Cinema

[Chroelle]

Crowe immidiately jumped out as playing at least the same character as he did in A Beautiful mind which I dont find a bad thing, but it would have been cool with something new.
Washington was AMAZING - worthy of an Oscar if you ask me. I found his performance brilliant, since he had to make a drug-lord look both bad enough for you to hate him for doing this, and good enough for you to sympathize with his later actions.
That takes a lot. And I really hate drugs!

And PA: Tanja can't watch scary movies. She gets horrible nightmares, that gives me nightmares when she tells me about them. We are talking walking into her parents house as a kid, finding everyone she knows hanging from the ceiling in the living room, and generally screaming I wake her up. So it was a good thing that WE missed it. I can watch it later on my own, but Tanja really cant watch these kinds of movies. And just so you know: Tanjas parents are alive and well, so it is not a memory...!

Oh and eMTe...Convoy is a great movie, but not due to the plot! Nevermind the plot and you might like it again some day. I watched it too as an adult, and simply didn't bother about the plot, but focused on Kris and the soundtrack, and that saved it for me.

[Pater Alf]

And PA: Tanja can't watch scary movies. She gets horrible nightmares, that gives me nightmares when she tells me about them. We are talking walking into her parents house as a kid, finding everyone she knows hanging from the ceiling in the living room, and generally screaming I wake her up. So it was a good thing that WE missed it. I can watch it later on my own, but Tanja really cant watch these kinds of movies. And just so you know: Tanjas parents are alive and well, so it is not a memory...!

Oh, in that case "The Orphanage" in fact sounds exactly like the kind of movie you shouldn't watch...

[Tank]

I just returned from "We own the Night" starring Mark Wahlberg, Joaquin Phoenix, Robert Duvall and the more than lovely Eva Mendes.

Plot:

Brooklyn, 1988. Crime is rife, especially drugs and drug violence. A Russian thug is building his heroin trade, while everyone laughs at the cops. Brothers have chosen different paths: Joe has followed his father Bert into New York's Finest; he's a rising star. Bobby, who uses his mother's maiden name, manages a club. Bobby too is on the rise: he has a new girlfriend and a green-light to develop a Manhattan club. Joe and Bert ask him to help with intelligence gathering; he declines. Then, Joe raids Bobby's club to arrest the Russian. From there, things spiral out of control: the Russian puts out a hit on Joe, personal losses mount, and Bobby's loyalties face the test.

The story is quite good, the acting is great. In short: I'd recommend the movie to everyone!
Advice: Don't miss the first scene!

Just one more thing: I seriously think that Eva Mendes is one of the most underrated actresses in Hollywood. She was great in this one (she was great in every movie I can think of).

[eMTe]

Ive just watched No Country for Old Men and consider it a blatant ripoff of Fargo - same themes, same settings, same characters with Javier Bardem playing Peter Stormare and Tommy Lee Jones playing Frances McDormand. The noble Academy took part in this swindle and awarded this self-plagiarism with 4 Oscars. I, as a fan of Coens, feel badly cheated.

[Zyx]

Too bad, I was looking forward seeing that movie.

Run Fat Boy Run was a real disappointment after Hot Fuzz and Shaun of the Dead. It was qutie an achievement for RFBR to suck even though it had plenty of really good british comedians in it. (There's one short and good joke for all Little Britain fans, for example).

[Pager]

Run Fatboy Run just does look disappointing, I was on the fence about seeing that, since it did have Simon Pegg, but if I recall it has nothing to do with Edgar Wright...it's like peanut butter and jelly, just can't have one without the other...

I'm hoping to go see Be Kind Rewind this weekend...it looks entertaining.

Unfortunately the last thing I went to see was No Country for Old Men, and I thought it was the biggest waste of time I had ever sat through. Personally I liked the psychopath's character...but that's about it.

[Scythe]

Maybe I should go see Rambo next week?

[Pater Alf]

Juno

Wonderful movie full of bitter-sweet humour, heartwarming moments and lovable characters. Do yourself a favour and watch it!

[Scythe]

I'm sick of heartwarming and lovable (no offense, PA ). I want rivers of blood! Oh, wait, I already saw that movie... but, uhm, you know what I mean... I want butt-kicking Hong Kong action! I want murder mysteries Sherlock couldn't figure out! I want spaghetti western revivals! I want triad brotherhood movies!

I want for the annual night film festival to begin already!

Two and a half weeks and counting the days...

[Pater Alf]

BTW: Have you really been that masochistic that you went and saw John Rambo???

[Scythe]

No, but I considered it... for ½ second. Then I considered Shoot 'em Up. The jury's still out on that one.

[Pater Alf]

Before the Devil Knows You're Dead

Sidney Lumet made some great movies during his long career, but unfortunately this one isn't amongst them. Story is about two brothers who decide to rob the jewelry store of their own parent to get rid of their financial sorrows. But everything goes wrong and their mother dies during the robbery.

First 30 minutes of the movie were ok, but after that it was hard to watch, because there was no one I could sympathize with. At the end nearly everybody was dead, but I didn't care at all.

[Tank]

Untraceable

FBI agent Jennifer Marsh is tasked with hunting down a seemingly untraceable serial killer who posts live videos of his victims on the Internet. As time runs out, the cat and mouse chase becomes more personal.

Saw it today in the Preview. It wasn't exactly a good movie. It was more the type of movie, where you have your TV running and watch it with one eye while working on your PC.

