Oh Journal...

2011 in games

2012-01-05T14:02:00.000-08:00

1. Dark Souls(dev. From Software)[40+ hours; not beaten]
2. Gemini Rue(dev. Joshua Nuernberger)[7 hours; beaten]
3. Ultimate Marvel vs. Capcom 3(dev. Capcom)[100+ hours]*
4. Dead Island(dev. Techland)[15 hours, not beaten]
5. Dungeons of Dredmor(dev. Gaslamp Games)[1+ hour; not beaten]
6. Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim(dev. Bethesda)[6 hours; not beaten]
7. The Binding of Isaac(dev. Edmund McMillen & Florian Himsl)[8 hours; not beaten]
8. E.Y.E.: Divine Cybermancy(dev. Streum On Studio)[2 hours; not beaten]
9. Deus Ex: Human Revolution(dev. Eidos Montreal)[2 hours; not beaten]
10. Super Street Fighter IV: Arcade Edition(dev. Capcom)[170+ hours]
11. Saints Row: The Third(dev. Volition)[15 hours; beaten]
12. L.A. Noire(dev. Team Bondi)[12+ hours; beaten]

Need to play: Battlefield 3, Gears of War 3, King of Fighters XIII

*No point in ranking vanilla Marvel.

"Made" Films of 2011

2011-06-15T16:42:00.000-07:00

Film Socialisme(dir. Jean-Luc Godard)
WATCHED TWICE

Kaboom(dir. Gregg Araki)
WATCHED FOUR TIMES

Love Exposure(dir. Sion Sono)
WATCHED TWICE

Tree of Life(dir. Terrence Malick)
WATCHED TWICE

Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives(dir. Apichatpong Weerasethakul)
WATCHED TWICE

Up on deck: Go Go Tales, Mysteries of Lisbon
Missed the cut: Cold Weather, Hobo with a Shotgun
Might have been wrong: Certified Copy

"Made" Films of 2010

2011-04-26T12:36:00.000-07:00

Dogtooth(dir. Giorgos Lanthimos)
WATCHED TWICE

Father of My Children(dir. Mia Hansen-Løve)
WATCHED TWICE

"Missoni"(dir. Kenneth Anger)
WATCHED FIFTEEN+ TIMES

The Runaways(dir. Floria Sigismondi)
WATCHED TWICE

Tron: Legacy(dir. Joseph Kosinski)
WATCHED 2.75 TIMES

Wild Grass(dir. Alain Resnais)
WATCHED TWICE

Up on deck: "I'm Here", "Lady Blue Shanghai", Shutter Island, True Grit

Still haven't seen: 45365, Audrey the Trainwreck, Boxing Gym, Life During Wartime, Ne Change Rien, NY Export: Opus Jazz, Our Beloved Month of August, Secret Sunshine, The Strange Case of Angelica

Missed the cut: Amer, Around a Small Mountain, "Brodyquest", Iron Man 2, It's Kind of a Funny Story, MacGruber, "Runaway", Soul Kitchen, Tooth Fairy

Fell by the wayside: Everyone Else, The Exploding Girl, The Girl on the Train, The Other Guys, The Social Network, Vincere

Might have been wrong: "Carlos", Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps

Nope, not wrong: Somewhere, Inception

Shutter Island

2010-12-14T23:07:00.000-08:00

Talk about a movie that lives and dies by its ending. I need to rewatch it one of these days just to make sure it still works as a whole and everything preceding the finale isn't just marking time before the big reveal. But Jesus Christ, the ending kind of kills me. I don't think it's necessarily DiCarpio that does it for me. It's more the idea and the way Scorsese handles the "event." DiCarpio's wailing is just part of the soundtrack for a haunting set of shots. The couple of times I've seen the ending, I thought Ruffalo was fighting back tears just from the way his muscles fluctuate in his face, but I'm not so sure if that's true. But isn't that what acting is? Seeing something that's not really there.

The Kids Are All Right

2010-12-14T22:53:00.000-08:00

People have compared this to sitcoms to death so let me partake. While watching this, I thought, 'this could easily be a very special episode of "Full House",' and then I thought, 'I wish this was a very special episode of "Full House."' I'll save the preaching about how "Full House" is a wonderful slice of familial fantasy and boneheadedness for another occasion, but really, this thing has a tendency to come off as pat bullshit quite often. It's interesting to note that according to Annette Benning she told the director that she didn't want it to come across as too earnest, which is an honorable position, but what other than its lesbian leads differentiates this from a myriad of other dysfunctional family dramas(that might actually be the point; a family with two mothers and no fathers can be just as bland as any other)? Well, good acting for one, but not from the two actresses portraying those said lesbian leads. Benning and Moore just seem to cry a lot. Mark Ruffalo, however, is great just for the sheer gusto he displays when he gets the opportunity to say, "Shut the front door." Mia Wasikowska is also quite good at being pissy and angsty as the teenaged daughter. The biggest fault with the film is its reluctance to dive in when things get messy. It seemed as if the screenwriters didn't want to tread that water just because they'd be afraid of possibly drowning in it and instead, conclude on a rather dry and boring note. Despite its simplistic nature, the hint at messiness has still made the film stick with me for some reason.

2010 in games

2010-12-13T22:24:00.000-08:00

1. Team Fortress 2 Mann-conomy Update(dev. Valve)**
2. Limbo(dev. Playdead)
3. Battlefield: Bad Company 2(dev. DICE)
4. Heavy Rain(dev. Quantam Dream)
5. Final Fantasy XIII(dev. Square Enix)
6. Bloody Good Time(dev. Outerlight)
7. Pirates, Vikings, and Knights II 2.3(dev. PVKII Team)**
8. Mega Man 8-Bit Deathmatch(dev. Cutman Team?)
9. Mass Effect 2: Lair of the Shadow Broker(dev. Bioware)
10. Alpha Protocol(dev. Obsidian)*
11. Mega Man 10(dev. Capcom)*
12. Red Dead Redemption(dev. Rockstar San Diego)
13. Mass Effect 2(dev. Bioware)
14. Super Mario Galaxy 2(dev. Nintendo)
15. Alien Swarm(dev. Valve)
*Have not completed.
**Not a full release.

Need to play: Bayonetta, Bioshock 2, Dead Rising 2, Donkey Kong Country Returns, Dragon Quest IX, Etrian Odyssey III, Fallout: New Vegas, Mario vs. Donkey Kong, Mega Man Zero Collection, Need for Speed Hot Pursuit, Neo Geo Battle Coliseum, Pac Man Championship Edition DX, Professor Layton, Scott Pilgrim, Starcraft II, Super Meat Boy, Super Street Fighter IV, Vanquish, Yakuza 3

The Social Network

2010-12-09T11:28:00.000-08:00

Two shots stick out in my mind ever since I saw this. It was of the Winklevoss twins before and after visiting the Harvard president. It was a rather scant amount of time that both these shots were on screen. The shots basically decapitated the twins with the frame and focused solely on their suits and ties while still providing limited information of the background. It was an unusual shot in a film full of usual shots. That's not to say that the film looked bland or wasn't shot impeccably. If anything, Fincher should probably direct everything and anything just on the basis on his ability to make uncinematic material cinematic. These shots are also perhaps the pinnacle of Fincher's visual wit within the film. These shots provoked more thought in me than anything else in the movie. Really. It got me thinking about the simple differences between Mark Zuckerberg's fashion and the Winklevoss'. How the Winklevoss twins seem to be perpetually in suits and ties, while Zuckerberg always dresses casually, even at his own deposition. It also speaks volumes of the way capitalism in the modern digital era is. These shot cut off probably the most defining feature of any human, the face, and all you get are a pair of suits. Anybody could fill those suits. The Winklessvoss twins' idea wasn't revolutionary. That's why Facebook is still afloat. And I believe I read somewhere that the real Zuckerberg said if he didn't make Facebook, someone else would have. Its this ability to replace that is a chief characteristic of the Internet age and the anonymity that is a result of that. What makes your Facebook photo album of you and your friends getting drunk special from the myriads of others? Someone defriended you? You can always find someone else to fill that spot in order to get your friend count back up to what it once was. These two shots show how powerful mise-en-scene can be and why we need more directors with eyes like Fincher's.

