Rented any good DVDs lately?

Flexichick wrote: I saw "Elizabethtown and didn't think it was so horrible.

I definitely lack the cultural context of smalltown America, so that was probably a big part of it. I got hung up on the little things like the idea of a giant athletic shoe company failing to have discovered a product sucked before investing millions.

I also hated the Kirsten Dunst character and found her absolutely unbelievable (p'raps I've just led a sheltered life??) - and since I walked out of the movie, I have no idea if the end justified the story. At least with Match Point I felt like the end made it worth seeing through!

I just saw "Miss Potter" which was schmaltzy but enjoyable - a woman ahead of her time.

Mamacita wrote: Jeesh, even Papi Chulo made fun of me.

Friends don't let friends let lurkers make fun.

Stop it, Papi.

:twisted:

carny, thanks for the list. brought back many fantastic memories.

movies I want to see again:

anything troma (though not the poultrygeist bullshit being hyped at the H&tP show at knitting factory friday night - I call bullshit)
rock & roll high school
antonia's line
falling down
blade runner (director's cut)
28 days later

has anyone, other than leeho, seen 28 weeks later? is it still in theaters? worth the trouble?

saw a great foreign films rented from Netflciks.. actually watched it streamed from their site
C.R.A.Z.Y.

I just saw C.R.A.Z.Y. too - rec'd by a friend from Montreal. It's alot like "Ma Vie En Rose", a very sweet Belgian film. Rounding out that genre of well-made young mens films would be "Beautiful Thing", English project drama about two lads falling in love, and their goofy neighbor obsessed with Mama Cass.

WhyFi
Funny Korean film about "professional wrestling": "The Foul King"
http://www.subwaycinema.com/frames/archives/kfest2001/foulking.htm

A surprisingly sensitive comedy about work, wrestling, women, and full and half nelsons it springs from character-driven comedy to wild physical absurdity that hits the mat at 100 mph in the blink of an eye. Choreographed like outtakes from CROUCHING TIGER, BODY SLAMMIN' DRAGON, the matches are some of the sweatiest physical displays to come out of Asia since the height of Hong Kong's action cinema, and it's all the more jaw dropping when you realize that the actors are performing their own Fireballs, Atomic Elbow Drops, and Russian Crunches. Take that, Jackie Chan!

I was wondering about 28 Weeks Later too . . .
We just watched Running With Scissors on DVD (the book is soooo much evily tragifunny better, but Annette Benning does a good medicated crazy) and TransAmerica (meh)

Shit, I went to film school and am well aware of Wong Kar-Wai's background. I hope the comments above weren't a dig on me. I was further commenting on someone else's appreciation of that fantastic filmmaker.

Anyway, I"m surprised there has been no mention of Yasujiro (sp.) Ozu. Anybody seen Ohayo or Tokyo Story. Both are fantastic!

Also, Carnivore, I'd agree with you on Itami. The Funeral is one really funny movie. Did he also do that weird ass musical about the murderous family at a Japanese inn?

LeeHo, AsianConfusion was a Mamacita thing, so don't worry . . . see above mea culpas.
Or maybe it was about you. ha.

Funny, I was walking around this morning thinking about Ozu, as a result of this thread. What film has a piece of fruit being peeled in one perfect long coil in the foreground as the scene unfolds in the wide shot of the people sitting at tatami mats...?
I'm not so into DVD watching of the Japanese canon tho - it's a big dark air-conditioned film school thing for me. I worked as a projectionist while I was in school...

Wong Kar-Wai woo! 2046 was my least favorite tho -- felt like a lost retread.

Some new reviews -

"Time Out" - A French film. Liked it very much

"Swimming" - I think I got the wrong one. This one had Lauren Ambrose (Claire from "Six Feet Under" and was just 'eh')

I have "Obama" here and may watch it later.

Forgot to add some others that I liked:

"The Ice Storm" - early Ang Lee

"Once Were Warriors" - from New Zealand. Rough movie, but very good.

Flexichick wrote:
"Once Were Warriors" - from New Zealand. Rough movie, but very good.

If you enjoyed the antipodean social realism, I can recommend
* "Romper Stomper" (early Russell Crowe)
* "Whale Rider"
* "Rabbit Proof Fence"
And in fact, anything made in New Zealand

doctorj wrote: [quote=Flexichick]
"Once Were Warriors" - from New Zealand. Rough movie, but very good.

If you enjoyed the antipodean social realism, I can recommend
* "Romper Stomper" (early Russell Crowe)
* "Whale Rider"
* "Rabbit Proof Fence"
And in fact, anything made in New Zealand


Saw and liked all of the above, especially "Rabbit Proof Fence".

