See any movies lately?112 responses total.
T3 is a hoot. The crane-chase scene is an amazing parody of the typical blowed-up-real-good action sequence. And I thought "The Hand" stuff was too cute. Catch a matinee and check your brain at the door.
Many funny scenes in that movie. The babelicious TX checking herself out in the mirror as she strides through the bathroom on her way to do battle with Arnold was my favorite. Also, minor goosebumps when the prototype of the search-and-destroy robot vehicle that appears in the "future" scenes in T1 and T2 first rises into view at the military base. We rented Adaptation (D+) and The Hours (B), neither of which we saw at the theater. Adaptation was unfunny and unenlightening. Mainly just retarded. The Hours featured a smattering of literary history, which was fun, and a good performance by Ed Harris. The music by Philip Glass was awful.
Thank god someone else found Adaption lifeless.
Saw X2 yesterday. I liked it, but there was something missing to me; can't put my finger on it. The best part for me was at the beginning in the White House. As for the new characters, Nightcrawler was alright, but he's supposed to be furry, other than that, he was the best of the new guys. It was pretty obvious that there's gonna be a sequal.
T3 was the best movie out there in the theaters X2 is good too but u got to watch T3 its the $hit!!!
If you say so. It kinda felt like a nicely produced episode of
Twilight Zone to me.
resp:4 no, no, my good man, Beast is furry. Nightcrawler is not furry at all. They changed him a little bit with the jagged teeth and the glyph tattoos, but they remained moderately faithful to his appearance in the comic books. As for Beast, he has a cameo as Hank McCoy-- he was in the scene on the television at the bar with Mystique and the security guard. (I am still waiting to see if they will play out the fact that Mystique is Nightcrawler's mother in the comic books.)
My 7 year old and I went to see "Sinbad: Legend of the Seven Seas" on Friday, the day it opened. There was only one other group in the theater; a man and two girls about John's age. This is a plain old formula adventure cartoon. It has a guy named Sinbad, who is not like the literary version. Some critics have objected to this, but I say, so what? My kid hasn't read Sinbad. Come to think of it, neither have I. I liked this movie. I liked it better than "Finding Nemo", and I already like it better than the upcoming Rug Rats movie. All three cartoons, you see, are set in or on the ocean. There is a little bit of violence in this movie, but I didn't judge it to be an objectionable amount. There are some scary scenes. It's scarier than "Finding Nemo". It's not as pretty as "Finding Nemo". The characters and scenes look sharply unrealistic compared to what Pixar produces. This movie is a giant flop nationally. On it's opening weekend, it took in just a few million dollars. It sold less than "Finding Nemo" did this weekend. Nuts to that. I liked it.
You may have something there. Why did it flop? Was it up against too much? Or was it 'sinful' and 'bad'? Did parents drag their kids to see something they wanted instead of apparently a very nice kids movie?
Speaking of Sinbad, over the holiday weekend Turner Classic Movies did a festival of the Sinbad "Dynamation" movies from the 1950s through the 1970s, with special effects by Ray Harryhausen (Cyclops monsters, battling skeletons, the Medusa, etc.). Kitch maybe, but great fun.
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Re. #7: I can't speak for the comics, but according to both X-Men cartoons, Kurt's referred to himself as "fuzzy" on several occations.
I saw "Whale Rider" this week. Best movie I've seen in years. Will see it again. Anyone want to join me?
I watched "Disco Pigs" a few days ago. Very sad story about love and growing up and so forth. Set in Ireland, with a dialect and accent that took a lot of concentration for me to make words out of. I thought that the presentation was very effective, almost minimalist in a lot of ways (e.g. there are long periods of almost total silence, with no soundtrack). Good acting. Good movie, but have a hankie or two handy.
resp:13 is that still at the michigan?
For a real hoot (ananny) don't miss "A Mighty Wind" now at Gladstone. Some of the lines are priceless even if the audience didn't laugh. However sounds of outright laughter were heard throughout the movie.
I'll go with ya, Katie.
I liked "On Guard," which was a swashbuckling movie at the Michigan.
