Did anyone else think that Super 8 was garbage?

Micmacs wasn't even a beautiful mess . . . it was just a mess.

I wish I watched the Lars von Trier version isntead . . .

An inspiring documentary that follows around an ambitious Midwestern filmmaker as he tries to complete one film, puts it on the sideburner, and instead finishes up a short film he started years ago. Warning sign or not, this film will either inspire you to create and make films, or abandon the idea altogether.

A companion piece to Fata Morgana, Lessons of Darkness is an experimental documentary in the vein of docs like Koyaanisqatsi and Baraka. Darkness may fall short compared to those two, but it sure packs a wallop for its 52 minute running time.

One of the most harrowing films I have ever seen. It wouldn't surprise me if this was a major influence for Bergman.

One of the greatest endings I've ever seen for a film.

A seriously fucked man.

Quite possibly my favorite silent film of all time.

This movie is a huge pile of the shlockiest cheese imaginable, yet it's just so damn entertaining that you can overlook the plot-hole riddled slice of Swiss cheese that is called a plot. The two men who brought you the original King Kong are back with the first adaptation of the famous short story of the same name. That's not all they brought; Fay Wray is as gorgeous as ever (she's a babe) and you can even spot a fe

In 1903 audiences were thrilled and stunned (and scared shitless) by the film The Great Train Robbery.The reason for this is because the film contained the infamous shot of the train chugging towards the camera, and the audience, never seeing anything like this before, screamed and thought that the train was literally going to come out of the screen and hit them. This was considered a very important time in cinema, and that film had changed cinema forever. Then, in 2009, Avatar came out. After seeing it in IMAX 3D I felt the same kind of exhilaration that the audience must have felt over 100 years ago. I saw history happen that night, and everything that people are saying is true: movies will never be the same way ever again. Avatar is, first and foremost, an action film. Action fans should not be put off, however, since it's James Cameron who has created this unique vision. The same man who brought us The Terminator, Aliens and The Abyss has stunned audiences once again. I recommend going into the film blind, like I did. So, in that case, stop reading this now. The CG is absolutely fantastic. When he film first started it took my eyes a little bit to fully adjust to this immersive experience. The scenes looked like I was staring at one of those holographic baseball cards. After a while though, it seemed like I was actually staring at real people moving around in a box mounted in front of me, even though they were about 10x my height. Everything looked absolutely gorgeous. However, I had a problem with the Na'vi. It took me a long while to convince myself to see these characters as real. When I first started watching it the came off cartoonie and fake, but this is most likely due to the fact that I knew that they didn't actually exist in this plane of existence. I had to convince myself to let go and stop seeing them as CG. After a while, I did, and I swear, there are moments where I forget that they were CG because they looked so incredibly real. The planet of Pandora looks gorgeous. There is a specific shot that had me utterly amazed me in how real it looked. When the marines open fire on the massive tree that the Na'vi live in, there is one shot where we see a line of helicopters in the foreground, and the massive tree trunk begins to snap under the toppling pressure. Seeing the wood splinter looked SO REAL. I was actually convinced that what I was seeing was actually real. The film requires a great deal of suspension of disbelief, but if you can manage to do this, then you're in for one hell of a ride. The story is really fun and enjoyable. Sure, Cameron isn't the best at scriptwriting, and it shows in some of his dialogue, but I can overlook this for the story itself. It's amazing how surprising allegorical this film actually is: it's all about imperialism and connecting with oneself/surroundings. James Cameron had this to say about the film's theme, "I have an absolute reverence for men who have a sense of duty, courage, but I'm also a child of the '60s. There's a part of me who wants to put a daisy in the end of the gun barrel. I believe in peace through superior firepower, but on the other hand I abhor the abuse of power and creeping imperialism disguised as patriotism. Some of these things you can't raise without being called unpatriotic, but I think it's very patriotic to question a system that needs to be corralled, or it becomes Rome." The film is rather existentialist in nature, and I love the idea of "trusting your body." The Na'vi is an ideal version of humanity, where we are strong and agile, and greed seems to not exist. We live off our land and give back to it when we can. This is what I really enjoyed about Avatar. The characters are all enjoyable. Cameron is known for creating really strong female characters; if only he could write better dialogue for them. We all remember Sarah Connor, but do we actually remember anything she actually said? No, we don't. Instead we remember her for her actions, and the same goes for the female characters here. The female pilot was one of my favorite characters; not because of anything she actually said, but because of what she did. I almost shed a tear when she went down. Sam Worthington does a good job playing a blunt marine, and Sigourney Weaver is, well, a lovable bitch. Stephen Lang plays the generic badass general, but Cameron breaks the one cliche that all evil hardened marine veterans seem to have in movies. Instead of having one scar go over his face, he has three. The action is really first rate and intense, and the use of documentary like techniques (like zooming in on a horde of Na'vi riding their horse-like creatures who happen to make the same sound as a velociraptor coughing in Jurassic Park) really adds to the sheer intensity. We see people impaled by arrows that are half their size, people attacked by huge soaring dragons and helicopter propellers slicing up people. We even get mech suits (something that the film adaptation of Starship Troopers lacked)! The action is literally breath taking. Avatar isn't the greatest movie ever made, but it certainly is an experience, one that every person, cinephile or not, should see. You have NEVER seen a film like Avatar before. The ending of the film fits right in, some people see it as a little fast and blunt, but I feel it fits perfectly. Just like Sam Worthington's character; fast, blunt and to the point.

