Movie Log, 2007

Submitted by lukeprog on Tue, 01/02/2007 - 13:49
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  1. [No] Arctic Tale (2007, Adam Ravetch)
  2. [Really Liked] No Country for Old Men (2007, Joel Coen)
  3. [Loved] Animals Are Beautiful People (1974, Jamie Uys) Hilarious and wonderful wildlife documentary.
  4. [Really Liked] Atonement (2007, Joe Wright)
  5. [Loved] To Be and to Have (2002, Nicolas Philibert) Best documentary I've seen in quite a while.
  6. [Loved] Gone Baby Gone (2007, Ben Affleck)
  7. [Liked] Before the Devil Knows You're Dead (2007, Sidney Lumet)
  8. [Liked] 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days (2007, Cristian Mungiu)
  9. [Loved] Life in the Undergrowth (2005, David Attenborough) Wow! Attenborough's best yet!
  10. [No] The Bourne Ultimatum (2007, Paul Greengrass)
  11. [Loved] I'm Not There (2007, Todd Haynes)
  12. [Liked] Paprika (2006, Satoshi Kon)
  13. [Loved] Brand Upon the Brain! (2006, Guy Maddin)
  14. [Really Liked] The Bothersome Man (2006, Jens Lien)
  15. [Meh] The Wild Blue Yonder (2005, Werner Herzog) About some aliens from the Andromeda galaxy. One introdces us: "You know, our great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great grandfathers were fine scientists, but the journey was long and boring and when we got here, hundreds of hundreds and hundreds and hundreda and hundreds of years later, those of us who arrived here just... sucked."
  16. [Liked] Still Life (2006, Zhang Ke Jia)
  17. [Meh] Coeurs (2006, Alain Resnais)
  18. [Loved] Once (2006, John Carney) A musical remake of Before Sunrise/Before Sunset. And I mean that in a good way.
  19. [Liked] Dark Blue Almost Black (2006, Daniel Sánchez Arévalo)
  20. [Liked] King Lines (2007, Peter Mortimer) A profile of the best rock climber in the world, and his most spectacular climbs.
  21. [Liked] "The Blue Planet" (2001) [TV Series]
  22. [Really Liked] Black Book (2006, Paul Verhoeven)
  23. [Liked] 3:10 to Yuma (2007, James Mangold)
  24. [Meh] Day Night Day Night (2006, Julia Loktev)
  25. [Meh] The King of Kong (2007, Seth Gordon)
  26. [Liked] Mysterious Skin (2004, Gregg Araki)
  27. [Loved] Eastern Promises (2007, David Cronenberg) Much better than A History of Violence, but with the same style and themes.
  28. [Loved] Superbad (2007, Greg Mottola)
  29. [Liked] Waitress (2007, Adrienne Shelly)
  30. [Really Liked] Ratatouille (2007, Brad Bird) I've surrendered to the fact that this is what Pixar makes, and just enjoyed it for what it is.
  31. [Loved] Rescue Dawn (2006, Werner Herzog)
  32. [Meh] American Gangster (2007, Ridley Scott) Slickly produced, but kinda boring.
  33. [Liked] "Life on Earth" (1975) [TV Series] Richard Attenborough's first. The nature documentary that "started it all." Fun coverage of the story of evolution.
  34. [Liked] Nil by Mouth (1997, Gary Oldman)
  35. [Liked] Manufacturing Consent: Noam Chomsky and the Media (1992, Mark Achbar) An unnarrated summary of Chomsky's anti-media, anti-government views. For me, Chomsky makes better sense when speaking than when writing. A nice introduction to media and government control.
  36. [Meh] The Seventh Continent (1989, Michael Haneke) I was bored.
  37. [Loved] "Planet Earth" (2006) [TV Series] WOW. Best footage ever. Watch a great white shark snatch a seal out of mid air at 1/40th speed. Watch a Saharan dust storm from space. Watch a wolf chase a baby caribou for a mile. Watch a million birds in flight. Watch a whole field of cherry trees bloom before your eyes. And that's just the first episode. I almost fell out of my chair laughing at the dances of the bizarre birds of paradise, and almost cried watching the magestic blue whales.
  38. [Loved] Street Thief (2006, Malik Bader) A compelling, voyeuristic faux-documentary about a professional burglar.
  39. [Loved] The Cook the Thief His Wife & Her Lover (1989, Peter Greenaway) I'm beyond the stage of pretending to know much about film art, but this movie has everything I associate with film art: vision, bravery, craftsmanship, internal consistency, a convergence of techniques around the vision, etc.
