Kadath

I've been watching the Lone Wolf and Cub movies lately. Collectively, 9.5/10, and they only lose points for being over so quickly. Awesome samurai movies.

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hambone

Watched the Wicker Man last night. The ending was stupid.

5/10

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Lady Sage

I havent seen the new Wicker Man... The one that was made back in 1973 is a very fine piece of work.

Unfortunately, everyone I know that has seen both has stated that eventhough Mr. Cage is a fabulous actor, it was a completely bastardized remake.

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Chimera

Finally saw "V" for vandetta....not bad, and in fact some pretty good acting. Very much enjoyed the dialogue.

8.5

Devoid

Sweetness. I have those queued up on Netflix right now.

I watched Saw 3 last night. I was a big fan of the first 2, for different reasons. I liked the mystery and atmosphere of the first, while the second was built more around the traps and the idea that people can go against their nature, i.e. the cop that had to restrain himself when all he wanted to do was go nuts.

The 3rd movie somehow managed to tie it all together very nicely for me. In the beginning I thought the traps were getting a little ludicrous and that there was no good way to escape them, but the way they explained it later was great. The effects were ridiculously good for the most part and actually had me wincing a couple of times, especially the rack trap. I think my favorite aspect of the movie was how it tied all three movies together and actually got all the actors from all three, and went back and showed what happened in some of the parts you didn't see when the events originally unfolded. It really helped solidify the story for me. The nature of the game in this one was done incredibly also. I may be biased, since I like the horror and torture movies more than most, but I give it an 8/10.

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roachboy

Pyotr Lutsik: The Outskirts

excellent complex russian film---a parody of socialist realist films (complete with fabulous boy-gets-tractor ending)---a kind of dark story about a group of peasant men/possible sociopaths from the urals who had lived on a collective farm ("the homeland") who find one day that their land has been sold from under them--so they embark on a journey to set things right. which requires killing alot of people. surreal and funny and peculiar and everything else that you'd want from a film you find yourself watching on a saturday night instead of going out.

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Shadow_fire

Pan's Labyrinth

This was a really well done movie, based in Spain during WW2, mostly about the imagination and how it can help you get through hard times. Really well done film, I enjoyed it quite alot. I would give it a minimum of 4/5 stars if that was how I rated films. It had some really good looking creatures, and just a really well written story. All in all it was one of the better fantasy films I have seen recently.

mixedmedia

lol, you might like Man Bites Dog.

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Lucifer

I just saw "The Illusionist" with Edward Norton and Paul Giamatti. Really enjoyed it. It's about an illusionist (obviously) and a forbidden love between a commoner and a duchess. Even though I could see the ending coming, I still enjoyed watching it.
8/10

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Destrox

Night at the Museum:

While I went into this expecting nothing more than a 5 / 10 overall, I ended up leaving with a good solid 7 / 10. Both my GF and I found it to contain a number of good laughs with a good solid family movie backing to it.

Don't expect anything more than mindless entertainment, and you will leave happy.

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abaya

Pan's Labyrinth: 8/10

Ktspktsp and I went to see it last night and we couldn't stop talking about it all the way home. From the Spanish Civil War aspects (we spent a long time reading up on it when we got home; thanks Wikipedia!) to the philosophical and almost spiritual complexities of the film, we were either in shock or awe for most of the film. It's not easy to watch... some scenes are utterly gut-wrenching in their violence. It isn't a feel-good movie by any means. But goddamn if it doesn't grab you by the balls (figurative, in my case ) and hypnotize you till the end.

And, it's in Spanish with English subtitles, which I think is so cool for a relatively major American-release film. We need more Spanish language movies (foreign movies in general) for American audiences.


L'enfant (The Child): 8/10

We rented this on Friday night (ktspktsp had heard of it; it won the highest award at Cannes last year) and I was hesitant at first... but I'm so glad we watched it. I'm surprised it didn't get more play at American theatres, but I highly recommend checking it out if you can find it at Blockbuster.

