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Last seen...

Last rented movie this week: Seven Samauri. It was absolutely fantastic. Long and sub-titled but still great.

Yes it is.

Let's see, I started to watch Charlie Rose late Friday night. First time I've watched anything in months. He was running an old interview with William Styron. But first there were some journalists talking about Iraq and I fell asleep. So disappointed that I missed the Styron portion.
 
Home: 50 First Dates - great movie; funny and a good escape
Theatre: The Departed - unless you really like blood, guts, and gore, avoid this one.
 
Gangs of New York (Am I the only one that didn't like it?) I had such a hard time sticking with it until I finally dozed off.
 
Okay, but how was the movie?

The Virgin Suicides was just okay. I was somewhat disappointed because, I suppose for lack of time, there were some important events left out of the film. I know this happens all the time but it wouldn't have made the film run any longer than another 15-20 minutes. Also, the girls were portrayed very differently in the movie. I don't want to give away any info for those who haven't seen or read. Sophia Coppola's direction was wonderful. Good casting. And, you know how it is, the movie is NEVER as good as the book. But in this instance I liked the movie better. It didn't have the depth of the book but was more entertaining, for me. Whenever I watch a movie after reading the book I almost always walk away pissed-off about how the screenwriter chopped up the important details or the editor did a crappy job, etc.
I liked Middlesex by Eugenides much better.
 
Gangs of New York (Am I the only one that didn't like it?) I had such a hard time sticking with it until I finally dozed off.
Not the only one. I thought it was one of Scorsese's worst movies ever. Overlong, with ho-hum acting (DiCaprio and Diaz are hardly the biggest talents in Hollywood) and a - to say the least - confused ending. They spend 3 hours blackmailing, beating and killing people, and then we're told that "these are the hands that built America"? Come on.
 
I didn't like Gangs of New York either. But I'm hardly a Scorsese fan, so that's no big surprise.
 
fritz lang's M - wow, amazing cinematography, intriguing storyline. hard to believe it was made in 1931, in that ethos. certainly foreshadowed what was to come ... haunting
 
Not the only one. I thought it was one of Scorsese's worst movies ever. Overlong, with ho-hum acting (DiCaprio and Diaz are hardly the biggest talents in Hollywood) and a - to say the least - confused ending. They spend 3 hours blackmailing, beating and killing people, and then we're told that "these are the hands that built America"? Come on.

Ok, good. I thought maybe I was a weird one that didn't like it or really understand where they were going. It's hardly the hands that built....

(I do like the song, though):D
 
Herzog's Nosferatu isn't quite the masterpiece that Aguirre is, but it's certainly an individual take on one of horror's most overused yet never perfected stories (no, I do NOT like Coppola's Dracula). Herzog has no clue how to make a horror movie, so instead he pretty much goes back to the reason for why we have horror fiction in the first place and turns it into an existentialist (I guess) piece about the fear of death and the alternative, weaving in the plague that was probably the source of the vampire myth to start with.

Also, I'm already falling in love with Herzog's sense of humour. The ending is possibly the best ending to any Dracula adaptation I've ever seen. On a whole, it owes a little too much to Murnau's version, but I like it. 4/5.
 
Over the weekend, I watched the BBC adaptation of Tipping the Velvet, and thoroughly enjoyed it. I can't believe how much they got away with showing. The author and screenplay writer, in an interview on the dvd, expressed surprise too, at how much the BBC allowed them to show.
 
Over the weekend, I watched the BBC adaptation of Tipping the Velvet, and thoroughly enjoyed it. I can't believe how much they got away with showing. The author and screenplay writer, in an interview on the dvd, expressed surprise too, at how much the BBC allowed them to show.
Would you recommend it? Cause I see it in stores a lot at a relatively cheap price.

Last movie I went to myself was "Crusade in Jeans" -- I'd expected more of it, really.
 
Last weekend I went to see Stranger Than Fiction and have mixed feelings. Most of the performances were great, especially Maggie Gyllenhaal and Emma Thompson. But Will Ferrell came off a bit flat in his performance. I ended up not really caring for his character as much as I should have. I suspect he was instructed to tone his performance down to be more serious, and took this too much to heart. His best scenes were with Maggie G. I also didn't care for the ending, but won't say more. Of course this film has received some very good reviews, so maybe its just me. I'd be interested to hear what others thought of it.
 
