Movies I meant to see, but didn’t.
Sometimes, I send things back to Netflix without watching them, and I always feel bad about it.
Sometimes, I send things back to Netflix without watching them, and I always feel bad about it.
Thank goodness for beer and livebloggers; how did I ever manage to sit through award shows without them?
It’s amazing how many different ways there are for people to not communicate with each other, and how many different things “not communicate” can mean.
I forget all about whatever it is I’m supposed to be watching now, because I’m sitting on the sofa in my pajamas, watching movies that are too old to be current and too new to be classic.
The movie seems happy enough to let its Christian subtext remain subtextual.
It’s impossible to write anything about the movie itself without wallowing in spoilers, so here are some random notes on the preview-watching experience.
The weird thing about watching feature films on the PSP is that you end up treating portable video like a portable game or portable text, as something to be picked up and put down at will.
The problem with Jackie Chan is that when he’s not interacting with a chair or a motorcycle or whatever, and instead has to act against a human being, he’s not really all that funny.
“This is terrible! We have two of the most talented martial arts actors in the world doing a movie together, and there’s absolutely zero chemistry between them!”
What can zombies do to brush up their image, to make themselves relevant to a modern audience?
Some brief thoughts on each of the shorts (and not-so-shorts) of the films I saw at Judge & Hertzfeldt’s touring festival of animation.
When the only convincing performance in a film comes from a backwards-talking, computer-animated muppet, you know you’re in trouble.
The whole affair is a wonderful play (pun intended) on identity, reality, and langugage.
Kung Fu Hustle doesn’t inspire deep analysis so much as a feeling of sheer elation.
How much do I love Reese Witherspoon? Enough to sit all the way through this movie.
I really didn’t dislike my film theory class as much as you’d think from reading this weblog.
The film makes the transition to a more visual medium by replacing some of the novels’ logorrheic verbal digressions with arch visual gags.
It’s two hours of drug jokes, fart jokes, boob jokes, gay jokes, and generally tiresome bad behavior. On the other hand, it’s Asians engaging in this bad behavior.
Don’t mind me, just whining about class. No, not “class,” “class.” Eh, you know what I mean.
This movie may mark the first time in years that Bruce Willis has played a character that’s anywhere near his actual age.
There’s nothing like an overdose of saccharine kitsch to knock a guy out of a too-good mood.
The Portland of My Own Private Idaho is the PDX of fifteen years ago.
Steamboy isn’t really about narrative, it’s about technology. (Or perhaps “SCIENCE!”; shout it in your best Thomas Dolby voice.)
I don’t know why it took me so long, but I finally figured out why I find Alfred Hitchcock’s movies so off-putting: they kinda suck.
One of the best moments of the evening was songwriter Jorge Drexler walking up to the stage and actually genuflecting to Prince before singing his acceptance.
Watching the animated shorts online mostly makes me pine for a DVD or theater showing; streaming video is a horrible way to watch, well, anything really, but it’s particularly bad for watching animation, where you just know that you’re missing out on all kinds of details.
What The Last Tycoon shows you is not just how Hollywood works as an industry, but how cinema works as a form.
For every allusion that signifies, there’s one that makes no sense at all.
Beyond such classics as The Blair Witch Project and Independence Day, there are scads of 90s films out there, just waiting to be remediated into hit games.
Million Dollar Baby’s achievement is less in avoiding cliches and more in the way it executes them.
Over many, many bottles of product-placed wine, these four mis-connect, connect, disconnect, and reconnect.
How much of this stuff can a person really take in before going into analeptic shock?
As the scene progresses, you feel that sinking feeling as our hero realizes that he’s way out of his depth: he’s unworthy, a phony, not even a pseudo-intellectual.
Josh’s Weblogging Rule #31: “When posting about a movie, don’t just link to another review and say ‘I agree!’”
The parts of The Passion of the Christ that didn’t make me roll my eyes in irritation or close them in sleepy boredom made me avert them in disgust, and those parts made up a distressingly large portion of the movie.
The thing that makes the film fall flat as satire is the same thing that makes it click for me: its unrepentant affection for its characters.
The film Hero is mostly about swordplay, true love, and imperialism. But it’s also a work of art, one that references other arts while telling its story.
What really struck me while I watched it was the way that so many scenes were framed like still photographs or home video.
I gave in and got a Netflix account. Now I can see all those films I’ve been meaning to watch, and make you all read about it!
Saying that The Return of the King is the best movie I’ve ever seen seems like an unreasonably strong statement, but for the life of me, I can’t think of anything better.
Having already sat through the confused, pretentious mess that was Reloaded, simply watching a mediocre action flick was kind of a relief.
Hooray! Aaron has finally given in to his destiny and started posting film reviews on his website.
Why this movie isn’t a stoner classic, I don’t know. Maybe I’m not stoned enough.
In a binge that left me kind of dazed, I saw both X2: X-Men United and The Matrix: Reloaded last Saturday.