Watched CITY BY THE SEA last night at work. Seen it once before but i had forgotten what a good De Niro movie this is. James Franco takes a good part as well.

I never really cared for CITY BY THE SEA. If you're looking for a good De Niro movie, check out 15 MINUTES. It's pretty interesting how these guys into the country, especially after 9/11 (this was made prior to).

I like watching City by the Sea because it was filmed in nearby Asbury Park

Doesn't De Niro get killed in this film within the first 30 mins or am i thinking of another film...Good film though..

Nice spoilers DE NIRO!

I was going to watch the first half hour of that film tonight.

lol, you are joking right?

I just watched "Taken" this afternoon. It was one of the most predictable action movies ever, and Liam Neeson kills half the population of Albania, but it was entertaining.

opps sorry..really..

opps sorry..really..

First hour, but yeah

just watched THE WRESTLER. It was excellent.

ds

Another one for the MENSA class... good job, Irish, just in case there was any doubt that DE NIRO was mistaken!

I contribute wherever I can The cat was already outta the bag

I've noticed several references to movies here that people enjoy more than they would have normally, only because it was filmed close by to where the person lives. Does that really make a movie better, being able to recognize hometown landmarks? Turner & Hooch was filmed in my hometown, but I still think it's horrible...

I don't know that being able to recognize a local landmark makes the movie better but I think it makes it more fun.

As an example, "Glenngary, Glen Ross" was filmed in my neighborhood. It's an excellent movie regardless of the filming location but I always find myself recognizing a certain landmark in it. (If anything, it almost detracts from the movie).

I just watched the British film Eden Lake with Kelly Reilly, Michael Fassbender and Jack O'Connell. It had nods to such movies as Straw Dogs, Funny Games, and any of the various American horror films that detail people being terrorized in the hills by slack-jawed yokels.

It was a pretty impressive and even realistic horror film that details what happens to a man and his fiancee who take a trip to the countryside of England only to run afoul of some pretty brutish kids. And these are kids, just barely teenagers. I think the term in England is "hoodies"?

Unlike some of the modern American movies (Hostel or Saw) the violence is not as gratuitous. There are reasons for everything that happens and you actually care about the characters. The first part of the film develops slowly. Aggression and bullying is shown as happening in small steps-whether it's leering at a woman on the beach or letting your Rottweiler bark uncontrollably.

It is a very violent movie that doesn't hold much back. It's more effective in that some acts are shown off screen. It's also a very strong argument for ALWAYS carrying a gun when you leave "civilization"..

I watched The Poseidon Adventure (1972) last night and when I saw that Leslie Nielsen was playing the captain, I was like, Oh, no! How can I possibly take his character seriously after Airplane! and the Naked Gun series!! ...but luckily his airtime didn't last long (he did fine in the drama, but still!). Decent movie I guess. Gene Hackman, Ernest Borgnine, and Red Buttons were great.

Will have to see how this compares to the Kurt Russell/Richard Dreyfuss remake, Poseidon (2006)...

Leslie Nielsen is definitely one of those guys. I've seen him in serious roles while flipping through the channels and kept waiting for him to do something funny, so much so that I kept laughing when he was acting super serious.

I love the 1972 Poseidon Adventure. It was one of my favorite movies as a kid. I had the 2006 version on DVD, and could not make it through the whole movie. It was that bad.

TAKEN (2009) - ***1/2

"I don't know who you are. I don't know what you want. If you are looking for ransom, I can tell you I don't have money. But what I do have are a very particular set of skills; skills I have acquired over a very long career. Skills that make me a nightmare for people like you. If you let my daughter go now, that'll be the end of it. I will not look for you, I will not pursue you. But if you don't, I will look for you, I will find you, and I will kill you."

People have called this a BOURNE rip-off, and while the action cinematography at times is deja vu, I would argue that TAKEN is more inspired by David Mamet's underrated gem SPARTAN. Like TAKEN, Mamet's SPARTAN was a down-to-Earth thriller about a veteran warrior with a vague background who alone goes on a periling quest to rescue a snatched girl from the clutches of a sex slavery ring, and both pictures were obviously inspired by SEARCHERS. Yet I still prefer SPARTAN if only because Val Kilmer is saving a woman he doesn't know, doing so as if simply it's the right thing to do. Compare that with TAKEN, where Liam Neeson is going after his daughter. No less heroic mind you, but SPARTAN is just more endearing to me.

We gotta applaud 20th Century Fox for their excellent marketing campaign for TAKEN, which was first released in France 11 months earlier and opened #1 with strong business on the traditionally tough Super Bowl weekend. Fox was slick to not go the usual loud and explosive route, but instead they sought a minimalist approach by basing the trailer, TV ads, and poster primarily around that great scene with Neeson. Over the cell phone, helplessly thousands of miles away as his daughter is kidnapped in Paris, Neeson just knocks it out of the park by issuing a simple but credible dire warning to the criminals, who in retrospect probably should have taken (pun!) him more seriously.

TAKEN contains not one once of originality, yet the story is as old as the hills. In one lifetime it could have been a gritty action exploitation star vehicle for Charles Bronson in the 1970s or Steven Seagal in the 80s, or in another it could have become a serious drama like THE SEARCHERS. TAKEN is a good example of a film that triumphs not from the material, but primarily from great acting and good directing and editing, all mostly conducted by people who took this endeavor more seriously than one would expect from a Luc Besson production.

