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scratt
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2006-04-24, 10:25

Anyone see Saw2 yet?

Pretty good for a horror sequel... Opinions?
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AWR
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2006-04-24, 10:42

scratt: you lead the good life, man!

Buying bars, building houses, new MBP, mehkong, horror movie sequels. WTF?

Keep it up.

PS. Haven't seen the movie, so no comment.
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scratt
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2006-04-24, 10:55

Hey and I am enterring the Thai Masters Karting championship this year too...
I'll be on TV!
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NosferaDrew
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2006-04-26, 08:55

Saw a really good film yesterday, Marilyn Hotchkiss Ballroom Dancing & Charm School. Really interesting flick.

And last weekend I caught The Station Agent on IFC. I started watching it about ten minutes after it started and was hooked.
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SKMDC
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2006-04-26, 09:20

Station Agent is fantastic. Peter Dinklage is the man. The thing that drew me to that film, (originally I saw it on a plane!) is the sense of something sinister impending. I watched initially for something bad to happen, and when it didn't the characters were so great I didn't notice. Does that make sense?

"What's a Canadian farm boy to do?"
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NosferaDrew
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2006-04-27, 01:00

Dinklage is definitely the man!
I see your impending doom angle, but what got me was his quietly tolerant demeanor as the tremendously annoying Joe (played by Bobby Cannavale) pesters him with questions day after day.

Great chemistry between those two as well as Patricia Clarkson.

Just a great damn film.
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Dave
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2006-04-27, 03:36

Quote:
Originally Posted by SKMDC
My kids were 5 & 4 and watched Spirited Away daily.
My Neighbor Tortoro and Howls Moving Castle just came out on DVD and Tortoro gets watched a ton (they have a 3 year old sister now) and Howl a little less.

Whenever we go to a Birthday Party now we buy a Tortoro for a gift as not nearly enough kids are hip to Miyazaki as should be.
I love the part where Tortoro first experiences the magical wonder that is the umbrella.
My roommate and I looked at each other and simultaneously declared Tortoro to be an overgrown cat.
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drewprops
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2006-04-27, 06:23

Just for the record (the AppleNova LP), it's Totoro. "Toe-Toe-Roe"
What about that enormous camphor tree? It reminds me of a giant oak that stands above a house where I grew up.

For those uninitiated, do the Wikipedia on My Neighbor Totoro. If you've got kids and you haven't shown it to them you are a right bastard.

Steve Jobs ate my cat's watermelon.
Captain Drew on Twitter
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AWR
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2006-04-28, 08:13

Quote:
Originally Posted by SKMDC
Station Agent is fantastic. Peter Dinklage is the man. The thing that drew me to that film, (originally I saw it on a plane!) is the sense of something sinister impending. I watched initially for something bad to happen, and when it didn't the characters were so great I didn't notice. Does that make sense?
Man, that was good movie. I had forgotten about it. Thanks.

On a plane? That's not bad. O usually get 101 Dalmatians, Rocky IV or something lame with Meg Ryan.
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SKMDC
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2006-04-28, 09:28

It was a 14 hour flight, we got:

The Station Agent
Mona Lisa Smile
Girl With A Pearl Earring
Lost In Translation
Against The Ropes

other than that last piece of crap, pretty decent fare! I cannot sleep on anything moving so it was pretty nice.

"What's a Canadian farm boy to do?"
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Windswept
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2006-04-28, 14:23

Quote:
Originally Posted by SKMDC
Station Agent is fantastic. Peter Dinklage is the man. The thing that drew me to that film, (originally I saw it on a plane!) is the sense of something sinister impending. I watched initially for something bad to happen, and when it didn't the characters were so great I didn't notice. Does that make sense?
Hmm.

Your comment is interesting, SKMDC. I seem to recall various times during films when I have been led to expect something bad happening. The tension kept building up in me, and when finally nothing bad *did* happen, the effect was strangely deflating and disappointing. I felt I had been fraudulently misled by cues in the movie to feel an uncomfortable dread at impending doom... and then all my emotion proved to be falsely inspired.

I think that is unfortunate filmmaking - to mislead hapless viewers with ambiguous cues. If the filmmaker has done this UNintentionally, then I think he should have had trusted colleagues preview his film before release to help eliminate misleading effects.

If he has misled viewers *intentionally*, I think that's rather fraudulent and I would lose respect for him as a filmmaker.

