I dunno, but it doesn't have to end ugly. I never stayed with the same person for more than a year. I always made alibis and switched roommates. Every single one of them got eventually on my nerves, and it never really got any better, until the senior year that I roomed with a friend/classmate. I always thought that rooming with friends could end up to partying and not being able to say "no" when you should and get the time to study. I'm not sure if it was the magic of knowing it would last only one year, or our astrological signs matched (Pisces and Cancer ), or maybe because she is the nicest person I've known, but things were never that great up to then. She is one of the few people that I still care to talk over the phone instead of exchanging emails even now that we have to pay long distance fees.

What I'm trying to say is, sky is the same color for the most part, so being patient, biting tongue sometimes and just switching roommates each year would get you through and it is not worth it to end things bitterly with friends.

Ciao, Afi! Where have you been lately? I missed you. See, even if you are not able to see how great a movie BBM is, I still consider you to be one of the smartest people here...... :p

Hi Lav!

You and BBM!

I've been lurking here a little, but mainly I was taking a long holiday vacation and was sick for most of it. But now I'm back to work. Missed you too!

It's good Afi is here. And Lavi too. It was a much more dull place recently.

PINK FLOYD: THE WALL (1982) - ****

Upcoming AV and long-delayed new chapter of RRA'S CULT MOVIE REVIEW, a movie that despite its flaws, its ambitions and notes(pun!)are so grand and work so well for the most part, that I wish more movies would be so bold, so ballsy....then again, having a legendary soundtrack from one of the great rock bands of history doesn't hurt at all.

[/b][/quote]Well you truly can't base it off Unforgiven because Clint won for Baby.

The Inside Man ***

I'll start off by saying it's great to see another Spike Lee movie! A little disappointing but something that made you pay attention and keep you guessing until the very end. Denzel and Jodie were delightful as usual but Mr. Clive Owen really stole the show. He's quickly becoming one of the best actors alive today in my book.

Did you see Million Dollar Baby? [/b][/quote]Did anyone else tend to find this movie a bit... Obnoxious? I just can't really stand sports films in general, I suppose (save a few, mostly Raging Bull. And, don't even bring up Rocky... A tad over-rated and badly-dated in my opinion.) They just always come off way too dramatic for their own good. Maybe that's not even it. There might be something deeper that drives me away from them... But, blindly, they've just always come off a bit pretentious to me... especially boxing films. All I know is, at one of the most defining scenes in Million Dollar Baby, all I could think was "is Alex Lifeson of Rush playing the part of the waitor?" and in another, it was, "Jesus creeping shit, just kill the bitch already and get the film done with! We already know she's going to die, the bugger on The Soup spoiled it on national television!"

So, in conclusion, I'll admit it was an above average film. A descent film that I suppose deserved nomination, but perhaps not award... And thus, my rambling comes to an end.

I though it was a very good film.

LLC, you should try Michael Mann's Ali. Very good, despite some people hating it.

I enjoyed Ali, actually. I think Ragging Bull and Ali might've gone a little further than most boxing/sporting films. And thus, I enjoyed them more.

Spike Lee said Mann as a white filmmaker wouldn't be able to give Ali's story justice, but I think he was proved wrong there. I've seen parts of Malcolm X, which looks great, though I have to say I felt Mann even went further to make the Malcolm X assassination more poignant in Ali then in the Lee film.

A lot of other people oddly felt that they didn't focus enough on his personality.

I just saw Prime, the one with Uma Thurman where she's dating her therapist's son? Kinda boring, but an okay movie... but there was one thing I loved about it. At one point in the movie, they break up, and I turned to my boyfriend and said, "I wish the movie ended right there... movies NEVER end with a break-up!" Which he thought was funny but was kinda like "whaddya tryin' to say?" because we broke up and got back together too... But anyway, they get back together, but SPOILER ALERT they break up again, and the movie ends like that!!! No fuzzy, bullshit happy ending. I LOVED that!! More movies need to end realistically, I think.

And sometimes it's for the better if they don't end up together anyway! Like in this movie, it was totally better. Like sometimes they end up together, but you KNOW it would never work out anyway. The movie ends, and you're like, "Oh SURE... I give you two weeks, do you hear me???? TWO WEEKS!!"

THE ROOKIE (1990) - *1/2

Oh jesus christ!

Its funny how relevant this review is to the babble up above my post in regards to MILLION DOLLAR BABY, which itself is only and ultimately remarkable to watch for in Hilary Swank's performance. Why the relevancy?

Clint Eastwood usually is a good director, one of which does deserve some respect that he has some critics.

Unfortunately, this rep that Eastwood has among some critics seem to came out of nowhere with MYSTIC RIVER, then his 2nd Best Director Oscar for MILLION DOLLAR BABY, and yet I do wonder...

Where were these critics when Eastwood directed the pretty damn great THE OUTLAW JOSEY WALES? The supernatural western HIGH PLAINS DRIFTER, solid genre outings like PLAY MISTY FOR ME and PALE RIDER? Hell, what about his jazz-geekdom biopic BIRD? Better yet, some decent efforts like WHITE HUNTER BLACK HEART and A PERFECT WORLD? Nevermind that he had won an Oscar earlier for UNFORGIVEN, but again, those critics I guess considered him to be a Redford or Beatty, as in an actor with a one-time shot at directing, of which critics were amazed that an actor could actually direct it seems( :rolleyes: ).....

Sorry for the rant, but when I read people that praise Eastwood to pieces after MYSTIC RIVER, the only thing I can remember is this: What was his movies before RIVER? Why they were such turkeys as BLOOD WORK, SPACE COWBOYS, TRUE CRIME, and god knows what else.

THE ROOKIE unfortunately was one of them turkeys, with Eastwood starring/directing himself in what seems to have been his attempt at a LETHAL WEAPON-esque buddy action/comedy cop franchise with then-major star Charlie Sheen, and quite an absolute failure at that.

Imagine every cliche that you can about that genre of the time. Now, picture them to the most expected and banal way that they are imaginable. Congrats, you've just seen THE ROOKIE.

However, if I thought this movie was this crappy, why the extra 1/2 a star instead of a total bomb rating?

Well, considering that poor Charlie Sheen comes off quite hilariously in an unintentional way when he tries to be a badass suddenly. I'm sorry, but he intimidates me as much as Alex Trebeck. Still, I got good laughs. Hell, I could see his father Martin kicking someone's ass, but fucking Wild Thing himself? RIIIIIIIIIGHT.

Second, the fact that the iconic tough man Eastwood gets raped by the villainess. No really, you read that right. He acts like he got violated, and I'm thinking..."well, he didn't get raped like DELIVERENCE, so what is he crying about?" Poor Rowdy Yates...

Third, there was this goofy moment when both Sheen and Eastwood are being chased by a private jet plane in the weeds of LAX. Maybe Eastwood didn't have enough experience, or perhaps he just didn't succeede this time, but this was pretty damn laughable. Then this was followed by when both actors decide to split up, of which then both seem almost tracked down by this one plane....DESPITE splitting up in seperate directions. WHAT THE HELL?!?!

Fourth, the late Raul Julia played the villain, who for some reasons also happens to be German. For those that are not in the joke....

Raul Julia was Puerto Rican. :p

Avoid this clunker, for its not even watchable on cable TV....

The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada
Tommy Lee Jones 2005 US/France (1st time; big screen)
A Texan rancer finds the Border Patrolman who accidentally killed his immigrant friend, and takes him on a journey to fulfill the deceased's request of burying him in his hometown.
An extraordinary film to look at, it evokes a rare sense of setting merely through its colour palette and musical score; it has a freewheeling, meandering and original narrative which is perhaps hurt slightly by the chapter titles, and is caught between wanting to give time to characters it oddly doesn't give enough detail to.

