Last movie you watched?

[HerrimanWasHere]

Originally Posted by jekylljuice

Groundhog Day

Yes, well, talk of whistling belly buttons aside (I'm not even going to ponder how that works), it's pretty hard to top this one in the delight department. It takes what has to be one of the simplest plot gimmicks imaginable and generates so much wit, warmth and endearment from it, while Bill Murray, needless to say, is absolutely perfect as the sardonic protagonist. A great one for repeat viewings.

(Yeah, I suppose I could've worked a lot harder on getting a joke out of that final statement, but I'm feeling much too lazy right now. Anyway, it's the truth.)

Haha! Oh yeah. Nice joke.

I still recall exactly what I was doing, when I watched that movie for the first time. It was a snowday, and I was looking through my video collection of movies I never watched. So I, walking around the house in only by under garments and robe, just popped it in. (That was some really good chocolate I had, too. It was a kind of dark chocolate that had some peppers in it.) But anyway, I loved it! So yeah...

My last movie?
>_>
<_<

The Tigger Movie. (Watched it in Children's Hospital)

[jekylljuice]

Originally Posted by HerrimanWasHere

Haha! Oh yeah. Nice joke.

I still recall exactly what I was doing, when I watched that movie for the first time. It was a snowday, and I was looking through my video collection of movies I never watched. So I, walking around the house in only by under garments and robe, just popped it in. (That was some really good chocolate I had, too. It was a kind of dark chocolate that had some peppers in it.) But anyway, I loved it! So yeah...

You're very kind.

I can't remember what I was doing the first time I saw Groundhog Day. But I believe it was 2003.

[taranchula]

Little Nemo: Adventures in Slumberland

A breathtaking 2D animated romp based on the turn of the century comic strip by Winsor McCay, about a boy named Nemo and his adventures in... okay well the title kind of speaks for itself there.

This movie is best known for two things. 1. It was one of the first Japanese made animated movies to get a nation wide theatrical release in the USA and 2. A very very awesome Nintendo game that was loosely based off of the film/comic.

Another interesting thing about this picture is that early on its production animation gurus Hayao Miyazaki and Isao Takahata did some work on the movie, however due to conflicts with the American producers both of them quit the production and the film was finished by Tokyo Movie Shinsha, in fact if you poke around the net you will be able to find a demo reel that shows a bit of Miyazaki and co's work on the project.

[Mr. Marshmallow]

Mississippi Burning

A truly dark, violent, and all around "grim feeling" movie that deals with a great deal of racial controversy, KKK attacks and a lot of other really serious and heavy racial topics. Its an older movie with William Dafoe, Gene Hackman, Brad Dourif and others. My brother saw it and said he liked it a lot and my best friend recommended to me and he glorifies the ground it walks on.

I don't tend to listen to him though sad as that may sound because his tastes in movies and mine are quite different, radically different sometimes and he tends to over exaggerate movies awesomeness simply because they won lots of awards, me personally no number of awards will make me automatically assume a movie is good, I prefer seeing it with my own eyes.

And I did and I really did enjoy it, there's a lot of good old dark vigilante justice in this movie and the performances were excellent from just about everyone. From minor to major characters, everyone turned out truly gold worthy performances and I was extremely impressed and depressed. This movie is kind of hard to watch, its very emotional and painful with all the racism so its not something I can watch every day but it was still excellent.

[Ridureyu]

Sullivan's Travels (1941)

The comedy was funny, the drama was very well-done, the social message made sense, the commentary on Hollywood was good, and Veronica Lake was gorgeous.

Yes, I am recommending this classic.

[jekylljuice]

Cat on a Hot Tin Roof

A classic, adapted from the Tennessee Williams play about a deeply mendacious family who are forced to face up to some unpleasant truths when it becomes common knowledge that the domineering father is dying from cancer. I know that it's softer in certain areas than Williams' original, downplaying the implication of Brick's homosexuality and giving things a somewhat more cheerful conclusion (Williams himself supposedly hated it), but it's still a very engaging and powerful piece of film-making, thanks in no small way to the strength of the performances involved. Everyone here is on top form, including Elizabeth Taylor, Burl Ives and, of course, the late Paul Newman. His is a legacy which truly lives on.

[some guy you dont know]

the four feathers

A movie that came out back in '02, starring heath ledger. this was only the second movie I saw with him in it, and he was quite different between the two films.

