Thanks for the links, Booth...I didn't know Lee J. Cobb played Edward G. Robinson's part in the remake. I always like Lee's work especially in 12 Angry Men and On The Waterfront...the URL for the second site made me want to pull out my Eurythmics soundtrack for 1984 ;). I am gonna watch V for Vendetta before I go to work today...more later...I should be a little more grounded on this second viewing since I was kinda taken aback seeing it on IMAX the first time.

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

I suspected that the reason my other DVDs wouldn't hang around with my copy of Double Indemnity was because its annoying younger brother was always tagging along.  Now I have further evidence.  (I couldn't bring myself to put disc 2 in the player.)

Watched Double Indemnity a couple weeks ago myself, I love Fred MacMurray in Wilder's films, he's such a good tough guy and/or assh*le (as in The Apartment) but that rep is overshadowed by his work in Flubber and My 3 Sons.

I just re-watched Aliens with the commentary, that was one of the great films of the golden age of physical special effects. Almost everything is a puppet, miniature or camera trick, very few opticals even. Cameron himself led the way to the extended use of CG effects (the water finger in The Abyss, wire-removal and liquid metal in T2), but he pushed a small budget and a great script to the limit with Aliens.

Elvis Has Left the Building

So Kim Basinger rides around in a pink Cadillac and a bunch of Elvis impersonators die. Durr.
Every time an Elvis dies a newspaper appears and the headline is a pun of an Elvis song title. Durr.
An FBI agent that is neurotic. Durr.

This movie was awful, probably the worst movie I've seen that didn't have a silhouette at the bottom of the screen.
Avoid.

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

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

Last film I watched was Spy Game, very good film, Brad Pitt was decent (much better than the utter shit Mr & Mrs Smith, which was only worth watching to see Angelina in sexy gear!) and well Robert Redford's character is a wily old fox! Enjoyable if you like spy films

"Ive got good news....that gum you like is going to come back in style!"

"I'm a WHOLE DAMN TOWN!"

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

Touch of Evil is great, I like most of Welles' work. That reminds me of the line in Ed Wood "Charlton Heston playing a Mexican?!"

I had a double-header of Thank You for Smoking and X-men 3. I love Aaron Eckhart from his parts in Neil LaBute's films, he seems stuck in these smiling douchebag roles, but he's so good at it. There's some damn funny material in this film, the novel must be great. David Koechner is great too, he seems to have more range than just talking about slathering a chick's behind in BBQ sauce. Oddly, both these films feature Cameron Bright, who was great in Birth, he seems to have "bright" future in acting (Mary Hart laughs, segues to camera 2.)

I liked X-men, loooved X-men 2, and liked 3 enough to wish I had at least caught it the $1.50 theater. The bit where Magneto is hurling cars and Pyro lights them up is fantastic. Beast didn't work for me, he kept making me think of Phil Hartman's Unfrozen Caveman Lawyer bit crossed with Rumpleteazer after the bank robbery dye-bomb went off. Pretty much every second he was on screen was unintentionally funny. Was "I'm Juggernaut, Bitch!" supposed to be a reference to Chapelle's show?

Stalag 17 - A wonderful POW camp comedy drama (which as many of you know was the basis for Hogan's Heroes). Peter Graves is good in a part I really can't elaborate on if you haven't seen the film. Loved William Holden in this film, well I like him in just about anything he's done. His role was very subtle for a Holden role, only a few dramatic outbursts. I enjoyed the way he carried the suspicion of being the stoolie. It had been a long time since I have seen this film. The special edition has some nice bonus features too, in case you are interested. There are several funny parts involving two POWs named Shapiro and Animal...good stuff all around

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

The 400 Blows. Another disappointment for me though I'm happy to have seen it. Maybe I'm just not into French New Wave as I really really disliked Breathless too. Expectation may have been my problem. I wasn't expecting for well... almost nothing to happen. The actors were across the board authentic and wonderful -- and mostly children. When child actors are good and not conspicuously acting, they make for some of my favorite viewing. So, while thoroughly enjoyed the collection of scenes, the storyline was not enough to take it over the top for me.

We watched the Criterion DVD which has fabulous extras. I confess, I preferred the extras! The audition reels were priceless with a variety of nervous adolescent boys hoping to make the big time. The star shone in the audition just as he did in the film. Truffaut did not work with scripts, he said.  He would discuss the situation and have the actor use their own words.  Especially with the children, this gives a documentary reality to the film.  And oh, what casting!

I loved the interview with a 33 year old (smoking) Francois Truffaut would die in less than 20 years. He had been a film critic -- a well-known and respected film critic too -- before switching gears and becoming a director. He speaks about his recent trip to New York where The 400 Blows was critically acclaimed and made his film an international success although the censors in Spain did not like it. In this day and age, it's hard to imagine the film was controversial, but there are two moments -- innocous by today's standards -- that troubled the censors. Truffaut was a big fan of Hitchcock, Sidney Lumet and Nicholas Ray. Good stuff!

