Flipside Movie Emporium

[Michael Scrutchin]

This is my catch-up post. Selected viewings since November 1:

Very Good/Great

[Michael Scrutchin]

Oh, and has anyone else here seen A Tale of Two Sisters? Thoughts?
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Michael Scrutchin
Flipside Movie Emporium
www.flipsidearchive.com

[beltmann]

[the night watchman]

[beltmann]

12/20 ? 12/26/04

A Very Long Engagement (Jeunet, France 2004)

The Aviator (Scorsese, USA 2004)

Both pictures are most notable for their visual invention, but I much preferred The Aviator, which I think is Scorsese?s strongest, most accomplished entertainment since Goodfellas. It?s a full-bodied work, brimming with great performances and an amusing understanding of Hollywood history. (I especially dug how each era in Hughes? life is shot using the same color ?stock? that would have been in vogue at each particular time.) Jeunet offers some gripping visions of war, but overall I found the central investigation less than compelling and the emotional payoff less than satisfying.

Eric
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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]

[beltmann]

[juhsstin]

I saw Darkness over the weekend... don't even waste your time with that one.
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Who let the dogs out?

[the night watchman]

[Danny Baldwin]

12/21 - 12/27



In preferential order.

Gremlins (Dante, 1984)

A Christmas Story (Clark, 1983)

The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou (Anderson, 2004)

Flight of the Phoenix (Moore, 2004)

Closer (Nichols, 2004)

Gremlins 2 (Dante, 1990)

Anacondas (Little, 2004)

Yu-Gi-Oh: The Movie (Tsuji, 2004)

Quite a few Christmas movies this week; I felt like getting in the mood for the holiday, being the scrooge I am. Gremlins was one of the most hysterical movies I've seen in quite some time, while its sequel leaves much to be desired. A Christmas Story certainly isn't the great movie that everybody makes it out to be, but it's sweet, I guess.

Wes Anderson's The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou feels as though it was made from a story-board, with underdeveloped ideas and a bunch of unecessary filler, but I found its rediculous, deadpan style to be amusing, not to mention that the entire cast is a hoot.

Closer is the only movie I disliked that's really worth getting riled up about. It represents an interesting scenario--with the failure of one of its parts comes the breakdown of the entire movie. Just as a perfect car won't accelerate without gas, Nichols' film stalls because of the awful dialogue. Sure, it has a rat-tat-tat ring to it, as Beltmann mentioned, but I can't help but feel that it is so stupid. No matter how talented the actors are, no matter how provocative the director's style is, the movie is laughable because it sacrifices emotion for a clever ring. It's the kind of thing that would work in a book, where the entire story can be imagined, but when actual people are reciting the lines, it feels far too contrived to even become involed in. I didn't want to understand the characters, not because their behavior was so dispicable, but because the dumbness of the movie made any attention I wanted to direct towards it unworthy. Natalie Portman and Jude Law have confirmed that they can act, but for what?
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Danny Baldwin

View My Reviews

[Jim Harper]

[Jim Harper]

Received a stack of DVDs for Crhistmas, and I've been slowing plowing through them. Here's the lineup so far:

25/12/04

The Devil Rides Out (dir. Terence Fisher, 1968)

The Nameless (dir. Jaume Balaguero, 1999)

The House That Dripped Blood (dir. Peter Duffell, 1970)

26/12/04

Blood From the Mummy?s Tomb (dir. Seth Holt, 1971)

The Toolbox Murders (dir. Tobe Hooper, 2003)

27/12/04

Dr. Who and the Daleks (dir. Gordon Flemyng, 1965)

Inseminoid (dir. Norman J Warren, 1981)

Godsend (dir. Nick Hamm, 2004)

28/12/04

The Face of Fu Manchu (dir. Don Sharp, 1965)

The big surprise was The Toolbox Murders. A dumb slasher movie to be sure, but easily the best thing Hooper has done in twenty years. Surprisingly entertaining.

The Devil Rides Out and Blood From the Mummy's Tomb are old favourites and a couple of Hammer's best later-period films.

The Nameless annoyed the crap out of me. I was really looking forward to it in the hope of finding some new talented young horror director, but it's pretty much a garbled piece of crap. It looks great, but I'd have a hard time telling you what it's actually about.

[Jim Harper]

29/12/04

The Brides of Fu Manchu (dir. Don Sharp, 1966)

Open Water (dir. Chris Kentis, 2004)*

Cypher (dir. Vincenzo Natali, 2002)*

Hands of the Ripper (dir. Peter Sasdy, 1971)*

30/12/04

Chronicles of Riddick (dir. David Twohy, 2004)*

31/12/04

I, Robot (dir. Alex Proyas, 2004)*

Night of the Big Heat (dir. Terence Fisher, 1967)*

01/01/05

Ju-rei: The Uncanny (dir. Koji Shiraishi, 2004)*

The Time Machine (dir. George Pal, 1960)*

Garfield (dir. Peter Hewitt, 2004)*

Lust For A Vampire (dir. Jimmy Sangster, 1971)*

The Beast Must Die (dir. Paul Annett, 1974)

Highlights this week were Open Water, Cypher and Chronicles of Riddick. I thought it was a little misleading to bill Open Water as a horror film, but the film itself was pretty good with a surprisingly downbeat ending. Cypher was a pleasant surprise, especially given that I was in two minds whether to watch it. I hope the rest of Natali's work lives up to the standards of this and Cube.

Miserable failures: Ju-rei, a deeply uninspiring Juon ripoff with no redeeming features and Lust For A Vampire, one of the worst Hammer films I've seen in ages, which is unfortunate, because it came in a set with Scars of Dracula and Horror of Frankenstein, two other deeply disappointing offerings from Hammer.

Honorable mention: Night of the Big Heat, which wasn't quite as brilliant as the Quatermass films, but an entertaining slice of late-period British sci-fi nonetheless.

[the night watchman]

[beltmann]

[moved to other thread]
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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