Movies

[some call me...tim?]

Oh man, I too am a movie snob...actually, I shouldn't say "snob" b/c I take some pleasure watching bad movies too. "Afficionado" would be a better word maybe.

I've seen most of the movies in your list there Blake and agree with most of them. One thing I noticed though...in your list of directors, you didn't include the Coen brothers. What's up with that!? True, they've been in a slump lately, but man, they've made some classics--Raising Arizona, Fargo, Big Lebowski, Miller's Crossing...they definitely hold a top tier for my favorite directors.

I like that you included Todd Solondz on your list, I think he's one of the most underappreciated directors out there, probably too controversial for most people, but I just love his no-holds-barred style.

Also a big fan of Takashi Miike--if you don't like really weird, really disturbing films, he should be avoided. But if you do like that kind of stuff, he's friggin' awesome!

Best movies I've seen in the past few months:

The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada
Children of Men
Samurai Champloo (not a movie, but an anime series...way cool even if you're not an anime fan)
Idiocracy (actually a pretty dumb movie, but some good social commentary, I think)

[Glock23]

I'm not really a snob, but I have a lot of movies.
Some of my favorite movies in no order:

Reservoir Dogs
Pulp Fiction
Shaun of the Dead
Snatch
Lock Stock & Two Smoking Barrels
Fargo
Dog Soldiers (B movie horror flick, but worth seeing)
28 Days Later
Saw I & II
Memento
Seven
Fight Club
Desperado
The Way of the Gun
Mystery Men
Office Space
Kiss of the Dragon
American Psycho
Donnie Darko
House of a 1000 Corpses
Lucky # Slevin
Anything MST3K

The first 15 minutes of Running Scared... (sorry, inside joke)

Oh, and Kill Bill Vol 1 and Vol 2 were both great movies. I like Vol 1 a little more though. I am a fan a movies with graphic violence though.

[MR. WICK]

I have over 1,000 movies in my collection and those are a lot of my favorites as well. However most of them are dvd and I'm upgrading to some type of an hd setup soon. Glock 23 you listed some of my favorites as well. Have you seen A Scanner Darkley? I recently added it to one of my favorites.

[Glock23]

Glock 23 you listed some of my favorites as well. Have you seen A Scanner Darkley? I recently added it to one of my favorites.

Is that the one that looks like it is animated almost? It looked fairly interesting, but I haven't seen it yet. I will have to pick it up.

[redspexxx]

anyone else have netflix? i love that service. the tell you what movies they think you'll like baised on ranking you give to movies you've seen before. i have so many freaking movies on my Q i'd have to keep the service for 4 more years just to watch them all...

back on subject: has anyone seen "the machinist"? it stars christian bale. the guy almost killed himself in preperation for this role and when you see him you'll know why. just the one scene where he shoes his ribs... thats friggin dedication to one's craft if you ask me...

[superq]

wow there are some serious movie buffs in here...

well I went to the local blockbuster this weekend with the ice storm moving in and did a little recon of the new release wall... here is the review

Aquamarine - Crap the wife wanted it three chicks running around and one is a mermaid (splash was a good flick lets leave mermaids alone now.)

Lary the cable guy health inspector - again the wife and it was not as bad as I would have thought... larry is a funny guy.

ultraviolet - wow very visually pleasing (and the backgrounds are good too) plot was a little transparent but overall worth watching.

Fearless - I liked it a lot... had a crouching tiger feel to it with all the wire fighting but the camera work and the plot were good. Jet Le is a bad man,

Clerks II - still not sure how I feel about this one. Kevin Smith is a great director I am still trying to decide what I think he was doing... alas there is a donkey show so it is worth a watch... (i'd be pissed if I paid for that donkey show!)

Grandmas boy - holy crap I have not laughed that hard in a long time... and Linda cardellini is SMOKIN HOT!!!



for all time I am a big fan of most of David lynch's work.

Do you know who killed Laura Palmer?

[some call me...tim?]

I saw "A Scanner Darkly" and thought it was all right. I thought it could have been better, but I admire Linklater for picking a challenging format for his film. It did have some very cool animation, that's for sure (the whole bug infestation thing was gnarly), but I just felt that the pacing was off for the film. It's a lot easier to watch than "Waking Life", which I also liked, but felt was flawed.

Glock, you mentioned MST3K, I dig them too. Have you heard about RiffTrax? They basically do the same kind of thing, but do it with modern films. The ones I've seen are Star Wars I: The Phantom Menace and The Matrix, and they're funny as hell. Thing is, you can only d/l the audio track from the website, so either you watch the movie and listen to it seperately, or dub it over a divx file (or find someone that's done it already). Good stuff though, I was stoked to find out they're still making their commentaries.

[MR. WICK]

Is that the one that looks like it is animated almost? It looked fairly interesting, but I haven't seen it yet. I will have to pick it up

Yes it is the animated one. A new type of animation where (8 different) artists drew right over actual film footage. I just love the idea of the suit that he wears in the movie. Really cool and entertaining.

back on subject: has anyone seen "the machinist"? it stars christian bale. the guy almost killed himself in preperation for this role and when you see him you'll know why. just the one scene where he shoes his ribs... thats friggin dedication to one's craft if you ask me...

That movie was freekin' weird. I can't believe he lost all of that weight for the movie.

