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What an empty movie. :\
Nice to flee from boredom but probably nothing I will watch again. 

highest on-screen body count! a fun movie i think if a bit narrowfocused 

Babel - Its definitely the weakest of Alejandro Gonzales innaritu's 3 movies, but that's only in the context of his 2 great earlier films. I also think this was wrongly marketed, its not really a butterfly effect movie but more about what its title implies, the ability (and inability) of people to communicate with each other. And I think it explores that theme fairly well on quite a few different levels.

There are two problems, the first being the length. Innaritu is at his most self indlugent in this movie and while he gets away with it because the overall result is of high quality, the movie still has scenes that go on for far too long without any great purpose.

The second problem is the occasional scripting pitfall into contrivedness. It is one thing for characters to act irrationally under duress, it is something else to have them do dumb stuff solely so the plot can move towards a certain direction.

Apart from those though, I found it to be very well made, acted and written. It is possibly less accessible than his other two movies as the individual stories are probably not as engaging, but I think the overall result is still of a very similar quality. And the tracking shot to finish it off is also highly impressive.

7.5/10 

what nitin said.
i found the uprising/war scene in the refugee ghetto to be pretty intense. probably because of the long shots and shakey camera - it felt like being a live spectator. 

[b]Hollywoodland[/b] - so so [b]Chinatown[/b] wannabe about a (fictional) investigation into the death of George Reeves, who played Superman on tv in the 50's, after he was found dead in his house with a gunshot wound to the head. The police close it as a suicide case but Adrian Brody's private detective is hired to find out if it was foul play.

I'm all for film noir, but I don�t really understand why this particular story needed to be done in this fashion. The flashbacks of george reeves' life are reasonably interesting with both Ben Affleck and Diane Lane doing well but its unfortunately interspersed with the far less interesting investigation carried out by Brody and also the troubles in his personal life.

It doesn�t help that Brody is miscast and tries too hard to channel somr sort of a combination of Bogart and Nicholson. Allen Coulter, whos directed episodes of the sopranos and six feet under, doesn�t do a bad job but it always feels like you're watching an extended tv episode rather than something from a proper filmmaker.

5/10 

Just saw this last night...wow!

Really well shot, bloody as hell, and spartans are cool :)

Frank Millers influence is obvious in most of the camera angles and shots used, while the film isn't as deviant as Sin City it is very unique in its look and feel, its very refreshing to see a battle scene that doesn't use the horrid "MTV" close-ups and fast cutting that is plaguing the movie business atm.

The narration is not as heavy as Sin City either but its there and is generally very good at giving exposition to the characters and plot.

Go see this :) 

Saw it hours ago and I am still trembling from the awesome action!

The non-action-scenes were a bit boring and annoying at times, but overall a freaking nice movie that one MUST see in the cinema (if one wants to see it). 

The Squid and the Whale - Noah Baumbach's acidic look at a parental divorce through the eyes of the children is a very well written effort that works equally well as drama and comedy.

Jeff Daniels is excellent as the intellectual writer father who is full of himself but also a role model to his eldest son. Laura Linney matches him as the unhappy, affair having wife who also threatens her husband's ego with her writing skills.

But it's the acting by the two kids that really makes this, managing to sell the sad and awakward moments as well as the frequently funny moments that are littered throughout.

7.5/10 

Extras Season 2 - Slightly disappointed, though it's still on par with season 1, having funny scenes but apart from 1 or 2 great episodes there's also quite a few mediocre ones.

I think one of the main problems with this series is that it frequently substitutes cringeworthy for funny. There's a fine art to doing awkward humour, which Gervais perfected in The Office, but here he misses the mark quite a few times.

The other problem is that Andy Millman is just not a character you can have pity on, he's almost like David Brent but this time we're meant to feel sorry for him. I think most of those scenes dont work either.

Having said all of that, when it is funny, it's good stuff. The Ian McKellen epsiode is pure gold.

7/10


Tokyo Story (1953) - Yasujiro Ozu's overlong but great look at the disintegrating unity of a family in post war Japan is hard to describe. There's nothing really about it that can be described as great individually but the whole experience is definitely something that you will remember.

Ozu's style takes a little while to get used to with its static camera, long shots and actors frequently talking straight into the camera, but after a while you can see that it's a finely honed and meticulously planned skill that is quite effective.

The runtime is a bit too long, but that's about the only criticism I have.

