83 new of 289 responses total.
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I liked the new Bond movie, Die Another Day, and thought Halle Berry was terrific in it. And so was John Cleese as Q. Harry Potter 2 was I thought better than Harry Potter 1. The addition of the venerable Shakespearean actor Kennth Branagh was a classy touch
John Cleese is in "Die Another Day"? Hm, I haven't seen a Bond movie since the 1960s, but Cleese's presence almost tempts me to see the new one. Probably won't though.
Cleese is the new Q.
Yes, but it's such an annoying role to have to watch...although less annoying than in the book, and he did it well. Amusingly enough, Clees(e) was in HP2 as well, as Nearly Headless Nick.
not only is John Clees the new Q, but M is now played by the woman considered the greatest living british stage actress, Dame Judy Dench (who won the best supporting actor oscar as Queen Elizabeth in Shakespeare in Love) Pretty strong casting there!
<oops...should have noted that 211 was in response to previous comment about Kenneth Branagh, not John Clees. John Clees is divine, even (maybe particularly) when the role calls for making an ass of oneself.>
I guess I'm the only one who wishes that Helen Mirren would've gotten the role of M.
"Standing in the Shadows of Motown" Valuable story about the group of studio musicians who made up the "Motown sound" back in the 60's, but got little or no credit. It's great to see the surviving musicians playing, telling stories, etc, but the re-enactments of various anecdotes with actors got rather annoying. Well worth seeing if you don't know the story, and if you do know the story it's still worth a peek.
Saw "Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets" this afternoon. I think they did a better job with this one; it wasn't as disjointed and jumpy. They left out some things, as they needed to, but they got the plot complete. I liked it.
BTW, the record store shown early in "Standing in the Shadows of Motown" is actually Encore Records here in Ann Arbor.
I, too liked the 2nd Harry Potter. He got off to school and into his adventure much quicker this time. Well he could, since we now know his backstory from the first movie. Passing of seasons are just a background change to let you know the story is taking up much of the school year.
Bruce and I liked it quite a bit. The only thing I might have liked was a bit more of Lockhart's idiocy at school (and I missed his long flowing locks, as well). What was shown was well-done, but some of the more inane episodes from teh book were missed.
Uuuhh. Yeah. The ladies never could get enough of him, could they?
Did you stay past the end of the credits?
Yes, we did. There were maybe eight people left in the theater by then.
Too bad. Nice little treat for those who stayed.
Yup.
"Solaris" Way over-acted. Way, way over-acted. I would have laughed but mostly I was busy thinking of how much I wanted to leave. ;-)
Boy I am glad I saw the original Russian "Solaris" only a few months ago - now I don't have to bother with the Clooney version. And if you can live with a couple bad spots on the tape, the downtown A2 library has the Russian version!
Damn it!! Now I have to go see it again to stay for the end of the credits. I am currently rereading "Prisoner of Azkaban". The movie won't be out for two years and the only people they have committed are the three kids and Robbie Coltrane as Hagrid, though I've heard that Ian MacKellan has committed to playing Dumbledore (and let's fact it - he'll be great in Goblet of Fire). I'm thinking Daniel Day Lewis for Professor Lupin. Am I the only one who thinks it's kind of fun watching the three kids grow up?
I have to agree with everything in resp:227....which is a hell of a lot easier than retyping it. :p
The jacket in the trailer was a nice touch.
Huh?
Re #230: At the end of the Harry Potter credits, I meant. (Sorry. Context changed during delay between authorship and posting.)
Darn. I wanted to wait, but we were on teh end of a row and couldn't stay against the crowd.
