truth 24 times per second: the new movie thread

[diesel_powered]

Man, I should have caught up on netflix movies instead of playing videogames tonight.  I've got Casablanca, Nosferatu and Metropolis all sitting here waiting for me to watch them

Is that the silent Nosferatu or the remake?

[das kranke Tier]

You mean Murnau or Herzog?

They're both good.  I own the Murnau version.

edit: because I didn't mean to come of snooty by any means...totally wasn't my intent.

[YojimboMonkey]

It's the old silent Murnau one.  I need to watch at least one if not two of those movies tonight and get them in the mail before Mindy gets too pissed  

[jebreject]

I'm going to send back Apocalypse Now, because I still have not watched it, and I cannot imagine investing any time in it right now. I've seen most of it already anyway.

[Greg Nog]

SPOILER:  Kurtz watches a snail crawl along the edge of a straight razor.

[elpollodiablo]

FURTHER SPOILERS:

A little... PILE of inoculated arms


THE HORROR

THE HORROR

[das kranke Tier]

Regular or Redux, Jeb?

[jebreject]

redux, i guess

either way, it's in the mail

[auto-da-fey]

the trash would be a better place for it IMO, but we've had that discussion before.

[martin_van_buren]

More like reSUX, amiright?

[jebreject]

the trash would be a better place for it IMO, but we've had that discussion before.

have we? i don't remember

i've only seen a handful of scenes from the movie, including the one with the french, which i understand was only in redux. i thought that scene was pretty awesome, though i was tripping kind of hard when watching it

[Ah_Pook]

i rented black sheep and im about to watch it. been reallllllly hyped about this one for a while now, cant wait to finally see it.



killer sheep! new zealand! weta special effects! hilarity and extreme gore! how could this not be totally awesome, i ask you. there is no way.

[G.C.R]

Well, yes there is. Many ways. But I aint seen it yet.
Saw 5 easy pieces last week for the first time. It was very good, IMHO.

[elpollodiablo]

If anyone is curious--as I was--about the Affleck/Affleck Lehane adaptation, save your money. This film has more problems than a goddamn algebra book.

It's one of those films wherein one of the characters speaks the title in a dramatic, husky tone. The trailers make it look smarter than it is.

[das kranke Tier]

Saw 5 easy pieces last week for the first time. It was very good, IMHO.

I just rented that a while back...I was bored to tears by it, though it may all have been due to the circumstances under which I watch most movies these days.  Glad you liked it, Grace.

I saw May last night and don't recall ever being so angry once a film was over.  It sucked soooo incredibly badly.  The only reason the DVD is still intact is due to the ladyfriend's assurance that she could trade it for something better from one of her co-workers.  Avoid at all costs!

[Ah_Pook]

Well, yes there is. Many ways. But I aint seen it yet.

balderdash!

movie was rad, obvisouly. its all practical fx, no cgi. this raised the awesomeness level approximately 5000%. tons of corn syrup and sausage skins stuffed with gunge splattering all over the place. also a dude got his lips chewed off by a sheep. it wasnt scary at all, but it was pretty funny in places and the gore was nice and over the top. i wish more movies like this got made nowadays

[auto-da-fey]

its all practical fx, no cgi. this raised the awesomeness level approximately 5000%.

Knowing that makes me want to check this out now.

Pook, did you ever watch Deadbeat at Dawn?

[hannah]

If anyone is curious--as I was--about the Affleck/Affleck Lehane adaptation, save your money. This film has more problems than a goddamn algebra book.

It's one of those films wherein one of the characters speaks the title in a dramatic, husky tone. The trailers make it look smarter than it is.

Good to know. But I'm so out of the movie-going loop it'd probably have been missed anyway, even after I got around to everything else... still haven't seen Michael Clayton.

Seeing Lake of Fire tonight.

[elpollodiablo]

Gone Baby Gone is pretty damn bad. And it's worse because it's almost good, there are just a few aspects that nearly ruin it. Like Michelle Monaghan: they could have replaced her with a cardboard cut out of a cute brunette with big eyes, and it would have done the film a service. Cardboard cutouts cannot suck the very life out of a scene. I honestly have no idea what her character was even doing in this film--C. Affleck is a private detective, and he brings his girlfriend everywhere he goes. Like: gonna go interview some brutal thugs in a seedy Southie bar? Better bring my cute little lady friend so they can say awful things to her and I'll get to punch someone in response. Seriously. Most of her time on screen is spent sitting quietly. It was completely uninteresting but also really distracting.

It is also the kind of film that really tests the limits of your ability to suspend disbelief: while it's for the most part gritty and realistic, there are some giant holes in there, like when C. Affleck shoots this child molester execution style in the back of the head and faces no repercussions, even though it's in the middle of a huge high-profile gunfight in which a cop gets shot in the neck. I guess we're supposed to believe that every single person involved in the investigation (including the homicide detectives and medical examiners) were totally cool with allowing a civilian to commit murder.

