WATCHING OCTO(pus' som)BER (attempt to count to) 2011 THREAD

[J.M. Vargas]

Joyce's "Halloween Viewing thread 2011" is HERE for this month's all-horror viewing. For those of us that watch other stuff besides horror...

SWEET JESUS, PREACHERMAN (1973) on TCM-HD Underground for the first time. After a couple of killer opening scenes showing hitman Holmes (Roger E. Mosley from "The Mack" and "Magnum P.I." fame) taking out his targets "Sweet Jesus, Preacherman" becomes a boring, preachy (duh!) and not-well-made by-the-numbers blaxploitation flick. William Smith (as the boss that initially sets-up, then doublecrosses Holmes) and Michael Pataki (playing a concerned Senator) liven-up their handful of scenes with their character acting chops. Most of the time though it's just Mosley doing the predictable preaching-from-the-heart-without-preparation church sermons and sudden (i.e. pointless) bursts of violence that "Black Dynamite" has perpetually folded into my mind as an endless reel of unintentional hilarity. Pass.

THE MEDUSA TOUCH (1978) on Showtime-HD. Don't you miss the good old days when respectable actors like Lee Remick (with an on/off again English accent), Lino Ventura (an older Clouseau if he were any good at his police work), Harry Andrews and Richard Burton would class-up otherwise simplistic, pulpy, psychological thrillers like this 1978 British disaster/horror flick? A regular on the 80's-90's late night movie circuit before the 9/11 terrorist attacks made it uncool to show toy airplanes hitting small-scale building replicas on TV, "The Medusa Touch" has both a nutty premise (an increasingly-unstable man that can create disasters at will) and the chutzpah from cast/crew to follow it up to its-own-and-nobody-else's-logical nihilistic conclusion. Burton (in flashbacks through most of the movie) looks like he's about to pop his brain out of his scalp, but that's what the script/direction requires for us to buy the lunacy that John Morlar is trying to sell to his shrink (Remick) and, in absentia, to Inspector Brunel (Ventura). This is one of those rare movies that left a mark when I was growing up that, on repeat viewing in my adulthood, lives up to my memories as a journeyman movie in which the whole is much better than its many looney tunes parts (follow the bouncing foam bricks inside the collapsing Minster Cathedral). A underrated horror British classic.

METEOR (1979) on MGM-HD for the first time. How can you not love an all-star cast (Sean Connery, Martin Landau, Trevor Howard, Karl Malden, Henry will-work-for-two-days-only Fonda, etc.) willing to be covered head-to-toe in mud and tossed around a flooded NYC subway set for the indignity of a paycheck from one of the last big-budget studio disaster movies of the 70's? SFX work is below "Superman" or "Moonraker" standards, Lawrence Rosenthal's histrionic score is peppered with synthesizer 'bangs' for the hell of it (or because they sounded futuristic back then) and the Cold War backstory is laughable (forcing very good thespians, specially Landau, to act/look foolish). To his credit director Ronald Neame ("The Poseidon Adventure") stages two excellent destruction scenes (Swiss Alps avalanche and Honk Kong tsunami) that focus on young people to underscore the scope of the meteor's menace, but then he botches the key New York City destruction scenes with the lousiest-looking SFX shots. Still, overall, a much more better and fun flick than "Armageddon."

BERGERAC: THE COMPLETE FIRST SERIES (1981) on R2 PAL DVD for the first time. A youngish John Nettles (thinner and two decades before 'Midsomer Murders') stars in this delightful BBC 80's cop series that's like a cross between "Rockford Files" and "Spenser: For Hire" soaked to the hilt with above-average-for-'81 British production values (i.e. not studio or island bound) and a who's who of British guest stars. As a Sgt. Detective in the small and wealthy island/province of Jersey (which, despite its small size, plays background to a all sorts of believable & implausible crimes) Bergerac is no super sleuth given previous bouts with alcoholism. He's just an unorthodox copper with a pretty girl (gorgeous Thérèse Liotard), a cool car ('47 Triumph Roadster), a curmudgeon Chief Inspector boss (Sean Arnold), a peculiar sidekick in wealthy Jersey resident Charlie Hungerford (Terence Alexander, looking like a cross between Devon from "Knight Rider" and Joe Biden!) and the instinct that elludes everybody else to know the guilty party right away. Blew through the ten-episode series and three commentary tracks in a couple of days and there are eight more series to go. Solid all around (a then-unknown Martin Campbell directed a couple of episodes) "Bergerac" is just what the doctor ordered to get me over the hump of being down to just TWO "Law & Order" shows ("SVU" and "UK") on the air... sob, sob!

BIG BROTHER 8 (2007) on YouTube for the first time. After experiencing my first beginning-to-end season with this year's "Big Brother 13" I got curious about what was it that made 'Evel' Dick Donato and his daughter Daniele (return veterans players) so hated/admired/talked about on the "BB" forums. And, even though I already knew how it ended, I watched the entire eighth season online (33 hour-long episodes) and enjoyed the hell out of it despite some production details (the generic metal tune that plays every time Dick is on-camera) that made me feel like my IQ was being syphoned from my brain. With a dysfunctional cast of freaks (crybaby Amber, moronic beauty Jen, meathead Zack, etc.) and a father-daughter Donato team that just plowed their way through them (with a little help from production, as always) "BB8" is that rare reality TV season that is fun watching years after it aired. Dick played and owned this season like a boss, a sharp contrast to the timid, over-the-top or clueless way players the show has cast since (including Daniele in this just-concluded season) are playing "BB" since I started watching (2009).

ALPHAS: SEASON ONE (2011) on Syfy HD for the first time. Though a generic 'mutants with powers' show at its creative core (from co-creator Zak Pen's own "X-Men" screenplays to "Justice League," "Heroes," "Misfits of Science," etc.... everything here feels used and/or borrowed from somewhere else) "Alphas" twists its genre conventions just enough to give both "good" and "bad" alphas enough shades of grey and humanity (without overdoing the pathos that sunk latter seasons of "Heroes" into perpetual joylessness) to make you want to see what happens next. And lucky for us "Alphas" gets better with each passing episode despite a SFX budget and production values slightly-above those of a Mexican telenovela. David Strathairn's Dr. Rosen and Ryan Cartwright's Gary stand out (though I have a soft spot for Azita Ghanizada's portrayal of Rachel's troubled family life) but, by the time we reach "The Unusual Suspects" (next-to-last episode), the entire cast operates like a team you don't want to see separated or splintered since they've become the cohesive 'TV family' these types of shows strive for. It's not perfect (armed US government forces being the perpetual uncaring idiot bullies gets old early) or for viewers that have burned out on previous 'mutant' shows (i.e. Joyce ) but, if you're patient and watch from pilot to game-changing season finale, "Alphas" will grow on you. It got me to watch the SyFy Channel again, something I haven't done since "Battlestar Galactica" ended in 2009.

[mavrach]

The Devil's Backbone - [SPOILERS] - First viewing. I'm listing this here instead of the horror thread, because I didn't think of this as being a horror movie at all! Gabriel said in another thread that this was the greatest horror film of the 90's, and a few of you have said how creeped out you were by this one. But that's not how I read the movie. Maybe it's just because I've seen a few of these "scary ghost children" movies (a la The Orphanage), where an apparently creepy kid just turns out to have been a victim himself, and isn't any kind of an actual threat. The Others also comes to mind as featuring non-dangerous ghosts. After a few of these, I'm starting to see the twists before they happen.

