What Is The Last Film You Watched?

[Nick Parker 3,040]

Yesterday I introduced my father to North by Northwest (and by extension Alfred Hitchcock, apparently), and I was very happy to note that he loved it. As for myself, I can watch the film over and over and not find a single dull moment in it. Also, we tried to watch Beyond a Reasonable Doubt (2009), but I got too bored with it after thirty minutes and left.

[A24 4,331]

Prince of the City (1981). Alex, I believe you are a fan of this Lumet movie. It is evident from his (superb) book that he is very proud of it- and with good reason. It's a terrific movie! 167 minutes, but is really engrossing, and flies by. Treat Williams is generally good in the main role of the cop who spills the beans on the wrong-doings in his department. There were a couple of big scenes where I felt him trying too hard and missing, though. The rest of the cast is great, including a whole bunch of really, really nice brief performances by recognizable actors and non-professional ones alike. The scenes at the score of the film, the ones between Danny and his partners, are particularly good, though there's one fantastic scene where all the people involved in the case come to one room and speak their minds about it. It's a great tale of a guy who wants to make things right, but has limits about how extensive he'll be. Nicely shot, designed, with a really nice score by Paul Chihara.

It's a great reminder of how good Lumet can be when he's in his element, which I thought he wasn't in his most recent film (an ugly film about ugly people doing ugly things).

Ah, I'm glad you like it, Morlock. Lumet's best film is so undeservedly unknown. One of the last great '70s movies and yet it's made in the '80s. The film shares the same themes with Lumet's Serpico but goes a lot deeper. It's almost as if Lumet is making up for Serpico. And Treat Williams is great in the movie! [big spoiler]Look at the semiconscious state Treat Williams is delivering when he calls up his friends to tell them he gave up on them.[/big spoiler] That scene had such a calmness and yet it meant the end of a lot of people. I have the score on LP.

The Panic Room: Good thriller. One of David Koepp's better jobs. Somehow Jarret Leto's 'over-the-topness' no longer annoyed me.

The Right Stuff: I loved it at the time but it's one of those movies you only need to see once.

[Koray Savas 2,251]

Also, we tried to watch Beyond a Reasonable Doubt (2009), but I got too bored with it after thirty minutes and left.

Why would you even bother with that in the first place? It got a solid 0% on Rotten Tomatoes. I think it's their worst reviewed movie of the year.

[Alejandro 26]

Just watched Sherlock Holmes. It was all right. I was a bit bored, but the chemistry between the characters was fun. Generic score, except the main little tune which I immediately forgot walking out of the theatre. I would actually watch Beyond a Reasonable Doubt again than Holmes.

Up in the Air was great; It's Complicated was enjoyable. Next up: A Single Man.

Last years, I think I'm beginning to like the 2 more than original ...

That's weird. The first one is so much better.

I also like Home Alone 2's score over Home Alone 1. On the second score album you get everything from the first one and more! Plus, the orchestrations are better. Every track on the Home Alone 2 album (the original release) is quite enjoyable.

And, Koray, "It's Complicated" was rated "R" because of drug use.

And, Koray, "Avatar" is now at $747 million worldwide. You smelt a bomb? I don't think so. And, I know you are getting tired of me texting you box office updates, but in all the years I've known you, that post ranks in the 'Top Five Dumbest Koray Posts' on this board. Hey, that would be a good topic.

[Naïve Old Fart 9,513]

Titanic is hardly a 5 star score. I guess it meanders somewhere between 2 and 4 stars.

You are quite right. Horner's last truely great score was for "The Name Of The Rose", 23 yeare ago!

It's a 5 star score within the movie. On it's own I'd give it a 3-1/2. Although Horner's theme for Rose is quite beautiful.

I've never heard it on album. In the film, the sinking music is effective standard Horner, but much of the stuff before disaster strikes borders on unbearable. I'd rather listen to the better Enya original.

Over the hols., I watched "The Accidental Tourist". Oh, boy, this a 5-star film with 5-star performances, direction, editing, cinematography, and (need I say it) an absolutely superb score. It is Larry Kasdan's best film (with the exception of "Grand Canyon"). Over the years, my emotional ties to this film have grown stornger, and stronger, much like J.G.'s to "Islands In The Stream", I guess. A lot has happened to me since I first saw TAT, and, in some ways, my life mirrored that of Macon Leary. Happily, I am not as "closed in" as he was, and I have a job, a family, and, generally, a life that I like. It could be better, but then, whose couldn't? If you have not seen this film, then, like Claude Lacombe, "I envy you", so open a nice bottle of wine, curl up on the sofa, and savour a truely underated masterpiece.

