Caseus Archivelox: Diabolique, The Importance of Being Earnest, Happy Accidents, & The Two Towers

2002-12-29 - 11:38 p.m.
First off was Diabolique, or as the actual movie called itself, Les Diaboliques. Very Hitchcockian, and it's clear why he wanted to make the movie. There were some things he never would have gotten away with had he made it though: a scene of a preteen diving into a pool in tighty-whiteys and then walking around in them, kids said both f--- and s--- (taboo till the late 60s and certainly not ok for kids), and for most of the last ten minutes, the protagonists nipples were clearly visible through her thin nightdress. There is no way this would have been OK for a Hollywood film in the mid 50s. But beyond these little bits of French-ness, the movie was masterfully tense and there were definite things Hitchcock had to have loved, most dealing with how much of it revolved around the bathrooms and the loud pipes playing a big role. The theme of guilt was great and there was even a last scare that predated slasher films. The Criterion DVD had no extras and had some problems with the picture and the subtitles on my computer were not always legible, but the movie built suspense with minimal music and not much dialogue. Because the filmmakers want me not to spoil it (even having a title card at the end asking viewers not to tell the secrets of the film), I won't, but it predates Hitchcock asking movie theater owners not to seat people after Psycho started. I really recommend it if you like Vertigo, Psycho, and the like.

We watched The Importance of Being Earnest (the new one), which is one of the funniest plays of all time. However, it was cut a lot, but it had most of the funny lines. My dad fell asleep halfway through.

We watched Happy Accidents, sort of a mixture of 12 Monkeys and Sliding Doors, being not as good as either. And it also went back to La Jetee with stills and stutter-y motion for future scenes. Still, it wasn't even close to as bad as I was expecting, and Vincent D'Onofrio and Marisa Tomei were good. And the surprise cameo was hilarious.

2002-12-30 - 11:08 p.m.
I took most of the evening off, and watched The Two Towers. Which kicked the ass of pretty much every other movie out there. Although it isn't fair to compare them, because this is the second 3 (or so, depending on how long the movies extended editions are) hours of the greatest cinematic achievement of my lifetime. F---, another damn year of waiting for the next one. 'Course, I may just have to see it again. No more free ticket though. Maybe I'll just wait until they bring out the 4 minute fan trailer for the next one. They did have a great line though. Which I'm probably misquoting for my title (EDITOR'S NOTE: which was "Well, you are short. You are also smart.").

Caseus Archivelox: Safe, The Rules of Attraction, & Blade II

2002-12-09 - 11:27 p.m.
I just watched Safe, the Todd Haynes film with Julianne Moore. And I can't recommend it highly enough. Very disconcerting movie, (in a good way, unlike Titanic which was disconcertingly long or Armageddon which was disconcertingly suck) and Moore was excellent. It is a great multi-layered film like Haynes's other films, and it makes me want to see Far from Heaven an immense amount. And I still want to see Superstar: The Karen Carpenter Story more than any movie ever made. Mainly because it's illegal, but also because Haynes, while frequently frustrating, is one of the most talented directors out there. Anyway, Safe had so many good things that the few things wrong with it were overcome.

2002-12-15 - 11:06 p.m.
Last night I went to see The Rules of Attraction, and have decided that the movie had more style than almost any other movie I've ever seen. The travelogue of Victor's trip to Europe was absolutely stunning. It was pretty well done. A little too snazzy for it to be perfect, but it was easily the best thing that James Van Der Suck has ever done. And it makes me realize that I probably would like Bret Easton Ellis. And I'll get to him at some point.

2002-12-19 - 9:50 p.m.
I got Blade II in the mail today, and it really wasn't as good as the first one. A little too sequel-ly. And then there's always the fact that Del Toro made a much better vampire movie in Cronos. Would have been much better had it been more like that one.