"On Guard" is the first of a four-week series of contemporary French movies being presented by the Michigan. The USA title of the movie seems to have been chosen just because there are lots of swordfights; the French title was "Le Bossu," The Hunchback. The star was Daniel Auteuil, who I last saw as an office worker pretending to be gay in "The Closet." In this movie, Auteuil is a poor guy in the 1700s in France who has aspirations to become a great swordsman. He's befriended by a duke and hired as a bodyguard, so he's around when the Duke is killed as part of a plot to steal his fortune. Auteil saves the Duke's infant daughter who is also a target of the baddies and raises her himself, and 16 years later the story starts moving towards retribution and revenge. It was old fashioned fun, with a really likable and well played hero. Based on an 1857 novel, roughly contemporary with the novel "The Three Musketeers." My favorite French actor Philippe Noiret has a small role as the senior French nobleman of the family who goes on to become the regent in charge of the kingdom. (I looted imdb.com extensively for details here...) Director was Philippe de Broca, who made two wonderful comedic police thrillers, DEAR DETECTIVE and JUPITER'S THIGH, both starring Noiret. Not available on home video, it seems. Speaking of sword fighting: the Michigan's summer classic film series offers THE SEVEN SAMURAI on Sunday and Tuesday. One of the greatest action-adventure films; the Michigan promo blurb credits it with inventing the modern action movie, IIRC. Directed by Akira Kurosawa, black and white, 1954. This is one of the Movie Classics that Everyone Should See; Hollywood remade it as THE MAGNIFICENT SEVEN. And then, back in the French series: in two weeks the movie will be GOD IS GREAT, BUT I'M NOT starring Audrey Tatou, who played the lead in the very successful movie AMELIE.
Hmm, may have to check out that 'God is Great, But I'm Not'
Missed "Spirited Away" in the theater but watched it on DVD last night. Quite blew me away. An animation masterpiece.
Saving money is good.
Re #21: I only recently discovered Miyazaki's movies. The four I've seen so far were all good: Spirited Away, My Neighbor Totoro, Kiki's Delivery Service and Castle in the Sky. "My Neighbor Totoro" has a totally off-putting CD box. Looks like it's going to be a really cheesily animated stupid kiddy film. But from the first frame of the actual movie you know you are in for something quite different. The animation is mostly gorgeous. (Some of Miyazaki's kids have oversized mouths of a style that always reminds me of "Speed Racer". Maybe it's a Japanese style thing, but it always puts me off.) Story is about two little girls and their dad who move into a rundown old house to be near the hospital where their mom is recovering from some illness. The kids eventually start trading favors with a forest spirit. The relationships among the characters are uniformally realistic and charming. The supernatural elements are inventive and just plain cool. There are no villians. In fact, everyone is stunningly nice. And yet the film has plenty of dramatic tension. I suspect this was the breakthrough film for Miyazaki - the Totoro character from it is used as the logo for his studio. Many elements from it reappear in "Spirited Away" - it's in some ways a first glimpse of the same spirit world. "Kiki's Delivery Service" is almost not a fantasy at all. There is only one fantasy element - the heroine is a witch who's only magical ability is to fly on a broomstick. She is 13 years old and off on her own for a year to try to learn the witch business. She settles in a town where the people are mostly rather bored by the idea of a witch in their midst. Since her only trick is flying her broomstick (which she isn't particularly good at), she starts a flying delivery service. It's a story about loneliness, and finding your own way in the world. Again, no villians, no scares. I thought the ending was flawed - a big action sequence which gives Kiki a bit too easy an out for resolving her doubts. Arlo loves this one. Castle in the Sky was the weakest of the ones I've seen. It's cool. The Disney version has the oddity of Mark Hammill (aka Luke Skywalker) voicing the villian's part. This one is full of gun fights and explosions and killer robots and all that old stuff. It has a fun pirate queen and a visually interesting world, but basically it's a pretty standard adventure flick, Ok, but not as good as the others.
resp:21 isn't it lovely? resp:23 Roger Ebert positively raved about "My Neighbor Totoro." I haven't seen it yet.
Re Mark Hammill: I'm told he also voiced The Joker for the animated Batman. Apparently he thinks the work is a huge amount of fun.