Note: I plan to write more on this film in relation to Fincher's previous two offerings.

Milk of Sorrow

2010-11-19T01:42:00.001-08:00

I was reminded of The Headless Woman while watching this. In that film, I was more interested in the white-skinned protagonist's brown-skinned help and here, I was more interested in the brown-skinned protagonist's white-skinned employer. When you win, you can't win. Only shot that made an impression on me was a shot of a floor scattered and covered with pearls with the protagonist and her employer slowly picking up the pearls mainly because the actress that portrays the protagonist's employer has a grace of movement in this shot that is often afforded to actors and actresses in Rivette. In regards to the whole, it's arthouse up the ass and has a dead-serious fable quality to it that I frankly found kind of annoying.

Amer

2010-11-19T01:34:00.001-08:00

I can't comment on how giallo this supposed homage to giallo is due to my experience with the genre only limited to a few Argento films and even then, I'm not sure if any or all of those are actually categorized in the genre. I do know that the film contains some tripped-out lighting that is reminiscent of the kind in Suspiria and disembodied black-gloved hands make an appearance that are a hallmark of the genre (or are they?). Every shot in this bad boy drips of sex, menace, and, several times, both. The framing of the shots often dismembers body parts and it both dehumanizes and heightens the sense of physicality involved with mundane gestures. The film works best when it generates suspense out of seemingly thin air and the danger is imagined instead of reality. Plot doesn't matter here since the film goes straight to the jugular of the subconscious through pure stylistic bravado. This is one seductive and sinister experiment that is surpisingly successful.

Piranha 3D

2010-11-19T01:30:00.000-08:00

Jerry O'Connell portrays "not" Joe Francis and Christopher Lloyd plays the Doc Brown of man-eating fish instead of time travel and they both seem to be giving performances in the movie I signed up for. The special effects aren't much to look at with the exception of Riley Steele. Ving Rhames's last stand with a boat propeller is glorious but sadly cut short for obvious reasons. The film is what it is except when it isn't. At one minute, the film seems to want me to take pleasure at the sight of Eli Roth getting his head smashed in by a speed boat and at the next moment, it wants me to give a shit about the plight of Elizabeth Shue and her dumb kids. I'm indiscriminate when it comes to horror victims. I wanted them all as food for the fishes. Unlike such fare as, say, Snakes on a Plane, it never builds to a transcendent stupidity like I wanted it to and the violence is actually pretty dang grody and didn't lend itself well as fodder for derisive laughter. Forgettable except for O'Connell's character "not" inspired by the creator and producer of the "Girls Gone Wild"(TM) series's final words, which will haunt me for ages.

I Am Love

2010-11-17T15:31:00.000-08:00

All the shots scream art and they are but not of the good variety. Only one shot got to me and it was a shot of the daughter up real close and you couldn't see her ears and can barely catch a glimpse of her hair. It was just face. It was intriguing in a humane way, if that makes sense. A bevy of shots from various angles of buildings, food, and such does nothing for me.

The drama is melodrama, but the heightening that comes along with the territory is less about emotion and more about the sensation of artistic significance. Brother obviously wants to go down in history as the next Visconti since you get the vibe that he's just doing a loose modern-set re-staging of The Leopard with this. The current of time is touched upon and is symbolized, strangely enough, by the Indian dude from The Life Aquatic. In an interesting twist (if you're being generous), the one that can't handle that the times are a-changin' is not either of the patriarchs but the son. And what happens to that son is designed to generate some extraneous drama and make some pronouncement about how time is unfair or some such nonsense.

The film is chiefly about an extramarital affair. The way this enterprise blossoms can best be described by myself like this: just imagine the scene in Ratatouille where the critic eats the titular treat, replace the critic with Tilda Swinton, replace the pack of cooking rats with a slightly goofy-looking Italian dude, and replace the critic's nostalgic reverie with Tilda thinking about "making love" to the Italian dude and you get an idea of this film's approach to romance.

Tilda's performance is impressive in terms of actorly dedication. She learned to speak another goddamn language for this part. Some looks on her face got to me near the end, but I've never liked her as much as I did in Benjamin Button.

The ending, with the swelling of music to disproportionate levels, tears and gestures signifying "big emotion," is obviously intended to have you experience a bunch of disparate feelings rushing through you all at once, but all it did was underline how much I didn't care.

Winter's Bone

2010-10-29T23:58:00.000-07:00

John Hawkes is fucking fantastic in this. He plays a character that people that you don't want to fuck with in the locale that the film takes place in don't want to fuck with. It's the meatiest role of the pack, but it's also probably the easiest one to fuck up. The film is worth seeing simply to watch Hawkes craft a character that comes across as both utterly tragic and deserving of said tragic quality. He's a character that you wouldn't want to spend time with, but you also don't want to see him go. I know, I know. People have been praising the shit out of Jennifer Lawrence, but really, John Hawkes is the best thing in this movie. No contest. Lawrence is decent, but all she does is don a convincing drawl and act appropiately feisty in some scenes. This is kind of a lame criticism, but it also doesn't help that she'd look more at home on the set of a TeenNick show than this movie. She's too much of a cutie pie to blend in in this world-weary, wringled face setting, but maybe, that's the point.

The film itself took me by surprise in ways that I was appreciative of and not so much. I was expecting something akin to Frozen River, where our poor female protagonist does some dumb shit in order to make a buck, but thankfully, that wasn't the case. I was also expecting it to get more grueling as it went along and continually placing our protagonist in more horrific situations, but it didn't do that, either. The film is, for all extents and purposes, a mystery yarn and the resolution to said mystery is, well, rather anticlimatic. That's not that big of a deal. It's just that the film has all these ingredients for something more dramatic, I guess, and it doesn't deliver. When a character wields an axe within the film, my heart got pounding and I was expecting some serious shit to go down, but like the film as a whole, it dissolved basically into nothing. Just watch the damn thing in order to see the beauty of John Hawkes's performance.

2011 in film

2010-09-28T20:54:00.000-07:00

1. Kaboom(dir. Gregg Araki)
2. Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives(dir. Apitchatpong Weerasethakul)
3. Love Exposure(dir. Sion Sono)
4. Tree of Life(dir. Terrence Malick)
5. Film Socialisme(dir. Jean-Luc Godard)
6. Mysteries of Lisbon(dir. Raul Ruiz)
7. Cold Weather(dir. Aaron Katz)[in the middle of a rewatch]
8. Go Go Tales(dir. Abel Ferrara)
9. Tuesday, After Christmas
10. Transformers: Dark of the Moon(dir. Michael Bay)
11. Fast Five(dir. Justin Lin)
12. The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo(dir. David Fincher)
13. Jane Eyre
14. Hall Pass(dir. Farrelly Brothers)
15. Hobo with a Shotgun
16. Unknown
17. The Ward(dir. John Carpenter)
18. Terri(dir. Azazel Jacobs)
19. Beginners(dir. Mike Mills)
20. Poetry(dir. Lee Chang-dong)
21. 13 Assassins(dir. Takashi Miike)
22. Cave of Forgotten Dreams(dir. Werner Herzog)
23. Tabloid(dir. Errol Morris)
24. Drive(dir. Nicolas Wending Refn)
25. Paul(dir. Greg Mottola)
26. Your Highness(dir. David Gordon Green)
27. Heartbeats(dir. Xavier Dolan)
28. Road to Nowhere(dir. Monte Hellman)
29. Super 8(dir. J.J. Abrams)
30. The Myth of the American Sleepover
31. Putty Hill
32. United Red Army
33. Certified Copy(dir. Abbas Kiarostami)
34. Meek's Cutoff(dir. Kelly Reichardt)
35. Bridesmaids
36. Sucker Punch(dir. Zack Snyder)
37. Winnie the Pooh
38. Source Code(dir. Duncan Jones)
39. The Housemaid(dir. Im Sang-soo)
40. Horrible Bosses
41. Just Go With It(dir. Dennis Dugan)
42. Colombiana(dir. Olivier Megaton)
43. The Green Hornet(dir. Michel Gondry)

