Cinema

Pater Alf · Post by **Pater Alf** » Sun Mar 27, 2011 18:38

I think I saw everything from the list except "Un long dimanche de fiançailles" and the short movies. I liked "Delicatessen" best, followed by "La cité des enfants perdue" and "Le fabuleux destin d'Amélie Poulain". But there isn't a single movie on the list that is bad.

Pater Alf · Post by **Pater Alf** » Tue Apr 05, 2011 2:05

127 Hours

Now I know how to cut off my own arm with a cheap Chinese multitool. You never know when you might need it...

But to be serious: This is a great movie. Danny Boyle had some great visual ideas to show the desperation and beginning madness of the main character and James Franco shows an adorable perfomance.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OlhLOWTnVoQ

Scythe · Post by **Scythe** » Tue Apr 05, 2011 10:41

Pater Alf wrote:127 Hours

Now I know how to cut off my own arm with a cheap Chinese multitool. You never know when you might need it...

Didn't we learn that from Splinter?

Pater Alf · Post by **Pater Alf** » Wed Apr 06, 2011 1:38

Sorry, I didn't see "Splinter"...

Biutiful
Uxbal is a little gangster in Barcelona who makes money from human trafficking and counterfeiting of merchandise. On the other hand he's a caring person. He is a single father of a 7-year-old son and a 10-year-old daughter and has a manic-depressive ex-wife. Now he gets the diagnosis that he will die from prostate cancer. Now he tries to get things right before he dies, but no matter how hard he will try, he won't succeed.

This is certainly not a happy movie. It shows the dark side of life as well as the dark side of Barcelona (or maybe of any big city). Very well acted (Javier Bardem got an Oscar nomination) and very well directed by Alejandro González Iñárritu (Babel, 21 Gramm).

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kUuoYhga ... re=related

Pater Alf · Post by **Pater Alf** » Fri Apr 08, 2011 2:59

The Rite
This was probably the funniest movie I saw in a while. I just fear that wasn't intended. It has a completely ridiculous scripts (based on true events, sure), lots of laughable scenes to bring it to the screen and not to forget a sound design that was so obstrusive that you couldn't do anything but laugh. I sat there the whole 120 minutes with a bright grin on my face and two times I even laughed out loud (good thing that there was just a small audience inside the cinema). I wonder which dark secrets the producers know about Anthony Hopkins and Rutger Hauer that convinced them to act in this piece of celluloid waste.

But who knows maybe it isn't me that writes the line, maybe I'm possesed by the devil and this was in fact a good movie. Maybe you should better call an exorcist...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FhHnP-9iekg

eMTe · Post by **eMTe** » Sat Apr 09, 2011 22:18

R.I.P. Sidney Lumet.

Thanks for 12 Angry Men, Serpico, Dog Day Afternoon, Network, Murder on the Orient Express, Prince of the City, Verdict, Before Devil Knows You're Dead and many more. Another of the greatest ones has gone.

Post by **Zyx** » Sun Apr 10, 2011 13:30

Documentary time!

Inside Job
Got an Oscar for the best documentary, narrated by Matt Damon. Those two things can be both quite off-putting, but this a good documentary about the 2008 financial crisis. It paints quite grim picture of the legal robbery the major investment banks were and are still involved with. The best part of the documentary is the interviews with the people who even today, deny any wrong-doing and are completely oblivious to the reality around them. It's not once or twice that the interviewer comments that "you can't be serious". Truly shows that some people live in a completely different universe and with their own set of laws.

The documentary explains very well the causes of the financial crisis and the weapons of mass economic destructions are also well illustrated. Not the most neutral documentary, as many of the interviewees have an agenda (it's quite easy to put the blame after the fact) and it doesn't help that the other side is completely delusional. However, the treatment is fair and the culprits dig their own holes.

Cocaine Cowboys
I had been waiting to see this one for a long time, but for some reason didn't. I watched it after Inside Job and it really put things into a perspective. This documentary is about the 70s and 80s cocaine business in Florida, the stuff Scarface, Miami Vice and GTA: Vice City were based on. While the real excess and business was, according to this documentary, even more wild than what was portrayed in the mentioned films it still pales in comparison to the excessive lifestyle the Wall Street people enjoyed (as explained in Inside Job). Of course, in a stark contrast, the guys in Cocaine Cowboys paid the price and lost the money and spent a decade in jail. On the other hand, that let the guys speak honestly about their lives - unlike the reality-denying suits in Inside Job.

It's really captivating documentary, and I ended up rooting for the bad guys. Watching Inside Job, I felt disgusted by the bad guys' behavior. I'm not sure if the real history of Florida's cocaine scene is what the documentary paints it as, because it truly is unbelievable. But, both documentaries prove that the real world truly is unrealistic. Neither Miami Vice or Wall Street 2 could portray the real excess and be believable, that's how crazy both documentaries claim the reality truly was.

Scythe · Post by **Scythe** » Fri Apr 15, 2011 18:59

Countdown to film festival. First movie on Monday!

Post by **Chroelle** » Sat Apr 16, 2011 8:31

Can we get a list of what you are planning to see? I am guessing there will be some Hong Kong action on that list...

Scythe · Post by **Scythe** » Sat Apr 16, 2011 22:08

You're not wrong, though I believe I have more Japanese movies on the program this year. I have 15 movies on the list, so we'll see how many I bother doing writeups for. Just know that I will be seeing Nude Nuns with Big Guns!

