Golden Compass

I thought it wasn't bad, I liked the casting but it was clear that most visitors hadn't read the book and thus had no idea what was happening. They had to cut it so rigidly to fit it into cinema format that most of the charme was totally lost.

For what it is, it's a good attempt, but unlike LOTR most ppl don't know the books and so this movie can't get away with it like Peter Jackson could.

I found it a little cheap that many visitors thought they had to disfavorably compare it to LOTR, I think that's what many people always say when they don't get a fantasy movie. *shrug*

Worth watching IMO but only when you have read the book, otherwise it'll leave you scratching your head.

Resident Evil, part 3 (forgot the title)

This was rather nice. There are those who like Milla Jovovic and those who despise her... I happen to like her... this movie was just very good, nonstop brutal action cut like a music video, good fighting but sometimes sickening because of the extremely detailed, gory, thoroughly choreographed violence.

Jovovic is surprisingly fit, endlessly more believable as a super heroine than Jolie in those stupid Lara Croft movies (I'll get to that in a second) and the roster of outlaws are believable enough for their position in the movie. There's just enough plot to not disturb the action, most of it is rather cliched, granted but I didn't find it intrusive.

The various types of zombies and mutants were entertaining, even more so since the movie didn't take itself too seriously here, which I liked.

The cinema was almost empty when I watched this one, which can be either a good or a bad sign, in this case it was a good one. For a video game based movie, it was astonishingly good. Good popcorn movie except for the sheer amount of brutality, which you must be prepared to tolerate (or your stomach at least). Part 3 in a series, I'll definitely go see the next one.

TombRaider, the Cradle of Life (?) Part 2

Just saw this on TV. It was so bad that I could barely stand to watch it. One of the worst things I ever saw.

As an action flick, it's a complete failure. Jolie never has the required toughness or even fitness that you'd expect from a video game heroine. She seems like totally unmotivated, tired, in bad shape and in need of a good martial arts coach. Her "friends", unlike the butler, hacker guy and fellow tombraider from the first movie, were total caricatures and weaklings. The bad guys were unconvincing. The plot was total stupidity (oooooh, let's have Lara Croft open Pandora's box in Africa and cry.)

It seemed to be more of a movie about Angelina Jolie, sweet little black kids, wise black shamans, how terrible it is in Africa, and bad white men with helicopters. ^^ Lara Croft had gone missing it seems. Alanis Morrisette could have played Lara and the movie would have been better.

The first TR movie was entertaining in comparison, and contained elements from the game, and Jolie was a bit more interested in things, and much fitter. :-/ too bad.

ResidentEvil : TombRaider 1:0. 

I watched a lot of Scandinavian movies lately, and while the Dogma 95 "standard" forbids simplistic action and the use of cheap effects, it seems to noneless be a silent agreement at least in Danish films that at one point, one of the increasingly fucked up main characters draws a weapon and kills some cows, birds and sometimes even people or rock bands in a rather comical fashion. :-)

Some I recommend:

I Kina spiser de hunde (In China, they eat dogs)

Arvid who works at a bank defeats a robber with a squash racket, loses his girlfriend, and teams up with his brother, a small criminal, to collect money for the bank robber's wife so she can have a baby and they finally do something good. Nothing is as it seems of course. Funny movie about what you can and cannot do, brothers, careless (often accidental) shooting of people, and just enough knowledge about explosives to be dangerous. Like a Tarantino movie but fresher and better actors. Oh, and simplistic action scenes and effects :-)

Blinkende Lygter (Blinking lights)

Danish road-movie about four small gangsters approaching 40, and just so opening a restaurant with other gangsters' money. Careless shooting of cars and cows. Good movie about men, friendship, family, life and other crap.

Adams Aebler (Adam's Apples)

Neo-nazi Adam is sent to "resocialisation" at a church somewhere in the Danish outback, together with two small criminals and a diehard Christian preacher. Clash of personalities, careless shooting of birds and neo-nazis, being constantly tested by the devil (or not?) and baking of apple pie.

Mifune

Dogma movie. (= be careful here)

Movie that starts out slowly but gets better and better. No careless shooting, lots of sex. Brothers, career, no more career, prostitution, love, living in the city, leaving the city, UFOs, family, what you are and what you're trying to be, sex, love, kids, Danish outback. Not simple but I believe rather good. Must watch this again.

Must watch part 1 and 2 of Resident Evil, too. 

3:10 to Yuma - For a movie that has both Bale and Crowe, it doesn�t quite set off the acting fireworks as it should. That's not to say the performances arent good, it's pretty solidly acted by everyone in general, but only Crowe comes out with anything memorable.

The rest of the movie is also quite well made and fairly entertaining but the script has a few problems with justifying character motivations. Not quite as good as I was hoping, but well worth watching.

7-7.5/10


Ashes and Diamonds (1958) - Andrzej Wajda's famous polish film set in a small polish town on the last day of WWII when the country was in a state of political limbo showcases a director with a lot of talent but is let down by some very forced and contrived scripting.

Its stunningly shot, has more ideas than you can poke a stick at and the characters are interesting. The plot, however, is a bit too convenient and never makes any of the situations or character actions really convincing.

6.5/10


The Lodger (1944) - quite a well done take on the Jack the Ripper story by John Brahm. Very atmospheric and with a pretty good central performance by Laird Cregar.

Never goes for anything cheap, just has a well done, slowly building and unsettling sense of uneasiness throughout.

7/10



Superbad - Only saw this because I liked Knocked Up, but this was just as unfunny for me as 40 yr old virgin. Seth Rogen apparently wrote this when he was 15, and well I don�t doubt that at all :)

Not my sort of humour I guess.

4/10


Le Doulos (1961) - Another fine movie from Jean Pierre Melville and his first collaboration with Jean Paul Belmondo.

Belmondo is, as always, a very strong screen presence and Melville uses it to great effect in this norish crime thriller which starts off as something simple and ends up being a very intricate and involving narrative.

7-7.5/10


The Good Shepherd - A lot of people I know really didn�t like this movie and I guess I can see why. It's slow, has a very dense narrative and unsympathetic characters and is also likely to confuse and alienate anyone that's not familiar with a particular point in US history.

If you do know a bit about the events though and don�t mind having to do a bit of work, it's quite an excellent movie. Sure, the main character is very distant, but I don�t see how that's a negative given that it was a character trait. There's a subtlety to how Matt Damon plays him as well, so it could be mistaken for bad acting, but I thought it was quite effective.

As for the length and pacing, I never found it an issue because the narrative is very fascinating.

7.5/10


Black Narcissus (1947) - quite a bizarre film from Powell and Pressburger (scorsese really loves it though, he does the intro on the dvd). Anyway, it's pretty ambitious, taking on everything from british colonialism to christianity to repressed sexualiity and all from a simple story about an order of nuns trying to set up a new convent high up in the himalyas, where all emotions tend to get exaggerated and heightened (for no particular reason).

I don�t think it quite works, mainly because some of the characterisations arent all that well realised and so changes in character are also a bit problematic.

What does work is the stunning camerawork from Jack Cardiff. This has to be one of the towering achievements in cinematography, going well beyond a meshing of perfect composition and tremendous lighting and into an integral part of the storytelling by managing to communicate characters' states of mind far better than the acting and scripting.

7/10 

Some short ones:

Lost Season 3 - this is probably the first season that actually convinced me that the creators know reasonably where this is going. Unfortunately, it also convinced me that they are going to continue to drag it out for as long as possible.

Anyway, I found it better than the second season, less dud episodes and there's pretty solid secondary story arcs going on this time around too.

7/10


Damages Season 1 - fairly generic, predictable and unoriginal legal show, but its reasonably well made and performed with a few interesting characters. The writing and shooting style could definitely do with improvement.

6.5-7/10



Senso (1951) - like The Leopard, another opulent period melodrama set in a crucial time of Italy's history by Luchino Visconti, but this time it's not as good (or as ambitious).

It looks great but Alida Valli and Farley Granger just cannot carry their roles and fail to involve the viewers with their charcaters' plight. Visconti apparently wanted to have Brando and Ingrid Bergman, and they would have deifnitely been better choices for the two roles.

5.5/10



1408 - a poor attempt at an old fashioned horror/thriller which tries to build up suspense and dread without resorting to cheap thrills, but is hampered by its own self-awareness of other better movies in the genre and also by a very stupid script.

5/10


In the Heat of the Night (1967) - relies a bit too much on its race card for effect, but nevertheless its still well made and performed (especially Rod Steiger) and featuring some nicely penned character interactions.

7/10


Dracula (1992) - I hope this was at least meant to be partially campy because its otherwise a huge misfire from Francis Ford Coppola. Way over the top and bordering on parody far too often, its an absolute chaotic mess, especially narratively.