I rented "Arthur Conan Doyle's Lost World". This is a movie based on the book that inspired the book that inspired "Jurasic Park." In other words, the original dinosaur-surviving-in-the-modern-world adventure. This is a 2001 BBC production, originally broadcast in two parts, so it makes a rather long movie. I came to it with low expectations, but ended up enjoying it a lot. It's definately a PC-ified version of Doyle's original book. Two characters were added. A woman joins the expedition so that we don't have to spend a whole long movie with nothing but guys to watch but she's remarkably capable and self-sufficient and shocks everyone by wearing pants (with a rather modern form-fitting cut too). A missionary (Peter Falk) shows up to add a creationism vs. darwinism debate to the story line. He's a bit of a villian, but then again, no, not really. The expedition is lead by Professor Challenger, who is rather more mellow than Doyle's version. A big game hunter, a skeptical fellow professor, and a reporter round out the expedition. And there are, of course, dinosaurs, produced on a slightly more modest budget than those in "Jurasic Park" but nevertheless convincing. What really distinguishes this from "Jurasic Park" is that the dinosaurs are not the focus of the film. The people are - their adventures, their interactions, their development. There is actually a plot here, some very able acting, some three dimensional characters, some thinking about life and morality. The movie constantly teeters on the edge of both PC-cliches and adventure story cliches, but never quite falls into them. This isn't the greatest movie ever made, but it's a good solid piece of light, intelligent entertainment.
"Analyze That"-- pretty good. the script wasn't anything spectacular, but it is always fun watching Robert DeNiro and Billy Crystal hamming it up. Not as good as "Analyze This" but watchable ,
I cannot, to this day, recall what ever possessed me to see "Analyze This", especially given my general dislike of both Billy Crystal and Robert de Niro, but I find the idea that they've made a sequel that's worse than the original very disturbing.
I went and saw "Die Another Day" this evening, and found it disjointed, unbelievable, and disappointing overall. I wish I'd gone to see something else. I'll be watching a lot of movies this month. I'll be going to see "Harry Potter", "Treasure Planet", and as soon as it comes out, "The Two Towers". I expect all of these will be better than "Die Another Day".
My parents recently purchased "Harry Potter", it was cute.
I borrowed "Castle Keep" from the library last week. One of those weird artsy WWI films from the late 60's, mostly, very cool to watch. The bit about the Volkswagon was the funniest part, and there are a fair number of rather atmospheric parts as well. Worth seeing, anyway.
The 2nd Harry Potter movie was good, though it was kind of scary in spots for 6 year old John. It was also kind of long for 6 year old John; 2 hours, 45 minutes I think.
It was long for 31 year old Brooke too.
I saw "Standing In The Shadows of Motown" this weekend. Neat movie that gives some long overdue props to The Funk Brothers, who were the musicians on almost all the Motown hits. Ann Arbor's Encore Records makes a cameo appearance. It left me wanting to know more about the early days of Motown.
Went to see Star Trek: Nemesis tonght. Thumbs up from me - I was very pleased with it.
Well, at least it's an even-numbered one.. :-)
I'm planning on seeing it sometime this weekend, but I've heard mixed reviews, many of which are simply apathetic and consider this to be an unspectacular "more of the same offering." I'm glad it's worth the trip.
It was fun. We went in a Big Group (eight of us altogether) and we all enjoyed it. Theater (first matinee today at the AMC 20 Livonia) was three quarters full.
Thumbs down from six of the seven that went to see it. It wasn't badly
acted, it wasn't badly written, and it wasn't badly paced, but there was
nothing memorable whatsoever about it, and it never rose a shade beyond just
being acceptable.
So 6 out of 7 find acceptability unacceptable?
In our group, two were underwhelmed, but had fun during the viewing. Two were more impressed. Rhiannon liked it, and Bruce and I both thought it was fun. I don't know I'd call it spectacular, but I would watch it again. Griffin thought it was slightly too long. (I did think it was definitely the "Data and Picard" show, however.)
I took my son and nieces to see "Treasure Planet" while visiting Tennessee. We all liked it very much. It was the only time in my life that the people I was with were the only ones in the theater. We had a private showing. I guess the movie isn't selling very well.
That's happened to occasionally, when I've gone to a weekday matinee showing of a movie that's been playing for a few weeks. A couple of times I've been the *only* person in the theater.
I often go to an early show (11a) on Fridays since I dont work on Fridays. I like kind of offbeat movies so a lot of the time, I have the theater all to myself. It is cool.
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I did like that movie...I thought it would probably be decent, but I was still pleasantly surprised. Say Elizabeth on DVD over the weekend. The movie was even better than I remembered. I'm thinking this one's a must-own.
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Haha! Well it's not one of those movies that's really heart-pounding in the "keeps you awake if you're sleepy way". :p
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/lol/ I guess I'm glad I didn't waste the bucks. I've heard that about Nemesis, too.
