Schoolio's Movie Corner

[Grandma]

From Dusk til Dawn is also far and away the best vampire movie ever

[HowToDisappear]

Cloud Atlas made me cry.

[Tubesock Shakur]

Cloud Atlas made me cry.

Can't wait to see it.




Against my better judgement I watch The Avengers because I was bored. One of the worst movies I have ever seen.

[bmack86]

I just saw From Dust Til Dawn for the first time on Friday. I LOVED it.

[stinkbutt]

I forgot how great that last pan out is. I'm watching Tales from the Hood right now, is this the only good black horror film?

[Grandma]

night of the living dead

[stinkbutt]

There was a black man in it, it was not a black horror film

[Grandma]

da hip hop witch?

[lehorne]

we're still waiting on the first "black person in the ocean" film

And 'Half Baked' should have been called 'Baked' or 'So Fucking Baked' as the lead characters were stoned nearly the entire time. Thought it would end with the girlfriend finally partaking, instead of him throwing his J into the river. Needed to rewrite the ending, but overall it's a fine film.

'Mr. Brooks' was also great yet had a shite ending. Either 'The Expatriate' or 'Il momento della verità' the bullfighting film tonight. Probably the later.

[Grandma]

we're still waiting on the first "black person in the ocean" film

louis gosset jr in jaws 3D

[lehorne]

damn, you're good. That was the Sea World one.

[TallGuyCM]

I watched David Lynch's Inland Empire tonight. I enjoyed it, although it's far from my favorite of his works. It was a very slow burn, and one that didn't ultimatley reward the effort put in, to me.

I'm planning on watching Cemetery Man on Halloween, have any of you seen it?

[schoolofruckus]

I forgot how great that last pan out is. I'm watching Tales from the Hood right now, is this the only good black horror film?

[schoolofruckus]

Moving on to a film that I liked a LOT less...

Before I launch into this, some context...I think it's safe to say my presence around here is defined by my deep love of The Fountain. How else to explain that I'm still catching shit for liking it nearly six years after its release? I'm not really going to go into my whole thing with that one again, but its place in my heart is emblematic of my views toward many similarly ambitious, high-reaching films that seek to combine the intimacy of one life with a spectacular vision of all life. Which is to say, I almost always come down on the side that regards these types of movies with some degree of praise or admiration in spite of their often myriad flaws. Also, I am a big enough fan of the Wachowskis and Tom Tykwer that I don't even consider their respective pre-millennial landmarks to be my favorite of either of their filmographies.

All that established....I deeply fucking hated Cloud Atlas. To the point that Rock of Ages (which I did ultimately see as penance for my NBA Finals bet with Ronnie) is no longer my easy choice for worst of the year.

Given how quickly and irreversibly this one repelled me, I will struggle to write this without turning into Rex Reed. But regardless of how hard my fingers were crossed as the lights went down in the Dome, I knew the movie wasn't going to work for me about 12 seconds in when Tom Hanks first hits the screen. I was aware that he, like most of the cast, would be playing multiple roles throughout various time periods that paid no regard to race (or in a couple cases, gender). Yet even after having watched the trailer, I wasn't aware of just how spectacularly Hanks in particular would fuck this up. He literally gives five of the worst performances I have ever seen within this one movie, and I wouldn't have previously counted myself among his haters. It was always going to be a delicate balance, with so much tender philosophizing between BIG (read: not necessarily great) actors in a variety of absurdly-conceived makeup and period costumes; this kind of storytelling gimmick rises and falls entirely on tone and the extent to which the characters feel, on some level, like actual humans, with inner life and the capacity for genuine emotional responses. But with the exception of Hugh Grant and occasionally Bae Doona, it feels like the entire cast is operating on the level of a bad sketch-comedy show, playing the entire film as broadly as possible even though it should, in theory, have moments of real weight, danger, tension, introspection....you know, the kind of feeling that human beings traffic in. That said, it's difficult to fault most of these actors too harshly for signing on to, ostensibly, the kind of uniquely challenging movie that simply never gets made in the current film economy....and then being mercilessly stranded by material that takes delusional vapidity to a monumental nadir. Having not read the book, I'm not sure whether to blame the three filmmakers for 100% of the intellectual crimes committed in this movie, or if David Mitchell tied the running-bowline and then handed them the rope...but the degree of cruel emptiness in both the "ideas" that drive this film and the ways they're realized is flat-out astonishing. I could rattle off any number of cliches to describe the shortcomings of this film's thesis, or the way it's continuously subverted by the dull and ineffective cross-cutting between the various story threads, or the impossibly poor stabs at humor (which would be evidence enough that no one at the helm was in a place to be making statements about "humanity"), but again, I'm trying not to be Rex Reed. I will say that in addition to the rest of this, it's mind-blowing to consider that the trio who gave us several of 1999's most visionary moments could make a three-hour movie with virtually no resonant imagery.

