Ryuichi Hiroki's Vibrator: Watching the film for the second time confirmed what I had in mind on the first time: pretty much every aspect of the film is out of balance. After an hour of roundabout free-flow the film comes to an amazing final third that wraps it all up beautifully. Hiroki's mixture of handheld, randomly framed cinematography and beautiful still shots doesn't properly work at first - it lacks punch and confidence. The plot is straightforward so he relies on the characters who feel severely underdeveloped for the whole time although with the ending pinpointing the thematics I can see why this approach was taken. Even though the film doesn't shy away from rough moments it has a hard time pulling you in and the characters remain quite distant. Even the sporadically used soundtrack lacks unity which makes the film feel even more odd. However, the enlightening ending makes up a lot of the film's weaknesses and I certainly want to see more films by Hiroki.

robersora wrote:For me Nolan movies are good, but ultimately lack heart. They seem so... constructed.

Precisely this. They're cold, constructed curiosities, crammed with complexity for the sake of complexity and devoid of soul or purposeful content. (It's crazy!)

Watched the third Naruto movie with my brother today. All in all I did not care for it it just felt like filler in a bad way with a nice shiney coat of paint.

gatotsu911 wrote:Precisely this. They're cold, constructed curiosities, crammed with complexity for the sake of complexity and devoid of soul or purposeful content. (It's crazy!)

And so, you hate him that much?

FreakyFilmFan4ever wrote:As for the pacing, it DID feel like two movies clustered in 2 1/2 hours. Joker and Dent's stories would have worked better as their own movies.

Thematically they worked well together, so I don't think you'd get remotely similar plots if they ended up with their own separate films; I think the problem was that they weren't really integrated into the same film well enough to make a cohesive story. The abruptness of the film's final act is where I think this comes out most, really.

Not my most recently seen movie, but I'm kind of curious if anyone else has seen Tran Anh Hung's adaptation of Haruki Murakami's Norwegian Wood yet. It's finally coming stateside right now and I'm reminded of how ambivalent I was with it when I saw it.

^ I have and I recall talking about it with you briefly. It wasn't good at all.

I'm considering seeing it a second time if it comes to Madison any time soon, in part just to support screenings of Asian cinema in the US but also to see if my reaction to it changes. I remember liking parts of the movie but overall being greatly disappointed with how it felt more like a summary of the book than an actual movie. Of course, the movie probably would have had to pass the three hour mark to really be satisfying, in my opinion.

Of course, personally, I've always aspired to someday direct an adaptation of Murakami's Kafka On the Shore ever since I read it two years ago, which I couldn't see being satisfying at all unless it was at least four hours long, trying to imagine the pacing in my head. I still haven't finished the 900+ page 1Q84 yet, so let's hope I don't get aspirations to adapt that one.

MugwumpHasNoLiver wrote:Don't give it much attention. The flavor of the month hate accusation is the mark of an immature and unimaginative mind.

Pfffffff-

Doom. I remember the shitstorm that occurred when this came out, but I remember it mostly being about the first-person sequence, which I actually kind of like. It's the only action set-piece in the movie that feels like it doesn't belong in Aliens (or in the case of the last scene, WWE), and in fact sort of feels like Doom - or Doom at 1/10th speed anyway. What I did not remember about this movie was the hilariously clumsy religious subtext. I kind of wonder why you would need to add this, seeing as how the premise of the series was already "a guy shoots missiles and shit at the actual fucking Devil" - couldn't you just cut out the middleman here? But hey, what do I know, I don't make movies. Anyway, Karl Urban tries manfully to make our protagonist (name: 'Staff Sergeant John "Reaper" Grimm') come off as other than cardboard cutout. Kind of succeeds to my surprise. The Rock is less fortunate as his gruff commanding officer (name: 'Gunnery Sergeant Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson', probably), although to be fair he's written so schizophrenically that I don't blame the guy for not making anything out of the role. There's the rest of the team, but since they were basically all knockoffs of characters from either Aliens or Predator I'll skip them (except the excon who cuts crosses into himself whenever he sins, which is a pretty cool concept for a throwaway character and deserved to be wasted on a better movie than this). I think there was a woman in this movie too, but she was kind of ugly and all she did was scream, so whatever.