ST: NEMESIS: I'm kind of blah about it. My ears hurt from too many space battle sound effects. Leslie liked it. My biggest problem with the movie is that there's no interesting twists to the set-up. There's this guy, he's bad, he wants to attack Earth, the Enterprise crew has to stop him. The writers wanted to set up a nature vs. nurture debate, but I don't think they were successful with it. The Romulan background to the story was wasted. My second-biggest problem with the movie is that the images are way too dark and dim. My third-biggest problem with the movie is that the universe really should not revolve around Jean-Luc Picard. On the positive side, it's nice to see the Old Gang again; fans of the NextGen TV series really do have to go see this one.
I think they were pressed enough for time as it was - the parts of all the regulars except Picard and Data are cut down to the point where you would wonder why they were even there if you didn't know them from the show. So I don't know what they would have cut to add interesting setup to the villain. Oh wait - they could have cut the dunebuggy chase scene. But they needed it for the previews.
I guess I'll go to see it, then. I liked ST:TNG. I am eagerly awaiting The Two Towers, which comes out Wednesday. I probably won't see it until the weekend but I'm eagerly awaiting it just the same.
I'l second that one, regarding LOTR.
I traveled a significant portion of 8 Mile the other night. I'm wondering what's so special about this road that a movie should be named after it...
Think about what the movie 8 mile is about? It is about a white kid looking for acceptance from black peers. There are two things about him that make him different. 1) he is white 2) even though he is poor, he still lives in the 'burbs. Detroit is a very segregated metro area. 8 mile is the dividing line between city and suburb. It also divides white from black. I am not sure but I would guess that those things have something to do with Emimem's choice of title for his movie.
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Could it also be because it's a well-known strip in the 313 area? Trailers aren't exactly urban dwellings, really.
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They have trailer parks in the suburban communities that border 8 mile. Not every suburb is rich. In fact, because of sprawl, a there is a lot of decay in the "inner tier" suburbs from what I understand. 313 is the area code for the area south of 8 mile which is mostly the City of Detroit. 810 is the area code of the suburbs north of 8 mile.
Or rather 810 *was* the area code for all the suburbs north of 8 mile. Now they have 248 and 586 which are closer to Detroit and 810 is kind of the outlying areas like Flint and Port Huron.
My niece in Tennessee is a big Eminem fan. She's excited about the prospect of coming up to Michigan next summer because I've promised to take her to see the actual 8 Mile Rd. I know nothing about it at all, but I've told her we'll go there. I can just see me with her, cruising up and down the entire length of 8 Mile. I occasionally go for drives at lunch time, and have gotten to 8 Mile going down Earhart Rd. I wonder if she'll be satisfied with that part (which is in the country) or whether she'll insist on seeing the populated parts. Someone tell me there's nothing unsafe about driving on 8 Mile; that my niece and I aren't going to be bludgeoned or shot at if we visit the seedier parts; that I didn't make a stupid promise.
Well, as long as you have a visa from one of the local gangsta lords who control that part of the area you should be OK.. Oh, please.. What is it with the terror that suburbanites have of the Detroit area?
There is absolutely nothing unsafe about driving on 8 Mile. In general, it's safe to drive through the sketchy parts of cities. You're locked inside a 2-ton metal box, you're surrounded by other drivers who are potential witnesses, and unless you're in bumper-to-bumper gridlock you can drive away if someone does try to mess with you -- what's anyone going to do to you?
Safe? Not quite. There're all these suburbanites in their roadhog SUV's...
I am not a suburbanite. I live in Tecumseh. I grew up in Eaton Rapids, and spent several years in the UP. What I know of cities, I got from watching "Goodfellas" and "The Godfather", and from reading the newspaper. I've never gone to Detroit except to attend a baseball game. I've pretty regularly got lost, and seen some pretty rough looking sections of the city. I don't know if I've seen any parts which were rough enough anyone made a movie about growing up in them.
Lots of parts of Detroit look just as rough as they did in 1967 when they burned down, only more ruinous, and are actually pretty innocuous.
I've been to the seedier parts of most places, and honestly I don't think I've been under much threat, even when out of my car at night in really nasty places. There are just certain ways you do things, I guess, but driving in Detroit in daylight is certainly not much of a high-risk activity. I take that back, sort of. You're at lower risk in the neighborhoods than you are on the highways. :)
You should be all right. The bullets go *from* cars and *into* houses, not the other way around.