  40. [Meh] Planet Terror (2007, Robert Rodriguez)
  41. [Loved] Rosetta (1999, Jean-Pierre Dardenne)
  42. [Liked] The TV Set (2006, Jake Kasdan) Sigourney Weaver is great. This does make you appreciate the difficulty of putting anything good on TV.
  43. [Hated] Spider-Man 3 (2007, Sam Raimi) When I see crappy action blockbusters like this I always think of Slate's classic review of Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End. There are two ways to appreciate a movie like this: either laugh because "it's so bad it's good" or appreciate it as abstract art: "sound and fury, signifying nothing." But neither technique helped me enjoy this abomination.
  44. [No] Aqua Teen Hunger Force Colon Movie Film for Theaters (2007, Matt Maiellaro) Aqua Teen Hunger Force's non-sequiter absurdist humor is funny in 10-minute doses... if you're watching with college friends... and beer. It doesn't work in long form.
  45. [No] French Kiss (1999, Lawrence Kasdan)
  46. [Liked] Happy Endings (2005, Don Roos) I'm a diehard for hyperlink cinema. This one isn't as fun as most of them are, but it's better than that piece of shit Love Actually, and there's something good about it that isn't enjoyabale. Sorry, I'm too lazy to explain.
  47. [Really Liked] Death Proof (2007, Quentin Tarantino) There is a particular crunching-metal sound effect that I heard thousands of times playing Streets of Sim City. I now recognize it whenever I hear it in movies or TV shows. It is very popular, and very distinct. It is used in Death Proof about 30 times. Awesome. The Kiwi girl is my new favorite female character. Stand aside, Naomi Watts. This is rip-roaring fun.
  48. [Loved] Howl's Moving Castle (2004, Hayao Miyazaki) Endlessly delightful.
  49. [Meh] The Lookout (2007, Scott Frank) Paint-by-numbers high concept drama.
  50. [Loved] Memories of Murder (2003, Joon-ho Bong) A masterful detective film, based on the true story of South Korea's first serial murderer.
  51. [Liked] The Great Global Warming Swindle (2007, Martin Durkin) Raises some very interesting concerns that should not be dismissed as easily as its critics say, but apparently the dominant scientific opinion remains that human activity is causing dangerous global warming. What we really need is a brief, no-nonsense, unbiased summary of the debate.
  52. [No] The Aristocrats (2005, Paul Provenza) Stuuuuuuuuuuuuupid.
  53. [Liked] Inland Empire (2006, David Lynch) If there's a mystery to unravel here, it's buried much deeper than those of Lost Highway and Mulholland Drive. Film would've looked much better. But damn if this thing isn't captivating!
  54. [Meh] Brain Story (2000, Sam Starbuck) [miniseries]
  55. [Meh] Anna and the King (1999, Andy Tennant)
  56. [Meh] The Intruder (2004, Claire Denis) An introspective and literary film, but not particularly engaging to me.
  57. [Liked] Contact (1997, Robert Zemeckis) One of the few blockbusters starring an overt atheist. Though it's just as Hollywood as everything else, I do wish they'd produce more novels by famous scientists. The issues tackled here are profound and challenging in a ways that are almost never addressed by Hollywood.
  58. [Meh] A Brief History of Disbelief (2004, Richard Denton) [miniseries] Not a particularly exciting or memorable history of atheism.
  59. [Loved] The Apostle (1997, Robert Duvall) It is to Duvall's credit that believers watch this and see frail human faithfulness and love and hope, and unbelievers see typical religious delusion and ignorant harm. It was very powerful for me to watch such a caricature of my former "Holy Ghost" faith and its empowering, anti-thinking absurdity.
  60. [Really Liked] ¡Three Amigos! (1986, John Landis) [rewatch] An old favorite as a kid, and therefore still quite enjoyable. I probably wouldn't like it at all now if I hadn't liked it as a kid.
  61. [Hated] Lady in the Water (2006, M. Night Shyamalan) So fucking stupid...
  62. [No] Grease (1978, Randal Kleiser) [rewatch] I tried really, really hard to like this movie and managed a few laughs but golly! it's just so damn uncreative.
