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29 March 2007
Movies! What were the last 3 movies you watched? Not at the theater, just the last 3...
Mine were
A Touch of Evil
O Brother Where Art Thou
Kramer vs Kramer
A Touch of Evil is one of the few noirs that I hadn't seen and it had been sitting around the Tivo for months. Finally got around to watching it. Excellent.
O Brother Where art thou, for about the 10th time, just because tivo recorded it for us. Them sirens loved him up and turned him into a horny toad. Awesome.
Kramer vs Kramer. More tivo clearing. It was OK. I guess I was over-prepped because of all the oscars it won.
Tideland - well, the first half anyway, then the DVD fucked up, which was fine with me. Too depressing. Scotland, PA - for like the 17th time. I LOVE this movie so much. Party Monster - sucked. Sucked, sucked, sucked so very, very hard.
Turista (didn't have very many special features)
The Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Beginning (had too many special features)
Tenacious D in: The Pick of Destiny (didn't bother looking through any special features)
Marie Antoinette (better than people said, Ebert got it pretty well, but via thought it dragged)
Invincible (Marky Mark plays football)
Let's Go To Prison (awful, thank god it was free)
Sins of the Fleshapoids: ultra-low budget and deliberately campy, but a surprisingly well shot film. One interesting touch: it's a silent with voiceover narration, but onscreen dialogue is handled with word balloons that look like they were drawn onto the film.
Red Desert: Antonioni's first color feature. Kind of uneven: there are a number of very talky scenes which he just doesn't handle well (this was a big problem with La Notte too). Monica Vitti was great, though Richard Harris was surprisingly wooden (perhaps because he was dubbed). Also I was watching this on a library's crappy old VHS tape, so the "vibrant, saturated color" was washed out and blurry.
Mahanagar (The Big City): Satyajit Ray film about a Bengali woman in the 1960s who has to go to work when her family gets into financial difficulties. More interesting as a document of the India of its time than a film in and of itself, though still the work of a master.
I have been rather movie-free lately... I do love A Touch of Evil though.
I think mine were Andromeda Strain, Pan's Labyrinth, and probably something like Bring It On or Ten Things I Hate About You or one of the other teen movies that I can never resist when it's on cable. At least, I know that I've seen both those movies again recently.
Shallow Grave. Watched it on DVD for the first time in about 10 years; it's still very darkly appealing (and that young scamp, Ewen McGregor, is just so fucking adorable I can barely stand it!), but you could drive a truck through some of the plot holes.
Inside Man. Saw it on DVD, mainly to revel in the undisputed awesomeness that is Clive Owen. Moderately good Spike Lee outing, though flawed (a flinty and unappealing Jodie Foster as an undefined but evidently all-powerful mover and shaker, for one).
Zodiac and Children of Men, in the theatre (saw on the same weekend). A pair of very dark, very fine films that have -- of course! -- been largely overlooked by moviegoing audiences.
Next up on DVD: The Matador (speaking of criminally overlooked films), which was one of my favorite movies of 2005: great script, hands-down fucking BRILLIANT performance from Pierce Brosnan, and The Jam's "Town Called Malice" during the opening credits. What's not to love?
Still would love to see either Pan's Labyrinth or Lives of Others while they're still in the theatre.
Bring It On is one of the best movies ever. Really. If it's on, I'm watching it. (And actually, Ten Things I Hate About You is pretty good, too. My other guilty pleasure is Center Stage, but that's not really good at all, and I no longer get whatever channel used to show it every weekend. Which makes me sad.)
Bride & Prejudice: it made me flinchy, it was so not my thing. Needs more dancing and music in a language i don't understand. The Virgin Suicides: it was on at 3am and i was awake. i didn't see the end. Read the book a long time ago. Serenity: it's on all the time. i just leave it on when it's on. It's like a safety buffer against neighbor noise.
Next three: The Departed, Millenium Actress and The Science of Sleep, because they are sitting here.
U-Carmen
Office Tigers
Color Me Kubrick--which should have gotten more into the flesh of the guy than it did.
There was a listing for an Anna Magnani film at Columbia tonight but if I'm going to watch something on DVD, I'd rather it be in my own place, so that I don't have to put up with the rudeness of others.
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