welcome back capo

Yeah Welcome back Capo, where you been..

I've been feeding the kittens.

They like me.

yes, Babel sucks. Crash is even worse. I feel embarassed for watching it.

I still haven't watched Linha de Passe. to tell you the truth, I didn't even know what it was about. when I read it a few weeks ago in a newspaper report I thought I actually could get interested. I'll watch it sometime!

the stories in Amores Perros were much more interesting than those from 21 Grams in my opinion, but that's a matter of personal taste. the only time I watched 21 Grams a long time ago the only thing I remember is that I only kept watching out of curiosity. that's a merit, but I really enjoyed Amores Perros much more. I loved the bum carachter.

Yeah, 21 Grams has less memorable characters, for sure.

Crash is awful.

since my thoughts on Blood Simple might have been lost in the bottom of the previous page, I'll expand on that.

first, how do you movie buffs like this masterpiece? second, don't give your opinion before you watch it a good couple of time. every single moment of the film makes perfect sense and following the plot is like a game. that's why they can just turn off the camera at any given moment and that's the end of the film, like "No Country..." - what's the need for a climatic ending sequence, when you already had 2 hours of greatness? in Blood Simple, you want to scream at the screen but the carachters just don't talk to each other, and you know why. once you got it all, what seems to be a very complicated plot releavs itself the most simple thing in the world. and one thing that I truly appreciate in a film, it is abolutely believable and posible, and even probable. the Coen brothers always toyed with that kind of thing - my girlfriend wouldn't have agreed to watch Fargo with me if it wasn't a true story - and I also love the crazy atmosphere in "Raising Arizona", but the great thing about "Blood Simple" is how smart they were in making their first film. it could've costed a few bucks and it's still in its own league.

I believe anyone a bit smart would've watched this 25 years ago and would've guessed those young filmmakers would become Gods of cinema. there is something about their movies...

INDIANA JONES AND THE KINGDOM OF THE CRYSTAL SKULL (2008) - ***

"Did we need to hear "Hounddog" to remind us that its the '50s?" - James "The Angry Video Game Nerd" Rolfe

So after scoring nearly $800 million world-wide, coined a new phrase in "Nuke the Fridge" that may very well retire "Jump the Shark" as the lexicon for dropping the ball, and apparently raped the childhood of half the Internet, I finally bother to review the fourth INDIANA JONES movie. I know many folks were greatly disapointed with INDY IV, but goddamn it's becomes the new geek whipping post this side of BATMAN & ROBIN. The hatred and disgruntlement is wide-spread enough that a recent SOUTH PARK episode featured director Steven Spielberg and producer/writer George Lucas assaulting poor Indy Jones DELIVERENCE-style.



Certainly I actually understand alot of their problems with CRYSTAL SKULL, which I'll get to later, but when the crest of their woes is the implausability of the action cinema, I want to ask them a simple question: Where the hell were you all with the previous INDY pictures?

If anything, the one scene in CRYSTAL SKULL that seems to annoy most folks might just in fact be the ultimate cliffhanger for a franchise renown for carrying on the tradition of the Republican serial adventurism from the 1930s and 40s. You have Ford at an atomic bomb site, and he has a minute before detonation, and he's screwed. How will he escape?!?!?!? Why by throwing himself into a lead refridgerator, of course.

Wasn't it ridiculous too when Ford pushed easily a 3,000+ year old giant stone block like cardboard in RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK? Didn't falling out of a crashing airplane on an intertube, and not be squashed like a pancake on gravity impact with the ground seem ludicrous in INDIANA JONES AND THE TEMPLE OF DOOM? Hell, how about in THE LAST CRUSADE where Indy somehow never notices that friggin stone bridge? I mean after it's reveal, you wonder how anyone before could have missed it.

