Every school boy knows it is not a legend

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Thermopylae 

From some of the folks behind Blair Witch Project comes this well-written, well-acted and paranoid as fuck tale of alien abduction. While it is similar to Blair Witch in some ways (a small, tight cast, simple sets), it has a higher budget and for the most part doesn't take place in the woods or use shakycam. I can't really praise this movie enough, it's the best horror I've seen in a long time, and I watch a fair amount of horror films. The script is so well done, the way things are implied or slowly revealed really works to keep one engrossed, intrigued and increasingly worried and disturbed. The actors were all convincing and were all given a chance to let their characters come across as real over time. 

You know, I'm not a specialist of ancien Greece story... and it makes almost 25 years I for sure saw that at school... (remember I'm 37 this year... *sight*...) 

yes, trailer looks interesting but this could be either really good or really bad. 

The Beat My Heart Skipped (2005) - Three reasons I wanted to see this, it was Jacques Audiard's followup to the fantastic Read My Lips, it was almost universally well received, and it has a plotline about a street level thug/debt collector whose interest in being a pianist is revived after spotting an ex-teacher. From then on, he is a conflicted soul who is torn between his art, his loyalty to his father, and his work. I wanted to see how you could make a good film with a storyline like that.

Well it's pretty easy to see why. Jacques Audiard is on fire behind the camera and Romain Duris is on fire in front of it. Audiard decides to basically just keep the camera as close to Duris as possible, which is not a bad move when your lead actor puts in such a magentic performance. He comea across as a mixture of pacino and deniro from their earlier 70's roles. The movie also has a terrific support cast and a good script for what the plot is. Ultimately its not a great film because there are only so many things that could be done given the general plot, but its sure is a very good one.

7.5/10 

That came across as harsh, I'm sorry and didn't intend anything more than a rasberry.

When I think of schoolboys, I get a picture of Angus Young in my head. Angus Young whistling 'you are only young but you are going to die' as he wacks Xerxe's Immortals with his six string axe. 

Don't be sorry, I was not hurted at all... It is just a fact that I'm getting older and older each days... and it is nobody's fault ;)
However, I agree that I could have take time to find more infos/references about the movie story... sorry for this... ;P 

http://www.apple.com/trailers/wb/300/trailer1/ 

This trailer looks just like Frank Millers comic book. I think it will be next SinCity (in the comic book > large screen way). 

Pan�s Labyrinth � Guillermo Del Toro�s latest movie shares many similarities with his 2001 effort, The Devil�s Backbone. It�s probably slightly better than Backbone in depicting the cruelties of the world through a child�s eyes.

The child, Ofelia, is unhappy with her current world after her mother remarries a sadistic captain upholding the post civil-war Spanish fascist regime and Ofelia creates her own fantasy world to escape from these realities. Unfortunately for her, in Guillermo Del Toro�s film, the fantasy world she creates is more an articulation of her realties than an escape.

I thought it started shakily but the longer it went on, the better it became both in terms of direction and scripting. Del Toro�s vision and aim are precise but I thought the execution was lacking in a few parts. Still, overall it�s a very good dark fantasy film with some very unique touches.

7.5/10 

Swimming Pool (2003) - Francois Ozon's slow burn, well made psychological drama is not quite as clever as it thinks it is, but its well acted and shot and those two aspects put it in the above average category.

There's not a whole lot going on, a disillusioned writer takes a holiday in France at her publisher's holiday house only to find his irritable daughter present, and once you've twigged onto it, the rest of it is fairly predictable. Charlotte Rampling does well with her role and Ludivine Sagnier looks amazing.

6.5/10


Harper (1966) - Paul Newman tries hard to overcome the lacklustre material and direction in this film noir without the noir but doesnt quite manage it. Apart from Newman, everything else about this is fairly average, with next to zero atmosphere and mood, and a very predictable script.

5.5/10


La Haine (1995) - Matthieu Kossowitz's bleak look at a society in free fall makes for compelling viewing. Kossowitz has a unique style that seems to borrow a lot from Godard, and is quite chaotic as first, but once you get used to it, it is very effective.

There's not a whole lot of plot, the movie follows three 'suburban' french youths the day after a fatal riot, and whilst there is not a whole of on screen violence, the whole film is definitely saturated with a threat of it and you can feel the "hate" of the title in every frame.

Vincent Cassel is excellent in his portrayal of a disillusioned youth at breaking point due to society's inequality and again demonstrates that when he is not choosing poor roles like Ocean's Twelve, Elizabeth or Brotherhood of the Wolf, he is a very capable actor.

7.5/10


Spirit of the Beehive (1973) - Guillermo del Toro cited Victor Erice's debut as his biggest influence on Pan's Layrinth (and to a lesser extent, The Devil's Backbone) and it's not hard to see why.

In Beehive, Frankenstein is shown in a small spanish village and it has a lasting impact on two small girls, highly affecting their view of life. It's set in the same time period of post civil war Spain and has the same theme of the view of the world from a child's point of view, but the other thing you notice is how simple and forced Labyrinth seems in comparison.

Erice's movie is a sheer masterwork that operates on many levels and effortlessly succeeds on almost all of them. The technical aspects are first rate, but it is 5 year old Ana Torent's perfromance that keeps it in your head long after the movie is over. Its quite possibly the best work a child actor has ever done and I have absolutely no idea how Erice would have coaxed such a performance out of a 5 year old. Either way, it makes for compelling viewing and the ending is one of the great ones.

