Amazing how Affleck has swept the directing awards (winning the Directors Guild last night) and yet isn't even a nominee for the big one.

It really shows how dumb these awards are and how arbitrary. Only three films have ever won best picture with a director nomination. It makes no sense. I may be an auteur advocate but to think a film can be great without great direction seems illogical.

I watched Lo last night on Netflix Watch Instantly. (It was in the "Cult Classics" section so I started browsing because I was curious to see what Netflix considers a cult classic...I don't even know if I could define what a "cult classic" is, perhaps a movie that became more popular/earned more money after its initial release?)

Anyway, I really enjoyed it. It's definitely a low-budget, shot in one room (though they cleverly use techniques to show different locations), quirky (I can almost guarantee that at some point in the movie you'll go, "WTF?") that was a splice between romance/horror, I guess. Essential plot: Guy loses his girlfriend to hell and then summons a powerful demon in order to get her back. Majority of the movie is in interactions between the guy and the demon. I really liked the way that they shot the opening sequence of the movie and I liked how creative they were overall in how they filmed it.

Red Dawn
66/100 whilst a silly premise, this was surprisingly good, with a fine script and genuine melancholy feel to the proceedings.

Are we talking about the original? If so, I'd nudge up to 70. If not, you're a very generous soul.

I didn't realise there was anything other than the original. So yes I meant the original. I would have rated it higher, but some of the acting in some scenes seemed pretty poor.

A movie has to be a stinker if someone is reviewing the thirty year old original without even realizing that a big budget remake has come out in the last few months.

Staring Chis Hemsworth: http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/red_dawn_2012/

There was a remake done in 2012, which was universally destroyed by critics.

The worst part is that the movie was filmed with China as the enemy, but it was changed to North Korea in post-production because the studio realized they wanted the movie to do well in China. Which lead at least one actor from the original hating on it.

The original Red Dawn is one of my favorite "guilty pleasures" movies. Yeah, it has a few problems, but who cares? Wolverines!!!!

GO WOLVERINES!!

Double feature:

Red Dawn and Point Break.

Vaya con dios, Wolverines!

Add Road House & Youngblood, and you have a wonderful day.

"Goon" is a very good comedy about minor league hockey fighters

A Late Quartet : Catherine Keener, Philip Seymour Hoffman, and Christopher Walken star in this movie about a violin + violin + cello + viola quartet that has been together for 25 years. Had pretty high hopes for this one and had been waiting a long time to see it. It wasn't quite the movie I had hoped for but I would recommend others see it, mostly because I'm a sucker for on location NYC film shoots and I thought the cinematography was quite good ( Frederick Elmes: Blue Velvet, Broken Flowers, The Ice Storm )

Argo : Took my mom to see it in the theaters and we both thought it was very, very good. Just watched it at home and my praise has definitely waned a bit, but it's still in the top 10 for year I suppose. I suppose at this point it's impossible for Alan Arkin to steal any scene, but h's really fantastic in a movie full of pretty good acting.

In a very "WTF that was him??" moment, came to find out that Joe Stafford ( guy with glasses, speaks Farsi ) was the main guy in Monsters, which is a decent, off beat super low budget monster movie that came out in 2010. I can recommend that movie as a showcase for what can be done with a simple story, amateur actors & digital cameras these days.

Cabin in the woods... WTF did I just watch.


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on a side note... once again the western channel had cecil b demille's "The Plainsman"(1936) staring Garry Cooper and Jean Arthur... What a magnificent movie.

creative license and an old school moralities can not diminish the sheer quality of movie making in the terms of production values and artistic craftsmanship.

I wish this was available in HD.

A rather entertaining deconstruction of the subgenre of "alone in the woods" horror imo

El Cid
60/100 ponderous and melodramatic, but looks beautiful. Heston has charisma to burn.

that's what I expected after all the hullabaloo, but I didn't experience any deconstruction that was worthy of note.

It was a clever little movie.

Oh come on, the justification for using 'archetypes' (ie stereotypes) was pretty fun. Also, I enjoyed spotting the semiconcealed references to other movies (eg Hellraiser, It, etc)

Hunger (2008): really exceptional, would highly recommend. Fassbender is great and I want him in more movies. will watch Shame very soon.

Brave (2012): I found Toy Story 3 pretty endearing, and Up was alright, but I think Pixar hasn't come close to the level of Wall-E (or Ratatouille, The Incredibles or Nemo) since. This wasn't different, very forgettable and I certainly won't see the new Monsters.

Hate to say I agree. I thought Brave was just okay, and I don't care about the new Monsters movie.

Movie of the week at best.

i did not like it at all

Brave was mediocre at best. Rather cliche story with nothing new to offer except the lead was female.

Wall e is amazing but i think how to train your dragon is the best animated film to recently come out.