I'm not trying to excuse CRYSTAL SKULL, far from it, but what I'm trying to say is, we need some consistency around here. I seem to remember last summer when I made similar complaints about Michael Bay's TRANSFORMERS, and people excused along the lines of "Quit nitpicking! Leave your brain at the door!" or "This is popcorn, not Shakespeare!" or whatever. To use an old cliche of saturday morning cartoon villainy, "the roles are now reversed! Bahahaha!"

First off, let's admit a truth that everyone agrees: Ford, Spielberg, and Lucas didn't come back to the franchise because they had an itching, dying desire to finish off the Indiana Jones mythos or whatever. No it was one last trip to the bank, or to the well that had served them so well years earlier. They figured that with the names attached, and the fond nostalgia that global audiences hold for Dr. Jones, it would be a hell of a payday...and they were right. Ka-Ching! I actually believe that for better or for worse, CRYSTAL SKULL is equal to THE LAST CRUSADE. If RAIDERS is a masterpiece that everyone loves that managed to marry B-popcorn charm with A-level technical craftsmanship, and TEMPLE OF DOOM is a punch drunk pulp affair, then THE LAST CRUSADE and CRYSTAL SKULL both have some fun excellently-shot sequences trapped within a meh narrative.

Let's start with the good. Spielberg is one of the greatest filmmakers, and when he's interested and intrigued, he's money. Take when Indiana Jones walks upon that desert town, revealed to be like 1950s suburbia, plastic and hollow, and how out of place such a solo masculine film icon is in the midst of domesticated America. I grinned at the YOUNG INDIANA JONES reference. Then later we get a Greaser/Jock brawl at a cage that is cliche and campy, but has a goofy charm to it. Hell, I honestly expected one of my biggest complaints on SKULL would be Spielberg's current star-whore Shia LeBeouf. I hated I, ROBOT, thought he was annoying in CONSTANTINE, despised his worthless DISTURBIA, and unsurprisingly gave thumbs down to TRANSFORMERS. Yet for the first time, I actually sorta liked a LeBeouf movie.

Yeah I know, holy shit.

Maybe it's because I couldn't help but smile when confronted by gun-wielding KGB thug, the clueless amateur dipstick LeBeouf threatens them with his dimestore switchblade. Maybe that punk has a future after all. Hell, I thought Ford blowing into the blowgun to reverse the poison dart was badass. Nice to see that Karen Allen back at the movies visibly after STARMAN. I also liked the exploitation of the 1950s American culture from "I Like Ike" to UFOs to the old Soviet Union. I must say, not enough American movies show us the so-called "Evil Empire" at its worst, not that I'm trying to equate the USSR with the Nazis, but Stalin technically did murder more people than Hitler ever did.

Now here we go with the bad...oh shit. First off, does anybody understand what exactly the value behind the Crystal Skull is? SKULL is inconsistent and changes its mind constantly over the supposed powers, which I think is that this skull can give you omnipresent powers...right? If so, why does the Russian villainess Cate Blanchett need the other skulls, or to venture into a long lost Mayan city? I wonder too why such a plot device, like say the PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN trilogy in general, has to be so goddamn convulted?

Remember the Ark of the Covenant where it's God Rays melts your skin and zap your souls out. The Shankara stones glowed, but were more of a theological symbol than an actual weapon for the psychotic religious zealot in TEMPLE OF DOOM. The Holy Grail gave you immortality, you get the point, for they grant immediate simplicity of great importance as to why the villains want the object, and why Indy must beat them to it.

Also, what is up with the storyline of Ray Winstone being a double, triple, quadruple secret agent? It's pointless and goes nowhere, for if it was to keep us in suspense as to which side he holds true allegiance to, it bombs because we don't give a shit by his last betrayal. The martial arts-fighting Peruvian natives at the burial grounds are just bizarre, and the audience at my screening groaned loudly at the snake-rope joke. Blanchett works as a Bond-level baddie, but not enough to be memorable or special, but then again what INDY evils are? And no, I don't need to mention the Tarzan shot at all.

