What Movie Are You Watching Or Watched Today?

[Low D]

The Muppet's A Christmas Carol. For my money, this is the only one worth watching other than the 1951 version. Michael Cain is clearly paying homage to Alastair Sim with his performance of Scrooge, the ghost of xmas past is beautiful, and the ghost of xmas present is appropriately pagan. While it's muppet-ed up with some jokes & platitudinous songs, the story & tone are quite faithful to Dickens. Which is more than can be said for many of the modern versions.

[philipchevron]

Rescue Me (Season 5/FX box set)

This is, sometimes quite wonderfully so, the Golden Age of American Television and Rescue Me sits pretty close to the top of the heap. Denis Leary's show is simultaneously the most interesting and unsentimental artistic response to 9/11, the best TV series ever about alcoholism and the most grimly funny thing on TV in centuries. The show is of course bolted together in design-a-horse-by-committee fashion, like most great American television, but Rescue Me is no camel and no other English-speaking country seems capable of grasping this collaborative method of making television with quite the results achieved here, which is fine, really: the Yanks do this so well that there's no need for competition and anyway, the strengths of, say, British TV lie in more maverick and solitary areas of productivity.

Puzzingly, Season 5 was first announced as the final series, though its deservedly increased ratings - it's perhaps the best Season to date - appear to have earned it a reprieve and the show will now continue through to a 7th Series, culminating in the tenth anniversary of 9/11. I'll miss these guys - Tommy and Mikey and Garrity and Black Sean and Lou and Franco and Needles and Jimmy and the others and Sheila and Janet and the rest of the fabulous women in their lives - when they finally pack the Ladder 62 engine into its Harlem firehouse for the last time. That's why God gave us DVD box sets.

[jennylois]

A Christmas Carol in 3D with Jim Carrey as the voice of Scrooge.

Yes I admit it, I went to see the 3D. I was amazed. This is not like your old 3-D waiting for something to pop out at you. Yea I'm old, but this was really cool. The entire film is in 3-D. It actually seems like you're in a snow shower. It's a good rendition, not the greatest ever, but is a good one. To top it off, I for one would never have know it was Carrey's voice if I wasn't told.

I recently went with my son's science class to see Space Station 3D at the Sydney Imax Theatre. I was so impressed I'm still talking about it. I've been to the Imax before, but it was that combined with the 3D that really amazed me. I was there on the ground as the shuttle blasted off in front of me, so I had to duck to avoid flying debris. I was there in the shuttle as it sped towards the space station, shuddering with the force, I was with the astronauts as they pulled themselves up, floating, into the main part of the station and I could reach out and almost touch buttons and stuff floating past. I also want to see Hubble 3D, Under The Sea 3D, Egyptian Mummies 3D, Avatar 3D etc etc.

[Clash Cadillac]

Christmas day the Cadillac family went to see:

Avatar at IMAX

Amazing...

[firehazard]

Sherlock Holmes. Which is a load of tosh, but pretty enjoyable tosh nonetheless.

And I'm fairly sure I heard the Dubliners' "Rocky Road" at some point in it.

[philipchevron]

Let It Be (Michael Lindsay-Hogg, 1970)

It is 39 years since I last saw this, at the Whitehall Grand, as part of a double-bill with Elvis: That's The Way It Is. It has not improved with age or even become particularly illuminating. What was evident about the chemistry of the imploding Beatles back then remains clear now. Thus, it is always a peculiar if small pleasure to observe the few moments when the Beatles are actually enjoying each other's company and still digging the music. The quality shifts appreciably when Harrison drafts Billy Preston as fifth Beatle, on the surprisingly Machiavellian grounds that the other three, as mutual buddies of Billy's, could probably be relied upon to remain civil as long as the organist was there. Preston helps bring alchemy to the Apple sessions and also, because Paul is so often preoccupied with piano or guitar (he routinely added his bass as an overdub in the studio in later years) Preston's B3 helps fill out the bottom end of the live sound. Interestingly, after Tony Sheridan, Billy is the only musician ever to get a separate credit on the label copy of Beatles records and even on this United Artists/Apple DVD, it remains "The Beatles with Billy Preston".

It is often forgotten that Let It Be was intended to follow the progress of the band as they rehearsed for a planned comeback concert featuring almost all new material. This was McCartney's project, designed to rescue the Beatles as a band after the splintering of the White Album and he nurtured it carefully. In the end, faced with a lack of motivation from the others along with their suspicions that this may be just another of ole bossy boots's "art" projects, the ambitious show, first planned for a Greek Amphitheatre, ends up, famously, as a truncated but rather brilliant set on the roof of their own headquarters in the West End. Unfortunately, though all of this was going on in parallel to the shooting of the rehearsals, very little of this degeneration and downgrading of Macca's plan ends up in Lindsay-Hogg's film, presumably because Apple paid for the film, but it is genuinely interesting to watch Paul explain to John how the Beatles have become comparable to Stravinsky, who no longer "shows up to play the Joanna [piano]" at his "gigs", and fascinating that John has so little interest in exploring this avenue, preferring to just stare blankly at his old mate. There is a palpable distancing between McCartney and the other Beatles, and only Ringo appears really comfortable in his presence. But McCartney can hardly be called to account for attempting to hold the Beatles together.