[Romão 2,274]

I agree 100% with your sentiments on the Accidental Tourist. What a wonderful gem of a movie and score.

[Henry B 50]

Does Holmes really need to be different? He's done ok in his normal guise all these years. I don't usually jibe with the whole 'make the character/property fresh for the modern audience' PR stuff, because it generally comes with a bad script underneath it all.

Haven't seen the film btw, just theorizing.

There was a big behind the scenes preview for Holmes the last movie we went to go see, and I was turned off the instant I heard "Sherlock Holmes" and "superhero" in the same sentence.

However, the film is definitely watchable for the nuanced chemistry between Downey and Law, and Rachel McAdams is very intriguing. It's far better than a Michael Bay explosion orgy, that's for sure. Zimmer's score is one of his least bad, too!

Not to mention, as action packed and modernized as the film is, isn't it more faithful to the original books than some adaptations?

[Koray Savas 2,251]

Zero Effect is still my favorite Holmes adaptation.

[Maglorfin 196]

The Core, it was on TV. Although the special effects are neat (I've always liked that Endeavour LA landing and the destruction of Rome), the film itself is mostly mediocre. The score is great however, kudos to Chris Young. Too bad it's practically unavailable ($211 on SAE!), so I'm keeping my fingers crossed for one label or the other to release it sometime soon.

[A24 4,331]

Le Temps Du Loup (Michael Haneke): I didn't like it one bit and yet I'm shocked in the aftermath. I'm still looking forward to Das Weisse Band.

Alex

[#SnowyVernalSpringsEternal 10,265]

Rachel Getting Married

Contains spoilers

Well sometime's one is pleasantly surprised.

The title and dvd cover of this film makes it seem like one of those predictable romantic comedies that women like so much.

It's actually a character study, and a study of an enviroment. (a wedding)

The basic premise seems familiar and predictable enough. Kym (Anne Hathaway) gets to leave the rehab centre to attend het sisters wedding, bringing all her personal issues with her to an already stressfull situation (a wedding)

This usually leads to a film with over the top, shouty performances regurgitating wrecthed predictability that we've seen on TV drama's hundred's of times before.

Jonathan Demme bides his time and slowly and carefully allows us to find out about Kym, her addiction since her teenage years (called her "disease") by her family, who tiptoe carefully around her, How it affected her family, caused tragedy that still ripples beneath the surface (Kym, under the influence of drugs caused the death of her younger brother).

Jenny Lumet's (daughter of Sidney Lumet) script srops us into the middle of a story and allows us to find out for our selves about these people. And when the film ends, and Kym goes back to rehab not everything is sorted out, some things are changed, some opportunities are missed, some relationship improve, while others have worsened. All in all, live goes on. And it gives the viewer a great gift of thinking about the characters after the film ends.

Anne Hathaway does wonders with her role of a women, who like so many peope in recovery are so obsessed with their own personal situation that she demands to be the centre of attention even when her sister is getting married. She fits comfortably is a cast of actors who are (apart from ofcourse Debra Winger) unknown to me.

Most movie weddings look like poorly staged, ackward social events. This one actually fee;s like a real wedding were people who've known each other for years, and people who just met spend time together and actually enjoy themselves.

Declan Quinn cinephotagrahpy makes us often feel like one of the guessts.

Lot of music in this film, I think all of it was source music of some kind, which helped set the mood

**** out of ****

[Morlock 11]

One of my favorites from 2008, a marvelous film. Demme is often just a little bit better than most anybody else. Also, I loved how he used music in the film. Yes, it was handheld you-are-there style, but not at the expense of the joys of fluid filmmaking. Even with small time-lapses between cuts, the music stayed constant. It really let the film breath.

