yeah, the lives of others was in big multiplexes everywhere the year it was nominated for best foreign language film. even my parents who live in the sticks saw it.

The film received largely negative reviews from critics. Rotten Tomatoes reported that 27% of critics gave positive reviews, based on 81 reviews. [4] Furthermore, another review aggreator, Metacritic, gave the film a 41/100 approval rating, based on 21 reviews from mainstream critics.[5]

Despite the generally negative reaction from critics, Roger Ebert awarded the film three stars for not having any adult-themed scenes, as in his review he wrote, "It's as slam-bang preposterous as any R-rated comedy you can name. It's just that Paul Blart and the film's other characters don't feel the need to use the f-word as the building block of every sentence."[6]

[edit] Box office

For the movie's debut, it ranked #1 at the box office with $9,791,368 from 3,144 theaters for an opening-day average of $3,105. During the film's entire 3-day opening weekend, the film remained at #1, grossing a total of $31,832,636, for a 3-day average of $10,125, outgrossing its $26 million budget. It grossed $39,234,238 over the entire 4-day MLK weekend, for a 4-day average of $12,479. The film was the second-best opening of all-time for the MLK weekend, behind 2008's Cloverfield. The film stayed at #1 in its second weekend, grossing another $21,623,182, dropping just 32 percent, and boosting the 10-day income to $64,923,380.[7]

As of February 22, 2009, the movie has grossed $121,380,000.[8] It's considered a commercial success and has surpassed industry estimates by a wide margin.


Obner, where you don't even really have to try to destroy people's arguments, they do it for themselves.

yeah... that seems to back up my point that a lot of people wouldn't go see an american remake of a movie about stasi monitoring. i really doubt the majority of paul blart fans would be interested in anything of sydney pollack's anyway.

in the text of mine that you quoted, i was pointing out that anyone who would care to see a movie like that had an opportunity to do so anywhere. it wasn't just confined to liberal urban areas.

Damn Gar. Not sure there was need to come in and start busting up the joint. No one's arguing that Americans don't eat up shit about fat guys and fart noises.

As for a remake of this movie, I'm not sure what is so far fetched. Set it in the US, make the bad guys potential Al Qaeda sympathizers, blanket it all in the Patriot Act, put Russell Crowe and Angelina Jolie in it.........bingo bango.......you've got a hit. Maybe not Summer Blockbuster level but a #1 movie of the weekend.

while we're on remakes, the one i'm most hesitant about now is taking of pelham 1 2 3. but i seem to be alone on that.

This will be horrid and pointless, just like Lives of Others, but my point is that it will inevitably MAKE A TON OF MONEY.

this one sure raked it in

not alone. zero interest in seeing remake.

how do they go from robert fucking shaw to john travolta?

Watchd "Gonzo: The Life and Work of Dr. Hunter S. Thompson" last night. Highly recommended and available on instant netflix.

http://www.netflix.com/Movie/Gonzo_The_ ... 726882_0_0

Saw Tropic Thunder over the weekend. Tom Cruise nearly killed this movie.

saw "Taken" last night. I enjoyed it.

I watched The Bank Job - a lot of gratuitous sex - which was an interesting take on making a modern movie look like it was the 70s. The cinematic equivalent of the best of Oasis, maybe? Pretty good and entertaining but ultimately nothing revelatory.

Body of Lies was potentially super awesome, but wound up a mere "solid." I liked the interplay between the Crowe and DiCaprio characters, and I wound up analyzing how much that shit is just like politics. Enjoyable flick, and along with Spy Game should be on TNT/TBS/Bravo/A&E's "Saturday and Sunday Filler Movies" list asap. I would watch it from any point.

the 400 blows. i liked it. from the delinquent youth snowball effect to the injustices in the system, it seemed fairly accurate.

i love you, man. this was kinda like "let's take advantage of this bromance fad sweeping the nation." the basic idea was fine and there were a lot of hilarious scenes, but i didn't think it all tied together very well. it also stopped on a dime.

Wages of Fear - This was a kind of unnecessarily long, but a pretty amazing movie. The tension created in much of the middle of the movie was incredible.

hahah that movie was ridiculous. awesome subtext though about liam going to all lengths to preserve his daughter's virginity

i watched that yesterday. it started off really good but kind of dragged on a little and i got sort of bored of it near the end.

finally got around to seeing 'burn after reading' and 'diving bell and the butterfly'.
BAR was definitely in my bottom few Coen Bros films. Wont bother to say much about it other than it was entertaining but much less than I expect from those guys at this point.
Diving Bell, on the other hand, was beautiful. The kind of movie you'd expect an artist to make but without any of the pretension you might fear. Beautifully shot, beautifully interpreted, very touching portrait of Jean-Dominique Bauby as taken from his book.
Highly recommended.

Holy cross you weren't kidding.

I watched it again last night. It is one of the films from my library. I think it is slightly underrated. The dialogue between the male characters is wonderful, especially the scene about the "brown" diamond.

Saw this last night and really enjoyed it, recommended:

[img][357:500]http://buriedplanet.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/11/let_the_right_one_in_poster.jpg[/img]


I don't know if it's been mentioned here before but it's an independent Swedish film with English subtitles. The film is about a 12-year old boy who meets a girl that moves into the apartment next door and discovers that she's a vampire.

Not too scary or gory actually, the movie focuses on the relationship between the two kids.

I was just going to post this as well. Saw it a few weeks ago and loved it. Probably my favorite from last year. I'll probably buy the DVD, which comes out on Tuesday.

There is already an American remake in the works. Hope they don't butcher it.

too late.

I saw that Sarah Marshall movie on one of the movie channels this morning. As bad and unfunny as the rest of these "comedies."

There were like two mildly amusing parts, and the acting was very cold and stiff, and the movie seemed like it was just sort of thrown together.

The Maltese Falcon

It took me a little while to get into, but I found myself really engrossed by the end. The acting especially The Fat Man character was excellent. I actually thought Bogart was a little inconsistent and almost bad in the beginning. The ending was a pleasant surprise and like nothing that would happen in a modern Hollywood production. Directing was pretty excellent, and really used minor characters to drive the intrigue. Also I appreciated that they didn't have to spell everything out for me.