In the end, two things remain fascinating about this film. One is that despite themselves, for all their sullen insolence and antipathies towards each other, the individual and collective Beatles cannot help delivering, almost incidentally, on some of the things that made them such a great band. The other is that miraculously, they were only weeks away from recording their final and perhaps best album, Abbey Road. This time, Paul McCartney's rescue plan would work, however temporarily.

[Guest]

Sherlock Holmes. Which is a load of tosh, but pretty enjoyable tosh nonetheless.

And I'm fairly sure I heard the Dubliners' "Rocky Road" at some point in it.

Jude Law wasn't nearly as annoying in this as I'd imagined, either. HoYay!

Not a fan of action figurey movies, I haven't seen Mr. Downey Jr. on screen since Zodiac and A Guide to Recognizing Your Saints. I'd pay $8.50 to watch him walk down the street... which is what A Guide amounted to. For, as Jake Gyllenhaal rather charmingly put it, He pees lemonade. Anyone arrested for drugs (at a Merv Griffin resort) with a Wonder Woman costume in his closet has my vote. Being arrested at a Culver City motel ain't too shabby either.

Apparently he's to star in Poe. Goody.

The song was played at least twice, during the boxing and at the credits? Kids were jigging out of there.


La Voix Humaine
The Deer Hunter
The King of Comedy
The Reader
Zelig

[NewJerseyRich]

Rescue Me (Season 5/FX box set)

This is, sometimes quite wonderfully so, the Golden Age of American Television and Rescue Me sits pretty close to the top of the heap. Denis Leary's show is simultaneously the most interesting and unsentimental artistic response to 9/11, the best TV series ever about alcoholism and the most grimly funny thing on TV in centuries. The show is of course bolted together in design-a-horse-by-committee fashion, like most great American television, but Rescue Me is no camel and no other English-speaking country seems capable of grasping this collaborative method of making television with quite the results achieved here, which is fine, really: the Yanks do this so well that there's no need for competition and anyway, the strengths of, say, British TV lie in more maverick and solitary areas of productivity.

Puzzingly, Season 5 was first announced as the final series, though its deservedly increased ratings - it's perhaps the best Season to date - appear to have earned it a reprieve and the show will now continue through to a 7th Series, culminating in the tenth anniversary of 9/11. I'll miss these guys - Tommy and Mikey and Garrity and Black Sean and Lou and Franco and Needles and Jimmy and the others and Sheila and Janet and the rest of the fabulous women in their lives - when they finally pack the Ladder 62 engine into its Harlem firehouse for the last time. That's why God gave us DVD box sets.

Absolutely agree Mr C, this was by far the best season since the first initial introduction to the show. I was floored by this season and am dying for more! Like you I'd miss this, probably my fav show on TV. I can't imagine FX ending this unless Leary walks away from the show.

[NewJerseyRich]

Sherlock Holmes. Which is a load of tosh, but pretty enjoyable tosh nonetheless.

And I'm fairly sure I heard the Dubliners' "Rocky Road" at some point in it.

Also saw the new Sherlock Holmes......Robert Downey Jr continues to amaze, I thought he was extrodinary. Though I never knew Holmes was such a bad ass The special effects were unnecessary but weren't so over the top to distract from the film. I questioned myself at first leaning toward AVATAR but after the show, I thought all in all a good film and well worth the time.

[DzM]

In the last month or so has been:

Yay:
Election (1999) I'd seen this movie once before in, I think, 2000. It's not spectacular movie making, but it is a lighthearted coming-of-age movie/comedy that makes me smile. I can't really put my finger on why it does, but it does.

Avatar The movie consists of a story that is an entirely forgettable retelling of the Noble Savage trope (think Dances With Wolves), fantastic CGI environment, some mostly-on-the-good-side of the Uncanny Valley CGI characters, and some vaguely heavy-handed messaging about saving the environment. The execution of this film is ground breaking. It's worth seeing, and worth seeing in a theater, if only to understand why there will be so many imitations and knock-offs over the next few years.

Meh:
Gamer I'd bet money that the idea for this movie originated at the bottom of a bong, a half-bag of Doritos, and two friends watching each other play a First Person Shooter (FPS) and The Sims. "Duuude! What if the people in the games were REAL?" "Oh, no way! Duuude! You just blew my mind!" ... "LET'S MAKE A MOVIE!" From that concept the film kind of lost its way. It had pretty explosions. And about halfway through the film the writer/directors decided that some story might be appropriate, so they began working that element in. My overall impression was that this was a really well produced and executed student film (similar to Lucas' THX-1138, a student film that was then remade as a feature-length after graduation but never managed to escape the feel of "Ahh! Student film!").

Inglorious Basterds This film includes a lot of the stylistic flourishes that have become synonymous with Tarantino movies, but is missing much of what made his earlier works so engaging. The writing is simply dull. DULL. Nowhere is the dialog or storytelling that made Reservoir Dogs or Pulp Fiction so engaging. Nowhere is the action that made Kill Bill so stimulating. This film, despite its scope and stars and production, will join Jackie Brown and Grindhouse as one of Tarantino's forgotten films.