  63. [Hated] Dog Star Man (1960s, Stan Brackhage) Prelude + Parts I-IV. Boooooooooringgggggggg.
  64. [No] Transformers (2007, Michael Bay) These seizure robots almost sent me to the hospital.
  65. [Liked] Knocked Up (2006, Judd Apatow) Not quite as funny as 40-Year-Old Virgin, especially at the beginning. But I wonder: are the laughs in this movie worth the demoralization of our young men and women as they see Katherine Heigl embody the mostly unachievable but very pervasive cultural standard of beauty? How many men see this movie and are a bit less pleased with the women in their life? How many women see this movie and are a bit more insecure about themselves and their ability to be pleasing? Update: AJDaGreat asked, "Are you going to wonder now if every form of entertainment with a beautiful woman in it is worth the enjoyment it provides?" In a word, yes. (But I'll only wonder aloud for Knocked Up, an arbitrary scapegoat.) I have a few reasons: (1) Though financially beneficial, the Hollywood beauty standards are rarely necessary to the aesthetic or entertainment purposes of the film. Knocked Up would've been just as funny with a more natural woman in the lead, and the sex scenes were damn funny even as I closed my eyes and only listened. And, (2) It is quite easy to entertain people without subjecting them to psychological attack that way. It's this second point that leads to action. I cannot change Hollywood or media in general. But (my girlfriend and) I can choose to defect from body-image assaultive media. Picnics are quite nice, and cheap. (We might watch Ratatouille, though.) So, I'm not going to say people should stop watching movies, or that such movies should not be made, or that censored versions of movies should be made available. But I am going to personally avoid them, accept the benefits of doing so, and absorb no costs to my happiness. Seriously, when did women begin having this thought: "For fun, I like to go with my boyfriend to look at other women's breasts and butts and vaginas that are tighter and smoother than mine!"
  66. [Liked] The Seashell and the Clergyman (1928, Germaine Dulac) [short] The first surrealist film, just before Un Chien Andalou. I maintain there is a good reason that this remains obscure and Un Chien Andalou is popular. Un Chien Andalou is closer to the film-editing-magic-tricks surrealism ala early Man Ray than the post-Un Chien Andalou "full" surrealism that we identify as surrealist film. I said that horribly, I know.
  67. [Meh] Happiness (1932, Aleksandr Medvedkin) A treasure trove of bizarre, silly moments that would be perfect for those TV programs & documentaries that use awkward clips from B&W movies (like Electrocution of an Elephant).
  68. [Loved] Timecode (2000, Mike Figgis) Four simultaneous takes, coordinated but improvised, following the hilarious and tense operations of a movie studio. Pretentious? No! Brilliant!
  69. [Liked] North Country (2005, Niki Caro) Amazing how recent this was. Wasn't the father's change of heart odd, and the court room scene bizarre?
  70. [Liked] Sicko (2007, Michael Moore) Moore is a very unfair, but kinda fun, filmmaker. If the movie helps push U.S. opinion toward socialized medicine, then I'm all for it. Here's a moral dilemma: If misrepresenting truth to millions of people would save millions of lives, would you do it? Another dilemma: If you could get 50 million people to watch one film, would it be Citizen Kane or something like Sicko?
  71. [Really Liked] Zodiac (2007, David Fincher) Nicely imitates the confusion, messiness, and tedium of real life. Recalls an old favorite, All the President's Men.
  72. [Liked] Breach (2007, Billy Ray) A tight, contemporary film. Better than most movies smiply by not having huge flaws.
  73. [Liked] The Mirror (1975, Andrei Tarkovsky) [rewatch] I can't tell whether I prefer this or Andrei Rublev. Notice how I'm too incompetant to say anything about the film.