Speaking of Jenny Lumet and Prince of the City, I was rereading Sidney Lumet's Making Movies again over the past couple of days. It's probably my favorite book about filmmaking ever. I mentioned it to a good friend of mine, who said he never actually saw 12 Angry Men (1957). We sat down and saw it, and even though I've seen it at least half a dozen times before (my guess is probably much more than that), it still works. There are a few lines of dialogue that come off as a bit too preachy, but it is still a fantastic, taut drama. I've read in his book how he did a lot of it, but the way this film is constantly interesting in visuals and tempo is really amazing. And, of course, in acting. So many good actors in one room...it speaks well of Henry Fonda that he allows his character to recede to the background as the film goes on, he's almost the least interesting character in the room (or at least the one about whom we know the most about the soonest). Also, I never remember that there's a score to it, and I'm always pleasantly surprised by the Kenyon Hopkins piece. Bascially one theme, played 4 times in the film, but it's an effective little piece, and very effective in its sparseness.

Also saw Up in The Air. Strange film. Easily my least favorite of Jason Reitman's films to date. It's got some terrific stuff in it, but too many glaring problems, and its bottom line is extremely obvious. And it is more than a little unsettling in its use of the theme of people losing their jobs. We never see any real effect that this job has on Clooney. He's good in it (there's one great moment where we see his character putting the Clooney charm in- I think it's the closest he's come to self-revelation on film). Vera Farmiga, though, is really spectacular in it. She's an even better love-interest for Clooney than Brad Pitt in the Ocean movies. Song-selection is bland, Rolfe Kent's bits of score are somewhat more interesting than a forgettable score, without ever being enough to really pay attention to(he does have a nice optomistic theme in it a couple of times, though).

Oh, and I also checked out Food, Inc. on dvd. It's the kind of documentary that teaches without ever really interesting me. It's journalism, a 60 minutes piece. It's not cinema. These types of documentaries really bore me. No matter how illuminating they might be, they fade from memory in a very expeditious manner. Give me Anvil! or Man on Wire or Grizzly Man or Encounters at the End of the World if you want anything to stick.

[Henry B 50]

Also saw Up in The Air. Strange film. Easily my least favorite of Jason Reitman's films to date. It's got some terrific stuff in it, but too many glaring problems, and its bottom line is extremely obvious. And it is more than a little unsettling in its use of the theme of people losing their jobs. We never see any real effect that this job has on Clooney. He's good in it (there's one great moment where we see his character putting the Clooney charm in- I think it's the closest he's come to self-revelation on film). Vera Farmiga, though, is really spectacular in it. She's an even better love-interest for Clooney than Brad Pitt in the Ocean movies. Song-selection is bland, Rolfe Kent's bits of score are somewhat more interesting than a forgettable score, without ever being enough to really pay attention to(he does have a nice optomistic theme in it a couple of times, though).

I liked it. Coming from the director of Juno,

I was expecting a happy, romantic ending, but I didn't get it, thank goodness.

Great acting by all the leads, some funny moments.

[A24 4,331]

No Country For Old Men: Now that I watched it again I'm certain that the first part is not only better but also a lot more coherent than the second one. The first part is silent cinema. The storytelling is entirely visual and without the aid of dialog or a tense score. There aren't many directors around who have the balls to do that. Even the mighty Paul Thomas Anderson gave up his silent cinema in There Will Be Blood after 20-25 minutes (so did Pixar with Wall-E). Yes, someone utters a few words here and there but it's completely secondary to the visual narration. In comparison, the second part comes across as being somewhat steerless. The film still treats us to several good scenes but the perfect flow of the first part is gone. You can almost feel the writer being unsure about the direction the story should be going.

Trading Places: Still good for a laugh or two.

Alex

[Unlucky Bastard 7,782]

Sherlock Holmes.

Whoa, I loved it! Robert Downey Jr. is a quirky action hero, and I've never really liked Jude Law in any of his roles until now as Dr. Watson. It's an action/adventure "bromance" that feels pulpish, rather like The Shadow or The Mummy. Can't wait for the sequel!

[Koray Savas 2,251]

Also saw Up in The Air. Strange film. Easily my least favorite of Jason Reitman's films to date. It's got some terrific stuff in it, but too many glaring problems, and its bottom line is extremely obvious. And it is more than a little unsettling in its use of the theme of people losing their jobs. We never see any real effect that this job has on Clooney. He's good in it (there's one great moment where we see his character putting the Clooney charm in- I think it's the closest he's come to self-revelation on film). Vera Farmiga, though, is really spectacular in it. She's an even better love-interest for Clooney than Brad Pitt in the Ocean movies. Song-selection is bland, Rolfe Kent's bits of score are somewhat more interesting than a forgettable score, without ever being enough to really pay attention to(he does have a nice optomistic theme in it a couple of times, though).

