Any reason on why he quit?

I agree. Rashomon was the first Kurosawa film that I really enjoyed enough to buy. It's still my favorite and his choice of shots are EXCELLENT!

No idea, but considering that while COLLATERAL came out in 2004, that year Sandler gave us the silly 50 FIRST DATES and the rare James L. Brooks flick that failed to do shit at the Oscars in SPANGLISH. Take that in mind.

BTW, My girl made me go see friggin REIGN OVER ME this weekend. If the ads looked like a schmaltzy drama that too easily could be interpreted as a gay chick flick movie...for men.....you have no idea.

Don Cheadle, you're better than this. Adam, you're still in the doghouse.

REIGN OVER ME (2007) - **

Oh, your "girlfriend" wanted to see it, huh Ronnie ?

Yeah. Well, what can I say? In the end, everyone got what they wanted. She got to see that shitty bullshit melodrama that might pull a PURSUIT OF HAPPYNESS awards success, and I got vagina.

Fair Trade.

Man law.

I don't really have any real expectations for this, but for some reason, I want to see it. I don't know why that is, because it looks like an overly standard drama, based upon trailers.

EDIT: ...Must be because the makeup department made Sandler look like a threeway cross between Bob Dylan, Adam Sandler with a crack habit, and Cher...

I love those ads...its like the greatest chauvinistic humor idea that MARRIED WITH CHILDREN somehow never wrote into an episode.

No Mam!

I concur. I'm not racing to the theaters but I hope to see it there (I think the last Adam Sandler movie I saw on the big screen was Click and before that The Longest Yard).

I just like seeing him take on dramatic roles, or roles in dark-comedies.

Must I reference Punch Drunk Love again?

Well even if you mustn't LLC, I'm sure you will.

No, that was a good movie and a nice change for Sandler. Click was pretty bad. BTW LLC, I think I'm gonna check out Fear & Loathing in Las Vegas again tonight. I'm in the mood right now. I was planning on Raising Arizona but again I'm in the mood and we'll see how it goes.

I picked up THE FIRM for $5 the other day. I think I'm gonna watch it overnight. I'm off this week.

Wal-Mart $5.50 bin?

K-Mart, four for $20.

THE FIRM, WISE GUYS, MIAMI BLUES, ROBIN AND THE SEVEN HOODS.

A steal.

Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas ***
(Third Vieiwng)

An adaptation of Hunter S. Thompson's novel of the same name. The film details a whacky search for the "American Dream", by Thompson and his crazed, Samoan lawyer. Fueled by the massive amount of drugs they purchased with an advance from a magazine to cover a sporting event in Vegas; they set out in the Red Shark. Encountering police, reporters, gamblers, racers, and hitchhikers; they search for some undefinable thing know only as the "American Dream" and find fear, loathing and hilarious adventures into the dementia of the modern American West.

Well LLC, I guess third times a charm. I think my earlier issues with the film were the overuse of drugs but once I pushed past that, I actually somewhat cared about Raoul Duke and what he had to say. Benicio Del toro was very good but Johnny Depp was AWESOME! In my mind, he has to be one of the top three, if not the BEST actor alive today. The man can play any part and make it as entertaining as possible. He is truly blessed and gifted as an actor. Also this film had a fantastic soundtrack!

Pfft, only after LLC lectured your ass.

Yeah, Irish, Depp was fucking fantastic. If you've ever seen any footage of the real Thompson, you'd know he nailed him right on the head. Depp actually spent three months living in Thompson's basement, walking around the house observing him and mimicking his mannerisms and speech patterns. Did you watch it on the Criterion Collection DVD? If so, check out the "Fear and Loathing on the Road to Hollywood" documentary. It's a BBC film from 1978 that follows Hunter as he drives from his home in Colorado, through Las Vegas, and on to Hollywood, where he meets with representatives of Universal to begin planning 1980's Where the Buffalo Roam, the first attempt to capture Hunter on the big screen. It's quite interesting, and watching that, you just come to appreciate Depp's performance so much more.

