A History of Violence

Pretty much everything fosterguy said about Babel I say about this movie. Absolutely amazing film, but some seriously dark and disturbing scenes in terms of sex and violence.

Its good stuff.

The Great Debaters.



We're watching it in Reading and Writing class.

George Romero's: Diary of the Dead

An interesting movie for the man who created the world of the un-dead. While not as flashy or over the top as "Day" or "Land", I really feel Romero captured back the true essence of his old movies with this one. It feels real, it feels sincere, it feels dark and offers that classic Romero bleak outlook on humanity.

This movie feels very real and I think really captures everything that made the original zombie movies good. The message of the movie is great and brilliantly played out, with some humor and gore along the way. A great addition to the "Dead" movies. Romero can still kick ass, even with a low budget movie.

"Futurama: Bender's Big Score". I finally got the opportunity to watch this and it was great to see the Futurama gang back in action. I was really impressed with how they used so many of the secondary characters and manage to avoid making it feel forced. Great stuff!:D

Hey, does That Guy make an appearence, by any chance? I ask because he was my all-time favourite Futurama character (not that I've really paid much attention to the show for a while). His only appearence was in the episode "Futurestock", after which his tragic death from boneitis kind of hindered the possibility of any further appearences...but I from what I can make out this new movie does involve time travel. So in theory they could squeeze him in, right?

Anyways, the last two movies I watched were both horror movies, each one representing a different extreme in quality. First up was Lucio Fulci's House By The Cemetery, which, though it wasn't without its entertainment value, was little more than a mind-blowing mess, complete with incomprehensible storyline (the bad kind, not the David Lynch kind), a badly dubbed kid voice-over and, just to make the experience totally complete, a little bit of the standard crap which gives bats an undue bad reputation. Second was Alfred Hitchcock's The Birds, which is a masterpiece. At least birds, unlike bats, are a slightly less obvious and over-beaten target for the horror movie genre, and, even if the bird effects do look a tad dated in places, Hitchcock builds and sustains the tension supremely well. This has to be one of his very greatest films, alongside Vertigo.

I've seen Bender's Big Score three times (In fact it was the last movie I watched too.) And unless he is in one of those blink and you miss it cameos there is neither hide nor hair of everyones favorite walking 1980's stereotype in this picture.

The last third of 1996's Twister

It was okay. Now I'm going to nitpick it apart: Why did people out in the thick of the tornado not get nicked and marred to pieces by the insane amounts of flying debris? Why did that pickup truck continue to drive after getting practically crushed by a flying gas truck, among many other things that would total a normal car? Why is it that when the male and female leads were out totally unprotected in the tornado and hanging onto a set of pipes while strapped to said pipes with leather straps, that the wind speed and suction didn't rip their clothes right off their bodies? :terrconf: I dunno either.

Just some stuff I'm throwin' out there, since I'm from the Midwest-- we have tornadoes there, y'know. ;)

Haha, I love that movie. Unrealisticality and all. (is that a word?) I'm also a fan of Helen Hunt. I've had a fascination with tornadoes since I was a kid, as I too was born and lived my early childhood in the US Midwest. It was an adrenaline rush ever since I was a wee lass. :berry:

As for the last movie I watched, I saw the first half of Who Framed Roger Rabbit this evening on CN. I haven't seen that movie in years. Didn't catch the ending of it, though.

the mask on TBS.

man i love this movie. havent seen it in a while either. great times.

Don't ask why I saw it, but Barnyard: The Original Party Animals

A movie created by people who have never seen a real cow.

"Candy-gram for Mongo!"
 

In honor of the late great Harvey Korman, the film I watched last was Mel Brooks awesome spoof of the Western genre, Blazing Saddles.

One of the very few films I can watch over and over again even though I can practically recite all of the dialog verbatim.

And what's more Balzing Saddles may or may not be where the Foster's writing staff got the inspiration for one of their running gags (IE Bloo's paddle ball fandom) And no I am not kidding, watch it (or look for the scene on Youtube.) and you'll see what I mean.