Certainly the torture sequence is straight of an episode of 24, though how Neeson ends that scene it's what one expects from action cinema these days, and yet Neeson somehow makes it poetic. I was kinda shocked, as was my theatre audience, what Neeson commits at the home of a Parisian cop, yet it's fitting for his character is willing to be an unsympathetic violent bastard to get what he wants. Tales about such figures are dime a dozen in action cinema, especially these days, but because Neeson is a great actor, he is immediately and utterly convincing as a guy who on a flip from nobody-retiree moonlighting as a bodyguard for celebrities to a less noble Jason Bourne part deux.

I do think director Pierre Morel dissed TAKEN when he cuts between Neeson's pivotal phone call and the actual kidnapping itself. It's traditonal safe action cinema storytelling, but he could have made that whole sequence more powerful by concentrating from only Neeson's blind POV, let his skills make it all the more harrowing. Thus when Neeson is investigating the scene of the crime later on, instead of feeling redundant because we saw the misdeed already, it would have become more interesting. I did like how Morel is patient in setting up the story with all the proper dynamics without jumping the gun too early. Alot of people have criticized this, but I appreciate that Morel and Besson actually have confidence that the audience trusts them, and I think they're rewarded for the most part.

Regardless, of all Besson-producing gigs, TAKEN is king by a landslide. This isn't his usual ridiculous B-fare like KISS OF THE DRAGON or the TRANSPORTER series, where folks like me go simply for the fights and car chases. With TAKEN, I was never bored and both Morel and Neeson always kept me engaged. Morel previously helmed another Besson picture in the French actioneer DISTRICT 13, which I haven't seen but after TAKEN, I think I'll check that out.

The generic ending though was a rare misstep. There was a natural conclusion at the airport, with Neeson all alone again, a guy who'll do anything for his spawn, and she always knew that. But he was never really there for her in the first place because of his job or more likely he's a wild man, not suited for a domestic lifestyle. It's a perfect Western motiff, and instead the last shot is wrapping up a storyline with the pop singer that I doubt anyone ever cared about. Two minutes of violence were chopped out of the American theatrical cut of TAKEN, but not this nonsense? Boo!

I have noticed the biggest difference in Hollywood action cinema between today and when I was growing up. Back then, the biggest stars were a former European kick-boxing champion (Jean-Claude Van Damme), a black belt in Aikido (Seagal), and arguably the greatest bodybuilder of all-time (Arnold Schwarzenegger). But after comic TV star Bruce Willis joined the party with DIE HARD, the trend slowly turned to great thespians kicking ass and blowing shit up, which is the status quo today what with Matt Damon, Johnny Depp, Christian Bale, and now apparently Mr. Neeson too. The slight irony is that TAKEN also reminds me of that recent Seagal flick URBAN JUSTICE, for both characters aren't as fast or strong as their characters once were, but still prevail over endless obstacles by using their their experience and precision strikes in combat. They also commit sloppy mistakes their younger-selves wouldn't have made.

Of course I'm the same guy who liked SHOWDOWN IN LITTLE TOKYO, so what the hell do I know?

RRA didn't use the word fuck in a review??

I'm fuckin full of surprises.

Looks nice Geoff

Actually, Yogi, it wasn't then. Asbury Park used to be a resort town many years ago -- my dad grew up there, and we went there to the boardwalk amusements as young kids. But then after a bit (okay, a lot) of political corruption it became largely abandoned in the '80s and '90s, and a bit scary, but recently it's been making a major comeback and it's been building back up rather nicely.

But through it all, The Stone Pony (the club frequented by Springsteen and Southside Johnny) continued to rock it out!

Edit: Looking at the wiki article, I had no idea that Bud Abbott (of Abbott and Costello) was born there. But I knew that Danny DeVito grew up there.

I know I posted this once before. My niece is into "Urban Exploring", and Asbury Park is her specialty. Here's her site:

www.side-o-lamb.com

Thats a pretty cool site JL. Great pics!

The other night I finally saw The Magnificent Seven (1960), and tonight (also finally) the film it was based on, Kurosawa's The Seven Samurai (1954).

I enjoyed both -- they're both masterpieces "they" say -- but I especially thought TMS had more dimension/storyline/interest to it. And talk about cast: Yul Brynner, Eli Wallach (who played a tremendous Mexican bandit), Steve McQueen, Charles Bronson, Robert Vaughn, James Coburn...

I had no idea how almost-identical these two films were actually going to be (me thinking TSS would be more martial arts than anything), but clocking in at 3.5 hrs I think TSS was a bit longer than necessary. I'm glad I saw the American version first, not that the plot was complex by any means, but it did help a bit.

I agree. It can take a lot out of you. How long is THE MAGNIFICENT SEVEN? I've never seen it. It's been on my list but just haven't got around to it/been in the mood.

The Magnificent Seven is just over 2 hours (128 mins), and to me had more story than Samurai's 3.5 hrs (208 mins Criterion Collection; though there were shorter versions apparently, according to IMDb)...