Pirates of the Caribbean got four thumbs up from the Prices. I want to see it again, and I would even pay full price. (I only ever go to matinees and I never see movies twice, because they never seem worth it. Pirates is worth it.) It's fun, it's got swashbuckling, and well... I am a sucker for a good pirate movie (Captain Blood and the other Sabatini books are still re-reads because they're so fun). Johnny Depp's performance only adds to the fun, although I never would have thought I'd like such an ambigous character. (I still like Orlando Bloom's "stodgier" turn as a straight romantic hero, and I'm glad they included both in the movie.)
My son and I watched a couple of older movies recently. The first was Mulan. Mulan is a Disney movie set in medieval China. I'd never seen it before, and was quite surprised. I liked it. I liked Mulan, who goes to war in place of her aged father, disquising herself as a man and then encountering reasonable difficulties. I liked the way she was clearly a woman, having realistic enough problems fitting into a strictly man's army and overcoming them in a clever enough way. I enjoyed the humor of the situation, and of the movie; the rough humor of the songs the soldiers sing and things they do, the obvious humor of the captain training his troops (including Mulan) and declaring in a song, "I'll make a man out of you", and I liked the bath scene, which was well targeted at adults while not much raising the notice of a young child. I liked the basic training section quite a lot. I liked the setting. I don't know anything about China, and don't imagine this was in any way accurate, but it was appealing enough. I often don't like movies (or books) the first time. I liked this one just fine.
Tonight, we watched The Yearling, which I had to buy from amazon.com. No one around Tecumseh has it for rent. This was the original; I could have rented the remake but refused to do so. My father cautioned me that it might be emotionally tough for my 7 year old. Hah! My father could have warned me it'd be hard for *me*. John was fine. I'm the emotional one when it comes to movies, and this one had me streaming tears. (John didn't notice. I had to *tell* him.) This is a wonderful classic, in my opinion. (I feel the same way about The Sound of Music, Fiddler on the Roof, Old Yeller, and half of John Wayne's westerns. So sneer at me.) I saw it when I was around my son's age, then never again until now. I didn't remember it scene by scene, of course, but I did remember more or less what was coming next. I like this one because it's a good dad-and-son movie. I think my son liked it because of the scenery, and will remember it (at least until we watch it again) as a fun movie because a kid has a pet deer. That works for me.
re#27: oddly enough _Mulan_ probably was in keeping with the chinese oral traditional history more in the observation than not. I know many chinese families that enjoyed it. The irony in _Mulan_ is that the "bad guys" in the movie in fact ruled china from about the middle 1600s to modern times - it is even politically correct in the current PRC (not that I suggest there will be another - a politically correct statement). Contrast _Mulan_ with another animated feature, _Pocahontas_ et al where the events portrayed had little or nothing to do with actual history other than perhaps some names.
I see lots of movies. Sometimes two a day. Mostly get older movies on tape from the video library here (in Muscat, Oman). Saw "Shipping News" yesterday. Weird but nice movie.
Re #29: There's a fast-food Chinese restaurant at Briarwood that used to
be part of a chain called Manchu Wok. When the guy broke off from
it, he renamed the place Ming Wok. Victorious at last!
It was largely "Pocahantas" which caused me to believe the background of "Mulan" was probably wildly inaccurate. Brian, does "Mulan" mean something in Chinese?
Hua mu-lan doesn't particularly mean anything I think. Often as not chinese will name a child with something that does have lucky ot good meaning. I know a guy named "good fortune" and a girl named "fertile field". I know one guy - son of a 1949 ex-pat who's name is "supple willow victorious". It may seem strange to westerners at first who don't realize how many of their own names have similar derivations although long since forgotten. Emanuel for example. Or Elizabeth.
One of my former co-workers is Chinese, and she just finds it easier (and more accurate) to have everybody call her "Rainbow" instead of trying to pronounce the Chinese. Occasionally confuses people who were expecting some hippie girl, though.
Same goes for Indian names, a lot of them are derived from words that meant something like "peace" or "humility", and others are still used in everyday language, like mine
I know someone named Asma. Any idea what that means?
I'm guessing a derivative of the word that means "sky". I could be way off on this one.
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this weeks Saturday midnight movie at the State is Edward Scissorhands. Come celebrate surviving another round of Art Fairs!
