What movie did you last watch?

[Voodoo_Queen]

I just met Spongebob, he was in a parade here in Baltimore. If I knew you didn't like his movie, I would have told him about it, I would tell him off, for making a bad movie. Then again, I probably wouldn't, he looked bigger than me.

The last movie I saw was a 1980's French police comedy called "My New Partner". I liked it.

[TeapotScar]

The last movie I saw was eXistenZ.

Don't waste your time. Please- I wasted my time so that I could tell you this... Jude Law's presence in this movie doesn't even make it worth watching. It's a 97 minute film that should be 10 minutes. The multiple, predictable plot twists are feeble attempts at making it interesting, as are the "gross" scenes and completely *forced* "love-plot."

Director: There, we're done... *WAIT*- There's no sex in this story! Insert making out here, here and....*here*. That should be good.

The only use I found for this movie was killing a bug on my wall with the cover.

[AlKilyu]

That is why people should console with me before sitting down to a movie...I could have saved you from this pain.

You people need to rent "May".

[Crane]

I recently sat through the entire three hours of "Salem's Lot." Another King story about some writer where he talks about how to make a story great with other characters, yet the script and the whole concept of the story, itself, was lacking and uninteresting. Depressing small town atmosphere... the need for the antagonists to be invited... felt alot like "Needful Things" in many aspects.

I've got nothing against writers, as I'm one myself, but they generally don't make great center-pieces in a story... ever. I haven't seen it work well once. No exception here. Another thing that was really screwy was that the town wasn't named "Salem's Lot," nor was there any major analogy or metaphore that would tie the name in, ever. Confusing as hell if you didn't read the book, I guess.

[Jane13]

The Godfather (part I and II)... I decided to take a nap during part III :wink: My friends find it just HILARIOUS when I'm trying my hardest to be intimidating and all I can come up with is Godfather mafia threats... :x

[secretboy]

Saw "Alexander" and fucking loved it.

Your mileage may vary. I liked that it didn't shy away from Alexander the Great's flaws. It missed a lot of the historical story, but kinda had to.

It itself is a flawed movie in some ways (long, loud music, confusing battle scenes, etc.) but it hit me at a pretty core level.

And made me think -- jeez. Alexander conquered half the world and then died a few months from my age. I should get my ass in gear and start taking over nations.

I think I'll start with Costa Rica.

[Jane13]

Originally Posted by secretboy

And made me think -- jeez. Alexander conquered half the world and then died a few months from my age. I should get my ass in gear and start taking over nations.

I think I've said this about a thousand times, but I'm taller than Gengiz Khan, but shorter than Napolean. Why is it short men in history seem to have such giant egos?

[secretboy]

Originally Posted by Jane13

I think I've said this about a thousand times, but I'm taller than Gengiz Khan, but shorter than Napolean. Why is it short men in history seem to have such giant egos?

Dunno.

I'm 6'7" - have wrestled with self-criticism all my life, and all these short guys in nightclubs always try to start fights with me.

After a while, it just gets tedious.

[TeapotScar]

Donnie Darko (Tuesday)
Dr. Strangelove (Wednesday)
A Clockwork Orange (Wednesday)
Nightmare on Elm Street 4 (Thursday, Friday)
Saved (Saturday, Sunday)
Elf (Thursday)
SpyHard (Saturday)
The Dangerous Lives of Altar Boys (Thursday)
Eternal Sunshine the Spotless Mind (Wendesday
Passion of the Jew (Saturday)
Ghost (Saturday)
edit: Conspiracy Theory (Saturday)

Donnie Darko- obviously awesome.
Dr. Strangelove- not all it's cracked up to be
A Clockwork Orange- awesome. obviously.
Nightmare on Elm Street 4- *obviously* *awesome*
Saved- not-so-obviously *awesome*
Elf- sucked. suck suck suck.
SpyHard- not as good as it was when I was in 5th grade.
The Dangerous Lives of Altar Boys- awesome
Eternal Sunshine the Spotless Mind- not all it's cracked up to be
Passion of the Jew- not all it's cracked up to be
Ghost- sucked, but it was funny.
edit: Conspiracy Theory- I really loved it.

[mlwlildevil]

Dragonheart ,well the second half, I turned on the TV at least half way through...I wish I had watched the first half even though I've seen the first half ...do you think I said the word 'half' enough in this?

nope, me neither
half half half half half half half
hmm one more time!

half

yeah ok I'm good now....

~mellow's better half~
and
~mellow's worse half~

[Jane13]

Teapot, I just saw Saved as well. It was hillarious! The Jewish girl reminded me of a few of my friends. *please let it be cancer!*

[Granny-like_the_apple]

Originally Posted by TeapotScar

Donnie Darko (Tuesday)
Dr. Strangelove (Wednesday)
A Clockwork Orange (Wednesday)
Nightmare on Elm Street 4 (Thursday, Friday)
Saved (Saturday, Sunday)
Elf (Thursday)
SpyHard (Saturday)
The Dangerous Lives of Altar Boys (Thursday)
Eternal Sunshine the Spotless Mind (Wendesday
Passion of the Jew (Saturday)
Ghost (Saturday)
edit: Conspiracy Theory (Saturday)

Donnie Darko- obviously awesome.
Dr. Strangelove- not all it's cracked up to be
A Clockwork Orange- awesome. obviously.
Nightmare on Elm Street 4- *obviously* *awesome*
Saved- not-so-obviously *awesome*
Elf- sucked. suck suck suck.
SpyHard- not as good as it was when I was in 5th grade.
The Dangerous Lives of Altar Boys- awesome
Eternal Sunshine the Spotless Mind- not all it's cracked up to be
Passion of the Jew- not all it's cracked up to be
Ghost- sucked, but it was funny.
edit: Conspiracy Theory- I really loved it.

Ditto all that, with a few changes-fell asleep in Spy Hard, mostly b/c I've seen the Naked Gun movies so many times, slept through the first half of Conspiracy Theory but would have loved to mock that half too, saw Chocolat and Monty Python and the Holy Grail-Chocolat sucks but Johnny Depp is hot, and Holy Grail is starting to lose its luster hardcore. Hate the ending, always have.

Tea and I decided that people need souls to enjoy Elf, and that's why we had to turn it off.

Oh, and I think Eternal Sunshine is cool. The ending, not so hot. Endings in general, not so hot.

[edible_eye]

passion of the christ.

i agree with teapot - not all it's cracked up to be. if you're a fanatic about god or jesus, i could understand the hype - but for someone just looking to watch a poignant film... nope.

[Granny-like_the_apple]

Originally Posted by edible_eye

passion of the christ.

i agree with teapot - not all it's cracked up to be. if you're a fanatic about god or jesus, i could understand the hype - but for someone just looking to watch a poignant film... nope.

Nah, Passion of the Jew-the South Park episode. Technically it's not a movie, but stupid me thought it was going to be great and bought the dvd, which at least had two way better episodes with it. But wow, did my expectations turn to shit on that one.

I'm with you on the real movie-watching someone be tortured for two hours doesn't sound like quality entertainment to me. But then again, I'm not a Christian.

[Loy]

"Alexander"-I was about to write a review for you guys (and dreading the thought of thinking about that film again), but my buddy Brad actually wrote one that say pretty much everything I was going to say. And yes, I agree with him 100%

"The last Oliver Stone film, Any Given Sunday, was a near-three-hour opus about clashing armies, brazen young men, and tight ends. His new film, Alexander, is a near-three-hour opus about clashing armies, brazen young men, and tight ends. The difference between the two? Any Given Sunday was about the brutality of football; Alexander is about the brutality of bad filmmaking.

It's also about homos--specifically, those who like a little manly caressing after the heat of battle. But while "queer cinema" is usually just another way of saying "terrible cinema" due to Hollywood sanitization or indie navel gazing, the gayness of Alexander is often its most vital ingredient. Without the glitter, Stone's biopic of Alexander the Great is something far more offensive than man lying with man: It's completely unremarkable.

Colin Farrell is the man of the title. His bottom? His closest comrade, Hephaistion (Jared Leto), in whose eyes Alexander apparently found much of his soul. Together, both men make for an absurdly pretty pair, and as Alexander unspooled I had hopes that Stone, who has never been known for his subtlety, would nudge the drama toward the kingdom of Jeff Stryker: gay hardcore--the only possible way to save this film. There is much President Bush and his cronies undoubtedly admire about Alexander the Great; I wanted Stone to loudly broadcast the parts they can't even bring themselves to admit.

But he doesn't. Instead, he keeps things painfully chaste between Alexander and Hephaistion (save for some googly eyes and pillow talk about avenging each other's deaths--swoon!), thereby consigning the majority of Alexander to its own dusty devices. And, to be honest, if you've seen one sword-and-sandals epic, you've seen them all--from Charlton Heston watching stuntmen get trampled to Brad Pitt taking a digital arrow through the ankle. Stone's film, despite its hefty budget, does little to expand the genre. Alexander exposes the fatal flaw of biopics: Interesting lives, those worthy of the biopic treatment, are usually far too burly to be contained in a single film. The best biopics--David Lean's Lawrence of Arabia, Spike Lee's Malcolm X--are able to flesh out and smartly condense at the same time. Alexander, under Stone's thundering direction, reduces matters to the depth of CliffsNotes. It's a stuffed turkey, heavily garnished but painfully unsatisfying.

This is not to say that there aren't some startling moments; Stone may be a hack, but he's never been an entirely dull one. Take the battle scenes: Suitably chaotic, infused with brutality, they are earth- and heaven-bound at the same time, alternating from frightening grit to sweeping splendor in the breath of a single edit. Computer-enhanced shots of armies colliding may have long since become cliché, but when Stone plummets his camera into the thick of things you realize that, despite how terrible his canon may be (and every Oliver Stone film is terrible when you get down to it--even Platoon), the old man does, indeed, have talent. Of all of Stone's films, JFK is by far his most accomplished, and the reason for this is clear: Buried deep below the conspiratorial sleaze is a technical skill that can't be denied. During its scenes of carnage, Alexander nearly matches its predecessor's breakneck tempo. Not since Kill Bill: Vol. 1 have so many limbs been lost onscreen--unlike Tarantino's brilliant fit, however, Stone's work makes violence seem beautiful and terrible at the same time. He can still make war into a gorgeous hell.

Outside of warfare, however, the rest of Alexander fails. It's a suitable failure, though--as in, suitably grand for its subject. Alexander the Great was a man who conquered the world by the age of 25; how fitting, then, that the life of such a sizeable figure could be turned into such a colossal blunder. Big lives necessitate big renditions, even if it's a gigantic fuck-up-- otherwise, what's the point of the endeavor? Perhaps Stone himself realized this. How else can you explain his casting of Angelina Jolie as Olympias, Alexander's mother? Thick of lips, thin of talent, Jolie is far too modern for the role, especially when sparring with the likes of Val Kilmer, whose rendition of Alexander's father, Philip, is yet another lap around the lip of the Jim Morrison dustbin. Typecasting has long stunted careers, but for Kilmer, the Lizard King has been a ridiculously perfect fit. Whether Kilmer's performance forever altered him or he really is that thickheaded is an argument for another time--what matters now is that his spin as Philip is often unwatchable. But here's the punch line: He's by far the best thing in the picture.

Any film about such a figure as Alexander the Great lives and dies by its casting, and in Colin Farrell--who was so brilliant in Tigerland and, especially, that other Joel Schumacher travesty, Phone Booth--Stone may have felt that he'd found the perfect fit. That he didn't is perhaps Alexander's biggest fault, for not only did Stone do a great figure a great injustice, but for the first time he's made Farrell appear mortal. There is but one moment when Farrell is allowed to fully breathe in the film, a moment where he beautifully sighs to Hephaistion about his untrustworthy mother, "It's a high ransom she charges for nine months' rooming in the womb." The rest is pure drowning, and it's a tragedy to watch. Say what you want about Braveheart (and there is indeed much to say, beginning with, "It's a piece of shit"), but during the scenes where Mel Gibson rallies his troops, his delivery is so forceful that you never doubt his followers' commitment to him. Farrell, sadly, can muster no such power--either on the battlefield or in the theater. Good directors build a foundation for their actors; Stone has given Farrell a crumbling house. How do you make someone like Alexander the Great into a square? Call Ollie and ask him--he surely has volumes of notes on the matter."

[Deadhymn]

on a lighter note....

Shrek 2 is awesome.

[Jane13]

:oops: Rudolf The Red-Nosed Reindear :oops:
:oops: "Why am I such a misfit?
I am not just a misfit!
They can't fire me, I quit!
Why don't I fit in?" :oops:

[FenrisQueen]

hmmm.... I know this is bordering on cliche, but I saw Gypsy 83, and actually liked, mostly cause it has like softcore straight and gay porn...both yummy... and after that I saw Edge of Seventeen, and I was like freaking crying I was laughing so hard, because i had no idea they were done by the same guy and set in the same town. Damn, I'm good. And Kett Turton was hot. He had the retro Robert Smith thing going on, and he was working it.Damn, I love a good gay role.

[Hunter]

Edward Scissorhands lol, what can I say, Johnny Depp is seriously sexy.

[Jane13]

I think that was his best role, hunter, though he has a lot of good ones...

Anyway, I just saw "Blood Drive". Fangoria magazine had a contest for short horror films, and this is a dvd of the winners. I think it's worth taking a look.

[Loy]

A few I've watched/rewatched recently

"Big Trouble In Little China"-"Look, all I know is that I'm driving, and I drove over or through this LoPan guy, and he walks away like it's nothing!"

Fury-Most people think of Brian DePalma as being a great director because he was friends with the 70's Movie Brats (Scorcese, Spielberg, etc). However, this is wrong-DePalma's movies are crap, and don't believe anything else. However, this doesn't mean that all of his films aren't fun to watch ("Scarface", "The Untouchables"), or that there aren't moments of brilliance ("Sisters", "Dressed To Kill").....I'd never seen "The Fury" before, and am not sure what I think about a shirtless Kirk Douglas raging onscreen for most of a film, but I do know that DePalma's films aren't so bad when he's ripping off somebody other than Hitchcock. Plus, I think this is the only film with "Exploding Cassavetes", but I could be wrong.

"Dig"-A documentary about the rivalry between the Brian Jonestown Massacre and the Dandy Warhols. The doc shows the preening ego clashes, the backstage drama, and the cycle that any band has to go through. What the doc doesn't do, though, is convince me that neither band sucks (which, by the way, they do), and because of this little problem, I couldn't give a shit less about them...I think I just handed in my "hipster" card.

"Merchant Of Four Seasons"-Rainer Werner Fassbinder was one of the greatest directors ever. He made over 40 films (along with numerous stage plays, radio shorts, and TV shows...aside from the occasional acting gig in other peoples films) in a period of 13 years before they found his bloated, burnt out husk. Why don't you know his works? I don't know. All I can say is that it's your fault if you don't, since his stuff's been getting remastered and released on DVD on a fairly constant basis. "Merchants" is about a returning soldier whose return is unwelcome by his family. He tries to make a better life, but his lack of intellect, combined with his illusions of how life should be, conspire to prevent this from happening. Fassbinders films wouldn't exactly be confused with "happy", but his films, inside all the artifice (his films tend to be a weird alagm of Brecht and Sirk), contain a bitter truth that's stunning. And we're just as slack-jawed as the group who, at the end, just sit there and watch the protagonist (literally) drinks himself to death.

[AlKilyu]

Originally Posted by Loy

A few I've watched/rewatched recently

"Big Trouble In Little China"-"Look, all I know is that I'm driving, and I drove over or through this LoPan guy, and he walks away like it's nothing!"

Loy...this is the greatest cinematic piece ever.


How do ya do ma'm? Henry Swanson's my name, and excitement's my game!

[AlKilyu]

Friday we (Manimal, EPS and I) watched Assault On Precinct 13. I liked it alot, I thought it was a great movie. The soundtrack, as is the case with most John Carpenter films, ruled.

Saturday night we watched The Thing.

*sigh*

I love that movie. One of the best horror movies ever. Pure genius. EPS got to see it for the first time, and like all of us, marveled at how great the special effects were before CGI. It's overused now and just makes your eyes roll. This flick, man...the gore and creatures in this should have won an Academy Award.

[Hunter]

Amelie, the soundtrack rocks in it's old fashionedness, the storyline's beautiful, it has just enough lack of reality to be curious, and it has Audrey Tautou to draw me away from the subtitles so that I have very little idea of what's being said.

[drinnen]

Liquid Sky -- Anne is perfect in both roles.