Caseus Archivelox: I Am Trying To Break Your Heart & Baran

2002-12-08 - 10:58 p.m.
I saw I Am Trying To Break Your Heart. It was a really good documentary about Wilco. If you hadn't heard of Wilco, then you probably wouldn't like it. For those who like them, then it's a generally well-done, if unenlightening, look at the band. And the performances are very good. They did play a lot more from Being There than I was expecting. And only one song from Summerteeth. So I was surprised, if not unhappy. And I didn't know that Jeff Tweedy is me as I want to be. In that he's a rock star, and he has migraines. Ok, so I don't want to have migraines, but he gets them, and the camera follows him into the bathroom to watch him puke. Which is just not right. There also wasn't much about Jim O'Rourke. Which isn't cool. And it was a little too "We're sticking it to the man". The music was good enough that I can forgive a lot of problems with the movie. Which is just the opposite of Muriel's Wedding, which was a good enough movie to overcome serious problems with the heavily ABBA soundtrack (EDITOR'S NOTE: I am complaining about Dancing Queen).

Today I watched Baran, which is about as far from an American film as you could imagine. One: it was about Iran. Two: it had, as a main character, Afghanis. Three: both Iranis and Afghanis were portrayed sympathetically. Four: it was in a foreign language. Five: the ending was not a traditional American ending. It was open to debate what would happen at the end. And six: it was slowly paced. But it was very good.

Caseus Archivelox: Firelight, The Best Man, Exodus, Harvard Man, & Time of Favor

2002-11-02 - 12:05 a.m.
The first one was Firelight. A sort of Romance novel filmed. With a crappy female fantasy of finding a rich man who is willing to pay for her and then kill his wife for her. Yeah. Really predictable, and any skill shown by Sophie Marceau or the director is wasted in a completely by the book movie. Except for the nudity. There was no time at which I didn't know what was going to happen really. I sort of expected a slightly happier ending, but eh, sadder ending was not any better. Title (Won't bend down. Wig'll fall off.) is something their butler said a couple times, which, while funny, was certainly not something you'd expect from a traditional film, showing a little too much self-reflexive humor for the movie.

2002-11-03 - 12:27 a.m.
The Best Man, an Italian movie from 1998. It was boring as f---. That's really boring. I didn't like any of the characters, it was slow, the dialogue was bland, and it was probably the worst Italian film I have ever seen. That I can remember. And I've seen Italian lesbian vampire films. So you know it's gotta suck. Maybe the last film will be better. I'll let you know when I see it. Oh, and this one has the stupidest opening scrawl and it has the stupidest last line. I think it was the title. I honestly was bored out of my mind for most of the movie, so I can't really remember if it was it or not. But it was set on New Years Eve, 1900. It just sucked.

2002-11-03 - 10:36 p.m.
The movie was Exodus, a special 40th Anniversary remastered version. And for a remastered version of a film, it was in the worst shape I've ever seen. There were lots of scratches, bad sound (sometimes even unsynchronized with the video), and there were scenes edited out. And the film didn't end, it broke. Can't anyone get a good print of a movie? The movie was still pretty good, if long, and a little too 60s for a movie set in the 40s. The movie was at the local big nice theater, and it was full of Jews. At least they had an intermission. They did give out a nice ticket and booklet full of stories from the production of the movie. It was nice.

2002-11-06 - 10:31 p.m.
I watched Harvard Man this evening. One quick thing to mention, would someone explain to me why it says that Ray Allen died in 2000 on the IMDB? I want to point that out before I tell them it's wrong. But it does say that he died on September 15, 2000 in Milwaukee. What's up with that? (EDITOR'S NOTE: This has since been changed.) It was good, nothing too special, except for the absolutely hilarious cameo in the middle of the film. Honestly, it's funnier if you don't expect it, so if you don't want to be spoiled, don't read anymore of this paragraph. I mean it. It won't be as funny if you know. Ok, so Alan took lots of LSD and was running around campus, and he runs into Al Franken and his erstwhile Duke student daughter, Thomasin. It was funny because he really wanted her to go to Harvard, but she mentioned Duke. Which is funny because she went to Duke for a year and then transferred to Harvard. And I saw a naked picture of her. Which is what, I'm convinced, caused her to want to leave Duke. In the movie, he said that she gets too easily embarrassed.

