Not used to NZ getting movies before the US...

Went to see it again tonight, still liked it :) If you pretend it was an original work and forget about the novel or do a shot-by-shot comparison of the novel and the film, either way heck, it's nice to have a superhero movie that's so deeply ambiguous and without it degenerating into giant robots hitting each other (I'm looking at you, Iron Man).

Go watch. 

Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist

Nick and Norah's Infinite Shitfest. I want to love you Michael Cera, why must you make it so difficult? At least you finally signed on for the Arrested Development movie, hopefully that will have jokes and/or a plot. 

you secretely already love him and make love to him every night in your mind. 

I quiver before your tedious attempted burn. Ok, sometimes I might dream of Gob, occasionally Tobias (in the daddy loves leather outfit), but never have I imagined a passionate night of love with George Michael in the frozen banana stand. Never. 

I hope you never wake up from those dreams wondering where the lighter fluid came from :) 

Jab We Met (2007) - above average bollywood film that is fairly easy to sit through but pretty forgettable. All the best bits are taken from better films and are offset by some really cringe worthy ones, especially in the second half. Two leads have reasonable chemistry.

5.5/10


Kill! (1968) - based on the same source as Akira Kurosawa's Sanjuro but you would be pretty hard pressed to know that when watching Kihachi Ochamoto's spaghetti western influenced film. Sanjuro is the better movie overall but this is plain fun throughout its running time. All the lifts from Sergio Leone's westerns are used well, right down to the Ennio Morricone-esque score, and the action scenes are as visceral as those in Ochamoto's Sword of Doom.

7/10


Mad Detective (2007) - Detective Bun has a gift, he can see people's 'inner personalities'. His gift is also his curse, and with that curse comes his madness which isolates him from his friends and colleagues. It might sound familiar to pretty much every detective thriller made in recent years but what sets Johnnie To's movie apart is the confident storytelling with which he approaches his material. The style used to convey Bun's gift is novel and unique, and to give it away would be an injustice to To's expertise, but it makes for a fascinating little thriller despite the mundane central plot.

7-7.5/10


Midnight (1939) - pretty funny screwball comedy written by Billy Wilder and with Claudette Colbert, Mary Astor, Don Ameche and John Barrymore. The script is a little uneven but even when the writing is not upto scratch, the performers are resulting in a pleasant and occasionally hilarious movie.

6.5-7/10


Mr Deeds Goes to Town (1936) - above average effort from Capra with the dramatic bits really coming across as too corny. But the leads are good and the movie works reasonably well when not taking itself too seriously.

6/10 

The Night of the Iguana (1964) - pretty good version of one of Tennessee Williams' lesser known plays directed by John Huston and with Richard Burton, Deborah Kerr and Ava Gardner.

The first half is the best with some vicious humour, which Burton clearly relishes in dispensing, and some nice byplay between the various characters. The second half which has a more redemptive and serious tone is not quite as good, lacking conviction for the most part despite good acting.

6.5/10


No Way Out (1950) - solid, noirish, racially charged thriller/drama by Joseph L Mankiewicz with Richard Widmark and Sidney Poitier putting in good performances and with some cracker scenes that don�t hold back. The main problem is the pacing which is all over the place but the reaosnably good writing and acting overcome it for the most part.

6.5/10


Before the Reovlution (1964) - extremely casual and indifferent in the way it presents its characters and themes, actually narratively it�s a bit of a mess. But Bernardo Bertolucci is more interested in the marriage of imagery and sound and this is one extremely stylish film.

Combining one of Ennio Morricone's best scores with some amazing camerawork Bertolucci manages to readily involve you with the plight of his characters, without admittedly ever really managing to communicate what is driving them.

But this is as close to visual grace as you are going to find and is worth watching for that alone.

