decided to go on an adventure into the weird with David Lynch and Terry Gilliam
Tideland [ 4/10 ]
Was recommended to me by a friend (whom I'm going to have to have a talking to) and historically I like Gilliam movies; but my god this thing is just a 2 hour time sink. It gets points for being well made and a good idea; but the overall execution was pretty shit. Needed about 20x more fantastical imagination scenes. Maybe the budget let the movie down
Wild at Heart [ 7/10 ]
Pretty enjoyable. Much like twin peaks wild at heart actually has a story just focused through the Lynch looking glass vs. the magnum opus of bizarre that is mullholland drive.
It had some disturbing scenes but the plot was weak and suffered from the irritating cliche of everyone being convinced that straying from the group to "explore" is somehow a good idea. If this failed concept hadn't been done in a thousand other horror flicks it might be forgivable. Since, however, the directors already ripped off the Spanish flick Rec for the entire storyline (and then infected it with the dumb) they could have at LEAST thought up a more interesting group dynamic than was shown here.
Dead Space: Downfall - 5/10
It was an ok prologue for the game but the animation style failed to capture the atmosphere or scares that the game delivered.
Last edited by Tormentius on Sun Feb 22, 2009 1:31 am, edited 1 time in total.
Academy spokeswoman Leslie Unger said it was a forgery and the event's auditors were still counting votes.
"The document is a complete fraud," she said.
"There are only two people there who will know the complete list of winners in advance of the envelopes being opened during the ceremony."
Reports say the document appears to carry the signature of Sid Ganis, president of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, which presents the Oscars.
Ms Unger added: "The Academy's president is not advised of the winners in advance and no such list is created."
Taken: 7/10
- By the book thriller without any real shortcomings.
The Reader: 8.5 / 10
- I didn't know much about this movie beforehand so the emotion of it really hit me like a shit ton of bricks. Not particularly "enjoyable" to watch but it carries a lot of weight. (I expect Revolutionary Road will be similar.)
The Wrestler: 9/10
Amazing performances by Rourke and Tomei. Great storytelling. It's really too bad Springsteen's title track was snubbed by the oscars, especially with only three out of a potential five "best song" nominees.
The Visitor: yawn/10
Sob story about immigrants who become fast friends with the guy whose apartment it turns out they've been illegally renting. Underwhelming in just about every respect.
The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford - 8.5/10
An underrated gem. It was longer than necessary but extremely well shot with great performances by Pitt and Affleck. Its definitely not an action movie but is quite a fascinating and historically accurate character study.
ek, did you like that more or less than The Departed?
a lot of people have told me that infernal affairs is better, but i couldn't stand watching more than 15 minutes of it. i watched the departed first and liked it very much.
i watched departed first too. both were good. couldn't turn it off i was on a flight from hong kong.. so i stuck with it. awesome movie, and enjoyable.
A spaceman and vikings...it seemed doomed to fail but possibly worth chuckling at when bored. I was pleasantly surprised as this turned out to be an excellent sci-fi/adventure movie. The ironic thing about this movie is that, after being disappointed in the cultural inaccuracies with vikings in film for years, this sci-fi flick pulled off a decent representation without a horned helmet in sight.
X-files 2 - 5/10
It was nowhere near as interesting as the first movie or most of the TV episodes for that matter. It was good to see more X-files and the cast together again but they could have done much, much better for a full-length movie.
the signal - 8/10
low-budget horror film with plenty of laughs and a few genuine scares. the most impressive thing about it is that it succeeds in believably portraying a widespread event, something a lot of films with more money behind them have failed to do.
jcvd - 7/10
really enjoyed it - as did the missus, despite having absolutely no idea who jcvd was.
For some reason i couldn't get into this at all. I thought all of the little stories (i guess meant to illustrate how the Camorra has a finger in everything, legal or no, and that noone who lives there escapes having to deal with them in some way) were predictable and underwhelming.
Maybe i was expecting something else... Meh.
also:
Chupacabra wrote:a lot of people have told me that infernal affairs is better, but i couldn't stand watching more than 15 minutes of it. i watched the departed first and liked it very much.
Shit yeah. I watched Infernal Affairs years before i saw Departed (and also oddly enough recently on a flight from Hong Kong like ek) and consequently i thought the latter was a bad rip off. Story aside, they're very different films though. IA is all slowness and shots of city landscapes through a blue filter (which was totally the shit back then remember) and closeups of grim looking asian thugs who speak in riddles and sometimes shoot each other - whereas Departed...well, that didn't really stand out in any way whatsoever when you disregard the stolen story, did it.
Absurdly violent and gory.
They succeeded in creating the darkness and grittiness required in a revenge flick, regardless of some failed attempts at humor.
A lot of familiar tv-faces (Rome's "Titus", The Wire's "McNulty", Dexter's "Rita", Seinfeld's "Newman"(!)).
Usually that puts me off, but in this grotesque setting it didn't really matter.
Totally brainrotting garbage, but sometimes you need some of that.
Wim Wenders here created not that much of an masterpiece to compete with his 11/10 "Paris Texas" but it still has this Wenders-special melancholic atmosphere in it.
[color=#800000]I'm a pervert. But in a romantic kind of way.[/color]
Very good and impressive story (based on a story by Philip K. Dick) and very well presented. While the live-action-turned-into-anime looks gimmicky at first, it really helps to create a sense of disconnect from reality, which is also one of the main themes of the movie.
A creepy, original storyline and outstanding animation make this a really enjoyable flick, especially in 3D. Its the best of its type since Nightmare before Christmas.
Get Smart's Bruce and Lloyd Out of Control - 6/10
Better than Get Smart in my opinion. Great nerd humour and some good laughs.
Seriously, Lynch tries very hard to mystify shit just for the sake of it, but I still like his movies, because they force you to respond to them in a different way than to the usual hollywood schlock.
Seriously, Lynch tries very hard to mystify shit just for the sake of it, but I still like his movies, because they force you to respond to them in a different way than to the usual hollywood schlock.
Nothing went over my head. I generally like lynch movies and the first half of it was very good. But then it just goes off the rails into a 60 min dream sequence where the main character "remembers the past the way he wants to". Was a pretty weak version of mullholland drive and not helped by the generally flat acting of Bill Pullman and Patricia Arquette. Also I never noticed it in his previous movies, but Lynch is fucking obsessed with golden sections in his framing.
