I meant Saving Private Ryan and The Thin Red Line.
I saw Mrs Carey’s Concert yesterday. It was pretty good and the exerpts from the concert at the end of the movie was amazing.
Here’s a nice, short review:
http://www.themercury.com.au/article/2011/07/19/246721_movie-reviews.html
How about a recommendation for a movie to stay very far away from?
Sat through Bridesmaids last night and can’t really say anything good about it…
Yeah. I have to say that although I’m not a Harry Potter “fan”, I just LOVE Alan Rickman’s interpretation of Snape. Haven’t seen #8 yet.
We’ve been sort of trying for 3 weeks, but most evening performances on weekends are sold out, which is not surprising. What I find totally amazing is that Transformers is also sold out… and it has been out longer.
My neighbor paid “black market tickets” to see HP 8. Crazy. Online booking is still the best choice. Hope it is not as bad for Cowboys and Aliens.
Saw an Aussie flickspeare of The Scottish Play last night.
Immensely watchable especially for Lady M. Wasn’t a fan of soliloquy voice overs, but all in all, a lovely romp of blood and power lusting. HAsn’t lost a beat in 500 years. The American film based on the same play, Men of Respect, was much more fun, but this used the text, so it’s a toss up as to which I prefer.
Castaway on the Moon AKA Kim’s Island (2009) Pretty good Korean film about a failed exec who while attempting suicide gets stranded on an Island int eh middle of a Seoul river, and a ‘shutaway’ girl who watches him with her telescope. Little dialogue, but a cool imaginative story.
An Education (2009) Excellent film, based on a true memoir, about a high school senior seduced by an older man, in the early 60s. Great principal acting and excellent evocation of the era.
Prison on Fire (1987) After Ringo Lam helped usher in the Hong Kong ‘Heroic Bloodshed’ with the excellent ‘City on Fire’, he (or his producers) tried to cash in with more ‘On Fire’ films. I didn’t like ‘School on Fire’,s o I put off seeing this for a long time. So I was very pelased when it turned out to be an excellent film about prison buddies played by Chow Yun-Fat and Tony Leung Kar-Fai.
Tristana (1970) Do I have to hand in my film-snob card when I admit that Bunuel bores the hell out of me. Nor did Catherine Deneuve save this film for me. I barely even remember what it was about.
The Bad and the Beautiful (1952) Very good Vincente Minelli MGM film about a fictional studio head, told via flashbacks narrated by his previous ditrector, writer and leading lady.
I Am Curious, Film (1995) The Scandinavian contribution to the BFI’s ‘Century of Cinema’ series of national/regional cinema documentaries. Not as good as a couple of others in the series, but relatively interesting.
Yes, for all three sins. Plus you didn’t use a question mark or the tilde. You either must have not been sad or you thought the title was “Tristina”. 
Bukowski: Born into This (2002/3)
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Good if you are already a fan of Bukowski. For noobs maybe not so much.
Aside: I didn’t know “Black Sparrow Press” started because of him. I loved their books with the handmade quality/feeling of the covers, artwork, and printing.
Documentary about the underground comix artist Robert Crumb who created “Keep on Truckin’” (yeah, that one) and Fritz the Cat. The film is good but a psych major could write a thesis about this family. wow. Also a must watch for anyone that is a “draw-er or sketch-er”. Unbelievable ability.
In the Realms of the Unreal - The Mystery of Henry Darger (2003/4)
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Head-scratching-shaking. I certainly can’t describe it or his life. But you probably read his 15,145-page, single-spaced fantasy manuscript called “The Story of the Vivian Girls, in What is known as the Realms of the Unreal, of the Glandeco-Angelinnian War Storm, Caused by the Child Slave Rebellion”.
derailroaded (2005)
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Docu about Wild Man Fischer. More than the guy that sang “My name is Larry” on Dr. Demento that you used to listen to on your AM transistor radio hidden under your pillow when you were supposed to be sleeping.
Aside: He died a little more than a month ago. R.I.P.
After those upbeat documentaries I needed to calm myself so I watched -
Winnebago Man (2009)
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Documentary about Jack Rebney. You might not know the name but you probably know him. “The angriest man in the world.” And you think you had a tough day.
Aside: I think he is really sandman’s dad.
[b]The following youtube video is NSFW. It is from the original not from the movie. The documentary was made in response to this.
PROBABLY NOT SAFE FOR WORK BECAUSE OF LANGUAGE.[/b]
All recommended if you want to think and feel. That should keep you busy for a week, citizen k.
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Cheers for the Bukowski documentary. I’m not a huge fan, but have read “Post Office”, “Ham on Rye”, and have just started reading “Notes of a Dirty Old Man”. I love his honesty and unpretentious style of writing.