Spoiler Below

Anyway, it's about a man in the english army during the 1800's who is shipped off to sudan. only he quits and, as such, does not go. his army buddies send him the four feathers in the title because they symbolize cowardice. so what does heath ledger do? go off to sudan and fight for the other guys.

I dont know what else there really is to say other than this was actually a pretty good movie. I might look it up again and watch it sometime sooner or later.

[Imaginary Light]

Confessions of a Shopaholic

I really needed to just go see a funny, feel good movie. And it definetely made me feel good. My best friend, who I saw it with, and I were killing ourselves laughing.

Oh, and the fashion in this movie was so over the top that it was fabulous. Just sayin'.

[jekylljuice]

Felidae

And you thought that Watership Down was a bit on the violent side...

Okay, so I knew from the moment that I checked the synopsis on this little-known mid-90s animated outing from Germany that I wasn’t exactly going to be in for something light-hearted and fluffy...a house cat named Francis moves into a new neighbourhood along with his human owner, where he discovers that the local feline population is being slowly eliminated through a series of mysterious killings – not by humans, as initially suspected, but by other cats - and opts to play detective. You can think of it as a film noir of sorts, with cats in place of humans, only it’s slightly more complicated than that, also touching upon such issues as genetic manipulation and humankind's relationship with the rest of the natural world. It’s an obscure animated film about cats. I love animation. I love discovering the really obscure ones which have slipped below the mainstream radar. Mostly importantly of all, I love cats. So it was a done deal that I sat down and watched it.

And man, did it surprise me. I knew that it was going to be on the dark side, but I wasn’t expecting it to be nearly as stark and brutal as it was. Really, I’ve never seen anything quite like it. Even the most infamously gritty of animal-orientated animated flicks – Watership Down, the Plague Dogs and the like – have nothing upon some of the onscreen brutalities we see in Felidae. Turns out that the presence of a feline serial killer barely scratches the surface of some of the nightmarish activities that go on within the shadows of Franics’ new neighbourhood. Most of the local cats belong to a sinister religious sect which engages in a highly macabre nightly ritual, the previous owner of Francis’ new house has gotten up to some pretty gruesome activities involving the cats, and there's blood, viscera and gore aplenty. In addition, there’s quite a bit of rough language and even some onscreen...erm, kitty romance. It’s certainly not the kind of thing that I would ever dream of showing to young children, or possibly even to older kids.

So, it’s dark, it’s daring, it’s different; is it successful? I would say on the whole yes - it's gripping, unique and frequently harrowing, it captures the noir feeling very nicely, contains some brilliantly grotesque nightmare sequences and, provided you don't get too hung up on some of its more peculiar anthropomorphisms (the cats being able to operate computers, for example), it takes itself very seriously - though it does have its share of weaknesses. The storyline and characters are all very interesting, but there are points where it doesn’t go into quite as much depth or elaboration as is perhaps required. At some point I’m going to have to get hold of the original novel it was adapted from, since there are times when it dips into something of a skim-read feel, which do make the plot developments a bit baffling at times. Some of the character designs are pretty good - Francis, for example, looks attractive enough without being so cute and cuddly-looking as to detract from the intrinsically dark nature of the movie. Others I was a lot less keen on – notably Kong, whom they went to such lengths to make look bigger and burlier than the rest of the cats that in the end he doesn’t really look like a cat at all, more like a bizarre wolverine/bulldog hybrid. In addition, the ending feels kind of abrupt and, given all the horror that’s preceded it, somewhat on the glib side (again, there’s that skim-read feeling). In a way, it seems kind of strange that a film so unflinchingly adult-orientated would choose to constrain itself with the standard 80-minute running time expected of most animated features of the period - an extra ten minutes or so in which to better flesh out some of the more complicated themes and plot points probably wouldn't have hurt this film too much. Overall, though, it feels like a miracle that a movie of this nature should even exist at all.

It's stark, gruesome and certainly not for everyone, but if you're a hardcore animation fan who likes their movies to be non-comformist and genre-defying, and you can stomach a bit of graphic animated violence, then this is definitely a must-see.

[taranchula]

FUTURAMA: Into the Wild Green Yonder

The final (But hopefully not the "Final" final) of the four direct to DVD Futurama movies.

And I must say that this one has to be their strongest effort since the first movie (Bender's Big Score) and without giving too much away, this movie finally does something positive with the Fry/Leela relationship that has been built up through out the course of the series.

So to sum up my experience in the ancient language known as "Critic speak" Great writing, great animation and of course great acting make this a voyage into the wild green yonder worth taking.