8/10


The English Patient - The academy has awarded some very poor films in recent times, and this one is no exception.

Quite possibly one of the most superficial and glossy films ever made, this has exteremly stilted direction, a very poor screenplay and and a comatose centrepiece romance that is never convincing.

The photography is decent but comparisons to Lawrence of Arabia are completely off the mark, most the effect in this movie is from the location rather than skilled camerawork.

Acting is ok, but the characters are quite poorly etched so no one really stands out.

4.5/10 

Titanic - pretty much what I expected.

James Cameron takes every opportunity to showcase his technical expertise, even before the ship starts to sink, and while he is doing that it is pretty spectacular stuff. But as soon as the focus shifts to the thinly sketched characters and their even thinner story, it dissolves into tedium.

Still, the ship sinking last act is very well done.

5.5/10


Twin Peaks season one - Very impressive, had never seen this before and it holds up quite well. I have no idea how this made it on to network tv (let alone become popular), as this would probably still be a cable show if it was running today.

Anyway, apart from some dodgy acting, there is a lot to like here. Its a bit of a retread of Blue Velvet for David Lynch but the atmopshere, music and characters are first rate. Dale Cooper is probably one of the best tv characters in any show, nice work by Lynch, frost and Kyle Maclachlan there.

I've heard mixed things about season two, but I'm looking forward to it.

7.5/10 

Danny Boyle directs well, but once again Alex Garland fails to deliver as a writer. Why they decided to work together again after The Beach is beyond my understanding.

The first half is a pretty cool sci-fi thriller and shows plenty of promise. The second half is absolutely terrible and full of conveniently unexplainable phenomenon, which never seam to serve any purpose other than to extend the film by an hour.

To be honest, the entire premise of the film is flimsy at best so it was wrong of them to take it as seriously as they did. 

I have to say I completely change my mind.

It is still probably the perfect example of a love or hate it film, but I now think that its definitely a great movie. In fact, I dont think Terry Gilliam will ever top this, there is no way he will be able to exercise this much control over a movie and there is no way his movies can turn out as brilliant as this if he isnt allowed that control.

Dont know what changed during the time I last saw it but I now find it to be a fantastic combination of Orwell's 1984 and the antics of the Monty Python group.

It is possibly a bit too long, with one dream sequence too many, and it does lose its way a little in the second half, but this time around I found the opening 80 min or so to be terrifically sustained brilliance.

Jonathan Pryce is excellent as Sam Lowry (a role that was actively pursued by Robert De Niro) and De Niro himself runs with the role he finally got, playing a subversive heating and cooling engineer wanted by the government. The support cast are also great.

Also, maybe it was the print I saw last time, but on the new dvd I really dig the world Gilliam has managed to create. The retro mechanical bureaucratic society is filled to the brim with nice little odd touches.

So yeah, well worth a watch, but make sure you get your hands on the uncut 142 min version.

8/10


The Glass Key (1942) - fairly decent version of Dashiell Hammett's book, although it was better adapted by the Coen brothers in the great Miller's Crossing.

Still, this Alan Ladd and Veronica Lake starrer is pretty good straightforward noir with some interesting characters and events. Some of the stuff Alan Ladd's character does would not fly today without some sort of explanation or redemption tacked onto it and the lack of those make for refreshing viewing.

7/10 

Just saw Grindhouse.

There is a grenade jump in the movie.

For real. 

A Fistful of Dollars (1964) - fairly good movie from Sergio Leone, the start of the famous dollars trilogy, but it's not quite on the same level as the two films that followed or of the movie it was a remake of. It feels a bit too rough and low budget compared to either of For a Few Dollars More, The Good The Bad & The Ugly or Yojimbo but the stylish direction and Ennio Morricone's excellent score make up for that to quite an extent.

6.5/10


Borat- I know I'm in the minority but I found this to be totally unfunny and also more surprisingly I was not even shocked or disgusted, just...indifferent I guess.

2/10 

!!!!.... I thought this had more of a real plot than the two sequels.... of course the plot was stolen from Yojimbo but Yojimbo and Fistfull are two of my favorite movies...

Compared to "A few dollars more" and "good, bad, ugly" I thought Fistful had the most lean plot, while the sequels had the same spirit but too much fluff...

Drunk as you might expect, but these are my sober opinions nonetheless. 

agree on the plot comment in comparison to few dollars more and the GB&U, but Yojimbo handled that aspect better I thought.

