Flipside Movie Emporium

[beltmann]

Happy New Year, fellow Flipsiders!

I hope the first movie I see in 2007 is Old Joy, Deliver Us From Evil, or Pan's Labryinth. But I'd settle for Letters From Iwo Jima or even Dreamgirls.
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"When I was in Barcelona they showed pornography on regular television. I'm assuming it's the same way in Mexico since they also speak Spanish." - IMDb user comment

[Danny Baldwin]

Let's hope that this thread becomes as active as it once was, in the coming year.

Once I finish up the college application frenzy that has been driving me wild for the past few weeks, I think I'll finally find the time to post more on here, hopefully as much as I used to.

In the next month, I'm most excited for Pan's Labyrinth and Letters from Iwo Jima; I'm also interested in catching up with The Good Shepherd, The Painted Veil, The Curse of the Golden Flower, The Good German, Apocalypto, and Happy Feet.

Down the line in 2007, the only picture yet to really spur my interest is There Will Be Blood.
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Danny Baldwin

View My Reviews

[Michael Scrutchin]

I'm really, truly gonna try to keep up with this thread this year.

I haven't been to a movie theater in ages, but this month I'll try to make it out to see Pan's Labyrinth at least. Aside from wider releases of late-'06 awards pics, January and February looks like a wasteland of throwaways, as usual, but I'm interested in Black Snake Moan. That's about it. Later 2007 releases I'm looking forward to: Rodriguez/Tarantino's Grindhouse, Wong Kar-Wai's My Blueberry Nights, Michael Haneke's remake of Funny Games, and, of course, Paul Thomas Anderson's There Will Be Blood.
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Michael Scrutchin
Flipside Movie Emporium
www.flipsidearchive.com

[Danny Baldwin]

12/28/06 - 1/6/2007

Children of Men (Cuaron, 2006)

Apocalypto (Gibson, 2006)

Pepi, Luci, Bom (Almodovar, 1980)

Children of Men is a political masterwork from Alfonso Cuaron, not only because of its grand ability to parallel of the current international climate--the governmental attitudes toward Islamic-immigrant rioting in France and the fearful humanity lying underneath the rubble in insurgent-controlled Iraq sprang instantly to my mind as I watched--but because of its ability to understand the complexities and consequences of globalism through a basic understanding of human-life. Truly exceptional.

Apocalyto is a good, old-fashioned chase movie from Mel Gibson. It's thrilling in the moment, but other than the expertly staged action, I'm not sure it left much of an impression on me. (As a side note, was anyone else bothered by the very DV-look of the framing? It seems as though Gibson was going for a documentary-like-look, but I don't think it paid off. I'm sure it was accentuated by the fact that I saw the film in Digital Projection, but I saw parts on 35mm when our theatre had it and they seemed equally out-of-place.)

I toyed with writing about Pedro Almodovar for my NYU Film Studies admissions essay--in fact, at the last hour, I'm still kind of toying with it--and hence the viewing of his first film: Pepi, Luci, Bom. Almodovar's subject-matter really hasn't changed much over the years, but his tone and ability to conceptualize a picture's thematic resonance has matured significantly. Reading articles on the film, the general consensus is that it's merely his John Waters-esque celebration of what was newfound democracy in Spain at the time. I tend to agree, but when was John Waters ever an honorable comparison? I suppose it's an all right representation of la vida Madrilena, but cheap trickery ensues all around. The film's staunches opponets call it a crude abuse of a 16mm camera, and that's fairly accurate. Not so much because I despise the cinematography, like most--I actually think some of the rolling shots brilliantly resemble an early Truffaut--but more because what's onscreen is pretty much crap.
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Danny Baldwin

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[Mark Dujsik]

1/1 - 1/7

Arthur and the Invisibles (Besson, 2006)

Half Nelson (Fleck, 2006)

Notes on a Scandal (Eyre, 2006)

Rocky Balboa (Stallone, 2006)

Venus (Michell, 2006)

Some good stuff here. I had already seen Rocky and Notes, and they both hold up again. Notes is a fun piece of lurid melodrama, and Venus is a bit creepy and sad with a fine performance from O'Toole. Half Nelson's script is a tad scattershot. That might be the point, but it's running from points A to B to C to X with its central character don't quite flesh him out. Thankfully, Ryan Gosling is great in the role.

As for Arthur, it's aimed at kids, and the adults suffer for it. The character design is quite detailed, but the animation itself feels a little shaky.
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"Film lovers are sick people."

--Francois Truffaut

10 Best Films of 2006

Mark Reviews Movies

[Mark Dujsik]

[Mark Dujsik]

[mfritschel]

Manerlay (Von Trier, 2005)

A Scanner Darkly (Linklater, 2006)

Both movies seemed to aim for far loftier goals then they ever really accomplished. While Manderlay tries to paint America's view of racism, Von Trier really aims a little to far to the negative and condescending. Although this view is refreshing and worthwhile to view and interpret along with its non-traditional set-up on stage, it seems a little to skewed to really make much of an impact.

Along the same lines A Scanner Darkly played too much into the weirdness of drug addiction and its afffects as Fear and Lothing in Las Vegas, and while it aims to make more of a point then Fear and Lothing did I really couldn't get over this aspect of it.

[Danny Baldwin]

[Danny Baldwin]

[Danny Baldwin]

[Mark Dujsik]

[xAndyx]

I justed watched all 5 Rocky movcies for 9 hours straight. My brain is mush...but im pumped to see the new one, however bad it may be.
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One day you will look behind you and you will see we three, and on that day, you will repent, and we will send you to whatever god you wish.

-The Boondock Saints

[juhsstin]

[Michael Scrutchin]

01.01.2007 - 01.07.2007

The shorts from disc 1 of Kino's Avant-Garde: Experimental Cinema of the 1920s and '30s: