"Every day holds a new beginning and every hour holds the promise of an Invitation to Love." 

Grindhouse:

Okay I saw this Tuesday, but I didn't get around to reviewing yet. I loved it! Of course it's nothing more than pure entertainment... but what entertainment! This easily beats out all the summer blockbusters of the last ten years (at least). When I first heard about it I wasn't that interested, though I love Tarantino, because it sounded like another From Dusk Till Dawn (a movie I hated). But I knew I'd see it anyway since I see everything by Tarantino. When I read the reviews and found out it wasn't a horror movie exactly I started to get interested, and the awesome screenshots and cool trailers started to get me excited about it. Anwyays about the movie(s) itself: First off the fake trailers were hilarious. I'm not really interested in the films by Rob Zombie and Eli Roth but their trailers were hilarious, especially Zombie's: Werewolf Women of the SS. Rodriguez's Machete was also great... Danny Trejo is awesome. I would really see this is they make it into a real movie. They also did a great job making it seem like you actually watching old movies in an old theater... I could've sworn I wasn't in a multiplex. The grain and lines of the screen were actually effective and not annoying, as well as the "missing reels" gimmick. Planet Terror was terriffic, and really fun. I've rarely had such feelings of joy and excitement at the movies as I got watching these two flicks. There were many hilariously corny lines, and many of the images and action scenes were among the coolest things I've ever seen. Rose McGowan is a goddess (especially with a gun for a leg). I wasn't really crazy about Rodriguez's past work (aside from Sin City), and this is definitely my favorite thing he's done. Surprisingly, I didn't enjoy Tarantino's Death Proof quite as much (though it was by no means a letdown)... it's my least favorite of the films Tarantiino's directed (though that's not saying much since I consider all his other films to be masterpieces. Still it was excellent, and I'm sure I'll see it many times over. It's kind of a car chase movie merged with a slasher flick... hard to describe. If you're a Rosario Dawson fan you should know she doesn't come in 'till the movie's halfway over... it abruptly changes gears at that point. It's hard to talk about without ruining the surprise and excitement of the whole thing, but I'll suffice to say that the dialogue was excellent (though definitely not
Tarantino's best as he claims), the cast great (Kurt Russell, Dawson, and Rose McGowan, again, stand out in particular, though everyone's good), the music's cool as always with Tarantino, and there are two wondefully exhilarating (and long) car chases at the end. It's three years long but every second of it is entertaining. I could watch stuff like this all day, though I didn't like as much as the Kill Bill movies... then again I like very little as much as those two. Makes me wanna go out and watch some real grindhouse movies myself (actually I'm watching a Pam Grier double feature tonight).

I also watched Anchorman last night: very funny, much better than Talladega Nights...

That god damn trailer's more popular than Uncle's Day in a whorehouse!

I just saw Grindhouse, too. I agree totally that the trailers, missing reels etc are  fabulous. There's one pretty long boring part during Death Proof, but it's a good pee break for the 3 hour feature.

Best part: a cheerleader does a little bouncing striptease on a trampoline, then does a split mid air and comes down crotch first on a huge knife.  *Insert  nasty  splitting watermelon foley here*

 It's all reckless, cheesy, bloody fun.  Kill Bill sucked, so I'm glad to see the Tarantino still has it.

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I guess that's been the problem with the double feature bit. Their target audience of young males did not turn out.  I read in Variety that people were leaving the theater at the end of the first feature, not being familiar with the concept of back-to-back films.  The box office was way lower than anticipated.  The film is going to be released as two films in Europe along with the DVD version.  Probably have a boxed set of two as well. 

Susan 

     
“Half a truth is often a great lie.”

Ben Franklin

Moby Dick (1956), dir. by John Huston, screenplay by Ray Bradbury. Gregory Peck plays Ahab by way of Abe Lincoln's beard and hat. I've never read the book, but this film really gets the allegorical aspects across, and there's some great dialog and imagery. The cheesy whale miniatures, rather than spoil the film, create a dreamlike quality that helps draw you into Ahab's feverish obsession.

"Every day holds a new beginning and every hour holds the promise of an Invitation to Love." 

I guess I'm defying my demographic once again. You're talking to a guy who once sat through a double feature of King Kong (2005) and Chronicles of Narnia at the theater. Of course, there was a girl involved...

Casino Royale (2006)

I think they probably should have just bitten the bullet and made this one R-rated. It's definitely not for kids (I mean, ball torture!) and teens and adults would still have flocked to it. But I guess since there's no nekkid people and no one says any naughty words, the violence is just shrugged off by the MPAA. But I'll probably see an R-rated James Bond movie the same day I see an R-rated Batman movie (I think Returns would've qualified pretty easily).

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Just saw 10 Canoes by Rolf de Heer. 

 Not bad.  Not as good as all the hype suggested but ot s bad as I thought from seeing the trailers.  It's a story within a story within a story kind of deal, it moves very slowly and you do have to concentrate on all the character names.  It is mostly narrated and while you can have it in English, I'm pretty sure that would spoil the point of it's being the first full length feature in an Australian-Aboriginal dialect.

On the downside I can't help feelin that the writer has used the "first full length feature in an Australian-Aboriginal dialect" bizzo to nil effect.  It really felt like they were instructing on the life of the tribe.  Fine for a doco but this, I feel, could have been a deep, exploratory (and dare I even say contemporary) look at the aboriginal community, in their own language.  Instead it seemed happy to be a retelling of an old traditional story in their language. 

My friend and I had a chat afterwards and she was stuck on the question of who the audience was intended to be.  It really seemed to be a tool to educate the non-aboriginal in the practices of tribal living NOT as a tool to understand the minds and souls of these people.

As I write, I make myself crankier.  I should remember the up-sides.  Yes, it was a landmark film.  Yes, it looked lovely (other than the parts in B&W, I hate when a film-maker tries to create a documentary feel or an 'old time' feel by using B&W or, even worse, sepia) and the photography was gorgeous.  Yes' the performances were nice enough and it had lovely moments of warm, unexpected humour.

But,

As a landmark film, it was a shallow affair.  It glides along the surface of the narrative with no real insight that one couldn't pick up from an old doco. 

It was fine, but (especially considering Rolf de Heer's track record) it could have been biting satire about contemporary aboriginal life or a dark-as-hell drama about tribal interaction and brutality, all of which were glossed over and left behind in favour of a pretty picture and a nice story.

On second thoughts, don't bother.

I am likely to miss the main event

If I stop to cry or complain again.

So I'll just keep a deliberate pace,

Let the damn breeze dry my face.

"Every day holds a new beginning and every hour holds the promise of an Invitation to Love." 

Inland Empire

Finally saw it. My first time seeing Lynch on the big screen. I thought it was oustanding but Im not going to even try to discuss it till Ive seen it again. 

Mike White is a singular talent!  Haven't seen The Year of the Dog yet because it's not on DVD but look forward to it.

Sorry to say, Chris, we are still not up to speed on Curtains (with it's B&W to simulate an old time feel ) but watched two other films this weekend.  Sophie Scholl: The Final Days and The King of Scotland. We will watch soon, I promise!

Sophie Scholl was not my cup of tea.  Too much time spent sitting in various interrogation rooms.  Dialoque, dialoque, dialogue.  Hey, it's a MOVING picture.  If I wanted to deal with mere words, I'd read the book.  Dramatic story; undramatic film.

 3 Disappointed stars ***

The King of Scotland surpassed my high expectations!  I had anticipated it would be mostly a vehicle for Forest Whitaker but his co-star (actually the star of the film) James McAvoy was fantastic.  The film reminded me in tone of The Year of Living Dangerously, one of my favorites.  I cannot think of a thing I didn't like about it.  Okay.  One thing.  I don't even seriously mean this criticism.  In fact, it would have diminished the film had the director covered the episode beyond the little afterword.  But part of me would have liked to have had that final moment covered -- not just the final moment for the other group.  I won't say any more since there may be some who haven't seen the film yet.  Besides, I'm wrong about that criticism.

5 Hearty stars. *****

Susan 

     
“Half a truth is often a great lie.”

Ben Franklin

Sunshine by Danny Boyle.

Our sun is dying. It's 2056 and a group of astronauts/scientists is sent, in order to save the world, to the sun with a spaceship, Icarus II (the first one failed at the same attempt and vanished tragically into a dead zone)   loaded with a bomb that will be shot inside the leading star of our universe (and of the film) to annihilate an injurious Q ball that generated at the origins of our solar sistem and that will generate a new star out of it in order to make the humans on earth survive from apocalypse. Until now, this seems pure Sci-fi. But the movie is quite remarkable for its psychological portrayal of 8 humans locked for 16 weeks in a huge spaceship. Things, of course, don't go as planned and when one of the crew members makes a mistake, everything is put in jeopardy and everybody basically loses their heads. The movie is produced as a big Hollywood project although no big names are involved in the cast. The images of space and the sun are poetic and astounding. There is a mixture of movie references that go from the inevitable SCi-Fi masterpiece by Kubrick 2001 a space odissey to Andrej Tarkowski's Solaris to Alien. Even though some flaws were inevitable, the film has its own integrity and it can be defined as a  "sci-fi philosophical and pessimistic action drama/thriller". Best performances by Rose Byrne, Chris Evans, Michelle Yeoh, Hiroyuki Sanada and Cillian Murphy as the main character, Robert, a tenace physician.  There is a bunch of really good scenes that just for their visual beauty are to be considered impressive. The finale is a little rushed and too trascendental. I hope there is someone that's seen it and wants to share their opinion with me.

"Did they scoff the whole damn Smörgåsbord?" (Audrey) 

"Gimme a donut!" (Coop)

I saw it, loved it, but it was slightly flawed, though not much. Really blew me away to be honest.  

No, the second is a disaster as well but it eventually succeeds because Cillian Murphy is crazy enough to jump on board of the bomb and release it manually directly towards the sun. I sort of like this not so original idea that on Sci-Fi movies out in the space, the scientists are depicted as crazy people talking "chinese" (hell of an irony, there's three asian people in the movie) that are willing to waste any last drop of humanity in their blood in order to succeed their mission.

Anyway, basically the reason I liked this movie is because I had never seen a cinematography so cool and tripping (the finale is so irrational and a total ravish) in a Sci-Fi outer space movie. Plus, a gory detail never shown before inside this genre, I think: autronaut drifting into space that can't take it no more and opens the suit cape to kill himself (gory stuff).

Alex Garland (as for The Beach and 28 Days Later) is involved in the writing of this movie as well. Guess it's not quite a coincidence.

"Did they scoff the whole damn Smörgåsbord?" (Audrey) 

"Gimme a donut!" (Coop)

Stranger Than Fiction

I really wanted to like this movie. I wanted it to make me feel about Will Ferrell the way The Truman Show made me feel about Jim Carrey. But the difference between Truman and Fiction is that while the former worked by making good use of Carrey's natural energy, this one forces Will to severely dampen his. Basically, this film was way too slow. The laughs were too few for an effective comedy, and the drama just didn't do anything for me.
{Footnote: In a scene at a movie theater, Ferrell watches the film below (specifically the Mr. Creosote scene).}

Monty Python's The Meaning of Life

It may not be the best of the Python films, but it's the one I watch most often, just because there is such a wealth of material here to enjoy. From Gilliam's short film The Crimson Permanent Assurance, to the Every Sperm Is Sacred Busby Berkeley number, to the bizarre Find The Fish sequence at The Middle of the Film, it's a mixed bag that hits more frequently than it misses.

Batman (1989)

A lot of people seem to be confused about this, so let me explain: the upcoming film The Dark Knight is not a remake of this movie. Heath Ledger's potrayal of the Joker will be so different from any screen portrayal we've seen thus far, that comparing it to Nicholson's will be a useless exercise.

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It Happened One Night

First film to win the Academy Award for Best Picture, Actor, Actress, Director and Screenplay.