Films Thread

[caulfield12]

I've now seen Slumdog, Revolutionary Road, CCoBB, Frost/Nixon and Doubt.

 

By the way, Defiance is a WWII/Holocaust movie that won't win many awards. The Jewish Rambo movie, I think of it as.

 

Rev. Road was obviously not very easy/comfortable to watch or a "feel good" movie in any way, shape or form....in a completely different way than In the Company of Men or some of LaBute's others. I'm not quite sure why its automatically compared to American Beauty, I guess simply because of Mendes' presence/involvement with both. The actor who played the "insane asylum" patient is the one who sticks out to me the most upon reflection later. Thought he was very good in his small part. And I really think Richard Jenkins was awesome in The Visitor, up until now the 4th best movie I've seen from 2008.

 

FWIW, I would give BEST MOVIE a tie currently between Doubt and Slumdog...but I haven't seen The Wrestler or Gran Torino yet. Wall-E would be a close 3rd, I suppose.

 

By the way, "W." is one of the worst, if not THE worst, Oliver Stone movies I've ever seen. Maybe he should have stopped thinking about that project after Fahrenheit 9/11 came out. I think Josh Brolin was pretty good, but Langella as Nixon was superlatively better. I liked Brolin more in NCFOM.

 

And I still really like Vicky Cristina Barcelona, except for Penelope Cruz' histrionics disguised as acting.

 

BTW, has anyone ever seen a movie called THE FALL?

 

Some people rave about it...I see at imdb that the reviews have it above 8, which is pretty rare over there.

Edited January 24, 2009 by caulfield12

[BobDylan]

I really haven't heard of anyone liking that movie, except maybe critics.

 

I enjoyed it.

[BobDylan]

I didn't like it because I felt it was incredibly boring and could have easily been a 30 minute TV show instead of a drawn out 2 hour snooze fest.

 

Please explain.

[caulfield12]

Fathom, did you at least like Field of Dreams or Eight Men Out, lol?

 

You can at least enjoy watching Marisa Tomei sing RATT songs with Mickey Rouke in The Wrestler, right?

 

Just saw that tonight...too bad it wasn't the Marisa from My Cousin Vinny, but she's still cute at her age. I think I have the market cornered on washed up actors/wrestlers/boxers/martial arts stars, also watching JCVD (Jean Claude Van Damme), which was also enjoyable but not nearly as impactful as The Wrestler. Gotta love those 80's songs.

 

Hollywood just loves to bury its stars and then dig them back up from the dead for their comebacks...maybe the recent phenomenon started with John Travolta in Pulp Fiction, carrying over to the resurrection of every 70's/80's music group and now anyone can be resurrected, except for perhaps Minoso on the White Sox another decade.

Edited January 24, 2009 by caulfield12

[BigSqwert]

Watched Mulholland Drive again last night since my wife had never seen it. What a brilliant film.

[fathom]

Please explain.

 

Some kids died, there was a weak conspiracy, and Angelina got to act upset the whole movie. That was what I took from it.

[fathom]

Fathom, did you at least like Field of Dreams or Eight Men Out, lol?

 

Sure...but they're no Little Big League.

[Milkman delivers]

I enjoyed it.

 

And we all know you suck. You always help my arguments. Thanks!

[BobDylan]

Some kids died, there was a weak conspiracy, and Angelina got to act upset the whole movie. That was what I took from it.

 

You do realize that it was a true story, right?

[BobDylan]

And we all know you suck. You always help my arguments. Thanks!

 

At least I have a Herbert Perry jersey.

[caulfield12]

Sure...but they're no Little Big League.

 

 

That's the one where the kid manages the Twins, right?

 

Pretty clever movie...much better than Mr. Baseball! The Natural and Bull Durham have to be up there in the Top 5 as well. I guess the very first Major League deserves some kudos as well. I remember going to a couple of Indians games in Memorial Stadium where basically anything you wanted to say to the LF could be heard by the entire outfield and the few fans sitting in the bleacher seats out there.

[Buehrle>Wood]

And still none of them better than The Sandlot.

[LosMediasBlancas]

'The Wrestler' is finally playing near me, but it's at the teeny bopper theatre with all the Hollywood type movies. Kinda surprising.

[TheBlackSox8]

I'll say that I actually liked Changeling. It ran a little longer than I wanted...but I did come away liking it.

[santo=dorf]

I really haven't heard of anyone liking that movie, except maybe critics.

It's rotten at 59% at rotten tomatoes.com

 

'The Wrestler' is finally playing near me, but it's at the teeny bopper theatre with all the Hollywood type movies. Kinda surprising.

It opened wide yesterday

[fathom]

You do realize that it was a true story, right?

 

Yes, and would have been a hell of a lot more entertaining if it focused on the serial killer and not the Jolie's character.

[fathom]

That's the one where the kid manages the Twins, right?

 

Pretty clever movie...much better than Mr. Baseball! The Natural and Bull Durham have to be up there in the Top 5 as well. I guess the very first Major League deserves some kudos as well. I remember going to a couple of Indians games in Memorial Stadium where basically anything you wanted to say to the LF could be heard by the entire outfield and the few fans sitting in the bleacher seats out there.

 

Yes, it's the one where Piniella brings in Randy Johnson to close out the tiebreak game and Griffey Jr. robs a homer to end the game. For as smart as Billy, the manager was....why did he pitch to Griffey Jr. in such a big spot?

[BobDylan]

Yes, and would have been a hell of a lot more entertaining if it focused on the serial killer and not the Jolie's character.

 

I'd like to see you call it a weak conspiracy if it happened to anyone in your family, that's all.

[qwerty]

This is spot on. In fact, I would add that apart from that difference and the encounters with celebrities, BB is a virtual remake of Forrest Gump (they share the same screenwriter).

 

Someone posted a funny, split/screen comparison of the movies on Youtube that has since been taken down. It highlighted the following similarities:

 

SPOILER ALERT (I don't know how to do that masking thingy):

 

Both main characters had leg problems making it difficult for them to walk as kids; Both had feisty, independent, Southern moms who spouted folksy wisdom; Both met the enduring loves of their lives as children, although both women left them for the big city; Both men went to war; both had odd Black friends; both worked at sea for alcoholic captains; both returned to their childhood homes, remet their long lost loves, and (unbenknownst to them until later) fathered children with them. You get the idea.

 

I thought BB was ok, but I'll be pissed if the writer wins an Oscar, because it seems like he just cut and pasted from his Forrest Gump screenplay.

 

The writer of Forrest Gump is Eric Roth, Roth wrote the screenplay for Benjamin Button, not Slumdog Millionaire.

 

Simon Beaufoy wrote Slumdog Millionaire, and his most notable movie written prior was the Full Monty.

[caulfield12]

It's rotten at 59% at rotten tomatoes.com

 

 

It opened wide yesterday

 

 

The Wrestler is still in only 566 theatres, so I wouldn't call that wide exactly...maybe wider.

 

Unless it gets above 1,000 (which it might with an Academy Award for Rourke or Tomei...which I'm not sure she deserves exactly, except for taking off her clothes and trying to act out of her traditional character/type as sort of a b****), maybe that's the new definition of wide.

 

Two movies which ARE doing terribly are Inkheart (the new Brendan Fraser movie) and Defiance, the WWII/Jewish resistance movie, which is okay but not great. Daniel Craig has a long way to go to prove he can open up a non-Bond movie with his name alone. When Munich came out, he and Eric Bana were far from household names, people went to see it because of Spielberg.

 

I think there's a law here in Thailand that every Brendan Fraser movie that comes out must be shown here...we're going to have to sit through Inkheart, too. Why we got a movie like City of Ember but are still waiting for Marley & Me is beyond my cognition. Bedtime Stories finally arrived this weekend. Oh, and every Jason Statham movie as well, who I actually like. As someone pointed out earlier, like Denzel Washington or Kevin Spacey, his presence in most movies (although the David Gale one was pushing it) makes nearly every movie they're in at least watchable/somewhat enjoyable.

