This is the most useless forum ever. 

All About My Mother - I'd never seen an Almodovar film before but judging by this, he's a man in complete control. The direction is outstanding, the acting is outstanding. Whilst the script isnt as outstanding, it's still very good and interesting. Probably not for all tastes, I'd still highly recommend this to anyone who's interested in good cinema.


Napoleon Dynamite - This is a movie that's self consciously quirky and thinks its funnier than it really is. It follows a current trend where filmmakers think that just having strange people in strange situations doing strange things is automatically funny. It does have its share of laughs but overall it's still not up to scratch IMHO. 

Laura - I liked this quite a bit although I think it falls well short of the 'great' category. IMHO, the absurd plot which is a bit too convulted and silly in parts detracts from the film but the style and script do serve it well. As does the presence of Gene Tierney.


To Have and Have Not - Quite good as long as you can ignore the 'Casablanca' hangover and some hokey sidekick antics. Bogart and Bacall do a much better job together here than in Key Largo and whenever they're on screen, the movie works well.


The Apartment - Probably doesnt work as well as it did back when it was released. The first hour or so is quite good with some nice Wilder dialogue and Lemmon in top form but after the hour mark, the movie comes to a bit of a halt and never really reaches the same heights as before. That's not to say its a bad film in the second half, it's actually quite well made and acted the whole way through, but the two halfs are drastically different in pacing and IMHO dont quite fit. Still, well worth watching because of some great lines. 

Just rented it and watched it, but I have never seen Meet the Parents. Man, oh, man this is a funny movie. Be warned, if you have a glass eye, Dustin Hoffman will rip it right out of the socker with all the laughter he'll get out of you. Man. I'm still crying.

Ben Stiller, the older and more bulked up he gets, the more he looks like his mother O'Mara than his dad Jerry Stiller, so the schmeil comedy bit of his is getting a bit worn.

And there is only one word for Barbra Streisand in this movie: Hot! 

whilst by no means a great film, meet the parents is better than meet the fockers. SO if you liked the sequel, the first ont is marginally better. 

Bought Koyaanisqatsi today. Came in a nice double pack along with Powaqqatsi. Will be watching them <bal>soon</bal>.

I do have a feeling that I'll probably like them, since I'm such a sucker for cinematography, and music. All this "acting" is just an annoyance in some movies. 

Robots - decent idea executed poorly, in a distinctive but subjective style. Okay so the plot is ultra-basic, it's laden with cliches, and were it anything other than an animation it would barely flesh out a 1/2 hour TV episode - but all of that is well compensated for by bags of style and plenty of sharp wit that appeals to adults whilst the cuteness appeals to children, right? Right? No, not really. Whilst other animations spice up the cartoon with adult wit, this throws in a load of mercilessly cheesy pop-media references that lack any sort of comedic bite or philosophical insight. The style of the film I sometimes found similarly weak, but in this area I do admit it's a matter of taste and the cutesy look is perhaps the point. Nevertheless I found the grimy undercity to show the appeal this film could have had. At any rate, the cheesyness and lack of depth is the main issue, and as such this film is strictly paddling in the shallow end.

Kingdom Of Heaven - I do like medieval stuff and thus had a positive expectation of an intriguing medieval spectacle. What I got instead was an incoherent mismash of toiletry adverts and pop-video snippets bound together by the insubstantial glue of a series of non-sequitors. Deep moral issues and crucial plot links were glossed over with minimal explanation and even less sense, whilst arbitrary posturing and random cheesey atmospherics were drawn out to irritating lengths. This was a film that was simultaneously too long and far too short. In fact, it was the way off the mark. Why the makers chose to make it into a series of adverts for Eau De Wandering Aimlessly Along The Sand and Random Mysterious Stare Conditioner For Faggots, instead of a gripping exploration of religion, politics and morality against a backdrop of brutal conflict in a new world, I don't know. Having said all that, some of the LOTR rip-off battlescenes were pretty good, and it got better enough towards the end to keep my arse in the seat. 

First post! Hah!

Wraps up the prequels in a satisfying way and has some of the most attractive renders known to man. And that's really all you need to know. You may not fall in love with it, but you won't leave angy. 

Second post! Hah!

Wraps up the prequels in a satisfying way and has some of the most attractive renders known to man. And that's really all you need to know. You may not fall in love with it, but you won't leave angy.

P.S. I fucking hate star wars and I can't wait until George Lucas dies from his bloated neck syndrome. 

A good film, rather tragical for its genre.

but I haven't watched episodes 4,5,6 from the beginning till the end. Only partialy.. 

