RENDITION

Unsurprisingly one-sided tale with the blonde, all-American pregnant mother going through great anguish because her poor muslim husband was wrongly detained.  Other than that though, it was a story well told with some directorial creativity.  Very watchable.   7.5/10

American Gangster

Excellent character study/crime thriller from Ridley Scott, unfortunately overlooked among this year's numerous other heavy-hitters. Structured rather similarly to Catch Me If You Can, if you can believe that (it's chronological, though).

Denzel and Crowe aren't exactly stepping outside of their usual acting range here (slow-burn introspection, violent burst, rinse-repeat), but they're both magnetic to watch. Ruby Dee is great in her supporting role, and hey, Chiwetel Ejiofor! Always like seeing him pop up in a film, and his American accent here is flawless. Cuba Gooding Jr. shows up to depress us with how good he can be with the right material.

Logic Hat Online- logichat.org

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

The Saddest Music in the World

I've never seen anything quite like this one.  Quite bizarre.  I loved it!

The Page Turner

A cracking little French film about revenge.  It's a slow-burner but it's quietly hypnotic.

~ 'I will give you my finest hour, the one I spent watching you shower' ~

I haven't seen hardly any movies this year, but the last one I saw a few months back was 30 Days of Night. It was alright. Not a homerun, but at least a base hit as it has entertainment value as a horror movie. The vampires were interesting-looking with their shark-like teeth. It was kind of neat to watch vampires just walk around in the open and have the run of an entire town, first overwhelming everybody like shocktroopers, then staking out the place waiting for the inevitable survivors to peek their heads out, and attempting to lure them out by preying upon their sympathies. No shortage of blood or body parts, so it made for a good gorefest.

The ending was a little cliched, with a protangonist having to become an antagonist in order to defeat the antagonists (kind of like "Wolf"), but that's a cliche I can tolerate. Sometimes you have to be the bad guy in order to do the right thing. Josh Hartnett's acting? Meh.

There was a minor character in the film (the "Stranger" the trailers showed standing in a jail cell) that I could have sworn was the guy who played the liquor store clerk in From Dusk til Dawn. The guy that got shot, set on fire, shot a whole bunch more, then exploded in a liquor store fireball. But when I looked it up online, boy was I was wrong. The Stranger in 30 Days of Night was Ben Foster, that dude who played Angel in the last Xmen movie. Hmm. I enjoyed X3 but if his character was supposed to be interesting, they gutted anything interesting in the editing room. His appearance in 30 Days was much better, although his demise was predictable (but that's an issue with writing, not acting).

Favorite actor in 30 Days? Danny Huston - "Marlow" the lead vampire. He's facinating to look at and listen to, and somehow the most believable of all the characters in the movie. He pulls off the pure-evil-without-shades-of-grey part just fine. He has "presence". I am curious to see his take on Cox's Stryker character in the upcoming Wolverine prequel. I've never heard an Italian do an Appalachian accent. I wish Lynch would hire this guy sometime.

I could only speculate. A movie of the actual Origin graphic novel would be awesome, but I'm just happy they're doing any kind of Wolverine movie at all (and Magneto flick, presuming the writer's strike didn't sink that one). Since they seemed to have "definitively" killed off Scott and Jean in X3, I don't see how the movie franchise would do anything further with them or their potential offspring. Unless Ryan Reynolds' Deadpool gets his own movie and somehow gets involved with something funky with the spacetime continuum...again, I could only speculate.

Yeah, but they "buried" Scott & Jean in X3, even though Scott's grave had to be empty. They'd have to figure out how to unatomize Scott (presuming Phoenix didn't do something to Scott we don't know about), or clone Scott & Jean, or make Cable in a test tube from some old DNA samples of S&J, or pull Cable from an alt future universe where Scott & Jean never died, etc.

If they made a movie with any of the above going on, I'd buy tickets. But I doubt the director/producers/actors would want to make it out of fear of having another "Batman Forever" on their hands. Like, don't turn your farm into a dustbowl by overfarming the soil.