Crossing the Bridge: The Sound of Istanbul
Fatih Akin 2005 Turkey/Germany (1st time; big screen)
Bassist Alexander Hacke travels round Istanbul to explore the city as a musical haven of eclectic sounds and cultures.
For the most part, an insightful, often mesmerising music documentary full of passion and a feel for Istanbul; the music speaks for itself.

Broken English
Philip Hogan 2006 US (1st time)
Several teenagers try to connect with, and fail to understand, one another.
A short quite clearly made by somebody whose world has been filtered onto the canvas with nothing but personal strokes, this is hurt deeply by bad sound and acting to match.

Brokeback Mountain
(Ang Lee;2005;USA)

I had my doubts about this movie. It's been so overhyped on television, and so underhyped on these boards, I really didn't know what the hell to expect.

The film was great. People need to get the "gay cowboy movie" mentality out of their heads. This isn't about two gay cowboys. It's a love story. A love shared between two people who are unable to be together. Lee's direction is beautiful, Ledger and Gyllenhaal were great in their roles (especially Ledger, who played a convincing cowboy from the mid-west, especially for being an Aussie).

Best film of '05, IMO.

A History of Violence - (David Cronenberg;2005;USA)
After a heroic act makes a small town man famous, mobsters show up revealing his possible dark past.
Very borderline. This could have easily been a simple cliche film. Instead the film is very taut and surprisingly ends perfectly. It could've been better, but it shows a depiction of brutal violence that is backed by the effects it has on the family. It could've been a little longer and maybe had some more character study, but overall I found this to be a great film. Viggo Mortensen is very good in the lead, especially with his subtle acting in many scenes. Ed Harris comes out as the most memorable though, especially through his charisma.

I just saw "Goodnight, and Goodluck" It was a good movie, but definitely a movie you have to be in the mood for. It's somewhat left sided on political spectrum I suppose but it was about McCarthyism and how one man and a radiostation full of people were trying to take him down by exposing the truth and such. Overall a good movie to see if you are into politics but if not, I don't know if you'd be interested.

McCarthy was never president

McCarthy was never president [/b][/quote]My bad, I should have said he was a Senator, I don't know why I said presidency, probably because I was just talking to my brother about 2008 elections.

I couldn't have said it better myself

Ashes and Diamonds- Though it may not have been put together as well as maybe it could have been(given the time period it was made in, I'll let that slide), it was a very good film. I had a bit of a problem w/ the subtitles, as many of them flashed by waaayyyy to fast to read the whole thing.

A Very Long Engagement- It was a little predictable, but a good watch overall

I just whatched "Pulp Fiction"... It is a good film, indeed! I was told so, and it is really really a good film! Isnt it?
...Fortunato...

I saw To Sir, With Love a couple weeks ago. I was actually pleasently surprised. A strong performance from Sidney Poitier (sp?), and a good story. I really liked the 1960's/London vibe that this film had. I downloaded the title song too, by Lulu, great stuff.

I love this girl. Can you cook, Caterina? Iron? Sew?

you should have trusted me. If I tell a movie is great, that movie is to be great! :p

I love this guy. Can you drive, change a tire, replace a lightbulb, fix a leaking sink? :p

Hostel ***

3 words sum this movie up: entertaining, original and fresh. Definitely more enjoyable the 2nd time around. I recommend it for anyone into horror/gore.

I love this guy. Can you drive, change a tire, replace a lightbulb, fix a leaking sink? :p [/b][/quote]Not only can I do all those things, I'm also a fair cook.

I watched Ray again the last night for about the 5 time,really is a great film,jamie foxx plays an amazing part he really is convincing as Ray Charles,is also a great soundtrack

He was great, but between having his eyes glued shut and having Ray's hit singles dubbed in, Jamie really wasn't acting enough to deserve the Oscar.

I heard it was basically just soft-core porn.. from several people