Awhile back, I bought a foreign film with four or five stars on the box and notes of acclaim from various European film festivals. As I viewed it, I dutifully responded to an assortment of tension-building cues. But when the film ended and 'nothing' climactic at ALL had *happened*, I was SO annoyed. I felt like throwing the movie across the room.

"Do these people have *any* concept of plot structure?" I asked myself. Apparently they don't. Either that, or my sensibilities have been blunted in some way by constant exposure to, and expectation of, a meaningful sequence of events in films and literature.

Oh well.

*sigh*
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Dave
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2006-04-28, 14:28

I dunno. I kinda like it every now and then. I get "a bad feeling" about stuff all the time, but it doesn't always mean something bad is gonna happen. Why shouldn't movies reflect that our intuitions aren't always right?
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SKMDC
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2006-04-28, 16:26

Quote:
Originally Posted by Windswept
Hmm.

Your comment is interesting, SKMDC. I seem to recall various times during films when I have been led to expect something bad happening. The tension kept building up in me, and when finally nothing bad *did* happen, the effect was strangely deflating and disappointing. I felt I had been fraudulently misled by cues in the movie to feel an uncomfortable dread at impending doom... and then all my emotion proved to be falsely inspired.

I think that is unfortunate filmmaking - to mislead hapless viewers with ambiguous cues. If the filmmaker has done this UNintentionally, then I think he should have had trusted colleagues preview his film before release to help eliminate misleading effects.

If he has misled viewers *intentionally*, I think that's rather fraudulent and I would lose respect for him as a filmmaker.

Awhile back, I bought a foreign film with four or five stars on the box and notes of acclaim from various European film festivals. As I viewed it, I dutifully responded to an assortment of tension-building cues. But when the film ended and 'nothing' climactic at ALL had *happened*, I was SO annoyed. I felt like throwing the movie across the room.

"Do these people have *any* concept of plot structure?" I asked myself. Apparently they don't. Either that, or my sensibilities have been blunted in some way by constant exposure to, and expectation of, a meaningful sequence of events in films and literature.

Oh well.

*sigh*
Or perhaps the director is taking advantage of how we're conditioned to watch movies, something bad usually happens, then good triumphs over evil etc.
Here the characters (all three) are experiencing internal struggles with their loneliness, it manifests itself differently in all three, and the three of them together manage to make a whole person propping each other up. When Olivia and Finbar have a falling out they both recede as human beings, when they reconcile they become whole again, or as complete as they can be given their particular circumstances in life.
That's all this movie tries to do, show us their character development, no great breakthroughs are made, and the camera could pick up and drop down on another segment of their lives and we might not feel any different about them, but you're right, the plot takes a back seat to the study of the characters.

When Miles Davis made Kind of Blue he want to make a record where the music came at you horizontally instead of vertically like most jazz records, this movie is modal in that same sense.

"What's a Canadian farm boy to do?"
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Quagmire
meh
 
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2006-04-28, 16:43

I am about to go see United 93. I will report back after I get home from the movie.
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turbulentfurball
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2006-04-28, 16:58

Quote:
Originally Posted by scratt
Anyone see Saw2 yet?

Pretty good for a horror sequel... Opinions?
It certainly raised the bar for horror sequels, perhaps one of the few that is better than the original, in my opinion. The gratuitous gore definitely upped my ratings of the sequel anyway!
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Windswept
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2006-04-28, 17:10

Quote:
Originally Posted by SKMDC
Or perhaps the director is taking advantage of how we're conditioned to watch movies, something bad usually happens, then good triumphs over evil etc.
I'm perfectly willing to allow the filmmaker to manipulate my emotions if this is done with a satisfactory conclusion regarding the plot. But I guess I *do* object to being misled, that is, to have my emotions stirred up and then abandoned for no reason.

Quote:
Here the characters (all three) are experiencing internal struggles with their loneliness, it manifests itself differently in all three, and the three of them together manage to make a whole person propping each other up. When Olivia and Finbar have a falling out they both recede as human beings, when they reconcile they become whole again, or as complete as they can be given their particular circumstances in life.
That's all this movie tries to do, show us their character development, no great breakthroughs are made, and the camera could pick up and drop down on another segment of their lives and we might not feel any different about them, but you're right, the plot takes a back seat to the study of the characters.
Well, that's perfectly fine, valid, and worthwhile as the goal of a film. I guess I got the wrong impression: that the viewer is 'caused' to feel a sense of impending doom that never materializes. Maybe the filmmaker never intended any such feeling in the viewer. Maybe many of us are so used to normal plot complications and conflicts that we become hypervigilant when expecting *major things to go wrong*.
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Moogs
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2006-04-28, 17:19

Something has already struck me about United 93. Every single review talks about the movie as if it's some kind of masterpiece, yet the soundbites sound exactly like a *really* poorly scripted drama (the kind we're so used to we don't even notice anymore). It got me thinking: has any national media critic had the balls to say anything at all about this movie that's not positive?

