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What is the last film you watched?


Mr. Breathmask

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I love to see this Iron Man even though I'm not to keen on Gwyneth Paltrow. I have a strange affection for the more offbeat comic films like Hulk and Hellboy and this one just might be right up my alley.

I liked both of those movies, too, and loved Iron Man -- I'd say it's probably worth your time/money.

Iron Man

I loved it. Any movie that starts with AC/DC and ends with Black Sabbath is cool in my book, but this one actually has other things to praise, too. First and foremost, Robert Downey Jr., whom I've maintained a mild hatred for over a couple of decades. Well, color me a f---ing idiot; he's awesmoe in this movie, and I find myself in the strange position of now being a Downey Jr. fan. (Tropic Thunder, by the way, is unlikely to end this new Downy-loving phase of my life, which really and truly began with Zodiac.)

I also loved Gwyneth Paltrow, who looks great as a redhead; more importantly, she steals almost every scene she's in, and she and Downey have such great chemistry together that I wouldn't be surprised if Chris Martin needs to be a little worried.

Faring almost as well is Jeff Bridges, who has some occasionally lame dialogue to spout, and yet always sounds as if he means it. It's the kind of performance that gets taken for granted, and shouldn't.

Terrance (Terrence?) Howard is also good, although very under-utilized, presumably so his role can be expanded in the inevitable (and very welcome) sequel.

Great acting, (mostly) good writing, good (if somewhat scarce) action scenes, and terrific effects. Definitely one of the best Marvel movies.

And damn it if I didn't enjoy the score on a mild level. It's not the kind of music I'd want to listen to segregated from the film, but it worked just fine (for me, at least -- many of you will loathe it) within the movie.

If you're heading out to see it, you should know -- if you didn't already -- that there is a pivotal scene that comes AFTER the credits at the end of the movie. Unless you hate the movie, you need to stick around for a treat.

that is a negative to me, ACDC and Black Sabbath isn't music I care to be subjected too, and the biggest complaint I've found in quite a few reviews of Iron Man is the lack of a quality score. Its the one thing that it needs to have that oommph, but still that said, good review BB, and I look forward to seeing it tonight or tomorrow.

Yeah, if those two bands are on your garbagelist, then the beginning and end of the movie might well rub you the wrong way. But even if you hate the songs, I think they work on a storytelling level.

As for the score, it's certainly nothing special, and I doubt I'll ever listen to it outside the movie. I guess if I could make it happen, I'd replace it with a strong Williams or Elfman type theme. But I liked almost everything else in the movie so much that the lack of s trong score just didn't bother me at all.

Hope you like it!

I have good memories of seeing King Kong and listening to the score, but when I saw it on TV a few weeks ago, the nostalgia was overridden by bad acting, overdramatic directing, and completely unnessessary subplots in a movie that needs all the shortening it can get.

~Sturgis, who originally gave it an A and called it spectacular

I still don't care for the first 45 minutes, but I love the rest of the movie. Kong is one of THE great effects of the CGI era.

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Yeah, he's very good, with the fur and stuff, it looked quite real. I still think Jurasic Park has better effects, though. With King Kong, they look very good, but something about it just makes it obvious that you're seeing CG. I think Speilberg's films masterfully incorporate CG into their movies, which few other directors' do. Minority Report and War of the Worlds are other examples. I never noticed many effects problems in Lord of the Rings, but I feel there was something missing in the way they were incorporated into the film in King Kong.

The New York CG looks amazing for the most part, but on Skull Island, with some of the shots that are completely computer generated, it's hard not to notice that for me. I've never seen anything as real as the Jurassic Park T-Rex in any other movie, aside from maybe Tranformers.

~Sturgis

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King Kong.

This 1976 film is horribly dated, but very stark and depressing. Jessica Lange is a total bimbo always referring to being saved by... Deep Throat? I'm not sure if that was meant to be funny or not, but I laughed at it for what it seemed. Anything that is funny is usually unintentional, and that's usually in the uneven special effects (some were good and others were hokey). It looked like the filmmakers were trying to make this as plain and sterile as possible as the script lacked any of the wit the original had.

Yet, it's an interesting entry into the Kong legacy, as it was obvious that Peter Jackson had borrowed some elements like Anne (or "Dwan", what the hell were they thinking??) being nice to Kong. It was a fun way to kill two hours.