What I did get from The Devil's Backbone though, was an excellent movie that ponders the victims of war, with a supernatural theme. This would go perfectly with Guillermo Del Toro's Pan's Labyrinth. It's still a great movie, but I'd need to see it again with different expectations next time. Heh, this is kind of like when I saw Pan's Labyrinth for the first time and thought it was going to be another Labyrinth!

[Gabriel Girard]

The Devil's Backbone - [SPOILERS] - Gabriel said in another thread that this was the greatest horror film of the 90's, and a few of you have said how creeped out you were by this one. But that's not how I read the movie. Maybe it's just because I've seen a few of these "scary ghost children" movies (a la The Orphanage), where an apparently creepy kid just turns out to have been a victim himself, and isn't any kind of an actual threat. The Others also comes to mind as featuring non-dangerous ghosts. After a few of these, I'm starting to see the twists before they happen.

What I did get from The Devil's Backbone though, was an excellent movie that ponders the victims of war, with a supernatural theme. This would go perfectly with Guillermo Del Toro's Pan's Labyrinth. It's still a great movie, but I'd need to see it again with different expectations next time. Heh, this is kind of like when I saw Pan's Labyrinth for the first time and thought it was going to be another Labyrinth!

1. I should have said best horror film of the 00's (it came out in 2001)
2. I'd say that it's its atmosphere that creeps me out. There's something off-kilter and strange about it. You're making me want to see it again, maybe next October. I put around 20 movies on my computer before leaving Montreal and it wasn't one of them

[Ptolemy]

I knew nothing about Tucker and Dale vs Evil going in. Had a great time in a Shaun of the Dead sort of way. Worth your 8 dollars.

[Attrage]

Okay, it was rainy and miserable where I live over the weekend so I stayed in and caught a few flicks.

Stakeout – Very silly but enjoyable movie I can watch anytime. No matter how many times I see it, Richard Dreyfuss doing that little dance to Gloria Estefan’s Rhythm is Gonna Get You always cracks me up.

Midnight Run – Cool “buddy” picture from the 80’s featuring an in-his-prime Robert De Niro and Charles Grodin. An early effort from director Martin Brest who would go on to do the great Al Pacino film Scent of a Woman. De Niro and Grodin hit all the right notes with their banter (I love Grodin on the bus continually asking ‘why aren’t you popular with the Chicago police department?’ – I swear that whole scene is ad-libbed), and the film despite clocking in at over two hours never drags. Yaphet Kotto supports as the disgruntled FBI agent Alonzo Mosely. His annoyance at having De Niro steal his identity makes for the some of the movie’s most comical moments. I love the look on his face when the pilot says to him: “Are all you guys named Mosely?” And this film is the reason I annoyed people for weeks after seeing it for the first time. I’d look for any opportunity to say, “If you don’t shut up you’re gonna suffer from fist-o-phobia!” And funny story with this one, I once recommended this film to a friend saying it was a great comedy, but mistakenly they hired Midnight Express instead. I got a call after they’d watched it, “um…what exactly is your idea of a comedy…?”

Dead Poet’s Society - Hadn’t seen this in a few years, but revisiting it I found it no less powerful than before. It’s a very well acted drama, which I already knew, but I found I was quite stunned by the production design – every frame of the film feels authentically 1950’s. I also love the shots of the grounds of the school as the seasons pass. And *spoiler* even though I knew it was coming, I found Neil’s suicide just as poignant this time as when I first saw the film.

Hellboy – Guillermo Del Toro’s stab at the superhero genre. And what a piercing, visceral, bloody, samurai-sword stab it was too. I forgot how cool this film is. I love the character of Hellboy – so wise-crackingly tough yet with a heart of gold. A line that stuck with me the first time I saw this film, resonated again with me this time, when Hellboy is talking to Liz – “I can promise you two things: one, I’ll always look this good. And two – I will never give up on you. Ever.” Yes, I am a big softie, but that line always brings a big fat freakin tear to my eye….sigh…anyway. Hellboy’s angst over Liz is what gives this film it’s heart, and I think it’s handled so well. I love when he’s stalking John and Liz over the rooftops, and he knows the little things about her – how she takes her coffee etc (plus I always chuckle heartily when Hellboy clocks John with that pebble). The special effects and direction are top notch, the performances great. Typical Del Toro flourishes abound, in particular that gas-masked Nazi guy, seen without his face mask. Reminds me very much of the “pale man” from Pan’s Labyrinth - that same grotesque and unnerving parody of human life. All in all, a very cool film.

Commando – ahhh, good old 80’s Arnold Schwarzenegger. I love this movie. Talk about quotable lines! I must have seen this flick a hundred times, yet it never gets dull. This is what 80’s action films were all about. I could go on and on about it, but I’ll just mention some highlights – sleazy Sully “there’s something I’d really like to give you…”, every scene with Bill Duke “this Green Beret’s gonna kick your *ss!”, Bennett’s Freddy Mercury outfit, and of course Arnie wiping out hundreds of soldiers single-handedly in the climactic assault on Dan Hedaya’s house (I love that it’s like the same ten guys getting killed over and over again – look out for Fidel Castro-guy, fake moustache-guy, and my personal favourite, Charles Grodin-guy). But! Can someone please tell me…where is Bill Paxton in this movie?? He’s credited at the end as one of the “Intercept Officers”, but I can never find him!

And let’s see what else…I was going to watch the Liam Neeson film, Unknown, but the jackass at the video store forgot to remove the security lock on the DVD case, so that one will have to wait.

[hoytereden]

Tarzan's Greatest Adventure-As much as I love Weissmuller's MGM films; this, and the subsequent Tarzan the Magnificent Gordon Scott films are at least their equal. A no-nonsense film that wisely shelves Jane and Cheeta and is just about Tarzan's quest to either kill or be killed by Slade (Anthony Quayle) and his gang (featuring a young Sean Connery). Great film in the series.

[stypee]

Note to J.M. Vargas

Big Brother 8 was the BEST season ever! Love that show and when Evel Dick arrived, I was hooked. I subscribed to the 24 hour live feed and just couldn't get enough of it.

That being said, I needed to let you know, this is the worst title you've ever come up with for the watching threads. Its sort of disturbing on some levels.

-end of line-

[HGervais]

Le Deuxieme Souffle directed Jean-Pierre Melville. Just a gritty, matter-of-fact crime/heist movie. Lino Ventura & Paul Meurisse are both outstanding as the leads. Maybe one of my new favorite movies.

[Andrew Forbes]

Le Deuxieme Souffle directed Jean-Pierre Melville. Just a gritty, matter-of-fact crime/heist movie. Lino Ventura & Paul Meurisse are both outstanding as the leads. Maybe one of my new favorite movies.

If you haven't seen Le Doulos, rectify immediately.

[Future Man]

Mimic
I remember being ho-hum about the theatrical version and the director's cut on Blu-ray did not change my feelings much. Just not very scary/thrilling to me.