Need to see: The Adventures of Tintin, Bellflower, City of Life and Death, Contagion, Detective Dee and the Mystery of the Phantom Flame, Hugo, Jack & Jill, House of Pleasures, Into the Abyss, Margaret, Martha Marcy May Marlene, Melancholia, "Mildred Pierce", Miss Bala(?), Restless, Sleeping Beauty, The Skin I Live In, Tetsuo: The Bullet Man, War Horse, We Need to Talk About Kevin

2010 in film

2010-09-20T18:27:00.000-07:00

1. Visage(dir. Tsai Ming-liang)*
2. Amer
3. Dogtooth(dir. Giorgos Lanthimos)
4. Around a Small Mountain(dir. Jacques Rivette)
5. The Girl on the Train(dir. Andre Techine)
6. Wild Grass(dir. Alain Resnais)
7. "Missoni F/W 10-11"(dir. Kenneth Anger)**
8. Everyone Else(dir. Maren Ade)
9. True Grit(dir. Coen Brothers)
10. Shutter Island(dir. Martin Scorsese)
11. MacGruber
12. The Other Guys(dir. Adam McKay)
13. "BRODYQUEST"
14. The Father of My Children(Mia Hansen-Love)***
15. Tron Legacy(dir. Joseph Kosinski)
16. "Runaway"(dir. Kanye West)
17. It's Kind of a Funny Story(dir. Anna Boden and Ryan Fleck)
18. "I'm Here" (dir. Spike Jonze)^^^
19. The Exploding Girl(dir. Bradley Rust Gray)
20. Soul Kitchen(dir. Fatih Akin)
21. The Social Network(dir. David Fincher)
22. A Prophet
23. Vincere(dir. Marco Bellocchio)
24. October Country
25. Catfish
26. Exit Through the Gift Shop(dir. Banksy)
27. The Runaways
28. Tooth Fairy
29. I Love You Phillip Morris
30. Iron Man 2(dir. Jon Favreau)
31. Rabbit Hole(dir. John Cameron Mitchell?)
32. Never Let Me Go(dir. Mark Romanek?)
33. Unstoppable(dir. Tony Scott)
34. Somewhere(dir. Sofia Coppola)
35. The Fighter(dir. David O. Russell)
36. The Kids are All Right(dir. Lisa Cholodenko)
37. Predators(dir. Nimrod Antal)
38. Machete
39. Alamar
40. 127 Hours(dir. Danny Boyle)
41. Hadewijch(dir. Bruno Dumont)
42. White Material(dir. Claire Denis)
43. Restrepo
44. Winter's Bone
45. Centurion(dir. Neil Marshall)
46. Tangled
47. Toy Story 3(dir. Lee Unkrich)
48. Inception(dir. Christopher Nolan)
49. The Town(dir. Ben Affleck)
50. The Ghost Writer(dir. Roman Polanski)
51. Survival of the Dead(dir. George A. Romero)
52. The Human Centipede(First Sequence)(dir. Tom Six)
53. Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps(dir. Oliver Stone)
54. The Paranoids
55. Guy and Madeline on a Park Bench
56. Another Year(dir. Mike Leigh)
57. Let Me In(dir. Matt Reeves)
58. Sweetgrass
59. Vengeance(dir. Johnnie To)
60. Blue Valentine(dir. Derek Cianfrance)
61. Black Swan(dir. Darren Aronofsky)
62. Scott Pilgrim vs. the World(dir. Edgar Wright)
63. How Do You Know(dir. James L. Brooks)
64. The Milk of Sorrow
65. Lourdes
66. Ondine(dir. Neil Jordan)
67. Mother(dir. Bong Joon-ho)
68. The A-Team
69. Step Up 3
70. "Carlos"(dir. Olivier Assayas)`
71. Date Night(dir. Shawn Levy)
72. Hot Tub Time Machine(dir. Steve Pink)
73. Killers(dir. Robert Luketic)
74. The Crazies
75. Twelve(dir. Joel Schumacher)
76. Eccentricities of a Blonde-Haired Girl(dir. Manoel de Oliveira)
77. Inspector Bellamy(dir. Claude Chabrol)
78. Extraordinary Measures
79. Easy A(dir. Will Gluck)
80. Samson and Delilah(dir. Warwick Thornton?)
81. Enter the Void(dir. Gaspar Noe)
82. The American
83. Fish Tank(dir. Andrea Arnold)
84. The Secret of Kells
85. Buried
86. Lebanon(dir. Samuel Maos)
87. The Good, the Bad, the Weird
88. Greenberg(dir. Noah Bambauch)
89. I Am Love
90. Hereafter(dir. Clint Eastwood)
91. Piranha 3-D
92. Jackass 3D(dir. Jeff Tremaine)
93. A Woman, A Gun, and a Noodle Shop(dir. Zhang Yimou)
94. "The House That Drips Blood on Alex"^^^
95. The Killer Inside Me(dir. Michael Winterbottom)
96. Bluebeard
97. The Tourist
98. Grown-Ups
99. Alice in Wonderland(dir. Tim Burton)
100. Assault Girls``
*Has no U.S. release yet.
**Advertisement.
***Only had a theatrical release in L.A. and N.Y.
^Only had a theatrical release in N.Y.
^^Only had a theatrical release in N.Y., but also came out on DVD.
^^^Short.
`Miniseries.
``Only came out on DVD in U.S.

Need to see: 45365, Audrey the Trainwreck, Boxing Gym, Life During Wartime, Ne Change Rien, NY Export: Opus Jazz, Our Beloved Month of August, Secret Sunshine, The Strange Case of Angelica

30 for a Decade - Film

2010-03-06T22:50:00.000-08:00

30 movies worth seeing from the last decade because the future is now.

Beau Travail
The Black Dahlia
A Christmas Tale
The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
Dance Party, USA
Don't Touch the Axe
Golden Door
Friday Night
Goodbye, Dragon Inn
The Holy Girl(Warning: No subs on trailer)
I Don't Want to Sleep Alone
In the Mood for Love
Lilya 4-Ever(Warning: Movie might cause suicidal thoughts)
Marie Antoinette
Miami Vice(Warning: Linkin Park in clip)
Minority Report
Mulholland Drive
Mutual Appreciation
The New World
Pistol Opera
Pola X
Punch-Drunk Love
Reprise
The Royal Tenenbaums
'R Xmas
Speed Racer
The Story of Marie and Julien(Warning: Spanish subs on trailer)
Suicide Club(Warning: Violence.)
Talk to Her
The Virgin Suicides