I don't get it, you want to explain that? 

bloated neck syndrome

OMG, is it that obvious, I tried to hide it as long as I could, I am receiving treatment for the condition. 

perhaps you are on his hit list as well 

L'Avventura - I cant say I was too taken in by the movie but Antoinini definitely has a veryd istinctive style that keeps me watching. In this particular film, some of the shots are just very arresting, cant explain it because they arent fancy nor is much happening, but they create a very distinctive mood and feeling. The one thing this movie does do extremely well is make you feel as alienated as the characters in it.


The Asphalt Jungle - Solid all round noir film with well cast characters and a decent script.


Office Space - I went into this hearing a lot of good things and expecting something along the lines of The Office. Instead, I got an above average american comedy with some terrific scenes but mostly heavyhanded instances of the film thinking itself to be cooler and cleverer than it was. 

Awesome, powerful, emotional film; in a completely different league to the other two prequels.

Pandered a little bit too much to kids in the beginning, but as soon as it kicked in properly, it was relentless and satisfyingly brutal in its execution. 

It almost sucks as much as the LotR films!

You don't suck tho, unless you want to... ^_~ 

Pretty good, although the overall vibe of Star Wars does look quite ridiculous in this day and again. Also it was quite patchy, there were some tedious moments, a fair amount of kiddie moments (although the two slapstick bits were actually funny), combined with some spectacular bits and some gripping bits.

I do think the actual basic story is a very good (if totally blatant) one to be told in this sort of setting - true space opera with strong classical overtones. And this did show in the film, with some fairly powerful moments. As the over-effusive Kinn points out, more so towards the end. And the whole sci-fi-ness of it all is great, although I do find the technology to be nonsensical.

I think there is a lot of potential for a very powerful, very adult sci-fi film with this sort of story, something that explores BIG issues in a spectacular setting with mind-boggling but comprehensible technology. THIS isn't quite it as it is still quite a kiddie film, but it did have some inspiring parallels.

Worth going to see, I thought. But neither spectacularly good (although it was goodly spectacular) not remotely awful. 

Also, I'd like to know whether these two are worth watching:

Sin City - sounds kinda entertaining. Max Payne2 got me into the film noir style.

The Jacket - sounds really cool, and indeed quite a lot like Jacob's Ladder which was great.

Views? 

Sin City: See above. There were quite a few comments posted when it came out in the US. Generally recommended, although it didn't seem to me to be as deep as some people thought it was.

The Jacket: I dunno, but it's on my rental list. 

I'll get to the point and say I though this was absolutely fantastic. Everything you'll read in a positive review is true, and the only negative points i've read is that some people think there's too much violence, and that it's degrading to women. How awesome is that?

It's important that you watch it not expecting anything deep or complex of course. This is a classic action film, like Die Hard or True Lies, with characters 100 times more badass than Max Payne, no bullet-time bullshit, and no pussification of the dialogue or content as you'd expect to see in a comic-adaptation. All you get is strippers being punched in the face, priests being shot in the head; henchmen being taken down by hatchets. And thats by the GOOD guys.

Thats just one thing that makes this movie so good. The good guys are tough assholes, but the bad guys are really bad, really evil. Something so satisfying about seeing Bruce Willis's Detective Hartigan punch a pedo's head into the ground, or Mickey Rourke's Marv beat the shit out of a cannibal weirdo.

I'm just so happy to see a film this much fun, and this un-PC get realeased to such a wide audience. It's worth the price of admission to just see the 'Marv' section. It's worth the price of admission just to see him call all the women he meets 'broads', or for the line:
"That's my Parole officer. She's a dyke, but god knows why. With that body she could have any man she wanted."

So, yeah definitely go see this movie. I watched a copy of it with a room of people, and most of the guys broke into cheers every 5 minutes (most of the girls didn't really get it :)). Ive never seen a movie do that to people before. Maybe Indiana Jones would do that, in its own much less violent way.

OK now I may have over-hyped it, but I hope you enjoy it as much as I did. 

see the trailer for sin city, the style's not for everyone but I have been waiting very eagerly for australian cinemas to actually fucking release the thing here. 

The movie's so good that I'd pass a chance to see pictures of Shambler's naked mother just to see Sin City again. 

...seconded 

'A Tale of Two Sisters'
a korean horror flick from 2003, just released on NTSC DVD for those interested in buying/watching it.
I saw it, I manifested my own interpretation of how the story unfolded. Then after a bit of reading up on it I found my idea of how it played out doesn't match in a lot of places. Although these were all other personal explanations from other viewers, so nobody is technically 'correct', and it would seem this was intended after glancing quickly at some of the extra dvd content titles which include a 'psychiatrists commentary'. I didn't get to view that stuff so I guess I'll be left in the dark for a while.

overall it was great bit of horror/psychology. 

Yeah, I watched that with my girlfriend, and neither of us understood it the same way, definatly some strange story telling... But yeah, a nice film.