Animal House

I just saw it in theaters for the first time! They had a 30th anniversary reunion at a special movie theater, 6 of the actors from the movie showed up and did autographs, took questions, and even had Otis Day performing prior to the screenings.

I got my Animal house DVD signed by Mark Metcalf (Needermyer) and got a picture with him too :D it was loads of fun.

Battle Royale

I’d heard so much about this film - how violent it is, how shocking, how nasty, how gory, etc, etc - and much to my surprise I actually rather enjoyed it. Far from being just a slew of mindless killings, it does have a really gripping and interesting storyline, and I thought they handled the nightmarish scenario supremely well. Not a trace of boredom anywhere. Also, concerning the film's main antagonist, Kitano:

Spoiler Below

If I have one real nitpick, it's that the film's technique of systematically listing the names of the characters who'd died and how many more were left to go, though certainly indispensable, didn't come without its drawbacks - in the early stages of the film, it was very haunting and eerie, but as the film progressed, it did start to undermine the tension somewhat. Once you'd noticed that they only gave you this information once everybody who was going to perish in that particular scene had perished, whenever one character died and they didn't give you this little update, you knew full well that at least one other character was about to follow them. It gave it an air of predictability, but, as I say, it would have been all too easy to get lost without it, so overall I'm glad it was there.

Patton. The History channel was playing it on the weekend and I managed to catch the last half or so of it. What a character that man was.:D

just glad he was on our side 8D

last flick i watched was "Paprika", kind of a trippy anime about the blending of reality and dreams.

One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest.

Nothing livens up a Sunday night like giving ones DVD player a dose of pure one hundred percent classic Jack Nicholson.

There Will Be Blood

Actually, there wasn't really a huge deal of blood therein...lots of oil, a bit of mud-wrestling, a double performance from Paul Dano (well, kinda), and an engrossing storyline dealing with the financial prosperities and personal failings of a ruthless oil prospector, all of which combined to make pretty darn compelling viewing. It was, of course, his performance for this film which earned Mr. Daniel Day-Lewis his Oscar this other night, and I must say that it was well-deserved. Overall, I'm glad that No Country For Old Men took home the gold for Best Picture, but this was certainly a worthy contender.

Madagascar

This movie worked, but it could have been much better. Still, after watching it with the commentary on, it made me realize how much work went into the film, so good effort.

I really liked the stylization and animation used in the movie: It made it very fun to watch. Everything was nicely detailed and the character animation was insane. It was so vivid and lively, very amusing.

Be Kind Rewind

Okay movie, pretty funny but could have been a lot funnier and I am kind of upset because the movie ads and trailers are very misleading. While it is hilarious to see how utterly stupid and awful Jack Black and Mos Def's movie remakes are, the problem is the ads make it seem like that is the focal point of the movie.

Sadly it isn't, they mostly keep talking/mentioning/referencing everything important to some black jazz singer named Fatts Wallace or something. I'm no racist but I'm sorry to say i don't care about this jazz singer (whether if he is real or not) I came here to see those insane cheap movie remake ideas.

The movie had some great funny moments and Def and Black work amazingly well together, but the movie jumped around from the fake movie plot to this jazz singer and I just felt they advertised it wrong and undermined the cheap movie remake concept with another storyline that felt too cheesy and old. All in all it was a good watch but not something I'd want to own.

The Lost Highway

More skin-crawling, mind-bending, neo-noir undertakings from David Lynch. It lacks some of the seductiveness of Mulholland Drive, perhaps, but it's still expertly made and has a particularly awe-inspiring opening credits sequence, possibly the greatest I've ever seen.

There is a character in this film known simply as the "Mystery Man", whom my brother rates as being the single most terrify character that Mr. Lynch has ever created. I would have to disagree. I think that the elderly couple in Mulholland Drive are a heck of a lot more unnerving. Which undoubtedly says something, because this guy really gave me the creeps. Must be something to do with the fact that, for the entire time he was on screen, we never once saw him blink. :o

Dr. Strangelove on DVD last night. "Premier Kissov is a man of the people but he is also a man, if you get my meaning."

I did not find that movie funny AT ALL, no offense Cook but I was bored through most of that movie.