7/10


Ridicule (1996) - decent and quite clever french period film set in the 18th century at the decadent court of Versailles where social status can rise and fall based on a person's ability to dish out witty insults and avoid ridicule themselves. The plot centers around a young aristocrat wanting to see the king and finding out that it requires more than just goodwill. He's of course taught in the ways of upper class and the movie follows the regular path of most underdog narratives. But the script is genuinely sharp and witty and quite a pleasure to see performed, even if it achieves that at the expense of character involvement. Patrice Leconte has always been a very good visual director and this is also quite a nice looking film.

6.5-7/10


Samurai Rebellion (1967) - one of the greatest japanese films of all time and probably only matched by the (very different) The Seven Samurai when it comes to samurai films.

Its pretty much perfect in all aspects and unfolds its tragic story beautifully with a noticeable but not overbearing critique of Edo period Japan. Like The Seven Samurai, it has absolutely no dead space with every scene adding to either character or plot or both.

Masaki Kobayashi gets great performances from his cast, including Toshiro Mifune, and his command of the high quality material at his disposal is fantastic.

8.5-9/10


Stage Fright (1950) - minor but still entertaining Hitchcock that is really let down by an ending that has more holes in it the more you think about it. Until then, it�s a deft mix of humour and light suspense that never reaches any great heights but is very watchable.

6/10


Let the Right one In (2008) - one of the best films of last year, this Swedish film is a very interesting and different take on the vampire mythology. It avoids most of the cliches of the vampire genre, probably because it really is more of a story about two lonely children who find comfort in each other.

Those expecting constant action will probably be disppointed, although the set pieces are still stunningly staged, but if you are willing to put up with a slightly slow pace it rewards you with a touching and dark relationship between its young protagonists.

7.5-8/10 

I'm a watchmen fan *comic - NOT GN!(pedantic)* and I thought it was ... decent? The ending was an improvement in my mind, and it certainly made sense since the tie-in stories had to be cut due to length etc. Violence seemed to take center stage in some ways. It was one area where the movie kind of 'expanded' on the comic book in a way that seemed more sensationalistic than faithful. Especially in the rorshach psych profile section where they changed elements which made the scene more intimately graphic.
It's just one of those situations where the creators want to be faithful to the comic, but there are always iteneraries with regards to what will get the most attention. This is a visually faithful movie, but it feels as if it has less soul and a less intimate understanding of itself.

Oh, and LTROI is fucking amazing, love it even if some scenes are goofy instead of 'scary' since that's not what this movie is really about at its heart at all. 

....I assume you're familiar with Byrnerobotics? 

I picked up IT Crowd lately and damn what a great show. Just watched S02E01, haha. 

no. why? 

...of an ever heated discussion over there on GN/Comics issue!

http://www.byrnerobotics.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=30534&PN=2&totPosts=75 

Yeah, I mean I'm not a hard core comics fan, but thats always been a pet peeve.
it's like calling porn 'erotica' or 'adult literature'. it is what it is, fuck! 

. 

By either Graphic Novel, or comic book. I just don't find the word 'novel' to be that high fallutin', after all Harlequin romances are novels. It is just a means to delineate format. 

IT Crowd season 3 is bollocks. 2 was great, 1 was nice. 

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0329632/

A refreshing excursion away from the steaming pile of shit german movies usually are ;-) Touching, disturbing, raising questions. 

The Spy Who Came in From the Cold (1965) - forget Bond, forget Bourne, this is probably the best spy film going around. It forgoes action for plot and character and is heaps better for it. Having John Le Carre's novel as a base was probably a big help too because it feels and looks authentic and realistic as far as the details go. Richard Burton is fantastic as the craggy veteran who thinks he has one last chance at glory and Martin Ritt and cinematographer Oswald Morris use black and white very very effectively in creating a gritty world where there is always someone watching someone else.

