Bullhead is on my list of stuff to see, sometimes I want bleakness and misery.

A Separation was the most subtly handled and intelligent depiction of divorce I've seen in any film or TV thing ever, totally reminded me of how much it sucks being a child caught up in that type of shit, but in a good way. I'd highly recommend About Elly the other film from that director that has made it as far as being translated.

I saw this on Saturday, it was totally awesome:

I've read The Room. I've read all his novels. You'd have to agree, though, that they're not something you can read in any mood and I suppose I just haven't been in the right mood to read them for a little while now. I'd never criticise any of them, though.

I don't know how you could interpret a film like Naked as being wistful.

Seriously????

Just watched



Silverado

It's a western. It's got Kevin Costner in it. So I loved it.

I spontaneously cheered at the bit of the movie at the end of this clip

"Wistfully I raped a Manchester lass in an alley, before absconding from the North in a stolen car, lest I meet vindication at the hands of Her Majestys Constabulary.

Arriving in the capital, homeless, broke and with no prospects or employment, I wistfully spent the night sleeping rough outside the abode of an acquaintance. And what luck, for her fellow lodger appeared 'pon the ninth hour of the morn and invited my shivering person into her dining chambers.

After the wistful consumption of refreshments my female acquaintance arrived and we discussed the matter of our last engagement. As I was feeling rather wistful I then embarked on a long, bleak existential ramble, which resulted in a rather wistful public assault by a band of intransigent hooligans. Wistfully, I retreated back to my lady friends abode where I found the lodger that had so pleasantly entertained me before midday had been herself raped by an uncouth financier with a penchant for a white crystallized alkaloid substance derived from the common cocoa leaf."

If you don't like Pink Flamingoes then yeah, I guess you could prefer his later stuff. He's been on a downward slide for me though ever since Divine and David Lochary died.

plus he got old and quit smoking and went mainstream and... egh! his best period was by far the 70s (multiple maniacs/pink flamingos/female trouble/desperate living) and throw in polyester for the last divine film. for those achievements he should be eternally worshipped. the rest is a downward spiral. i think hairspray marked the beginning of the end. i did like cecil b. demented though. but i remember when i went to see... what's the name of it... the one about the perverts (i forget the name, with tracy ullman) i felt a little sad for him. he hasn't made a movie since but instead he took hairspray to broadway-- well, good for the broadway public, but not my thing.

I thought Pecker was cool, but more of an artsy thang than the bizarre stuff Waters did in the 70's

Pecker actually was kind of cool, I enjoyed it. It was a more fitting roll for EddieFurlong than that tough-guy kid he was casted from T2 through American History X.. Arsty nerd seems more like him.. Then again, that was skinny, younger Eddie, now?



This guy looks like trouble,
like the kind of guy you'd arbitrarily shoot five dollars too
just to get him the fuck out of your way..

My thoughts exactly. Polyester was the last JW's film I really loved.

I think the Tracy Ullman one you're thinking of is A Dirty Shame, which I really didn't like at all.

pecker was cute and a nice dig on the art world, but yeah, no massive transgressions. it has some funny parts--



"full of grace!"



"no teabagging!"



yeah :(

If you look at his post divine stuff as if it was made by a different director then it is good (i.e. light hearted fun) in its own right. But if you compare pre and post divine they don't hold up so well.

I like John Waters' "Cecil B. Demented", its a satire on both the Hollywood community and the independent film community as well as taking digs at his younger self, and poking fun of the whole Patty Hearst/SLA situation. I think its his most fully realized film. He seems bored with movies now, which explains why he hasn't made one since "A Dirty Shame".

i really like that movie, i had a good laugh and enjoy the whole thing (especially the "maryland film commission"), but it's like t&b said-- 2 different directors: one mind-blowing and the other good.

I think it's awesome how much John Waters can cross reference other movies of his in his own movies. I've listened to most of the commentary tracks. so it's no wonder I'm aware of this.

there is an R rated version of A Dirty Shame
I would not recommend this version. watch the NC-17 version
the R one is funny but boring. and not "the same" movie

--------------------------------

I've been watching old B&W sexploitation movies from the UK

FANTASTIC PLANET (la planete sauvage)

AMAZING!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

5/5

plus the dvd extras are great





i had never heard of this before but i'm glad i did.


now you can too. french-czech animation from 1973. great story, beautiful graphics, choppy motion, commie director-- stuff you rarely see on tv.

I have life-long friend who has seen this movie so many times. she loves to put it on and space out.

i rarely/never buy movies but i'd probably buy this one so i could study it. the interview w/ the director clarifies how and why it was made the way it was made (elaborate graphics/simplified motion) as opposed to classic american animation (simplified graphics/good motion). plus all kinds of backstory, his work with mentally ill patients, etc.

just awesome.

Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid.

10/10

Going to see Pacific Rim in half an hour, I'm quietly excited about it.

I'm curious about that. A friend went to see it and really liked it but I'm not sure what I think about it being some kind of spoof blockbuster.

You should watch the Khmer Rouge Killing Machine documentary too. I have seen it mentioned by the people who produced this and it's totally worth your time. I can't say I want to watch it ever again because it made me cry buckets. The reminiscing of of the guy who's seen his family wiped off was too much, too sad, I struggled to watch the rest.

I wouldn't say it was a spoof anymore than something like the avengers was, i.e. it's aware of its own ridiculousness in a way something like a michael bay isn't. I really enjoyed it, the end is a bit generic but the everything before that is a lot of fun, and if you want to see it see it in the cinema, it wouldn't be half as much fun on a small screen.

Great! I'll try and see it over the weekend. Thanks.

Yeah, I just can't watch films or even documentaries about this stuff anymore. I'm emotionally over-saturated..

checked it out from the Library I work at. had not seen it yet. I laughed, I cringed, I squirmed, and I was disgusted.

Truck Turner

At times this felt like a Starsky and Hutch episode, minus Starsky and Hutch, and (as seems to be the case with every blaxploitation film I see) the cool dialogue and overall superflyness starts to wear thin after about 15 minutes. Still great fun though.

And always nice seeing Star Trek's Uhura playing a lady pimp.

Dream Home

Pretty good Hong Kong horror with plenty of gore

Hit the Redbox yesterday. This movie was interesting for about 30 minutes and then it became an hour-Plus long set up for a movie "franchise". The female lead was horrible, and basically exists to show cleavage on screen in endless scoop-neck tops. 4/10




Got this one too. Fuck. Boring. Inconsequential. The movie ends and there exists no point for it's existence. 2/10

OBLIVION- I don't think I can watch sci-fi movies anymore. I always get very confused. In this one, I got pretty lost pretty quickly. Looks good though.

HELL BABY- From the creators of RENO 911. Grab your bong, find a comfy spot of the couch and have a stupid good time.

ONLY GOD FORGIVES- I totally get how someone would like this, maybe even love it. Me, I couldn't stand it.

That's interesting. I've got both those on my Lovefilm list (similar to netflix) mainly because I'm a big fan of the books they're from. Hmm.

They both were obviously pulled from novels. You can tell because of endless scenes of two people talking that do nothing to further the plot. Gandolfini's appearance in Kill Softly was pointless and wasted.
Brad Pitt is either a terrible actor or directors do not know what to do with his "too handsome" face.

C'mon.

Not a great movie, but KILLING had some good scenes (the robbery, for example). And that last speech of Pitt's was classic.

Jack Reacher did suck. (And again, for the millionth time, I hate how the hero always has perfect aim.) Werner Herzog was pretty great, though.

---

Rob, you totally need to check out Hell Baby.

Herzog was awesomely creepy and scary. Wish they had used him further.

Killing was dull. The robbery was cliche central. There were some good bits, but overall the movie was even more boring than Reacher.

Both of tyhose movies suck in that to minimize costs, there are NO PEOPLE EXISTING IN THEIR WORLD! They can enter public areas of buildings, and no one is there but them. I hate the whole thing of kiling softly. so boring. I hated every single character and saw no reason to give a fuck who died and who didn't. I am sick of movies where we are supposed to cheer a killer as he kills people we are supposed to hate, but are exactly like them. stupid shitty writing.

killing without repercussions works in movies that do not try to take themselves seriously. In Jackie Archer and in Killing Softly, the body counts are high and the deaths are filmed in slow mo as if theya re ballet. THEY ARE NOT. I miss the days when John Woo was orchestrating violence in Killer and HardBoiled.

Brad Pitt is a fantastic actor. Shit, I even almost half-tolerated his scenes in that fucking epic failure Tree of Life. However, you are right, some writers/directors just don't know what to do with him. Not quite Matthew McConaughey scenario..

I think Pitt is a mumble-mouthed actor who gets by on his screen presence, and tons of slo-mo shots of his good looks.

He was cool, if histrionic in 12 Monkeys. He was forgettable in Se7en, he was annoying to me in Snatch. (couldn't understand anything he said.) He was boring as fuck in the Mexican. (shitty movie, can't blame him). He was interesting in Fight Club, but that movie annoyed me. Pitt was horrible in Troy (another shit movie), Pitt was adequate, if seemingly bored, through the Oceans 11-12-13 movies. Burn After Reading is the worst movie the Coens ever made and Pitt was forgettable in it.
Mr. & Mrs Smith was a vanity project and he looked bored shit-less making it.

I have enjoyed Pitt a LOT in other films though. Assasination of jesse james, he was great in that. he was hilariously walking the line between cheese and mania in Inglorious Basterds.

But rob, screen presence is sort of like stage presence, it is part of an actor's skill set. Not everybody pulls it off. Interestingly, I dare say if Kristen Stewart just didn't ever say anything, she could be a decent actress because she seems to focus entirely on screen presence. I'd say the Brad Pitt doesn't always make some epic shit, but when he is at his best it is some of the best there is, and even when he's at his worst its tolerable. Look how absolutely terrible Johnny Depp's career has went? He makes unimaginable amounts of money essentially as a caricature of his Raul Duke persona, which was of course, epic. He was indeed very terrible in Seven, I'll give you that, but that flick was good enough I thought on its own. However I'd say Interview With the Vampire, Legends of the Fall, SLEEPERS, Twelve Monkeys, Seven Years in Tibet, Fight Club, Snatch (yes), definitely The Assassination of Jesse James, Babel, shit, that's enough isn't it?

I truly feel the problem is that, like Paul Newman and Robert redford, it takes a certain kind of director and cinematographer to film these actors as characters, and not as handsome demi-gods of male beauty. Personally, I think Pitt is a good actor, and capable of creating a memorable character. I just think that he got pigeon-holed.