blarg, that movie sounds interesting. i'm going to go out and rent it (or maybe buy it) if i'm not doing anything else tonight (the antartica one).

Cool, I hope you like it. There were some really interesting people and ideas in it IMO. Both those movies are now on Netflix instant watch, by the way.

I recommend Temple Grandin-it just came out on HBO. I was pretty blown away by this film. It's the story about an autistic woman and her lifes journey. Kinda like a functional Rainman.

I've heard her interviewed many times on NPR, and once on C-Span. She is just fascinating, I'll watch this in a second. Thanks, bronx bomber.

There is a documentary of her floating around out there, I saw it years ago, which is why I was looking forward to this. This really fleshed out her life-what an extraordinary woman.

That being said, the real Temple is a rather dowdy woman IRL and I tempered my expectations when I saw they cast Claire Danes in the lead. I think if this had a theatrical release she would have received an Oscar nomination. You really have to see this.

wanted to second blarg's recommendation of the encounters at the edge of the world movie. it's an eerie world, the antartic...the noises that the seals made sounded like the creatures from pitch black.

anyways, yeah...it's just hard to imagine such a desolate land and yet so beautiful. i loved some of the shots of the underwater ice formations, just too cool.

The Invention of Lying

Lightweight, bad premise, a few laughs here and there...halfway through, I sort of started not paying much attention.

This has a similar feel to Idiocracy, only without the sci-fi aspects.

Regardless, the basic premise just cannot sustain the movie...way too many holes. When they were considering the project, you'd think they would have realized this after maybe 15 minutes.

And here's a great point:

finally saw the hustler for the first time and the karl malden character is quite the sly devil

That penguin wandering to his doom was sad, too. Who knows what his dream was. That seemed another perfect Herzog moment.

Karl Malden is not in The Hustler. Is it possible you mean George C. Scott?

Karl Malden was in The Cincinnati Kid, which is like a low-rent Hustler for poker players (though still very entertaining).

oh right right i always get them mixed up what with their huge noses

Goya's Ghosts

Far too ambitious for Forman, this film is almost entirely about the Inquisition, and not Goya.

A good cast (but with some odd choices...Natalie Portman and Randy Quaid come to mind, though neither really offends), and an interesting topic, to be sure...but it falls flat. It feels somehow self-conscious and only passably executed.

I would love to see a great film about The Spanish Inquisition.

But this isn't it.

So you weren't expecting the Spanish Inquisition?

Hunger (2009)

Ok we have a new entry in the "one-timers" list. I find these types of films hard to review. Is it a great film? Absolutely. Would I ever want to see it again? Not a chance.

It is really, really, really, really, really hard to watch.

McQueen creates a suffocating world inside the prison. A world filled with only pain and sorrow. This is no Shawshank. There is no hope here. As the film progresses, it becomes more and more uncomfortable. I almost had to turn it off a few times.

It is filled with amazing shots and great cinematography. The most interesting thing is it's nearly a silent film. Except for the center-piece 17 minute dialogue scene, there is very little sound at all. This makes the long-shot all the more interesting, and adds to feeling of unease throughout.

Micheal Fassbender is amazing in the lead role.

Grade:
As a film: A-
Enjoyability: D-

I often find that when the joke is too obvious, it might be best left unmade.

Of course, now I have the entire bit running through my mind.

By the time he says "AMONGST OUR WEAPONRY..." I am generally cracking up.

Saw Inglorious Basterds. The German guy was an odd role overall, but little in the movie was believable. He acted his part well, in some scenes being very chameleon-like very quickly. I could see why he got nominated for awards. Brad Pitt was similarly over the top, but his over the top take was on his own part felt like pure camp more than just an oddly written character. Without Pitt's interpretation, I think the movie would have been totally different. The flick seemed packed with the famous Tarantino-style high stakes dialogue confrontations, and there were even odes to Sergio Leone showdowns on the soundtrack and in the framing. They didn't seem quite as intense, though, and they took far longer to play out. Overall I got plenty of that Tarantino feeling, but felt that unlike his other films, this one belonged the most to his twin male leads. The female lead didn't stand out as much, unfortunately. She did well in her role, but this time Tarantino didn't write as interesting a female role as he is famous for. There was only so far she could take it, and she took it there. Ho hum.