I really do think that CRYSTAL SKULL did waste a great awesome storytelling opportunity when Indy is blacklisted by the American government, ironic considering how Indy kicked so much Nazi ass to rescue those Judean-Christian relics. What if somehow CRYSTAL SKULL started off as the movie we have does now, but it's not revealed to be Roswell (which gave the big twist away too early) but just a massive military warehouse. The Russians want Indy to lead them to the Ark of the Covenant, so those atheists could have a radio to speak to God. Indy fights back and saves the Ark...but he inadvertedly gives Blanchett a greater prize in the Skull. This screwup gets Indy labeled as a commie by a FBI Agent, and basically Indy goes to get back the Skull to clear his name. Surprise Surprise this side of the original THE MANCHURIAN CANDIDATE, the Fed is revealed to be a Red himself.

Why do I ramble my reviews sometimes with my mediocre re-scripting suggestions? I just hate waste I guess.

After the epilogue wedding as corny as any you'll find in fan fiction, John Hurt quips "How much of human life is wasted on waiting?" Eerie in that so many of you waited for almost twenty years for a new INDY adventure, arguably the most anticipated sequel of recent years, and now with Lucas & Spielberg suggesting a 5th INDY flick is in the pipeline, that might excite you all as much as a LETHAL WEAPON 5. For all their glory and mega-hits, are Spielberg and Lucas now irrelevant within summertime popcorn, the very field that they pioneered?

Just consider all the younger super-star popcorn directors at the moment, from Christopher Nolan (THE DARK KNIGHT) to Guillermo Del Toro (HELLBOY 2: THE GOLDEN ARMY) to Jon Favreau (IRON MAN) to Peter Jackson (LORD OF THE RINGS), with the latter working on his THE HOBBIT franchise with Del Toro, and the TIN TIN adaptations with Spielberg. That's like if LeBeouf was the star, and not Ford.

I believe they are considering an Indy 5 and 6.

I heard Indys will be playing the main role.. no thank you....

We only watch it cause of Harrison Ford..

I woke up very early and for some reason thought I'd see if any good movie was on tv. HBO is running "Don't Bother To Knock" with Marylin Monroe and Richard Widmark (1952).


I probably saw it years ago, but don't know if I ever saw the whole thing. An unusal story of a "crazy/suicidal" babysitter (Monroe)who meets a guy via window peeking in NYC apartment complexes (Widmark). Anyone see it?

Unlikely story, not the best movie, but I enjoyed watching Monore (her first movie I think?) Btw, I noticed when she arrived to babysit, the parents were telling her she could listen to the radio, no mention of tv......Wow!!!! Tvs obviously were not in all households at that time. I must have been very young, because I don't remember a time without a tv. Anyway, it was fun watching.

TIS

I recently watched French Connection II and enjoyed it. Popeye Doyle heads to France to find the Frog aka the Frenchman who is behind one of the largest drug operation in the world. Popeye does hit a major roadblock however This is a must see for any classic movie fan.

All right, I just watched this wonderful movie. Sorry to give my opinion on the first viewing, but I've a long list of movies to watch! (I know Bibble, I get to Barton Fink as soon as I can!)

I absolutely loved it. An all around great movie, with an intriguing plot that keeps you guessing. 8/10.

Yesterday watched LAKE PLACID 2 with the kids.

Quite possibly the worst film i have seen in some time.

Not recommended in the slightest.....

The first was bad enough. I can't believe they made a sequel, Yogi!! And that you actually watched it!!!

ZACK (or ZACH?) AND MIRI MAKE A PORNO

"I'm a guy. You give me a two popsicle sticks and a rubber band and I'll find a way to fuck it like a filthy MacGyver!"

Wow, this movie surprised me. It was better than I thought it would be and that's with me being a Kevin Smith fan.

I'd say it's his best movie yet. I was also surprised at the amount of nudity in the film, of course with porno in the title and all...but there's full frontal from both genders, and backal.

There's some classic lines in the movie "She frosted me like a fucking cake!" and the whole Dutch Rudder thing...

