Schoolio's Movie Corner

[schoolofruckus]

Yay, first post over here. I'm not going to write any kind of introduction or anything, so people who don't harken back to the ezboard days are fucked. Big fucking deal. Can I say fuck on the air? I feel like Howard Stern in the dawn of the Sirius era.

However, I can't say the P word. Feels a tad similar to "marijuana illegal, but cigarettes cool", but we'll go with it. The great ones adjust, as they say.

Here's my final recap of 2006:

Top 10:

1. The Fountain
2. Children of Men
3. The Departed
4. Babel
5. L' Enfant
6. Brick
7. Half Nelson
8. Manderlay
9. V for Vendetta
10. Inland Empire

Honorable Mentions:
Pan's Labyrinth, Lady in the Water, This Film Is Not Yet Rated, Bubble, Miami Vice, The Proposition, Little Miss Sunshine

Great Films I Need To See Again Because They Were Late Shows And I Missed Bits and Pieces Here And There:
United 93, The Lives of Others

Movies I Wanted To See and Will Catch Up With Soon:
Volver, Shortbus, Tideland, Perfume: Story of a Murderer, Factotum, The Death of Mr. Lazarescu, Marie Antoinette, An Inconveniant Truth (so help me God)

Worst of the Year (I skip most movies that look shitty to me, but these are the ones I saw that I hated):
Apocalypto
16 Blocks
Letters From Iwo Jima
Inside Man
The Science of Sleep

Oscar-beggars I Have No Interest In:
Dreamgirls
The Queen
The Last King of Scotland
Flags of Our Fathers

[tessalasset]

i like this gabe post. it did not take much attention to get through it and i like that.

[schoolofruckus]

Tessa, you're a lazy bastard, but I love you.

[tessalasset]

and i love your mom.

[bug on your lip]

[bmack86]

Gabe, did you see the Prestige? If so, what'd you think?

[chairmenmeow47]

yay, my favourite thread is back! i'm making my list based on this list of movies, so i'm sorry if they didn't really come out in 2006, i'm just going off this. and these are in no particular order. my top 10 movies list depresses me, cause 2006 just wasn't a great year for movies. there's a lot i missed too

favourites of 2006

* running with scissors
* volver
* children of men
* a prarie home companion
* thank you for smoking
* blood diamond
* little miss sunshine
* v for vendetta
* the departed (but i didn't like it as much as the critics, christ, it's good, but it's no goodfellas.
* borat


movies i wanted to see but didn't

* the good german
* the fountain
* pans labrynth (hopefully this weekend though!)
* jesus camp
* the us versus john lennon (did it even come to az?)
* shortbus
* the last king of scotland
* notes on a scandal
* the science of sleep (i'm sad about missing this one)
* babel
* the queen
* flags of our fathers (i just like war movies, i don't expect much)
* the illusionist
* the devil wears prada
* the da vinci code
* the prestige


movies i saw and hated

* a scanner darkly
* the black dahlia
* for your consideration (didn't really hate it, but i was really disappointed)
* stick it. i had the idea for this movie in 2004 (and i have the LJ entry to prove it), so i expected it to be a campy movie like bring it on, but it wasn't even funny, just lame.
* the good shepard


movies i had no interest in seeing

* annapolis
* the last kiss
* idlewild
* school for scoundrels
* ultra violet
* an inconvenient truth (it's not that i don't believe in global warming, i just can't stand al gore)
* united 93
* world trade center
* stranger than fiction
* hostel
* deja vu
* miami vice
* nacho libre
* click
* the break-up

[amyzzz]

The Illusionist is very, very good, and it's available to rent now too.

[chairmenmeow47]

Originally Posted by amyzzz

The Illusionist is very, very good, and it's available to rent now too.

a co-worker lent it to me yesterday, so this weekend, it's on!!!

[schoolofruckus]

I did see "The Prestige". I thought the ending completely fucked it up. Until the reveal at the end, it was a pretty good film about two virtuosos going head-to-head that played it for both excitement (the fun of watching them duel) and tragedy (the price of ruthless determination). The final twist felt like an extremely lazy way to end it, and it made both of their characters feel like hacks rather than masters. I will concede that there was some thematic benefit to it...


****PRESTIGE SPOILERS - SKIP IF YOU HAVEN'T SEEN IT****









...in terms of showing how competition and cheating can deteriorate one's abilities, lead to demise, etc.





****END SPOILERS****


....but it still left me feeling like "fuck this movie". It was one twist too much. There were also smaller problems I had with it, like Scarlett Johansson's performance; anyone who knows me knows that it's a big deal for me to slam her work, but God bless her, she needs to stick to contemporary films.

