VIOLENT PROFESSIONALS
(First Viewing)

When Milano police lieutenant Giorga's chief is murdered by an organized crime ring, he vows to avenge his boss's death. Going undercover to continue the chief's investigation, he plans to take over a pimping outfit and then proceed to beat up enough low-level thugs until the big guys in the crime ring take notice of him, letting him get close enough to uncover their secrets. Should this unorthodox method actually work, he still must take down the entire organization single-handed.

A different mob movie than I'm used to. The mafia commits crimes to promote anarchy to overthrow the government. Again, it's not my classic mob movie but it was enjoyable for a grindhouse film.

Uncovered: The war on Iraq **
This documentary features interviews of dozens of people who were in CIA, weapons inspection program and foreign services for decades. They repeatedly say how their intelligence reports were twisted and modified by the Bush administration to justify the Iraq war. Basically they point out that the intelligence agencies did not feel that Saddam was a threat or he had WMD. But the neo conservatives in their hunger for power, ignored it and deliberately lied to the public. The movie spends almost all of the time in proving that the administration lied, but only about last 10 min into the real motivations behind their lies.

"Bad Day at Black Rock" - Spencer Tracy stars in this 1955 suspenseful drama about a man visiting a very small town that is trying to hide a secret.

Set after the end of WWII, Tracy encounters suspicion, hate and abuse by the likes of Robert Ryan (the big man in town), Ernest Borgnine and Lee Marvin (Ryan's "enforcers") and is helped somewhat by a more compassionate soul (Walter Brennan).

The superb cast speaks wonderful, taut dialogue and the sense of foreboding builds to a great climax.

Excellent movie and I highly recommend it. (This was my first time seeing it).

VACANCY
(First Viewing)

David and Amy Fox find themselves stranded in the middle of nowhere when their car breaks down. Luckily, they come across a motel with a TV to entertain them during their overnight stay. However, there's something very strange and familiar about the Grade-Z slasher movies that the motel broadcasts for its guests' enjoyment. They all appear to be filmed in the very same room they occupy! Realizing that they are trapped in their room with hidden cameras now aimed at them filming their every move, David and Amy desperately find a means of escape through locked doors, crawlspaces and underground tunnels before they too become the newest stars of the mystery filmmaker's next cult classic!

Another film that I originally wanted to see in theaters that I'm glad I didn't. From the previews I thought it was sort of original and interesting, but unfortunately, wasn't executed as well. I thought it could have been more freighting. However, from watching it, the film did remind me of PSYCHO with the hotel room and everything. I always wondered what had happened to Frank Whaley but this wasn't the film to make a comeback in. Also, the killers in this were never really explained. There's 2 of them and you see the first one early on in the film so it's not a surprise to see him, but the other person is never really explained or identified. Luke Wilson and Kate Beckinsale worked well together as a couple on the verge of divorce and Luke was there to provide a comedy plug briefly. For those interested, I'd say wait until it comes on HBO.

FRACTURE
(First Viewing)

Wealthy, brilliant, and meticulous Ted Crawford, a structural engineer in Los Angeles, shoots his wife and entraps her lover. He signs a confession; at the arraignment, he asserts his rights to represent himself and asks the court to move immediately to trial. The prosecutor is Willy Beachum, a hotshot who's soon to join a fancy civil-law firm, told by everyone it's an open and shut case. Crawford sees Beachum's weakness, the hairline fracture of his character: Willy's a winner. The engineer sets in motion a clockwork crime with all the objects moving in ways he predicts.

If Anthony Hopkins has disappeared in the past couple of years, he is back. D*mn did he do a great job in this and the man can play some evil sonofab*tches! The story was incredible and thought provoking. I haven't seen Mr. NOTEBOOK himself, Ryan Gosling (even though it states he was in REMEMBER THE TITANS, I don't remember him) in a film. While he did a good job as an arrogant and ego driving young lawyer, Hopkins stole the show all by himself. My only real complaint about the film was the ending.

THE SEVENTH SEAL
(First Viewing)

A Knight and his squire are home from the crusades. Black Death is sweeping their country. As they approach home, Death appears to the knight and tells him it is his time. The knight challenges Death to a chess game for his life. The Knight and Death play as the cultural turmoil envelopes the people around them as they try, in different ways, to deal with the upheaval the plague has caused.