  74. [Hated] Hot Fuzz (2007, Edgar Wright) My goodness, what the kids are watching these days! So loud and irritating! Makes me want to curl up and watch a nice classic from my day, like Pulp Fiction.
  75. [Really Liked] Brief Encounter (1945, David Lean) [rewatch] Watched it with my girlfriend. She's opening whole new levels of appreciation for films to me by giving me the woman's perspective. I thought the woman's perspective in this film was pretty explicit already, but I was still too dense to catch it all.
  76. [Liked] After the Wedding (2006, Susanne Bier) Dogme 95 is still working.
  77. [No] Déjà Vu (2006, Tony Scott) The accents are just for you, 0dysseus. The surveillance technology in the film is the most absurd thing I've ever seen... at least until the next sci-fi movie I watch.
  78. [Loved] Sans soleil (1983, Chris Marker) Marker's mind is incredible. His thoughts and footage (attributed to the fictitious Sandor Krasna) are profound. I do not love that I love it when I love movies I'm "supposed" to love.
  79. [Hated] Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End (2007, Gore Verbinski) I was bewildered and bored, which is probably how most people feel watching my favorite movies.
  80. [Liked] Thoroughly Modern Millie (1967, George Roy Hill) Almost as fun as Down With Love, but looking at the 20s from the 60s instead of the 60s from the 2000s.
  81. [Loved] Hate (1995, Mathieu Kassovitz) As they say, it's basically France's Do the Right Thing.
  82. [Meh] Colossus: The Forbin Project (1970, Joseph Sargent) Though it has dated poorly, Colossus is a respectable entry in the "machine-gone-mad" subgenre - respectable not because it is good, but because it is not quite as bad as most sci-fi films. As usual, the "sci" is terribly silly, and the "fi" is decently compelling. Resemblences to The Matrix have been greatly exaggerated.
  83. [Meh] The Holy Mountain (1973, Alejandro Jodorowsky) Gotta love the fortress of frogs.
  84. [Really Liked] Santa Sangre (1989, Alejandro Jodorowsky) All circus movies seem to be sick and funny. This one may be a bit sicker and funnier than the rest.
  85. [Really Liked] If... (1968, Lindsay Anderson) More like a 2-hour portrait of a place and people than a story.
  86. [Liked] For a Few Dollars More (1965, Sergio Leone) Much silliness.
  87. [Meh] 28 Weeks Later (2007, Juan Carlos Fresnadillo) I liked the first scene, half of the night-vision scene, and I was grateful for the ending. It's a rare horror film that isn't horrible, but it's nothing to write home about.
  88. [Liked] Letters from Iwo Jima (2006, Clint Eastwood) A nice companion to Flags of our Fathers.
  89. My brother insisted on showing me a scene from Seraphim Falls (2006). It is Pierce Brosnan's finest moment on screen.
  90. [Liked] [DVD of short films] Masters of Russian Animation - Volume 3 The ones I most remember are Tale of Tales, which has got to be in the Top 10 Short Films Ever, and Travels of an Ant, a hilarious precursor to A Bug's Life.
  91. [Loved] Color of Paradise (1999, Majid Majidi) I wouldn't call this melodrama, but rather a deliberately simple and straightforward (but also spiritual) film. What this achieves is a work equally suitable for children and adults: not because there is "another layer" of content that only the adults will enjoy (as with Pixar or Shrek movies), but because everything in the movie is very simple without being too stupid for adults. In this way, children and adults will not only both enjoy this movie, but they will enjoy the same movie together, in the same way. Really, a stunner. How on earth is Iran producing some of the most profound films of the last decade? Be sure to read Scaruffi's review, but only after you've seen the movie, as I did.
  92. [Hated] Xala (1975, Ousmane Sembene) Filmmaking as primitive as the filmmaking parodied in Borat.
  93. [Liked] The Painted Veil (2006, John Curran) Very pretty, very novelesque, very deliberate and paced.
  94. [Liked] Flags of our Fathers (2006, Clint Eastwood) This fine film plays on one of my favorite themes: the creation of heroes where none exist.