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Mike Leigh's Happy-Go-Lucky, this was very refreshing and a film that wore its heart on its sleeve. The lead charcter (Polly) had a risk of becoming very irratating but thankfully both director and actor avoided this. It's almost a cautionary tale that poses the question does being nice to everybody actually make a difference?

Other than a rather unnecessary mid-section of rambling with a backward hobo, the pace was perfect and I didn't look at my watch once which is usually a good sign. The closing scenes were obviously symbolic but it worked and the closing crane shot was beautifully realised without being too overstated.

Performances and direction were all top notch and if you do get the opportunity, you should see this superior example of mordern British cinema.

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Iron Man (***)

Definitely belongs in the Top 3 Marvel adaptations so far, along with X-Men and X2: X-Men United. A boring and insignificant performance from Robert Downey Jr. Sure he fits the egotistical role well, but face it, he's like that in every single one of his movies, I'd hardly call it acting. The action sequences and effects were pretty good, and steal the movie. Gwyneth Paltrow was also very good, I forgot how attractive she was. Jeff Bridges, whose only good movie is The Big Lebowski, fit the role rather well and had the right look. Ramin Djawadi's score was decent, I loathe the output of scores from RCP aside from Zimmer, Gregson-Williams, and Powell, but this fit the context rather well. As said before, a strong or lasting theme would have helped, rather than just the rock out approach. I'm glad it didn't use the cliché superhero movie ending, in which the character jumps into the camera and then fades into the credits. I'm also glad it didn't use the cliché superhero movie opening, the Spider-Man opening credits were terrible. Jon Favreau didn't do anything important, any director could have done equally the same or better. The special bit at the end of the credits was enjoyable, stick around for it, I laughed.

Overall a great movie, and like I said one of the better Marvel adaptations, but 95% of them all are just terrible.

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Yes i'm looking forward to seeing this, Paul Bettany voicing the computer sounds good from the clips i've heard and Robert Downey Jr. is always worth watching!

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Iron Man.

A good entertaining film that starts the summer off strong. Jeff Bridges is great as the villian and Downey is perfectly cast, hell even Paltrow was actually watchable for a change because it wasn't all about her.

Visually it looked good as well.

Music was crappy and stood out like a sore thumb but at times it supports the action on screen, especially when things get loud. Frankly I would have prefered an all heavy metal score since the movie opened and closed with AC/DC and Black Sabbath.

How many of you stayed until after the credits for the cameo appearance by a certain someone? :rolleyes:

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Basically he introduced himself as Nick Fury, said he was the head of S.H.I.E.L.D. and mentioned something about the Avengers.

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Iron Man (***)

Jeff Bridges, whose only good movie is The Big Lebowski, fit the role rather well and had the right look.

Sorry, but saying that his only good movie is The Big Lebowski is just wrong. Sure, he's never had the sort of career that's commensurate with his (considerable) talent, but his career would be worth noting if only because he had been one of the co-stars of The Last Picture Show, which is one of the great movies. (I even like the much-maligned sequel Texasville; it's better than its reputation, though certainly no masterpiece.)

I'd also point out The Fisher King as being awfully noteworthy -- one of Terry Gilliam's best, and one of Robin Williams' best, too. I've never seen Fearless, but I remember it getting great reviews; it's a Peter Weir movie, and he's no chump.

Then there's stuff like Tron, King Kong (1976), Starman (for which he received an Oscar nomination, one of four to date), Tucker: The Man and His Dream, The Fabulous Baker Boys, Seabiscuit, The Door in the Floor, The Contender, Arlington Road, Vanishing Point, and Tideland, all of which have their fans, whether or not you happen to be one of them. He even did great voice-over work in Surf's Up, a fine film in its own right.

Sure, I thought he was great in Iron Man, too . . . but claiming that this is only his second good movie is sorta laughable.

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The Departed: I thought it was very good. The plot was fantastic, the acting was great, and the music was good. Very violent though. As good as it was, I don't really think it deserved the Best Picture award. The plot was really the only thing outstanding about it, and there was no message or meaning in it. Just seemed like a fantastic popcorn movie. But having said that, I really loved it. ****/*****

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King Kong.

This 1976 film is horribly dated, but very stark and depressing. Jessica Lange is a total bimbo always referring to being saved by... Deep Throat? I'm not sure if that was meant to be funny or not, but I laughed at it for what it seemed. Anything that is funny is usually unintentional, and that's usually in the uneven special effects (some were good and others were hokey). It looked like the filmmakers were trying to make this as plain and sterile as possible as the script lacked any of the wit the original had.

