What movie did you watch last night? (3 Viewers)

[ratmonkey]

Full of fightingy goodness and comedy silliness. Apparently all a woman has to do in China to pass herself off as a man is put on a hat.

 

[Ferox13]

Wasn't bad - it was a little more arty than I expected and some of the accents are pretty harsh but overall a decent watch.

There was a film made in the 90's called Small Faces which covered very similar ground but I thought it did it a lot better (though it was set in the 60s not 70s).

 

[ratmonkey]

I only ended up with this because it arrived by mistake instead of the Magnificient Trio, but this contains neither swordfighting nor Jimmy Wang Yu. It's another film with plenty of allegory, but no racist dogs jumping through windows. Nicely shot and pretty impressive performances from a bunch of kids.

Johnnie To's judo tribute to Akira Kurosawa. This is excellent. Possibly the first film I've sem of To's that doesn't have Suet Lam in it somewhere.

A bunch of people starting to eat and being interrupted and dreaming.

Takashi Miike's Japanese styled Western. Pretty tedious once the gimmick of Japanicised Western town and Japanese actors who can't speak English reading their lines phonetically wears off. It does have the intermittent really good scene though.

 

[washingcattle]

I only ended up with this because it arrived by mistake instead of the Magnificient Trio, but this contains neither swordfighting nor Jimmy Wang Yu. It's another film with plenty of allegory, but no racist dogs jumping through windows. Nicely shot and pretty impressive performances from a bunch of kids.

Have you seen the original Funny Games ? I think he had you in mind when he made it.

I watched Zombieland

it was harmless fun. Everyone who told me about the cameo can fuck off though.

 

[Richie]

Mesrine part 1.. Very entertaining and well made, I felt like it was lacking a bit of context as to how or why exactly the guy became such a raging psychopath (the Algeria bit at the start excepted) but enthralling nonetheless.

 

[jonah]

Breaking Upwards

I thought there were some genuinely lovely moments, but overall it was a bit... dunno. Okay.

 

[Jill Hives]

Mesrine part 1.. Very entertaining and well made, I felt like it was lacking a bit of context as to how or why exactly the guy became such a raging psychopath (the Algeria bit at the start excepted) but enthralling nonetheless.

I saw I & II in a double feature and loved them.

 

[hermie]

brilliant. almost as strange, sad and funny as the novel

great adaptation, although hard to compete with the source material. Probably my all-time favourite collection of short stories. Such a good writer.

Last night I got through Blue Valentine and Black Swan. Both absolutely ace. Particularly Blue Valentine

 

[Jim Daniels]

The King's Speech was surprisingly fantastic. It packs an emotional punch. There was a few nuns in the audience, not so secretly swooning over the charms and supreme acting from Colin Firth and Geoffrey Rush.

 

[ratmonkey]

Andy Lau as a monk-turned-stripper (wearing a ridiculous muscle suit) can see people's karma and sense imminent death. I've yet to see a Johnnie To film that's less than good, and that man makes a lot of films. The Denis Irwin of Hong Kong directors.

Michelle Yeoh and Cynthia Rothrock do policing, but no actual assassinating. Michelle Yeoh pulls the Dirty Harry style are there bullets left in the gun routine, but this particular punk feels lucky and isn't.
This ends up in one of those bad guy's houses where everything seems to be made of glass just so someone can be thrown through it.

Also - this alternative cover seems to imply that it's a Henry Sanada film. He's in it, with ridiculous fake eyebrows and tache (way faker and more ridculous than it looks from this), but only for a few minutes max. Nowhere near long enough to monopolise the cover like he's doing.

There's some actual plot stuff in this, not just fighting, about Jet Li being an undercover cop but a bad father, leaving his kid alone with the dying wife while off policing, then they bond by fighting miscreants. Will Smith's son is lucky the kid from this wasn't in the Karate Kid remake. Most excellent.

 

[ratmonkey]

Shaw Brothers revenge via black magic thing. Entertaining silliness.

Early 80s Shaw martial arts film, with ridiculous special effects (lighting bolts, kung fu cocoons, that kind of thing). Highly entertaining.

Action bits are good, the inter-action bits less so.

 

[xsteox]

on recent flights got to see:

The Informant,

Very good, Matt Damon's character was surprisingly engaging
Then

Which is deadly.

Way back,

 

[jonah]

yeah. it was a nice film.

 

[ratmonkey]

A Colt Is My Passport. Noir style film with Joe Shishido as a hitman who's double crossed by the gang who hired him to kill another gang's boss and is on the run from both gangs. Kind of like Yojimbo in reverse. There's some nice filmatism in this that I don't have the jargonese to expand on, but it's very good. Soundtrack is very spaghetti westerny as well, it's almost like Yojimbo put through A Fistful of Dollars and inverted on its way back to Japan. They do use the word yojimbo a couple of times at the start, but it's in the context of talking about an actual bodyguard, so it's probably not an intentional reference.

 

[Jill Hives]

Lacking in just about everything:

 

[ratmonkey]

Ti Lung on a mission to become the King of Swords. He's a bit of a prick in this.

 

[SomethingManic]

Watched Black Swan last night, probably one of the best films I've seen in a few years. Top notch stuff, brilliant acting, brilliant soundtrack, briliantly told.

 

[hermie]

There were a few times where Michelle Williams's performance made me uncomfortably shift in my seat due to the shockingly realistic portrayal. One scene, I was actually muttering... "oh jesus, I know, oh I know." I left delighted that I'm single.

Yeah I could relate to so much of it unfortunately. Full credit to the scriptwriter and the two leads.

 

[Unicron]

Yeah I could relate to so much of it unfortunately. Full credit to the scriptwriter and the two leads.

Saw it last night, thought that it was wonderful. Tough going at times.

 

[pete]

Freakonomics. Added nothing to the book, other than the fact that

=

Would probably make a better TV series than movie.