seen any good flicks lately?

12467218

Comments

  • yep HOSAF was intense or what?
    perfect casting, particularly jennifer connolly.

    paul bettany is a lucky boy.

  • nrg-bnrg-b ✭✭✭
    I recently saw the puppet animation movie Team America: World Police. It is made by the same people who did South Park. Wow!. I can not remember laughing so much ever, had to watch it again to make sure I caught most of the jokes.

  • GobiGobi ✭✭✭
    Jarhead was ok, definately not the usual America is brill war movie.
  • nrg-b?

    really? i was really let down by it. Love South Park and particularly the movie, but thought this was juvenile, but this time not in a good way.
    thought most of the gags fell flat.

  • I liked Jarhead but I felt I'd been this way before with 'Full Metal Jacket'.

    Sam Mendes took an unusual rout in having a war film with very little actual war in it.

    I'm not sure about any anti-war/anti-American foriegn policy message embedded in the film... thought that it made war quite attractive (which is the problem with most anti-war movies).

  • ....Film score is ace though...
  • nrg-bnrg-b ✭✭✭
    flyinghaggis: I was not expecting something highly intellectual, just plain funny and that it was all done with puppets ie no computer graphics.

    TAWP had it's choice moments, including:
    - sex scene
    - the puke scene
    - the Bakalaka(sp?) St episode

    I think I'll watch the DVD again :-)
  • Morning girls! :)
    Coming up shortly: my comments on 2 tragedies: "House of Sand and Fog" & Iphigenia (1977)
  • 'Iphigenia' Had to look on the IMDB for that one 'M' Not familiar with the movie nor the source... (Classical Greek tragedy?)

    'House of Sound and Fog' I found it quite moving but very intense... superb acting mostly...

    'Cried? I nearly stopped!"

  • 'House of Sand and Fog' is a tragedy, definitely not recommended viewing for anyone depressive, and eminently suitable for those who bring along a kleenex box to share with friends instead of popcorn for the occasion! Rent it, don't buy it, because you might probably be able to sit through it again, although it is a masterpiece...

    The acting is brilliant, particularly Ben Kingsley & Jennifer Connelly were outstanding in this film. Also the cinematography, along Malibu.
    I won't go into the entire plot here, that can be read online. But one aspect of the film deals with a cultural group I am familiar with, having Iranian friends who had to leave everything behind when Khomeini came to power in Iran, and their struggle to maintain their standard of living, or to recreate it. However, there was one reason why I was not 100% in sympathy with the character portrayed by Kingsley: as a former Colonel in SAVAK, the very brutal former Iranian domestic & intelligence service of Iran, which had unlimited powers of arrest and detention, he would undoubtedly have been responsible for some nastiness, and had some blood on his hands. Although not in context here, this is something I considered in what was actually a very affecting part of the movie, where, not wanting to give much away, he is pleading to doG for the life of his son while kneeling with his forehead to the floor, hands covered with blood, pleading for the life of his son.

    The ending is pretty heavy, but to me not entirely unreminiscent of a couple of the more tragic Bollywood movies.

    This one,Iphigenia, carries a two-kleenex box weepie warning, there was not a dry eye in the house, male or female:
    On the notion of sacrifice, I was reminded of a film I saw as a student, Iphigenia (1977), directed by Michael Cacoyannis (his credits include Zorba the Greek and The Cherry Orchard, a Checkhov play). His co-author for the script was Euripides! Among the actors,the only familiar face is Irene Papas, OTT, but not inappropriately so, this is Greek drama.

    The story unfolds very slowly, but it is worth persevering. Put simply: the Greek army is about to sail to Troy for a major battle, but there is no wind. Apparently some of King Agamemnon's men has displeased the goddess Artemis by killing a sacred deer. He and his brother Menelaus are happy to hear from the soothsayer that just a sacrifice would be needed...until they hear what it is- his daughter Iphigenia is to be sacrificed. The entire movie is propelled by the dilemma- should he ignore the soothsayer and risk the winds never arriving in time? Or should they give the chick the cop to get things going? The poor girl doesn't know...
  • Another to go see is The Matador. Easily the best thing Brosnan has done since The Fourth Protocol and probably the best thing he's ever done.
  • Hasn't been released yet :( I agree about The 4th Protocol. Because of that, I never typecast him entirely as "Mr Bond" the way some people do.
    In terms of KGB-type movies, I quite enjoyed from way back when, "Telefon", with Charles Bronson & Lee Remick, with a creepy Donald Pleasence.
  • I'll tell you an odd one 'The Osterman Weekend'. Odd.

    :)
  • Seriously weird film Earl ... You could argue the film is Pekinpah's expression of post-modern temporal displacement... no rhyme nor reason to the disjointed non-linear plot...

    Or you could also say that it is baffling nonsense...