8.5/10 

So I watched a movie trailer some time ago. It seemed to be about a guy who has been away (in prison?) who returns after the death of his (retarded?) brother at the hands of his abusive friends. The guy hunts them down and terrorizes them, and wears a gas mask at some point. It's a British film set in current times.

Anyone know what I'm talking about? nitin, maybe you do with your extensive movie knowledge base? 

A thoroughly fucked up film that leaves you feeling a little bit tainted after watching it.

It's good though! 

/afterthought 

Beer for you! 

but yeah that's the one, pretty good. Shane Meadows' other stuff is owrth checking out too. 

Au Hasard Balthasar (1966) - Robert Bresson's movie is an early example of the intersecting stories genre with the film following around a donkey as he's passed around from owner to owner during his life in a small french town. Bresson uses the fate of the donkey as a contrast to the lives of his characters and there's some brilliant scenes in this that work due to Bresson's style of having his non-professional actors speak and act in a manner devoid of any expression or emotion. This method strangely seems to make the viewer produce the emotion in scenes where the chracters should but arent. However, there are numerous times where the script is contrived enough to the point where it borders on silliness. This did detract from the film for me but overall its well worth a watch.

7/10



The Heiress (1949) - A decent movie, nothing more. The opening 45 min had me seriously questioning it, mainly due to olivia de havilland's annoying and one note performance during this time, but I did like where it ended up.

I still don�t see why an oscar was given to de havilland for this, she only really acts for the last 20 min. Ralph Richardson was much better as her overbearing father and Montgomery Clify was nicely ambiguous.

7/10 

Whoa. That movie is a bit fucked up. The camera work distracted me sometimes, but the movie was pretty good. 

was the dodgy flashback sequences. 

But that's pretty much what the whole movie was: flashback sequences, drug sequences, or both in the same sequence. :P 

The Age of Innocence (1993) - Martin Scorsese's period drama is very opulent but it is also one of his weakest efforts, completely empty and devoid of any substance.

It has a shaky script and stiff performances from its main players, both of which improve significantly in the second half. Scorsese directs poorly with some very out of sorts pacing and an equally out of control camera.

The only pluses are the excellent production design and a very good score from Elmer Berndtstein.

5/10


Angel Face (1951) - Borderline great film noir which is probably also Otto Preminger's finest hour apart from Anatomy of a Murder.

Robert Mitchum is very good as the downtrodden loser, the script is well written, Preminger directs outstandingly and the score is great, but its Jean Simmons who steals the show with her keynote iconic performance as the femme fatale alluded to in the title.

The only thing that separates this from the great noirs is the relative absence of memorable dialogue.

7.5/10 

Le Notti Bianche (1957) - Visconti's melodramatic fairytale version of Dostoevsky's short story is defnitely worth a watch, even though it doesn�t really succeed. It�s a very stylized movie, set in a completely artificially made city inside a studio, and that�s both its main strength and weakness. The setting gives it a bit of a surreal mood which suits the material but at the same time it also lends the whole thing an unconvincing feel, something it definitely cant afford given the story of two lonely people who meet by chance and each pursue their own version of a fairytale relationship. The performances also vary in quality depending on the scene but there's still a lot to like despite all the flaws.

6.5/10



Futurama Season 4 - slightly better than season 3 but still way below the quality and consistency of seasons 1-2. A handful of very good episodes but most were average-above average.

6.5/10 

High and Low (1963) - A first rate procedural crime drama from Akira Kurosawa, I have yet to come across a bad film from him (Ikiru is probably my least favorite and even that was reasonably good).

Toshiro Mifune is once again excellent as a corporate businessman whose son is the target of a kidnapping/ransom, only to find out that the kidnappers got his chaffeur's son by mistake. It's a film of two distinct halves, the first half playing out as a psychological drama as Mifune struggles over what to do, and the second turning into a police procedural chase movie. Both halves are very well written, directed and acted but I think the movie suffers slightly in the second half from relegating Mifune's character to the sidelines.

Overall though, another excellent movie from the great Japanese director.

7.5/10 

considering I've seen both Pan's Labyrinth and Little Miss Sunshine in the theater, neither was a particularly good film.

The first one was kinda good in almost every way. Good acting and interesting details and all that. But it still sucked, the feeling you got when you left the theater was just sadness. It didn't contemplate on the themes enough. And it was unnecessarily violent too.

Little Miss Sunshine then. Well, what can you say? It was unconvincing. Somewhat interesting characters and all that but it just wasn't that interesting as a whole, and you didn't need to wonder that much what would happen next. The "funny" things have been seen quite many times already, and the other things weren't just explored much.

I don't know any better movies since I haven't seen much.

Oh, Serenity was on tv on monday. What a load of crap. I thought it was supposed to be somewhat different from peoples comments. Why do they put millions of dollars to such stupid stuff? Maybe they should put a few million more to the script as it was such an inane story, not just in overarching picture but in details too. Maybe on par with star trek episodes. Childish. 

was a good genre flick this year. Nitin's review was spot on. It has a lot of little plot holes that you don't really notice until you are thinking about it later because the acting and the clipped story telling keep it moving forward.

Given that the movie focuses on a slight of hand, likely a nod and wink is the reason more than technical flaws. Sometimes you chop off a bit of logic so you don't sacrifice the story.

I didn't bother to see what the nominees (any year with a dominate musical is a year I skip) for the Oscars are this year, but I doubt if Inside Man recieved any of them. To turn a common phrase, it has enjoyable flick that doesn't beg for the little statue nor for public adoration written all over it.