I liked it. Coming from the director of Juno,

I was expecting a happy, romantic ending, but I didn't get it, thank goodness.

Great acting by all the leads, some funny moments.

It might just be my favorite film of the year, but I also said that with Fantastic Mr. Fox. I loved the non sugar-coated ending. Writing was fantastic, I liked the score and song selections, and the acting was top notch. Morlock, could you give examples of some of the "glaring problems?"

Sherlock Holmes.

Whoa, I loved it! Robert Downey Jr. is a quirky action hero, and I've never really liked Jude Law in any of his roles until now as Dr. Watson. It's an action/adventure that feels pulpish, rather like The Shadow or The Mummy. Can't wait for the sequel!

What about da Hans?

[Unlucky Bastard 7,782]

Pretty catchy theme. One of his better scores.

[Quintus 5,399]

No Country For Old Men: Now that I watched it again I'm certain that the first part is not only better but also a lot more coherent than the second one. The first part is silent cinema. The storytelling is entirely visual and without the aid of dialog or a tense score. There aren't many directors around who have the balls to do that. Even the mighty Paul Thomas Anderson gave up his silent cinema in There Will Be Blood after 20-25 minutes (so did Pixar with Wall-E). Yes, someone utters a few words here and there but it's completely secondary to the visual narration. In comparison, the second part comes across as being somewhat steerless. The film still treats us to several good scenes but the perfect flow of the first part is gone. You can almost feel the writer being unsure about the direction the story should be going.

Trading Places: Still good for a laugh or two.

Alex

Pretty much agree entirely. The first half is downright mesmerizing, it's a shame they weren't somehow able to tell the whole story in such fashion, the sort the visual storytelling which makes Castaway mostly engaging and Hell in the Pacific absolutely riveting. That said, although the second half does come off as feeling slightly less driven, it does, as you say, still have a few highlights, with the final moments on the street and in the house being absolutely superb.

As for Trading Places, it's one of my all time fave comedies. Like Jaws and Raiders, I never tire of it. I miss Dan Aykroyd.

[Morlock 11]

No Country For Old Men: Now that I watched it again I'm certain that the first part is not only better but also a lot more coherent than the second one. The first part is silent cinema. The storytelling is entirely visual and without the aid of dialog or a tense score. There aren't many directors around who have the balls to do that. Even the mighty Paul Thomas Anderson gave up his silent cinema in There Will Be Blood after 20-25 minutes (so did Pixar with Wall-E). Yes, someone utters a few words here and there but it's completely secondary to the visual narration. In comparison, the second part comes across as being somewhat steerless. The film still treats us to several good scenes but the perfect flow of the first part is gone. You can almost feel the writer being unsure about the direction the story should be going.

I could understand liking the first half more...but to call the second half steerless is nonsense, as is this hypothetical writer being unsure. The movie is consistant from the very first minute of Jones' (beautiful) narration to the last sentence uttered. The first time the seoncd time felt weird. But from the second viewing on, the second half's construction makes perfect sense.

Either way, this separartion between the halves in the movie obviously implies that you either don't care or don't buy what the movie is about, what those stunning images and sparse, terse bursts of dialogue are trying to tell you. I think that There Will Be Blood doesn't need to be about anything in particular; its ambition and scale are their own reward. This film, however beautifully constructed, is really about something concrete. You're not really reacting to the film if you ignore that (you could still prefer the first half, but criticizing it without an indication of what you make of it thematically is rather irrelevent).

Saying that film is a visual medium does not mean that all that matters are good images, or beautiful images, as you know. It means that the story should be told visually.

It might just be my favorite film of the year, but I also said that with Fantastic Mr. Fox. I loved the non sugar-coated ending. Writing was fantastic, I liked the score and song selections, and the acting was top notch. Morlock, could you give examples of some of the "glaring problems?"

Well, I mentioned the most major one- a man fires people for a living and it doesn't seem to have any effect on him. Either they were trying to make a point and failed, or they didn't think the context was critical. The interviews with the real people are awkward, made even more so by the appearance of recognizable faces. Speaking of which- in the JK Simmons scene, it was obvious to me that Clooney was full of shit. In the movie, that moment exists in a vacuum, but I am scared that they think he was being sincere.