[Steve T Power]

Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides - Sensed a TON of ill will around this one when it was released, and (surprise!) wound up loving it as much as the first one. Even at 2.5 hours it feels lean, the characters are used well, the focus is squarely on Jack (where it belongs), and Ian McShane was damned awesome. Very very happy with this one.

[mavrach]

Funny People - Judd Apatow goes a bit sentimental, a little different for him. But Apatow's usual troupe does their usual improv schtick and it's fun as always. I would like to see them mix it up a little bit, after seeing these actors together in different combinations so many times over the past 5 years. They do have a good chemistry with each other, and you can tell that they're having fun and bring in their friends from other movies. I think they got Adam Sandler because Leslie Mann worked with him on Big Daddy. Still, I appreciate improv comedy because of the realistic feel to conversation that you can't always write on the screenplay. Hanging out with these characters is like being with friends.

I appreciated Adam Sandler's performance, basically playing a real-life version of himself. His character is a bit of a jerk, despite being known for making moronic comedies, which are exaggerated perfectly in this movie. I did like Sandler's previous attempt at a serious role in Punch-Drunk Love, so I wish he'd take more chances like these more often. He is capable of more than characters with silly voices (I do like some of those too if the mood strikes).

Blades of Glory - I have no excuse why, but I had a lot of fun with this one.

Beyond the Mat - Nifty documentary about pro-wrestlers made about 10 years ago. Jake "The Snake" Roberts' story would go perfectly with The Wrestler


Excalibur - Wow, a fantasy movie for adults! It's almost unfathomable in this day and age. Fantasies are usually made for families because they attract the kids moreso, but we adults enjoy them just as much! It's nice to see such a movie not holding back in the areas of nudity & violence. Those aren't necessary ingredients to a great movie, but watching Excalibur illustrates how that can accentuate a movie and make it more serious.

They had a lot of ground to cover with this story, going for the ENTIRE legend in a single movie, very ambitious. I do think some of the characters suffer as a result, Guinevere & Lancelot aren't well-explored, almost as if you're expected to know the story going in so they're not going to bother telling you again.


The Seventh Seal - My second viewing, digesting it a little more this time. The philosophy seems ahead of its time, but then again I am used to US movies made around then, so doubting God's existence wouldn't come up so often! I really need to get more into Bergman's work. I got a few more of his movies last year at the same Barnes & Noble Criterion sale that I got this one at, and I've been waiting for some sort of perfect moment to watch them. It's been a year so it's time. I think [b]The Virgin Spring[b] will be next.

[J.M. Vargas]

Note to J.M. Vargas

Big Brother 8 was the BEST season ever! Love that show and when Evel Dick arrived, I was hooked. I subscribed to the 24 hour live feed and just couldn't get enough of it.

Tell me about it. Started watching "Big Brother 6" online shortly after finishing "BB8" and it's just plain boring without a 'Dick'-type of character to fire-up the bimbos and wannabe-stars. Don't think I'll be able to finish "BB6," life is short.

That being said, I needed to let you know, this is the worst title you've ever come up with for the watching threads. Its sort of disturbing on some levels.

We do volume business, not all of these can be winners. And you should see the one's I ended up not using.

[Polynikes]

Excalibur - Wow, a fantasy movie for adults! It's almost unfathomable in this day and age. Fantasies are usually made for families because they attract the kids moreso, but we adults enjoy them just as much! It's nice to see such a movie not holding back in the areas of nudity & violence. Those aren't necessary ingredients to a great movie, but watching Excalibur illustrates how that can accentuate a movie and make it more serious.

The Seventh Seal - My second viewing, digesting it a little more this time. The philosophy seems ahead of its time, but then again I am used to US movies made around then, so doubting God's existence wouldn't come up so often! I really need to get more into Bergman's work. I got a few more of his movies last year at the same Barnes & Noble Criterion sale that I got this one at, and I've been waiting for some sort of perfect moment to watch them. It's been a year so it's time. I think The Virgin Spring will be next.

Two of my favourite films. Excalibur is in considerable debt to Wagner - Siegfried's Funeral March is exactly the right choice of music to some wonderful filming. I always smile at "that" early scene with Uther (disguised as Igraine's husband) and Igraine. You would think he might be considerate enough to take his armour off first.

If you think there was little restraint to the nudity in Excalibur , you should see the recent Channel 4 adaptation of the Arthurian legend Camelot. Eva Green and Tamsin Egerton were not shy of revealing all, to the fascination of my younger son. If you want a family orientated telling of the story, try Merlin now showing on BBC 1 on Saturday evenings. The appeal of the Arthurian stories thrives.

[mavrach]

I'll have to check those out, thanks!

[Attrage]

The Living Daylights - It’s a shame to me that Timothy Dalton only got to play our favourite British secret service agent twice. But in the case of The Living Daylights and Licence to Kill, it’s definitely quality over quantity. Dalton brings a very welcome darkness to the role after Roger Moore’s enjoyable but off the wall over the top craziness in Octopussy and A View to a Kill. Even though The Living Daylights was originally scripted with Moore in mind, Dalton wanted his characterisation of 007 to be more like the character in Ian Fleming’s books – a ladies man for sure, but a serious highly trained killer as well. He would lose the quips and roughen up even further in Licence to Kill, but that’s another post. Again, John Glen directs, and Dalton hits the ground running (literally) in the pre-credits sequence, immediately making the role his own.

This time around, Bond is up against a deranged arms dealer (who, among others, has a wax statue of himself as Adolf Hitler in his house – yeah, we got a well balanced individual here), a mad Russian General and a convoluted plot to eliminate both Western and Soviet spies.

The usual suspects are back in Q and M (something about the way Q pronounces “ghetto blaster” always makes me chuckle), but we get a new Moneypenny in this one, Caroline Bliss and although some people missed the old Moneypenny I actually dig the new one, she has that sexy librarian thing going on.

Bond girl for this outing is Maryam d’Abo (random trivia time: her sister Olivia starred alongside Arnie in Conan the Destroyer and was Kevin Arnold’s sister in The Wonder Years). She’s less glamorous than the Bond girls we’re used to, but I think she does a great job as the cellist/fake KGB assassin who gets dragged along on a Bond adventure. I remember reading somewhere that in this late 80’s AIDS-era Bond, they decided to limit Bond’s dalliances with the opposite sex to one (not counting I guess the yacht-bound socialite from the pre-credits sequence) as opposed to the if-it-breathes, bang-it philosophy of creaky old Roger. I think this serves the film quite well, as it allows d’Abo’s character, Kara, to be fully-realised rather than just a pit-stop for Bond between action sequences.

The Living Daylights has one of my all time favourite stunts in any Bond film – the fight on the cargo plane. While it suffers from Obvious Parachute Syndrome, I always get excited when they are hanging off the ramp of the plane on that cargo net – awesome stuff. And that gigantic plane taking a nosedive into the side of a mountain is a thrilling display of pyrotechnics (although, watch closely for a great continuity gaffe – when they escape in the Jeep, the plane is only a few feet off the ground, then when it cuts to it going into the mountain it’s suddenly climbed to several hundred feet altitude).

In my mind, this is solid entry in the 007 series. Certainly not the best, but it definitely doesn’t deserve the panning it got from quite a lot of critics when it was released. True, Dalton would make a much more satisfying Bond in Licence to Kill, but for a first effort and some big shoes to fill, I think The Living Daylights is as worthy and enjoyable a Bond film as any of the others.