Aww, too bad. That Guy ruled. ("Fry, I'm an 80s guy. Friendship means to me that for two bucks I'd beat you with a pool cue until your retinas detached!") Well, they do still have three more movies to go (or so rumour has it). Here's to hoping that they'll find a way to bring him back somehow.

From the sounds of it, people who don't understand that, invariably, cow = female, bull = male.

Last movie I watched was Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull. It was pretty much as I'd been expecting - the storyline was kind of threadbare, and didn't really make a huge deal of sense, but the individual set-pieces were kind of fun, I suppose. Always reassuring to know that, should your enemies ever hurl you into the treetops of the Amazon rainforest, a colony of black-capped capauchin monkeys will always be on hand to come to your aid. :scribble:

Good gravy Marie, I LOVE Blazing Saddles! Pretty much anything Mel Brooks does (this, Young Frankenstein, The Producers, et al) is pure comedic gold.

And you're not the only person who caught the paddleball thing-- I saw the Foster's connection instantly.

I haven't watched any other movies since Twister, but before that I saw Juno. I reallyl liked it-- definitely worthy of the hype, fantastic acting on the parts of Ellen Page and Michael Cera and very funny. Ellen Page deserved the MTV Award she got for this role. It isn't an Oscar or a Golden Globe, but you gotta start somewhere! :frankiesmile:

I wish Mr. 80's Guy was in. I didn't see him, but I wasn't looking for him either. Al Gore could have giving up at least one of his several cameos in the movie for him or another character, if you ask me. Not that Mr. Gore's scenes were bad. Love him or hate him, he's always funny in Futurama!

Son of Rambow

I mentioned a couple of pages back that I really wasn't too thrilled with Garth Jennings' film treatment of The Hitch-Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy, despite (or perhaps due to) being such an avid fan of its previous book and radio incarnations. Fortunately, I found his latest film to be a lot more enjoyable, if perhaps a bit uneven in places. For the most part, it's a spirited little tribute to the recklessness of childhood, in which a couple of young English schoolboys in the early 80s become infatuated with the then newly-unleashed Rambo craze and resolve to produce their own decidedly low-budget sequel. What follows is largely very breezy and good-humoured, with the occasional healthy sprinkling of darkness, though toward the end it definitely suffers from at least one or two rather mawkish and unconvincing emotional outbursts. I like heart-warming stuff as much as the next person, but Jennings definitely needs to find a subtler and less glaring method of getting the point across than having his characters suddenly opting to wear their hearts upon their sleeves (there was a similar scene around the climax of his HHGTTG film, which honestly had no business being there and was just embarrassing to sit through - even people I know who felt more positive about that film agreed with me). But that's enough carping out of me, because as I said, I enjoyed it, and it made me nostalgic for the days when the school Sixth Form actually represented something exciting and enigmatic from afar.

A Sort Of Triple Feature
 

1.) Transformers
Taken on recommendation from a friend, I'm really glad I listened to her. The special effects were great, and it was really fun. Shia LeBeouf was great-- he's really grown up from Holes and Even Stevens. (Admittedly, I wasn't paying much attention because I was doing something else, but I did enjoy it.)

2.) The Way Home
Taken on recommendation from the video store clerk after I picked it up. It's a Korean film-- obviously enough, spoken entirely in Korean with English subtitles: the story of a young boy from Seoul who goes to spend a month with his peasant grandmother. at first he can't stand her, but they eventually warm up to each other.

Despite sounding very promising, it wasn't as good as I'd hoped. The biggest thing that turned me off to this one was the kid's incessant whining-- if it wasn't that his grandmother couldn't give him money for his Gameboy batteries, it was whining that the chicken his grandmther served him wasn't Kentucky Fried Chicken. I seriously wanted someone-- or me-- to slap this kid and tell him to shut UP and show some respect for the poor woman. :nono: In the end, I decided that I could watch the movie again, only if I could pause it and read the Korean writing in the background. The dedication at the end (To all grandmothers in the world) was certainly sweet as well.

3.) Priscilla, Queen of the Desert
Not too sure why I felt compelled to put this in the DVD player... Great music, great acting, wonderful costume design (which rightfully won the '94 Academy Award), and funny as hell.

