What Did You Watch Today?

[punky]

V For Vendetta - 6/10

Good movie but I didn't think it was as great as all of my friends (and reviewers around the net) were making it out to be.

[Ananas]

Amelie - 8/10

* Audrey Tatou is a vibrant performer and is right at home in this vibrant comedy. A whimsical concept such as this is a filmmaker's playground, and director Jean-Pierre Jeunet takes full advantage, mixing in nuanced performances with creative flashback sequences and a tongue in cheek narrative. Think Scrubs in a foreign language.

* The poet Wallace Stevens once said that sentimentality is a failure of feeling. Now this is all that I know about the man, but I think we can pretty much conclude that he was a miserable son of a bitch with none of the zeal that films like these have. Both realism and escapism have their places in cinema, and this is one for the dreamers. Thumbs up.

[Tarheels.]

V For Vendetta- 9.5/10

One of the best movies I've seen in a long time. I had never read the book and basically only knew the outline of the story, but I loved this movie. It keeps you on the edge of your seat the whole time, I had to piss about 20 minutes end but decided FUCK IT and I waited the next 2 hours to let it out. The story was incredible and I think come Oscar time if this doesn't get some nods then I will go fucking crazy

[BlackFlagg]

Devil's Rejects - 7/10

[Johnny Latino Heat]

V For Vendetta - 10/10

I seriously loved this movie, and now, I go in search of the comics. I dunno if it stays true to the comics or not, but even if it doesn't... the grade doesn't change. 10/10

[ROC]

Stay Alive - 2.0/10

It’s hard to say what’s scarier in Stay Alive, the video game that becomes a killer to those who play it or the horribly skinny look the usually cute Samaire Armstrong appears to have gotten herself into nowadays. I’ll go with the latter here, as Stay Alive is nothing short of bleh video game references, horrid cliche, character stupidity, and wasted talent, though, the last one may be only in reference to Adam Goldberg. As for the rest of the cast, they all suck equally as well as the script and pretty much everything else. Just bad, bad, bad. While I’m sure Uwe Boll has done a worse effort this year with BloodRayne, it’s not just him delivering awfulness...William Brent Bell is efficient at the art, too.

[BlackFlagg]

Alien - 9/10

[Ananas]

Citizen Kane - 9/10

* Not much can be said about Citizen Kane that hasn't been mentioned millions of time over. As such.. thumbs up.

[Timmoru Suzuki]

V For Vendetta 8/10

Just very good.....

[Ananas]

Date Movie - 3/10

* Looking for satire? Look somewhere else. This is b-level re-creation. If anything in their efforts to "mock" other films, they've actually cheapened the originals by taking all that humour and exaggerating it until it loses all edge. Only a few bits actually worked, and they weren't even all parody (bumfights, anyone?).

* That said, the efforts are certainly, erm, spirited. Alyson Hannigan tries to make the best of a bad situation, and the supporting cast certainly know their roles (most of them have probably played the virtually the same role in other bad rom-coms). One sequence parodying the movie "My Best Friend's Wedding" was absolutely perfect satire (probably the only time that happened). And if you're REALLY looking for an excuse to see the movie, there's Sophie Monk's salacious charm. However, I doubt that telling you that "it's better than BloodRayne" is going to be interpreted as a strong endorsement, and that's about the best I can do. Thumbs down to a parody film that could have used more actual parody.

[Numbahs]

Inside Man - **

Edited March 27, 2006 by Numbahs

[Testicle numba 2]

16 Blocks

7/10

It was pretty decent. Mos Def was actually pretty good in this movie.

[Ananas]

Failure to Launch - 5/10

* Failure to Launch? Truer words have never been spoken. This is a movie that never gets deeper than the shallow opening sequences rom-coms generally have, and everything else suffers as a result. We can't really get to understand the blossoming relationship between a 35 year old man and the woman hired to get him out of his house because the only real impression we get of these characters is that they are petty, shallow people who don't seem to think about the concerns of others for a second. We never understand the relationship between mother, father and son because we're caught between pitying their situation and deploring the way they go about fixing it. We also can't seem to understand McConaughey's character's relationship with his friends, because all of their sequences seem to get quickly interupted by lame comic gags (usually involving animals). It's a rom-com that shouldn't even succeed as a date movie because anyone really watching the film can't seem to find reason to cheer for any of the characters, save for perhaps Zooey Deschanel's Kit, who is at least open about her actions.

* That's not to say there aren't endearing parts. The general jist of the film is that it is hard to make the leap from the familial unit to the single life. Or at least it seems to be. Those parts even seem to endear the characters to the audiences. That is, before a second act plot twist throws that entire dynamic off. This is a silly mess that may be enjoyable as a distraction, but little else. Thumbs down.

[Buford Ripley]

Fearless - 8/10

Nathan Jones gets beaten by Tony Jaa and now Jet Li whoops his ass. It's a shame this is Jet's last martial arts film. Maybe we'll see him in romantic comedies?