[J.M. Vargas]

^^^ My favorite Bond movie by far. Saw it in theaters a couple of times when I was a kid (along with the last two Moore Bonds, which is why I have a soft spot for them even though I can see now the flaws that didn't bother me when I was young) and everything about it blew my mind: the score (John Barry's last for a Bond movie, which also happens to be his best IMHO), the stunts (the airplane fight is my second favorite mano-a-mano fight to the death between Bond and a henchman, the first being the train fight in "From Russia With Love"), the premise (more believable than 007's usual 'the world needs saving' foolishness) and, above all, an actor who embodied the bad-assery of Connery with the charm and wit of an Englishman. From the opening pre-credits sequence Timothy Dalton owns the role (no easy task, just ask Lazenby). Oddly enough I don't like "Licence To Kill' as much even though Dalton is still cool in the role (and has the single biggest laugh in the entire series with the set-up, execution and length to deliver the 'launder if' gag payoff ) but it looks/feels too close to a Joel Silver action flick for my taste. "The Living Daylights"? That's the bees' knees man!

[Attrage]

^^^ My favorite Bond movie by far. Saw it in theaters a couple of times when I was a kid (along with the last two Moore Bonds, which is why I have a soft spot for them even though I can see now the flaws that didn't bother me when I was young) and everything about it blew my mind: the score (John Barry's last for a Bond movie, which also happens to be his best IMHO), the stunts (the airplane fight is my second favorite mano-a-mano fight to the death between Bond and a henchman, the first being the train fight in "From Russia With Love"), the premise (more believable than 007's usual 'the world needs saving' foolishness) and, above all, an actor who embodied the bad-assery of Connery with the charm and wit of an Englishman. From the opening pre-credits sequence Timothy Dalton owns the role (no easy task, just ask Lazenby). Oddly enough I don't like "Licence To Kill' as much even though Dalton is still cool in the role (and has the single biggest laugh in the entire series with the set-up, execution and length to deliver the 'launder if' gag payoff ) but it looks/feels too close to a Joel Silver action flick for my taste. "The Living Daylights"? That's the bees' knees man!

I forgot to mention the score. I agree, I think it’s Barry’s best work in the Bond series, and I also really dig the a-ha song in the opening titles.

[OperaGal]

Paris, Texas - It's been quite a while since I've seen this. Seem to enjoy it more every time I watch it. Excellent story and cast, with a good mix of happy and sad moments.
I first rented it about 20 years ago because I was looking for Dean Stockwell movies and he is really good in this one!

Also been watching some episodes of Monk on the ION channel when I can.
Wow. Still have 5 seasons to buy yet...hmm, wonder if they'll be released on Blu-ray?

[Steve T Power]

^^^ My favorite Bond movie by far. Saw it in theaters a couple of times when I was a kid (along with the last two Moore Bonds, which is why I have a soft spot for them even though I can see now the flaws that didn't bother me when I was young) and everything about it blew my mind: the score (John Barry's last for a Bond movie, which also happens to be his best IMHO), the stunts (the airplane fight is my second favorite mano-a-mano fight to the death between Bond and a henchman, the first being the train fight in "From Russia With Love"), the premise (more believable than 007's usual 'the world needs saving' foolishness) and, above all, an actor who embodied the bad-assery of Connery with the charm and wit of an Englishman. From the opening pre-credits sequence Timothy Dalton owns the role (no easy task, just ask Lazenby). Oddly enough I don't like "Licence To Kill' as much even though Dalton is still cool in the role (and has the single biggest laugh in the entire series with the set-up, execution and length to deliver the 'launder if' gag payoff ) but it looks/feels too close to a Joel Silver action flick for my taste. "The Living Daylights"? That's the bees' knees man!

I forgot to mention the score. I agree, I think it’s Barry’s best work in the Bond series, and I also really dig the a-ha song in the opening titles.

Depending on my mood I often go back and forth between this and For Your Eyes Only as my favorite, with Goldeneye a distant third (Goldeneye would have been MUCH higher if they'd ditched that AWFUL score - It ruins a top drawer Bond outing).

[HGervais]

Depending on my mood I often go back and forth between this and For Your Eyes Only as my favorite, with Goldeneye a distant third (Goldeneye would have been MUCH higher if they'd ditched that AWFUL score - It ruins a top drawer Bond outing).

Funny but I love the Goldeneye theme song.
If Living Daylights has a problem it is that it was intended for Moore's 007 and there is some weird kind of internal tension there within the movie where it isn't sure what it wants to be. Still, Dalton was a very, very good Bond and in a lot of ways, ahead of his time. Pity we didn't get more 007 movies out of him.

[Andrew Forbes]

Depending on my mood I often go back and forth between this and For Your Eyes Only as my favorite, with Goldeneye a distant third (Goldeneye would have been MUCH higher if they'd ditched that AWFUL score - It ruins a top drawer Bond outing).

Funny but I love the Goldeneye theme song.

I love the Goldeneye song, but the score is horrendous.

[cdouglas]

Depending on my mood I often go back and forth between this and For Your Eyes Only as my favorite, with Goldeneye a distant third (Goldeneye would have been MUCH higher if they'd ditched that AWFUL score - It ruins a top drawer Bond outing).

Funny but I love the Goldeneye theme song.

I love the Goldeneye song, but the score is horrendous.

Indeed. it sounds like a mid-90s video game score in the worst possible ways.

[J.M. Vargas]

The Nintendo 64 MIDI cartridge soundtrack for "GoldenEye" runs circles around the movie's score, and I'm not even exaggerating!

[Attrage]

The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen – There seems to be a lot of haters for this film but I can’t for the life of me understand why. I mean yes it’s kinda predictable (you can see Dorian’s betrayal and the identity of the Fantom coming) and the screenplay differs greatly from the graphic novel but so what, a lot of superhero movies are guilty of those two things. I find The League an enjoyable and exciting film. It has great locations, well-staged set pieces, cool special FX and Sean-freakin-Connery! I mean, what’s not to like?

Cradle 2 The Grave - I normally don’t even bother with these types of movies simply because I usually find them boring and idiotic at best. But, exceptions to every rule I actually enjoyed the heck out of this one. The “descender rig” stunt at the beginning (where Jet Li drops from balcony to balcony of an apartment building) is awesome, and speaking of the Jet, all the fight scenes are spectacular. My favourite is actually not the scene where little Jet Li takes on a pack of Ultimate Fighters, but the first couple of fights where he kicks *ss with one hand in his pocket. It’s beyond cool. The plot is some ridiculous thing about some rare “black diamonds” that are not actually precious minerals but little plutonium things that when put into a special machine become the fuel for some horrendous nuclear weapon. Jet Li, a Taiwanese special agent, teams up with a suave armed robber (DMX) and his crew (who pilfered the stones from a vault) to stop the black stones falling into the wrong hands. Now, the movie is not supposed to be a serious take on anything, but the scene where the stones are being auctioned off to a bunch of arms dealers had me giggling like a madman. The “arms dealers” who I’m sure were supposed to be depicted as a bunch of enormously rich, dangerous and sophisticated criminals, come across more like a bunch of fashion designers auditioning the latest runway collection for the Spring catalogue. And the main bad guy begins with “you are the world’s foremost arms dealers”, what, do they have a Facebook page or something? Another ridiculous thing is the lengths the film goes to to elicit sympathy for the DMX character (during the initial robbery it’s made clear he’s some sort of Robin Hood - the diamonds and other precious stones they are stealing belong to “drug dealers and money launderers”, and he’s given a cute-as-a-button daughter that the bad guys kidnap) but none of these things had me reaching for the stop button at any point. Jet Li’s ice cool character, some heart racing stunts and some humor that did not elicit groans rather than laughs kept me watching to the end, and I had a pretty good time with this flick overall. I’d recommend this as a no-brainer waste of 90 minutes on a Friday night.

