agreed. Stays mostly intelligent. And man, is Ben Affleck a bad actor. Seriously. Stop casting him. 

I didnt mind him. 

god its beautiful! 

Movie for free, explains why M. Smith is right: Humans are the cancer of Earth

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jqxENMKaeCU 

Star Trek

Not a big fan of the original series of the show but this was great fun, and definitely worth a watch. Nothing too original though, and most of the screentime is dedicated to lens-flare.


Coraline

Brilliant animation based on a Neil Gaiman novella, directed by Henry Selick (of Nightmare before Christmas/James and the Giant Peach fame). Uses a blend of stop-frame and 3d animation and it looks beautiful.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OmD7R8LTk8o

Definitely has it's similarities to Alice in Wonderland, and it's got a real uneasiness and loneliness to it. They never resort to cheap jokes and cheesy quirkiness, and at the same time, don't go too far the other way and end up with any sort of Tim-Burton-gothic-ness to it.

As someone who hugely respects the art and craft of Pixar, I really think Coraline blows a lot of their films out of the water, in both the visuals and the storytelling. Can't recommend this enough. 

I just ordered the dvd of Coraline, had my fingers crossed but I have uncrossed them now :) 

On the list, word. Sounds nice. 

It has a talking cat, eye buttons and a mouse circus, what more can you ask for? 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oDu7yYHxZr0

guess where else he's featured? 

where do they go from here?

rhetorical question btw, I dont want spoilers :) 

...but season 4 is probably my favourite of the lot, so good stuff to come. Season 3 did seem like a shift in tone despite returning to some familiar characters. I felt like it moved from being "realistic" to "believable" in patches - if that makes sense, but what they did with Major Colvin was so interesting that it didn't bother me.

In one of the commentaries, David Simon says that the opening scene to each season is supposed to encapsulate the theme and message of what's to come. I can't say enough good stuff about the season 3 intro. The Mayor intercut with Bodie is great fun, as is seeing the demolition team pressing the real trigger after the plunger is sunk. But really, seeing those two towers come down like that, and then have it trigger a "war"...that's setting your sights high in terms of commentary. 

agree that plot arcs and character arcs became a little more contrived but hard to really criticise when the rest is so good.

and I really should listen to the commentaries, completely missed that two towers reference. 

It's not very good. 

That's what I've been hearing. Sad face. 

It's a'right, 'bout the same level as Star Trek imo.

I'm mostly swayed by the fact I've wanted a future-war terminator film since the age of 7, but I do think it's watchable fun for the most part, even if the ending is stupid (altho nekkid CG arnie pwnz j00) 

Libeled Lady (1936) - pretty well scripted and beautifully performed screwball comedy that�s not as good as the best in the genre but the chemistry between the 4 leads (Jean Harlow, William Powell, Spencer Tracy, Myrna Loy) more than makes up for Jack Conway's unimaginative direction.

7/10


The Green Mile (1999) - definitely too long but if you're a fan of Frank Darabont's well executed classical hollywood style, this will more than satisfy. Sentimentality goes hand in hand with the style adopted but thankfully, like The Shawshank Redemption, it never treads intro oversentimentality. There are a couple of scenes where the movie seems to have sudden shifts in tone but they're pretty effective so you cant really fault it for that.

Had the length been shorter, this would have been upto Shawshank's level, but as it is, its still a pretty stunning movie.

7.5/10


Beauty and the Beast (1946) - Jean Cocteau's suitably dreamy and semi-surreal version of the fairytale is easy to admire but a bit difficult to like. It looks great and the attempt to examine some of the darker themes in the story is also a plus, but unfortunately the actual drama between the characters seemed too fake and unbelievable.

6/10


Get Smart Season 2 - I think I said it when watching season 1, its interesting seeing such a formula based show on dvd where every episode is similar and comparing it to the more serial based tv series that are around now. Definitely dated but the performances from the cast still manage to overcome the lacklustre material. And still way better than the recent movie.