 

 

[santo=dorf]

I noticed that on boxofficemojo and thought that was weird. I remember seeing it advertised as going "wide" on January 23rd, but that still isn't enough. What advertisments has there been for this movie?

 

Why do companies do limited releases with big name stars in it?

 

I watched it online a few weeks ago, but saw it yesterday in the theatres. We were planning to see Slumdog Millionaire, but the showtime was closer.

 

BOM defines:

 

wide: 600+

Very Wide: 2000+

Saturated: 2500+

Very Saturated: 3000+

 

 

Just got done watching Next with Nick Cage. Good lord what a clusterf*** of a movie.

Edited January 25, 2009 by santo=dorf

[caulfield12]

Santodorf,

 

Which movies with big-name stars are you talking about? I hope not Mickey Rourke, unless we're back in the 1980's and Lisa Bonet is also classified as big-time.

 

Sometimes, it's simply about the marketing budget and how much they think they would have to spend in additional advertising to get a good ROI. This time of the year, these campaigns are almost always focused on Golden Glove and Academy Award wins/nominations. That has been really helping Slumdog...although it's still far from being the cultural phenomenon that My Big Fat Greek Wedding became where almost everyone simply HAS/HAD to see it, seemingly.

 

I think I read where Frost/Nixon cost quite a bit of money to make (around $50 million), it's one of the arguably best movies of the year but it will still end up as something of a financial disaster, because there's almost no way to extract international box office from it. But that animated movie that was made independently, DELGO (sp?), I'm sure a book will come out of that disaster eventually...such an interesting story how it finally came to the big screen and then became the biggest dud in recent history in terms of box office.

 

Of course, many times, a movie will come out with a lot of negative buzz and/or no screenings/reviews, and the studio will basically anticipate an early death and wash their hands of it. That's one thing I was surprised, with Valkryie, it has held its own fairly well, at least as well as Seven Pounds and maybe better. Of course, many have argued 7 Pounds is one of the worst movies of the year, while the Tom Cruise movie is a pleasant surprise.

Edited January 25, 2009 by caulfield12

[santo=dorf]

Frost/Nixon had $25 million budget.

 

Gran Torino staring and directed by Clint Eastwood should have been wide on day 1. Why did Changeling release wide 1 week after its limited release and Torino, which had better reviews, had to wait much longer?

 

I don't think The Wrestler should have been released on 3000 screens back in December, but the $50,000 average per screen when it first came out says it could've debut in quite a few more markets.

[caulfield12]

I was thinking of Defiance, that was the $50 million budget.

 

The Reader was $32 million....so both that movie and Frost/Nixon (still under $10 million) will have a ton of problems being profitable, although I think Frost/Nixon should do fairly well in rentals.

 

Gran Torino's an interesting case. Is it the subject matter...Clint Eastwood's age....or just his character's irascibility in general? Just wonder why (and how) the decision was made this wasn't a 1500-2000 screen opener. Just kind of strange, there aren't so many movies involving Asians that are non-martial arts, that niche in terms of film watching isn't there yet. India has Bollywood and is making lots of inroads, and the African American (like Tyler Perry) and, to a lesser extent, the Hispanic market also have been strong niche markets, but there's really no "niche" for serious/dramatic movies involving Asians. Somebody will say the Joy-Luck Club, Snow Falling on Cedars or Memoirs of Geisha/Last Samurai....but I mean movies made from an Asian perspective that are meant to draw an Asian audience, rather than movies made from a white male/Western perspective with Asian characters that happen to be a large part of the story. I'm sure there are some other examples I'm leaving out, but I'm thinking in terms of American/European cinema producing Asian-themed movies.

[The Bones]

BTW, has anyone ever seen a movie called THE FALL?

 

Some people rave about it...I see at imdb that the reviews have it above 8, which is pretty rare over there.

 

I just saw this tonight. I'm a big fan of Pan's Labyrinth, one of my favorites of all time, and someone said this was somewhat similar so I decided to check it out on Netflix.

 

I liked it. The story has it strengths and weaknesses and I felt it dragged on a bit. However, it's a beautiful film and I definitely recommend it. I don't know why it didn't get more attention when it was released. I give it an 8/10.