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.

[Mark Sullivan (Vertiginous Mod)]

Finally caught up with 28 Weeks Later, the sequel to 28 Days Later.  I liked it a lot, even more than the original (although I haven't seen the original recently, so memory may be playing tricks).  This was the first DVD movie I watched on the new 50 inch plasma set that my son gave us for Christmas.  Fun!  I'm going to be picking up the Inception DVD from the library tomorrow. Looking forward to that.

[Jason Marconnet (Pint sized mod)]

Last weekend I watched Easy A and Going the Distance. Both are very good comedies. Easy A is probably better. Going the Distance started out strong but drug towards the end.

[Travis Herrick (Modular Mod)]

I did catch True Grit over the weekend, and I enjoyed it quite a bit. Jeff Bridges' Rooster Cogburn sounded a little bit like Nolan Ryan, but a lot more gravelly sounding. A smart movie, good job by the Coen Brothers and co.

[Jason Marconnet (Pint sized mod)]

Saw the Green Hornet tonight. Kind of dark and violent at times, surprisingly. Not exactly light hearted. I enjoyed it though. There were some funny moments as well as some good action. I don't always like Seth Rogan but he was good in this. Jay Chow, who I never heard of, was great as Kato. He and Rogan had a real chemistry. Much the same way Mel Gibson and Danny Glover had chemistry in Lethal Weapon. They just worked well together. I think these two actors are what makes the movie. The story is not spectacular, though the concept is interesting. You care about these two and what happens to them. It's an enjoyable film that was a good escape for a few hours.

[George]

The new "True Grit" is excellent. But I also like the 1969 original. It's sad that certain would-be hipsters (such as NPR's Terri Gross, and the Coens themselves) feel they must bash the original to build up the remake. Gross called the original "a really bad movie," which reveals her utter ignorance of movies.

 

But it's not too surprising. John Wayne movies still don't get much critical respect, except for his movies directed by John Ford and Howard Hawks. "True Grit" was directed by Henry Hathaway, a studio craftsman who directed dozens of good movies but never developed a personal style.

 

Anyway, see the remake, and check out the original, too. Both movies hew closely to Charles Portis' novel, and much of the colorful, archaic dialogue in both movies is verbatim from the novel.

[Mark Sullivan (Vertiginous Mod)]

This is very old news, but I finally saw Ghost World last night.  I have wondered how they could make a film from that comic, since it's pretty episodic.  I thought they did a good job capturing the tone of the comic, incorporating incidents from it into a more linear narrative.  The casting was good too, although of course the two female leads were more glamorous than the ones in the comics.

[Jason Marconnet (Pint sized mod)]

That was a good movie. I saw it way back when. Never read the original comic though.

Mark Sullivan said:

This is very old news, but I finally saw Ghost World last night.  I have wondered how they could make a film from that comic, since it's pretty episodic.  I thought they did a good job capturing the tone of the comic, incorporating incidents from it into a more linear narrative.  The casting was good too, although of course the two female leads were more glamorous than the ones in the comics.

[Travis Herrick (Modular Mod)]

Actually one of the first comic book movies I got on DVD as a present fro my brother. A pretty good flick.

Mark Sullivan said:

This is very old news, but I finally saw Ghost World last night.  I have wondered how they could make a film from that comic, since it's pretty episodic.  I thought they did a good job capturing the tone of the comic, incorporating incidents from it into a more linear narrative.  The casting was good too, although of course the two female leads were more glamorous than the ones in the comics.

[Mark Sullivan (Vertiginous Mod)]

And tonight I finally watched Inception on DVD.  Excellent!  I could see myself watching this again, making it a good candidate for bargain bin hunting.  It's a bit long at 2.5 hours, but my attention never wavered.

[Wandering Sensei: Moderator Man]

I saw True Grit a couple weeks ago. It was awesome.

[Don Collett]

I finally saw Despicable Me the other night.  I wasn't expecting to like it, but it was funny and charming.

[Jason Marconnet (Pint sized mod)]

The Mechanic- this is the old Charles Bronson movie. I watched it in anticipation of the new film coming out next week starring Jason Statham. I liked this one. It had action but it paced itself. There were a lot of slow moments that built up. Bronson and Jan Micheal Vincent had a pretty good chemistry has mentor and apprentice.

 

Social Network- I already saw this once but wanted to see it again. Really great movie.