Post by **Chroelle** » Sun Apr 17, 2011 18:16

Upon taking her vows to become a nun, Sister Sarah is abused, brainwashed and drugged into submission by the corrupt clergy. On the verge of death from a lethal dose of drugs, Sister Sarah receives a message from GOD telling her to take vengeance on all those who did her wrong. Armed with God's will and an arsenal of big guns, she dispenses Judgment Day on her former tormentors. When the church hires the merciless motorcycle gang the "Los Muertos" to track down and kill her they soon realize that this SISTER IS ONE BAD MOTHER

With a description and tagline like this you can't fail....

Scythe · Post by **Scythe** » Tue Apr 19, 2011 20:58

So, last night I watched The Whisperer in Darkness, an adaptation of a Lovecraft short story. I'm of two minds. The entire short story was faithfully adapted... and then the writers slapped their own story on top of it. It worked ok in the beginning, where some things were fleshed out believably, but everything that happens after the short story's actual ending was pretty much garbage. The director was at the showing explaining how they wanted to make it feature length and to appeal to modern audiences. Well, good job letting us purists down though.

They did a much better job on The Call of Cthulhu, which was faithful all the way.

Today, unrelated to the film festival, I saw Sucker Punch, and I'm amazed. Not at the CGI, action choreography and push-up fetish costumes... well yes, actually that's exactly what amazed me. The plot is very close to incomprehensible garbage. All right, I concede there's a meaning and a message if you care to ponder it, but the editing is so poor it easily gets lost. I think I get the most important metaphors, but I'm really not 100% on who's who, who's real and what happened to whom. Oh, and don't let the fanboys fool you - this is a style over substance movie regardless of whether or not there is something deeper to ponder. It's awesome style too, though I kind of missed my controller during the obvious video game fights. It really is more fun when you're playing the game rather than watching it.

Pager · Post by **Pager** » Wed Apr 20, 2011 5:47

Scythe wrote:Today, unrelated to the film festival, I saw Sucker Punch, and I'm amazed. Not at the CGI, action choreography and push-up fetish costumes... well yes, actually that's exactly what amazed me. The plot is very close to incomprehensible garbage...

So disappointing.

I was hooked on this one from the first preview, but after hearing they wanted to reach a broader audience by going to PG-13 route, I hate the movie...and I haven't even seen it. I'll wait until it is on TV.

It isn't really cinema, but I watched the new HBO series premiere of Game of Thrones last night. It is pretty dang good from what I saw. It should hold me over until The Walking Dead: series 2 is on in the fall.

Scythe · Post by **Scythe** » Wed Apr 20, 2011 11:38

Yeah, PG-13 makes a lot of sense for a movie about a girl being repeatedly sexually assaulted in an insane asylum/using her body to get the little things she needs for her rebellions. Or at least that's the subtext as I read it. But true, the giant samurai armor bled light and the clockwork zombies bled dust.

Pater Alf · Post by **Pater Alf** » Fri Apr 22, 2011 1:00

Rio
Imagine "The Defiant Ones" as an animated movie, take birds instead of human prisoners, add a love story and delete the racism theme instead, transport the whole story to Brasil during the carnival and you got "Rio".

Sounds worse than it is. The movie has some funny scenes, it isn't too cute to be seen by adults nor too ironic to be watched by kids. So it's a pretty good family movie I guess.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b_qREyG7e84

Scythe · Post by **Scythe** » Sat Apr 23, 2011 12:49

I've seen myself a forgettable Japanese assassin movie, The Day of Ants in the Sky. False marketing. Boring, boring, boring, nothing to see here, no messages worth taking home.

I've seen myself an unforgettable exploitation movie, Nude Nuns with Big Guns. True marketing.

It's like Tarantino/Rodriguez' Grindhouse project, only for real rather than for an exercise in style. The first five minutes of this beats the entire Grindhouse production in entertainment value. Bad B-movie acting, plot that can be summed up on a finger nail, lots of people getting shot, and more tits than you'll see in most porn movies. It's in really bad taste. Of course I love it, it's just what I expected. Bring the kitsch.

Scythe · Post by **Scythe** » Sat Apr 23, 2011 23:58

13 Assassins is a samurai movie that I've just had the pleasure of sitting through. What makes it slightly different is that it's set at the end of the shogunate era, so everything is colored by these men of war who have lost their purpose in times of peace (in fact having never seen real battles). Nevertheless there is always the last mission, and pretty much the entire last half of the movie is one long, gory, epic battle. For those of us who like our rivers running blood, it's very good stuff indeed.

eMTe · Post by **eMTe** » Sun Apr 24, 2011 0:08

Scythe wrote:plot that can be summed up on a finger nail, lots of people getting shot, and more tits than you'll see in most porn movies

And pubic hair around every corner I suppose, if not Im not sinking my teeth into this false exploitation flick.

Scythe · Post by **Scythe** » Sun Apr 24, 2011 2:37

Slightly less pubic hair than tits, but yes, plenty of that to go around as well.

I just returned from Tetsuo: The Bullet Man, worst movie at the CPH PIX 2011 film festival. Filmed entirely in the revolutionary Piss-People-Off-Vision(tm), the innovative new shakycam technique. The gist of this technique is that if you shake the camera enough, it doesn't actually matter what you're filming. Perfect for movies where you can't be bothered to write a script, go to locations or get props. If you also add loud, mechanical noise and some filtered heavy breathing, you're good to go! Special effects are cheap and easy: Just film a light bulb and shake the camera extra hard! Finally the world's only epilectic camera man got a paying job.

Post by **Chroelle** » Sun Apr 24, 2011 9:37

I SO have to see "Nude Nuns with Guns"!!!

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