All I hear on the radio is "these people were heros, go see it", and it's barely even out. Striking me as the worst form of propoganda already. Get the feelings of sorrow and nationalism going again now that it's waning in everyone's everyday life. Propoganda masquerading as art, is an awful thing; I hope that's not the case with this movie. I intend to see it, just not tonight. Mayeb a matinee tomorrow or something. It just doesn't sound like it's that well put together to me. I want to see the story unfold through the director's eyes, but I'm not holding my breath for anything inspiring.

...into the light of a dark black night.
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Windswept
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2006-04-28, 18:02

Quote:
Originally Posted by Moogs
Something has already struck me about United 93. Every single review talks about the movie as if it's some kind of masterpiece, yet the soundbites sound exactly like a *really* poorly scripted drama (the kind we're so used to we don't even notice anymore). It got me thinking: has any national media critic had the balls to say anything at all about this movie that's not positive?
Well, this is supposed to be a 'docu-drama' type thing, I believe; which is a whole different ballgame than a regular screenplay written with plot structure and character development. They purposely use a hand-held camera in the plane, I guess to simulate realism.

He uses bits and pieces of events and conversation gleaned from the many interviews to try to reconstruct what happened. Honestly, I really don't think we can judge a docu-drama of a historical event in the same way we do a normal film with a screenplay written by skilled writers.

Quote:
All I hear on the radio is "these people were heros, go see it", and it's barely even out. Striking me as the worst form of propoganda already. Get the feelings of sorrow and nationalism going again now that it's waning in everyone's everyday life. Propoganda masquerading as art, is an awful thing; I hope that's not the case with this movie.
I don't see why a British writer-director would want to create this work for *propaganda* purposes. I'm sure as a European in the artistic/creative community, he has no use for the Bush administration. I feel that he has put this film together because the drama of what really happened in that plane is of unbelievable intensity.
Quote:
[About British writer/director Greengrass]...he notes that these were the only passengers and crew members on any of those ill-fated flights who knew about the other planes having been used as weapons and realized what was happening to them. "They were the first people to inhabit the post-9/11 world," Greengrass says. These were the first to react to the worldwide conflict we find ourselves in today.
Quote:
I intend to see it, just not tonight. Mayeb a matinee tomorrow or something. It just doesn't sound like it's that well put together to me. I want to see the story unfold through the director's eyes, but I'm not holding my breath for anything inspiring.
I am really looking forward to your comments tomorrow, Moogs.

http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/thr..._id=1002383139
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SKMDC
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2006-04-28, 18:22

Quote:
Originally Posted by Windswept
Well, that's perfectly fine, valid, and worthwhile as the goal of a film. I guess I got the wrong impression: that the viewer is 'caused' to feel a sense of impending doom that never materializes. Maybe the filmmaker never intended any such feeling in the viewer. Maybe many of us are so used to normal plot complications and conflicts that we become hypervigilant when expecting *major things to go wrong*.
I came to that conclusion about midway through the film, when nothing serious became of Olivia, that this was in fact just a character study. I don't think the director's intent was to mislead (he's not a professional director or writer in the true sense, he's a struggling actor, this is his only script and only movie as a director) but to say "hey! this is how real life is, no chase scenes, no shootings, just Olivia nearly running over Finbar every time she's sees him walking on the road."

It's amazing to me that every time an actor or actress wins acclaim and awards for a quiet movie, their next movie they are invariably either shooting someone or being shot at.

"What's a Canadian farm boy to do?"
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Moogs
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2006-04-28, 18:25

Thanks for the link Carol. I'm a bit more hopeful after reading it.

Regarding your UK comments, if any nation's citizens in this world could be said to have the same social and political perspectives as the US, it would be the English. Right or wrong, they've been attached to us at the hip since this all started, and endured tragedies of their own on smaller scales. IOW, if we believe it's possible filmmakers here might behave less than nobley when making such a film, I believe it's possible someone from the UK would be subject to the same influences.

