Recommend a movie

Cornelio Saturday 24 Dec 2011

The Right Stuff (1983)
Philip Kaufman

:thumbsup:

Flawless portrayal of the enterprising spirit of the greatest generation. Top-notch filmmaking, entertaining and well developed story, great actors. You cannot ask more from a movie. By far Kaufman's ( Henry & June , Quills ) best film.

Broseph Saturday 24 Dec 2011

Don Johnson said: ↑

The Big Lebowski : most overrated comedy not directed by Jared Hess. Like Napoleon Dynamite, it's 'quirky', which means the protagonists are unrelateable gimmicks, who spout inanities destined to be endlessly recreated in meme form on a hundred nerdy internet forums. The popularity of this film honestly mystifies me. I can't count the number of times I cringed as gag after gag misfired culminating in what is perhaps one of the unfunniest scenes I've ever witnessed, the showdown with the 'nihilists'. The plot, if you can call it that, is almost entirely driven by wacky deus ex machinas , and the dialogue seems to take place on another planet (Julianne Moore as a pretentious feminist is a serial offender here).

Like Led Zeppelin, The Big Lebowski is another instance of critical revisionism. The initial reception was (rightly) unfavorable, but after the film's runaway popularity with the masses the critics did an about-face and declared it a masterpiece. Honestly, there's nothing to like about this movie. I hated all the characters, I hated the annoyingly self-conscious tone (a Coen bros. trademark), I hated the unfunny jokes and the bad dialogue, and I hated the cinematography which strived after suburban noir ala Blue Velvet but in the end just came across as dreary and monotonous. Seriously bad, folks.

Everything you say about this movie is true, and that's why I like it; Only a society like ours could produce such a movie.

Cornelio Friday 30 Dec 2011

Don Johnson said: ↑

The Big Lebowski : most overrated comedy not directed by Jared Hess. Like Napoleon Dynamite, it's 'quirky', which means the protagonists are unrelateable gimmicks, who spout inanities destined to be endlessly recreated in meme form on a hundred nerdy internet forums. The popularity of this film honestly mystifies me. I can't count the number of times I cringed as gag after gag misfired culminating in what is perhaps one of the unfunniest scenes I've ever witnessed, the showdown with the 'nihilists'. The plot, if you can call it that, is almost entirely driven by wacky deus ex machinas , and the dialogue seems to take place on another planet (Julianne Moore as a pretentious feminist is a serial offender here).

Like Led Zeppelin, The Big Lebowski is another instance of critical revisionism. The initial reception was (rightly) unfavorable, but after the film's runaway popularity with the masses the critics did an about-face and declared it a masterpiece. Honestly, there's nothing to like about this movie. I hated all the characters, I hated the annoyingly self-conscious tone (a Coen bros. trademark), I hated the unfunny jokes and the bad dialogue, and I hated the cinematography which strived after suburban noir ala Blue Velvet but in the end just came across as dreary and monotonous. Seriously bad, folks.

Personally, I think it's a good movie, IMO. Your dislike of it is understandable, for the film contains zero (ZERO!) references to Zapffe. However, I suggest you watch it again without a stick up your ass and see what happens. Think about it, pal.

Trajan Friday 30 Dec 2011

Horrible Bosses , more like HORRIBLE MOVIE!! Back to the Red Box with that one, dad.

Klaatu Wednesday 4 Jan 2012

Midnight in Paris (2011)

This is a charming movie. Owen Wilson plays Gil Pender, a yuppie vacationing in Paris with his fiance and her parents. Every night he wanders off to a part of the city that takes him back in time to the 1920s, to the Paris of American literary expatriates - Ernest Hemingway, Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald, Gertrude Stein and T.S. Eliot. When the characters introduce themselves to Pender his reaction seems inappropriate. Most people would be awed beyond belief, but he seems merely star struck. Odder still is how it never dawns on Pender just how miraculous his circumstance is - he not only travels back in time, he travels to his favorite period and meets his favorite writers. Things like this don't happen by chance. This could only occur by miraculous intervention. The characters talk to Pender about conquering the fear of death, the emptiness of life, and nostalgia for past eras. I expected Pender to make a connection between these thoughts and his having traveled through time. But he only makes the prosaic observation that people in the past were just as weary of their present times as people today. But why were they weary of their present times? It seems that God is absent from Woody Allen's universe and that people really do travel back in time (to their favorite period to meet their favorite authors, no less) by random chance. Overall, I enjoyed the movie. I liked the recreation of the 1920s, the shots of the city and the witty dialogue. I could imagine Woody Allen playing the lead role when he was younger. This is a role Allen wrote for himself but was too old to play, so Owen Wilson plays it for him. He has Allen's body language down to a t and delivers all his lines like Allen.

