A few films recently watched.

[Ego]

Život je čudo (Life is a Miracle)

Another great Kusturica. 4/5

[Guest futuregirlfriend]

The Man Who Wasn't There - 8/10

[Squee]

[REC]2

 

Typical sequel. More blood, more casualties, more panic, more chaos - but that doesn't mean it was any good. It wasn't scary like the first one was and the twist was stupid.

 

4/10

[Capsaicin]

Solaris (original Tarkovsky version)

 

8.5/10, but that score will probably go up

[keltoi]

cinema paradiso - 2nd time seeing this i appreciated it even more. heart warming/breaking in equal measure... a damn near perfect film. 9.5/10

[Guest Al Hounos]

Lies (거짓말) - More sex screentime than any porno from the 70s or 80s, and kinkier too - this is a very unafraid film about a 40 year old man's regression into sex addict as a result of meeting a very uninhibited high-school girl. Basically the story was nearly identical to so many drug addiction films, only instead of drugs, sex. It starts out fun and fairly innocent, but quickly gets more serious and eventually results in him losing his house, his savings, his career, and his wife.

/10

 

Brick - Film noir set in a modern suburban high-school. Boring/didn't get it. Leave noir to Bogart. 5/10

 

Sunset Blvd. - Amazing, of course. 10/10

[Guest Al Hounos]

Lovely Bones - It started with a Stars of the Lid track and I was all but aside from a Brian Eno track or two, the movie was shit. Hey, if you get raped and murdered, like, whatever, you'll just go to heaven. It's cool. 4/10

[Guest Fishtank]

law abiding citizen - garbage 0/10

agree, that movie was terrible

[Dale]

American History X (9/10)

Terrific acting, very emotive. The ending was very surprising when I first watched it - I was predicting Norton's character to die near the end. I suppose this was the main film that kick started Norton's acting career towards bigger opportunities. I'm trying to pick up on a lot of his films at the moment because I really enjoy his acting. The next one I'll watch will be the 25th Hour.

[SR4]

the 25th Hour is one of the few Spike Lee joints that I think brilliant.

 

Highly recommended.

 

Plus it has Philip Seymour Hoffman, he never disappoints.

[awepittance]

i couldn't get through the 25th hour for some reason, although i absolutely love the part where he talks about all the stereotypes in new york and they show them like the black basketball players who cheat and the italian guys with baseball bats.

[goffer]

Sunset Blvd. - Amazing, of course. 10/10

excellent my good sir

[Guest Gary C]

Idiocracy was a 9/10. However there were plenty of otherwise intelligent people that thought they got it but really didn't, like our friend Gary C.

 

Whoa, please enlighten me.

 

If I missed something I would like an opportunity to counteract any claim that this film is of any worth.

[lumpenprol]

American History X (9/10)

Terrific acting, very emotive. The ending was very surprising when I first watched it - I was predicting Norton's character to die near the end. I suppose this was the main film that kick started Norton's acting career towards bigger opportunities. I'm trying to pick up on a lot of his films at the moment because I really enjoy his acting. The next one I'll watch will be the 25th Hour.

 

I think the film that catapulted Edward Norton to A list status was Primal Fear. He was absolutely superb in that, I'm not sure if it was his first film, but it was one of the most skilled acting "debuts" I've ever seen. Sadly I don't really like him any more. Seems smug. I think the last good performance I saw from him was playing Rockefeller (?) In the Frida Kahlo biopic. That was a long time ago.

[Hoodie]

Idiocracy was a 9/10. However there were plenty of otherwise intelligent people that thought they got it but really didn't, like our friend Gary C.

 

Whoa, please enlighten me.

 

If I missed something I would like an opportunity to counteract any claim that this film is of any worth.

 

i agree with you gary. the premise was interesting and i enjoyed the first few minutes with the redneck family versus the rich family, but beyond that, the film was very shallow and... stupid. kinda ironic.

[Guest Gary C]

Definitely. I think the only possible way to see this film as anything other than a mess is from an ironic perspective. A film about how stupidity is bad is... stupidly bad. But that still makes the film bad, it's an incredibly poor angle to be going for.

 

I have some respect for the world that was created as there's clearly some effort put into the details of every little advert, but they mostly return to the one most pervasive joke of the film; that the future is centered upon the sex industry.

 

Why else is the time-travelling sidekick a prostitute? The fact that she's a prostitute isn't really used as a tool during the film either. She cons one of the future idiots out of money, which she never actually spends, but at no point does her job benefit anybody. Her vocation is largely redundant leaving the main recurring joke stagnant.

 

I'm willing to grasp that maybe I'm supposed to be annoyed by the terrible characters of the future. The 'lawyer' who acts as a guide in the future and is essentially one of the four leads is infuriating. His dialogue consists of monosyllabic demands and grunts, often repeated over and over. The voice employed by the actor is borderline offensive and a mix of full-retard and a deaf person. Who finds this funny? He watches a man getting kicked in the balls and claims that he likes to 'fuck real good', but oh, lol, look, in the future people like him are lawyers.

 

It's a sad film. Really sad. This was the follow-up from the creator of Office Space. Office Space. Everyone loves that film.

 

Office Space is good because it involves characters we can empathise with in a situation we can understand. They encounter problems, have a plan, fall out, get back together and it's wrapped up nicely with believable dialogue. It's a great film, undeniably, but Jesus, the guy's clearly a one-hit-wonder.

 

How can you return with a film that has no likeable characters, a confusing and annoying world, no redeemable dialogue and an ending that clearly has no invention?

 

In fact, the whole film does trail off a bit. The characters encounter problems, run away, encounter some more and then run away again at least 3 times. When the focal problem of fixing the future arises, sure it's an incredibly simple task, that's the joke, but it's dispatched with little effort. That's it, it's over. An attempt at tension is raised only with the idiot guide, who has the task of remembering what he has been told to do.

 

It's a nothing film. Nothing. During the whole film the main characters quest is for a 'time machine' to return to the past. There's no time machine. Is that funny? The writer gave him a quest, had him run around for a couple of hours, and then took it away.

 

Aw, he's learnt to live in the future. Fuck sake.

 

This film is garbage. Absolute garbage. For some reason I hold the notion that the writer didn't intend this film to turn out this way. I do believe there's some scope in there for a decent story. Perhaps the production company took the reins and focused upon what they thought were the most funny characters (the idiots). I'm sure they would've had figures and demographics that said that the same sort of people who find those characters funny also like destruction derby's... and then, hey, let's put a destruction derby scene in there.

 

It's actually the worst film I've ever seen.

[Guest Gary C]

Idiocracy's release was stunted and stifled by the production company. There were no trailers, posters or press-kits. There was no early screening for critics and it was initially limited to only 130 screens. It was even released 2 years after it had been wrapped.

 

Box office receipts totaled $444,093 in 135 theaters in the U.S.

 

And so this film has garnered a cult status because of it's slow-burning DVD sales. Don't even entertain the thought that it's release was quietened in order to gain such a status though. Fox knew exactly what they had and swept it under the rug.

 

This film's fucking shit, it has nothing redeemable and although I didn't want to argue I have no respect for anyone that thinks this is anything other than utter bullshit.

 

[awepittance]

yes because we all know when a studio sweeps a project they paid for under the rug it must mean it's bad. I love idiocracy. I didn't like OFfice space nearly as much.

[Guest Gary C]

 

Okay, so I hadn't realised until now but Mike Judge is the creator of Office Space, Beavis and Butt-Head, King of the Hill and Idiocracy.

 

I've never really liked Beavis and Butt-Head, including both the series' and film, and on his form I may now re-watch Office Space with a more critical eye.

 

But thank fuck that Greg Daniels was there to write King of the Hill, something I do consider to be an exemplary series. It's just a shame that Judge's name has to be involved with it as he created the characters.

[Guest Gary C]

yes because we all know when a studio sweeps a project they paid for under the rug it must mean it's bad. I love idiocracy. I didn't like OFfice space nearly as much.

 

There's the strong possibility that during those 2 years that the film was shelved that it was butchered by editors. Maybe Fox intended to change the emphasis, were ultimately told that it was unworkable with what was filmed, and threw the aborted phetus into a couple of cinemas to make Judge's lawyers happy. Perhaps I shouldn't be so harsh on Judge as he may have been chewed up by Hollywood.

 

But I still hate the film. I can only wildly speculate as to why it could be so abhorrent to me. And if there's something I don't get, I'm really really glad.

[keltoi]

my friend's just started a filmblog for a local magazine/website. it's low on content as it's only a day old but please have a look and maybe join in with discussion...

 

cinemateque @ the leither magazine

[Atop]

Idiocracy is ironic, frightening, hilarious, strange, ugly, and rewatchable as hell...

 

The humour lies within it's brutal honesty: that modern civilization is mostly uneducated cogs in the wheel of society's mechanics and that by blowing the stupidity out of proportion to an enormous and annoying degree, there is a moment when this blinding grotesqueness becomes beautiful and we can laugh at our stupid ass lives...

 

I dare you to watch it again you snotty C....

 

I dare you!

[Guest Fishtank]

I think it's funny because I could see all of it happening

[Guest Al Hounos]

I don't know why Idiocracy's gotten under your skin so much... it's just a comedy... a great satire but ultimately just a comedy - you either like it or don't.

 

I love it for its unabashed elitism. A lot of people took it as just making fun of generic 'dumb people', but it's really a pretty brutal and cynical mockery of lower-income Americans. This might have a little to do with your not getting the film, being from teh UK - these are people I live with everyday, so I know them well. Just take tiny details like the old-english graphics used on teh police cars - i think of the dozens of times I've seen old-english script on some redneck's truck's back window - these morons are here, now, all around us! Also the film's timing was excellent - just after all these morons elected bush a second time, it seemed like anti-intellectualism had finally spun out of control. Idiocracy is just a fantastic piece of anti-anti-intellectualism.

[Guest Gary C]

I'm not going to watch it again, I think it's utterly dire and won't put myself through it again.

 

I have major problems with the characters, their goals, the dialogue, the pacing in the second half, and the ending. If you somehow found a level in which the stupidity actually became funny then I pity you.

I thought there would be a consensus amongst all of us here, but I guess you're still Americans with a juvenile and narrow-minded sense of humour.