Last movies I watched were

Southern Comfort

and

The Secret of NIMH

NIMH has got to be one of the best non Disney animated movies I have ever seen, its an animation masterpiece with beautiful music, charming and honest characters and absolutely flawless animation. The Southern movie was quite different then I expected and aside from a few things, was a very good movie.

Great acting, good tense drama scenes and some freaky stuff. Remind me to watch my step next time I run into a swamp (Just kidding).

Click


I did not know that Adam Sandler was capable of good dramatic acting. Wow...

I have to agree with Ccook on this one. IMO, Dr. Strangelove is one of the funniest movies ever.

"If you don't get the President of the United States on that phone, you know what's gonna happen to you? You're gonna have to answer to the Coca-Cola company." 8D

I've rented a bunch latley:

Princess Mononoke
Howl's Moving Castle
Spirited Away

I'm tryin out some Miazaki if you couldn't tell

and, I Am Sam

I loved princess mononoke and spirited away, i enjoyed howl's moving castle, but i'm really not sure how much i LOVE it, i think I wanna see it again.

I Am Sam has to be one of the best movies I've seen. Not only are the characters and story great, but the cinematography is all hand held and helps you get sorta see things from the main characters perspective (he's retarded). And I loved how there was no cliche bad guy, see the story is about a retarded man trying to get custody of his daughter (and also the lawer having to learn about her self and how she/we all can be just as helpless as somebody with a mental handicap in lots of situations) and the social workers aren't portrayed as bad guys, the foster family isn't, everybody is just trying to do what's best for Lucy, the girl. I loved the end because it was happy, yet not perfect and in that way it was very anti hollywood.

That's because it wasn't a comedy. It's a satire. And it's generally regarded as one of Stanley Kubrick's best.

Call it what you want, it wasn't interesting, funny, compelling, dramatic, intelligent, thought provoking or entertaining outside of few lines that raised half smirks and the only neat thing about the movie: the performance of Dr. Strangelove.

I wouldn't consider this his best work or even a good movie but that's just me. ANY other film I have seen by Kubrick like "The Shining" or "A Clockwork orange" is a million times more interesting and worth watching then "Strangelove". To me, Strangelove was just 95 minutes of repeating the fact a plane is gonna bomb someone over and over again.

I'd have to 'strongly disagree' with the above statement but I suppose context is all. Having grown up and matured in that era, that film is one of the most powerful and funny I can think of. Maybe because we were told it could and probably would happen at some point and this movie let people express that inner terror in such a positive way.

An interesting historical note is that an identical but serious film came out the same year called Failsafe with Henry Fonda as the US president. Neither film copied nor diminished the other. Failsafe is played entirely for tension and quite terrified me as a kid.

oh i loved "Strangelove".

The British officer's line about having been tortured by Japanese during WW2, "which is strange since they make such damn good cameras" kills me every time. 8D

Tell you one thing: i'll never get flourinated water again :P

Nightmare City

I opted to watch this late-70s zombie flick with my housemates the other night purely upon impulse. The critical difference between the living dead in this film and their more stereotypical Romero-esque portrayals being that these ones are a heck of a lot more co-ordinated and intelligent, and generally behave as if they're on steroids. On the whole, it was much as we'd been expecting - an enjoyably tacky storyline, coupled with cheap, occasionally quite risible effects - only nothing on earth could have prepared us for just how dismal and lazy the ending would be, a real case of "we couldn't think of a proper way to conclude this film, so instead we're going to rely upon one of the oldest and most galling of narrative contrivances of all time." In a way I suppose it was kind of endearing. :D

That's some kind of racist propaganda right there. Stop being racist and start caring about cultures that don't affect you, M.

(I'm being sarcastic, by the way; I'm simply stating that immediately here since my sense of sarcasm apparently doesn't translate well online).

Anyway....

Night of the Living Dead

The original one, by Romero. I'm all about zombie movies, and I consider this to be one of the best, especially with the underlying themes about what the movie is about, which is racial tension. Fantastic horror film, and one of the best to come out of the sixties.