Just don't look like you are worth anything.
re 259: The dunebuggy sceene. A must to set up the video game "Drive from Argo".
I was going to suggest travel on Pontiac Trail to Eight Mile in South Lyon, but you don't get to the scary part of South Lyon before you would turn right on 8 mile.
re #275: > I've been to the seedier parts of most places, and honestly I > don't think I've been under much threat, even when out of my > car at night in really nasty places. There are just certain > ways you do things, I guess, but driving in Detroit in daylight > is certainly not much of a high-risk activity. Then again, you never want to be completely complacent. Nothing even vaguely threatening has ever happened to me in Detroit but in Ann Arbor I had quite the little adventure..
There was a time where you had more to fear from people dropping cinderblocks from the overpasses....
If you drive on 8 mile all the way to Grosse Pointe, you'll be driving a long time. If you do that though, you should then take Vernior (which I think 8 mile just kind of turns into but it's been nearly 15 years since the last time I drove that way) to Lake Shore Drive. Then take Lake Shore drive to Detroit where it turns into Jefferson. You'll see lots of cool stuff. If you are into urban decay, skip the Pointes and take Van Dyke to Jefferson. I didnt recognize all of the shots in the movie but I noticed that there were a lot on Jefferson, a *few* on 8 mile. Some good ones on Chene.
Re #281: It was worry enough. A co-worker of mine was killed by a cinderblock. She left behind a husband and an infant son.
#280: Indeed, it's good to keep that in mind. There's nothing wrong with keeping your eyes open, and I take a certain number of precautions when I travel (for example, leaving valuables visible in my car when I'm staying at a motel strikes me as unwise), but I don't feel the need to arm myself before visiting Detroit.
And I think Mike has more sense about this sort of thing than I, so I bow to his experience. In the process, I completely missed that this drift was part of the movie item. So here we go: I caught Two Towers tonight, in a typical "midnight of" gathering that brings, er, interesting people from all four corners of the greater Ann Arbor area. Typically, there were lots of familiar faces in the crowd, which is not notable except that "lots of familiar names" is pretty much the feeling I got from watching this movie. Beautiful landscapes, impressive action sequences, and a story that is *loosely* based on Tolkien's book of the same name. Quite loosely. I can accept and even appreciate dramatic license in some circumstances where the book does not flesh out certain concepts, and Jackson did a nice job of illustrating some themes that he feels are important to the story. However, there are a *substantial* number of departures from the text, and most of them seem to have no purpose. They do not clarify parts of the book that would be obscure on film, and they don't particularly add to the drama. Some create their own drama, of sorts, but it is cheap and unbecoming. My friend and I regularly exchanged confused glances, and at one point in the middle of the film he quite literally threw his hands in the air and gave up on trying to understand where the movie was going. I knew going in that Two Towers would take liberties with the story, but I wasn't prepared for how many it took or how fundamental some of the changes were. I suppose this will make Return of the King interesting, since I no longer have any idea what's going to happen, but it's bizarre. Good movie, though. On its own, it develops some plotlines fairly well and shows impressive amounts of action. Certain characters get less focus in this film than in the first one, but due to the pace of the movie that is ultimately forgivable. It's a nice, watchable film, but don't expect it to be anything that it is not--which is to say, don't expect it to actually be "The Two Towers" in any sense a reader fo the book would think it to be. If Jackson could just cut it out with the comic relief characters, we'd be in good shape for part III.
Senna, how violent is the movie? My 6 year old wants to see it, but I don't want to take him if it's too inappropriate.
It's fairly violent. Most of it isn't excessively gory, but there are a fair number of intense battle scenes and one particularly notable scene where the camera pans past an Orc's head mounted on a stake. You might want to wait on it for a while--or see it yourself to make sure you know what to prepare for.
Yeah, maybe I'll wait for the DVD so I can skip over the parts I don't like or that he finds scary. Thanks.
Saw "The Two Towers" this evening. Great visuals, although a few effects (the Orthanc, Saruman's tower in particular) looked rather model-esqe. I was more bothered by character problems, both differences from the text (understandable) and even within the movie inconsistencies.
You have several choices: