So, new thread - better than the old thread

[ 04 September 2008: Message edited by: Papal Bull ]

In any case your arguement has slipped into a bit of Rumsfeldian logic about the "absence of evidence," with your question about me proving that it could not.

I am saying that it did not. Its not as if the round up off the Iranian left was any big secret. Just watch the movie again.

Sorry to interupt you in your naive reverie. I didn't realize that we were supposed to talk about political movies, seperate from what they are about, as a kind of theoretical excersize in aesthetics.

[ 04 September 2008: Message edited by: Cueball ]

In fact, none were. Certainly none that portray the Stalanist Iranian left as the heros of social reform in Iran.

[ 04 September 2008: Message edited by: Cueball ]

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Whitaker has to be the most under-rated actor out there.

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I second that. I was kind of expecting 'The Last Kind of Scotland' to be awful from the preview, looked like it would be a horror film about 'evil' African dictators but it actually was very well done and Whitaker was incredible.

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Whitaker has to be the most under-rated actor out there.

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I second that. I was kind of expecting 'The Last Kind of Scotland' to be awful from the preview, looked like it would be a horror film about 'evil' African dictators but it actually was very well done and Whitaker was incredible.

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Persepolis. Its a good movie worth watching. I just don't think it, or anything like it, would have been made outside of the Eastern Block in 1983. No mainstream western release has talked about this issue, even laterally, until now.

In fact, none were. Certainly none that portray the Stalanist Iranian left as the heros of social reform in Iran.

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I saw Persepolis with an American friend of mine; it was an excellent and thought-provoking film, especially for her as she knew next to nothing about Iran and was not expecting the film to be so educational. I'd advise anyone to watch it but especially Americans; with their newfound national interest in Iran they should learn as much about the place and its history as they can.

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Originally posted by It's Me D:
not enough inventive animated films for adults these days IMV.

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Sparta? Are you kidding me?

Hmmm, must dig up my Ratatouille recipe again, a peasant dish, yes, but a feast for the senses. Wish I could add a chef's hat to this smiley:

ETA: Ratatouille: The Movie and the Dish

[ 07 September 2008: Message edited by: Boom Boom ]

I did, however, watch both the Forbidden Kingdom and Baby Mama.

Forbidden Kingdom is a pass - it is a really bad rip off of the Last Action Hero. Or better yet, it is like the Neverending Story, but with more kung fu and really crappy writing. I fell asleep a few times and it did not hold my interest. Even the fight choreography couldn't hold my interest.

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I absolutely love animation.

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Funny, I'd say the same thing.

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Originally posted by It's Me D:

Funny, I'd say the same thing.

I hate Pixar; I've never enjoyed one of their films.

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I'm going to go see it. There's no way I can't.

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The film was inspired by Gross's relationship with his grandfather. Like many veterans, he was reticent about sharing his experiences with his family. In a rare conversation on a fishing trip, Dunne told the story of bayonetting a young German through the face and killing him during a battle.

A long time later, as Dunne lay in hospital bed in the last days of his life, his family was mystified by Dunne's behaviour, asking forgiveness over and over. Only Gross knew that he was speaking to the young German he had killed.

"He went completely out of his mind at the end. He started telling me about a hideous event that happened during a skirmish in a little ruined town in World War I. He'd killed someone in a miserable, horrible way and that had obviously haunted him throughout the rest of his life. As my grandfather died, in his mind he was back in that town, trying to find a German boy whom he'd bayonetted in the forehead.

He'd lived with that memory all his life - and he was of a time when people kept things to themselves. When he finally told the story, it really affected me and I've not been able to get it out of my head

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'The misery that is now upon us is but the passing of greed'.

A very strange tale but interesting none-the-less.

What is not believable is Washington's characterization - there is a lot of this in American films. Murdering psychos with consciences.

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Originally posted by Boom Boom:
Just this week I watched Meet Joe Black and

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Possibly Brad Pitt's worst film ever? Maybe not (Seven Years in Tibet comes to mind). Why do you like this one?

* checking to make sure Makwa's not around *

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Originally posted by jas:
Possibly Brad Pitt's worst film ever? Maybe not (Seven Years in Tibet comes to mind). Why do you like this one?

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I thought Pitt did a great job of playing Death - ethereal, foreboding, mysterious. And Claire Forlani and Anthony Hopkins are very good in this.

ETA: It's an especially great movie when you think about it - Death is a spirit who takes on the body of someone who just died in a car crash - to learn about why humans like life so much. Along the way, Death (in the body of Pitt who plays both the guy who died and the spirit of Death) falls in love with Claire Forlani's character, and at the end, returns the original body that he grabbed back to life so that person can continue to romance the Claire Forlani character. It's a great story line even if you don't like the acting!

[ 13 September 2008: Message edited by: Boom Boom ]

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Originally posted by jas:

...poo-poo Tom Cruise's acting skills until I saw him in Vanilla Sky, then re-watched A Few Good Men, and Rain Man. He does a great job in Rain Man.

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I liked Cruise in both A Few Good Men, and Rain Man. I forced myself to watch Cruise and Kidman in Eyes Wide Shut (I had heard it was a terrible film) but I actually thought it was an interesting (perverse?) two hours although, admittedly, the acting was awful.

ETA: Just watched Michael Clayton (2007). Wow!!!

[ 13 September 2008: Message edited by: Boom Boom ]

Still, he's great in a number of movies but one of my favourite Tom Cruise performances is as the vampire Lestat. Who knew? I thought he would be awful and instead he was engaging, charismatic, reptilian yet seductive.

ETA: I'm just remembering his performance in "Magnolia" was pretty awesome, too. That was a case where the Tom Cruise trademark served the role well.

[ 15 September 2008: Message edited by: jas ]

[ 20 September 2008: Message edited by: jas ]

A film that gives a pretty good picture why the US is having a harder time finding pawns to go maintain its occupation of Iraq. Some critics complain of "melodrama" in its portrayal of how the experience of everyday violence in a conflict overseas gets translated into the back-home environment, but for me that was one of the most salient points of the film.

I'm a little surprised that I hadn't heard of it before seeing it on the rental shelf, nor, as far as I can tell, has it been mentioned here. But it seems Iraq war films haven't been doing well at the box office, although no one can quite agree why.

[ 20 September 2008: Message edited by: jas ]

His name is Robert Morin. His film 'Yes Sir! Madame...' is an unequivocal masterpiece in my mind.

It's a bilingual movie, so it's better if you speak both languages but my father still had a powerfully visceral responce to the work while only understanding one of them.

Also worth checking out:
'the left side of the fridge' and 'Of Whales, the Moon, and Men'

[ 07 October 2008: Message edited by: ebodyknows ]

[ 12 October 2008: Message edited by: Boom Boom ]

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Originally posted by It's Me D:
not enough inventive animated films for adults these days IMV.

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Oh please, yes there are. And I have a partial list, too:

Millennium Actress

Perfect Blue

Tokyo Godfathers

Paprika

Waking Life

A Scanner Darkly

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Originally posted by Stargazer:
I own Spartacus.

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Hmm. Stargazer is much more Patrician than I would have thought...

All these chanels I get, someone's always doing a Kubric festival. I was watching Thparticuth the other day and wondering what the musical score might have been if Kubric had more autonomy-- and casting, too. Douglas was a favorite of Kubric's, but I'm sure Tony Curtis was not his choice.

A interesting film by Kubric that doesn't get as much attention is "Paths of Glory." When "Full Metal Jacket" was first released, and I saw it at the theatre, I wasn't impressed. But years later, after watching it a few times, it has grown on me.

Tell me, Boom Boom, do you consider the eating of oysters to be moral and the eating of snails to be immoral?

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Originally posted by Tommy_Paine:
Tell me, Boom Boom, do you consider the eating of oysters to be moral and the eating of snails to be immoral?

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Not sure what this has to do with a movie thread, but I don' eat either of those. I stay away from shellfish in general, although I make an exception for locally harvested Snow Crab, which are incredibly delicious either by themselves, or added to sandwiches and salads.

Trying to remember which country put it out as a miniseries?

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Originally posted by Lard Tunderin' Jeezus:
Watched 'Drunken Master', a 1978 Jackie Chan flick with the kids tonite. They've been getting into martial arts movies like The Forbidden Kingdom and (my favorite) Kung Fu Hustle.

Much better than them watching me scream and curse and pull my hair out watching the election.

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LOVED the Drunken Master series!

Just got Fight Club at the clearance bin at Superstore last Tuesday when I was picking up the Hulk.

Forbidden Kingdom is out but have to wait until Christmas to see it.

Lots of teen boy movies out this season:

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Originally posted by Tommy_Paine:
I'm waiting for a movie version of "Romance of the Three Kingdoms". Seems to me, with all the interest in China, and Chinese cinema being rather excellent, someone would make this film.

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That is a book?

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Originally posted by vaudree:
I want to see Stop-Loss

Just got Fight Club at the clearance bin at Superstore last Tuesday when I was picking up the Hulk.

Forbidden Kingdom is out but have to wait until Christmas to see it.

Lots of teen boy movies out this season:

Nov 4 Get Smart--timewaster
Nov 9 Kung Fu Panda--cute but no cigar
Nov 11 Hellboy II--passable
Nov 18 Wall-E--unknown
Nov 25 Hancock--unknown
Dec 2 Narnia 2--passable
Dec 9 Dark Knight--definitely worth the watch 2x
Dec 16 Mummy 3--blech

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Fight Club is worth spending some time watching a few times to catch all the undertones.

[ 25 October 2008: Message edited by: TVParkdale ]

That makes for a good Babble MOVIES TRIVIA QUESTION, though: without looking it up online (although you can watch the movie), in how many scenes, and which ones, does Tyler Durden appear as a split-second hallucination to the narrator before they actually meet?

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Originally posted by jas:
Yes, I prided myself on being able to capture the frame in each of the instances that Pitt's character appears for a split-second before he enters the plot. I guess I had more time than was healthy for me that week

That makes for a good Babble MOVIES TRIVIA QUESTION, though: without looking it up online (although you can watch the movie), in how many scenes, and which ones, does Tyler Durden appear as a split-second hallucination to the narrator before they actually meet?

I will share the pics here if I can, and if it doesn't violate any copyright.

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It's "fair use" if you add commentary or are using it for critiquing purposes.

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Originally posted by TVParkdale:

... And I think the answer is 6?

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Originally posted by jas:

Can you name which scenes? If it's 6 then I definitely didn't catch them all. I don't think it's 6.

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Look HERE:

Fight Club--Hidden scenes

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Oh please, yes there are. And I have a partial list, too:

Millennium Actress

Perfect Blue

Tokyo Godfathers

Paprika

Waking Life

A Scanner Darkly

Check them out before you come up with the bullshit you just said.

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Thanks for the personal attack random noob; I have seen all these pictures and they are an example of just how scarce good animate fare aimed at adults has become (which is not to suggest they are bad films). Of six films you've listed four are Japanese and the other two are from the same director; so that shows what exactly: its hard to find more than one director working in adult animation in all of North America?

The Japanese have great animated films for adults, many cultures outside North America still do (such as Persepolis which was discussed earlier); the fact remains that we North Americans have slid backwards with respect to producing animation for adults and it is something to be upset about. Looking back a couple decades the scene was more promising, particularly the works of Ralph Bakshi which were for the most part excellent and always groundbreaking.

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Originally posted by TVParkdale:

3 line synopsis pls?

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The average plot synopsis for Romance of the Three Kingdoms is longer than War & Peace

I just watched "I Am Legend", I was impressed, to say the least, given that I didn't have high hopes for the film.

I'm going to watch Ghost World tonight, which is something I have been meaning to see for a while.

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Originally posted by Papal Bull:

The average plot synopsis for Romance of the Three Kingdoms is longer than War & Peace

I just watched "I Am Legend", I was impressed, to say the least, given that I didn't have high hopes for the film.

I'm going to watch Ghost World tonight, which is something I have been meaning to see for a while.

Being a movie clerk is sweet!

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I actually liked the original "Omega Man" better. Personal taste, I guess.

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The average plot synopsis for Romance of the Three Kingdoms is longer than War & Peace

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Originally posted by Tommy_Paine:

Yeah. And I wouldn't try to do a screen play that attempted to cover the whole epic. It would be like trying to condence "Lord of the Rings" into a 90 minute movie. Still, there are many stories within the big story that could be done justice in movie format.

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Wouldn't it make a better mini-series then?