2002-11-13 - 10:41 p.m.
I went to see Time of Favor tonight. It was probably the best Israeli film I've seen. I really highly recommend it. I didn't know enough Hebrew to pick up a lot of the lines, but there were subtitles, even if they were plain white ones, the movie was generally dark enough that I only didn't see one word, and then the camera angle changed, so it was all good. The actors in it were all really good as well, even if the main guy looked like Liev Schreiber, the main girl looked like Amber Benson, the other guy looked like Alan Cumming. And that wasn't all, but I'll let you try to figure them out. Well, except for one, Mookie looked like 1955 Biff from Back to the Future. That should be fun. I can just picture you seeing it now thinking: What is Tara doing going for Cotton Weary? She should be going for Willow. And isn't Alan Cumming gay?

Caseus Archivelox: Insomnia & Last Orders

2002-10-31 - 11:23 p.m.
I just realized that I had forgotten to mention what I did Sunday night to require the taping of Alias. I watched the remake of Insomnia. Now, it's too easy to say that the remake is weaker than the original, but it really was. The acting wasn't noticeably better, and the script left a lot less to the imagination. One of the strong points of the original film was that it was difficult to tell why and whether Dormer (or whatever his name was in the original) killed his partner. And the fact that it all occurs during the bright daytime makes the dark aspects work better. The remake explains too much and the lack of darkness isn't as important. Chris Nolan is an obviously talented director (see Memento), but, in this case, he is working from a lackluster script and he gets bogged down trying to do too much with his cast. And Pacino was coasting. He plays the tired cop too well. That's not to say it wasn't a good movie, but it definitely doesn't compare favorably with the original Norwegian film.

What reminded me of that was that we watched Last Orders tonight. That and Gosford Park basically had every single famous English actor currently working. This one had Michael Caine, Tom Courtenay, Bob Hoskins, David Hemmings, Ray Winstone, and Helen Mirren (also in Gosford Park, and Caligula, which I haven't seen, because I haven't found it in a video store in the uncut version). It was weird to see David Hemmings as a large man with huge eyebrows, one week after seeing him as the young, dashing Thomas in Blow-Up. I'd say it was weird to see Tom Courtenay again, but I'd only seen two movies he was in: Doctor Zhivago (which was so long I can't remember his character) and Leonard Part 6, of which I thankfully can't remember any. Bob Hoskins, Michael Caine, and Ray Winstone all made movies more recently, and the only major problem I had with Helen Mirren was that she didn't look 70 (the age of her character). That's obviously a backhanded compliment, because she looked her age, which was 55 or 56 when it was made. She was good, just I think it was weird that she had a 50 year old daughter in the film, because it didn't seem physically possible. The movie was excellent, and it makes me want to read Graham Swift's novel. I loved Waterland very much when I read it in 12th grade, and it made me want to go see the fens of England. Here's a hint: think of the flattest land you've ever seen, and then picture it ten times flatter, and you'd get some idea of the fens. There was also a terrible traffic jam when my mom and bro and I were there. We did stop off and see Ely (pronounced EE-lee) Cathedral, which stuck out like a sore thumb. Cambridge is also near there, but there was literally no hills, no nothing for miles around. I have a picture of myself on the side of the road, and I gave it to my English teacher to show her what the fens were like, and she put it up on the wall in the classroom. I doubt it's still up there, but that area was totally flat. Back to the movie: the skipping back and forth in time would be Tarantinoesque if it hadn't been done before, or if it weren't how Swift writes. Another little problem with the film was that they were speaking in heavy working class accents, which made it hard to understand, so we turned on the subtitles. Score another point for DVDs.

The stuff about Last Orders was already posted here, but I figured I'd just repost everything.

