DVD Rental Day (2004 - 2010)

[Katuluu]

As for best of the decade I could probably make a list of just documentaries, but Capturing the Friedmans and Grizzly Man would definately make the list. Eternal Sunshine is an easy pick as well, and I'd put The Squid and the Whale somewhere in the top 5. But my sleeper pick for the decade would easily be Ong-bak, which very well maybe the most entertaining movie I have ever seen.

 

PS -Lynch sucks. He couldn't tell a narrative if his life depended on it, let alone coherently. I'd let him be an art director for a film anyday though.

[RobertR]

I knew Mulholland Drive would raise some eyebrows. I still stand by it. It's easily the movie this decade that I think about the most. (Of course, sometimes that thinking only amounts to "Naomi Watts and Laura Haring are incredibly hot in Mulholland Drive".) Heck, the tagline is even relevant "A Love Story In The City Of Dreams".

 

95% is probably soluble, but I agree that remaining 5% is unlikely to ever be put together. That doesn't mean I can't try.to figure it out. David Lynch has his faults as a storyteller, but I'll take one Blue Velvet over all of the competently told stories without a unique point of view.

 

Nobody like Lynch to stir strong feelings. And that's part of the reason why I enjoy him. I don't think I've ever seen a more polarizing director.

 

Robert

[EdgarDiazRocks]

I could probably make a list of just documentaries, but Capturing the Friedmans and Grizzly Man would definately make the list

 

I think the only documentary I overlooked was Spellbound, which was so good that it spawned a slew of crappy semi-indie knockoffs like Akeela and the Bee, (now showing at your local Starbucks). The truth (here, actually presented as such) is always much better than focus grouped fiction, or as in the case of most current documentaries, outright propaganda. Subtle propaganda I can handle.

 

Certainly not Grizzly Man. I lived that film in my youth, we called it Another Dumb Tourist Got Eaten by a Bear.

 

Then again I have never been a Herzog fan.

 

Dot.com would certainly go on my 10 Worst list. Celebrating stupidity is not my cup of tea.

[rluzinski]

I have a similar problem with Primer, but there it's like the filmakers need to feel smarter than you, so they hold back information and coyly answer questions, "maybe".

 

Primer made complate sense after I watched the movie, studied online for 3 hours and then watched the movie again http://forum.brewerfan.net/images/smilies/smile.gif

[danzig6767]

Katuluu wrote this about The Woodsman

 

One of the most disturbing, disgusting, hopeful and beautiful movies I have ever seen. Bacon really outdoes himself. I've rarely felt so conflicted for a character before, and it's all do to his fantastic performance. Incredibly complex and challenging theme that most people probably won't be able to make it thru. If not for that I'd classify it a must see.

 

I watched it yesterday and pretty much agree.Bacon was outstanding and Mos Def was very good in a small role as a cop.What i liked was that the film didn't attempt to make people think child molesters aren't serious dangers once out of prison,but Bacon did a great job playing a man deeply troubled by the fact he's attracted to 10-14 year old girls.

 

I found myself thinking he should still be in jail because he's a potential danger to kids,but having a bit a sympathy because i can't imagine how disturbing it must be to find 10 year olds attractive.

[RobertR]

Bumping this back up.

 

 

Red Eye

 

My streak of well above average mysteries/thrillers had to come to an end sometime.

 

It starts promising with Cillian Murphy displaying a lot of charm, but all of the performances become very one dimensional once the plane takes off and Murphy reveals precisely what he's up to. And the ending is fairly silly.

 

By the end, the only thing that I found of interest was Wes Craven's familiar trope of a victimized woman striking back against her attacker. He's done that better before, though.

 

Neil Young: Heart of Gold

 

Jonathan Demme directed my favorite concert film, Stop Making Sense. Neil Young is one of my favorite performers. Therefore, this was right up my alley.

 

Filmed shortly after Neil Young recovered from a brain aneurysm it features a performance of his Prairie Wind suite which was written when he didn't know if he was going to survive. As such, there's a lot of looking back and summing up in the songs. This was the concert debut of those songs, shortly before the album hit, in Nashville, at the former home of the Grand Olde Opry, whose history plays a role in at least one song. Since there's only about 50 minutes of songs, the concert is filled out by selections from Harvest, Comes A Time, and Harvest Moon, as well as "The Old Laughing Lady". Beyond that, Neil has his wife, his friends/musicians who he's played with for over 30 years off and on, and Emmylou Harris on stage and it's a really tight set. In fact, I think the DVD sounds better than the CD.

 

Beyond that, Jonathan Demme really creates a remarkable presentation. This is expertly edited and shot, there's no sign of camermen walking around in the background and little for audience shots, and Demme catches all kinds of interesting little actions, smiles and looks, which brings you inside the performers' circle to an extent. It will never win it, but I think a convincing argument could be made for considering the editing Oscar material.