Not saying he did (sounds in fact like he hasn't, which is good), just answering your query.

...into the light of a dark black night.
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turbulentfurball
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2006-04-28, 18:31

Quote:
Originally Posted by Moogs
Regarding your UK comments, if any nation's citizens in this world could be said to have the same social and political perspectives as the US, it would be the English British.
Fixed it for you; English and British are not the same thing

That said, I agree entirely with what you've said. From the IRA bombings of the 80s and 90s to the London bombings last year, the UK has suffered similar losses to the US and the WTC bombings, and has definitely brought the two nations closer together.
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Moogs
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2006-04-28, 18:42

Sorry. Moogs forget sometimes.

Let's seeee. English is to England as British is to Great Britain (aka UK)? English inludes everyone in the UK who isn't Welsh or Scotish? So you're saying all of the UK is down with the patriotic struggle, and not just the English?

...into the light of a dark black night.
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turbulentfurball
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2006-04-28, 18:57

Quote:
Originally Posted by Moogs
Let's seeee. English is to England as British is to Great Britain (aka UK)? English inludes everyone in the UK who isn't Welsh or Scottish?
Exactly

Quote:
Originally Posted by Moogs
So you're saying all of the UK is down with the patriotic struggle, and not just the English?
Given England's dominance in the UK, and matters related to that, only England and Northern Ireland have seen significant terrorism. To my knowledge, Scotland and Wales have never had the misfortune to be subjected to terrorism, but to answer your question, yes. We are all British, and we are very sympathetic to each other. In fact, I believe several Londoners staged a spontaneous street party shortly after the 7th of July bombings to show the terrorists that they cannot affect the British way of life.
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Moogs
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2006-04-28, 19:31

I'll be visiting England and Wales later this year. Really looking forward to it I must say. Too bad I can't be there during the World Cup to watch England at one of the local watering holes. That would be such a blast.

...into the light of a dark black night.
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Quagmire
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2006-04-28, 20:32

Just got back from seeing United 93. Great movie for what it is. It really does put everything in perspective. By the way they wrote it, it looked like the leader of the pack on United 93 was hesitant to hijack the plane and the 3 others were saying, " Whats wrong? We need to go now!" By taking a look on the leaders face, he was nervous to hell and probably was afraid of dying, but was willing to do it for Allah and his faith. That they sent up UNARMED F-16's in the sky. The military was saying, " How do we take them down? Have the pilots ram the F-16's into the planes and eject?" It shows how unprepared we were. I really do recommend seeing this movie. If not in theatres, at least rent it when it comes out on DVD.

giggity
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Moogs
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2006-04-28, 21:06

I find it surprising they were totally unarmed. Even when not armed with missiles, those planes often fly with live rounds for the canon AFAIK. But the point stands; we were way unprepared to deal with an airspace threat involing airliners.

...into the light of a dark black night.
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Quagmire
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2006-04-28, 21:08

Quote:
Originally Posted by Moogs
I find it surprising they were totally unarmed. Even when not armed with missiles, those planes often fly with live rounds for the canon AFAIK. But the point stands; we were way unprepared to deal with an airspace threat involing airliners.
I think if they thought about ramming the F-16 into the plane, I don't think it had rounds for the cannon either. Totally unarmed.
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psmith2.0
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2006-04-29, 21:32

Saw "Thank You For Smoking" this afternoon. A biting, funny movie with some good performances (and quite a few of my favorite actors: William H. Macy and Robert Duvall in particular).

Won't go into all the specifics (go read about it online), but definitely some good laughs and an enjoyable way to spend a cloudy, gloomy afternoon.

J.K. Simmons is in it and he's hilarious. He's gets some great lines...
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Mac+
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2006-04-29, 22:09

I'm so looking forward to seeing that one 'scates. The preview is great!
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psmith2.0
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2006-05-02, 16:03

Full "Superman Returns" trailer just out....

Spacey hamming it up.

The guy looks the part (Superman). Didn't hear much from him, though. Is this the strong, silent version of the Superman?

But I'll be there opening weekend, regardless (just as I will for "X-Men", "Pirates of the Caribbean" and a few others). I already know I'll get a bit of a lump in my throat at his first appearance/heroic action (I'll be flashing back to my childhood, Christopher Reeve, etc.).

It's Superman, for crying out loud! Been a long, long time...

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