FBI guys use Windows Vista by the way. Very nice to see something else than Apple

[Scythe]

Muoi

Korean horror movie. The most effective one I've seen in a long while. Even if it is just "Ring" over and over again. It still had me holding on to the edge of my seat till my knuckles turned white. Good stuff!

[Scythe]

Sukiyaki Western Django

Everybody knows Django, right? Spaghetti western with Franco Nero, where he drags around a coffin with a deadly secret? Yeah, that one. They know it in Japan as well. Here's a reinterpretation of Django, featuring Japanese actors speaking English of all things! It's almost incomprehensible, but since this is all about style over substance, who really cares?

The plot is something along the lines of, you've got the Reds and the Whites, two rival gangs, trying to find the hidden treasure of a remote village, where something like 5 people are left. Into this mess comes the lone talented gunslinger, and you can be sure that a lot of people will get killed shortly! (Not to spoil anything, but they do. Oh yes, they do.)

It's all done with a more than healthy dose of humour (just listening to two lines will crack most people up), lots of bloody fun, and a ton of references to Django (which we, of course, saw a couple hours prior to this one). And for God's sake, it even has Quentin Tarantino in a somewhat important role!

Sukiyaki possibly means "noodle" - it would make sense anyway.

[Pager]

No, but I considered it... for ½ second. Then I considered Shoot 'em Up. The jury's still out on that one.

I saw this a few days ago, it was so much better than I had expected. I was really surprised.

[Scythe]

Damn it, I missed it! Now I'll have to wait for the DVD...

Recommendations from the film festival:

Horror
Black House
Korea is where it's at these years, if you need your horror fix. This one is about a long-haired girl who cast a curse and haunts teens... NOT!! No, this one had a fantastic story of an insurance agent who suspects that the family father hung his step son, and made it look like suicide, for the insurance money (apparently they get insurance from suicides in Korea). When he investigates, things start getting more and more hairy. Something's just not right at that house! The movie took several surprising turns. It's definitely not for the faint of heart, or mind for that matter. Good stuff.

Comedy
Bodyguard 2
When you go see a Thai movie, you never know quite what to expect. There always seem to be a comedy somewhere, and at least they're usually funny. Well, this one was not only funny, it had excellent production values as well! A cop comedy where this guy has to go undercover as a pop star to infiltrate nuclear warhead smugglers posing as a record company (of all things). Perfect in these reality song show times. Features at least five boss battles that don't actually turn into fights, references to other obscure Thai movies (I even caught some!) and credits dedicated to a guy who complains for three minutes that his character in the movie got shot before he even got to say his lines. Hilarity!

Crime
Mad Detective
Let's go to Hong Kong for a bit, shall we? The story centers around a retired cop (he got retired when he cut his own ear off as a gift for his boss), who can apparently see people's inner personalities (they manifest themselves as characters on screen, from his point of view). He is re-recruited by an admiring young cop, to solve the mystery of a missing gun and detective, whose partner is the prime suspect. From here, it's a tour de force in excellent plot twists, character development and just a bit of paranoia. Just how mad is this guy? Fantastic scenes and a great, great story!

What's that? You want me to recommend a somewhat mainstream movie as well? Well, I did see the restored version of
Dracula
with Christopher Lee and Peter Cushing from 1958. It was plain goodness. Hammer Films are great!

[Tank]

Just returned home from....

21
Plot: "21" is the fact-based story about six MIT students who were trained to become experts in card counting and subsequently took Vegas casinos for millions in winnings. (from IMDb.com)

To be honest, I had very high expectations on that one, and I was truly satisfied. This movie will join my DVD collection.
Kevin Spacey is awesome - just as always. Laurence Fishbourne rocks! And Kate Bosworth.... I think that's her first big role and the first movie starring her I saw. In short, her acting was strong, and I see her as one of Hollywood's hottest acts.

9 out of 10 stars.

[Chroelle]

Well I didn't go to the cinema, but we rented some DVD's saturday, and I saw:

Fracture which was a weird combination of a plot trying to be clever and succeeding to some point, but not where they think they might have. The whole plot is that Ryan Gosling has to prove that Anthony Hopkins killed his own wife. We know he did so it is all courtroom action from here. There is one thing you didn't think of and that is a great plotidea. You just get baffled at how well this crime is pulled off, and yet the detail that the movie decides to turn to fro drama doesn't work as it is not that hard to see through. So all in all a good movie, but I would have felt cheated if I had bought tickets for it.

and then I saw

Wild Hogs which has gotten lousy reviews. The four mains are John Travolta, Martin Lawrence, Tim Allan and William H. Macy.
First of all I dont really like Tim Allans weird sense of corny comedy, and I think Martin Lawrence is too high-strung for my taste. I never found John T. to be a comedian but I like William H. Macys suttle way of acting. So as you might think I didn't expect much of this movie, which lead me to roll on the floor scaring the cat and everything (If I had had a cat that is). This movie had so much fun being exactly what it was supposed to be that you just had to love it. I really dont understand the harshness behind critics that put this down. A great laugh, and a ridiculous plot just made this hilarious. The credits-clip was just the last drop. I really laughed my *ss off.
I recommend this but so many others don't, so choose with care.

[Tank]

Saw Wild Hogs long time ago in cinema. I'd agree with Chroelles review. I would recommend it too.