 

Obviously, you have to be at least a marginal fan of Neil Young to appreciate the movie. But, it's one of the best concert films I've ever seen.

 

Serenity

 

I liked the Firefly tv show and wish it had lasted longer. But at least the movie spinning out of it features a relatively good story and sums up the themes that the show was aiming for.

 

I don't think it's a great movie by any stretch, just a reasonably effective one with good character moments, a sense of humor, and a point beyond empty spectacle. It feels a bit on the cheap side at times, particularly in a hovercraft chase at the beginning, but that's the weakest special effects sequence of the movie, so it's better there than at the climax.

 

It's definitely less an ensemble piece than the tv show, with Nathan Fillion and Summer Glau getting the most focus. Nathan Fillion is better and more interesting than he was in the tv show, as something of a Han Solo type. OTOH, I didn't find Summer Glau or her character River particularly interesting at all.

 

As a director, I think Joss Whedon still has things to work on. He's a good writer, but his visual eye probably isn't what it needs to be for a science fiction director. He's still miles and miles ahead of Kevin Smith though. Still, as a director I get the feeling that he's channeling scenes he's seen before rather than creating his own.

 

Robert

[brettac1]

Is Heart of Gold just really a concert movie? I was going to buy it, since I'm a pretty big Neil fan, but if it's really mostly concert stuff, I can go without (especially since it's $35 at my local Barnes & Noble).

 

Besides, I just picked up a slew of Dylan DVD's that I've been working my way through. I had seen most of "No Direction Home" on PBS, and I bought it since it was on sale. Obviously, considering Dylan was cooperative, it's fanboy-ish. It's also really cool. I also got "Don't Look Back", which is awesome. Then I got "'1975 -1981 Rolling Thunder and the Gospel Years", which is also alright (it's not authorized by Bobby D.) and is four hours long. That one's probably only watchable if you're a fanatic, though.

[sbrylski]

Has anyone ever seen the movie "Pi"?

 

I'm not a big movie guy, but I really liked that one. The whole movie is in black in white.

 

Here is a summary from wiki:

 

Quote:

---

The film is about a mathematical prodigy, Maximillian Cohen, who believes that everything in nature can be understood through numbers. Utilizing the stock market as his data set, Max tries to uncover patterns with the assistance of his homemade supercomputer Euclid. Max has been plagued with recurring and extremely debilitating headaches since age 6, headaches that respond very little to any medical treatment. Max suspects the origin of the headaches to be related to an accident when he was 6 years old, in which he stared into the sun at such length that "the doctors didn't know if [his] eyes would ever heal." That day, Max experienced his first headache. He also suffers from extreme paranoia and some form of social anxiety disorder. As the movie progresses, he begins to believe that he has found the key to understanding the universe, but as he closes in on the answer, it turns out that his paranoia is justified (or depending on your interpretation, that his paranoid delusions have manifested themselves in visual and auditory hallucinations). A number of mysterious people become interested in his research, including a woman from a Wall Street firm with access to powerful new computer hardware, and a group of kabbalistic Jews who believe that the Torah, when represented as numbers instead of letters, contains the true name of God, an example of a Bible code.

---

 

I recommend it.

[brettac1]

Yeah, that's a pretty good movie.

 

Since I brought up some music docs earlier, I'll add "Festival Express" to the list of awesome ones. I couldn't believe I'd never heard of it before about a month ago when I came across it on TMC. I picked up the DVD right after seeing it. It has the Dead, The Band, Janis Joplin, The Flying Burrito Brothers (sans Parsons, unfortunately) and others. Great music movie, especially if you're into those bands.

[PrimetimeHater]

I recently saw The Proposition and Half Nelson and I'd highly recommend both of them. If you are just going to see one of those two, I would recommend The Proposition. Also...I caught Mindhunters on one of the movie channels the other day, and it is one of the worst movies I've seen in a while.

[RobertR]

Is Heart of Gold just really a concert movie? I was going to buy it, since I'm a pretty big Neil fan, but if it's really mostly concert stuff, I can go without (especially since it's $35 at my local Barnes & Noble).

 

Yeah, pretty much. There's about 10 to 20 minutes of interviews with band members being driven to the concert that sets the background, but it's just a concert movie after that for the next hour or so.

 

Robert

[rluzinski]

Has anyone ever seen the movie "Pi"?

 

I enjoyed the plot but the lead character's acting was laughably bad, IMO.

[homer]

I saw Pi, but I didn't really like it. The main character was obnoxious. I believe it was one of Darren Aronofsky's (director of Requiem for a Dream) first films.

[RobertR]

I'm going to be away for a bit, so I'm going to clear out a few things.