  96. My computer died and I lost tons of data. I watched several movies here, but I can't remember which ones.

  98. [Loved] The Red and the White (1967, Miklós Jancsó) A lovely portrait of war-time cruelty and rebellion in rural Hungary. Admirably, it seems to totally avoid the tendency to romanticize, linearize, or thematicize its narrative content.
  99. [Really Liked] Fitzcarraldo (1982, Werner Herzog) Nobody spends this kind of money on a movie anymore unless it's in English, has lots of action and CGI, and takes place in a fantasy world or the USA. Too bad. Oh, and for fuck's sake - Herzog literally pulled a 340-ton steamship over a mountain!
  100. [No] Level Five (1997, Chris Marker) I'm lazy, so I'll quote an IMDB commentor who nailed it concisely: the movie "ostensibly concerns a woman seeking information about the WWII massacre at Okinawa through a futuristic antecursor of the Internet, but who only finds repetitive images and foggy recollections. It seems to be a meditation on the replacement of ideas by images, and possibly a comment on we still ignore tragedy in our world even this information-saturated age. Though intensely cerebral, it's directed stylishly and has moments of genuine poignance, and references to classic French cinema which film buffs will enjoy spotting."
  101. [Really Liked] The Silence (1963, The Silence) A soul-sapping, nihlistic story of emotional isolation and unsuccessfull bodily attempts to fill the void. I'm sure people still make movies like this, I'm just having a hard time figuring out who.
  102. [Meh] Black Snake Moan (2006, Craig Brewer) This movie belongs in a different era. It walks the line between exploitative, artsy, banal, profound, naughty and righteous. Basically, Sam Jackson chains a whore to a radiator and cures her of lust with his gospel blues guitar. It's a very unusual kind of fantasy that requires a special person to appreciate. Craig Brewer has interesting ideas, but he's not yet the artisan he needs to be. The humor works, though! Justin Timberlake needs to not act anymore.
  103. [Loved] Borat (2006, Larry Charles) [rewatch]
  104. [Hated] 300 (2006, Zack Snyder)
  105. [Hated] Re-Animator (1985, Stuart Gordon) Classically terrible, occasionally cute.
  106. [Meh] Here Comes Dr. Tran (2003, Breehn Burns) [short] Watch.
  107. [Liked] Stranger Than Fiction (2006, Marc Forster) Looks like Kaufman, not at all executed like Kaufman.
  108. [Really Liked] Y tu mamá también (2002, Alfonso Cuarón) [rewatch]
  109. [Meh] Secuestro Express (2005, Jonathan Jakubowicz) References films like Pulp Fiction and Requiem for a Dream, and certainly the director has put his heart into this movie (the cinematic style is a translation of how he percieved the world during his own kidnapping), but Jakubowicz is no Tarantino or Aronofsky.
  110. [Loved] Innocent Voices (2004, Luis Mandoki) No filmic or artistic pretension inhibits this fantastic human story. And I'm glad I find it more believable since having the privledge to study in Latin America. It would've been nice if the characters spoke like Salvadorians, I suppose. Anyway, this is one of those movies that takes all the fun out of tourism. Tourism seems only a hollow travel practice now.
  111. [Hated] Undisputed (2002, Walter Hill) A crappy 10-minute movie dragged out to a really, really crappy 90-minute movie.
  112. [Hated] Night at the Museum (2006, Shawn Levy) Kind of like Gulliver's Travels, kind of like drinking my own diarrhea.
  113. [Hated] The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift (2006, Justin Lin) Yes, it can get worse.
  114. [Hated] The Fast and the Furious (2001, Rob Cohen) [rewatch] Stupid bus trip movies.
  115. [Liked] The Hunt for Red October (1990, John McTiernan) [rewatch] Still the best Clancy book & movie. Stupid like most mainstream intrigue movies, but solid craftsmanship.
  116. [Loved] The Science of Sleep (2006, Michel Gondry) Here in Venezuela as a novice Spanish-speaker, I was wondering if there was a movie that made language confusion a significant theme. Lo and behold, here we have it! This is a totally delightful romp through dream and reality and romance and nonsense.
  117. [Liked] The Pursuit of Happyness (2006, Gabriele Muccino) Relentlessly depressing with a few tiny pricks of light.
  118. [Liked] Blood Diamond (2006, Edward Zwick) One of those movies you can predict pretty well just from the logline, but still good fun. Somehow, no matter how many good performances Leonard Di Caprio gives, I'm always surprised when he gives another. His unforgettably bad work in Titanic lives in me always. Of course, the pacing and much of the action is highly contrived.
  119. [Liked] Born into Brothels (2004, Zana Briski) Not that good a film, but it seems the subject matter was handled with a great deal of compassion and honesty.
  120. [Hated] Marked for Death (1990, Dwight H. Little)
  121. [Hated] Original Sin (2001, Michael Cristofer)
  122. [Meh] The Rock (1996, Michael Bay) [rewatch]
