I've watched a shitload of movies over the last fortnight, highlight being The Kid With A Bike.

Gonna watch that Townes Van Zandt doc over the weekend.

A Letter to Three Wives (1949). linda darnell (on first look i figured she was jennifer beals' mother), ann sothern and jeanne crain play 3 women sent a letter by a woman saying that she's run off with one of their husbands. as the women cannot get in touch with their husbands, they go about their day flashing back to reasons why they could imagine their husbands being the one to run off with the letter sender. excellent use of flashbacks here, as well as witty dialogue. i really enjoyed it. the reveals at the end were done pretty well, too.

Elevator to the Gallows. this is one of those movies that's a really interesting idea, but the setup is a little ridiculous. basically, a guy murders someone and makes it look like a suicide. in his haste to answer a telephone call, he forgets to remove a key piece of evidence that would point toward the crime actually being murder. he doesn't remember it until he's outside getting into his car. so he leaves his car running and goes back into the building. but the power goes out in the building, which stalls the elevator he's in. and then a kid steals his car. the kid and his girlfriend go on a little spree. he's stuck in an elevator all night. his lover is walking around paris trying to find him. it's really not that bad and cleans up nicely in the end, especially for one of these 60s french movies.

The Muppets. since this isn't out yet, i'm not going to spoil too much. there are a few things that i didn't like about it, but i think jason segel did a really nice job with writing a script that's faithful to "the muppets show" and the early movies. it's just a lot of fun to watch.

I thought this was amazing. Byung-hun Lee made the movie.

He was pretty awesome.

Ed Hardy Tattoo The World
Doc about Hardy, which say what you will about the crazy over-commercialization of his work, the man is definitely having the last laugh. Really opened my eyes to a lot of stuff I didn't know about the guy. Definitely respect the fact that he wanted to become a tattoo artist since a kid, but went the whole art school route to make it legit. Second, he basically set out to do Japanese style pieces, and did it his own way--by leasing office space in a building, small clientele, etc. Third, he's still making art and doing tattoos. Seems like he's just a consummate artist, who's old artwork happened to be commercially viable. He was laughing at the absurdity in the doc that his brand perfume outsold Jennifer Lopez's.


One of my favorite films of the 70s. Bought the BBS BluRay boxset from Criterion awhile back, and hadn't watched this release of it until Friday night. So good. If you've never seen it, I definitely advise that you do so. I see places that Wes Anderson probably stole from this movie.


Streamed this via Netflix. This is one of my favorite films of 2011. One of those films which is quirky, and hilarious at the same time. Love it, even when it gets super odd.

Don't judge the film by the poster art above. Its not really a "love story" per se. This is an unofficial adaptation of the famous fly-fishing narrative of the same name. The author and Sierra Club successfully took the filmmakers to court to keep their name off of it, but couldn't block the title.

The biggest downfall of the film is the idea that you can film a novel that is essentially about philosophy. Sure, you can creatively engage it, but its tough to really get to the meat without it ending up becoming a standard "coming of age" story. Being a fly fisherman, obviously, the vehicle for this attracted me, and the actors do a decent fishing impersonation. A River Runs Through It was better, however. The best way I can sum this up is if someone tried to film Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance.

When I finished the film I was kinda even on it. Wasn't horrible, wasn't exceptional. What really defined though why this film didn't work was the interviews with the actors in the special features. Listening to each bumble over what the film was about. Even the usually great John Hurt was pretty meh in this.

Called in sick on Friday and watched:
- Your Highness - pretty funny, I love how the movie kept a straight face throughout
- Source Code - really, really liked this; loved Moon a few years back so can't waito to see what Duncan Jones does next
- Band of Outsiders - rewatched this after a few years and still loved it; the Madison dance scene is one of my all-time favorite film scenes

I thought it was pretty meh to bad. Was there a single scene where any character showed any emotion in it? Did any of the politicians, staff or volunteers have any passion about anything? I guess a few said they did but it didn't really feel like they did. And Ryan Gosling's character didn't seem very realistic at all. Then again, I hate everything.

You didn't think any emotion was displayed in the scene where Gosling confronted Clooney in the restaurant kitchen? They were both SEETHING.

No, pretty much no emotion. They both seemed rather matter of fact to me.

A bunch of other stuff bothered me:

* It wasn't really that believable that the NC Senator's endorsement would matter that much
* Gosling was supposed to be a media genius but he seemed pretty uncomfortable in talking off the record to Tomei even before she had any goods on him. He seemed pretty shy and awkward to me.
* Clooney wasn't the type of candidate who would scare repubs (too lib and idealistic)
* The idea that you'd get a ton of voters to come out in large numbers to vote in another party's primary is pretty damn unrealistic.
* If people were working and campaigning hard, they did a really poor job of capturing the energy of a campaign

I may be wrong, but didn't this actually happen in one (or both) of the past two presidential elections?

Will check this out. After doing some interweb research, apparently it was made in Nashville. Harmony Korine's wife, Rachael, is in it and the star/writer/director Michael Tully made Silver Jew, the documentary about David Berman and The Silver Jews' tour to Israel. Brian Kotzur, who played in Silver Jews, among other Nashville indie bands is also in it.




David Bowie's kid, huh? So was this a tech-thriller? I know nothing about it.

Maybe someone called for people to "crossover vote" but I can't recall any large scale effort actually working. The idea that it would happen in a state is big as Ohio seems really unlikely and then that it happened and caught the Morris campaign completely by surprise is really dumb.

I was gonna ask if he made any field goals in it.

Yeah, she has a pretty minuscule part. I wish I could find that Silver Jews' doc. Not on netflix. Upon doing some research, I found out Michael Tully is actually from around here, and went to the same college as my sis. He also has a film review/whatever site: http://www.hammertonail.com/

This was great.

All the good things you heard about the new Muppet movie are true. The comedy, the music, the "classic" feel of it. Everything. Shit was GREAT.

I'll eventually get around to seeing this. The last "kid" movie I saw was Toy Story 3, and it was one of best movies I saw all of last year.

Watched Hugo tonight.

Beautiful to look at. Interesting story about early cinema, but my goodness the leisurely pace tested my patience on more than one occassion.

Because of that, I can't imagine a child enjoying this movie. Just a warning to parents out there.

I watch this every year around Thanksgiving. I think it's really good.

This was horrible, and I used to actually be a big GL fan. The problem is, the GL mythology has been so built up, and spread out over the years, that to make it into a 90 minute action film is pretty much impossible. My biggest qualm was picking a bad guy so massive for Hal Jordan to fight. Which, brings up a whole mess of comic to film related issues, but I digress. Parallax isn't something that can or should be defeated in 10 mins and ended so easily. In a way, Parallax should've been a build-up while Hal Jordan fought some other bad guy. Manhunters would've been cool. But then it would've taken more time to explain about them.



On the opposite end of the spectrum with this. ATB was awesome. It was just fun, and while not the most original film, still maintained a fresh voice throughout. Plus, the aliens were pretty awesome. Along with Super 8, definitely my favorite sci-fi films of '11.

I keep wanting to rent that Green Lantern movie but it just looks too terrible.

I'm really glad I waited. I seriously would've walked out.

I will download GL when I'm truly desperate. I will watch Attack the Block asap.