We are very aware of the meanings of our names at our house. "Pratt," I believe, refers to those of the field. Our daughter is "Sarah Lynn," loosely translated to "Princess of the Waterfalls." You already know the meaning of my name-- "Yahweh gives." My middle name, Roger, is "bearer of the spear" and is my father's name. Maybe a little unusual for a westerner, but I hold significance in the meaning of names.
It is of some cultural interest that names "mean" something, but of what significance is it? Surely you are not a bearer of spears (most of the time?).
Maybe "spear" symbolises something? "Princess of the waterfalls" - that is pretty. I always liked the name Sarah (not when people pronounce it saa-raa, though), and I thought it even prettier when I found out it meant "Princess"
I am not sure that "bearer of the spear" itself holds deep meaning in modern times-- I am sure, however, that it comes from the British Isles. More importantly, it is the name of my father. "Jonathan," however, is very important for many personal reasons.
I'm another of those odd people that likes to know what names mean (it comes into play when writing as well, I like to know what the names of my characters mean). My full name, for example, basically means something along the lines of 'Graceful Warrior Women, from a Pear Tree.' Of course, this changes based on where exactly you look up the meanings for names. Anne and Ann don't always mean the same thing, the derivations vary.
Re. #38: Nope. Someone at my workplace.
I am "She who dwells by the brook". But I'm named for Brooks Robinson. (Dad's a huge baseball fan.) I saw "The Guru" last night. Fun fun movie. I really need to pick up some bhangra music.
The music in that movie was mostly Bollywood. But bhangra is fun music. A must have.
((Mynxcat, I need you to write an intro to Bhangra sometime in the music conference.)) resp:27 and others :: International Channel showed a film of a Chinese opera version of MULAN this spring, or thereabouts. I have not seen the Disney version, but the Chinese film version was very enjoyable. Unfortunately the beginning of the movie got recycled, grrr. Doesn't seem to be available on home video. However, trolling on IMDB, I find a listing for what appears to be a new version of MULAN scheduled for 2004 release, with Michelle Yeoh and Chow Yun Fat. This could be only "in development" and might never actually be filmed.
"ALL THAT JAZZ"-- watched this on video yesterday, it had been a few years since I'd seen it previously. This is the semi-autobiographical film from famed broadway director/choreographer Bob Fosse (creator of "Chicago" and numerous other musicals). The movie is Fosse's fantasy of his own death. The Fosse character, called Joe Gideon in the movie and played by Roy Scheider, is a workaholic broadway choreographer and film director who is a hard drinking, chain smoking, womanizer. He is completely cynical and self absorbed and has never taken the time to really understand the women in his life, his ex-wife, his young daughter, his girlfriend. The movie shows him stressing out over his broadway play about to open, and a movie he's editing about a stand up comic (patterned on Lenny Bruce) who does a routine about the five stages of death (anger, denial, bargaining, depression and acceptance) The movie intercuts Scheider's character going through these very stages, without knowing it, with the three women in his life, and alternate dream sequences where he's seen talking to the other woman in his life, the one that he's always known he'll end up with. She being the beautiful Angel of Death, Jessica Lange. As the movie goes along, we see Death (Lange) getting ready for him, taking off her veil, waiting for his arrival. This movie has some awesome musical sequences (Fosse's speciality after all) Scheider's character has a heart attack shortly before the opening of his play and is subsequently seen in his hospital bed, hooked up to IV bottles and having open heart surgery. And then you see him in his hospital bed, on a stage, watching a musical number done by the wife, girlfriend, and daughter. Finally, you see where Scheider's character gets to the last stage of death, acceptance, and stars in his own musical number, with all the people important in his life in the audience. He and emcee Ben Vereen sing "Bye Bye Life, Bye Bye Happiness, I think I'm gonna die" And you see the audience of his loved ones applauding, and he goes into the audience and hugs each of them goodbye, and you see him finally leaving the stage and going towards the Angel of Death, who has by now taken off her veil and is smiling and awaiting his embrace. This is an amazing film. Roy Scheider, who looks just like Bob Fosse, is great in this. Fosse actually did die, eerily, sevearl years later, right before the opening of a big broadway play (his revial of "Sweet Charity") of a heart attack, just like the character in the movie. He imagined his own death just right it seems. All That Jazz is a GREAT movie IMO, I recommend it to anyone who has recently dealt with death.