The ending felt kind of deflated for me. The heroic German sniper turns out to be an incipient terrible person after all (a cartoonishly bad Nazi? who'da thunk it?). The jew-hating Colombo thinks up something clever, but not memorably so. Some fireworks happen and things wind to a close and then yer outta there. This one won't stick with me as long as the other Tarantino's I've seen. Recommend people see it mostly to say they saw it, to see Brad Pitt pull off an unlikely character, and see some good acting overall. Overall, I was surprised that Tarantino could pull off this kind of movie at all, and I'm glad it's watchable, but wished it were somehow something a little more.

District 9 -- Any film that has a giant robot running around is fine by me. The sociological stuff is the sort of thing that usually vitally interests me, but somehow it bored me here. Perhaps because the lead character is a douche, so it's hard to identify with him or care much about what happens to him, and because the aliens, who one might naturally identify with, are not given enough screen time to form anything but passing identification with until quite near the end of the movie. For a film that asks us to identify with and consider the other, it sure gives that other short shrift on the screen. And there wasn't a lot else going on that was interesting.

The Road Warrior looking battalion colonel who still for some reason was omnipresently leading every last damn door to door mission was very poorly drawn and a waste of screen time.

There were some wicked medical/corporate goings on, but they didn't have the humor or, amazingly, the viciousness of somewhat similar scenes and themes in the original Robocop, which tread the same ground long ago and much better. In general, the flick felt like it underperformed. I'd like to see this same film again done by somebody else.

Thirst

Not much to say about this. It takes every recycled vampire cliché you have ever seen and mashes it into one movie. It is also way too long. It's been awhile since I have seen a movie with this many pointless and redundant scenes. It could easily be 40 minutes shorter while losing none of the plot.

It is also in competition with Watchmen for worst sex scenes of 2009.

I think it is trying to be funny sometimes but it never is, nor is it scary, or interesting. It has a few nice shots I guess but overall a huge fall from the genius that is the Vengeance Trilogy.

Encounters at the End of the World
The photography isn't as good as a good BBC natural hisotry doc, and Herzog's focus was strangely, erm, unfocused. I didn't feel he quite knew what film he was shooting at times, or perhaps didn't know what he wanted to say in the film. Nonetheless, an entertaining watch.

Triangle
A pretty nifty little creeper with a great central performance. Not groundbreaking, but some decent twists on standard riffs.

The Messenger
Three outstanding central performances that make it well worth watching. Woody might have been seeing an Oscar were it not for Christoph Waltz. The movie is flawed but a very decent debut that steers clear of sentimentality or caricature.

Moon
A really smashing low budget space movie with a great central performance Sam Rockwell, who's usually meh. Makes you think and keeps you entertained. The computer Gerty is a great twist on Hal.

Book of Eli
Very, very bad.

25th Hour

This is as close to a perfect film as I have seen in a long time. I don't know why it took me so long to see it. I should know by now that Spike Lee is one of the best directors working right now, and I have never seen a bad film of his. I don't think he has made a bad film.

Here he mixes his unique style into a post-911 morality tale that is never soft pedaled. There are no easy answers in this film, no bad guys, no good guys. Just the gray in which we all live.

I honestly can't think of a single fault in this film. It is easily one of the best films of decade and confirmation that Ed Norton is one of the best actors of his age.

I'm also a big supporter of this film. Although, I've definitely seen some bad films from Spike Lee (Bamboozled) the thing that strikes me most about him, especially in the 25th Hour, is just how confident he is as a filmmaker. His decisions are always so bold, and I respect that. That said, based on past threads and discussion about 25th Hour, I think you might get mini-flamed for this post if the cinemaniacs around here are feeling up to it.

Nice review. I've seen this film bashed a bit and I lean to your view. If you want to continue your streak of no bad spike lee movies I suggest you not watch the huge pile of garbage that is Miracle at St. anna. I expected 10 tons more from a spike lee WWII movie.

Sin Nombre I remember reading a review and thinking "THAT SOUNDS GREAT!" 10 months later it shows up on an HD movie channel, I record it and just watched it.

WOW! This movie was well done. My favorite aspect was the way it was filmed. A lot of great shots where I'm thinking "that place is gorgeous! would love to visit, wait, it's a 3rd world country. " The colors and long shots were nice to watch.

The young actors were convincing and many aspects had a realistic feel to it. In the same sense of The Hurt Locker, there are several intense scenes/sequences, I felt my body tense up throughout the film. I need to absorb this a little longer and def need to watch again soon.

I highly recommend a rental. I'm waiting for a Region A release on Blu Ray.

Blarg,

re: Basterds: I thought Laurent and Waltz were the only things in the film worth a damn.

I really disliked the scene in the basement, among others

Fassbender was really something too imo.