The movie has no overriding plot, just three subplots (Work, sister's wedding, Alex). They are tied together with the most obvious moral possible: No man in an island. No shit, Sherlock. There was so little surprise here and its moral is boring and not really effective (Clooney has never played anyone resembling a real person, and he still has almost no vulnurability. I can't say I really cared about him being 'Up in the Air').

Which is not to say that I didn't enjoy it in passing. But it has neither the fresh outlook of Juno nor the wonderful humor of Thank You For Smoking. It's funny, but not even close to being as funny as the last two. I really felt Reitman going soft here, and was dissapointed.

[A24 4,331]

The storytelling is entirely visual

Saying that film is a visual medium does not mean that all that matters are good images, or beautiful images, as you know. It means that the story should be told visually.

Where's the head-scratching smiley?

I think that There Will Be Blood doesn't need to be about anything in particular; its ambition and scale are their own reward. This film (No Country For Old Men), however beautifully constructed, is really about something concrete.

So is There Will Be Blood, even though it's less evident, less spelled out as in No Country For Old Men. In There Will Be Blood there isn't an old man telling us what or how to think.

Alex

[Charlie Brigden 7]

STAR TREK NEMESIS. Maybe I should be posting this in the 'I like this but no one else does' thread, as this flick generally gets a pasting, but I think it's a fine movie and the best of the TNG flicks. Like a lot of Trek movies it suffers from the Khan factor and too many references, and there are things that should have been cut and some of the deleted scenes reinstated. But I find the relationship between Picard and Shinzon fascinating, even if it doesn't reach its potential. The Data thing is a bit of a cop-out, but the action sequences are shot and edited well (as you'd imagine from Stuart Baird), and the final battle sequence is excellent. I adore the score as well, I think it's pretty underrated. And of course, Patrick Stewart is fantastic.

[Marian Schedenig 8,191]

I think Nemesis is solid. It doesn't nearly live up to its potential (it wouldn't get close, but considerably closer, with some of the deleted scenes featured on the DVD), but it still holds up. It manages to project an intriguingly moody atmosphere (marvellously captured by Goldsmith's B theme - I'm still not overly fond of the rest of the score). And it has one of my favourite Stewart performances - rarely have I seen an actor inhabit a role that fully.

[JoeinAR 1,949]

Nemesis is an adequate tv movie nothing more.

[Morlock 11]

The storytelling is entirely visual

Saying that film is a visual medium does not mean that all that matters are good images, or beautiful images, as you know. It means that the story should be told visually.

Where's the head-scratching smiley?

True, I was not careful in my response. I got the sense that you were judging the film purely as a visual artifact, and that the second half was less visually interesting, so it wasn't compelling (though that was the case you made with Snyder, saying how the implications of the images were negligable in the face of the power of the images themselves).

So is There Will Be Blood, even though it's less evident, less spelled out as in No Country For Old Men.

There will be Blood tells an entirely different story visually than the one it is supposedly about. Visually, it is a mythic tone-poem. Biblical, at times. That's the story I was following.

In There Will Be Blood there isn't an old man telling us what or how to think.

No Country is presenting a certain view of the world, of humanity, of good and evil. You can accept it or reject is as you will, much like you can with TWBB. There's a world of difference between that and telling you how to think. Different meanings can be drawn from it, different interpertations. There's nothing manipulative about its morals, as opposed to your implication.

Saw The Baader-Meinhoff Complex. A troubling movie. I was kind of uninvolved for a lot of it, because the story was treated with a momentousness that I couldn't connect to (not knowing very much about the real events). I'm not sure if Martina Gedeck gives a great performance or a terrible one. Her part (Meinhoff) is really hard to connect to.

[crocodile 8,000]

So is There Will Be Blood, even though it's less evident, less spelled out as in No Country For Old Men. In There Will Be Blood there isn't an old man telling us what or how to think.

Alex

I thought that in the Coen's film there is an old man who has no clue what to think.

Karol

[MSM 126]

The Day the Earth Stood Still. Very fine scifi movie. Better than WotW. Suspenseful and meaningful. Actually with Independence Day, District 9 and Avatar one of the best alien movies.

[#SnowyVernalSpringsEternal 10,265]

The Bernard Herrmann or the Tyler Bates version?

[Charlie Brigden 7]

The Day the Earth Stood Still. Very fine scifi movie. Better than WotW. Suspenseful and meaningful. Actually with Independence Day, District 9 and Avatar one of the best alien movies.

What about, um, ALIEN?

