A good flemish movie is "Bullhead" nominated for the oscars!!!

Just watched "Lucky Number Slevin" again, pretty good.

Going to see a South African film called Beauty tonight with my daughter at the Gothenburg film festival.

Currently watching The Naked Gun, great film but not a patch on Airplane! which I might stick on after.

Watched the latest Twilight movie. I really dislike the movies, but since I've started watching them I might as well see them all.

But it really is painful to sit through them. The story is bad, the vampires are pathetic (glitter has it's place and it's not on a vampire), the acting is just laughably bad and since I have the feeling that they all have potential to act better (Kristen Stewart wasn't bad when she was younger) it hurts even more.

Also saw "Arthur Christmas" recently and it left me with a warm soul. Not perhaps great, but good enough and it will be on my list of movies to watch next christmas.

Currently watching The Naked Gun, great film but not a patch on Airplane! which I might stick on after.

I love "Airplane" but The Naked Gun movies, especially the first one, were always funnier to me. Airplane is barely behind those movies though for me, super funny as well.

Going to see a South African film called Beauty tonight with my daughter at the Gothenburg film festival.

Stay away from this film it's total bollocks

I love "Airplane" but The Naked Gun movies, especially the first one, were always funnier to me. Airplane is barely behind those movies though for me, super funny as well.

I'd say the first Naked Gun and Airplane are pretty even(it's been years since I've seen them, mind you), but Airplane is easily better than the sequels to Naked Gun.

Saw "Tyrannosaur" today. It was great, but very dark. No rays of sunshine and messages of hope.

A story about a man plagued by anger and violence who meets a woman who is married to a not so nice man.

The acting was absolutely amazing. As a cast I'd say it's perhaps one of the best I've seen in a very long time.

Peter Mullan who never does a bad job is brilliant. Then there's Olivia Colman whom I thought was more of a comedy actress, but boy does she prove me wrong here. If Mullan was brilliant then Colman was perhaps even better.

Last but certainly not least we have Eddie Marsan. He actually scared me in this movie. One of the best performances he's ever done I think.

Saw bits of an old Rogers-Astaire movie, The Gay Divorcee. Some funny lines, this one struck my fancy:

"Be feminine and sweet. If you can blend the two."

Edited February 5, 201214 yr by wxwax

Watched Brighton Rock on Saturday night.

This was a movie I missed at the cinema and after watching it on Saturday I'm glad I did.

The storyline was good, however the acting poor!

Basically it could have been a very good thriller, but their was absolutely zero tension!

I found the original a better watch

Basically it could have been a very good thriller, but their was absolutely zero tension!

Your comment brings me back to something I've been thinking about lately: the role of editing in achieving the desired effect. In a thriller, obviously the problem could be the writing, the directing, the acting or the editing.

But I'm wondering whether a better direcotr/editor team could have taken the same video and turned it into something more compelling?

Have you ever watched a thriller, turned the sound off and jumped into the middle of a scene? It can look very ordinary. The key is often the story-telling sequence, and timing, of shots. Music/sound fx help, of course. Eraserhead without that unsettling audio might be boring instead of eerie. But knowing how to edit something to give it tension is something that fascinates me.

Darjeeling Limited was on the telly last night, so I watched it again. For some reason they didn't show Hotel Chevalier(the short movie that acts as a prologue to Darjeeling Limited) before it and this time around I noticed that there are some little details that are never properly explained in Darjeeling Limited, but which make sense if you've seen Hotel Chevalier.

SPOILER! Without having seen the prologue it seems quite random that Jack suddenly wants to listen to Peter Sarstedt's "Where Do You Go To My Lovely" on the train when he's talking to Rita. Jack writes his short stories which he claims are purely fictional, but it's clear they're not. The last one he writes is really just how he remembers what happened in Hotel Chevalier. Jack's relationship with Natalie Portman's character(was she ever referred to by name?) is referred to at least once before it's mentioned that he's going through this difficult relationship. I think Jack's behaviour towards Rita makes more sense if you know the little background story we've seen in Hotel Chevalier. END of SPOILER!