8/10


Cross of Iron (1977) - pretty decent WWII film from Peckinpah which is more interesting than most because the main group of characters are members of the german army around the time of the german retreat from the Soviet Union. This choice gives it an interesting, if superficial, depth because it asks you to sympathise with enemy soldiers who are not too dissimilar in their behaviour than the soldiers of most american based war films. James Coburn is fantastic as Steiner, the cynical and bitter infantry platoon leader constantly at loggerheads with Maximillian Schell's Stransky, a prussian aristocrat who is his superior and only interested in obtaining the cross of iron.

The movie is severely disjointed and comes to a halt on more than one occasion, but there is some extremely good dialogue in it as well as some very memorable scenes. Peckinpah also uses his patented slow-mo technique brilliantly during the action sequences which are very well staged.

6.5-7/10


High Plains Drifter (1973) - impressive gothic western by and starring Clint Eastwood that has a questionable variation on the revenge theme but is well made enough that matters of taste can be easily overlooked.

7/10


The Roaring Twenties (1939) - another stellar 30s gangster film with James Cagney, and probably his best along with the later White Heat. As the name suggests, most of the movie centres around the climate of prohibition era america and director Raoul Walsh works in some nice social commentary without being too heavy handed about it and without getting in the way of what is really a cracking crime film. Cagney is great once again and his scenes with Gladys George and Bogart are especially impressive.

7.5/10


The Story of Qiu Ju (1993) - A pregnant peasant woman's husband is kicked in the groin by the village head and she takes it upon herself to find justice by taking the matter with up the authorities and eventually to court. It might sound like the Chinese version of Erin Brockovich but that description would be an insult to Zhang Yimou's exceptionally even handed tragi-comedy which objectively observes both the pitfalls of chinese bureaucracy (sometimes in deadpan hilarious fashion) and the single mindedness of stubborn individuals. Gong Li is nothing short of amazing in the title role, and even more amazingly, has tremendous rapport and chemistry with the majority of the rest of the non-professional cast.

The second half has occasional issues with pacing but then sucker punches you with an ending that is unexpected and vicious.

7.5/10 

preferred this to his later pale rider. high planes seems almost evil, even if it is revenge, while pale rider seemed watered down. both are good of course, but i liked the first more. 

saw it with some other people, I was wary because the trailer for 300 made it look good, but it was a waste of time. Watchmen was far more interesting and ambitious but overall I didn't enjoy it. To me it shows what I think is wrong with most comic books: they smush together diverse and incompatible influences from 19thc/20thc popular literature (case in point: not that I saw it, but, the league of extraordinary gentlemen), with no concern for coherence. I read comics a lot when I was young, but the only one that has held together after all this time is Batman. And the reason for that is, barring the more extreme tangents that have been taken, the whole thing takes place in a coherent universe, where it's not like any random crazy shit can happen. Everything else reminds me of Mortal Kombat (which I love) - dramatic, flashy, violent, making absolutely no sense and retarded. But MK is a GAME, the primary purpose of it is not storytelling. (/rant) 

the whole thing takes place in a coherent universe, where it's not like any random crazy shit can happen.

Bruce Wayne was recently killed by alternatively a helicopter crashing into a building (fair enough, but not actual canon) or sacrificed by an escaped god due to firing a bullet backwards in time from a temporal gun in order to kill said god and avoid a magic inducued universal apocalypse... (official canon, even if spectacularly retarded) 

Also, watch the new South Park (13x02).

The Coon will save us! 

"congratulations, you've played Guitar Hero enough to score a million points, you're......


.....FAGS!" 

or Zack and Miri Make a Porno.
The humor just doesn't really work. There's no subtlety. There's no "getting it". :/

Also, product placement is really annoying these days. 

I intended to veto what you pointed out in your reply by saying "barring the more extreme tangents that have been taken" - ie, batman faces off against dracula, spawn, spiderman, PREDATOR, etc...

the point is what they are generally going for is something coherent.

Btw, anyone remember the storyline where Azrael was Batman from the early 90s?

Also, last night I was discussing watchmen with a few other guys and one of them invented a new tagline for it which I found hilarious: WHY - SO - SAD!?!?!!