Monty Python & The Holy Grail on DVD, early this morning. I had an upset stomach and I stuck the movie in my player to take my mind off it while waiting for the antacid to work. Worked like a charm. No matter how often I watch it, this movie never gets old, never fails to make me laugh. One of the greatest comedies ever, in my opinion. ;D

"Are you suggesting that coconuts migrate?" One of my favorite parts of that movie.8D
I'm pretty sure I seen Failsafe on the History Channel once. It was very tense and scary. Especially if you consider the state of the world when it was made and that it could very well have happened. Great movie!:D

The Great Race. Jack Lemmon is a riot!

'What's next?' 'Car No. 5's engine falls out!' 'Ha ha ha!'
*pause*
'But... WE'RE car No.5!' 8D

Little Shop of Horrors! ('80s version)

O Brother Where Art Thou?

followed by my personal favorite animated masterpiece.....

Cats don't dance

Earth

An absolutely stunning documentary film, a theatrical companion piece to the BBC series Planet Earth (albeit narrated here by Patrick Stewart in place of David Attenborough), in some parts shocking, in others heart-rendering, but always very fascinating and beautiful. With so much of the globe to cover and such a wide range of amazing creatures to showcase within the 90 minute running time, the only disappointment is that it never has the chance to go into very much depth with the vast majority of species it covers - obviously, it scratches merely the surface, but it's quite a surface nonetheless. My favourite in the featured line-up was a male bird of paradise (sadly, I wasn't able to memorise the exact kind) with a deep invested passion in keeping his display area clean at all times, although like everyone else in the audience I had to "awww" over those delightful baby Mandarin ducks whose first step involved hurling themselves from their nest in the tree-tops and bouncing off the springy foilage upon the forest floor below.

10,000 BC

kind of lame. But i did see trailers for Iron Man, the new Batman, and (finally) Get Smart.


Get Smart looks amazing :D

I'm glad you approve of it! :frankiesmile:

Boy Eats Girl

Behind the Mask: The rise of Leslie Vernon

Two movies I have read up online for a long time now and always wanted to see. The first one is an Irish black comedy zombie movie which wasn't as good as I was hoping it'd be, not as funny but some amusing moments and some pretty neat new ways to use zombie gore and zombies in film.

The second was MUCH better and an excellent movie, about a film crew following a serial killer and learning all the tricks and tools of the serial killer trade and finding out the hard way what killers are all about. Excellent movie with a great script and a very good cast. Very happy I saw both movies.

Lord of The Flies.



in English class :P

Doomsday

So much more to it then the trailers make it look. Its much more then a simply Mad Max copy cat or anything like that, dark, depressing story with INSANE amounts of gore and intense action. The action NEVER EVER lets up.

Every minute its like bam, bam, bam! Keeps hitting you. I was very impressed, the commercials don't do this movie justice, it was a great ride.

glad to hear it bro, i've been looking forward to Doomsday.

Mountains of the Moon

I guess that it would probably sound a trifle shallow if I admitted that the primary reason I was drawn to watch this dramatisation of the friendship/rivallry shared by Richard Burton and John Hanning Speke and their merry little quest to root out the source of the Nile River was for Richard E. Grant's involvement. Well, I've always enjoyed seeing that man in action. He didn't exactly have a huge role here, disappearing once the focal expedition gets underway, though he does show up again toward the end. Fortunately, there was a lot of beautifully picturesque photography of central Africa throughout to keep me engrossed throughout, and the story was a reasonably entertaining one. Plus, it taught me a valuable lesson - beetles, eardrums and burning wax are a lethal combination.

I've also been enjoying the Michael Caine season on Sky Classics of late. I watched The Ipcress File last night, and right now I'm watching the original Italian Job, which is one of my favourites.

the 60's version or the 90's version?

trust me, the 60's version is WAY better.

monty python and the holy grail

watching it while i was on the ride home, and i love the movie a lot.

Awake

This was really good. It stars Hayden Christiansen (I know I butchered the spelling. Sorry...) and is about a guy who's getting a heart transplant and he's stuck in a phenomenon called "anestethia awareness" where his body is totally paralyzed, but he's fully aware of his surroundings and what people are saying, etc. I really enjoyed watching the surgery end of it-- I'm sitting my friend's couch EATING SPAGHETTI watching them cut into this guy's chest with all the blood and whatnot and going, "Cool!" <Takes bites of spaghetti>

But yes, I enjoyed this movie immensely.