So if you haven't seen Darjeeling Limited I'd suggest you watch Hotel Chevalier before it. I think it's included on the DVD, but it also should be on youtube. It's not absolutely essential to see it before Darjeeling Limited, but I think it adds some nice details(I was going to say depth, but that might seem like an exxageration) to Jack's character.

Anyway... It's still one of my favourite movies from Wes Anderson. I think it's probably because in a way I can relate so well to some of the themes it touches on. Wes Anderson has chosen some good music to this movie, but if you've seen his movies, you kind of expect that. Life Aquatic was a bit of a blip(it's not bad, but it's not up to his usual standards either), but he's on form again with Darjeeling Limited and Fantastic Mr. Fox, so I'm really looking forward to seeing Moonrise Kingdom.

Have you ever watched a thriller, turned the sound off and jumped into the middle of a scene? It can look very ordinary. The key is often the story-telling sequence, and timing, of shots. Music/sound fx help, of course. Eraserhead without that unsettling audio might be boring instead of eerie. But knowing how to edit something to give it tension is something that fascinates me.

I've heard Hitchcock's Psycho originally had totally different music and I've heard it felt totally flat. It's hard to imagine what it would feel like without the iconic music. As for sound design, sometimes less is more, which is evident in that famous "silent" scene in the first Mission Impossible. It really works in that movie and makes the scene memorable(just about the only thing I do remember from the movie). Just by slapping on some run of the mill suspense music would probably have made the scene much less memorable. And can you imagine Sergio Leone's westerns without Ennio Morricone's music? Sure, the visual style would still have made those movies memorable, but the music is what raises those movies to a whole new level.

Darjeeling Limited was on the telly last night, so I watched it again. For some reason they didn't show Hotel Chevalier(the short movie that acts as a prologue to Darjeeling Limited) before it and this time around I noticed that there are some little details that are never properly explained in Darjeeling Limited, but which make sense if you've seen Hotel Chevalier.

SPOILER! Without having seen the prologue it seems quite random that Jack suddenly wants to listen to Peter Sarstedt's "Where Do You Go To My Lovely" on the train when he's talking to Rita. Jack writes his short stories which he claims are purely fictional, but it's clear they're not. The last one he writes is really just how he remembers what happened in Hotel Chevalier. Jack's relationship with Natalie Portman's character(was she ever referred to by name?) is referred to at least once before it's mentioned that he's going through this difficult relationship. I think Jack's behaviour towards Rita makes more sense if you know the little background story we've seen in Hotel Chevalier. END of SPOILER!

So if you haven't seen Darjeeling Limited I'd suggest you watch Hotel Chevalier before it. I think it's included on the DVD, but it also should be on youtube. It's not absolutely essential to see it before Darjeeling Limited, but I think it adds some nice details(I was going to say depth, but that might seem like an exxageration) to Jack's character.

Anyway... It's still one of my favourite movies from Wes Anderson. I think it's probably because in a way I can relate so well to some of the themes it touches on. Wes Anderson has chosen some good music to this movie, but if you've seen his movies, you kind of expect that. Life Aquatic was a bit of a blip(it's not bad, but it's not up to his usual standards either), but he's on form again with Darjeeling Limited and Fantastic Mr. Fox, so I'm really looking forward to seeing Moonrise Kingdom.

Darjeeling is a movie that I really enjoyed. I know a lot of people rate it as the worst WA movie, but I put it up there as one of my favorites. I think the soundtrack is fantastic as well, I love the mixture of classic Indian cinema selections with b-sides from The Kinks. Coincidentally, I also don't rate Life Aquatic as highly as others, I really wanted to like it a lot more than I did, especially with Bill Murray and a lot of David Bowie songs.

Coincidentally, I also don't rate Life Aquatic as highly as others, I really wanted to like it a lot more than I did, especially with Bill Murray and a lot of David Bowie songs.

I really wanted to like it as well. I loved the concept (the whole Cousteau parody), Seu Jorge's Bowie covers are great and Bill Murray was great in it again(as he usually is), but for some reason this movie is less than the sum of its parts and I can't figure out why. It just lacks that certain something.

I haven't yet been able to sit through Life Aquatic. I give up every time. And I like Murray and Wes Anderson a lot.