 

X-Men 3 (or whatever the official title is)

 

There seems to be 3 or 4 plots competing for attention and none of them come off all that well. The main cast members try hard to make sense of the mess and Jackman and McKellan are always reliable, but it pretty much dissolves into a bunch of wirework and CGI loosely strung together by the end with cameo appearances by actors who were obviously busy on other project.

 

It really comes off as a rush job. That's a shame since there are actually some good ideas here, particularly involving "the cure", but everything takes a back seat to the special effects sequences.

 

A Prairie Home Companion

 

To me it's the best comedy of the year, unless you count THE DEPARTED as a black comedy. Robert Altman and Garrison Keillor go surprisingly well together, with the lively ensemble and semi-improvised nature of Altman offsetting some of the more sentimental corn of Keillor (there's probably something here for people that don't like one, but like the other). It's a surprisingly good choice for Altman at this stage of his career with the possibility of this being his last film and death being a constant presence at his age, working to enhance the themes of the piece.

 

To me, Streep and Tomlin as sisters are the highlight of the film. They really play off each other well and the overlapping dialogue sounds natural, even if their accents sound more Minnesotan than they perhaps should be considering that the sisters are supposedly from Oshkosh.

 

Robert

[7rebmun]

Okay, I'm bumping this back to the top to help fill out my movie queue again.

 

Anything interesting of late?

[BoneDaddyKool]

I really enjoyed Clerks II. I like all Smith films, and this one was funny.Especially when Randall is giving his view on the Lord of the Rings trilogy. I felt the same way.

[dadofandrew]

I was disappointed in Clerks 2, but only because it made it painfully obvious he'll never come close to matching Clerks. Still a funny 90 minutes.

[brettac1]

I loved "Clerks II", even though I'm disappointed that it was lacking the inside jokes that were kind of the hallmark of Smith movies (other than the epic classic, "Jersey Girl"). It seemed like he aimed more mainstream.

 

He'll never match "Clerks", but that was such an awesome movie, I can't really blame him. I still like all his movies aside from "Jersey Girl".

[Team Canada]

To me it's the best comedy of the year

 

Interesting, I couldn't imagine Little Miss Sunshine or some others not being better. I would actually un-recommend it. Maybe I just don't like Altman as much (although I don't remember disliking Gosford Park), but it felt like there was very little plot, and what little there was didn't impress me very much. Guy Noir being written into the show seemed weak, as was the angel. To me they could have just filmed a real show and it probably would have been better.

[RobertR]

What can I say. Comedy is subjective.

 

Admittedly, part of what I respond to in Altman's film isn't necessarily the comedy bits, but Altman's skill as a filmmaker. People don't stand around like they are in a skit reciting their lines, but move around through their actions, captured by Altman's zoom lens, with foreground and background action, overlapping dialogue, etc. Even when the comedy bits sometimes fall flat, the movie is still interesting to me.

 

In contrast....

 

Nacho Libre

 

Pretty much the definition of a one joke film. Jack Black is a masked Mexican wrestler. A bad one. Hopefully you find that funny, because the movie never gets beyond that single joke. Thankfully, the movie is short so the joke is only beaten into the ground to a somewhat limited extent.

 

I did actually like the cinematography though. Reminded me of Blue Velvet in some ways with some bold colors popping from the screen. The staging of the scenes though left a lot to be desired with a lot of standing around.

 

Cars

 

There's some terrific animation from Pixar in their newest film. On a technical level there's plenty to admire here.

 

Too bad the story is so familiar. Children won't notice, but their parents will with every beat being very familiar. There's some good stuff in between the familiar stuff, tractor tipping and the film's climax, but there's definitely a lot of formula at play here. Much more on a par with A Bug's Life, another overly familiar story, than with Pixar's best.

 

Robert

[Team Canada]

People don't stand around like they are in a skit reciting their lines, but move around through their actions, captured by Altman's zoom lens, with foreground and background action, overlapping dialogue, etc.

 

Yeah, I can definitely appreciate that.

[Team Canada]

As long as I'm in a panning mode, these aren't to dvd yet, but I found Babel, Children of Men, Little Children, and The Fountain all overrated/disappointing. Bobby was ok, but certainly didn't blow me away.

Maybe I'd just heard too many good things about them, I dunno..

[backup catchers]

If you like the South Park guys check out Cannibal the Musical. Hilarious.

[Katuluu]

PHC isn't the best comedy of the year, it may not even be the best directed comedy of the year. But it is a good movie. Though wry comedies such as it don't seem to have a very wide appeal outside of decrepit midwesterners. You know, like Robert.

[backup catchers]

I think I'd have liked Clerks 2 better if I hadn't seen Clerks so many times. It was ok but not nearly as fresh as Clerks was at the time.