Movies

[FAGGOT WATCHIN TRON]

Post about movies you've seen recently in this thread. Easy, right? Yeah, easy.

The Curious Case of Benjamin Button: Saw this on New Years Day. Easily the best movie I've seen in years. Brad Pitt is just incredible, and Cate Blanchett is lovely as always. They have great chemistry, even when they're not on screen on together. Even the love story aside, the movie is just beautiful. It's similar in set-up to Big Fish, only not directed by Tim Burton and stupid. It's definitely a long movie, but I can say that even though it felt long, I didn't want it to end. Definitely worth spending 10 bucks to see it in the theatre.

Valkyrie: Saw this last night. I have to say, it was a lot better than I expected it to be. I went in expecting a dumbed-down, over-actionized, super bland Tom Cruise flick. Like, Mission Impossible with Nazis. Instead I got a really smart, intense, suspenseful story about treason and heroism. My biggest complaint was that they used a primarily British cast, which made Tom Cruise with his American accent stick out like a sore thumb. But let me say that was the only way he stuck out. I was more than pleasantly surprised to see Tom Cruise able to hold his own with actors like Bill Nighy and Tom Wilkinson. Actually, the entirety of the mostly male ensemble cast was great. On the whole, the movie was very frustrating because you wanted so much for the dissenters to succeed, but your basic knowledge of history assures you that they will not, which really really sucks. Also, the dude that plays Hitler...is terrifying. And looks just like him. Poor bastard. It is not strictly a theatre must-see, but it would not be a total waste of 10 bucks either. Really, use your discretion. If historical suspense thrillers are your cup of tea, then go for it. Otherwise, you are probably safe waiting for the DVD.

[Larry Flyntz]

I saw Seven Pounds the other day, and I was slightly disappointed.  Overall, I thought it was pretty good.  Will Smith was quite good, and the premise was pretty great, but I think the presence of a love story detracted quite a bit from the movie (as love stories are wont to do).  It's worth watching, but I'd recommend waiting for DVD.

[الله أكبر]

The last movie I saw was The Day the Earth Stood Still, and Dave pretty much summed it up in his thread.

Before that I saw Burn After Reading, which was pretty damn good. Darkly humorous, with great acting. I like the fact that George Clooney, who usually plays the leader-type, played a twitchy, paranoid kind of character who didn't seem to have all of his marbles.

Valkyrie looks kind of goofy, but maybe that's just because when I see ads for it they're dubbed in German.

[FAGGOT WATCHIN TRON]

Valkyrie looks kind of goofy, but maybe that's just because when I see ads for it they're dubbed in German.

That sounds goofy. Also it would make the first scene REALLY bizarre. The first scene is just Schaffenberg (Tom Cruise) writing in his diary about why Hitler sucks (basically) and it starts off with Tom Cruise speaking in some very sloppy German with English subtitles, then there is a background narration of him speaking in English after the German, and eventually the German fades out altogether and he is just left speaking English. Well...internal monologueing in English anyway. So yeah....if the movie is dubbed in German in Germany....I'm not sure how that would work. I'd say wait to see it in English. I generally don't like anything that's been dubbed anyway.

And yes, the ads make it look way goofier than the movie itself actually is. Hence my expectations versus what I received. Also I have no idea how those crazy Krauts are advertising it so yeah....lots of variables here, Mits.

[الله أكبر]

Hmmm, it may be worth watching just for that first scene then. Methinks I'll wait until it's on DVD though. Theaters are expensive here.

I saw a movie with my roommates called "Keinohrhasen." The name literally translates as "No-eared Rabbit," and it's a comedy about this dude who falls in love with a girl who works at an orphanage. I guess the German film scene isn't as renowned as the French and Italian scenes, but according to my roommates it's the best German movie of the decade. I enjoyed it. I'm not one for romantic comedies, but if you can find an English subtitled version I'd recommend it.

[Pube Truth]

I don't know, I've seen some pretty great german films this decade...NaPolA [Before the Fall] (2004), Die Fetten Jahren sind vorbei [The Edukators] (2004), Nirgendwo in Afrika [Nowhere in Africa] (2001), Im Juli [In july] (2000)...

[Infinite Jerkgrinders]

Valkyrie:<snip>

Personally I found the american/british accent contrast to be not as noticeable as the british accent alone - considering that they were playing german officers, they could have at least tried to have a german accent. I would have preferred the entire movie be in german with subtitles.  I'd say the movie was a B- 

[The Ocean]

Death Race
***

Probably Paul W.S. Anderson's best film (not saying much). Oddly enough it takes itself seriously which is usually a death wish for movies of its ilk, but it is just so Goddamned entertaining! EVERY LAST CAR STUNT was performed practically, and it shows. Maybe if Mr. Anderson were to forego CGI for the rest of his career he might make better movies.