Possible Noteworthy 2010 U.S. Releases

2010-01-16T07:32:00.000-08:00

Air Doll(dir. Hirokazu Koreeda)
The American(dir. Anton Corbijn)
The Assassin(dir. Hou Hsiao-hsien)
Biutiful(dir. Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu)
Black Swan(dir. Darren Aronofsky)
Carlos the Jackal(dir. Olivier Assayas)
The Certified Copy(dir. Abbas Kiarostami)
Cold Weather(dir. Aaron Katz)
Enter the Void(dir. Gaspar Noe)
Faust(dir. Aleksandr Sokurov)
The Fighter(dir. David O. Russell)
Fish Tank(dir. Andrea Arnold)
The Girl on the Train(dir. Andre Techine)
The Grand Master(dir. Wong Kar-Wai)
Greenberg(dir. Noah Baumbach)
The Green Hornet(dir. Michel Gondry)
Green Zone(dir. Paul Greengrass)
Grown Ups(dir. Dennis Dugan)
Hadewijch(dir. Bruno Dumont)
Hereafter(dir. Clint Eastwood)
Hot Tub Time Machine(dir. Steve Pink)
I Am Love(dir. Luca Guadagnino)
Inception(dir. Christopher Nolan)
Iron Man 2(dir. Jon Favreau)
Jekyll and Hyde(dir. Abel Ferrara)
The Killer Inside Me(dir. Michael Winterbottom)
Lebanon(dir. Samual Maoz)
Lords of Chaos(dir. Sion Sono)
The Lost City of Z(dir. James Gray)
Meek's Cutoff(dir. Kelly Reichardt)
Mother(dir. Bong Joon-ho)
Nailed(dir. David O. Russell)
Never Let Me Go(dir. Mark Romanek)
The Other Guys(dir. Adam McKay)
Paul(dir. Greg Mottola)
Predators(dir. Nimrod Antal)
A Prophet(dir. Jacques Audiard)
Scott Pilgrim vs. The World(dir. Edgar Wright)
Socialisme(dir. Jean-Luc Godard)
The Social Network(dir. David Fincher)
Somewhere(dir. Sofia Coppola)
Shutter Island(dir. Martin Scorsese)
Tetsuo: The Bullet Man(dir. Shinya Tsukamoto)
Tooth Fairy(dir. IDK IDC)
The Town(dir. Ben Affleck)
Toy Story 3(dir. Lee Unkrich)
The Tree of Life(dir. Terrence Malick)
True Grit(dir. Coen Bros.)
The Turin Horse(dir. Bela Tarr)
Untitled Mike Leigh Project(dir. Uhh...)
We Need to Talk About Kevin(dir. Lynne Ramsay)
You Will Meet a Tall Dark Stranger(dir. Woody Allen)
Your Highness(dir. David Gordon Green)

Short Story: I Don't Want Ya(title a work in progress)

2009-09-13T17:00:00.000-07:00

What’s your favorite flower? His was a dandelion and he had a garden full of ‘em. He tended to them. He cared for them. Some might even say he loved them, but his life wasn’t just sunshine, soil, and flowers. There was a lot of sadness. A lot of anger.
His residence was near a military base and whenever they practiced bombing, the dirt on the hill would shake out of its place and cascade onto his precious dandelions. Some would hope that this practice bombing was an attempt to become more accurate in order to limit civilian causalities in a real combat situation, but he thought they merely did it just to piss him off. After a day of bombing, he would always go out to his garden and try to rescue his dandelions from the freshly created sea of dirt drowning them. He didn’t feel this process was futile until the bombing started to increase to the point that it occurred every single day along with his fits of rage. After breaking plates and other shit around the house for a good week or so, he realized he had to do something about this so he decided to write a strongly worded letter to the military. He was especially proud of his salutation that read, “Dear assholes.” The tone of his letter only got increasingly vitriolic after that and some who would have looked at it would have thought he was a raving lunatic. He partly was, given how his demeanor turned sharply bipolar due to the seesaw effect the bombing had on his disposition. The joy he received from planting a new batch of dandelions quickly turned into anger and sadness when he saw his beautiful flowers get buried along with his happiness.
After the letter was sent, a week went by without bombing. He felt they got the message and spent the days drinking cheap wine and reading gardening manuals. Maybe, I should plant some cacti he thought one of those days. Then a letter from the military came. He opened the envelope feverishly, expecting to find the apology he deserved. His eyes stared at the letters on the page and he was shocked to see the words that they formed: “With great pleasure, I am to inform you that you have been selected to be a part of our elite fighting task force.” He was drafted? He looked at the date he had to report for duty and it was only three days away. He crumpled up the letter furiously and threw it in the wastebasket. The bombing started up right as the paper hit the bottom of the basket. It went on all day and night, making him sleep deprived and erratic. When the day came to report for duty, he decided to go, not to report but to complain. To fight for his civil liberties as a citizen of the United States of America.
He drove for two hours on a road sandwiched between dry, arid desert before he pulled into a gas station to fill up his car. He was amazed by how far the base was due to how capable the bombing was in shaping the landscape of his background. While waiting for his car’s thirst for fuel to be quenched, he looked at a little girl in the backseat of a SUV. She was staring at him. She smiled and waved and he responded with the same. He was happy once again, a feeling that was foreign to him for the past three days of his life. This quickly changed once he saw her father’s haircut. The design of it annoyed the shit out of him. It was the complete antithesis of his beloved dandelion’s. All the hair was shaved except for the top. He felt hair should be round and all-encompassing of one’s skull. A sponge in case one’s brain fluids started to leak. In a fit of passion, he took the gas nozzle quickly out of his car and had the drizzling gasoline fall onto his face. He then grabbed a cigarette out of his pocket and pressed it to his lips and lit it. He waited for the cigarette to wither away to a tiny snub before his face promptly burst into flames. The father of the little girl frantically got in his SUV and drove away in fear of the entire gas station turning into a devouring inferno. The lover of dandelions ran into the station’s convenient store and screamed at the cashier, “Empty the register and give me the money!” The teenage boy stared at him for a good two minutes before realizing that this situation will not melt away along with this crazed man’s face. He handed him the money and the man with the burning face ran out the door towards the harsh desert. He ran away from his car, the gas station, his life, and civilization. He splashed his newly acquired money against his face and watched the dollars burn and glide down to the ground like leaves in a forest fire.
When the police discovered his body in the middle of the desert, they found a vulture nibbling on the toes of his left foot and dandelions surrounding his body as if they were Mother Nature’s version of a chalk outline. His whole body was badly eaten away by the hungry sun except for his face. His face was pretty much the same as it was when his organs still functioned except it was pitch black and his lips were frozen in a smile. So what’s your favorite flower?

Top 20 Songs of the Millenium...

2009-08-22T21:42:00.000-07:00

Inspired by Pitchfork... maybe.

Obviously a work in progress...

Oh Best of the Decade Project...

2009-08-19T00:45:00.000-07:00

Another retarded list thing. This time I'm keeping a list of what I consider the best films of the decade and I will seperate them by categories: definitely, probably, and maybe. Definitely means that they would definitely end up on my "official" best of the 2000's list, while probably is less likely, and maybe is even more less likely. Here we gooooooooo.