I just think the style is better developed in the later movies and in my eyes, they are better for it. 

the GB&U soundtrack rules the Universe, so on that bases alone, even if the movie was a three hour shot of a field of grass growing it would still be in the top ten great movies of all time.
Fortunately, it has some excellent character acting (hence the title ;)) for the viewer who may be tone deaf and can't enjoy the music. 

but I also think the soundtracks to the other two dollars films are also pretty impressive, and a bit underratd. 

Planet of the Apes (1968) - charlton heston tries his best to derail the whole thing with an awful performance but Frank Shaffner's precise direction and the simple yet complex premise overcome his antics. The plotting requires more than a little suspension of disbelief but it's worth it because the script raises some interesting ideas, even if they're not explored as well as they could have been. The character of Dr Zaius is probably the most intriguing, the others feel a bit too one dimensional. There is some great imagery here, much more than just the famous end scene, and the score by Jerry Goldsmith is also pretty effective.

7.5/10



La Femme Infidele (1969) - I think this was remade recently as Unfaithful which I havent seen, but Claude Chabrol's original is a very stylishly made old fashioned suspense film in the vein of Hitchcock and Clouzot. The acting, writing, and direction are all first rate and the whole thing feels very economic without any dead space. There's actually nothing wrong with it but it does have a cold feel to it which keeps the viewer at somewhat of a distance.

7.5/10



Rocky - It isnt the movie that should have beaten out Taxi Driver, Network and All the President's Men but on its own it's still fairly impressive stuff. The first thing you notice is how well shot it is, it definitely has the right look for the setting of the movie. Next up on show is the impressive script, hard to believe it was written in 3 days by stallone, because most the major characters are excellently written. The acting is good too and the only thing that lets it down is the anticlimax fight at the end coupled with a very corny and badly executed final scene.

7.5/10 

Fistfull of Dollars

I should really rent those movies and watch them again. The only time I've seen them was when I was about 10 years old, and I don't really remember much about them except for Eastwood chomping on a cigar and shooting a revolver. Although I do remember being smitten by the music in For a Few Dollars More.

Drunk as you might expect, but these are my sober opinions nonetheless.

How was the party, metl? The raw beef at Musawa was... interesting. Afterwards we hit up a bar on Haight St, which turned out to be the second gay bar we went to last weekend. Incidentally, I'm forced to disagree with the notion that gay bars have cleaner bathrooms than other bars (at least the two I've been to). Anyway, it was cool meeting up with you, even though I didn't get into town until much later than expected. 

the party was a bunch of drunk thirty-somethings i didn't know (girlfriend's coworkers.) But they kept handing me drinks, which was my eventual undoing.

I like how my spelling is still perfect even when I can't string two thoughts together in a coherent sentence. 

The Lives of Others - well made, well acted, generally well written german film about the period in east germany's history when the stasi operated to ensure that citizens didn�t participate or operate in "subversive" fashion. Rather than trying to tackle the issue by displaying the impact on the general population, it focuses on 3 characters in particular (a popular writer, his actress fiancee and the stasi agent who keeps tabs on their affairs) to bring out the state of mind that was prevalent at the time.

First time writer/director Florian Donnersmarck does a commendable job in all departments but at times gives away his lack of experience with some contrived plotting and functional, but non-imaginative, cinematography. His strengths are obviously more towards storytelling than the visual side of things, but this is still quite an impressive debut.


7.5/10 

So I finally saw 300, and I was wondering if anyone else noticed this: when the kid is beating up the other kid at the beginning, it appears to be a shot-for-shot clone of the scene where Ed Norton beats up Jared Leto in Fight Club. Anyone? 

I think you watched Fight Club too many times Metl :) Not that thats a bad thing! 

The Motorcycle Diaries - As a portrait of the "why" behind the transition of Che Guevara from almost medical graduate to cuban revolutionary, it's fairly low level stuff. To be fair though, the movie does cover a period where it appears that Guevara himself hadnt worked that aspect out just yet, so its not something that could be readily communicated to an audience anyway. However, in the second half you can see the wheels turning, but its not an entirely convincing depiction.

As a road movie, it works a little better, mainly because the stunning backdrop allows ample oppurtunity for good photography. The acting is good, the direction is reasonable, and the script is decent even if it can never really escape the main pitfall of the road movie, the lack of a narrative and the feel of bunch of vignettes stuck together.

Still, I found it a good watch despite the issues although the effect on the small screen is probably not as effective.



7/10