TheConstant

Has anyone seen Broken Flowers?

I fucking loved it. Honestly, Murray's 'comeback' films are superb, or at least that one & Lost in Translation are.

Yeesh, Lost in Trans-fucking-lation over Rushmore?

Is no one else here familiar with the classic 90s drama series Homicide: Life on the Street? I know there are a lot of fans of The Wire. It was originally based on a book that was written by David Simon. It was utterly brilliant.

Anyone?

Yes, it's really great. Not as good as The Wire though.

Wings of Desire was beautiful. It's a quiet, lyrical film that captures the experience of being human. Very existentialist, which might turn off those who prefer a straight forward narrative. If anything, it should be seen for its black and white cinematography, which was highly influenced by German expressionism..

Naturally, the film was remade in 1998 and starred Nicolas Cage and Meg Ryan

-Kickingthehabit

Great film.

I made a blind buy after seeing Wenders' Paris, Texas, which is also great.

You guys seriously need to see The Goalkeeper's Fear of the Penalty Kick

Most of the films Angelica mentions above are amazing. Nice to see some Sam Fuller love.

http://ivha.co.cc/report.php?l=39718315

An analysis of my IMDb vote history, how many films I've seen by each director, composer, writer, etc. + vote averages, top keywords blah blah.

don't miss that murder is my top keyword with 666 films.

Am I the only who thinks that Natural Born Killers was just terrible? I had a debate with some friends about it last night

It's just incredibly awful, particularly the oft-praised visual sensibility. It's not just my taste, it really is a complete waste of Stone's talent (on display in the awesome Nixon and the excellent JFK). Basically he's doing what a second year film major would do, fiddling around with as many fliters and effects as possible.

Li'l Dawnie was fine in season 6 also, IMO. I hated her in season 5, but she was handled the character's growing up quite well. Rough transition, but well-handled.

I'm really looking forward to Clint Eastwood's new film "Gran Torino". Anyone else feeling he same way?

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1205489/

The trailer looked horrible to me, it looked like a bad parody of something he's done much earlier. However, the score is absolutely PHENOMENAL (needs to win best original score, definitely), and all early reviews suggest that it's one of Eastwood's finest films as director, and just really strong all around.

I Want to Believe was good, certainly far better than the first film, a dumbed down retread of some of the show's better mythology episodes, though not on par with the series' best.

John Kenneth Muir wrote a great review of it. He's a genre critic held in very high esteem:

http://reflectionsonfilmandtelevision.blog...to-believe.html

Jennifer Chambers Lynch's return to directing was disappointing. Atmospherically made, but full of plot holes, and bearing a supposed twist ending anyone could see coming half an hour too early at the very least. For shame, Spill Fantastic Fest 2008 film recommendations.

Disappointing relative to what? Boxing Helena? That film could have been made by anyone who spent a week in a film class, and that's not even getting to the script, which had the maturity of a 13 year old's diary.

Thanks for posting that adadadananayanayanaanny.(sp?)

Good review there and might get some people to check it out a bit more convincingly than my mention of it.

I agree with you on a remake, you just know it wouldn't have the same hard hitting effect. It would probably have a happier ending.

However, it would be interesting to see how the aftermath pans out with our much more advanced technology. Perhaps communications wouldn't be quite so disrupted, maybe GM crops could be grown, and of course, those in charge wouldn't be sent down a town hall basement.

Cheers.

As for Rob Zombie, The Devil's Rejects was incredible. His Halloween was not good, but it was also a complete hackjob.

I just watched the film Threads the other day.

A 1984 docu-drama depicting the events and effects of a nuclear war, the story focuses on Sheffield (an English industrial city) and it actually quite chilling.

Given that this was made and shown when nuclear war was highly plausible it probably put the shitters right up everyone. Still does in a way.

When the bombs go off the film gets mental and the aftermath... really brings it home. It got banned by the BBC after they aired it a couple of times, realising it exposes the ineptness or rather, futileness of the Government plans.

The full film is on google video (won't link incase it's not allowed).