[MSM 126]

The Bernard Herrmann or the Tyler Bates version?

Tyler Bates version (so the new one with Keanu Reeves ). Tyler Bates does a vey nice job here, thanks also to his orchestrator Timothy Williams, who both listen a lot to JW I think

The Day the Earth Stood Still. Very fine scifi movie. Better than WotW. Suspenseful and meaningful. Actually with Independence Day, District 9 and Avatar one of the best alien movies.

What about, um, ALIEN?

Never saw it.

[JoeinAR 1,949]

The Bernard Herrmann or the Tyler Bates version?

Tyler Bates version (so the new one with Keanu Reeves ). Tyler Bates does a vey nice job here, thanks also to his orchestrator Timothy Williams, who both listen a lot to JW I think

The Day the Earth Stood Still. Very fine scifi movie. Better than WotW. Suspenseful and meaningful. Actually with Independence Day, District 9 and Avatar one of the best alien movies.

What about, um, ALIEN?

Never saw it.

seriously. you are kidding. Its one of the worst films ever made. It's a horrible remake. It's pointless. Why remake the Day the Earth Stood Still without making the Earth stand still. It is not better than WoTW. It is not meaningful, and not one of the best alien movies. I'm utterly shocked that you have the balls to even say that on here. Go watch the original and then if you say the remake is better, lock your doors.

[Unlucky Bastard 7,782]

Nemesis is an adequate tv movie nothing more.

Nemesis is more movie quality than any of the other TNG films.

[JoeinAR 1,949]

Nemesis is an adequate tv movie nothing more.

Nemesis is more movie quality than any of the other TNG films.

No, its a horrible idea, badly thought out, even worse in it's exectution. It's a down right insult to TNG fans.

Seriously B-4, are we that stupid to them? Where is Lore? And why destroy the federation using a clone of Picard, that makes no sense at all.

It works best on the small screen where the idiotic screenplay can be forgiven. It's screenplay has almost as many holes in it as Star Trek 2009.

[Unlucky Bastard 7,782]

What the hell are you talking about? I just like watching things get blown up and seeing ships ram into each other.

[Henry B 50]

The Happening. Fucking sucks!

[Unlucky Bastard 7,782]

Em nite shya-melon's head was getting too big for his shoulders by the point he made The Happening.

[A24 4,331]

Perhaps that's why he's making Unbreakable 2, his first sequel. I've always said it was his best film and now he's going back to it.

Barefoot In The Park: A harmless Neil Simon thingy starring Robert Redford and Jane Fonda when they were at their most attractive.

Alex

[indy4 155]

Perhaps that's why he's making Unbreakable 2, his first sequel. I've always said it was his best film and now he's going back to it.

He is?! Not sure how I feel about this...I agree that it's one of his best films, but it doesn't seem like the type of film that would lend itself to a sequel. Plotwise it'll be easy for him, but I can't picture an Unbreakable sequel that doesn't seem cheapened and popcorn-ized. Not sure why.

I just realized that this year has been rather disapointing in terms of films (at least the ones I saw). Here's a list of all I saw:

Avatar

Princess and the Frog

Surrogates

Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince

Moon

Up

Angels and Demons

Star Trek

Taken

I'd say that out of that entire list, the only above average films were Moon, Princess and the Frog, and Up.

[Morlock 11]

Well, it hasn't been a great year, but there are plenty of good films missing from that list.

[ChrisAfonso 186]

I like "The Happening".

[John Crichton 4]

District 9 was a great movie trying to happen, but in the end it was merely good.

[Wojo 2,453]

I wanted to leave when he started coughing up alien phlegm. I stayed to the end but don't feel it's necessary to watch it again.

[A24 4,331]

Lots of people worship District 9 as if it's THE sci-fi flick of the decade. I still have to watch it. I read an interview with the director and he doesn't seem to be a bad chap. He was obsessed with Blade Runner at the age of 15 and then with 2001 when he was 16. He also said he watched Star Wars and especially Empire Strikes Back every afternoon for most of his childhood.

Alex

[JoeinAR 1,949]

He must have crossed it with Blair witch project because every other word in District 9 was fuck, and that got old quick.

[Wojo 2,453]

I liked the documentary-style feel to a sci-fi movie. That was fresh. The clips of people who were associated with the protagonist added to the effect, and also his ad-libbing.

The swear words made it seem like they tried too hard to place it into Hollywood mainstream. One step forward, one step back.