  123. [Liked] Pan's Labyrinth (2006, Guillermo del Toro) Pretty good for an original fantasy film, but still not as cynical and self-conscious as I like 'em. The bad guy is ridiculously bad, the protagonist ridiculously innocent and capable, etc.
  124. [Liked] Open Your Eyes (1997, Alejandro Amenábar) [rewatch] I'm less cranky than when I last disliked Vanilla Sky I guess. A decent flick, but Vanilla Sky benefits from a bigger budget and Sigur Ros.
  125. [Really Liked] Finding Nemo (2003, Andrew Stanton) [rewatch]
  126. [Guilty Pleasure] The Phantom of the Opera (2004, Joel Schumacher) Schumaker is actually the perfect person to direct a smarmy, unselfconscious musical about an opera.
  127. [Guilty Near-Pleasure] Club Dread (2004, Jay Chandrasekhar) A terrible movie in all the right ways.
  128. [Meh] I, Robot (2004, Alex Proyas) As a preacher's kid, I tend to watch movies like The Judas Project and The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe and think, "Gosh, there was some great theology in there. Too bad it wasn't a good movie." I wonder if philosophers watch a movie like this and think, "Gosh, there was some great contemporary philosophy in there. Too bad it wasn't a good movie." Say, is the book all the good without the bad?
  129. [Meh] The Illusionist (2006, Neil Burger) The last half hour is the only part that didn't irritate me.
  130. [Loved] The Prestige (2006, Christopher Nolan) Brilliant from start to finish. Perhaps the best mainstream flick of 2006.
  131. [No] The Man on the Train (2002, Patrice Leconte) The poet wants to be a cowboy, the cowboy wants to be a poet. I get it. Now do something with that.
  132. [Meh] The Devil Wears Prada (2006, David Frankel) This could be the Citizen Kane of fashion magazine politics and I still wouldn't like it. But I tried to think about it objectively and I still think "Meh"
  133. [Loved] Harold and Maude (1971, Hal Ashby) [rewatch] My fourth and favorite viewing. Lifegiving, unexpected, and genuinely funny.
  134. [Loved] Raging Bull (1980, Martin Scorsese)
  135. [Meh] The Holy Girl (2004, Lucrecia Martel) Does nothing to dispel myths about Catholic girls. Like Maria Full of Grace, highly over-rated.
  136. [Really Liked] Caché (2005, Michael Haneke) I really enjoyed watching this movie, despite the irritating ending - with which Haneke ditches the whodonit plot for a less compelling, simple, aged morality play. At first I thought maybe it was a whodonit for which there was a proper solution that simply wasn't made obvious (which would be really cool, especially for the DVD crowd), but now I think Haneke genuinely doesn't provide a solution to the mystery. Unless it's the po-mo explanation that Haneke sent the tapes to his character Georges to stir his conscience.
  137. [Loved] Children of Men (2006, Alfonso Cuarón) [rewatch]
  138. [Loved] Children of Men (2006, Alfonso Cuarón) In the words of Stephen Colbert, "Oh my fuck." A genuinely good sci-fi movie is so rare as to be a monumental event.
  139. [No] Renaissance (2006, Christian Volckman) A black-and-white animated French film starring Daniel Craig and using motion capture technology, a bit like Sin City. And Citroën designed a new model of car for the film, imagining what a Citroën might look like in Paris, 2054. Unfortunately, the cyberpunk tale is not particularly engaging.
  140. [Meh] SherryBaby (2006, Laurie Collyer)
  141. [Really Liked] Donnie Darko (2001, Richard Kelly) [rewatch]
  142. [Hated] Idiocracy (2006, Mike Judge) There's a reason Fox dumped this.
  143. [Loved] The Departed (2006, Martin Scorsese)
  144. [Meh] Thumbsucker (2005, Mike Mills)
  145. [Hated] Hooligans (2005, Lexi Alexander)
  146. [Really Liked] Monster House (2006, Gil Kenan) Wow. That this is such a good movie is the biggest shock for me this year. I can't recommend it for young children, but everyone else is in for a great time!
  147. [Hated] Rocky Balboa (2006, Sylvester Stallone)
  148. [Loved] Babel (2006, Alejandro González Iñárritu) Yes! I could've watched this for hours, even without a plot. Admittedly, I'm a helpless Iñárritu fan. I love that, to my eyes, this film treated every race, gender, class, and physique of person with the same respect.
  149. [Really Liked] The Queen (2006, Stephen Frears) Not a great movie, but a thoroughly fascinating look inside U.K. government, which I find more absurd but less tragic than U.S. government.
  150. [Liked] Little Children (2006, Todd Field)
  151. [Liked] Half Nelson (2006, Ryan Fleck)
  152. [Hated] New York Doll (2005, Greg Whiteley) Terrible. Half an hour of material.
  153. [No] The Descent (2005, Neil Marshall) Does anybody know how to make scary movies anymore? I'm sick of being just startled.
  154. [Liked] Jackass Number Two (2006, Jeff Tremaine) I kind of like the way Peter Hartlaub put it: "the Godfather II of tasteless prank films." But seriously, what the hell? These people are invincible. The terrorism skit is absolute genius.
  155. [Liked] Little Miss Sunshine (2006, Jonathan Dayton) Alternatingly irritating and cute, and at one point poignant. It is as script-doctored as a Shyamalan flick. Meh... fair enough.
Cloned From: 
Seen in 2006
Rushmore01/04/2007