[J.M. Vargas]

Robert Hiltzik's SLEEPAWAY CAMP (1983) on DVD. Rewatched this with the 'F This Movie' commentary track (their first) and it's a scream! I've seen this a dozen times since the 80's and it took these guys' skewed perspective for me to see the utter ridiculousness and trip into the mindset of writer/director Robert Hiltzik ('who does this guy think he is, Victor Salva?') that "Sleepaway Camp" can be at times. I'll forever love this movie (the ending is a genre classic that will never be forgotten by anyone who saw it for as long as they live... how many flicks can claim that degree of immortality?) but it's nice when your idols can be taken down a peg with snarky comedic remarks.

[Steve T Power]

Depending on my mood I often go back and forth between this and For Your Eyes Only as my favorite, with Goldeneye a distant third (Goldeneye would have been MUCH higher if they'd ditched that AWFUL score - It ruins a top drawer Bond outing).

Funny but I love the Goldeneye theme song.

I love the Goldeneye song, but the score is horrendous.

Exactly.

[azul017]

American Horror Story - If Ryan Murphy can keep the intrigue level high and bizarre tangents minimized (should this get picked up for a second season), this could be the new cable show to watch. It's creepy, and I'm really interested to see how all this pans out. Jessica Lange seems to be regurgitating her Hush character, but unlike in that movie, it doesn't detract from the show at all.

[Steve T Power]

Streets of Fire - Again... Man I miss Walter Hill.

[J.M. Vargas]

^^^ Go see "Drive" in theaters... just about the same thing as early Walter Hill (or Michael Mann).

[BenShultz]

^^^ Go see "Drive" in theaters... just about the same thing as early Walter Hill (or Michael Mann).

Yes. For the love of god, yes. This movie has taken over my brain.

[molly1216]

^^^ Go see "Drive" in theaters... just about the same thing as early Walter Hill (or Michael Mann).

Yes. For the love of god, yes. This movie has taken over my brain.

hmm i think i need to get out of the house

Troll Hunter now on instant watch but i am certainly going to be buying it.
it is freaking awesome....and clever as all hell

oddly those scandinavians know how to have fun in the snø
Dead Snow
Troll Hunter
Rare Exports
looks like i know what i will be buying for halloween

[OperaGal]

MST3K: Devil Doll
MST3K: Pod People
MST3K: Corpse Vanishes
'Pod People' was just dreadful. Wow. Could not even imagine watching that one without MST3K. 'Devil Doll' was okay ,but like an extended version of The Twilight Zone's 'Dummy' episode.
The 'Corpse Vanishes' had bizarre moments, but not all that terrible. Thought that was a really good concept, just perhaps not polished enough...

Larger Than Life - Watched this on Netflix streaming. Rented it back in the 90s when it first was released. Fun, cute movie - really enjoyed Bill Murray in this one! Not in widescreen format, but don't think it had a theatrical release either.

Uncle Buck - Around 100+ viewings later...this doesn't stop being funny. John Candy at his best and one of my most fave comedies!

Seven - Saw this on TV the other day, think it was AMC. Loved this movie back when it first came out and seen it several times since. It was really well done and I so enjoy a gripping storyline. Really need this on Blu-ray, forgot to put it on the list.

[Mark Van Hook]

^^^ Go see "Drive" in theaters... just about the same thing as early Walter Hill (or Michael Mann).

Except it's not as good. Not even close. Not even close to close.

[molly1216]

marathon Season 3 and what's current of Sons of Anarchy...
mid run of a popular 'hip' series...all the has beens come out of the woodwork to do guest spots...Randy Mantooth, David Hassellhof, Tom Arnold, etc... but still just a day time soap with a dirty mouth and a bigger body count.

[Attrage]

Parenthood – This is a movie I must have seen more than twenty times but for some reason it never gets old.

Some moments that make me laugh like an idiot – the comic timing of the scene where Rick Moranis and Harley Kozak are talking with their daughter about her “academic career” and which college she wants to strive for, and then it cuts from their concerned faces to their daughter, Patty, who is about 4 years old. The scene where Gill’s (Steve Martin) young son puts a bucket on his head and headbutts a wall, “he likes to butt things with his head”. I love the way he smacks into the wall a few times and then sort of stops, rocking back and forth, and tentatively reaches out a hand to steady himself. It makes me almost wet myself laughing – whether he was directed to do it like that or it was a happy accident, it is freakin hilarious. And I love the scene where Gill’s kid brother Larry gets tossed onto their front lawn from a moving car. The way he rolls to his feet and without skipping a beat goes “Hi Dad. Is dinner ready?” makes me giggle like a madman. His father’s response when Larry tells him the guys in the car were “just some friends” - “Friends slow down. They even stop!” is also great.

But, humour aside, the film has some surprisingly effective emotional stuff too. My favourite is the resigned look on Jason Robards’ face when he offers Larry a lifeline of employment and a place to live for him and his son (after Larry confesses to owing gangsters thousands of dollars) is met with another one of Larry’s “get rich quick” scheme ideas. It’s all in Robards’ expression – he loves his son but knows he’s always going to be a bit of a lost cause. I also like the oft-quoted Keanu Reeves line: “You need a licence to drive a car, or catch a fish. But any *sshole can be a father.” And a young Joaquin (Leaf) Phoenix on the phone to his absentee father is an early example of the tremendous acting talent that would later show itself in films like We Own the Night and Walk the Line.

[Attrage]

Licence to Kill – Bond goes “off the clock” to avenge a vicious attack on his old friend Felix Leiter by a nefarious drug baron named Sanchez. Once again our favourite British spy is played by Timothy Dalton, and if you thought The Living Daylights had darkness to it, then this Bond outing is positively Gothic. This time out, Bond is not on a mission for Queen and country, but actually resigns from MI6 (hence his “licence to kill” is revoked) and heads off to South America to pursue a vendetta. This time Bond is not Roger Moore-esque, but rather Dalton owns the role completely, playing our super agent with a cool, calculating and hard-edged demeanour that, in my mind, is just great. I particularly liked his exit from the Leiter wedding at the start – he is reminded of his own brief wedding and it gets too much for him. Also, the anger that boils up in him when he finds Felix close to death, and Felix’s new wife murdered. I like this raw emotion in Bond, it’s characteristically Fleming and Dalton plays the moments perfectly. Gone are the quips and wry smiles as Dalton brings an unprecedented anger and lethality to Bond that had all but disappeared by the time Roger Moore started floating in space and attending thoroughbred auctions.