Definitely
I Don't Want to Sleep Alone(dir. Tsai Ming-liang)
Mulholland Drive(dir. David Lynch)
Reprise(dir. Joachim Trier)

Probably
Don't Touch the Axe(dir. Jacques Rivette)
Fay Grim(dir. Hal Hartley)
Femme Fatale(dir. Brian De Palma)
Marie Antoinette(dir. Sofia Coppola)
Miami Vice(dir. Michael Mann)
Minority Report(dir. Steven Spielberg)
The New World(dir. Terrence Malick)
Pistol Opera(dir. Seijun Suzuki)
Punch-Drunk Love(dir. Paul Thomas Anderson)
Platform(dir. Jia Zhangke)
Rachel Getting Married(dir. Jonathan Demme)
The Royal Tenenbaums(dir. Wes Anderson)
Talk to Her(dir. Pedro Almodovar)
The Virgin Suicides(dir. Sofia Coppola)
The Wayward Cloud(dir. Tsai Ming-liang)

Maybe
2046(dir. Wong Kar-Wai)
The Black Dahlia(dir. Brian De Palma)
Donnie Darko(dir. Richard Kelly)
Flight of the Red Balloon(dir. Hou Hsiao-hsien)
Friday Night(dir. Claire Denis)
George Washington(dir. David Gordon Green)
The Girl From Monday(dir. Hal Hartley)
Golden Door(dir. IDK)
Goodbye, Dragon Inn(dir. Tsai Ming-liang)
INLAND EMPIRE(dir. David Lynch)
The Intruder(dir. Claire Denis)
The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou(dir. Wes Anderson)
Little Children(dir. Todd Field)
Offside(dir. Jafar Panahi)
Public Enemies(dir. Michael Mann)
Speed Racer(dir. Wachowski Brothers)
Synecdoche, New York(dir. Charlie Kaufman)
Tropical Malady(dir. Apicha...)
Twentynine Palms(dir. Bruno Dumont)
War of the Worlds(dir. Steven Spielberg)
What Time Is It There?(dir. Tsai Ming-liang)
You Don't Mess with the Zohan(dir. IDK)

Need to watch/rewatch:
Bad Education
The Beat That My Heart Skipped
Birth
Cache
Che
A Christmas Tale
Collateral
The Company
The Death of Mr. Lazarescu
Esther Kahn
Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind
Far From Heaven
Gommorah
In the Bedroom
In the Mood for Love
In Praise of Love
Kill Bill Vol. 1 and 2
Lord of the Rings Trilogy
Manchurian Candidate
Ocean's Eleven
Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End
Pride and Prejudice
Requiem for a Dream
The Science of Sleep
Sparrow
Syndromes and a Century
Trouble Every Day
The Truth About Charlie
Volver
Zodiac
and more...

Oh Speed Racer: The Missing Link?

2009-01-24T23:02:00.001-08:00

Oh Music: The Masterpieces...

2009-01-23T15:16:00.000-08:00

Blue Lines by Massive Attack

Doolittle by The Pixies

In the Aeroplane Over the Sea by Neutral Milk Hotel

The Magic Position by Patrick Wolf

Richard D. James Album by Aphex Twin

And the beat goes on...

Oh The Wrestler...

2009-01-01T11:18:00.000-08:00

The Wrestler(dir. Darren Aronofsky)
Maybe I spoke too soon when I declared this would probably be my favorite film of the year and if I learned anything from last year(and this year as well) is that you can't judge a film by its trailer. So when this movie turned out to be a disappointment, it was perhaps unsurprising. The film's major problem outside of Aronofsky's intentional downsizing his role, at least visibly, is the script. The characters outside of Randy are pretty much cardboard cutouts including his moody and bitchy estranged daughter played by Evan Rachel Wood almost too well and Marisa Tomei's stripper with a heart of gold. Even Randy is something of a joke with the script constantly positing him as something of a saint that wears spandex with young children and essentially everybody involved in the wrestling district being enraptured with him along with his disinterest in T&A during his repeated strip bar visits(he's just there to drinkkk man). Since he's such a great guy, we're supposed to feel really bad when he has to work behind a deli counter instead of being involved in wrestling events where he gets stapled and torn the hell up by barbed wire. Also, all the drama that is generated within the film comes across as a screenwriter's hollow attempts at drama as we're treated to a predetermined fucked subplot with his estranged daughter that I'd immediately write off if it didn't contain one of the best moments of the film and some relationship drama due to Marisa Tomei's character's policy of not dating customers. The crucial heart attack itself is also something of a plot contrivance. Mickey Rourke can be disarmingly sweet throughout the film and I'd understand the praise he's been receiving if he was given some better material.
** out of ****

Oh Prediction...

2008-11-23T01:56:00.000-08:00

I'm calling it. This will probably be my favorite film of the year.

Oh Games: 360!

2008-10-13T00:13:00.000-07:00

Now that we got Macho Man Randy Savage doing a 720 instead of a 360 out of the way, let's talk about 360 gamezzzzz.

IGN recently wrote a top 25 games for Xbox 360 and in usual IGN fashion, it completely baffled me. Maybe because I usually don't understand why most game sites go hog wild for certain games like for instance:
Halo 3
I know that this had to have some place on the list since Halo is pretty much thee Xbox exclusive, but over Grand Theft Auto 4? As I've been told, Halo 3 is pretty much Halo 2.5(never did play Halo 2), which I'm sure a lot of people are completely happy with, but I find it particularly odd that a game that legitmized the idea of storytelling in video games to me would be placed below this. I've never played through a Halo campaign so maybe I'm just ignorant of the fact that the Halo games have a totally awesome stories(I highly doubt it), but it's multiplayer is some of the most lifeless sci-fi shooting nonsense I've ever had the opportunity to play. That's not to say that the game doesn't have good production values because it does, but that's all there really is to praise with the game. Getting a multiplayer game is also a borderline braindead process since the developers decided to make it completely random, meaning that you'll have to play on a lot of maps that aren't particularly good. There is a veto feature that randomly gives you another map instead so there's always that possibility that you'll veto a certain map that you're not particularly fond of and end up with an even worse one. Oh joy!

Call of Duty 4
Yes, this is one of those popular multiplayer shooting games and I'll be the first to say that it's leaps and bounds better than Halo 3, but that doesn't mean it doesn't have the generic feeling that every other modern war game on the market does. To describe the multiplayer experience in a cute way, it's basically Battlefield 2 minus vehicles and with better gunplay. The gunplay is fast and furious at first and then eventually it becomes numbing. Even if you're kicking ass, it's not particularly rewarding probably due to the fact that most of it has to do with being lucky. A lot of the times when you kill someone, it's because the other person doesn't know where you're at, meaning that there's usually never a 1-on-1 firefight that lasts long. People are disposed of so quickly that it's kind of hard to cherish any of it. Picture trying to cherish the images in a film with rapid cutting the whole time and you get the picture. The campaign isn't anything to write home about, either. I find it progressively hard to play videogames that have a jingoistic atmosphere about them. I know this game attempts to make the morality murky, but I don't really buy it. You never really learn why the enemies are doing what they're doing so it's kind of hard to really give a shit about what you're doing. Of course, I wouldn't be complaining about things like this if the gameplay was fun, but it's not really. It might because the whole theme of modern warfare to me isn't a very interesting one, especially in regards to first-person shooters. I played enough Counter-Strike and Battlefield 2 already. I want something new.

Bioshock
Spoilers coming up!
Bioshock placed behind Grand Theft Auto 4 and thank goodness for that. Bioshock was a game I loved when I started, but as it went on, I become increasingly underwhelmed. It's probably because the facade of the whole enterprise kept getting peeled away as it along. I started to realize more and more that this was not a particularly inventive game that has some incredible audio and visuals. There's the whole moral quandary nonsense with the little sisters that everybody loves to praise, but it's not much of a quandary since it's so black and white. The story is not anything to write home about either since it basically boils down to The Usual Suspects under the sea. The game, at first, is spooky and then you realize that all these splicers that are supposedly scary are easy as hell to kill. I spent most of my time in the game just using the shock plasmid and the wrench. The only time the game really got challenging was when you fought Big Daddies, which were pains in the ass, and portions near the end, but the game's respawn system makes the game as forgiving as humanly possible. That's not to say that the game would have been better if it didn't have that respawn system since it would have been probably frustrating as hell at given points like fighting Big Daddies. The game's pretty much the poster child for all this "games are art" madness, but I don't know if it's particularly a good one to latch onto. There's nothing really extraordinary about it other than the world it creates, but even that becomes kind of flat when you realize how linear the game is and how limited the scope of the art style really is. Some of the audio logs are actually intriguing and if only you got to see the events described play out instead of having to trek through this "nightmarish" and "wondrous" environment in such a repetitive fashion, it could have amounted to much more.