No I haven't seen any of the special features. I was thinking about watching the alternate ending that you were describing but this sounds interesting too.

Criterion just bloody rules. FACT.

Now if they would ever get ACE IN THE HOLE done, I would be happy...then I would find something else to bitch about.

Yeah I'll give you that, Criterion's ALWAYS have the best DVD's. They're a bit more expensive but worth it.

I'd recommend any of the special features, but above all else, watch the the "Fear and Loathing on the Road to Hollywood" on disk two, and the deleted scenes on disk one (which includes the alternate ending I mentioned, and my favorite, "The DA from GA" in which Duke and Gonzo make up some bullshit story to scare a DA from Georgia after the Marijuana conference in the Flamingo... The story is absolutely hilarious, and it's a shame it was removed, but if you listen closely to the man on the payphone in the lobby of the Mint, when Duke is checking in and tripping on LSD, he is telling the same exact story).

Word. I've noticed that Amazon and several other retailers have marked Fear and Loathing down to $30. I remember it was $40 just a year ago, when I bought it.

Criterion is expensive, but the presentation/digital transfer/special features are worth the cost.

I care little for special features, to be honest, but Criterion's transfers are fantastic. Their sleeve designs are usually brilliant, too, if you like that sort of thing.

Definately. I think product design is an important part of the DVD.

But if you spend more time on design than transfer and even, in some cases, special features, you can die.

Luckily, Criterion does an excellent job on all three.

Because Criterion doesn't get a third party to do its transfers. They only do the DVDs if they can acquire the negative prints themselves.

Big difference, especially since they actually care about print preservation.

Maybe this will help a little.

The Red color on the French flag is said to represent fraternity or brotherhood. Kieslowski and Piesiewicz take that as a departure point to go the opposite route of the spirit of brotherhood which is indifference to your fellow human being. Kieslowski did say the film is a movie against indifference.

Then, a part of the film is to show helping someone else (i.e., the Judge "helping" Valentin's love life).

It's the most mystical movie of the trilogy and is very much in line with Double Life of Veronique.

Is the Judge some type of mystical figure? Notice that he checks Valentin's ticket to presumably check what ferry she is riding and what seat she has. Does he know that the Young Judge and Valentin are meant to be together? And if so, he's having a direct hand in it so to speak.

Notice what happens to the Young Judge is exactly what happened to the Old Judge in the story he told Valentin (i.e., he saw his
girlfriend having an affair). There is also the mirror-instance of both judges dropping their books on the day of the exams and the page showing happened to contain the question/answer on the exam.

So, the Old Judge who was coldly indifferent to humanity and eavesdropping on people's privacy redeems himself through helping another.

We see a need for connection throughout the movie. Fate is another theme. Notice the massive crane shot that links Valentin and the Young Judge as their paths will cross in the future, but at the moment they don't even know that they live very near eachother.

Is it fate? Or chance?

Nothing is clear-cut. It's just not one of those movies.

I like Three Colors: Blue the best while most lean towards Red.



The plot is actually simple, it's just the ambiguity that makes it seem incomprehensible (side note: are the concept of chance and fate really comprehensible to human reason and intellect?).

Plot and Story: A young student and model by chance (or fate) runs over a dog which leads to her meeting with the dog's owner, a retired judge who eavesdrops on his neighbors. Their encounter and subsequent relationship has profound effects not only on their lives, but other people as well.



The last scene is very important in sort of making concrete the abstract concepts of fate or chance, but it's not the entire point of the movie (fraternity, brotherhood, indifference).

It's true they care about film print preservation, but they don't actually do print preservation. They make HD masters (digital tape) from digitally-cleaned up telecine (which is the type of "preservation" they do, a digital clean-up).

HD masters are not a replacement for preserving actual film prints or full restoration.

Their DVD producers do sometimes assist with restoration efforts. But mostly, the film restoration was done by someone else and Criterion handles the digital part for DVD. Criterion was in fact very instrumental in finding the original negative of Grand Illusion.