Likewise, our villain, Sanchez (played by Robert “Just like Saigon, eh slick!?” Davi from Die Hard). He’s no cat-stroking megalomaniac who enjoys frying his subordinates in their high-backed conference room chairs, he’s mean and cold and vicious and actually quite realistic (well, as realistic as Bond villains get). Sure, he still has his delusions of grandeur and suitably inventive ways to dish out the hurt, but he’s far more grounded than the assortment of nut-jobs Bond usually has to contend with.

Bond girls this outing are Sanchez’s mistress Lupe (Talisa Soto) and Bond’s “executive secretary” Pam Bouvier (Carey Lowell). Both are reasonable actors and as per usual for Bond films, very easy on the eyes.

I had a pleasant surprise while revisiting this film as I completely forgot it starred a young Benecio Del Toro as one of Sanchez’s thugs. Despite the fact he looks strangely…um…oily in the film (seriously – in certain scenes his skin sort of glistens…it’s really disturbing), it was great to see a bit of his early work and also good to see he did not fall into the trap of becoming typecast into “henchman” roles.

The film is reasonably plot heavy for a Bond film, but features a few spectacular set pieces, one involving petrol tankers that is, in a word, awesome. Also, the pre-credits scene with the helicopter vs plane is superb.

I suppose the kind of grim nature of this outing and the fact that it strays wildly from the established Bond formula (pre-credits action, Bond gets mission from M and gadgets from Q, adventure and romance ensue, final showdown with baddie, credits roll) was the reason Licence to Kill absolutely tanked at the box office and they shelved the entire enterprise for six years. Yes it’s not a traditional Bond, but I think it’s a damn good one and with the passing of time an appreciation has developed for Licence to Kill that was sorely lacking during it’s theatrical run.

[J.M. Vargas]

Henchman: 'What do we do with the money patron?'
Sanchez: 'Launder it.'

That is my favorite one-liner in the entire Bond movie canon. The movie takes its time to set it up (with some seriously f***-ed-up violence that's as close as a 007 movie flirted to an 'R') so that, when Davi delivers the line without the slightest bit of irony it... just... kills! Also love that Desmond Llewelyn gets the most on-screen time his Q character ever got in a Bond movie and, rather than just hand Bond his gadgets, joins him on the field and works with the Bond girls. Cool stunts too, and the last Bond flick that feels 'in the family' (back when crew members like editor John Glen could graduate to director) before the director-for-hire mentality took over the franchise.

[J.M. Vargas]

Jean-Luc Godard's WEEK END (1967) at New York's Film Forum theater for the first time. What an insane, inspired and angry movie made by a talented madman (who also happens to be a genius movie director) at the height of his directorial powers closing his best decade of work by making sure patrons thoroughly curse his name on their way out the movie theater. Disowning his acclaimed cinematic achievements up to that point (which 40+ years later Godard hasn't come close to matching, not that he gives a s*** whether you 'get it' or not) has only cemented "Week End's" place as the exclamation point of Godard's prodigious 60's output. What little story there is in "Week End" (a selfish married couple's planned weekend trip to get some inheritance money) loosely connects a dozen or so self-contained tableaus that range from the inspired (a traffic jam from hell, live-action Lewis Carroll dopplegangers, erotic talk in shadows, etc.) to the ridiculous (a staged crash with an airplane to hide a dead body, cannibal armed terrorists) and the just-plain annoying (speeches about Africa and Middle Eastern policy, drumming political soliloquies, a Mozart musical interlude, etc.). Raoul Coutard's striking color cinematography (better than even "Peirrot le Fou's") and Antoine Duhamel's perpetually-messed-with-by-Godard score also return in force. Between this, the '68 student riots and Tati's "Trafic" there was something about modernization in France circa late 60's/early 70's that sent the local filmmaking/youth communities nuts. Janus restored "Week End" for its current theatrical engagement, so expect a Criterion Blu-ray/DVD announcement for sometime in 2012.

Bob Clark's DEATHDREAM (1974) on DVD. Though technically a horror movie (there is a 'monster' plus supernatural elements) "Deathdream" plays more like a reality-heightened horror drama that makes a parallel between post-traumatic stress disorder on returning-to-civilian-life Vietnam soldiers (circa 1973) and the living/walking dead. Fitting, given its Vietnam war plot, that this would be the debut film of war photographer turned make-up artist Tom Savini (assistant to writer and uncredited make-up man Alan Ormsby) who'd go on to work in the similarly-themed George Romero flick "Martin." Richard Backus' Andy Brooks excels at looking creepy and lanky without saying/doing much (no surprise when he gradually turns rotten on the inside... literally!), but the heart and soul of "Deathmatch" comes from John Marley ("The Godfather") as the patriarch that comes to accept what Andy's mom (Lynn Carlin) cannot about her soldier boy. Seeing the elder Brooks gradually lose his bearings anchors "Deathdream" in the realm of tragedy (innocents suffer and keep on suffering), which only highlights how badly Bob Clark mishandles Marley's exit from the film (super lame!). Every aspect of "Deathdream" (cinematography, music, evil lurking beneath normal everyday settings, "twist" ending you can see coming, etc.) feels like a warm-up for Clark's far superior horror classic "Black Christmas," which translates into plenty of atmosphere for "Deathdream" to compensate for its low-budget and weak supporting performances (i.e. Anya Ormsby as Andy's sister). Blue Underground went above and beyond offering commentaries/interviews/pictures galore that put the movie's war themes (circa early 1970's) in perspective. Recommended.

MST3K #321: SANTA CLAUS CONQUERS THE MARTIANS (1991/1964) on DVD. I know this is an 'essential' "MST3K" classic episode (among the most beloved in the show's storied history) but it always leaves me cold when the 'It's a Patrick Swayze Christmas' carol barely gets a chuckle from me (though I love that right afterwards Joel grabs Crow by the net and drags him out for a beatdown! ). Watching this at 3AM a few nights ago in the middle of a hectic work schedule, for some reason, "SCCTM" really hit me the right away. There's a manic pace to the riffing but very few duds; the host segments have the soul and heart of Christmas right (love the nativity scene concealed in Gypsy's mouth) and even the Mad scientists got big laughs ('Sleep in heavenly peace!'). The flick itself commits the cardinal sin that most live action non-Disney flicks aimed at kids do of treating its audience like they're as stupid and moronic as the on-screen characters, and Joel and the Bots have a field day pointing the obvious (the giant polar bear that's just a guy in a BEARly-concealed outfit... sorry! ) and referencing the obscure ('don't play with your Golden Globe' when we first see Pia Zadora as a martian kid) with the ridiculous (Bill McCutcheon's so-called comic relief foil Dropo) rightfully either scorned or put in its proper place. Movies like "Santa Claus Conquers the Martians" was the reason "MST3K" was invented, and The Brains lived up to their own high standards with this one.

