Hey, I like movies too...

I don't like anything John Singleton has ever touched.

knkwzrd said:
Has anyone here ever seen the film "Tommy Tricker and the Stamp Traveller"? I'm kind of wondering if it's known at all outside of Canada. It's this incredibly strange film funded by Canada Post about this little shit of a kid whose pretty much a drug-dealer for stamps, hanging out behind the school, slipping kids misprinted stamps for pocket change. The entire films hinges on this bizarre alternate reality where every kid is obsessed with collecting stamps, not very subtle advertising on Canada Post's part, really, but much more entertaining than your average Government-sponsored low-budget kid's film. It has a soundtrack written by Kate & Anna McGarrigle, and features probably the earliest recorded musical performance by Rufus Wainwright, who sings a song in the middle of a shopping mall.

I was going back over posts and spotted this. Yes! I think I remember seeing this. We had a little local theater, two screens, up against both the Movie Malls and the College Town Art Houses, and the owner used to screen really unusual stuff; and twice a year, he had Canada Festival of Shorts, with films sponsored by Canada Post and Canadian Films Board and the like, Seems like that was where I first saw Wallace & Gromit, too.

I watched Tetsuo: The Iron Man today. Not really sure what to think. Not a great movie by any means (the now de rigueur Bourne-Identity-style shaky chase scenes didn't help). I wasn't as disturbed as I thought i might be.

I've got Ran and All the President's Men sitting on my desk, but I've got too much work to do to watch them.

Well, I watched "Dead Again" and it was fun. Kenneth Branagh, Emma Thompson and Derek Jacobi - what a superb trio.

Meh, it's passable. If you want to save your coin for something better, go see Waltz with Bashir.

I've been getting my contact with the outside movie world through Netflix & the library.

Last night at the library I picked up Aki Kaurismäki's Man Without a Past, the second in his "Finland Trilogy." The ones seen from the library lately have been Iron Man (ok, not great), the Coen Bros vesrsion of The Lady Killers, and a 1968 B-movie where a couple who can't get married because of the girl's suspicious step-mother, so they lace her sedatives with LSD which sends her to the asylum.

The title is "The Big Cube," and is essential viewing for any devotees of 60's High Camp (Faster Pussycat! Kill! Kill!; Beyond the Valley of the Dolls; Mudhoney). This one's not as breast fixated as those Russ Meyer's films, but there is a modicum of gratuitous nudity, and some hilarious "acid trip" camera effects. Somehow, they got Lana Turner to star in it.

The trailer is NSFW but hiarious:

I just got back from seeing Benjamin Button.

Fucking waste of three hours. It goes nowhere and is horribly framed by nonsensical sequences about hurricane Katrina. Just a fucking mess.

Hrm, my uncle runs a hotel in Lugano, perhaps I should watch this movie.

I've been catching up on Oscar-buzz movies.

Gran Torino is outstanding.

Defiance and Revolutionary Road are not good movies.

generalmalaise said:
knkwzrd said:
I just got back from seeing Benjamin Button.

Fucking waste of three hours. It goes nowhere and is horribly framed by nonsensical sequences about hurricane Katrina. Just a fucking mess.

I took that as a ringing endorsement. But you're quite right, it doesn't really go anywhere. I particularly hate that Brad Pitt is allowed to do his serene pretty boy routine, never once registering any of the emotions you want such a character to feel (anger, bitterness...fear?), but just occasionally pursing his lips and blinking meaningfully. I get the Forrest Gump comparisons in that you have this cheat of a principal character, who isn't really fleshed out at all and simply has things happen to him, but there wasn't really enough happening to keep me interested.

qft! i have been arguing with friends about this the past few days. he has ZERO character development. additionally, the old lady daisy was SO unendearing (not a word). i just didnt give a fuck.

¡obligatory female response alert!
brad looked soooo good on his motorcycle. i gasped a little.

Just watched Slacker and Toxic Avenger on Hulu. Both were super amazing, especially Slacker for containing Austin and a Madonna pap smear.