I just saw the film "Obsessed" with Beyonce knolls. It was an ok movie, but I think Beyonce is a better singer then an actress.

Watched the BUCKET LIST last night which i enjoyed. Two fabulous actors.

Currently watching GODS AND GENERALS which is a prequel to GETTYSBURG. A sprawling,rather muddled historical epic,but the battle scenes are pretty spectacular. Nowhere near as good as GETTYSBURG though!

I've lived near Gettysburg for 20 years now and have been in the town hundreds of times, but haven't toured the battlefield since I was a kid.

I love to watch Gettysburg, but don't care for Gods and Generals.

You nailed it dude, in like 4 sentances. Turnbull pointed out in another thread that how Brando was actually only 5 years older than Duvall, and 16 years older than Pacino & Caan. I had always assumed there was in reality a much wider generational gap, and never fully appreciated the job the make-up artists did until the other night (my brother was watching number 1, and it just "pulled me back in")

Diane Keaton & Talia Shire were only 26 at the time. I, for one, love Talia Shire; i think she's gorgeous and a great actress (i like her small role in I HEART HUCKABEES, and of course loved her in Rocky. ADRIAN!!!)
Some people dont like some of her work in 1,2 & 3, but whatever, i think she owns the role. As does Sofia Coppola in 3, IMHO, which i'll prolly catch some shit for.

I found this interesting, though most people probably already knew; Talia Shire (nee Coppola) is Jason Schwartzman's mother, and her being the biological brother of Francis Ford, Schwartzman is not only related to the Coppola's but actor Nicholas Cage as well. Hows that?

I just re-watched A Shock to the System , a 1990 film featuring Michael Caine, Peter Riegert, Swoosie Kurtz, Will Patton,and Elizabeth McGovern.

The movie tells the story of a somewhat decent midlevel ad exec named Graham Marshall (Caine) who is in debt, not quite where he wants to be in his career and trapped in a sexless and loveless marriage with a nagging wife (Kurtz). His only daily release is a mild flirtation with an office assistant (McGovern) who really seems to feel sorry for him more than she's attracted to him.

Nevertheless he's grinning and bearing it because as he sees it he's up for promotion to office head , which will not only tremendously increase his salary but stop his wife from nagging him and allow him to run the office in a more humane way.

Of course he doesn't get the promotion. The job goes to Bob Benham (Riegert), an obnoxious and soulless yuppie half Graham's age who finds all sorts of sneaky and blatant ways to embarrass and humiliate Graham. Benham speaks and dresses in the stereotypical power style of a Gordon Gekko. He's young, in shape and with a hot wife. The powers that be didn't think Graham had the fire in the belly or was tough enough to lead. Quite sarcastically Graham's wife "forgives him for failing".

And then the movie takes a very morbidly humorous turn.



The movie is fun because no matter how outrageous the events become Graham has a plan to deal with them and will no longer back down from anyone. It's a funny and effective satire of 80's consumerist culture and business practices.

I watched Surviving Christmas with James Gandolfini and Ben Affleck. This was the movie that caused the Soprano's to be delayed for a number of months. It is not bad. Gandolfini plays an Italian who has his moments in the film that are remenicent to Tony Soprano without all of the violence however.

I just watched this documentary. Ten of Ali's top opponents discuss their fights with Ali and his impact on their lives others. The director lets the fighters do all the talking. Not all of these men have the greatest love for Ali, Terrell and Frazier especially still have some bitterness but all of them have the utmost respect for a man they recognize as the greatest. There are lots of clips from their fights with Ali and each other. Holmes gives a voice over for his fight describing how he hated to hit Ali in the body because he knew that Ali couldn't take it by that time.

It's a powerful film. In some respects it's an indictment of boxing. The viewer sees the toll that boxing took on these men, many of who have somewhat slurred speech or other health issues. But as Chuvalo points out, boxing was a preferred career path compared to the alternative of poorly paid backbreaking labor (Chuvalo's mother plucked chickens for a penny a bird) or more sinister jobs (Lyle and Shavers describe actually considering being a thug or hitman as a viable option).

Age and other issues have slowed these men down but it's apparent that most of them still have a love for the sport and the instincts for the sweet science. Watching a 70 year old man seemingly lose 50 years of age/infirmity and start throwing combinations as he describes his battles is something else.

There's even a bit of mob lore shared. George Chuvalo claims that the reason he got a fight with Ali before Ernie Terrell was that Bernie Glickman, who was Terrell's manager, (and really a front for Accardo-who Chuvalo names) had gone to Ali's manager, Herbert Muhammad and in quite insulting terms told Herbert Muhammad that Ali was to throw the fight to Terrell and that if he didn't that Herbert might find himself in serious trouble. According to Chuvalo, Herbert Muhammad wasn't the sort of man to take threats lightly and he had his bodyguards beat Glickman within an inch of his life. So Terrell was dropped and Chuvalo inserted.