So, I finally saw Black Swan, last weekend, and True Grit and King’s Speech this weekend.
Black Swan: yes it was fucking intense. bunch of crazy, neurotic lunatics, including the director. Yes it was skillfully made. But, did I enjoy it? Not much. in fact, I almost walked out a few times, because it was too fucking crazy. Not a major award winner in my opinion.
King’s Speech was terrific and definitely outstanding acting, but I was disappointed to learn that it stole all the awards leaving True Grit with nothing. I thought True Grit was awesome. Certainly it should’ve won Best Cinematography and maybe Best Supporting Actor (Mattie was terrific – 14 years old and her first movie 
). Jeff Bridges, too. Well done. :bravo: I really enjoyed that.
I saw 127 Hours several months ago and liked it, sort of, but it didn’t compare with the above two.
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Win Win - 2011
The Sunset Limited - 2011
Two Lane Blacktop - 1971
Black Butterflies - 2011 — Bis and Jimi will relate to this one…
The book version of that film was written when Lynn Barber (the person whose experiences the character in the film was based on) was about sixty five. After the relationship with Simon (the male lead) was over she went on to live quite an adventuresome life. She was one of the people who worked on penthouse magazine when it was first published. There is enough material for a sequel right there. I don’t want to make a spoiler out of this but the book is reasonably good and it only cost 49NT. For some reason the Page One at Taipei 101 is clearing out a bunch of good stuff right now. They might be sold out of that particular one now though. I picked up a couple of others like “The Crazed” by Ha Jin. Nice.
The book version of that film was written when Lynn Barber (the person whose experiences the character in the film was based on) was about sixty five. After the relationship with Simon (the male lead) was over she went on to live quite an adventuresome life. She was one of the people who worked on penthouse magazine when it was first published. There is enough material for a sequel right there. I don’t want to make a spoiler out of this but the book is reasonably good and it only cost 49NT. For some reason the Page One at Taipei 101 is clearing out a bunch of good stuff right now. They might be sold out of that particular one now though. I picked up a couple of others like “The Crazed” by Ha Jin. Nice.[/quote]
Yes. I read up on Wikipedia after watching, and it does sound like she’s got a lot more stories up her sleeve 
Absolutely. She went on to become quite a famous interviewer for a number of quite famous publications (interviewing, of course, famous people) and felt that it was the kind of writing she was born to do. She felt she “had it made” so to speak and then had some really rotten luck on another front.
I’d love to see the cast from the original come back after a few years and give a version of all of the writing carreer stuff. It would be a way to make a sequel that actually carried the story forward. Who in the world wasn’t wondering what would happen to her after she was sent to Oxford at the end of the movie. As it turned out at oxford she worked on the assumption that sleeping with a lot of men was the way to find mister right. One year went through FIFTY of them. Then there was the incident where she introduces a new boyfriend to Simon and the two of them hit it off immediately, lots of stuff like that.
Using flashbacks to the time to when she was given elocution lessons that left her with an accent she can neither live with, nor get rid of, etc. would give context to her drive to be a writer (she said it was the only time she felt like she was using her native language).
There is a ton of material there. Enough for two sequels maybe.
(Oh, you guys might wanna forget the book sale. I came home today with all the goods ones probably: Crazy Heart by Tomas Cobb, Shamne by Salman Rushdie, The Dying Animal by Philip Roth etc…
…and one odd one called “The Void,” a good sized novel with not a single “e” in it. It was written in French with no words containing an “e” and was then translated to English and the English version doesn’t have a single "e’ in it either.
Saw the Smurfs, and I liked it. It is rare to see a cartoon adaptation that works on its own. The kids behind us had a riot and my Taiwanese friend was ROTFLHAO. I found it funny and entertaining plus in HD the 3D effects were mindboggling. I think it is one of those rare kids movies parents can go to see without gfeeling the need to slug a quart of hard liquor in mid projection. Not at a Toy Story level, maybe, but it works.
I also saw Harry Potter 8 recently and that was good too. The only part that made me squimish was the kisses: too much like an orquestrated collision, like having to kiss your disgusting aunt Gertrude if you know what I mean. I could practically hear the director on teh background yelling: one, two, three, now: JUMP! First time it’s happened in a long time. Maybe it is because I still see teh actors as kids.
Rise of the Planet of the Apes. Meh.
I hate movies created by people who think I’m ignorant and need a lesson. Soooo much propaganda against the profit-driven pharmaceutical companies.
Completely ruined the movie for me.
Plot flow/sequencing was also pretty bad.
