The Johnny Cash account based upon his autobio "Man In Black", which I've read and enjoyed.

Since I'm not one for pretentious movie reviews, you won't get that here. You'll just get a points summary:

Acting: great performances by Joaquin (he has the voice down and learned to play the guitar and songs) and Reese (what a beautiful smile by the way). Also interesting to see Robert Patrick (lawl I put Patrick Stewart first, imagine...) as Cash's dad.

Music: Awesome - I tell you, not many films that recreate or feature music performances made me want to applaud with the crowd - Joaquin's ACTUAL performance - guitar playing, singing (whether or not it was recorded realtime or dubbed) - was very convincing and moving.

Story: I'm not real keen on details from reading Cash's autobio, but overall I believe the film stayed quite true (despite one of his kids saying their mother Vivian was portrayed as shrewd - and boy was she!). The thing that bothered me quite early on was, they didn't quite show how Cash gets real aquainted in music. Show him listenin' to the radio as a boy, and as he's older walks into a guitar store on duty in Germany, comes back home and tries to get a record deal at a studio. Very quick pace there. Actually the movie was fairly quickly paced, but only dealt with Johnny's earlier years and drug addiction. No way you could do justice portraying his entire life in the span of even 3 hours. (I believe this film was under 2 and a half hours).

Overall
A film quite worth seeing. I may pick it up on DVD, but I'm more compelled to pick up Ray on DVD - I liked the progression of that movie more. 

Office Space
Decided to see what was so funny about this, and was really looking forward to it - and while it had it's funny moments, it just wasn't the heralded comedy it was put up to be, for me. Although I was tired and nodding off near the last 3/4ths of the movie...

Blood Work
Really looked forward to seeing Eastwood in an interesting premise but - while this film had a noir feel about it that kinda hooks you, it just fails because the dialogue is written and performed more like what you'd see in everyday life. Because of this, oddly, it wasn't as convincing or interesting. Eastwood's gravely voice got tiring as well. The plot, once it revealed itself - wasn't completely shocking, but surprising. But then the way they handled that and the end just blew. Eastwood really let me down in this flick. I hope Absolute Power is better. 

felt the same, the brit sitcom captures that atmosphere (and is a lot funnier) so much more effortlessly. 

is "The Office" related to "Office Space?" Or is it just similar subject matter? 

different style of comedy really 

but similar subject matter (well, in parts).

Also, stay away from the american version. 

The Interview

Knockout script, probably the best australian script in the last decade (although I havent seen any of the big aussie three from last year : Proposition, Look Both ways, Little Fish). A few missteps here and there, but generally this is extremely well written.

And the acting is extremely good too, except from the supporting cast who ham it up a fair bit. Nicely shot and directed by Craig Monahan too.


The Skeleton Key

Interesting concept, bad execution. For every good, intelligent moment in the script, there's an equally bad one that defines stupidity. And it goes for too many "boo" moments which seems to plague many thriller/horror films these days.


Underworld - Rubbish in all areas, from the script to the acting to the direction to the score to the action to the look. Most people praise the look but it is so derivative, it's hard to credit it.


Unscripted Season 1 - quite flawed but equally intriguing and compelling show shot as a mockumentary by George Clooney about 3 struggling actors and their experiences. Some brilliant moments in every episode, which is a lot more than most shows can lay claim to.

I prefer it to Entourage (even though it's comparing apples and oranges), which is also a good show.


Sympathy for Mr Vengeance - well shot, well written, well acted. But the pacing is incredibly off in this earlier film by Chan Wook Park, 20 min or so could easily have been lost. And I felt the whole thing came out a little contrived too. 

Real small summary: guy goes through his memories/journal and rewrites his troublesome past multiple times, seeing the sometimes positive but sometimes devastating effects of his choices.

I was almost certain this movie would be a waste of time to watch - but I was surprised to find out that it is actually worth a watch. It's not a movie I feel compelled to own on DVD, but interesting premise nonetheless. It was also a disturbing movie, with it's various sometimes horrific events that the main character and other's experience - but what especially made this a worthy view was how I felt empathy for Ashton's character Evan. I didn't think that'd be possible as I had low expectations.

The only thing I was really left wondering was "well how was this even possible?". There didn't seem to be any theoretical explanation in the movie for this "butterfly effect". Maybe that was a good thing though.

It's worth a rent. 

After Hours - I've seen some strange stuff in my time but this is definitely one of the bizzarest, if not the bizzarest, films I've ever seen.

I dont know what crack Martin Scorsese was on when he made it, but it turned out quite well. Weird, but actually funny and not just substituting weird for funny like some more modern films (eg Napoleon Dynamite). As usual, shot nicely by Marty.

Although the lead does reasonably, could have been a better film with a stronger actor in the role. 