It's about a petty thief 20-something guy who sells his own newborn child (without the mother's consent) to make an extra buck... then spends the rest of the movie waking up to what he's done, and what made it so wrong (he didn't see any problem with it at the time: "We'll have another one," he tells the girlfriend). I'm not doing it justice, but the character development is powerful. The "child" is not the baby... it's the young man facing up to his long-delayed sense of responsibility. A transition worth watching.

Belgian-French, with English subtitles.

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desal75

Saw Lady in the Water. Very different and original on some levels, a little convaluted on others. Worth a watch though.

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warrrreagl

Catch and Release.

Meh. OK for a Sunday afternoon movie (which was when we saw it). Two possible subtitles could be the following:

Catch and Release: Oops, I Didn't Mean it That Way - After the first couple of times of this misunderstanding business, you get the point. But this movie takes it into the dozens of times.

Catch and Release: The B List - Everybody in this movie (excepting Juliette Lewis) either looks or sounds like somebody else more famous. You get the feeling the producers had bigger plans for this movie and then couldn't get ANYbody to be in it. Instead of Julia Roberts, we get the other actress with a huge top lip - Jennifer Garner. Instead of the guy from What About Brian, we get somebody close. Instead of Jack Black, we get another fat comic relief sidekick who talks just like him. Instead of Blythe Danner, we get an almost-Blythe-Danner mom figure.

It was still a cute movie, but you'll find yourself wondering how his friends could NOT KNOW he was loaded?

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roachboy

duncan tucker: "transamerica"

a very nice small film featuring a truly excellent acting job by felicity huffman as the main character, bree osborn. it is essentially a road film involving bree and his/her son, who meet for the first time a few days before bree's surgery, which would finalize the male-female transition organ-wise. funny, smart, well written and very nicely acted piece.

lisa cholodenko: "high art"

not much to say about this film. i saw it for a second time last night, more or less by mistake, and thought it flat and tedious. ally sheedy is good, as is patricia clarkson as "greta" the junkie faded actress in fassbinder films (a nice touch, somehow)...curiously, what i ended up enjoying the most were the collective reactions of the stoner crew of friends to the various moments of relationship upheaval that constituted the action of this tiresome film. well that and wondering about the music choices. so there we are.

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Lady Sage

Epic Movie 8/10 (for laughs alone)

This movie razzes a load of movies...

Click, V for Vendetta, James Bond, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, Narnia, Nacho Libre, X-Men, Snakes on a Plane, Star Wars, DaVinci Code, Pirates of the Carribean, Harry Potter, Superman, Fast and Furious 3:Tokyo Drift, Scarface and A Christmas Story. Also TV shows Cribs and Punked. Stifflers Mom plays the "Evil Bitch" and the movie makes fun of Kung-Fu movies as well.

A laugh a minute, youll never see it all coming! Stay for the credits to see more cute scenes. Beware! Michael Jackson will be made fun of on a few occasions.

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Halx

Crank 8/10

When rating a movie, I try to rate it based on what it tries to be. Crank doesn't reach for the stars, by any stretch of the imagination. It doesn't attempt to be realistic, emotional, smart, or high brow in any way, shape or form. What it does do is entertain the fuck out of you.

The plot goes like this: Jason Statham plays a professional killer who is being disposed of. He is injected with this chemical that slows him down until he just stops, so the only way to counteract it is to keep his adrenaline up. To do that, he seeks out excitement and danger at a breakneck pace, all the while hunting for the people who injected him.

The movie has a very quirky style to it. Leave your sense of reality and old fashioned cinematography standards at home. This movie is like a live action video game. With boobs. And a few good laughs.

In any case, I was thoroughly entertained. I would suggest this movie to anyone who just wants a fun movie to watch.

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777

Clerks II

It should be called, "Clerks for life". Great film. As good as (and maybe better) than the first.

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Roger Zelazny

dirtyrascal7

Flyboys - 6/10

This could have been a great movie, but every aspect... the special effects, dialogue, story, screenplay... seemed to have waaay too much of that Hollywood feel to it. Basically, everything seemed incredibly fake and predictable. It's amazing how a film with an original story can still feel like every other movie you've ever seen.

