The last movie I watched was...

[tarzapam]

i hoped u watched that one episode of the sarah silverman program he was in...well did u???

[tvmanismadformad]

I did see that episode. I kept saying "what the hell is he doing on this show?" before I realized that this was probably done before he really hit it big with Hangover. I didn't think that was very funny, but then again I don't think the show or Sarah Silverman were that funny. I don't really like all that random comedy type stuff but I will say that unllike a lot of youtube accounts which is just random stuff trying too hard to be funny, her show did have a few good funny moments per episode, but not enough to make me watch on a frequent basis.

[tarzapam]

I thought it was funny,but I guess it's not everyones thing

[NemesisDesign]

Last night I saw Come and See, a Russian film about the goings on between the Belarussian SSR and the Nazi occupation. It was really weird but incredibly moving. Most of it plays out like a psychological art film, lots of odd pacing, staring into the camera, etc, really odd and haunting audio, etc. The atrocities that went on were really devastating near the end and the whole thing ended up being a pretty searing indictment on human cruelty. Worth watching.

I also saw In the Line of Fire. In it, Clint Eastwood is secret service agent trying to prevent this psychopath, played by John Malkovich, from assassinating the president. I'm kind of baffled at how this film got nominated for 3 Academy Awards. Malkovich was fun to watch but overall the whole thing was pretty cheesy, run of the mill, and not really worth watching.

[tarzapam]

I just watched "triangle" bit of a trippy movie,good luck keeping up with the twists too.

[NemesisDesign]

Last weekend I saw Food Inc. I enjoyed it for the most part. It shows the serious problems we have with sustainability and sanitation in the food industry in this country. I went in thinking it was going to be heavily slanted against eating meat but that really wasn't the case. Overall, its pretty eye opening and worth watching.

I also watched Michael Moore's Capitalism, A Love Story. While he had several surprising points, this was a Moore film like several other which seems to point out a problem with no readily apparent, practical solution. He also has a tendency to go on counter-productive tangents to try to be cute. In this one, he goes around to the largest banks in the country that took the bail out money with a big bag that has a $ on it and says he's going to make a citizen's arrest of their board and to put the billions they took in the bag. Derp. Didn't need to see 10-15 minutes of that.

Last night I saw The Town. All in all a pretty decent film. Thankfully, John Hamm's character was appropriately badass so as not to ruin his image as Don Draper. This film had a pretty rarely seen portrayal of the FBI. Most of the time in films they are the stone-faced, sunglass-wearing g men. In The Town, Hamm and his fellow agents are pretty ruthless to the point of being genuinely frightening for the main character. You could argue that the main romantic plot arch was a bit overdone and some may argue it's even a bit misogynistic. I could see why someone would make that argument but I also don't care so meh.

[NemesisDesign]

Saw a bunch of seemingly random movies recently:

True Grit - Fantastic writing and characters. I found this to be one of the funnier Coen Brother movies recently, but at the same time it had just enough seriousness and "grit" to it to make me uneasy about labeling it a comedy. I thankfully went into it not knowing the plot. The gist is that a young girl tags along with a US martial to bring to justice the man who kills her father. One would think the whole kid angle would get tiresome quickly but the Coen brothers deftly managed her character to be compelling with none of the annoying-precocious-kid drawbacks. Watch it.

Wall Street (the original) - Silly 80s trash. I suspect Wall Street guys looked at this movie like how I look at computer/hacker movies: annoyance at all the hand-wavy nonsense. Not good.

Glengarry Glen Ross - Did a decent enough job at developing sleazy salespeople characters but it wasn't really a great movie. Sorry, David Mamet. Summary: a bunch of real estate agents yell "fuck you" at eachother for an hour and a half.

Pandorum - Something goes wrong in a hyper-sleep chamber as some giant spaceship takes the remaining DNA from a ruined earth to some other planet for colonization. People start going crazy. Chock-full of "loud noises" cheap scares. It sorta reminded me of Sunshine if Sunshine were a much worse movie.

The Chaser - Korean movie about a pimp who accidentally discovers that serial killer is murdering random women in this small town. The movie looked nice but the pacing was weird, it went on a bit too long and like most Korean movies, it will probably depress the shit out of you when you're done.

The Good, The Bad, The Weird - It's a Kim-Chi Western (I'm coining that phrase, don't copy me) set in Manchuria. It's a pretty slick and fun reinterpretation of The Good, The Bad and The Ugly with some really excellent gunplay and a really cool aesthatic. Definitely worth watching.

Dogville - I might be jumping the gun a tad but this movie might have just become one of my favorites in recent years. The entire (nearly 3-hour) film takes place on this almost bare set, wth floor plans, street names, etc etched out on the ground (but the characters don't acknowledge it). The story involves a small town trying to protect Nicole Kidman's character who is on the run from the Mafia. The movie gets really dark about halfway in. The storytelling more than makes up for any misgivings you may have about the gimmicky set design. Evidently a bunch of people got mad when this came out in Cannes in 2003 because they felt like it was Anti-American. Good to see that even at a forward-thinking film festival, there are still asshole Americans who want to discredit a really great film when they feel their country's moral righteousness is being impugned. Feh.

[tvmanismadformad]

Originally Posted by NemesisDesign

True Grit - Fantastic writing and characters. I found this to be one of the funnier Coen Brother movies recently, but at the same time it had just enough seriousness and "grit" to it to make me uneasy about labeling it a comedy. I thankfully went into it not knowing the plot. The gist is that a young girl tags along with a US martial to bring to justice the man who kills her father. One would think the whole kid angle would get tiresome quickly but the Coen brothers deftly managed her character to be compelling with none of the annoying-precocious-kid drawbacks. Watch it.

I've seen a good amount of True Grit and I do agree that I did like both the writing and the characters. Jeff Bridges really does a good job (as always) playing the gruff Martial and Hailee Steinfeld gives a great first performance that could definitely be a contender come Oscar season (and by contender I mean she will get the nom because this is a great first performance but she won't win because the Academy will think she's just too young). What I did find annoying is that I noticed at least twice by my count (I haven't seen the full movie yet, just a little over half the scenes) she noted that she doesn't do things because she's 14. It just doesn't really fit her character that she's so strong in spirit but still uses this as an excuse. Maybe I'll say more about the movie when I see it in full on Wednesday.

[Sam55]

Mission Impossible 6