Yet, it's an interesting entry into the Kong legacy, as it was obvious that Peter Jackson had borrowed some elements like Anne (or "Dwan", what the hell were they thinking??) being nice to Kong. It was a fun way to kill two hours.

King Kong '76 was my first exposure to Kong -- I can vividly remember being glued to the TV watching it when I was a kid. It doesn't hold up to those memories, by any means, and of the three major Kong movies, it's clearly the loser . . . but I still feel like it's got some things going for it. Not the least of which is a good score by John Barry.

I've clipped some comments that I made in a review posted on Amazon.com. I was probably overthinking things a bit -- that's what a degree in English Lit will get you -- but I think I made some good points.

"The decision to have Kong be so obviously infatuated with Jessica Lange is a strange one, and leads to a lot of scenes that involve Kong glaring at Lange and widening his eyes like the world's biggest pervert (literally, one supposes). He even tries to remove her top at one point, and while that may seem like a natural enough desire given the inescapable fact that Jessica Lange was, in 1976, hotter than broiled charcoal, I'm not sure it is believable from a ten-story-tall gorilla.

I always like seeing Jeff Bridges, and he's pretty good in this movie. Charles Grodin is pretty good, also, playing an oil prospector who will do anything to salvage his professional reputation. The music by John Barry is just what you'd expect from late-'70s Barry; that is, it sounds like James Bond music.

The special effects aren't too special by today's standards, but I've got to think that they were pretty fine in 1976. Keep in mind that this was before both "Star Wars" (which revolutionized effects in general) and "Superman" (which revolutionized blue screen effects specifically), and I think the blue screen and matte painting work looks good, considering. The gigantic Kong robot at the end is a piece a crap, though, and is wisely held to about half a second of screen time.

Best of all, I was surprised to discover that the movie was actually about something. It works on two levels at once: (1) Kong as a metaphor for the environment, with his death as a metaphor for how industrial society was/is literally killing nature; and (2) Kong as a metaphor for post-'60s promiscuity.

That last one needs some explaining. Lange's character, Dwan (she changed it from Dawn to sound more distinctive; it sounds like she's getting called Juan for most of the movie, which makes me chuckle), is apparently a good-hearted but naive girl who runs about as wild as it's possible for a woman to run. She is shipwrecked at sea on her way to star in a movie in Hong Kong; the implication is that it's an, um, adult film. Dwan doesn't want anything to do with this, but the implication is that she's a wild enough girl that someone could justifiably THINK she would want to be in that sort of movie.

Dwan's dilemma is choosing between "stardom" and Jack (Jeff Bridges); I see this as a choice between promiscuity and monogamy. Ultimately, she chooses stardom over Jack. Kong functions, then, as a stand-in for Dwan's libido, or instincts, or desires, or id, or whatever. At the end, when Kong meets his inevitable demise, Dwan all of a sudden wants very badly to be consoled by Jack, but standing between them is a sea of photgraphers, snapping away merrily at the hugest corpse on record while Dwan shouts Jack's name into the rising tide of voices.

The end of the film, unsurprisingly, is brutally sad, and in that sense, it is totally in keeping with the era in which it was made. Interestingly, the finale is similar to the finale of 1976's Oscar-winning "Rocky," in which Rocky is shouting for Adrian across a sea of photographers. The future is rosier for those two than it appears to be for Jack and Dwan, and that picture is more upbeat (and far better) than this one, but it's interesting to note, nonetheless."

I didn't mention in that Amazon.com review one of the things I rather like about this particular remake: the fact that it's VERY different from the original. In my mind, that sets it apart from the '33 version and makes it easier (for me, if for no one else) to accept or reject it on its own merits/demerits. And ultimately, while I wouldn't go so far as to call it a good movie, I would say that it's a better movie than its reputation suggests, and it's also a more thematically interesting movie than you might expect.

The Departed: I thought it was very good. The plot was fantastic, the acting was great, and the music was good. Very violent though. As good as it was, I don't really think it deserved the Best Picture award. The plot was really the only thing outstanding about it, and there was no message or meaning in it. Just seemed like a fantastic popcorn movie. But having said that, I really loved it. ****/*****

No meaning?!? In a Scorsese movie?!?

I'd call that unlikely at best.

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Nice review, Bryant.

The '33 Kong was my first exposure to the character when I was 10, appropriately enough, and I think I wore the tape out. I was really curious about the '76 version and I liked that it was different from the original, which is what remakes should be.

The '05 Kong was a film that attempted to be a little more timeless by going back to the 30's, so I'm not sure what's distinctly "2005" about that film, in terms of sensibilities and what it tries to say.

I'll probably be alive to see the next remake in 30-40 years.

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Nice review, Bryant.

The '33 Kong was my first exposure to the character when I was 10, appropriately enough, and I think I wore the tape out. I was really curious about the '76 version and I liked that it was different from the original, which is what remakes should be.

The '05 Kong was a film that attempted to be a little more timeless by going back to the 30's, so I'm not sure what's distinctly "2005" about that film, in terms of sensibilities and what it tries to say.

I'll probably be alive to see the next remake in 30-40 years.

My take on the '05 version is that it's a bit of a dirge for a world that doesn't exist any more. For one thing, it's about the fact that there's basically no corner of the world that we don't know about. That was getting closer and closer to being true even during the time in which the movie is set (I think that's one of the powers of the original movie), and what you get here is a film that's nostalgic for an age in which the filmmaker never got the chance to exist. Nostalgia for an age that never existed, as Mojo Nixon once put it. Part of that is a nostalgia for old movies; part of it is for the idea of exploration, which is a dead art at this point; part of it is just a yearning in general for something magical and awesome to exist in the world.

I think it's a deeply personal film for Peter Jackson. By all accounts, he's obsessed with the original; he definitely spent the first part of his career campaigning to get a remake made. It feels to me like he wanted to be able to play in the biggest sandbox a kid ever dreamed of playing in, and I suspect that there was more than a little reluctance to get out of it. There was probably also, deep down, a sense that no matter what he did, he would never be able to top the original. And I bet part of him didn't even want to try. Why I think all that, I can't quite say; but it feels true. Sometimes, it's a lot more satisfying to plan things than it is to actually do the things you plan. Whether this actually happened to Jackson or not (and even if it did, if it had any negative impact on the film's quality) is questionable, and also of no ultimate importance to anyone expect Jackson.

A lot of the movie doesn't work for me. I think the tone of the first act is waaaaay off, with some beautifully done recreations of New York and a few lovely shots, but too many forced (and unsuccessful) attempts to feel madcap. A lot of this, I think, has to do with the miscasting of Jack Black. He's not bad in the role, but he's utterly incapable of making me feel for even one second as if he's existing in the 1930s. He feels like Jack Black playing a guy in the 1930s; in other words, he takes me out of the movie every time he opens his mouth. Other people may accept him more readily; not me. He also doesn't feel like someone who's so enamored of filmmaking that he would literally risk people's lives to get a film made. A far better choice would have been Bill Paxton, whose specialty on film is making the audience feel like his character will do almost literally anything, and yet somehow being likeable. (Paxton is one of those guys who a lot of people talk about as being a bad actor, but in almost every one of his major roles, if you sit down and actually pay attention to what he's doing and why, and consider how his performance is working to further the goals of the movie, you find that he's sometimes doing some awfully good work. I digress.)

Black is merely miscast, which is forgiveable. The role of Jack Darrow, however, is just ill-advised. He serves almost literally no good purpose. I guess he's supposed to be the male lead . . . but psychologically, that's a role reserved for Kong. And psychologically, Kong takes that role. Boy, does, he take it. I'm not joking when I say that I think this version of Kong is one of the most sympathetic characters ever put on film. There's soul in those eyes, man; I don't know where they got it from, if it was Andy Serkis or what, but it's there. Anyways, the only relationship in the movie that we care about is Ann/Kong. Happily, Jackson is able to steer clear of the mistakes made by the 1976 film: there's nothing creepy or inappropriately (and implausibly) sexual about this relationship. Rather, Ann is smitten by Kong because he represents the type of majesty and mystery that is disappearing from the world, and Kong is smitten by Ann because she's a charming little creature that he can play with the way we might play with a kitten or a puppy. She's a pet. (And before we cry foul on the idea of a giant gorilla having a pet, check this out: http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html...752C0A963948260) This poor, huge animal has been living what one can safely assume has been a miserable existence, fighting dinosaurs and god knows what else and (apparently) living amongst the bones of his family; can you blame him for being fascinated by a cute little animal that does backflips and makes funny noises and smells nice and frequently needs to be saved from hungry dinosaurs, thereby giving Kong an excuse to endulge his murderous rage against that particular adversary? If that don't get your sympathy, then I don't know what does. Against him, a miscast and miswritten Adrien Brody/Jack Darrow stands little chance, with Ann or with the audience.