MST3K #616: RACKET GIRLS (1994/1954) on DVD. The last time I saw this I loved the 'Are You Ready for Marriage?' short ('Boing... where did it go?') but felt the poverty row female wrestling flick was lacking even though Mike and the Bots made the most of what they were given. Again, as with the "Santa Claus" experiment (above), maybe watching "MST3K" late at night when your defenses are down (or already seeing it a first time getting the surprises out of the way) overwhelms one's senses. This time "Racket Girls" was a laugh riot (so many hilarious things said out of such repetitive wrestling footage) and even the usually-dead host segments involving Tom Servo and Crow getting married (?!?!) made me smile. When Trace Beaulieu (as Crow) utters the infamous 'I've been turned on by a woman who is long dead' line about 'Peaches' Page "Racket Girls" crosses a moral threshold that would have made even Ed Wood blush. The match between real-life lady wrestlers Rita Martinez and Clara Mortensen is about as believable as their speaking parts, yet the movie tosses the lady wrestling plot aside before it careens out of control in a cops-and-robbers ending straight out of "Reefer Madness." It's more silly grease for the "MST3K" monkeys to throw their verbal feces at this putrid flick; lucky for us most of what M&TB's threw at "Racket Girls" stuck.

LAW & ORDER: UK - SEASON FIVE (2011) on BBC America for the first time. For a change we Yanks are getting this great foreign-flavored re-imagining (not really a spin-off) of old American "Law & Order" scripts first while UK viewers are still waiting for these batch of new episodes to be shown there. As with its US counterpart the show made lemonade out of losing Ben Daniels' James Steel (the Michael Moriarty of the show) and Jamie Bamber's Matt Devlin (the Mike Logan-like youthful cop) with equally-interesting replacements Dominic Rowan (his Jacob Thorne CPS is every bit the shark that Jack McCoy was in his first "L&O" seasons) and Paul Nicholls (though DS Sam Casey, like the lesser "L&O" regulars, looks like will have a very brief stint). And, though you're not supposed to care about these characters because the case at hand drives each week's plots (and they've been tweaked-enough that even diehard "L&O" veterans will be hard-pressed to know how the plots will twist most of the time), I've really become enamored of Freema Agyeman's and Bradley Walsh's portrayals of Alesha Phillips and Ronnie Brooks (i.e. Briscoe), respectively. They embody the conscience and soul of the do-gooder civil servant that doesn't concern her/himself with the politics or need to win that consume the other characters (including Peter Davidson's new CPS boss character). With "SVU" dying both creatively and in the ratings "Law & Order: UK" has become the franchise's unlikely torch bearer since NBC canned both the mothership and promising-but-low-rated "LOLA" spinoff.

[Attrage]

Henchman: 'What do we do with the money patron?'
Sanchez: 'Launder it.'

That is my favorite one-liner in the entire Bond movie canon. The movie takes its time to set it up (with some seriously f***-ed-up violence that's as close as a 007 movie flirted to an 'R') so that, when Davi delivers the line without the slightest bit of irony it... just... kills! Also love that Desmond Llewelyn gets the most on-screen time his Q character ever got in a Bond movie and, rather than just hand Bond his gadgets, joins him on the field and works with the Bond girls. Cool stunts too, and the last Bond flick that feels 'in the family' (back when crew members like editor John Glen could graduate to director) before the director-for-hire mentality took over the franchise.

That is indeed a great moment in the Bond series

I agree with your last statement there, I think that is one of the big reasons I just can’t get into the Pierce Brosnan 007 films (with one exception – I love Goldeneye but that has a lot to do with the fact it was actually written with Timothy Dalton in mind). The films just kind of lost something after Goldeneye, and started returning to the over-the-top silliness of the last two Roger Moore films, culminating in what, IMO, is the worst film in the entire franchise – Die Another Day…*shudder*

[molly1216]

Punisher War Zone.....i finally got around to it after i listened to a podcast interview with the director (http://www.earwolf.com/show/how-did-this-get-made/) it made me want to watch it for technically reasons...not just for the body count, which to tell you the truth while the 'action set pieces' were taking place i hardly watched. Indeed it is a gorgeously filmed bloodbath, great cast...smacked of Dick Tracy madness, and probably worth seeing if you are bored or stoned or both. after listening to the director i started wondering who WANTED this film made? what function does it serve? just wondering...it was mindless violence for the sake of violence most of which is intended to over the top and silly..but why are we making violence silly to make it palatable? why do it at all? yeah i'm sure i will get smacked around but i just didn't see it's purpose.

[Attrage]

Punisher War Zone.....i finally got around to it after i listened to a podcast interview with the director (http://www.earwolf.com/show/how-did-this-get-made/) it made me want to watch it for technically reasons...not just for the body count, which to tell you the truth while the 'action set pieces' were taking place i hardly watched. Indeed it is a gorgeously filmed bloodbath, great cast...smacked of Dick Tracy madness, and probably worth seeing if you are bored or stoned or both. after listening to the director i started wondering who WANTED this film made? what function does it serve? just wondering...it was mindless violence for the sake of violence most of which is intended to over the top and silly..but why are we making violence silly to make it palatable? why do it at all? yeah i'm sure i will get smacked around but i just didn't see it's purpose.

I don’t know that it really has a purpose. I feel vaguely put off occasionally by scenes of, I guess “stylized” violence. Not often, but it happens. One I can remember was the scene in Mr and Mrs Smith where they basically destroy their entire house with gunfire while trying to take each other out. I couldn’t quite put my finger on it at the time, but the light-hearted way they sprayed bullets around just made me feel sort of uneasy. I realise it wasn’t a film nor a scene that was supposed to be taken seriously, but something about the carefree way (and with complete lack of respect) firearms were depicted in that scene just really put me off.

Strangely, having said all that, the scene in The Matrix in the building lobby that probably had a similar number of spent shells and bullets casually tossed around doesn’t bother me at all.

[molly1216]

Punisher War Zone.....i finally got around to it after i listened to a podcast interview with the director (http://www.earwolf.com/show/how-did-this-get-made/) it made me want to watch it for technically reasons...not just for the body count, which to tell you the truth while the 'action set pieces' were taking place i hardly watched. Indeed it is a gorgeously filmed bloodbath, great cast...smacked of Dick Tracy madness, and probably worth seeing if you are bored or stoned or both. after listening to the director i started wondering who WANTED this film made? what function does it serve? just wondering...it was mindless violence for the sake of violence most of which is intended to over the top and silly..but why are we making violence silly to make it palatable? why do it at all? yeah i'm sure i will get smacked around but i just didn't see it's purpose.

I don’t know that it really has a purpose. I feel vaguely put off occasionally by scenes of, I guess “stylized” violence. Not often, but it happens. One I can remember was the scene in Mr and Mrs Smith where they basically destroy their entire house with gunfire while trying to take each other out. I couldn’t quite put my finger on it at the time, but the light-hearted way they sprayed bullets around just made me feel sort of uneasy. I realise it wasn’t a film nor a scene that was supposed to be taken seriously, but something about the carefree way (and with complete lack of respect) firearms were depicted in that scene just really put me off.

Strangely, having said all that, the scene in The Matrix in the building lobby that probably had a similar number of spent shells and bullets casually tossed around doesn’t bother me at all.

