[RLacey]

Originally Posted by Melanie68

Which joke did you find funny?

"Somebody go back and get a shit-load of quarters!"

[Melanie68]

Originally Posted by RLacey

"Somebody go back and get a shit-load of quarters!"

Ha Ha - I'd forgotten that one. Thanks!

[Terabin]

I was staying in a Lincoln Park hotel in Chicago for the past week while my parents did orientation stuff with my sister who is a first year at DePaul. At any rate, there was a nice theater around the corner showing indie films and I saw a couple of them.

"Last Days" and "Grizzly Man".

I found Gus Van Sant's "Last Days" extremely poetic. I love it that Van Sant has felt like he can break out of Hollywood convention for his trilogy beginning with "Elephant" and "Gerry," which seems to meditate on needless death. I love the moments of silence in "Last Days," which draw the audience further into the film if the audience is ready for it. It's amazing that the same director did "Good Will Hunting," another good film IMO, but a crowd-pleaser rather than an auteristic statement. In both "Last Days" and "Grizzly Man," the audience knows the ending of the story, and so the point is not so much a narrative A to B, but a poetic presentation of the question, "Why did this happen?" Even though I had read reviews of both "Last Days" and "Grizzly Man" previous to the films, which sometimes turns me off to seeing the films, especially in a theater, I was entranced by the craftsmanship of Van Sant and Werner Herzog, who directed "Grizzly Man". For those who don't know, "Last Days" is an account of a Kurt-Cobain-esque character's last hours before death. "Grizzly Man" is a documentary comprising footage shot by Timothy Treadwell, a self-proclaimed protector of the Alaskan grizzly bear, who was ironically killed in his thirteenth summer of work by a grizzly bear he was not familiar with. The thing I found most interesting about "Grizzly Man" was the intersection between Herzog's negative, brutal view of nature and Treadwell's idealistic, perhaps naive love of the animals. Herzog's love for the egomaniac leads him to present Treadwell in that light, and Herzog, quite the egomaniac himself, is very PRESENT in the documentary as he narrates in an acknowledged subjective manner, offering his judgment on Treadwell. I haven't seen any of Herzog's other documentaries, but I wonder how visible he makes himself. It seems to me to run against the grain of most documentaries, whose directors hide under the guise of objectivity.

The best film I've seen this summer is "Broken Flowers" by Jim Jarmusch. I loved his "Stranger Than Paradise," a quirky black-and-white masterpiece made back in 1984 which considers the lives of a few young, Hungarian immigrants. Jim Jarmusch creates his own cinematic space. You know you're watching a Jarmusch movie when one is on. Despite the heavy starpower of "Broken Flowers," IE Bill Murray, Jeffrey Wright, Sharon Stone, Tilda Swinton, etc., Jarmusch is in full control of the reins. With his episodic take on the life of a washed-up Don Juan, worldly hipster soundtrack to boot, the viewer is brought into the melancholy, dead-pan world of Jarmusch. And it is a beautiful place. The scene with the pearls has an emotional weight I cannot really express.

I finally caved in a bought "The Last Picture Show," after waiting to see if I could find it somewhere, anywhere, for less than 15 dollars. See that film too if you haven't. It's a classic take on small-town adolescence.

[natalia]

"The Last Picture Show" was terrific.

Just saw Time Bandits this weekend for the first time -- I loved it. I compared it to The Life Aquatic (which I'd also recently just viewed)... even though they are about vastly different subjects, because the whimsy in Time Bandits didn't seem forced. And there was actually a story that made sense and characters that were sympathetic. And...it wasn't boring.

[Intrepid Homoludens]

Just watched Being John Malkovich this evening. big R commented that the title should have been Using John Malkovich.

I described it as a f#&king mind trip, myself. There's a mind-dropping metaphysical threeway I found squirmingly charming, and the sequence where Malkovich himself goes into his own mind is particularly effective. The puppet sequences were beautiful.

........

[Once A Villain]

Originally Posted by Intrepid Homoludens

Just watched Being John Malkovich this evening. big R commented that the title should have been Using John Malkovich.

I described it as a f#&king mind trip, myself. There's a mind-dropping metaphysical threeway I found squirmingly charming, and the sequence where Malkovich himself goes into his own mind is particularly effective. The puppet sequences were beautiful.