Lyle sums it up at the end of the film when he says that the fighters love Ali.

just watched "Burn After Reading" again yesterday and I have to say that the Coens just pulled out the best scene of the decade with the pre-ending John Malkovich outburst when he surprises an intruder, a gun in one hand, a whisky glass in the other, and assumes it's his wife's lover, then recognizes the man... "You're the guy from the gym"... to which he replies "I'm not here representing HardBodies" and then Ozzie goes off:

Oh, yes. I know very well what you represent; You represent the idiocy of today. ("I don't represent that either") Yeah. You're the guy at the gym when I asked about that moronic woman...You're in league with that woman. You are part of a league of morons... you are one of the morons I've been fighting my whole life. My whole fucking life. But guess what... Today, I win.



that is priceless. I only wish I could've watched it without knowing anything in advance, you'd think it's a spy movie and from the very first scene when Ozzie first explodes you'd be wondering if it's a poorly made serious movie or a comedy anyway...

"I have a drinking problem? Fuck, you are a mormon. Next to you, we all have a drinking problem."

Went to the cinema last night to see the new SHERLOCK HOLMES. It was very good. Plenty of great fight scenes and rollicking action. Downey Jr is fabulous in the role,giving it a new twist from the old Basil Rathbone type portrayal. Well recommended!

Was his English accent authentic, Yogi?

It was actually PB. Very good indeed.

Downey's a great actor.

He is fast becoming one of my favourites as well. Apparently he has already signed up for the Holmes sequel which is good.

You should check out his other Anglo-accent works CHAPLIN and his brief appearance in Ian McKellen's RICHARD III. Both I recommend, RICHARD III especially I highly suggest.

Yeah I liked SHERLOCK HOLMES too. Maybe too much of the contemporary heavy FX, heavy action theatrical spectacle...but what really works is Downey and Law's chemistry. That real conflicting bromance between two best long-time buddies, so close that outsiders might even call them queer.

A good Guy Ritchie movie isn't necessarily a guarantee, so its nice he didn't shoot himself in the foot here in his comeback. Being free of Madonna helped.

Watched 3 films yesterday. Firstly with the kids i sat through TRANSFORMERS 2. Enjoyable old tosh. Plenty of stunts and explosions mixed in with good robots,bad robots and funny ass robots. The kids loved it!

Then with my wife later i watched BRIDE WARS which i cannot even bring myself to remember or talk about thank you

Then later by myself i watched TAKEN starring Liam Neeson as a tough ex- CIA guy whose daughter gets kidnapped in Paris by dodgy Albanians and goes after her....and them. Spectacularly. A great film this,thoroughly enjoyed it!

Just watched Disney/PIXAR's UP (2009) via Netflix. Great movie, and always amazing stuff from PIXAR... BUT W-T-F!!!!! I HATE when it starts the previews for you, rather than going to the main menu. BUT THIS HAD NO MAIN MENU -- AT ALL??!! One of the "previews" talked about all the great extras and all, that I wanted to see -- but there was no menu or any way to access them?? Netflix doesn't mention a Disc 2.

I go to the support site and there was an entire category for "UP Rental Questions" so I thought great, it'll tell me how to access the features. NOPE! It takes me to a web form so I can email support with my question.

WHAT???

They spend millions on a movie, but can't author a fucking DVD properly???

If you were to rent it in an actual store, would they give you the second disc with the special features? This sounds like a problem with whoever makes the DVD's, not Netflix or any other rental source.

I floved "Up". Very cute and very funny. We have a very needy dog, so we identified, for sure. Not as good as "Monsters Inc.", which I think is perhaps the all time greatest animated film. "The Incredibles" runs a very close second. No capes!

toy story beats them all

"Toy Story" is great, but it's a kid's movie all the way. It doesn't straddle that line that appeals to adults as well. I guess that's why I don't love it as much as the others.

What about Wall-E??

Wall-E was enjoyable, but no "Monsters Inc."

My daughter met someone whose name was Mike Markowsky, and all she could think of was "Mike Wazowski!".

Cars was fun, too -- I think anything out of PIXAR rawks

BTW, reading around the web, it seems I got a "Rental" copy of UP which has no special features, menu, scene selection, or closed captioning or ANYTHING except auto-run previews and the movie itself. WTF, Di$ney??

Ratatouille was great, too

Meh. Not loving any of those.

Monsters Inc was actually my least favorite of the Pixar movies. I think Toy Story 1 & 2 were the best followed by Wall-E. Ratatouille is the only one I haven't seen yet.

Really?? We just saw it this afternoon. It was on just before the Jets game, and watched it. We laughed just as hard as ever.

Even though it's my least favorite, I do still love the movie