Here we have a man named Ales, framed for murdering his own wife and sent away. He's told by the warden (Joan Allen.... not known for doing movies like this) that he can gain his freedom by impersonating the recently killed Frankenstein, a driver in Death Race. Frankenstein had won four previous races, and it takes five races won for a prisoner to gain his or her freedom.

His only way to get out will be to put on the mask and BE Frankenstein. Win just ONE race, and he is free to go.

Of course..... it isn't going to be that easy....

This is a remake of a classic Roger Corman classic, Death Race 2000, starring David Carradine. It has none of the camp, but more violence. It should by all rights suck, but like I said, it's mindless fun!

[The Ocean]

The Dark Knight
****

Why is The Dark Knight such a great film?

Because it is a film that is greater than the sum of its parts, and its parts are incredible on their own. But let's forget about the parts and just discuss the whole; Let us discuss the philosophy of the film.

The Dark Knight is one of the first films in decades to deal with urban counter-terrorism. The last important film to deal with this subject so well was The Battle of Algiers in 1966. Gillo Pontecorvo's perfect film deals with the fact that one cannot fight terrorism without incurring a backlash, and creating more attacks and more death.

Also, it bears a similarity to 1987's The Untouchables. In that movie, Malone declares that if your enemy brandishes a knife, then you need to pull out a gun. If your enemy brings out a semi-automatic, you bring out an Automatic. If your enemy sounds one of yours to the hospital then you send them to the morgue. That theme of escalation had been established in the previous Batman film Batman Begins. It is brought to its logical continuation here when a masked vigilante with a "taste for the theatrical" gives rise to a master terrorist who also has a taste for theatrics.

The Joker.

The Joker is the scariest kind of villain; he has no politics, he has no religion, and he has no sense of empathy or mercy. He has a philosophy though: "Everything burns."

He never once articulates his true plans at any point. We are left to figure them out based on the results of his actions. And sometimes his actions produce results he claims he didn't intend, so one has to wonder if he truly isn't a man with a plan like he says to a wounded Harvey Dent.

The Joker isn't the only character that is so well-built. You have Batman, who is the first incarnation of Batman who truly does not want to be doing what he does. When the going gets tough, he wants to give up because he thinks (rightly) that his presence has only made things worse. But as Harvey Dent himself says, things are always their darkest before the dawn. Things in Gotham City had to get worse before they were going to get better. Crime was already rampant, and corruption so consuming and choking. Somebody challenging and ending something so prominent can only incur a massive backlash.

But to avoid the backlash, should Batman just let this crime and corruption go unimpeded just because to end it would have to make it worse at first? This movie says no. It says that there is a heavy price to pay in fighting a force that is malevolent beyond description. Even the victims of the previous levels of crime and corruption will find it difficult and/or impossible to deal with the escalation, and may grow to resent the figure that is fighting the crime instead of the criminals and terrorists themselves. After all, it is the fault of the crime fighter that there is escalation in the first place.

The philosophy behind this movie is very utilitarian. Basically, Batman is in a way causing a lot of harm, but by doing it he is working for the greater good. He is trying to see the light at the end of the tunnel so at the end of the day, everybody can have a better existence, and a great number of people can live in a world with little crime and corruption.

There is also Harvey Dent, the white knight of the movie (Bruce Wayne/Batman being the Dark Knight). Harvey Dent, like Bruce Wayne, represents duality. His personality is more complex than just the "knight in shining armor" that his public persona is perceived as. He is a man that is quick to anger, but also understands that he can pay a heavy price for his war on corruption. Bruce Wayne does not understand this, hence his despair at several points in the movie.

The Joker is basically trying to prove (among other things), through Harvey Dent that all it takes is one really bad day to send somebody off the deep end. He tried this with Jim Gordon in the comics, and with Harvey Dent in the film.

Harvey Dent's duality isn't so extreme as Bruce Wayne's however. Bruce Wayne is playing two people, and his false face is the face that everybody sees. He pretends to be Bruce Wayne when he really is Batman. Harvey Dent is always Harvey Dent; he simply has aspects of his personality that he doesn't show to everybody. In public, he is confident and controlled. Pushed by stress, and he sometimes goes a little mad. This trait is his downfall, making this movie a tragedy if he were the main character, which one might be able to argue he is.

The Joker is another side of Batman. The two are a lot alike in many ways. They both attempt to influence society through the use of a symbol, they both are theatrical in their ways, and they both have an absolute view of human nature (one cynical, one hopeful). In this way they are similar to the Al Pacino and Robert De Niro characters in Michael Mann's 1995 crime epic Heat. This film draws many parallels from that movie, but that character dynamic is one that is frequently overlooked.

The overall idea behind the film is that in order to change things for the better, one has to be prepared for it to get worse first, because it will. One has to be prepared to compromise ones principles to fight something that has no such reservations and knows no limitations. But one also must remember not to forget what you are fighting for and that even when the people you are fighting for turn against you, you must stay strong and continue fighting, for their sake.

