Be Excellent To Each Other

So, what have you cinemaphiles have seen lately? Here's what i've been doing:

Milk - It was okay, but Penn overacted as usually. He made me laugh all the way through on "i am sam" and here he was very annoying. Josh Brolin and James Franco were very good though. Franco should have been nominated for Oscar imo. 7/10

The Wrestler - Great. It worked really good as a fictional documentary. Rourke was amazing but Marisa Tomei was the weakest list. Just because she was supposed to be a worn out stripper and she looks absolutely stunning. 8/10

Zack and Miri make a porno - Average comedy but with some very funny situations....and Jason Mewes. The last half hour was full of forgetable romantic storyline that shouldn't be here in the first place. 6/10

Sex Drive - Mediocre teen comedy that outstayed its welcome by 1 and half hour. 4/10

Tell No One.

Utterly brilliant French mystery thriller about a doctor who is attacked and left unconscious while a serial killer murderds his wife. Eight years later, two more bodies are found in the same area, the case is re-opened, and the doctor comes under suspicion. Then he gets an email from someone who knows something only his wife should know.

I don't want to tell any more than that, but it is one of the best films I've seen for years. Well written, brilliantly acted, great, plausible, unpredictable but sensible plot that unravels perfectly, and even the music and editing and mis en scene are great. Best of all, everyone in it is intelligent. People succeed or fail and things happen because of intelligent, reasonable thinking and behaviour, not because everyone else is just a fucking idiot, like in 99.9% of other films.

Couldn't recommend it more, frankly.

I've just come back from watching Coraline. In 3D.

It was most enjoyable, and a proper child scaring fairytale.

I recommend it.

Burn After Reading.

Well-established Coen Brothers fare this - espionage and murder committed by otherwise dull suburban (and distinctly middle-aged) characters. George Clooney is as annoying as usual, but the baffled CIA agents are the stars of this one, for me.

7 out of 10 bananas, I'll say. Worth going to see, but it's no 'Lebowski'.


Eagle Eye. Watched this on the Xbox on Saturday. It's basically Hal from 2001 goes menkle and tries to take over the world. Pretty good action bits although there's a massively stupid plot device half way through which makes no sense and spoiled it a bit.
Also, somewhat preachy at the end.

5 out of 10 bananas then.

I liked burn after reading, pretty much every character is great in some way, but theres something very sloppy about the film as a whole.

I thought it was fucking ace. Pitt and Clooney were top drawer.

Oops, I amended the score slightly - I was using an incorrect scale.

Pitt was good, granted.

i loved Burn After Reading. Its Coen brothers doing what they do best with excellent actors. The movie was also quite short, but there was never a dull moment. Brad Pitt and JK Simmons were incredibly funny. Also don't know what's so annoying about Clooney. He was ok.

I found La Cabina on youtube a couple of weeks ago. A short spanish film about a man trapped in a phone box. I haven't seen it since I was three, when it properly shit me up. Possibly scarred me for life, in fact.

The reason I never found it was because I thought it was called Man in the Glass Booth, which is something else entirely. I didn't even know it was Spanish.

Watching it again is very odd, nothing like my memories of it. It's all.. Spanish. Almost a comedy at the start.

Fourthed. Burn After Reading was awesome. The awkward, creepy smile Pitt gives in the closet is exactly the reaction you'd give in that situation, and also the worst thing you could possibly do.

My fiance keeps making me watch terrible straight-to-DVD horror films which are all so forgettable I can't remember what any of them are called. Except Zombie Strippers, which was also crap.

Frequently Asked Questions about Time Travel was quite entertaining. Don't expect some clever levels of time travel stuff as per Lave/DavPaz, but it had Chris O'Dowd and Dean Lennox Kelly in it and raised a few good laughs. The woman in it was quite hot, too.

I rewatched "The Battle of Britain" yesterday, and it was awesome. Did some high ranking Nazis really wear baby blue Jackets?

We rock

I enjoy that film far too much for my own good. But I'm a bit of a sucker for older WW2 films.

Zombie Strippers had some funny parts. Like when the mexican died and when Jenna Jameson throws snooker balls from her genitals

We saw Iron Man on DVD last night. I was most impressed.

I watched Le Pacte Des Loups (Brotherhood of the Wolf) last night. Undoubtedly the best film Mark Dacascos has been in. He puts in a decent performance but to be fair he doesn't have to do an awful lot. It felt odd hearing him speak French though. The film was stunning though. It would really suit an HD release as there's huge detail in the cinematography, costume design and set design. It's really excellent stuff.

Bought myself the mad max trilogy last week. Not watched them yet because the PC's monitor can not be seen from my chilling position any more and I don't have a TV type dvd player. Still, once the xbox is modded I can watch them then

To the thunderdome, two man enter ETC.

I have 3 films to watch. Which should I watch first (having not seen any of them yet)

The Fly
Escape from New York
and The City of Lost Children

Escape from NY.

It all went a bit balls up at the end though, didn't it? Also, how come it's only in European films that middle-aged portly guys get to shag multiple hot women in the same movie? (Apart from pornos and Bond films I mean). See also, that Gerard Depardieu film where the insanely hot stripper loves him. Or any Gerard Depardieu film, for that matter.