Don't let that trick you into thinking that I dislike the film, though. I did the first time I saw it, but subsequent viewings have won me over -- there's just too much that works really, really well for me to focus on the handful of things that (for me) don't work at all.

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Sure, I thought he was great in Iron Man, too . . . but claiming that this is only his second good movie is sorta laughable.

Indeed.

The films that, for one reason or another, stood out for me are:

Bad Company (1972) A very good and interesting anti-glamour western and Robert Benton's debute.

TRON (1982) For its unique atmosphere. I like it more now than I did then.

Tucker (1988): Obsession is the theme and this film treats it better than Scorsese's The Aviator .

Fearless (1993): This film blew me away at the time.

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The Departed: I thought it was very good. The plot was fantastic, the acting was great, and the music was good. Very violent though. As good as it was, I don't really think it deserved the Best Picture award. The plot was really the only thing outstanding about it, and there was no message or meaning in it. Just seemed like a fantastic popcorn movie. But having said that, I really loved it. ****/*****

It deserved the Best Picture.

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Iron Man (***)

Definitely belongs in the Top 3 Marvel adaptations so far, along with X-Men and X2: X-Men United. A boring and insignificant performance from Robert Downey Jr. Sure he fits the egotistical role well, but face it, he's like that in every single one of his movies, I'd hardly call it acting. The action sequences and effects were pretty good, and steal the movie. Gwyneth Paltrow was also very good, I forgot how attractive she was. Jeff Bridges, whose only good movie is The Big Lebowski, fit the role rather well and had the right look. Ramin Djawadi's score was decent, I loathe the output of scores from RCP aside from Zimmer, Gregson-Williams, and Powell, but this fit the context rather well. As said before, a strong or lasting theme would have helped, rather than just the rock out approach. I'm glad it didn't use the cliché superhero movie ending, in which the character jumps into the camera and then fades into the credits. I'm also glad it didn't use the cliché superhero movie opening, the Spider-Man opening credits were terrible. Jon Favreau didn't do anything important, any director could have done equally the same or better. The special bit at the end of the credits was enjoyable, stick around for it, I laughed.

Overall a great movie, and like I said one of the better Marvel adaptations, but 95% of them all are just terrible.

first I'd agree with the 3 stars but then

wow, you're completely off base, typically, Downey was terrific, his performance rivals Depp's Jack Sparrow in Curse of the Black Pearl.

the score by Ramin Djawadi is horrible, whatever 3rd world entity his gene pool originated from he needs to crawl back to, catch a flesh eating disease, and never subject humanity to his "scores" again

Again you are so off track, this film works because of Favreau.

Overall a very fun movie, with some terrific laughs, and for once I have to say I believed in the effects.

Unlike Spiderman with his 0's and 1's Iron Man looked like it was actually there on the screen.

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Night of the Hunter. Charles Laughton's only feature as director, this one immidaitely imprinted itself on me. Weird movie, in the best sense. Striking, often expressionistic compositions. And Robert Mitchum. I must really not have seen all that much of Mitchum, because I was surprised by how utterly brilliant an actor he is. This guy festers. I hadn't really heard it before, but 'The story of Left-hand and Right-hand' is one of the most memorable readings I've ever heard....this film is a masterpiece.

It left me in the mood for more Mitchum, so I picked up Out of Time. This one had a few too many twists for me, and Mitchum's character reminded Elliot Gould in The Long Goodbye, but, unlike Gould, he is not detached from the setting, and it didn't work so well for me. The Femme Fatale rarely works for me in movies (Double Indemnity being the one very notable exception).

Z. Not quite sure what to make of it. I liked it, I know that. The film builds it's layers of tension masterfully. So masterfully, in fact, that it needed more of a release. The final (seemingly) victorious moments needed more of an umph, IMO, and the very end of the film is not quite clear enough. The movie makes fabulous use of it's actors features. You get the entire character of these people very quickly through their faces. It gets a bit bogged down at times, and has some inexplicable moments seemingly putting homosexuality in the same pool with Fasicm. It certainly has a lot of heart, and that goes a long way. The music, by Mikis Theodorakis, is terrific. The main titles instantly suck you into the movie.