This was always going to be a love-or-loathe endeavor, and unlike most of my scathing reviews, this has not been fun to write. But make no mistake - Cloud Atlas is late-Shyamalan bad, late-Burton bad, Elizabethtown bad, Finding Forrester bad, Fincher's Girl With the Dragon Tattoo bad. It's the kind of movie that puts genuinely talented filmmakers on extreme probation, and it's bad enough to put three of them there.

[schoolofruckus]

I guess I should also mention the movies that I saw this week and actually liked:

I watched Robert Bresson's last two films within the past week. L'Argent, in particular, was unbelievably great. Based on a section of Tolstoy's The Forged Coupon, it tracks the effects of a contraband 500-Franc note on a shop clerk and the vendor who unwittingly takes it from him, and it is one of the best films I've seen by anyone. Bresson has entranced me over the past few months, so I've been fairly attuned to his rhythmic precision and almost terrifying aversion to sentimentality...but I still wasn't prepared for how dark and cynical L'Argent would prove to be. I think I would have to consider this my second favorite of his ten films I've seen, after the sacred Au Hasard Balthazar. By contrast, The Devil, Probably was also terrific - just quite as much.

I also caught a recently revived Australian film called Wake in Fright at the Nuart last week. It follows a mild-mannered school teacher on holiday who gets stuck in a wild remote town and inadvertently embarks on a drunken odyssey of brutality. It has some similar threads to The Master, actually - namely the fascination with man's animal nature, stimulated by excessive drinking - but in a package that is ultimately wilder, more brutal and less contemplative. It's a film that feels genuinely dangerous at times. I would recommend seeking this one out when it ultimately hits Blu-Ray (the theatrical presentation is digital and it doesn't look that great).

Lastly, I saw Not Fade Away, which is the David Chase film about the emerging 60s rock band. It has some remarkable problems on a basic storytelling level (voice-over that actively takes things off the table, indecisive focus on its characters, inability to convey the exciting aspects of rock and roll) and some of the most hacky TV filmmaking I have ever...actually, I take that back. I may not like the cinematography on most TV series, but the majority of narrative television usually has at least some measure of craftsmanship, in terms of framing/lighting shots with a consistency that lends itself to cutting a scene together. Not Fade Away does not have that. And yet, unlike Cloud Atlas, I was not checking my watch every 10 minutes, begging for it to end. It's not good, but it's watchable, if you happen to find yourself in front of it.

[HowToDisappear]

Ahahaha, Gabe, I knew you would hate it. I was expecting the scathing review. I had low expectations going in because I like neither Hanks nor Berry, but to my great surprise, I really liked it, off-putting prosthetic make-up and scenery-chewing and all. Ben Whishaw as Frobisher really got me. Flame away.

[xanman86]

I watched David Lynch's Inland Empire tonight. I enjoyed it, although it's far from my favorite of his works. It was a very slow burn, and one that didn't ultimatley reward the effort put in, to me.

I'm planning on watching Cemetery Man on Halloween, have any of you seen it?

I remember the "David Lynch cooks Quinoa" DVD extra more than I remember Inland Empire lol

[PotVsKtl]

Cemetery Man is a good choice.

[VigoTheCarpathian]

Cloud Atlas > Master > Argo

[razorburned]

Cemetary Man is good.

[boxofbox]

I can confirm. Cloud Atlas - Tom Hanks = an ok movie

[xanman86]

Um... Nosferatu??