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biznatch

I finally saw Reservoir Dogs. I can't give it a rating, but I loved it. Micheal Madsen is extremely convincing. The movie really is a must see if you can stand violence.

powerclown

The Descent - 9/10
Superbo horrror flicko. I got really, truly scared and I loved it.

V for Vendetta - 1/10
The one is for the hot chick. Everything else was nonsense. And it sucked when she shaved her head because she looks so much better with long luxurious hair. I hope that wasn't a spoiler.

Snoogans

Jindabyne - 2/10

A group of friends goes fishing and finds a dead girl, nothing happends after this.
I'm not exaggerating the level of boredom of this movie, nothing happends.
When it was finally over the people in the theater just looked at eachother in silence, everyone thinking the same thing: "What a waste of time"

2 points for the scenery though, beautiful landscape.

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spectre

The Departed - 9/10

Awesome movie with a ton of twists. Usually, I look for any reason to just hate Dicaprio because he annoys the hell out of me and makes it easy to just hate him, but he was really good in this one. The only real drawback was the ending felt rushed, like they knew they had a lot to do but the movie was already going long. Even so, it was pretty decent ending.

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Kadath

Rocky - 9/10

Only loses a point because it is somewhat artless how Stallone explains he doesn't care about winning, only going the distance right before he does not win, but goes the distance. Otherwise, a great movie.

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roachboy

Tamar Halpern: shelf life.

what a dorky film. i use dorky here in the technical sense. it is funny in places, though i thought the acting kinda questionable, particularly from the actress who plays the head librarian--but the premise is interesting and there are alot of sweet, funny moments. and the ending upsets everything. they say it is a "dark comedy"--you can figure out for yourself if it is or not. i'd watch it, if i were you and i being you were once again in the mood for an evening of dorky entertainment.

number rating. what do these things mean anyway?

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it make you sick.

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Strange Famous

venus.

utterly heartbreaking, a wonderful performance, a Forest-Whitacker-eclipsing performance - by Peter O'Toole. (and Leslie Phillips turns in a brilliant comic turn as well just for the hell of it).

The focus is "Venus", but the whole movie is about O'Toole's character, who is dying, and wallowing in his last sexual obsession... his timing slowly unravvelung and getting all fucked up, swaggering into his disintegration... it might be marketed as some kind of may - december romance, but it is about death and dying and nothing else escapes from the movie untouched by it.

I'd recomend it to anyone because I dont think you would see a better performance for a long time (and I include in that Whitaker's Idi Amin - which was the most powerful performance I could think of since Ganz's Hitler.)

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Lady Sage

Hannibal Rising 9.9/10

My only complaint would be that my favorite line from the book didnt make it into the movie. Aside from that ...this movie reaffirms my belief that Hannibal is a God. If I dont stop now, I will gush for hours and hours...

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Halx

Saw, Saw 2, Saw 3 9/0

I watched the three movies in this series in fairly quick succession. The first one got me because of how clever it was. The second one got me because of how vicious it was and how it tied together so well at the end. The third got me because of the thought behind it all that gave the series a bigger meaning than it had before. I'm sitting here really hoping for a 4th.


Blood Diamond 7/0

Great work from Leonardo DiCaprio. The story was almost epic and the followthrough was a good spot in a time when it's "hip" to end in depressed disaster. I'm sad to admit that Jennifer Connelly's role was a bit cliche and annoying. She's always great to look at, but she needs to bring more to her roles than what we always expect. Though the action in the movie was pretty "hollywood" (tight angles, quick cuts to random things exploding or people getting gunned down) it still did the job. I hope in the future cinematographers can learn a little something from Children of Men.

Idiocracy 5/10

I wasn't too happy with this. The best I can describe it is a few good scenes floating in an otherwise murky swamp of dumbness. The movie takes place 500 years into the future where the world has gone to the lowest common denominator. The movie works best when it subtley criticisizes the world we live in today, but the rest of it is idiocy being played out in full. Velveta the newscaster = funny. Two idiots trying to remember what they were sent out to do = not funny. In any case, this movie has "cult classic" written all over it, as to all other Mike Judge projects.