The Fugitive. Damn, I see this film a lot. And damn- it simply refuses to show any wear and tear. One of the great thrillers.

Morlock- who just rented (purely based on Alex's comments) Tucker: A Man and his dream, as well as Herzog's Fitzcarilldo, and who is about to see Iron Man.

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Again you are so off track, this film works because of Favreau.

Overall a very fun movie, with some terrific laughs, and for once I have to say I believed in the effects.

Unlike Spiderman with his 0's and 1's Iron Man looked like it was actually there on the screen.

Its called ILM, as opposed to Sony Pictures Imageworks.

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glad you discovered Night of the Hunter Morlock, its a terrific movie, sometimes scary, sometimes quirky, sometimes outrageous comedy.

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Night of the Hunter.

Blew me away when I first saw it.

Eastern Promises: Compelling film with ace performances. The story is better when it's about the Russians (Viggo Mortensen, Vincent Cassel, Armin Mueller-Stahl) than when it's about Anna (Naomi Watts). Good entertainment but it's not a must one needs to archive on his DVD shelves.

Hannah And Her Sisters: Woody Allen keeps changing his tone from pretty serious to truly hilarious. Sometimes I felt I was watching two different movies. Loved Michael Caine in this one.

Alex

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I've got more DVD's than I need, Im starting to get rid of them,

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Eastern Promises: Compelling film with ace performances. The story is better when it's about the Russians (Viggo Mortensen, Vincent Cassel, Armin Mueller-Stahl) than when it's about Anna (Naomi Watts). Good entertainment but it's not a must one needs to archive on his DVD shelves.

I missed it at the theatres. I bought A History of Violence blindly when it was cheap on DVD and loved it, should I do the same with EP?

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Eastern Promises: Compelling film with ace performances. The story is better when it's about the Russians (Viggo Mortensen, Vincent Cassel, Armin Mueller-Stahl) than when it's about Anna (Naomi Watts). Good entertainment but it's not a must one needs to archive on his DVD shelves.

I missed it at the theatres. I bought A History of Violence blindly when it was cheap on DVD and loved it, should I do the same with EP?

When it's cheap, absolutely. It's not as strong as AHOV, but it's close.

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So last night was all about the documentary genre. And about animal insanity, for reasons I won't elaborate here. But what counts is, we watched Best in Show, a mockumentary about a dog show - which isn't brilliantly written, it doesn't get all the laughs it can, and its characters aren't as charismatic as the screenwriter seems to be hope they are. But that doesn't mean the film is not entertaining, very well paced, and most importantly, fun to be in for most of the cast. The "catalogue people" were the best.

Only after trivialising via scripted comedy could we move on to the hardcore stuff: Grizzly Man. You all know what that one is about (go make use of imdb if you don't), so all that remains to be said is that it was a wonderful character study. It works better as a "comedy" with dark undertones than as Death of a Salesman with grizzly bears, especially because of Herzog's accent, which constantly displays an intonation not unlike the Mexicans in South Park. I would recommend for everyone to see this at least once, just to acknowledge the existence of a Timothy Treadwell inside of all of us.

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So last night was all about the documentary genre. And about animal insanity, for reasons I won't elaborate here. But what counts is, we watched Best in Show, a mockumentary about a dog show - which isn't brilliantly written, it doesn't get all the laughs it can, and its characters aren't as charismatic as the screenwriter seems to be hope they are. But that doesn't mean the film is not entertaining, very well paced, and most importantly, fun to be in for most of the cast. The "catalogue people" were the best.

Haha, I liked that movie, and it was even better that my favourite breed of dog won.

Makes me want to have two left feet myself!

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Iron Man. M-E-H. This movie is so utterly paint by numbers...at least a dozen directors lacking personality in their filmmaking could have made this. I wasn't expecting some grand vision....but this dissapointed me. I did have fun. Downey is the best thing since sliced bread. But he is the only notably good thing about the movie. And, there's one big problem here. Downey is not a physical actor (He has great nuances in his gestures, but...I'd rather here an audio book read by him than see a silent film with him). So whenever he put on the suit....Downey dissapeared. Without him talking, he was out of the movie, I forgot about him. With him talking, it rarely felt like he was in that suit. I was not convinced that Downy was the Iron Man. Big problem for me.