Could you understand some of the Aussie language? 8D

Anyway, I just got back from Speed Racer and, well, not to steal Mr. M's quote but...

IT KICKED ASS!!!

I couldn't believe how awesome it really is. The Wachowskis have really outdone themselves with this great film, and it was also unexpectedly funny too! This was also the first time I actually felt my heart beat it was that good! The people who hate this movie are obviously missing the main point of this movie, and that it's a truly fun ride that I was extremly happy to be a part of!

And I have to say, Christina Ricci was smokin' in this movie! :frankiesmile:

Bleach the movie: Memories of Nobody

I'm actually not a Bleach fan but my girlfriend is and she mainly wanted to see this movie, being an anime fan though I wasn't entirely dreading it. I have to say it was actually a pretty damn good movie. While it still suffered from obviously over used anime movie plot concepts and certain scenario set ups, it was actually quite compelling.

There was a deep connection with the new characters, the score was beautiful, and even though I didn't know them all that well, they used their wide cast of characters well. I enjoyed it much more then I thought I would. Bleach fans will certainly enjoy it, I'm not even a Bleach fan and I still got a kick out of it. I also might add this was quite fortunate for me as this is the first time since the Pokemon movies I got to see an anime movie in a public, big screen movie theater.

Jurassic Park. Boy has it been a long time since I've seen this movie. I'm amazed at how well the cgi stood up given that it's almost a 20 year old film. Here's hoping that JP4 will recapture the magic that made this movie so great when it first premiered in 93.

The Happening

I think M. Night finally broke his crap movie streak with this movie. Its not great and it is no where near the power his first movies had, but it certainly is a great big step in the right direction. Its a very unique, original, and one of a kind movie, I seriously can't think of any movie to compare to this one.

Its creepy and eerie and quite disturbing, definitely quite a few surprises. I really loved the plot concept here, its very original, those who complain Hollywood is out of original ideas, look no further. Not the greatest but pretty damn good.

I'm not a big fan of Mr. M. Night. I'll admit that I enjoyed Signes but had so many plot holes that I almost felt insulted when I thought back about the events of the movie.
I honestly did nothing but laugh when I first seen a commercial for "The Happening". "His first R rated movie!" came off as pretty desperate if you ask me. But I'm glad you enjoyed it, Mr.M.:D

Spirit, Stallion of the Cimarron.

My 4th favorite. :bloosmirk:

Kim Possible: So The Drama

I've watched this movie many times before, and I'll watch it many times again. Angst, drama, action, comedy, likable heroes and villains, a solid, well-written story with great dialogue, and a beautiful ending. Best animated movie Disney ever made. It's that good, it really is. :frankiesmile:

Sweeny Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street

This was phenomenal. Johnny Depp was fantastic and Helena Bonham Carter was great. Good music and amazing special effects. On the note of special effects, though... it was bloody. Very bloody. I wouldn't recommend this one for the faint of heart and/or stomach. The ending, gruesome as it was, was very Shakespearian and great.

Another fine film, Mr. Tim Burton. :D

The last one I saw was "The World's Strongest" (the second Dragon Ball Z movie); the Pioneer/Ocean Group English dub (not the FUNimation re-dub). It's one of my favorite movies of the series, and it was certainly one of the best dub performances I've seen of any DB episode/movie done in English. The reason I say that is that I had preferred the Ocean cast over FUNimation (though FUNi had improved in later episodes to where I can say I liked many of the voices), they kept the original music (which they did not do in most of the series and not in the FUNimation re-dub), the lines weren't as corny (which made the movie feel more powerful), and they didn't change the opening and ending themes. Just my opinion, of course.

The 40 year old virgin

Very funny, a lot better and funnier then i remembered. Very glad I gave this a second watching. On a semi un-related note, I am SO happy to hear "World's strongest" is one of your favorite DBZ movies Radical. I LOVE that movie! Its my favorite DBZ movie for pretty much all the same reasons you listed before.

The music, the voice acting, the Japanese background. I actually went through a lot of digging on the web to find the original ocean DUB version of the first 3 DBZ movies because Funimation discontinued them to make room for the redub ones. It was well worth the hunting and money to get the original Ocean dub.