6/10


Body of Lies (2008) - decent, if unremarkable, action thriller from Ridley Scott. Performances are good, action scenes are good (thankfully you can actually see whats going on) but the script is a bit of a mess. Surprisingly, the best scenes are the character scenes between Di Caprios'c character and his love interest, despite the cliched situations they are given. Don�t know why there was not more of them, would have helped cover up some of the other deficiencies in the script.

6.5/10


The Wire Season 3 - see comments in posts above.

8.5/10 

The Darjeeling Limited
Boring, pretentious, unconvincing characters, melancholic, stupid.

I should have checked what other movies the director did. Life Aquatic, yeah. No surprise I did not like this one. Bleh. 

I liked Darjeeling Ltd, quite a lot actually. Life Aquatic was terrible though. 

I thought Life Aquatic was pretty awesome. Very surreal. Also the Royal Tenenbaums was pretty good. Wanted to see Darjeeling Limited.

Did see Up though, was very enjoyable, and surprisingly complex emotionally. 

although Rushmore is pretty damn good too. 

maybe becuase it felt like the weirdness was serving the plot, while in the other movies, the plot seems to be serving the weirdness.

Though, i thought Darjeeling actually held together pretty well, i liked it. 

Oh My God it's so bad. I expected it to be bad, and it was a lot worse.

I would like the next film I see to not be terrible, please. 

here's the first few :

The Picture of Dorian Gray (1945) - probably the best version of Oscar Wilde on screen, its beautifully shot, well acted (look out for Angela Lansbury's excellent turn as Sibyl Vane), and retains enough of the essence of the original story which is a classic.

7.5/10


A Face in the Crowd (1957) - not as well known but this is as good as Scorsese's King of Comedy, Lumet's Network and Wilder's Ace in the Hole as a satirical exploration of celebrity and power, and its eerily prescient in the age of reality tv.

Elia Kazan has a great script at his disposal and he also gets tremendous performances out of Andy Griffith (playing a drunk hobo who becomes an overnight radio sensation) and Patricia Neal (the woman who unintentionally creates the celebrity monster).

8/10


Coup De Grace (1976) - hadnt seen anything by Volker Schlondorff before but after seeing this, I'm inclined to track down more.

Set in the baltic states in 1919, two years after the Russian revolution and right in the middle of the civil war between the Whites and the Reds, Schlondorff paints a bleak look of a dying and decaying place by way of a love story between a prussian countess and a german officer. Its heavy going but completely hypnotic stuff.

7.5/10


Gomorrah (2008) - Overly chaotic and disparate look at the modern day italian mafia in Naples, but with a number of scenes that will burn themselves in your mind. This isnt a glamorisation of the mafia, but rather a fairly disturbing and brutal look at a 'business' that is almost everywhere and involves almost everyone.

The delibertate move to make it so chaotic does make for some confusion early on but sticking with it will more than reward you.

7-7.5/10


Hamlet (1948) - good, moody adaptation of the shaespeare play by Laurence Olivier that has some nice innovative camerawork and good performances.

On the downside, it strips away some crucial aspects of the play and makes the transitions in the main character a bit too sudden.

7-7.5/10


Stage Door (1937) - Lovely look at the behind the scenes life of aspiring stage actresses with a tremendous ensemble cast that work great together. Realism is not the main focus here, although there is a decent enough quota of 'realistic' drama, with the writing focusing more on the banter between the large array of its female cast.

And boy is the dialogue good, there is a 5 min scene with Ginger Rogers and Katherine Hepburn trading barbs that is as perfectly written and delivered as any of the great screwball comedies.

7-7.5/10


The Straight Story (1999) - David Lynch does arthouse Disney movie and the results are spectaclar. Its not for everyone, the slow pace and lack of plot will put off quite a few people.

But those that can look past those qualities will be in for a treat. Apart from the above, its pretty much perfect in all areas. The characterisations and dialogue are of a very high quality (although the great acting also helps that aspect), the cinematography and music are amazing, and it has a great emotional punch that is completely devoid of any sentimentality whatsoever.

8.5-9/10 

http://legorobotcomics.com/?id=48 

Why does nitin's movie list so often correspond to Teh C's motw?