This is my first Ingmar Bergman experience and I was definitely in over my head. While I'm not familiar at all with any of Bergman's work, this seemed to interest me extremely. A knight returning from the Crusades who is followed by Death, and then challenges him to a game of chess to win his life back. However again, a lot of it was over my head as I wasn't overly impressed (still impressed somewhat though). Max von Sydow was great as the knight crusader, Antonius Block; however, Bengt Ekerot as Death easily stole the show and was quite terrifying on screen with his face being the only visible part of his body shown.

That film sounds tripped out Irish.I'm going to try an find it.

Irish, as you may know from my reviews, I have started watching Bergman movies only recently. I will be watching 'Fany and Alexander' in the next two days. But among the ones I have already watched, Autumn Sonata is a master piece. I don't see it in the favorites of most people, but I was thoroughly moved by the film. Check it out.

Have you seen THE SEVENTH SEAL yet?

http://www.gangsterbb.net/threads/ubbthr...true#Post424613
http://www.gangsterbb.net/threads/ubbthr...true#Post425273

FLETCH
(First Viewing)

Irwin "Fletch" Fletcher, Los Angeles journalist, really lives for his profession. As Jane Doe, he publishes articles that have caused several heads to roll in the past. Now, Fletch is at it again: In disguise as a bum, he lives at the beach, researching drugs and their dealing. One day, Fletch is addressed by Alan Stanwyk, a rich man, who asks him, the bum, a favour. For the sum of $50,000, Fletch should kill poor cancer-ridden Mr. Stanwyk with a gun, so that his wife will get the insurance money. What the guy didn't think of was Fletch's real profession. Returning into normal life, Fletch instantly takes up research not only to find out that Mr. Stanwyk is healthy as life itself but he also runs into certain connections between drug dealing at the beach, Alan Stanwyk, his private jet, the police and a very expensive piece of Land in Utah.

Not Chevy Chases best work nor director's Michael Ritchie (see DIGGSTOWN or THE GOLDEN CHILD for that). Usually, the way I rate comedies is by how much they make me laugh and this wasn't that great. Plus, I just didn't believe that Fletch could obtain all of the information he did so easily. Maybe it's the day we live in today where personal and private information is a lot more difficult to obtain than pretending to be someone else poorly. I think most people would have seen through or should have asked his character more questions and they would have nailed him.

Greenaway: Shorts
Peter Greenaway is a British director who does not believe in the tradition of humans occupying the center of the frame. All his shorts have someone narrating stories voice over, while the camera focuses on objects, not necessarily related to the story being narrated. I did not like his style much. I felt that (unrelated) voice-over many times killed any imaginations that the images evoked. There is an extras section in the DVD which contains his thoughts about the movie. It helped me appreciate some of the points that I had not noticed. My opinions on individual shorts:

Water wrackets *
Nice capture of reflections of light on still and moving water. The narration is apparently a spoof of fantasy stories, but I didn't(or couldn't) listen to it, again because it was some random stuff. Like Tarantino's characters talking in the background

H is for house *
A home video with a cute kid. This explores the absurdity of classifying unrelated objects by alphabet.

Windows (Zero stars)
Deals with a fictional and amusing statistical account of people jumping off their windows to their death.

Dear Phone (Zero Stars)
Yawn Yawn.

Intervals (unrated)
To be fair, I dozed off because of 'Dear Phone' and don't remember anything of it. So unrated.

Reincarnation of an ornithologist **
This was the most interesting and longest of the shorts. It traces the journey of an ornithologist to heaven/hell after his death through a series of 92 maps. The background stories are of marginal interest, but the visual content is interesting. The maps are paintings with interesting imagery and the camera zooms in and out of the details to emphasize the meaning of the voiceover.

Random Related: Greenaway almost seems to have taken cinema to 100 years back! Why deal with still images most of the time and more importantly why voiceovers in places where music could have been more effective...

YO-YO GIRL COP 1/2
(First Viewing)

Recruited by a clandestine police organization, "K" must stop a plot by student radicals to create anarchy in Japan. Armed with a hi-tech steel yo-yo, and a new name (Asamiya Saki), she must infiltrate an elite high school to find the terrorists but finds an even more sinister plan is about to unfold.