Rocky Balboa, i'm in two minds about seeing this. all my mates wanna see it, and part of me does too. but we all agree that we're gonna go knowing its going to be bad lol. but, for a a rocky film its been getting pretty good reviews from some reviewers , was there any redeeming qaulities?

lukeprog01/04/2007

Most people I talk to end up thinking it's not a very good movie, but they are pleasantly surprised that it's at least decent. I hated it, but I have very particular tastes. I wouldn't be surprised at all if you ended up liking it!

AJDaGreat01/04/2007

I guess there's my answer about Idiocracy. Do you think it was so bad as to be completely unmarketable though?

Glad you loved The Departed. I really really need to catch Babel before it vanishes from theaters. Hopefully that will happen this weekend.

lukeprog01/04/2007

I've seen much worse movies heavily marketed and successful at the box office. But I can't see this making any money at the box office because it's not funny, not even in idiotic ways (like, say, Cheaper by the Dozen). In addition to the jokes being bad, the timing is off. And I'd still like to hear your comparison of the script you say and the final product, if you remember the former.

AJDaGreat01/05/2007

That doesn't really surprise me; I remembered thinking the opening was really clever, but thinking the rest of the script seemed to be toeing the line between satirizing the dumbing down of America and contributing to it, with strong tendencies towards the latter. I could see how it could have been a funny movie in the hands of certain talented people, but if the timing is off, that will just kill this kind of movie. Sounds like Idiocracy ventured into "just plain idiotic" territory. I guess it has a better excuse for stupidity than most movies, but it's still not enough.

I can't say I'm eager to see the film, but I guess I'd consider watching it.

lukeprog01/05/2007

My advice is: don't bother.

RosieCotton01/05/2007

You are a peculiar man.

I'm glad you liked Monster House.

I agree with your sentiments about The Descent. I would also like to see a horror movie not involving a mutant human.

lukeprog01/05/2007

Yeah, I couldn't believe how much I liked Monster House. The comedic timing was great, the tweens talked like tweens for once, the house animation was great, the pacing was good... it wasn't a jaw-dropper like many Pixar movies, but I couldn't find any significant faults in it.

As for The Descent, humans with makeup are the cheapest monsters out there, and unfortunately there's almost no such thing as a big-budget horror genre.

I've got no claims to peculiarity next to someone dished out ***** ratings to In Her Shoes, The Wild Parrots of Telegraph Hill, Ruggles of Red Gap, Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory, Hill 24 Doesn't Answer, and The White Balloon, to name a few :)

RosieCotton01/06/2007

True. :)

But I think being peculiar is a GOOD thing.

lukeprog01/06/2007

But of course!