LOTR Synopsis:

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Originally posted by Tommy_Paine:
HBO's mini series "Rome" seemed to do well. But here, I would have started the story much earlier, perhaps where Colleen McCullough did, with the arrival of Gius Marius into Roman politics. An even more interesting time than Julius Ceasar's.

A series would be cost prohibitive, with today's fractured T.V. audience. Even HBO was very tentative with it's "Rome" series-- waiting to see if season 1 got the ratings to justify season 2.

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Would 8-20 hours cover it? That's a fair sized chunk for a good story.

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Originally posted by Tommy_Paine:
HBO's mini series "Rome" seemed to do well. But here, I would have started the story much earlier, perhaps where Colleen McCullough did, with the arrival of Gius Marius into Roman politics. An even more interesting time than Julius Ceasar's.

A series would be cost prohibitive, with today's fractured T.V. audience. Even HBO was very tentative with it's "Rome" series-- waiting to see if season 1 got the ratings to justify season 2.

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I believe there were also international co-production partners, which raised the budget considerably and helped to justify the investment in the second season.

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I actually liked the original "Omega Man" better. Personal taste, I guess.

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Actually Omega Man was itself a remake, the original would be "The Last Man on Earth" with Vincent Price I like all the versions, I am glad the latest returned to the original book title though

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I also liked Dune/Children of Dune

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Originally posted by Timebandit:

I believe there were also international co-production partners, which raised the budget considerably and helped to justify the investment in the second season.

It was very good, but I didn't like how they ended things with Vorenus, purely on a narrative level.

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There are also problems keeping an ensamble together. I think a lot of those who appeared on "Rome" were and wanted to be doing other things.

Vorenus had to die. I knew he was going to die right from the first episode, without knowing the plot details. Vorenus was the old, moral and traditional Roman. Pullo, the new and pragmatic Roman. The relationship between Vorenus and Pullo aptly mirrored the political upheaval.

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Originally posted by It's Me D:

You liked the mini-series and the movie? Thats a rarity; I have met a few who like the mini-series (bleh ) but generally those who do HATE Lynch's movie. Lynch's movie of Dune is awesome

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Opposite actually. I can live with the movie if I ignore the actual storyline of Dune.

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Originally posted by Tommy_Paine:

There are also problems keeping an ensamble together. I think a lot of those who appeared on "Rome" were and wanted to be doing other things.

Vorenus had to die. I knew he was going to die right from the first episode, without knowing the plot details. Vorenus was the old, moral and traditional Roman. Pullo, the new and pragmatic Roman. The relationship between Vorenus and Pullo aptly mirrored the political upheaval.

If you didn't like it, blame Cato and his political cronies. Everything was their fault.

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I agree with you there was no "out" for Vorenus.

I liked your analysis but I'd say Vorenus didn't survive for other reasons...

Like Marc Antony they "suffered the same sickness" meeting anything that challenged their egos with violence and rage. They both *enjoyed* violence and disruption.

Vorenus, was emotionally fragile as was Marc Antony.

Pullo, on the other hand let his heart, lead him. Emotionally, he had inner strength to survive prison, torture and complicated life circumstances plus the same experiences that broke Vorenus.

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Originally posted by vaudree:
I want to see Stop-Loss

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You can find it here:

Stop Loss CD 1

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Originally posted by Tommy_Paine:

There are also problems keeping an ensamble together. I think a lot of those who appeared on "Rome" were and wanted to be doing other things.

Vorenus had to die. I knew he was going to die right from the first episode, without knowing the plot details. Vorenus was the old, moral and traditional Roman. Pullo, the new and pragmatic Roman. The relationship between Vorenus and Pullo aptly mirrored the political upheaval.

If you didn't like it, blame Cato and his political cronies. Everything was their fault.

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Originally posted by Timebandit:

It was the ambiguity, actually, that bothered me most. If that had been narratively clear it would have been a pisser anyway but we don't know that he died -- not in the way that we know all other characters who met their end in the series did.

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Ambiguity? How ambiguous is septicemia and dying in the arms of his daughter?

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Originally posted by Papal Bull:
I'm going to watch Ghost World tonight, which is something I have been meaning to see for a while.

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The score to the film is really well placed, the characters become increasingly developed, and it is based on an awesome comic book.

And High School Musical? Really?