With a title like this, how could I resist? Apparently this was Aya Matsuura's first starring film, whom is a pop singer in Japan. She did a nice job with the role, which is pretty valuable character over there apparently. However, Rika Ishikawa did a great job as the film's villain. It's surprising to see the making of special feature and see how sweet these girls are and then to see them in the film is a complete 180. If nothing else, this film is worth the final fight between the two characters.

NICK OF TIME
(First Viewing)

Gene Watson (Johnny Depp) is an ordinary public accountant returning home from his ex-wife's funeral and is met by Mr Smith (Christopher Walken) and Ms. Jones (Roma Maffia) who kidnap his daughter (Courtney Chase) and give him a gun, six bullets, a name-tag that will give him access to anywhere in a specific hotel, and the itinerary of Governor Grant (Marsha Mason) and is informed that he must kill the Governor in 1 hour and 15 minutes or his daughter will die. The rest of the movie follows Mr. Watson as he desperately attempts to warn the Governor without the knowledge of the two and finds out that the conspiracy against her reaches all the way to those she trusts most.

I'd have to say either POINT OF NO RETURN or NICK OF TIME has to be director John Badham's best picture. I've always felt this was an overlooked movie. Depp and Walken worked beautifully together and it's a nice change to be able to see Walken play such a blood thirsty pr*ck. Total nonstop suspense that will keep you enthralled in the story for the full 90 minutes. Speaking of which, I really enjoyed how the movie played like HIGH NOON where the story seemed to take place in real time over the course of the film. If you've never seen this, go to your local Blockbuster and pick it up (they should have it).

AMERICAN PSYCHO
(Nth Viewing)

Patrick Bateman, lives Wall Street by day and his nights are spent in ways impossible to fathom. Christian Bale plays this soul-less, modern monster whose zealous materialism and piercing envy fuels his homicidal activities.

Christian Bale continues to impress me and I think he's one of the best actors on the rise today. The only movie of his that I can say was bad was HARSH TIMES. I would say either this or THE PRESTIGE is his best film, both in part due to his villainous savvy that he displays. Truly, he was the showstopper of the film with his eradicate behavior, inappropriate musical history lessons at times, and dark humor. I'm a huge fan of Willem Dafoe and even though he wasn't used much, Bale was able to carry the film by himself.

Irish check out 'Machinist' if you like Bale. He has done the reverse of what DeNiro did for Raging Bull. In that movie, he virtually looks like a skeleton.

Fanny and Alexander ***
Bergman's autobiographical movie based on his childhood. Alexander, a small boy, has a fertile imagination that he uses to escape the harsh realities of his life. Fanny, his sister is a silent partner. I wonder why the title of the movie is worded so, as clearly Fanny is a minor character in the movie. The movie is character driven and has several instances where one or the other character makes a really impacting point, many in their weakest moments. Recommended.
BTW, this is a review of the theatrical release, running 188 min.

No, Bale has out DeNiro-ed Bobby himself.

Plus, don't forget that Bale then had to gain all that weight back, plus muscle to do BATMAN BEGINS afterwards.

Thats more impressive then DeNiro, who got muscle then got super-bloated.

FRANK AND TONY
(First Viewing)

There's trouble in Frankie Diomede's criminal empire in Genoa. A French gangster has moved into Frankie's territory, so Frankie flies home to take care of business. He promptly has himself arrested so that he'll have the perfect alibi when his top local associate dies, but then Frankie's life gets complicated: his enemies have enough juice to keep him in prison for awhile, his associates and allies are killed one at a time, and attempts on his life start. Help comes from an unlikely source: Tony Breda, a wannabe wiseguy who's a Milanese raised in Hoboken. Tony designs a plan to spring Frankie from jail, and then all roads lead to Marseilles. Is Tony a future Mafia don?

The first name actor I've seen in a grindhouse film, Lee Van Cleef. Although this is one of the better grindhouse films that I've seen. I was thinking while watching it about how to remake it. Take out some of the silliness and keep the main plot, which was very intriguing. Basically Cleef gets himself arrested, has one of his cop buddies release him so he can kill one of his own men who betrayed him, and returns to prison so he'll have the perfect alibi. However, his friends start to die and his main rival is now trying to set him up for the murder of his friend when they capture the cop who let him free.

