Somers Town

The Shane Meadows follow-up to the excellent This is England. Interesting slice of life film focusing on a young runaway and a Polish immigrant who befriend one another in the outskirts of London. Black & White character study with just enough plot to move things along. A subtle movie that captures an image of life that rings true.

I can't wait for this...

the french original was fucking shit ten years ago

So I watched Incendiary tonight. Aside from Michele Williams' tits this movie was boring as shit. Not to mention ludicrous and a total waste of time.

Has anyone seen Bronson? I can't decide if it was good or not. It seems like it all amounts to nothing, but on the other and, seems like some sort of effective commentary on masculinity

Just watched Sweetgrass on Netflix streaming. Watching the patterns of the animals, the beautiful landscapes, and and no voiceovers made it incredibly original imo.



http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/sweetgrass/

I'm distanced from it now to pinpoint exactly what I didn't like but I do remember that it seemed like A Clockwork Orange was their biggest inspiration and they tried to emulate the feel of it at every corner. Tom Hardy was great though. Hard to believe the same guy was in Inception.

We watched last night:



My wife thought it was ok, but I pretty much hated it. What a fractured mess. The pacing of the film was awful, but so was the timeline of events in the film. If you weren't familiar with the band (and my guess is a majority of people who see this are not), you'd think they got together and miraculously over the period of a few weeks went to headlining tours in Japan. No mention in the film of opening for bands like Cheap Trick. Music geek tendencies aside, the acting was awful as well. Kristen Stewart, I've seen enough of her "acting" to know she's pretty bad. But Dakota Fanning, I thought she might be a little better than she was. The biggest downer of this is seeing Michael Shannon play Kim Fowley. Completely miscast. Michael Shannon is a better actor than this. Hate to see actors take on roles for a paycheck, but I guess its a job.

When I finished watching this, I remember thinking, "welp, now that's over".

I had extremely low expectations for this and was thus not disappointed. Lots of fun 70s costumes and a cool glam rock soundtrack while the chicks did a decent job of mimicking the mannerisms of the women they were playing. Not informative of definitive but fun to watch and listen to for me anyhow.

For those of you who have seen Inception and also read The Raw Shark Texts, do you see some pretty striking similarities between the two? So much so, there now probably wouldn't really be much reason to adapt a screenplay of the latter.

In the last two weeks have watched: The Girl Who Played with Fire and Beautiful Losers

Both of which I enjoyed.

Beautiful Losers left me nonplussed because I feel like those artists that revolved around Alleged Gallery in the 90s and their creations are just such an ingrained part of pop culture now. It was cool to see that they all came out of once place, and I'm sure what they were doing at the time was groundbreaking, but for me, I was into much of it. I'd say out of all of them I've spent the most time looking at Harmony Korine and Shepard Fairey's output.

Tron. Yeah, I watched Tron last night. The old one. Yeah.

Did the same thing a month or so ago when I was sick on the couch. Sent my wife out to get it for me and watched it, and all the special features on the disc. Really pumped for the new one.



I'm a sucker for climbing films. North Face is set in the mid-30s when the Nazis were trying to claim superiority over its annexed countries by accomplishing feats previously thought to be unsurmountable. One of the last problems in the Alps was the famous north wall of the Eiger (see Eiger Sanction for more cinematic screen time). This isn't a documentary though, and features some great acting from the actors portraying the protagonists. Two small village Bavarian men in their early-20s headstrong and talented enough to do what so many others have failed to do. There's of course a pseudo love-interest, and an underlying political message, but this is big on climbing action. Just to give you an indication--this won all types of cinematography awards overseas. I don't think any was done on a soundstage, so they were definitely exposed out on the rock.

Also watched:



Really had high hopes for this, and really it fell flat. I read a review after the fact that said it was better than Margot At The Wedding, but worse than The Squid And The Whale. I can completely go with that line of thinking. Its not horrible by any stretch, though I can see some of you wincing at the hipster language used--especially Greenberg's love interest--but its mostly harmless. I get what the film is trying to say. The party scene in which Greenberg espouses lines about Baby Mozart definitely ring true. I think one of the major storylines of the film (can't decide if its a spoiler or not) with G and his friends is just dappled into. Would've been nice to see some more story developed with that. Maybe at 30 I still associate with those younger than those at 40? I dunno. Maybe someone a decade older would get it better than me. Who knows. Either way, I just felt like the message was missed somehow.

Last Airbender = ok eye candy for kids, not such a great film though, even for a fantasy fan like myself.

Inception = really liked it.

Kick Ass = thought the comic was ok, movie was a good adaption.

Matt - you should know by now that critics love Stiller and he that he can ruin anything. Blechh

This played our local arthouse theater but only stayed a week and was gone. Missed it and been meaning to rent it for a while.


Went to see Restrepo tonight:





Pretty stunning. No political agenda whatsoever. Just US soldiers laid bare in one of the deadliest outposts of Afghanistan, the Korengal valley, for 15 months. They go through everything from firefights several times a day to long periods of nothing but themselves and their heads and the guys around 'em. Moments of terror, sadness, and surprisingly, humor with guns on them at all times.


Regardless of how I feel about war I was left with nothing but admiration for these guys. Fucking horrible shithole of a place.

Well, the fact that it didn't open wide told me something. But, I was willing to give it a try simply for the Baumbach direction, even if Margot was absolutely atrocious. Plus the James Murphy score didn't hurt--though even this was a letdown.

North Face was pretty good.

I watched Book of Eli...it was pretty much what I was expecting, but the twist at the end made me go back watch a number of scenes a second time, have to say I didn't see that coming and I'm pretty glad I didn't hear about it going into the movie, because it was a cool mindfuck.

Margot at the Wedding definitely was garbage. Kicking and Screaming was a wad of self indulgent 90s wankery, but I liked Squid and the Whale. Greenberg isn't even in my queue though.

I think Baumbach gets some credit from hipsters because of his association with Wes Anderson.

So, I saw this the other night



Kind of a strange movie directed by the guy who did the wildly successful Amelie. A group of misfits band together to exact revenge on a pair of weapons manufacturers responsible for the death of the protagonists father as well as a bullet still lodged deep in his brain. Subtitled from French, cautiously recommended.

/fix'd

Baum's shit has as much validity to me as Eat Pray Love.

I would imagine you don't think too highly of Whit Stillman, either.

watched the A-Team last night on a screen hanging from my roof while sitting in my backyard slamming beers. It was great.

The Other Guys was fucking hilarious.

Prolly not. Havn't seen any of his works to judge.

He gets points for sharing a last name with one of my favourite high-school teachers, though. Which is more than I can say for Wes Anderson or Noah Baumbach.

Stillman was Anderson before Anderson. I will say though that his dialog is pretty tight, and if you can get over the "Yale-y" mentality of his films, they are quite enjoyable.