Delicatessen 7/10

From the director of Amelie and City of the Lost Children. It's a clever and fantastic little story about an apartment building where the landlord is a butcher who chops up his handyman and serves him to his tenants. There are side stories including each of the tenants, as well as little sequences that make the movie more of an art piece than a story. I enjoyed it... most notably the opening scene and the suicidal woman.

Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas 6.8/10

I don't really have much to say. Johnny Depp's strange acting is infectious. I found myself emoting and twitching quite the same way he was for hours after watching.

Closer 8/10

Clive Owen is a badass. Natalie Portman is hot (though, I gotta admit she suffers from "Anglo Ass"). Jude Law is a pussy. Julia Roberts is a mess. I liked this movie because it was so frank, brutal and unapologetic. I found myself bowing down to the greatness of Clive Owen afterwards.


Can you tell I got Netflix recently?

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Lucifer

Pan's Labyrinth. 8/10

I wasn't as blown away by this as I thought I would have been. The art direction was excellent and the actors were great also. It took me a while to decide whether the faun was good or evil.

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MichaelFarker

Music and Lyrics 6/10

Not a terrible date movie. It made us laugh out loud repeatedly. The acting was solid but there was no chemistry between the two leads. Sadly there was nothing sexy to me in this movie, though my wife felt like covering my eyes. When it tried to be a bit sexy it came out sad or gross.

I would rather watch any of Hugh Grant's other movies instead of this one.

Overall, I would see it on a date if there were no other good choices.

Kadath

Full Metal Jacket 6/10

I honestly don't think this movie is particularly great. R. Lee Ermey is shocking as the drill sergeant, and Vincent D'Onofrio does a great job, but the last 80 minutes of the movie are pretty listless. I also feel like the scene where Joker shoots the sniper is overplayed and clumsy.

I suppose it might be another case of a film overwhelming popular culture so that its impact is lessened by imitation, but I don't know.

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dirtyrascal7

Confidence - $4.2 million out of $5 million

I didn't have very high expectations for this, mainly b/c I hadn't heard of it before and I couldn't remember why I put it on my Netflix queue... but I'm very glad I did. The plot was great, acting was superb, and the suspense was at a prime level throughout. Ed Burns is a complete badass in this movie... he reminds me of Vincent from 'Collateral', but the way Vincent should have been played.

Wicker Park - 9 obsessed stalkers out of 10 obsessed stalkers

I liked this movie a lot because it starts out going one direction, then shifts focus halfway through... but by the end, everything is tied together perfectly. I don't really want to give away much more, but I do highly recommend it.

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biznatch

I'm not sure what to say about Pan's Labyrinth.
I wouldn't be able to give it a rating.
It's definitely intense, and I love the crossings between the fantasy world and reality. If you're squeamish, or don't like violence, this movie has a couple of scenes that will really gross you out. I usually don't mind gore and violence, but this was filmed in such an intense way I felt a bit uncomfortable.
It is a beautiful movie, however. I liked it a lot, and it had been a while since I'd seen a European movie.

MexicanOnABike

The Departed:
Theres something weird with this movie. it was good but it seemed to try too much to be a mafia movie. I still liked it overall especially the acting of almost everyone. But the ending seemed just a bit too much. "I'm here to help you! BOOMHEADSHOT!" ... oh well. I still recommend it to anyone who wants to see a good 2:30h long mafia/police movie.

8/10

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Halx

Taxi Driver - 7/10

I'll give this movie the benefit of the doubt. I'm sure in its time, it was great. It was interesting, but I gotta stop watching these "important" movies at 4am if I am gonna extract their real essence, I guess. The character progression was suspect... I mean, I knew what was going to happen, but I didn't see any real evidence that what was going to happen was within the logical realm of possibilities. In any case, instead of explaining things, the movie kept going right along and that's really what saved it.

GoodFellas - 7/10

Perhaps a good 45 minutes too long. We Americans will never get tired of the mobster genre and this movie gets deep into it. Low on action, high on drama and deft storytelling. The last bit of the movie is anti-climactic. The whole movie was smooth, without much suspense or emotion. I guess I was looking for something a little more biting.