Romper Stomper was good until the very predictable ending.

Another recommendation in case anyone somehow hasn't seen this movie:

Swimming to Cambodia

Amazing. Just Spalding Gray and the camera, and I promise you won't want to look away for a second.

Ok. How about:
"Angel Baby"
"Chopper"
"Heavenly Creatures"
"Dogs in Space"
"The Last Wave"
"Proof"

Never heard of "Angel Baby". Could you mean "Sherry Baby" with Maggie Gyllenhaal? Because I liked that one.

1. This is Spinal Tap

2. Fear of a black hat

Carnivore and Mamacita recommended , Em26 approved.

I watched Chopper last week - Bana was surprisingly great!

Angel Baby

Ousmane Sembène passed away over the weekend. For you with more esoteric tastes, a VERY small selection of his excellent films can be rented on Netflix. Black Girl and Xala in particular.

Black Girl was one of his first films. I think it was the first feature film ever made by an African director.
They shot half of it, then raised money for the second half. The film is about a young woman in Senegal that works as a nanny, then is taken to Paris with her employer where she is expected to be nanny, maid, and cook.
It ends badly . . . a brilliant film about colonialism.

Xala is about a rich guy with a curse.

Sembène Ousmane wrote novels, and made films, that spared no-one. He criticizes all major religions, all mongers of power. A brilliant long life.

bump
(this seems like a good weekend thread)

Subject: Hayao Miyazaki

I saw another great animation film by Hayao Miyazaki:
Nausicaä of the Valley of the Winds

Really great movie. I love all his work, especially Porco Rosso and Howl's Moving Castle.

I have that (Nausicaa) at home and have been waiting for a day off to watch it. Howl's was pretty good...

Check out Porco Rosso, you'll like it!

on a different note: Grave of the Fireflies by Isao Takahata made me so sad that I had to finish watching it in 3 different sittings. But it was a f*%#@ great film.
http://imdb.com/title/tt0095327/plotsummary

Tokyo Godfathers is amazing, as is Millenium Princess (I think that is the title)

Porco Rosso is sooooo good!

I have Fires on the Plain coming via Netflix. Anybody seen that by Ichikawa? Sounds so good.

Just watched Nausicaa, it was okay... it reminded me that I had seen Castle in the Sky, which I liked much more.

Saw two movies I liked recently (liked...not loved):

A French film called "Un Coeur en Hiver" (A Heart in Winter)

and

My Life Without Me - I love me some Mark Ruffalo. This movie made me cry and cry...although I was a bit fragile when I watched it.

Oh Jesus!!!!
I'm watching Hard Time: The Premonition (1999) on TV right now because I'm sooo bored/no cable and it's too hot and humid outside to flee the apt.

BURT REYNOLDS!! Fighting Crime!!! It's so bad it should have been filmed in the 80's!!

AHHHHHHH! Here's the synopsis:

Burt Reynolds plays Logan McQueen, the hardest and most fearless cop in Florida. A series of attacks begins to happen in Miami, everyone of them meticulously carried out by a person who seems to be an extremely lethal terrorist. Buildings, schools, public places, everything is destroyed by the bombs. When trying hopelessly to find and to destroy the terrorist, Logan McQueen ends up getting closer to a convict who says that he is capable to foresee the explosions. Now, Logan will have to team up with the man and find the terrorist.
This is the sequel to the movie, HARD TIME. At the conclusion of which, police Detective Logan McQueen offers to take the fall for his partner, Charles Duffy. He is sent to prison. While there he is constantly being hounded by people he placed in prison, so they place insolitary confinement. The man in the cell next to him, Ray Earl Winston is murderer who is awaiting to be executed. They form some kind of rapport. Now someone is killing women by blowing them up. Winston for some strange reason knows about them. He offers to help the police but will only deal with Logan, who has been released. Logan agrees to talk to Winston, but before he tells Logan anything, Winston first wants Logan to do something for him first; convince his estranged daughter to see him. However, his daughter believes that her father's only conning them, and has vowed to never see him.

It's so bad I'm mesmerized by it :shock: :shock: save me!!

This one may be kind of obvious, but I saw Zodiac recently and it was really good.

I also recommend the Burn to Shine series if you haven't checked it out:

http://trixiedvd.com/bts/

I saw Underworld: Evolution on Netflix recently.

Don't.

Subject: Hot Fuzz!

Rented Hot Fuzz this weekend and watched it 3 times!! So good.
Excellent writing and directing... I need to buy it because I already want to see it a fourth time.