A few months ago the U of M Art Museum held an exhibit on the work of Andy Goldsworthy. It's hard to describe his art without making it sound contrived or trite but he uses nature to make artistic statements. Truly amazing stuff. Tonight I saw the film which highlights the artist and his work - "Rivers and Tides: Andy Goldworthy Working with Time". Wow. It's at the Michigan.
I should see that movie again, Richard. Thanks for the reminder. We saw "The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen" this afternoon. Fun, fast-moving, intriguing movie. They took some liberties with characters and stories, but still did a good job. I'll have to re-read some of the books. Pure fantasy, of course.
Carol and I enjoyed the Andy Goldsworthy exhibit at the museaum too. Hope we can make it to the movie this week.
Went to one of the apparently pre-grand opening openings at the new
Border's Bookstore in chicagoland. Down in the 'hood. Built on a
parking lot and supposed to provide parking as part of the building
-they didn't but hey...overheard one discussion from a manager and
patron where bike parking was going to be provided, out back, taking
space in the parking lot...wonder how that works. They are open 'till
11pm - wonder how long that will last. Two of four stalls in the men's
room were already broke ("Out of order"). Right across the street from
the rail station, the news shack, the video store, and down the block
from the open late liquor store. Like a delicate orchid transplanted
into a peat bog it was a nice "Ann Arbor moment" but I wonder what it
will become after it closes (pretty cheap construction I also noted as
it went up). Anyways, bought a re-release of _Yojimbo_ on DVD for about
a third of the cost when I bought the VHS casette years ago as a x-mas
gift for my father.and almost bought a CD of _ELP's Greatest Hits_ from
the bargain bin except it rung up over twice the bargain price of the
impulse buy when it got to the register. I said "thanks, good try" when
they offered to correct it. Why I would pay 10 bucks for a CD of stuff
that I already own and could burn my own CD of my specific favorite cuts
if I would get off my ass and hook the damn phonograph up to the
computer...
Anyways, enjoyed _Yojimbo_ on DVD. Apparently a new re-mastering from
original archive film it was well worth the price. For those of you not
familiar it is the seminal work that directly resulted in two subsequent
hollywood fliks and was the inspiration of many more. It features the
direction of one of the truely great dead directors and was the real
debute of another really great actor. Toshiro, meet Bruce.
Re #50: I saw a trailer for that when I went to see _Winged Migration_ (which was incredible, BTW.) It looked pretty fascinating. Re #51: I refuse to go to any movie that insults my intelligence by setting a car chase in Venice.
Re. #53: You won't get near the audio quality from an LP that you would from a CD.
Re #53: peat bogs are a native habitat for many species of orchids.
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"Capturing the Friedmans" isn't a film for everyone. It's about a family with a normal facade suddenly the center of a child sexual abuse scandal. This incredible documentary takes us along through discovery, the investigation, the pleas, the verdicts and the aftermath. You watch a family blowup. And go on. It's a powerful film with no answers just some difficult questions. Highly recommended.
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Re #54: then you won't want to think about how the car got to Venice in the first place. ;)
Saw "The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen" with the beau yesterday. Not a great movie, but it was a lot of fun. Some of the lines just amused the hell out of me. One of my favorite characters was the Jeckyl/Hyde combo performed by Jason Flemmyng (I think that's how it's spelled) I liked him in Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels, and his bit part in Mean Machine, so my liking him here wasn't a surprise. some of the characters seemed a little flat- like Shane West's character. However, the fight scenes were fun to watch. Captain Nemo and Dorian Grey especially. :)
Jason Flemying is YUMMY!
I saw LXG last night, and I'm with Anne. Shane West seemed ill-equipped to go up against the others. Too young, to inexperienced . . . LOVED Stuart Townsend though . . . yummy! And the scene with Peta Wilson and him battling was sexy as hell. Jason Flemyng was great. I loved his effects for Hyde - it's what they should have been going for with "The Hulk".
I saw Pirates of the Caribbean last night. It was a lot better than I thought it would be. Johnny Depp did a great job. Even Aaron, who isnt a Johnny Depp fan by any means, thought so.