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Grasshopper Green

The Bridge to Terabithia

I never read the book as a child, and only glanced at the reviews before going, so I really had no idea what the story was really about. Talk about an emotional film that just comes out of nowhere; even hubby was holding back tears. We took our son to see it and he enjoyed it, but we had to have a talk on the way home about Spoiler: life and death and how movies are just pretend. It was a pretty good movie and I enjoyed it for the most part. 3.5/5


The Queen

Loved it. I suppose it's probably a movie that you'd really have to be interested in seeing or it could be fairly boring. Helen Mirren and Michael Sheen (who played Tony Blair) were both fantastic. In fact, all the acting was really good. I don't really know how historically accurate it was, I didn't pay much attention when the actual events were taking place, but it was an interesting look into a completely unknown world. 5/5

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longbough

Lost in Translation 10/10 - Didn't follow the cliched path. Surprisingly good. Made me cry. Watched it more than once now.

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Bittertalker

In honor of Monday being Presidents Day I took my girlfriend and myself to see Eddie Murphy’s new comedy Norbit, as we both thought it looked funny and had nothing else to do. The movie is funny because of Eddie Murphy, he is the one who holds it all together. In the movie he plays three completely different characters ala the Nutty Professor and Coming to America, and something should be said about Rick Baker’s makeup and effects helping to achieve this. The movie is funny, not hilarious, just funny. At times, yeah the movie was really funny, we were repeating lines walking out of the movie and later at dinner, but compared to his other multiple role movies it was just okay. I say that because it is hard to find a funnier movie than Coming to America. In the end I did like it and will watch it again when it comes to video.

After the movie and during the credits a young boy named Justin, I knew his name was Justin because halfway through the movie his mother repeatedly asked if he was alright, said “Eddie Murphy was Norbit?” I just thought this was funny, the one character who looked like Eddie Murphy this boy was amazed at, not the woman or the Asian man he also played.

MichaelFarker

Lucky Number Sleven 7/10

I enjoyed this movie a lot. I wouldn't recommend it to everyone in the world, but it is a must see for fans of this type of movie. (Grosse Pointe Blank, The Whole Nine Yards, Mr. & Mrs. Smith (2005)).

So if you're a fan of antihero hitmen, you will love this one. It is not quite as funny or touching as the others I mentioned, but it is a lot more surprising. It is not as surprising as Momento or the Usual Suspects but the characters are a lot more likeable. Sadly, <span style="background: white; color: white;">Lucy Liu kicks no ass at all. But it has a happy if hard to believe ending.</span>

Speaking of spoilers, DO NOT READ THE BACK OF THE DVD CASE. It gives away one of the key surprises.

Ben Kingsley nailed his role, an absolutely convincing crime boss. Josh Hartnett was hilarious and believable, hard but friendly.
Lucy Liu played a perfect romantic lead. The movie would have been much better if it had revealed her character more. Or if she had <span style="background: white; color: white;">hit someone with a stick.</span>

There is no fighting and only a little gunplay. There is very little sexiness (mostly Lucy Lui looking hot but all covered up). Still it manages to be a very fun and likeable action comedy.

warrrreagl

Number 23 - Grancey and I saw it Friday afternoon and enjoyed it. I wish more cool/freaky things had been done with the numerology about 23, but the movie was solid enough without it. There were a small cluster of goofs a couple of rows behind us who were expecting Ace Ventura and they began the movie by laughing wildly at nearly everythng Jim Carrey did or said. It took them about half an hour to realize he was serious this time. Great acting by both Carrey and Virginia Madsen. Good story, good acting, enjoyble time. 8.5/10.

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doggyhead

The Number 23 is also the last movie I watched. I enjoyed it. I agree that they could have done more with the numerology and such, especially the "blessing or a curse" thing. Jim Carrey is good...maybe his best acting to date. Virginia Madsen also is very good. Even the son (Robin Sparrow, for crying out loud), played by Logan Lerman, does a pretty good job. It's not the acting that bothers me though...maybe it's how it's wriiten, or the direction...I don't know, but I wasn't good enough for me to go watch again, or even to rent. It was was worth watching once, though. 6.5/10

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