Last movie you saw and rate it
This is Not a Film
Dir. Jafar Panahi
I really like the Persian filmmakers. Having said that, I’m still processing this film. (There seems to be a lot in it.)
@Nathan
What’d you make of the ending? I just thought it was weak and lazy—ignoring the trajectory of the character arc. The build up suggests a clear and coherent idea about the character, but then the ending just seems to muddle things up, while shrugging and smiling (with that “shit-eating grin” as Miasma so aptly described).
Prometheus 9/10 – the internet trolls and mindless sheep might be trying their hardest to soil the film, but it was fantastic, straight from the opening few scenes it pulls you in on an depth of intelligent sci-fi level and certainly a worthy addition to the Alien Franchise; it’s probably my 3rd Favourite of the Alien films, though you could argue its a better ‘film’ than Aliens.
Piranha 3DD 3/10 – Well it can’t reproduce the fun factor of 3D, it fails quite miserably at times, though The Hoff scenes are quite fun and there’s the odd laugh, but overall – talk about missing the target. At least we I can just go back and revisit 3D for mindless Piranha fun.
Journey 2 The Mysterious Island 4/10 – Was interested to see this just because of The Rock; who is actually very good in this, but the film just lacks that pure sense of adventure and has vast amounts of dodgy CGI; the film had potential but fails to deliver.
John Carter 2/10 – The film was just a mess from start to finish, can see now why it flopped so badly at the box office; storytelling is almost non-existent and there was one huge Clone Wars rip off scene that had me rubbing my eyes in disbelief.
I heard Piranha 3DD is badly directed, that’s the problem.
Saw Prometheus tonight. I am disappointed, a little sad, and tired.
DP.
Beat the Devil (1953)
John Huston and Truman Capote hatched this droll caper
8.8/10
Link
@Jazz – Are you referring to my take on The Artist? If so, I will respond once you’ve clarified.
Jab We Met, Hindi film 2007; loved it, and I’m new to Hindi cinema after watching every other national cinema, it seems, for 30 years…. 8.5/10
Cilada.com (2010) – 3/5
This Is England (2006) – 4/5
Red Riding: 1980 (2009) – 4/5
Moonrise Kingdom 5.5/10
A movie with the glib absurdist counter-normativeness of Rushmore, but the randomness of Royal Tenenbaums. It starts out looking like a modern Huck Finn with a younger version of the Rushmore main character, then spends the second half turning in a lot of weird random directions until every single character has an audience friendly change of heart at just the right moment. It ends up just being a pleasant modern fairy tale.
I felt it was trying to have the same kind of impact as Harold & Maude, but ended up having no impact at all.
@Jazz -
I loved This Is Not a Film. Talk about a movie and filmmaker to admire.
@ Joks -
Whether Ridley Scott wants to call Prometheus a prequel or not, it’s clearly a film set in the world of Alien.
It’s hard to talk about the film without giving things away but suffice to say, Alien is one of my favorite films of all time (like, top ten) and Prometheus trivializes the origins of Alien like a three year old infant who needs his diaper changed. Everything that made Alien brilliant is absent in Prometheus – no tension, no mood, no grit, no suspense – it’s just a convoluted mess of a script that misses the whole point of “the simpler the better”. Just thinking about it makes me angry – angry the way fanboys were mad about Phantom Menace and Indiana Jones and the Crystal Skull.
For me what made Alien into something special was the revelation that the company knew exactly what was going to happen to the crew and didn’t give a crap.
I thought it had some of the same deficits as Blade Runner: Badly choreographed fight scenes.
For me what made Alien into something special was the revelation that the company knew exactly what was going to happen to the crew and didn’t give a crap.
I thought it had some of the same deficits as Blade Runner: Badly choreographed fight scenes.
@Nathan
Yeah, I was referring to The Artist.
@Santino
Hopefully, you remember enough of This Is Not a Film to discuss it with me.
^I think so. It’s only been a couple months since I saw it. lol
@JAZZALOHA I feel you on THE ARTIST. But it would have been difficult to do a more nuanced conclusion and explain the character’s actions/motivations considering the no dialogue constraint. I don’t hold the sugary ending against it.
Prometheus – Pretty damn good. Sure it was flawed, the dialogue was incredibly clunky, the characters could have been more fleshed out and the ending was sloppy. But still incredible, with lots of memorable scenes (I hope that “surgery tube” scene becomes a classic), and yes, Fassbender was great. I can’t think of a better skiffy that has come out for years. I’ll give it a generous 4 stars because it is getting so much hate it really doesn’t deserve.
not a movie but what the hell.