So, yeah - "The Prestige" counts as, in my opinion, Christopher Nolan's first strike. He's been either brilliant ("Memento") or very, very good ("Batman Begins", "Following", "Insomnia") every time out up to this point; an ambitious film that falls short is not too offensive.

[chairmenmeow47]

i'd also like to add "the root of all evil?". not sure if it counts as a real movie, i know it was a two part special on the BBC called "the god delusion" and "the virus of faith", but i really enjoyed this. dawkins is a little extreme for me (i'm agnostic, not athiest), but it raised a lot of good points and made me laugh. i guess he has to be extreme to counter the extremists on the other side.

[KungFuJoe]

I thought this was a pretty good year for film. Much better than last year anyhow, IMO.

I'll stick with my top five:

Children of Men
Pan's Labyrinth
Babel
The Departed
Volver

Honarables: The Fountain, Science of Sleep, Little Miss Sunshine, Running w/ Scissors, V for Vendetta, Casino Royale, A Scanner Darkly, Clerks 2, Curse of the Golden Flower, Takeshi's, The Duelist, Jet Li's Fearless, ...

Guilty Pleasure of the Year Award: CRANK

[schoolofruckus]

I would agree that this was a terrific year for movies. The top 2 films on my list will go down as two of the best films in history, and so many of the others were excellent as well.

[Jenniehoo]

I still want to see The Break Up.

[atom heart]

Would Children of Men rank up there with Fahrenheit 451? Yay, nay?

I thought it had the feel of a great dystopian classic.

[amyzzz]

I'm gonna have to say I'm incredibly grateful to Gabe for promoting/recommending/whatever-ing The Fountain because that's the best movie I've seen in a long, long time. I'm going to see it for the 2nd time tonight. Yay!

[schoolofruckus]

*dusts shoulders off*

I do what I can. I'm glad you took my recommendation!

[KungFuJoe]

I'm going to have to watch The Fountain again. I liked it, but I didn't LOVE it. Perhaps a second viewing is in order. I think I'd still ***fer Requiem for a Dream though.

[SometimesNJ]

was the fountain really that good? i didn't hear anything about it..and i assumed it wasn't gonna be that great. i'll definitely have to check it out now.

[amyzzz]

SometimesNJ, it's AMAZING if you "get" it. A lot of people don't get it and think it's too weird.

The entire movie and score are dedicated to a man's grief over his wife in this incredible metaphysical, sci-fi kind of way. They use a new type of cinematography to film the stars/outerspace parts which is simply stunning. And the musical score is so wonderful and heartbreaking that it makes me weep everytime I hear it.

The Fountain touched me deeply on so many levels. I saw it again last night, and I was sobbing uncontrollably at the end. I don't want to give away too much here if you haven't seen it yet, but we can discuss it with proper *spoilers* later if you want. There are many interp-r-e-tations you can have about it, and that also makes this a great film to discuss.

[idrive1life]

saw very few '06 films in theaters:

United 93 (love it, #2)
The P restige (like it a lot)
The Queen (love it, #3)
The Departed (love it, #4)
Superman Returns (like it a lot)
Mission: Impossible III (in Blu Ray - gorgeous in BR, okay film)
X-Men: The Last Stand (Blu Ray - beautiful in BR, film boring)
The Da Vinci **** (sDVD, sucks)
Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest (sucks)
Monster House (just bought Blu Ray with Kung Fu Hustle BR in BB)
Miami Vice (sDVD, like it)
The Devil Wears Prada (like it)
Babel (my most favorite, #1)
Borat (like it )
Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby (BR still to see ... comes free with PS3 ... not planning in seeing it)
Tristram Shandy: A Cock and Bull Story (sDVD, like it)
World Trade Center (Blu Ray, like it)
Inconvenient Truth (sDVD, love it)
Thank You For Smoking (sDVD, love it)
Scoop (sDVD, like it)
V for Vendetta (HD DVD, have not opened it yet)

[mountmccabe]

Oh wow. I just watched the "Love Conquers All" version of Brazil.

I hadn't seen any version of the film in some time which was probably best for attempting to ap***ciate it on its own terms but wow... it was just off-putting. Most of what really resonated about the American version - the one I'd ***viously seen - was gone. Late in the movie I realized that all but the first of the fantasy sequences were cut along with many other parts. I mean, this was cut from 132 minutes to 94.

I watched some of it with the commentary and I'm sure I'll go back to that to see it all; it was fascinating hearing some guy explain what is different and the purposes and meanings of these cuts.