The benefit of watching this movie is that is sparks an urge, at least in me, to watch equally bad action movies that were made around the same time; some of these movies are also quite good. Like motherfucking Riddick. Why don't they still make that shit?

Watched twister today. The movie had not aged well the CGI looks really bad but it was made back in the 90's so it is to be expected, but I still love the feel the movie gives me (I like man vs nature films)

A Street Car Named Desire. Well, this was bad, everything from mediocre pacing and not so good video quality at times to being too long and having little structure. Seriously, was there a real conflict? It seemed more like a series of events in day to day life. I probably would have given this a better ranking if the characters were not so absolutely looney. Seriously, the main character is insane, her sister is a complete wimp, and every guy in this movie is abusive and impulsive as hell; and it managed to be declared one of the best movies of all time!? HOW!? It's just a series of events with a woman paranoid about death thrown into a spouse abuse situation! Because it is so "real" and has "taboo" (in this case being alcohol references, although I found more smoking in here than drinking); if this is true than Family Guy is apparently the Rembrandt of our time.

Sorry, 2 films that I've seen recently...
Super 8. Good flick, though the ending should've been better. It's Cloverfield with a plot... and non-nauseating camera shots.

Thor: For the most part, it was OK, but some scenes were a bit over-the-top... didn't expect that since the director directed Hamlet (1996) and Much Ado About Nothing. And yeah, some plot elements feel like some of Shakespeare's work... ironic when compared to Kenneth Branagh's earlier work... As for the visual effects: WOAH.

Twin Drive Sigma Aquarion wrote:It seemed more like a series of events in day to day life. I probably would have given this a better ranking if the characters were not so absolutely looney. ... it managed to be declared one of the best movies of all time!?

Welcome to the mundane world, TDSA. It's the same mindset that ends up ruling as non-literature novels that aren't all about adultery amongst the chatterati.

tomrule123 wrote:Super 8. [...] It's Cloverfield with a plot... and non-nauseating camera shots.

Cloverfield with a plot? More like Stand By Me with a monster. The characters in that movie were so well-done that I wanted to see more of them and less of the cliche alien spiderbeast.

Welcome to the mundane world, TDSA. It's the same mindset that ends up ruling as non-literature novels that aren't all about adultery amongst the chatterati.

Which is a load of garbage if you give it some thought. I mean really, "good" movies are considered as such because they are boring? Where is Battlefield Earth's spot on "The Best Movies Ever"? It is not, that is why people tend to forget movies that are boring or not interesting. In fact, now that I think of it, I'm starting to think that the only reason half of those movies are considered good is because old people hate the youth that young people have, it only makes sense.

Twin Drive Sigma Aquarion wrote:In fact, now that I think of it, I'm starting to think that the only reason half of those movies are considered good is because old people hate the youth that young people have, it only makes sense.

What motivation did this cabal of conspiratorial old people have for liking those movies when they were still young?

MugwumpHasNoLiver wrote:What motivation did this cabal of conspiratorial old people have for liking those movies when they were still young?

Because lizard people and illuminati!

Super 8. Good flick, though the ending should've been better. It's Cloverfield with a plot... and non-nauseating camera shots.

I thought it was more like E.T crossed with Aliens, the biggest problem I had with this movie was the train derailment scene, I'm just not going to ever let that go it looks like...

Edward Scissorhands

I'm not really a Burton fan but my girlfriend is, so this is what she picked. It's been so long since I've seen it, I forgot Vincent Price has a small role.

Twin Drive Sigma Aquarion wrote:In fact, now that I think of it, I'm starting to think that the only reason half of those movies are considered good is because old people hate the youth that young people have, it only makes sense.

Or your taste is different from those people who lived in those days. Besides there are plenty of people who are not old but also think those movies are good.


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OT: Bumped into the teen movie Sky High, and I finally know where our fellow member "Warren Peace" got his user name.