I saw Public Enemies the other night. I was mostly confused, bored, and disinterested by it.
5/10
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I saw Public Enemies the other night. I was mostly confused, bored, and disinterested by it.
5/10
Now that I've discovered just how easy it is to watch netflix movies on my computer, I've gone a little nuts. This weekend alone I watched 4 movies. The first was The Rage in Placid Lake which was a fun little Australian movie, I would give it about 8 out of 10 stars. The second was The Other Side of Sunday, a Norwegian film about growing pains of a young girl who's father is the pastor of a very conservative church. Even though my experience was wildly different from her's, I still felt a slight kinship with her being a pastor's daughter myself. The acting was excellent, the story line was griping but the lighting was frustrating because it was always dark, even in the middle of the day with the sky clearly blue. That is a 8/10 as well, it would've been a 9 if I could've actually seen what was going on with any certainty. :p The last two are both Chinese movies, the first one was King of Masks about a street performer in the very traditional art of bian lian. He is widowed with no children. Tradition dictates that he can only pass on the secrets of his art to a male heir, which he does not have, so he tries to "buy" one on the black market but it turns out the 'boy' he bought is actually a girl. Again, the acting was wonderful and it explored some really thought provoking themes. The ending was a little sappy but that doesn't mean it didn't still make me cry a little. :blush: I loved the scenes with the mask changing and it had a few scenes from Sichuan opera which is always bizarre yet fascinating. Another 8/10. The last movie was Tuya's Marriage which took place in Mongolia. A woman with a disabled husband divorces him, with his 'permission' and looks to remarry so she will have help on her farm. It was an incredibly complex look into the culture and relationships, like the landscape it was bleak and sparse and out of the 4, it was my favorite, 9/10
Avatar - 10/10 - I wasn't looking forward to this movie. I mainly saw this to prove how good it WASNT. No amount of bias can bring this visual triumph down. And no, it's not because the visual triumph is such a spectacle, it's because it is paired with a story that is surprisingly amazing.
This movie does everything you would dislike in a movie. It's filled to the brim with special effects, it's about 75 percent animation, the last 1/3 of the movie is one long action sequence. These are things which one could normally safely say ruin just about any movie. James Cameron proves that he is the exception to the rule. So much intricacy is put on developing the story, that by the time the action rolls around, you're praising god that it's there. This movie is the 'Ben-Hur' or 'Jaws' of our era. This film does things with motion that I did not know were possible. Okay, James Cameron, after months of thinking this was a TERRIBLE concept for a film (with a story that from the trailer seems pretty wishy-washy) you've proven me wrong. I should have expected this.
EDIT: One other point. This is the only movie I've ever seen in 3d where the 3d enriched the experienced. I have been adamant that 3D ruins the viewing experience, that it is distracting, that it really has no place in cinema (and 99.999999 of the time I'm right). To this and all points, Cameron, Touche.
Thanks for the King of Mask recommend.Quote:
Originally Posted by Idril
I'm going to see Avatar for the same reason. I have no doubt that the new technology is revolutionary, but I'm so tired of the "going-native" genre. I'd rather see a revolution in narrative. CGI, of any sort, doesn't impress me. Herzog trying to get a ship over a mountain, Buster Keaton and the Vertigo effect is very impressive. There's no magic to CGI. We know the trick: it was done on computer.Quote:
Originally Posted by Mathor
I couldn't agree with you more on all of those points. CGI ruins most movies because you begin to believe what is going on in the movie, begin to get sucked in, and then you see a CG explosion or a CG monster or a CG Spiderman mixed in with all the real shots and it sets up a bit of disbelief in the viewer. You say to yourself "that is not real". Avatar finds a way to do it that works. After seeing it, i'm very mad at the production companies for how they made all of the trailers of Avatar. It makes the movie look very stupid. The movie you are going to expect to see is certainly not the movie you will be seeing, that's the only thing I can guarantee you.Quote:
Originally Posted by NickAdams
I totally agree, and I love films like LOTR or Avatar, but seeing Buster Keaton do the real thing is truly astonishing. Hell the greatest thing about Buster besides the fact that he is one of the best and funniest actors who ever lived, he's without a doubt the greatest stuntman. It is enthralling to see what he does; fall off of a twirling house, jump onto a moving car, have a frickin' house fall on him, and all with a straight face.Quote:
Originally Posted by NickAdams
It's all too bad that directors no longer take very many risks when all they have to do is add CGI. What would've a film like Fitzcarraldo become if it was done with CGI?
Anyway, I've been watching a lot of silent films recently, most notably that of Buster Keaton, Eisenstein and Murnau, because I'm busy and tired I'll only provide my unusually brief reviews.
October - Upon second viewing I still contend that though Battleship Potemkin is more iconic and powerful, but October is far more visually poetic and complex. With less a clear narrative than Battleship Potemkin, October seems to become a series of images which intigrate into a propigandist recreation of the October revolution in Soviet Russia. There are some indescribably effective edits/shots in this film, such as when a machine gun is fired into a crowd and Eisenstein shows a hyper-fast back-and-forth edit between the machine gun and the gunman. There are many immensely effective montages like that in this film, all of which are technically astonishing. But October, like Potemkin, fails to really captivate its audience on an emotional level which spans beyond its visual poetry. It is admittingly tedious and overdone at times, making Potemkin the more dense and structured of the two, but the flawless technique is too irresitable to dislike as a film-lover. 9/10
Sherlock Jr. - What can I say? I love Buster Keaton. Whatever he does, he can do anything and I will be thrilled and awed by it. A simple facial gesture or expression of his is equal to an entire performance from a lesser actor. This film is one of the most surreal of his I've seen with its modernistic non-linear narrative and hilariously weird moments. The directing is filled with eager vitality and excitment and the stunts are unsuprisingly stunning. 10/10
The Last Laugh - Beautifully moving performance by Emil Jannings in Murnau's technically influencial melodrama which is truly silent for it lacks any title cards. Each shot of Murnau's directing is something of a beautiful epiphany, infinitely inspired. I was most shocked to see in a dream-sequence handheld camera work done quite flawlessly (this was made in 1924 mind you). The story and character is deeply deeply moving but then flushes itself down the toliet in the final ten minutes. My advice would be to walk out of the theater ten minutes before it ends and you would have seen a great heartbreaking film. 8/10
The Man with the Movie Camera - Ideally experimental work from Soviet director Vertov who creates a film of pure cinema in this non-narrative masterpiece of cinematography and editing. 10/10
EDIT: Btw, ALL of the above films can be found for free at google video :D
Lol, those moments in Spider-man are overshadowed by the instances in the Matrix sequels.Quote:
Originally Posted by Mathor
Thanks. No matter how much I'm against a movie, I'd rather end up enjoying it than have my criticisms validated. There was another movie, I don't remember which, that I was dragged to this year and I was surprised that the tone was totally different than how the trailer portrayed it. I wonder how many good films I have missed because of that. I'm hoping that, with the internet, more films will start posting the first ten minutes rather than continuing with trailers.
My younger brother called me recently to help him with an essay on The Prestige, so I watched it again and it's interesting how the movie can work as a metaphor for two types of directors. You have Angier "The Great Danton" (Michael Bay) and Bordon "The Professor" (Herzog). The Great Danton can stand for any commercial director or abuser of CGI (those who believe that they're an auteur just becuase they are credited as the director).Quote:
Originally Posted by DanielBenoit
You can even draw a comparison of how Hollywood exploits the independent creations: Bordon creates a trick called the Transported Man and Angier copies the trick, but commercializes it.
I know, I can't stand how some special effects directors somehow see themselves as autuers when there is almost nothing unique about them. Sure Michael Bay's trademark is that of helecopters on the horizez and Peter Jackson does have a tendency to provide many close-ups in slow-motion, but that does not mean that they are autuers in the sense that Tarantino or Korine are. Besides, the real authors behind most of the work is the special effects people, they're the real minds behind these films.Quote:
Originally Posted by NickAdams
Up
Loved it! 10/10
Omfg I'm so excited! One of the very few French New Wave masters still alive, the great Jean Luc-Godard shall release a new film called Socialisme. Here's the trailer http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZhqOF...eature=related
EDIT: It has been reported to be his last!!!!! BIG news here!
Ooops, wrong thread :blush:
The Hangover - Kinda dopey with a few funny parts thrown in, 7/10.
We have rented the DVD here...I haven't watched it yet but I was going to.Quote:
Originally Posted by papayahed
Spun: I've seen this before but I'm watching it again. Britney Murphy is in it and as we all know, she died and the thread about it was locked. But anyway, this movie is just crazy. It's about these people who are on Crystal Meth and it's revolting but I couldn't stop watching... I give it a 9/10.
Oh, and since I couldn't post this in the Britney Murphy thread, I just wanted to recommend The Dead Girl. I think Britney Murphy did have talent...you just have to look beyond the tasteless Maxim photos there.
The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus
I'm not really sure how to rate it.
Most of the reviews I've read have praised Ledger's performance and cringed at the story. I found Ledger's performance uneven with moments of nice casual humor, but the praise comes from his death and not what's put on screen. There is more of Ledger than the reports led me to believe. Out of the three actors that volunteered to complete Tony's story, Colin Ferrell , Jude Law and Johnny Depp: Johnny Depp is the only one that is consistent with what has come before.
I found Lily Cole's performance flat, Tom Waits' odd, Andrew Garfield's promising and Verne Troyer is surprisingly funny as a George Costanza type.
There are some great looking set pieces. Terry Gilliam blends the real and fantastic, something that he has done before and better in pictures like The Fisher King.
If I were to recommend this film it would be for Christopher Plummer as Doctor Parnassus and the very interesting take on his relationship with Mr. Nick.