Truth be told, I loved the Ocean dub better too but I've grown so used to the Funimation voices, I accept either or now. Plus as excellent as the Ocean performances were, I really do love the uncut uncensored dialog and visuals that the new Funimation dub supplies. The first 3 DBZ movies still are some of the best out of all 13.

My other favorite DBZ movies include:

#8 "Broly, the Legendary Super Saiyan"
#10 "Broly: Second coming"
#12 "Fusion Reborn"
#13 "Wrath of the Dragon"

I still have the VHS tapes of the DBZ movies Dead Zone (my personal fave), Worlds Strongest, and Tree of Might. I love the imagery of Dead Zone. The art is gorgeous, the music is very dramatic (I love Piccolo's theme) and the action isn't as over the top as other DBZ offerings, which I really like.
I'm also a fan of the Ocean Group dubs over the Funimation dubs. To this day I still believe that Scott McNeil is the best English voice actor the character ever had.:D

My first tape was "The Tree of Might". It was actually the first time I got to see anything DBZ that was uncut. Strangely, "The World's Strongest" was the very first DVD I ever purchased. A few years ago, I got the other two Pioneer DVDs right before FUNimation re-dubbed the first three movies. Honestly, I have not seen the re-dubbed version, but I've read that FUNi replaced Shunsuke Kikuchi's music with rock music and a less faithful script.

Scott McNeil is a fantastic voice-over actor. I have to agree that Piccolo had to be one of the best voices from any English dub cast of the series. :)

And When Did You Last See Your Father?

A gentle but extremely poignant family drama, adapted from Blake Morrison's memoirs about the time spent watching his father's deteroriation and death from cancer over a four-week period, and his efforts in the meantime to get to the bottom of some closely-guarded family secrets (I've yet to actually read the book myself, but after watching this film it's had no trouble worming its way onto my ever-growing to-read list). It's a compelling and powerful enough story in it's own right, but what really brought it to life were the lead performances - Jim Broadbent was especially marvellous as Arthur Morrison, and Colin Firth was great too. Really tear-jerking stuff.

Get Smart

While not the most ingenious comedy movie around, it certainly is a fresh, funny, and entertaining movie that manages to be funny without tons of sex, nudity, or constant swearing or even fart jokes. The story is nothing special what really makes it funny and enjoyable is the cast, they all work REALLY well together.

Anne Hathaway is freaking gorgeous in this movie and she plays with Carrell well (hey I rhymed!) I really liked Alan Arkin as the chief and the dialog was really clever and well delivered by the cast. I especially loved the music, I never saw the original TV show but that theme song is kick ass! Overall, this is a clean, decent, and well cast movie.

I took a trip down memory lane and watched one of my most favorite movies from childhood, and that movie is none other then Disney's animated all animal version of Robin Hood, which is in the top three of my favorite big screen re-tellings of the Robin Hood legend. (The other two being the classic Errol Flynn outing and the Mel Brooks spoof, "Men in Tights. I thought Prince of Thieves was okay, but nothing really to write home about.)

I LOVE the Robin Hood movies! Disney's of course was the first one I was acquainted with as a kid. Prince of Thieves was the first "big" movie I saw, and oh yeah, Men in Tights is freakin' hilarious!

Prince John- "I have a mole???" 8D 8D 8D

Man oh man oh man... I just love them all! As I got older, it included the classic ones for the history and costumes. It was my first taste of a passion for all things medieval. And 13 medieval costumes later, I've still got that passion. And it's not ending anytime soon, I can tell you that much. :frankiesmile:

As for the last movie I watched, I think it was Masterpiece Theatre's "Sense and Sensibility" last weekend. More awesome costumes and history. Such a classic story, I love it.

Let's not forget my all-time favourite moment from that movie:

Blinkin - I CAN SEE!! *runs into a tree* Nope... I was wrong! 8D 8D 8D

The Exorcism of Emily Rose

A mix of two of my favorite things: courtroom media (ala Law and Order mostly) and horror. I really enjoyed this movie despite the heavy use of courtroom drama and I felt the whole "exorcism" and actions of the possessed girl felt really realistic.