........

You probably already know this Trep, but the writer of Being John Malkovich (Charlie Kaufman) also wrote Adaptation and Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. Both of which are similar in their "f#&king mind trip" ways...

[Intrepid Homoludens]

Of course.

[Ninth]

Originally Posted by Once A Villain

You probably already know this Trep, but the writer of Being John Malkovich (Charlie Kaufman) also wrote Adaptation and Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. Both of which are similar in their "f#&king mind trip" ways...

It's funny, because of the three, only Eternal... has an ending that didn't piss me off and ruined the movie for me.

[Wormsie]

Wasn't Charlie Kaufman the writer who didn't exist?

[AFGNCAAP]

Originally Posted by Wormsie

Wasn't Charlie Kaufman the writer who didn't exist?

No, that would be his brother Donald.

[DustCropper]

I recently saw City of God. It's a Brazilian film, based on a true story, about a group of kids growing up in one of Brazil's favelas (slums). Amazing film... highly recommended, especially if you like Pulp Fiction. It's very violent so stay clear if you have a weak stomach.

(I see that Gilly already posted it, but it's such a good movie I have to mention it again )

[Mimus]

Originally Posted by pinkgothic

Warning, though, I can only say: Strategic product placement Very obvious. But t'was at least not obscenely out of place when it did happen. I couldn't help but grin in parts, though.

Not obscenely out of place?! No, unlike Minority Report (which was a lot cleverer with its product placement), all of the product placement in The Island was completely out of place. Thankfully I now know which products to avoid buying... To top it all off, what was with making us watch the entirety of Scarlett Johansson's Calvin Klein advert?! I paid money to go and watch over two hours of adverts. I can't even remember the rest of the film, the product placement was so bad...

[Catbert]

And having half the movie being turned into a camera pan is ridiculous.

Yeah, another shot of Djimon Honsou whilst the camera rotates around him and he spouts some cliché frase to a radio, wonderful.

[pinkgothic]

Originally Posted by Mimus

Not obscenely out of place?!

Nope. Can't remember claiming it was sublte, though, which seems to be your entire issue rather than the placing.

[Mimus]

Originally Posted by pinkgothic

Nope. Can't remember claiming it was sublte, though, which seems to be your entire issue rather than the placing.

Yeah, it was mainly the fact that it all stood out a lot. I don't really have a problem with product placement, as long it doesn't affect my enjoyment of the film, which I felt it did in The Island...

[pinkgothic]

There was only one which I felt to be, well, amusing (and that emotion was out of the place, though not the actual product placement), so I can relate ever so slightly - but honestly, not that much. Sorry to hear it ruined your movie experience for you, though. That's a pity, regardless of my opinions in the matter.

Coincidentially I've seen Sin City by now and was pleasantly surprised. I found the beginning to be rather irritating and almost walked out - boy, am I glad I stayed in, it really got good towards the end! Though I really have to say I don't get why everyone's so hyper about the visual effects of this movie - I found it lives off it's story and nothing else. But ah well

[em-deecee]

A Love Song For Bobby Long, with Scarlett Johansson & John Travolta, featuring lush pre-Katrina New Orleans scenery. The music was also enjoyable.

[lumi]

Originally Posted by Jake

Just sas The Aristocrats last night. It was pretty damn funny, though not as funny as I expected - there was a good 20 minutes in the middle that was a lot slower than the beginning and end's non-stop stream of rapidfire comedy. Some amazingly ridiculous/outrageous well-told jokes in here though. Definitely 100% worth seeing if it's playing in your area

I thought the movie was okay, but I wouldn't necessarily recommend paying to see it. If you know someone who's going to buy the DVD, you might want to borrow it from them instead. There were only several parts that were really funny; the rest was ho-hum.

[[toj.cc]Phantom]

I just watched Strange Brew.

[omloflump]

Though I really have to say I don't get why everyone's so hyper about the visual effects of this movie - I found it lives off it's story and nothing else. But ah well

I thought the opposite. The substance behind the movie isn't all that impressive; it's the style that makes it any good, as is the case in the comic books. Because really, the three main characters in the film are pretty much identical to each other, personality wise, and the stories are routine, albeit extreme, vigilante-noir fair.