Trajan Wednesday 4 Jan 2012

I watched Midnight in Paris in a small art theater populated by SWPLs, and the experience was like watching an episode of Jeopardy (category: 20s culture) with the entire cast of NPR. HEY LOOK, THAT'S ZELDA FITZGERALD screeched some scrawny hipster in a mashup retro t-shirt two rows behind me; t hat's a reference to The Exterminating Angel whispered a tubby beardo two seats to my left. Unpleasant to say the least. Yes, we get it, you know the references, congratulations you've taken a college humanities course once in your pathetic dead-end life, now shut the fuck up please.

It was far from Allen's best. The fiancee's parents were obnoxiously unlikable caricatures of what Allen thinks rich conservatives are like, and the 'tea party' reference will expire faster than the gallon of milk I'm drinking as I write this review. Hemingway's dialogue made me cringe. Owen Wilson acted mopey and passive-aggressive, which is to say he was an excellent Woody replacement. The film's sentimentality is over-indulgent and the moral empty and facile (people's lives were just as shit then as they are now; nostalgia prevents us from living in the present). Adrien Brody's disgusting jewnose is shown on-screen (disguised as Salvador Dali). Rachel McAdams is a cunt.

Despite these negatives, even Allen's weaker films are better than the majority of the utter shit that Hollywood produces. To his credit Allen eschews a rigorous explanation of how the protagonist was able to time travel, blending fantasy and reality to give the whole film a magical realist vibe ala Pleasantville . A lesser director would have concocted some ridiculous theory, probably involving Very Complicated Sciency stuff, or perhaps a magic substance of some sort. The movie is visually gorgeous -- you can tell Allen really does love Paris's scenery -- and there's some decent humor in the Curb Your Enthusiasm vein (the earring scene in particular). I give it a tepid 4.5 out of 10 stars.

Trajan Wednesday 4 Jan 2012

Found this review, which more or less sums up my feelings on MiP.

http://johnmcdonald.net.au/2011/midnight-in-paris/

To truly appreciate Midnight in Paris it would help if one had seen relatively few Woody Allen films so the gags and characters might seem less hackneyed. It would help if one knew nothing whatsoever about Paris in the 1920s, with its cast of famous American expatriates. It would help if one knew Paris itself only through movies and by repute.
It’s hard to believe there are many people in Allen’s audience who meet these conditions. A typical Woody Allen film is pitched at a literate, cosmopolitan demographic. They have been to Paris, read Hemingway, and have at least heard of Gertrude Stein.
The truly frightening thing is that anyone who meets these criteria could still find this film “charming”. There may never have been a feature more calculated to appeal to the semi-erudite – ie. that large class of people who know just enough about some literary or artistic reference to recognise it and congratulate themselves on their discovery. In the age of Google and Wikipedia, we are all in danger of becoming semi-erudite.
I refuse to believe that Hemingway spoke exactly like the characters in his novels, or that F. Scott Fitzgerald called people “old sport”, just like his most famous creation, Jay Gatsby . These are but two of the “Ah-ha!” moments inserted into a story that is one long chain of cultural allusions thrown together in the most self-indulgent manner.

Cornelio Wednesday 4 Jan 2012

Ok, mladdy, we get it. You got all the obscure references in the film. Those hipsters had a hard time identifying them, but for you it was a piece of cake, YOU ARE ABOVE THAT SHIT, FOR FUCKS SAKE YOU ARE AN ELITE EXISTENTIALIST, AND A TRUE SUFFERING ONE UNLIKE THOSE BOURGEOIS POSERS!!!!!!!!1!!. You have our admiration, now let's move on.

Trajan Wednesday 4 Jan 2012

Minus the snarky sarcasm, you're correct.

Ash Wednesday 4 Jan 2012

Didn't happen.

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