What Movies Have You Watched Recently?

[Jeff311420]

Blood Diamond - sucked, about 45 minutes too long and was just reaching for Oscar noms
Marie Antoinette- stupid, doesn't get into any of the issues of why france hated her etc. etc, was like watching a Gap commercial.
Stranger than Fiction- ruled.

[Marwan]

I saw Life is beautiful for the first time, English dubbed version. A very bittersweet movie.. I would like to be more like Benigni's character.

[Enrique]

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I saw Life is beautiful for the first time, English dubbed version. A very bittersweet movie.. I would like to be more like Benigni's character.

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I remember enjoying this movie a lot when I first saw it. It is nice to see movies with an optimistic character. A life is beautiful approach to life is always refreshing. That is why I love a movie like Amelie.

[Five-Star]

Identity : IMDB : 2003 :
I love this movie. I watched it again because I noticed John C. McGinley was in it and could not remember for the life of me who he played. As soon as I popped in the DVD I remembered who. Still watched it anyways. I usually don't watch movies like this but for some reason I had an urge to see this in theaters and buy it on DVD. The casting in this film is great. The story is wonderful and full of twists and turns. It gets better each time you watch it because you get to see how the film makers set everything up. It's odd that these types of films get better as you watch them, since you know exactly what happens. The last major line in the film is one of the best IMO (right before the poem). I recommend this film to everyone (unless your squeamish).

[Marwan]

ya same here, Amelie is superb.. are there any other movies along those lines? (life is beautiful/Amelie)

[rothko]

some people can't see the pics in my last try at this, so here is another one that should work for everyone. of course, it's dumb now that i've already made an entry about it and also that this is now post #2002, but whatever. 2001 is one of the most aesthetically perfect films and it deserves screen captures, dammit.

fyodor, i wasn't making fun of anyone. i was being, in the words of phil hartman, "sassy!"

[Enrique]

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ya same here, Amelie is superb.. are there any other movies along those lines? (life is beautiful/Amelie)

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There have to be. My first instinct is to mention Truffaut, his Antoine Doniel series is quite optimistic even when showing sad things. Maybe 400 Blows is not along the same lines, but the sequels are (Love at Twenty, Stolen Kisses, Bed and Board, Love on the Run).

I might put something like Before Sunrise on the same style too, of being a movie that makes you feel good.

This year, Little Miss Sunshine would have a similar taste, although there is no character like Benigni or Amelie in it.

[Enrique]

I also enjoyed Identity a lot when I saw it. I saw it a couplke of times in the movie theaters and then bought the DVD and have seen it a couple of times more. I agree that it gets better in a reviewing, but not after many reviewings. I don't wish to see it again, for example.

I agree that the last line was cool.

[Enrique]

Saw "High and Low" by Akira Kurosawa on the big screen last night. I loved it. I also discussed it with a friend after watching it and it was very interesting seeing how different our takes on the movie where. I liked the first half much more because it was more dramatic, dealing with interesting decisions and moments of tension. She liked the second half more because she felt it was full of symbolism of Japan after WWII.

The first half is a man deciding whether he will pay a ranson for a kidnapped boy and go bankrupt or not pay the ransom and keep being rich. The second half is about trying to catch the kidnapper after he returned the boy. The Western influence on Japan is "evident" in the second half of the film (evident once I heard someone explain to me why), yet it is kind of like a detective story, which is fun in its own sake, but wasn't as interesting for me as the first half.

I liked this movie a lot. A lot can be commented on it.

[fyodor]

Well it seems the forum revision reversion has eaten my post on five films I watched recently. As I did it on the fly, I have no copy. I just watched another one so I'll kind of redo it.

My Ernst Lubitsch fest continued with Ninotchka (1939) starring Great Garbo in the title role as a Soviet communist sent on a mission to Paris where she falls in love with Melvyn Douglas. One of the taglines was "Garbo laughs", and though she does, the scene is far from funny (as is most of the movie)

There were some moments worth watching. One preceded the laughing scene. Ninotchka enters a French cafe.

Waiter: Now what shall it be?
Ninotchka: Raw beets and carrots.
Waiter: Madame! This is a restaraunt, not a meadow.

Next I watched If I Had a Million (1932) which was an anthology film with 7 or 8 directors each doing a short on the theme of someone receiving a million dollars out of the blue. Lubitsch's contribution was easily recognizable.

Also worth watching for the W.C. Fields piece.

Thirdly was the very dissapointing Heaven Can Wait (1943) which doesn't have the same storyline as Warren Beatty's 1978 film of the same name. Beatty's film was based on Here Comes Mr. Jordan (1941) which itself was based on a 1938 stage play called Heaven Can Wait. Very confusing.

I've seen both 'Mr. Jordan' and Beatty's 'Heaven', and they are both better than this Lubitsch effort. Don Ameche is just plain awful in a lead role.

Today I viewed The Merry Widow (1934) a very well done early musical. Stars Maurice Chevalier (Count Danilo) and Jeanette MacDonald (Sonia). I've never been a big fan of musicals but this one was an exception. There was way more dialogue than song and the dialogue was much more like the Lubitsch I've grown to love over the past week.

Refering to the host of chorus girls at Maxim's that are falling all over Count Danilo, and more precisely to his use for them as one night stands, Sonia says: "Here they are; all your little tonights, and not a tomorrow among them."

As Danilo renounces himself at his court martial he says, "Any man who can dance through life with hundreds of women, and is willing to walk through life with one.... should be hanged!" I hate to spoil the ending for you but he changes his mind and the line. C'mon.. you know this is going to have a happy ending from the get go.

Highly recommended. Must view.

The first non-Lubitsch I saw was Last King of Scotland (2006) which was very mediocre. I also felt Whitaker was good, but I was expecting more given all the hype I'd heard.

Finally we have Night of the Demon (1957) about an American scientist who travels to England to expose the leader of a black magic cult for the fraud that he is. Or is he? (I think that's the same line I wrote that got lost. My memory isn't so bad for an old man)

Anyhow the fx are kind of cheezy compared to say Alien, but the psychological element works fairly well. The director lets you figure out a main plot/motivation piece for yourself with a big visual clue that I'm sure some viewers would just miss or missinterpret. If he had explained it after I had already noticed, I would have been slightly ticked at him. When he didn't explain, it made me like it more.

I think that's the lot of them. I refuse to retype this if there's further software regression.