Another Doris Day and Rock Hudson picture. A pretty ridiculous plot. Not worth going out of your way to see. Rock Hudson actually wasn't a bad actor. He's got the alternating innocent and mischievous look needed for this movie down pat, and it makes for great comedy. Wouldn't survive as a hunk today though with that belly. Strangely his body type reminded me a bit of Cary Grant here. I suppose rich gay actors didn't need to keep in shape.
Animated films. Not bad, but nothing spectacular.
Amazing how Flushed Away just simply ignores the obvious nasty thing about toilets and sewers. I guessed they were determined to stick with this rat story. I look forward to the other rat story, Ratatouille (which I'll probably see at least 6 months from now...)
Happy Feet seems to assume all their viewers have seen March of the Penguins before; they're probably right. Several scenes are actually more (or less) spectacular versions of scenes from March of the Penguins. I did get a kick out of the scenes of the penguins taunting the sea lion and killer whale predators while on land.
An interesting film with a proper ending -- I wonder if it matches the book's ending. I also wonder about Edward Norton's voice. It's high like a school boy's. No wonder the woman doesn't like him. How could you respect a guy with a voice like that.
I haven't seen the original film, Infernal Affairs, but I can believe this one is no comparison. Sure, there are moments of brilliance, especially when DiCaprio is on the screen. You feel his terror at the possibility of being found out. But the villain, played by Nickelson, is not truly fearsome. He's coasting a bit and having too much fun. He's not quite smart enough and has no idea that DiCaprio is the mole. And Damon is not so good as the evil mole. I disliked him, but perhaps not enough. In the end, he attempted to be too sympathetic. I should've liked him to be more totally evil. Perhaps they should've got a different girl also. I think she is more central to the real plot, but somehow she didn't quite have the star power, for me anyway.
Still, the story is good. It makes you think about how you can know someone for a time and still not really know them. Typical spy stuff, but yet interesting and entertaining.
A Hitchcock film featuring Montgomery Clift and Anne Baxter. I liked it a lot. Monty is quite good as the priest who heard a murderer's confession. The DVD extras talk about how Hitchcock liked to get the scenes focusing on the actors eyes and then what those eyes were looking at. Monty has great and expressive eyes and serious presence needed for this film. He has various moments in the film where he expresses or hides his surprise -- Interesting. This is also a film made a few years before Monty's car accident which damaged his jaw and altered his looks slightly and health, both for the worse.
Here again also, the ending of this film was apparently changed versus the original material. In this case, I agree it's too bad, but the current ending is still suspenseful.
I liked this film marginally better than the other one: The Illusionist. Partly because the Illusionist was more predictable. The Prestige has quite an interesting twist or two in the end. Plus it has Hugh Jackman (who apparently is left-handed). The idea that magicians of old had huge egos and competitive drives is pushed to the extreme with these two movies. Prima donnas with dark pasts and willing to dance with the devil to be claimed the best magician. Incomprehensible to my mind, but I suppose I've always been a person of modest ambition.
An early Hitchcock film has a few minor holes in the plot. Not as good as several of his later films though. The male lead is more than a bit unattractive, or perhaps it's the manner of dress and hair of the 30's.
A documentary by Discovery Channel about the differences between the sexes. Combine this with learnings from the book The Selfish Gene to see a genetic reason why women might live longer than men.
This book was written 30 years ago, but amazingly the science behind it is still valid. Learn about genetics and how everything is geared towards survival of genes, and not the necessarily the soma (body) containing the genes.
After watching several French films, I've come to realize the French are a different sort. Not in a bad way, but just different. Here a French police woman reconnects with her ex-boyfriend, is an ex-alcoholic, and was a mother, before her son died at a young age. Life is tough it seems. The young lieutenant learns the ropes with her and other detectives as they chase a couple murderers. The divergence from Hollywood and Hollywood's tendency towards star power rather than story is refreshing.
I didn't recognize Olivier in this film by Hitchcock. I suppose he doesn't have a very distinctive face. Older, but not unattractive here. Joan Fontaine was very young and pretty and she plays an innocent quite well. Hollywood code required that the film be changed from the du Maurier book in a significant way. I actually like the film the way it is. But the book is much darker and quite different from the film. I wonder that Hitchcock might have been quite disappointed about not being able to take more liberties with the film, but apparently he was somewhat micro-managed by producer David O'Selznick. There is a lesbian story-line which surprisingly survived the censors.
Leo acquired a white South African accent for this movie. It's just so sexy. Unclear to me why, but it just works for me. The movie is at times obviously written from the white man's point of view as almost all movies are. The reactions of the actors to the extreme violence of the situation is a bit too understated. Perhaps everyone in that region is inured to the violence and the way blacks attack other blacks in the movie. Meanwhile the white interlopers go nearly untouched and actually massacre a huge number of blacks -- rebels, but nevertheless -- in the process of going after the big pink diamond.
Hounsou, DiCaprio and Connelly are pretty good here. The story is passable, though I found the ending a bit nonsensical. :)
Horrifically bad film even with John Malkovich and Jeremy Irons. My DVD player nearly broke with all the fast forwarding.
It won at Sundance and deservedly. The writer/directors did a reasonable job banging out the very good script in a short amount of time because apparently they got the funding for the movie before they had a script. I did enjoy the one gay storyline which is at least sensible and refreshingly non-tragic.
Dench is amazing here as the manipulative lesbian -- I sometimes wish people would stop writing bad storylines about gays and lesbians. She falls in love with the new young and married w/2 kids art teacher, Blanchett, who herself has fallen in love with a young 10th year (grade) student -- a boy. The story seems so wrong and unlikely with Dench's character's gaydar 180 degrees out of phase, but it's like watching a spectacular accident happen. Despite the terrible story, the acting is quite good.
A disjointed and confusing film. If the purpose was to confuse so that you'll buy the DVD, it might work, but I don't think further viewings will help. Anyway, Matt Damon is getting old, and his boyish face isn't taking it too gracefully. His dour portrayal of a supposed legend of American intelligence, Edward Wilson, seems a bit too understated. Still you get an idea of a paranoid man with a constant poker face. Matt hides his furtive smiles as best he can. The movie goes on for quite awhile. Angelina is a huge woman. She even dwarfs the reasonably tall Matt here, but her more passive role seems to not quite suit her.
Another movie with Josh Hartnett. Hey 80 points right there. But it's also an adaptation of book by James Ellroy -- the same guy who wrote L.A. Confidential. Scarlett Johansson is also great here. A long film, but nicely written and acted. I loved the moment of 'man-oh-man' surprise where Hartnett's character realizes he's been deceived. It retells of a true story of a gruesome murder in Hollywood the late 1940s. Seemed much better than a similar recent movie, Hollywoodland.
*Spoiler alert* Gay interest: One character has his gayness hinted at. But of course, he later dies. This reminds me of LA Confidential where the gay cop, played by Kevin Spacey, gets killed (although before dying he provides the hint which nails the real villian). Perhaps Ellroy has something against gay folks, eh?
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