I've seen Yojimbo and thought that it was pretty good. It was nowhere hear as good as, say, Kurosawa's other period pieces, such as Seven Samurai or Rashomon, but it's still a worthwhile film. However, there was something that was keeping me from completely loving it, and, to this day, I still can't put my finger on it. So is it such a crime that I liked and enjoyed Sanjuro a whole lot more than Yojimbo? Toshiro Mifune reprises his role as Kuwabatake Sanjuro, the wandering ronin for this sequel to Yojimbo. Mifune brings back everything that we loved about the character in the first film; Sanjuro is as witty and eccentric as ever. We see him taunt his opponents, make wry comments about his comrades and trick the opposition. Mifune has made Sanjuro as abrasive as possible, and it reminds us that only Mifune would be able to pull this off. Sanjuro is much more lighthearted than its predecessor. There is nothing groundbreaking about this film; it's more of a fan service than anything. Instead of ridding two gangs Sanjuro helps a bunch of doomed samurai save their innocent chamberlain and bring justice to the clan, which is now in the process of being overthrown. We see him slice and dice through other warriors, including a great finale where a humongous gush of blood shoots in the air (apparently the hose they used to shoot out the blood malfunctioned and the actor was literally straining from the force of the pressurized blood). Watching him infiltrate armies and scheming with camellias just brings a smile to my face. If there's one problem in Kurosawa films it's his weak scripting for female characters. I wouldn't say that he's sexist, I just think that he doesn't care, or bothers to think about them. The two female characters in this film, no matter how right and moral they may be, come off as extremely annoying. Regardless, these two characters have a rather small role compared to the other cast members, so it didn't ruin the movie for me. The film is nowhere near as serious as Yojimbo, but this delightful follow-up is a worthy sequel that even surpasses the original.