Go see this movie.

I really liked it.

I was actually a little disappointed. Not as funny as I had hoped.

don't worry about giving your opinion so soon what I mean is that you're probably missing a lot from the clever plot. but I see your point. I always have to wonder whether I'll watch a new movie or give some classic a 2nd watch.

now go see Barton Fink! it's my least favorite movie from the Coen Brothers (Intolerable Cruely, Lady Killers and so are hors-concours!), what means it's just very good.

I watch a load of crap films and rubbishy reality TV shows thanks to my wife and the little people

Unfortuneately i can't sit round watching sport all the time

Isn't that what a pub's for?

Oh, don't I know that feeling, Yogi!! It's really bad when you start actually caring what happens to The Angry Beavers, which was one of my daughter's favorite cartoons.

I actually did learn to appreciate some cartoons that the kids watched. I think that some of the creators realized that parents watch, too. For example, I loved Rugrats and Fairly Odd Parents. Timmy Turner is one of the funniest kids ever animated.

DUNE (1984) - **



"The Worst Movie of the Year!" - Siskel & Ebert

"The only real failure of my career." - David Lynch

What looks good on paper doesn't always translate as well in reality. Some weeks back, many folks on the Internet including me were raving Marvel's decision to hire the Oscar-nominated actor/director Kenneth Branaugh to helm the THOR movie, if because somehow his celebrated cinematic background with the works of William Shakespeare from HENRY V to HAMLET is perfect for a divine Nordic comic book superhero. Hell, I remember back in 2004 when most of us thought Warner Bros. had scored a touchdown by signing Bryan Singer to craft their SUPERMAN franchise relaunch. I mean the genius behind X2 doing the Man of Steel? Perfect!

No, not really. Who knew that a better flick would have been IRON MAN shot years later by the director of ELF?

A similar miscalculation happened back in the early 1980s with the DUNE film adaptation. Published in 1965, Frank Herbert's classic book is the best-selling science fiction novel in history, and been acclaimed over the decades by many as the greatest literary work of its genre. It's also goddamn weird. From people using this futuristic spice melange to fold space to fetuses into the world with all the knowledge of their ancestors to flying obese sadist dictators to...well, go read it for yourself. Anyway, when producer Dino De Laurentiis bought the film rights, he figured that for such a story, it needed to be told by someone with already a bizarre off-beat reputation.

David Lynch by this time had made the shockingly fucked-up cult underground classic ERASERHEAD, and you know this young Lynch was going places when the great old master Stanley Kubrick used it as a reference for his THE SHINING. Then Lynch shot THE ELEPHANT MAN, the biopic about the grotesquely deformed Joseph Merrick which was a hit that scored eight Oscar nominations, including Best Picture. So Lynch had street cred with both critics and being....off.

So what the hell went wrong? I mean looking at his work before and after DUNE, whatever you like his pictures or not, Lynch is an incredibly powerful filmmaker, even if you don't really know exactly what he is striving for. He's like a pretentious David Cronenberg. The cast itself is good from Jurgen Prochnow to Patrick Stewart to Richard Jordan to Linda Hunt to Virginia Madsen to Brad Fucking Dourif to Jose Ferrer to ERASERHEAD's Jack Nance to Kenneth McMillan to Max Von Sydow to Dean Stockwell to lead Kyle MacLachlan (his film debut, in fact.) They do try to make you forget the rest, from the media stunt (Sting) to the outright useless (Sean Young).

Reportedly, the basic problem was that Lynch and DeLaurentiis had a fundamental disagreement over the direction for DUNE. DeLaurentiis and Universal Studios both saw DUNE as basically STAR WARS meets LAWRENCE OF ARABIA, a fantastical soap opera epic out in outer space...and they're wrong. If you read DUNE as a kid, like say around middle school, you may imagine it as such a grand pulp tale about a deposed Atreides prince (MacLachlan), betrayed and left for dead in the deep deserts of the planet Arrakis ("Dune") by the rival royal house the Harkonnens (led by McMillan), who leads the abused indigenous Fremen in a successful insurgency against both the Harkonnens and the Galactical Empire itself.

