Linney's new show, The Big C. Heard it was brilliant but I wasn't so sure given the depressing nature of the subject. My fears were unwarranted, laughed my ass off at it. Brilliant stuff. Can't wait for episode 2.
 
Onhell said:
thatguywiththeglasses.com's Nostalgia Critic did a review on it. Wissaeu's lawyers made him take down the review for "making him look bad," even though the Critic encourages people to watch it. I was lucky enough to catch the review before it was taken down. Since then the other reviewers on the site have inserted little inside jokes among their own reviews. Specially doing their own versions of the  "Your tearing me apart," line. Fucking awesome.
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Hah-hah.  That's where I learned of 'The Room'.  Nostalgia Critic is great.  Love the sarcasm!
 
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