Caseus Archivelox: The Piano Teacher, Blow-Up, The Magnificent Ambersons, Happy Together, Fallen Angels, Kissing Jessica Stein, & Tape

2002-10-27 - 10:11 p.m.
I then went off to Griffith to watch The Piano Teacher. What the f--- is it with the French and pretentiousness films about sex? Baise Moi, Romance, Fat Girl, and The Piano Teacher. I've only seen Romance and The Piano Teacher, and neither were worth my time. Although now I can say that I've seen an Italian porn star's penis. That's not really something that I am proud of though. I just don't see the point in a movie about a sado-masochistic pianist who lives with her mother. And it didn't have an ending that made much sense. I don't see why the French make pretentious sex movies. And then they get praise or notoriety because of said stuff. I guess we Americans aren't completely immune, as we make a hell of a lot of porn each year and percentages say that some has to be pretentious. Hell, some softcore porn I've seen would fit into that category. As in, it tries to have some deep meaning, but it's really just an excuse to see silicone on screen. But at least most wasn't being raised to some lofty height and being suggested that it said something deep about the human condition. The movie was about Schubert and S&M, nothing more.

I went with Blow-Up and The Magnificent Ambersons. Both excellent movies. Blow-Up would've been better had Antonioni used the Velvet Underground as originally planned, because all I could think of when I saw the Yardbirds was how much cooler it would have been with the VU. Mime tennis is also bizarre. Magnificent Ambersons had my new reply when someone asks me what I want to do with my life: a yachtsman. That sounds like a fun job. Neither movie was particularly happy (I choose to ignore the ending added without Welles's blessing).

I checked the online catalog and went with two Wong Kar-Wai films: Happy Together and Fallen Angels. I started with Happy Together, and it's a very gay movie. Lots of shots of the two main characters in tighty whiteys. It is full of wonderfully Wong Kar-Wai touches: fast-mo, slo-mo, freeze frames in the middle of shots, changing grains, going from black and white to color (much better than in the early version of 13 Days I saw), handheld shots, shakycam, very good use of music, lots of overexposure and very bright shots. I was just thinking that the major problem I had with The Piano Teacher was the masochism. I'm not a masochist, at least not a physical one, and I don't like pain, so I just felt incredibly uncomfortable, and I didn't like when she couldn't suppress her gag reflex. I do, however, seem to pick women who are likely to cause me pain. That's not really relevant to anything though. It was just a great movie. Wong Kar-Wai really knows what he's doing, and Chris Doyle is a perfect complement to his skills. I just checked and he also cinematographer for Liberty Heights (a beautiful movie) and for the as-yet unreleased The Quiet American. I really want to see that.

After that, I watched Fallen Angels, originally to be the 3rd part of Chungking Express. The DVD video quality was much worse than for Happy Together, with lots of obvious grain. The gunfights are staged to be as outlandishly over-the-top as John Woo's, but the plot is much more affecting. And the scene where He falls in love with Charlie is one very cool scene. And it hurts all the more afterwards. I mean, it was such a sad and beautiful movie. So if you're wondering what makes me cry: Fallen Angels. That is just a great movie.

I then went to see Kissing Jessica Stein at Griffith. I guess it was good but my friends and I all saw parts of our families on screen, but we also saw almost every plot twist telegraphed. One reason is that we've seen too many movies, but more likely it's that the movie (with the exception of the lesbian angle and the occasionally unnecessary jump cuts and other weird editing and handheld camera choices) was a fairly run of the mill romantic comedy: two neurotic New Yorkers meet, have some immediate attraction, and then have a series of humorous misunderstandings leading to eventual relationship difficulties and an eventual happy ending for all concerned. The only reason this got so much press (mostly good) was that the two stars wrote it and instead of a male and female lead, it was two women, showing that lesbian chic (postmodernly referenced in the movie by the two boorish men before finally driving Jessica into Helena's arms showing beyond a reasonable doubt (as in beyond the clichéd bad date montage) that men are pigs and that's why many women are driven to lesbianism) is still popular. I'll check and see whether I've put my lesbian vs. gay theory here, but I haven't, so here's the short version: anal sex=dirty, oral sex=clean. Thus, gay men are dirty and lesbians are clean. That and the whole having sex with two women at once thing, but if it doesn't concern the man as a threat to his masculinity and male dominance to have a woman probably pleasuring the other woman more than he can, than they are either supremely gifted or supremely deluded. Anyway, that's part of my rant about gays and lesbians. Also, what was with the hardcore rap song when Jessica and Helena were going at it? That attempt to be edgy worked as well as the bickering gay couple (BGC). Although for different reasons: rap didn't fit the film at all, and the BGC is so clichéd that it has its own sitcom.

I saw he had Tape and wanted to see that more, so we watched the little DV film Linklater did while waiting on the long postproduction for Waking Life. Ethan Hawke was excellent, Robert Sean Leonard (whom I saw on Broadway with Billy Crudup in Arcadia, one of the best performances of a play I've ever seen) was also good, while Uma Thurman was the weak link, if mainly for the fact that her character is strangely distant. There were also a lot of shots of the soles of their shoes. It's not a good idea to drink, smoke pot, and snort cocaine, because it really messes with your judgment. And the DV looked very impressive, with only some problems tracking quick movements betraying the DV rather than film.

Caseus Archivelox: The Lion in Winter

2002-09-30 - 10:07 p.m.
I also watched The Lion in Winter this evening. It has so many, many, many good lines. And such a treat to watch it in letterboxed format. Sweet.

Henry II, King of England: The day those stout hearts band together is the day that pigs get wings.
Eleanor of Aquitaine: There'll be pork in the treetops come morning.

Prince John: Poor John. Who says poor John? Don't everybody sob at once! My God, if I went up in flames there's not a living soul who'd pee on me to put the fire out!
Prince Richard: Let's strike a flint and see.

Let's see Akiva "I hate to disappoint you but my rubber lips are immune to your charms" Goldsman write lines like that.

Caseus Archivelox: Pride and Prejudice

2002-09-29 - 10:51 p.m.
I watched Pride and Prejudice (Editor's note: 1940 version) this afternoon, and was surprised with how much I liked it, especially considering how much I generally despise movies that try to condense books into two hour long movies. However, this was great, although not as good as the 90s miniseries with Jennifer Ehle and Colin Firth (quite simply one of my favorite actors currently working), it was very good, not the least because of the acting of one of the greatest actors of all time, Laurence Olivier. Weird bit of trivia about the movie: screenplay partially by Aldous Huxley. And one line in the movie references the battle of Waterloo, which didn't take place until two years after the book was written. That is, not one, but two weird.

Caseus Archivelox: Anatomy & Maybe Baby

2002-09-21 - 11:44 p.m.
I also watched Anatomy this morning, and have I told anyone that Franka Potente is my favorite German actress since Marlene Dietrich? Well, she is. The movie was really disturbing, because of the large amount of partially dissected bodies on display. Then again, it was a sort of by-the-book slasher film. Still, it was a good by-the-book slasher film, so I recommend it to anyone who likes reading, slasher films, or anatomy.

This evening, we watched Maybe Baby. And I have to say that I fully disagree with what most people on the IMDB say, as it was a very funny movie about a completely inappropriate topic. Not a movie about an inappropriate topic. Rowan Atkinson was hilarious, but when he started to brandish the gynecological instruments, all I could think of was Jeremy Irons doing the same thing in Dead Ringers. Which is sooooo not what you want to think of in a comedy. But it was funny, and I recommend it to anyone who can handle a British comedy about a couple who can't conceive a baby.

Caseus Archivelox: About Adam

2002-09-20 - 10:44 p.m.
I watched About Adam tonight. Kate Hudson wasn't too good. Frances O'Connor was the girl I would have gone for. Stu Townsend not only can't spell Townshend, he picked Kate Hudson over Frances O'Connor. Which is bad. Who wouldn't go after some grad student who's writing a dissertation that probably has very little interest? The movie itself wasn't too bad, nothing too good, but enjoyable, I guess. Movie Addition was About Adam = Belle Epoque + Pulp Fiction, set in The Snapper's Dublin. Which proves that a movie can be much less than the sum of its parts. There was a somewhat short riff on Victorianism and Vampirism, something I touched on somewhat in my Lesbian Vampire paper. I appreciated that.

Caseus Archivelox: CQ

2002-09-15 - 5:26 p.m.
I watched CQ this morning, and I really liked it. Made me want to see Danger: Diabolik. However, since I had seen Barbarella, I was fine on the references to that. Jason Schwartzmann was hilarious, Élodie Bouchez was hot, Angela Lindvall was perfectly cast, and the movie-within-the-movie hit the right notes. And it had Billy f---in Zane. I've expressed my admiration for him before, but he was perfect in this. Billy Zane is the ultimate in self-mocking movie stars. I can't remember the last serious movie I saw him in. I guess it would be Titanic, but he was so over-the-top evil that I consider that another comedic role. Titanic sucked. Jeremy Davies wasn't too bad, but his original last name is Boring. He should have kept it. It would add a whole new level to the reviews of his movies: "Twister boring, not Boring". All in all, a fun light film, with a bunch of neat in-jokes. I do recommend watching Barbarella first though. As it makes Codename: Dragonfly more funny than it would be otherwise. Also a good selection of lesser known French New-Wave films would also probably help. Then the other film becomes more funny.

Caseus Archivelox: 24 Hour Party People & Romance

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Caseus Archivelox: Lady in the Lake

2002-09-08 - 11:28 p.m.
Then I watched Lady in the Lake. The first movie done almost entirely in first person. Sort of good, but mainly good dialogue, but the first person thing was sort of crappy. It's neat to see though, because it makes me not want to do that if I ever make a movie. Too disconcerting, and the mirror tricks and "hidden" cuts were sort of disconcerting. From the comment on the front of the IMDB page on the movie: "The lessons I learned from this movie were 1) Only men can handle guns. 2) Having four thumbs is bad. 3) Never, ever tell anyone the time. 4) If you try hard enough, you can drink whiskey through your eyes." Good to know that someone else has a good sense of humor. Montgomery also does a fairly bad Bogart impression throughout the movie, but that's sort of to be expected since it was made so close to The Big Sleep.

Caseus Archivelox: The Blue Dahlia

2002-09-03 - 9:03 p.m.
I taped The Blue Dahlia this afternoon, and I have to say that while I generally prefer darker hair, I'm certainly willing to make an exception for someone who looks like Veronica Lake. Or Grace Kelly. The Blue Dahlia is a Raymond Chandler penned film. So you know it's a twisty story. Too bad it's under the Hays Code. I want my twisty with a touch of trash. However, the dialogue is top-notch.
Alan Ladd: You oughta have more sense than to take chances with strangers like this.
Veronica Lake: It's funny, but practically all the people I know were strangers when I met them.
Really, the ability to write good hard-boiled dialogue and snappy witticisms has gone way downhill since the 40s.

Caseus Archivelox: Monster's Ball

2002-08-26 - 9:07 p.m.
I saw a movie that wasn't particularly good tonight. In fact, you might say that it sucked monster's balls. Well, I certainly would. Long, boring, with no characters I cared for. And the sex scene was typical overcutting, out-of or soft-focus crap. If you want an impressive sex scene, watch Bound, the Wachowski brothers' first directorial effort, with an incredible one-shot scene. Anyone can have too much cutting, it takes talent to do an impressive single take. But Billy Bob still sucks, Puff Daddy (oh no, he's going to come and find me and kill me because I used Puff Daddy) can act like I can hammer a six-inch spike through a board with my penis. Not right now, and it's not looking like it's going to happen anytime soon.

Caseus Archivelox: The Road Home

2002-08-11 - 12:00 a.m.
This evening I watched The Road Home directed by Zhang Yimou and starring Zhang Ziyi. Absolutely stunning. And the movie wasn't half bad either. Not a 10 because of having a very thinly stretched plot. At under 90 minutes it shouldn't feel like over two hours, but it did. There was very little action, and there are only so many times I can see Zhang Ziyi run through fields in pig tails. I can't believe I just typed that sentence. I mean, Zhang Ziyi. Pigtails. What the hell was I thinking? Oh well... Maybe it's just bitterness that I've never been the reason for anyone to almost kill themselves trying to see me because I've been taken away for some "political" reason. Maybe.

