Movies I Have Seen Lately

[The Baron]

Saw a Takashi Miike picture called The Great Yokai War. "Yokai" is a Japanese term for monsters from folklore, as opposed to the more familiar kaiju. It's a kids' picture, about a young boy from Tokyo sent out to live in the countryside with his older sister and his intermittently senile grandfather. When a vengeful spirit appears, the boy gets caught up in a war between warring groups of yokai and must find his courage to become the "Kirin Rider", the hero who will set everything to rights. It's not a bad picture - nothing deep, but an amusing story. Some of the yokai are really trippy, Japanese folklore can get pretty "out there", apparently.

[Rob Staeger (Grodd Mod)]

Luke Blanchard said:

The Baron said:

I recently picked up a copy of the 1931 Fritz Lang film, M.... Anyway, I heartily recommend this picture - both as an "historical document", and as a very interesting movie to watch.

A friend of mine recommended that to me so strongly that he lent me his netflix copy. I need to watch it this week so he can get another movie.

You might like The Testament of Dr. Mabuse, in which Lohmann returned. The film was a sequel to one of Lang's silent hits (Dr. Mabuse, the Gambler, which I haven't seen).

[ClarkKent_DC]

The Baron said:

Travis Herrick said:

Jason Marconnet (Lime_Coke) said:

I watched Serpico last night. Not a particularly exciting movie. But a good one nonetheless. A great performance by Pacino.

Not an exciting movie? I fell asleep the first two times I tried watching it.

Last night I fell asleep watching "Great Wrestling Stars of the 90's".

I fall asleep every time I watch Star Wars Episode II: Attack of the Clones. And always at the same point: Right after Emperor Palpatine is exposed and tries to turn Anakin to the Dark Side of the Force. Maybe next time I'll just start the movie there so I can find out what happens ...

[ClarkKent_DC]

I finally, finally saw Hancock; I picked up an unrated version that put back in about 10 minutes of footage that landed on the cutting room floor, the better to keep the movie at the PG-13 rating. (About half the extra footage is of a scene where a gorgeous babe -- one of the Deal or No Deal girls, no less! -- goes home with him and, shall we say, finds out firsthand how on the mark "Man of Steel, Woman of Kleenex" was.)

I liked part of it; the first two-thirds or so when it was a comedy and a story of redemption. But, as many reviewers have said, the movie takes a left turn at Albuquerque when it delves into Hancock's origins, and never recovers. It becomes too grim and brutal, and doesn't make a lot of sense. My son said it should have ended with the triumphant moment when Hancock wins backs the public trust, and I kind of agree, even if it would have left his origins unexplained.

[Jason Marconnet (Pint sized mod)]

I saw Extract this weekend. It's by Mike Judge of Office Space fame. The film was very Office Space-esque but never quite hit it out of the park for me. Sure I laughed and enjoyed it overall but it was missing something.

I watched the Brothers Solomon which is an odd comedy that I didn't enjoy.

Finally, I saw Lean on Me. I enjoyed that one a lot. I had never seen Morgan Freeman in that kind of role but thought he was excellent. Also hadn't seen many films where Morgan Freeman wasn't the wise sidekick. Not sure why he wasn't the lead more often. Perhaps it was Driving Miss Daisy that put him in the sidekick role.

[Luke Blanchard]

ClarkKent_DC said:

I fall asleep every time I watch Star Wars Episode II: Attack of the Clones. And always at the same point: Right after Emperor Palpatine is exposed and tries to turn Anakin to the Dark Side of the Force. Maybe next time I'll just start the movie there so I can find out what happens ...

So you've never seen the bit with the chorus of 50,000 Ewoks singing "Tomorrow Belongs to Me"?

I liked the final showdown on the planet of vampire kangaroos.

[The Baron]

I wish I'd seen Luke's version.

[The Baron]

ClarkKent_DC said:

The Baron said:

Travis Herrick said:

Jason Marconnet (Lime_Coke) said:

I watched Serpico last night. Not a particularly exciting movie. But a good one nonetheless. A great performance by Pacino.

Not an exciting movie? I fell asleep the first two times I tried watching it.

Last night I fell asleep watching "Great Wrestling Stars of the 90's".

I fall asleep every time I watch Star Wars Episode II: Attack of the Clones. And always at the same point: Right after Emperor Palpatine is exposed and tries to turn Anakin to the Dark Side of the Force. Maybe next time I'll just start the movie there so I can find out what happens ...

Wait, wasn't that part in Revenge of the Sith?

[Luke Blanchard]

The Baron said:

I wish I'd seen Luke's version.

You really need to see the image I have in my head of Obi-Wan fighting Anakin in the middle of a stampeding mob of vampire kangaroos. It's like an on-form Jack Kirby double-page spread.

[ClarkKent_DC]

Luke Blanchard said:

The Baron said:

I wish I'd seen Luke's version.

You really need to see the image I have in my head of Obi-Wan fighting Anakin in the middle of a stampeding mob of vampire kangaroos. It's like an on-form Jack Kirby double-page spread.

I would pay good, cash money to see that.

[Rob Staeger (Grodd Mod)]

So I finally *did* see The Testament of Dr. Mabuse, and it was a lot of fun -- Mabuse is practically a supervillain, possessing people and hypnotizing them, and having intricate crime plans for all over the city. (And his motivation? Simply to terrorize, and break society down. He was the Joker before the Joker was cool.)

I don't think I mentioned it here, but I saw --and loved -- Inglourious Basterds a week or so back. There were some masterful scenes in that movie, particularly the tense opener.

[Dagwan]

OK, so due to poorness and a lack of free time, I haven't watched a lot of movies for the past 15 years. I've had some extra free time lately and have started to "catch up" a little.

Here's what I've seen in the past few weeks, all of which I have not watched before:

Zoolander
The 40 Year Old Virgin
Superman Returns
I am Legend
Last Man on Earth
Yes Man
Justice League Seasons 1 and 2
Justice League Unlimited Seasons 1 and 2

There's one more that I want to talk about a little, Primer. One of my employees started telling me about it while we were processing new comics on September 2nd.

He told me it was "Kind of weird, and I'm not sure I understood what was going on. There's a whole message board about it where people try to figure it out. A lot of people say you have to watch it twice to get it." "Why the heck would I want to watch a movie I don't understand?" I replied, "I don't have time to watch movies to watch one I don't understand, much less watch it twice!" "It's about 2 guys who make a time machine in their garage," he explained.

Being a sucker for time-travel stories, I immediately requested it from the library. Since the next week New Comics Day was Thursday, I was unusually coherent Wednesday night, and I picked it up. I watched it.

And then I watched it again.

The entire next day (after processing new comics, natch) I spent every free moment reading the movie's message boards. I have spent the last week thinking about the movie. I have dreamed about it.

This is probably the most intelligently written movie involving time travel, ever. It's only 78 minutes long, so watching it twice doesn't take as long as even one time through a Lord of the Rings movie. My second time through I watched it with the director's commentary on, and (because his commentary blocked out the characters' dialog) I found it helped me focus more on what was appearing on the screen visually. It is definitely a puzzle, but one well worth examining all the pieces.

I give it (roughly) 1300 thumbs up.

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"You've got the brain of a four-year-old boy, and I'll bet he was glad to get rid of it." -Groucho Marx

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[PowerBook Pete, the Mad Mod]

I caught Primer on IFC one night last year. I meant to watch just a few minutes before sleeping, but I had to watch the whole thing.