Ip Man 2

Just like the first one in a mostly good way. This movie has some shades of a Rocky sequel or two. Highly entertaining with nice fight scenes, but heavily reliant on nationalism (Chinese) to drive emotions. I really enjoy the depiction of the martial arts (no zero gravity stunts) and the title character, played by Donnie Yen, is very compelling. I find him to be every bit as enjoyable as Sly, Arnold, or Bruce, and his character is much more cultured than their characters are usually presented. 7/10.

I must have mentally skipped all these political implications while watching TDKR (thought it just provoked a couple of ideas as backdrop but didn't delve into them deep enough for me to grasp its stance), or maybe being foreigner makes me more unaware of how it relates to US (don't know who Ayn Rand is). Anyway..

Battleship (2.5/4.0 , 6.5/10) - Overlong, but fun in a leave-your-brain-at-the-door kind of way. Definitely much better than the Transformer sequels (a bit better than the first one), the movies that James gave equal star rating to. The action is comprehensible and competently exciting (it's Peter Berg after all). Especially like those deadly metal spinners and the scenes which incorporate the board game aspect in. Become exceedingly messy plot-wise towards the end though.

Following (3.0/4.0 , 7.5/10) - Christopher Nolan's first feature is the only one of his films I haven't seen. It is a confident, twisty, but slight debut, clocking in at 69 minutes. It is notable for two things for me: the decision to tell the story in three separate timelines that come together at the end, quite an ambition for a first film; and the successful atmosphere and direction for a very low budget film ($ 6,000), helped by rehearsing extensively with the actors to get it right in one or two takes.

Catfish (3.0/4.0 , 8/10) - Just finished this a few hours ago. I know the "twist" beforehand (Community, I love you to death, but damn you for casually spoiling stuff like this), but even though in essence the story is nothing that much unusual, the last half of the movie still packs quite an emotional punch, thanks to the haunting and ultimately tragic figure at the center of this documentary. The film treated both sides equally; I didn't feel any condescension being made towards portraying this complex individual that, yes, did some very wrong things, and for all the arrogance that the filmmakers displayed, when they learned the truth, they were careful and gentle in their interaction with the subject. A moving insight into what must have happened countless times in this internet age.

Take This Waltz (2011) ***

Did I see this movie partly because I'd wanted to see Sarah Silverman's breasts for years? Yes, yes I did. But I got so much more than her breasts. A movie about relationships which actually feels observant and real, and a Brief Encounter like movie where for once



I found a lot to like in Sarah Polley's second film. There were some annoying aspects to it, such as a complete lack of believability, but it's definitely worth checking out if you get a chance.

If this line didn't make you nearly spit your drink out with laughter, your sense of humor needs some work.

Guess what! I just saw Attack the Block and figured out, once I turned the subtitles on in order to better understand what sounded like the kind of word salad one hears when you give a fellow's brain a good poke, that this movie was deservedly praised. Good-hearted and clever what with the apparent antagonists turning out to be the heroic almost-anti-heroes and the apparent protagonist turning out to be just another member of the gang. Quick, fun and more exciting than what I've been getting of late. While our hero may not get the kind of universal understanding he needs, he seems pretty pleased by film's end -- good stuff. Pretty high *** from me.

Gattaca

In short, it's smart sci-fi that deals with genetics and discrimination in an intelligent way. It doesn't transcend genre to enter Blade Runner levels of greatness, but there's plenty here to chew on. Worth a watch.

It isn't.

Just a damning indictment of certain modern-day movements.

Very (very very) slowly making my way through movies stored on the computer's hard drive. Last stop was Le Havre, highly acclaimed French comedy-drama made in the classical mode. The cinematography is spare and all the more impressive for it, the tale of immigration and political resistance is told with an absolute mininum of cynicism, the movie is just about perfect*.