[some call me...tim?]

back on subject: has anyone seen "the machinist"? it stars christian bale. the guy almost killed himself in preperation for this role and when you see him you'll know why. just the one scene where he shoes his ribs... thats friggin dedication to one's craft if you ask me...

yeah, I think I read that all that he'd eat during filming was 1 can of tuna and 1 apple per day. What's really crazy is how ripped he got for Batman Begins right afterwards. Most people could work out for years and years and not get that physique...I guess you get some good personal trainers in Hollywood though.

[Glock23]

back on subject: has anyone seen "the machinist"? it stars christian bale. the guy almost killed himself in preperation for this role and when you see him you'll know why. just the one scene where he shoes his ribs... thats friggin dedication to one's craft if you ask me...

Good movie. It seemed to be a memento rip-off, but it was worth the watch. It is in that insomnia, memento, indentity, pi type of movie.

[Blake_T]

glad to see there are others that share my taste in movies.

as for the coen brothers, i've answered this question about 932 times, so here goes. with a few exceptions, i've found the coens tend to impart some sort of "oh isn't this clever?" type of feeling into their movies... which doesn't really tend to appeal to me.

the closest (albeit not great) example i can come up with is seinfeld. i've noticed a lot of people that like the coens like seinfeld... and it seems that those same people seem to believe seinfeld was just so clever. i've never liked seinfeld and i make no secret of that. what makes me blast people about it is when they tell me "if i GOT seinfeld, i'd think it was amazing." generally, i'm smarter than most people, and yes, i got it. the thing is, the premise under seinfeld is the stuff that i HATE about people, society, etc. and it's all stuff i've thought about/noticed before

it's not in all their movies, but in a good chunk of em.

my fav coen brothers film is the hudsucker proxy. great 1930's styled screwball comedy w/ a few interjections of the post-citizen kane era. i could picture jean harlow in that movie.

i totally dig todd solondz but yah, about 99% of the population can't handle his stuff. the first half of storytelling is so accurate heh.

[Rob]

Clerks II - still not sure how I feel about this one. Kevin Smith is a great director I am still trying to decide what I think he was doing... alas there is a donkey show so it is worth a watch... (i'd be pissed if I paid for that donkey show!)

Grandmas boy - holy crap I have not laughed that hard in a long time... and Linda cardellini is SMOKIN HOT!!!

Yea Clerks 2 was kinda up in the air. I watched it and thought it wasnt too good. But the next day I couldnt stop thinking about some of the funny parts and had to watch it again. Def some good laughs in there, it had to grow on me a bit.

And hell yea Grandmas Boy is an awsome movie. I thought it looked stupid but someone said it was good so I gave it a whirl and damn, it was really funny. And yes that chick is on fire!

[some call me...tim?]

Hmm, I'm not sure I know what you mean by "isn't this clever?" part of them...I think I might know what you're talking about, but I think Wes Anderson and Noah Baumbach have that too, and you like both of them (I like them too, incidentally). And Seinfeld...well, I won't get too much into that, I don't hate Seinfeld, but I don't get the obsession over it. But yeah, you said it wasn't a great example so I'll leave it at that.

What I will say about he Coens is that I think they've gotten lazy. They might have an "isn't this clever?" element, but a lot of their stuff IS clever (or maybe I should say "was"). Several of their movies were critically acclaimed and it seemed like they could do no wrong. But of their last 4 films, I would only say one of them was really "good" (The Man Who Wasn't There), the others were just kinda good in parts, but overall weren't that great. I think their biggest letdown was "The Ladykillers", and I think the main problem was that it lacked that Coen Bros. cleverness. It had some funny parts, and was still generally better than most stuff out of Hollywood, but it just didn't have anything special about it...it was just kind of blase.

Their next movie looks to have some potential "No Country For Old Men"...I'm hoping they can get their act together for this one. BTW, Hudsucker is a good one, one of their most overlooked, but good stuff for sure.

OK /Coen Bros. critique

Like others have said, Grandma's Boy is really funny movie. I thought it was gonna be really dumb and juvenile (it was produced by Adam Sandler, after all), but it was really surprsingly good. It IS kind of a dumb and juvenile movie, but it's done well enough that it's fun all the way through.

Oh, thought of another movie that was pleasantly surprising: "Little Miss Sunshine." My parents recommended that to me, and I was skeptical, especially with that title, but it was really good. I laughed out loud all through it, it had great character development and a satisfying ending. Definitely recommend it.

[bigs348]

I enjoyed "Little Miss Sunshine." I love Wes Anderson, I think "The Royal Tenenbaums" is my favorite of his, with "Lite Aquatic" close behind. "Rushmore" has some great parts, and "Bottle Rocket" is good, but unrefined.

The Coen brothers are just okay for me. "Fargo" is overrated, I think. I like "Hudsucker" and "Big Lebowski." "O Brother" is a great movie, but that's partially because I'm a literature nerd and there's just so much in there.

[domromer]

I enjoyed "Little Miss Sunshine." I love Wes Anderson, I think "The Royal Tenenbaums" is my favorite of his, with "Lite Aquatic" close behind. "Rushmore" has some great parts, and "Bottle Rocket" is good, but unrefined.

The Coen brothers are just okay for me. "Fargo" is overrated, I think. I like "Hudsucker" and "Big Lebowski." "O Brother" is a great movie, but that's partially because I'm a literature nerd and there's just so much in there.

you have pretty much summed up all my favorite moves, the squid and the whale was very good as well. Also an old Ben Stiller movie called Flirting with Disaster. I think that was his best movie.