Also wonderful was the 1959 Cannes Film Festival footage back when the festival was a new and quaint happening. The lead actor, 14 year old Jean-Pierre Leaud, who went on to have a lengthy career right up until the present, was the toast of Cannes that year. He told an interviewer that if he did not succeed as an actor, he would still like to continue in the cinema, perhaps as a director. I thought that was cute -- hell, if I don't make it as an actor, I can always fall back on being a director. I don't think I've seen him in any other films but will look for him now out of curiosity as to how his acting progressed, if it were possible.

I think I'm going to give it a Netflix "3" though I understand it's importance and can understand why some would think it one of the best films ever made.  In the end, I have to rate it as it struck me personally.  Too bad I can't rate the extras.   

Susan

     
“Half a truth is often a great lie.”

Ben Franklin

Train of Life

First time seen it - what a film!

First of all, a great beginning. No wasted second while starting the plot, namely a few minutes and immediately the crazy plan of a pretended deportation of a Jewish community is in action! What I mean is not even that the editing etc. is fast (which it is, but that's not the main point), it is the storytelling, for me it is narrational masterpiece to start a story like that. As a viewer, I am immediately drawn to the story.

And than it keeps going. The first part of the film, preparations to leave, is flawless. Nothing overtalked, everything shown in great detail, the rhythm of their work, the characteristic of the group, the visual aspects - everything works perfectly.
Later sometimes the film loses pace. Sometimes it goes too far perhaps in its unusual non-realism? Some ideas perhaps overdone? Still, I would argue it does not go below a certain good level.

And then the ending, starting with one totally crazy idea, so absurd and impossible that it just made me wanna ROTFL ;-) , and then 100% of abstraction in the frontline scene. And then...

... the ending.

A heavy load hitting the head.

---------

Hmm, I enjoyed the film, too, but rather as a sort of an experiment... Perhaps I've heard too much about those 10minute long shots and my concentration went too much towards following whether those shots are really so long ;-)

Still I took this film much more from the filmmaking point of view than as an interesting story...

Bobi 1 Kenobi

B. Beware
O. Of
B. BOB 

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

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

Where The Buffalo Roam

A much "straighter" companion piece to Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas. Bill Murray is a great Thompson, and Peter Boyle is perfectly cast as Lazlo, Thompson's attorney. Eschews much of the hallucinogenic surrealism of Gilliam's Las Vegas in favor of slapstick and much more insight into Thompson the man and writer.

Logic Hat Online- logichat.org

Last film I was cajoled into watching was Fahrenhiet 9/11. Actually, I couldn't watch it all.

My review: A fat-arsed, gun-owning, dear-shooting, self-righteous American, warning us about other fat-arsed,gun-owning,

 dear-shooting, self-righteous American's. Need I say Moore?

Beauty is momentary in the mind -
The fitful tracing of a portal;
But in the flesh it is immortal.
The body dies; the body's beauty lives.
So evenings die, in their green going,
A wave, interminably flowing.
So gardens die, their meek breath scenting
the cowl of winter, done repenting.
So maidens die, to the auroral
Celebration of a maiden's choral.
Susanna's music touched the bawdy strings
Of those white elders; but, escaping,
Left only Death's ironic scraping.
Now in its immortality, it plays
On the clear viol of her memory,
And makes a constant sacrement of praise.

('Peter Quince at the Clavier' by Wallace Stevens)

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

Who Jack? Matt Damon? Martin Sheen? Mark Walberg? Vera Farmiga? Who?

That's funny you mention Leo in that Vein...my friend Luis (who I mention on here a lot) returned my copy of The Aviator (which although many people don't, I think he was very good in). Luis also had a copy of Oldboy that he just bought and I hope to watch very soon. Looking forward to it.

Network - second best dark comedy after Dr. Strangelove...love the last line...fantastic quartet of actors Finch, Holden, Dunaway and Duvall with one of the greatest scripts ever written and one I would put right up there with Casablanca, Mr. McKee. If you haven't seen this film before and you like movies, you owe it to yourself to watch it. There is a very nice 2 disc special edition that was released earlier in the year (around the time Dog Day Afternoon and All the President's Men had their 2 disc releases).             

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

The Aviator, hmmmm?  I don't believe I'm familiar with that movie.  It sure sounds good.  All my life I dreamed about Warren Beatty playing Howard Hughes in just such a film but I suppose the next best thing is Leo Di Caprio.  Will have to check it out! 

Susan 

     
“Half a truth is often a great lie.”

Ben Franklin

Ok, these are the two best movies I saw recently 

1) Down in the Valley   2) 10th & Wolf 

Smokey, I have to say I have seen Network for the first time not so long ago and I regret to say I was really disappointed :-(

What I said once about an 'acting film'. Here is another film, where I can hardly see any other value except for acting (and that is too little for me). Such a good script, you say. Hmm. But I don't remember any interesting story behind it... Actually I hardly remember ANYTHING from this film. And I don't recall being sleepy or in bad mood while watching...

Perhaps I'll give it another go when chance appears?

Bobi 1 Kenobi

B. Beware
O. Of
B. BOB