*Perfect is a funny thing. Flawlessly designed and executed with a fine eye for detail doesn't necessarily make for an engaging film. Enter Le Havre, exhibit A, gloriously straightforward and optimistic well past the point where I though the filmmakers were yanking my crank. Slant Magazine makes the case that the movie is told from a child's point-of-viewand they do a good job: I'm convinced. Rather than ending up just un-cynical it also ends up feeling weird; all the cinematic stylings of eras past serve to highlight how perverse writer/director Aki Kaurismäki's vision really seems.

Ebert writes "This movie is as lovable as a silent comedy, which it could have been," and that's true enough. Scott Tobias of Onion's AV Club writes "Kaurismäki has a narrow vision, disarming and sweet, yet utterly predictable, and there's little distinction between the films he's directing today and the films he directed 30 years ago. They have the wrong kind of timelessness." That comment about the "wrong kind of timelessness" is equally true.

A convincing case could be made that the film is brilliant but I thought it more desperately quaint than charming. There's a market for that. **1/2 for the careful composition alone.

Oh I love Gattaca. The production design and vision of the future are amazing, and the movie is legitimately inspiring. It's a movie about a man who goes through incredible adversity to achieve something that isn't sports!

'Weekend' (Godard, 1967) wtf? out of ****
I don't... I'm not sure... I think... but then... well maybe... what?

Wasn't very good, was it? Although at least one poster (Unke) liked it -- I draw the line, maybe this is just me, with the scene where two characters give long speeches while staring directly into the camera. Not even that, the non-speechifying speechgiver is the one who stares while the other pontificates. I'll admit to being alienated by this style.

Ugh Godard can blow me. Although Band A Part isn't terrible

That's one of the many movies collecting dust on my hard drive.

Here are the others:

[ ]A Separation
[ ]Ace in the Hole
[ ]Street Fighter
[ ]The Mirror
[ ]Another Year
[ ]Band of Outsiders
[ ]Charade
[ ]Rosetta
[ ]Children of Paradise
[ ]Fingers
[ ]Forbidden Games
[ ]Grand Illusion
[ ]Careful
[ ]Incendies
[ ]Stagecoach
[ ]The Best of Youth
[ ]The Last Metro
[ ]Eyes Without a Face
[ ]Letter Never Sent
[ ]Little Murders
[ ]Medium Cool
[ ]Minnie and Moskowitz
[ ]Pickpocket
[ ]Putney Swope
[ ]Quadrophenia
[ ]Three Outlaw Samurai
[ ]Singin' in the Rain
[ ]Stalker
[ ]Strangers on a Train
[ ]The Cook, the Thief, His Wife and Her Lover
[ ]The Friends of Eddie Coyle
[ ]The Last Temptation of Christ
[ ]Suicide Club
[ ]The Spirit of the Beehive
[ ]The Thin Man
[ ]The Naked Kiss
[ ]They Shoot Horses, Don't They?
[ ]Two-Lane Blacktop
[ ]Umberto D.
[ ]Valerie and Her Week of Wonders
[ ]Wages of Fear
[ ]Late Spring
[ ]Yi-Yi
[ ]w.e.
[ ]Cashback
[ ]Dracula
[ ]Red River
[ ]Millenium Actress
[ ]O Lucky Man!
[ ]Whisper of the Heart
[ ]Attack the Block

I've seen a few, though not many, at this point.

There I pared that down for you. That's five movies, and twenty stars in my book.

I just recently watched and greatly enjoyed The Last Metro. It's surprisingly straightforward for a film from a New Wave director, but both the story and the performances are as solid as they come.

The other three I watched very close together a few months back as part of an Alphabetical Challenge that A.J. Hakari started. I gave them all perfect 10s.

Letter Never Sent is somewhat similar both in content and structure to the recent The Grey. Some breathtaking cinematography in that one.

Three Outlaw Samurai is one of the better samurai films I've seen. Pete saw it too and enjoyed it, although not quite on the same level as me. I'm a sucker for samurai films though.

The Spirit of the Beehive makes a good companion piece with Pan's Labyrinth, in that both films feature young girls escaping into fantasy worlds to avoid confronting the horrors of modern reality. The Spirit of the Beehive is less fantasy-oriented, but no less effective.

Shrek 3 (2007)

Not as good as 1, but better than 2.