Run Fat Boy Run Simon Pegg was fantastic in Shaun of the Dead. And then, somehow, he got talked into a RomCom. A few of the things that make him charming shine through, but the other 98% of this film is an entirely forgettable experience.

The Hangover This film does nothing for me. It's not that it's bad. It's just not good.

Burn After Reading The Coen Brothers make some brilliant films, and they make some films that you will quickly forget. This one falls into the latter category.

Julie & Julia A charming film about the life of Julia Childs as she discovers her love of cooking and creates her cookbook. The story is intermingled with a modern woman's experience of setting a goal of cookin each of Julia Child's dishes in one year, blogging the experience, and how the project affects her life. I'd nearly place this in the "yay" category except that it uses the word "blog" way too damned often. Dammit.

The Day of the Triffids (2009) A mediocre adaption of the classic sci-fi novel and movie. It could have been much worse. What would have helped it tremendously is a blue Police Box and some fellow in a long-coat running about.

Boo:
The Transporter Stylistic and dull. Dull dull dull. Like a James Bond film but even less fun.

[O'Blivion]

Got a box set of Hitchcock stuff for Xmas and just watched his take on
Juno and the Paycock. I liked it despite the many failings of the film -
lousy sound, heads cut off in the transfer, etc. It's mostly just the play,
with a few exterior shots thrown in.



I love how the play (and film) shifts from a hilarious scene that would've
been at home on The Honeymooners - the raucous party they throw with
their "inheritance" - to an ending where everything that could possibly go
wrong does, and everyone loses everything, leading Mary to declare God
dead. Yikes! Funny that Hitchcock cut off the ending, where the Captain
and Joxer return, drunk and oblivious to anything that's just transpired
in Juno's despairing soliloquy.



Also watched Rich and Strange.


The opening sequence is classic filmmaking, very
reminiscent of Fritz Lang.

[philipchevron]

Hitchcock playing fast and loose with O'Casey's last scene in Juno is my main problem with it. At a time when women like the mother of the Pearse Brothers had become sanctified in Irish public life [no judgement on "what Padraig would have wanted" for Ireland had any validity whatever until that awful Pearse woman had been heard from, and of course, she went on to play a small but significant part in the Plough And The Stars riots at the Abbey, the play in which her eldest son is, if not exactly lampooned, then certainly kicked from the pedestal he was already starting to share with Jesus Christ] for their almost beatific sense of self-sacrifice, Juno And The Paycock was O'Casey's take on what the women of Ireland really suffered during Ireland's years of rebellion, independence and civil war, behind all the ould guff about blood sacrifice. The final scene, in which Joxer and the Captain stumble drunkenly around the tenement room apparently blissfully unaware of the tsunami of events which has just taken place there, is one of the most extraordinary denunciations of Irish manhood in Irish dramatic literature, Greek in scale. To omit it from the movie was to entirely misunderstand the "comedy" of the play and calls Hitchcock's grasp of his material fatally into question.

Interestingly, the film was retitled The Shame Of Mary Boyle for its American release, a fact about which I have no comment worth committing to the ether.

[soulfinger]

In the Loop.

I thought it was genius, the good lady detested it.

[dave 81]

Rescue Me (Season 5/FX box set)

This is, sometimes quite wonderfully so, the Golden Age of American Television and Rescue Me sits pretty close to the top of the heap. Denis Leary's show is simultaneously the most interesting and unsentimental artistic response to 9/11, the best TV series ever about alcoholism and the most grimly funny thing on TV in centuries. The show is of course bolted together in design-a-horse-by-committee fashion, like most great American television, but Rescue Me is no camel and no other English-speaking country seems capable of grasping this collaborative method of making television with quite the results achieved here, which is fine, really: the Yanks do this so well that there's no need for competition and anyway, the strengths of, say, British TV lie in more maverick and solitary areas of productivity.

Puzzingly, Season 5 was first announced as the final series, though its deservedly increased ratings - it's perhaps the best Season to date - appear to have earned it a reprieve and the show will now continue through to a 7th Series, culminating in the tenth anniversary of 9/11. I'll miss these guys - Tommy and Mikey and Garrity and Black Sean and Lou and Franco and Needles and Jimmy and the others and Sheila and Janet and the rest of the fabulous women in their lives - when they finally pack the Ladder 62 engine into its Harlem firehouse for the last time. That's why God gave us DVD box sets.

Absolutely agree Mr C, this was by far the best season since the first initial introduction to the show. I was floored by this season and am dying for more! Like you I'd miss this, probably my fav show on TV. I can't imagine FX ending this unless Leary walks away from the show.

FX seems to have a pretty good formula on several shows, Rescue, Sons,. Now I'm absolutely hooked on It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia.

[Esther]

Has anyone seen The Imaginarium of Dr. Parnassus?

I was all looking forward to watching it on Christmas Day with my family, only to find that its US release was limited to NYC and LA. I am most anxious to see Tom Waits in his role as the Devil.