In 1903 audiences were thrilled and stunned (and scared shitless) by the film The Great Train Robbery.The reason for this is because the film contained the infamous shot of the train chugging towards the camera, and the audience, never seeing anything like this before, screamed and thought that the train was literally going to come out of the screen and hit them. This was considered a very important time in cinema, and that film had changed cinema forever. Then, in 2009, Avatar came out. After seeing it in IMAX 3D I felt the same kind of exhilaration that the audience must have felt over 100 years ago. I saw history happen that night, and everything that people are saying is true: movies will never be the same way ever again. Avatar is, first and foremost, an action film. Action fans should not be put off, however, since it's James Cameron who has created this unique vision. The same man who brought us The Terminator, Aliens and The Abyss has stunned audiences once again. I recommend going into the film blind, like I did. So, in that case, stop reading this now. The CG is absolutely fantastic. When he film first started it took my eyes a little bit to fully adjust to this immersive experience. The scenes looked like I was staring at one of those holographic baseball cards. After a while though, it seemed like I was actually staring at real people moving around in a box mounted in front of me, even though they were about 10x my height. Everything looked absolutely gorgeous. However, I had a problem with the Na'vi. It took me a long while to convince myself to see these characters as real. When I first started watching it the came off cartoonie and fake, but this is most likely due to the fact that I knew that they didn't actually exist in this plane of existence. I had to convince myself to let go and stop seeing them as CG. After a while, I did, and I swear, there are moments where I forget that they were CG because they looked so incredibly real. The planet of Pandora looks gorgeous. There is a specific shot that had me utterly amazed me in how real it looked. When the marines open fire on the massive tree that the Na'vi live in, there is one shot where we see a line of helicopters in the foreground, and the massive tree trunk begins to snap under the toppling pressure. Seeing the wood splinter looked SO REAL. I was actually convinced that what I was seeing was actually real. The film requires a great deal of suspension of disbelief, but if you can manage to do this, then you're in for one hell of a ride. The story is really fun and enjoyable. Sure, Cameron isn't the best at scriptwriting, and it shows in some of his dialogue, but I can overlook this for the story itself. It's amazing how surprising allegorical this film actually is: it's all about imperialism and connecting with oneself/surroundings. James Cameron had this to say about the film's theme, "I have an absolute reverence for men who have a sense of duty, courage, but I'm also a child of the '60s. There's a part of me who wants to put a daisy in the end of the gun barrel. I believe in peace through superior firepower, but on the other hand I abhor the abuse of power and creeping imperialism disguised as patriotism. Some of these things you can't raise without being called unpatriotic, but I think it's very patriotic to question a system that needs to be corralled, or it becomes Rome." The film is rather existentialist in nature, and I love the idea of "trusting your body." The Na'vi is an ideal version of humanity, where we are strong and agile, and greed seems to not exist. We live off our land and give back to it when we can. This is what I really enjoyed about Avatar. The characters are all enjoyable. Cameron is known for creating really strong female characters; if only he could write better dialogue for them. We all remember Sarah Connor, but do we actually remember anything she actually said? No, we don't. Instead we remember her for her actions, and the same goes for the female characters here. The female pilot was one of my favorite characters; not because of anything she actually said, but because of what she did. I almost shed a tear when she went down. Sam Worthington does a good job playing a blunt marine, and Sigourney Weaver is, well, a lovable bitch. Stephen Lang plays the generic badass general, but Cameron breaks the one cliche that all evil hardened marine veterans seem to have in movies. Instead of having one scar go over his face, he has three. The action is really first rate and intense, and the use of documentary like techniques (like zooming in on a horde of Na'vi riding their horse-like creatures who happen to make the same sound as a velociraptor coughing in Jurassic Park) really adds to the sheer intensity. We see people impaled by arrows that are half their size, people attacked by huge soaring dragons and helicopter propellers slicing up people. We even get mech suits (something that the film adaptation of Starship Troopers lacked)! The action is literally breath taking. Avatar isn't the greatest movie ever made, but it certainly is an experience, one that every person, cinephile or not, should see. You have NEVER seen a film like Avatar before. The ending of the film fits right in, some people see it as a little fast and blunt, but I feel it fits perfectly. Just like Sam Worthington's character; fast, blunt and to the point.

Whoever said that Italian neo-realism was dead? Chop Shop follows the exploits of young Alejandro (or Ale, as his peers call him) as he hustles and flows in the Iron Triangle, a third-world country of auto body repair shops that exists right outside of the Queens. He earns money whatever way he can, whether it's from helping out at local body shops, selling candy on the subway or by selling pornography to the local workers. If you enjoy films by Larry Clark or Harmony Korine, or even a film like This is England, then you would dig this. Like those films mentioned above, you are given a slice of life of a poor young lad working his way through the adult world, talking about getting blowjobs and drinking Heinekens after a hard day's work. We see a handful of Ale's trials and tribulations, especially his dream of buying a food truck to own with his older sister so the two of them can live happily making their own money. Not everything is a downer. We see glimpses of life with Ale and his young friend. There are rare moments that surface where we are reminded that Ale IS just a twelve-year-old boy, like when he tosses a shopping carriage off a bridge or playing games in the street with his young companion. Even the closing shot gives us hope that life goes on, and that Ale and his sister will make it through and end up alright. Ale may be a miser, but a wise one(most of the time) at that.

Come on now, when are you going to make a film in the vein of Bad Taste and Dead Alive again?

"Nothing, in the film, symbolizes anything. The only method of investigation of the symbols would be, perhaps, psychoanalysis." - Luis Buñuel

This movie makes me smile :)

What's the deal with Drugstore Cowboy not being on here?

I hate every person and every act seen in this film, yet at the same time it's so damn captivating.

The perfect way to ruin somebody's day.

Same with The Fisher King.