[Morlock 11]

I liked it as a short film. At its current length (Wasn't over two hours?) it was extremely dissapointing to see just how shallow the makers' ideas were. It's a gimmick film, and it didn't know how to make it intersting for so long.

Yesterday I saw The Limits of Control, Jarmouch's latest. I feel like to call it boring would be to miss the point, as it was going for a certain kind of boring. I think tedious would be more accurate. No, strike that. I was bored out of my skull...but in an interesting way. Which is not to say I didn't hate watching it (Kinda like Mission to Mars.

Also continuing my Lumet gap-filling, I saw The Pawnbroker (1964). I understand it was quite a talked about film in its day- one of the first American films seriously dealing with the holocaust, it has obvious editorial tricks, and has nudity (I had no idea that a major American film had nudity that early). But now, it's quite a traditional melodrama, though it has a powerful main performance by Rod Steiger. I felt it was paced wrong. The score by Quincy Jones sometimes feels like a concept score gone awry (the contrast between the jazz and classical elements), but it does culminate in a pretty amazing cue in the last sequence.

Not one of the better Lumets. The next film of his I'm going to see is Q&A. Ebert likes it. We'll see.

re Shyamalan: Sixth Sense didn't do much for me when it came out, but I've really come to like it as mood piece. Unbreakable is his most interesting and successful film, I think. I loved Signs when it came out- I imagine that, watching it today, I could easily go either way on it, depending on my mood. The Village got better with repeated viewings, I know see it as an interesting mix of compelling, if half-baked ideas. Eitehr way, looks and sounds great, and is well acted. Couldn't stand Lady in the Water...it was all so preposterous, from begining to end. The Happening is one of the worst directed films I've ever seen in my life. It is totally miscalibrated at every point.

[A24 4,331]

Perhaps that's why he's making Unbreakable 2, his first sequel. I've always said it was his best film and now he's going back to it.

He is?! Not sure how I feel about this...I agree that it's one of his best films, but it doesn't seem like the type of film that would lend itself to a sequel.

The premise of an ordinary person who discovers he's got unusual powers is a good source and a unique angel in comic book world. The show 'Heroes' is doing it time after time. Too bad that after the first season the show forgot what it set out to do. It turned into some kind of battle of the freaks.

Alex

[Charlie Brigden 7]

And why destroy the federation using a clone of Picard, that makes no sense at all.

I don't really see why it doesn't make sense. The original Romulan plan of creating a clone of Picard isn't the strangest idea by far in Trek history, but the idea of replacing a revered member of a group with one similar (or identical in this case), especially one as influential as Picard, is a solid idea at its base. But the whole point of NEMESIS is that Picard's clone never got to be Picard, and instead was left to rot, so is getting his revenge at not only the Romulans who jettisoned him, but also the Picard he was never allowed to be, fuelled by his envy of Picard's upbringing versus how he was treated. No one is using Shinzon, it's him who's using the Romulans and Remans to help his blood feud. It's a strong idea to me, and allows an actual exploration of the Picard character, if minor at that. It certainly doesn't live up to its potential, but I'll take it over watching an idiot drunkenly introduce Vulcans to Roy Orbison any day of the week.

[Koray Savas 2,251]

Lots of people worship District 9 as if it's THE sci-fi flick of the decade. I still have to watch it. I read an interview with the director and he doesn't seem to be a bad chap. He was obsessed with Blade Runner at the age of 15 and then with 2001 when he was 16. He also said he watched Star Wars and especially Empire Strikes Back every afternoon for most of his childhood.

Alex

Any filmmaker that's obsessed with Blade Runner and 2001 must be a genius.

[Charlie Brigden 7]

Lots of people worship District 9 as if it's THE sci-fi flick of the decade. I still have to watch it. I read an interview with the director and he doesn't seem to be a bad chap. He was obsessed with Blade Runner at the age of 15 and then with 2001 when he was 16. He also said he watched Star Wars and especially Empire Strikes Back every afternoon for most of his childhood.

Alex

Any filmmaker that's obsessed with Blade Runner and 2001 must be a genius.

If they take on their influence well it's possible, especially with BLADE RUNNER.

[John Crichton 4]

District 9 starts very well, mostly due to the documentary scenes that Wojo mentioned. But the second half is just your typical swear-laden action fest, albeit a better than average one. Still much, much less than it could have been.