Caseus Archivelox: The Business of Strangers

2002-08-08 - 10:15 p.m.
I watched The Business of Strangers. Sort of like In the Company of Men after estrogen therapy. I figured out the "plot twists" right after they were set up. Not that they were that hard to figure out. Maybe if I hadn't seen In the Company of Men. One thing that I don't like is showing "porn" in movies that are not porn. It means that it just looks funny (because no porn movie just shows thrusting with no nudity) and is more aural than visual (which is funnier without the visual at all). I fully support the right of people to show more, but I think half-assed porn is silly. Unless it's like Log Jammin' in The Big Lebowski, where they just showed the pre-nudity part of the scene. And then had one of the funniest lines of the movie. "You can imagine where it goes from here." "He fixes the cable?" I need to see that movie again. Damn, that is probably the funniest Coen Brothers movie. I almost ordered a White Russian at the last bar I went to, but I realized I probably wouldn't like it much.

Caseus Archivelox: Signs

2002-08-04 - 11:14 p.m.
I saw (the) Signs. I can't say that I liked The Sixth Sense much, but that may be overhyping. Signs was interesting though. I love alien films, and this was an intelligent alien film. Not perfect, as part of the point of the movie was faith vs. coincidence, and I don't like movies like that much, but I liked the aliens. A little reminiscent of Night of the Living Dead, but with a little more cinematic flair, while NOTLD gets by purely on being perfect in every way. Anyone who has seen both will understand why I link the two, although people who hadn't seen NOTLD would probably need to just realize that people sitting around in a farmhouse waiting for things outside to get them while they watch things on TV happens in both movies.

Another thing is that watching it, I keep wishing that River Phoenix didn't die. He left us with the non-talented, hair-lipped Phoenix. Who I don't like. And he didn't look comfortable swinging that bat. Nor did he look like he could hit a ball 507 feet. And there were other problems with the movie (most of which were with the ending, which I don't want to spoil for anyone), but it was well done, and built tension well, which is why I liked it.

Editor's note: I have since seen Signs again, and it's really not very good.

Caseus Archivelox: Shiri & Donnie Darko

2002-07-30 - 10:52 p.m.
Ultra violent, somewhat convoluted plot, only two particularly bad subtitles, neither of which I can recall at this time. And of course, they stop the bomb with .05 seconds left. Sure. It's so easy to time it that way. Also, the movie was very easy to figure out where it was going and all. The convoluted plot was only somewhat explained, because I couldn't figure out how it was going to cause a war. Anyway, you don't watch the movie for the plot. It had surprisingly poor action choreography, and it was frequently difficult to figure out what was going on in the myriad shoot-outs. Too much American John Woo, not enough Hong Kong John Woo. And not enough two fisted gunplay, and way too much reloading. I want my gunfights fast, furious, and full barreled furious fast firing. Yes...

That's not to say I didn't like the movie, but it just wasn't as good as the hype. And believe me, the movie was overhyped. Not as much as Titanic which sucked behind its lots of money, Shiri was just eh.

2002-07-31 - 10:53 p.m.
You know what else is creepy? Donnie Darko. And you know what else? It was really good. Really good. A little too creepy to get a 10, but a 9 from me. Thought provoking, and it had one of my favorite songs in it, used perfectly. Love Will Tear Us Apart needs to get more respect for the awesomeness that it has.

The movie itself was just lots of stuff in it. I can't even figure some of it out right now, because my mind is still spinning. Good soundtrack, and I've always been a big fan of people going around in bunny costumes, but this may be too weird for that to continue. Weird similarities between the movie and The Day When People Flew Planes into Buildings. Why is it that I can't even look at dates in September without thinking, "That was two days before the 11th." Even though it was 1996 or something like that. Argh.

Jena Malone (the g-i-r-l-fren, as Jonathan Richman would speak-sing) was good in it, as was Gyllenhaal, but Malone gets more props because she was on the best cop show of all time: Homicide. Wow that was such a good show. Puts most of what is on TV now to shame. And would not be out of place on HBO Sunday Nights. Which is saying a lot, because that's where the good shows are now, not Friday nights on NBC where no one watches it, even if it is better than everything else on NBC except for Seinfeld. Damn you NBC, damn you all to hell.