I'll probably add games that I really enjoy on the 360 later...

Oh Modern American Cinema...

2008-09-08T01:23:00.001-07:00

Being a cinephile, specifically an American one, makes me naturally interested in my country's modern cinematic output. Even if my interest lies in other countries' films, I'll always have a place in my heart for my homeland's because I'm proud to be an American....
...Here is a list of films that were released in 2000 or later that I think are some fine pieces of work from the motherland.
Death Proof

Donnie Darko

Fay Grim

Femme Fatale

INLAND EMPIRE

Little Children

Marie Antionette

Miami Vice

Minority Report

Mulholland Dr.

The New World

Punch-Drunk Love

The Royal Tenenbaums

Oh Boarding Gate...

2008-06-16T02:57:00.000-07:00

Boarding Gate(dir. Olivier Assayas)
Review pending...
** out of ****

Oh The Diving Bell and the Butterfly...

2008-06-16T02:56:00.000-07:00

The Diving Bell and the Butterfly(dir. Julian Schnabel)
REVIEW PENDING...
**1/2 out of ****

Oh Bad Lieutenant...

2008-06-16T02:54:00.000-07:00

Bad Lieutenant(dir. Abel Ferrara)
REVIEW PENDING...
*** out of ****

Oh Pierrot Le Fou...

2008-06-16T02:53:00.000-07:00

Pierrot Le Fou(dir. Jean-Luc Godard)
REVIEW PENDING...
**** out of ****

Oh Grace is Gone...

2008-06-08T20:21:00.001-07:00

Grace is Gone(dir. IDK IDC)
REVIEW PENDING...
** out of ****

Oh Dutch...

2008-06-08T20:20:00.000-07:00

Dutch(dir. IDK IDC)
REVIEW PENDING...
** out of ****

Oh Throw Down...

2008-06-08T20:17:00.000-07:00

Throw Down(dir. Johnnie To)
REVIEW PENDING...
*** out of ****

Oh Cassandra's Dream...

2008-06-08T20:16:00.000-07:00

Cassandra's Dream(dir. Woody Allen)
REVIEW PENDING...
*1/2 out of ****

Oh Raiders of the Lost Ark...

2008-06-01T03:46:00.001-07:00

Raiders of the Lost Ark(dir. Steven Spielberg)
REVIEW PENDING...
***1/2 out of ****

Oh National Treasure 2...

2008-06-01T03:44:00.002-07:00

National Treasure 2: Book of Secrets(dir. IDK IDC)
REVIEW PENDING...
*1/2 out of ****

Oh Lions for Lambs...

2008-06-01T03:44:00.001-07:00

Lions for Lambs(dir. Robert Redford)
REVIEW PENDING...
** out of ****

Oh My Blueberry Nights...

2008-05-29T05:10:00.000-07:00

My Blueberry Nights(dir. Wong Kar-Wai)
REVIEW PENDING...
**1/2 out of ****

Oh The Fury...

2008-05-29T05:09:00.000-07:00

The Fury(dir. Brian De Palma)
REVIEW PENDING...
**1/2 or *** out of ****

Oh Starting Out in the Evening...

2008-05-27T04:18:00.001-07:00

Starting Out in the Evening(dir. IDK IDC)
REVIEW PENDING...
** out of ****

Oh The Great Debaters...

2008-05-27T04:17:00.001-07:00

The Great Debaters(dir. Denzel Washington)
REVIEW PENDING...
** or **1/2 out of ****

Oh 27 Dresses...

2008-05-27T04:16:00.000-07:00

27 Dresses(dir. IDK IDC)
REVIEW PENDING...
** out of ****

Oh Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull...

2008-05-23T02:19:00.001-07:00

Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull(dir. Steven Spielberg)
REVIEW PENDING...
** out of ****

Oh Fulltime Killer...

2008-05-23T02:15:00.001-07:00

Fulltime Killer(dir. Johnnie To and Wa Kai Fai?)
REVIEW PENDING...
*** out of ****

Oh The Tracey Fragments...

2008-05-23T02:13:00.000-07:00

The Tracey Fragments(dir. Bruce MacDonald?)
REVIEW PENDING...
**1/2 out of ****

Oh Blow Out...

2008-05-23T02:12:00.001-07:00

Blow Out(dir. Brian De Palma)
REVIEW PENDING...
*** out of ****

Oh Cloverfield...

2008-05-23T02:11:00.000-07:00

Cloverfield(dir. Matt Reeves?)
REVIEW PENDING...
** out of ****

Oh The Savages...

2008-05-04T23:38:00.000-07:00

The Savages(dir. Tamara Jenkins)
REVIEW PENDING...
*1/2 out of ****

Oh Lars and the Real Girl...

2008-05-03T23:06:00.000-07:00

Lars and the Real Girl(dir. Craig Gillespie)
REVIEW PENDING...
**1/2 out of ****

Oh 21 Grams...

2008-05-03T23:04:00.000-07:00

21 Grams(dir. Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu)
REVIEW PENDING...
** out of ****

Oh Traffic...

2008-05-03T23:03:00.000-07:00

Traffic(dir. Steven Soderbergh)
REVIEW PENDING...
**1/2 out of ****

Oh The Pornographers...

2008-05-01T01:33:00.000-07:00

The Pornographers(dir. Shohei Imamura)
REVIEW PENDING...
*** out of ****

Oh Reservation Road...

2008-04-20T20:26:00.000-07:00

Reservation Road(dir. Terry George)
REVIEW PENDING...
** out of ****

Oh Pitfall...

2008-04-20T20:24:00.001-07:00

Pitfall(dir. Hiroshi Teshigahara)
REVIEW PENDING...
** out of ****

Oh Thieves Like Us...

2008-04-20T20:23:00.000-07:00

Thieves Like Us(dir. Robert Altman)
REVIEW PENDING...
***1/2 out of ****

Oh Minority Report...

2008-04-16T11:34:00.001-07:00

Minority Report(dir. Steven Spielberg)
REVIEW PENDING...
***1/2 out of ****

Oh La Vie En Rose...

2008-04-09T03:52:00.000-07:00

La Vie En Rose(dir. Olivier Dahan)
REVIEW PENDING...
** out of ****

Oh The Black Dahlia...

2008-04-09T03:51:00.000-07:00

The Black Dahlia(dir. Brian De Palma)
First Take:
Need to find it.
Second Take:
REVIEW PENDING...
**1/2 out of ****

Oh Alvin and the Chipmunks...

2008-04-07T00:57:00.000-07:00

Alvin and the Chipmunks(dir. Tim Hill)
REVIEW PENDING...
** out of ****

Oh We Own the Night...

2008-04-06T05:08:00.000-07:00

First Take:
NEED TO FIND IT.
Second Take:
REVIEW PENDING...
***1/2 out of ****

Oh The Mist...

2008-04-06T05:07:00.000-07:00

The Mist(dir. Frank Darabount?)
REVIEW PENDING...
*** out of ****

Oh Something Wild...

2008-04-02T04:10:00.000-07:00

Something Wild(dir. Johnathan Demme)
REVIEW PENDING...
Need to rewatch.
**1/2 out of ****

Oh The Insider...

2008-04-02T00:38:00.001-07:00

The Insider(dir. Michael Mann)
REVIEW PENDING...
** out of ****

Oh Diary of the Dead...

2008-04-01T03:50:00.000-07:00

Diary of the Dead(dir. George A. Romero)
Place Holder Review: http://www.cinema-scope.com/cs34/cur_nayman_diary.html
REVIEW PENDING...
*1/2 out of ****

Oh Secrets & Lies...