Agora 62 <-> Cinema 57
"The Natural" was on Bravo last night. That reminded me to ask this question
(I never read the book): At the party at Memo's, after Gus was unable to
bribe Roy to help throw the last 3 games of the regular season, Memo at one
point put something in Roy's mouth to eat ("Try this."). Later, Roy has to
leave the party in pain with some kind of stomach ailment, gets admitted to
the hospital. Did Memo in fact poison Roy?
re #62 and 63- isn't he though? He's right up there with Jason Statham. :) It's pretty much been proposed that Shane West's character was only there to serve as sort of a living reminder of Quartermaine's dead son. And yeah, the Mina and Dorian scenes were oh so much fun. :) Dorian just oozed attitude and arrogance- such fun! Haven't seen The Hulk, but I'll take your word on that, Brooke. We seem to have so many similar movie tastes anyhow. ;)
Seen _Catch me if you can_ tonight on DVD. Funny flick with a nice ending. It would have been a lot better if the titanic dude wasn't cast opposite Hanks but, details. IT was part of a haul of DVD rentals that were purchased from a major chain for 10$US each. Gonna rip the DVD and post the ISO VCD images on the SHazBat p2p network so my posse can enjoy it if they want to. Fuck the RIAA et al, it it were so good in the first place folk would have paid to see it live or in the theater in the first place. The fact that it is "rented out" along with the other "direct to video" stinkers means that hundreds of people "share" the DVD one person at a time and each one could have duped it. And finally the original owner sold the DVD to me for a flat fee - probably because nobody wanted to borrow it anymore - for anywhere from half to one tenth the "retail cost" on which the Industry bases its claim for "damages". Its a dollar they never would have collected in the first place so its hard to figure how they are damaged. "SHazBat p2p network" operates out of Nauru Island and offers byte for byte downloads of stuff. You upload stuff and you get credit for the same number of bytes of stuff downloaded.
Actually, I enjoyed diCaprio; I thought it made a nice proof he was actually capable of acting, but I hadn't seen any of his pre-Titanic work, either.
DiCaprio was excellent in "What's Eating Gilbert Grape" and Woody Allen's "Celebrity". I thought he was okay in "Catch Me If You Can" too. Although I enjoyed "Catch Me If You Can", I thought the ending was typical Spielberg sentimental hokiness.
"The Swimming Pool" might be worth seeing just for the French country home and surroundings. But the ending was not at all worth the slow ramp-up. Bleh. "Adaptation" played with the same concept and pulled it off way better.
The Michigan Theatre will be showing Easy Rider this Sunday at 4pm and Tuesday at 7pm. As I work Sunday, I am planning to go Tuesday. Anyone like to join me?
Saw American Wedding last night--pretty much exactly what you'd expect. Laughed my ass off, and spent about the same amount of time hiding my face because I couldn't bear to watch.
Unfortunately, I won't be attending Easy Rider after all; dinner arrangements with my parents.
Caught Hulk at the dollar theater last Sat. Not much plot to speak of. Just Hulkster bouncing 'round the country with the military in persuit. Eye candy, nothing more.
"Northfork" is a sparse film where the landscape is the lead character. Odd, in a fascinating way. A valley is about to die and be reborn and this process is mirrored in a few of the last to leave inhabitants. I can't say enough about the cinematography. It's stunning. Showing at the Michigan. This is most certainly one you'll want to catch on the big screen if possible.
Watched "Emma" on video. Quite enjoyble. Though they did rush Emma's feelings for Knightley toward the end.
Have you seen "Clueless", the updated version of "Emma"? Highly recommended.
Yup, I've watched that. I'd read the book earlier, but somehow hadn't made the connection. It's only when I watched the movie "Emma" that the parallels became much clearer.
"The Third Man", from the library's small-but-growing DVD collection. Pretty cool, although not the most interesting movie from that era I've seen. Mostly I wanted to be able to comment intelligently on the "Pinky & the Brain" episode which spoofed this movie. :)
Leslie and I did a double-feature Saturday, so we could stay cool while helping DTE out by not running our air conditioning. WHALE RIDER was possibly even better the second time I saw it; certainly the picture and sound were better at the Q16. A MIGHTY WIND was funny, not as funny as SPINAL TAP, and very much focused on The Great Folk Scare of 40 years ago.