Dot and the Kangaroo

This has to be quite possibly one of the saddest and most haunting animated films that I've ever seen. Really, if I'd stumbled across this fifteen years ago or more, I supsect that I'd have had a very hard time handling it. Unfortunately, the video transference upon the disc I was watching it on wasn't brilliant, so I don't think I got full benefit of all those subtlely-sketched natural backgrounds, which included some input from the great Spike Milligan, although the film actually seemed to consist of a combination of hand-drawn backgrounds and animated characters added to actual 3D backdrops, which in that sense reminded me a lot of When the Wind Blows (which also ranks as one of the most heart-breaking animated films I've ever seen, albeit for vastly different reasons).

The story follows the adventures of a young girl named Dot who gets lost in the Australian outback, where she finds herself deeply out of her element, until a friendly red kangaroo, still mourning the loss of her own offspring, comes to her aid. From there on in, a series of encounters with representatives of the local wildlife ensue, some of whom are sympathetic to Dot's plight, others less so. I would guess that one of the key intentions behind this film was to provide Australian children with an introduction to the vast array of wierd and wonderful creatures with whom they share their native land. Some of these sequences are incorporated well into the story, such as that of the platypus (sorry, Ornithorhynchus anatinus), while others, such as the frogs', constitute whimsical little tangents, but all of it merges together to form a very satisfactory and powerful experience. Still, if you're going to watch it, then you'd do well to have a box of tissues set aside for the end. The final outcome is kind of inevitable from the start, but it still packs one heck of a punch when it happens. Then again, I'm easily moved.

I just watched some clips of the big battles of the movie "Zulu" on youtube. I really love the movie and just wish that it was played more often of TV.
The movie really has a mastery of making you feel like you're right there with the British soldiers anxiously waiting for that almost endless army of Zulu warriors (Shaka I believe the correct term is) to finish their war chant and charge. Definitely a classic as far as I'm concerned.:D

The Tenant

A psychological thriller from Roman Polanski, concerning a hapless man (played by Mr. Polanski himself) who rents an apartment in Paris, the previous tenant of which has committed suicide, and becomes slowly convinced that his assorted neighbours are attempting to manipulate him into doing the same. It's an interesting premise, and although the resulting film is decent enough, I didn't quite feel that it ever really reached its full potential, and despite a handful of truly creepy and well-executed set-pieces, for a lot of the time it came across as being an uneasy mixture of wannabe Hitchcock and an extended episode of Rod Serling's Night Gallery. The final few moments were particularly NG-esque, in that once the initial shock value had made its mark, they seemed a bit more silly than scary, and in the last ten minutes or so, the film suddenly seems to be in a quandary as to whether it actually wants us to empathise with its protagonist or not (in that regard, it certainly doesn't reach the same satisfying middle ground that Alfred did with his protagonist in Vertigo, and feels more messy and frustrating than effectively disconcerting), though I will at least credit Polanski for managing to add an additional twist to what had threatened to be a fairly predictable climax. All in all, it was more than worth the watch, although Chinatown is still by far the best that I've seen from this director.

Enchanted

I am SO glad I bought this. A truly wonderful and charming film that enjoys poking fun at its own Disney loaded cliches and running gags. Its not a cheesy kids film and it has a marvelous cast of excellent actors. James Marsden, and Amy Adams truly act like living, breathing, 3-dimensional cartoon characters.

The music is very well written and very enjoyable. It was such a blast to see traditional hand drawn animation sequences for the opening part of this movie. Anyone who has heard any hype about this movie, believe me personally when I say it is well worth it. Disney truly outdid themselves with this movie, its Pixar quality LIVE movie material if you ask me.

The very last movie I watched was "The Three Stooges in Orbit".

Moe, Larry and Curly Joe are evicted by their landlady for cooking in their hotel room. Searching for a new apartment, the Stooges travel to a Professor's house. The Professor
persuades the boys to help him guard his new invention... a military craft with the ability to move on the ground like a tank, in the air like a helicopter, in the water like a submarine, and even orbit like a spacecraft.

The movie is silly yet entertaining.