I suspect the Marvel movie folks are going to stick the two Xmen Origins movies, Hulk, Cap America, Thor, Iron Man, and (fingers crossed) an Avengers movie over the next few years. But if an Avengers movie pays off like the Xmen movie franchise did, maybe they'll seriously consider making a Secret Wars movies on the scale of Lord of the Rings. They'd have to totally retcon/update the Beyonder so he's not an 80s leftover, presuming they use the Beyonder instead of creating some new rationale for putting Xmen, FF, Avengers, Spiderman, Daredevil, Punisher, Blade, etc. all in one big half-billion dollar movie/trilogy.

Hmmmmm. This is getting offtopic, but if you had a zillion dollars and dozens of good actors, what plotline would you use to put every Marvel character that's been on the silver screen over the last decade or so into one gigantic trilogy? (if not Secret Wars, then what)

Balls of Fury - about what I expected.  Lame and it put me to sleep.  1/10.

Terminator 3 - better than I expected.  A worthy member of the series, although a bit more lighthearted which will undoubtedly rankle some people.  I love the Terminator series and therefore 8/10.

3-10 to Uma - WOW!!  It's so rare to see a quality western these days, but this was a fantastic story well told. 9/10.

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

yeah, I heard Harper Lee was a ruthless bitch...flaunting her success in front of Truman Capote like that....

The Assissnation of Jesse James.... - Very good film with great performances by Pitt, Affleck and Rockwell and incredible cinematography by Roger Deakins. I was very impressed with the screenplay, captured the "dialogue" of the day and blended in some backstory narration dealing with historical facts and personal information about James and Ford. I do recommend this film.         

"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." 

We watched the $3.99 OnDemand version of Michael Clayton.  Probably better if it had been HD or widescreen, but I gotta say, this was a well-done, tightly-scripted, well-acted, enjoyable film.  I had my doubts going into it.  You know -- would it be the same old same old with an evil corporation poisoning the nice farmers and all and then the good Erin full of Brockovichesque (not certain that's a word...) advocacy standing up for the little people and getting rich from the the class action lawsuit.  But then again whenever there's an opportunity to watch evil lawyers at "work" it's a fine mitigating factor to help my viewing pleasure! 

What can I say?  George Clooney didn't even annoy me that much...

as he DID

in the radio

ads.

Does it

LOOK

like I'm negotiating?! 

Somehow it worked on the screen.

Haha, though I remember how I similarly mocked and yukked it up over the Al Pacino radio ad for Scarface...

"If I EVAH see you again -- YOU DIE!"

Susan 

     
“Half a truth is often a great lie.”

Ben Franklin

Yay! Susan saw Michael Clayton. See, you think it's gonna be "bring down the big bad corporation", but the movie doesn't even take a step into a courtroom (except in the disposition burlesque videotape). Yeah, you gotta see in widescreen, it's in anamorphic and it even looks like a 70's film, did you find it reminiscent of any of the movies I mentioned before? (of course, I have the benefit of the commentary)However, these similarities rang true before I listened to some of it. One shot they mentioned (the director/screenwrite and his editor brother) was when Tilda is outside with one of her "associates" and he says "Does that mean yes, you understand or yes, proceed?" is modeled after the opening sidewalk conversation between Peter Finch and William Holden in Network. Just the framing not the scene content. I love Finch and Holden in the original scene.

Why does everyone have a problem with George Clooney? The "Oceans" movies aside, I think he's built up a nice little repetoire, not to mention the diversity of his three directorial efforts (too bad his new film feautres Renee Zellweger). Or was it just the Radio ads? I didn't even know they still did those, then again I NEVER listen to the radio. Are these still common nationwide or just in the Land of Dreams?         

No Country For Old Men DVD comes out on Tuesday. ROCK!     

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

Hey, Booth, wasn't it you who came up with this "a little more in-depth" thread? That must have been a really shallow movie if that's as in depth as you wanna go.

We've been on a bit of a movie jag! Watched what I consider to be the movie of the year 2007, followed by a substandard remake, followed by 20 minutes of sleep-inducing mega-budgeted I'm-not-sure-I'll-even-try-again movie.