Oh, any order will do. How the hell have you managed to not watch the first 2?

The Fly (you mean the Geoff Goldblum 80s version, yeah?)

Escape From NY has definitely aged less gracefully. I haven't seen City of Lost Children either (it got name-checked in an issue of Amiga Power once. Something about a fat man getting plugged into another fat man so he can see himself getting murdered. Or something.)

Yeah, the 80's version of The Fly.

I must admit it did lose it a bit toward the very end. Like last 15-20 minutes. But it didn't detract enough from the overall experience to be that much of a problem.

Is X-Men Wolverines any good? Got to see something tomorrow, orange wednesday.

Apparently it's pretty shoddy. Why not try Coraline? That's supposed to be very good, based on a Neil Gaiman story, comes in a 3D variety and is done by the bloke who did Nightmare Before Christmas.

Wolverine's not exactly what I'd call shoddy, it's just a little underwhelming. Needed a better script.

It's not on at my Hicksville cinema

Have you checked the Intertubes?

Been seeing Band of Brothers also. I'm enjoying it, but my gf has a tendency to fall asleep while watching it

I normally like war stuff but we started watching that and it just didn't grab me at all. Also it has the worst opening credits of anything ever.

It gets very good. I suggest you watch some more.

yes, the opening credits also almost put me to sleep, even before i get to the remote control to skip it

Yeah. agreed on all counts. I'd have liked it to be a lot darker, but it's still well worth watching. And that Émilie Dequenne in the red suit with the enormo-rifle, eh? Crikey. I don't usually get excited about people on the telly, but she looked uncannily like a girl I went out with years back, too.

now, something i want to get out of my chest.

For some years i've used imdb as a very useful guide. Usually scores were a good indication of the movie worth. Very rarely i would agree, but at least it was enough to know if it should waste my time with a movie. In the last couple of years it seems 7 is the new 5. Movies have their scores stupidly inflated. Dark Knight among the best movies of all time? Cock off!
Taken has 8, and in all seriousness, is one of the worst movies i've ever seen. These days i no longer care about the score, and just follow the advice of people i trust.

imdb is very, very handy for movie facts, like who played what part and who wrote what, who directed what, etc. For judging quality, however, it is absolutely, entirely useless. Swarms of cretins litter the place, giving a constant stream of 10/10s to any old shit, and giving 1/10s to anything that offends their delicate moron sensibilities.

imdb method removes any kind of extreme values. Like giving 1's to Lord of the Rings does absolutely nothing, like giving 10 to Biodome (i don't know these statistical terms in english, but i think everybody understand)

In fact i disagree with you. The thing is quite the opposite. Newer movies getting stupid scores. There are older movies which are much more deserving. Dark Night is 6th place in the best movies ever list. Go figure.

Crumbs, I like the opening credits. In fact, I love nearly the entire thing. To my mind it's the best US army film/drama made so far. To those who gave up I say, stick with it. At least until Carentan, then you'll know if you love it or not.

Oh good, you liked it then

I watched Let The Right One In on Saturday - got it on BluRay from the states (it's region free). Mesmerising it was, though why it's being marketed as a horror movie is bizarre - it's more lyrical than that. Definitely one I will be watching again.

I also watched Eagle Eye last night. Um, let me try that again, I watched most of it but gave up as it was seriously shit.

HC and C have watched Twilight no less than three times in the past fortnight, so I think they like that, but I haven't bothered yet - not sure if I will TBH. Not unless MaliA comes around and he's seen all my other chickflicks

You are so made of Wrong you could, in fact, be me.

You've made me want to watch it tonight now, but I'll wait until Joans is back around as he hasn't seen it yet.

Yeah, I saw that.

Well, I fell asleep in the middle of escape from new york, but that is more to do with the fact that I was watching it in bed, and I didn't sleep very well last night, not a reflection on the film.

It works as a comedy. Passing off Liam Neeson - looking more dad-like and befuddled than usual - as a superhuman badass? Priceless.

Edit: Also, the whole notion of wealthy businessmen spending millions of dollars to fuck brain dead drug addicts is too stupid not to be funny.

I'm so glad you've started embracing your extremely high level of wrongitude.

Grizzly Man. Werner Herzog documentary about Timothy Treadwell, a bloke who spent 13 summers living amoung bears in Alaska. Then got eaten by a bear.

Fascinating stuff with some beautiful footage of the Alaskan wilderness in general and bears in particular. The opening scene, with Treadwell talking the camera, describing himself as a "gentle warrior" who's "earned the trust" of the bears and will never be hurt by them leads you to think that he's going to be portrayed as an absolutely colossal wanker, but in fact the film gives a much more nuanced and interesting picture of the man.

Some of the interviews seem weirdly forced, even staged - every time the guy who did the autopsy on what was left of Treadwell's body is on camera for instance, or the scene where Herzog listens to the audio recording of Treadwell's last moments. But that aside, it's a terrific film that I'd thoroughly recommend.

It was a good film that, I guess I felt sorry for him but probably more so for the poor lass who died with him.

ZOMG!!!!

I'm following your example. You are my Wronguru.

Heh @ disappearing Kalmar post.