But if you read DUNE as a mature adult, like say around College, then you actually read between the lines. The prince manipulates the Fremen's faith for his own means to ascend the leadership ranks as the charismatic "messiah" of these people. They launch a nasty guerilla war against their imperial overlords, who by proxy the all-powerful foreign Guild monopoly, rule the universe because they undisputedly rule Arrakis, the sole source of the universe's most essential natural resource in the spice. The Fremen are suicidal holy warriors that take their bloody toll on the Harkonnens. The victorious prince, as the new Emperor, launch a religious jihad across hundreds of worlds where millions are murdered in his name.

He's not Luke Skywalker, he's Osama Bin Laden!

Anyway, Lynch didn't have final cut, so DeLaurentiis/Universal got their way. I'm not saying this is a BRAZIL or a Sergio Leone situation where the corporate bad guys raped a classic away from us, but consider this. I've read Lynch's last script draft of DUNE, and it's quite a contrast from the movie we got. The storyline is basically the same, but in slashing down Lynch's three hour edit and lacking faith in the audience, the producers added tricks from voice-over narration to prologue graphics to endless exposition montages to explain in every detail the whole fucking film's universe, even apparently passing out "cheat sheet" cards to some theatre-goers back in 1984.

Call me naive, but I would like to think that outside of broad strokes, people can figure out and accept the rest for themselves. I mean look at such quality sci-fi cinema examples like Kubrick's 2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY or Norman Jewison's ROLLERBALL or even Sir Ridley Scott's BLADE RUNNER, which ironically Scott shot after he had quit the DUNE project. There is an art to self-realization, and when that is denied, what fun is there? Not that I'm saying Lynch's unmolested DUNE would have ranked among them, for probably it would have exhibited too a critical flaw that is all too evident in the theatrical edit.

It's deadly stiff. Some folks argue that if you've read the book, its better because you understand everything in context. That's complete utter bullshit. It's duller than dishwater. It's as stale as three year old cookies. It's as exciting as hearing Al Gore read a phone book. Drying paint is more riveting than the big battle sequences. DUNE had the gall to advertize itself as "A Movie Beyond Your Imagination." A more truthful tagline would have been "A Movie Not Beyond Your Boredom."

Even the cheap-looking special effects themselves feel uninspired as well. DUNE tries to push the button with its brief CGI shots, but I'm reminded of TRON, which in if you look closely in its legendary light-cycle race, the CGI and human actors never share the screen together. In DUNE, you see why for the CGI obviously wasn't ready for prime time. Consider too the scene when we see one of the giant sandworms of Arrakis swallow up a spice harvester. With such a visual, it's supposed I assume to be a Holy Shit! moment, and instead you try to keep yourself from falling asleep.

Not a good sign for the most expensive movie ever produced at the time.

Another trouble was Lynch's approach to encompass inner-monologues from the novel as voice-over "whispers," a good idea that just comes off as annoying. But what wasn't or maybe is Lynch's fault is how unbalanced and messy DUNE's editing narrative is. You have a considerable build-up in the downfall of MacLachlan, but damn DUNE just rushes through the Fremen and climax like Jack Nicholson needing another whore, as if the movie internally remembered that it was running out of time, and was trying to cram itself this side of Cliffnotes to finish the story.

DUNE is seen as one of the great artistic and financial failures of the Reagan Decade, and yet it has attracted quite a dedicated following. My guess is that the appeal for those outside of the book's fanbase is similar to that of many Tim Burton films, where the art direction and costume design combine into an exclaimation point of memorable nightmarish visuals. Or maybe they just like the cheesy lanquid progressive rock soundtrack composed by the pop group Toto, I don't know. I do admit for instance that such things as the Grey's Anatomy-inspired stillsuits are impressive.