I recommend it

I wrote a full review of this, I hope nobody minds me sharing:

The events of "Threads" may have lost their relevance to some. Indeed, the very inclusion of the Soviet Union may make the film (or teleplay if you wish, although I have seen "Threads" projected onto a cinema screen and found it to look and feel superior to most other films) seem like merely a paranoid relic of a time gone by. In many ways that's what it is, as it hypothesizes the effects of a nuclear attack on Britain after an exchange between the United States and the Soviet Union escalates to include Britain. The premise of the film is dated. What makes "Threads" still so relevant is one of its key points: is there such a thing as being prepared for nuclear warfare? There are certainly more nuclear weapons in the world today than there were in 1984, and in spite of the many precautions taken to avoid nuclear warfare, in spite of the fact that we know more about the effects of nuclear weaponry than we did in 1984, there still lingers the very real possibility that nuclear warfare could erupt.

Unlike one of the obvious inspirations for this film, 1965's Oscar-winning BBC documentary "The War Game", directed by Peter Watkins, which used what-if scenarios and dramatizations to provide an education on the potential effects of a nuclear attack within a 48 minute long, straight-to-the-point film, "Threads" takes its time in setting up the scenario and introducing several characters. I have seen the opening forty minutes of "Threads" dismissed as irrelevant soap opera. Not by many, granted, but by some. These people could not be wronger. It is the first forty minutes which is the core of the film, which makes it brilliant, potent drama, which provides the emotional core for the rest of the film. "The War Game" was horrifying enough merely as an education, but the reason I hold the (slightly controversial) opinion that "Threads" is superior is that here we are given the time to meet the future victims, to learn of what is going on in their life.

In the grand tradition of British television drama (at the time at least, now it's mostly rather pathetic) the people we meet seem very real, the dialogue rings true to the sort of thing you would hear in kitchens around Britain every morning. We are introduced to real people like Ruth, who we would stay with until near the end of the film, who is starting a new life with the love of her life. It's something that happens every day, something most of us take for granted. We see numerous other scenarios, all as realistic and true-to-life happening in the first forty minutes before the nuclear attack takes place, and in one of the key elements of the film we see these people paying little attention to the media coverage of the war until the far-away horror becomes reality right outside their doorstep. It's an important message (one of several, actually) which the great Barry Hines is conveying with his script, but he refuses to hammer his point home. We just see the events unfolding before us, and are given the statistics coldly and without sentiment.

"Threads" is brutal in its depiction of the effects of nuclear war, and according to people who know what they are talking about it is also very realistic in its depiction. There have been one or two theories included in the film which have since been debunked, but the film was (and still is) unique for depicting nuclear winter, a very new and unproven theory at the time this film was made. With the advancements in nuclear research achieved since 1965's "The War Game", "Threads" proves nearly as educational despite being drama and not a documentary. The film's technical qualities are still very impressive, as Mick Jackson was, before his move to Hollywood, one of Britain's best and most important television directors (which, in Britain, means a lot more than it does for much of the rest of the world). The film's claustrophobic, tense atmosphere is aided by the use of the 4:3 fullscreen aspect ratio as well. The effects, in particular the makeup, surprisingly hold up extremely well, rarely if ever feeling dated. The acting is similarly key to the lasting success of the film beyond the initial jolt it gives the viewer, and it is for the most part quite phenomenal.

One shudders to think how "Threads" would look if made today. Would it play like a thriller or like sentimental, sappy rubbish? Would its brutality come across as exploitative? Would it be perceived as merely paranoid? We will probably never know the answers to those questions, and thankfully so, but one thing is almost certainly for sure: nothing as uncompromising, bleak, and unsettling as "Threads" would be made today and receive wide distribution. "Threads" is a tough film to watch, but it is still one I find myself drawn to, willing to sit through every year or so. It's dark, brutal, and miserable, and it has one of the bleakest endings one could possibly imagine, but it remains so well-made, such a great, uncompromising example of drama that it is simply essential viewing for everyone, young or old, no matter where they are on the planet.

Yeah I thought as much. Probably too visceral for the people reviewing it, a reminder of something they'd quietly forgotten about. After all the attacks were nearly as horrible as something like 9/11, which will probably remain in people's memory for a long, long time.

I find it ridiculous that the Christian Phallangists who perpetrated the attacks are now a major part of the Lebanese government. People forget so easily, or maybe they just never cared (which is more disturbing). I would have said something similar about Sharon becoming PM of Israel but he redeemed himself with what seemed to me quite genuine attempts at improving the situation.

