While greg nibbled on an unhealthy snack/tim roth what films have you watched?

[elpollodiablo]

No, not really. Just boring.

[JamesSchneider]

I am now a half hour into Teeth. It is epic and I am taking it as a documentary on why my sexual preference is in fact justified.

[hannah]

Penises are kind and sweet and as gentle as lambs

[Andrew_TSKS]

"teeth" is something like 6th on my netflix queue right now. i'm looking forward to it.

[JamesSchneider]

Oh my god it's epic. It is now over and I nominate Teeth FTW.

[JamesSchneider]

Also, Sweeney Todd was AWFUL and I Am Legend had Batman Begins syndrome and was 2/3 a good movie.

[elpollodiablo]

Meh. I liked Batman Begins quite a bit. You're correct w/r/t Sweeney Todd; shit was heinous

[Wally]

Oh my god it's epic. It is now over and I nominate Teeth FTW.

John Henley's character in that film reminded me of far to many of my ex's. Neat film though.

[JamesSchneider]

Listen, between reprints and original issues and artwork and absolute editions I've spent damn near a grand on Batman. I love Batman Begins until it turns to third act shit, despite Cillian Murphy (Beautiful) and Liam Neeson (talented). It turned into a movie about a man in a bat costume fighting people in other ridiculous costumes. I've loved the recent grant morrisson run wherein he has said "What would happen if Batman was real and actually went thru all of this?" But with Batman Begins, it's two thirds of a great movie, set in real life, then a guy in a stupid costume immediately accepting that there are other idiots in costumes creating a panic. NOT GOOD STORYTELLING.

[JamesSchneider]

Thank you.

[Andrew_TSKS]

Listen, between reprints and original issues and artwork and absolute editions I've spent damn near a grand on Batman. I love Batman Begins until it turns to third act shit, despite Cillian Murphy (Beautiful) and Liam Neeson (talented). It turned into a movie about a man in a bat costume fighting people in other ridiculous costumes. I've loved the recent grant morrisson run wherein he has said "What would happen if Batman was real and actually went thru all of this?" But with Batman Begins, it's two thirds of a great movie, set in real life, then a guy in a stupid costume immediately accepting that there are other idiots in costumes creating a panic. NOT GOOD STORYTELLING.

this seems like a criticism of the entire superhero genre in general. i can't fathom how you could like batman as much as you do and still have a problem with a batman movie introducing super-villains into the mix.

[JamesSchneider]

I understand the superhero genre. I love the superhero genre. But you've got to make a decision at the outset of the film. Batman Begins first decides that it's going to be in the gritty realism genre, then decides, oh wait, I'm going to be in the silly genre. If I watch the third act of Batman Begins, I don't think it's bad filmmaking in general, I just think that it's incongruous with the rest of the film.

That said, Batman Begins is one of the films that gets it the closest to right, and basically I'm spoilt by Greg Rucka and Ed Brubaker taking the time to make it make sense.

[JamesSchneider]

And now I'm less than convinced that I make sense.

[Andrew_TSKS]

well, i don't think it gets silly towards the end. i don't think supervillains automatically equal silly. scarecrow is fucking frightening.

[JamesSchneider]

To be fair, I find Cillian Murphy so appealing that I'm not sure I can be objective. I'm SUPER PSYCHED for the Dark Knight in any case!

[girl]

So, a few thoughts about I'm Not There. It's a fictionalized biography of Bob Dylan with six actors all playing Dylan at different points in his life. Initially, I thought it was an odd choice to have different actors all playing the Dylan character, but it really works in the movie to show how often Dylan changed his persona. Tobias Funke plays Allen Ginsberg! Also, I forgot to look it up in the credits to be sure, but I'd swear that Mason Jennings does the singing for Christian Bale. I really enjoyed it.

[paperclipper]

Hello!
I just re-watched Jonah Who Will be 25 in the Year 2000 after seeing it years ago and then intermittently remembering flashes of it, desperately wanting to see it again, but being unable to remember the title or pretty much anything else about it. I finally emailed an old professor and described what I could remember "hippies on a farm. Or something. One of them is a teacher. It's probably the '70s, definitely post-'68. Europe?" and fortunately he knew exactly what I was talking about. And then the next day the NY times published a story that mentioned it. Serendipitous!

I watched it again and it was great.

[difficult]

Ah, dear old Alain Tanner... Then you probably emailed Keith Hill? I know he's the characteristic film professor guy with enthusiasm for Tanner in NZ...

[Killdozersnakeboy]

This kinda scared. I'm watching The Apple for the 3rd tiime in recent times. It's kinda starting to make sense.

[elpollodiablo]

I watched The French Connection last night and kept falling asleep. Not to say that it's a boring film, but when you're watching it by yourself at 2am, all of those scenes of people walking around briskly and waiting in cars can be sort of nod-inducing. Just kept thinkin of ol' Lt. Daniels: "In narcotics, we follow guys." That's pretty much all that happens in this film.

[Andrew_TSKS]

yeah, but sometimes the following is REALLY INTENSE.

[paperclipper]

Ah, dear old Alain Tanner... Then you probably emailed Keith Hill? I know he's the characteristic film professor guy with enthusiasm for Tanner in NZ...

Hmm, nope, I don't know Keith Hill. I emailed an old prof of mine from U of Otago who was transplanted a few years ago to Victoria. We're still good friends and he's quite a knowledgeable font. But I love how NZ has like one single enthusiast for each semi-obscure filmmaker. "Oh Keith Hill, he's the Alain Tanner guy". Maybe if I return to the cloudy isles I will try to be New Zealand's Jon Jost enthusiast.
You are from NZ too, difficult?


On topic: just watched Dušan Makavejev's W.R.: Mysteries of the Organism. Sex, communism, and Wilhelm Reich. Yes please!

[auto-da-fey]

Mysterious organisms of a different sort here: Sly Stallone in First Blood. My deluxe Rambo box set in a shiny tin container's allure finally got the best of Gaby, who had never seen this and was curious. She was really surprised that it was not the Rambo that dominates cultural memory--basically, the 'roid-raging Reaganite of the next film--but rather an altogether more downbeat, bleaker character and movie. As for me, I've always liked this one-- annoyingly out-of-the-rightwing-playbook climactic monologue about fightin' in Nam with one hand behind our backs and spitting protesters aside (well, and Troutman is kind of a hackneyed character, but whatever), it's a tough, taut little b-movie that somehow turned into a blockbuster.

[Greg Nog]

You know, auto, one of my co-workers did this kind of insane one-man show about how much he likes Rambo, in which he basically took three hours to tell you the plot of First Blood in an odd high-pitched voice.  I think you might have liked it.  At any rate, it was only an overture to his larger project: to film his own one-man adaptation of First Blood in his apartment.

[Ignatius]

I'm watching The Core right now because my dad's tv is totally unnavigable and such.  I remember seeing the commercials and thinking it looked laughably stupid.  I was right, but that was no reason to not watch it.  It's like Armageddon and not-funny-on-purpose Ghostbusters.  They just blew up Rome (instead of Paris a la Armageddon) in a freak lightning storm and it was cheap sci fi hokiness of the first order.

edit: oh crap they are driving a magic concrete penis with lasers on the glans into the middle of the earth.