This is the kind of deep philosophical movie that I would love to see more of. Sadly, 2008 has not been a very stellar year for movies. The only other movie in recent years to dig so deep is There Will Be Blood, which only beats The Dark Knight in my view because I see it as the best movie ever made, and no movie can be above 1.

[The Ocean]

The Curious Case Of Benjamin Button
**

Eric Roth has written another blatant piece of Oscar Bait. Munich was good, but this is just another Forrest Gump, only LONGER and more meaningless. At least F. Scott Fitzgerald's short story had the decency to be SHORT.

[The Ocean]

Burn After Reading
***

This movie is at its best when John Malkovich is onscreen, but it certainly is no slouch when it focuses on the rest of its cast. It isn't the best Coen Brothers film by far, but it is still damn entertaining. Also features one of the most SHOCKING plot twists in a film in recent memory.

[الله أكبر]

I don't know, I've seen some pretty great german films this decade...NaPolA [Before the Fall] (2004), Die Fetten Jahren sind vorbei [The Edukators] (2004), Nirgendwo in Afrika [Nowhere in Africa] (2001), Im Juli [In july] (2000)...

Touché.

"Nirgendwo in Afrika" was great. Have you ever seen "Europa, Europa"? I don't know what decade it's from but it was quite good. It's a true story about a Polish Jew whose family is killed by Nazis, but because of his "Aryan features," he joins the Wehrmacht and survives the war.

[Larry Flyntz]

Just watched Burn After Reading.  I enjoyed it, but I wonder if the Coen Brothers' schtick is wearing a bit thin.  How many movies can they make about the corrupting influence of money on people?  They continue to make good movies, but at the end of this one, I was just thinking "Yeah, we get it.  Money makes people do crazy things."

[Pube Truth]

I don't know, I've seen some pretty great german films this decade...NaPolA [Before the Fall] (2004), Die Fetten Jahren sind vorbei [The Edukators] (2004), Nirgendwo in Afrika [Nowhere in Africa] (2001), Im Juli [In july] (2000)...

Touché.

"Nirgendwo in Afrika" was great. Have you ever seen "Europa, Europa"? I don't know what decade it's from but it was quite good. It's a true story about a Polish Jew whose family is killed by Nazis, but because of his "Aryan features," he joins the Wehrmacht and survives the war.

Yes, I have seen it, I agree, it was quite good. If you liked that, you should  definitely check out NaPolA, from IMDb: "In 1942, Friedrich Weimer's boxing skills get him an appointment to a National Political Academy (NaPolA) - high schools that produce Nazi elite. Over his father's objections, Friedrich enrolls, seeing this as his ticket out of factory life to university and a good salary. During his year in seventh column (fifth form), this innocence is altered as Friedrich encounters hazing, cruelty, death, and the Nazi code. His friendship with Albrecht, the ascetic son of the area's governor, is central to this education; a night in the forest hunting for escaped Russian POWs brings things to a head"

...Highly disturbing, but incredibly good.

[CadmiumYellow]

i liked burn after reading and i really wanna see benjamin button

[FAGGOT WATCHIN TRON]

Valkyrie:<snip>

Personally I found the american/british accent contrast to be not as noticeable as the british accent alone - considering that they were playing german officers, they could have at least tried to have a german accent. I would have preferred the entire movie be in german with subtitles.  I'd say the movie was a B-

I actually hate when movies do both of these things. It is just as annoying to me to see a bunch of English-speaking actors adopting German or Russian or whatever accents to represent the foreign language, as it is to see a bunch of British actors in an American movie meant to represent the foreign language. In Valkyrie's defense, however, I think that they just elected to ignore the accent/language thing and just had the actors go with whatever their natural accents happened to be, and they just so happened to cast primarily British actors. But yes I agree, indigenous language with subtitles all the way. The only problem with that would have been listening to Tom Cruise stumble over German syllables for two hours. Thanks but no thanks.

[FAGGOT WATCHIN TRON]

The Curious Case Of Benjamin Button
**

Eric Roth has written another blatant piece of Oscar Bait. Munich was good, but this is just another Forrest Gump, only LONGER and more meaningless. At least F. Scott Fitzgerald's short story had the decency to be SHORT.

Chris, if you wrote this, I have officially lost all respect for your opinions on movies from here on after. Benjamin Button was a truly great movie, a beautiful piece of story telling, that could not be told in any less time that they took to tell it. I would not have wanted to miss any of the parts of his life that were included in the movie, and if anything I was dreading him getting younger because I knew the younger he got the closer the movie was to being over. I think you need to reevaluate your opinion on this, or at least back it up with a little more than a one sentence witticism.

[The Ocean]

Fair enough. I'll watch it one more time. Gimme a week to find the time.

[oatmeal fetish....]

Reminder: Chris does not like Forrest Gump and thinks Terminator is better than Terminator 2 

[Larry Flyntz]

There Will Be Blood...the best movie ever made

Can you elaborate on this?  I mean, I thought it was a darn good movie, but I'm always hesitant to throw around the "b" word.  Just curious why you think it's the best.