There are some good points to it, though: the shots of Boston are interesting, Amy Ryan is fucking fabulous, and there's Ed Harris. B. Affleck is apparently a pretty serviceable director, if not a screenwriter. Although to be fair, I don't know how much of the blame lies with Dennis Lehane. I wanna give him the benefit of the doubt cuz he writes for the Wire, but the plot was kind of completely ridiculous.

[Good Intentions]

balderdash!

movie was rad, obvisouly. its all practical fx, no cgi. this raised the awesomeness level approximately 5000%.

The movie needed all the help it could get. It was quite limp for long stretches. But when the fx shone, it got quite fun.

[ellaguru]

I just watched Haneke's Hidden for the second time this week. Even better th second time for some reason. Are his other films worth tracking down people?

Yup!
Do Funny Games or the Piano Teacher next.

YES!  He's a complete badass!

They did a festival of his stuff here a couple years back, and I took in several in short order. Funny Games is a pretty brutal film. Really good, but brutal. In the short list of amazing films that I'm glad I saw and that I never, ever want to see again. I think The Seventh Continent might have been my favourite of the ones I saw. The same sort of twistedawful world view on display, but the fact that the people were so apparently normal (or, as normal as you can be and still be German) worked better for me than Funny Games. And Benny's Video, of course, but I'll go (probably) against the grain and recommend The Seventh Continent.

[Greg Nog]

I was at the video store, because I wanted to see the movie about the rats who learn to cook, but there weren't any copies on the shelf.  Sometimes they have just-returned ones behind the counter, though, so I went up there to ask about it.

So I'm about to ask, and this family comes in behind me -- a mom, a dad, two tiny girls.  And one of the girls is on her dad's shoulders, gleefully shouting "RATATOUILLE!  RATATOUILLE!  YAYYYY!  RATATOUILLE!"

I ask the clerk if they have a copy of Ratatouille back there, and he says they do.  And I ask if there are multiple copies, and he says nope, just the one.  And meanwhile, the little girl is just like, "RATATOUILLE YAY I CAN'T WAIT!!!!  DADDY, WE'RE GONNA SEE RATATOUILLE!!!" and the dad looks nervous, because it looks like I'm getting the only copy.  And this girl is just ALL ABOUT seeing Ratatouille tonight.  So I say, "You know what, why don't you guys take that, I'm gonna rent something else."  And the girl, oblivious, just keeps shouting "RATATOUIIIIILLE!"

So I start looking at the other stuff on the shelves while the family's checking out, and then within like a minute, someone comes in and returns another copy of Ratatouille.  The clerk calls me over, says, "Here you go, sir, you can rent it, too."  So I do.  And as I'm leaving, the little girl sees me holding my copy of the movie, and she shouts, "DADDY LOOK!  HE'S RENTING IT TOO!!!"  And I go, "Yep, I sure am!"  And she grins and screams in delight, "RATATOUILLE!"

So anyway, I'm gonna be watching Ratatouille tonight, looks like.

[mriley]

RATAKARMA?

I'm looking faoward to seeing it but I think it will be a long while before Netflix sends it to me.

[hannah]

Lake of Fire. Decades in the making. 152-minute documentary, a lot of it shot on 35mm, by the director of American History X, which is the type of film (see also: other films about Nazis in America, such as Apt Pupil and The Believer, and quasi-vanity projects like The Machinist and Monster) I make absolutely no effort to see. About the abortion debate in America. Interviews with people on both sides.

Well. It's a perfume ad, much like Hiroshima Mon Amour, and sometimes it's very powerful. Unfortunately, the first hour and a half is freak show; clearly, the bombing of abortion clinics is relevant, but there was a point when the gawking at the grotesque turns into this almost backhanded martyrdom, and which point I checked out. I checked back in during the last hour, when Kaye finally interviewed more than three women, and I and it were both doing great. But the last scene. The last fucking scene.

Look, a woman gets an abortion, and you see it. Then he cuts to more talking heads. Then he goes back to this woman. She is chatty. Then she breaks down. And he holds the camera. And holds it.

Earlier, a different woman says that the men who buy houses next to clinics and then put up signs, the men who often watch women go into those clinics, are probably fulfilling some libidinous need, some voyeuristic thrill. This got a laugh in the theater. And then Kaye goes and gets his jollies. Fuck him, man.

Peter Singer looks a bit like one of the Flight of the Conchords.

I don't think I've ever seen footage of Noam Chomsky before. He moves his hands just wonderfully.

[Sing The Children Over]

They did a festival of his stuff here a couple years back, and I took in several in short order. Funny Games is a pretty brutal film. Really good, but brutal. In the short list of amazing films that I'm glad I saw and that I never, ever want to see again. I think The Seventh Continent might have been my favourite of the ones I saw. The same sort of twistedawful world view on display, but the fact that the people were so apparently normal (or, as normal as you can be and still be German) worked better for me than Funny Games. And Benny's Video, of course, but I'll go (probably) against the grain and recommend The Seventh Continent.
[/quote]

The Seventh Continent is my tip for his best as well. Though I think it's set in Austria not Germany.