I recently bought a copy of Lone Star and watched it the other night. Hadn't seen it since the theaters. A lot of ensemble type movies can sometimes be a bit much. Lone Star is subtle, even the ending is pretty non-chalant given the type of relationship those two agree to continue. And Chris Cooper is great in pretty much everything.

yes.

I'm thinking of seeing either "Super" or "Certified Copy" tomorrow.

Is it surprising anyone the high ratings "Fast Five" is getting so far (I think it's still above 80% on Rotten Tomatoes)?

Not really. It is, what it is. As long as the film doesn't try to be something other than a cliched adrenaline-filled, bro-fest with car chases I'd imagine its probably a pretty good representation of an action film in 2011.

I think more surprising is that its 130 minutes

Hesher. i don't think this movie has any sympathetic characters. and the only one who's free of egregious behavior has by far the least amount of screen time. it's almost like the writer had a lot of funny lines and situations saved up but barely progressed from a rough outline. it kinda hammered the same points over and over for some decent laughs. but when it came down to really serving a purpose, it didn't deliver as well as it could've.

Really want to see Hesher, but doubt I'll see it before it hits DVD.

I got The Illusionist (animated) from netflix, and am looking very forward to that.

Saw Scott Pilgrim vs The World last night on HBO. I thought it was entertaining enough but when is Michael Cera's window of playing the same dude going to close?

I mean, Anthony Michael Hall eventually did enough coke to make "Johnny B. Goode".

Where is Cera's Johnny B. Goode?

wasn't it youth in revolt?

yeah, i'm not sure how wide this release is going to be. but the screening i went to was worthwhile just to hear some of the people guffawing. there are some really funny lines and scenes. but i thought they tried to wrap it up a little simply. (there's an interview with the cowriter/director where the interviewer mentions a specific line late in the movie and he says, "that's the whole movie right there." i read that thinking, "you've got to be kidding me.")

also, last night we had some brutal thunderstorms and there was one scene i couldn't hear well because the rain and thunder outside were louder than the dialogue. that's the first time i've ever experienced that.

Yeah, but then he followed it up with this:

Troll Hunter - It was fun. I like movies that don't reveal everything from front to back. This is the case here in regards to both the plot (esp. the Troll Hunter character) and the content itself because all the footage is cut up. Recommended.

The Mechanic - Action movie with no depth whatsoever. Very thin story and characters. But, there's people shooting and stuff. Recommended if you want something fast and want to switch your brain off for a bit.

Thor - Pretty good, actually. I'm not familiar with the Thor storyline, though, so it was all "new" to me. I thought it was entertaining and gave a good background story for the upcoming Avengers movie.

In A Better World - Maybe a bit heavy-handed, but very, very good. It will stick with me for a while (unlike "Thor")

Coming Next:

Everything Must Go - I'm hoping it will be for Will Ferrell what "Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind" was for Jim Carrey. In other words, one of his better movies.

Bridesmaids - Looks like "The Hangover" with women, but that actually sounds alright to me.

I Am - My wife wants to see it, looks interesting enough. Probably too "optimistic", but I'll enjoy it (I hope).

i've heard numerous people make this comparison. but wasn't that what stranger than fiction was for?

Yeah, it was... but I'm hoping this one is better than that (although I did enjoy it somewhat).

Quite possibly the best movie of 2006, but I digress.

I will say: it's a shame the writer's next film was Mr Magorium's Wonder Emporium.

Thor was a lot of fun. Really, I'm amazed that it was pulled off so well.

I hope Idris Elba gets more movie roles.

I wanna see Hesher!

Quite a few film roles for Stringer Bell.

I enjoyed the hell out of this movie. Made something very fun out of a topic that is pretty serious.
And, I have to say, that Robert Downey Jr. gives what may be my very favorite performance of his. He is one of my all-time favorite actors, and his Principal Gardener role is dead-on perfect as a dad and principal who is just a person and is totally lost as to exactly how to handle certain situations. To use an overused critics' phrase: there is a lot of subtlety and nuance in his performance that just makes it so completely dead-on. He acts exactly the way that I feel sometimes as both a father and a professional. A little bit lost, but still expected to have all the answers... he's just stopped looking for them.
An amazing performance in a really, really good movie.

this was amazing.

Image blocked at work. So, Charlie Bartlett, Todd?

In which case, also: DEM TIGGIES.

Yes.

Children of Men was the best film of 06 imo, followed by The Fountain, Babel and Stranger Than Fiction. And on the topic of the next film--you've got to get paid.

Watched The Illusionist, which was good...but it lacked something that "turned the corner" so to speak like Triplets had. The animation was gorgeous though, and there certainly was no lack of intriguing characters though, and if you wanted to search really hard you could see it as an allegory of traditionally hand-drawn, animated films going away.

Also watched Objectified as well. I've been putting this off for awhile for some reason. Not sure why, but last night I finally sat down and took it in. I guess I expected it to be a film about designers gushing about their achievements and why they're so great--but what I got was more of a humanist, philosophical look at design. A lot poignant quotes including one which said basically that we have all these modern gadgets in our lives, but then go back to our wooden dinner tables to eat dinner. The mismatching of design is incredible in our lives. Also, that today's gadgets are not designed to look like what their function is--in other words, if an alien came to earth and looked at the iphone, would they know it was a phone?
The idea also was breached as to why we are designing things that will be knowingly outdated in a year (or less), and making them out of materials which will last 1000s of years. As one designer said, shouldn't we be making cell phones out of cardboard or something? Intriguing, and highly rec'd.