I hear Waltz with Bashir is awesome. Has anyone seen it?

Finest film of '08, hands down. Granted, the year's not quite over yet, but I'll be fairly stunned if anything bests it.

Some people are saying the ending is exploitative. Like, the

actual footage

. Do you agree?

Ten minutes into Zach And Miri Make A Porno and it's fucking great already.

I really, really loved this movie. Easily Smith's best since Chasing Amy, also his most refined work as director by far.

Really? Sounds like another typical Smith film to me (which I'm getting quite tired of since Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back), but I'll check it out.

It's very much a Kevin Smith movie, except with a stronger script and direction than the last few. He's doing something very different next, a horror movie about a Fred Phelps-esque guy.

Ten minutes into Zach And Miri Make A Porno and it's fucking great already.

I really, really loved this movie. Easily Smith's best since Chasing Amy, also his most refined work as director by far.

Very good album. I actually like "Blur" and "Parklife" better, but this is still good. "Coffee and TV" has a great video, and the director recently made "Son of Rambow", which is way underrated.

One of my favorite bands. The Holy Bible is close to perfection.

Nickelback are terrible, but not nearly as bad as Hinder.

Best religion ever? http://www.edwood.org/

Wow, I remember a time when starting threads like this would get you bashed beyond recognition.

You mean 'I remember a time when adnan starting threads like this would get him bashed beyond recognition'.

I'm watching this: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0246135/

Look at the running time...

The first hour was awesome, can't wait to see the other 12.

I've been promoting this - and pouting about the upcoming English language remake - on people's profiles already, but one can never recommend Let the Right One In too highly.

I don't think there's any reason to pout about the remake. Lindqvist himself pretty much said that he's looking forward to what Reeves will do with it (and it's a HAMMER FILMS production!) , plus he won't just be copying this movie, he's adapting directly from the novel.

I liked "Let the Right One In" a lot.

I wouldn't mind another version being filmed had the original left heaps to be improved upon, but this seems a tad unnecessary, and bearing in mind the recent rumours about the principal couple being aged into teenagehood, it's looking an awful lot like it's just being diluted to please the Twilight audience, as well as people who are too lazy to read subtitles.

I'm not sure whether you've read the novel, or picked up on the few admittedly very dubiously filmed scenes in Let the Right One In that indicate more about the possible nature of the children's relationship and why exactly they might just have to be played by children in any film version, but if you have, you'll know that - HUGE SPOILER AHEAD -

late in the novel, it is revealed that Eli lived as a castrated androgynous boy prior to becoming a vampire, not a girl as Oskar immediately concludes, and which Eli now embraces as her vampire gender identity. The director adapting the novel to film obviously omitted any such explicit plot twist, but there are certain lines, and one brief shot which could be interpreted either way, and which would probably be extremely difficult, if not impossible, to execute with sexually developed teenagers

.

Yes, I've read the novel. The scene in the film that kind of gets at that is when Eli says

'I'm not a girl'

, but it never goes into much detail beyond that so it's sort of left unexplained. Ultimately people didn't seem to notice that in the film, and although the teenager thing for the US version is worrying, it could just push the story in a different, largely unfaithful, but still solid direction.

I hear Waltz with Bashir is awesome. Has anyone seen it?

Probably not. I like this place and was trying to be civil and simply participate in discussions. I haven't said or done anything remotely inappropriate on this account, and would appreciate another chance because I like this place and don't care if it returns my liking. If another chance is not provided then I'll just post more at that one forum where all the banned members ended up. I'm sure you know what I speak of.

Why do you completely choose to ignore the FACT that I was in class when that post was made? The alibi checked out, and I'm sick and tired of that being used to attack me. If you hate me and want to attack me then attack me for all the stupid things I actually DID. I'm sure you agree there's no shortage of those.

You know what? I've grown up in the two years since I've been here. Yes, I spammed and yes I trolled, especially towards the end, but that whole thing was not in any way my fault, and I had a concrete alibi which I defended myself with, and which checked out. So don't give me that crap.

There's nothing to be forgiven about the countless dumb threads I made, particularly about 'elsewhere', but that simply had nothing to do with me.