Graphics were cool, but again, it was like they tried too hard. I could definitely hear the Creative Director screaming at the CGI specialist “MUST SHOW MORE EMOTION IN CHIMPS EYES!!! NOT REALISTIC ENOUGH!!” However, I did appreciate the fact that they didn’t throw monkeys onto the screen by the hundreds for that awe effect. They could’ve, but they showed restraint which is rare.
Hey. I saw Rise of the Planet of the Apes and it was pretty good :bravo: . It had good ideas and wasn’t overdone. People should go see it.
Looks grim, but interesting.
Agreed. I also liked it. 
You’‘l recognize the style, you’ll recoognize the places, you’ll recognize what is really great about this society sometimes. If you picked up the camea bug in Taiwan you will LOVE this movie! Heck, you’’ love it anyway. Great stuff.
Hey, I have an idea. Let’s watch Boogie Nights (again) and see if we can correctly identify which real-life person each character in the movie is a reference to . I think I’ve got most of them down.
Here’s my take on eight movies I’ve happened to see this summer break:
Little Fish
I enjoyed Little Fish, too (I like suffering in my flicks – it replicates life) and I discussed it [url=What are you watching? (Film edition) [2009-2014] - #1101 by ThreadKiller
An Education
Thank God I chose to watch this drama last night, after a slew of sadly-crafted thrillers (see below). The start was a little slow for me, but the acting did blow me away. If you liked Carrey Mulligan in this, then watch Never Let Me Go (discussed here). In An Education, Peter Sarsgaard did a great job of not appearing sleazy in a role that could have easily slipped that way. I enjoyed Olivia Williams as the concerned teacher even more than I did Emma Thompson as the headmistress.
Rise of the Planet of the Apes
It was better than I thought it would be. I assume that a Planet of the Apes movie is going to be a little silly from the outset, though. And it is, and the movie will irk anybody who likes to get wound up about the overuse of CGI. If you’ve seen the original Planet of the Apes movie, you’ll appreciate this addition more than someone who hasn’t. For an origins movie, they had a lot of ground to cover: explaining how humans were almost done in/became the underdog (or under-ape), and how the apes got smart, to the point of speaking. They did - to an extent - successfully present the start to a world change. There’s even a scene with a guard at the primate facility watching the original Planet with Charlton Heston on TV; in other throw-away scenes, there’s background news footage of a space launch and its problems. So, there is some sweet homage to the original. I didn’t come away loving this movie. It’s not my favorite sci-fi. But it did a helluva lot better of a job than Tim Burton’s Planet of the Apes with Mark Wahlberg did. Although I don’t think it’s a good movie (I only liked certain moments), I know it’s going to be a hit.
The Fighter
Speaking of Mark Wahlberg, The Fighter is alright. A biopic that has received a lot of praise and that will certainly appeal to fans of boxing movies. If Rocky is your thing, then watch this for a more nuanced movie. Amy Adams is the love interest and it’s always good to see her doing her thing. Christian Bale is given a meatier role as Wahlberg’s drug-addicted, boxing has-been brother. We’re given some footage of the real brothers at the end to show us how he got the mannerisms down to a T.
So, above are the ones which were either good or alright. Now, for the films I’d like to help you to stay clear of. In the last few months, I’ve watched The Others and The Sixth Sense with students, and have re-watched Identity and Shutter Island for the heck of it - don’t stay clear of these, as I simply mention them to point out that I know that good thrillers and also good supernatural thrillers can be made. But my summer viewing suggests that people have forgotten how to make films like these. Don’t watch:
The Adjustment Bureau
The Adjustment Bureau, with Emily Blunt and Matt Damon. I love Blunt and Damon’s not bad to look at, but the denouement was too similar to that of The Forgotten. Borrrrring. The Matrix without the stunts.
The Rite
The Rite, with Anthony Hopkins. Did we really need another exorcism flick? I really can’t even remember the ending.
Vanishing on 7th Street
Vanishing on 7th Street, with Hayden Christensen, Thandie Newton, and John Leguizamo. Did we need another movie about most of the population being wiped out? The survivors in this one are so irritating that all you can feel is relief when another of the whiners is taken out by the lengthening shadows. Not since M. Night Shayamalan’s The Happening, have I been so transfixed and determined to continue watching simply to see if the movie could get worse. In this regard, the ending did not disappoint.
Shelter
Shelter, with Julianne Moore. It started out intriguingly - is the man she’s asked to observe suffering from possession or from multiple personality disorder? Julianne - of course - plays the skeptic with regards to both possibilities. And then it just descends into absolute tripe. Ever since Magnolia, I have watched every movie that Julianne has appeared in. I understand than an actress might want to take a break and appear in movies with C-grade plots. But, why, why, why, Julianne, did you make me watch this?