I could list everything that was bad or not good....but that'd be depressing. And, besides, there was one element so much worse than anything else in the movie: The music. WOW that was terrible. It wasn't even dumbed down orchestra. This literally sounded like a guy on an electric guitar, along with some random synthy orchestra, trying to copy 'The Kraken'. A good score may have helped this film feel more unified, more structurally sound. One of the worst scores I've ever heard in a film.

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Iron Man- Contrary to my initial hesitiation to seeing this (for the mere fact that I am tired or superhero movies), I really enjoyed this one. Robert Downey Jr. brought a lot to the role, and that is why I think I liked it.

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Tucker (1988): Obsession is the theme and this film treats it better than Scorsese's The Aviator .

The first part of this statement is incorrect, and I disagree with the second part of it. I just saw Tucker. It is not about obsession. It is about sticktoitiveness. Good, old fashioned, hard work and believing in one's dream. There is no obsession in the film. In fact, we learn almost nothing of Tucker himself. We get a splendidly produced piece of old fashioned schmaltz, replete with fantastic cinematography (courtesy of Vittorio Storaro) and excellent production design. Tucker is a two dimensional character, who we know no more about at the end of the movie than we did in the first scene. The Aviator is about a man who's genius and madness are intertwined. In the begining, he seems like a Tucker. But as it develops, one sees more and more how his mind works, at what cost the genius comes, and how much of the genius is madness. Tucker is signed, sealed, and delivered in his first scene. We learn more and more about Hughes as The Aviator progresses, right up to the great closing scene, which underlines the madness behind the genius (of course, The Aviator has the advantage of us knowing where Hughes ended up, something Tucker didn't have. I didn't know going in that Tucker was based on fact.)

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Tucker (1988): Obsession is the theme and this film treats it better than Scorsese's The Aviator .

It is about sticktoitiveness.

Well, Morlock, that has to be one of the least frequently used terms ever. Where the hell did you pick it up? Anyways, it's been decades since I've watched Tucker but I remember the man did everything to achieve his goal. In the real world, that is called obsession. To be obsessed, you don't have to lose your sanity. The term "obsession" doesn't begin to cover the disease Howard Hughes suffered from. The Aviator failed because it visually glossed insanity. Scorsese deemed that gloss was necessary because he's obsessed with golden statues. No gloss, no Oscars. In fact, when I watched The Aviator, I thought I was watching Titanic 2.

Alex

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The Aviator failed because it visually glossed insanity.

If you say so...

Ted

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I say so and so does the glossy look and luxurious feel of the movie. Not once did the film prick through its own facade. The illusion and grandeur were maintained until the end credits were over. Plot watchers might think otherwise, of course.

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I say so and so does the glossy look and luxurious feel of the movie. Not once did the film prick through its own facade. The illusion and grandeur were maintained until the end credits were over.

Perhaps that was the point.

Ted

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That seems to me a reductive explanation.

Scorsese's plan worked. The Academy fell for his Titanic approach. The Aviator received 11 nominations and won 5 Oscars. Anyone could see it was typical Oscar bait!

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Well, I obviously have no place in this conversation, as I actually think that stiff and glossy is a genre than can make for good cinema. Some of the best cinema is stiff and glossy (in form, that is).

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I think it's unfair to characterize "glossy" work as little more than Oscar bait. I would think that anyone with a real knowledge of Scorsese and his work would know this.

Ted

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I agree. The film's look is part and parcel with it's subject. I think the gloss and the opulence was essential to the story, and it made for one of the best biopics I've seen recently. Certainly the best "glossy" biopic I've seen in at least a decade. And it is a great discredit to a director to say Oscar bait. I think there is some validity in talking about Scorsese's recent movies being more traditional than his earlier work. But to mistake that for a sellout is wrong and quite unfair.

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Which is annoying, as it really is a good movie. But I don't think Scorsese has made the kind of Scorsese movie people talk about since the eighties. And his recent films are so good out of context, that I find it almost hard to complain about them not being something else.

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I think that's true of Gangs and The Aviator, Morlock, but The Departed had very little rhythm to it at all. It had wonderful moments, but overall, I'm amazed at how more in line with pop filmmaking its aesthetics are. It's not a "bad" movie, but it's a sell-out.

Ted

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I would rent it.

I don't rent movies. For some reason, I just don't like doing it. I'll wait until it's at €8 or less and then simply grab it.

The Departed is another one I haven't seen yet. To be honest, the first Scorsese I've seen theatrically was Shine a Light.

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