2008-03-30T04:21:00.000-07:00

Secrets & Lies(dir. Mike Leigh)
REVIEW PENDING...
*** out of ****

Oh The Kite Runner...

2008-03-30T04:19:00.000-07:00

The Kite Runner(dir. Marc Forster)
REVIEW PENDING...
** out of ****

Oh Away from Her...

2008-03-28T02:37:00.002-07:00

Away from Her(dir. Sarah Polley)
REVIEW PENDING...
*** or ***1/2 out of ****

Oh In the Valley of Elah...

2008-03-28T02:37:00.001-07:00

In the Valley of Elah(dir. Paul Haggis)
REVIEW PENDING...
*1/2 or ** out of ****

Oh Paranoid Park...

2008-03-27T05:01:00.002-07:00

Paranoid Park(dir. Gus van Sant)
REVIEW PENDING...
**1/2 out of ****

Oh Still Life...

2008-03-27T05:01:00.001-07:00

Still Life(dir. Jia Zhangke)
REVIEW PENDING...
** out of ****

Oh Revolver...

2008-03-26T04:19:00.003-07:00

Revolver(dir. Guy Ritchie)
REVIEW PENDING...
**1/2 out of ****

Oh Fireworks...

2008-03-26T04:17:00.000-07:00

Fireworks(dir. Takeshi Kitano)
REVIEW PENDING...
*** out of ****

Oh The Last Seduction...

2008-03-26T01:09:00.000-07:00

The Last Seduction(dir. John Dahl)
REVIEW PENDING...
**1/2 out of ****

Oh Fargo...

2008-03-26T01:08:00.000-07:00

Second Take:
Fargo(dir. Coen Brothers)
REVIEW PENDING...
**1/2 out of ****

Oh I Am Legend...

2008-03-26T01:07:00.002-07:00

First Take:
Need to find it.
Second Take:
REVIEW PENDING...
** out of ****

Oh August Rush...

2008-03-26T01:07:00.001-07:00

August Rush(dir. IDK IDC)
REVIEW PENDING...
*1/2 out of ****

Oh War of the Worlds...

2008-03-23T15:05:00.000-07:00

War of the Worlds(dir. Steven Spielberg)
REVIEW PENDING...
**1/2 out of ****

Oh Bridge to Terabithia...

2008-03-23T15:02:00.000-07:00

Bridge to Terabithia(dir. IDK IDC)
REVIEW PENDING...
**1/2 out of ****

Oh Enchanted...

2008-03-23T15:01:00.000-07:00

Enchanted(dir. IDK IDC)
REVIEW PENDING...
** out of ****

Oh Donnie Darko...

2008-03-20T04:48:00.002-07:00

Donnie Darko(dir. Richard Kelly)
REVIEW PENDING...
**** out of ****

Oh Into the Wild...

2008-03-20T04:48:00.001-07:00

Into the Wild(dir. Sean Penn)
REVIEW PENDING...
**1/2 out of ****

Oh The Grapes of Wrath...

2008-03-17T23:04:00.000-07:00

The Grapes of Wrath(dir. John Ford)
REVIEW PENDING...
***1/2 out of ****

Oh Awake...

2008-03-17T23:03:00.000-07:00

Awake(dir. IDK IDC)
REVIEW PENDING...
*1/2 out of ****

Oh Bee Movie...

2008-03-17T23:02:00.000-07:00

Bee Movie(dir. IDK IDC)
REVIEW PENDING...
*1/2 out of ****

Oh The Darjeeling Limited...

2008-03-16T20:45:00.000-07:00

The Darjeeling Limited(dir. Wes Anderson)
First Take:
Second Take:
REVIEW PENDING...
*** out of ****

Oh Martian Child...

2008-03-16T20:44:00.000-07:00

Martian Child(dir. IDK IDC)
REVIEW PENDING...
** out of ****

Oh Punch-Drunk Love...

2008-03-14T07:55:00.001-07:00

Punch-Drunk Love(dir. Paul Thomas Anderson)
First Take:
Paul Thomas Anderson failed me on this one. He seemed more interested in his style than actually presenting a story. There was some scenes I cracked a smile, but I think this just went over my head. I'll probably rewatch in a couple of weeks because a reviewer at DVDEmpire said he didn't like it the first time so I'll give it another try later. For now its....
** out of ****
Second Take:
Review Pending...
***1/2 out of ****

Oh Dan in Real Life...

2008-03-14T07:54:00.000-07:00

Dan in Real Life
Review Pending...
** out of ****

Oh Michael Clayton...

2008-03-13T03:24:00.000-07:00

Michael Clayton(dir. Tony Gilroy)
A life of a lawyer is a life of excitement or at least that's what this film leads you to believe. Michael Clayton is essentially about a man who opens his eyes to the corrupt system that he has been employed to maintain and similar to Gilroy's most well-known previous work as a screenwriter, The Bourne series, he rebels against this system that made him who he is. You could interpret the film as a parable for us, apathetic Americans, to rise up to the man, but the film lacks the political furor of a Redacted and is just too tastefully made to arouse anyone to action. This interpretation also makes the film's resolution appear to be even more insulting because of its swift and painless ease. Clayton's delayed reaction to the happenings in his environment also seems flat-out foolish due to his intimate proximity to it. It's understandable for Americans living in their cozy homes to be apathetic about the war in Iraq, but if they were there in the middle of the shit, I'm sure they'd wake up and smell the coffee way quicker than this supposedly intelligent attorney. It was ultimately an underwhelming liberal fantasy.
** out of ****

Oh Se7en...

2008-03-13T01:23:00.001-07:00

Se7en(dir. David Fincher)
REVIEW PENDING...
**1/2 out of ****

Oh The Assassination of Jesse James...

2008-03-13T01:22:00.001-07:00

The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford(dir. Andrew Dominik)
REVIEW PENDING...
**1/2 out of ****

Oh Margot at the Wedding...

2008-03-13T01:20:00.000-07:00

Margot at the Wedding(dir. Noah Bambauch)
REVIEW PENDING...
**1/2 out of ****

Oh 1987...

2008-03-09T15:50:00.000-07:00

1987
1. RoboCop(dir. Paul Verhoeven)
2. Full Metal Jacket(dir. Stanley Kubrick)
3. The Princess Bride(dir. Rob Reiner)
4. The Untouchables(dir. Brian De Palma)

Need to see/rewatch: Angel Heart, The Brave Little Toaster, Dirty Dancing, Empire of the Sun, Evil Dead II, Fatal Attraction, Near Dark, Au Revoir Les Enfants, The Last Emperor, Lethal Weapon, Matewan, O.C. & Stiggs, Radio Days, The Dead, The Emperor's Naked Army Marches On, Opera, Raising Arizona, The Monster Squad, Wall Street, Moonstruck, Broadcast News, Predator, Spaceballs, Three Men and a Baby, Walker, Wall Street, Withnail and I, Superstar: The Karen Carpenter Story, Hellraiser, The Lost Boys, Red Sorghum, House of Games, Roxanne, Barfly, My Life as a Dog, Peking Opera Blues, Hope and Glory, and more...

Dishonorable mentions: The Untouchables, and more...

Oh 1984...

2008-03-09T06:08:00.000-07:00

1984
1. Choose Me(dir. Alan Rudolph)
2. Paris, Texas(dir. Wim Wenders)
3. Stranger than Paradise(dir. Jim Jarmusch)
4. The Terminator(dir. James Cameron)

Need to see/rewatch: Ghostbusters, Starman, Blood Simple, Love Streams, Boy Meets Girl, Amadeus, Streetwise, Body Double, Red Dawn, This is Spinal Tap, Fear City, The Neverending Story, Once Upon a Time in America, A Soldier's Story, A Nightmare on Elm Street, Night of the Comet, Repo Man, Purple Rain, and more...