Even the attempt at expressionistic visuals doesnt generally work with too many scenes having too many tricks that draw attention to themselves and detract from the overall effect.

4/10 

Enjoyed it very much, I think I saw it twice actually. Good all-round entertainment and well pulled off, I thought. 

anything in particular oyu liked about it? I just couldnt get into it.


Ratatouille - pixar just keep hitting the target, I didnt quite like this as much as some of their best (Toy Storys and Incredibles), but it's as good as their next tier (monsters inc, cars). A bit too long, but otherwise great animation, great characters and quite funny.

7.5/10


Bringing Out the Dead (1999) - nic cage in good movie shocker!! Not one of scorsese's well known films, which is a pity because it's very entetaining despite not really going anywhere and dragging a bit towards the end.

The humour is dark, the writing is sharp, the look is excellent and cage is very engaging as a paramedic who starts spiralling into depression when all his patients keep dying on him.

7-7.5/10 

The Queen - very good film but with a little more tinkering it could have been great. The writing and acting is generally of a pretty high standard but apart from the two main characters (ie the queen and tony blair), the rest of them are way underdeveloped and one note. Given the short running time, it woudlnt have hurt to spend some more time developing them rather than making them mere caricatures. There's also some very unnecessary dialogue that spells out each little thing to the audience. But having said all of that, its quite an engaging and interesting film and well worth checking out.

7.5/10


My Darling Clementine (1946) - It's technically a western by being a take on the wyatt earp story, but it only uses that as a basis for a pretty good character study (unlike Tombstone which was all about the events). Its beautifully shot, Henry Fond is great as usual and there is not too much of the standard Ford oversentimentality and unnecessary slapstick.

7/10



La Vie En Rose - falls into the usual biopic traps (mainly trying to cover all important events without spending enough time on any for them to really make an impact), the filmmaking is sloppy and nervous and the storytelling is chaotic and messy. But it has two things that stop it from being a disaster, Marion Cotillard's excellent performance as Edith Piaf and also the songs of Piaf herself (had never heard it before, but it�s definitely a very distinct and impressive voice).

5/10 

The Spiral Staircase (1946) - very solid gothic suspense/thriller that�s immaculately shot and well written for the most part. The last act is a little weaker than it should be, mainly due to plot limitations, but its still very well handled because the emphasis is always on character (which apparently is not the case in the 1975 and 2000 remakes).

7-7.5/10


Fires on the Plain (1959) - slightly surreal and very bleak look at the japanese side of things during WWII, concentrating on the mental disintegration and survival of japanese troops in the phillipines when they had been abandoned by their own forces who had retreated to the mainland.

There's a very noticeable distance from the characters, mainly because it tries to be very even handed, but otherwise it's quite effective in what it sets out to do, pulling out quite a few genuine surprises along the way.

7/10



A Woman Under The Influence (1974) - john cassavetes' most famous film is a very uncomfortable look at mental illness in domestic, blue collar america. Both Gena Rowlands and Peter Falk are nothing short of fantastic in their depictions of two people in love but unable to comunicate it to each other in ways the other understands, leading to an eventual spiral into family hell.

The performances really are staggering and make some of the otherwise hard to watch scenes easier to appreciate. I did find that it went on a bit too long (146 min) but that's probably just because it�s a very exhausting film.

7/10


3 Days of the Condor (1974) - otherwise known as that movie directly spoofed by seinfeld in the episode where newman warns kramer (who wants to stop receiveing mail) of being abducted by someone he trusts, it's also the movie that has obviously inspired stuff like the Bourne series of novels/films.

Its very classily handled in the suspense and writing side of things (save for a very dodgy relationship establishment between robert redford and faye dunaway's characters) but its also heavily dated from the technology side of things. Normally, that's not an issue for me, but quite a few of the scenes look like something out of a Bond spoof.

6-6.5/10


Cria Cuervos (1976) - similar in some ways to the great Spirit of the Beehive, and not just because it has another remarkable performance from Ana Torrent as an 8 year old dealing with the loss of her father and mother. Reality and fantasy intermittently swap places, never in an overly explicit manner, and always in a surprising way due to clever editing and writing.

Carlos Saura does a tremendous job getting into the head of his main character, a particularly difficult thing to do with children in my opinion. Excellent all round stuff.

8/10 

Fires on the Plain (1959)

I am tired of these mutherfuckin fires on this mutherfuckin plain...