Caseus Archivelox: Here Comes Mr. Jordan, Killer's Kiss, The Pirates of Penzance, & Jurassic Park III

2002-07-06 - 12:51 a.m.
Movies just were better in the 40s. Or maybe they're just better because they aren't the crap of today, or other remakes (EDIT: it's because I hadn't seen enough terrible movies of the time). Here Comes Mr. Jordan was a really good movie, and it had enough surprises to make it much better than I was expecting. That crappy remake with Warren Beatty (Heaven Can Wait (not to be confused with the excellent Gene Tierney movie of '43, also called Heaven Can Wait)) can't hold a candle to it, and I haven't seen Down to Earth (with Chris Rock (not to be confused with Here Comes Mr. Jordan's sequel (which I haven't seen) also called Down to Earth, with Rita Heyworth)).

Claude Rains is one of the best actors of all time, and I don't think I've seen a movie with him in it that I didn't really like (except for The Wolfman, which I already said was really disappointing, as it stuck to the '30s horror framework too much, without adding anything except for the voyeurism). But Casablanca, Lawrence of Arabia, Notorious, Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, The Invisible Man, The Adventures of Robin Hood (the excellent version with Rains, Olivia De Havilland, and of course, Errol Flynn): all excellent movies.

"Flynn's offscreen life was, incredibly, even more colorful than his movies. An unabashed hedonist and insatiable womanizer, he was notorious for his nonstop drinking, wenching, and general highspirited bacchanalia. In 1942, at the height of his popularity, he was charged with (but later acquitted of) statutory rape." He is also the reason for the line "In Like Flynn", referenced in the sequel (not as good as the original, but still funny) to my favorite spy spoof of all time (Our Man Flint), In Like Flint.

2002-07-08 - 10:59 p.m.
I watched Killer's Kiss and The Pirates of Penzance. Killer's Kiss was Kubrick's second feature film, and at only 67 minutes long, that's debatable. However, it was really good. Nothing compared to his later movies, but an enjoyable film noir anyway. The Pirates of Penzance was one of those movies that I had been seeing in the library for a while and I thought I should watch. It was a v. v. silly musical, but that's to be expected from a Gilbert & Sullivan musical. I'm still more familiar with most of H.M.S. Pinafore, even though I just saw The Pirates of Penzance, and only know of H.M.S. Pinafore from The Simpsons. That's still how I'm most familiar with G&S. Even though my grandparents love them. I did like the songs where they had to sing very quickly. Because they all got very red faced. I think that I really need to stop referencing everything to the Simpsons, because the only song I recognized from TPOP was the Major General song (I am the very model of the modern major general) which Barney sang when doing acrobatics when Homer and Barney were trying to go into space (Woohoo! Default! The two sweetest words in the English language!). Anyway, that's weird. The movie had Kevin Kline, who was very good, and Linda Ronstadt, and when I saw her, all I could think of was her singing the Plow King jingle in Spanish. It also had Angela Lansbury. I once said, when asked by one of my friends what my ideal woman was like, "Angela Lansbury". Immediately. This wasn't something where I tried to find some old woman and it took me a while. This was immediate. I think it's more for her role in Bedknobs and Broomsticks than for Murder She Wrote. Or maybe for The Manchurian Candidate, but that one not as much as she's an evil Communist mother. I don't think she was ever on the Simpsons. Again, too much Simpsons. Although that's impossible, unless it's from the last few seasons. Then it's quite likely to be too much. I think that The Simpsons early references in two of the best episodes (Deep Space Homer and Cape Feare) to Gilbert and Sullivan are somewhat weird, but they do show why I love the show: they're actually referencing more obscure things than I do. Which is good.

2002-07-09 - 11:03 p.m.
I also watched Jurassic Park III. The movie just had no reason to exist. It wasn't bad, but it was boring.