Dishonorable mentions: Secret Honor, and more...

Oh Paris, Texas...

2008-03-08T21:26:00.000-08:00

Paris, Texas(dir. Wim Wenders)[rewatch]
It's still one of the most profoundly moving meditations on family, love, sacrifice, and life in general.
**** out of ****

Oh Semi-Pro...

2008-03-08T21:07:00.000-08:00

Semi-Pro(dir. Kent Alterman)
It was semi-funny at given moments, but it was semi-lame most of the time. I semi-don't recommend. Semi-out.
** out of ****

Oh Vantage Point...

2008-03-08T21:06:00.001-08:00

Vantage Point(dir. Pete Travis)
OK. This is one of the most ridiculous movies I've ever seen. Dennis Quaid's character gets blown up, gets in multiple car accidents including one that involved a semi and a wall making a sandwich of car crash madness with him in the middle, and gets shot and yet, he was still able to walk perfectly fine after all this hurt. It also contains a variety of other equally ludicrous pleasures like a little girl that is so dumb that she stands in the middle of the road, waiting for an ambulance to plow through her before getting rescued and several over-the-top plot twists. The film slightly takes itself too seriously and I'm sure all the individuals involved thought the film would be "important" because of it's vaguely topical demeanor, but if it wasn't for this attitude, it wouldn't have been as perversely entertaining as it was. I have a feeling that this is going to be a future camp classic and this is the best film I've seen so far from this year. I slightly recommend.
**1/2 out of ****

Oh Planes, Trains & Automobiles...

2008-03-08T21:00:00.000-08:00

Planes, Trains & Automobiles(dir. John Hughes)
I found this film amazingly unfunny outside of a ridiculous expression on John Candy's face in the first 15 minutes and the contrived nature of the narrative and jokes became suspect at times, I'm still going to slightly recommend it. Why? Because there's a scene of extreme poignancy where John Candy's character tries to defend himself after Steve Martin's character gave him an extended tongue lashing and the wounded inflection in his voice is just heartbreaking. A great scene in an otherwise forgettable comedy.
**1/2 out of ****

Oh Multi-Facial...

2008-03-08T20:58:00.000-08:00

Multi-Facial(dir. Vin Diesel)
This was essentially an acting showpiece for its star/director/writer to help him get bigger and better roles in the past and while it's easy to criticize the film on these terms, it's not necessarily what sinks the film. What sinks the film is the "poor me" attitude the film is happy to indulge in from time to time because of the star/director/writer's multiracial(substitute the R with a F and you get the title, LOL) background. There's nothing particularly wrong with Diesel attempting to explore what most likely prevented him from getting the roles he wanted in the past and while his acting is actually impressive given some of his performances in recent films and his direction is mundane yet serviceable, it's the clunky nature of the script's examination of his previous situation that makes this short film particularly hard to recommend. An example would be a casting executive/director/whatever saying after Vin's character leaves the room that they need more of a "Wesley-type" for whatever they're working on. The ending is also one of the most unintentionally funny things I've ever seen with a woman ordering her coffee "not too light, not too dark" and Vin's character sitting in a booth in front of her listening in and finding that phrase so profound that he mouths it because it describes his skin complexion perfectly. Without this film, we wouldn't be all appreciate the meathead we all love from films like Chronicles of Riddick and Fast and the Furious, but it's too idiotic to recommend.
** out of ****

Oh Announcement...

2008-03-08T20:56:00.000-08:00

I am going to post individual reviews for everything I see now and I'll try to convert old reviews to this new system and index all of them. Yeah...

Oh Oscar Buzz 2009...

2008-02-25T03:35:00.000-08:00

Once Oscar buzz for the year ends, the buzz for next year's begins. I feel like a total jackass for making this post, but for some reason, I think it would be fun to see if my predictions will actually come true since this is wayyyyyyy before than any of the typical Oscar prediction stuff. Let's do this...

Potential Oscar Contenders
The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
Directed by David Fincher(Zodiac, Se7en, Fight Club, and etc.)
Starring Brad Pitt, Academy Award-winning Cate Blancett, and recently Academy Award-winning Tilda Swinton
Written by Eric Roth(Munich, Ali, The Insider, Forrest Gump, and etc.)
Plot outline: Tells the story of Benjamin Button, a man who starts aging backwards with bizarre consequences.
Reasons why it will probably get nominations and wins:
a) Zodiac could have potentially done well at this year's Oscars but mainly due to its ridiculously early release date, it didn't get any nominations. This film has a nice Q4 release date, making it a a reasonable pick as a potential contender and they could possibly use nominating this film as a way to apologize for snubbing Zodiac.
b) Brad Pitt has only been nominated once for an Oscar and didn't win.
c) They love Cate Blanchett and must love Tilda Swinton maybe even more at the moment for giving her Best Supporting Actress.
d) Period piece.
f) Just look at Fincher and Roth's previous work.
Likelihood of getting a nomination: Very likely and could very well be the frontrunner of next year's Oscars.

The Changeling
Directed by Clint Eastwood
Starring Angelina Jolie, Amy Ryan, and John Malkovich
Written by J. Michael Straczynski(a bunch of Babylon 5 shit...)
Plot outline: A mother's prayer for her kidnapped son to return home is answered, though it doesn't take long for her to suspect the boy who comes back is not hers.
Reasons why it will probably get nominations and wins:
a) Look at Clint's track record. Every movie he's made since Mystic River has gotten nominations of some kind.
b) Angelina Jolie didn't get a nomination for her atrocious yet critically hailed performance in A Mighty Heart this year. The Academy could use this opportunity to make that up.
c) Amy Ryan is all the rage these days because of her turn in Gone Baby Gone.
d) John Malkovich is relatively respectable.
e) Period piece.
f) November release date.
Not sure about that writer but I'm not sure it matters that much since Million Dollar Baby won Best Picture and it was written by Paul "I created Walker Texas Ranger and wrote and directed Crash" Haggis.
Likelihood of getting a nomination: I think it would be borderline impossible for this not to get an Oscar. I'd say Jolie is a frontrunner for Best Actress but I'm not sure about everything else.

Milk
Directed by Gus Van Sant(Good Will Hunting, Finding Forrester, My Own Private Idaho, and etc.)
Starring Sean Penn, Emile Hirsch, James Franco, and Josh Brolin
Written by Dustin Lance Black(nothing particular...)
Plot outline: The story of California's first openly gay elected official, Harvey Milk, a San Francisco supervisor who was assassinated along with Mayor George Moscone by San Francisco Supervisor Dan White.
Reasons why it will probably get nominations and wins:
a) After indulging himself with his Tarr-influenced arthouse fare(Gerry, Elephant, and Last Days), Hollywood could use this as way to welcome Van Sant back.
b) Has a natural liberal guilt-type sympathy "important" atmosphere built into it.
c) Emile Hirsch wasn't nominated for Into the Wild and they could use this to make up for the snub.
d) Josh Brolin is all the craze with No Country and American Gangster.
e) Period piece.
f) Sean Penn.
The story is not exactly uplifting but after recent years, that doesn't seem too big of a problem. The screenwriter is a bit of an unknown, though.
Likelihood of getting a nomination: Very likely.

The Argentine
Reasons why it will probably get nominations and wins:
Likelihood of getting a nomination:

Wall-E
The Reader
Revolutionary Road
Frost/Nixon
The Soloist
Defiance
Blindness
Burn After Reading
Body of Lies
Australia
The Duchess
Valkyrie
The Road
Synecdoche, New York
I'll add some more... Later...