Finally watched Girl With The Dragon Tattoo (the new one). Excellent movie, looked amazing.
Finally watched Girl With The Dragon Tattoo (the new one). Excellent movie, looked amazing.
Star Trek: Voyager. I never watched it while the series was running. WAY better than DS9, but not even close to TNG.
Watched Crazy Stupid Love last night. Furthered my man-crush on Gosling.
"Barking dogs never bite"-
First feature from the director of The Host! I've become a very big fan of his body of work. This was just recently finally made available here.
***warning*** This film does involve cruelty to dogs (pets), and it is done in a semi humorous way (sometimes). (they did make it very clear no animals were harmed in the making of the film) Some people may find that this overshadows everything else and just makes the film unwatchable for them.
But if you can handle it, it's a fantastic film (like all of his films). I never could have guessed he'd pull it together in the emotionally strong way he did- especially after some of the things his protagonist does (to dogs).
I highly recommend it.
Just for fun- now that I've seen all his features, I think I'd rank them in this order (although all are good and my opinion may change over time)
1. Memories of Murder (not sure if this is the strongest film of the bunch, but the end is AMAZING)
2. Mother
3. The short he did in Tokyo- it's the last (and best) of the three
4. The Host
5. Barking Dogs Never Bite
Yay Silent Witness is back!
Season finale of Spartacus was excellent. Already can't wait for this to be back. Also, not sure I can wait to watch Game of Thrones every time I go to my parents. May just have to subscribe to HBO for a bit. I would usually do torrenting but I think HBO is a little more on their game for stuff like that.
I love Spartacus. The season finale was completely insane. Various characters get killed off and some of it in the most gruesome way. The season itself, though started off a bit clunky like the first one, was amazing. Notably the "Libertus" episode where Spartacus and his team saved Crixus and Onaemeus and destroyed the stadium. That was a fuckin' episode. I had doubts about the new guy playing Spartacus and I knew it was going to take some time. Once that episode came in, I knew he was going to able to play that character and make it his own. I'm excited for what will happen next.
Spartacus Vengence ep9
True Blood season 4 - I am finding Eric and Sookie a bit weak this season
I just watched Drive (my pick) then Priest (my brother-in-laws pick) back to back. Ryan Gosling said more with silence then every bit of dialog in Priest.
I can't seem to stick to a schedule here lately so I've been revisiting my DVD collection: Lost in Translation, Amelie, Hamlet, The 39 Steps, Laura, various and sundry MST3Ks. Many others I can't think of at the moment...
Oh, and The Weather Channel's Coast Guard Alaska. I have no idea why. Good background noise while I'm studying?
Final ep of Spartacus Vengence - yay Navia for killing that little toad!!
Since I got to see the Artist (hmm... okay I guess) on my flight to the US I rewatched alot of Dujardin's other films that I totally forgot about and I can't believe it took me so long to notice it was him in the Artist. My favorites being OSS 117 (both movies) and 99 francs. That guy is hilarious!
Speaking of French movies I also saw Blueberry with Vincent Cassel the other day for the second time. Pretty cool film with some nices sequences and photography. A bit quirky at times but a good ride. Michael Madsen has another great role in it as a villain. Go see it if you dig unconventional western movies and the paintings of Alex Grey!
Dumb & Dumber
Yeah, so I saw an ad yesterday for the new 3 Stooges movie. John Goodman did a better job playing ALL THREE CHARACTERS AT ONCE, on a Halloween episode of Roseanne, than these tools are capable of.
They don't make movies like this anymore. *sigh*
Watched the first two seasons of Misfits. Boy, did it turn to shite in season three.
Mirror Mirror: awful awful film. Sad that Tarsem's talents are being so wasted.
I saw Titanic in 3D on the IMAX tonight. It looked fucking fantastic. The Aspect Ratio was even opened up to 1.33:1 to a completely uncropped picture, due to Cameron originally filming on super 35mm. Honestly could not have been more impressed with the entire thing. Titanic has and always will be my number one guilty pleasure film so it was an absolute joy to not only see the film in theaters again, but to see such a flawless presentation. Loved it.
Shame.
This is one tour-de-force. Fassbender's and Mulligan's acting are abso-fucking-lutely breath-taking. You'll get to see Fassbender naked a lot, but the long, long sex scene in the end is by far the saddest and emotionally brutal one (outside of rape scenes) I have seen on film. Watch this film, if you can.
Wire fan too.
Confused, are you saying Angels in America is a series? Loved the play.
Interesting that they opened up the aspect to 1.33:1 for this release. I know it's more natural for the IMAX format (1.44:1) and easy to do with Super35, but I've always felt it compromises the shot-composition as opposed to "offering more." I know there's an age-old argument on OARs, especially with Super35, but the open formats never feel right to me... unless you're talking Kubrik, or Academy ratio, or ..... oh fuck it, you know what I mean.
Wait yeah, you're right, I meant to type 1.44:1. BUt yeah I get what you're saying though. The wider ratio felt right for Titanic though. The shots were HUGE and just felt more expansive. At times, when being shown the Titanic sticking out of water from the lifeboats' perspective, instead of the stern section cutting off like normal, you could actually see the entire ship at times which I thought was cool. And I noticed things like that because I've seen that film too many times to openly admit.
^^How was the 3D? I've heard it wasn't very impressive.
Whoever told you it wasn't very impressive must have seen it at a theater that didn't properly calibrate the system or something. It was phenomenal. Basically, to make a long story short, it didn't look post-converted at all, felt like it was genuinely filmed in 3D, and actually added a ton of extra depth to not only the story, but the ship itself. I've forever been a huge detractor of 3D films, but I was absolutely floored by Titanic's 3D.
I watched Aliens and Alien3 again over the weekend. Fuck I just don't like part 3. I've tried, but I give up... it sucks. I've seen Aliens like 20 times now, but it's been quite a few years - still excellent!! Great way to expand and develop the world of the first one. Haven't seen part 3 since the theater and again late 90s so I finally watched the "assembly cut" - damn that movie is a mess.
It reminds me a bit of Day of the Dead in that almost everyone in the film is a dick and very forgettable. The alien (while I know it was supposed to be a slightly different type of alien) had just changed so much in the way it kills, acts, etc that it's quite disconnected from the original. It also fell apart as a third film like Jurassic Park 3 did - it did nothing to deepen the story or move it along, it just pointlessly existed. (Yes you could argue the ending moved things along quite a bit, but I meant the rest of the 2 hrs.)
I'd consider Alien probably one of the 50 best films ever made, any genre, any era. I think my love of the series conceptually as a whole made me forget what a turd part 3 is.
So what's your opinion on Alien Resurrection?
Alien³ is pretty much my favorite after the first one. While story wise it really is a mess and basically moves nothing forward in the franchise as you pointed out I just love the visual style, the reimagined Alien and the soundtrack. But maybe I have all this information about what the movie could have been along with Giger's drafts of a even more sexualized Alien in mind that the movie is working better for me than for others who might not have read all that stuff.
To me Alien³ is the only film in the franchise that is based on the terror of the first one. Aliens and Alien Resurrection just made the Alien into an expendable bug that can be hunted down fairly easy with the right equipement. Cameron basically made an all out action/war movie, a clever one indeed that is nicely tied with its predecessor, but I'm missing some of the haunted atmosphere of the first one. And Alien³ kinda promised that although it couldn't really develop it any further due to circumstances that only the people involved know everything about.
That said, I like all of them for their individual takes on the Alien and their creativity with this special movie monster and I can't wait to see what Prometheus will be like even if we really don't get to see the Xenomorph at all. As long as it steps far away from the Alien vs. Predator crossovers not much can go wrong...
Last edited by dlb; 04-16-2012 at 01:16 PM.
About 8 or 10 years ago, I realized I liked Resurrection almost on par with Aliens. Yes the guns were put back in which makes it closer to Aliens, but that's not why. (I also prefer the terror of the first film to any gun battles.) I think it's primarily because of Jean-Pierre Jeunet's style for me. I remember thinking I'd hate it when I saw it in the theater way-back-when, since I don't care for Ryder I the cloning thing made me eye-roll. But I kinda liked it. Then I checked out Jeunet's previous work and I was hooked. I know that doesn't directly relate to his alien film, but it made me appreciate it more. Watched it again after seeing Amélie and liked it even more. Resurrection is not quite Aliens, but better than 3.
Btw, you nailed Alien 3 well with one point - the helpless isolation is definitely preferable to me than the bug hunts. I just feel the characters were so weak and the production-mess was so obvious I can't get past it. That said, you are also correct - anything beats AVP crap - even Alien 3
Last edited by butters; 04-16-2012 at 01:51 PM. Reason: spelling, grr...
on my third rewatching of buffy. i used to think season four was my least favorite, but there's some real treats scattered throughout the season...