Holiday

Catched this movie on TV by chance. An interesting and entertaining movie. But what stood out most was Katharine Hepburn. I have to admit this was the first Kataharine Hepburn movie I've seen, and I just recognized what I missed. What a wonderful actress. She can be powerful, warm, lovely and everything at the same time. She has great charisma and a strong presence on the set. I cant wait to see her other movies, especially "African Queen" with Bogart and her other performances she got an Oscar for.And I never thought I would say this, but here we've seen an actress who looked more beautiful than Ingrid Bergman did in Casablanca. Simply beautiful.

Maybe the one who will force Meryl Streep to the second rank on my fav. actresses list?

I just saw Lord of War the other day, probably wouldn't have gone if it wasnt for a personal recommendation from my friend. Enjoyed it more then I thought I would, visually stunning opening sequence, fast-paced and also funny, in a sort of Coen Brothers kind of way. Nick Cage is at his best, role seems tailor made for him. The story works on many levels, Jared Leto and Ethan Hawke were also good. It kept popping into my head that the film was sort of like a Goodfellas type movie except about gun-running. Overall, a definite recommendation. Ill watch it again once its out on dvd, seems to have potential to become one of my favorites.

One exciting thing to note also, I saw the Jarhead trailer for the first time, got me really excited, it looks excellent.

That's what suspect_5 told me. I've never seen anything by the director so I'll take your word for it. Thanks for the warning.

Rope **

We were so slow at work I got to watch this. I enjoyed it and thought the idea was pretty good. I believe it was Hitchcock's first color movie. I'm starting to get more into Hitchcock and I'm liking Jimmy Stewart more and more

Following
An excellent small budget movie about a writer secretly following people to get new ideas for his work. Scenes are not sequential, there is a lot of switching back and forth in time.

Solaris
OK sci-fi movie starring George Clooney. An Astronaut finds his dead wife when he visits the planet Solaris!

Lock Stock and 2 Smoking Barrels
Excellent comedy from Britain. A bunch of goofy thugs. Highly recommended.

Snatch
Another excellent movie from the same director as lock,stock. Similar in theme and treatment though. Must Watch.

Out of Sight
Total crap starring Jennifer Lopez and George Clooney

Requiem for a dream
Very good movie on drug abuse. Artistically made.

Platoon
Nice movie on vietnam war. Charlie Sheen is a small time soldier who joins the army quitting his college in the hope of serving his country. What he finds in vietnam truly shocks him and he is a happy man when he returns.

Apocalypse Now The Redux (Re-watching)
One of my all time favorites. A movie on changing characters amidst horror of death and madness in vietnam. A long movie, but interesting every moment of it. Excellent performance from Martin Sheen and Robert Duvall. Brando is good too, nothing spectacular from him.

Dead Man
An artistically made movie starring Johnny Depp. Nice background scores and cinematography. Little slow paced.

Crash
A nice movie on racism and stereotypes in US. A lot of familiar actors. Some hard-to-believe coincidences affect the overall quality of the movie.

High Tension ***

OMG! That's all I can say about this movie. I really didn't know it was French but it didn't matter that this was my first "foreign horror movie." It's basically the French version of The Texas Chainsaw Massacre and blows the new Amityville Horror out of the water! I'll DEFINITELY purchase this on DVD on the 11th and recommend it to anyone looking for a great horror flick!

Glad you saw Dead Man Svsg. It's definitely one of the overlooked films of the 90's.

Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind ***
2004, Gondry, US (1st time)
When the female of a young couple gets her memory erased of the guy, he wants the same treatment.
A clever, original piece which when brought to its basic bare bones is a delightful romance story, and the memories that form from such relationships.

Mick

North By Northwest #40 on the AFI Top 100 List **

I found this to be quite boring in parts but I did like Cary Grant and Eva Marie Saint was also very good

Hotel Rwanda



A really powerful and emotional film

A History of Violence ***
2005, Cronenberg, US 1st time; big screen
A small-town diner owner finds himself at the centre of attention of vicious gangsters when he inadvertantly kills a would-be robber.
A complex look at violence and how it is conventionally depicted and exploited by Hollywood. Unpredictable throughout, it provokes and excites with an underlying unease.

Mick

SWEET, glad you dig the movie Capo. Now you gotta check out Cronenberg's other gems like VIDEODROME, DEAD RINGERS, NAKED LUNCH, and of course THE FLY.

Nirvana: Unplugged in New York - (Beth McCarthy-Miller;1993;USA) - ****
Nirvana performs an all acoustic concert with original music, and some cover songs, with Cris and Curt of the Meat Puppets as a guest.
Nirvana's best live moment and a classic live performance in general. Every song is done wonderfully, my favorite being the David Bowie cover of The Man Who Sold the World. The downloaded quality wasn't amazing but it was viewable. The moments in between songs are also fun to watch. What are they tuning, a harp?