As far as I'm concerned, the only real good thing to arise from DUNE is that due to contractual obligations, DeLaurentiis funded and produced Lynch's follow-up BLUE VELVET, which made people forget all about that big budget flop that scared Lynch away from ever again trying to seriously embrace or tap such an approach at the Hollywood mainstream. I hate that Lynch refuses to assemble his director's cut for DUNE, as if like Michael Mann with THE KEEP, he is trying his best to move on with his career, pretending that it never happened if simply out of sheer embarrasment.

I mean come on David, your DUNE can't be as bad as the DUNE we have now, right? Then again, believe it or not, the extended version as seen on television found a way.

(NOTE: Here is David Lynch's Final DUNE Script Draft, btw: http://www.scifiscripts.com/scripts/dune.txt)

What about drinking and fighting though.....

Gamers (2006) -- Not even worth the time to write about, let alone watch.

All right, so I finally watched "Barton Fink." This one had that "Eraserhead" feeling, and even though I immensely hated "Eraserhead," I liked this one, and there was actually sense behind this movie. Unlike Lynch, who puts together random bits with little purpose, and then quite rightfully insists on everyone forming their own understanding of the piece he has no understanding himself, sitting back and reading the interpretations of his fans, nowadays on his forum.

And while many want to say the jab meant to hit Hollywood as Hellywood, I think the hardest hits the jaws of elitist writers who claim they care about common men and want to write about them, while recoiling from all that's common. Not that there's anything wrong about being elite, but it is pure hypocrisy to claim they want to have to do anything with common man. If anything, Hollywood movies have dominated the common man's taste, and common man lives in this hell, let the records of box office back up this assessment.

Barton Fink is too good to listen to his common man neighbor, drink, or like another writer, rip off the ideas of someone else. And that's exactly why he's got writers' block and wouldn't be able to write for common man, because he lacks the empathy needed to know them inside and out. He might choose to live amongst common men, but he takes refuge in the idealistic picture over his desk. And yet he ends up doing all those things he looked down on, making the last third of the movie quite eventful compared to the first eventless part, that rightfully builds up the atmosphere.

He not only doesn't make any changes, he isn't able to see how the atmosphere of the society changes in 40s, everyone rooting for power, violence, and war.

Gotta have somewhere to fight about sports and then have a drink!

Gotta have somewhere to fight about sports and then have a drink! [/quote]

Very true my friend

What do you mean by this?

Barton Fink is as invitingly allegorical as Eraserhead, no? You either accept it on its own terms or you don't.

I don't really see a need to compare the two films, nor the filmmakers behind them. Other than, perhaps, narrative pattern: moderately weird first and second acts followed by a seriously surreal and chaotic final third, at which point the viewer is either drawn further in or loses interest completely.

There's sense behind Eraserhead, though...

I disagree with this.

Lynch isn't putting together "random bits with little purpose". Though he might work more intuitively than the Coens (or any other filmmaker), it's not really random at all. Each of his scenes, even the unscripted ones, are set up to specific lighting requirements, with consciously chosen locations, with actors consciously casted in certain roles; then when he pieces it together in the editing room he's not leaving anything to chance - there's a conscious decision being made with each and every cut, dissolve or other transition. Like any artistic judgement, there's a reason, conscious or not, why you'd juxtapose this image with that image (for instance), why you'd go in for a close-up there and not an establishing shot, why you'd play this music or that music over certain types of images.

Random's an odd word when describing a product of conscious decision-making.

Capo, speaking of Lynch....

I know you gave no stars to his DUNE, and never remarked much on it beyond the intriging statement of "we can thank the film and the experience it gave its director for indirectly scaring him off this sort of production: two years later, he made his best film. "

Since you're a big Lynchphile, is there anything about it that you liked or was it just a total washout?

I actually can't really remember it, to be honest. Nothing other than Sting in pink trunks, anyway.

I read your review, though, and watched the trailer, and want to watch it again over my upcoming Christmas break.