Last weekend I went to see Stranger Than Fiction and have mixed feelings. Most of the performances were great, especially Maggie Gyllenhaal and Emma Thompson. But Will Ferrell came off a bit flat in his performance. I ended up not really caring for his character as much as I should have. I suspect he was instructed to tone his performance down to be more serious, and took this too much to heart. His best scenes were with Maggie G. I also didn't care for the ending, but won't say more. Of course this film has received some very good reviews, so maybe its just me. I'd be interested to hear what others thought of it.
Saw it yesterday, and I'd agree with much of what you say... I liked it, but it's not quite as smart as it would like us to think it is and the ending is a letdown. But for once I really liked Ferrell, it felt like he was playing the straight man to the comedy of the situation rather than trying to become the comedy himself. I'd rate it 3/5, a good solid feel-good comedy that doesn't get too schmaltzy but is far from as good as it could have been.

Just got back from seeing ****. Now this is an interesting movie, a documentary (much in the style of The Aristocrats) about the use of the word in question, historically and contemporarily, in films and in TV, the controversy surrounding it etc. Made up largely of carefully edited-together interviews with both talkshow hosts and porn stars, comedians and directors, censorship advocates and linguists, and for some reason Pat Boone. (Pat Boone's bits are the funniest of the entire movie, for instance when he complains that the use of profanity just panders to the lowest common denominator and is single-handedly responsible for entertainment becoming bland and boring - DUDE! You're PAT BOONE!)

Obviously it's very opinionated, and the mere fact that the word in question is used (spoken, sung or written) about 800 times in 90 minutes should perhaps give an indication of which way the film makers lean on the censorship debate. But a lot of the people involved make interesting points - the movie ends on Lenny Bruce's famous quote "Take away the right to say '****' and you take away the right to say '**** the government'" - and is very entertaining; it definitely got more laughs than "Stranger Than Fiction". Though much like The Aristocrats it starts to drag after the 60-minute mark, and as a non-American, I came away even more puzzled about just what the big deal is with this particular combination of letters.
 
Saw it yesterday, and I'd agree with much of what you say... I liked it, but it's not quite as smart as it would like us to think it is and the ending is a letdown. But for once I really liked Ferrell, it felt like he was playing the straight man to the comedy of the situation rather than trying to become the comedy himself. I'd rate it 3/5, a good solid feel-good comedy that doesn't get too schmaltzy but is far from as good as it could have been.

Thanks for the reply. I'd agree with your rating. I've read so many great reviews of this film I started wondering if there was something wrong with my perception. I liked the concept of the plot, but think it could have been executed better. My problem with Ferrell is that his character didn't seem to have a personality. But I can't figure out if that was a problem with his acting or the script (or me). I really loved Thompson in this, and wish her part could have been expanded, maybe by reducing Hoffman's a bit. :)
 
Went to the theater and saw Borat. The best movie of 2006? Possibly, but then most of the movies I saw ranged from average to awful. The first 15-20 minutes feel somewhat forced, but after that much of it is very funny. Tasteless and politically incorrect, yes, but very funny nonetheless.
 
Casino Royal was my last seen. It was good :D

Before that i saw the Prestige! It was really good. With the choice of Christian Bale or Hugh Jackman who can complain! It has a good twist at the end which you could guess but was worth the wait.
 
Fitzcarraldo knocked me for a loop. What a movie. And what a way to make a movie. In order to tell a story about a madman dragging a riverboat through the Amazon rainforest, Herzog drags a riverboat through the Amazon rainforest... the way the boat slowly crests, the soundtrack (I hate opera, really, but I love it here), Kinski's mad eyes as he follows his dream... it's sort of the flip side of Aguirre in some ways, so similar in many ways yet its absolute opposite in others. Now I have to track down The Burden Of Dreams to complete the meta-side of this... The little film-maker that could.

ICH WILL EINE OPER BAUEN!
 
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