Kung Fu Hustle - blah. Some nice bits but this is probably just not my type of humour as I found it to be pretty uninteresting. The action scenes didnt impress either, the CG use was too distracting. 

Just like I should have expected from a Stephen Speilberg produced flick, this was atmospheric and gorgeously filmed but narrow and one dimensional. The lead actress is so cold and apparently unfeeling that it's difficult to ever give a shit about what happens to her, the locations and other characters barely exist except as a foil to the lead, and none of the myriad interesting issues surrounding a fascinating period in history are even brought up, let alone dealt with.

On the plus side, the quality of the sets, costumes, cinematography and music is simply astounding.

In summary; visually lovely and highly polished, but if you are looking for any depth or weight then instead read the book. It's far more nuanced, insightful and worthwhile. 

We Dont Live Here anymore - In the vein of Closer, complete with unlikable and unsympathetic characters. Likewise, it features some strong acting. It doesnt have the dialogue of Closer but is rawer and more intense. Worth a watch, but definitely not for everybody.


Malena - Giusseppe Tornatore is an overrated director and this is really fairly comparable to the average Cinema Paradiso. Shot well with a weak semblance of a story and featuring another terrific Ennio Morricone score and a knockout looking Monica Bellucci.


Extras Season One - disappointly average follow up to The Office by Ricky Gervais and Stephen Merchant. There's 3 reasonable episodes in the season, but even they retread the characters and style from The Office.


Stealth - One of the most awful movies I've seen in a while.


Red Eye - Competent, lean and efficient throwaway thriller. Has quite a few implausibilities but is well made enough to take till the end of the film for them to bother you. 

what went wrong? The plot sounded original and insightful, the casting appeared to be perfect... how could it not be great? I mean, they built a plane with artificial intelligence and it got evil and started destroying things. That's pretty unexpected, what a twist!

In depth critique please 

...not to tinker in God's domain. What hath man wrought? 

there are plenty of good insightful and thought-provoking science fiction books just waiting to be made into movies, and they always pick the crappiest crap of rehashed rehash dumbed down 1000x. Sigh.

Maybe it's just because the good ones are not for the big audience, since it would often need actual thinking to get something from the story. Maybe someone like David Lynch should do scifi. 

Maybe someone like David Lynch should do scifi.

Even seen Dune? 

Hey OK I am so ready for X3 I saw the trailer for it on line and when I went to see underworld 2 it was the frist trailer I saw it was so cool to see Daniel Cudmore in the suit walking with the others. when X3 comes out May 26th I am going to be watching the frist two movies then the next day I am seeing X3. have you all been to the trekweb they have some new photos of X3 and when you find the Six photo it scared the living death out of me it's of Peter in his colossus role. That is a scarry photo. 

Hey OK I am so ready for X3 I saw the trailer for it on line and when I went to see underworld 2 it was the frist trailer I saw it was so cool to see Daniel Cudmore in the suit walking with the others. when X3 comes out May 26th I am going to be watching the frist two movies then the next day I am seeing X3. have you all been to the trekweb they have some new photos of X3 and when you find the Six photo it scared the living death out of me it's of Peter in his colossus role. That is a scarry photo. 

I can feel the stealth marketing working already! X3 will have the biggest turnout of illiterate assholes of any movie opening ever!!342414 

yeah so I deserved everything I got, but sometimes I have to watch stuff that I dont want to.

But seriously, if you're going to pump 150 million plus into a movie, at least make it have some decent action sequences. Shots of missiles, then shots of planes, then an explosion. Oh man, I cant wait till I see that in zoomed in slow mo. Oh wait, they've read my mind, oh jesus christ this movie is so fucking cool. 

yeah so I deserved everything I got

That was my thought too! 

when I went to see underworld 2

I think I stopped reading right about there. 

Kate Beckinsale + Leather = HOT. 

metl:Even seen Dune?
Yeah, but it was kinda not finished and had some... not right things. I should watch it with more thought some day.

I like blade runner... and minority report wasn't that bad either. (cut the cheesy Spielberg kids&family inclusion). 2001 I haven't seen since I was a kid and it was kinda slow (pluss it's partly a ripoff of an older Russian film). 2010 or what's the sequel, that was ok although not very "grand". Solarises we've handled here earlier. Matrix had potential but in the end it was just flash and kungfu with the point lost.

Someone could make a big budget series about Lem's Cyberiad short stories book a bit in the vein of Outer Limits, which was sometimes watchable. It's violent and humoristic and the current special effects would rule. Or it could be made as a cartoon in futurama visual style, that would be awesome. Anybody got any connections? Make them read the book. 

I wasn't calling out Dune as an example of a quality scifi -- I was calling it out as an example of a David Lynch scifi, since you we're saying you'd like to see David Lynch take a crack at the genre.