AJDaGreat01/10/2007

Which is better - No or Hated?

lukeprog01/10/2007

Hated.

hinterland01/13/2007

At the end of Caché, did you catch that amongst the crowd, you see Georges's son talking with Majid's son? I wouldn't have caught it had I not read to look for it, and it maybe provides a little bit of an explanation, though not complete closure.

lukeprog01/13/2007

I only read that after the seeing the film. But it still doesn't provide a solution, really.

jay_b02/12/2007

The Prestige (2006, Christopher Nolan) Brilliant from start to finish. Perhaps the best mainstream flick of 2006.
Oh c'mon not you too? I'm totally missing something. :)

192202/14/2007

Hah!

khriz03/12/2007

In reference to I,Robot the book has a different storyline and it is much less appealing to the mainstream. I prefer the book but I have to admit I haven't read it for about 4 years so my memory of it is pretty hazy. The only similarity I can remember between the two is the existance of the three laws of robotics. Blind is the listologist who I can think would know more about it as he's read quite a few Asimov books and I assume read the book in question more recently.

192203/14/2007

The bad guy is ridiculously bad, the protagonist ridiculously innocent and capable, etc.

But isn't that the point of such an allegorical fairy tale?

lukeprog03/15/2007

Yes. As I tried to indicate in my review, I understand that's the genre, but I prefer more cynical and self-aware work. That's just my preference.

diaskeaus04/11/2007

You're in Venezuela, learning Spanish?

lukeprog04/12/2007

Indeed. Next semester I hope to be in Buenos Aires.

WB04/27/2007

What's up Lukeprog, don't wanna play?
http://www.listology.com/content_show.cfm/content_id.27504
I was wondering why I checked your ratings so seldom lately, and it's because you forgot to take part in our big game ;-)

RosieCotton04/30/2007

Good for you.

lukeprog05/30/2007

Honestly, who thought we would have consumer technology from Minority Report this quickly?

But we still drive with motors from the 1910s.

AJDaGreat06/29/2007

I'm kind of confused as to why you made the beauty comment on Knocked Up. If audiences didn't see Katherine Heigl embody those unachievable standards of beauty, they'd only be exposed to the 9,999 other stimuli that instill negative beauty standards on any given day. Are you going to wonder now if every form of entertainment with a beautiful woman in it is worth the enjoyment it provides? Or is it more that you're reacting against the idea that Heigl is actually attainable for a schlub like Seth Rogen's character in this movie?

lukeprog06/29/2007

Thanks, AJ. This time, I decided to reply by editing my review.

AJDaGreat06/30/2007

I noticed! While I don't disagree with your principles, I feel like this will make it very hard for you to watch movies, if you're avoiding every movie with conventionally beautiful people in it. I also feel like this problem speaks to larger issues than just Hollywood films; it's global, it's prevalent in pretty much every form of media, and it influences very deep-seated psychological processes at the core of our society.

That having been said, I think you exaggerate the problem in your last sentence. Certainly most people go into Knocked Up hoping to enjoy the hilarity and the emotional core of the story, not the body parts. While I think that self-image issues are a problem in our society, I could not join your boycott because I would miss all the other enjoyable things that come with unattainable beauty standards, and I think that personal loss would outweigh any impact I would have by avoiding seeing such films.

lukeprog06/30/2007

My choice will grossly disrupt my movie-watching. What, then, will be the cost to me? I will not be any less entertained or happy; there are plenty of other sources for that. I will hardly be less pop-culture-literate. And what are the benefits to me? I will save money. I will save time. I will help save my girlfriend and I from a continued, slow erosion of our ideas about beauty.

I suspect my choice here, like my choice to destroy my giant music collection, seems unwise because it is so bizarre (rare).

AJDaGreat06/30/2007

Honestly, I think anyone who realizes everything about beauty standards that you and your girlfriend do are probably safe from any harmful effects that movies will have on you. Recognizing and hating the problem this much will help you react against the psychological processes even if you do see beautiful people on a regular basis. Which is good, because while you can stop watching movies, but you certainly can't avoid seeing beautiful people for the rest of your life.