At any rate the whole thing was very odd.

The best part is that sometime soon I'll watch the 142 minute Euro version which I've also not seen but which should be much, much closer to the American version.

[rampaige]

I loved Thank You For Smoking. ***tty damn funny. Did anyone see You and Me and Everyone We Know? It's one of those movies that if you try to summarize the plot it sounds very boring, but it's so good. Also very well made.

[idrive1life]

Did anyone see You and Me and Everyone We Know?

I love Indies ... I expected it to be so good but it was surprisingly boring for my taste.

[TomAz]

The Queen was actually not bad. I mean it's not Best Picture stuff but Helen Mirren was ***tty good in it.

Someone mentioned Annapolis. Now that was a dreadful movie.

[rampaige]

Originally Posted by idrive1life

I love Indies ... I expected it to be so good but it was surprisingly boring for my taste.

It was a little slow moving at times. A lot of it for me was just the way the movie looked...every scene was like a work of art.

[Jenniehoo]

So, I just made Gabe rent and watch "The Break Up".

It will be interesting to see what Gabe says about this movie - just because some nights I'll look over and say, "I really loved that movie, baby," and he'll look back and say, "I liked that movie too!" Then I'll come on this message board the next day to find him trashing the movie - which is the penalty for dating a professional movie critic. And because he's smarter than I am with movies.

However - personally - I really liked this stupid movie. Not so much for the hysterics in the middle where they try to "get one another" and trump the insanity of eachothers comebacks, but more in the sense that I LIKE what it stood for. I think that everyone, if they've dated enough before they either quit or were married, have been in relationships with people that they loved, but couldn't make it work for a variety of reasons, and I feel that this movie re***sents that fairly. It's silly in places and not re***sentative of a real relationship in others, but overall, I felt that it encompassed what it is to love someone and not make it able to work. Which, in most adult relationships, is what ends up happening...in a less hysterical manner.


SPOILERS!


They don't get together in the end - and I really liked and respected that. It is, after all, called "The Break Up"...not the "Work it out in time." You can love and respect a great number of people in your life - and the biggest misconception of young girls, magazines, and the movies - is that you know when you meet the one person for you. This movie doesn't ***tend that you can't love other people outside of that - and those people can't force you to grow and learn in ways that you otherwise wouldn't be challenged. I like that. I like the non-myopic point of view when it comes to love and its outcome; the ugliness that can come forth; and the maturity it demands to admit you're better than something that eludes you - just because it manages to ELUDE you. That's hard to do.

I hate the female, girly view I have to take with this movie, but I felt that it was relatable in the sense that living in our age, and loving many different people before we settle down, choices are rarely easy and never clear cut. You have to learn to ask yourself what makes you happiest and figure out what that means, because advice or popular culture makes you feel that life follows a set of rules to love that life rarely offers you - or that's seldom right.

Basically, it was a funny, dramatic, heartfelt movie that was marketed as a comedy - and that was ultimately its demise...because such simple marketing is bound to disappoint rather than fulfill. And Hollywood does that a lot with movies they can't pigeonhole and it's a shame. Relatability and real life story lines just aren't that easy to depict or recreate. Marketing should stop trying to sell to the lowest common denominator.

Overall - not the best movie I've seen - but not as bad as it has been panned. It's a fair (although "zany") portrayal of how your relationship with others can make you better for your next time around when you know you're better to move on. From a personal, relatable level - I liked it a lot. And, for the sake of validating my uninformed response - GABE SAID HE DID TOO.

[Jenniehoo]

Also, I loved "You and Me and Everyone We Know" - I think it was my favorite movie I watched last year. There was something beautiful and simple about its earnestness. They kind of exploited innocence as beauty - but it worked so perfectly that it was earnest and real. I thought it was a real masterpiece and loved the hell out of it. However, I know d ick about movies. I like Drop Dead Fred for Chrissakes

[york707]

I saw the queen and was bored shitless. Really - was there a point to it?

The Break up - I agree with Ms. Hoo. I thought the writing was very realistic. I, for one, know I have said "why would I WANT to do the dishes?" And ***tty much all of my friends have had an argument where they have said some variation of that. So, in thatsense, the writing was realistic for the way relationships actually happen.

And the Old97s were in it.

[summerkid]

1. Children of Men
2. Pan's
3. The Departed
4. V for Vendetta
5. Casino Royale
6. Borat
7. The ***stige
8. Curse of the Golden Flower
9. Little Miss Sunshine
10. Thank You for Smoking

Movie that would probably make my list i haven't seen yet: Babel
10.