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Making Reccomendations at the V ...
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"Do you ever make reccomendations, unsolicited, to total strangers at the video store? I have this feeling that doing so makes me the world's biggest a**hole, but occasionally I can not help it. Yesterday at my neighborhood store I saw someone eyeing "Searching for the Wrong-Eyed Jesus" on the shelf and making "looks interesting" eyes to his girlfriend. Before I could stop, I blurted out something like "That movie is excellent. One of my favorites in recent memory." What I'm wondering is, is this sort of reccomendation totally emotionally manipulative, or is it just one person trying to do something nice for another? I mean, it's akward if someone tells you how great a movie is if you then say, "yeah, I'm not into it" and put it down. On the other hand, how great must a movie be for some random stranger to tell you they dug it?I don't have the best social filters in the world, so I'll probably continue to do it, but I'd be interested to see what oth ... " [More]
Dreamland
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"I enjoyed this movie. I didn't think it was great, but did think it was worth watching. It is a coming of age movie like many, many others out there, but is a fair example of the genre. I particularly enjoyed the sultry, anemic quality that is carried through in the script, soundtrack, washed-out pallette, and cinematography. " [More]
Re: Napoleon Dynamite
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Totally Over-rated
"Wait, you liked Nacho Libre more than Napoleon Dynamite? Wow, that's pretty singular. I'm curious if you dislike slow movies in general, or if it's something else. That is, how do you feel about, for example, Aki Kurousmaki's films, or _Autumn Sonata_, or things by Jarmusch and Hal Hartley? This would shed some light. I mean, I'm not convinced ND was brilliant film making, but I thought it was pretty enjoyable. Mostly, I really didn't think that pacing was one of its central problems. I do think it's reasonable to say that ND is over-rated, or at least over exposed. The ubiquitous "Vote for Pedro" shirts got tiresome, quick. A case where overrated is the right term--that is, the movie itself seems good (7/10, perhaps), but not nearly as good as its celebrity would suggest. At least that's my impression. " [More]
Horror and a want for time
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"KT and JB were over for a drink and a chat the other evening and we spoke about horror films. I had posted about Suspiria (by Argento) here just a bit before, and K wanted to know what I thought of the movie (more on that in a comment to that post). In any case, I've been thinking a lot about horror films since then. I almost never watch them now, but I did watch them a lot for a brief time in the 80s (nowadays I think war films fill that slot, but I'm not sure). I find myself wanting to re-watch Hellraiser and its sequels, more than probably any others. I'm not so interested in revisiting the teen slasher flicks that I hardly watched anyway, but the brief spate of demonic-themed films from Wes Craven and his imitators hold my thoughts right now. I mostly wonder, if I saw them now would they still scare me and would I still like them? I really liked them then, and they fully terrified me. Perhaps I'll take a moment to watch Hellraiser I soon and see. But, like everyone else ... " [More]
Suspiria
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"Man, I watched this dog of a film over and over with a small group of friends for about a year in high school. And we weren't even chemically altered at the time. For some reason I just thought about it again a few days ago and couldn't remember the title. For some reason it came back to me tonight and there it was on Spout. Thanks! " [More]
SLACKER
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"Man, Salon just posted a piece on the movie Slacker (http://www.salon.com/ent/movi es/feature/2006/07/05/slacker/ ), and it really hit me a little hard. I was in college at the Wisconsin when I saw Slacker, and I think I enjoyed it more than any film I had ever seen at that point, and possibly more than any I've seen since. That is not to say I think it's the best film ever made (though I think it's in the running), but more that it was the exact right film for me at the time. I was living in a co-op with 30 other people, all working a little this and that (I worked at a record store, and as a courier for the art department of Wisconsin public radio), consuming various chemicals, going to school, contemplating art, and, well, slacking off. My life was never as easy or purely dedicated to slacking as the movie, but then movies aren't actually real, they just seem that way, right? And in this case the movie absolutely felt like the best parts of my real life. I was a little sad ... " [More]
How Shallow Am I?