The highlight of my Frankie Avalon concert last night was listening to Why with my fiancee
The lowlight was Frankie’s version of Elvis
The voice is a little creaky but Avalon is very charming and polished on stage. One gets the feeling that he has been doing this exact show for years; he is very good at it. He seems to sincerely love being on stage and his delivery is so sincere (too sincere in his newest song with lyrics like "Charlie Chan always got his man and the lone ranger had an Indian friend, my fiancee and I had to snicker at that one). one cannot help but have a good time
Grade: B
@Jazz – I don’t see the ending as relating to the character at all, but to the larger structure of the film. Could you not see it coming within the first, say, 20 minutes of the movie? It’s not designed as a character study of George Valentine, but as an homage to silent movies, a classic rise/fall story, and an exercise in charm. The ending, as far as I can tell, made perfect sense given everything that had come prior. I just can’t see all of that leading up to Valentine committing suicide or becoming another incarnation of Norma Desmond. He’s too handsome for that, and the movie is too gleeful to hammer the audience with the drudgery of a downbeat ending.
Besides, a downbeat ending would’ve kept out that awesome dance number. Did you really want to lose that?
Fireworks/Hana-bi – Nothing special. Kitano seems to do “funny” a lot better than “serious.”
^^Really? I like his comedies too, but to me they have always been inferior to his ‘dramas’.
although even his dramas have plenty of comedic moments. Hana-Bi less so than Sonatine or Violent Cop though.
Snatch (2000) – 3/5
The Sting (1973) – 3/5
Monty Python and the Holy Grail (1975) – 2/5
Prometheus is not Alien. Get over it, fanboys.
I thought Prometheus was great. More on this later when I have time for a full entry, but I watched Alien again on Saturday night and then Prometheus on Sunday, and I think some of you people are crazy for even bothering to compare the two movies. Yes, there are similarities, and there is that tacked on ending, but really Prometheus is a whole different ball of wax.
grass: a nation’s battle for life d. merian c. cooper and ernest b. schoedsack (1925)
honestly i cannot see giving this less than 5 stars. it records a way of life that basically doesn’t exist anymore. in 1924 adventurers merian c. cooper and ernest b. schoedsack spent 2 months on annual migration with a tribe of 50,000 people, plus countless domestic animals, across the highlands of persia, their inspiration flaherty’s pioneering arctic study ‘nanook of the north’. their aim seems to have been to find the roots of the aryan peoples and the tribe, the bakhtiari, are presented as a throwback to our distant past. in spite of this ‘orientalist’ view, the record of this trip is stunning at every turn. far from being ‘unchanging’ of course, such nomadic lifestyles have mostly vanished into history. surprised to see only 2 ratings on this from my friends list. amazing amazing film
Prometheus is a turd whether it had anything to do with Alien or not.
And not a fanboy. I don’t even consider Blade Runner all that great.
^I agree. As an installment in the Alien series, it gets half a star. As a standalone film, completely separate from the franchise, it’s 1.5 to 2 stars (at best). Either way you slice it, Prometheus is cinema terrible.
I ended up seeing it twice. Once in 3D and the other in 2D. I originally thought the 3D was some of the best I’d seen so far, but once I saw it in 2D I realized how much the 3D took away from the great details. The CGI is outstanding. But with all the holes and the cliched rag tag group of ‘scientists’ nothing could have saved it.
I would live to see Scott make a film like Boy and Bicycle today, but I don’t think he ever remembers that he made that.
@Nathan
I don’t see the ending as relating to the character at all, but to the larger structure of the film. Could you not see it coming within the first, say, 20 minutes of the movie? It’s not designed as a character study of George Valentine, but as an homage to silent movies, a classic rise/fall story, and an exercise in charm._
But you didn’t think the character was the emotion heart of the story?
The ending, as far as I can tell, made perfect sense given everything that had come prior. I just can’t see all of that leading up to Valentine committing suicide or becoming another incarnation of Norma Desmond. He’s too handsome for that, and the movie is too gleeful to hammer the audience with the drudgery of a downbeat ending.
Besides, a downbeat ending would’ve kept out that awesome dance number. Did you really want to lose that?
No, but I wanted the film to earn it. What was Valentine’s main problem—his pride? his short-sightedness? his age? How does he overcome these things in the end? The film just seems to shrug, give us a grin and the happy dance number at the end.
Well, doesn’t Valentine realize that he needs a little help from his friend, just like his friend once needed his? Wouldn’t his return to movies have something to do with her? I don’t think it’s a “give us a grin and dance number” deal at all. The movie earns it because it sets up their relationship early on – it’s a quid pro quo situation. I get the sense that it would be something for Valentine to recognize that dancing – something he is clearly comfortable with – is his ticket to transitioning to the world of sound.
Yeah, I suppose that Valentine is the “emotional heart” of the story, but it’s not as if Valentine is the only thing that the movie is concerned with, right? I mean, this is a silent movie about silent movies about sound movies, etc.
If the ending does not synch up with Valentine’s character development, I would see it as a minor flaw in an otherwise clever and entertaining movie.
g legs
Giant (56)- Silly, too long and underwhelming.