This is part of the LoveFilm subscription I get for my (nearly) 3 year old Daughter. Any more suggestions are welcome!

8/10

Curious George 2: Follow that Monkey (2009)

Not as good as the first but with a lovely, family-friendly, middle of the road soundtrack from Carbon Leaf.

6/10

True Grit (2010)

A rewatch from last year. Like any Coen film it has grown on me on a subsequent viewing.

8.5

Since everyone else is telling you what to do, I say watch these 6 immediately. They're all wonderful.



I DVR'ed this one last week and planned on watching it this week. It's one of the last "classic" Westerns I haven't seen. I'm really looking forward to it. Have you seen Rio Bravo?

The last movie I watched was Orson Welles' The Stranger. The movie works as a cat-and-mouse game between Edward G. Robinson's Mr. Wilson, a government agent on the tail of Nazi war criminal/assimilated American citizen Franz Kindler/Charles Rankin (Welles). The material gets pretty pulpy, which is fine because Welles seems to be having fun with it. There's the name Rankin, given to his character after he blends in to small town America, which is a play on words of "rank and file". The actual character is mustache twirlingly evil, which Welles embraces in his performance. Other characters are named Mary, Noah, and Adam (all related), with much of the plot revolving around a bell tower in a church. The plot moves forward because Robinson's government agent has an almost supernatural feel for what Kindler will do next. The proceedings are just a little silly. Welles does a nice job of throwing in a few "jokey" visual metaphors and, for the most part, seems to be in on the fun.

Where the film doesn't work is in its politics. Not that such a pulpy, silly film should stay away from such things, but there's a heavy-handedness and uninventiveness to the points Welles seems interested in making. There's a scene where he sits Rankin's wife down and literally shows her actual footage of concentration camps (Kindler was the mastermind behind concentration camps) . Welles does his best to stylize the scene, but it isn't really in tone with the rest of the film and comes off as uncreative and pretty lazy. Even worse than this scene is the utterly cliche "dinner party" scene where Robinson and Welles face off while eating dinner and overtly state their political beliefs. At points it feels like Welles is just telling the audience how he feels about Facism. And really, he was. Some post viewing reading reveals the dialogue Welles spouts in this scene mirror his personal beliefs. It's a dreadfully preachy few minutes.

The end result is a muddled movie that can't really decide if it wants to be a straightforward B-noir or a political condemnation of Facism. I would have enjoyed seeing Welles relish the opportunity at making some pulp fiction, because those parts of the film are fun and exciting. It's his need to insert some kind of agenda into the proceedings, and to insert that agenda in such a uncreative way, that slow the film down and cause it to sink into mediocrity.

The Spirit of the Beehive is not nearly as inventive, singular, or effective as Pan's Labyrinth, in my not-so-humble opinion. Kinda slow too.

I thank you all (three) for the recommendations and will try to win the momentum required to watch one of the movies, maybe even two of the movies, put forth in the next week. I could have viddied one last night but watched Body Heat instead.

This was Lawrence Kasdan's film debut, possibly, and even if not it has all of the ambition of a first-timer posting a love sonnet to his favorite styles and character archetypes. Some filmmakers make a career out of this homage. Kathleen Turner (all of 27 at the time) and William Hurt play a cheating couple who foist themselves into noir machinery in order to carry out a murder and real the financial benefits. Ted Danson is also there, frequently dancing about.

The movie made Ebert's Great Movies list but I spent 113 minutes looking for, and failing to find, greatness. It's pretty good riffing at noir with some nudity and great performances (especially Hurt, smart only when it's too late and always three paces behind Kathleen Turner) but didn't do anything near as exciting as many an actual noir. The point wasn't just homage but the telling, with style and obvious care, of a familiar story rife with implications that are more suited to characters born during the fifties. It's a good movie. Great score by John Barry, too.

I one thing I can be sure I felt about the film was intrigued. I didn't dislike it but I'm still trying to get a grasp on the film, not least of which being finding a proper way to try and approach it. I actually kind of enjoyed the film, I'm just not sure where to begin.