THe Time Machine (2002): Better than I thought it would, and at 93 minutes it was easily watchable. I'm certainly glad they didn't try to stretch it out to 2 hours, though. The storyline changes were actually OK, too. Some things were hokey, others cool - I especially liked the library computer character. The fake tribal pop music during the Eloi scenes just about gagged me.
We went to see the League of Extraordinary Gentlemen at the cheap theater yesterday. It was pretty good, given that the critics had trashed it nearly as badly as Gigli, and I was surprised that I had a good time. The storyline was more coherent than I'd expected, and the characterizations were fun, wiht lots of one-liners and interesting/unexpected interactions that got missed in the reviews I'd seen (at rottentomatoes.com, I think I saw a hundred, and maybe 20 gave it grudgingly good marks). I would give it a six, I think.
Six out of what?
Out of ten.
Ten what?
SEABISCUIT-- saw this tonight and was pretty disappointed. The acting is wonderful and the cinematography on the horse racing scenes is awesome, but the screenplay left out a lot of what happened and took the edge off the three main characters and "disneyfied" them (made them more wholesome than they really were) This is a case where you are better off reading the book than seeing the movie. In the book, a great book "Seabiscuit: An American Legend" by Laura Hillenbrand, you see that the three main characters-- Seabiscuit's owner, trainer and jockey, are dark lonely figures, corrupted by life, who are each in their own way redeemed for their past failures in their lives by the success of the underdog horse they come to love. The movie makes the three characters all wholesome and sweet. You see Seabiscuit's owner, Jeff Bridges, meeting and romancing his new young Mexican wife. You aren't told that the woman is his grown son's sister in law. In fact you don't even see the grown son, because the film's screenwriter I guess wants you to think the jockey, is the surrogate son. They cleaned up the character. And the jockey is played as young and wide-eyed innocent by Tobey McGuire, and yet if you read the book you read that the jockey was a hard edged man beaten down by life who looked older, a hard drinker and womanizer who looked older than fifty when he was thirty. Again they cleaned up the character. There's a key scene in the movie where the trainer, well played by Chris Cooper, tells the owner (Jeff Bridges) that Seabiscuit lost a big race because it turns out the jockey was blind in one eye and never told them. And Jeff Bridges, all big hearted and sweet, says he doesn't care and people need to be able to overcome their handicaps, or something like that. Didn't happen. If you read the book, it clearly says that Seabiscuit's jockey kept the fact of his being blind in one eye a secret all his life, because it would have ended his career. Horse racing is a business and Seabiscuit's owner would have fired the jockey on the spot if he'd found out he was blind in one eye. But this is the Disneyfied version of the Seabiscuit tale, where the characters are wholesome and nobody keeps secrets and everybody's reedemable and there are no skeletons in anybody's closets. The story of Seabiscuit is amazing, its a lot more real and moving than what they show in the movie. Save the money on "Seabiscuit" the movie, and use it to buy Laura Hillenbrand's book that its based on instead.
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OPEN RANGE - I don't think I've intentionally gone to see an oater in a theatre in years, usually getting my fill from the box. But I will say the lack of ad interruptions, and the vastness of the scenic panoramas, do add to the theatre experience. Otherwise, this is a pretty standard one of its genre, with the twist that the usual good guys are the bad guys and vica versa. While overall I enjoyed it for what it was, I did get the feeling that they filmed several endings and then used bits of all of them. The female lead was also kind of wooden, but the villains were adequately snarly and villainous. The moral I got from the tale was, always befriend the man with the dog.
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Something like that would fit Costner's role.
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Make it a double-feature with a film where Arlond Schwarzenegger, Jean-Claude Van Damme, and Stephen Seagal struggle to get in touch with theirinner feelings and you'll have a truly dreadful evening..
Perhaps a movie where Lee Marvin kills them all?
Is he still alive?
(blustering) Well, Lee's a pretty tough guy...
Lee Marvin: 1924-1987
I thoroughly enjoyed "Pirates of the Caribbean." And I understood the dialogue and the plot better the second time around. My friend and I were the only people left in the theatre when the (lengthy) credits finished and the movie continued on for a minute or so.
I like when that happens.