Finally saw "The Artist", and I definitely enjoyed it. Hope it does well at the Oscars. Not because I think it was the best movie of the year, but because I went pretty heavy on it for my Oscar pool that I am in.

Ok, I haven't seen this yet as it hasn't been released yet(not sure if I will when it is, mind you), but I just saw the trailer and figured there might be people(moi quite probably not included) here on the forums who might enjoy it:

Edited February 8, 201214 yr by Maksimov

I've just watched Martin Scorsese's The Departed - absolutely superb! Brilliant acting from Jack Nicholson, Ray Winstone. Leonardo Di Caprio (and it's not often I say that about him), Matt Damon and Mark Wahlberg. I don't want to reveal anything about the plot, but it was totally gripping.

Ichi the Killer

Nao Ohmori

Tadanobu Asano

Directed by Takashi Miike

I'm still trying to get my head around this one. At first, I thought it was a satire of Japanese gangster movies and their sometimes cartoonish violent aesthetic. It's based on a Japanese manga, or comic, series. So I thought it might be a sort-of Kung Fu Hustle of yakuza flicks. I mean, when's the last time you saw a movie's title rise out of a man's ejaculate? However, this bizarre, outlandishly grotesque film seems to take itself seriously. Which leads one to believe that those involved were making a sober attempt at story telling.

In which case, what we have is a ludicrously gory and steadily misogynistic story of a sado-masochist gangster and a homicidal sadist stalking each other to the death. Any woman who gets in the way (and lots do) dies a spectacularly bloody death.

The bloodletting is peculiarly Japanese. Which is to say, great attention is paid to detail. Anyone who's seen Japanese pornography will recognize the style; it has the precision and passion of a visit to the gynecologist. It's unrelentingly graphic.

The story, which gets a bit garbled near the end, tries to imbue the two crazy principals with a strange kind of honor. The honor of serial killers, if you will. And it even seemingly absolves one of them of his crimes, which takes some doing, given that he climaxes at the sight of brutalized women.

Ichi the Killer is a peculiar film, obviously. It's an extreme curiosity piece. If you can stomach entrails (pun intended) then you might find it a magnificent example of our twisted values in a world where wholesome sex cannot be depicted on the screen, but the most perverted violence can be and is.

Sory, wxwax, I haven't got the guts to watch that...

I went to see Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy the other day - like John le Carré's books, it's very convoluted. Lots of jumping backwards and forwards in time and place, but when I eventually worked out what was going on I enjoyed it. But nothing like as much as The Departed.

Watched a couple of films recently, 50/50 and Drive. I'd originally planned to watch all 9 Best Picture nominees, but as yet, I've watched none and I'm a little annoyed with myself, but the two films I did watch were actually incredibly enjoyable.

50/50 is a pretty dark, bleak comedy about a young guy (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) who discovers he has a life-threatening tumour on his spine, and it kind of follows him and his friends as they try to come to terms with his cancer. It was really eye-opening, there were bits where it made you laugh but then you almost felt bad for laughing considering the subject matter, but then it has the ability of making you cry oh so easily. It was seriously moving, and resonated with me purely because my grandmother has beaten cancer twice, it was a very personal feeling, it made you think about what you'd do in the same situation. Very good film.

Drive, on the other hand, is just all-round dark. The first half or so is actually just a very good story, a small relationship developing between the excellent Ryan Gosling and his neighbour Casey Mulligan, and then things take a very nasty turn and it becomes an absolute thrill ride. It went a bit ridiculous near the end, it was never not-believable, but it seems to go a bit too over the top. Although that didn't stop my jaw being dropped for the last 30 minutes of the film, it was seriously gripping stuff. Brilliant stuff.

Also I watched Back To The Future last night, for the umpteenth time, and it's never not absolutely superb.

I've just watched Martin Scorsese's The Departed - absolutely superb! Brilliant acting from Jack Nicholson, Ray Winstone. Leonardo Di Caprio (and it's not often I say that about him), Matt Damon and Mark Wahlberg. I don't want to reveal anything about the plot, but it was totally gripping.

I can't believe it took you that long, moi! While it does have its flaws, that is still one of my favorite movies. I saw it twice in theaters and now own it on Blu-Ray, but nothing can beat the suspense from watching it the first time.