I really need to see another movie soon. I'll try to get The Game in by Thursday.

Eternal **

A History of Violence **

Ronnie's prediction that I wouldn't like it was wrong. I did like it but I didn't think it was great (however my friend did). It was slow and I'm glad I knew that going into it but Ed Harris and the father of the kid in the beginning (the guy in the black coat) were awesome

Just curious, what's the "Eternal" above? Did you accidentally delete part of the post?

No I didn't forget anything, it was just almost 3am and I needed to be up at 8am so I made it short and sweet. Here's more info

The Texas Chainsaw Massacre ***
1974, Hooper, US 3rd time
A group of travelling friends are killed one-by-one by a masked maniac, and the final victim-to-be is terrorised by his cannibal relatives.
Unrelenting shock treatment; wonderful use of sound and heavy visuals, and the cumulative effect is brilliantly realised.

Mick

How can you be so cruel, DV???? I HEART TITANIC!!!!

Doctor Zhivago #39 on the AFI Top 100 List *

Very disappointing and pretty boring

Irish, glad you gave me the opportunity to post a link to an essay I wrote and posted last night.

I'd appreciate it if you gave this a read. Especially the third and fourth paragraphs, if nothing else.

Thanks,
Mick

The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (2003, Nispel) *

A very cruddy remake which tries to put more gore in to make it even more effective, which it fails miserably on. Really takes a million dollar Hollywood turn from the original's garbagey type cinematography. Just overall a bad idea to remake a horror classic.

Irish, when I was younger I felt more or less like you about this movie. I recently rewatched it after a long long time and I totally enjoyed it. We may find disappointing and boring something we are not able to understand and appreciate when we are too young. Luckily we can understand things better and change our judgement as time goes by. It's one of the the very few positive things to happen when we get older. Thus I'd suggest you to rewatch this great movie when you are older.

Raging Bull

I know all of you have seen it before, but I watched it for the first time completely. Excellent movie. The length of the movie was just right, leaving me wanting for more. I was wondering about one thing though. A montage scene was filmed in color. What was its purpose? Was it the only happy times in Jake's life? Any of you have an interpretation?
I have watched only 4 films of Scorcese - Raging Bull, Gangs of NY, Goodfellas and Aviator. I liked this the best. De Niro is amazing. The age of his wife, 15 - 20, is totally unbeleivable. She looked like 30 to me!

Glad you quite dug what some argue to be the greatest sports movie of all time in RAGING BULL.

If I remember right, Scorsese's point with the colored-section of the film was to prevent home made-esque family pictures, which while they are "happy", you can tell from their eyes that their emotions aren't exactly honest.

To be honest with you, I think "Jake's" only happy time in his life was when he was in the ring, for he really was an animal, and his usually contained-rage going unleashed against the poor sucker in the ring with him. Besides, notice that he became even worse of a person once he quit boxing. Just imagine what if a dancing monkey doesn't have an organ grinder?

Glad you dig Scorsese so far. You should also go watch Scorsese's CASINO, THE LAST TEMPTATION OF CHRIST, TAXI DRIVER, MEAN STREETS, and KING OF COMEDY. There are more, but those are really the titles that any movie buff should check out.

I really hated Michael Bay's TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE remake. If you really want to see a remake of the 70's horror classic that is "up to date" but still respectful of its redneck garbage horror-slasher-ploitation roots, check out Rob Zombie's flawed-but-bomb-bastic HOUSE OF 1000 CORPSES(**1/2 out of 5) and his superior truely slick nasty sequel THE DEVIL'S REJECTS(***/5).

You know, I kinda knew Bay's remake was screwed when he reportedly said that his remake wouldn't be as "gory" as the original....except those that have seen the original know that there literally is zero gore.

Michael Bay...what an assclown.

Pépé le Moko **
1936, Duvivier, Fr 1st time' big screen
A gangster living in the sanctuary of the Algerian casbah falls for a girl who reminds him of Paris.
A film noir precursor which at times belies its age, but leaves the feeling of being dated. Gabin's performance, his first key role, keeps it going, especially in the latter half.

Mick

Every fucking movie in the world is too fucking boring for you. Argh.

Keep the peace, DVC. Don't wanna get into hot water again.

Besides DVC, some people just aren't worth permanent banishment. Trust me.

Irish, why was DOCTOR ZHIVAGO, a great David Lean picture, boring? I mean was the story sluggish or the direction weak, or what? I mean just wondering...