I meant to mention in #88, re OPEN RANGE, that there were only five (5) at the 9:45 p.m. showing last Saturday at Madstone. An attendant said it was because everyone was in SEABISCUIT. I still thought it was pretty strange.
resp:99 Me, too. I feel rewarded for my quirk.
I saw "Finding Nemo" last week. I really liked it. Ellen DeGeneres is hysterical. I've also watched more rented movies than I can begin to list. Here's ones that stick out: "Bowling for Columbine" - Kind of all over the place, but I loved it. "Solaris" - The only thing remarkable about this movie was Clooney's ass. And I assure you, for $4, there wasn't enough of it. "Big Eden" - Great movie about relationships.
regarding Solaris, I paid full price to see it at the theater when it came out. I left soon after the ass sighting, and tried to console myself on money wasted.
Being who I am, I didn't even find *that* aspect of "Solaris" worthwhile. The movie was a major disappointment from a director I normally like.
I didn't even bother to see that version - the Russian version would be pretty hard to top.
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I got the new deluxe DVD last week of Sergio Leone's classic, "Once Upon A Time in America" The best thing about the DVD, although it has plenty of extras, is that it has Leone's original European cut of the movie, which is nearly four hours long. This is the cut that never showed in the U.S. The U.S. distributors thought it was too long, they fired Leone, and hired an outside editor to slash the movie to under 2 1/2 hours. In the process, the studio's editor re-arranged all the scenes in chronological order and removed the script's "flashback" basis. This basically ruined the movie. The uncut version would have won the Academy Award that year, but the cut up version screwed up the order of the scenes, took out key scenes, and left the whole thing a mess. Leone refused to have anything to do with the version that played in the U.S. (this is all detailed in a terrific docuemntary on the second disc) Leone was able to re-edit and release a longer version, over three hours, where he restored his intended sequencing. But even then he wasn't allowed to simply release the entire movie in the U.S. The European version, Leone's original version-- nearly fours-- with all scenes restored, was never released theatrically in the U.S. That is the version on this DVD. The flashback sequencing is crucial to this story. Robert DeNiro is a jewish gangster, who is now much older and is reliving his past, and coming to terms with his past, and the loss of his friendship with his est friend, played by James Woods. It really is a great movie, one of the best of its genre ever in fact. Well worth having in DVD in its letterboxed, original form. Has a great musical score too.
I finally got my hands on "chalte Chalte" a typical bollywood movie. I had heard that it was about husband-wife friction, but the first half dealt with the soppy romance before the couple gets married (this wouldn't be Bollywood if it weren't for the romance and song-dance routines) When it actually came to the married life of the couple, that really hit home. I'm not married but living with my fiance, and I see a lot of us in that couple. The arguments were real, the fights were the kind of fights we had. The make-ups were like us. I think that part of the movie was well made. Then it ended in the typical soppy Hindi-movie style. Pity.
Skip "Cold Creek Manor". Solid cast (Dennis Quaid, Sharon Stone,
Juliet Lewis, Christopher Plummer) doesn't even begin to save this
plodding, predictable, paint-by-numbers thriller. Director Mike
Figgis has made some fine, risk-taking movies ("Leaving Las Vegas",
"Timecode"), but in this one he risks nothing except possibly his
professional reputation. What a disappointment.
Saw a sneak preview of Underworld last week. It was a nice idea, but I was very disappointed with the last half hour or hour of the movie--found myself rooting against the good guy, for the bad guy. I was glad it was a free sneak preview and I hadn't paid actual money to see it. Go see this only if you have a stalkeresque relationship to Kate Beckinsale and want to spend two hours watching her run around in formfitted leather and rubber suits (admittedly, she looks very nice in them). Last night I went to the campus showing of "Nowhere in Africa"--a German film shot in Afrika, in German and Swahili with English subtitles. I was very glad that they subtitled rather than dubbing--it added a great deal to listen, for my non-German-speaking friend as well as myself. Excellent movie. Go see it if you get the chance.
I'm considering seeing "Underworld" just for the eye candy and to find out what had White Wolf in such a huff... but then I'm a Camarilla member and a music video junkie. *shrug* This might be the movie I consider a waste of my money-- who knows. (that's if I find a babysitter)
I was totally rooting for the bad guy (Lucien) at the end.
You have several choices: