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

"Gimme a donut!" (Coop)

Has anyone, except me, seen Romance and Cigarettes by John Turturro?

I found it good and funny, also melancholic, and Mandy Moore struck me with surprise with that performance. She didn' look like the pop star she normally is. Anyway, the best performances of the movie are Sarandon's, Winslet's, Gandolfini's and Buscemi's.

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

"Gimme a donut!" (Coop)

Thanks for the reminder about John Turturro's film, I'll have to check that out. I think it is safe to say that Barton Fink is my and Susan's favorite Coens film.

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

Did I tell you how much we respect writers here at Capital Pictures, Fink? 

Tee hee, I won't start the quotes either since I'll probably get them wrong, but yes, Barton Fink is my favorite Coen Brothers though I stopped after The Man Who Wasn't There and Oh Brother. 

Friday night's Netflix was a treat!  "In a Lonely Place" - a film I'd never heard of before.  Humphrey Bogart as a down on his luck Hollywood screenwriter (hmmm, is there a pattern emerging here...) directed by Nicholas "Rebel Without a Cause" Ray.  B&W 1950 and what a wonderful period piece.  A whodunnit without much concern for whodunnit.  Bogart at his best.  Oh and there's an armless Venus that looks oddly familiar. 

Five stars!

Susan 

     
“Half a truth is often a great lie.”

Ben Franklin

Close Encounters of the Third Kind - Still one of my favorite films by Steven Speilberg....I'll wait for someone to slam this film (well, I'm still watching it)before I go in depth...Richard Dreyfuss is great and proved at this early date he could carry a film on his own after his success with Jaws. If I am not mistaken The Goodbye Girl came out around this time too...

coming attractions (I went a little nutty on E-bay since I haven't bought any movies for a while!)

Touch of Evil by Orson Welles...the new special edition of Double Indemnity that came out last month...and a Billy Wilder set that includes the special editions of Stalag 17, Sunset Boulevard and Sabrina...and I finally purchased V For Venetta...    

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

Seabiscuit - how can you not love this movie? Although I'm sure someone will debunk that theory. Great acting by the trio of Cooper, Bridges and Macguire...great script and dammit, this movie just makes me feel really, really good every time I watch it...now I am gonna watch a little Blood Simple

"I ain't no marriage counselor [Let's put a stop that rumor, right now]".

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

I never got to find the dvd, here in Italy Seabiscuit has really come out unannounced and it was a flop. But I was lured to go and see it by myself. Is it really worth it?!

Anyway, the last film I saw was Hostel.

I liked it enough and was impressed with how the director tricks us a-la-Hitchcock (see Psycho) killing the person you think is the main character and suddenly the narrative point of view changes being transfered to a less likeable character. The effects are disgusting, some made me laugh with nervousness and others just made me wanna puke. Two were just Kill Bill's rip-offs though, so not that original.

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

"Gimme a donut!" (Coop)

Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me! I'd only seen this once before about a year ago, on VHS (I usually avoid VHS now but my dad owned it). I disliked it the first time, though I thought it was hypnotically watchable. I didn't think it captured the show's feel or humor and was just randomly weird. This was before I'd seen season 2 (I already knew who the killer was though). I impulsively bought it on DVD and watched it last night. This time around I thought it was brilliant. Sheryl Lee was great and it actually captured the feel of season one episodes most of the time (I don't know I didn't think it did before). Also the first half hour was very funny (especially Harry Dean Stanton). It's really only for Twin Peaks fans (everyone else will just be confused), and I do wish it had some more humor and more of the series' regulars, but it really summed up all (well, most) of the elements of the show brilliantly. The true TP finale.

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

     
“Half a truth is often a great lie.”

Ben Franklin

Syriana

Hey, have you heard about this oil thing? As in "we are running out of oil"-- that thing? Yeah, well, apparently it's a real big issue right now. This guy even made a movie about it.
Oh, yeah, it was pretty well done. The screenplay did a good job of handling multiple storylines, and the performances were convincing. Uh-huh, even Matt Damon's.

The Royal Tenenbaums

A funny and powerful ending trailing 90 minutes of hit-or-miss tragi-comedy. Didn't care for it too much the first time I saw it, but Life Aquatic encouraged me to reevaluate. I'm still not that impressed by its "quirkiness", but it has its moments.

Logic Hat Online- logichat.org

Children of Men

Awesome. Really blew me away this did. I highly recommend all go to see it. 

The Golden door (Nuovomondo "new world") by Emanuele Crialese.

The italian movie that won the silver lion revelation this year at the Venice film festival. Although the story is simple, it's told through a very moving and symbolic style and a visonary taste.  It's about the Mancusos, an italian poor family of countrymen living on top of very high and rocky mountains, that leaves Sicily during the first years of 1900 and gets on a ship to America with millions of other immigrants, with a lot of dreams and expectations. They spend four weeks mainly in the steerage. Salvatore, the breadwinner, falls in love with Lucy (Charlotte Gainsbourg) an english aristocrat in decay that needs to marry someone on the boat to get in the american territory as soon as they will get on Ellis island. The mother of Salvatore, Donna Fortunata, is weak-minded though. In Italy she made her living as a very spiritual, sensitive and superstitious medicine woman and as soon as the navy stuff go through with their inspections they find her extremely reluctant and narrow-minded... While Pietro, the youngest son of Salvatore, seems to be mute so the examinations are really difficult to him. All the ladies on the ship are to be wed to other gentlemen in order to get in the New world. The problem is that the italian young ladies feel very uncomfortable as soon as they realize their husbands are very much older. Salvatore and Lucy get married even though we discover he's never been able to write or read and this, of course, is an enormous block. At the final sentence, we don't get to know if the Mancuso will manage to pass the Golden door and live in America because Donna Fortunata is judged as a weak minded woman and the navy wants her to repatriate. Her family is then put in front of a decision we will not know the resolution of... The film is dramatic and very poetic. The realistic chapters are spaced out with Salvatore's reveries about America - we see the harvesting of giant vegetables, trees that grow money instead of fruits and lastly, the most striking image of the film that returns also in the dreamy finale, a river (actually a see) of milk where all the italian and the other immigrants - including the Mancusos and Lucy - can swim. These are what they think about America from the tales they've been told about the "land of opportunities".  The soundtrack (and I'm not referring only to the music, but also the noises) is wonderful and hypnotic, it haunts you.  This movie could possibly end up in the Oscar category of foreign films this year.

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

"Gimme a donut!" (Coop)

I will watch Children of Men (looking forward to it) once it gets released here round Christmas time...I was very impressed with the trailer. And Clive Owen impresses me more with each performance (he was the only thing that kept me watching both Derailed and Closer) otherwise I never would have made it through either film.

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

Alice - By Jan Svankmajer - I finally saw this film! This version of the story,shot mostly in stop-animation was very good. 

A little creepy, but way better than disney cartoon. Svankmajer has become one my recent favorites. I suggest

you seek out any of his films.  

twitter/ josephallenart 

josephallenart.com 

I went with OSD to see The Illusionist the other night, and was very happy with it.  The ending was sort of cheese-ball, and unfortunate at that, but the rest of the movie leading up to the last couple of minutes is great.  There's a lot of weird allusions to political dissent, and to obsession, but the essential greatness is just that magic is fascinating.  well worth it.

-cg

CRANK - I thought it was great.  I liked the way it was directed.  It was kind of like being in a video game.

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

Claude Rains was great, Smokey!  I caught only a few moments of a Claude Rains/Fay Wray film (yes, she made other films besides King Kong) the other day.  I didn't watch for long because I'd like to see the whole thing from the beginning.  But I was intriqued by "The Clairvoyant."  Anyone ever see it?

Susan 

     
“Half a truth is often a great lie.”

Ben Franklin

Smokey, I think you will love The Ice Storm. 

I just watched Star Wars Episode III (we'll not go there) and Hard Candy, which was not the (feminist) movie I expected from reviews.  So I was pleased. 

Hehehe...I have seen The Ice Storm a few times...it's my favorite Ang Lee film, yes even over Crouching Tiger and Brokeback...right now, I am 2 discs into season 6 of Homicide...I recall not watching all of this season, because I was wary of the new cast members, although I do remember liking Jon Seda from the start in a regular roll...I am hoping that Billy Wilder 3 pack will arrive today (Stalag 17/Sunset Boulevard/Sabrina). Kidna gives new meaning to the 3 S's, huh?

one more thing: One cool thing about the Homicide seasons on DVD, they show the episodes in the order the producers wanted them shown instead of what the network wanted, therefore "The Subway" is the last episode on the 1st disc. Excellent episode starring Vincent D' Onofrio as a man trapped between a subway and platform and Pembleton (Andre Braugher) spends most of the episode talking to him, because they both now the chances of him suriving are very low.     

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

D'oh, I knew that from our Brokeback Mtn conversations, sorry.  It's the only one I like, but I like it a lot.  I like to watch it around Thanksgiving.

I just finished I Am a Sex Addict, which made me laugh and choke back tears. Caveh Zahedi is refreshingly honest.  I love his little monologue in Waking Life, too.

How appropriate, watching The Ice Storm around Thanksgiving, that's kinda cool...

Double Indemnity - The one disc, two-disc special edition...the reason for this is the second disc contains the 70's TV remake starring Richard Crenna. I mean, when am I ever gonna watch that, huh? Otherwise, it was great watching this classic film again, one, that if I picked a top 20, would be in the 10-20 range. The most classic of film noir, which started Barbara Stanwyck on the way to be the queen of film noir and type-against cast Fred MacMurray in one of his best roles and Edward G. Robinson in an outstanding supporting role. The voice-over first person narration and storyline which would be copied by many films later on, tells the story of a man's down fall summed up in the phrase "I did it for money and a woman. I didn't get the money and I didn't get the woman." Don't want to give any spoilers for those who haven't seen it. The edition is worth buying, regardless of the useless second disc, a nice documentary is included and 2 commentary tracks. Good stuff all around.

Started watching some Moonlighting season 1 (which was only 6 episodes counting the pilot), too. Nice set for this series as well.

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