I gotta say, at a mere 4 and a half bucks previously reviewed at Blockbuster, this movie was totally worth it.

Iron Man

Hmm, well, taking into account that I know next to nothing about the original Marvel creation upon which this based (I'm a lot more familiar with Black Sabbath's "Iron Man" - of which, I note, the temptation not to exclude from this particular flick was clearly too strong - and of course the Ted Hughes' creation of the same name who went on to inspire the movie The Iron Giant), I didn't really think that this was all that great. I do really like Robert Downey Jr's garrulous acting style (it's particularly good in Kiss Kiss Bang Bang), but otherwise I had a pretty hard time getting into it. That said, those final few moments were seriously awesome - without giving anything away, they went and did something which I've been wanting to see done in a superhero movie for a long, long time. So, hurrah for that!

There was the post-credits scene too, which was kind of lost on me, but I take it from the immense amount of whooping going on in the seats around me that we were witnessing something truly dynamite.

It was quite possibly, the single biggest moment for comic books, comic book movies, and comic book geeks to date.

The Incredible Hulk

I was finally able to watch this film yesterday, and this film is indeed truly incredible (pun not intended).

Unlike Ang Lee's Hulk, this version has more action (and drama), the actors did a great job in their respected role, and even the ending suggests a sequel in the future.

So far, one of the great films this year.

Vagabond

A really well-made French movie from the mid-80s, done in semi-documentary style, which opens with the discovery of the body of a young female vagrant who has frozen to death in a ditch, and then goes backward to show how she came to be there, documenting her journey across the French countryside, the various individuals she encountered along the way, and her gradual decline into total degradation and despair. The technique of having the supporting characters intermittently turn to confide their thoughts and feelings directly with the camera, whilst always keeping the protagonist herself at a fairly reserved distance, is an effective one, and makes for an interesting framing device to this haunting and understated drama. Beyond witnessing the despondency, and occasional horror of her situation, we never really get the chance to understand or get close to Mona as a character, giving us the strange sensation of being detached onlookers to the entire sordid affair, which only serves to make the film feel cumulatively all the more chilling as it goes. The ending, when it came, felt cold and abrupt, which, I suppose, was exactly what was intended.

Get Smart

This was BRILLIANT! It was a spot-on movie, with just about everything people loved about the show: the gadgets, the one-liners, the humour - it was great. There were brilliant cameos too.

And Mr. M, you're so right about the theme music. When I saw the opening and that music started playing, I had tears in my eyes. It was wonderful. :frankiesmile: If you thought that TV adaptations made Hollywood look worse, think again, and see this movie!

The tail end of It's a Wonderful Life (Yes, my family watches Christmas movies when it's not Christmas :frankiesmile:)

No matter how many times I see this film, it never gets old. This is Jimmy Stewart at his finest-- I will tolerate no debate on that fact-- and the story is simply phenomenal. The rest of the cast-- Donna Reed as Mary Bailey and Lionel Barrymore as Old Man Potter, to mention the big names-- were wonderful in their roles, and overall, the film was lead to complete and utter legend status by its wonderful director, Frank Capra.

The ending is what gets me. The film's message, No man is a failure who has friends, is so profoundly, yet simply, stated-- in the form of a note to Stewart's character, George Bailey-- I can't help but feel a little touched every single time, even though I know it's coming and can quote some scenes verbatim.

Seeing this movie was even more enjoyable this time around because it was after I saw the Jimmy Stewart Museum in his hometown of Indiana, Pennsylvannia-- a great deal of the museum was devoted to this film, giving me a new appreciation of this classic piece of cinema.

Overall: Did I expect anything other than an enjoyable film experience? Of course not!

And even though it took me bloody forever to reply to this:

Quote:

Originally Posted by frankie_fan (Post 80810) Could you understand some of the Aussie language? 8D ....

Actually, I didn't. I thought it was like listening to British slang, which I'm pretty well up on. The only thing I didn't get was a reference to a type of biscuit in a deleted scene, which, as I understand it, was deleted BECAUSE non-Australian audiences wouldn't catch the reference. 8D