I think we are basically talking about the same thing..violence without purpose or repercussion..in the Punisher...it's 2 dimensional comic book characters...black clothes surly attitudes all around. the bad guys and the good guys are completely indistinguishable to me. The only reason we know the good guys are ostensibly GOOD is because they SAY they are the good guys. MR and MRs Smith on the other hand dresses up gunplay and martial arts as foreplay, an entire movie to do what Luc Besson did by putting a black cocktail dress on an assassin. This is not to say that i don't appreciate over the top gunplay and/or violence...but at least in Films like Woo's the Killer..we have established 3 dimensional characters and are rooting for their success and the characters have to live with the consequences of the violence they have caused. 13 Assassins skirts the 'comic book' level of violence by not enjoying itself, yet some of the acts are as over the top as some in the punisher. Though much in the Punisher is physically not possible and without 'Thwak' and 'Slammo' balloons has very little resonance with me. Just me venting, i am getting fed up with movies that i forget i saw 30 minutes after viewing.

[Attrage]

Thor – maybe it’s just down to me being in a sh*t mood over the weekend but damn I found this movie underwhelming. It wasn’t that I was expecting to be as wowed as I was by the first Iron Man, but man oh man I was expecting at least not to be yawning throughout the whole thing. It had a few good comedic moments (Natalie Portman hitting him twice with her car, and his visit to the hospital “How dare you attack the son of Odin!!”), and Branagh’s direction was solid enough, but as a whole I was almost falling asleep through the rest of it. I’m hoping The Avengers raises the bar a little…

Everything Must Go – Took a gamble on this one and ended up enjoying it quite a bit. I say took a gamble because in his “comedic” roles, I find Will Ferrell one of the Most Annoying People on the Face of the Earth. In this one he does a “Stranger than Fiction” turn into a serious role, playing a down on his luck alcoholic whose wife throws all his sh*t onto the front lawn, changes the locks, cancels their joint credit card, and moves out. On the same day he loses his job. So, out of money and options, he simply decides to live on his front lawn. In order to make this not against-the-law, he fakes having a yard sale, and ends up striking up a friendship with a young kid in the street and his neighbour across the street. Yeah, yeah it’s one of those “coming to terms with things” movies and even the description on the DVD case is “Lost is the best way to find yourself” or something like that, but hey, again maybe it’s down to the fact that I was feeling so incredibly, unbelievably sh*t and down on myself and depressed over the weekend, but I really took something from this movie and ended up enjoying it a lot.

[mavrach]

My wife is visiting her folks in Florida, so I'm making an effort to marathon DVD's that have been rotting on my shelf unwatched for years.


Steamboy - Despite hearing some lukewarm reviews, I really enjoyed this one. Beautiful animation and a decent story. It might be time for me to dabble in anime again.

I did have some trouble with the mechanics. That may be due to my inexperience with the steampunk genre. I wanted to understand how everything worked, at least the fictional reasoning behind everything. Of course the machinery is fantastical, so there's only so far that they can go. I couldn't buy into the "steam ball" macguffin, so I had to accept that it was simply invented by smart people and everybody is after it. And the steam used to freeze things was off. And I wondered how everybody didn't walk around without being constantly scalded by all the steam. But I'm spoiling the fun for myself by doing that, just sit back and watch all the imagery, which a hell of a lot of imagination was put into it.


Munich - There you go, Speilberg! My complaints about him were that he wasn't making movies like this one. He usually goes for mega-blockbusters with happy endings and wide-eyed wonder that appeal to the largest audience possible. He has so much talent, ability and influence to create more realistic movies that have something to say, that I can't help but get infuriated when he makes another War of the Worlds.

The Double Life of Veronique - This one will take some more viewings to digest. I wasn't fully aware of the plot when I walked in, so I was in for a big surprise 30 minutes in. I was never quite sure where this one was going, so I'll have to check it out again.

[Steve T Power]

It might be time for me to dabble in anime again.

Sword of the Stranger... do it!

[mavrach]

It might be time for me to dabble in anime again.

Sword of the Stranger... do it!

Added to the Netflix queue!

[azul017]

Green Lantern - My thoughts remain the same: Martin Campbell was screwed over by Warner Brothers. The movie is cut to pieces and feels rushed. Yet when the movie actually gets something right, it shows how enjoyable and entertaining it could've been if the director was allowed creative freedom. It's not bad enough to warrant a reboot, it's just middle-of-the-road. If they do a sequel, Warner Brothers needs to get a solid script first before hiring Campbell or another director to come on. There's untapped potential with this character.

[HGervais]

Green Lantern - My thoughts remain the same: Martin Campbell was screwed over by Warner Brothers. The movie is cut to pieces and feels rushed. Yet when the movie actually gets something right, it shows how enjoyable and entertaining it could've been if the director was allowed creative freedom. It's not bad enough to warrant a reboot, it's just middle-of-the-road. If they do a sequel, Warner Brothers needs to get a solid script first before hiring Campbell or another director to come on. There's untapped potential with this character.

I just finished watching the extended cut. Yes, it works better as a movie than the theatrical version but I still think Martin Campbell was the wrong guy for this kind of movie. You are right, when the movie gets things right, it really gets it right but those moments were few and far between. Yes the screenplay is terrible, yes Blake Lively was terrible but you know what? Martin Campbell was not the guy to direct an F/X heavy movie either. If it's gritty and full of practical effects, Campbell is your guy but there are long sequences where the F/X kicks in and the whole just grinds to a stop and feels clunky. Was studio interference a problem? Yeah probably but when you have hundreds of millions dollars at stake, the studio has a role and I would contend that a director more comfortable with these kinds of movies, or a director with more experience with these kinds of movies could have kept the studio suits a little more at bay. Interesting that a movie that deals so heavily with the concept of fear would be undone by so many people being so afraid of failing. I do agree there are probably more, and much better movies waiting in the source material but I hope Campbell isn't the guy they look to.

[Steve T Power]

Green Lantern - My thoughts remain the same: Martin Campbell was screwed over by Warner Brothers. The movie is cut to pieces and feels rushed. Yet when the movie actually gets something right, it shows how enjoyable and entertaining it could've been if the director was allowed creative freedom. It's not bad enough to warrant a reboot, it's just middle-of-the-road. If they do a sequel, Warner Brothers needs to get a solid script first before hiring Campbell or another director to come on. There's untapped potential with this character.

I just finished watching the extended cut. Yes, it works better as a movie than the theatrical version but I still think Martin Campbell was the wrong guy for this kind of movie. You are right, when the movie gets things right, it really gets it right but those moments were few and far between. Yes the screenplay is terrible, yes Blake Lively was terrible but you know what? Martin Campbell was not the guy to direct an F/X heavy movie either. If it's gritty and full of practical effects, Campbell is your guy but there are long sequences where the F/X kicks in and the whole just grinds to a stop and feels clunky. Was studio interference a problem? Yeah probably but when you have hundreds of millions dollars at stake, the studio has a role and I would contend that a director more comfortable with these kinds of movies, or a director with more experience with these kinds of movies could have kept the studio suits a little more at bay. Interesting that a movie that deals so heavily with the concept of fear would be undone by so many people being so afraid of failing. I do agree there are probably more, and much better movies waiting in the source material but I hope Campbell isn't the guy they look to.

Yeah, the man who gave us the action/adventure extravaganzas that were Goldeneye, Casino Royale and The Mask of Zorro, which were all awesome (no condescension intended), doesn't exactly scream "big budget FX driven super hero flick" to me.

It's like getting Paul Greengrass in to direct a Dr. Strange flick.