On a more productive note, I was thinking it's fun to make top 10 lists of overly-specific movie genres. I was wondering what the top 10 assassination movies were, but I don't know if I've even seen 10 decent assassination movies total.

1. Manchurian Candidate
2. Taxi Driver
3. The Parallax View (does this count?)
4. Day of the Jackal
5. In The Line of Fire
... 

Your number 1 is wrong, metl. It's supposed to be L�on the Professional without any doubt. 

Agree 

i was thinking more about assasinations of politicians and leaders, rather than just anything with a hitman or sniper in it. 

...is a fucking violent movie with Vincent Cassel, Monica Belucci and Tch�ki Karyo.. This is the story of the charismatic criminal Dobermann, who got his first gun when he was christened, and his lead of a gang of brutal robbers. If you like violence in movie, you will be happy with it: it is dark, bloddy and violent as Hell.. 

you lost me there :) did I miss something or you just wanted to quote samuel L ?

As for the list, I'd swap 1 and 2 personally. I'd throw in JFK in the top 5 because I think it works great as a film.

Cant think of any more staright of the top of my head though. 

I've been trying to find a copy of that for a while actually. Mainly because I like Cassel (when he actually gets a good role) and Bellucci (anytime really). 

Not just snipers or hitmen. So how about The Assassination of Richard Nixon? 

but I would only put it in a top 10 if i was struggling, which is probably the case :) 

yeah, just had that "snakes on a plane" quote pop into my head when reading your reviews :)

JFK probably fits on there, though it takes place completely after the event.

There are probably some historical movies about the knifing of various Roman emperors that could fit on here, but I can't remember the good ones (Caligula is not a good one.) 

does stuff like Godfather, The Conversation or Munich count? or is that stretching too much? 

Though it didn't involve heads of states as the recepients, Munich should definitely make the list. The nude woman assassination was pretty brutal.

Not the Godfather, though. When a low life gangster gets murdered it is more properly called a hit.

As for The Conversation, I'll need my memory jumped started on that one, if I'm thinking of the right movie, the director who mostly does films on Baltimore, right? 

yeah fair enough, I cant think of 10 I would list so was going for everything :)

Conversation is a coppola classic with gene hackman back when he actually acted. :

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0071360/ 

Oddly enough, I was thinking of Barry Levinson's The Diner. 

Mona Lisa (1986) - nothing to do with the painting, but (out of what I've seen) easily Neil Jordan's best movie, although the title probably refers to the mysterious, impenetrable and alluring nature of the main female character.

Bob Hoskins is excellent in the central role of a driver of an upper class prostitute in middle class London who gets drawn into events and dealings well above his head. Jordan quite quickly establishes some very likeable characters and an impending sense of gloom in the first 15 min and from then on, it unfolds quite beautifully through some excellent writing that is also quite frequently hilarious.

The supporting cast is great with Michael Caine in an impressive cameo and Robbie Coltrane a scene stealer as Bob Hoskins' friend who is an ornamental spaghetti artist that also moonlights as murder mystery writer.

7-7.5/10


There Will Be Blood - It's Paul Thomas Anderson's most assured film, everything is restrained rather than overly showy, but its probably also his least impressive overall.

For close to 2 1/2 hours, it�s a searing portrait of greed, manipulation and single mindedness building to what looks like Citizen Kane territory. But the last act is completely in the wrong tone and was also far too rushed compared to the rest of the film.

Daniel Day Lewis's John Huston impersonation is quite entertaining and pretty good, but its also surprisingly very one note.

Had greatness in its hands, but let it slip.

7.5/10


Ace in the Hole (1951) - Billy Wilder's black humoured movie about media glorification is a fairly biting, well written satire in which Kirk Douglas's Chuck Tatum paraphrases Gordon Gecko's "greed is good" motto some 36 years earlier.

The movie centres around Tatum's news reporter who goes to some length to make a media circus out of a small town miner who is trapped in a mine on an old indian burial ground, even making sure he stays down there long enough to get more mileage out of the story.

The dialogue is sharp as usual from Wilder, including yet another great finishing line, and the whole thing keeps up the farcical nature of the situation quite well without managing to stretch credulity.

7.5/10 

but being a fan of DDL I wanted to see it. In any case, it's kind of hard to say what situation could emerge which would end up being reasonable.

Anyway, the obvious fact is that situations are underestimated, even if they provide temporary happiness. 

it's well worth watching.