[Guest Ringmaster The Living Legend]

I've moved back to my "watch 4509 movies a day phase" so its time to make my return here >_>

Der Himmel Uber Berlin

4/10

I always secretly liked City of Angels. It ended badly and had good cinematography. So, I assumed the original German version was better. Remakes are always worst. I was wrong. Firstly, this movie is agonizingly slow. And I mean agonizingly slow. It makes an Ingmar Bergman film seem like an action packed thriller. Normally, that's not that bad, but its agonizingly slow and nothing really happens. The angel just wanders about forever and listens to random people talk and does nothing else. Sure, you hear some nice "philosophical" statements but apart from that nothing happens. Then, he meets some trapezist chick. She's not even really hot, but she moved him so he's like "I wanna be a human". Then he becomes a human and gets together with the chick. Mind you, this is like 1H30 into the film. Then the ending isn't nearly as good as the original. It's not as moving or poignant.

Ultimately, the film's saving grace is its cinematography. It's really, really nice. But over 2 hours of nice cinematography for nothing to happen? Not worth it. You come out of this film feeling like a complete and utter artfag because of the constant shift between colour and B&W and nothing really happens. At all. Most artfags will probably love it, but it felt like an eternity to me.

[therockbox]

Lucky Number Slevin: 8/10

Didn't expect it to be this good, but I'll definately watch it again when it comes out on DVD.

[Guest Ringmaster The Living Legend]

The Night of the Hunter

7/10

I always wondered where the image of the priest with the words HATE tattooed on his left knuckle and LOVE tattooed on his right knuckle came from. I'd seen it in the X-Files and Carnivale, and probably elsewhere too. So I jumped on this when I saw it because evil priests are always awesome. The story is fairly simple. Man kills people and robs $10,000 from a bank, drives home and gives the cash to his 10 year old son and 5 year old daughter, hides it with them and makes them swear never to tell anyone where it is, hoping they would be able to use it when they grew older. He's sentenced to hang and meets an evil priest in prison. The preacher has killed 25 widows and stolen their money, but is only sentenced to 30 days for stealing a car. Once the man is hung, the preacher goes to his family, marries his wife and does his best to get the cash.

On the whole, the movie is cool. It's got great scenes of suspense, especially as the preacher chases the kids. However, the film's ending is a stereotypical studio-era film fairy tale conclusion with a moral attached to it. Also, it feels unbelievably dated. The acting isn't great, they all speak in dreadful Southern accents and the characters are token stock characters. It's fairly clear that Robert Mitchum carries the whole movie on his back, and the scenes where the viewer is left alone with the children is somewhat irritating, especially towards the end.

Aside from that, it's got intriguing elements and things you wouldn't expect from an old movie.

Recommended.

[Ananas]

My Big Fat Independent Movie - 3.5/10

* My Big Fat Pot Calls Kettle Black. This film, written by Film Threat's Chris Gore, wants to be the indy Scary Movie. In fact, you might suggest that this is the most mainstream film ever made. There is however, one problem: Scary Movie was a satire. This movie tries to be, but in finding that the indy scene has produced some of the few films worth watching in recent history, it can only steal the original characters and place them in contrived situations hoping for laughs. It fails. And in fact, the situations these characters find themselves in are so ludicrious, they do the opposite of whatever point Gore was trying to make: even if some indy films find themselves outside the realm of common sense at some point, they're still a hell of a lot more grounded than this trainwreck. Thumbs down.

* P.S. Don't fuck with Amelie unless you're going somewhere. Douchebag-facial-hair-havin'-motherfucker.

[Ananas]

Grandmas Boy - 3/10

* A movie so bad it MUST have been from January. Let's count it up, shall we? First we have Allen Covert (who wrote the script and starred), who's been leeching off of Adam Sandler since Going Overboard, and almost certainly would not have got this gig had Sandler's company not bankrolled the film. His next writing gig (his third, after this and Eight Crazy Nights) is Benchwarmers. Approach with caution. Then we have Peter Dante as Dante, who I can only assume is Happy Madison's answer to Jay from Jay and Silent Bob. He does the weed, he has the childish sense of humour only unlike Jay, there's a mainstream filter that renders the character nothing but a hollow knock off. But I suppose his position is safe; he's equally in with the Sandler camp. Then we have bit parts played with sub-par enthusiasm by character actors like Nick Swardson, Joel Moore, Doris Roberts, Shirley Jones, Shirley Kight and Sandler's SNL buddy Kevin Nealon, who's right at home at the bottom of gross out comedy. Oh, and lest we forget, Linda "Velma" Cardellini. How interesting a transition, from a kids movie that HINTS at pot use to an R-rated comedy that seems to offer little else. Or, if you're an art fan, from the winner of 3 Academy Awards to a movie which will almost certainly draw consideration for next years Razzies. Oh, how the marginally successful have fallen. In brief, the jokes are nothing new, the plot goes absolutely nowhere and, like a pubescent fantasy, lacks any discernible conflict. Grow up guys. Thumbs down.

[Miami Vice]

"Dude, Where's the party?"

Kal Penn is the main star. It's hardcore South Asian culture mixing with the American culture. Kind of a social-teen party film. It's an odd one and a bad movie to boot.

4/10