This weekend I ended up seeing:

Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix
Killer Klowns From Outer Space
The Godfather
Excision
Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince
Melancholia

[VigoTheCarpathian]

“Our lives are not our own, we are bound to others, past and present. And by each crime and every kindness, we birth our future.” - Hero

[ThatGirl]

This weekend I ended up seeing:

Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix
Killer Klowns From Outer Space
The Godfather
Excision
Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince
Melancholia

What did you think of Melancholia?

[xanman86]

What did you think of Melancholia?

I loved it. Von Trier got the best performance out of Kristen Dunst she may ever give. Already looking forward to seeing it again, not because I didn't "get it" but more because of how engaging and beautiful it was. It juxtaposes Justine's chronic depression and the end of the world so well. I especially loved that although the whole film shows Justine's dysfunctional family trying to cope with her for being so difficult and unhappy, she turns out to be the only one who can cope with the end of the world and builds a sort of "hope" fort for her sister and Nephew to shelter themselves under. She is so used to every day feeling like the end of the world that she is the most prepared for the real deal.

Funny thing, around the end of the film when the planet was closing in and I was on the edge of my seat my whole neighborhood erupted in cheers and fireworks because the Giants had won. It was a fun contrast lol

[xuclarockerx]

Movies I've seen recently:

The Forgotten: Absolutely terrible. Well, it starts off alright with an interesting concept, but the second half just sucks the life out of everything (literally). I'm usually lenient on movies but I just wanted my 90 minutes back. To be fair when this first came out in like 2004 I used to laugh at the stupid trailers featuring people 'sucked into the sky' as an example of the crap modern 'scary' movies have become. Turns out I was right.

Buffalo 66 I saw this like a day after The Forgotten and it almost made up for that travesty. It was described to me as a "dark Napoleon Dynamite" which beyond some stylistic similarities isn't that accurate but if all you know about indie movies is Napoleon I guess I can see that description. Anyway great movie. Christina Ricci at her hottest possibly.

Superman III Don't think I'd ever seen this one. Goofy but fun w/ Richard Pryor. The "evil Superman" segment is surprisingly dark. Oh and Lana is way hotter than Lois.

Swimfan I can see why people think this is a terrible movie but Erika Christensen is boneriffic in this. That was all that really mattered 4 me.

[ThatGirl]

I loved it. Von Trier got the best performance out of Kristen Dunst she may ever give. Already looking forward to seeing it again, not because I didn't "get it" but more because of how engaging and beautiful it was. It juxtaposes Justine's chronic depression and the end of the world so well. I especially loved that although the whole film shows Justine's dysfunctional family trying to cope with her for being so difficult and unhappy, she turns out to be the only one who can cope with the end of the world and builds a sort of "hope" fort for her sister and Nephew to shelter themselves under. She is so used to every day feeling like the end of the world that she is the most prepared for the real deal.

Funny thing, around the end of the film when the planet was closing in and I was on the edge of my seat my whole neighborhood erupted in cheers and fireworks because the Giants had won. It was a fun contrast lol

I felt the same way, watching Justine grow stronger and more sensible the closer it came to the end of the world. In a way she seemed almost relieved, that the premonitions she'd had were contributing to her increasing instability, and that on her wedding day, in seeing how the star had been hidden, and learning about Melancholia, it was a turning point for her. The awkward family scenes at the wedding reception were executed brilliantly. It made you feel like one of the wedding guests, watching this scene get played out, and aching for them. And the long visual sequence at the beginning really set the tone for tension.

[ThatGirl]

Buffalo 66 I saw this like a day after The Forgotten and it almost made up for that travesty. It was described to me as a "dark Napoleon Dynamite" which beyond some stylistic similarities isn't that accurate but if all you know about indie movies is Napoleon I guess I can see that description. Anyway great movie. Christina Ricci at her hottest possibly.

Have you seen Black Snake Moan? Christina Ricci was super fit and lean for this movie, and although her character was really rough and unappealing she still looked incredible.

[schoolofruckus]

Buffalo 66 I saw this like a day after The Forgotten and it almost made up for that travesty. It was described to me as a "dark Napoleon Dynamite"

Kill the person who said this.

[TallGuyCM]

HAHAHAHAHA I just read that and was wondering if you'd catch it. HAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!