The Day He Arrives — 5,000 stars
The Day He Arrives — 5,000 stars
… I liked it so much I watched it twice.
Le Samourai dir. by Jean Pierre Melville
9/10
-I watched this in prepping for a class presentation on John Woo’s The Killer (Woo called the movie one of his favorites and it is a clear influence of The Killer in plot) and I cannot believe how long it took me to see this. Beautiful to look at (I completely embrace the monochrome, alienating color scheme of the film) and meticulously calculated and crafted. Alain Delon does not even have to say a word to be the coolest man in the room.
Perfect Sense (Director: David Mackenzie)
4/5
One critic called this Terrence Malick’s Contagion and that’s pretty spot-on. It’s also much better than the similar Blindness. McGregor and Green are good as always. A pretty sold apocolyptic romance.
The Innkeepers (Director: Ti West)
3.5/5
I pretty much saw this as Clerks meets Ghost Hunters, the latest film from the up-and-coming director Ti West is pretty good until it falls apart in the final act. Sara Paxton is very good, cast against-type, in the lead though.
I also re-watched Somewhere (Coppola) on HBO the other night. I never re-watch films so this was my first time seeing it since the theater. I have to give it 5/5. It still holds up. My favorite movie of 2010 was a toss-up between Somewhere, Blue Valentine and Enter the Void but Somewhere looks like it’s going to be a favorite of mine for years to come. The other two? Well, I haven’t re-watched Blue Valentine or Enter the Void :p lol.
SHANGHAI EXPRESS 5/5
Great fun, especially in the lovely new DVD. Some of the loveliest black and white cinematography you’ll ever see. Tasty from start to finish. Ms. Dietrich gives one of her better performances here.
Phantom Menace 5/5
the best of the new three, and better than one of two of the last three. the film is a collection of battle scenes interrupted by occasional human drama that is short and never wears out welcome. Forgot how incidentally Ewan was to this film and how sucessful the decoy concept was. Also, the 3D was subtle and well the movie was quite pretty.
The film really works but for a few minor quibbles:
the step and fetchit nature of Jar Jar (my fiancee, never having seen the film, was suprised that the same guy made Red Tails) and the akwardness of first underwater sequence. That being said, the children in the audience laughted at all of Jar Jar’s antics.
One could label Jar’s racism a fluke except the cruelest characterization is the hook nose shopkeeper obviously meant to be a Jew. Racism and sterotype are familar and Lucas was making an old style serial here, no reason not to include sterotype I suppose.
One talks about how bad Lloyd is, and really, he is not bad. But the actress playing his mother is terrible. Also, Portman calling him Annie is icky, especially since they are gonna hook up in a few years, “Oh Annie,” just doesn’t have a nice ring to it.
minor quibbles aside, even better than I remember.
Jane Eyre – 6.5/10
Jane Eyre – 6.5/10
Jane Eyre – 6.5/10
The Artist 7/10
Tomboy 8/10
Bill Cunningham New York 7/10
Boy (2010) 9 /10
Treacle Jr. 8/10
Sleeping Beauty 2011 7/10
The Harder They Come (1972) 7/10
Submarine 9/10
The Artist 7/10
Tomboy 8/10
Bill Cunningham New York 7/10
Boy (2010) 9 /10
Treacle Jr. 8/10
Sleeping Beauty 2011 7/10
The Harder They Come (1972) 7/10
Submarine 9/10
Star Wars Episode 1 in 3d
2 stars
the 3d wasn’t effective at all
Mysteries Of Lisbon 9/10
Fantastic swan song to a great underrated career. I’ve never seen a melodramatic plot like this have such character depth.
Harold and Maude 8/10
Another of those films I really should have seen when I was in high school. It’s the sort of film that makes you not mind how over the top everything is.
The Circus
USSR, 1936
Dir: G. Alexandrov
6.8/10
Trying to copy and surpass 30s Hollywood style, this musical comedy tells a story of a soviet circus attempting to copy and surpass a western circus number сalled “A Flight to the Moon”. The texture is rich and beautiful, with allusions to Melies, Chaplin and all that was best in cinema by 1936. This willingness to acknowledge and use all available resources drawn from the capitalist world and Russia’s own past was a fresh ideological message, marking a break of the Stalinist regime with revolutionary idealism of the 20s. On a darker note, Hollywood dream factory techniques and projection of guilt unto a foreign intruder indicate an urgent need to conceal internal tragedies and conflicts of the epoch, too terrible to be addressed directly.
The Sunset Limited (Dir: Tommy Lee Jones – 2011)
9.5/10
One of my favourite films of 2011. Superb acting from Jones and Jackson, and writing by Cormac McCarthy that sinks its teeth into the big questions with some tremendous verbal gymnastics.
The Grey (2012) 7/10
We Need To Talk About Kevin (2011) 9/10
THE DESCENDANTS – 3/5
Entirely watchable, adequate in every way — I just never got interested enough in the problems these people were having to get as emotionally involved as the film seemed to expect me to be.
THE DESCENDANTS – 3/5
Entirely watchable, adequate in every way — I just never got interested enough in the problems these people were having to get as emotionally involved as the film seemed to expect me to be. Forgettable. Just bland and inoffensive enough to win the Oscar.
The Perfect Sense 7/10
Role Models
7/10
Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me
9/10
I don’t understand all of the negative reactions. I know it was a departure from the lighter tone of the show, but I found it to be the starting point for a really interesting shift for Lynch into the darker, grittier, more mystical musings of his more recent works. I loved it.
Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me
9/10
I don’t understand all of the negative reactions. I know it was a departure from the lighter tone of the show, but I found it to be the starting point for a really interesting shift for Lynch into the darker, grittier, more mystical musings of his more recent works. I loved it.
Moneyball 4/5
I wasn’t really looking forward to this one, but I was with it from beginning to end. Great storytelling.
City of Pirates 1983
Raoul Ruiz screenplay and direction
A series of collage on this and that
9/10 for the lovers of the vapors in Raoul’s mind
More here Link
Advise & Consent (for about the 100th time) 5/5
^Greatest movie ever
We Were Here – 3 stars
Interesting AIDS doc. Nothing really new here but so many people don’t know this shit (or have conveniently forgotten it) that it’s an important story that needs to be continually reminded to people.
^Greatest movie ever
Not The Godfather?
Joks
“@ Ruby:
Yep…that Reconstruction…there are a ton of films with that name……"
Damn, guess that was just wishful thinking on my part ;-)