Pan's Labyrinth **
This is a fantasy movie not designed for kids. Of course, you have the usual dose of fairies and other mythical creatures, but there is also quite a bit of graphic violence. There are two stories, one of a girl and her mother and another of a guerrilla war. The two are related by the step father of the girl who is also the captain of the army who is fighting these guerrillas. I like the special effects, they are not overdone.

I wasn't too impressed with PAN's. I'll have to watch it again. I got the misconception it was a fantasy movie. I wouldn't classify it as so. Only about 10% of the film is fantasy, the rest is a period picture. Not only that, but as I've said here time and time again, you wouldn't believe the amount of people who rented this from Blockbuster and wanted to return it because it was subtitled. Guess which movie they wanted to swap it out for? Mel Gibson's APOCALYPTO. Oh how I love Austinites

Haha, that's funny. Probably the blockbuster employees learnt from their experience, as yesterday when I went to rent it, the girl warned me that it was in Spanish with subtitles. She was kind of surprised when I said it was ok

That's what a lot of our employees started doing too. I was too lazy and also, it says so on the back of the DVD. Customers should educate themselves sometimes and not rely totally on us.

What was the B&W movie with Richard Widmark as the psychotic killer and what was his character's name? He pushed his invalid mother down the steps.

Wild Hogs *
A predictable biker movie in the tradition of City Slickers. It does have some really hilarious moments.

So why only one star if it has hilarious moments? Because it's predictable? Or is there more that keeps it from getting a better rating?

Maybe he's trying to be diplomatic, since "Fuck this shit" isn't so elegant.

Haha, nicely put RRA

Seriously though Blibble, that one star is for those few funny moments. See, I paid $1.5 to watch it in a theater and I don't mind watching anything for that cost. It is not something you should plan to watch as it is run-of-the-mill, cliched and predictable comedy. That is why no more stars.

PERFECT STRANGER 1/2
(First Viewing)

A journalist (Berry) goes undercover to ferret out businessman Harrison Hill (Willis) as her best friend's killer. Posing as one of his temps, she enters into a game of online cat-and-mouse.

Halle Berry where have you gone? Aside from X3, I haven't enjoyed a Halle movie since 2003's GOTHIKA (which wasn't a finanical or critical success, but I enjoyed it nonetheless). Likewise, this film wasn't a huge financial success at the box office (only made $23 million domestically), it was much better than anticipated. From the brief backstory with Halle's character, she's fierce and compelling, letting the audience know she's not a woman to mess with. From the previews, I shook my head at how Bruce Willis could be attached to this film and even though he is buried a bit and it's not the Bruce Willis action star we all know and love, it was enjoyable to see the man expand his range in a dramatic suspense film. Surprisingly, Giovanni Ribisi made a big comeback in my eyes with this film. Very believable as a computer savvy genius who mentally is a few cards short of a full deck. While the story may seem predictable, the time flew by and the ending was a very nice treat to chew on. With this week being pretty slow in terms of quality rentals, check it out sometime.

Awakening i watched this movie last night it starred Robin Williams and Robert De Niro it was a superb film and Williams and De Niro were excellent the writing was great and ill admit it brought a tear to my eye.This scene especially

The scenes where the drugs effects wear off, and Leonard slowly loses control of his body in a stream of uncontrollable tics and spasms are heart-breaking. De Niro's performance is so convincing that you almost want to look away in several scenes.

KUNG FU PUNCH OF DEATH
(First Viewing)

In this period martial arts action drama, Fong Si Yu (Meng Fei) is a gifted but arrogant young man who has not learned how to manage his anger or use his gifts for the martial arts for positive purposes. Fong's reckless attacks upon the corrupt leader of a martial arts academy leads to the death of his father, and the disappearance of his mother; a further assault, which claims the life of a student, leaves Fong severely injured at the hands of Iron Fist Tan (Yasuaki Kurata) and the other members of the academy. A humiliated Fong is reunited with his mother, who helps to train him for an epic rematch against Tan and the embittered students.

This has got to be one of the two films Quentin Tarantino contributed to the L.A. Grindhouse Film Festival. I'd love to see QT do a kung fu movie myself and this was right up my alley as it was a kung fu and grindhouse film. The story was good and an enjoyable revenge tale. However, the villains were a nice change because the main character wasn't fighting just one person, but two. They're brothers and one fights only with his hands while the other fights only with his feet. Definitely more of a challenge when trying to fight two expert fighters at the same time as opposed to one.