What Did You Watch Today?

[BlackFlagg]

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Village of the Damned - 7/10

Edited June 11, 2005 by BlackFlagg

[BlackFlagg]

The Blob - 8/10

[BlackFlagg]

The Devil's Advocate - 7/10

[Mick]

Madagascar: 4/10, or 2/5 for those that prefer to simplify.

I swear, it's like Dreamworks animation takes the names of celebreties from the Teen Choice Awards, puts them in a tumbler, grabs four names, comes up with a random number of butt jokes, and picks a random setting for a movie.

[fineintent]

Went to see Sin City last night, and it more than lived up to all the hype.

On one hand, it's an excellent bloody, naked chicks action movie. On the other, a fantastically made, brilliantly acted masterpiece. Clive Owen was bad ass, despite the quesitonable accent, Jessica Alba was amazingly hot, Mickey Rouke was touching and even Elijah Wood was impressive (granted he didn't speak). I'd probably give my left nut to fuck Alba, so the movie pretty much had everything.

9/10

[BlackFlagg]

National Lampoon's European Vacation - 8/10

[The LBTN Express]

Team America - 8/10

Awesome stuff from Trey and Matt. The only films that have made me laugh out loud in the last year are this and Napoleon Dynamite.

An Evening With Kevin Smith - 9/10

I'd been meaning to pick this up for some time and I finally did. Kevin Smith is an absolute genius and this two disc DVD set proves it. The feature is 3 and half hours long and not one part of it is boring or in the least bit tedious. A must get for any Smith fan.

Clerks - 9/10

After watching the above DVD I thought I'd rewatch Clerks and it never gets old, awesome movie.

[BlackFlagg]

Stripes - 9/10

[ROC]

Anchorman - 8/10

Perhaps it's a bit over-the-top at points, but the number of times I laughed at this movie makes up easily for the number of times I didn't. The cameos from loads of Ferrell buddies is also great as well as the stuff from the other talents on the cast like Steve Carell, Paul Rudd, and David Koechner.

[Ananas]

A Dirty Shame - * (2/10)

John Waters has never actually had what you would call a "hit" in Hollywood. Sure films like "Cry Baby", "Hairspray" and "Polyester" were hits with critics, but at the box office he's never really shined. In fact, in his 40 odd years of directorial work, Waters has never had a film gross 10 million dollars at theatres. This is almost certainly due to his tendency to make racy films that attract NC-17 ratings, but he has also made several PG films, which only had slightly more success. "A Dirty Shame", his latest 90 minutes of debauchery, is one of his raciest films yet and, although Waters tries his best to make the tried and true formula work, we're left more underwhelmed than shocked.

In "A Dirty Shame", Tracy Ullman stars as Sylvia Sickles, a sexually repressed Baltimore housewife of Vaughn Stickles, played by Chris Isaak. The Stickles family are a "normal", "boring" family who of course come with the undersexed husband and family baggage (a term that quite literally describes their ludicrously endowed daughter Caprice, played by Selma Blair). Keeping their daughter, who is on house arrest for some unmentioned reason, from returning to her lustful ways is a full time job for the Stickles, which interferes with their work at the family convenience store. All of this weighs on Sylvia's mind as she's driving to work one morning, until her car fails on the road, and in the process she is knocked out, suffering a concussion.

It is here that we meet Ray Ray (Johnny Knoxville), some sort of sexual messiah. His "magical tongue" has a tendency to both heal and awaken sexual tendencies. These methods work in spades with Sylvia, and she becomes what some of us "close minded people" would refer to as a whore. From here the movie becomes a seemingly never ending string of sex cliches and bad gross out humour. Is the concussion that released Sylvia's innate sex addiction an awakening, or is it simply an excuse to hedonism?

Waters starts to ponder this question, but after about 30 seconds he gets back to more of the same. It's hard to describe what's wrong with this movie in much detail because, in short, there's not much in the way of redeeming qualities. When producers asked the MPAA what would need to be cut in order to obtain an R-rating, they responded that if all the necessary cuts were made, the film would run at about 10 minutes long. It's not that the subject material is really that shocking; the opposite is probably the movie's biggest problem. If anyone is shocked by the film's subject matter, it is probably because they have nothing else to focus on. Despite Waters' NC-17 aspirations, this is a dog with neither bark nor bite. It's just sort of there.

You can find better examples of sex comedies every other week at the box office, and they are met with much greater success. In the end, the most shocking aspect of this film is not that it is so sexually explicit, but rather that in 40 years of film making, it seems John Waters hasn't learned a thing. Thumbs way down.

Edited June 14, 2005 by Jar Jar Beatnik

[BlackFlagg]

Gone in 60 Seconds - 7/10

[GoGo Yubari]

Star Wars Episode II: Attack of the Clones - 5.5/10

This would have been a perfectly fine movie if not for the general presence of Anakin Skywalker, the single most annoying character in Star Wars history (yes, more annoying than Jar-Jar Binks. And Darth Vader is an ENTIRELY DIFFERENT CHARACTER in my eyes at this point.). Everything Anakin got involved in sucked because of him. The Obi-Wan stuff is great, despite the damn cutesy one-liners that kept showing up.

Plus Jango Fett went out like a punk. What the fuck was THAT about?

[stokeriño]

The Cat Returns - 5/10

Not a great Ghibli film. Certainly not a touch on Totoro, and the plot is very much your Disney-style of bland. That said, the cat bodyguards (with black and white fur patterned to look like MIB style suits and ties) fucking rock.

[ROC]

Tears of the Sun - 5/10

Let me say that I did like the ideal of director Antoine Fuqua's war drama Tears of the Sun. Unfortunately, I was disappointed by the video game-looking opening scenes and the hackneyed ending. I also thought that the one-liners may have not fit the tense and dark nature of the film, even if it does showcase what Bruce Willis has always been best at. But the poignant nature of the feature does redeem it somewhat. Watch it if you like an okay political sentiment with a meh action feature.

P.S. Even as a Bellucci fan, I do think they went rather overboard on the cleavage stuff. Amazing that I wouldn't dig cleavage, eh?

[Your Mom]

The Machinist: 9/10. This is the movie that shows why Christian Bale is going to be a huge star. He lost 60 pounds for the part.

[FLiam]

Band of Brothers - 10/10

Yeh, I know, technically it isn't a film but it is close enough. This is by far the greatest war series/film thing ever created. My favourite of all time, acting is amazing, sound is amazing, the look of it is amazing, it just blows me away everytime I watch it. And I get goosebumps at the end of the first episode when they set off for Normandy. Highlghy, highly recommended.

[Timmoru Suzuki]

Batman Begins 7.5/10

Fairly good yarn, slightly boring in places, and some of the fight scenes are a bit hard to follow due to the style of the camera work, and the lighting (which is minimal throughout), it really is a DARKER Batman film. It improves as it goes on, and there are some enjoyable moments. A good (but not great) performance from Bale, and a good turn from Michael Caine as Alfred. Excellent ending.

Edited June 16, 2005 by timmayy

[Different Cloud]

Taxi Driver - 10/10

Pulp Fiction - 10/10

[Fitzy]

The Cooler - 8/10

[Laice07]

Batman Begins: 8.5/10

The Dark Knight has returned, and just as star wars left with a blaze of glory, Batman begins a new one.