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"This week E. and I watched Match Point and Melinda, Melinda, W. Allen's two most recent movies (as far as I know). I thought neither was a great film, but I enjoyed both enough, I suppose. I thought MP was, indeed, as Ktincu said in her blog, surprisingly un-Allenish, which was nice. I like Johansson--what man my age doesn't--but didn't think she smouldered particularly well in the movie. I couldn't bring myself to care at all about any of the characters, which made the whole thing a bit of an unsatisfying experience. But the worst of it is I liked M,M a whole lot more. I seem to like all the WA movies everyone in the critical press derides--M,M, Shadows and Fog (which I totally enjoyed), Bullets over B'way. Am I just the shallowest movie watcher ever???? Perhaps. I did like M,M, though. It wasn't a great film at all, but it had a couple of things that I just adored. I really liked Wallace Shawn (I know, a tiny bit part, but I'd watch him do commercials; I just love to s ... " [More]
Sin City
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"I don't quite know what to think about this film. I liked a lot of things about it, and I'm not particularly squeamish, but I did find it all a bit disturbing. As a comic book adaptation this ranks up there with Spiderman. It totally captures the unidimensionality, look, dialogue, and so on of the original. I think I liked the B&W w/slight coloration best about the movie. " [More]
Searching for the Wrong-Eyed Jesus
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"Wow, this is one of the most interesting films I've seen in a good long while. It is, I suppose, a documentary, but only inasmuch as there's not another word for non-fiction film that I can think of. It doesn't follow the narrative/cinematic conventions of documentary film in any sense. It is probably better conceived as film performance art, or perhaps really good travel memoir in film instead of writing. The musical performances are remarkable--not generally particularly polished or technically adroit, but there is some beautiful, intense music-making nonetheless. Jim White, the principal figure is not the most interesting musician here. Banjoists Lee Sexton and David Eugene Edwards are pretty impressive, and three sisters singing a traditional murder-ballad in a restaurant in some small town are high points. The Handsome Family are more impressive on CD than in the film, but the man's wierd low voice, and the image of the two of them singing perched on a shack over the wat ... " [More]
Re: Jaybriel
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Movies I do not want to see
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"Howdy! Well, I should have checked out your list more carefully before blogging, to see the tenor of the discussions here. Pardon the shocked tone in my blogpost. (I'm still trying to figure out how spout works). It's funny, though. Deuce Bigalow: Male Gigolo has come up repeatedly recently, and I'm the only person I know who has seen it, except my sister-in-law with whom I saw it; yet everyone I talk with about it appears to hate it. I feel I may be destined to be the DB:MG apologist crying in the wilderness. In all seriousness, or maybe not, it's worth watching, if only for Eddie Griffin. J " [More]
Re: Didn't want to see Mary?
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Movies I do not want to see
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"Just saw it for the first time the other night (I know, every time I said, "I've never seen _Mary_," people looked at me like I was some kind of freak). I dunno, I thought it was funny enough, but the thing that makes it really worth seeing, to me, is Jonathan Richman. What a brilliant stroke, having him in/not in the movie, instead of just providing soundtrack. It's going on my "Pleasant Films" list--films that are a pleasant evening's entertainment. Not great, not awful, not dumb-but-funny, just films that are alright with me. J " [More]
Deuce Bigalow: Male Gigolo
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"Wait, I don't understand. Who added such nasty tags to this movie without even seeing it??? What's up with a "No one can talk me into seeing this movie, no matter what" position? Sure, there are plenty of movies I'm not interested in, but it seems a little silly to act as if that's anything other than blinders. It's like saying "I hate honeycomb tripe. I've never eaten it, but I know I hate it." Fine, I suppose, but not worth much as a critical position. In any case, I'm clearly in the minority here, but I have to say, I think DB:MG is great. Even the title makes me crack up. What other kind of Gigolo is there, besides a Male one. Hell, the rhyme scheme cracks me up: "We need a name that will rhyme with 'Gigolo'...Bigalow!" That's fantastic. The movie itself was remarkably enjoyable. The humor is purile, but that's true of _LOTS_ of great films. Eddie Griffin is excellent. the image of him sitting in a hot tub eating ice cream is indelible! It's so wrong on so many l ... " [More]
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pleasant (1)
Movies that are enjoyable without being either fantastic, dumb-but-fun, or particularly intense. ...