    But I liked 'Jacobs Ladder' and 'Lost Highway'... so, what do I know?
  • Osterman Weekend- wasn't that Peckinpah's last movie? I does have Rutger Hauer in it, tho... (the star of perhps the ultimate lifestyle clash movie, Ladyhawke :o) It was adapted from a Ludlum novel I have kicking about somewhere, and some wag once said " Ludlum and subtle go together like giant haystacks and abseiling" :)

    He didn't actually make that many, but of Peckinpah films, I always found "The Wild Bunch" to be OTT, but I have a certain fondness for "Bring me the head of Alfredo Garcia", as well as "The Getaway", co-starring Ali McGraw of (er hem) Wellesley College pedigree. There have been comparisons of John Woo's work to his, but some people think that the only thing they have in commonis their fondness of using slow motion, but I haven't really looked out for that.

    Corinth- I haven't seen either, but from what I've heard about Jacob's Ladder, (directed by Adrian Lyne), it might get you onto a Michael Winner delicacy, "The Sentinel" (1977). Model goes to live in a Manhattan appartment building run by a blind priest (John Carradine) stuck there to make sure the devil & arch angels don't escape from this place,which turns out to be a gateway to hell. Grim stuff. But lots of famous faces, including Ava Gardner. I'm not squeamish, and it's not all that gross, but I had nightmares for ages :S

    Temporal displacement? Look out for my screenplay! Like "The Lost Weekend", but without the booze :))

  • ...(that's Giant Haystacks the person, not the agriculture).
  • Another tip, Walk the Line. If you're not singing along then you have your head in a barrel and I have my finger on the trigger.

    :)

    (took me a moment to suss 'Giant Haystacks' too :D )
  • Haven't seen it yet :(
    Trigger? Not with my putter aimed at your trim shins :o
    Can one busk while watching a movie?
    Do they have a sing-a-long screening where you can dress like Johnny & bring rotgut, like what they did with "The Sound of Music", except without nuns or goatherds?
    Just speculating :)

    Eeeergh- that reminds me of a really weird one, for some reason: "Boxing Helena". Except it was a box, not a barrel. Or a bloke without arms or legs, etc, in "Johnny got his gun"- double euuurgh!
  • I went to the movies today!
    I will give my opinion of the one in question when I get my other stuff done.
    £9.80 at the local- what a rip-off! :o

    So which one did I go see?







    moo keeps the peasants in suspense :P
  • Mmmm, I like pheasant...

    £9.80!!!

    £4.20 is the most I pay (without using a borrowed SU card).

    Erm... 'Aeon Flux' or 'Walk the line'
  • Me too! It was either that or get shoes resoled :(

    Erm...three guesses...
  • Or the new one directed by George Clooney about McCarthy and Morrow

    'Good Night, and Good Luck'?
  • Nope, and nope!
    I'll give you a clue- it's got music in it!!
  • nrg-b

    i wasn't expecting anything intellectual either, no parker/stone movie, however, clever, could be.

    i am as low-brow as they come but sadly I
    just didn't laugh much at all.
  • <Moo continues singing 'Time Warp' to her audience of stunned cockroaches:
    'Well I was walking down the street
    Just a having a think
    When a snake of a guy gave me an evil wink
    He shook-a me up, he took me by surprise'>

    Nope! Like I'd pay £9.80 for a re-run? The mind boggles :o

    ANYWAY:
    Just a quick impression:
    I did see 'Walk the Line', it was well worth it, the 136 minutes passed very quickly. The performances by Joaquin Phoenix and Reese Witherspoon were amazing, their own singing voices were used, but if only one of them could get an Academy Award, possibly Reese?

    It focuses on the early career of Johnny Cash and the two steps forward, one-step back relationship with June Carter, who he eventually married. I don't want to give away too much of the plot for those who are not familiar with his story, but some chav must have sat in there thinking "hey, this is my my kind of movie" when "it" heard a line like "But I shot a man just to see him die" in 'Folsom Prison Blues':)Perhaps the most uplifting scene in the film was where he plays in Folsom towards the end, the film having started with him in his dressing room waiting to go on, and then his entire story to this point is told in flashback.

    There were a few scenes about his childhood, dealing with his brother Jack at the beginning which caused quite a few sniffles in the audience and I found hard to take, all about the "had I been there" issue which was probably the incident which molded his life from then on. Otherwise, you also had the issues of seeking parental approval, friendship, love, addiction, as well as a view of life on the road with portrayals of some of the stars of the time such as Jerry Lee Lewis, Elvis, etc.

    For those who are interested in the music of the time, a special 50th anniversary edition CD of "The Million Dollar Quartet" is about to be released, this is when Elvis, Carl Perkins, Jerry Lee Lewis, and Johnny had a jam session and a tape was left running, with all the chit chat in between. The majority of the songs are gospel/spirituals. I haven't heard it yet!
  • That's not fair... I guessed right first time!

    I liked 'walk the line...' very much

    But I felt the story ended just when Cash's life got even more interesting... the film's crying out for a sequel

    "Ring of Fire"

    ...Boy meets Jack Daniels and 'Coke' (sniff!); boy falls over a few times and loses recording contract; boy finds girl again beats booze and powder..and for ten years produces the most sublime music of his career...

    (Wonder if my agent's still alive?)



  • nrg-bnrg-b ✭✭✭
    We've just finished watching Shaolin Soccer. Utter brilliance.
Sign In or Register to comment.