1. Eastern Promises = WOW!!! Should have won Best Picture and Best Director and Best everything else. (I still haven't seen the blood movie but ever since watching endless leaves of grass with Colin Farrel in the disappointing New World, I am loathe to endure what is it? 30 minutes without dialogue in TWBB)

Could Eastern Promises have been any more perfect!? Every single actor was magnificent, but Viggo's every appearance had my eyes glued to the screen. (and not just during the nude scenes) Naomi Watts in a fantastically nuanced role, played it so convincingly. Vincent Cassel should have been nominated for best supporting actor as should have been Armin Mueller-Stahl.  And all the minor characters were great too!  The actor who played Naomi's uncle Stefan was oh so perfect! The script. The shots. The unusual storyline! (although I confess a weakness for Russian stories)

The fight scene in the bathhouse has to be right up there with BEST ever fight scenes! OHMYGAWD, I screamed, covered my mouth and jumped in my seat watching that one. Expertly paced. Loved it all which made it difficult to watch the next film. I wonder about the title of this film -- Eastern Promises -- hmmm. The title would not have drawn me in but then again, I felt the same about Barton Fink.  

Loved the two short documentary extras too. A+ Two Thumbs up, 5 Stars!

2. The Brave One = A remake of Death Wish. Probably unfair to judge it or watch it in the wake of the spectacular Eastern Promises. Jodi Foster and the guy from Lost. I don't watch Lost but David does and I have seen Saeed (?) on occasion.  I like him.  Boy, look how old Jodi's looking. It's almost hard to see that little girl from Taxi Driver or the FBI agent from Silence of the Lambs anymore. Was it hard for her to play those sex scenes? Nah, she's an actress. Oops. NO such thing anymore. I mean "actOR."  I'm surprised Jodi's face recovered with no permanent damage after the beating she took. Wonder where the dog is, I kept asking myself. Betcha she gets Curtis the dog back at the end, I told myself. That New York is one violent city, isn't it? Funny, I've always felt relatively safe on the streets or subways of New York. However, I sure wouldn't walk through Central Park at night. That detective was so smart!  He honed in on the sound of the elevator "bbbbring!" I could even see the wheels turning as he put 2 + 2 together at that moment. Hey, where's the dog?  How come all white heroines have wise black female friends? Will Jodi's radio show continue? Oh big yawn. TV movie.

3. American Gangster = Guess I really have to give this another shot but the trailer left me cold and the first 20 minutes were unconvincing and uninvolving. Can it get better in the next 200 or however much longer the director's cut is? Sorry, but Denzel just isn't a gangster by any stretch of my imagination and I find it hard to see him that way from the get go.

George Clooney, Smokey, was never annoying to me before he became the pompous pontificating political puffing putz he has morphed into over the past years. I find myself having to try real hard to forget George Clooney to watch him play a character now. When you are a self-righteous celebrity fighting the good fight, you have no choice but to inflict that righteousness upon the little people. I get it. But for me, it's changed the whole image of the guy I loved in Oh Brother. I never watched ER.

Renee Z. She's got that something something about her. Great body. Weird face. 6 week country star marriage. Plus she played opposite Tom Cruise in the dreadful Jerry Maguire. To this day I've never forgiven anyone involved with helping that film get green-lit.  There's just something off about Renee, but not nearly so annoying as George Clooney at his worst.  She's an enigma which is not necessarily bad.

Disclaimer - The above is strictly one woman's unbiased, informed (and probably correct) opinion. It is not meant to be inflammatory. (sure...)_ It is not meant to illicit retorts from the George Clooney, Tom Cruise, Renee Zellwegger or Jerry Maguire (showmethemoney!) fan clubs. Furthermore, the views expressed here are NOT the views of the TPG or any of its affilitates.

Susan 

     
“Half a truth is often a great lie.”

Ben Franklin

QUOTE: QUOTE: Hey, Booth, wasn't it you who came up with this "a little more in-depth" thread? That must have been a really shallow movie if that's as in depth as you wanna go. I'm laconic. You know that word, right?

Who are you calling the non-laconic!?

     
“Half a truth is often a great lie.”

Ben Franklin